Jaguar (20 page)

His cattle offered him thrills beyond limit. At first he had been content to rummage their memories, sort through the back drawers of their minds. He played and replayed their most private experiences. The memories belonged to the cattle, yes, but the orgasms were his own.

Once, through the white pain of awakening, he felt his sheets being changed under him and the voice of an orderly muttered, “I don’t know where this guy goes when he’s out, but he must come a half-dozen times a day.”

Later, when the Jaguar perfected his tinkering, he thrilled to initiating action instead of memories. He directed his cattle in little dramas that played out in their lives to satisfy his boredom. He was merciless.

He changed the part of a husband’s brain that housed his wife’s name. “Thelma” suddenly became “Louise” to him, and the Jaguar sat back to watch the fireworks.

He created fireworks, that was the point. But one night his mind-fireworks exploded in a shooting, and the Jaguar escaped just as the brains that housed him were blown into a set of venetian blinds.

Adrenalin!

Gods, how he loved that surge, but death had been too close that time. He wasn’t sure that he would have died inside that brain, but he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t, either. He did not want to conduct that experiment on himself.

From that day on he entered only healthy cattle, and he tried to keep them out of trouble while they had him along. Getting them killed might be entertainment, but getting himself killed was out of the question. For the first time in his life, he became considerate of the well-being of others, even if only while he used their bodies.

He’d had a close one with Belitnikov, too, by whipping the man into a sexual frenzy that left his portly wife raw, his mistress limp and his heart in a tachycardia that took the Russian doctors a week to control. He’d very nearly lost a treasure for a little cheap sex, and he wanted to believe that he wouldn’t do it again.

While he played, his priests pursued disturbances in the curtain. One young priest had been bested. Though he branded this wolf among his cattle, the wolf had not
become
cattle, and this disturbed the Jaguar.

Does he cover his trail?
the Jaguar wondered.
If so, I will uncover it
. The greater fear poked at his belly.

What if he’s immune?

This had not occurred to the Jaguar before. The natural extension of that fear became:
If he’s immune to my detection, there might be others.

He didn’t like that thought at all, because it felt so simple, so possible, so right. The thought didn’t stop there, it wouldn’t leave him be. The thought had to nag him into:
What about
others on this side?

A wolf among his cattle, and he didn’t know enough about wolves. He would have to learn, and learn quickly. The wolf fact that he
did
know iced his spine:
Wolves hunt in packs; they work together.

If he couldn’t track the wolves, at least he could identify and destroy his contaminated cattle. The Agency wouldn’t be a help in this. He didn’t trust them because he trusted no one. They would not destroy these wolves, they would cultivate them, corral them into cattle of their own. This the Jaguar could not abide.

Relationships with his most significant persons
interfere with forward movement, create hopelessness
and often terror, and initiate regression. . . .
He is of the polar type who suffer acute disorganization
under extremely stressful conditions, such as combat.

—Theodore Lidz,
Origins and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders

Rafferty watched the woman and the girl from behind a jumble of rocks beside the trail. They worked their way along the base of the cliff, and the woman kept her gaze on the rough footing. The girl clung to her mother’s hand and plodded on behind, the mother doing most of the work. They approached a butterfly-shaped discoloration in the cliff face that grew more distinct in Rafferty’s eyes as the setting sun reddened the rock.

The girl let out a weak shriek and dug her heels in, sobbing.

“Stop it, now!” the mother snapped. “I’m tired, too.”

“I’m scared.”

“There’s nothing to be scared of,” the mother said. “It’s not even dark yet. . . .”

Rafferty’s crow flapped up from the rocks and pulled for altitude. The girl shrieked again, and the mother shook her by the shoulders.

“It’s just a bird, Anna. You scared it up by your racket.”

“No, something else. . . .”

The mother gave her another hard shake, and Rafferty checked his urge to step forward.

Maybe she felt me here,
he thought.
She might be one of the sensitive ones, like Afriqua Lee.

