Stone Junction (13 page)

Stood facing himself as the sergeant, humming, swaggered out, leaving the kid lying on his cell floor, vomiting.

Stood looking at his own haggard, mortal face, his tears, the spittle on his chin. Stood listening through the long desolate silence suddenly broken by three quick sounds: the tiny shriek of springs as the kid leaped from the top bunk; a strangled gasp as the noosed belt cinched; the soft, moist pop of the neck bone breaking.

Volta closed his eyes, leaned back, and, drawing every shred of power from nerve, meat, and bone, howled, ‘
Nooooooooooooo!
’ And when he looked in the mirror again he saw a large spherical diamond – perfect, radiant, real. He was looking for the light in the diamond’s center when the sergeant bellowed, ‘Which motherfucker was it?’

Volta turned from the mirror and walked slowly to the barred cell door. He could hear the faint rhythmic tap of the blackjack against the sergeant’s leg.

The sergeant, his voice dropped to a cold murmur, warned, ‘Last time, scum-buckets: Who screamed?’

‘Me,’ Volta said.

‘Well pucker up, fuck-face,’ cause you’re next.’

‘No. You’re next,’ Volta promised. ‘That boy just hung himself.’

‘Good,’ the sergeant said. ‘S’posed to cull the weak.’ He yelled over his shoulder to the other guards, ‘Bring a mop’ then turned back to Volta. ‘
One, fucking, peep
… and you’re going to die trying to escape.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Volta said, starting to laugh, ‘I’ve already escaped.’

‘Yeah, sure looks like it t’ me, you loony fuck.’

Volta gathered enough breath to explain, ‘Appearances are deceiving,’ and then surrendered to the comic beauty of his last escape, finding freedom in jail. He wanted to share his delight with the diamond in the mirror, but the diamond had vanished.

Hours later, Volta was released on bail supplied by AMO. The Alliance also provided lawyers from their in-house ‘firm’ – warmly referred to as Sachs, Pilledge, and Berne – and the charge was quietly dismissed on the court-directed stipulation that Volta receive mental health care. His psychiatrist was Dr Isaac Langmann, a member of AMO’s Star, who agreed with his patient that the best course of treatment was advanced training in the Raven’s arts.

Shortly after Volta completed his training, Dr Langmann offered Volta a job as his field representative on the Pacific coast.

Volta loved the work. Since a field representative functions as a nerve to the Star – mediator, messenger, field general, fixer, and roving trouble-shooter – each day brought new people, places, and problems. The people he worked with were impressed with the clarity of his understanding and the fairness of his judgments. When Isaac Langmann retired from the Star in 1963, he nominated Volta to replace him. Fulfilling its most important function, the appropriate integration of talent and task, the Star unanimously approved Volta on the first poll. At the time of the Livermore explosion, Volta had served with distinction for seventeen years.

Volta was standing at the foot of the bed when Daniel, after nine weeks in a coma, opened his eyes. Daniel looked dully around the hospital room and then, squinting, focused on Volta.

Volta nodded slightly. ‘Welcome back, Daniel.’

Daniel trembled as he tried to speak. Volta waited. When Daniel failed again, Volta said softly, ‘Your mother is dead.’

Daniel lifted his hands as if he were going to cover his face but they collapsed weakly across his chest. He shut his eyes tightly, but couldn’t stop the tears.

‘I share your sorrow,’ Volta said. ‘I appreciate the poverty of condolence at such a loss, but I offer it nonetheless.’

Daniel moaned, arching against the bed as if trying to sit up.

Volta said, ‘I know I’m presuming on the intimacy of your grief and have clearly violated your privacy, but I’m afraid I must.’

Nodding distractedly, Daniel brought his hands to his face, fingertips pressed hard against his closed eyes.

‘My name is Volta. You’ve met two of my most trusted friends, Smiling Jack and Elmo Cutter. I serve AMO as a member of the Star, the Alliance’s facilitating council. I’m here to offer our heartfelt regrets and, if you want it, our wholehearted help.

‘Your situation is complicated, Daniel. You were injured in the explosion; a sliver of metal from the clock’s hand pierced your temple, traveled upward at approximately a forty-degree angle through the edge of the right hemisphere of your brain, and lodged against the skull. Although the EEG and other tests indicate ‘normal’ brain function – whatever that might be – you have been in a coma for nine weeks. There may be damage the tests haven’t revealed, but other than the coma, all indications are excellent.

