The shirt was white. Not very clean now, but still mostly white. Holding it by its tail, he flattened himself against the cliff wall and waited.
A thought occurred to him, and he asked the question. What will I do, Margal, if the woman alone goes over? The man will tell the police who did it!
You can frighten his animal, too, before he can turn it around in that place.
Yes, of course. He will be too startled to defend himself.
Mildred stopped. Looked down. Waited for Sam Norman to ride up behind her.
"Sam, I don't think I like this. Is it safe?"
Sam, too, looked down the trench. Frowned at its steep clay walls. Saw how slippery it seemed to be. "Hold on a minute." Dismounting, he walked on down the chute a few yards, peering ahead at its shadowy convolutions, then, with difficulty, made his way back up. "We'd better walk."
With his help, she dismounted.
"Better let me go first," Sam said. "Lead your mule by the reins, but let them hang loose and keep an eye on him. If he should lose his footing and start to come down on top of you, drop the reins and get out of his way."
She nodded, but her face was lined with apprehension.
Sam led his mule around hers and started down, following his own advice. Tricky. That night dew had been heavy here and the sun hadn't yet penetrated enough to dry it even a little. He tried to look up past his own lurching animal to see how Mildred was managing, but she was well behind, descending even more slowly than he. Damn Oriol, where was he when he was needed? He was paid to be a guide, not to go waltzing off ahead at a pace to suit himself.
A turn at the bottom? It seemed so. A chunk of sky was visible there so there must be a sharp drop into space, and the trail had to go to the right or the left. Should he call to warn Mildred? No. Better get himself past the place first, then walk back to help her if it was as nasty as it appeared to be.
Emerging from the chute, he saw where he was, saw the valley below him, how far down it was, and took in a breath that sounded like a mule sucking up water. Looking left, he saw nothing. He turned right and saw that the trail wound along a sheer cliff face. He would have to lead the mule away from the bottom of the trench to clear the turn for Mildred.
At that moment, a figure leaped out at him from a niche in the cliff wall. A howling, gone-crazy figure naked from the waist up, brandishing a white shirt. The mule shied, ripped the reins from Sam's hand, and reared in terror, slashing the air with its hind legs, then went over the edge with a noise like a prolonged human scream of terror.
Supposed to be Mildred's mule with Mildred on it, Sam thought, recognizing Oriol. "You bastard!" He dropped to one knee and took the fellow around the thighs as Oriol lurched in, unable to overcome his momentum. Dumped him with force enough to stun him. Then dropped him hard, both knees in the fellow's gut, and slammed a fist into his face.
"You murdering son of a bitch!"
But there was no time now. Remembering Mildred, he staggered up and ran back to the trench. Reached it just as she came in sight above, gingerly stepping down the last couple of yards with her animal sliding behind her.
"Easy now," he warned, with no time to tell her more.
Rounding the right angle, she saw Oriol sprawled in the trail ahead. Froze. Caught her breath but made no outcry, only turned her head to look in alarm at Sam as he came up behind her, leading the mule.
"Take your animal now," Sam said, putting the reins back into her hand. "I have to talk to this louse."
He went forward. Stood over Oriol and looked down and saw the man's eyes flicker open. Frightened eyes, their whites dirty and flecked with red.
"All right, Mister." Keep it conversational, Sam, if you want any information. "You tried to kill Miss Bell. Why?"
Flat on his back, staring up, Oriol rolled his head from side to side.
"Don't give me that." Sam picked up the shirt. "You took this off and came out waving it, yelling your damned head off, to scare my mule into going over the edge here. Which he did. But you were expecting Miss Bell's mule with her on it, not me leading mine."
Silence.
"Come on. Who put you up to it?"
No answer.
"You don't have any reason to want her dead, for Christ's sake. But you listened with both ears when I was telling Paul Lafontant about Dr. Bell, didn't you? Then you sneaked out of the shop, didn't you? What for? To send a message to Legrun that we were coming?"
Again, silence.
