Water and Stone (25 page)

Unfurling the burnt cloth from around his rifle barrel Rancher Ford started a slow and meticulous walk back toward the cabin.

Despite unleashing a barrage of gunfire on the chabola Evalena had apparently made an escape.

Yani thought they caught the woman by surprise but she should've known better... there wasn’t much in the world that caught Evalena unprepared. She probably heard them coming a mile away... or perhaps it was the spiders that warned her.

Still, when she saw Evalena standing on the front stoop of the chabola the girl seemed distracted somehow, as if she was weighed down with guilt, maybe, but more likely reveling in her success at trapping the old man inside the cabin into doing her bidding.

Why did the girl bend down at the last second? Had something alerted her to the bullet heading her way? As a child in Cuba she remembered catching flies before flinging them into nests that the island spiders constructed in the tall grass and watching as the vibrations of the struggling insects alerted the predators to their prey.

Perhaps Evalena sensed their approach the same way. She supposed it didn’t much matter... she'd failed. Had she been able to kill Evalena she'd hoped that the magic spells the girl had woven over both Rancher and Billy Ford might dissipate but now she'd never know. There'd be no second chance.

Billy needed help. Unless they were able to get him to a doctor and soon he'd be dead not only from the shock of the horrific bullet wound but from whatever disease he might be suffering from.

She wondered if his kidneys were failing him too, like his father's. The boy seemed to have aged seventy years in a matter of months. At first Yani didn't recognize him nor did Rancher. When she thought he was merely a stranger she wasn’t as concerned about him as she was now. He might well have been ninety years old.

She hadn’t meant to shoot Billy. She rationalized her actions by telling herself how she didn’t know the boy was there... that Rancher had told her only an old man was in the chabola with Evalena, someone of little consideration. If indeed the man was her father she would've gladly watched him die.

She'd always thought better of herself. All her life she'd counted on her religion to guide her sense of morality even when dealing with strangers and especially loved ones... but now she realized the error of her ways. She would've gunned down a dozen people she didn't know in order to kill Evalena... a hundred, perhaps... maybe even a thousand.

Yani realized she was no better than the witch. She played around the edges of the good only when it suited her purposes. Like Evalena, had she the power to turn back time in exchange for a human sacrifice she would've been drawn to make the immoral choice too.

Though the boy was lighter than he looked several times she thought she might drop her end of the hastily constructed stretcher they were using to carry him to the Jeep. They'd tried to call for an ambulance but the cellular service had always been lacking on the Triple Six and especially at the chabola.

"We can get him to the doctor more quickly ourselves, Rancher. I'm going to run back for the Jeep. While I'm gone look around for some bed sheets and a couple long poles we can use to make into a stretcher."

Someone had been into the Jeep... the hatch was left open. Yani wondered if it was Evalena why she simply didn’t steal the vehicle. The keys were in the ignition. Looking in the back—into the well where the spare tire was normally kept—she saw a metal crate with the top still open. Inside were what looked to be sticks of dynamite.

"She's going to blow us all up."

A vision raced through her mind of Evalena lurking in the dark with a handful of explosives and the will to use them. The girl was clearly insane. Yani realized whatever she'd done to Billy Ford was trivial compared to what she now planned. For just a second she considered jumping into the Jeep, starting the engine, and instead of heading back to the chabola pointing the wheels to the nearest highway and driving until she arrived somewhere that no one knew her.

The drive to the end of Cherry Creek Road took only a minute. By the time she arrived Rancher was fashioning a crude stretcher and Billy looked to be passed out again. At least the bleeding seemed to have subsided.

"We have to get out of here, Rancher. When I got back to the Jeep the hatch was open. I think someone took some dynamite out of it... it was probably Evalena."

"You should go, Yani... drive into town and get help. I'll wait here with Billy."

"Not on your life, Rancher. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Come on... let's bring him outside. I put the rear seat down so we can slide him right into the back. Can you carry him?"

She wasn’t sure which one looked the worst, Rancher or Billy.

"I think so. Tape my hands to the poles, Yani... otherwise I'm liable to lose my grip."

The man had used duct tape to secure the blanket he'd found to two poles that Yani knew were taken from the small overhang on the front porch. She admired Rancher's resolve but doubted he'd make it out to the Jeep under his own power much less carrying Billy.

She did as he requested using paper napkins to protect his skin from the glue on the tape knowing it would rip all hair off the back of his hands when it was removed. Moving to the other end of the stretcher she bent down and took hold of the protruding ends of the poles.

"Are you ready, Rancher?"

"As ready as I'll ever be... let's do it."

