The parking lot had been paved among the larger trees left of the river bottom forest. Now it was packed with late-model cars, ringing with expectant voices, aglitter with the stylish evening wear of grand-opening patrons. The club was built on stilts in the sickle lake that was once the bed of the Mississippi River. The bright lights of neon signs and Chinese lanterns along the balconies cast hot-rippling spots against the calm, black water.
Thomas Carol had spared no expense. He thought of himself as the greatest salesman in the world, a genius at starting businesses, striking gold, then pulling out. He had cultivated and sold a dozen enterprises of many stripes from pest-control to boat dealerships and sports equipment. He believed he had demonstrated that nothing he touched could not be turned into gold.
River Rendezvous was the most ambitious project in his entire thirty-nine years. Every cent he owned and could borrow he sank into the project. Borrowing to the hilt was nothing new to him. He had long ago learned that the only way to assure continued financing was to endebt as much as possible the lending institutions. But he had put his last personal penny into this one. It was a gamble, like any mercenary venture; but this one was paying off from the first night. He stood on a private balcony of his upstairs office. There was enough nightlife in Natchez, Mississippi, across the river to siphon into the remote spot of Concordia Parish, Louisiana, to pay his expenses indefinitely. And they were even driving up from New Orleans and Baton Rouge and over from Alexandria. The advance publicity got them there, and he had the goods to hold them.
He had mini-sternwheelers for moonlight excursions with music and refreshments. There was a gigantic restaurant specializing in Creole cooking with a dining room overlooking the most beautiful stretch of false river in the Mississippi Valley. Three bars served every drink ever tasted in atmospheres ranging from the classically elegant to the riverboat roughness that Natchez always touted: Mike Fink et cetera.
But his secret weapon was the World's Fair in New Orleans. After six months of artificially inflating figures, he'd be able to sell the whole complex for perhaps three or four times his total investment, including his operational expenses and real estate outlay. Thomas Carol felt like an admiral at the head of the fleet, or a general of the army in a combat zone where the enemy has proven cowardly and primitive. So busy was he watching the steady, lucrative stream of curls and sequined fannies, Gucci's and tuxedoes, that he failed to notice the movement of one shadow against all the others, a shadow at the roots of an oak more than four hundred years old that he had spared from the bulldozer to court the pain-in-the-butt tree-hugger crowd.
He closed the French windows against the mosquitoes. In the morning, he'd call Concordia Mosquito Control and find out who he had to take to dinner and how much he'd have to slip under the table to get an extra squirt of whatever they killed them with so those yankees en route to New Orleans and the Fair would never have to find out how deadly a Louisiana mosquito can really be. By chance, his back was turned just soon enough to miss seeing the horse and rider clatter up the ramp and into the building.
It was a beautiful display of horsemanship, those far enough away not to fear for their lives sometimes said later. The horse was gaunt and thin but still held his Arab head high, delicate ears perched forward, curious, responsive. The rider wore armor on his chest and shins but no helmet, just a black, felt, plumed hat. He was gaunt, too, and yellow like the fat they leave on chickens in the market, sallow. Neither horse nor horseman carried any extra weight. Both were lean and hardened. The women said the man frightened them as much with the longing look in his eyes as the horse did with the galloping hooves. Haunting whispers and cries.
First, they took the ramp. Patrons scattered everywhere. People jumped into the water, up to their bejeweled and cummerbund-ed waists in stagnant river water. Fine leather footwear mired in slick, soft silt. Or they ran into restrooms and slammed shut the doors. Or they locked themselves into their cars and sped away.
After gaining the verandah, the horse went through the double doors into the restaurant. The rider, a red-bearded man in his early forties, tipped his hat and dipped his head at the threshold, to avoid the upper beam of the door. The ladies who had seen the apparition said it seemed a sort of gallant gesture. They said they felt he was impressing them with his ease on horseback.
Couples were still dancing as the horse and rider made it to the ballroom. In a high-headed canter like at the head of a parade, the equestrian team circled the dance floor twice. Then the horse vaulted to the tops of tables, sturdy but not heavy enough to hold a horse. In a graceful display that was so delicate not one hoof-print remained on one linen tablecloth, the horse and rider now circled the dance floor once more, in quick rabbit hops from tabletop to tabletop as each one crashed behind them like drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico politely waiting until after all the workers are evacuated before sinking.
