Miss Shumway Waves a Wand (4 page)

“Why, Mr. Bogle,” I said, “you didn’t tell me you were that sort of a girl.”

“Did that come from me?” Bogle whispered.

“And to think I said you were empty headed,” Myra said sadly. “Why didn’t you tell me you used your head as a cupboard? I won’t take out the sawdust because your poor head might collapse, but I’m sure you’ll be glad to get rid of this,” and she removed a billiard ball from his other ear.

Bogle shivered and sprang to his feet. He dug his fingers into his ears feverishly.

“It’s all right, Bogle,” Ansell said kindly. “She was only demonstrating a trick. She’s a magician.” He turned to Myra, “I must say that was extremely expert.”

Myra shrugged. “If I had my apparatus here, I’d show you something really good. That’s just kid’s stuff.”

Bogle sat down again.

“Why don’t you two go off somewhere and get to know each other?” I said to Myra. “This fella Bogle’s got a nice face and maybe he just wants conversation. I’ll talk to Doc while you two enjoy yourselves.”

“Enjoy myself? With him?” Myra said, jerking her thumb at Bogle. “I’d rather walk around with a typhoid epidemic.”

I thought she had something there, but I kept my opinion to myself.

“What you need,” Bogle said, leaning across the table, “is a smack in the slats.”

If the slats were where I thought they were, I felt he had something, too.

“Quiet!” Ansell snapped. “We’re wasting too much time.” He looked at Myra severely,

“Young lady, you’re deliberately aggravating him. I warn you, I’m not standing much more of this.”

Myra laughed. “I’ll be good, poppa, honest I will,” she said, and patted his hand. “Now, tell me all about it.”

Ansell looked at her suspiciously. “You seem to forget that you can’t afford to be funny,” he said.

“Aw, skip it, Doc,” I broke in. “Why don’t you say what you want to say and stop nagging the girl?”

Ansell looked a little surprised, “I’m trying to, but there’re so many interruptions.”

I turned on Bogle, “Don’t interrupt the Doctor any more, Bud,” I said. He’s getting tired of it.”

“Yes,” Myra joined in. “Give that big mouth of yours a rest. We’re sick of the sound of your voice.”

Bogle was so surprised that he just sat in a heap, his eyes starting out of his head.

“Okay, Doc,” I said quickly, before Bogle could recover. “The floor’s all yours.”

“Do either of you believe in witchcraft?” Ansell asked.

Myra held up her hand. “I do,” she said. “How else do you explain our Samuel away?” Bogle took off his tie and tried to tear it in half. He was blue in the face with passion. He jerked and pulled at the tie, but it was too strong for him.

Myra said, “Let me,” and snatched the tie out of his hands. She cut it in half with a fruit knife and handed it back to him. “There you are, Sammy,” she said.

Bogle sat in a kind of stupor, staring at the tie. Then he dashed it to the ground.

“Miss Shumway!” Ansell exclaimed angrily. “Will you stop picking on Bogle?”

“Well, I was only trying to be helpful,” Myra said, her eyes wide in innocence. “He couldn’t manage to do it himself.”

“All right, all right,” I said hastily. “Why witchcraft? Who believes in witchcraft these days?”

Ansell looked at Bogle, satisfied himself that he was not going to have a fit and tried to collect his thoughts: “I don’t suppose you know much of the background of this country. I’ve lived here for over twenty years and I’ve seen some very odd things.”

“So have I,” Myra said, looking at Bogle.

“If you can’t stop this woman talking…” Ansell said to me furiously.

“Be good,” I said to Myra.

She lifted her shoulders.

“Go on,” I said. “Don’t worry about her.”

“If I’m to explain this at all,” Ansell said, rather hopelessly, “I wish you’d all listen. At one time there was a powerful secret society in this country who called themselves the Naguales. The members of this society were the witch doctors who bossed the Maya Indians. They are almost extinct now, but there’s a few of them who still practice in a little village not two hundred miles from here.”

