by Cave, Hugh
"Come, talk to Tina's father. Perhaps he can help you."
Mildred frowned at her watch.
"It won't take long," Kay said.
She led the way, and Sam walked beside her, leading his mule. Mildred rode. At the house, Kay talked to Metellus while he watered the animals. "How long will it take these people to get to Legrun?" she asked him.
"About an hour and a half, M'selle, after the rains we have had."
"Why don't you go along to guide them? I've decided to take Tina to your brother, as you asked. If Miss Bell and Mr. Norman accomplish their mission in time, they'll ride to Trou with me tomorrow and you won't have to go."
Looking hard and long at Sam and Mildred, Metellus hesitated, then with obvious reluctance said, "Well, M'selle . . . all right."
"Don't you want to?"
"I will take them."
He's afraid of Margal, Kay thought. Well, I don't blame him. If a daughter of mine turned up alive after I'd buried her months ago—or thought I had—I'd be queasy, too. One thing she was sure of: The people of Bois Sauvage were afraid of Tina. On seeing the child today, most had refused even to look the youngster in the face and speak her name.
Metellus excused himself and returned in a few moments, astride a mule. To Sam and Mildred, as they prepared to ride out with him, Kay said, "I don't suppose you two have had much to eat today. . . ?"
"Some stale bread and a can of corned beef," Sam replied wryly. You would think of that, Kay baby. Bless you.
"I'll try to buy a couple of chickens and have a meal ready when you return, then." She frowned. "That is, if you will be returning tonight. What do you think, Metellus?"
"They have to, M'selle. Strangers cannot stay in Legrun. They will have to sleep here in Bois Sauvage somewhere."
"I'll try to find beds for you, then," Kay said. "Good luck, Miss Bell. I hope you find your father."
29
Along one of the few stretches of trail where they could attempt a conversation, Mildred said, "I like your nurse, Sam. Have you known her long?"
"Met her when I worked here, is all."
"And you've kept in touch?"
"No. She planned on working here a long time, and I never expected to come back."
As the old fellow in Bois Sauvage had warned, the trail was difficult. Their guide, Metellus, seemed bent on making it even more so by setting a furious pace. Damn the man, Sam thought. If he'd been in the saddle since daybreak as we have, he wouldn't be so eager. Had he been next in line he would have yelled at the fellow to slow down, but Mildred was following Metellus.
"Sam," she called back, "if we don't find Daddy in Legrun, what can we do?"
"Well, you said he was in Port."
"But we don't know where in Port."
"Maybe you can talk to him again and find out."
"Sam, don't be sarcastic."
"Who's being sarcastic? You say you can talk to him. I believe you." At least, I believe you think you can. Which isn't exactly the same thing, is it?
The trail grew rougher and their brief dialogue came to an end. The mules toiled up a ladder of boulders now, straining with every step. It must get dark early here, Sam thought, unhappily eyeing the high mountain forest hemming them in. At times, even the sky was hidden by massed tree limbs. Was that the answer to their guide's haste? His knowing they would have to leave Legrun early or spend the night there even if strangers were not welcome?
The path broke out of the forest, straggled over a grassy plateau painted pure gold by the afternoon sun, and then plunged down again. Here, Metellus had to abandon his haste or risk a broken neck. The animals gingerly felt their way down a boulder-strewn trench. The trench gradually widened into another grassy clearing, this one dotted with thatch-roofed huts. Sam counted five of them, plus one substantial, metal-roofed house. From a vertical cliff on the right tumbled a forty-foot waterfall that filled the vale with sound.
Reining his mule to a halt ten yards from the largest house, Metellus raised an arm to point. "Margal lives there. I will take the mules and wait for you by the waterfall. Remember, please, we must leave here well before dark. That road at night is too dangerous."
"Don't worry, friend," Sam said.
He and Mildred dismounted, turned their animals over to their guide, and walked side by side to the house. He was looking, he realized, at the first painted house he had seen all day. Margal apparently believed in being different and was wealthy enough to indulge his whims. His abode was bright red.
