What else could they shoot at but the Comète?
The office door of the equipment shed was unlocked, as it often was. Who would steal a bulldozer or a fuel tank? All the small tools were inside lockers of their own.
Inside was deep shadow. I could make out the bulk of the three bulldozers, a pickup truck, two fuel tanks on trailers, a forklift and lots of other heavy equipment—welders and drill presses and things for which I had no name. I went to the bulldozers. One was parked against the back wall.
Perfect.
Climbing into the seat, I reflected that this would not be so difficult. Electric starters had been installed after the war, in place of the old hand cranks. Mostly it was a matter of knowing what to do. Only seven months ago I had driven one of these, though Gomes the road boss hadn’t ever let me use the blade.
I set the clutches for each track, pulling each long handle back and flipping the locking pawls. Then the transmission—left track in reverse, right track also in reverse. Pulled out the choke. Feather still gripped between my fingers, I put my fingers on the cool bakelite knob of the starter switch.
This was it.
I could still go home right now, but once I started the bulldozer, things would be different. They might never be the same for me.
Then I thought of Rodger sweating out his fear in some monk’s cell. Or worse, under torture. The flame-tailed streak of a missile shooting toward the Comète. Papa’s gun.
I wanted my home back. I wanted everything to be normal again.
I flipped the starter switch.
The electric motor groaned and chattered as it kicked the bulldozer’s huge pistons toward life. There was a rattling cough, then the engine caught with a screeching roar. I tugged the accelerator handle, locked its pawl, and let the clutches loose before jumping out of the operator’s seat.
The bulldozer clanked into life, back up to hit the wall of the equipment shed that faced the road. It seemed to pause for a moment as the building’s beams groaned. Glancing up into a shower of dust, I ran for the office. The engine raced until the wall gave way with an explosive bang. I was out the office door at almost the same time as the runaway bulldozer backed its way across a narrow verge of struggling grass and into the road.
The smoking Guardsman was paying attention. I heard him shout, then the jitney started up. The gears ground and the coal of his cigarette jerked twice before the headlights came on and the vehicle shot out from under the Comète’s wing to race across the landing field toward me.
I ran in a wide curve, staying out of the beam of the headlights. It turned out not to matter much—the equipment shed was collapsing with a great screeching of boards and rippling of the corrugated roof. No one would have noticed me anyway.
Panting from exertion, sweating even in the chilly air, I made it to the ladder at the Comète’s door. No time to think now. I scrambled up, pushing through the door.
The feather in my hand caught on something and slipped free. I turned, stifling a scream, to see it flutter in the moonlight before it turned into a brilliant green bird that glowed like a little sun of its own. The bird rose above the landing field and flew toward town, and the mountains far to the west, a plumed Mayan missile.
Someone laid a hand on my arm. I turned to see an old man in a white cotton sleeping gown. He was very small, much shorter than I. His eyes were rheumed with sleep, bags of skin beneath them making him resemble a hound. He had a little black hat he’d apparently just pulled on over his short silver hair, and wore a jeweled gold pectoral cross.
A churchman then, and a wealthy one. Important.
“Can I help you my son?” He had an accent, something from Europe that I did not quite recognize.
“Father,” I gasped, surprised to find my breath suddenly so short. “Pardon me. Lives are in danger. My friend Rodger’s, and your own.”
He glanced out the door at the ruckus around the bulldozer. “Step back here with me, son. We should speak.”
I let him lead me along the red and gold carpet through a narrow door even as outside a machine gun stuttered once more.
The next cabin back within the Comète was a little sitting room of sorts. There were two seats on each side of the door we came through, facing back, and two more on each side of the next door, facing forward. They were oddly padded chairs, not quite like anything I’d ever seen, and both facing sets had a little table-topped cabinet between them. The tabletops were plastic, each with a small frame attached with several holes. This floor was also carpeted in more of the red and gold.
Somehow it was much shoddier and cheaper than I had imagined the inside of an aeroplane to be. Especially an aeroplane as grand as a Papal jet.
