Shades of Evil

by Cave, Hugh

  "All the more reason for me to get cracking. Handle the gate for me, will you, Will?"

  Will followed him out and swung the big iron gate wide while Sam climbed into the Land Rover. As the vehicle passed him, he called out, "Good luck!" and received a wave in return. He stood there for a moment watching the black and white license plate become smaller and finally disappear around a bend in the road. Then, shaking his head, he returned to the house.

  In the parlor living room Ima Williams stood with her hands still on her hips and a look of censure on her face.

  "There's nothing we can do, Ima," Will said. "Sam's a stubborn man."

  "I want to find Mr. Juan just as much as he does! But the police should go there, not him!"

  "I'm sure he thought of that. But they don't seem to be getting anywhere with the fellow they arrested yesterday, do they?"

  She gazed at him in silence for a few seconds, then turned away. He heard her in the kitchen but did not see her again until she called him for lunch half an hour later. In the dining room he found the table set for one.

  "Have you eaten, Ima?"

  She shook her head.

  "Join me, then."

  "You want me to eat with you?"

  "You ate with Juan, didn't you?" He was betting she had. And maybe more.

  "Well, yes."

  "Set another place and bring food for two, then. I'd like to talk to you."

  The lunch was an excellent chow mein made with chicken breast and the local pak choy. She had worked for a year, she explained, at the home of a wealthy Chinese family in the capital, where her principal task had been to prepare the food for the man of the family to cook when he came home at night from his place of business. "He taught me much about Chinese cooking." He or someone else had taught her good table manners also, Will decided, and how to speak English with only an occasional lapse into patois. She was quite a woman.

  "Tell me about this obeah," he invited while deliberately dawdling over his food.

  "What about it?"

  "Well, I've written books about voodoo—writing is my job—and I'm wondering what the two may have in common. Are there such things as obeah ceremonies?"

  She shook her head. "There are services in pocomania, but not in obeah. Obeah men and women work alone."

  Like the witch doctors and sorcerers in Haiti, he thought. "Are most of them unprincipled?"

  "Pardon?"

  "Are they wicked? Corrupt? Villainous?"

  "I think so, yes."

  "You go to them when you want something. Is that it?"

  "When you want help, or to hurt someone, or to stop someone from hurting you. But mostly when you want to accomplish something wicked yourself."

  "And how does the obeah person produce the results you pay him for?"

  "Different ones have different methods. They do things with herbs and roots and leaves. With parts of animals. With blood and graveyard dirt, even parts of corpses. Also with special charms that are handed down sometimes from parent to child. They say things no ordinary person can understand. But the most important thing they call upon is the power for evil inside themselves, I am sure."

  "By which you mean that to be an obeah person one must be evil to begin with? It can't simply be learned?"

  "It can't be learned by ordinary people. The old rites of voodoo can be, of course—voodoo is not evil—but to practice a sorcery such as obeah one must be a follower of the Devil."

  Will thought of Vicky and her dark desire to learn from Margal. No question about it, Vicky had learned. For a moment he was silent while his companion concentrated on her food. Then he said, "How would you know if an obeah person is trying to harm you, Ima?"

  She raised her head to gaze at him, her face almost expressionless. "You might not know. You might just get sick, or have something happen to you."

  "Such as?"

  "Like the market girl who walked off the road's edge and fell down a cliff on her way home. Or if you were a country woman washing your clothes in a stream, you might become dizzy and fall in and drown. Or—and I know this will seem strange to you, but it has happened—you could be eating something perfectly good, like this chow mein, and it would poison you. It might not poison me as I eat it with you, but it would poison you. A sorceress like Sister Merle speaks to your mind and you are ill, even ill enough to die if she wills you to. Of course, some people are easier to destroy than others."

  Ima paused. "I was in a shop once, in a place not far from here called Mile Gully. Three men were talking to a stranger from another district who claimed to be an obeah man, and one jeered at him, telling him obeah was for children and he was stupid to believe in it. They were drinking Dragon Stout. Each had a bottle. Suddenly the man who said obeah was nothing began to choke and dropped his bottle and started to vomit. Then the vomit turned to blood and he fell to the floor, twisting and wriggling like a lizard that had been stepped on."

