I said nothing for a moment. If the boy had told him this, why wasn’t I informed?
“What about Colonel Fine?” I finally asked.
“What about him?”
“He has a Colt’s.” The Colt’s machine gun was our heaviest weapon in Haiti, besides our artillery pieces. “Should I send a messenger to tell him to meet us?” I took out my field map of Haiti and consulted it briefly. “Here,” I said, pointing. “At Saint-Michel?”
“No.”
“What about the men tracking us?”
Markham gave me a bored look. He couldn’t even be bothered to be angry; I am not, I’m sure, enough on his level to offend him.
“Joseph has assured me he’s put them off the scent, telling them that we’re on our way to Cap-Haïtien to rendezvous with Fine. He’s put out word that the Bule mission is over. We will proceed out of camp tomorrow, march to the outskirts of town, then turn on Joseph’s directions for Saint-Michel-de-l’Attalaye, out of the sight of the villagers.”
“You place a great deal of trust in this Haitian.”
“We’re interlopers here,” he said with a sigh. “We need to learn the place to get what we want. And we need allies. I have got us two: Joseph and the nephew.”
“He’ll sell out his uncle, the king of their sorcerers, for one hundred dollars?”
“What of it?”
“It seems a bargain price.”
“Perhaps you haven’t been poor, Godwin. I have. This man would have sold him for half the money.”
“Two more men are feeling the effects of malaria, and one of the mules . . .”
Markham waved me away. “Shoot the mule and have the men put into litters, or any damn thing you please. But have everything ready by eight a.m. I want to be heading west by ten at the latest. That will give us most of the day to reach Bule.”
I saluted and saw to things. The two sick men were given extra water rations and said they could walk.
We left the camp the next morning by 9:15, with myself, Markham, and five specially chosen men forming our rear guard. The track was the same as everywhere. Broken ground packed hard by travelers’ feet, buzzing mosquitoes, and the occasional lowing of a cow. We came on a farm that was divided into small twenty-foot plots, which we soon realized were rice paddies. After that was a string of small houses, with black faces in the windows and lank, thin figures lolling in the doorways, and then scrub jungle.
Fifty yards into the trees, Markham gave the agreed-upon signal—his left hand held out to his side—and three paces later the eleven of us simply stepped into the jungle, far enough so that even someone traveling on the same path wouldn’t spot us. The mosquitoes found us, as I’d known they would—I’d given the men extra doses of quinine to ward off the malaria.
After twenty minutes, Markham emerged. A young black man stood beside him in a tattered white shirt and stained khakis—Joseph. I hadn’t realized he was going to meet us, but I have stopped trying to predict Markham’s maneuvers.
“He’s spoken to the nephew,” Markham whispered, his eyes bright with excitement. “Joseph will take us to Bule.” I gave a low whistle. The other men emerged, and Joseph led the way. Not fifty paces away, Joseph made a turn and I saw his white shirt descending down a rocky path. We followed him. We were climbing down the hill and heading west. We could hear nothing of the enemy trackers; I assumed they had accepted the “cover story” and given up on following us.
We walked in silence, occasionally swatting at a bug. Joseph had chosen his route well; we rarely came upon any natives, only once surprising a naked boy leading a goat by a frayed rope, lost in his own thoughts. When he saw us, the child dropped the rope and stood as if he’d been rendered into black marble. Markham patted the boy on his head. He was in a fine mood.
By three p.m., we made the outskirts—beet fields and the occasional roadside shack, which passes for an “outskirts” in these parts—of Saint-Michel-de-l’Attalaye. I saw Joseph growing more attentive to the land, his head darting left and right as we made our way into the village. He was apprehensive, it was clear. He looked like a safari guide when you’ve crossed into the lion’s domain.
