by John Farris
Jackson was rooted. "You must be joking."
Nhora laughed. "You ought to see your expression. Jackson, I'm not trying to be cruel. You won't see anything you shouldn't see, or don't want to see. I'm serious. I have power over animals. It's almost as if they know my thoughts, and I know theirs. I've had this power since I was a little girl." She held his head delicately and kissed first his ears, then his eyes. His face tingled from the mild pressure of her hands. He felt a rush of blood, lingering heat, a sense of fulfillment and ease. "There. That's all. You're protected."
"I'm tempted to believe you. But I'm not—I can't—"
Nhora frowned. "How long have you been phobic? I don't see how you could have lasted for so many years in Africa if you were that afraid of—"
"I didn't have it when I was growing up. I first became aware of the phobia in the garden of the dispensary in Kisantu, where I was recovering from my head wounds and subsequent infection. What I saw was just an ordinary nonpoisonous type of snake—slithering through dry grass. I wouldn't have given it a second glance in Tuleborné; I could identify the deadly ones at twenty paces. It wasn't even headed my way. Nevertheless I was suffocated by a tidal wave of atavistic terror. I imagined the thing—crawling on me, enfolding me. I shook and sobbed. Two of the nursing sisters had to half-carry me back inside."
"Something must have happened in Tuleborné, when you went back to your father, to make you phobic."
"My memory of that day and night is very dim."
"Aren't there ways to find out?"
"A down-and-out 'colleague' of mine, a defrocked Freudian analyst, once suggested the therapeutic use of sodium pentothal."
"What would that do?"
"Unlock the past, as they say. With the aid of sodium pentothal I could relive what I've willfully forgotten, my every move from the moment I returned to Tuleborné."
"But you don't want to."
"I think I'm better off with my phobia."
"The cure is worse than the disease?"
"It may be."
Nhora put a hand on Jackson's shoulder to steady herself while she slipped back into her shoes. Without speaking she walked unhurriedly toward the great thicket. He could now make out one thin rusting smokestack, its crown askew, of the Stephen Mulrooney. The stack was inclined at an angle of about twenty degrees from the vertical, caught in a net of branches.
"Jackson," Nhora called, "is your father still living?"
"No. He was killed in the spring of forty-two by an unexploded bomb in the park at Hawkspurn. Concussion dashed him against a tree, I'm told. Fortunately there were no other fatalities. I should have returned to England for the funeral. The truth is, I felt he'd buried himself, years ago."
Nhora reached the thicket and paused, as if trying to remember the best way to penetrate. She strolled to her right for a short distance, stopped and looked back.
"Won't change your mind?"
"Nhora, I can't."
"I'll just see how the old tub is getting along. Won't be a minute. Don't go away."
With that she stepped up onto a mossback trunk, posed vividly in a streak of sun, then pushed aside a hanging mat of vines and jumped blithely out of sight. Jackson stared after her, his teeth on edge. Then he turned and unzipped his pants and, stood moodily pissing into the river.
"Jackson! Jackson!"
He put himself in order and ran to the mossback log where he'd last seen Nhora. There had been no terror in her voice, she couldn't be in serious trouble, but she wanted him urgently. He vaulted to the top of the log and stood peering into the thicket, unable to locate her. Birds chittered. He could feel the sun on his back, but it was still somber steeping twilight inside the thicket.
"Where are you?"
"Here." Her voice was more distant. Then Nhora appeared, disquietingly featureless, as if there were a wall of opaque glass between them. She was about a hundred feet from Jackson. "Just walk straight to me. Remember, I'm protecting you. It's squishy underfoot, but there's nothing in your way, nothing that will hurt—"
"Nhora, what do you want?"
"You have to see this for yourself," she said impatiently. "Come on, please, I'm getting a little scared, I don't understand what it all means."
He heard a mourning dove, and a faraway dog. His throat had hardened intolerably. He couldn't do it, she wasn't fair. The very suggestion produced a narcoleptic heaviness in his limbs. And then, with the kind of mysterious, abrupt transition common in dreams, he discovered himself well into the jagged thicket, shoes sucking in the bog. He was suffering as much as he'd ever suffered in his life, but moving, moving blindly toward her soft and reassuring voice.
