So come to Vermont, child…
Don't waste any time
looking for me in Port-au-Prince.
Come straight home!"
Is that his daughter projecting a reply
the way she did
when she found him in the boathouse
that day?
The way she did
the day her mother died?
Yes, but she is confused now.
All she seems able to say is,
"Daddy I don't understand.
Where are you, Daddy?"
And that other voice
from the evil red house in Legrun
keeps interrupting,
saying fiercely,
"I am not a patient man, Dr. Bell!
You test me at your own risk!"
32
Sam awoke in the night and heard Mildred talking.
His room was dark. Lifting himself on his elbows, he peered into the darkness and saw it was also empty. She was not there with him. Her voice was coming through the thin wall of wattle and clay that separated her bedchamber from his.
"But I don't understand. Please, Daddy … I don't understand."
He had placed a flashlight on the floor beside his bed on retiring. Now he groped for it and switched it on. He had slept in shorts and undershirt. Pulling on his sneaks, he stepped to the wall and pressed an ear against it.
Just outside the room's single window an owl softly screeched. A bad omen, the peasants would have said.
"Daddy, I'm wholly confused," Mildred was saying. "Where are you? One minute you say you're in Port-au-Prince and I must find you; the next minute you're back in Vermont and I should go home. If you're at home, when did you leave Haiti? Why?" A pause. "Now you sound confused, Daddy. Please… what's happening to us?"
Sam turned to the door. Opened it silently and stepped into the room where they had eaten supper. The table had been moved to one side, and the lady of the house slept on a mat in the space it had occupied. He had to step over her to reach Mildred's door.
At the door, he paused, listening again.
"Daddy, I don't know what to believe," Mildred was saying. "None of this makes sense. You can't be at home waiting for me and in Port-au-Prince wanting me to find you at the same time." There were tears in her voice. Tears of frustration, Sam sensed.
He opened the door.
Odd. He had expected to find her out of bed, probably standing beside it in a kind of trance-state as she conversed with her father. His flashlight revealed her lying in bed on her back, half covered with a blanket, her eyes wide and her gaze directed at the thatch overhead. He wondered what she saw or thought she saw. Could she sometimes actually see her father when they established contact like this, or did she only hear him?
"Well, I don't know what I'm supposed to do." A note of annoyance sharpened her voice now. "To leave the country, I have to return to Port-au-Prince anyway, so I suppose I'll look for you there. But where am I to look? Where? I can't make you out, Daddy. Vergeau? Is that what you're saying: Vergeau? Or are you trying to say Vermont again?"
Silence. Then, suddenly, she voiced a cry of alarm or pain and sat bolt upright in bed, the blanket falling from her to show Sam she had gone to bed in her clothes. She was staring at his flashlight, apparently terrified. He spoke her name as he approached her.
As he sank onto the edge of the bed and reached for her to quiet her, she grabbed at him, pressed her face against his chest, and began sobbing.
He let her sob it out. The kind of long-range conversation he had just listened to must play hell with one's nervous system, he thought. When she seemed to be herself again, he said quietly, "Want to tell me about it, in case I can help?"
"I … was talking to my father."
"So I gathered."
"But he had two voices." The flashlight, lying on the bed now, lit the confusion on her face as she let him go and leaned away from him. "He was two persons, Sam, each telling me something different. Where is Vergeau?"
He shook his head. "I don't know any Vergeau in Port. Could he have said Turgeau? That's one of the residential neighborhoods."
"Perhaps that's what he said. He wasn't coming through well. He sounded as if he were struggling, like a man tied up and desperately trying to free himself. All through the conversation he was like that. Just when I'd think I was really talking with him, this other side of him would take over and I'd get the feeling he was… well, being told what to say to me."
Sam said, "And when he was told what to say, where was he?"
"He said he was in Vermont then, and I should come straight home."
"But the voice you think was really your father said he was in Vergeau?"
"I think so, Sam. Oh, God, I'm just confused."
