by Cave, Hugh
"I don't know what happened," he finished in a low voice. "Something blinded me."
Alton Preble, still unforgiving, said acidly, "All right, Sheldon. Let's get back to the house, please, before some other idiot thing happens."
17
T0 PETER, THAT WALK FROM THE RIVER BACK TO THE Great House was one of the longest of his life. Something was going on that no amount of thinking could explain away. At the pool it had not frightened him too much, but at the bridge it had terrified him. At least it did now, as he realized how close he had come to causing a tragedy.
What was happening to him? Until the arrival of the plantation's new owner and her fiancé, life at Armadale had been just a grand adventure. Even up there at the John Crow's Nest he had never encountered anything unusual before—not even the time when, to save face, he had leaned against the old juniper tree and dared to gaze down into the gorge.
And last night . . . that eerie business of his going down to the kitchen and disconnecting the gas line. Was he ill? Or could there be some connection between these moments of madness and what was affecting Bronzie Dakin's boy Gerald? Some tie-in with the missing scouts.
Edith and her husband-to-be could not have come at a worse time. What must she be thinking? That Armadale was a haunted place to be disposed of at once before it destroyed her?
At sight of the house he was almost relieved to find it still standing. But his relief was short-lived. Even as he began the last descent to the yard, he saw the old pig hunter, Manny Williams, striding so fiercely up the road that his errand had to be an urgent one.
Manny saw him and stopped. Cupping both hands to his mouth, the old man yelled through them, "Squire! Come quick!" Then he stood there, wildly beckoning.
Pausing only long enough to look back at the two following him, Peter broke into a run that took him swiftly through the yard to where the pig hunter waited. Out of breath, he gasped, "What is it, Manny?"
"Gerald Dakin gone crazy, suh!"
Peter pulled him toward the carriage house. "Come on. We'll take the jeep."
As the vehicle rattled down the road, Manny tried to tell him what had happened. "All of we was in Field Two, suh, him working a little way off from me, when all of a sudden him straighten up and commence to yell, 'No, no, me won't do it!' It seem like him was having a fit, suh."
"He wouldn't do what?"
"Him never say. Him just stand there shaking all over and yelling him wouldn't do it. Then him come running to me and grab hold of my arms and beg me to help him. Me mustn't let him do it, him keep saying."
"You mustn't let him do what? How could you stop him if you didn't know what he was talking about?"
"That is just it," Manny said. "That is the very thing me did tell him. But all him do is run to a next man and a next, begging them to help him."
"Where is he now, Manny?"
"All at once him stop yelling and just stand there in the field, shaking all over. Then him sink down on him knees and cover him face with him hands and commence to cry. That's how him was when me come to get you."
Peter stopped the jeep by the gate, as he had done the morning before when seeking a guide for Sergeant Wray. Where were Wray and his men now? he wondered as he and Manny hurried through newly cleaned Field One toward the field now being bushed. Unfamiliar with these mountains, they had probably spent the night in some Forestry Department hut short of their destination, and then finished their climb to Blackrock this morning.
To Blackrock? Or only to the unnamed terminus marked on the sketch map Edith had picked up at the John Crow's Nest? The map that had burst into flames as he tried to decipher it.
"There them is, squire," Manny Williams said.
The men were not working now. In a part of the field already weeded they stood clustered about someone lying on the ground, and as Peter and Manny approached, the group parted to reveal Bronzie Dakin's Gerald. On his back, with his knees drawn up, he held his hands over his face and sobbed convulsively through his fingers, seeming to choke on each loudly sucked-in breath and shake all over as it exploded out of him.
With a nod to the silent onlookers, Peter knelt by the boy's side. Not without a struggle, he managed at last to draw Gerald's hands away from his face.
"Gerald, do you know me?" It had worked before, at Bronzie's house.
Their whites a dirty yellow streaked with scarlet, the boy's eyes looked up at him and struggled to focus. The mouth quivered uncontrollably for a few seconds before forming words. "Mr. . . . Peter?"
"That's right. Now tell me what happened."
"No, no!" The words seemed to bubble up from some deep well of terror.
Peter reached for the boy's hands to keep him from covering his face again. "But, Gerald, if you don't tell me what happened, how can I help you?"
"I beg you take me to Mother Jarrett, suh," Gerald whimpered.
"Will you tell her what happened?"
"Y-yes, suh. Me will try."
"Is she still at your house?" Realizing the boy could not know that, Peter reworded the question. "Was she still there when you left this morning?" If not, he would have to drive to Pipers Vale, where she lived, and would be wasting precious time if he mistakenly drove to Bronzie's first.
"Yes, suh," Gerald replied. "Her did promise to stay till me come."
"All right. Now just forget what's troubling you and help us get you to the jeep." By glancing at the circle of workers Peter silently asked for assistance, and several of them stepped forward to help the stricken boy to his feet. They were surprisingly gentle. On the way to the jeep Gerald stumbled constantly, and the difficult journey ended with his being lifted into the vehicle.
Manny Williams climbed in, too. "Me will go with you, squire, lest him have another fit and maybe fall out."
Or step out, Peter thought as he put the jeep in motion. The way Edith would have stepped off the cliff's edge.
