Jemez Spring (21 page)

Trees, too, were energized by spirit. Perhaps not the same electric acid that flowed in human nerves, but energized by the earth, sun, and water. The tree lived in a forest of spirits, as the person lived in a community of spirits.

Sonny thought of the biblical cry: “Like a cedar I am exalted in Lebanon, like a cypress on Mount Zion.”

But I am a Nuevomexicano, and so like a cottonwood tree I grow in the Rio Grande Valley.

He turned to look at José, who stared straight ahead into the brush.

A strange calm lay over the bosque. Heavy and oppressive. It settled over Sonny. Like José he could only stare at trees. The silence kept him immobile in his thoughts.

He remembered witnessing the miracle of seed. He and Rita sat under a giant cottonwood one still day. Heat from the trees rose up into the sky, creating softly swirling thermal waves, heat usually invisible to the eye, but that day, outlined against the glowing sunlight and bright blue sky the cottonwood was letting go of its seed, and that breezeless day the weightless cotton wasn't falling to the ground, it was rising into the sky like a sudden ejaculation of sperm, the tree fertilizing the sky, a column of cotton fluff rising into the glorious light, a fireworks display without sound, with only the blessing of the tree's terrible desire to propagate itself, to scatter a million seeds to grow one tree. Up and up the cloud of seeds spiraled, whooshing into the sky, the desire of the tree so intense and the rising heat so hot it could be no other way.

Sperm, Sonny had said. Ovum, Rita whispered.

The tree that gave forth its seed was female, the outpouring from its green belly the seeds of potential.

He had taken her hand, standing in awe, humble witnesses to the display of the tree's yearning to be. Miles away the tiny, delicate seeds wrapped in their parasails of cotton would fall to earth, and if the universe conspired, a tree would take hold there. The chances of its sprouting were slim to none, but the green belly of the tree cared not, it flung its seeds into the existential maw of the sky, shouting
I will be!

The sweat from their joined hands grew hot and slippery as tree sperm.

“Seeds,” he said.

José looked quizzically at him. “Come on, Sonny. We can't just sit here. Raven's here!”

“I know.” Sonny realized Raven was near, but a new emotion had crept into his heart. What if Raven was too strong? What if he had made so many deals with Dominic's group that he was protected? If they could murder the governor they could get anyone.

The old man had been an alamo, tough bark and green veins, fed by the earth and water of the valley, but trees fall and he had fallen. Some trees are cut before their time, and the old man had been brought down, dashed to the ground by Raven's terrible sword. Scimitar of evil.

“He's waiting for you,” José said.

Deep in this forest primeval, without even the sound of a lonely bird crying for its mate, they heard a raven call.

A low growl rose in Chica's throat, and her hackles prickled. Sonny felt goosebumps on the back of his neck.

“Raven,” José whispered, and went for the pistol.

“Won't do you any good.”

“Why?”

“You used the bullet on the whirlwind—”

José checked the pistol. “Still plenty of bullets left,” he said.

Sonny reached for the dreamcatcher hanging on the rifle rack.

José sneered. “Sheeee—.” In an instant he was out of the truck and into the bosque, disappearing in a flash.

Sonny looked at Chica. “Quédate aquí,” he whispered, and rubbed her neck and stepped out of the truck. She would be safer in the truck than in the bosque.

Raven had been following him all day, and he had chosen this spot to make his move. So be it.

Sonny sniffed the air, separated the smells. On the sandy road lay the scent of a fox that had hunted here last night and left behind a few russet feathers of the pheasant it had killed. Also, a badger had come from the river, perhaps to grub for roots, and a family of skunks had also left their scent, a lingering cloud along the path. Under a tree lay a plastic bread-loaf wrapper. Just recently someone had made sandwiches, perhaps lovers on a picnic, and why not? It was spring and spending a quiet day along the river under the canopy of trees seemed the thing to do.

But not today. Raven's smell also lingered on the trail.

To his left Sonny heard the slight murmur of water, the river flowing south. He moved cautiously, not stepping on twigs, careful because here the bosque was a thicket of alamo, tamarisk, and river willow. The path narrowed, and up ahead he spied the outline of a small house.

