Hazards (7 page)

“Ain’t she got the most beautiful voice you ever heard?” he asked me.

“Did you understand a word she said?” I shot back.

“What difference does that make?” he said. “She didn’t chirp, and that’s all that matters.” He reached out and shook my hand. “It’s been nice knowing you, Reverend Jones, and I can never thank you enough for what you done for my daughters, but I’m smitten with this here delicate little frail flower, and I’m going to spend the rest of my natural-born days just listening to her dulcet tones.”

“If that’s what you want, Brother Corny, I wish you all the luck in the world,” I said, though from the way his delicate little three-hundred-pounder was talking a blue streak at him I figured he’d already found all the luck he needed.

I bid him a fond farewell, and headed off toward where I thought civilization was hiding, primed and ready to finally build the Tabernacle of Saint Luke.

The Lost Continent Of Moo

You know, there’s one thing I ain’t never figgered out, and man and boy it’s been bothering me most of my blameless life, and even now as a old man I haven’t come up with an answer, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since it was always happening to me, even back in 1935 which is when the tale I’m telling you took place, and though I’ve wandered the face of five continents (or maybe seven, if you count them two little ones down south) I still don’t know why it takes me such a short time to get lost and such a long time to get found again.

In fact, that was my very thought as I left Cornelius MacNamarra’s chartreuse mansions behind me and moseyed alongside the Amazon, waiting for civilization to raise its head so I could get together with it and finally get around to the serious business of building the Tabernacle of Saint Luke. But the closest I came to civilization in the next week was a couple of little fellers who were wearing paint on their faces and not much else. They didn’t speak no known language, which is something they had in common with the French, and they kept staring at me as if they were wondering how my head would look in their trophy case, so I finally took my leave of them.

I wish I could have took my leave of everything else, because I kept getting et by mosquitoes and hissed at by snakes and growled at by jaguars and giggled at by monkeys, and after I’d footslogged maybe another hundred miles and still hadn’t seen no shining cities filled to overflowing with sinners who were in desperate need of a man of the cloth like myself, I figgered maybe the cities had all migrated to the south when no one was looking, so I took a left turn and put the Amazon River behind me.

Now, I knew South America had a bunch of cities even back then, places like Rio and Buenos Aires and Caracas and Saigon, but it was like they’d seen me coming and had all tiptoed away before I could lay eyes on any of ’em. I picked up a female companion named Petunia along the way. She was a real good listener, but she didn’t say nothing and she smelled just terrible, especially after a rainstorm (of which we had an awful lot), and after a few days I finally had to admit that I just didn’t have much in common with lady tapirs, and we parted ways.

I kept trudging along, keeping my spirits up by reading my well-worn copy of the Good Book, and finally, after another couple of weeks, the forest started retreating, the mosquitoes found other things to do, the animals took umbrage when I kept reciting the Eighth and Fourteenth Commandments at ’em, and even the rain decided it had urgent business elsewhere. The land flattened out, the sun came out of hiding, and suddenly I was in this pasture that must have been a couple of hundred miles long, give or take a few inches.

And as I looked over my surroundings, I began to realize that this wasn’t like no part of South America I had ever seen, and I’d seen an awful lot of it, starting with San Palmero and working my way through the Island of Annoyed Souls and this big wet area everyone called the Amazon Basin though I didn’t see nary a single wash basin, with or without no love-starved Amazons, the whole time I was walking through it.

I kept looking around and thinking that maybe I’d fallen asleep and sleptwalked to some new country. I was still mulling on it when I realized I’d been walking forever and a day, and I decided to lay down right on the grass, and if there’d been a desk clerk I’d have told him not to wake me ’til maybe half past Tuesday, and then I was snoring to beat the band.

I woke up when something kind of cold and sort of wet and more than a little bit pushy rubbed against my face.

“I’m sleeping,” I said.

It nudged me kind of gently.

“Go away,” I said, scrunching up my eyes. “It’s a holiday somewhere in the world. I’ll get a job tomorrow.”

Then whatever it was pressed right up against my ear and said
“Moo!”

“What in tarnation was
that
?” I bellowed, jumping to my feet.

Suddenly I heard a dozen more
moos
, and I looked around, and damned if I wasn’t surrounded by some of the fattest cows I’d ever seen. There were hundreds of ’em, maybe thousands, and they’d all snuck on me my while I was sleeping.

