tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82215825262759002322024-03-13T04:03:31.410-07:00Alex Call Stories and WordsAlex Call stories in serial form..plus other pieces of writing...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-86881846169209693022014-04-30T14:53:00.000-07:002014-04-30T14:53:42.852-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Real Headline<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is
much ado, and rightly, about Cliven Bundy and Donald Sterling’s racially
changed remarks. The coverage of the Putin-orchestrated takeover of Ukraine and
the missing jetliner also blaze from the headlines. There are shootings in malls, once-again
failing peace talks in the Middle East, the Repubs block another bill, Obama’s
ratings rise and drop. Whatever! The pundits cry out with today’s outrage.
Opinions are sought from experts and often angry speculation from opposing
viewpoints is rife about possible outcomes. It’s a merry, shiny crisis factory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But there is,
in fact, a story that needs to be front
and center in the flashing 24/7 cycle, yet it gets only a passing mention.
Everyone wants to rail about the fleas, but the elephant is sitting in middle
of the room and will soon break the walls down and let in the flood. The great
masses really don’t want to talk about it. Give me Sportscenter and that
tornado coverage. I am speaking not of Climate Change, as this is only a side
product of the real problem. I am talking about overpopulation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since the
discovery that fossil fuels can run machines we have been on a wild careering
ride chasing “progress” (and its corollary sidekick money). Coal and oil can be
burned to run engines that enable us to make things and move things in ways
that could never happen in the first four million years of hominid development
and the 10,000 years of “civilization”. Mechanization and modern medicine have
changed humanity in essential ways: we now live longer, dig deeper, go faster, can kill
better, and we have left our Mother Earth behind, relegating it to be merely a
resource to be mined, plundered, emptied of species, and disregarded as anything
that sustains us. In two hundred years we have used much of the oil that the
earth took 400 million years to produce.
In the course of running these industrial engines and Western- style
civilization we have so polluted the air and the water that there is at this
point only a desperate last chance to reverse the damage we have done and are
doing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What’s the glorious
tradeoff? We have our cars, trucks, planes. We have hundreds of giant cities of
more than ten million inhabitants powered by burning fossil fuels or
radioactive materials that will not be safe for humans for tens of thousands of
years. We have electricity! How else
would we watch TV, talk on the phone, or send Facebook greetings? We have cars
that have retractable mirrors and foot- activated liftgates, not to mention GPS
and internet. Our food comes from
sources we don’t even consider, grown using techniques of fertilization and
genetic breeding that may well hasten the breakdown of the Earth itself. We are
killing off the earth’s gifts: bees, fish, free animals, wilderness, the very
water and air we live in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Medicines
have prolonged life far beyond what was once the norm. The population of the
Earth was 200 million only two thousand years ago. In 1820, we reached a
billion. Two hundred years later we are approaching 8 billion: 8 Billion people
driven to have the internet, drive cars fast, and live more and more in
megalopolises. Overpopulation is mindless and wild, relentlessly and heedlessly
driven by “more’, not by “what?”. Studies of animal populations tell us that
overpopulation leads to crashes through disease, madness, or self-destruction.
The present course is unsustainable and will collapse. This is my children’s
world, your children’s world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Dalai Lama
said recently that we are too late. It’s hard to argue with him. In order to
save humanity and our planet we must actually sweep away the 19<sup>th</sup>
century models that drive us favor of a complete revamping of civilization. We
need to move away from the mega cities and create sustainable small
communities. We need to develop cheap, highly efficient solar power to give us
the limited electricity we actually need. We need to ride bikes, use carts, and
save larger vehicles for essential services. Technologies must be used to find
solutions to the vast problems of feeding and housing people, not simply
employed to embellish unbridled growth. Our phones are smart enough; we have to
get smart ourselves. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We need to
stop fighting wars and utilize common efforts to find answers to our problems
in what is right in front of us. We absolutely must stop polluting the air and
water; there is no other source of air and water! Eating of animals and fish
must be greatly curbed, as the resources and energy it takes to bring the world
a meat and fish diet are not sustainable. We have nearly depleted the fish
stocks of the world’s oceans. It takes
many times the energy and land to produce 8 oz. of meant than it does to bring
rice and beans to the table.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The models we
need for the future can already be found in civilizations present and past:
village life, public gardens, public transport. We have to immediately stop
breeding like rats. Religions need to direct their followers to nurture and
protect the planet given to us by “God”, not beget more children to tithe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I have
previously written of my optimism about the mankind’s possible future. I have
said that there are more people who are becoming conscious, and there are.
However, this is a race against time, and time is running out on us. No action
is being taken. The overwhelming majority of world governments are resistant to
the ideas of change from the oil, coal,
and money paradigms of the 19<sup>th</sup> century that still rule the world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Steven
Hawking gave us one thousand years to find a new planet. We don’t have anything
like that long. Every doomsayer will have his own version of what will come to
pass. My current favorite is not war, terrorism, or economic collapse. I see
germs, common flu-like bugs that will emerge quite naturally from an
overpopulated humanity and spread quickly, killing billions. Perhaps the
remainder will try a different approach.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">News
outlets? This is your 24/7 story until people wise up. If we don’t wise up, Nature
will wise us up, and soon.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-84346399351739467392013-11-18T11:01:00.000-08:002015-12-18T07:12:30.389-08:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiom3Cfm4uWMQr1W091ayCFUNIbXrHJ2om7UHSEknizzJs_zkyLbO5jnK7sF6vRhJfycnu-ZZ4JlxmR8dK2_bYH9wfeGPqerHbyHW5EqhDojEvfVtcaUs5JDcW5XitlB-rpbKfJAJkqHgNi/s1600/the+voice+of+spring.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiom3Cfm4uWMQr1W091ayCFUNIbXrHJ2om7UHSEknizzJs_zkyLbO5jnK7sF6vRhJfycnu-ZZ4JlxmR8dK2_bYH9wfeGPqerHbyHW5EqhDojEvfVtcaUs5JDcW5XitlB-rpbKfJAJkqHgNi/s320/the+voice+of+spring.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">A Gun for Christmas<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">by
Alex Call<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">You know how kids want
things. </span><i style="font-family: tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I want it. I want it. I’ll dream and plot until I have it. I've got to
have it!</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> A BB gun. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I forget which one of my friends had one already, maybe Jack, maybe
Taylor. It wasn’t something that we had in our house. Guns were outside our family
experience, something other kids might have gotten from their dads. My dad
didn’t involve himself in my kid world much. He also didn't hunt.</span></span></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">So I hit up my mom, the
real power in the house, for it. She recited
the oft-repeated family tale of Uncle Whosit, who pleaded with his
Victorian-era parents for one and thought his dream was coming true when he saw
the long, cylindrical package on the top shelf of the closet where the
Christmas presents were hidden. But it turned out to be an umbrella. Not a
proper gift for an eleven–year-old boy (like me) at all, no, not at all! Uncle
Whosit didn’t get one but I was going to; my mom finally gave in and told me
so. And now Christmas was almost here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">You wouldn’t think that
Daisy would be the name of a gun maker. Too girlie. Maybe Frontier or
Trailblazer or something German sounding like Schotz or Fokker, a manly
sounding name for a man’s weapon. But Daisy it was, because they made BB guns.
I didn’t want the western-style lever action like Jack’s, even though it was the
U.S. Cavalry model from the movies, it wasn’t powerful enough. I had my heart
set on a pump-action. I eyeballed one on display at Santa’s Toys for months. I
practically wore off the paint on the barrel just looking at it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“You have to be safe!” My
mom insisted, “or you can’t have it. I won’t have anyone’s eyes getting shot
out!” Why was it always the eyes? “Don’t throw rocks; you’ll put someone’s eye
out!” But throwing rock-hard apples was fine. My older brother’s friends pelted
my little posse mercilessly and no one lost an eye, or even got hit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Mom, I
promise I’ll be careful! I promise! I promise!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I don’t know what I was
planning on shooting with my Daisy; I hadn’t gotten that far yet. I simply
needed to get one, against all parental odds. And so I did get to unwrap a long
cylindrical package Christmas morning and there it was: a shiny pump- action Daisy, my own gun! . I filled it with shiny copper BB’s from the BB tube. I
think it held fifty or so. I clacked the pump, <i>shockn- chockn</i>, and she was loaded.</span><span style="font-family: "tahoma" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> It was time for me and Daisy to meet our destiny.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Daisy was suddenly heavier,
pregnant, alive. Alive in my hands. Once loaded, she had to be fired. And I
knew in that moment that what I had to do with this BB gun was the forbidden. I
had to shoot birds. Oh, I think I started by taking some shots across the gully
at the old barn. I could track the flight of the BB: a copper arc that fell off
fast after fifty feet. I could hit things. I’ve always had a good eye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Above my head were the
crabapple trees of the orchard. Even in December in Northern California there
are robins and other birds around. I
craned my neck and looked up and saw them flitting about. A bird would light on
a branch and just sit there for a few moments. I had only to be quiet and calm.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Holy shit, I shot one and
it fell down at the base of the tree. It was dead. What did I feel when I shot
that first one? Probably a secret, guilty pride. I was a good shot! I think I
scuffed the ground with my shoe and piled some leaves over the bird’s little
soft body. I didn’t tell my mom, that’s for sure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">As the days went by one
bird became another and another. Dang, I was good. I could see how to aim
slightly above the birds so that my BB would hit home. I stalked that little
orchard for the next few weeks, taking one, two, even three birds at a time:
robins and whatever else. A flutter of feathers lifeless on the ground; kick
the body into the tall grass. I felt a little bad about killing them, but the
thrill of the hunt covered that up. That's what hunting is all about: taking the shot; afterwards is just a corpse to dispose of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">It became too easy. The
little birdies didn’t wise up; I could plug them with little effort. I felt bad about it. I took to
shooting them across the gully, a more challenging shot. I felt worse with each
new kill now; I knew it was all but finished for me and my daisy, and it was
only January! <br /><br />Dang, I had really wanted that gun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">One day after school I took
to my solitary orchard, Daisy in hand. I might have shot one. I didn’t like it
seeing the bird dead. Kick in down into gully. There was a movement in the top
branches of Big Tree. I raised my weapon slowly. There hovering was a
hummingbird. I think I said <i>don’t do it</i>,
but I did. A fine shot of a moving target. I hit it in the head and it fell
through the branches right at my feet. I had smashed its little pointy beak. It
was still alive. But it wouldn’t make it; its beak was shattered by my BB. Its
colors were beautiful, iridescent green and red, I think. Its wings buzzed as
it struggled. I pumped again, put the muzzle right to its head, and squeezed. I
kicked it twenty feet into some bushes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I can’t remember who I gave
the gun to. Lucky guy. My score was Alex 54, birds 0. I took up guitar that
year and also became a half-decent baseball player. A year later I had a
girlfriend. I now knew what guns were for. They were not some romantic icon that make's a man; I knew guns were only made to kill. I now knew what it was to hunt, to kill a living being. I never picked up a gun again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "tahoma" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">I really wanted that gun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-41183004120396799622011-02-04T10:48:00.000-08:002011-02-04T10:50:18.128-08:00Brian, Alex, and Terry Urthworms on stage at Brady Hall,'66<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwXNnds48xCHdZ0O3r85WFIvUxq0Gf1VgrfbTQ3a30xy_1bBucDYJr8aXITcT-1KiL5bd_uUaR7YADDXBPYlPZF5tKWMgr4H7fINWtnU31eHYptBaAERmhArvSwdVYIvIL5C5I_SeVQhh/s1600/Urthworms%252520with%252520Alex%252520center.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwXNnds48xCHdZ0O3r85WFIvUxq0Gf1VgrfbTQ3a30xy_1bBucDYJr8aXITcT-1KiL5bd_uUaR7YADDXBPYlPZF5tKWMgr4H7fINWtnU31eHYptBaAERmhArvSwdVYIvIL5C5I_SeVQhh/s320/Urthworms%252520with%252520Alex%252520center.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5569908251155766546" /></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-51301095004582838462011-02-02T17:12:00.000-08:002011-02-02T17:14:52.267-08:00I have a new blog at my websiteMy friends.. I have new website and blog..<br /><br />alexcall.net<br /><br />please join me there for my writing and news about my first book...as I head towards the release..I will be blogging about the process of bringing a book to life...Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-84565611783403144822010-12-28T07:55:00.000-08:002010-12-28T07:59:56.688-08:00the opening chapters of my new book"867-5309/Jenny:the song that saved my ass for a while"...to be released by Charles River Press,2011Canoga Park, 1985<br /><br />Oh... mama, can this really be the end...to be stick inside a Mobile with the Memphis blues again…<br />(Bob Dylan)<br /><br /><br /> <br /> The neon light above the store on the corner down the block was on the blink.<br /> “Liq…Liq….Liq…”<br /> I put the two big bottles of ultra—budget merlot on the counter.<br /> “How are you, my friend?” asked the skinny Lebanese owner, his close-set eyes twinkling alongside his long aquiline nose; his eternal five o’clock shadow making him look like someone from central casting for an Arab liquor store owner in a cop show. He knew me well.<br /> “Fine, fine, “I said, “shokran!” See, I even knew some Arabic.<br /> I smiled my bloated north-of-Ventura-Boulevard smile and pushed out into the parking lot. Heavy traffic on Vanowen. Vans, low riders, Beamers, pickups with four-foot ground clearance and exhaust flap covers flapping and clanking as they gunned their sex-substitute engines, spewing out more grey filth into the hot, valley smog. Grandmas, pachucos, blacks, Asians, and ancient, trembling white couples staring with frightened eyes at the vanished Valley of their youthful dreams, stood at street crossings, watching the dizzy world whizzing by at an astonishing speed. Latino families, mamas holding hands of beautiful white-shirted little boys and bright-faced, dark-eyed girls in school uniforms waited for the little flashing green man with the bad back to signal it was momentarily safe to cross the supercharged automotive artery. Tossed Butts and blown papers rolled and rattled in the tail-pipe wind gutter. The horizon was orange, brown, purple. The smog made nice sky colors. <br /> No one could see me once I was in my kelly green Chevette, I thought. I pulled the door shut and turned the key. Click. Click. Click. Nothing. Come on, dammit! Click. Click. I hit the steering wheel. Fuck! Catch. On. Thank you, you fucking piece of shit Chevette.<br /> I backed out and turned up the side street and made my way home through the alleys; less cops. Couldn’t get caught again. The Reckless Driving was a lucky break. The next time I’d be in the slammer for more than just a few hours.<br /> The night in jail with the seventeen poker-playing Mexicans and the assorted gang-bangers and other regular drunks like me had been humiliating, but I’d walked away with only a four-hundred dollar fine for the crime of reckless driving. An everyday deal between attorney and prosecutor. Standard shit in those years before all the brouhaha about DUI. Good thing I hadn’t made it to my coke dealer before I got popped. That would have been bad.<br /> My little boy was playing in the living room. I slid the cork out extra quietly in the kitchen and filled a wine glass; put it behind a row of cook books on the counter for later. Drained another glass, then refilled. I went out the kitchen side door into the alley by the garbage can and fired up a smoke. I pulled the can away from the wall, exposing dozens of violet-red palmetto-bug cockroaches, who scurried momentarily away from the light before brazenly stalking back. <br /> The moon was rising, dull and orange, over the lemon trees. Other people had avocados or oranges. But we had these lousy lemon trees. You can only make so much lemonade. There was my garden as well. Ungodly tomato hornworms had destroyed this year’s crop of Big Boys before I found them and threw both hornworms and Big Boys over the cinder-block wall into the alley. <br /> The alley was part of the endless grid of streets, alleys, and houses that filled everything. Sometimes I climbed up on the roof to try to get a view of the distant mountains, the red Santa Susanna rocks to the north, which reminded me of Sedona. But Sedona was of another age of the earth, of my life. It was hard to believe I had ever been there. <br /> My Buddha’s Childhood Kingdom was a misty, half-remembered Shangri-la. I had left it but hadn’t found enlightenment; I had found my own limitations and my own and other people’s excrement. Who knows? Maybe enlightenment was just another piece of cheap and easy nonsense; a Disney movie with talking raccoons and animatronic spiritual teachers that nodded endlessly and mouthed a reverby OM, while some crappy, lush synth song played over and over. <br /> Over the high-priced hills, the Jewish Alps, there was the vast Pacific Ocean, but here it was a sea of ranch house rooftops, palm trees, all laid out over the old orchards of the forties and fifties, bedded down with seething masses of people from everywhere, all coming to consume and regurgitate America. To the south, Woodland Hills and Tarzana shimmered; the houses across Ventura Boulevard, the houses of the rich and famous, Mercedes driven by awesome women wearing Gucci sunglasses. They passed me by, dentist’s wives and their tauntingly cruel, beautiful daughters, incapable of even seeing me as I stood at the corner of Ventura and Winnetka, wearing my sweatpants, waiting for the lights and my life to change. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Radio<br /><br />…whenever I want you all I have to do…<br />…is dream… dream, dream, dream…<br />(Everly brothers)<br /><br /> Wolf spiders. Wolf spiders on my blankets.<br /> They look like scaled-down tarantulas, chopped and channeled like tarantula hot rods, but unlike their lumbering bigger cousins, wolf spiders are frantically fast. That’s part of the problem; you take your eyes off of them for a second, to get something to swat or catch them with, and they disappear. But where do they go? Under the other blanket? Back in the corner where the wooden bunk-bed frame doesn’t quite touch the wall, that place of unspeakable web-wrapped darkness? Tarantulas, of course, are gentle creatures; you can hang them on your sweater or even let them amble over your slowly moving fingers. But wolf spiders are lightning killers, even if only of other wolf spiders. Their only other known function is to act as nightmare stalkers of seven-year-old boys.<br /> I lay in the darkness in my little basement room. Off in the distance there was the ominous deep rumbling from the new “jet” planes flying somewhere in the night. I was under the covers, drenched in a cold sweat, hiding from wolf spiders and rigid with terror that H-bombs would fall out of the sky. I was waiting every second for it to happen. That was what they’d been feeding us kids: Commies and H-bombs. <br /> I had the blankets pulled up around my head, because besides the H-bombs and the wolf spiders, there were the mice and rats and other short-and-long-legged crawling, creeping scaries waiting to get me down in that basement room. <br /> My dad never got around to finishing this part of the house. It was on his list, but the list was years long and filled the blue-lined pages of notebook after notebook, each entry neatly written in his crabbed writing, each notebook held closed with a rubber band. There were a great many things on that years-long list that never got done. He was a big starter but not much of a finisher, a man of many dreams, but not so many fully realized accomplishments. So I, who my dad called Charlie Owlbox, the Dog-Faced Boy, number three of four kids, ended up being stuck in this unfinished afterthought of a room. My older brother and sister lived down the hall, in finished rooms. My little sister lived upstairs with my parents. <br /> The basement had a semi-smooth concrete floor that was supposed to be polished but wasn’t (that was a fifties thing, polished concrete, very modern (now it’s au courant again: Whole Foods floors), and there were missing acoustic tiles in my ceiling, which left holes from which mice and rats would sometimes peer down on me as I lay in my bed. I once woke up to find that a big, fat mama rat had brought her newly spawned brood to nestle in the comfy folds of my satin comforter. At first I thought they were kittens, as we had up to a dozen cats at any one time in our house, and there were kittens everywhere, but as I squinted at them in the dim morning light, I suddenly realized that these tiny squirmers were of a more feral species. I ran, I suppose yelling, from my room. My dad came to the dramatic rescue, in typical Hughes Call fashion, with his ceremonial Navy sword in one hand and our black cat in the other. He flicked back the covers with the tip of his shiny sword and tossed the cat on the rats, which scattered in all directions. Black Kitty might have caught one of them. <br /> Right at the foot of my bed there was also a dirt- floored “alcove”, full of dusty, cobwebby cardboard boxes, that was really a crawl space that led back under the house. This creepy, dark place was home to many kinds of critters, including the black widows that my older brother and his intrepid pals sought with jars. A flimsy little curtain only partially covered this nasty gateway to a child’s night terrors. <br /> But my room was a well-lit refuge compared to what waited beyond my pocket door with its little hook latch. Outside the door, there was a dimly lit, narrow hallway with no wall paneling, just exposed rough joists strung with Romex electric cabling and draped with dusty spider webs. Directly across from my door was the open black hole of the highly ironically named “playroom”, another unfinished space filled with partially started projects such as my dad’s “catamaran”, the one he planned to sail to Hawaii, which was never more than a few two-by-fours tacked together and leaned up against the windows, which couldn’t be seen out of for the clutter.<br /> There were piles of cut-up sheets of plywood, stacks of boxes and old newspapers dating back to the thirties, three-legged chairs waiting forever to be re-glued, a couple of eight-inch black-and-white TV sets, an old wind-up Victrola, uncountable broken vintage electric fans and light fixtures, and God knows what else, everything covered in spider webs and a light fall of slightly smelly grime that I came to call Mummy Dust. It just had this strange indefinable odor. I’m sure Indiana Jones would be able to relate. This unkempt jumble was naturally home to myriad species of arachnids, including my unfavorites, the wolf spiders, and all the other web makers, big and small. <br /> You see, my father was one of those people who couldn’t toss anything out, and I mean anything. Each old box full of whatnots, each partially cut piece of lumber, every hanging garment bag full of old, never-to-be-worn-again clothing (I knew there were corpses in them) had its own old memory or a future use. At its most organized, the playroom was a place of labyrinthine, box-lined trails through the piles and stacks. This only got worse over time, until the tortuous paths themselves were filled to the ceiling. Nowadays, a person who collects stuff in this fashion would be labeled a compulsive hoarder, which is quite accurate, but the old name for the compulsive hoarder is more descriptive: packrat. Actually, both names are sadly correct. <br /> You might think from the above that I grew up out in the hills of Appalachia or in some rotting urban tenement, but this was in Mill Valley, California, one of the most urbane pieces of suburbia that ever was. And my dad wasn’t some undereducated hick from the sticks or faceless denizen of a forlorn cityscape. What he was was quite a complicated man. His mother and father had divorced in 1919 when he was two, leaving him to be raised by his wealthy grandparents. His mother’s father, my great-grandfather, George Alexander Hughes, was the inventor of the electric stove, if you can get your mind around that. A third-generation Irish Protestant immigrant, Mr. Hughes started an electric appliance company that went on to become Hughes Electric and he was the Chairman of the Board of General Electric at some point back in the twenties and thirties. I keep telling my brother that sooner or later a few hundred old shares of GE will be found in some old pile of papers (my brother took many of my dad’s boxes with him after dad passed away) and we’ll be rich. The shares have as yet not been unearthed. When we find them, I’ll let you know. From Maui.<br /> My dad grew up in a big house near Chicago, where he got more attention from the liveried, “colored” servants and cooks than he did from his older-generation, distant grandparents. He was shunted off at age five to a fancy, waspy school or two and then to Harvard and Harvard Business School. From this high-altitude springboard he could have bellyflopped into a cushy corporate job. All he had to do was toe the line and follow vaguely in Grandpa’s footsteps. But while serving as a young Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy in a strictly non-combatant role (no doubt through his grandfather’s political connections) as a junior adjutant and tennis partner for Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in Pearl Harbor during WWII, where in addition to his forehand my father finely honed his already considerable cocktail-party skills, my father saw Golden California. When the war was over, he turned his back on his guaranteed-to-be-boring corporate job prospects and left the Midwest for the wide-open sunny life of San Francisco. <br /> He was, despite his blustery protestations to the contrary, a black sheep who tried for a long time in vain to wear white; a lifelong failure at business and a staunch anti-Roosevelt Republican who finally came to his senses during the Vietnam War and became a Democrat and an anti-war, civil rights advocate. Should he have been surprised to have spawned a rock musician? <br /> As for Hughes Electric Company and the George Alexander Hughes,” Father of the Electric Range”, family fortune? My lovely grandmother, the party-loving-almost-good-enough erstwhile concert pianist, spent all the dough traveling the world on board Cunard liners while draped in minks and pearls and on entertaining Broadway’s and The New York Philharmonic’s stars at her autographed- photo- filled 57th Street apartment, right across the street from Carnegie Hall.<br /> Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations: that’s what they say. <br /> My dad was also an alcoholic, largely of the charming variety, who couldn’t find the time to play catch with me or teach me how to drive. He was always too busy either sleeping a big night off or winding up to become Mr. Gregarious, the guy who lived for the next wild, imaginative party coming down the pike. My parents both sang and my mother played piano; we had three of them in the house, with two back-to-back grands in the big living room, the curves matching like musical yin-yang pieces. Above the pianos was an abstract painting done by one of their artsy friends. It was an oddly stretched-out rectangle three feet high and fifteen feet long that was mounted above the Steinway and the other grand. The male cats would get up on the pianos and pee on the painting, their pee trails streaming down the walls from the swirls and splatters of the abstract painting. Life imitates art.<br /> My folks belonged to a theater group that did Gilbert and Sullivan and other light musicals, and our house was party central for the cast. Our parties were legendary. My dad cut an eight-by-ten-foot hole in the living room floor and rigged a “stage” that could be raised with pulleys up from infamous playroom to the living room. Virtually everyone at the party, and we often had a hundred people or more at our soirees’, was required to have an act, which could be raised from the depths, the partygoers singing or doing a funny scene from a play. My father had rigged colored spotlights near the ceiling of the living room that would illuminate the performers as they rose from the depths. <br /> As a kid, I could only watch the grownups at their play, though they trotted me out to sing a Broadway song or two. I had a good voice even as a little boy. But the world of grownups was basally off-limits to us kids. We had to go to our rooms early. In the morning I would sneak upstairs and gaze upon the detritus of the parties: glasses everywhere, many with cigarette butts stuck in white wine, the kitchen a mess. There were usually two or three snoring bodies on the couches. They must have had a grand time.<br /> Often I would get a book or two and tiptoe back down to my room. There was a library in our dining room with floor –to- ceiling books that came down from both my mother’s and father’s childhoods. There must have been hundreds of books. I learned to read early and I loved the Greek Myths, the Arabian Nights, and anything about history. I still do. I have some of those old books today. I also loved comic books, especially Uncle Scrooge, because of the fantastic adventures, and my favorite, Superman. <br /> Superman is a lonely character. He can’t reveal his true identity to even his closest friends. He exists to right wrongs and to save the world from Lex Luthor and Mr Mxyzptlk. Superman has a weakness, deadly Kryptonite, pieces of his home world which are poisonous to him. How true that is. The stuff that follows us around from childhood can be very toxic; it can even destroy us. He had a place where he went to recharge his batteries when he was at the end of his endurance, the Fortress of Solitude. Even Superman has his limits. I guess the creators of Superman were brilliant. I wanted desperately to be Superman. Even then I knew the world needed saving. I spent long hours wandering in the worlds of books and comics. The moral choices and the circumstances of the characters were easier to understand than the real world I saw around me.<br /> You’d think my father could’ve taken a little of his social energy to fix my nasty room up. But he couldn’t find the time; he was the party master: he loved the ladies, he lived for the laughter; his nickname was Hugs. He had a clock that said: no drinks served until after five. The clock face was, of course, all fives. <br /> My Father was much loved by his witty, creative, and simpatico friends, but his own early childhood abandonment by his mother no doubt left him with deep, unfaced issues. Kryptonite. His dark, wounded side found expression in the scary bowels of our house, the basement of Dorian Grey. I needed my own Fortress of Solitude.<br /> Of course, I didn’t know any of that when I was a young boy. I only knew that everywhere there were piles of stuff too important to be tossed out, projects too far down on the ever-longer list to ever be dealt with. At night the doorless playroom was a seething black pit full of lurking horrors. The laundry area, with its single, hanging bare light bulb and the dark and creepy old blanket-draped doorway to dad’s “workroom” (where he hid his cases of cheap Tom Moore bourbon) was just as frightening. There were two more of those scary, unlit, cave-like alcoves that ran off under the old house. The stairs that went up to the main floor had only steps, no facings, since they had been built by my dad, who we now know never finished anything. I imagined bony hands reaching out of the blackness for my ankles as I ran up to my parent’s bedroom in the middle of the night when I was too terrified to stay downstairs any longer. <br /> All this and H-Bombs and wolf spiders, too. <br /> So, I snuck my hand out of the blankets and clicked on the green plastic Zenith radio. Wish I still that radio. It looked just like the front of a ’55 Oldsmobile, with chromish mesh over the speaker and a pea -soup green body. Two dials: volume and frequency. I turned it just on a click, didn’t turn the volume up at all. At first, there was only a very faint buzzing noise. But after a few minutes, as the tubes warmed, there was KYA coming in, too quietly for anyone to hear but me. The sound of the smooth-talking DJ was reassuring to a child who felt as if he had been abandoned to his cellar-dweller fate, and the comforting top-forty hit singles played all night.<br /> There were songs that I loved: Don’t be Cruel, El Paso, Hello Mary Lou, Bye-Bye Love, Pretty Woman. There were many more songs I couldn’t stand: She Wore Blue Velvet, Hats Off To Mary, Tell Laura I Love Her, Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini. But good or not, each song was three minutes long: verse, b-section, and chorus. We were a musical family and I was already at a tender age a discerning critic. My older sister was a bobby soxer who had the latest 45’s on her little record player. I listened to them more than she did. I waited for the songs that had cool guitar leads, songs that sounded like a band was playing them. Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, Ricky Nelson ( with James Burton on guitar)The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley. I switched over to KEWB or the black station KDIA when Frankie Avalon, Neil Sedaka, or another one of those horrible teen idols came on. KDIA played Bobby Blue Bland (Lovelight, one of the best singles of all time), James Brown, Barret Strong, Mary Wells, Jackie Wilson, The Coasters and Drifters, and my favorite, Ray Charles. I liked the real stuff, no lush strings or oboes. <br /> The songs were my own private musical Fortress of Solitude; if I listened hard enough, the night, the spiders, and the H-bombs went away. Eventually I would fall asleep, but the old Zenith stayed on while I dreamed. The songs sank into my consciousness. <br /> I was terrified down in that room, but as I drifted into dreamland on the waves of the old Zenith I was unknowingly uncovering something inside of me: music, a place of refuge. And it was my own Berlitz course: Learn to write hit songs while you sleep.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Dance<br /><br />…tell your mama. Tell your pa...<br />…I’m gonna send you back to Arkansas…<br />(Ray Charles)<br /><br /> Hard guys.<br /> Duck-ass haired, switch-blading, sucker-punching, candy money-extorting, playground-humiliating, stupid-ass hard guys: worse than wolf spiders, because you could stomp on a wolf spider, but hard guys traveled in packs, like nasty dogs. Even if you wanted to fight them, a strategy for which I had less than zero desire, it was pointless. You couldn’t take them all on; there were too many. The muscle-headed leaders of the pack cut the spineless kids from the herd and harassed them just for fun. Spineless kids like me. <br /> I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen when my mom dropped me off uptown on a fine evening in September of 1960, what magic was about to strike from the heavens, but that night I found my life’s calling, and those hard guys had a lot to do with my grand vision. <br /> I was in seventh grade and it was the first dance of fall at the Outdoor Art Club in my hometown of Mill Valley, California. Though someday Mill Valley would become the ultra dot.com village of multi-millionaires, where young latte-sipping entrepreneurs and their slim wives who drove sleek Mercedes and black Prius’s would buy ten- thousand- dollar paintings at the hardware store where I used to get my baseball bats, Mill Valley in 1960 was just a very, very nice small town with a California twist: Middle America meets the Ivy League and gets a dash of Zen mixed in with its highball (or red wine and the first reefers in certain houses). In 1960, we were on the borderlands of the future. JFK and Nixon were running for president; the Red Menace loomed over our mushroom-cloud- shaded heads. Vietnam and all that turmoil was yet to come. Alan Watts, the Beatniks, and the psychedelic Sixties were slowly but surely emerging, but for now the button-down Fifties were still in control. <br /> I was eleven years old, five-foot–three, as skinny as a fishing rod, and only dimly aware of the big world.<br /> It was a dance for seventh-and-eighth graders. For a brief moment, I was excited enough about the dance to not be afflicted with my usual paranoia about getting hassled by the likes of Allan Acree and the other Elvis-haired hard guys who haunted these events.<br /> You see, the ghosts of my wolf-spider -infested basement were fading away as I discovered the spiders were harmless and the ghosts weren’t really there. I had transferred my fears to a more present reality. I was now scared shitless by hard guys.<br /> Hard guys. They were my shadow mirrors, the ones who pointed out to me and everyone else just what a total chickenshit I was. Hard guys liked to fight, or at least threaten to fight. Fighting and being tough was cool: in fact, the word for cool was tough. That ‘deuce coupe is so tough. The Nueland twins are so tough. Being the quintessential skinny little runty nerd, I lived in constant fear of getting my ass kicked; almost as afraid as I was of the H-Bomb, and I was still deathly afraid of that, by the way. <br /> You know the clip we all grew up with, that magnificent crown-shaped white-hot Bikini Atoll H-bomb mushroom cloud instantaneously blossoming from the sea. As the clip runs, the mushroom head rolls skyward, leaving a massive column of gray-white, the stem of the mushroom. Around the base of that impossibly huge and powerful tower rises a gigantic wave that dwarfs a fleet of mothball WWII warships. Yes sir and madam, that vision scared the crap out of me until my late teens.<br /> But H-bombs were on TV. My immediate, daily problem was that there was seemingly no escape from these hard guys. They strutted around at school and at C’s drive-in with their Bryllcreemed hair, metal combs like weapons protruding from the back pockets of their Levis, just aching for any excuse to be shitheads. They pushed nerds like me around, demanding quarters and the like, and when they thought it would be funny to ramp it up a notch they’d call you out, while their grinning thug buddies stood around leering. If you were called out you were screwed; you’d have to fight in front of everybody down at the tracks. I worked very hard not to let that occur. <br /> I had two, both failing, strategies: I tried to escape them by having younger, less threatening friends, which only made me a bigger (or I my runty case smaller) pussy, and conversely by trying to look like I belonged in their hard guy “in” crowd. I used Vitalis or Bryllcreem (a little dab’l do ya!), or even Wildroot Cream Oil (the one with the shiny-headed cartoon character Fearless Fosdick as its pitch man in the old print ads), and carried my own grease-slick comb in my back pocket. The goal was to get one curl to droop down across your forehead from the front of the combed-up pomp, like Elvis or Ed “Kooky’ Burns from 77 Sunset Strip. I couldn’t quite pull that one off because my hair was too fine, so I finally resorted to this goo you dipped your comb into that made your hair as hard as a helmet when it dried. <br /> Why did guys grease their hair anyway? I think it was because in the Fifties, daily bathing wasn’t really a fully realized national obsession yet. Old ways die hard. Some adults in that Robert Mitchum-John Wayne-post-WWII, post-Korea era still only “took the plunge” into a tub once a week. It was said that washing your hair too much was bad for it. Of course, It was also said that smoking cigarettes was good for you. <br /> I did have one place where I matched up: on the baseball diamond. Since my dad couldn’t find the time to teach me how to play catch, it came down to my little league coach, Barney Johnson. Barney was a working-class guy who saw something in me even when I showed up at the first practice throwing off the wrong foot, ‘like a girl” and even though I was afraid of a hard-hit ball. I loved baseball, but I was a chickenshit. Barney wouldn’t accept that. He showed me the techniques of fundamental play and made me, and all of us American League Tigers, practice very hard. He thought I would make a good third baseman. He’d put a bat behind my heels and hit hard, scorching grounders at me. If I didn’t charge the ball, if ever touched that bat behind me with my feet by retreating, he would make me run a long lap around the high school field where we practiced. <br /> I began to be able to play well. I used to go the school yard next to my house and throw a rubber- coated hardball, like an early version of the superball, off the wall of the school and catch hard, crazy-bounce grounders on the blacktop. I got very good at it. My first year in little league I only got six at bats and a few plays in the field. The next year I actually made the all-star team. I learned that passionate practice was a good mental and emotional place to go, and that it produced results. Thanks, Barney. I think he would be pleased to know that I still coach kids in little league. Charge the ball, guys. Baseball ready every pitch.<br /> But baseball wouldn’t save me with the hard guys. I needed to conform. I tagged along with the in crowd and greased up and also razored off the belt loops on my Levi’s, neatly rolled the cuffs over, and wore a white t-shirt with the sleeves folded twice over my noodle-muscle arms. When I hung out at the abandoned railroad tracks after school, I folded a pack of Pall Malls or Marlboros in my sleeve just like the big boys. I smoked; I swore. I rode my gooseneck -handlebar bike with the big back wheel and small front wheel to my little league games, with my uniform shirt untucked and pair of shades on my face so I would look cool, tough. But none of that worked. <br /> Because there was no way in hell I could really ever be a hard guy. I wanted to be popular, and I didn’t want to get my ass kicked, but my tactics weren’t paying off. I was still getting punched, pulled under at the pool, and humiliated on the playground in front of haughty girls who thought it was funny.<br /> I was a dorky enough chicken (did I mention the horn-rimmed glasses my mom picked out for me?) that my friend Dennis Brown even fought a proxy fight for me with Allan Acree. <br /> Acree was a junior thug from the wrong side of town who had a set of muscular one-year-older hard guys for friends, the dreaded, hulking Craig Byrd among them. Acree called me out because I had a club called the Tasmanian Devils Club with my younger friends and chubby Mike Walter, another nerd. It was a TV cartoon thing, for Chrissakes. We had other ad hoc clubs, like the Famous Monsters Club (we kept movie monster mags in a tree fort- oooh, Creature From The Black Lagoon , The Tingler!), and our less well-known but much more exciting junior jerk-off club, which congregated in my older brother’s junked cars: he kept girly mags stashed under the seats. Allan Acree said he had his own club, the Acree Devils, and what did I fuckin’ think of that? He poked me hard in the chest a couple of times for good measure. I stammered something about how that was cool. That wasn’t good enough for Acree. He called me out. I had to fight him down at the tracks after school. <br /> Oh shit! I was shaking and near tears. I just wasn’t a fighter. Acree would kick my ass in front of everyone, all the hard guys and tough chicks and wannabe hard guys who hung out at the tracks after school. My friend Dennis Brown, who did have the super-cool Kooky Byrnes hair and was five inches taller than I was, said, no sweat; he’d take care of Acree for me. <br /> After school I went with Dennis down to the tracks, where the old spur line’s rusted rails passed beneath a wooded bluff; the place where everyone hung out to smoke and socialize and fight. The word was out: fight today. I was as nervous as I could have possibly been. There were a lot of kids there; way more than a usual after school hang. Acree’s gang of six or seven goons came up, strutting in like they were the kings of the place, which they basically were. There was some murmured name calling. Acree had heard that Dennis was going to fight him. It wasn’t unheard of to have a surrogate fight for someone. Dennis was a guy who didn’t take crap from anyone, but he was kind of an outsider. That’s why he was my buddy, because I was one, too, but I was way more of a dork than Dennis. He and Acree exchanged the usual ‘fuck you’s ‘and other assorted niceties, like, this ain’t none of your business, Brown. Oh yeah? Maybe it fuckin’ is, Acree. First names were never used, except maybe when you said a guy’s name backwards, like Nibor Snobbig or Xela LLac.<br /> They stepped out into a ring formed by the onlookers. The ratted-haired, popular, hard-girl Nueland twins smoked cigarettes and acted bored. There was some tense calling, like at a baseball game. C’mon, Alan!, Git’ him, Take out the motherfucker, Hit him low. There was more vocal support for Acree; he was the popular thug. But there was respect for Dennis, who had the fighting skills that might enable him to kick Acree’s ass, which secretly a lot of kids wouldn’t mind seeing happen. I wasn’t the only one around school who had been intimidated and harassed by Acree. <br /> The fighters raised their fists and circled, looking for the first punch. Acree rushed in and Dennis pushed him off and got a shot in. Acree came back fast; he was a madman, scratching, kicking. He was shorter than Dennis, so he got in underneath and tried to do some damage. But Dennis stood up straight and punched and pushed Acree off. They kicked up some dust with their black loafers and some gravel from the old tracks went skittering around. <br /> The bout was all over in a few short minutes; a draw, like most fights. No torn Pendletons. Each guy got a couple of licks in. They exchanged some more salutary fuck you’s and withdrew into the crowd. So I didn’t end up getting my ass kicked, but I was sort of humiliated for not fighting my own fight. <br /> I wish I could have that one back. Getting a bloody nose from Alan Acree wouldn’t have hurt me as much as did the loss of my self-respect I suffered for having ducked out. Besides, Acree could never have hit me as hard as various music publishers and so-called friends would tag my ass over the years.<br /> But despite the Allan Acrees of my world, I went on still aping the hard guys. What else could I do? Deep down inside, I wonder if I wasn’t always looking for a permanent way out of all that shit. I’d never be a hard guy or a professional baseball player. Vickie and Bonnie and the other giggling, note-passing popular girls who took delight in slicing open my little heart by ignoring me would keep on doing so.<br /> At least I knew that at the Social Club dance Janey would dance with me. We had twisted at a well-lit sock- hop on the slick hardwood floor of the Park School gym during the summer. We won the twist contest, that honor bestowed on us, the sweaty, beaming couple, by one of the younger, cooler teachers. Dancing was a blast. Most of my fellow dorks were too shy to dance, but I couldn’t stand still when the music started and I found that if I got the courage up to ask, some girls would dance with me. I could feel the beat, the melody, and the shouting choruses of the spinning 45’s racing around inside of me. I knew all the songs note for note from my midnight radio.<br /> Something undeniable was waking up within the groveling chickenshit. I was so ready for the dance that night. <br /> I heard the muffled thumping of the music coming through the oak trees as I walked nervously up the curving sidewalk to the Outdoor Art Club. I began to twitch. I wanted to get in there.<br /> I got my social club card punched and went with Mike Walter or someone into the tiny, old hall. There, up on the box stage at the far end of the room, was the first band I’d ever seen. They were typical of those groups: drums, bass, guitar, sax; one Electro-voice mic going through a totally inadequate public address speaker. The sound system was designed to handle Outdoor Art Club functions attended by middle aged men who wore bow-ties and smoked pipes. My dad wore bow-ties and smoked a pipe. His Naval Reserve unit met there, under the banners of Flag, WWII, Fraternity, and Jim Beam. The little hall was paneled in dark wood. It had hardwood floors and a pale-green-walled, fluorescent-lit kitchen off to one side where during most events curled and coiffed women with top-buttoned sweaters and long skirts would lay out baked goods and brew big aluminum urns of weak Folger’s coffee. The Stars and Stripes and the flag of California stood on brass-eagle-topped stands on each side of the band-box stage. You could almost hear crew-cut men chanting ‘I Like Ike!’, or ‘Nixon’s the One!’<br /> The Elvis-haired band guys in their matching suit jackets and skinny ties stepping together in time to the beat on the little stage looked like grown men to me, though they were most likely only as old as my brother Lewis, sixteen or seventeen. The amps and guitars were real, honest-to- God Fender . The two-tone, dark-blue and silver sunburst drums were genuine Slingerlands bought by paper-route earnings plus a loan from daddy. During breaks, guitar and bass hung by their straps over the amps. So tough. Cooler than tough. I wanted a Fender Jazzmaster and a Bandmaster two-piece amp. <br /> The combo thudded away in the little boomy hall. The guitar and sax traded off solo licks; there was a Sandy Nelson drum solo on TeenBeat. All the Bryllcreemy lads and their bouffant hair-spray or page-boy lassies raised their voices on What I Say, Tequila, and Bony Marony. The two bands that night were called The Chord Lords and The Opposite Six.<br /> Later on, I would get to know some of those band guys – the ones who made the jump to 60’s rock, that is. A few would become famous, like Bill Champlin, who would someday play in the super-group Chicago and write mega-hits. Others would go down, flat-top–with-fenders dinosaurs, Jazzmasters blazing, refusing to get hip, keeping their hair products, pints of cheap bourbon, Saturday-night-big-dance-and-fight, and old Duane Eddy rockabilly guitar riffs clutched in their hot-rod hands to the bitter end.<br /> But back then, for me, these guys were like Gods. They played Duane Eddy’s Forty Miles of Bad Road, Santo and Johnny’s Sleepwalk, I Got a Woman, The Peter Gunn Theme, The Ventures’ Walk Don’t Run and a bunch of Freddie King-style instrumentals that featured only a handful of notes, mostly pentatonic scale: good dance stuff. <br /> I let it all hang out that night. Once I finally got up the courage to ask her, Janey and I jitterbugged, twisted, stomped, and even slow danced until I was soaked in sweat and then we danced some more. There were sneaked cigarettes outside and some nervous futile attempts at kissing. She was kind to me; she kept dancing. But she wouldn’t smooch. Making out was still a year away for me. I just got to hold her hand a couple of times for a lingering moment after the slow songs, which fired my poor, hormone-wracked pubescent body enough to make my post-dance masturbation even more earnest than usual. <br /> I was the original dancing fool. Since I was using a deadly combo of Vitalis plus that god-only-knows-what-it-is stuff you dip your comb into that turns your hair into a helmet, my sweat melted my hairdo and my would-be hard guy hair failed me, falling lank and wet on my forehead. But while my sweaty, horny manifestation may have driven cute little Janey to keep me at arm’s length, I had the time of my life. And I learned something that changed it forever. <br /> The guys in the band had lots of girls staring at them while they played, some girls even sneaking longing, adolescent glances at them over their boyfriend’s shoulders during the slow dances. And they watched the band guys when they were done playing, too, the girls giggling and glancing in little groups at the players. Girls, the thing I most wanted. Hard guys of any age group didn’t fuck with band guys. The musicians had a magic passport to cool. They were above the juvenile Darwinian law of dickhead-beats-up-dork. The band guys hung out by themselves. They were in a world of their own. I wanted to be in that world. And starting right then at that seventh grade social club dance, I, a skinny little eleven-year-old dork with glasses and barely emergent cojones, had a feeling that I would get there. From that dance forward, there would be no turning back, I would have no doubts. I was going to be in a rock’n’roll band and get out of the hard guy rat race forever. <br /> There was a nylon-stringed guitar at home. I don’t know where it came from, since no one played guitar in my family. The battered Spanish-style guitar only had the bottom two strings on it, but that was enough. I just slid my fingers around, kind of playing bass for the songs I had heard at the dance. I could kind-of sort-of figure some of them out. Tequila! I was on my way. <br /> What’s funny is that I still play the same way today.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Lead Singer<br /><br />...well, she was just seventeen…you know what I mean…<br />(The Beatles)<br /><br /> <br /> Zombies. <br /> No, I was never really afraid of Zombies, except for a few nights after I saw Night of the Living Dead. No, The Zombies were a great band. Just thought I’d mention them. Where’d they go, anyway?<br /> Despite the wolf spiders and the insufferably moronic hard guys, by any wide-worldly standards my childhood was incredibly idyllic. I didn’t have to deal with war, racial discrimination, or poverty. I played outside in the dirt with my toy soldiers and engaged in make-believe battles in the dunes at Muir Beach until I was too old for that to be cool anymore. I wandered around Mill Valley, Muir Beach and Sausalito, riding my bike, fishing on the bay, and playing a lot of baseball. Finally in eighth grade I broke through the girlfriend barrier and snared a real-make-out-at-the-movies-and–everywhere-else girlfriend. <br /> But by seventh and eighth grade, my grades were falling. After all, I knew I was going to be a rock and roller, so who needed school? My Harvard and Vassar educated parents, in their wisdom, decided that I needed to be removed from the temptations of public school and the bad influences of my friends who all seemed to be afflicted with a common distaste for homework and with dreams of a future that only featured cool hair, Marlboros, and getting detention slips. <br /> So I was shipped off to Verde Valley School in Sedona, Arizona, where my older sister had gone. It was either Verde Valley or San Rafael Military Academy. The military school uniform fitting scared the shit out of me, to say the least. I might have actually ended up having to march around and stand up straight. Maybe my parents were just motivating me. In any case, I wrote an impassioned letter to the Sedona school begging them to admit me and promising to change my erring scholastic ways. After all, my sister was a straight-A student there. <br /> I lied, but it worked; they took me. <br /> So at the rather tender age of thirteen, I anxiously climbed aboard the old Santa Fe’ Chief in Richmond, California and clickety-clacked off into the night all the way to Arizona, a shoebox full of my mom’s deviled eggs cradled in my skinny arms and a smuggled pack of pall malls in my coat. The eggs were comsumed in a fit of anxiety feeding a half hour after the train left the station in the East Bay. I lit up the Pall Malls with my trusty Zippo between in the open, jostling, clackety space between the coach cars and stared out at the passing Central valley, hot, brown, and crackly in the autumn sun. I saw racks of raisins drying alongside the dusty, oily train tracks in Fresno, which made me not eat raisins for a very long time. When it got dark I tried to cat-nap in the dome car. I felt abandoned and alone, but not for long. <br /> I arrived at my brave new school by van the next day, driven by a teacher and in the company of a few new companions. We had found each other on the train during the night. It wasn’t hard to guess who they were. Most train travelers in 1962 were old, bald men and tiny, birdlike grannies, many of them members of a generation that had been born before the universal use of the personal automobile, not to mention the commercial airplane. By traversing the coaches of the Santa Fe’ I met a handful of fellow future Verde Valleyans who I would come to know better than my birth family over the course of the next four years.<br /> I was only thirteen, since I am one of those fall birthday kids who are always among the young of the class each year. At first I felt a bit lost at the school. I could see that there were school traditions I would need to figure out quickly. I was a thirteen year old in a school with eighteen year olds. That’s a big year difference at that age. I was upset at my parents for having sent me into such irrevocable exile. But despite the minor homesickness, I soon made a dorm full of like-minded horny little freshman friends and found myself reveling in a whole new world. <br /> If my childhood, absent the spiders and shithead hard guys, had been largely an idyll, Verde Valley School, VVS as it was called, was even more so. It looked like a little pueblo out in its own otherwise unoccupied valley beneath the majestic loom of Cathedral Rock, one of the Native Americans’ seven sacred mountains and nowadays probably as ubiquitous a hunk of red rock as ever graced a Sierra Club calendar. The school was run by anthropologists, and had ties to both the Native American communities of Arizona and New Mexico, but also to academic and community organizations in Mexico proper. From day one, we were taught the virtues of multi-culturalism long before it became a buzzword. The hundred and ten co-ed students lived in a hard- guy-free world of white-washed, red-roofed Southwestern-style buildings peopled by intellectuals, both students and teachers, with high scholastic and moral aspirations.<br /> Verde Valley School was a real tight community. All the teachers were on a first name basis, Cliff, Tom, Pedro, Maggie, and Ham and Babs, though oddly the students usually used last names. Hey, Holbert. Hey, Call. You seen Fernandez? The students had responsibilities such as waiting on tables, dishwashing, and basic school maintenance, like whitewashing walls, hauling trash by tractor to the remote dump, and cleaning out the stables. The stables were a real chore in the frozen winter. I had to chop up frozen horseshit and blocks of pee while wading around in the fresh, unfrozen glop in my rubber boots. <br /> The studies were rigorous, but also stimulating. Verde Valley was one of the top academic prep schools in the country at that time. Our days started early with work jobs and dorm inspection and ended late with evening study halls. I have always been a dawn patrol person, so I used to get up before five and go in the darkness to the kitchen, where the cooks had a bug urn of coffee going as they baked the daily fresh bread. I’d take my coffee and go the library, where the math answer books were sitting innocently on the shelves. I’d work my way though math problems from the answer books, making enough intentional mistakes to make a B average. I leaned the otherwise incomprehensible advanced algebra in that way, so I was able to squeak by on the tests as well. We had some great, great teachers: men and women of real vision who gave us the keys to a larger world of ideas and ideals. I have never felt that I was undereducated by not going on to college. I soaked up a lot even when I was sitting in the back of the classroom looking out the window at the red cliffs.<br /> We were supposed to learn a wide curriculum of liberal arts and go out and make a difference in the world when we graduated. Our time was one of change; we were on the cusp of a new era, so we straddled the old and new. We still dressed for dinner every night except Saturday: coat and tie for boys. But Bob Dylan could be heard coming from someone’s dorm room suitcase record player: the times they are a changin’. Yes, they were. When we had free time, after Saturday morning classes until Sunday dinner, we had total freedom to hike or race horses through the wide-open fields or climb the sheer, red-rock cliffs that towered above the isolated campus. We found Indian ruins, skinny-dipped in Oak Creek, and slept out under the Arizona stars. <br /> Every year we’d camp our way down into central Mexico in our little bus, “Brenda”, and these old GMC flatbed trucks with unheated, windowed metal boxes on them. We just piled in and lay around on each other’s legs for hours on end. We had work jobs on the trips as well. “Fire, wood, and water” was a good one. Collect firewood, find stones to make big a fire ring, put out the water jugs. We set up a couple of folding tables and lay out food. We’d eat around campfires: canned sardines, bollios, and hot chocolate. The teachers would have their “faculty tea”. They’d been driving these cantankerous trucks all day on the dusty Mexican roads, dealing with the authorities, with overheating engines and blown tires, and trying to not lose any students at rest stops out in the cholla-studded desert. We camped with tarps, no tents, on the ground under the blazing stars or in the rain or snow. It was hardy and fabulous. <br /> We’d be dropped off singly in Mexican families, where we’d live as guest family members for a few weeks. There were often no VVS teachers in the towns and cities we were left in. We were on our own and were expected to behave responsibly. That was hard sometimes, as in Mexico a fifteen year old could get served Cubalibres at a bar. Let’s just say we had a blast. I was walking the streets of Guanajuato with Mexican girls from my family when I was sophomore, promenando in the Zocalo while mariachis played and older women watched for signs of forbidden hanky-panky. <br /> Spanish was requirement at the school and I had a good ear for it. On one side trip by commercial bus to Leon, a bus conductor made fun of me for wearing sunglasses. I wore my prescription shades day and night to avoid wearing my big, black-framed glasses. This bus was of a mixed class, schoolgirls in uniforms, farmers with chickens in cages. He joked to the passengers about the gringo movie star and such, unaware that I understood every word he was saying. I whispered to the Verde Valley girl next to me to lead me off the bus when we got to Guanajuato. The bus rolled to a stop. I stood slowly and played blind, stumbling along, feeling with my hands and feet as my fellow student helped me make my way along the rows of seats. The poor conductor, no doubt a good Catholic, crossed himself and broke out in a visible sweat. He helped me off the bus as I stared straight ahead, seemingly unseeing behind my shades. Cuidado, chico! We nearly peed on our selves laughing about it when we had gotten around a corner from the bus top.<br /> We had extended trips to the Navajo and Hopi reservations as well. We got to attend Native American events, such as real healing dances and ceremonies. I was a lucky boy. If I had stayed in Mill Valley, I would have missed hearing about the deer-legged woman at the healing dance that the Navajos chased across the mesa in their pickups. I wouldn’t have gotten gloriously drunk in that bar above the Zocalo in Taxco with my buddy Ernie. I wouldn’t have camped out at the base of the giant statues of Tula or been able to pick up obsidian blades from the grounds of the ruins. I would have missed out on racing horses across the open lands around Oak Creek in the days before so many people and fences changed Sedona. I wouldn’t have had the thrill of having the buttons cut off my shirt at the Indian Arts Institute in Santa Fe’ by a student Indian painter with a switchblade who had eaten the stuffing from two inhalers as my friend Big Bruce the Tlingit watched over me with his war club to make sure I didn’t get accidentally killed. I was very lucky to go that school.<br /> We heard or knew little of the outside world. There was, gasp, no TV or radio, though on a Saturday night you could sometimes get a wavering, fuzzy radio broadcast of a Prescott or Flagstaff station playing the hits of the week. It was a sheltered, cloistered world of high ideals and transcendent social vision. There was no fighting, stealing, or any competition beyond friendly inter-class rivalry. Later on in my life I connected to what this paradise was. It was our own little version of Prince Siddhartha’s Kingdom.<br /> All this broad, visionary thinking didn’t stop me for pursuing my dream. In fact, it facilitated it, because there wasn’t much competition for what I wanted to do: be a lead singer. The Beach Boys, Dick Dale and the Deltones (Miserlou), the Chantays (Pipeline) and all that surf music was the rage in ‘63. We had records from home. I listened wistfully on my tiny, suitcase record player with its vinyl-destroying two-pound tone arm, but I no longer had my two-stringed guitar. I didn’t know how to get this rock‘n’roll band thing going.<br /> Then something incredible happened. A TV clip of this weird British band got on Ed Sullivan when I was home at Christmas my sophomore year. They wore their hair combed down and their band was all guitars. They made the cover of Life magazine. They were everywhere. Beatlemania. No more She Wore Blue Velvet or Tell Laura I Love Her on the Top-40 charts. It was real rock’n’roll again. <br /> Wow, what a rush the Beatles were. I instantly combed my hair down. I lived in the senior dorm that year, and a bunch of the older guys, with whom I played baseball, somehow heard I could sing. So they started a band and incredibly, they wanted me to be the lead singer. We had a ‘rehearsal’ in a dorm room. There must have been twelve guys, ten of whom were seniors, crammed in there, with nylon-stringed guitars and maybe a set of bongos or two. <br /> One senior had a skinny gray cardboard guitar case with black plastic piping around the edges. I burned to know what was inside. He opened it and there lay a Danelectro, a one-pickup, black-painted electric guitar with knobbly white tape striping around the edge of the body. It was unbelievably cool. I asked if I could try it. I guess I played something that made sense, because he told me I could use it; I could keep it in my room. It was like it was mine for the rest of the year. I couldn’t believe it. A real electric guitar. I started playing and I just didn’t stop. I played every minute I could. It was just like learning how to catch grounders off the schoolyard wall. Over and over and over.<br /> That summer vacation I went home and somehow got my hands on fifty dollars and took the bus with my childhood best friend Mitch Howie to a pawn shop in a seedy part of San Francisco where I bought a really cheapo Japanese electric guitar (with three pickups and a wiggle stick for making the notes bend), a bass (with a bowed-out neck, and dead sounding flatwound strings that were half an inch off the fretboard, but who cared), and a one-speaker amp with its own microphone and stand (the amp even had tremolo). All for fifty bucks! <br /> Mitch, who was a ‘drummer’ who only had a snare drum, and I practiced every moment we could and played our first gig that summer, just the two of us entertaining a packed-out house kegger thrown by my older brother’s friends at a third floor walk-up apartment in San Francisco. Mitch’s drum kit was his snare drum and a wire magazine rack that he used at a cymbal. I remember I didn’t have a guitar strap, so I put my foot up on the amp and held the guitar on my knee for about three hours while we wanged away. I had spray painted the guitar candy-apple blue – a really bad, drippy, streaky paint job. I guess we played Louie, Louie and What I Say until my fingers bled, and then we played some more. The crowd, all college types five years older than us high-school twerps, danced their asses off. It was a powerful experience, to say the least. A few in the older crowd even complimented us. Of course then they puked Budweiser on their loafers. <br /> That fall, my junior year at Verde Valley, five of us formed my first real band, The Urthworms. <br /> Yeah, with a U. I Know. Well, The Beatles was taken.<br /> I had been summoning the beast for five years and now it was rising up out of the Earth and taking form: a real band, with bass, drums, and two guitars. We were all obsessed with playing. The Urthworms were always up in the balcony above the dining hall, where our gear was set up, wanging away. Twice a day, at “milk lunch”, where the leftovers from breakfast and lunch were put out to be scarfed down by ravenous teenagers, we had mini-concerts, plus we played in the afternoon when we didn’t have work jobs or sports to interfere. If I had put half that effort into my schooling, I might have been able to get into Lewis & Clark College or someplace like that. But nooo…<br /> By the end of my junior year, the school was letting us play for events. We played all the school dances, including the one in the tack room at the stables where Eric Detzer got so wound up from the music and from dancing that he barfed. OK, maybe he got some booze somewhere. Some guys made a sort of very crude vodka using the distilling equipment in the chem class lab. My friend Bruce Campbell got a silver sparkle set of real Ludwig drums, just like Ringo’s. Brian Ruppenthal had a Gibson 335 with a varitone switch and a Magnatone amp with two speakers. God only knows what that rig is worth today. I hope he kept it, at least the guitar. I played borrowed electric guitars, since my cheapo Japanese electric wasn’t good enough for this band and my parents weren’t really on board with spending a couple hundred dollars on an electric guitar and amp. When I found that some student at the school had a nice electric I basically appropriated it for my own use. No, you can’t join the band, but I am taking your guitar. It was matter of destiny for me; for anyone else, it was just a guitar.<br /><br />…She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah…<br /><br /> Mitch Howie and I kept playing during vacations at Christmas tree lots, parties, in his mom’s basement. My old friend Mike Walter‘s dad was a concert violinist and so Mike knew a lot about music. He turned us on to Chuck Berry and other real roots music. I kept learning chord progressions until I knew the basics and kept writing songs. Back at school our band got better and better. Towards the end of my senior year, The Urthworms scored a real, paid road gig. It was the senior prom for our rival high school, the Orme Ranch School, out in the desert mountain country seventy miles north of Phoenix. Somehow we got a ride down there. <br /> A cute Orme girl talked to me while Brian, Terry, Bruce, and I set up our gear in the vinyl-floored cafeteria. She was very friendly, with flirty eyes. I knew that Orme had a strict boy-girl hands-off policy. Still, I thought she might like me, even though most girls liked Terry or Brian more. It was exciting. We were away from Verde Valley on our own, a really rare occasion, and we were going to rock out. It was our first paid road trip and we were getting two hundred bucks. It was spring of ’66. Terry, our smooth talking, dark-haired Latin-lover bass payer and I were seniors. The Urthworms’ two-year run would come to an end with graduation in a few weeks.<br /> I don’t remember how Orme heard we had a band. Maybe it was when they were kicking our asses yet again in baseball, basketball, or soccer by some hideous, yet totally expected, score. Our school excelled in intellect but sucked at sports. But Orme didn’t have a rock’n’roll band. So there we were with our guitars and the Orme girls were definitely interested in us. <br /> Orme Ranch School was the mirror opposite of Verde Valley. VVS was very progressive with a curriculum that that placed a lot of emphasis on anthropology, Spanish, and American history and literature. Orme was a working cattle ranch, with a conservative, traditional scholastic program. Their hands-off policy was for real. Boys walked on one side of painted lines, girls on the other. Screw that! At VVS it was definitely hands-on, if you could find a willing girl, that is.