Merrick tvc-7 Page 23

  I could see his expression clearly, though not define it entirely or say what feature conspired in his young male face to evince what emotion or how. He was begging me in dumb eloquence to get out of the cave and to leave the mask behind.

  "We can't take it," I said. Or rather I heard myself say this. The chanting grew louder. More shapes closed in around the one wavering but determined figure. It seemed he stretched out his arms to beseech me.

  "We can't take it," I said again. His arms were a golden brown and covered with gorgeous stone bracelets. His face was oval and his eyes dark and quick. I saw tears on his cheeks.

  "We can't take it," I said, and then I felt myself failing. "We must leave it. We must bring back the things that were taken before!"

  An overwhelming sadness and grief swallowed me; I wanted to lie on the ground; so great was this emotion and so right was it that I felt it and expressed it with my entire form.

  Yet no sooner had I hit the ground—at least I think I did—than I was jerked upright, and the mask was ripped away.

  One moment I felt it in my fingers and against my face, and the next I felt nothing and saw nothing but the distant light flickering in the green leaves.

  The figure was gone, the chanting had stopped, the grief was broken. Merrick was pulling me with all her strength:

  "David, come on!" she said. "Come on!" She would not be denied.

  And I myself felt an overwhelming desire to get out of the cave with her, and to take the mask; to steal this magic, this indescribable magic which had enabled me to see the spirits of the place with my own eyes. Boldly, wretchedly, without any excuse whatsoever, I reached down, without losing a pace, and caught up a handful of brilliant glinting stone artifacts from the thick moldering floor, stuffing them into my pockets as I went on.

  We were in the open jungle in a matter of moments. We ignored the unseen hands that assailed us, the volleys of leaves, and the urgent cries of the howler monkeys, as though they'd joined in the assault. A slender banana tree crashed down into our path, and we moved over it, hacking the others that seemed to be bowing to strike us in the face.

  We made remarkable time, moving through the hallway of the temple. We were almost running when we found the remnants of the trail. The spirits sent more of the banana trees flapping towards us. There was a rain of coconuts, which did not strike us. From time to time small pebbles came in a little gale.

  But as we continued, the assault gradually fell away. At last there was nothing but a soundless howling. I was crazed. I was a perfect devil. I didn't care. She had the mask. She had the mask which enabled a person to see spirits. She had it. Oncle Vervain hadn't been strong enough to get it, I knew it. And neither had been Cold Sandra nor Honey nor Matthew. The spirits had driven them out.

  Silently, Merrick clutched the mask to her chest and kept going. Neither of us stopped, no matter how bad the ground under us, no matter how bad the heat, until we reached the jeep.

  Only then did she open her backpack and put the mask inside of it. She threw the jeep into reverse, backed up into the jungles, turned the car around, and headed for Santa Cruz del Flores at a boisterous and furious speed.

  I remained silent until we were alone together in our tent.

  15

  MERRICK FLOPPED DOWN on her cot and for a moment did and said nothing. Then she reached for the bottle of Flor de Cana rum and drank a deep gulp.

  I preferred water for the moment, and though we'd been driving for a considerable time, my heart was still pounding, and I felt my age miserably as I sat there trying to catch my breath.

  Finally, when I started to say something about what we'd done and how we'd done it, when I raised my voice in an attempt to put things in some sort of perspective, Merrick gestured for me to be quiet.

  Her face was flushed. She sat as if her heart too were giving her the worst, though I knew better, and then she took another sizable drink of her rum.

  Her cheeks were blazing as she looked across at me as I sat on my cot facing her. Her face was wet with sweat.

  "What did you see?" she asked, "when you looked through it?"

  "I saw them!" I said. "I saw a weeping man, a priest, perhaps, perhaps a king, perhaps a nobody, except that he was beautifully dressed. He wore fine bracelets. He wore long robes. He pleaded with me. He was grieving and miserable. He let me know it was a dreadful thing. He let me know the dead of the place weren't gone!"