* * *
October 11th, cont. Forty yards on from the last shack, we came in view of what in Haiti you could only call a fortress: ten-foot-high tan-colored walls made of concrete surrounding a compound of some sort. There were two rust-colored gates, fairly new, and they looked sturdy; they were solid iron of some sort, without openings to see inside. We regarded Bule’s hideout from a small grove of pitch-apple trees that offered us reasonable cover. There was no one outside the building, and we could see nothing of the compound’s interior.
“Here is Bule,” Joseph whispered, pointing nervously and searching Markham’s face. “It is just him and his family inside.”
“Guards?”
“Two.”
Markham studied the fortress.
“We agreed,” Joseph said. “You pay me now and I will give the nephew his money.”
Markham pulled out a small wad of notes, moist from the heat of his body. He held it up so Joseph could see it.
“Not yet,” Markham said. “Not until Bule is ours.”
“This is impossible. You said—”
“I don’t give a damn what I said. Get us into this compound and you will get your money.”
“You have no idea what you’re saying. They will kill me if they suspect.”
Markham unsnapped his holster and pulled out his service weapon. “And I will kill you if you delay one minute longer.”
Joseph appeared to be sick; I thought he would faint. He glanced around, as if estimating his chances of escape, but they were none. If Markham didn’t put him down, the rest of us would have.
“You are killing me.” Keeling, he pronounced it.
Markham, tired of talking, pushed at Joseph’s side with the gun. Joseph stumbled forward and walked toward the doors.
“If that gate doesn’t open, I’ll shoot you from here.”
Joseph looked back, hate in his eyes, and walked toward the gate. His progress was slow; twice I thought he was going to turn and dash for the tree line, taking his chances on our marksmanship. But he had seen enough of it to know his odds were low. He continued, as cows lowed in the fields beyond the fortress.
Once Joseph reached the rust-colored gate, he put his hand up and banged on it, then called out something in Creole.
There were male voices from inside, barking out questions. Joseph called back, his voice strained, and his eyes darting back to the pitch-apple grove where we waited.
“Good boy,” Markham said.
There was the small report of a chain rattling, and then a bolt slid clear of its sleeve, the sound reaching us despite the considerable distance. The left gate opened, and Joseph stood back and began to argue with the man inside, whose view of us was blocked by the solid door. We ran for the nearest corner of the compound wall, keeping clear of the area that would expose us to the guard’s view. Joseph watched us nervously out of the corner of his eye, his voice rising the closer we got. When we were just ten feet away, the man inside must have attempted to pull the gate shut because Joseph reached out suddenly and grabbed the door by its edge. We reached Joseph quickly, pushed him back, and went around the door at full speed. Dyer hit the first guard like a fullback, and he went sprawling into the dirt.
We were inside fast, all eleven of us, our Springfields at eye level, checking off doorways. The house was two levels, the finest structure I’ve seen in Haiti outside of the courthouses, and there were chickens and women and children flying in every direction. I spotted a man with a carbine cocked against his hip, and I shot him as he stood. The man collapsed. When I ran up to him, blood was pouring out of his mouth and pooling on the packed earth. He was, I determined later, the second guard.
“That’s
one good Haitian,” Markham said as he walked by.
Prescott and I continued immediately toward the back, to prevent Bule from hopping the wall back there. We saw faces in the windows, but mostly children. At the foot of the wall, I found another carbine. I had to assume there was another guard not mentioned by Joseph, but it was clear he’d climbed over the wall and made his escape.
“Bule!” I heard Markham call from the front. “Show yourself!” And then we saw it: a man dashing from the side doorway toward an outbuilding thirty feet across the dust. All I got was a glimpse of a powerful face and a bare chest, and then the man was inside the hut like a flash.
“Don’t shoot!” Markham cried, but we knew that already. The captain wanted him alive, at all costs. That he had made very clear the night before.
“Joseph!” Markham barked. Our translator was standing just inside the gate, frozen in place. “Get that nigger over here,” Markham called out.
Joseph staggered over.
“What is this hut?” Markham indicated the small house Bule had run to.
“A place for his . . .” A Creole word, then: “For his work.”
