ONLY THE HAUNTED REMEMBER

As Samuel McCord regards his past, his memories are angels of lightning and storm, sweeping his mind's eye over flashes of pain through the mists of his epic life.

The dying of his mother and sister. His murder of his own father. Discovering the true face of Elu. Losing him to a strange limbo.

Riding beside his new family, the Texas Rangers. Losing that family as he turns his back on the Alamo to rescue a small boy from kidnapping Comanches. At the age of fifty, having his blood mingled with that of the Angel of Death. Never aging from that moment on. An eternal old man.

Loving the mysterious, undying Meilori Shinseen. Losing her to his compulsion to rescue lost children and battered women.

A man with no home of his own, making his night club, Meilori's, a home for all the frightened street orphans and hollow-eyed women that cross his path. But it is a dangerous home, whose back hallways, some say, lead to Hell itself. Samuel himself remains silent on the subject.

Some say he has seen too much to believe in a loving God. Others say he wants to believe but cannot. Still others whisper his silence is because he is already damned.

Meilori's, among more shivering things, is a jazz club. The people of New Orleans atrophy when kept too far from music and from that special kind of life found only where melody and magic dance in the heavy shadows.

That life is the religion in a city in whose population can be found the most profane, pagan, and deliciously wicked. And their temple? Meilori's, of course. That feared club in which almost anything can happen and in which almost everything has.

Now, for a glimpse within Meilori's from FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE as Samuel regards his nightclub newly repaired from the damage done by Katrina :

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

RIGHT TURN ON DEAD

"I move in all kinds of circles, meet all sorts of people. I learned

engraving from a counterfeiter, accounting from a swindler.

A succubus once tried to teach me the tango. But nothing doing. I didn't have the

hips for it."

- Samuel McCord


I turned around and faced my newly re-minted night club. Meilori’s was back. And it had only taken a small fortune to make her return breath-taking. Luckily, I had stumbled across more than a few lost treasures in all my manhunts. When the last owner of a fortune is several centuries dead, it made giving it back harder than just keeping it. But I spent it wisely. Or tried to.

My night club sparkled in the dim illumination of spinning, sparkling chandeliers. Meilori’s stood on a busy French Quarter corner. But even so, it seemed to go on for much longer and wider than it appeared from the outside.

Which made sense. It was wider and longer within than without. Courtesy of Rind, the Angelus of Death, my place led into a dimension that only a few could enter and from which even fewer could return. Everyone was safe who stayed up front. Those who ventured deeper did so at their own peril. The sign to my place read : HERE BE MONSTERS. TO VENTURE DEEP WITHIN IS TO CHANCE NEVER RETURNING AT ALL.

Not that many paid much attention to the words, mind you. But they had only themselves to blame if they never returned from the shadows. Besides, New Orleans had lost a good many visitors long before my place showed up. The city had just lost a cite more since then was all.

Hicock was playing poker in the far table, his new spectacles gleaming on his nose. He nodded. I nodded back. He gestured to an empty seat beside him. I shook my head. I kept my gambling limited to my life not cards.

Major Strasser, immaculate in his black Nazi uniform, sat closer to me. I ambled to his table. He smiled with sharp white teeth.

“Still hold Casablanca against me?”

“Not so you notice. Remember I shot you in your withered heart, not in the acupuncture point that could have killed you.”

“Just so. Is it really the year 2005 out past those doors?”

“Yes, but I’d advise against going out there. Go back the way you came. You’ll still have years of blood and madness across all of Europe if you return that way.”

He stared at me curiously. “You know how the war ends?”

“Yes ... everybody loses.”

I turned from him and made my way to the gleaming bar. And yes, if you are wondering --- there were mirrors on the walls -- when you could see them. Each table surface was reflective as were the steps of polished marble scattered in random spots along the length of the red carpet sweeping it seemingly into eternity. Elu got lonely sometime. And he also got --- hungry.

What can I say? Meilori’s is that kind of place.

I was in my dress black western suit. Black shirt, black tie, vest, long coat, slacks, boots. Even my broad Stetson was black. I sighed. I missed Sammy in his all white attire. Samuel Langhorn Clemens was probably having them all in stitches somewhere in a far better place than my night club of the damned. I blinked back hot tears. Sixty odd years is a long time to know a friend. I missed him.

I slowly moved through the room that seemed to become larger, wider, deeper the longer I was in it. The president of France sat with his young love. They were chatting with Marie Antoinette, her slender throat neatly stitched so well only I could see the slight scar of the incision. She smiled coldly at me.

I tipped my Stetson to her and moved on. That was one of the problems to my night club. Every aisle led to a place you’d rather forget. Every table brought back memories of what you had done or should have done.

And every woman reminded you of another woman. Or in my case, one woman. The only woman. Meilori.

Off to the left was one of my internet jazz stages. Erin Bode was singing in the middle of its spotlight. She was an up and coming jazz vocalist. She didn’t like to be type-cast as a jazz vocalist. There were worse things to be called. I should know. I had been called most of them.

I liked her. Meilori would have, too. Erin had called me up and volunteered to sing at my place. She had wanted her fee to go to the Katrina Relief Fund. All the money from the live internet feeds of tonight and the nights to follow would help the hurting in my adopted city.

As Erin was singing “Alone Together,” Toya, the club's manager, swayed up to me. I smiled wide at her, the image of the six year old I had found out by my dumpster settling over her Cleopatra features. Skin the color of milk coffee gleamed under the swirling lights above us. Her black dress was so short that it could have qualified as a long blouse. Any shorter and it would have been a wide belt. Tonight she was dressed as a buccaneer. Lafitte would have made her captain of his ship, if not his heart.

**************
And one of the jazz greats who sing in Meilori's is Medeleine Peyroux. Here she is singing one of Samuel's favorite songs, "Dance Me To The End Of Love."

PRIMAL SCREAM! BLOGFEST

Because of my late shift as blood courier, I am posting my entry for the PRIMAL SCREAM! blogfest a bit early :

Today is Raquel Brynes' PRIMAL SCREAM! blogfest http://nitewriter6.blogspot.com/

My entry goes back to the moment that shaped my epic undead hero, Samuel McCord, into the driven person he has become. We go back in time to when he was but 15 years old in the deadly plains of west Texas in 1815. Elu, the mystic Apache shaman, has been hunting with him in the form of an enormous golden eagle -- something that Sam is just young enough to accept with youth's ability to grasp the impossible.

It is from my short story, "My Father's Gun" :

The eagle spoke to me. I wish I could say I was dreaming. I wasn’t. I wish I could say it was for the first time. It wasn’t. I wish I could say I was crazy. I ... hell, that was a maybe.

He was staring at me with those piercing eyes of his, the desert sun making his feathers seem burning gold. Because of him I never came home without having bagged game of some sort. His sky-eye spotted even the most well-hidden deer or rabbit. Father was thinking me something of a wonder. He had taken to giving me only two bullets out of our scarce supply.

One for the game. One for me should the Comanches corner me. Finally I had his respect. I took no pride in it. It hadn’t been earned.

Perched on the Joshua tree, the eagle fluffed out his huge wings. And he spoke. Not in actual words, mind you. I heard them in my mind. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Me being crazy wasn’t a maybe.

"Dyami, (he had taken to calling me Eagle in Apache, after all if I was going to take credit for an eagle’s kill, shouldn’t I go by that name?)

"What, Elu?" (That was what he said his name was; Apache for full of grace - most times he was full of something else, which explained why his eyes were so brown.)

"I have done something terrible"

"We all do sooner of later."

He soared from the tree and landed on my left shoulder, sinking his talons deep into my flesh. I fought to keep from crying out in pain. Elu didn’t take signs of weakness well. He was a lot like my father in that.

"To you, thick of skull. To you."

"You meant to?"

"Of course not! We are fr -- hunting companions."

"Then you’re forgiven."

He sank his talons in deeper. "You do not even know what it is that I have done."

I shrugged. A real feat with Elu digging his claws into my shoulder. "Don’t need to. I have your word that you didn’t mean to. Friends forgive friends. Hell, Elu, if my friends have to live with my mistakes, why should I get all bent out of shape about living with theirs?"

This time I did cry out as his talons dug deep. "Do not be so quick with your forgiveness. It has cost you deeply."

