Water and Stone (19 page)

"Eventually I'll take it back to Mexico, leave it in one of those isolated caves, and forget all about it... or at least try to."

"Let's do it now, Church. I'm getting some weird vibes from that thing... I think it's singing to me."

"You hear it too? Most people don't... or if they do they ignore the sounds. I used to hear it singing all the time when we lived at the chabola but my Tia never did."

"I'm sorry, Church, but what is a chabola? And who is your Tia?"

"Oh, that's just Spanish for cabin... and my Tia's my aunt Evalena. I never understood why she couldn’t hear the singing of the piedra... it was buried under the roots of a sycamore tree growing up out of an old church not far from where we lived. My mother was afraid of the stone... she thought being close to it might have harmful side effects. But she couldn’t bear to be too far away from it either. So she hid it away from us but close enough where she could still feel its presence."

"Can't we just get rid of it, Church?"

"If someone found it they might be injured, Tree... we can't take that chance."

"What if we weight the sack with a rock and throw it into the bottom of a river... that should work. No one will ever find it there."

"Just throw it out the window, Tree."

"But you said..."

"I know what I said... but go ahead... throw it out the window."

Suddenly she didn’t want to part with the box with the stone inside of it... in fact, why should she? Like Church said, someone else would just come along and find it... then it would be theirs. No... it was better to keep the stone, just for a little while.

"See? You can't do it, can you, Tree."

"Oh I could... I just think, well, that we should hang onto it for now, just in case we might need it later."

"Liar."

Somehow the brothers had switched places.

Billy now stayed in the decrepit chabola with Evalena while Church and his mother lived at the magnificent hacienda. When she told him they were moving he thought his mother had gone insane... why on earth would his father suddenly want them to come to his home to live?

They were to be married, at least according to his mother. He'd be Rancher Ford's son in name too. After living in poverty for nearly twenty years he and his mother were suddenly wealthy beyond belief. It seemed a cruel irony that the person he loved most wouldn't be around to enjoy it with.

Billy'd become estranged from them all. Church rarely saw him any longer and if by slim chance they did happen to meet Billy ignored him as if they'd somehow become enemies. When had all that happened?

Billy looked awful and he smelled bad too. He no longer exhibited the perspicuity of youth but instead seemed to be walking in a daze as if not sleeping well. Though the boy'd once saved him from more than bullies Church watched in helpless horror as Billy slipped further away from all that he once loved and cherished.

He used to visit Billy often but one day Church got spooked riding up to the chabola. It'd been his home since he was born but now he sensed something unholy dwelling there. The lone window had been boarded up... either the glass was broken or else someone inside didn't want prying eyes looking in or perhaps out.

A type of vine Church didn't recognize had fastened itself to the outer walls of the shack threatening to bury it under a cascade of yellowish green leaves that seemed somehow wan and yet thriving at the same time.

The yard which was once a vast bed of well-tended gardens irrigated lovingly by hauling buckets of water by hand from the creek out back now lay seared under the hot Texas sun. Cacti grew higher than his head and the buzz of wasps and other toxic insects filled the still and indifferent air.

When he was a little guy Church rarely encountered any spiders around the chabola but right after Tia Evalena showed up the eight legged creatures had begun to proliferate. He told himself it was only a coincidence... that the increased drought brought them up out of the ground.

Now, though, the entire countryside seemed dead and buried beneath cobwebs as thick and cold and furry as a winter's blizzard. All the tree branches naked as skeletons were infested as was the ground around the tiny cabin and Church's pony seemed ill at ease stepping over the malignant carpet alive with movement.

His pony danced and whinnied in dismay as clouds of leaves blowing in the autumn wind swirled around her legs only it wasn’t autumn and any leaves had long ago rotted into the dust... Church sensed rather than saw the host of spiders gathering around them and clucking the pony into a trot he moved away rather than stopping at the chabola to visit with his Tia or to see if Billy was around.

Despite the guilt he felt at leaving Billy to the devices of his aunt Church turned and rode away as fast as his pony would carry him with a blackness gathering around the edges of his vision as if something wicked was seeking him and happy he'd made an appearance. He didn’t feel safe until he had gained the hacienda, fed and curried his pony, and gone inside the house not forgetting to lock the door behind him.