‘You are nominally under police guard, no visitors allowed, but since the posted guards were withdrawn a month ago, the restrictions are merely formal. When they find you’ve regained consciousness, you’ll likely be arrested. If so, you can expect to be interrogated by people who know how. My advice is to say you don’t remember anything from at least a month before the blast; conditional amnesia is medically consistent with trauma. So is selective recall. It would probably be best if you had no idea that your mother was planting a bomb. All she told you was that she was delivering something for a friend – better yet, a stranger.’

Daniel uncovered his eyes, looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then back at Volta. He wet his lips. ‘How did you know? The bomb? That it wasn’t already there?’

Patiently, Volta explained, ‘I know because Shamus called and told me everything. He was extremely distraught. He blames himself.’

‘They were in love!’ Daniel sobbed. He shook his head helplessly. ‘Oh Mom, Mom, Mom.’

‘Yes,’ Volta said, ‘I know they were in love. I know it hurts.’

Daniel lashed, ‘Tell me who killed her!’

‘Nobody,’ Volta said calmly. ‘By all evidence, it was a faulty bomb.’

‘
Nobody
? Then why were her last words “Daniel! Run!”’

Volta looked at him sharply. ‘She called to you?’

‘She
screamed
!’ Daniel sobbed.

‘And then?’

Daniel struggled for composure. ‘The bomb exploded before I could even turn to look. Like her scream set it off. That fast.’

Volta considered the information.

‘She was
warning
me,’ Daniel said.

‘Clearly. But about what? Did you notice any people or activity immediately prior to her shout?’

‘No. And I was looking.’

As much to himself as Daniel, Volta murmured, ‘She may have sensed something go wrong with the bomb.’

Daniel didn’t respond.

Volta asked, ‘Did she arm the bomb before entering the alley?’

‘No.’

‘Did she have time to do it before it detonated?’

‘She must have. It blew up.’

‘The pavement was wet. Maybe she slipped and dropped it. Heard a connection sputtering.’

‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said weakly. ‘I don’t know. She screamed and it exploded.’

‘If you want, we’ll look into it. It will take time, no doubt, but perhaps less if you know who built the bomb.’

‘I don’t,’ Daniel said. ‘Shamus should, though – ask him.’

‘I’d like to. However, I’ve been trying to locate him for over a month now to discuss your situation, but he seems to have vanished. Any ideas where he might be?’

‘No. But I want to know anything you find about my mother. I want to know what went wrong.’

‘Naturally. You will be kept completely informed – on that you have my word. Which leads to other matters we have to discuss. For instance, your future, and how we might help you.’

‘Help me do what?’

‘First, to escape the thirteen or so charges that will be filed against you. They only have inklings that the bomb was connected to a plutonium theft, so be very careful about what you say.’

‘They haven’t linked her with Shamus?’

Volta lowered his eyes, then looked back up, straight at Daniel. ‘Your mother didn’t leave any fingerprints, Daniel. Everything they know is from paper. They think she was Mrs Wyatt. We’ve cleaned the
Baton Rouge
connections, the bank account and land titles, and would be grateful if you forgot Dubuque completely.’ Volta kept talking to distract Daniel’s imagination from what the blast must have done to his mother. ‘However, from the snowshoe rental receipt in your pocket – the homemade driver’s license in your wallet had a phony name but the right address – the McKinley Street house was raided before we could cover it, so you also face some forgery and illegal possession charges. You’d be well advised to have an exceptional attorney, and we’d be glad to provide one free if you so choose.’

‘I’d appreciate that,’ Daniel said.

‘You’re fourteen, so you’ll be tried as a juvenile – actually, if things go well it’ll probably end up as a hearing, not a trial. It would help things go well if your amnesia proves intractable. Follow your lawyer’s instructions. We’ll try to get all charges dismissed and have you placed in your aunt’s custody.’

‘I don’t have an aunt.’

Volta cocked his head. ‘Aunt Matilda and Uncle Owen? The Wyatt Ranch up in Mendocino County?’

‘All right,’ Daniel said.

Volta crossed his arms. ‘Now, your future. Many people have spoken highly of you, people whose judgment I esteem – Smiling Jack, for one; Dolly Varden, Johnny Seven Moons, Elmo, and others. They think you have special qualities which should be developed and refined. AMO has some uniquely talented teachers who might help you transform potential into ability.’

‘Can I accept the legal help and not the teachers?’

‘Negotiation isn’t necessary. These are unconditional offers of assistance. Avail yourself as you please.’

‘I want the lawyer. The rest I need to think about.’

