The Sound of Many Waters (26 page)

As his feet left the floorboard, he caught a glance of Miguel waking with a start and lunging toward him, but Zane was away and soaring through the air. He slammed into the grassy ground and flipped several times before landing on his back. The surrounding woods glowed red from the truck’s brake lights, and he heard the truck shift into park and its door squeak open. He froze in the darkness, hopeful that Miguel would not see him if he kept still and silent.

“You think you can outrun me?” Miguel shouted, and then he let loose a harsh, hacking cough. “I
will
find you! You cannot hide—you don’t know the wilderness like I do!” Miguel coughed again, and then the door slammed shut and the truck pulled away.

Zane exhaled with relief, but in the ensuing quietude of the woods, his fear mounted. Judging by how far they had driven—and by the total lack of civilization along the way—it was not like he could just walk to a town to get help. They had not even passed another vehicle at any point during the last thirty miles of dirt roads.

What now? Zane remembered the other arrow-shaped sign at the intersection, the one that indicated a church. What better place to find help? And so, he started down the road, back the way they had come. The stars emitted enough light to help him spot the low branches before any could whack him in the face. He felt thankful for that.

He came to the intersection. As he turned to head toward the church, a dark figure stepped onto the roadway in the distance. Zane froze. He could see only a silhouette, but it had the shape and stature of a human, wearing some sort of cape or robe that came up over its head and hung to its feet.

“I need help!” shouted Zane.

The figure stopped in the middle of the track, crouched for a moment, and then bounded into the woods on the other side. “Hello?” said Zane, but he heard no response. As he came to the place in the road where the figure had stopped, he found a large arrow drawn in the gravel, pointing toward the woods. He gazed into the darkness, and then shook his head and hurried down the road. What had just happened?

He shivered as he walked, both from fear and due to the occasional pockets of cold air that hovered over the road in random places. His eyes caught a white glow in the trees and he hoped it came from a house where he could find help, but soon the light breached the treetops. It was the moon rising. He was grateful, however, for the light it provided, and he quickened his pace.

He came to a gravel driveway and noticed a sign engulfed in foliage. He pushed away the branches and wiped the dirt and dust off the lettering.
Church of the Living Waters
, it read. The poor state of the sign and the overgrowth that choked the driveway made him doubtful that the church was still in use, but it was likely his only chance to find help within many miles. He crept down the driveway. The hollow of surrounding vegetation blocked out most of the moonlight. He held his hands in front of him to feel for any stray branches in the darkness.

Soon, however, another light appeared in the distance. This one looked warm—the distinct yellow glow of an electric bulb. Walking farther, he came to the source of the light: a tiny church. Zane doubted the narrow building was capable of holding a congregation any bigger than a few families—but out here, he guessed, overcrowding was not a problem. As he drew closer, he realized that the structure was an old mobile home trailer, converted into a church with the addition of a plywood spire. Bordered on all sides by thick woods and covered in mold and vines, the church looked like some dreary woodland animal just roused from its slumber; the two re
c
tangular windows in the front were its gleaming eyes and the vertical spire a great horn, like that of a rhinoceros or unicorn.

Zane heard a deep, muffled voice from inside the church—so loud that it shook the walls. If he were high on weed or tripping on acid, he thought, he would have feared that the church itself was speaking to him. For once, he was happy to be sober. The voice increased in volume as Zane walked up the creaky steps. He opened the plastic door.

“I am the Alpha and Omega!” boomed a man behind the pulpit. “The beginning and the end! It is written—to him that thirsteth, I will give of the fountain of the water of life!”

The preacher glanced at Zane but did not seem surprised or distracted by the presence of a stranger, nor did he appear to care that all the pews were empty. Dressed in a skintight collared shirt and a black tie that seemed to be strangling him, the man’s plump, sweaty face shone hellfire red. His body bulged several feet past both sides of the pulpit, and his hair flowed up in a vintage pompadour shimmering with pomade.

“And he showed me the water of life, says the Book of Revelation,” continued the preacher, “clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God!” His arms flapped as he spoke, spraying beads of perspiration into the church like a lawn sprinkler.

“Sir?” said Zane.

“And the Lord said, whosoever drinketh of the water that I will give him, he shall never thirst again!”

Zane stepped forward and raised his voice. “Sir, I need help.”

The volume of the man’s preaching increased to a shout. “The water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain, springing up into life everlasting!”

Zane cupped his hands over his mouth. “Sir!” he yelled. The preacher stopped and glared down at him.

“Where are your manners, son?” the man said in an effeminate Southern accent that sounded nothing like the commanding voice he had been using.

“I’m sorry, sir, I really am, but I’m in trouble and I need some help.”

The man scanned Zane from bottom to top.  “No trouble is too much for the Lord. Have you been baptized, son?”

Zane thought about the preacher’s question for a moment. He did not know the answer. “I can find out for you, but first I really need help. Do you have a phone?”

The preacher stepped out from behind the pulpit and put his hands on his hips. His rotund body eclipsed the lamplight behind him. “Of course I have a phone, but it’s only for members of this church—”

“But, sir—”

“Do not interrupt me, son. As I said, it’s only for members of this church,
my
church, and therein lies your solution. Tell me, son, do you wish to join the congregation?”

