Them Bones

by Howard Waldrop

  The upper deck of the boat loomed above me, the light in the pilot house a blue box against the starry sky. There were a few crewmen on deck, a few Northerners or Arabs. One was fishing off the lower deck with a long pole.

  The first bullfrogs of spring were croaking. I heard an alligator grunt. The aplisade of the village was a darker blot on the sky, with a few firelights showing through the mud chinking.

  I had forgotten how big the River was, how full of sounds it was at night, how many mammals, birds, fish, and insects made noises. It all came back to me on the deck of the ship.

  Even with the blue lights around me, the Milky Way was a slather of white across the sky, and the stars shone with round flickering brilliance on the darkness.

  ‘Ah,’ said el Hama as he came on deck, ‘let’s sit near the stern.’ Pillows were brought out and we sat ourselves down. ‘More coffee?’ he asked.

  I could have kissed him.

  ‘I have already sent for it,’ he said, smiling. ‘I noticed how much you enjoyed it. And now, we have many questions of each other?’

  ‘Too many, I think,’ I said.

  ‘And I. Please begin, for I am host tonight.’

  ‘What year is this?’

  ‘By our calendar,’ he said, ‘it is the 1364th year since the capture of Mecca by the followers of Ibram the Prophet.’

  Mecca checks out. Who’s the Prophet Ibram? 1364? All the Islamic turmoil was in what, the 600s? This is what? Late 1900s? Maybe even 2000 A. D.?

  ‘Do you know of one named Mohammed?’ I asked.

  ‘The father of the Prophet? Not much is written of him in the Book.’

  ‘Uh, what about Jesus?’

  ‘I am not as much of a scholar as our physician – Send for Ali,’ he said to another merchant, then turned back to me. ‘Jesus? I think he was worshiped near Galilee, a small sect perhaps? I think he was stoned by his people. The Prophet lived near Galilee for some months during his exile, I think, when he was cast out of Medina.’

  Another man came out, bringing his own pillow, and seated himself next to us. He was introduced to me as Ali the physician.

  ‘He asks of people mentioned in the Book,’ said el Hama, ‘but he asks strangely.’

  I sighed. ‘What about Egypt?’

  ‘The mother of all nations,’ said el Hama. ‘Old before the stone fell from the sky at Qabba.’

  ‘Well, that’s a start. We share that. What of Greece, Athens, Sparta?’

  ‘Seats of learning and manliness,’ said Ali. ‘Light-giver and conquering state, of unparalleled achievements, whose glory lasted for centuries. You speak its language.’

  ‘What of the Romans and their empire?’

  ‘Who?’ asked el Hama.

  ‘I have heard of them,’ said Ali, shifting his spectacles. ‘They are barely mentioned in the histories. They were city dwellers who made war on their neighbours and conquered their peninsula. They fought mother Carthage. Twice, I think.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘The second time, Carthage, who only wanted free trade with all her neighbours, defeated these Romans and all their allies. I am told they made wonderful shepherds and farmers.’

  ‘So there was no Roman Empire?’

  ‘An empire of wool,’ said Ali. ‘We trade dearly for it.’

  ‘And Carthage?’

  ‘Oh, mother Carthage is still there. Only a minor seaport now. It was captured in the eighteenth year after the Prophet’s death. And all Africa north of the River Congo.’

  ‘What of Europe? The Church?’

  ‘Europe?’

  ‘The land north of the Mediterranean, west of the Bosporus. Uh, Dardanelles.’

  ‘Oh. A land of barbarians. The True Religion of the Prophet took it wholly and easily. What parts the Northerners did not already hold.’

  ‘What did you do when you met with them?’

  ‘We offered them forty percent,’ said el Hama. ‘They were great sailors and navigators. They knew the lands of the north from raiding them so often. One of them had already traveled to this land when the True Religion spread over the north.’

  ‘But there was so much land there,’ said Ali, ‘so much produce and trade that our merchants thought of coming here again only thirty years or so ago, when we developed power enough to make the journey easily. And now we have this whole new world of trade to manage.’

