Sloughing Off the Rot (19 page)

The blast in the kiva flung Throws-Like-Girl through the air, lifting him on a wave of white light, and landing him half on the floor and half in the bottomless hole. Unconscious from the blast, Throws-Like-Girl fell down the shaft and was no more. Just before passing out, John looked to the blackness on the ceiling. And from the blackness he saw the ten thousand things swirling, tossing off strands of cool blue and flecks of gold. And then, blackness again.

At the sound of the blast, Joad stopped stacking dead bodies and ran for the kiva. Fire rained down on him from above, but he let that worry him not. Alf took shelter under the cover of a fully dressed bloodwood tree and the fiery rain droplets bounced off the cloak of leaves, dripping to the ground and burning in a circle around the drip line of the tree. Not a single fiery droplet penetrated the foliage to burn the donkey. Although it wouldn’t have mattered much to Alf – he had been through worse.

Putting his head down, Joad ran for the kiva and ripped off a massive chunk of roof. A rush of scalding steam and smoke washed over Joad and knocked him back a step. But the steamy smoke did not turn him away. Joad dropped himself into the Kiva and pawed around until he felt a body. He grabbed onto an arm and dragged Three Tooth from the kiva, effortlessly lifting the large scurve out and setting him on the ground outside of the pit. The air in the kiva cleared more as the large hole in the roof vented a plume of smoke toward the sky. And Joad dismantled more of the roof, tearing off beams and flinging them far to the side of the road. With the hole in the ceiling opened more, and the smoke settling to little more than a thin, moist smog, Joad pulled John, Santiago, Two-Dogs-Fucking, and Crazy Talk from the kiva, setting them beneath the bloodwood tree with Alf. He returned one final time to retrieve Heap-o-Buffaloes. Joad lifted the lifeless body – the head cocked at an unsettling angle, dangling on a broken, floppy neck – and carried it to the bloodwood tree.

As quickly as the firestorm started, it cleared away. Dim early daylight shone down on the fuming desert ground. Joad stood on the road, his afro singed and smoldering, and stared at his new friends, hoping they would be all right. A sickly dirt-rat scampered just in front of Joad’s feet and crossed to the other side of the path. Joad lowered himself and squatted on the trail, watching and waiting for movement from John. The big man felt that he should be doing something, anything, to help his friends. But his mind locked up as he tried to contemplate the best course of action. So he squatted and watched.

And before long, John stirred and sat up. He put his hands to his temples and groaned. Next Santiago did the same, then Three Tooth. And they all regained consciousness and commenced grumbling. Joad retrieved skins of water from the demolished kiva and brought them for the men. They drank the water and grumbled more. Eventually, all but Heap-o-Buffaloes rose and found themselves to be substantially intact, with only a smattering of contusions and scratches. No bones were broken, no organs punctured. Other than ringing ears and some minor injuries, the living men were healthy.

Three Tooth first looked to Heap-o-Buffaloes’ lifeless form and then noticed that Throws-Like-Girl was missing. So did the rest of his pack. But they did not ask about their friends. A sadness enveloped them and they huddled together, arms around each other’s shoulders, shifting back and forth together and chanting low and slow. Three Tooth and Crazy Talk and Two-Dogs-Fucking did not invite John or Joad or Santiago into their embrace; and it was understood that the exclusion from the huddle was not personal and was necessary to Three Tooth and his men. So they were left to grieve the loss of their friends in their own way.

And then John looked to Joad. In Joad’s forehead was a grape-sized rock – a rusty red hunk of chert – embedded there as if it were a precious gemstone perfectly set in a crown. Joad picked at the stone with thick, ham-handed ineffectiveness, and tried to wave away John’s effort to help. Joad’s large fingers pushed the stone deeper, failing miserably in the attempt to remove it. Realizing the futility of his efforts, Joad once again allowed John to help him. With surgical delicacy, John pinched the stone between his forefinger and thumb and wiggled it loose from a deep crease in Joad’s protruding forehead. And what looked like a pebble when it was set in Joad’s boulder of a head turned out to be a fist-sized chunk of chert when John removed it. A trickle of thick brown blood, similar in color to the chert, dribbled between Joad’s eyes and split into two rusty runs that stained dark trails along the sides of his nose. John handed the stone to Joad.

“Thank you, I…” Joad started to say. But John slapped the palm of his hand against Joad’s head and the smack sent a jolt of energy that nearly melted the marrow in the giant’s bones. When John pulled his hand back, a scabbed-over spot took the place of the open and seeping hole where the stone had been. For just a moment, a golden glow radiated from the scab. The physical transaction energized both men. John held out the chert stone in his open hand. Joad grabbed the rock and heaved it high and far. They watched the stone until it disappeared from their view far off in the distance.

