Cloud Atlas

  Short-ass, get me a roasted taro. Mem’ryin’ that despair is hollowin’ me out.

  Now backtrackin’ up to the Kohala grazin’ pastures, the mist slid b’low us an’ southly rose Mauna Kea from that ocean o’ cloud, clear’n’close ’nuff to spit at so it seemed, so I did, yay, I spitted hard. My soul may be stoned an’ my luck may be rotted but I can still cuss a cuss. From each o’ the Nine Folded Valleys black cobras o’ smoke was risin’ an’ ev’ry carrion winger’n’legger on Big I was crawk-in’n’feastin’ in our Valleys that mornin’ I reck’ned. Up in the pastures we finded goats scattered, some o’ mine, some from Kaima, but we din’t see not one goatherd, nay. I milked some, an’ we drank the last free Valleysman’s goat milk. Thru Vert’bry Pass we downed t’ward Thumb Rock, where Meronym’d sketched her map five moons b’fore, yay, over the heathery turf what’d cupped Roses under me six moons b’fore. Sun steamed the mist’n’dew away, an’ thru a fine-weaved rainbow I seen the school’ry was razed, yay, jus’ a black shell now, the last books an’ the last clock. Down we rode to Elepaio Stream, where I got off an’ Meronym helmeted up an’ loosely roped my hands so if we was spied it’d look like she’d slaved a ’scaped run’way an’ maybe win us a lethal beat. Down the track we walked this way to Cluny’s, what was the highest dwellin’ upgulch. Meronym dismounted an’ gripped her shooter as we creeped hushly as mouses thru the buildin’s, but my heart weren’t hushly nay A big knuckly’d happened there an’ gear was crashed’n’busted, but no bodies was lyin’ round, nay. We taked some fresh grinds for the journey ahead, I knowed Cluny’d not o’ minded. Leavin’ Cluny’s front gate I spied a cokeynut spikered on a stained pole with flies buzzin’ what was wyrd’n’unnat’ral, so we peered closer an’ it weren’t no cokeynut, nay, it was Macca Cluny’s head, yay, with his pipe still poked in his mouth.

  Such barb’ric buggahs are them painted Kona, bros. You trust one once you’re a dead man, b’lief me. Macca’s head gived me furyin’ nervies as we trekked further down to Bailey’s Dwellin’.

  A pail o’ curdlin’ goat milk stood in the milk’ry an’ I cudn’t stop ’maginin’ Sussy bein’ dragged away from that upbusted milkin’ stool an’ what’d been done to her, oh, my poor’n’sweet’n’dear sis. A possy o’ hoofs stamped the yard mud. Goats was all shooed away, our chicklin’s thiefed. So hush. No loom clackin’, no Catkin singin’, no Jonas makin’ nothin’. The stream an’ a laughin’ thrush in the eaves an’ nothin’ else. No horrorsome sight on the gatepost, I thanked Sonmi for that much. Inside, eggs’n’apricocks was spilled from the upturned table. Ev’ry room I was dreadin’ what I’d find but, nay, by the grace o’ Sonmi it seemed my fam’ly’d not been slayed yet …

  Guilt an’ sorrow whacked me.

  Guilt ’cos I always s’vived an’ ’scaped despite my dirtsome’n’stony soul. Sorrow ’cos the ruins o’ my busted old life was strewed here ’n’there’n’ev’rywhere. Jonas’s toys what Pa’d whittled years ago. Ma’s loomwork hangin’ in the doorways, swayin’ in the last o’ summer’s soft breathin’. Burnt fish an’ blissweed hanged in the air. Catkin’s writin’ work for school’ry still lied on the table where she was workin’. Din’t know what to think or say or what. What do I do? I asked my friend as I asked me. What do I do?