<br /> Our band was as unconventional as was our school. Of course, I had started writing songs back in middle school. We had learned a lot of other bands’ songs, too: everything we could get our hands on. Records were hard to come by; they had to be sent to us. The Urthworms played maybe half original songs that I’d written with the other guys: crazy stuff like a raga-rock song that was open-ended and a wacko thing that was based on the attack of the Nazgul on Weathertop from the Fellowship of the Ring. But we also did most of the brand-new first Paul Butterfield Blues Band album, including I got My Mojo Workin’ and Born In Chicago, and a couple of Stones songs, like Little Red Rooster. <br /> Everything we did was definitely in our own style. We weren’t that good, so our cover songs probably sounded like crap; I know our originals were dumb. But since we didn’t have any idea how lousy we sounded, we just let it all out and had unlimited fun. We had that innocent and wild teen energy. We rocked the Orme cafeteria that night. The girls lined up in front of us did a little faux screaming and some interested ogling went back and forth from both parties. Pretty Blythe was both my witness and my evidence.<br /> That is, I think she was named Blythe, or maybe she was from Blythe, California? I can’t remember. But she was a cute, brown-haired girl and she showed me around the school in the afternoon, held hands with me against the rules, and even gave me a couple of lingering forbidden kisses in the bushes behind the dining hall before we had to leave to go back to school that night. Bruce, Terry, and Brian pretended to be looking for me elsewhere, knowing I was getting lucky, which they knew wasn’t an everyday occurrence. <br /> Sweet, sweet, sweet! Being the lead singer was good.<br /> It’s true that nerds in bands can score with chicks. As soon as it got around that I was a lead singer, I started doing a little better with girls. I now qualified as an artistic, and therefore vaguely dangerous, band guy. Bye-bye, hard guy. The whole world was changing, thanks to the Beatles and the Stones. <br /> From the first time I saw the Beatles’ photos in Life magazine, I grew my hair as long as the school would let me have it, just over the tops of the ears. My prescription shades were on my face day and night. I was ahead of the curve in that I already wore black clothes all the time. I actually started doing that by eighth grade. My reason was that I was ‘in mourning for the world’, so in that I concurred with Johnny Cash, though I didn’t yet know that was his deal. One of my buddies’ Baptist parents thought I was in league with the devil, since black is the devil’s color. I suppose that from their perspective, they were quite right. If the devil had a Gretsch and a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp with reverb and tremolo, and chicks dug him, well, who wouldn’t sell his soul for that?<br /> But I just had my own thing. I thought wearing black was cool. John Lennon proved that to be true. And being in a band was way cool. I was set for life. I had found my way outside the system. I was a rock’n’roller. That’s just the way it was going to be. <br /> <br /> In early spring of my senior year, when we were becoming somewhat accomplished in our own weird way, we pulled off a brilliant move. We signed off campus under the guise of going camping down by Oak Creek on a Saturday night and instead conned a ride to Flagstaff from an unsuspecting campus employee on the pretence of going to buy guitar strings at the only music store in northern Arizona. <br /> We took our guitars along “to make sure we got the right strings”. It’s amazing how you can con an innocent adult. Once in Flagg, we slipped off obstensively to the music store, but instead bought bus tickets and jumped on the overnight Greyhound all the way to Los Angeles and played the next afternoon, Sunday, at the ‘Teen Fair’, a band-showcase extravaganza held in the parking lot of the Hollywood Palladium, right in the heart of the action. Somebody’s duped-but-connected mom had set it up with a show biz friend. <br /> There were bands all over the parking lot, playing at booths sponsored by radio stations, car dealers, and surf shops. It was a lot of surf music, Beatles, and Stones. Time Won’t Let Me by the Outsiders was a big hit; we must have heard that five times in an hour by different bands. Hell, probably the future Doors and the guys who would become Buffalo Springfield were there, playing Animals and Zombies covers, who knows? <br />Oh, no one told me about her…the way she lied…<br /> We had a good crowd, as “our” mom’s friend had a lot of pull and got us on the main attraction Fender Sound Stage. It was a huge thing built of scaffolding, five feet above the pavement, with twenty-foot-high towers full of enormous PA speakers. It was also fully equipped with a set of Ludwig drums and real Fender amps. At last there was the line of big combo Bandmasters and Bassman amps to play through that I had always dreamed of. There were two gorgeous twenty-year-old Go-Go dancers wearing sort of Raquel Welch cave-girl-bikini outfits flouncing away on the towers alongside the stage while we played. They even flirted a little. With Brian and Terry, anyway.<br /> We were more than bit weird for the audience, with our originals sounding way out of place echoing off all those simultaneous versions of Time Won’t Let Me, but we did well enough on the blues stuff. Brian played some harmonica in addition to some fairly competent blues leads. The lyrics were pure Urthworms. He had a song that went, <br /><br />Talkin to you is like talkin through a hollow log<br /> Tryin to love you is like tryin to love a dead dog…<br /><br /> We had a blast. There were two hundred people there; our biggest audience ever. <br /> A VVS graduate drove us back all night to Sedona in a station wagon. We just pulled into the school quadrangle in time for Monday morning classes. We had known the whole time that we would be in deep shit for our stunt. We were almost expelled. But it was well worth it. What’s that old prep school phrase? Carpe diem?<br /> My studies by this time were an afterthought, and my last semester grades suffered, but hey, unlike every single one of my classmates, who were bound for Stanford, Brown, UCLA, Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, I wasn’t going to college anyway. My poor Ivy League educated parents had a tough time with this concept, but I have always been quite stubborn in my own wimpy way. I was going to have a band and make it big, and I was going to write all the songs for the band. I could already make up songs that sounded like real radio songs. They just came to me. I knew it would happen. Remember, I left the radio on all night when I was a kid; it was ingrained in me. I really felt that I had no choice. <br /> The rock’n’roll muse was giving me that come-hither look like the dark-eyed Jezebel she is.<br /> But for as long as the seemingly endless months before graduation prevented me from going off into the wide, wild world of rock music, Verde Valley School was still a continuation my Buddha’s childhood. Everyone at VVS was so smart and idealistic. In this incredibly tight-knit community there were never any fights, no bullying, and no stealing. Teachers and students alike were dedicated to the vision of a world shared in common with people of different cultures and skin colors. My parents and teachers wouldn’t have seen this in the way I did, but I thought my future music would be part of this world, this living goal. Superman with a telecaster. <br /> When we saw a documentary on the growing civil rights movement, in my sophomore year of 1964, I heard a fat, florid, cat-glasses-wearing middle-aged white southern woman with her hair up in a beehive use the word nigger in anger. I was profoundly shocked. I actually didn’t know that people still carried around real racial prejudice. I mean, I’d heard the word used before back home in supposedly color-blind Marin, but it was kid stuff. Niggers pissed in the high school pool, so you should swim at the tennis club. Niggers would steal your bike. But I never heard that you should “kill niggers” and blacks weren’t banned from public places in California. Schools weren’t segregated. Sure, there a lot of defacto segregation, but not like in the south, which had Jim Crow laws on the books. One of my Verde Valley classmate’s father was a doctor in Yazoo City Mississippi. The Klan burned a cross of his lawn because he treated blacks in his clinic.<br /> In my household, that kind of talk or view was strictly not allowed. My “Rockefeller” Republican parents were very progressive when it came to race and religion. My suffer-no-fools mother would have cut me to the quick with one of her withering looks if she had ever heard me saying that word in anything but a literary setting. I guess as a child I just didn’t hear the race prejudice message correctly. What I had heard in Mill Valley was, in fact, the same old segregationist shit, just watered down in the melting pot of California. But the intensity and hatred that I saw in Beehive Woman’s face was a revelation. That absolute prejudice was really out there. <br /> I looked at the men in the documentary. I recognized them, tense and mean, with their Elvis pomps or crew-cuts and angry faces. They were hard guys. Those fuckers were out there just waiting for us, weren’t they? I’m afraid that we VVS grads were set up to be passionate champions of the other way, the way of peace and intelligence. But we were about to be cast out into the outside world. Vietnam, civil rights, poverty, and hatred: a harsh reality.<br /> On Spring Break I went home and saw my first Fillmore show. The soon- to- be fabled place had just opened up. It was a Sunday matinee, of all things, with a couple hundred wild-looking hippies kicking around a beach ball in the still day lit hall while the bands played. I was super excited because it was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band with Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop, and Sam Lay. They were fuckin’ incredible. I already knew their album note for note. Quicksilver Messenger Service, who I hadn’t heard of yet, opened the show. <br /> I didn’t like their music too much, because in my snobby high- school way I already had a negative attitude about guitarists who bent what I considered to be the wrong notes (bend the four note up to the five or to the bluesy flat five, but don’t bend the one note a half-step!), but I sure dug they way they looked. They wore cowboy hippie: fringy shirts, custom hand-sewn bellbottoms, and love beads. They were as skinny as rifle barrels. A couple of them had black cowboy hats thrown back on their shoulders, stampede straps across their necks. Their hair was really long, girl long. And let me tell you, they had a lot more girls staring at them than the street-smart Chicagoland Paul Butterfield band guys did.<br /> That night at Orme Ranch School, as pretty Blythe smiled at me as she watched me sing, I pictured myself as one of those Quicksilver guys; long-haired, cowboy-hip, dangerous and wild, a psychedelic gunslinger. Oh, yeah, man. How do you like me now, hard guys and tough girls? The Fifties world of my junior high days might as well have been the Bronze Age, it seemed so long ago and far away.<br /> Butterfield and Quicksilver and the other bands were huge, but the tsunami influences were still the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. <br /> I loved the Beatles, especially John Lennon. He was the coolest guy ever. I wasn’t a Paul guy. You’re either a John guy or a Paul guy. It was Lennon’s obvious insightful intellect and biting sense of humor that came across, plus the wounded artist thing. So deep. I knew that Lennon grew up fighting, but I intuited that he wanted out of that as much as I did. I got one of those John Lennon caps and wore it around school, the front unbuttoned. Even Bob Dylan wore that cap, but Lennon was first. I wore black turtlenecks and a navy surplus pea-coat. <br /> We learned every Beatles single as soon as it came out as best we could. The Beatles double hit-sided 45’s were sent to us out in the desert by parents and friends. Brian Ruppenthal, the Urthworms’ lead guitarist, was the most knowledgeable of us about chords and lead parts. He was a pretty good player. We all sat around and played the singles over and over until we had them figured out. I learned a lot about chord progressions from those songs. The Beatles used a lot of progressions that were similar; after a while it was fairly easy to pick out where they were going musically. It’s funny considering all the woodshedding we did with the Beatles; but I don’t remember playing too many of their songs at our dances. <br /> The Beatles and Stones were both gateways to other music: blues and R&B stars like Chuck Berry, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and also country. Ringo singing Act Naturally led to someone coming up with a Buck Owens record, which was a real eye-opener for me. I hadn’t heard such a cool sound since the rockabilly stuff when I was little. That in turn led me to bluegrass, Jim and Jesse, Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, and later to Merle Haggard and the whole panoply of Country and Western music stars. The ‘western’ part of Country and Western Music hadn’t been surgically removed with a Red-State-Republican-Jack Daniels-powered chain saw yet. ‘Country’ means ‘Redneck’ now, no matter what part of the good old US of A, Canada, Greece, Norway, or Japan you’re from. <br /> We did play a couple of Stones songs. They were more bluesy and raw and generally easier to hack through. Besides, I thought that in some ways the Stones were cooler looking than the Beatles; more dangerous. They didn’t wear the silly little mod suits. And Satisfaction is the best rock single ever: it’s still my all-time # 1 favorite rock song. I loved direct, blunt rock songs. That mid- Sixties era produced such great radio hits. Satisfaction, Gloria, and You really Got Me. I got it burned into my rock consciousness that a great single starts with a cool, distinctive guitar riff. I had absolutely no idea that someday I would write a famous one myself.<br /> As great and cool as the Stones were it was the Beatles’ show. Every Beatles album was truly a revelation. No one had ever made records like that before. Each one was something new, something never done before. The Stones records sounded small on our suitcase stereos, but I had the feeling they kicked ass live. Once Bob Dylan came out with the band sound on Highway 61, with Mike Bloomfield on guitar, I became a huge Dylan fan too. The Byrd’s amazing-sounding record came out right before graduation. It was mind-boggling sonically and had great songs. And of course, who didn’t dig the Animals, Them, the Zombies, and the Kinks?<br /> I had acquired or appropriated from some kind soul at school a black, Gibson acoustic round-holed flattop guitar with a little pickup; the very guitar that John Lennon played sometimes. But I broke the high E string around Christmas, so I played for most of the rest of the year with just the lower five, tuned to a G or D chord sometimes. One less string to worry about. The open tuning was cool. It made our insane raga-rock song happen, with the guitar feeding back sonorously, just like the opening feedback on the Beatles’ I’m in Love With Her And She’s So Fine, as the entire crazed audience danced through our stage setup, whooping and shouting. <br /> And just think, we hadn’t even discovered drugs yet.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Hippies on Haight Street<br /><br />...C’mon people now, smile on your brother…<br /> everybody get together…try and love one another right now….<br />(Youngbloods)<br /><br />…Abba zaba zoom… Babbette baboon…<br />(Captain Beefheart)<br /><br /> Hippie chicks. Not scary at all. Oh no, quite the opposite, brother. Make love, not war. Moving long-limbed and freely in their granny dresses, long tresses flowing down their skinny backs, tan shoulders exposed to the sun and wind, they looked like Aphrodite’s sisters. I guess some of them were a bit frightening to me in their dazzling beauty, but it was a desire-driven frenzied fear: the kind a moth must feel for a flame.<br /><br /> Brown Derby Beer. Fear the beer.<br /> John McFee slouched on the old cat-barf sofa and let out a whole-quart-of-beer belch, which took the form of moist, gaseous words, “Fuuccckkk… yoouuu!” to Mike Walter, who was coming down the steps to our hillside hippie pad at 96 Laverne Ave.,in Mill Valley “Yoouuu… ahhsshoole!”<br /> This cracked us all up. McFee could out-belch anyone. Mike smilingly flipped him off and reached into his pocket and dangled a small bag of pot like a dainty object.<br /> “Here you are, girls!”<br /> Pot! Mitch rolled, we smoked. The gear was set up right in the living room: Mitch’s drums, Johnny Ciambotti’s bass rig, the two Fender Twin Reverb amps, telecasters leaning up against them, and our candy-apple blue tuck-and-roll Kustom P.A. It was a setup right out my old Fender and Gibson catalogs; right from the dog-eared pages of those glossy, color-photograph dream machines.<br /> We were called Clover now. For a year right out of high school McFee, Mitch Howie, and I had a band called The Tiny Hearing Aid Company. Mitch and I had been banging around on guitar and drums for six years. We met McFee through his brother Bob. John was just seventeen, as was Mitch. I had just turned nineteen.<br /> Ciambotti plugged his bass in. Johnny had just joined the band; that’s why we had changed the name. He had been playing with a band of slightly older guys called The Outfit, but we started jamming and he ended up joining us. He was our resident old man at twenty-five. He was handsome, street-smart and brought a different vibe to our band. We were legit now.<br /> We jammed and rehearsed our set. McFee broke into an outrageous solo on Wade in the Water. We picked up on that song from watching the Charley Musselwhite Blues band with the magical Harvey Mandel on guitar. Our rather free-form covers of that and Jr. Walker’s Shotgun were staples of our gigs at Mill Valley’s tiny Browns Hall, one of our regular shows. The hall, almost a dead-on duplicate of my childhood Outdoor Art Club, right down to the pale-green, aluminum coffee-urned kitchen and the plastic-brass-eagle-tipped flags, got packed with wildly enthusiastic sweaty teenagers from Tamalpais High School every time we played there. Just eight years after my night of musical revelation, we were the young gods on the stage, inspiring new legions of nerds to get telecasters and start singing.<br /> John McFee was a great, uniquely talented guitar player from day one. He was capable of playing the world’s worst solo, but if he did it was completely intentional. Make it cry, John. I don’t think John ever played an unintentional bad note in his life. He was tall and thin, with long brown hair and a broken nose he got somehow growing up in Orange County. He kind of ditched both high school and his mom, who he loved, but who was a mess, to come up to San Francisco with his wild older brother Bob, who was my age. Bob McFee was a real character. He called himself Jim Roberts or something – he had a couple of names and even more life stories; it was hard to sort the truth out of the tales he told. <br /> It was hippie time, late in the Summer of Love, and who knew who anyone was? People had new names, like Sunshine or Mellow Mike, or Shooter; you name it: Buddha, RJ, Bummer Bob, Rainbow. But John McFee, unlike his brother Jim-Bob-whatever, was a straight-shooter, and he was also extremely smart and highly spiritual. He soon would become a tee-totaling, vegetarian yogi who would somehow remain calm through many years of band storms. His incendiary and original chicken-pickin-meets-Jimi Hendrix guitar playing was the best thing about Clover, though Johnny Ciambotti was a very solid bass player and another very smart guy. Mitch Howie played well on drums, sometimes very well. People said I had a good voice, whether I was a good singer or not was a question I couldn’t answer. I wrote most of the songs; Johnny wrote a couple of straight country ones. We could all sing, and the Clover harmony sound was a big part of what we did. <br /> By 1968, our cosmically enormous, insane LSD year was behind us. We had become funky beer-and-pot heads. We liked wearing cowboy stuff; we liked to rock out. We all were committed anti-war types and all that, but we weren’t Peace, OM, Love, and Groovy types of hippies. We were all a little too smart and cynical to be real hippies, plus we liked alcohol a lot. Hippies ate magic mushrooms and chanted…OOOMMM…and said vapid, yet irrefutable things like I love you so much man while at the same time stealing your pot stash. We drank Brown Derby beer and belched. We also stole your pot stash, but we didn’t rationalize it; we did it because we deserved and needed it more than you did. <br /> Acid was a great mind opener at first. We would drop, and then go in Bruce Campbell’s parent’s fantastically cool Citroen to the Avalon or Fillmore and check out bands and hippie chicks and other freaks like us. We had good acid trips, like the time the entire city of San Francisco from Bruce’s parent’s house on top of Twin Peaks looked like thatch-roofed jungle huts and somehow from that I grokked the interconnection of all beings. But we also had bad trips, like the seemingly endless weekend nightmare that ended our extended hippie family’s dalliance with strong psychedelics. <br /> One of us nearly bought the farm from a huge dose. Through one of my brother’s connections, we got a small glass bottle that had held blue liquid LSD, the kind that ended up as edible dots on blotter paper. The Blue Bottle. All that was left was a scummy residue that perhaps thirty or more of us from our extended ‘Clover family’ dabbed out with our fingertips and licked. The result was a psychedelic disaster. There was a day and a night of group bad-trip bummer insanity, during which one of our family, who I won’t name, had to be held down by teams of three strong guys at a time to keep him from injuring himself. He was bellowing like some kind of primordial beast-man and literally throwing himself against the walls of one of little cabins at Muir Beach. He was finally “shot down” by a courageous doctor who administered a large dose of Thorazine. It was a very dangerous decision because Thorazine could have fatally interacted with another drug going around at the time called STP. I stood there in the crowded cabin as the bearded, long-haired doc said, if this is STP, this will kill him, and then he stuck the needle in our friend’s leg. Fortunately, it all ended well, but we were all deeply scared. It sobered us up, at least in terms of acid. It was another entry on a long list of incidents I never mentioned to my parents. The things they didn’t know, oh my God.<br /> So it was pot anytime and anyhow we could get it and beer when we could afford it. We were totally broke. Our big meal was the occasional taco pig out, which was generally supplied courtesy of Johnny and John’s old ladies, Nancy and Ronelle, through their panhandling efforts, usually down in Sausalito. Taco pig-out, plus a case of Brown Derby beer in those old bi-metal cans (taste that can, man!), and a gallon of Red Mountain wine ($1.50 a gallon!) <br /> A lot of the time we just went hungry. We didn’t make much on our gigs. We shared whatever we had communally for the house and for gas for our beat-up Ford Econoline van, a rolling bucket of rust and bolts and duct tape, the floor boards of which were layered with a nice collection of empty beer bottles and cigarette packs and greasy brown paper bags and old oil cans, that was piloted by our opportunistic and rather sticky-fingered road crew. Gas was still only twenty-five cents a gallon, so we could take up a collection and get two-fifty’s worth of gas sometimes. <br /> Mitch’s mom rarely surfaced from her alcoholic rambles long enough to charge us the fifty dollar-a-month rent for the house. In her absence, we had transformed it from a catshit-infested, hoarder’s trash heap into a nice clean hippie pad, with extra interior rooms created by artistic use of old fence lumber and discarded windows. American flags and beaded curtains served as doors. We had tacked up big National Geographic maps on the walls over the old chipping paint. On the living room wall there was a section reserved for artsy-fartsy felt-pen Acid doodles as well.<br /> We drove a faded green fifty-two Chevy sedan around town, usually with six horny guys in it. A good solid used car like that cost only a couple of hundred dollars back then. It could be a little problematic to try to pick up chicks with six guys in the car, though it did occasionally happen. Tam High School girls were frequent lovely visitors at our pad, before school and after – like every afternoon. There were some hook-ups there. We were trying on each other for size and fit; it wasn’t like real dating. I didn’t even know what that was. John McFee and Ronelle and Johnny Ciambotti and Nancy were the real couples in the house of twelve.<br /> Andre Pessis lived there for a while. He was a really brainy and funny guy from New York, a former Greenwich Villager, who would be the lead singer in the other ‘Clover family’ band, the Flying Circus, and later a very successful hit songwriter. The Circus opened for us at Brown’s Hall and at the Muir Beach Tavern. Andre slept in a fence-lumber- walled-off sun porch in a sleeping bag we dubbed the “cum sack”. There was endless needling and cutting, but it was mostly in good fun. Ciambotti was called “Clambottle”, I was “Al C’hol”, and Steve Bonucelli, the drummer the Flying Circus, was “Bowl’o‘Chili”. We were just kids. Life was an adventure. We were out looking for girls, pot, or beer, in any order. We played crazy gigs for little or no money and ran around the hills of Marin howling under the full moon.<br /><br /> There was someone at the door. It was a cop! Shit, there were roaches in ashtrays and on top of amps. Johnny was nearest the door and opened it slightly, still holding his bass.<br /> “Can I help you? “ He asked politely, keeping his face between the sheriff and room. If the cop couldn’t smell the pot his nose must have been shot off.<br /> The sheriff’s deputy shouldered halfway into the doorway. There was a big roach right on top of the bass rig, not two feet in front of him.<br /> “There’s been a complaint about the noise,” he said. He didn’t come off as too unfriendly.<br /> “Oh, really?” said Johnny. We were standing by our amps, holding our breath; so freaked out you could have popped the tension in the room with a pin.<br /> ” Shoot. Sorry. We’ll turn down, officer”. <br /> Johnny was very, very smooth in tight spots, even when he was stoned, or maybe especially then, when others couldn’t handle it. It was his L.A. streets upbringing.<br /> The sheriff looked around the smoky room for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t see any reason for an arrest here. You guys keep it down, OK?”<br /> We all nodded and mumbled yes sir, no problem, absolutely, won’t happen ever again. Gulp, gasp.<br /> He left, going up the steps to the street above with his partner, their hands on their gun belts. They drove off. We finally all breathed out. We were still pretty adrenalized, but figured we’d dodged a bullet. We hurriedly cleaned up all the roaches and someone stashed them out in the blackberries in a coffee can. After a few minutes we went back to playing, this time at a lower volume.<br /> Wrong. Ten minutes later they were back, maybe eight of them, and we were busted. Cuffs, back of the squad car, jail, the whole bit. We had cleaned out the obvious stuff, but they found a bag of seeds in Mitch’s room, and it was his mom’s house, so he was in the worst shape. We were suddenly in handcuffs on our way to jail in several squad cars. Busts were common, and we knew they don’t have much on us. Must bust in early May, Orders from the D.A. It was just the Man being the Man, and us hippies being stoned hippies with our long hair and radical attitudes. They were pleasant enough and let us all out shortly. Nobody even had to spend the night. But it was a real drag. It meant court dates and hassles for Mitch. Nobody wanted hassles, what a bummer, man. For Mitch, it was the start of a long, bad relationship with the strong arm of the law. <br /> <br /> We were gigging frequently at the Straight Theatre on Haight Street. One night we opened for the MC5, the infamous bad boys from Detroit. They were insanely loud, notes and lyrics indistinguishable in that cavernous hall. They were also wild men, up for anything. After the gig they came to our house, got quite stoned, and ended up driving their rental car off a steep Mill Valley hillside street and into one of our neighbor’s yards. Just another Saturday night. <br /> The Straight Theater was kind of a second-tier Avalon Ballroom in an old neighborhood movie theater right in the heart of the Haight-Ashbury. It had been the Haight Movie Theater. It was a big, old boomy room with most of the seats long gone, replaced by a very dimly lit dance floor, and the crowds were often only dozens instead of hundreds, but it had a certain semi-legit vibe. There was a big PA and they had nice posters, ala’ those done by Mouse and Griffin and the other cool poster artists. The old movie projection booth high in the rafters was called the Yellow Submarine. You had to climb up a ladder to get in. It was where you went to get high. From up there, bands on stage sounded like supersonic cat-and-dog fights inside a huge echo chamber. You couldn’t make out the notes too well, and it was very loud. I’ll always associate loud, wanky guitar solos with being in that room. There were some really bad guitar players back then. But, it was cool: Don’t Bogart that joint, my friend!<br /> There were a lot of R. Crumb-like characters at the Straight. There was one guitar player, Joe T., who would stare balefully out into the dark room as he rocked back and forth on his heels like an insane wind-up toy on speed when he played solos on his miked-up acoustic. It was kind of cool, but also edgy crazy. I mean actually crazy. At the end of a song he deadpanned to the assembled handful splattering the dark, echoey chamber with light applause and few whoops, “Thanks for the clap”.<br /> Carlos Santana and Greg Rollie from the really cool Santana Blues Band were frequently around. At one gig, Carlos spent the entire set lying on stage with his head inside Mitch’s kick drum. Mellow, Carlos?<br /> There were a lot of whackos trying to be rock stars. Many of them were con men, running a poseur game on anyone they could. I remember one guy who had penis pants. He had like an embroidered sock sewn on the front of his pants in which his unit was supposedly housed! This actually worked for him for about fifteen minutes of Haight -Ashbury fame. It was maddening when you saw one of these guys getting taken seriously. Sooner or later the fakers would be exposed for what they were and would fade away. There were others who were good players who had the business part figured out, but we couldn’t stand them or their music because it seemed so calculated. <br /> There was also a lot of veiled aggression going on under the rhetorically correct banners of hippiedom Love is the answer, man. Oh yeah, then why are you trying to screw me behind my back? Contracts sealed with drugs were offered and broken, managers were signed and dumped, players were hired and fired. We kept plugging away, fueled by the belief we had something special; that we’d heard the real call. Ok, so it may be something that was unfinished so far, but we were a pure band, not one just driven by the desire for commercial success. Just maybe that’s why we weren’t making any money.<br /> In order to play the Straight and some of the other clubs around town, we had to join the Musician’s Union. We went down to the Union Hall somewhere in the Tenderloin district – not a nice part of San Francisco unless you really are drawn to strip joints, whores, junkies, and armed robbers- and signed up. The guy who took our applications and our thirty-five bucks was right out a noire gangster flick. He wore a pin-stripe suit with a boutonnière, had a pencil mustache and greased-back hair, and was named Vito or something like that. After we auditioned, which consisted of Mitch doing a drum roll with his hands on the guy’s desk, he said conspiratorially, hey guys, wanna see something really cool? Uh, sure, man. He slid open the top drawer on his desk and revealed a shiny, black pistol. Later on, at a High School auditorium gig in Eureka, a “union rep” showed up and demanded traveling dues from us. We gave him twenty bucks and he stuck it in the pocket of his trench coat. He wrote us a receipt on a paper napkin. Not Impressed, I never re-upped my union membership again.<br /> A lot of days we’d get all duded up in our hand-sown bell-bottoms and cowboy shirts and acid beads, pile into our van, and drive to the City to go walking down Haight Street. Making eye contact with pretty hippie chicks was the game. There were a lot of young girls and freaky, long-haired guys and poncho-wearing street people. Music was coming out of hippie-pad windows. The latest far-out Fillmore and Avalon posters were up in the windows of the head shops. The Charlatans and Quicksilver Messenger Service; The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat and The Doors. The sweet smell of incense, the disgusting stench of patchouli oil, and the enticing aroma of pot being smoked was in the air. <br /> We got smiles and peace signs, and sometimes a flirty glance that led to conversation. Hey, we’re playing at Muir Beach tonight; you should come out there with us. You can crash at our pad. It was easy to meet girls; sometimes it even went somewhere. She said; are you doing a thing with one particular oldlady right now? He answered, Uh, no, and by the way, I can’t help notice that you really don’t need the bra you’re not wearing. The hippie chicks were sloe-eyed, lithe, and so beautiful. I was mostly too shy to pull the trigger, but it happened sometimes. <br /> The street people were all young; no one over thirty. Can’t trust anyone over thirty. The sidewalks were crowded; everybody was cruising, looking for action of some type. Guys would whisper as they passed, Lids? Acid? We got fantastic, greasy, meat-filled piroshkis at a Ukrainian bakery we called Mama Khrushchev’s. The lady who made the piroshkis looked just like Nikita Khrushchev with a bad wig, like a Monty Python character. Twenty cents each, they were the size of big burgers. Down the sidewalk came H.P. Lovecraft, a band from Chicago with huge, wigged-out hair and Sgt. Pepper outfits. What a scene. And not a single hard guy in sight. They had been magically eliminated, banished from the realm. Good riddance.<br /> There were some real future legends walking around. We saw Janis Joplin in Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle at free outdoor gigs. She was really not very attractive, just kind of average, though she did have the hippie look in spades. In fact, she was an originator of the look: the long, wavy hair, love beads, antique flowered dresses, cool granny lace-up shoes, rose-colored John Lennon shades. Big Brother, her band, was the ultimate hippie band. They were real friendly guys and they looked perfect: skinny, with long, long hair, flower-child chic, everything. But boy, did they bend the wrong notes! It drove me (and others) nuts. But something cool happened when they got on stage. Somehow it all worked. The band was just right for Janis and she got better looking the more she screeched. Within a couple of songs, she was lookin’ good. By the time she got to Piece of My Heart, she was the best lookin’ babe you had seen in a long time and you wanted her. Weird, but that’s charisma for you. It was a drag when she left Big Brother for a “better” band. Management and their big-money suggestions: boy howdy, once the record deals started getting handed out, many so-called hippie musicians tossed their scruples and their peace, love, and groovy friendships under the nearest bus as fast as they could. Something magical got lost there, and it wasn’t just the unique sound of Janis singing with Big Brother. It was the sound of the idealism of the sixties being strangled with a golden chain. <br /> The Jefferson Airplane was about the biggest band in the City. They were sort of folk-rock: nice, but not a real turn on. They’d become more of a powerhouse when Jack Casady and Grace Slick joined the band. Still, they were never quite my quart of Brown Derby. <br /> We saw the Grateful Dead around a lot. They were accessible. Remember, it was at least nominally all sort of a big hippie family at this point. We caught them at the Fillmore or Avalon every chance we had. The Dead’s secret was that they were the only band that made sense when you took acid. Jerry was the leader, the acid-trip hero, but I dug Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kruetzman and Pig Pen. I just loved their free-flowing sound. And Jerry bent mostly the right notes, by the way. At one free gig at the outdoor Greek amphitheater- style Mountain Theater on top of Mt Tamalpais, Weir mentioned our gig that night at Muir Beach. We were thrilled to have him say our band’s name over the P.A. The Dead were not at this point all the way into the forty-minute solos they’d become famous for. They were much tighter than most of the bands. But then they made their first album, which failed to catch their live vibe; it was a big disappointment for me. Then their solos got longer and longer, and besides, when we stopped taking acid, we didn’t go to see them as much. Because without the acid, well….they make more sense when you’re on acid; let’s just leave it at that. So those of you who might have wondered what those Deadheads with their Volkswagen busses with tie-dyed curtains were doing at those gigs for all those years, well, wonder no more.<br /> We saw all the Bay Area bands, and many of the touring ones. The Fillmore and Avalon, of course, were the top venues. The Family Dog, a bunch of semi-business-minded hippies headed by Chet Helms, ran the Avalon Ballroom. It was a big old dance hall up a flight of stairs just off VanNess Avenue above Polk Street in the City, near the porn shops and bad crime district called the Tenderloin, the same neighborhood that Musician’s Union was in. Gee, the Tenderloin, home of hookers and transvestites, muggers, and heroin dealers; a nice wholesome location for our counter-culture revolution.<br /> The ballroom held a thousand stoned hippies, maybe more. I was there, so of course I can’t remember. The stage was angled in one corner of the room. There was a plush-carpeted balcony area upstairs. Strobe lights flashed along the wall under which you could get lost in your trip and swing your beads around in the air. They would magically change color and location. Hippie chicks appeared in freeze-frame, their long hair flashing. The P.A. was huge compared to the ones bands played through just a few years earlier. When I saw the Ventures (Walk, Don’t Run), the Shantays (Pipeline), the Surfaris (Wipeout), and other bands at the Corte Madera Community center in 1964, the P.A. was still just one Voice of the Theater speaker on the side of the stage with one microphone. The new venues had big bass speakers and treble horns. The drums and the amps were all miked up; there were monitor wedges across the stage. The lights were regulation theater stage and spot lights, mixed with a big, squishy projected light show by Bill Ham or some other stoned guy pulsing away above and behind the band and on the walls of the hall. Hard guys pushing each other around were not the show anymore. Now it was the band, man, and the lights. Band guys were stars now. Not just cool. Not tough. They were Gods, written about in Rolling Stone Magazine, our new Bible. It was happening, man. Now I really wanted in, and I was so close.<br /> Chet Helms, the head dog of the Family Dog, was a tall, skinny, gentle guy with long hair and beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He could usually be found near the top of the stairs, arms folded across his chest, welcoming people and talking with his buddies. He gave off a peaceful vibe, and the Avalon was definitely more of a hippie place than the Fillmore.<br /> The Fillmore Auditorium was right on the edge of a tough black neighborhood called, simply, the Fillmore. It was a similar hall to the Avalon, maybe a bit larger, but not by much. Both places had a sort of faded glory air about them; gilded balconies, carpeted hallways, long bars in the annexes. I guess they must have been WWII era dance halls. The Fillmore’s stage was at the far end of the room. There was a balcony that ran three quarters of the way around the hall, and a room off the balcony where you could catch a breather and tell your compadres how stoned you were. One night we all scared the shit out each other by talking about the size of the universe until we realized how tiny and alone we were in it. At a time like that, when you and your stoned posse are looking at the edge of a space you were not prepared to gaze fully into, there was nothing else to do but go listen to Otis Redding or Van Morrison or Cream.<br /> Greeting you at the top of the stairs when you went in was the one and only Bill Graham. Bill was a compact, tough-looking guy, with shortish dark hair. He had a New York vibe; cool but passionate, formidable; like your older brother. You got the feeling that he’d kick your ass if you got out of line, so you didn’t get out of line. But there was also a feeling that he would shield you from bad shit, like the cops if they came in as they sometimes did. He probably paid them off, I suppose. At the end of the night, Bill would hand out apples to everyone and tell us to be cool as we took our stoned selves out into the San Francisco night. We’d all see the dawn come up before we came down.<br /> All the big bands played these venues: Cream, Them with Van Morrison, Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, the Charlatans, Otis Redding, the Dead, Quicksilver, Love, Steve Miller, Buffalo Springfield, Captain Beefheart, Blue Cheer, Canned Heat, Mother Earth, Charlie Musselwhite, the Electric Flag, Moby Grape, the Charlatans, the Youngbloods, Janis Joplin and Big Brother, Taj Mahal, too many others to remember. When Bill Graham moved the Fillmore to Fillmore West and then to Winterland, a cavernous hall that held five thousand, the shows got even bigger: Jimi Hendrix, Albert Collins, B.B. King, Fleetwood Mac. It was the dawn of the huge concert era.<br /> Bands we really dug were Taj Mahal, with Jesse Edwin Davis on guitar, and Moby Grape, a sensational band – the best in the city, though their career went crazy haywire after two albums. Sadly, a couple of the members became drug casualties and ended up being committed to institutions. The Steve Miller Blues band with Boz Skaggs and Curly Cook was awesome. They held down a club in the marina called the Matrix for a while and then Miller went on to big-time stardom. Boz followed later on. Carlos Santana with his Santana Blues Band was already doing what would make him a mainstay for the next forty years. On the other hand, The Great Society with Grace Slick made me go on a bad acid trip with their music, and Blue Cheer and the Oxford Circle were just plain so loud and so bad I couldn’t take it. Sorry, guys; you sucked. I was more into the blues and country influenced stuff. I liked to rock out, but I didn’t like aggressive, ugly hard-rock. <br /> No hard guys, no hard rock.<br /> For a while there, I thought hard guys were on their way out. At last the myth of progress was a reality; the world was coming to its senses after a long bloody history featuring mainly a lot of hard guys: hard guys in animal skins, hard guys in togas, hard guys in Nazi uniforms, hard guys in white sheets, hard guys on Main Street Anywhere USA. In terms of evolution, hard guys were once necessary; someone had to protect the village and raid neighboring tribes for cattle and women. But the world has become one gigantic village. Slowly, inexorably, people are coming to realize that hard guys aren’t the solution; they’re the problem. For a brief moment in the sixties, this realization seemed to be coming home to roost on the rooftops, cooing and fluffing its wings. <br /> From the summer of ’66 to the end of ’68, there was a real feeling among us hippies of a movement, a common counter-culture. R.Crumb had a great cartoon that summed it up: A cosmic meatball falls out of the sky and bonks one person on the head, then another, and then another, and so forth. Each of those bonked, from a busty, hot Crumb chick to a scientist to a pimply, bike-riding kid to an Air Force General, or whoever the Crumb characters were, achieve a measure of enlightenment of some kind. Finally, the meatball rolls out of sight. The script says: Will Meatball ever come again? Who can say? Well, we had our Meatball moment, though just like in Crumb’s cartoon, it soon rolled out the door. <br /> It was a really exciting scene; a genuine “time and place”, but the good vibes faded away far too soon. The moment rapidly morphed into an aggressive, dark, mirror-image centered around the “rip-off” rather than Peace and Love. The angel shape-changed into a demon: Lucifer fell again, from enlightened hipster to low-life, meth-crazed biker. It was all over by 1970, but the Summer of Love would remain a transformational crossroad that would have an effect for the next generation and beyond. Though the forces of reaction still are powerfully tenacious, expectations for the future have evolved and have retained a measure of the higher planes of possibility glimpsed by the flower-power people in ’67. Will humanity last long enough to see the seeds planted by that rare moment bear fruit? Will Meatball come again? Who can say?<br /> At least I was temporarily free of those fuckin’ hard guys.<br /><br /> We dropped acid in Mill Valley, and once again Bruce Campbell drove everyone across the Golden Gate Bridge to the Avalon in his parents Citroen station wagon. We were all amazed when the car magically stopped at stop signs and red lights. As we came on, we waved at fellow long–hairs on the streets or in other cars. Hey, Freaks! We were really high by the time we got there, with that metallic acid feeling welling up in our throats and eyes, the cosmic electricity flowing in our veins. The Great Society, with Grace Slick, was playing. I was watching them, hallucinating like crazy. <br /> I had heard they were good, that Grace was a cool singer, and I wanted to like them, I really did. I saw actual musical notation flowing out from the stage, like something out of Disney’s Fantasia. It was so beautiful. But then Grace’s grating, piercing voice and the twangly guitars became distorted and ugly, and then suddenly very, very scary. The notes exploded on the hallucinated staves, like bombs. The red-blue molecular structures that made up my field of vision began to spin. It was an inescapable downward spiral, a twirling vortex, a wormhole to Hell. I turned to Mitch, who now looked like some sort of odd lizard being, and said, I’m scared. The sound of my own voice sank me at an impossible speed to a place I’d never been. My mind was blowing! I was flipping out! Now I knew what that really meant. <br /> I stumbled through the insanely babbling crowd of mad-hatters and cardboard cut-out, two-dimensional freaks. Somehow, I made my way up the balcony, looking for a place of refuge, but there was no place to hide from what was happening inside of me. I vomited, and the vomit was fire. From somewhere, my brother Lew and his friend Peter G. found me. They took me out of the Avalon to Peter’s Chevy Nomad. We headed toward Marin. Away from the insane, hell-like noise and looking-glass crowd I was a little calmer, but still deeply scared. The road seemed to roll up under the car like we were driving on a big, rotating metal drum. I didn’t know why the Nomad didn’t fly off into space. <br /> I crawled from the back into the front seat. I felt a seeping feeling of ice cold in my ass. It was beginning to freeze. My ass was freezing! I was going to die! Wait a minute, I’d knocked over a coke bottle and it had been pouring into my pants. This cracked me up, and I relaxed somewhat, much to the relief of Lew and Peter, who were no doubt mulling over whether they’d have to take me to the hospital or not; a course of action that might well land them in jail. They were on acid, too. <br /> Instead, we drove all the way to the top of Mt. Tam and watched the starry night go by and the dawn come up over the layered, purple, East Bay hills and the steel-gray bay. It was very beautiful. It was very fucked up.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-70156330282994969722010-11-28T20:53:00.000-08:002010-11-28T20:55:41.948-08:00Book Two:first draft of "Merlin the Archer", by Alex Call11 Sargon of Akkad<br /><br /> There was no more talk of hiring on with the Akkadians as a mercenary. I was now, along with my foolish and deeply chagrined friend the great King of Tirana, Herakul, he who was blessed by the goddess and gods, chained to the galleys as an oar-slave. And we were no longer going back to Achaea. We were sailing due east, with the strong west winds driving the black -prowed ships before the white-capped waves.<br /> My heart sank as I thought of Vila and my son. How long would they be able to hold out against the combined strong families? Andros and Brukos and the others would supplant them, claiming I was no doubt dead. Vila would be fortunate to live, and our son’s life would be in the gravest danger from the families. It truly always had been; only my presence had held it all together. I hoped Vila would flee. Where? North, east, somewhere. Seek protection of a temple of the goddess, become a priestess, take a vow of chastity, raise our boy within the precinct walls, in a fragile safety from the flint daggers and copper axes of assassins.<br /> The twelve lashes I had taken from the whip of Lipit-Sin had not hurt any worse than my anger at my own judgment, but I couldn’t stay angry at Herakul for long. The big man was just not that bright, but he had a good heart. Still, if he hadn’t come to try to rescue me, I would have gotten away, most likely. Eventually I would have found a way back across the seas to the free lands. Now there was nothing but uncertainty. The slaves, who came from all corners of the world and spoke a confusing babble of tongues, said we were heading back to Kanaa, and then would join with Sargon’s army and fleet at the great fortress of Ugarit, on the coast. There, the Emperor was assembling the greatest army in the history of the world to march against Pharaoh in Egypt. War had never been made been made between Akkad and Egypt since the dawn of time. But Sargon was the greatest king in Sumer and Akkad’s history, which they reckoned as going back countless generations to the time of the great flood of the north, which made the inland ocean called the Black Sea. The slaves told fabulous and unbelievable tales of the lands to the east. They said there were towers and even mountains made by people, or some said by gods, which reached to the clouds. In Egypt, these mountains, called the pyramids in our tongue, were the biggest buildings in the world. In the land between the Rivers, the land of Uruk, Lagash, Ur, and Sargon’s new city, Akkade, there were pyramids called ziggurats that rose above the flat desert plains, where vast systems of canals carried water from the distant mountains to dry fields and made them flower all year long. There were vessels made of glass and gold, and the kings had their drinks cooled with mountain ice, brought by slaves who ran all the way from the high snow peaks. Kings and Queens didn’t touch the earth, but were carried about in special chairs made of inlaid wood. It was said that the gods themselves came down to the tops of the ziggurats in winged chariots and slept with the temple priestesses.<br /> This last thing made me laugh, for now. I was used to so many tall tales told by ignorant people. It seemed that almost everyone wanted desperately to believe in this nonsense. Perhaps that was the key to the success of the priesthood and the gods and goddesses. People believed because they couldn’t understand the world, and didn’t want to try. I felt a little sorry for them, but on the other hand, I couldn’t fall for all this dung. It was just more of the same. But I felt I was the only one who saw things this way, so I shut my mouth. My foremost thought was still how to escape. I counted the days of sailing, noted islands we passed, watched the currents and winds and all else. I would know the way back home when the time came. I would find a way to get free and I would come back to Vila and Aon and save them, if it took me the rest of my life.<br /> It took nine days to reach Copper Island, called in Achaean Cypros. This island was large, though not the length of Karpatha. It was in the control of both Sargon and the long-established mining families. There were ships from everywhere there. Heavy ingots of smelted copper, shaped like small oxhides that could easily be carried by two men, were loaded on the ships. Woe be to the boat that ran into bad winds while carrying that load. A wrecked copper ship would soon sink forever into the dark seas among the rocky islands of the coasts. We pressed on and soon crossed to Ugarit.<br /> Herakul, as always, made a name for himself for his size and strength, as well as for his gregariousness. Even though we were now slaves, he carried himself well. He rowed with the power of three men and he kept our spirits up with his banter about our captors.<br /> “I’ve seen roosters with bigger balls,” he joked in Achaean, talking about the captain of the ship’s guards, a small, wiry man dressed in flashy red robes and shiny show-armor with earrings and ribbons tied in his long hair. The remark was passed along, being translated in the rowing benches into twelve different languages. It finally made its way somehow to the soldiers, some of whom laughed themselves. But the captain glowered at Herakul. Still, no action was taken against Herakul, for the captain didn’t want to lose a prize bull like him.<br /> There was another huge man, a Hattusan, who was as slow-witted as an ox. Anarkos, rowing six benches away said loudly he didn’t think Herakul could take him. This was a prod, guaranteed to goad Herakul into making a challenge in return. There was quite an uproar over the prospect and the captain shouted for order. His soldiers lashed out at three men to quiet them. When the cause was reported to the captain, he called out, “Very well. Tonight we’ll settle it.”<br /> At dusk, when the winds were light and steady, Herakul and the Hattusan were unbound and taken to the back deck. The soldiers oiled them, barrels and bales were rolled out of the way, and the two glared at each other across the planks. The captain and his guard, their bets made, stood back, but with spears at the ready. Herakul and the Hattusan, called Niku, circled each other. Niku dove at Herakul’s knees, but he sidestepped that move and boxed Niku’s ears with a powerful fist. Then Herakul kicked, but Niki warded it off and caught Herakul by the leg and they went down in a writhing, punching, biting, and flailing heap. The oarsmen, me included, stood at our benches and cheered them on, shouting encouragement, laughing, and groaning as the match swung first in one’s favor, then in the other’s. There seemed to be no winner forthcoming from the titanic struggle, until at last they broke free and stood, crouched over, a few feet from each other, sweating and panting. Blood oozed from a dozen small cuts and scrapes. The Hattusan’s eye was swollen and Herakul’s nose bled. But then he laughed loud and charged in again. This time knocked Niku backwards against the thwarts and the Hattusan’s breath wheezed out of him. Herakul caught Niku’s face in his huge hand and raised his fist to administer the last blow. But then he laughed again and let his fist drop. At that moment, Niku kneed Herakul in the balls. Herakul’s face went red for a second. Then he grabbed the giant Hattusan in his hands, lifted him right over his head, and threw him into the sea.<br /> The men cheered, fists raised. The soldiers used long hook poles to grab Niku before he could float away and dragged him back on board, though it took four of them to heft what Herakul had done by himself.<br /> This was one of the events that led to Herakul’s enhanced reputation. As the years went by, that story would spread, along with the others, until Herakul was as famous as Sargon himself.<br /><br /> The shore of Kanaa came into view. It was a wide plain with gradual mountains inland, rising above a hazy sky. On the plain was a low hill topped with a giant fortress. Its summit was topped by a stepped building taller than any I’d ever seen. Plainly, this was a city beyond the scale of any of Achaea or Karpatha. Little did I know then what lay ahead.<br /> “Ugarit,” said Anarkos.<br /> On the plain there were countless tents and pavilions, as far as the eye could see. I thought at first it was a huge city, but Anarkos and the others told me.<br /> “The army of Sargon, from the four corners of the earth.”<br /> And truly it was beyond my thinking. There must have been twenty-five thousand men or even twice that number. I had no way of counting that high. Hundreds of cook fires sent spiraling twists of smoke into the sky. Just north of the cove where we were headed, I could see soldiers riding the ass-like beasts they call onagers in formation. There seemed to be hundreds of onager drawn wheeled carts.<br /> “War wagons. Each carries four men, “said Anarkos.<br /> My head was dizzy. My thoughts of escape seemed as puny as those of a flea, of an ant. This was bigger than I could imagine. On the slope below the citadel stood bright pavilions of red and gold cloth. The glitter of polished metal flashed in the sunlight. I could hear the neighing of war-steeds and the shouts of warriors as they wheeled about, raising dust at their war games on the field below. Once again my heart died as I thought of Vila and Aon. But there was no time for that now. We were hustled into the shallow water, still bound, and led to the slave camp. Without rest we were put to work chopping wood and cleaning the armies’ shit-trenches. As I worked, I kept glancing up at the pavilions and wondering what kind of man commanded such a force. Compared to this, all I had ever known was the world of rough hill-warlords and petty bandits. Perhaps at last this was finally evidence of the Gods at work.<br /> As the sun set into the western sea, we were brought to the slave camp for food and rest. The day had been hot, but now cooled nicely. I was just settling down, when suddenly there came a commotion. All the captives were stirring. There was the sound of thundering hoof beats on the hard ground coming down from the citadel. I pushed through the throng of men in time to see a detachment of warriors, spears held out on front as in a charge, coming through the camp towards the sea at a full gallop. There were at least fifty mounted chargers. In the center rode a fine-looking warrior on a white animal, bigger than the onagers the others rode. It was a horse, a great, white horse. The warrior’s armor was brighter than the others. His long, auburn hair flowed out from beneath a bright copper helmet. His long beard was braided in many twists. His dark eyes seemed to burn. His gaze met no one’s. The Warriors shouted as they thundered by.<br /> “Sar-Gon! Sar-Gon!”<br /> Just as they passed where I was standing with the others, Sargon turned and looked right at me. It seemed our eyes met, though I thought I must surely be imagining it. Then he raised his riding crop and switched his charger and galloped on with his companions to the sea.<br /> The camp calmed down, like a quieting beehive after the swarm is over. I felt humbled. Herakul was pleased by the horses.<br /> “Little Pelop, did you see that fine animal!” He said. <br /> There was a martial sound of metal on metal. We looked up and there were six guards with a captain standing over our cook-fire. They pointed their spears at Herakul and motioned for him to come. I called to Anarkos to ask them what they were doing. One of the guards stepped over to me and knocked me into the fire with the butt of his heavy spear. Anarkos grabbed my arm when I tried to spring up.<br /> “Don’t get killed, my little king, “he said tensely.<br /> He was right. I stayed down and brushed the ashes from my filthy tunic. Herakul shrugged and got up. He looked at us, managed a smile, and said.” Keep my food warm.” Then they led him away.<br /> We slept on the hard ground that night, but at least the food had been plentiful and good: barley cakes and onions and even a soup of mutton, with a weak bir to wash it down. The next morning we went back to work cleaning the camp and digging holes for refuse. At mid day we were ordered to clear a wide space below the King’s pavilions in a great circle and line it with a chest-high fence of thorny branches. It formed an enclosed field about two hundred paces across. The army began to come and gather behind the fence and we, for there were thousands of slaves, were permitted to stay in the quarter across from the pavilions. There was an opening about thirty feet across at the north end of the enclosure. The King came down with his retinue and sat on horseback looking down on the ring. A herald called out something I couldn’t understand.<br /> “Watch this, ‘said Anarkos. “ The King likes a good show.”<br /> A group of about twenty horsemen, wearing all different kinds of garb, from armor and robes to leggings and wound skull-caps, entered the ring at a fast run that at once turned into a full gallop. It was a tight circle to run on a big war-horse and there was plenty of jostling as they raced. Riders and horses fell and were run over by the ones next to them. They ran the circle until only five riders were left, whipping each other and trying to run each other’s horses into the fence. Finally, the King raised his mace. An olive-skinned young man with a wispy beard and strange, slit-like eyes was clearly the fastest and finished the course by standing on the back of his charger saluting the King, who applauded, along with his followers. There was sustained cheering. Next came what someone called a buzkashi – a game with two teams of ten riders, each of which tried to get a goat carcass and drag it through the opening in the north end. The carcass was dragged back and forth, one champion and then another wresting it from his enemy and sprinting away, only to have the same fate befall him. It was good fun, really. We all cheered and moaned in turn. At last a big Hattusan hefted the bloody goat above his head and rode past the others out the gate to great applause. <br /> I felt a point stick me in the back and whirled around to find, to surprise, Lipit-Sin holding a spear and bow. He grinned at me and thrust the bow and a quiver at me. He spoke sharply to Anarkos, who turned to me.<br /> “Get out there! You’re going to shoot! Hurry, Lipit-Sin orders you!” His voice was frantic. “He’s bet heavily on you, “Anarkos hissed, “don’t lose!” Perhaps Lipit-Sin had also made it worth Anarkos’ life, or mine. I followed Lipit-Sin’s guards around to the opening and walked cautiously out into the ring. There were two other archers there, from nations I had never seen before. One was heavy-set and dark, with his hair up in a top-knot. His bow was very long. The other had pale hair and was tall and thin; a northerner of some kind. I knew not from where. I looked up at the King, who waved his hand. A vulture was released and flew up on the far side of the ring, above the heads of the crowd. I shot without thinking and took it with my first arrow. Another bird rose. The heavy set man missed. Immediately, guards ran out and grabbed him and dragged him out of the ring. I stood there, my heart pounding. The cheering of the throng was loud in my ears, yet somehow distant. I watched the third bird fly up. The pale man raised his bow and cleanly hit it and it fell into the dust. A cheer went up. I heard a flutter of wings behind me and spun to see a smaller bird, of what type I couldn’t tell, right over my shoulder. I drew and let fly. My arrow pinned both wings and the poor creature fell heavily into the crowd. There was a roar of approval. I glanced at Sargon, who was smiling broadly and drinking from a horn. Another fat bird rose from its perch and was nipped by my competitor. Then I caught sight of a tiny swallow dipping above the ring, picking insects from the evening air. I didn’t have time to tell whether this was a target bird or just some unfortunate creature trying to feed itself. I made a brilliant shot and the little bird dropped, neatly skewered, near the foot of the King. A roar and much laughter went up. A flock of starlings flew over the ring. The pale archer swung his bow around and loosed. The arrow flew over the head of King into the growing dusk. A startled groan and hush came over the assembly. Sargon sat implacably on his charger, eyeing the pale man, who seemed to know his fate. The King raised his finger and pointed and five, six, seven, eight arrows flew from the edge of the ring and went into and through the man, dropping him to his knees. I could see blood pouring out of his nostrils, his eye sockets, his mouth, his neck. He toppled over and shook hard once and then was still.<br /> Slaves ran out and dragged him from the ring. Lipit –Sin rode out and bade me follow him to before the King’s place across the ring. He bowed to Sargon while in his saddle and pushed me low with the butt of his lance and addressed the King with a lot of words I couldn’t understand, except that at the end I heard Pelop Lu-gal Hedra or something that sounded like it. There was a roar of laughter and applause. Sargon looked hard at me and signaled me to come closer. I did, but I kept my head down and avoided looking right at him. I was stopped by a guard, and then to my surprise my three birds were dropped at my feet, even the little swallow. The king reached out his hand in a gesture that indicated that I should take the birds. I bent and picked them up. I had a quick thought, bowed, and offered them to him, extending my arms and looking at the ground. He stood in his stirrups, clapping and smiling. Then he waved me off and guards came and led me carrying my birds back out of the ring. I brought the birds around through the slaves, where I got lots of claps on the back and broad grins. I took my place at the fence once again.<br /> Now a handful of warriors rode out and a group of slave pulled out a cart with cage on it. Inside was an enormous lion. Not like the wiry mountain cats of Achaea, but a huge, tawny-colored beast with a great mane of dark hair and eyes the size of apples. It slunk from one end to the other in its cage, growling in its deep and noble voice. They pulled the cage out into the center of the ring. Guards pulled in closer to Sargon. The warriors stayed mounted and patrolled the edge of the ring, their spears pointing at the ground. At the north entrance a single large man, dressed in the skin of some animal and holding a short war club or mace, stepped in. the fence was pulled close behind him. <br /> Herakul. This is why he was taken. Dyaus and Perunas! He was going to fight this lion. I knew by now that Sargon cared for sport, but had no care about who lived and died. A hush fell over the crowd. The slaves pulled a rope and opened the cage. At first the lion stayed inside. The great beast sniffed the opening, wondering what kind of trap this was. He had been caught before; he didn’t want to be caught again. Herakul came a little closer, maybe thirty feet and eyed the cat, shifting back and forth on his feet in the manner of a wrestler, ready for the first move. The lion saw Herakul and tensed. It dropped out of the cart and roared its defiance. It looked proud, and Herakul saluted it, bringing the crowd’s voice to life. They cheered and shouted. Someone threw a stone which hit the cat and it jerked and started forward toward Herakul. He stayed put, watching. It was like watching two great lion kings sizing each other up. The great cat seemed to figure out that he must make a move. Perhaps he sensed his fate. He suddenly charged at Herakul, who waited until the last second and rolled away from the lion’s claws. As he rolled to his feet, his swung hard and hit the Lion’s back leg with the club, plainly causing the cat pain. The cat spun and leaped on Herakul and we gasped all at once, but once again Herakul, moving faster than I’d ever seen him, dodged the claws and hit the cat on the side of the head as hard as he could with the heavy club. The hit was so direct that the cat seemed staggered. But it spun and closed with Herakul. Herakul dropped his club and charged right inside the claws of the cat, grasping the lion’s head with his mighty arms. Herakul’s face was buried in the thick mane of the great beast, his massive arms around the cat’s neck. The crowd roared loud. Surely the cat would maul Herakul to death. But no, Herakul’s grip was too much for the lion. Herakul made a quick move to stand up and you could hear, plain as a stick breaking in the forest, the sound of the lion’s neck snapping. The poor beast’s back legs faltered and it toppled over. Herakul stepped back, panting, trying to catch his breath. Blood came from a big scratch on his side and one on his leg. Then he raised his arms in triumph. The assembly of warriors and salves alike went berserk. The King sat, as wide-eyed as the next man for a moment, then waved to quiet the men and called Herakul over. A slave ran out and cut the lion’s heart from its deep chest and handed the bloody mass to Herakul, who in turn offered it to the king. The King raised his mace above his head and the throng cheered again. Then the warriors rode in on Herakul. He turned to look at us slaves across the bloody field and grinned. I don’t know if he saw me. Sargon turned his horse and rode up the slope to his pavilions, retinue in tow. The crowd dispersed, still buzzing over the spectacle. The name of Herakul was everyone’s lips. Darkness began to fall. The warriors had led Herakul away again and we were taken back to our camp, where Anarkos cooked up my three birds. Though I didn’t believe in it, I made an offering of the swallow to Perunas the striker. Someone brought skins of bir and we drank and ate. In the morning we’d clean the shit trenches again, but tonight was ours.<br /><br /><br /><br />12<br /><br /> My fame from the archery contest didn’t help me in the shit-trenches. Just like all the other captives assigned to this wretched duty, I had to wade in up to my knees in the foul excrement of the army. Our wooden spades would hardly break the dry ground enough for us to turn the shit into the earth. It was still hot, though one could sense the change of season coming, and the flies were as merciless as Sargon’s soldiers. I watched the different types as they paraded by. There were Akkadians, big, hooked-nosed, with dark hair, though some were reddish and others auburn. They wore braided beards and conical hats of a material I hadn’t seen before. Many of the men and women of this race were quite handsome to look at. They were haughty and clearly regarded themselves as a better race than the others. What rulers don’t? There were also many Sumerians, shorter, black-haired, obsequious, always bowing and scraping to the Akkadians, who had conquered them. Yet they, too seemed to have a secret air of superiority. They had long ruled the Land between the Rivers we heard about. The Akkadians were desert nomads from the west who had subjugated them under Sargon. The Hattusans, from the north, were swarthy, hard-headed types who made up the backbone of the army. They were there by tribute and treaty, to fight for booty under the Akkadian Lu-Gal, which I found out meant Big Man, Sargon. They had better armor than the others and helmets with nose-pieces to ward off face strokes. They were infantry and marched in tight formations, shields locked together. I didn’t see how they might be beaten by any lesser force than their own. There were mounted warriors called Skthyans, who wore no armor and fought with short, recurve bows from horseback. My foe in the ring had been one of them. Desert tribesmen called Bedu’ who rode the huge, ungainly camels made a large part of the army as well. They wrapped themselves in long winding sheets. You couldn’t see their faces. They fought with sickle-swords, a wicked and efficient weapon. There were also Achaeans, Macedoi, Tarsans, Kannaanites, and too many other tribesmen and strange peoples to name. The slaves, who numbered in the thousands, seemed to be from the same nations as the army. Which was which was a matter of fortune and circumstance, I thought.<br /> The camp had a large number of women camp followers, cooks, serving girls, and prostitutes. They seemed a desperate, miserable lot, most likely recruited from the vanquished, for the custom was to kill all the males who were of no use to the Empire of Sargon, and force the women into bondage and servitude. There was no Achaean regard for women shown anywhere that I could see. The Lu-Gal Sargon seemed to have a household with many wives and other women. I judged him to be a man of about forty-five, still very strong and young looking. His wives were kept within the pavilions, and could only be guessed at by the large number of female servants. Because of their religion, many priestesses were temple prostitutes, to be taken by any supplicant. I couldn’t understand this practice, but then again, the bewildering numbers of gods made my head ache. There the main gods, Enlil, Enki or Ea, Sin the Moon God, Ishtar, also called Inanna, like our Afroda, Ninnhursag, not unlike Hera, Anu, akin to Dyaus, and so on. It was said the Sargon’s daughter was the high priestess of Inanna, and thus a sacred prostitute. She was also reputed to be the finest poet in the empire. Her name was Enheduanna, and I was told she was a great beauty, not that a shit-shoveling slave like me would ever glimpse her.