Off to the side of the road a fracas erupted amongst a flock of turkey buzzards. The hisses and grunts and sounds of harsh regurgitation drew John’s attention. He looked and saw a pile of dead men stacked like firewood, five cubits high. And the buzzards woke early and came down from their high perches to undress the corpses. Dead grey flesh tore off easily in the beaks of the hunch-shouldered birds. Entrails streamed from gashed abdominal cavities and the vultures tore at the viscera, tossing their heads back to engorge the meat. Before long, a fighting and scratching blanket of carrion scavengers writhed atop the stack of bodies. And the birds gorged themselves and shat out white chalky feces at the same time. As if on cue, the buzzards all began hopping and awkwardly flapping their wings, eventually achieving graceless flight and leaving behind a pile of clean bones for the sun to bleach. The kettle of buzzards in flight momentarily blocked out the sun and then dispersed into hundreds of dark brown blots on the sky, heading in different directions and settling on any manner of available roosts.

John and Joad and Santiago stood as witnesses to the entire the spectacle, all fascinated by the work of the turkey vultures. When the feeding frenzy ended, John looked to Joad and asked, “What of this? Who were those men and what happened to them?”

A thoughtful look fell over Joad’s face and he picked at the scab in the middle of his brow. He peeled away a small piece of the scab at the edge and a flicker of light briefly glittered out from the fresh wound until it scabbed over again. After moments of thinking it over, Joad said, “They were sent by the Man in Black. While you were in the kiva, the men approached and attacked me. I threw a number of them high in the air and they did not land so well. The donkey kicked one in the head and he did not fare much better. They came at us with weapons and their hands. I told them that if one of the men could take me out on his own, I would allow all to pass and do as they would. One man, smaller than the rest and closer to being a boy than a man, came forward and challenged me. He flung four stones at me with a sling. Mostly the stones flew askew and buzzed right by me. But the fifth one struck me above my eyes and stuck there. It fazed me just briefly and I may have stumbled backwards a bit. And then the men were on me and it is mostly a blur. I know that Alf kicked out at some of them and I snapped many in half. When the dust settled, I was still standing and the Man in Black’s soldiers were scattered and broken in a circle around me. I stacked them and waited for you.”

“Why didn’t you call out for us?” asked John. “There were many of them and one of you. We could have helped. You didn’t need to do that alone. Weren’t you scared of death?”

“I was not scared,” said Joad. “I know how to live. I walk abroad without fear of the rhinoceros or tiger and I will not be wounded in battle. For in me, the rhinoceros can find no place to thrust his horn, the tiger no place for his claws, and weapons no place to pierce. This is so for I have no place for death to enter. So I did not fear those men. And I did not need to endanger you. It was all taken care of and all is well. You are safe for moment and the buzzards are well-fed.”

“Well, if that ain’t almost as big a load of donkey nuggets as the shit that I spout, I don’t know what is,” said Santiago over John’s shoulder. “But I can tell you both one thing: we better get moving and fast because there’s a nasty storm rolling up on us from the rear and I don’t think we’re going to want to get stuck in the middle of it.”

Up in his tower, Android Lovethorn yowled at the sky, livid at the loss of his men to the blockheaded giant. A fury driven by fear of John gripped Lovethorn. He could not let John reach him. And the failure of his men brought the problem closer to home. Lovethorn tore at the black robe he wore and ripped out clumps of his greasy black hair. He threw his arms to the sky and howled a bitter, searing scream. He spat over the edge of the tower and called on the four winds to stop John. “Pluck him from his path,” shouted Lovethorn to the winds, “and fling him to the far corners of this land. Make him leave his path and lose his way and he will be forever lost, and helpless, and harmless. Do not kill him. And do not fling him over the bottomless sides of this land. Or we will all be doomed.” Lovethorn called to the guard in the tower’s doorway, beckoning him. Obediently, the guard came and put up little fight as Lovethorn hoisted him overhead and threw the man over the side of the tower as a sacrifice to the four winds. The winds converged in a swirling vortex and plucked the man from the air, carrying him off, far away and out of Lovethorn’s sight.

Far behind them a swirling, roiling, black cloud devoured the nigrescent sky, creeping in their direction, casting a dark blanket of dread over the ground. John, Joad and Santiago approached Three Tooth and his huddled friends. “I do not want to interrupt your grieving,” said John, putting a hand on Three Tooth’s shoulder, “but I think that we have a big problem headed our way.”

Three Tooth broke from the huddle of grief and looked at the tempest brewing in the direction from which they came. A tear dribbled down his cheek and he turned back to John. Lightning shot from the clouds and slammed the ground. Tornadoes swirled and tore about the desert, ripping up the red brick road and uprooting bloodwood trees. “We must go now,” said Three Tooth, and a steady stream of tears flowed from the corner of his leaky eye. “You need to move on, too. Keep the donkey and Two-Dogs-Fucking with you. They may become necessary.”

Three Tooth turned back to Crazy Talk and pointed toward a ridge far off of the red brick road. And the men did not hesitate. Three Tooth hefted Heap-o-Buffaloes’ corpse over his shoulder and sprinted away from the trail. And though he was burdened with the deadweight of his friend, Three Tooth outran Crazy Talk as they dashed for cover. Two-Dogs-Fucking remained, shuffling about in circles, looking dejected and sad.