Water and Stone (21 page)

It always disgusted her to see them like that.

Evalena supposed it must be some small part of her humanity that yet remained and in time it'd burn off all together leaving her as remorseless as the wind. She loved Billy in her own way and even gave herself to him like she had rarely ever done in the past.

Had that been a mistake? It occurred to her—particularly on nights of the new moon when the deep Texas sky was furry with stars and she recalled her home of long ago that she'd never see again—that love was nothing more than having power over another. Love was a way of heaping guilt upon others until they were forced to choose the path she wanted them to walk rather than freely deciding.

If that was so then all her carefully constructed lies were just that... fabrications meant to deceive rather than enlighten. She didn't like to think what that meant, however. It was easier to keep believing in the goodness of her actions than to begin what she knew would be an endless tirade of doubt.

Had she ever been a child? The question occurred to her especially during times like now, when she felt trapped between what she once was and what she would one day become. Wasn’t that the essence of childhood?

She remembered the trees and endless play and sultry days without end and nights soft and alive with the unction of her mother's plaintive sighs as they both sank into each other's arms and into the forgetfulness of dreamless sleep.

She missed those times though not enough to yearn after them. In the haze of time those memories had become nothing but illusions. That she ever had a mother seemed as unlikely as jumping so high she could touch the moon. Other people had mothers. She alone was born of the stone, a thing never before seen under the light of the sun.

It looked hot when she found it and heat rolled off the object like it had baked in the sunshine all day long... that was what she remembered most... yet when she touched the stone it felt cool like water bubbling out of the ground clear and wet. But she hadn’t actually touched it... the stone had reached out for her as if drawn to her flesh.

It was a strange thing to discover not only her body newly made but her mind. What had bothered her most was the feeling of isolation, that she was the only one. Before finding the stone she felt a part of everything... she sensed no differentiation between what was her and what was the world. Had she made a mistake in handling the piedra in her naked hands? The question would haunt her forever.

The man in the next room wasn't Billy... not anymore... nor was he her father as she told him he was. In time that would change. When the thing growing inside of him was ready to be born the boy would have to leave the world as he knew it... that was how things worked and had for time immemorial. But men perished every day and for lesser evils.

Billy Ford should be grateful for the opportunity opening up before him. Few living beings and even fewer men ever experienced the mystery of the stone. Evalena heard rumors of it but her fear kept the reality at bay. What if they were wrong, those who claimed to know? What if they were merely seeking to cajole her into doing their bidding? She'd had enough of such doings.

If her plan succeeded she'd no longer have to live in fear and in poverty... she'd recover that which was her birthright... that which she'd so stupidly entrusted to another man she called father, another in a long line of fools thinking that by having her body they could also possess the spirit that burned within.

It was good to be able to remove the eye patch now that no one was around who would know. The old man in the other room had eyes too cloudy for seeing and a mind too rapidly withering away to care.

The binding holding the eye patch in place had worn a red groove in her forehead that perhaps time might erase once she no longer felt the need to wear the cursed thing. Though the pressure from the string was slight its constancy bore into her skin until it felt as if a branding iron was being pressed into the tender flesh.

To see the world in its unmitigated splendor always filled her with a jolly sort of joy... the joy of the miracle. By caressing the lines that formed the foundations of reality Evalena was able to manipulate what others were too blind to see yet she couldn't keep them from staring at the eye that saw. Long ago she learned it was better to keep it covered up with an eye patch despite the pain she suffered at not using her second sight as she came to think of it.

The man's appearance had surprised her. Though she should've expected it she was startled when Rancher Ford showed up at the chabola asking about Billy. She barely had time to hide the boy and to don the eye patch but if he saw her eye or his son it didn’t matter anyway... the man was as good as dead.

He probably hadn’t even felt the bite of the tiny grain of sand she'd flung his way with a flick of her wrist as she told him to go. Ever since it took her eye she had discovered she was immune to the effects of the sand though a normal person would succumb to the poison quite quickly... in a matter of hours Rancher would be feeling the symptoms and within a couple of weeks he would be around to trouble her no longer.

But was the sand really a poison? The question troubled her, especially after making use of its powers so many times. That people sickened and died quickly once exposed to but a single grain had been confirmed many times yet why didn’t she succumb to the sand too? Was it because of what the stone had done to her in the beginning?

Be that as it may, she knew most other people didn't hold the key to surviving the powers of the stone. Rancher Ford would be no different. In the event of his death had he left the ranch to Billy? If so, it might pay to keep the boy alive as long as possible though of course no one would any longer recognize who he'd once been.

As she grew younger her magic dwindled... it was all a tradeoff, the renewal. If she hadn’t lost the piedra she wouldn’t have to go through the ritual... she could simply pour another handful of sand through the stone and allow it to do its work.