The front door swung open. A massive, moon-faced woman wearing a flaming red dress stood waiting for them.
Sam went through the formalities. "Honneur, Madame."
"Respect, M'sieu."
"We would like to speak with M'sieu Margal. We have come all the way from the capital to see him."
She took her own good time to look them over, then nodded and stepped back to clear the doorway. "Please, come in."
Putting caution before politeness, Sam led the way and found himself in a room that surprised him, and not only for its great size. Its floor was of tavernon, the close-grained cabinet wood that was now even rarer and more expensive than Haitian mahogany. Tables and chairs, even one oddly shaped chair near the door, were of the same exquisite wood. Did it grow here? It probably did, but must have cost Margal a small fortune all the same, if only for the sawing. The walls were of clay but painted like the outside of the house, and intricately decorated as well. In this unusual room each was a different color: aquamarine, rose, black, green. The effect was startling.
"Be seated, please," the woman said. "I will ask if the master wishes to see you. This is his time for resting." She watched Mildred sit and waited for Sam to do the same. "Not there, M'sieu," she added quickly when he moved toward the odd-shaped chair. "That is the master's."
"Sorry." Sam veered away, but not before noticing what a really remarkable chair it was. Its back was vertical, its seat a flat platform littered with varicolored cushions. It had wide, flat, slotted arms. Fit a board across those arms, using the slots to anchor it, and the chair could be a desk, a work table, even a dining table.
He sat elsewhere, and the fat woman disappeared into a connecting room, leaving the door open behind her.
Sam looked at Mildred. She was peering at a small table beside the forbidden chair. "Sam," she said, rising. "Look!"
She went to the table and Sam saw she was gazing at a display of photographs in cardboard stand-up frames. When he reached her side, she pointed to a photo of her father.
"So he is here," Sam said. "Or was."
"I've never seen this picture of him before, Sam. In fact, I haven't seen any new ones in recent years. He dislikes having them taken."
"Maybe Margal took it with a Polaroid." Sam peered at the others. "This one seems to be the same sort." He indicated a head-and-shoulders snap of a youngish-looking white man with close-cropped blond hair, then saw the same man in another picture next to it—a group picture much larger than the other two—in which the same fellow stood on a platform under a huge portrait of Adolph Hitler and appeared to be addressing a gathering of carbon copies of himself, all in uniforms adorned with swastikas. As Sam stooped to examine all three pictures more closely, the woman in red spoke from the doorway behind him.
"If, you will be seated again, the master will speak with you."
He and Mildred returned to their chairs, Sam saying with a shrug, "Sorry. Miss Bell just noticed the photo of her father." And I'll bet you already know she's Dr. Bell's daughter, don't you, Big Bertha?
The woman went back into the other room and reappeared in a moment with a strange figure in her arms. As she walked to the chair with it, Sam took a quick look and felt himself become rigid.
Had the fellow been whole, he would have weighed about a hundred fifty pounds and been perhaps five foot six. His legs ended above the knees, however, and Big Bertha held him against her mountainous bosom simply by looping one strong arm under his buttocks. With both of
his arms encircling her neck, his face was partly hidden by the folds of flesh under her chin.
Seemingly without effort, she carried him to his special chair and set him down. His hands rested on its arms and his spine was supported by its vertical back. The colored cushions softened the contact. While she was arranging him thus, he paid absolutely no attention to her, but kept his head slumped on his chest.
Then, when she had finished and stepped back, he raised his head, and Sam saw his face—his whole face—for the first time. He caught another breath that was little more than a gasp. His heartbeat quickened wildly. A wave of cold coursed through him, chilling the sweat on his body.
On at least three previous occasions he had looked into those eyes. They were the most piercing of any he had ever seen in a living creature. The face in which they glittered had seemed younger then; perhaps the ordeal of losing both legs had aged it. The body, too, had certainly been less frail than it was now. But despite certain deliberate alterations, there could be no doubt about the man's identity.
The changes had been cunningly contrived, Sam had to admit. A previously hairy face now was clean-shaven, surprisingly thin-lipped and angular in its nakedness. The formerly close-cropped head was now awrithe with a thick, stringy mass that resembled the dreadlocks of Jamaican Rastafarians.
