The Best of Lucius Shepard (26 page)

The sergeant
said that it beat him.

“Well,” the
captain said, “I figger if the boy here was in combat, that’d be ‘bout
Bronze-Star stupid.”

That,
allowed the sergeant, was pretty goddamn stupid.

“ ‘Course
here in ‘Frisco”—the captain gave Mingolla a final dusting—”it don’t get you
diddley-shit.”

The MPs were
piling off Baylor, who lay on his side, bleeding from his nose and mouth. Blood
thick as gravy filmed over his cheeks.

“Panama,”
said Mingolla dully. Maybe it
was
an option. He saw how it would be ...
a night beach, palm shadows a lacework on the white sand.

“What say?”
asked the captain.

“He wanted
to go to Panama,” said Mingolla.

The captain
gave an amused snort. “Don’t we all.”

One of the
MPs rolled Baylor onto his stomach and handcuffed him; another manacled his
feet. Then they rolled him back over. Yellow dirt had mired with the blood on
his cheeks and forehead, fitting him with a blotchy mask. His eyes snapped open
in the middle of that mask, widening when he felt the restraints. He started to
hump up and down, trying to bounce his way to freedom. He kept on humping for
almost a minute; then he went rigid and—his gone eyes fixed on the molten disc
of the sun—he let out a roar. That was the only word for it. It wasn’t a scream
or a shout, but a devil’s exultant roar, so loud and full of fury, it seemed to
be generating all the blazing light and heat-dance. Listening to it had a
seductive effect, and Mingolla began to get behind it, to feel it in his body
like a good rock ‘n’ roll tune, to sympathize with its life-hating exuberance.

“Whoo-ee!”
said the captain, marveling. “They gon’ have to build a whole new zoo for that
boy.”

After giving
his statement, letting a Corpsman check his head, Mingolla caught the ferry to
meet Debora on the east bank. He sat in the stern, gazing out at the unfinished
bridge, this time unable to derive from it any sense of hope or magic. Panama
kept cropping up in his thoughts. Now that Baylor was gone, was it really an
option? He knew he should try to figure things out, plan what to do, but he
couldn’t stop seeing Baylor’s bloody, demented face. He’d seen worse, Christ
yes, a whole lot worse. Guys reduced to spare parts, so little of them left
that they didn’t need a shiny silver coffin, just a black metal can the size of
a cookie jar. Guys scorched and one-eyed and bloody, clawing blindly at the air
like creatures out of a monster movie. But the idea of Baylor trapped forever
in some raw, red place inside his brain, in the heart of that raw, red noise
he’d made, maybe that idea was worse than anything Mingolla had seen. He didn’t
want to die; he rejected the prospect with the impassioned stubbornness a child
displays when confronted with a hard truth. Yet he would rather die than endure
madness. Compared to what Baylor had in store, death and Panama seemed to offer
the same peaceful sweetness.

Someone sat
down beside Mingolla: a kid who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. A new
kid with a new haircut, new boots, new fatigues. Even his face looked new,
freshly broken from the mold. Shiny, pudgy cheeks; clear skin; bright, unused
blue eyes. He was eager to talk. He asked Mingolla about his home, his family,
and said, Oh, wow, it must be great living in New York, wow. But he appeared to
have some other reason for initiating the conversation, something he was
leading up to, and finally he spat it out.

“You know
the Sammy that went animal back there?” he said. “I seen him pitted last night.
Little place in the jungle west of the base. Guy name Chaco owns it. Man, it
was incredible!”

Mingolla had
only heard of the pits third- and fourth-hand, but what he had heard was bad,
and it was hard to believe that this kid with his air of homeboy innocence
could be an afficionado of something so vile. And, despite what he had just
witnessed, it was even harder to believe that Baylor could have been a
participant.

The kid
didn’t need prompting. “It was pretty early on,” he said. “There’d been a
coupla bouts, nothin’ special, and then this guy walks in lookin’ real twitchy.
I knew he was Sammy by the way he’s starin’ at the pit, y’know, like it’s
somethin’ he’s been wishin’ for. And this guy with me, friend of mine, he gives
me a poke and says, ‘Holy shit! That’s the Black Knight, man! I seen him fight
over in Reunion awhile back. Put your money on him,’ he says. The guy’s an
ace!’ “

Their last
r&r had been in Reunion. Mingolla tried to frame a question but couldn’t
think of one whose answer would have any meaning.