Volta said, ‘I’ll contact an attorney the moment I leave, which must be soon. But first I want you to know that I facilitated your return to consciousness by using simple, but suppressed, techniques that were taught to me by a woman named Ravana Dremier. Basically I joined your mind through the powers of empathy, and then I reminded you of life. I assure you I implanted no ideas or suggestions; I merely summoned your attention. I’m telling you this because you may remember my voice calling you – if you don’t at present, you may in the future, particularly in states of dream or reverie. It was your decision to return. I’m sorry about Annalee, Daniel. Heal quickly.’

Volta was at the door when Daniel called, ‘Thank you.’

Volta turned and said, ‘Yes. You’re welcome,’ and closed the door behind him.

Two:
EARTH

The earth, being eager to generate, always produces something; you will imagine you see birds or beasts or reptiles in the glass.

—Philalethes

Transcription: Radio Call Between

Volta and Wild Bill Weber

VOLTA: Bill, it’s Volta. I need a decision about Daniel.

WILD B.: You’re
sure
he’s never been to any school?

VOLTA: As perfectly sure as the last time we discussed it.

WILD B.: Well, what about
organic
brain damage. Anything show up?

VOLTA: They’ve run every test they have. No evidence of impairment.

WILD B.: So why was he in a coma for nine weeks?

VOLTA: It’s what the
Corpus Hermeticum
calls ‘hiding on the threshold.’

WILD B.: Still pounding them dusty tomes, huh?

VOLTA: Still curious.

WILD B.: And curiouser and curiouser, I bet. Personally, I’m partial to Westerns.

VOLTA: If you keep tweaking me, I’ll let it be known that when we first met, you were still a Jesuit priest –
and
a rather sensational young Latin scholar.

WILD B.: Just more proof them books get you in trouble.

VOLTA: That’s like blaming your legs for taking you to the whorehouse.

WILD B.: (laughing) ‘Silence is golden.’

VOLTA: Indeed. And decision is of the essence. That’s why I need yours on Daniel. And I do understand that you have some personal work planned, that you’re tired of teaching, that you’re old and cranky and have lost your edge, but Daniel may be the student you’ve been looking for.

WILD B.: Didn’t know I was looking. But all right, you’ve met him. How do you feel?

VOLTA: He’s got a ferocious mind, and, for one so young, not completely at the expense of subtlety. He strikes to the meat, but he’s impulsive, of course – youth again – yet remarkably self-possessed. He’s held himself together through some hideous blows, and I think––

WILD B.: (cutting him off)
Feel
. How do you
feel
about him?

VOLTA: (after a long pause) Powerfully attracted; powerfully repelled.

WILD B.: Ah, so that’s what got your attention.

VOLTA: On further consideration, you may be the worst choice imaginable.

WILD B.: Are you appealing to my pride or perversity now?

VOLTA: I wasn’t aware you made the distinction.

WILD B.: (laughing) Sold. I’ll take him. But no more than eighteen months, and I get to go off to the desert in peace. Plus you owe me a serious favor.

VOLTA: What’s that now? About three hundred and seven?

WILD B.: At least.

VOLTA: The Wyatt Ranch? Two weeks?

WILD B.: I’ll be there.

Daniel was arrested an hour after he officially regained consciousness. Alexander Kreef, an attorney specializing in juvenile law, arrived a few minutes later with a handful of writs and injunctions. He was accompanied by Daniel’s physician, furious his patient had been disturbed without his approval.

The dour lieutenant attempting to question Daniel was not impressed. ‘Excuse me all to shit,’ he bowed to Dr Tobin, then turned to Alexander Kreef and said with nasty delight, ‘The kid ain’t retained attorney yet – just come to.’

Alexander Kreef smiled pleasantly. ‘I was hired by Mr and Mrs Wyatt, his aunt and uncle, and am entered as attorney of record.’ He handed an eight-pound pile of papers to the lieutenant, who looked at them and dropped them on the floor.

Alexander Kreef kept smiling: ‘You ask my client one more question and I’ll bust your ass so hard you’ll shit through your ears. No, on second thought, ask away; we get more dismissals on procedural errors than airtight alibis.’

‘Fuck you.’ The lieutenant glared at Alexander Kreef, then Daniel, but put his microcassette recorder away.

‘Uh-uh,’ Alexander chided, motioning for the recorder. ‘Inadmissible without due counsel.’

‘Wow. Gee, no, really? Not that it matters, Counselor – seems he don’t remember shit. I mean it’s pretty fucking hard to remember something as quiet as an explosion that blew your momma into memories and bone chips.’

‘You cold prick,’ Alexander hissed, but it was lost in Dr Tobin’s outraged howl: ‘Good God, Lieutenant! This young man has suffered profound cerebral trauma, been in a coma for nine weeks, and you expect him to answer questions? Did it ever enter your feeble mind that the boy might have some form of amnesia common to severe head injuries – total, partial, or conditional?’