  She sat back, resting on both her arms, her breasts thrust forward, her eyes fixed on the top of the tent.

  "And you?" I asked. "What did you see?"

  She wanted to answer, but she seemed unable. She sat forward again and reached for her backpack, her eyes moving from side to side, her expression what is aptly called wild.

  "Did you see the same thing?" I asked her.

  She nodded. Then she opened the backpack and removed the mask so carefully one would have thought it was made of glass. It was now, in the dim daylight of the tent and the gold light of the one lantern, that I perceived how carefully and deeply the features were carved. The lips were thick and long and spread back as if in a scream. The eye ridges gave no surprise to the expression, only a sense of calm.

  "Look," she said, putting her fingers through an opening at the top of the forehead, and then pointing out an opening over each ear. "It was strapped to his face with leather, most likely. It wasn't merely laid over his bones."

  "And what do you think it means?"

  "That it was his, for looking at spirits. That it was his, and he knew the magic wasn't intended for just anyone; that he knew it was magic that could give harm."

  She turned over the mask and lifted it. She wanted clearly to put it over her face again but something stopped her. At last she stood up and went to the door of the tent. There was an open seam there through which she could peer out and along the mud street to the little plaza, and she seemed to be doing this, holding the mask below her face.

  "Go on, do it," I said, "or give it to me and I will."

  Hesitantly she pursued her course. She lifted the mask and held it firm over her face for a long moment, and then jerked it roughly away. She sat down exhausted on the cot, as though the entire little enterprise of only a few precious moments had tapped her strength at the core. Once again, her pupils danced wildly. Then she looked at me, and she grew a little calm.

  "What did you see?" I asked. "Spirits of the village?"

  "No," she answered. "I saw Honey in the Sunshine. I saw her watching me. I saw Honey. Oh, dear God, I saw Honey. Don't you see what's she done?"

  I didn't immediately respond, but of course I saw. I let her speak the words.

  "She's led me here, led me to a mask through which I can see her; she's brought me to a means by which she can come through!"

  "Listen to me, darling," I said, and I reached out and took her wrist. "Fight this spirit. It has no claim on you any more than any other spirit. Life belongs to those who are alive, Merrick, and life is to be honored over death! You didn't drown Honey in the Sunshine, you have that from her own lips."

  She didn't answer me. She put her elbow on her knee and rested her forehead in her right hand. The mask she held with her left. I think she was staring at it but I couldn't be sure. She began to tremble.

  Gently, I took the mask from her. I laid it carefully on my cot. Then I remembered the objects I'd collected before leaving the cave. I reached inside my pocket to retrieve them. They were four perfectly carved little Olmecoid figures, two of bald, somewhat fat, creatures, the other two of lean scowling gods. A shiver passed through me as I looked at these small faces. I could have sworn I heard a chorus of voices for an instant, as though someone had turned up the dial on a piece of amplified music. Then the silence rushed at me as if it were palpable. I broke out in a sweat.

  These little creatures, these little gods, had the same luster as the mask.

  "We're taking this all back with us," I declared. "And as far as I'm concerned, I want to revisit t
he cave as soon as I've regained my strength."

  She looked up at me.

  "You can't be serious," she said. "You would challenge those spirits?"

  "Yes, I'd challenge them. I don't say we take the mask back to the cave to look through. Dear God, I wouldn't dream of such a thing. But I can't leave behind such an unexplored mystery. I have to go back. What I want to do is examine what's there as carefully as I can. Then I think we must contact one of the universities active here and let them know of just what we found. I don't mean to speak of the mask, you understand. At least not until we've made certain that it's ours to keep beyond any dispute. "

  It was a tangled question, this matter of universities and digs and claims to antiquities, and I was in no mood for it just then. I felt hot all over. My stomach was heaving, which almost never happens to me. "I've got to see that cave again. God help me, I know why you came back here. I understand everything. I want to go back at least once, maybe twice, how do I know—." I broke off. The wave of sickness passed.