<br /> There was no sign of Herakul. His feat of killing the Lion was already the stuff of legend in the slave camp. I heard tales of how he had killed she-boars with his bare hands, killed a nine-headed monster, and defeated whole armies by himself; how he had gone to the underworld and brought back the cup of the dark river for some king. Wild tales, but people seem to like these. Unfortunately, many also believe them. I hoped Herakul was keeping his head, both figuratively and literally. <br /> My own plan of escape seemed hopeless for now. Though there was a certain amount of freedom within the vast camp, there was simply no place to run to. The coast was one boundary, and the boats were always under guard, and in any case, the winds always blew in from the west. The wide plains of Ugarit stretched north and south and held the huge army of Sargon. Away to the east was the mountain range. East was not the right direction anyway.<br /> I tried to keep as noble a bearing as I could for a man with shit up to his knees. As the days went by my fellow captives seemed to respond to my disciplined calm and clear-headedness. My archery prowess and the story of how I was once a king became known. Men began to bring me disputes, which I settled as best I could. Anarkos taught me Akkadian and Sumerian words, and I eagerly learned them. The guards came to view me as someone they could pass orders along through. The slaves were miserable, but there were thousands of us, and order had to be kept. Even the women started coming to me for advice. In this way I came to know prostitutes and cooks and healers who were once queens and priestesses in the own lands; individuals with pride and intelligence. In a way, I once again became a king of sorts, shit-king of the slave camp, because there was a need for me to fill. As time went by I could see respect in many of the captives’ eyes. Of course, there were untrustworthy types as well, former thieves and brigands, usurers, drunks and gamblers, and treacherous, two-faced informants who would tell the goings on of the camp to the Akkadian and Hattusan guards for a favor of extra barley-cakes or bir. I had to watch my tongue, especially when people came me with wild ideas about rebellion and escape. I had to counsel calm and reason. I could not have my word taken against me. But I listened to all the plots and strategies. I would laugh them off, telling the speaker that he had had too much bir. I secretly wondered about making an actual army of the slaves. Anarkos told me the Sargon himself was the mere son of a temple prostitute who was raised by a Lu-gal’s gardener. By his given talents and skill, he came to be in charge of the vast system of irrigation ditches that was the backbone of Sumerian and Akkadian life. From his ditch laborers, he had recruited his army and thrown down the King of Sippar and then had rebuilt Akkade, which was to be his capital city. He then went on to conquer the other cities, Ur, Uruk, Lagash, Mari, Ebla, Ugarit itself, He did not seek to destroy the civilization, but rather became its greatest King. The city of Erech, home of the cult of temple prostitutes, backed him, as did the others.<br /> I managed to organize the distribution of food so that all shared the same rations, and we made our own shit-trenches, so that we weren’t forced to sleep in each other’s excrement. I supervised the building of a stone-lined well that gave us clearer water. It was so good that the guards brought me over into the army’s camp to do the same. I garnered favors and was pestered by sycophants who sought the favor of me and the guards, but I turned away from every personal privilege and slept in a lean-to of dry branches and ate from a communal cook-fire like everyone else. The camp women let me know they would show me favor as well, but I kept to myself, thinking of Vila. <br /> I knew if she still lived she would be in hiding somewhere by now. It had only been half a year. It made my heart hurt, and I sought solace in more work. I wondered when the Lu-Gal would move us south against the Pharaoh’s lands. Perhaps then I could make my escape. No one knew, not even the Hattusan guards, who knew everything else.<br /> One night a prostitute named Magdala, a Hurrian who was a former high priestess of their goddess, came to my shelter. She was a dark-skinned beauty, with a long nose and fine features. She regularly joked that I should make her my camp-queen and we could rule the slaves. I enjoyed talking with her. She was smart and insightful, and wise to the ways of people. Tonight she whispered to me.<br /> “Pelop. There is someone who would speak with you. Come with me.”<br /> I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I followed her down into the area where the older women, who did the washing and cooking, lived. Despite my efforts, or because I chose to look the other way, these women were still living in the worst parts of the camp, near a tidal swamp that teemed with mosquitoes and sand flies. The stench was terrible, and I swore I would somehow help clean this up. We came to a little lean-to of sticks and rags. A tiny fire sputtered in front. The night was cold. There, sitting in the shadows was a very old woman, wrapped almost completely in filthy rags. She shivered and I wanted to give her my own worn tunic to warm her, but she turned it away.<br /> “Sit down, my king, “she croaked. Her voice was raspy like old rocks grinding against each other. The fire barely lit her red eyes, which showed like tiny coals in her dark face. She smelled like the skin-rot disease and I instinctively sat a little further away than I might have.<br /> “I know, I know, I smell,” she said softly. “Soon I will be no more and will only stink like a normal corpse,” she cackled. She spoke in a very old form of Achaean, mixed with words I couldn’t understand.<br /> “It’s alright.” She rasped “Everything dies. Everything is born.” <br /> I hoped this wouldn’t be more nonsense about the gods and goddesses and realms of afterlife and all that. I sat there, waiting, trying to show respect.<br /> “Sari was our highest priestess, “said Magdala. “ She has the sight.”<br /> Oh, no, seers and the soul and the dead journey to the river.<br /> “No, not all that, “ the crone whispered. I must have looked surprised.” To spite the stupidity of others, you have turned away from things that are possible.” She coughed, and then had a coughing fit, which finally quieted.<br /> “Whether there are gods or not is of no concern to you. That is your choice. But I will tell you what I have seen, “she said. She paused and then went on. She looked straight into my eyes. Hers glowed with a strange intensity. ” Your wife lives, as does your son, though you will know her no more. But he will be your last companion.” <br /> My heart leapt in my chest. How could she know? Fortune tellers could say anything. But I stayed quiet.<br /> “Before you see them, you will see the world, king archer. You will learn what it means to truly rule with wisdom. You will finally be a king for many peoples, for ages yet to come. They will call you by another name, just as Pelop is not yours.” She stopped and wheezed again for moment.<br /> Again I was surprised, for I had never revealed that I had borrowed the name, not even to Herakul.<br /> “You will see, little Stek. Yes, that was it, wasn’t it? Stek, a nice name for a little boy of the mountains.” <br /> I felt the hair go up on the back of my neck and I pulled up the neck of my tunic and wrapped my arms around my drawn-up knees. She grinned, her black and green teeth stumps barely catching the firelight, her mouth looking like the dark space below a swamp tree, and whispered,” You will someday see that others must have what you despise in order that they may live in less fear. And you will provide it for them because you are a good man. You live to serve lesser beings and they will serve you in turn. You are their protector and provider. You will speak for the gods you don’t believe in. Your journey will be long, yet not long enough. The great stones will rise. People will know them long after how they came to be is forgotten. Your name will be known to generations without end. But it will be a name not of your choosing. This is what I have seen. Now go.”<br /> I sat unmoving, unable to think what to say to the old crone. How could she know my childhood name? It was as if she could see into my mind and pull out my thoughts and desires. It wasn’t possible. It was a mystery and it shook me. The fire had died down. Sari’s eyes were closed and she sat as still as if she was just a pile of rags. Magdala touched my arm and I got up. I looked at the old woman for a moment and made a silent vow to make conditions better in the women’s quarter. Then I followed Magdala back to camp. She took my hand as we parted and looked into my eyes. I wasn’t ready for anything except my own dark and wondrous thoughts. I squeezed her long fingers gently and walked away.<br /><br /> The old woman’s words made me feel uneasy, though I told myself they were the babblings of a demented old priestess, the same kind of nonsense you could hear all over camp, or all over the world for that matter. But the fact she had known my name bothered me, as did the part about not knowing Vila again though she lived. My head reeled a bit and I couldn’t sleep, so I sought out the guards, who had their usual big pot of strong barley beer.<br /> I was awakened early by the servant of Lipit-Sin. Lipit –Sin had become a patron of sorts. He brought me out to take part in archery contests, which I rarely lost. He also did not treat me like a dog, the way some Akkadians did. He was from a good family, half Akkadian, half Sumerian, of the city called Ur, and I think he judged me to be capable and not just a wild hill-tribesman. He had actually helped me to get certain tools and supplies that enabled me to bring some order to the slave camp. He sat on a cushion under the shade of his pavilion, eating dates and yogurt from a gold bowl. He invited me to sit and join his breakfast. But I felt ill from the barley wine and only nibbled at a couple of dates.<br /> “I have need of your bow, little shit-king.” He laughed.<br /> “I am your slave, master, “I replied.<br /> “No, not mine, you belong to Sargon the Great, as we all do. But For the moment, I can speak as his voice in this matter.”<br /> It sounded like it must be a big contest, with high wagering. Other archers had died when they failed to win. I showed no emotion.<br /> “I will do my best to be a worthy servant of the King.” I said.<br /> Lipit-Sin dipped his left hand into the bowl and ate. “This won’t be a contest. Or it is, but we call it by another name. War.”<br /> “Does the King attack Pharaoh?”<br /> “The king’s daughter, Enheduanna, is the high priestess of Inanna in my city of Ur. She also serves as the King’s regent while he is here. Some of the cities have risen in revolt against her. Sargon will return and crush the traitors at once.”<br /> My heart sank. East! The wrong direction again. And I had gathered that the Land between the Rivers was a long way away. I would have to escape right away somehow. <br /> My thoughts must have been clear to Lipit-Sin. He laughed and said, “You can’t possibly escape. You have made yourself too important, shit-king! The King recognizes people of talent. That is why he has become the leader of the great kingdom. But I have a deal for you.”<br /> He paused to bite into a date and chewed it slowly.<br /> “Sargon has a vision of trading with the western sea-lands. When the traitors have been killed and ground into dust, he will send a fleet again to your islands. We know that tin and copper abound in your lands, and may be even more plentiful in the far lands beyond the pillars of the world. Sargon believes that you are a good leader of men in war. He wants you to take such slaves as you see fit and train them quickly. Archers, men who can travel fast and attack quickly. In return, he will allow you to act as his agent in trade with the sea-lands, and in this way return to your home. In a year this will be accomplished. “ <br /> He finished the date and took a draught of weak morning bir.<br /> “You have no choice, but it is a great honor for a slave. I would serve my king well, if I were you.”<br /> My head fairly swam. I could see that my escape would indeed be impossible. If this did work as Lipit- Sin was saying, I would return to Hedra and even Tirana as a big man and reclaim my place.<br /> “You might find it hard to believe sometimes, but the Gods favor you, King Pelop, “said Lipit-Sin.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />3<br /><br /> “That’s the biggest one yet, “said Anarkos. He pulled his head-cloth down over his eyes to shield them from the blinding light of the desert sun. “I hope we can get under those trees.’<br /> I looked at the immense ziggurat that rose over the date palms. Its base shimmered in the heat waves, and its top level seemed to float like part of a city of the sky-gods above the sandy, endless plain.<br /> “When you have unlimited slaves, you can make big buildings, “I said. I brushed the sand-flies away from my face. “I’m for throwing myself in the river.”<br /> The heat was truly repulsive. Spring had given way to summer. It had taken all winter to prepare for the campaign against the rebel cities of Sumer. The march over the mountains had to wait for the snows to melt, for they had been early and heavy, and Sargon had been content to keep the rebels in check with the use of home guards. But the cities, especially the Elamite city of Susa, had repelled the guards and declared independence from Sargon. Enheduanna, Sargon’s daughter, was in command of the home guards. It was unheard of for a woman to have this much power, but her reputation was such that men accorded her the leadership. Of course, everyone knew that to go against Sargon would eventually bring his retribution. Evidently, the Elamites thought they stand up to him again, though he had crushed them ten years earlier.<br /> All this history I had learned, and more besides, while traveling slowly across the vast plains and deserts of Sargon’s empire. I had organized a company of slaves under my command, men who could shoot a bow and ride onagers and mountain horses and the like. I was given some onagers and carts, as well as supplies and arms for my three hundred chosen fighters. They came from the four corners of the world: Achaeans, Hattusans, Thaki, Nomi, Skythians, Kannaanites, Macedoi, and unnamed tribesmen from the far north with fair hair and blue eyes like mine. Some were captured in war, some were criminals. Some were displaced men with nowhere else to go. I formed them into squadrons of thirty fighters a salasa - thirty soldiers- in Akkadian, ten salasas in all. I made the members of each salasa dependent on each other; self contained. Each had a name: the Eagles, the Hornets, the Crows, the Jackals, the Lions, and so on. In a campaign, each could take on a separate task, or fight together. We were to be fast strikers. The men had chosen Perunas of the many names; the Northman called him Tor, the Hattusans Tarhunt, Achaeans Dyaus, and the Skythians, Mirtas, to be their token god. I didn’t care what god they prayed to, I demanded their obedience. They had something much greater than a god to fight for anyway. Lipit-Sin had promised all our freedom. I hoped that was the truth.<br /> It was good after all these long months to smell the sea again, for Ur sits near the sea, the Tiamatu of Dilmun, the Abzu, or deep waters where the Sumerians came from in the days beyond time. The date palms were thick like a forest here along the lower reaches of the wide river Purattu. The other great river of the land of Sumer, the Idiklat, meets the Purattu here. Local people poled along the muddy waters of the many canals and byways in boats made of tied-up bundles of reeds, with upswept prows and sterns. In some places there are islands made of these reeds anchored in the river, whereon grow crops. At first I was dumbfounded to think that anyone could live is such a flat, dry place as most of Sumer was, for the land had grown more desolate with each day’s march beyond the coastal mountains of Kanaa. In some stretches of our march, not a blade of grass grew, but tall ranges of whistling sand-dunes marched across the horizon, driven by endless, dry winds, and fantastic red-rock or black-rock cliffs stood like islands on a vast, dun sea. The soldiers said the dunes were the habitation of wily desert spirits called the Jinnu, and truly, one could hear strange sounds like singing coming from the distant dunes when the winds blew. In any case, there were certainly few people there, for men and beasts can’t survive in such desolation. At length, we came to fortified cities on the upper Purattu, Ebla being the first, then the strong citadel of Mari, and finally the king’s city of Akkade, across the river from an even greater and more ancient city called Sippar. Mighty temples called ziggurats stood at the heart of the huge, walled cities. At first I couldn’t understand how that much stone could be moved, even with all the wheeled vehicles of the Sumerians. But then I learned that they weren’t made of stone at all, but rather of mud-bricks, for dirt and straw, mixed with ditch water and poured into wooden molds to form the bricks, were readily available. Long canals and ditches brought the water of the Purattu to the cities, so that crops could be grown year-round. On the upper reaches of the Purattu there were dams that diverted part of the river’s flow into the canals, which then in turn bled into smaller and smaller ditches. The dams helped to control the yearly spring floods, which used to wash away many crops. Sargon himself had been a canal master and had rebuilt and added to the already huge system, bringing fresh water even to the fields here around Ur, which had long been a little too salty from the nearby sea-water for year-round crops, or so I was told. <br /> In Akkade, where we stopped for a month of feasting upon the king’s arrival, armies of slaves were employed making mud-bricks and carrying them on angled shoulder –boards up long ramps to the highest level of the new ziggurat, dedicated to the Lord of the Sky, Enlil. I visited the brick yards and watched the building. Gud—Utea, the Sumerian foreman, explained how the ramps then were faced with steps and became the stairways of the huge temple, for ramps climbed from each side of the square-based, mud-brick mountain. While Sargon and his kin were olive-skinned Akkadians from the northwest part of the land between the rivers, much of the real work of the empire was supervised by the Sumerians, an older, black-haired, lighter-skinned race that had settled this land long before the Great Flood. Gud-Utea and his kind were everywhere, in shops, fields, canals, and the temples, where they kept lists of commerce and taxes on clay tablets in a strange script. We had no writing in Achaea, but I understood at once how useful it was for an empire to keep records. They wrote down all transactions between individual people and between city-states, and oversaw the workings of the empire, while the Akkadians led the life of kings, racing onager-carts and staging feasts. Underneath Gud-Utea’s businesslike behavior, I could sense that he was biding his time, waiting for days yet to come. I could see contempt in the eyes of the Sumerians for their Akkadian Lords. <br /> But the Akkadians believed that they had finally achieved what was their right place as rulers over the shorter, more soft-spoken Sumerians. Princes like Lipit-Sin rode about the cities in umbrella- covered sedan chairs, born on the shoulders of slaves. They would beat Sumerians and others they thought of as of the lower classes. It’s true; they did look superior in many ways, being generally taller and more striking in their features than their Sumerian subjects. Still, the Sumerians had ruled here from time out of mind, and for now, they were content to wait.<br /> The Elamites, across the Idiklat River to the east, were another matter. They were inclined towards war, being of a race of hill men, descended from Enki-du, the wild-man companion of Uruk’s great king of the time of the Great Flood, Gil-Gamesh. They had cities with ziggurats as well, but the Elamites were fiercely independent and strained under the yoke of the Akkadians, who they viewed as upstarts. Their strongest city was Susa, not far from Ur, but up over a range of hills, on the banks of a river that came out of the highlands to the east. They had broken with the high priestess Enheduanna while Sargon was in the west. Several smaller Sumerian cities had sided with the Elamites. Sargon’s great army was now assembled beneath the walls of Ur, from where we would strike out across the rivers and smite the rebels.<br /> Lipit-Sin had us camp along the river, under the merciful shade of the date palms. The insects were terrible, but at least a slight cooling breeze came off the water. I had by now figured out a way of organizing my troops in camp. Our fires and tents were laid out in lines. My tent was in the center opposite the central cook fire. It was there that I held assembly morning and night. I had found an open field with a grove of trees a short distance away. There we practiced our war games and held shooting practice. I had found mountain horses for my Skythians, who numbered almost fifty. I added ten men who could ride to their number. I told the men to take pride in their salasas, and in the whole troop. I called us the Free Men, which was good joke and made the soldiers feel a part of something.<br /> We were drilling at taking a fortified position made of bales of reeds, using archers and horsemen in our field, when a dust cloud signaled the approach of a large mounted group. I called for cessation of practice when I saw the banners of the King. Sargon rode up at the head of fifty warriors in light armor and head-cloths. They seemed to be in high spirits. Two falconers rode behind the king: a hunting party. The king had a bow slung across his back and he carried a long spear. He trotted over to me, holding his spear down at the level of my head and chest. I bowed and saluted him, hand across my chest. I said nothing, for a common man may not speak first to the King.<br /> He looked down at me and pointed his spear at my face. I didn’t move, but I slowly raised my eyes.<br /> “I hear your slave army is well trained, little hill-king.” He said. There was a hint of laughter in his voice, and of condescension. I could see smirks on the faces of some of his party.<br /> “We train to serve you in the coming war, my king, “I said.<br /> “The Elamites will be hardier than your bales and straw walls.”<br /> “Should we practice by taking the city instead?” I asked. A few of his warriors raised their eyebrows at this. Was the shit-king provoking the Great Sargon?<br /> He looked at me and laughed. “That won’t be necessary. Just see to it that you’re ready when the time comes.”<br /> “Practice makes a better soldier, “I answered.<br /> “Prince Lipit-Sin told me of your bargain. I hope I won’t need to change the terms after I see you fight. ” He wheeled on his large and muscular onager, which flinched as it spun in the dust. The animal’s high spirit was evident.” Come to my palace tonight, little king.”<br /> I saluted again. He rode off, throwing up dust. His troop raced off in chase of him.<br /> “Impressive, “said Anarkos, who had come up after the king rode off.” I guess we had better be ready for the battle.”<br /> “We must be beyond ready.” I said.<br /><br /> That evening, when the heat of the Sumerian sun had begun to lessen a tiny bit, I went to the city gates of Ur. I had not entered the walls yet. Ur was sacred to Nanna, or Sin as the Akkadians called the moon-god, and the goddess Inanna, who the Akkadians call Ishtar. I believe she is the same as Atena and Afroda of the Achaeans. “Awa by any other name,” I muttered under my breath as I saluted the guards and made my into the mud-brick city. There was a wide street for a bit, then a square with a large market. The houses were built together, as was the style with these grand cities, three stories high with windows and balconies built in a few places out of timbers. On the flat roofs were curious v- shaped crenellations. These were also present on the outer walls. An archer could shoot from behind the v’s. I knew that there must be other markets all over the city, as there were four main gates and at least three others. I had studied the walls and defenses of Ur as I studied all the cities of Sumer. I would soon have to be taking such cities in order to earn my freedom. The streets smelled, but there were small canals carrying water to wash away the excrement, and other canals and wells for clean water. As I went further into the city, I realized that the fact that the wide street ended in the market square instead of leading straight to the palaces and the ziggurat served a defensive purpose. An invading army would have to fight and wend its way into the heart of the city to take it, and could be cut down by archers and by common folk throwing stones from the rooftops. I quickly saw how to overcome that problem. I knew how we would enter and attack Susa when the time came.<br /> Though I was dressed in my best tunic and sandals, which Lipit-Sin had gotten me before we left Kanaa, I was certainly an outlander in this most Sumerian city. But people largely ignored that fact. This was a port that saw ships from far Harappa to the east, and from the wide lands of the whole earth. Slaves and merchants of every color and type were here, and wares I couldn’t indentify were for barter on every corner. The Sumerians, being a circumspect people, didn’t make eye contact or smile. The women covered their faces, as Sumerian women will do until you get to know their families. The Sumerians are not the most jovial of peoples. But other races jostled by, talking and carrying on with the activities of the long, hot day’s end. One man even hailed me in rough Achaean, which I answered. He was from the north of Achaea. His speech reminded me of Herakul, and I wondered what had become of my companion. Lipit-Sin would say nothing of him, as if Herakul was a dead man about whom one shuts his mouth.<br /> Sargon’s palace was alongside the great ziggurat, Eunir in Sumerian, of Nanna. This was truly the biggest and finest ziggurat I had seen yet. The ziggurats were temple mountains, made in three or more steps. The first step, two hundred feet wide, was as tall as the tallest date palms. The second step was nearly as tall, but it was set back thirty feet or so. The third step was the top. On the flat surface of the top step stood burning tripods and pavilions for the gods, who were said to come down from the sky in winged discs and visit the temple prostitutes. All this was beyond my caring. The ziggurat was dazzling, however. It was faced with fired mud bricks, which were glazed in many colors. Raised sections depicted lions and deities riding their fiery, winged discs. Long ramps with many steps led upwards from the square in front of the ziggurat. I could see how someone who had never been to the real hills might be impressed. I kept thinking that it must have cost the lives of many slaves to make and haul and set all those countless thousands of bricks.<br /> Sargon was sequestered in the Palace of Inanna, where his daughter Enheduanna lived. It was a three story building with red and blue fired bricks around its main gate and the triangular crenellations on the roof. The gateway was guarded by Hattusan spearmen. Some of them recognized me from the archery contests and I was let in, led by an obsequious, bald-headed Sumerian, who held his hands to his chest in supplication, like someone with bound hands, as he walked hunched forward. The Sumerians dressed in loose robes, with one shoulder bare. They frequently, as did this man, have beards but shave their heads with sharp flints or bronze razors. I must have presented a fine contrast with my long brown hair twisted in a single braid down my back and my braided beard. They call themselves the sag-giga, or black-headed. He wore a white sea-pearl earring in his left ear. A line of dark paint under his eyelids gave him a somewhat effeminate air.<br /> I was led into a wide chamber, two stories high, a great hall, truly, held up by thick, painted cedar columns made of whole tree trunks. Long, narrow, dark red curtains hung from the ceiling to the floor. Torches burned in slanted brackets along the side of the hall, which I noted had small windows near the ceiling out of which the smoke vented. There were three rows of long, low tables, around which perhaps two hundred loudly feasting people were seated on cushions. On the dais at the far end of the hall was the table of the king and his retinue. Hattusan guards in full battle armor stood at intervals along the walls. The noise of conversation was quite loud in the hall. It seemed that everyone was talking at the same time. The tables were loaded down with bowls of foodstuffs, fruits, barley cakes, vegetables, and boards with roasted meats. Tall bir and wine cups were set before each person. Stewards made their way along the rows, filling cups and bringing dishes to the feasters. The Sumerian clapped his hands once and announced me, though the sound barely carried above the din and no one seemed to take notice. Another Sumerian of a similar type to the first came, bowing and scraping in a most unseemly fashion and took me to a seat at the table on the right, or at the king’s left hand as he would look out from his dais. I was seated next to a heavy-set Akkadian with a long red beard and red eyes to match. He was stuffing himself on purple grapes, a fruit I hadn’t seen since Karpatha, and the dark juice trickled down onto his robes. He took a moment from his gorging to glance at me and said, “akalu,” meaning,” eat” in Akkadian. I looked up at the king, but he was deep in laughing conversation with some of the nobles at the dais and hadn’t seemingly noticed my entry. I picked at several delicacies, but mostly watched the room. My immediate dining companions looked like merchants, not nobles. They were dressed in robes of varying colors from white to dark brown. They were all gorging themselves in the manner of my neighbor. One caught my eye and nodded, a young, thin man with a long nose and piercing eyes. He was eating a leg of mutton, and didn’t slow on my account. The others ignored me completely. At the next row of tables sat military men, some of whom I recognized. Utu- Ninnhursag the Sumerian infantry general was sitting next to En-Neshaddon the Akkadian cart master. The latter had the bearing of a noble man and ate slowly, talking to his tablemates in a low voice. In the far row were young members of the royal family, princes and lords in fine white robes with a bare shoulder in the manner of the Sumerians, but festooned with flashy brooches and pins of gold, silver, and dark blue lapis. At the dais was the royal family itself, including Sargon’s favorite grandson, the fourteen-year-old Naram-Sin. There were few women in the hall, though some of the military men had their rather subdued wives with them. There was only one woman on the royal dais.<br /> She looked to be about twenty years old. She wore the robes of an Ensi, a high priestess of Inanna. On her head was a sand-colored conical cap called an En, the cap of leadership. The king also wore a version of this, though his had two small, curving horns protruding from the front and the back, whereas the priestess wore a blue scarf wrapped around the base of her cap. Her hair hung down in two long braids that lay across her chest. Her hair was black but her eyes were brown or even green. Even from where I sat, all the way across the hall, I could see intensity there. Her lips were painted red and parted slightly. Her fine nose curved down from arched eyebrows. Her skin was a pale olive, not burnished by the sun like her father’s. Her robes did not disguise the curves of her body. I didn’t need to be told that this was Enheduanna, the high priestess of Inanna and the Ensi of Ur. The tales of her beauty and bearing had not been exaggerated. At her right hand sat Lipit-Sin, dressed in a deep blue robe with silver trim. He kept up with the conversation of the king and the other Lu-gals, but repeatedly glanced at Enheduanna.<br /> She sat demurely, listening, but not often joining in to the animated conversations going on around her at the dais. Two female servants waited silently at attention behind her. From time to time to she would twist her head and one or the other of them would bend forward and listen to her whisperings, then stand erect once more. The king was drinking heavily, it seemed. His steward kept tipping the long jars of barley wine in his cup. Young Naram-Sin, a very handsome Akkadian boy who looked older than the fourteen years I had been told he had, sat impassively picking at his meats. The big man next to me belched loudly. His breath was terrible. I wondered why I had been summoned to this feast.<br /> Then the thin young man across the table leaned over and said, “Aren’t you the archer, the Achaean?” he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He didn’t look particularly hostile.<br /> The fat man next to me said, without looking up from his bowl or at me, “This is the celebrated Sar-Tabastanu!” And he laughed, as did the others within hearing. The thin man tilted his head as if to say, I wonder if he understood that?<br /> I understood. I had been learning Akkadian and Sumerian for months now. Sar-Tabastanu. Shit-King. Indeed! It was one thing for Lipit-Sin, who acted as my patron, to call me that in jest, or another for the Great King to say it when he held the power of life and death and my freedom. But it was quite another for this fat man to call me the Sar-Tabastanu.<br /> I took a deep breath and released it, and then I turned to the fat man and said calmly, “By your breath I know you, Sahu-kalbu-Nam!”<br /> The diners looked stunned, and then started laughing loudly. The thin man stared at me in disbelief for moment, and then began to smile broadly, revealing poor teeth. The fat man turned slowly to look at me, his red face growing redder by the second. I slowly drew myself up and away from him as he came at me, a knife in his hand. The others rose almost in unison to grab him.<br /> Sahu-kalbu-Nam! Lord Pig-Dog! They laughed in Akkadian, echoing my insult.<br /> But Lord Pig-Dog had murder in his drunken eyes. I stood back, knocking away my cushion, preparing to take down the big man with a throw, but before I could make a move, the man was grabbed by someone who came running up from behind a curtain. There was no mistaking him.<br /> “Herakul!” I shouted, suddenly grinning myself. Herakul quickly wrestled the fat man down and cuffed him once in the head. The fat drunk rolled away, groaning. Herakul looked up and laughed.<br /> “Shit- king!” he roared, laughing.<br /> This time it was no insult. I jumped forward and grabbed Herakul by the shoulders. There was a wave of laughter and applause from the hall. I looked at the dais. Sargon was sitting there, grinning and clapping his hands. Lipit-Sin laughed as well, as did most of the feasters, except for the generals, who looked disapprovingly at the scene, and Enheduanna and Naram-Sin, who still sat quietly showing no emotion. Naram-Sin looked decidedly bored.<br /> I bowed and saluted to the Great King, who put his hand up to signal that no harm was done. He was still laughing hard. Too hard, I had the thought. Did he put this fat man up to this? My cheeks flushed as I realized I had been set up. Herakul grinned at me, his sweaty face glistening in the torchlight.<br /> “It was a good joke!” He said. He leaned closer and whispered, “I think you passed the test, Little Pelop.”<br /> Sargon went back to his food and drink and the commotion settled down. Herakul plopped himself into Lord-Pig-Dog’s place. Lord Pig-Dog had shuffled of to another table. The bowing Sumerian slave brought me my cushion and I sat back down. The thin man leaned over and said, “That was very good! You’ve learned our language well! I don’t think Ut-Saka will ever like you much, but it was worth it!”<br /> I gave him a nod in acknowledgement and turned to Herakul.<br /> “Well, “I said, “Where in the name of the gods have you been?”<br /> He lifted a mutton leg to his bearded face and said, “It’s a long story.”<br /><br /><br /><br />14<br /><br /> Herakul drank deeply from his cup. Our Sumerian steward refilled him again.<br /> “After I killed the lion, I was called into Sargon’s presence. His pavilion was full of nobles and warriors, and you know, fancy boys and women. Pelop, I’ve been around, but this king has more than anyone in the world. They had good vanna and bir and lots of food. I was made to feel like an honored guest. Through an interpreter, Sargon told me that he had never seen a man kill a lion with his bare hands. He joked that he had a few enemies that I could deal with, as well. I took it to be a joke, but it turned out he wasn’t kidding. While I was treated well, personally, the king’s agent, Usul-Enki, took me aside and let me know that I was still a slave and that my life and yours as well – he called you the archer boy - were in the hands of the King. We rode away the next morning, me still hungover, and went over the passes to the east. It was a salasa – twenty-nine trained killers and me. We came after two days to a fortress town at the edge of the desert. We were received by the garrison commander, a nobleman who had some airs to be sure. His wife was a real looker. That night, Usul-Enki ordered me to kill the entire family. I refused, though I agreed to kill the nobleman; I wouldn’t touch his wife and children.”<br /> Herakul tapped his cup loudly and the steward filled it again.<br /> “I strangled the man. Usul-Enki and his men did the other part of the job. Made me sick, Little King, sick! But that’s the way it is with these people. We went on further east. I had to kill five more noblemen. I came to realize that they were all of mixed Sumerian and Akkadian race. Sargon doesn’t like Sumerians. It seems that the Akkadians were the slaves from old times here, and there’s a deep blood feud against the Sumerians. He wants to eliminate them all from the government. The trouble is, they run a lot of things.”<br /> The steward stood at our elbows, not showing any kind of emotion on his face.<br /> “I’m telling you, Pelop, the Sumerians hate this king. That’s why Susa and Lagash have rebelled. The Elamites have never really surrendered. And the Sumerians are waiting for Sargon to make a big mistake so they can rise up and take him out. They may look meek, but they’re shrewder than Tiranian vanna-merchants, and as cold as serpents!”<br /> I didn’t doubt any of what Herakul was saying. I had seen that resentment in their eyes, behind the subservient smiles and clasped hands.<br /> “There are other factors you may not know about.” He went on, “That pretty one up there, Enheduanna, was involved with the Lu-gal of Lagash. Then she spurned him. Maybe he wanted her to help destroy her father. That’s when this rebellion started. And one last thing,” he leaned over and whispered. “That boy up there, Naram-Sin? When did you kill your first man? He’s fourteen and has a taste for torture already. He’s the most dangerous of ‘em all.”<br /> There was a rush of robes being rustled and Lipit-Sin stood at the dais and called for attention.<br /> “In the name of our Lord and master, the slayer of enemies, humble servant of the great God Enlil, smiter of traitors, conqueror of the many lands, Son of the Moon and Sun, ruler of the four races and the four corners of the Earth, builder of many Eunir and creator of a vast empire, Sargon of Akkad, the Great King, I call you to listen, oh men of Akkad and Sumer.” He paused and then went on, “The wicked lands of Lagash and Susa, ungrateful for our Lord’s benevolence, have sunk into treacherous rebellion and must be crushed. Lagash has a short memory but will soon be reminded of the past when it is ground into dust. Susa is a land of dogs, who shall be slain, and their guts fed as offal to pigs and fowl. Tomorrow the army will march east across the river and take Lagash. Our Lord will reward bravery and take revenge on cowardice and treachery. The largesse of our Great Lu-gal is beyond the measure of heaven, but his justice is swift and merciless.”<br /> I had heard diatribes before, but never anything as pompous, or as threatening. That was all right; I knew I was a slave. Lipit-Sin had said I would be free again. But I began to doubt that Sargon would set me free.<br /> “So let us prepare our brigades,” continued Lipit-Sin, “let us sharpen our swords and spear-points, make heavy our maces and sharpen our arrows. Let none doubt the will of Sargon, our Lu-Gal! To Victory!”<br /> “To victory!” We all shouted, some rather drunkenly, I thought. Herakul alone didn’t stop his eating and drinking. As the guests began to chatter away again, I heard him mutter, “Sargon can stick his victory up his ass.”<br /> By the late hour when we finally left, many of the guests were so drunk they had to be carried out by Sumerian slaves. Several vomited as they were carried. Other slaves mopped up the vile-smelling puke. Fortunately, I had refrained from much drinking, and Herakul could drink three man-jugs without blinking. As we were being let out the massive front gate, the Sumerian who had led me in stood, hands clasped and bowing to the patrons as they walked out. Some had sedan chairs or chariots waiting. The Sumerian looked up and caught my eye for a moment but said nothing. Herakul and I walked back through the quiet city and back to the camp.<br /> “I ride with the king, “he said as we parted at my camp.<br /> “And I walk with my free men.” We laughed. It was good to have him back, not matter what circumstance we found ourselves in.<br /> <br /> The night was stinking hot and wet and I couldn’t sleep, though we had an early summons for our troop. Tomorrow Sargon’s great army marched on Lagash and Susa. In my tent there was a raised bed of a wooden frame covered with a good rug and two skins of a spotted lion. But I lay there and sweated and tossed and turned. The camp was quiet; most men having fallen out to escape the heat soon after it grew dark. I could hear the sounds of a few men drinking somewhere, arguing over cards or lots or women, but mostly there just the incessant chirring and creaking of the day’s insects in the dark. I slipped out of my tent and strolled down to the river and sat in the shadows under a palm tree looking over the moon-drenched scene.<br /> Presently I was aware that someone was sneaking up on me. I could hear the rustle of dead palm leaves and other dry plants. The steps would advance and then fall silent for long spells. I was sitting completely still on the sandy river bank. The moon gave enough light to make out shapes in the dark. When the sounds had come within a few sword strokes away, and I figured my life was in danger, I silently unsheathed my blade and waited. A man, it would seem, in a dark cloak crept into the small clearing by the river’s edge. I wasn’t aware if the cloaked intruder could see me, or whether he just guessed that this is where I would be. Perhaps he’d followed me from my tent. I slowed my breathing down and held motionless for some time, wrapped in the stark shadow created by the moonlight on the palm fronds. The cloaked figure stopped and squatted in the moonlight on the sand bank near the river’s edge. I could hear him breathing.<br /> “I’ve been sent to pass along a message, “came a thin, quiet voice from beneath the hood. I couldn’t see any features, but at least I knew it was a man. He spoke in Akkadian, but he had a Sumerian accent. “Take care not to let yourself do too much at Lagash. There are those who seek glory who would be very angry if it were stolen from them.”<br /> I stayed put in the darkness where I was. I answered, “I have no need for glory. I and my men seek something else.”<br /> “That which you seek is a foolish wish. There are no free men here. We all are alive only to serve the King.”<br /> I didn’t answer.<br /> The man said after a bit, “You have certain talents that make you a good leader. There are people who have recognized this. Some wish you well and some wish you ill. Watch your back at all times. Not all your men are trustworthy. Be careful on the walls of Lagash and Susa.”<br /> The man stood up and melted silently away into the night. I pondered his words. It was true that I had been taking the allegiance of my men for granted. Men are weak and greedy and will do much evil for a tiny reward or for jealousy. I wondered who the messenger was. The Sumerian from the palace? I couldn’t say. <br /> I made my way back to my shelter and at last I slept for a while before blowing war-horns and the martial clatter of spears on shields in the sudden desert sunrise called me to arms.<br /> <br /> The walls of Lagash were high and massive; built in the time of the early gods who came out of the Abzu, the deep waters that encircle the world. I couldn’t tell you about that, but I will say that they were substantial and I judged they had been rebuilt many times, in fact they were in need of repairs now, so the whole city sat on a low hill of worn mud- bricks. It stood near the junction of the Idiklat and Purattu, only a few leagues from Ur. Lagash was truly a bigger and maybe even older city than Ur the Storied. The people of Lagash were all Sumerians, with little Akkadian blood outside the viceroy’s palace. So it was a hotbed of feelings against Sargon and the Akkadians. Lagash had revolted early after its sack by the Great King ten years before. Sargon had sacked it again and burned much of the inner city down. It was quickly rebuilt but resentment still smoldered deep in its crowded city precincts. The walls had the v-shaped notches all around the tops, and even from a distance I could see hundreds of archers stationed up on the wall-tops. The weakest part of the city’s defenses was a section of wall that had never been fully rebuilt from the last sacking. The Lagashites had patched about fifty yards with rubble. It seemed an obvious place to attack, and Sargon drew many of his wheeled siege towers and great catapults there. Battalions of shield bearers protected the haulers, forming a turtle shell of interlocked shields above them as they strained to haul the war machines close. The Lagashites cursed them from the walls and showered them with arrows and hand stones, but there was little effect. Other detachments of Sargon’s huge army approached the three city gates. Hundreds of young soldiers carried pole ladders. Their job was the riskiest of the assault, for they would have to run up to the walls, lean their tall ladders, made of a single long tree-pole with tiny foot braces tied every two feet up the entire length, up onto the battlements. Then they would scale the rickety ladders, holding small, round shields above their heads. If they got to the top of the walls, they’d have to fight the defenders with hand swords, and daggers. The defenders were busy throwing down the ladders as soon as they were put up. Only sheer numbers of attackers allowed this tactic to work. I had seen this before in our small campaigns on the way from Ugarit against rebel towns near Mari and had adjusted my battle plans.<br /> Lipit-Sin galloped along behind the fontal units, with a dozen warriors and the young prince Naram-Sin riding close carrying banners and spears. Sargon remained in the rear in his pavilion, watching the attack and sipping cool drinks against the heat of the Sumerian morning. I looked up and saw large numbers of circling vultures, already waiting for the fresh kills that would soon come. Lipit-Sin raced up and reined in. The dust rose about the horses. I let it fall on me without moving and I saluted him, helmet off, hand to chest, in the Akkadian way. He had on bright copper armor with overlapping scales and wore a helmet of copper plates sewn on ox-hide, with a single plume on top of tufted white horsehair. He carried the copper battle axe that was the favorite weapon of the Akkadians and Sumerians. I had my bronze sword and my bow and quiver. My helmet was one I had made of boars teeth, like the ones in Achaea. I had only a square breastplate of boar’s hide tied on with leather straps and my wrist-guard for shooting. It was made of a polished rectangle of a hard, black stone from the mountains of Elam. I had won it by winning a shooting contest. I wore a loin-cloth and sandals with leggings that tied below my knees. <br /> Lipit-Sin grinned at me. “Hail, Shit-Ling! Fight well today!”<br /> “We will die for the Great King and for your patronage, “I answered.<br /> He laughed and said, “Draw the enemy’s attention to the second gate, that’s your job. We’ll take the city.”<br /> I bowed my head. Lipit-Sin’s horse reared up and he sun and rode off, retinue close behind. As they turned, young Naram-Sin gave me a hard look. I thought, Herakul is right, that’s a mean one.<br /> Herakul had brought his five hundred foot soldiers up into position to my right. We were assigned to attack one of the lesser gates. We had no siege towers. I concentrated my archers behind a row of shield bearers. On my signal, they began shooting flight after flight of arrows at the men on the walls, clearing a space at the top on either side of where the ladders were to be raised. The Lagashite archers fired back and others threw stones down, and we had to keep our shields up, knocking the shots out of the way. We were taking casualties, but they were being killed and toppling from the walls onto the slope below the mud-brick walls. We raised the battle cry and charged. We threw up dozens of ladders and our men began to clamber up and get to the top. They had their bows strapped to the backs. Though some fell, others gained the ramparts and they then shot along the walls, clearing out a bigger spot for many more ladders. Before too long, we had half our force on top of the walls. We secured the section of wall and the rest of us climbed up. Once on top, I led the men across the rooftops of the city, shooting down and across at the defenders, making for the near gate tower. Lagashites came out of doors on the roofs and we took them on with swords and battle axes. Anarkos pushed three men with one lucky shove over the edge into the streets below. Everywhere there was the sound of men shouting and cursing and groaning as they were wounded or killed. Women screamed and asses and horses whinnied and brayed as arrows thudded into them. Smoke began to rise from fires in the houses. I led the way, shooting and fighting off attackers with my sword when I had to. I stayed as calm as I could and directed my shots and those of my men into strategic positions as we progressed. Within an hour we had shot and fought our way to the neighborhood of the gate. There the resistance was fierce, but we had the high ground, and forced our way to the gate-tower and took control of the ropes that lifted the gate timbers and pulled them up. I jumped down off a low section of rooftop onto a cart on the street and ran to the gate. Anarkos and the others followed my lead. We pushed the enemy back and swung the gates open. Herakul was waiting a hundred yards away with a force of five hundred, mostly savage Skythians and Hurrians intent on plunder. They shouted a great war-cry and swarmed through the gate. The defenders fell back into the narrow, ancient streets, fighting corner to corner, house to house. But my salasas stayed up on the rooftops and by mid day we came to the city center, the square before the great ziggurat. By this time, Sargon’s main force, led by Lipit-Sin and the young Prince Naram-Sin, the latter riding on a white horse and wearing purple colored copper armor, had pulled own the rubble-patched wall and stormed the city, destroying the main Lagashite force in deadly fighting. Flames began to rise everywhere and the air became thick with smoke that smelled of human flesh and burning timber and straw. Women and children fled screaming into the square before the ziggurat. Herakul and I led our force across the square, pushing the women and children out of the way. The women fell at our feet, grabbed at our knees, and begged for mercy. We climbed onto the steps of the ziggurat. Only the presence of a line of priestesses above on the level of the sanctuary held back our charge. Out of respect for the Sumerian gods, for they are basically the same as the Akkadian gods, or rather for fear Sargon would punish our blasphemy, we backed down to a few steps above the square. Our men tried to calm the keening women, but there was no consoling them. They knew what was coming. Herakul and I shouted to keep our men under control. My quiver was empty and I went pulled a few arrows from the bodies of Lagashites who had fallen on the steps. One still groaned. I leaned down and said, “sorry, my friend”. He looked at me and gasped, “My son…” he had nothing more he could say. As I yanked the arrow out he exhaled and his life went with his breath. He was younger than me, maybe twenty years old, small, black-haired. I wondered if his wife and child were in the square. I climbed up the first flight of steps and stood there with Herakul.<br /> “Well done, little king!” beamed Herakul.<br /> “That’s one for the Free Men!” I yelled back.<br /> The Akkadian soldiers converged on the square, and I thought we had carried the day and expected Sargon to show mercy, but it was once again not mercy’s day. As we stood there on the bloody steps, Lipit-Sin and the main force of Akkadians and Hattusans, urged on by Naram-Sin and the Akkadian nobles, plunged into the mass of civilians, striking down those who cried for pity. Herakul and I stood, utterly powerless, as we watched the soldiers snatch children from the arms of their sobbing mothers. Women were thrown to ground and raped right there next to their wailing babies. Sargon had ordered that all males of all ages were to be killed and their heads cut off and piled before the city gates. By dusk, the ghastly pyramid was over thirty feet tall. I called for my men to retreat. Across the square, Lipit –Sin glared at me from his horse, but didn’t stop me. Most of my Free Men fell back beyond the walls and headed for camp to tend to their wounds. But some got caught up in the frenzy of looting, murder, and rape and didn’t report back until the next morning. Herakul’s Hurrians took the opportunity to avenge some slight of the past and destroyed entire districts, burning the houses to the ground and killing all they found who were not of use to them as sport or slave.<br /> I came back to my tent, at some distance from the city, and washed my light wounds. I had been bruised and had a few scrapes but had otherwise been lucky. Our losses were light, though I knew that at least one in ten of the Free Men had fallen. Men returning from the sacked city brought jars of bir and even some vanna of a kind I’d never tasted. There was nothing I could do about those who stayed to rape and pillage. Plunder was their recompense, though I had the thought that it could be used against us in our bid for freedom.<br /> At dusk, Lipit-Sin and Naram-Sin rode before the main camp dragging the bodies of Utu of Lagash, a Sumerian who had killed the Akkadian viceroy, and the dead man’s wife and children, now headless, behind their gilded chariots. Lipit-Sin’s armor was blood splattered, but Naram-Sin, now wearing his grandfather’s two-horned crown of Akkad, as prince of the royal line, had blood up to his elbows and in his hair. His reddened eyes were wild, drunk looking. Three small bodies bounced in the dust behind his chariot and he waved a sickle sword above his ahead and yelled a battle cry as he rode. The soldiers, many of them drunk now, cheered him on, raising their spears and bir beakers to him as rattled past.<br /> This gruesome spectacle, though common enough, sickened me. I thought of the dying Sumerian’s last words of his son. Both were now dead, a tribute to the Great King’s power. A warrior of Lipit-Sin’s command rode up and told me to attend the sacrifices. I knew this wasn’t a request. I drank some more vanna and put on my clean robe, though there was still blood on my feet and armor.<br /> Herakul and I trudged with many of our men to the open field before Sargon’s pavilion. As I walked up through the throng of battle-scarred soldiers and camp followers, many of them drunk and reveling in their victory, a soldier grabbed me by the elbow.<br /> “Watch your back” he whispered. Then he was gone off into the crowd of cheering soldiers approaching the sacrificial altar. Herakul, who was in my confidence, did guard my back, and I kept looking around nervously during the slaughter of the poor goats and dogs. The entrails were favorable and Lipit-Sin stood on a block of stone and told the multitude that after a day’s rest we would march of Susa and destroy the city forever. He shouted this out with much conviction, but to me it sounded like so much claptrap. There was a steady train of slaves and animals bearing the spoils of the city out to the king’s camp. Sargon sat on his red throne under his pavilion and gave gifts of largesse to the select noblemen, almost all Akkadians.<br /> “That’ll be his downfall someday, “said Herakul quietly.<br /> “Let’s us hope that we’re far from here long before his reign ends.” I answered.<br /> Night was falling as we started back to the camp of the Free Men. I had gathered a handful of my salasa’s companions to guard me. Now another messenger came out of the shadows. As he reached me, his hand slipped inside his cloak. Herakul grabbed his hand and drew the man’s arm back behind his back in a lock. The man twisted forward in pain.<br /> “I’m no assassin, “he said indignantly though gritted teeth.” I am a messenger. Search me if you like; I have no weapons. But I must have a word with master Pelop of Achaea.”<br /> Herakul and Anarkos let the man go and he and I went a few paces to the side. Darkness had now fallen completely.<br /> “There is someone who would meet you.” he said.<br /> “And who would that be? “ I replied.<br /> “Someone of great importance, but this person can’t be found out for… his… safety and yours.” This was a usual courtly way of talking: somebody’s wife, most likely.<br /> “I can’t see anyone; we’re at war.”<br /> “This will not take too long. it is not what you think. Be by the river in front of your camp in two hours.”<br /> “I’ve been fighting all day; I’ll be sound asleep in two hours.”<br />But I knew I must be there. These palace intrigues could get one killed. I kept in my mind that I was still a slave. I needed to stay alive until I could gain my freedom. Then I would find a way back to Vila and my son.<br /><br />15 <br /><br /> My tiredness was so overwhelming that I fell asleep on my cot at once upon returning to my tent. When I awoke, it was dark. I started up, for I had had been having a bad dream, in which I was trying to climb out of a hole in the earth. I was sliding back down in the depths when I woke. I remembered my summons and slipped on my sandals. The camp was mostly quiet, but for the usual noise of drunken revelry somewhere in the night. The insects were loud. I padded down through the palm groves to the riverside. There a slight breeze helped to lift the oppressive heat a little. I found no one waiting, though I walked the shoreline along the front of the camp. I was about to turn back when I heard a hiss coming from the shadows.<br /> I peered into the blackness, for the moon was not yet high enough to light up the dark spots under the trees. I approached with caution; I didn’t know what waited for me. It could be a trap. The hiss came again. I saw a cloaked figure under the trees. Whoever it was was small; a woman, maybe even a child, I thought. I kept my grip on my dagger and let my eyes play out on the other shadows around.<br /> “Who’s there? “ I said quietly.<br /> The person stood, still wrapped in a long robe that hid the head as well.” Come with me,” said a woman’s voice. She sounded old. Her voice was raspy and uneven. She walked away at a surprisingly brisk pace through the grove. I followed at some distance, keeping her shadowy form in sight, but watching around me as I went. She walked along the river and came to a barge that was tied up. It was a wide vessel, the kind the Sumerians use for freighting loads or transporting animals across the rivers. It was made of wound, buoyant reed bundles and had at least four thirty-foot long hulls tied together. On its deck was a large rectangular cabin made of wicker. There was a gangplank that sloped up from the bank to the deck. I drew near the old woman, who stood by the gangplank. She lifted her hand to point at the barge.<br /> “Achaean, she awaits you.”<br /> I figured this be another of the bored Akkadian noblewoman, seeking my company for a tryst. I had refused several of these spoiled beauties before in favor of keeping my distance from intrigue and for the sake of my love for Vila, and I thought to say something about how I was worn out from the fighting or something else of an excuse, but there was something solemn about the old woman that made me hold my words. I hesitated for a moment and then walked up the gangplank. There was a light from an oil lamp or candle within the wicker cabin; I could see the flame flicker through the tiny spaces of the woven wood. The reed hull was soft under my feet and the big, sodden boat rocked almost imperceptibly on the ponderous current of the great river. A door stood slightly open at the front end of the cabin.<br /> A woman’s soft voice said, “Enter, King Pelop.”<br /> The sound of her voice was gentle and sensuous, like dark honey, no roughness or brittleness to it. I thought of the bowed string instrument that the Sumerians played with low notes that poured rather than sounded.<br /> I pushed the door open. She sat on a cushion, her legs folded under her. The oil lamp was at her right side and lit one side of her face and body, throwing off moving shadows as the flame sputtered. The cabin floor was covered with rugs and cushions. A small, low table held the lamp and a jar and cups and a bowl of the nuts from Elam, the kind that break open when roasted and are bright green and tasty. I tensed, for this was the high priestess of Inanna, the daughter of Sargon, the Ensi of Ur. Enheduanna. <br /> I had seen her from the across the hall in her palace in Ur, but I realized that I had not really understood her beauty. Her skin was the faint golden olive color of her race. Her eyes were dark, large, and lively, with high arched eyebrows above a long, slightly curved nose. Her lips were full and wide and her neck was long and elegant. Her robes obscured her body, but there could be little doubt that she was full and trim in the right measures. She had a very slight smile at the corners of her mouth. The lamplight danced in her eyes.<br /> “I have sent my guards away. You have nothing to fear by being here.” She looked me in my eyes, unflinching, confident.”Sit and we’ll talk, “she said.<br /> “I am your slave, Your Highness, “I said in my broken formal Akkadian. I was unsure just how to address a high priestess. I sat across the small cabin from her. My legs were sore and I must have groaned as I settled down on the cushions.<br /> She smiled fully, suddenly easy and real.” No wonder you hurt. You fought well today. Your exploits are the talk of the camp.”<br /> “Oh?” I said, “I did what was asked of me.”<br /> “You took the city. Lipit-Sin was not pleased with you, or rather, he was unhappy with his own lack of glory.”<br /> “His was the glory, “I said, “I am a slave, fighting to stay alive.”<br /> She paused, the smile lingering on her lips. <br /> “Come, I have brought some of your wine, it’s from Karpatha. You have been there.”<br /> “You seem to know my story. I have been to Karpatha, but by accident. I was trying to get home and was blown there by the gods.”<br /> “The gods.” She said. There was something wistful about the word gods in her voice.” I hear many stories. I am Ensi of Ur, by favor of my father. But I have other interests. Your people, interest me.” She pored two cups of red vanna. The smell was familiar for sure. “There are singers of tales in your lands. Have you ever heard them?”<br /> “Oh, yes, “I said, “they’re called bards. We don’t have writing, you know, so they tell the histories of the old days. Some are good, all are entertaining.”<br /> “I write songs, “she said. “ Outwardly they are about the gods. But inwardly, they are about me.”<br /> “Your fame is everywhere, “I said, “the songs of Enheduanna.”<br /> “Enheduanna is a title. My name is Lahalit. My mother gave me that name. It means little bird. My father chose my path for me. Even as a young girl I was trained to be who I am. But I will tell you something King Pelop,” She pointed her finger at me in a menacing way. I could see anger on her face,” I always hated it.”<br /> She fell silent for a moment, hanging her head. Her long dark hair fell across her face and her shoulders slumped. Then she straightened up, though her eyes were closed, and took a deep breath and blew it out. She lifted her cup and drank deeply.<br /> “Do you know, “she said quietly, almost in a whisper. She leaned towards me a little, locking her eyes with mine, “what it means to be a priestess, a hierodule?” he stare was hard, but I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Far from it, I felt that she was talking to me with less artifice than anyone had a in a long time; since Vila, really.” A priestess of the gods has to give herself to them in the sacred pavilion on the top of the ziggurat.”<br /> I kept her gaze, for I felt she was baring her innermost being to me. I felt a strange bond with this woman, as if I knew her very well.<br /> “The old priestesses say that in the time before time, the gods themselves came down on fiery chariots from the sky and gave their seed to the hierodules, the temple prostitutes. And that’s how men came into being. Before then, the race of man was like monkeys. They neither talked nor wrote nor ate cooked food nor made war or had kings.” She turned away from me and dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked back. They were burning with intensity. “But let me tell you, my king of Achaea, the gods come no more to the sacred temple. The priestesses and the youngest are the ones that are most desirable, lie there and await the embraces of old, disgusting men; the powerful, the connected. “She dug her nails into her cushion and looked away, “even their fathers.”<br /> She raised her hands and covered her face. I could see tears slowly moving down her cheeks. They left trails of eye makeup. I reached out to touch her arm, but she drew back violently, twisting away from me and hiding her face in her robe.<br /> “I’m sorry, I wanted…” I had no words to say that would help her. My heart beat quickly in my chest. I took a drink of vanna and breathed slowly to calm it. There was nothing but the sound of the night insects in the groves and the slapping of the river against the side of the barge.<br /> In a moment she collected herself and turned back to face me.<br /> “No, I am sorry, “she said, “this not your burden. Lahalit is Enheduanna. It is her burden. ” She shook her head quickly and tried to put on a brave face, though it was plainly a false one. She sipped some more vanna.<br /> “I have had my women watching you,” she said calmly, “since last fall at Ugarit. The court, you know, is a place of endless gossip. The tales went around that you were bringing order and some sort of rightness to your slave camp. Also, I knew that you had refused women, even a priestess. I had the thought that here was a different sort of man. So I wanted to meet you and see for myself. But I’m afraid I have shown myself to you, but haven’t seen you at all!” She laughed.<br /> “It has been my ...how do you say it? My luck, no, that’s not right….privilege …to hear your story, Lahalit, if I may use your name. I will take it and treasure it and let no harm come from it. You have my word.”<br /> There was a scratching sound at the door. Enheduanna looked slightly alarmed. “You must go now. But I hope you will come and see me again.”<br /> “You need only send for me, Your Highness.”<br /> “Call me Lahalit. “ She rummaged in a bag near her feet and drew out a tiny bird made of silver that was hung on a cord.” Wear this when you fight the armies of Susa. My wish is that it will protect you.”<br /> I took it and put the cord around my neck. The bird was hidden by my tunic.” I thank you.”<br /> “Go, quickly!” She waved with her hand as if to shoo off a fly. I got to my feet and left the cabin. A tall, muscular guard, a man with truly black skin, the likes of which I had never seen, stood on the deck. He said nothing and pointed the gangplank out with his spear.<br /> I made my way back to our camp. The combination of the vanna with my battle weariness made my legs heavy and my arms weak. I lay down on my cot. I fell into sleep and dreamed that I was lost in a maze of tunnels. There were rooms opening up everywhere I looked but they were dark. I couldn’t find my way out. I woke late in the night and lay there listening to the uneasy sounds of the night, when, they say, the souls of the unmourned dead walk among the sleeping and whisper to them tales of darkness and sorrow. <br /><br /> Sargon rode along on a black charger. Two slaves rode alongside, carrying a shade pavilion held up by slim poles to screen the Great King from the sun. Lipit-Sin, Naram-Sin and other nobles trotted behind in a column, raising dust. The entire army of Akkad, over thirty thousand men, stood at attention in the blazing heat on the flat plain. Heat waves rippled across the blasted sands. Hattusans, Hurrians, Sumerians, Amorites, Kannaanites, Bedu, and our small band of Free Men, eight hundred in all, counting Herakul’s battalion, waited for the King’s inspection. Sargon wore the fore-and-aft to-horned royal helmet of Akkad. Naram-Sin wore a plumed helmet and his copper-and -boar’s -hide armor. Lipit-Sin wore a helmet of beaten copper that looked like bound hair. It shone in the sun, and I wondered how hot it must be to wear. <br /> Out troop stood almost naked, the way Free Men like to fight. We had only the lightest of armor, and most men wore scarves tied around their heads instead of helmets. In front of our ranks were fifty men with attendant horn-bearers, blowing the twelve-foot-long great battle trumpets, which had enormous bell-shaped openings from which blared cacophonous sounds. The horns made every tone from high and whiny, like storm crows to gut-rattling low sounds, like the rutting calls of great bulls. Behind them a row of a hundred or more drummers pounded out a steady, martial thumping that rolled across the open plain.<br /> The hills of Elam, birthplace of Enkidu the Wildman of the Tale of Gilgamesh, rose away to the east. Before the hills lay the mighty city of Susa, the Elamite stronghold. In that song, it was told how Enkidu came to challenge Gilgamesh, the King of Uruk to mortal combat. But in the course of their battle, they found neither could best the other. So they pledged friendship instead of enmity and thereafter were as brothers, until the gods took Enkidu to the underworld, leaving Gilgamesh to grieve so deeply that he searched the whole world for the meaning of life and mortality. He met Utu-Napishtim, the immortal who was the only man to survive the Great Flood and he found the pearl of immortality, only to lose it in the sea again. In the end, Gilgamesh was told by a god to go back to his Kingdom of Uruk, love his wife and family, rule well, and die like every other man. I thought it a good tale, though the nonsense about a flood that covered the whole world was, on the face of it, absurd. I could see how there might be a great flood in this flat pace, but not in the mountains of my homeland. People like to believe such stories, and it seemed that many Sumerians and Akkadians took the tale seriously. I thought it was more about the fact that each man has to face his death with courage and dignity, knowing that it was the fate of all who are born. <br /> We could see the Elamites facing us across the sandy wastes, and their citadel rising up beyond. Their banners seemed to float above the heat waves. Their trumpets echoed ours and their drums beat. The two armies slowly advanced on each other. Behind us, across a shallow waterway, our camp waited for our return. I thought that should the day go against Akkad, there would be a great slaughter in our camp. Lahalit was there with her guard. They had swift onagers if the hour called for their flight. I fingered her silver bird-charm under my leather breastplate. I hoped it would bring me luck.<br /> She had sent for me again the next night and the following. We had talked until dawn both nights, though we didn’t touch. We spoke of songs and legends, of Achaea, of childhood, of lovers, of freedom. She had never heard of the concept until recently. In Akkad and Sumer, all were slaves to the god-kings. She told me of the beliefs of Sumer and how the kings, who usually didn’t really believe in such things, used the fear and superstition of the people to rule as gods on earth. It was a dark vision of the society of men, but then much of what I had seen in my life was darkness. <br /> It was on the third night, the one before the march on Susa, that things had changed. I was about to leave, as the hour was late and the march was to be early. When I put my hand down to help myself to my feet, she slid hers on mine and grasped me by the wrist. I should have resisted, but I didn’t want to. I felt a kinship with her. We had spoken of things beyond even those spoken by Vila and me. She pulled me to her and I went willingly, a lamb to slaughter at the hands of the goddess once again. She was the most accomplished of all the goddess’s priestesses, having been trained to it, and I had been alone for a long time. It was a dangerous thing we did, for each of us. Our union could never be, between goddess and slave, Princess and captive. In the darkness we clung to each other. In the end we both shed tears, tears that came from a dam being broken by a flood, tears that had been waiting for years to fall. When I left we said nothing, for there was nothing to be said. The days to come would bring death and glory, each in its measure as doled out by the gods. At least that’s what they say. We knew we wouldn’t see each other again for some time. <br /> What I didn’t know was that we had been watched.