For a long time she could feel its presence around the chabola as if the piedra was teasing her. She'd learned long ago that the stone couldn't be trusted... that was why she gave it to her father for safe keeping. A man—especially a man like her father—was far stronger than a woman, even a woman of magic.

The stone would eventually corrupt anyone who kept it close. It would drain away their willpower until all that person could think of was the piedra... and right when they thought they owned it, the stone would turn on them, engulf them, and enthrall their being.

Yet she thought how it might well be worth it.

To possess the piedra was to conquer the world and subdue all its suffering. Evalena had been close to claiming it for her own a dozen times or more but the stone seemed to enjoy toying with her.

As she told it the original legend was of how the stone had fallen from heaven on a night when the sky was on fire with shooting stars, a gift from the gods, or perhaps even god itself, or the devil... the forbidden fruit, always tempting yet forever just out of reach.

When she the first creature to come across the piedra—an uncouth monkey just down from the trees—had touched it she was transformed into a woman, the first woman. Scooping it up in a handful of dirt and taking the stone back to the den she poured it upon her mate transforming him into the first man... the first father. From them the entire human race emerged.

Later the story changed. Men of religion rewrote the legend in their own image telling how the stone was a gift from their god to the first man. The woman became a whore, little more than a plaything, a piece of furniture. The piedra was robbed of its transformative powers, reduced to nothing more than a souvenir, a keepsake handed down from father to son, something hidden away and rarely spoken of even in whispers.

What all those great men of learning failed to understand was that the stone was not a solid object, nor was it liquid. To touch the piedra was to become possessed by it, to be drawn into the other world, the Kaf, the magical and dark place so much vaster than the world of light and rationality.

It was said that some souls could amass power enough to command the stone, to come and go as they would, while others more weak would gradually succumb to its lure becoming little more than wraiths flitting about the enormity of that dark place.

Her father believed that the piedra acted as a portal. He postulated that perhaps it had its origins in the Kaf to which it connected the real world but Evalena imagined the stone came from beyond both here and there... that whatever it was made of belonged to neither the Kaf nor the ordinary universe.

Had it been Hajdani who created the box in which to keep the stone? Though she knew it was his objective to steal the stone from her by building a container impossible for her to open, she allowed it, knowing the piedra would never allow itself to be caged.

The box was a bit of a miracle in itself. Whatever materials Hajdani used were his secret and one he refused to divulge. She didn’t press him for an answer... as with all her fathers she was simply grateful for his help.

He was an amazingly clever man in some aspects yet appallingly stupid when it came to other matters. As her luck always ran ill he was the template of all the fathers who would come to her aid as the centuries wore away... as time gradually lost all its meaning.

He meant to keep the piedra for himself. He didn’t realize its true nature... that the piedra existed in a realm outside of time and space... that no one could possess it. Though she tried to warn him the man refused to listen. He thought since he was the man that he knew better how to handle the danger that the stone represented.

Hajdani was absorbed with the power of the stone. It served as a warning to her... that to touch the piedra was to court the Kaf. In his arrogance the man tried to talk her into touching it too.

"I've been studying your stone, Evalena. We'll become immortals... our love will last an eternity. Take my hand. Let us grasp it together."

"You touch it first. Hajdani."

"You always were a coward, Evalena."

She didn't disagree. She hadn’t lived as long as she had by being careless. That was why she needed her fathers... to act as test subjects, to parry the blows that might otherwise land upon her.

It was Hajdani who taught her the secret of the sand. In an effort to determine more about the stone he had flung a handful of dust at it. The grains passed right through it yet emerging from the other side of the stone they had taken on a sort of glow, as if some part of the magic had been transferred.

In a series of trials and errors Evalena discovered that the sparkly sand from the stone acted as a sort of magical emissary... that by applying a grain to the food of one of her enemies they would be quickly dispensed with, vanishing without a trace. The sand was better than any poison and more fast-acting.

Being no longer in possession of the piedra her supply of sand was gradually dwindling away. Without either sand or stone she would be helpless to defend herself against the onslaught of her many and varied enemies. One didn't live so long without encountering many adversaries.

He just couldn't seem to recover his strength.

Rancher Ford had always prided himself on being something of a superman... he never got sick—not even a cold or the flu—and despite being involved in numerous accidents around the ranch he hadn’t suffered so much as a broken bone in his entire life.

Now the doctor was telling him his kidneys were failing. The intense pain in his back that he attributed to a pulled muscle was in fact his organs shutting down for some unknown reason—most likely a virus—and unless they could isolate the cause he was liable to die.