"I’m still alive."

"No. You are a dead man walking."

I looked deep into those piercing eyes. Damn, he meant it. I grew all cold inside. The Comanches. Oh, God, the Comanches. Somehow Elu had gotten them on my trail. I hefted my father’s Hawkins rifle, its weight reassuring in my hands. The small white-tailed deer over my right shoulder had been bagged with just one shot. I still had the other bullet. I let out a long, slow sigh, feeling as if my life was leaving me with it.

Hell, Elu hadn’t meant to kill me. I looked up into the harsh blue sky for a long moment. Maybe in the afterlife my spirit would soar next to his.

He looked deeper into my eyes. His next words proved what I had always suspected. He could read my mind.

"Your thoughts are older than your fifteen years. And I am shamed."

I felt a flicker of resentment. "I’m not my father, Elu. You don’t have to feel shame just ‘cause you made a mistake."

"Your father is hard on you."

"A bit. I’d have hated to have been one of his pupils in Harvard."

"Is this Harvard far from my mountains?"

"I'd say Texas is about as far as you can get from it and still be on dry land."

"Then why did he come?"

"He had consump -- ah, had a sickness in his lungs. He hoped the desert heat would help."

Elu’s glittering eyes bored deep into mine. "He is hard on you to make you hard. Hard enough to survive my mountains long enough to be all that you can be."

I sighed, "Yeah that’s what mother says. But Rachel, my sister, says that some men are born to be poets not soldiers."

He bobbed his head as if in an agreeing nod. "You could become a Far-Seeing One."

His eyes seemed to look inward and not like what they saw. "You love your mother and sister, do you not?"

"With all my heart."

"And your father?"

"I -- respect him, fear him. I -- I don’t know about love."

"You love him. Just not in the same way as your mother and sister. And -- and ...."

My throat got tight. "And what?"

He ducked his head. "And I have brought those you call Comanches to their nest."

"What? I’ve got to get there!"

"No! Wait. It is too late. If you go now, you will only see terrible things."

I tossed the deer from my right shoulder and started off in a mile-eating lope. "Then I’ll see terrible things!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elu land on the deer I dropped. My heart sank. He wasn’t coming with me. He was mad at me. I ground my teeth. Let him. Rachel, Mother, and Father were in danger. I had to get to them in time. I just had to.

I ran measured and steady, the water in my nearly full canteen sloshing with each bootfall. The distance was eaten up in easy strides. My daily hunts had built strength in my legs. I was all gristle and muscle.

Elu had taught me how to leave not a trace behind as I walked, though I still left too much sign when I ran. As I was running now. Let the Comanches follow me, just so long as I got to my family in time.

I ran for hours it seemed. Time lost its meaning. But not fear. Fear was all too real as it coiled tight and cold inside my chest. I looked up at the rise ahead of me. Just beyond it lay my home. I slowed. No sense in me getting killed by a Comanche brave before I got to --

Two gunshots. A scream hoarse and shrill. I smiled grim. Father knew all the nerve clusters in the human body. A bullet placed in them, he had told me, would make even the fiercest Comanche scream. And something like that would make the other braves think twice about showing themselves.

I got on my belly and carefully edged up the rise. I swiped off my hat, hoping my shock of brown hair wouldn’t attract notice. Slow and sure I made it up the rise. I sneaked a look over the rock and gravel.

No. Damn it, no. It was bad. Real bad.

Rachel, Mother, and Father. All three of them were trapped out by the well. Damn that Rachel. She must have been daydreaming about those fancy balls Mother had told her about from her time in London.

Rachel never minded her surroundings. Never. She had been caught flatfooted out by the well. Lucky for her that Father knew that Comanches and Apaches liked to catch whites out by their wells. He had built a three wall affair around ours, with slits in the stone for rifle barrels to stick out of.

I gnawed my lip. I had his best rifle. He still had Death and Taxes, the single-shot pistols the Hawkins brothers had made for him. And he had the five shot pistol Mother had bought him in London.

Somehow Mother and Father had made it out to the well. Mother was all right. Father’s right shoulder had a bloody bandage around it.

I watched with sinking heart as a Comanche brave purposedly showed himself then ducked back down behind a boulder. Father had just glared at the brave and hadn’t even tried to take the easy shot.

I tried to swallow and couldn’t. That meant only one thing. They were down to just three bullets. One for each of them.

What was I going to do now? I had only one bullet myself. I had to make that one count for the most. But just what could I do with only one bullet?

My heart became a rock as I saw Mother motion to Rachel. Her face was pale. Her lips were quivering. But still Rachel moved with the grace of a born dancer as she crabbed on her knees to her.

Mother softly stroked my sister’s long blonde hair and hugged her fierce. Before I could take another breath, I heard the shot. Rachel stiffened, then slumped like a sack of flour to the dust.

No. No! Not Rachel. Not her.

We had been so fully one that I hadn’t thought we could die apart. We would always be together. Always. I couldn’t seem to move. Mother looked over to Father.

Though I shouldn’t have been able to, I still heard her. "Oh, John, what have I done? What in God’s name have I done?"

"What you had to, Ruth."

He reached out for her. They clung to each other as if trying to melt into one another. He kissed her like I had never seen him do before. He pulled his head back.

"I love you so, Ruth, I ache with it."

She stroked his drawn cheek. "Who could blame yo--"

The shot rang out like a thunderclap. I jerked as if the bullet had burned into me. And worse yet, Father bellowed as if his chest couldn’t hold all the grief and pain. He stood up.

"Come and get me, you bastards!"

The Comanches yelled their rage at his robbing them of their rape and torture. He smiled and aimed his pistol carefully at the closest of the charinging braves.

No. Don’t do it, Father. That bullet’s for you. Don’t!

He fired. And the brave clutched his chest and reeled silent to the ground. The rest screamed, half in anger, half in anticipation of long, bloody hours of torture on this hated white man.

I sprang to my feet. "Father!"

He looked up, his eyes locking onto mine and yelled, "Sam? Oh, god, you saw. You saw! I - I love you, Sam. Now, run. Run!"

Like Hell.

I swung up his rifle. I sucked in a breath and let it out slow. I heard him in my mind from years back :

"Betsy is a sensitive beauty, Sam. You have to treat her gentle. Caress her trigger, pull it back as if you were brushing back a lock of Rachel’s hair. Nice and easy. She wants you to hit the target, Sam. She really does. Treat her right, and she’ll hit it for you every time."

I saw the Comanche to my left aim his bow straight at me. Let him. I had all the time in the world. All the time in Father's world. Father’s jaw firmed. He nodded.

"I love you, Sa--"

I caressed Betsy’s trigger. She slammed hard into my right shoulder. Father’s head seemed to explode like a melon hit by a hammer. The Comanche let his arrow fly.

A blur of golden feathers streaked down from the sky. Elu. Impossibly he caught the arrow, snapping it in two. He swept across to the brave, ripping out the Indian’s throat in a red spurt of gushing blood.

"Run, Dyami. Run! I will slow them down."

I hesitated. "Would you have their deaths be for nothing? Run!"

I ran.

They wanted me? Well, they damn sure would have to work for their bloody fun. I took off towards the mountains to my right. The mountains that the Comanches feared.

The mountains that Elu said belonged to his mother, Estanatlehi, The Turquoise Woman. She whose shadow it was death to step upon.
*******************************
The title to my short story comes from the song "My Father's Gun" by Elton John. And here it is :

MEET THE DALI-RAMA

No. Not the Dalai Lama. Not even a someone actually. A something. A very important something if you're a writer.

Honest.

But speaking of the Dalai Lama, he did say, "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."

And couldn't the same thing be said of the novels we write?

What was that bit of dialogue between Alice and the Mad Hatter?

Alice : "I've had nothing yet. So I can't take any more."

Hatter : "You mean you can't take any less. It's very easy to take more than nothing."

And isn't that what our novels start out as? Nothing. Then along strolls a colorful character, an intriguing situation blossoms in our thoughts, or a bit of zingy dialogue crackles in our mind's ear.

But what do you do with those isolated bits?

Ah, that's where the Dali-Rama comes into play as we shift to another bit of back-and-forth in the adventures of Alice.

