At Play in the Fields of the Lord

  It was now known that Moon was under the effects of ayahuasca, and the wonder was that on this rough mud strip, without lights of any kind, he had got into the air at all. Some of the wiser heads told one another that he had feigned the ayahuasca, that he had made off with the plane, leaving the Bearded One to fend for himself. Others stated flatly that under the spell of the Vine of Death, Moon had divined the location of Paititi, the legendary El Dorado, and had gone there, suicidally alone, to add his bones to those of all such jungle visionaries.

  Wolfie, meanwhile, cornered Guzmán, and using Quarrier as his interpreter, demanded the use of the old army fighter as a search plane. Guzmán said that it did not work, and when Wolfie said that he would fix it, the Comandante shrugged. He jeered as Wolfie ran off with tools and gasoline toward the plane on the far side of the strip; it sat in growth up to its fuselage. But soon Wolfie was seen leaping up and down, cranking the prop by hand. The plane did not respond, and the squat figure scrambled back under the cowling and dove down once again into the works. Everyone now dismissed the possibility that the Bearded One could start the plane, which had been famous for its treacherous and ugly disposition, and had not left the ground in more than a year. But an hour later the Bearded One was again swinging violently on the prop, and after a few dreadful coughs the airplane belched a cloud of smoke and came to life with a clatter of outraged metal. Wolfie ran back across the strip, shouting wildly through the black grease on his face. “Gas!” he bellowed at the Comandante. “Gimme some more gas!”

  But Guzmán shook his head. “Mecánico, sí,” he grinned. “Piloto, no.” He could scarcely turn over the property of his government to someone who owed him money.

  “You got my passport, don’t you? Look, I’ll bomb them Indians myself!” Wolfie made war whoops by patting his open mouth, then made violent bombing motions.

  The Comandante was amused. He laughed: “Ha, ha, ha, ha.”

  “I’m goin to kill this guy,” Wolfie told Quarrier. “I shoulda done it the other night. You tell him to get that crate gassed up and oiled and do it quick, or I’m goin to knife him right here and now in front of all his friends.” Speaking quietly, he kept his gaze on Guzmán’s face, and El Comandante did not wait for the translation. “Pigs!” he shouted at his soldiers, who were standing there half dressed and unarmed, scratching at dirty undershirts. “You dare to come before me out of uniform! You will be punished!” He whirled in fury and singled out his driver. “Mechanic!” He spat violently in contempt. “You saw? The gringo fixed a motor faster than you can wipe my windshield! Now prepare the plane for this true mechanic and do it quickly!” He turned again to Wolfie and bowed slightly from the waist.

  Wolfie grinned into his face, disdainfully. “He’s chicken, ain’t he?” he remarked to Quarrier. “He’s chicken through and through.” He watched as Guzmán’s driver, shouting violent orders in his turn, directed the soldiers toward the drums of gasoline.

  “Maybe he knows the plane isn’t safe,” Quarrier said.

  “That’s what he thinks, all right; look at that miserable face! But there ain’t nothin wrong with that old heap except only maintenance. That’s like what I hate about this lousy continent—no maintenance. Valves stuck, fouled plugs, and every other wire loose, but that’s a good old swingin, practically brand-new American engine. And just as soon as I get rid of them bushmasters and tarantulas and all the other jungle crud which this is prolly layin around the cockpit, the Old Wolf is goin to be air-borne.” He shook his head. “That crazy Moon. He’s pulled plenty of cute tricks, but this one—” He threw his arms wide apart and staggered back, as if stunned by the walls of green. “Where does he want I should start, even, answer me that. And not a lousy chart, even, and somewhere out there on a sand bar on one of them miserable rivers, prolly layin on his ass eatin mangoes, this stupid drugged-up bastard is waitin for his buddy Wolf to come and rescue him. And I can’t even land when I do find him—” He barked with exasperation, but the sound had a slight ring of despair. Wolfie blinked a little, shocked; his face turned red in consternation, as if he were facing the probability that his friend was dead.

  “If I were you, I’d try the Niaruna country first,” Quarrier said.

  “Sure, sure. Like, where is it?”

  “To the east. You were there yesterday.”

  Andy Huben was standing just behind them. “That’s right,” she said. “He was going eastward.” She looked pale and tense.