Zane felt uneasy. Something was askew. Florida had plenty of so-called
rednecks
and
crackers
—the most extreme of them might be called
hill people
in states with more hills—but the preacher seemed different from the many countrified Floridians Zane had known through the years, the ones who a
l
most unanimously hunted feral hogs, stuffed
Copenhagen
into their lower lips, and raced airboats on the weekends. This man seemed more genteel but far less trustworthy. Even his accent sounded unusual—it had a pluckier drawl and somewhat of a melodic tone—and Zane guessed that the man was not even a Floridian at all. A transplanted Georgian, maybe, or a South Carolinian. But what was he doing in a trailer church out in the boonies?

“What do I have to do to join?” asked Zane.

The preacher smiled, revealing a mouthful of teeth that were all too perfect and white.

Chapter Twenty Seven

“Twins!” shouted Francisco. He slapped Dominic on the back.

Dominic’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“A boy
and
a girl! Perfect in every way. God has blessed you twofold, commander. Now I can call
you
father.”

Earlier that day, when Mela’s screams from the maternity hut became too upsetting for Dominic to bear, he retreated to the far side of the village to busy himself with his normal share of daily work: stretching deer hides, flipping the smoked meats, husking corn, and binding arrows. Lost in the monotony of his chores, he did not even notice that Mela had stopped screaming until Francisco shuffled over.

“
Twins?
” Dominic whispered. He dropped a half-husked ear of corn and ran to the hut.

Inside, curled up on a bed of moss and surrounded by three smiling midwives, Mela held two infants against her chest, their mouths glistening with colostrum. She beamed at Dominic. The midwives hurried out of the hut. He inched forward, put his hand on the baby boy’s back, and lost his breath when he felt the faint heartbeat. It was like the flutter of small wings.

“As their father,” said Mela, “you must name them. It is our custom.”

Dominic looked away until he felt certain he could restrain his tears, and then he kneeled beside Mela and the infants.
He put his hand on the baby girl’s tiny body and gazed at her rosy checks and her glossy eyes and her black, downy hair that wimpled when he breathed on it.

“How do you say the word beauty in your language?” asked Dominic.

Mela smiled. “
Isa
.”

“Then we will call her Isa.”

Mela kissed Isa’s forehead. “Isa,” she whispered.

Dominic touched the other infant’s head. The little boy twitched and made a sucking sound with his mouth. “As I understand it, the lineage of chief is passed down through the mother,” said Dominic.

“Yes,” said Mela.

“Then he should have a name befitting of a leader. What is the strongest and smartest animal in these woods?”

“The panther.
Yaraha
.”

“Yaraha. Perfect.”

Francisco entered carrying a bowl of water. “Pardon my interruption, but I am here to administer the baptism.”

In a spasm of anger, Dominic knocked the bowl out of his hands. Holy water sprayed the walls. “I did not request any baptism!”

Mela put her hand on Dominic’s arm. “Be calm, husband. I did.”

“You? Why?”

“Because I fear what Utina will do when he finds out we have a boy child. He likely already knows—one of the midwives is his niece.”

“How will dribbling some water on our baby’s head help that?”

“They may not worship our God,” said Francisco, “but they do fear him, and they respect what is his.”

Yaba burst into the hut, knocking Francisco down as he approached Mela. His eyes darted about. The severed raccoon tails on his headdress swung as he walked. Mela pulled the infants close.

“Stay back,” she said.

Dominic glared at Yaba. “What do you want?”

Yaba dipped his finger into a small clay bowl filled with some red substance, and then he lunged past Dominic and poked Yaraha in the chest. The infant wailed.

“No!” shouted Francisco.

“Be gone!” Dominic pushed Yaba out of the hut and onto the ground outside. “Go away, you snake!”

Yaba scurried off, cackling.

…………………………

A year had drifted by since Dominic and Mela were wed. Life at Many Waters had been both blissful and difficult. In the months following the Ais attack, the memories of the dead had faded and the hair of the women gradually grew back. At the same time, however, the reign of Utina—and that of his most trusted adviser, Yaba—had become dark and oppressive. Most of the natives accepted the changes. Many even embraced them. They saw obvious benefits to the old way of li
v
ing.

Slavery, for example, was brought back. It started one bleak winter day when Utina sent a group of warriors to the northwest to raid an Appalachee encampment. One week later, they returned with seven captives: two men, two boys, and three women, the latter of which, it was made known, were available for the pleasure of any Timucuan man who desired them. Many did. Utina severed one of the Achilles tendons of each slave to prevent them from escaping. Dominic could not even look at the poor things as they toiled and limped among the crops. Sometimes, he stopped to help them.

“Devilry,” as Francisco called it, flourished. The age-old custom of bartering with the dead was renewed. Late at night, natives would kneel beside the graves of loved ones and ask favors of them, including, at times, to put vexes on their rivals within the village. If a native wanted an enemy to die, for example, all he or she had to do was present an offering of raw meat at the grave of a warrior and murmur a series of incant
a
tions. In time, the graveyard became a stinking mess of rotten food and, on most nights, it was filled with hunched-over n
a
tives, the sound of their collective prayers burbling out of the darkness like an ill wind. Mela no longer went there to mourn her parents.