Tex and Molly in the Afterlife, page 18
"Pup, hell," said Eckhart. "I came here to buy a wolf. Is that what you're selling or not?"
In Jesse's mental ledger, the price of the breeding stock jet doubled. Without speaking he set off walking down the trail.
"Where you going?" called Eckhart.
But Jesse just kept going there and eventually the customer got the picture and came scrunching down the gravel behind him. He wore heavy, Army-style boots that made a lot of noise. But that's what the gravel was for, after all. To scrunch under your boots, to telegraph your approach. So that even if the wind was blowing the wrong way, the wolves would be expecting you.
A quarter mile along, the path ended and the woods thinned into scrappy stands of willow and alder and swamp white oak, then into winterberry and bog laurel, and finally cattails and sedges. There was real water out there, Leman Pond, but you couldn't see it through the heavy marginal vegetation. The first run of chain-link began where the footing got damp.
Eckhart was fast behind him, breathing hard. They stepped along a narrow run of tromped-down bracken. The wolf smell was strong enough that even Jesse could sense it now. After a while a second run of chain-link started on the other side of the trail. They were hemmed in now. The path became narrow and overgrown with grabby weeds, thistle and burdock and multiflora rose—a pain-in-the-butt gauntlet that you just had to thrash your way through.
"Going too fast for you?" Jesse called back to Eckhart, loud enough that the animals would recognize him.
"A little slow, if you ask me," the customer huffed. He sounded impatient. "You got any wolves around here, or what?"
Jesse turned and stopped him with a look. "They're tracking you now," he said, keeping his voice flat. "They're checking you out. The smell of you. The way you move. You'll never see them, though." Jesse started walking again. "Not unless they want you to."
Eckhart was quiet for a while. After several more paces his belt snagged on a big Chinese bittersweet that had gotten itself intertwined with the chain-link. By the time he worked himself free, Jesse had reached the gate. With deliberate slowness he unlocked it.
"Go on in," he said. "Meet your pup."
Eckhart paused. He peered through the fence at what looked to be a barely penetrable thicket of winterberry. The plants grew in sprawling clumps, a little better than head-high, and some of the upper twigs still held scarlet berries from last autumn. The berries didn't soften and sweeten until after a long freeze, but usually squirrels and winter birds were hungry enough to clean them out anyway. Seeing these berries hanging on in May, with fresh green leaves popping open around them, told you that the winter had been mild, with plenty of food around.
Eckhart said, "What do you mean, my pup? Don't I get to choose?"
"Sure," said Jesse. "You can choose to buy him or you can leave him for somebody else. The pup's got a choice, too. He can decide to show himself or to keep hidden. Not much you or I can do about it."
Eckhart looked dubious. "Don't you train them at all?"
Jesse stepped through the gate into the wolf pen. It was about half an acre in size, but you couldn't tell that. He planned to offer Eckhart one of the larger wolves. The best thing all around, he figured, would be to sell this man an animal that would waste no time in getting away from him.
"You want a trained animal," Jesse said, "you get a dog. Or a wolf-dog, or a coy-dog. Just pick up an Uncle Henry's, you'll see them advertised every week."
"I don't want no damn coy-dog," said Eckhart, pissed enough to come into the pen now. Jesse latched the gate behind him. "I want a wild-ass goddamn wolf."
Jesse nodded. Out of one pocket he pulled out a package of meat wrapped in plastic, fresh from the I.G.A. He made a clicking sound with his tongue, the feeding signal. In truth he had conditioned the pups, to this extent. It had been their only contact with humans. They were just shy of 13 months now—too old for imprinting. Essentially, they were always going to be wild.
The pup appeared with a little more clicking and coaxing. It was a male, with sharp black markings on a gray-and-brown-streaked coat. He was well developed for his age. He approached Jesse from the side farthest away from Wild Jag Eckhart, growling softly, keeping his head low. Jesse tossed him some of the meat.
"Doesn't seem as though he likes you," he said to Eckhart.
"Shit." Eckhart took a step closer. The wolf growled and pawed at the ground where the meat lay. Eckhart stopped. "Well, he's got to learn to like me, I guess. Or at least he's got to learn who's the boss."