  Meronym sat on a wood box Jonas’d made, what Ma’d called his first masterwork. A bleaksome’n’dark choice to settle, Zachry, she replied. Stay in the Valleys till you’re slaved. ’Scape to Hilo an’ stay till the Kona attack an’ be killed or slaved. Live in backwilds as a hermit bandit till you’re catched. Cross the straits to Maui with me an’ prob’ly never return to Big I no more. Yay, that was my all choices, no frettin’, but I cudn’t settle one, all I knowed was that I din’t want to run away from Big I without vengeancin’ what’d happened here.

  This ain’t the safest place to sit’n’think, Zachry, said Meronym, so tendersome that fin’ly my tears oozed out.

  Mountin’ the horse to leave back upgulch, I mem’ried my fam’ly’s icons in our shrine. Now, if I left ’em there to be axed by’n’by for firewood there’d be nothin’ to proof the Bailey’s Dwellin’ kin’d ever existed. So back I ran alone to get ’em. Comin’ back down the passage, I heard crock’ry fall off the pantry shelf. I freezed.

  Slowsome I turned an’ looked.

  A fat rat strutted there, stink-eyein’ me an’ twitchin’ its whisk’ry nose. Bet you’re sorryin’ you din’t jus’ cut that rope on the wall o’ my ’closure now, Zachry, yay? All this woe’n’grief you could o’ voided.

  I din’t list’n to that liar’s liar. The Kona’d o’ attacked anyhow, yay, it weren’t nothin’ to do with me defyin’ that Dev’lish Buggah. I picked up a pot to hurl at Old Georgie, but when I taked aim the fat rat’d dis’peared, yay, an’ from the empty room to my left came a breezy sighin’ from the bed where I din’t see b’fore. I should o’ jus’ rabbited, yay, I knowed it but I din’t, I tippytoed in an’ seen a Kona sentry lyin’ there in a soft nest o’ blankies an’ skankin’ deep on Mormon Valley blissweed. See, he’d been so sure us Valleysmen was all rolled over’n’slaved that he’d blissed out, on duty.

  So here was the fearsome en’my. Nineteen–twenty maybe he was. A vein pulsed in his Adam’s apple what was left white b’tween two lizardy tattoos. You found me, yay, so slit me, whisped that throat. Blade me.

  My second augurin’, you’ll be mem’ryin’ an’, yay, so was I. Enemy’s sleeping, let his throat be not slit. This was the beat that augurin’d foreseen, no frettin’. I say-soed my hand’n’arm to do it, but they was locked’n’springed somehow. I’d been in knucklies ’nuff, who ain’t? but I’d never killed no un b’fore. See, murderin’ was forbidded by Valleysmen law, yay, if you stole another’s life no un’d barter nothin’ with you nor see you nor nothin’ ’cos your soul was so poisoned you may give ’em a sickness. Anyhow I stood there, by my own bed, my blade inches from that soft, pale throat.

  That laughin’ thrush was yarnin’ fast’n’loud. Bird lilts sound like blades bein’ sharp’ned, I cogged for the first time there’n’then. I knowed why I shudn’t kill this Kona. It’d not give the Valleys back to the Valleysmen. It’d stony my cussed soul. If I’d been rebirthed a Kona in this life, he could be me an’ I’d be killin’ myself. If Adam’d been, say, adopted an’ made Kona, this’d be my brother I was killin’. Old Georgie wanted me to kill him. Weren’t these reasons ’nuff jus’ to leave him be an’ hushly creep away?

  Nay, I answered my en’my, an’ I stroked my blade thru his throat. Magicky ruby welled’n’pumped an’ frothed on the fleece an’ puddled on the stone floor. I wiped my blade clean on the dead un’s shirt. I knowed I’d be payin’ for it by’n’by, but like I said a while back, in our busted world the right thing ain’t always possible.

