The Avram Davidson Treasury (54 page)

“Hark! Was that the squeal of an angry thoat? Or the sound of a hunting banth in the hills?
Slave! My harness
—
and my sword!
”

I
NTRODUCTION BY
P
ETER
S. B
EAGLE

When I began corresponding with Avram, he was living in Belize, still British Honduras in those days. I mention this because Belize—under the alias of “British Hidalgo”—is not merely the setting for Avram’s stories about Jack Limekiller, but is in fact the real protagonist of these tales. We never learn much more about Limekiller than that he is Canadian, pushing thirty: an amiable, adaptable man who, longing for adventure and a new life in tropical waters, sold his car, bought a small sailboat, and now lives aboard it, mostly in the Port Cockatoo harbor, in company with his first mate—a tailless, off-white cat. He seems a pleasant sort, and can play a bit of banjo.

But British Hidalgo we know; or at least Avram persuades us that we do. Long before “Manatee Gal, Won’t You Come Out Tonight” has rambled peaceably to its terrifying conclusion, we have come to believe in our own long acquaintance with the steamy, fly-ridden beauty of land and water, of the parrot-bright sky, the patient bush always waiting to take over, and the seductive imminence of what Avram calls its “timeless tropical forever.” It’s an ingratiating place, British Hidalgo, and a sleepily dangerous one.

I’ve never known a writer who so clearly understood the relationship between the rhythms and usages of a language or a dialect and the daily rhythms of its speakers’ lives. In the same placidly deliberate way that the inhabitants of British Hidalgo move through their days and tell their stories, so “Manatee Gal” at first seems to be meandering around all manner of irrelevant switchbacks and detours. Only in Avram’s own sweet, sinister while do we come—far too late for our comfort—to the realization that those were not digressions at all, but coils…

MANATEE GAL, WON’T YOU COME OUT TONIGHT

T
HE CUPID CLUB WAS
the only waterhole on the Port Cockatoo waterfront. To be sure, there were two or three liquor booths back in the part where the tiny town ebbed away into the bush. But they were closed for siesta, certainly. And they sold nothing but watered rum and warm soft-drinks and loose cigarettes. Also, they were away from the breezes off the Bay which kept away the flies. In British Hidalgo gnats were flies, mosquitoes were flies, sandflies—worst of all—were flies—
flies
were also flies: and if anyone were inclined to question this nomenclature, there was the unquestionable fact that mosquito itself was merely Spanish for little fly.

It was not really cool in the Cupid Club (Alfonso Key, prop., LICENSED TO SELL WINE, SPIRITS, BEER, ALE, CYDER AND PERRY). But it was certainly less hot than outside. Outside the sun burned the Bay, turning it into molten sparkles. Limekiller’s boat stood at mooring, by very slightly raising his head he could see her, and every so often he did raise it. There wasn’t much aboard to tempt thieves, and there weren’t many thieves in Port Cockatoo, anyway. On the other hand, what was aboard the
Sacarissa
he could not very well spare; and it only took one thief, after all. So every now and then he did raise his head and make sure that no small boat was out by his own. No skiff or dory.

Probably the only thief in town was taking his own siesta.

“Nutmeg P’int,” said Alfonso Key. “You been to Nutmeg P’int?”

“Been there.”

Every place needs another place to make light fun of. In King Town, the old colonial capital, it was Port Cockatoo. Limekiller wondered what it was they made fun of, down at Nutmeg Point.

“What brings it into your mind, Alfonso?” he asked, taking his eyes from the boat. All clear. Briefly he met his own face in the mirror. Wasn’t much of a face, in his own opinion. Someone had once called him “Young Count Tolstoy.” Wasn’t much point in shaving, anyway.

Key shrugged. “Sometimes somebody goes down there, goes up the river, along the old bush trails, buys carn. About now, you know, mon, carn bring good price, up in King Town.”

Limekiller knew that. He often did think about that. He could quote the prices Brad Welcome paid for corn: white corn, yellow corn, cracked and ground. “I know,” he said. “In King Town they have a lot of money and only a little corn. Along Nutmeg River they have a lot of corn and only a little money. Someone who brings down money from the Town can buy corn along the Nutmeg. Too bad I didn’t think of that before I left.”

Key allowed himself a small sigh. He knew that it wasn’t any lack of thought, and that Limekiller had had no money before he left, or, likely, he wouldn’t have left. “May-be they trust you down along the Nutmeg. They trust old Bob Blaine. Year after year he go up the Nutmeg, he go up and down the bush trail, he buy carn on credit, bring it bock up to King
Town
.”

