by Thomas King
“Then can I kill him?”
“Talk first,” says Locken. “Then we’ll see.”
I’m reasonably sure that there won’t be any shooting. At least not tonight. At least not in the hotel.
“I imagine that Oliver has told you about Kommer Heineken.”
I sit on the sofa.
“Fentanyl,” says Locken. “It seems our Mr. Heineken was a closeted drug enthusiast.”
I wonder if Flood is really off to retrieve the glass, or if he plans to sit in the gloom of the bar by himself and enjoy my expensive Scotch.
“You don’t care, do you? About the world, about people.” Locken’s face softens. “You truly don’t care.”
Maybe I’ll join Flood. Order another double and leave it on the table to rot.
“My father cared. He cared about money, about power, about privilege. Because in the world he helped to create, these were the things that mattered. And he was obsessed with knowing. It didn’t really matter what it was he wanted to know. For him, knowing was a religion. And what he wanted to know most of all was why we die. Or more to the point, why it is we can’t live forever.”
Or maybe I would drink it. Knock it back in one gulp, like a gunfighter in a Western bar. Bang the glass on the table and order another.
“In a 1963 commencement address to the graduates of American University, John F. Kennedy said, ‘Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.’”
Sooner or later, some fast gun with a clever name—the Alberta Kid, Wild Billy James, Buffalo Sam—would stroll into the saloon and challenge me to a gunfight.
“My father hated that notion, the shared reality of mortality. Rather than seeing death as a quality of humanity, he saw it as the ultimate impediment. Why shouldn’t we be immortal? Immortality had the potential to improve the human race. With immortality we could create stable and just societies. With immortality, we could go to the stars. With immortality we could be gods.”
And when the clock above the bar struck high noon, I’d push through the swinging doors, walk to the middle of the street, and hope I was the faster draw.
“You created the list, didn’t you. My father asked you to identify like-minded individuals. Individuals who shared his interest in immortality, individuals who had the means and the temper to pursue such a goal, no matter the cost. Twelve names. The Ankh corporation. Not a corporation really, more an exclusive club, come together for a single and what my father saw as a noble purpose.”
In most westerns, shootouts generally end with the hero victorious. But there are exceptions. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hombre. The Shootist.
“But noble purposes require noble people. And immortality is not necessarily a noble purpose. You recognized that, didn’t you? You said as much to my father. I imagine you warned him of the implications. He didn’t see that immortality could just as easily create monsters. But you did, didn’t you?”
Sheriff Jeremiah Camp and the outlaw Oliver Flood. With a guest appearance by Ash Locken, as the dance-hall girl with a heart of gold.
“Who would get to be immortal? That’s easy. The rich and the powerful, of course. They would be the only ones who could afford immortality, because such a condition would be a commodity. It would be the ultimate commodity.”
Or I could climb up to the bell tower in the church with my Winchester 1873 and bushwhack everyone as they came out into the street.
“Of course, immortality is useless without eternal youth. The Cumaean Sibyl should be object lesson enough.”
The Cumaean Sibyl. A priestess who presided over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae. Apollo offered her eternal life for her virginity. But she failed to ask him for eternal youth, and though she didn’t die, she did shrivel up until there was nothing left of her but her voice.
“Or Methuselah. But there you have the same problem.”
Methuselah. Biblical patriarch. Supposedly lived to be 969. Though there is a great deal of controversy as to how years were figured in early human history. “As old as Methuselah” is a phrase that isn’t used anymore, in part because nobody wants to be as decrepit as the phrase suggests.
“Or the Cherokee Nunnehi.”
Race of immortal spirit people. They’re not humans, but they are supposedly friendly to humans. And, at times, helpful. In Cherokee, the name means “traveller.” Depending on who’s telling the story, the Nunnehi can be little people, supernatural beings, or visitors from outer space.
“This is what the Ankh corporation hoped to achieve. Eternal life. Eternal youth.”
Tithonus. Mattathias. The Wandering Jew. Sir Galahad. Ashwathama.
“In Moby-Dick, Starbuck, the Pequod’s first mate, suggests that vengeance on a dumb beast could be seen as blasphemy, and Ahab tells him that he has little concern with blasphemy, that he’d strike the sun if it offended him. That was my father, Mr. Camp. Willing to risk everything, to strike through the mask of humanity in the belief that there was something behind it.”
Walter Donovan and Dr. Elsa Schneider. Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth.
“Have you ever wondered whether immortal and immoral are simply sides of the same coin? Eternal delight? Existential despair? Which do you think, Forecaster?”
And all the other unnamed, unimagined monsters that would arise from such an enterprise.
“Of course, we have no way of knowing. So all we can do is guess. And if we can guess, we can act.”
Locken shifts in the chair.
“My father acted. He formed Ankh, concentrated all his energy and money on the solution to one problem. He recruited eleven other like-minded people to his cause, even though he understood that, long before we achieved immortality, the problems of the increased longevity we would acquire along the way would destroy the planet.”
I stand up, walk to the window. The river is down there somewhere, running deep in its channel.
Locken joins me at the window. “And now they are dead. These destroyers of worlds.”
