The Sound of Many Waters

by Sean Bloomfield

  Dominic put his hands over his face. “I do not know,” he muttered. “I do not know.” His murmurs became sobs and he leaned forward until his forehead touched dirt.

  By the time the fires had consumed the afflicted huts to ash, the sun sagged low on the horizon. Thick, acrid smoke sullied the air and mingled with the mounting smell of decay. Francisco darted from body to body like a bee among wildflowers, giving Last Rites and anointing the cold foreheads of the dead with oil in the shape of crosses. Yaba sat in front of the central fire, chanting. Somewhere off in the distance, mourning women yowled like coyotes. There was a dreadful peace about the whole scene. Watching from the bench in front of the chapel, Dominic was trying to replay the events in his mind when Mela slumped down beside him.

  “I know you did not kill him,” she said, her face raw from a day of crying.

  “How can you be sure?” said Dominic. “I am not. You cannot trust me. I am a wicked man.”

  “Urribia was the wicked one. Do you know why he attacked at night?”

  “Surprise, I presume.”

  “He attacked at night so that God would not see his evil.” She pointed at the sun.

  “I would have done the same.”

  Mela moved closer to Dominic and placed a bundle of moist herbs and bark against his arrow wound. It felt cool on his skin. His pain morphed into numbness.

  “I must ask something of you,” Mela said.

  Dominic looked at her. “Anything.”

  “Marry me.”

  Chapter Twenty Four

  “Did you know,” said Destiny as she drove her car down a dusty road, “that all the matter making up the human race could fit in one little sugar cube?”

  Zane smiled. “Sorry?”

  “Make a fist.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  Zane did.

  “Now,” said Destiny, “imagine that your fist is the nucleus of an atom, enlarged of course. Get this. The nearest electron would be miles away. Miles. Everything between is just empty space—a void.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “With all that space, it seems like my hand should just slide right through anything, right?” She karate-chopped her steering wheel. “I mean, come on, everything we touch is almost a hundred percent empty space. But it doesn’t go through, because of all the energy. In my body alone there’s enough energy to keep the whole country going for fifteen years!”

  Zane laughed. “I think your customers would agree.”

  “Oh, shut up!” She laughed. “And listen to this. There are more atoms in one glass of water, than there are glasses of water in all the oceans! Seriously, doesn’t that freak you out a little?”

  Zane nodded. “A lot, actually.”

  “If people only knew how crazy it is to even be…”

  “Be what?”

  “Just be.”

  They were taking a wooded back road in Destiny’s clunky old Buick to avoid the highway. Doing so would add an extra hour to reach Gainesville, she had informed him, but they both knew that cops would be swarming the main roads. The plume of dust trailing them shone orange in the waning light. The car’s interior smelled of hot leather and gasoline. Soda cans, fast food wrappers, quantum physics books and dirty clothes littered the floorboards. He wondered if she lived in it.

  The ailing radio garbled out Tuesday’s Gone by Lynyrd Skynyrd, and then the DJ announced that he had breaking news. Zane’s body tensed, but it was only a weather update. “Time to batten down the hatches, folks,” said the DJ. “Hurricane Juan is now a nasty category three storm. He’s expected to make landfall within the next 48 hours, somewhere near Saint Augustine. Its projected path will bring it right across the interior of the state. Mandatory evacuations for low-lying areas are to be announced soon.”

  “That’ll bring it right through here,” said Destiny.

  “What will you do?”

  She grinned. “Hurricane party, of course.”

  The road took them through Micanopy, a quaint centenarian of a town preserved in the formaldehyde shade of drooping oaks, then along the shore of a spring-fed lake, and eventually past an open wetland signposted as Payne’s Prairie. By nightfall they were zooming down a gravel road through a corridor of forest. Gainesville-10 miles, read a road sign peppered with buckshot.

  “I want you to know,” said Zane, “I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  She looked at him and laughed. “Sorry. For a second I forgot you were in drag.”

