The Darkest Heart

by Dan Smith

  And I had protected Sister Beckett.

  ‘Then you feel like you did something right?’ Daniella asked.

  I glanced back at Sister Beckett and remembered my mistake when I had called her by name. Did she know my intention? ‘God knows why I bothered,’ I said, still watching. ‘God knows why I didn’t let them just ...’ I thought about Costa’s money, and in my mind I saw Sister Beckett lying dead by another man’s hand. I could have earned the money without ever having to harm her. But I would have been instrumental in her death, and back there, I had acted without thinking. I had saved Sister Beckett’s life.

  That had been my instinct. To protect, not to kill.

  Perhaps she was the key to casting off the shadow.

  ‘No,’ I turned back to Daniella. ‘It doesn’t feel like anything. I did it and it’s done. But for her, though, for Dolores, it’s not like that. For her it’s like someone opened her eyes to the real world, thinking she could float through it with words and good intentions. I had to kill four men to protect her life. And her friend killed a man, too.’

  ‘Kássia?’

  ‘Cut his throat. So much for being armed only with words and smiles. The way she did it, I’d say she’s done it before. I’ve seen experts slaughter animals in the same way.’ I put a finger to the hollow in my neck. ‘She took her knife and ...’ I saw the distaste on Daniella’s face and realised I had been lost in my own thoughts. She didn’t need to know the detail. I cleared my throat. ‘She dressed her wound better than I would’ve done and she didn’t lose her nerve. Not once. I reckon she’s carrying more than a knife, too.’

  It was Daniella’s turn to look at the two women sitting opposite Leonardo.

  Sister Beckett was leaning back, her face to the sky.

  ‘She doesn’t only have to deal with what I’ve done in her name,’ I said. ‘She has to deal with what her companion has done. And she has to deal with being wrong.’

  Daniella took a cigarette from the packet on the shelf under the wheel and put one between her lips. She lit it with a plastic lighter and took a drag. I wished I smoked, seeing the pleasure it gave her. The calming effect.

  ‘You had cigarettes all this time?’ Leonardo called from behind us. ‘Are you going to let me have one?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what all the shooting was about, then?’ Those women won’t tell me shit. Did you have to shoot someone and show them what a bad man you are? I told you we’re not so different.’

  I left the wheelhouse and went to where Leonardo was secured. ‘The difference is that you would have been one of them.’

  ‘Them? You mean the kind of people who would do what I saw on that beach back there? The kind of people who would kill women? You saying you’ve never done something like—’

  I grabbed the scruff of his shirt and pulled him close. ‘I’m nothing like you, Leonardo. Nothing.’ I pushed him back against the gunwale and pulled him forward again. ‘Who are they for? Who are the guns for?’

  Leonardo shrugged.

  ‘Who?’ I banged him against the gunwale once more.

  ‘I’II die before I tell you that.’ He grinned. ‘But you know that.’

  I pushed him back against the gunwale and released him, turning to walk away before I did something worse.

  ‘You’ve got bad things in you, Zico,’ he called after me. ‘Bad things.’

  47

  There was almost no light left in the sky when we reached Mina dos Santos, and it would’ve been easy to glide past and not notice it, nestled in the dusk.

  There was very little on the riverside to suggest there was any kind of community hiding just half a kilometre onshore. A cleared area of trees, a permanent beach, a small wooden jetty of no more than a couple of metres. There were two outboards moored there, the engines tipped forward to lift the long propeller shafts from the water, and there was a dugout canoe pulled up onto the sand.

  Nothing else.

  I cut the engine and slid the Deus towards the bank, keeping her to the darker water. All was quiet.

  ‘This is it?’ Daniella said to me. Her voice was close to a whisper. ‘I expected more boats. People,’

  ‘Most people come by road.’

  ‘Unless they’re carrying weapons, right?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So what about her?’ Daniella asked. ‘Why is she coming here? And why by boat?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

  ‘I did. When you were asleep.’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘FUNAI work.’

  ‘Then that’s all she wants you to know.’ I looked at the shore and changed the subject. ‘We’ll let them leave and we’ll go later; get some supplies for the return journey.’

  ‘Why not now?’

  ‘We can be alone for a while,’ I said. ‘We’ll have the boat to ourselves. There’s no hurry to go ashore.’ Sister Beckett wouldn’t be going anywhere tonight, and Leonardo would need to find his contact.

  I took her hands and put them on the wheel, saying, ‘Guide us in.’

  Once we were close enough, I jumped down onto the cracked and crooked planks of the jetty, and tied the Deus off before climbing back on.

  ‘Well, you got us here in one piece,’ said Sister Beckett.

  ‘Not a very comfortable ride, though, was it?’ Leonardo grumbled from his seat. ‘It’s starting to get cold, you know.’

  She ignored him and came closer to me. ‘I should be grateful to you. I should be grateful but I can’t find it in myself. It’s wrong for me to be glad to be alive when another has had to ...’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘You understand?’

  ‘Those men deserved everything I did to them but you don’t know how to deal with it. I understand that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you.’

  ‘And for Kássia.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll listen next time. Even to someone like me.’

