‘The Love Song of Child-of-Water’

The Love Song of Child-of-Water

My boss, Dr. Demi Diaz, chair of the Psychiatry Department at Miami Jackson Behavioral Hospital, called as I raced west, dodging possum pancakes baking under a blazing sky on the griddle-hot Tamiami Trail. “Ina’s grievously damaged by her five-year ordeal, Dr. Panther,” she said.

“Thus her suicide attempt. It’s my fault. I rescued her too late.”

“No. Six weeks ago you saved her life. But you have to confront your wife with the truth, Jimmy. You’re disappointed her love couldn’t heal your war wounds. And now Ina’s in danger.”

“How? She was sedated when I left her bedside four hours ago.”

“Security called Codes Blue, Grey, Black, and Orange. She’s been kidnapped.”

I nearly swerved into an onrushing police cruiser.

“By the cohort who trafficked her,” Demi said, “starting with her mother, a/k/a the Witch, who approved the enterprise. And Ina’s ex-husband who sold her. Amon Rot.”

“Tampa’s chief of police.”

“And Rot’s pharmacist friend, who bought Ina and raped her ad infinitum in his dungeon. Don Olk.”

I punched the steering wheel.

“And the psychopathic neighbor whose romantic advances Ina rebuffed. Annr Ilk.”

My lip curled into a sneer. “The Owl. But why?”

“To shut her up permanently.”

“Murder. Where did they take her?”

“Captiva Island, to ride out the hurricane. Hustle. Save your wife and my patient.”

* * *

I snapped awake at the boat launch on Chokoloskee Island, then bolted from my car, jumped on Wind, the most powerful airboat in the world, and launched. Under brilliant moonwash, I passed waving sawgrass along the banks of the Lopez River, then plied into Crooked Creek and clouds of seething gnats. Snapping turtles floated like mines in red mangroves. Raccoons, eyes aglow, hid behind bald cypress knobs, reporting my movement through territory to which they held title. Ancient organic stench hung above the murky brown water.

A half-hour into the trip, the Slow Speed sign appeared. I turned south. After ten minutes, I entered Sunday Bay, a body of water shaped like an equilateral triangle, illuminated by the warm orange glow of Crazy Harold’s Huts set along a white sand beach. Barnacle-encrusted pilings sunk into marl held them just above water. Chickee roofs of woven palm fronds staved off sun and rain. On the deck of the command hut was a counter fashioned into a bar, standing racks of snacks, and a port-a-potty. I killed the engine, glided up, tied off, and climbed the ladder.

In a lawn chair by a plastic cooler, listening to a portable radio from which Gordon Lightfoot bemoaned that the feeling had gone and he just couldn’t get it back, sat Harold Panther, ninety-three, my uncle, adoptive father, and the ugliest man in the world. A Chinese grenade tossed his way in Korea claimed his left eye and ear, half his tongue, and much jawbone. A descendant of Seminoles interned as prisoners-of-war in a fortress on Egmont Key, Harold sold his crate of medals to tourists for cash to start his moonshine distillery during the Kennedy administration.

And he was my everything. Shortly before I was born, my father, a descendant of Chiricahua interned in Pensacola who escaped, ran south, and mingled with the Seminole, took a panther for ceremonial purposes. The game warden dismissed his Native sovereignty defense. My father, who’d raped me into Harold’s daughter, killed four deputies before he was subdued. The State of Florida fried him a week before my first birthday. One year later, barbiturates, vodka, and a razor claimed my mother. She left no note. I fished a Red Stripe from the cooler, popped the top, and handed it Harold, apologizing for my tardiness.

He scoffed. “Ain’t no time at tha origin,” he said. “Glad ya here.” He lip-pointed east. “Killer storm comin. Nineteen hour off.”

“I know. I came to get you. And I need your help.”

“Nah. Ya fine by ya self. Ina however. She been kidnap.” He guzzled his brew.

I thought I’d dreamt it in a driving-induced microsleep. My heart lurched. My vision swam.

“Come as a shock, eh? Figgered.” Harold crushed the can one-handed. “Just do same ya did on tha playground when ya whipped tha asses a that gang attackin her on tha monkey bars.”

