Tom O'Bedlam Part 16

"Sure you can. I'll make a crutch for you."

"Jesus, a crutch? I don't know how to use a crutch. And what am I going to do, hobble for thirty miles? Why the h.e.l.l did you have to go running off like that? I wouldn't have tripped if I hadn't been chasing after you. And -"

"Take it easy," she said. He watched in astonishment as she bent a little tree to ground level, broke off the top third of its trunk, and began stripping away the branches. "You don't have to go that far. There's a road just up ahead. We'll flag somebody down and ask for a ride into Ukiah. They don't want to go to Ukiah, we'll persuade them."

"A road?"

"A little paved highway, just on the other side of those big trees, maybe five minutes up ahead. I was there when I heard you calling. A few cars going by, even. Don't worry, okay?" She scooped him to a standing position as if he were a sack of feathers and propped the improvised crutch under his armpit. It was a little too long. Supporting him with one arm, she brought the crutch up across her shin and snapped off the tip.

"There," she said. "Ought to be the right length now." If he hadn't seen it done, he wouldn't have believed that she had been able to snap a green sapling as thick as her wrist with one quick little gesture. How hard would it be for her to break someone's arm or leg?

The crutch helped. It was a clumsy business, but he limped along, letting his injured foot dangle. She walked beside him, her arm around his shoulders, giving him an extra lift. The ground sloped upward until they reached the dense stand of redwoods, but then on the far side it angled down and leveled out and before long they emerged into a clear s.p.a.ce and saw the highway. It was an old two-lane county road, potholed and worn, no vehicle-control devices visible at all in it, the sort of road they had had a hundred fifty years ago. He listened for cars but heard nothing: total silence. Behind them, the sun was getting low, starting to drop toward the Pacific.

"Something's coming," Alleluia said. "I don't hear a thing."

"Neither do I. But I can see it, down the road. And now I can hear the engine, more or less. Probably a ground-effect car, since it's so quiet."

He saw no sign of anything, not even a speck in the distance. Her senses were awesome.

A couple of minutes went by, and then he began to make it out, a dark van coming toward them from the south. "Okay," he said. "I'm going to creep a little way back into the woods. You stand out here and flag them down."

"Will they stop?"

"People got to be out of their minds not stopping for a woman looks like you, out here by yourself with night coming on. They'll stop. When they do, you tell them your husband's back there with an injured leg, will they mind driving us to Ukiah. I'll be coming out. Not much they can do about it then, when I come out. Meanwhile you get close to the driver. He show any sign of pulling out, you reach in the window, you put your hand on his throat, right? Not to hurt him, you understand, just to keep him cooperative."

"Okay," she said. "You better get out of sight."

"Yeah," Ferguson said, and went hobbling off into the underbrush. He settled in behind a tree to watch. A moment later the van appeared. It was a ground-effect job, all right, a real antique, maybe even a prewar model, with big garish bolts of lightning painted in red and yellow along its sides. Alleluia was standing in the middle of the road, wigwagging her arms; and, sure enough, the van slowed to a stop a short distance in front of her. He saw a couple of men in the front seat. They probably figured they were in for a night's hot fun, terrific brunette, lonely country road. They tried anything with Allie, though, they'd find out different in a hurry.

He heard them talking with her. Ferguson started to emerge from his hiding place. We won't even bother hitching a ride, he thought. I'll just have Allie toss them out into the shrubbery and we'll drive to Ukiah ourselves and take it on north tomorrow morning to Oregon.

Then he got a closer look at things and realized that beside the ones in the front seat there was a whole mob of men in the back of the van - three, four, maybe five of them.

Scratchers, most likely. Or maybe even bandidos.

d.a.m.n, he thought. Even she can't take on seven guys. I can't even take on one, with my leg like this. Abruptly he saw how their escape from the Center was going to end: with him lying in the weeds with his throat slit, and Alleluia, kicking and screaming all the way, being dragged off somewhere for a night of g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ging.

They were getting out of the van. Four, five, six, seven, yes. No, eight. Coming up to Alleluia, cl.u.s.tering around her, looking her over appreciatively. One of them, an evil- looking cat with a greasy face and a lot of untidy red hair, was staring at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s as if he hadn't touched a woman in three years. Another, with washed-out blue eyes and a face full of acne scars, was actually licking his lips. Ferguson wanted to turn and get away, but it was too late, too late, they had seen him. At his hobbling pace they'd catch him in half a second.

"That your husband over there?" one of the scratchers asked, a stocky, tough-looking one with a short thick black beard. He pointed toward Ferguson. What a dumb way to die this is going to be, Ferguson said to himself. He prayed for Alleluia to go into action, grab three or four of them and snap their necks the way she had snapped that sapling, fast, before they knew what was happening. But she didn't seem about to do that. She looked calm and cheerful and relaxed. G.o.dd.a.m.n weird woman. He halted, leaning on his crutch by the side of the road, wondering what was going to happen next.