Was Billy Ford suffering from an undisclosed illness? It would explain his haggard appearance, plus the boy had always been proud—some town folk went so far as to claim vanity but Church knew better—and he wouldn't relish showing himself if he'd contracted some dread disease which caused his body to waste away.

On the other hand Evalena seemed rejuvenated. Church sometimes saw her shopping for various sundries in Guthrie though she did her best to ignore him. She was no more than sixteen years old to the causal observer, one who lacked the skill to see between the façade she'd so carefully constructed about her.

"I have something you must hide for me, Church. No matter how I beg you, don't tell me where it is and please don't open the sack that I'm about to give you."

"What is it, mother?"

"It's something best not disturbed, Church. I'm sorry to involve you but I don’t know what else to do. I once buried it beneath that sycamore tree that grows out of the church where you were so fond of playing... remember?"

"Of course I do, mother."

She'd come to him on an early spring morning holding a sack of thick cloth tied shut with its top securely wound by stout wire so as to be nearly impossible to undo. His curiosity was instantly aroused and like Pandora he couldn't resist the pull of knowing what was inside.

The first thing he noticed was the music. It occurred to him that his mother had handed him a wind-up music box but as he listened to the melody he realized he didn’t hear it in his ears. Should he plug them with his fingers the music kept right on playing... the same music he'd heard his whole life.

Though his mother had stuffed the sack with paper probably in an effort to hide the proper nature of the contents but giving it a good feel he determined the bag clearly held a box.

Was the stone inside? Was it the treasure that Billy had been so passionate about finding? If so, and if it truly offered the holder unlimited wealth, why would his mother desire for him to hide it?

Thinking of his Tia and the affliction that Billy was suffering under was enough to pry Church's interest away from the sack his mother had handed to him. He wanted nothing to do with anything so potent and so obviously evil. Yet still it pulled at him incessantly especially when he lay down at night to sleep.

The music was familiar. He had grown up listening to the melody playing in the wind and dancing upon the dawn. For the longest time he thought everyone heard it. It wasn’t until Tia Evalena arrived that he realized that his aunt had no idea of its existence, for if she did she would have surely mentioned it.

He remembered the girl who used to watch him when he was little... her name was Maria. She could hear the music but unlike Church it frightened her. The girl had done everything to keep the melody out of her ears... she stuffed them with cotton, wore earplugs, and even played a small transistor radio at night, but nothing worked.

The music gradually drove Maria mad. He remembered her accusing him of having something to do with it... that he had hidden a radio somewhere nearby... that he hated her and was seeking to drive her away.

Only he didn’t hate the girl. He loved her. During his first four years of life he spent more time with Maria than with anyone else including his own mother. When she left he was devastated... in fact she hadn’t even told him goodbye.

Now he knew the source of the music yet that knowledge did little to assuage the guilt he carried over being a part of the deception that surrounded the stone, if indeed that was what he carried.

The thought of abandoning the ranch depressed him. The animals needed him now more than ever what with Billy suffering his own private hell and unable to help out around the Triple Six. Still, mother had entrusted him with a duty and by taking what she handed to him he had accepted the task.

He tarried as spring turned into summer which wore away into autumn telling himself that once the harvest was in his presence wouldn't be so sorely missed. Rancher had a handle on the ranch, as always, and he was sure the man could manage without his help for a few days... he'd go and return as quickly as possible so as to minimize the extra work his father'd have to do in his absence.

After mulling over his prospects and what to do with the sack he'd been handed Church decided to not only rid himself of the stone but hide it from the entire family, to shield them from its influence. Though he couldn’t prove it he suspected Billy's sickness was somehow related to it... perhaps if he took the stone far enough away from the Triple Six Billy might recover.

On a warm late October day he jumped into the old pickup truck normally reserved for work around the ranch and drove it south through Texas while keeping to the back roads since the truck had no license plates. As his trip progressed he noticed how the land was even more barren than in northern Texas... it was apparent the drought had been ravaging that area as well.

He forded the river at a shallow point and headed into Mexico after crossing the border on a dusty back road just west of Del Rio. He felt as if he was being pulled onward by an invisible yet powerful force that knew exactly where the thing he carried should be buried.

