Water and Stone

by Glover, Dan

  Ado realized the truth. In order that the stone could do no further harm he said nothing to anyone, wrapped the rock up in many layers of fur, and took it to the faraway mountains. He climbed the highest peak and finding a cave at the summit buried it deep under the ground.

  On his way back home Ado spotted his remaining son lurking in the undergrowth at the base of the mountain. It was clear the boy had followed him and that he knew where the stone had been buried. All his subterfuge had been useless. He knew that his son would dig up the stone, claim it for his own, and the cycle would repeat.

  As he notched an arrow in his bow to slay his remaining son Eva came upon him from behind with a cudgel knocking Ado to the ground before he could free the arrow to fly on its appointed journey. As he lay stunned Eva bashed his head until brains leaked out his ears. She then picked up the bow, notched an arrow, and shot her son in the back as he ran away from the scene of the crime.

  Having dispatched her rivals for the stone, Eva went to its burial spot, dug it up, and carried it away with her to parts unknown. All mention of the stone faded away for hundreds of thousands of years though the rumors of its existence swirled around the black arts

  Now, it had been found again.

  A searing pain in his shoulder brought Billy up to the brink of consciousness... he was floating across the room. No... he was being carried in a sort of stretcher.

  "Be careful, Yani... I think we're hurting him."

  "He'll die if we don’t get him some help... don’t drop him, Rancher... do you need to stop for a minute?"

  Looking up Billy saw an old man on one end of the stretcher and Yani on the other. The man looked vaguely familiar but he couldn’t quite place who he was or what he might be doing here. It seemed odd that Yani was calling him Rancher... he had never known another man besides his father with that name.

  Sleep was stalking him again... his eyes were so heavy he couldn’t keep them open. Just as he slipped beneath the surface he heard his mother calling to him.

  Chapter 36

  She wallowed deep within a love dream.

  Seeing Church walk into the greasy spoon where she spent her days and nights waiting on inappreciative customers and tolerating the sexual innuendos of her boss was like feeling the epiphany of an unexpected miracle blossoming before her eyes. Somehow, she knew her days as a waitress had come to an end.

  Waking next to him that morning sent her heart leaping and her spirits soaring as she remembered their night together... the tentative exploration... the longing of the flesh she tried without success to stifle finally giving over to the mad desires racing through her mind.

  Church was a man this morning, no longer the boy she once knew... something about him had changed though Tree couldn’t put her finger upon exactly what it was. A sort of confidence radiated from his face even as he slept.

  It had been her first time... Church's too, judging from the reticent way he acted, though of course she doubted he would ever admit it. Her mother made a habit of reminding her about how her sister turned into the school slut and how she had to move away from Guthrie in order to live down her reputation.

  "Boys only want one thing, Teresa... and once they get it, they'll move on. Don't be like Janine... save your virginity for a man who deserves it. Don't go giving it away in the back seat of a Chevy like your sister did."

  Beth had been the smart and pretty sister while Janine was the dumb and pretty one... the girl all the boys were after, at least while she was in school. Once she graduated, however, she went to work at the local Wal-Mart, gained a hundred pounds, and married Jake, the one-time star quarterback of the Guthrie football team. The union lasted all of six weeks before Janine arrived back home with a mouth full of broken teeth and two blackened eyes.

  Tree overheard father and mother discussing her oldest sister's predicament and the next day Janine had vanished like early morning dew. When she asked where her sister had gone no one would tell her.

  "She decided to make a clean break of things, Teresa. Be happy for Janine... she's going to be fine."

  A month later came word that Jake had learned of Janine's whereabouts, stalked her, and shot her dead late one night after breaking into the grubby little apartment mother had rented for her on the seedy side of Dallas. Tree had been thirteen years old and the tales of Janine and her iniquities haunted her the rest of the time she spent in high school.

  She had vowed never to fall in love. It seemed far better to suffer the pangs of loneliness than to take a chance on giving over her heart to one of the local boys who'd only run roughshod over it and leave it bruised and bleeding in the dirty Texas dust.

  She hated Guthrie. When the wind blew out of the south the whole town stank of the sewage leaching into the dry creek bed upon which one of the town's genius's thought it'd be a good idea to build the waste treatment plant. Of course that was before the decade-long drought that took hold of the land but the townspeople should have seen it coming... the whole area had a long history of a dearth of rain.

  She hated the people of Guthrie who looked down their noses at her... the prom queen's homely little sister now relegated to serving up slop at the local diner. She despised the pretext of putting on a happy smiling face each morning to greet the cantankerous crowds of customers who frequented Guthrie's only diner but she told herself she had to do it... she had to earn enough money to set herself free of the life into which she'd become entrapped.

  Most of all she hated her parents for taking out the guilt they felt over losing their first two daughters on their youngest one. Mother was the worst... she constantly harped at Tree every time the girl tried to make herself pretty by dabbing on a bit of makeup or buying a new dress to wear.