"Which road do I take?," asked Alice.

"Where do you want to go?," replied the Cheshire Cat.

"I don't know."

"Then," smiled the cat, "it really doesn't matter."

But it does matter when you write a novel. You have to know where you are going if you're going to take the reader there. We need a compass. More importantly, we need a map.

We need the Dali-Rama.

And its motto is a twist to one of the sayings of the artist who gave birth to it : Salvador Dali -- Intelligence without direction is a bird without wings. As authors, we paint our novels. To paint well we need a canvas. Yes, you guessed it : the Dali-Rama.

How many times have you stared at a blank page in agony? Buy some 3 X 5 index cards. Write your characters on one, your bits of dialogue on another, your large, compelling situation on a larger one.

The great thing about those index cards is that you can fit them into your purse {or me into my backpack (what Sandra, my best friend, calls my "Man-Purse")}. And whenever an idea for dialogue, plot, scene re-do, or character development hits you, you scribble it down upon your stash of ready index cards.

Now, buy a cork board. Me, I take construction paper and tape it over the board. I get markers in different colors. And then, I'm ready to paint myself a novel.

This is not a story board. That directors do AFTER the script is written. We're more like detectives sleuthing a murder case. All those bits of characters, dialogue, situations, plot twists. We pin them up on the board in haphazard fashion. No rhyme, no reason but our subconscious.

Then, step back. Look at the surrealistic pattern you've made. Start arranging patterns in the chaos. Draw lines on your Dali-Rama connecting your different characters along paths of love, blood, hate, and circumstance. Scribble questions next to each one : "What drives him to strive for perfection? What shaped her into a lusty gossip? Why would anyone do {fill in the blank.} Why a bank job and not a jewel heist? What skills does a cat burglar have? How would one go about obtaining those skills and knowledge?

From the answers to those or other similar questions are born more scribbled index cards.

By now, your muse will be churning. You will see how one character fits into another in ways you hadn't even thought of when you started. You see where you can flip this situation on its ear, blending it into laughter, suspense, or tears.

Like Dali himself, don't let structure bind you to convention. Look at the overall "feel" and "look" of the Dali-Rama. Remember the soft, melting pocket watch in Dali's famous "Persistence of Memory?" It whispered that time is not hard as we thought. In fact, time is often irrelevant. Think of the time spent in a dentist's chair during a root canal. Time changes according to circumstance. And so should the parameters of your novel.

There is another beautiful thing about the Dali-Rama. It postpones the actual writing of the novel. And who of us has not hesitated and hesitated before a daunting new novel? Now, you have an intelligent-sounding reason for procrastinating!

And I'm only being slightly humorous. I've had friends make actual pieces of art of their Dali-Rama's. They pasted frilled paths, colorful twists, only to phone me in wonder that suddenly as they looked at it, the novel just jelled into something fantastic and unexpected. They couldn't wait to get started on this awesome surprise of a novel that had just occurred to them.

And because of the Dali-Rama, they knew exactly where they were going, scene by scene, plot twist by plot-twist onto a climax to which they couldn't wait to take the reader. Trust me. If you follow the Dali-Rama, it will not fail you.

Surprise you, yes. Absorb you, yes. Fail you, no.

And to present the other side of the story, you should read the guest post of published author, Brendan Halpin, on the delightful blog, THE BOOK PIXIE. Link : http://thebookpixie.blogspot.com/ I'll summarize it : almost all writing advice is complete crap. Read his post. You'll enjoy it. I did. He was wrong about my advise though. Snicker.

*****************************************************

Now, on June 18th a movie debuts that may get agents thinking along the lines of the supernatural merged with the western. {I can only hope.}

TO RULE THE DARKNESS

To rule the darkness. That is what all of us must do. The darkness within.

But some are foolish enough to desire to rule the darkness without and the creatures who live within it. To accomplish that mystics all through history have searched for mythical objects of power : the helmet of Hades, the girdle of Aphrodite, and the ring of King Solomon, said to bring the wearer command over demons.

Too powerful to fall into the wrong hands, it was hidden in the lost mines of King Solomon in the legendary Ophir. But even the location of the fabled Ophir has become lost. Until stumbled upon by the one man who could care less about power or wealth, the haunted Texas Ranger, Captain Samuel McCord.

So as irony would have it, McCord ended up with the fabled ring of King Solomon and promptly refused to use it. But let him tell you of it from the incident in his cabin aboard the cursed DEMTER where he is getting dressed { from RITES OF PASSAGE }:


I looked out at the eye of night peeking at me through the curtained, round window. A part of me wanted to curl up in a little ball and try to find some peace in sleep. But I had promises to keep.

Time to go to that Count's celebration.

I got dressed, feeling the absence of my hip holster and its Colt. Maybe because of that I reached into my saddlebags until my fingers found what the Captain had been so interested in. The fabled ring of King Solomon.

I pulled it out and put it on the ring finger of my left gloved hand. I knew better than to look on it straight on. I had tried often enough in the past. But my eyes kept slipping off, never getting a clear look. It was as if the eyes of Man weren't meant to see the design. Only creatures of darkness.

Every so often, I would try to see it. As long as I couldn't, it meant I was still human deep down inside myself. Not being able to stop myself, I tried again. A weight seemed to lift off my chest as my eyes slid painfully off of it. Still human.

{Later on in the evening, McCord is escorting the mysterious woman, Meilori Shinseen, to a grand ball. She, her best friend, Lady Inari, and McCord are halted by the approach of the undead wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ellen Tucker. And once again, McCord is tempted by the power of King Solomon's ring.}



A breath from the grave seemed to breathe out from my left. I turned to face it and found it was a her. Odd. Death always seemed to wear a woman’s face in my life.

Except for Rachel. She’d had no face at all.

Just a little shorter than Meilori, this woman had the wild, wanton look of a repressed minister's daughter gone bad. Her brown hair a tumbled waterfall cascading down her shoulders, it barely hid a plunging neckline of ivory flesh that somehow looked clammy. Her smile was cruel, but less so than her brown eyes.

And of course, since this was me we were talking about, she didn't have one ember of life flickering around her body. Worse, somehow she seemed familiar. Yet, she ignored me completely. She smiled like a shark at Meilori and spoke in a haughty whine.

As she spoke, the hidden world behind her glittering eyes seemed to be changing and darkening. "I knew one day you would get yours, Meilori."

"That is Lady Meilori to you, Tucker."

"Tucker? Is your memory fading like your beauty, Meilori? It is Emerson."

Meilori smiled colder than her eyes. "You forget, leech. Til death do you part. And you have died and so have parted."

The undead woman called Tucker spoke low. "Soon, very soon, my betrothed and I will be re-united."

Inari covered a false yawn with a lazy hand. "Tucker, did you have something to say, or were you merely wasting our time as usual?"

Miss Tucker started to speak when it occurred to me why she seemed so familiar. "I've seen you before."

Her thin lips curled. "That line was old when you were young."

I shook my head. "Not actually seen you in person really. But I saw your tiny portrait in the pocketwatch of Henry."

She frowned, "Henry? There are a million boring Henry's in this world."

"But only one I nearly threw overboard into the Atlantic."

She sneered, "And that should mean something to me?"

"It should. Seems even though you were married to another man, poor Henry couldn't get you out of his heart."

She yawned, "How utterly boring."

I felt my face go tight. "He was a good man. He deserved a better woman to lose his heart to."

"Remind me to care next century."

She turned to Meilori. "And, as for you, bitch, Lord Hasatan has ordered you to come to him. Now."

Her smile seemed skull-like as she murmured, "You are finally going to get yours."

Meilori turned sick pale, as did Lady Inari. Whoever this Lord Hasatan was, he had to be wicked, indeed, for an Animal Person to fear him. I shook my head again.

"No, she's not."

Tucker's eyes became slits. "Stupid human, who are you to tell the Gray Man anything?"

The Gray Man? I smiled like the happy wolf I felt. Finally, I was going to lock horns with that one.

"You tell The Gray Man that if he has a grievance with Lady Meilori to take it up with me first. She's under my protection. He gets her only through me -- that is if he has the grit to take on a man for a change."

Meilori became bleach white. "Samuel, do not! You have no idea what Lord Hasatan can do."