“Uncle, Ina and I were nine then. I gave up violence long ago.”

“Ha! Say tha man got hisself covered in ribbons fa what he did in tha war.”

“I’ve changed.”

“Change back. Them folks what hurt Ina afore ya come back inta her life need killin.”

“Look where killing got my dad. I just want peace.”

“Shit. Peace only come when tha fightin’s done. N ya so fuckin good at fightin.”

I said nothing.

Harold spat. “But if ya want out, just take off runnin n never come back. Find a cosmic fuckin rationale ta dodge ya duty.”

“Like as a psychiatrist I’m supposed to help people, not hurt them?”

“Psychiatrist don’t mean shit in tha real world. N Hippocrates can fuck hisself. Ya gotta hurt some ta hep others. Ina n ya unborn. Creator asking who matter ta ya, n who in fuck are ya?”

“So this is all a test?”

“Yep. N all ya can do is fill in bubbles as problems come at ya. Creator’ll tally up ya score.”

“I don’t believe in ghost stories,” I lied. Lightning flickered.

“Ha!” Harold smacked an adjacent chair, then hawked into the creek. A catfish burst from the murky water to vacuum his sputum. Harold laughed into paroxysms and went blue.

I jumped up to assist.

He pushed me off with ease, then launched into some old fable. “Way back, tha Chiricahua was threaten by Monsters.”

“I know the origin story, Uncle. Child-of-Water slew Buffalo, Eagle, Antelope, then Elk.”

His glare withered me. “Monsters I’m talkin bout, accordin to ya daddy,” he continued, “was Evil Ones killin Chiricahua in tha Chiricahua Mountains. Spaniards prolly. Seventeen century. An a diyyin begged Usen ta hep.”

“A Chiricahua medicine leader.”

“Usen say run quick. Get on tha tallest mountain. So Chiricahua sit three days n nights n no water. Day four, Wind blow out tha West. Lightning slash out tha North. Thunder barrel out tha East. Sun rise out tha South. Then Sun, Wind, Thunder, n Lightnin hug n shout ‘Hookah!’

“Translated, ‘Let’s go!’”

“They join arms n spin counterclockways, eh? Then they rotate arms n charge, suckin Water off Ocean. Black Cloud wrap em up n they fly over Nde benah.”

“Land of the People.”

“Mmm. As Black Cloud sail cross Sky, Day become Night. Water is seethin white foam. Chaos everwhere. When Sun, Wind, Thunder, n Lightnin arrive, too late fa Evil Ones ta climb.”

I was riveted.

“Then Sun depart. Black Cloud thicken. Evil Ones run but Wind blow four direction. Chiricahua start singin Wind Song.” He sang the old words: Let it be well, my brother Wind. Blow wide. Continue in a good way. Do not harm your poor people but do your duty against the Evil Ones.

I was transfixed.

“Then Wind blow down tha Evil One, wrench em limb ta limb, n toss corpses. But no Chiricahua hurt. Now Lightnin strike out four direction. So Chiricahua sing Lightnin Song.” And so did Harold. Let it be well, my brother Lightning. Strike high. Continue in a good way. Do not harm your poor people but do your duty against the Evil Ones.

Something stirred in me.

“Then Lightnin burn Evil Ones ta ash,” he said.

“Were any Chiricahua hurt, Uncle?”

“Nah. So Thunder boom out four direction, n Chiricahua sing Thunder Song.” As did he: Let it be well, my brother Thunder. Clap all around us. Continue in a good way. Do not harm your poor people but do you duty against the Evil Ones.

I felt Power.

“Then Thunder boom, Jimbo, blowin Evil Ones ta bits.”

“But leaving the Chiricahua unmolested?”

“Man, woman, child. Then Child-a-Water return to earth. In a shirt a abalone. Chiricahua sing Child-a-Water Song.” And he repeated it:  Let it be well, Child-of-Water. Wash all around us. Continue in a good way. Do not harm your poor people but do your duty against the Evil Ones. “So Child-a-Water unleash deluge,” he said. “Evil Ones drown. Nde benah purified. Chiricahua saved. You trackin?”

