Serpents in the Sun

by Cave, Hugh

  No longer was she simply Lee Bennett, hiking through Haiti's mountains with a friend. She and Dr. Carey Aldred were inseparable parts of a whole and would be so forever.

  With Lee asleep in his arms, her head on his shoulder and her breath warm against his chest, Carey Aldred lay there on his back listening to the night sounds of the forest and thinking of what had happened.

  The fire had gone out; its glow was no longer visible through the wall of brush that screened their bed. A few yards away, the stream rushed noisily down its boulder-strewn course, with here and there the throatier gurgle of water falling into a pool. Now and then one of the big fire beetles that Friday called coucouves floated with glowing green eyes through the darkness.

  What had happened just now was of enormous importance, Carey told himself. Oh, there had been other women in his bed, both at college and here in Haiti at the Kelleher, but those occasions had been no more than entertainments. Was that the right word for them? Something like that, anyway. And this was not. From the moment he had asked Lee Bennett to share this long-planned adventure with him, he had known it was more.

  This was a woman he could love. A woman he probably already did love, if he knew what the word meant. Anyway, she was a woman he felt good with, great with, whether dining and dancing at a night spot, driving some God-awful backcountry road in a Jeep, hiking through these unmapped mountains, or simply talking to. The thought of going back to his job at the Kelleher without her was all but inconceivable. From now on she had to be part of his life at all times.

  No way could he let her go back to Jamaica and out of his life as if she had never been part of it. He could not let that happen.

  In her sleep, Lee moved so that one knee pressed heavily upon parts of him that ached now from what the two of them had been doing. The pressure caused him to wince with actual pain. But she slept like a child, and he could not bring himself to wake her. He simply lay there, enduring the pain, until the day's long journey took its toll and he fell asleep in spite of it.

  Next day, they crossed the great barrier range that split Haiti's southern peninsula in two and began the tortuous descent of its northern slope. Again the only trail was a river course, and often they had to cross the stream a dozen times in an hour to find walking space. Peasants they encountered called the stream the Riviere Perdue, then Source Mango, then Detour la Ferme, and finally the Bras Gauche of the Grande Anse, which according to Carey's aerial map flowed all the way to the north coast.

  Everywhere the country was wild and magnificent, heavily timbered. "You remember the mountains on the road from Port-au-Prince to St. Marc?" Carey said. "They must have been like this at one time, but for years the peasants have been cutting the trees down for charcoal." Charcoal was what the poor people of Haiti used to fuel their cook fires. "You have to wonder how long it will be before these forests disappear too." He shook his head. "So many things need changing in this sad, beautiful country. But so few of the people who could do it seem to care." A little later, Lee learned that he was one of the few.

  They had seen almost no one on their long, slow descent to the coast. Those they did encounter lived in small clusters of thatch-roofed cailles and had almost no contact with the world outside. But when the Grande Anse widened and became less turbulent, they came upon a commune whose people were building rafts of balsa and bamboo—pipirites they called them—on which to float garden produce to market in Jeremie. All wore very old, tattered clothing. All were barefoot. One man, about thirty, hobbled about on a foot so swollen it seemed in danger of bursting.

  Lee stood at Dr. Carey Aldred's side while Carey questioned the fellow.

  "How did this happen?"

  "A fishbone, m'sie. A big one." There were fish in the river, he explained. His people caught them to eat. Someone had thrown a bone on the ground and he, Telemaque, had stepped on it. Its sharp point had pierced even the leather-tough sole of his foot, and the cut had not healed.

  "Nor will it," Carey said with a frown, "unless we get rid of that infection. I'm a doctor. Are you game to let me cut it?"

  "Cut it how, m'sie?"

  Carey took out his jackknife. "With this, I suppose. Unless you have something sharper."

  Telemaque held up his machete.

  "No, no. That's too big. But wait." Carey reached for the machete and rubbed the blade of his jackknife against its gleaming edge. "There. Now mine's as sharp as yours." He handed the knife to the man with the huge foot. Telemaque tested the blade on a thumb and nodded.

  "We should have some rum," Carey said. "Do you have any?"

