Clint Faraday Mysteries Collection B :This Job is Murder Collector's Edition (32 page)

“
Here’s a quarter for your concern. Use
it to spread the words or something. Just don’t try to spread it to
me, Okay?”

Clint noticed how he seemed to be totally
insulted – but he took the quarter. Clint almost laughed out loud
at him. The man in the seat behind let out a little snort. Clint
looked at him and grinned, which got him a grin in return. The man
had very blue eyes, rare in the Panamanian people. Clint thought
they must be contacts. Panamanians did like blue eyes.

About an hour later as they were crossing the
Enel Fortuna dam, The Most Reverend Whatever put his head against
the seat in front of them and was mumbling a prayer in what
approached abject terror. He was reacting to the magnificent vista
outside by never glancing out, but the dam is not something you can
ignore. The view to one side was of a beautiful river/reservoir and
a drop on the other of several hundred meters to the picturesque
river, which seemed a small creek from the distance. Clint felt an
urge to throw the ass’s words back at him, so pointed to the valley
to their left, then to the river and said such magnificence did
make one feel a reverence. It was humbling. Such a pity man built
that dam in that spot, forming the reservoir, not god.

He got a very sickly nod from his seat
partner. “I’m afraid of heights. Since birth.”

Clint forbore saying that must be a
punishment from god for something his parents must have done. It
couldn’t be a punishment to a newborn baby, surely!

He could picture the reply. It was a test of
faith. Clint would point out that a newborn baby needed a test by
an all-knowing god, of faith? Why would any test of any type be
needed by this all-knowing, all-powerful god?

It might pass the time, but was hopeless. No
one could reach the type.

On the other side of the dam Emanuel said he
often wondered what God’s plan was for him that would include such
a burden. He only knew for certain that God had a plan for him and
that it wasn’t for him to know or understand what that plan may
be.

Again, Clint was tempted to ask what the
purpose of acute acrophobia in a devout disciple could possibly be.
Wouldn’t that tend to deter him from spreading the word in these
mountainous places?

Yeah, right! The answer would be that he went
to such places in spite of the phobia to serve God! THAT could be
what the test was about! There was a paradoxical answer to
anything. Hopeless.

Just before Mali Emanuel said he suspected
that there was more than one god. There was one for Earth, but each
world where there were men might have a different one.

Clint said the Bible stated there was only
one god.

“
One God for this world! That is my
question. I pray daily for an answer. I have studied religion as
history. I have to agree that there were possibly, even probably
other gods in ancient times. God was victorious in expunging them
from this world. I believe this happened in the earliest times of
the Greek civilization. The later Greeks and the Romans simply took
the older religion – the older gods – and continued them. There
were, and still are, followers of those old religions.

“
I also have some questions as to the
writing of the New Testament. I see some very frightening
possibilities. It bothers me that it was written so long after
Christ’s ascendance into heaven. The writers, if they were who is
claimed, would necessarily be more than a hundred years old and
people didn’t live nearly that long back then.

“
I base my philosophy on the old
testament and try to discern which parts of the New Testament are
real and which are added later.”

“
That’s the Jewish faith.”

“
Perhaps. Much of it is, but
interpretations vary, even among the Jews. The Koran is also much
like the Old Testament. The problem I have is that God was almost
viciously cruel and was a greatly-feared being. I find that is not
what ... I don’t know! I believe in a loving and merciful God, not
a vengeful God!”

Clint said he would be better accepted if he
would simply lay his questions out to people and ask for help
finding answers. Don’t try to impress a faith on people who’ll
later learn how deep his own questions are of that faith.

“
You have found the deep basis for my
dilemma, I fear. My faith was always very strong, from a very young
age. My parents were, believe it or not, agnostics bordering on
atheists. Hippies. A man of very deep faith took me in when I ran
away from that sordid drug-induced lifestyle and introduced me to
The Faith. He was not so driven to ... spread the word, as it were.
He merely had me read the Bible to find strength to cross the
dangerous path into the future, for a map of which path leads to
the light and which to the darkness. My first fears were from the
Old Testament. The vengeful, cruel concept of God. I found great
solace in the New Testament – but was plagued with doubts and
questions.

“
I decided the truth was there, so
pursued that truth with intense study. I was twenty eight when I
knew I had the ultimate answer so set out to help my fellow man
navigate the path. I never wavered a millimeter from that path.
There was never a time when anything whatever clouded my vision. I
spent more than two years in that quest and found that the US is
deeply decadent. It is frighteningly so. Everything is the money,
the economy, the banks ... pointless pursuits that have become so
ingrained in the daily lives of most that they are unaware of how
they are controlled by a few powerful people. I am not a conspiracy
believer, yet it is obvious there is some kind of control of all of
our lives. It is just that I cannot find a way to have even a minor
influence against this travesty. None is so blind and all
that.

“
I decided to travel to places where I
may make a difference in the lives of people. I do care.
Deeply.

“
I find they have given me questions
that make no sense whatever in their answers. I find the native
indigenous people to be very simple and very unbelieving, yet they
are also well-suited to the very free life here. I wonder that I do
more damage than good with my beliefs. I also find observing them
and their ways leaves me with great doubts about what I perceive to
be ultimate truth. It is horrible!

“
You are a very accepting person, I
feel. I am aware that you find me to be ... irritating. Possibly
obnoxious. Perhaps there is reason. I watched the way the
indigenous people greeted you as you entered the bus. You are one
of them in spirit, which was the philosophy of my parents which I
rejected.

“
I have no warmth in my life. You have
it everywhere. You can see how troubled my soul is about this.
Nothing is as I first perceived ... that is not the word. I
expected it to be.”

