How the Stars did Fall Page 7
Whatever solace Daniel took from Adler’s lack of a weapon disappeared that night. Of what use were revolvers to a man whose whispers drove other men to suicide?
In the morning, they left without eating anything and walked towards Mount Shasta, which could already be seen in the distance, its forceful presence impossible to ignore as if God himself had come down and set his throne upon that land as a symbol of his power and majesty.
“You mean to climb that?” Daniel asked.
“No, not today. Look, see that clump of trees? Just at the foot of the mountain? That is our destination.”
Even before reaching the foot, Daniel felt a cold wind drifting down the western face. And as those trees came into clearer view, Daniel thought that was where he would die. That Adler would speak into his ear as Adler had done to the prisoner and make Daniel throw himself off the mountain. But once they reached the trees, he saw that something lived amidst them. Something squirmed, its limbs tied to one of the trees. It was a boy, and the boy called out to them. An Indian boy.
“Help me cut him down,” Adler said.
The boy cried after he had been set free but, unsure of what to make of the two white men, he stood back, cautious. He spoke, too, but his words were unintelligible to Daniel, not only because of his dialect but because the boy’s voice was no more than a whisper. He had been screaming for a while and had injured his vocal cords.
“Can you understand what he’s saying?” Daniel asked.
Adler shook his head no. Then he extended one of his hands towards the boy, palm upright. A gesture of nonviolence. The boy took the hand given to him and together the three of them trekked back to Berryvale, where they took the train south.
Once seated in the train, Daniel marveled at the calm the boy exhibited.
“How is it he does not protest?” Daniel asked.
“He was a member of a tribe of Indians that live near Mount Shasta. This tribe has a peculiar custom. Once a year, all of the men come together and round up the young boys of the tribe and the elders cast lots to choose one from among the group. The unlucky boy is taken to the foot of the mountain and tied to one of those trees.”
“His own tribe left him there to die?”
“They believe someone will come to get the boy provided the boy has not died in the interim. Thankfully, we arrived in time. And to answer your question, the reason he goes with us of his own accord is because he was taught that someone would come to save him and that he had to go with this person. All of this, this tribe believes, is ordained by a god who resides somewhere in the mountain.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because the god who spoke to that tribe speaks also to me.”
Daniel did not know whether he should take that statement literally or if it was some riddle meant to test him. It dissuaded him from asking any more questions and the three spent the rest of the interminable train ride in quiet contemplation. They got off the train at Sonoma, not San Francisco, and this surprised Daniel. Adler, anticipating a protest, interjected.
“Your Good Man is here waiting for you. Cheer up now and be merry. This is a time of great moment in the world and you are a part of it. Tonight we celebrate.”
A coach waited for them just outside the train station and it took them away from Sonoma into the outskirts of that town, off the main road and onto narrow and uneven dirt paths, the coach bobbing and weaving its way into an estate of a size and pomp Daniel had not even known existed in California. As soon as they passed the regal gate of molded copper and iron, the place opened into wide fields of meticulously groomed grass stretching in all directions, interspersed here and there by sculptures of exquisite artistry. The marble figures had what could be called a mythological quality to them. The men and women depicted therein were perfectly proportioned and they were recognizable by their accoutrements. There was Hermes with his caduceus and close to him Dionysus with his thyrsus and Diana Nemorensis with her bow. But all of these figures were, to some degree, in disrepair. Outgrowths of vines and weeds grew over them, covering legs and arms, and a few had been chipped. Little gaps in the marble. Past the statues, a small temple stood. Made of the same marble, its portico was held together not by regular columns but by caryatids, and even these were partly covered by vegetation. The magnificent construction looked as if it had been taken whole from Greece and deposited there from the air. The coach did not linger at any one of these sights, and before long they came to the main house of the estate.
That building looked typical for the area aside from its sheer size and the brightness of its lights. These looked nothing like regular torches and before the coach reached the front of the mansion, Daniel asked Adler about them, convinced some magic must fuel them.
“They’re incandescent bulbs powered by electricity,” Adler said. “Extraordinary, isn’t it? You could count with your fingers the number of houses in the world that have those.”
Once inside the mansion, it became evident that they were late to the party. The servants had begun to empty the long tables in the dining hall, carrying trays of dirty plates and pots and empty bottles of wine and whiskey back into the kitchen.
“Wait here,” Adler said.
Daniel stood near one of the tables surrounded by men and women who were laughing and talking, holding glasses. The men wore impeccable black tuxedos and white shirts underneath and the women long dresses of every color. Once the tables had been cleared, the servants returned, bringing with them dessert. These new trays held yellow apples and pink pomegranates and velvety peaches. And they brought also enormous baked cakes, the layers filled with red jelly and covered with the flaky skin of coconuts. The same servants who brought the cake also cut it and placed each slice on a plate, offering a piece to every guest in the hall. Daniel refused. Instead, he roamed around until he found a table reserved for drinks, where he took a glass, turned it over and poured himself some tequila. It cut down his throat like fire. He poured himself another. And another.