<br /> The Elamites before us had fielded a massive army, maybe even bigger than ours. In this setting on the vast, featureless flat plain, the war carts, drawn by onagers, could be used as the main offensive weapon. These were four-wheeled carts that could carry six men and a driver. Sargon had brought an astounding fifteen hundred of them out onto the field of battle. The Elamite carts lined up across from ours. The two armies advanced, with great cheers going up above the din of clanking metal and whinnying onagers and the tramp of heavy feet on the salt-sand earth. Clouds of dust rose about the battalions. Our front line was the carts, flanked by foot soldiers and lines of archers on the left side, and the mounted men on the right flank, two thousand strong. It was hard to tell in the dust, but it seemed the Elamites had a similar array. Sargon fell back to the rear, leaving Lipit-Sin in charge at the front. The two forces drew nigh, just out of bowshot. The commanders called out orders and encouragement to their squadrons. Both side yelled insults and jeers at the other, calling each other defilers of mothers and god destroyers and far worse. I led the Free Men in a wild Achaean battle song I had taught them, while Herakul bellowed like the man-bull he was, and his troops answered him in kind. The Hurrians and Skythians had come to revere their warrior leader.<br /> With a great roar of thousands of voices and rhythmic clattering waves of thousands of spears, battle-axes, and swords being banged on shield, helmets, and breastplates, the carts suddenly swept forward.. We were right behind a double line of shield bearers, foot troops armed with battle axes. Their job was to protect us so we could fire thousands of arrows onto the enemy lines and chariots. We all ran as fast as we could, though our shield bearers were weighted down with their shields and axes. We could have easily outrun them. With a deafening thunder of crashing metal, wood, and horse, the two lines smashed into each other. We could see that it was about even. As we came up, Elamite horsemen rode down on the left flank of the carts. I called for the Free Men to draw swiftly to the left, Thus allowing the Elamites to converge on the carts, but that put us on their flank and we began bringing them down with deadly volleys of arrows from behind our lines of shield men. Some of the horsemen turned back into us and the battle became chaos. Onagers and horses, with or without riders, plunged into our ranks, knocking shield men and archers about like they were children’s play- soldiers. I kept rallying my salasas, pulling them back and then pushing them forward as the Elamites charged and fell back. At one point a group of Elamite horsemen broke through the ranks altogether, right past the position held by Lipit- Sin and his select horse-guard at the left flank, and started riding for the rear of our lines, where the Great King was. I jumped on the back of a riderless onager and chased after them. I thought if they got through, it would be my fault and my men would pay for it. I had just grabbed a fresh quiver from one the fallen men. The Elamite horsemen were riding down on the command position of the Great King, making for his gilded chariot from which he watched the battle. I kicked my steed into a flat-out gallop and charged down on the Elamites. I pressed my knees into the flanks of the onager and fired at the last man. My arrow caught him right between the shoulder blades and he fell, his foot catching in the saddle strap so that he was dragged across the sand. I shot another rider and a third. A few Akkadian nobles had sallied forth and were racing on horseback toward the Elamites, but one broke through their charge and headed for Sargon’s chariot. I could see Sargon’s archers firing, but they couldn’t hit the man, who was shielded by his horses’ neck from their arrows. He was closing with the chariot. He raised his battle-axe to swing it on the King, but I shot him through the back, so that the arrow stuck out through his chest. He tottered and fell heavily in the dust at the feet of Sargon. I rode up and saluted, and without slowing down, turned my onager and spurred him back to the battle.<br /> Herakul’s Hurrians had pressed in on the Elamite riders and were routing them, pulling them from their mounts and slaughtering them with battle-axes. I stood in my stirrups and looked out across the plain. I could see that our mounted force had outflanked the Elamite chariots on the right flank. They were pinching in on the center, pressing the Elamite carts into a circle where they could be destroyed from all sides. It would be a rout for Akkad. Already the Susan carts were trying to flee. But these battle- carts are not fast or very maneuverable, and their warriors were cut down by the Hattusans at the center and right flank. The fighting was intense, but within a half an hour, the Elamites were falling back on Susa, across a wide, shallow river. Soon they were throwing down their weapons and running heedlessly through the knee-deep water. Carts foundered in the mud and sand- banks and were toppled by the river’s flow. Onagers cried out in panic as arrows struck their sturdy bodies. Lipit-Sin had now pressed forward, and led the rout, slaying fleeing foot soldiers as they ran for their lives. <br /> Herakul and I found each other and drew apart from the fighting to confer.<br /> “They’re going to be fleeing the city by the postern gate.” I said.<br /> “I agree. “Said the blood- drenched giant, “We could slip around the city and enter without much trouble, I’d wager.”<br /> “I’ll take your bet, my friend. Tell your men, no killing of innocents.”<br /> “I swore them on a blood oath this very morning. The Hurrian’s quarrel was with the men of Lagash, not Susa.”<br /> “Good. Let’s draw upstream and cross beyond that far bend, through the trees to give us cover.”<br /> All across the field of battle the Akkadians and their levies were killing the routed Elamites and their hapless Sumerian allies. We were far from Sargon’s command, alone on the beyond the left wing of the battle. We drew our force back from the rout, though some wouldn’t come, intent on plundering the dead, and we led over six hundred men at a run along the near river bank. We waded across above a bend and went through palm groves and fields toward the far side of the city. Sure enough, the postern gate was open and citizens of Susa were running for their lives. Women dragged screaming children with them; the old tottered along leaning on sticks. Some carried a few meager possessions on their backs, sacks of grain and dates. There must have been five thousand refugees already strung out along the road through the fields that led up into hills to the east. A few Elamite guards tried to keep order, but plainly the flood of terror-stricken people was too much for them to handle. <br /> We came along a canal, keeping below the embankment until we drew near the gate itself. Then we charged out and overwhelmed the guards, who mostly threw down their spears and ran. The refugees cried out in fear and fell at our knees, but we pushed past them and up into the city. One man, a priest by his robes, stood calmly as we ran up to the gate. He held his hand up for peace.<br /> “These are simple people, “he said to me, “they are not warriors. Let them pass, please.”<br /> I looked at him and said,” They are free to go.”<br /> The streets were clogged with panicked Susans. I ordered a column of two abreast to move up the side of the main street, leaving the people to flee. We threaded the old alleys and streets and soon reached the base of the ziggurat, a fine one with four levels and steep steps leading up. Herakul and I climbed the steps. There was no opposition now, as the rout on the plains had been watched for some time from the walls of Susa, and all defenders and even the priests and priestesses had fled for their lives.<br /> “Should we raise a banner from the top?” asked Herakul.<br /> “I think not, “I said, “Slaves need to know their place. I was thinking about taking too much glory from Lipit-Sin and the other nobles. Let’s move on and open the main gates to let the army in.”<br /> We surged with our troops through the emptying streets and came to front gates. We swung them open. I stepped out into a hail of arrows, and jumped back.<br /> “Raise the Standard of Ur from the walls!” I yelled to my salasa.<br /> I clambered up to the battlements and looked out to see Lipit-Sin leading the vanguard of Akkad up the slope of the tell to the gates. Beyond, the vast field was littered everywhere with corpses of men and onagers and wrecked, overturned carts. The army of Akkad had massed below the gates and the men were shouting to enter the city for plunder. We raised the battle flag of Ur to signal that we had taken the gates. It was met with great roar of approval from the army. I called to my troops to take to the walls and stay out of the streets. Most followed my order, though not all. You can hardly blame men for their weakness sometimes. I was pleased to see that more than half of my teams were mostly intact. I had them line up on the wide wall-top and report by salasa.<br /> “ Eagles!” “Lions!” “Ravens!” And so on. Finally we shouted out, “Free Men!” and raised our weapons above our heads in triumph. I had the thought that we were being immodest, but my men deserved praise and reward after the battle.<br /> The Akkadians were pouring into the city now, shouting and looting. The first fires sent pillars of black smoke above the mud-brick tenements. Soon, the city would lie in ruins, and the men and male children who could be caught would be beheaded, their bloody fear-wracked faces staring out for eternity from the gruesome pile before the city gates, a warning to all who might oppose the living god-on earth, Sargon the Great. Mothers, girls, and wives would rip their clothes and scratch their breasts and take their own lives with hidden knives. They would be raped, even in death by the animals who called themselves the gods who ruled the world. I wanted none of that. I hoped that many of the refugees had had a chance to escape beyond the fields and into the hills.<br /> “What about plunder!” Someone shouted from the ranks, and was echoed by others.<br /> I raised my hand for silence. “We who call ourselves the Free Men cannot plunder. Remember, we are still slaves of the Great King. We must await his largesse. I am sure he will recognize out contribution. Dion, I will see you get your fair share of bir and women!”<br /> The men laughed. Indeed, Sargon hadn’t been tight with his share for my men. We lived well. Besides, as slaves, we couldn’t really own much. When we were freed, that would be a different story. For now, we needed to stay disciplined.<br /> I looked toward the ziggurat of Susa, where smoke rose from the upper levels. Where had the gods of Susa gone? As with all gods, they had deserted the faithful of the city in their hour of need. I thought, if such gods exist, they are pitiful and weak, or cruel and uncaring. But I knew the truth, that the worship of these many-named deities was something that was used by the powerful to keep the common people in thrall of punishment in the next life. The next life! What about this one? I spat on the battlements, but not to ward off the evil eye, but rather in disgust at the greed and cruelty of men, men who created the gods, not the other way around.<br /> Someone called to me and broke my thought.” King Pelop! “<br /> Lipit-Sin, with Naram-Sin in his retinue, was entering the city on horseback through the ruined gate. I came to the edge of the battlement and saluted him from a balcony. “Hail, Lu-gal! You have taken the city!”<br /> He looked up at me for a moment, but then turned away without a word of recognition.<br /> When he had ridden on, Herakul came up to my side and said quietly, “We’re screwed.”<br /> I nodded to him. “Withdraw the men; we make for camp.”<br />6 <br /><br /> I didn’t realize I had the big cut on my leg until I tried to get down into the street from the balcony. The intensity of the battle had dulled the feeling of it. But now I looked at it, an ugly gash across the back of my calf. I reached down and tried to see if the torn meat of my leg would pinch together. It wouldn’t. I found a discarded head-scarf and wrapped it around the wound and limped out the gate, back towards the camp far across the plain of battle. Herakul left me and went and righted a wrecked cart and we rode back, in the company other wounded men trudging through the mid-afternoon heat.<br /> I had never seen so many dead men. They were everywhere, thousands of them some lying in twisted poses, arms or necks laid out at impossible angles, vacant eyes staring into the merciless sun. Vultures circled and dropped down. Large flocks of the huge, black carrion-birds already tore flesh from the dead and even from the wounded, who lay begging pitifully for water or for the dispatch of the battle axe. One of our men, Niarkos, an Achaean from the town of Atena, lay dying slowly in the cart, his death rattle growing fainter as we creaked across the field of war. I was feeling a bit light-headed, but kept sitting up. I felt that if I lay down, death might mistake me for one its own and take me away. Herakul seemed lost in thought. Even he was overcome by the sight of so much carnage.<br /> “Where do you think we go, little Pelop?” he said, not looking at me, but rather staring at the distant hills to the east.” To a dark netherworld?”<br /> “I don’t know, my friend, that’s what they say, but then again, I don’t trust what priests say. Seems to me that when something dies, it rots away into the ground and disappears. End of the story”<br /> Herakul was unusually pensive. He twisted around and I could see the lines on his furrowed brow.<br /> ” This morning, these fools thought they’d have glory and plunder. Now they’re vulture food. Hah!” <br /> He spat, and I knew that for him, this was to ward off the evil curses of the shades of the untended dead warriors around him.<br /> “Well, if there’s a bad place, it must be crowded!” I tried to laugh, and Herakul chuckled.<br /> “Yes, I’ll give you that. And it’s going to get worse!”<br /> We passed where Sargon’s command had been. He had returned to camp, or perhaps gone to the fallen city to supervise the looting.<br /> “The god-king better uphold his promise. “I said aloud, then regretted it, for there was a Sumerian driver at the reins of the chariot that I didn’t know.<br /> Herakul spat again, this time with more vehemence. “I won’t lay you odds on that one.”<br /><br /> It took us the better part of two days to return to the big camp along the river. By then the gash on my leg had festered and I feared it would get the black disease. I had seen men lose their lives from lesser cuts.<br /> I sat on the edge of my cot in my little tent trying to bind the wound with the head-scarf. It was raw and I saw it would surely get worse if I left it alone, so I called for one of my men to being me a firebrand. Herakul came as well, bringing a jug of the Sumerian white vanna, the strong kind. I took a long drink and lay face down and Herakul held my legs still. Dion, the Kannaanite archer brought the firebrand in and blew off the ash to make it extra hot.<br /> I said, “Let’s be done with it,” And gritted my teeth. I thought, this can’t hurt worse than when I got the damn wound, and I didn’t even feel it then.<br /> Dion leaned over and brought the brand down. But just as he did, my tent-flap was pulled back. A huge black slave from Punt held it. A small man, wearing robes trimmed in gold threads in the royal fashion, came in, put his hand up, and with a voice used to command said, “Stop!”<br /> Dion stood up and stepped back. The man was an unusual type; extremely short, wiry, bearded, older, maybe even fifty years or more, with white hair and brilliant grey-blue eyes. He looked somewhat effeminate. I couldn’t place his people.<br /> “I have been sent to help you, “he said calmly. “ You, the big one, stay. You leave.” He spoke with quiet authority. Herakul stayed put and Dion left, taking the smoking brand with him. The man had a big goatskin bag sewn with sliver clasps and fancy stitching around the edges. He looked into it and reached in and pulled out a small pouch. He poured a small amount of a white powder into his palm. My eyes must have been wide.<br /> “Don’t worry. This will hurt, but it won’t kill you, “he said gently. I put my head back down, Herakul tightened back down on my legs with his unbreakable grip. I guess the healer poured the powder into my wound. I almost cried out, for the pain was like fire itself.<br /> “Ah, I see it’s working already.” He took out a small bone needle and sinew from his bag. “I’m going to sew this up. You’ll be good as new in no time.”<br /> After the powder, the sewing was nothing. He pulled up a tripod stool and sat down. “You may go,” he said to Herakul, “and drop the flap if you please.” Herakul looked at the tiny man like he was going to laugh, but then made an exaggerated bow of courtesy and left.<br /> The little man leaned over so that his face was near mine. He whispered, “She sent me, but you may tell others it was by order of General Shul-lat.”<br /> My mouth was unexpectedly dry and I asked him for vanna. Then I said, “I thank her and the General. May I ask your name?”<br /> “My name?” he laughed, a tittering sort of laugh that you’d expect at court, sort of a he-he he. <br />“That would depend on when. I have had many names, and you?<br /> “Pelop is not my first.”<br /> “I come from a land far beyond these barren wastes, from a place where the snows only end in summer and people ride on sleds pulled by tiny deer. My name when I was a boy was Ogarik. But here I am called Lu-Zu. That means wise man. I don’t know if that’s the name I would give myself. I think Lu-Mu-dutu, man of knowledge, would be closer. Or lucky man, for I have thus far avoided death at the hands of my patients!” his eyes sparkled.<br /> “Do all your people have the blue eyes?”<br /> “Yes, and you yourself have them as well, so you must have northern blood, though they call you the Achaean. I have found them to be mostly dark-eyed.”<br /> “When I was boy I was taken from the land of high mountains far north of Achaea. It seems strange now, but that was only a few years ago. I have lived many other lives since those days. They seem like a dream to me, “I said.<br /> He looked at me, a bit of sadness in his eyes.” My father took me on a trip to the great river when I was a boy. We had hides of the red snow-deer to trade for tools from the people of the river. My father made a raft and we floated south for many days. He was killed by an arrow from people on the banks of the river. I couldn’t save him from death. I drifted with the current for a long time until the raft ran aground at a bend. I ran off and hid in the woods. I was hungry and cold and thought I would die. I wanted to. But an old woman found me and took me to her little hut of branches and turf. She was a witch, that’s what she was. But she was very kind to me. I was little, so I became her grandson, that’s what she called me. She knew all the plants and animals of the forest lands better than anyone else. People came to her to be cured of their illnesses. She was smart, and could tell what was bothering people. She knew how to fool them into thinking they were well. And she knew how to make the powders and poultices that draw out the sickness from wounds and sores. I lived with her for ten years, until I was almost a man. Then she grew sick and died. I stayed there, for now the people came to me for cures, and I found I was able to help them, too. “He paused as if remembering something difficult. “ But then raiders came from the south. They took many of as slaves and sold us down the river until we came to the great Black-water sea that was made by the flood. There I became a healer for a king named Duma- El. He was a good man. The place was called Kolkis. I practiced the healing arts for a long lifetime there. Then his kingdom was conquered by the Hattusans, and I wound up coming here with the troops. That was ten years ago. I have lost count, but I believe I have more than fifty years to my life. I find the heat here helps my old bones. I wouldn’t want to return to the land of the snows again.”<br /> He leaned close again and whispered.” But enough about my life. I must tell you something. You are in great danger now. The certain someone who sent me here has been watched by the Great King. He knows of your trysts with her. And there is another man who bears you a greater malice, your patron, Lipit-Sin. You have stolen his glory in this war by your cunning and bravery. Everyone is talking about you at court. The king realizes you saved his life today. But Lipit-Sin, who has just been named Ensi of Uruk, fourth in line for the throne of Akkad, is furious. He covets our lady. He’s going to have you killed.”<br /> I sat up though the pain in my legs was like a snake bite.<br /> “I would worry about my own men if I were you. Outwardly, you are in great favor right now. The king owes you a life. I would use that life carefully.” <br /> “Is she in danger?” I asked.<br /> “She must be very careful as well. Lipit-Sin could save her or destroy her.”<br /> “I must see her.”<br /> “Impossible, “he said as he closed his bag and stood to go.” Tomorrow is a great victory sacrifice and feast. You will have to be there. Watch your back.” He lifted the flap and was gone.<br /><br /> Night had now fallen. Though my leg was stiff, and the stitches made it tight, I stood up and stepped outside. To my alarm, I saw the shadow of a huge man looming a few feet away. I stepped back and felt for my sword inside the tent, but it was not leaning on the pole where I always left it. The shape came towards me. I tripped and fell backwards into the tent. I felt a vanna cup and grasped it. The tent flap lifted and I heard a familiar voice.<br /> “I don’t think a cup will stop them, little king” It was Herakul. He uncovered an oil lamp. It lit his eyes and sent its flickers around the tent walls. I breathed out.<br /> “You scared the shit out of me!”<br /> “Sorry, “he laughed, “We’re standing guard over you. Lu-Zu gave me the order. Dion is over there,” he waved his hand in the direction of the river, “Urartu- one of my Hurrians- is in the grove, and Anarkos has men along the perimeter. I trust all that are here with your life. You need to sleep. Leave this to me.”<br /> “Thank you, my friend, “I said.” I think I need to get out of here.”<br /> “It doesn’t look good right now. There’s a big feast going on in Sargon’s camp right now, celebrating the victory. Lipit-Sin has been claiming the glory, but everyone knows the truth. You and I are both in danger from him.”<br /> “Let’s go right now, “I said, while they’re feasting and drinking.”<br /> “Jackals feed at night, little Pelop. The word is that there are troops all around our camp, watching for our escape. We’ll have to tough it out. As I said today, we’re dead men.”<br /> My head swam. The cut had made me feverish and unclear.” I must lie down, “I said.<br /> “Sleep, little king. Tomorrow is another day to fight.” <br /><br /> When I woke it was deep in the night. A sound had brought me from my dreams. I felt where I was, in my cot. My head hurt. There it was again, a scratching and faint hissing. In the deep darkness I could see the tent flap move. I heard Herakul whispering.<br /> “Wake up, Pelop. We must flee!” I pulled myself up and slowly stood, careful not to make any noise. Herakul was holding the tent flap. I was dizzy and sore. My leg was on fire. I stepped gingerly forward and nearly fell. .<br /> “I’ll have to lean on you for a moment,” I whispered back. I didn’t ask him where we were going. He helped me move away from the tent. Against the night sky full of stars, I could see him put his finger to his lips for silence. <br /> We slowly made out way down to the river. It was so still, even the night insects were silent. I could hear the lapping of the water on the bank, the murmur of the slow, strong current rolling the great river along. Outlined against the faintest sheen of the water was a dark shape; a Sumerian barge. <br /> “Hang on, “whispered Herakul. He lifted me up and waded out waist deep into the river. He put me up on the deck and then climbed up himself. Two other figures were there on the deck. One raised his arm and the barge began to slide noiselessly down the river. The stars shone in a million points on the mirror surface and in the clear night sky. We crouched on the deck and let the camp slide away behind us. Here and there there were torches burning low at guard posts, but all was still for now. <br /> There was a movement behind me. The door of the cabin opened and a small figure emerged. She reached out and found my hand in the darkness. I put my arm around her shoulders and she drew up next to me. We huddled there silently as the quiet riverbank slipped by and stars wheeled in the heavens.<br /><br /> By the time the dawn began to shift the world from the fearsome, ever- changing shadows to the solid shapes of the day that we know, we were deep in the marshes of the river-mouths. Here, the mighty rivers Idiklat and Purattu came together in a vast maze of a hundred winding channels, ever merging and diverging and changing. The date palms were so thick on the islands that they made solid walls of impenetrable greenery. It was the home of the marsh people, who they say were there before the Sumerians came out of the Abzu. These were the people who first made the reed boats. It was said they sailed their boats to far Harappa and even around the great horn beyond Dilmun to Punt and Egypt. I didn’t know about that, but I was glad for the protection of the jungles around us. Lahalit’s giant, black-skinned slave, named Mtombe, wielded the steering oar and guided the barge, which was moving with a fair amount of momentum, into the jungle at the river’s edge. I thought we would be surely stuck on the bank. But Mtombe yelled at us to push away the trailing vines and fronds, and with his huge muscles pushed the barge with the sweep through the green barrier of overhanging branches and vines, and we passed with much cracking and rustling into a hidden backwater behind the screen of jungle. The palm fronds grew together above us like the roof of a great temple and we were completely out of sight of the channel in which we’d been floating. The sun had by now fully risen and the heat under the canopy was stifling. Herakul, Urartu the Hurrian, Dion, Lahalit, and I sat on the foredeck under the shade of the overhanging fronds. Mtombe signaled for silence and stood stock still at the oar, watching the river beyond the branches. It was quiet in here, with only the insects and the birds making their commonplace sounds.<br /> “This is the place he told us of, “said Mtombe quietly in his deep voice, “we’ll await them here.”<br /> We sat on the reed deck and waited. Some time went by and no one came down river. We talked in whispers of our escape.<br /> “It was Anarkos, “said Herakul quietly. “I caught him coming back around midnight from the camp of Lipit-Sin with four armed Hattusans. When he saw me, he turned and tried to run. I’m afraid I didn’t spare any of them!” He shook his head, smiling.” By the luck of the gods, that’s when Dion came up and told me the barge had pulled up.’<br /> Lahalit spoke.” Lipit-Sin took it badly. It was his night and his glory; he wanted me and I refused him. He gave me until today to accept his offer.”<br /> “And the King?” I asked.<br /> “He has set Lipit-Sin on the high seat of Uruk. That makes Lipit-Sin an Ensi of Akkad; a General and High Priest of Enlil and Nanna. You are a slave. What is Sargon’s choice? Believe me, he bears you no love, and though he has still a little fear of the gods in him, it’s not much. He only learned of us yesterday, after the battle, from Lipit-Sin, who had me watched. You saved Sargon’s life. That saved yours until last night. Lipit-Sin told me about your traitor, that you’d be dead within the hour. I don’t know how I held back my tears, but I left Lipit-Sin, saying that I would answer him tomorrow. He let me return to my pavilion. I thank the goddess for my loyal Mtombe, who helped me steal away to the barge.”<br /> “They’ll be coming any time now, “I said, “searching for you.”<br /> “We have to trust in Utu-Nanna. He swore an oath to Inanna, and he’s very religious, “said Lahalit. “I trust him.”<br /> I remembered Utu-Nanna from the feast in the palace of Ur; he was the chamberlain who had led me to my seat and also seen us out. I saw him in my mind’s eye; hands clasped in the Sumerian way, watching us intently that night.<br /> “Sargon has many enemies.” I said. <br /> Urartu the Hurrian spoke softly. “Every ruler has enemies. When I was a boy, Sargon first conquered the lands. I thought of him as a uniter of people, a bringer of peace. But he has become obsessed with his power and calls himself a god. My people hate and fear him. We only serve because we want our families to live. We don’t want our towns and cities sacked. We’ll escape to Hurrian country and we’ll be safe there. Sargon could never find us in the mountain villages.”<br /> “Hush”, whispered Mtombe. He crouched low and stayed perfectly still, a hunter’s stillness. Through the screen of jungle we could see the river channel flowing by, green and murky. There were the sounds of scraping and thumping; oars being pulled. A wooden galley. We saw it coming down the channel, slowly. On the bow stood five Akkadian warriors in full armor. They held bows and spears. I recognized two of them from Lipit-Sin’s retinue. Mtombe put his fingers to his lips, but it wasn’t necessary. The flies and crickets sang and buzzed. The slap of the galley’s oars on the water was low and rhythmic. The galley moved slowly along, just faster than the current. The Akkadians peered this way and that, scanning the banks for any sign. My heart was almost stopped in my chest. I squeezed Lahalit’s hand, and she clutched my forearm, digging her fingernails into my skin.<br /> The galley slid past us. One of the Akkadians looked hard into the jungle and I felt sure he would spot us, but they moved on downriver and were out of sight in a moment. We breathed again, but kept silent. All was still for a minute. Then I heard the cracking sound of a branch snapping in the jungle behind the barge. Mtombe’s head swiveled to the back. There was movement in the jungle. Branches swayed and were still, and then moved again. A hand and then a head appeared in the tangle of growth. It was Utu-Nanna the Sumerian.<br /> He signaled for silence, but waved us to come. We crept along the side of the barge. He moved back into the jungle, waving for us to follow him. One by one, we lowered ourselves into the water and waded, waist-deep into the dripping greenery. I carried Lahalit in my arms. Herakul helped her climb up the slippery bank. We slipped into the thicket, taking care with each step to not break branches underfoot. The vines and lianas, which scraped at our faces, feet, and arms made progress difficult. We slowly moved forward like a centipede crawling through the jungle<br /> We made our way for over an hour until we came to place where the undergrowth had been cleared back a little, though the fronds above still did not let the sunlight in. In the clearing were small houses with peaked roofs, five in all, made entirely of woven reeds, tied together in the same manner as the reed boats, with cords made of reeds themselves. They were empty. I supposed the people had run off to hide, fearing the persecution of Sargon’s nearby army. <br /> Utu-Nanna clasped his hands in the Sumerian fashion and spoke quietly.” My friends, you will be safe here until tonight. The channels are full of Sargon’s galleys right now, but our hosts, the marsh people, know the secret back ways that even we Sumerians don’t know. You will have guides who I trust who will take you up the Idiklat to a safe place tonight. Our people will help you from there.<br /> “Utu-Nanna, my old friend, thank you, “said Lahalit, suddenly Enheduanna again. She bowed formally to the Sumerian “You have helped me in my hour of greatest need.”<br /> “My Princess, as you have helped me and my people before. We serve the same mistress, our Lady Inanna. You know I have no love for the King.” He made a hand gesture, like a circling motion. “I ward off his evil.” He said.” The new Ensi in Uruk will soon be a cruel tyrant as well, I fear; I have watched him grow yearly more hard and greedy.” Utu-Nanna looked worried, careworn. But then he looked up and smiled.” I am happy to be of service to you, our lady.”<br /> Lahalit bowed to him. It was a solemn moment. Even Herakul was silent and unmoving.<br /> We rested uneasily in the huts until nightfall. No intruders came our way, and we heard no search parties. At the last of dusk, Utu-Nanna led us again through the jungle by some other trail, or lack of one, to a place on the river, still under the cover of the jungle. There were three slim reed boats drawn up there. Three small, dark-skinned men sat on the boats in the water. They clasped their hands and bowed to us, but said nothing. The language of the marsh-people is older than Sumerian. It is said that the first humans of mankind came from this place, called Ed-Enna by the Sumerians. <br /> When it was fully dark, we got on the boats, two of us to each, with a boatman in the back with long pole and an oar. There was also an oar in the front, which our boatman signaled me to take up. Utu-Nanna bade us a silent, bowing farewell, and we thanked him by clasping his hands in ours, in the Sumerian way. Then we slid the reed boats into the water and nudged our way through the tangle of vines and fronds and into the open channel. The stars shone above. The boatmen used their poles and we were soon slipping upriver at a good pace, keeping to the side, out of the current and right near the jungle as we went. We passed from one channel to the next, and I was almost at once completely lost in the maze of small and great waterways. Once, in the middle of the night, there was a distant thudding sound of oars slipping oarlocks. Down a channel a few hundred yards away, a galley passed with torches blazing at its bows. We stayed hidden under the jungle’s eaves and then moved in when it was again quiet.<br /> Before dawn, we laid up in another jungle spot. We stayed there all day under the fronds. The heat and insects were terrible. Our guides said not a word, but they had gourds over fresh water and a bag of dates, which sustained us. We thanked them with looks of gratitude. I don’t know what favor they owed Utu-Nanna, but it must have been great; for their task meant certain death to them should they be discovered. Of course, our death was even more certain.<br /> At nightfall we once again headed upriver. We joined in paddling against the current and made good progress. The work was relentless. We only rested for a few minutes three times in the whole night idling along the bank out of the current. At first light, we could see that the jungle had given way to the more random stands of date palms and stretches of desert so common in Sumer. We made for the east bank of the river, for we were beyond the jungle and the braided channels now. Our guides pulled over at a spot under a grove of trees. The dawn was beginning to give substance to the land and details of the scene. I was alarmed that there were a dozen mounted men there. I wondered if we had been betrayed. But if it was so, it was too late; there was no chance of escape.<br /> A man dressed in the robes of a priest of Enlil greeted us from the top of the sloping riverbank. I recognized him at once.<br /> “Welcome to Elam, my friends.” He said warmly.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-30834601009183049772010-11-27T07:35:00.000-08:002010-11-27T07:38:34.396-08:00Book One: first draft of "Merlin the Archer" by Alex CallMerlin the Archer: Forward<br /> Some years ago I went to an exhibition of stone-age art at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco. The cave paintings of Lascaux were there in full-scale reproduction, and there were artifacts from the period of the early, late, and neolithic periods. One piece was plainly some sort of cribbage board. It was a foot-long section of deer antler with three side-by-side rows of peg holes. One end of the antler was carved into a perfectly representational face of a deer. The deer’s face could have been made carved in Classical Greece or Rome, the Renaissance, or in the twentieth century. It was without a doubt the work of a mind that was identical to our modern minds.<br /> I was raised on the Greek myths. I have always been drawn to the Bronze Age, to the time of the emerging civilizations. Mary Renault’s Theseus was my favorite hero. I thought that the Homeric age must have started much earlier. Greece is simply not that far not that far from Sumer and Egypt. The Great Pyramids were built in 2,600 BCE. The mud-brick Ziggurats of Sumer around the same time. Stonehenge was built around 2,200 BCE, give or take a few years. All of these giant monuments required planning and organization equal to anything we do today. Imhotep, the architect of the first of the pyramid, the stepped pyramid at Saqqara, was plainly an engineering genius.<br /> A few years ago an important burial was unearthed at Amesbury, England, a short distance from Stonehenge. The forty-five year old man in the grave, who had suffered a bad knee injury late in life, was obviously important. He had gold hair ornaments, the first found in the British Isles. He was buried with an impressive cache of archery equipment. The archaeologists tested his DNA. He was from the region of the Alps in Europe, not from England. He was buried alongside a younger man, possibly his son.<br /> How did a man from the Alps end up in an important grave next to, and from the same time as, Stonehenge? He didn’t walk there. He came by ship. How were the stones of Stonehenge moved? Aliens? Mystic power of Druids? Sorry, though I wish we could find them, we haven’t found the spacecraft and the Druids belong to a period two thousand years after Stonehenge; they never used the ring of stones. Stonehenge was forgotten. The Egyptians moved giant stones hundreds of miles with ships. <br /> In my mind’s eye I saw a young boy, stolen by raiders from his village in the Alps and sold into slavery down what is now the Adriatic Sea. From there, it was not far to ancient Crete, Sargon of Akkad’s Mesopotamia, and the Egypt of Pharaoh Pepi. I saw the boy grow into a man, a rational man in a world of dark superstition. His companions included people who were heroes of the later Greek Myths, prophets of the later Bible. He witnessed events that we know took place. He leaned to move giant stones. A stone fell on his leg, and he needed the help of a famous healer. He ended up in a far green land across the wild sea, the place where tin came from in this early Bronze Age. I have named this healer The Merlin- a name borrowed from a much later time. But maybe that name is much older than we give it credit for. <br /> I did a lot of research on the Alps and Balkans, Greece, Sumer, Egypt, and the late neolithic in Britain to buff up my knowledge of the early Bronze Age, but I have purposefully taken vast liberties with the facts as we know them. My chronologies are all possible, but this is not a history, it’s an adventure. It’s a story of a rational man in an irrational, fear-plagued world. He left a monument that he thought might help his people. He left them Stonehenge. I hope you might be moved to study ancient cultures. What is actually there is as fascinating as any tale of aliens or mystic powers. <br /><br /> And now, my story…..<br /><br /><br />Mata<br /> Mata named me Stek. I’ve had so many other names now that she and that name are both beyond the windings of shroud-cloth, the river of death, the ritual blood on the great stones. The chill fog that pains my bones binds me to this spot. They are calling for me over the field, by the stones where the fire burns. I know I must pull my aching body up and go. But I wish I could linger with Mata’s memory for a moment. Her face is still soft in my mind’s eye as she was in those long ago times.<br /> Herakul, Enheduanna, and my sweet Vila told me our fates are in the hands of the Gods. It’s hard to say otherwise. Surely, if I wished, I could see divine guidance moving me like a pawn on a nomarch’s Senet board. Big choices seem to happen to us, beyond our puny will’s desire and plans. But there are other forces at work, ones that lie in the deeper places of our minds. Some of these forces are good and others evil. As I lie here on my cold, hard bed the distinctions of light and dark are blurred and chaotic. Now that Aon has passed, there doesn’t seem to be much for me to hold on to; nothing much to live for.<br /> Still, it’s been a wondrous life. Whether it’s the Gods’ or my own doing, or both, I have lived a life full of vast opening. And though my shade slips away in this weak hour, I am glad I was able to do some things for the sake of others even weaker and less certain than me.<br /> They are beating the drums and calling my most recent name. My people, my flock of sheep. May the so-called gods come help me rise and accept their honor, not for myself but for how it helps them. Dark times lie ahead as far as the eye can see, but who can say what will come next? The Gods? Perhaps, my friend, perhaps.<br /><br /><br /> 2 Awa<br /><br /> Mata’s voice rang clear and echoed from the mountain’s sheer, cold face above me. “Stek!” “Stek” again and a third time, ever diminishing. I whistled sharply at Tulli and she ran up the steep green meadow, barking at the sheep and goats. I walked down the hillside to make sure the animals kept moving towards home. They wanted to linger, eating the sweet grass of the meadow- flowers time. I looked out across the narrow valley at the towering, snow-clad peaks that seemed so close. A breath of cool air blew down from great Carn-Ta, his mighty flanks rising ever upwards to the sharp crags. From his breast flowed the Voda, the gift and milk of Awa.<br /> In my short years I had seen the snows come and go nine times that I could remember, though I knew there were earlier years that had slipped from my mind, leaving only a handful of pictures: a sunny day, Mata looking at me as she bent over by the fire, Tulli as a little pup jumping on my tummy. This was my favorite season, the time of the meadow flowers and honey-bees, when the Voda ran clear and I could catch little trutta with my flint-tipped spear and net. Awa didn’t mind, as long as we left some fish for her, with an offering of flowers, and goat’s milk in a cup. Awa bred the trutta and the sheep and goats and the meadow flowers and even me, Mata said.<br /> Awa was in her grotto, high above the valley. It was difficult to reach her in the snow time, but a joy now. Mata would take us up with our offerings and we would sit before her. Awa looked a little like Mata, true, and like the other women of the valley: round, with breasts and wide hips. But she was rounder than Mata. Plainly Awa fed better than Mata did, because the Goddess had all the people to feed her. Mata told me that Awa was the Goddess of all, even the Oddars.<br /> Our dog Tulli and I prodded the bleating animals, complaining as they always did, down the mountainside to our house. Mata was in front, stirring the bir bowl with her wooden spoon. She wore her plain dress of scraped sheepskin, the fringes of which trailed in the dirt. Her long, dark hair was swept back and bound with a twist of leather. She wiped sweat from her face with the back of her hand as she stirred the pot. The smoke had reddened her eyes somewhat. Her charm against the vaskan, the evil eye, a round carved wooden eye colored blue with the pigment of ground flowers, swung on a cord from her neck. The smell of the bir was pungent, wet, and sweet, like the smell of Mata herself. The door to our little round house was open, letting the summer air into our single dark room. Mata had swept the floor with buck brush and hung flowers from the walls to make the smell better, though it never smelled too different from the sheep and goats that slept there with us. The braided plait of skorda had its own thick smell, but I was used to it, as we left it hanging on the door above the threshold to keep out were-wulfen and shape-changing witches and the like. If only we had a hunter we could count on to kill the wulfen, Mata might not have been so fearful, but Arkan had been gone for many years now, and since we weren’t in the village, wulfen would carry off our animals if they were outside at night. Perhaps Arkan would return, but I thought not. Mata didn’t cry for him. As for witches, there was no real way to stop their power; you could only try to stay on their good side. Besides, most women were witches in the service of Awa the Great Goddess.<br /> “I am old,” she told me one night as we sat in front of our house and looked up at the brilliant stars, “Arkan is gone, and the other men have younger girls. It is Awa’s way. We women are like flowers, first we come out of the ground, then we flower, then we dry up and wither away, like old Shutta!”<br /> We laughed at the thought of the crone of the village, an old lady of more than fifty snows, who endlessly harped on people for their real and imagined shortcomings. <br /> Mata poked at our little fire with a stick. “It is fine,”she said.<br /> I thought for while and then asked, “if women are flowers, then what are men?”<br /> Mata laughed, “Men are like roosters. They crow and puff up and strut around like they are big stuff, until the wulfen or the women’s axes take them!”<br /><br /> I put the sheep and goats in the stone-walled pen and sat on a log near the fire pit and watched Mata stir the bir. Bir and curd cheese and mutton was our food. In this time we had abundance. Mutton soup slowly cooked in the big bowl on the hot stones. Mata had added some roots and leaves, even a few flowers Awa had taught us were good. Some were bad, the ones the witches used to curse and kill. Awa’s eye above our door protected us from them, or so Mata told me. <br /> I believed that, why shouldn’t I? I had never known other than a good life, except for hunger and cold. All had those. Others had died or gone missing, but that was the way of Awa and the other Gods: Ock the thunderer, son of Awa, Kulla the shape-changer, Arta the huntress, younger sister of Awa, the Mother. Beyond all the other Gods and Goddesses and spirits of the mountains, trees, streams, and secret places, Awa was the World, the changing of the seasons, giver of milk and bir and fire. She was the secret of new babies and the taker of souls at the end of life into her bosom. It seemed to me that Mata and I were blessed by Awa. Beyond the high mountain passes were the lands of the Oddars, those who hunted us, but here we were safe, in this land of amazing beauty and bounty. But still Mata lived in endless, dark fear of the curses of others and the unseen spirits of the dark unknown.<br /><br /> I saw my friend Tarn running up the path from the village. He seemed excited. It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t reached into the blue valley yet. Smoke trails drifted up from the scattered houses down on small bench of flat land just above the Voda. Far beyond, I saw where the valley of our sacred water passed around the huge bend of steep peaks. Awa only knew what lay farther than that. Someday soon I would be a full man; then I would go and find out. Mata told me I had thirteen snows. One more year? The time was in the hands of Awa.<br /> Tarn got closer. He was wearing what we all wore: scraped sheepskin shirt and pants, with the long shirt gathered by a belt of sheep-leather. His deerskin shoes were better than mine, I thought: they had fine, tall leggings tied almost to his knees. His bow was slung across his skinny shoulders, his quiver on his back. His cap was missing, though we usually wore sheep-skin fleece caps to ward off the chill. Tarn looked a little different from most of us. His skin was a shade darker, his hair darker. Mine was light, my skin light. Mata’s hair was a dark reddish color, though now it was streaked with grey. People whispered, “Tarn’s father was an Oddar, maybe a Danu or worse!” Some thought Tarn’s mother, Belit, was a witch. She was feared, but also respected. She could heal the sick sometimes, with the grace of Awa, she said. Tarn had never had a father around. It was also whispered that Belit initiated young boys into the arts of Awa, the Seductress. My own manhood was with me now, and I secretly desired her as did all men. She was thin and large breasted. Unlike other people, she feared not to speak to anyone. There was no one in the valley who had more authority with Awa. So, if she was a witch, all the better to do whatever she said. If you crossed her, she could strike you down with the vaskan or a curse.<br /> “Stek, “said a breathless Tarn, “Oddars!”<br /> “Oddars,” I said. I’d heard this so many times. “Where are the Oddars this time?”<br /> “On the other side of the pass of the Voda. Ruuk saw them; he wouldn’t lie!”<br /> “Ruuk likes to drink a lot of bir, “I laughed. Ruuk was a hunter who was famous for his story telling. He had, to hear him tell it, been down to place where the Voda met the endless water. He tended to fall asleep around the fire after too much bir and story-telling. People liked Ruuk’s tales, but didn’t believe everything he said. He said, for example, that where the Voda met the endless water, there were houses that have wings like great birds and flew by magic on the waters as fast as the wind! He also said that there Oddar villages of many houses where the people were more numerous than all the sheep of the valley!<br /> There were many stories told. There were shape-changing men that lived in deep caves, who came out and drank the blood of people while they slept. That there were flying horses and Goddesses with hair made of snakes, and ogres that threw stones the size of houses, and mostly, there were tales about how Oddars came and stole the young if they weren’t good. The Oddars ate the young.<br /> I didn’t know what lay beyond the mountains, and the stories scared me, but Mata said, offer to Awa, and you’ll be safe. Still, wulfen prowled the night and sometime there were screams and sounds in the dark that made us draw the door- log tight after nightfall. I wondered about the endless waters and the flying houses, but put it out of my mind. I had sheep to care for.<br /> Tran and I looked up the valley, to where great Carn-Ta rose. To left of the peak was a notch in the mountain wall. The pass. I had been up to it. Beyond were other mountains as far as could be seen, with jagged white peaks and deep valleys between, dark with forests and shadows. Tarn and I had boasted to each other that we would cross the pass and hunt the Oddars when were we men. Soon.<br /> “Let’s go look.” I said.<br /> Tarn looked at me as if I was crazy. But he said, “When?’<br /> “We could take the nets and say we were fishing. Tomorrow.”<br /> Tarn looked scared. He seemed to shrink even smaller and thinner than he was. I knew his time of manhood had come, but right now he looked like a child.<br /> “Are you a rabbit, little Tarn? “ I teased.<br /> “No. Tomorrow”<br /> Suddenly, a rockslide came crashing down the far side of the valley. At first a small crackling slide, within a few seconds it had ripped away a side of the mountains. Boulders the size of houses thundered down, almost reaching the Voda. An omen. For good or bad, I couldn’t tell.<br /><br /> Late in the day, after I had brought the sheep down, I looked up the mountainside and saw a large hare hopping along at the top of the nearby meadow. Everyone knows hares are messengers of the hill –gods, and are dangerous if they cross your path, but I knew they were also good to stew. I grabbed my bow and quiver and slipped up the slope quietly. Mata liked me to bring a rabbit, a marmot, or any game to the pot. It was getting to be dusk, blue shadows lengthening from the peaks to the west, and I would have to be quick to avoid the wulfen. I made my way behind a line of large boulders. I could see the hare moving up ahead through the grass. A line of pines was a little higher up, and once the hare entered there, my chance to take it would be gone. <br /> I am a very good shot with the bow, the best of all the boys, and better than many of the men. I took my first deer when I was only nine snows. Mata liked to say I must really be Arta the Huntress’s son for my prowess. I only know that I can see the trace of a shot, the rise and fall of the arrow, howt hw wind will carry or blunt or slip it sidways, in my mind before I let the arrow fly. I can feel it in my fingertips as they hold the arrow to the string. My bow always felt alive in my hands. It was made of ash-wood, my arrows fire –hardened and tipped with sharp flint. I had complete confidence I would soon take the hare. It seemed almost to be making it easy for me. It stopped and looked in my direction a few times while it nibbled on greenery. I froze and then stealthily crept closer after every pause. I thought I saw the hare look in my eyes once, but then it just put its head down and ate. The light was in my favor, being behind me. I was just a shadow. By some trick of the clouds and peaks, a last ray of sunlight lit up the rabbit as it reached the edge of the meadow, just near the trees. I slowly drew back my arrow and raised the bow into position to let fly. I loosed the arrow, but just at that very moment, the hare darted into the woods. I must have hit it, I thought; I was only a few lengths from it when I shot, and I rarely missed. I eased forward, looking for tell-tale blood or the dying hare itself, but found nothing at the edge of the forest. There was a game trail there; the branches were parted just enough in the thick weave of pine boughs to allow deer or wulfen to pass. The sunlight had flickered out and darkness was rising up from the floor of the valley. From far below I could hear the tumbling, rushing voice of the Voda. I knelt down and crawled into the opening in the branches. It was quite dark under the trees.<br /> I waited, with the deadly stillness of the hunter, in silence for a few moments. Nothing; no sound. Then there was something up ahead in the dark. A tiny rustling sound, like rabbit feet on pine needles. I crept my way further into the woods. There was no sign of the hare, and I couldn’t find my arrow either, which irritated me; it took a long time to make one properly and I never liked to lose one. I was about to give up and turn around when I heard a new sound. It was a buzzing, like a bee or a hummingbird, then the sound rose in pitch and I knew it had to human. Or Godly. The woods are no place for humans after dark. Wulfen, bears, and also ogres and witches. I began to back out very slowly on all fours, but before I had gone a few feet I saw a light, like a candle flickering through the boughs. The humming noise continued. It sounded like a woman’s voice now, but whose? I inched deeper into the glade to see.<br /> About twenty lengths in, the branches parted and I saw a clear space about ten lengths across. Why did I not know this place? I thought I knew every traila and glade. In the center was a large, rounded stone, more like an egg than any other shape. It was as big as two men. Near its top, a little ledge cut from the rock held a mutton-fat lamp, the kind we used in our house. It sputtered and flamed, its twisting light casting fantastic shadows on the circling trees and the grey stone. On top of the stone was the Goddess, Awa, in her normal form as a round-breasted, wide-hipped mother. The lamp underlit her face and made it seem as if she was dancing a slow, undulous dance. The humming seemed to be in concert with these magical movements. The sound was coming from a woman seated crossed legged before the stone. From the silhouette I knew at once it was Tarns mother, Belit. She had her back to me.<br /> She sat still and did not turn around, though I accidentally snapped a twig underfoot and revealed my presence. She said, in a very quiet voice, “The hare and the hart, all the beasts of the wild are in the service of the Goddess. Awa knows us all and takes us to her bosom. Come here, Stek, and sit beside me. I would show you something.”<br /> I awkwardly sat on the pine needles next to the beautiful Belit. She calmly turned her face towards mine and looked deeply into my eyes. She had twenty-five snows, twice what I had. Women had children at thirteen snows here. Her eyes flashed in the light of the flickering lamp. Her long dark hair fell in mysterious waves over her shoulders and her breasts, which were bare. She took my hands in hers.<br /> “Look into my eyes and I will give the gift of the Goddesses’ mystery. It is time for you, since you are going to leave us forever very soon, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, more like a quiet statement. I didn’t say a word. I was nervous and yet excited to be with her under these trees. I had never allowed myself to look directly on her face before. All was perfect proportion: her eyebrows were curved like strung bows and dark, her nose long and elegant, her lips full as vanna-grapes. She smiled at me looked deep in my eyes. Hers were blue, the rare color of witchcraft and the vaskan, the evil eye. I mustn’t cross her. I didn’t want to anyway. I was under her spell. I felt myself falling, but she squeezed my hands tighter and whispered, “Don’t be afraid. Let your eyes see.”<br /> At first I saw only her face and flickering lamp shadows. Then something passed by like a great- antlered buck, only this was no deer, but something larger and more pwoewrful. Then there came more and more, and I found myself riding in a company of a huge herd of thse animals, alongside of men geared for war. Ahead rose a line of high walls. Arrows whistled past us. The walls were beyond my knowledge and the people I had never seen before. Some were dying, blood was everywhere. A loud voice called, “To the Archer!” It seemed a thousand voices raised the cheer. Suddenly, there was a strangely noble looking warrior rising up in front of me, about to strike with a heavy axe. I threw my arms up to ward off the blow, but my arms were caught by Belit’s soft, white arms, which pulled me close to her. I could feel her breasts touch me, her lips on my lips. My manhood was inflamed. She took me into her and I exploded in a fury of ecstasy.<br /> Then she was up and she whispered. “You must go. Your time is now. Awa has a destiny for you far from this valley. Belit has seen it. She will be part of you as you travel. Flee now! You are no longer safe here, and you have nothing that binds you!” <br /> She blew out the lamp and fled from the glade with the grace of a deer and everything fell silent again. What had happened? My manhood still throbbed with the first encounter with the Goddess.<br /> Then I heard a scream far down the hill and instantly knew. It was Mata. The Oddars! I ran from the trees, bow drawn, my arrow ready. By the time I got to the house, the roof thatch was almost all burned. I shouted for Mata, but got no answer. Then I found her, legs wide apart, her belly slit wide open. Blood poured across the ground, dark in the light of the flames.<br /> I cried out, “Oh Mata! Mata! Mata!”<br /> Down below in the village other fires were going up. I looked back at her. She was with Awa now. I turned and ran in the half darkness of the thatch fires down the paths I knew so well. I reached the village. People were screaming and fighting the Oddars. There were many of the strangers, in bear-skin caps and wielding flint axes. I wheeled about, trying to make sense of it all. Where was Tarn, Shutta and the other villagers?<br /> Suddenly a huge shape rose up next to me and my mind went dark.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />3 Slave Boy<br /><br /> “ Aro!” shouted the short man as he hit me in the back of my shoulder with his heavy stick. I think I cried out, I know it hurt. He raised his stick to hit me again, but the Big Man held up his hand and said something. I threw up again into the water.<br /> Awa! Awa! How could this be happening? The ship, the winged floating house that the tale-teller Ruuk had drunkenly spoken of, slid up and down on the rolling water. Not far, across the waves, tall cliffs rose out of the sea. Even taller blue and brown mountains floated in the haze beyond. I was sick from the motion of the waves as I had hardly ever been sick before. My throat was dry, but they gave me little water. I tried scooping water from the sea, but it tasted like blood. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand what had happened at all, except I knew I had been captured by the Oddars, who forced marched me and twenty others far down the Voda’s valley to where another river, bigger than the Voda, flowed. There was a big village there, many times bigger than ours. The Oddars had drunk much bir while we sat miserably on the ground, bound hand to foot in a line. Liia, Shutta, Tarn, seven young boys, the rest women of all ages. Belit was not among them. It all seemed like a dream to me, a nightmare after a wonder. Where had our hunters been? I saw Mata lying in the blood behind our house. Her image stayed in my mind. It lay over everything, like a mist through which I saw the new lands we passed through.<br /> In a few days and after many long marches along a pathway at the river’s edge strewn with jagged stones, we reached the endless water, the sea. Waves washed against the rocky shore. Large white and grey birds circled overhead, calling out in loud, strident voices. I saw that Ruuk was right. Floating houses with giant wings flew across the water. They were called brakka – ships. Others, called jana, boats, were smaller, and men moved them with long poles, carved flat on one end. There was a much larger village where the big river met the endless water. It had tall houses that were white like snow, but the snow didn’t melt, even though the air was very hot away from our mountains. The houses were on top of each other up the side of a hill. I couldn’t count them; I had no numbers that great. Maybe there were more that ten hands, maybe twenty hands worth Maybe forty hands worth. It was beyond my mind’s comprehension.<br /> There was a wooden road of logs that lay over the water to which the brakka were tied. The small waves of the endless water made the coarse sand hiss as the water withdrew before falling forward again. In spite of my misery I was drawn to the rising and falling water. It was like a spell being cast. Waves rose up out of the endless water in long lines, over and over without ceasing. Several brakka were there. We were to be loaded onto the biggest. It had a great wing of animal skins sewn together that hung from a tall pole at the center of the ship. Long poles stuck out from along the sides. Its master was a man who looked different from us and from the Oddars. Truly, the Oddars looked just like our hunters did, clad in skins and sheepskin and bearskin hats. But these ship men wore long shirts of cloth and blue sewn caps. They had big noses and long, dark beards. Many had tattoos on their faces. Some carried spears tipped with something other than flint. It was shiny and greenish, the hard metal called cypros: copper. The men were very mean to us. They beat us with leather whips and heavy sticks and only fed us a thin gruel. They sat on the shore, where a man had a place that sold bir and the red drink called vanna. The more they drank, the more we worried we would get beaten. But also, we wondered if maybe we could escape. I thought we could. Tarn sat miserably on the rocks and sand, shaking like a terrified rabbit.<br /> But though the slavers got very drunk, they kept one or two watching us the whole time, armed with spears. We were tied together close, hand to foot, with sheep-gut. Even scratching one of our endless bug bites made the next slave groan and have to move. Unless we could somehow cut the cord, we were stuck. The air was stifling and windless for a whole day, and we lay strung out on the shore, exhausted and hopeless. <br /> Finally, the slavers roused themselves from the bir stand and loaded us onto the ship. One of the men, a red-bearded giant, shoved the ship into the deeper water and then climbed on board as the brakka rocked in the waves. I couldn’t believe the feeling of the moving brakka. Despite myself, I felt a little excited to be on the flying house. They loosened our bonds after we had made deeper water and put us on hard benches. We had to pull the heavy poles, called oars. The Big Man showed us how. It was hard, and the women had a difficult time with it. Even though our people are strong and believe in Awa, many of them cried and whimpered. The women spit on themselves for luck and the blessing of Awa. The ship’s master, an angry looking man, short and thick, hit each of us with his stick to make us work the oars correctly. As we passed a rocky point, one of our women, a girl named Lulla, jumped suddenly over the side and began to try to reach the shore. The master smiled and picked up his bow and calmly shot her in the back. She twisted in the water in pain. I could see blood streaming red in the clear blue water. She put her arm up and then slumped forward and floated, unmoving, on the swell. The ship drew near her body, and one of the men reached out and yanked the arrow from her, and then we were past her. I watched her body bobbing on the waves, getting ever smaller. The master turned to us and said something in a harsh tone. We didn’t understand his words, but we knew what he meant: pull the oars.<br /><br /> Now, we had been on the sea for days. The swells had grown frighteningly tall and then gotten gentle again. Wind had blown and the sail had been raised. Rain had fallen and given us some coolness. The clouds had parted and the wind had died and we had rowed again until it felt that our arms would break off. Almost all of us had been sick over and over, though Tarn seemed to be holding up better than I was. At night we anchored in calm bays, under cliffs. The voice of the waves falling on the shore came again and again, as endless as the rocking of the brakka. <br /> “Aro!” yelled the man again angrily and once again he raised his stick to hit me, but this time the Big Man, the one with the red beard, stepped between the man and me, standing on one of the wooden benches, and put up his hand to ward off the blow. He glared at the stick-man and said nothing. Stick- man glared back, but lowered his cudgel; no point in fighting Big Man over a boy.<br /> I looked over at Tarn, who gave me a puzzled look. We couldn’t understand much of the language of these sea-people yet, though there were some words in common. We could guess at which ones meant row, faster, stop. They called their drink bir, as we did, and the red drink vanna. The slavers often laughed and argued among themselves. They also raped the women on the back deck at night, taking turns with the prettiest ones. But even the oldest and youngest ones had the same misery. Tarn and I and the other boys could only hang our heads as we listened to their cries of anguish and wish the bad men death. We called out silently to Awa and spat on ourselves to ward off the evil, and cursed the men under our breath, but it didn’t do any good. I began to wonder if Awa didn’t come to the sea. There must be other gods and goddesses here, ones we didn’t know. Mata used to say Awa was everywhere, but I doubted it was so. In fact, I wondered if Awa was anywhere. How could she let Mata be killed and us taken? What do did we ever do wrong to Awa? Nothing I could see. I pushed my intiation with Belit from my mind. If I had been at the house I would have been killed along with Mata. In my mind I saw myself smashing Awa down into little pieces of rock, but then thought better of it and offered a prayer. I hoped she hadn’t been watching my mind. Mata always said Awa could kill you if she wanted to. It was best to be afraid of the gods.<br /> Tarn and I could not talk, because the slavers would beat us if we did, so we communicated with our eyes. He had recovered from his early fright. One can even share a joke with just the eyes, and also one can warn another. I spent a lot of time studying the brakka: the way the wood was fitted together, the pitch between the planks, the ropes that controlled the sail, the steering sweep in the back. I was learning that Awa had given the gift of understanding how things work. Before too long I could see how the ship was sailed. After a while, I could sense changes in the sea and sky, feel the wind move in a new direction, notice the meeting places of currents clashing up in standing waves. The sea was a new place and exciting, but the stars at night were the same stars as at home, and made me wish my fate had been different and had never taken me from the high mountains.<br /> We were heading ever towards hotter lands. The mountains became brown; the hot winds blew over us from the south like fire as we worked the oars. They only fed us enough to stay alive, gave us just enough water to keep us rowing. Big Man sometimes took pity on us and poured buckets of sea water over our heads, which felt cool for moment, but left us with raspy, dry skin and salt dripping in our eyes as we sweated. The brakka leaked plenty, so our feet were wet and cool, though my skin began to rot around my toes and I spent a lot of energy in keeping them above the bilge.<br /> After almost two hands of days, we came around a long point and saw what I now know was a town, though I thought it must be the home of the gods themselves at the time. There must have been hundreds of houses. I couldn’t conceive how many people there were there. The houses were white, like the town we had left from, but here they seemed taller, with many doors and windows in them. Our houses in the mountains had been round, with no windows, or only small holes to let the smoke of the hearth out. This city covered a low hill that jutted out from the main shore. The harbor lay partly behind it, protected from the waves and wind. On the hills further inland I could see trees growing in ordered lines. I had never seen that, and I stared in wonder at the scene before us. Many boats and brakkas floated in the harbor, and there were docks all along the shore, and a long curving beach of nearly white sand. As we rowed into the harbor, I saw that on top of the hill-city there stood the largest building I had ever seen. It had many tall pillars like tree-trunks and a thick, flat, red roof.<br /> “Itak!” yelled one of the men. “Itak!” They clapped their hands and laughed.<br /> But thought the slavers rejoiced, my heart sank, and dread showed on the faces of all of us at the oars. Tarn looked at me with panic in his eyes. What would become of us now?<br /><br /> We were bound together once again as before, hand to foot, one to the next. We were now ten and seven: three women had died: Lulla by the arrow and the other two, Lit and Amat, had been killed by the men after they had been raped. There had been tense bickering among the slavers over these deaths for a few minutes. A dead slave is worth nothing. But they were just tossed off the deck into the dark sea like waste.<br /> The brakka slid in and was tied at a long dock, one of many that stuck out from the shore. Other boats were tied up or anchored. All along the beach there were small jana and brakka up on the sands or floating just in shallow water. Some had sails, some just oars. I looked at them and made a wish and prayer to Awa that Tran and I would be able to steal a boat and make our way to freedom. A long line of houses faced the curving bay. In front of the houses stood and walked so many people; it hurt my mind. There were piles of stuffs: cloth, wood, things that I knew not by name. The Master and the others dragged us from the brakka onto the dock and ordered us to sit. We collapsed, like dogs after a mountain crossing. The dock seemed to still move like the waves and I felt myself getting sick, but used my mind to ward off the act of throwing up. Tarn and I exchanged looks. Men had gathered on the dock to see the new slaves. The master talked with them: one, then the other. They nodded and argued. Finally, they made us rise and led us off along the shore. <br /> Beyond the first line of houses, there was an open space surrounded by many houses and stalls. The number of people was too much to understand. They passed by, short, dark men, tall men with blue eyes, men wearing skins as we did, men and women wearing long cloths of all colors wrapped around their bodies. Some had hats of straw, some covered their faces with cloaks, and some wrapped cloth in a circle around their heads. Handfuls sat dully with their backs against the walls of the white houses while others walked by quickly, intent on whatever they were doing. There were piles of food stuffs in the open space. I realized it was a barter place. Red fruits, grapes, rabbits, fish of all colors and sizes, and strange dark sea creatures with long coiled legs covered in circles hung from stings off poles. There were women everywhere, most with their faces covered with dark cloth, but some with long hair and shiny objects in their tresses and small blue stones and the clear stone that’s yellow, that sometime has bees trapped inside it like magic, hanging from their ears. One young dark-eyed beauty smiled at me. She reminded me of Belit. I felt her gaze in my manhood.<br /> As we passed through the place, I caught the eye of one older, worn-out man sitting in the dirt, who wore skins in the manner of our mountain- folk. He looked at me hard with his deep-set eyes. A scar ran across one side of his face. He stood up slowly, as if it hurt him to stand, and made his way through the throng of people. As he passed me, I felt a tug on my waistband. I didn’t know what had happened. I looked back the man. He was melting back into the crowd. He held up one finger to his lips and then disappeared around a corner.<br /> We were taken to a mud and stone wall next to a bir shop and made to sit with goats and pigs and other animals in a rough corner pen made of bales of hay and other stuffs. We were nothing more than animals to these men. The sun was setting and it was clear that they were going to get drunk. They set two of their number on us as guards, though they also drank too and were soon glaze-eyed. There were women at the place, who drank with the men. It didn’t take too much thinking to see what was going on. At dusk, the marketplace emptied of daytime people. But the ones who stayed were there for bir and vanna and for animal concerns. The slavers coupled with the vanna-women right in the corners of the streets, grunting like swine. <br /> We drew together out of fear, for around the bir shop in the plaza there were many rough men, all very drunk and getting drunker. Fights kept breaking out. Not long after dark, one man was killed by two others. His body lay in the dust, blood from a neck slash pooling under him, his dead eyes lit by the torches outside the bir shop. Tarn managed to get near me and we whispered.