Incongruously, the fellow wore an expensive purple sport shirt and cream-hued slacks, the legs of which had been shortened and sewn up to hide his stumps. And even more incongruously, he returned Sam's stare of recognition with a totally innocent, "I bid you welcome, M'sieu. My name is Margal. Please tell me who you are and why you have come here."
Sam told him.
Margal gazed at the fat woman, who had retreated a few steps and stood with her arms crossed over her bulging breasts. "Ah, yes—Dr. Bell. He was here for a week a long while ago, was he not, Clarisse? Did he stay a week?"
"Six days."
The gaze flicked back to Sam. "And you have come all this long way expecting to find him still here? I am so sorry." Changing targets again, he shook his head sadly at Mildred. "And you M'selle. You must be most anxious."
"Miss Bell doesn't speak Creole," Sam said.
"Oh? A pity. Then I must address myself to you, M'sieu, no? But what exactly can I say to you?"
"Tell us what Dr. Bell did while he was here."
"He asked questions."
"About you? Your work?" Sam glanced meaningfully at the walls to let the man know he understood the import of the many symbols painted on them. There were serpents, bulls, boats, and other designs employed in vèvês drawn at voodoo ceremonies. There were even gaudy lithographs of Roman Catholic saints and one of Christ with a bleeding heart. As a bocor, Margal used these icons in ways not intended by those who revered them.
"Dr. Bell asked about my work, yes," the legless one said, and the piercing eyes again impaled Sam.
"We understand he came here with a guide," Sam said. "A man named Ti Pierre Bastien."
"That is so."
"Did he leave with that man?"
"He did."
"Did he say where he was going?"
"We naturally assumed he was returning to Port-au-Prince."
"I see. Do you mind telling me exactly when he left?" The man on the chair turned again to his plump companion. "Do you remember, Clarisse?"
"It was weeks ago, Margal. Who knows how many?"
"Yes, who knows. We have many callers, M'sieu. It is hard to keep track."
Mildred said, "Sam, ask him if Daddy gave him that picture, will you?"
Sam put the question in Creole.
"No. I have my own camera, M'sieu." The bocor pivoted to his woman again. "Bring it, please, Clarisse."
Clumping from the room, Clarisse returned with a Polaroid of fairly recent vintage. "A marvelous instrument!" Margal exclaimed, motioning her to hand it to Sam. "Of course, obtaining film is sometimes a problem, but my people go out to Cap Haitien now and then." He smiled at them, a picture of innocence. "M'sieu, M'selle, I should like to have photographs of you."
The look on Mildred's face said no, but Sam ignored it. "If we may have one also, compêre—of the two of us with you, that is."
"But of course. Clarisse, you hear? You are to take three pictures. One of Dr. Bell's daughter, one of M'sieu Norman, and then one of the three of us together. You understand?"
"I understand." With no small effort, the fat woman positioned herself in front of Mildred, clicked the shutter, handed the picture to Margal, and awaited his nod of approval. Repeating the procedure with Sam, she received another nod, and then stood on widespread feet at a proper distance from the bocor's chair and motioned Sam and Mildred to take their places at Margal's side.
Mildred was reluctant to do so, Sam saw. Perhaps she had heard or read some of those silly tales about photos and pins. Quietly, in English, he said to her, "This could be important, pal. Let's not louse it up." With a glance at the false smile on his face, she obeyed.
They stood one on each side of the man, and Clarisse took a picture, lumbering forward to hand it to Margal when the camera produced it. He clapped his hands over it like a child before passing it to Sam, who grinned and tucked it into his shirt pocket, then looked at his watch.
"Well, compère, it seems we have come a long way for nothing. Dr. Bell is evidently back in Port-au-Prince."
"It would seem so."
"Thanks for your hospitality, anyway."
"It is nothing. And you will begin your return trip when? Tomorrow?"
