House Of The Scorpion

  Matt helped Chacho climb down a metal ladder into the tank. Even with the old water flushed out, it reeked of rotten shrimp. Matt thought he’d throw up, except he didn’t have anything to throw up. At least he wouldn’t get hungry on the way.

  Chacho fell asleep on the damp floor, but Matt climbed up the ladder and faced into the breeze.

  Five miles an hour! Matt saw he’d been wildly optimistic. Fidelito could have skipped faster than the shrimp harvester moved. Ton-Ton had to maneuver around rocks and away from holes. Several times the machine threatened to tip over, but it ground on relentlessly and righted itself.

  They went north around the vast basin of bones, and then west. The soil was littered with boulders, the spaces between with deep sand, where the harvester wallowed and complained before struggling on. Finally, they arrived at the fence and TonTon halted. “Everyone out,” he announced.

  He had to help Matt pull Chacho from the tank. Chacho was too weak to stand. With Fidelito dancing attendance, they carried him to a soft patch of sand. “Stay here,” Ton-Ton told Fidelito. “I mean it. If I, uh, catch you near the harvester, I’ll, uh, beat the stuffing out of you.”

  “He wouldn’t really,” whispered Fidelito as the older boy strode away.

  “What about the Keepers?” Matt said. “Isn’t he afraid they’U catch us?”

  “Not a chance!” Fidelito wriggled with excitement. “They’re locked up in their compound. The doors and windows are covered with bags of salt—mountains and mountains of salt! All the boys helped.”

  “Didn’t the Keepers try to stop them?”

  “They were asleep,” Fidelito said. “Ton-Ton said they wouldn’t wake up no matter how much noise we made.”

  Matt had a bad feeling about this, but he was too startled by what Ton-Ton was doing now to ask more questions. The boy had clamped the jaws of the shrimp harvester on to a single wire in the fence. He backed up slowly, pulling the wire with a horrible, grinding, screeching noise until snap! The wire parted. Ton-Ton attacked another wire, and another. The more he broke, the easier it was to unthread the fence, and soon he’d created a hole big enough to drive through.

  Matt watched the top of the fence anxiously. The one wire they had to worry about was still up there, snapping and humming in the breeze. As long as Ton-Ton didn’t disturb its insulation, they would be safe.

  “How do you feel?” Matt asked Chacho.

  “I don’t know,” said the boy in a faint voice. “I’m not sure what’s wrong. I tried to reach you last night, but the bones came down so hard, I could hardly breathe. It was like being squeezed under a rock.” He paused, seeming too weak to go on.

  “Does your chest hurt?” said Matt. Now he understood why Chacho had never answered him.

  “A bit. But I don’t think I broke anything. Its just… I can’t seem to get enough air.”

  “Don’t talk,” Matt said. “We’ll take you to a doctor as soon as we get to San Luis.” He was deeply worried, but he didn’t understand what was wrong either.

  Ton-Ton drove through the opening he’d created and helped Matt carry Chacho to the tank. The next part of the trip was much better. A road paralleled the fence, and the shrimp harvester was able to move much faster. Now and then Ton-Ton stopped to stretch his legs and to let Fidelito run off some of his energy. “If you, uh, jump up and down on my seat one more time, I’m going to, uh, beat the stuffing out of you,” he growled. The little boy quieted down for a minute or two.

  All of them drank strawberry sodas. Ton-Ton had a crate of them in the cab. He took a break for lunch, producing wonderful food the likes of which Chacho and Fidelito had never seen. They ate pepperoni sausages and cheese, bottled olives, and cream crackers. And if the food made them thirsty, it didn’t matter because they had more strawberry soda than they could drink. They finished with chocolates wrapped in gold paper.

  “I’m so happy, I could fly,” Fidelito said with a contented sigh.

  Matt worried about the slow, leisurely trip they were taking. “Aren’t you afraid the Keepers will dig their way out?” he asked Ton-Ton.

  “I told him about the salt bags,” said Fidelito.

  “They, uh, they’re asleep,” said the older boy.

  “Not after all this time,” Matt said. “Unless—Oh, Ton-Ton! You didn’t give them laudanum?”

  “They earned it,” he said, in the same dogged way he’d defended them in the infirmary.

  “How much?”

