How the Stars did Fall (14 page)

Up came a burro pulling a cart, an old hag driving him. Faraday saw her first with his eyes from a corner of the window, then he let himself sag to the floor and looked out with his mind, gaining a clear idea of what cargo she carried. It was milk and vegetables and bread. A delivery.

The clacking stopped. The hag unloaded her pallet, bringing out a portion of her cargo and walking towards the door. She knocked. Faraday greeted her with the revolver pointed towards her face.

“Come on in,” he said.

“Please take it. You needn’t pay.”

“I don’t want your food. Don’t want to kill you either. So come in.”

“Am I a hostage, sir?”

“Only if you don’t do as I say.”

“And the Indians? Are they your allies?”

“I’m asking the questions. You know who lives here?”

“I do, sir. Bring him supplies once a week.”

“One man, is it?”

“Oh yes, sir. A simple man. He must have seen you and run off.”

“Is this the only stop you make for deliveries?”

“There is another, sir. A lodge not that different from this. Two people there. A man and a woman. Sir, would it be alright if I went back home? My old man will be deathly worried if I’m out for too long.”

“We’re taking your burro and your cart. Once we leave, you’ll count to a thousand and then you can leave and do as you please. But do not come out before you’ve counted one thousand. Otherwise I will know— don’t ask me how, but I will know. And I will come back and kill you. Understood?”

“As you say, sir.”

Moon and Faraday gathered up as much food and supplies as they could, loading the cart almost to breaking, making sure to leave space enough for Tenhorse. And when the Indian sat on the cart and Moon mounted the burro, Faraday finally gave the old hag the signal to start counting and rode off.

With his mind Faraday found the road. It lay to the west and by the time they reached it gray clouds hung overhead and it began to rain.

Tenhorse mumbled something, the wind muffling his voice.

“What did he say?” Faraday asked Moon.

“He said Chaac pursues us. The Cloud Striker.”

“I’ve no time for superstition. Are the bullets well covered?”

“As well as possible.”

“There’s a cave off the road. Perhaps we should make for it.”

“I don’t think the wheels of the cart will take well to rocky terrain.”

“You’re right. We’ll weather it.”

With some prodding, the burro pushed on. They kept to the road unworried, Faraday always on the lookout, his mind scouring the brush and the plains, and no man crossed their path at any time. At night they made their camp beside the road. Two days in and Tenhorse walked upright without help, the pain subsiding. He walked beside the burro, his mighty bow hanging from his shoulder. They came up past the town of Lancaster and there they stopped to rest in front of a fire and replenish their water skins. They had no gold on them so they did not sleep in the town. Instead, they camped out under the stars, the journey still long ahead of them.

The next morning they entered the desert. The sun scorched their faces and their lips cracked at the dry air. It was a silent and lonely ride. Faraday spotted a coyote. Another time, he saw a large bird high above them, probably a vulture or an eagle. Tenhorse pulled away from them once. Neither Moon nor Faraday questioned him. They saw him disappear in the horizon, still clutching his wound.

When he returned, he carried a couple of dead meerkats over his shoulder like trophies, blood still escaping the carcasses and sullying Tenhorse’s leather vest. Together they rode the whole length of the desert until jagged peaks and ranges stood over them like giant shark’s teeth, dry and husk-like. Faraday led the burro through a pass and into the valley ahead. Lush pastoral fields lay between them and Faraday’s family’s farm. They passed through fields of cotton and herds of goats and cattle. This was the easiest leg of their journey. A gentle and simple folk tended the fields and plantations of the region. At night, Faraday entered into an agreement with one of the farmers, allowing the group to spend the night within the safe boundaries of the man’s property. As hospitality dictated, the host brought Faraday and Moon and Tenhorse a banquet of food and drink. Venison and lamb and quail. With the meat came bread and corn cakes and water and pie.

In the morning they set out again and rode all day and into the night. But before long they left the road, for Faraday had seen in his mind some men riding south towards them and, desiring no confrontation, they resolved to cut through the wide plains and the ranches. The terrain grew more rugged over time, the gentle slopes of lush grass replaced by rocky hills sprouting alongside the road. The hills grew into snowcapped mountains and the terrain forced them back onto the road. They made their camp off the road one last time before reaching the farm the next morning.