I twitched in anticipation, but shrugged.

Harold spat. “All ya see’s an old man flappin lips, eh? I ain’t inspired ya. Well, listen up. Ya own Evil Ones is pressin ya. N a storm comin. N history repeats herself.”

Lightning flashed. I faced myself, then Harold. “Uncle, please sing again.”

“Ya know who ya are now?”

“ I think I always have.”

We sang together until I knew the songs better than Ina’s face. Harold abruptly quit mid-verse. “Time ta rescue Ina. She in tha Witch compound. Got two floor. Like a igloo made a titanium legos two foot thick. N they’s a giant steel safe upstairs.”

“A sealed panic room with its own generators and oxygen so you can survive a hurricane?”

Harold grunted. “Least tha front half. TEvil Ones gone be inside. Panickin.”

“Good. How do I open the door?”

“Just wish it so. Sun ain’t risin today. Don’t got no three days ta wait. Wind’ll get ya there and back with Ina aboard. Hustle.”

* * *

I was one with the hurricane, pure of arms. We grew deadlier even as we rode up onto the beach dragging foam and chaos behind, scouring Captiva Island clean down to the coral save for the compound. Wind's bow stopped before a gaping maw in the compound where we’d wrenched away sliding glass doors, casements, and shutters. Orion shone. Mars reigned.

I clambered over the gunwale and ran inside. Two feet of water filled the first floor, but none cascaded from the second. Upstairs windows were intact. I felt my way up the central staircase and found Ina nude in the corner of an open room. Her jaw smashed. Her face flattened. Her eyes glazed and sightless. A sharp effusion of crimson and the remainder of our unborn child coagulated on the tile. I checked her pulse but she was cool and stiffening.

I tore out my hair, laid on the floor, held her, and bawled. Hours passed before I could say goodbye to all that had tethered me to this world.

Then my true nature returned at a gallop. Time slowed, compressed, stopped.

I rose and gathered myself. The backup generator kicked in. Eerie bloodred emergency lights flicked on along the second floor ceiling. I hustled to the panic room and willed the door open.

The circular portal, ten feet of chromium steel across, pivoted.

The pale white faces of the Evil Ones stared back at me.

The Owl—a short round greasy woman—screamed. She wore jeans, a flannel, duckboots, a necklace of little metal birds of Minerva, and mouse blond hair under a red bandana.

I greeted the four. “What a foul assemblage. Justice mandates consequences for bad acts.”

The Witch—a rotund septuagenarian—grabbed the Owl’s hand. The wicked sisters ran to the rear of the wedge-shaped room.

Don, the pharmacist, chased after them.

Rot, with an arrogant sneer, folded teeth, and slouched shoulders, jiggered an interior panel.

The door swung shut.

I willed it open again.

Rot jumped forward, pistol in hand, and fired.

I jerked sideways.

Rot fired again and again, emptying the magazine.

I dodged all his bullets.

“I sent a BOLO before the storm arrived, Jimmy,” Rot shouted from the rear of the panic room. “When they catch you, you’ll die in Old Sparky like your daddy.” 

“Wrong. I’m immortal.”

“They said you were crazy!” Rot yelled. “Even for a shrink! SWAT will here in twenty minutes!”

“Wrong, Chief. The roads are underwater. Powerlines hang like spaghetti. Your goons won’t beat the back half of the storm.”

The truth sunk into Rot. “Let’s talk, Dr. Panther.”

“Dr. Panther’s absent. Child-of-Water’s here.”

“We have money,” he offered, oblivious to who I was. “I mean Ina’s mother can get it. Let us go and I won’t file charges,” he offered as if to sweeten things. “Afterward, complete disengagement. Just take the money.”

“Nah. All the world’s cash is pennies on the dollar you owe Ina. You’ll pay for your transgressions in flesh. You each owe Ina a death. I’m here to collect.”

“Why you?” the Owl simpered.