  Again Ima was silent for a few seconds. Then: "Everybody in the shop was terrified and ran out, even the proprietor. I ran out, and didn't stop running until I was far from that place and could feel safe. Later I heard say the man died on the floor there before help could be found for him."

  "You realize, of course, there could have been something in the bottle that choked him."

  "Perhaps. But it was in the Gleaner later that the stout left in the bottle was tested and nothing was wrong with it. And they didn't find anything wrong with him when they did an autopsy."

  Will let another period of silence go by, then said, "Ima, what do you think has happened to Juan Cerrado?" They had told her about Mowatt.

  An expression of infinite sadness settled on her face, especially in her eyes. Her mouth twitched, then drooped. "I think he is dead."

  "Sister Merle would do that? Kill a man just because he tried to keep his farmers away from her?"

  "Yes. Because if she did not, the people who deal with her would think she was not strong enough to strike back at him."

  "What has she done with him?"

  She shook her head. "I would not even guess, Mr. Will. But I think you will never find him."

  "Thank you for answering my questions, Ima. And for eating lunch with me." He got up, helped himself to a piece of brown-sugar candy from the sideboard, and glanced at his watch. Twelve-forty. It might be hours before Sam returned from Silent Hill. What to do until then?

  There was a typewriter on the table in his bedroom, an Italian portable that belonged to Cerrado, he supposed. He searched the table drawer for paper, found some, and sat to type up some notes on what the housekeeper had just told him about obeah.

  That done, he went on to put down his impressions of Ima Williams herself, of Sister Merle and her mini-mansion in the desolate Cockpit Country, of Wait-a-Bit and Christiana and all the rest of it.

  You never knew. At the moment he had no notion of using any of this in one of his novels, but it had possibilities. Anyway, he had the afternoon to kill.

  At six o'clock Sam Norman had not returned. Nor at seven. Nor at eight.

  "Ima, what could have happened?"

  She was as anxious as he was, he guessed. For two hours she had been pacing about the house or going outside to stand at the gate. Now she sat in the kitchen, by the stove, with her hands tightly clasped in her lap and a look on her face that revealed increasing fear.

  "Mr. Will, I don't know. It's dark out now." Her voice was low, a kind of moan.

  "Do you know where this Bignall fellow lives? I mean, is his house in the village or is it offin the bush where getting to it would take time?"

  "I don't know. But it shouldn't be taking Mr. Sam this much time, no matter where."

  "What can we do? Is there some way I can get there?"

  She glanced at a clock on the wall. "Not now, Mr. Will. There are no taxis passing now. We just must have to wait." Rising, she turned to the stove. "Should I get you some supper?"

  He shook his head. "When Sam gets here." Returning to the living
room, he sat and stared at the door. Should he walk to town, to the police station? What would he say if he did? "Sam Norman drove to Silent Hill to talk to an obeah man and hasn't returned." That might make the difference. But the police hadn't found Juan Cerrado. They hadn't even questioned Sister Merle. They apparently hadn't been able to make Keith Mowatt talk.

  Wait.

  At nine-thirty Ima Williams insisted he eat something and served him a dish of the salt fish and akee she had promised. He might have enjoyed it had Sam been there. Now he could enjoy nothing. You know too damned much about the Sister Merles of these islands, he told himself angrily. You're scared.

  Ima ate nothing.

  It was after eleven when he went into the kitchen for a drink of water and found her again sitting there by the stove. For some reason, perhaps because she was so quiet, he had assumed she was in bed. With a glass of water in his hand he sat and looked at her.

  "Ima, is there any place in Silent Hill he could be staying overnight? A guest house? Something like that?"

  "No, Mr. Will. Why would he want to stay, anyway, when it's only a few miles from here?"

