October Light (49 page)

L. Page too long to have complete confidence in regulations, impersonal agencies, officials. Better for Pearl, then, to huddle safe with the ordinary people, better to have phoned Leonard, submitting to commonness, the touch of bestiality in the life she'd escaped. Why not?

She looked hard at the crate above her bedroom door and frowned.
No!,
she thought. As soon say that she, Sally Page Abbott, should come out of her room and let all she had fought for be a joke at her expense and a glory to James because his violence had won! As soon say Horace had been wrong to give Richard support in his rebellion against his father! No, no, no, no siree! But if submission was wrong …

She glanced at the page beyond the gap, took a bite from her apple, and uneasily, decided to read on.

… life evil. What I mean—when my moment of Conversion came …” He jerked his head around, as if he were seeing something strange in the heavens. Mr. Goodman, just about to hand him the pipe, reconsidered, smoking it himself, looking up.

“What's that?” Dr. Alkahest cried out, pointing.

They all had the solid impression, for an instant, that directly above them hung a huge flying saucer. It vanished. “Did you see what
I
saw?” they all said at once. They couldn't believe they'd really seen it. “The pot,” they said. “It
must
be.” But they talked in hushed voices, awed by a whole new world of possibility.

Dr. Alkahest told them he wanted to buy their pot. Not just a little. All of it.

“Man, you are a gas,” Dancer said.

“I'm in earnest, young man,” Dr. Alkahest said. “Look.” He fumbled with his moneybelt, then dipped his fingertips in and drew out a thousand-dollar bill.

Dancer snatched it, held it over the fire where he could see it. His eyes bugged. “It's real!” He looked from one to another of them. His face became indignant. “What you doin, carrying around thousan' dollar bills? What if I was a thief or somethin? You tryin to lead me to temptation?” He put the money in his pocket.

Dr. Alkahest watched with a startled grin. He'd been robbed—they'd all seen it. Perhaps he'd be beaten—perhaps he'd bestripped and bound and gagged, perhaps even made a human sacrifice. “He he he!” Dr. Alkahest laughed ecstatically. What a place! What a company! No limits!

“Don't laugh,” Santisillia said, misunderstanding, “he really is a thief. Grew up in Harlem. Can't help himself. They made him a transom man when he was four.”

Dr. Alkahest trembled, dizzy with happiness. The bearded man was a moralist. All the better! “Don't you people have any standards?” he cackled, and crazily flopped his head from side to side. They hadn't yet noticed that he was seated on a cushion of moneybags.

They all looked at him, a little puzzled. Dancer said, as if trying it out, “You're rich, I'm poor.” He poked his white-T-shirted chest with his big black thumb. “You got a responsibility for me.”

Dr. Alkahest squealed with laughter, and Dancer looked around at his friends again, hoping for clarification. Gradually the doctor got control of himself. He'd remembered that he must settle the arrangements while he still had the wit. With a quick little jerk, he got out his flask and drank. He said, “When does the shipment arrive?”

“Any time,” Santisillia said. “We don't know. They'll bring it over from the mainland some night, probably early in the morning. What time you got, Peter?”

Peter Wagner looked at his watch. “Two a.m.”

“If it's tonight, they'll be along soon,” Santisillia said, “Otherwise we wait until tomorrow night, or the night after that—”

“They come by boat?” Dr. Alkahest said.

He nodded.

“Then maybe that's them.” The old cripple cocked his head.

Santisillia looked doubtful, glanced at Peter Wagner. “You hear anything?”

“Not me,” Peter Wagner said.

The Indian, who'd been sitting as still as a boulder, put his hand to his ear, then shook his head.

“I have excellent hearing,” Dr. Alkahest said. “I assure you somebody's loading a boat, back that way.” He pointed.

“Crazy,” Dancer said. A wicked smile showed at the corner of his mouth. “Hey listen, I'll make you a bet. A thousand dollars.”

“Oh come on,” Peter Wagner said.

“No deal, but I'll bet you a nickel,” Dr. Alkahest said.

Dancer sagged. “Shit man, who's got a nickel?”

An hour later they heard the rumble of the Mexicans' boats.

“They're coming! He could really hear them!” Jane said.

