Bob turned to Rolly. ‘This guy’s dangerous, right? Him taking Macy and all.’
‘He’s got a stungun,’ said Rolly. ‘He just got out of prison.’
The men stared at Cool Bob for guidance. Bob raised his arm and clenched his fist.
‘Locked and loaded,’ he said. The men cheered.
‘Does that mean what I think it does?’ said Rolly.
‘That’s right,’ replied Bob. ‘We’re packing heat.’
TWENTY-NINE
The Ascent
As soon as they hit the main road and the signal was strong enough, Rolly put in a call to Kinnie Harper. She didn’t answer, so he left her a message. He told her about Parnell Gibbons and said he was headed her way. He warned her that a group of long-haired freaks bearing firearms were coming her way, driving his Tioga and a Volkswagen van that looked like a spaceship. He hoped Kinnie got the message. With any luck she and her deputies would have Parnell Gibbons locked up by the time Rolly arrived. And the Rockers could put away their guns.
Buddy Meeks sat next to Rolly in the shotgun seat. Cool Bob sat in the dining booth, looking over Rolly’s shoulder. The freeway split as they started up into the mountains. The grade became steeper and the Tioga slowed as they hit the first switchback. Rolly moved to the truck lane. He checked his rearview mirror. The rocket ship, filled with the rest of the Rockers and their guns, moved into the truck lane as well. Neither vehicle had been built for climbing mountains, let alone high-speed pursuit. The Rockers and their ordnance were a mixed blessing. There was some protection in numbers, but a lot less control. He wasn’t sure how desperate Parnell Gibbons might be.
The sky grew more overcast as they climbed up the mountains. Rain would bring out the wildflowers in the desert but it wouldn’t make his job any easier. The backcountry roads would become slick with thin layers of oil, squishing mud. Flash floods might block off their access entirely.
Buddy Meeks mumbled something.
‘What’s that?’ said Rolly.
Buddy stared out the window and mumbled again. Rolly glanced down at Buddy’s hands, the gold stains on Buddy’s fingers. He wondered if the stains were permanent or if Buddy just needed a cleaning regimen. Of the three men traveling in the Tioga, Buddy was the ripest, but all of them could use a little freshening.
‘What’s he looking for?’ Rolly said. ‘What’s Parnell Gibbons looking for?’
Buddy mumbled something unintelligible. He traced his index finger on the window – quick little motions, as if he were playing invisible tic-tac-toe or solving equations on a chalkboard. Rolly glanced in the rearview mirror at Bob.
‘Do you know what he’s doing?’ he asked.
‘Cogitating,’ said Bob. ‘He gets like that sometimes. Serious internals.’
Buddy continued with his calculations. He paid no attention to them.
‘Do you know why his fingers are gold like that?’ Rolly asked.
‘He makes gold. From old computer parts. The circuit boards have gold in them, the connectors and stuff. That stuff’s too chemicalized for me, working with that stuff.’
‘Can you make money doing that?’
‘I don’t know if he makes any money.’
‘Can you make enough to get by in Slab City?’
‘You don’t need to make much to survive in the Slabs,’ said Bob. ‘He showed me how to do it once, had this big pile of old circuit boards somebody gave him. He cut off the gold parts, the connectors, then melted them down and mixed in some chemicals. Ended up with a nice little chunk of gold. Too toxic for me to mess with. They use cyanide, you know.’
‘How long’s he been doing this?’ Rolly asked.
‘As long as I’ve been at the Slabs.’
‘How long is that?’
‘It was maybe five years ago I set up my trailer. I didn’t meet Goldhands for a while, though, him being so singular. People don’t tell you about stuff at the Slabs unless you’ve been around a while, when you’re one of the regulars. Don’t bother people when they don’t want to be bothered. That’s the standard. You got to be trusted first. Don’t look for people who don’t want to be found.’
As a general life rule it was a good one to follow, but Rolly got paid to find people who didn’t want to be found. That’s why people hired him. People like Macy. There were ghosts in his clients’ lives, people missing. He wondered how many of the regulars living in Slab City had become ghosts, haunting the minds of the people who used to know them, people who loved them, people who hated them. Buddy Meeks had been a ghost, a haunted spirit from Rolly’s past. Now he was a real person again, a weird and distracted one, but real, not a ghost.
