Flight to the Lonesome Place (11 page)

“No, but—I mean—”

“I've heard how the Blue Boy goes for mangoes,” said the voice from the dark. “So I thought I'd get you an extra-special one. Bet you never saw any like it!”

“No,” Ronnie replied, his wonder growing. “I never did.” His fondness for mangoes had been well publicized, but almost no one realized how much knowledge he had acquired about the subject. This mango was not only out of season, but it didn't even belong here. In fact, he couldn't think of any place it did belong.

“I—I certainly appreciate it,” he managed to say. “It's hard to believe you just picked it.”

“But I did! Not two minutes ago!”

“You didn't pick it from any of those trees I saw outside.”

“Well, not exactly,” Marlowe admitted. “It came from one of the others.”

“
What
others?”

“Oh, don't be so nosy! Can't you just accept a good thing when it's given to you?”

“But, Marlowe, I can't help wondering. I—I know this is extra special. That's why I'm so interested. W—won't you come out and show yourself, so I can thank you in person?”

“Absolutely not! You just want to satisfy your overgrown curiosity. You'll accept me as I am, or not at all.”

“But I've already accepted you—”

“Not for what I am! I'm really a ghost. That's why I can't show myself.”

“But you're
not
a ghost,” Ronnie persisted. “I know better! In fact—”

“I am too a ghost!” Marlowe snapped. “I was even named for a ghost. If you don't believe it, ask Black Luis.”

Ronnie glanced at the suddenly grinning Negro, who was placing baked yams and hunks of cold fish wrapped in banana leaves on the table. “People around here think he's a ghost,” said Black Luis. “When they hear him and can't see him, they run. I mean, they
run
.” Black Luis chuckled. “But you didn't run. You're the first person I know who didn't.”

“I wanted to,” Ronnie confessed. “But I couldn't afford to. I had to find a place to hide.”

There was a sudden silence. Then Marlowe said in a puzzled tone, “I can't understand why anybody would want to hurt the Blue Boy. It doesn't make sense.”

There were a lot of things around here, Ronnie thought, that didn't make sense. Bernardo's tightening string was crazy enough. And Marlowe, to put it mildly, had given him a walloping jolt. Even now, when he had finally begun to suspect what Marlowe could be, it was hard to believe.

But the thing that made the least sense of all was the mango.

He placed the incredible fruit on the table before him, then started in hungrily on the fish. Between bites he said, “I had to run away because somebody thinks I know too much. The trouble started in New Orleans.…”

While he told what had happened to him, part of his mind centered on the mango. It was impossible, because it couldn't have grown here. There wouldn't be a ripe mango on the island until next spring, and that was months away. Yet here was a ripe one, finer than any he had ever seen, so fresh from the tree that the dew was still on it.

Where did Marlowe get it?

8

HAUNTED MOUNTAIN

RONNIE AWOKE SUDDENLY in the night, shaken by a dream as frighteningly real as the one he had had on the ship. He was sliding and plunging downward through wet jungle growth in absolute blackness. There was an instant of horror when he lost contact with Ana María Rosalita behind him, and Black Luis ahead, and abruptly began to fall, down, down, down.…

The dream had neither beginning nor end, but the terrible reality of it brought him upright on the cot where he had been asleep, to stare wildly around at his unfamiliar surroundings. Then, in the dim light of the lantern, he saw the half-eaten mango on the table. Instantly everything fell into place.

He sank back, trying to forget the dream, and wished he could have gone fishing with Black Luis. He had never been fishing in his life. But until he knew more about the area and had learned to find his way around in the dark, it had been agreed that it would be better if he remained out of sight.

“This island's crawling with people,” Black Luis told him before leaving. “You may not see them, but if they happen to be watching, they'll see you. And they'll see you for sure if there's money in it for them.”

It was something of a shock to realize that the price of safety was to become a voluntary prisoner in a cave. But there wasn't the slightest doubt that Peter, or whoever it was that had followed him so far, would be able to trace him to the spot where he had left the bus in the rain. The search would broaden. Soon every person living for miles around would be on the watch for him.