“I’ve heard about ‘em,” I said. “Aren’t they supposed to produce rain at a moment’s notice and change themselves into animals? You don’t believe that junk, do you?”

Ansell shook his head, “No, I don’t. I believe they have certain supernatural powers such as mass hypnotism, and in some rare cases they practice levitation, but that really doesn’t concern us. What I’m interested in is their herbal medicines. Have you ever heard of teopatli?”

I shook my head. “What is it? A drink?”

“It’s a sure cure for snake bite.”

While we were talking, Bogle sat with his head in his hands, in a kind of stupefied daze. He wasn’t causing any trouble, so we ignored him.

“How do you mean… a sure cure?” I prompted.

“Listen, young man, I’ve seen men die of snake bite. It’s a pretty nasty business. I’ve seen men of this little village pick up a coral snake and let it strike at them, and then put this ointment on. They feel no effects at all.”

“Probably they’ve drawn the poison before demonstrating,” I said sceptically.

Ansell shook his head. “I’ve given them a pretty thorough test. Rattle snakes, scorpions and coral snakes. Teopatli fixes any of these bites like lightning.”

“All right, where do we go from there?”

“I want to get the recipe from this Indian fella and I think Miss Shumway can get it for me.”

Myra stared at him. “Someone’s been out in
the
sun without a nice, big, shady hat,” she said.

“Wouldn’t you like to put your feet up, poppa?”

“If you were a few years younger,” Ansell said, between his teeth, “I’d like to smack some manners into you!”

I knew just how he felt.

Myra giggled. “You’re not the only one who’s thought along those lines,” she said, shaking her head. “One of them did try it. They had to put four stitches in his face and give him a pension.”

“Take it easy,” I broke in. “What makes you think this baby could get the stuff and what would you do with it if you got it?”

Ansell calmed down. “People all over the world are getting bitten by snakes,” he explained.

“Teopatli really works. Properly marketed it’s worth a fortune. It would be an essential part of any traveller’s equipment. I could charge what I liked for it.”

I considered this. If the stuff was really a cure for any snake bite, then, of course, he had something. There was not only a fortune in it, but also a terrific news story.

“You’ve actually seen the stuff work?” I asked.

“Of course, I have.”

“What’s the difficulty? I mean why can’t you get hold of it.”

Ansell snorted. “Quinti won’t part. He’s this Indian fells I’m telling you about. For fifteen years I’ve been after him, but the old devil just grins at me.”

“Where do I come in on this?” Myra asked cautiously.

“I saw Quinti a couple of weeks ago,” Ansell said. “He tried to fox me as usual, but I put a lot of pressure on him and finally got him in a corner. He told me that soon he was going to die. But before he die, a Sun Virgin would come to him and take from him all his secrets. She would have great powers of magic, her hair would be like beaten gold and her skin like the frozen heights of lxtacchiuatl. It was just his way of putting me off, but now I’ve seen Miss Shumway, I guess we could frighten him into talking.”

Myra sat up. “You don’t want me to impersonate a Sun Virgin, do you?” she demanded.

“Why not?” Ansell asked, his eyes shining. “With your tricks, your looks and a little bluff, you could do it on your head.”

I leaned forward suddenly. “Where’s this village you’re talking about, Doc?” I asked.

“It’s ten miles from Pepoztlan.”

That gave me an idea, but I wanted time to think about it. “Listen, Doc,” I said. “Let Miss Shumway and me talk it over, will you? I think you’ve got an idea that’d make a great news story. It’d be fine publicity for you if you get the stuff, but I want to sort out the angles.”

Ansell got to his feet. “I’ll give you half an hour,” he said. “I take it that you won’t run out on me?”

“We’ll be here when you come back,” I told him.

“Hey!” Myra said. “Whose side are you on?”

I grinned at her. “Pipe down for a minute, will you?”

Bogle got to his feet after Ansell had shaken him. “Talk!” he said bitterly. “That’s all we do. We came out here so I could kick this dame’s teeth in and what happens? We sit around and talk! Now, we go away so
they
can talk! Don’t we ever do anything else, but talk in this gawdamn place?”