Tucker hissed, "Take your own message! Who do you think you are to order me?"

I slowly raised my left hand, the chandelier's light striking fire from King Solomon's ring. The ghoul flinched as if stabbed, her eyes never leaving the ring on my gloved hand. Her shoulders started to bow, though I could tell she was fighting the lowering of her body. The back of my scalp started to prickle. This felt wrong.

No. I never owned slaves or cottoned to those who did. Each person was entitled to the freedom to choose. And I wouldn't take that right away from even such a thing as the undead creature that was facing me. I lowered my hand.

"Let me re-phrase that. Please, if you would, tell Lord Hasatan that I request he take up with me his grievance with Lady Meilori before he talks with her."

Tucker raised her eyes, though she kept her head lowered, giving her hot eyes a wolfish look. "Why request when you could command?"

"Because there has to be a difference between me and those I fight, else what's the point?"

"You are a fool!"

I smiled, "I don't think you'll get an argument from anyone I know about that."

Her eyes drank in Solomon's ring. "I will gladly tell Lord Hasatan about your stupidity, so I can watch him tear that ring off your bloody corpse."

"It's been tried before. I'm still here. Those that tried aren't."

But Tucker hadn't heard. She had already spun away, moving away towards the opposite end of the saloon. I tried to see who might The Gray Man be from the direction she took. But she was soon lost in the tangle of bodies. I felt Meilori tug on my arm. She was furious.

"I did not ask you for help."

"It wasn't necessary. No lady I escort gets threatened without me standing up for her."

She slapped me. The fact of it stung more than the blow. "When I need defending, I will let you know. Now, I will deal with The Gray Man myself."

And with that, she was off in a huff. Lady Irani hurriedly followed her. She looked back at me over her shoulder. "Do you have any idea what kind of fool you are?"

"Is there more than one kind?"

She didn't answer. She was too busy catching up to Meilori. Soon, they were lost in the crowd as well. But from the mirror beside me, Elu answered for Irani.

"Yes, there are, Dyami, and you are all of them mixed up in one. Why did you mention King Solomon to that oaf of a captain in the first place, much less wear that ring? Now, all on board know you have it. You have become a walking target for every would-be tyrant."

"It seemed the thing to do at the moment."

His bear eyes rolled. "I would tell you to shoot yourself in the foot, but you have already done that."

I turned to tell him what he could do with his wisdom-in-hindsight. But he was gone. It seemed no one wanted any part of my company - even me.

I studied the saloon around me. Rubies and diamonds sparkled on ivory throats and wrists like drippings from the sea. The low rumble of the engines was muffled by the rise and fall of conversation and music, the ebb and tide of desire upon destiny. The people milling through the chamber seemed to be talking against the darkness that pressed in on them or pushed out to escape from within them. Or maybe it was only my own darkness I felt pressing hungry against the window of my soul.

****************************************

And with all this talk of rings of power, why not watch a music video from one of my favorite movies?

SPIRITS OF THE PAST

I've decided to be kind on your eyes, friends.

A short post. Grim, the invisible Hellhound only I can see, just gave his 'that'll be the day' chuff. But on to the topic of today's post : how time gilds the guilty.

It is the season of our city's second Mardi Gras : Contraband Days. It is based upon a bit of our city's colorful history --

Almost three centuries ago, a notorious and ruthless pirate, Jean Lafitte, fled to this region with his band of buccaneers as enemy ships pursued him on his way west to Galveston, Texas.

Legend has it that Lafitte would hide out along the waterways here in Lake Charles. Whispers around the campfires have it that his favorite hideout was Contraband Bayou in Lake Charles. If you set out on your boat upon its silver glass surface at night, it is said you may see his ghost, looking in vain for his lost treasure.

In fact, the bayou got its name from the rumored gold and silver hidden somewhere along its winding length. Hence the name of our festival : Contraband Days.

There was other contraband in Lafitte's ships : slaves. It is rumored that he often sold slaves to Jim Bowie in the waterways of Lake Charles. As you can imagine, many of our black citizens take an underwhelmed view towards a festival where the contraband might well have been some of their ancestors.

But the Cajun spirit to party hardy is not easily put aside. So Contraband Days stays as the city's largest festival. The money it adds to the city's pockets is nothing to sneeze at either.

The ghost of Jean Lafitte is probably laughing somewhere tonight in the bayou's billowing mist.
***************************************

Oh, and friends have asked me what Gypsy looks like. As a princess, she refuses to have her picture taken. But I have a painting posted right above Garfield in my sidebar that is very close to her highness' likeness. Roland

CALL ME TOOMS

I promised you the complete story of THE COLOR OF HER THOUGHTS. But I looked at it. Whew! That rascal is 34 pages long. Your eyes could fuse together reading that many pages on a blog.

And it's been pointed out, and rightly so, that all of my excerpts have been dark, gloom, and doom. I mean, I do possess a sense of humor. But a promise is a promise.

So I've decided to post a lighter-hearted supernatural tale of a Lakota Heyoka, a Backwards Man -- and with my life, I sometimes think I am Heyoka! You also see another form of Gaia -- she is the world, after all -- she has many faces but only one nature. Mother Nature.

CALL ME TOOMS

My name is Toomey Starks. You can call me Tooms. But please not Toomer. Makes me sound like some unsightly growth. So of course that is what Molly calls me. But she ruffles my hair and says I am a benign toomer.

Not that Molly is her true name. Any more than the black face she shows me is her true one. But the eyes she shows me are hers. And that’s good enough for me.

She’s raised me ever since she found me beside my dead mother at the Toomey/Starks exit on interstate 10 in Louisiana. She had her reasons for doing that and love was only one of them. But I cling to the love and trust her on the rest. Molly always raises her eyebrows when I tell her this.

Sometimes I try to picture my mother’s face. I can’t. But although I can’t see my mother’s face, in my dreams I sometimes hear her last words : 'Great Mystery, I am so afraid. So afraid. Not for me. But for my little one. Stay close to him always. Always. Alw-- '

Great Mystery. Obviously that was my mother’s name for God. I use it myself now because for the most part what He is up to is a great mystery to me. And yes, that means I’m Native American. But I’m not sensitive about my race. I don’t even know my tribe. I would have used Indian but I didn’t want you to get the image of me with a red dot in the middle of my forehead.

Personally I think there’s a target on it from the way my life has gone. But your life has probably been no bed of roses either. Molly says everyone is having a harder time than they look so cut them some slack.

Actually what she says is ‘So cut me some slack, huh, Toomer?’

But I just made it sort of a universal rule to live by. And it usually works. Usually.

It didn’t work too well with that crooked sheriff. But that is why Molly gave me the puppy she called Grim. Blacker than even her, Grim has grown some since that first day. Grown a lot actually. His father must have been a locomotive.

Whenever I say that Molly just cackles that weird laugh of hers and says, ‘Yeah, Toomer, it was a loco-motive alright. Da HellBound Train.’ And as Molly laughs like the breaking of brittle bones, Grim’s eyes glow in the shadows of his great face like the dying light of the sun clinging desperately to the rim of the horizon.

I have long since given up trying to convince myself that glow is a reflection of the grumbling embers of the fireplace. Besides I have the memory of the screams of that crooked sheriff to teach me bitter wisdom.

But I got his gun out of the deal. Of course Molly changed it some as she changes everything she touches. There’s not one single bullet in its chamber. But it is the fullest empty gun I have ever seen.

It shoots. Just not bullets. Sometimes it fires self-awareness. Sometimes bitter regret. Usually whatever I ask of it. Usually. But not always. Molly has a strange sense of humor.

Take our mobile home. Emphasis on the word mobile. Whenever I close my eyes in bed, I have no idea what state, what continent I will discover outside our curtained windows. Puts a whole new spin to the term travel trailer.

Not that she stays with me all the time. Usually she just plops me down into a mess and watches gleefully from the shadows. That’s Molly for you.

Which explained the current pounding on the front door. Obviously, Molly had let her mischief do the walking last night and plopped me and the mobile home down into the middle of another furball. And speaking of furballs, Grim was nudging my left side not too gently.

Not that he was fooling me any. He could care less about the noise. He just wanted the whole bed to himself. As it was, the bed was listing dangerously to the port from his terrible weight.