  ‘It seems so simple,’ I said. ‘Was there a Great Plague? Did the followers of the True Religion put the people whom they conquered to the fire and sword?’

  ‘Plague? There are always plagues of one kind or another,’ said Ali. ‘Little can be done with them. But a great plague, no. Hippocrates says that nations and cities must reach a certain size before the plagues become endemic. We have very few truly large cities.’

  ‘You kept Greek learning, then? What about all the lost books? What about the library at Alexandria? Weren’t all the books burned?’

  ‘Burn all those great works! What a horrid idea!’ said Ali. ‘But where is this place Alexandria? The great library is in Cairo, in Egypt.’

  ‘Alexandria the Great? Philip of Macedon? Darius the Persian?’ I said.

  ‘These names are unknown to me,’ said Ali. ‘Hamilcar established the great library at Cairo. Through the many contacts of carthage’s trade network, he had books brought there. They were there when the True Believers took the city. There they remain, though they have been endlessly recopied, and, I am afraid, many errors have crept into them.’

  ‘Then this ship,’ I said, ‘the lights? These are all applications of Greek science?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said el Hama. ‘That, and knowledge of our own, through many centuries of experiment and change.’

  I drank my coffee.

  ‘This will take some getting used to. You say it was thirty years ago your ships first came here?’

  ‘Oh, they’d been coming, one or two at a time, for centuries, by mistake or accident or foolhardy venturing. Sail was fine for the Indian Sea, or what you call the Mediterranean, or northern coastal trade, and West Africa. But for this western trade, you need something you can depend on. Steam. So it was only after we had dependable steam that the Consulate of Merchants sent trading expeditions here.’

  ‘And Took-His-Time was captured twenty years ago by one of them? Which is why he speaks Greek?’

  ‘What can I say?’ El Hama spread his arms. ‘As with all frontier operations there were unscrupulous things done in the name of commerce. Many of the unregulated traders carried out similar actions to gain advantage. Take young people, hold them in virtual slavery, use them as interpreters and so on.’

  ‘What is this place like, the whole continent, now?’

  ‘I’m sure Took has told you as much as we know. In the northeast, small hunting, fishing, farming groups. In the south – your east – are the mound-builders, like Took and his people. They go from the southeastern peninsula to just west of the Big River we are on. To the northwest, people poorer than the poorest nomads of the deserts of Egypt, a few of whom were brought back to our lands as curiosities by the unprincipled.

  ‘To your west, and southwest for a long way, is the country of the Huastecas. They are the meanest people we have met in this world, though they have a culture nearer to ours. We have a few trade stations to the south, but we really don’t like to deal with them much. Neither do your people. But they make such fine jewelry.’

  ‘And you trade up and down the River each spring?’

  ‘That is my mission now, though there will soon be others. The trade is so profitable, on both sides, that there is plenty for all, and the trade is so novel to each side that it will remain so. Other markets change, prices come and go. I’m told that right now you can burn cotton in Africa before you can give it away. But bring knives to the New Lands, or take furs back to Egypt, and your market finds itself.’

  ‘Yet you restrict your trade in certain ways.’

  ‘You speak of firearms, exp
losives, certain animals?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not through lack of profit, I assure you. But the Consulate of Merchants learned a great lesson in western Africa. Within twenty years of unlimited trade there, we were fighting ten wars, caring for thousands of refugees, and looking at denuded lands unfit for anything. The place had become desert, which year by year creeps farther into the jungle. That was six centuries ago, and we now know better than to do it again.’

  ‘That is why we were so surprised to see your horse,’ said Ali. ‘It is, as far as we know, the only one on the continent. If it is the only one, there will never be more.’

  This was the first time they had come around to a question for me. I prefaced my story by saying I didn’t understand all that had happened, and certainly didn’t expect them to.