With his eyes closed and head lolling, Gerald Dakin appeared to be in a daze when they arrived at his mother's house in Look Up. The pig hunter helped Peter lift him from the jeep and walk him to the door. It was opened by the tall woman in white.
Peter explained what had happened.
"Put him on the bed, please," Mother Jarrett said.
When the two men walked the boy into the bedroom he shared with his missing brother, they found Bronzie Dakin on her knees there, polishing the waxed board floor with half a coconut husk. Anguish distorted her handsome face as she looked up at her son and realized he was still afflicted. Swiftly rising, she helped Mother Jarrett ease him onto the bed.
"Take his clothes off, please, Bronzie," the tall woman said.
Standing beside Manny Williams in the doorway, Peter watched Bronzie undress her son. At Mother Jarrett's request she brought a basin of water and placed it on a chair beside the bed. Using a washcloth, the white-robed woman then proceeded to bathe the boy.
It took time, the way she did it. Talking to him all the while, but in a voice so low that Peter could not make out what she was saying, she began at his feet and worked her way up to his head. Nothing she could reach was overlooked.
Through it all, Gerald lay perfectly still on his back, gazing wide-eyed at the ceiling. Not once did Peter see him even blink.
"Turn over, please," Mother Jarrett ordered when she had washed all she could.
"Huh?"
"Turn over."
He did so and she finished the treatment, while Peter recalled the time she had healed his own hands and face merely by stroking them.
"All right, Gerald, you can lie on your back again now."
The youth rolled himself over and looked up at her. "Feel better, do you?"
"Yes, Mother Jarrett." But his voice was barely audible.
"Can you tell us now what happened?"
His mouth began to quiver as it had in the coffee field, and he seemed to be reaching for words that would not come. But they came at last. "Me . . . did kill a man."
Bronzie gasped.
Peter felt himself twitch with astonishment and heard Manny Williams, beside him, voice a low grunt of surprise. Only Mother Jarrett remained seemingly unperturbed.
Calmly the tall woman said, "Now, Gerald, you couldn't have killed anyone. You were working at Armadale, bushing coffee."
"Me did kill a man," the naked boy insisted in his barely audible voice. "Them make me do it."
"How could anyone make you do a thing like that?"
"Me . . . was so hungry. Them wouldn't give me nothing to eat till me kill him."
"Till you killed who, Gerald?"
"Don't know. Me never see him before."
"Who made you do it?"
"Them."
"Who do you mean by 'them'? Come now, tell me."
"Me never see them before, either. Two men. Them come and talk to me in a room all green where me naked and tied up. Them say if me kill this man, me can eat. So me do it because me dead from hunger."
"And you don't know who you killed?"
He shook his head.
"How did you kill him?"
"Them give me a jackknife."
"A jackknife?"
"Him was on the ground, like him dead already, but them say no, him not dead and me must kill him. Them tell me to cut him head off with the knife."
At that, even Mother Jarrett voiced a gasp. Then the room filled with silence—a silence so vibrant it seemed to Peter more like a prolonged scream. Finally the woman doing the questioning said, "And did you do that, Gerald? Did you cut this man's head off?"
Gazing up into her black-opal eyes, Gerald nodded. "Yes, ma'am, but not with only the jackknife. It take too long. Them must had to give me a machete to finish it with."
She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Gerald, did you do all this while you were working in Mr. Peter's coffee field? Was the machete you used the one you were bushing coffee with?"
Apparently bewildered, he did not answer.
"You realize, don't you, that you've been sick? That all this about killing a man was just your mind playing tricks on you while you were working in the coffee?"
He only stared at her.
"Just one more question," she said. "This man you killed by cutting his head off—how was he dressed?"
"Huh?"
"What was he wearing?"
"Did he have on a scout uniform?"
Gerald shook his head.
"An army uniform?"
Again, no.
"What, then?"
"Brown pants, ma'am, and a nice yellow shirt. Only the shirt wasn't nice after me finish. It was a ruin, all red with blood."
Straightening, Mother Jarrett stepped back from the bed. To Bronzie she said, "I don't know what to do. It has to be something he is getting from Georgie but not getting right. Like a telephone message when you don't hear correctly what the other person is saying."
"Dear God, I hope so," Bronzie said faintly. "I hope my boy Georgie did not kill somebody. Must I take this one to the hospital, Mother?"
The woman in white looked at Gerald again. "Well why don't we wait one more day, Bronzie? See if my treating him helps. If it doesn't—"
Peter said quickly, "If he is no better tomorrow, I'll drive him to the hospital. You can send word to me by one of the men coming to work in the morning."
"Thank you, squire."
"I'll run along now. All I can say is, I'm sure Mother is right and this is only something he's imagining." With a "Coming, Manny?" to the pig hunter, Peter turned to the door.
On the way back to Armadale, Manny Williams broke a long silence by saying, "What you think about that boy, squire?"
"We know he didn't kill anyone, Manny. He was with you the whole morning."
"Something funny going on, all the same," Manny said with a deep scowl. "Something that have to do with the scouts-them, me thinking."
"How could the scouts have anything to do with Gerald?"