“Then my part in the comedy is over,” Peter Wagner said. “I've brought you to your Mexicans. Adieu, adieu, night-night, ta ta!” He snatched up the rifle.

“Stop it!” Santisillia said. “You going to shoot yourself right in front of
us,
boy? You got no
feelings?”

Peter Wagner sighed and put it down.

By now the Mexicans were inside the cave, climbing out of the boats. Their yells of greeting—coming up through the shaft they sounded more like groans—rose to the basin, and a moment later their heads began appearing. Soon the volcano basin was full of them, a huddled mass if ever there was one, people crippled, maimed, bloated, wart-faced, dwarfed, blind, deaf, voiceless, some of them on wooden legs, some of them on skate-boards; Dr. Alkahest fainted, bowled over by the scent.

“Let's go! Let's load up!” Santisillia said.

But Dancer leaped up. “Wait! We forgot the trial!” He stood with his arms raised, like a wildman praying.

Ominously, as if in support of his earnestness, the earth grumbled.

“Aw, come on, Dancer,” Peter Wagner said.

Jane said, “Outlaws can't hold trials.”

“It's illogical,” Mr. Nit said.

The Indian nodded, solemn.

The crowd of Mexicans watched them, bright eyed and agreeable. A fat one with gunbelts crossing his chest, two of his upper teeth missing, said,
“¿Qué es? ¿Una misa?”
Those behind him pressed closer.

Dr. Alkahest opened his eyes and cried, “Welcome friends! God bless you,” then passed out again, though he wanted to say more.

“¿Quées?,”
the fat man said. He leaned forward, staring with his eyebrows lifted, like a man looking into an aquarium at a curious fish. He pointed at the doctor.

“He's high,” Peter Wagner explained. “He's found happiness.”

“High,”
the Mexican said to those behind him. They passed it back.

Santisillia was looking at the sky, troubled. It would be morning soon. If they didn't get the boats loaded and move out, they'd have to sit here another whole day. It was time they didn't have. If the old man had found them, others knew. And if it was true that Dusky had brought Dr. Alkahest and was near, staying out of sight, given that infallible sixth sense he had …

Suddenly Luther Santisillia hit himself on the forehead and whispered, “Shit! What a fool!” It wasn't by some uncanny sixth sense that Dusky always knew where Fist was, where the Feds were, where everything was! Old Dusky had the whole fucking picture: he was a
Narc!
Santisillia began to laugh, his muscles going weak. Old Dusky had played his dumb niggers like a ju-ju man—he'd said a little pig-Latin backwards and they'd believed!
Beware the stories yo mama tells you,
he thought.
Beware the man with the fictions!

He raised his arms for attention. “Listen,” he said, “we gotta leave. We been fucked. Dusky's out there—he brought the old man in. He's a Narc.”

They looked at him.

“No Narc,” the Indian said.

“He's a Narc, I tell you. It's incredible none of us thought of it. All the time he's been settin us up, playin us that tune about his infallible sixth sense—”

“Setting us up why?” the Indian said.

“Who knows why?
You
understand the mind of a government agent?”

“Some kind of rip-off maybe,” Peter Wagner said. “Ends against the middle.”

“No Narc,” the Indian said. He folded his arms like an Indian in the movies. “We take the load.”

Santisillia flashed anger for an instant, then laughed. He felt something give in his head. It was too late anyway. Ah, that Dusky!

“Maybe he's a Narc and maybe not,” Mr. Goodman said. “But to walk away from a load like this one—”

“We could load fast,” Mr. Nit said.

Santisillia held out his arms, palms up, as if to plead, then laughed again. It made no difference. “Ok,” he said, “let's load.”

The crowd stirred slightly in the direction of the entrance, then stopped. Dancer was waving the machine gun. “No!” he yelled.

“First the trial! Captain Fist shot me in the leg! I ain't had my vengeance!”

“Hey, cool it man,” Santisillia said. “It's all over.” He took a step, casual, smiling, then jerked back with a yelp. Bullets chopped up the stone just in front of his feet.

“We gonna have a trial. That's final,” Dancer said.

They looked at him.

The Mexicans all scratched their heads and smiled. It always takes time to learn new customs. Nobody spoke.