Markham’s ears perked up. “For his sorcery?”
Joseph nodded.
“Weapons?”
Joseph shook his head no.
“Tell him to come out.”
Joseph said nothing. Markham chambered a bullet and our translator complied.
A voice from inside, deep, in Creole.
“What’s he saying?” Markham said.
Joseph cried, snot running out of his nose. “He says he will cut my testicles off.”
“Tell him I’m not here to kill him.”
Joseph snorted. His eyes were fixed on the hut.
“Tell him!”
Joseph shouted something in Creole. The answer came back at once, a strange name at the end.
“He says he will kill you before you leave Haiti, Captain Markham. And your blond wife will follow.”
There was no need for him to translate the name. Markham had a strange look in his eyes. A combination, I think, of rage and . . . wonder.
“Rebecca,” he said softly. “He said Rebecca.” Instead of being angered, Markham laughed out loud, almost with delight. “I’ll be damned! How does he know that?”
Joseph said nothing, just hung his head.
“Captain, let us go in there,” I said.
“Check first at the window.”
Prescott and I bent over and ran to the wall of the little house. There were linen curtains covering the two windows, moving slightly in the breeze. I put my back up against the near wall, then swiveled and pointed my gun through the open window, pushing the curtain aside. I saw Bule sitting on a table, his feet up on a bench. He had in his right hand what looked like a rosary. In the other was a statue of a small, grotesque figure that I’d seen in the voudoun altars in the villages we came through. The sorcerer’s eyes were closed, and his lips moved in a soundless chant. There was a candle burning next to him, and next to his thigh was the dried head of some small animal, well-worn through rubbing.
The room was otherwise bare. A thick wooden beam ran the length of the room, exposed on all sides.
Bule must have run to the little house to have access to these things. Certainly no weapons were visible.
“Don’t move,” I told Bule in Creole. I nodded to Markham that it was safe, and he walked toward the front door. Through the window, I saw him enter the place, followed by Dyer, who soon held the witch doctor at gunpoint. I left the window and was the third man into the hut. On the way in, I ordered Prescott to bring Joseph.
“Look at him,” Markham said to me. He was grinning. “This is one remarkable savage. Not even hiding from us.”
Bule ignored him, only raising his face to the hut’s ceiling, his neck muscles straining as the intensity of his incantation seemed to increase. Joseph stumbled into the little room after being pushed by Prescott. He peered at Bule, and his face twitched fearfully. He whispered something in Creole, but Bule continued to chant silently, his body relaxed.
“Tell him I will interrogate him now,” Markham said. Joseph was in a sad state, trembling and even whining at points.
“Did you resurrect the man we shot on the way to Gonaïves?” Markham demanded.
Bule had apparently finished his chant. “Go back to your barley fields, Captain,” he said, as translated by Joseph. “Your power is useless here.”
Markham’s eyes sparked. His father grew barley on twenty acres outside Northam, that I knew.
“There are other kinds of power besides yours,” Markham said. He motioned to me. “Tie him to that beam. And bring some kindling, just in case.”
We did as instructed, finding some rough rope made of God knows what plant, which had been used for tethering a milk cow to its stake in the other corner of the yard. I cut it and brought it back to the hut, and we grabbed Bule roughly, then stood him on the table and secured his hands above the beam. The kindling we tossed under the bench. Bule looked at me with contempt smoldering in his eyes. He resented being handled by us, that much was clear. Joseph collapsed in the corner, and we could not stop him from crying out.
I had the feeling Bule was memorizing our faces. It was then that the coppery taste from the previous night returned to my mouth, and I spit on the packed-earth floor.
“I will talk to this man alone,” Markham said to Dyer and me. “Leave Joseph.”
It was my duty to speak up. I went to the captain and spoke low enough so that only us two could hear. “Captain, our orders are to bring Bule in alive.”
Markham’s eyes flashed at me. “Dismissed, Sergeant.”
