Night of the Jaguar (27 page)

“Like the weasels in Toad Hall.”

“Just so. Smearing the draperies with filth, breaking the crockery, insulting the servants…well, however generous you might be, you’d probably decide that it had gone beyond a joke and take steps to make the house somewhat less hospitable. You might turn up the heat, for example, so they swelter. You might stop serving nice meals. You might let the hounds loose in the bedrooms to raven and destroy. And so we have global warming, and sea-level rise, and new diseases, and deserts spreading, and failing water tables, and a kind of desperate madness, because perhaps nature includes the invisible as well as all this.” He gestured with his paddle at the surrounding scene.

“My mother certainly believed it and she was no one’s fool. As I’ve said, she would’ve been delighted to know Moie.”

“Do you think he’ll, like, kill any more people?” asked Jenny. It was still hard for her to associate the gentle Indian she knew with people being torn apart.

“That would depend. He wants the people who are planning to destroy his forest to stop doing it, and I suppose he’ll continue to kill those he thinks responsible until they actually stop. At least he seems to have decided to murder the guilty for a change. He can always depend upon us to slaughter the innocent ourselves, assuming any of us are innocent.” After an interval of silence Cooksey broke into song, a rhythmic ditty about rolling down to old Maui that seemed to make the paddling easier. They both dug in more vigorously until the canoe seemed to fly of its own will across the water’s smooth and flawless skin.

At the boat livery in Flamingo, Jenny felt the first effects of sunburn. Even through the fabric of her shirt the sun had struck fiercely at her redhead’s tender skin. And she had a headache, the sun making its contribution but also perhaps the result of deep and unaccustomed thought.

“Are you all right, dear?” Cooksey asked when he returned to the car.

“I’m sort of wiped out,” she replied. “You can drive if you want.”

His face clouded. “I don’t want,” he said. “I really can’t.”

“You never learned to drive?”

“I did. But I can’t. I was in an accident. My nerves won’t let me. I’m sorry.”

“What kind of accident?”

He stared at her, and she saw the age creep back into his face, and she thought it was like the guy in a mummy movie when the spell is broken and he turns into a skeleton on the screen.

“A fatal accident,” he said huskily, and turned and entered the car on the passenger side.

They drove away with Cooksey looking pointedly out the window and sending out powerful vibrations of rejection. Jenny had wide experience of sulky men, men who wouldn’t talk about it, men who took whatever was bugging them out on the nearest female, so she withdrew herself and thought about the interesting and exciting things that had filled the day, and here discovered an unsuspected value of knowing stuff: you became a more interesting interior conversationalist and didn’t have to fill your mind exclusively with moping about other people being mean to you and the worthlessness of your own sad life.

So she thought and drove, which she had always liked doing, especially in this powerful, fancy car, and she started to drive more aggressively, downshifting and passing trucks on the narrow two-lane with canals on either side. Cooksey had rolled up a towel and seemed to be asleep on it, leaning against his window.

And then she pulled out to pass a tractor-trailer, and when she was almost past it she saw that it had been following another big semi, its twin, both loaded with crushed limestone and she saw the lights of an oncoming truck. She floored the pedal and leaned on the horn. The old car leaped forward as if back on its native autobahn. Time slowed to a crawl as they seemed to inch along the gray flank of the leading semi. The oncoming truck blared its horn, and then, with scant yards to spare, she whipped the car back into lane.

Cooksey was wide awake, looking at her in amazement.

“Toad of Toad Hall,” she said, and gave a toot on the horn.

His face softened, creased into a small grin. “Your first literary reference, I believe. What you get for reading books. And…” Here he drew in a deep breath and let it out. “I’m sorry. I tend to shut out the world when pressed. It’s both an occupational and a national fault. And I’m not used to talking about painful subjects.”

“You told me about your wife and the snake. The fer-de-lance.”

“So I did. I wonder why?”

“People tell me stuff. I thought it was because I was a retard, it didn’t matter what they told me, you know? Like talking to a doll. I’m used to it.”

“Well, then, suppose I talk to you like a fellow human being instead?”