Peter Wagner said at last, wearily, “Why, Dancer? Why so petty? What if it turns out Luther's right—what if the Narcs are on the way right now?”

Dancer stamped his foot. “Man, you're crazy! Dusky's a gentleman, pride of the people. How come you bastards always tryin to undermine a young person's heroes and ideals?”

“All the same,” Peter Wagner said reasonably, “we could hold the trial later—be on the safe side.”

“Safety is for chickens,” Dancer snapped.

“Makes no difference,” Santisillia said. “It's all over but the shooting anyway.”

Dancer shook his head furiously, as if to drive away gnats. “I want you peoples to get ready for this trial.”

“With the Narcs coming?” Peter Wagner asked.

“No Narcs coming, God damn you,” Dancer yelled. “The Narc is a mythological beast. One more word about Narcs, I gonna shoot you for contempt of this court.”

Jane touched his arm. “Why have it now though, really?”

“We gonna find out,” Dancer said. “That's all, man. We just gonna find out.”

They all looked over at Captain Fist, still bound and gagged. Jane said innocently, “Find out what?”

“What's the matter you, ofay?” Dancer said, turning the machine gun toward her. “What you
spose
to find out when you try a man? We gone find out if he's guilty, you understan? We gone put that ole motherfucker on trial and try him and see if he's guilty. What the fuck you expect?”

“Man,” Santisillia said, smiling at the sky, “what's guilt? You never killed nobody?”

But Dancer wasn't hearing.

“Hey Alkahest!” he yelled. He poked the old man in the chest with his machine gun. “Wake up, man. We havin some justice.”

The doctor slept on, both drugged and drunk, mumbling in his sleep, “What fun for the Sons of Liberty!”

“Let him be,” Santisillia said. “He's way up in the sky. He can't get down.”

“I say he's comin
down,”
Dancer said. He leaned over and shouted in Alkahest's ear. “Wake up and look sober or I'll blast your faggotty head off. What you mean, man, settin there, ignorin your social responsibility?” He held the gun three inches away from the tip of Dr. Alkahest's nose. Dr. Alkahest opened first one eye, then the other, and abruptly smiled from ear to ear.

“Are you going to kill me?” he asked coyly.

Santisillia said, “You want to murder the Captain, why don't you just
shoot
him?”

Alkahest was making a powerful effort to keep his eyes open. If he was to die, it was important that he feel it, actually hurt for an instant, get the whole sensation. It was his inalienable right. He shook his head, batting his lashes and rolling his half-closed eyes, smiling widely.

“That's better, rich man,” Dancer said. Alkahest trembled with excitement, pinching himself, picking at himself. Dancer chattered on. “I appreciate your sittin up and doin your duty. And to show my appreciation I'm gonna confer a honor upon you, understand? I gonna glorify you, Jack. On account of I can see you're one smarrrrt doood, and you been educated and all that shit, and also because I have happened to observe you are higher than Jesus, I'm makin you Attorney for the Defense.” He pointed at Captain Fist. “Now get ready to defend him.”

Alkahest looked at Fist—still bound and gagged—then back at Dancer. At the sight of the Captain's wicked little eyes, fouler than plague, Dr. Alkahest smiled and went woozy. “I'll do my best,” he brought out, and giggled.

Dancer nodded. “You gonna have to.”

“A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake.”
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, 1757

6

Truces and Human Considerations Rejected, the War Rages On

1

Despite the discomfort of his sleeping position, James Page awakened late. Out by the barn, the cows were noisily bellowing to be milked. The sunlight, what there was of it, luminous gray as a month-old boiled egg, came spilling into the bathroom not horizontally but from fifty degrees up. He was sick and full of pain. His head was splitting, his scratches, bumps, and cuts were all whimpering, his dry lips were strangely stuck together, so that parting them made slivers of the skin tear off. As if his eyes had been open before he came awake, he was aware abruptly, without transition from sleep, of the sink and its pitted pipes and trap, the blistering gray wall behind it. All he saw was unnaturally motionless, unreal, as if it were a cunningly built model of itself, or as if the world had gone through some catastrophe and, surviving, was at perfect rest, regathering its strength. His rear end was numb, his neck stiff and painful, his gray-haired bare legs freezing.