Faraday found the old house he grew up in just as he remembered, the shuttered windows chipped and gray and the second-story porch stuffed with old wheelbarrows and broken plowshares and scythes, all rusted and unkempt. Of the two chimneys one exhaled smoke, a thin wisp nearly invisible against the night’s stars. Before they reached the house they passed by a spot on the grass where a collection of insects buzzed over something. Upon closer inspection, Faraday saw that it was a dead rat and the insects were eating it, the maggots digging into the flesh like burrowing, skin-colored aliens.

The front door was unlocked. Inside Faraday found his mother bent over a ball of dough resting on the counter, her hands white with flour, kneading, her face smudged. A fresh pitcher of milk and a square of butter waited at her side. Faraday entered silently and it took a few seconds before she looked up and saw her son.

“My God. Faraday. You scared me half to death,” she said, dipping her hands into the cistern and cleaning away the flour. Then she embraced him.

“Where you’ve been, my boy? I’ve been worried sick.” Faraday did not answer. “And the gold?” she continued. “You and Daniel…”

“No. Actually, I came to see if you or Father had heard of him.”

“No, not here. Your father knows better. Besides, we thought he was with you.”

“Something happened…”

“I told you not to trust him. Your father’s a soft spot for his bastard but we ought not allow him the same leeway.”

“Is Father in? Olivia?”

With that last name, a grim sadness took over his mother’s features as if some horrible memory, momentarily forgotten, had risen back into the forefront of her consciousness.

“Best you talk to your father. He’s upstairs.”

“What is it? Is it Olivia? Is she hurt?”

“Talk to your father. I haven’t the strength.”

Faraday found his father in the study upstairs, coughing into a bucket. The elder McKinnis looked like a man deflated, his skin wrinkled and tough. His clothes were worn and muddled. A heavy iron mug sat empty on the windowsill like a soldier at attention. And everywhere along the floor papers lay like floundering birds. When Faraday came in, his father did not embrace him. Did not even lift himself off his chair, no semblance of surprise evident in his manner. In fact, the opposite. As if all surprises had been aspirated off the surface of the earth and nothing either above or below could startle the haggard old man.

“Did you do the job? Where’s Daniel?”

“We did. But he’s got the gold. Up and took it. Left me behind.”

“Why’d he go and do that?”

“No idea.”

“Just my luck. One of my boys goes mad, the other looks like he’s been through hell, and my baby girl… Olivia’s gone.”

“Where’d she go?” Faraday said.

“Don’t know.”

“Why’d she leave?”

Faraday’s father hesitated a moment, looking into Faraday’s eyes. It was a gaze that started soft and then hardened as if trying to protect something deep inside.

“Don’t know.”

Dinner was a hearty meal of roast pig and mashed potatoes. Even Tenhorse had seconds and Moon looked delighted. But it was Faraday’s father who ate the most. He gobbled up food, filling his plate three times, like it was his last meal. If Faraday hadn’t told the others about Olivia’s disappearance, no one would have been the wiser, for the old man looked as happy as ever. Faraday’s mother excused herself from the table, clearly disgusted by her husband’s nonchalant attitude.

After dinner, Faraday’s mother took an interest in Moon. She filled the bathtub with warm water for her and made it a point to ask as much about her as she could. Moon, in turn, was as courteous as a princess and did her best to alleviate the mother’s grief.

The men found themselves beds on the second floor of the house, and Faraday sat in his room, looking at his old belongings. There was his slingshot and his knife. A couple of worn books still lay under the bed waiting for him. He brought them out and felt the pages on his fingers and smelled the dank scent of old paper. Next to his, Faraday found Olivia’s room. Contrary to the neatness of his room, Olivia’s was a mess. The bed was undone and many of her things were spread about the floor. A young girl alone out there. Likely Olivia’s dead, Faraday thought and immediately took it back. He would find her.

As it happened, Faraday knew how he could find out exactly where Olivia was. He called Moon into his room. She came in perfumed, her hair wet and still dripping. She had a nightgown on, borrowed from Olivia, her dark Indian skin contrasting starkly against the white gown. She looked to Faraday like a creature from another world. And when they sat down in front of each other, Faraday struggled to remain focused on the task at hand.

