The Sound of Many Waters (15 page)

Now, watching the police boat, Zane thought about his own father and mother and how they would react when someone came to inform them that he had jumped off a bridge and was likely deceased. That’s the word they would use—deceased—as if it were any less awful than telling them he was dead. What would his parents do? His mother, he guessed, would swallow her most potent pills before any genuine grief could set in, and his father would slouch into a quiet corner of a bar to share his laments with a bottle of
Beam
or
Captain
.

But not everyone, he realized, would grieve when they heard the news of his demise. Some would likely find gratification in it, namely Lucia’s parents. He could envision their reactions.
We knew he was bad. He got what he deserved. Our daughter finally has justice.
If his death brought some closure to what had undoubtedly been the worst tragedy to ever befall them, then Zane was happy to let them believe it was true.

Zane reached the shore and climbed up the concrete embankment below the bridge, pausing to catch his breath. A year
n
ing buzzed in his body, a mixture of hunger and thirst. He hadn’t had any food or water since the previous day. He could not, however, go into town during daylight; the cops would be ev
e
rywhere. So he crawled up into the narrow, graffiti-scribbled ca
v
ity where the bridge abutment joined the underside of the road. Someone had obviously been sleeping there; a piece of cardboard was laid out to the length of a person, empty food tins littered the ground, and a few dirty blankets were balled up in a crevice. The air reeked of urine.

He shook one of the blankets and a syringe flew out. Part of him wanted to see what it held, but the thought of injecting himself with a dirty bum needle revolted him enough to stamp out the craving. He lay down on the cardboard and pulled the stinking blanket over himself. He doubted he had ever felt so tired. Looking out, he could see the police boat in the distance still hovering over the same place. Drawing his gaze in closer, he watched shards of glass glisten on the concrete like a scattering of broken dreams.

Chapter Fifteen

At dawn the natives carved three new paddles and everyone boarded the canoe, hugging the lakeshore as they journeyed north. The flavors of the previous night’s meal lingered in Dominic’s mouth. He wished otherwise. The gar meat had been foul and gritty, and the accompanying palmetto berries—which the natives gathered from the surrounding scrub—held the pungency of rotten tobacco. He longed to rinse his mouth. He kept his hands in his lap, though. He had learned his lesson about dangling fingers in dark waters.

“How much more of this?” said Dominic.

“We are not far,” said Francisco. The old man looked frail in the morning sheen. The journey had taken an obvious toll.

“And what is in store for me when we get to our mysterious destination?”

“I cannot tell you yet, but trust me when I say that you are not in any danger.”

“Trust you? Old man, I have yet to decide whether you are a liar or a lunatic.”

“Why is it you think I am either?”

“Do you remember the night of the hurricane? You told me your story about how you came to La Florida. On an expedition with Juan Ponce de Leon, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Well, I might have believed you if Ponce de Leon did not die over a hundred years ago. It is simply not possible for you to have been on that voyage.”

Francisco sighed. “Perhaps my story was not entirely true.”

By midday they reached the mouth of a creek that flowed west into the lake. The water in the creek was much clearer, and the confluence looked like a swirl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, with neither fluid willing to mix with the other. Dominic wished he had a fresh
barra gallega
—Galician bread—to dip into it, even though he knew it would just get soggy and fall apart.

The natives steered the canoe into the creek and paddled rigorously to make headway against the current. They stayed close to the wooded shoreline to reduce the water’s resistance and Dominic ducked away from a barrage of low-hanging tree limbs. One of the limbs brushed against the side of the canoe and a swarm of spiders clambered aboard. Dominic spent the next few minutes flicking the hideous things into the water where bream and mudfish quickly slurped them away.

The creek constricted as they toiled on. By late afternoon it had become so narrow that the trees on either shore could reach across and stroke each other’s limbs. Soon, their branches conjoined to create a leafy canopy that blocked out most of the sunlight. Not even a gasp of wind stirred inside the dark tunnel and the only sound was of the paddles swishing against water. The natives did not speak, and Dominic had the sense that this was a place where words were not we
l
come.

Minutes later, Francisco leaned toward Dominic and whispered, “Do you hear it?”

“Hear what?”

“The sound of many waters.”

“Do you mean the river?”

He smiled. “No, not the river.”

Dominic leaned toward the primeval forest and listened. He thought he heard a child’s laugh but it could have just been the call of a bird or wild animal. The canoe came around a sharp curve in the river and before them, half submerged, lay a massive tree that had fallen out of the forest. A naked boy, the same color as the tree, jumped up from it. He looked terrified, but then his face exploded into vibrant joy. He ran up the trunk and bounded into the woods, screaming.

“
Ara Ibi
,” said Francisco. “Many Waters—our village.”

“I see no village.”

“That is the intention.”

The natives beached the canoe alongside the tree and hurried out. Dominic followed them up a narrow path. The trail meandered through the woods at several sharp angles so that no one passing by on the river could see what it led to. They came to a clearing in the middle of which stood an immense circular wall made of pine logs that had been sharpened into something resembling fence posts. Coils of smoke rose from behind the walls and the beguiling smell of roasted game wafted through the air.

The only entryway was an opening where each end of the wall ran parallel to the other, as if the entire structure were a circle whose lines continued past one another a good distance without connecting. It created an entrance like a narrow hall which could be defended easily. The boy who had been on the log soon emerged from the opening, followed by a line of natives—mostly women and other children.