What happened next was that still another of the scratchers, a tall skinny one with long arms like a monkey's and wild gleaming eyes, came over and peered at him in a peculiar intense way, staring into his face as if trying to read a map, and said earnestly, "Are you hurting a lot? I don't mean your leg, I mean your soul. I think your soul's hurting some.

Just remember, this is none other but the house of G.o.d, and this is the gate of heaven."

"What the h.e.l.l," Ferguson said, his voice thick with fear and bewilderment.

"Don't pay him no mind," said the red-haired scratcher. "He ain't nothing but a looney, that one. That crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d Tom."

"Crazy, huh?" Ferguson said. He looked slowly around, beginning to think maybe they would come out of this in one piece after all. The thing was to stay cool, to start talking and talk a whole lot, to make himself seem useful to these men. "If he's a real mental case," he said, "you guys are in the right place, then. Take him over to the Center on the other side of that redwood forest there and he'll feel completely at home. With all the other nuts they got there. Feed him, give him a bath, treat him nice and kindly, that's what they'll do for him over there, your crazy friend Tom."

The dark-bearded man moved closer to Ferguson. "Center? What sort of center you mean?"

Five.

The palsy plagues my pulse When I prig your pigs or pullen, Your culvers take, or mateless make Your Chanticleer, or sullen - When I want provant with Humphrey I sup, and when benighted, I repose in Paul's with waking souls Yet never am affrighted.

But I do sing, "Any food, any feeding, Feeding, drink, or clothing?

Come, dame or maid, Be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing."

- Tom O' Bedlam's Song.

SENHORPapamacer said, "The beginning, that is what is important, Jaspeen. I tell you this already? Well, you listen again: it is the most important. How the G.o.ds first visited themselves into me, the new G.o.ds."

Jaspin waited patiently. The Senhor had told him this already, yes, more than once.

More than twice, in fact. But there was never any percentage, Jaspin knew, in trying to direct these conversations. The Senhor said only what the Senhor wanted to say. That was his privilege: he was the Senhor. Jaspin was merely the scribe.

Besides, Jaspin had learned that if he was content to sit still while the Senhor was running through familiar stuff, sooner or later the Senhor would dredge up some new revelation. This afternoon, for instance, Jaspin noticed a large cardboard portfolio on the floor next to the Senhor. The Senhor was sitting with the stubby fingers of his left hand spread out wide over the portfolio, a sure sign that it was important. Jaspin wanted to know what was inside it, and he had a notion that if he simply sat still and waited, he would find out. He sat still. He waited.

"It was in the beginning with a dream." Senhor Papamacer said. "I lay in the dark one night and Maguali-ga he show himself to me and say, I am the opener of the gate, I am the bringer of what is to come. And I know at once that this is the G.o.d speaking from across the ocean of stars, and that I am the chosen voice of the G.o.d. You know?"

Yes, Jaspin thought. He knew. He knew what came next, too.And I arose in the night and I went to the window, and the nine stars of Maguali-ga were shining in the heavens, and I reach my arms out and I feel the great light of the seven galaxies upon me. He knew it all word by word, by now. Senhor Papamacer was dictating a scripture to him and wanted to make sure he got it down right.There was no doubt. I felt the truth at once.

He studied the lean sculptured face, the obsidian eyes. This little man who meant to change the world and maybe would: this prophet, this holy monster, latest and perhaps last in a long line of prophets. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Senhor Papamacer. The Senhor liked to bracket himself with them: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Senhor Papamacer. Maybe he was right. "And I arose in the night," said the Senhor, and I went to the window, and the nine stars of Maguali-ga were shining in the heavens -"

Ah, yes. And the great light of the seven galaxies.

"The thing that I know instantly," the Senhor said, "is that these G.o.ds are real and they will come to Earth to rule us." That was the interesting thing, Jaspin told himself, that great bounding leap of faith. Knowinginstantly. Faith in the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Six months ago that would have been incomprehensible to Jaspin; buthe had seen also: Chungira-He-Will-Come on the scorching hillside back of San Diego, and then Maguali-ga so many times in his dreams, and Rei Ceupa.s.sear, Narbail of the thunders, O Minotauro. He too had seen; he too had believed instantly. To his own amazement. "How do I know this, you ask?" Senhor Papamacer went on. "I know it that I know it, is all. That is sufficient only.Verdademente a verdad, truly the truth. You know that you know."

"Just as when Moses asked G.o.d to tell him His name," Jaspin ventured eagerly, "and all that G.o.d would answer was, 'I AM THAT I AM.' And that was good enough for Moses."

Senhor Papamacer gave him a frosty look. Jaspin was here to listen, not to supply commentary. Jaspin wanted to sink out of sight.