Sam looked at his watch. The time was four-fifteen. "It'll be daylight soon. Do you want me to stay here with you till then?"
Later, he wondered what she would have said had there been no sound from the sleeper in the adjoining room. There was a fair-sized commotion, however, as the woman awoke and got up, clearing her throat in the process. Apparently, her day began now—at least, when she had to prepare breakfast for guests making an early departure.
Sam patted Mildred's arm. "Just try to unwind for a little while. We'll soon be on our way."
33
They left Bois Sauvage at daybreak, the village emerging from the morning mist as they rode through. Sam led, with Tina perched proudly in front of him and constantly turning her head to smile up at him. Mildred was next, deeply worried about her father. Where was he: Port-au-Prince or Vermont? Kay, on her gray mule, brought up the rear, gravely pondering the relationship —was there one?—between the man and woman ahead.
Birds filled the eerie grayness with twitterings. Squatting women waved from charcoal breakfast fires, and naked children stared big-eyed from doorways that were still dark. A sleepy cock wandered under the gray mule's forefeet and, indignant, flew squawking into a cactus bush that injured his dignity still more.
What a country, Sam thought. I never should have left.
With Bois Sauvage behind, they rode on in silence, except for Sam's quiet exchange of chatter with the child leaning back against him. No problems, no decisions to make, until, long later, they approached the place called Saut Diable. In sight of that fearsome stretch along the Cliff face, Sam reined in his mount and slid from the saddle, reaching up to swing Tina down beside him.
"If Margal is going to try stopping us, this is where he'll do it, don't you think?"
"What can we do?" Kay asked.
He pulled a coil of sisal rope from his saddlebag. "I bought this from Tina's father with some vague notion of letting that gray mule of yours lead us through here."
"Letting a mule lead us?" Mildred said.
"Well, it's our minds Margal has been using to create his illusions, Milly. I doubt he can use a mule's mind. And this big gray is steady and reliable."
Mildred looked doubtful but Sam quietly proceeded to tie the rope to the gray mule's reins while she and Kay dismounted. He then ran the rope along the animal's back and said, "I'll give him his head and walk close behind him. He's not a kicker. Tina, you'd better be next."
Tina reached for his free hand. Kay and Mildred fell in behind.
"What if the other animals don't follow?" Kay asked.
"Let's hope they do."
Sam clucked the big gray into motion, and it stepped out with no hint of nervousness. Gripping the rope, he followed. The others, holding hands, moved onto the ledge after him.
Almost at once, the magic began.
It was a little different this time. Margal's supply of illusions was unlimited, it seemed. There was no darkness. No towers of flame leaped up from the valley floor, nor was there the reek of smoke, to make them think they were treading a ledge above some weird hell. This time, the sheer wall of rock on his left slowly dissolved into a field of green grass. The stone path under his feet and the yawning depths to
his right became part of it. With no rope to cling to and no gray mule to lead him, he never could have followed the trail's many convolutions. Sooner or later, he would have blundered off its outer edge and gone hurtling into the valley, or crashed into the rock wall on the other side. If the latter, he perhaps could have clung to the wall and worked his way along it to safety like a man walking a narrow ledge on a skyscraper, high above a city street, but he doubted he had any such composure. In any case, what about the others?
Briefly, he looked back. They were close behind him, in single file and holding hands, but, like him, they appeared to be walking through a limitless field of grass. Strange. In the short time he dared to keep his head turned, the two trailing mules came into view as though rounding a turn on the cliff trail, yet there was neither cliff nor trail. They simply materialized bit by bit until they were wholly in view. But, thank God, they did not seem to be confused.
Nor did the big gray. He certainly saw no puzzling field of grass, only that stone ledge along the face of the cliff. He clop-clopped on with consummate calm and Sam walked on behind him, looking straight ahead now, hanging onto the rope and finding enormous comfort in the warmth and smell of the animal's broad rump. Faintly, he could hear the thumping of the other two mules behind him.