“Cheer up,” I said. “You’re getting so many wrinkles, before long you’ll have to screw your hat on.”

He glared at me, then turning on his heel, he slouched after Ansell. They crossed the square and disappeared into a beer parlour that stood at the corner.

I settled further, into my chair. “Well,” I said, “you can never tell, can you. How do you like being a Sun Virgin?”

Myra’s reply was unprintable.

Some men like strong-minded women. They say they know just where they are with them. Me . . I give them away with a box of crackerjacks. The trouble with a girl who knows her own mind is she’s one jump ahead of you all the time. If you want to fox her into anything, you’ve got to do a double jump, and like as not you end up by buying yourself a truss. Anyway, I sold her in the end. That’s all that matters. I got her to see that for a couple of days’ work, she’d save herself a stretch in jail and maybe make herself a load of jack. Why bother with details? It’s action that counts. I had a lot to think about and a lot to do, but that’s not your worry. All you want to know is how it worked out, not how
I
did it. Briefly then, the four of us agreed to put up at the hotel. It was as good a place as any, and until we had worked out the details of our campaign, it was no use us floating around the countryside like peas on a knife. We got ourselves rooms and we settled down. As soon as I was alone, I put a call through to Maddox. When I told him that I’d found the girl, I thought he was going to have a stroke. It seemed he hadn’t got his story fixed and he wasn’t nearly ready for me to bring her in. Then again, he was dead set on her being kidnapped by bandits because he’d worked out a swell story how she had been carried off from her hotel by thirty desperadoes.

I told him what I had in mind and that slackened the pressure on his arteries. I kept talking and I could hear his blood pressure going down. After a while, he said I was smart and finally he ended up by wanting to kiss me.

The set-up was this. I’d take the girl to Pepoztlan and get the snake-bite angle fixed. That alone would make a swell story. On her way back from Pepoztlan, Myra would be snatched by a bunch of greasers. I knew a little greaser who lived in the hills and who would be glad to do the job for a couple of hundred bucks. I’d take a few photos and then pull a rescue stunt.

The rest was plain sailing. The whole business was to be completed within a week. Maddox thought it was a swell idea. The snake-bite business excited him and he talked about buying himself in. I didn’t discourage him, but I made up my mind that if any money was to be made out of thin I was going to be the guy to cash in. I got him to let me spend anything within reason—my reason and not his—and then I hung up. That was that part fixed up.

Then I put a call through to Paul Juden and wised him up on the deal. I told him where to send my bag, demanded some money, and asked him how he was making out with the nurse. He said he’d do everything I wanted and the nurse business was just a gag. He knew I knew his wife.

When I’d done all that, I thought I’d go along and have a talk with Myra. I wanted to know more about this girl. I wanted to take the corners off our friendship and find out just how strong her mind was. So I went along to her room, and put my head round the door. She wasn’t there.

I found her messing around the Cadillac under the shade of a banana tree. She looked over her shoulder when she heard me coming and then lowered the hood of the car.

“Come on,” I said. “See those mountains? Well, let’s go out and look at ‘em. I want to stand in the open with the wind against my face and feel that I’m somebody.”

She gave me an old-fashioned look, but something must have caught at her imagination because she got into the car without a word. I sat by her side and we jolted gently over the cobbles, through the square on to the main road that led out of Orizaba.

We didn’t say anything until we reached the mountain road and when we began to climb, with a sheer drop down into the valley whizzing past our off-wheels, she said suddenly, “We could go on and on like this and we wouldn’t have to worry about anything. And when we’re tired of each other we could say good-bye and both of us would have still less to worry about.”

“And the world wouldn’t have any snake-bite ointment and you and I wouldn’t feel very happy about it,” I said.

“You don’t really believe that stuff, do you?”

“I guess I do,” I said. “Besides, didn’t you promise the old man that you’d play along with him?”

She laughed gaily. “You a newspaper man and you talk about promise,” she said. “That’s a laugh!”