“Well,” said
the kid, “I ain’t been down long, but I’d even heard ‘bout the Knight. So I
went over and kinda hung out near him, thinkin’ maybe I can get a line on how
he’s feelin’, y’know, ‘cause you don’t wanna just bet the guy’s rep. Pretty
soon Chaco comes over and asks the Knight if he wants some action. The Knight
says, ‘Yeah, but I wanna fight an animal. Somethin’ fierce, man. I wanna fight
somethin’ fierce.’ Chaco says he’s got some monkeys and shit, and the Knight
says he hears Chaco’s got a jaguar. Chaco he hems and haws, says maybe so,
maybe not, but it don’t matter ‘cause a jaguar’s too strong for Sammy. And then
the Knight tells Chaco who he is. Lemme tell ya, Chaco’s whole attitude
changed. He could see how the bettin’ was gonna go for somethin’ like the Black
Knight versus a jaguar. And he says, ‘Yes sir, Mister Black Knight sir!
Anything you want!’ And he makes the announcement. Man, the place goes nuts.
People wavin’ money, screamin’ odds, drinkin’ fast so’s they can get ripped in
time for the main event, and the Knight’s just standin’ there, smilin’, like
he’s feedin’ off the confusion. Then Chaco lets the jaguar in through the
tunnel and into the pit. It ain’t a full-growed jaguar, half-growed maybe, but
that’s all you figure even the Knight can handle.”

The kid
paused for breath; his eyes seemed to have grown brighter. “Anyway, the
jaguar’s sneakin’ ‘round and ‘round, keepin’ close to the pit wall, snarlin’
and spittin’, and the Knight’s watchin’ him from up above, checkin’ his moves,
y’know. And everybody starts chantin’, ‘Sam-mee, Sam-mee, Sam-mee,’ and after
the chant builds up loud the Knight pulls three ampules outta his pocket. I
mean, shit, man! Three! I ain’t never been ‘round Sammy when he’s done more’n
two. Three gets you clear into the fuckin’ sky! So when the Knight holds up
these three ampules, the crowd’s tuned to burn, howlin’ like they’s playin’
Sammy themselves. But the Knight, man, he keeps his cool. He is
so
cool!
He just holds up the ampules and lets ‘em take the shine, soakin’ up the noise
and energy, gettin’ strong off the crowd’s juice. Chaco waves everybody quiet
and gives the speech, y’know, “bout how in the heart of every man there’s a
warrior-soul waitin’ to be loosed and shit. I tell ya, man, I always thought
that speech was crap before, but the Knight’s makin’ me buy it a hunnerd
percent. He is so goddamn cool! He takes off his shirt and shoes, and he ties
this piece of black silk ‘round his arm. Then he pops the ampules, one after
another, real quick, and breathes it all in. I can see it hittin’, catchin’
fire in his eyes. Pumpin’ him up. And soon as he’s popped the last one, he
jumps into the pit. He don’t use the tunnel, man! He jumps! Twenty-five feet
down to the sand, and lands in a crouch.”

Three other
soldiers were leaning in, listening, and the kid was now addressing all of
them, playing to his audience. He was so excited that he could barely keep his
speech coherent, and Mingolla realized with disgust that he, too, was excited
by the image of Baylor crouched on the sand. Baylor, who had cried after the
assault. Baylor, who had been so afraid of snipers that he had once pissed in
his pants rather than walk from his gun to the latrine.

Baylor, the
Black Knight.

“The
jaguar’s screechin’ and snarlin’ and slashin’ at the air,” the kid went on.
“Tryin’ to put fear into the Knight. ‘Cause the jaguar knows in his mind the
Knight’s big trouble. This ain’t some jerk like Chaco, this is Sammy. The
Knight moves to the center of the pit, still in a crouch.” Here the kid pitched
his voice low and dramatic. “Nothin’ happens for a coupla minutes, ‘cept it’s
tense. Nobody’s hardly breathin’. The jaguar springs a coupla times, but the
Knight dances off to the side and makes him miss, and there ain’t no damage
either way. Whenever the jaguar springs, the crowd sighs and squeals, not just
‘cause they’s scared of seein’ the Knight tore up, but also ‘cause they can see
how fast he is. Silky fast, man! Unreal. He looks ‘bout as fast as the jaguar.
He keeps on dancin’ away, and no matter how the jaguar twists and turns, no
matter if he comes at him along the sand, he can’t get his claws into the
Knight. And then, man ... oh, it was so smooth! Then the jaguar springs again,
and this time ‘stead of dancin’ away, the Knight drops onto his back, does this
half roll onto his shoulders, and when the jaguar passes over him, he kicks up
with both feet. Kicks up hard! And smashes his heels into the jaguar’s side.
The jaguar slams into the pit wall and comes down screamin’, snappin’ at his
ribs. They was busted, man. Pokin’ out the skin like tentposts.”

