The dying man stood there as if waiting for my father to change his mind.
I'd forgotten about the boys playing catch until one of them shouted something and their "ball" fell close to the sweet man's foot. I looked and saw it wasn't a ball but the white skull of a small animal. The man looked and reached down slowly to pick it up. Holding the skull in his hand, he regarded it thoughtfully, then, without any warning, threw it at us.
Father stamped a foot on the ground. The skull stopped instantly and hung suspended in the air. "How hard it is to play my game!" He stamped again. Both the skull and the sweet man exploded.
I opened my eyes to the taste of dryness in my mouth. I knew where I was but had no energy to do more than lie there and look at the stippled ceiling of our. motel room. Outside, a truck shifted up a gear and grumbled away across the night.
"Venasque?"
One of the animals gave a small, sad whine. The strong smell of electricity hung in the air, as if some appliance had burned out or a thunderstorm was waiting to pounce.
"Venasque? Are you awake?" He wouldn't have gone to sleep while I moved through a past life. But it was also possible I'd been out so long that he'd given up, closed his eyes a moment and . . .
Then there was another smell in the air – hot, acidic, familiar: piss. I reached up and clicked on the lamp. Squinting my eyes, I looked through the new glare toward the other bed. He was there, but one glance said everything was wrong. He'd been sitting with his back propped against the headboard, but had slumped over awkwardly to one side and lay there, unmoving. My first thought was he'd been shot.
"Venasque!" I got up and moved to him. Both animals were on the floor between us, looking up at me with the bad news in their eyes. The old man's left eye was wide open, his right, only half. I bent over to listen to his breathing, but only small short grunts came that weren't enough to fuel his big body. I put two fingers to his throat for a pulse. It was there, but as off and out of synch as his breathing. Sliding him down so he lay more comfortably on the bed, I then called an ambulance and gave him artificial respiration until it came.
The flashing blue lights of the ambulance strobed through the orange over the parking lot. The night had been full of strange, vivid colors and total darkness. Nothing in between.
The ambulance had arrived very quickly and the attendants worked with the air of people who liked what they were doing and did their job well. They carefully checked Venasque and asked many questions about what had happened. All I could say was I'd fallen asleep and when I awoke he was this way. They were sympathetic, but cool. To them, the old man's collapse was just another set of readings, procedures, forms to fill out. That was understandable, but whenever I looked at him and his shot expression, I disliked their too-calm voices, questions, indifference to his condition.
When they were finished with me I called Maris, told her to contact Philip Strayhorn, and tell him what happened. Fifteen minutes later he called and asked about everything. Said he was coming immediately, but asked me to stay at the hospital in Santa Barbara until he arrived.
"How are the animals?"
"Sad. They know something bad's going on. They haven't moved from the floor."
I sat in a white room and half read an article in National Geographic while waiting to hear about Venasque's condition. The room was empty at first, but after a while, a good-looking couple came in and walked over.
"Are you Walker Easterling?"
"Yes."
The man put out his hand. "Harry Radcliffe, and this is my wife Sydney. Phil Strayhorn called and told us about Venasque. How is he?"
"I don't know. In intensive care, but none of the doctors have said anything more yet."
"Ditto. We asked at the desk when we came in, but the nurses weren't talking."
Sydney pushed long expensive hair away from her face. "We were with him only a few weeks ago and he looked great. We went to a Dodgers game."
"How did you get here so fast?"
"We live in Santa Barbara and would've been here sooner but we were out and –"
"Mr. Easterling?"
A woman stood in the doorway to the waiting room in a doctor's white coat and a clipboard under her arm. "I'm Doctor Troise. You came in with Mr. Venasque?"
"Yes. How is he? No one's told us anything yet."
"He's in a coma and we're still running tests. But there's something important we need to know before we go on. Certain results indicate that what happened to him might've been caused by a very strong electrical shock to the body. Some big jolt from something. Do you know if he touched either an electrical socket or appliance before this happened? Maybe a plug whose wires were frayed?"
"I have no idea. As I told the others, I was asleep and found him like . . . that when I woke up."
"And you heard nothing? Like a surprised shout? You know, how you yell out when you get a bad shock from something?"
"Nothing like that, but I was sound asleep and having big dreams. I remember that vividly, so I really must've been deep-out, you know?"
Radcliffe stood up and walked over to her. "Why do you think it was an electrical shock, Doctor?"
She looked at me to see if this man had the right to ask questions. I nodded.
"I'd rather not say anything about that until we've gotten all the results, sir." She made a wry face and turned to leave. "Sometimes doctors have the bad habit of making wrong prognoses before they know what they're talking about. It gets us into too much hot water. We're doing all we can for Mr. Venasque. I'll let you know what we find."
When she was gone, the three of us traded "what-was-that-all-about?" looks.
Strayhorn looked like hell when he got to the hospital. His eyes were red-rimmed and full of harried sadness. He spoke quickly and asked the same question more than once. Mrs. Radcliffe made him sit down next to her and put her arm around his shoulder.
Almost as soon as he arrived, I felt invisible ranks close around the three of them. The waiting room had become their room. I knew Venasque and was there when he was "hit," but the shaman had become their sole concern now and I was way on the outside. This was further emphasized when Radcliffe said it was all right if I wanted to "leave things in their hands now"; they'd take care of everything. Although his voice was friendly and grateful, I understood the offer to mean it'd be nice if you left, pal.
"We'll take care of the animals, Walker, but it would make things easier if you drove the Jeep back to L.A. and put it in his garage. Give the keys to his next-door neighbor, Mr. Barr. Sydney will take you over to the motel to get your bags."
Helplessly, I turned up my hands. "Okay, but let me give you my address and phone number in Los Angeles. Make sure to call me if there's anything I can do. Okay?"
"Absolutely. And thanks so much for doing what you did, Walker. We'll let you know what's going on whenever they tell us here. And don't worry about his care, either. We'll watch every move they make. If it's necessary, I'll even design a new wing in this place for him!"
We shook hands. Strayhorn held on a long time and looked at me very carefully. "Did anything happen between you two, Walker? Did you do anything that might have caused it?"
"No, Philip, he made me build a sand castle today on the beach, and then when I was asleep, as I told you, he sent me back to one of my other lives."
"Nothing else? Venasque told me you were one of the most intriguing people he's worked with. Said there was an enormous magic in you. He thought your being might have brought that sea serpent up."
"He said that? He never told me."