“He’s not just another Haitian, Captain. Headquarters will be—”
Markham dropped his head low and fairly hissed at me, “I won’t speak to you again.”
I wasn’t fighting for the Haitian’s life. He was nothing to me. But Monk had died in pursuit of this man, and orders were orders.
I motioned for Dyer to leave. I gave Markham one last look, but his eyes were already on the prisoner.
We went out into the yard. The main house was deathly quiet. Then I could hear Markham’s voice, low, and after Joseph’s babble I heard the responses of Bule, even lower. But I could not make out the words.
The sun was still powerful, so we retired to the shade of a palm tree. From here, we heard the voices from inside the hut rise in volume, with Markham’s insistent and Bule’s haughty. Ten minutes later, Joseph came staggering out. He was babbling something.
“What is it?” I cried.
“Fou,” he spat. “The captain is fou.”
“What’s fou?” I asked Dyer.
“I believe it means ‘crazy,’ ” Dyer said. “Tell us something we don’t know.”
Before I could call back to Joseph, there was a pistol shot, and Joseph’s arms splayed out in the air and he fell face-first into the dirt. He was shot in the shoulder. The report had come from inside the hut, Markham’s sidearm surely.
“Goddamn it,” I said, and started toward the hut, but already a wisp of smoke escaped the window. Then another. I called out to Markham and was answered by a strangled animal cry.
“Let him burn,” Dyer said behind me.
I came to the doorway, and there I saw something I will never forget. The captain had heaped the kindling—dried cane leaves and cedar branches—onto the table, under Bule, and lit it. The fire was licking at the Haitian’s bare feet, and the table had already caught as well. But Bule didn’t pull them away; as the smoke billowed, he was staring with a diabolical intensity at Markham.
I sensed that it was Markham, not his prisoner, who had cried out.
The smoke was thick, billowing, and I saw the flames puff out from Bule’s clothes. He began to scream.
Markham stumbled
past me.
Dyer ran for a bucket, and the two others propped their guns against the house and moved inside. But I could feel the heat press against me as the hut went up. I staggered back and nearly collided with Markham. He was on his knees in the yard, and on his face was a look of such horror that I called out his name and asked if he was injured.
But he was mute, even when I shook him. I found he couldn’t speak. Not for another three days did the captain find his voice.
* * *
November 10th: I have been down at heart and so have neglected this journal for near on a month. But an unfinished account of what transpired in Haiti will be worthless to anyone so unfortunate as to want to read this sad tale, so I must relate the final details. The public will know them soon enough, as Captain Markham is in the brig at Fort-Liberté and will be transported back to Northam for trial and, I have no doubt, execution. The families of Ford and McIlhane demand this trial in Northam, and I can understand the logic of the thing. The testimony will be given where their loved ones can attend and stare at the murderer as he is brought in chains. The Corps agreed to this, in part, I’m sure, to mollify public opinion and keep the Haitian mission protected from even further public scorn.
What I will relate is this: Markham was a changed man as we made our way back to Colonel Fine’s headquarters in Cap-Haïtien. His unwillingness to talk troubled us all, but after the first day we gave up trying to coax him into speech; he seemed lost in his own thoughts and deeply disturbed by them as well. The killing of Bule would have not affected his status with the Corps by itself; there are tales of many such “interrogations” that we have heard from outfits that have served us longer. But Markham was nevertheless deeply shaken. His face was troubled, his brow constantly beetling with perplexity, and even his speech changed at times—he was prone to outbursts of intense anger. At other times, he seemed lost, almost childlike.
Four nights after the death of Bule, as we slept in camp alongside Colonel Fine’s unit, I heard the sounds of commotion in my dreams. I woke with a start and found an indescribable sight: Captain Markham was on the other side of the campfire outside my tent. His form was illuminated by the flickering flames, and they cast terrible shadows across his face. But I will say this, and this I will testify in Northam: his lips were curled in an expression of nothing less than joy.
The Binding Page 28
