Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  A look of anger came into her homely face. "They are saying it is your fault, what happened to the boy, mon Père. You are to blame for his death."

  "His death! What are you talking about?"

  "They say he was dead when you took him to the mainland. You took him there so they wouldn't know."

  Barry groped for a chair and sat down. "But Louis Cesar knows that isn't so! He carried the boy!"

  "They don't believe Louis. You gave him money."

  "Of course I gave him money! He carried the boy all the way to the plantation for me."

  "They say you paid him to lie for you. Everyone says so."

  He was shaken. This was the sort of thing old Mitchell had warned him about. Drops of sweat formed on his forehead. He stood up. Who had spread the story? Who was his enemy?

  It could be only one man. This was no personal attack, but an assault on what he stood for. This was war.

  He forced himself to control his anger.

  "It's a misunderstanding, Lucy. The boy isn't dead and isn't going to die. In a little while he'll be back here. Get on with your work now and expect a guest for lunch. I'm going to the village."

  CATUS LAROCHE came to the door of his caille and said with a slight lift of his heavy eyebrows, "Bon jour, mon Père. Come in. I didn't know you had returned." He waited for Barry to be seated and turned to take glasses and a rum bottle from a mahogany sideboard. While pouring the rum he said over his shoulder, "What brings you to see me?"

  "The lie that is being told about young Toto," Barry replied, scowling. "Who told the people he was dead, Catus? I can't believe you would do such a thing. Not after my efforts to help your sister's child."

  Catus turned quickly to stare at him. "I?"

  "Have I other enemies?"

  Catus placed a glass of rum in his caller's hand and sat facing him. "I am not your enemy, Father. At least, not yet. I thought that was understood between us."

  "Then who started this story?"

  "I don't know. It puzzles me."

  Barry wondered if it did. Sipping his drink, he sought to read the truth in the houngan's face but knew he was wasting his time. The dark eyes returning his gaze were level and steady. What was Catus thinking? That I don't believe him, probably, Barry mused.

  He said with a sigh, "I'm in a spot, Catus. I've a lot of stuff on the beach that must be carried up to the rectory, and no one will carry it."

  "What kind of stuff?"

  Barry told him.

  "Louis is in his house," Catus said. "Let me speak to him." He went out, and Barry watched him stride, a handsome, erect figure, across the yard.

  Louis, when told of the problem, stood for a moment with his great ugly face twisted into a scowl. "I will see what can be done," he said, "though if you want the truth of the matter, I would rather beat their lying heads together than ask their help." He was very angry, Barry saw. His usually soft voice was a snarl. He passed through the gate in the cactus hedge and disappeared down the path to the village.

  Barry turned again to the priest of vodun. "Can you find out for me who started this story, Catus?"

  "I have already tried."

  "I shouldn't think it would be difficult for a man in your position."

  "It is very difficult. Such tales spread through the island with great speed. The telediol, we call it: the word-of-mouth wireless. I am not even sure this lie began in Terre Rouge, though I suspect it did because the boy was hurt here."

  "Have I offended anyone?"

  "You should know that better than I."

  Barry was silent. There seemed to be nothing more to say.

  LOUIS RETURNED IN HALF AN HOUR with four reluctant villagers, two of them the fathers of children Barry had treated at the clinic. They were the best he could do, he grumbled.

  He himself led the march to the beach, setting a pace that had Barry struggling for breath. There the men sorted the supplies into loads they could handle, Louis swinging such a weight to his massive shoulders that he staggered under it.

  St. Juste, with a glance at Barry's damp face, gathered up a load of his own. "You've walked up there once," he said. "It's my turn now while you stay here on guard duty."

  On the next trip Barry took a load, and on the fourth and last trip he wearily gathered up another. If anyone had told me a week ago that I'd be toiling up this trail three times in an afternoon, he thought, I would have called him crazy. It was a fearful job. Halting on the path to look back at the people on the beach—men and women who for hours had simply stood about watching, without offering to help—he felt his hands clench in bitterness.