She could tell he was nearly given out by the time they reached the doorway but somehow the man kept going. When they finally made it to the Jeep she wondered if she might have to haul both father and son to the nearest emergency room but Rancher surprised her with his resolve. Once they had Billy loaded into the back he asked her to cut the tape off his hands before the man promptly collapsed.

She caught movement out of the corner of her left eye just as she grabbed hold of Rancher to keep him upright. It had to be Evalena with the dynamite in her hand. She'd obviously been waiting, biding her time, until they reached the Jeep which she knew contained more explosives.

She wondered if begging for her life would do any good. They were blood relatives, after all, and maybe Evalena would spare her. Sacrificing Rancher and Billy would be hard but why should they all die? Instead of Evalena a tall thin man stepped out of the shadows

"Get in the Jeep and drive away as fast as you can, mother."

She hadn’t recognized her own son... his normally thick and muscular body had shrunk down to nothing and his arms were no more than sticks. It was obvious the boy hadn't eaten in a long time. Still, he seemed strong and fully capable of handling himself.

"Church! Where have you been? We all thought you were dead. I'm not leaving you now... come with us."

"Just get into the Jeep and drive away, mother... father, make her go. There isn’t time to talk now."

Though she tried to grab hold of him, to at least hug him before they parted, Church pulled away disappearing as promptly as he had appeared. He was holding a sack in his hand... the sack that contained the box that held the piedra.

Her heart nearly gave out at the sight. He was going to give the stone to Evalena as a way of placating the woman. Though she longed to call out to the boy—to tell him to stop, to come back and go with them—she did as Church instructed, climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep, and as soon as Rancher was seated she started the engine and drove down Cherry Creek Road as fast as she dared to the highway that would take them to town.

"He's in bad shape, Yani... I'm not sure Billy's breathing. I'm going to climb back there to see what I can do to help him."

It was at least thirty miles to the nearest clinic and forty to a real hospital. The clinic wouldn't be open so early in the morning though perhaps they could call from there and have an ambulance meet them.

She hated leaving Church behind and had half a mind to turn around... to talk him into coming with them. But Billy wouldn’t make it if she did and she knew Rancher would never forgive her.

The sun was just beginning to rise when a far off explosion shattered the dawn silence. It seemed to come from behind them. Suddenly she realized what Church carried in the sack wasn't the piedra after all.

He was a half mile away from the chabola when the sound of gunfire split the silence causing him to jump the way he did in Mexico on the Day of the Dead when the little kids lighted firecrackers and threw them high into the sky to watch them explode in showers of light..

Church had never known a night as dark as that one. There was no moon and clouds had moved in covering what little light came from the stars overhead. He couldn’t hear a sound save for a weird sort of rasping that set his nerves on edge... not one bird called out... even the insects had seemingly disappeared or else had been scared into silence.

A ghostly mist seemed to creep up out of the ground to cover the landscape growing thicker as he made his way down Cherry Creek Road to the chabola hunkering nearly invisible at the end of his long journey.

Rancher Ford's Jeep Comanche glinted in the dark where was parked behind a large bush. Church wouldn’t have seen it but for his choice of taking a path that he knew from his years of living there that ran down by the creek and came out behind the shack... he thought a stealth approach might be best. Apparently he wasn’t the only one.

He pulled his pickup truck into the clearing beside the Jeep, pulled the cloth sack from behind the seat, and set off up the path. From a distance the resplendent retorts sounded like automatic weapon fire. Church had been on many hunting trips with Rancher and Billy Ford... they both enjoyed hauling out the heavy artillery to blast away at old beer cans and soda bottles that tended to collect in the dry gulches after periodic flash floods.

Rancher was particularly fond of his pimped out AK-47 and though he often said he felt the assault rifle gave him an unfair advantage over his quarry he loved using his collection of military weapons in target shooting. Church had heard the unique sound that gun made many times and as he crept closer to the chabola he became convinced its bark was what he was hearing.

It sounded like a war zone what with the continued rattle of gunfire along with the splat of bullets splintering wood. As he listened Church couldn't discern any return fire.... apparently whoever was under attack had been surprised and had no recourse in fighting back.

As quickly as the gunfire started, it stopped. At the same time he realized the mist he was seeing wasn’t what he thought... it was a vast conglomeration of spider webs twisted around dead trees and woven between bushes even encasing the ground in a writhing mass.

A flame shot up somewhere in the not too distant cobweb besmeared landscape as if someone had a campfire burning but like the gunshots it raged for a few seconds and then went dark again leaving him blind to what little light his eyes had heretofore grown used to.

