Dagger Key and Other Stories

by Lucius Shepard

  he feels that he’s being lowered

  into a deep well,

  a spiritual depth,

  a hole bored into the bottom of the world

  from the world below…

  …and the more he drinks, the deeper he sinks, until it’s as if he’s at the end of a long tunnel, a place that the sun, although he sees it shining, cannot warm, and the wind, although it stirs the leaves around him, cannot reach. And it’s then that he starts to sense Annie’s presence and the presence of other spirits, too. The grass at his feet ripples with the passage of a snake duppy, the shade of a lizard, and the vine matte shakes itself as if some old ghost is shouldering on its cloak, the cowrie shells clacking together. The base of his neck prickles as Annie begins to settle over him, a cloud obscuring his soul. On the verge of passing out, he sees the vine matte shift forward, moving at the pace of a very old man taking hobbling steps. Something is dislodged from the matte, a bundle wrapped in a grimy sack, bulky, dropping with a clank onto the ground. Drool escapes the corner of Fredo’s lips, eels onto his chin. His head lolls, his eyelids flutter and a thick, glutinous noise issues from his throat. He stretches a hand out toward the sack, wanting to touch his treasure, to see its golden glory…but a crunching in the brush stays him. A voice, Wilton Barrios’ voice, says, “Fredo…” The remainder of his utterance is obliterated by Annie’s fury, a fuming hiss, like fire drowning in rain, that swirls around Fredo, seeming to occupy a space both inside his head and without. In his confusion, he’s inspired to struggle to his knees. Ignoring Wilton’s booming, unintelligible speech, he pushes up to his feet, staggers, braces with one hand on the ground, inadvertently gripping a fist-sized rock, and then he straightens, swaying, half-possessed, blinking in sunlight that has suddenly grown too warm and too bright. The world steadies around him. The vine matte snaps back to its customary position against the rock face; the vegetation seethes with the ordinary actions of the wind. Wilton swims into focus, wearing a sweated-through Cuban-style shirt that’s hiked up over the revolver stuck in his waistband, a confident look on his jaundiced, jowly face.

  Effortfully, Fredo says, “Best you go from here, Wilton.”

  “Now what I want to do that for? You going to shoot me with that rock?” He draws the revolver, trains it on Fredo’s chest, and nods at the sack. “This what you been hiding up here? Mon, you got to show me where you hide it. I been searching three years, ever since you put the fear of god in that professor, and I ain’t never find it.”

  “You not going to steal my property, mon.”

  “I ain’t going to do nothing but. Drunk as you is, think you stop me?” Again, he indicates the sack. “What you got in there? The professor say it a bag of pirate gold. You shouldn’t have scared that mon so bad. He couldn’t leave off talking, and him so angry with you.”

  The vine matte shifts, rattling its shells, but Wilton does not appear to have noticed. He sidles toward the sack, keeping an eye on Fredo, and picks it up. “Heavy,” he says. “How much you got in here?”

  When Fredo does not respond, Wilton says, “Tell you what. After I fix my problems, if there’s anything left over, I split it with you.”

  Fredo grips the rock more tightly, trying to maintain consciousness and balance.

  “You might wind up with more money that way than if you sell it on your own,” says Wilton.

  “Listen here!” Fredo slurs badly and the words come out Liss’hyeer. He’s strangely concerned for Wilton’s well-being and wants to tell him to get away, to run, because nothing good can happen to him in this place, and he’s baffled by Wilton’s attempt to smooth things over. Wilton knows that stealing a man’s property, be it pirate treasure or an engine part, constitutes a blood crime on Dagger Key.

  The vine matte shifts again, and this time Fredo sees that the vines are draped over the frame of a wizened black Caribe, a frail, bony old man, his face so withered and wrinkled, it appears inhuman, a crafty disguise contrived by a lizard or a spider. The wizard shakes his vines, clatters his shells. He capers, moving with unnatural agility, as if he’s light as a thistle, adrift on a breeze, the clacking of the shells counterfeiting a dry cackle. Wilton sees him, too. The big man gives forth with a guttural cry, the sound of abject fear, and fires twice in the direction of the wizard…and Fredo, fueled by an anger not entirely his own, steps forward and, with all the force at his command, slams the rock against Wilton’s head, catching him on the temple. As Wilton falls, Fredo is on him, striking again and again with animal ferocity. He feels the skull collapse, the cracking impact of rock on bone yielding to a soft, plush noise that brings to mind Emily pounding on turtle meat to tenderize it. In horror, he scrambles away from the body. One whole side of Wilton’s face is covered in blood. A brown eye stares up at Fredo, the mouth open in awed regard, tongue lolling, and, overwhelmed by terror at his mortal sin, by drink, by things less nameable, he loses consciousness.