  “What is all this eastward!” Wolfie yelled. He threw his big hands up and out, summoning the halfbreeds as his witnesses. “The marks all know exactly where he went, and his own pal Wolf didn’t even know that he was goin!”

  Huben hurried over. “Are you cursing at my wife?” he said.

  “So who’s cursin! What I’m tryna find out is how in sweet Christ does she know he headed eastward!”

  Now all three stared at her.

  “He told me.”

  “When did he tell you?” Huben said.

  “Last night—I mean, this morning. Just before he left.”

  “Oy!” Wolfie cried, delighted. “Very good. I musta been sheltered as a yout’ or somethin, I thought you people—” He jerked his thumb at Quarrier, then tossed his chin toward Andy. “First him and that Indian chick, and now it’s her and Lewis—”

  Andy slapped him hard across the face, and her husband came forward in a boxer’s stance, fists up, bobbing and weaving. But the people, moaning, pressed so close that Leslie was restricted in his maneuvers and finally came to a halt. He was red to the point of bursting, and when he spoke, his voice was high with rage.

  “You take that back!”

  “Or else?” Grinning, a bad glint in his eye, Wolfie slowly withdrew his hand from inside his shirt; he raised the hand slowly and pinched at Huben’s face. A moment later, when he withdrew it, there was blood between his thumb and forefinger. Huben paled, and the people gasped. “Big mos-quito,” Wolfie enunciated. He grinned at Quarrier and winked. To Huben he said, “I was only foolin wit’ you, Reverend. Like maybe you’re kind of emotionally upset—I mean, you know, neurotic possessiveness, right, Reverend? Only don’t come prancin around the Old Wolf again like that or you’re liable to get fractured.”

  Andy said, “I heard him leave. You were asleep. I thought he was on his way to bomb and kill. I ran after him and begged him not to attack the Niaruna.” She turned toward her husband. “He promised he wouldn’t.”

  “Promised!” Huben shook, in a fury of emotions. “What were you wearing?”

  Quarrier said quickly, “Did he say anything else?”

  “He said some other things. I’m not sure I understood them.”

  Her husband seized her by the arm. “Come on, Andy, we’re going back to the hotel.”

  “Well, you accomplished what we couldn’t,” Quarrier called after her. Without turning, Andy raised her hand in a small fluttering wave, and both Quarrier and Wolfie laughed. “She’s a swinger, ain’t she?” Wolfie said. But Leslie took their laughter as directed at himself, and glared over his shoulder. At this, Wolfie snarled and cursed, but a moment later he had forgotten all about the Hubens and was worrying once more about his partner.

  “Eastward, huh?” He rolled his eyes. “Eastward, the man says,” He waved his arm in a half-circle. “You can’t miss it, right?” He slammed his big fist into his other hand. “Well, nuts to that. I’ll get him out all right, one way or another—all I gotta do is find him. Lewis and me, we been in trouble worse than this, a lot worse.”

  Wolfie flew out an hour later, after going back to the hotel for his pistol, which he wore strapped to his hip. “So what’s it to ya,” he said to Huben, who, standing in the hotel doorway, had glanced at the weapon in disdain. “You think it’s some kind of a sex symbol, or what? Maybe I wanna shoot myself a vulture.”

  The crowd at the airstrip cheered El Lobo as he tuned the motor—“Ole! Muy macho, hombre!”—saluting the beard and the gold earring, the mechanical ge
nius and the revolver. It was commonly assumed, and confirmed by the infernal clatter of the engine, that El Lobo would disappear in the wake of Moon and die a hero’s death before the sun had set.

  “Introit et Kyrie …”

  Quarrier turned. Here was the priest again; he had not even noticed him. Xantes was everywhere, hands folded behind his back, observing.

  “So … the Requiem commences. Inevitable, eh? And I, for one, will miss him. Such a strange man, this Moon! A soldier of fortune, and of the classic type, and yet—how shall I say? There was something likable about the man, did you not find?”

  “He’s dead, you mean?”

  “Do you not think so?” Xantes cocked his head. “Y usted? I understand that you are a student, like myself. You have read all the laws of this land, for example—?”

  Quarrier laughed; they walked on a little way together. “Oh yes, I love to read. I wish I could read Spanish well enough to borrow—” He stopped short.

