Nirvana Effect (29 page)

Edward resisted the temptation to pop another t-pill.  For every danger he faced now, there were ten more waiting for him once he got to the jungle.  He would definitely need a trance to get through that trek; and then there was his encounter with Mahanta, if he ever reached the boy-turned-god.  He would have to take his chances, here. 

Edward hit the top of another hill. 
The
car caught air
, and Edward wrestled it into staying on the road
.  Tomy and his tribesman were almost out of sight. 
Edward
need
ed
to get
several minutes
ahead of them
to be able to hide his car without their detection. 

Will I get it back?
He remembered Cali’s humor. 

That depends on if I die. 
He smiled.  He wondered what she would have said to that.  Probably,
well, then you can’t have the car. 
He’d be in her bed right now.

I should probably start slowing down.  I’m getting close.

The car hydroplaned, then skidded through a muddy spot on the dirt road.  He shot past a windblown sign
: “H
ard
R
ight
T
urn
A
head”. 
Edward
slammed the brakes.  The car slid further. 

Ahead
Edward
saw a massive clump of trees.  He had reached the
edge
of the jungle.  The road twisted at an odd angle to shoot into the woods. 
I
t was meant to be taken at 40
kph
.
Edward was still zooming at
12
0.  He pumped the brakes, then yanked up
the hand brake
as he took
the turn. 

It wasn’t enough.  The car responded to him, but the rain and the terrible road were merciless.  In his slide, the back tire
sl
ammed in
to the dirt incline at the edge of the curve.
The car spun left.  It started rolling.  Edward braced himself, getting as low as
possible
in the vehicle, thankful he’d buckled his safety belt. 

The car only made a quarter roll before its hood slammed into a tree with a deafening crack.  The back swung around and made its own impact against another.  The collision jerked Edward sideways towards the roof of the car, the seat belts digging hard into his shoulders and torso and
knocking the wind out of him.  His head got dangerously close to the roof of the car, but stopped with a jerk before he hit it.  

The engine had stopped running. 
The car had no power
.  The only sound Edward heard was the rain.  Except for the bruising pain from the seat belt, and the soreness in his neck, he was uninjured.  The collision had thankfully left the cabin more or less intact.  He sat there just listening to his own breathing.  Any minute now
Tomy’s car would be coming by.

Edward took a moment to pray before he did anything else. 
God, thank you for sparing my l
ife.  It’
s a sign to me that I
’m not
working against you. 

Lord, please forgive me for the breaking of my oath.  Please do not forsake me. 
E
very sin I have committed against you I will make up tenfold.

I know you have a purpose for me, Lord.  Please give me the strength to fulfill it.  Give me the strength for what I must do.

He didn’t say, “Amen.”  He felt it wiser for his whole night in the jungle to be a prayer.  He felt he somehow had a better chance mid a direct communication to his maker.

And God, I know it’s stupid, but please let me have Cali.  Please don’t take her from me.

His scientist side
told him that there was no evidence of a God that actually meddled in the affairs of men. 
At that moment, he hoped there was.  After all, he’d just seen his
life flash before his eyes
. 

Edward
tried the door facing up.  It wouldn’t open.

Edward pulled himself out through the smashed windshield
.  One of the remaining glass shards scratched him.
  He ignored it and strained his eyes to the north. 
Down the road a
couple kilometers away, he saw the pair of headlights he was looking for
peek
out over
the
hill.  He still had a minute before they reached him.  They were driving much more slowly, now. 
They must know about the turn.  They’ve done this trip a few times.

Edward’s mind started down the path of,
how long have the Onge been doing this?

The pressing necessity of dealing with that pair of headlights, however, forced his thoughts to the task at hand.

Next to Da’lin
sat the
boy Tomy, the M
essenger of
the living
god.  Using Manassa’s magic nectar, it had not taken Da’lin long to learn to drive the car. 

Da’lin had never been a courier to a boy before.  It was Manassa’s law that one must speak to
the
messenger as one might speak to
the
god, and one must listen to
the commands of
his messenger with the same deference.  It seemed odd to Da’lin, listening to a fourteen year old as he might respect one of the tribal elders.

But Tomy only said what Manassa told him.  And Da’lin was never one to question the holy.  Manassa was a god; it stood to reason he was always right.  That was fine for Da’lin.

Tomy was irritated.  His feet were covered in mud and were everywhere in the car - on the dashboard, on the door paneling, on the seat.  Tomy could not sit still. 

Da’lin was not a clean man or a neat freak, even by Onge standards, but it was
his
car.  At least, he drove it.  No Onge in living memory had even rode in a car, let alone driven one.  He preferred to keep it like the white man had it when Da’lin stole it from him. 

If Tomy were just a child Da’lin would just knock him over the head or throw him out of the vehicle.  But he was not a child.  In
many
palpable respects, he was Manassa.

The boy kept talking.  He wouldn’t stop talking.

“That was the white man, the white man I was following.  He hunted me.  He tried to get me.  He saw me.  Manassa will be
angry
.  Manassa will not be pleased.  He’ll be
angry
with
you
, Da’lin.  And he’ll even be angry with me. 
Edward
is ahead of us, Da’lin.  You must go faster.  It is as Manassa wishes.”