When at first he heard the pandemonium from below, Thomas Carol enthusiastically thought it was the sound of increased revelry as the cognac and champagne took effect. Then Jack, the maitre d', pounded on his door, shouting about a madman on the dance floor. Just knowing in his mercenary heart the purpose of the intrusion was some sort of robbery, Thomas Carol took the automatic pistol from his desk and worked the slide as he followed Jack back down the wooden stairs.
There was only time to throw two quick well-aimed rounds toward the horse and rider. Man and horse took one great leap through the picture windows and into the night where, in the glare of the Japanese lamps and floodlights, the horse ran across the surface of the water without one fetlock getting wet. The only damage to the window was from the two rounds of the pistol, two little jagged holes in the thick plate glass, nothing more. That was all. The apparition had passed right through and disappeared.
***
James Eloi Trosclair, Jet, felt like he was coming home. He actually lived at a place deep inside the Atchalafaya Basin, a spot they called Trou Noir. But he had been born in Pointe Coupee Parish, near Jarreau on one of the many bends of river that the Mississippi left behind in its mind-changing, meandering course.
This trip, Jet did not have time to stop and renew memories of his boyhood and adolescence. He drove through Pointe Coupee, feeling the dark river soil in the pungent odor of slow-moving water that permeates every leaf, twig, forest, mound. It was much the same through Avoylles and into Concordia Parish. This was the kind of terrain on which he felt most comfortable. The rich soil of the river-land had nourished him, sustained him, and he felt safe and powerful upon it.
From the description of the manifestation that Thomas Carol had given him on the telephone, he would need all of that rooted power. In almost twenty years as a parapsychologist in the specter-laden region of southern Louisiana, he had never heard of a more powerful psychic incident. It was witnessed by hundreds of people, for instance. And it was a full-realm manifestation. Sight, sound, kinetics … all of the vital indices. It was magnificent. As a matter of fact, it was just what the Louisiana State University Department of Parapsychology needed: an undeniable spirit manifestation.
"No," Jet said to himself and smiled. It was always amusing how the adult human mind could rationalize its way out of the fantastic. No longer did it frustrate him. In fact, he saw it as connected to the unconscious, the unknown, the other side. Denial of the spiritual or the extrasensory seemed in some way necessary to a wholehearted physical experience. In the end, it was like every other important thing: a matter of values.
"No," he said again later, but to Thomas Carol. "This time they're going to have to stretch it to believe that a promotor – even one like yourself – can get a thousand-pound horse with a two-hundred pound rider-saddle-armor burden to run over linen-covered tables designed to hold cocktail glasses without leaving a single print on the tablecloths, then jump through glass without a scratch and run across the surface of the lake without sinking an inch."
"And when I shot at him the damn glass broke," Thomas Carol said.
"Why did you shoot at him?"
Thomas Carol hesitated.
"At first I thought it was a robbery," he said.
"And then?"
"Then because I saw all my business jumping in the lake."
"Finally?"
"Finally because … because when would I get another chance to shoot at a guy riding a horse across my tabletops?"
"You got to be a Coonass," Jet said.
"Yeah," Thomas Carol said a little shyly, like a boy caught listening to a friend's confession. "Ain't no redneck Mississippi in me. I don't never hardly cross the river, except to check my competition in Natchez."
"Well, you just leave that pistol wherever you keep it for real, live bandits. Let's go on inside and get out of these mosquitoes."
They were standing on the darkened verandah, and the breeze off the lake that had once been the mainstream of the Mississippi River was no longer sufficient to hold off the insects. It had been simple to isolate the nightclub from the public and the press. The terrain was so wooded and swampy in this stage of river siltation that only one, dead-end road had been possible. Even the most stalwart news reporters and photographers were dissuaded by the miles of snake- and bloodsucker-invested territory between the Concordia Parish Sheriff's Office barricade and the entertainment complex. It would have taken a purposeful and experienced explorer to make it that far on foot or in anything except an amphibious vehicle.
