The Almanac of the Dead: A Novel (129 page)

Awa Gee knew from the intercepted messages the government had begun sweeping arrests of all persons affiliated with environmental action groups; even people with the Audubon Society and the U.S. Forest Service employees had been accused of being “secret eco-warriors.” Awa Gee was always reminded of South Korea when he heard about mass arrests by police. The United States had been different when Awa Gee had first arrived from Seoul by way of Sonora. Awa Gee remembered that back then the world economy had still been riding on the big wave; to Americans, Awa Gee had looked Japanese. Back then, all the Americans had been able to talk about were Japanese cars this and Japanese cars that. Love-hate between Japan and the United States, two countries Awa Gee had despised for their racism and imperialism. Zeta had thought Awa Gee could not hope to get much help from the eco-warriors now that the government had begun to round up all of them for “protective custody.” But Awa Gee thought about the situation differently; the police had only caught the law-abiding eco-warriors with families and jobs. Awa Gee didn’t think people with jobs and families were worth much as subversives anyway.

Awa Gee had high hopes for these Green Vengeance eco-warriors. Green Vengeance was hard-core; one of the eco-warriors who had died blowing up Glen Canyon Dam had been a gay rights activist ill with AIDS. No wonder government authorities had denied all reports of sabotage or loss of human life at Glen Canyon Dam’s collapse. Awa Gee had intercepted the gay eco-warrior’s last message to his family, colleagues, and friends. Awa Gee had kept the computer readout of the eco-warrior’s message although he knew it was risky to keep such evidence.

Dear lovers, brothers, mothers, and sisters!

Go out in glory!

Go out with dignity!

Go out while you’re still feeling good and
looking
good!

Avenge gay genocide by the U.S. government!

Die to save the earth.

Mold long underwear out of plastic explosives and stroll past the U.S. Supreme Court building while the justices are hearing arguments. Bolt in the exit door and flick the switch! Turn out the lights on the High Court of the police state!

Awa Gee believed very soon these last remaining eco-warriors would push forward with their plot to turn off the lights. From messages he had intercepted he had concluded that a good many eco-warriors had gone underground at the time their leader was assassinated. Awa Gee decided he would help the eco-warriors turn out the lights, although they might never even know Awa Gee’s contribution.

The regional power suppliers had emergency generating plants and used sophisticated computer systems to deal with brownouts, storms, or other electric power failures by automatically rerouting power reserve supplies to black-out areas and by switching on emergency power-generating systems. But Awa Gee had already developed a protovirus to subvert all emergency switching programs in the computers of regional power-relay stations. Awa Gee’s virus would activate only during extreme voltage fluctuations such as might occur after the coordinated sabotage of key hydroelectric dams and interstate high-voltage lines across the United States. To destroy every last generator and high-voltage line would be doing the people a favor; alternating electrical current caused brain cancer and genetic mutations. Solar batteries were the wave of the future. The plan was a long shot; Awa Gee was counting on the “cost cutting” of the giant power companies to curtail or cancel auxiliary emergency systems. But if the plan worked, if the lights went out all over all at once, then the United States would never be the same again.

MOSCA HAD INSISTED it was safe for him to drive Calabazas and Root to the holistic healers convention to hear the Barefoot Hopi. Mosca announced he wasn’t hiding or leaving town; he had some other tricks yet to play; Mosca was just getting started. The Tucson police believed Mosca had fled to Mexico; the Tucson police had ruffled some feathers and they did not want to think about the little Mexican Indian. Mosca enjoyed the stupidity of the Tucson police. To them he was a nothing, a coincidence, a sneak thief accidentally in the right place at the right time to snatch the briefcase.