  Build your church and rectory of stone, Jeff Barnett had advised; there's plenty of it on the island. But how was he going to get the stone to the ridge if no one would carry it? How, with an insidious enemy spreading lies about him, was he to win back the confidence of the people?

  Was he to wind up like old Mitchell, after all, nursing a rum bottle and staring into space?

  10

  IT WAS SUNDAY AGAIN, two weeks from the day of the accident. Warner Lemke had just finished talking to Jeff Barnett on the short wave when Alma returned from church. He swung about on his chair to scowl at her, yet was scarcely aware of her presence. His lips lay flat against his teeth. He had not been so angry since the night of the party at Fond Marie.

  He could still hear the words of his superior droning over the radio, instructing him to call on Clinton and offer to "lend a hand" with the church project. "I'm afraid Barry hasn't had much experience at this sort of thing," Jeff had said, "nor is he likely to anticipate the inevitable difficulties. It will be a relief to him to have someone he can turn to for advice and help."

  Advice and help, Lemke thought bitterly. By God, I'll give him advice and help. He saw that his wife had halted by the table and was curiously gazing at him. It showed on his face then, his anger. He didn't wonder.

  He walked past her to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of rum and drank it down, silently cursing the heat. Lord, it was hot this morning. There wasn't a breath of air in the house. Last night had been the same. He had risen at two, unable to sleep, and paced the living-room floor for an hour and then sat on the veranda, trying to drink himself drowsy. Probably he had drunk too much, but what was a man to do?

  His wife spoke at last. "You're still at it, I see."

  He mopped his face and neck with a handkerchief, glaring at her. Damn it, how did she manage to look so cool and fresh? She had ridden all the way to church and back, easily twelve miles, yet looked as though she had just stepped out of a cold shower and put on fresh clothes. She was wearing slacks, as she always did when riding, and a long-sleeved blouse that looked sedate enough for a nun until you gave it a second glance; then you saw how damned little it left to the imagination. What a bitch she was.

  "I take it you've had a lovely time singing hymns," he said.

  "I enjoyed myself."

  "You and dear Mr. Clinton, of course. Does anyone else show up at his services?"

  She said with a frown, "Not many have been there since the accident. This stupid story that's going around about the boy's being dead—they believe anything they're told, these islanders."

  Lemke grinned. "The vodun is at work, hey? Your dear Barry won't last long."

  "It isn't vodun. Laroche, the houngan, was in church."

  Laroche, he thought. His mind pulled at the name for a moment and then it came to him: the girl on the beach. It was time he did something about getting to know her. By God it was time, after last night.

  He poured another drink. Alma glanced at him in disgust and went to her room.

  He smiled crookedly as the door clicked shut behind her. Go ahead and close it, he thought. You needn't be afraid I'll make a fool of myself again.

  He had made a rare fool of himself last night, he knew that. It must have been the rum. Still, he hadn't had a whole lot of rum, not then. More likely it was that damned story in the magazine. They shouldn't prin
t stories like that. You read them and they seemed too bloody real, and the first thing you knew you were thinking, Now maybe that's how she really feels but she's too proud to show it, and if I came right out and begged her forgiveness . . .

  He remembered looking across the room at her and thinking how attractive she was. It had been a warm evening. The current of air from the fan in the window kept lifting her hair and she kept raising a hand to brush a strand from her forehead. She was wearing a sleeveless dress with a loose front, and reading one of the historical romances she was so fond of. A book like that ought to put her in the right mood, he had thought, watching her. Damn it, she must know how he felt, she always knew how he felt. And she couldn't be too sore with him, or why had she put on that particular dress?

