Manitou Blood (7 page)

“Russian?”

“Maybe. Russian-
type
, anyhow.”

“Well, maybe the cards are referring to her. They also tell me that you've been given a gift that you won't be able to get rid of, even if you want to. See this card here? The Gift. A young man's holding a birdcage with a bright red parrot in it. He likes the parrot, he's smiling—but if you look closer you can see that the bottom of the birdcage is actually fastened with bolts that go right through the palms of his hands. He can never put it down. Quite literally, he's screwed.”

Ted said, “She gave me a medallion. Look.” He reached into his T-shirt and pulled out a heavy pewter amulet, about the same size as an Oreo. He held it out so that I could inspect it.

The medallion had a man's face embossed on it, with a border of snakes and stars. The man's eyes were closed, and he looked almost laughably grim. On the back, an inscription was engraved in italics, but it was written in some language that I couldn't understand.
De strigoaica, de strigoi, si de case cu moroi.

“This Russian-type girl . . . did she tell you what these words meant?”

Ted shook his head. “She said it would bring me good luck, that's all.”

“In that case, let's hope that
she
was right and the cards are wrong.”

Ted didn't look convinced. “You said they were the most accurate fortune-telling cards that money could buy.”

“That's true. I did say that. But they can be unnecessarily pessimistic. Like, they may say Imminent Death but how imminent is imminent? If you're a Galapagos turtle, imminent could mean sometime early next century.”

I turned Ted's medallion over again, and it was then that I felt a crawling sensation up the back of my neck, like ants running into my hair.
The man's eyes had opened, and he was staring straight at me, and smiling
.

I flung the medallion away from me as if I had suddenly found a spider on it. Ted said,
“What?”

“Muscular spasm, sorry. My fingers just—
jerk
, now and again. Ruined my career in netsuke-carving.”

Maybe I should have told him that the man's face on his lucky medallion had appeared to open his eyes, but it could have been a trick of the light, couldn't it, or maybe the medallion had been made in such a way that it was supposed to do that. But Ted already looked so anxious that I thought it better if I said nothing. I may make a living out of telling fortunes, but I can assure you that finding out what the future has in store for us does nobody any good. Especially since we can't do a damn thing about it, not even with blood root.

“Let's turn over the last card, shall we?” I suggested. “This is what we call the Decider Card . . . the card that finally tells you what's going to happen to you.”

“Supposing this Decider Card says Imminent Death, too?”

“No problem. We can always tell your fortune again, with a different deck of cards. Maybe the Tarot, or the gypsy cards. Or we could even try the crystal ball. You have to understand, Ted—the future . . . the future is only
a matter of opinion
.”

Ted kept his eyes shut while I turned over the last card. I was hoping to God that it wasn't The Serpent, which means certain death before the next moon rises, but it was almost as bad. It was The Water Woman . . . a picture of a
woman floating just below the surface of a river, with undulating green weed, instead of hair. I had never turned this card up before, but I knew what it signified. Death by drowning, or some other unpleasant demise that involved water.

Ted opened his eyes and frowned at it. “The Water Woman? Is that bad?”

“It's not
bad
—but I have to be frank, it's not especially good either. Don't let it worry you, though. The cards are
warning
you, rather than telling you. They're saying,
be careful, Ted!
”

“Be careful of what?”

“Just be careful. Don't go swimming, don't accept gifts from damp-looking women, and look both ways before you step in front of a fish truck. That's the message they're giving you about Imminent Death. You're not going to die tomorrow so long as you keep your wits about you.”

I started gathering up the cards.

“Is that it?” said Ted. “What about my nightmare?”

“Oh . . . your nightmare.”

“That's why I came to see you, man. To see if you could stop the nightmare.”

“Of course. But quite frankly I don't think your nightmare is anything for you to worry about. You're suffering from stress is all.”

“Stress?”

“Sure. You may think that everything in your life is hunkydory, but you've taken on a whole lot of new responsibilities, haven't you? So you're subconsciously beginning to feel that things are getting on top of you. Hence, the box you're trapped in, and all of the boxes piled on top of you. I can let you have some snakeweed for that . . . put snakeweed powder under your pillow and you'll never dream about yourself again, guaranteed.”

Ted said, “Amelia said that you could maybe call on your spirit guide, to tell me what was wrong.”

I stopped picking up cards. “My spirit guide?”

“She said you had a Native American spirit guide. Some medicine man you once used to know, who got killed.”

“Amelia told you about that?”

“Sure. She said that you had a real talent, when it came to telling fortunes, but you hardly ever used it.”

“Oh, really? Did I just read your cards for you, or did I imagine it?”

“Yes, you did. But Amelia said if you got in touch with your spirit guide, you could actually
show
me what was going to happen to me.”

“She said that, too?” I thought for a moment. Then I dug into the pocket of my jeans and took out his $100 bill. “Ted, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to give you a full refund, no questions asked.”

“But I don't want a refund, man! I want to find out what my nightmare is all about! Amelia said you could do it, man! I can't sleep! I haven't slept in over a week! It's driving me out of my skull!”

“Why do you think Amelia didn't want to help you? It's unpredictable. It's
dangerous
. Sure, I contact my spirit guide. Sure I can show you what your nightmare is all about. I can also stick a .45 up my ass and pull the trigger, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to do it.”

Ted lowered his head and stared at the table. He sat like that for so long I was beginning to think that he had fallen asleep.

“Listen,” I said, “I haven't done that kind of thing in a very long time. You should try the snakeweed. I can let you have a teaspoonful for forty-five dollars, that's a genuine bargain.”

Still he kept his head down.

“Contacting dead people . . . it's a very risky business. Amelia will tell you how risky it is, and she was doing it for years. Why do you think she doesn't do it now?”

