The Forest Bull (6 page)

I awoke to darkness and a cool, professional touch on my forehead. A young woman spoke to me in a brisk but friendly tone.

“I have your eyes bandaged. You broke massive amounts of blood vessels in them from strain. I’m going to remove the patches and let you adjust to the light. It’s nearly dark, but squint at first or the tears will make your eyes irritated all over again.” Her fingers were busy on my face, carefully peeling tape from my cheek.

“Where am I? Who are you?
Where are Risa and Wally? Is Gyro okay? What’s today?” My questions were a flood. “Did Risa see that charlatan, Jean? What was in the house?” I finished for the moment, inhaling deeply.  I felt reasonably well, if a bit weak, but disoriented, and my neck was stiff. I sensed that I had been still for some time.

“You certainly wake up inquisitive. I’ll answer what I can as I clear your eyes. I am Boon’s sister,
Suma, and you’re in their studio apartment. Your friends insisted that we move you here because of safety issues.” Seeing me open my mouth to speak, she interrupted me. “And your enormous dog is fine. Risa said that would be the first thing you asked when you awoke, so be silent and let me answer your endless interrogatives.” Mollified, I leaned back on the pillow as one eye was now cleared of bandages. I could see a modest bedroom with tan carpet and what seemed to be an enormous amount of medical equipment. Leaning against a wedge pillow, I stretched on a bed that had white sheets and little else. A thin blanket was drawn off the side, where Suma leaned over me. She was a slightly smaller version of Boonsri, but with shorter hair and an intense expression.

“I’m an internist in Orlando
, and I was on my way to visit. Risa did not see that woman Jean, and she never will. She’s dead. No, sit back and be still. I need to speak, and you need to listen. Jean was found murdered in Toronto, where she was originally from. Risa found the newspaper article while searching for her after bringing you here. Wally went by her house, and, as you can guess, it was empty. It seems she was a run-of-the-mill con artist, and her past caught up with her. But enough about that. You are still capable of suffering further harm, and I need information.”

At that pronouncement
, I eased back, shocked that I was still at risk. I didn’t even know what I was at risk
of
, so I obeyed.

“You were poisoned in a manner well outside my experiences, and by a
toxin so unusual that it caused me to pursue alternative methods to aid you in healing. What was your last sensation outside the Quikstop?” she asked, pausing to let me speak.

“I felt a thin hand, a woman’s hand, or fingers, rather, brush my mouth, and then a horrible bitterness, then heat and pain. God
, the pain was--it was instant, and it was so complete and violating. I heard a woman’s voice mocking me, and I remember feeling the asphalt on my knees. I touched a smooth car handle, I think. Light became a blur, and then I tasted metal and bile. I felt like my whole body was melting and that my guts were leaving me. I thought I was dead.” The speech exhausted me, and Suma held a glass with a straw to my lips. Even my brow twitched with the effort to stay present, but the water was cold and had a hint of something earthy in it. She pulled the straw away and stroked my forehead, compassion filling the simple gesture.

“I am a woman of science, so what I am seeing is unsettling, to say the least. I found pollen on your mou
th and neck and shards of tree nuts in your teeth. You were poisoned, presumably, by the same woman who killed that man three weeks ago . . . yes, stay still. You’ve been here for twelve days.”

My alarm was immediate. “Twelve? Days?” I asked, stunned. The enormity of what happened to me muscled into my psyche, an unwanted reality that I found frightening and humbling. I k
new now that I had nearly died and that only my particular augmentations had saved me. That fact also told me something about the murderess that nearly ended my life, too. She was probably unaware of how Risa, Wally, and I had gleaned, in small doses, the very traits that made her so lethal. As Suma looked at me, I decided that I would heal. I would be a good patient, and I would have to bring Boon and Panit, as well as Suma, into our inner circle, at least in terms of trust, in order to fully explain why I was so thankful for their intervention. They deserved the truth, no matter how it disrupted their world. They needed to know how dangerous their surroundings could be.

I also decided that whoever this woman was, we were going to kill
her, without remorse or hesitation. And I was going to enjoy every second of her agony.

