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“Well, he says no and I believe him, up to a point,” Cooksey answered, after a considered moment. “He says Jaguar killed the man, which gives me pause.”
“What do you mean?” asked Luna.
“I mean it sounds like this ‘jaguar’ is a kind of god to him, so it might be a figure of speech, as we would say when someone of whom we disapproved met with a bad end, ‘God punished him.’ On the other hand, it could be a case of shape-shifting.”
“Which is…?” said Luna.
“It’s a form of ritual. I’ve observed it any number of times in the field. A shaman takes some drug, usually a form ofayahuasca, which is an extract of theBanisteria vine together with other plant materials, and goes into a trance, during which his animal tutelary spirit takes possession of him and confers special powers. These can be things like superhuman strength, the ability to see in the dark, the ability to travel in spirit form, and so on. It’s no longer him, d’you see, but the animal spirit. And in that case, our Moie could possibly have committed a murder and have no real knowledge of the crime.”
Je
Luna’s face had become pale under her tan, and her eyes had become all pinched looking, which Je
“Thepolice! Rupert, what thefuck are you talking about? What the hell have we been fighting against besides the kind of shit that’s going down in the Puxto, of which Moie is living evidence?Living evidence! And you want to lock him up because some Cuban scumbag got himself killed?”
In his most maddeningly reasonable voice, Rupert replied, “Of course I don’twant to lock him up, but giving, ah, refuge, to someone who may be a serious felon would compromise the principles of our organization and open us to, ah, the possibilities of criminal prosecution. You can see that, surely?”
That was a big mistake, Je
“No,” said Luna, “what I see is that, in fact, this organization has no principles at all, except making some rich people feel good about their money. Oh,I don’t buy tropical hardwoods andI use shade-grown fair trade coffee in my three-thousand-dollar espresso machine, give me a fucking good citizen medal! And so let me make it really, really clear. If anyone calls the cops on that man, I personally am off the reservation on it. I will blow the whistle. I will let every enviro in the world know what went down, who he is, and what’s happening. I will call every TV station in town. There’ll be TV crews in permanent residence outside that gate, and you can explain why the preservation of the rain forest is important but not quite important enough for Rupert Zenger to take any risk at all of even being suspected of doing an illegal act. I don’t care if you kick us out, I don’t care if me and Scotty have to sleep in our fucking van and live on rice and beans-”
“We could make a tape,” said Geli Vargos into the angry speech; Luna stopped her rant, and they all stared at Geli. “We could tape his story, just him talking into the camera, with a voice-over, and then we could add subtitles translating what he said. And send out copies to the media. That would expose the Consuela company and put pressure on the Colombians to stop them from destroying a national park, especially since the Puxto got set up by contributions from enviro organizations in the first place.”
Rupert said, “I don’t see how that solves our problem. A tape like that is meaningless to the media unless they have confirmation that the man is what and who he says he is. A little brown man with a bowl haircut and tattoos could be anyone. So we would have to identify ourselves in any case, present him for interviews…”
“No, it’s a good idea,” said Luna. “If we do it right, it’ll cause a sen sation. He’ll be a public figure, and it won’t matter if he’s an illegal immigrant.”
“Why won’t it, Luna?” Rupert asked.
“Because if we do it right, a mass mailing of tapes, by the time the INS gets around to it, it’ll already have happened. We’ll have the interviews already. I could offer Su
“I see we’re no longer concerned,” offered Professor Cooksey in a dry tone, “that this fellow might be in the habit of carving people up while in a drug-induced trance?”
“Actually,” said Rupert, “we have no real evidence of that, do we? It’s just, ah, speculation, as you admit yourself. And Geli’s right. And Luna. It could be a big breakthrough for us.” He turned away from Cooksey and regarded the two women with his benign brown eyes. “Now, how shall we arrange this taping? Perhaps a more anonymous location would be best, away from the property.” He took a large bite of chocolate chip cookie and awaited their response. Professor Cooksey turned his head and looked Je
Je
She walked through the courtyard and down a garden path to the pool. There, as she had expected, was Moie, gazing morosely at the waterfall and humming to himself. She squatted down next to him and asked him how he was doing.
He said in Runiya, “When I first came to the land of the dead, I thought youwai’ichuranan could move the stars in the sky and I was very afraid. Cooksey says that isn’t so. But this is nearly as bad. You make a little world here, as in this pond, as in your garden, but it is all wrong, allsiwix, and it hurts my belly to see it. The creatures are alive, but the thing is dead. Have you never once listened to what a plant or animal has to say?”
She nodded and smiled. “Yeah. It’s pretty cool. See, it’s like all natural. The pump runs off solar. The sun, see”-she pointed to the sky-“it makes the water go around. Sun, waterfall, see?”
“You are a most strange being,” said Moie. “If I could speak to you properly, I would examine you and find out why you are barren, even though the Monkey Boy drags you into his hammock very often. I should ask Cooksey about this, although perhaps it is part of being dead that you make few children. Also I wonder where your elders are. I have heard some tribes eat their elders and so perhaps you do this as well. Again, I will ask Cooksey.”