Sam turned his head to glance at Mildred, who stood there, wide-eyed. He looked at the man on the ground again.
"Why doesn't Margal want us to visit him?"
No reply.
"He doesn't, does he? He's so anxious for us not to get there that you would even commit murder to prevent it. Are you going to talk, Oriol, or just lie there until I get mad enough to kick you over the edge here?"
The man with the cantaloupe-rind face rolled his head again and looked fearfully at the rim of the trail. "I know nothing, M'sieu."
"What do you mean, you know nothing! You killed my mule!"
"Someone made me do it."
"Who made you do it?"
"I don't know, M'sieu. I swear! My mind was possessed. Voodoo!"
Sam was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Get over against the cliff, Oriol. No, don't get up"—as the fellow began to struggle to his knees—"just slide over there."
Oriol obeyed, still staring at him with those red-flecked eyes.
"Milly, lead your mule on by."
She did, stopping when she reached the guide's animal a few yards beyond.
"All right, Oriol. If we were going the other way, I'd take you to Trou and hand you over to the police," Sam said, glaring down at him. "Consider yourself lucky we're not. I'm taking your mule. You can walk home, damn you, and I'll be glad if you never get there." He looked at the man for another few seconds in silence, and then turned away.
Oriol watched the two of them continue along the trail, leading their animals. Watched them disappear. He pulled himself to his feet by grabbing at the cliff wall.
Stood there rubbing his jaw. It was beginning to swell. Maybe it was broken.
"No," he said suddenly. "No, Margal!"
A look of terror took possession of his face. Jerking himself around, he stared along the cliff passage in the direction his companions had gone. He was alone. There was no one he could call to for help.
He began feeling his way along the ledge, back toward the right-angle turn at the foot of the trench, as though the ledge had suddenly become only inches wide.
"No… no… I didn't! I didn't tell them anything!" he whimpered aloud.
You did. But worse than that, you stupidly failed me!
"I didn't know, Margal! How could I know they would not be riding their animals? Or that he would be the first to reach me?"
Very well. Go home.
Relief wiped the terror from his face as he groped along the wall to get off Saut Diable before the legless one could change his mind. Ah, good, he was around the right angle and in the trench now, with a wall on his right side, too, instead of that awesome drop into space. A rest, just a short rest leaning against the wall, not even sitting down, and he would climb the trench and go on.
The right-hand wall looked better for resting than the left. Not so mucky. Almost inviting, in fact. With a sigh of weariness, he planted his feet at its base and leaned back against it.
Only when he was falling, did he realize that the legless one had tricked him and he had still been on the cliff trail, not in the trench at all. And there was no wall on that side of the cliff trail to lean against.
His screams lived on in echoes for quite a while.
28
You've been wrong about Sam, Daddy. Yes, you have. Very.
She was not really talking to her father this time. Not that way. Just thinking what she might say to him when she found him. Riding along behind Sam, studying the breadth of his shoulders, she thought of how he h
ad handled their guide back there where the trail crossed the cliff, and then thought of other things he had done since their departure from Port-au-Prince. The friction between Sam and her father was a thing she would have to eliminate. Because—face it—she wanted Sam Norman, and Daddy would have to accept him.
You hear, Daddy? I want this man. Now, be quiet, please, and listen for once without interrupting. I know you think you dislike him, but that's unfair. Totally unfair. You liked him well enough in the beginning and were pleased when he asked me out. Oh, I know. What you really wanted was for me to keep him coming around so you could absorb his first-hand knowledge of Haiti. But you liked him, too, and only stopped liking him—don't deny it—when he refused to spend the summer with you in Haiti, helping you with your research. That was when you turned on him. Only then, and for no other reason. You don't like to be said no to.
Not trying to project her thoughts at this time, she expected no reply and received none. In fact, having mentally had her say, she was quite content to forget her father altogether and concentrate on other things.
Why, back there in Vallière, had she tried twice to go to the river?