“Because of my provenance. You executed horrid crimes against my people. Kidnapping. Rape. Murder. Let’s talk order of operations. I’ll attend you sequentially. Choose the order yourselves, or I will. You get five minutes to palaver. Hookah. Let’s go.”

“What gives you the right?” the Witch snarled, still haughty and unresigned to her fate.

“I was created for this.”

Downstairs, I found a floating bucket containing dark grouting paste.

Upstairs, I fingerpainted. On one wall, I made the Chiricahua symbol for Sun. One another, the symbol for Cloud. On a third, the symbol for Wind. On a fourth, Lightning. On the ceiling I painted Water, Stars, Water, and Sun, finishing the epic cycle. Time for the blood sacrifice.

I went to the panic room and opened the door. “It’s time, you Evil Ones. Who’s on first?”

Rot tossed the Owl tumbling through the door.

I cracked knuckles. “Greetings, Owl.”

Her eyes were glassy. I doubt she heard me.

“In the Divine Comedy,” I lectured, “Dante Alighieri outlines punishment for Hypocrites. Those who feign virtue yet are in fact wicked liars. Have you read it?”

She wouldn’t or couldn’t speak. Fear has that effect.

I dragged her downstairs and onto the beach and resumed. “In serious cases, Hypocrites were whipped, their eyes were burnt out, and, decked in leaden robes, they were flung into the sea.”

Life crept back into the Owl. “I d-don’t d-deserve this.”

“No? Unrequited love is toxic. If you’d let it go rather than conspiring to have Ina trafficked and raped, you’d be safe abed.”

“Ina’s a liar. And I didn’t rape her.”

“But you did, vicariously. You brokered an oxy for rape scheme between Ina’s addict ex-husband, the chief of police, and your childhood pal, Don the pharmacist. Then you cloaked it in the narrative Don was crazy Ina’s caretaker. Then you secured the approval of Ina’s mother, a severe antisocial personality who’s hated Ina from the moment she was born. Even if Ina had been able to escape without my help, who’d have believed her tale? Your agglomeration of evil was the perfect insurance policy to get all your needs met.”

“Don and Rot ran the whole thing.”

“They’ll get what’s coming to them too. Everyone does eventually.”

“If you hadn’t come along, none of this would be happening. Let me go, asshole.”

“Where? The island will be under twenty feet of water in forty minutes. The compound has structural damage. It won’t survive the second half. You’re all dying today. Only question is how.”

The Owl screwed up her face. “Ina deserved to be raped!”

I grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the ocean’s lip.

The far side of the eye was visible. Thick, boiling, angry clouds.

I pinched her nose, grabbed her tongue with pliers, and sliced it out.

She babbled nonsensically, but at last spoke truth.

I pulled weight belts from a compartment on Wind, affixed them around her neck and knocking knees, then rolled her face down, dragged her to sea, and released her/

I ran for the compound. Halfway there, I snuck a look.

Dorsal fins whirred explosively, cycling a bloodred gyre in the water.

I grabbed a line, then ran to the kitchen. In the detritus of shattered cabinets I dug up a garbage bag. I shoveled ice from the freezer bin with my hands until the bag was half-full, then ran upstairs, found an office chair, wheeled it to the panic room, and opened the door.

Rot, the Witch, and Don cowered in a state of fear-induced helplessness.

“Who’s next?” I barked.

No one uttered a sound.

“In ten seconds I’m coming in, kids. Last chance for democracy.”

Rot twisted the Witch’s arm behind her back and bulldozed her out the circle and under the bloodred lights.

I pushed the Witch to the staircase, tossed her over my shoulder, and kicked the chair clattering downstairs. Then I dragged her by the collar into the kitchen.

She glowered like a possessed eagle pursuing the panther that ate her eaglets. “How dare you burst into my home uninvited and behave this way?”

“I’m here on a mission to rescue my wife and kill you all.”

“Ina needed no rescue. I told you—she lies.”

“As she did when she came to you and reported your husband for raping her in childhood?”

The Witch glimmered with glee. “Ina’s always been a drama queen. Don was her caretaker. And a doctor,” she dissembled stubbornly.