  Beth, the middle sister, was rarely mentioned any longer in that house... not since she up and vanished after making it known that she preferred girls to boys. Of course Tree knew that but it came as a hard shock to her parents, especially mother, who seemed to almost enjoy all the shame she must have harbored for having given birth to a lesbian.

  "For the life of me, Teresa, I don't know why you bother with such niceties. You were never a beauty like your sister was... you know that. You're just plain and no amount of fussing over yourself will change that fact."

  Father simply sat and listened as mother ranted and raved... Tree hated his meekness though at the same time she loved his tender side despite herself. She understood how beaten down the man was after thirty five years of marriage to a shrew who never forgave his failures as a husband and as a businessman.

  She heard the tirade in their bedroom through the paper mâché walls... night after night her mother's voice rose and fell like bestial tidal waves inundating the shores of her husband's ego as she harangued the man over his lack of willpower, the disappointment he had foisted upon her, and the hardships she endured all on account of his not being a success despite the ample opportunities afforded him.

  "My father—God bless his soul—actually thought you'd be someone. He handed you half the company he spent a lifetime building, and what did you do? You ran it right into the ground. My mother cautioned me against marrying you... Lord knows why I didn’t listen. She always knew you were no good. Look at you now... a fat tub of lard who can't even make love to his own wife."

  Father never said a word... or if he did, Tree couldn’t hear it. She wondered why he didn’t fight back, or at least leave. How much could one man take? By the time she was fourteen Tree began saving her pennies for the day when she could move out of that horrible house.

  Nobody seemed surprised when father was diagnosed with cancer. She watched as the man dutifully followed the prescribed regiment of drugs, waited in the hospital while he endured more surgeries than any person ought to, and prayed at his funeral with other family and friends.

  "I'm so sorry to do this to you, Teresa."

  It would be some of his final words. Mother did her best to keep her daughter away from father during his dying days as
they were called but sometimes when the woman left to do the shopping or to renew father's prescription medications Tree would creep into the death room, take father by the hand, and whisper nothings at his sleeping form.

  Late one afternoon when she reached out to touch him he opened his eyes and looked at her. There was a kind of a wild glow burning like headlights in his face as if he'd been dreaming of the hell that awaited him. His face was stubbly with beard, what hair he had left askew, and for a second she wondered if he even knew who she was.

  "You're not doing anything to me, father."

  "I'm dying, Teresa. Now that I'm finished she'll come after you. Run if you can... get away from here."

  His skin felt hot and dry as he grasped her hand in his, as if she was a life preserver someone had thrown to him. The light within his eyes was fading out like a candle burning low, flickering and catching again yet always less than before. She had a sudden urge to take him in her arms, to carry him far away to a place where he'd regain his strength. He wasn’t dying. He couldn’t be dying.

  She knew who he was talking about and she knew he was right. Mother had driven Janine to her death, Beth into exile, and now she was doing her best to defile father. Tree was sixteen years old, a shy and a lonely girl, and she had no idea of how to make it in the world all on her own. Still, she did as father advised... after he died she ran. She only made it three blocks before the sheriff caught her and brought her back to mother.

  "You have way too much of your father in you, Teresa. I pity the man you'll marry... if you can find anyone to take you, that is."

  Mother had said it while shaking her head, the same way she always talked to her... as if her only remaining daughter was her biggest regret in the world... as if she would rather Tree had never been born.

  Within days Tree was wishing the same thing... though life with mother had never been easy, now it became a perpetual waking nightmare. She was taken out of school and remanded to her bedroom. To make sure Tree didn’t get any more ideas about wandering away, mother shackled her leg to the floor using a padlock and a chain meant for a dog and just long enough she could reach the bathroom.

  The metal chafed her ankle. Though she tried tying cloth underneath it to make wearing the chain at least tolerable it did no good... the rubbing caused blisters at first and then blood coagulated around her ankle like a macabre scarf.

  "What are you doing with my clothes, mother?"

  "Oh, don't you worry, Teresa... you won't need them any longer. Remove the clothes you have on and give them to me. I'm going to take everything and burn it in the back yard. That way if you get any more ideas about running off, you'll have to do it naked."

  The woman had gone mad. Tree could see it in her eyes. She did as she was told, took off her clothes, and stood there naked with them in a pile at her feet. When mother bent over to gather them up Tree looped the chain around the woman's neck—the same neck where she wore a necklace with the key to the padlock on her leg—pulled it taut, and waited until the struggle ceased.

  She didn’t like looking into mother's dead eyes. They seemed full of recrimination... as if the woman had expected no more of Tree. When she tried to close them they opened again as if the woman still lived. After she wrapped a sheet around mother's head she felt less guilty for doing what she told herself had to be done.

  Or did it?

  It was easy enough to cut up the body... mother had always been a tiny woman so her arms and legs fit nicely into one trash bag, her head in another, and the carcass in a third. Tree worked in the nude mindful of forensic technology which could detect even minute blood splatters on clothing.

  "You just wait until they find out what you've done to your own mother... I always knew you'd come to no good, Teresa."

  "Shut up, mother... you're dead."

