Cloud Atlas

my blade inches from that soft, pale throat.

That laughin’ thrush was yarnin’ fast ’n’ loud. Bird lilts sound like blades bein’ sharp’ned, I cogged for the first time there ’n’ then. I knowed why I shudn’t kill this Kona. It’d not give the Valleys back to the Valleysmen. It’d stony my cussed soul. If I’d been rebirthed a Kona in this life, he could be me an’ I’d be killin’ myself. If Adam’d been, say, adopted an’ made Kona, this’d be my brother I was killin’. Old Georgie wanted me to kill him. Weren’t these reasons ’nuff jus’ to leave him be an’ hushly creep away?

Nay, I answered my en’my, an’ I stroked my blade thru his throat. Magicky ruby welled ’n’ pumped an’ frothed on the fleece an’ puddled on the stone floor. I wiped my blade clean on the dead un’s shirt. I knowed I’d be payin’ for it by ’n’ by, but like I said a while back, in our busted world the right thing ain’t always possible.

Goin’ out I bumped Meronym rushin’ in. Kona! she hissed. There weren’t no time to ’splain what I’d done in there an’ why. Hurryin’, I stuffed my fam’ly’s icons in the saddlebags, an’ she hoicked me on the horse. Comin’ up the track from Aunt Bees’s was three–four horses cloppin’. Oh, we speeded out o’ Bailey’s for the final time like Old Georgie was bitin’ our asses. I heard men’s voices b’hind an’ glanced back an’ even saw their armor glintin’ thru the fig orchards, but by Mercysome Sonmi, they din’t see us vanishin’. One beat later we heard a shrill conchin’s echo up the Valley, yay, three blasts it was, an’ I knowed the Kona must o’ found that sentry I’d slayed an’ was sendin’ an alarm out, Valleysmen ain’t all slaved or mass’kered. I knowed I’d be payin’ for ignorin’ the second augurin’ sooner ’n I’d gambled, yay, an’ Meronym too.

But our luck din’t yet wilt. Other conchin’s answered the first, yay, but they was downgulch an’ we galloped back thru Vert’bry Pass anxin’ but we wasn’t ambushed. One whoah narrow escape it was, yay, one more beat at my dwellin’ an’ them Kona horsemen’d o’ seen an’ chased us. Avoidin’ the open Kohala Ridge ’n’ pastures, we skirted the forest for camo, an’ only then did I ’fess to Meronym what I’d done back to that sleepin’ sentry. I don’t know why it is, but secrets jus’ rot you like teeth if you don’t yank ’em out. She just list’ned, yay, an’ she din’t judge me none.

I knowed a hid cave by Mauka Waterfall, an’ to here it was I took us for what’d be Meronym’s final night on Big Isle if ev’rythin’ worked as planned. I’d hoped Wolt or Kobbery or ’nother goatherd may o’ ’scaped an’ be hidin’ there but, nay, it was empty, jus’ some blankies what we goatherds stashed for sleepin’. The trade wind was giddyuppin’, an’ I feared for the kayakers who’d be settin’ out from Maui at dawn, but it weren’t so chillsome so I din’t risk no fire, not so near the en’my, nay. I bathed my wounds in the pool an’ Meronyn bathed an’ we ate the grinds I’d got from Cluny’s an’ fig loaf what I grabbed from my own dwellin’ when I’d gone back for the icons.

I cudn’t stop mem’ryin ’n’ yarnin’ while we ate, nay, ’bout my fam’ly an’ Pa ’n’ Adam too, it was like if they lived in words they cudn’t die in body. I knowed I’d miss Meronym diresome when she was gone, see I din’t have no other bro on Big I who weren’t ’ready slaved. Lady Moon rose an’ gazed o’er my busted ’n’ beautsome Valleys with silv’ry ’n’ sorryin’ eyes, an’ the dingos mourned for the died uns. I wondered where’d my tribesmen’s souls be reborned now Valleyswomen’d not be bearin’ babbits here. I wished Abbess was there to teach me, ’cos I cudn’t say an’ nor could Meronym. We Prescients, she answered, after a beat, b’lief when you die you die an’ there ain’t no comin’ back.

But what ’bout your soul? I asked.

Prescients don’t b’lief souls exist.

But ain’t dyin’ terrorsome cold if there ain’t nothin’ after?

Yay—she sort o’ laughed but not smilin’, nay—our truth is terrorsome cold.