The dialysis bought him some time but it felt as if the machine was sucking the life out of him each time he went to the clinic... a feat in itself since the closest place with a dialysis machine was an hour away and he had to go every other day now.

As near as he could reckon it all started the day he went to see how Billy was doing at the shack where he was said to be living with Evalena Gutiérrez. Rancher never cottoned to the woman. If she hadn’t been Yani's sister he would've run her off his land years ago.

He hated how the woman never worked while everyone else around her toiled endlessly. She seemed to believe she was owed something by her sister and even by her nephew. When Billy took a hankering after Evalena, he thought the affair would burn out harmlessly as all of his had done over the years. Instead, the boy fell in love.

Wanting to talk some sense into his son Rancher Ford had ridden out to Cherry Creek Road for a visit with him. Instead of finding Billy, however, there was an old man living with Evalena and his son was nowhere to be found.

He knew the tiny shack wasn’t worth much more than the powder it would take to blow it to hell but when Yani lived there it was always an inviting place to go... the gardens flourished, the yard was always well tended, and the house was clean and neat.

A change had come over everything and not one for the better. He noticed the pallor riding up the path... enormous spider webs had formed on all the trees blotting out the daylight and even the dying vegetation on the ground seemed somehow rank and disgusting. Behind the translucent silken sheaves he could see dark shapes the size of kittens marauding about... carcasses the size of birds and squirrels littered the muddled mazes hanging by strands the size of his fingers.

His horse pranced and whinnied—spooked—when he tried to urge him into what appeared to be the mouth of hell leading to the cabin. The vast funnel of cobwebs sent a shudder through both him and his mount but by gently clucking the animal forward he was able to gain the cabin.

He felt sorry for the beast... each footstep forward was greeted with a rustling under the spider webs thick and furry on the hardpan. As they progressed up the path Rancher Ford had to continually brush away spiders that climbed the horse's legs and up his flanks seemingly seeking out the rider.

Never in his life had he witnessed an infestation as bad as that one. He wondered if it was the weather but it was just as dry as always. Over the years Rancher Ford had walked every inch of his property without fear even though rattle snakes and scorpions proliferated but on that day he was afraid.

When the shack came into view he pulled up on the reins talking softly to calm the bedeviled horse as he tried to decide what to do next. He could sense someone watching him but for some reason though it was full day the light reaching his eyes was so dim he couldn’t make out who it was.

The air was stifling under the bonneted trees. When he tried to strike a match to light a cigarette it wouldn't burn. His head began to swim the way it sometimes did when he was working inside the barn and had the truck engine running without opening a door for ventilation.

An old man sat on the front stoop of the cabin. The resemblance was so striking that for an incredible moment Rancher thought it was his own father. Before he could nudge the horse closer to talk to the man Evalena appeared. With a startled look in her eye she hurried the old man inside the shack, closed the door, and turned to confront him.

It was almost as if he was standing outside himself watching the scene unfold... like he had no control over his movements... that he was paralyzed into waiting for that which was bearing down upon him... like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an approaching automobile and unable to run. He'd gone tharn.

Evalena's beauty and youth transfixed him. He'd made a life of chasing pretty women but this girl was more stunning than any of them save perhaps her sister Yani. She emerged from the shack before he had an opportunity to dismount and walk up to the door to see who the old man could be.

As she walked outside she tied the eye patch over her right eye but not before he caught a glimpse of something that jangled the few nerves he had left after passing through the confusion of webs surrounding the cabin.

"What are you doing here? You're not welcome. Go home, Rancher Ford, and never return. If I see you around here again things'll not go easy on you, believe me."

She said it in a haughty voice as if she owned the property upon which they were standing. As she spit the words at him she made a motion of throwing something at him though he felt nothing hit him. He wondered why the girl was so incensed... he'd never been on friendly terms with her but neither had they been at odds.

It came to his mind that she was hiding something. His arrival had been unexpected and caught Evalena in the midst of that which she would rather that he not see... was it merely that she'd taken off her eye patch or did her anger have more to do with the old man on the porch?

Had he been thinking right he would have thrown Evalena out of the house right then and there but he was befuddled at what he was seeing and experiencing all around him... as if he'd entered the land of the insane.

Before she had covered it up the eye he had seen was not a human eyeball. The pupil wasn’t round. Rather it had a vertical slit, like a cat's eye, set in a blood red background... like an eye staring out of the pit of hell.

Through the slightly opened door Rancher Ford could still see the old man with long white hair, a scraggly beard, and yellow skin along with an enormously swollen stomach sitting in a rocking chair. He remembered as a child watching as his father's brother slowly succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver and how the man's belly had enlarged like a pregnant woman's and how his hair and fingernails turned yellow.