  She was staring at me as if she were in grave and secret distress. She looked as sick as I felt. With both her hands, she clawed at her thick hair and drew it back from her lovely forehead. Her green eyes appeared hot.

  "Now, you know," I said, "that we have four men with us that can get this mask out of the country and back to New Orleans with no difficulty. Shall I give it to them now?"

  "No, don't do anything with it just yet," she said. She stood up. "I'm going to the church."

  "What for?" I asked her.

  "To pray, David!" she said impatiently, glowering down at me. "Don't you believe in anything really?" she demanded. "I'm going into the church to pray." And on her way she went.

  She'd been gone for about twenty minutes when I finally poured myself a glass of the rum. I was so thirsty. It was strange to be thirsty and sick at the same time. Except for the sound of a few chickens or turkeys, I didn't honestly know which, the village was quiet, and no one came to disturb my solitude in the tent.

  I stared at the mask, and I realized that my head was aching terribly, that indeed a throbbing had commenced behind my eyes. I didn't think too much about it, as headaches have never been a torment to me, until I realized that the mask was becoming a blur in my sight.

  I tried to refocus. I couldn't. Indeed, I felt hot all over, and every tiny insect bite which I'd suffered began to make itself known.

  "This is nonsense," I said aloud, "I've had every damned injection known to modern medicine, including several that weren't known when Matthew got his fever." Then I realized I was talking to myself I poured another good shot of the rum and drank it down straight. It seemed to me, rather vaguely, that I would feel much better if the tent weren't so crowded, and I wished that all the people would leave.

  Then I realized that there couldn't be people in the tent with me. No one had come in. I tried to regain a consistent memory of the last few moments, but something had been lost. I turned and looked at the mask again and then I drank some of the rum, which by now tasted marvelous, and I put down the glass and picked up the mask.

  It seemed as light as it was precious, and I held it up so that the light shone through it, and it seemed for a moment to be quite definitely alive. A voice was whispering to me rather feverishly as to all manner of small things which I had to worry about, and someone said:

  "Others will come when thousands of years have passed." Only the words I heard were not in a language which I understood. "But I do understand you," I said aloud, and then the whispering voice said something that seemed a curse and an ominous prediction. It had to do with the fact that certain things were best left unexplored.

  The tent seemed to be moving. Rather, the place where I was seemed to be moving. I put the mask against my skin and I felt steadier. But the entire world had changed. I had changed.

  I was standing on a high pavilion and I could see the beautiful mountains all around me, the lower portions of the slopes covered in deep green forest, and the sky itself was brightly blue.

  I looked down and I saw a crowd of thousands surrounding the pavilion. Over on the tops of other pyramids there stood huge masses of people. The people were whispering and shouting and chanting. And there was a small group on my pavilion, all of them faithfully at my side.

  "You will call down the rain," said the voice in my ear, "and it will come. But one day, the snow will come instead of the rain, and on that day, you will die."

  "No, that will never happen!" I said. I realized I was growing dizzy. I was going to fall from the pavilion. I turned around and reached out for the hands of my fellows. "Are you priests, tell me, what you are." I asked. "I'm David and I demand that you tell me, I'm not the person you believe me to be!"

  I realized that I was in the cave. I had all but fallen to the thick soft floor. Merrick was shouting at me to get up. Before me stood the weeping spirit.

  "The Lonely Spirit, how many times have you called me?" said the tall being sadly. "How many times have you, the magician, reached out for the lonely soul? You have no right to call those between life and death. Leave the mask behind you. The mask is wrong, don't you understand what I'm telling you!"

  Merrick cried my name. I felt the mask ripped from my face. I looked up. I was lying down on my cot, and she was standing over me.

  "Good God, I'm sick," I told her. "I'm very sick. Get me the shaman. No, there's no time for the shaman. We must set out for the airport now."

