by Cave, Hugh
"And haven't seen him since."
"Right."
"What did Sister Merle say when you questioned her?"
"Denied she knew him, at first. When I pointed out I had proof she not only knew him but had threatened to turn him into dirt, she ended up threatening me."
"You haven't told me what she looks like, Sam."
"She's a small, ugly woman, almost a dwarf. About sixty, I'd say."
"Black, of course."
"Not so very. I think the people here would call her medium brown. She's had some kind of disease. Her face looks as though someone ran a harrow over it."
"What's your plan? We call on her together?"
Sam looked thoughtful for a few seconds, then slowly moved his head up and down. "I think we have to. I've done everything else I can think of, and I'm still on square one after nine days. Sister Merle is the only enemy Juan had."
"We go tomorrow?"
"If you're game to face a sorcerer maybe as awesomely powerful as Margal."
Will shrugged. "I'm here, good buddy. And I didn't come for a vacation."
10
To the Lair of the Sorceress
"You must not go there!" Ima Williams pleaded with them. "That woman has already threatened Mr. Sam. If you dare to confront her again, she may do something terrible!"
Will looked at the tall black woman with respect and said quietly, "What can she do, Ima?" Sam and he were eating the breakfast and she served them: scrambled eggs, some kind of cornmeal fritters done in deep oil, and cups of hot, sweetened chocolate, the source of which was one of the cacao trees in the yard.
"That woman is able to make people obey her will."
"You mean she'll have someone harm us?"
"She may make you do things!"
Recalling Sam Norman's tale of the policeman's hand, Will asked, "What things, Ima?"
"A man she once put a spell on refused to touch food and wasted away from hunger," she said. "A young higgler who was foolish enough to taunt her one day in the market died on the way home that evening by walking off a cliff in the dark. She didn't walk off by accident, you can be sure. She was obeying a command."
"You seem to know a good deal about obeah, Ima."
"Ima is a hounsi kanzo," Sam Norman said.
Will looked at the woman in astonishment. "A hounsi kanzo? In Jamaica? I didn't know there was voodoo here."
"I was born in Haiti," she told him. "InLéogane. Ima Williams is not my real name. People in this country had trouble pronouncing my name, so I borrowed one from a woman I was fond of in Cedar Valley, up in the Blue Mountains, when she died. And, yes, I am kanzo."
In the voodoo hierarchy, Will knew, being kanzo placed her just beneath a mambo, or priestess. It meant she had undergone years of study and self-discipline, then endured tests with fire and boiling oil, which rejected all but the most devoted.
He looked at Sam. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I knew she would tell you herself, in her own good time."
"And I do not want you to go to Sister Merle," Ima said emphatically. "I beg you not to go there. She is one of the most evil women who ever lived. Even I, a hounsi, am afraid of her. When I tried to help Mr. Juan against her, I failed."
Keenly interested, Will said, "How did you try to help Juan, Ima?"
She hesitated. "I—tried to reach into her mind. But she sent me a message instead."
"She got into your mind, you mean?"
"To tell me . . . she told me she would destroy me when it pleased her to do so." This time Ima addressed her plea to Sam. "Please, Mr. Sam, do not confront her again! Sister Merle is feared all over this part of the island—in Christiana, Devon, Mile Gully, Coleyville, all through the Cockpit, even in Mandeville. Don't go!"
"I'm afraid we have to, Ima," Sam replied gently. "I've done everything else I can think of, and Juan is still missing. But we'll be careful." Finishing his chocolate, he stood up. "You ready, Will?"
As they went out to the Land Rover in the yard, the Haitian woman stood in the doorway staring after them, wringing her long-fingered hands as though afraid she might never see them again.
It was Monday and the road to town, so deserted on the weekend, was filled with school kids in uniform. Almost all the schools in this poor country required uniforms, Will recalled, even though many families couldn't afford them and their children had to stay at home.