"Kay?" he called.
"Yes, Sam?"
"Are you getting the picture I'm getting? A field of grass—sort of a meadow—extending for miles?"
"Yes, and no trail to follow through it. Just a feeling I could safely stroll off in any direction."
"You, too, Milly?"
"The same, and I'm scared."
"Just keep close to me. This mule isn't seeing any meadow. He knows what he's doing. Tina, baby"—Sam squeezed the small hand he was holding behind him—"are you all right?"
"Oh, yes, I'm fine."
Suddenly, Kay's voice, almost a scream, ripped through the stillness. "Mildred, for God's sake, what are you doing? Let me go!"
Sam froze, yanking on the rope to stop the big gray. Lurching around, he looked back. "My God," he breathed.
There was the trail again. The old familiar sliver of track snaked along the face of the cliff, flanked on its outer edge by that sheer drop into the valley. On it, the two women faced each other in combat. With her feet braced only a few inches from the edge of space, her breast and shoulders heaving wildly, Mildred had hold of Kay's hands and was doing her utmost to drag Kay to her. But they were nearly the same size, same weight, and Kay was resisting with all her might.
"Milly, stop it!" Sam thundered.
She heard him and flashed him a look of fury, her contorted face that of a creature only part human. Spitting like a maddened cat, she doubled her efforts.
It was more than Kay could handle. Inch by inch, she was pulled toward the brink despite a desperate struggle to grip the stone with her sneakers.
Sam let go the rope and went stumbling past Tina toward the combatants, yelling at the child as he went, "Don't move, Tina! Don't move a step!" Kay, thank God, had released the child's hand when Mildred turned on her. Otherwise, Tina might have been dragged into the struggle.
Suddenly, Kay's feet found a projection in the ledge of stone and she put everything she had into one fierce effort. Her breast heaved. Her shoulders strained backward, cording her arms. Caught by surprise and jerked off balance, Mildred lost the initiative. Kay hauled her within reach and swiftly freed one hand for a chopping stroke to the side of the neck.
With a wail of pain Mildred went to her knees, but furiously struggled to stagger up again. Kay bent an arm and smashed it against her upturned face, halting the effort. Just as Sam reached them, Kay followed that with a downward lunge that pinned the other to the trail, flat on her back with her feet beating a feeble tattoo on the stone.
Sam, not needed, nevertheless went to his- knees beside them and peered into Mildred's upturned face. Slowly, it emptied itself of madness and became only a chalk-white, stupid mask with vacant eyes. The eyes sought his and seemed to beg for understanding.
Before he spoke, he looked at Kay. Her expression had changed, too. Where there had been bewilderment, then desperation approaching terror, there was now only the slackness of relief. Her hands had been at Mildred's neck, holding Mildred down. She let go now and leaned back.
Satisfied that she was unhurt, Sam returned his attention to the woman on her back. "What the hell were you trying to do, Milly?" he demanded.
Her eyes needed time to focus. Dully, she shifted her gaze from his face to Kay's. "He told me to kill you," she whispered. "Oh, my God, Kay, I'm sorry."
No one spoke for a moment. Then Sam, still on his knees and still staring, said in a low voice, "He could see his thing with the meadow wasn't working. He had to try something else."
"I'm sorry," Mildred said. "Believe me, Kay, I'm sorry." Weakly, she reached for Kay's hand and clung to it.
After a while Kay said, "It's all right. We all know what he's capable of."
"But I almost did kill you!"
"Are you all right now?" Sam asked, peering closely at Mildred's face again.
"I think so. He doesn't… he isn't talking to me now."
It was just for a minute or two. We were walking through that strange meadow … all that grass where I knew there couldn't be grass. I pictured him working on our minds … that awful face of his with its terrible eyes and hideous mop of hair … and suddenly he had control of me. Then … oh God, he screamed at me to kill her."
Weakly sitting up, Mildred now gazed at both of them with eyes that seemed to focus better. "I suppose … I suppose I opened a door for him by thinking of him that way. Kay, I'm so sorry."