And then I thought, well, maybe they didn’t exactly
sneak
up. Maybe they
live
here.

“Moo!” said a few dozen of ’em, staring at me with big brown cows’ eyes, as if they were begging me to come on over and choose a steak for dinner.

And then, being a educated man, I remembered my history books, or at least some stories I’d heard in Red Charlie’s Waterfront Bar in Macao, which comes to almost the same thing, and I realized that somehow or other I
had
stumbled onto a new land what no one else had ever seen before, and it didn’t take but forty or fifty more cows joining the chorus to for me to figger out that I was probably the first white man ever to set foot on the Lost Continent of Moo what had been writ up in fable, song and story.

I looked off into the distance, hoping to see a shining city filled with Moovians or whatever they called themselves, where I could build my tabernacle and set up shop, but there wasn’t nothing out there but cows. Now, I knew there had to be people somewhere, because in all my experience I ain’t never come across a cow that could sing songs or tell stories about lost continents.

And while we’re speaking of lost continents, them of you what’s read
Encounters,
the story of my attempt to bring the word of the Lord to the sinful nations of Europe, will know right off the bat that this here wasn’t the first lost continent I discovered. In fact, it seems that one of the things I’m really good at, other than helping poor sinners (and especially fallen women) see the light and the glory, is finding lost continents. It ain’t generally known—and in fact if you didn’t read my book it probably ain’t known at all—but not only did I find the lost continent of Atlantis, I actually bought it. Of course, it was buried under a few fathoms of water, but I’d be there still if the Greek government hadn’t objected to my placing a bunch of ads in the local paper offering to sell lots with a Mediterranean view. But that’s another story, and one what’s already been told with grace and elegance.

Anyway, after I’d wandered a couple of miles, stepping in all kinds of things that a gentleman would never discuss with you except to say they were vile and foul-smelling and mostly plentiful, I heard a shout off to my left. I turned and saw a guy riding up on a horse. He was kind of dressed like a cowboy, except for the chaps and the belt and the shirt and the hat, and he galloped up to me, and then just when I was sure he’d escaped from some hospital for the pixilated and thunk I was a polo ball or whatever it is that they hit with them sticks, he pulled his horse to a stop and said something to me in some alien tongue.

“I don’t understand a word you’re saying, Brother,” I replied, “but allow me to introduce myself. I’m the Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He jabbered something else I couldn’t follow.

“Before we resort to sign language, Brother,” I said, “perhaps you could tell me if I’ve indeed stumbled onto the lost continent of ancient legend.”

As I said it, I indicated the land with a wave of my hand, and cocked an eyebrow so he’d know I was asking a question.

It worked, because he shot me a friendly smile and said, “Pampas,” which I figgered was how they said Moo in Mooish.

“Thanks, Brother,” I said. “And now I wonder if you can tell me where I can find the king of Moo?”

He just stared at me, puzzled, and then I realized I’d made a simple mistake.

“Strike that, Brother,” I said. “Where can I find the king of Pampas?”

He kind of frowned, and I began thinking that my initial appraisal was right, except maybe for the polo part.

“Well, thanks anyway,” I said, “but I can’t waste no more time here. I got to scout up the people and start bringing the Word to any godless sinners I find among ’em, so I guess I’ll be going now.” I gave his horse’s neck a friendly pat, and noticed some weird kind of trinket he had with a ball attached to each end.

He saw me staring at it, and said “Bolas.”

“Thanks, Brother,” I said. Then, remembering my manners, I added “And bolas to you too.”

I headed off to my right, but he immediately urged his horse forward and blocked my way. Then he started jabbering at me and pointing to my left. I looked where he was pointing, and all I could see was maybe twenty thousand cows, give or take a couple.

“That’s mighty considerate of you, Brother, but I’m looking for sinners of the two-legged kind,” I told him. “Besides, mighty few cows contribute to the poor box, and that’s a serious consideration when you’re figuring out where to build your tabernacle.”

I walked around his horse and began heading off again, and again he blocked my way.

“Just what seems to be your problem, Brother?” I said, starting to get a bit riled.

He began talking a blue streak, but I didn’t hear no familiar words like “pampas” or “bolas,” and finally I held up my hand for silence.