The town itself was busy for so early an hour. But only the town. Once Sam had maneuvered the Land Rover through the clutter of cars and trucks that filled the shopping district, the school kids coming in from the other side presented the only problem.
"Sam, what are we going to say to this woman?"
"I thought I'd leave that to you."
"Me?"
"Obviously I didn't say the right things when I called on her before. You know more about this stuff than I do."
"The hell I do."
"Well, you know more words. And more about the West Indies in general. You're older and wiser."
"Thanks. Remind me to mention you in my will."
It was the same road they had traveled yesterday, on the fringe of the virtually uninhabited Cockpit Country. Studying a grimy map he found on the Rover's seat, Will saw that for miles to right and left what he thought he was seeing was what he was seeing: a wilderness so inhospitable to man that few men, even among the tough Jamaicans, had cared to challenge it. Winding little dirt roads ran off the blacktop now and then, but were soon swallowed up by the wild terrain. On reaching the village with the odd name Wait-a-Bit, he felt he had been riding for hours.
"How far are we from Christiana, Sam?"
"About ten miles."
"I thought we'd come fifty."
Sam Norman laughed.
Beyond Wait-a-Bit Sam slowed to fifteen miles an hour, found what he was looking for, and turned left onto a red dirt road that quickly began to think of itself as a corkscrew. We meet something on this, Will thought, and we're in trouble. Why, he wondered, had the magnificent little World War II Jeep, so slim and tidy, been blown up into vehicles like this that required nearly as much road as a bus?
Both sides of the way were lined at first with yam fields, bristling sticks jabbing their fingers at the sky, and with occasional clumps of bananas and plantains. Then even those disappeared, and the track snaked down into a forest of rock formations in which nothing so ambitious could be grown. Here, among the stones, tiny patches of the same red earth supported handfuls of cabbages or callaloo.
And, of course, ganja. If you knew the spiky leaf of Jamaica's marijuana, you could spot it quickly enough, even with the naked eye. Here in the Cockpit, strangers were likely to be looked upon as government agents snooping for the stuff, and some who may have seen too much were not heard from again.
"Where does this road go, Sam?"
"I don't really know. Haven't been the whole way."
"How did you find it?"
"Juan Cerrado showed me the turnoff back there one day, and told me how to get to the woman's house. When I actually came here, though, after he disappeared, I couldn't find the footpath and had to pay a fellow to guide me."
Sam pointed down to his right, at a peasant hut precariously perched on the slope. "That's where I got him. He was working in his yard and I called down to him. Decent sort, about thirty, named Mowatt. We won't need him today, though. I know the way now."
The road looped on down for another half mile or so and leveled out to traverse a ridge. On both sides of the razorback the land fell away into deep sinks the sides of which were partly green with scrub, partly gleaming white with fangs of limestone that resembled the bleached teeth of huge dead animals. "That's where the lady lives," Sam said. "Down there on the left. See the path?"
Will did, but only just. "Aren't we stopping?"
"Not here. Can't block the road, even if it isn't used much. Anyway, we have to go past the next bend to find a turning place."
On reaching the point where the road
widened, Sam pulled the vehicle off and parked it. They walked back and the sun blazed down on them in a fury of brilliance. Even under a cloudless sky the land seemed empty and hostile.
"I wonder why the old girl lives in a place like this."
"For privacy, probably."
"But she has to deal with people, doesn't she? To make a living as a sorceress?"
"They find her; don't worry. But obeah is outlawed, remember. In a place as remote as this the police aren't likely to bother her so much."
"Were you scared, coming in here alone?"
"Let's say I was uneasy, after hearing about those two cops who did bother her."
There was no marker to indicate where the obeah woman's path went, or that anyone lived on it. It angled down from the road, not too steeply at first, to disappear among limestone formations that looked like huge white sponges. Beyond the sponges it twisted on down into dusty scrub and candelabra cactus.