  "I can send for some."

  "And a clean bit of cloth or a towel to wrap your foot in when I've finished."

  Telemaque called to a boy of seven or eight, and the lad cametrotting over. A few words in Creole sent him racing up a steep path to a cluster of cailles in a clearing above the river. In a few moments he was back with an unopened bottle of three-star Barbancourt and a towel.

  Telemaque explained that the bottle was being saved for his daughter's wedding, if he could afford to give her one. "But you are welcome to it, m'sie, for your kindness in trying to help me."

  "It isn't for me, friend. It's for you."

  "Me? Then there is no need to open it. I drink clairin."

  Carey made a face at Lee. "A raw rum that tastes like fuel oil and would melt the throat of a bronze statue." To Telemaque he said with a headshake, "This is for your foot, friend. But perhaps you'd better drink some, too." Unscrewing the cap, he put the bottle in the man's hand and waited for him to down some. "Now then, let's get you on the ground with your back against the bank here."

  Telemaque eased himself into a sitting position. With the red clay of the river bank to lean against, he pressed his big hands on a bed of smooth small stones that would be under water when the rains caused the river to rise. By this time some twenty men, women and children, curious to know what the white stranger was up to, had gathered around. Friday, to whom many of them had been talking—no doubt about crazy blancs who walked across the Massif for no good reason—suddenly found himself abandoned, with only the expedition's mule to talk to.

  "This may hurt, compere," Carey said. "But if it isn't done, you could lose your leg. Even die."

  "I understand, m'sie."

  "Are you ready?"

  His patient nodded.

  Kneeling beside him, Carey looked up at Lee. "Do you suppose you could hold his leg, Lee? So he won't kick and make the cut worse than it has to be?"

  "Of course." Lee, too, went to her knees. With a glance at the man's face, which was now taut with apprehension, she gripped his leg just above the ankle.

  Carey poured rum over the foot, then over the blade of his knife. "Take a big breath now, compere. Brace yourself. Lee, hang onto him, please." He took in a big breath, himself. "Here we go."

  The bottom of that bloated foot must have been an eighth of an inch thick. Carey had to ply the knife three times before it sliced through. When it finally did so, a geyser of greenish yellow fluid that smelled to high heaven exploded in his face.

  He, too, exploded. "Christ!" But wiping his eyes with his forearm, he dropped the knife and began kneading the foot, and continued to knead it until the discharge ceased. Then he poured rum into the wound and wrapped the towel around it before lurching to his feet and stumbling to the river.

  Wading in, he first cupped water in both hands and splashed it furiously over his face, then knelt and put his whole head under water, shaking it back and forth to wash the pus from his eyes. Lee reached him in time to help him to his feet.

  She held his arms in the same no-nonsense way she had held Telemaque's leg. "Let me look. We have to be sure you've got it all out." With her face only an inch from his, she examined his eyes. Not until she was satisfied did she relinquish her grip on him.

  Carey caught her hand and squeezed it. "You know something, Lee Bennett?" he said as they waded back to shore. "You should be a nurse."

 
"I felt like one just now, believe me."

  "You were one."

  It was a while before they could leave the raft-makers and continue on downstream. All had to step forward and shake hands with both of them. Even Telemaque insisted on getting to his feet and hobbling forward to do so.

  "If that foot gives you any more trouble, promise me you'll go to Jeremie and see a doctor there," Carey said to him.

  "To Jeremie, m'sie?"

  "You won't have to walk. You can go by raft."

  "M'sie"—it was a man much older than Telemaque, probably one of the patriarchs of the commune—"you and the m'selle are going to Jeremie too, are you not?"

  "Why yes, we are."

  "Then why do you not go by raft? We will lend you one, and you can leave it there for us to pick up."

  What a way to arrive at their destination, Cary thought—floating down the Grande Anse on a pipirite, like Anthony and Cleopatra on their barge! What a glorious ending to a grand adventure. Turning to Lee, he saw by the expression on her face that she was having similar thoughts. But then, apparently at the same moment, both remembered they were not alone and turned to look at Friday and the mule.

