The Sound of Many Waters

by Sean Bloomfield

  “Get back here, son!” yelled the preacher. “You ain’t saved yet!”

  Zane stumbled through the woods for an hour before he stopped to rest in a palmetto thicket. The wind had picked up and the foliage around him gyrated in a rowdy moonlight dance. His heart raced and he felt thirstier, hungrier, and more exhausted than he ever had in his life. He lay back against a rotted log that was as soft as a pillow.

  You have to stay awake, Zane told himself, but it was a futile command. His body and mind were sapped and he fell asleep within minutes. He dreamt of Lucia and Destiny having an argument, and then of bacon sizzling in a pan.

  He woke to a cloudy, blustery morning. His eyes focused on a shiny thing beside him. He shot up and wiped the pine needles off his face.

  That was not there before, he thought.

  An antique covered serving platter sat before him. How it had gotten there? He wanted to know what was inside, but, at the same time, he was terrified about what he might find. He grabbed a long stick and, from a safe distance, slid the end of it under the handle and lifted the cover. His mouth watered when he saw what was inside: scrambled eggs, buttered toast, bacon, grits—all of it steaming—and, on the side, a glass filled with pulpy, fresh-squeezed orange juice.

  How was this possible? Was it a dream? A drug flashback? He picked up a piece of toast, smelled it, and took a miniscule bite. It was real, and it tasted fine. In fact, it was delicious. He waited a moment to make sure he had no adverse reaction, and, satisfied that the food was not poisonous, he set about devouring it. Orange juice ran down his chin as he guzzled. The bacon disappeared in two bites. As the eggs dwindled, he noticed an image beneath them on the plate. He pushed the rest of the eggs to the side; there, painted on the ceramic, was an arrow pointing west. Things were just getting weirder.

  He sat there staring at the arrow. He could look at this in two ways, he reasoned. Maybe someone was trying to help him. He hoped that was the case. But his fisherman’s mind feared otherwise. What if the breakfast was bait? What if someone was trying to lure him into a trap? The implication of waking up to a hot meal in remote woods disturbed him deeply. It meant, after all, that someone had crept up to him while he slept, placed the platter beside him, and snuck off. He finally convinced himself, however, that whoever had done it could have simply killed him in his sleep if they wanted to. What did he have to lose? He finished the last dollop of grits and set off toward the west.

  The wind gusts and cloud cover intensified throughout the morning and the woods grew darker as midday edged into afternoon, a clear sign that Hurricane Juan was drawing near. He trudged through towering stands of trees where nothing but pine needles and pinecones covered the ground, through dark and shady oak hammocks from which long curls of moss waved in the breeze, and, finally, to a black river ambling north. He sat on the riverbank and rested. Palmettos had sliced his legs and he splashed water on the cuts to clean them. He noticed a set of horse hoof-prints in the mud, and then he heard a stick break somewhere behind him.

  He spun around and gasped, startled to see the same dark hooded figure he had seen on the road. The figure fled through the woods, the back of its robe swirling like a tail, and shot into a coppice of willow trees, disappearing among the shadows.

  “Who are you?” shouted Zane, but no one replied.

  He walked toward the thicket but he did not get far before something caught his eye. It was an arrow—an Indian arrow with a stone arrowhead—sitting on a log. He picked it up. The arrow pointed north, so he headed in that direction, along the riverbank. As he walked, he ran his fingers over the sharp arrowhead, which was fastened to the shaft with strands of real sinew. Someone had gone to great lengths to create an authentic replica, he thought.

  Moments later, he entered a clearing strewn with stones and grass-covered mounds. As he walked farther, he saw crude lettering on the stones and realized they were grave markers. Bundles of fresh wildflowers leaned against two adjacent graves. He knelt by the nearest one and brushed away the lichen that obscured the letters. Mela, it read. He wiped off the next marker. Yaraha.

  Weird names, he thought, and he continued north.

