The Drop Edge of Yonder (36 page)

By the evening of the following day, everyone except Zebulon had given up. He rode inland, retracing the way they had come. When there was still no sign of Delilah, he considered riding to San Francisco, thinking she might have returned to Lu's Dream Palace, but after a few miles he realized it was hopeless and turned back.

When Delilah showed up the next day, they were sitting around the fire, eating rabbit stew Her clothes were torn and her face and neck were full of bloody welts and scratches. She sank down next to Large Marge, dropping her gold and ruby necklace on Marge's lap.

"Maybe it will bring you more luck than it's brought me," she said, turning her back to them.

She never mentioned where she had been, nor did anyone ask her.

HUNDRED MILES FROM THE COAST, THE SKY TURNED AN ominous slate gray and then let loose a relentless downpour that left them so ornery and full of spite that they were unable to speak or look at each other. In the middle of the third night of rain, the Mexican fruit farmer realized he had made a wrong turn with the wrong people and rode off towards the Mexican border with a horse, two rifles, and a blanket. When Large Marge tried to shoot him, her pistol was so caked with mud that the barrel exploded, leaving powder burns across her chest and face. Despite the fruit farmer's thievery, his departure proved auspicious. As if a curse had been lifted, the rain suddenly stopped and the sky exploded into fiery streaks of northern lights.

At dawn they crossed a valley covered with cedar and stands of alder. In the distance, giant redwoods stood framed against the horizon like a line of towering cathedrals.

As they approached the forest, now almost invisible behind layers of dense fog, Hatchet Jack jumped off his horse and dropped to the ground, his hands pointing towards the trees.

"Listen to me, wood spirits," he called. "We're a bunch of lame fools. Not only that, but nothin's been goin' right for us and we can't offer you more than a big `Howdy.' There's no blame if you turn us down or make trouble, but we need a break because we ain't sure who we're lookin' for or where we're goin' or what's waitin' for us when we get there."

They pushed on through shafts of brittle light into a forest as gloomy and wet as the bottom of a rain barrel. Overhead, there was no birdsong or living creature, only a soft rain dripping through thick carapaces of waterlogged branches.

Zebulon's heart began to pound like a drum.

In fact, there was a drum. It was coming from somewhere ahead, as if urging them on. Or, as Large Marge suggested with a wry smile, warning them of approaching doom.

The drumming was coming from all sides, growing louder and then almost inaudible, sometimes ahead and then behind them. Finally, when they had given up on any sense of direction, they were greeted by what sounded like a series of exuberant exhales:

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho...! Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

Through a narrow avenue of trees, they saw the low silhouette of a wooden longhouse facing a narrow bay. The roof was supported by two rows of wide posts and covered with roughly hewn planks. A row of totem poles, several feet higher than the roof, stood on either side of the longhouse, decorated from top to bottom with carved figures painted in dark reds, apple greens, and blacks. Two Indians sat slumped on a bench on one side of the twenty-foot door. Both of the Indians wore army pants and bowler hats with eagle and raven feathers sticking up from the brims.

The drumming and chanting grew louder as Plaxico emerged from the longhouse, looking almost comical in a knee-length buttoned blanket with a red eagle on the back and a conical hat fashioned from a spruce root. Lu followed behind him, wearing a long sack-like yellow robe, his black queue tied into a knot with long strips of bark.

"Well, well," Plaxico said, looking them over. "I guess things ain't what they seem after all, nor, if you want my opinion, be they otherwise."

He walked up to Hatchet Jack and slapped him on the back with such surprising force that he fell to his knees. "So, my long lost son, all the ducks are finally in the noose. Another day and I would have lit out for home."

He looked at Zebulon. "Did you bring your cards with you?"

"I'm finished with cards," Zebulon said. "And I wish I was finished with you."

"You will be," Plaxico said. "Sooner than you know"

"Will this do?" Delilah reached into her pouch and held up the queen of hearts.

"When you come up with a whole deck, we'll play," Plaxico said. "Dealer's choice. No marked wild cards or dealin' off the bottom, the way you've been known to do."

The sight of the queen of hearts, together with the mix of gringos and their mention of poker and dealing off the bottom of the deck, convinced the Indians sitting behind Lu that, at the very least, they were in for a wild night.

Their excitement faded when a huge gray owl swooped over them and settled on the head of a carved wooden eagle on top of the longest totem pole. The eagle was painted dark green and was further distinguished by a long curved red beak. Its eyes were fashioned from abalone shells and were the same colors as Hatchet jack's: one black, the other blue.

The owl swiveled its head in a circle, staring first at Plaxico, then at Zebulon and the Indians.

"Hooo, Hooo, Hooo," the owl cried, flapping its huge wings.

"Hooo, Hooo, yourself," Plaxico answered, flapping his arms.

Unnerved by the way these strange people were communicating with each other, the Indians retreated into the longhouse.

"Owls see things," Plaxico said. "But you can't count on 'em. Sometimes they're just bored and want somethin' to do, so they make a lot of mischief."

Large Marge decided that she had seen more than enough mumbo-jumbo and walked over to her horse.

"My peace is gone," she sighed, "and my heart is sore"

"And you shall find it nevermore," Delilah said, finishing the poem.