The churchman waved me to a seat. He bent down to open a cabinet. He removed two glass tumblers and a wine bottle, then set them in the holes of the little frame before taking the seat across from me.
“You have worked hard to come see me,” he said, pouring out the wine.
I watched, fascinated. I was not permitted wine at home. “Yes…sir.”
“What is your name, my son?”
“Peter.” I was suddenly uncomfortable saying Papa’s name, so I made up a last name. “Peter Fitzpatrick, of St. Cipriano’s parish here in New Albion.”
“Well, Peter Fitzpatrick, you may call me Father Kramer.” Father Kramer, who was certainly a bishop or even a cardinal, handed me a glass. “Drink. You must relax. Please excuse the poor service, we have no way to secure proper snifters aboard this infernal craft.”
I took a tiny sip, as I had seen Papa do when he drank. The wine left a mellow, golden taste in my mouth.
“Thank you, Father Kramer.”
“You are welcome, my son.” He sipped at his glass. “So tell me of this danger.”
“I— there are new priests here in town. False priests, Father.” I would not repeat Mama’s rumor that they were Jesuits. “They have taken the monastery. Our Lady of American Sorrows?”
Father Kramer nodded. “I am aware of the establishment. As for the new priests…” He shrugged and smiled. “The Cistercian Father Superior doubtless knows what he is about.”
“The newcomers killed a priest there. And there are missiles, for your aeroplane.”
“Ah.” He set his glass down in the holder and leaned forward. “Dead priests. Missiles. Peter, Peter, my young friend. You have been reading too many of those dreadful Boy’s Own adventures.”
“I saw the body,” I protested. After all I had been through to see him, how could he think I was lying? Father Kramer’s doubt brought the sting of shame to my eyes. “The dead man was down at the river this afternoon. And the missiles, tonight, also at the river. These false priests have my friend Rodger imprisoned in Our Lady of American Sorrows.”
“Ah.” Father Kramer tapped his glass for a moment before raising his voice. “Lugano, venite qui. Li ho bisogno di fare qualcosa. “
Though I understood none of that, it sounded like the Latin of Mass, I thought as the door at the back of the little cabin opened. An enormous man in an undershirt and brown wool pants stepped out. He looked sleepy, except for his eyes which were bright like gems, and the pistol he carried. It would have been a huge gun for anyone but him, but it seemed lost in his large fist.
I felt as if I had reached for an egg and grabbed a snake.
“Che cosa, signore?“ Lugano said. His voice rumbled like our river in flood.
“Blocchi questo giù sotto.” Father Kramer smiled at me, his lips pressed thin and pale. “Rimarrà là fino a che non dica liberarlo.”
Lugano stepped toward me, that gun staring me down like the eye of a dog. There was nothing I could do.
What did this mean?
“Venite,” Lugano rumbled at me. “You come-a.” The pistol cracked against the side of my head.
“Non ci è necessità di danneggiarlo, “ snapped Father Kramer.
Then Lugano tried to smile, which was almost more frightening. He dragged me back through
the next door, through an unlit cabin with more seats set closer together, then past a few tiny doors until we must have been near the back of the aeroplane. There were several trapdoors set into the carpeting. Letting go my arm, Lugano opened the one closest to the back. He then poked me with the pistol. “Sotto. You down-a.”
Down-a I went. He slammed the hatch shut, leaving me in the dark in a small metal-walled space that was empty of anything but me. Blood trickled down my right temple where Lugano had struck me with the pistol. I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life. All I could think of was the jet taking off from the landing field with me still in this little room. In my imagination, missiles rose from the riverbed on tails of flame to seek my life.
I shuddered with fear, fighting tears of pain, until somehow I fell asleep.
A clatter woke me up from a confused dream of the sacbe and the Mayan sorcerer and a flame-tailed missile that resembled a brilliant green bird. I blinked into a square of light above, partially blocked by a shadow that could only be Lugano.
