Last Chants (28 page)

“Why that one, Arthur?”

“We tried the others. That's the one we couldn't get to. Something always capsized us.”

“What's on it?” I could taste the rain, feel it chill my skin.

“We thought it would be the people who made this boat, who moved Bowl Rock.”

“Do you still think so?” I was cold and scared; the dream was too real.

“Billy Seawuit,” he shouted over the torrent. “Billy's on that island. That's why we couldn't reach it. He was already there.”

The dream suddenly faded. It faded literally, as if someone had thrown a veil over a television.

And then it was completely gone. I saw only the insides of my eyelids.

I opened my eyes to find Edward hovering over us, saying, “Come on come on, come out of it!”

“I was having the weirdest dream,” I told him.

“Hurry. Get out. Cops.”

I hurried, taking Edward's hand.

It took both of us to get Arthur out. He looked absolutely bereft. We had to haul him out by the armpits and drag him into the brush.

“Jesus,” Edward muttered, “you guys are soaked.”

I told myself water had collected at the bottom of the rock bowl. My clothes had wicked it, that made sense. I touched my hair; why was it wet?

We got Arthur on his feet, pushing him along. The three of us crashed through the brush till we'd gone far enough to take cover.

“Keep hidden. Stay still,” Edward commanded.

I tried to quiet my breathing. Close by, Arthur curled over his bent knees, head bowed.

I could hear voices now. A man shouted someone's name, then told him to wait up.

He and two other men milled around the rock for a while, then moved on. They passed us, but not near enough for it to matter.

We sat in the shrubs a little longer. Edward was probably being cautious. I was being frightened. Arthur remained draped over his knees.

Edward stood first. He spoke to Arthur. “Are you okay? I didn't know it was so wet inside there.”

Arthur looked up. His skin was ashen. “Those were sheriffs?” he asked.

“I think so; one of them, anyway. I caught their movement through the trees. Incredible they didn't hear me banging those sticks.”

I got up, brushing myself off. “They must have heard you. Why else would they come straight to the rock?”

“Woodpecker,” Arthur said, rising. “I've had the experience before, of sticks being mistaken for a woodpecker.”

“Could be why they didn't search harder,” Edward agreed. “They could have talked themselves into believing it was a woodpecker.”

He was eyeing us strangely. “Did I stop at a bad time or something?”

“No,” I reassured him, “stopping before the police arrest you is a good time.”

I glanced at Arthur. I wished we could go forever without talking about it. I was afraid he'd describe the same “vision” I'd had. And I'd much rather continue thinking I'd dozed.

“So what happened?” Edward persisted.

To my relief, Arthur said, “It's better not to dilute the experience by discussing it. It sometimes tells you something later if you don't disturb it.”

I nodded, trying not to smile.

We walked back the way we'd come, avoiding Bowl Rock and keeping to the woods.

When Arthur lagged behind, Edward leaned close. “So . . . did you go boating?”

“What did it look like?”

“It looked like you were asleep.”

“Mm,” I hedged. “What about Arthur?”

“Looked like he was sleeping, too. Which might have made my little experiment useless.”

“What experiment?”

“Did you hear me say something while you were sitting in there?” he asked me.

“Hurry up, the cops,” I paraphrased.

“You didn't hear me maybe five minutes earlier?”

“No. What did you say?”

“Something like, You must go to Montgomery Street. I wanted to know if you'd hear it, or if you'd incorporate it into whatever else was happening.”

“Incorporate it?”

Edward looked a little uncomfortable. “Remember Arthur talked about a dove telling him to go there? I thought if he was fantasizing about a dove and someone came along—”

“And whispered it in his ear?”

“People around here know he's into this ‘journeying' stuff. Call it a figment, daydream, self-induced acid flashback—whatever. But if Joel Baker saw him in the rock, and realized he was tripping . . . Maybe he walked up behind him and told him to go to Montgomery Street.”

“And Arthur attributed it to his dove.” It wasn't a bad theory.

“But you didn't hear me?” Edward confirmed.

