Last Chants (7 page)

I picked up the strip of yellow tape and stuffed it into my pocket.

I glanced at Arthur. His shoulders rounded, his steps slowed
as he continued. I caught up quickly. It was too late to worry about sparing myself pain; and it seemed unworthy in the face of Arthur's.

A few more steps took us into a clearing shagged with shrubs and vines and redwood saplings. Where the clearing met deeper forest, a boulder, roughly egg-shaped and as tall as a person, nested in a rut of smaller rocks and mossy mud. Alone at the edge of the clearing, it almost appeared deposited by a giant hand. The seam of stones around it gave it the look of a jewel in a setting. Even its color, yellow-beige with subtle reddish patterns, made it look otherworldly.

Arthur stared at it, then raised both hands as if saluting it or waving it back. He closed his eyes and stood motionless a moment.

He started toward it, then stopped. He turned toward me. “They'll have removed everything?”

“The crime scene tape is down, so yes. They've removed everything they think relates to the . . . to it.” But they wouldn't have washed away blood on the rock; they'd have photographed it and walked away. I wondered whether to say something.

Arthur had crossed to the other side of the boulder. Within seconds, I could see no part of him. I knew the rock obscured him, but I felt a surge of panic, a frantic need to see he hadn't been swallowed up.

I was startled to hear Arthur's voice raised in song. It wasn't like anything I'd heard before, somewhere between a dirge and a chant. I couldn't understand the lyrics. It might have been Native American, a repetition of syllables like
wa
and
nee,
deeply sad and resonant.

I crossed to the other side of the rock, stopping in shock because Arthur wasn't standing there. I was struck by an unreasonable fear that he'd sung himself into some other dimension.

What he'd done was climb inside the boulder.

I could see why it was called Bowl Rock. From this side, it had no top. It was like an egg lying on its side with half its top, this back half, sheered away. Inside, it was thick-walled but hollow, the opening just large enough for Arthur to lie semisupine as if in a bathtub.

I looked in at him. The sun filtering through treetops bathed him in fluttering shadows. His eyes were closed tight and his body trembled, either because he “felt” Seawuit's presence or because it was cold in there. Dark tracings of moss and lichen started beneath Arthur, disappearing where the hollow stone arched above him. I could see dried blood behind his head.

I backed away, not wanting to interrupt his song. I waited at the fringe of the clearing for over an hour, until the cold and the eeriness of the ceaseless chanting overcame me. I decided to leave Arthur there. Whatever he was doing must be important to him, part of his grieving. No one would lie atop bloodstains singing himself hoarse if it weren't.

I walked back to the cabin, relieved when I could no longer hear the
waa oo ah waa nee
of Arthur's grief.

I
waited hours for Arthur to return. I considered going back after him, but I thought better of it. It would take more than half an afternoon to blunt his grief.

Out here with no phone, no computer, not even a radio, my options were narrow: I could sit around or I could walk back into town. I decided against leaving Arthur a note. If by mischance it was found, it might incriminate us both. As I'd waited for him, he could wait for me. I wouldn't be gone long; long enough to call Edward from a phone booth. Long enough to drop into the Cyberdelics office and strike up a conversation.

The afternoon had grown warmer, buzzing insects catching shafts of light through trees. The trail smelled of warming pine needles. My feet, in leather flats, alternately kicked up dust and squelched through mud, depending on how shady the spot. The walk seemed longer this time. The novelty of not working—especially after five months of unemployment—was wearing off fast.
On the other hand, I'd have to be much more bored before longing to write a brief.

Again I walked through downtown Boulder Creek. It certainly lacked the urban trappings: no street people or street music, no fine suits or prissy accessories, no jockeying traffic or swearing pedestrians, no neon windows, no bas relief or flashy architecture, no Asians or blacks, no
SE HABLA
signs. It looked like what it probably was: a shady mountain village on a minor highway, a community where people knew one another and found few occasions to dress up.

