“Can these herbs be trusted to be effective?” Davenport asked.
“It’s worth trying, and Jack is rather anxious to go for a ride, anyway,” Stevenson said, gathering some supplies to lash onto his horse’s saddle. “He is a bit of a dandy and likes to be seen by polite society.”
“I will happily accompany you, Tusitala,” Belial said.
“No. Charlie needs you. He has always been a young man of great faith in the Lord you preach.”
“I do not like to think of you going on your own,” Belial tried again.
“I could stand some company, and John Chinaman is occupied finishing some work on the west end of the property,” Stevenson replied. He turned to us. “Perhaps my other white gentlemen. Mr. Fergins? Mr. Porter?”
This time Belial’s usefulness worked to our benefit by keeping him tied to Vailima. We agreed to ride with Stevenson (to my surprise, Davenport seemed reluctant and almost teary-eyed leaving the suffering native’s side in the stables). When Belial turned to wish us good luck a flicker of annoyance marred his composure. As we exited, Charlie moaned, his brow bubbling up with beads of hot sweat.
That day we rode along difficult paths. I wouldn’t even consider half of them as having been cleared, and I know our horses would have agreed with me. The wilderness grew aggressively in Samoa as soon as there was a clearing made in it. I thought that either Stevenson or Stevenson’s horse was sick and might collapse, the novelist’s ride was so wobbly. But I realized this was simply the way wild Jack moved and, in fact, because the animal’s body and legs shifted position so frequently it was perfectly suited to the uneven terrain.
We came alongside one village that appeared to have been destroyed by a fire in the recent past. In spots the putrid smell of burnt animals still lingered.
“What happened to this place, Tusitala?”
“The Germans ordered it set afire, Mr. Fergins,” said Stevenson.
“The entire village?”
“Yes. The villagers here and a few other places had torn down a proclamation ordering them to swear fealty to Tamasese and renounce Mataafa, the former king.”
Passing out of the ruins and through a small village farther down the same road, it was a relief to notice people occupying the huts, but a collective tension rose with our presence—natives with rifles were slowly coming out onto the verandahs.
“Soi fua,” Davenport greeted a native man who passed our horses with a cold stare.
“Your Samoan comes along,” said Stevenson.
“I am trying.”
“That is what is important, to give a damn, as you Americans say. I used to admire the adventure books of Herman Melville until I realized how poorly he had mangled the names of the Marquesians and Tahitians,” commented Stevenson. “He didn’t even try for accuracy, as far I could tell. The romance of it mattered more than the real people.”
Anxious to be free of this village, I spurred my horse to pick up the pace.
“What’s the use of having eyes if we can’t see the world we pass through?”
“Yes, Tusitala.” I slowed my animal from a gallop to a trot, when what I really desired was a harum-scarum scamper.
Davenport knew what was on my mind. “They seem rather well armed here,” he said.
“Where there are traders, there will be ammunition. Aphorism—by Tusitala.”
“Perhaps they do not like foreigners in this village,” I said, as a way of suggesting we go back or change our route.
“No, they don’t. Certain foreigners, anyway,” Stevenson answered me. “Then again, were I a Samoan, I like to think I would advocate the massacre of all white people for what they’ve done here.”
“Tusitala!” I cried.
“They have seen white person after white person come and lie and manipulate them and rob them of their resources and lives. These particular villages are loyal to Tamasese, the sacred puppet who is beholden to the German consulate and their slave plantations. That is why they are suspicious of us. It is a widespread rumor that at Vailima we favor the position of the opposing rebels and their exiled king, Mataafa, and plan one day for his return.”
“Isn’t that the case?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Fergins, most definitely. Rumors are usually best ignored but also are usually true, you know.” By now our host sensed our nerves growing as more hostile faces of men with axes and rifles multiplied on all sides. He was never one to try to assuage fears during our time in Samoa; in fact, it seemed to me he was enjoying ours when he commented, “I guess the three of us will have to be the whole revolution, should it start today. But perhaps we ought to change the topic.”
“Please,” I urged.
My mistake. Stevenson went on to a point that I had hoped to avoid: “A man named Lionel Hines came to the house recently. Grotesque man.”
“I’m sorry to hear you have any unpleasant callers,” Davenport said, expertly skating around the fact we knew Hines. It seemed there was more on Stevenson’s mind, and I wondered if bringing us out here, putting us in this vulnerable atmosphere, was more deliberate than it seemed. If Hines had said something about one of us that I hadn’t been able to hear. . . I looked over and could tell Davenport’s thoughts followed the same track. “Did the man say something to . . . cause you distress, Tusitala?”
“He did,” he said, slowing down a little more. “Oh, that Hines is all wheels and no horse. But he carried a wire that he picked up for me from the British consul. It was a warning. There is a movement back in England to have me deported from Samoa.”
“Whatever for?”