Mosca could feel his life and his fate shifting inside him; the voice in his shoulder gave good advice and strategy. Mosca wasn’t the least worried. Something was happening, and the earth would never be the same again. So far, thanks to his genius, Mosca had the white men in Tucson fighting one another—all part of the Hopi’s strategy, all part of the coordinated effort. Mosca couldn’t stop himself; on the drive to the convention he had to brag to Calabazas and Root: the Barefoot Hopi had given Mosca a sneak preview of his keynote speech. One strategy the Hopi had emphasized had been the “international coordinated effort.” The Hopi had traveled to Africa and Asia; he had been around the world to meet with indigenous tribal people. The strategy was to ensure when the time came, the United States would get no aid from foreign allies to crush the uprisings in the United States. The Hopi believed the Europeans would be too concerned about their own civil unrest and the mass human migrations north from Africa, to care what happened inside the U.S.

In his lectures the Barefoot Hopi had emphasized the similarity between the tribal people of Africa and the tribal people of the Americas. Many in his audiences had been shocked that the Hopi dare refer, even indirectly, to the South African holocaust in which thousands of whites and Africans had died after white South Africa had refused to give back the land. The Hopi said black Africans talked about the price they had paid in blood to take back the land; the spirits had been furious and
had demanded blood in retribution for the sacrileges the people had allowed against the spirits. Their lands had been reconsecrated to Ogoun and Damballah with European as well as African blood. The Hopi had got promises from a dozen African nations; if the natives of the Americas rose up, the African nations would not remain neutral. The Hopi’s plan depended upon the help of “foreign allies” in the Persian Gulf region also.

As they pulled into the hotel parking lot, Mosca had announced he was quitting Calabazas to work with the Hopi. Calabazas had looked relieved. Root knew Calabazas hated to fire anyone; Calabazas had hired Mosca in the first place because no one else in Tucson wanted the risk. Root thought Calabazas looked tired and older since Mosca had shot the British poet. There had also been the matter of Sarita and Liria with their secret meetings and mysterious two-day treks into the desert, and the vanloads of smuggled Guatemalan refugees driven by nuns and priests. All that worry might make even a young man old before his time, but Calabazas was no colt.

As they walked from the hotel parking lot, Mosca had asked Root to come with him and the Hopi. “Go where? Do what?” Root did not believe any of that spiritual horseshit. Mosca looked a little hurt at Root’s snippy reply. “Look, man, we use handicapped people in our army. You’re good enough for us—aren’t we good enough for you?” Mosca turned to Calabazas and ignored Root. I talked to the Hopi. The way we used to move dope—now we move supplies to the people across the border.” Calabazas laughed and shook his head. “Your Barefoot Hopi is crazy. The government will stop him.” Mosca began nodding his head excitedly. “But don’t you see? They can’t stop the Hopi because he
is
crazy. But a crazy man can get things done. Especially a crazy man like the Hopi.”

Calabazas had never seen anything like the natural healing convention; hundreds of people had filled the ballroom, and all or nearly all of them were young and white. Calabazas had been surprised at the prices these so-called native healers demanded and received from white people who looked too intelligent to believe in nonsense. But of course what could be expected of people who thought they could buy a cure in a tablet? Calabazas looked over the booths in the area; he saw slow brown hands receive cash from anxious white hands. “You know, all this time we were in the wrong business,” Calabazas had finally said, nodding in the direction of a display of rock crystals and wind chimes for a hundred dollars. Root had nodded. He was beginning to see what
the Hopi had in mind; holistic medicine was a worldwide phenomenon that had generated billions of dollars. The Hopi planned to make thousands of white “converts” to aid and protect the twin brothers and their followers.

Angelita had never seen anything like it, not even at the May Day rallies they had celebrated at the Freedom School in Mexico City. She was relieved she did not actually have to address the convention but only had to say a few words, to relay the greetings from the twin brothers and their followers bound on destiny’s path north. Angelita felt the undercurrent of excitement in the audience. Were the twins right? Was the time ripe? But then came the Barefoot Hopi.

