The Sound of Many Waters

by Sean Bloomfield

  The duffel bag jerked backward; he held tight and tugged on it but something with great strength pulled back. He reached around with his other hand and discovered that the bag was entangled in a web of vines. He wrenched on it with all of his strength, grunting and twisting, and the vines snapped all at once. Surging forward, his face smashed into a branch and the force of it flipped him onto his back. Every thought and impulse vanished and an insistent sleep took over against his will.

  Chapter Nine

  “His name is Ixasatoriona.” Francisco gestured to the tall native who had now saved Dominic twice. “But you can call him ‘Ona.”

  “Ona,” the native affirmed with a bemused smile. He nodded at Dominic as if to say hello and Dominic reciprocated.

  In the days following the berry incident, the natives had stayed close to Dominic, like overprotective parents afraid to let their child of out sight. Dominic’s stomach was still swollen but he had managed to ingest a few fruits without regurgitating them, the nicest of which resembled plums and had been gathered by the natives from a tall tree they seemed excited to discover. Meat, however, still shot back out undigested, and merely thinking about the black drink made him queasy.

  They had hiked across a broad expanse of waist-high grass for most of the day. Scattered cypress stands rose out of the plain like hackles on a boar, but otherwise the land was drearily flat. As they approached the edge of the next cypress stand, Dominic studied his captors. What was their motivation for keeping him alive? Where were they taking him? None of it made sense.

  He watched Ona march through the grass in the lead. With every step, the native’s long legs ate twice as much distance as Dominic’s. His black hair sat tied in a tight bun atop his head and, like his companions, he carried a large bow under one arm and a bundle of arrows slung over his back. Small fish bladders—inflated, dried, and painted red—dangled from his earlobes alongside numerous bone piercings. Most striking, though, were his long, claw-like fingernails which had been sharpened into points. Such grotesque hands seemed out of place on what was otherwise a beautiful physical specimen. The other natives shared these features but Ona possessed one distinction—the pearly spire of a conch shell which he wore on a twine around his neck.

  Dominic looked at Francisco. “Who do these men worship?” he asked.

  “They worship one god,” said Francisco. “The sun.”

  “Why the sun?”

  “Why not the sun? It makes things grow. It illuminates all. And its power is so great that one cannot even look at it without injury.”

  “So they are pagans.”

  “They pray and they fast and, up until recently, they sacrificed the firstborn son from each family because they believed it gratified the spirits. Call them what you will, but the Timucua have profound faith.”

  As they reached the far side of the cypress stand, a crashing sound arose out of the palmetto undergrowth and a whitetail buck sprang forth. It staggered and skidded and tried to rise again but could not. Its hide was stained by a splotch of blood above its hind leg where the shaft of an arrow jutted out. The natives raised their bows and drew their arrows but they did not aim at the deer—they turned instead toward the cypress stand.

  Fifteen other natives with bows and arrows rushed out of the palmettos. They stopped all at once. The shock on their faces made it clear to Dominic that they had been in pursuit of the wounded deer and were not expecting to come upon another group of men with weapons already drawn.

  “Who are they?” whispered Dominic.

  “Ais,” said Francisco. “Our adversary.”

  With their short, squat stature and narrow eyes, the Ais looked distinct from the Timucuans. Each wore the feathers of some large bird on his head which shook with every movement. Instead of tattoos, their skin was marked by deep scars that looked to have been made deliberately. They wore nothing but loin coverings made of woven palmetto. Hiding their genitals, however, did not seem to be a priority; bits of scrotum hung out all over the place.

  The natives exchanged no words as they stood aiming their arrows at each other. Ona’s shaky hand struggled to hold his arrow back. Sweat gleamed on his forehead and his nervous breathing sounded like spray bursting forth from the bow of a ship.

  A wiry young man emerged from the woods and the Timucuans collectively gasped. He walked languidly—effeminately almost—into the group of Ais and scowled at the Timucuans. His eyes met Dominic’s and sent an eerie chill into him. “Who is that?” asked Dominic.

  “Urribia,” whispered Ona.

  “Urribia,” repeated Francisco. “Warrior chief of the Ais.”

  Urribia’s eyes were as black as the bear pelt around his shoulders and his hair hung down in one bulky clump as if it were a separate animal. Loose skin drooped off his bones and wiggled when he stepped. He said something harshly to the Timucuans but they did not offer a reply. To Dominic, though, it sounded like the type of statement that probably did not require one.

  “We are trespassing in their kingdom, their territory,” Francisco translated.

  Urribia stepped forward to stand in front of the other Ais. The purple veins on his forehead throbbed and he made another harsh pronouncement.

  “What did he say?” asked Dominic.

  Francisco looked at Ona, and then at Dominic. “They want us to give them something, as payment for traversing their lands.”

  “What is it they want?” But Dominic knew the answer before he even finished the question. He watched with terror as Urribia pointed a quivering finger in his direction. Once again Dominic felt that chill in his body, like an infection seething into his bloodstream. Where had he seen eyes like that before? Where had he felt such wretchedness?