"The mosquitoes were my most serious problem," Thomas Carol said as he opened the door with a key from a ring of hundreds. "And then, bang!"
He pushed on the door and it swung open easily, banging against the inside wall.
"Maybe we need music and lights and stuff the way it was the other night," Thomas Carol said.
"No," Jet said. "Something triggered the manifestation, no doubt about it. But it didn't start it. Look, we offer courses in Parapsychology 101 at LSU and we spend a whole semester just on that, so I wouldn't go into a lot of detail to say that we don't know a hell of a lot about what triggers these things. But what we do know is that the manifestation is always there. Time doesn't exist on the other side. There's no past and no future. There is just the Infinite Be, an eternal present. Your music didn't start anything, Mister Carol ...."
"Call me Tom."
"Tom. Your music and your beautiful young people paying you beautiful young money didn't start it, Tom, it just opened a door to the dark side of existence. Dig?"
"I dig."
"Well, you don't really, but it's a start. We'll just let our pores open … be sensitive to anything … sight, sound, touch, smell, taste … be open to that inner sense, the one we always avoid because it's not in the television commercials."
"Yeah, right," Thomas Carol said and Jet could hear the irony. Before him was a man of the flesh, someone who judged himself in long columns of figures.
"Just relax," Jet said. "Just relax."
"Oh, sure. I'm relaxed. I'm so relaxed I'm about to make merde in my pants."
Jet chuckled softly to himself, grateful for the darkness.
"Shouldn't we turn on a light at least?"
"If it makes you feel better," Jet said. "What came in here the other night wouldn't be put off by light. He wouldn't be put off by a bunch of screaming Indians."
"Thank God," Thomas Carol said. He switched on a light behind the bar and took a beer from the cooler. "Want anything?"
"Got any Spanish brandy?"
"Don't get many calls for it, but my maitre d' is pretty thorough." He looked through the bottles behind the bar. "Would Charles Martel or Hennessey do?"
"Sure," Jet said. "But you got some Jerez there. Look. Third row. Yellow label. Carlos Tercero."
Thomas Carol snared the bottle. He put in on the bar and got him a shot glass which was just as good to Jet as a snifter.
"What did you call it?"
"Jerez," Jet said. "It's where this stuff is made, in Spain. They spell it with a J, but they pronounce J the way we say H."
"That a fact?"
"That's a fact," Jet said and poured himself two fingers into the shot glass, wishing it could be warmed. The first sip flowered and misted his mouth and had just begun its course into the labyrinth of his digestive system when the process started.
"Whoa, God," Thomas Carol said like a man on a roller coaster just cresting the peak of a high plunge.
"Easy," Jet warned quietly, "easy."
There were thousands of them. Inca warriors battle-hardened but apparently unarmed, in even ranks, grim-faced. Their square hard-hide helmets pulled down low on the eyes for the glare of the sun, they faced an impossibly small contingent of armored, disciplined Spanish foot-soldiers and cavalry. The horses with riders dismounted were at the rear. In the forefront were four tiny cannon with their tenders flanked by foot soldiers with firearms. That tiny group of sickly pale Iberians wore breastplates and moon-sickle metal helmets but little else in the way of armor. There were several indigenous warriors scattered with them.
The setting was a large walled plaza superimposed upon the whole of River Rendezvous, the building, the lake, the forest beyond. There were no swamp, oak and cypress trees, river-bottom land. There was instead an arid, mountain-rimmed prairie of brush and dust. At the fore of the Incas was the chief, on a litter borne by slaves of a different red race. The chief was dressed in robes of bright feathers, down against the high Andean chill. He seemed angry and was berating his lieutenants.
The Spaniards were conferring, gathered around a tall, thin man who had already drawn his sword. On the ground between the two lines of combatants were several scattered pages, at least one gold and one silver cup that had apparently been tossed to the stone paving amid puddles of thick, brown liquid.
"It was chicha," Jet whispered.
"Chicks," Thomas Carol responded. "Every time."
"It's a drink," Jet said. "Considered an insult to refuse. The Spanish did that by tossing down those cups there. Those pages are what’s left of a Bible they gave that drunk-looking guy there on the litter, the Sapa Inca Atahualpa, the 'words of God' they gave him that he refused to speak."