“And nothing in my dream told me to go to Montgomery Street.”

“Ask Arthur for me. As his fellow traveler.”

“No way.”

He looked a little surprised by my vehemence.

“Edward, I almost totally believe I was dreaming. Even if I'm wetter than I should be.”

“You're wet because the rock—”

“Fine. But I'm not going to compare notes with Arthur. I don't want to know what he thinks happened.”

To that end, I staked out the middle ground between Arthur, who trailed dispiritedly, and Edward, who couldn't seem to go fast enough. We hiked single file back to the creek bed.

I caught up to Edward. “Where are we heading?”

“Right now, to the Jeep. Arthur's not going to make it much farther. Then we're off to the Nelsons'.”

“The Nelsons'? That's exactly where we'll find the police.”

“We'll find them any damn place we go from now on. And we should, too, with Toni Nelson missing, and Pan up there . . . And look at us,” he added, matter-of-factly. “Never mind you two, now I can't go home because someone made off with my keys. I'm paranoid about using my credit card. I'm reduced to borrowing money and a telephone from my brother.”

“Fred is your brother?”

“I never told you about Fred?”

“No.”

“Well, he used to steal all my girlfriends. That's probably why.”

I nodded. “He is kind of cute.”

“Naw. That's a post-hypnotic suggestion.”

I glanced over my shoulder. I was glad we were on our way
back to the Jeep. Arthur walked slowly, shoulders drooping.

“See.” Edward followed my glance. “We need to get all this settled as soon as we can. We need a plan.”

“I don't suppose you have one?”

“I thought I'd keep it to myself so they can't torture it out of you.”

“You always could keep a secret.” Like the girlfriend he acquired while we were together.

He shot me a paranoid glance. “I was going to tell you about her. But you got yourself thrown in jail before I had a chance.”

“I can be so inconsiderate that way.”

When we reached the Jeep, we were a bedraggled threesome with damp hair, muddy clothes, and no spring in our steps.

Before we climbed in, I begged Edward, “Tell me you really do have a plan.”

“Would I kid you?” he asked.

E
dward stashed the Jeep in another off-road pocket, commanding us to wait there. I knew we were somewhere near the Nelsons'; I recognized the road.

Arthur sat in the front as motionless as a rag doll, staring at nothing in particular. He didn't seem inclined to talk, but I was taking no chances. I got out and moseyed through the woods within sight of the Jeep.

The sky glowed with twilight colors behind a low overcast. A thin wind rustled duff and branches. If I closed my eyes, I could almost resolve the sounds into speech, I could almost believe the trees were conversing. I wished I could listen hard enough to hear Pan's pipes. I wished I could hear that perfect music, perfectly suited to the woods, again.

I took the opportunity to mourn the strange man who'd rediscovered himself as a demigod. I put my forehead against the rough, spongy bark of a redwood and closed my eyes.

When Edward returned an hour later, my skin felt refrigerated, and I was as goosebumped as a raw chicken. It was dark out.

I climbed back into the Jeep. It was beginning to feel like my home.

Edward sighed, long and loud. “It wasn't easy—obviously, I wanted to be careful, not be seen. Plus, a high-tech guy like Nelson, I wanted to be sure he hadn't put up security cameras.”

“Cut to the chase, Edward. Did you get a look at the basement?”

“Through a window, yeah. It looked tidy as a pin to me. I checked the garbage, too. Nothing weird, just food.” He let his head loll against the seat back. “Plus I broke into the mother-in-law unit; poked around, went through Seawuit's duffel bag. Nothing interesting there, not that I noticed.”

“You think Nelson's lying about the break-in?”

“I have no idea,” he admitted. “I don't know what he meant by ‘damaged.' It could be pretty subtle, damaging computer parts. I don't know.” He slumped over the steering wheel, looking discouraged. “I guess I was hoping for a smoking knife.”

He started the engine.

“Where are we going?”

“Beats me,” he admitted. “Off the mountain. I am truly out of steam. I think Nelson's full of shit, but I don't have a handle on why I think so, and I can't think of any way to prove it.”