‘You say he used cyanide for the gold,’ Rolly said.
‘Yeah,’ said Bob. ‘That’s nasty shit. They use that stuff to kill rats.’
‘And people too.’
‘Yeah, I guess. I worked for an exterminator one summer, back in Tennessee. We used it for rats.’
Rolly remembered something Gibbons had said to him. I spent twenty years in prison because of that little shit. He wondered if Buddy Meeks, the crazy man with gold fingers, had somehow been responsible for the UVT deaths twenty years ago. They’d been poisoned with cyanide. Was Gibbons innocent? Was he looking for revenge?
He checked the speedometer as the Tioga lumbered up the grade. Their speed had dropped to forty miles an hour. He checked the side mirror. The guys in the van had fallen even further behind. Four men and their weapons were too much for an old Volkswagen to haul up a mountain. He thought about Macy, if she would become a ghost, lost in his memory as the years went on, just like Buddy.
‘He makes gold paint too,’ said Bob. ‘I’ve seen him do that.’
‘Hmm?’
‘That might be how he gets the gold fingers. He pulverizes this foil stuff, adds some kind of chemicals and water.’
‘What does he do with the paint?’
‘He made this sculpture in East Jesus – gold dolls, a pile of them.’
‘I didn’t see any gold dolls.’
‘They disappeared about a week ago.’
‘He painted the dolls?’
‘Don’t know for sure, but that’s what I heard.’
Buddy turned from the window and looked at Rolly. ‘Gold is an electrical conductor,’ he said in a flat tone. ‘Very high conductivity. Seventy percent.’
‘People are always trying to sell me guitar cables with gold connectors,’ said Rolly.
‘Silver and copper are better conductors,’ said Buddy. ‘Gold is better for corrosion, more durable.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ said Bob. ‘This dude is awesome.’
‘Awesome,’ said Rolly.
‘Gold is a noble metal,’ said Buddy. ‘The Ancients have gold in their veins.’
‘Totally engrossing,’ said Bob.
Rolly held the steering wheel tight as they curved through the second switchback and headed up another long slope of asphalt.
Buddy did some more calculations on his fingers and pointed up the hill. ‘Sluggish,’ he said.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ said Rolly. ‘Tell me about the Ancients. They’re supposed to be aliens, right?’
‘From the Oort,’ said Buddy.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the cloud where comets come from. The Ancients.’
‘Oort, oort, oort,’ said Bob.
Rolly fought back an impulse to tell Bob to shut up. He might never have found Buddy if it hadn’t been for Bob.
‘It is time for the Conjoinment,’ said Buddy.
‘What’s that?’
‘When the planets align. When the Ancients are closest. We will call them.’
‘How do you call them?’ said Rolly. He had a pretty good idea of the general concept, but was still unclear on the specifics.
‘The Astral Vibrator.’
‘What is the Astral Vibrator? What does it do?’
‘It calls the Ancients.’
‘Is that why I have to
practice? So the Ancients will show up?’
‘Yes. The Waters must play it. So the Ancients will see.’
Great, thought Rolly. This would be the weirdest gig he’d ever played.
‘The Waters must play the Astral Vibrator so the Gentlings may join with the Ancients,’ said Buddy. ‘They will speak through the Sachem.’
‘Whoa,’ said Bob. ‘He’s starting to sound like that lady, the one with No Pants.’
‘That lady with No Pants, I think she knows Goldhands from a long time ago. That’s right, isn’t it, Buddy? You know Dotty, Dorothy Coasters? You were there with her, and Gibbons, with all the UVTs.’
‘UVTs?’ said Buddy.
‘What’s a UVT?’ said Bob.
Rolly realized that UVT was a term Buddy might never have heard before. It was a shortcut the police and press had started using after the event.
‘The Universal Vibration Technologies. You lived with them, didn’t you, in that house?’
‘Meeks implemented the frequencies,’ said Buddy.
‘Sounds formidable,’ said Bob. ‘You know what he’s talking about?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘I’m totally Kenneth, what is the frequency right now,’ said Bob.