  Flies,

  tiny black emperors of nature,

  gather to their work,

  crawling black on red—

  their religious droning

  adds a monastic note;

  a heretic beetle walks up the cooling tongue

  into the damp cavity of the mouth,

  never to return,

  losing its way amid the intricacies

  of the flesh,

  the garden of the flaccid organs.

  Twilight…

  …and Annie wakes, stunned by a newly elaborate sense of the world, though not relishing it, not comfortable with the sudden wealth of impressions. She squats beside the body, reflecting on the uses of violence, remembering her violent life, arriving at a sketchy understanding of what has happened here, aligning her memories with Fredo’s. She takes Wilton by the arms, drags him to the lip of the notch, pushes him over the edge with her foot and watches him roll away into the brush. Fredo’s body does not suit her, but she approves of its strength. She picks up his gun, studies it briefly, then flings it after him. A gun has never been her weapon of choice. She goes to the sack, removes an object wrapped in rags of linen. She reaches deeper into the sack and brings forth a smaller object, which she unwraps. A dagger with a thin, double-edged blade, its hilt fashioned of horn, chased with filigrees of silver. Mary. She says the name to herself, tasting its bitter flavors. She tucks the dagger into Fredo’s boot, carries the sack to the vine matte and thrusts it in among the vines, deeper than one would think it could be thrust—they writhe, seeming to welcome it, the shells clacking ever so slightly. Moved by the notion of a duty sacred to her, she bows her head and prays to the blur of memory in which God is concealed, asking that His blessings be not so dire as is His wont. And then she is off, making her way with a stride that might strike the eye as less purposeful than Fredo’s, somewhat delicate and mincing, not quite a woman’s walk, nor yet a man’s.

  Inside the shadow

  of a fragrant jacaranda,

  the ground at her feet,

  carpeted by its lilac blossoms,

  Annie watches the window

  of the Germans’ bungalow,

  her attention held by the woman—

  how she sits with one leg raised,

  her knee drawn up, foot braced on a rung

  of a wooden chair,

  and the other leg outflung,

  as if she were in her petticoats,

  her stink doused with perfume,

  reclining on a harlot’s couch

  in New Providence.

  Framed by the lighted rectangle of the window, the Germans’ mood is easy to read. The man, Klose, is negligible. Weakness shines out of him. He fingers his wedding ring, plucks at his shirt, his anxiety displayed in every gesture. But Annie recognizes in the woman, Selkie, a strength akin to her own. The way she looks down at her breasts, inspecting the white cloth that covers them and flicking off a speck of imperfection, then restores her gaze to the window and smiles—like a woman who knows she’s being watched and enjoys the experienc
e. Another couple walks past, headed for the bar, and Annie steps deeper into the shadow. Once she is certain no one else is about, she enters the bungalow. The Germans stare at her expectantly; their eyes fall to the cloth bundle under her arm.

  “Is that it?” Selkie half-stands, then sits back down.

  Annie holds up her hand, cautioning them to stay put; she quicksteps into the bedroom, has a look around, then retreats into the outer room and lowers the window shade.

  “There’s no one else here,” says Klose.

  “Where’s me brass?” asks Annie.

  The Germans are confounded by the question, and Klose says, “What do you mean?”

  “Me brass,” says Annie impatiently. “The money.”

  Selkie says, “We will see the cross first.”

  Annie sets the bundle down on the edge of the table and steps back. The Germans come to their feet and Annie snaps at Klose, “You…sit! Let the bitch have a look!”

  Klose retakes his seat and Selkie—in her greed, unmindful of having been referred to as “the bitch”—leans over the table, begins unwinding the linen rags, going carefully, as if what they cover were made of glass. She gasps when she glimpses the gold and, when the cross is revealed in its entirety, its surface worked with carvings of birds and fruit, leaves and vines, symbols of nature’s abundance, the great ruby glowing like a heart, diamonds glinting coldly under the yellow light, it seems to Annie, as it always does, a pagan thing, an object of power…and Selkie, trailing her fingers over it, says in hushed tones, “Ach, du meine Gute!” She turns to Annie, apparently overcome, unable to speak, and, after hesitating a moment, she flings her arms about Annie’s neck, presses her lips to Annie’s mouth.