“As an appeasement to the Germans, Mr. Fergins. As I’m certain you’ve come to understand by now, they are the Gulliver among the Lilliputians here. The Germans have never liked what they call my interference on the island and their ambassadors in London have pressured the British parliament to do something about it. Me, caught in the talons of politics! Success in the political field appears to be nothing more than the organization of failure enlivened with defamation of character. It is awfully funny—no, I change my mind; it is sad. Nobody but these cursed liars could have so driven me. I cannot bear liars.”
“What would happen if the measure passed the legislature?” I asked.
“Simply stated, I would have to leave Samoa immediately or be arrested. My family, also. Belle would surely be pleased, she is so anglified. She misses life in a city with its glamour and sameness. As for Fanny, well, when she feels well enough she adapts to island life quite a bit more than she will admit. She thinks she has followed me here, but sometimes I think she led us all. It is either gold or poison, to be here.”
“There are worse punishments than returning to Scotland,” Davenport said.
Stevenson threw back his head and made a slow murmuring sound. “If only I could secure a violent death.”
“Pardon?”
“What a fine success!” Stevenson continued, spurring Jack into a canter as he lost himself in his thoughts. “I wish to die in my boots, you see, Mr. Porter. To be drowned, to be shot, to be thrown from this horse into a ditch, Mr. Fergins—aye, to be hanged, rather than pass through the slow dissolution of illnesses!”
“High heaven forbid, Tusitala!” It was startling to hear a man—a great man—talk about dying in such a cavalier way. This speechifying about his own death continued as we went through a poorly cut path through the bushes, until we came upon a sight that made him quiet and would have made me scream if I had not lost my ability to make any sound. Three stakes had been speared into the ground, a human head on each of them.
Stevenson removed his old yachting cap from his head. He was guiding Jack around the sight in a circle and studying it with a scientist’s eye. “‘Lord, what fools these mortals be,’” he said. Then he dismounted. “Fresh,” he reported evenly.
I turned the head of my horse away. Davenport, ja
w slack, actually inched his animal closer to the horrible display, though his boots were twitching, ready to spur away from it. “How on earth do you know that?” asked the bookaneer, swallowing hard. “How do you know the heads are fresh, Tusitala?”
“I have seen enough of them on the island to know. When war comes to Samoa, Mr. Porter, heads are taken. Those must not be more than a week or two old.”
I forced myself to look again and tried to examine the horrible sight, but quickly concluded there was nothing to learn from their neutral, almost bored faces. The skin was very dark and the thick hair blown by the breeze. I had to choke down the breakfast rushing up my throat.
“But the Samoans are not in a war,” I protested when I found my voice.
“Not at present, Mr. Fergins, no. The natives never want a war; it benefits no one but the white officials. But the foreign powers are always blowing the coals at each other. In fact, they say that when the next war comes, it will begin with the killing of all the whites. In any matter, those heads were not taken from Samoans; you can tell from the skin.”
“Then who were these poor souls?”
“They are Solomon Islanders, Mr. Fergins. Men rounded up forcibly from a group of islands not far from here, past Fiji, to work on the German plantations.”
“We’ve heard about them before,” chimed in Davenport, “from Cipaou, our native man, and from Thomas.”
“Cannibals, so it is said. It is funny to see the disgust and terror the Samoans have for cannibals, even as they will sever a head from its body.”
“What happened to those three?”
“They must have escaped from the Germans, and been caught by the Samoans they control, the king’s men. This is a warning. The Firm would have you believe it has almost never happened that their laborers—slaves, for all intents and purposes—have escaped.”
“Is it untrue?” I asked.
“Past that deep valley”—Stevenson gestured—“across a very fast-moving river, and through the forest that borders it, there is a hive of fugitives from the Firm. These men must have been traveling to take shelter there when they were overtaken.”
“So this warning . . .” Davenport began.
“Is for any other laborer who tries to escape and for men like me—us—to mind my own affairs.”
Suddenly, Jack reared up with a terrible snort and began walking on his hind legs like a man. It was an unreal sight with the heads as audience.
“Your horse!” I called. “Tusitala, there’s something wrong with your horse!”
“Oh, there’s nothing wrong with Jack, Mr. Fergins.” Stevenson took the reins and tugged twice. The animal gave a complaining whinny and planted his hooves back on the ground. “He was just bored because we were standing around too long.”
“Bored? A horse?”
“Terribly so. You see,” Stevenson explained as he returned to the saddle, “Jack was a circus horse in his prime. The circus came to Samoa but Jack didn’t sail well, so the performers sold him before they folded up their tent and left the island. Sometimes he does his tightrope trick or his dancing for old time’s sake.” He patted the horse warmly. “You’re safe,” he cooed to the animal. “He is really quite converted, and is as steady as a doctor’s cob. When he has to be fast, he is the fastest animal you have ever seen.” The novelist began to hum a melody so silly I guessed it had to be a tune he had heard at Jack’s old circus.
I was still hearing the ridiculous tune and seeing the horrible heads hours later at Vailima when we were seated at dinner. Belial said grace. I could not pay much attention to it nor to Fanny, though her discussion of a new plan for her garden—where she would put tomato seeds, and artichoke, and eggplant—was a welcome distraction.
“You were born to be in the garden, Barkis,” Stevenson said.