  “By all means; one must do what one can to help dispel ignorance.”

  Quarrier knew that he was being jeered at, and he particularly disliked being jeered at in a kindly manner. But the priest was too adroit for him, and he exclaimed, “But why are you sympathetic to Moon! These men are mercenaries, very probably criminals …”

  “How is it, then, that we pass so much of our time in talk of him? Do you deny it? If he is the ordinary bandit he appears to be, why can we not dismiss him? Surely you have noticed, Señor Quarrier, that the people we dismiss most vehemently are the very ones we find it necessary to dismiss most often? And let us be honest, it is not the banditry of the late Moon that so unsettles us. We all sit up, we call old names at him; we cannot be comfortable while he is there. Yet we circle in uneasily—what is his secret, what does this man wish to know that we do not?” He paused to cough. “And now, alas, he is gone away, and with him some sort of—possibility? For all of us.” Xantes smiled, bowed, and set out toward the town.

  “What is it you want with me?” Quarrier called, despairing, and the priest turned toward him, his brown cassock snapping in the dull wind of the airstrip.

  “I would talk to you, Señor Quarrier, even if I had no better reason than the following: I have learned all of my English out of books, and I speak it very well, do you not think? But I have not many chances to practice it, and so I avail myself of every opportunity of … communication?” He smiled gaily and bowed again. “Good day, señor.”

  WOLFIE was back while the sun was still high, careening down to a bad landing, out of gas; he took off a second time as soon as he had refueled. He left again at dawn the following morning and flew until dark, and he did this again on the following day, the same day that Hazel Quarrier, without warning or note, without even packing a bag, took Billy on the commercial flight and fled back across the mountains.

  On the next flight, two days later, Quarrier flew out to fetch her. She and Billy were waiting for him on a bench at the main airport. Her plan, such as it was, had been to return to North Dakota, but she had neither luggage nor sufficient funds, nor had she applied to anyone for help. She had simply sat there in her foolish hat, as if awaiting divine intervention.

  Billy, sensing something to be feared in her, sat at the far end of the bench. Quarrier picked up the silent child and touched Hazel’s shoulder, saying, “Now come on, Mother, we’re going back.” She rose without a word and followed him. Later she said, “Well, I had a hot bath, Martin. Oh, I needed that bath so.” In the plane he kept looking at her—had he ever really looked at her before this moment?

  At the airstrip in Madre de Dios, Wolfie was preparing to fly out again for the second time that day. He looked tired and gaunt, and did not respond to Quarrier’s nod. He seemed to feel that if he did not find his partner soon he would not find him at all. All his movements had grown stiff and hurried, and he kept dropping things. But to Hazel he muttered, “I’ll tell ya somethin, lady—if I ever ex-cape from this Christly jungle the way you did, they won’t get me back, never.”

  Hazel did not answer him. For the benefit of Huben, who had met them at the plane, she hung her head; at the same time she was smiling to herself, for she felt no shame at all. She was playing the game that they required of her—displaying a seemly penitence, yet dealing firmly with the little boy in proof of renewed stability. When the child shied from her, she seized his hand in warning. Only he, who had gone with her, knew her secret: she had not come back! She had found a glass sphere full of sun and flowers sailing high above the fair, and all this world beneath was a world of games.

  The child watched her.

  No, she thought, and she squeezed his hand so fervently that he squeaked in pain: I loved you in that other time, and I love you still. She peered close into his eyes and saw his tears; the sphere burst, the air rushed in, and a terrible mixed joy and sorrow overcame her. What would folks think! She pulled herself together and set off after Martin and Leslie, still squeezing Billy’s hand. “Oh I’m so sorry,” she implored Billy. “Oh don’t look at me that way, I beg of you!”

  She hurried onward, struggling to keep up. But she felt nagged and pulled by some outward force which kept her off balance and stumbling. Billy was yanking at her hand, desperate to free himself, and was filling the air with loud and nerve-shearing protest; now the random clatter of his words fell into place. For some time he had sought permission to walk along by himself, and had only cried out when, distracted and oppressed, she had squeezed his hand all the more fiercely. She was about to comfort him when Billy fetched her a kick in the shins. He had never done such a thing in all his life; and because the people behind her were sniggering, because Martin and Leslie Huben were gazing back at her in perplexity—because, finally, she could not permit an eight-year-old this outrage even if he was in the right, she smacked him across the face.