<br /> “We must get free!”<br /> “I know, this isn’t good.” I said quietly. But we were bound, and the men, while drunk, were still outside the tavern, milling about.<br /> Wait, I felt something at my side. I remembered the man in the market tugging at my waistband. I felt with my free hand. It was a hard object, stuck in the folds of my long shirt. I drew it out. It was a flint blade, a finger- length long. A gift from Awa! I signaled Tarn to silence. I worked the sharp flint on my wrist cord and cut it, and then freed my ankle. I crept to Tarn and did the same for him. The others were sleeping. Should I cut them free? I wanted to, but I knew we would have no chance of escape as a group. Tarn and I might be able to get past the guards once they passed out from drink.<br /> As Tarn and I crouched in the darkness, unsure of what to do next, one of the guards got up and stumbled off into the shop, from which came loud shouts and laughter. The other guard seemed to be dozing. I nodded my head in his direction. Tarn saw him, too. Tarn and I crept slowly to the edge of the bales. A pig snorted loudly as it was inconvenienced by our passing, but we crawled between the bales and were free. I knew where the beach was, just past the row of houses beyond the shop. Not a hundred lengths. <br /> Just as we began to sneak away, there stood in front of us the unmistakable shadow of the Big Man. He looked at us stupidly. He was plainly very drunk. He swayed on his huge legs. I could see sweat dripping down his face and arms in the torchlight.<br /> “Warto gah! Where you go, my rabbits?” He spat. He grabbed at Tarn and caught him by the hair with his big hand. At the same time, he pulled down his pants with his other hand. I held the flint tight in my hand, jumped right at him, and swiped at his manhood. I got lucky. Blood spurted out all over my arm, but I didn’t drop the flint.<br /> The big man let out a horrible yell, loosed his hold on Tarn, and tried to spin around and grab me. He looked down at the dark blood pouring down his leg.<br /> “Run!” I yelled.<br /> We ran across the deserted marketplace. There no light, but away from the shop, the stars were enough. I heard the dead-raising roaring curses of the Big Man and the voices of others shouting and laughing. But in a moment we were on the beach. I strained to see the shape of a boat with a sail. There was one just offshore. We waded out to our waists and clambered onboard. I could hear shouting now. They were coming! <br /> The anchor! “I hissed at Tarn. I found an oar and began pushing the boat away from the beach, digging the oar into the sandy bottom. The jana slid away across the water until the oar didn’t touch the bottom. I almost lost my grip on the long oar, but held on.<br /> “Quick! I’ll row. Use the steering sweep, Not too much- just straight out!” I whispered. <br /> I slipped the oars into the wooden locks. I pulled with my strong slave muscles. I was suddenly glad I had pulled an oar before! Back on the waterfront, men were stumbling around with torches. Lucky for us, Awa’s wind was blowing from the land, behind us. I couldn’t see any boats following. Slowly we made our way out into the open water. I kept rowing until I thought my arms would fall off. Then Tarn and I switched and he pulled as I steered our boat away around to the south beyond the point and the few flickering lights of the hill-top city. In the large, pillared building on the top, a flame burned. I watched it slowly fade in the distance over my shoulder until we were alone on the sea in the darkness, free at last, at least for now.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />4<br /><br /> Tarn and I kept rowing most of the night. There was no wind at dawn, so we angled in to the rocky shoreline and found a small cove backed with high cliffs. We pulled our boat up on the shore and slept. We woke later; clouds were building up from the north, and the wind was blowing steadily. We rowed out and set the sail and were soon going fast along the coast. It felt good to put some distance between us and the city. I had no idea whether the slavers would bother looking for us, but hoped they wouldn’t. The boat owner was probably more upset about losing his jana than the bad men would be about losing two boys. We laughed about Big Man getting his manhood sliced. <br /> “The gods guided your hand!” grinned Tarn.<br /> “Maybe they were just saving you for themselves!” I laughed back, though at once we both realized that this thought was a bad idea. It could bring the wrath of the gods on Tran and on me. I saw a cloud of fear cross Tarn’s face.<br /> “I just got lucky.” I said quietly, “thank Awa. We both spat on ourselves for luck. We needed to put this all behind us.<br /> As it began to get dark, we put in again. The clouds and wind had become heavier, and besides, we were hungry. There were large nets and long ropes as well, in the boat. We found a good spot beyond some big rocks, where the waves were spent themselves before reaching the shore. There weren’t high cliffs to protect us from people who might live along the shoreline though. We just had to take a chance. <br /> We tried throwing the nets between the rock and caught a few small spider-like creatures I later learned were called crabs, which were very funny creatures to watch and awful to eat without a fire. Then we found a spot where we could stand above a deeper pool and lowered the net down with ropes. This time we caught three fish as big as our forearms. We had no way to make a fire, so we cut them up with the flint blade. The meat was fresh and tasty.<br /> We talked about what to do next. I knew that if we headed back up the coastline on land, we would eventually come to our lands again. It would be dangerous passing through so many places of strange peoples. Also, we had nothing really to go back to. Our village had been burned. Mata was dead. We didn’t know what had happened to Belit. I said nothing of my encounter with her to Tarn. He looked sad, and I guess I was, too. But I also wanted to see what was ahead of us, down the coast. We decided to sail again in the morning.<br /> The north wind was still blowing in the morning. The clouds were thick and low. We set out and soon were flying along, racing the waves. It was exciting; we laughed and shouted to each other to steer or loose or tighten the ropes that held the sail. But the clouds were getting darker. The coast was nothing but tall cliffs here, with no coves that we could see. The waves began to crest a little and get bigger. I was working hard to keep the boat going straight on them. They started to break over us. The air got suddenly colder and the wind began to sig through the rigging lines. Tarn looked scared. My careless remark about the gods hung in my heart. The swells grew higher and higher. I tried to get closer to the cliffs, looking for anyplace we could land, but the waves crashed in great, thundering power against the rocks. It started to rain, blowing across us and making it hard to see.<br /> It looked as if ahead there was a point sticking out. I was afraid we wouldn’t clear it, but I hoped there would be calmer waters beyond. I couldn’t turn the boat much for fear that we’d be rolled over if we got sideways to the steep swells. Tarn was bailing out water with the boat’s bucket, but far more was coming in then he could bail. The boat was becoming heavy and unresponsive to the steering sweep. The point drew quickly closer. The waves were towering up as they smashed into the rocks. We slid up the face of each breaker and then back down the other side. A big wave would swamp us. Neither of us had ever swum further than across the small pools of the Voda back home.<br /> I could see that unless I could turn further to the right, we would be thrown upon the rocks, so I dug the steering sweep into the cold, gray water and hung on as hard as I could, praying to Awa. Save us! Save us! I glanced back over my shoulder and saw a huge wave rising up. It was sucking the water off the rocks right in front of us. The boat rose on the face of the giant and turned suddenly sideways and rolled. I looked up and saw the wave falling down on us. I heard Tarn cry out, “Stek!”<br /> I was thrown into black, churning water, tumbled like a stone in an avalanche. I know I came up and took a breath at one point, and then was sucked back under. That’s all I remember.<br /><br /> “He’s alive”<br /> I heard a girl’s voice. It was close by my head.<br /> “Then let’s see if he can be awakened. The animals have to be taken in.” <br /> A man’s voice. He didn’t sound unkind. Where was I? At once it hit me. Tarn! I struggled to get up, but felt greatly sick. I got to my knees and threw up, and threw up again. I looked up.<br /> A short, but strong-looking man, dressed in a long shirt and leggings, wearing a woolen cap, stood looking down at me. Next to him was a young girl, maybe just older than me. She had black hair and eyes. She wore a cloak, but her hair was uncovered. The wind blew through it. The sky was stormy.<br /> “Where’s Tarn?” I blurted out. “My friend!” I stood up. I had my shirt on, but nothing else. I turned to look at the sea. The giant waves rolled by. I was on the far side of the point, on a sandy beach beneath low cliffs. Some sheep were huddled halfway up the cliffs, tails to the wind and rain.<br /> “We don’t see your friend, I fear.” I realized that I understood the words the man was saying. His language was almost the same as mine, though it sounded strange. Tarn was gone. I ran in panic back to the rocks at the point. There was no sign of the boat, no sign of Tarn. I had lost my last connection with home.<br /> “You must come, boy, “The Man said.”U- Dan has taken your friend.”<br /> I fell to my knees on the sand. I had cursed him. The gods had wanted him for themselves after all. If I hadn’t spoken, he would still be here.<br /> “I should be dead, not Tarn!” I cried.<br /> “The gods have something else in mind for you, boy. No one could have survived rounding that point without their favor.”<br /> The kind man reached out and helped me to my feet. The two of them clucked and prodded the sheep away from the stormy shore and up a path that led up into the hills. I looked back at the shore. The eaves swept by relentlessly. Tarn was gone.<br /><br /> I had nowhere to go now, and no one to go there with. Since they treated me kindly, and then for another reason, I stayed with Pelop and his daughter Pelopa for the next two years. I tended sheep, protecting them from wulfen in the hills and driving them in for shearing. Pelop had chickens and pigs as well. Once in a while we slaughtered one for our cooking pot. There was a garden and a small grove of trees that grew a green fruit called olives, the like of which I had never tasted. It was complicated to soak and treat the olives so you could even eat them, but when the process was done they were tasty, and we used the oil from them for cooking, for lamplight, and for easing sore muscles. Here, as at home, a braid of skorda, or garlic, was hung above the door to keep away evil spirits and the vaskania, as they called the evil eye. Their language was similar to my own, though many words were different and the way Pelop and his daughter pronounced the ones I did know sounded strange at first. There was a small town at a day’s walk. I avoided it for fear of the slavers and pirates who sailed this coastline of rugged shores and rocky inlets. Pelop and Pelopa said there were witches and shape-changers. They also feared the kailkatza, little men or demons who came out at night to cause problems for people. Every big stone or old tree was bewitched; every path a danger if a hare or cat crossed it.<br /> I never did find Tarn’s body, though for some time there were pieces of the jana on the rocks. Poor Tarn; he was a good friend. But the gods are jealous, they say, and won’t let you keep anything you value more than them. But I was beginning to feel that the gods would take from even those who did put them first. Pelop called the sea-god U-Dan or sometimes Pozdeon. <br /> Pelop was a simple enough man. His wisdom he guarded like his good vanna. He worked at his sheep and land and provided for Pelopa. His wife had died years before. “From a curse,” He said. He bartered the wool in bales at the town for fish and wares. We didn’t need much, because we hunted and made and grew almost everything we needed, as was the way of people. My prowess with the bow made our stew-pot much better, Pelop said. The land was rich with game and deer. Forests came down from the mountains nearly to the sea. Clear streams tumbled in waterfalls from gaps I the rocky heights. There were trutta. Pelop taught me to fish and gather crabs and shellfish along the shore. I had never known such a good life.<br /> Pelopa and I were shy at first, but nature has a way with young things, and we soon discovered each other, first with talk, later with our natural impulses. <br /> “I’m faster than you are, “she laughed, and she took off down the rocky hill toward the sea. I chased after her, determined that she would not beat me. We were children, playing a game. She disappeared and I paused, unsure if she was up to some trick. Suddenly, she bolted from behind a big rock, her dark eyes flashing in laughter. I yelled at her, calling her a sheep, but I was hard pressed to catch up to her before she reached the thicket of scrub trees above the sea-cliff. I entered the wood stealthily, creeping forward like a nema-cat. Then she lunged out from her hiding place and grabbed me by the waist, throwing me over. I grappled with her and we rolled, holding on to each other until the game became kisses and passion and we were spent. The wind blew through the little trees. I could smell the salt of the sea on our skin. She looked at me sweetly.<br /> “I caught you, “she whispered.<br /> “No, I caught you.” I laughed. But she was right, she did catch me.<br /> I had never known this feeling. I didn’t know what to name it. We held each other until we knew Pelop would be looking for us, and then walked above the sea-cliffs back to the house on the hill. Pelop was there with the sheep. He had a pot of stew bubbling. It soon grew dark and the moon began to rise above the mountains. A wulfen howled far away up in the crags.<br /> “Wulfen, “said Pelop as he stirred the coals with a stick, “was once a god, an handsome fellow. He fell in love with Awa’s sister, Kula, the Goddess of Dreams. Though he was in love with her, he was jealous of Kula’s night voice, which was sad, terrifying, and beautiful all at once. He begged Awa to give it to him, so that he could sing things to sleep. Awa said Wulfen could have anything he wanted, said Awa, except Kula’s song. Poor Wulfen. This made him crazy with desire for her song, so he stole it. When Awa found out she changed him into a slinking beast and threw him from the home of the gods. She said, “You will have Kula’s song forever, and forever you will wander the hills singing it.”<br /> I carried my bow and sling with me in the hills. Wulfen would have my arrow if he came too close. I had already seen enough to know that there were some real things to fear, but the worst fear was in your mind.<br /> <br /> In the second year, Pelopa began to show with child. Pelop wasn’t angry. He seemed glad. I was like a good son to him. I think he saw that I would provide for him as he grew old. The little house above the sea would hear the small voice of the new child. U-Dan’s wind blew gently through the olive trees. It wasn’t an unhappy place at all.<br /> Pelop and Pelopa worshipped Awa in the same ways we had in the mountains. Our people were related, it seemed. After all, the brown Mountains beyond the coastal hills were just a southern reach of the high snow mountains. Pelop said he had been two moon’s journey further down the coast, to where the language changed, but even there they still worshipped Awa above all others, though they had other names for her. Here there was also U-Dan of the Sea, Dyaus the Thunderer, and a host of other gods and goddesses. Pelop would tell tales of the gods and heroes at night, around the fire. He had a good way with stories. I felt as if I was in the time of giants and one-eyed men and goddesses who became snakes. For Pelop, this was the world as he lived it. He made offerings every time he left to walk the hills with the sheep, every time he went to the sea to fish. I made the offering s as well, but I noticed that it didn’t make that much difference when I failed to make the sacrifices because of my youthful desire to go more quickly to my destinations. Or so I thought.<br /> I built another room of stones and turf for Pelopa and the baby and me. Around our three-room house were several olive trees. A small stream was just down the hill. The sea stretched out in the distance, the mountains rose behind. Below the house in a fold along the stream we grew barley and grapes. Pelop showed me how to brew bir and vanna, which I came to enjoy.<br /> I grew taller and stronger. I was in my ten and six year now. My beard was noticeable, though Pelop laughed at it, because my hair color was not black like his, but a lighter shade of brown. Pelopa made me fine clothes of wool and skins. I carved bows from hard wood I got in the mountains. I made flint-tipped arrows and knives of antler with flint inserts. I used my sling to hurl rocks at varmints that came near the sheep, and to take hares and birds for our pot. Sometimes I shot a hart. Killed wulfen were left for the Nightwind to scavenge.<br /> In the fall, Pelopa gave birth to a little girl, which secretly disappointed me, as like any man I wanted a son, but I had nothing but fine words for her. Pelopa named the girl Mata, which did please me.<br /> As the seasons passed I grew less fearful of the town and possibility that the Big Man with his little manhood and the others would find me, though traders were frequently there in town. Itak was only five days journey to the north. Even Pelop traveled there once or twice a year to buy copper blades and trinkets. He also liked to get away for serious vanna drinking sometimes. I didn’t grudge him that. In the local town, called Mirat, there was a temple to Awa on a hill above the center. There were only fifty houses in the village, and the temple was small, but it had a priestess. Her name was Alta. She reminded me of Belit. She was older, but still had her beauty. Like Belit, she was without fear, and therefore she was feared and respected. Simple-minded villagers made sure to give her offerings against the evil eye and other sicknesses. I knew that men lusted for her, because I did, though in secret. One day, when we were at market, we went to the temple, a square building held up four large posts made from great tree trunks, painted red. An oil lamp always burned in front of the carved stone offering bench. Alta took the offering of a jug of vanna and a young sheep. She ignored Pelop and Pelopa and the baby, which Pelopa kept swaddled, and gave me a long look that went right through me and made me a bit uncomfortable, as it caused my manhood to respond. I hoped Pelopa didn’t notice, though I am afraid she did. No one would talk badly of Alta, not even two people as close as Pelopa and I were. She couldn’t accuse a priestess of Awa of trying to seduce her man, could she? She would be afraid to for fear of the evil eye and other curses, especially on our child.<br /> Alta did curse me. For it was about that time, as Pelopa was nursing little Mata and not laying with me, that I began to feel an urge to wander. I took the sheep up in the hills and stood on the ridge tops, gazing into the haze- shrouded south, along the mountains, down the sea. There were islands at the edge of vision on a clear day, and I wondered what lay beyond. But I still brought the sheep back, and farmed the barley and grapes and cucumbers. But I also found myself thinking of Alta: the way she looked at me. I wanted her, though I knew that was wrong.<br /> Do the gods hate us, or do we bring our own ruin on ourselves? I grew slowly sullen and distant from sweet Pelopa. I stared out at the sea. Pelop could see this change.<br /> “Why don’t you go into Mirat and get yourself some vanna with the young men?” he said one night as we sat, the two of us, by the fire.” We can tend the place for a couple of days. You can take our honey in and trade for something for Pelopa and little Mata.” <br /> It was a deal. I could go and be wild and then make it good with presents on my return. Pelop went off two or the times a year all the way to Itak to do whatever he did. I knew it was drinking. I think it kept him from going crazy, ever tending to sheep. The women had their feasts of Awa, where no man was allowed to go near. It was only fair. I watched everything when he was gone. It was my turn. <br /> The next morning I made a pretext to Pelopa about trading for a copper axe. She was sitting on a rock in the sun, singing a simple song and bouncing little Mata on her knee. She smiled at me in her usually easy way. It was fine.<br /> As I walked down the trail, Pelop caught up to me and said quietly. “One thing.”<br /> “Yes?”<br /> “Be careful of the priestess. She’s a witch. Dangerous.”<br /> He looked me in the eyes and then smiled, “and don’t get so drunk you end up with a sheep!”<br /> “I’ll try not to.” I laughed.<br /> I headed to town. Behind the folds in the hills, I couldn’t see the sea and the long brakka with the red sail that was coasting in from the north. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />5<br /><br /> I was going to go and leave my honey pot with Akil the barterer and then visit with the villagers in the marketplace, for it was Ock’s day when all came to trade and talk. But I didn’t really want to go into town and see all those people right away, so I stopped above the trail on a hillock and slept for a few hours. When I woke, the sun was trending lower over the sea. I knew there would be maybe two hundred people in the town for Och’s day and night.<br /> But when I drew near, I changed my mind suddenly, or maybe it wasn’t so sudden. Maybe I was planning it all the time. I stashed my honey jar under some roots and went behind the village to where the land fell off into a ravine. The back of Awa’s temple stood atop an outcropping of rocks overlooking the defile. A little trail wound up through tumbled stones bigger than a man to a small door at the back. I stood below pondering my next move. I told myself to turn and go around to the village square, to the people, to the young men drinking vanna and bir. But I found myself climbing up the trail.<br /> I came to the door and she was there, sitting on a low stone bench just inside. She had been watching me from above, I realized. Alta said nothing, but beckoned me in. There was a room, simple, with a bed of straw covered in soft sheep skins. A house snake slithered away to its wall hole and drew itself through. She stood in front of me. She wore only a loose, dark red cloth around her waist. Her full breasts were bare. Her long, black hair framed her face. Her eyes pierced me like lightning arrows. She took my hand and placed it on her breast. At once I was enflamed. I offered no resistance.<br /> She was unlike Pelopa, or even Belit. She did things with me that I had never guessed, with her mouth, her fingers. I was fully in the moment with her, her student, her sacrifice.<br /> When it was done, she put her finger to her lips and led me to the door. Night had fallen. I went down the trail in the moonlight. I found my honey jar and walked around to the village. There was a fire in the marketplace and people, mostly men, sitting or standing. Two drummers played and an old man strummed a bazu and sang. Men danced, arms linked together, faces bright with drink. I brought the honey jar to Akil. There were big cups of bir being drunk and goatskin bladders of vanna as well. The old man sang lewd songs and songs about goddesses who ate young boys alive and songs of war and sad songs of the sea. Sea songs are always sad, because U-Dan falls in love with men and women and children and takes them to be with him in his depths. Tarn’s fate. The vanna soon made me cry for him. The old man sang the long tale of the one -eyed giant and clever King Odassu.<br /> I drank much more than I should, for I also felt a deep pain from having gone to the Goddesses’ temple. The drink made me want to go back again, though I knew this would not be wise. So I danced and sang and drank more and more. The drink made me stupid and I remember reeling around, falling down over a log.<br /> I woke slowly. Someone was prodding me in the ribs.<br /> “Wake up, you fool.” A man’s voice hissed. “The Big Man has been here!” I bolted upright. There was a shape standing over me.<br /> “Who are you? “I asked groggily. My head was pounding. But the shape was gone. I stumbled to my feet. Oh, the vanna! I was still drunk. The marketplace was empty, cold and dark. The stars were bright, but the first hint of light was outlining the mountains to the east. I panicked.<br /> The Big Man! Where? I was confused. But I quickly thought: the gods have told me this. Pelopa! The witch has cursed us!<br /> I ran across the open marketplace and found the road. I ran as fast as I could in the growing light. It was two hours walk to the house, but I would get there far faster at this speed. My heart raced with fear. The witch!<br /> I knew as soon as I saw the house. I found Pelop face down in the door. Mata’s little body was inside. Pelopa was gone. I took my bow, which was in the new room, my arrows, my sling, my flint long knife, and a wulfen spear. I pulled Pelop inside next to my child. I took a burning ember from the last of the fire and set the thatch ablaze. <br /> Then I ran back down the trail. Like a deer in full flight, but with the heart of a wulfen, I raced to the cove near the town. Too late. I saw the brakka clearing the point, sailing south. I yelled with all my fury, at them, at myself, at the gods, at Alta. My voice echoed from the cliffs, but was blown away by the sound of the sea, the screeling of gulls, and the dawn wind.<br /> I turned back and made my way around the still sleeping village until I came to rocks behind the temple. I crept up through the stones until I got to the doorway. I stepped inside, my knife in my fist. She spun to face me. In two steps I was at her. She fell on the stone floor. I walked through her blood and took Awa from her perch above the offering bench and smashed her on the floor. The stone shattered. She can’t hurt me any worse than she has done, I thought: if she kills me, then, so what? She is no goddess worthy of the name.<br /> I came out the front of the temple and descended to the village. The villagers still slept. From Akil’s stores I took vanna in skins, my honey jar, and three loaves of bread. Then I went back down to the cove and slid a jana into the waves and rowed out beyond the point. The brakka was gone. I raised the sail. <br /> A curse on the gods! My destiny would be my own from now on. The jana skipped over the wave tops and I headed south. My anger was stronger than the curse of the goddess, or the power of U-Dan, or any god or witch. I would find Pelopa and have my revenge on the Big Man.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />6<br /><br /> Perhaps I missed the brakka in a fog, or failed to find the right port in the bewildering maze of big and little islands that lay near and far from the coast. Maybe the Big Man and his minions had simply gone on past the islands to begin with. I had no way of knowing that. I frantically sailed from island to island, my heart rising and falling like the waves with the rounding of every point. Many of the islands were tall, like the tops of sunken mountains sticking out of the dark sea. Small houses and huts clung to nearly vertical cliff faces and terraces designed to catch the rain from squalls held tiny slivers of gardens high above the waves, perched like emerald bird’s nests. Some islands were bigger and had natural harbors with fair-sized fishing towns strung out on outcroppings above the blue waters. I landed at a distance when I could and stole up on each place of habitation, trying to see if the brakka lay at anchor in the clear waters of the countless coves, not wanting to be found out by my carelessness. I also stole food and drink from empty houses and from the marketplaces of ports I first determined were big enough and well visited enough to be safe for sea-travelers. I was caught in the act of spying and stealing several times and I was chased by local men and had to escape back to the jana and the safety of the open sea, or had to hide in caves or under bushes until the men had stopped searching for me. My body got cut up and bruised from the scrambles. As the weeks past I felt myself getting tougher and stronger from rowing and sailing as well. I was determined to find Pelopa if it took me forever. If she was dead, then I would have my revenge on the Big Man and her other captors. In my anger, I may have been losing my mind as well. <br /> But as will happen with all such passions, my sharp sense of urgency slowly wore out, like a raging fire dying down to smoldering embers. A sense of drying bitterness seeped in and bit by bit replaced my hope that I would find Pelopa. Awa had taken everything from me again. I swore no more allegiance to the goddess. In the future I would outwardly give offerings if circumstances required, but my heart was cold to the Goddess. I had broken her image; I had killed her witch- priestess. <br /> As I drifted on the waves at night, or slept on the sand in some lonely cove, I watched the stars above and wondered what they really were. They were said to be gods. But my solitude fueled my doubts. Maybe everything, the sky and the earth, people and their god tales, was just the way it was, and the gods, if there were such beings, didn’t bother to entwine their desires into the lives of ordinary people. People themselves were capable of cold, easy murder and shameless brutality’ even I was. There was no need for vengeful gods. But I had one unanswered question that kept coming back to me and made me feel that my mind might break down. Who was the man who had told me that the Big Man had been in Mirat? There was no one when I looked around after hearing the voice. I wondered if it had all been a dream. But if so, where did the dream come from? Then, there was also the man who had given me the flint knife when I was bound as a slave. The whole problem made my head reel, and I tried to put those thoughts away as much as I could. For I denied and turned from the gods, yet who had warned and aided me? Perhaps just other wanderers such as I was. I couldn’t say. <br /> I kept searching for Pelopa, working ever further down the rock-bound islands and the endless coast. Finally I came to where the islands stopped and I was swept by north winds for days along high cliffs. I soon ran out of the last of my stolen bits of food and the only water I could drink was the dew that dripped from my ragged sail. Only luck saved me from being drowned by a big storm or a great swell, or perhaps the cruel gods were playing with me despite my turning away from them. The coast turned to the west and had a great many dangerous points. I struggled to keep the jana heading west, towards the setting sun. Then at last I passed a great, storm-lashed point and was blown again to the south.<br /> The winds carried me across a long fetch of open sea, where the waves grew higher and longer between. Whitecaps and breakers were all around me, and I worked hard to keep the steering sweep and the sail matched to hold the jana pointed downwind. Despite my being in the middle of the wide ocean, the wind became hot and dry, and the sun burned like a pitiless fire. I was growing faint with hunger and thirst. At last a great island with a tall mountain at its center loomed up ahead. At first I thought it was a vision, but it grew steadily more real and my hopes began to rise. There was a strait between the mountainous mainland and the rugged island. The currents pulled me toward the strait, where the clashing waves made whirlpools, which sailors say to be the abodes of great, pitiless sea-snakes. Somehow I came through the strait under high waves and I made a ruinous landfall in the crashing surf of a rocky beach of the mainland. The jana broke apart as it was dashed on the rocks. I struggled ashore through the whitewater and climbed to a low dune thinly covered in saw grass. Across the wind-blown strait I could make out the white houses of a large town clustered on a point of the big island.<br /> I had managed to hold onto my bow and quiver from the broken jana, but I had nothing else but a drinking skin with a little rain water in it. I looked around. A low plain of short hills and scrub -bush land lay eastwards towards the base of tall, bare mountains. I had a moment of longing for my pine-clad home with its plentiful game and clear, cold streams. I would be lucky to find vipers or stringy rabbits to kill and eat here. I set out with my bow.<br /> I saw a line of low trees in the distance and made my way there. They were desert trees, with only handfuls of thorny, dull leaves. The stream along which they grew was dry, but here and there were tiny pools of barely drinkable water under the twisted roots. I filled my skin and drank. I looked for animal sign in the sandy ground and found the tracks of a wild pig and followed them downstream, back towards the coast. The tracks were fresh and I hoped to come in range for my arrows. I came up a low ridge. Not wanting to be seen by the boar, I crept towards the crest of the ridge on my belly, slowly drawing myself up to see the lay of the land ahead. What I saw made me instantly flatten myself as low as a lizard.<br /> Just below, down the other side of the ridge, lay a long, curving beach. On the sand were drawn six large brakkas, sails furled, oars shipped. There were hundreds of men on the shore, lying under scrub trees or standing near the brakkas. The men were of a type I never seen before, short and dark, with curled black hair and beards. They wore various tunics of leather and some had hats made of something that glistened like bone in the sun. There were spears stacked in tripods near cooking fires, and a small herd of sheep was penned amongst the trees. I pondered who they might were. Not traders; they were surely a war party. I had never seen such a large group of warriors before. I had only seen small bands of slavers and other armed men in twos or threes, never two hundred or more of such men. I quickly decided to crawl back down and quit this place as fast as I could.<br /> I slid back and turned. There was a spear point in my face. Two men loomed over me. I squinted up at them. The spearman was grinning. The other looked serious.<br />• “Tercho ba!” He barked at me. <br /> My heart raced What did he mean?<br /> “I was hunting a pig.” I stammered.<br /> “No hunt,” he said, in my language, though it sounded funny. “No hunt. Spy for Karfu’.” He pointed across the strait to the white city on the island.” Karfu’,” he spat. The spearman had stopped grinning. He looked bored, like he’d just like to run me through and take my bow and sling and be done with it.<br /> The speaker, who was taller than the spearman, with a short black beard and heavy eyebrows, kicked me in the side.<br /> “Up! get!” He ordered. I got to my feet.<br /> “We take you to Adilos”. Spearman prodded me with the butt end of his spear and made me walk ahead of them down the embankment to where the brakkas were drawn up and the cooking fires burned. I could smell meat burning. I was hungry in spite of my fear. Let me eat before I die, I thought. A crowd of rough- looking fighters gathered around as we walked into the encampment, laughing and making crude jokes at my expense. I could understand about half of what they were saying. “A new whore for us!” “You’ll get thirds, drunken fool”. Their tongue was close to mine, but with other words mixed in. They were mostly strong-looking men, with ox-skin armor and boar-hide greaves on their legs. Many carried short swords and copper-headed axes. A few were better dressed and wore helmets of boar’s tusks bound together by cordage. Many were young men, no older than my six and ten summers. But the leaders, and there seemed to be a group of them, were older, maybe in their twenties. The camp was filthy. There was offal lying about on the bedding and broken vanna jugs and beaker cups.<br /> They pushed me down the beach to where a group of men was sitting in the shade of a thorn-covered tree. The speaker kicked me from behind on the back of my knees and I fell on the sand, though I caught myself before falling on my face. I looked at the man in front of me. He was older than me, though still young. At once I saw that his eyes were strikingly grey. He was as handsome as some of the others were not. His leather tunic was tooled and padded. He wore a ring of cypros on his wrist and a long, thin bone was tied in his curly black hair.<br /> “A trach, Adilos.” Said the speaker. “He was on the ridge watching us.”<br /> “Trach?” said the man. He looked at me, sizing me up. He wasn’t a big man. He was thin and wiry, like me. “Looks like a young girl!” he flashed a smile, and the others laughed.<br /> “What are you? “He asked, sneering and grinning.” Do you spy for Karfu’”?”<br /> I didn’t know what to answer, so I said nothing.<br /> “Can you talk? Can you understand us?” he demanded.<br /> “I can talk.” I said.<br /> “The trach talks!” he said loudly. Once again, the others laughed. “Tell me, trach, before I let my men have their way with you, what were you doing watching us?”<br /> I didn’t have an answer other than the truth.” I’m hungry. I was hunting a pig. I saw its tracks coming this way.”<br /> The man nodded at one of his men, who turned away and then returned with a bloody bone with only scraps of charred meat left at the ends. The leader pointed at the ground and the man threw the bone into the sand in front of me.<br /> “There’s your pig. Eat!”<br /> Despite their rude laughter, I reached down and grabbed the bone and sucked on one end. I hadn’t eaten for four days. The man raised one eyebrow.<br /> “I believe this young girl is hungry, that’s for certain. Have you got a name, trach?”<br /> I spat out some uneatable bit of gristle. For some reason I heard myself saying, “Pelop”.<br /> “Where do you come from, Pelop the hungry?” The man was relaxed, but he fingered his copper knife with his right hand.<br /> “The wind blew me across the open water.” I motioned with my head towards the strait.” I don’t know where I am.”<br /> The man, who was plainly Adilos, reached back with his left arm and took hold of a staff that was leaning against the scrub tree. He swiftly pulled himself to his feet, like a deer standing. I put down the bone and slowly stood up. I was about one length of a man in front of him. The others drew back a little, forming a circle. Adilos grinned at me.<br /> “Can you fight, Pelop the Hungry?” He suddenly feinted with the staff. I flinched. The men laughed. <br /> Adilos began to circle to his right, playing with the staff in his hands. I mirrored him. I knew I had no chance of escape. If he wanted me to die, I would die. One of the men leaned on a spear. He was a length to my right. I darted my hand down into the sand and threw a handful in the man’s face and grabbed his spear as he put his hands up. Some of the men clapped and shouted. Some tightened their hands on their weapons. Adilos grinned even wider and held up one hand to stay them from killing me.<br /> “Pelop the trickster! Well done, little sea-gypsy! “ <br /> He swung his staff around swiftly and tried to hit my knee, then reversed and jabbed the other end at my face. I jumped up and parried the staff with the butt-end of the spear. He came again, knocking the spear almost out of my hands, but I held on and hit back as hard as I could. My spear broke in the middle and I was left with the butt, which now had a jagged tip. He swung the staff again, cracking me below my elbow. I grimaced and drew my hand back in spite of myself and I lost what remained of the spear. It skittered away across the sand. <br /> Adilos stood tall and tossed his staff to one of the men. He reached to his belt and drew out his fine copper knife. He calmly handed it to the same man. Then he advanced on me, his arms hanging loosely. I bent forward and matched his footwork. But he sprang at me and caught me with an elbow to the ribs and then a quick punch to my face. I staggered back, blood pouring from my mouth and nose. I threw myself at him, trying to grapple with him, but he slipped my attack and hit me on the side of my head. I fell and rolled in the sand. I was stunned by the force of the blow. I tried to get up. The world spun. Somehow I got up again and ran at him wildly. I grabbed him around the waist and he fell down, but now he was laughing. I was exhausted, dizzy with lack of food, done in. He pushed me off and stood up. I was down. He reached out with his right hand.<br /> “Get up, Pelop the sea-gypsy.” He said. I looked at him. He was proud, but not evil, I thought. “Wash yourself off in the sea and come and eat. You can fight for us.”<br /> I took his offered hand and he pulled me to my feet. I stumbled past the men, one of whom clapped me on the back. I made it to the water and fell in. The coolness revived me. I washed the blood from my face. I had a couple of good scratches, but otherwise I was unharmed. I came back up the beach before Adilos, who was once again sitting in the shade. He motioned me to sit down.<br /> “Well, you can’t fight with a spear or your fists!” He laughed,” What can you do?”<br /> “I can shoot a bow.”<br /> “Show me.” He said.<br /> Speaker brought my bow and quiver. Adilos squinted down the beach. “Hit the prow on the last ship. Stick it.”<br /> I stood and looked. It was about thirty man lengths, or a hundred and eighty foot lengths. The prow was a curving upright about a foot and half wide. It was a difficult but not impossible shot. I had made that good of a shot before, but I could easily miss it, too. I nocked an arrow and gauged the distance, felt the breeze – not too much wind. I raised the bow high as I drew the arrow back, the curving wood making little groaning sounds with the strain. It was a heavy bow, very strong. I lowered it until I had the range. Then, trusting to my eye and instincts, I let the arrow fly. It arched slightly as it sped down the beach toward the brakka. By great luck, it stuck in the upright, though a little lower than I thought I had aimed. A handful of men cheered the shot with appreciation.<br /> Adilos, who had stood too, put his hand on my shoulder and said, in a not unfriendly voice, “I think you have a new name, sea-gypsy: Pelop the Archer.”<br /><br /> I put my hand over the side of the brakka and washed the blood of the sacrifice to Are’the Striker, the God of War, off my hand and arm. The oars dipped and the rowers strained. The old blind seer had slit the throat of the goat and run his knife under its belly, pulling out and feeling the entrails even as the animal still kicked and jerked. The seer mumbled in some strange language and finally said,” There will be victory… and death.”<br /> “To Victory!” Shouted the warriors assembled on the beach in their battle gear. In the dancing light of the fires they shone like red ants. They clashed spear against shields and raised their fists. No one had shouted “to Death”.<br /> The white walls of Karfu’ dimly showed in the predawn light as the ships slid into the cove. Though we had sworn a strict vow of silence until the fighting started, the sounds of oars being shipped, hulls grinding into the beach, the clatter of weapons, and splashes of men jumping into the water was undeniable. There were forty or more fighters in each brakka, so well over two hundred warriors followed Adilos up from the water’s edge to the town on the heights above. There was a shout or two from the houses, which quickly became a clamor of alarm. A young boy named Lukos, shorter and scrawnier than me, had been at my elbow since before we shipped out across the strait in the mid night.<br /> “Will we be alright? “He had asked nervously as we rowed in the darkness on the gentle swell. The sea-water dripped down the oars when we raised them forward to set our stroke.<br /> “Yes, if we don’t get a Karfu’ arrow in our throats!” I laughed. <br /> What was the point? We had no choice. We were following Adilos to war with Karfu’. I had no objection. Pelopa was gone. I was far from a home I didn’t want to return to. Why not war? Adilos was a good leader, brave and smart, it seemed. Lukos and I were to stay back, anyway, with our bows, and guard the brakkas, along with the other boys. It seemed to me that many of the warriors weren’t much older than I was. But I was new. I wanted to see how it was done. I wanted to see what took place. I couldn’t fully understand why Adilos was attacking Karfu’. It was over some slight to his town of Hedra back across the strait, near the bare mountains. The King of Karfu’ had taken his sister or she had run away with him.<br /><br /><br /> Adilos, standing on a shore-rock, his bearded face silhouetted by the dawn, raised his fist and yelled, “Dyaus and Are’!”<br /> A roar from two hundred throats went up and our warriors charged up the slope into the town. Adilos ran first. He waved a long sword of metal, the like of which I hadn’t seen before. It was tin -copper, bronze: harder than copper. I had seen knives of it, but never a sword. He wore his boar’s teeth helmet and a double layered ox-hide shield. He ran on bare feet, as did we all. His manhood hung free, as was the custom for all fighters, but his chest was protected by a breastplate of hide.<br /> The first men reached the houses. Scattered Karfu’ans emerged from their doorways, swinging clubs and short swords. A few surprised people, just woken from their sleep by the shouts of our fighters, threw rocks and crockery from the rooftops. Animals stampeded, trying to get away; pigs and chickens ran underfoot, dogs howled and cringed in the corners where they were trapped. One of our men grabbed a torch and soon thatch and wood was blazing here and there, and amidst the thick smoke and roaring flames the cries and shouts of the dying and the killers was like hundreds of wulfen howling and as brittle as hundreds of crows scolding. I could hear cries of fear and the rallying shouts of the Karfu’an fighters. There was dull clatters of stones as walls collapsed in dusty heaps. Our warriors ran in groups up the narrow alleys between the houses, killing and looting and burning. I saw women and men and even children falling from cruel blows. Warriors came back to the brakka carrying young girls. They dragged them by their hair and bound them, and threw them into the brakkas. There was blood on everyone. Women and children were screaming; death screams, screams of hatred and despair, and cries for mercy. But it was not an hour for mercy.<br /> Soon much of Karfu’, which must have had at least two thousand people in it, was burning in the light of the breaking day. A column of dark smoke rose in the air like the cloud of a smoking thunder- mountain. People seeking refuge ran from the alleys out into the fields. Some were cut down by archers. The commander of my brakka, Kurgan, a lout with arms the size of legs, shouted at me to shoot at the refugees. I saw one figure running through a small field on the slope above the brakka carrying something and I took dead aim. I was about to release my arrow when I realized it was a woman carrying a baby. I changed my angle and shot the arrow pointlessly up into the smoky ruins of Karfu’.<br /> It was now two hours past dawn, and our men were falling back to the brakkas, weighted down with loot and slaves. Adilos came out last, still shouting at the defenders of the citadel and brandishing his sword. His right-hand man, Orestus, had a woman slung over his broad shoulder. She was clawing at him, trying to escape, but he was far too strong for her. He grinned and made his way to the brakka. Then there was a loud cry from the main street of the town. Adilos looked back to see a big group of Karfu’ans coming out together, armed with spears, bows, pitchforks, sticks, and slings. These were the fighting men of the town, awake and armed. They were coming out to take care of us.<br /> They had us seriously outnumbered. Our whole plan had been based on surprise. Now we’d have to fight a hero’s battle to determine the winner, or try to flee with our booty in the brakkas. But there wasn’t going to be time to do that before they fell on us. They came down the slope below the houses towards the beach. Two of the brakkas were pushed out into the water, but the other four were stuck on the sand, for the tide was falling, and our men had no choice but to turn and face the warriors of Karfu’. <br /> Then I saw him, their leader: a foot taller than the rest, his red beard already stained darker with blood. The Big Man. There could be no mistake. He was striding at the head of the Karfu’ans, carrying a long war-club. On his head he wore a ram’s skull fashioned into a helmet. Its long curving horns only made his huge size that much more formidable.<br /> Orestus dumped the girl on the beach. Adilos stepped out and pointed his word at her neck and shouted, “If you want her, come and get her. She has been spoiled by you scum. She is now worth nothing to the Adilonai! Still she is my sister, and you owe me for her honor. You owe me your filthy blood, pirate!”<br /> “I will take her!” yelled the Big Man in his deep voice. He sounded like he meant it. Men drew back in spite of their battle lust. The Big Man came forward steadily, as if he was walking down to pick up a bucket or a jug of vanna. Adilos stepped up between the Big Man and the girl.<br /> “Oh, you will challenge the Big Man?” said the hulking giant. He spat with contempt at the feet of Adilos.” Then you will die.”<br /> All the fighters on both sides stopped and watched. This was the Hero’s Battle. On its outcome the day would turn. <br /> Adilos held his sword in his right hand and dragged a piece of sea-net in his left. The Big Man swung his club loosely, a grin breaking slowly across his face. The two circled each other, feinting and jabbing, but not making much contact. Adilos was crouched down to make a smaller target for the Big Man, who made a big one. The heat of the day was rising and the sweaty fighters moved in the shimmering heat waves so that almost looked like they were floating above the sand. The girl moaned and lay dazed between them. Suddenly, the Big Man took a huge step and slammed his club on the girl’s head, caving it in. Blood and bones splattered up on both the big man and Adilos, who stood stock still for a moment, looking at the dead body of his sister.<br /> That stunned moment was all the Big Man needed. He jumped across her body and hit Adilos in the head with a full swing of his club. Adilos’ head twisted sideways and he fell, his boar’s teeth helmet shattering into shiny little pieces that flew through the air, and he put not even a hand out to arrest his fall. The Big Man stood tall, arched his back backwards and let out a long, loud war- whoop. He pulled off his rams-head helmet and held it up above his head. Then he turned to our warriors, who had begun backing down toward the ships.<br /> But I had moved up to the front rank of our men. I now stepped out and shouted at the Big Man, <br /> “Where is my woman? You took her from Mirat.”<br /> The Big Man squinted at me. He was acting as if he might not remember her. Then he smiled most foully and said, “Yes, from Mirat. The pretty one with the baby? A present from the priestess. Her skin was soft. She squealed like a little pig when we had her!” He laughed. His men rattled their shields with their spears and laughed and shouted, “Kill him! Death to the Adilonai!”<br /> “Well you didn’t have her, because I cut your cock off!” I yelled. Silence fell for moment, then a ripple of murmurs of surprise. The Big Man stared at me, turning red. <br /> ” I am your slave-boy, “I said, “Remember me? The priestess is dead. Now die with my memory the last one in your head. I send you to the Land of Shades!”<br /> I quickly raised my bow and shot an arrow deep into his chest. He looked up in disbelief, but my rapid second arrow stuck him in the gut. I walked calmly toward him as he stood there, stunned, and put a third arrow through his right eye. His hands clutched at the arrow, but the damage was done. Then I shot the next arrow into the throat of the closest man in the ranks behind, and then another. Now our men cheered and charged at the Karfu’ans. They raced past me and the Big Man. He still stood, stupidly, blood pouring from his face. I picked up Adilos’ sword and strode to him and plunged it into his heart and drew it back as hard as I could. Blood gushed from the sword-wound. He staggered a step and fell face down on the sand. I looked down at him for a long moment. Then the noise of battle roused me and I looked up the hill to see the sack of the town of Karfu’ in full swing. For a moment I fought back a wave of dizziness. Then my head cleared and I ran up the blood-soaked slope, screaming a war-scream, holding the Adilos’ bronze sword above my head. Vengeance on Pelopa’s killers and all those who had harbored them! I let the blood-mad spirit of Are’ the Striker flow in my veins and knew nothing for the rest of the day.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />7<br /><br /> The sword of Adilos finally broke beyond repair at the battle for Kerkryon, on the west shore of the Land of Great Tirana. I had a new sword by then, anyway, a fine one inlaid with traces of silver and lapis near the hilt. I took Adilos’ sword shards and buried them alongside the body of Lukos, who fell at the walls of Kerkryon. He had still been afraid after all these three years of war and glory. I also tossed in an arrow. He had been a fine archer, but, as they say, the Gods grew weary of him, or jealous.<br /> The Gods had favored me, maybe the more so because I turned away from them. Oh, I made outward obeisance; the others wouldn’t understand if I didn’t attend to the sacrifices and the like, the omen reading, the feeding of the house snake, the Mysteries, the seers and oracles. But inwardly, I scorned the divine ones and those that blindly believed in their unseen guidance. I thought, with all I’ve seen, if there are Gods, then they’re very poor ones, no better than the worst humans. I spat at their stone and wooden images and even pissed on them when no one was looking or when I’d had too much vanna. I felt no fear. I would die. I could see that all people die. I would even tempt death to take me. What did it matter in a world where the good died just as easily as the bad? <br /> I had soaked myself in war. At twenty summers, my blood ran hot for it. And I was very good at it. I was the best shot with the bow in all of the western lands around Hedra, and I had the ability to lead men into battle and back out again. I was growing bigger and stronger, though I would never be a big man. My muscles grew long and powerful and fast. I could fight with the sword and the staff, and wrestle men almost twice my weight. I found I could drink hard and take many women as well. They came seeking me, as I realized they had since I was a boy. Now they were the rightful spoils of the warrior. Men even offered their wives to me to curry favor as I became a leader.<br /> Kurgan reckoned himself the King of Hedra after Adilos’ death, but no one liked him, and soon a faction promoted me to the throne of the city.<br /> Hedra sat on the foothills of the rugged line of mountains across from the strait of the now burned-out city of Karfu’. I had found Pelopa there after all, her throat cut, a lifeless body in the shell of a burned-out house. She had died in our attack. I had killed the Big Man, but she had died anyway. Her death made me turn even farther away from the path of peace and simplicity, and reinforced my feelings of rootlessness. Hedra was poor and bare like the hills around it, though the river Eson did bring water enough for olives and some grapes and other crops. The sea at least was rich and villages aligned with our city brought their catch to market. It was a town like many others, with one main difference. Because, as the stories said, it was founded by the hero Aeon, it had walls around it. Aeon was the one, if he ever really existed, who brought the worship of Dyaus and Perunas to these lands, throwing under Awa, here called Afroda, to a secondary role. But the women, those witches who had been Awa’s servants since the dawn times, still worshipped Afroda anyway. The warlike men of Hedra and the other towns had had to build walls to keep each other from sacking their towns. There were over a thousand people in and around Hedra. We had a band of two hundred warriors, which could be brought up to four hundred if we were invaded.<br /> We tried to forestall invasion by attacking our neighbors first. This also allowed us to take their goods and women. It was fair; they did the same to us when they could. The cycle of war was endless, only slowing down during rains and harvest times. I had no desire to be a farmer or fisherman, so I was glad there was war. Within two years I was the King of Hedra and its undisputed war-leader.<br /> We raided ever farther afield for loot and security. Our neighbors hated us and sometimes formed alliances to attack us. But we had our allies too: the tribes and towns were full of untrustworthy men who could be bribed or forced through kidnapping to come along on our expeditions.<br /> We made an alliance with the King of Itakoi, an island to the south. They had a strong force, with many brakkas and bowmen. The western plain of Great Tirina, the land of King Herakul, was like a ripe orchard ready for harvest by our combined forces. The Itakoian king Menes and I brought our men in many brakkas to the west of Great Tirina and plundered. We sacked the small city of Kerkryon, where Lukos fell. But no force of Tirina appeared to challenge us. I was disappointed. We all knew of the strength of Herakul, the consort of Hera the Goddess of Tirina. It was said that the goddess was still strong there and that the king was born at the beginning of the year and grew to full manhood by summer and then died at the mid-winter short day.<br /> Of course, I didn’t believe that. No one could do that; it was just the kind of thing that simple people believed, like stories of blood-drinkers and flying horses. But King Herakul was reputed to be a very strong man and a smart King. We camped along the beach of the western shore and drank vanna and roasted some of Herakul’s sheep and laughed.<br /> They attacked at dawn, when most of our men were sleeping off a good vanna sickness. Herakul came before them. He was huge, bigger even than the Big Man had been. He strode among our warriors, killing them without mercy with a bronze-edged war-club. We were heavily outnumbered and had no choice but to flee to our ships. But as we pulled away from the beach, He waded out into the waves and shouted to me.<br /> “Come try our hospitality, Pelop the Pirate. I will serve you your head on a roasting stick with your cock stuffed in your mouth!” he roared his laughter. Even I had to laugh. He was most impressive. I called back.<br /> “Set the table and pour the vanna! I’ll be there. Alive!”<br /><br /> Outside of making war and sleeping with any woman I wanted, I soon found the job of King to be both dull and bothersome. I had to sit listening to the complaints of the people of Hedra and the lands around it every day. Disputes over missing goats, a daughter’s lost honor, broken agreements to buy olive oil; it was as endless as it was boring. I longed to be out in the hills hunting or leading a raid. Even the women were tiresome. Each captured beauty tried to become my favorite at the expense of another, until I just wanted to be left alone by all them. They were like cats fighting. My male companions were somewhat better, though I saw the same infighting over who was closest to the King. I worried about a few of them as well. An arrow can easily find the wrong target during battle, and many young men wanted to be King. I also had to consider the older men who had been passed over by the people who chose me as their leader. I was an outsider, an upstart. One man, Andros, who had over thirty summers, had a hard time looking me in the eye. I knew he wished to plot against me. I had to watch my back.<br /> I was given the King’s house, which was the finest building I’d ever lived in. It overlooked the valley of the Eson. A nearby waterfall made music for me. The house had stone pavements and stout columns painted red and blue. In the biggest of its four rooms was the Throne of the Adanoi; just a stone bench, really, with scenes of hunting birds and lions and the like painted on the walls of the room. The temple of Dyaus, where the men made sacrifice, was just across an open space. Further up the slope of the hill above the last of the whitewashed houses was the old temple of Afroda, who I still called Awa to myself. <br /> All around the town, but especially near the place of the king and the temples, were walls made of large boulders. Simple people said the big stones had been put there by a race of one-eyed giants. It would seem that that it would take a giant to move such boulders. But when a stone rolled away or a section of wall fell from a ground shaker, the men used stout tree limbs and ropes to move the rock bit by bit into position until the wall was repaired again. I found that even the biggest stones could be manhandled. It was my responsibility to see that the walls were strong and whole. They were two man-heights tall and a few defenders could hold off attackers by throwing rocks or shooting arrows. Even women and children could throw things effectively. Wall and temple repair was a never ending and backbreaking task. I only wanted to hunt and fight, or take my rest with women and vanna. Fixing walls didn’t bore me, but it seemed brutish and harder than it should be. Also, the walls could have been stronger, with fewer gaps and loose stones.<br /> So I thought about how I might make it easier and quicker. I have to admit I couldn’t come up with anything other than the rolling logs, logs we could put under the boulders either as skids or rollers. It was Fineus, a potter, who gave me a clue of how to improve our building technique.<br /> Fineus was from the east, from a land called Hattu. He made cups and vessels on a wheel. It had a round rock at its base, with a column a hand’s width thick and two feet tall, held upright by carved wooden braces. On the top of the column was another round plate of stone. Fineus mounded his clay on the plate as he spun the wheel with his feet. It turned easily, and he cleverly held his hands and raised the clay into perfect bowls and beakers. As he finished each one, he ran a string through its base and lifted it off and put it to dry. In this way he was able to make ten bowls in the time it took other potters to fashion one. Before long, all the potters had copied his wheel.<br /> As we were trying to move some fresh cut stones from a quarry to the section of wall that had to be replaced, I suddenly had the notion to take Fineus’s wheel and turn it on its side. I had my woodwrights try to do that. It took a few failed attempts, but at last we made a big flat table with two wheels made of big, joined tree-rounds mounted on a stout column, or, as Fineus called it, an axle. Braces that held the axle were fixed on the underside of the table, and a long tongue was attached at the front. We could tilt the whole thing over and slide a big rock on it, then slowly right it until it balanced, then haul and push it across the ground. Our first attempts broke and slid downhill, but each time we made one that worked better than before, and we soon found that we could move very heavy stones with much less effort than we ever had. Daedlos was the one who thought of harnessing horses to the tongue. We had to clear flat road areas at the base of our walls to roll this wheeled beast on. We found it to be so much easier to move the stones on our new cart that we built a long new section of high walls around the north side of the town. It was stronger than any of the giant-built wall. Other carts were constructed and people began hauling all manner of goods. I had to order the clearing of roads. Slowly, Hedra became the finest town anyone had heard of this side of Tirina.<br /> But for all the building and warring, I was growing restless. One afternoon, when my mid-numbing daily audience was at last concluded, I wearily walked up above the acropolis and sat on a rock. The sun was lowering over the sea across the plain. I could see the mountain of Karfu’, now my subject land, across the strait, above the haze, many miles away. I could hear the lowing of cattle as they were driven in and voices of mothers calling to their children, the rattle of daily life. The west wind blew through the thorn bushes that clung to the dry outcropping. Below was the temple of Afroda.<br /> A solitary figure moved in the shadows of the house walls below: a woman coming to Afroda’s temple. I did not recognize her at first. She plainly had the attributes of a woman the King would seek out, or who would seek out the King herself. She was slender without being too thin; her curves were guessed by the garment’s being pressed by the wind. Her hair was long, and strangely light. Almost everyone in these parts had dark hair. My reddish blonde was an exception. Hers was the color of dark honey. I wondered who she was. I slipped from my perch and made my way behind some boulders to sneak a closer look. I peered out from behind a rock not thirty feet away and watched her as she climbed the few rough-hewn steps to Afroda’s sanctuary. It was Vila, Adilos’ youngest sister. But I had not noted her beauty before. I guessed that her family had been secluding her. I had seen her three years before, when Adilos was killed, but she had only been a girl then. Now she was a woman. <br /> She walked up the steps and into the temple. Just before she entered, she turned to look into the setting sun. The light framed her face. She was perfect, like an image of Afroda herself, with arched eyebrows and large eyes, full lips and a gentle, curved nose. Her hair was drawn back partially with ties away from her face. I was struck in an odd way. I was excited. But I bade my time and waited until she entered the temple to leave my hiding place and make my way back to the King’s house.<br /> The following weeks were full of the king’s business, hearing disputes, building roads, and digging wells. I did my best, driven mostly by the fact that for some reason, I seemed to be somewhat more able to get things done than others were, despite the fact that my own skills were never as good as those of the people I directed. They needed me to bring them all together. But I found my mind wandering back to the vision of Vila Adilonika. I pondered her family. It was plain they didn’t want me to be King. They thought Adilos’s younger brother Aktyon should have been chosen. But the truth was, Aktyon was not the warrior his brother had been. He liked to drink too much, and was a bit of a coward in battle, though he had a knack for showing up right as a successful fight had taken place. He wasn’t a bad man, just not a natural leader, though there were some who fancied him above me. His older cousin Brukos was a dangerous man with ambition to be King as well. I saw Brukos as another one to be watched and taken seriously.<br /> But I wanted to find a way to bring Vila into my sphere. The Adilonai were a proud family and Vila was not just some wench I could couch. She was royal blood. If they had been keeping her away from me, who did they have in mind for her? Perhaps her own cousin Brukos. I invited the leading families to a feast in Dyaus’ honor. I had killed a large boar and there was food and vanna a-plenty. I made the royal invitation complete on each family, so we ended up with every squalling brat and tottering crone and dribbling old man of fifty winters eating me out of larder, but it was worth the trouble, for Vila did come. She was indeed as divine up close as she had been at a distance, but she was surrounded by her mother and sisters and cousins. A man could not just speak to a single woman in public. He had to engage the whole family. I was as charming as my role required me to be, that is to say, I was somewhat haughty and let them know who was king while also complimenting the older women of the house. But I shot Vila looks and I caught her looking at me more tha once as well. I know her mother and aunts were like hunting falcons and probably didn’t miss a thing.<br /> The next week was the summer’s high day feast, a day and night of merry-making for all. There was much vanna and bir and music and dancing. I had to sit on a throne and watch the revelry for too many hours. I had too much vanna as well, but instead of engendering a youthful wildness, this time it made me tired and irritable. At dusk, even as the people were becoming wilder, I slipped way up to my perch above the town. I wrapped myself in a dull grey cloak and became one with the stones. The sounds of the feasting came up, but the more I listened to it, the more it faded, until I was tuned to the wind and calls of the night hawks and owls hunting in the fields and across the dry ridgelines. I was watching one hawk float silently, riding the breeze, in place above a ravine, intent on its unseen prey below in the rocks. I was startled when a woman’s voice spoke almost in a whisper.<br /> “It will wait until the vole makes a mistake and then fall on it.”<br /> I looked up and my heart involuntarily jumped when I saw Vila standing a few feet away. Without speaking, I indicated she could sit with me on my rock. She settled own on her feet like a crouching lioness, relaxed, but still on her toes. She had dusky blur-grey eyes. I thought of Mata, my childhood mother. I had the thought that Vila was of our northern race, but could not see how that might be so. I turned back to the hawk, which was dipping and rising few inches on the wind. I nodded at the great bird.<br /> “Like one who waits for a sign of weakness in a King.”<br /> “Surely a King is not like a vole?” She asked, laughter in her voice, and yet a challenge as well.<br /> “A lion is soon turned to mouse by a palace and a daily council. His mane falls out from having to listen to foolish disputes and he shrinks ever smaller until a cat could carry him off. The hawks are watching; that I know!”<br /> The hawk now dove and then rose with flaps of his majestic wings, but with empty talons.<br /> “Missed.’ She said.<br /> “Mice are smart; they are aware of the hawks.”<br /> “And how does a mouse king run his country?” she said.<br /> I thought for a moment. This was smarter conversation than I usually got from my subjects. Most didn’t openly question the King. “A mouse does the best he can, even though he’d rather be drinking vanna with the other mice or raising little mice, or off fighting mouse wars. Perhaps one day the mouse grows tired of the hawks and runs away.”<br /> “Running away would make sense for a mouse, but not for a King. Perhaps you don’t want to be a King?”<br /> I stood up to ease a leg cramp. “I am a King by accident. I was a slave from the far north. I have lost everything I have ever had. Now I have more than I ever dreamed of. The gods have shown me favor, but I don’t know why.”<br /> “You have invented carts, “She said. “Not many Kings can say that. Someday you’ll be called Pelop the WheelMaker, King of the Western Lands!” She laughed a little and I did too. We were at ease with each other.<br /> I asked her, “Why has your family hidden you from me?”<br /> “Why does the mouse hide its children from the hawk? You are known to take many women, but none for a queen.”<br /> “Slave women, captives, and wives who are bored. None have been worthy.”<br /> She rose gracefully to her feet and took a step away.” Perhaps you will find one who is.”<br /> “Perhaps I shall, “I said. Then she was gone into the twilight.<br /><br /><br /><br />8<br /><br /> I suppose the people said that Hedra was favored by the Gods in those days. With the alliance of Manas of Itakoi, we defeated the last of the warring towns and tribes to our east and south farther than the great lake and the hills and valleys that beyond and a relative peace settled over the lands. Without the interruption of war, farms flourished and people cleared new fields and traded olives, figs, sheep, and cows, and all the other goods and services that peaceful people thrive on. The wheeled cart was soon used by all, and roads for carts stretched out in every direction. I was pleased by the prosperity, though I noted that the important families expanded their share of the plenty, while the less fortunate by birth had a harder struggle. When I occasionally voiced this thought among the members of my council, all members of strong families, I got the sage advice that a rising tide lifts all brakka. Spoken like brakka owners, I thought.<br /> My own wealth increased as well. By my twenty-first summer I had many sheep and goats and some fine cows and bulls. As King, I had three servants and three farmhands, all young boys with no other family for one reason or another. Spyros, a real adventurous rascal of fourteen summers, was my secret spy. He and the other hands, who he ordered around as if he was a little warlord, managed to watch the flocks and everyone else’s business as well. I had to cuff him occasionally for stealing from other farms, though I didn’t mind so much if I knew they were lifting the grapes of Brukos’ or Andros’ places.<br /> These two men had grown rich in the last three years. They were both outwardly affable, but with the smiles of mask-dancers, and I knew they plotted against me in secret. Andros, like old Kurgan, thought he should have been king, not me. Brukos felt the same way, but in addition he begrudged me Vila. Both men were overly harsh with their servants and workers. They kept female slaves in misery. I knew because the girls confided in Spyros my thief. My boys were not slaves; I set them free. I had no desire for anyone to feel the lash from a bad owner. I had felt it myself. That left me free to honestly just yell at free men and reason with them sometimes, too.