“
It’s all about individual
perceptions,” Clint replied, quoting his rather weird
musician/botanist friend, Dave. “Reality is situational. Truth is
as situational. It’s a matter of what you might call the angle from
which you observe it. Life here is both very hard and very easy.
The Indios don’t need the same things people in cities and socalled
civilized areas need.

“
I’m not talking about things. I’m
talking about psychological points.”

“
I understand that they have no word or
words for ‘Thank you’ in their language, yet they quite obviously
appreciate help in many areas.”

“
They touch to say ‘Thank you.’ Words
aren’t necessary. They have a beautiful lifestyle. They live in
paradise and belong here. We don’t. I don’t believe in gods, but I
say ‘Thank you’ every day to whatever force may be that I’m
accepted by them. I love the Indios. They don’t need lessons in a
belief or faith or whatever. That’s an unwarranted incursion into
their lives.

“
If you want a suggestion, simply
observe them and try to understand where they’re coming from.
Almost everything they don’t seem to have turns out to be a thing
they don’t need and are better off without.”

He nodded. “I feel that is probably my
course. I must question my life and wonder if my mission is a
negative thing.”

“
It’s neutral. You can’t affect these
people. Stop questioning your own, as you call it, course in life.
Simply wait and observe. Maybe the answers are too obvious to see
from inside the box.. Get OUT of the box for awhile. You don’t have
to change the way you live or whatever. Just step back and take a
good long solid look at what the real world is. It just might
surprise you as to how the way you’ve always looked at things from
inside the states or inside your psychological box is almost the
reverse of reality. Reality can be viciously mean – or delightful.
You won’t know if you don’t go there.”

“
I believe you. I’ve been a blind ...
maybe just an ignorant soul who looked for answers to the wrong
questions in the wrong places at the wrong time. I’m really, as you
would say, screwed up, I suspect.”

“
Give it time and distance. Lay back
and relax. Meet people without expectations. That’s the Indio
philosophy. It boils down to the fact we’re all individuals. The
same things aren’t needed or wanted by everyone.”

He nodded again and sat back to look
thoughtful. The bus was going across a bridge where there was a
washout during the bad weather three years ago. There was a drop of
over two hundred meters right outside the window. Emanuel looked
down at it and giggled.

“
That didn’t bother me at all! It was
exciting and beautiful!”

“
Maybe the fall you were so afraid of
isn’t a physical one.”

“
I think perhaps you are right.” He
reached to touch Clint’s hand. It was obviously the way the Indios
said “Thank you” that Clint had explained to him.

“
As the gods said, ‘The truth shall
make you free!’ I think maybe that’s the one truth in all this
mess.”

“
That’s a fallacy in a lot of ways.
Don’t fall into another philosophical trap. Another view of the
truth can enslave you as much as the old one.”

He touched Clint’s hand again.

Chiriqui Grande

Clint walked along the dock to greet Moises
and Andres, two close Indio friends. He asked about the comarca and
they swapped a few stories over coffee. Things were, as always,
just moving along in the way of things. Clint told about the
overly-religious passenger on the bus. He said there was a very
small chance he was able to make the man step back and look at
reality instead of some place and code that existed only in his
mind.

“
I imagine that, in the United States
you could not reach his mind,” Andres, the more philosophical of
the two, said. “Here? Who knows?

“
The predictions you so studiously
avoided indicated a period of easy tranquility for the people on
the comarca. It has, once again, proven correct – so
far.”

They discussed the predictions in the
sunset that led Clint to a strange case (
Omen
) and other things. It was a pleasant time.
Clint stayed at a friend’s place in Chiriqui Grande, then took his
boat to Bocas Town in the morning to check on things.

Things were the same as he left them in Bocas
Town. Clint spent some time at his neighbor, Judi Lum’s place
catching up on the gossip. He told about his friends in Chiriqui
Grande and about things being, as usual, tranquil and pleasant on
the comarca. He told about his trip to Las Tablas and Chitre and
about the preacher on the bus.

“
I hate it when somebody tries to make
me accept some nutcase religion. I hope you did make him question
what he believed enough that he’ll stop doing it.

“
Yeah! Get real! They never
do.”

They decided to go to the Lemon Grass for
Thai food that evening, then Clint went back home to straighten out
his files and answer what of his e-mails he intended to answer. He
had more than fifty waiting. If he actually won all the scam
lotteries and bank transfers and such on them he would have over
ten billion dollars in the bank. As Judi so recently said, “Yeah!
Get real!”

There were eight legitimate mails he
answered. None of them critical.

He went into town to talk with people, then
laid around for a couple of hours until time to pick Judi up for
the dinner. They had a good time and ate an exceptional meal. They
went out of town a little way to a bar where the Indios spent a lot
of time. They stayed talking with a number of them (Judi was
learning the dialect), then called it a night when the “drunk
hours” approached.

The Indios have no resistance to alcohol. If
a majority of them have one beer they won’t stop until they’re
either drunk or broke. They will most generally change to seco or
other rum after a couple of beers.

They evolved without alcohol. The Europeans
and Asians evolved with it. Gringos had built-in resistance, many
of them, and could take a drink or three, then go home. What always
amazed Clint was how the Indios could get so drunk they literally
passed out in a ditch, then they’d get up in the morning and go to
work. If he got half that drunk he’d have a hangover for a
week!

Life was strange.

When Clint got home there was a text message
on his phone. From Emanuel. He said he was going to go to a few
small villages to, as Clint suggested, observe. He promised not to
mention religion and to shy away from talking about it if
asked.

Where did he get the phone number?