Where Fortune Lies

by James Short

  “I don’t suppose you’re in the habit of saying grace.”

  “I always figure God knows I’m thankful,” Tomàs said unaccountably feeling guilty.

  Penny bowed her head and said quickly, “Grace from Thee to me, grace to all those present at this table, grace to every living soul on earth. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Tomàs echoed, wondering what her prayer meant.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. The conversation became artificial again. Near the end of dinner, in a tone that showed shaken composure, Penny said what was on her mind. “Tom, I apologize for being direct, but my condition requires honesty. As you’ve seen, I desire to live in this world the same as any other woman. I want to be able to take care of a husband as any wife would, and I want to have children. So what if it is a little bit more difficult for me.”

  She reached for his hand and found it, then went on: “I think I must be like my father, who I’ve been told never liked anybody to do for him what he could do for himself, even though he had enough money for scores of servants. You say I am pretty. I’m glad you find me so. Franklin says I’m quick of apprehension. I take him at his word. Neither are good reasons to marry a blind woman. But I am strong; I have energy; I have desires and passions. As I told you, I burned myself a thousand times learning to cook—I would have burned myself ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times. I love you, Tom. I don’t think I need to look further for a husband. You said you loved me. The question to you is whether you are willing to make a life with me.”

  “You’re the one talking about demands. I’m not certain you’re willing.” Tomàs tried to put bantering humor back into their dialogue and failed.

  “I want you to stop stealing.” She released his hand.

  “How do you think we can live? I can’t suddenly turn myself into a farmer.”

  “You can earn an honest living a hundred different ways,” she said not disguising her pleading tone. “If you can’t do what I ask you, tell me now. If you need to think about it, please come to a decision soon.”

  “You’ve no idea what I would have given you without demands,” Tomàs said coldly.

  “I don’t want things. I want a good man.”

  “Well, you didn’t fall in love with a good man.”

  “I guess I was foolish. My dearest love, heart of my heart, so be it. I hope I haven’t overly inconvenienced you.” She turned towards the window.

  Tomàs stared at her back, at the carefully brushed hair, trying to see whether there were the tell-tale heaves of sobs. He prided himself at being the master of any situation, yet almost never was with her. Anger welled up in him. Penny faced him again, the streaks of the tears taking away part of her prettiness, especially since one eye teared more than the other. Her lips formed as if she were going to say the word: go.

  “Damn your demands. Damn them for your sake as well as mine. You want to tell me how to live my life and think that if I agree, then I prove I love you. All that proves is that I don’t have the spine to be my own man, and I don’t think you’d be satisfied with a spineless husband. Marrying such a poor excuse for a husband, you will never be sure whether I am agreeing because I’m weak or because I love you.”

  “You are saying I’m to give my life to a man who puts food on the table and a roof over my head because he steals from other people.” With her fists clenched and legs bent, she had taken on a fighter’s stance.

  “I’d have you live with a free man who loves you because he’s true to himself.”

  “How true can you be?” She asked with bitterness.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You make your living by deception. How do I know you won’t deceive me?”

  “Because if I wanted to deceive you, I wouldn’t be so goddamn honest with you now! You seem to think you can demand goodness.”

  “Okay, I’ll beg for it.” A sob was caught midway in her throat. She turned the heaves of her chest into sighs then said, “So here we are, dear friend. You won’t stop being a thief, and I will never marry a thief, yet we both claim to love each other. My heart feels like it is broken, how does yours feel?”

  “Same.”

  “It may be we don’t really love each other enough yet. Let’s leave this unhappy topic. Franklin says you fancy Kentucky bourbon. He gave me a sip of the stuff. Awful! I told him that men must be half devils to like it. Franklin said I was right. I do have some for you. Let me pour you a drink.”

  Before she did, Tomàs took her hands, which though small, had a tight grip. He kissed her on the forehead. He avoided her lips, although she lifted up her face as if asking for him to kiss them. Whores are cheaper, he thought, and then, ashamed of the thought, kissed her, partly out of love and passion and partly to inform her as to what she would be missing. He suspected she was trying to convey the same message.