  ‘I misjudged you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Sister Beckett took off her glasses and cleaned them on her T-shirt. ‘I learned something today,’ she said, ‘but I’m not sure what it is yet.’ She replaced her glasses and stared at me with magnified eyes. ‘I just want to be away from here now.’

  ‘That’s what we all want.’

  While Sister Beckett and her companion collected their belongings, I went to Leonardo and squatted in front of him. I leaned close and spoke quietly. ‘Who are the guns for?’

  ‘You know I’m not going to tell you that.’

  ‘For the kind of people who do things like we saw back there in that settlement? Is that who?’

  ‘What do you care? You’ll get paid, that’s all that matters. You want to come all this way for nothing?’

  I watched him, wondering if it was all that mattered. Those guns could kill a lot of people. Would all those lives lie on my conscience?

  ‘I’m going to cut you loose,’ I said, ‘so you can make contact with your people.’

  ‘You coming?’ Leonardo looked past me, watching Sister Beckett and her companion.

  ‘No. I’m staying here with your guns. You come back to this jetty tomorrow morning, bring the money, and you can have the guns.’

  ‘You’re a smart man, Zico. Smarter than I thought.’

  ‘Hmm. We’ll see about that.’ Maybe a smart man would have let Sister Beckett die out there in the settlement. Take Costa’s money for nothing. But, instead, I had protected her.

  ‘That woman,’ Leonardo said. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Her name is Dolores.’

  ‘Yeah, but who is she? I mean, why do you have a picture of her in your pocket?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘I’ve seen her somewhere else, too,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen her before.’

  ‘I’m going to cut you loose now. Don’t give me any reason to take out my weap
on. No one wants that.’

  ‘What about my clothes? You’re not going to make me go into Mina dos Santos in just my shorts?’

  I took out my knife and leaned across to cut the cable tie that kept him connected to the upright. He then offered me his hand so that I could cut the other tie, and I slipped the blade under the plastic and looked at him. ‘Don’t give me any reason to kill you.’

  He stared at me. ‘If I were you, I would do it now. You don’t kill me now, you’ll be looking back every day.’

  ‘You don’t frighten me,’ I said, pulling the knife upwards and cutting the tie.

  ‘Yes I do. Not because you think I might kill you, though, but because you think I’ll do something to her.’ He looked over at Daniella standing by the wheelhouse.

  I dragged Leonardo to his feet and followed him to the gunwale, waiting for him to climb over before I threw down his clothes and backpack. He didn’t offer to help with Sister Beckett’s bags, so I dropped them onto the jetty for her and Kássia and I helped her down.

  Leonardo pulled on his shirt and trousers and waited for the two women, as if his intention was to go with them into Mina dos Santos and hide behind their respectability. I might have been wrong, but Sister Beckett didn’t seem to look at Leonardo in the same way as she had when she’d first come aboard. There was an edge of suspicion in her eyes now. She had seen something she never expected to see, and she had learned a new lesson.

  Words were not always enough.

  As they were about to walk away, Sister Beckett came back to me and looked up, beckoning with one hand.

  ‘Are you not going to come ashore with us? Send help for Santiago?’

  ‘No one will go out in the dark,’ I said. ‘He knows that. For now, Daniella and I are going to have some time alone.’

  ‘Don’t you think she needs to get off the boat?’

  ‘What she needs is a bit of calm.’ I nodded my head at the path into the trees. ‘And there’s not much calm to be had in there.’

  Sister Beckett smiled. ‘I was looking at the name of your boat and thinking it’s appropriate. God and the Devil. Which one lives in your heart?’

  ‘Maybe both.’

  ‘Can I ask you something, Zico?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Why do you have a photograph of me in your pocket?’

  Without thinking, I touched a hand to the place over my heart. The cotton under my fingers was soft and I could feel the outline of the folded newspaper. ‘I told you, I don’t have—’

  ‘Are you sure? Is there something you want to tell me? In all the time I was on your boat, you never once asked me why I was here or who I was.’

  ‘Daniella asked. You told her you work for FUNAI.’

  ‘That’s right, Zico, I do. But you know a bit more than that, don’t you? You called me by my name.’

  ‘I must have recognised you.’

  ‘From the photograph? The one in your pocket?’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here alone,’ I told her.

  ‘I’m not alone. I’m never alone.’

  ‘Kássia won’t always be able to protect you. Not on her own.’

  ‘Even without Kássia,’ she said looking up, ‘I am never alone.’

  ‘He can’t help you. Not from bullets.’

  ‘But that’s just it, Zico, don’t you see? He can. He provides his own protection. He sent you.’

  48

  Daniella and I climbed down onto the jetty and sat on the sand for a while, positioning ourselves so we could see the cut into the trees bordering the narrow strip of beach. The barrier of forest that hid the mine from view was deep and thick and impenetrable. If anyone were going to come, they would have to use the path.

  Two hundred metres upriver was a tributary, too small for any boat to navigate, flowing from the mine. That small stream was poisonous with the pollution running down from the operations, contaminated with mercury and sure to kill everything that lived in the water there. If the mine were to expand, that tributary would be widened and the volume of spoiled water would increase. It was just the kind of thing someone like Sister Beckett would try to fight. But maybe the Indians would fight too, and it might require a lot of guns to keep them down.