Nhora's hand reached out and touched him; she gathered him in. His eyes were stinging from sweat or tears. He clung to her, panting, feeling disgraced but also obscurely brave.
"Hello, Jackson. Was it so bad?"
"For a while there."
She kissed him, restoring partial sight and sensibility. "Now you're right in the middle of it—all your fear. What do you do?"
"I—I start screaming and black out. Or, just possibly, I get stronger."
"What will it be?" she asked, leaning back and gazing stringently at him.
"Stronger," he admitted, pleased by his slowing pulse. "But still susceptible."
"I told you. From now on I'm looking out for you."
There was a small sound behind them, like a ferret plunging into shallow water. Nhora glanced around. Jackson could see part of the derelict Stephen Mulrooney: a railed upper deck, the glassless pilothouse.
"I think somebody's moved in," she said.
"Is that what frightened you?"
"No." She took him by the hand and led him across slippery, close-packed logs that formed an adequate corduroy road through the muck. They stopped at an arch formed by tree roots, with a hundred cavities suitable for nesting cottonmouths. Jackson felt a shudder working up from his bowels, but Nhora, oblivious, stood staring raptly through the murky tunnel.
There was a familiar odor in the air which overpowered rot and dampness: a blazing stink of whorish perfume.
And Jackson, as he eyed the forbidding gateway to the Stephen Mulrooney, became aware of other curiosities: small white candles in crude holders wired to the tree roots, a pair of hanging Congo drums.
"It's touchy," Nhora murmured, "but we can go through." She led him into the trembling, clinging roots, some almost invisible in their delicacy. Jackson felt as if he were edging deep and raw into his own nervous system. A couple of times he glimpsed, out of the corner of his eye, something light-skinned and sluggish stirring in the overhung hideaways, but Nhora increased the pressure of her hand in his and pulled him through, into unexpected sun.
They stood blinking at the sharp light, looking around. Several years of backwashed silt had created an earthwork which someone had doubled to beat firm and level with the steamboat's partly entombed forward boiler deck.
"Good Lord," Nhora said. "What is this?"
A pavilion of sorts had been erected alongside the Stephen Mulrooney: four crude pots supporting a pyramidal, shingled roof. There was a central post surrounded by a large, stone-paved platform. On the stone lay rattles, bells, other stones with inscriptions or drawings, necklaces, more drums and a number of covered pots and jars. A wicker ship model hung from a crossbeam of the roof. Other artifacts suspended from the roof included calabashes, baskets and a few homemade banners adorned with skulls, astrological symbols and swords.
A pit had been dug in the ground; it was covered with what looked like half of a radiator grill from an automobile. Wisps of smoke arose from buried coals. A swordlike iron bar had been plunged through the grill and into the coals. Jackson touched it tentatively and snatched his hand away. He looked more closely at the center post, where a black-snake whip was knotted to an iron ring. Nhora picked up some of the pots and opened them. They were empty. She stared at Jackson, starkly curious.
"It's an oum'phor," he said. "A temple of
voodoo. The place where we're standing is the peristyle. This is the altar stone, the kpé, if I remember correctly. The rattles and bells are used in the ritual. Some of the jars are called govis; the voodoo gods reside in them while waiting to be summoned during a rite."
Nhora hastily replaced the jar she had been examining.
"The center post is the most important feature of the temple. The top is considered to be the center of the sky; the bottom, of course, would be the center of hell."
"Who would go to all this trouble?"
"It's an ideal location for secrecy. Notice the design on the center post: The spirals represent two serpent gods, Danbhalah Wédo and Ai-da Wédo. The wooden post itself is the chief god of voodoo: Legba. And the whip is a substitute for a live snake. It represents faith in voodoo, mastery of its powers."
"But who's practicing voodoo here? And why?"
"It's the religion of the African Negro. Contrary to the reputation voodoo has, there's nothing intrinsically harmful in it. But there are sects outside the tradition in which the motive power is human sacrifice. The Ajimba were members of a criminal sect. They believed they became superhuman when they wore the representational skins or masks."
