Burial (59 page)

‘I'm not a child, you know,' she told me. ‘I
can
look after myself.'

‘Hey,' I appealed. ‘Did I say you couldn't?'

I led her back across the grass. As she approached, Papago Joe leaned forward and held out his hand. ‘What's your name, sweetheart?' he asked her. I thought he could have tried to look less sinister, and talked less gravelly, but the girl seemed to place her trust in him immediately, and implicitly. I guess it was something to do with him being a father, which I had never been, and having a way with teenage daughters.

‘My name's Wanda — Wanda Mcintosh,' she said. ‘I've been looking for Joey, my brother Joey.'

‘Did you live here, in Maybelline?' asked Papago Joe.

Wanda shook her head. ‘I used to live in Pritchard, with my mother and joey. Well, not any more. My mother's dead; I saw my mother dead. And my friend Maggie, too. Maggie's bathroom window broke and all the glass dropped into the bath and she was cut in two.'

Her eyes looked blank. I could only guess what horrors she had experienced. ‘So how did you get here?' I asked her. ‘Pritchard — that's hundreds of miles away.'

‘I was looking for Joey. I couldn't find him in Pritchard and the black man said that the medicine-man might have taken him along. So the black man brought me here. I don't know how he did it: it was like sort of flying, only it wasn't.'

‘But your brother wasn't here?'

Wanda shook her head. ‘There was already a storm here, too. The black man said he couldn't help me any more, and he went off someplace. I went back up to the proper world, but I couldn't find Joey anywhere there because of the storm and all the buildings falling down. A helicopter nearly crashed into me, and so I ran away and hid back here. In any case I guessed there was more chance of finding Joey if I stayed here.'

Papago Joe lifted the pendant around Wanda's neck and examined it narrowly. This black man … did he tell you his name?'

Wanda said, ‘Yes. He said his name was Jonas DuPaul and that if anybody was ever to ask me how I came by this pendant, I was to say that it came from Toussaint L'Ouverture himself, and then to him, and then to me, and that it would protect me even in the valley of the shadow of death.'

‘I see,' said Papago Joe. Then he held up the pendant a little higher, and asked me, ‘Do you know what this is?'

‘It looks like a premium for Kentucky Fried Chicken.'

‘It's voodoo. A voodoo amulet. Very rare, very magic. If
it came from Toussaint L'Ouverture himself, then it's something very special indeed. Look on that sacrificed cockerel and tremble. Toussaint L'Ouverture was the guy who led the slaves in Haiti, and kicked out the British slave-traders. He was practically a god.'

I reached out and touched the pendant. As I did so — instantly —

thunderous drumming, drumming that pounded and pounded and wouldn't stop
— and —
blue-painted faces staring and grinning
— and —

black naked bodies twisting and convulsing and shuddering arms and legs
— then —
a knife slicing a cockerel's throat and blood spraying everywhere — a naked girl drinking the blood and letting it pour down her chin and smear all over her breasts
— and —

a chalk-white face with black glittering eyes that looked like beetles feeding on his eyelids
— and —
gripping the girl's hair and dragging her head back, exposing her throat
— and —

cutting a thin smile all the way across her throat, from one side to the other, and blood and air exploding out of it-

I dropped the pendant, shaken. I stared at Papago Joe and then at Wanda. Jesus,' I said.

Papago Joe made a dryly amused face. ‘Remember that you now possess all of Martin Vaizey's sensitivities, apart from your own.'

‘You felt it, too?'

‘Very faintly. I'm not as sensitive as Martin Vaizey. But even if I couldn't feel it very clearly, I know exactly what it is. It's a voodoo charm. It's a way of passing magical powers from one person to another, so if a witch-doctor was dying he could give the charm to his son or his friend or whoever and, as soon as they put it on, that person would immediately inherit all of his greatest strengths. Presumably that's why this Jonas DuPaul gave it to Wanda — so that she would inherit his magical strength, and be able to survive in the Great Outside.'

‘But why would he do that?' I said.

‘Search me,' said Papago Joe. ‘Maybe he simply took a shine to her. Whatever the reason, this is real genuine voodoo.'