  He must have watched her for half an hour before making up his mind to approach her. Then he wanted a drink badly but was afraid to go to the cabinet for one lest he break the spell. She was waiting for him to go to her, he was certain. He could feel it in the atmosphere of the room, an invisible cord stretched taut between them: a cord she kept twitching by lifting her hand to push her hair back. He was trembling when he rose from his chair.

  He went straight to her and stood beside her chair, afraid to touch her, just standing there waiting for her to look up from her book. When she did, he spoke in a mumble. "Al, listen. I want to talk to you. I want you to know—" The words would not come.

  "You want me to know what?"

  "I'm sorry, Al. I was a damned fool. I really was a damned stupid fool."

  She rose from her chair and looked at him, just looked for a moment; then her lips curled downward at the corners and she said, "You still are a fool if you think there'll ever be anything between us again. There won't be." She tossed her book onto the couch and walked toward her room.

  "Al, wait!" he had mumbled, reaching for her in his misery. "I said I was wrong!"

  She halted. She looked at his face and shook her head slowly at what she saw there. "You know, it's a funny thing," she said. "I don't really hate you. I don't feel much of anything at all, really. If it had been some girl who meant something to you—if you'd been looking for something more than just a bedmate—I probably wouldn't have thought very much about it. I never did before. But a black girl—" She shook her head again. "A black girl. My God. Even I have some pride."

  "It was a mistake," he had said in desperation. "I said it was a mistake, Al."

  "I couldn't care less," she retorted, and went into her room.

  All right, Lemke thought, you couldn't care less. Neither could I. Go ahead and soak up religion as a substitute. Or is it the man himself you're after?

  What was that girl's name again? Laroche. Micheline Laroche. She lived in Terre Rouge, close by Clinton's place. Well, Jeff Barnett had ordered him to look Clinton up and offer assistance, hadn't he? And it was Sunday, when the peasants hung around the house hoping to God something would happen to relieve their boredom.

  He looked at his watch. He would shave and put on a clean shirt, and after lunch he would obey orders. Let his darling wife spend the afternoon with her book.

  BARRY AND CLEMENT ST. JUSTE finished their lunch and strolled together in the rectory yard. The supplies brought up from the beach still lay there near the kitchen door, under a canopy of thatch erected by big Louis and his workers. There was nowhere else to put them.

  St. Juste said, "We ought to have a shed for this stuff, Mr. Clinton. The thatch keeps it dry, but if we don't get it under lock and key some of it's going to be stolen."

  Barry absently nodded. There was so much to be done, and all of it was so difficult with the islanders treating him as though he were a criminal. They actually believed young Toto was dead and that he had tried to conceal the fact from them by spiriting the boy's body off to the mainland. Who had started the fantastic story he didn't know, nor had Catus been able to find out for him. But the whole island accepted it as the truth, and he was right back where he had been on that first day. People ignored his greetings and glared in silence when he walked past.

  He hadn't enough workers to begin the new church. It would be impossible to obtain help until Toto returned to the island, big Louis said. But when would that be? There'd been no report from the hospital, no word at all. Meanwhile the island watched him, waiting to see what he would do, and there was nothing he could do. The two weeks since the accident were a total loss.

  He had other problems. Lucy was complaining of the high price of vegetables in the market, blaming the increase on some sort of illegal tax imposed by the magistrate. He must do something about it, she insisted. He must slap Dufour down. Even St. Juste was a problem. To put the man up he had been forced to clean out the storeroom, but the storeroom with its one tiny window was no better than a prison cell.

  Problems.

  There was one ray of light, however. The peasants, thank God, were still coming for treatment. They might regard him as some weird sort of monster and refuse to attend church, but when a tooth ached or a child ran a fever, they turned to him for help. He might have to build a wing on the house after all, if it continued. The office had become a full-fledged clinic.

  Another thing. Catus Laroche had come to church this morning. True, he had stood just inside the door through the entire service, but at least he had come.

  And I shall keep my part of the bargain and attend the next vodun ceremony, Barry told himself.