  In the silence that followed, while she gasped for breath, Billy stared at her, his eyes filling. It would have been better if he had cried, but he only shook his head back and forth in condemnation, saying, “Boy, Ma, that’s not fair. Boy, Ma!” She slackened her grip, feeling very weak; coldly, he yanked his hand from hers and went forward to join his father. Over his shoulder he said, “You were hurting me. You hurt me.”

  Martin said to him, “If I ever see you do that to your mother again, you’re going to get the hiding of a lifetime.” But as he spoke he gazed reflectively at Hazel; when he turned around he placed his hand on his son’s shoulder and they went on again as if she were not there. She fell far back, to make them feel bad—had they already forgotten that she was sick, that she needed love and care?

  No, I can’t bear it—She suppressed a scream. Folks always turned their backs to her, they always pretended she did not exist. Wait for me, she groaned, oh for pity’s sake wait.

  Alone! She was alone—they’d left a sick person to walk alone! Whimpering, she picked up her skirt as Momma used to, crossing the barnyard in the rain; she began to run, crying and laughing at her own fright, at the big frightened white knees pumping along. But there, the folks had stopped, and seeing their stern faces, she hastened to compose herself. “Goodness, wait for me!” she called out gaily, as if she were carrying the picnic basket. Their silence was awkward—did they think her too forward? She tried again, gasping in pain. “Goodness, I forgot about that smell,” she sighed, twirling a little. “This is surely the domain of Satan, Mr. Huben, I can smell sulphur in the very air!” Leslie cried out, “Why, that vomit smell, that’s the sawmill, Hazel, you remember that! Why heck, you won’t hardly call that a smell at all once you smell Remate de Males! ‘Culmination of Evils’! How’s that for the name of a town?”

  Awaiting her reaction, young Mr. Huben glanced uneasily at Mr. Quarrier. Their uncertainty gave her a grip on herself—she would confound them. “I reckon it’s as good a name as any,” she said primly, “in this neck of the woods.” Now Martin Quarrier laughed boisterously in relief, this coarse-looking fellow who imagined that he understood wh
at he was pleased to call Miss Hazel’s “quirky” sense of humor. But she had not fooled that child. He kept his distance, walking backward, as if skirting some ominous beast. They almost nodded at each other. I know, his face said. You have gone away again. You have forsaken us.

  YOYO had been sent to contact the Niaruna; he returned a week later with word that the plane had crashed and that Lewis Moon was dead. How had he died? Yoyo shrugged and smiled. He knew no more.

  Wolfie, once he had understood—“What’s he sayin, c’mon, what’s he sayin?”—picked Yoyo off the ground and shook him like a rat. “Since when don’t a bush pilot follow the rivers? Huh? And if he piled up along the rivers, I woulda found him—I seen every lousy river from here to Bolivia and halfway across Brazil. So where’s the aircraft, huh? Where—is—the—aircraft?”

  But Yoyo did not answer, not out of recalcitrance but because he spoke no English; instead he smiled enthusiastically. Though of neither an enthusiastic nor a smiling turn of mind, he had learned early in the game that gringos—and especially the evangélicos—responded favorably to eagerness of any kind. When Wolfie’s question was translated for him, he smiled again. It was true that he, Yoyo, had not seen the wreckage; it was far off—he pointed vaguely eastward. The plane, he said, had disappeared in the far country of the Yuri Maha, the People to the East. The Yuri Maha, he explained, were of the same clans as the Niaruna, but now nobody went that way; the trails were lost.

  Wolfie lowered him to the ground, but he kept his big hands clenched for a few moments on the front of the red shirt, glaring at Yoyo and breathing harshly, as if considering how best to dispose of him once and for all.

  Leslie talked with Yoyo separately, but made no more headway than had Wolfie with this flexible personality; it seemed quite possible that Yoyo had gone no farther than the Tiro country and had concocted the whole story, making it as dramatic and final as he could in an attempt to please his listeners. Leslie did learn, however, that his own small band of Niaruna was most anxious that he return, as they were under constant threat of violence from their wild brethren and had been forced to take shelter in Remate de Males. A few days later the Hubens flew out to Remate, leaving the Quarriers to wait for the supplies.