I groaned, “Grim, why don’t you answer the door for once?”

He just chuffed, the breath blowing out of his lips in one of his good laughs. His bad ones you do not want to hear. They grate on your soul as if it were a chalkboard. The sound of them? Imagine the gleeful fizz-burning of something being released from its chains on the OtherSide to maul and maim. What OtherSide you ask. On the other side of whatever place I wanted to be.

Speaking of which, I sighed to the shadows, “Where are we now?”

From the darkness to my left, Molly’s spirit cackled, “In places forgotten by feet.”

I shook my head. It was never a good thing when she began the day by quoting Job. I wearily swung my legs over the side of the bed and matched her gloomy gus for gloomy gus. This time Jeremiah.

“Weep not for the dead nor mourn him;

Weep bitterly for him who goes away

For he shall return no more,

Nor see his native country.”

“Dat’s bemoan not mourn, Toomer.”

I staggered to my feet, heading to the increased pounding on the front door. “That’s easy for you to say. You actually knew Jeremiah.”

“And Ezra too -- ‘Arise, for this matter is your responsibility. We also are with you.’”

'This' had come out 'dis' and 'with' as 'wid' in her words but that wasn’t why I didn’t understand her. I spent much of my life not understanding her. Wish I could say I had gotten used to it.

As Grim gave his 'What do you mean we, paleface?' chuff, I muttered, “I bet Ezra didn’t say it with a Haitian accent.”

“Only da body I wear is Haitian, Toomer. I be not what you see.”

I shrugged. “Who is?”

When your home is truly mobile, you don’t wear jammies to bed. I tucked my black T-shirt into my jeans and pushed my feet into the waiting hiking boots, conveniently loose enough to do so. I ran my fingers through my eagle’s nest of black hair. I wanted to be presentable just in case a beautiful woman was the one doing the pounding on the door.

Hey, it could happen. Never had in the past, mind you. But there is always hope.

“Be careful what ya hope for, Toomer.”

I sighed. I just hated it when Molly read my thoughts.

“Lucky I don’t minds light reading,” she cackled from the darkness above me.

Opening the door with leaden fingers and trembling heart, I sighed, “Just once I’d like to open the door and see a beautiful --”

I managed to get my breath back. “Whoa.”

The gyspy in front of me was stunning. If she hadn’t been so furious, I would have called her beautiful. As it was, seeing the fire in her eyes, I wanted to call her a taxi.

Her long hair was a hot sunset, flowing down along either side of her high-cheekboned face. Her eyes. Damn, her eyes. They were gray/green with flecks of gold in them. In those eyes the monsters swam. The monsters that haunt us or drive us. Or both. I found myself getting lost in them.

Dressed in long black leather slacks, she seemed to vibrate in place with her barely suppressed anger. Her long sleeved gold satin blouse actually had a jabot at her cream throat. A frilly jabot. She was like something out of a black and white Universal werewolf movie -- but more colorful.

But we are not what we appear, nor even how we sound, but how we move and how we act. When I opened the door, she stepped back in surprise with the fluid, liquid grace of a world-class welterweight. Judging from her still clenched fist, I bet she could hit like one too.

“Y-You’re not Romanian?,” she gasped.

Romania? So that was where Molly had brought us. I sniffed the crisp, thin air. In the mountains. The Carpathians? Maybe.

“You caught onto that right off, huh?”

Her beautiful eyes became hot slits. “You are an American Indian, like one of those painted savages in the cinema.”

“Miss, I only get savage when someone tries to paint me.”

She cocked her head puzzled, and her spun sunset hair tumbled like a living waterfall. “But you speak perfect Romanian. How?”

“It’s a gift from Molly. I can speak any language I hear spoken to me.”

“Molly?”

She made the name sound mysterious with her odd pronunciation of it, and I smiled sad. “You’d probably call her Paraschiva.”

She backed up a half-step more. “I-Impossible.”

“No. Just damned inconvient. Today’s Friday, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” her voice was a wet husk.

I nodded with a sinking feeling in my stomach. “And some nasty critter is trying to close a bargain, isn’t he?”

Her eyes grew hollow. “In a manner of speaking. The Haitian is trying to keep his promise to kill Papa.”

She stepped forward suddenly. “Enough of this nonsense! Your damnable makeshift house is blocking our escape into the forest behind our home. Move it!”

“I didn’t bring it here, Miss. I can’t --”

It suddenly hit me. “I’m in your back yard?”

Her stunning eyes rolled. “Obviously, moron.”

I frowned. “The Romanians have a word for moron?”

She looked close to murder. “I would think you would hear that word often no matter what language was spoken to you.”

Grim had silently padded to my side and chuffed at my expense. He did that a lot. The young gypsy suddenly saw Grim in the full moonlight. She let out a frightened yelp and stumbled backwards, even falling to the ground with an easy grace.

I turned to Grim. “You make a hell of a first impression, Puppy.”

Grim chortled one of his OtherSide laughs. I tried not to shiver. If the gypsy tried, she failed. Her face seemed all eyes as she stared up at me.

“You call th-that thing ‘Puppy’?”

I nodded. “He was the first friend I ever made.”

“Fr-Friend? Are you insane?”

“Depends who you ask.” This time Grim chuffed good-naturedly.

Her jaw firmed as she rose to her booted feet. “I am not asking. Move this shack! We have to escape into the woods before the --”

Abruptly a heavy, steady pounding on the back door cut her off, and I stiffened, knowing the dead, incessant beating for what it was as I groaned, “Nzambi’s.”

She paled. “What did you say?”

“Nzambi, the Kongo word for spirit of the dead.”

I looked down wearily to Grim. “I hate nzambi’s.”

Grim gave his ‘they don’t care much for you either’ chuff.

The gypsy clenched both fists. “The Vrykolakas. Revenants.”

I shook my head. “You’re thinking your neck of the woods. This kind of nastiness comes from down south. Way down south. Though these particular fellows I’m afraid will be people you once cared about, who once cared about you.”

She paled, shaking her head in denial of what her eyes said she knew to be true. “The village council.”

It was my turn to frown, and she whispered, “Papa is the mayor. The Haitian promised he would cry bitter tears if he or the council defied him.”

Her eyes went to the back door as the pounding became stronger, more incessant. “I would wager this is his way.”

I jerked as something formed in my hand. I clutched at it awkwardly, almost dropping it. I looked down with dread although I knew what I would find.

The sheriff’s Colt peacemaker. Things were worse than I thought. It never appeared unless there was serious trouble. Very serious.

The gypsy noticed it. “Where did you get that gun?”

“It’s always with me. But like with my guilt and remorse, it doesn’t always show.”

Grim stared at me, his glowing eyes unreadable and distant. I walked slowly to the back door. I cocked the Colt.

“What are you doing? You cannot be thinking of opening that door.”

“Rule number one for living a long life : never have a 'bab pou bab' with a nzambi.”

“A what?”

“A face to face,” I said, then fired through the back door twice.

“Self-awareness and free will,” I whispered.

There was silence as I approached the door slowly. I watched the bullet holes heal as if the wood was flesh. I jerked back in shock as terrible husking screams sounded from beyond the door.

“W-What did you do?,” the gypsy rasped.

I swallowed with difficulty. “Obviously not what I planned.”

Grim snorted his ‘like that’s a first’ chuff.

The door opened of its own accord. The scent of jasmine flowed gentle from the outside like the memory of tropical islands and musky jungles. I shivered. Molly.

I edged closer to the doorway. There she stood to the left, shaking her head. Her turquoise eyes seemed to glow in the shadows of her dark face. She gestured to the mounds of powder that had once been nzambis.

“Dey could’ve been yours to control with dat gun.”

“I don’t do slavery.”

“How ‘bout death? You want ta do death?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Molly’s eyes shimmered with mysteries older than the first grass. They gleamed with the memories of seas older than the flow of blood through Eve’s veins. But they held not a glimmer of patience or mercy. I braced for the storm.

I flinched as I heard the floorboard creak behind me. I flicked my eyes towards the sound. What the? The gypsy had walked into my trailer and stood beside me.

“How did you get in here?”

She rolled her eyes. “Moron, I walked in on my own two feet.”