“That’s cool,” she said, and he told her about how he’d come back to England with his wife’s body and buried her and started to drink a lot afterward, living at his parents’ summer place in Norfolk, and he had a little girl, four, Jemima, and how one day he’d taken her to a pub for lunch and had drank more pints than he ought, and driving back home a tractor had pulled suddenly into the road and he’d swerved and struck a tree. He hadn’t been going that fast, but it was enough. The child had been unrestrained in the backseat, one moment chattering away, singing her little songs, and the next over the backseat, smack against the windscreen. She hung on for two days and then he’d buried her next to her mother and left England.

“What did you do?”

“Oh, nothing, really. A wandering scholar. There are lots of us, filling in for sabbaticals, staffing a grant. And various other things.”

“God. Your wife and then your kid. What a bad year!”

A harsh barking laugh from Cooksey. “Indeed. A bad year. Now we know each other’s sad stories. What a pair! We shall have to be friends, like Rat and Mole.”

“You’re Rat,” she said confidently, and smiled. He grinned back at her, showing his long yellow teeth.

When they arrived back at the property it was deserted, and Cooksey recalled that they had all been scheduled to attend some kind of environmental rally at Miami-Dade College downtown, at which he himself had been expected. Entering his office they found Moie staring at the computer.

“Catching up on your e-mail, are you?” said Cooksey.

Ignoring this, Moie pointed to the keyboard and said, “Each seed of this tray of seeds has a mark, and when I press one, the same mark
comes on this shining little wall, except this stick, which makes a ghost mark, and if I do this many times it looks like the marks on the bundle of leaves that Father Tim used when he talked to his god. They are like the marks insects make under the skin of a tree, but smaller. Father Tim could turn them into his voice, and he said many of the dead people could do this. Is this how you talk to your god, Cooksey?”

“In a way. To some of the smaller gods, perhaps, not the same one that Father Tim spoke to with his bundle of leaves. How are you, Moie? It’s been many days since we saw you.”

“I have fed well,” said Moie. “Have you fed well?”

“I have fed well.”

“And the Firehair Woman, has she fed well?” Here he glanced at Jenny, who grinned at him and did a silly wave from waist level.

“We have both fed well. Look here, Moie, this can’t go on. You can’t go about killing people and eating them.”

“I have killed no one. It’s Jaguar who kills and eats.”

“But the
wai’ichuranan
don’t believe in Jaguar, Moie. They’ll think it was you alone who did these killings.”

Moie look startled for an instant and then laughed, a peculiar hissing sound he made with his lips pressed together and his whole upper body shaking. When he recovered he said, “That’s a good joke, Cooksey. I will tell you another joke now. The Runiya don’t believe in water!”

Cooksey waited until Moie had stopped laughing at this one, and said, “Then you must talk to Jaguar and ask him not to. It is very
siwix
to do so in the land of the dead people. Soon the police will learn what you and Jaguar have done, and then they will arrest you. Do you understand what that means?”

Moie thought of what the man had told him at Fernandino on the island of Trinidad, and he said, “Yes, I know. But they don’t see me in my tree and also, when I go among them, I wear the priest’s clothing.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Cooksey. “The clothing is a small thing and killing is a large thing. They will lock you in a house with many bad men for your whole life, or they may even kill you.”

Moie didn’t seem impressed by these warnings, so Cooksey added, “Father Tim would be angry if he knew you were doing it.”

“I am not doing it. I have told you this, but you don’t listen. I will say it once again: first we went to see them and the Monkey Boy said they should not cut in the Puxto, but this dead person Fuentes called for men and they threw us out of that house, like women throw peelings and entrails into the river. I didn’t understand what was said, but that I understood. And this showed me that the Consuela would not listen and would still kill the Puxto. This is why Jaguar killed him, and later this other one. You say that it is bad to kill them, but Father Tim has said that sometimes a small bad thing must be done so that a greater bad thing does not happen. This is
moral philosophy,
and this is the way of the
jampiri
among the dead people. These men of the Consuela Holdings wish to kill the Puxto and all my people, as they killed Father Tim, so it is better if Jaguar slays them first.”

