And only the river god knew what it wanted of Zip, but it did want him. Nobody had ever wanted him before. Then came, all at once, Kama and the Riddler and the river god and . . . No, Kama had come before the god, but that didn’t matter.
It mattered that he got the stones uptown. With a quill he marked each stone as he lifted it from the pile into his wheelbarrow. When the barrow was full, he could almost see into the heart of the altar.
But then he had to wheel the barrow up the slope, no easy task, and when he’d done that and given the stones to his boys to load on their ass- drawn wagon, someone came out of the gloom and hailed him.
“Yo,” he called back, while motioning his boys to cover the stones in the wagon. “Who comes?”
One horse, out of the gloom; a single rider. He walked toward it, hand on his beltknife, his neck aprickle, back stiff.
Finally the rider answered, “Zip, it’s me.”
“Frog,” Zip cursed under his breath. “Kama, stay there. The footing’s tricky. I’ll come up.” He turned his head and said to his rebels, “Get down there, load the rest of the stones, take ’em where I told you. Careful to mark them and put them back just like they were. I’ll catch up.”
But he knew he wouldn’t. And he knew the god was going to be angry, augh he didn’t know what form the god’s wrath might take. But then he thought he did: Kama was beautiful, sliding off her horse the diffuse light of a hidden moon. She always hit him that way, no atter how he told himself he didn’t need the kind of trouble she repre- nted.