The Avram Davidson Treasury (55 page)

“And
thennn
… Oh, shite and onions,
I
don’t know. Out to the Welshman’s Cayes, maybe.”

“Harebrained idea if ever I heard one,” the first mate growled, trying to take Jack by the left great-toe. “Why don’t you cut your hair and shave that beard and get a job and get drunk, like any decent, civilized son of a bitch would do?”

The white buildings and red roofs and tall palms wavering along the front street, the small boats riding and reflecting, the green mass of the bush behind: all contributed to give Port Cockatoo and environs the look and feel of a South Sea Island. Or, looked at from the viewpoint of another culture, the District Medical Officer (who was due for a retirement which he would not spend in his natal country), said that Port Cockatoo was “
gemütlich.
” It was certainly a quiet and a gentle and undemanding sort of place.

But, somehow, it did not seem the totally ideal place for a man not yet thirty, with debts, with energy, with uncertainties, and with a thirty-foot boat.

A bright star slowly detached itself from the darkening land and swam up and up and then stopped and swayed a bit. This was the immense kerosene lamp which was nightly swung to the top of the great flagpole in the Police yard: it could be seen, the local Baymen assured J. Limekiller, as far out as Serpent Caye… Serpent Caye, the impression was, lay hard upon the very verge of the known and habitable earth, beyond which the River Ocean probably poured its stream into The Abyss.

Taking the hint, Limekiller took his own kerosene lamp, by no means immense, lit it, and set it firmly between two chocks of wood. Technically, there should have been two lamps and of different colors. But the local vessels seldom showed any lights at all. “He see me forst, he blow he conch-
shell
; me see
he
forst, me blow
my
conch-shell.” And if neither saw the other. “Well, we suppose to meet each othah …” And if they didn’t? Well, there was Divine Profidence—hardly any lives were lost from such misadventures: unless, of course, someone was drunk.

The dimlight lingered and lingered to the west, and then the stars started to come out. It was time, Limekiller thought, to stop for the night.

He was eating his rice and beans and looking at the chart when he heard a voice nearby saying, “Sheep a-high!”

Startled, but by no means alarmed, he called out, “Come aboard!”

What came aboard first was a basket, then a man. A man of no great singularity of appearance, save that he was lacking one eye. “Me name,” said the man, “is John Samuel, barn in dis very Colony, me friend, and hence ah subject of de Queen, God bless hah.” Mr. Samuel was evidently a White Creole, a member of a class never very large, and steadily dwindling away: sometimes by way of absorbtion into the non-White majority, sometimes by way of emigration, and sometimes just by way of Death the Leveler. “I tehks de libahty of bringing you some of de forst fruits of de sile,” said John S.

“Say, mighty thoughtful of you, Mr. Samuel, care for some rice and beans?—My name’s Jack Limekiller.”

“—to weet, sour
sop
, bread
fruit
, oh
-ronge,
coco
nut
—what I care for, Mr. Limekiller, is some
rum. Rum
is what I has come to beg of you. De hond of mon, sah, has yet to perfect any medicine de superior of
rum
.”

Jack groped in the cubbyhold. “What about all those bush medicines down at Cape Manatee?” he asked, grunting. There was supposed to be a small bottle, a
chaparita
, as they called it. Where—Oh. It must be… No. Then it must be…

Mr. Samuel rubbed the grey bristles on his strong jaw. “I does gront you, sah, de vertue of de country yerba. But you must steep de
yerba
een de
rum
, sah. Yes mon.”

Jack’s fingers finally found the bottle and his one glass and his one cup and poured. Mr. Samuel said nothing until he had downed his, and then gave a sigh of satisfaction. Jack, who had found a mawmee-apple in the basket of fruit, nodded as he peeled it. The flesh was tawny, and reminded him of wintergreen.

After a moment, he decided that he didn’t want to finish his rum, and, with a questioning look, passed it over to his guest. It was pleasant there on the open deck, the breeze faint but sufficient, and comparatively few flies of any sort had cared to make the voyage from shore. The boat swayed gently, there was no surf to speak of, the waves of the Atlantic having spent themselves, miles out, upon the reef; and only a few loose items of gear knocked softly as the vessel rose and fell upon the soft bosom of the inner bay.

“Well sah,” said Mr. Samuel, with a slight smack of his lips, “I weesh to acknowledge your generosity. I ahsked you to wahk weet me wan mile, and you wahk weet me twain.” Something splashed in the water, and he looked out, sharply.