If the moon were up and full, I might be able to see the water.
“But that’s not the issue, is it? You realized something else, didn’t you? In the process of putting the list together, you realized the larger danger. You saw the greater monster.”
OLIVER FLOOD is at the same table, my glass of single malt in front of him, untouched.
“‘Home is the hunter,’” he says as I sit down, “‘home from the hill.’”
A licensed rendition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Requiem.”
“So now you know.” Flood gestures to the bartender. “The logistics were fascinating. Perhaps, one day, I’ll share them with you.”
Flood sits back and his jacket falls open. Given what I know of the man, I half expect to see a pistol in a shoulder holster and not a pair of red paisley suspenders.
“I can’t imagine living forever.” Flood rubs his hands together as though he’s cold. “Life is fun, but I don’t think that another two hundred years will improve on what I have right now. After a while, you’d run out of new experiences, and the stuff you used to do for the pleasure of it would begin to lose its magic.”
A bottle of the Macallan 25 appears on the table.
“In the meantime,” says Flood, “while we wait, I thought we might consider drinking ourselves into oblivion.”
LOCKEN IS GONE when I get back to the suite. I lie on the bed and listen to the sounds of the town at night. Cars going by. Voices on the street. At points, I can hear music coming from the Bent Nail, and I wonder if Roman has been held over.
I think about going back to the school, but there’s no room for me there. So I try to make the best of a good situation. I turn on the television. I take a bath. I try to order room service, but I’ve waited too long, and now the kitchen is closed. I raid the mini-bar, helping myself to a bag of peanuts, a package of chocolate chip cookies, and a can of soda
. All at outrageous prices, all courtesy of the Locken Group.
The bed is comfortable enough, the sheets luxurious enough, the pillows soft enough. And I sleep well enough.
But in the morning, when I wake, it’s not to the hum of the town coming to life. It’s to the clatter of crows and the wail of a world on fire.
36
It’s not crows.
It’s sirens. By the time I get to the lobby, the whole town is in motion. Fire trucks. Ambulances. Police cars.
Dino and Swannie are on the sidewalk.
Dino waves at me. “Fire,” he yells, pointing in the direction of the reserve.
I can see smoke rising above the trees to the west of town. The reserve? The school? A pile of crosses?
There is a moment when I consider going back into the Plaza and ordering room-service breakfast and turning the television to the Weather Network to see if I need to wear a light jacket.
If it’s the reserve, there’s nothing I can do. If it’s the school, there’s nothing I can do. The crosses can burn for all I care.
So, doing nothing makes sense.
Dino is at my side, his hands in motion. “You should go and see. God forbid it’s the school.”
The smoke is no help. It comes out of the trees in a shapeless cloud that is caught in the breeze and blown across the river. The source of the fire could be anything anywhere.
“Or the reserve,” says Dino. “God forbid it’s the reserve.”
IT’S THE RESERVE. By the time I get there, the fire is under control. But the double-wide that had been the council office is a pile of ash and melted aluminum. The only thing that has survived is the steel underframe and the wheels.
The fire department is spraying water on the adjacent trailers to make sure they don’t go up as well.
Florence and Nutty are standing off to one side with Ada and Emma and the rest of the families. Louis Bear is talking with his hands, trying to keep the peace.
Roman catches me. “Now they’re trying to burn us out.”
Bob Loomis and Maribelle Wegman pull up in Bob’s BMW. They’re followed by the van from the local TV station. Bob waits until the camera is up and running before he steps out of the car.
“You smell gasoline?” says Roman.
Wegman fixes the mayor’s tie, pats his hair in place.
“This is that asshole’s fault,” says Roman.
The firefighters have stopped spraying and are beginning to pull at the wreckage with axes and long poles.
“City cut off our electrical, so we had to use generators.” Louis is talking to one of the reporters. “And they cut off our water, so we couldn’t fight the fire. All we could do was sit around and watch it burn.”
Mayor Bob is in front of the camera now, his back to Louis and the ruin. He strikes a considered pose, one hand on his hip. He’s put on his white hard hat, so there won’t be any mistake about who is in charge.
“Public safety,” he tells the reporter. “This is a matter of public safety.”
“Fucker,” says Roman under his breath. “He’s going to wash his hands and blame it on us.”
“I’ve long been concerned about public-safety issues on the reserve.” Mayor Bob turns and looks at the remains of the trailer. “We were just lucky there were no casualties.”
“We?” shouts Roman. “Who the fuck are ‘we’?”
The news crew is quick. They leave the mayor standing by his car and collapse on Roman. Someone sticks a microphone in Roman’s face.
“Are you saying this was arson?”
Roman looks back at the wreckage. “What do you think? City’s been trying to take our land for years. They want to get rid of us. What do you think?”
“Are you accusing the city of setting fire to that trailer?”
“You smell gasoline?” Roman sniffs the air. “You smell gasoline?”
Actually, you can smell gasoline. It’s faint, and it’s buried in the stench of burned wood, scorched aluminum, and melted rubber. But it’s there.
“Will you be bringing suit against the city?” A woman with a CBC jacket moves in closer to Roman. “Are you the spokesperson for the band?”