I grabbed the ice bag and cut the rope to the proper length. “Wrong,” I said. “Don was a Walmart pharmacist who tortured and raped her at your behest. Now he’s my prisoner.”

Her eyes blazed. “Don did what he could. Ina lost her mind when Amon rejected her like every other man has.”

“Wrong, Ina filed to divorce Amon five years ago because he planned to sell her to Don with your approval. And I didn’t reject her. You did. Now your daughter’s dead.”

The Witch harumphed. “Let Don go this instant.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “I repeat: Ina’s dead. And her unborn baby too.”

The Witch’s eyes slitted. “Good. The thought of a half-breed baby sickens me. Ina brought everything on herself.”

I gnashed my teeth. “You call yourself a Christian. Do you believe in hell?”

“Certainly. That’s where you’re going.”

“Then I’ll give you a thirty-minute head start. Fire or ice?”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You denied choice to Ina. I’m more generous. You get to pick how you’ll die.”

The Witch tried to kill me with her eyes. “You’re evil, James Panther.”

“Child-of-Water.”

“If you hadn’t come along, none of this would be happening.”

“So I’ve heard. Time’s up. Ice will suffice.” I tied the bag with two loops of rope around her neck. She went into shock. I pushed her outside to face the storm’s wrath. Two down. Two to go.

From my boat, I took hammer, nails, pyro putty, and a lighter.

Back inside, I found a bathroom, tapped drywall to find a hollow space, kicked, and pulled two four-by-six boards each ten feet long.

Outside, I nailed them together, laid the cross on the sand, and dug a pit by the incoming tide.

* * *

The panic room door swung out. Rot and Don rushed me.

Rot tried to dart past on my right. I clotheslined him. A wet thwap of meat against meat as he went down, larynx bruised, writhing.

I turned on Don. He was an inch or two shorter than I. Rangy, with a carpet of graying hair on his visible body. He stunk of rotten gym shoes, sewage, and offal, and pulsed with the energy of an admixture of evils from a dreadful place beyond the grave. I twitched in anticipation of the kill.

But before I closed the distance, Don zipped back into the panic room. The door closed.

So Rot would be third. I tied rope around his ankle and dragged him downstairs. His head hit every cement step.

At the cross on the beach, I dropped the rope and knelt. He was groggy. When he took in the cross and its accoutrement, he struggled lamely to rise.

“You won’t get away with this, Panther,” he said, mindless of the cliche.

“Child-of-Water.”

“You’re crazy.”

“We’re all as crazy as hell. What defines us is whether we channel insanity for good or ill. It’s a sequence, Rot. The Owl died as Black Cloud blocked the Sun. Wind will gather sand and flay the Witch from her bones. Lightning is your terminus. For Don, Water. First, I have questions. Why did you marry Ina?”

“To pass and have kids.”

“Why let her go?”

“She was useless after popping the second kid. Lavender marriages suck. I did it for my mother.”

“Why not get an amicable divorce instead of trafficking her?”

“There’s opportunity in every crisis. And I always hated her.” He put a hand on his head as if it was the cap of an electric chair, then pulled back his eyelids with his fingertips, mocking my father who, like Rot, had had it coming. “Dipshit,” he branded me. “Egg-bearers are everywhere. What do you see in Crazy Ina?”

“She wasn’t crazy. She was traumatized from five years in your rape camp. Now she’s dead.”

Rot smirked. “We all do whatever we can get away with. Take it up with Don.”

I punched him unconscious, rolled him onto the cross, grabbed his left hand, stretched his arm, centered a nail between radius and ulna, then swung the hammer. Nail pierced joint. Blood spurted. I repeated the process. Once his arms were affixed to the crossbar, I pulled his legs straight and drove a nail between the metatarsals of each foot. Then I lifted the cross and dragged the top of the beam into the pit. Rot was crucified upside down, feet pointed skyward. I drew my knife, sliced the flesh under his ribcage, and let his viscera, under the influence of gravity, spill onto the sand.

Rot never got the chance to scream. I arranged pyro putty under his head, but before I could flick the lighter, ZZZZZZZZZZ!