  He drank the water. He poured two inches of rum into the glass and sipped that while standing at the counter. "You should go to bed."

  "He may be hungry when he comes."

  "He'll have eaten something before now. Anyway, it wouldn't be the first time he and I have thrown a meal together. Go on."

  Something in her dark eyes glistened wetly in the light as she stood up. "Well, all right. I won't sleep, though. I'll hear him if he comes."

  If he comes, Will thought. Not when he comes. She was as scared as he. Finishing his drink, he returned to the living room and threw himself on the sofa.

  After a while he dozed.

  The sound of a voice awoke him and he looked at the watch on his wrist. Its luminous hands stood at half past four. The voice came from the room Ima Williams occupied, in the servant's quarters behind the kitchen.

  He got up off the sofa and walked to Ima's door, which he found closed. Not altogether puzzled, he stood there listening.

  The Haitian woman was talking in Creole to one of her voodoo loa, imploring the spirit to help her. To open her eyes and let her see despite the darkness. To lead her along the path she wished to travel. There were many gods in voodoo. Will had not heard of this one—at least, not by the name she used. It could be some minor loa for whom she felt some special affinity. A family deity, perhaps, to whom she turned when in trouble.

  With the plea for help he heard a thumping sound, as though the woman on the other side of the door were striking the floor with her foot, or a table with her hand, to make sure the god was paying attention to her. It was a common thing in voodoo services.

  Only for a moment did Will hesitate. Then as the voice continued its plea and the thumping sound became more emphatic, he reached for the doorknob and gently turned it.

  A slight pressure on the door caused it to inch open. Peering into the room, he was startled.

  Ima Williams stood before her dresser, clad only in a thin white nightgown that revealed almost as much of her dark body as if she were naked. On the mahogany dresser was a wooden serving tray on which burned two tall white candles. There was no other light in the room.

  In her right hand the hounsi held a stick about three feet long, an inch or so in diameter, that resembled the trunk of a miniature palm tree. Which, in fact, it was—a dwarf palm that seemed to grow only in the highest, least accessible parts of her native country. Perhaps that explained the reverence with which it was held in voodoo circles.

  Will Platt may not have known of the deity to whom she prayed, but he knew the name of the stick. It was a cocomacaque. He himself owned one.

  He watched in silence as the woman continued her invocation of the loa. If she were aware of his presence at the door, she gave no sign of it. After perhaps ten minutes she stopped talking and, still clutching the cocomacaque, turned to the bed. Will was startled to realize the bed had not yet been turned down.

  Had she been at this ritual ever since retiring to her room?

  Throwing herself on the bed, she lay on her back and held the cocomacaque above her at arm's length, gripping an end of it in each hand. Slowly she brought the stick down to her forehead, to hold it there for a moment before lifting it again. After doing this three times, she placed it beside her and folded her arms on her breasts. The only sound in the room then was the almost inaudible whisper of her breathing.

  Her breathing became very slow and steady. Her eyes closed. She was asleep, Will decided, or in some kind of trance. Retreating, he silently closed the door and returned to the sofa in the front room, where he sat and pondered what he had just witnessed.

  He was still sitting there when he heard Ima's door open and turned to see her coming toward him.

  She wore a dark dressing gown over her nightdress now. Halting before him, she frowned and said, "Mr. Will, haven't you been to bed?"

  He shook his head. "Nor have you, I think. I heard you talking to your loa."

  "Yes." She went to a chair and sat down, facing him. "I have something to tell you."

  He gazed at her and waited.

  "I-asked the loa to let me see what happened," she said, "and my plea was answered. Not wholly answered, but I was allowed to see something. Mr. Sam has been shot."

  Will felt as though she had slapped him across the face with a cold, wet towel.

  "I saw two men in a room, and one was Mr. Sam," Ima went on in a voice that wept. "The other man had a shotgun and was telling him he would kill him with it. Mr. Sam knocked the gun out of his hands and ran, but the man picked it up and shot him."

  "Oh, my God," Will breathed.