  “Come back tomorrow, and we’ll talk about everything but this.”

  Tomàs laughed, caressing her cheek. “Now you’re lying. I’ve never known you to drop a topic until it’s completely chewed up.”

  “I promise to try,” Penelope said.

  Deposition

  On returning to the office, Augustus poured April another cup of coffee and asked Aquino, “Has your lady friend seen Barnwell’s deposition?”

  “Are you trying to keep me here until you can get hold of your nephew?” Aquino poured his own coffee.

  “Don’t you agree it’s the one document she must read if she is to assist you in your treasure hunt?” Augustus couldn’t keep the corner of his lip twitching into a smile. He wasn’t as good a liar as Aquino.

  “Yes, by all means, let her look at it. In the meantime, I’ll use the bathroom downstairs, and you can phone your nephew. We’ll see if he can get here before April finishes reading. I think he may be unusually busy tonight.”

  Augustus shuffled through the papers on his desk. A photograph fell to the floor face down next to April. She picked it up. The name Beatriz Lopez was written on the back in a faint pencil script followed by the initials ALS. April turned it over. Augustus stood next to a girl wearing traditional Andean dress and bracing herself with crutches. The photo was quickly snatched out of her hand and replaced with a thin sheaf of yellowed papers. April settled down into the chair and against her will was drawn into Barnwell’s narration:

  “You ask me what happened; well, you know what happened because everybody knows what happened. Me and the Sheriff, we were the closest, we saw them go over the cliff, just like that, like it don’t matter one bit. You talked to him, and now you want to talk to me. Well, so be it. You got to talk to me, so I got to talk. Never had much problem gabbing. You asked, how’d it start? Like all things that turn out bad, it started with a good deal. Word got about that Mr. K, a local rancher, wanted to collect on a debt of a tough customer, and he needed a lot of boys to help him collect on this debt, and he’d pay two dollars a day. That seemed to me easy work for a man with the nerve for it, so I volunteered along with about thirty other boys.

  “We rode south twelve days until we came to this little town on this nice little bay in California. And as soon as we made our appearance, the sheriff did our job for us by arresting our man—Tom Deering was his name—and putting him in jail. Seemed like we had nothing left to do but enjoy ourselves. Mr. K didn’t cotton to paying us two dollars a day for lazing around and doing nothing, so he told ten of the boys to help the sheriff guard the prisoner in the jail and the rest of us to camp outside this big house on a hill where he was staying with this rich lady and her daughter. Oh, yes, and there was a darky who tried to meddle, but we soon got rid of him.

  “Like most men who haven’t made good on the promise of youth, I’ve never been swift at figuring out what I ought to know when I ought to know it. A lot of things didn’t become clear until later. I didn’t figure that the boss was more interested in collecting a payment in blood than hard coin. Me, always being so poor, would take money over blood any time. Also, I didn’t fi
gure that depriving a man of his life wasn’t enough for Mr. K. No, he wanted a five-course meal of revenge, take away everything the man loved and prized, and then see him dangle by the neck.

  “Well, Tom escaped, flew the coop, right under the noses of our boys. I’m just glad I wasn’t one of them guarding the jail because Mr. K would get back at them. Later on, of course, when he didn’t need them, but his getting back was as sure as the sun rises. Mr. K would get back at the sheriff too, Thornton was his name, for taking a meal at home instead of doing his duty and guarding his prisoner. Mr. K sent his boys out to look for Deering. Three of us stayed with the boss in case he got special information.

  “Well, soon Sheriff Thornton came complaining about how the boys were making a ruckus in the town by taking liberties with persons and property, and reminding Mr. K a mad town was not a cooperative town. Mr. K agreed and sent me off with the sheriff to tell the boys to act more mannerly, and also I could see he wanted me to keep an eye on this Thornton. After a while, the sheriff said he was tired of my gabbing, and he didn’t want me hanging on him like a cow tick on a cow’s rump, so I make myself scarce for a while.