  If Fredo were the recipient of that kiss, he would almost certainly push her away, but his soul has been tamped down into a quiet corner by Annie’s cloudy presence, and it has been a very long time between kisses for Annie. The pressure of Selkie’s breasts, her pliant lips, the intimate physicality of hips and loins…it’s as though these sensations are restoring Annie’s body. A phantom body, yet she feels it nonetheless. Her nipples ache with longing, her quim grows juicy. She cups Selkie’s buttocks and pulls her closer, recalling another, firmer ass, and darts her tongue into Selkie’s mouth…

  the serpent-kissing,

  soul-stealing, silk-skinned,

  female-fleshed demoness of lust,

  licking pleasure from a woman’s slit,

  ’til it yields lavish, thick-flowing treasure…

  …Mary…

  …and then she does push Selkie away, roughly, recognizing that she is not Mary, but a whore who would get on all fours for a gentleman’s mastiff if the purse were sufficient, or even were it not.

  Klose is smiling, a crooked, febrile smile, and Selkie, flushed, wipes her mouth on the hem of her shirt with undue thoroughness, as if wanting to remove every trace of spittle, and Annie, her head spinning, dizzy from the kiss, no matter how false, once again demands her money.

  “In the cabinet. The one on the left.” Klose points to it. “Shall I get it for you?”

  Annie eases around the table to the cabinet he’s indicated. It’s empty, but for a biscuit tin. She removes the tin, rests it on the counter and pries up the lid. Packets of bills inside, each bound with a band that states the value of the packet is five thousand dollars. She tells Selkie to sit, saying that she has to make a count. Selkie complies, still dabbing at her mouth, and, their backs to Annie, the two Germans fondle the cross as if it were a thing alive.

  Annie counts one packet—as stated, it contains five thousand dollars. Counting the rest will be a chore, but she’s determined not to be cheated. She counts three packets…or was it two? She’s not sure. Three, she decides. She glances over at the Germans. Selkie looks at her and smiles, then goes back to admiring the cross; she whispers to Klose. Partway through the fourth packet, Annie loses the count and has to start over. She’s muddleheaded—from the excitement, she thinks, and she tries to concentrate. Twenty, forty, sixty…sixty. She can’t recall what comes next. A wave of lightheadedness seems to lift her and she realizes that something is wrong. She’s unable to hold a thought in her head and two Selkies, both insubstantial, both wavering, are smiling at her. Klose says…Annie’s unclear as to what he says. The words reverberate, seeming to overlap. And Selkie laughs, a giddy, high-pitched cascade of musical tones that serves to destabilize Annie further. Selkie parodies a kiss, her lips making a smacking noise, and laughs again.

  The fat sow is mocking her, Annie realizes, and that recognition centers her, spurs her to act. Furious, she bends down, reaching for the dagger tucked in Fredo’s boot. Blood rushes to her head. The linoleum tile of the kitchen floor confuses her. It’s too close. It takes her several seconds before she understands that she has fallen. Her eye locks on the pattern, an abstract of yellow and gray, like gray swirls of cloud in a yellow sky. She strains to move, to stand, but succeeds only in stirring, her hand scrabbling, scratching at the tiles. Poison, she thinks. They’ve poisoned her somehow…and then she remembers the kiss, Selkie’s scrupulous wiping of her mouth. Fury takes her again and she pushes up from the floor, but a foot planted between her shoulderblades flattens her. Their voices swoop and curvet above her, one high, one low, intermingling like two currents. Beneath her, gray clouds larded with white folds are racing in a yellow sky, running away toward the rim of the world, a flickering dimness toward which Annie, too, is borne…

  …into an abyss

  painted with demons,

  like the bole of that opium pipe

  Jack smoked—

  he pointed them out to her.

  This, the Demon of Black Rope Hell,

  And this one,

  the Demon of Unsavory Appetites.

  You’d think he’d be fatter, wouldn’t you?

  And here be

  the Demon of Lost Hope,

  my favorite. How twisted and pale he is!

  An eye peering

  from each of the hundred sores

  spotting his sour flesh. Pity the sinner

  who falls to him…

  Jack!