  I told them what had happened in the world I came from as best as I could remember my history. I told them of Alexander, of Rome, of the rise of Islam (with the father of their Prophet as its leader), of Christianity, and of a Europe at first united then split by religion, of plague, wars, of science, everything I could think of.

  The more I told, the more it began to sound to me like a story of greed, folly and misfortune, like a tale told by a crazed and vindictive storyteller with a grudge against humanity.

  I told them of that last, terrible war, of the death and dying, and of that last valiant attempt, of which I had been part, to change all the terrible things that led to the war.

  When I finished, I thought they were going to applaud. Their faces were a little sad, but awed, as if I were an entertainer with a trick that had outdone all others they had ever seen.

  ‘Allah works with each of us in his own way,’ said Ali the physician.

  ‘Come back with us!’ said el Hama, suddenly. ‘There is a man they tell of in Baghdad who appeared one day years ago with a tale such as yours. He is dead now, but some of the learned who talked with him are still alive. Come back with us to the lands of learning, and speak with them.’

  ‘I doubt I could do anything but confuse them,’ I said. ‘Your invitation is tempting. Ask me again when you come back downriver. I’ll think about it till then.’

  I wondered if others in the Project had been tossed into this world. Or were there others from somewhere else, some other time than mine, or from the future or past of this world, or yet another?’

  I was tired. My mind could hold only so many things in it. I had reached my limit on novelty and culture shock.

  False dawn tinged the sky over the River.

  ‘You have been very helpful,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you enough.’

  ‘If you wish to go with us when we return, you are welcome,’ said el Hama. He shook both my hands with his. ‘We will return halfway through the next moon awash to the line with goods. And perhaps we can ride your horse again? One gets so tired of the ship.’

  ‘At any time,’ I said. ‘Thank you. And thank you, Ali.’

  ‘Take this when you go,’ said el Hama. One of the Northerners handed me a three-kilo bag of ground coffee.

  I felt like crying as I left – for myself, for losing my way, for ending up in this other, crazy world, for mankind. For the coffee. It was all too much.

  As they let the ramp down for me to get ashore, I heard one of the Northerners sneeze.

  Bessie X

  WAR DEPARTMENT

  21 July 1929

  RE: Serial Nos Possible US

  Army Personnel, yours 18

  July 1929

  Kincaid

  Salvage Survey

  c/o Dixie Hotel

  Suckatoncha Louisiana

  via Baton Rouge

  Dr. Kincaid:

  US DOInterior Veteran’s Bureau lists three names: one Mexican War died active duty Nevada Territory 1852, two GAR veterans one died April 1872 Abrams Massachusetts, one Old Soldier’s Home, Seip Va. DOBs do not match in any case. List w/particulars sent via US Mail.

  Daughters Confederacy, SA War Veterans, Navy-Marine Corps DOTreasury searches not yet completed.

  ETA Cpt Thompson, this command, NLT 2200 this date Hotel Dixie.

  Jillian,

  Act. Asst AGC

  THE BOX XII

  Smith’s Diary

  *

  April 12

  They brought Lewisohn and nine of the people who went out on the mission four months ago to the edge of the clearing this morning just after dawn. Their hands were bound behind them, and they were in bad shape.

  The Indians killed them by cutting their throats from behind, using their bodies for shields as they got back to cover.

  We couldn’t do anything. Someone ripped off a clip, but that only made one of the Indians drop a soldier’s body.

  The rest they took to cover. We don’t know what they did to them. Some of them were still thrashing and bleeding to death as they dragged them back into the woods.

  At first light this morning, the body they had dropped was gone.

  Everyone is in a silent rage, which is just what the Indians want.

  I don’t want to write any more for a while.

  Leake XII

  ‘But who knows the fate of his bones or how often he is to be buried? who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered?’

  –Browne, Urn Burial

  The messenger came into the village through the growing cornstalks, bringing the first written words I had seen in five months.

  He carried a piece of papyrus in a split stick. Took had the messenger sit down, and Sunflower filled him up with fresh squirrel stew. He was from three villages upriver and was anxious to get back.