It was a clear Thursday when Wally drove me home. Exhau
sted and a bit shaky, I wobbled to the couch as my limited reserves of strength were leeched by the simple act of riding in a car and walking ten steps. In spite of this, I felt the first glimmers of normalcy returning to my body, the weakness and betrayal of my muscles leaving me gradually. I had compiled slivers of memory from my fevered sleeps as I recovered images that were disjointed and confusing. I hoped that, from that pastiche of nightmares, we could glean a tactical edge against a threat that was near and very real indeed. In my mind’s eye, I had seen a deep green landscape of soaring trees, hidden streams, and broken rocks, squat with age and covered in mosses. There was a primitive feel to these scenes; no evidence of humanity was ever present until later. In a miasma of visions, I saw a thick-necked deer pause to sniff pale green shoots that clustered around a gnarled root. Glimpses of game trails and meadows covered in a riot of flowers faded into scenes of hunters stalking through underbrush, their rough-spun clothing grey and sodden. Two beasts I had never seen before ghosted through a light fog, one a small, shaggy bison and the other a hulking steer with rippling shoulders and the gait of a king. Then came thudding hoofbeats and Cavaliers with swords slapping their thighs, only to pass into the smell of diesel fumes and tracked vehicles grinding over earthen embankments, the screams of dying soldiers all asking one last time for their mothers as their lifeblood ran from wounds no sword could ever make. All the violence and stillness of a place unknown, compressed into one harried dream of a history from somewhere and some place in time I could not recognize. But I knew the taste of it all, and it was bitter in my memory.

My life had been saved by the excellent care I
had received and by a helping of angry resistance that my body used to mute and disperse the assault on my organs from the poison. I was lucky, and I knew it. It seemed that sooner was preferential to later regarding an honest discussion with Boon and Panit. I was physically reduced. I was shaken. I had the echoes of death still reverberating through my body from moment to moment, a constant reminder that my physical temple had been breached. That act had pierced the collective psyche of my household. We, as a family, were left confused and angry by the attack, and the first action would be to have a quiet dialectic that would determine how and what we would do when I recovered. Risa had been brisk and businesslike towards me as I lay on the couch and in my room, but, underneath her constant motion, I sensed real fear. Wally was processing the event differently. A sensualist at heart, she saw the assault as an augury. Our world was changing, and this period of our lives would be a stone upon which we could balance or break our purpose. I called the Butterfly and asked Boon and her family over after they closed.

I had a great deal to say, and they had a great deal to learn.

              Panit and Boon sat uneasily on the couch, the kids outside with Gyro in the yard. Risa and Wally hovered, and Suma was present, as well, watching me with an accusatory stare. She intimately knew my wounds, and she was nonplussed by my choice of a serious, emotional discussion, regardless of its necessity. I turned and asked Suma a seemingly innocuous question.

             
“Did I speak while I was in the bed? Did I say anything that seemed even more detached from reality than you anticipated?” My tone was cautiously bland. This was new to all of us, and I was not only exposing myself to risk, but Risa and Wally as well. Boon, Panit, and Suma were about to be inculcated in an entirely different type of situation, one that could cause them harm from a quarter that they had not previously known. It was an enormous step, but my attack had removed any hope of remaining coy about exactly what and who we were.

             
Risa intervened as I deliberated how to begin. “You know I am a realist, yes?”

When Boon nodded her assent, Risa went on. “Ring was attacked by a woman who is
not entirely a woman. She is . . . she is a person, a being, very violent and amoral. I couldn’t tell you what she is, exactly, but what is important right now is that she is not alone. She is a type of killer who is or was human at one point, but something changed her body at its most basic level into a new form. This new form, or being, regards us as glorified cattle, weak and rife with love and joy and caring, and she will take from us whatever it is that she needs to fulfill the gulf where her soul used to be. Pan, every story you’ve heard as a child, be it a spirit or beast or something else, they are here. They have always been here, and Wally and Ring and I seek and destroy these blights in our world. No matter what shape or name they take, we’ve always believed that the three of us were too strong. Too clever, or fast, or even lucky, to ever be seriously harmed. It was a dalliance at first, albeit a dangerous one. In fourteen years of this life, none of us have been scared for more than a second. Until now. I can see it on Ring’s face. I know him more intimately than a lover, and I can tell you know. The things that we hunt? In the night, the day? This is different in a bad way, and, simply by knowing us, we are fearful that you may come to harm.” Risa paused and looked intently at their faces.

Suma
had a question on her tongue, but Boon silenced her with a gentle touch on the forearm.

             
Boon turned to me. “Spirits, bad things from stories? They are . . . “she waved vaguely, “all around us? And you kill them? How? Why?” It was a reality so divergent from five minutes ago that her voice was soft with shock. Pan sat mute, his eyes flicking to the yard, where the kids sat with Gyro between them.

Wally followed his gaze and spoke up. “They are safe here, Pan, just as they are when they are with you.” He shook his head lightly as if to clear a fog.

Suma recovered quickest and asked me a definitive question. “Ring, if these beings are supernatural, how did you discover you could kill them?”