A very large man walked out of the discoloration in the cliff behind the woman. Rafferty caught his breath and reached for his weapon. The man wore a uniform jacket with a lot of ribbons and medals on the front, and while the little girl blubbered he quietly took it off, still standing behind the mother who was unsuspecting.

The man placed his coat about the mother’s shoulders, and she did not move. The child screamed and tried to pull loose of her mother’s grip but was too exhausted to get away. Her shrieks and struggles quieted to a whimper in a few moments.

Rafferty noticed now that, though he wanted to move, he could not. He knew he should be alarmed at this, but his mind remained absolutely calm. He heard faint calls of protest from his crow high overhead.

The man spoke quietly to the girl, but Rafferty couldn’t hear what was said. The woman remained frozen in her hunched posture over her daughter and the man removed a small tin from his back pocket.

The tin flashed in his palm as he flipped open the lid. Rafferty’s crow squawked once more, louder this time, from somewhere behind him.

The man dipped a forefinger into the tin and brought out a dab of blue. Against the girl’s feeble keening, he rubbed it gently onto the center of her forehead, in a sideways figure-eight. He did the same for the girl’s mother, who then dropped her daughter’s shoulders, pulled the coat tighter around her, and turned back up the trail.

Rafferty saw her brown eyes clearly as she turned; sleepwalker eyes. She and the daughter waited beside the cliff face as the man turned his attention toward Rafferty.

The man hadn’t taken a step, but towered in front of him, reaching out that forefinger with a dab of blue ointment. His features were washed in a haze; Rafferty had no fear of him, though he suspected that he should. He had not yet breathed since the man stepped through the stone and out of the cliff.

The finger touched his forehead, traced two circles there, and Rafferty could breathe. Time resumed its relentless march.

The stranger turned on his heel, and Rafferty was compelled to follow. He couldn’t remember any of the man’s features, except that he was taller, dark and broad-shouldered. Though he had looked Rafferty straight in the eye, Rafferty had no memory of his eye color, or hair color, or the shape of his mouth.

The stranger stood beside the discolored portion of the cliff, and Rafferty’s gaze was fixed by a blue glow in its center. The splash of blue flickered wildly on the rock, like two nightstalkers fighting in a sack. Suddenly the light widened to illuminate a passageway. The blue light loomed over the stranger’s shoulder like a huge pair of butterfly wings.

He ushered the woman and her daughter through the passageway and into the cliff. Rafferty saw two silent flashes of light, and felt a rush of air from his nostrils. The stranger stood at the threshold and gestured Rafferty his turn.

Rafferty couldn’t make his body
not
go.

He’s the Jaguar!

At that instant, Rafferty crossed the threshold and some blue vortex yanked him off his feet. He plummeted head-first into the cosmic peel. The northern lights streamed past, stood still, and he left them behind. Then, in a white flash, he left himself behind. . . .

“Rafferty!”

Afriqua Lee’s voice, she had his collar, yanking him back. . . .

“Rafferty!” she whispered, and shook him again. “You fell asleep on the map light.”

He smelled coffee, rubbed his face where he’d lain on his clipboard, and breathed a deep sigh under the pain tightening at his temples. Midnight, the Roam was nearly to their stake-down, and he was supposed to be piloting the Romni’s tent.

“You jumped when I touched you,” she said. “You must have been out. Are you all right?”

“Yes.” He breathed slow and deep. “Thanks to you.”

He sipped the coffee. Sometimes coffee helped the headaches.

“Thanks to me? What do you mean?”

“The Jaguar almost had me. He’d hypnotized me or drugged me somehow, and I was going to be destroyed in a flash of light.”

“How did I save you?”

“I fell through the light and you yanked me back by the collar.”

Afriqua Lee sighed and massaged the back of his neck.

“Good thing it was just a nightmare,” she said. “If the Jaguar messes with you he’s going to answer to me.”

Rafferty sipped his coffee and didn’t speak.

“It
was
just a nightmare, wasn’t it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, and rubbed his forehead. “We’d better get moving.”

What did this dream say?

A woman tried to protect her daughter, and lost them both. A bystander was lost as well.

No,
Rafferty told himself,
not lost. Trapped. And the others were the bait.