“I appreciate your concern,” I said, “and as near as I can figger it, either you think I’m here to convert your cattle, or I look so hungry you want me to take a couple of hundred cows home with me, or—and now that I come to think of it, them first two don’t hold a candle to the next reason, which is that you got all your womenfolk stashed in the direction I’m going.” I gave him a reassuring smile. “You don’t have to worry none, Brother. The way I smell after walking through your pasture, I doubt that any woman of quality would let me get near her—and if she would, that just means she’s been stepping in all this stuff too, and I ain’t wildly interested in getting much closer than fifty feet to her, or maybe a hundred, depending on which way the wind’s blowing.”

I began walking yet again, and this time he just sighed and frowned and shook his head, and finally he dug his spurs into his horse and headed off toward all the cattle he’d been trying to introduce me to.

It took me a whole day and a night to get out of that cow pasture, but finally I came to what was either a large rocky hill or a small rocky mountain, and I followed a footpath up it, and pretty soon I became aware that I was being watched by unseen eyes, which in my broad experience are just about the worst kind of eyes to be watched by, and finally the footpath widened a bit, and suddenly I was facing a mighty impressive stone building which sure didn’t resemble no other building I’d ever seen. Of course, the 200 naked warriors, each of ’em with a spear and an expression that would have meant their shorts were too tight if any of ’em had been wearing shorts, might have had a little something to do with it.

Finally they stood aside, and a kind of short, pudgy white man moseyed out of the building while they all bowed down as he passed by. He was wearing a loincloth, which meant he was dressed a lot better than any of his friends and neighbors, and he had a half-smoked cigar in his mouth. He was kind of bald, and a little bit cock-eyed, and he had such a thick unkempt beard that it instantly said to all and sundry that he wasn’t on speaking terms with his barber, and his bare feet were pretty caked with all the stuff I’d been doing my best to avoid, but outside all that I suppose he was as presentable as most people, and certainly more presentable than some I’d run into lately.

He walked up to me, stopped about four feet away, put his hands on his hips, jutted out his chin, and said, “Who the hell are you?”

“You speak English,” I said, surprised.

“I speak English a hell of a lot better than you answer questions,” he said. “Now, who are you?”

“The Right Reverend Honorable Doctor Lucifer Jones at your service,” I said. “Weddings and baptisms done cheap, with a group rate for funerals. And who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“Rakovekin, Lord of the Outer Realm, Messenger of the Almighty, Spokesman for the Elder Deities, and Commander of the Legions of the Dead.”

“That’s quite a mouthful, Brother,” I noted.

“Yeah, it can get tedious,” he admitted. “Especially at parties when I have to meet a lot of new people. You can call me Henry.”

“Forgive me for pointing it out, but Henry don’t sound like no South American name.”

“And the other one I gave you did?” he asked.

“Now as I come to think on it, no, I suppose it didn’t neither,” I answered.

“Henry’s what they used to call me before I stumbled onto this place.”

“I could tell right off you weren’t no native,” I said.

“Only place I’m native to is Hackensack, New Jersey,” said Henry.

“What’s a Hackensack boy doing thousands of miles from home on this here lost continent?” I asked.

“Being a god,” he said.

“Pleasant work?” I asked.

“Most of the time,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll take a stab at it and join you, since I spend so much time consulting with the Lord anyway,” I offered. “What’s the job pay?”

“We only got room for one god around here, and I’m it,” he said. “Now, you’re welcome to stick around a day or two until you’re rested up, and you can even grab some grub to take with you on your long and arduous journey to anywhere else in the world, but you can’t stay here on no permanent basis.”

“How did
you
find this here lost continent, Brother Henry?” I asked him.

“Didn’t know it was no continent, and it sure as hell ain’t as lost as it used to be,” he grumbled. “You’re the fourth white man to wander in here in less than ten years.”

“What happened to the other three?”

“I sent two of ’em packing.”

“And the third,” I said. “Is he still here?”

“Parts of him are.”

Which made me think that there were maybe worse ideas than sticking around just a day or two and then hitting the road.

“But to answer your question, Reverend Jones,” he continued, “I came down to this part of the world to hunt elephants.”

“I don’t want to put no damper on your enthusiasm, Brother Henry,” I said, “but there ain’t no elephants within a couple of thousand miles of here, except them what’s on display at zoos.”