  He soon came to a knoll that rose as high as the treetops. It seemed out of place among the otherwise flat terrain, but, given its height, it looked like an ideal way to get a better view of his surroundings. The ground crumbled and crunched beneath his feet as he began to scale it. He looked down. Below its thin layer of grass and soil, the hill was composed of old, sun-bleached shells. How had they gotten there? The river could not have deposited so many, even in a flood, he thought. Maybe someone had dumped them there—but who? Commercial fishermen? Indians?

  Regardless, the soft ground made the hill too difficult to climb, so he stumbled down and continued north until he came to another arrow—this one drawn in the dirt beneath a maple tree—pointing east. So, east he went, and he soon came to a trail running north through the woods. Where did it lead? Even though the last arrow pointed east, an actual trail seemed like a better option for someone lost and wandering in the wilderness, so he chose to take it.

  He gazed up at the swaying trees and thick, low clouds and wondered how much time he had before the brunt of the hurricane would be upon him. The last place he wanted to be during a major storm was in the woods, lost. He grabbed the doubloon around his neck and rubbed it. Mid-step, he heard a shout from the woods.

  “Stop!” said the voice, but as his foot came down, the ground below him collapsed and he had the terrifying sensation of falling into a pit. He hit the bottom with a thud and pain shot through his body. He tried to move, but it felt as if he were attached to the ground. A wave of dizziness swept over him when he saw the wooden spike protruding from his abdomen. Blood pumped and pooled around it like oil from a cracked cylinder.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  “Please do not go!” cried Mela, but Dominic grabbed his sword and made for the hut’s doorway without even looking back at her and the infants.

  Francisco stepped in front of the doorway to block it. “This is not the way, commander.”

  “Step aside, old man,” said Dominic.

  “You will ruin everything. You will spoil God’s plan.”

  “There is no plan but mine.” Dominic stuck the tip of his sword into Francisco’s shoulder blade. The old man cried out. A trickle of blood stained his robe. “From now on, you do what I say.”

  “Dominic!” said Mela. “Stop!”

  Dominic turned and looked at her. “You would just sit here and let things happen, wouldn’t you? That is not my way. I am saving my boy.” Then he glared at Francisco. “Move.”

  “If only…” said Francisco. He stepped aside and stared at the ground.

  Dominic stormed through the village searching for Utina. He rushed into the chief’s hut, but only Utina’s battered wife sat inside. She looked at Dominic, and at the sword in his hand, and then she raised her arm and pointed west, toward the center of the village. Dominic nodded. As he left the hut, the panther in the adjoining cage snarled at him. “Soon you will run free,” said Dominic.

  Continuing on, he saw Francisco stumbling through the village toward the exit, holding his shoulder and cringing. “Coward,” muttered Dominic.

  He found Utina drinking cassina around the central fire with Yaba, Itori and four other warriors. They all turned. Utina shot to his feet and threw his cassina shell to the ground. He looked at Dominic with eyes full of hate. The others stood as well. The sunbaked war trophies that hung from the surrounding poles imbued the air with vileness.

  First, Dominic eyed the warriors. He knew their names, their families. He had hunted and fished with them, helped them build canoes, and repair huts. He hoped they would not get in his way, especially not Itori.

  Dominic then turned his gaze to Utina. The two men stared at each other for a moment, and then Dominic stepped forward. “Yati tacato,” he said. No sacrifice.

  Utina glared at the warriors. “Iqui ano.” Kill
him.

  The guards approached Dominic, surrounding him on all sides. Itori stayed back, but Utina screamed at him and he advanced with the others.

  Dominic looked at Itori and said, “Brother?”

  Itori looked down. Dominic did not want to do it—the natives, after all, had no idea what he was capable of doing to them—but in order to save his son, he would have to take action. The positioning of the natives was almost too ideal. His mind rehearsed a swordsman’s maneuver reserved for exactly such a scenario of being surrounded by enemies. Spanish soldiers would have been aware of it, but these poor natives unknowingly stood in just the right place for Dominic to slice them apart all at once by whirling around a full revolution. He had done it many times before, always with great success.

