Dagger Key and Other Stories

by Lucius Shepard

  The night wild, mon. Lord, that night wild. The bushes lashing and the palms tearin and the waves crashin so loud, you t’ink the world must have gone to spinnin faster. And dark…we can’t see nothin cept what the lantern shine up. A piece of a wave, a frond slashin at your face. Even t’ough I wearin a poncho, I wet to the bone. I hear my daddy cry, Hold your lantern high, Bynum! Over to the left! He hollerin at Bynum Saint John, who were a fisherman fore he take up wreckin. Bynum the tallest of us. Six foot seven if he an inch. So when he hold he lantern high, it seem to me like a star fell low in the heavens. With the wind howlin and blood to come, I were afraid. I fix on that lantern, cause it the only steady t’ing in all that uncertainty, and it give me some comfort. Then my daddy shout again and I look to where the light shinin and that’s when I see there’s a yacht stuck on the reef.

  Everybody’s scramblin for the launch. They eager to get out to the reef fore the yacht start breakin up. But I were stricken. I don’t want to see no killin and the yacht have a duppy look, way half its keel is ridin out of the water and its sails furled neat and not a soul on deck. Like it were set down on the rocks and have not come to this fate by ordinary means…

  You t’ink you can tell this story better than me, Clifton? Then you can damn well quit interruptin! I don’t care you heared Devlin Walker tell a story sound just like it. If Devlin tellin this story, he heared it from me. Devlin’s daddy never were a wrecker. And even if dat de case, what a boy born with two left feet goin to do in the middle of a norther? He can’t hardly get around and it dry.

  Yes, sir! Two left feet. The mon born that way. Now Devlin, I admit, he good with a tale, but that due to the fact that he never done a day’s work in he life. All he gots to do is set around collectin other folks’ stories.

  The Santa Caterina, that were the name on the yacht’s bow…it were still sittin pretty by the time we reached it. But big waves is breakin over the stern, and it just a matter of minutes fore they get to chewin it up. I were the first over the rail, t’ough it were not of my doin. I t’ought I would stay with the launch, but my daddy lift me by the waist and I had no choice but to climb aboard. The yacht were tipped to starboard, the deck so wet, I go slidin across and fetch up against the opposite rail. I could feel the keel startin to slip. Then Bynum come over the rail, and Deaver Ebanks follow him. The sight of them steady me and I has a look round…and that’s when I spy this white mon standing in the stern. He not swaying or nothin, and it were all I could do to keep my feet. He wearing a suit and tie and a funny kind of hat with a round top that were jammed down so low, all I seein of he face were he smile. That’s right. The boat on the rocks and wreckers has boarded her, and he smilin. It were like a razor, that smile, all teeth and no good wishes. Cut the heart right out of me. The roar of the storm dwindle and I hear a ringin in my ears and it like I’m lookin at the world t’rough the wrong end of a telescope.

  I’m t’inking he no a natural mon, that he have hexed me, but maybe I just scared, for Bynum run at him, waving he machete. The mon whip a pistol from he waist and shoot him dead. And he do the same for Deaver Ebanks. The shots don’t hardly make a sound in all that wind. Now there’s a box resting on deck beside the mon. I were lookin at it end-on, and I judged it to be a coffin. It were made of mahogany and carved up right pretty. It resemble the coffin the McNabbs send that Yankee who try to cut in on they business. What were he name, Clifton? I can’t recollect. It were an Italian name.

  Who the McNabbs? Hear that, Clifton? Who the McNabbs? Wellsir, you stay on the island for a time and you goin to know the McNabbs. The worst of them, White Man McNabb, he in jail up in Alabama, but the ones that remain is bad enough. They own that big resort out toward the east end, Pirate Cove. But most of they money derived from smugglin. Ain’t an ounce of heroin or cocaine passes t’rough Roatan don’t bear they mark. They don’t appreciate people messin in their business, and when that Italian Yankee…Antonelli. That’s he name. When this Antonelli move down from New York and gets to messin, they send him that coffin and not long after, he back in New York.

  So this box I’m tellin you about, I realize it ain’t no bigger than a hatbox when the man pick it up, and it can’t weigh much—he totin it with the one hand. He step to the port rail and fire two shots toward the launch. I can’t see where they strike. He beckon to me and t’ough I’m still scared I walk to him like he got me on a string. There’s only my daddy in the launch. He gots a hand on the tiller and the other hand in the air, and he gun lyin in the bilge. Ain’t no sign of Jerry Worthing—he the other man in our party. I’m guessin he gone under the water. The mon pass me the box and tell me to hold on tight with both hands. He lift me up and lower me into the launch, then scramble down after me. Then he gesture with he pistol and my daddy unhook us from the Santa Caterina and turn the launch toward shore. It look like he can’t get over bein surprised at what have happened.

