The Best of Lucius Shepard (18 page)

     
He looked back to her, ready with a denial, but was shocked to silence.

     
Her dress had fallen to the sand, and she was smiling. The litheness and purity
of the jaguar were reflected in every line of her body; her secret hair was so
absolute a black that it seemed an absence in her flesh. She moved close,
pushing aside the machete. The tips of her breasts brushed against him, warm
through the coarse cloth of his shirt; her hands cupped his face, and he was
drowning in her heated scent, weakened by both fear and desire.

     
“We are of one soul, you and I,” she said. “One blood and one truth. You cannot
reject me.”

* * * *

     
Days passed, though Esteban was unclear as to how many. Night and day were
unimportant incidences of his relationship with Miranda, serving only to color
their lovemaking with a spectral or a sunny mood; and each time they made love,
it was as if a thousand new colors were being added to his senses. He had never
been so content. Sometimes, gazing at the haunted façades of the barrio, he
believed that they might well conceal shadowy avenues leading to another world;
however, whenever Miranda tried to convince him to leave with her, he refused:
He could not overcome his fear and would never admit -- even to himself -- that
he loved her. He attempted to fix his thoughts on Encarnación, hoping this
would undermine his fixation with Miranda and free him to return to Puerto
Morada; but he found that he could not picture his wife except as a black bird
hunched before a flickering gray jewel. Miranda, however, seemed equally unreal
at times. Once as they sat on the bank of the Río Dulce, watching the
reflection of the moon -- almost full -- floating upon the water, she pointed
to it and said, “My world is that near, Esteban. That touchable. You may think
the moon above is real and this is only a reflection, but the thing most real,
that most illustrates the real, is the surface that permits the illusion of
reflection. Passing through this surface is what you fear, and yet it is so
insubstantial, you would scarcely notice the passage.”

     
“You sound like the old priest who taught me philosophy,” said Esteban. “His
world -- his Heaven -- was also philosophy. Is that what your world is? The
idea of a place? Or are there birds and jungles and rivers?”

     
Her expression was in partial eclipse, half-moonlit, half-shadowed, and her
voice revealed nothing of her mood. “No more than there are here,” she said.

     
“What does that mean?” he said angrily. “Why will you not give me a clear
answer?”

     
“If I were to describe my world, you would simply think me a clever liar.” She
rested her head on his shoulder. “Sooner or later you will understand. We did
not find each other merely to have the pain of being parted.”

     
In that moment her beauty -- like her words -- seemed a kind of evasion,
obscuring a dark and frightening beauty beneath; and yet he knew that she was
right, that no proof of hers could persuade him contrary to his fear.

     
One afternoon, an afternoon of such brightness that it was impossible to look
at the sea without squinting, they swam out to a sandbar that showed as a thin
curving island of white against the green water. Esteban floundered and
splashed, but Miranda swam as if born to the element; she darted beneath him,
tickling him, pulling at his feet, eeling away before he could catch her. They
walked along the sand, turning over starfish with their toes, collecting whelks
to boil for their dinner, and then Esteban spotted a dark stain hundreds of
yards wide that was moving below the water beyond the bar: a great school of
king mackerel.

     
“It is too bad we have no boat,” he said. “Mackerel would taste better than
whelks.”

     
“We need no boat,” she said. “I will show you an old way of catching fish.”She
traced a complicated design in the sand, and when she had done, she led him
into the shallows and had him stand facing her a few feet away.

     
“Look down at the water between us,” she said. “Do not look up, and keep
perfectly still until I tell you.”

     
She began to sing with a faltering rhythm, a rhythm that put him in mind of the
ragged breezes of the season. Most of the words were unfamiliar, but others he
recognized as Patuca. After a minute he experienced a wave of dizziness, as if
his legs had grown long and spindly, and he was now looking down from a great
height, breathing rarefied air. Then a tiny dark stain materialized below the
expanse of water between him and Miranda. He remembered his grandfather’s
stories of the Old Patuca, how -- with the help of the gods -- they had been
able to shrink the world, to bring enemies close and cross vast distances in a
matter of moments. But the gods were dead, their powers gone from the world. He
wanted to glance back to shore and see if he and Miranda had become coppery
giants taller than the palms.

     
“Now,” she said, breaking off her song, “you must put your hand into the water
on the seaward side of the school and gently wiggle your fingers. Very gently!
Be sure not to disturb the surface.”

     
But when Esteban made to do as he was told, he slipped and caused a splash.
Miranda cried out. Looking up, he saw a wall of jade-green water bearing down
on them, its face thickly studded with the fleeting dark shapes of the
mackerel. Before he could move, the wave swept over the sandbar and carried him
under, dragging him along the bottom and finally casting him onto shore. The
beach was littered with flopping mackerel; Miranda lay in the shallows,
laughing at him. Esteban laughed, too, but only to cover up his rekindled fear
of this woman who drew upon the powers of dead gods. He had no wish to hear her
explanation; he was certain she would tell him that the gods lived on in her
world, and this would only confuse him further.

     
Later that day as Esteban was cleaning the fish, while Miranda was off picking
bananas to cook with them -- the sweet little ones that grew along the
riverbank -- a Land Rover came jouncing up the beach from Puerto Morada, an
orange fire of the setting sun dancing on its windshield. It pulled up beside
him, and Onofrio climbed out the passenger side. A hectic flush dappled his
cheeks, and he was dabbing his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. Raimundo
climbed out the driver’s side and leaned against the door, staring hatefully at
Esteban.

