The Lord of Opium

30

A VISIT TO THE AJO HILLS

In the morning, as the doctor had predicted, Listen had no memory of her night terror. She shuffled into the banquet room, and Matt noticed how frail she looked. Sor Artemesia lifted her into a chair and fetched a bowl of oatmeal. Mirasol waited patiently by the food cart.

“I don’t like oatmeal,” said Listen.

“Tough,” said Sor Artemesia.

Only Matt was up, and so they had the huge banquet hall to themselves. It was going to be a hot day. The desert had at last decided spring was over, and a heat haze shimmered over the garden. Birds flew back and forth through a lawn sprinkler.

“María told me about Mirasol,” said the nun, buttering a slice of toast.

“She has nothing to worry about. I talked to her alone and told her,” said Matt.

“I know you did. As for whether there’s something to worry about, I’m not sure.”

“You can’t think Mirasol is a—is a girlfriend,” stammered Matt.

“You pity her, which is a good thing, but it must not go any further.” Sor Artemesia bit into her toast and licked the butter off her fingers.

Matt was almost speechless with outrage. “You’ve been talking to Cienfuegos. Why does everyone think I’m such a monster?”

“Because you’re El Patrón reborn.”

“I’m not the same!” Matt felt his face tighten and a current of heat run under his skin.

“Not yet,” said the nun. “You’ve been given great power, and stronger people than you have fallen under its spell. Think of me as the slave that used to stand in Caesar’s chariot and whisper into his ear, ‘Remember. You, too, are mortal.’ ”

“How dare you say things like that to me!”

“I dare because I serve God, not the rulers of this world. I thought about El Patrón while I was praying in the chapel. How did a reasonably decent village boy wind up killing so many people? And I thought about whether you were strong enough to avoid his fate. Cienfuegos told me about your party. You’ve realized that you can have anything and do anything you want. You even have a clone.”

“That wasn’t my doing!” cried Matt.

“No, it wasn’t. But don’t you see the tremendous temptation set out before you? To live forever, to have everything you desire. That’s what hollowed out El Patrón’s soul.”

Sor Artemesia was trembling, and Matt realized that she was afraid. He remembered her nervousness when he’d first contacted the Convent of Santa Clara, and her obvious fear of Esperanza. Yet here she was, risking her life for what she believed was right. All Matt had to do was pass the word along to Cienfuegos, and the nun would join Major Beltrán under the poppy fields. He had that much power. Cienfuegos wouldn’t want to do it, of course, but he was powerless to disobey a direct order. El Patrón had given such orders many times.

“I’m not angry,” he said, although he was, a little. “I think you could stand up to Glass Eye Dabengwa.”

The nun laughed shakily. “I’m not that crazy. You’re still young. You can change. And now that I’ve said my piece, mi patrón, let’s stay friends.”

She held out her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Matt took it. “Friends,” he said. He saw that Listen was paying close attention to the conversation.

“What party?” the little girl asked.

“Something you won’t be invited to if you breathe one word about it,” said Matt, for now Ton-Ton, Chacho, and Fidelito had finally rolled out of bed and were sniffing with great interest the food Mirasol had on her cart.

* * *

The preparations for the party were in full swing. During the day Matt kept the boys away from the hacienda to keep from spoiling the surprise. He showed them a Safe Horse at the stables and said they could ride it if they liked. They were fascinated, walking around the animal and patting its sleek hide. “You couldn’t stand behind a Real Horse like that, Fidelito,” said Matt. “He’d knock the stuffing out of you.”

“Isn’t this a Real Horse?” asked Ton-Ton, and Matt was sorry he’d brought up the subject.

“It’s a Safe Horse. They’re—controlled.”

“That means, uh, they have microchips in their brains.”

“Poor creature,” said Chacho, stroking the animal’s nose. “I remember you telling the Keepers about putting chips into a horse’s brain. You said it was a good thing, because horses weren’t smart.”

