CHAPTER 41 - THE BURNING
Meanwhile, Ramon determined to make another uninvited visit to the zombie masters. Without stopping to collect Joseph, he crossed the Haitian border and drove the same roads as before, but try as he might, the last turnoff eluded him. Back and forth he tracked, trying to find the narrow, dirt path that led to René's hut.
At one point, he thought he'd found the hut and exited the car. No pot simmered in the front yard. People came out to greet him, but it wasn't the zombie makers; it was a family of Haitians. Ramon pushed past these people and entered the hut to find nothing was as he expected. There was no altar. No skulls or bones. No feathers or gourds. No soul-containing glass jars.
Angry and frustrated, the intruder returned to his car. Tires squealed as he tore away to resume his search. By now, he couldn't even remember René's name and, in the end, he had to admit defeat. My time would be better spent, he thought, training the most promising Rosalinda. He turned the car around and began the long drive back, not realizing the police were speeding to the same destination.
Well before reaching the hut, the police stopped and parked their cars out of sight. Hoping to catch Ramon by surprise, they crept the rest of the way on foot. Maria struggled to keep up with them. The investigator reached the hut first and peered in through the window. Staring hard through the darkness, he made out three figures lying, unmoving, on the floor. As he watched, one whimpered softly. It was a woman! And she appeared to be bound.
He ordered his men inside. The first man who tried to enter jumped back as if he'd been scalded. Those following him fell to the side. A dead something had been adorned with feathers and hung in the doorway.
"Don't touch it!" the investigator ordered.
His men decided to enter, instead, through the window. One of them lit the candles and they saw the shapes more clearly. The first, a black woman, a Haitian, in a print shift and matching headwrap. She wore sunglasses and sat on a mat, one ankle tethered to a stake set in the ground. The second, a young, brown girl lay beside the first figure, a cloud of dark curls covering her face, naked, save for dainty, white shoes and the cords binding her wrists and ankles. The third, slumped against the wall, was a young, brown man, who stared straight ahead, still dressed in soiled, wedding finery, and he was similarly bound.
"My children! They are alive!"
Maria pushed the staring rescuers aside and bent beside Rosalinda. She began fumbling at her daughter's bonds and motioned to the men to untie Luis.
"Bring me her dress! The one over there. And the umbrella, too."
They helped Maria slip Rosalinda into the dress, but the undergarments were nowhere to be found. The police half-carried, half-dragged the unprotesting Luis to the second car and sat him inside. And it was the investigator, himself, who carried the delicate Rosalinda out in his arms. He would have put her inside with Maria, but Maria held back.
"My brother will destroy you! I am the only one who can stop him. You must let me search!"
Her plea was interrupted by the hut bursting into flame. The last man out was screaming, running for his life. "A zombie! The other one! I saw her eyes! She was a zombie!" And he'd kicked over the candles in his fright. The investigator started back to save the woman, but the man held him fast. "She is a zombie, I tell you! Let her burn!"
"The fire is out of control," the investigator said. "It no longer matters who that woman was. She is dead now. We will start back!"
"No!" insisted Maria. "His power is still here and he will use it against us for violating his secret place and removing his victims!"
"Anything inside that hut is burning," countered the investigator.
"Not inside the hut! He would have buried it somewhere nearby. You must give me time to find this source or all of us are as good as dead!"
The investigator stared at her. He had a wife and children. "How long will this take?"
"The sooner I begin looking, the sooner I will find it!"
Maria turned and walked in the direction of the flames. "We are one, you and I," she whispered. "You are my power, not his! I am here to claim my power!" As she spoke, her feet seemed to be pulled in another direction. She followed the invisible lead, allowing it to guide her in the direction of the water. Now her feet were drawn to the right.
Maria dropped to her knees and began digging with her hands. Hard going! She picked up a broken branch and attacked the earth, panting with the effort. It has to be here, she thought. And so it was. Twelve inches down, carefully wrapped against decay, was her inheritance. She withdrew the book and hugged it to her.
United at last!
Maria, as a practicing Catholic, no longer wished to be as powerful a Santera as her mother. But it was unthinkable to risk the book falling back into Ramon's hands or letting anyone else corrupt its power. There was only one thing she could do.
Maria carried the book back to the blazing hut. Murmuring apologies to her mother's memory and to the orishas of her former religion, she consigned the book to the flames. As she stood watching it burn, a policeman picked up a paper from the grass. He handed it to her. "Fallen out of the book," he said.
Maria read the paper in disbelief. According to this, Ramon now owned Jacob's hotel. This can't be right, she thought. Jacob has always been so good to us. And he'd never sell his beloved hotel. Then she realized, Jacob had been just another one of Ramon's victims. Let the old man keep his hotel, she thought, balling up the paper and throwing it into the fire. With this accomplished, she returned to the waiting cars.
"My brother can no longer harm us. Please take my family home." The investigator shook his head. "These children need a doctor," he said. "We have no doctor in Cristo. We must go to the clinic in Santiago." They drove back to the main road and several minutes later passed a car traveling in the opposite direction.
Ramon, meanwhile, was angry and confused by his inability to locate René’s hut and obtain a fresh supply of zombie powder. At least he’d enjoyed Rosalinda and hadn’t found it necessary to damage her too badly. Entertaining the girl had taken all his attention and he realized, with a start, that the need to satisfy the Baka was only two days away. There was still enough powder to keep Luis docile until then. He’d pack up his nephew and head for Liberte early in the morning. The sacrifice could be performed after dark.
Ramon passed two cars coming from the opposite direction. They were going so fast, they nearly ran him off the road. Ramon's curses gave way to angry honking.
Then he saw the flames.
Fearful of what he would find, he stepped on the gas and raced toward the hut. As he drew closer, he could see it clearly.
My hut is burning!
Everything inside will be lost!
Ramon screeched to a stop and jumped out, leaving the car door open and the headlights on. Even as he ran toward the flames, he knew it was too late. There was only one thing he could do now. He must take the book and make a fresh start. The little sorcerer ran to the burial site and found the earth freshly overturned and the book gone. But, he thought, only Maria could have taken it. And then the truth struck home.
They were on to him!
He was being hunted!
His power was gone.
His hut and possessions were gone.
Rosalinda was gone.
Luis was gone.
And he still couldn't remember where he'd left the black stone.
There was no way he’d find another sacrifice in time. When the deadline came and went, the Baka would come for him. There was no hope of escape. He shrieked in despair. It was Maria who’d brought this on him! He determined to make her pay! And Jose! And those Americans at the hotel! There was enough powder stashed in his hotel room to take care of them all.
Ramon jumped back into the car and headed for Las Naranjas. Exercising his usual caution, he hid the car behind a canopy of leaves. By the time he arrived at the hotel, the lobby was empty and Joseph was nowhere to be found. Ramon entered his suite and fell face down on the bed w
ithout removing his shoes. Exhausted from the long, fruitless drive and an even worse homecoming, he drifted into a sound sleep.
And this is how the most-wanted man in Hispaniola spent the night in his hotel suite without anyone being the wiser.