by Joan Druett
Ducatel was glancing around the emptied store. He looked at Wiki and remarked, “The thieves must have been a cold-blooded lot—they took their time after killing the old man. Just about everything’s been cleared out.”
“No, it’s the way we saw it last,” contradicted Stackpole. His voice was low and hoarse.
“Nothing’s gone?” Mr. Hale blurted out. “But they must have killed him for something. What about the cash drawer?”
Wiki went around the back of the counter to check. When he pulled the drawer open, it rattled emptily. However, the coins he had paid for the bandanna and the poncho, plus some extra cash that Stackpole, presumably, had paid after coming back into the store for a poncho for himself, were in a little purse at the back.
“The killer must have been after the deed of sale,” he said. He was so sure of it that he felt no surprise when no paper fell out as he picked up the ledger by the spine and shook it. Riffling the pages had the same lack of result. The deed was definitely gone. When he looked at Stackpole, the whaleman’s face was pale and withdrawn.
“But why did they steal it?” objected Ducatel.
“Because it’s proof of ownership of the schooner,” Wiki replied. To make sure, he searched the drawer again, and then went through the dead man’s clothing, finding nothing but a key and a grubby handkerchief, both of which he placed on the counter. Finally, he turned back to the last written page in the ledger, to see what the clerk might have been noting when he had been surprised by his murderer. The last entry was the sale of the poncho to Stackpole.
Looking up at the whaling master, he observed, “You’re probably the last man to have seen him alive.”
Stackpole’s mouth became more tightly compressed than ever. He bit out, “He was perfectly fine when I left.”
“He was sitting on his stool writing in this book?”
Stackpole nodded.
“Did anyone come in while you were going out?”
The whaleman shook his head.
“Was there anyone in the street?” He and the gauchos had gone on ahead, Wiki remembered, and had arrived at the upriver path by the time Stackpole had rejoined them.
Again, Stackpole shook his head.
Wiki turned to Ducatel. “Which one of Hallett’s arms did you amputate?”
Ducatel blinked in surprise. “The left. Why?”
“And which hand did he write with?”
“I have no idea. He had no occasion to use the pen while I was watching.”
“Did you watch him use his unhurt hand? To lift a mug, for instance?”
“He was clumsy—the water slopped. But what can you expect of a sick man? Why do you ask?”
Wiki shrugged. “Because the signature on the deed was very indistinct.”
Ducatel silenced. Wiki picked up the key from the counter, went to the front door, and unlocked and opened it. The bright siesta-time street was deserted. He looked back into the dark store, and said, “We’ll have to inform his family. Do they live in the pueblo?”
“I know them well,” Ducatel’s voice replied at once. “There’s a whole tribe of them living in a couple of houses jammed together—in one of the back streets, hard up against the cliff. There are several daughters, and two sons—a shiftless pair, who spend most of their time on the family fishing boat. That is, when they’re not busy fathering children,” he added with a snigger.
It sounded as if the clerk had been the main source of family income. Wiki said, “What was the clerk’s name, anyway?”
It had been Gomes. As he followed Ducatel through the deserted alleys, Wiki wondered how many tribes of that name were scattered about South America.
The hot sun was just past the meridian, and the hard shadow of the cliff fell upon them as they made their way to the rearmost street of El Carmen. The sprawling adobe house where the Gomes clan lived was in the form of a U, enclosing a big yard ruled by a spectacular cockerel with a large harem of cowed hens. Inside, the baked-mud floor was half-hidden with a few mats, and the furniture was rough and scanty. As Ducatel had indicated, at least three generations lived there, including several matronly women and many children. However, it was very quiet, the atmosphere somnolent. The family had eaten their midday meal, and were snoozing out siesta.
