The Sound of Many Waters (29 page)

I could stay here forever, he thought.

The trail broadened and he lost his breath at the splendor of what lay before him: a pool of water, wide as a galleon, clear as cold air, electrified with shades of blue more dazzling than the coralline shallows of the tropics. The water in the center of the spring welled up in undulating layers that bulged on the surface and disappeared as they spread. The rim of the pool, almost perfectly round, was bordered on all sides by a steep earthen incline swathed in ferns and flowering plants. Colossal trees created an all-encompassing canopy above, and, below, their roots reached out from the shoreline like errant veins, all vying to dip their spindly ends into the water.

Dominic stepped to the edge of the rim. He recoiled when his eyes found Francisco sitting naked and wrinkled at the waterline below. The old man was an anomaly staining the ot
h
erwise pristine dell, a whore among virgins. Francisco cupped his hand in the water and splashed his shoulder wound. Then he took another handful and sipped it.

“You selfish pig,” said Dominic. The old man jumped up and grabbed his loincloth from a nearby root to cover his shriveled bits. He squinted at Dominic.

“God almighty,” said the old man. “
Hernando?
”

“Pardon?”

Francisco leaned closer. “Oh, it is you. I thought for a moment you were someone I once knew. I see you found his a
r
mor.”

“Come up here. Now.”

Francisco hobbled up the steep embankment and Dominic pressed the tip of the sword into his neck and forced him to his knees.

“I know you are upset about your child,” said Francisco, “but perhaps we can pray together for God’s will to be done.”

Dominic pressed the sword in harder. “No will but mine is to be done.”

Francisco made the sign of the cross over his body and whispered a prayer.

“Quiet,” said Dominic, his eyes on fire. “I want answers to my questions. If you try to mislead me or speak in riddles or mention God even one time, I swear I will kill you.”

Francisco smiled. “As you say, commander.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“Pardon me. My mind is not right.”

“That has been obvious since the day I met you. Never mind. It is time for answers. First, I want you to tell me, and tell me true, who was Hernando?”

“Ah, yes. Hernando. So many memories, both good and bad. Hernando, commander, was a brave and noble Spanish soldier. He was also my brother. And, a long time ago, I took his sword—that very one in your hand—and put it through his head.”

Chapter Thirty

Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound jarred Zane’s eyes open. In his waking delirium, it seemed as if he had been gobbled up by some monster and was seeing its rib cage from the inside. As the fog of deep sleep wore away and the pain in his belly sharpened his mind, he realized he was simply looking at a low ceiling lined with wooden rafters.

But whose building was it? He breathed through his nose; the mustiness he smelled, though, did nothing to help him identify his surroundings. He remembered the spike that had been sticking out of his gut and wondered how he was even still alive. In that instant before his mind had gone to black, he recalled, he did not even have time to think more than a glimmer of a thought, but the thought was this:
I end now
.

Boom. Boom. Boom.
Zane sat up, wincing, and looked for the source of the noise. The room was dim and cavernous and filled with things—so many things, in fact, that they all blended into one amalgamation of clutter—but he saw no people. The walls were lined with shelves that held what had to be thousands of books, and the books that could not fit on shelves were stacked in precarious waist-high piles all over the wooden floor. Most of the books looked old and worn.

“Hello?” said Zane. The only sound that returned was another series of loud
booms
.

Zane realized he was lying on a wooden table. He swung his legs off and felt warm liquid run down his lower half as he stood. How much blood had he already lost? He was afraid to look at his wound. When he did, however, his eyes widened with surprise. Someone had bandaged him. But who? The hooded phantom? He touched the dressing; it was soaked with water, without even a trace of blood.

Zane tiptoed through an antique kitchen complete with a tree stump butcher’s block, a rack of silver cutlery and cast-iron pots, a basket of fresh oranges, and a wetback stove that emitted both intense heat and the smell of roasting pou
l
try. As a stranger creeping through someone else’s domain, he thought about Mama Ethel and
Goldilocks
. A floorboard creaked beneath his feet; he paused and grabbed for the doubloon around his neck, but it was not there. Who had taken it—Miguel? Or the crazy preacher, maybe?

He spotted a doorway. Judging by the dirty floor mat and pair of boots at its threshold, the door led outside, and he hurried through it. He emerged onto a wooden porch and gazed out at what looked like a small farm covered in the stain of dusk. Scattered chickens pecked the ground. A ragged goat chewed weeds. Fruit trees of all kinds dotted the landscape. A vegetable garden flaunted the largest tomato and corn plants he had ever seen. It looked idyllic, all except for the wall of black cloud brooding over the horizon.

Boom! Boom!
Zane spun around. The sound, he now realized, was coming from the back of the house. He crept to the edge of the porch and peered around. He could see the profile of a man at the far end of the house pressing a piece of pl
y
wood against a window and hammering a nail into it.
Boom! Boom!
The man wore dingy overalls with no shirt underneath and a straw hat that drooped over his face. A strange tattoo ran up his arm and across his shoulder and chest. Zane slunk back out of sight and tiptoed down the porch steps.

What should he do? He was still too shaken from his run-in with the preacher and his plunge into what was o
b
viously a manmade booby trap to even consider seeking help from another stranger. Judging from the insane amount of books he saw in the house, this particular stranger was not exactly normal. Zane set off down the gravel driveway but he suddenly stopped—there, parked beside an old pickup, was the
U-Haul
truck. A sharp pang of fear stabbed him in the heart. He hunted for somewhere to hide and his eyes came to an immense stand of trees off to the side of the farmyard. He hu
r
ried into it.

