A white glow shone through the window. Dominic and Zane looked out to see the police cruiser pull up, its windshield wipers going at full speed, its headlights illuminating the deluge. The car doors flung open and The Law and The Taxman jumped out and ran to the porch. They pounded on the door.
“Mister Cowhead!” said The Law. “Let us in!”
Dominic went to the door. “It’s not safe here!” he shouted. “Come back after the storm.”
“It cannot wait. We have to talk to you now.”
“About what?”
“About the blood we found in that abandoned U-Haul. Open up.”
Dominic unlocked the door and put his hand on the doorknob, but the glow in the window went dark.
“The headlights went off,” said Zane.
“What the hell?” The Law said outside.
Two gunshots rang out, followed by a reverberating thud. Zane recognized the sound as that of a body falling on the front porch. There was another gunshot, and then the voice of The Taxman yelling “Drop it!” and then a series of louder gunshots that sounded like they came from right behind the door and then another thud and then nothing but the grumble of distant thunder and the spray of rain on the walls.
Dominic pressed his ear to the door. Zane did the same and heard a raspy whisper outside. “Help me,” it said.
“What do we do?” said Zane.
Dominic turned the door handle. “We help.”
Wind rushed in as Dominic opened the door. Zane peered out. Spent bullet casings littered the porch. Two bodies—The Law and The Taxman—lay side by side. Part of The Law’s head was pulp and his shirt and skin were peeled back around a large hole in his chest. The Taxman, however, was still moving; his chest rose and fell in slight, jerky spasms. The bullet hole below his right shoulder gurgled each time he breathed. His glassy eyes wandered to Dominic and Zane. “I don’t want to die,” he whispered.
Dominic loomed over the man. “He doesn’t have long.”
“Can you help him?” said Zane.
Dominic gazed into the darkness. “I can carry him to the spring.”
“What about Miguel?”
“I can’t let an innocent man die.”
Zane took a deep breath. “I’ll help you.”
“No. It’s too dangerous.”
“You can’t do it alone.”
Dominic looked at Zane for a moment. “Come on.”
Zane and Dominic each took an arm over their shoulders and hoisted The Taxman. As they stumbled down the porch steps, the man winced. “Where the hell are you taking me?” he hissed.
“Quiet,” said Dominic.
The rain softened into a fine, swirling mist and by the time they reached the spring it had fully abated, as had the wind. Zane looked up, surprised to see the stars more vivid than he had seen them in years. “Is the storm over?”
Dominic glanced up. “No. We’re in the eye. We probably have ten or twenty minutes before it picks up again.”
A large tree had fallen into the spring, its upturned roots reaching out of the ground like a deformed hand. The bank was littered with broken branches, shredded greenery and flower petals that had been stripped by the wind. Dominic and Zane carried The Taxman down the steep embankment and laid him in the water. He gasped. His body tensed. His lips parted and he pulled in a short breath.
Dominic leaned down and whispered something in his ear; The Taxman nodded once, glanced at Zane, and then nodded again.
“My church, she’s blowin away!” The accent was unmistakable. Dominic and Zane gazed up to see the preacher looming at the top of the embankment.
“I told you to leave,” said Dominic.
“I did, but then he found me,” said the preacher.
“Who?”
“The horseman.” The preacher’s eyes jerked to the side and there, stealing out of the gloom, came Miguel on a horse. Miguel glared down at Dominic and Zane, his eyes dark and menacing and his hair as disheveled as the wind-ravaged foliage around him.
“Odd night for a swim, don’t you think?” he said. He jumped off the horse and held his gun to the preacher’s head.
The preacher trembled. “Please don’t, sir.”
“Tranquilo, mi amigo gordo. As long as our friends here cooperate, that little brain of yours will stay in your big fat cabeza where it belongs.”
“What do you want?” said Dominic.
Miguel smiled. “To make a deal.”
“I’ll never make another deal with you. I don’t want you coming here anymore.”