“I didn’t understand what it meant then,” Matt said. He showed them the Real Horses used by the Farm Patrol, and the boys were immediately eager to ride. Matt promised that Cienfuegos would teach them.

They went for a long drive in Hitler’s car. Matt drove at first, and after a while Daft Donald showed Ton-Ton how to do it. Ton-Ton was a natural. He took to the machine as though he were part of it. Soon he was cruising around corners at a speed Matt had never dared to try, and Daft Donald grinned and flapped his hands as though they were flying. Suddenly they came around a bend and almost collided with a group of men dressed in tan jumpsuits and floppy hats. Ton-Ton slammed on the brakes.

A Farm Patrolman cantered up and tipped his hat. “Taking the lads out for a spin, are you, mi patrón? ’Tis good to see you about.” He turned and barked, “Walk faster!” at the eejits. They trotted double time and soon cleared the road. “Well, I’d best be after them before they trample the crop.” He tipped his hat again, and Matt nodded stiffly.

The workers disappeared in a cloud of dust kicked up by their feet. Ton-Ton, Chacho, and Fidelito looked stunned. “They’re like robots,” said Chacho. “They didn’t even flinch when the car almost hit them.”

“They couldn’t,” said Matt.

“Was that . . . a Farm Patrolman?” Fidelito asked, his eyes wide.

Matt said it was.

“So those are the bastards who took my father,” said Chacho. “They took Ton-Ton’s parents and Fidelito’s grandma.”

“They did not take mi abuelita!” the little boy cried. “She’s in California, living in an orange grove. She has a little house, and she grows corn and sells it in the marketplace.”

“All right! All right! Your grandma’s in California,” said Chacho. “Don’t get mad.”

“I’m not mad,” Fidelito said. “I’m upset because you’re telling lies.”

“Okay, I’m a big fat liar,” Chacho said. “Here. Do you want to punch me? Make you feel better?”

“N-no,” said the little boy.

Ton-Ton drove on. They went past more workers bending and slashing opium pods. Every third field lay fallow, and every tenth was covered with young plants that were being weeded by children. Ton-Ton stopped to observe them. “I thought the p-plankton factory was bad,” he said. “Do they, uh, work in the other fields when they grow up?”

Matt looked down at his hands. “Most of them don’t live that long. I’ve improved their food, but something about the massive dose of microchips slows down their ability to grow.”

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Fidelito shrilled. Daft Donald took over and drove them toward the Ajo hills. They left the opium plantation and went up a road that hadn’t been repaired for a long time. Summer rains had washed out holes, and rocks had rolled down the hillsides. After a while they came to a turnaround and stopped.

Daft Donald wrote on his yellow pad: Car won’t go farther. We walk. Good picnic spot ahead.

Matt thought they weren’t far from the oasis. He hadn’t told the boys about the place, and he guessed that Daft Donald didn’t know about it either. He was reluctant to reveal its presence, because it was a secret shared by him and Tam Lin, and the man’s spirit was still there in some way. The only person who wouldn’t disturb this fragile connection was María.

“¡Ay, que padre! This is great!” said Ton-Ton. They had come out into a little valley. A stream flowed through the center, rippling around boulders and pooling up here and there into pockets of water stained brown by leaves. Water striders skated over the surface, making diamond patterns of light on the sand below. Rock daisies and desert stars bloomed along the bank, along with pepper grass that Fidelito picked off and chewed.

A scruffy brown animal with a long tail stood up abruptly and twitched its long nose at them. Ton-Ton reached for a rock, but Matt held his arm. “It’s a coati. They’re not dangerous.”

“Looks like a big rat,” said Ton-Ton, fingering the rock. The beast decided it didn’t like the visitors and loped off with a rolling gait. Its fur was untidy, and its tail had been chewed on. It paused to scratch its butt lavishly before moving on.

“¡Hombre! He looks like he’s been up all night drinking,” said Chacho.

Next to the stream was a smooth, flat rock, and here Daft Donald unpacked the basket he’d been carrying. He put out sandwiches, cupcakes, oranges, and bottles of strawberry soda. “I remember this!” said Fidelito, grabbing one of the bottles. “We drank it when we escaped from the plankton factory.”