Why had Alfred Oriol, who didn't even know her, tried to kill her at the cliff?
What was happening?
Her thoughts returned to her father, and this time she tried to get through to him. Daddy, do you know what's going on? Is that why you tried to reach me last night?
No answer.
If he really had reached her, had he known that she and Sam were sleeping together? No, it didn't work that way. It never had for her, at any rate. The day he was on the lake in Vermont, she hadn't known where he was until he told her.
The mule ahead had slowed. Sam was looking back over his shoulder. "We're coming to a village," he said when she was close enough.
"Bois Sauvage?"
"Must be." He looked at his watch. "Two-twenty. We'll have to stop here and ask the way to Legrun. I have no idea whether it's on this trail or on some little side track."
"All right."
A frown reshaped his mouth as he looked at her. "Something else I have no idea about is where we'll sleep tonight, Milly. A dirt-floored peasant hut, more than likely. Perhaps not even a bed."
She nodded.
She looked tired, Sam thought. Ought to be tired, after so much steady riding. Since the clash with Oriol at the cliff, they had stopped only twice, and then only briefly. "Want to rest before we ride into this place?"
"No. I'm okay."
He rode on. The trail had widened and there were thatch-roofed cailles on both sides now. People in the yards stared. So did the occasional peasant walking the road. Sam kept an eye out for someone to question about the route.
They were nearing the center of the village. The houses were closer together and the starers more numerous. He spotted a gray-haired oldster standing at a gate in a bamboo fence. Halting his mule beside the fellow, he raised a hand in salute. 'Bon soir, compère. Honneur."
"Respect, M'sieu."
"I wonder if you can help us. We're on our way to Legrun and are not familiar with the road."
"Legrun?"
"Yes. How far is it from here?"
"Perhaps four miles. But the road is difficult."
Sam turned to Mildred. "Only four miles, he says."
"Good."
"And how do we get there, compère?"
Opening his gate, the villager stepped out and pointed in the direction they were traveling. "Go straight on, M'sieu, paying no attention to a small road that goes downhill to the left. Just beyond the marketplace, which is closed today, you will see a path on the right marked with a cross to Baron Samedi. That is the way to where you are going, and it might be well to ask the baron's protection."
Sam had heard almost none of it.
"M'sieu?" The old fellow frowned at his lack of attention.
"Yes… thanks," Sam muttered, and swung himself out of the saddle. His gaze was glued to a spot forty yards distant, where a young woman and a child, holding hands, had stepped from a yard and were walking along the road's edge toward him. The child was Haitian, about nine years old. The woman wore a khaki shirt and pants, and was white.
Sam broke into a sprint.
The woman and child saw him coming and stopped. With a trail of red dust rising behind him, he skidded to a halt before them and stood there staring at the woman's familiar face with its dark, wide eyes and crown of near-black hair.
Her sensuous mouth was open in pure astonishment. She had not known he was even in Haiti.
Extending his hands, he slowly let them fall when she failed to respond.
Inside him the sudden bright light dimmed and went out. She still hates your guts, Norman. Why shouldn't she?
"Kay… how are you?" An inane question, but what else to say?
Recovering from shock, she let her pent-up breath out and said, "Sam Norman, what in the world are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, for one thing."
"For me?"
"Since I learned you were headed for here. I'm also taking someone to Legrun." He nodded toward Mildred, still seated on her mule at the gate. "Her father's a big man at the college where I teach now. He came here weeks ago and hasn't been heard from." Sam found he could not stop staring at her—her eyes, her mouth, all the remembered things about her—even though it was obvious she didn't care anymore. Just looking at her restored feelings he hadn't had about a woman since those days now long past. Finally, he said, "Is this the little girl from the hospital?"
"Yes. We've been visiting her friends. People who used to be her friends. Tina, this is an old friend of mine, M'sieu Norman."
"Bon soir, M'sieu." The child seemed strangely subdued, even sad, as she offered her hand.