But after a moment the Senhor continued as though Jaspin had not spoken. "One must believe, you know, Jaspeen? In the face of the absolute truth one believes absolutely. So it was with me. I yielded myself to the truth and one by one the G.o.ds made themselves known to me, Rei Ceupa.s.sear and Prete Noir the Negus and O Minotauro and Narbail and the others, each gave me the vision in turn. I saw their worlds and their stars and I knew that they love us and watch over us and are making ready for their coming among us. I was the first to know this, but because I held the truth others came to me and I shared my knowledge with them. Now there are many thousands of us, and one day all the world will be joined with us: joined in blood, in the rite of tumbonde, to make ourselves worthy of the final G.o.d who will bring the blessings of the stars."

Hesitantly, feeling he had to say something, Jaspin intoned, "Chungira-He-Will-Come, he will come."

For once it was the right thing. The Senhor nodded benevolently. "Maguali-ga, Maguali-ga," he replied. Together they made the sacred signs.

Then the Senhor said suddenly, surprisingly, "You know what I was, before the G.o.ds came to me? You will not know. This you must put in your book, Jaspeen. I drive the taxi, in Chula Vista. Twenty years I drive there, and before that I drive in Tijuana, and when I am young I drive in Rio, before the big war. Take me here, take me there, can you drive any faster, keep the change." He laughed. Jaspin had never heard the Senhor laugh before: a dry harsh shivering laugh, reeds rubbing together in a windswept arroyo.

"All in one night I am made new by the G.o.ds, I never drive again. You put that in the book, Jaspeen. I give you photographs: my taxi, my chauffeur license. Mohammed, he drive camels, Moses he was a shepherd, Jesus a carpenter. And Papamacer a taxi-man." There they were again, the big four, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Papamacer. Jaspin tried to imagine this formidable deep-voiced coiled spring of a man, this charismatic prophet of the high G.o.ds of the stars, buzzing around San Diego in some old jalopy of a cab scrounging up fares and tips. The Senhor reached for the cardboard portfolio. The taxicab photos, Jaspin figured. But instead Senhor Papamacer said, "When you close your eyes, Jaspeen, you see the G.o.ds, yes?"

"Some nights, yes. I dream the visions two, three times a week."

"You see all seven loving galaxies?"

"By now, yes," said Jaspin. "All seven."

"And you believe, these are the homes of the G.o.ds,verdademente a verdad? "

"I believe it, yes," Jaspin said. He wondered what the Senhor was getting at.

"You ever wonder, maybe it is only dream, maybe it is a foolishness of the night that you have, that I have, that all of us have?"

"I believe the G.o.ds are true G.o.ds," Jaspin said.

"Because you have the faith. Because you know that you know."

Jaspin shrugged. "Yes."

"I have here the proof absolute," said the Senhor. He opened the portfolio. Jaspin saw a thick stack of holographic repros inside. Senhor Papamacer pa.s.sed the top one across to Jaspin. "You know this place?" he asked.

Jaspin stared. Even in the dim light of Senhor Papamacer's bus the holo gleamed with an inner radiance. It showed a string of dazzling suns - he counted six, seven, eight, nine - strewn out across a dark purple sky, and an alien landscape, eerie and bewildering, all harsh angles and impossible perspectives. And in the foreground stood a ma.s.sive sixlimbed figure with a single great glowing compound eye in the center of its broad forehead. Jaspin began to tremble inside.

"What is this, a photograph?" he asked.

"No, not a photograph. A painting only. But a very real painting, no? What is this place?

Who is that standing there?"

"That's Maguali-ga," Jaspin murmured. "The nine suns. The Rock of the Covenant."

"Ah, you know these things. You recognize."

"It looks exactly the way I've seen them myself."

"Yes. Yes. How interesting. You look at this one, now." He pa.s.sed Jaspin a second holo. It was a different view of the world of Maguali-ga now: the angle much steeper, and instead of Maguali-ga by himself there were five such beings. This repro too could have pa.s.sed for a photograph; but now that Jaspin had been given the clue he was able to see that in fact it was only a painting, probably computer-generated and very realistic but nonetheless a work of the imagination. "And this," said the Senhor, laying a third view of Maguali-ga's planet down in front of Jaspin: somewhat different technique, considerably different subject matter - this time a strange stone building was in view, highvaulted and rugged, with Maguali-ga standing at its threshold - but there was no question that it depicted the same world as the other two. "Now these," the Senhor said, and dealt three more pictures from his pack. Red sun, blue sun, fiery arch in the sky, golden figure in the foreground with curving ram's-horns. Each of the three was clearly the work of a different artist; but all three showed the same thing, identical in all details.

Jaspin shivered. "Chungira-He-Will-Come."

"Yes. Yes. And these?"