If Rancher Ford was here, Yani was with him. The thought of his mother in trouble drove Church to abandon his slow pace and break into a trot despite the near total darkness. Running with his knees bent and stepping high allowed them to act as shock absorbers over the treacherous terrain and keeping his eyes half-lidded and slightly crossed gave him a near total view of the night as long as he didn't try to focus upon anything in particular.

Just as his breath was coming in fits and starts the chabola came into view... the door stood partly open and he caught the tail end of a man walking inside with a rifle in his hands. The person was too thin to be Rancher Ford and the way he walked the man looked too old to be Billy. Was he mistaken? Perhaps he'd seen a woman rather than a man. The need to hurry rose up in him about the same time a voice in the darkness spoke.

"Use the stone, Church... take it out of the sack and put it in your hand... it'll protect you and your loved ones from harm."

He had grown used to hearing Lorraine Ford's voice in his dreams and he'd even begun to expect her to speak to him in his waking life. Something seemed wrong however... the woman's voice was disjointed and so oddly out of place that he wondered if he was actually asleep back in Mexico and dreaming his whole journey.

For a moment he felt rather than saw millions of monarch butterflies flapping their orange and black striped wings as they fluttered all about him and the entrance to the cave that had become a sort of home for him. A fresh smelling breeze wafted over the trees as he watched a full moon hoist itself into the bright Mexican sky just as the setting sun bloated an iridescent orange settled into the opposite horizon.

A flash of lightning overhead brought him out of his reverie as it illuminated the lands through which he walked, surreal with cobwebs full of spiders and otherworldly with the carcasses of small animals some of them still writhing in agony although wrapped in silk and hoisted into the air. Someone was standing only a few paces away though their countenance was shadowed even with the burst of light from the sky.

"I didn’t bring it along when I left Mexico... it's still there."

"You never could lie to me, Church... what makes you think you can do so now? Hand the stone over to me and I'll allow your mother to live. It's too late for you and your father—you both know too much to live—but if you love her as much as I think you do you can still save Yani."

The darkness, the storm, the cobwebs... the surreal input inundating of all of his senses combined to confuse him into thinking he was somewhere else... in a foul-smelling brothel with hundreds of filthy whores pressing around him demanding he pay them for their services... and in the midst of them the madam stood glaring at him with one eye on fire, seeing who and what he really was and refusing to back away.

He could see right through her but he knew that didn't necessarily mean Tia Evalena wasn't with him. He'd learned long ago that his aunt had powers beyond the ordinary... he thought how sensing that magic was what had frightened him so much when she was around. Growing up he would've rather spent all his time alone instead of being under the sway of that witch.

He suddenly hated Evalena. All the years he'd spent cowing to her came roaring back. The wraith in front of him was nothing more than a mirage but the woman herself was close at hand... he could feel her malignant tentacles reaching out to grasp what he carried. He knew he could use her haste against her but he had to wait for the right moment.

"All right... you can have the stone, Tia. Here... I'll set it down for you."

"No... don’t leave it there, you fool. Someone will take it. You must bring the stone to me and lay it at my feet. Failing that, your mother will die a horrible death screaming in misery and you'll bear the responsibility for all her pain... at least until you follow her."

"Where are you, Tia? Tell me and I'll bring you the stone... just don't hurt my mother."

"You know where I am, Church."

A vision of the cave back in Mexico with its dirt walls and damp odor floated in front of his eyes and into his lungs but Church knew Evalena wasn't there... she was in the chabola, hiding. Despite her bravado she could be fought and even killed. Evalena had always been that thing in the dark which used the unknown to bolster her lack of self esteem and sagging power.

She was a coward. He'd always suspected her true nature but it had never before manifested itself as upon that night. Evalena had always ordered him about under the guise of authority yet now he understood it was instead a weakness. He could use it against her.

"You're in the cellar."

"You surprise me, Church. Not many people in the world are as adept as you have grown. It'll be a pity to kill you... now, wait until they're gone and then come to me. I promise to make your death as quick and as painless as possible."

As the vision of Lorraine vanished into the darkness Church turned back. Coming to Rancher's Jeep he opened the hatch in back where the man kept a case of dynamite at the ready so if they needed to blast rocks out of the way when they were setting fence.

"Aren't you worried driving around with that stuff in the back of your Jeep, father?"

"Dynamite is perfectly safe, Church... unless it gets old. I replace my stock each year. Besides, I only use the Jeep on the ranch."

It was still there. Grabbing up four sticks, a length of fuse, and a roll of electrical tape Rancher kept in case they had to rewire the electric fences and putting his stash all into his jacket Church started up the path to the chabola once more as the first pink of dawn painted the horizon as red and forbidding as the gate to hell.