  My daddy were a talker. Always gots somet’ing to say about nothin. But he don’t say a word til after we home. Even then, he don’t say much. We had us a shotgun shack back from the water, with coco palms and bananas all around, and once de mon have settled us in the front room, he ask me if I good with knots. I say, I’m all right. So he tell me to lash my daddy to the chair. I goes to it, with him checkin the ropes now and again, and when I finish he pat me on the head. My daddy starin hateful at me, and I gots to admit I weren’t all that unhappy with him being tied up. What you goin to do with us? he ask, and the mon tell him he ain’t in no position to be askin nothin, considerin what he done.

  The mon proceed to remove he hat and he coat, cause they wet t’rough. Shirt, shoes, and socks, too. He head shaved and he torso white as a fish belly, but he all muscle. Thick arms and chest. He take a chair, restin the pistol on his knee, and ask how old I am. I don’t exactly know, I tell him, and my daddy say, He bout ten. Bout ten? the mon say. This boy’s no more than eight! He actin’ horrified, like he t’ink the worst t’ing a man can not know about heself is how old he is. He tell my daddy to shut up, cause he must not be no kind of father and he don’t want to hear another peep out of him. I goes to fiddlin with the mon’s hat. It hard, you know. Like it made of horn. The mon tell me it’s a pith helmet and he would give it to me, cause I such a brave boy, but he need it to keep he head from burnin.

  By the next morning, the storm have passed. Daddy’s asleep in the chair when I wakes and the mon sitting at the table, eating salt pork and bananas. He offer me some and I joins him at the table. When Daddy come round, the mon don’t offer him none, and that wake me to the fact that t’ings might not go good for us. See, I been t’inkin with a child’s mind. The mon peared to have taken a shine to me and that somet’ing my daddy never done. So him takin a shine to me outweigh the killin he done. But the cool style he had of doing it…a mon that good at killin weren’t nobody to trust.

  After breakfast, he carry my daddy some water, then he gag him. He pick up that box and tell me to come with him, we goin for a walk. We head off into the hills, with him draggin me along. The box, I’m noticing, ain’t solid. It gots tiny holes drilled into the wood. Pinholes. Must be a thousand of them. I ask what he keepin inside it, but he don’t answer. That were his custom. Times he seem like an ordinary Yankee, but other times it like he in a trance and the most you goin to get out of him is dat dead mon’s smile.

  Twenty minutes after we set out, we arrives at this glade. A real pretty place, roofed with banana fronds and wild hibiscus everywhere. The mon cast he eye up and around, and make a satisfied noise. Then he kneel down and open the box. Out come fluttering dozens of moths…least I t’ink they moths. Later, when he in a talking mood, he tells me they’s butterflies. Gray butterflies. And he a butterfly scientist. What you calls a lepidopterist.

  The butterflies, now, they flutterin around he head, like they fraid to leave him. He sit crosslegged on the ground and pull out from he trousers a wood flute and start tootlin on it. That were a curious sight, he shirtless and piping away,
wearin that pith helmet, and the butterflies fluttering round in the green shade. It were a curious melody he were playin, too. Thin, twistin in and out, never goin nowhere. The kind of t’ing you liable to hear over in Puerto Morales, where all them Hindus livin.

  That’s what I sayin. Hindus. The English brung them over last century to work the sugar plantations. They’s settled along the Rio Dulce, most of them. But there some in Puerto Morales, too. That’s how they always do, the English. When they go from a place, they always leavin t’ings behind they got no more use for. Remember after Fifi, Clifton? They left them bulldozers so we can rebuild the airport? And the Sponnish soldiers drive them into the hills and shoot at them for sport, then leave them to rust. Yeah, mon. Them Sponnish have the right idea. Damn airport, when they finally builds it, been the ruin of this island. The money it bring in don’t never sift down to the poor folks, that for sure. We still poor and now we polluted with tourists and gots people like the McNabbs runnin t’ings.