Despite the overcrowding, they seemed remarkably well set up. While Dr. Ducatel communicated the awful tidings in experienced tones, Wiki thoughtfully noted bulging sacks of corn, and barrels of oil, salt meat, and molasses, both inside the house and out in the yard. Then his attention was taken up by the reaction to the news. It was almost as if the clerk’s death had been anticipated, because the women collapsed with grief before the last words had left Ducatel’s mouth. Mothers and daughters threw their aprons over their heads and rocked as they wailed, and small children screamed half comprehendingly.
Finally, however, one of the older women recovered enough to answer questions. Yes, they had all felt great concern for her father-in-law when he had failed to come home two nights previously. The children had been sent to the store, and had reported that the pulpería was shut and shuttered. When the woman’s husband and her brother-in-law had returned from their fishing they had gone to check, but there had been no response when they had hammered at the door. There was no spare key, and it was impossible, of course, to break in. They had tried again the next day, but with equal lack of result.
Realizing that the grandfather had been lying there dead all the time, she collapsed again—though not so completely that she didn’t find the breath to ask Dr. Ducatel if he would be kind enough to attend to her youngest son, obviously calculating that he wouldn’t be callous enough to ask for payment from a household that was so recently bereaved. The son, who looked about ten years old, was indeed in a bad way, having broken his leg two weeks before. Judging by the smell in the small, close room where he tossed in delirium, it would not be long at all before he joined Captain Hallett in the graveyard.
So the clerk had been telling the truth when he mentioned the family illness, Wiki meditated. However, as he quickly learned from the other women while Ducatel was passing on advice to the sick boy’s mother, Gomes had lied when he claimed to be away from the store. They all insisted that he had gone to work for Adams as usual. They had not actually seen him behind the counter during that time, but he had left for the store at the usual hour, and returned at the usual hour, too.
When Wiki stepped back into the street, it was to find that Stackpole and Hale were standing in a patch of sun and turning themselves from side to side, to finish off drying their trousers, which were still damp from the river crossing. He conveyed what he had learned, and the whaling master asked, “So what are you going to do?”
Wiki turned and surveyed the palisade curving up to the fort, which bulked on the cliff far above his head, and was invisible from this perspective. He felt no desire whatsoever to go up there and report to Ringgold, as the captain would merely repeat his order to forget about the murder. The discovery of a second body would make no difference, as the clerk had not even been English. Captain Wilkes, on the other hand, might be sufficiently scandalized by the piracy of an American-owned schooner to send the Swallow out in search.
He said, “I think we should report to Captain Wilkes, and ask him to start up a hunt for the Grim Reaper.”
“Now you’re talking!” exclaimed Stackpole.
They were interrupted as Dr. Ducatel joined them, rubbing his hands together as if to get rid of the last traces of his examination of the sick boy. The physician said briskly, “We must hurry to the fort. They’ll be waiting.”
“Nope,” said Stackpole at once. “We don’t have time for that.”
Wiki nodded emphatically. “It’s more important to get out to the Vincennes.”
Ducatel flushed, and protested, “But the governor sent me with a pressing invitation—for you and Mr. Hale to join his party for a banquet this evening. That’s why I was waiting on the path—and he’ll be most offended if yo
u don’t come.”
So Ducatel survived in this place by kowtowing to the governor, Wiki mused. Undoubtedly His Excellency would be angry with Ducatel, his messenger boy, for having failed in his mission. “Mr. Hale will be glad to attend,” he callously said. “Just convey apologies from Captain Stackpole and myself.”
“But you should report the murder!”
“As the man who discovered the corpse, Mr. Hale’s best qualified for that.”
“Me?” Horatio Hale exclaimed. His face was a picture of horror.
“You,” confirmed Wiki. “And you’re the best man to inform Captain Ringgold what has happened, too. Tell him I’m heading for the estuary to report to Captain Wilkes.”
And with that, he briskly turned on his heel, before Hale and Ducatel could start arguing again.
* * *
Two hours later they had almost reached the boat-landing place on the estuary, when Stackpole looked over his shoulder, and said, “What’s happening back there?”