‘Voodoo, hunh?' I asked him. ‘I never had anything to do with voodoo. I saw
The Evil Dead
on late-night TV. I guess I thought that I'd be safe enough if I stayed away from shopping-malls.'

‘I said
real
voodoo,' said Papago Joe. He picked up the pendant again, and turned it over and over. ‘Jonas DuPaul was one of the most feared of all voodoo witch-doctors ever. I mean he still enjoys a reputation very much like the reputation that Misquamacus enjoys amongst native Americans. In New Orleans, mothers still scare their kids by warning them that Jonas DuPaul will come get them, if they misbehave. Jonas DuPaul is supposed to have teeth that are filed to a point, and like crunching up new-born babies' heads.'

Wanda said, ‘That's not true. I saw Jonas DuPaul's teeth and he has regular teeth. They're all yellow but they're not pointed.'

‘Wait a minute …' I said. ‘Jonas DuPaul … that name rings a bell for some reason.'

I racked my brains; and then I suddenly remembered Dr Snow, quoting from Bishop Whipple's diary. ‘
Later Colonel Sibley also recruited a negro man from somewhere in Louisiana. This person was always dressed as if for the opera … sometimes he called himself Sawtooth and sometimes he called himself Jonas DuPaul; but most of the time he referred to himself as Doctor Hambone … Colonel Sibley said that he could make the dead speak, and took him to question all of the corpses of murdered settlers, in order that they could identify their assailants
'.

‘Doctor Hambone,' I said. ‘That's who it was. He was a voodoo witch-doctor brought in to help the US Cavalry fight against Indian magic. I can't remember when it was, eigh-teen-hundred-fifty-something.'

‘That's right,' said Papago Joe. ‘Hey, you know more about this than I gave you credit for. The only puzzle is, where does Doctor Hambone fit into all of this Indian magic? Or is he just stalking around, scavenging, collecting up the dead, the way he was always supposed to — finding new bodies for his army of zombies?'

‘When I first saw him, he said he was just passing,' put in Wanda.

‘Did he say why he was giving
you
the amulet, in particular?'

‘No, except that I was praying so hard; and he thought that it was good to have so much faith. The way he talked to me, I think he just felt sorry for me.'

‘Well,' I said. ‘I guess that even the scariest people can have their soft side.' I glanced across at Papago Joe. ‘If we're going to Chicago, we'd better think about making a move, hunh,
kemo sabay
?'

But Papago Joe was still frowning. ‘This has thrown me off,' he said. ‘What the hell is a voodoo witch-doctor doing
here
, now, in the middle of all this? I mean, he might have been recruited to fight against Indian magic in the past, but he doesn't seem to be fighting against it now. I mean, what's his angle?'

I tried to remember what else Dr Snow had told us about Doctor Hambone. ‘There was some story of him being captured by the Santee, and how some Santee shaman showed him this kind of dream of the future, when all the white settlers would be killed by shadows.'

‘I see. Is that all?'

‘I guess so. After he was rescued, Doctor Hambone split for New Orleans, as far as anybody knew, and that was the last that anybody saw of him.'

Papago Joe said, ‘Okay, I guess we'd think of splitting, too. What are we going to do with young Wanda here?'

‘Do you have any relatives you could go to?' I asked her.

‘I guess my uncle and aunt in Denver.'

‘Okay, then …' said Papago Joe, sorting out his eagle-sticks. ‘If you don't mind the fastest trip of your life, we can take you there.'

I took hold of Wanda's hand and squeezed it tight. ‘Believe me, this is just as much fun as a roller-coaster.'

But the second I squeezed her hand, I recoiled. It didn't feel like a girl's hand at all.
It was a man's hand, calloused and muscular
. I looked down at her in shock and saw that she didn't look like Wanda at all.
Her face was grey and her scalp was bloody, and she wore a bloodied, drooping mustache
.

‘
Daniel McIntosh, sir, first-lieutenant, Company G, Seventh Cavalry
.'

‘What?' I shuddered. ‘What do you want?'

Papago Joe looked across at me in bewilderment. Obviously, he couldn't see the face that I could see. ‘Harry?' he said. Then — more concerned — ‘Harry!'