I stood before Cyberdelics' sixties-poster window. This was the anomaly. Not many mountain villages could lay claim to two computer design firms, both famous enough for me to have heard of them.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped inside. A heated conversation ceased. Four startled faces turned toward me. A statuesque blonde whirled with the drama of a cyclone and rushed out a back exit. One of the remaining three, a gaunt dark-haired man, scowled, watching the door swing shut. The other two glanced at each other. I'd seen these three at the restaurant, and I'd seen one of them briefly at Curtis & Huston. I hoped their glance had nothing to do with me.

No one spoke.

I'd expected to enter some kind of foyer or reception area. I'd been prepared to ask to speak to someone. I hadn't expected to walk into what was obviously a workroom, with computers scattered over several long tables, monitors and VCRs mounted on wall brackets, keyboards on people's laps, candy wrappers and wire snippings strewn across the floor, soft drinks nestled between cable wires and silver envelopes of computer chips.

I hoped they didn't build machines for sale here. They might literally have bugs in them.

“I'm sorry,” I faltered. “I thought this was a business office.”

“Didn't we all,” one of the seated two said dryly. He was forty-ish and paunchy, in jeans and a sweatshirt, his thinning hair caught in a ponytail. He stroked his graying mustache, regarding me with sharp blue eyes.

“What can we do for you?” The gaunt dark-haired man—whom I'd seen at Curtis & Huston—stepped toward me, scowl
still in place. He buffed his short beard with his knuckles.

“I . . . I wondered if you needed any employees?” And here I'd told Arthur he didn't need to worry, that I'd be able to get information out of these people.

“No.” His tone invited me to leave.

“Do, um, any of you know of a place for rent up here?”

“No,” he repeated.

The back door was kicked noisily open. The blonde reentered as forcefully as she'd gone. She stood for a moment, looking larger than life in her tank top and jeans, sweater tied around her waist. Then she strode across to the dark-haired man and smacked him. He reeled, falling against a table right beside me.

“Jesus!” The paunchy man leaped to his feet. “Toni, what are you—”

She lunged again, forcing him to quit talking and jump between them.

The fourth person sat passively, watching. He looked young, barely out of his teens, and none too bright despite the expensive computer clutter around him. He neither intervened nor showed surprise.

The big blonde was screaming, “Don't you lie to me, Galen. Don't you ever lie to me again!”

“Goddamn it,” the man in the middle insisted. “He's not lying.”

Galen didn't seem to have anything to add.

I was alarmed by the tangle of bodies leaning over the table just a few feet from me. The brawling blonde looked angry enough to strangle both men—and me for an encore. I tried to back away.

A nearby chair tripped me up. I overcompensated to keep myself from falling, accidentally brushing the woman's arm.

Surprised by my touch, she struck out absently, swatting my face as if I were a bothersome mosquito. I felt a hot stab of pain in my nose. I blinked away tears, trying to stay upright.

The group staggered left, bumping against me. I managed to keep my balance, making my way to the opposite side of the table.

From here, I could see red streaks on the blonde's arm. I stifled a scream, thinking one of the men had scratched her.

But I quickly realized the blood was mine; it had gushed out of
my nose. It was dripping onto the table. The woman had given me a nosebleed.

When she noticed the mess on her arm, it momentarily derailed her fury. She rubbed it, smearing it onto her hand. The paunchy man pushed her away from Galen.

Galen carped, “Get a grip, Toni!”

“Look what she did.” The young man pointed at my nose.

“I'm okay,” I assured them. Blood streamed down the hand I'd raised to my nose. “I used to get these as a teenager.” At every demonstration where my face contacted a police baton.

“It's not broken?” Galen's tone told me I wouldn't be very popular if it was.

I felt the bridge. Damn, this had been a trying couple of days. “I think it's okay.”

The blonde's voice was tremulous. “Look at this. Look at my arm.”

“Well, if you'd control your—”

Galen's advice was greeted by a look so patently furious he turned away.

The paunchy man sighed. “We've got a sink and some tissue. Come on back with me.”