  “Enough,” said Ton-Ton. Matt could see he wasn’t going to supply any more information.

  “It was wonderful!” Fidelito piped up. “Ton-Ton told us we were going to rescue you, only we had to wait for sunrise.”

  “The harvester works on, uh, solar energy,” said Ton-Ton.

  “So Flaco checked to be sure the Keepers were really asleep. He and the others carried off their food, and then they piled as many bags of salt around the building as they could find. Flaco said he’d wait for the supply hovercraft to fly him to the Keepers’ Head—Head—”

  “Headquarters,” said Ton-Ton.

  “Yes! And tell them what Jorge did.”

  “Flaco trusts Headquarters. I don’t,” said Ton-Ton.

  “Me neither,” murmured Chacho. He was propped against the side of the harvester with a bottle of soda. He seemed barely awake.

  “Maybe we should hurry,” Matt said, looking at Chacho.

  “Yes,” Ton-Ton agreed.

  And so the shrimp harvester ground on until it reached the corner where the fence turned right. The road continued north toward a low range of hills. To the left lay the remnants of the Gulf of California, but presently it vanished and was replaced with drifting sand. Whiffs of foul-smelling air drifted over the harvester. It was the same smell Matt had met in the wastelands near the eejit pens, only here it was sharper and more alarming.

  The sun was low in the west. Shadows began to lengthen across the desert. The shrimp harvester slowly climbed the road through the hills, but when it came to a pass, where the road was entirely in shadow, it stopped. “That’s it,” said Ton-Ton, jumping from the cab. “That’s as far as it will go until dawn.”

  Matt helped him lift Chacho from the tank. They laid him next to the road, wrapped in blankets Ton-Ton had brought. He and Matt walked to the end of the pass and hunkered down, watching the sun slide into a violet haze. “How much farther is San Luis?” asked Matt.

  “Three miles. Maybe four,” said Ton-Ton. “We have to cross the Colorado River.”

  “I don’t think Chacho can wait until morning.”

  Ton-Ton continued to gaze at the disappearing sun. It was hard to tell what was going through his mind. “I, uh, I followed my parents into Dreamland over there.” He pointed at the haze. “Jorge saved me from the dogs. I thought he was—he was … wonderful. But he only thought I was stupid.” Ton-Ton put his head down.

  Matt guessed he was crying, and he didn’t want to embarrass him by noticing. “Something like that happened to me,” Matt said at last.

  “It did?” said Ton-Ton.

  “Someone I cared about more than anyone in the world tried to kill me.”

  “Wow!” said Ton-Ton. “That’s really bad.”

  They said nothing for a while. Matt could hear Fidelito telling Chacho how much fun it was to camp out under the stars and how he used to do it with his abuelita after the hurricane blew away their house.

  “I guess you and, uh, Fidelito had better walk to San Luis,” said Ton-Ton. “If you can find a doctor, bring him here. If you haven’t, uh, returned by dawn, I’ll go on.”

  Ton-Ton gave Matt and Fidelito flashlights. He supplied them with blankets to ward off the cold and lemons to survive the smell. “The Colorado River’s b-bad,” he said. “It goes into, uh, a pipe before it gets to the road, but it’s still dangerous. Stay away from it, Fidelito,” he warned. “Pay attention, or I’ll, uh—”

  “Beat the stuffing out of me,” the little boy said cheerfully.

&nbs
p; “I mean it this time,” said Ton-Ton.

  35

  EL DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS

  The walk downhill was easy, but Matt found he had to stop and rest frequently. He ached all over from his ordeal the night before, and some of his scratches were infected. He looked back to see Ton-Ton watching gravely from shadows at the top of the pass. The snout of the shrimp harvester was just visible.

  Fidelito bounced up and down, waving the flashlight. “Do you think he can see me?”

  “I’m sure he can,” said Matt. Sometimes Fidelito’s energy made him feel tired.

  They went on, with Fidelito asking questions about who they were going to see. Matt told him about María and the Convent of Santa Clara. He didn’t know what the convent looked like, but he made up a description to entertain the little boy. “It’s a castle on a hill,” he said. “It has a tower with a red roof on each corner. Every morning the girls raise a flag in the garden.”

  “Like the Keepers,” said Fidelito.