“Oh? You’d cut me off just like that? This is my spring.”
“The kid told me about the murders. There was to be no more killing unless it was to protect the secret. We both agreed.”
“Oh, and tell me, Mr. Cowhead, how well have you been protecting the secret? Do you think I don’t know about the others? How did you decide which ones should die, and which ones to spare? You pretend like you’re some changed man, but deep down you’re as much a killer as I am.” Miguel aimed the gun at Dominic.
Dominic trembled. “Do it.”
Miguel did. In the darkness Zane saw the red-hot bullet zip through the air and hit Dominic square in the chest. Dominic fell back into the spring and sank out of view. Miguel aimed the gun at Zane.
“Where did you hide my coins?” said Miguel. “Tell me, and I will let you go.”
Zane had no choice. “They’re on the beach. I buried them, in that sea turtle nest.”
Miguel seemed to ponder it for a moment, and then he smiled. “Smart boy. Shame you have to die now.”
“You said you’d let me go!”
“Did I?”
Miguel pulled the trigger. Click. He pulled it again. Click. He threw down the gun. “Guess we have to do this the old-fashioned way.”
Miguel headed down the embankment. Zane stepped backward. “You don’t have to.”
“Oh, but I do.” Miguel grabbed Zane by the neck and thrust his face into the water. Zane reached back and tried to pull Miguel’s hand off his neck, but Miguel was too strong. In his panic, Zane inhaled water, coughed, and inhaled again. Numbness spread through his body and there came a harsh buzzing in his ears, as if his head was infested with cicadas. But he also felt a surprising peace and clarity.
How ironic, he thought. I’m going to drown in the fountain of youth.
But then Miguel’s hand suddenly released him.
Zane pushed himself out of the water and crawled along the bank, gasping and coughing. He looked up. Miguel stood motionless, gazing out at a Spanish conquistador standing waist-deep in the spring, the waters around him teeming with starlight. It was Dominic, wearing an armor helmet and holding a sword, his eyes on fire.
“It is time to rid the world of your stench,” said Dominic, and, with the furor of a beast, he charged Miguel. They tumbled onto the bank and rolled on the ground. Dominic lifted the sword high with one hand and aimed the tip at Miguel’s head and brought it down with great force but Miguel dodged it and the sword stabbed deep into the soil. Miguel grabbed Dominic’s face and squeezed it. Dominic pulled the sword out again and pressed the blade against Miguel’s neck.
“What about your vow?” said Miguel.
Dominic stared into Miguel’s eyes with tempestuous anger. “I will break it for you.”
“Then you will lose your soul…” said Miguel. The preacher’s boot smacked into Dominic’s face and the helmet rolled off Dominic’s head, stopping at Zane’s feet. Miguel, now brandishing the sword, towered over Dominic. “…as well as your life.”
Miguel thrust the blade deep into Dominic’s chest. Dominic’s body stiffened and arched off the ground, and then it fell limp.
“Sorry, boss,” said the preacher, looking down at Dominic. “I got a better-paying job.”
Miguel slapped the preacher on the back. “That you did, my plump assassin. Now, please finish our work.”
The preacher pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and stepped toward Zane. In
the deepest range of his voice, he said, “The Lord sent thee on the way, and said, go, and kill the sinners!”
Zane backed away. “What about thou shalt not kill?”
The preacher smiled. “Power was given to him over the earth, to kill with sword, with famine, and with death, and with the beasts of the world!”
The big man thrust his knife at Zane. Zane ducked and came up holding the conquistador helmet. He swung it at the preacher and felt the brim of it slide across the big man’s neck. The preacher stood there dazed, and then he let out a little cough. Blood gurgled out of his mouth and, at the same time, out of the gaping incision on the front of his neck. His eyes rolled back and he dropped to his knees, and then he fell onto his side, and blood came surging out like a torrent.
“Oh, well,” said Miguel. “I probably would have had to do that anyway. Who could afford to feed him?”
