by Val Wood
He licked his dry lips. How have I come to this? His body shook with fatigue and he lay down, pushing some dry leaves beneath his head for a pillow. Have I been so very wicked? His head ached and images swirled around his mind. Images of England and leaving home and the past and present became confused.
I left May and that seems like a thousand years ago, and yes it was wrong of me. Not a gentlemanly thing to do. Martin would never have done that, he mused, his thoughts drifting and his brother coming into his consciousness. But then he was always a good fellow, not like me. I wonder if he married Georgiana Gregory? They seemed to have an understanding.
And what about my poor patient mother? What did she think when I left England? He remembered that he hadn’t said goodbye but had only left her a letter. His thoughts flickered to Ruby, his young mistress. Ah, Ruby, darling girl! I shall never forget you, not ever. I should’ve married you and not May, but, poor girl, it wouldn’t have worked. He was dizzy and though his eyes were closed he had the sensation of spinning round and round.
‘Wouldn’t have worked,’ he murmured. ‘You said that I would be ashamed of you and of course, then, I would. I was so full of pride. But not now, I wouldn’t. Not now. Not now that I have been through so much. My pride has gone.’ He was vaguely aware that he was babbling, but couldn’t stop. ‘Sofia!’ he called out. ‘You tricked me. It’s your fault that I’m in this predicament. Predicament. Predicament. What a predicament!’
He dropped off into an uneasy, dream-filled sleep. He sweated with the heat and then as it grew dark he shivered and hunched into himself. ‘Mosquitoes!’ he muttered. ‘Malaria! Allen! Allen! Where are you? Fetch me some water. Damn your eyes.’ He sat up and stared into the darkness at the wizened ghostly shapes of the trees. ‘My money!’ He patted his damp jacket as if searching. ‘My pocketbook! Allen’s got it.’
He lay down again and closed his eyes. He was cold and shivery. ‘Malaria,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ve got malaria, just like Allen had. Or swamp fever. That’s it! How long have I been gone? A week? More? I’ve lost track of time. I told him – what? Two weeks, I think.’ His mind was disordered and he sought for dates. ‘Allen won’t be expecting me back just yet. He won’t be concerned. Not yet.’
As the day dawned, he tried to rise from his hard earth bed but his joints had stiffened and he couldn’t move. I’ll wait for the sun to warm me, to loosen up my joints, he thought, and fell asleep again.
He awoke when the sun filtered through the tree branches and flickered on his face. He slapped at a mosquito and turned over. ‘Fetch me that water,’ he muttered. ‘Be quick about it.’ He sat up a little later and roared ‘Rodriguez!’ at the top of his voice and then fell back and slept.
It was dark when he awoke again and he wondered what it was that had woken him. He was drenched in sweat and had a raging thirst. Then he raised his head and realized that he wasn’t sweating, but that it was raining. Raining a great deluge of wonderful clean water. He scrambled to his knees and grasping the nearest tree trunk hauled himself to his feet and staggered to the edge of the grove.
He stood with his arms held wide and his face upturned to the blue-black sky and let the rain pour over him, opening his mouth to let the moisture trickle down his throat. ‘There is a God after all,’ he gasped. ‘I was beginning to think that there wasn’t.’
After a thorough drenching he crept back into the shelter of trees and waited for morning. At the first sign of light streaking the sky he moved off. He didn’t pause to look at the shafts of vibrant colour which were heralding a new day, but simply moved one foot in front of the other and knew that if he stopped he would find it difficult to get going again.
He had stumbled on for about a mile when he realized that his direction might be wrong. The creek had been at his back when he set off, but he didn’t know from which direction it had run off the Mississippi. Was it east or west? If I turn around and go back then I’ll have to cross it. He put his hand to his head. He was dizzy from lack of food and his throat was parched again. His clothes had dried on him and were stiff with mud. I’ll go on, there will surely be a settlement or habitation. But as he looked ahead all he could see was a vast stretch of land.
He was still stumbling forward by dusk and now he hadn’t any idea of the direction he was following. There was no road, no wheel marks, no animal tracks, but he thought he could see a faint light in the distance, shining through the twilight.
A dog barked and he stopped, startled by the sound, then urged himself on. ‘If there’s a dog – if there’s a dog—’ he mumbled, but hadn’t even the strength to put into words what he was thinking.