  “Yes,” said Matt. Every morning the Keepers lined up the boys and raised a flag with the emblem of a beehive over the factory. The boys recited the Five Principles of Good Citizenship and the Four Attitudes Leading to Right-Mindfulness before trooping into the cafeteria for plankton gruel. “This flag has a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The girls sing‘Buenos Días, Paloma Blanca,’ her favorite song, and then they have toast and honey for breakfast.”

  Fidelito sighed.

  Matt wondered whether the Keepers had managed to wake up from their drugged sleep. Were they all lying dead like poor Furball? And would Ton-Ton be arrested for murder? “Can the Keepers get water in their compound?” he asked.

  “Flaco said they could drink out of the toilet,” said Fidelito.

  It’s hard but it’s fair, Matt thought with a grim smile.

  “That smell is making me sick,” said Fidelito.

  Matt lifted his head. The stench had been growing so gradually, he hadn’t registered it. “We must be close to the river,” he said. He scratched the skin of a lemon and held it to Fidelito’s nose. “This won’t kill the smell, but it should keep you from throwing up.”

  Matt heard a gurgling, thrashing noise somewhere to the left and shone the flashlight at it. A wide, black ribbon of water disappeared into a giant drain. It glistened with oil, and here and there shapes struggled to the surface and were pulled down again.

  “Is that a fish?” whispered Fidelito.

  “I don’t think so,” Matt said, shining the light on a long, greasy-looking tentacle that whipped out of the flood and struggled wildly to hang on to the shore. “I think that’s the reason Ton-Ton told you to stay away from the river.” The tentacle lost the battle and disappeared down the drain with a horrible sucking sound.

  “Let’s run,” begged the little boy.

  The ground trembled as the vast river plunged underneath the road. The smell almost made Matt faint. Bad air. Bad air, he thought wildly. If they passed out here, no one would rescue them. “Faster!” Matt gasped, but in fact it was he who was slow. Fidelito bounded ahead like a monkey.

  They went up a rise. A slight breeze blew the nauseous stench of the river away, and Matt collapsed with his chest heaving. He began to cough. He felt like he was being strangled. Oh, no, he thought. I can’t have an asthma attack now. He’d been free of the illness since he’d left Opium, but the smell of the river had brought it back. He bent over, trying to fill his lungs.

  Fidelito frantically scratched his lemon and held it to Mattson’s nose. “Smell! Smell!” he cried. But it didn’t help. Matt was drenched in sweat from his efforts to get air. “I’ll go for help,” shouted Fidelito into his ear, as though Matt were deaf as well. Stop, it’s dangerous, Matt wanted to say. But maybe it was just as well the little boy went on. There was nothing Matt could do to protect him.

  How much time passed, Matt couldn’t say. The world had shrunk to a tiny patch of road, where he struggled to stay alive. But all at once he felt hands lift him and an inhaler—an inhaler!— held to his face. Matt grabbed it and breathed for all he was worth. The attack faded. The world began to expand again.

  He saw a brown, weathered face etched by deep wrinkles. “Look what the river coughed up, Guapo,” said the woman.

  Guapo—a name meaning “handsome”—hunkered by the side of the road and gave Matt a big, almost toothless grin. He was at least eighty years old. “The kid picked a lousy place to swim,” he said.

  “I was joking,” said the woman. “Nobody swims in that river and survives. Can you walk?” she asked Matt.

  Matt got to his feet. He took a few unsteady steps and nodded.

  “Stay with us,” the woman said. “I don’t suppose your mother’s expecting you home tonight.”

  “He’s a runaway orphan. Look at his uniform,” said Guapo.

  “You call those rags a uniform?” The woman laughed. “Don’t worry, niño. We won’t tell anyone. We hate the Keepers as much as you do.”

  “Chacho,” Matt gasped out.

  “The little one told us about him,” said Guapo. “Look. The ambulance is already on its way.” He pointed up, and Matt saw a hovercraft pass overhead. The antigravity stirred the hair on his arms.

  With Guapo on one side and the woman, who identified herself as his sister Consuela, on the other, Matt made his way along the road. He felt light-headed. Everything seemed unreal: the dark road, the starry sky, and the old man and woman who guided his steps.

