by Cave, Hugh
Thank God for small mercies.
The night must have ended some time ago, for the light filtering through the unwashed windows was not mere daylight. Sunlight colored one window deep yellow.
He turned for an anxious look at Sandy, asleep on the cot. Unlike Jumel, she did not open her eyes when his chair creaked. Let her sleep; she must be exhausted. For her to have come all this way with her hopes high, only to have them so cruelly shattered, must have been like a descent into hell. How long now since her daughter had disappeared? Long enough, surely, to seem the biggest part of a lifetime.
Would she wake if he talked to Jumel? If so, he wouldn't try it. But he didn't think she would.
He kept his voice low. "Jumel."
The Haitian only looked at him. The blurred Haitian. Damn this wicked heat and the sweat that kept trickling into his eyes, trying to blind him. If he could even rub his eyes. . . but with his hands tied he couldn't.
"Jumel, can't you open a window here? This place is murder."
Jumel shook his head.
"Why the hell not?"
"You would call for help. There might be someone on the river."
"I don't suppose it would do any good to ask you to give me a drink of that water and wipe my face. There's a handkerchief in my pocket."
"No problem." With a glance at the woman on the cot, the little man walked to the table. Lifting a paper cup from the carton, he half filled it with water from the bottle, and then walked to the chair with it.
Ken tipped his head back, and the water flowing down his throat gave him new life, even a spark of hope.
He felt even better when Jumel fished the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped some of the sweat from his face.
"My eyes, too, please."
"Certainly." Jumel did that, then neatly folded the handkerchief and put it back.
Ken watched him return to the chair by the door. "You know, Jumel, you don't seem to be the kind of fellow who'd get mixed up in a thing like this. How did you?"
A shrug. "I am Haitian."
"What's that supposed to mean? Aren't you proud of being Haitian?"
"Proud enough. Also very much aware that a Haitian bocor like Margal is not to be disobeyed. You find that amusing, I suppose."
There was a bocor in a village near the plantation, Ken recalled. Many of the workers patronized him. For what? All sorts of things, apparently. To find something lost. To buy luck at the cockfights. To obtain a charm that would change a woman's mind, or a ouanga to do in an enemy, or a garde to keep the enemy from doing the same to them.
More than once he had seen workers wearing little goatskin pouches around their necks or dangling from their belts. Probably only the sorcerer knew what was in them. One he found on a plantation path had contained dried leaves, some dirt—grave dirt, probably—a dried-up toad, and small bones the company medic said were from a child's foot.
He'd been amused at the time. But two years of living and working in Haiti had taught him there were different levels of sorcery. And the learning was still going on.
"No, Jumel, I don't find it amusing." For a moment he gazed at the Haitian in silence, hoping his reply might loosen the fellow's tongue.
While waiting, he became aware of an intruding sound and looked up at the cabin roof. A small plane was passing—so low overhead it must be climbing from, or descending to, the local airport Jumel had mentioned. The mutter swelled, and then receded. The Haitian had not spoken.
"Well?" Ken ventured.
"Well what?"
"Why don't you tell me what it's all about? Why are you holding us here? Why the change of tactics? Up to now, Margal has taken care of us himself by playing with our minds."
A shrug. "The master has more important things to do just now."
"Oh?"
"After all, he did not seize Madame Dawson's child and bring her here just to be difficult. He—"
Was it hearing the name "Dawson" that aroused Sandy from sleep, or had she been on the verge of waking anyway? She stirred on the cot and voiced a low moan. When Ken turned his head toward her, she said, "Oh, God, I need to go to the bathroom. Please!"
Jumel rose from his chair and went to her. Looked down at her with what appeared to be genuine compassion. "Madame, there is no bathroom here. Only outside, and not really one there; it fell down. But if—"
"I have to go somewhere!" Sandy sobbed.
He knelt and untied her ankles, then took her by the elbows and helped her to stand.
"Please!" she begged. "Untie my hands!"