"Looks like a sap, all right."
The Spanish leadership had come to a decision. The tall man nodded to the cannoneers, who began blowing into glowing coals in a special sort of spatula. One of the younger adjutants, whose boots were mounted with spurs, went toward the horses at the rear.
"That's him," Thomas Carol said excitedly, "That's the guy! The guy! A lot younger, though."
"Yes," Jet said, "de Soto."
"So' toe?"
The famous horseman had already mounted before the first volley of cannon thundered. Thomas Carol jumped about three feet into the air and came down with his pistol at the ready.
"No shooting," Jet cautioned. "It's not real in the way we know reality. It's a demonstration. like a curriculum vitae. He's presenting his credentials."
"Like bragging, then."
"Except all true," Jet said. "Or was. This was his glorious pinnacle. Soon he would befriend his enemy then his countrymen would murder his friend and he would be sucked into the mounting whirlpool of greed, cynicism and despair that would not even end here."
"Vámosnos caballeros!" shouted the leader of the mounted Spaniards. "Por el Dios, los Reyes Católicos ,fuego!!!!!"
Infantrymen fired, separated for the horses, already reloading as the cavalry charged through their line. Thomas Carol ducked behind the bar. For effect, Jet sipped the Spanish brandy. A handful of Spaniards – they totaled only one-hundred sixty-eight – against thousands upon thousands of professional soldiers who could have overwhelmed they by sheer mass, like a tsunami.
And yet the Spaniards charged. They came swift-horsed across the plaza. Lances poised and swords swinging. Behind them, pitiful in numbers and on foot came the infantry, but brave, bravery engendered by desperation. That foolhardiness was as fearsome as the mysterious horse or primitive firearms which were even then inferior to the Indian short bows. And yet the Incas fled without shedding one drop of Spanish blood.
They fled in terror because only a people with great, deadly magic could summon the courage to do what the red-bearded rider did. He charged with his horse galloping low-flat to the ground, full open running as in a race. Only Atahualpa the Emperor refused to budge. He was a god. Gods are above such human frailties.
"That's our man, all right," said Thomas Carol, eyes and nose and pointing finger above the bar like Kilroy. "Always breaking up the party."
He was pointing at the rider. The steed had just reached the litter on which lay, a trifle bored or maybe a little drunk, the emperor of all the Inca lands, Atahualpa. The shoulders of the horse touched the litter and all of Peru was lost. The vision too, was lost to them.
Slowly, sweating, Thomas Carol stood. There was no sound, now.
"So … now tell me, scientist, what the hell was that?" whispered Thomas Carol in the silence that ensued.
"Think of it as an electrical storm," Jet said. "Pour two brandies."
"Me, I don't want to drink," Thomas Carol said.
"I do. And we've got company," Jet said. From the far shadows of the bar emerged the tattered, fever-ridden visage of the Conqueror. Jet stood, almost at attention. Thomas Carol sunk out of sight behind the bar.
The warrior paused. He jerked a slight, courteous bow. Jet handed him the glass. He took it, drank, set the empty glass back down. Jet poured another.
"Salud," he said.
The vision took it. Held the glass up toward Jet.
"Pesetas."
"Amor," Jet completed.
The ghost drank it down.
"Is this poor old Ponce's fountain of youth?" he asked in Spanish thick of lisp and the Middle Ages.
"No," Jet said. "It is only a place to gain money."
"When I saw the beautiful young women I thought, 'How ironic. Ponce shattered his life looking for a myth. I went for riches as I had done in the land of the Inca, and it is I who found the source of eternal youth.'"
"The source of eternal youth is procreation," Jet said.
"Well said, foreign caballero," spoke the vision. He clinked his glass to Jet's. "And how does one gain money here?"
"People pay money to come here, listen to music, eat and dance."
"I thought I would impress the women with the horsemanship. It worked on Atahualpa."
"It takes money to impress people in these days," Jet said.
"That much has not changed," the vision smiled. "The River of the Holy Spirit changed, though, and left my corpse here without access to the Gulf and home."
"Do you wish to return home?"
"Not without proper recompense. I invested all my fortune in this venture. Now answer me, how does one gain money in this place?"