  "Compere, you are very kind," Carey said with a little sigh, "but we can't leave the boy. Be sure we are grateful, though." Stepping forward, he embraced the old man. Then with another chorus of goodbyes fading away behind it, the expedition continued on down the river.

  It was still necessary to cross the river every little while, to find walking room. They were used to that by now; since starting out that morning they had crossed this river-of-many-names at least a hundred times. But now as the stream deepened on its less turbulent way to the sea, the crossings became more difficult. The mule balked at some, and Carey had to lead the animal while Friday walked behind it—very carefully behind it—with a leafy switch. The boy's constant cries of "Eeef!" and "La!" —commanding the mule to go or stop—provided a colorful accompaniment.

  From a primitive sod hut on a mountainside lush with tree-ferns appeared a young woman who shouted at them to stop. They did so and she ran down to them on bare feet with a baby in her arms. In Creole she spoke earnestly to Carey while pointing proudly to her child. Mother was black, her small daughter almost white.

  "What does she want, Carey?" Lee asked.

  "Wants me to examine the baby, make sure she's okay." Even as he spoke, the woman was removing the infant's denim dress. Carey took the child in his arms and after looking her over, handed her back with words of reassurance and a smile. He gave the woman some money. The downstream journey continued.

  "How did she know you're a doctor?" Lee asked.

  "I haven't the slightest. The telediol, I suppose."

  "Ah yes, the mysterious wireless telegraph. Ginny told me about it. Second question: how come that child was so nearly white?"

  "I wondered about that, too, and asked her. She said an old white Frenchman lived near here. A sort of hermit, I gathered. He died a few months ago, but before he did, she persuaded him to give her a white baby."

  "To give her a baby?"

  "That's how she phrased it: Mwen to pesuade li ba'm you bebe blanc." He grinned at the look on Lee's face. "Don't be shocked. Such things happen in this country. I know a French priest in the north who's been propositioned half a dozen times."

  It was an interesting topic of conversation, Lee thought.

  One she might pursue further sometime. At the moment, she and Carey were more concerned with finding a suitable place to make camp.

  Would they sleep together again tonight? And would they again make love?

  They did both. And again the night after. The following day they reached a road and were able to put the river behind them. The road led to Jeremie.

  That night they slept together in a real bed at Jeremie's Pension Delaquis where, with Lee's permission and his arm around her, Carey had introduced her as his wife. Friday had a room there too, and ate his evening meal with them in the Pension's dining room. In the morning Carey talked to him in the yard, where the mule was tethered.

  "Son, I'm sure you could return alone over the mountains the way we came, but going around the coast will be easier, don't you think? The road we came in on goes as faras Anse d'Hainault, which is more than half way to Tiburon. There's a good trail the rest of the way, I'm told. It shouldn't take you long, riding."

  Friday was no longer a boy. The hike over the Massif had noticeably matured him. Never again would he be afraid to be alone at night, anywhere. Werewolves and evil spirits were for children. "Ride what, m'sie?" he asked with dignity.

  "We're giving you the mule, Friday. She's yours."

  "Mine?" The boy-turned-man was even able to control his astonishment. "Then I thank you, m'sie. And you, madame."

  Madame, Lee thought. Not m'selle any more. So he knew what had been going on. But of course he did.

  "I'll send you some prints of the pictures I took," she told him. "Shall I mail them to the Father in Tiburon and ask him to deliver them to you?"

  "Thank you, madame."

  "You'll be able to show them to your girl, to prove the wonderful things you'll be telling her."

  In anticipation of that magic moment, Friday grinned. And when he departed, he rode the mule as though he were the reincarnation of Haiti's national hero, Toussaint L'Ouverture, leading troops into battle.

  An hour later Lee and Carey boarded a small freighter at the Jeremie pier.

  As the ship left port they stood together at her rail, watching the town's old waterfront houses disappear in the distance. "Alexandre Dumas was born in that town," Carey said.

  "The Alexandre Dumas? Who wrote The Three Musketeers?"

  "The same." He reached for her hand on the rail. "Lee, darling, you can't go back to Jamaica. I need you. In all my life I've never needed anything or anyone more."