Jus’ that once I sorried for her. Souls cross the skies o’ time, Abbess’d say, like clouds crossin’ skies o’ the world. Sonmi’s the east ’n’ west, Sonmi’s the map an’ the edges o’ the map an’ b’yonder the edges. The stars was lit, an’ I sentried first, but I knowed Meronym weren’t sleepin’, nay, she was thinkin ’n’ tossin’ under her blanky till she gived up an’ sat by me watchin’ the moonlighted waterfall. Questions was mozziein’ me plaguesome. The fires o’ Valleysmen an’ Prescients both are snuffed tonight, I speaked, so don’t that proof savages are stronger ’n Civ’lized people?

It ain’t savages what are stronger ’n Civ’lizeds, Meronym reck’ned, it’s big numbers what’re stronger ’n small numbers. Smart gived us a plus for many years, like my shooter gived me a plus back at Slopin’ Pond, but with ’nuff hands ’n’ minds that plus’ll be zeroed one day.

So is it better to be savage ’n to be Civ’lized?

What’s the naked meanin’ b’hind them two words?

Savages ain’t got no laws, I said, but Civ’lizeds got laws.

Deeper ’n that it’s this. The savage sat’fies his needs now. He’s hungry, he’ll eat. He’s angry, he’ll knuckly. He’s swellin’, he’ll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an’ if his will say-soes “Kill” he’ll kill. Like fangy animals.

Yay, that was the Kona.

Now the Civ’lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He’ll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won’t go hungry ’morrow. He’s angry, he’ll stop ’n’ think why so he won’t get angry next time. He’s swellin’, well, he’s got sisses an’ daughters what need respectin’ so he’ll respect his bros’ sisses an’ daughters. His will is his slave, an’ if his will say-soes, “Don’t!” he won’t, nay.

So, I asked ’gain, is it better to be savage ’n to be Civ’lized?

List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day.

“One day” was only a flea o’ hope for us.

Yay, I mem’ry Meronym sayin’, but fleas ain’t easy to rid.

Lady Moon lit a whoahsome wyrd birthmark jus’ b’low my friend’s shoulder blade as she sleeped fin’ly. A sort o’ tiny hand mark it were, yay, a head o’ six streaks strandin’ off, pale ’gainst her dark skin, an’ I curioed why I’d never seen it b’fore. I covered it over with the blanky so she din’t catch cold.

Now Mauka Stream falled snaky ’n’ goshin’ down dark Mauka Valley, yay, it watered only five–six dwellin’s in the hole valley ’cos it weren’t no friendsome ’n’ summery place, nay. No Mauka dwellin’ did goatin’, so the track was strangled by creepers ’n’ thornbushes what’d whelk your eye out if you din’t watch close, an’ hard goin’ it was for the horse. I got clawed fierce after a quart’ mile even shelt’rin’ b’hind Meronym. The last dwellin’ upvalley an’ the first we comed to was Saint-Sonmi’s Dwellin’, whose chief was a one-eye named Silvestri who farmed taro ’n’ oats. The yibber reck’ned Silvestri was too fond o’ his many daughters ’n was nat’ral an’ skank-mouthed him for not payin’ no fairshare to Commons. Laundry was scattered round the yard an’ the daughters’d been taken, but Silvestri’d not gone nowhere, his bladed head was up on the pole watchin’ us as we rided up. Some time he’d been there, see, he’d gotten maggoty an’ a fat rat’d scamped up the pole an’d eaten thru one eyeball as we rided up. Yay, the whiskery devil twitched his sharp nose at me. Howzit, Zachry, don’t you reck’n Silvestri looks handsomer now ’n b’fore? But I din’t pay him no mind. A cocklydoo ’rupted from the chimney pot an’ nearly shocked me off the horse, see, I thinked it was an ambush yell.

Now we’d a choice o’ sorts, to farewell the horse an’ spider up the crumbly ridge over to Pololu Valley, or to follow the Mauka Trail down to the shore an’ risk runnin’ into stray Kona moppin’ up their attackin’. Dwindlin’ time choosed for us to stay on the horse, see, we’d to get to Ikat’s Finger by noon what was still ten miles far from Silvestri’s. We missed Blue Cole Dwellin’ an’ Last Trout too, see, we wasn’t reccyin’ no more. A tide o’ rain skirted us downvalley from the Kohalas, but we got to the shore without no ambush tho’ we seen fresh Kona prints b’neath the knife-finger palms. The ocean was no pond that day, nay, but nor so hilly a craft’ly oared kayak’d overtoss. A Kona conch churned in the near-far an’ vibed me uneasy. I heard my name in its churnin’. The air was drummed tight, an’ I’d ignored my second augurin’, I’d knowed I’d be payin’ for that life I taked what weren’t ne’ssary to take.

Where the rucky beach rocked up into Medusa Cliffs we had to wind inland thru banana groves to the Pololu Track, what leaded out o’ the northliest valley into No Un’s Land an’ fin’ly Ikat’s Finger. The track squeezed thru two