I stood up, and went to the window. The blonde woman with the roots was still there.
“I couldn't help noticing you. . . .”
I could say to her.
“The way that the cigarette smoke leaks out of your mouth and disappears up that cute retroussé nose . . .”
No, that wouldn't work, either.

Ted said, “I don't know what else to do, man. I went to my doctor but he said the same as you. Stress, and put me on Ativan. I took them but they only made the nightmare worse. Shit, man, I'm too scared even to turn out the lights.”

“I can't help you, Ted. I'm sorry.”

He looked up, and I was shocked to see that his face was smothered in tears. “You have to, man. There's nobody else.
Please
.”

The blonde woman looked up and saw me staring at her. I smiled, and winked, but she turned her back on me and went inside her store. Oh, well. She was probably a transvestite, anyhow.

I didn't know what to do. I hate disturbing the dead, and if Amelia hadn't sent him, I would have told Ted to forget it.

“I'm really not sure, Ted,” I said. “I guess I could
ask
my spirit guide if he can help you. But I can't give you any guarantees, and if it looks too risky—”

“Please, man. You don't know what this means.”

I hesitated. I really didn't like this at all. I had made contact with the so-called spirit world only three or four times in the past, but each time it had been a catastrophe, and I had been lucky to escape with my life. You think dead people are docile? You think they all go off to Rapture, and spend their time dancing in meadows and playing the ukulele like a bunch of hippies? Ha! Dead people are bitter and twisted and vindictive and they
hate
the living like you wouldn't believe. Put it this way: If
you
were dead, how would
you
feel about all those smug bastards who were still alive, especially if they kept getting in touch with you and saying
Hello
?
Hello
?
Is anyone there? What's it like being dead
?
Where did you hide the US Steel stock certificates?

“Just hold on a moment,” I told Ted. I pulled out the bottom drawer of my cabinet and took out my address book. I found Amelia's number and punched it out on my cell phone. It rang and rang but all I got was her answering message.

“
I'm not here right now but I really want to know why you called me
.”

Amelia. That same husky voice. I cleared my throat, and then I said, “Amelia . . . it's Harry. I have young Ted with me. Ted Busch like in Anheuser. I'm going to do what I can to help him, but I'd like to know what
you
think about this nightmare he's been having.” I looked at Ted, who was biting his thumbnail, and then I said, “Call me back, can you? Love, Harry.

I snapped the phone shut. “Okay, then, Teddy boy. Let's see if I can get you some assistance from the world beyond.”

I tugged the drapes together so that the room was dark, except for a few sharp chinks of light that shone around the edges. I took three church candles from the kitchen drawer, and lit them. Then I took off the black bead bracelet that I always wore, the bracelet that Singing Rock had given me, and dropped it around the candles so that it encircled them.

“You see this?” I said to Ted. “This bracelet is made out of polished stones from the Okabojo riverbed in South Dakota. The guy who gave it to me said that when he died, his soul would be divided into twenty-one parts, and that each of these beads would contain one of those parts. The things he had seen, the things he had said, the things he had tasted, the things he had touched, and so on. This bracelet is like a recording of who he was.”

Ted said, “I'll try anything, man, I really will.”

“Okay, then.” I reached across the table and held both of Ted's hands. “I want you to close your eyes and think of your nightmare. I want you to imagine it as clearly as you
can. The box. The weight on top of you. The ship tilting up and down.”

Ted nodded. I waited for a while but he kept on nodding. “Close your eyes, then,” I told him. “I'd like to get started sometime this week, if I can.”

“Oh, sure. Sorry.” Ted closed his eyes and at the same time gripped my hands even tighter.

I sat there for a while, watching his face. It's extraordinary, how much people reveal of their thoughts, when they have their eyes closed. Even more, when they're asleep. Myself, I tried to think of Singing Rock, the very last time that I had seen him, turning toward me, just about to say something. He hadn't looked much like a Cheyenne medicine man. Short, stocky, with a broad, good-humored face, and glasses. You would have thought he was an Eastern European mattress salesman rather than one of the most powerful workers of Native American magic since Hastiin Klah.

“Singing Rock,” I said, “I need to talk to you.”

A car honked its horn in the street outside and somebody started shouting. “
You stupid? What are you, stupid, or what?
”

“Singing Rock, I have a troubled young man here, and I need your guidance to help him.”

The candle flames flickered, and dipped, but I didn't feel that there was any presence here, apart from me and Ted, holding hands. I couldn't hear anything, either, apart from the commotion down in the street, and the endless
takka-takka-takka
of my air conditioner.

“Singing Rock, this young man has been having terrible nightmares, and he needs to understand what they mean, and how he can stop them.”

I thought: This is hopeless. Ted and I are going to sit here, with our hands becoming increasingly sweaty, and nothing is going to happen. Singing Rock had probably been dead
for far too long for me to be able to call him back; or else he simply didn't feel like helping an insomniac paleface. We had been friends, Singing Rock and I, but he had never been a lover of white men, as a race. His great-great-grandmother had been killed by the U.S. Cavalry at White-stone Hill, in Dakota Territory, along with five more of his family, only babies at the time, and over two hundred other men, women and children of the Yanktonai and Hunkpatina Sioux. Singing Rock used to talk about it with such rage you would have gotten the impression that it had happened only a few days before, instead of in 1863. Time isn't always the Great Healer, believe me, especially when it comes to Great Injustices.

“Singing Rock, I'm asking you a favor here. I need you to open some doors for me, and show me the way through.”

Ted opened one of his eyes. “Do you really think this is going to work?” he asked me, dubiously.

“Not if you keep peeking it isn't. Keep thinking about your nightmare, okay?”

He closed his eye again, and squeezed his face in concentration.

“Singing Rock,” I intoned. “I think that something seriously bad could be happening here, and I really need your help.”