The kid
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and flicked his eyes toward Mingolla
and the other soldiers to see if they were into the story. “We was shoutin’,
man,” he said. “Poundin’ the top of the pit wall. It was so loud, the guy I’m
with is yellin’ in my ear and I can’t hear nothin’. Now maybe it’s the noise,
maybe it’s his ribs, whatever ... the jaguar goes berserk. Makin’ these
scuttlin’ lunges at the Knight, tryin’ to get close ‘fore he springs so the
Knight can’t pull that same trick. He’s snarlin’ like a goddamn chainsaw! The
Knight keeps leapin’ and spinnin’ away. But then he slips, man, grabs the air for
balance, and the jaguar’s on him, clawin’ at his chest. For a second they’re
like waltzin’ together. Then the Knight pries loose the paw that’s hooked him,
pushes the jaguar’s head back and smashes his fist into the jaguar’s eye. The
jaguar flops onto the sand, and the Knight scoots to the other side of the pit.
He’s checkin’ the scratches on his chest, which is bleedin’ wicked. Meantime,
the jaguar gets to his feet, and he’s fucked up worse than ever. His one eye’s
fulla blood, and his hindquarters is all loosey-goosey. Like if this was
boxin’, they’d call in the doctor. The jaguar figures he’s had enough of this
crap, and he starts tryin’ to jump outta the pit. This one time he jumps right
up to where I’m leanin’ over the edge. Comes so close I can smell his breath, I
can see myself reflected in his good eye. He’s clawin’ for a grip, wantin’ to
haul hisself up into the crowd. People are freakin’, thinkin’ he might be gonna
make it. But ‘fore he gets the chance, the Knight catches him by the tail and
slings him against the wall. Just like you’d beat a goddamn rug, that’s how
he’s dealin’ with the jaguar. And the jaguar’s a real mess, now. He’s
quiverin’. Blood’s pourin’ outta his mouth, his fangs is all red. The Knight
starts makin’ these little feints, wavin’ his arms, growlin’. He’s toyin’ with
the jaguar. People don’t believe what they’re seein’, man. Sammy’s kickin’ a
jaguar’s ass so bad he’s got room to toy with it. If the place was nuts before,
now it’s a fuckin’ zoo. Fights in the crowd, guys singin’ the Marine Hymn. Some
beaner squint’s takin’ off her clothes. The jaguar tries to scuttle up close to
the Knight again, but he’s too fucked up. He can’t keep it together. And the
Knight he’s still growlin’ and feintin’. A guy behind me is booin’, claimin’
the Knight’s defamin’ the purity of the sport by playin’ with the jaguar. But
hell, man, I can see he’s just timin’ the jaguar, waitin’ for the right moment,
the right move.”

Staring off
downriver, the kid wore a wistful expression: he might have been thinking about
his girlfriend. “We all knew it was comin’,” he said. “Everybody got real
quiet. So quiet you could hear the Knight’s feet scrapin’ on the sand. You
could feel it in the air, and you knew the jaguar was savin’ up for one big
effort. Then the Knight slips again, ‘cept he’s fakin’. I could see that, but
the jaguar couldn’t. When the Knight reels sideways, the jaguar springs. I
thought the Knight was gonna drop down like he did the first time, but he
springs, too. Feetfirst. And he catches the jaguar under the jaw. You could
hear bone splinterin’, and the jaguar falls in a heap. He struggles to get up,
but no way! He’s whinin’, and he craps all over the sand. The Knight walks up
behind him, takes his head in both hands and gives it a twist. Crack!”

As if
identifying with the jaguar’s fate, the kid closed his eyes and sighed.
“Everybody’d been quiet ‘til they heard that crack, then all hell broke loose.
People chantin’, ‘Sam-mee, Sam-mee,’ and people shovin’, tryin’ to get close to
the pit wall so they can watch the Knight take the heart. He reaches into the
jaguar’s mouth and snaps off one of the fangs and tosses it to somebody. Then
Chaco comes in through the tunnel and hands him the knife. Right when he’s
‘bout to cut, somebody knocks me over and by the time I’m back on my feet, he’s
already took the heart and tasted it. He’s just standin’ there with the
jaguar’s blood on his mouth and his own blood runnin’ down his chest. He looks
kinda confused, y’know. Like now the fight’s over and he don’t know what to do.
But then he starts roarin’. He sounds the same as the jaguar did ‘fore it got
hurt. Crazy fierce. Ready to get it on with the whole goddamn world. Man, I
lost it! I was right with that roar. Maybe I was roarin’ with him, maybe
everybody was. That’s what it felt like, man. Like bein’ in the middle of this
roar that’s comin’ outta every throat in the universe.” The kid engaged
Mingolla with a sober look. “Lotsa people go ‘round sayin’ the pits are evil,
and maybe they are. I don’t know. How you s’posed to tell ‘bout what’s evil and
what’s not down here? They say you can go to the pits a thousand times and not
see nothin’ like the jaguar and the Black Knight. I don’t know ‘bout that,
either. But I’m goin’ back just in case I get lucky. ‘Cause what I saw last
night, if it was evil, man, it was so fuckin’ evil it was beautiful, too.”