  …………………………

  “Stand up!” Dominic’s father grabbed him by the hair and wrenched him to his feet. “Stupid boy!”

  “Father,” pleaded Dominic. “What harm have I done?”

  A creased and yellowed nautical chart was sprawled out on the floor below. Throughout his childhood, Dominic had always been intrigued by his father’s maps. Now, as a teenager, his wonder about the New World had become an obsession. Bathed in candlelight, he had been lying on the floor for most of the night, moving his wooden galleon replica over the chart while envisioning how it would feel to stand at the helm of a real ship. The ocean air and violent squalls. Sea monsters and bare-chested mermaids. Exotic lands. Godless peoples. He longed for such adventure.

  “My charts are not playthings!” His father squeezed Dominic’s head from both sides and twisted it toward him. Dominic glanced away—it was impossible for him to look directly into those eyes. His father’s gaze, though, had not always been so menacing. At one time, it had conveyed only kindness. Only upon his father’s last homecoming did it seem that he had brought some kind of darkness back with him. Something had happened to him out there in the wilds, something that turned him black inside.

  “Please, father,” cried Dominic. “I did not mean to offend you.”

  His father struck him across the face. Dominic could tell right away that a bruise would materialize by morning. “If I catch you in my things again,” his father snarled, “I will cut off your goddamn hands.”

  Dominic did not doubt that his father, in his current state, was probably capable of following through on such a threat. “Yes, sir,” said Dominic.

  Most of Dominic’s schoolmates envied the fact that his father was one of the most famous explorers in Spain. With exploits and discoveries renowned throughout Europe, his father enjoyed regular audiences with the king who peppered him with questions about the New World. Did the savages go about naked? Were their streets paved in gold? Did they worship snakes and crawling things? Whenever his father came home from the palace, Dominic observed, he looked far more exhausted than he did after returning from a transatlantic voyage.

  “I am sorry, father,” said Dominic. “I was just imagining. Dreaming.”

  Dominic’s father stood sullen
in the doorway. His eyes softened and he looked at Dominic with a tenderness that had been absent for years. “Promise me, my son, that you will never go west. God help me, I have seen the most righteous men lose their souls over there. The devil needs no more laborers in his fields.”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  His father looked at his own hands for a long time. “So much blood,” he said, and then he slunk out of the room, his head hung low.

  Dominic looked down at the chart. His toy galleon lay on its side near the meandering line that denoted the coast of La Florida. He picked up the little ship and examined it. One of the masts, no larger than a quill pen, had cracked. His neck swelled and his fingernails dug into the galleon and he hurled it across the room; it smashed against the stone wall and broke into pieces.

  “Damn you!” he screamed.

  …………………………

  The Timucuans gathered in a tight circle around Dominic. He felt somewhat protected but could see that, given their numbers, the Ais had a distinct advantage. Urribia stood in front of them, irate.

  “He is not pleased,” said Francisco.

  “Give me my sword,” said Dominic.

  Francisco shook his head. “There are too many of them. You would not stand a chance.”

  “You know so little about me.”

  Urribia yanked a bow and arrow from the hands of one of the Ais and rushed toward the Timucuans, screaming. He stopped in front of Ona and pointed the arrow at his forehead, shouting something so barbarous that spit flew out of his mouth.

  “He said he is getting impatient and that he will take…” Francisco’s words trailed off.

  “He will take what?” said Dominic.

  Francisco looked at Dominic with regret. “He will take what he is owed.”

  Ona looked back at Dominic with sadness. Then he lowered his bow and let his arrow fall to the ground. He lifted his conch shell necklace over his head and put it on one of the other Timucuans.

  “No,” said Francisco.

  Taking a deep breath, Ona fell to his knees, lowered his head, and extended his arms with his wrists crossed. Urribia looked down at Ona with exultant disgust. He shouted something to the other Ais; one of them ran over and bound Ona’s wrists. Urribia then stepped back and kicked Ona to the ground.

  “You mustn’t,” said Francisco.

  Ona looked up at Francisco with a determined gaze. “Ho mi tala.”

  Francisco closed his eyes, and then nodded. “It is time for us to leave.”

  “What did he say?” asked Dominic.

  “He said, he is going.”

  Francisco ushered Dominic into the vast grassland with the other Timucuans. Dominic struggled to look back at Ona.

  “Going where?” he demanded.

  Francisco pushed him along. “He is taking your place.”

  “No!” said Dominic. “Give me my sword!”

  “It is already too late.”

  Dominic watched the Ais surround Ona like a pack of wild dogs. Several of them raised clubs and brought them down on Ona. Dominic lost sight of him amid the pouncing throng. Urribia stood on the edge of the mob, smiling and cackling as if witnessing some joyous event.

  Chapter Ten

  “I want us to try it together,” said Zane.

  Lucia eyed the two little pills in Zane’s hand. “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, Lu, don’t be a chicken. We only live once, right?”

  “We only die once, too. My parents would kill me if they found out.”

  Zane closed his fingers around the pills. “Ok.” His hand quaked so he jammed it in his pocket.

