Water and Stone (29 page)

The thing inside him was dead.

The explosion that rocked the early morning calm came from the direction of the shack where he'd lived with Evalena. Was she dead too? Despite all the harm she'd done to him and his family, he still loved the girl.

Why had she left him behind right when he needed her the most? It seemed a cruel trick to play on someone who had given their all... she'd run away without even looking back while bullets pummeled the thin walls pulverizing what little furniture there was and piercing his body.

If only he had the strength he'd hate the girl for who and what she was. Yet all he could think about was seeing her one more time before he died. He could see the shadows pressing in upon him even inside the room filled with light.

He couldn’t blame Evalena, though. Had he stayed upon the floor he would've been safe. Instead he'd done what his mother advised... he'd somehow summoned the strength to climb into the bed, to offer himself up for the sacrifice.

He told himself he didn’t fear death but he did... maybe not the dying so much as the pain associated with it. Oddly, though, he felt nothing. Instead of the beleaguering ache that had assailed him for as long as he could remember, he was numb. His mother had been right.

"Billy... can you hear me?"

He was in a fog with people he didn't recognize all around him, prodding and probing his body, and asking inane questions that any fool could answer. Yet he had no voice with which to speak... no words worth sharing.

"He's awake, doctor... I think he might be in shock."

The girl was dark and pretty and for just a moment he thought it was Evalena come back to him. As his foggy vision began to clear he realized it wasn’t who he first thought... that Evalena was probably gone from his life for good.

"Pupils are fixed and dilated, doctor... we're losing him."

Who was she talking about? Other than being a bit tired he felt fine... better than he had in months. The pain he'd been suffering from was gone. He was sure his strength would return in a day or two and he'd be up and around again.

He'd been neglecting the ranch. Hopefully someone had been helping Church in looking after the horses... he hated to think the boy was doing all the work himself. He hadn’t meant to stay away as long as he did... time had a way of slipping past when he was with Evalena... like nothing else in the world mattered but her touch.

"It isn’t just the trauma he suffered to his shoulder... there is a mass inside his abdomen, possibly a tumor."

The girl seemed quite knowledgeable for someone so young. They seemed to be making ready to operate upon him. He wondered if he should be asleep but then he realized he wasn’t actually inside his body any longer... he seemed to be hovering over the bed looking down upon the scene like a disinterested bystander, a dethroned dictator in exile.

The fences had a way of deteriorating quickly in the hot Texas summers. The sun baked all the life out of the wooden posts they planted in the ground so that they broke off at ground level with just a hint of wind. They'd been gradually replacing them with iron ones but the going was slow... driving them into the hardpan made his muscles ache and his shoulders cramp.

Where was his family? Why weren’t they here with him? Had they forgotten about him? He wouldn’t blame them... after all, he'd forsaken every one of them for the love of Evalena even when he'd been warned about her.

"My aunt isn’t who you think she is, Billy. Be careful around her."

Church wasn't only his brother but his best friend. But the pull he felt for Evalena had overridden all his senses. Billy found himself disregarding the sage advice of everyone, even Yani, who knew Evalena better than them all.

"I call her my sister but she isn’t really... she has a way of trapping men like you, Billy. Stay away from her. Nothing good will come from any relationship you might have with her."

He thought how Yani was talking down to him, as if she somehow felt that he wasn’t good enough to be keeping time with a girl like Evalena. Oh, she clothed her words in glamour and love but the rancor was there lurking right beneath the surface... the fear that he—not even yet a man—might one day supplant the love Evalena felt for her.

One day his father pulled him aside and had tried to talk some sense into him but he hadn’t listened, or if he did, the words merely washed over him like a sudden rainstorm that evaporated before they could soak into his brain.

"You know how much I love the women, Billy. I never tried to keep that a secret from you. But there are some ladies who you're better off leaving alone, and Evalena is one of them. I heard it said she was a whore down in Mexico. Now, you know I'm not one to judge anybody, and Lord knows what kind of suffering drove her into that profession, but keep it in mind that she might not be all that clean... there are some diseases out there that can't be cured."

Was his father actually jealous of him for having a girl like Evalena? Billy hated to think so but then again the man had been with her older sister Yani... had even had a son with her... and perhaps his father thought the son shouldn’t be playing around inside the family like that.

He and Church had ridden the fence line on the north section just before he left the hacienda to live with Evalena... as they worked they fell into talking about life and love and how hard it was to meet a pretty girl in Guthrie, or any girl for that matter.