“I’m going to help you find her, but know that we have one chance at this. Whatever vein of power we are tapping is not within our control. At best, we may ride it for a few moments, but more than that and we risk everything,” Moon said.

“I understand.”

“We don’t know who else can see us. Feel us. Power attracts power.”

“We’ll do it quick and easy,” Faraday said. Finally the two embraced, their arms interlocking. The first impulse came as Faraday expected. A surge of unbridled power and a rising up to the heavens and there he lingered for a moment, looking down on the same sparkling lights he had seen before. Then he pictured Olivia and the clouds parted and he moved through the empty spaces down towards San Francisco until he floated above many houses huddled close together and a cobbled road and a dark alley. Suddenly he was at the door to one of the buildings, looking through someone’s eyes as if his body were there but not. He could not control this body, only see through it. The door opened to what looked like a Parisian palace. Women waited for him inside, some of them naked, others wearing corsets and long stockings and elaborate dresses. The man Faraday looked through was one among others. More than one girl came up to him asking if he wanted to have fun. They brought him drink, cup after cup. The silent sloshing of the liquid in the man’s mouth echoed in Faraday’s head like the roiling rapids of a thunderous river. And Faraday could feel something changing within the man. Something rising to his head. Euphoria. The sofa he sat on took on airs of a throne and he felt like conquering Alexander surrounded by his harem. When a redheaded girl came and asked him the same question as the others, the man finally relented. She took him by the hand and showed him the rest of the house. The redheaded girl let the man’s hand slide under her dress more than once, smiling at him while he felt her soft skin. In one of the rooms, she stopped to fix a crooked painting.

Through the man’s eyes, Faraday gaped in awe at the painting and some of that transferred to the man, for he stopped and spoke nothing.

“What is it?” the redheaded girl said.

“That’s her,” Faraday said, his voice coming out of the man’s mouth truncated and almost unintelligible. “That’s my sister.”

In the painting, Olivia stood on a wooden pier in a ripped and tattered brown dress, her arms extending outwards. Rising behind her as tall as a great tower, an enormous tidal wave hung immobile in midair, the awesome force about to engulf the whole city.

Chapter Eleven

Olivia set out in the dark with only the light of the moon to guide her. She had been trying to cross the forest for hours, but she appeared to be walking in circles. It was at that point, rudderless and tired beyond measure, that regret set in. And while Olivia knelt on the grass and sobbed she heard a song floating in the air, and she followed the sound and discovered its source was a thin and bearded man. He held a lantern in one hand and had the other on the ground, moving fast as if looking for something, and for a long while Olivia observed him and waited. She could not help but look away when the man’s hand finally came off the ground, holding in between his fingers a thick and pale worm. The man ate the worm while it still squirmed.

“Come out from there,” the man said.

Olivia stood motionless.

“I won’t say it again.”

Stepping into the light, Olivia bore all the confidence of a lost child. Her face was moist with fresh tears and from her limbs hung all of her luggage. A ridiculous vision like a barren and fruitless tree. The man looked her over as one would look over the wares of a merchant and when his eyes met hers, he lit up as if he had stumbled upon some great secret never before uttered in the presence of flesh and bone.

“What’s wrong? You look awful, child,” he said. “You need rest.”

Olivia told him her name and that she had run away.

“And why would you do something stupid like that?”

She gave no answer.

“Well, I trust it was a good reason. My name’s Lynch. I haven’t much food but I do believe I have a few spiders tucked away for a rainy day.”

“I brought my own food, thank you. What I need is a place to rest.”

“You’re welcome to stay for the night. Take my bed.”

“Will you not sleep?” Olivia said.

“I slept all morning.”

The next day the bright light of the sun invaded the cabin through a window, illuminating the structure and waking Olivia. She got up afraid of the strange place, and found the man sleeping on the ground on top of an improvised mattress. Olivia had her breakfast at a table tucked in a corner of the cabin. She could have left without speaking to the man but instead she poked Lynch and roused him awake.