"Madame, I am sorry—"
"Untie her, damn you!" Ken said.
"I cannot."
Sandy looked at him in panic. "But I have to lift my skirt and drop my panties!"
"Madame, I will do those things for you."
"Oh, God," she moaned.
"Damn it, Jumel," Ken shouted, "untie her! What the hell kind of man are you?"
"Come, Madame." The Haitian's shrug could have been one of indifference, but there was a look of concern on his face as he drew Sandy to the door.
In desperation Ken leaned as far forward on his chair as his bonds would let him. "Jumel, wait! For God's sake, man, there may be snakes out there!"
Just short of the door the little man halted. "Snakes?"
"In a place like this, yes! Of course! I was bitten by a cottonmouth moccasin here in Florida once and damn near died. You can't just—"
"I have never seen a snake here. And I visit this cabin almost every time I come crabbing."
"But it's just the kind of place moccasins hang out in."
"Very well, m'sieu. While Madame is relieving herseIf, I will stand guard over her with my gun." Patting the automatic in his belt, he added without expression, "It will be my pleasure."
"You bastard," Ken whispered.
"Come, Madame," Jumel said, and walked Sandy outside.
They were gone a long time, it seemed to Ken. But there was no outcry from Sandy, and when they returned she flashed him a look of reassurance. Having led her to the cot, the Haitian waited patiently for her to lie down and make herself comfortable, then refastened her ankles.
He turned then to Ken. "And you, m'sieu? Why don't we take care of you, too, before I make breakfast?"
Ken hesitated. "I'm—not so sure I want to go out there."
"M'sieu, our chances of seeing a snake—"
"But, damn it, there must be cottonmouths here! They breed in places like this!"
"Very well, if you don't want to go. If you were bitten once, I suppose—"
"But I have to go," Ken groaned. "Just stay close to me with your gun, will you?"
"Of couse." Jumel knelt before him and released his ankles from the chair legs. Rising, he said, "Come."
"My hands. You're forgetting my hands."
"No, m'sieu."
"But the chair—"
"Will have to come with us, I fear. Come."
The protest had been only experimental. The reply was what Ken had expected. Struggling to his feet, he stumbled across the cabin with his wrists still secured to the chair and each other, and the chair legs bumping his own at every step. Outside, Jumel let him walk only a couple of yards from the door before stopping him.
"Do you want your slacks lowered or just your zipper opened?" The smile on the little man's face said he found the situation amusing.
"If I take a crap, are you going to wipe me?"
"No. There is only one man I would do that for."
"Your bocor friend, I suppose."
"Certainly not you."
"All right, I was only asking. That can wait, anyway. Just unzip me and—"
"I know what to do, m'sieu. I may be Haitian, but I relieve myself the same way you do."
Carefully standing a little to one side, with the automatic now in his right hand, Jumel extended his left hand to do what had to be done. As he did it, a sound in the sky signaled the return of the small plane Ken had heard earlier. At least it sounded lik
e the same one.
It was a single-engine, high-wing monoplane, Ken noted. A Cessna 152. At an altitude of not more than five hundred feet, it was probably heading for the airport.
"Hey," he said sharply. "Is that one of your local fly boys up there?"
Jumel finished his task without even looking up, then straightened from his crouch and stepped back.
A smile touched his mouth. "You are clever, m'sieu."
"What?"
"If I had looked up from that position, I have no doubt you . . . What would you have done?"
"You're crazy. How can I do anything with this damned chair stuck to me?"
"I believe you would have tried."
"And got shot for my trouble? Forget it." Ken began to empty his bladder. "Watch out for snakes now! I don't want to be bitten again!"
He was disappointed when no snake of any kind showed itself. As part of his half-formed plan to get away from this place, he'd been hoping one would. Jumel crouched again to attend to his needs, then led him back into the cabin and refastened his ankles to the chair legs.
"Are you hungry?" The Haitian included Sandy in his glance.