Jesse, unexpectedly, gave him a big smile. His teeth were white but uneven, straighter on one side than the other. He threw down a second piece of meat. The wolf raked this toward himself with a paw.
"What do you call him?" Eckhart said.
"They don't have names."
"Yeah?"
Jesse crouched a little. He held out the remains of the meat in its plastic wrapping. The wolf moved a step in his direction, then stopped. His eyes were like one-way mirrors.
It was all part of the plan, Tex's big idea: the outlaw breeding project that would return the long-vanished timber wolf to the eastern end of its historic range. And simultaneously, of course, turn a little profit for him and Jesse. They had begun with a mated pair of adults acquired from renegade breeders in Idaho. Then they built the pens at Da Turtle's Hostel. Now they were into the third phase, raising the pups past the age when they could be domesticated and offering them to an eager market of macho backwoods types who wanted something a little crazier than a pit bull.
This was where the uncertainty, both practical and moral, set in. Because it was virtually certain that none of the customers would be happy. The wolves would not be tameable, and they might prove to be dangerous to their owners. The owners, in turn, might react in any number of ways. They might shoot the animal, or they might report Jesse to the law. Most likely they would just turn the wolf loose.
In this case, since the wolves were native-born—not captured and ferried down from Canada or someplace—their territorial instincts would incline them to stick around Applemont. There were plenty of woods to hide in, and plenty of prey to hunt. Long-term, the plan called for a second breeding pair, genetically distinct from the first—there were supposed to be other outlaw stocks in Montana and eastern Oregon. If Tex and Jesse could just keep it rolling for a few years, the whole operation ought to become irreversible.
With no warning, Jesse pounced. He grabbed the young wolf by the neck and slapped the muzzle over his jaws. The wolf kicked and snarled, but Jesse was one strong motherfucker.
"Give me a hand," he yelled to Eckhart.
Eckhart hesitated, then threw himself into the mess of man and animal, displaying a ferocity that gave Jesse pause. With the wolf outnumbered, Jesse tightened the muzzle and snapped the leash in place. Then he backed away, leaving Eckhart to wrestle the animal himself.
"He'll be getting sleepy now, anyway," Jesse said, wiping his brow with a cowboy kerchief. One of his wrists showed deep scratch-marks. "There was a little medication, you know, in that meat."
"Don't look sleepy to me," said Eckhart, through gritted teeth.
"Wait till he's really awake," said Jesse. "You'll notice the difference. Better get him home before then."
After a few minutes, Eckhart was able to stand and catch his breath. The wolf, though still awake, had become clumsy and docile.
"So," he said, panting and grinning. "I guess I'll take him, all right. How much do you get for them?"
"Thousand dollars," said Jesse.
"Say what?"
Jesse turned and started toward the gate.
"How about six-fifty?" said Eckhart behind him. "Hell, I can get a couple of wolf-dogs for less than that, and go ahead and breed my own."
"They won't be wolves," said Jesse. His hand was on the latch. He stood his ground and waited.
Eckhart came closer, dragging the leash. The wolf trailed along; he wanted to lie down, but didn't seem to care that much. Eckhart stared at the animal for a moment or two. Finally he looked up at Jesse and said: "Can I write you a check?"
Jesse shook his head.
Eckhart smiled. He reached into a pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out a cheap nylon wallet stuffed with 20's. "I guess you do know your business," he said, peeling them out.
Jesse nodded. He hoped so. He guessed he would miss the pup, but he wasn't sure. He guessed that a level of uncertainty was inevitable in this line of work.
He just wished he knew where
Tex had gotten
off to.
in the Underworld time stopped
* * *
with a lurch, and Tex popped out of the acorn, which morphed back into Beale, the homeless dryad. Don't ask how such things happen. They happen all the time, Down There. You'll see for yourself soon enough.