He hadn't gone twenty feet when the instinct that keeps men alive told him to hit the ground. As he dove, a bullet whizzed overhead, embedding itself in the trunk of a nearby tree.

A second instinctual wave told him the bullet was a distraction, the smell of Raven was so close. He jumped to his feet, but too late. A heavy club struck him across the forehead, and he went down, grabbing at the enemy, whose odious laughter was followed by a whooping cry of “coup.”

Perhaps it was the hot blood blinding him, or the rubble in the path as he was dragged along, but before he passed out he smelled a new scent, the unforgiving smell of pigs.

Very well, he thought, if the sounds and images of semi-darkness can be called thoughts, let this be the darkness in which I kill that sonofabitch and take back my child!

Bravo! Raven croaked. Always the hero!

The brain traumatized, whether from a blow to the skull at work or play, or from excessive passion that burns it to a crisp, or from strong narcotics, demonic lust or booze that numbs, suddenly loses its sense of time, for the blood is now interested in self-preservation, not the tick-tock of the day. A few images come and go, but the brain is concerned only with getting enough oxygen to stay alive.

Sonny breathed deep, felt a light burn as one eye fluttered open. His left eye was closed, full of blood that dripped from where the club had grazed his forehead.

He strained to get his bearing, but the dark room swirled around him. Someone had brought him inside the building. A young woman, a sylph-like creature, stood in front of him.

What's your name? the sylph asked, she of the constellation Hydra, probably gorgon in nature for her silken hair, like burnished gold, oscillated like eels or snakes, not frightening but alluring.

This is a dream of desire, he thought, looking into the face of the exquisite angel, eyes that shone with the fire of amethyst, lips painted with henna, gold rings adorning her eyebrows. The airy creature must be an angel because to her belongs the music of cascading water, like a choir of angels falling from heaven, their silken wings fluttering, filling the room.

Ah, but I'm in the world of the trickster, he thought, and I know enough of survival not to trust Raven's angels. Through ooze of blood he faked a smile.

You know, he replied.

The sylph returned his smile. Dressed in a diaphanous gown strung with threads of gold, so sheer and airy the outline of her svelte body was clearly visible. He could not help but admire her exquisite breasts, so perfectly formed they would stop the musing of any philosopher. The soft cleft between her breasts, where lingered the aroma of freshly baked apples coated with cinnamon and sugar, formed a line down to a belly button adorned with more gold rings, the line continuing down to her virgin sex and slender legs.

Sonny's nostrils quivered with the fragrance that rose from between her breasts, for with each slight movement the aroma changed; now it was the sweet heat of dark figs, next the flowers of the date palm, a smell as ancient as the deserts of Egypt, green fronds nourished by the secret waters of the oasis, water that soothed the desert heat. Date palm flowers blooming as sweet as the dark fruit they bore, so deep and thirst-quenching that Sonny felt a deep need within responding. To what? Her body or the aromas it offered?

Obviously, the sylph practiced aroma therapy, which as all wise men know, is nature's way.

Ah, Raven, you really know how to do a guy in. Funny how a man could be in the deepest of trouble and still respond to that sweet perfume that rose from between a woman's breasts.

But why so suspicious? Surely she means me no harm, he thought, shaking his head to get rid of the pain that rang in his head. He tried to rise from the chair, but felt his arms tied behind his back.

Nymph. Free me.

You are too beautiful to be set free. Make love to me first and make me mortal. She laughed, the tinkling sound of an altar bell, or camel bells as the plodding animals arrived at the oasis. Her touch was so exquisite he almost groaned, not in pain but with the satisfaction that time and again makes the world of men slippery and wet.

Only a mortal could have hit me as hard as you did, he said, controlling the surging energy that seemed to have a life of its own, the same kind of deceptive desire he had once known with Tamara.

The sylph wanted to have her way with him because only by copulating with a mortal could she descend from the dream ambience and become a nymph of the earth. She desired the earth energy, which is nothing but sex energy, the stuff of procreation, endowing all of nature with its impulse, driving it into parasites, bacteria, mammal and bird, insects, even the fungus that grows beneath the wet leaves and compost of winter. Every form of life, organic or rock, everything, obeyed nature's common rule: Do
it!
I don't care how you do it, just do it!