Lightning had struck. I was as if I’d flown too close to the sun. I was unscathed, but Rot was charred to cinders. His reeking remainder, pushed by a sudden puff of wind, toppled to the sand.

Embers glowed. Sparks flew.

Wind pelted the unconscious Witch and dispersed Rot’s ashes. Three down.

But the apotheosis of evil remained. For Don, it would be full Hammurabi.

* * *

I stood arms outstretched, legs wide, in the circular opening of the panic room, waiting for the panic to fully bloom.

After a while, Don, blubbering, spoke to fill the terrifying void. “S-s-say something!!”

I said nothing.

He began a silent rash of shuddering sobs.

“You and I cannot both live on this earth,” I explained after a while.

“P-please,” he begged. “S-Spare m-my l-life.”

“Can’t. I’m obliged to take it from you as you use it so badly.”

He sank to his haunches and hiss-whispered. You’re no killer. You’re too good a person to do this.

“Wrong. I’m the cruelest most unforgiving creature ever sung into being. You should know that. You’re my Creator.” I went in and knelt next to him.

His eyes were a blend of lichens, bile, and infected mucus. He was big and strong enough to terrify any woman, but his prime malignancy was immaterial, extraordinary, and from eons past. The menace and venom instantiating him were distilled from ancient atavisms buried so deep beneath the sea of humanity that in just one in ten million births did they ooze to the surface.

“You,” I told him, “should never have done what you did to a woman with a husband as good at killing as I am.”

He sobbed. “P-p-please d-don’t k-kill m-me.” His bowels evacuated. Urine dripped down his leg and puddled. The room took on a barnyard tang. He held out his hands as if to embrace.

“I have to, Don. It’s my reason for being.”

Don hoot-panted like a chimpanzee, then issued a hideous moan halfway between foghorn and yoga chant. Then he stutter-whispered, calling me a brute and an ogre. Then he went catatonic.

“You thought Ina was the perfect victim,” I said. “No husband to rescue her. No family. No friends. Prior rape history. On the autism spectrum and unable to get help. Nod yes. Shake no.”

He nodded and sobbed.

“And you thought yourself safe to run your rape camp until you killed her. Today, you did. I’m curious. If you’d known of me, would you have behaved differently?”

He hesitated, then slowly peeled back his lips into a smirk as if work was done and it was party time. “Never,” he hissed. “Ina wrote you years ago.” He was wooden and eerie. Something had awakened. “But you did nothing. Years passed without a phone call or email. Nod yes. Shake no.”

He’d turned the tables. I nodded despite myself.

“No one gave a shit. Including you,” he taunted. “When you showed faint flickers of interest but blew her off, we thought you a coward. Or homosexual. Or both. Your neglect bought time for me to ruin Ina for all other men.” He spoke calmly, with perfect diction.

“I’ve heard and read about your deeds.”

He grinned. “But you had to be there to appreciate them. And her wails. Her screams. Her blood. Did you know, in the adjacent room, I raped her for the three hundredth time? What a milestone. I counted. Carefully. And I’ve tortured and raped many others.”

“You’re a monster.”

He beamed. “I worked hard to merit that distinction. Thanks. Do you know, I believe I raped your child out of Ina entirely?”

Outside, the roar of a diesel train engine from hell deepened in pitch.

“Relax,” he said. “The abortion’s free. As a pharmacist, I’m part of your medical family. Give us a kiss, Jimmy.”

Something broke inside me. “Are those the eyes that first saw Ina?”

He grinned. “As God beholds a sinning whore.”

“Did those teeth scar her?”

He clapped in glee. “You’ve seen my work? I’m a body artist among my many talents.”

“Which hand grabbed Ina’s throat?”

“Both. Her hyoid nearly snapped.”

I pointed to his ears. “Those heard her screams?

“Ina has excellent theatrical pitch.”

“Is that the nose that smelled her perfume?”

“And her fear. The signature scents of my home until you stole my luxurious plaything.”

“Pull out your cock.”

He did. “Now suck it.”

I ignored the goad and pointed to the little flesh nub. “Is that what you used to rape Ina?”

“Deep in her triune holes, including her asshole, asshole.”

