Ruby noticed it, too. "Good," she said. "The old man told me it'd rain. We need that."
"Will someone please tell me what you're up to?" Remo asked exasperatedly.
"You'll see. We're almost there." She slowed down
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and as she did she twisted in her seat to look behind her. Far behind were two cars.
"'Less I miss my guess, that be Corazon," Ruby said. "Right on time."
Ahead Remo saw the black pitch pit at the base of the hill. It seemed to be giving off steam. Ruby pulled the old Plymouth off the road through brush and past walls of vines and stumps until she was fifty feet from the road, as unseeable as an Alabama motorcycle cop hiding behind a billboard.
"Now you two wait here. And keep your little lips still, you," she told Remo. "We don' want nothin' going wrong."
She jumped from the car and a few moments later had vanished into the brush.
"That woman thinks I'm an idiot," Remo groused to Chiun.
"Hmmm," said Chiun. "The rain has stopped."
"Well?"
"Well, what?" asked Chiun.
"What do you think about her thinking I'm an idiot?" Remo demanded.
"Some are wise beyond their years."
Ruby met Samedi walking slowly down the hillside toward the pitch pit. He wore the same shirtless black trousers and bare feet, but for the occasion he wore a top hat and a white collar around his bare neck. In his hand he carried a long bone that looked like the thighbone of a human being.
"Hurry, holy one," Ruby said in Spanish. "Corazon is almost on us."
He glanced up at the sky. The sun was moving out from behind a gray cloud.
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"The sun will shine," he said. "It is a good day for doing good works."
He followed Ruby down the hillside. She stopped ten feet from the tar pits, near a large rock outcropping.
"Here you must sit," she said.
He nodded and sank into a squatting position.
"You know what to do?" she said.
"Yes," he said. "I will know what to do to the murderer of my child and my land."
"Fine," said Ruby. "I will be near."
A few minutes later Ruby was back at the old Plymouth. The heavy roar of Corazon's limousine and a small backup jeep with four soldiers in it grew louder.
"Want to watch the fun?" Ruby asked.
"Wouldn't miss it," Remo said.
He and Chiun followed her to a break in the foliage from which they could peer out over the tar pit.
"Who's the old guy in the funny clothes?" asked Remo.
"He is Samedi," said Chiun, cautiously.
"How you know that?" piped Ruby. "I just found out yesterday his name's Sarnedi."
"Samedi is not a name, young woman. It is a title. He is leader of the undead."
"That mean zombies," Ruby explained to Remo.
"I know what it means."
"I see some of them walking around up there yesterday," she said, "and I don't know if they zombies or they just buzzing with something. But whatever they are, it was them that got you out of the cages."
"The zombie need not be evil," Chiun said. "He does the bidding of Samedi, the master, and if the master be good, the works be good."
"Well, this gonna be very good works. He gettin'
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rid of Corazon for us," Ruby said. "Shush now, they here."
The black presidential limousine rolled up and slid to a smooth halt only a few feet from the pit of pitch. The jeep stopped behind it and four soldiers got out of the jeep and stood with their rifles across their chests.
Corazon got out the door of the limousine on Remo's side and hoisted the mung machine out in his big thick arms. His chauffeur and another guard, both carrying pistols, got out the front doors. After Corazon set the machine on the ground, Major Estrada slid across the seat and came out the same door.
Corazon looked toward the tar pit. He saw the old man sitting on the rock, no more than one hundred feet away.
A broad smile split Corazon's chocolate face.
He pushed the mung machine in front of him. Its wheels were too small to roll smoothly over the rough road surface and the machine bumped and skidded as Corazon guided it toward the edge of the black lake. The pitch spit heavy fumes into the air. Heat shimmered from its surface as the hot afternoon sun dried the small shower sprinkle of a few minutes before.
"Samedi, I am here," Corazon bellowed. "To match your magic against mine."
"Your magic is no magic at all," Samedi called back. "It is the trickery of a fool, an evil fool. That trickery soon will be with us no more."
"We will see," Corazon said. "We will see."
The sound of the drums grew louder. It seemed to infuriate Corazon, who hoisted the mung machine into his arms. He aimed carefully at Samedi, who sat motionless on the stone, then pressed the button.
There was a ripping sound and then a green dart of
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light flashed out and splashed against the hill. But it missed Samedi by twenty feet.
"Aaargghh," screamed Corazon in enraged fury. He aimed the machine and fired again. Again he missed.
In the brush, Remo said, "He's taking dead aim. Why's he missing?"
"He is not seeing Samedi," Chiun explained. 'The vapor from the tar is creating a mirage and he is firing at the vision he thinks he sees."
"Thass right," Ruby said.
Corazon took a deep breath. He aimed carefully and fired again. Behind him, his soldiers leaned on their rifles, watching. Major Estrada sat on the front fender of the limousine, his watchful eyes surveying everything.
Corazon's shot missed and this time the green glow was a weak pale shimmer.
"He's not giving it a chance to charge up," Remo said softly.
Corazon shouted and in a mad rage raised the mung machine over his head and tried to throw it at Samedi. But the heavy machine sailed only ten feet through the air, then landed on the lake of pitch with a dull plop. It lay there like the hull of a wrecked ship half-buried in sand at low tide.
"And now you have no magic at all," Samedi called out. He clapped his hands and rising from clumps of brush on the hillside as if they were instant blooming trees rose ten, twelve, twenty black men, wearing white trousers and no shirts, all with the glazed eyes that Remo had seen the night before in the two men who had walked down Giudad Natividado's main street and terrified the guards.
"Attack," cried Samedi and the men raised their arms and began to shuffle down the hillside.
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Corazon realized that he had thrown away his only true hope of staying in power. He grabbed a stick and leaned over the edge of the lake, trying to spear the mung machine and pull it back to him.
As he teetered on the edge, Major Estrada tossed away his cigarette, took a deep breath, then charged forward. His outstretched arms hit Corazon midrump and El Presidente went tumbling forward into the lake of pitch. The black goo sucked at him, pulling him partly down, and he shouted, but he was stuck there, like a fossil embedded in amber. "I wasn't countin' on that," Ruby said. Estrada turned to the soldiers. "Now we return to the real island magic," he shouted. "Fire on them. Raise those rifles. If you want to live, fire." He pointed toward Samedi.
The soldiers looked hesitant. The zombies now had split into two groups and were coming around the lake toward the soldiers.
Estrada reached into a pocket of his tunic and pulled out a cloth bag of salt. He drew a large circle on the ground with the white powder and called the soldiers.
"Come inside. The dupples cannot harm you here. And then we rid the island of this foolishness." He waved his arm and the soldiers moved up to join him. Ten feet out in the lake Corazon had wrapped his arms around the mung machine and was screaming for help.
"Pull me out of here. Estrada, come get me." "Sorry, Generalissimo," Estrada called. "I've got Other things to do."