  Zane had, too. He ripped off the wig, wiped off the make-up, and rummaged through a pile of clothes on the back seat to find a plain black t-shirt and some khaki shorts which—although tighter and shorter than he would have preferred—did not seem too girly. After he dressed, he pulled his last stack of doubloons out of the duffel bag, took one coin off the top for himself, and put the rest inside Destiny’s glove box. “You won’t have to dance anymore,” he said.

  She looked at him sideways. “Who says I don’t want to?”

  “I saw you crying on stage.”

  “Oh, that? No, I just get overwhelmed with my thoughts sometimes. Right before I went on, I’d been thinking about the fact that every person I know, eventually, is gonna croak. You. Me. Everyone. It makes me want to go around campus screaming at people, you’re all gonna die!”

  Zane laughed. “Probably not the best idea.”

  “I just wish people would make the most of their time in this world, you know? Too many of us just kind of…exist.”

  White smoke came pouring out of the car hood and Destiny pulled over. “Just a sec,” she said, and she popped the hood, grabbed a jug of water from the backseat, and dashed to the front of the car. “Radiator leak,” she said, and soon they were rattling down the road again. Judging by her nonchalance, refilling the radiator was part of her normal routine. They continued on for another few miles in silence, and then Destiny blurted a question that seemed to have been brewing within her for some time.

  “So how’d you get mixed up in all this?”

  “Wrong place, wrong time, I guess,” he said.

  She looked at him for a moment, and then smiled. “Everything will work out like it’s supposed to.”

  Was he putting her in danger by getting help from her? Was he being selfish? He wasn’t worried about Destiny being charged if the cops caught them. After all, he could deny that she had any knowledge of his alleged crimes. He was more afraid of her ending up like Mama Ethel and the IRS agent. Miguel wasn’t just some average criminal—he actually seemed to enjoy killing. Thankfully, though, Miguel had no way of knowing their whereabouts. It was not like the man had some supernatural gift or something.

  Smoke poured out again. “That’s not good,” said Destiny. She pulled the car over, shut it off and looked at Zane. “We’re out of water. I didn’t think I’d be driving so much today.”

  With his window down and the engine off, Zane could hear the night sounds of the surrounding forest. Crickets. Tree frogs. Buzzing things. “What do we do?” he asked.

  “Someone’ll eventually come down the road. When they do, I’ll flag them down and ask for some water, and you can hide in the woods until they leave.”

  Without opening her door, Destiny lifted herself through the open window. “Come on,” she said. Zane stepped out and found her lying on the roof, gazing at the stars, just like Lucia had always done. She pointed up with excitement. “Look, a satellite!”

  Zane climbed up and lay next to her, the metal roof cool against his back. He followed her finger to a point of light, no larger than a star, sliding across the firmament. “They’re probably spying on us,” he said.

  She flashed her breasts. “Spy this!” They both laughed. For the next twenty minutes, they lay there and stared at the cosmos, called to silence by its terror and glory.

  “Did you know,” said Destiny, her soft voice breaking the stillness like a scream, “that if every star in the Milky Way was a grain of salt, packed together
they could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool? There’s a hundred billion stars just in our galaxy alone, and more than a hundred billion galaxies in the universe. Makes you feel small, doesn’t it?”

  “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “I like to learn. I have this nagging curiosity about the world and how it all works. What do you like to do?”

  Zane thought for a moment. “I like to fish.”

  She smiled, and then took his hand in hers. “The Big Bang is even crazier. Did you know that fourteen billion years ago—give or take a few hundred million—everything started from one teeny-tiny singularity?” She held up her fingers as if pinching an ant. “Something so small, and then—pow!—it exploded into something so vast, and it’s still expanding! But the thing with the Big Bang—for it to have even happened—it means there had to have been something that caused it, right? Something beyond time and space and everything we know as reality.”