  "And I want to stay here with you. I want to be a nurse."

  "A nurse, yes. And my wife. We have to be married." He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. "Please, madame, will you marry me?"

  "Of course I will."

  "We'll find a house near the hospital. In fact, I already know one that I've thought of renting as a sort of bachelor hideout where I'd have a little privacy and be able to turn my record player up loud." He was talking only to fill the silence, Lee realized. This man who had just led her across an unmapped wilderness was actually trembling with excitement now as he took her into his arms. "Oh, Lee, Lee!" he whispered. "What a life we're going to have together! What a glorious, wonderful life!"

  Port-au-Prince was actually in sight before Lee thought of the wedding itself and asked him about it. "Could we be married at Glencoe, darling? You'll want to meet my family anyway, won't you?"

  There was not even a hint of hesitation. "Glencoe it is."

  "Soon?"

  "As soon as we can get there, Mrs. Aldred." He had her in his arms again. "Of course, we were really married back there in God's country. You know that, don't you? And with His approval. Don't ever doubt it."

  7

  "There, that's that."

  With her hands on her hips, fourteen-year-old Luari Elliot stood in the center of the Great House drawing room and looked about her. Both the pose and the words were reminiscent of a moment in the life of Alison Bennett some seven years before, except that neither Luari nor the woman she spoke to had ever been in Rhode Island.

  "It's just about finished, Ima. Be truthful now—we're buddies what do you think of it?"

  Imogene Bailey flashed one of the famous smiles that transformed her from a homely peasant into a woman of unusual beauty "What I think of it, child? Mek I—let me tell you. I truly believe this wedding going to be like one of those grand affairs in that book you is—you are reading to me."

  "You mean Lady Nugent's Journal?"

  The housekeeper nodded.

  Luari smiled. The book Ima referred to was one of those in the schoolroom, but not one that Mrs. Bennett had brought
from the States. Cliff had found it in Sangster's Book Store and given it to her for a present—not a birthday or Christmas present but for what he called her "Coming-to-Glencoe Day." Written by the wife of one of Jamaica's governors when Spanish Town was the island's capital, it was a goldmine of information about Jamaica in those early days.

  The miracle was that she, Luari Elliot, was able to read such a book aloud to Ima. On that day when Calvin Bignall, the Wilson Gap shopkeeper, had brought her to Glencoe, she would have been able to read only the simplest words in it. Her English then had been the kind that Ima spoke.

  And now with her help Ima was slowly improving too. Because Ima was smart and wanted to.

  Mrs. Bennett taught me, Luari thought, so I'm going to teach Ima. That's only fair.

  As for the drawing room, it really was beautiful. Ever since the arrival of the letter, three days ago, she and Ima had devoted most of their spare time to getting it ready.

  The letter. Would she ever forget that Friday?

  She had been helping Cliff with the weekly pay bill, which was bigger than usual because Terry Connor, the Forestry Department fellow, had put more than a dozen men to work bushing out parts of the property where pine trees were to be planted. Mr. Bennett had gone to the Bay as he always did on Fridays, and had taken Mrs. Bennett with him so she could visit with Kim Tulloch in Trinity Ville while he was going to the bank and running some errands. Cliff was off on the usual Friday tour of inspection, to make sure the workers had done the work they were to be paid for. Roddy was up in Tennis with another lot of workers, building what would eventually be a badly needed warehouse and a cottage for headman Manny Traill and his Roselda.

  Finding things for Roddy to do had been a problem after the renovation of the Great House. Cliff had become Mr. Bennett's right-hand man while his brother was in college, but being five years older, Roddy obviously felt the job should be his. You could see that Mr. and Mrs. Bennett were not too happy having such a conflict to deal with, but what could they do? Demoting Cliff would be unfair; he now knew as much about running Glencoe as his father did, and in fact could run it by himself if he had to. So Roddy sulked, if that was the word, and was miserable about losing his college sweetheart, and drank too much, and sometimes just got into his car and disappeared for a day or two. But building the warehouse and headman's cottage would keep him busy again, at least for a while.