‘It’s an alternate scale he worked out,’ said Rolly. ‘Somebody worked it out, anyway. Nine tones. The Solfeggio frequencies.’
‘You mean the Do, Re, Mi?’
‘It’s different. They claim it’s the original scale of the Ancients.’
‘Primordial,’ said Bob.
‘Exactly,’ said Rolly.
He guided the Tioga through the next hairpin. They’d made it halfway up the mountain, holding steady at forty. He remembered what Kinnie had told him about the UVTs, how they paired up together, playing the diddley bows at sunrise and sunset. They’d been practicing for the Conjoinment. He took a deep breath and looked over at Buddy, who was doing his calculations again. Rolly didn’t know what would happen once they got to the gold mine. With all the heat the Rockers were packing, it would be a wonder if anyone survived. He had to ask now.
‘Buddy,’ he said, ‘can you think back for me … those people you were with, when you implemented the frequencies. Did you know a girl named Betty? Or Beatrice? Her mother was there too. Wanda Ozzie. Do you remember either of them?’
‘Betty,’ said Buddy. It didn’t sound like a question. Rolly held his breath.
‘Betty’s gone,’ said Buddy. ‘Betty fell down in the hole. Couldn’t get out.’
‘Was there a baby?’ said Rolly. ‘Did Betty have a baby with her? A little girl with gold eyes?’
‘The Sachem,’ said Buddy.
It was the closest Rolly had come to a confirmation. Macy had been there, with the UVTs, as a baby. Bob was silent. He seemed to sense the weightiness of the situation. Rolly took the last hairpin. They were almost at the summit and the In-Ko-Pah exit. Rolly had no idea what they would find when they got to the Astral Vibrator. He took a deep breath. One more question.
‘Buddy, what happened to those people?’ he said. ‘The UVTs?’
‘The Waters must play it,’ said Buddy. ‘The Waters will free them.’
THIRTY
The Mine
The sky had darkened considerably by the time they reached the In-Ko-Pah exit and turned off the freeway. Rain was a rare occurrence on this side of the mountains, but the slate-colored clouds above them looked menacing and heavy, as if they would open up any minute. Trees and bushes by the side of the road trembled in the rising wind. Rolly drove towards Desert View Tower while Buddy ran calculations with his fingers.
‘Left turn,’ said Buddy.
Rolly stopped the Tioga and spotted an access road that Buddy apparently wanted him to take. It didn’t look like much. When the rain came, it would get muddy. The Tioga would slide around in the ruts, or, even worse, sink its tires into a wet spot. It was the same road he’d seen the blue Toyota exit from two days ago when he and Moogus were stranded. Daddy Joe’s Toyota had been found in the area. He wondered if Daddy Joe had been driving it that morning.
A splatter of raindrops hit the window, as if warning him.
‘I don’t know if I can drive in there,’ said Rolly. ‘We might get stuck.’
‘The rocket ship can handle it,’ said Bob. ‘Let’s wait for the Rockers.’
Rolly pulled over to the side of the road. Soon the others arrived and pulled up behind them. More splatters of rain hit the ground as the three men left the Tioga behind and climbed into the van. The VW wasn’t much of an off-road vehicle, either, but it was a lot lighter than the RV. Three men could lift the van out of a rut if they needed to.
They headed down the side road, packed in like sardines. Rolly looked at the faces of the Rockers. They looked calm, almost bored, as if carrying guns along with them was an everyday experience. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry; no one was amped up for a shooting. That was good. He looked out the side window, surveying the scenery. They passed behind the boulder field where the stone animals lived. The van lurched to the right then came to a stop.
‘Looks like the cops are here,’ said the driver.
Rolly looked out the front window. A tribal police truck was parked at end of the road in front of the guardrail. There was another car next to it, a cheap-looking Suzuki.
‘Let me find out if she’s around,’ Rolly said, not wanting to disgorge a gang of gunslingers on Kinnie without some discussion of their proper employment. He opened the sliding door and walked to the police truck. There was no one inside. He checked the Suzuki. It wasn’t locked. He looked in the glove compartment and found the registration slip listing Randy Parker as the owner. Parnell Gibbons was here already. Kinnie had found him. Or followed him into the canyon.