“You’re damn right,” says Roman, and he stalks off, leaving the news crew behind.
Ada steps forward. “Louis Bear is the chief. Talk to him.”
The mayor strides forward and positions himself firmly in front of the camera. “People are angry. And for good reason. We’re all angry.”
“Is the city responsible for this disaster?”
“Public safety,” says the mayor. “It’s a major plank in my re-election platform.”
NUTTY AND FLORENCE and Ada walk over to where I’m standing.
“You didn’t come home last night,” says Nutty. “Me and Ada were worried.”
Nutty doesn’t look all that good. Her eyes have a yellow tint, and her skin is grey. She’s more stooped now, as though someone has strapped weights to her arms.
“Jeremiah has himself a suite at the Plaza,” says Florence.
“That about his girlfriend?” says Ada. “What is it with Native guys and blondes?”
I don’t spend any time wondering how Florence knows about my room at the Plaza. It’s a small town.
“Man almost seemed concerned,” says Ada. “They must teach that in mayor school.”
“You might think about stopping by Dino’s,” says Nutty. “We need more bread and fruit.”
“And eggs,” says Ada. “Better get a couple dozen eggs and a bunch of bacon.”
LOUIS IS STANDING at the edge of the fire looking at what’s left of the double-wide.
“Hell of a mess.” Louis pulls his pants up onto his belly. “Band papers, financials, health records. Had a lot of photos as well. The trophy for the old-timers’ hockey game.”
The water has turned the ash into a grey paste that sticks to everything it touches.
“We got a lot of the old records in boxes in a storage locker, but all the newer stuff is gone,” Louis tells me. “Been wanting to sign up for one of those off-site backup services, but we could never afford it.”
The firefighters are poking at a large slump of metal that had once been a filing cabinet.
“All our information was on hard drives.” Louis hitches his pants again, points to a pile of ash and debris. “Computers used to be right about there.”
The wind shifts and blows the smoke back into my face. I never liked the smell of burning rubber, and I don’t like it now.
“Firefighters got here in record time. Probably saved a bunch of the trailers as well. Real decent of them. They didn’t have to come on the reserve, you know. But they did.”
Mayor Bob has finished his interview. I haven’t been paying attention to what’s been said, but I’m sure Florence will fill me in tomorrow when I stop by for morning coffee.
“Going to need a place for council business,” says Louis. “You got any extra rooms at the school?”
LALA AND EMMA find me back in the graveyard, working on Morris Paul’s stone. I’ve finished the M and have started work on the O.
Lala comes skipping through the crosses. “There was a fire,” she shouts. “A big fire.”
“They’re saying it might be arson,” says Emma.
“What’s arson?”
“Good thing it was a Saturday,” says Emma, “and not a workday.”
“What’s arson?”
“Roman thinks the mayor is responsible,” says Emma, “but that’s just the anger talking.”
“Is arson bad?”
“I won’t be at the café come Monday,” says Emma. “I got a contract with a company that wants me to do a feasibility study on low-income housing. They’re thinking of doing something here in Gleaming.”
“Can we go and see the fire?”
“It’s not the thing I normally do,” says Emma, “but it’s a way to get started. With any luck, Lala and me will be out of your hair by the end of the month.”
&nb
sp; “I don’t want to be out of Pop-Up’s hair.”
Emma glances at the sky. “Big storm’s supposed to come in tonight. Heavy rain.”
“If there’s lightning,” says Lala, “can we go upstairs and watch?”
“Come on, honey,” says Emma. “Let’s get some hot chocolate.”
“We could use the binokers. We could watch the lightning with the binokers.”
I pick up the chisel and the mallet. With any luck, I’ll finish Morris Paul’s name before it gets dark.
Lala takes her mother’s hand, and the two of them head for the school.
“Bananas,” Emma calls back over her shoulder. “We’re out of bananas.”
37
The sky has darkened and the temperature has dropped. I’m in Dino’s when the first tentative raindrops hit the awning.
“Big storm,” says Dino. “May have to close early.”
I hand Dino the list. He hands the list to Javi.
“Mr. Camp is a good man,” Dino tells his son. “A patron. So generous.”
I put a bunch of red grapes in a separate bag to take back to the hotel.
“Javi will deliver the food. Anything else you need, you tell Javi.” Dino puts an extra apple in for Lala. “When I see the smoke and the firemen and the trucks, I think it’s the school.”
I grab a banana and a package of cheese as well. In case I get hungry later on.
Dino shows me the total. “Such luck,” he says. “A weekday and there would have been more people in the office.”
I can still smell the burning rubber from the tires and the stink of water and ash.
“Javi went to see.”
Javi nods solemnly. “There was nothing left.”
We stand together under the awning. The rain slows for the moment.
“Nothing like a hard rain,” says Dino. “A hard rain cleans everything.”
MY KEY CARD STILL WORKS. Which is good news and bad news. It means I still have the room at my disposal. But it also means that I haven’t seen the last of Ash Locken and Oliver Flood.
The rain picks up, quick and heavy. I wonder how crows and ducks and foxes survive storms. Where they go when the weather turns on them.