  “Eventually, I decide to go back to the big house, but before I get there, I hear gunshots and all of this hollering, and then I see a bunch of our boys on their hands and knees in the dirt at the bottom of the hill. The boss rides up and begins to lay into the boys pretty hard for not catching Tom and the girl. I see Sheriff Thornton riding up so I make sure I arrive about the same time. Thornton said the reason the boys had stopped was because they had been shot at from behind the trees and had to take cover. Mr. K asked me whether that was true, and I had to say it was.

  “We heard a commotion down in the town. Mr. K sends the boys to find out what was happening. I stay put because the sheriff stays to talk to Mr. K, and I’m supposed to be with him. After that, the sheriff rides off promising to catch Deering. I’m obliged to go with my Sheriff Thornton. The sheriff leaves me off to enjoy myself at Madame Cherise’s, an establishment of accommodating ladies. He says he’s going to have supper with his family, then he’ll come by and collect me. He’s certain that Deering will try to escape with the young lady by skiff hidden in one of the coves once the fog rolls in.

  “So, about three hours later he collects me, and the fog is already in so bad that I can’t see my hand in front of my face, and we spend half the night going around to all of these little coves, trying to keep our lanterns lit and poking around like blind men for anything that could float and hold two people. After we had just about scoured every square inch of sand and rocks, the sheriff got the big idea to hide and wait for Deering and the girl to appear. So we go to a place, which he says is a good place to wait, and cover our lanterns. I tried to excuse myself, saying my friends needed help, and he could wait by himself, but he says, ‘Stay with me. You might be surprised by what else you find.’

  “I’d say the sheriff was lucky. He’d say he was smart, but here comes the wagon trundling along. Then I hear Mr. K shout, but I can’t see where he is. The sheriff jumps on his horse, uncovers the lantern and calls out to Deering and the girl, ‘Stop there in the name of the law!’ Stupid thing to say, if you ask me. Why say you’re the law when you know the very person who you are telling to stop is trying to avoid the law? Deering takes off. Then I see the boss holding a torch and riding out of the fog like a bat out of hell. He can’t shoot because he doesn’t have a free hand. He throws the torch into the back of the wagon and takes out his gun and begins to shoot. Thornton screams, ‘Oh, my God!’ Which were my sentiments exactly.

  “The darky we thought we got rid of then comes riding out of nowhere, grabs my lantern and throws it at Mr. K, then rams into him with his horse. They tumble to the ground, tangling like two angry polecats. Then I don’t see nothing for a second, then the wagon bursts into flames. The horses panic, and I see the burning wagon go over the cliff and the bodies fall out like rag dolls. Thornton’s horse dances on the edge of the cliff trying to keep its footing. The sheriff’s lantern then goes out, and the darkness is so thick that it beats me to tell whether my eyes are opened or shut.

  “A few moments later, the sheriff now without his horse lights his lantern again and has his hands filled keeping Kurtz from killing the darky. The other boys start to arrive asking about the gold, which I suspected I missed out on, then practically the rest of the town appears asking the same question. There was enough light now with the torches and other lanterns that I could see three beautiful double eagles right next to my foot, which you promised I could keep if I told you everything. I picked them up while Mr. K was yelling at the sheriff.

  “When morning came, which wasn’t too far off, the fog got more raggedy, and we could see the horses sort of impaled on the rocks, a smashed trunk with ladies’ things, pieces of the wagon caught here and there in rocks and tide pools and a half-charred half-white thing like a body just underneath the surface. I’m not anxious to hang around because even though the boys are whispering about how they were going to spend the thousands of dollars they were going to find, I figure what I got in my pockets which some might think don’t belong to me is about all I’m going to get.