He arrived around the first of November along with the butterflies. Angangueo was actually a real place... for the longest time Church thought the village was only a fantasy brought to life in his imagination by his mother's many colorful tales.

The small town was situated inside a pass deep within high mountain ranges. A pair of rivers ran through the area which reminded Church of the two creeks that wound behind his beloved home back in Texas though the lushly wooded landscape in Mexico stood in stark contrast to the dry and dusty fields of home.

Initially the horrid masks that all the villagers wore had disconcerted him... he heard of Dia de los Muertos many times but still it shocked him to be caught up in the middle of the macabre celebrations that seemed to be breaking out spontaneously right in front of his eyes and all throughout the village.

He'd come whether purposely or subconsciously to the one place his mother had spoken of with great delight. Almost all the people in the tiny hamlet seemed delighted to see him almost as if they'd been awaiting his arrival... only a solitary priest crossed himself upon seeing Church while turning his back to the boy as if shunning something evil.

Stopping at a posada for a late dinner and walking inside carrying the sack—he feared leaving it in the truck lest it be stolen—the old woman who served him crossed herself as profusely as the priest like she too sensed what he carried was an evil thing. Could she hear the song of the stone? If so she didn’t say so and no one else paid him any mind. Still, when he indicated he would like to eat and a room in which to spend the night and produced a bundle of American dollars she was only too happy to provide food and accommodations.

The hovel of a hotel was dug halfway into the ground with walls of baked adobe that reminded him of the old church—the Church of Five Angels—not far from the old chabola at the end of Cherry Creek Road... a place where he remembered as a good and a happy home though a poor one. Smoke from the cooking and the other customers' tobacco permeated the air in the posada like a fog drifting in from Cherry creek at night.

Helping himself he ate heartily from the big pot of beans simmering over an open pit fire in the middle of a great open area which seemed to serve as both a dining room and a gathering place for the villagers. The tortillas were freshly baked like the ones his mother made though there was an underlying aftertaste that he could not quite identify though not unpleasant.

After satiating his appetite and wiping his bowl clean with a tortilla shell the boy sat drinking strong beer and listening to the tale being told by an enormously fat hombre named Pedro with an equally gigantic moustache which he kept pulling and twisting as he walked about the room and continuously talked and who seemed to be the center of attention. Though Church couldn't speak the language fluently he understood it well enough to follow the fellow's strange tale of intrigue and death.

It seemed that once upon a time a man named Count Bruno—a member of Spanish nobility—was on his way to a far off village to meet for the first time the girl he was to marry. Such unions were not rare in that time and place. The arranged marriages often served to consolidate the holdings of two wealthy families and were therefore looked upon as Godsends.

Her name was Tilde, the girl he was to wed, and he hoped they would love one another as his own father and mother had done after consummating a marriage under similar circumstances. Tired from his journey and stopping for the night in a insignificant hamlet at the edge of the desert the man was drawn to a meeting house by the sound of merriment and music. After eating his fill he joined in the company who were drinking and taking turns telling ghost stories.

He found himself dozing. His belly was full and the sangria potent and the day had been long. Each time he looked up from the comfort of his chair the landlady was filling his mug again with a seemingly bottomless pail out of which she ladled generous doses of the purple liquid which smelled of grapes and watermelon.

None of the speakers caught his attention until a beautiful and fetching girl with the voice of an angel stood up and began telling a tale of a friend named Juliana—the same name as the Count's sister—who was killed by a portrait which had terrified her since she was a child. The enormous frame had fallen upon her as she showed her fiancé around the house on the day before their marriage.

Fat Pedro comically imitated how the tiny girl talked and walked about the room animatedly describing in horrid details how the picture had hung for ages over the entryway to the bedchamber and how when it was apparently jostled by the bridegroom's heavy steps it fell upon the poor girl and the frame had decapitated her on the spot despite the fact there were no sharp edges to be found on the wood.

Juliana's husband to be was so bereft at seeing his fiancée beheaded before his eyes that he promptly went mad and blaming his future bride's family for her death he pulled out a revolver and killed everyone living under the roof of that house before taking his own life by firing a final bullet into the side of his skull.