  “And what do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe one day we get to find out. I hope so. All I do know is that the smartest physicists in the world say there should just be nothing. But there’s something. Something beautiful, and we’re all so lucky to be part of it.”

  “No offense, but how can you do the job you do if you believe that?”

  “Easy. When I’m up there, I just remind myself that none of it is real, in the sense of it being part of some ultimate truth. I’m just up there shaking my atoms, which happen to be aligned in a shape that men like, but in reality I’m just a vast empty space held together by bits of energy.” She smiled. “Plus, the money’s good.”

  Zane raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her. “Did you know,” he said in the same tone she had used for her scientific diatribes, “that your eyes look amazing right now?”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Seriously. It’s like they’re glowing in the moonlight.”

  Concern filled her face. “The moon shouldn’t be up yet.” She looked down the road. “Headlights!”

  They both scrambled off the car and Zane ran into the woods. He hid behind a tree and watched Destiny wave her hand as the headlights approached.

  Please don’t be a cop car, Zane thought. But as the vehicle approached, he relaxed—the headlights were high off the road and the engine had the deep hum of a diesel. The vehicle stopped beside Destiny. Moths and eddies of dust swirled about the beams.

  “Hi!” yelled Destiny as she walked to the driver’s side of the truck. “You got any water?”

  Zane’s eyes adjusted enough to see U-Haul written on the side. There’s no way, he thought. But when he saw the broken rear-view mirror, he knew. He bolted out of the woods. “Destiny! Get away from him!”

  She turned and smiled at Zane, holding up a jug. “Relax, he’s got wa—”

  The truck’s door swung open and knocked Destiny to the ground. The jug of water fell out of her hand and emptied into the road. Miguel jumped out of the truck and aimed a pistol at her. “Please don’t,” she said.

  Miguel smirked. “Sorry, señorita.”

  Zane barreled out of the darkness and lunged at Miguel, slamming him against the truck. The pistol flew out of Miguel’s hand and landed in the road. Zane reared back to punch him, but Miguel grabbed Zane’s arm and twisted it back. Zane whimpered.

  “Where are the coins?” said Miguel.

  “I told you. I hid them. Kill me and you’ll never find them.”

  Miguel grabbed Zane in a chokehold. “I won’t kill you yet—but you’ll wish I had.”

  A shot rang out. Miguel collapsed backward against the truck and slid down the fender and hit the gravel. Blood streamed from a hole in his side. Destiny stood there holding the pistol. A whisper of smoke emanated from its barrel. “Take it,” she said. And then, in a horrified scream, “Take it!”

  Zane grabbed the gun and put his other arm around Destiny’s back. She cried and quivered. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s all okay now. Just atoms, remember?”

  He helped her to the car. When he turned around, Miguel was gone. Only a puddle of blood remained. “Where’d he—”

  “Zane!” screamed Destiny.

  Miguel wrapped his arm around Zane’s neck, compressing it like a snake, and ripped the gun out of Zane’s hand.

  “Run,” wheezed Zane, and Destiny bolted toward the woods.

  Miguel fired three wild shots into the darkness. “I’ll find you!” he shouted, and then he forced Zane toward the truck. “Get in,” he said, and Zane did.

  Miguel struggled to climb in and keep the pistol aimed in Zane’s direction at the same time. Miguel’s shirt, sopping with blood, clung to his body like a wetsuit. He leaned against the passenger door and aimed the gun at Zane. With his other hand, he dug around in the glove box and pulled out a plastic bottle. He unscrewed the cap and held the opening over his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Damn it,” he growled, and he threw the bottle down. He plucked a greasy rag from the dashboard. When he put the rag on his wound, it instantly turned red.

  “Drive,” said Miguel.

  Zane put the truck in gear. “Where?”

  “You’re going to help me retrieve what is mine.” Miguel winced. “But first I need to get fixed up. That bitch who shot me—what was her name?”

  Zane did not reply. Miguel jabbed him with the pistol. “Her name.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ll find her, same way I found you.”