Wiki reined in, and looked around, too. Sounds of fast galloping echoed from behind them. In a crescendo of hoofbeats, Bernantio and his gauchos arrived pell-mell from around a bend, hollering happily as they sighted Wiki. Horatio Hale was with them, looking flushed but gamely keeping up. Wiki gave him an ironic salute as he hurtled by.
Then, after the philologist had managed to rein in and come back, Wiki queried with his brows arched, “Aren’t you supposed to be at the governor’s feast?”
Mr. Hale shook his head. When he’d regained his breath, he said, “Captain Ringgold sent me with an urgent message.”
Wiki said warily, “For me?”
“Yes. He wanted me to pass on his most strict instructions that you are not to take this investigation any further. He said it is none of your business, and that you are not to bother Captain Wilkes with it.”
“You did tell him about discovering the clerk’s body?”
“Of course. He vowed it did not make a shred of difference—that it is still a matter for the local authorities.”
Wiki made no comment, though he was privately determined to go on board the Vincennes and make a full report. After all, Captain Wilkes, not Ringgold, was the commodore of the expedition. “Well,” he said, “I’m sorry it cost you a fine meal. Why are the gauchos with you?”
“Captain Ringgold decided I needed an escort, since the governor’s people informed him that the mood of the province is still one of high excitement. By great good luck Señor Bernantio and his friends arrived at that very moment, as Captain Ringgold wanted to retain Dr. Ducatel as a guide for his own party.”
“Where are they going?”
“Nowhere—not tonight, anyway. Captain Ringgold, Mr. Waldron, and Lieutenant Perry will all attend the banquet, and then stop the night at the fort before returning in the morning. Which leads me to my second message,” Hale added.
“Another message? For me?”
“No, not for you, but for Mr. Peale, Dr. Fox, and Dr. Holmes, informing them that we are all to be on the riverbank landing at nine in the morning, ready to go off to the Sea Gull.”
“Why, where are they?” asked Wiki, feeling puzzled, because when he had left that morning, Titian Peale and the two surgeon-scientists had been on board the Sea Gull, and he’d had the impression they would have a boat at their disposal for the day, so that they could explore the estuary at leisure.
At that moment Titian Peale himself appeared from the seaward end of the path, trailed by Doctors Fox and Holmes. All three were on foot. They looked hot, dusty, disheveled, and extremely aggrieved, and Mr. Hale’s message didn’t improve their tempers in the slightest.
“So we’ll have to spend the night at the pilothouse,” griped Dr. Fox.
“And it’s nothing better than a filthy hovel,” Dr. Holmes declared.
“There’s only one word for it,” Titian Peale decided. “We’ve been marooned. And not only is it inconvenient, but it’s humiliating.”
Then the trio competed to grumble loudly to Mr. Hale about the horrible day they’d passed. After Ringgold’s party had ridden off that morning, the boat had collected them from the Sea Gull, and dropped them on shore. The three scientists had explored the terrain contentedly for a while, collecting samples of shells, grass, thorny bushes, and aromatic plants, and shooting a number of birds. However, when they had returned to the riverbank, and made signs requesting to be taken off, they had been completely disregarded. Finally, in belated response to their shouted pleas, one of the surveying boats had deigned to approach the bank—but only to convey the message that Captain Ringgold had left orders that no boat was to be sent for the scientifics until it was time for the Sea Gull to leave the river.
“And since then they’ve ignored us completely,” exclaimed Dr. Holmes. “The boats have all steered in other directions, and anyone who has emerged onto deck has very carefully looked the other way.”
Wiki looked at the Sea Gull, which was bobbing quietly at her anchors. There was no activity whatsoever on her deck, and there were no boats to be seen. They were off surveying, he supposed.
“As I’ve told you time and time again throughout our voyage on the Peacock, the attitude of the officers to the scientifics has been unacceptable,” Mr. Peale said to Mr. Hale.
Dr. Holmes (who also lived on the Peacock) nodded emphatically. “But this is utterly beyond words!” he expostulated.