The red squirrel's great-great-granddaddy's nest had blown up into this gigantic cavernous place that was imbued with a mysterious cool green light—a glow like moss seems to make after a thunderstorm. Only this glow came from the dirt itself, that formed the structure of this immeasurable underground temple (which was at the same time just a little red squirrel's nest), as though the dirt were radiating the energy of its secret slimy moldy germ-infested life. You could see the roots of the yew tree overhead, swollen with vital humors they were pumping around, and huge flakes of leaf mold, rotten wood disgorged by beetles, worm castings, fractally intricate fungi, nematodes squirming through the gaps, and a ceaseless oozing of dark teeming water.
"Wow," said Tex. "I wish I had a camera or something."
"You'll remember," said Beale. He looked as mournful as ever. "Always."
"Remember what?" said Tex.
"This encounter," said Beale. "You will carry it with you from one incarnation to the next—if your kind of being has more than one of them."
"Hey," said Tex, "what about that, anyway? I could never quite decide."
Beale shrugged the way an oak tree shrugs: massively stirring energies passing through him and moving on. "It is not for you to decide," he said. "It's one of the great Mysteries."
"Ah." Tex stretched his arms, then his legs. He found that nothing hurt, that he was able to move freely again. (Therefore, he supposed, he was not really touching the Earth.) "So, what encounter? You mean, with you?"
Beale pointed at the high ceiling, supported by its arch of tree roots. "That is the root of the yew," he said solemnly. "Do you understand?"
"Understand what, bro?"
Beale sighed. "The yew," he said, "is the Final Tree. It is the tree that, in more civilized times, your people planted in their graveyards. It is thrice deadly, because its branches are used to make arrows, its berries are poisonous, and its roots grow fat on putrefying flesh. Thus it is the tree most beloved of the Worm."
"The worm?" said Tex.
"No," said Beale. Like he heard perfectly well the casual, lower case inflection. "I suppose I'm wasting everyone's time, arranging for this audience."
"Hey, no, listen—" Tex held his hands out, a display of good intentions. "Sorry if I'm slow on the uptake. I'm kind of new to this scene, you know? Maybe if you take it just a step at a time—"
Beale shook his head. "I had thought you must understand. All your talk of getting organized. 'Make your voices heard,' you said. Naturally I assumed you would want me to take your proposal to one of the Primary Beings. To an entity powerful enough to act upon your recommendations. That's why I brought you here."
Tex looked around. The chamber seemed to swell, to acquire new levels of complexity. Some weird dimensional thing was going on.
"Woo," said Tex. "This is making me dizzy."
"To say the least," said Beale.
"To say the least." Tex shuddered. "So you're saying, you brought me here so I could meet, like ... the Ruler of the Underworld?"
"That would no doubt be easier for you," said Beale. "But I'm afraid there's no time for the mediation of human-scale deities. I thought I explained this to you. I myself am older than your gods. But I am an infant compared to the Primary Beings. You have transcended the human realm altogether. That's what will make this encounter so memorable."
Tex started to ask again, What encounter?
But the Underworld was changing too rapidly. The walls of the chamber became so distant that you couldn't see them any longer—only feel them, a horizon inscribed around the infinite. The green glow sublimated itself, becoming a kind of semivisible atmosphere. And the roots of the yew began to throb and to writhe, extending themselves everywhere, a living web, growing and interweaving. As Tex watched, the roots explored the millionfold wrinkles of darkness with hungry, insectile proboscises. And every place they probed, the darkness ruptured open to reveal a tiny living presence: a sentient organo-chemical matrix: a source of nourishment for the Final Tree.
This was a Vision, Tex realized. Not a normal perception, or even an altered-state thing like a near-death experience. As Beale had said, it was beyond the human realm. It just went on and on, way beyond anyone's ability to process. Let alone Tex's. And at the same time every single part of it was accessible, instantly knowable. How can you be everywhere at once when you're no place at all? Well, dig this.
"Here," said Beale. "Look now."
Tex grokked that the whole network of sucking rootlets fed into a series of fatter and fatter tubules, swollen bodies pumping with life-stuff. And these in turn were drawn inexorably together into a hungry center, a sort of black hole into which everything was being sucked. And at first the center was not a visible thing, it was wrapped in some kind of plasmic event-shroud. Then Tex felt himself being drawn into it. Hoovered into it. Consumed.
