Sycamore leaf, maybe maple, gummed together with sap, cluttered the dirt road out of Gresham's Wood like origami landcrabs, scattering beneath the tread of the Skell Van. Brother Ambrose drove as rapidly as the route permitted. There were few curves. Lumber czar James "Mess Hall" Gresham had carved it straight as a plumbline through the wilderness. A crepuscule light gradually dimmed. Orc-like tree shadows shifted like phantoms. Headlights fired weak yellow cones of illumination into the deepening gloom. Suddenly between them stood Gresham's great elk. Massive, immobile as cold cement, barring further trespass.
The driver skidded the Skell Van into tanglewood, climaxing abruptly in the lap of a giant spruce. He smacked the windshield with his forehead just above the third eye and a shroud of darkness fell upon him like a guillotine blade.
*
Innuit intuition told her something terrible had happened to her man and the Skell Van. She put down the paint brush and stepped back from the mural, which was growing quite well in a surreal state of mind. Brother Ambrose had spoken of his late wife Cherry Blossom, whose mural enhanced the van. Sonya shivered, rushed headlong from the church, up the greenwood trail, into the night. The Skell Van was totalled. From all the blood, as if streaming from a Crown of Thorns, on his face, she thought Brother Ambrose was also totalled. She knelt by his side and keened into the night.
*
Artie Hoffman eased open the door to Semi-private Room 226 and peered inside. He saw a stunning olive-skinned young woman with dark Mediterranean hair sitting at a bedside. Her black Nirvana tee-shirt had been sheared just below her breasts. Intricate jade tattoos covered her arms from shoulder to wrist, leafy Amazon rain forest. The guy in the bed looked like a pickup truck pot vendor. Artie saw a resemblance to Kurt Cobain, but figured it was something subliminal generated by the woman's tee-shirt. A paperback book lay on the bed. "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" by John Allegro.
"Excuse me," Artie said. "Looking for Brother Ambrose."
"Mister Zig-Zag. Yeah, in the other bed. Hi, name's Macomber, and this is Calliope."
"Artie Hoffman."
"Newspaper man."
Artie sighed. "Yep."
"Used to be in the wordsmith trade myself. Well, look. Everything's cool. Your friend is sleeping. I think."
"Say, how did you come to calling him Mister Zig-Zag?"
"By his own admission."
From behind the privacy curtain a raggedy voice: "Artie. Is that you?"
"Yeah man, it's me."
"Come on over."
Ziggy looked like the Mummy, or maybe The Invisible Man, wrapped in gauze and self-adhesive stretch tape.
"How're you doin', Lazarus?"
"Back from the dead. That's right."
"So you're Mister Zig-Zag again."
"I can explain."
Artie pulled up a chair. "Indulge me."
"Macomber over there is reading a book about amanita muscana mushroom. I let it out that I knew something about it."
"What about it?"
"It grows real well during the winter in California. You can find it among bishop and monterey pine."
Artie clasped his friend's gnarly hand. "Good to have you back, Ziggy."
Someone else had come into the room. It was like a disturbace in the air.
They heard Macomber say, "Hi. Can I help you?"
A small voice. "Looking for my old man."
"Mister Zig-Zag, there's a young Eskimo lady here to see you!"
"Sonya! Come here, babe."
Sonya stood by Ziggy's bed. She said, "You're not the same person."
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