“It's the same with me,” the black boy added. “Everybody around here works for Don Bernardo. Either in the cane or the coffee. They call themselves my friends. Ha! You could buy half of them for ten dollars. They keep Don Bernardo informed. Last month one of them saw me in my papa's old house. Next day Don Bernardo came and burned the place down, then smashed the pump at the well.”

“But why?”

“Lots of reasons. Claimed it belonged to him. Claimed Don Carlos never really gave me the place. Claimed I was an—an undesirable alien and didn't want me hanging around. Told people if I didn't have water and a roof, I'd have to go back where I belonged. Well, I've got water and a roof he doesn't know about. It's all on my own property.”

“If Don Carlos gave it to you, surely you have a deed to prove it.”

“Of course he has a deed!” Marlowe exclaimed from the shadows. “It's in that tin box on the shelf. I'll bet that dirty
bribón
burned the house thinking he'd burn the deed with it.”

“That wouldn't make much difference,” he told them. “Deeds have to be registered. With a good lawyer—”

Lawyer, he instantly discovered, was a bad word, almost as bad as money. It brought a shriek of “Vulture!” from Marlowe, and dire mutterings from Black Luis. It developed that Black Luis actually had gone to a lawyer, the very man who had made out the deed in the first place, and who had often done work for Don Carlos.

“He told me to get lost,” the black boy spat out. “He told me I was under age and an alien, and had no legal rights since I didn't have a guardian. And he told me I'd better get back to Santo Domingo where I belonged, and fast, before the immigration people caught me. Then he said Don Carlos had made a mistake in deeding me property, but that Don Bernardo felt sorry for me, and would be glad to give me a little cash for my claim. I told the dirty
diablo
—”

“But you went to the wrong lawyer! Can't you see? Don Carlos is dead, and he wants the Montoya business. So he'll do whatever Bernardo tells him. But the whole thing is crazy. Why does Bernardo want to drive you away and take your property? With what he's inherited, I'll bet he's one of the richest men in the islands! He's got
thousands
of acres! Why does he want this little piece?”

I can't figure it.

“But there
has
to be a reason. Tell me what happened. I mean, you said you'd lived in Harlem. Why did you leave and go to Santo Domingo? If I can hear the whole thing, maybe …”

“Well, when my papa died, I had nobody to look after me but an aunt. When she decided to live in New York, I had to go along.”

“What about Marlowe?”

Marlowe grumbled, “Somebody had to stay behind and keep an eye on things. Anyhow, I wasn't wanted.”

“I wanted you,” Black Luis said. “But I wasn't allowed to take you. You know that. Anyway, when my aunt died, I wrote to Don Carlos in Santo Domingo and asked for a job. You see, my people had worked for him and his people for a hundred years. When he sent me the money to come down, I moved fast.
Madre
, was I glad to leave! I came here first and got Marlowe, then went on to Santo Domingo. Later, when the trouble came—”

“I know that part of it. But what happened after you got here with Ana María Rosalita? Why did Don Carlos give you this particular piece of land? Did you ask for it?”

“Sure. But not until he said he was going to give me some land anyway. He said land reform was coming, and the government was going to take land from people like him and divide it up in little pieces for people like me. So he wanted me to have the best of it. When I picked this place—and I wanted it anyway because I was born here—he said I ought to choose a piece that was worth more, a piece I could raise a crop on to sell. But I said no, this place had everything. My papa once told me a man could live here naturally all his life, the way a man should live, and never be in need.”

“Except for money.”

“Money!” the black boy exclaimed. “It should never have been invented. My papa said it makes slaves of everyone!”

“But you have to have it.”

Marlowe cried, “If people had the sense to live naturally, they wouldn't need it! In such impossible quantities, I mean.”

“Look,” said Black Luis, “if I treat this place right, it will give me money. It grows everything—oranges, limes, grapefruit, bananas, coconuts, mangoes, plantains, guavas, papayas, sapodillas, yes, and breadfruit even. And if all those fail me, I can get money from the sea. Right out there.” He waved his arm. “Standing on the beach. I don't need a boat. The water is deep a few feet out. Very deep. It is so deep the
Cristobal Colón
could come right in and tie up at the sea grape tree where Nicky Robles leaves my mail.”