Chacho turned away. Matt knew he was remembering the boneyard, and it wasn’t something he wanted to recall. The boy quenched his thirst from the stream instead.

A small stand of cottonwoods provided shade, and the wind blew through the leaves with a dry, rattling sound. “Do you hear those leaves? Tam Lin used to say—” Matt stopped. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about Tam Lin.

“He was l-like your father,” Ton-Ton remembered. “Where is he now?”

Daft Donald scribbled on the yellow notepad before Matt could answer. He was at El Patrón’s funeral.

“Oh! I’m sorry!” the big boy said.

Daft Donald wrote again. He was my friend. He saved my life.

“How did he do that?” asked Chacho, who had gotten used to the bodyguard’s way of communicating and was as comfortable with it as Mr. Ortega.

I was at the funeral too. Tam Lin told me not to drink the wine.

“Why did he drink it?” Chacho asked.

Daft Donald paused for a moment before answering. I think El Patrón had given him a direct order when they discussed the funeral. Tam Lin couldn’t disobey.

“Microchips,” concluded Ton-Ton. The bodyguard nodded.

Matt was overcome by such a feeling of desolation that he trembled. Tam Lin had not committed suicide as Celia had thought. He’d been murdered as surely as if El Patrón had held a gun to his head and fired. It was the same mindless compulsion that made Cienfuegos unable to disobey a direct order or to flee the country or to comfort a little girl. Matt imagined Tam Lin holding the fatal glass of wine and knowing exactly what it would do.

He bent his head and started sobbing. He couldn’t stop. It was like Listen’s night terrors, except that he knew what was going on around him. Chacho and Ton-Ton put their arms around him, and Fidelito looked up into his face with something approaching panic. “Please don’t cry,” he said. “Your padre was a great hero. Heroes, well, they don’t live so long. But they’re muy suave, and we all admire them.”

The little boy’s inventive attempt to console him got through to Matt. He shivered and wiped his face on his sleeve. “It’s okay, Fidelito. Tam Lin was a hero. I should remember that.”

“Hey, we all lose it sometimes. Remember when Jorge was rolling bread crumbs at dinner?” said Chacho, recalling the sadistic Keeper at the plankton factory.

“Heck, yes,” responded Ton-Ton. “He was g-giving us the big lecture about not having diseased opinions. He was rolling up crumbs and when he got a big glob, he popped it into his, uh, mouth.”

“Only, a roach crawled onto the table and he mashed it up with the rest,” Chacho crowed. “Huck! Huck! Huck! Blort! All over the table. Wonderful!”

“Yeah, he lost it big-time!” said Ton-Ton. “L-later, when we escaped, Luna, Flaco, and I locked the Keepers into their compound and covered all the exits with bags of salt. Th-they were in there a week, and the only water they had to drink was from the toilet.”

“Huck! Huck! Huck! Blort!” shrieked Fidelito, beside himself with glee.

Matt knew what they were doing. They were covering for him by coming up with more and more outrageous stories. By the time they’d finished, Matt’s breakdown was lost in a welter of crude jokes. Daft Donald wrote on his yellow pad, You have good friends, and Matt silently agreed.

When things had settled down and they were back to devouring cupcakes and oranges, Fidelito leaned against Matt and said, “What did Tam Lin used to say?”

“We were sitting under some cottonwoods, same as now, and the leaves were making that rattling sound,” said Matt. “I said it was almost as though the trees were talking. Tam Lin said that the Hopi Indians believed the cottonwoods were talking, only that the voices were those of the Hopi gods. If you listened and were wise enough, he said, you could understand what they wanted you to do.”

“Wow,” said Fidelito. He fell silent. The wind gusted through the little valley, ruffling the surface of the pools and sending the leaves into a flurry of sound. After a while it died down, and the little boy said, “I wish I knew what they were telling me.”

“So do I,” said Matt. “So do I.”