  “On the way out of town, I see this beaner with his wagon with a body wrapped in canvas, which smelled to high heaven. He said the body of Tom was found on a beach to the north. It was pretty broken up. Next, he was going to get the girl’s body from the rocks so he could bury them right away. He would give me five dollars to lend a hand, but I said no. Then my horse split a hoof, and I had to walk, and then you caught up with me, and I said I’d tell you what I knew as long as I didn’t have to go back and face Mr. K.

  “I’d like to say I’m awfully sorry about the girl. She just got mixed up with the wrong company. Wrong company brings on more wrong company. Hell, men do it all the time. We get drunk, robbed, beaten up, and sometimes we get killed. But for a young girl to make just one mistake and then lose her life, it just don’t seem seemed to me fair.”

  Augustus and Aquino were in a heated argument downstairs when April finished reading the account. She noticed there was a side door and remembered an outside staircase leading up to the second floor. She had the sense this was her final chance to escape. She took a sip from her mug, reflected that for the last taste on earth she could do worse than coffee, and then quietly slipped out the door.

  Death Does Her Part

  April settled herself down on a bench at Point Partida a dozen yards away from the edge of the cliff. She was truly cold now. The dampness of the morning clung to her skin. She would go to sleep if she weren’t so sad. She would cry if she weren’t so empty. April closed her eyes and experienced nothing. Nothing—sweet oblivion, the universal balm, the washing away of all our futile dreams, the silken shroud of forgetfulness, what happens after God kisses us goodnight, the end. She wasn’t quite there yet. Grudgingly, April reopened her eyes. She was startled by the presence of a young woman seated next to her regarding her with interest.

  “Don’t say you don’t recognize me,” the young woman said.

  “Ravela! Strange I’ve never seen you before. I’ve only heard your voice. I always wondered what you looked like. Wondered, but I never imagined you would be so pretty.”

  “Do you like my dress?” She stood and curtsied, showing off a white dress, simply cut, which complimented her figure. It was tied around her trim waist with a black sash, the same raven black as her hair. Ravela had blue eyes, clear and unexpectedly soft, and a pleasing expression of wanting to please.

  “Yes, the dress fits you perfectly. Everything about you is perfect. But why are you showing yourself to me now?”

  “You wouldn’t have taken my advice seriously if you had actually seen how I looked. Now I have confidence you won’t make any mistakes.” Her voice had acquired a sweet tone, such as one would desire an intimate friend to have.

  “If I die, won’t you die?”

  ”Yes. And if you live, I will be forced to live.�
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  “You don’t want to live?”

  “Don’t ask foolish questions. Let me take you by the hand, and we’ll talk together while we walk to the edge of the cliff.”

  “About what?”

  “The necessity of doing what you are about to do—end your life. Don’t worry! No ranting, no sarcasm, no mockery, just simple reason, which you already know deep in your heart is true, yet are afraid to admit. Taking your life will end your pain. I can’t be clearer, can I? Taking your life will end your pain. Nothing else will. Drugs only postpone the terror. Alcohol brings the madness to the surface. And love? Yes, we will talk a little about love. What is the best way to make you understand?”

  Ravela squeezed April’s hand. “Imagine that because you are so afraid of death—which no one has ever yet avoided—you decide to live out your days. Can you endure any relationship very long? You couldn’t even bear the company of that good, dull Philip for a night. You won’t put your hand into the fire again. You simply can’t. Doubtless, April, you have some fine qualities, but you don’t have the stuff for happiness. Even worse, you are like those babies who are born without any immune system, except in your case you were born lacking the immunity against psychic pain. To live, for you, is to suffer. We don’t have to debate the truth of this. Here we are at the edge of the cliff. Let us look over. Notice, I’m not hurrying you. I don’t want panic or confusion. That would mar the simple, rational act of jumping.”

  They were at the edge of the cliff now. April was amazed at how beautiful Ravela’s smile was, how understanding and inviting. Her hand was small and warm, like that of a child. April had never felt closer to anybody or so comfortable. If she had experienced any comparable feeling towards Philip, things would have turned out differently. “You will jump with me?”