‘I’m not a physician,’ Alexander said, ‘but total seems likely in this case.’

‘Yeah, I bet. Probably won’t even remember if he was the alleged Mrs Wyatt’s son, or who his alleged father might be.’ Course with that paper factory they were running, probably hard to keep all the identities straight. Yeah, fucking hard to remember anything.’ The lieutenant looked at Daniel. ‘Ain’t that right, kid?’

‘I don’t remember you,’ Daniel said, then shut his eyes.

Daniel’s hearing was held on December 7. The serious charges were dropped in exchange for his mitigated
nolo contendere
to the lesser counts. He was placed in the guardianship of his aunt and uncle until he was seventeen, at which time, assuming no further arrests, his record would be sealed. Some red tape remained, but Alexander Kreef turned it into Christmas ribbon, and on December 21 Daniel was released. He left that afternoon with Matilda and Owen Wyatt for a cattle ranch in the coastal hills, roughly fifty miles north of the Four Deuces.

The Wyatts were in their mid-fifties, a happy, vigorous couple who took great pleasure in their life on the ranch. The Wyatts owned 1400 acres, but had always run fewer cattle than the carrying capacity allowed. While a struggle at first, their operation was now considered a model of ecological intelligence.

Riding north with the Wyatts Daniel felt tentative and vaguely numb, though they were easy company. He learned that they’d known Volta for fifteen years, from the time he’d helped end a serious rustling problem that had plagued them.

‘So you’re repaying a favor?’ Daniel inquired, curious why they’d gotten involved.

‘Hell no,’ Owen told him, ‘we’re members of the Alliance.’

Daniel found that difficult to believe. ‘So the cattle are a front?’

‘Daniel,’ Tilly explained, ‘you don’t have to be illegal to be an outlaw.’

‘But you stood up in court and said I was a relative – perjury is illegal.’

‘The cops couldn’t prove otherwise,’ Tilly said, ‘so how do you know you’re not kin? We got big families on both sides, and both share the same motto: One Hand Washes the Other. Besides, we got tired of being so
straight
.’

As they pulled into the ranch just after dark, Owen pointed to his left. ‘You’ll be staying in that cabin down there past the feed barn. You see it there, got the light on?’

‘I see two lights,’ Daniel said.

‘The little cabin’s Wild Bill’s, your teacher – he pulled in a few days ago. Tilly and I’ll get the house warm and some chow on the table while you go down and say hello.’

‘If you want to,’ Tilly added.

‘You see who runs this outfit,’ Owen groused, but it was plain he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Nobody answered Daniel’s knock. He knocked louder, and when there was still no answer he opened the door and called, ‘Hello?’

When a voice squawked ‘What?’ he went in. Wild Bill Weber was sitting cross-legged and naked on the floor, slowly and methodically hitting himself between the eyes with a large rubber mallet. ‘Pleased to meet you, Daniel,’ Wild Bill said, continuing the rhythmic mallet blows. ‘I’m Bill Weber. We’ll be working together.’

‘You’re my teacher?’ Daniel said, not so much incredulous as nervously perplexed.

Wild Bill threw the mallet at Daniel’s head.

Ducking, Daniel heard the mallet whiz by his ear and hit the wall with a dull
thock
, the wooden handle clattering as it rebounded across the floor. He started to pick it up and hurl it back, but instead turned on Wild Bill and demanded, ‘
Why
did you do that? What are you doing?’

Wild Bill was watching carefully. After a moment he said, ‘Daniel, let’s get it clear right from the jump:
I’m
the teacher.
I
work on the questions;
you
work on the answers. So
you
tell
me
why I chucked my brain-tuner at you.’

‘I don’t know,’ Daniel said. ‘No idea.’

‘Good,’ Wild Bill nodded. ‘That’s the right answer. But from now on there are no right or wrong answers.’

‘I’m not following this at all,’ Daniel admitted.

‘You probably won’t for about a year, so just relax and do what I tell you and maybe we can both get through without much damage.’

The year passed quickly for Daniel, the time greased by routine. He woke at 4.00; did his dawn meditation; joined Tilly, Owen, and Wild Bill in the main house for breakfast at 5.00; worked until 4.00 in the afternoon; did his evening meditation; ate dinner at 6.00; did the dishes if it was his turn; had free time from then till 9.45; received formal instruction from Wild Bill between 9.45 and 9.50; and then did his dream meditation and went to bed at 10.30. The diversity of the routine saved Daniel from boredom.