The audience settled into its seats as the Barefoot Hopi approached the podium. He was looking closely at the audience, but the expression on the Hopi’s face was serene. “The brave liberators of the Colorado River left a farewell message,” the Barefoot Hopi said. “Here’s what they wrote: ‘Rejoice! Mountains and valleys! The mighty river runs free once more! Rejoice! We are no longer solitary beings alone and cut off. Now we are one with the earth, our mother; we are at one with the river. Now we have returned to our source, the energy of the universe. Rejoice!’ ”

When the Hopi had finished reading, there was silence in the ballroom. The Hopi continued, “We know death awaits all living beings as part of a single continuing process. The brave eco-warriors focused all the energy of their beings to set free the river, and so they merged instantly in the explosion of water and concrete and sandstone. They are no longer solitary human souls; they are part of a single configuration of energy. Their spirits are close with us now as we all gather here. They love us and watch over us with our beloved ancestors.”

Lecha looked around at the audience; the Hopi’s performance had been flawless. Mosca was right; the Hopi seemed to know exactly what the audience had wanted to hear. Lecha was fascinated with the Barefoot Hopi; he was as tall as he was round. He weighed over three hundred pounds easily, but his flesh was solid, and he moved with the energy and odd grace of a bear. Lecha guessed his age to be somewhere around forty; her information had come from Calabazas, who had heard it from Mosca. The Hopi had spent more than a year with various tribal groups all across Africa. Mosca claimed the Hopi had been meeting with African leaders to get them to send money when the people began the final struggle to retake ancestral lands in the Americas.

The Hopi had paused to look the audience in the eyes, row by row.
He cleared his throat and began, “The eco-warriors have been accused of terrorism in the cause of saving Mother Earth. So I want to talk a little about terrorism first. Poisoning our water with radioactive wastes, poisoning our air with military weapons’ wastes—
those
are acts of terrorism! Acts of terrorism committed by governments against their citizens all over the world. Capital punishment is terrorism practiced by the government against its citizens. United States of America, what has happened to you? What have you done to the Bill of Rights? All along we Native Americans tried to warn the rest of you; if the U.S. government kills us and robs us, what makes the rest of you think the U.S. government won’t rob and kill you too? Look around you. Police roadblocks. Police searches without warrants. Politicians and their banker pals empty the U.S. Treasury while police lock up the homeless and poor who beg for food. The U.S. government dares to outlaw the Native American Church religion. Butt out of our religion!” the Hopi’s voice boomed out. “You spiritual bankrupts! You breeders of child molesters, rapists, and mass murderers! We are increasing quietly despite your bullets and germ warfare. You destroyers can’t figure out why you haven’t wiped us out in five hundred years of blasting, burning, and slaughter. You destroyers can’t figure out what is going wrong for you. You don’t know how much the spirits of these continents despise you, how the earth hates you; now your cities burn from the sun, and millions abandon cities in the Southwest for lack of water. This is nothing! This is only the beginning!”

The people in the audience rose to their feet simultaneously. Lecha felt the hair on her neck stand up; the people had been mesmerized by the Hopi’s voice. Affluent young whites, fearful of a poisoned planet, men and women both, had fallen in love with the strong, resonant voice which promised that all human beings belonged to the earth forever. He promised a force was gathering that would counter the destruction of earth. Lecha could tell the Hopi knew when he had a winner; she imagined the Hopi had been able to raise a great deal of money in Europe and in Asia, because even in a dirt-water town that hated brown people as Tucson did, the Barefoot Hopi already had people fumbling for their checkbooks, and he was only getting warmed up.

“All the riches ripped from the heart of the earth will be reclaimed by the oceans and mountains. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of enormous magnitude will devastate the accumulated wealth of the Pacific Rim. Entire coastal peninsulas will disappear under the sea; hundreds of thousands will die. The west coast of the Americas will be swept
clean from Alaska to Chile in tidal waves and landslides. Drought and wildfire will rage across Europe to Asia. Only Africa will be spared because the anger of the spirits has already been appeased by the rivers of blood in the great war that freed South Africa.”