  The voice kept on harping on her... even after she had cut off the head, stuffed the mouth full of crumpled up newspaper, and put it into one of the contractor garbage bags she bought at the Dollar General special for the job.

  She could hear it even now, well after the time she took the remains of mother out into the hardpan where she dropped the bags separately into deep yawning cracks in the dried out earth afterwards spreading liberal doses of caustic lye to help facilitate the decay process.

  "He'll turn on you too, Teresa... you'll see. That boy is a heartache waiting to happen. Just look at him... do you really think he loves you? He'll have his fill soon enough... now that you've given him what he wants I doubt he'll be around another day."

  "Shut up, mother... I know you're not really here."

  She got up from the bed, walked to the window, and pulled the draperies back just enough to reveal the beginnings of the day. It seemed odd how it rained so much in Louisiana. She shivered staring at the early morning drizzle.

  "Did you say something, Tree?'

  "Church... you're awake! I was just talking to myself... it's raining again."

  Skipping barefoot and naked back to the bed she snuggled next to the boy's warm body as she fought off the rages of her mother's screams deafening her ears.

  Chapter 37

  It'd been too easy.

  Dealing with Church had always been an obnoxious chore so far as she was concerned. Even when he was a boy he grated upon her nerves. Perhaps it was his method of seeing through her in a fashion few others had ever done, or maybe she simply disliked him... either way, she'd be glad when he was dead and buried where no one would ever think to look for his body.

  He believed everything she said. Of course she'd groomed him to do so from the time she arrived at the chabola and took over the daily chores of watching the boy while Yani spent her days working at the hacienda for a man who'd not only deflowered her but abandoned her in the bargain.

  If she didn't need Yani she would've dispatched all of them by now. It hurt her to think the girl was capable of trying to kill her... she knew it was her sister who was firing the gun in the night with scant regard for anyone's safety.

  The fresh blood dripping through the ceiling of the cellar told her that Billy'd been hit. He was useless to her now anyway... even if he survived the bullet wound she'd have to quell the charm she put upon him. It would take but a breath over sand to do so and as she blew it in his direction she knew the thing planted inside of him had died. It was for the best. If any doctor examined the boy and found what was within him all hell would break loose and not her kind either.

  Yani was her only hope. Using Church to lure them away from the chabola had been little more than child's play. The boy had always been receptive to her suggestions even from afar. He probably thought it was really Lorraine Ford visiting him outside the chabola... of course he did... otherwise he wouldn't be coming here now.

  He'd soon set the piedra right at her feet just the way she'd foretold. With it she could forge a new life far away from the dusty Texas ranch where she'd spent way too much time catering to the uninitiated.

  Cuba beckoned. It wasn't as unthinkable a journey now as it would have been ten years ago though the island was doubtlessly still a poverty-stricken place shunned by most of the civilized world. Then again, perhaps that was just what she needed... a poor place to hide, to cultivate the powers of the piedra.

  The island called out to her with its soft Caribbean breezes, the sun-warmed sand between her toes, and the fresh scent of the sea washing over her body. Perhaps the ocean breezes might wash away the odor of disease and death that seemed a continuous if unwanted companion to her for far too long. Even her clothes stunk of it.

  She wondered if their ancestral home was still there in Cuba... probably not... and even if it was someone else had doubtlessly taking possession of it. Still, she could put things to right.

  Had she underestimated the boy? Was he coming to her or for her? She had to be ready for either eventuality. She was the stronger of the two... any trick he played she would foresee and make adjustments in her actions to nullify the ever-present danger he might po
se.

  Though he was easy to lead he was hard to read even up close. She noticed it right off on the night he was born. He had a way about him that abbreviated her own skills at probing his psyche making her frustrated and causing her to say things she later regretted. Telling Yani to drown her child was a mistake. It had set the girl at odds with her at the time when she needed her most.

  Was that why Yani had tried to kill her tonight? Did she really think a bullet could do what so many others had attempted and failed over the years? She must have emptied a thousand cartridges shooting at the house and failed to hit her mark every time.

  It was finally quiet upstairs. Apparently her attackers assumed she had fled the chabola, packed up Billy, and taken him to get medical attention. He must still be alive, otherwise there wouldn't be so much blood. Would Yani admit to shooting the boy? Probably not... they would blame her for the deed, the one woman who had ever done anything of value for Billy.

  If they hadn’t attacked the chabola... shooting up the cabin and nearly killing both her and Billy, her plans would've come to fruition within a month. Why couldn’t they just leave them alone? She should've taken Billy back to Mexico where no one could find them.

  The thing was, where would they go? In order to insinuate herself into Billy's life and good graces she'd traded her whorehouse for a rundown piece of property not worth a quarter of what she gave for it. Billy had been ecstatic, however... apparently his father had been after that land for decades.

  Like all children the boy was forever seeking to impress parents that didn’t give a good potter's dam for him... if they had, father and mother would have taken him away from the disease known as Texas. They had the ways and means to provide a good life for the boy. Instead, they allowed him to be dragged down into the mire of poverty inhabited by vagabonds and ne'er do wells like Church and Yani.