‘
This is my great-great-granddaughter, sir. The negro saved her because of me. I saw the negro at the Greasy Grass River, sir. He was there, with Gall first and then with Crazy Horse, I saw him with my own eyes. When we were running, and the Sioux were catching us and scalping us and cutting off our privates, he said, enough, but Crazy Horse wouldn't listen. The negro hates white men, sir, but he felt sorry for the men who died at the Greasy Grass River, he felt sorry for the way they died. That's why he saved my great-great-granddaughter, sir, and my great-great-grandson, too
.'

I opened my mouth, hoping to ask Daniel McIntosh a question, but his face had faded before I could speak. In one dissolving moment, I was back to holding Wanda's hand again, and looking at her face, instead of that bloody horror who had died at the Little Big Horn.

‘Did you
feel
that?' I asked her. ‘Were you aware of what happened to you then?'

She rubbed her upper lip as if she half-expected to find that she still had a moustache. Then she looked up at me,
bright-eyed. ‘I felt it. I really felt it! And Joey's safe, isn't he? I know it. I don't know how. But he's safe, isn't he? He's truly safe?'

Papago Joe took hold of Wanda's other hand. ‘Denver?'

‘Denver,' I nodded. ‘Then Bismarck.'

‘
Bismarck
?'

‘We're going to get ourselves out of this death-hallucination and visit the
Bismarck Tribune
. There's some photographs we have to find. And we have to find them
now
.'

I never knew that when you woke up from the dead, you had a hangover. But by the time we reached the offices of the
Bismarck Tribune
on that warm, still afternoon, the membranes of my brain were throbbing and my mouth felt like a gopher had slept in it.

There isn't much you can say about Bismarck except that it's
there
, in the middle of North Dakota, on the Missouri River, on the line between Mountain and Central Time, a collection of warehouses and insurance buildings and featureless streets. Rooftops, hardware stores, telephone lines and hamburger restaurants with rows of dusty pickups parked outside. If there hadn't been a river and a railroad, Bismarck wouldn't have been there at all — there would have been nothing but rustling grasslands, and distant horizons, and a haze of summer heat.

Papago Joe and I had risen from the dry soil only a half-mile out of town, like two resurrected corpses. A buck rabbit had seen us and bounded away, zig-zagging through the grass in terror but, fortunately for us, he was our only witness.

We brushed ourselves off and squinted around. The bright sunlight was explosive after the blackness of the Great Outside and the heat was almost unbearable. We could see downtown Bismarck and the sparkling curve of the Missouri, and the skyline of Mandan beyond. We started to walk.

We had left Wanda in Denver, as near to her uncle and aunt's house as possible. We could only enter or leave the Great Outside through the nexuses created by spilled Indian blood, but there were plenty in Denver and it hadn't been too difficult to locate one close to the Mountain View district where Wanda's uncle and aunt lived.

Wanda stood in the darkened grass for a moment and looked around, and then said, Thank you. I hope I see you again some day.'

‘We do, too,' I told her.

Without a word, she took off the voodoo amulet and handed it to Papago Joe. ‘Here,' she said. ‘Maybe this will help to keep you safe.'

Papago Joe took it in his hand, although I noticed that he didn't hang it around his neck. Then he shook Wanda's hand, and I kissed her; and she slipped down through the grass as if she were diving into a rushy, overgrown lake. I saw her hands uplifted for the briefest of moments, and then she was gone.

‘Nice girl,' I remarked, and Papago Joe nodded.

‘Aren't you going to wear that amulet?' I asked him.

He shook his head. One of Wanda's greatest strengths was her youthfulness. If I put this amulet on now, that's what I'm in danger of inheriting from her.'

‘What's wrong with being youthful?'

‘Harry, I may regret growing old, but I have no burning desire to be fourteen again, thank you.'

‘Oh,' I said, although I wasn't at all sure that I understood what he was trying to tell me.

It was leaving the Great Outside near Bismarck that caused Papago Joe some problems. We had walked backwards and forwards underneath the city, searching for a way out. But at last his eagle-sticks had twitched like dowsers' rods at the place where three Indian women, straggling behind their tribe, had been overtaken, raped and shot by US Cavalry scouts.

Their blood had been spilled over an area just wide enough for Papago Joe and I to force our way up through the surface and into the sunlight.