The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (105 page)

“Adiós, white man,” La Escapía’s voice accompanies the video images of severed heads floating among flowering water lilies. La Escapía wants U.S. troops to understand they are fighting an Indian war. Commander
La Escapía’s brown, smiling face fills the TV screen. The people of the all-tribal army understood that U.S. troops had no choice but to follow orders; still, Commander La Escapía invited U.S. military personnel to become conscientious objectors to this Indian war, and she promised deserters safe conduct to Oslo or Stockholm.

The interior of the white Lincoln had been uncomfortably warm despite the air conditioner, which was on full fan. But Lecha had felt a chill spread over her body as she read about the videotape of floating heads and the offer to relocate U.S. military deserters in Europe. Suddenly Lecha felt awake and refreshed; her body felt cooler. As soon as she got back to Tucson, Lecha would learn more about the two brothers, the spirit macaws, and the woman commander of the pan-American tribal army. Money, money, money. All armies needed money. Lecha wondered what Zeta had done with all the cash she and Ferro had made smuggling; Lecha wondered what Calabazas had done with his money or if those two Brito sisters had pissed his money away pampering Catholic priests.

SEESE HAD NOT FELT well since the trip to Mexico. The evening at the graveyard had been difficult; and then reentry at the border had been a nightmare because U.S. border agents had refused to believe Lecha and Sterling were American citizens. A jeepload of GIs slouched in the shade outside Border Patrol headquarters. Border Patrol agents had looked at Seese closely and asked her to repeat her name twice before they slammed down the trunk lid and allowed her to take the Lincoln through. She waited in the car, and finally Lecha and Sterling had come out a sliding glass door. Sterling clutched the back of Lecha’s wheelchair grimly. “They almost forced me to live in Mexico,” Sterling said in a shaky voice. “They didn’t want to believe my driver’s license or voter’s registration card because they’d expired. But I told them to look at the picture—look, that’s me, see. It is still my face and my name even if the license has expired.”

Lecha laughed. “Well, I guess this is war,” she said. “I’ve been
hearing rumors all about it. U.S. army tanks lined up in rows all along the border. Jeeploads of GIs to patrol all roads and highways along the border.”

Lecha had talked to the gravediggers and to the gas station attendant in Hermosillo. Seese didn’t have to understand Spanish or Yaqui to realize they had given Lecha serious news. The summer before, angry crowds had set fire to the courthouse in Hermosillo after the outgoing mayor and his council had refused to turn over the courthouse to the newly elected mayor, who was a grandson of a former Nazi who had fled to Mexico. Lecha pointed out that the Indians had nothing to do with elections. Whatever happened among the political candidates and parties did not matter to the millions and millions who were starving.

The confrontation with the Border Patrol had invigorated Lecha. She had sat up talking bright-eyed in the front seat with Seese, while Sterling napped in the backseat. Lecha said the white man had always been trying to “control” the border when no such thing existed to control except in the white man’s mind. The white man in North America had always dreaded a great Indian army moving up from the South. The gringos had also feared that one day there would be a spontaneous mass migration—millions of Indians coming out of the South.

Even with Lecha talking and laughing and the car windows open, Seese had to fight off sleep. She hoped Sterling could drive if she couldn’t. The excitement of travel and the hours at the graveyard had taken a toll.

Lecha was ready to take on the old notebooks and Yoeme’s bundles of notes and clippings. She wanted Seese to plan to work at the word processor full-time. Lecha said she was full of ideas; the news of the spirit macaws had inspired her. It had been years since she had felt so many thoughts swarming.

Back in Tucson, Lecha had begun to make notes and sift through the piles of paper and old notebooks. Seese had been surprised when Lecha had skipped the late-afternoon and midnight shots of Demerol; Lecha no longer took Percodan at noon because she wanted to stay alert to decipher the old notebooks. Old Yoeme had had her own peculiar ways to spell Spanish, and she had made up spellings for Yaqui words.

The trip to Mexico had had the opposite effect on Seese. The morning after their return Seese awoke exhausted, although she had slept ten hours. Later in the day at the word processor she had dozed off. She had been working on a strange passage in Lecha’s transcriptions of the notebooks, which had an almost narcotic effect on her.

Transcriptions From the Old Notebooks

The old priest’s hair is matted with dried blood.

The hair forms a long, stiff cape. The beads of

dry blood crust rattle softly as the old priest leans over the boy-sacrifice

a lovely young prince. The young sacrifices eat their last meal together.

Barbarians may sacrifice prisoners of war or slaves;

but the truth is, the spirits only listen when

the bloodshed is royal from the rich.

Lord Iguana carries all the seeds of the World in his tail.

In the dark around the altar

the sound of their soft breathing sends aches of desire down

the old priest’s legs.

The lizard’s head is full of fruit and flowers.

Each day has its own name and spirit.

Days form like buds.

The dawn is their flower.

The old priest wanted the boy so they did not take the boy with the others.

The stone lizard shines with blood.

By morning, the lizard has lost

the iridescence of fresh blood.

Clots darken to brown then black.

A dark skin forms on the blood,

the rind of a fragrant fruit

which he inhales deeply.

At night he whispers to the sleeping child

there are other gods they must serve now.

The flesh starves, the flesh craves until

flesh devours itself.