<br /> Vila’s family, the Adilonai, came to accept that I was king despite Brukos’s jealousy. They also had to accept the fact that their headstrong daughter Vila had fallen in love with me, and I with her. She was unlike the other women I had known. Little Pelopa had been sweet, but subservient, mild. Other women were wild or seductive or meek. Vila was my equal, and she let me know it. She wasn’t impressed by my warrior deeds or my kingship. She looked at what I did and let me know if she thought it was smart or not. If she thought I was making the wrong choice, she told so and she told me why.<br /> “If you run a road past Andros’ farm to the market, he will be beholden to you, “She said one day, as we were walking on the hills behind the town.” Right now, Lykos’s land prevents Brukos from rolling his carts all the way there. Lycos wishes to marry my cousin Artema.” She needed say nothing else. She was crafty, but also wise. Brukos could be tamed by his own self-interest.<br /> “And what price do I ask of Brukos?” I asked her, laughing a little.<br /> She smiled back, “Nothing. That will drive him crazy!” We both laughed. <br /> I felt her tummy with my right hand. “He’s kicking.” I said<br /> “You mean she.” She laughed again. The price had been steep: a hundred sheep and a grove of olive trees to her father for her hand. I gave the sheep, but the olive trees were within my own groves, accessible only through the King’s property. We smashed the vanna beakers, sacrificed a young bull to Dyaus and a lamb to Afroda, and she moved in to the King’s house. Before long, I needed to add two rooms; one with a little stream for washing running through an opening in the wall, water diverted from the Eson’s pools. We waited for our baby now.<br /> “He will be strong and clever like his father, her mother said. Vila’s mother had taken the coughing sickness and looked like an old woman at forty summers. Vila had the rarest of people in her family, an aunt who was beyond sixty years! She was as withered as a dry fig, but she still cackled at a bawdy joke and liked her vanna!<br /> Little Aon was ready to be born in the last of the harvest days. Vila began to get pains and we called the midwife and the priestess of Afroda. Vila still felt a kinship with the goddess. I was anxious enough that I secretly offered a prayer myself. I wasn’t allowed to be there, so I took my bow and went up into the hills. Spyros would run and call me with the news. I wandered up the ridge behind the town until I came to my favorite rock outcropping. This is where I came to ponder the King’s decisions. There were clouds floating in from the straits, tall, climbing clouds, with dark patches underneath and streamers of rain hanging down, the kind that doesn’t reach the ground. They looked like jellyfish of a higher sea. A steady wind blew, as it so often did from the west. It whistled through the bushes. The silvery leaves of the olive trees below shimmered in the breeze. I let my heart try to settle. This was childbirth, not battle, after all. <br /> “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ said a man’s voice.<br /> I spun around, my hand on my dagger. An old man stood two lengths away. He was thin, almost skin and bones; his skin was weathered like leather. He leaned on a rough staff. He put up his left hand and shook it. “No, no. “He said softly, “There is nothing to fear from me.”<br /> His eyes were sad. He sat slowly down on a rock, moving as if it hurt him. I looked at him. He looked somehow familiar, though he was not of this kingdom; I knew all my subjects.<br /> “Who are you, my friend? “ I asked. There was a hint of suspicion in my voice, I guess.<br /> “No need for that, “he said, “I’m just an old man on a long journey.”<br /> “A journey from where, to where?” I asked again.<br /> “He looked up at me.” It’s the same journey we are all on. We don’t know where from and we don’t know where to. We think we get somewhere, but the journey never stops at all, really. One thing is for certain. I am almost done with mine.”<br /> A crazy old wanderer. “ And where will mine take me?”<br /> “No one can say. I have found that the unexpected has always been at my back. Mind the boars of Ikiros.”<br /> I looked at him. The boars of Ikiros? Suddenly, I saw in my mind’s eye the man who gave me the flint blade when I was a captive slave boy. Was this the same man? A wave of dizziness came welling up from my gut.<br /> A small voice called from far below. I turned around and saw Spyros running up the hillside. “King Pelop! King Pelop! It’s a boy!” <br /> I raised my hand above my head and cried out, “Spyros!” he looked up, his smile gleaming. I turned back to the old man, my own grin from ear to ear no doubt, but he was gone. I looked beyond the boulders, but he was nowhere in sight at all. Vanished. I shook my head as if to wake from a dream. Then I shouted at Spyros again and ran down the hill to see my new son.<br /> <br /><br /> “Hold on to my hands, little Aon, “I said. My boy tried his wobbly legs and fell. Vila and I laughed. It eased her heart to see her son at ten months learning to walk. Vila’s mother had just died, being old at forty-one years.<br /> “He’ll be shooting your famous bow soon, “she said. Aon’s little curls fell across his brow. He had his mother’s eyes and my hair. Vila put her hand across mine. Our fingers wrapped together. I felt a strong bond between us. Many men had wives who came to them as part of a deal between families, but this was different. Vila and I were of like minds. Our son looked like both of us. I could see the light of life in his eyes, the desire to walk into the world. I remembered my own childhood with Mata and it made me cry. But Vila took me in her arms and whispered, “don’t cry, little Stek.” I had told her my old name. <br /> But Kings don’t cry; they rule as best they can. Though prosperity and peace had been on the lands for two years, I could sense trouble trying to crawl from its rat holes. There were disputes between the strong families about boundaries and rights to groves and springs. Petty nonsense, but both men and women can be roused to hatred over the slightest hurt. Once again I felt that Brukos and his friends were plotting against me.<br /> “He meets with Andros and the three families, “said Spyros, who I had made my head of household. He had grown into a tall young man, only a year younger than I had been when I first became a soldier. I had taught him how to shoot the bow and fight with a sword. His gang of orphans, like skinny Janos and fat Mumo, had been trained bit by bit as well. They could patrol and keep watch over the land. But Andros and Brukos had young, hot-headed men who worked for him, too, as did other strong families. There were fights sometimes between them. I kept the peace, but tension was rising. I could count on the Adilonai and several other families, but there were many I could not trust.<br /> I often climbed above the town to my ridge top, half seeking the old man. I never saw him, though. It was as if he had been only a dream. A dream or a visit from a god? I didn’t have the answer. Becoming a father had changed me a little. I had softened my conviction that the gods were false. Vila believed in Afroda. It was hard not to want to think that Fortune smiled on us. I forgot how fickle a God Fortune can be.<br /> A messenger came in the fall from Manas in Itakoi. King Herakul had raided in the east with his army, as near as the town of Trona, a week’s march away. This was too close for comfort. Trona was on the main trade route to the east, at the base of a mountain pass. The messenger said that Herakul had a small band, only fifteen sextas - ninety men. I didn’t want to fight this time. We had trade enough with the north and by sea, why make war with Great Tirina? But the council shouted me down. The goods of several families went east by that road. Among the louder voices were those of Brukos’ allies, the Ellonai and Severai. I couldn’t back away from the fight without looking weak. If Brukos could build that notion into the people, I was through. My life and my family’s life would be danger if I was ousted. Being a king is like being the biggest, meanest dog in the pack; let them turn on you, and they’ll kill you in a second.<br /> So I formed a war-party. I made sure Brukos and Andros were with me, because if one must keep one’s friends close, one must keep one’s enemies closer, but I made up the troop of more of my allies than theirs. Like me, they couldn’t refuse though the circumstances were less to their liking than they might have wished. I left Spyros in charge of the house, and brought Vila’s family there as well, with their men and servants. We would strike out and try to damage Herakul’s band and come quickly back. I had no illusions about killing Herakul himself, but I thought we could discourage his incursion into our lands by a show of force. I secretly thought there was a deal to be made. Trona was not that important to Hedra and it was a long way from Tirina. I didn’t guess the real reason for the incursion. <br /> I was almost ready with the preparations for war. My new armor had been sewn and my bow and arrows were tied and strung. I was sitting on the front steps of our palace when I saw Janos, one of my field-boys, running up the hill as fast as he could go. I stood. He came and threw himself down at my feet, grasping my ankles. My face froze in fear.<br /> “Let them kill me! “He cried, his young boy’s tears breaking out of his dusty eyes. “Let them take me!”<br /> “I reached down and pulled him off my feet and stood him up. I felt my anger rising.<br /> “What have you done?” I said as calmly as I could.<br /> “Spyros…he...”<br /> “Out with it!” I said.<br /> “We were caught near the vineyards of Andros. They came up on us. Spyros killed Antygus. It was in self-defense!”<br /> My heart reeled. Spyros! I had counted on him to keep order while I was gone on this raid.” Is he still alive?”<br /> “He’s hiding in the barns below.” Our barns, three rings of low rock wall with a thatched roof. Not much of a castle. I picked up my bronze long-sword and called Vila to bring the family in. I set seven guards around our house and told Janos to stay put as well. I whistled for my two hunting dogs, a pair of fierce wolf-killers. I set off down the trail to our barns. <br /> There was a crowd of more than twenty men, all armed with one weapon or another. They were from Andros clan and the related families. There would be no fighting this one out. I approached and Andros confronted me harshly.<br /> “Your boy has killed one of mine – on my property. You know the law!” Andros’ fury at the breaking of the code was justified, but it only thinly disguised his deeper hatred of me. He would be most pleased to cut the throat of my head boy. I held up my hand to signal a moment of no action. Andros stepped back. This was the time-honored way of letting one last chance have its possibility. I looked through the thatch and saw the wild eyes of my favorite, Spyros, for whom I had such high hopes. I took a deep breath and tried to not let it show to the others. I called him out.<br /> “Come, Spyros, we must reason out the charges. You know the law.”<br /> Spyros slowly came out from the barn, his eyes darting in every direction, gauging the crowd. We were completely outnumbered.<br /> “Tell us what happened.” I said. I stood apart from him, between him and Andros’ men. I held my sword in my right hand. There was a commotion. A group of four men came up carrying the dead boy’s body on a makeshift littler of poles. One arm hung down. It was streaked with blood. Andros’ veins were standing our on his forehead; his face was red, his fists clenched.<br /> “Did you do this?” I said to Spyros?” he nodded but didn’t look down. “And why?” I asked<br /> “We were going down the road. Antygus attacked me when I wasn’t looking.”<br /> “Liar!” yelled Andros, “You were in my vineyards, stealing grapes!”<br /> Spyros looked up.” I was in the road. Antygus and three others were laying in wait for us to pass. Then they came at us. He had a spear. I defended myself with my knife.” Spyros looked straight ahead. I judged him to be telling the truth.<br /> I Turned to Andros and the others. “If a man is attacked he has the right to defend himself.” I said clearly.<br /> “It doesn’t matter, “hissed Andros.” Blood for blood. He or one of yours must die!”<br /> “And then we will have to kill another of your clan, and so on.” I said.<br /> “It is so, that is the Juna.” Said Andros. I moved over closer to Spyros. He was like my brother, my younger brother I’d never had. But his killing of Tranos, no matter how justifiable, would bring endless bloodshed on Hedra. <br /> He looked at me, unflinching. I grabbed his hair and with one quick move, raised my arm and slit his throat. His mouth opened in surprise but he kept looking at me, and I held his gaze until his eyes went dark. I held his head as his body went limp and his warm blood poured all over my hand and arms and splattered on my legs. He became lifeless in a few seconds and I let his body down gently and closed his open eyes with my bloody fingers. I crouched next to him, silently wishing his soul a safe journey to the next world, whatever that was. Then I straightened up and looked Andros in the eyes.<br /> “I have ended it by my hands. There will be no further blood-feud.”<br /> Andros stared back darkly. I had robbed him of his blood letting. But this was the law of the Juna; a hard law for Spyros and for me. I was sure he had only acted in self-defense.<br /> We burned Spyros’ body at dusk at the top of the ridge. His ashes mixed with the sea=breeze blowing off the distant straits. I sat there by myself long after the embers had died down, letting dust pour through my fingers.<br /> <br /><br /> Vila brought our son Aon to me as I stood in the road before the new city gates. The men were lined up behind me in a long row. I was dressed in my leather armor and I wore a boar-hide helmet with copper plates sewn into it and a horse-hair plume that she had tied for me. My horse, who I called Tarn, after my childhood friend, pawed the dusty ground. I would ride this time, as befitted a warrior king. I carried my bow and my new sword of bronze. My men shouted and stamped their spear-butts into the dust. Brukos and Andros and their men stood in the back of the column. They couldn’t face me, but they had their obligation to the war-party under the Juna.<br /> “For Hedra! “ I shouted. “For Pelop!” They answered. I took Aon in my arms and kissed his little forehead. I looked into Vila’s eyes.” For Vila and Aon, “I whispered. I held back a welling up. Vila stayed steady and noble. She took back Aon in one arm, then Janos handed her a cup of vanna from our vines. She poured it on the ground.<br /> “For Dyaus and Afroda!” She called, and the men raised a war-cry. Clouds had been building and there was a rolling of thunder in the mountains to the east. The men cheered this hopeful omen. I wasn’t as confident in it. My heart was heavy with Spyros’ death, my anger with Andros, and my parting from my family.<br /> As the column crested the low pass behind the town, I turned in my saddle and looked back. The town looked safe, with its high walls. The plains below were peaceful, silvery groves stretching out towards the sea.<br /> “I’ll be back soon enough, “I said to myself. <br /> At the last moment, I looked down the ridgeline. There in the distance was perhaps a figure silhouetted by the rocks. The figure seemed to raise an arm. A shepard? The old man? It might have been a bush blowing in the west wind. I couldn’t be sure. A shudder ran down my spine, but I turned away and accepted a skin of vanna from Trakles, a trusted old soldier friend. Others of our party were singing a bawdy marching song about a soldier’s manhood and the enemy’s mouth. <br /> “Off to war! “He said merrily. “It’s been too long!”<br /> “Too long. “I answered. I drank a deep pull, praying to the vanna-god to help me match his spirit.<br /><br /> We sent young boys running ahead to spy out the land. I wished I had Spyros with me, as the fastest runners were of Brukos’ group. I felt secure enough in Manas’ messenger’s information and didn’t look for Herakul to be this far west. We traversed three ranges, and on the third night we camped along the bank of a small stream that flowed from a pass that lay before us. I judged it to be safe. We’d enter the pass at dawn, or find a way around it. Trona still lay at least two marches ahead. I did order no fires, though this caused some to grumble. There’s always grumbling among soldiers, especially when they haven’t been on a campaign for a while. There was vanna a -plenty in skins; too much, I thought. I went among the troop, ordering them to slow down. I set pickets at some distance.<br /> I had a hard time sleeping. I kept hearing noises in the darkness. Around the midnight time, I crept out to one of the pickets, a young lad named Patreas. He was from a trading family and I knew he had been as far as Trona the year before. He was sitting on the hillside hidden in some bushes. I sat with him and we watched the shooting stars. I asked him about his family, made small talk. What did he know about this pass?<br /> “It’s famous for its big boars,” He said.” It’s called Ikiros.”<br /> I stood up quickly, and then I bent over him and hissed,” be on guard!” I hurried back to the camp and made my weapons ready. The old man! The Boars of Ikiros!<br /> Still, nothing happened. After a few hours, I must have dozed in spite of myself. I woke to harsh cries of war.<br /> “They’re upon us! Dyaus!<br /> “Perunas!” <br /> Arrows were whistling through the dawn air and there was a clatter of war-club and arrows on leather armor and copper helmets and cries of men, angry yells. The attackers were swarming out from the pass and from the slopes above where Brukos’s men had been picketed. I jumped up, pulling on my helmet. I knocked an arrow and shot a man running right at me, then another, but here were far too many. We were soon overrun, overpowered, and captured at spear point by a force four times the size of ours. I ordered the men to throw down their weapons and shouted out as loud as I could.<br /> “Your King! I will fight your king! I am Pelop, King of Hedra!”<br /> A huge, slightly older man came out of the trees. He was powerfully built and quite tall, almost a giant out of a child’s night–tale. He had a long, reddish beard and carried a war-club. His face was ruddy and his eyes blue, contrasting with his dark hair. He wore a helmet made of a giant boar’s head, complete with tusks that curved down along his sideburns. He grinned at me and said, “Ah, my King Pelop. Good to see you again.”<br /> “Fight me, Herakul!” I snapped.<br /> “Not at this time. You are going to be my guest, my friend. We can reason out our disputes. Or not!” He leaned back and roared his laughter. His men brought ropes and tied my men hand to neck to ankle. He said, “you ride with me, young king.” He had my horse Tarn on a lead. But I refused and insisted on being bound along with my troop. <br /> “Suit yourself, “Shrugged Herakul. He wheeled on his enormous horse and rode off, leaving us surrounded by spearmen. There was no point in resisting. Maybe we would be ransomed. That must be his plan, I thought. I looked around. Brukos and Andros were not among the captured. Treachery! I vowed that if they hadn’t been killed in the attack, I would do the job myself as soon as I was free.<br /> Herakul marched us hard in a southeasterly direction. At nightfall, we camped. My men’s bonds were somewhat loosened, though not removed. There was roast pig and vanna enough. Herakul untied me and had me eat with him<br /> At first I ate in sullen silence, but Herakul was a gregarious giant. He kept talking about Great Tirina and his herds and the walls of the citadel, and Queen Hera, who was replaced every year by a younger woman, who took the name of each the three mother goddesses in turn. The King ruled in name only for three years, until all three goddesses had been his consorts. The Queen and the powerful witch-priestesses of Afroda, Atena, and Hera held the real power. At the end of his reign, he was to be sacrificed. Herakul therefore wasn’t this man’s real name; he was “The” Herakul.<br /> “Scryonas, that’s me,” he mumbled through a mouthful of boar leg, “from Alkyon in the far north, the land of the Thrakioi and Makedoi. The witches think they’ll kill me, but I’m too strong!” he laughed and quaffed vanna from the wine-skin.<br /> But I had seen what priestesses could do. In my own childhood land men had disappeared forever and people whispered fearfully of the wild women, who became possessed of the goddess under the feasts of the changing moons and killed, some even said ate, men in their bloody frenzy. New men always filled the gap left by the ones who vanished. Some undoubtedly ran away, but others were just gone. The witches had great power. Their three goddesses made one eternal goddess: young seductress Afroda, Wise mother and Queen Atena, and old wise witch and crone, Hera. The oldest priestesses were only thirty summers or a little more. People didn’t live long enough to get truly old. Vila’s shriveled old vanna- drinking aunt was a rare exception.<br /> “How many moons do you have left.” I asked.<br /> “One!” he laughed even louder and slapped his knee with his greasy hand. He wiped his hand on his tunic. His beard was streaked with boar- fat and flecks of dirt and twigs. He wasn’t very king-like, but he was bigger and stronger than anyone else. He leaned forward across the edge of the fire and looked at me as if to share a secret.<br /> “In Copper-land there is no Goddess. I hear than men rule without fear. They have wings on their backs and walk above the sea! And beyond, in the land of the Faeroes, there are temples that look like mountains. They reach the sky!” <br /> He grinned conspiratorially.” I am going there. You should come with me!”<br /> He was drunk enough that I thought I might later make my escape, but I said, “The Faeroes? Never heard of them.” Of course, I had heard the tales, but didn’t give them much credence. I also heard of fire-breathing snakes and Gods that rode across the sky on golden horses. All the nonsense of simpletons, though I’d never say that aloud for fear of being killed by the same mob of simpletons. There’s nothing more dangerous than a believer, or a group of them- even worse. <br /> “They’re living gods who walk the earth. Their kingdom is beyond the sea, but they’re real. Our traders go there. The lands are all sand, and there are horses that have great humps on their backs and live without water!” he slapped his thigh again and let out an enormous belch.<br /> I egged him on, pretending to drink more vanna, while actually not sipping at all, letting him drain the wine-skin by himself. The more he drank, the more he carried on. Still, there was something direct and straight forward about Herakul, or Scryonas, or whatever his real name was. Under other circumstances, I would have drunk with him and enjoyed it. For now, all I could think about was how to get me and my men free of him.<br /> “I’ll go with you,” I said, “But I have to go home and prepare my kingdom for my absence. There are those I can’t trust.” The truth wasn’t a bad tack. I figured he was so drunk, he might even agree and set us free. But to my surprise, he sat up straight and looked me in the ye,<br /> “That’s true enough, “he said. I wondered what he knew. ” But you have to come to Tirina and see the walls first. Then we’ll talk.”<br /> Herakul then rose and directed his men to tighten the bonds and tied me too.<br /> “I may be a fool, “he said, “But I’m no idiot. Sorry.”<br /> With that he retired. I lay down next to the fire, hog-tied and useless. Tomorrow was another day.<br /><br />9 <br /><br /> Herakul marched us for two days southward until we reached the sea. There we embarked on his fleet of many brakkas and crossed the straits to Great Tirina, the Kingdom of Herakul and his queen, Hera. We marched once more for two days along the coastline around a range of high mountains and then turned south again. We passed through a rugged landscape and went past the walled citadel of a place called Mykena, on top of a rocky hill, and came out at last into the wide plain of Argo. Flat farm land stretched out before us. We tramped down a long road that ran straight through the fields, many of which were lined with cleared stones. The high hills around the plain were tipped here and there with forts and other rock-built structures. Farms and villages were numerous; I could see why Tirina was so powerful: there were many people from which to raise an army. Some of the farms were large. They put our farms to shame. At the far end of the plain we came before the famous walls of Tirina itself. In the distance beyond the citadel was a solitary tall, round hill and the glistening shimmer of the sea.<br /> On the marches Herakul had been treating me as an equal, offering the wine-skin and giving me a horse to ride, the latter of which privileges I declined, as my men had to walk. My bonds had been loosened during the day, but tightened once again each night, and an extra guard had been placed on me as well. Herakul seemed somewhat embarrassed about this, but pretended that it was just the way it was done. He didn’t seem like an exceptionally bad leader. He didn’t really mistreat my men. Yet despite my arguing for our freedom, we were marched in bonds to Tirina. <br /> Tirina lived up to its oft- told reputation. The walls rose above a low hill just a short distance from the sea’s edge. Lush farmland lay all around the citadel, whose mighty walls were at least three times the height of Hedra’s tallest. They truly looked as if giants had built them. Some of the stones were so big I couldn’t see how they possibly could have been moved by men. Crowds of people, farmers and ware-sellers with horses full of stuffs, women with their heads covered, dirty-faced children, and some better -dressed men lined the way, a wide, level road that led to the gates. Many more stood atop the ramparts of the citadel. Herakul rode an enormous horse and shouted to the throng on the citadel walls, who shouted back. Women trilled. Drummers and bazu players joined in, with the long notes of ram’s horns blowing, and the huzzahs and with the clattering of spears on shields of the Tirinite warriors it all made a rousing din.<br /> As we drew near to the gate, I could see a pavilion of scarlet cloth on poles on the rampart above the entrance to the citadel. Beneath it stood several women; priestesses, and one in flowing purple robes that I guessed was the Queen, Hera. The road branched and came to the gate, which was so large that three horsemen could ride through together. Above the lintel was a carved owl, the symbol of Atena and Hera. I looked up and saw Hera’s face. She was older than me, beautiful and proud, with long black hair and full lips painted red. Her eyes were lined with black and in her hair were two snakes of copper and lapis, intertwined in a circlet. In her left hand she held a long snake of copper, painted with rings of different colors. She looked straight at me with no expression, but raised her hand slightly to salute Herakul, who beat his mace across his chest and yelled, “Tirina!”<br /> The people cheered their King in return. As we crossed under the gate, those above spat on us to remove the evil eye, and threw pebbles down on our heads. They cried out curses and laughed at our misfortune. I felt hot from anger, but held it back, managing a defiant smile in their faces, and one for the haughty, silent queen as well.<br /> They brought us into the courtyard of the citadel and forced us to our knees. All around us the throng stared down from the walls. Herakul dismounted and strode to our men, pulling out his knife. He reached down and cut Dukas’ cords and dragged him to his feet by his long hair, then threw him down in the dust, still holding the poor man by his hair. Herakul lifted Dukas head up, exposing his neck. Dukas said nothing.<br /> Herakul raised the knife in his right hand.<br /> “Hera” he shouted. A great cheer went up. Herakul swept his knife down and cut Dukas’ throat with one cut. The blood poured from his neck and Herakul dumped his body in the dust like he was throwing down a rag. He raised his bloody knife up again and stared at the Queen, who answered him in kind with her raised right hand. She showed no emotion still. The multitude cheered and the drums beat for a few minutes. Then the crowd bean to disperse slowly. The Queen and her retinue moved off along the walls. We were left on our knees in the courtyard, ringed in with spearmen. Herakul approached me. He looked grim.<br /> “Was he a good man?” He asked, looking away from my stare.<br /> “Dukas Silonai. He had three sons and a small farm. He did his duty.”<br /> “I’m sorry, “said the big man, now looking at me with reproach. “The sacrifice must be made.”<br /> “What happens now?”<br /> “My friend, are you really as stupid as your words make you sound? This is the end of my reign. They mean to kill me.”<br /> “And who will be king?” <br /> “You will, you fool!” He clapped his hand on my shoulder and walked away heavily in the dust.<br /><br /> <br /> When the shadows of the dying day were stretching out, I was brought under guard to a well beneath the walls and washed by two young women. They touched me and my manhood responded in spite of myself. They giggled but clothed me in a tunic and robe and put a circlet of woven grape vines on my head as crown. It was getting dark as I was taken to the Queen’s chamber. It was at the end of a long passageway of huge stones that formed a tunnel, the likes of which I’d never seen. I couldn’t help but notice the fine stonework. How did they raise these huge rocks? The stones made a peak above the passageway. <br /> Hera’s chamber was lit by several torches. The walls were hung with red cloth and her bed of woven blankets was laid out on a base of carved stone, with snakes and birds and the like hewn into the rock. She sat near a large window on a wooden bench, the legs of which had beasts’ feet carved into them. She waved off her women attendants and motioned for me to sit on a three- legged stool. On a small table between us were goblets made from gold, richer than I had ever seen. There were colored stones inset in the shining metal. A painted jug held pungent vanna.<br /> “Sit with me, King Pelop.” She said. Her voice was smooth and practiced. She was a real queen, used to power. She looked at me with a very slight smile on the corners of her painted lips. “Tell me about Hedra, your kingdom.”<br /> I stood defiantly. She kept smiling and made no show of her true emotions, though I could see the bronze behind her eyes. She made no move, she just sat regarding me. After a moment I slowly sat. <br /> She took a goblet and handed it to me.” We’ll drink as rulers, together.”<br /> It seemed more like an order than an invitation.” My men don’t have vanna.”<br /> “What a quaint country name for it. We call it vin. And oh, but they do, “She said. “ They are being well treated. They will soon be going home.”<br /> “And I will go with them.” I said. I looked down at the golden wine glass. The vanna was dark red, like sacrificial blood. I took a deep drink.<br /> “Will you?” she said. Another statement; a challenge. <br /> We sat in silence for a minute. The sound of night insects came through the window and other sounds, from far away, beating drums and many women trilling and singing. The sounds seemed to be coming closer. <br /> “The people of Tirina celebrate tonight. Here, the tradition is for the king to be reborn every three years. It has been that way since the time of the Goddess’s dreams. The Goddess had told us that this is the law that will preserve Tirina. Tonight is that night.”<br /> “Herakul, what happens to him?” the wine was quite heady, beyond the skill of our wine-makers in flavor as well.<br /> “The Herakul is the consort of Afroda, Atena, and Hera. Here they are.” She clapped her hands once and two priestesses came in. One was a young grey-eyed girl of amazing beauty, the other no less striking, but maybe five years older. They sat next to Hera. We were almost touching. They were made up in the fashion of Hera. Their breasts were exposed in the manner of priestesses, and were no less alluring for that.<br /> “I am Hera, the oldest of our three queens. The Hera-kul, the seed of the Goddesses, marries all of us. Together we are the goddess who makes the crops grow and the hunt succeed. Without us and our consort, the seeds in the field will fail and people of Tirina will perish. The Herakul plants his seed in us and we grow and give birth to new goddesses who bloom like Afroda, the spring flower.”<br /> Afroda, Atena, and Hera herself were indeed women to excite a man. I was myself fully alive. The wine made this all seem right, somehow. I struggled to think of Vila. The sounds of women trilling and rums beating came from just beyond the window. The night was full of intoxicating energy. I drank again, draining the goblet. Afroda’s hand touched my leg. Atena reached out and stroked my face. Hera’s hand slipped up and grasped my manhood. She whispered, “You are the Herakul, my king.” I felt strangely dizzy. The three women seemed to come towards me, or maybe I fell towards them. That’s all I remember.<br /><br /><br /> I awoke slowly, slipping in and out a dream of the goddesses. They were touching me and I was the earth –man -god bringing the seed to their bodies. I strained to stay there, but something hurt my back. I rolled to my side and I fell off something and hit a hard wooden floor. I jolted awake. The rocking of a sea swell lifted me up and own. The sky was grey and low.<br /> “Wake up, drunken sea-dog!” came a deep voice. <br /> I pulled myself up on the rail. I was on a brakka. The sail bowed out above me. There were men sitting at the rowing benches, their oars shipped as the wind swept the brakka on the waves. A familiar shape crouched on the deck in front of me, his face grinning broadly, his beard glistening with drops of water.<br /> “Herakul?” I said.”What is happening?” My head was cloudy. I hurt, I felt sick.” Where are we?”<br /> “You’re free of the witches’ spell, my little king. I rescued you from that fate.”<br /> “My head pounded.” The vanna.” I was hungover as I hadn’t been in years.<br /> “The vanna of the goddesses. It makes you a great man for a while! Then it kills you. They poison you slowly with their black potions. I knew, so Ektor and I slipped in later, when they were done with you, and we wrapped you in a blanket and brought you to the ship. “He laughed. <br /> I stood up. My legs were unsteady, so I grabbed the rail. There were islands away in the distance, through the low clouds.<br /> “So now I can go home. Thank you, Herakul.” I said.<br /> “Home? “He laughed again. “You’re lucky to be alive and free! While you have slept off your madness, the west wind has blown us for two days now towards Tin-land, Karpatha. That’s where I’m bound, and you with me for now. I have only just gotten away with my life, little King. Once I’m gone to the east, you can turn the brakka around and come again to your lands.”<br /> “But why did you capture me to begin with?”<br /> “The witches told me if I brought you to them, I could go without being killed. During their mad ceremonies death is the usual fate of the Herakul. But they lied to me. While you were bedding the lot of them, and I was drinking to my freedom with a woman I like, their killers came to get me. I had to fight off ten men to get free. Lucky for us both, I had this ship ready in the harbor of Napli. I had the bright idea that to pay them back for their treachery I would rob them of their new Herakul. So I did! Joke’s on them, may they rot in the underworld.” He spat on his robe to ward off the vaskania of the Goddesses. “So we sail to Tin-land; then she’s all yours. We couldn’t row against this wind anyway.”<br /> I was elated to know that I would again be able to return to Hedra and Vila, though I knew that once I got home again, I would have to build a bigger armed force to guard against the army of Tirina in the future. I pondered the traitors that had tricked me into heading east to begin with and I plotted my revenge. I would get rid of Brukos and Andros and the rest. I thought of Vila worrying and wondered if those dogs had tried to seize her and our lands already. I hoped my allies could hold it together until my return. It had only been two weeks. I wished the brakka across the waves, but there was nothing to be done for now but sail and row and wait.<br /> “Thank you, Herakul, my shipmate!” I said, giving him my hand. He shook it in both of his and grinned.<br /> “Just Scryonas of Makedoi from now on.”<br /> “Somehow I think you’ll always be known as Herakul, the strong, the death-cheater!” <br /> We laughed.<br /> The winds built stronger and stronger until they were blowing a gale from the northwest. For two days we bailed and worked in teams to trim the sail and hold the brakka downwind so it wouldn’t broach and capsize. Herakul proved how strong he was, manhandling the tiller through two endless nights of high waves and howling wind. The men prayed to Pozdeon and every other god they had ever heard of. I trusted no gods anymore, but I had faith in Herakul’s strength as long as it held out, and my wits, as long I kept them. On the third morning since I had awakened, we sighted Karpatha, or Kreta, as some sailors called it. High mountains rose beyond dry slopes dotted with whitewashed towns, vineyards, and groves. But there was no landing for us in this gale. We were swept relentlessly along the coast. We missed one small harbor after another. At last we rounded a big point and came into slightly calmer waters. Herakul pointed ahead across a huge bay.<br /> “Nosso, the city of Minos!”<br /> Inland at some distance from the coast on a low hill were the usual whitewashed buildings, but this town was bigger than the others. A port lay at its feet. We managed to bring the brakka close to the shore. It held together as we rode in the heavy surf, but the waves were the kind that break right on the shore , sucking the sand from beneath them before thundering down in a wall of foam and chaos. The tail of the brakka lifted up on a huge swell, the boat turned violently on its side, and crashed upside down onto some rocks and broke apart. We were thrown into the sea and tossed about like corks. three men drowned, but twelve of us managed to get ashore, half-drowned ourselves, including Herakul. <br /> I clambered up on the rocky shore and looked into the churning water at the brakka being broken up and sinking. My heart sank like the ship. Vila!<br /> Herakul shook himself like a horse to fling the salt water from his shaggy hair and beard and shrugged. “You’ll find another boat. This is a land of seafarers and traders. Besides, maybe the gods have other plans for you! “<br /> To the underworld with the gods! Herakul was ready to be here, brakka or no brakka, for he had no home to return to and the sailors’ tales of Karpatha were full of beautiful, easy-going women and fine vanna.<br /> “They don’t make war on this island, “said one old salt.” They make love instead! The women are the daughters of sea-nymphs and will keep you forever happy in their embraces!” The sailors, like Herakul, were ready for that. “I hear they love bulls as much as men!” One of them laughed. “King Herakul ought to be right at home!” I had heard all these tales and I didn’t believe them. People are people, not old witches’ tales. I spied out the land. The town was up on a low hill, tall mountains behind that, and the little port was to the west. A small stream looked like it came right down to the coast from the citadel of Minos. Scrub trees lined the stream and olive groves lay to the west and east. The land along the coast looked worn, as if people had tended to it for many generations already. There were low stone walls among the groves and houses, some large in the distance.<br /> We salvaged what we could from the wreck, which wasn’t much, just some rope and other odds that had floated ashore. We had no food or vanna or weapons. I scanned the water, looking for anything that might still be floating. I turned to Herakul to ask, what now? But he was looking inland and I saw the look in his eyes that warned of danger. I spun around. More than thirty archers and spearmen had come out of the trees near the stream. They spread out in a half circle around us and drew their bowstrings. <br /> Herakul raised his arm and called out, “Peace! We come in peace. Have mercy on the shipwrecked!”This was the common plea of those who foundered in a strange land, and it generally required hospitality of whoever found them, though it was no guarantee.<br /> A short, but powerfully built man, strangely beardless, with long, black, curly hair, stepped a little closer, his bow held at the ready. Our sailors looked less than sure of their non-warlike claims of the moment before. <br /> The man scowled, “where do you hail from?” His accent was hard to understand, though it was a version of our tongue he spoke, and his tone was curt. “Tell us now, or die!’<br /> Herakul bowed to the short man. “I am Scryonas, servant of King Pelop of Hedra.” Still bowed at the waist he turned slightly with his palms out humbly to point me out. I stood as tall as I could. The ten other men of our crew had slipped behind me in a knot. The short man looked at me. I didn’t look much like a king right now, I thought; soaked, sandal-less, and in a torn tunic. Still, a king may be shipwrecked as easily as any man.<br /> Without saying anything to us, the short man called to his men to bind us.” Hedra; never heard of it.” he looked disdainfully at our motley crew.” You are trespassing on the land of King Minos of Karpatha, servant of the Goddess. Take them to the King.” He said grimly.<br /> The Goddess. There seemed to be no escaping her wherever I went. She had certainly brought me into a lot of trouble so far. Once again I found myself about to be bound. Well, a king may be bound as any other man as well, but I had been tied up for a week, and then drugged and taken on a boat away from my kingdom and wife and child. I’d had enough.<br /> As they were about to tie me I said to the short man, “Kill me if you like, but I am a king, and I’ll not be bound. I call on King Minos to honor the hospitality of royal house and shipwreck.” I stared at the short man, my eyes unflinching.<br /> He stared back hard for a moment and then said, “very well, you’ll walk freely, but if you try to run, I will cut down you and your servants, king.”<br /> Herakul shot me a look that suggested laughter. I could have let him be killed for the trouble he had brought on me.<br /> “I’ll not run; you have my word.” I was a king, after all, despite my captor’s contemptuous doubts.<br /> Beyond the rocky beach there was a road that led up the streamside. After a short march past the low stone fences of olive plantations, from behind which stared a few grove workers, we reached the low hill whereupon sat the palace of King Minos of Karpatha. It was a collection of finely wrought stone buildings, laid out in terraces above neatly tended olive groves. I admired the masonry; it was finer than any I’d yet seen. It made the giant-built citadel of Tirina look like a child’s pile of rocks. The stones were square cut and fitted together better than any walls back home. I wondered how they cut the blocks. On the raised terraces, there were carved points of stone I later learned were meant to be bull’s horns. Red-painted columns held up flat rooftops. I was impressed; I felt like crude villager. But something puzzled me. It didn’t seem right. Then I realized – there were no walls! So it was true; it was a land of peace. Then why were we bound and treated like prisoners of war?<br /> The short man kept his silence all the way, despite my attempts to sound him out. He led us through a stone gate and up a set of wide, handsome stairs to an open plaza surrounded by low buildings. On the walls of the buildings were lively paintings of people, leaping sea-fish, crouching leopards, and other subjects. As we approached, a long, brown house-snake slithered away and disappeared in an opening in a wall. There were many people in the courtyard. The men, who like our guard wore no beards, looked at first like young boys, slight of build. They wore loin-cloths and colorful skirts. Some had strands of ivy woven in their hair. There were also priestesses not unlike the ones of Tirina, with open robes and strange short garments around the shoulders. They wore their hair long and flowing, with strings of shiny beads tied up and through their locks in a most attractive manner. They were all of a type, men and women both: short, thin, and dark-skinned, with long wavy black hair. I had the thought that these were the strong families, as at home in Hedra. They looked like people of leisure, if so, there were far more of them than at Hedra or even Tirina, for there must have been over a hundred just in the palace grounds alone. The fancy courtiers fine appearances made me, in my wet, torn garment and without sandals, feel like a bit of an oaf, but I stood like a king. At least I had a beard!<br /> The leader of the guards took me into an open chamber with three walls and a porch held up by thick columns that were narrower at the base than at the top. A painting of a harvest scene graced the wall. In this scene handsome men and beautiful women gathered grapes and olives. Some held baskets of fish and fruits. Flying fish were above them. It was the nicest decoration I had every seen. I was amazed that someone had painted anything so lively. The paintings of Hedra were very crude by comparison. Carved out of a white stone was a simple yet elegant throne on a raised dais. The seat was worn smooth from use, polished and slightly stained grey. Lengths of fine cloth hung down and screened off the entryways into the chamber. There was a tripod seat. The guard bade me sit and then left me by myself in the room.<br /> A shadow moved at one of the entryways and a slender, older woman of maybe thirty years, dressed in the colorful skirts and open jacket I had seen outside came in. Her long, black hair was bound up with strings of sea-pearls and tiny shells. Long tresses hug down seemingly with no order to them. She wore a necklace of lapis and silver that draped down between her breasts. On her right arm was a ringlet that looked like a snake coiled around her arm. She looked right in my eyes. There didn’t seem to be any malice or cunning to her face. But I was wary.<br /> I had stood, but now she sat on the throne and motioned for me to sit on the tripod. She rested her hands on her lap and smiled slightly at me.<br /> “I am Pasifa, one of the ladies of the court of king Minos. I speak Achaean, what we call your language, for I am originally from Mykonos, a land to the north. Please tell me about your travels and why you are here in our land. It is forbidden for travelers to be here without our approval.” She still smiled.<br /> “It is a long story; I fear it would bore you. Shall I just say that we are shipwrecked while sailing to copper-land?”<br /> “I would rather have you tell me the truth, King of Hedra.” She said.<br /> So I told her the truth. There wasn’t anything to hide, except Herakul’s identity. We weren’t, in fact, there to harm the Karpathans. I just wanted to get back home. So I told her so. She asked me about Herakul. “Who is this Scryonas? He’s plainly a big man. Is he your true king in disguise?”<br /> I tried not to laugh. “He was a king; but he left his throne”. I hoped I wasn’t sentencing him to a poor fate for his having deserted the goddess. <br /> “You protect him; that’s admirable in a friend. I hope it’s smart. He is strong; he will ride the bulls. You will watch.” She fussed with her robe’s hem, brushing off a strand of cobweb.” You will be our guest, because I believe that much of what you have told me is most likely true. I don’t; think you have come here to do us harm. Across the eastern sea is a new great king who seeks power over all. We fear his agents. He has not yet sailed here, but our traders have seen his ships in the dawn sea. He sacricies to different gods, this one. war gods with wings and lightning.”<br /> “is this the faroe I have heard the sailors speak of?” I asked.<br /> “ No, the land of the faroes is to the south and east of Karpatha. Te faroe is the mightiest king of all, but the people of Egypt, his land, do not venture out I conquest, at least not so far. We trade with their kingdom.”<br /> I nodded, but I could truly only picture a small fortified citadel surrounded by a few large farms and villages. How great could these kings be? I could bet they weren’t one-eyed giants with wings. I was a king, as well!<br /><br /> We were boarded in a clean hall of polished stone hung with bright tapestries and floored with woven rush mates. There were comfortable wooden chairs and benches. We were kept well supplied with vin and bread and fruit and cheese and fresh fish and lamb. The sailors felt their tall tales were justified, though they didn’t meet any quick women. We were permitted to wander the grounds of the palace at will. We tried to talk with the fine folk, who were friendly enough, but few knew our language well enough to exchange more than a handful of words. We gathered that Herakul was in training with others to dance with the bulls, whatever that meant. We agreed that if anyone could dance with bulls, it would be Herakul. Pasifa came around. She and I talked and walked on the terraces of the fine palace. It was peaceful place. But she told tales of gigantic sea waves that had swept away earlier palaces that had stood right here completely away, and earthquakes that had knocked down walls and toppled columns. She said it was the bulls of the goddess, stomping deep in the earth where they lived. The Minos, their king, was in one of those caves, praying at length to the goddess to guide him in this coming threat against the warlike eastern King. I knew the men would say the bull was Pozdaeon, the sea-god, who has the shape of a black bull as one of his many forms. I didn’t know what made the earthquake, but I know I had never yet seen a sea-bull. I thought that maybe the land was alive in own slow way, not connected to humans at all.But I kept me mouth shut, as usual.<br /> “He is called Sharrukin, the Lu-Gal of Aggadeh.”<br /> “Lu-Gal? What that’s that?”<br /> “It means Big Man in their language. None speak this tongue here, though our traders who sail to far end of the east sea know a bit of it. You have seen the fine bronze bowls and swords we make?’<br /> I had indeed seen the elegant workmanship of their metallurgists.<br /> “The cooper comes from Kypros, copper-land, some days sail to the east. It’s not far from the great lands beyond that stretch out forever in the sands. We need the copper to melt with our Tin to make this bronze. Ours is the finest. That’s why Sharrukin, or Sargon, as the Levantines call him, wants Karpatha to pay him tribute in bronze.” She walked silently for a while. “but that’s not all”, she said,” He considers himself a god and wishes to have all worship him and make sacrifice to him. We have our own way of life here, one that is very old and peaceful. We pray to the goddess to keep him away”<br /> Good luck, I thought, but didn’t say. Men are greedy and full of war. If he wants this place, he’ll try to take it! That’s what I had seen.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />10<br /><br /><br /> The Karpathans were quite open and gentle, or so it seemed. They left us to wander on our word that we would not escape. The palace girls were free with their affections and quite pretty and well skilled in the arts of love. The men were content. I resisted their easy advances, since it had only been a few weeks since I had left the side of my Vila and our son. But I had no cause for complaint for the moment, especially as the west winds continued to blow too hard to let any boats out anyway, at least those headed west. Still, I felt a queasy uneasiness. I couldn’t get word of Herakul. All I was given were giggles and polite refusals to even talk one word about him.<br /> But one lady of the palace was quite taken with me. She was a young, black-tressed girl of seventeen named Dalea, a handmaiden of Pasifa. One night she came, wrapped in a dark robe that covered most of her face, to my quarters and woke me. She put her finger to her lips to sing me to be silent and waved her other hand for me to follow her in the dimly lit hall. She led me through a maze of almost pitch-black tunnels and damp, narrow, stone- walled ways under the palace until I got quite confused. Without her to lead me through this warren of storerooms and dark doorways, I would have been lost trying to return, though I pride myself on my sense of direction.<br /> After dozens of twists and turns and ups and downs, she turned, and in the darkness I could make out that she was silencing me sternly again, knotting her brows to show me how important it was that we not make a sound, and then she bent down and led me through a tiny square hole near the base of a wall and then on our hands and knees into a shallow, earth-floored crawl-space whose further end light filtered. It was barred with a low lattice-work through which we could peer without being seen. Though the light beyond the lattice was only that a few small torches and tapers, it seemed as bright as day after the dream-like darkness of the tunnels.<br /> We seemed to be under some steps or a balcony of some sort; feet were scraping and moving right above our heads. The earth was dank and smelled like piss and cow dung. We peered through into a dim hall lit by low torches. A low wall bent around the oval-shaped open space beyond the lattice-work. The enclosed space was perhaps twenty paces across. Above the wall were three rows of benches, upon which sat two dozen or more cloaked figures. I figured them to be women by their size, though Karpathans are small in stature, and I could not be sure. Six priestesses, bare-bosomed as always, wearing the customary long, pleated flounces, twirled around the floor of the room, humming a repeating chant under their breath. In the center of the ring, there was a cleverly carved hollow wooden cow, whose hind-quarters were slightly raised. I nearly gasped out loud when I saw that there was a priestess nestled inside the open belly of this artificial cow. She held onto to a pair of short horns with her little painted hands, but her rear was shoved up into the open back of the wooden cow. Her legs were parted and she stood strongly with her feet planted in the earth of the ring. The dancers increased their tempo and volume. They spun and circled the offering cow-woman.<br /> A gate swung open and two older priestesses, hauling strongly on ropes, dragged out of a doorway what looked like a half-man- half-bull, towards the painted cow. The huge, naked man, who staggered as if drunk, was wearing the mask-head of a great bull over his own head and was fully aroused. I knew at once it was Herakul. As the chanting grew in intensity, he was led to the wooden cow, placed his hands on the painted hindquarters and mounted the cow, and thus, the priestess inside. The chanting became trilling. The dancers banged rhythmically of tambourines. To one drunk or under the spell of a witch’s potion, it would have appeared that two strange god- animals coupled in great ecstasy. Both participants groaned with pleasure, the priestess crying out and Herakul roaring like the man-beast he appeared to be. The bull-man had his way with the offering until he was spent. Only then did the priestess release her tight grip on the short horns and slump forward. To my horror and surprise, I saw it was Pasifa. So the rumors were true in a sense: the queen did prefer animals to men. But this was the real truth of that story. I knew it could only be Herakul behind the mask. The bull-man seemed dazed, and I thought the witches must have given him a potion for endurance and madness.<br /> Another priestess slipped into the offering cow, and soon the drunken man- Minotaur was aroused once again and the act was repeated. After this spectacle madness was repeated yet again, Dalea tugged on my arm and pulled me back from the lattice-work. We slithered on the cold earth back through the hole and into the darkness of the tunnels. She silently led us back through the labyrinth and to my chamber. When we were safely behind closed doors, she whispered tersely, “Don’t you see? You will be the next Minotaur. As each is used up, he is sacrificed to the Goddess. The priestesses have a magic elixir of the Egyptian lotus that makes the one they call the Minotaur mad with lust and able to perform until it kills him.” She looked down, coyly, but then serious. “Even if you don’t want me, for whatever reason, I still would see you escape that fate.”<br /> “But why do you not follow this practice yourself?” I asked.<br /> “I am from the land of the east called Kanaa. We do not follow the old ways of this goddess there. We worship Ea and Inanna and Astarte and Enlil. The bull sacrifice is sacred to Awa and Pozdaeon of the westerners. I am a slave who has lived freely enough in this land, but I fear for you.”<br /> I took her hands in mine and thanked her, valuing her sacrifice for her love and her fearlessness of blind religion, and it ended up that night that we held each other, for I found her sweet and she swore that would not covet me, but only wanted to remember me. I thought of Vila, but a warrior far from home is used to such nights. Strangely, I was less than fully aroused after witnessing Herakul’s bull act, though as she was fully in the spirit, I did my best.<br /> Before the dawn we wound our way back through the maze until we came again to the bull ring. I asked her to leave me by myself and she let her hands slip slowly and resignedly from mine and turned away, back into the maze. All was quiet. I found an open space in the lattice that lead out among the columned terraces, shining ghostly under the last of the pale moon. There was a light of a small fire in a grove beyond the buildings. I approached with stealth and saw Herakul, bloody, the bull head now removed, lying flat on his back, his long hair trailing in the blood of sacrifice over the edges of a huge, flat stone block in the center of a circle of gnarled, ancient trees. A fire burned low on a tripod. He looked to be dead. No one seemed to be there. I crept forward and touched him on the arm. To my surprise, he groaned and rolled his head to the side.<br /> “Herakul! Scryonas!” I hissed. “Get up or die!” <br /> He slowly sat up and began to mumble something, but I clapped my hand over his mouth and grabbed his shoulder. His eyes showed dull recognition. <br /> “Come on, “I whispered, “to the harbor.”<br /> I managed to get him to his feet. Though he was covered in blood, it didn’t seem to come from wounds of his; he seemed outwardly unharmed, except for the soreness caused by the combat of his bestial coupling. The blood must have been from animal sacrifices. I held him up with my shoulder and we hobbled off through the trees in the direction of the shore. It was chilly in the dawn and before too long he recovered enough of his senses to walk on his own. I told him what Dalea had said.<br /> “By Perunas, Pelop! These witches and their brews!” <br /> He held his manhood gingerly and grimaced. ” They scraped me raw. Worse, I can’t remember it!”<br /> I had to laugh at my big friend’s sense of humor. Herakul could always make fun of himself, no matter what the circumstance.<br /> It was fully light when we reached the port. We hid ourselves in some low bushes above the beach. There were a small boats tethered to the stone piers. No fishermen had been venturing out in the incessant wind. We made a dash for one that had a sail and oars, and quickly rowed out into the waving sea. The west wind was still blowing, though it was less this dawn it would rise to a gale later, to judge from the other days. I raised the sail and we were free. <br /> I looked back at the low hill of Knossos, where the first light of the Karpathan sun god and his fiery chariot was tinting the wide stone terraces a rose color, and thanked Dalea with my heart. I hoped she wouldn’t suffer from our escape.<br /> We passed a point and sailed on to the east as the seas rose around us. There was little shelter on this coast for many miles. It was tricky, but we were both good sailors and Herakul had recovered his senses and his strength, and I felt free, knowing that we should be able to make the last point and turn south into protected waters and even cross to the land of the lotus eaters in sand-land and then coast our way back west, eventually to Hedra and Vila and my son. Herakul had other plans, but was happy to go on adventuring with me for now.<br /> He sat in the stern, manhandling the sweep, and mused. “They say there’s a land far beyond the pillars of the sea that mark the gate to the great ocean. They say it’s a green land, where the people paint themselves blue, and stones fly through the air by themselves.” He had a faraway look in his eyes.<br /> “And do they have boars that walk up and eat out of your hand, and gods that have the sense to leave men alone with their scheming?” I laughed.<br /> “Pelop, my little King, you had better watch angering the gods!” He bellowed at me. But I splashed him with a wavelet caught on the tip of and oar and laughed again.<br /> “Men and women made the Gods, not the other way ’round, “I said.” Everywhere I go there are new gods, or people have given new names to things that seem should be godly. Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s from a god. It’s mostly an excuse for greed and murder; that’s what I see.”<br /> “Well, little King Pelop, you may be right, but you’d better keep your mouth shut around people. They’ll make a fine quick sacrifice of you, unbeliever.”<br /> “And claim the gods demanded it!”<br /> Herakul spat for luck, letting three big gobs drip down his beard in the time-honored way.” I agree there many bad priests and priestesses, but still, can’t be too careful.”<br /><br /> We coasted on the gale from two whole days and nights, staying far from the rock-bound shore with its dangerous current-swept islets and barren cliffs. The hills inland were lower as we went further east. The big mountain of Karpatha to the west, which looks not unlike a giant man or recumbent god sleeping on his side if one imagines it, sank under the sky. We passed one small hill-palace that looked not unlike a miniature Knossos, but the winds swept us swiftly by. We passed point after stormy point. <br /> There finally came at dawn on the third day a row of low headlands, three in number, which barred our way. North lay two small islands, rocky and bare like the mainland. We sailed between the straits, racing past whirlpools and mounds of rising water from the churning depths, and looked away south. The coastline on our right hand stretched away almost back to the west again. Beyond this last headland we came into the lee of the land and the relentless wind died down to a more manageable breeze. We gave ourselves a little cheer and swung the boat south. We passed a couple of fine small coves with a few strange trees growing inland among the tumbled rocks of the dry shore.<br /> “Date-Palms, like Egypt “said Herakul, “I’ve eaten the sweet fruit and seen those branches at market in Tirina.”<br /> We were very hungry and debated about landing but since the morning was fine and it felt good to sail for the moment without having to deal with the gale, we decided to go on a bit further. A large headland loomed up. We thought there must be a big beach beyond it. We came slowly up on the point, for we hadn’t lost all caution. What we saw made us drop the sail and row backwards as fast as we could.<br /> There was indeed a long beach around the point, and a perfect harbor with lush palm groves. But pulled up on the beach and riding at anchor were dozens of long warships with black sails. We could hear the clamor of hundreds of warriors and sailors, the ring of metal on metal. We pulled in under a cliff, climbed partway up the face of it and onto a small ledge under the overhanging cliff still above us, and peered around the corner. The soldiers were of a kind I had never seen. They were dark-skinned, with tight curly beards. They wore cone-shaped leather helmets and carried long spears and strange back-curved bows. Some of them carried maces tipped with bronze stars. Many wore red cloaks. Their leaders were barking a harsh language I’d never heard before. Other men, naked or wearing only loin cloths, dragged cargoes on the beach sands. They were obviously slaves doing the bidding of their warlike masters.<br /> A shower of pebbles began to rain down us from the cliffs and suddenly the voices were right above us on the cliff face, screaming like crows. We looked up and saw a group of warriors, some with drawn bows and some with long spears. They dropped and clambered down the rocks toward the little flat place on which we stood. We backed up, but therewas no place to run. They had cut us off from our boat. Without a word, Herakul leaped forward and dove into the clear, deep water and sank out of sight in the masses of underwater rocks and waving seaweed. The warriors were furious and came at me. I just put my hand up and said nothing. One warrior stepped up and hit me across the side of face with his mace. Jarred by the blow, I fell backward and the last thing I felt was my head slamming into the rocks.<br /><br /> I came out of a confusing dream. Slowly I realized my face was flat on hard sand. I felt my hands in an all-too familiar position: bound tightly behind my back, tied to my ankles, hobbled. I felt a wound burning on my forehead. The sun was beating down mercilessly on it. I tried to roll over off my stomach onto my side. Each time I nearly righted myself I toppled back over, getting more sand in my eyes and nostrils. Flies buzzed around my head wound and my eyes. I desperately needed a drink of water. My eyes began to focus in the brilliant light and saw that there was a man, an Achaean to look at him, sitting cross legged a few feet away from me. He was wearing a rag of a once-fine tunic. His beard was turning gray and he wore an eye patch. He was smiling, like he had won a wager and was gloating.<br /> “He’s alive, “he said to someone I couldn’t see, “He’s moving again. I told you.”<br /> I couldn’t manage speech yet. The man leaned slightly towards me and whispered, “Let me give you a hint, my friend, “he glanced around to make sure he wasn’t spotted speaking to me, “Don’t let on you’re hurt. Don’t yell or make bad faces. You must act noble.” He paused, and then stuck out his hand.<br /> ”Or you’ll get this!” he whispered.<br /> His little finger was a warped stump. “But that’s not the worst of it. Who needs a little finger? If you cry out when they cut that off, this is what you’ll get!”<br /> And with that he lifted his eye patch to reveal a ragged, pus-dripping, red slit, raw skin and scabs.” I keep my mouth shut now, lad.” He poked at me with his bony fingers.<br /> The he spoke again, quietly but with contempt in his voice. ”You don’t know me, But I know who you are; yes!” he almost spat it out. “You sacked us at Kerkryon. My kin died there. Did you enjoy the booty? My sister, only fourteen summers, was taken! Did you enjoy her?” he glowered at me.<br /> “War is war, “I muttered, “I took no women except the queen, who came with me by choice.”<br /> “After you had killed her King with your long bow, Pelop the Archer. War is war and shit is shit. Well, your fame and royalty won’t mean much to these fine warriors. To them, we are just dogs, pigs, rats, worse than beasts. They are Akkadians. They live in a vast city in the land of the great rivers, far beyond Kanaa and Hattu and Egypt itself. The Ziggurat of Enlil is as tall as mountain! This is the fleet of the Lu-Gal-Banda, the God on Earth, Sargon of Akkad. .” He slammed his hand flat down into the sand. Then he went on, more calmly.” You will be judged by your worth, by what you can do. If you can really fight, really build, maybe they’ll let you live, though they’ll cut off your hand if you steal a crust of bread or a look at their women – and their women are beauties, let me tell you! Truly, we men of these regions can’t do much compared to these city-dwellers of Sumer. Their Kingdoms go back two thousand years, to the time of the great flood of Utu-Napishtm! Back to the great lawgivers and Gilgamesh himself.”<br /> “And what do you do that they keep you alive? “ I said, craning my neck to look him in the eye.<br /> “Me? I sing tales of the old ones in their language – in many languages. The Empire of Sargon has many peoples in it. It doesn’t keep them from cutting me down to size, piece by piece!” Now he laughed at the irony.<br /> There were dozens of other captives and slaves, most in rags and injured in some way or another. We were just under the edge of the great palm trees, but the hot sun was still beating down on us. Finally a guard came and cut loose my bonds and shouted something at me. I squinted up at the man, who was silhouetted by the blazing sun. I didn’t know what he was saying, though it didn’t sound good. My eye-patched friend spoke up.<br /> “He says for you to get up and go with him.” My friend spoke to the guard, who grunted back. “I’m coming too, to translate.”<br /> I crabbed with my tight legs through the hot sand to a black tent that was open to the north, away from the sun. The flaps were up on the corners, letting a cooling breeze blow through. Three curly-bearded men sat on low cushions .They were smoking something in a curious device made of a large bowl with a narrow opening at the top. Long reeds stuck in the opening and smoke came through them. The vessel made a bubbling sound like water in a brook. The three men eyed us coldly. Through my interpreter the one on the right asked me who I was, and who my companion was, the one who had swum away.<br /> I saw no advantage in lying, and couldn’t have figured out a lie that would have worked in any case, so I told him my name and who I was. I did mention that my companion was a servant at arms, one Scryonas of Makedoi, a man who was a capable warrior.<br /> “And you, little man, what are your talents?” Said the man in the middle. He had a most imposing beard with luxurious curls. His hair was black, framing his shining, oiled olive skin, and it was bound and plaited as well as was his beard. His eyes were dark and penetrating, but unfathomable, like a falcon’s. His eyebrows almost met above his long hooked nose. His presence was commanding; ruthless and condescending, but not without humor.<br /> “I a passing shot with a bow, “I said. My new friend, who had introduced himself to the men as Anarchos of Messene, told them in their language.<br /> “We’ll see,” said the falcon warrior.<br /> He stood and we followed as he walked out on the beach. He had a bow brought, one of the recurve bows. I had never tried that kind, but I felt I could find the shot if I was given a chance. I held the bow lightly in my hands, feeling its balance. The arrows we long and true, with good feathers. The point was a fine flint. He turned to his guards, who carried the same bows, arrows already nocked.” Shoot him if he makes a move.” I couldn’t understand the words, but the meaning was obvious.<br /> I looked at him as if to say, what target?<br /> He gazed down the beach. There was an older man, no doubt a slave, carrying a bundle on his head. The weight made him hunch over. Even at a hundred paces anyone could see he was struggling. The man barked an order and smiled at me.<br /> I glanced at Anarchos, who whispered, “kill that one!”<br /> “What’s in the bundle?” I said quietly as I raised the bow.<br /> “Only the gods know,” answered Anarchos.<br /> I drew, took quick aim as always, and let the arrow fly. It sped in the familiar low arch and went halfway through the bundle, knocking it off the old man’s shoulders in the process. The old man fell and scrambled to his knees, unsure of what had happened.<br /> I turned to look at Falcon Warrior and smiled. “I missed.” I said.<br /> He was glowering, but without looking at me he growled out another order in his guttural language, all full of achs and haws.<br /> Anarchos said, “Shoot that bird.” A gull wheeled about the surf line, dipping and gliding, skimming the water, rising up and then diving. I made my play and the gull suddenly spun sideways and tried to fly away, but its wing had my arrow sticking through it. My second arrow severed its neck and the bird fell into the shallow waves. Several warriors had gathered around as this was happening and some rattled their polished metal wrist-guards on their shields in approval. Falcon Man looked at me, shrugged, and then turned quickly away and made a hand sign of dismissal.<br /> The slave camp acknowledged me with sideways glances of approval when I returned to my place at the edge of the palm trees, and Anarchos was almost giddy from this display of my shooting talent, whispering excitedly of my shots to the slaves who had not seen the brief test of my skill. They tittered among themselves in a half-dozen dialects, pointing at me and gesturing with signs the meanings of which could only guess at. I off-handedly cautioned them about getting too high-spirited. We were, after all, simply war captives with no current way to escape. When the sun was setting, I was summoned along with Anarchos back to the tent, where this time, there was only Falcon Man, still puffing on his bubble-pipe. He offered a reed to me. I had never smoked anything before; it’s not the custom where I’ve come from. It produced a heady sensation at first, like strong wine. He spoke at length, in a measured way, not as commanding as earlier, yet still as a king would speak to a subject. Then he settled down in his cushion and puffed.<br /> Anarchos said, “This is Lord Lipit-Sin of the great city of Lagash on Ea’s River. He is a general of the Living God on the Earth Sargon of Akkad. Sargon is the most powerful of all the kings of the all the long lists. Under his banners, all of Sumer and the surrounding lands and peoples, limitless in number, have been brought together in a mighty empire. Sargon is yet young and wishes to spend his life on earth conquering his enemies and bringing all the people of the known world under his benevolent wings and stewardship, so they might serve the Great God Ea. Lord Lipit-Sin will let you live and bring you to serve the Lu-Gal-Banda Sargon. In any case, you are his captive and must serve. But you could achieve such honor such as a barbarian can attain.” Anarchos added quietly, “This is unusual,” and arched his one remaining eyebrow.