“If we could get him to say something, admit something,” I vented.

With Toni missing and Martin-or-Joel gone, we'd run out of options. All we could do was keep hiding, keep hoping for news.

Arthur surprised us by saying, “May I make a suggestion?”

“Sure.” Edward pulled the Jeep back on-road.

“About Billy.” Grief deepened his voice. “If I could give you a better sense of him, perhaps it would help you understand his relationship to the Nelsons.”

“It couldn't hurt,” Edward agreed.

“The other thing,” Arthur said slowly, “is nightmares.”

We were barreling down the fire road now.

“Nightmares?” Edward repeated.

“Willa's need to believe she was in a dream rather than a journey, that's what made me think of it,” he explained.

“Think of what?”

“Nelson, you say, hoped to create a shamanic computer program. This reflects certain beliefs about the nature of reality, beliefs that are more . . . receptive, shall we say? Perhaps we could use those beliefs against him?”

“In what way?”

“From what I understand, Nelson is most intimate with, and most attuned to his computer. It would seem to be the only thing getting his full attention,” Arthur mused. “Perhaps a custom nightmare, something we could load onto his system?”

“No way we're going to hack into a pro's hard drive.” Edward sounded a little wistful. “Jesus, with Nelson's paranoia about spying, his computer's probably the equivalent of a medieval fortress.”

“I doubt he's even on-line, not with his sexiest machines,” I agreed. “That's the most foolproof way to keep hackers out. No modem connection, no way in.”

“Perhaps we could load something manually?” Arthur persisted. “Unless his computers are somehow locked?”

I'd watched Toni Nelson fire up one of them and start a program. She'd hit a switch and selected a menu item, just like us lower-tech folk.

“Rather than break in through a network,” Arthur continued, “couldn't we simply break into their house? Turn their computer on the usual way?”

“Say we did get inside,” Edward didn't sound optimistic. “What kind of program would you put on there? What are we talking about?”

“We'd need several things before we could even . . . We'd need a good graphics application.”

“I could get that,” I intruded. “If Edward has a modem, we could download one from my dad's computer.”

“Of course I've got a modem.” Edward sounded insulted. “And I know how to do two whole things with it.”

“My father's got every artsy application you can imagine—bootlegged, of course.” Cyberpunks believe “information wants
to be free”—which was about all my father could afford. “But the programs are huge; it would take hours.” Still, I'd rather do anything than nothing. The illusion of forward movement would be a big improvement over the reality of hiking around avoiding sheriffs. “It'd be much quicker if you knew someone here who had them.”

“Piece of cake.” I couldn't tell if Edward was being sarcastic.

Arthur took him at his word: “We'd also need an instamatic camera, or better yet, a video recorder. And a way to feed the images into a computer.”

“Yeah,” Edward said. “I could swing it.”

“You'd have to have a video-ready computer,” I pointed out. “A fancy one.”

He surprised me by saying, “Done.” He turned to Arthur. “Anything else?”

“I would need to get into Billy's possessions.”

“Jesus—you couldn't mention this before I went through his duffel?”

“Not Billy's clothing, no. I was thinking of his rattle, his drums. But they're in San Francisco, in the trunk of my rental car.”

“Do we have to use Billy's? Can't we get something similar?”

“These aren't items you'd find at a supermarket,” Arthur pointed out.

“Oh, but you don't know Santa Cruz.” Edward nodded. “If we can get there before it closes.” He stepped on the gas, careening wildly down the mountain.

A half hour later, we walked along a downtown alleyway. We entered the oddest specialty shop I'd ever seen: a boutique of tribal instruments from around the world.

Arthur looked like a boy in a candy store. “Look,” he cried, “South African talking drums. And Kenyan rattles!”

Edward shushed him. “Don't talk to the clerk, don't invite anyone to notice you,” he begged.

Two walls and much of the floor were devoted to drums, drums with metal kettles, skins stretched over hoops, ceramic drums.