He wanted to ask Evalena who the man was in the cabin but he couldn't find his voice. A spot right below his shoulder blades had begun to ache even as he sat on the back of his unruly steed which was growing more nervous by the moment. Telling himself that he must have pulled a muscle while doing his best to stay in the saddle Rancher Ford turned and rode as fast as he might back to the hacienda.

Even after they made it to the ranch his horse continued shuddering with great rippling waves of distress rolling across his flanks so that rather than going into the house right away Rancher curried and brushed and talked to the animal until he began calming down. After checking him over for spider bites he made sure to give him a good supply of oats and water before trudging inside.

Sitting down in the kitchen he felt every bit as spent as the horse looked. His back ached, his arms and legs were on fire, and though he felt a terrible thirst nothing seemed to satisfy the burning in his throat. In rhythm with each beat of his heart his head pounded so badly that he wondered if he might be suffering a stroke or perhaps some other equally disturbing malady.

"What happened, Rancher? You look as if someone chased you all the way across Texas. Did you find Billy?"

He hadn’t seen Yani enter the room. She sounded so much like Evalena that he jumped involuntarily to his feet which only caused him more pain. A stabbing ache grew into such an intense fire in his lower back that he thought he might pass out before he gained the chair again.

"No... I couldn’t find Billy. If he's with Evalena he must be hiding somewhere. Something is happening out there, Yani... your sister didn’t want me around for some reason... I'm guessing it's to do with that old man whose staying with her."

"Sit while I make you something to eat, Rancher. I'm sorry you didn’t see Billy. Maybe later the two of us can return to speak with Evalena."

The next morning, however, he couldn’t get out of bed. Not only was his lower back aflame with pain but the room spun around violently every time he tried to rise. He remembered being a boy and getting clobbered on his right ear by one of his father's left jabs during one of their impromptu boxing sessions and how he suffered through similar spats of vertigo for the next week.

Though he assured Yani he would be okay given time she insisted on calling the family doctor to look in on him. The doctor came into the bedroom, examined him briefly, and the next thing Rancher knew the paramedics were loading him in the back of an ambulance for an emergency trip to the hospital.

It was one of the hardest trips of his life. The men insisted on strapping him down to a board, locking a neck brace upon him, and sticking his arm with a needle that seemed as thick as a drinking straw. Lying like that in the back of the ambulance he became so nauseous that he vomited and nearly choked to death upon it before they were able to clear his airway.

Three days later the diagnosis came... Rancher expected it was no more than riding hard and being put up wet but from the look on the doctor's face he realized right off—before the man had any opportunity to speak—that he was in trouble.

He wanted to tell someone about the happenings at the cabin but who would believe him? If the doctor was correct his kidneys had been giving out for years... it was only recently that the symptoms began to manifest in earnest.

"I've been after you for years to take care of that high blood pressure of yours, Rancher. A man can't live like you've been doing... sooner or later something is bound to happen and now it has."

He hated being dependent on anyone, most of all Yani. He wanted to be with the woman for decades... for better or for worse he had purposely avoided her to lessen the pangs of regret blossoming each time he saw her. If he had been any sort of man at all he would've divorced Lorraine years ago and married Yani.

Now that their chance had finally arrived he was only a drag on her... pulling the girl down into a pit of hell from which she might not ever emerge... it wasn’t right. Still, he was going to hire a private nurse but Yani talked him out of it.

"I'm here for you, Rancher... I'm not going anywhere. You took care of me for years and now it's my turn to do the same for you."

He had taken care of her all right... he'd never paid her a dime so far as child support went, he had nothing to do with their son for the first six years of his life, and he allowed the woman he loved to live in a hovel.

He deserved all the bad luck coming his way. Doubtlessly both their lives would have been better were he more of a man... someone who actually cared about those around him instead of seeking after land like it was worth more than the ones he loved.

A real man would have made sure a woman like Yani was looked after... he would have provided her and their son a proper home to live in and he'd have been around more to help them over the rough patches of life.

Billy was gone and now Church had disappeared.

It was another piece of bad luck for Rancher Ford who heretofore felt he'd been blessed somehow. Maybe when things turned bad, they turned hard too... he didn’t know. He'd never lived through such a stretch. It seemed as if everything he loved and cherished was being snatched away from him and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"Do you ever just feel like dying and getting it over with, Yani?"

"Hush now, Rancher... no one's going to die. You'll see... before you know it you'll be back on your feet."

"Have you heard anything from Church, Yani?"

"No... but that's not unexpected. I sent him on an errand of great importance. I'm sure he has been delayed. He'll be home soon though... I feel it."

She was lying to him and he knew it. He also knew better than to call her on it... she was only doing her best to keep him from getting his blood up again over something he couldn’t do anything about anyway.