"It's all right, Mildred." Kay stood up and turned away. Suddenly stiffened. "Sam! My mule!"
The big gray had gone on without them. It was nearly at the end of the cliff track. As it went plodding around the sharp turn there, little Tina stood motionless on the trail where he had left her, gazing after it.
"No problem," he said, "unless the track becomes a meadow again. Let's get out of here before it does."
Reaching Tina, he clasped the child's hand and led the way along the cliff face, with Kay and Mildred following closely. The other two mules clopped along behind as though nothing had happened. The strange sea of grass did not return. Beyond the Devil's Leap, at the top of the long, steep trench, they found the big gray waiting quietly for them.
There were other bad moments on the way out to the coast, but none as potentially fatal as the one at Saut Diable. Fully aware of the danger now, they were on guard every moment. Especially Mildred, who freely acknowledged her special susceptibility and even seemed eager to discuss it.
"All those experiments with Daddy," she said during a rest stop, "I never thought they were doing things to me, making me vulnerable to people like Margal, but they were, weren't they? I wonder if Daddy was easy for him too."
They were still short of their destination when darkness forced them to stop. Alongside the trail, a small stream gurgled cheerfully through massive boulders, and Sam built a fire at its edge. Supper consisted of cassava cakes from Bois Sauvage and sardines provided by Paul Lafontant in Trou. After bathing, they retired to a mossy ledge and talked while waiting for sleep to come.
At first, the talk was of Mildred's father—where he might be and what the sorcerer of Legrun might have done to him during his stay there. He was in Port-au-Prince, Mildred insisted. Doing what? "I can't imagine, but I feel certain the voice telling me he had left Haiti was not his voice. I'm beginning to think Margal may have some awful power over him."
"It won't be easy to find him in the capital," Kay warned. "That's no small city."
"We'll start in Turgeau and hope for luck," Sam said.
Tina fell asleep then, snuggled against Kay for warmth and comfort, and the talk changed to a discussion of her chances for a decent future. She would be better off in the capital than in primitive Bois Sauvage, Sam insisted. "If, that is, this uncle sends her to s
chool and doesn't make an unpaid servant of her." Mildred disagreed, sleepily insisting the child needed her mother.
"Not that mother," Kay countered with a flash of anger.
Then the weariness of the day took over, the talk died, and the only sound in the forest silence was the quiet chatter of the stream.-
A little after eleven the following day, they reached the coast at Trou and returned the rented mules to Alcibiade. Sam paid for the animal that had been lost at Saut Diable. The shopkeeper, Paul Làfontant, reported that Alfred Oriol had not returned.
"More than likely, he fears you will tell the police about his attempt to kill you. We may never see him again."
At the police post, Dr. Bell's jeep was still in the yard. "He obviously didn't come out of the mountains here," Sam said to the corporal, "so where did he come out? We know he left Legrun."
"There are other roads he could have traveled. He could have gone all the way to Port-au-Prince by mule, had he wished, M'sieu. For me, the more important question is why he wished to go to Legrun in the first place. No sensible man would visit that place."
"He's not the only one to go there. We saw another white man in there—a German-looking fellow. Do you know who he is?"
"Did he speak our Creole with an odd accent?"
"We didn't talk to him."
"Too bad. But it must be the same man. About thirty? Blond hair?"
Sam nodded.
"He came here about six months ago, by camion from the capital, asking where he might find the bocor Margal. We told him, and he went into the mountains on foot. A strange fellow. We ask for people's names, as you know, and he showed us papers that said his name was Hans Hauser, but we think now the papers were counterfeit. He sought Margal, who is a black man, yet I think he was unhappy talking to blacks, even to us when he asked directions. He felt himself superior."
Sam nodded.
"When is friend Hauser, or whatever his name is, likely to return from that place?" the corporal said. "Can you tell me?"
"Don't hold your breath."
"It is like that?"
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