“But you can’t do that.”

Molly cackled, “Course she can, Toomer. She chose the hero path. Save her poor Papa she t’inks.”

I shook my head. “Get out of here. Now. Before it’s too late.”

“Already be too late, Toomer. What’s done be done. You the Trickster, she the hero. And ole Grim there he be death and hell be in his paw prints.”

And Molly laughed, its black sound trailing up into the night like the smoke from a gutted city.

The gypsy whispered, “To ie vila {a witch!}”

I shook my head. “Ako I je baba, nje vjestica {Though she is an old woman, she is no witch.}”

Molly shook her own head, her teeth becoming needled. “Now, you be tryin’ to trick yer ownself, Toomer.”

“Molly, --”

“I be not Molly any more, if’n I ever was. I be Erzulie now. Think I always was.”

She turned her turquoise eyes to the gypsy, and for the life of me it seemed as if her pupils had become tiny skulls. “Keiza, --”

“How do you know my name?”

“Ole Erzulie knows everyt’ing, child. The color of my thoughts be the Northern Lights. I knows yer Papa be trapped in his own home. The Haitian done slam shut the doors after you left. You his only hope.”

I frowned. “Why do you hate the bokor called The Haitian so?”

“He got hisself greedy. Haiti wasn’t enuff for him. No, he had to take his meddlin’ into my swamps then my mountains. He be shuntin’ the natural flow of t’ings.”

She smiled a thing of nightmares. “It be givin’ me a headache somethin’ fierce.”

Her grin grew fangs. “And you know I pays back with interest.”

Her eyes stabbed into mine. “You never wonder why yer eyes the color of mine?”

I shrugged. “Figured you were my GrandMother.”

That set her back some. “Why you never say somethin’?”

“Figured it was up to you to start the ball rolling.”

She nodded slow, some sanity coming back to her eyes. “You be blood of my blood. I won’t say how. All I say is The Haitian kill yer Mama. He owe you like he owe me. Now you collect.”

And with that she was gone as if she had never been. The shivers she had given me stayed though. And the world outside the doorway, what with Molly being Molly, had changed a bit.

Make that a lot.

Grim looked out the door and laughed. Its sound was the screeching of lost souls being flayed over a hot grill. Keiza began to shiver. I didn’t blame her.

I turned her way. “Keiza. That’s a beautiful name. Means ‘cinnamon tree,’ doesn’t it?”

She hugged herself, trying to calm her shivering. “Who is this GrandMother of yours?”

“You know several of her names already.”

“Names? What is she is?”

“Think Gaia.”

“What?”

“Mother Nature.”

“You cannot be serious.”

Grim gave his 'dead serious' chuff.

I motioned outside. “Molly may be scary as all hell, but she always has a good reason for doing what she does. She changed things outside the back door to tell us this way leads to The Haitian’s back door.”

Keiza’s eyes lit up. “Getting us to where we can kill him.”

“Well, that’s not my first plan. But it’s definitely something to fall back on.”

“But you heard her. He killed your mother.”

And killing him won’t bring her back or do her memory honor.”

I made a face. “But it might tarnish it some.”

“You are a strange man, Toomer.”

Grim chuffed in agreement.

“Tooms. Call me Tooms.”

“If that is tombs for The Haitian, I will gladly call you that.”

“Then, again, you can call me Toomer.”

I stepped outside of my trailer into the thick fog. Grim padded beside me like Hell’s shadow, which he might have been. I never asked him, not that he would tell. Keiza followed and matched me stride for stride, though she moved with the lazy grace of a wave to the shore.

The fog thinned, and my blood thickened. Oh, shit. The tall signpost that marked a crossroads. My crossroads. The sign read Toomy/Starks. The question mark after it was Molly’s idea of a joke. I wasn’t laughing.

I managed to husk out a bit of a tune that came to me,

“I went down to the crossroads and fell down on my knees,

Asked the Lord up above for mercy,

Save poor Bob if you please.”

Keiza shivered. “That song was haunting. Did you write it?”

“No. A fellow named Robert Johnson wrote it. Called it Cross Roads Blues.”

“Why did you sing it then?”

“Word on the street is that he met the Devil at a crossroads. Like I’ve been trying to warn you, he got more than he expected, less than he wanted.”

“What crossroads did this Robert Johnson go to?”

“This one.”

“Oh.”

“But he got the talent of playing one mean guitar out of the deal.”

“Was it worth it?”

One word moaned down from the endless void between the stars, “No.”

Now, Keiza wasn’t the only one shivering. Grim chortled his OtherSide laugh. I reached down and squeezed Keiza’s hand instinctively without thinking. I froze. But she squeezed back.

“And you can call me Kizzy.”

She looked intently at me. “You’ve been to this crossroads before, haven’t you?”

I nodded to the sign post. “I was named here beside the dead body of my mother.”

She pulled her hand from mine. “Y-You are aware of the legends concerning crossroads, are you not?”

I nodded again, my hand feeling empty without her fingers around it. “Yeah.”

I felt Grim’s glowing eyes upon me. “I know where I’m going to end up. But maybe it’s not your destination that’s important, but how you get there.”

Keiza’s eyes became wet, and she reached out and gently took my hand again. “I think I like you --- Toomer.”

I suddenly decided I didn’t mind that nickname any more.

I looked about the ever-changing landscape around me. No other alien land in all my travels called out to me like this crossroads. No other land could so longingly, so hauntingly whisper its welcome. In my nostrils still lived the breath of flowers that had perished along with my mother. I shivered.

“I do not blame you, Toomer. I have never seen such a place before.”

I sighed, “In West African and Haitian legend, the crossroads is an intersection of sorts, a place where the world of the dead and the world of the living can make contact -- if either are so foolish. The ruling spirit here is Legba.”

“Legba?”

“Yeah, the guardian of doorways and mirrors, of all crossings actually. A trickster spirit whose job is to interpret communication between humans and those that dwell on the OtherSide.”

She let go of my fingers. My hand was beginning to feel like a yo-yo. She looked at me with eyes that seemed to have grown twice their size.

“T-Trickster?”

I shook my head. “The only one I end up fooling is myself, Kizzy.”

“Really? You have tricked me into coming to this crossroads I have never before seen.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re still in your village.”

“You are insane.”

I sighed. “Not that you might not be right there. But there is absolutely no unchanging space. Just like there’s no absolutely unchanging time.”

“Words! Words to confuse me futher.”

“Space and Time are living things in a universe in perpetual motion. This place is still the same village where you and those you know live.”

“You lie.”

“No. You’re just seeing the truth of it for the first time.”

“What truth? That all is mist and lying signposts?”

“That’s more truth than most ever discover.”

Grim nudged me hard on the left leg. I looked down at him puzzled. He sighed as if at an addled child. He thrust his long black muzzle to my right. I turned. Suddenly, there was more than mist to this place, though I doubted the change would be welcomed by Keiza.

A four poster bed was smack in the middle of the road closest to our right. And in it dozed a man and a woman. Across the man slept a leopard. The woman had a snoring cheetah across her. But the hissing of snakes took my mind off the strange sight.

Keiza clutched my right arm. “By The White Lady, Toomer. The children!”

I nodded sadly. The children were at the foot of the bed. A little boy and a little girl giggled as they ran their fingers through the writhing knot of biting, hissing snakes all about them. They were being killed right in front of their sleeping parents.

“We have to save them, Toomer!”

I shook my head. “Too late. The venom is already in their blood.”

Her face was all eyes as she husked. “Then what can we do?”

“Keep it out of ours. Come. Let’s take the path to our left.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why left?”

“Because that is the side closest to my heart.”

Her eyes stayed slits. “I do not know about you.”

“Why should you when I don’t understand myself.”

We walked all of three steps when a gnarled hand reached up from the mists to snare my left arm. Grim growled low. Keiza stepped away from the apricot-faced vagrant revealed by the thinning mists. He was sitting cross-legged, looking hungry and weathered.

“Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?”

Taking my arm from his fingers, I shook my head. “No, you’d only hurt yourself with it.”

He nodded as if agreeing. Then, as Keiza yelped he tore the eyes from his sockets with a wet “splurshing” sound that turned my stomach. I stared dumb-struck as he studied the bloody eyes in his hands with his seeping, empty sockets.

