Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (20 page)

I went back to my hair, making sure the pointed peak I
kept on the top was just right. The gel was holding fine.

Outside there was no sign of the woman. Her loss.

The rest of my night I drank enough to feel good, then
drove my aunts back to my aunt's house, where I was staying.
It rained lightly, making the dark road shiny and slick. I saw
four more dead dogs. More guts. More tongues. Or maybe they
were the same dogs. The women gossiped in the car-what a
nice ceremony, the food could've been better, et cetera.

Back at my aunt's house, in the middle of the night, when
everyone else was asleep, I got up and went to the living room,
found a bottle of dark rum, and filled a glass with it. I tipped
my head back, drained it, burped, and went back to bed.

Outside the drizzle had turned into steady rain.

In the morning, I sat at the kitchen counter in front of a plate
filled with eggs, platanos, half a mango, and buttered bread.
Cafe con leche, orange juice. "Come mas," my TIa Lidia said,
and before I could answer I got another piece of bread, another fried egg, another mango half. My head was buzzing, my
stomach turned, but I kept eating.

"I gotta get ready to go to San Juan," I told them.

My aunt gave me more bread and told me about a tropical
storm warning. She was happy my cousin had flown to Mexico
that morning for the honeymoon. The warning could turn
into a hurricane. She told me I shouldn't travel even though
the rain had stopped.

"I'm meeting a friend," I said in English. I was too sour to
try Spanish. "And I got to get a little blackjack and poker in
while I'm here. Besides, there's not going to be no hurricane."

I went to pack my duffel bag. I wanted to get moving before it started to rain. Through the bars on the window, I saw a taxi park in front of the house. A woman got out. It was my
cousin's friend Itaba. Tia Lidia walked out to talk to her.

I was twisting the lid onto my flask when Tia Lidia came in
the room. "La amiga de Carmen necesita it a San Juan." Since
I was going to San Juan today, I could give her a ride, no?

"She can't take a cab?"

Cabs are very expensive, my aunt said.

I could see I didn't have a choice.

"Y ella es muy Bonita. Parece india."

"Yeah. Well, I got to get ready first."

It's good to make new friends, my aunt said. You need
someone to take care of you, she said.

"I have a friend waiting for me in San Juan."

Not that kind of friend, my aunt said.

I took my sweet time with my hair, getting it just the way
I like it, and trimmed my beard to make sure it was the same
thinness around my jaw. It's hard to get it right sometimes.
Then I splashed on some cologne and I was good to go.

When I came out, Itaba was sitting in the patio with a big
purse and that gift bag.

"Tantas gracias por hacer esto," she said, standing up and
smiling this big smile at me. I walked past her and went to the
car.

When we got into the little vehicle, I noticed that she
smelled good, not sweet like perfume, but like trees, like soil,
like wood. For some reason it made me hungry.

"Tu huele bien," I said.

At first she looked at me like I'd said something nasty.
Then she smiled and thanked me. So I played it off, stayed
quiet.

We drove like that for five minutes before she started talking.

"What do you do?" she asked.

"So you speak English?"

"Of course," she said. "Look, I promise not to torture you
anymore with my Spanish and you do not have to torture me
anymore with yours." She gave me that smile again, full of
brilliant white teeth. I wondered if she bleached them.

"Funny lady. Very funny."

"So what do you do?"

"You mean for a living? This and that."

"Is that what you tell everybody?"

I could've told her I had gotten out of prison awhile ago
and couldn't find anyone who wanted to hire me. Not that I'm
ashamed of that. I just didn't think it was her business. "I do
fine. I have money."

"So why are you going to San Juan? To gamble?"

"I like to play cards, you know what I mean? And I'm
meeting a friend."

"A lady friend?"

"The best kind."

"I'm sure you'll have a good time."

We were quiet for a little bit, then she said, "Listen, negrito, we first have to make a stop in Utuado."

"What? That's out of my way. It'll take hours to get
there."

"It will take all day with the way you drive."

"Fine." I pulled the car sharply to the side of the road.
"Take the wheel."

She got behind the driver's seat and slammed on the gas.
We burned rubber. I put my seat belt on.

I looked at her dark, caramel fingers on the wheel. No
ring.

My cell phone beeped. It was Julie-I had forgotten all
about calling her. I looked at Itaba, then took the call.

I tried to whisper. "Nothing's wrong. No one's here," I said,
but when she complained that she couldn t hear me I had to
speak up. "Yeah. Hey. How are you? What time's your flight get
in? ... That's ridiculous. This is a just a tropical storm ... Hey, I
know you're nervous, but we're going to have a terrific time ...
C'mon, you've always been my good-luck charm ... Hey, that's
not going to happen. He's not going to find out ... Call me when
you know the new arrival time. Yeah. It'll be great. Don't worry."

Itaba kept her eyes on the road and said nothing. I stared
out the window. The sky was dark, the clouds looked ready to
explode with rain. The palm trees were bowing in the wind.
I watched the dark road and-this is funny-I realized I was
keeping an eye out for more dead dogs.

Itaba parked the car on the side of the road. We were somewhere near Utuado.

"What the hell is this?" I said.

"We're going to the Taino village at Caguana Park."

All I saw were trees. "This doesn't look like anything."

"We're taking the back way."

"Is the front way closed?"

"Do you know anything about the Tainos?"

"The Indians? Oops. Sorry. Native Americans."

She raised her eyebrows. "Tainos were the indigenous
people of Boriken, the real name of Puerto Rico. Don't you
know anything about your history?"

"I was born and schooled in the Bronx, lady."

"The Tainos were the first people that Columbus met. In a
few hundred years most of them were wiped out of existence."

