Blood Meridian(32)
The juggler looked up at him. He folded the cards and fanned them again and he made a pass over them with his left hand and held them forth and Jackson took a card and looked at it.
Bueno, said the juggler. Bueno. He admonished caution with a forefinger to his thin lips and took the card and held it aloft and turned with it. The card popped once sharply. He looked at the company seated about the fire. They were smoking, they were watching. He made a slow sweep before him with the card outheld. It bore the picture of a fool in harlequin and a cat. El tonto, he called.
El tonto, said the woman. She raised her chin slightly and she began a singsong chant. The dark querent stood solemnly, like a man arraigned. His eyes shifted over the company. The judge sat upwind from the fire naked to the waist, himself like some great pale deity, and when the black's eyes reached his he smiled. The woman ceased. The fire fled down the wind.
Quien, quien, cried the juggler.
She paused. El negro, she said.
El negro, cried the juggler, turning with the card. His clothes
snapped in the wind. The woman raised her voice and spoke again and the black turned to his mates.
What does she say?
The juggler had turned and was making small bows to the company.
What does she say? Tobin?
The expriest shook his head. Idolatry, Blackie, idolatry. Do not mind her.
What does she say Judge?
The judge smiled. With his thumb he had been routing small life from the folds of his hairless skin and now he held up one hand with the thumb and forefinger pressed together in a gesture that appeared to be a benediction until he flung something unseen into the fire before him. What does she say?
What does she say.
I think she means to say that in your fortune lie our fortunes all.
And what is that fortune?
The judge smiled blandly, his pleated brow not unlike a dolphin's. Are you a drinking man, Jackie?
No more than some.
I think she'd have you beware the demon rum. Prudent counsel enough, what do you think?
That aint no fortune.
Exactly so. The priest is right.
The black frowned at the judge but the judge leaned forward to regard him. Wrinkle not thy sable brow at me, my friend. All will be known to you at last. To you as to every man.
Now a number of the company seated there seemed to weigh the judge's words and some turned to look at the black. He stood an uneasy honoree and at length he stepped back from the firelight and the juggler rose and made a motion with the cards, sweeping them in a fan before him and then proceeding along the perimeter past the boots of the men with the cards outheld as if they would find their own subject.
Quien, quien, he whispered among them.
They were right loath all. When he came before the judge the judge, who sat with one hand splayed across the broad expanse of his stomach, raised a finger and pointed.
Young Blasarius yonder, he said.
Como?
El joven.
El joven, whispered the juggler. He looked about him slowly with an air of mystery until he found with his eyes the one so spoken. He moved past the adventurers quickening his step. He stood before the kid, he squatted with the cards and fanned them with a slow rhythmic motion akin to the movements of certain birds at court.
Una carta, una carta, he wheezed.
The kid looked at the man and he looked at the company about.
Si, si, said the juggler, offering the cards.
He took one. He'd not seen such cards before, yet the one he held seemed familiar to him. He turned it upside down and regarded it and he turned it back.
The juggler took the boy's hand in his own and turned the card so he could see. Then he took the card and held it up.
Cuatro de copas, he called out.
The woman raised her head. She looked like a blindfold mannequin raised awake by a string.
Cuatro de copas, she said. She moved her shoulders. The wind went among her garments and her hair.
Quie'n, called the juggler.
El hombre... she said. El hombre mas joven. El muchacho.
El muchacho, called the juggler. He turned the card for all to see. The woman sat like that blind interlocutrix between Boaz and Jachin inscribed upon the one card in the juggler's deck that they would not see come to light, true pillars and true card, false prophetess for all. She began to chant.
The judge was laughing silently. He bent slightly the better to see the kid. The kid looked at Tobin and at David Brown and he looked at Glanton himself but they were none laughing. The juggler kneeling before him watched him with a strange intensity. He followed the kid's gaze to the judge and back. When the kid looked down at him he smiled a crooked smile.
Get the hell away from me, said the kid.
The juggler leaned his ear forward. A common gesture and one that served for any tongue. The ear was dark and misshapen, as if in being put forth in this fashion it had suffered no few clouts, or perhaps the very news men had for him had blighted it. The kid spoke to him again but a man named Tate from Kentucky who had fought with McCulloch's Rangers as had Tobin and others among them leaned and whispered to the ragged soothsayer and he rose and made a slight bow and moved away. The woman had ceased her chanting. The juggler stood flapping in the wind and the fire lashed a long hot tail over the ground. Quien, quien, he called.