He chuckled, “I see what you mean.”

I watched with dry mouth as he shoved the eyes back into their sockets backwards. “Yes, I understand now.”

“That makes one of us,” I muttered as I led Keiza away from the still chuckling vagrant.

This time it was she who got her arm snared. She tore it savagely away from the Peddler to her right. He smiled with long needled teeth. I barely saw them. His eyes. Great Mystery, his eyes. They were tiny mouths with snapping shark teeth.

He opened his long black coat, showing antique pocket watches and tiny sundials which hung from loops on the inside. “Want to see some of my time pieces?”

Keiza seemed paralyzed with fear, and I led her away, shaking my head at the monster. “I can see you have an eye for beauty. But we’ve places to be.”

“Do not be in such a hurry to rush into your graves. I could help you.”

“Help yourself you mean,” husked Keiza. “Our people know of you, Peddler. You mean the opposite of what you say.”

I nodded. “He wants a piece of our time.”

She shook her head. “No. Of our eternity.”

“I feel ever so much better knowing the difference.”

“Mail call!,” grated a voice to our right as a figure stalked out of the flowing fog.

“The Postman,” rasped Keiza.

A tall skeleton in a blue tattered uniform lumbered at us. He reached back into the bulging leather bag bound to his back. Grim growled, growing half again as big as he had been. I shook my head.

“Sorry, gruesome. But you should know that postmen can’t stray into one another’s route. We belong to Grim here.”

Keiza managed to get out, “W-We do?”

I sadly nodded. “We all have that letter in the post with our name on it. Some of us get it sooner. Some get it later. But the Postman knocks on all our doors eventually. We just get to have a Postman who will love us until that day.”

Keiza looked doubtfully at the glowing-eyed monster who had been my first friend. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Grim stood menacing the skeletal Postman with ever-increasing growls. He padded forward three steps. The straying Postman edged back into the fog until he disappeared.

Grim chortled his OtherSide laugh, and Keiza glared at me. “I just feel the love.”

I patted Grim on his huge, misshapen head. “See, Puppy. You’re growing on her.”

“I was being sarcastic, moron.”

“And you sounded so sincere too.”

She smacked me aside the head with the back` of her left hand, and Grim chuffed in delight. I smiled. She was growing on him, and that meant the world to me.

She whipped me about to face her. Her anger was over-riding her terror, but only barely. Her words came out gutteral.

“This place is a nightmare!”

“Only if you make it one. Besides it’s still your village.”

“You keep saying that. And I keep telling you that I have never seen it before.”

“It’s where you and everyone you know live. You’re just seeing the truth of it for the first time.”

“Then, I don’t want the truth.”

I took her gently by both upper arms. “You and everyone else. And that’s what gives The Haitian the power to rule your village.”

That brought her up short. I felt her stiffen beneath my fingers. She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. She opened those disturbing gold-flecked gray/green eyes and stared into the very bottom of my soul it seemed.

“So be it. I will have your truth then.”

“It’s your truth too.”

Her eyes were suddenly unreadable. “Perhaps.”

We took up our walk again. Still to the left. Sue me. I’m a romantic.

A loud ringing clanged irritatingly right in front of us. Keiza looked a question at me. I shrugged. As most times in my life, I had more questions than answers. I would have worried. But usually when I got answers, they sucked, so I was in no hurry.

She flicked uneasy eyes my way. “Do you know what demons lie ahead of us.”

“No. In this place there is no warning. We either whip them, or they whip us.”

She sneered, “That simple?”

“Exactly that simple. And that deadly.”

Grim blew out his ‘you haven’t a clue’ chuff. Sad thing about that was he was probably right.

Keiza looked at me, her head cocked. “Why do you stay in that trailer? It only leads you to dark places like this. You could walk away.”

I stopped and faced her full on. “Then, Molly would be all alone. We’re family. And family doesn’t do that to family.”

“She is going to get you killed one day.”

“Something is going to kill me one day any way. This way I help keep the darkness at bay for her.”

Her eyes hollowed. “Be careful of your quests, gaje. The darkness is like a knife in the mind. It does not care who it cuts.”

I started to reply to that, but we stumbled into a break in the mists. I pulled up short. Keiza almost walked on my heels. Grim looked at us like addled clowns. But we were all eyes for the trio of women in front of us.

Not Macbeth’s witches. Nuns. Three gaunt nuns, their left hands bloody, their right clanging away with cracked bronze bells. Under a huge oak, they stood next to a huge red kettle that looked more in keeping with the Salvation Army.

The Salvation Nuns were yelling gibberish at the top of their lungs, “Ew evah eht reswna! Ew evah eht reswna!”

It suddenly hit me what they were screaming, and I backed up. “Sorry, sisters. But you’ve got it all backwards.”

As I was edging away, Grim had turned sideways right behind me. I stumbled into his bulk and reeled over backwards to the ground. I hit hard and felt the breath knocked out of me.

“Puppy! Watch where you’re going.”

He abruptly sat down right in front of me and gave his ‘Exactly’ chuff.

While Keiza studied me as if I had gone insane, I whispered, “You want me to watch where I’ve been going.”

Grim’s glowing eyes became suns.

Memory swept me up. I was a babe again, crying beside the still form of my mother. I pounded and pounded her, but she remained unmoving. An adult Grim suddenly popped out of nowhere to straddle her, his glowing eyes stabbing into me. While I was only a child, I had been old enough to understand my mother’s last words.

I remembered squealing at the sight of him. Not with fear. But with relief. To me The Great Mystery had heard my mother’s prayer. And he had sent me this huge monster for protection. In a child’s crazy logic that meant not only was I not alone, but that Mother was still alive -- just with The Great Mystery.

With a relief and a joy that words simply cannot describe, I reached up and hugged Grim’s thick neck. “Puppy!”

And so he became. A surprised, bemused puppy. We stared at each other. And our lonely eyes connected soul deep. And both of us knew that we would never again be alone. And we had grown up and grown close.

Back in the present, I hugged him and muffled into his big neck, “I remember, Puppy. I remember.”

I scrambled awkwardly to my feet, smiling at a confused Keiza. “And it’s me that has it all backwards.”

Having come to terms with my forgotten beginning, I understood a bit more clearly my final ending. And how to walk the path to it. My heritage, which I had thought so unimportant to me, held the answer.

“Heyoka,” I sighed.

“What?,” frowned Keiza.

“In the Lakota Sioux language it means sacred clown.”

Keiza smiled smug. “I keep telling you that you are a moron.”

“Cute. Did you know that cute means bow-legged in Japanese?”

She instinctively glanced down at her legs, caught me smiling, and simmered, “You are a clown.”

I nodded in agreement. “Yes. A true Heyoka. Who does everything backwards.”

“What?”

I bent down and hugged Grim’s neck, who gruffed his ‘not in front of her’ chuff. “I was the puppy all this time.”

“If I stay with you, Toomer, I shall need a compass. You have completely lost me.”

I rose and smiled. “You know when you walk into a room, and your puppy has made a terrible mess? You point at it and say ‘Bad Puppy!’ And then what does your puppy do?”

“You’re the expert on puppies. You tell me.”

“He sniffs the end of your finger!”

Grim gave a ‘finally’ snort as I continued, “Which is what I’ve been doing this whole time.”

Keiza sighed, “I’m glad you understand.”

She smiled acid. “Must be a moron gift.”

“Exactly! Everyone here has been pointing at the way out of this limbo, and all I’ve been doing is looking at the finger.”

Keiza flashed me one. “Here is another for you.”

Grim chuffed delightly. I ignored the both of them. True genius was never appreciated.

“The Heyoka ask important questions by acting the clown, by saying things others are too afraid to say. It is how we get others to think about things not ordinarily thought about or to look at things a different way.”

I shook my head at myself. “And here I went and became blind when it was done to me.”

I laughed at the poetic absurdity of it. “Here I am, a Heyoka, that couldn’t see that my friends here were all trying to make me understand that the way backwards is the way to go forward.”

“I - I don’t understand.”

I looked beseechingly at her. “I don’t ask for your understanding. Just trust me. Please.”

She looked long into my eyes, then slowly smiled. “I must be becoming a moron too, for I do trust you. What do you want me to do?”

