The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (100 page)

David felt a great sense of relief and freedom as he let the reins go slack. He crouched low over the neck and clutched mane and reins in both hands. For an instant the little Thoroughbred hesitated, then she bolted forward, hooves scarcely touching the earth, her sinew and muscle cracking as she raced over the plain toward the horizon’s pale blue. “You want to run? Then run! Run goddamn you! Run!” David had screamed, but the speed of the mare swept the words from his mouth almost before he could make their sounds. Let Beaufrey try to forget this! Truly he had the sensation he was flying. The faster the horse ran, the smoother the ride. He wanted Beaufrey to see how fast the little sorrel could run so Beaufrey would agree to sponsor the horse next
season in Caracas. None were as surefooted as this mare! None had her guts, her heart! She leaped the grass clumps, brush, and gullies of the
llanos
like a deer; she never missed a beat across rocky terrain. The mare’s balance and surefootedness were phenomenal. David had left Beaufrey and Serlo miles behind on their thick, slow dressage horses.

When the ranch hands came, one of the grooms examined the tracks and the position of the fallen horse. The sorrel mare had run until her heart stopped in midstride and she had dropped like a rock. David had not been thrown free, but had become entangled with the falling horse so that Beaufrey and Serlo had had to drag the dead horse by the tail and bridle reins to roll it over to free David’s battered corpse. Serlo watched Beaufrey’s face for signs of regret, but Beaufrey was grinning. He had sent a ranch hand to bring his camera. They rode a short distance to some scrubby trees to escape the flies that swarmed over David’s corpse and the horse carcass. The late-afternoon light gave the entire
llano
a violet-blue-green color. A refreshing breeze stirred while they waited for the camera.

David was worth more dead than he had been worth alive. The Eric series would appreciate in value, and even pictures of David’s corpse would bring good prices. Beaufrey knew Serlo disapproved of selling these photographs; but here was what gave free-world trade the edge over all other systems: no sentimentality. Every ounce of value, everything worth anything, was stripped away for sale, regardless; no mercy. Serlo and his associates feared the rabble were about to seize control of the world, but Beaufrey knew the masses in the United States and England were too stupid to turn on their masters; all slaves dreamed of becoming masters more cruel than their own masters. Serlo and the others had to realize the best policy was to allow the rabble their parliaments, congresses, and assemblies; because the masses were soothed and reassured by these simulations of “democracy.” Meanwhile, governments followed secret agendas unhindered by citizens.

Serlo and the others were alarmists. Socialism would never be a threat because it was too soft on the weak and unproductive. Capitalism stayed ahead because it was ruthless, Beaufrey said after he had finished the roll of film. They left the ranch hands to bury David. Carrion birds were welcome to the horse.

LECHA COULD READ the old notebooks and scraps of newspaper clippings for hours and forget all about the pain. The first time Lecha opened the notebooks, she had recognized here was the real thing. Despite all of Yoeme’s lying and boasting, the “almanac” was truly a great legacy. Yoeme and others believed the almanac had living power within it, a power that would bring all the tribal people of the Americas together to retake the land.

For hundreds of years, guardians of the almanac notebooks had made clumsy attempts to repair torn pages. Some sections had been splashed with wine, others with water or blood. Only fragments of the original pages remained, carefully placed between blank pages; those of ancient paper had yellowed, but the red and black painted glyphs had still been clear. The outline of the giant plumed serpent could be made out in pale blue on the largest fragment. The pages of ancient paper had been found between the pages of horse-gut parchment carried by the fugitive Indian slaves who had fled north to escape European slavery.

Lecha speculated that some keepers of the old almanac had been illiterate, but had not bothered to hire someone to read the pages for them. If they had any curiosity about the writing, then their fear, which was greater, had prevailed. What they had feared were the spirits described in the writing and the glyphs on the pages. There was evidence that substantial portions of the original manuscript had been lost or condensed into odd narratives which operated like codes.

The great deal of what had accumulated with the almanac fragments had been debris gathered here and there by aged keepers of the almanac after they had gone crazy. A few of the keepers had fallen victim to
delusions of various sorts. Here and there were scribbles and scratches. Lecha found pages where old Yoeme had scribbled arguments in margins with the remarks and vulgar humor Lecha and Zeta had enjoyed so many times with their grandmother.

Whole sections had been stolen from other books and from the proliferation of “farmer’s almanacs” published by patent-drug companies and medicine shows that gave away the almanacs as advertisements. Not even the parchment pages or fragments of ancient paper could be trusted; they might have been clever forgeries, recopied, drawn, and colored painstakingly.

Europeans called it coincidence, but the almanacs had prophesied the appearance of Cortés to the day. All Native American tribes had similar prophecies about the appearance, conflict with, and eventual disappearance of things European. The almanacs had warned the people hundreds of years before the Europeans arrived. The people living in large towns were told to scatter, to disperse to make the murderous work of the invaders more difficult. Without the almanacs, the people would not be able to recognize the days and months yet to come, days and months that would see the people retake the land.

Yoeme alleged the Aztecs ignored the prophecies and warnings about the approach of the Europeans because Montezuma and his allies had been sorcerers who had called or even invented the European invaders with their sorcery. Those who worshiped destruction and blood secretly knew one another. Hundreds of years earlier, the people who hated sorcery and bloodshed had fled north to escape the cataclysm prophecied when the “blood worshipers” of Europe met the “blood worshipers” of the Americas. Montezuma and Cortés had been meant for one another. Yoeme always said sorcery had been the undoing of people here, and everywhere in the world.

Fragments from the Ancient Notebooks

The Month was created first, before the World. Then the Month began to walk himself, and his grandmothers and aunt and his sister-in-law said, “What do we say when we see a man in the road?” There were no humans yet so they discussed what they would say as they walked along. They found footprints when they arrived in the East. “Who passed by here? Look at these footprints. Measure them with your foot.” The Mother Creator said this to the Month, who measured the footprint.
The footprint belonged to Lord God. That was the beginning for Month because he had to measure the whole World by walking it off day by day. Month made sure his feet were even before he began the count. Month spoke Day’s name when Day had no name. So the Month was created, then the Day, as it was called, was created, and the rain’s stairway to Earth—the rocks and the trees—all creatures of the sea and land were created.

Death Dog traveled to the land of the dead where the God of death gave him the bone the human race was created with.

Scorpion uses his tail as a noose to lasso deer. Scorpion is a good hunter. He has a net bag in which he carries his fire-driller and fire-sticks.

The sign of the human hand = 2. The hand that holds the hilt of the dagger is plunged into the lower body of the deer.

Those cursed with the anguish, and the despairers, all were born during the five “nameless” days.

On the five nameless days, people stay in bed and fast and confess sins.

Black Zip whistles a warning. He is the deer god.

In the year Ten Sky, the principal ruler is Venus.