"Yes," Sandy said.
Ken nodded.
Taking a can of corned beef from the carton on the table, Jumel proceeded to open it with its attached key but stopped when Ken began humming, then singing, an old and much-loved Haitian folk song.
Lè ou nan pé blanc, ou wé tout figue youn sel coulé—
Nan point mulatresse, bel marabou, bel griffon creole
Qui renmen bel robe, bon poude, et bon odeur
Ni belle jeune négresse qui connais bon ti parole.
Obviously surprised, Jumel swung about with his hands on his hips. "You know our Haiti Cherie in Creole, m'sieu?"
"Of course."
"You? A foreigner? May I ask—?”
"I had a whole heap of Haitian friends on the plantation, Jumel. They often invited me to their homes."
"And they taught you—"
"Lots of things. They wouldn't like what's being done to me here, compere. Be sure of it."
Jumel continued to stare. Before he could quite decide to reject the seed so carefully planted in his mind, Ken resumed the treatment.
"Would you like to hear that particular verse in English?"
"What?"
"In English, Jumel. After learning the song in Creole, I worked out a translation. It's even more colorful in English."
"Yes. I would like to hear it."
Ken quietly sang it.
When you're in a white man's country, you see all faces of the same color—
No mulatresses, no lovely marabous, or light-skinned Creoles
Who like pretty dresses, powder, and scent,
And no beautiful Negresses who know how to say sweet things.
The Haitian made sounds of delight and clapped his hands. "Beautiful!"
"But the man who wrote that lovely song is dead now, Jumel."
"Dead, m'sieu?"
"Just as Madame Dawson's innocent little girl may soon be dead if you don't let us out of here to rescue her."
Jumel's dreamy expression swiftly changed as his mind emptied itself of memories and returned to the present. Angrily he said, "As I remarked outside, you are a clever man, m'sieu!"
"Not at all. It's just that when you produced the can of corned beef, I remembered all the beuf sal I've eaten in Haiti. Then I remembered the song."
"And hoped to melt me with it, eh?"
"Okay, pal, if that's what you want to think."
Jumel finished opening the corned beef and produced a loaf of bread. He made sandwiches. With Sandy sitting up on the cot, he fed one to her, patiently waiting for her to chew and swallow each bite. Then he held a paper cup of water to her lips.
After repeating the performance with Ken, he returned to his chair by the door.
The day dragged on. With the door and windows shut, the cabin became an oven again. Even Jumel's passive face gleamed with sweat and had to be mopped more and more often with a soiled red handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. But when he seemed on the verge of heeding his prisoners' pleas for fresh air and actually went to open a window, the mutter of an outboard motor on the river changed his mind.
"No." He shook his head. "I can't risk it."
"After he's gone, then," Ken begged.
"No."
"But that's the first sound we've heard out there, except for planes from the airfield!"
"I'm sorry."
As the afternoon wore on he did, however, heed Sandy's plea to be taken outside again. This time the bathroom session seemed to take longer, and Ken was straining at his bonds when they returned. But again Sandy flashed him a glance of reassurance as Jumel led her back to the cot.
"You, too, m'sieu?"
"Thanks, but not yet."
"It will soon be dark I can't risk taking you outside then."
"Well, all right." Damn, Ken thought, can the bastard read my mind?
The performance was a repeat of the first one, Jumel too alert to be caught off guard. When I try it, Ken thought, it has to work. There wouldn't be a second chance. And he wasn't tired enough yet.
With the coming of darkness Jumel again lit the lamp. Again made corned beef sandwiches. Again fed Sandy, then Ken, and gave them water to drink. Then he returned to his chair with a sandwich of his own.
It could be a long night
"Tell me something, Jumel."
"Yes, m'sieu?" Even the Haitian seemed eager to do something about the silence.
"When we were discussing Margal a while back, you said he did not seize madame's daughter just to be difficult."
"Yes."
"You also said he has more important things to do just now than play with our minds."