  Dominic straightened his back and clenched the sword handle with both hands. He spread his feet apart. “I’m sorry,” he said to Itori, but as he poised to turn, Yaba raised a small tube and blew into it. Something ejected from the other end and hit Dominic in the neck. It felt like a wasp sting. He yanked it out but, as he did, his arm felt numb. The muscles in his limbs weakened and his sword fell out of his hand and soon he could not feel his own body. He collapsed on the ground. He saw the warriors coming at him but he could not even raise his head off the dirt.

  At Utina’s command, the warriors lifted his limp body. Even though Dominic could not feel anything, he was still aware of his emotions—and nothing but anger coursed through him. He yearned to gouge Utina’s eyes and beat him to death.

  Utina shouted another command and the warriors carried Dominic out of the village and down the trail to the river. Dominic tried to speak. Release me, he thought, but his mouth refused to make the words. He was locked within his body, terrified.

  As the warriors approached the edge of the river, Itori broke away from the group and paced. Dominic felt the warriors swing him back and then heave him forward. Their hands released him and he splashed into the black river. His body came to rest on the algae-covered bottom. He thought about swimming—he envisioned it, in fact, until his head throbbed—but his body would not follow any command. His lungs throbbed. He thought about the alligator and the dead boy.

  Moments later, something brushed against his back and he felt a sharp pain in the skin of his arm. Suddenly he was dragged upward. When Itori wrapped his arms around him and pulled him onto the shore, Dominic realized that there was a fishhook stuck in his arm, and Itori was holding the fishing line.

  “I…catch…you,” said Itori, smiling.

  Unable to turn his head, Dominic looked at him from the corner of his eyes. Itori laid Dominic on the muddy riverbank and ran off toward the village.

  Dominic was soon able to wiggle his fingers, then move his hand and lift his entire arm. The poison that Yaba shot into him, it seemed, was wearing off. Within an hour, Dominic regained enough mobility in his legs to stand and walk. He thought about Mela and the infants. An oppressive sadness enveloped him when he realized that he could not go back to the village, not without a weapon. But he had to do something; he could not let his son die.

  He stumbled onto the forbidden trail, past the gawking skulls on the posts, past the animal bone harbingers, past the abhorrent figurines hanging from trees, and stopped when he came to the Spanish helmet. Perfect. He pulled the sword out of the helmet and ran his fingers over the blade. It was smaller and lighter than his sword, but it was sharp and certainly better than some archaic spear or arrow. Next, he scooped the cobwebs out of the helmet and ran his finger over its pointed brim; the metal was sharp enough to slice skin. He donned the helmet; it fit snugly, better than his own ever had.

  As he set off down the trail, Dominic savored the coldness of the metal on his scalp. He felt like himself again. It was time to make things right. It was time to conquer. He would start with the traitor.

  He came to the clearing in which he and Mela were wed. It looked different in daylight—less magical, perhaps—and the image of his bride in her garland of wildflowers flashed in his mind. He stood there staring at the little oak sapling jutting from the ground. No higher than a toddler, its trunk was so thin that it swayed like a ballerina with the warm breeze gushing out of the woods. The last rain had washed away some of the ground cover and exposed the tree’s upper roots. Dominic pushed a mound of dirt around its base.

  “Never give up,” he said, and then he continued on.

  He soon came to a dilapidated shack—the rectory, he guessed—and crept inside. The air was dank and sour. “Old man?” he said, but as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw no one inside. A large, yellowed bible sat open on a crooked desk. The old man’s robe, with its new bloodstain, hung from a hook on the wall. A crude Madonna carved from a piece of pine sat in a recess above the doorway, her eyes and face blemished by the sap that still exuded from the wood. If he were a religious man, he might have thought she was crying.

