The Totem

"You know about this?" Slaughter said to Dunlap.

"Yes, he told me when we went to get some coffee at your office. They were evidently-"

"Let me tell it," Lucas said. "I should have told it long ago. You've got to understand how young I was. Eighteen, and I thought I'd figured everything. The way my father acted toward my mother and me. Hell, he was actually convinced that she was cheating on him. He was certain that I wasn't even his. I mean I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt there had to be a better life, and when those hippies came through town, I knew they'd found it. So I hung around with them. Can you imagine? No guilt. Freedom to do anything that you're inclined toward without fear of what somebody else will say. I'd never had that, and I loved it. But the trouble started then, and soon the town turned on the hippies, and the ranchers forced them from the valley. I was worse off than before because I thought I knew then what I wanted, so I struggled through the summer, but my father and I kept arguing, and I snuck out late one night to join the commune. But I didn't know that they were crazy, see. I figured they'd be like the hippies in the town. But these were different. Quiller had selected them. That's why he wanted several thousand at the start. To pick and choose the special types he wanted. Every freak who'd tripped out once too many times. Every nut who was almost psychotic. Every radical whose idea of protest was to plant a bomb or set fire to a building. Hell, they didn't need the drugs. A lot of them were scrambled to begin with. And they took one look at me and said that I would be their first new member. Well, I should have known. The hippies in the town had warned me. 'Very bad,' they told me, but they never explained what they meant. I suspect they only sensed what was the matter. All the same, I should have known. Because the summer had been time enough for Quiller to control the commune, to make it even more extreme. You want to talk about hypnotic people? Quiller had a way of looking in your eyes and making you agree to anything, and he had crazies working with him who would make you go along with him. I'd grown a half-assed beard. I'd let my hair grow long, but if I stood out from the people in the town, I stood out equally from Quiller and the commune. They had let their hair and beards keep growing longer. They had started dressing even weirder than the hippies who had been in town. Quiller used to sit in his Corvette-"

"The red Corvette? He kept it?" Dunlap asked abruptly.

"Oh, hell, yes. He rigged up a grotto for it off in the woods. He parked it there beneath a shelter made from tree boughs, and he used to sit in it to hold his meetings. But the fu

"It's like Jim Jones," Dunlap said. "Or David Koresh.'

"Or Charles Manson," Slaughter added, and they frowned at one another.

"I need a smoke," Lucas said. "Has anybody got one?" His hand was shaking as he took the cigarette that Dunlap offered. A nurse going by frowned at them. She slowed as if about to tell them that smoking wasn't allowed in the corridor. Then she saw the look in their eyes and kept moving.

Lucas drew the smoke in. "Anyway, they had these barracks like in the military, and they put me in one, watching me. By then, I understood enough to be afraid, but there was no way I could run, and they were talking about my initiation. I don't know what I thought would happen. I saw that many of them had a scar across their chests, two wavy lines that intersected. When they brought me food, I wouldn't eat it, and I wouldn't drink the water. They kept smiling, though, as if that's what they wanted. 'That's right. Stay pure,' they told me. I don't know. They had this thing about a state of nature. Quiller's notion was to purify them, to free them from the outside world. He made them pledge their loyalty, then put them through this secret ritual. Their goal was to escape the bonds of society and act upon their instincts. But the place was set up like the military, and I didn't understand how Quiller's dictatorial attitude was compatible with freedom, or how drugs had anything to do with purity. The scheme was crazy, schizophrenic, and I sometimes wonder if he didn't get some kind of voyeuristic thrill from watching them behave like animals. The second day at sundown, they were going to have the ceremony, but my father showed up that day, shooting. When they ran to find out what had happened, I escaped the men who watched me. The policeman found me."

"But you never mentioned anything about this," Slaughter told him.

"That's right. I was too afraid. I felt that Quiller would come after me. You said yourself that Quiller seemed a lot like Manson. He terrified me. I didn't want to go against him. If I told the town, the town would turn against the commune, and I knew who the commune would blame. Besides, you have to realize how much I hated my father. If I justified what he had done, he might have been released. I didn't want that. Hell, I knew that he'd come looking for me, too. As far as I could see, a guilty verdict was the best chance for my mother and me. Don't bother saying I was wrong. At eighteen, that's the way I saw things."

"But you're back now."

Lucas nodded. "And the whole damned thing is starting again. I don't mind telling you I'm scared. I figured that the commune would have scattered by now, that my father might be different. Last month I was with my mother when she died. She'd been staying in New Mexico. The last thing she said was 'Make sure your father doesn't cheat you. Half that ranch is mine, and now it's yours. But he'll try to keep it from you.'" Lucas straightened. "I'm finished ru

"Well, I guarantee you'll be protected."

"Don't underestimate my father."

"That isn't what I meant. I mean in there. I want you to look closely at the man in the bed. Tell me if he's really from the commune. We still have no proof of that. If the commune still exists, we don't know where it is. They moved it."

Lucas shuddered. "Oh, that's fine. That's fucking great."

The medical examiner stepped from the room where he'd been attending to the bearded figure.

"Well?" Slaughter asked.

The medical examiner looked troubled. "He's very sick. Apart from showing symptoms of the virus, he's undernourished and dehydrated. If he hadn't wandered into town, he'd have died by sunset. As it is, I still don't know how long he'll live. I'm feeding him intravenously."

"Can we have a look at him?"

The medical examiner debated. "I don't think that's a problem, but that cigarette will have to go."

He pointed toward what Lucas held, and Lucas nodded, dropping the cigarette, stepping on it.

"Pick it up now."

Lucas stared at him, then picked it up. He glanced at Slaughter. "Fine. Let's get this finished."

The medical examiner opened the door, and they went in. They peered toward the figure, then at Lucas.

"I don't know," Lucas told them.

"Make a guess," Slaughter said.

"I can't."

"You've got to try."

"But what if I identify him and he comes for me?"

"Does he look as if he's going to live? For Christ sake, be responsible for once."