"Pardon, my lord, there is one behind this barrier who will answer more precisely."
'The cowardly one who fired the shots at my retreating form?"
"The same."
"This is true of many investors, the cowardliness. This is only the nature of the beast, as a horse is swift, as a serpent is treacherous. Summon him, I am inclined to listen."
"Tom. Tom, stand up," Jet said in English.
Wide-eyed, pale, Thomas Carol stood trembling.
"This one is not a Moor, nor is he a Jew."
"In this land, there is a mixture. He is mostly French."
"Barbarian," the vision said.
"Yes. I shall make the proper introductions."
"Then you know how I am called?"
"Oh, yes. The exploits of the Deputy of the Floridas are well-sung in this land. You are credited with the European discovery of the great river you call River of the Holy Spirit."
The vision swelled with pride.
"Then you have my permission to make the introductions."
First, he made the introductions in Spanish and then again in English for Thomas Carol.
"Please allow me to introduce to you the great exalted Deputy of the Floridas, adjutant to Pizarro, protege to the governor Pedrarias and loyal servant of the Catholic Kings, the Lord don Hernando de Soto. And if it pleases you, jefe, permit me to present the Lord don Thomas de … Carlos ...."
"Not a protège of the king?"
"No. But in this country commerce reigns. For this, he is considered lord."
"Then tell him who is ignorant of Castilian that I am pleased to meet him."
In English, Jet said. "Hernando de Soto is happy to make your acquaintance."
"Hernando Desoto!"
"The same. He was buried in this place of the river and then the river left him behind. They used to call it River of the Holy Spirit and he still does. He thought he had found old Ponce de Leon's fountain of youth, so beautiful was your clientele. He's after money, though."
"Me, too. Tell him that," Thomas Carol said. The mention of money took a lot of the shake out of his body.
"The Lord Carlos instructs me to tell you that he, too, is a mercenary, but a mercenary of the ledger books."
The vision smiled and nodded knowingly.
"I am a man of action, tell him, but I desire to know his battle strategy."
In English, Jet said to Thomas Carol:
"Keep it short and sweet. This is the longest verbal manifestation I've ever seen. We can't have too much time. He wants the rundown on the money. How you make your money."
"Merde! This ain't a con, is it?"
"Hell, no. The bastard died four and a half centuries ago."
"Well, tell him the real money's in the bar. That's almost pure gravy. The tour boats and the restaurant, they just pay for themselves. The point is to get them out of Natchez and Baton Rouge and New Orleans and Alexandria and get them drunk as hell. It ain't pretty; but, as I remember, he didn't do too many pretty things to the Indians, either."
"Now don't insult him, okay?"
"Hell, I'm talking business. If this dude can keep this up regular, I can clean up, bud. You just got five percent just for talking."
"No, thanks. That road's going to be bloody with drunken drivers."
"What about them war dogs tearing up the Indians, ainh?"
"I don't argue with history. I just don't want the money."
"Tell him."
Jet said in Spanish:
"This one of the mercenary ledgers, he says that if you would manifest yourself until November, he would earn millions of pesetas."
"Will he take his wealth, or at least half of it to Spain? To Jerez de los Caballeros?"
"He wants you to take your money, at least half of it, to Spain, to the place where he was born. It's a little town near Salamanca."
"Hell, yes. Do you know the peseta is almost one hundred-fifty to the dollar? And they just legalized marijuana there. It's the land of opportunity. Tell him if s a deal."
"He says it is a bargain," Jet said in Spanish and then in English to Thomas Carol, "I won't be responsible, not for anything. Not for the drunks nor the business stuff nor what will happen if you renege."
"Don't worry, babe," Thomas Carol said.
"Then drink some of this brandy to seal it and your troubles are over."
He poured the brandy into three glasses. Ghost, ghost-hunter, businessman raised glasses.
"Health," Jet said in Spanish, translating for Thomas Carol.
"Wealth," Thomas Carol said and again Jet translated.
"Love," Jet said with no need to translate.
"Well, lust anyway," Thomas Carol muttered.
"And the time to enjoy them," the ghost said sadly, winsomely. A bargain struck.