Life During Wartime

by Lucius Shepard

  “Put that bitch away!” said Ruy, backing.

  Tully stood his ground. “You lookin’ strong, Davy. And feelin’ strong, too. Dat I can tell.” He gave Debora the onceover. “Dis dat Cifuentes woman, huh? She fah from unsightly, mon.”

  “What’re you doing here?” said Mingolla.

  “Same like you, mon. Panama!” The way Tully sounded the name, it had a ring of destiny, of great deeds in the offing. “I been puttin’ two and two toget’er, and Panama de sum I ’rive at.”

  Ruy had backed to the door of the wheelhouse and was about to slip inside; Mingolla told him to stay put.

  “Who’s he?” Debora asked; she had her own gun out.

  “Davy never tell ya ’bout Tully Ebanks?”

  Tully came a step closer, and Mingolla, realizing he didn’t need the gun, tucked it back into his waistband. “Be wise, Tully,” he said. “I can handle ya, no problem.”

  “I been ever knowin’ dat, Davy. Weren’t it me sayin’ you was goin’ to be somethin’ special? I seen dis moment from de back-time. And I still fah you, mon.”

  “Uh-huh, sure.”

  Ruy started into the wheelhouse again, and Mingolla cautioned him. “I’m gonna start this motherfucker up,” Ruy said. “You bastards wanna kill each other, go ’head. I got the fog to worry ’bout.” He ducked into the wheelhouse, and a moment later a grumble vibrated the hull, black smoke spewed from the stern.

  “You gonna shoot me, Davy?” Tully asked, and grinned.

  “I might,” said Mingolla. “Tell me why you’re going to Panama.”

  “Ain’t nowhere else to go. Must be a fool, took me so long to figure t’ings out.”

  “What things?”

  “T’ings I been hearin’…from Izaguirre and de rest. It alla sudden start makin’ sense.”

  Mingolla picked his way through the debris on the deck and confronted Tully from an arm’s length away. Tully grinned down at him, his seamed face as massive as an idol’s. Then his grin faded as Mingolla pushed into his mind, brushing aside his defenses and influencing him toward honesty. He asked Tully again his reasons for traveling to Panama, and Tully gave back a fragmented tale of clues, hints, things overheard, all leading to the same conclusions that Debora and Mingolla had reached.

  “Christ God Almighty!” said Tully afterward, staring at him in awe. “What de fuck happen wit’ you?”

  “Practice,” said Mingolla. From his brush with Tully’s mind he had gained an image of greed and strength, and underlying that, an essential good-heartedness that had been weakened by drugs and power. He thought he could trust him, but he was having trouble sorting out his feelings for him: an amalgam of camaraderie and antagonism.

  “Listen, Davy.” Tully adopted a conspiratorial tone. “We got to talk, mon. Work somet’ing out ’bout dis Panama trip. ’Cause I’m feelin’ it’s gonna be deep down there. We gonna need each ot’er.”

  “Yeah, we’ll talk.” Mingolla turned to Debora. “He was my trainer, he’s okay.”

  She dropped her gun into a tote bag, favored Tully with a suspicious stare, then went forward. The Ensorcelita rattled and lurched in the gray chop, leaving Livingston behind. “I hate dis fuckin’ sea,” said Tully, staring out over the water. “Damn, I hate it!” He moved close to Mingolla and draped an arm about his shoulders. “Been too long, ain’t it, Davy?”

  Mingolla muttered agreement, but shook off Tully’s arm. “What you wanna talk about?”

  “Well…” Tully leaned on the rail, adopted a stern tone. “To start wit’ you might wanna tell me ’bout why you messed wit’ my ’Lizabeth.”

  Mingolla didn’t place the name at first. “Oh, yeah…I don’t know, man. I was pretty loose back then. Sorry.”

  “Mon, dat little girl be cryin’ for a month ’bout you.”

  “I told ya I was sorry,” Mingolla said, irritated. “What you want me to do, go back to the island and fix her?”

  “I coulda done dat. But I lef’ her the way she was…figured dat her feelin’s keep off de ot’er flies. Naw, I just wantin’ to know if your conscience been vexin’ you.”

  “Not a lot,” said Mingolla. “I’ve been busy.”

  “You always did enjoy actin’ hard,” said Tully. “And now you hard fah true. But dere’s good in ya, mon. Dat’s clear.”