“Shark?”

“No, mon. Too far een-shore.” His eyes gazed out where there was nothing to be seen.

“Porpoise, maybe. Turtle. Or a sting-ray …”

After a moment, Samuel said, “Suppose to be ah tortle.” He turned back and gave Limekiller a long, steady look.

Moved by some sudden devil, Limekiller said, “I hope, Mr. Samuel, that you are not about to tell me about some Indian caves or ruins, full of gold, back in the bush, which you are willing to go shares on with me and all I have to do is put up the money—because, you see, Mr. Samuel, I haven’t got any money.” And added, “Besides, they tell me it’s illegal and that all those things belong to the Queen.”

Solemnly, Samuel said, “God save de Queen.” Then his eyes somehow seemed to become wider, and his mouth as well, and a sound like hissing steam escaped him, and he sat on the coaming and shook with almost-silent laughter. Then he said, “I sees dot you hahs been ahproached ahlready. No sah. No such teeng. My proposition eenclude only two quality: Expedition. Discretion.” And he proceded to explain that what he meant was that Jack should, at regular intervals, bring him supplies in small quantities and that he would advance the money for this and pay a small amount for the service. Delivery was to be made at night. And nothing was to be said about it, back at Port Cockatoo, or anywhere else.

Evidently Jack Limekiller wasn’t the only one who had creditors.

“Anything else, Mr. Samuel?”

Samuel gave a deep sigh. “Ah, mon, I would like to sogjest dat you breeng me out ah woman…but best no. Best not…not yet… Oh, mon, I om so lustful, ahlone out here, eef you tie ah rottlesnake down fah me I weel freeg eet!”

“Well, Mr. Samuel, the fact is, I will not tie a rattlesnake down for you, or up for you, for any purpose at all. However, I will keep my eyes open for a board with a knot-hole in it.”

Samuel guffawed. Then he got up, his machete slap-flapping against his side, and, with a few more words, clambered down into his dory—no plank-boat, in these waters, but a dug-out—and began to paddle. Bayman, bushman, the machete was almost an article of clothing, though there was nothing to chop out here on the gentle waters of the bay. There was a splash, out there in the darkness, and a cry—Samuel’s voice—

“Are you all right out there?” Limekiller called.

“Yes mon…” faintly. “Fine…bloddy Oxville tortle…”

Limekiller fell easily asleep. Presently he dreamed of seeing a large Hawksbill turtle languidly pursuing John Samuel, who languidly evaded the pursuit. Later, he awoke, knowing that he knew what had awakened him, but for the moment unable to name it. The awakeners soon enough identified themselves. Manatees. Sea-cows. The most harmless creatures God ever made. He drowsed off again, but again and again he lightly awoke and always he could hear them sighing and sounding.

Early up, he dropped his line, made a small fire in the sheet-iron caboose set in its box of sand, and put on the pot of rice and beans to cook in coconut oil. The head and tail of the first fish went into a second pot, the top of the double boiler, to make fish-tea, as the chowder was called; when they were done, he gave them to Skippy. He fried the fillets with sliced breadfruit, which had as near no taste of its own as made no matter, but was a great extender of tastes. The second fish he cut and corned—that is, he spread coarse salt on it: there was nothing else to do to preserve it in this hot climate, without ice, and where the art of smoking fish was not known. And more than those two he did not bother to take, he had no license for commercial fishing, could not sell a catch in the market, and the “sport” of taking fish he could neither eat nor sell, and would have to throw back, was a pleasure which eluded his understanding.

It promised to be a hot day and it kept its promise, and he told himself, as he often did on hot, hot days, that it beat shoveling snow in Toronto.

He observed a vacant mooring towards the south of town, recollected that it always had been vacant, and so, for no better reason than that, he tied up to it. Half of the remainder of his catch came ashore with him. This was too far south for any plank houses or tin roofs. Port Cockatoo at both ends straggled out into “trash houses,” as they were called—sides of wild cane allowing the cooling breezes to pass, and largely keeping out the brute sun; roofs of thatch, usually of the bay or cohune palm. The people were poorer here than elsewhere in this town where no one at all by North American standards was rich, but “trash” had no reference to that:
Loppings, twigs, and leaves of trees, bruised sugar cane, corn husks, etc.
, his dictionary explained.