  Beyond the narrow inlet, the approaching night had swallowed the river and the trees.

  It felt good to be off the boat, to be alone. My mind was still burdened with countless worries, but at least Leonardo was gone and Sister Beckett was out of sight.

  ‘You don’t think he’ll come back?’ Daniella asked.

  ‘Leonardo? I don’t think so, not tonight. The light’s almost gone; it’ll be too dark. He won’t be able to see if he comes back.’ I sat up and moved so I was behind her. I slipped my legs either side of her and reached out to loosen her hair, arranging it around her shoulders. ‘Anyway, he’ll be tired and sore. If I were him, I’d want to rest, think about what I was going to do.’

  ‘And what would that be?’ Daniella tilted her head back towards me.

  I watched the line of trees as I ran my fingers through her hair. ‘Exactly what I told him; come back tomorrow with the payment. It would be the easiest thing for him.’

  ‘You’re not worried he might try to—’

  ‘No,’ I said, moving her hair to one side and kissing the back of her neck. ‘He’s got no reason to do anything. He just wants his stuff. We’re safe tonight.’

  ‘So who do you think all those guns are for?’ she asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ But my mind went back to the settlement. If those men had been armed with rifles like the ones on the Deus, they would have cut us down. ‘We have to take the money and leave. The old man deserves to be paid for this, otherwise we came all this way for nothing.’

  And there was another job left to do; for Costa. Sister Beckett was still alive and I had to change that.

  Just one more life.

  ‘Maybe we should—’

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ I said to her. ‘Just don’t think about it. Forget them. It’ll make you crazy. Think about something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  I turned Daniella’s face so our mouths were close together and pressed my lips to hers, soft and warm. She put a hand to the back of my head and pulled me against her, kissing me hard before she broke away and looked at me. Our eyes were close, and I could feel her warm, heavy breath on my mouth. She pursed her lips, still tasting our kiss, then smiled.

  We washed upriver from the creek, away from the mine’s waste, keeping our movements soft as we scrubbed away the grime of the past days. I had reassured Daniella, telling her we were safe, but I wasn’t going to lower my guard too far. We stayed quiet so we wouldn’t be heard, but would hear the movements of others if they chose to approach in the darkness.

  ‘We should get back on board,’ I told Daniella when we were clean. ‘Come on.’

  As the last light left the sky, I dragged my trousers over my wet legs and collected my pistols while Daniella stepped into her skirt and pulled on her top. I watched her struggle with the cotton on her wet skin, the vest rolling and sticking.

  When she was done, we climbed back onto the Deus and loosened the rope that moored us to the jetty.

  ‘There’s still a few things to eat in the back,’ I said. ‘I’ll get us moving, you see what there is.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Not far. Somewhere we won’t be noticed in the dark.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Don’t worry. We’re going to be safe.’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘Yes,’ I kissed her. ‘I promise.’

  I went to the wheelhouse and started the engine, taking the Deus away from the jetty and out onto the water. We drifted to the far side of the river, about a hundred metres from bank to bank at this point, and nosed west past the poisoned tributary.

  By the time I cut the engine, the light had completely gone, and the moon was already hanging in the cloudless sky.
r />   ‘This should do,’ I said, leaning over the gunwale to release the anchor. ‘You all right back there, Daniella?’

  I tugged at the rope, checking it was secure, expecting to hear Daniella reply.

  The night was silent but for the insects.

  ‘Daniella?’

  No answer.

  ‘Daniella?’ I released the rope. ‘You find anything to—’

  ‘Not yet.’ She spoke from just behind me, making me turn around with a start.

  Daniella was standing naked on the deck. In the minimal light from a crescent moon, I could see little of the detail of her body, but her shape was outlined and there were places where the shadows rose and fell.

  ‘Something we need to finish.’ She stepped forward to kiss me, running her nails down my naked back, sliding her hands into the waistband of my trousers. ‘Take them off,’ she said, still kissing me, and I fumbled with the button, breaking off only to stoop while I kicked the trousers away.

  ‘That was fast.’ She moved closer, backing me against the bench seat where Sister Beckett had been sitting earlier that day.

  ‘No time to waste.’

  Daniella smiled and pushed me down onto the seat.

  She came forward, stopped, slapped at her arm.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mosquito,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’

  She squatted in front of me and ran her fingers across my thighs, down to my calves and back up again, then she stood and watched me for a moment.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m just looking at you.’

  ‘You never look at me like that.’

  ‘I do now.’ She put her legs either side of me, her knees on the seat, and reached down to take hold of me, put me inside her before lowering herself. We held our breath together for a moment, and then she began moving, putting her hands on either side of my face.

  ‘You need to shave,’ she whispered.

  I ran my hands along her thighs. ‘So do you.’

  ‘Cheeky.’ A gentle slap on my shoulder, then she let her head hang back and she smiled, her long hair falling around her shoulders. I could feel her tightening around me, her muscles contracting and loosening as she moved, and in that instant everything was forgotten.