Azimuth was standing behind the burn barrel, busy cooking the fresh bounty. Flames leaped from the barrel as he rolled the gray globs into position on the grate with a block of wood. The crowd stood in a long, orderly line, waiting for the meal to be handed out.
They would have to wait a little bit longer.
The pool demanded to be fed first.
The former carny master picked up the iron pipe and stepped onto the seat of the Clobbering Chair. He banged the pipe on the chair’s arms to get their attention. All heads slowly turned his way.
“Baron Kerr is dead,” he told them. “I have been chosen to be the new baron of this place.”
There was no reaction from the crowd. No groans of shock or sadness upon hearing of the old baron’s demise. No cheers or applause at the announcement of a new leader to take his place. Their smiles were the same, before and after the announcement.
As Crecca reviewed his grinning subjects, he wondered if the information he’d just imparted had even penetrated their spore-and-bounty-befuddled brains. And if it had penetrated, how had their brains translated and interpreted his words? How had the meaning been distorted by their individual delusions? In the end, it didn’t matter. The line of people accepted him as their new ruler as they accepted everything else: without blinking an eye.
“The body isn’t satisfied,” he said. “The body needs more.” He tapped on the arm of the chair. “Who would like to volunteer?”
Everyone, it seemed.
The food line broke up, and its members encircled the Clobbering Chair and the baron. From the mountain above came a roll of thunder and faint flashes of green light. Azimuth left a clutch of bounty to burn to cinders on the grill, threw down his block of wood and joined them.
“You!” Crecca said, pointing at the black man with the end of the yard-long pipe. “Come over here and take the load off.”
The choice of sacrifice had nothing to do with any lingering bad feelings Crecca had over their struggle earlier in the afternoon. In fact, he had no lingering feelings, one way or another, about the incident. The choice was made on the basis of seniority. The choice had been made by the pool itself. Azimuth had been in the ville longer than any other surviving person. He had inhaled and ingested more spores, eaten more bounty; he was the best prepared—having undergone a kind of a mental and physical tenderizing—to meet the very specific needs of the body.
The carny scout thrust both arms above his head, danced in a circle and cried, “Yes!”
As if he had just won the big prize.
Bingo!
Crecca hopped from the chair, making room for Azimuth to take his seat. As the big man sat down, he rounded the back of the chair and got into position for the clobbering.
Some of the rousties rushed in to buckle down the wrist and ankle straps. As they did, Azimuth slapped out a reggae rhythm on the chair’s arms, bobbing his head and shaking his dreads.
“I never thought I’d ever get to sit in with you, my brother,” he said over his broad shoulder, addressing the new baron. “It’s my biggest dream come true. I am so bloody stoked, mon.”
Crecca gripped the length of pipe like a baseball bat. It was much heavier than a bat, though. And when he took a practice cut with it, the thing whistled through the air and slammed into the dirt.
“Play that tune,” Azimuth entreated him with a grin so wide that it showed every one of his hand sharpened yellow teeth. “Wail on me, Marley!”
Crecca swung from the soles of his boots, putting the full weight of his body behind the blow. The impact jolted up his arms and deep into his shoulder joints. The pipe sounded a dull clunk as it bounced high off its target.
Baron Magnificent Crecca stepped nimbly aside as blood from the massive scalp wound he had inflicted jetted in a fine spray three feet in the air.
Azimuth’s body convulsed violently. It jerked so hard and so erratically that it set the chair rocking, then tipped it over sideways. Both the chair and the body hit the ground in a cloud of dust. For a long moment, the unconscious black man spasmed in the dirt.