Just as he finished his fourth shot of tequila, a whole troupe of men came from deeper inside the mansion, the Good Man among them.
“Daniel, I see you’ve found some libations. I want you to meet Abraham Collins. Mr. Collins owns this estate.”
This Abraham Collins was a man over sixty, with pink skin and chubby cheeks and snow-white hair and a clean-shaven face, and when he saw Daniel, his face came alight and his thick little hand came out to shake Daniel’s even before either man had acknowledged each other verbally.
“A pleasure, Mr. Collins.”
“Pleasure is all mine. I’ve been told many things about you, son. Many good things.”
Now the servants emerged from their quarters with little bells in their hands, shaking them and making a great ruckus. The sound signaled something to those present, for all of the guests put on masks and let themselves out of the mansion into the green fields outside.
“It’s time,” Mr. Collins said. And he brought out his own mask, and the Good Man did the same, and then he gave Daniel an extra one he had hidden in his coat. “Are you a fan of the theater, Daniel?”
The party relocated to the Greek temple, which it turned out was really an open-air amphitheater, and they sat watching as a man in a toga came out and cried, letting out a litany of accusations. Of conspiracy against the common good. Of concealment of ancient truths. Of desecration of crops and the pilfering of treasures and disturbing of harvests. A woman came out and did the same, and then another actor and another until there was a group of them standing to the side and all of their pleading seemed to be directed at some incorporeal judge, and this went on until no more actors were left. Then a commanding voice boomed from among the audience.
“Bring out the accused,” it said. And one of the actors left the stage and returned guiding a blindfolded Indian boy. The boy was naked and even at that distance Daniel was almost certain it was the boy he had rescued with Adler. Then the voice of the judge boomed again.
A man in a crimson robe appeared and stood next to the boy.
“The accusations are accepted and the accused is condemned to die. Will you carry out the sentence?”
“I will,” the Grand Magus answered. Then he led the boy forward and laid him on an altar which the actors had just uncovered. Behind the altar was another marble statue, but only its sandaled feet could be seen for it was still covered up by a tarp. And the actors crowded around the Grand Magus and the boy, covering them up, blocking the audience from seeing, leaving the boy’s painful screaming as the only indication of what transpired. Once the screaming stopped, the boy’s life taken from him, the audience left the amphitheater. The Good Man left, too, heading back towards the house along with Daniel. At one point, they stopped before reaching it.
“By the way, the token is Shibboleth,” the Good Man said and he shook Daniel’s hand in a distinct way, the index finger placed upon the wrist.
This time Daniel was not left at the dining hall. He went into the inner chambers of the mansion with the Good Man, passing on the way vast corridors where men and women in various stages of intoxication draped themselves over velvet couches and looked at each other and at the floor-to-ceiling paintings of European monarchs prancing in the countryside. As they went in deeper and deeper, the guests became ever more immodest until the sound of fornication could be heard everywhere, the moaning and the slaps of flesh on flesh turning into a pleading for mercy and the rending of flesh, the red flowing like wine. For blood is power and the holding of it is like the holding of the reins of some infernal flying beast, keeping it grounded, until finally it comes unloose and sets forth to conquer and be conquered.
After passing by what seemed like a hundred people, they found a massive black door, twice the height of any man, and the Good Man knocked. The door opened and the Good Man was allowed in. But the opener of the door stopped Daniel.
“Do you have the token?” he asked.
“Shibboleth,” Daniel said. He entered.
Inside the room, a gigantic golden veil had been hung from the ceiling and it reached all the way to the floor. There were about twenty men in the room and about half of them were sitting about on various chairs, conversing quietly or meditating by themselves. The rest stood by the veil, one arm extended past it into the space beyond. As soon as Daniel walked into the room, the man who had opened the door announced to the whole assemblage: “There is a speculator among us who wishes to pass through the veil.”
“Let him pass if he is worthy,” one man answered.
“Let him pass if he will swear the oath,” another added.
“Let him pass if he so desires,” a third said.
Then Daniel was led right up to the veil and someone spoke to him from behind it.
“Do you have the token?” the speaker asked and brought out his hand so that it might be shaken. Daniel shook the man’s hand just as the Good Man had shown him.
“What is that?” the speaker asked.
“The token.”
“Does it have a name?”
“Shibboleth.”
“And do you have the password?”
Daniel did not know what the voice meant by password. He thought a while about what he should do. Then he spoke: “I was given no password.”
“You have no password?”
“I do not.”
A clang of a cymbal set the whole room in silence and the attention of every man there turned to Daniel. They set out against him and placed their hands on him and wrestled him to the ground. Daniel fought back, flailing his mighty arms, breaking nose and cheekbone, until he was subdued and led away from the veil and out of that room and into another, where there were no lights, only a coffin set in the center. Daniel was forced into the coffin and his legs were bound to it, and one of the men tossed him a little bottle right before they closed the coffin, telling him to use it if he wanted release. Daniel held the bottle up to his face, squeezing it as hard as he could, while the men wielded hammers and nailed the coffin shut.