No ordinary person would want to live in such an unfriendly setting, Will decided. The few farmers who challenged the Cockpit were obviously the toughest of a tough breed, grimly scratching a living from pockets of soil despite the heat, the desolation, the lack of water, roads, and human company. But the pockets of soil here along Sister Merle's path were too few and too small even for them. The obeah woman had no neighbors.
The sun's fierce heat bored through his hat—thank God he had worn one!—and soaked his hair with sweat as he doggedly trudged down the slope at Sam's heels. The sweat burned his face and made it itch.
"Just a little more," his companion called back without halting. And he saw the house.
It was not what he had expected. Here in this forsaken wilderness a house should be a small, crooked thing of wattle and daub, with a roof of rusty zinc. One room, maybe, or two at the most. From the looks of its exterior this one had at least four. Its walls were carpenter-built of the local Caribbean pine. Its roof was of aluminum that shone like a mirror.
Sam had stopped. Reaching him, Will said in a hushed voice, "Brother!"
"Something, isn't it? Must have cost plenty in a place like this, too. Wait'll you see the inside. If she invites us in, that is." Sam moved forward again, halting for a second time just outside the open door. "Sister Merle? Are you home?"
Silence.
"She must be, or the door wouldn't be wide open," Sam said. Then again, "Sister Merle! Sam Norman here. Are you at home?"
Will heard a chair scrape the floor inside, then footsteps. Staring at the door, recalling Sam's description of the woman as being almost a dwarf with a face that seemed to have been run over by a harrow, he nevertheless gasped when she suddenly appeared in the opening. Small and ugly and all of sixty years old, too, as Sam had said. But he had not mentioned the eyes.
She focused them on Sam for a moment the way a cat might scrutinize a mouse it contemplated devouring. Then her gaze shifted to Will and looked him over.
"Who this man is?"
"Friend of mine, Sister. His name is Will Platt."
"From where? I never see him before."
"He's visiting from the States."
"Why you bring him here? You know we don' like strangers!"
"Sister, I'll be explaining that. May we come in and talk to you?"
While speaking to Sam she had been studying Will, as though suspicious and needing time to make up her mind about him. With a shrug of her misshapen shoulders she said, "Very well, you come," and turned her back on them.
Will was astonished again as he entered the house. The large front room in which he found himself was lavishly furnished. Sister Merle shuffled across the polished pine floor to an overstuffed sofa and motioned her callers to be seated on matching chairs.
On a table of blue mahoe against one wall stood a large battery-operated radio which must have cost a small fortune. A second table supported a lineup of kerosene pressure lamps, much more expensive than the ordinary household lamps used by most peasants.
Through an open door Will could see into a kitchen that contained a kerosene fridge and a gas stove. Who, for God's sake, lugged gas cylinders in here? Even the small ones would give a strong man fits on that trail.
"Well, Mr. Norman?"
"Sister Merle, I still haven't found my colleague, Juan Cerrado. I'm hoping you can help me."
She may have expected it. Her shrug seemed automatic. "I don' know where him is. I told you when you came here before. Nobody knows where him is."
"Sister Merle, people say you have certain powers. Could you help us find Juan if I paid you for your services?"
"What powers I supposed to have?"
Will studied her, trying to read her face and body movements while those eyes drilled Sam again. It was not a simple thing to do. Except for the eyes and the physical ugliness for which, of course, she could not be held accountable, she was as seemingly neutral as the plain gray dress she wore. "What powers?" she said again, sharply.
"Well, you're said to be an obeah woman."
"Obeah! You think a woman like me goin' bother herself with that foolishness?"
"Sister, don't call it foolishness. My friend here is an expert on Haitian voodoo. Is that a joke?"
Seemingly startled, the woman transferred her gaze to Will.
"He has written books about voodoo," Sam said. "He knows its secrets."
"Is so?" she demanded, gazing at Will.
He nodded, knowing Sam wanted her to think so. "Perhaps with your help," he said, "I can find Mr. Norman's colleague."