Off in the shadow at the other end of the barroom someone began to sing, softly.

W’ol’ Bob Blaine, he done gone.

W’ol’ Bob Blaine, he done gone.

Ahl, ahl me money gone—

Gone to Spahnish Hidalgo…

In King Town, Old Bob Blaine had sold the corn, season after season. Old Bob Blaine had bought salt, he had bought shotgun shells, canned milk, white flour, cotton cloth from the Turkish merchants. Fish hooks, sweet candy, rubber boots, kerosene, lamp
chim
ney. Old Bob Blaine had returned and paid for corn in kind—not, to be sure, immediately after selling the corn. Things did not move that swiftly even today, in British Hidalgo, and certainly had not Back When. Old Bob Blaine returned with the merchandise on his next buying trip. It was more convenient, he did not have to make so many trips up and down the mangrove coast. By and by it must almost have seemed that he was paying in advance, when he came, buying corn down along the Nutmeg River, the boundary between the Colony of British Hidalgo and the country which the Colony still called Spanish Hidalgo, though it had not been Spain’s for a century and a half.

“Yes mon,” Alfonso Key agreed. “Only, that one last time, he not come bock. They say he buy one marine engine yard, down in Republican waters.”

“I heard,” Limekiller said, “that he bought a garage down there.”

The soft voice from the back of the bar said, “No, mon. Twas a coconut walk he bought. Yes, mon.”

Jack wondered why people, foreign people, usually, sometimes complained that it was difficult to get information in British Hidalgo. In his experience, information was the easiest thing in the world, there—all the information you wanted. In fact, sometimes you could get more than you wanted. Sometimes, of course, it was contradictory. Sometimes it was outright wrong. But that, of course, was another matter.

“Anybody else ever take up the trade down there?” Even if the information, the answer, if there was an answer, even if it were negative, what difference would it make?

“No,” said Key. “No-body. May-be you try, eh, Jock? May-be they trust you.”

There was no reason why the small cultivators, slashing their small cornfields by main force out of the almighty bush and then burning the slash and then planting corn in the ashes, so to speak—maybe they would trust him, even though there was no reason
why
they should trust him. Still… Who knows… They might. They just might. Well… some of them just might. For a moment a brief hope rose in his mind.

“Naaa… I haven’t even got any crocus sacks.” There wasn’t much point in any of it after all. Not if he’d have to tote the corn wrapped up in his shirt. The jute sacks were fifty cents apiece in local currency; they were as good as money, sometimes even better than money.

Key, who had been watching rather unsleepingly as these thoughts were passing through Jack’s mind, slowly sank back in his chair. “Ah,” he said, very softly. “You haven’t got any crocus sack.”

“Een de w‘ol’ days,” the voice from the back said, “every good ‘oman, she di know which bush yerb good fah wyes, fah kid-ney, which bush yerb good fah heart, which bush yerb good fah fever. But ahl of dem good w’ol’ ’omen, new, dey dead, you see. Yes mon. Ahl poss ahway. No-body know bush medicine nowadays. Only
bush-doc-tor
. And dey very few, sah, very few.”

“What you say, Captain Cudgel, you not bush
doc
-tor you w’own self? Nah true, Coptain?”

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the old man answered. “Well sah. Me know few teeng. Fah true. Me know few teeng. Not like in w’ol’ days. In wo’ol’ days, me dive fah conch. Yes mon. Fetch up plan-ty conch. De sahlt wah-tah hort me wyes, take bush-yerb fah cure dem. But nomah. No, mon. Me no dive no mah. Ahl de time, me wyes hort, stay out of strahng sun now… Yes mon…”

Limekiller yawned, politely, behind his hand. To make conversation, he repeated something he had heard. “They say some of the old-time people used to get herbs down at Cape Manatee.”

Alfonso Key flashed him a look. The old man said, a different note suddenly in his voice, different from the melancholy one of a moment before, “Mon-ah-
tee.
Mon-ah-
tee
is hahf-
mon
, you know, sah. Fah true. Yes sah, mon-ah-
tee
is hahf-
mon
. Which reason de lah w’only allow you to tehk one mon-ah-
tee
a year.”