"Sometimes I think the only people in Guthrie are cowpokes and insurance salesmen, Billy. Remember Sally? I heard she up and moved to Los Angeles last month along with her cousin Jenny."

They'd gone on double dates with the girls though their fathers were as strict as any in Guthrie and demanded the girls be home by midnight. Billy was still of an age when things like that mattered so he made sure to comply.

"Yeah, I heard that too, Church. They were the only girls worth seeing in the whole county. What do you say we plan a trip one of these days? Maybe we'll find a place where girls like cowboys and we'll be the only ones around."

It all seemed so long ago now... the friendships and the dalliances with any girl who'd have him. Being with Evalena had opened his eyes to so many things that he'd been blind to and now she was gone.

"She'll only use you, Billy... take it from me... I know. She's been telling me what to do ever since she got here and when I say something to my mother about it, she tells me that Evalena is family... that we have to love and respect her. She isn’t your family though. If I were you, I'd stay as far away from her as possible."

He knew Church meant well, but like the warnings from Yani and his father, Billy ignored him. He wanted what he wanted, and that was Evalena. The girl drove him mad with desire and she knew it. She teased him in ways he never knew were possible and when she finally gave in to his wants she fulfilled him entirely.

"My father says you were a whore down in Mexico. Is that true?"

He had gotten a little drunk with her one night on some of her homemade dandelion wine otherwise he never would've broached the subject. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he wished he could take them back but Evalena seemed fine with answering him.

"Your father doesn’t have all the facts, Billy. I owned a brothel in Mexico... that's what we used in trade when you desired to acquire that ranch for your father, remember?"

"I do remember that, yes. I didn’t realize you worked there though."

"I was never a puta... except to you, my love. I was what you might call a madam. But I'll always be your whore, Billy. Do you believe me?"

Of course he did. He accepted every word the girl spoke to him as gospel. Even as she began weaving her spells upon him he believed what she was doing was for the best... that she only had his interests in mind.

"I'm losing him, doctor. His blood pressure is falling... I think his heart has stopped."

The room below him erupted in activity as men and women worked feverishly over what looked to be a desiccated corpse lying on the table. The unfolding scene no longer interested him at all... he was drifting away now, taken by an invisible hand and being led into oblivion... or was it a place far greater than he ever imagined?

When she opened her one good eye she was home.

The house was obviously abandoned decades ago, perhaps since the days they last lived there. It seemed odd that no one would've moved into it during all that time but then again the sand she'd scattered was still in place. Any normal human being would be quickly overcome by sickness, and if they stayed, death.

They'd tried to kill her.

The fact that she found herself naked and alone on an island isolated from the rest of the world meant nothing to her... only that she'd survived when death seemed inevitable. Losing the only people she loved rendered her so despondent, however, that she wished she would've been blown to bits back at the chabola rather than face the reality of a life alone.

She wondered if she'd have made the same choice had she time to mull the options open to her at the moment. Threatened with immediate death she'd reacted without thinking doing the first thing that came into her mind.

Now, though, she just felt tired. Life had always been hard... she expected no less. Being with Yani and Church had lent her a sense of family she couldn’t remember ever experiencing before. Now, those days were over.

Back on the island again and walking through her old home brought back the dark memories lurking like shadows around each corner... things better forgotten. Yet hadn’t her life always thrived on the same mysterious power that poured out of the void like water from a breeched dike?

She needed no one but she craved acceptance from everyone. She'd rather spend all her time in the isolation of her own making but it soothed her ego to be around others. 

On the island it was forever summer, not an endless parade of seasons chasing one another around the calendar like marauding baboons. She didn't dislike the changes the more northerly climate offered back in Texas yet she missed the long languid summertime days running into each other until she'd forgotten all together about the passage of time.

Why'd they all turned on her? Was it greed? Was it in knowing that she held the secret to life and death in her hands like so many playing cards?

It was still dark outside and she shivered a little. A chilly early morning breeze blew though the broken windows bringing with it the scent of sea and smoke. Tearing down the tattered curtains she wrapped her nakedness in their dusty veil and tiptoed outside.

The sky was indigo and turning into a dawn pink around the edges of the horizon. She stood for a moment to watch fish mongers loaded down with bait and harpoons leaving their hovels and kicking up sand on their way to the shoreline where their tiny ships awaited. She knew instinctively most of them would return empty-handed and hungry for the effort it afforded them.