Miguel approached with the sword. Zane backed away until his shoulders pushed up against the trunk of the fallen tree. “Please, I’m young.”
“So what? Does it really matter if I kill you now or you die in fifty years?” Miguel put the tip of the sword against Zane’s forehead and brought it down lightly across his face until it came to his neck. “Do you know how many wars I’ve fought in? Name any major battle in the last few centuries and I was probably there on the front line, reveling in the chaos, basking in the bloodshed. The men I fought with and against are now dust, so I can say with certainty that your life is nothing but a spark—here today and gone tomorrow—and when I’m still fighting a few centuries from now, I won’t even remember what you looked like.”
A dark, robed figure appeared behind Miguel. Its arm rose up and jabbed the preacher’s switchblade knife into Miguel’s shoulder. Miguel screamed and spun around and slammed his fist into the hood. The figure crashed to the ground and lay motionless.
“You filthy rodent!” shouted Miguel. He reached back and pulled the knife out of his shoulder and threw it in the water, and then he turned again to Zane. With two hands he lifted the sword above his head. Zane cowered. Miguel hesitated, however, when a deep growl emanated from the edge of the bank above. Miguel slowly turned his head. He shuddered. Two yellow eyes glowed in the darkness. The panther stepped into view.
“Get outta here,” said Miguel.
The panther’s nostrils twitched. Its gaze fell upon Miguel’s bloody shoulder wound. Zane recalled the last words Mama Ethel had said to him. The cat’s gotta eat if he smells any meat. He looked at Miguel and said, “You’re the meat.”
Miguel kept his eyes locked on the panther. “What did you just say?”
“Eat, Alvar!” yelled Zane. “Eat!”
The panther sprang off the ledge. Its mouth clamped down on Miguel’s shoulder and its claws ripped into his sides and together man and animal tumbled down. Miguel’s screams and the panther’s snarls melded into one horrible yowl until all that remained were the sounds of crunching bones and a tongue licking wet flesh.
Zane backed away and stooped beside Dominic. Dominic was still breathing, but his breaths were labored and heavy, and the wound in his chest spurted blood like a little geyser. Zane grabbed Dominic’s shoulders and pulled him toward the spring.
“No,” said Dominic. “No water.”
Zane stopped and let go. “Why not?”
“The balance.” Dominic coughed. “Here, this is yours.” Dominic opened his hand, revealing Zane’s doubloon necklace.
Zane reached for the doubloon but stopped. “That belongs to you,” he said, and he closed Dominic’s hand around it.
Dominic coughed again. “Will you hear the rest of my confession?”
“What do you mean the rest?”
“I told you most of it in the house.” Dominic smiled, which looked like it hurt. “But there’s one more thing.”
“Okay.”
Dominic drew a deep, raspy breath. “Time has helped me find peace with most people. And it’s helped me find peace with the man upstairs. But there’s one person I haven’t forgiven, someone I’ve been at war with all my life.”
“Who?”
Dominic’s gaze fell toward the spring. “Myself.” His hand delved into his shirt and pulled out the end of an old rosary that hung around his neck. He pinched one of the beads. “But tonight,” he whispered, “I surrender,” and his whisper stretched into a soft breath which was his last.
Zane sat there staring at Dominic for a long time, confused by what he saw. Was it real, or a trick of light? He tilted his head and moved closer. Sure enough, Dominic’s mouth was curved up in a tranquil smile.
Movement caught Zane’s eye and he turned to see the robed figure stirring on the ground. He crept over and pulled back the hood. It was the mysterious woman, her eyes closed and her lower lip bleeding.
“Mela?” he said. “Are you Mela?”
“No.” She opened her eyes. “I’m Isa. Mela was my mother.”
Chapter Thirty Seven
The Taxman sat on the front porch rubbing his fingers over his healed bullet wound. He shook his head and creased his brow, his expression wavering between astonishment and fright. Zane and Isa sat nearby, side by side on the door jam, staring out at the high gray clouds moving like a glacial river across the sky—the last wisp of the hurricane.
