At Play in the Fields of the Lord (11 page)

Wolfie, who had reared up when the plane dived, missed what Moon had seen; he had heaved joyfully around and wrestled a bomb out of its nest, and by the time he turned back again and set to work removing the panel on his side window, he saw only the Niaruna’s final flight.

“Now you’re swingin, man,” he said.
“Anyway, they ain’t nothin but a bunch of Jews.”
Taking Moon’s silence for surprise, he laughed.
“What are you, ignorant?
This is the Lost Tribe of Israel, man, ain’t you heard that?”
He hooted gleefully.
“And now is
their
turn to get persecuted, just in case they forgot how it was back there in Tel Aviv.”

Moon laughed.
“Put that stuff back,” he said.

“Don’t put me on now, Lewis.”
Still struggling with the window, Wolfie gazed at him suspiciously.
“Bombs away, man, if I can get this mother open long enough—some
bombin
plane, that’s all I gotta say.
Why in Christ did we steal
this
for?”
He paused a minute, wheezing.
“Where you goin?
Come on, man!”

Moon said, “I didn’t see you getting set, or I would have told you we didn’t need it.”
He had swung wide of the village, and was headed back downriver.

“Didn’t
see
me?
Like, man, I am seated
next
to you, man, in the adjoinin seat.
What are you, far-sighted?”
Wolfie returned the bombs to their crate; he was grunting angrily.
“You woulda thought you woulda
smelt
me, at least, with this lousy jungle sweat I’m workin up.
Every time I raise my arm, I knock myself out practically.
This Christly jungle!”
He swore and muttered for a while, but by the time he turned around again to stare balefully out across the jungle, his voice had lowered and turned cold.

“Look,” he said, “you better answer me.
I’m sick of clownin, Lewis, you’re gonna push me too far.
I ain’t noticed you hesitated to get blood on your hands when the price was right, so come on, explaina me, what is it?
You dig Indians but not spades, is that right?
And them Cubans, which is half-spic and half-spade and half-Indian too, from what I hear—you don’t mind bombin
them
.”
He heaved around.
“But Indians, never.
Them little brown nudes down there that are prolly cannibals and I don’t know what else, no dice, not them!”

Wolfie was panting.
When Moon remained silent, he looked confused.
“Jesus!
So just don’t push me too far,” he said.
“Oh yeah, where was I?
So I want you to explain to me.”

“It sounds like you’re explaining something to
me
,” Moon said.

Wolfie nodded.
“You’re kind of a smart-ass sometimes, you know that, Lewis?
I was just rememberin last night, the way you told me I was kind of stupid sometimes.
You don’t even think you hafta bother explainin nothin, because Old Wolfie is stupid and ignorant, right?
A kind of a clown you keep around for kicks.
You think all you gotta do is say, So Wolf, forget it.
Well, a lot of people would say that Lewis Moon is a cold-hearted communistical murderin sonofabitch, you know that, don’t you?
A bum.
That you never been off the road in your life and wouldn’t know how to make a honest buck, so you kill for money.
A lot of people would say that, Lewis.”

“A lot of people would,” Moon agreed.

“God, you’re just so sweet and cool, now ain’t you?
Christ!”
Wolfie drove his fist so hard against the side of the plane that the fuselage quaked.
“I had enough of this!
How in hell did I get tied up with a cat like you in the first place, that’s what I wanna know.
Well, listen, let me tell you somethin, college boy, who was it taught you to fly?
You ain’t so smart as you think, when you got to learn your livin from
me
.
And another thing, before I hooked up with you I wasn’t nobody’s sidekick, everybody else was
my
sidekick, it was Wolfie-and-his-friends wherever I went, and what I wanna know is, what did you do for a patsy before I come along?
You have some kind of a congenital idiot, or what?”

“Let’s see now.
There was Kublai Cahn, he got shot down in the Negev.
Or was that you?
With those rabbi beards,” Moon said softly, and smiled at Wolfie, “it’s hard to tell you Jews apart.”

Wolfie’s knife was out so fast that Moon raised his eyebrows, impressed.
He shifted his head minutely, for the tip of the blade was against his throat, under his chin; it had broken the skin, and he felt a warm trickle slide down to his collar.

“I had enough, Moon, like I told you.”
Wolfie’s voice was thick and quiet.
“When you get to Madre, you better put down nice and easy.”

Staring straight ahead, Moon considered his situation.
He had about eighteen minutes before he would drop in for a landing, and that was probably not sufficient time for Wolfie to cool off.
Very gradually he eased off course.

“Straighten out.
South-southwest 183 degrees.”

So … Moon shrugged and grinned, and the grin spread quickly across his face; he knew he must not laugh, but he could not help himself.
Already his body shook, and then his mouth fell open with the laugh and the knife cut him again.

“Don’t laugh,” Wolfie said.
“Because I ain’t laughin and I ain’t kiddin.”

Then the pain overtook Moon and he stopped.
The whole front of his shirt was damp with blood.

Wolfie said coldly, “You’re a fuckin maniac, you know that?”

Moon held his head as still as possible.
In the near distance he could see Madre de Dios, the smoke of the lumber mill and the hot glaze on the tin roofs.

After a while he said, “So you’re going to stick me.”

“When we get in.
I don’t want you bleedin all over my aircraft.”
He forced Moon’s head back slowly on the knife tip.
“There ain’t much I’d put past you, but Jew-baitin!
It’s okay for a Jew to be a anti-Semite, but not no goyim bastard like you.”