<br /> Lipit-Sin opened his eyes and launched into another, though shorter ramble. Anarchos waited until he was done and then said, “The Lu-gal has decided to make war on the Pharaoh and his lands, in order to cast down the false gods of Egypt and honor Ea, Enlil, Inanna and the other true gods of the land between the Rivers.” <br /> Lipit Sin beamed munificently.<br /> I had the wit to nod and bow at this news. I thanked him for his kindness, carefully not saying I wished to take on this role. Lipit-Sin stared at me. I couldn’t judge his face. He waved me away and the audience was concluded and the guards took me and Anarchos back to the slave camp. It was growing dark in the shadows of the thick, clustered palms. There were guards around small fires at intervals around the slave camp; a fire here, a fire there, but the camp extended back into the palm grove for a ways. I lay and waited until the last light had faded from the cloudless sky and all was as still as it would be, and then I began crawling toward the deeper darkness on the thickest part of the grove. I slid by measures, a foot further, a yard, and then I would lie still and wait. The other captives and slaves were huddled in their rags in clots of two or three or four in the gloom. They scarcely acknowledged my slow passing. At last I made it beyond the last of the guards. Ahead were tangled thickets of thorn bushes and who knew what else. I figured I had a chance to out run the armored guards in the dark if I kept my wits about me. Once I was free I would run deep into the hills. I pictured Vila and Aon waiting for me back home. I got set to get on all fours and slip into the bushes.<br /> Suddenly there was a loud crashing and crunching of the trees and bushes right in front of me. I heard something roaring like a wild beast that has been trapped. There were many voices as well; harsh cries in the foreign tongue of Lipit-Sin and the others. Something or someone, I fancied it to be akin to one of the hill-boars of Hedra, broke through the wall of bushes right before me, and I scrambled to the side, trying not to get caught in the melee. It was a huge person, who got to his feet and spun around. I found myself looking right up in the palest starlight at the face of Herakul, who also saw me in the same moment. Herakul beamed.<br /> “I found you! I’ve come to rescue you!” Just then, a large troop of spearmen emerged from the darkness, ringing us in.<br /> “A good rescue.” I said.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-56074894728546693882010-11-26T16:30:00.000-08:002010-11-26T16:46:15.609-08:003rd excerpt from "867-5309:the song that saved my ass for a while" this is about Muir Beach way back when and then someDuring this period we moved to a house back in the woods near the entrance to Muir Beach. There was an old plywood camper shell up on blocks next to the creek. We covered it with plastic tarps and used it for a sweat-lodge. We built huge bonfires right in the dirt road and tossed on steel engine heads and fuel pumps, whatever was lying around from our perpetual automotive repair efforts. They’d get red-hot in the flames. We would crowd naked into the camper, our feet tucked up on the narrow side benches. Six fit in there, but it was tight. The last one in slid the glowing engine parts with a shovel onto a metal tray on the floor. We’d sprinkle water on them. The heat and humidity were stifling. Ciambotti would invariably fart loudly and laugh; everyone else went, fuck you! Cheezus H. Kee-rist! You tryin’ to gas us? We sweated and sweated. This was supposedly healthy. We needed it to cleanse our blood of the cheap wine we drank. When we’d had enough steam and fart gas, we’d crawl out and jump into the icy creek for a moment, then stand around naked and steaming in the bitter air. This wasn’t southern California. It was cold at the beach. The creek would flood periodically. One morning when the creek had broken its banks and spread all the way across the valley, Ciambotti was up early, salvaging guitars and other stuff floating around his room. He was wearing nothing but a pair of knee-high rubber boots.<br /> I took a tool shed in back of the little house for my personal domicile. When I moved in I disturbed a large clan of fat, sleek rats who had been living with impunity under a rotting chest of drawers. They actually challenged me, rearing up on their hind legs and growling and hissing at me! But I had a broom. Out you go, rats! We also had skunks who would come into the house through holes in the old house’s walls and eat butter off the kitchen table. You gotta let skunks do their thing. They’re loaded. In my rat-liberated shed I made a bed and a desk using logs cut from the surrounding woods, an old door for under my Goodwill mattress, and driftwood from the beach. The shed didn’t have any insulation, but I got a little pot-bellied wood-burning stove from the surplus store. It made the shed cozy, if smoky. I ran an extension cord from the house for electricity. I loved that place. When you don’t have much, it doesn’t take much to feel like you have it all. <br /><br /> The government annexed Muir Beach in ’69 as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It was an inevitable move, and I suppose not really a bad one in the grander view of things. The GGNRA protects hundreds of thousands of acres of coastline and adjacent lands from wanton, unbridled development. If the coast wasn’t preserved, there would be a blanket of gazillion-dollar houses shrouding the steep hills of the shorelands of Marin and Sonoma as far as the Mercedes and Volvos could drive. <br /> But it was the end of a brief, free era. The cabins were demolished, and the Tavern was, too. On New Year’s Eve, 1969, a local grizzled ex-biker (and small- time hood) set fire to the debris pile of redwood decking and knocked-down walls. It made a magnificent, symbolic bonfire. Nobody bothered to put it out. It was a cold, wet winter. By morning it was a smoldering ash pile, nothing standing except the stone footings and steps and a chimney to mark the great place where the rum-runners and hippies had had their days in the sun and nights in the fog. It had been the unlocked building of my childhood. In years to come the beach would still be a cool place; the last free-running dog beach on the coast, until that was ended as well by the Park Service and zealous, over-amped environmentalists. I would live there in the 90’s, on top of the hill above the beach in a very nice house with two Explorers and a Beamer in the driveway. Highway 1, the road where there used to be a car every once in a long while making its winding way around the hairpin turns above the three-hundred foot drop-offs, became bumper to bumper on weekends. By the time everybody finds something really cool, it’s gone. It’s strange, but it seems that finding it is what makes it go away.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-78033366183803395882010-11-25T08:16:00.000-08:002010-11-25T08:19:07.925-08:00Ciambotti and the bottle rockets, from "867-5309, the song that saved my ass for a while"After three wild days, including some more balcony-based shenanigans involving Ciambotti, fireworks (M-80 barrel bombs), and a police car, somehow Frank corralled us all up and we headed off to Miami, another long-ass drive. There were seven of us in the station wagon. McFee and I generally sat in the rear seat that faces backwards, with the tailgate down so we could stretch our legs out. It was otherwise a really cramped ride. No one wanted to sit in the middle of the middle seat. You had to call shotgun first thing everyday to sit in the coveted front passenger seat. Woe to the guy who was too hungover to think of calling at least a window. But John and I were the only ones who wanted to ride looking backwards.<br /> Ciambotti, being the last of the partyers to be rounded up by Frank, was sitting in the middle of the middle seat the day we left New Orleans, as we cruised along I-10 through the Florida Panhandle. It was an endlessly long, straight road, not too much traffic. It was a hot, muggy, cloudy day, with thunderstorms brewing. We came up on our equipment truck, with Sinque, Massive Roggie, and Lybo grinding along at fifty-five. Ciambotti lit a bottle rocket in a coke bottle and fired it out the window from his middle seat as we drove past the truck. It shot out and hit the truck right on the passenger door. Wow, what a good shot! But it was dangerous. We were going, fuck, Ciambotti, you’re going to get us busted! Frank was holding a little of that white powder that makes those fourteen hour drives possible and our small stash of pot. <br /> Suddenly, from out of nowhere, there was a Florida state trooper lighting us up. We pulled over on to the green shoulder. McFee and I were sitting with the tailgate down facing the square-jawed guy in his Smokey the Bear hat as he walked up. He looked like an actor who had been perfectly type-cast for his role; thick-necked, military buzz cut, arms like legs. I recall his face as being not unrelated to a mean version of Porky Pig. Probably played tackle at Florida State. <br /> He drawled, Which one of you fellers is shootin’ off fahrworks? He didn’t sound all that friendly.<br /> McFee, his hair hanging halfway to his waist, was wearing three-inch-long abalone earrings, a wild Hawaiian shirt, outsized women’s sunglasses, and ripped-up shorts. <br /> He said, I didn’t do it, officer from behind his Foster Grants.<br /> The Trooper glared at us. Don’t get smart with me boy. You watch your mouth. You’re gonna wind up in a whole heap a’ trouble!<br /> Holy Shit, he meant it, didn’t he? We shut right up. Frank was out of the car, being cool; smiling and explaining that it was our equipment truck, and we knew we shouldn’t have done it. Our truck rolled up. So did four other state troopers. We were way fucking surrounded. Our hearts were thumping. Visions of smirking southern jail wardens danced in our heads. We weren’t in West Marin anymore, Toto; we were fifty miles from some nasty lockup in a small town in the cypress swamps this side of Tallahassee. Long-hairs could still be still mistaken for commie- faggot- nigger-lovers in this part of the world in 1976. <br /> The central-casting troopers were conferring, trying to figure out what do with us when a blue dodge sedan rolled up and a short, beefy guy with long, curly hair, like an afro almost, and a ‘38 in the waistband of his plaid bermudas hopped out. He was an ATF agent who had seen the incident and two-wayed the cops. He thought it was rednecks shotgunning a hippy truck. He was cool, thank God. He obviously outranked the troopers, who didn’t want to have to deal with us anyway. We hastily autographed an album for him and we all apologized profusely to all the burly law enforcement guys. We were released from our doorway to hell and drove off at the speed limit with the windows rolled up. Johnny saved the rest of the bottle rockets so he could rain them down on Raleigh later from a hotel rooftop.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-51333931781569598172010-11-24T18:02:00.000-08:002010-11-24T18:03:58.915-08:002nd excerpt from "867-5309, the song that saved my ass"The Chelsea Hotel in Earl’s Court Square<br /> Our album was out at last. Jacko had come up with a name for the record that we agreed to for some unknowable, influenced by aliens reason. Right chasps; here’s the thing: You’ve been unavailable for years, so let’s call your album that. Unavailable. Yes? Yes? His bug-eyed, gesticulating enthusiasm was infectious, and obviously it spun even McFee and Huey’s heads around so they were staring off like flounders at some mirror-image world. This made sense? It was more like group psychosis. Unavailable. Unavailable? What the fuck were we thinking? Somehow it seemed like a good idea at the time. Jake had a passion and an apparent genius for naming things and people. Like “Elvis Costello”. Ridiculous, but it worked, if not all of the time. For example, Dave Robinson didn’t have a now, new wave name, and frankly couldn’t be bothered to create one for himself, so Jake took Dave’s middle name, Watson, and dubbed him Watson Television. Dave just let that one slide off him. So Clover became Unavailable. Dave’s name didn’t stick; ours did.<br /> For the moment we were actually quite available, waiting for the next thing on our schedule. We were now staying in Earl’s Court Square, an area filled with foreigners of all stripes, at a tourist hotel called the Chelsea: The Chelsea Hotel in Earl’s Court Square. Go figure. I suppose we could have as easily been in the Knightsbridge Hotel in Kensington, or the Upper Tooting Hotel in Brixton, but no matter. The Chelsea Hotel was a typical cheap tourist hovel, carved from the remnants of a Victorian era townhouse, with narrow, ill-lit hallways painted war-surplus green, lukewarm baths down the hall(water also war-surplus green), and a completely nonsensical floor plan. The rooms weren’t numbered in any logical fashion; room one was across from room eight, but number five was on the next floor. It was quite a confusing place, but hey, it was home. <br /> We designated it a temporary lawless zone for wild nights and steam off- letting. We’d met a lot of people in London now, and the hotel bar, which would otherwise have been basically empty, often had a good crowd. The Lizzys were there, Nick Lowe, Elvis, J.B., various girls and hangers-on of different stripes, from groupies to label people. There were some models and music-biz girls as well. It was time to let some of the pent-up, unspoken pressure off. We’d been out there getting pounded on by audiences and the press. Our internal springs had been wound pretty tightly. We were now aware of just how much of a pressure cooker it was in which we were stewing. Hey, if you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Or, for another approach, pour some vodka on the fire and see how hot you can make it burn. <br /> So, without the structure of a tour to keep us under control for the moment, we were running a bit hot and wild. J.B. introduced us to a place near Harrod’s in Chelsea called the Loose Box, which was a wine-bar literally jammed with swingin’ singles, young bankers, secretaries, and the like, each pressing through the packed room or the equally packed balcony clutching his or her own bottle of Leibfraumilch and a glass. It was a pick-up joint. Everyone knew what the action was. Suddenly, you could find yourself squeezed face to face to a member of the opposite sex who might be interested, and away you went. One morning after a Loose Box night, I woke up in an extremely hungover state in an apartment I didn’t remember going to the night before. The young lady was getting ready for work. I awkwardly excused myself and left. The flat was in one of those white, three or four-story walk-ups that are everywhere in London. The apartments, just like the hotels, had been created out of former Victorian townhouses which had once had bigger rooms. The floor plans, as in the Chelsea Hotel, didn’t make much sense. I stumbled down the stairs and opened what I presumed to be the door leading to the outside, only to find myself in the flat of a couple just having their breakfast. Uh… good morning! What’s worse, I did that again before somehow finding the welcoming cold, gray, wind-blown street. Don’t people lock their doors, ‘fer fucksake?<br /> Our old pal Marcus was hanging out with us at the Chelsea. He’d been trying to hook on with us as a drummer for a long time. He was a good guy, a part of the family, but he had never been, nor would he ever be, the ultimate drummer we were looking for. Marcus was known to keep a stash of nasal stimulants about his person from time to time, so we were always hitting him up for the same, and he was very generous. He and Ciambotti had a silly stoned thing going on. Johnny called Marcus Harry the Hebe, because Marcus is Jewish, and rather hairy. Men will be boys. In the wee hours of the night, Ciambotti was often on the prowl searching to find Marcus in the warren of rooms we inhabited, while Marcus was on his endless, Lancelot-like quest of a self-described panty raid. <br /> One night I was lying in my little twin bed, trying to sleep. Our long, narrow rooms had four twin beds in a row, like a dormitory or a barracks. I was one bed in from the window.<br /> I awoke to find Marcus standing over me, breathless. He’d come in from the balcony, which adjoined the next room’s balcony. You could easily climb from balcony to balcony.<br /> If Clambottle comes through here, tell him you haven’t seen me! He whispered breathlessly. With a furtive glance over his shoulder towards the open window, he hustled out the door at the far end of the room. <br /> Sure, yeah, whatever, man. Shit, can I sleep, please?<br /> A few minutes later, my dreams were once again interrupted by a wild-eyed Ciambotti, weaving as he loomed over me in the dark room, lit by the diffused glare of the earls’ Court streetlamps. He too had come in the window from the other room. He was waving his big folding knife around. His breath was like the bottom of a whiskey barrel.<br /> If I find Harry the Hebe, I promise not to stick this knife in his throat! He hissed intently. Then, like a psychotic combination of dapper vampire and mafia hit man, he was gone into the night.<br /> The young, vaguely hip Lebanese guys who run the hotel were glad to have us as paying guests in their otherwise mostly empty establishment. They liked the women who visited us and they liked making money at their bar. They really did try to be cool, but they just didn’t have the stamina to keep up.<br /> One evening they closed down the bar at midnight for some darned reason. They didn’t realize that, even though we’d run out of money and the time bell had definitely rung, Ciambotti and I weren’t near finished drinking and carrying on yet. The bar was, of course, locked behind those wooden shutters that many British bars employ that pull down like blinds from above and keep the bottles so inconveniently out of reach. After sneaking back into the bar and ascertaining that the coast was clear, Ciambotti took a pool cue and tied a shoelace on the tip with a slip-knot hanging down like a little noose. He used the cue to pry up the bar shutter as far as it would go, maybe three or four inches, stuck cue into the bar as far as it would reach, and angled the slip-knot over the neck of a liter bottle of vodka. He raised the tip of the cue and the knot tightened. He had it. Down the big bottle slid on the cue into our waiting hands. We squeezed it under the shutter, and our problem was at least momentarily solved. The managers never did figure out how a liter of vodka could have disappeared from the locked-up bar, though I’m sure they knew who was responsible.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-50145738009839273432010-11-24T15:01:00.000-08:002010-11-24T15:04:49.963-08:00excerpt from "867-5309, the song that saved my ass for a while"Canoga Park, 1985<br /><br /> The neon light above the store on the corner down the block was on the blink.<br /> “Liq…Liq….Liq…”<br /> I put the two big bottles of ultra—budget merlot on the counter.<br /> “How are you, my friend?” asked the skinny Lebanese owner, his close-set eyes twinkling alongside his long aquiline nose; his eternal five o’clock shadow like something from central casting for an Arab liquor store owner in a cop show. He knew me well.<br /> “Fine, fine, “I said, “shokran!” See, I even knew some Arabic.<br /> I smiled my bloated north-of-Ventura-Boulevard smile and pushed out into the parking lot. Heavy traffic on Vanowen. Vans, low riders, Beamers, pickups with four-foot ground clearance and exhaust flap covers flapping and clanking as they gunned their sex-substitute engines, spewing out more grey filth into the hot, valley smog. Grandmas, pachucos, blacks, Asians, and ancient, trembling white couples staring with frightened eyes at the vanished Valley of their youthful dreams, stood at street crossings, watching the dizzy world whizzing by at an astonishing speed. Latino families, mamas holding hands of beautiful white-shirted little boys and bright-faced, dark-eyed girls in school uniforms waited for the little flashing green man with the bad back to signal it was momentarily safe to cross the supercharged automotive artery. Tossed Butts and blown papers rolled and rattled in the tail-pipe wind gutter. The horizon was orange, brown, purple. The smog made nice sky colors. <br /> No one could see me once I was in my car, I thought. I pulled the door shut and turned the key. Click. Click. Click. Nothing. Come on, dammit! Click. Click. I hit the steering wheel. Fuck! Catch. On. Thank you, you fucking piece of shit Chevette.<br /> I backed out and turned up the side street and made my way home through the alleys; less cops. Couldn’t get caught again. The Reckless Driving was a lucky break. The next time I’d be in the slammer for more than just a few hours.<br /> The night in jail with the seventeen poker-playing Mexicans and the assorted gang-bangers and other regular drunks like me had been humiliating, but I’d walked away with only a four-hundred dollar fine for the crime of reckless driving. An everyday deal between attorney and prosecutor. Standard shit in those years before all the brouhaha about DUI. Good thing I hadn’t made it to my coke dealer before I got popped. That would have been bad.<br /> My little boy was playing in the living room. I slid the cork out extra quietly in the kitchen and filled a wine glass; put it behind a row of cook books on the counter for later. Drained another glass, then refilled. I went out the kitchen side door into the alley by the garbage can and fired up a smoke. I pulled the can away from the wall, exposing dozens of violet-red palmetto-bug cockroaches, who scurried momentarily away from the light before brazenly stalking back. <br /> The moon was rising, dull and orange, over the lemon trees. Other people had avocados or oranges. But we had these lousy lemon trees. You can only make so much lemonade. There was my garden as well. Ungodly tomato hornworms had destroyed this year’s crop of Big Boys before I found them and threw both hornworms and Big Boys over the cinder-block wall into the alley. <br /> The alley was part of the endless grid of streets, alleys, and houses that filled everything. Sometimes I climbed up on the roof to try to get a view of the distant mountains, the red Santa Susanna rocks to the north, which reminded me of Sedona. But Sedona was of another age of the earth, of my life. It was hard to believe I had ever been there. My Buddha’s Childhood Kingdom was a misty, half-remembered Shangri-la. I had left it but hadn’t found enlightenment; I had found my own limitations and other people’s excrement. Who knows? Maybe enlightenment was just another piece of cheap and easy nonsense; a Disney movie with talking raccoons and animatronic spiritual teachers that nodded endlessly and mouthed a reverby OM, while some crappy, lush synth song played over and over. Over the high-priced hills, the Jewish Alps, there was the vast Pacific Ocean, but here it was a sea of ranch house rooftops, palm trees, all laid out over the old orchards of the forties and fifties, bedded down with seething masses of people from everywhere, all coming to consume and regurgitate America. To the south, Woodland Hills and Tarzana shimmered; the houses across Ventura Boulevard, the houses of the rich and famous; Mercedes driven by awesome women wearing Gucci sunglasses. Dentist’s wives, their tauntingly beautiful daughters, incapable of even seeing me as I stood at the corner of Ventura and Winnetka, wearing my sweatpants, waiting for the lights to change. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Radio<br /><br /> Wolf spiders. Wolf spiders on my blankets.<br /> They look like scaled-down tarantulas, chopped and channeled like tarantula hot rods, but unlike their lumbering bigger cousins, wolf spiders are frantically fast. That’s part of the problem; you take your eyes off of them for a second, to get something to swat or catch them with, and they disappear. But where do they go? Under the other blanket? Back in the corner where the wooden bunk-bed frame doesn’t quite touch the wall, that place of unspeakable web-wrapped darkness? Tarantulas, of course, are gentle creatures; you can hang them on your sweater, let them amble over your slowly moving fingers. But wolf spiders are lightning killers, even if only of other wolf spiders. Their only other known function is to act as nightmare stalkers of seven-year-old boys.<br /> I lay in the darkness in my little basement room. Off in the distance there was the ominous deep rumbling from the new “jet” planes flying somewhere in the night. I was under the covers, drenched in a cold sweat, hiding from wolf spiders and rigid with terror that H-bombs would fall out of the sky. I was waiting every second for it to happen. That was what they’d been feeding us kids: Commies and H-bombs. <br /> I had the blankets pulled up around my head, because besides the H-bombs and the wolf spiders, there were the mice and rats and other short-and-long-legged crawling, creeping scaries waiting to get me down in that basement room. <br /> My dad never got around to finishing this part of the house. It was on his list, but the list was years long and filled the blue-lined pages of notebook after notebook, each neatly written in his crabbed writing, each held closed with a rubber band. There were a great many things on that years-long list that never got done. He was a big starter but not much of a finisher, a man of many dreams, but not so many fully realized accomplishments. So I, who my dad called Charlie Owlbox, the Dog-Faced Boy, number three of four kids, ended up being stuck in this unfinished afterthought. My older brother and sister lived down the hall, in finished rooms. My little sister lived upstairs with my parents. The basement had a semi-smooth concrete floor that was supposed to be polished but wasn’t (that was a fifties thing, polished concrete, very modern (now it’s au courant again: Whole Foods floors), and there were missing acoustic tiles in my ceiling, which left holes from which mice and rats would sometimes peer down on me as I lay in my bed. I once woke up to find that a big, fat mama rat had brought her newly spawned brood to nestle in the comfy folds of my satin comforter. At first I thought they were kittens, as we had up to a dozen cats at any one time in our house, and there were kittens everywhere, but as I squinted at them in the dim morning light, I suddenly realized that these tiny squirmers were of a more feral species. I ran, I suppose yelling, from my room. My dad came to the dramatic rescue, in typical Hughes Call fashion, with his ceremonial navy sword in one hand and our black cat in the other. He flicked back the covers with the tip of his shiny sword and tossed the cat on the rats, which scattered in all directions. Black Kitty might have caught one of them. <br /> Right at the foot of my bed there was also a dirt- floored “alcove”, full of dusty, cobwebby cardboard boxes, that was really a crawl space that led back under the house. This creepy, dark place was home to many kinds of critters, including the black widows that my older brother and his intrepid pals sought with jars. A flimsy little curtain only partially covered this nasty gateway to a child’s night terrors. <br /> But my room was a well-lit refuge compared to what waited beyond my pocket door with its little hook latch. Outside the door, there was a dimly lit, narrow hallway with no wall paneling, just exposed rough joists strung with Romex electric cabling and draped with dusty spider webs. Directly across from my door was the open black hole of the highly ironically named “playroom”, another unfinished space filled with partially started projects such as my dad’s “catamaran”, the one he planned to sail to Hawaii, which was never more than a few two-by-fours tacked together and leaned up against the windows, which couldn’t be seen out of for the clutter. There were piles of cut-up sheets of plywood, stacks of boxes and old newspapers dating back to the thirties, three-legged chairs waiting forever to be re-glued, a couple of eight-inch black-and-white TV sets, an old wind-up Victrola, uncountable broken vintage electric fans and light fixtures, and God knows what else, everything covered in spider webs and a light fall of slightly smelly grime that I came to call Mummy Dust. It just had this strange indefinable odor. I’m sure Indiana Jones would be able to relate. This unkempt jumble was naturally home to myriad species of arachnids, including my unfavorites, the wolf spiders, and all the other web makers, big and small. <br /> You see, my father was one of those people who couldn’t toss anything out, and I mean anything. Each old box full of whatnots, each partially cut piece of lumber, every hanging garment bag full of old, never-to-be-worn-again clothing (I knew there were corpses in them) had its own old memory or future use. At its most organized, the playroom was a place of labyrinthine, box-lined trails through the piles and stacks. This only got worse over time, until the tortuous paths themselves were filled to the ceiling. Nowadays, a person who collects stuff in this fashion would be labeled a compulsive hoarder, which is quite accurate, but the old name for the compulsive hoarder is more descriptive: packrat. Actually, both names are sadly correct. <br /> You might think from the above that I grew up out in the hills of Appalachia or in some rotting urban tenement, but this was in Mill Valley, California, one of the most urbane pieces of suburbia that ever was. And my dad wasn’t some undereducated hick from the sticks or faceless denizen of a forlorn cityscape. What he was was quite a complicated man. His mother and father had divorced in 1919 when he was two, leaving him to be raised by his wealthy grandparents. His mother’s father, my great-grandfather, George Alexander Hughes, was the inventor of the electric stove, if you can get your mind around that. A third-generation Irish Protestant immigrant, Mr. Hughes started an electric appliance company that went on to become Hotpoint and he was the Chairman of the Board of General Electric back in the twenties and thirties. I keep telling my brother that sooner or later a few hundred old shares of GE will be found in some old pile of papers (my brother took many of my dad’s boxes with him after dad passed away) and we’ll be rich. The shares have as yet not been unearthed. When we find them, I’ll let you know.<br /> My dad grew up in a big house near Chicago, where he got more attention from the liveried “colored” servants and cooks than he did from his older-generation, distant grandparents. He was shunted off to a fancy, waspy prep school and then Harvard and Harvard Business School. From this high-altitude springboard he could have bellyflopped into a cushy corporate job. All he had to do was toe the line and follow vaguely in Grandpa’s footsteps. But while serving as a young Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy (no doubt through his grandfather’s political connections) in the strictly non-combatant role of junior adjutant and tennis partner for Admiral Nimitz in Pearl Harbor during WWII, where in addition to his forehand my father finely honed his already considerable cocktail-party skills, he saw California. When the war was over, he turned his back on his guaranteed-to-be-boring corporate job prospects and left the Midwest for the wide-open sunny life of San Francisco. He was, despite his blustery protestations to the contrary, a black sheep who tried for a long time in vain to wear white; a lifelong failure at business and a staunch anti-Roosevelt Republican who finally came to his senses during the Vietnam War and became a Democrat and an anti-war, civil rights advocate. Should he have been surprised to have spawned a rock musician? As for Hotpoint Electric Company and the George Alexander Hughes’,” Father of the Electric Range”, family fortune? My grandmother, the party-loving-almost-good-enough erstwhile concert pianist, spent all the dough traveling the world on board Cunard liners draped in minks and pearls and entertaining Broadway’s and The New York Philharmonic’s stars at her 57th Street apartment, right across the street from Carnegie Hall.<br /> Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. <br /> My dad was also an alcoholic, who, though of the largely charming variety, couldn’t find the time to play catch with me or teach me how to drive. He was always too busy either sleeping a big night off or winding up to be Mr. Gregarious, the guy who lived for the next big, imaginative party coming down the pike. My parents both sang and my mother played piano; we had three of them in the house, with two back-to-back grands in the big living room, the curves matching like musical yin-yang pieces. My folks belonged to a theater group that did Gilbert and Sullivan and other light musicals, and our house was party central for the cast. Our parties were legendary. My dad once cut an eight-by-ten-foot hole in the living room floor and rigged a “stage” that could be raised with pullies from the infamous playroom up to the living room. Virtually everyone at the party, and we often had a hundred people or more at our soirees’, was required to have an act, which could be raised from the depths, the partygoers singing or doing a funny scene from a play. You’d think he could’ve taken a little of that energy to fix my room up. But he was the party master: he loved the ladies, he lived for the laughter; his nickname was Hugs. He had a clock that said, no drinks served until after five. The face was, of course all fives. <br /> My Father was much loved by his witty, creative, and simpatico friends, but his own early childhood abandonment by his mother no doubt left him with deep, unfaced issues. His dark, wounded side found expression in the scary bowels of our house. <br /> Of course, I didn’t know any of that when I was a young boy. I only knew that everywhere there were piles of stuff too important to be tossed out, projects too far down on the ever-longer list to ever be dealt with. At night the doorless playroom was a seething black pit full of lurking horrors. To the right was the laundry area, with its single, hanging bare light bulb, and to the right, the dark and creepy old blanket-draped doorway to dad’s “workroom” (where he hid his cases of cheap Tom Moore bourbon). There were two more of those scary, unlit, cave-like alcoves that ran off under the old house. The stairs that went up to the main floor had only steps, no facings, since they had been built by my dad, who we now know never finished anything. I imagined bony hands reaching out of the blackness for my ankles as I ran up to my parent’s bedroom in the middle of the night when I was too terrified to stay downstairs any longer. All this and H-Bombs and wolf spiders, too. <br /> So, I snuck my hand out of the blankets and clicked on the green plastic Zenith radio. Wish I still that radio. It looked just like the front of a ’55 Oldsmobile, with chromish mesh over the speaker and a pea soup green body. Two dials. Volume and frequency. I turned it just on, didn’t turn the volume up at all. At first, there was only a very faint buzzing noise. But after a few minutes, as the tubes warmed, there was KYA coming in, too quietly for anyone to hear but me. The sound of the smooth-talking DJ was reassuring to a child who felt as if he had been abandoned to his cellar-dweller fate, and the comforting top-forty hit singles played all night.<br /> There were songs that I loved: Don’t be Cruel, El Paso, Hello Mary Lou, Bye-Bye Love, Pretty Woman. There were many more songs I couldn’t stand: She Wore Blue Velvet, Hats Off To Mary, Tell Laura I Love Her, Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini. But good or not, each song was three minutes long: verse, b-section, and chorus. We were a musical family and I was already at the tender age of seven a discerning critic. I waited for the songs that had cool guitar leads, songs that sounded like a band was playing them. Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, The Everly Brothers. I switched over to KEWB or the black station KDIA when Frankie Avalon, Neil Sedaka, or another one of those horrible teen idols came on. I liked the real stuff, no lush strings or oboes. The songs were my own private fort; if I listened hard enough, the night went away. Eventually I would fall asleep, but the old Zenith stayed on all night. The songs sank into my consciousness. <br /> I was terrified down in that room, but as I drifted into dreamland on the waves of the old Zenith I was unknowingly uncovering something inside of me: music, a place of refuge. And it was my own Berlitz course: Learn to write hit songs while you sleep.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The Dance<br /><br /> Hard guys. Duck-ass haired, switch-blading, sucker-punching, candy money-extorting, playground-humiliating, stupid-ass hard guys. Worse than wolf spiders, because you could stomp on a wolf spider, but hard guys traveled in packs, like nasty dogs. You couldn’t take ‘em all on; there were too many. They cut the spineless kids from the herd and harassed them just for fun. Kids like me. <br /> I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen when my mom dropped me off uptown on a fine evening in September of 1960, what magic was about to strike from the heavens, but that night I found my life’s calling, and those fuckin’ hard guys had a lot to do with my grand vision. <br /> I was in seventh grade and it was the first dance of fall at the Outdoor Art Club in my hometown of Mill Valley, California. Though someday it would be the ultra dot.com village of multi-millionaires, where young latte-sipping entrepreneurs and their slim wives who drove sleek Mercedes and black Prius’s would buy ten thousand dollar paintings at the hardware store where I used to get my baseball bats, Mill Valley in 1960 was just a very, very nice small town with a California twist: Middle America meets the Ivy League and gets a dash of Zen mixed in with its highball (or red wine and the first reefers in certain houses). In 1960, we were on the borderlands of the future. JFK and Nixon were running for president; the Red Menace loomed over our mushroom-cloud- shaded heads. Vietnam and all that was still to come. The psychedelic Sixties were slowly but surely being born, but for now the button-down Fifties were still in control. I was eleven years old, five-foot–three, as skinny as a fishing rod, and only dimly aware of the big world.<br /> It was a dance for seventh-and-eighth graders. For a brief moment, I was excited enough about the dance to not be afflicted with my usual paranoia about getting hassled by the likes of Allan Acree and the other Elvis-haired hard guys who haunted these events.<br /> You see, the ghosts of my wolf-spider infested basement were fading away as I discovered the spiders were harmless and the ghosts weren’t really there. I had transferred my fears to a more present reality. I was now scared shitless by hard guys.<br /> Hard guys. They were my shadow mirrors, the ones who pointed out to me and everyone else just what a total chickenshit I was. Hard guys liked to fight, or at least threaten to fight. Fighting and being tough was cool: in fact, the word for cool was tough. That ‘deuce coupe is so tough. The Nueland twins are so tough. Being the quintessential skinny little runty nerd, I lived in constant fear of getting my ass kicked; almost as afraid as I was of the H-Bomb, and I was still deathly afraid of that, by the way. You know the clip we all grew up with, that magnificent crown-shaped white-hot Bikini Atoll H-bomb mushroom cloud instantaneously blossoming from the sea. As the clip runs, the mushroom head rolls skyward, leaving a massive column of gray-white, the stem of the mushroom. Around the base of that impossibly huge and powerful tower rises a gigantic wave that dwarfs a fleet of mothball WWII warships. Yes sir and madam, that vision scared the crap out of me until my late teens.<br /> But H-bombs were on TV. My immediate, daily problem was that there was seemingly no escape from these hard guys. They strutted around at school and at C’s drive-in with their Bryllcreemed hair, metal combs like weapons protruding from the back pockets of their Levis, just aching for any excuse to be shitheads. They pushed nerds like me around and if they felt like it they’d call you out, while their grinning thug buddies stood around leering. Then you were screwed; you’d have to fight down at the tracks. I worked very hard not to let that occur. <br /> I had two, both failing, strategies: I tried to escape them by having younger, less threatening friends, which only made me a bigger (or I my case smaller) pussy, and conversely by trying to look like I belonged in their hard guy “in” crowd. I used Vitalis or Bryllcreem (a little dab’l do ya!), or even Wildroot Cream Oil (the one with cartoon shiny-headed Fearless Fosdick as its pitch man in the old print ads), and carried my own grease-slick comb in my back pocket. The goal was to get one curl to droop down across your forehead from the front of the combed-up pomp, like Elvis. I couldn’t quite pull that one off because my hair was too fine, so I finally resorted to this goo you dipped your comb into that made your hair as hard as a helmet when it dried. Why did guys grease their hair anyway? It was because in the fifties, bathing wasn’t really a fully realized national obsession yet. Old ways die hard. Some adults in that Robert Mitchum-John Wayne-post-WWII, post-Korea era only “took the plunge” once a week. So I tagged along and greased up and also razored off the belt loops on my Levi’s, neatly rolled the cuffs over, and wore a white t-shirt with the sleeves folded twice over my noodle-muscle arms. When I hung out at the abandoned railroad tracks after school, I folded a pack of Pall Malls or Marlboros in my sleeve just like the big boys. I smoked; I swore. But none of that worked. <br /> Because there was no way in hell I could really ever be a hard guy. But I wanted to be popular, and I didn’t want to get my ass kicked. My tactics weren’t paying off. I was still getting punched, pulled under at the pool, and humiliated on the playground in front of haughty girls who thought it was funny.<br /> I was a dorky enough chicken (did I mention the horn-rimmed glasses my mom picked out for me?) that my friend Dennis Brown even fought a proxy fight for me with Alan Acree. Acree was a junior thug from the wrong side of town who had a set of muscular one-year-older hard guys for friends, the dreaded, hulking Craig Byrd among them. Acree called me out because I had a club called the Tasmanian Devils Club with my younger friends and chubby Mike Walter, another nerd. It was a TV cartoon thing, for Chrissakes. We had other ad hoc clubs, like the Famous Monsters Club (we kept movie monster mags in a tree fort- oooh, Creature From The Black Lagoon , The Tingler!), and our less well-known but much more exciting junior jerk-off club, which congregated in my older brother’s junked cars: he kept girly mags stashed under the seats. Alan Acree said he had his own club, the Acree Devils, and what did I fuckin’ think of that? He poked me hard in the shoulder a couple of times for good measure. I stammered something about how that was cool. That wasn’t good enough for Acree. He called me out. I had to fight him down at the tracks after school. <br /> Oh shit! I was shaking and near tears. I just wasn’t a fighter. Acree would kick my ass in front of everyone, all the hard guys and tough chicks and wannabe hard guys who hung out at the tracks after school. My friend Dennis Brown, who had the super-cool Kooky Byrnes hair and was five inches taller than I was, said, no sweat; he’d take care of Acree for me. <br /> After school I went with Dennis down to the tracks, where the old spur line’s rusted rails passed beneath a wooded bluff; the place where everyone hung out to smoke and socialize and fight. The word was out: fight today. I was as nervous as I could have possibly been. There were a lot of kids there, way more than usual. Acree’s gang of six or seven goons came up, acting like they were the kings of the place, which they basically were. There was some murmured name calling. Acree had heard that Dennis was going to fight him. It wasn’t unheard of to have a surrogate fight for someone. Dennis was a guy who didn’t take crap from anyone, but he was kind of an outsider. That’s why he was my buddy, because I was one, too, but I was way more of a dork than Dennis. He and Acree exchanged the usual ‘fuck you’s ‘and other assorted niceties, like, this ain’t none of your business, Brown. Oh yeah? Maybe it fuckin’ is, Acree. First names were never used, except maybe when you said a guy’s name backwards, like Nibor Snobbig or Xela LLac. They stepped out into a ring formed by the onlookers. The ratted-haired popular hard-girl Nueland twins smoked cigarettes and acted bored. There was some tense calling, like at a baseball game. C’mon, Alan!, Git’ him, Take out the motherfucker, Hit him low. There was more vocal support for Acree; he was the popular thug. But there was respect for Dennis, who had the fighting skills that might enable him to kick Acree’s ass, which secretly a lot of kids wouldn’t mind seeing happen. I wasn’t the only one around school who had been intimidated and harassed by Acree. The fighters raised their fists and circled, looking for the first punch. Acree rushed in and Dennis pushed him off and got a shot in. Acree came back fast; he was a madman, scratching, kicking. He was shorter than Dennis, so he got in underneath and tried to do some damage. But Dennis stood up straight and punched and pushed Acree off. They kicked up some dust with their black loafers and some gravel from the old tracks went skittering around. The bout was all over in a few short minutes; a draw, like most fights. No torn Pendletons. Each guy got a couple of licks in. They exchanged some more salutary fuck you’s and withdrew into the crowd. So I didn’t end up getting my ass kicked, but I was sort of humiliated for not fighting my own fight. I wish I could have that one back. Getting a bloody nose from Alan Acree wouldn’t have hurt me as much as did the loss of my self-respect I suffered for having ducked out. Besides, Acree could never have hit me as hard as various music publishers and so-called friends would tag my ass over the years.<br /> But despite the Alan Acrees of my world, I went on still aping the hard guys. What else could I do? Deep down inside, I wonder if I wasn’t always looking for a way out of all that shit. I’d never be a hard guy or a professional baseball player. Vickie and Bonnie and the other giggling, note-passing popular girls who took delight in slicing open my little heart by ignoring me would keep on doing so.<br /> At least I knew that at the Social Club dance Janey would dance with me. We had twisted at a well-lit sock- hop on the slick hardwood floor of the Park School gym during the summer. We won the twist contest, that honor bestowed on us, the sweaty, beaming couple, by one of the younger, cooler teachers. Dancing was a blast. Most of my fellow dorks were too shy to dance, but I couldn’t stand still when the music started and I found that if I got the courage up to ask, some girls would dance with me. I could feel the beat, the melody, and the shouting choruses of the spinning 45’s racing around inside of me. Something undeniable was waking up within the groveling chickenshit. I was so ready for the dance that night. <br /> I heard the muffled thumping of the music coming through the oak trees as I walked nervously up the curving sidewalk to the Outdoor Art Club. I began to twitch. I wanted to get there.<br /> I got my social club card punched and went with Mike Walter or someone into the tiny, old hall. There, up on the box stage at the far end of the room, was the first band I’d ever seen. They were typical of those groups: drums, bass, guitar, sax; one Electro-voice mic going through a totally inadequate public address speaker. The sound system was designed to handle Outdoor Art Club functions attended by middle aged men who wore bow-ties and smoked pipes. My dad wore bow-ties and smoked a pipe. His Naval Reserve unit met there, under the banners of Flag, WWII, Fraternity, and Jim Beam. The little hall was paneled in dark wood. It had hardwood floors and a pale-green-walled, fluorescent-lit kitchen off to one side where during most events curled and coiffed women with top-buttoned sweaters and long skirts would lay out baked goods and brew big aluminum urns of weak Folger’s coffee. American and California flags stood on brass-eagle-topped stands on each side of the band-box stage. You could almost hear crew-cut men chanting ‘I Like Ike!’, or ‘Nixon’s the One!’<br /> The Elvis-haired band guys in their matching suit jackets and skinny ties stepping together in time to the beat on the little stage looked like grown men to me, though they were most likely only as old as my brother Lewis, sixteen or seventeen. The amps and guitars were Fender, the two-tone, dark-blue and silver, Slingerland drums bought by paper-route earnings plus a loan from daddy. During breaks, guitar and bass hung by their straps over the amps. So tough! Cooler than tough! I wanted a Fender Jazzmaster or Stratocaster and a Bandmaster two-piece amp. The combo thudded away in the little boomy hall. The guitar and sax traded off solo licks; there was a Sandy Nelson drum solo on TeenBeat. All the Bryllcreemy lads and their bouffant hair-spray or page-boy lassies raised their voices on What I Say, Tequila, and Bony Marony. The two bands that night were called The Chord Lords and The Opposite Six.<br /> Later on, I would get to know some of those band guys – the ones who made the jump to 60’s rock, that is. A few would become famous, like Bill Champlin, who would someday play in the super-group Chicago and write mega-hits. Others would go down, ,flat-top–with-fenders dinosaurs: Jazzmasters blazing, refusing to get hip, keeping their hair products, pints of cheap bourbon, Saturday-night-big-dance-and-fight, and old Duane Eddy rockabilly guitar riffs clutched in their hot-rod hands to the bitter end.<br /> But back then, for me, these guys were like Gods. They played Duane Eddy’s Forty Miles of Bad Road, Sleepwalk, I Got a Woman, The Peter Gunn Theme, The Ventures’ Walk Don’t Run and a bunch of Freddie King-style instrumentals that featured only a handful of notes, mostly pentatonic scale: good dance stuff. <br /> I let it all hang out that night. Once I finally got up the courage to ask her, Janey and I jitterbugged, twisted, stomped, and even slow danced until I was soaked in sweat and then we danced some more. There were sneaked cigarettes outside and some nervous futile attempts at kissing. She was kind to me; she kept dancing. But she wouldn’t smooch. Making out was still a year away for me. I just got to hold her hands a couple of times for a lingering moment after the slow songs, which fired my poor, hormone-wracked pubescent body enough to make my post-dance masturbation even more earnest than usual. <br /> I was the original dancing fool. Since I was using a deadly combo of Vitalis plus that god-only-knows-what-it-is stuff you dip your comb into that turns your hair into a helmet, my sweat melted my hairdo and my would-be hard guy hair failed me, falling lank and wet on my forehead. But while my sweaty, horny manifestation may have driven cute little Janey to keep me at arm’s length, I had the time of my life. And I learned something that changed it forever. <br /> The guys in the band had lots of girls staring at them while they played, some girls even sneaking suggestive glances at them over their boyfriend’s shoulders during the slow dances. And they watched the band guys when they were done playing, too, the girls giggling and glancing in little groups at the musos. Girls, the thing I most wanted. The hard guys didn’t fuck with the band guys. The musicians had a magic passport to cool. They were above the junior high Darwinian law of dickhead-beats-up-dickhead. The band guys hung out by themselves. They were in a world of their own. I wanted to be in that world. And starting right then at that seventh grade social club dance, I, a skinny little eleven-year-old dork with glasses and barely emergent cojones, had a feeling that I would get there. From that dance forward, there would be no turning back, I would have no doubts. I was going to be in a rock’n’roll band and get out of the hard guy rat race forever. <br /> There was a nylon-stringed guitar at home. I don’t know where it came from, since no one played guitar in my family. The battered Spanish-style guitar only had the bottom two strings on it, but that was enough. I just slid my fingers around, kind of playing bass for the songs I had heard at the dance. I could kind-of sort-of figure some of them out. Tequila! I was on my way. <br /> What’s funny is that I still play the same way today.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8221582526275900232.post-48595601338790926612010-11-24T14:56:00.000-08:002010-11-24T14:57:44.147-08:00Traveler...blog novel...unedited..tell me what happens next<br /><br /> The river roils, red chile-tainted cafe con leche, around the great bends, each new cut created by the opposite offset of the previous...the cliffs hang above, sheer, silent walls set in talus slopes of sand, boulders, and rocks the size of ancient buildings. The only visible inhabitants are two ravens shadowing across the sandstone faces. At side canyons, where streams power endlessly through ruins of inhuman cities of fallen stone, the snow- topped peaks, blue with distance below the rio colorado, Navajo sandstone wilderness, can be glimpsed, their blanketed pure fields of white merging with dark, forested slopes and rolling clouds racing in with a new cold front.<br /> The clouds thicken and lower until the draping tendrils of rain, grey- white contrasting with the black wall clouds of the storm cell, sweep down on the desert, obliterating the long view and closing the world down to a driving, midnight insular vortex of rain and hail. Lightning races from heaven to earth and back in quivering towers, the sound of the molecules of air exploding in symphonies of primordial power.<br /> Then the world lightens and grows ever more still. The setting sun's rays streak beneath the lifting storm, firing the red spires against its purple retreat. A raven caws up the canyon. The voice of river and wind intone together, sparkled by tiny birdcalls. A coyote slips across the tip of a nameless mesa and drops ...with a last suspicious glance, into a wash.<br /> Trav rides on, quiet and small.<br /><br /> It was after dark when he came to the Crossroads. <br /><br /><br /><br /> He tied up out back. Red dust swirled across the open area. A lizard ingesting the last warmth of a hunk of sandstone skittered away into an unruly patch of woody, dried out prickly pear. Buddy’s old school -cum tour bus with its broken-axle trailer, chrome strips peeling off, sagebrush growing up through the wheel wells, sagged along the barbed wire fencing. A rusty Bobcat, its bucket tipped up like the mouth of a hungry bulldog, leaned crazily over a half-dug hole, half- filled with Coor’s light cans. There were four rental cars with Utah and Arizona plates. German and Italian tourists. <br /> Trav loosened Ginger’s cinch and fed her a handful of oats.<br /> ‘Hang in there, girl, I won’t be too long’.<br /> Three hens went scrabbling away as walked up to the back door. The balcony of the motel above the joint rattled in the wind. Amazing it doesn’t just fall down, he said to himself. Buddy had patched the whole place together out of pieces of other buildings that had indeed long fallen down. The rusty railings came from the Sunset Motel way out by the Interstate. Pieces of plywood and corrugated sheet metal and plexiglass tacked and wired up to somehow stay in place in the unending winds. The lower walls were the old adobe of the way-station from God knows when. There were sections of painted and unpainted cinderblocks here and there where the mud bricks had rotted or been washed away. The stairs that teetered to the balcony were concrete slabs on wrought iron. It was a good thing the Euro tourists were generally in good shape. The average overweight, older American or solid Ute would bring the whole thing down. <br /> Trav pulled the door open by its mini-steering-wheel door handle and went in. The bar was mostly empty, just two tables of tourists eating their famous Crossroads Lodge steaks. Buddy’s son Duck was tending bar. A single girl Trav didn’t know sat at the far end, near the lobby with a half-glass of dark Polygamist Porter next to her ashtray.<br /> Trav pulled up to a stool, keeping his left leg on the floor, stretching out his sore ankle. <br /> Duck stuck a couple of glasses on the rack and dried his hands. ‘What’d you do, ride over?”<br /> ‘Yeah, thought Ginger could use a little airing out’<br /> ‘Bullshit. Drink or beer?’ <br /> ‘Both’. He shot the first and rolled the other around on the counter, leaving little swirls of moisture on the smooth, booze-worn wood. The girl slinked him a look on some pretense. She was dark haired, How old he couldn’t tell in the glow of the bar lights. <br /> “They took off yesterday’ said Duck.<br /> ‘I know” he said. He tipped his glass and let some cold beer slide down. There was a short outburst of laughter from one of the tables. Two German-looking couples, pushed back from their too-expensive, crappy steaks. They were happy, tanned, and fit. One man clapped his hand on his female partner’s shoulder. She the butt of the joke. She fake –slapped back at him, blushing and laughing. He fended her off and said something else that caused them to laugh even louder. <br /> Trav, who had turned to his left at the noise, shot the girl a glance and caught her doing the same. He held her eyes for a moment and then turned back to the bar and went back to his beer. They could see each other without pretending to look in the bar mirror.<br /><br /> Ginger was stamping and chuffing when he walked outside. ’Easy girl, we’re going’.<br /> The hulking loom of Warrior Rock blocked the stars above the thundering river. Trav could hear stones being rolled along in the flood’s depths by the runoff, the never-ceasing whisper of current against buckbrush and cottonwood roots, the voice of the mountains and the canyons and the towering black storms. The wind had died down. He gripped Ginger’s mane and swung up easy, the way he’d learned to from the real horse riders. The beams of headlights swung around the back lot like a prison spotlight and he recognized the rumbling of Buddy’s pickup. He rode up to the front. Bugs zapped around under the two floodlights out on the road.<br /> Buddy’s truck had stopped, leaving its fooled dust to go on a few more feet ahead of it towards the front door of the lodge lobby. He stepped out, groaning and holding his left hip. He looked up at Trav sitting on Ginger.<br /> ‘Howdy, Ginger”, he said, his eyes twinkling in the reflection of the Christmas tree lights that framed the long covered front of the building, ‘ ‘Yer too late. They took off last night’.<br /> ‘So I heard No biggie’.<br /> ‘Too late for a beer?” said the older man as he took a smoke from the front pocket of his blue-striped cowboy shirt.<br /> ‘I got to get back. He’ll be pissed off if I’m not up early enough.’<br /> ‘You should give up this fake cow crap and come play guitar for me’, said Buddy. He stopped and worked up a big wad of lung crap and hawked it into the dust.<br /> “Play for a seventy-one- year old man who smokes two packs of camels a day. That’s a solid gig.’<br /> ‘Better’n playing cowboy for another old fart.’<br /><br /> A curl of smoke down at the end of the entryway, out in the edge of lights caught Trav’s eye. She was standing there, silent as a cougar.<br /> ‘Gotta get Ginger back.’<br /> ‘At least she knows how to get there. Gonna grab me a beer. See you later.’<br /> Trav looked back into the shadows but the girl was gone.<br /> Ginger followed her nose home along the canyon trails, picking her way back up to the top of second mesa. The moon finally rose, waning, but flooding the bare rock and open space with blue light. A gang of javelinas ran out from a wash and spooked the old mare for moment, but she quickly regained her pride and fell back into her routine. She knew the way, even if Trav didn’t.<br /> Thacker was still up, sitting out on the porch. The light showed dim through the curtains. Trav dressed down Ginger and walked up. Thacker sat like a glowing coal on his rocker.<br /> “Note for you. It’s in the kitchen.’<br /> He went in and looked at the long, plain envelope. It was thin, maybe one sheet of paper inside. It bore his name in a nice schoolgirl script: Traveler Evans. <br /><br /> The Blazer<br /> The little creek talked away in the background, just out of the range of being able to hear the conversation. Along the bank, asters and Indian paintbrush and little yellow and white mountain daisies vibrated in the breeze. Above them, the peaks rode out the wave of treeline, forever breaking shy of the tombstone-grey tops for all eternity. The first little cumulous puffed in the wide sky. Soon enough they would fester and boil into a strike-filled tempest rolling through the granite cliffs and watercolor glacier strips that terminated in tiny dead lakes ridden by black-faced, furious little whitecaps. <br /> The flower- fired green meadows washed at the tree line itself, beargrass and sage tiding into the junipers which gave way to aspens and lodgepoles and a few lightning--struck ponderosas. A big bird circled, a speck in the cerule; she hoped it was an eagle, doesn’t everyone, but a hawk would do.<br /> The creek fell down the basin to an open saddle that dropped off unseen into the broken mesa lands below. Haze and distance beyond reckoning, another dark blue snow-capped ridge maybe twenty or thirty miles to the west. She heard the horses snuffle contentedly in the grass. He lay propped up on his elbows, surveying the ridge across the basin.<br /> ‘Sheep’. He said. She looked. They were moving along in the sage and rock of the drier, south-facing slope, hard to pick out until she saw the first Bighorn. Then she could see them all. Maybe thirty, lambs and ewes, young rams; a summer group.<br /> He touched her arm lightly with the tip of a stem of grass with the unfirm tenderness of a daddy long legs walking along quietly. She rolled to face him. She could see herself in his green eyes, her reflection. They looked so much alike, she thought. Brown hair, light eyes, full lips, nothing all that exceptional in either, yet both were grand and young and charged with the moisture of the Earth in its fullness.<br /> She almost imperceptibly drew to his face, and he to hers; slowly, like the space between them was sacred and semi solid, alive, something to be respected and gently navigated and negotiated with care, though it must yield to them and would willingly, the space itself wanting the moment as much as they did. The skin of her lips tingled, her gut ached, her breasts engorged.<br /> They rode down the saddle at sunset. She beat him down the mountain easily, laughing and whipping her horse, falling and scrabbling steeply through the washes and benches. They reached Thacker’s on Second Mesa by dusk. He drove her to the crossroads and they partied with Tia and some Australian climbers until too late. He stayed but Tia was there in the other bed. It was just a crash. He got up early.<br /> ‘I have to get to work’. She pulled at him and he fell into her for a moment, but then left. She lay there hurting with how good she felt.<br /> <br /> She yanked the rearview down, rolled down the window, and pulled the side view mirror back against the door. Too many damn fucking headlights. Tia slept, her head, propped against her wadded jacket, occasionally knocking lightly on the shotgun side window. She murmured and sometimes stirred up enough to whisper an exasperated fuck. Blaze held the wheel with her left hand, her elbow resting on a rolled-up towel taken from room 7 at the Crossroads Lodge. Trucks pummeled by, making the Escape sheer to the side as they passed.<br /> I hate this stretch, she said to herself. She passed the Fairfield exit and the traffic only increased. <br /> Twenty-two hours. Five tanks. Twelve styrofoam cups and four bags of crumpled napkins, plastic forks, and dull, limp french fries on the floor. It was nine-thirty when she took the Embarcadero turnoff and dropped into the City and headed to Potrero. What’re you gonna do, she said to him in her mind. Stay out there. I can’t stay there. I love you, but you’re cutting yourself off and I can’t do that. You narcissistic motherfucker.<br /> Her studio was a mess, the way she left it. Oh shit, she thought. She put down her duffel bag and poured out the two week- old moldy coffee, washed out the carafe in scalding water and started a fresh pot. A wave of weariness rolled over her. C’mon Blazer, she said to the room, paint and paper and frames and canvas and photos and coffee cups and empty wine bottles and unopened junk mail and bills and magazines and cardboard boxes hiding wolf spiders and old tubes of magenta and tinted oxides and brushes with the dried blood of creativity and drunkenness pressed and soaked irrevocably into them.<br /> She went to the window. Her view was out onto the tracks and jumble of failing ruins and glorious, soul-breaking City rebuilds. A guy came out from a doorway and pissed in the street, Nice. The titanic rumble of the City permeated the walls, the trembling, buzzing window glass, the ceiling, the floor. Her unmade bed, the morning light trying to throw off the overcast.<br /> She went to Mo’s and had coffee and read the various papers scattered around by students and artists and geeks. An Arab-looking guy screwed his fingers on his mouse pad, checking out god knows what. Terrorist porn, she snickered to herself. The place smelled of coffee and dough and idle scents of comers and goers. She leaned back into the window sill and watched the street go by in an endless procession of homeless, urbanites, old oriental beat types, Rasta drug addicts, mothers with children in expensive strollers, Tilda’s flowers across the street, the T&G market, Florentina, its door dark now but pulsating at the dinner hours. In the distance the ballpark and the City, the Bay Bridge, the Pyramid stuck into the low river of the fog. She was tired, that’s all. Trav was fuckin’ out of his goddamn mind. I ain’t goin’ back to that again, she said. She nodded to Mo as she left. The old man tipped his head back, like yeah, yeah, same old shit.<br /> When she woke later in the afternoon she cleaned up. She made progress, wading through the unkempt stratum of chaos in a non-linear but productive way, each little job needing one done before it before it could be completed, slowly organizing her materials and throwing out crap. This’ll make me cold. She knew what a clean studio meant: no ideas. But one would come; they always did. Time for this, time for that. She glanced through the mail and saw a greeting-card sized envelope from Corinne. Sissy, she said. She opened it and pulled out the stiff, Hallmarky Card. For my sister, in a flowing, baby-pinkish script on flowers and clouds, maybe an angel hiding in the crappy print. Jesus, Corinne. But Blazer loved her. She pulled the fold apart and a photo fell out on the floor. Sissy, really, a photo. Ever heard of email? Of course not. She bent and picked it up carefully, just getting the edge of her nails under it. It was old enough to be half sepia, but how old could that be, twenty years? She knew it at once. She sat on her first mountain bike, a skinny eight year old, at the top of The Old Road grade. Her eyes were brilliant, satellites, ambassadors, of light thrown off from her inner, radiant smile and slightly buck teeth. Her helmet was back a little; brown waves of hair hung down, blowing in the hot Sonoma wind and sun. No fear. The note was short.<br /> ‘I could never catch you Blazey, love, your Sissy.’<br /> She slumped on a stool and held the photo down between her legs, not looking at this world. She could see the road winding down from the ridge, grass golden and glassy in the wind, Oaks like giant cufflinks from God’s best shirt, the blue of the coast range, no one hardly on the road. Blazey she was. The Blazer.<br /> She put the photo on her keeper counter space near the phone. She picked up three wine bottles with her fingertips in the throats and dropped them one by one, clashing like revolution, in her recycle bucket. <br /> Blaze that, you shit, she said.<br /><br /> She walked down Market Street purposefully, ignoring the pop-up homeless with their endless query. Christ, don’t you know I’m broke, too? Get a frikkin’ life. She felt bad and gave a one-legged drunk a buck. Fuck it, she thought. In few minutes I’ll pouring eleven dollar cabs for shitheads and their high-price- pussy old ladies. The City was trying to put on a happy face of some never existent era, with cool old trolleys and kiosk bathrooms. But the trash in the streets and the clash of purpose and hopelessness clanged like trolley bells on acid. <br /> She walked in and put on her apron. <br /> ‘Ok, happy bitch, time to shine!’<br /> ‘Hi, Julius’, she smiled. Julius was as gay as the day is long in Nebraska, whence he had fled twenty years ago to find sex and freedom in the Castro. His hair was up in that greasy new baby Mohawk, little spikes here and there in studied disarray. His face was round and soft, yet he had an intense five o’clock shadow, something his lovers found most incongruous.<br /> ‘How was your cowboy this time? Has he learned about sheep yet?’<br /> ‘Cows. No comment.’<br /> ‘He’ll be back, you know. Trav might think he wants to play that, but he’s a pinko, and I’m not talking about his little squid. How was that, anyway?”<br /> ‘Jesus, Ju, all you ever think about is sex.”<br /> ‘There’s something else?”<br /> Julius squealed a welcome to a handsome couple as they entered and he swished off. Blaze waited on the patrons. Where’d they all come from, these rich, urbane, assholes? How did they make so much money? And their fucking wives. She took an order for the wild boar fajitas with German mustard beer sauce at a window table. Outside, a black kid, hat sideways, pants almost off, hand on crotch, picked his nose and looked bleary eyed, maybe at his own reflection. The valets, college kids from SF State, hustled the Mercedes and Priuses. Why come to a restaurant on shitty old Market Street? Even it was called Styr.<br /> Julius dropped her off around midnight. She undid the locks and clopped up the stairs to the studio. At least it was clean. She had a glass of wine and read texts. Nothing. He doesn’t even have fucking email, she thought. Her heart was in a knot. She took her glass and went up the back stairs to the roof. The deathless roar of the undead city flooded over her, yet she felt at peace up here. Her own mesa. She sat on the edge of the rumbling air unit and stared the million lights down.<br /><br /><br /> ‘You need to get up the strays. I know there’re some up third.’<br /> ‘By myself?’ Trav said.<br /> ‘Ginger knows how to do it. Just shoo ‘em down here and call me on the two-way.’<br /> ‘Got it’<br /> Trav and Ginger paced nicely up past the lower rim to the maze of side canyons and boxes that came off the big washes. It hadn’t rained in four days, and there wasn’t any surface runoff, just some convenient little pools in the bends. Good places for cows. The day was not too bad either. The air was a little cooler after the front that had pushed through. Ginger was sparking, ready for her work. Thacker would be working inoculating the main herd with Jesus and Juan, pushing them around into the pen with ATV’s. But this was a horse job. Trav felt a little bump of pride, which he tried to push down, at being picked to do the job. It wasn’t like he was real hand like Jesus. I’m trying, he said to the canyon wall. I guess it’s really a shit job, he reflected.<br /> Anything’s better than doin’ the boogie, he thought. He had a flash of Tony and Rebo, a stage, lights, the fucking contacts, radio, publishing. Rebo. How could he have fucked him over like that? Shit. <br /> Fuck it, Trav.<br /> Aloud, he said .’C’mon Ginger, let’s get us some cows.’<br /><br />He worked up the draws into third wash. He saw a cow with two calves in a small box and thought he’d come back and get them. Ginger picked her way through the fallen red boulders and thorny growth. His chaps actually working the way they were supposed to. By midday he had twelves stragglers headed down the wash. He radioed. Jesus came up to meet him at the base of Mortuary Rock. He left the ATV behind a stand of pinones and came out from a high ledge, waving his hat, shouting in Spanish at the chingada cows, and getting the group moving. Then he hopped on and fired the four-wheel back up and the two hands moved the cows down to Second Mesa and the pens. Thacker and Juan were driving the beeves in a line into the chute, locking them down, rotating them and giving them their shot and a check up. One hundred eighty. Not enough to run a place on. <br />That’s what Trav liked about it. It was a doomed proposition, an idealized quest, like a child making up his own baseball league with his buddies, knowing that the real little leaguers would kick their ass, but still making the gesture. Music was supposed to be that; it wasn’t supposed to have been about getting burned by your best friends.<br />Trav made up for his lack of knowledge by using his muscles and they got ‘er done. Jesus, forty -older, stout, all muscle, even his beer gut, scarred and leathery as a worn-out baseball glove, laughed his way through the dusty day. Juan was quiet, skinny, knowledgeable. Thacker and the two Mexicans got their share of laughs out of the rock star getting kicked and shit on by stupid, farting, pissing cows, but it made Trav feel a part of something, Something almost pointless, something fine and clean.