  “I don’t need my character analyzed, man. Tell me what you got in mind…y’got something in mind, don’t ya?”

  Ruy came out of the wheelhouse to stand beside Debora, who was looking back at the receding town.

  “Yeah, I got somethin’ in mind,” Tully said. “Back when I was fishin’, I spend some months in Panama. Got to know de country some. ’Case t’ings go sour down dere, dere’s dis place I know up in Darién. Kinda place where a mon can lose heself.”

  Ruy was talking, gesturing wildly, and his hand flicked across Debora’s breast, causing her to jump back.

  Mingolla brushed past Tully and, kicking garbage aside, stalked toward Ruy. “You better watch where you put your fuckin’ hands, man!”

  “It was an accident, David.” Debora stepped between him and Ruy, and Ruy smiled, shrugged.

  “Don’t get excited, hombre,” he said. “I got my own woman. Hey, Corazon! C’mere!”

  A woman popped her head up from the hatch that led to the cabins. Ruy beckoned, and she came up onto the deck. She was a little plump, but sexy nonetheless, with Indian coloring, regular mestizo features, and long black hair weaved into a single braid. She radiated a psychic’s heat, and in her left eye was the holograph of a dewy rose floating against a starless night.

  “Yeah,” said Ruy. “I need a squeeze, Corazon she gimme one.” He waggled a finger at her. “Open it up.”

  Corazon dropped her eyes and started undoing the buttons of her blouse.

  “Don’t do that,” Mingolla said.

  But Corazon didn’t stop.

  “You tell your woman what to do,” Ruy said. “Not mine.”

  The blouse fell open, Corazon’s heavy breasts spilled out.

  “Let’s go,” said Mingolla, guiding Debora toward the hatch.

  Behind them, Ruy’s voice was filled with amusement. “C’mon back and give her a squeeze, man! Y’don’t know what you missin’!”

  They sailed close to the shore, avoiding the cordon of warships that fortressed the deep water. The overcast held, and whenever the sun pierced the clouds, its vague light layered the sea with a flat uniform shine, making it seem they were crossing an ocean of fresh gray housepaint. The only event to break the monotony of the voyage was Ray’s ongoing attempt to seduce Debora. Each time she came on deck, he would pin her against the rail and regale her with testimony to his revolutionary zeal, tell stories about his villainy in service of the cause. When Mingolla asked if she wanted him to put a stop to this, she said, “He’s crude, but he’s harmless. And he’s really not so bad. At least his political conscience is genuine.” Her attitude was at odds with Mingolla’s: genuine was the last word he would have used to describe Ruy, and besides, he was mightily offended by Ruy’s treatment of Corazon.

  His initial impression of her had been that she was more than pretty, but he subtracted from that impression the exotic bauble embedded in her eye. You were drawn first to look at the eye, only then at the rest of her, and it seemed that the surreal beauty of the rose had created an illusion of beauty, that she was in reality quite ordinary. This secondary impression was enhanced by her doglike obedience to Ruy’s whims. Once, for instance, he had her dress in black pumps and an evening gown, pile her hair high and fix it with glittering jeweled pins that resembled bunches of tiny flowers, and set her to scrubbing the decks, a chore that took her most of the night and left her dress in tatters. She went about with her head down, rarely speaking to anyone, and would flinch at the sound of Ruy’s step.

  But one night as Mingolla walked along the companionway belowdecks, heading for his cabin, he heard Corazon’s voice coming from Tully’s door, which was cracked an inch open. “No,
I don’t feel nothin’,” she was saying.

  “Hell you don’t,” Tully said. “Can’t fool me ’bout dat.”

  Through the door, Mingolla saw Corazon standing by Tully’s bunk, wearing only panties. Lantern light flashed off the rose in her eye.

  “Why you want me to feel?” she said. “Feelin’ don’t mean nothin’. I don’t wanna feel.”

  “Dat’s horseshit,” said Tully. “Dat’s just how Ruy want you to be…he like you to be dat way. And for some reason I can’t unnerstan’, you t’ink dat’s upful.”

  “I have to go.” She shrugged into her blouse.

  Tully, hopeless-sounding: “You be back?”

  Mingolla didn’t wait for the answer, ducking into the vacant cabin next door. When he heard Corazon’s footsteps retreating, he crossed to Tully’s door and pushed on in. “You’re playing with fire, man,” he said. “We don’t need trouble with Ruy.”