  Goin’ out I bumped Meronym rushin’ in. Kona! she hissed. There weren’t no time to ’splain what I’d done in there an’ why. Hurryin’, I stuffed my fam’ly’s icons in the saddlebags, an’ she hoicked me on the horse. Comin’ up the track from Aunt Bees’s was three–four horses cloppin’. Oh, we speeded out o’ Bailey’s for the final time like Old Georgie was bitin’ our asses. I heard men’s voices b’hind an’ glanced back an’ even saw their armor glintin’ thru the fig orchards, but by Mercysome Sonmi, they din’t see us vanishin’. One beat later we heard a shrill conchin’s echo up the Valley, yay, three blasts it was, an’ I knowed the Kona must o’ found that sentry I’d slayed an’ was sendin’ an alarm out, Valleysmen ain’t all slaved or mass’kered. I knowed I’d be payin’ for ignorin’ the second augurin’ sooner’n I’d gambled, yay, an’ Meronym too.

  But our luck din’t yet wilt. Other conchin’s answered the first, yay, but they was downgulch an’ we galloped back thru Vert’bry Pass anxin’ but we wasn’t ambushed. One whoah narrow escape it was, yay, one more beat at my dwellin’ an’ them Kona horsemen’d o’ seen an’ chased us. Avoidin’ the open Kohala Ridge’n’pastures, we skirted the forest for camo, an’ only then did I ’fess
to Meronym what I’d done back to that sleepin’ sentry. I don’t know why it is, but secrets jus’ rot you like teeth if you don’t yank ’em out. She just list’ned, yay, an’ she din’t judge me none.

  I knowed a hid cave by Mauka Waterfall, an’ to here it was I took us for what’d be Meronym’s final night on Big Isle if ev’rythin’ worked as planned. I’d hoped Wolt or Kobbery or ’nother goatherd may o’ ’scaped an’ be hidin’ there but, nay, it was empty, jus’ some blankies what we goatherds stashed for sleepin’. The trade wind was giddyuppin’, an’ I feared for the kayakers who’d be settin’ out from Maui at dawn, but it weren’t so chillsome so I din’t risk no fire, not so near the en’my, nay. I bathed my wounds in the pool an’ Meronyn bathed an’ we ate the grinds I’d got from Cluny’s an’ fig loaf what I grabbed from my own dwellin’ when I’d gone back for the icons.

  I cudn’t stop mem’ryin’n’yarnin’ while we ate, nay, ’bout my fam’ly an’ Pa’n’Adam too, it was like if they lived in words they cudn’t die in body. I knowed I’d miss Meronym diresome when she was gone, see I din’t have no other bro on Big I who weren’t ’ready slaved. Lady Moon rose an’ gazed o’er my busted’n’beautsome Valleys with silv’ry’n’sorryin’ eyes, an’ the dingos mourned for the died uns. I wondered where’d my tribesmen’s souls be reborned now Valleyswomen’d not be bearin’ babbits here. I wished Abbess was there to teach me, ’cos I cudn’t say an’ nor could Meronym. We Prescients, she answered, after a beat, b’lief when you die you die an’ there ain’t no comin’ back.

  But what ’bout your soul? I asked.

  Prescients don’t b’lief souls exist.

  But ain’t dyin’ terrorsome cold if there ain’t nothin’ after?

  Yay—she sort o’ laughed but not smilin’, nay—our truth is terrorsome cold.

  Jus’ that once I sorried for her. Souls cross the skies o’ time, Abbess’d say, like clouds crossin’ skies o’ the world. Sonmi’s the east’n’west, Sonmi’s the map an’ the edges o’ the map an’ b’yonder the edges. The stars was lit, an’ I sentried first, but I knowed Meronym weren’t sleepin’, nay, she was thinkin’n’tossin’ under her blanky till she gived up an’ sat by me watchin’ the moonlighted waterfall. Questions was mozziein’ me plaguesome. The fires o’ Valleysmen an’ Prescients both are snuffed tonight, I speaked, so don’t that proof savages are stronger’n Civ’lized people?

  It ain’t savages what are stronger’n Civ’lizeds, Meronym reck’ned, it’s big numbers what’re stronger’n small numbers. Smart gived us a plus for many years, like my shooter gived me a plus back at Slopin’ Pond, but with ’nuff hands’n’minds that plus’ll be zeroed one day.