Hoisting herself into her saddle, Large Marge became suddenly aware of what it might mean to ride off alone into country she knew nothing about. With a shrug, she dismounted and walked over to the bench, her eyes on the owl as it settled on the roof of the longhouse, its head tucked beneath one of its wings.

Plaxico sat down on the bench next to Large Marge. "The owl ain't sure if it's at the right place. And to tell the truth, I ain't either."

"Amen to that," Large Marge said.

Plaxico pulled out a tobacco pouch and rolled two smokes, handing one to Large Marge. "I don't know what goes on with these people, whether they're Kwakiutl or Tlingit or Haida, or what they're up to. For our purposes, it don't hardly matter. Most of 'em know enough English from whalers and prospectors, so we'll make do."

Inside the longhouse, the drumming grew louder, followed by shouts and what sounded like hobnail boots kicking the walls.

Plaxico sighed and stood up. "Time to strut our stuff on the dance floor."

He pointed to a bunch of wild flowers and abalone shells piled beside the door. "Don't touch or smell or look too hard at 'em. They're to fool the spirits, the ones that ain't allowed in. Of course, that ain't us. Not yet, anyways."

He turned back at the door. "Once you're inside, you can't come out. But what else do you got to do? In my experience, it's like this when you're faced with losing who you think you are, or what you're doing, or where you think you're goin'."

Zebulon stared up at the totem pole. Just below the carved eagle, three sea monsters were joined together, their heads staring in three separate directions.

For a moment, he was sure that one of the heads was his own and the other two belonged to Hatchet Jack and Delilah.

Then the heads became sea monsters again and he found the courage to follow Plaxico.

HEY SAT AGAINST THE WALL OF THE CAVERNOUS LOWceilinged room hung with skins and strings of seal and whale teeth. Plaxico stood in the center of the room, wearing a frog mask with grinning copper teeth. Near him, on the other side of a fire pit, a large flat stone supported a display of eagle and hawk feathers, piles of hard candy, a polished human skull, and a large wooden statue of a blue heron standing on one leg with a broken wing.

Children ran around the room and up and over the outstretched legs of men and women puffing on large hand-rolled cigars, shaking rattles, and banging on box drums. Most of them wore ceremonial shirts made of cedar bark and decorated in red and cobalt blue with hand-sewn wolves, eagles, and ravens.

"This is your house," Plaxico cried, strutting around the room in ankle rattles made of clam and mussel shells.

"There is no other. I am a guest. You are the hosts and I am the host and you are the guests."

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!" he cried

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!" the room answered.

He paused, looking at each face. "There are things I've been asked to do, people I'm here to help. I came all the way from old Mex to be here and I thank you for takin' this old fool into your lodge. Some of the people I brought here might look strange, and they are, but inside this lodge we are all the same."

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!" the assembled responded, all of them excited and curious about this old spirit doctor who had come such a long way with the first Chinaman they had ever laid eyes on.

Plaxico continued to strut around the room, smacking people on their heads and chests with his hands. Lu followed behind, waving sticks of smoking sage.

"We are all here: the dead and the living and those folks who are caught in-between. We are all here, and we are all the same. Tell me if that ain't true?"

"That's true," shouted the reply.

"We are nowhere but here. Tomorrow, everything will be different. And the day after that and then the day after that. But in this place, even if we are separate, we are the same; even our enemies who want to steal our power and kill us; even the outlaw who runs for his life and doesn't know that he's headed for death. All of us are headed for death, and we are all the same. Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, black, white, yellow, and red. We are all the same!

"All sit down!" he cried.

"All sit down!" the room replied.

Plaxico smacked Hatchet Jack on his head and shoulders.

"This one in front of me is a coyote. He'll steal your woman, and sell off your children, and take your boat, and your horse, and your chickens and goats."

Plaxico spread out his arms, rolling his eyes and howling like a coyote.

Children cried and hid behind their parents, who laughed and clapped their hands but were still careful to keep their children close by.

Plaxico stopped in front of Zebulon. "Look at this one who is caught between the worlds. He suffers because he thinks there's a way to shake loose, that there's someone here with the power to free him. He believes a woman can help him, but that woman is as lost as he is."

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho! As lost as he is."

Plaxico jerked Delilah to her feet. "Look at this woman! She has come from the other side of the world only to find out that she never had to go anywhere! She, too, is caught between worlds. She has been told that one way for her to get loose is to free others from the same glue. Another way is to know that all trails are dreams and that there was never anything to try for or do; only to be."

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho! Only to be."

Plaxico lowered Delilah to the floor and nodded to Lu, who placed his palm on her stomach.

"This woman will have a son," Lu pronounced.

"A son!" Plaxico shouted.

"A son!" everyone replied.

The crowd cheered and shouted. The drums pounded so long and hard that people thought the paddles and fishing gear stuffed in the rafters would fall on top of them.

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

"Who's the Pa?" Hatchet Jack shouted.

"The Pa?" Plaxico shouted back. "Who cares about the Pa? This boy belongs to everyone."

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho! This boy belongs to everyone."

The men pounded their fists on the floor while the women pulled their children even closer.

"Oh...! Ha...! Ho!"