  "But then I had another vision," Ima went on quickly, though so shaken by her emotions that her voice broke. "I saw Mr. Sam in another house and this time there was an older man with him, and an old woman. He was on a bed and they were doing something to his leg. So I don't think the man with the gun killed him."

  Will felt himself come alive again. "Who were these old people, Ima? Did you know them?"

  She shook her head.

  "Did you know the man with the gun? The one who shot him?"

  She frowned. "I could not see his face."

  "I don't understand. You recognized Sam, you heard this man threatening to shoot him, but you couldn't see the fellow's face.

  "No, and that is strange. And it has something to do with Sister Merle, I think." She leaned toward him, her dark eyes flickering. "You remember I told you I tried to help Mr. Juan, but that woman was too powerful for me?"

  Will nodded.

  "Well, I feel her power all the time now. It is as if—as if she has surrounded me with some kind of wall, to make it impossible for me to see or do certain things. Tonight I called on the loa to help me and they did, yet while I could see Mr. Sam clearly, I could not see the face of the other man. It was just a blur, as if someone had drawn a veil over it."

  "But it could have been this obeah man Sam went to see?"

  "I suppose it—"

  "I'm going there." Will stood up. "Where can I find transportation?"

  "What time is it, please?"

  He looked at his watch. "Close to six."

  "There is nothing we can do until the first taxis start passing. That will be in an hour or so. Why don't you take a shower and change your clothes while I make you some breakfast?"

  "Lord, woman, I'm not hungry!"

  "You must eat before you go. There is no telling when you may get another chance."

  He took her advice, and she had a breakfast of bacon and eggs ready for him when he came from his room. Standing by the table, watching him as he began to eat, she said, "Ken Daniels will be coming by from Devon soon. I'll stop him."

  "Who is Ken Daniels?"

  "He has a taxi. You must understand, the taxis here are not like those in Kingston. Or in your country, I suppose. Each man here owns his own and drives it home
at night to wherever he lives. In the morning he will start work by driving people from his district to Christiana. Will you mind riding as far as town with a lot of black people?"

  "No. But how will he be able to take me to Silent Hill?"

  "If you can pay, he will take you anywhere."

  "I see."

  "Ken is a good man. You will like him, I think, and I know you can trust him. Let me go out to the gate and wait for him now."

  While watching her from a living-room window, Will checked the Jamaican money in his billfold to be sure he would have enough. It would be expensive, he guessed, to take the taxi man from his normal routine and hire him for the best part of the day.

  Out at the gate Ima stood tall with her hands folded over her bosom. Then as the rising sun brightened, she lifted one arm to shade her eyes as she peered to her right down the road.

  After a while she stepped into the road with a hand uplifted to stop an oncoming car.

  14

  "Me Never See Him!"

  When the taxi stopped and Will got a close look at it, his admiration for the efficiency of Ima Williams faltered a little. It was an old, many-times-dented Austin Cambridge, black with a horizontal stripe of hand-painted lavender under its windows on the side he could see from the veranda.

  Ima talked to the driver, a bearded brown man with solid-looking shoulders and chest. Then she hurried back to the house.

  "Are you ready, Mr. Will?"

  "Well, yes. I guess so."

  "As soon as Ken drops these people off in Christiana he will take you to Silent Hill and stay with you as long as you like."

  "Ima, thanks." He touched her on the arm and smiled his gratitude as he went past her.

  When he got to the car, the man at the wheel thrust out a hand and said gravely, "Sorry I'm so crowded, Mr. Platt It will be all right after we get to town." Ken Daniels was a big man, easily two hundred pounds, and about forty; he was bearded and had remarkably even, white teeth. For Will, the most striking thing about him was an aura he seemed to have of strength and honesty.

  Releasing Will's hand after a vigorous clasp, he reached behind him and opened the rear door. The five passengers on the car's rear seat, which was popping its stuffing, squirmed and wriggled to make the necessary room for one more, graciously smiling and exchanging greetings with the white stranger.