The long afternoon

raindrops tick against the roof.

One dancer stumbles and ruins the luck of the new year.

The room is narrow.

Light the color of granite sways

behind a paper shade.

The lamp had been hung in the window

still shaking dust

golden swarms of luminous ants.

The sun is in the North corner of Time

and no longer moves. This is a dream of another day

or this day.

He cannot remember if they have come

or if they are still approaching.

The old woman sits alone and thinks.

The liquid in the basin is the color of garnets.

The heat bruises the datura, the blossom closes.

The cotton sheet laps up his fever like a village dog.

The edge of the curtain floats, then soars in the wind.

Is it yesterday now? Fragrant odor of flowers

jewel-colored the size of a boy’s thumbnail.

All afternoon the wings of heat

shiver with voices

their moisture like yellow fruit

overripe now

decay trickles over the stone floor.

They talk to the open sky above the altar.

The most casual prayers:

the seeds were cut loose,

dripped down, scattering.

The moon is a woman tonight.

Throat to groin down the center.

He only struggled a little.

All that week Seese had taken naps and gone to bed early; but during the day she was aware of the weight of her body and felt as if she were drowning in air and light. Seese thought “bacteria” and “amoeba”; she thought about the flu. She thought about the suitcase pushed to the back of her closet, and the cocaine she had not wanted for months.

Seese blamed the old notebooks for the dream. She had awakened from the dream in tears, and hours later the effect of the dream had not subsided. Seese had sat at the keyboard and let the tears stream down her face. Instead of Lecha’s transcriptions, Seese had typed a description of the dream:

In the photographs you are smiling

taller than I have ever seen you

older than you were when I lost you.

The colors of the lawn and house behind are indistinct

milked to faded greens and browns.

I know I will never hold you again.

It had been as if Seese had not felt the enormity of Monte’s loss until the dream. She shoved the chair back from the keyboard. She lay facedown on the unmade bed. The pain in her chest took her breath away and she hoped she would die. All her life she had done everything wrong—she had ruined or lost any love she had ever had. Seese wept until her eyes and throat were dry. She had no one left, nothing to live for with Monte gone. Lecha must have known from the beginning; Seese was furious. Why hadn’t Lecha told her? Lecha could find the dead. Why didn’t she find Monte?

All at once she was sliding the suitcase out from the back of the closet. She put the newspaper-wrapped bundle on the bed. She had remembered to stash a quart of vodka just in case she ever started snorting cocaine again. She poured a glass of vodka and took large burning gulps to steady herself. She had not wanted to start with cocaine again, but now it hardly mattered if Lecha found out or Zeta kicked her out. Monte was dead, and Seese wanted to die too. Seese scooped a vial full of cocaine from the kilo. She had snorted line after line as if she were starving. She needed to get to town, to find Root or maybe even Tiny, to see if she could sell the kilo.

ROOT WAS NOT surprised to see the blonde on his doorstep again. The first time she had come looking for Lecha, but this time she was looking for him. She was holding an overnight bag. Root looked around for a vehicle. “I took a taxi,” Seese said, and Root motioned her inside the trailer. “I want to ask you not to tell Lecha I came here.” Root looked at the blonde’s face intently. He had always thought she might come back, and he sensed they would have sex that afternoon. Seese had been sipping vodka from a purse flask; she was nervous and talking too fast. Root was not surprised when she opened the train case and unwrapped a kilo of cocaine. Root shook his head slowly.

“Everybody has some,” Root said, putting a pinch under his tongue, “but this is pretty good. Ether, not acetone.” Root went to the refrigerator for a beer and turned off the TV.

“Can you sell it for me?” Seese had switched from vodka to beer; she got out the little mirror and vial and cut lines for Root and herself. If Root wasn’t interested, there was always Tiny; but she wouldn’t go to Tiny until she was desperate.

Root snorted a line in each nostril, then closed his eyes and let his head fall back on the couch. He got a big smile on his face. “The market here is flooded. You won’t get more than ten or twelve.”

“For a kilo?” Seese was not sure she had understood Root. Root lit a marijuana cigarette and passed it to Seese. She inhaled but started coughing—she coughed until tears filled her eyes.

“Strong?”

Seese nodded and wiped her eyes; she felt like crying. All he had said was ten or twelve. That was better than nothing. That was better than snorting or shooting coke until she was dead, wasn’t it?

Seese had cut more lines of cocaine, but after they finished the marijuana, Root locked the trailer doors and led her to the bedroom by the hand. He didn’t remove her clothes right away but embraced her on the unmade bed.

She was so skinny and white compared to Lecha. Root could feel
her sharp bones while he fucked her. He went on and on with her because the cocaine and marijuana had that effect. Root tried not to get gouged by her pubic bone or pelvis. Lecha had spoiled sex for him with skinny women. Lecha made fun of men who secretly desired young boys instead of real women. Lecha said the white men kept their women small and weak so the women could not fight back when the men beat them or pushed them around.

Seese was seldom aroused by her lovers the first time. She had whispered the information to Root after he had pumped for half an hour; going on and on was no problem for him, he told her, a beneficial effect of brain damage, the tireless erection. Seese had kept her eyes closed so she did not have to see the peeling panel on the ceiling of the trailer’s tiny bedroom. If she let Root keep humping, he might come, and if he came, he might help her.