She seemed to consider the suggestion for a moment, then slowly wagged her head. "Me don' know nuttin'," she said, the patois noticeably thickening as she altered her image to that of a simple peasant.
"We've heard," Sam said, "that when Juan disappeared from the market, he came here to see you." It was a hook baited with pure conjecture, Will guessed, but she might rise to it.
"Uh-uh. Him never did."
"Then why would people say he did?"
She moved her bony shoulders. "To make some kind of trouble for me, must be. Not everyone calls me friend."
"Sister Merle," Sam persisted, "do you suppose you and Mr. Platt here can work together on this and find some answers? I've got to locate that man."
She studied Will again, but he had a feeling she was merely letting a polite amount of time pass before answering. "If you a big voodoo man, Marse Platt," she said, "you don' need no ignorant country woman like I to help you. No, suh." Suddenly her gaze flicked to the door. "Someone comin'. Now who could that be?"
She was out of her chair and at the door before Will heard the footsteps she must have heard. With a hike of his eyebrows he looked at Sam. Sam briefly made a me-too face. The obeah woman said, "Well, see who here!" and into the house walked a tall black man about thirty, wearing khaki pants, shiny black shoes, no shirt or undershirt.
Seeing Sam, the fellow stopped in his tracks. "Well, good mornin', Mr. Norman," he said.
"Hello, Keith." Sam turned to Will. "This is the man who brought me here before. Keith Mowatt."
"What you come for this mornin'?" Sister Merle asked him, scowling as though displeased.
"Nuttin' much, Sister. Just to bring you the black candles you sen' me for and tell you me couldn't get the tank of gas. Seem like there is a shortage of gas again."
She made a sound of disgust through her nose. "The way this country goin', they is always a shortage of somethin'. Well, all right. Try again tomorrow, you hear?"
"Yes, Sister. Me will do that."
"Go on, now. Me busy."
He dropped a package on the radio table—the black candles to be used in obeah, Will supposed—and went out. Sam Norman stared after him with a peculiar intensity. Sister Merle turned to her callers and said, "Well, Marse Norman, all me can do is wish you luck with what you tryin' to accomplish. Me don't see no way to help you."
She rose and offered her hand. Sam shook it in silence. Will did the same, and they walked out.
Sam set a fast pace on t
he stiff climb to the road, so fast that Will, running out of breath behind him, at last called out, "Hey, what's the rush?"
"Police station, Will. We've got to get there before that fellow realizes what he did!"
"What are you talking about?"
Without even slowing his pace, Sam called back, "Did you see his shoes?"
"Well, I wondered why he'd shined them like that just to call on an old woman. But shoes are expensive here, aren't they? Maybe he just takes care of them."
"They weren't just shined, Will. They were dyed."
"What?"
"And they're not Jamaican shoes. They're field boots from Maine, ordered by mail from an L.L. Bean catalogue. The last time I saw them they were tan and the feet in them were Juan Cerrado's."
11
The Lockup
Once off the Cockpit road where haste would have been suicidal, Sam pushed the Land Rover to its limit. In front of the Wait-a-Bit police station he brought it to a skidding halt. "Come on!" he said, leaping out.
The station was a small one, with a corporal seated at a scarred desk just inside the door. Sam explained what had happened and what he wanted.
The Red Stripe was young, handsome and slim as a ballet dancer. "Mister, you better go to Christiana about this," he said with a shrug. "We know your Mr. Cerrado is missing, but Christiana's been doing the investigating, not us."
"There isn't time for us to go to Christiana! Mowatt has to be questioned before he realizes what he did and gets rid of those boots!"
"Well, that may be so."
"Corporal, it is so! He didn't expect to find us there at Sister Merle's. The Land Rover was parked beyond her path and he didn't see it."
Time passed while the corporal thought it over. At last he stood up and called out to someone unseen, "Lenny, take over here for a bit. I mus' go somewhere." Looking back as they hurried out to the Land Rover, Will saw a man in blue-striped pants emerge from a back room to stand by the desk, frowning after them.