“How do you know what he wishes?” asked Da’lin even as he pressed his foot on the accelerator. 
The
rain was subsiding,
but
he was already going far faster in the storm than he felt he should risk.

“He speaks to me, even as we sit here now.  His word to me is as the air I breathe.  His whispers are the wind.”  He was quoting some of their oral history, now.  Da’lin didn’t believe him but did not want a bad report from the boy to get to Manassa.  “We must catch him.  We must
bind
him and bring him to our god.” 

“Didn’t you just want to watch him?”

“
I’m afraid that he’s already betrayed us
.  We must take every precaution.”  They
drove
over another hill.  “Why are you slowing
down
?  We can’t even see him anymore.”

“There is a curve here, just before we enter the wood.” 
As they reached the bend
t
heir headlights illuminat
ed the undercarriage of Edward’s
car.  It was bent forward in the middle, wedged between two massive trees at the
jungle’s edge
. 

“The white man!” screamed Tomy.  “Stop the car!  Stop the car!”  Da’lin slowly braked.  He was
not about
to flip his car and join the white man. 
The M
essenger of Manassa needs to learn the patience of his master.

Before the car even stopped, Tomy was outside of it, sprinting to the wreckage, climbing around it, looking for the missionary.  Da’lin cautiously stepped out of his car, leaving it running in case they needed to make a quick getaway.  “His body’s not in here,” said Tomy.

“Maybe he survived and is now making his way on foot,” said Da’lin, taking a few more steps towards Tomy so he could see him better.  The rain was still coming down
hard
enough to
obscure
his vision.

“Maybe so,” said Tomy.
 
“It wou
l
d
be a long way for a wh
ite man to travel in the jungle.”

“I saw him duel Dook.  He is no normal white man,” responded Da’lin.  He looked around for signs of the missionary.  Tomy saw them first.

“Tracks,” he shouted, pointing at the muddy road.  Da’lin walked over to examine them.  They were pointed
away
from the village
.
 

“The white man goes the wrong way!” shouted Da’lin over the rain.  Tomy was still at the wreckage.  Da’lin
’s eyes followed the path of the footsteps into the darkness of the jungle.

“There is no sign of him here,” shouted Tomy.

“There!” yelled Da’lin.  He spotted Edward first.  Da’lin had never seen a white man move in such a manner.  As a matter of fact, he’d never seen a human being come close.  It
was as though the white man were
held up by strings, as though the unseen god of gods were pulling and tugging his body as a toy.  Da’lin was reminded of Maha
nta’s supernatural duel with the panther
.

The white man
leapt
onto
the car,
slid
all the way across the top, and
flipped
down through the door in one fluid, graceful motion.  Da’lin ran towards him.

“Get him!” yelled Tomy.  “Get him!”

Da’lin did not want to lose his car.  Moreover, he did not want to lose his life at the hands of this boy.  The adrenaline let him overcome his fear of the white demon.  There was some awful, dark medicine, some white magic in him that was making him dance like a god.

The white man started the car moving, but its wheels spun out in the mud. 
The rear tire in a rut in the dirt road
.  The white man tried again.  Da’lin drew closer.  He would reach him. 

The white man did something funny with the brakes, tried again.  The car lurched forwards out of the rut.  Da’lin grabbed him and hurled him out of the car.  Cat-like, Edward landed a meter away and in the same motion launched at Da’lin. 

Edward’s
blows lacked power, but they came with such speed and fury that Da’lin could only stagger back.
The white man used not only his hands and feet but his knees, his elbows, his head,
his
every body part
to
strike
Da’lin
, and Tomy could only get halfway to the fight before
the Onge driver
had fallen. 

Da’lin watched the white man leap over him back into the car.  He saw Tomy charging, but this time it was too late for the Onge.  In a blur of mud, Da’lin’s car lurched off.  Tomy was shrieking.

“Get up!  Get up you weakling!  Get up!  We must hurry!  The white man crushed you!  Just wait until Manass
a hears this!  You have failed
our god!”  Da’lin was in a fog.
Tomy slapped his face to
wake him up
. 
My car
, Da’lin was thinking. 
My car..
.
  “Why would you leave the car running!” yelled Tomy.  “He stole the car!  He’ll make it to the village before us, now!  Get up!” 

Da’lin
pulled himself up from the mud
.  His nose bled.  He wished that the white man had hit him hard enough to have his ears stop functioning, but no such luck. 

“We must run,” said Tomy.

Da’lin
obligingly started trotting down the road
.  He had no problem with hoofing it.
If he hurried, maybe he could get his car back
.

“Wait,” said Tomy.  He pulled out two vials from his pocket.  “We must
run
.”

Lila,
newly widowed adulteress and girl of sixteen
,
walked past the guards of Manassa’s temple.  They were expecting her, at Manassa’s instructions, and let her pass without so much of a glance.  As was customary with the Onge, she wore little clothing, but she made it a point to lose her skirt on the long walk to Manassa’s bedchamber so that only a loincloth remained.