“Yes, but, Moie, there is another way, as I’ve already told you. Many, many of the
wai’ichuranan
don’t want the Puxto to be cut. They have some of the spirit of
aryu’t
in them. Although they are dead they wish for life and so wish to stop these men, just as you do.”

“You say it, but it is hard to believe. Will
they
kill the Consuela men?”

“No. This is not the way of the
wai’ichuranan
in such matters. They will make noises, and make many marks on leaves and the
wai’ichuranan
will see them and know what the Consuela is doing and that it is
siwix,
and also, as I said to you once before, they will send their spirits into the spirit boxes in the houses of the dead people and there is a kind of witch we have called
journalists
who will go up to the Consuela men and speak rudely to them and drag them into the spirit box, and so the Consuela men will be ashamed and not do evil things on the Puxto. This is our way. But if they find you have been killing these men it will be different. They will not think about the Puxto, but only about the killings. They will call you a
terrorist,
which is another kind of witch we have who delights in killing and fear, and they will arrest you and drag you into the spirit box for a long time and you will not be able to stop it. Then the Puxto will be destroyed, because we believe that if a
terrorist
wishes something to be done or not done, we think it is
ryuxit
to do the opposite.”

Moie thought in silence for the better part of a minute, then said, “I will think about this in my belly and ask Jaguar what to do. Now, I have to ask you one thing and tell you one thing, for I didn’t come here just to play with seeds in a tray. I ask this. Jaguar wants a child to be
hninxa
. Jaguar says that if this child is given, he will have power in the land of the dead people, not just the power of the flesh but also ghost power. It is hard to say this part because it can be said only in the holy language, which you cannot speak. With such power he can make the
wai’ichuranan
alive again, or some of them, so that they will no longer wish to turn the whole world into pisco and machetes and money things. So I ask, is such a thing
ryuxit
among the
wai’ichuranan
?”

“No!” said Cooksey forcefully. “It is the most
siwix
thing we can think of. Moie, you must not do it.”

“But it would be a very large good thing if the
wai’ichuranan
came alive again and stopped ruining the whole world as they do now. Also, Jaguar would not take her unless she wished it.”

“It’s still not allowed.”

“Then I don’t understand. Father Tim said that Jan’ichupitaolik gave himself as a sacrifice, so that the dead people could have life beyond the moon, in heaven, which was a great good thing. And Jan’ichupitaolik was a man and the greatest
jampiri
of the dead people, and so he was worth much more than a little girl. So this is
moral philosophy
and not
siwix
at all.”

“No, no, you are mistaken,” cried Cooksey. “Listen, Moie, for this is most important. Jan’ichupitaolik sacrificed
himself
to save the world. He didn’t sacrifice a little girl. And surely Father Tim told you that because he sacrificed himself, no other sacrifices would ever be required ever again, by anyone. And also I tell you Jan’ichupitaolik is chief of all the gods, even of Jaguar, and he will be very angry at you and at Jaguar if you do this thing.”

“I hear you,” said Moie in a polite but noncommittal way. “I will also consider it in my belly. But let me ask you this: if Jan’ichupitaolik is lord of all, as you say, why doesn’t he tell the dead people to stop ruining the world?”

“He does, but his voice is very faint. Other gods have louder voices now.”

“Yes, Father Tim has told me the same thing. I think that maybe Jan’ichupitaolik has said to Jaguar, Go and slay, for the world I made should not be destroyed. Do you think this is possible, Cooksey?”

Cooksey slowly shook his head and said in a tired voice, “I don’t know, Moie.”

“Or Jan’ichupitaolik has died and now Jaguar is the chief of all the gods. In any case, I will surely do as he wishes. Now I must tell you a thing. There are new men in the houses of the Consuela. Jaguar has told me. They are men like those who killed Father Tim. They are the dead of the dead, their spirits have rotted inside them and they are hollow and filled by
chinitxi
instead. I tell you this because I think they will come here.”