How the Stars did Fall (12 page)

“Lord, we rejoice at your wisdom. But what of our enemies in the present? Have they discovered our nature? What knowledge have they of us?”

“They know little, yet they march on, their blindness notwithstanding. They come in ships and will be here at your shores before the fortnight is over.”

“How many ships?”

“Eleven.”

“And by ground? How will they assail us?”

“One thousand men. Some two hundred cavalry. This battalion is near already. They have found residence to the south in a fortified construction by the sea.”

“Quirinus, Lord of War, what would you have us do to defeat our enemies?”

“You lack the numbers to defeat them in direct battle. Lure them into a trap and their numbers will mean nothing.”

“Lord of War, have you any more knowledge with which to gift us?”

“There is more.” Through the Good Man, the spirit let out a shriek of what sounded like pain and disgust. Then he spoke. “Yes, it is true. I did not believe it at first, but it is true. The enemy comes disguised and through him courses much power. I cannot see him or his purpose, for he shrouds himself in the flames of his furnace. Oh, he is loathsome. Usurper.”

“How can we combat this one you speak of?”

“You cannot. Only power may combat power. But I have with me one who may help. He is my familiar and loves the wilds of your plane. A vicious spirit, he is. Will you allow his entry?”

“Yes, of course,” Adler said.

Quirinus made the Good Man sit back in the chair and take a deep breath before continuing.

“A price must be paid for entry.”

“Another sacrifice?” Adler asked.

“Yes, a much greater one. But the price may be exacted at a later time. It is sufficient that you agree to the terms.”

“I agree.”

So Quirinus spat into the Good Man’s hands and lowered Adler’s cowl. Then he took the saliva and rubbed it into Adler’s eyes.

The saliva must have stung, because Adler screamed in pain and rubbed at his eyes. When he opened them, they were yellow and black like diseased moons, and his teeth were long and his body changed continuously, taking on the appearance of some animal one moment, then vegetation another moment, from the grotesque to the sublime. He grew wings as wide as the ears of elephants, then tentacles like an octopus, and he grew extra eyes and mouths and then he lost them, and all of this seemed exceedingly painful, because Adler gritted his teeth in the agony of it. Then it stopped and Adler addressed the spirit, questioning him on what had happened. But the spirit would no longer answer, the Good Man stuck in a trance he could not shake off.

“I release you back to the void from which you sprung,” Adler said, touching the Good Man on the forehead who returned to normal and took his place in the circle.

In the hours after his initiation, Daniel and the Good Man took a pair of horses and rode south to Novato along with a few of Mr. Parsons’s best men and a wagon filled with gold bars. They stopped at a saloon to have dinner, but the Good Man wasn’t hungry so he waited outside while Daniel ate.

“May I help you, sir?” the bartender said.

“Do you have warm stew?” Daniel said.

“I do.”

“Two bowls. And beer.”

“Certainly.”

While he waited, Daniel sat in front of the fire, eyeing the flame. He looked away from the fire and heard the kindling crack behind him like a mallet of Jove thrown down onto the earth. Then the innkeeper returned with the bowls of steaming soup and a mug of beer. Once he was done eating, Daniel took out a few gold coins from his pouch and laid them on the bar, tipping his hat to the innkeeper.

By now a throng had assembled around the Good Man just outside the saloon. And he spoke to them with his hood up and his robe touching the ground like some ancient prophet come out of the desert. Daniel could not make out the words but he saw one man leave the group cursing and wiping tears from his eyes. Another man cried out in Spanish for his god, “Dios mío, Dios mío,” and crumbled in front of the Good Man, his knees buckling in reverence and despair.

Daniel reached the edges of the throng and heard some of what the Good Man said and heard him clap once. One solitary clap like a demiurge setting the universe in motion, a creasing across the primordial soup. They seemed satisfied by the clap as if some spell had been undone and, oblivious and content, they walked away from the Good Man, back to their houses and their mines and fields of corn and barley and their hard beds and harder bread.