<br /><br /><br />Harleys and Dancin’ with Bullets<br /><br />Old Hank Thacker, last of the mesa cattlemen, walked into the Crossroads bar with Jesus, Juan, and Trav. Buddy scowled at them. Fuckin beaners, he thought. But he said, ’Hank, you old desert rat. Get tired of pushing cows?”<br />‘Buddy’, said Hank, ‘beers for my crew.”<br />‘Sure. Coronas for them two?” he gave a little I’m so funny snicker with his lip.<br />“Fat Tire,’ said Jesus.”Polygamist’, Juan said. ’I’ll have a Corona,’ said Hank, ‘Sierra’, said Trav.<br />Buddy scowled. He didn’t like having Mexicans in his bar any more than he liked Utes or Navajos, or worst of all, niggers. The Confederate paraphernalia hung around the walls discouraged most of the rare black tourists, anyway. Worst of all is that fuckin’ nigger President. Great Satan hisself. Goddam law that wouldn’t let him choose his own clientele.<br />They drank their beers. The bar was empty; it was early still. No Sylvie, a couple of honky tourists gnawing at their tough steaks, telling themselves how authentic it all was. Classic Country played on the old chrome and plastic and glass jukebox. ’Last place with a jukebox’ murmured Hank, remembering other days. Willie Nelson, On the Road Again. Marty Robbins, El Paso. Patsy Cline, makin’ money for Willie, Crazy.<br />Trav felt the weight of the folded letter in his inner pocket of his Levis jacket. It was crumpled up from being mushed around for a few days. Unopened. What could she say that would change anything?<br />After all the dust of the day, which had grown hot after all and then produced a wind storm that blew dust right up and down their shirts and jeans, in their ears, noses, up their butt cracks, and everywhere else, the hands were grateful for the cutting quality of the cold beers. They got to thirds before the bar heated up. A bunch of bikers, latter day make-believe outlaws with forty-thousand dollar hogs and gaudy tattoos showing off their biceps and necks and foreheads, and everywhere else that was only solid muscle, came in clanking and scuffling across the floorboards with their heavy boots, wearing shades and bandanas, black leather and denim, and all that phony biker crap, and rowed up at the bar: seven big, ugly dudes. They laughed and shot glances at Juan and Jesus and made jokes that didn’t have to be heard to be understood, Buddy, the ringmaster, polishing glasses and leaning forward to whisper to their cocked, shiny, shaved heads, each muscle-bound guy tilting forward to catch the nuances, then leaning back and tossing shots and downing tall bud lights.<br />Jesus said, ‘time for us to go pretty soon, maybe.’ <br />Not that he was worried. Jesus had known a fight or fifty in his time around the Southwest. His muscles were the equal of any biker’s, and he also carried an extra-fine antler-handled folding knife in a leather sleeve inside his left boot. He had spent a long, cold ranch evening stitching it in there. He could retrieve the blade with either hand and open it one-handed if he had to: fast. Juan could handle himself as well. But why cause trouble? They knew, as did Hank and Trav, the sentiment running against Latinos right now. In the southwest towns, once made prosperous by mines and timber, businesses were boarded up, pools of aquamarine toxic liquid sat below played-out tailings as tall as six story buildings. Rusted ore conveyers and wind-blown, ruined processing plants sheltered rattlesnakes and used condoms, tossed beer cans. The streets were the domains of Latino gangs and their white and Indian counterparts. Colors, pickups and lowriders, visionless terrorists. Mean and cold-blooded. Turf warriors with little worldly perspective. No appreciation of Mozart or Gauguin, no love of arugula salads or white wines, No Thoreau, no Mark Twain, no PBS. Blood knowledge, hijos de La Malinche, scarred and tattooed pendejos, willing to kill for money or some twisted sense of personal or tribal honor. Chingones who beat their women and venerated their mothers, worshipped bastardized, dark-purposed images of Catholic/Aztec Santos and carried nine-millimeter automatics under the car seat. Old white couples, still dreaming of a Ronald Reagan West, locked the doors of their fake adobe houses, with tiny walled front yards studded with planted cactus and yuccas and fading lawns, pathways marked with grey gravel, and didn’t go out at night, with good reason. Their counterparts, these latter-day Hells’s Angels wannabes, were probably from Oklahoma or California, Arkansas, or somewhere else. Sales associates, mechanics, little-league coaches, unemployed loggers, truckers, sons of the Confederacy, accountants, axe-grinding, hate-talk devotees, with Rush Limbaugh or his even worse imitators in their headsets as they rode. some were out there simply to feel the freedom of the open, trooperless backways, the finest anywhere for a nice ‘sickle, but many were taking to the trappings of the old Wild Ones, who had somehow slewed into super-establishment guardians of the American way instead of outlaws, keepers of the white flame, racist and hard. Storm troopers, militia vigilantes, with tiny, shiny black safety-approved Nazi helmets bedecked with the Ironic Cross, the symbol of the Third Reich and the lost White God who once ruled the land.<br />One aspect of what they viewed as the golden days of the West was truly embodied in both groups of these brainless jerks: they glorified getting hammered and fighting, the legacy of the frontier.<br />Trav fingered the letter. He was just about buzzed enough to take a look at it. Two couples came in, standard issue thirty-something Germans, the most knowable tourists. They knew every road, every trail, had studied the canyons and peaks on GoogleEarth and read histories and books on ecology, geology, flora and fauna, weather, winds, water, and everything else the average American never bothered with. The Americans, those Interstate RV gypsies who consigned the West to Sedona and the South Rim, the balloon fest in Albuquerque, Aspen and Vail, Montana’s most famous trout streams, maybe a houseboat vacation watching DVD’s, water skiing, and drinking Jack Daniels and lite beer on Lake Powell, the abomination that drowned Glen Canyon, and mostly to Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, But the Euros were respectful of the land, in awe of it, and also generally in really good shape, with that Alpine background of long hikes, cold showers, and personal discipline.<br />Behind the Germans came Sylvie, wearing tight jeans and a cowgirl shirt, lookin’ like the best worst trouble that ever came through a Friday night door.<br />She looked over at Trav, who tipped his imaginary hat and shot her with his finger, then blew away the imaginary smoke. The letter could wait.<br />More people came in, a young crowd, mountain bikers and hikers, athletic, good looking, trim, some Rasta-haired, others clean-cut Mormon. Duck was burning the crap out of the rangy steaks, and Honey, cigarette dangling from her too-red lips, was ladling beans onto the paper plates. How Buddy got away with charging twenty eight bucks for this seared shoe leather and canned beans served on Wal-Mart paper plates was anyone’s guess. Modern times. Good press. The mention on the Food Channel.<br />Sylvie came and sat at the table with Trav and the others. He introduced her around. Jesus and Juan brightened up, especially when she spoke fairly fluent Spanish with them, making jokes. Even old Hank sat up a little straighter, remembering again, other times.<br />‘Cuidado, muchacho,’ Jesus said to Juan, ‘Ella sabe bien nuestro lengua’<br />‘Pues, ‘she said,’ solo un poquito.’<br />They clanked beers and smiled. The skinhead Bikers had taken the big round table nearby and were glowering at fact that the Latinos were talking and laughing with the pretty white girl.<br />It was eight o’clock and the Crossroad was jammed. Buddy came over and said, ’Trav’, how ‘bout a few tunes?<br />Trav shook his head, ‘You go get ’em, Buddy. I wrestled cows all day.’<br />‘Sylvie put her hand on Trav’s arm. It was the first time they had touched. ’C’mon Trav, please play one. For me?’<br />The others grinned at him. ’I’m stuck, Mr. Chivalry. Ok.’<br />Stacy and her sister Ronda came out from the lobby and tended bar as Buddy, Honey, Billy, and Trav got up on the stage. Everyone shifted out to the patio. It was a fine evening, not windy for once. They launched right into Swinging Doors and the night was on. People rarely danced anymore at the Crossroads. There had been a time, way back in the forties, fifties, and early sixties, when it was the wildest roadhouse in the Four Corners area, home of many a Big Dance and Fight on a Saturday Night. But the Euro tourists were far more reserved and respectful than had been their earlier cow and farm hands, miners, and drunken Indian crowds of yore. The tourists tended to sit back and just listen.<br /> But a few of the Rasta-haired mountain bike group were in their second cups, and they got up and started doing some half-ass two stepping and jitterbugging, and after a while, almost everyone was up on the patio, bumping around. One German couple were jitterbugging experts, and had everyone watching and applauding. The band went through a bunch of classis. Love’s Gonna Live here, I Walk the Line, Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone’.<br />Sylvie sat along a stone wall bench at the edge of the patio near the stage, with Hank, Jesus, and Juan. She could see that Juan was fidgeting, tapping the beat in his hard-worn ropers.<br />‘Quieres bailar?” <br />He shook his head, shyly.<br />‘Baile, compadre!’ Jesus clapped the skinny Juan on the shoulder.”E l baila bien, ’he grinned at Sylvie.<br />She took him by the hand and he reluctantly followed her a couple of steps onto the patio and they started jitterbugging. Juan, indeed, could dance, and so could Sylvie, or at least she could follow his homegrown Sinaloa shuffle-jitterbug, and they were soon giving he German couple a run or their money. Others joined the informal competition. Beer flowed, the band played uptempos, and the bikers sat sullenly at a picnic table, nursing Bud Lites.<br />After eight or nine fast songs, Honey started warbling her out- of- tune version of Crazy. Trav put down his guitar and came over to the bench. Sylvie was standing, sweating a little, laughing and glowing. Juan, pleading exhaustion, was sitting with a fresh Polygamist Porter. Jesus was all smiles, a fixed grin as he spoke softly.<br />‘I think our biker amigos are pissed.’<br />Surely they were. They leaned back against the adobe wall from their table, or hunched over the Bud Lites. A couple had put shades on.<br />Sylvie took Trav’s hand. ’Dance with me?”<br /> He tossed his head. They swayed out, no big moves, just lightly holding each other.<br />‘This is so much fun!’ She said. But her question was right behind her words.<br />‘But what am I doing here, right?”<br />‘Kind of.’<br />‘I’ll tell you that whole story another time. How’d I sound? ‘<br />‘You are great, You know that.” She slid her right arm a little further around his neck pulled him cheek to cheek .They did a couple of twirls.<br />‘I’m heading back to Flag day after tomorrow, Classes and papers.’ She whispered. ‘but I am doing some field work at Horse canyon next month.’ She left it out there. C’mon, hit back, man.<br />‘If Hank hasn’t fired me for incompetence I should be here.’<br />She lightened her hold and looked away.<br />‘Sorry, ‘ Trav said,”Did I say something wrong?”<br />‘No, Trav. You’re fine,’ she said softly, ‘you’re fine.’ She suddenly pulled him a little closer again so he couldn’t see her face and they danced until Honey had finished murdering the classic Patsy Cline vocal to a big round of applause. Sylvie sat down and grabbed her beer and threw some back. Trav looked at her, not knowing what to say. He liked her. The letter was in the inner pocket of his jacket onstage, forgotten for the moment. He reached over the take her hand, but right then Buddy said off microphone, ‘hey kid, get up here and do your nigger music.’<br />Trav met Sylvie’s eyes. She smiled, but he could see her tears. He squeezed her hand gently, let it slip out of his, and then stepped up next to Honey and shouldered his telecaster ,looked back at Billy and counted off, one-two- three- four, and fired into Johnny B. Goode. <br />Now everybody was up. Sylvie grabbed old Hank got him out there, Jesus stood tapping his toes. A hippie chick- mountain biker made Juan get up and dance with her. The Bikers stayed plunked at their table, until blonde, fat, busty Stacy came out from behind the bar and took two on them by the hand started dong a wild-girl dance, shaking her rather large money maker in a most obscene fashion. Most of the other bikers got up and stood. There were over thirty dancers whirling and bumping, and sweating away out there on the flagstones. Trav went into his solo. He started with the Classic Chuck Berry stuff, but soon morphed into all the wild guitar licks of all the succeeding generations from Hendrix to Metallica, to Linkin Park and back around to BB King and Jeff Beck. The dancers went wild, even the Germans, who abandoned their jitterbugging for nine- drinks –free-styling. The hippie chick was twirling with Juan when he bumped into Stacy by accident. The result was instant.<br />‘Hey you motherfucking spic, keep your hands off her!’ One of the bikers shoved Juan right across the patio, knocking down four or five dancers. The biggest biker, a mustachioed hulk with a leather vest on, came right out after Juan. But Jesus was there in his face. <br />‘Just try it, pendejo.’<br />‘Fuck you, beaner!’<br />Jesus took the big man down with a savage, lightning kick to the outside of his knee. All hell broke loose. Trav threw down his Tele and jumped right out off the stage onto a biker who was closing in on Jesus. Sylvie screamed but also kicked another biker in the balls. Trav took a ham-fist right across the left side of his face and went down. The Germans drew back, unsure of which side of this racial melee they should be, but the Rasta-hairs took chairs at the bikers, who were plainly outnumbered. Many were shouting for calm, but no one was listening. Some scrambled to get out of the patio.<br />One biker, who had stayed sitting the whole time, a skinny, man with long sideburns and wax-tipped moustache, black hair greased back, stood up and pulled out a black pistol from his leather jacket. Hank yelled. Right then, there was an enormous concussion as Buddy, still at his place on the stage, fired off both barrels from his twelve- gauge straight up into the starry, Utah night.<br />Everyone stepped back for a second, unsure of what had happened. Sylvie tried to drag Trav to the bench. Jesus stood between her and the bikers. The skinny man had put his pistol away.<br />In a half moment, Buddy had cracked his shotgun, reloaded, and cracked it back again with an authority no one was going to question. There’s something about the machinery of a shotgun that’ll do that.<br />‘Show’s over for tonight, ‘he said firmly, but evenly, like an old-time sheriff in a TV western, lowering the barrels to a level just over the heads of the fighters.’ Pay up your tabs, and let’s all play nice now.’He stared down the bikers and the Rasta-hippies and Jesus.<br />Jesus stood calmly on the flagstones, staring at the bikers, who glared back, but then slowly backed down, and like chastened little boys, paid their tabs and fired up and roared off on their choppers into the night, heading for the Four Corners motel down the street. Stacy went off with the little greasy guy, hanging onto him with her left arm and flipping the bird at the world in general with her right hand. <br />Hank said to Buddy, who had stepped off the stage, shotgun still cradled in his right arm,’Shit, old man, I didn’t know you kept a big ol’ gun like that up there.’<br />‘Hank, when you been doin’ this as long as I have, you know to have your stage set up.’ He lit another Camel and blew a long blue stream of smoke into the night. A zillion bugs had come out around the lights.’ Goddam bugs, ‘he said.<br /><br />Jesus and Sylvie helped Trav up to her room. He was swollen out and bloody around his left eye and was stumbling a little. <br />‘I’m fine,’ he said.<br />‘Let’s just wash it up for you.’ She said.<br />‘Big shiner’ laughed Jesus,’ he needs to learn how to dance better.’<br />‘Poor baby’, said Sylvie, who got a washcloth and dabbed away the blood.<br />‘Trav sipped a beer and winced as she cleaned him up. <br />Jesus tipped his hat to Sylvie and said, ‘I gotta hang with my compadre. Those bikers are just down the street.’<br />Trav leaned back on Sylvie’s bed.”Don’t fall asleep for a while’, she said, ‘I’m worried about a concussion.’<br />Rebo and Juan<br /><br />He tossed his jumble of stuff on the edge of the console and flopped down into the big, high backed swivel chair. His phone, under his keys, alongside his Afrin and his Mentos, started vibrating. He picked it up.<br />‘yeah….yeah…don’t think so…yeah.’ He clicked it off and turned to Steve, the engineer, ’let’s get it over with.’<br />‘You got it, big guy,’ answered Steve.<br />Rebo went out in the booth and put on the headphones, adjusted the music stand. A loose pile of lyrics, marked up with innumerable hieroglyphics and scribbles in pencil, phone numbers, various lines and words, was on the stand. He pulled the stool up under his little butt and cleared his throat a few times, took a sip of mint tea, unscrewed the cap off a pint of Maker’s Mark and took a tiny swing of that.<br /> His ears itched under his phones . ’Shit, Stev-o, the track’s killin’ me’<br />Steve turned it down; like lightning, these modern day engineers.<br /> Rebo sang four takes.<br />‘We can put ‘er together from that, ‘Steve said in the talk-back.<br />‘Fuck it, I’m done, ‘said Rebo. He took a nice pull at the bourbon, popped a Mentos. Another day, another dollar.<br />His cell buzzed again. Whose number? It looked familiar. A 415, The City. He impulsively picked it up.<br />‘You got him, go!” his ha-ha- so funny line. He was so clever. Truly that’s an old one, but he’d taken to saying he had made it up.<br />‘Rebo, this is Blaze McCormick.’<br />‘Hi, Blaze.’ He paused. Fuck, why do I ever pick up?’What’s the haps?’<br />‘Trav left some stuff at the space. He wanted me to pick it up.’<br />‘Oh, crap, Blaze, it’s all shut down, we’re done until the tour’s over. I don’t even have a key.”<br />Liar Liar, pants on fire, it came to Blaze.<br />“Rebo. It’s Trav’s stuff. His Strats, his amps. He wants them.’<br />‘Oh, you mean Squeezer’s Strats and amps. Sorry. I can‘t let those go. He knows that.’<br />Blaze struggled to keep calm.’ You know those are his.’<br />‘My old buddy Traveler ought to have read the deal we drew up together. That stuff belongs to the band. I’m just letting him use the Tele and the Boogie ‘cause I’m such a nice guy. He’s the one who wanted out. That hurt our band. It hurt me personally, Blaze. After all those years of getting to where we were.’<br />Jesus Christ, she thought; this guy could really spout a line of shit like a firehose.<br />‘Rebo, you know Trav doesn’t give a shit about contracts. He trusted you. He just wants his old Strats more than anything.’<br />Rebo fiddled with his keychain, he fingered the key to the band rehearsal space.” Trav is a great player; he can earn his own shit from now on. He ain’t getting’ nothin’, unless you would personally like to meet me to try to talk me into it.’ He grinned, knowing the insult he had just conveyed to the proud girl of Potrero Hill.<br />‘Fuck you, Rebo.” She said. He voice was like a coiled rattler.<br />“Have it your way, the both of you.’ Rebo clicked off. He swiveled the chair around. His jowls felt heavy and old.<br />Steve, comp that down, I’m goin’ to have some lunch.’<br />‘Sure, no sweatskis.’<br /><br /><br />Blaze put down the phone. There it was again. Shit. She sat down at the kitchen table and felt the upwelling rising to the soft skin under her chin. She made it to the bathroom in time to puke, a little thin stream of yellowish bile. It didn’t make her feel any better. Thank God it wasn’t all the time. She had an appointment at the clinic at three. What would she do without insurance? Fucking take care of it, she thought. But she knew she didn’t have the will to do that. She wanted it. She just didn’t want it all alone. Blaze, you don’t panic. You simply don’t panic. But the puking made her sweat and go clammy. Tia was sympathetic up to a point, but it wasn’t her problem. Julius told to just take care of it or think pink or blue. She couldn’t call her mom, that was for sure. She checked her texts again. Tommy. Oh go away Tommy, please.<br />My bad, she said to herself. He was attractive. Trav was gone, Tommy with flowers and nice Pinots and his brilliant intellect, wit, knowledge of art and style. Why wasn’t he fucking gay, for Christ’s sake? It would be so much easier for both of them. Better for him for sure. Now he was obsessed. She should have never given into him. Wine: the enemy of reason. The flash of the recoiling memory of her touching him that night disgusted her.<br />She stared blankly at the whitewashed city out the kitchen window, church towers and the jumble of buildings, piled on top each other for miles, fog bank breaking up just a little. She rubbed her abdomen and just let her mind fall away.<br /><br /><br />Sylvie drove up the long, rising straightaway, the forested San Francisco Peaks on the right, past Grey Mountain trading post. Her bag was in the back seat, her laptop on the front seat. She drove in silence, savoring the relative lack of cars and the simplicity of the open, unflamboyant landscape. Flagstaff was only an hour further. She let herself drift on her feelings, let them flow over the edge of the bathtub and onto the floor, soaking wine-smelling rose petals and lazy soap bubbles of dreaminess.<br />It had happened near dawn, as he woke in her bed. He just reached for her and she took him in without question, without artifice. No words, but long silences and silent spaces that were set on fire.<br />Afterwards there was nervous laughter and then a tense silence. Then, in a few minutes he began to talk very quietly about his childhood, about his mom and dad, both gone so young, and of his salvation on the fretboard of a fender guitar, on the stage.<br />‘I was so shy, ‘he whispered, close to her face, ‘I could hardly speak to people. I only had a few nerdy friends, geeks like me who didn’t fit in. But I knew, I just knew the guitar, from the first time I played’ H e laid back, his eyes at the ceiling, or looking at some scene from long ago and far away, ‘People could tell right away. By the time I was fourteen, I was playing in bands with twenty year olds, doing Metallica, Zep, I loved U2. I wanted to combine Edge and Hendrix. So that’s what I tried to do.’<br />She played her fingertips on his arm.<br />‘When I hooked up with Rebo we knew we had something. He’s almost forty. I was the hot kid. He fucked me over with the deals. I didn’t realize. I was just so naïve and stupid. ‘He paused. “I’m glad I am that way. It doesn’t work well for me out there, but I wouldn’t want to be like him or the others. They’re so cold. It’s all money and winning. To me, music is not about winning, it’s about being there, about ripping apart the universe for a few minutes, talking straight to yourself and everyone else.’<br />‘Wow’, she said.’ That is so right and deep, Trav. So you gave it up to come out here. Do you think you’re a cowboy?’<br />“Shit, I know there ain’t no cowboys. There ain’t no Jedis. I just wanted to get some space. I love the land here. California must have been nice in the 1850’s bit it’s so fuckin’ abused now. It’s all used up. This can’t get too used up. There’s nothing here for humans except big rocks to look at it, and most people would rather watch TV. So that part works for me. For now.’<br />“I love it too,’ she said, ‘The ruins, the canyons, the big quiet. If you don’t get it, then you might as well sit on a crowded beach or go to the casino. I say this is where the old Gods went to wait out humans. When we’re gone, they’ll still be here.’<br />‘Yes.’<br />She was almost breathless at hearing him talk to her; she couldn’t explain it to herself.<br /><br /><br />He came back the next night. The bikers had left town it seemed. Deputy Bill Woollard had driven over from Canyon City and talked to Buddy about it.<br />‘Sounds like another typical night at the Crossroads,’ Deputy Woollard said.<br />‘Yep’ agreed Buddy.<br /><br />They fell in to each other that night, letting flow some held- in waters; keeping some held back.<br />‘I’ll be back in Horse Canyon at NAU’s dig next month.’ She said<br />‘Shit, that’ll be one hot dig.’<br />‘She shrugged, ‘beats selling mortgages.’<br /> I guess it does.’<br />When she got up to pee while he slept, she felt his jacket pocket. The letter was gone.<br />She didn’t push him. He didn’t offer. But it was all sweet. A long hug in the dawn gravel lot outside the lodge.<br /><br />The car felt funny all day, but she couldn’t put her finger on what was different. It was a little bit slow up the grades. She felt the right rear tire losing life as she came up near the tree line just north of Flag. Oh crap. She pulled over in an open, grassy stretch where the wind had laid the fence permanently tilting to the east. A nondescript western slope with pinones. Nothing for miles in both directions, but her cell phone worked here. No need; she could change a tire. A fairly consistent stream of trucks and cars were passing along every few minutes. She worried a little about a car full of poor quality male yahoos: rednecks, Navajos, Mexicans, coming along and seeing a single girl broken down. She didn’t need any help like that. A Cop would be fine. She popped the trunk and walked back, ready to do battle with a greasy tire and hot lug nuts on an fried -egg-cooking highway. She lifted the lid. The smell hit her at once. A stiff hand stuck through the lumpy, green –plastic contractor bag. Dark, dried blood pooled beneath it. The hand was fine, long fingered, calloused, not dirty, but with permanent dark- tipped fingernails from working the land, from driving ATV’s, from holding reins, stringing wire, and picking up horse’s feet for cleaning. She knew at once. Juan.<br />He sat up. She clicked on the TV. He took the washcloth and held it over his left eye. She picked up his jacket, which had fallen on the floor. A letter fell out. She could see a woman’s handwriting on it: Traveler Evans. She held it for a moment, just feeling it, then folded it back up and put it back in his pocket.<br />Duck and the Troopers.<br /><br />Duck stacked the glasses in the racks below the bar and wiped down the wood with his towel. He liked the mornings, before the early drinkers and then the lunch customers. The bar was quiet. He didn’t care for music. He had KUTA on softly. With no other noise to distract he could hear the call-in show clearly. Taxes, government, illegals, environmentalists, Obama, black helicopters, lack of precious freedoms, our way of life, guns, more freedom, socialists, Marxists, communists. All good stuff. He got good and riled, too.<br />But he kept it hidden, even from his father, Buddy. Buddy hardly paid him any mind at all. Just told him what to do. Honey was Buddy’s favorite. Duck and Billy? Well, if Billy didn’t play drums, he’d be out on his ass, what with his pot smokin’ and Indian girlfriends and all that shit. But Billy got away with things. He stood up to the old man as no one else did. Buddy respected that and Duck knew it, too. But that wasn’t his way.<br />Duck just liked to be left alone. He had a little shed out beyond the lot that was his kingdom. There, he ruled. Buddy never more than knocked on the door and yelled at him, ‘C’mon, kitchen’s late.’<br /> Under the bed Duck had DVD’s. DVD’s of women doing nasty, fantastic things. Duck had little plywood shutters. No one could see it when he watched them and got himself off. He’d make runs to Junction Valley and pick ‘em up at the place off I-70. Lots of truckers in there. He’d drink a beer or two and watch the girls dance. He got talked into buying a lapdance by a fake blonde with saggy tits one afternoon. It made him real horny, but real nervous, plus he didn’t have enough money for lapdances. Truckers did. He’d wear shades and a beat-up straw cowpoke hat and sit back low and long in his booth, but he was no trucker. He chewed gum while he drank beer, which made both taste like shit, like mixing orange juice with toothpaste. There was a little shop in front where there was all the porn a man could ever want; stacked to the ceilin’, sticking in your face. He liked girls with big, big tittles. He liked other stuff, too. He’d buy it and put it under the seat of his old, primered and tore-up F-150 and drive home and slip the latches on his shutters and put on headphones and play little sections over and over on his DVD player until he was done.<br />The he’d go cook the Famous Crossroads Steak for tourists. It was his little joke. Wash your hands: it’s Utah State Law. Ha-ha.<br />Honey, who did the beans and salads back there in the kitchen, didn’t like Duck. He wasn’t part of the real family in her view. He was creepy even to her. And he had a different mother, the one no one talked about.<br /><br />Junction Valley Sherriff’s office got the email and a call a few minutes later. Woollard noted it and told Irene he’d have to go out to Second Mesa and Crossroads. He pondered which would be best to do first. He chose Crossroads. Buddy Williams was a knowledgeable man and it happened there. But he didn’t want word of it getting out to Hank Thacker’s place before he could tell him in person and account for those two guys, the guitar player and the spic. Well, the troopers would be at Crossroads before him if he didn’t hustle his ass down there. He flipped on his lights and hit it as he came up out of the valley and onto the open country. Man, a cruiser could get after it out here. He was doin’ almost a hundred, just nice and easy, listening to the crackle of the two-way updates like it was country music.<br />Most likely those bikers, he thought. Nothing to new about that. Drinkin’ and fightin’ ; guns. One less mojado. But how the body end up in that woman’s trunk? Shit, he hated real work. Let me pull over speeders and bust up some fights; let people know who the law is. On the bigger shit, he’d just as soon see frontier justice done half the time. The fuckin’ courts let all the bad guys out. Pansy-ass liberals. A drunk kid speeding was one thing. Bad-asses ? Take ‘em out to Big Canyon and drop ‘em off. Oops. Dang; a tourist fell. Too bad. Hell, it happened every few months anyway for real. Then he’d have to go down in there by boat and write up the accident. He often pictured guys he didn’t like after an eight-hundred foot fall. He hated it when it was a kid who fell, or a young woman. One gal fell and was just a pile of gore on the rocks below Horseshoe Bends overlook. But by some twist of fate and aerodynamics, her face was untouched. She stared out as if she was hypnotized or something. She was so pretty. He bagged her up and they floated out to the take-out and hauled her off. He got real drunk that night.<br />The troopers had beaten him down there. Buddy and Honey were talking to them, seated at a patio table like they were having a beer, shootin’ the shit. Buddy with his customary camel, Honey with a Polygamist that left her slight mustache showing after each swig.<br />The troopers, both of whom Woollard knew a little, shook hands with him and he sat down, taking out his blackberry and hitting his radio to let Irene know where he was at and what was proceeding.<br />“I told Officer Woollard about the incident, ‘said Buddy, nodding at Woollard, ‘we were playing. This little Latino guy, Juan, ‘<br />‘Juan Concepcion’?’ said officer number one.<br />‘Yeah Juan Concepcion’, was dancin’ with that gal when he bumped into Stacy Jones, our old gal who works here, who was dancin’ with one of the bikers. I wasn’t really paying attention to that. I was tryin’ to remember the frikkin chords to the song we was playin’ at the time. Shoot, I mean, it ain’t like there’s never a fight here. Not too much anymore, but you know how it is.’<br />Officer one nodded tightly, unsmiling. Buddy didn’t know this guy. Buddy squinted a little and blew his smoke sideways to not inconvenience him. The officer was younger, maybe late twenties. By the book. These young guys just didn’t get it like the Sherriff’s deputies did.<br />‘Go on.’<br />‘So, there were bodies flyin’ around pretty good for a couple of minutes. That rock guitar player, Trav Evans, up and dived right of the stage on one of those bikers. Lotta balls, but not too smart. Another guy cold –cocked him good. ‘<br />‘So that’s when you discharged your firearm?” said number one<br />Buddy lit up another camel off his present one, raising a good cloud of smoke in the process. ’Yep, I let both barrels fly. Gets folk’s attention.’<br />“Where did you keep the shotgun?”<br />‘Behind my amplifier, officer. I’ve only had to use it a couple of times.’<br />‘We show twelve times in the last five years.”<br />‘That’s about right. Beats somebody getting hurt.’<br />Woollard had to stifle a laugh. The other officers weren’t smiling. <br />‘Did you see anyone else with a firearm?’<br />‘Yep, one of them bikers, a little guy with a mustache. He pulled a piece, looked like a smaller pistol, twenty-0five, thirty-two, something like that.’<br />‘Did you see you anyone with a firearm, miss?”<br />Honey said,’ I’m not sure. Maybe. It was dark back there where those bikers were sitting.’<br />Officer one looked back at Buddy. ‘And you haven’t heard from this Stacy Jones?”<br />Not a word. She rode off with the little guy on his chopper. They were booked down the road at my other motel.’<br />‘And they checked out?’<br />‘They were all gone in morning, Stacy, too. I got their names and licenses.’<br />‘We have them already.’<br />‘You got ‘em in custody?’<br />‘Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Williams, mam.’<br /><br />They brought out Duck and Ronda and Billy and the others and grilled them. No one seemed to know anything beyond the fight, except Duck.<br />“That guitar player. He seemed pretty sweet on that girl Sylvie. But they had some trouble, I think’<br />‘Oh, how so?” asked number one. Woollard kept silent.<br />‘They was dancin’ real close, and she was cryin’ after.’<br />‘When was that?’<br />‘Right before the fight broke out.’<br />‘Where were you when you saw this?<br />‘Over at the end of the bar.’<br />‘Down there?” the officer pointed to where the bar let out on the patio.<br />‘Yessir.’<br />‘Thanks for your information.’<br /> Duck went off to his shed and lifted up the floorboard under his bed and slid something into the hole.<br /><br />Woollard followed the troopers up to Second Mesa Ranch and watched as the officers interviewed Hank, Trav, and Jesus. <br />Jesus was angry.<br />‘Thos pendejos will get what’s coming them!’ he sat forward in his chair in the ranch’s kitchen.<br />‘Pleas stay calm, Mr. Chacon’.<br />He sat back, ‘sure, sorry. Juan was my best friend.’<br />‘We understand. I’m sorry for your loss. We will bring whoever did this to justice.’<br />Jesus glared. Gringo justice. Not the real deal. <br />The officers got the same basic story out of the three men. When it was Trav’s turn, they asked him about the sequence of events. He thought they we done.<br />‘Mr. Evans, do you have romantic relationship with Sylvie Brighton?’<br />‘We had just met recently. She and Jesus’ brought me to her room at the lodge after the fight. She cleaned me up. Later on, we had a consensual sex.’<br />And the next night?”<br />‘Yes.’ He sat in his chair. ’Officer, can you tell me what’s going on? Where’s Sylvie? ‘<br />‘We are conducting a thorough investigation into the killing and transport across the State Lines of Juan Concepcion.’<br />‘Is she in jail?”<br />‘Mr. Evans. We ask that you stay in Canyon County until we tell you that you may leave.’<br />‘Am I under suspicion?’ He grew angry.<br />‘We need to treat every case of homicide carefully, Mr. Evans.’<br /> Trav was tense, but he leaned back in his chair. These guys were for real, this was for real. ‘I understand. Can I work? Go into town?’<br />‘Please stay in Canyon County until further notified.’<br />‘Yes sir.’<br /><br />He tried calling her again from the ranch phone. The tinny voice said, ’this is Sylvie Brighton. Please leave a detailed message after the beep…’<br />Receptionists at the NAU anthro department were cold and unhelpful except for one. ‘You didn’t hear this from me, but she’s in county.’<br />‘In jail?”<br />‘Yes, they found the gun in her car.’<br /><br />Fire in the canyons.<br /><br />They gave the horses their heads. No sense in trying to direct a horse in this country, not at least when it came to particulars. Horses aren’t fools, even if they think their riders are sometimes. Up on these rim rock ledges, a man can easily make a mistake, but a horse is likely to try and keep her footing. <br />Trav sat as relaxed as he could be and let his spine flow loose with Ginger’s bumpy steps. Jesus rode Nitro a few dozen paces back. Both men had their hats on. The sun was overhead and it was hotter than a barbecue grill. This way led to the top of Third Mesa.<br />‘I’d say they’re up there, ‘said Hank that morning. ‘There’s that tank and they’ll head for water.’<br /> Two dozen head had wandered off further than Hank liked. The calves weren’t fully grown, and cattle will fall off heights. He wanted his hands to drive ‘em down the long way back around Third Mesa and down Dead Horse Canyon to the maze and then down further to Second Mesa.<br />‘Crazy chingada vacas, ‘said Jesus. He swatted away a deerfly. How the fuck did these chignon pendejo deerflies live out in the middle of nowhere? Them and the black houseflies. You see any houses out here? He’d say to Trav.<br />Trav looked up at the rim above. A tricky steep cut led up. The drop off here below it was at least four hundred feet. A stumble was real trouble. Death to the horse and to the rider too if he didn’t dismount at first fall. Trav held back his fear and leaned forward as Ginger made big steps on the boulders. She slipped every few paces, and when she rose up and humped her back to clamber over it like in that rhinoceros way horses climb, Trav didn’t know if he would toss his cookies or fall off backwards. He secretly held the horn with his hand, his body shielding that fact from Jesus, who sat on Nitro waiting for the lead horse to make the climb before following. No sense in taking a falling rock to Nitro’s legs or Jesus’ face. Trav’s toes barely held the stirrups. He had wanted Jesus to go first but went ahead anyway out of pride and anger. Angry about everything.<br />The bottom part of the cut was a boulder field, lots shelf rock, flat flags of sandstone, slippery and completely unstable. Above, the cut made a bowl about a hundred yards wide where a part of the rim had fallen thousands of years ago, though it looked like it had just happened, notching back from the jutting rim. There was a natural ledge trail that traversed the rim, gradually going upwards from left to right at Trav looked up; a hairy place to ride. They’d get off and lead the horses when they got up there. Above the rim, there were pinon trees and junipers, their roots slithered into the rim- rock ledges like leathery snakes, both holding on to the rock and holding it in place at the same time. Below, right where the boulder field ended and the bowl began, there were scattered huge rocks, house- sized pieces of the fallen rim, like fallen remnants of monumental statuary. The trail passed between them. An unsettling prospect, as the big rocks looked unstable, even if they had sat unmoving for millennia.<br />Trav sweated, wiping his brow with his sleeve, which was soaking wet anyway. The flies buzzed about his eyes. He was scared and miserable. Sylvie’s call hadn’t helped, well, maybe a little, but the whole thing made him feel like he wanted to puke and die.<br />‘They released me, ‘she had said, ‘but I can’t go anywhere.’<br />‘That’s what they told me, too, ‘he said.<br />‘Trav, I never saw that gun in my life, I don’t own a gun.’<br />‘I know; I only have this pistol and the rifle that Hank makes me take when we go way back in. For snakes and coyotes. I’ve never fired it. I don’t like killing things.’<br />‘Omigod, Trav, Poor Juan. What’d he do? Dance with me.”<br />‘I guess some people can’t stand the sight of a Mexican dancing with a white girl. It had to be those bikers.’<br />‘Have the police told you anything?’ she asked.<br />‘Only that they’re working on it. The local deputy up here is real good ol’ boy. He doesn’t like me, thinks I’m a fuckin’ liberal. He’s right, I am. So he’s not telling us anything. I’m just supposed to stay put.<br />‘Trav, I wish I could see you.’ He could hear the desperation in her voice<br />‘I want to see you too, Sylvie. But we can’t for now. Were your fingerprints on the gun or anything? Surely they’re not.’<br />“I never touched it. It was under my car seat.’<br />‘Your car was locked, wasn’t it?’<br />‘Yes, I always lock it. I’m from Sacramento. It’s an old habit. I never leave it unlocked. Someone got it unlocked and popped the trunk from the inside.’<br />‘Anyone with a door tool like a triple A guy could do that. Even a coat hanger. Shit.’<br />Trav could hear her crying softly, trying to not let him hear.<br />‘I’m sorry baby, ‘He said, ‘I feel like it’s my fault.’<br />‘Oh, Trav, what am I going to do?”<br />‘If they really thought you did it they’d hold you. They’d hold me. There’s no reason for us to have…’ he cleared his throat, as if trying to get the very thought of the words out of his voice. ‘The truth will come out. They’ll get those bikers and figure it out. I’ll come and see you as soon as they let me.’<br />‘Trav, I hardly know you, but…’ She was quietly sobbing.<br />‘I know, baby, I know.’<br /><br /><br />Trav and Jesus halted and dismounted once they passed the big rocks. <br />‘I hate this chingada trail, said Jesus, squinting up at the rim. It was only about a hundred and fifty feet up to the rim, but the ledge trail cut across the face of the bowl, making the trail about two hundred yards, with one switchback away on the right, that doubled back and wound the trail to the rim.<br />‘I guess Hank thought this would get the other shit off our minds.’<br />‘Well, the old toro is right; I’ll be too busy shitting myself after we make that switchback. ‘<br />The fall from here was unthinkable, about six hundred feet of tumbling horse and rider, broken bones, broken necks, oblivion with one misstep.<br />‘Well, let’s get it.’<br />Jesus led the way, leading Nitro. The first fifty feet was easy and then the ledge got small. There was enough room, but not if a horse slipped on loose rock. Jesus sauntered ahead like he walking to the barn, humming some ranchero tune under his breath. Trav followed with Ginger.<br /> Away to the west, the canyon lands stretched out farther than the eye could see, only distant snow-capped peaks floated like blue ships on a sea of light purple haze that shimmered with heat.<br />They were about halfway to the switchback when the shot rang out, The crack- pop of the rifle shattering the silence and echoing in the bowl. The bullet chicked off a section of the trail right between them, spattering small rock and a shooting star’s tail of dust as it skittered off into space.<br />‘Shit! ‘said Jesus.<br />‘Motherfucker!’ said Trav. There was no turning around here. Jesus unsheathed his rifle and crouched back under Nitro’s neck. Trav was under an overhanging shelf. He went to his knees and glued himself to the cliff face.<br />‘Where ‘d it come from?” said Jesus.<br />‘I don’t know,’ whispered Trav. He slid under Ginger’s belly and got the pistol from the saddlebag.<br />‘Fuck, I hate these things.” He said.<br /> Thank God the horses hadn’t shied. <br />Silence.<br />‘Can you turn her around?” asked Jesus.<br />‘I don’t know. She might.’<br />‘We gotta go the fuck back down and get behind them rocks, compadre. Go on; get your ass down that trail. Men first, horses on their own.’<br />Trav squeezed past Ginger and ran back down the trail. <br />Another shot. Trav heard a soft plunk. Shit, they shot one of the horses. Or Jesus. He made it to the boulders and crouched own, taking that safety off the pistol. Fuck. He took off his white hat and edged out a couple of inches and peered back up the trail. Jesus had gotten back between the horses, where Trav had been, sheltered by the overhang from shots from directly above, but not from anything coming from the right. Jesus had his rifle pointed up and toward that direction. The horses stood quietly, with the patience of well trained cattle horses. Then Nitro just kind of stumbled and slipped off. To Trav it was like watching in slow motion. The horse fell, legs rolling around like branches on a rolling log; He could hear the leg bones snapping. Nitro screamed a horse scream, his death scream. The he was gone off the lower rim. They would find him on the high benches above second mesa when they found him.<br />He saw a glint on the rim, over to the right. He raised the pistol with both hands like they tell you to in class and fired in the general direction of the glint. The pistol almost kicked out of his hand, the report was fucking loud. Jesus had made it past Ginger and was running down the trail holding his rifle and his hat. Ginger managed to spin around and she followed. Another shot, and another. A bullet pinged off a boulder above Trav’s head. Jesus jumped between the boulders and grabbed Ginger’s reins and pulled her around to safety,<br />‘Madre de Dios!’ he said.<br />Silence fell.<br />‘We’re fuckin’ trapped here, ‘said Trav.<br />‘Until sundown.’<br />They waited. The sun passed westward and an after an hour they were in shadow for the rest of the afternoon. Ginger nuzzled canteen water out of Trav’s hand. No more shots came. The world was draped in hot silence, broken only by buzzing insects and the swishing of Ginger’s tail, the occasional fall of pebbles when one or the other of them shifted positions on the rocks. <br />Jesus lay down and poked his rifle around to where he could shoot up at the right side of the rim. Trav sat with his back to rock, looking up and to the left, where a small outcropping of rim peeked over the boulder. It was a tiny piece of rim, almost an island sticking off the main rim. He would see if anyone tried to climb out there. He moved every few minutes, straining his neck to keep his vision on the spot. There was a clump of junipers on the rim rock, so if someone got out there, they would have free shot at their position.<br />‘Seemed like only one rifle,’ said Jesus.<br />‘I wouldn’t know.’<br />‘Either he was really a bad shot, or he was trying to scare us off. We were fuckin’ patos sentados, amigo.’<br />‘He hit Nitro.’<br />‘Might have been just another bad shot. Pobre caballo.’<br />‘This is fuckin’ nuts.’ <br />Trav reached up and stoked Ginger’s soft muzzle. She grubbed gently at his empty hand.<br /><br /><br />They went up with Deputy Woollard and another deputy the next day on ATV’s, the long way up Dead Horse Canyon. Woollard had his rifle in a snap-lock on the front of his ATV, his Glock nine-millimeter loose in its holster. Hank Thacker rode up, too. They stopped well back from the rim, on the crest of a ridge near the water tank. Sure enough, the cattle were scattered around the tank. The sun blazed. Trav and Jesus pointed out the area from which the shots must have been coming. Woollard ordered them to stay put and went ahead with the other deputy. Trav and Jesus and Hank could hear the buzzing of the ATV’s as they made their way across the washes and the rough pinon and juniper studded mesa towards the rim. Then the sound faded away and all that was left was the wind moving through the dry branches and the occasional lowing or snorting of one of the cows or another. Clouds were building over the High ranges to the north, looking like a storm afternoon coming.<br />The ATV’s came back after a while, appearing and disappearing as they made their way through the mesa top country. They brought a wave of dust with them as they crunched up and stopped.<br />Woollard pulled off his wraparound shades and wiped his face with a handkerchief. ‘There is a camp out there. Been there a while. Looks like one guy, maybe two. Someone was here recently.’<br />Jesus kept a stoic face. <br />Trav thought, no shit, Sherlock.<br />‘One thing, said Woollard, ‘I know he drove one of these things up here. Looks like that’s been going on for a long time. I couldn’t find any spent shells along the rim anywhere. I took some pictures of the tracks. There’s a trail that leads down to the west.’<br />‘Sure, ‘said Hank. It’s a mosey, but town’s that way.’<br />Woollard looked grudgingly at Jesus and Trav. ’So, I can’t rule out your story.’<br />Trav said, ‘Can’t rule it out? What about our dead horse?’<br />‘Anyone that’d kill a human being would kill a horse. Maybe to cover up the truth.’<br />The clouds to the north had thickened and built up. A classic thunderhead was rising. A distant roll of thunder boomed across the open spaces.<br />‘Time to head down,’ said Woollard.<br />Trav looked at Jesus. They kept their mouths shut.<br /><br /><br />Blaze finds out...The Letter<br /><br />Blaze saw the messages. Six from Tommy in a row. Jesus H, she said, can’t the guy leave me alone? Well, she would need to clear them or her box would be full. <br />‘I have to see you…’ she hit delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. She paused for a second before just deleting the last one.<br />‘Blaze. I must tell you. I can‘t leave this on a message.’ His voice, tiny and tinny, trembled.<br />Her finger poised above number three, the delete button. She pressed down lightly and it was gone. Then she hit his number.<br />‘Oh thank God!’ He said. He sounded like he was crying.” I’ve got to see you. I’m coming over.’<br />She made a big frown and felt her forehead tighten. She reached up and rubbed it unconsciously to relieve the pressure.<br />‘Not here, Tommy, I just can’t.’<br />‘Blaze,’ he said, ‘this is not what you think. It’s…. I can’t say it over the phone.’ He sounded so serious, she relented.<br />‘OK, at Mo’s. How soon can you get here?’<br />‘Twenty minutes.’<br />‘Ok, I’ll see you.’<br /> She hung up. She had a strange feeling, like something was seriously wrong. He’s not stupid. I’ve already told him no. I know he’s obsessed, but is he dangerous? His sexual repression, his inability to get it up sometimes, worried her. She let herself sit with the feeling. Not dangerous to her, but maybe to himself. Whatever this was, she had to stay focused on getting him off her case, out of her life. Life is too hard these days, she thought, you just can’t be sure.<br />She sat at Mo’s for over an hour. She tried his phone after a half-hour, then again four more times over the next forty minutes. Only a ‘not in service’ message. He was coming from The Hollow, but even if traffic was really bad he could have been there in forty minutes. She finally folded up the Chronicle and left and went home to get ready for work. Her whole body was tense; she realized she was hunched over like a peasant carrying a load of coal. It wasn’t like him to not show up, especially after all that drama. Sirens wailed in the distance. There are always sirens.<br />It was late in her shift that Peter came into the restaurant. She saw him at the door and recognized him from some party or other. She couldn’t place his name at first and then remembered meeting him at Elaine’s. He shook his head at the maitre’d and pushed through the tables to her.<br />“I’m Peter, ‘he said. His face was fallen. He was maybe forty, but looked like an old, broken man. ’You haven’t heard.’ he said; a question he already knew the answer to. ‘I’m sorry. Tommy was hit by a Muni car this afternoon.’<br />‘What!” She said, much louder than she thought. Heads swiveled around. Peter was crying.<br />‘They couldn’t save him. He died at four-fifteen.’<br />‘Oh My God.’ She said. She reached out and pulled Peter to her tight. She knew who he was now.<br />‘He called me today. He was…’<br />‘I know. He was crossing Market and slipped on the tracks. The car couldn’t stop.’ He pushed back from her gently. ’Tommy was…’<br />‘Your partner?’She said.<br />‘Well, he was my friend, yes, yes. He had just gotten the news. He needed to tell you in person.’<br />‘What news?”<br />‘Blaze, he had just learned he was HIV positive.’<br />It hit her like a sudden wave. She felt herself being carried away by it, spinning, tumbling, calculating her chances of escape from it. There was none.<br />‘Oh fuck,’ she whispered. She slumped onto a bar stool and put her hand on the wood. There was no comfort in it. There wouldn’t be until she knew for herself.<br />She looked at him. ‘Are you...do you…’<br />‘I don’t know. He just found out this morning. I am going in tomorrow.’<br />Tia had brought two glasses of cabernet. She slid them gravely across the bar and slowly let her arms draw back. She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew it was something big and bad.<br />You fucking moron, said Blaze to herself. You broke the rules. I need you, Trav. You must hear me somehow. <br />Peter sat and cried into his hands.<br /><br /><br />Trav sat in his little room in the loft of the barn. So simple; that how life was going to be. No more fucking Rebo, no managers, no more pressure of commitments, no city, no dirty clubs or god-knows-where hotel rooms, no stupid party girls, no mindless adoration for his worthless guitar playing. Just open space, real work, freedom. Now look. He felt like kicking the planks out of the walls. But he controlled his outer rage, if not his inner. Stupid idiot. Stupid fucking rednecks. It was no better here than anywhere else. Maybe worse. I can’t even leave. Shit! He kicked his dirty socks across the floor. Who the fuck was doing this shit? He had thought it was the bikers, but maybe it wasn’t. How many people were there in Crossroads, anyway? The crew at the lodge, Honey, Billy, Buddy, Duck, Ronda, and that meth tramp Stacy, who started the whole fucking thing and who was nowhere to be found, the people at the gas station, A few Utes and old hippies and other alcoholic end of the road down and outers. Mormon Lester at the other hotel and his wives and kids and their toddlers. Then there were the tourists. There was a steady stream of them, always changing. Mexicans? A dozen. Maybe eighty or ninety people total lived in Crossroads. Almost everyone had guns. You never even thought about people with guns; rifles are in every truck. A lot of guys carried sidearms openly along with big, antler- handled knives. The western thing. You heard shots all the times. Guys out blasting TVs or rocks. Coyotes, and jackrabbits, rattlers. <br />So who the fuck had been shooting at them? Whoever it was, it could have been Juan’s killer, or it could have been anyone with a mind to shoot at something. The bikers were long gone. Deputy Woollard had told Hank that they’d all checked in under one name, Luther Brooks, Texarkana, TX. A good place for redneck biker to be from. Good place to find yourself some racists as well. But there was nothing to tie Luther Brooks to the killing. He had given names of all the bikers. The handgun was unregistered, the serial number filed off: the kind of piece that a Mexican was more likely to own than a proud Texan. In any case, there were no prints. All Luther Brooks, greasy hair and legal pistol and all, was, was a person of interest, who also couldn’t leave his home county for the time being without getting clearance from the local Sherriff.<br />What Trav didn’t know, what Woollard hadn’t told Hank, is that Juan had been strangled and sodomized, then shot in the head after he was dead. So determined the coroner. Whether he had been sodomized before being strangled or after was unascertainable at this time. So read the report.<br />Woollard had said: fuckin’ queer- ass beaner. <br />Trav looked over at the upturned barrel that served as his nightstand. Shit, Blaze’s letter. He sat and looked at it, weary at what it might contain. More accusations, more heavy stuff about commitment. More pleading for another chance. You weren’t the reason I left, he thought. You were a reason, but not the reason. He put it in words to his own mind again, as if arguing the case in some internal courtroom. I needed to walk in my own footsteps for a while, Blazer. I’ve been doing what other people have told me to do all my life. Blaze, honey, you’re good, you’re a good person. But I need some time, some space. It’s too out of balance. You should have someone who loves you as much as you love. Shit, that’s a good song, he thought. <br />He picked up the letter and unfolded the single piece of Crossroads Lodge stationary. There were only two words right in the middle of the page, in her neat, schoolgirl handwriting. <br />He stared at it, like he had known already somehow, his stomach queasy. Then he crumpled it up, thought better of it, and smoothed it back out, refolded it, and slid it into his guitar bag pocket.<br />He went to the window and looked out, unseeing. The bug lump of Warrior Rock lay down the slope of the Mesa’s foot. Beyond that was Crossroads, beyond Crossroads was all of Utah, Nevada, The Sierras, the Central Valley, The East Bay Hills, Berkeley, the Bay Bridge, Potrero Hills, Blaze’s stairs, her door, Blaze. <br />Inside of Blaze was his unborn child.<br /><br /><br />Watershed<br /><br />“You ain’t going nowhere, young man,’ said Deputy Woollard, wiping the sweat off his bald dome with a paisley Wal-Mart cholo handkerchief. Never mind the fact that he wasn’t any older than Trav. Trav stood in front of the untidy desk, arms folded. Hank stood alongside of Trav, his beat-up old cowpoke hands like a couple bags of peanuts loosely dangling from his wrangler pockets. The tiny window- unit air conditioner wasn’t cutting it against the early monsoon heat. It would rain today later on if they were lucky.<br />‘Now, Woollard,’ said Hank, ‘ you know damn well Trav didn’t kill that Mexican.’<br />‘I don’t know what I don’t know, ‘said the deputy, leaning back in his chair. ‘What I do know is what’s been handed down by the county. He is not allowed to leave the area until we get us some resolution on this. I don’t care if he’s got four women knocked up.’<br /> Hank scowled. Trav just stood there with no visible sign of anything but observation in his countenance. <br />‘Look, ‘said Woollard,’ if it’s nay consolation, I’ll contact the Judge when he gets back in on Monday to Junction City.’ Mebbe he’ll feel a little warmer and fuzzier than I do about having an unsolved murder and a person of interest who is currently on hand, where he can be monitored. Or mebbe he’ll decide that our local accommodations might be a better place for this man to wait out events.’<br />Woollard got up and came out from behind his desk. A former offensive lineman for Weber State against a rock guitar player. Trav stared up hard at Woollard, who matched him with an oh yeah expression, try it, punk. Hank grabbed Trav’s elbow and turned him away and they went out into the heat. <br />Some clouds were beginning to gather over the Rifle Mountains to the southwest. The wind was picking up. Devils were twisting away across the dun slopes of the nearby mesa. Av had the keys. He put the hammer down and they rumbled away through the blowing dust in the old truck, silent as undertakers.<br />Woollard watched them roll away. The sky was already dark to the south. Gonna be a big one, he said to himself. He went to his desk, pulled out his keys and unlocked and slid open the third drawer down and lifted out a fifth of jack Daniels. He took a nice pull and sat down, one foot up on the side of the desk. The radio chattered away, interrupted by bursts of static from the distant, unseen or heard lightning strikes up in the Rifles. He took another solid swig and slowly screwed the cap on and slid the bottle noiselessly into the open drawer. The pistol poked its barrel out from under a copy of the Desert News. He locked the drawer and folded his arms across his big old tummy and closed his eyes for a minute.<br /><br /><br />‘Don’t go doin’ something fucking stupid, Traveler,’ said Hank as he let himself out of the truck. “this storm is going to blow but you know they always die down after sunset. Juts don’t get caught on the other side of bug wash if it really hits up on the rim.’<br />‘Thanks, Hank, I’m ok. I’m just goin down to have a beer at Lodge. Horses are all in anyway. Jesus ‘ll be here.’<br />‘Bring my truck back by night.’<br />‘Yessir.’<br />‘Wherever is that damn Jesus? He was supposed to be back here by now.”<br />‘I can’t say, hank. I haven’t seen him all day. He said he’d be back.’<br />‘He’s still upset about that horse.’ Said the old man.<br />‘Cobardes.’<br />‘What?”<br />Cobarde. It’s Spanish for coward.’ Trav scratched his head. He hadn’t shaved and his normally close cut dark brown hair was getting matted and semi-long as well,’ he might’ve gone up to the rim again.’<br />‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’<br /><br /><br />Jesus was riding along almost as slow as walking on the ATV, stopping every few feet to examine the ground along the trail. Unless there was a washout from a storm, like the one building this afternoon, a footprint, a hoof print, or an ATV track would stay visible for weeks out here. Storms, though powerful and violent, usually didn’t dump much rain. Wind has slower effect on man-made marks in the country with a fair amount of grass, prickly pear, and scrub like up on the high mesa. The junipers and the pinones blocked the winds as well. <br />He tracked the obvious ATV road, originally a jeep track, but now narrower than the oldest ruts, as ATV’s replaced four wheel drive trucks for the most part up here. He stopped on a rim and looked down into the valley to the west, towards Crossroads. He could see the two motels and the Sinclair gas station, a couple of trucks outside the bar. In the dusk and the gathering storm it was hard to make out a lot of detail, he took out his binocs and scoped along the trail. It wound down the side of the long canyon to the river and crossed at the old bridge, a metal girder trestle from the 1940’s. No good for cars anymore, but could still handle a horse or ATV. Beyond the bridge was the jumble of shacks and trailers belonging to Billy and Duck, Honey, and the motel maids, some of them hookers, who came and went each season. He noted three float boats unloading their tourists on the sandbar behind the lodge. He scanned back up the trail, looking for anything that looked out of place. He found nothing, but thought he might as well head on down on his ATV to the lodge. It was going to rain and lightning.<br />He hopped on and pulled forward slowly, keeping his eyes on the track. About a quarter mile down, he saw it: a small pile of brush that didn’t belong where it was. Three or four uprooted sage bushes held down by a fallen juniper. It didn’t look right at all. He got off and walked around the pile and found some irregularities on the ground. Someone had scratched out a set of foot prints with a sage bush. He followed the faint track, hand on his piece. He lost the track for a moment, and then recovered it at a rim section, where there was a slight cleft. Here, the trail maker had been careless, and sneaker prints were visible going down the cleft into thick scrub that grew in the path of seasonal runoff. The brush was too thick to follow the tracks through. He tried to go around it, but cliffs walled off further descent into the next level of bench. He couldn’t see the trail beyond the brush in the gathering darkness. A few fat raindrops splattered and a roll of fairly close thunder rumbled across the canyon country. He carefully retreated up the hill and cleft and made his way back to the ATV. It began to rain hard. Well, he wouldn’t have to drag any sage bushes over his foot prints. This was going to be a gully washer.<br />Too bad, he thought. He noted the location of the brush pile and put his poncho on over his shoulders and guns and putted down to the Bridge. He stopped just as he made the far side of the bridge to note the most recent SATV tracks before the rain washed them away. Then he saw it: one clear footprint with the same sneaker pattern that he’d seen up above. It led to the shanty-town of trailers and shacks behind the lodge. <br /><br /><br />The t-storm was a big one. The black clouds of the base spread across the mesa lands and thundered almost without pause around the higher ridges of the ranges. The biker rode head down, peering up through his smoke colored bubble visor at the rain and hail and the long curves of the empty road. His leathers were getting soaked, but he didn’t want to stop with so much lightning everywhere. The road dropped down into grey wash canyon and he spotted a red-rock overhang, which was partly obscured by a runoff waterfall. He’d get his rain suit out there. He slowed and half swerved on the slick mud right into the shelter of the cut. The waterfall dropped like a curtain, not only water, but rocks the size of baseballs and even bigger, washed over by the first really good rain of the monsoon season. He pulled off his helmet and wiped his head and face with a hand towel from his side bag. Motels wouldn’t miss it, besides, he wouldn’t come back this way.<br />The rain really began to pour, hail mixing in. Some of the stones were nickel -sized. The waterfall and rain combined to come down in blinding sheets. He had to admire the raw power and scale of it, even if he just wanted to get this done and get the fuck out of here once and for all.<br />He saw the Sherriff’s car come down into the cut of the canyon. He just stood there, unmoving. It rolled by, wipers going double-time, and up the other side of the canyon and went on. He pulled his rain suit on and tidied up his saddlebags and the under seat compartment. Nothing to hide; everything was legal. He had a smoke and watched the storm roll on until almost dark, then headed out on the rainy road north, towards the Lodge.<br /><br />Trav pulled the antler door handle. The lodge was mostly empty, just Duck doing hius usual glasses washing and Buddy smoking, nursing a beer at the bar, his black old Styetson tipped half back like and old film cowboy. Like Clark Gable if he had gotten ten years older than he did. He held his cigarette close by his face, his two hands together. The blue smoke rising like steam from his fingers, caressing his leather-lined face and the brim of his hat.<br />‘One and one?” asked Duck.<br />‘Sure’ Trav said. Duck drew a polygamist and a shot of what Buddy claimed was Jim Beam, though everyone knew it was some generic shit he got in Cortez and decanted.<br />The rain was pouring down. Thunder shook the lodge.<br />‘Real gusher, ‘ said Buddy, squinting sideways at Trav through the smoke.<br />‘Yeah, washes ‘ll be fuckin’ flooded out until morning. Can I crash here until it clears out a bit?”<br />‘By our guest. Couch in the lobby free for musicians.’ Buddy’s eye’s glinted with his little joke.<br />‘Side entrance to Heaven and a meal, right?” grinned Trav. They’d been through this before. Buddy had spent a lifetime being too cheap to pay for motel rooms as he played with his band across the southwest in his younger days. ’Gimmee a car, a cot, a tent, a trailer, a sleeping bag and a tarp. A couple shots and a pack of smokes and I’m your one-man band.’<br />The motel was mostly empty tonight. Four rooms of Euros. Duck had the grill going. Gotta sell them steaks.<br />The back door slammed open in a gust of dark wind. Jesus stepped into the bar and took of his hat and shook it over the piece of Astroturf that served as the back door mud room. He hung his hat and slicker of horseshoe racks near the door.<br />“Chingon’ rain, senores.”<br />‘Hey’, said Trav. The others stayed silent. Jesus came over to Trav, who nodded to Duck, who gave him a refill and doubled it for Jesus.<br />‘Get wet out there?” said Trav.’<br />“Shit ‘jes,’ said Jesus.” It was raining so hard I had to take shelter in the vagina of an old Ute woman.’ Dry as a chingada cave in there.’<br />This brought a chuckle from even the normally silent Duck, who kept drying glasses. What is he fuckin’ obsessed? thought Trav. Buddy snickered in spite of himself.<br />‘You make a fire and cook up some antelope while you were in there?” The old man said.<br />‘No, there was a full bar and a band in there. This old chick had been around.” Jesus shot the whiskey. He glanced down at the brass rail. Buddy was wearing his old cowboy boots. Trav had on his fairy San Francisco hiking shoes. Jesus tried to lean over the bar, pretending to grab for some peanuts, but couldn’t see what kind of shoes Duck was wearing.<br /><br /><br />Sylvie weed whacked around the edge of her little half of the duplex, knocking down some weeds and sweating under her rolled-up bandana. She cut the motor and stood, leaning on the shaft of the machine. A dry wind blew through the ponderosas. The hum of the peaks rose behind her. She could hear traffic on 89, heading north. She pictured Trav’s face, sunk her chin down in a frump on the handle of the whacker.<br />How could any of this have happened. It had to be the biker, the one with the pistol. She called the Sherriff’s office in Flagstaff every other day, but always got the same run around.’ We’re working on it’. She knew they could give shit about another dead Mexican, but what about her life? The team was off excavating in Dead Horse canyon, and she was tuck in Coconino County.<br />Then there was Trav. She didn’t want to, but she had a crush on the guy. Why wouldn’t she? She thought about the letter she had seen and wished she’d been bitch enough to sneak a look at it. He had called her, but he seemed distant, preoccupied. Of course he would be, as a person of interest in a horrible murder case. They’d been set up, and no one gave a shit about that.<br />So where was the killer? She’d had the landlord put some motion sensitive bear lights up around the duplex, and had two sets of deadbolts and a security bars on her windows. But she knew she was a sitting duck. A dead duck if the killer chose. She drove to the lab and the library every day. She wanted to go hiking, and even more, go do fieldwork, but with her colleagues out in the field she had basically no friends. There was the new German grad student, Sepp. He was younger than Sylvie, good looking enough and quiet, intense. He called her a couple of times. But she wanted to hear from Trav, not some grad student.<br />She got a beer out of her fridge and looked out across the trees at the mountain. The sun was a flare at this altitude; it burned the scene into her retinas: the red-barked ponderosas, the long, dull, dark-green needles. The wisps of dry grass, the wooden houses scattered up the long slope to the west, the stark white-blue sky and the clear air that made the high peaks seem only a few hundred yards away. Trucks pushing air and hot brakes moaned and ground on the highway. The beer bottle sweated cool tiny rivulets across her hands and wrists, like clear, cold blood.<br /><br />He rode his bike through Crossroads around ten at night, in the last of the long summer twilight, without stopping. He glanced at the gaggle of trucks and rented cars in the lodge parking lot and went on. It was six hours to Flagstaff. By mid morning he’d be long gone.<br /><br />Trav was already past Kayenta, heading south. He’d be in Flag by one AM.<br /><br /><br />Traveler:<br /><br /> into the great wide open<br /><br />Blaze drove through her tears. Stop you, little shit, she said to herself. But she couldn’t. pregnant. Maybe HIV positive. Trav not communicating. The note she had left him was wadded up, under his bunk at Hank’s ranch. But she could not know that. The miles of the Valley crowded by her like the passing of ghosts. The traffic, the rising land as she headed up into the Sierras. All was nothing to her. Her IPod was on her seat, the radio silent. It was growing dark, and the headlights of the oncoming trucks across the median left blind streaks in her wet eyes. <br />But she didn’t care. She was driving. Reno, Fernley, then across 50 to Ely. She didn’t even remember where the road went after that. Glen Canyon and then Four Corners, Crossroads. She’d pull over somewhere and sleep for a while, but wouldn’t stop until she found him. She needed him now, no matter how he felt.<br />She felt herself nodding off about sixty miles past Ely and just pulled off the road into the nothingness and slept. She woke from her half sleep in the white dawn. A distant dark blueloaf of a mountain range rose above a salt pan valley. Over that and down through Capitol Reef. She pulled into a funky gas station in Delta and looked at her map and figured it all out, then hit the road again, a big styrofoam cup of bad coffee in the cup holder, her stomach in agony.<br />There was a huge thunderstorm as she drove down towards Crossroads. She had to stop and wait out the worst of the rain. By the time she pulled up to the lodge, it was eleven twenty. Only two cars, a silver rental Toyota and the Sherriff’s cruiser. She opened the door. Woollard sat at the bar, nursing a beer. Buddy was at the next stool, and Duck looked up.<br />‘hey’ he said. Woollard and Buddy swung their big, stubby heads around. She could see the red-rimmed beer eyes grading her. She’d been driving for thirty hours. The rain had soaked her hair in the just the dew minutes it had taken her to walk to the door from her car. Woollard looked at her sullenly.<br />“I’m looking for Traveler, “she said.<br />‘He went back the ranch about two hours ago, said the deputy. Shit, I got be able to drive to fuckin Junction City. Good thing I’m a cop, he thought. He’d had nine beers. ‘You won’t be able to see to get up there in this rain. That road‘ll be washed out half a dozen spots by now.’<br />Buddy said,’ We got rooms.’<br />She stood there, half swaying. ’Ok, I’d like one, please.’<br />‘Duck, run up front and get this lady a key to number seven.’<br />Duck ambled off, shuffling his feet. Blaze felt naked under the gaze of these men. The Sherriff was malevolent, the owner, just an old redneck. Duck came back with the key; an old-fashioned one with a diamond shaped key holder, dark red with a faded gold 7 on it.<br />‘I’ll show you to your room.’ Duck’s face was eager, grotesque in the blinking beer sign light.<br />‘Thanks, I’ll be ok.’<br />She collapsed on the bed in the poorly lit room. Overhead bulb, sagging mattress. No coffee makerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02169652975369388699noreply@blogger.com0