  “Ain’t gonna be no trouble,” said Tully, lying back on his bunk. “And if dere is, den we fix he head for him.”

  “I just as soon not scramble the brains of a man who’s sailing reef waters,” said Mingolla.

  “Don’t be worryin’.” Tully heaved a forlorn sigh. “Mon know alla ’bout me and Corazon. Fact it were his idea, her comin’ to me. He like to have her tell ’bout how it is wit’ ot’er men.” He slammed his fist into the mattress.

  “What’s the matter?”

  The lines on Tully’s face appeared to be etched deeper than before, like cracks spreading through his substance. “Damn fool, me,” he said. “To get taken wit’ some squint at my age…’specially one dat ain’t even taken wit’ herself.” He made the muscles of his forearm bunch and writhe, watched their play. “She enjoy t’inkin’ ’bout herself like she a doorstop or somethin’. And the damn t’ing is, I know she feel fah me, ’cept she won’t ’mit it.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t feel anything,” Mingolla suggested. “Maybe you’re kidding yourself.”

  “Naw, she feel it all right. She just shamed by the feelin’. Goddamn women, dere feelin’s is most all de power dey got, so dey likes to go fuckin’ ’round wit’ ’em, y’know. See how fuckin’ twisted dey can make ’em, and den get a mon all cotched up in dem.” He hit the mattress again. “Can’t figger how she got dat way.”

  “Could be Ruy’s doing.”

  “I don’t t’ink so. De woman been t’rough de therapy, she got no reason to bow down to Ruy. Naw, ut strike me she been like dis awhile.” Tully held up his fist to the light, examined it: like an alchemist inspecting a strange root in the rays from his alembic. “But, mon, I could have fun fah a few minutes alone wit’ dat son of a bitch.”

  “That wouldn’t be real smart,” Mingolla said. “We need him right now.”

  “What ‘smart’ got to do wit’ anyt’ing?” Tully glowered at Mingolla. “You t’ink it’s smart de way you carryin’ on wit’ dat Cifuentes woman? T’ink dat don’t ’fect your judgments?”

  “Least she’s not spoken for.”

  “Naw, but Ruy he gotta yearnin’ fah her.”

  “He’s just flirting.”

  “Dat not what Corazon say, she say de mon have fall hard.”

  “Then that’s his tough luck.”

  Tully snorted, stared at the ceiling. “You sure as shit still gotta lot to learn, Davy.”

  Mingolla perched on the edge of the bunk. “So tell me ’bout Panama, man. This place you talking ’bout.”

  “Dat’ll keep.”

  “What you got better to do…brood?”

  Tully said nothing for several seconds, but finally sat up. “Guess you gotta point. All right, I tell you. Dere’s dis little village name of Tres Santos up in de Darién Mountains. Here”—he grabbed pencil and paper from the table by the bunk—“I draw a map.” He kept talking as he drew. “It ’bout four, five hours from Panama City…less dere’s mist. Den you could be a week gettin’ dere. Or maybe you take de coast road ’long de Pacific and come at Tres Santos from de west. Less mist dat way.”

  “What’s there?” Mingolla asked.

  “Not’in’ ’cept Indians. But in case t’ings go to hell in Panama City, Tres Santos be a good place to start a run.”

  “Shit, they’d find us there.”

  “Dat’s true…Tres Santos open to the sky. But from dere you can cotch a trail dat lead into de cloud forest. And once you up in de clouds, you can’t be stayin’ dere, neither. But you can hide your tracks. De Indians dey be helpful and you say to dem my name. Dey show you de secret ways, and no matter who will follow, you take dem ways and you will be far away ’fore de dogs can trace your scent.” He held up the paper, studied it. “Dere…you hang on to dat ’case t’ings don’t work out in Panama.”

  Mingolla tucked the map into his shirt pocket. “What were you doing up in the mountains? Thought you were fishing.”