“Okay.” My voice sounded nasal. The man led me to a corner behind a screen. I saw a rather unprivate toilet, seat up, a sink, and a table with a coffee urn.

“My name's Louis. Hi. Sorry about your nose.”

I ran water, washing blood off my face, my shirtsleeve, my hand. “I'm . . . ” I hadn't thought this through. I didn't want to give my real name. “I'm sorry—did you say Larry?”

“Louis.” He handed me a stack of paper towels. “I wish I could tell you things aren't usually this crazy around here. Well, maybe this is a little out in left field, even for this place.”

“I wouldn't have walked in like that if I'd known—I assumed you had a front desk.”

“We don't get many walk-ins. You're looking for work, you said?”

“Mm.” I blotted my nose with the towels.

“We're not that kind of company,” he apologized. “We're more like, oh, I guess you could call us a design team, a think tank, something like that. We don't interview people. Ever. Occasionally,
some fool of long acquaintance is compelled by the forces of destiny—and Galen—to join us.”

“Oh.” I tried to sound like a disappointed job-seeker. I sounded like a dumb kid with a head cold.

I could hear Toni lecturing Galen: “If you want to know what the truth is, I'll give you a goddam dictionary, because your idea of the truth is—”

“Toni.” Galen's voice carried a backlog of frustration and defeatism. “Must we do this now? Must we do this over and over and over?”

“Yes! Because I'm that angry, Galen. You want me to put it away. Well, I put it away every single day, don't I? Every day I live with you.”

“No, you don't.”

“And there it is the next morning bigger than ever, bigger than both of us, bigger than this mountain.”

“Then what the hell, go ahead and feed it the relationship, feed it your sanity,” Galen replied. “But we can't keep taking time to let the world revolve around you, Toni. We've got serious work. Could you try to be a little cognizant of what we're trying to do here?”

Within seconds, she was running past me and Louis, my blood still splotching her arm. She slammed out the back exit again.

Galen stepped behind the partition. “Are you all right? Is it broken?”

He had streaks of blood across his cheek. Toni had slapped his face with bloody fingers.

“I don't think so,” I replied. “I've gotten these before.”

“When strangers punched you in the nose?” He had the pale skin, aquiline nose, and pronounced cheekbones of a medieval portrait. He looked like some brooding, disinherited younger son. “That was my wife.”

“Oh.” I wanted to add, I'm sorry.

“Why don't you come and sit down. Aren't you supposed to tilt your head back or something? Do you want coffee or—”

“Yes! Please.” I was used to a lot more coffee in the morning.

I followed him back around the partition. He pointed to the young, golden-haired man, now tapping at a keyboard. “That's Jon.”

Without looking up, the man corrected him. “Jonathan.”

Louis rolled a chair over. I sat in it. The blow to the nose had dulled my wits. I needed to offer a name, but I hadn't thought of one I liked. “I'm . . . Alice.”

“In Wonderland?” Jonathan laughed, Beavis-like, at his own joke.

But he was right about the name's genesis. It didn't say much for my imagination. I was determined to do better for a last name. “Alice Jung.”

“Well, young Alice,” Galen said, inverting the name he thought he'd heard, “you certainly walked into round one—or, more accurately, round one hundred.”

“Galen.” Louis settled into a chair. “Dirty laundry and all that?”

“My dirty laundry, as you call her, just socked Alice in the nose, Louis.”

Louis merely shook his head.

“Tell us again what we can do for you, Alice.”

No one seemed very anxious to get me the coffee they'd offered. And I hated to say I was looking for work now that I knew they never hired. Nor could I think of any clever pretext.

I pretended to be troubled by my nosebleed.

Louis sat forward, obviously expecting me to say something. Galen looked merely ironic.

“I guess, really, I was hoping to talk to you. I was, um, looking for a job. But I'm also freelancing, hoping to get an article into
Mondo”—Mondo 2000, the
hip cybernetics magazine—“about your project and some others like it.”

Galen frowned. “There are no others like it, Alice.”

His repeated use of the name struck me as patronizing. Maybe his wife had her reasons.