The children were naked. The women—wearing girdles of oak moss that barely veiled the dark shadows of their laps—were tall and thin and had long, black hair that hung to their navels. Their bare breasts were the only parts of their coppery skin without tattoos; otherwise their bodies were adorned with ornate indigo bands and clusters of dots that all surely meant something but, to Dominic, were as indecipherable as the words that now poured out of their mouths.

A young woman holding a little girl ran to Itori and wrapped her free arm around him. Itori nuzzled his face into her neck and then kissed her eyelids. A gaggle of children swarmed Utina and gawked at the shell around his neck, none of them daring to touch it. A sullen woman walked to Utina, regarded him sheepishly, and hugged him in an embrace so measured that only her forearms touched his skin.

Another woman, slightly older than the rest, emerged from the narrow doorway and gazed out. Her eyes darted back and forth between the men and the trail. When she saw the shell necklace on Utina, she dropped to her knees and sobbed. “Ona,” she cried. “
Onaaa
.”

“She is Ona’s primary wife,” said Francisco.

Dominic turned to him, puzzled. “Primary?”

“Chiefs are expected to have several wives, but she was his favorite.”

Itori helped her stand. The other women surrounded her and took her into the village. Dominic followed everyone inside. What he saw astonished him. The huts were aligned as orderly as houses in a European town, and the roofs, woven from palm thatch, looked like the heads of monks. He assumed the large hut in the center of the village to be the chief’s residence, as that was the direction in which the women led Ona’s wife. To its side stood seven poles arranged in a circle around a fire pit—a meeting point, it seemed—and feathers, bones and antlers adorned each pole. On the opposite side of the village, a bed of coals smoldered in a large pit, producing a column of thick smoke that drifted across fish flanks and an
i
mal pieces arranged on a thatch mat. Nearby, stretched dee
r
skins dried on timber frames.

As the women approached Ona’s hut, a maiden more beautiful than any Dominic had ever seen in the New World came to the entryway. Her tawny skin, not yet spoiled by tattoos, still enjoyed the sleekness of youth, although she was clearly not a child. Her thick, black hair waved down across her chest all the way to her thighs and only the curves of her hips and the points of her small, acicular breasts peeked out. She did not wear any moss like the others—her hair was like a dress of its own. When she saw the older woman in tears, she, herself, collapsed. In the throes of grief, she looked primal, raw, and enticing, and in that instant Dominic wanted to both console and conquer her.

“Is she another of Ona’s wives?” asked Dominic.

“No, that is Mela,” said Francisco. “His daughter, whom he loved very much.”

“She is certainly a striking creature.”

“She is purity embodied. Many men hunger for Mela. Her fruits, however, are forbidden.”

“Are they forbidden now that the tree has been cut down?”

Dominic could feel Francisco’s eyes on him, so he turned and met the old man’s worried gaze with a look of nonchalance. Francisco relaxed, and then said, “I must tend to something. I will r
e
turn soon.”

Francisco hobbled out of the village and Dominic lowered himself onto a stump beside the central fire and looked around. The place exuded tranquility. The men had dispersed throughout the village to play with their children and enjoy the gentle caresses of their wives. Dominic watched Itori place his sleeping daughter in an outdoor bed of moss and then lead his young wife by the hand into their unlit hut. Next door, Utina’s children climbed all over him. His wife brought him a bowl of sliced fruit but he pushed it away and it spilled into the dirt. She stooped and collected the fruit and crept back into the hut.

Dominic looked into the fire and lost himself for a long time watching the glowing embers fissure and crumble. He heard a faint giggle, so he whipped around and startled a pack of knee-high children who had gathered to study him. They sca
m
pered away. Moments later, however, they tiptoed back, staring at him in wonder.

“Go away,” he said. They did not seem to understand, so he tried to wave them off with his hand. The children laughed and mimicked his gesture, and then the oldest of them, a little girl of four or five years old, crept up to him.

“Blanco,” she said. Francisco had obviously taught her some Spanish.

“My skin?” said Dominic, but that did not incite a reply so he touched his bare forearm. “White skin.”

“No.” The little girl touched Dominic’s hair just above his ear. “White.”

“My hair is black.” And then he said, “
Blaaack.
”

“No.” The little girl touched the top of his head and said, “Black.” Then she touched the hair above his ear again and said, “
Whiiite.
”

Was there some dried mud in his hair, perhaps? He touched his scalp and felt nothing abnormal, so he grabbed a small tuft of hair above his ear and plucked it out. Sure enough, it was white. Damn it. When had he started going gray? Before long, he feared, he would look just like his father looked in his later years. He turned away from the children and slouched on the stump.

Soon he heard someone whistling and looked up to see Francisco approaching. The old man’s face glowed with vitality. His hair looked damp.

“Why do you look like you just bathed?” said Dominic.

“Because I did.”

“Perhaps you can get some of these filthy natives to do the same.”

“They do not bathe. They swim in the river.”

“Which is why they smell like catfish.”

“Catfish smell good to them.”

“Not to me. I would certainly like to enjoy the luxury of a bath, unless of course you are so selfish that you intend to keep it entirely to yourself.”

“In time, but not now. There are important matters at hand.”

“What could be so pressing?”

“You must learn our ways.”

“And then?”

“And then you can have a bath.” Francisco turned and headed off in the opposite direction, his robe curling up in the wind of his walk. “Come with me.”

Dominic trailed Francisco to a small, dilapidated hut on the far perimeter of the village. A crooked cross hewn from palmetto sticks jutted from the midpoint of the roof.

Not a goddamn church, Dominic thought as he entered. When he saw the primitive altar made of stacked timber and the three pews fashioned out of cypress logs, his mood turned sour.