He looked up at the man, his twin, and saw horror on the familiar face. Ramón blinked, looking back over his shoulder. He expected anything: Maneck walking on the water like some alien Christ, another wall of cataract mist, even the European back from Hell with the Devil at his side. There was nothing. Gray river, stormy sky. Waves with tiny touches of white. He looked back at the man. The oar was forgotten in his hand; his face a mask of fear.
"What?" Ramón said, then looked down. His robe had fallen open. His belly was in the light, the thick, ropy scar livid against the brown of his skin. "Oh. That."
"Jesus Christ," the other whispered. "You're me!" He was staring at him in frozen horror.
"Calm down," Ramón said. "I can explain-"
"What are you?" the man shouted. "What the fuck are you?"
The man had drawn the knife. Lightning lit the world, flashing from the naked blade. A crackling detonation of thunder. Ramón rose to his feet, unsteady on the tilting raft.
"What the fuck are you?" There was hysteria in the man's voice now. He'd dropped the oar. It was floating away, a prisoner of the river.
"Listen to me! Would you stop being such a little pissant and fucking listen to me?" Ramón said. Then, looking at the man's eyes-eyes he'd seen in the mirror his whole life-he sighed. "Fuck it. Never mind."
There was no point. This wasn't a talking fight anymore.
Chapter 23
Two and a half meters by two and a half meters, the space complicated by the fire pit, the lean-to. This was the kind of fight that didn't last long. Ramón pulled off the sodden robe and wound it around one arm, scuttling to get the lean-to between them. Going into a knife fight naked didn't make him happy, but with the full robe wrapped around his forearm, he had something he could block with. And his twin had to hold the blade in his left hand, where Ramón could use his right. They weren't evenly matched. Not close. Ramón was going to lose.
The other man went into a low crouch, the knife at the ready. There was nothing. If there had been some firewood, he might have been able to grab a branch and use it as a club. If the oar hadn't floated off into the darkening gray, he might have used it like a staff.
"You led them here!" the other man shouted.
"I didn't!"
"Lying sack of shit!" the man yelled. "You're one of them. You're
a monster!"
"Yes. Yes, I am. And I'm still a better man than you." "Monster!"
Ramón didn't bother to answer. The man had made up his mind.
Just the way Ramón would have in his place. The one thing he understood was that there was no reason, no explanation, no perspective he could bring to this that would make the ending any different from what it was going to be.
"You're a fucking coward, you know that?" Ramón said, hoping to enrage his twin into making a mistake. "You're a pussy. Elena's a waste of air, and you know it."
"Don't fucking talk about her!"
"You were in love with that cook, Lianna. The one you stole from Martín Casaus. And you don't even have the fucking balls to say so! You hang on to Elena because you're scared not to. Because, without her, you know you aren't part of anything or anyone. You're just some pendejo with a third-class van and some prospecting tools."
Rage flushed the other man's face. Ramón bent his knees, center of gravity low, ready to dodge in whatever direction he needed to. Except back. There was no raft left behind him.
"You don't know shit!"
"I know everything. Come on, bitch," Ramón said. "You want to dance? Fine. Come on. I'll fuck you up and shit you out."
The man swung wild, the raft rocking with his shifting weight. Ramón sidestepped and turned, throwing a kick that connected with empty air. The man swung around in a lower stance now. They'd done little more than trade places. The knife was held sideways before him in a defensive block. The anger had drained out of the other man; his eyes were slitted and cold. That wasn't good. If he'd been possessed by fear and blind rage, Ramón would have had a chance. If the bastard was thinking, then Ramón had just become the European.
The man feinted left and then right, his eyes locked on Ramón's. Testing him. Ramón danced back, his feet finding the rough edge of the raft. The man swung, and Ramón dove into the attack, getting under and past the knife before it could score him. The raft creaked and bucked, making them both stumble, but the man was the first to regain his feet. Another stroke of lightning flashed. Thunder came almost before the glow had faded. Ramón grinned. His twin did as well. Whatever else, however bad this was, there was still a certain joy in it.