“I’m going to post a strong complaint with Captain Wilkes when I get back to the fleet,” decided Mr. Peale. “If ever I do,” he added broodingly.
Then Manuel Bernantio interrupted this to-and-fro grumble by riding up to Wiki and jerking his head downstream. When Wiki looked in that direction he saw a great cloud of gulls dipping and diving about an unseen spot on the bank of the river, and could hear their strident screeching.
“Something is dead,” the gaucho remarked.
With an abrupt chill, Wiki was reminded of the vultures. When he kept silent Titian Peale answered. Evidently he understood some Spanish, though he used English when he explained, “That’s what’s left of my specimens.”
Wiki said, “What specimens?”
“Birds, mostly. I got an excellent bag.”
“Mr. Peale is a very fine shot,” Mr. Hale proudly elaborated. “I’ve personally seen him kill two turkeys simultaneously with one bullet, and I am told that he has been known to dispatch two deer with one shot, too.”
“The bag today did include a fine buck,” Mr. Peale admitted, not at all embarrassed by this callow display of hero worship. “Dr. Fox and I carried the carcass for several miles in the heat, thinking it would make a fine present for the officers’ supper, but after one hour and a half of waiting in vain for them to notice us from the ship, we dumped it.”
“You let it go to waste?” Wiki exclaimed.
“It was exactly what their uncivil behavior deserved,” said Dr. Fox.
“Just to make a point?” Wiki was shocked, because he had learned thrift from a very early age. Though his father had taken him away from his iwi in the Bay of Islands at the age of twelve, he vividly remembered the long, damp winters when the village pataka—the long, low, elaborately carved storehouse that was on stilts to guard the precious contents from rats and thieves—had been their bulwark against starvation. Throughout the summers and autumns the young bloods carried in great nets of birds they had snared, which were cooked and then preserved in gourds in their own fat, and the older men contributed great loads of fish and eels, which were hung to dry on racks. All this, stored in the pataka, ensured the survival of the tribe over the dark months when food was scarce.
“They can watch it rot, and good luck to them,” Mr. Peale sniffed.
When Wiki conveyed this to Manuel Bernantio, the rastreador agreed that it was quite incomprehensible. The other gauchos clustered around to offer their own opinions, and then became very animated at the prospect of game. “Where did you find this buck?” Mr. Peale was asked, through Wiki, and when he waved an ar
m toward the headland at the top of the cliff, Bernantio cried, “¡Vamos!”
“¡Vámonos!” the rest yelled, and spurred their steeds up the sliding gravel.
When Wiki arrived at the top himself, it was to find that the gauchos were rapidly vanishing into the dusty distance, looking oddly like small craft disappearing over the horizon at sea, their horses fading first, then their bodies, and lastly their heads. He didn’t try to pursue them, as he was more interested in riding to the flagstaff and hoisting a signal. Obviously, he couldn’t rely on a boat coming from the Sea Gull, and so his best hope was that someone on the Swallow was keeping a watch, and would send a boat to fetch him.
When he arrived there, it was to find that the scene from the headland was quite a contrast to the day before. The sun sparkled bravely on the dipping waves. All the expedition ships, save the schooner Sea Gull, were anchored well beyond the surf with their boats down. Wiki could plainly see the Osprey tacking slowly back and forth on smoother water a mile farther out to sea, and again he wondered what his father was doing here. Just to seaward of the bar the shoals were dotted with surveying boats, presumably including those that belonged to the Sea Gull. Closer still, the sky over the river was full of gulls drawn by the carcasses Mr. Peale had dumped, and their screeching seemed to ring as high as the scudding clouds.
Then Wiki abruptly became aware not only that Stackpole had joined him at the foot of the flagpost but that the whaleman was in a state of high excitement. “Look!” he shouted, and pointed. “See that! I do reckon she’s the Trojan—and trying out blubber, by heaven! Tell me, boy—do you think she’s the Trojan?”