Like the seasons nothing in Cuba had changed. The island teemed with poverty and little else... it always had. With the piedra in her possession Evalena was able to live a life of relative luxury though she knew better than to draw attention to her prosperity. Now, without even clothes on her back, she doubted if she'd survive more than a week.

She had to get back to Texas... Church still had the stone... he must have been hiding it somewhere close by the hacienda... she could feel its draw. The dolt hadn’t a clue how to use its powers otherwise he wouldn’t have come at her with explosives... he'd have sought to have trapped her within her own devices.

Even if he'd succeeded in blowing her up she'd have returned... it might have taken twenty years but she'd do it... the hate she felt was that strong. Still, she had to take care lest the boy learned the secrets of the stone... if that happened, she might well be banished into the shell of her own weaving.

The piedra taught her the lesson centuries before. It was both dangerous and advantageous to concentrate all one's energies into a singularity... dangerous because those who knew the secret could isolate and imprison a person that way and advantageous because it allowed the adept to ride the lines of the world as easily as walking across the street.

It was how she escaped the explosion at the chabola... had Church acted just a second sooner she never could've summoned the sleep needed to dream herself out of there. But then again if the tiny spider hadn't alerted her to Yani's deadly presence the bullet that missed her might well have found its mark.

Replaying the shooting incident in her mind Evalena realized with a start that the first bullet had struck the wall a few inches higher than her head. At the time she'd been so disconcerted by the attack that her senses had overlooked that fact.

The girl had missed her on purpose. But if Yani hadn’t planned on shooting her, why did she make the attempt... after all, she filled the walls of the chabola with holes... yet every shot had missed its intended mark. How was that possible... unless it had all been a ruse... a way of scaring Evalena away?

Knowing her sister hadn’t actually meant to kill her lent her the resiliency to continue despite the hardships lurking in front of her. Perhaps the shooting had been a ploy to find Billy before Evalena's charm ran its course upon him.

Yani had always loved the boy nearly as much as her own son. The boys had the same father it was true but there was more to it than that... Evalena saw how her sister looked after Billy like a surrogate mother, especially after Lorraine Ford had fled Texas like the jilted lover she was.

Now the woman was dead and yet Lorraine wielded far more power than ever before. It was a mistake using the stone to kill. Evalena knew it yet the sense of power it gave her over others overrode the rational knowledge gained through thousands of other encounters with those she deemed better off dead.

Most people weren't aware of the time folded within a second. They considered time as something quickly sweeping by, immutable and persistent, a clock ticking away the seconds always and forever. The piedra had taught her how to abide within the space between those ticks of the clock where time had no meaning... where a second might last a thousand years or more... even an eternity.

She'd yet to master the piedra and its power. Long ago she made a mistake of entrusting it to a confidante who turned on her, like all her family seemed inclined towards doing. She didn’t feel she had the conviction to wield the stone... it was capable of so much and like a child she was afraid of losing herself to it.

"Let me keep it for you, Evalena... so you'll not be tempted."

At the moment she thought he was the one... the love she'd searched for the world over and traveled across mountains of time to find. She'd confided her fears in him and he in turn beguiled her with words of passion and love all the while surreptitiously striving to steal what was rightfully hers.

It was strange... she couldn’t even recall his face now... only his name remained. They had met in a town not far from the ocean on the island where she'd migrated in an effort to distance herself from those who would take by force what she'd give freely if only asked.

She remembered feeling the heat of desire boiling off of him as he took the box containing the piedra in a hand shaky with greed. At one time, that want of his directed itself towards her but now she was forgotten and instead he struggled to open the container as if to make sure she wasn’t deceiving him.

"How does it work, Evalena?"

"I don’t know."

And she didn’t... she only knew that it did work. The piedra was too temperamental to touch with living flesh... it would melt on contact... but that was unnecessary. She'd discovered that the stone had only to be close by to feel its effects... and there was always the sand.

And then the box opened to expose the treasure inside. She watched his eyes as they feasted upon the piedra revealed in its nakedness... it was like a heart beating, pulsing with its own light, alive though dead. When he finally tore his eyes from the stone and looked up at her, she knew he was lost. The rest of his life would be devoted to caressing the stone with his eyes, longing to touch it. Like all the others, in the end the stone would drive him mad.