The day’s work was anything from branding cattle to scrubbing the kitchen floor. Daniel fixed fence, fed stock, and cut wood. They planted and cut hay and did special projects, like building a smokehouse. He usually worked with Owen or Tilly, for Wild Bill flatly refused any direct contact with the cattle, dismissing them as ‘twisted critters and dumb insults to wild spirit.’ Tilly and Owen argued otherwise – persuasively, Daniel thought – and the subject caused some strain. But one winter night some lightning-spooked steers broke down the corral. Wild Bill saddled up and rode out with the rest of them in the storm to herd the cattle home, bringing the last strays in well after breakfast.

Owen grinned hugely as Wild Bill rode in, enjoying the sight of Bill working cattle as much as the return of the steers. ‘Well, well,’ Owen had greeted him, ‘git along li’l dogies.’

Wild Bill reined up sharply, barking, ‘Don’t be getting no goddamn notions now. I might be a fanatic, but I’m no purist. As long as I’m living here, I’ll lend a hand when you’re truly pressed. Don’t mean I’m joining the fucking Grange.’

Daniel’s three daily meditations, like the ranch work, shared only a structural formality. Wild Bill’s instructions had been brief: ‘Morning meditation is to fill your mind; evening meditation is to see what it’s filled
with
, and dream meditation is to empty it. You’ll figure out right away that filling it, seeing it, and emptying it are the same, but keep in mind that they couldn’t be the same unless they were different. So it’s not so much concentrating
on
the purpose, as concentrating
through
it. This first week we’ll sit together and I’ll show you the postures and breathing and such, but after that you’ll do them alone in your cabin. I’ll check on you whenever I want. The first time I find you not doing your meditations, I’m through as your teacher. So if you ever want to quit and don’t have the guts to tell me so, all you have to do is let me catch you fucking off when you should be sitting.’

After showing Daniel the postures and appropriate breathing for each meditation, he’d explained, ‘Now the most important thing is to get your mind dialed in on Top Dead Center, focus down for depth, and put the needle right through the zero. I’ll show you what works for me.’

Wild Bill went to the closet, explaining over his shoulder, ‘I’m going to my audiovisual department. Can’t hardly call yourself a teacher these days without some audiovisuals.’ And had stunned Daniel by reaching in the closet and pulling out a human skeleton.

Daniel, though he flinched, didn’t say a word.

‘Okay,’ Wild Bill said, holding the skeleton by the spine, ‘before every meditation you do this little exercise called “Counting the Bones.” Probably the oldest psychic woo-woo practice in the world – goes all the way back to the Paleolithic shamans as far as I can follow. What you do is simple: You imagine your skeleton, and then, starting with the toes, count your bones. And I don’t mean that “one, two,” shit – just see each bone clear in your mind and move on. You go
up
the body from the toes, both legs at once, join at the pelvis, shoot up the spine, swoop across the ribs, run out the arms, sail back to the shoulders, up the neck to the skull, and then right to the center of your brain.’

‘The brain isn’t a bone,’ Daniel said.

‘Neither is your dick,’ Wild Bill explained.

If Daniel found such explanations baffling, he was even more bewildered by the five-minute daily segment that constituted his formal study. Wild Bill asked one question and Daniel had five minutes to answer. Wild Bill never indicated if an answer was right, wrong, faulty, inspired, weak, provocative, or ill-considered. And the questions were such that the answers couldn’t be checked.

‘Where did you set your fork when you finished your waffles this morning?’

‘That bird we saw in the orchard – what color was its throat?’

‘What did Tilly say about the cornbread recipe Owen claims he learned from his Grandma?’

‘When the wind shifted along Fern Creek this afternoon, which direction did it blow?’

During his dream meditation, supposedly emptying his mind, Daniel thought about the questions and his doubtful answers. Slowly he became aware of himself in the world, seeing what he saw, doing what he did: laying the posthole digger next to the picket maul; the shapes of clouds; the curved black plume of a cock valley quail on the fencepost; the phase of the moon.

But no matter how much he concentrated in the physical moment or focused through meditation, he kept hearing his mother scream, ‘Daniel! Run!’ And as his numbness gave way to grief, and grief to the buried rage of depression, the only question he really wanted answered was what had happened in that alley.

He told Wild Bill, ‘Volta said he would investigate my mother’s death and let me know what he learned – he gave me his word. And in ten months I’ve heard from him
once
, to say there was no progress. I guess I better do it myself, which means I’ve got to quit here and go back to Berkeley. It’s nothing personal. I mean, it’s nothing between you and me; it’s with Volta.’