Under what circumstances do you kill?
When the motherfucker needs to die.
Ramón took a careful swing with his unarmored hand, then dodged quickly when the knife flickered up to block him. The other man thrust low, leaving a shallow cut on Ramón's leg, just above the knee. It was nothing. He forgot about it. They circled awkwardly, Ramón bouncing gently on the balls of his feet. A light rain began, making the iceroot leaves beneath them slick. The other man gathered himself for a rush, the subtle bunching of his shoulders giving his intentions away. Ramón jumped, making the raft shift crazily. The man slipped to one knee, and then rose again immediately.
"You killed him because you thought it would make them like you!" Ramón shouted.
"What?"
"You killed the pinche European because you thought all those people in the El Rey would think you were a fucking hero! You're pathetic!"
"Fuck you, monster!" the other man said, and swung. It was what had to happen. Ramón didn't give himself time to think; he jumped forward, letting the blade skate across his ribs, pinning the man's arm against his side. Pain shrieked as the knife touched bone, but the man couldn't pull back to stab again. Ramón used his free hand to grab the man's injured hand and squeeze. His twin grunted with pain and tried to pull back. They wrestled together in a drunken embrace. This close, he could smell the other man, a rank, musky, unwashed reek that he found amazingly unpleasant. His breath huffed into Ramón's face like a blast of foul air, stinking of dead meat. Ramón kept the blade arm pinned against his side, but the other man lost his footing, and they slid to the deck together. Rain and river water splashed over them. Something struck the raft, and it spun crazily; there was no oar to stabilize them and no oarsman.
"You shouldn't be alive, you fucking abomination," the man hissed. "You shouldn't be alive!"
"The thing is, you don't understand flow," Ramón said, in a strangely conversational tone, as if they were having a beer together in a bar somewhere. "You don't understand what it is to be part of something bigger. And, Ramón, you poor bastard, you aren't ever going to know, either." Then he butted his head into the bridge of his twin's nose. He could feel the bone give way, and the man yelped and pulled back. Ramón stuck with him, and they rolled. The little lean-to dug into Ramón's back and then gave way with a snap. They turned once, both trying to regain their feet; the man refusing to release the knife, Ramón refusing to release his twin. Together, they fell in the water.
Ramón gasped despite himself and earned a throatful of river water. The other thrashed and twisted, and then they were apart, floating. Floating in a bright, flowing river. Ramón noticed the red bloom that came from his side, his blood mixing with the water, becoming a part of it. He was becoming the river.
It would have been easy to let it happen. The living sea called to him, and part of him wanted very much to join it, to become the river completely. But the part of him that was alien remembered the threatened sorrow of gaesu and the human part of him refused to be beaten, and together the two parts of himself forced him on. He shifted, and kicked against the flow with all his strength, the heat and blood pouring out of him.
In the raging flow of the river, the one who lived would be the one who found the raft first. He kicked, spiraling in the flow. The water around him was like a veil of pink. His blood. The thought flickered through his mind-How bad did he get me?-and was gone. There wasn't time.
He found the raft, a darkness on the water, and swam toward it. In the corner of his eye, he saw the other man flailing. A thick length of vine had come loose from the raft and was snaking its way across the surface. Ramón gritted his teeth and pushed. Now. He could make it there now.
He shot up from the water, his arms slamming down on the top of the raft. The other man was to his left, also crawling up, his breath a plume of water and spit. A branch caught on something; Ramón thought it was his robe until he remembered that the cloth was all wrapped around his arm. The wood had caught a flap of his own torn skin. The other man was almost on the raft. Ramón pulled his leg up, his ankle on the top, and pulled, desperately hauling himself up. The loose vine slid past his back, bumping him like a water snake. The rain felt like a thousand tiny blows. And he was up. He was on the raft again. He rolled over, and the man dropped a foot heavily onto Ramón's chest, pinning him.