Two mesas jutted out from the other side of the canyon, a solitary house located on each of them. The first one was Daddy Joe’s house. The other was Beatrice House, with the UVT memorial park out on the point. They looked closer together from this angle, more like neighbors than they’d seemed before. Below them, the canyon widened out into a flat plain. There were signs of an old settlement in the canyon, ruins of wood structures.
Buddy walked up beside him. ‘The Waters must play it,’ he said. He walked around the end of the guardrail, stepped off the ledge and disappeared into the canyon.
‘Hey!’ Rolly called. He hastened to the end of the guardrail and looked down. Buddy stood on a ledge ten feet below. He pointed up at a skinny path leading to his location. Rolly looked back towards the van. Bob stood outside, watching him.
‘Stay here,’ said Rolly. ‘Don’t let anyone get by you until I get back.’
Bob nodded and waved.
By the time Rolly turned back, Buddy had disappeared again. He walked down the path to the ledge where Buddy had been and looked around. Buddy appeared again, twenty feet further down the canyon.
‘Wait!’ Rolly called. Buddy stopped and looked back at him. He pointed at a break in the rocks below the ledge to Rolly’s left. Rolly climbed down through the break, slid around the side of a large boulder, found the trail again and followed it until he’d caught up with Buddy. The rest of the trail was an easier trek, gentle switchbacks leading into the flat part of the canyon. Shrubs clumped thickly as they got to the bottom, but a narrow break let them through.
As they hiked along the canyon floor, broken-down structures of wood appeared by the side of the trail, the remains of old cabins and fences, skeletal wood grids that looked like they might have been planters or sorting bins. Three rusted train cars stood on railroad tracks next to a smashed water tower. Someone had spray-painted the word TEOTWAYKI on one of the cars. A steady drizzle began to fall.
The trail became wider. Buddy turned off and headed back up the slope they’d come down, but farther along, in the direction of the Desert View Tower. Rolly looked back to find the spot where they’d parked. He could see the front grill of Kinnie’s truck and Randy’s Suzuki, but they soon passed out of sight.
They climbed the hill a short way before Buddy stopped and cogitated for a moment. Using two of his golden fingers, he pointed at something farther up the hill, a large black hole in the side of the earth covered by a steel gate. It was the bat gate Kinnie had told Rolly about, designed to keep people out, allowing the bats to come and go as they pleased. Buddy climbed up to the gate. Rolly joined him. The edges of the hole had eroded over time, leaving gaps on either sides of the gate. They squeezed through the right side of the gate and entered the hole in the mountain, just as the rain began falling in sheets.
The inside of the mine looked like Rolly had expected – an earthen tunnel braced by crisscrosses of splintery pillars and beams. It got darker as they hiked further in. Soon he wouldn’t be able to see his hand in front of his face. Buddy pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on. They continued on into the mine, snaking through the tunnels, following Buddy’s light. Buddy stopped.
Rolly bumped into him. ‘What is it?’ he whispered.
Light blazed through the room, a string of safety lights running along the edge of the cavern. It was too much light, too soon.
Rolly covered his eyes with one hand. ‘Yah!’ he said.
‘Grmmph,’ someone grunted.
Rolly looked towards the grunt, still shading his eyes. Someone lay on the floor.
‘Kinnie?’ he said.
‘Grmmph,’ said Kinnie. It was all she could say. She’d been gagged, with a red bandana tied over her mouth and her hands pulled behind her. Rolly stepped towards her.
‘Hold on, Roland Waters,’ someone said. Rolly turned towards the voice. It was Parnell Gibbons. He had the diddley bow with him. Dotty stood next to him. She had an automatic pistol in her hand, pointed in Buddy and Rolly’s general direction.
‘Hello, Buddy,’ said Dotty. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
Buddy Meeks made a strangling sound in his throat. His body went rigid, almost as if he were having a seizure.
‘Grmmph,’ said Kinnie.
Rolly looked back at her. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
Kinnie nodded. ‘Grmmph.’
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