  I opened the paper, but had to strain to figure out some of the writing. It was Greek but with flourishes; a few words I had to guess at.

  Friend Yazoo, (it began)

  We of the Trading Companions send you warm greetings. Business, the Prophet bless us, is better than ever.

  We shall return downriver in less than a moon’s turning, and hope to see you then.

  We ask you that you tell Sun Man and all your people to be on their guard. (Something) is unrest to the west of the River. The tiger-people (their name for the Huastecas, Took told me) have been seen more frequently than in the past, and are pursuing their (Flower Wars?) with much diligence.

  Word has come that one of the villages to the east of the River at which we traded has much sickness there now, so we will not stop there on the way back.

  Meanwhile, much care. Allah preserve us, and I hope I shall ride your fine horse again soon.

  Yours in business,

  el Hama

  I thanked the runner. He wasn’t supposed to wait for an answer (the letter, he said, came from six days upriver from his village). I gave him one of my pipes, the best one I had made, with a catfish swallowing a frog. He thanked me and trotted away.

  ‘Let’s go talk to Sun Man,’ I said.

  ‘He’s getting ready for the Black Drink Ceremony,’ said Took. ‘He has to start fasting at sundown.’

  We walked between the huts and mounds to the plaza.

  ‘By the way,’ said Took-His-Time. ‘Everybody’s been asking if you’re going to take part in the ceremony.’

  I stopped and looked at him. ‘That would mean they consider me to be one of the warriors, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Nobody else brought such fine heads back from the Flower War,’ said Took, shaking his head in sad recollection of my wasteful act at the creek.

  ‘What happens in the ceremony?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, the usual stuff first. Prayers to the harvest and the Woodpecker. Then all the warriors drink the Black Drink, and you shit and vomit for two or three days.’

  ‘Sounds wonderful.’

  ‘Cleans out impure thoughts. Makes for a great harvest. I was sick for a week last year, but we sure ate good the early part of last winter, didn’t we?’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Well, Hamboon Bokulla and his gang are all implying t
hat you like to have all kinds of warrior fun without any of the responsibility.’

  ‘Barfing is a responsibility?’

  ‘In this case,’ said Took, ‘yes.’

  ‘Well, okay,’ I said.

  ‘Okay,’ said Took. ‘No breakfast tomorrow, and you’ll be sorry if you eat a big supper tonight.’

  We walked a little farther.

  ‘Next thing you know,’ I said, ‘everybody’ll be wanting me to get my dong whacked.’

  ‘Well,’ said Took, ‘there’s been some talk. . . .’

  ‘Count me out.’

  We went to Sun Man and told him what the note from the traders said.

  *

  We were all sitting in a big circle saying prayers. My mind was in neutral. Somehow I’d gotten seated between Moe and Dreaming Killer. They were really into it, rocking, chanting. Sun Man, over at the top of the circle, was off in some other world, he was praying so hard and fast.

  They were mostly thanking the Woodpecker and the harvest, and then two priests brought out this big boiling vat of something. It looked like crude oil and smelled like hot aniline dye. They dipped in three big bowls, holding two, and gave one to Sun Man. He stood up with the bowl.

  ‘Great Woodpecker,’ he said. ‘Great Harvest Woman. With this drink we cleanse ourselves of impurities, and our mind of bad thoughts. We will all think of a great harvest. Let no one here be unworthy. Let anyone with unclean thoughts about the crops be struck dead as he takes his drink. Great Harvest Woman, Great Woodpecker, hear us!’

  Then he drank two great big swallows.

  They passed the other two bowls around, each man taking a drink, their faces screwed up in disgust and agony as their throats worked.

  Took had told me it was considered polite to sit in the circle at least until the bowls made it all the way around, no matter what your stomach and guts did. I was halfway around the ring, so wouldn’t have it as bad as those next to Sun Man. Took had already drunk his, and was stolidly saying something to his neighbors.