  Dominic left the rectory and found a trail behind it that led through the woods. He turned a corner and the air became cool and damp, as if an afternoon rainstorm had just passed—but none had. He pushed through dense foliage, the leaves of which dripped with condensation, and he soon smelled something fresh in the air, something pleasant. It was the scent of agua dulce—fresh water—but it seemed fragrant and wonderful in a way he had never before known. As he continued on, the vegetation became lush and verdant. White butterflies flitted about. A dragonfly with a prismatic blue carapace landed on his arm, tasted it, and then zipped off. The birdsong in the hollow, coupled with the rustling of wind through innumerable leaves, was almost cacophonous.

  I could stay here forever, he thought.

  The trail broadened and he lost his breath at the splendor of what lay before him: a pool of water, wide as a galleon, clear as cold air, electrified with shades of blue more dazzling than the coralline shallows of the tropics. The water in the center of the spring welled up in undulating layers that bulged on the surface and disappeared as they spread. The rim of the pool, almost perfectly round, was bordered on all sides by a steep earthen incline swathed in ferns and flowering plants. Colossal trees created an all-encompassing canopy above, and, below, their roots reached out from the shoreline like errant veins, all vying to dip their spindly ends into the water.

  Dominic stepped to the edge of the rim. He recoiled when his eyes found Francisco sitting naked and wrinkled at the waterline below. The old man was an anomaly staining the otherwise pristine dell, a whore among virgins. Francisco cupped his hand in the water and splashed his shoulder wound. Then he took another handful and sipped it.

  “You selfish pig,” said Dominic. The old man jumped up and grabbed his loincloth from a nearby root to cover his shriveled bits. He squinted at Dominic.

  “God almighty,” said the old man. “Hernando?”

  “Pardon?”

  Francisco leaned closer. “Oh, it is you. I thought for a moment you were someone I once knew. I see you found his armor.”

  “Come up here. Now.”

  Francisco hobbled up the steep embankment and Dominic pressed the tip of the sword into his neck and forced him to his knees.

  “I know you are upset about your child,” said Francisco, “but perhaps we can pray together for God’s will to be done.”

  Dominic pressed the sword in harder. “No will but mine is to be done.”

  Francisco made the sign of the cross over his body and whispered a prayer.

  “Quiet,” said Dominic, his eyes on fire. “I want answers to my questions. If you try to mislead me or speak in riddles or mention God even one time, I swear I will kill you.”

  Francisco smiled. “As you say, commander.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Pardon me. My mind is not right.”

  “That has been obvious since the day I met you. Never mind. It is time for answers. First, I want you to tell me, and tell me true, who was Hernando?”

  “Ah, yes. Hernando. So many memories, both good and bad. Hernando, comm
ander, was a brave and noble Spanish soldier. He was also my brother. And, a long time ago, I took his sword—that very one in your hand—and put it through his head.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Boom. Boom. Boom. The sound jarred Zane’s eyes open. In his waking delirium, it seemed as if he had been gobbled up by some monster and was seeing its rib cage from the inside. As the fog of deep sleep wore away and the pain in his belly sharpened his mind, he realized he was simply looking at a low ceiling lined with wooden rafters.

  But whose building was it? He breathed through his nose; the mustiness he smelled, though, did nothing to help him identify his surroundings. He remembered the spike that had been sticking out of his gut and wondered how he was even still alive. In that instant before his mind had gone to black, he recalled, he did not even have time to think more than a glimmer of a thought, but the thought was this: I end now.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. Zane sat up, wincing, and looked for the source of the noise. The room was dim and cavernous and filled with things—so many things, in fact, that they all blended into one amalgamation of clutter—but he saw no people. The walls were lined with shelves that held what had to be thousands of books, and the books that could not fit on shelves were stacked in precarious waist-high piles all over the wooden floor. Most of the books looked old and worn.

  “Hello?” said Zane. The only sound that returned was another series of loud booms.

  Zane realized he was lying on a wooden table. He swung his legs off and felt warm liquid run down his lower half as he stood. How much blood had he already lost? He was afraid to look at his wound. When he did, however, his eyes widened with surprise. Someone had bandaged him. But who? The hooded phantom? He touched the dressing; it was soaked with water, without even a trace of blood.