  By the time the mon finish playing, the butterflies has vanished into the canopy, and I gots that same feelin I have the night previous on the deck of the Santa Caterina. My ears ringing, everyt’ing have a distant look, and the mon have to steer me some on the walk back. We strop my daddy to the bed in the back room, so he more comfortable, and the mon sit in he chair, and I foolin with a ball I find on the beach. And that’s how the days pass. Mornin, noon, and night we walks out to the glade and the mon play some more on he flute. But mainly we just sittin in the front room and doin nothin. I learn he name is Arthur Jessup and that he have carried the butterflies up from Panama and were on the way to La Ceiba when the storm cotch him. He tell me he have to allow the butterflies to spin their cocoons here on the island, cause he can’t reach the place in Ceiba soon enough.

  I t’ought it was caterpillars turned into butterflies, I says. Not the other way round.

  These be unusual butterflies, he say. I don’t know what else they be. Whether they the Devil’s work or one of God’s miracles, I cannot tell you. But it for certain they unusual butterflies.

  My daddy didn’t have no friends to speak of, now he men been shot dead, but there’s this old woman, Maud Green, that look in on us now and then, cause she t’ink it the Christian t’ing to do. Daddy hate the sight of her, and he always hustle her out quick. But Mister Jessup invite her in and make over her like she a queen. He tell her he a missionary doctor and he after curin Daddy of a contagious disease. Butterfly fever, he call it, and gives me a wink. It a terrible affliction, he say. Your hair fall out, like mine, and don’t never come back. The eye grow dim, and the pain…the pain excrutiatin. Maud Green cock her ear and hear Daddy strainin against the gag in the back room, moanin. He at heaven’s gate, Mister Jessup say, but I believe, with the Lord’s help, we can pull the mon back. He ask Maud to join him in prayin over Daddy and Maud say, I needs to carry this cashew fruit to my daughter, so I be pushing along, and we don’t see no more of her after that. We has a couple of visitors the followin day who heared about the missionary doctor and wants some curin done. Mister Jessup tell them to bide they time. Won’t be long, he say, fore my daddy back on he feet, and then he goin to take care of they ills. It occur to me, when these folks visitin, that I might say somet’ing bout my predicament or steal away, but I remembers Mister Jessup’s skill with the pistol. It take a dead shot to pick a man off a launch when the sea bouncin her round like it were. And I fears for my daddy, too. He may not be no kind of father, but he all the parent I gots, what with my mama dying directly after I were born.

  Must be the ninth, tenth day since Mister Jessup come to the island, and on that mornin, after he play he flute in the glade, he cut a long piece of bamboo and go to pokin the banana fronds overhead. He beat the fronds back and I see four cocoons hangin from the limbs of an aguacaste tree. They big, these cocoons. Each one big as a matrimonio (hammocks large enough to hold husband and wife). And they not white, but gray, with gray threads fraying off dem. Mister Jessup act real excited and, after we returned home, he say, Pears I’ll be out of your hair in a day or two, son. I spect you be glad to see my backside goin down the road.

  I don’t know what to say, so I keeps quiet.

  Yes sir, he say. You not goin to believe your eyes and you see what busts out of them cocoons. That subject been pressin on my mind, so I ask him what were goin to happen.

  Just you wait, he say. But I tell you this much. The man ain’t born can stand against what’s in those cocoons. You goin to hear the name Arthur Jessup again, son. Mark my words. A few years from now, you be hearin that name mentioned in the same breath with presidents and kings.

  I takes that to mean Mister Jessup believe he goin to have some power in the world. He a smart mon…least he do a fine job pretendin he smart. Still, I ain’t too sure I hold with that. Bout half the time he act like somet’ing have power over him. Grinnin like a skull. Sittin and starin for hours, with a blink every now and then to let you know he alive. Pears to me somebody gots they hand on him. A garifuna witch, maybe. Maybe the butterfly duppy.

  You want to hear duppy stories, Clifton be your man. When he a boy, he mama cotch sight of the hummingbird duppy hovering in a cashew tree, and ever after there’s hummingbirds all around he house. Whether that a curse or a blessing, I leave for Clifton to say, but…

  Oh, yeah. Everyt’ing gots a duppy. Sun gots a duppy. The moon, the wind, the coconut, the ant. Even Yankees gots they duppy. They gots a fierce duppy, a real big shot, but since they never lay eyes on it, it difficult for them to understand they ain’t always in control.

  Where you hail from in America, sir?

  Florida? I been to Miami twice, and I here to testify that even Florida gots a duppy.