  Zane followed Miguel’s glance to a GPS unit sitting on the middle console of the truck. It looked identical to the one Miguel had used to track the IRS boat. Two green dots on the screen moved away from each other.

  “How’d you get a transponder in her car?” Zane asked.

  “I didn’t,” said Miguel. “You did, when you put my duffel bag in it. How do you think I found you under the bridge?”

  Zane sighed. Why had he not even checked the bag?

  Miguel grinned, his teeth red. “Maybe you’re not so smart after all.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  The skull atop the wooden post at the trailhead rattled in the breeze. Dominic stopped. The two cavities that once held someone’s eyeballs stared back at him, and the lower jawbone dangled open like it had a secret to tell.

  Who were you? Dominic wondered.

  I am you, said the skull.

  Dominic took a breath and continued on. In the early morning darkness, the overgrown trail closed in around him. A thin mist blanketed the ground and obscured his feet. Other skulls and bones hung off tree limbs. Some looked human but most had belonged to deer, bears and creatures altogether alien to him.

  He came to a bend in the trail where the branch of an old oak stretched over. He ducked under it. When he emerged on the other side, his face filled with fear. All around him, hundreds of small, human-shaped effigies woven from palm thatch swung from branches. Each one had a sun-bleached bird skull for a head. Their slanted eye sockets and sharp beaks gazed down at him with ire.

  What is this God-forsaken place? he wondered.

  Where you belong, said the things.

  The previous night, as part of their secret plan, Francisco had instructed Dominic to take the left trail—the forbidden path, he had called it—before first light and follow it to the end. “Do not be afraid,” Francisco had said, but the old man did not warn him about the macabre things he would encounter along the way.

  He continued past the dangling figurines. Around the next corner he came to a rotted pine stump atop which a Spanish conquistadore helmet sat impaled with a sword. An armor breastplate leaned against the stump. The helmet looked similar to the one he once wore, except for a few markings on the side which included an etching of Nuestra Señora del Pilar. Dominic ran his fingers over the Virgin. When he was a boy, his father had taken him to the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza, along the river Ebro, where the Madre de Dios supposedly appeared. They went as pilgrims for her feast
day. After saying their prayers and attending Mass in the basilica, he and his father gorged on paella and danced with strangers in the streets until dawn.

  He picked up the helmet and turned it over—the top half of a man’s skull was still inside, skewered to the helmet with the sword. A black widow spider had made a nest inside the brain cavity, and her offspring scurried out in a cloud. Dominic dropped the helmet; it clinked to the ground and the skull rolled out, coming to rest on its front teeth. It lay there gawking at him, seething with miniature spiders.

  I, too, am you, said the skull. As are we, said the spiderlings. Dominic shivered and hurried down the trail.

  After he had walked half a mile or so, the trail became so narrow that the foliage on each side and above him brushed against his arms, sometimes as a gentle caress, other times as a harsh scratch. One sharp twig scraped against his arrow wound and he cringed. He startled some foraging animal and sent it crashing through the undergrowth, but he was certain that the unseen creature scared him more than he scared it.

  Just as Zane began to fear he was lost, he noticed a subtle glow in the distance and his ears caught an enchanting song warbling through the woods. The trail broadened and then opened into a clearing in the middle of which a fire roared. Candles placed on tree limbs formed a perimeter of softer light around the clearing.

  “Mela,” whispered Dominic. She kneeled before a wooden table, singing. Her sweet voice fit perfectly with her appearance. She wore a gown of oak moss dyed white and a garland of beige flowers around her head. Her eyes danced in the firelight. She looked exquisite. She looked pure.

  Francisco walked up behind the table and placed a freestanding cross upon it. “Kneel with your bride,” he said.

  Dominic knelt beside Mela. She glanced at him sideways but otherwise kept her eyes locked on the altar. Francisco held out his arms as if to embrace the entire night and said, “This is why a man leaves his father and mother, and the two become one flesh.”