Three more. Green world, thick wisps of fog, shimmering crystalline figures moving about. Three of a world of blazing light, the entire sky one vast sun. Three of a fiery world whose sun was blue, and there was Rei Ceupa.s.sear, soaring high overhead in a shining radiant bubble. Three of a world whose suns were yellow and orange - "What are these things?" Jaspin asked finally.

The Senhor beamed like an ebony Buddha. He had never looked so joyous. "It is truly the truth, and I know that I know it. But others are not so sure, and there are some who will oppose us. So I have had the truth made into pictures for them. You know, there are devices, they turn the pictures in a man's mind into a picture on a screen, and then it can be made like this. I sent for three different people and I said, Make pictures of the worlds of the G.o.ds. Put them into this machine, so everyone can see the visions that you see. Well, Jaspeen, you can see. If you make the photograph, three people, you point the camera at the same street in Los Angeles, you will get the same picture. And here too we have the same picture, although it just comes out of people's minds. So everyone is seeing the same thing. Look, this is Maguali-ga, this is Narbail, this is where O Minotauro dwells - who can doubt it now? These things are true and real. When they come into our minds, they are coming from true places. Because we all see the same.

There can be no doubt now. You agree? There can be no doubt!"

"I never doubted," said Jaspin, dazed. But he knew that he was lying. Some part of him had maintained its skepticism all along. Some part had insisted that what he was experiencing was only some sort of crazy hallucination. But if everyone was having the same hallucinations - exactly - down to the little details - these weird little plantlike things here that he had seen so often but which he had never mentioned to anyone else, here they were, in this holo and in that one and here too - He was altogether stunned. He had not asked for these proofs; he had been willing to act on faith alone; but the holograms before him were overwhelming.

"Truly the truth," Senhor Papamacer said.

"Truly the truth," Jaspin murmured. "You go now. Write down what you feel, how you think this minute. Now. You go, Jaspeen."

He nodded and rose and went stumbling through the dim musty bus, groping in the darkness of the chapel, then out the front way. A few men of the Inner Host were sprawled on the steps of the bus: Carvalho, Lagosta, Barbosa. They smirked up at him.

White eyes flashed mockingly in dark faces. He moved sideways through them, carefully, not giving a d.a.m.n about their smarta.s.s smirks: the presence of the G.o.ds was still on him. Go write down what you feel, how you think. Yes. But first he had to tell Jill.

Dusk was coming on. The air was cool. They were somewhere up near Monterey now, inland a little way, camped in what had been somebody's artichoke field before a hundred thousand pilgrims had driven their buses and vans and trailers into it. Jaspin heard the sound of chanting in the distance. Three enormous campfires were blazing, sending black columns of smoke into the darkening sky. He looked into his car for Jill.

Not there.

From behind him he heard laughter. More Inner Host: Cotovela, Johnny Espingarda, leaning against their little orange-and-yellow bus. He glanced toward them.

"Something funny?"

"Funny? Funny?"

"Either of you see my wife?"

They laughed again, forcing it a little. They were deliberately trying to make him feel uncomfortable. He despised them, these chilly-faced inscrutable Brazilian b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, these apostles of the Senhor. So smug in their a.s.sumption of superior holiness.

"Your wife," Johnny Espingarda said. He made it sound dirty.

"My wife, yes. Do you know where she is?"

Johnny Espingarda balled his hand into a fist, put it to his mouth, coughed into it.

Cotovela seemed to be choking back laughter. Jaspin felt the awe and astonishment that the Senhor's holograms had aroused in him vanishing under the weight of his anger and irritation. He swung around, turned away from them, peered around for Jill in the gathering darkness. He walked to the far side of his car, thinking she might have spread a blanket over there. No Jill there either. When he came around to the front again, though, he saw her, walking toward the car from the general direction of the Inner Host bus. She looked flushed, sweaty, rumpled; she seemed to be fumbling with the belt of her jeans. Behind her, Bacalhau had emerged from the bus and was saying something to Cotovela and Johnny Espingarda: Jaspin heard their rough laughter. Oh, Christ, he thought. Christ, no, not Bacalhau.

"Jill?" he said.

Her eyes were a little out of focus. "You been visiting the Senhor?" "Yes. And you?"

She seemed to be making an effort to see straight; and then suddenly she was, her eyes locking on his, her expression a chilly, defiant one. "I've been interviewing the Inner Host," she said. "A little field anthropology." She giggled.

"Jill," he said. "Oh, Christ, Jill."

2.

STANDINGbetween these two strange new people, the beautiful dark-haired woman who was not real and the scowling-looking man with the injured leg, Tom was sure he felt a vision coming on. Right here, in front of everyone on this lonely back-country road as the sun was going down.

But somehow it didn't arrive. There was the roaring in his brain, there was the first beginning of luminous flickering, but that was all. The vision stayed on hold.