Уолтер Мосли - Blue Light

I could have fallen down on my knees and asked him for the truth for me right then, but I knew that he would only leave me there.

The only way I could learn what I needed to from Bones was to observe him. I decided to follow him and Gerin Reed on the way through the thick brush and woods that day. The smaller Thrombone was moving fast, making it hard for his friend to keep up. Bones wasn’t laughing or joking either. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t saying anything at all.

They covered ground quickly and, after quite some time, entered a part of the forest that was familiar to me. This was unusual because of two things. One, I’m a city boy with no woodlore. Two, my second sight makes everything I see different no matter how many times I see it. I could see a tree a thousand times, and in every encounter, the tree would have something new to say to me.

But that particular grove of white firs was different. As Bones and Gerin Reed made their way, I began to feel dread. It wasn’t until a colorful wing flitted past my face that I realized we were under one of the deadly canopies of Blue-killing butterflies.

Above me were tens of thousands of brightly colored wings. They moved continually, resembling a masterfully created kaleidoscope that never repeats an image. I was captivated by the undulating blanket of their wings. For a moment I was lost in their performance. The wisp of blue in my veins seemed to flutter along with them. If I hadn’t heard the plaintive note of human despair, I might have died there watching the colors.

As it was, I tried to turn to see where the cry had come from and found that I was on my knees. Bones and Gerin were nowhere to be seen. I tried to get up, but my first attempt failed. The second try got me to my feet, but I was unsteady.

A loud moan could be heard through the woods.

I stumbled off in that direction.

Upon reaching the source of the wail, I found Bones and Reed hunkered down over two butterfly-encrusted bodies in a clearing. Juan was picking off the deadly fliers by their wings. He tossed each insect into the air and blew on it. That was enough to make the creature float away.

When I came out from the cover of trees to approach my friends, a woman’s voice called out in wordless surprise. I realized that there was a third person there, a young woman who had also been on her knees and hidden from my view by the two men.

“It’s all right, little one,” Thrombone crooned, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. “He’s our friend.”

By then I had reached them. The two bodies looked to me like corpses. The man had white skin with straggly long dirty blond hair and only one arm. The woman, the taller of the two, was lean, strong, and very black. Her coarse hair was straw blond. She opened her eyes as I gazed upon her beauty. I don’t know if I was more surprised by the fact that she was alive or that her eyes were the color of blood and gold.

“Nesta!” the hysterical young woman cried. “Nesta!”

“She’s alive, little one. And full of stories, if I’m not mistaken,” Bones assured the skinny girl.

“Nesta knows everything,” the girl I came to know as Trini said. She was a sixteen-year-old runaway whom Nesta had saved from Claudia Heart’s dying commune.

“Everything.” Bones’s eyes lit up in mock surprise. “Then it is good to have her here. You see, I know nothing — at least nothing important. Maybe we can share secrets and seed trees together.”

Trini seemed to enjoy the little madman’s words. She giggled and ducked her head in a conspiratorial gesture. That’s when the one-armed hippie sprang to life. “Whoa ho!” he shouted and sat straight up.

He aimed a fist straight for Gerin’s head. At the time I wouldn’t have believed that that fist could have dented a cardboard box. Later I realized that Winch Fargo’s fist could kill any mortal man. But Bones blocked the blow and pushed Fargo down with what seemed to be a gentle shove.

“You are safe now,” Thrombone said while looking into Winch’s eyes. “No more darkness. No more running in the night. You are home now. You are free to stay and lie around all day long.”

I don’t know what I expected to issue from that wild-eyed and depraved visage, but the tears surprised me. In the months and years to come, I had little love and less concern for Fargo but I never hated him. I didn’t because of his sad and total abandon at Bones’s promise of sanctuary.

“The children will be happy to be among others like them,” Bones said.

“But you are like us?” Nesta’s statement was more a question man anything else.

“No,” the tiny woodsman replied. “Everything you believe I have forgotten. All you’ll see in me is heart and bone on stone in wood. I am free of your destiny.”

The beautiful black woman frowned and then stood straight up as if she were rising from a nap rather than from near death. She wore a blue-checked work shirt over a black T-shirt with cutoff jeans and heavy hiking boots. Fargo was wearing soiled and torn hospital pajamas that were light green. He was barefoot and smelled strongly of himself.

“I released him because he was in pain,” Nesta Vine said to Miles Barber under the shelter of Number One in the cathedral of trees. It was raining, but we were dry under the man-made shingles of leaves and warm from our fire.

Miles had accepted Mackie Allitar, even helped him to escape police custody, but he took an instant dislike to Winch Fargo, challenging the amazon’s right to help such a man.

“He’s a mass murderer. With him here no one will be safe.”

“You better watch it, prick pig,” Fargo said. “Or I’ll put out that other eye.”

“You see,” Miles turned to me for support.

But before I could think of anything to say, Juan Thrombone spoke up.

“You will respect life and limb in my domain,” Bones said to Fargo. “And in return I will show you how to make your own light. But if you harm anyone here, I will put you where you will never know peace again.”

It was the only threat that I ever heard Bones make. Fargo alternately cowered and glared, but Juan wouldn’t look away.

Finally Fargo said, “Okay. All right. I was just jokin’ anyway.” And then, “Can you really help me keep the shakes down on my own?”

“We are all family here,” Thrombone answered. He stood up and looked at each of us in turn. “Yes, you will receive what you need. You will sleep with the stars and moon and the sun so bright that never again will you cry or need to put out eyes.”

Somehow it seemed that we all came to a solemn agreement to put aside all differences for a time. It was not that we would like or even trust one another but more that we had agreed to become a small nation committed to our little turf.

For a long time no one new came to the town of Treaty or to the cathedral of trees. Preeta and GR (that’s what everybody but Bones called Gerin Reed) pretty much stayed to themselves, but they were friendly.

Reggie was over the moon for Trini. She was hungry for a young man to love her. He no longer had to go behind Number Seven. They spent long hours in the woods running naked and making love. Reggie adored her. He even learned how to make clothes and jewelry to give her.

Trini wasn’t a loud kind of person. She didn’t want to lead and never complained unless something was really wrong. She knew that Nesta and Winch had brought her to a magical place with powers as great as Claudia Heart’s. And so Trini was more deeply moved by Reggie’s protestations of love. She told me that every morning she had to find our Pathfinder and look at him a long time to believe that it wasn’t all just a dream.

Nesta wanted to educate them and the rest of the “children.” She insisted, with varying degrees of success, that they all spend three days a week learning how to read. Reggie and Wanita, Trini, and Alacrity all had to go.