One spring she had drunk mandrake wine with a Pan-like creature who appeared, one of those transients that use the river as a highway to Mexico. But to no avail.

He tried not to listen to her sylph's song. He knew sirens too well, knew the stories his grandparents told of La Llorona, the crying woman who roamed the river's edge looking for the children she had drowned. Why squander his mortality? Why spend his seed in this dry dream? He turned away from her healing hands, the stars on her breasts, the fire in her thighs, and tried as innocently as he could to let go of the urge that might overwhelm him.

The girl had not dragged him here, air spirit that she was. Raven had. But where was he?

I wouldn't hurt you, she said. If you don't want to, I know why. She lifted a blue porcelain bowl filled with the healing water of the river, a dark water in which floated pomegranate seeds and eucalyptus leaves, and with a soft cloth she began wiping away the blood.

She stood so close her forest fragrance touched his nostrils, the rotting leaves of winter, the spice of buds, rabbits in fever, the sharp metallic smell of a snake before it sheds its skin.

She brushed against him as she finished wiping away the blood, her every move suggestive. She desperately sought mortality, as if it were an answer to the prison of her dream.

We have time, she said, kissing him lightly on the forehead, spreading the essence of unnamed aromas, herbs from faraway places.

I don't know your name, he said.

Sibyl Sosostris, she answered, pushing him away.

Damn! Sonny thought, I knew Chicanitas were into designer names, calling themselves Kimberlee and LayLani and all sorts of combinations, but Sibyl Sosostris was too much.

What do you do?

I read tarot cards, for I am mystic. Get it? Mystic. A nymph of the woods. Like Robin Hood's little green men, we were waiting for you. She took the bowl away and returned with a cigarette and a pack of tarot cards.

She lit a match and took a deep drag from the cigarette. Want some?

Sonny shook his head. What's your real name?

Sylvia Sanchez, she said. I grew up on a farm near Belen. When I was little my parents would tie me to a tree by the river while they took care of their garden. I grew to love that tree, to make love to it. Good God, I get off on trees.

She spread the cards on the small table in front of him.

You are a Fool, she said, pointing to the jester's card. You walked right into it. She laughed, took another drag and flipped another card.

The Lovers. Not bad. We could be lovers, if only you let go of the past, which is a web. The Fool who doesn't let go of the past is doomed to repeat it, as Benito Juarez said long ago.

The past can also be a garment of many colors I wear, and therefore I know myself, Sonny countered. When I look in the mirror I know who I am.

She was obviously enjoying her game, flirting and letting her small breasts bounce in front of him.

She was no Madame Sosostris but one of Raven's women, trained in the art of seduction, Sonny knew.

He remembered the poor, deranged women Raven had hired last summer, the summer the people of the valley called Zia Summer. They had killed a goat for their summer-solstice ceremony, and they were ready to kill Sonny before don Eliseo and Rita rescued him.

But Raven had grown in power and intelligence, and this was no cult lady hired to do his dirty work. This could be his anima, as dark a lady as ever rose from the deep well of the mind, and why not? There is an anima of beauty even in the bad guy's dreams.

Twins, she said, turning the card. To be lovers we must become one, as twins are one.

Twins. The soul of the child Rita lost was one soul ready to split into two. Twins. He and Armando were twins. He and Raven were twins.

You're getting ahead of yourself, she said. Pay attention. Don't play the Fool!

She flipped another card. The Sun. Ah, you are a child of the Sun, but it has blinded you. You thought being keeper of the Zia medallion would save you, now look at you.

She opened his shirt and removed the gold medallion, turned, and offered it to the man who sat on the Zia Stone.

The man dressed in black received the medallion, the eternal prize.

Sonny, Sonny, Sonny, Raven said. You've lost it all. Fell for the oldest trick in the book, and now look at you.

His laughter filled the dark, folded shadows of the room.

14

The sylph disappeared into the air, or into the silken, feathery shadows that fluttered nervously in the room.