  "Quiet, be quiet, lie still," said Merrick. But her face was dark with fear. I heard her thoughts clearly. It's happening all over again, Just as it happened to Matthew. It's happening to David. I myself have some deep immunity, but it's happening to David.

  I grew very quiet within myself. I'll fight it, I resolved, and I let my head roll to one side on the pillow, hoping that the pillow would be cool against my cheek. Though I heard Merrick crying out for the men to come to the tent immediately, I saw another person sitting on her cot.

  It was a tall lean man with brown skin and a narrow face, and arms covered with jade bracelets. He had a high forehead and shoulderlength black hair. He was looking at me in a quiet manner. I saw the dark red of his long gown, and the gleam of his toenail in the light.

  "It's you again," I said. "You think you're going to kill me. You think you can reach out from your ancient grave to take my life?"

  "I don't want to kill you," he whispered, with little or no change in his placid expression. "Give back the mask for your own sake and for hers."

  "No," I said. "You must realize I can't do it. I can't leave such a mystery. I can't simply turn my back. You had your time and now is my time, and I'm taking the mask back with me. She's taking it with her, really. But even if she surrendered, I would do it on my own."

  I went on pleading with him, in a low reasonable voice, that he should understand. I said, "Life belongs to those who are alive." But by then the tent was truly crowded with the men who had come with us. Someone had asked me to keep a thermometer under my tongue. And Merrick was saying, "I can't get a pulse."

  Of the journey to Guatemala City, I remember nothing.

  As for the hospital, it might have been a medical facility anywhere in the world.

  Repeatedly I turned my head and I found myself alone with the bronze-skinned man with the oval face and the jade bracelets, though more often than not he did not speak. When I tried to speak, others answered, and the man simply melted as another world seemed to supplant that which I'd left behind.

  When I was fully conscious, which wasn't often, I seemed convinced that people in Guatemala would know more of the tropical illness from which I suffered. I wasn't afraid. I knew from the expression of my bronze-skinned visitor that I wasn't dying. And I do not remember being transferred to a hospital in New Orleans at all.

  The visitor never appeared after the return to New Orleans.

  By that time I was on the mend, and when days did begin to connect with one another, I was running only a low grade tempe
rature, and the "toxin" was completely gone. Soon I no longer required intravenous nourishment. My strength was coming back.

  My case was nothing exceptional. It had to do with a species of amphibian which I must have encountered in the brush. Even touching this creature can be fatal. My contact must have been indirect.

  Merrick and the others were not afflicted, that was soon made clear to me, and I was much relieved, though in my state of confusion, I had to confess I had not thought of them as I should.

  Merrick spent a great deal of time with me, but Aaron was almost always there as well. As soon as I would start to address an important question to Merrick, a nurse or a doctor came into the room. At other times I was confused as to the order of events and didn't want to reveal that confusion. And occasionally, very occasionally, I would wake in the night, convinced I'd been back in the jungles in my dreams.

  At last, though I was still technically sick, I was brought by ambulance to Oak Haven and moved into the upstairs left front room.

  This is one of the more gracious and lovely bedrooms in the house, and, in my robe and slippers, I was walking out on the front porch by the evening of that day. It was winter, but wondrously green all around me, and the breeze off the river was welcome.

  At last, after two days of "small talk," which was threatening to drive me out of my mind, Merrick came to my room alone. She wore a nightgown and robe and she appeared exhausted. Her rich brown hair was held back from her temples by two amber combs. I could see the relief in her face as she looked at me.

  I was in bed, with pillows propped and a book on the Maya people open in my lap.

  "I thought you were going to die," she said plainly. "I prayed for you in a way I've never prayed before."

  "Do you think God heard your prayers?" I asked. Then I realized she hadn't mentioned praying to God at all. "Tell me,"

  I asked, "was I ever in real danger?"

  She seemed shocked by the question. Then she fell quiet, as though debating what she might say. I already had part of my answer, purely from her reaction to the question, so I waited patiently until she meant to speak.