I looked at her. “What do you want to do, double-cross the old geyser?”

“I’m nor even thinking about him,” she returned, slowing the car as we ran past a line of ancient, weatherbeaten houses and refreshment booths, with their awnings over the street.

“No one dictates my life. I’m just saying we could go on from here and not go back.”

The Cadillac began to mount again, leaving the small town behind. I had no idea what the name of the town was and cared less. We were heading for the wooded country and signs of human life began to thin out. The few Indians, jogging along the roadside, straddling the rumps of their
burros
, became fewer as we went on. Then suddenly she slowed down, swerved off the road and pulled up under the shadow of the forest fringe.

“Let’s get out,” she said.

I followed her as she moved away from the car, and sank down beside her on the parched, brown grass. She looked up at the brilliant sky, screwing up her eyes against the brightness of the sun, then she heaved a little, contented sigh.

I found her disturbing. I don’t know what it was, but her metallic hair, gleaming in the sun, the white column of her throat, the curve of her figure under the blood-red shirt, her small finely boned hands and the courage of her mouth and chin got me. I found myself groping back into the past to remember any one woman I had known who looked as good as this kid. Pale ghosts paraded in my mind, but none of them clicked.

“Look, sister…” I said.

“Just a minute,” she interrupted, facing me. “Would you mind not calling me sister? I’m no sister of yours. I’ve got a name. Myra Shumway. We met. Remember?”

“You’d’ve been a better girl if you’d been my sister,” I said grimly.

“All you tough guys think of is violence. That’s your only reply to a woman, isn’t it?”

“What do you expect, when they feed us hot tongue and cold shoulder?” I asked grinning.

“Besides, a little violence works.”

“Get me out of this,” she said, suddenly turning so that she was close to me. “You can do it. I don’t want to go on with it.”

I thought, ‘If you knew half what I’ve got lined up for you sweetheart, you’d be climbing trees.’ But, I just shrugged. “Don’t let’s go over that again,” I said. “You’ll thank me in a week or so. You’re not scared of this Quinn guy, are you?”

“I’m not scared of anything on two legs…” she began.

“I remember, you told me.”

“But, it’s crazy,” she went
on
. “It’s all right to talk about it, but actually doing it… why, it’s crazy! I can’t speak the language. They’ll know I’m a phoney.”

“You leave it to Doc. He’s got it all worked out,” I said. “Why should you worry?”

She fumbled in her bag and took out a deck of cards. “There’s something about you,” she said, flipping the cards through her fingers so that they looked like an arc of a rainbow. “I wonder what it is?”

“When I was very young,” I returned, lolling back on my elbow, “my mother used to rub me in bear fat. It built up my personality.”

She leaned forward and took four aces out of my breast pocket. “Would you say I’m a serious young woman?”

I watched the cards flutter through her slim fingers. “Yeah,” I said, feeling my throat thicken suddenly. “More than that. I’d say you were a remarkable young woman.”

She looked at me with quick interest, “Really?”

“Hmm, I guess so. We’re going to know each other an awful lot better before we wave good-bye. Do you know that?”

She reached over to take the King of Spades from my cuff. I could smell the scent in her hair. It reminded me of a summer spent in England in an old country garden full of lilac trees. “Are we?” she said.

I caught her band and pulled her close to me. She didn’t resist, but let me pull her across the small space that divided us. “I think so,” I said, sliding my arm under her shoulders. “An awful lot better.”

We lay like that, close to each other, and I could see the overhead clouds reflected in her eyes.

“Will you like that?” she asked, her lips close to mine.

“Maybe—I don’t know.” Then I kissed her, pressing my mouth hard on hers.

She lay still. I wished she would close her eyes and relax, but she didn’t. I could feel the hard muscles in her back resisting me. Her lips felt hard, tight and child-like against mine.

She made no effort to push me away. Kissing her like that was as good as kissing the back of my hand. I dropped onto my elbow again, releasing her. “All right,” I said. “Forget it.”