He felt a root penetrating his larynx. He looked down and saw that a slender, moist, tentaclelike appendage was sinking into him—growing into his body, raking his throat with alien cilia and spreading down into his entrails and up into his brain. It was drinking him dry. But what it was removing from him was not raw bodily things. It was a stream of words, memories, snatches of rock & roll, embarrassing episodes from his childhood, anger, tenderness, sublime moments of peace, unfocused anxiety, sexual arousal, the taste of mayonnaise on celery, the color yellow, the smell of Molly's hair, the night sky over Jerome, Arizona, a falling leaf, an orgasm, fields of bluebonnets in the spring of 1972.
"What the fuck is this?" he said, or tried to say.
These words flowed out of him as everything else was flowing—into the root, through the web, down toward the voracious insatiable center. And then at last, watching his words flow in, Tex finally got a look at the thing. The Being:
It was soft and squishy. It was fat and roughly cylindrical, with swollen bands from top to bottom. It was the color of sallow, sickly flesh. It smelled like brine and rotting horseshoe crabs and dung. It seemed to possess a number of eyes, though these may have been some kind of tumorous excrudescence. And it was getting fatter by the moment, feeding on Tex and on everything else—all the little blobs of tasty protoplasmic sentience it could gets its grasping tongues into.
"Well, fuck you,'' said Tex. Who figured that this horrible Being could eat him, but it couldn't sweeten him up.
"Tex Darffot," said Beale, "I bring you into the holy presence of the Bishop of Worms."
INTERVIEW WITH THE WORM
The Bishop of Worms emanated a sound like an aircraft carrier passing wind. Beale said, "The Worm expresses the idea that your mind has an unpleasant taste."
The dryad stood next to Tex, only without a root snaking out of his throat.
"Yeah, well, just wait," said Tex. "It gets worse. Wait till he gets down to my like, kinky sexual fantasies and shit like that."
The Bishop rumbled and the Underworld shook.
"The Worm is not a he," said Beale. "The Worm has no human attributes whatever. The Worm is the Great Devourer of all things manifest. Its nature is to digest and dispose. All things that have ceased to be but may one day be again, in some new form, fall within the Worm's domain. But you should know this already, much of it. These matters are widely discussed in your own literature."
Tex nodded. "Sort of like a cross between a white hole and that thing in Dune."
It had gotten to be sort of diverting, watching his words flow away, down into the incalculable maw of his Wormship.
The dark bulges that Tex thought might be eyes moved around on the Bishop's clammy surface. Thousands of rooting appendages shivered and slid across each other, like so many snakes growing out of Medusa. A sound like the sky being torn down the middle blasted through Tex's eardrums, bringing the activity of his brain pretty much to a halt. It was kind of a relief.
Beale said, "The Worm wonders whether you are the slave of any particular human deity."
Tex started to say No, but slithering out of his larynx instead went the name
NEMAN
and Tex watched in puzzlement as this oozed its way toward the Bishop. About halfway there, the name appeared to get stuck. The draining away of Tex's memories slowed to a trickle, then stopped. That damned goddess appeared to have clogged up the plumbing. Then Worm spoke again, uttering more or less:
GGWNNWWGGMMRLLGGLLNRRWWNGGGRL LN NGWWRLLGLRWWLRGGNNMMKRRLRRZ WWGN GGNLRRFFFFT.
And Beale started to translate; but Tex cut him off.
"Hey, I couldn't agree more," he said. "If I were you, I'd spit Her the fuck back out."
The Bishop of Worms does not, evidently, spit things out. But the coiling root that snaked its way into Tex's throat was abruptly severed from that massive quivering body. As Tex watched, it began to wither, becoming insubstantially small until it completely disappeared. He clutched at his throat. Unfortunately there seemed to be an open wound left there.
First, the kiss of a goddess, he thought. Now a tracheostomy by the King of Compost.
"If I'd known it was going to be like this," he said, "I would've just stayed alive."
Beale lowered his head, as though profoundly embarrassed.
The Worm made another noise. It was the sort of noise that would stop hens from laying for the whole summer. No analogy Tex could conceive would remotely have done it justice.