  So is it better to be savage’n to be Civ’lized?

  What’s the naked meanin’ b’hind them two words?

  Savages ain’t got no laws, I said, but Civ’lizeds got laws.

  Deeper’n that it’s this. The savage sat’fies his needs now. He’s hungry, he’ll eat. He’s angry, he’ll knuckly. He’s swellin’, he’ll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an’ if his will say-soes “Kill” he’ll kill. Like fangy animals.

  Yay, that was the Kona.

  Now the Civ’lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He’ll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won’t go hungry ’morrow. He’s angry, he’ll stop’n’ think why so he won’t get angry next time. He’s swellin’, well, he’s got sisses an’ daughters what need respectin’ so he’ll respect his bros’ sisses an’ daughters. His will is his slave, an’ if his will say-soes, “Don’t!” he won’t, nay.

  So, I asked ’gain, is it better to be savage’n to be Civ’lized?

  List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.

  “One day” was only a flea o’ hope for us.

  Yay, I mem’ry Meronym sayin’, but fleas ain’t easy to rid.

  Lady Moon lit a whoahsome wyrd birthmark jus’ b’low my friend’s shoulder blade as she sleeped fin’ly. A sort o’ tiny hand mark it were, yay, a head o’ six streaks strandin’ off, pale ’gainst her dark skin, an’ I curioed why I’d never seen it b’fore. I covered it over with the blanky so she din’t catch cold.

  ———

  Now Mauka Stream falled snaky n’goshin’ down dark Mauka Valley, yay, it watered only five–six dwellin’s in the hole valley ’cos it weren’t no friendsome’n’summery place, nay. No Mauka dwellin’ did goatin’, so the track was strangled by creepers’n’thornbushes what’d whelk your eye out if you din’t watch close, an’ hard goin’ it was for the horse. I got clawed fierce after a quart’ mile even shelt’rin’ b’hind Meronym. The last dwellin’ upvalley an’ the first we comed to was Saint-Sonmi’s Dwellin’, whose chief was a one-eye named Silvestri who farmed taro’n’oats. The yibber reck’ned Silvestri was too fond o’ his many daughters’n was nat’ral an’ skank-mouthed him for not payin’ no fairshare to Commons. Laundry was scattered round the yard an’ the daughters’d been taken, but Silvestri’d not gone nowhere, his bladed head was up on the pole watchin’ us as we rided up. Some time he’d been there, see, he’d gotten maggoty an’ a fat rat’d scamped up the pole an’d eaten thru one eyeball as we rided up. Yay, the whiskery devil twitched his sharp nose at me. Howzit, Zachry, don’t you reck’n Silvestri looks handsomer now’n b’fore? But I din’t pay him no mind. A cocklydoo ’rupted from the chimney pot an’ nearly shocked me off the horse, see, I thinked it was an ambush yell.

  Now we’d a choice o’ sorts, to farewell the horse an’ spider up the crumbly ridge over to Pololu Valley, or to follow the Mauka Trail down to the shore an’ risk runnin’ into stray Kona moppin’ up their attackin’. Dwindlin’ time choosed for us to stay on the horse, see, we’d to get to Ikat’s Finger by noon what was still ten miles far from Silvestri’s. We missed Blue Cole Dwellin’ an’ Last Trout too, see, we wasn’t reccyin’ no more. A tide o’ rain skirted us downvalley from the Kohalas, but we got to the shore without no ambush tho’ we seen fresh Kona prints b’neath the knife-finger palms. The ocean was no pond that day, nay, but nor so hilly a craft’ly oared kayak’d overtoss. A Kona conch churned in the near-far an’ vibed me uneasy. I heard my name in its churnin’. The air was drummed tight, an’ I’d ignored my second augurin’, I’d knowed I’d be payin’ for that life I taked what weren’t ne’ssary to take.