“Just stand right there.”

I walked slowly up to her as the Salvation Nuns looked silently on. Grim padded beside me. I looked across at him.

“Time for you to dog my heels, Puppy.”

Keiza yelped as Grim became a mass of black smoke, billowing and steaming, which swirled in a spinning column that seeped into my heels. An inner coldness like a white fire took me. I told myself that I had asked for it. All I heard was Grim’s OtherSide laugh echoing inside my mind.

“Was that really necessary?,” Keiza husked.

“I-I’m asking the same thing. Now, hold still.”

I looked up at the tall oak spreading its gnarled arms over us as if in leafy benediction. Without taking my eyes off of them, I picked Keiza up with both hands and swung her around and around. I laughed like a child. Caught up in my mood, she giggled like a little girl herself. I sang my Orenda {Power} song.

“A shield of leaves growing over,

Becoming the shadow of all it shadows.

Cross over, cross back.

The gate, somewhere in between.”

And like the swinging of some invisible gate, one heartbeat Keiza and I were spinning at the crossroads. The next, we were standing in the middle of a circle of strange dirt. We were in a dark, cedar paneled room. To our right stood a startled older man. I went cold inside.

I had no doubts at all that I was staring at the infamous, feared Haitian. A sturdy, still vibrant man. He looked like once he had six-pack ab’s. Now, he had a keg -- along with a bad face and worse eyes.

He glared at me and rasped, “I-Impossible!”

I set Keiza down easily to my left, and she laughed, “Funny how people are always saying that about you, Toomer.”

His dark, lined face paled. “Erzulie’s cur!”

“That’s Mister Cur to you.”

He seemed to puff up, the humid air becoming electric. He pointed proudly at the circle of odd dirt all around us. He smiled wide.

“Yer Grim be useless to ya now. Dis protect me. Keep him out.”

I sniffed twice, thrice. Sulfur. Salt. Pepper, both red and black. Ash. Mold. Had to come from graveyard dirt. Probably iron filings from anvil shavings too.

“Goofer dust,” I groaned. “Hey, Petro --”

“How you know my name?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been taught by the best.”

“Erzulie,” spat The Haitian.

“Well, you call her that if you want to. But Petro, I’m the Heyoka. I’m the one who’s supposed to do things backwards.”

“You talkin’ nonsense.”

“Usually. But really. Didn’t you ever listen to Willie Mabon :

‘Getting sick and tired of the way you do,

Good, kind mama, gonna poison you,

Sprinkle goofer dust all around your bed,

Wake up in the morning, find your own self dead.’”

The Haitian growled, “You a fool!”

Keiza snorted, “See, Toomer, he thinks so, too.”

I sighed, “What I know is that goofer dust kills. It doesn’t protect.”

“You be mistaken, cur.”

I blew out my cheeks sadly. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“It be your last.”

He slowly held up his right hand, then in a spasm made a fist. Thunder rumbled right above us. Keiza jerked in fright. I shook my head at him.

“Molly was right. You really have strayed too far from home.”

His eyes deepened along with his voice. “I be carvin’ dem words on your tombstone -- tooms.”

“You’re the one that called up the thunder, Petro.”

“Terror comes wid the thunder, boy.”

“It comes from the West. As I come from the West. As the Thunder Beings come from the West.”

He sneered, “Da who?”

“The Wakinyan, the ThunderBird.”

“I be so scared.”

I shook my head. “You be so dead.”

“You in my circle, boy. No way out. You be a dead mon walking.”

I smiled with only my lips. “Well, you could say I am in guarded condition.”

He raised his right hand, and tiny lightnings sizzled from his fingertips. I shook my head. He should have stayed in Haiti. He knew that land and its rules. Molly had taken me the wide world over and taught me each region’s lore and legends. This whole planet was a friend to me.

And why not? Molly was its consciousness. And she was family. And somehow this swaggering bokor had hurt her. Hurt her in such a way that she could not hurt back.

I felt my face go tight. No one did that to my family. No one.

The lightnings grew into hissing snakes of power. Keiza started to do something with her own fingers. Nice to know that she was no wallflower.

In this moment there was no need. I made a face. But there was always tomorrow.

The Wakinyan brought storms. Not out of malice. Out of love. For when the storm has passed, the world is greener and happier. For whenever the truth of storm comes upon us, it is like the rain. The world is happier after the terror of the storm. More alive.

Have you not felt it after a brooding, hammering storm? Looked out and up at suddenly bright blue skies and felt renewed, lighter somehow.

That is the truth of the Storm. Truth comes into the world with two faces. One sad with suffering. The other laughing with the joy of life torn from the fingers of pain. But it is the same face, laughing or weeping.

As lightning lifts the shroud of darkness, so do the Heyokas with the storms of life. The two are linked. Lightning and Heyokas. I am Heyoka. And the power of the lightning is mine. It is my gift from the Wakinyan.

And none take it from me. With my will, my Orenda, I snatched the power of the lightning from the Haitian’s fingers. He staggered backwards, his jaw slack. His dark eyes began to hollow.

I called down to my heels. “Time to deliver that over-due letter, Puppy.”

“P-Puppy? But dat be impossible.”

Keiza laughed and sounded much too much like Molly. “That is his middle name.”

“My first is Not.”

Grim burst from my heels. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of his true form. I almost threw up. To spare Keiza, I swept her into my arms, shielding her from the sight with my body. She glared up at me. Then, she heard the terrible screams of the Haitian. And worse. The wet, ripping, slurping gulps that seem to go on forever.

I shivered right along with her. I still loved Puppy. He was family. And you loved family in spite of things the rest of the world could never understand. That was the good thing about family.

I looked down into Keiza’s, no, into Kizzy’s gold flecked, gray/green eyes and smiled at what I saw there. My family had just gotten bigger.

More than a sister. Not yet a lover. I smiled at her knowing smile.

There was always tomorrow.



{FIN}
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi623773465/

AWARDS FROM THE CYBER-CHALLENGED

I am new to blogging -- only three months at it. And adding links is completely beyond me, so forgive me if I fumble this. But Wendy aka Quillfeather http://quillfeather-blog.blogspot.com/2010/05/warning-very-long-award-post.html gave me the "It's Like We're Soulmates" Award. So I felt honor-bound to do her proud and award this to five friends who seem to understand my writing :

First is Donna Hole http://www.blogger.com/profile/08715849844092553699 -- who unknown to everyone is really Angelina Jolie, who is keeping an eye on her husband, who is going by the name here in blogdom as Simon C. Larter http://www.blogger.com/profile/01628662209746701945 . Sorry, Brad, to rat you out. But someone was going to do it sooner or later.

Second is Christi Goddard http://www.blogger.com/profile/08590491851753709622 who's given this award away so often that she has lost her own original copy. And she doesn't want anyone to know that she, too, is hiding her true identity. She is, in fact, the real-life secret agent whose life is now being released as the thriller movie, SALT. Now, that I've given away her secret, she will, of course, have to terminate me with extreme prejudice.

Third is Grammy http://www.blogger.com/profile/07080499751409620799 , otherwise known to his publishers as Stephen King. Sorry, Grammy, to let your secret out. Yes, friends, Grammy is really Stephen King, looking to loot our sites for new story ideas to re-vitalize his fading career.

Fourth is Anne Gallagher http://www.blogger.com/profile/05816355522284492131 . Yes, I know she was already awarded this award, but she, unknown to all but psychic me, is really a hitwoman hiding in the center of this unsuspecting country, courtesy of the Federal Witness Protection Program -- another tragic example of our tax dollars wasted!

And fifth is Stephen Tremp http://www.blogger.com/profile/13562766257714556778 -- who is but a shameful facade behind which hides Vice-President Biden -- Yes, Potty-Mouth himself, who bored out of his skull with nothing to do, lurks in our blogs, hoping to find more colorful metaphors with which to pepper his speech. He especially likes Christi's blog for that.

Yes, I know the black helicopters will be circling my apartment complex, but the truth had to be revealed. Thanks all of you, not just the fab five, but all of my friends who comment on my blog -- you enrich my life. Roland

If someone can tell me how to make links in this blog, I would be most appreciative, cyber-challenged Roland