For years she heard tales of alchemists who tried to simulate the piedra without success. Some of the fools even used their own piss as a substitute. None of them realized its true origins or they'd have known they were wasting their time. Even those men of knowing were fooled into thinking the stone was something natural to the earth... they didn't sense its source as being otherworldly.

Finally, as she knew he would, the man had succumbed to the lure of the piedra. He came to her with questions that she had no answers for. Perhaps she knew she'd fall prey to the stone as well... maybe that was why she gave it into his keeping even while knowing he hadn’t the strength to resist its pull.

"Why can't I hold it in my hands, Evalena? It's like water... it pours right through my fingers."

"It isn’t a solid nor is it a liquid. They say the stone is the first material... it came here eons ago after falling from the sky. The woman who found it wasn’t a woman at all."

"That doesn’t make any sense, Evalena... how could a woman find it if she wasn’t a woman?"

"The stone changed her into something else after she touched it and she became the woman. It will change you too."

"Touch it with me, Evalena... maybe that's what it takes. We'll both be changed into something better than what we are."

"No... I'm afraid. Take it away... keep it. I only want to be who I am, not something I'll no longer recognize."

She remembered the look on his face as he closed the box and grasped it to his chest... a conquering sneer, as if he was somehow better than her for having the strength to grasp what was right there in front of them.

Even then, though, she saw the changes erupting upon his person. Still, she'd warned him not to touch the stone. She'd watched as others endured its embrace, witnessing the devastatingly hideous transformations that inevitably ensued, and secretly lusting to taste the same transmogrifications.

One morning she woke and the man was gone. He'd left without a word. On the floor sat the box and for a precious instant she wondered if he had taken the piedra with him... but of course he hadn’t. When she opened the box to see the stone smiling at her she thanked the night.

Yet she gave her treasure away again... sometimes she wondered if she did so on purpose to rid herself of its infernal influence. She couldn’t live with the damned thing but when the stone wasn’t close to her she suffered its absence in cruel ways she'd never been able to understand.

She promised herself that if she was fortunate enough to be reunited with the piedra that this time she'd never let it go again. The years had taught her well. This time she felt she could finally tame the wild thing from the sky.

The changes wrought on her right eye were a small step in that direction. It had been an accident, a slipup, something she could not afford, and yet it alerted her to the potentiality of what was waiting for her... for anyone who could tame the piedra and snare its power.

She was ready now. With the stone back in her hand she'd remake her world into a place more livable. She didn’t care about wealth and finery so much as simply having an abode to call home, a place where she wouldn’t be constantly under assault by those closest to her.

She had done nothing to deserve the despicable treatment foisted upon her by Yani and Church. Billy Ford had come to her of his own accord and stayed without any coercion on her part. He loved her and she loved him. They'd made a pact to both live together and die together.

She couldn’t help what she was... and she always gave them a choice. That they chose badly wasn’t her fault any more than if they had done well by her, which some had. A long and fruitful life of wealth and pleasure wasn’t a thing to be shunned lightly yet there were those who seemed intent upon living in poverty and filth.

Yani was one of the worse offenders. The girl had every chance to acquit herself of the mistake she made in running away on her fifteenth birthday yet she never made a move in that direction. Instead, she seemed content to live as a thrall to a man who'd despoiled her, implanted his seed inside of her, and then abandoned her.

Why did so many women cling to men who only used them? She witnessed the same thing over and again. Evalena could never understand the desire to debase oneself, to open up the heart to the scorn and ridicule that was invariably the end result of any love affair.

Though she too had succumbed to the lure of love, Evalena had always been the one in charge, the string puller to whom others danced. Men were too easy... all they desired was a pretty woman with big boobs, someone they thought would cow to them, be their acquisition, a plaything dangling from their arm, until they decided to move on to someone younger and prettier.

Even though she knew how much Yani detested her, Evalena always watched out for the girl, protecting her from the ardors of age and sickness seeking to rob her of life and youth. Now, though, things had changed. If the girl thought so little of her protector, let her fend for herself. Once she had a taste of old age she might well come crawling back begging for forgiveness... which of course was hers for the asking.

None of them seemed to understand that all they desired was theirs... that they'd merely to utter the words—to hold the thought in their head—and the piedra would grant any wish, fulfill promises not made lightly, and secure for them a life of wealth and passion. That it might well be understandably shortened was all part of the bargain they must make.