  Evenin of the next day and we proceed to the glade. The cocoons, they busted open. There’s gray strings spillin out of dem…remind me of old dried-up fish guts. But there’s nothin to show what else have come forth. It don’t seem to bother Mister Jessup none. He sit down in the weeds and get to playin he flute. He play for a while with no result, but long about twilight, a mon with long black hair slip from the margins of the glade and stand before us. He the palest mon I ever seen, and the prettiest. Prettier than most girls. Not much bigger than a girl, neither. He staring at us with these big gray eyes, and he make a whispery sound with he mouth and step toward me, but Mister Jessup hold up a hand to stay him. Then he goes to pipin on the flute again. Time he done, there three more of them standin in the glade. Two womens and one mon. All with black hair and pale skin. The mon look kind of sickly, and he skin gray in patches. They all of them has gray silky stuff clinging to their bodies, which they washes off once we back home. But you could see everyt’ing there were to see, and watchin that silky stuff slide about on the women’s skin, it give me a tingle even t’ough I not old enough to be interested. And they faces…you live a thousand years, you never come across no faces like them. Little pointy chins and pouty lips and eyes bout to drink you up. Delicate faces. Wise faces. And yet I has the idea they ain’t faces at all, but patterns like you finds on a butterfly’s wing.

  Mister Jessup herds them toward the shack at a rapid pace, cause he don’t want nobody else seein them. They talking that whispery talk to one another, cept for the sickly mon. The others glidin along, they have this supple style of walkin, but it all he can do to stagger and stumble. When we reach the shack, he slump down against a wall, while the rest go to pokin around the front room, touchin and liftin pots and glasses, knifes and forks, the cow skull that prop open the window. I seen Japanese tourists do less pokin. Mister Jessup install heself in a chair and he watchin over them like a mon prideful of he children.

  Few months in La Ceiba, little spit and polish, he say, and they be ready. What you t’ink, boy? Well, I don’t know what to t’ink, but I allow they some right pretty girls.

  Pretty? he say, and chuckle. Oh, yeah. They pretty and a piece more. They pretty like the Hope Diamond, like the Taj Mahal. They pretty all right.

>   I ask what he goin to do for the sick one and he say, Nothin I can do cept hope he improve. But I doubt he goin to come t’rough.

  He had the right of that. Weren’t a half-hour fore the mon slump over dead and straightaway we buries him out in back. There weren’t hardly nothin to him. Judgin by the way Mister Jessup toss him about, he can’t weigh ten pounds, and when I dig he up a few days later, all I finds is some strands of silk.

  We watches the butterfly girls and the mon a bit longer, then Mister Jessup start braggin about what a clever mon he be, but I suspect he anxious about somet’ing. An anxious mon tend to lose control of he mouth, to take comfort from the sound of he voice. He say six months under he lamps, with the nutrients he goin to provide, and won’t nobody be able to tell the difference between the butterflies and real folks. He say the world ain’t ready for these three. They goin to cut a swath, they are. Can you imagine, he ask, these little ladies walkin in the halls of power on the arm of a senator or the president of a company? Or the mon in a queen’s bed-chamber? The secrets they’ll come to know. They hands on the reigns of power. I can imagine it, boy. I know you can’t. You a brave little soldier, but you ain’t got the imagination God give a tick.

  He run on in that vein, buildin heself a fancy future, sayin he might just take me along and show me how sweet the world be when you occupies a grand position in it. While he talkin, the women and the man keeps circulatin, movin round the shack, whispering and touchin, like they findin our world all strange and new. When they pass behind Mister Jessup, sometimes they touch the back of he neck and he freeze up for a moment and that peculiar smile flicker on; but then he go right on talking as if he don’t notice. And I’m t’inkin these ain’t no kind of butterflies. Mister Jessup may believe they is, he may think he know all about them. And maybe they like he say, a freak of nature. I ain’t disallowin that be true in part. Yet when I recall he playin that flute, playing like them Hindus in Puerto Morales does when they sits on a satin pillow and summons colors from the air, I know, whether he do or not, that he be summonin somet’ing, too. He callin spirits to be born inside them cocoons. Cause, you see, these butterfly people, they ain’t no babies been alive a few hours. That not how they act. They ware of too much. They hears a dog barkin in the distance, a coconut thumpin on the sand, and they alert to it. When they put they eye on you…I can’t say how I knows this, but there somet’ing old about them, somet’ing older than the years of Mister Jessup and me and my daddy all added up together.