Ring

Among the many visitors to Florida are Australian pines, which line waterways and shed their needles at a rate that goes well beyond a simple nuisance. Rough limestone and coral at the water’s edge is carpeted in a thick mat, hiding shell fragments and sand with a prickly coat. Crabs clamber over and through this deposit while insects root under the layer of desiccated boughs. The pines act as insulation against city and traffic noises but let the breeze through unmolested. At the edge of a quiet offshoot of the Intracoastal Waterway sits an unremarkable, single-level motel where my family stayed during their first forays into Florida in the early sixties. Faded teal and black lettering declared that the Reef Queen Motel had occupancies available at all times, not surprising given the simplistic appearance of the building. We had always found it charming in a utilitarian way. With the office in the middle, two sections of eight rooms each stretched out to both sides, ending in a bleak parking lot, dotted with crushed oyster shells and the odd bit of white conch. A concrete seawall ran the length of the building, giving way to the Aussie pines and a shoreline composed of enormous chunks of coral rock put in place by the Army Corps of Engineers years earlier. The water slapped listlessly at the seawall, chopped up by the endless parade of small boats that churned the Intracoastal year round. Still, the trees and a hedge in front of the motel lent an air of privacy, and my parents savored the feeling of peace in the midst of the tourist hordes, themselves included.

             
Naturally, while my folks dozed or sunbathed, I fished and swam, clambering down in a break between two exceptionally large rocks to a small but firm patch of sand that the tide rarely covered. It was a private resort of my own, and I spent countless hours browning in the sun and catching a myriad of fish, crabs, and any flotsam that looked intriguing. My gear was Spartan but effective. I carried two fishing poles, a small net, a bucket with some tackle, a knife that served as my carving tool, bait preparer, and fish removal kit. It also dissected any dead creature that I came across, satisfying the curiosity of a twelve-year-old boy, so I kept it sharp out of respect for the gift from my uncle as well as sheer practicality. The knife was seven inches long and had a rubbed wooden handle that was dark with use. The metal gleamed with a pewter hue, the blade straight but with a runnel along the spine where the maker’s mark, wholly indecipherable to me, perched just near the well-worn leather wrap that covered the junction of wood and steel. Looking back, it was remarkably light and well balanced, although, at the time, I just appreciated the blade as a functional gift that appealed to my youthful masculinity.

             
The tide was slack, and the sun was angled in a way that meant it was late afternoon. My unspoken agreement to be back in time to clean up for our family dinners out was at hand. My parents would dress casually for dinner but were satisfied if I managed to wear shoes and be relatively free of fish scales and sand. I took vacationing quite seriously, and hygiene was among the first casualties of my routine upon arriving in the Sunshine State. I packed my bucket and bundled my rods together to climb the few feet to the parking lot and instantly knew I was being watched.

             
My first step toward the rocks framing the path upward was accompanied by a chill. I stopped, completely motionless, and looked at a man’s face waiting above me. The wind was very still just then, and I heard little traffic. The pines were quiet. His smile was lewd and oily, grotesquely spanning his tanned face. A shock of white hair was artfully tussled, and he crouched in a linen suit that spoke of money. He appeared to be in his late 50s--impossibly old to a twelve-year-old, but radiated a venomous vigor that made me instantly brand him
dangerous
.

He waved slowly with the fingertips of his right hand and spoke, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re a bi
t far from home, aren’t you,” he questioned, moving forward slightly, with his hands spanning the two coral rocks. His fingers were long and delicate.  He held his body poised like he was afraid I would bolt. He was right.

I thought of my parents and how close they were. I felt the water behind me, the sun pulsating in spots across my back, and the shards of oysters bene
ath my bare feet. It was 20 feet to safety and the eyes of others. It was six feet to the man whose smile faded into a triumphal leer, his lips parted slightly by his probing tongue. The tip was almost white, and there was saliva at the corners of his mouth, gummy and moving with each breath as I sensed him tense his legs to rush me.

I leapt, arm out, knife in hand, and buried the blade to the wooden hilt in his chest, the bones grating under my hand as a shock travelled up my arm and burst from the back of my shoulder like invisible confetti. He fell forward, the oleaginous
smirk still on his face as inertia pulled my knife from his body and he rolled partially over, the coral raking his ear and cheek in a bloodless gash that was tan, then grey and pink in layers that looked diseased and dead. Next to the deep burnished suntan on his skin, it was gruesome and jarring. A smear of gore at his point of impact was tinged with the brown of his skin. It was makeup, covering the pallor of a dead thing gone ripe with time. He made no sound, and his body began to wilt where the salt water surged slightly forward from a passing sailboat moments before, the wake just now reaching my private little beach. He was dissolving in a cloud of decay as I gathered my things and pulled myself up to the parking lot, the knife in my left hand, still rigid with fear.

I exhaled. The pines whispered in a freshening of wind. I walked to my parents and our room, where I would bathe in scalding water, scrubbing at my skin until I felt the fear rinse down the drain, never to reappear.

I was no longer a child. I left that under the pines. But I kept my knife.