"That is so."
"Well, if he didn't kidnap the child for ransom and isn't interested in us just now, what the hell is going on?"
The time was right for the question, it seemed. Jumel was bored with being a jailer, perhaps even resented being turned into one. "The child was seized," he said, "because my master required the services of her father."
"Of Brian Dawson? Why, for God's sake? There's no way Dawson can help your man win control of the Haitian government, if that's what he's up to. Dawson isn't even top man at the U.S. Embassy there."
"He is the son of a top man in your government, however."
"What?"
"You underestimate M'sieu Margal. Control of Haiti is not his objective. At this very moment he is almost certainly preparing to take over control of your country."
Silence. Ken looked across the cabin at Sandy and saw she was sitting up with an expression of incredulity on her face. Incredulity and something else.
Perhaps shock. Or fear. He looked at Jumel and saw that the Haitian, having dropped his bomb, was eagerly awaiting more questions.
All right. If the basic premise could be accepted, there were certainly more questions!
"Just how does Margal propose to take over the United States, Jumel?"
"By possessing the mind of your president."
"And how will he do that?"
"The way he possessed your mind, and madame's."
Ken thought of his night in the unreal swamp near the motel. Of his attempt to rape Sandy. Of how he and she had spent a whole night trying to extricate themselves from the maze of tunnels in Haiti's Citadelle. Those had been merely the highlights of Margal's campaign to keep them from reaching Gifford.
"You interest me, Jumel. But just how can a bocor in Gifford—even one as powerful as your Margal— hope to reach the mind of a man in Washington?"
"By persuading the man in Washington to come here"
"But, damn it, how can he do that?"
"For an ordinary bocor it would not be possible. We both know that, I'm sure. But M'sieu Margal is not ordinary. Given something a person has worn or handled, he can reach into that person's mind. Not to take it over completely, perhaps, but to plant tho
ughts the person will think of as his own."
"You mean Margal has something that belonged to our president?"
"He has."
"How did he get it?"
"This woman's husband was sent to Washington for it. Or for them, I should say. There are several items."
"But how did he get them?"
Jumel smiled. "He was taught by M'sieu Margal to persuade his father to get them. As you may know, his father is close to the President."
Ken was leaning so far forward on his chair, there was danger of his tilting it off balance and braining himself on the floor. "And now?"
"Now, as I said, your president is coming here."
"To Gifford, you mean?"
"Not to Gifford. But it will amount to the same thing. He will come to Cape Canaveral for Thursday's launch. And my master will be there, too. The child's father will drive him there. And from that time on, in Washington or anywhere else, the mind of your president will belong to the great Margal. Once he takes possession he never lets go unless he wants to. Think of it!"
Jumel's voice suddenly shook the flimsy cabin walls, as though someone had turned up the volume on a shouted sermon. "Just think of it! Consider! The destiny of your great country will be in the hands of a sorcerer born as a peasant in one of the poorest countries of the world!"
And we, Ken thought—Sandy and her daughter and I—will be dead. Because even if this is only a fantasy in a bocor's mind, he will believe it and won't dare let us live to report it.
Chapter Forty-one
The house on Petrea Road had been a furnace all day. Now, at nine PM., while she sat beside Margal's bed, bathing him because he refused to let her carry him to the crude shower in the bathroom, Clarisse probed for information. Incongruously, her hands were even gentler and more sensuous than usual while her tongue ignored Margal's efforts to silence it. "I want to know what you will do with their president when you possess his mind," she said.
"Be quiet."
"1 will not be quiet. I swear I'll get an answer out of you if it takes all night!"
It might well take that long, Clarisse told herself angrily. Exhausted by boredom, little Merry Dawson slept fitfully on the mattress in the front room. Her father had been ordered to retire to the room usually occupied by Elie Jumel and to rest there for some duty soon to be required of him. Jumel himself, having disappeared the evening before on some mysterious mission, had not yet returned.