  Where the rucky beach rocked up into Medusa Cliffs we had to wind inland thru banana groves to the Pololu Track, what leaded out o’ the northliest valley into No Un’s Land an’ fin’ly Ikat’s Finger. The track squeezed thru two fat black rocks, an’ we heard a whistlin’ what was more human’n bird. Meronym reached in her cloak, but b’fore she’d got the shinboney two sharky Kona sentries’d leapt down both sides on both rocks. That was four cock’n’primed crossbows aimed right at our heads from inches. Thru rubbery trees I spied a hole dammit Kona platoon! A dozen horsemen or more was sittin’ round a tentment, an’ I knowed we was finished so near the end an’ all.

  Pass code, horseman? barked one sentry.

  What’s this, soldier, an’ why? Another jiggered his crossbow at my nips. A Valleysboy’s ass smearin’ a good Kona horse? Who’s your gen’ral, horseman?

  I was fearin’ diresome, an’ I knowed I looked it.

  Meronym did an eerie’n’angry yarlin’ growl an’ looked thru her helmet at the four, then ’rupted a shout out so blastsome, birds skimmed off krawlin’ an’ her tongue-slant was buried under furyin’ noise. HOW DARE YOU DAMMIT RAT-SHAT HOG-SLITS ADDRESS A GEN’RAL IN THAT MANNER! MY SLAVE’S ASS’LL SMEAR WHEREVER AN’ WHATEVER I SAY-SO! WHO’S MY GEN’RAL? MY GEN’RAL IS ME YOU DAMMIT WORMS’ BLADDERS! OFF THAT ROCK THIS SPLIT-BEAT AN’ BRING ME YOUR CAPTAIN N
OW OR I VOW BY ALL THE WAR GODS I’LL HAVE YOU PEELED’N’NAILED TO THE NEAREST HORNET TREE!

  A desp’rate an’ freakbirthed plan, yay.

  Meronym’s bluff vic’tried jus’ one beat, an’ one beat was nearly ’nuff. Two sentries paled an’ lowered their crossbows an’ jumped down in our path. Two more dis’peared the back way. Ksss! Ksss! Them two Kona b’fore us din’t get up no more, Meronym suddenwise heel-digged, an’ our horse whinnied’n’reared’n’bolted’n’my balance was busted. Sonmi’s hand stayed me on the saddle, yay, ’cos if hers din’t whose did? Shouts an’ Stops! an’ conches ruckused b’hind us, an’ the horse galloped an’ a fisssssssss-kwanggggggggg as the first crossbolt bedded into a bough I ducked under, then a crackle o’ pain flamed in my left calf jus’ here an’ I got that sick’n’calm shock you get when your body knows sumthin’s way too busted for an easy mendin’. Look, I’ll roll my trousers an’ you can see the scar where the crossbolt tip bedded … yay, it hurt as much as it looks it hurt an’ more.

  We was gallopin’ down Pololu Track now over knotty’n’rooty ground, faster’n surfin’ inside a roller an’ as hard to stay balanced, an’ there was nothin’ I could do ’bout that seizin’ agonyin’ ’cept grip Meronym’s waist tighter’n’tighter an’ try’n ride the horse’s rhythmin’ with my right leg or I’d be tossed right off, yay, an’ there’d not be no time to mount me on again b’fore the Kona an’ their bone-drillin’ crossbolts catched us up.

  The track leaded thru the scalp-brushin’ tunnel o’ trees to the Old Uns’ bridge over the Pololu River’s sea mouth, what marked the Valley’s northly bound’ry. Now we was jus’ a hun’erd paces shy o’ this bridge when the sun unclouded an’ I looked ahead an’ its worn plankin’ burned bright’n’gold, an’ its rusted struts was shaded bronze. My pain shaked loose a mem’ry, yay, my third augurin’: Bronze is burnin’, let that bridge be not crossed. I cudn’t ’splain to Meronym on a gallopin’ horse, so I jus’ yelled in her ear, I’m hit!