They rode out of Novato to the east until they came upon a harsh land of dry shrubbery. And they found a hut set among the dying trees with pikes built around it like the thorns of a rose. But the pikes hid no beauty, instead holding the heads of dead men and women as warning. The Good Man rode in confident and Daniel followed. Inside the house a Mexican wearing a wide sombrero greeted them. The Mexican had a fire going and a stove set on top. He motioned for them to sit and they did. Then he took the stove off the fire. From it, he took two large plantains cooked in butter and set them down on a plate. Out of a scabbard hanging from his waist, the Mexican brandished a large hunting knife and with it chopped the plantains into small pieces, offering the plate to his guests, who each took a piece in turn.

“Usted tiene sed?” the Mexican said.

“Sí,” the Good Man said.

The Mexican brought out a thick green bottle and poured out a clear liquid into tin mugs. Then one of the Mexican’s men came into the house, nodding.

“Vuestro oro se ve bien. Mi siervo le dará los armamentos.”

“Gracias,” the Good Man said.

Mr. Collins’s men loaded the rifles and ammunition and artillery rounds and sticks of dynamite they bought from the Mexicans onto the wagon, replacing the gold bars. Then they rode off, Daniel and the Good Man behind them.

Chapter Ten

Faraday found Turnbull sitting outside of a short sandstone building. The former preacher held a piece of wood in one hand and a knife in the other, and while he hacked at the wood, whittling it into the shape he desired, he whispered something into the wind.

“What’s that?” Faraday asked.

“I said it’s not right being here. These savages are blasphemers. If we share in their hellish practices, surely we too shall be condemned.”

Just then Dr. Tennyson came out of the building, a dog following him.

“Settle down, now, preacher,” Tennyson said.

“We’re not sharing anything,” Faraday said. “We’re just going along for the ride for a while until they let us go.”

The dog smelled Faraday and looked up at him, and Faraday kneeled down and gave the dog a good rubbing.

“Where’d this guy come from?”

“He just showed up. No one has come to claim him,” Tennyson said.

“Tell me again why it is they released us?” Turnbull asked.

Faraday briefly recounted the events that had transpired in the underground chamber with Xingu. According to the elder, the depiction on the tapestry of the man in Oushanis was not just a prophecy but historical record, and the bearded man had been a real figure. A seer and a patriarch who had traveled to that land long ago, bringing with him knowledge of planting and building and smithing. Further than that, the Ohlone believed that man would come again and Xingu had long suspected that second coming would occur precisely in the time and place shown in the painting. At Oushanis, when the stars fell from the sky. An inscription had been carved into the rock wall describing the attributes of this mysterious bearded man, and Xingu had read it aloud, translating it into English so Faraday could understand:

“He was endowed with intelligence. He saw and instantly he could see far, he succeeded in seeing, he succeeded in knowing all that there is in the world. When he looked, instantly he saw all around him and he contemplated in turn the arch of heaven and the round face of the earth.”

This description bore an eerie resemblance to what Faraday had experienced before he had met with Xingu, when he had been able to find a way out of the quarry just by wishing for it in his mind. He had told Xingu this and the elder Indian’s eyes had opened up wide. Now Xingu looked on Faraday with some trepidation, for he had never come upon such power as this and had only heard the stories of his ancestors. To Faraday’s surprise, the elder had asked for no proof of the claim. Instead, he had trekked up out of the underground chamber, talking to himself, and urging Faraday to follow him. That very day, Xingu had convinced the chief to release not only Faraday from the quarry, but Tennyson and Turnbull too, and the three of them were given quarters on the edge of the settlement.

But they had not been freed yet. A pair of guards watched over them day and night while they waited. Xingu had explained it: if he could show that Faraday was the man from the tapestry, come again in some way, then the chief would free Faraday and his friends.

“You know,” Turnbull said after Faraday had finished explaining the situation to him for the second time, “I stopped asking God for freedom about six months into my captivity. But now that I’m so close, I confess I do desire it. I do, with every ounce of my heart, and if that means we have to indulge these pagans in their idolatry for a moment or two, then so be it.”

“That’s the spirit, Turnbull,” Tennyson said. “By God, I believe they will free us. Is it true what you told them? That you can see things, find things?”

“It happened once.”

“Just once? Have you tried it more than once?”

“No.”

“Well, you ought to try it again.”