  “I were fishin’ all right…fishin’ under de meanest mot’erfucker dat ever put on a braided cap. We hit Colón, mon, I were over de side and runnin’ fah he cut the engines. Had me a time, too. Dat Darién some wild country.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Most of it just wilderness, but de cloud forest now, dat’s somet’in unusual fah true.” Tully folded his arms behind his head. “Dere’s villages up dere where de sun never comes…even on de brightest day dere’s mist, and the air look like it fulla some kinda shiny atoms, y’know. And when you see a mon walkin’ toward you, wit’ de mist swirlin’ ’round him and de sun givin’ him a halo, it make you t’ink you gone to Jesus. And it’s quiet. Every sound’s muffled by de mist, and you cannot judge de distances ’tween t’ings. You get de feelin’ dat de place is made of mist, and dat de distances is always changin’. You will hear wings beatin’ and see only shadows, and de jungle ’pear like it movin’ slow, all de vines writ’in and twistin’ like snakes. And dere’s brujos. Witch men. You can see dere fires in de night, bloomin’ out in de solitudes, in de high places. Hear dere chantin’. And when de chantin’ cease, dere may come a black dog strollin’ t’rough de village, a dog dat belong to nobody, and dey say if you look in he eye, den you will learn of de mysteries.”

  A cold uneasiness had stolen over Mingolla as Tully spoke, but he denied it and merely said that the place sounded interesting.

  “Oh, it dat all right. But dat ain’t why I told you ’bout it.” Tully propped himself on an elbow and stared at Mingolla. “I got a feelin’ dat you gonna come dere someday, and dat’s de reason fah I make de map.”

  “I s’pose I might get up that way,” Mingolla said, affecting casualness.

  “Dat ain’t my meanin’, Davy,” said Tully. “You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. I got me a real deep feelin’.”

  It wasn’t until the second week of the voyage that Mingolla entered into another conversation with Ruy. He had been sitting beside Debora, who was sunning herself in a pale leakage of light through the overcast, watching the blackish green line of the Honduran coast, when Ruy came out of the wheelhouse carrying a cassette player and sat down by the door; he lit a cigarette and switched on the player. The volume was low, but Mingolla recognized Prowler’s rhythms and Jack Lescaux’s vocal style. He moved along the rail to within twenty feet of Ruy and pretended to be studying the shore, pleased to hear something familiar in all this foreign emptiness.

  “…a big red moon had squirted straight up from hell,

  and under it, I spotted my friend Rico,

  who was not my friend, then, owin’ me twenty,

  and I chased after him, yellin’ as we ran away…

  from that electric sun of midnight flashin’

  Twenty-Four-Hour Topless Girls! Girls! Girls!

  Yeah…Twenty-Four-Hour…”

  “Like that music, man?” said Ruy, cutting the volume. “I do.”

  Mingolla said it was okay.

  “Bet the little lady down there, she like it. Maybe I invite her over to have a listen. She look so sad, I bet it cheer her up.”

  “I doubt
it.” Mingolla turned a baleful eye on Ruy.

  “That Debora, she’s a nice little lady,” said Ruy expansively. “Real nice! She tell me you in love, but I know that’s the crap you gotta hand ’em to make ’em do de backstroke.”

  Mingolla hardened his stare but said nothing.

  “Love!” Ruy sniffed and flipped his cigarette over the rail; he shielded his eyes from the glare and peered toward Debora. “Yeah, she sure is nice. I’m tellin’ ya, man, this ain’t casual with me. I’m really feelin’ somethin’ for her. I’m thinkin’ ol’ Ruy can put a smile on her face.”

  “All you done so far is bore the hell outta her.”

  “Then maybe I try harder.” Ruy squinted up at him. “Tell ya what, we make a trade, okay? I’ll send Corazon to your cabin tonight, and you lemme see what I can do for the little lady.”

  Disgusted, Mingolla turned away.

  “Hey, you gettin’ the best of the deal, man,” said Ruy. “That Corazon, she got tricks that’ll notch your pistol.”

  Something occurred to Mingolla, something he’d been intending to ask Ruy about. “You remember a guy named Gilbey?” he said. “Short blond guy ’bout my age. He traveled with you ’round eight or nine months ago.”

  “Gilbey,” said Ruy. “Naw, uh-uh.”

  Mingolla searched his face for a hint of a lie. “You’d remember this guy. He was surly, y’know…had a bad attitude. Wouldn’t take shit from anybody.”

  “What you think?” said Ruy with menace. “I dump him over the side?”

  “Did you?”

  “You been talkin’ to them dumb cunts back in Livingston, that it?” Ruy climbed to his feet, adopted a challenging pose. “Listen, friend. I ain’t a nice guy, I’m a fuckin’ criminal! But I don’t throw nobody over the side ’less they begging for it.”