"Human sacrifice?" Nhora said; grimacing as she looked around again.
"I doubt much blood has been spilled here, other than that of a goat or a lamb."
"Then why do they want to hide what they're doing?"
"I suppose your Negroes are reluctant to let their neighbors know they hanker after the old religion. It must be a small sect; perhaps this is even a private oum'phor."
"That perfume. It's foul. Like the perfume Early Boy dumped in my car."
"I know."
Nhora stared at Jackson, perplexed. "Do you suppose he's involved in this?"
"White initiates are rare, but not unheard of. Anyone with a knowledge of procedure can perform a voodoo ceremony. The perfume is homage to Mawu, as she's called in Africa—mother serpent, the Ai-da Wédo, who is symbolized by the model ship hanging there. Long ago the altar was always hollow. There was a—a live snake inside, its body supposedly inhabited by Mawu."
Jackson turned toward the buried fire. "That iron bar in the coals—the forge of the gods—can have several meanings. In legend the iron fell from the sky and is a symbol of cosmic sexual desire. The bar also represents a sword, or dagger, the serpent-in-iron. A weapon that kills. The so-called red sects, those who go in for murder and cannibalism, have as their emblem the avenging sword of Saint Michael."
"Then what was the meaning of Clipper's sword in my car? What was he trying to say?"
"I have no idea, Nhora."
Nhora glanced up at the Texas deck of the steamboat, as if she'd seen something moving there. She looked back at Jackson and shrugged, but her smile was strained.
"Now I'm—jumpy. We ought to get out of here. But I'll never be satisfied. If Early Boy has been hanging around here, the sheriff should know. Do you think he could be on the boat?"
"Shall we have a look?"
Nhora's fingers fastened on his arm. She lowered her voice. "No. What if he is? I've changed my mind, Jackson. We'd better go."
"Somehow I can't believe Early Boy has anything to do with this; even if he's mad as a hatter, it's an unlikely bent. But something occurred at Old Lamb's tonight that was so strange I'm tempted to call it supernatural. And Early Boy Hodges may be an eyewitness."
"He was there?"
Jackson nodded.
"How do you know that?"
"He was seen running away after the explosion, or whatever it was. A Negro who took a shot at him said he ran with a distinctive limp. That describes Early Boy well enough for me."
"He does limp—Tyrone said something about it weeks ago. But how did you know?"
"Early Boy and I go back many years, to a time when I was keeping body and soul together as sawbones for the criminal element."
"You didn't tell me that!"
"I didn't know how, before. Oh, and you can blame me for his distinctive smile. He was shot in the mouth by a bank guard and I had to sever the nerve that was causing him agony."
"How well do you know him?" Nhora asked, still astounded.
"I mistrust the public personality. I've never had reason to fear him. He's not a hoodlum and I doubt he's murdered anyone. He hews to a personal code chivalric in its complexity, which a logical mind couldn't hope to fathom. I think, now that I know who Early Boy really is, that I'd welcome a chance to talk to him."
Nhora shuddered. "But not here."
"I'm certain we're quite alone. I'll just have a quick look aboard."
Nhora stayed behind, near the center of the peristyle. Jackson found the deck planks still reasonably sound—and tracked with muddy bootprints. An area in front of a louvered stateroom door had been swept clean recently. The door was warped, sticking to the frame. He put his shoulder to it and the door scraped open. A shaft of sun lit up the dry, musty room inside. The odor of perfume drifted out. Jackson hesitated, then entered and, was immediately blinded.
The room, apparently, was the holy of holies, dedicated to the worship of a particular god. Jackson shielded his eyes against the reflected glare of a broken mirror, part of a bulky old bedroom dresser that stood near the middle of the small room. The walls had been draped in faded, water-stained red velvet. The dresser served as an altar. Ritual designs, called vèvès, decorated the bow front. There were amulets, bells and candles on the dresser top, along with an asson, a calabash rattle containing small stones and the vertebrae of snakes. It symbolized both the power of the priest and the voices of the ancients, the loas.