  Lucia touched his arm. Even after five years of dating, he still felt tender warmth in his body whenever she was close. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be such a dork. No one gets hurt from one little pill, right?”

  “I’ve never heard of it happening.” It had been a year since he asked her to marry him. Her answer had been ‘no’ but with one caveat—that he ask again in four years. The days could not go by fast enough.

  Lucia smiled. “Alright. Give me one.”

  They downed the pills with swigs of warm Coca-Cola and sat holding hands in his parked truck waiting for something to happen. A pleasant, familiar numbness soon blossomed in Zane’s abdomen and spread up through his neck and into his head. He smiled and looked at Lucia—she was smiling too, her eyes half-shut like a contented housecat.

  “This is nice,” she whispered.

  He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. He was elated to have her home, if only for a while. When Lucia went away to college, Zane had taken a job dipping shrimp at a live bait shop with the goal of saving enough money to buy a charter boat. When he no longer had anyone in town to spend time with, he soothed his loneliness with fishing, drinking, and drugs—usually all three at once. He had been sampling various narcotics over the past year, starting with the ones in his mother’s medicine cabinet and progressing to things he could only buy in dark alleys. He still had yet to find one that could fill the void.

  With each semester that passed, he could see Lucia flowering into someone he could never hope to have in his life. She was slipping away. They would talk on the phone almost every night, but sounds of Gator parties and happy people laughing in the background usually tarnished their conversations, and Lucia often had to hang up early. Their monthly phone bills became progressively cheaper. It was only during her visits home—summer vacations, Christmas holidays, and spring breaks—that things seemed like they used to.

  “How do you feel now?” asked Zane.

  Lucia took a moment to answer. “Kinda weird.”

  Zane looked through the windshield at the Jupiter Inlet jetty where grungy fishermen stood casting lighted bobbers into the night. Tidewater streamed out of the inlet with tremendous force, creating rapids as it clashed with the breeze off the Gulf Stream. In an instant he felt like he was deep inside the mouth of some terrible monster that was puking out the entire world. He looked over at Lucia. She had fallen asleep.

  “Lu?” he said, but she did not answer. “Lucia?”

  He woke with a start in the dim forest and felt throbbing in his head. Unlike during the night, he could now make out his surroundings; a gray glimmer to the east indicated where the sun would soon rise. The forest—having been taken over by a greedy vine—looked like one inextricable mass of foliage. He lay in a small den made and abandoned by some large animal; he could smell a faint musk and see dark hairs on the flattened grass around him. It was probably from a boar, he guessed; like so many other introduced, non-native animals, wild pigs had all but taken over the Florida woodlands.

  Zane realized that he was still holding the duffel bag. He thought about Miguel. Where was he? How had he not caught up with him? But then Zane recalled how dark the forest had been at night. It would have been difficult to find anyone in such obscurity; happening to fall into an animal’s bed had probably saved his life. Now, however, with light creeping in, he knew he had better continue on.

  He examined the bag as he stood. All three stacks of coins still lay inside, and he felt confident that Miguel had not deduced where he hid the remainder. He used the direction of the sun to determine his bearings and set off toward the west. He came upon an armadillo feasting on worms, its head buried in the dirt. He tried to give the animal plenty of space but the vibrations from his footsteps must have alerted it—it spooked off, clattering through the undergrowth.

  “Shhh…” said Zane, his index finger pressed against his puckered lips. Then he chided himself for thinking that a wild animal would have obeyed him.

  Something rubbed against his thigh and he remembered that his mobile phone was inside his pocket. Was it possible that the plastic baggy had not leaked during his swim? He pulled the baggy out of his pocket, opened it, and found the phone dry inside, save for a fine mist of condensation. He pressed the on button and stared at the LCD screen as the phone powered up.

&n
bsp; “Come on,” he said. “Work.”

  The screen lit up with a background picture of Lucia. There she stood, posing playfully in her bikini on the Intracoastal sandbar near Jupiter. God, he thought. She held a Corona as if it were a trophy and smiled her beautiful smile. He had looked at that photo so many times that seeing it did not usually make him sad, but his dream from the night before still hung fresh in his mind and he felt a sudden cramp in his chest.

  Don’t cry, he thought. Not now.

  He looked again at the phone. The battery light blinked—indicating it had only seconds of energy left—and in the top-left corner of the interface two disappointing letters appeared: NS. No service.

  “Piece of junk,” said Zane, but he knew it was not his phone’s fault. Cape Canaveral, after all, was cut off from the rest of Florida. Aside from people on tours, it was accessible only to military personnel and space program workers with security clearance. The Kennedy Space Center, though, took up little of the land, and the rest of the area—known as the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge—remained one of the last great wildernesses in Florida. The only chance he had of getting a cellular signal, he guessed, was picking up a stray one from a distant town like Cocoa or Titusville.

  He trudged on, holding the phone high in the air and watching for any signs of a connection. He was paying such close attention to the screen that he did not notice the concrete slab in his path—his foot caught the edge of it and he tumbled forward. He clutched the phone as he fell. The slab, however, was covered in leaves and soil and felt as soft as a mattress when he hit it.