     
“Nine days and not a word,” said Onofrio gruffly. “We thought you were dead.
How goes the hunt?”

     
Esteban set down the fish he had been scaling and stood. “I have failed,” he
said. “I will give you back the money.”

     
Raimundo chuckled -- a dull, cluttered sound -- and Onofrio grunted with
amusement. “Impossible,” he said. “Encarnación has spent the money on a house
in Barrio Clarín. You must kill the jaguar.”

     
“I cannot,” said Esteban. “I will repay you somehow.”

     
“The Indian has lost his nerve, Father.” Raimundo spat in the sand. “Let me and
my friends hunt the jaguar.”

     
The idea of Raimundo and his loutish friends thrashing through the jungle was
so ludicrous that Esteban could not restrain a laugh.

     
“Be careful, Indian!” Raimundo banged the flat of his hand on the roof of the
car.

     
“It is you who should be careful,” said Esteban. “Most likely the jaguar will
be hunting you.” Esteban picked up his machete. “And whoever hunts this jaguar
will answer to me as well.”

     
Raimundo reached for something in the driver’s seat and walked around in front
of the hood. In his hand was a silvered automatic. “I await your answer,” he
said.

     
“Put that away!” Onofrio’s tone was that of a man addressing a child whose
menace was inconsequential, but the intent surfacing in Raimundo’s face was not
childish. A tic marred the plump curve of his cheek, the ligature of his neck
was cabled, and his lips were drawn back in a joyless grin. It was, thought
Esteban -- strangely fascinated by the transformation -- like watching a demon
dissolve its false shape: the true lean features melting up from the illusion
of the soft.

     
“This son of a whore insulted me in front of Julia!” Raimundo’s gun hand was
shaking.

     
“Your personal differences can wait,” said Onofrio. “This is a business
matter.” He held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”

     
“If he is not going to kill the jaguar, what use is he?” said Raimundo.

     
“Perhaps we can convince him to change his mind.” Onofrio beamed at Esteban.
“What do you say? Shall I let my son collect his debt of honor, or will you
fulfill our contract?”

     
“Father!” complained Raimundo; his eyes flicked sideways. “He...”

     
Esteban broke for the jungle. The gun roared, a white-hot claw swiped at his
side, and he went flying. For an instant he did not know where he was; but
then, one by one, his impressions began to sort themselves. He was lying on his
injured side, and it was throbbing fiercely. Sand crusted his mouth and
eyelids. He was curled up around his machete, which was still clutched in his
hand. Voices above him, sand fleas hopping on his face. He resisted the urge to
brush them off and lay without moving. The throb of his wound and his hatred
had the same red force behind them.

     
“...carry him to the river,” Raimundo was saying, his voice atremble with excitement.
“Everyone will think the jaguar killed him!”

     
“Fool!” said Onofrio. “He might have killed the jaguar, and you could have had
a sweeter revenge. His wife...”

     
“This was sweet enough,” said Raimundo.

     
A shadow fell over Esteban, and he held his breath. He needed no herbs to
deceive this pale, flabby jaguar who was bending to him, turning him onto his
back.

     
“Watch out!” cried Onofrio.

     
Esteban let himself be turned and lashed out with the machete. His contempt for
Onofrio and Encarnación, as well as his hatred of Raimundo, was involved in the
blow, and the blade lodged deep in Raimundo’s side, grating on bone. Raimundo
shrieked and would have fallen, but the blade helped to keep him upright; his
hands fluttered around the machete as if he wanted to adjust it to a more
comfortable position, and his eyes were wide with disbelief. A shudder vibrated
the hilt of the machete -- it seemed sensual, the spasm of a spent passion --
and Raimundo sank to his knees. Blood spilled from his mouth, adding tragic
lines to the corners of his lips. He pitched forward, not falling flat but
remaining kneeling, his face pressed into the sand: the attitude of an Arab at
prayer.

     
Esteban wrenched the machete free, fearful of an attack by Onofrio, but the
appliance dealer was squirming into the Land Rover. The engine caught, the
wheels spun, and the car lurched off, turning through the edge of the surf and
heading for Puerto Morada. An orange dazzle flared on the rear window, as if
the spirit who had lured it to the barrio was now harrying it away.

     
Unsteadily, Esteban got to his feet. He peeled his shirt back from the bullet
wound. There was a lot of blood, but it was only a crease. He avoided looking
at Raimundo and walked down to the water and stood gazing out at the waves; his
thoughts rolled in with them, less thoughts than tidal sweeps of emotion.

     
It was twilight by the time Miranda returned, her arms full of bananas and wild
figs. She had not heard the shot. He told her what had happened as she dressed
his wounds with a poultice of herbs and banana leaves. “It will mend,” she said
of the wound. “But this” -- she gestured at Raimundo -- “this will not. You
must come with me, Esteban. The soldiers will kill you.”

     
“No,” he said. “They will come, but they are Patuca ... except for the captain,
who is a drunkard, a shell of a man. I doubt he will even be notified. They
will listen to my story, and we will reach an accommodation. No matter what
lies Onofrio tells, his word will not stand against theirs.”

     
“And then?”

     
“I may have to go to jail for a while, or I may have to leave the province. But
I will not be killed.”