That night the chief called the whole tribe together. They assembled around long tables made of wood and covered by the hides of animals. The women brought out pitchers of water and pots of stewed corn and beans and fry bread and whole turkeys and mashed berries and skins filled with fermented drink. The tables formed a circle around a fire. Faraday and the other white men sat at the same table as Moon and Xingu and the chief, and the Indians broke bread with them in peace. More than once, an Indian boy or girl approached Faraday and offered him a gift. A jumble of flowers, or the head of a spear cut out of limestone. Word had begun to spread about him. But still there were a few Indians whose gaze fell on him with hate and anger. Faraday ignored them and ate his fill and more, savoring the food and drinking tiswin until he felt a great elation building up in his head and his spine. And he asked for more and more tiswin until the order came down from the chief himself that Faraday would be served no more of the intoxicating brew.

When Turnbull finished his meal he brought out the wood he had been working on. The shape of a crude cross could already be discerned from it and Turnbull took the knife and dug at the wood, whittling it further. The former preacher leaned into Faraday and smiled. After the meal, the chief drew himself up and addressed the assemblage. He spoke at length in the Ohlone tongue and then handed the floor over to Xingu, who managed to speak for even longer than the chief. Following Xingu, one of the Indians who had been staring angrily at Faraday stood up and offered what sounded like a counterargument against Xingu.

In many ways, the schism between Xingu and his challengers was far more than a mere squabble among doctrinarians. If Faraday was indeed an ancient teacher come again, then the Ohlone had not given him the reverence he was due. If he was not, then the eldest and wisest of the Ohlone was defending a man who had trampled upon sacred ground and deserved his fate. There was a very real sense that the fate of the whole tribe hung in the balance, and the assemblage heard the pronouncements with fear and trembling. After all arguments had been expounded, the chief addressed Xingu directly. He asked the elder something and, after replying, Xingu took Faraday by the arm and presented him to all assembled.

“Show them what you told me you can do. Show them and they will know who you are.”

The first Indian approached Faraday. He had in his hands a small pair of leather pants. A child’s garment.

“This one has lost his child,” Xingu said. “Can you help him?”

Faraday took hold of the small pants and, closing his eyes, tried to do as he had done before. And he did pass into a realm beyond, seeing far into the distant wilderness but also into the hearts and minds of those around him. He saw something like a sliver of light hanging about the pants, some residue of the spirit of the child, and Faraday concentrated on that residue and it led him to the very edge of his consciousness. Then he stopped and found himself enveloped by shadows and he could see no further.

“I cannot help him, Xingu,” Faraday said. “I cannot see far enough.” Xingu explained to the man what had happened and in his place came another Indian. Now a woman who had lost not a child or a person but a ceramic bowl. She explained she had seen it on the windowsill of her sandstone home before it disappeared. Faraday closed his eyes again, and this time his mind took him through the mesa into the homes and the halls until he found the bowl hidden underneath some hay.

“I see it,” Faraday said. “On the westernmost part of the mesa, the third house from the left, covered up by hay.”

The woman set out immediately, a whole contingent of Indians following her, and when she returned bearing the bowl that had been stolen from her, the chief took it in his hand and examined it. Xingu smiled broadly. Then more Indians came and formed a line to speak to Faraday. Each one described to him something they had hidden and he described back to them the precise location of the object. Like some carnival sideshow. And this went on until not a single Ohlone in the whole mesa held any doubt about Faraday’s gift. Satisfied, the chief declared Faraday a free man and the great teacher come again, and to make amends for his time imprisoned, the chief said Faraday could ask for anything he wanted and his desire would be granted. Faraday asked for only one thing: that Turnbull and Tennyson be freed also, and the chief freed him, declaring it so to all those assembled.

The rest of the day Faraday spent with Tennyson and Turnbull, gathering supplies and burdening their horses so they could leave. The Indians pleaded for him to stay, for they believed he had been sent to guide them at the most perilous time, when all of the tribes were threatened by extinction at the hand of the white man. But Faraday said he had to leave, that his family needed his help. Nevertheless, the Ohlone insisted that he stay at least one more night, that his lingering presence could afford them a small measure of protection, and Faraday agreed. It was almost dark anyway and he would not be able to ride for very long until the morning.