“So,” said Zane, “how old are you really?”
Isa smiled. “You’re not supposed to ask a woman her age.”
“Well, what about your brother?”
“Yaraha and I were adults when my mother died, and my father gave us a choice. We could stop aging, or we could go the way of nature. I chose to stay with my father. My brother, though—he was more like our mother. He never went near the spring, and one day, just after his eightieth birthday, he had a heart attack and died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. That was hundreds of years ago.”
The thought of being alive for so long sent fear into Zane. “What’s it like to live forever?”
Isa looked into his eyes. “It’s lonely.” Then she gazed down. “I carry within me the last blood of the Timucuans, and my other half comes from those who decimated them. Every day I can feel them fighting inside of me. I’m their last battlefield.” She looked at Zane again, this time with tears in her eyes. “That’s what it’s like.”
Zane sighed. “It’ll be hard for me to get used to living away from the ocean.”
“It won’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to stay here.”
“But your dad said I was sent here, sent here to guard the spring.”
“That’s what he believed at first, as did I. He asked me to stay hidden until we knew for sure. But then we realized that you are too good, that you don’t have the fire in your eyes.” Isa smiled and touched Zane’s hand. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“Then who will guard it? You?”
Isa shook her head. “No, not me. Now that my father is gone, I will leave soon. I want to experience a normal life. I want to die like everyone else.”
“Then who?”
The Taxman stood. “Me.”
Zane’s face went stark with shock. “You?”
The Taxman nodded. “That’s what Mr. Cowhead whispered to me down by the water. And I can’t deny that this spring, whatever the hell is in it, saved my goddamn life. If this thing got out into the world… take it from someone who has seen the worst in people, it would be a very bad thing.”
“What am I supposed to do?” said Zane. “I’m a fugitive.”
“I can take care of that with one phone call,” said The Taxman. “Kid, I have to tell you something. I didn’t give a damn about catching you or bringing Miguel Orellano to justice. I wanted that gold for myself.”
Zane felt a flush of anger, but he could see from the sadness on the man’s face that regret had torn him up. The Taxman sat down on the porch steps and gazed at the clouds. “People died because of me.” He buried his head in his hands.<
br />
…………………………
A meld of elation and sadness whirled around in Zane as he drove Dominic’s sputtering old pickup truck down the road. Isa had tossed him the keys and asked him to promise that he would come back for a visit. He would think about it, he told her.
He took his foot off the accelerator as he passed Café Risque. He smiled when he saw Destiny’s old Buick in the parking lot. He recalled lying on its roof and staring at the universe and missing every chance to kiss her. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. He thought about Lucia. No one could ever replace her. He stepped on the gas pedal.
Traffic swelled as he pulled into Gainesville. He found the Spinner and saw his father’s SUV parked in front of it. He hurried inside and searched the crowd until he saw his father sitting at a table with some woman, but his father did not see him. Skip took a sip from a glass of ice water and said something to the woman. When the woman smiled and shifted her hair, Zane’s mouth dropped open. Mom?
Zane wasn’t sure what shocked him the most—the fact that Skip and Samantha were sitting within fists’ reach of each other, or that Skip was not guzzling something hard. Samantha pulled Skip’s glass of ice water toward her and took a sip—out of the same glass. Zane slunk away and fled through the exit.
Shands Hospital was one of the most imposing buildings in town, and as Zane parked and looked up at it, nausea swirled in his stomach. He put his hand on the truck’s door handle but hesitated. His eyes came to a plastic water bottle in the cup holder. Someone had scribbled on it with a marker. For Zane, it read, and then below that, For Ever. He stared at the bottle for a long time.
The air inside the hospital lobby felt uncomfortably cold. Zane walked up to the receptionist. “Can I get the room number of a patient?”
The Sound of Many Waters Page 25