Mama will be so ashamed of me. The thought seemed important and irrelevant all at once.
“Affamato?“ he rumbled.
I decided the language must be Italian. No one spoke Latin but priests, and Lugano was no priest.
The big man tried again. “Ah, you ah eat, yes? Mangia.”
“Mangia,” I croaked. I was starving. More, I was thirsty. “Water, too. Please.”
“Si.” Though he was mostly shadow to my blinking eyes, I could see the gleam of his teeth. “Catch-ah.”
A sack fell, hitting me on the head before bouncing to the floor.
“Desiderate le sigarette? “
Cigarette? I didn’t smoke, but matches might help me better see where I was. “Yes, please,”
He tossed a cigarette pack and book of matches down at me, then leaned over with something. A glass bottle, I realized. I stood to take it from him, and discovered my little prison was no taller than I.
Once standing, I could see Lugano more clearly. He got to his feet and winked at me, then gently shoved the toe of his shoe into my forehead before slamming the hatch again.
It would have caught me on the head if he hadn’t pushed me back down. I never imagined I’d be grateful to a man who held a gun to me.
Guns.
Papa.
Would he know where I was now? How would he find out? Father Kramer wouldn’t think to tell Papa as I had given a false name. Rodger was in more trouble than I, and would be no help. No one else knew where I was except Lugano.
I had no doubts where Lugano’s loyalty lay.
To take my mind from my troubles, I worked the cap from the glass bottle. I could not read the label in the dark. I would not waste matches on that. It hissed as it opened. I sipped to find mineral water. The sack contained two sausages and a small fruit with a nubbly rind, which turned out to be a lime when I tore the skin open. I ate everything but drank only half the mineral water.
Then I moved my hands around on the floor of my little compartment until I found the cigarettes and the matches. The pack rustled in my hand. It had been opened. I sniffed. The sharp, brownish-bitter smell of tobacco, but lighter and sweeter than Papa’s Gauloises. I felt the rough heads of the matches. The matchbook seemed new.
I had already realized that no one was going to rescue me from here. I did not want to depend on Father Kramer’s kindness. His Christian charity had been notably lacking when he’d had Lugano put me down here.
And why had he? Father Kramer knew about the missiles. He knew, and he didn’t want me to know. Why would he plan to shoot down his own aeroplane?
Unless another aeroplane was coming. Surely not the Friday flight from Teixeira. That was due…I had to think. Tomorrow. The gooneybird would come tomorrow, with a few coffee factors or traveling priests or maybe even a confused tourist aboard. Who would care about them?
But another Papal aeroplane, maybe even another Comète. There would be death, and scandal. Armies would come to New Albion again, as they had during the Second Great War. We would be made part of Nouveau Orleans or British Miskitia. Papa would be sacked and Rodger and I would be made to fight. I couldn’t—
I stopped myself. I could not know those things. I could know that Father Kramer knew of the missiles. I could know that he did not seem concerned for his own safety. Whatever plot was afoot was, in part, his doing.
And here I was, knowing where the missiles were, or at least where they had come from and where they had been last night. Papa or the Civil Guard could find the missiles, if only I told them. The ministerial junta at the Civil Palace could negotiate with Father Kramer, have him take his crime away to some other city. If only I told them.
Time to light the first match and look for a way out.
It struck easily and flared to life. The whiff of sulfur made my nose tingle even as I squinted against the brilliant glare. I was in a metal box, which I had already known from the feel of the things. The walls were seamed as if it had been welded from the other side. Any seam could be a secret door, but who would put a secret door in an aeroplane?
The match burned down to my fingers as I looked around. My prison was a little less than two meters high, just about as wide, and meter deep. I was going nowhere.
Shaking the last of the match out, I blew on my fingers to cool them where the flame had come too close. Soon enough nature would call. Especially if Lugano kept feeding me. That would be unpleasant in such a small place. After that, what else? Sit in the dark waiting for the missile?