Covertly, Jack felt his beer. Sure enough, it was warm. Key said, “Yes, but who even bother nowadays? The leather is so tough you can’t even sole a boot with it. And you dasn’t bring the meat up to the Central Market in King
Town
, you
know.
”

The last thing on Limekiller’s mind was to apply for a license to shoot manatee, even if the limit were one a week. “How come?” he asked. “How come you’re not?” King Town. King Town was the reason that he was down in Port Cockatoo. There was no money to be made here, now. But there was none to be lost here, either. His creditors were all in King Town, though if they wanted to, they could reach him even down here. But it would hardly be worth anyone’s while to fee a lawyer to come down and feed him during the court session. Mainly, though, it was a matter of, Out of sight, somewhat out of mind. And, anyway—who knows? The Micawber Principle was weaker down here than up in the capital. But still and all: something might turn up.

“Because, they say it is because Manatee have teats like a woman.”

“One time, you know, one time dere is a mahn who mehk mellow wit ah mon-ah-tee, yes sah. And hahv pickney by mon-ah-tee.” It did seem that the old man had begun to say something more, but someone else said, “
Ha-ha-ha!
” And the same someone else next said, in a sharp, all-but-demanding voice, “Shoe
shine?
Shoe
shine?
”

“I don’t have those kind of shoes,” Limekiller told the boy.

“Suede
brush?
Suede
brush?
”

Still no business being forthcoming, the bootblack withdrew, muttering.

Softly, the owner of the Cupid Club murmured, “That is one bod bobboon.”

Limekiller waited, then he said, “I’d like to hear more about that, Captain Cudgel…”

But the story of the man who “made mellow” with a manatee and fathered a child upon her would have to wait, it seemed, upon another occasion. Old Captain Cudgel had departed, via the back door. Jack decided to do the same, via the front.

The sun, having vexed the Atlantic coast most of the morning and afternoon, was now on its equal way towards the Pacific. The Bay of Hidalgo stretched away on all sides, out to the faint white line which marked the barrier reef, the great coral wall which had for so long safeguarded this small, almost forgotten nation for the British Crown and the Protestant Religion. To the south, faint and high and blue against the lighter blue of the sky, however faint, darker: Pico Guapo, in the Republic of Hidalgo. Faint, also, though recurrent, was Limekiller’s thought that he might, just might, try his luck down there. His papers were in order. Port Cockatoo was a Port of Entry and of Exit. The wind was free.

But from day to day, from one hot day to another hot day, he kept putting the decision off.

He nodded politely to the District Commissioner and the District Medical Officer and was nodded to, politely, in return. A way down the front street strolled white-haired Mr. Stuart, who had come out here in The Year Thirty-Nine, to help the war effort, and had been here ever since: too far for nodding. Coming from the market shed where she had been buying the latest eggs and ground-victuals was good Miss Gwen; if she saw him she would insist on giving him his supper at her boarding-house on credit: her suppers (her breakfasts and lunches as well) were just fine. But he had debts enough already. So, with a sigh, and a fond recollection of her fried fish, her country-style chicken, and her candied breadfruit, he sidled down the little lane, and he avoided Miss Gwen.

One side of the lane was the one-story white-painted wooden building with the sign DENDRY WASHBURN, LICENSED TO SELL DRUGS AND POISONS, the other side of the lane was the one-story white-painted wooden building where Captain Cumberbatch kept shop. The lane itself was paved with the crushed decomposed coral called pipeshank—and, indeed, the stuff did look like so much busted-up clay pipe stems. At the end of the lane was a small wharf and a flight of steps, at the bottom of the steps was his skiff.

He poled out to his boat, where he was greeted by his first mate, Skippy, an off-white cat with no tail. Skippy was very neat, and always used the ashes of the caboose: and if Jack didn’t remember to sweep them
out
of the caboose as soon as they had cooled, and off to one side, why, that was his own carelessness, and no fault of Skippy’s.

“All clear?” he asked the small tiger, as it rubbed against his leg. The small tiger growled something which might have been “Portuguese man o’war off the starboard bow at three bells,” or “Musket-men to the futtock-shrouds,” or perhaps only, “Where in the Hell have
you
been, all day, you creep?”

“Tell you what, Skip,” as he tied the skiff, untied the
Sacarissa,
and, taking up the boat’s pole, leaned against her in a yo-heave-ho manner; “let’s us bugger off from this teeming tropical metropolis and go timely down the coast…say, to off Crocodile Creek, lovely name, proof there really is no Chamber of Commerce in these parts…then take the dawn tide and drop a line or two for some grunts or jacks or who knows what…sawfish, maybe…maybe…
some
thing to go with the rice-and-beans tomorrow… Corn what we catch but can’t eat,” he grunted, leaned, hastily released his weight and grabbed the pole up from the sucking bottom, dropped it on deck, and made swift shift to raise sail;
slap/slap/
…and then he took the tiller.