He didn’t like this notion of traps and bait. After stakedown he would bring this up again with Afriqua Lee.

Humanity does not ask us to be happy.
It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.
Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it.

—Orson Scott Card,
Ender’s Game

At sixteen, Eddie stared into his Uncle Bert’s bathroom mirror trying to decide whether he should start shaving or not.

They’ll grow if I shave,
he thought.
That’s what Dr. Mark said happened to him.

Shaving seemed like a lot of trouble, but the only other boy in the senior class who didn’t shave was Dwayne. Dwayne wore eye shadow and called himself “Darlene.” Eddie reminded himself that he was two years younger than the rest of the boys in his class, but it didn’t seem to help.

The dark fringe of down on Eddie’s upper lip was only visible under the closest scrutiny, and today Eddie scrutinized closely. His lips were chapped because he’d had a cold, and he’d been breathing through his mouth when he slept. The air of the river valley had been unusually chilly and dry all spring. The seagulls flocked in early this evening, and low, so Eddie suspected rain tonight. Humidity might help heal his lips.

They were not as full as Maryellen’s lips, nor were they the pencil-thin kind that reminded him of windburned cowboys like his Uncle Elmer.

Kid lips,
he thought, and smiled.
Sixteen years under the belt but kid lips under the schnoz.

His Uncle Bert always referred to their family’s distinctive nose as “the schnoz” or “the royalty.” Like old man Meyer’s nose, Eddie’s had an unmistakable pride to it that did not go unnoticed.

Eddie saw in his drawn face, the darkness under his eyes, what the dreamways had done to him over the years. He and Maryellen were the youngest in their class but both of them looked older, even though he didn’t shave yet.

He never thought of his as a hard life, just tiring; he placed the blame squarely on his dreams. His mouth held fast to enthusiasm. His prideful nose tempered his adolescence with a maturity that was not at all common among his peers; neither was it welcome.

Eddie liked his teeth. They never gave him any trouble, and so far he’d only had to visit a dentist once for a checkup and a cleaning. His teeth were as white and regular as his mother’s had been darkened and craggy, but the dentist warned him, “Relax. You’re under too much stress and your teeth show it. You clench your jaw and grind your teeth in your sleep. A kid your age shouldn’t have to worry. Go fishing.”

Eddie often wondered what his father’s smile had looked like.

His eyes must be brown or green,
he thought.
Grandma said I got my mother’s blue eyes.

He wondered what else he got from his father. The furrowed brow in the bomber photo was the same, the dark skin and dark hair, the same build that had started out lanky and was slowly filling out to muscle. The mystery of his father continued to haunt him.

Facts were slippery, like the papers the military sends after a death, like the pension that his mother never received. One pressing fact remained—no two stories in his family agreed on how his father died, or where, or exactly when.

He raised his dark eyebrows in sudden reflex, and tossed his head back like he saw his father do in the picture. Eddie was clearly a close match, even without the hat.

His Uncle Bert opened the bathroom door and they startled each other.

“Hey, Tiger, gettin’ all slicked up?”

“Well, ah . . . just cleaning up, you know. . . .”

“Maryellen called. She wants you to meet her down at the river. You better watch your step, boy. Her daddy’ll have your hide. You know what they said. . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Did she say what time?”

“Four o’clock,” Bert said. “You’ve got an hour but goddammit it’s my turn in the bathroom.”

The fishing shelter was nearly overgrown with the tall river grasses. Weeds bent down in each step she’d taken ahead of him, and were well-trampled where she’d waited on her favorite stone. Atop the stone, in lipstick, she’d drawn a square.

He found her asleep behind the shack, her sleeping bag spread out on the grass. She slept to one side, as though she expected him to lie down beside her, so he did.

She wore his gray track sweatsuit over a blue flannel workshirt, and tennis shoes heavy with new grass stains. Eddie didn’t know how she got his sweatsuit, but he liked the intimacy of her wearing it. The overcast afternoon was warm, and he thought they might get rained on.

“Maryellen?”

She was sound asleep, her breathing very slow.