Her hand froze before her cup reached her lips. “What do you mean to say, Louis?” she asked with a sidelong glance.
“Just that. You have the soul of a peasant,” he said cheerfully, “not because you love working in the earth, but because you like to know it is your own earth that you are delving in.”
“But you are not of a peasant soul. Only me. Is it so?”
The rest of the room, even the native servants, watched with dread as Stevenson sipped his ’ava and considered how to answer.
“Now, now, mother,” Lloyd tried to interject with his meandering, lackadaisical calm, “what is it we’re talking about here?”
“I am an artist,” Stevenson answered his wife bluntly.
“It is a lovely garden, if I may interject,” I tried, but I don’t think anyone heard.
“Louis—” Lloyd tried again.
“Well, I suppose if I had the soul of an artist, instead of that of a peasant, the stupidity of possessions would have no power over me. You may be more right than you know.”
“Barkis, my dear fellow, you misunderstand,” he offered, a little late. “You know I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
Before any of us had more than a few bites of the first course of stewed beef and potatoes, the tension was broken by the sound of screaming.
“Can we not even sup in peace around here?” Belle said with a petulant toss of her fork. “If it is not arguing over some patches of brown grass, it’s another loony islander to interrupt us.”
“Quiet, Belle. That’s Charlie,” Fanny said.
The noises were coming from the stables. Davenport, unnerved from what we had already witnessed today, appeared ashen and turned whiter as the melancholy sounds continued. We all got up and walked in a line to the stables to investigate.
“Poor, poor Charlie,” Stevenson said, leading us inside.
Inside the paddock the servant was bound to a makeshift bed at his ankles and wrists. He had become horribly gaunt and continued to perspire heavily even as Fanny rotated wet rags on his head and body. Two doctors, covered in more tattoos than the warriors, looked him over, chanting heathen songs, sprinkling some herbs into his mouth and ears, rubbing and kneading pungent arrowroot pulp into his skin. Belial placed himself next to them, delivering an urgent prayer. A few of the other servants were sitting nearby, heeding all of Fanny’s instructions. Belle clutched her hands to her heart.
“I’m afraid we’ll have no choice now but to keep Charlie restrained,” Fanny said, her voice breaking. “We have had the best native doctor here three times to administer the herbs and other stronger medicines from the bush, but since the day he began acting like a lunatic Charlie’s fever has not broken and he remains delirious. He is a danger to himself and to the others.”
“I fear you will think we are a sort of imitation Wuthering Heights with all this drama.”
“Not at all, Tusitala,” Davenport assured him. “I only hope the boy recovers—and soon.”
“I will not let a young man die in Vailima under my care,” Fanny said, with tears in her eyes but with a robust voice. “Not in Vailima.”
The noises that came from Charlie could be described only as yelps. Belle appeared faint at the dire condition of the man. She stumbled back and Davenport steadied her.
“Thank you,” she whispered, folding herself into his arm.
“Your mother is right, Miss Strong. He will recover,” Davenport said with the conviction of a promise.
That night, the conch sounded a mournful cry. Charlie had died, consumed by fever. His funeral out on the grounds was presided over by Belial. Even his big voice was nearly drowned out by the sobbing of the mourners from Vailima. Stevenson was bedridden for hours the next day, Fanny inconsolable. For all I felt over the loss of a young man with so much life in him, I was taken by the depth of sorrow in Davenport, a man who usually swallowed his emotions. He could hardly speak—this time not as a result of a stubborn or petulant mood, but because he was moved. Or so I thought. When he secluded himself in our disma
l hut among the spiders and roaches and the howling wind beating at the shutters, I had a new thought. I began to suspect I had missed something.
“Davenport, I insist you tell me what’s really happened.”
“Damned fools,” he said, banging his fist violently on one of the beams that supported our walls. He was sitting on the floor and his head was hanging low.
“You believe it was Belial,” I said. “That’s it, isn’t it? That he caused this somehow? I do not know why I did not see it before. But no. No. I accept your great rivalry with him, but consider it with a clearer head. Would he do that to Charlie? Just to ingratiate himself further into the Stevensons’ household by ministering to him, then by comforting them after he died? No, I do not believe it.”
He raised his head toward me very slowly. His eyes were red with tears.
I realized at once what this was about, before he confessed.
“You’re a fool to think Belial wouldn’t do such a thing. But he did not. I did.” He closed his eyes and let out a sigh from deep in his chest. “Charlie. Damned Charlie saw me searching through the papers in Stevenson’s library, after I came across those original pages from Jekyll and Hyde. The damned dog was always sneaking up right behind us silent as Golgotha. You see how loyal the natives are to Stevenson. Charlie was likely to talk sooner or later, and Stevenson’s slowed pace with his book meant there was more and more time for Charlie to reveal something that could sabotage us. I had to do something.”
“You gave Charlie the mixture you gave me onboard the ship, didn’t you?”
He shook his head again. “No, a different one. Stronger. But still quite . . . well, harmless enough.”
The Last Bookaneer Page 20