I unsheathed my knife and held it by the tip.

He beheld the blade and sniggered.

“Take it,” I insisted, “and drag the razor edge across your wrists. It’s easier than what I’ve prepared for you.”

He laughed. “Like you didn’t let the other three go.”

“The back half of the hurricane will be on us any minute. Where do you think your colleagues went?”

He shrugged. “A car. A boat. You’re just trying to scare me.”

“How do you want it? Blood loss? Drowning? Both?”

He looked at the blade as if it were his next victim, laid the fingers of his good hand on the handle, then hesitated.

“Come on, Don. Dispatch me and walk free.”

His hand fell to his lap. “For maybe ten minutes, until the second half of the storm arrives.”

“Maybe five. But the pain would be less. Otherwise the interval to come will be hard for you.”

He smiled. “I’ll ride it out in here just fine.”

“The compound won’t survive the back half of the hurricane. Kill yourself, or I’m going to waltz you through a wonderland worse than death.”

“You wouldn’t. You’re a pussy.”

“Want to bet?” I slapped the knife into his hand.

He dropped the blade.

I looped a noose around his neck and jerked him up.

He shrieked. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

“Executing the ancient law of man.”

“OH! I’M SORRY! OH GOD! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!”

I sliced off his ear. The tissue separated as a lettuce leaf peels from the head.

He skirled in agony then prayed. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and...” 

I sliced off his other ear, then kicked him wall-to-wall. “Admit you like this and I’ll stop.”

Don went frantic. “Holy Mary mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of—”

I removed his nose. A bloody mucilaginous slime ran hot and wet down his face and garbled his words. I pummeled his face. Bones cracked. He puked, then wore a death mask. I kept on, went deaf to the sounds he made, and hammered out teeth. Two stuck in my hand. I flicked them away then stuck my blade a quarter-inch through his eyelids.

Clear fluid leaked onto his cheeks.

I hacked off both index fingers and tossed them behind me.

He keened and wailed. My very own banshee.

I sawed off his penis and testicles.

He bled front and back and moaned like a dying cow.

I bit his back to shreds, then dragged him downstairs. I sharpened a closet pole into a spear, then dragged him onto the sand near Rot’s crucifixion.

“Are you ready for the finale?” I asked the final Monster.

No response.

Water reclaimed the seabed. Earth shook. Wind flung sand, abrading flesh from the Witch’s bones. Lightning slashed cloud-to-cloud. My hair stood. I smelled ozone. Balls of blue flame rolled from south to north, trailing fire with their passage. Inside the onrushing eyewall, flames crackled.

I inserted my spear in Don’s anus, rammed until two feet disappeared, then dragged him until the blunt spear end slid into the pit and set him upright. He made not a sound.

Water rushed higher until he was submerged, then gone. 

It was done. The cycle was complete.

But I’d failed. Chiricahua had died and I wanted to join them.

I ran back upstairs and waited for the end with Ina.

But the hurricane abated. Stars came out. After a while, the sun rose.

“Always been a gap between story n practice,” I heard Harold say from far off. “Kid, ya know who ya are now n ya done what ya could. Proud a ya.”

Gripping that razor-sharp sawgrass stalk hard enough to draw blood, I sang Ina into Wind and back to Harold. That night, sadder and wiser, singing of Sun, Cloud, Wind, Lightning, and Water, we buried her where white men will never go and Creator will never tell.

Tommy Cheis is a Chiricahua guide, diyyin, and Cochise descendant. After traveling extensively through distant lands and meeting interesting people, he resides near the Cochise Stronghold with his horses. His stories (will) appear in Yellow Medicine Review, Rome Review, After Dinner Conversation, NonBinary Review, Maine Review, Invisible City, University of New Mexico Look to the Mountains Anthology, and more than twenty other publications. He is the winner of the Colonel Darren L. Wright Memorial Writing Award, and his work appears on the CLMP Reading List for Native American Heritage Month November 2024. He is a PEN and Pushcart nominee. His first novel, RARE EARTH, is on submission; his second, CHILD OF WATER, will follow shortly."