“Really?”

“It is true. It is a valley, submerged. Two big vessels could come in there. And all the best fish around can be caught from the beach—snapper, grouper, bonito.…”

Ronnie swung his feet to the floor and started to get up. Instead he sat thoughtfully on the edge of the cot, and again went over in his mind all that Black Luis had told him. He was almost certain now that he knew the answers to two important questions. Maybe three.

But knowing the truth, he realized, didn't solve anything. It wouldn't stop Bernardo, and it didn't help Ana María Rosalita in the slightest. But first things first. If he could prove one of the answers—the truth about Black Luis' citizenship—it might save their hiding place for a while and give them time to make further plans.

But the very first thing of all was to get Ana María Rosalita safely away from Bernardo's house.

He wished they could take a few extra days to scout the place, but a delay might be dangerous. What if the Señora decided to return to Santo Domingo earlier than expected?

He decided they had better go after Ana María Rosalita early tomorrow evening.

A glance at his wristwatch told him that Black Luis and Marlowe wouldn't be back for at least an hour, for it was hardly past midnight. He got up and went to the table, and touched the money he had spread out upon it to dry. The afternoon's deluge had soaked through his billfold and dampened everything in it. The bills were still damp. Reluctantly he left them as they were, and hoped that Black Luis wouldn't come back too soon and discover them.

Turning away, he caught sight of his zipper bag lying open on the floor at the foot of the cot. He got out his copy of
Time and Duality
, then tried to adjust the lantern so he could see to read. The lantern, he discovered, was almost out of oil. He soon found that all the other lanterns, as well as the several lamps, were empty. Frowning, he got his flashlight from the shelf where Black Luis had left it, and went in search of a fuel can.

He located the can and a rusty funnel in a storage niche just past the kitchen area. It was a small can, and he was dismayed to feel the lightness of it when he picked it up. Hardly a pint of oil remained in it. As he remembered what Ana María Rosalita had told him, he realized that anyone without money for stamps would hardly have enough for necessities.

Very carefully, so as not to spill a drop, he filled the lantern. But instead of turning up the wick, he lowered it until it gave barely enough light to see by. The remaining oil in the can would have to be rationed. Only Nicky Robles could safely buy more fuel for them, and that might take time.

It was thirst as much as curiosity that drew him into the rear passage when he found there was no water to drink in the kitchen area. After some fifty feet he stopped abruptly, surprised to see a flight of steps curving upward on the right. He was tempted to climb them, for as he played the light over them he could feel a steady draught of rising air; evidently the stairway acted as a ventilator, and led to some opening higher on the mountain.

Then, faintly, he heard water running somewhere ahead.

A few feet farther on he came to more steps cut into the rock, but these led downward. He descended for a short distance into a circular room where three small pools, raised above the floor and fed by a tiny spring dripped one into the other and flowed away in a narrow trench. The trench ended in a dark fissure in the floor that probably carried the drainage out to sea.

Ronnie glimpsed the carvings on the wall and guessed that the Indians, long ago, must have used this chamber and its pools for some sort of religious purpose. The place certainly solved a lot of problems now. A cake of soap, a towel, and a blackened cooking pot by the lower pool indicated its present use. Beside the upper pool was a pewter mug, inviting one to drink.

It was the best water he had ever tasted. He washed in the middle pool and, refreshed, returned to his cot in the main part of the cave.

He did not feel in the least sleepy, and his intention was to put the money away as soon as it was dry, and think about Dr. Prynne's equations until Black Luis and Marlowe returned. He had never tried working any of the equations in his head. But, with his memory, there seemed to be no reason why he couldn't. Especially that last one, where he thought he had found a mistake.

Tonight, however, it was impossible to concentrate. New questions, and unanswered old ones, kept rising in his mind. Along with big questions, like the mystery of the mango, little ones clamored for solution. How did so much large furniture ever get into a place with such a small entrance? And what sort of creature was it that kept calling
co-kee! co-kee!?
Even in here he was aware of the countless voices that shook the dark outside.