Chapter Eight
The Indian convoy carrying Faraday and Tennyson rode all night and into the morning, past a desert and into a valley, no one to witness their passing but a few coyotes prowling about, their eyes reflecting the silver moon. All through the journey Faraday kept himself attentive, trying to find some indication of the direction they were traveling, but with the blindfold on he could do little to orient himself. The stamping horses went on, the sound unending, drowning out Faraday’s own thoughts, lulling him into a kind of almost sleep wherein time passed in large chunks without him noticing. This continued until the sun came up. Faraday could tell it was morning from the light passing through the gap between his skin and the blindfold. The whole convoy stopped and he heard the Indians speaking, and then they took Faraday off the horse and placed him onto another one. A fresh horse for a fresh leg of their journey, Faraday thought. Long way to go.
A few hours passed and a sudden providence fell upon Faraday, for the horse he had been slung upon must have caught sight of something on the ground that startled it. The horse jolted and the movement did just enough to push his blindfold askew, leaving a hole through which his right eye could look out at the world. Carefully and with great effort, Faraday turned his head towards the convoy and saw the riders, their faces covered up by masks carved in the likenesses of wolves and bears and eagles. One of the Indians must have noticed Faraday’s newfound vision, because he raised his hand and exclaimed something in an Indian tongue, and the whole convoy stopped. Then one of the Indians dropped from his horse and examined Faraday’s blindfold and, finding it askew, corrected it, and as punishment drove his fist into the side of Faraday’s head. There was not much pain to the blow but it left Faraday discombobulated, for he had not seen it coming and, added to his exhaustion, his thirst, and the lingering effects of the wine, it sapped all of his will to defy these Indians. He spent the rest of the journey in a mindless stupor, certain that the Indians were going to kill and scalp him and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
Eventually their journey took them up a hill of some sort, the elevation slowing the whole convoy down, and soon after they all stopped. The Indians removed Faraday’s and Tennyson’s blindfolds, revealing to them a scene of breathtaking beauty. They stood on top of a mesa and from that vantage point they looked down at valleys and deserts and lakes and streams. Faraday narrowed his eyes and just made out a dark spot moving in the distance. A rider, he was certain, but from that distance it looked like no more than an ant writhing upon the broad back of the earth. Then one of the Indians barked orders and another gave both Faraday and Tennyson a good kick on the leg and pushed them to the ground. When Faraday looked up again, he noticed there was an Indian village before him made of sandstone buildings jutting up from the ground like the heads of turtles. The village was cut in half by a single pathway that seemed to stretch endlessly down the mesa. The Indian captors prodded them along that path. They passed several Indian women on the way, some carrying large baskets, others clay pots and even little Indian babes, their pudgy faces stopping at the sight of the white men, their eyes following Faraday’s every movement.
The Indians threw Faraday and Tennyson into a pit that had been dug out of the ground and there they were left for a few hours with only a clay pot filled with water and a basket of thin hard bread for nourishment. Over time, groups of Indians assembled around the pit and stood talking to each other and nibbling on some morsel of food. Soon a heaving crowd of Indians had formed, the women wearing long leather gowns and the men vests and breechcloths, some wearing top hats and others holding umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun, and then a path opened up in the middle of the crowd. From it appeared one Indian with a plumed and ornately decorated headdress. That one had all the bearings of a chief of Indians, and he took his place at the edge of the pit. Next to him stood another Indian, this one old, with skin a
lmost wooden in its appearance. From this elder’s neck hung a golden disc with a square hole in the middle. Then came a young girl, her dark hair braided, white and yellow flowers set in between the strands and her dress not leather but a finer material, silklike to the eye. And after her came several attendants to the chief and guardsmen who wore little clothing and preferred instead to paint their bodies in red and black.
The chief called for one of these guardsmen to come up, and with his back to the pit the guardsman made a long pronouncement in an Indian dialect Faraday had never before heard. Whatever he said, it had a profound effect on the crowd, for all together they cheered and lifted their fists into the air, and a few even approached the pit and tried to spit on Faraday. This outburst compelled the chief to stand, and with only gestures the whole congregation was silenced. Then the chief looked long at the white men as if pondering some matter of crucial importance and Faraday guessed it was his and Tennyson’s fate that hung on this Indian’s judgment. The chief returned to his seat and spoke to the elder, and it seemed to Faraday that he was asking for the elder’s opinion. Now the elder stood and spoke to the crowd. His soft and measured voice angered a few, but out of respect for the chief they did nothing to express their outrage. Once the elder finished speaking, the chief sat pensive for a moment before standing himself and addressing the whole body of his village. The Indian girl who up to now had been sitting next to the chief got up with him and, kneeling at the edge of the pit, spoke to the prisoners while her father made his pronouncement.