"I heard they all died. Measles and shit. And stuff, I mean.
See, I'm not as stupid as I look."

"Smallpox. But no, some survived. And there are many of us who want to reclaim what is ours. Negrito, I need your
help. And for your help I will give you a reward."

I looked at her lips, tried to imagine what she would look
like when she was coming. If she was a screamer.

"No me mires asi. I can give you money, so you can show
your friend more of a good time in San Juan."

"How much?"

"A friend was supposed to drive me but he got delayed. I
was going to give him a thousand dollars. I will give you two
thousand because I have inconvenienced you."

I pursed my lips. "That's sweet money for a cab ride. But I
want to know what this is about."

"Look in the bag," she said.

I took the gift bag from the back. There was something
wrapped in plastic and then bubble wrap. I began to unwrap it.

"Be careful!" she snapped, raising her voice.

The stone had three points and was the size of my fist.
One point had large eyes and teeth bared like a mad dog.

"You probably don't recognize it. It's a stone carving of
Yocahu, a Taino deity."

"Looks like an animal. Check out its fucking teeth."

"Yocahu was the god of good, with no beginning and no
end. This was discovered in an excavation at Jacana, near
Ponce. I've been working there. I'm an archaeologist. Thank
you for asking. The Army Corps of Engineers was clearing
land in order to build a dam. They uncovered some of the
most important archaeological treasures ever found in Puerto
Rico. This one piece is priceless."

"Okay," I said. It was still ugly.

"An American buyer is waiting for me in a hotel in San
Juan. But he wants to make sure it comes with a certificate of
authenticity. That's why we're here."

"So you stole this?" I waved the stone.

"Please be careful with that."

"It's a rock."

"It's a cemi. It's sacred. The Neo-Taino movement needs
money to buy back land. To take back what is ours. This carving is a great sacrifice but it will be worth it."

"And what's a Neo-Taino?"

"According to DNA testing, more than half of Puerto Ricans still have Taino blood in their veins."

"That doesn't make them Indians. They're selling quenepas on the side of the road, not doing rain dances."

She rolled her beautiful hazel eyes. "Listen, the buyer will
pay one million dollars for this cemi."

"For this?" I whistled. "So, why not just rent a car? Why
did you need me? Or was it just an excuse to get to know me
better?"

"Ay, negrito. I didn't want to do this alone. Don't you understand?" she said and got out of the car.

She led me through the trees. The soil was wet and
squished under my feet. We came to a wooden fence. With
her boots, she began to kick it down.

"Let me do that," I said. With a few kicks, I opened a
space big enough for an SUV.

"You didn't have to destroy it."

"I don't know my own strength," I said.

We came out from the trees and into a wide clearing. On
one side there were several rectangular spaces of cleared dirt.
Around it were stone carvings, one foot to five feet high, with
faces and figures in white. Animals, people, and people that
looked like animals.

"That is a batey court," she said, "where the warriors would play in order to settle disputes between different villages. We were wise and peaceful."

"What did they play? Tennis?"

We circled the courts. Light rain began to fall. "There's
that tropical storm," I said.

"Have you heard the story of Juracan, who was there at
the creation of the world?"

"Nope."

"He was the brother of Yucahu and the son of Atabey, and
he was created from elements in the air and therefore without
a father."

"Like me."

"Juracan became envious of Yucahu when he saw his
brother create the race of humanity, and so he tried to destroy his brother's creations. He became known as the god of
strong winds-we get the word hurricane from his name. And
the Tainos came to fear and revere him. When the hurricanes
blew, they knew they had displeased Juracan."

"Then someone must've pissed him off today."

In the distance we could see a few straw huts. Cone roofs,
small doorways. She led me toward what looked like an office
building, and we soon passed a hut. She seemed to see something and ran toward it.

The way she gasped-I could tell something was wrong.
Then I saw it. A man lay on his back on the ground. His face
was stuck in a grin of pain. A line of blood led from a small
hole in the man's bright, white guayabera to a black-red pool.

"It's Dr. Arroyo," she said. "He was supposed to give me
the certificate."

I was about to bend down to enter the hut when I heard
something moving in the grass behind the body. I turned.
Somebody hit me.

I was kissing dirt. I heard talking, but it wasn't English. Some
of the words were like Spanish. It was a strange, rhythmic dialect. Like a drumbeat almost.

I tried to move. My hands were tied. I glanced up and
saw the flat-headed man from the wedding coming toward
me with a big stick. It looked like a giant pilon. In his other
hand something was cupped. The man put the hand on my
face, covering my nose and mouth. He said something in that
strange language. There was a rotten-smelling powder in the
man's hand. I tried to shake loose but I couldn't help inhaling the powder. I opened my mouth to breathe and more went
in. It hit me like another smack to the back of my head. I began to vomit, all the eggs, platanos, mango slices, and buttered
bread. He came at me with a knife in his hands and cut the rope
around my wrists. I tried to move, but my body didn't listen.

I lay there for a thousand years. The sky got brighter and
brighter, then dimmed like a flame going out. At the edge of
my face tiny insects crawled up and onto my eyes and under
my eyelids. I heard the sound of coquis, first low and quiet,
then it grew and grew until I thought my eardrums would
bleed. I saw a dark beach, black water, black sky. The waves
jumped onto the shore like the claws of a giant animal, tearing at the sand, reaching for me. There was a sound like a
gunshot, and I tried to shut my eyes, and then I thought I was
crying. I looked up and saw a dog licking my face. Small, hairless. It moved its mouth like it was barking but no sound came
out. My face felt so wet I thought the dog was drooling all over
me, then I realized it was raining.