I wished I’d kept the feather. Being invisible would not help me much in the dark, but while I was invisible, I had been special. Different. I had a sort of power.
Then I remembered the jade pipe in my pocket.
It still had the Mayan’s herbs packed beneath the creosote leaves. I half stood so I could reach in my pants pocket and tug it out. The pipe was small and cool, its rounded edges comfortable in my hand. It was if the Mayan had carved the jade just for me.
I sat down again cross-legged like a tailor and tried to thread the needle of my thoughts.
What had happened on the sacbe? We met someone, for I had held the feather and still possessed the pipe. But the sorcerer had vanished like smoke, while Rodger and I were in more trouble than we’d ever imagined in our entire lives.
Our Lady of American Sorrows indeed. I was only learning what sorrows we Americans could have.
I didn’t smoke. I especially didn’t smoke herbs from some native’s mountain temple. The thought was enough to make my skin itch. But where had he gone? What if the smoke was a kind of…a kind of, well, road.
Like the sacbe. An ancient, hidden road of the mind, instead of a goat track through the hills.
Carefully holding the pipe I tugged the creosote leaves free. I didn’t want to spill the herbs. They were contaminated enough from the dust of the road. Whatever power they held might already be lost.
I set the pipe down on my thigh and struck a match. In the stinking flare, I noticed that the matchbook cover had a green rooster on it, with the name of some tavern. I took the green bird to be a good sign and picked the pipe up again. I had never smoked, but almost every adult in New Albion did. I had seen hundreds of pipes being lit.
Hold the match close. Take a gentle drag, pull the pipe away, exhale. Had the herbs caught? One more time with the match. Smoke came with that breath, almost choking me, but it was that sweet, cloying smoke that had wreathed the Mayan sorcerer’s head back on the sacbe. It tasted…well, not good. Right, maybe.
Cautiously, I puffed again. My throat tickled, kept trying to cough, even as my nose started to run, but I inhaled the smoke. I didn’t know what I was expecting—stone dragons, or an army of little men with jade swords. What I got was a lungful of smoke that almost made me cough all over again.
I bent over wheezing, trying not to joggle the pipe too much. I heard a flutter. As I turned to look I thought I saw a trace of green in the darkness of my little
cell. Had the Mayan’s bird flown by?
Another puff. Then another.
I smoked the pipe down to nothing. It did little but irritate my lungs. I looked at the little jade oblong, visible in the faint green light that filled my cell. It was nothing but a toy.
Why had I placed my faith in a nameless sorcerer? I’d never been invisible, just foolish. No one had met us on the sacbe except in a fevered dream.
Then I tried to close my eyes and rest.
There was another place on the other side of my eyes. I was still in my little metal cell aboard the Comète, but the walls around me were no more than a green fog. It was little different from my idea about the sacbe of the spirit. Everywhere I looked the world stretched before me like an open road.
The pipe had been no toy. I should be frightened, but that was not within me at that moment.
Above me and a little bit forward, I could see a soft green glow that I knew was the heart of Lugano. A hard glint hovered nearby. His pistol. Forward of that, in the next cabin that I could see three more hearts: Father Kramer and two men that seemed familiar.
The false priests from the truck with the missiles.
Somehow, they were together, Father Kramer and these men who sought to shoot down his aeroplane. Who was betraying whom?
They were all crazed, I decided, mad for power or God or the beauty of their weapons. Turning away from them, I looked further along the spirit road with my new eyes.
Southwest, away from the river and into New Albion, it was as if I watched fireflies in the spring. A whole city full of soft hearts and hard weapons, from the shanties by the river all the way up to the big houses on the tops of the hills well above our family’s home. With that thought, I could see Mama in our house on Rondo Street. Then I spotted Father Lavigne, and Rodger’s parents and his little sister, and down in his office by the river, Papa with his pistol at his side.
North of the river were tiny glows, the field mice and foxes of the scrubland, mixed with the larger, slower hearts of the goats and cattle that ranged there.