Over the stadium's entrance gates some agile devotee had painted, with more fervor than skill, a mural of the Messiah Norton Jaybush welcoming all of humanity with outstretched, misproportioned arms; and the painted crowd on which he was looking down became, below the long lintel over the gates, the real, animate crowd of smiling Jaybirds jostling up to get inside. They were all silent, and the only sounds were panting, and the scuff of shod or callused feet, and the occasional uncomplaining grunt of a member of the faithful being momentarily compressed against a wall.
Once inside the huge weathered bowl of the stadium, Rivas absently noticed eight rickety wooden towers set up at even intervals around the periphery of the wide field, and on the little railed platform at the top of each tower stood a brown-robed, bearded man holding a crook-topped staff. Once free of the press at the gates, the various Jaybird groups became distinct and separate again, and each group set out walking toward the base of one or another of the towers.
There were no visible differences among the hooded, tower-top shepherds, and in this orderly dispersal it was, for once, the most deteriorated and imbecilic member of each group that determined on a specific tower and led his or her band across the weedy field toward it. The tower toward which Rivas's group plodded was on the far side of the enclosed field, and most of the other bands were already standing at ease in the shadow of other towers by the time his band came to a halt.
As if at a signal, all the tower-top shepherds abruptly opened their mouths and began producing a low, steady note, and a moment later every deteriorated Jaybird in the stadium joined in with a shrill «eee » sound; though a ground-rumbling roar now instead of a buzz, it was the same insistent two-tone note that had aided Rivas's acquiescence to his new masters earlier that day . . . but now it only deepened his frown. He glanced at Sister Sue and saw that she was watching him, and he looked away quickly.
As suddenly as it had started the sound stopped, and in the moment that the last harsh echoes were rebounding away among the high tiers, Rivas took an involuntary step forward, as if the sound had been something physical he'd been pushing against.
The shepherds slung their staves through their belts and climbed nimbly down from the towers, and Rivas watched the one his group and a couple of others were clustered around. When the man got to the ground he straightened up, hiked his staff free and then strode up to Sister Sue and spoke to her quietly.
She indicated Rivas with a nod of her head and then whispered to the bearded shepherd for nearly half a minute. The expression on the man's tanned, craggy face didn't change, but he slowly lifted his head to stare at Rivas, and when Sister Sue had finished he walked over to the new member.
«Welcome to your real family, Brother Boaz,» he said in a deep voice.
Rivas glanced around uneasily, then nodded. «Uh, thank you.»
«How old are you?»
» . . . Eighteen? I think eighteen.»
The shepherd raised an eyebrow and looked more closely at Rivas's face and hair. «Hmm. Take off your knapsack, please, and let me have it.»
Rivas looked over at Sister Sue, who smiled and nodded. With evident reluctance he reached up, slipped the canvas straps off his shoulders, shrugged the knapsack off and held it out toward the shepherd.
The man took it, stepped back and began undoing the buckles. Around the arena the other shepherds were also busy taking stock of new recruits, and, except for the low mutter of those conversations, the wind in the ragged high tiers was the only sound.
«Or thirty-one,» said Rivas.
The shepherd looked up. «What?»
«Maybe I'm thirty-one years old.»
The man had got the flap open, but paused to squint at him. «Maybe thirty-one, eh? Have you ever . . .been with us before?»
«No, sir. I ran away from home yesterday. My father's a tenant farmer for Barrows. The Currency brandy estates.»
«Let me get this straight,» said the shepherd curiously as he pulled a large cloth-wrapped bundle out of the knapsack. «You leave home at thirty-one and call it running away?»
Rivas was breathing deeply now, clearly trying to resist panic. «No, eighteen,» he said tensely. «That's right, eighteen. For sure.»
The shepherd opened his mouth to ask another question but shut it again when he saw what was wrapped up in the cloth—Rivas's second-best pelican.
The gaze he now turned on Rivas was full of suspicion. «What the hell is this?»
After a pause Rivas said, almost in a whisper, «Somebody's pelican.»
«Somebody's? It's not yours? . . . Damn it, answer me!»
«No, sir.» Rivas rubbed his hand across his mouth. «I have one, but not as nice as that.»
«Well, Brother Boaz, music is one of the things we have to sacrifice.» He opened his hand and the instrument fell to the ground with a discordant bwang, and then he lifted a heavy boot and stamped the thing flat.
The shepherd started to turn away, then froze, and an instant later he had whirled back to face Rivas again. «Say, what's your name?»
For a moment Rivas's apprehensive frown left his face and, proud of knowing the answer, he said, «Brother Boaz.»
«No, damn it, I mean before, what was your—»
A strident trumpet note suddenly split the air, and a voice from the far side of the arena shouted through a megaphone, «Make yourselves ready for the Lord!»
The shepherd craned his neck and saw that an old man in a white robe had entered the stadium. «The jaybush is here,» he said. «You walk out into the center of the field. We'll talk some more after the sacrament.» He gave Rivas a push and then turned to the other groups around his tower. «All new members follow this brother!» he called. «I'll greet you all personally afterward.»
Rivas plodded out across the uneven ground, which was stippled now with fresh green weed shoots after the rain, and though he walked as slowly as any of the hundred or so new members who were approaching from all sides of the arena in a steadily shrinking circle, his mind was racing.
That wasn't my pelican, he thought, I remember mine, I saved up my jiggers and bought it when I was sixteen– okay, so why do I remember the one he stomped? Hell, I even remember that its E-string screw didn't bind properly, and needed to be readjusted after every set.
Set? What do I mean set? That's right, I play at the . . . what's the name of the place? The Bom Sheltr, that's it, in Venice; of course, and I'm twenty-five—why in hell was I thinking eighteen or thirty-one?
And what in God's name am I doing back among the Jaybirds? And lining up for the communion while sober?
He paused for a moment, but a dim suspicion that he did have some presently forgotten purpose in being here made him reluctantly resume the quasi-ceremonial pace. He surreptitiously touched his wrist and was reassured to feel his knife strapped there as usual. Okay, he thought, I'll play this scene up to, but not including, the point of receiving the sacrament. This seems to be the Cerritos Stadium, and from my old birdy days I remember where the kitchen exit is; with surprise, speed and my knife, I should be able to be out of here and into the hills within two minutes.
The white-robed figure of the jaybush had been walking toward the center of the field at a slightly quicker pace than the tightening ring of communicants, and just before shoulder to shoulder contact caused the ring to stop shrinking he slipped between a couple of them and then made his way to the very center. For ten long soundless seconds he scrutinized the nervously eager people in the ring.
Then, «Kneel,» he said, in a voice like concrete blocks rubbed together.
Everyone in the stadium did, with a rustling and thudding that seemed loud in the silence. Rivas squinted up at the jaybush, and the man's robe shone so in the afternoon sun that the sky looked darkened to purple behind him. The man looked around the congregation again, then slowly crossed to stand in front of a young girl six places away to Rivas's right.