Nothing unusual in all this. Jackson yawned and turned, glimpsed something hanging on the back of the door. It startled him until he realized it was little more than a scarecrow on a wrought-iron cross, mounted so that it could be carried during ceremonies. But it seemed worth a closer look, because the scarecrow obviously was meant to be a woman.
There was a glossy wig on top of the cross, blatant red curls hanging down the front of an old-fashioned, petticoat-stuffed dress, an heirloom from another century. The dress was of lace and silk, with belied sleeves and a high neck. The silk had been a rich brown, but it was now sun-spotted, and the serpentlike effect was disquieting. So were the snakeskins that had been wrapped around the cross-piece; shreds of skin dangled from the ends of the bar like wispy fingers.
The only other object of interest was a gold locket on a chain, half-hidden by the sprawl of wiggish curls. He picked the locket up, found the catch with tracing fingers, opened it, stared at the oval portrait inside. He was swept by nausea. His hand tightened on the locket; he snapped the chain and bolted from the room.
"Nhora!"
She was waiting for him in the peristyle, eyes glazed from shock or rapture, lonely as a saint at a stake. But this stake, more terrifying than the flames of hell, was slowly twining itself around her.
Dun-colored, and of the earth. But the gaze of the giant was remote, far-reaching as starlight. It looked at him with towering arrogance, freezing the will. King of the gods. His mind shrieked, but no sound issued from his throat. Nhora's hands slid glibly along the snake's body, urging it upward, head-high. Jackson tried to push himself away from a pillar of the steamboat, but his legs were unworkable, he was forced to cling. Thinking: I know what it must mean. But intuition was fouled by darkness that crossed the mind like a swift-running cloud shadow.
Nhora began to turn away, her body seeming to undulate, to move metachronally with the winding-around horror in her hands. They stood eye to eye, open-throated. Jackson heard the faint gush and rattle of a calabash. Shock bolted through him and the rotten pillar snapped in his embrace. He fell, fell a long way, striking the deck with his chin almost as a painless afterthought. There was an instant of awful, artificial clarity, a sensation of release from life—discontent, elation, self-pity—before he was tumbled under in a rocketing flood.
Champ awoke alone, in a cool skin, breathing passi
vely, focused without sorrow on a wall of new sunlight, his mind like brand-new. He was half-alert to the danger he believed himself to be in, wondering coolly about it though he didn't have an inkling of what had warned him, or what to expect; he had no dream or premonition to go by. He lay there, on the steamer chair in the playroom, covered with a thin yellow blanket, light streaming healthily through his mind. His body felt neutral. He didn't have to go to the bathroom, he wasn't hungry, there was no pain. He felt as lightly strutted as the model airplanes overhead, his body ready to be used, with reasonable caution.
Each physical act—sitting up, placing one bare foot on the floor, then the other—called for introspection. Demands to be weighed, and met. Sense of blood tilting deep, wobbling in the belly, a heaviness, like mercury finding a level. Standing was moderately suspenseful. He grasped the back of the chair. He heard a tractor in a field, morning moves of the house coming alive. He felt, then, curiously pressed for time, although still there was nothing definite, just an awareness of being the last in command. Boss watching him from a wall, shadow of his pith helmet eclipsing all but the jaunty grin and grizzle of safari beard, '32 or '33, the tall, barrel-chested man beside him none other than Ernest Hemingway.
Champ moved flat-footed along the picture wall, nudging his shadow before him. Visions of a family half-destroyed. Duty to fulfill. Weight of reckoning to bear. He was in command. His heartbeat rang in his ears He had to stop and lean against the wall, head floating precariously. Then he went around the room again. Heavy in the lungs. No breath. Like trying to squeeze air from stones.
He stopped again and, without knowing why, took down one of a pair of Civil War sabers crossed beside the mantel. He unsheathed it.
Hadn't been cleaned in years. The edge nicked and dull. He and Clipper, inflamed by the movies, by Douglas Fairbanks, having at each other mindlessly in duels. Could've been seriously hurt, despite their lack of power and technique, even with these heavy dull blades. Boss never put a stop to it. He preferred wounds to timidity.