An old, old woman in the ankle-length skirts and the kerchief of her generation stood in the doorway of her little house and looked, first at him, then at his catch. And kept on looking at it. All the coastal people of Hidalgo were fascinated by fish: rice and beans was the staple dish, but fish was the roast beef, the steak, the chicken, of this small, small country which had never been rich and was now—with the growing depletion of its mahogany and rosewood—even poorer than ever. Moved, not so much by conscious consideration of this as by a sudden impulse, he held up his hand and what it was holding. “Care for some corned fish, Grandy?”

Automatically, she reached out her tiny, dark hand, all twisted and withered, and took it. Her lips moved. She looked from the fish to him and from him to the fish; asked, doubtfully, “How much I have for you?”—meaning, how much did she owe him.

“Your prayers,” he said, equally on impulse.

Her head flew up and she looked at him full in the face, then. “T’ank you, Buckra,” she said. “And I weel do so. I weel pray for you.” And she went back into her trash house.

Up the dusty, palm-lined path a ways, just before it branched into the cemetery road and the front street, he encountered Mr. Stuart—white-haired, learned, benevolent, deaf, and vague—and wearing what was surely the very last sola topee in everyday use in the Western Hemisphere (and perhaps, what with one thing and another, in the Eastern, as well).

“Did you hear the baboons last night?” asked Mr. Stuart.

Jack knew that “baboons,” hereabouts, were howler-monkeys. Even their daytime noises, a hollow and repetitive
Rrrr-Rrrr-Rrrr,
sounded uncanny enough; as for their night-time wailings—

“I was anchored offshore, down the coast, last night,” he explained. “All I heard were the manatees.”

Mr. Stuart looked at him with faint, grey eyes, smoothed his long moustache. “Ah,
those
poor chaps,” he said. “They’ve slipped back down the scale…much too far down, I expect, for any quick return. Tried to help them, you know. Tried the Herodotus method. Carthaginians. Mute trade, you know. Set out some bright red cloth, put trade-goods on, went away. Returned. Things were knocked about, as though animals had been at them.
Some
of the items were gone, though. But nothing left in return. Too bad, oh yes, too bad …” His voice died away into a low moan, and he shook his ancient head. In another moment, before Jack could say anything, or even think of anything to say, Mr. Stuart had flashed him a smile of pure friendliness, and was gone. A bunch of flowers was in one hand, and the path he took was the cemetery road. He had gone to visit one of “the great company of the dead, which increase around us as we grow older.”

From this mute offering, laid also upon the earth, nothing would be expected in return. There are those whom we do not see and whom we do not desire that they should ever show themselves at all.

The shop of Captain Cumberbatch was open. The rules as to what stores or offices were open and closed at which times were exactly the opposite of the laws of the Medes and the Persians. The time to go shopping was when one saw the shop open. Any shop. They opened, closed, opened, closed… And as to why stores with a staff of only one closed so often, why, they closed not only to allow the proprietor to siesta, they also closed to allow him to eat. It was no part of the national culture for Ma to send Pa’s “tea” for Pa to eat behind the counter: Pa came home. Period. And as for establishments with a staff of more than one, why could the staff not have taken turns? Answer: De baas, of whatsoever race, creed, or color, might trust an employee with his life, but he would never trust his employee with his cash or stock, never, never, never.

Captain Cumberbatch had for many years puffed up and down the coast in his tiny packet-and-passenger boat, bringing cargo merchandise for the shopkeepers of Port Caroline, Port Cockatoo, and—very, very semioccasionally—anywhere else as chartered. But some years ago he had swallowed the anchor and set up business as shopkeeper in Port Cockatoo. And one day an epiphany of sorts had occurred: Captain Cumberbatch had asked himself why he should bring cargo for others to sell and/or why he should pay others to bring cargo for he himself to sell. Why should he not bring his own cargo and sell it himself?

The scheme was brilliant as it was unprecedented. And indeed it had but one discernable flaw: Whilst Captain Cumberbatch was at sea, he could not tend shop to sell what he had shipped. And while he was tending his shop he could not put to sea to replenish stock. And, tossing ceasely from the one horn of this dilemma to the other, he often thought resentfully of the difficulties of competing with such peoples as the Chinas, Turks, and ’Paniards, who—most unfairly—were able to trust the members of their own families to mind the store.