  Those demons now

  reaching out for her…

  …and on the far side of that dimness, after a night of undetermined length, Annie discovers the clouds are no longer racing, the yellow sky is once again a floor, the demons stoppered up in their bottle. She comes to her knees, disoriented, head pounding, and becomes aware of the silence in the bungalow. She struggles to her feet, grabbing the counter for support, and makes her way to the bedroom. The closet’s empty, all the hangers unused. Anger and distress fuel her. She’s been dishonored, cheated, robbed of the pittance for which she sold the cross, and…As her head clears, her intent sharpens and she draws her dagger, holds it by her side as she goes out into the night. The moon hangs an insanely jolly, silver Jack o’ Lantern grin amid countless stars and the beach gleams white, its silicates sparkling. No one is about. The cabin cruiser is gone. Annie walks to the end of the pier, gazing across the glittering sea toward Honduras. That was their plan: Honduras. But common sense tells her that they have changed their plan. They would choose to return to Mexico with their treasure, then to Germany. They’ll be west of Cay Cuchillo, and not far. Not nearly far enough. An hour or two, no more.

  “Stand easy!”

  The watchman, coming along the pier, his antique rifle at the ready, shirttails belling in the breeze.

  “That you, Fredo? What you doing here so late?”

  In his fifties, already an old man from hard work and drink, the watchman’s grizzled face relaxes from its stern expression as he approaches. An unsteadiness in his step, rum on his breath, he lowers the rifle. Beyond, the shadowy outline of his dory notches the beach.

  “You been drinking?” he asks. “You such an early riser, I expect you must be drinking, you out this late.”

  “Which way did the Germans sail?” she asks.

  “The Germans?”

&nb
sp; “The cabin cruiser,” Annie says. “A man and a woman.”

  “Oh, yeah. Now that a peculiar thing. They claim they off to Puerto Cortez, but far as I can tell, they headed for the Chinchorro Bank. They all turned around.” A chuckle. “Hope they knows what they doing. A mon can come quickly to grief out there.” He lays his hand on Annie’s shoulder. “Let’s have us a drink, Fredo. I got a bottle under my chair.”

  Without hesitation, Annie seizes the opportunity, drives the blade of the dagger deep into his abdomen, gives it a twist as she pulls it free. Before he can cry out, she yanks back his head, exposing his throat, and slashes him across the windpipe. The watchman falls, convulsing, and he is still convulsing when she wrenches off his belt and nudges his body off the pier. She hops down into the water, dragging the body under, holding her breath. Working blind, she secures him to a piling with the belt, leaving him among barnacles and tubeworms and crabs, all the little feeders for which he’ll provide a delightful feast, floating beneath the pier at a depth that will hide him until any urgency attaching to his loss has been forgotten. She strikes out for the beach, swimming with a strong, confident stroke. She’ll take the dory, go after Klose and his bitch. When she finds them, and find them she will, they’ll wish the Devil had come in her stead.

  Early morning on the Chinchorro Bank. The sun burns a ragged hole through a pale blue, papery sky. A string of bone-white, lizard-haunted islands rises out of waters a thousand meters deep, the visible portion of a coral reef that stretches forty miles and more, from Belize into the waters off Quintana Roo. Fringed with mangrove, dabbed with spinach-colored vegetation, some of the islands bear living trees, but dead trees abound, their naked limbs hung with osprey nests. Overlying the reef, the sea is a patchwork of light and shadow, here dark over a bottom of yellow-green manatee grass, here a sun-dazzled expanse of aquamarine over white sand, dark again where a forest of feathery gorgonians overgrows a sloping shelf, brightening as Annie crosses a shallows above a bed of lettuce coral…She feels the slow, persistent beat of the coral’s mind on the perimeters of her consciousness, watches the reef’s traffic of angelfish and sergeant majors, tangs and jackknife, obeying the direction of that mind, flitting back and forth in schools, slaves to its unguessable purpose. She knows these waters, as much as they can be known. Ships out of Cartagena would ply north to Havana, then sail the western passage along the bank, and the William would lurk by Cay Lobo, picking off the weakest, though Annie would urge Jack to seek bigger prizes. She was ever hard on him. On the day he was taken to be hanged, she told him she was sorry to see him in chains and on his way to Deadman’s Key, but if he’d been more of a man, put up more of a fight, he might have avoided that fate.