Sam thought of Mildred's mindless walks to the river in Vallière. Of Alfred Oriol's attempt to send her plunging over the cliff later. "I guess not." He shrugged. "We're both pretty tired. We'll rest in Bois Sauvage for a couple of days."
"I wish you a safe and pleasant journey, my friends."
I'll bet you do, Sam thought, but solemnly shook the man's hand, then the woman's, before motioning Mildred to precede him to the door. When he turned to look back and nod farewell, that strange figure on the chair lifted a hand and smiled at him. Such an innocent smile, Sam thought; but something in the intensity of the bocor's gaze sent shivers along his spine and robbed his mouth of moisture.
Metellus was waiting at the foot of the waterfall as promised, anxiously glancing up at the sky as he paced back and forth through the cascade's exhalation of mist. Sam looked up, too, wondering whether they had taken more time than they should have. It didn't seem so. The sun was still high enough to insure their return to Bois Sauvage before nightfall.
Why the panic, then? Or was it just a normal dread of this unsavory place?
Shrugging it off, he helped Mildred to mount, then did so himself and signaled their guide that they were ready to depart. "But take it easy, Metellus, will you?
Stop once in a while. Don't be so eager to break our necks."
"I will try to go more slowly, M'sieu."
Metellus clucked to his mule and it moved out. Mildred's animal followed. Sam was just about to bring up the rear when he found himself stiff as wood in the saddle, staring wide-eyed at an approaching apparition.
The man had emerged from the gloom of the forest ten yards distant and was trudging along the path toward them. Man? Somewhere between thirty and forty years of age—it was impossible to estimate more closely —he wore pants and a shirt of khaki reduced to filthy strings. His feet were wrapped in rotting banana leaves loosely held on with bits of rope-vine. Hair that must have been blond once hung shaggy to his shoulders. His skin was fish belly white. His mouth hung open as though the muscles had become useless. With unblinking blue eyes as dull as cloudy marbles, he stared straight ahead while plodding past Metellus, then Mildred, finally past Sam, as though walking in his sleep and totally unaware of their presence.
On his right shoulder, this apparition clutched a thick bundle of dead branches chopped to firewood length. From his left hand dangled the machete that must have done the chopping. The reek of him lingered long after he had passed.
Sam turned in the saddle to watch him. Saw him trudge across the compound to the big red house of Margal. Saw him plod through the yard to a smaller building that, with its upthrust chimney pipe, was surely a kitchen.
He disappeared into the kitchen with his load of firewood.
Turning again, Sam saw that Mildred had been watching the creature too. "Milly," he said, "did you see who that was?"
She slowly nodded. "The one in the picture. The Nazi. Sam . . . what's wrong with him?"
He hesitated. Should he tell her what he thought? No. If he did, she might decide the same thing could have happened to her father.
And what if her father was still here in the compound, reduced to the status of servant or slave? What if he had never been allowed to leave?
With an exaggerated shrug Sam said lightly, "It looks as though Hitler's little admirer decided to live here a while and learn a few things from friend Margal. . . and is finding the going a bit rougher than he expected." To forestall any further questions, he flapped a hand at Metellus. "Let's go, compere, hey?"
They did not stop until they reached the place where Mildred and Sam had talked before. Since it was still daylight and there was no further need for haste, Metellus agreed to rest.
Mildred and Sam dismounted and sat on an outcrop of black rock, rubbing the aches from their thighs.
"Sam," she said, "it seems I was right, don't you think? I did get a message from Daddy, telling me he wasn't at Legrun."
"It seems so."
"Now we have to look for him at Port-au-Prince." Which will be about as easy as trying to find the old needle in the hay, Sam thought, but nodded.
"Why were you so determined to have a picture of Margal, Sam? That was what you wanted, wasn't it?"
He took the print from his shirt pocket and held it so they could both examine it. "You see what we've got here? Not just you, me, and Margal. Just before she snapped it, I moved a step to the left. See the table beside Margal's chair? The photos on it?"
"Well. . .yes."
"They could be important. Anyway, I wanted a picture of our sorcerer, because unless I've got a faulty memory, Margal isn't his name."