  Presently they came to a high wall. Consuela pressed a button, and a door slid open to show a scene so unexpected, Matt wondered whether he was dreaming after all.

  Inside, flanked by graceful paloverde trees, were graves as far as Matt could see. Each one was decorated with palm fronds, flowers, photographs, statues, and hundreds of glittering candles. The candles sat in red, blue, green, yellow, and purple glasses and looked like fragments of rainbow dancing over the ground.

  Some of the graves had offerings of food as well: tortillas, bowls of chili, bottles of soda, fruit, and whole herds of tiny donkeys, horses, and pigs made out of pastry or sugar. On one grave was a beautiful little cat with a pink sugar nose and a tail curled around its feet.

  Matt saw people sitting in the shadows and speaking to one another in quiet voices. “Where are we?” he murmured.

  “A cemetery, chico” said Consuela. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one?”

  Not like this, Matt thought. The Alacráns were buried in a marble mausoleum not far from the hospital. It was the size of a house and decorated with so many angels, it looked like a convention of them. You could see through the front door to what appeared to be chests of drawers on either side. The name of a departed Alacrán was inscribed on each long drawer. Matt guessed you could slide them out like the ones in his room, where Celia packed his shirts and socks.

  The eejits, of course, were buried in mass graves out in the desert. Tarn Lin said their resting places were impossible to distinguish from landfill.

  “This looks like a—a party,” Matt faltered.

  “It is” cried Fidelito, suddenly appearing from amid a group of women who were unpacking picnic baskets. “We’re so lucky! Of all the days we could’ve come, we picked El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It’s my favorite holiday in the whole year!” He munched on a sandwich.

  Matt couldn’t understand it. Celia had celebrated every holiday on the calendar, but never had she mentioned this one. She put out shoes for the Wise Men to leave gifts at Christmas. She colored eggs for Easter. She served roast turkey on Thanksgiv-ing and heart-shaped cakes on Saint Valentine’s Day. She had special ceremonies for San Mateo, Matt’s patron saint, and for her own Santa Cecilia. And of course there was El Patrón’s birthday party. But never, never, never had anyone dreamed of throwing a party for Death!

  Yet here Matt saw, on grave after grave, statues of skeletons playing guitars or dancing or driving around in little plastic hovercars. Skeleton mothers took skeleton children
for walks. Skeleton brides married skeleton grooms. Skeletons dogs sniffed lampposts, and skeleton horses galloped with Death riding on their backs.

  And now Matt became aware of an odor. The foul stench of the river was kept away by the wall, but the air was full of another scent that made every nerve in Matts body tighten with alarm. It smelled like Felicia! It was as though her ghost hovered before him, breathing the heavy fumes of whiskey into his face. He sat down, suddenly dizzy.

  “Are you sick?” asked Fidelito.

  “Guapo, find another inhaler in my bag,” said Consuela.

  “No … no … I’m all right,” said Matt. “The smell here reminded me of something.”

  “It’s only the copal incense we burn for the dead,” Consuela said. “Maybe it reminds you of your mamá or papá, but you mustn’t be unhappy. Tonight is when we welcome them back, to let them see how we’re doing and to offer them their favorite foods.”

  “They … eat?” Matt looked at the tamales, bowls of chili, and loaves of bread decorated with pink sugar.

  “Not as we do, darling. They like to smell things,” said Consuela. “That’s why we serve so many foods with a good odor.”

  “Mi abuelita said they come back as doves or mice. She said I mustn’t chase anything away if it wants to eat,” said Fidelito.

  “That’s also true,” said Consuela, putting her arm around the little boy.

  Matt thought about the Alacráns in their marble mausoleum. Perhaps El Patrón was there—in the top drawer, of course. Then Matt remembered Celia saying El Patrón wanted to be buried in an underground storeroom with all his birthday presents. Was anyone putting out food for him tonight? Had Celia prepared tamales and bowls of menudo? But Celia was hiding in the stables. And Mr. Alacrán wouldn’t put out so much as a single chili bean because he hated El Patrón.

  Matt blinked away tears. “How can anyone celebrate death?”

  “Because it’s part of us,” Consuela said softly.

  “Mi abuelita said I mustn’t be afraid of skeletons because I carry my own around inside,” said Fidelito. “She told me to feel my ribs and make friends with them.”