Moon glanced at him quickly; he caught the faint humorous flicker before Wolfie could suppress it.
“Not that that’s the only reason,” Wolfie snarled.

“Did you see that guy shoot an arrow at the plane?”
Moon considered knocking Wolfie’s arm away and throwing the plane into a roll.
But though he had little to lose by this maneuver, he had nothing at all to gain; Wolfie would kill him with the first reflex.
Then he heard Wolfie’s voice again, and from its tone he knew that he had won.

“That’s a reason
not
to bomb?
Are you outa your mind, Moon?
You really mean you’d cop out on our only chance because some lunatic of a Indian is nutty enough to shoot an
arrow
at us?”

And though this was exactly what Moon did mean, he now turned his head and gazed coldly at his partner.
He was sorry that he had pleaded, however obliquely, and now that he had gained an edge, the knife point at his chin infuriated him.

“Don’t try to understand anything,” he said.
“Just put that knife back and shut up.”
And he thought with a wild icy glee, Now you’ve done it.
Now you’ve done it.

Wolfie forced his head back once again, drawing new blood.
“C’mon, set the plane down.
This can’t wait.”

“Suppose I don’t.”

“I’ll give it to you here.
I can fly this thing too, remember?”

Moon jammed the stick forward and tipped the plane into a dive.
Before they gained speed he yelled, “If we still have wings when I pull her out, you drop that knife out the side window, okay, kid?”
And gritting his teeth against the pressure in his chest he sent the plane howling down at the green chaos, the treetops
spinning and the brown river leaping upward and out to the side—an orange slough, white birds like giant flowers, green—hauling back again, eyes shut, and the pain of terror like hot wire in his chest—he had cut it too close—then a rush of leaves, the nose of the plane against the sky: Wolfie’s livid face intent on him, teeth bared, Wolfie bracing himself with his feet, keeping the knife neatly in place with his left hand while with his right he hauled instinctively at his own wheel; in a moment he would try to kill Moon and take over the dual controls.
But on the rise, the plane snapping and shuddering like a kite, Moon rolled it violently to the right, knocking Wolfie back, and plunged again, at the river this time, pulling out of the dive a few yards above the water, to roar along beneath high branches, so that for a moment of horror it seemed as if they had entered a tunnel of swarming green; then he broke for the sky again, climbing steadily at an angle so steep that Wolfie, seeing that a stall was imminent, did not make his move.

Wolfie tried to shout, and when he found he could not speak, removed the knife from his companion’s throat and tapped a small metal plate on the controls, the manufacturer’s plate that read,
THIS AIRCRAFT NOT CERTIFIED FOR ACROBATICS
.
Then the colors of oblivion whirled about their heads, and when they came out again Wolfie did not raise the knife.
He was shaking his head sadly; the rage that had filled the tiny cabin shrank to an injured muttering.
He had trouble clearing his throat.
“You wanna commit suicide is fine by me, only just swing past Madre first, and let the Old Wolf bail out.”
He reached back and stroked the parachute behind the crate.
“I ain’t like you.
I ain’t mad at life, Moon.
I ain’t got no lousy death wish.”
As he spoke he toyed with the side window, but his hand shook so that he was helpless.
He did not seem to notice that Moon had leveled off and was flying normally.
“This knife always brought me luck,” he said.
“I had it made up special one time, down in Mexico.”

“Keep it,” Moon said.
His heart was pounding so that he felt sick, and his legs, like two plastic tubes of water, were all but useless on the pedals.

On the airstrip at Madre de Dios they sat stunned in the
plane for several minutes, unable to move.
The people gathered around the plane at a little distance, the barefoot men, the barefoot women, the dogs and children, all of them remorseless in their curiosity.
“Do not feed the lunatics,” Wolfie said.
Although neither of them thought this very funny, they began to laugh loudly and violently, until the tears poured down their cheeks.
Not yet able to face each other, they sat there shoulder to shoulder in the stifling heat of the small cabin.
The bystanders withdrew a little, and they laughed a little harder; then, as suddenly as they had begun, they stopped laughing and crawled out of the plane.
In silence they refilled the empty tanks by siphoning gas from the drums on the rickety platform, then locked the cabin, and in the haze of the dead sun, staggered off toward the town.
The people, who had sighed and poked one another at the sight of Moon’s bloody throat, fell into line behind them.

Moon searched for a way to make amends.
Because he was still angry about the knife, he started by saying sourly, “So you think I’m an anti-Semite, huh?”

“Nah, not really,” Wolfie said.
“You’re anti-everything.
But I’m an anti-goy, confirmed, for life.
Everybody knocks the Jews, but it’s hard to find a Jewish lunatic.”

Moon grinned, but Wolfie’s own smile was dispirited.
He walked stiffly, in a kind of shock, and his face was sad.
For the first time that Moon could remember, his partner did not feel like talking, and as his own head began to clear, he realized that Wolfie’s terror in the plane had been fed less by fear of death than by bewilderment at Moon’s contempt for both their lives, by the threat of a totally meaningless end.
When Wolfie had recovered from his shock, from his fatigue and hangover as well as from the experience of the morning, he would deeply resent what had been done to him and especially the careless way in which Moon had told him that he could keep his knife.
Eventually he would doubt that he had ever seriously intended to kill Moon, and that Moon had known this all along and had humiliated him anyway.
Then he would question his own courage and find some excuse to prove it, and the only proof would be the death of Moon.