Holding his wound, he trudged through the thick foliage and soon encountered a cool white mist like the stuff of clouds. It swirled around him and turned into droplets of water when it touched his skin. Both the mist and the greenery thickened as he pressed on and soon he could scarcely see his hand held in front of his body. When he came to the place where the trees ended, he stopped—there below him something like an immense bowl of fog swirled about in a mae
l
strom of wind.

A breeze parted the haze on the opposite side of the cauldron and there, approaching the edge, was the hooded figure he had seen in the forest. Zane ducked behind the nearest tree. Partially veiled by mist, the figure let the robe fall away, r
e
vealing a nude female body—lean, dark and exquisite. Plumes of black hair enshrouded her. She stepped forward and dove headfirst into the fog.

He gazed into the mist. “Hello? Lady?”

Instead of a response, a deep, guttural growl came from behind. He slowly turned. When he saw yellow eyes staring at him through the haze, his heart seized. The creature stepped into view. Zane’s eyes and brain struggled to classify it. Was it an enormous bobcat? An escaped lion? And then it hit him: it was a panther. But what were the odds? Only a hundred or so Florida panthers still lived in the wild.

“Stay back,” he said.

But the panther strode forward. Zane bolted. He dodged trees and leapt over fallen logs as he ran, ignoring the searing pain in his side. When he reached the outer edge of the tree line where the mist dissipated, he stopped, turned, and gazed back. He was relieved to see nothing but bushes. But then the bushes shivered and the panther pounced out of them and pinned him beneath its bulk. Zane shielded his face with his hands in anticipation for the first scratch or bite. The next thing he felt, however, was the animal’s sandpaper tongue sliding across his neck and up the side of his face. The panther licked him repeatedly, like a dog happy to see its owner. He could not help but laugh at the feeling. He had forgotten he was ticklish.

“Alvar!” said a deep voice. “Let him be!”

The panther stepped off. Zane sat up and wiped the saliva off his face. The man who had been boarding up the house now stood several feet away. The hammer dangled from his hand. He stepped toward Zane, and Zane scooted away.

“Whoa,” said the man. “Relax, I won’t hurt you.” He followed Zane’s worried gaze to the hammer. “Oh, I see. Sorry.” He tossed the hammer into the grass.

The panther rubbed against the man’s leg like a housecat and the man stooped to pet it behind its ears. “I hope Alvar didn’t scare you. He’s really just a big pussycat. He’s
supposed
to guard my property, but he loves to play.”

The man’s words carried a slight accent that Zane could not identify. “Who are you?” said Zane.

“I think a more appropriate question—you are on my property, after all—is who are you? And, perhaps more importantly, where did you get
this?
” The man held up Zane’s necklace.

Zane’s fingers twitched, hungry for the feel of the doubloon. “Give it back.”

The man looked at Zane for a long time, and then he smiled. “We don’t have to talk about this now. I think I know why you’re here. Why don’t you come back to the house and we’ll have supper. We don’t have long before the first bands hit.”

“Bands?”

“Feeder bands. Outer edge of the hurricane. Radio’s saying we might get a direct hit. Should be interesting.” The man extended his hand. “Come on.” Zane took it and, as the man helped him stand, he winced and held his wound.

“Still hurts?”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry about that pit, but I have to protect my land.”

“You could kill someone.”

“Kill? No, not me. I aim to maim.” The man pulled a knife out of his pocket and Zane froze, but the man smiled and used the knife to shave a piece of bark from a nearby tree. “Willow bark. Better than aspirin.” He handed it to Zane and then headed out of the thicket. “Come on.”

The panther bounded after the man and Zane followed. He looked at the bark in his hand. What did the man expect him to do with it? What if it was poisonous? He dropped it on the ground when the man was not looking. They came around the back of the house and Zane’s eyes lit up with astonishment. Towering over them like a mushroom cloud was what had to be the largest oak tree in the world, ridiculous in both height and circumference.

Even stranger, dozens of animals lazed about the tree, including gopher tortoises, skunks and an opossum with babies on her back. Alvar crouched in front of the largest tortoise and pawed it; the tortoise retracted its head into its shell, making a hissing sound as it did. A squawk drew Zane’s eyes upward. Dozens of birds—bald eagles, woodpeckers, owls, and a ga
g
gle of colorful parakeets—clung to the branches.

“Carolina parakeets,” said the man. “My little darlings.”

“I thought those were—”

“Extinct, I know. And they would be, if it weren’t for these last holdouts.” The man leaned down and picked up a long indigo snake which wrapped around his arm and slithered across his shoulder. “I’ll have to put all the animals in the house with us later tonight,” he continued. “Hope you don’t mind.”

Zane looked with disgust at the snake nuzzling the man’s neck. Apparently, the man expected Zane to sleep in the house with him, along with what amounted to a small zoo’s worth of wild animals. What exactly was going on here? “Are they your pets?” asked Zane.

The man put the snake on the ground. “They’re all wild, but I’ve been out here so long they’ve lost their fear of me. I think they sense the storm coming. They started gathering here last night. Unannounced, just like you.” He smiled.

“Sir, do you have a phone?” asked Zane.

The man laughed. “I wouldn’t know how to use one if I did.”

“Um, okay. Well is that your pickup out there?”

“It is.”

“Can I get a ride to the nearest town?”

“Sure thing. As soon as the hurricane passes.”

Zane sighed.

Moments later, he was sitting on a wooden chair with his elbows resting on a wooden table that sat on a crooked wooden floor. He had never, in fact, seen so much wood in a house. It was the kind of place termites dreamed about.

“Hope you like
pollo
,” said the man. He presented a steaming platter that coaxed an instant growl out of Zane’s stomach. There, surrounded by potatoes, carrots, green beans, and ga
r
lic cloves, was a whole roasted chicken. The man sprinkled a handful of fresh herbs that wilted when they landed on it.