Sam held the hand and said, "How are you, Tina?" Then to Kay, with a frown, "Used to be her friends? What gives?"
"It's a long story." Too long, Kay thought. This morning, in spite of that empty grave in the yard, she had said fiercely to Metellus, 'No, I won't take her to your brother in Port-au-Prince. At least, not until I'm convinced you're right about the people here. Today I'm going to take her visiting and see how people react. I just can't believe they'll reject such a lovely child!"
Now she had to admit that Metellus had been right, and there was only one solution to the problem. Thank God he had a brother who might give the youngster a home.
Sam said, "You must have got here yesterday."
"Yes."
"Are you staying long?"
"I plan to start back tomorrow, with her." She nodded toward Tina, who still clung to her hand.
"Taking her back?"
"That's part of the story. A long one, as I said. Look," she said, glancing past him toward Mildred. "Hadn't you better introduce me to your friend? Two white women in a place like this… If we don't speak, the whole village will explode with curiosity."
He led her to the gate and made the introductions. Mildred leaned from the saddle to accept Kay's hand. "I certainly never expected to find someone like you here."
"Your father is in Legrun, Sam tells me."
"We hope so. I'm almost afraid to find out."
Kay looked at Sam. "Have you ever been there?"
"No. Our friend here"—indicating the man at the gate—"was just telling me how to get there when I saw you." Sam at last felt he might touch her without triggering memories of their last God-awful night together, and lightly laid a hand on her arm. "Look, if you're starting back tomorrow, why can't we all ride together? That is, if Milly and I can get to Legrun this afternoon and find out about her father. If he's there and okay, we'll be taking him back at once. If he isn't there, we'll be leaving anyway."
"Come, talk to Tina's father. Perhaps he can help you."
Mildred frowned at her watch.
"It won't take long," Kay said.
She led the way, and Sam walked beside her, leading his mule. Mildred rode. At the house, Kay talked to Metellus while h
e watered the animals. "How long will it take these people to get to Legrun?" she asked him.
"About an hour and a half, M'selle, after the rains we have had."
"Why don't you go along to guide them? I've decided to take Tina to your brother, as you asked. If Miss Bell and Mr. Norman accomplish their mission in time, they'll ride to Trou with me tomorrow and you won't have to go."
Looking hard and long at Sam and Mildred, Metellus hesitated, then with obvious reluctance said, "Well, M'selle … all right."
"Don't you want to?"
"I will take them."
He's afraid of Margal, Kay thought. Well, I don't blame him. If a daughter of mine turned up alive after I'd buried her months ago—or thought I had—I'd be queasy, too. One thing she was sure of: The people of Bois Sauvage were afraid of Tina. On seeing the child today, most had refused even to look the youngster in the face and speak her name.
Metellus excused himself and returned in a few moments, astride a mule. To Sam and Mildred, as they prepared to ride out with him, Kay said, "I don't suppose you two have had much to eat today… ?"
"Some stale bread and a can of corned beef," Sam replied wryly. You would think of that, Kay baby. Bless you.
"I'll try to buy a couple of chickens and have a meal ready when you return, then." She frowned. "That is, if you will be returning tonight. What do you think, Metellus?"
"They have to, M'selle. Strangers cannot stay in Legrun. They will have to sleep here in Bois Sauvage somewhere."
"I'll try to find beds for you, then," Kay said. "Good luck, Miss Bell. I hope you find your father."
29
Along one of the few stretches of trail where they could attempt a conversation, Mildred said, "I like your nurse, Sam. Have you known her long?"
"Met her when I worked here, is all."
"And you've kept in touch?"
"No. She planned on working here a long time, and I never expected to come back."
As the old fellow in Bois Sauvage had warned, the trail was difficult. Their guide, Metellus, seemed bent on making it even more so by setting a furious pace. Damn the man, Sam thought. If he'd been in the saddle since daybreak as we have, he wouldn't be so eager. Had he been next in line he would have yelled at the fellow to slow down, but Mildred was following Metellus.
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