  St. Juste said, "I think I'll walk up to the ridge, Mr. Clinton. Want to come along?"

  "I'd like to, but I'll have patients."

  "I'll go along, then. We've got to locate some building stone."

  When he had gone, Barry went across the clearing to move the gray mule to a different location. Catus had brought it back to the mission the day after his return from the mainland. He wondered what he would do with it. Just yesterday Louis had offered to make the animal useful, hinting that the instrument of persuasion would be a club, but he had put off giving an answer. There must be some better solution to that problem.

  He frowned. This morning in the midst of the service an odd thought had come to him. He had been looking over his pathetically small congregation and his gaze had fallen on Pradon Beliard, dressed like a capital dandy at a political gathering. He had not seen much of the lad with the limp since the accident, yet Pradon was supposed to be helping him, wasn't he? Those had been Jeff Barnett's instructions, and Jeff was still paying him a salary.

  He had remembered suddenly that it was Pradon who suggested he visit Felix Dufour, and Pradon had been present, voiceless, when he bought the mule. Was it possible the boy and Dufour had conspired to cheat him?

  But of course Pradon may not have known the mule was dangerous. Except for brief trips to the island to visit his mother, he had worked at Couronne for the past two years.

  It was something to think about, though.

  MICHELINE LAROCHE sulkily ironed a shirt for her brother and wished she were doing something else. She was angry with Catus for having refused her permission to go to church that morning. Why shouldn't she go to church if she wanted to? Was she a child, to be told what she might and might not do? Daure and Louis had attended the service. So had Catus himself. Who did he think he was?

  He was afraid she might lure the Father into an affair, she supposed. But why shouldn't she, if she were able to? The Father was young and handsome, every bit as handsome as her conceited brother. If she could make him look at her, so much the better for Catus. The church would never let him go on being a minister here if he had an affair with an island girl. He would be kicked out in disgrace, and some stupid old man like Father Mitchell would come to take his place, and Catus would no longer have any problem. Perhaps if he cared enough for her he would stay on the island after his dismissal. He might if she had a child. He might even marry her.

  She smiled at her thoughts. That was really imagining things, that was. Still, it wasn't impossible. There were whites in the capital with dark-skinned wive
s, people said. Not many, but some. She moved her ironing board closer to the doorway to catch some of the breeze that stirred the dust in the yard. She should have gone to the beach with Louis and Daure and her parents. It was no afternoon to be slaving over her brother's laundry, even if he did have an important service tomorrow night . . .

  A horse stopped at the gate in the cactus hedge and Micheline caught her breath sharply in anticipation before remembering that the Father didn't own a horse. Curiosity held her motionless, though, as the man dismounted. M'sieu Lemke, from the plantation? What could he want here?

  She wiped her moist face with her arm and watched him come into the yard. Did he know himself what he wanted? He seemed confused, peering first at Louis' house and then at the tonnelle. At last he saw her and lengthened his stride, stopping at the door. The ironing board stood between them.

  "Hello," Lemke said. "I believe we've met before, haven't we?"

  "I know who you are, m'sieu."

  "Good. I hope I'm not intruding. My horse needed some water and I thought—" He let it drop, feeling his pulse quicken as he gazed at her. What he had really thought was that he would find a crowd of people here sitting a Sunday afternoon away, and that he would go through the motions of obtaining water for his horse and actually accomplish nothing. It was hopeless, meeting a girl in the midst of her family. All the way from the plantation he had searched his mind for some better approach and finally resigned himself to the inevitable. The least he could hope for was to make her aware of him and perhaps plant a hint that he would like to know her better.

  But, by God, she was alone here, or seemed to be. What a stroke of luck. And what a beauty she was; even the sweat-stained dress she wore couldn't hide the fact. She hadn't a thing on under the dress either; that was obvious. It clung—

  "If you would bring the animal here, m'sieu," she was saying, "we would not have to carry the water so far."