"Through Georgie. You know them two a long time, suh. You said yourself them is not like ordinary brothers. Squire," the pig hunter went on thoughtfully, "me think we should not tell the men what Gerald did say about cutting off a man's head. Me think we should just let them decide him a little crazy for some reason."
"Do you believe he's crazy, Manny?"
"No, suh, me don't. Do you?"
Peter decided not to answer, though his silence might be taken as a reply in itself. There was something he should have asked Gerald Dakin before they left, he realized. The strangeness of it all had dulled his thinking.
"Gerald," he should have said, "tell me something, please. When you were confronted by those two men who ordered you to cut off the injured man's head, were you seeing things clearly or was there a kind of mist of fog swirling around you, doing things to your eyes and mind?"
Yes, he should have asked that question. But perhaps the boy had already answered it. A green room, Gerald has said. His prison room was green.
18
EDITH CRAIG AND HER FIANCE HAD BEEN SERVED lunch and were waiting to question Peter when he walked into the Great House. They had had time to talk to each other about him, it seemed, and Preble was very much the barrister in search of answers.
Once again—please—why had Peter suddenly stopped in the middle of that dangerous bridge when it must have been obvious that to do so would imperil the person behind him?
Peter had anticipated the interrogation and already made up his mind how to respond. Any further attempt to hide the truth would only add to his troubles.
Seated with the two from England on the Great House veranda, he did his best, first, to describe fully what had happened to him at the John Crow's Nest—or what he thought had happened. How the green mist, whether real or imagined, had temporarily deprived him of his sight and confused him. How the hand-drawn map had become hot in his fingers, and then begun to smoke, then burst into flames.
Holding nothing back, he went on to tell them of his eerie journey to the kitchen in the middle of the night, his disconnecting the gas pipes, and why he believed he had been directed by someone or something to set fire to the house.
Finally he described his feeling at the intake pool that something alien, disguised as mist again, had flowed over the brink of the cascade, from the unexplored gorge above, to attack him. And how it had struck again while he was crossing the tree bridge later.
Preble's icy scowl must have been employed often to intimidate witnesses in courtrooms. "Of course, you could easily have burned the house down without tampering with the gas line. With impunity, too. That's in your favor. Are you saying you have no explanation for any of this, Sheldon?"
"Does Edith have any for why she would have walked off the cliff's edge if I hadn't stopped her?"
"No, I don't." Shaking her head, Edith turned to Preble and added, "You must take that into consideration, Alton. Peter did stop me from destroying myself. If all this is a St. Alban plot to eliminate me as the owner of Armadale, as you seem to think, why would he have done that?"
"A plot to do what?" Peter was incredulous.
She shrugged. "Alton thinks—well, I've already said it, haven't I? Of course, I don't agree with him."
"What do you mean, a 'St. Alban plot'?" Peter demanded of Preble.
"I dislike this country. I distrust its politics and its present government."
"What have politics and government to do with Armadale?"
"I can't answer that. I don't know. But, quite frankly, I'm suspicious."
"I think," Edith said, "that what's been happening to us is more likely to involve those missing boy scouts." She looked at Peter. "And that place—what do they call it?—the Devil's Pit?"
"It has several names."
"What a lot of bloody nonsense!" Preble snorted.
"No, you mustn't say that, Alton. What do you and I know about this island and its people?"
Preble silenced her with a flap of his hand and said in a voice sharp with challenge, "All right, Peter, suppose you tell us about your Devil's Pit, a
nd what you think it or the scouts could have to do with what's been going on here."
Peter welcomed the challenge, if only because it would transfer him from the witness box to a tale-teller's chair. He was no match for Preble at the game of prosecutor and defendant. He knew that. But he did know something of the island after having lived and worked here for five years. He did know some of the superstitions of the country people.
He tried patiently to explain that most of the people who worked for him had had little schooling but were steeped in the Bible. "Nearly all of them attend their little churches and have the Bible read to them by people like Bronzie Dakin. They believe the Bible. So they believe in Satan."
"A devil with horns?" Preble sneered.
"Some think of him that way, probably. Others haven't an exact mental image but do know he's an evil and active enemy of God. And powerful. They're certain he's powerful."
"And he lives up here in these mountains?"
"I'm sure some of them believe that. Yes."
The barrister smiled in disbelief. "With the whole world, the whole universe available to him, he has chosen a base of operations within a few miles of this house, on this insignificant Caribbean island? Is that what you want us to believe?"
Peter quietly tried to explain that most of St. Alban's country people, never having been off the island and having no true concept of the earth's size, looked upon their land as a world in itself.
"They migrate to England and America," Preble argued.
"True. But many of them, when they go to the airport and board a plane, have no notion of how far they're going or how long it will take to get there. England and the United States are just names of places. Hand some of those people a world map and ask them to point out their destinations—they'd give you only a blank stare." Peter shrugged. "So you see, Mr. Preble"—somehow the man's given name eluded him at this moment—"it's perfectly logical to them that the devil should be here. They are told in church that he's to be feared; therefore he must live within striking distance. And what more probable place than these mountains, which to most of them are full of mysteries anyway?"