She shifted away from me. Her fingers touched her lips carefully, “You meant that to be something, didn’t you?” she asked, curling her legs under her and adjusting her skirt.

“Sure,” I said. “But what of it? Sometimes it’s all right, but not this time. The trick is not to rush this kind of thing.”

“No,” she said, looking at me seriously. “The trick is not to do it at all.”

Then I thought what’s wrong with me? What am I trying to do? I’d got a job on my hands. I’d got 25,000 dollars just around the corner with my name on it, and here I am gumming up my chance trying to neck a kid that meant as much to me as last year’s income tax return. I guess it was her hair. I was always a sucker for blondes.

“Changed your mind about knowing me awfully well?” she said, watching me intently.

“I guess not,” I said. “I’ll keep trying. Did I tell you about the red head I met in New Orleans?”

“You don’t have to,” she said, scrambling to her feet, “I can imagine it,”

“Not this red head,” I returned, looking up at her. “She had a figure like an hour glass. Boy! Did she make every minute count!”

She began moving slowly towards the Cadillac. “So you’re not going to help me?” she said.

“Not after I’ve been nice to you?”

“What’s wrong?” I got to my feet and we both walked towards the Cadillac. “You were feeling fine about it this morning.”

“I’ve thought about it,” she said, getting into the car. “I don’t like the idea any more.”

“Give it a chance,” I urged, feeling the heat coming at me from off the dusty road. “Be big minded about it.”

“What are you getting out of it?” she said, starting the engine “You’re selling it too hard to be disinterested.”

“A story,” I said. “And, Pie-crust, if you were a newspaper man you’d know just what that meant. It’s going to be a beautiful story, with lots of publicity, and they’ll even print my picture.”

“You never give a thought to those folk who have their meat wrapped in your newspaper, do you?” Myra returned, driving slowly back the way we came.

I winced. “I wish you wouldn’t,” I said. “Wisecracks spoil your romantic appeal.”

She slightly increased the speed of the car as we began to descend the steep winding rood. Just ahead of us was the little mountain town we had already passed on our way up.

“Let’s stop and buy some beer,” I said. “My tonsils are dusty.”

We entered the town, drove along the cobbled main mad, ignored the group of Indians, lounging behind heaps of van-coloured flowers which they stretched towards us, and pulled up outside a little beershop. There was a long wrought-iron table and bench outside the shop, shaded by a gaily covered awning. A smell of beer and stale bodies came through the doorway.

“We won’t go in,” I said, sitting at the table. “That smell reminds me of a newspaper office.”

She came and sat by my side and pulled off her wide straw hat, which she laid carefully on the table.

A thin, elderly Mexican came out of the shop and bowed to us. There was an odd, worried look in his eyes that made me wonder if he was in trouble.

I ordered beer and he went away without saying anything. “Now, there’s a guy who looks like he’s got more than his hat on his mind,” I said, opening my coat and picking the front of my shirt carefully off my chest.

“These greasers are all alike,” Myra returned, indifferently. “They worry over which way a flea will jump. At one time I was sorry for them, but now, I don’t worry—” She broke off and looked pest me, her eyes widening.

I glanced over my shoulder.

Standing in the doorway of the shop was the fattest man I’d ever seen. He was not only fat, but he was big with it. I guess he must have been seven inches over six foot. He was wearing the usual straw sombrero, a
sarape
hung over his great shoulders, but I could see his neat black suit and his soft Mexican riding boots ornamented with silver inlay.

He leaned against the doorway, a cigarette banging from his thick lips and his black eyes on Myra.

I particularly noticed his eyes. They were flat like the eyes of a snake. I didn’t like the look of this party. He didn’t belong to the town. I was sure of that. There was too much class about him. I didn’t like the leer he as telegraphing to Myra.

“Isn’t he cute?” Myra said to me. “I bet he was twins before his mother cooked him in a too hot bath.”

“Listen, Apple blossom,” I said, keeping my voice low, “keep your funny stuff for me, will you? That hombre won’t like it.”