A shack loomed up ahead. The light he had seen was coming from a window. A dog barked again and a woman’s voice called to it. But it persisted, its bark angry and urgent. ‘Hello!’ Edward attempted to hail whoever was inside, but his voice was weak and hoarse. ‘Anybody there?’
The planked door opened a crack and he saw a glimpse of someone behind it. ‘Hello,’ he called again, mustering a cracked plea. ‘Can you help me?’
‘Stay right where you are, mister.’ A woman’s voice, low and menacing, answered. ‘One move and I’ll blow your danged head off.’
Edward dropped to his knees and splayed his hands in front of him. ‘I’m not carrying a weapon,’ he croaked. ‘I need water. I’m lost.’
The door opened and a large woman came out. She had a rifle crooked into her arm and she looked as if she knew how to use it. ‘Git outa here if you know what’s good fer you, mister,’ she said threateningly. ‘Otherwise I’ll set my dawg on you.’
‘Please,’ he begged. ‘Some water! I’ve walked for miles. I need to get back to New Orleans.’
‘New Orleans?’ She came closer. ‘You goin’ in the wrong direction, mister, if you want New Orleans.’ She edged towards him and nudged him with her foot. ‘Where you walked from?’
He shook his head. ‘I was – on a – boat,’ he mumbled. ‘On the Mississippi. Then – we came into a creek. I don’t know where.’
‘Jack!’ The woman called back to the house. ‘Jack! Come on out here.’
From where he was on the ground he squinted towards the door, wondering vaguely why Jack hadn’t come out first instead of the woman, and if he was going to be sent on his way. Then, from out of the lighted doorway, he saw the shape of a large black dog. Its feet were firmly on the ground and its great head looking towards the woman.
‘Come on here,’ she commanded. ‘Seize!’
Edward held his breath for a second as he wondered if he had the strength to run, or if he should simply lie down and be torn to pieces by the brute. But the dog ambled towards him, sat down in front of him and bared his teeth into a grin.
‘Don’t think he can’t bite, mister, cos he can,’ the woman told him. ‘If he sets about you you’ll sure be sorry.’
Edward nodded. ‘I can tell,’ he muttered. ‘I can see he’s a vicious brute.’
‘He sure is.’ She kept her eyes firmly fixed on him and pointed the rifle at his chest. ‘Now git up slowly. Don’t make a sudden move or he’ll have you.’
Edward staggered to his feet, trying to keep his hands in the air. This is a nightmare, he thought. It has to be. A long, long nightmare, and I’ll wake up in my own bed back home in England.
‘Keep on walking,’ she said. ‘Go inside and I’ll take a look at you.’
The shack was barely furnished with a table, two chairs, a roughly hewn dresser and a mattress in the corner. In the middle of the room was an iron stove with a pan on it and a smell of food cooking. Edward stumbled towards it. ‘Could I have some water? Please.’
‘Water’s in the butt outside,’ she said, then pointed to a jug on the table. ‘There’s some ale in the jug.’
He seized the jug and drank straight from it, not waiting for a cup or glass. ‘Thank you,’ he gasped. ‘Thank you. I’m so grateful. I think I would have died if I hadn’t found you.’
His legs suddenly felt wea
k. ‘Can I sit down?’ he said and as he asked, a dizzying blackness came over him. ‘I think I’m—’
He knew no more until the morning, when he awoke in a bed on the floor. His jacket and boots had been taken off and a coarse grey blanket covered him.
The woman was by the stove with her back to him. She was tall and heavily built, with strong muscular arms below the rolled-up sleeves of her dress. She turned around and saw him watching her. Her hair was fair and hung greasily around her plump cheeks, and he guessed that she was in her thirties.
She nodded at him. ‘You back in the land of the living then?’
He tried to raise himself up but found he was curiously weak. ‘Yes.’ He dropped back on the mattress. There was no pillow. ‘How long have I been here?’
‘Dunno.’ She shrugged laconically. ‘Couple o’ days, I guess. You hungry?’
‘Yes. Very,’ he said, making an extra effort to sit up. ‘Have I really been here so long?’
She nodded. ‘You got up once and went outside to pee, then fell right back to sleep agin.’
He was embarrassed. He couldn’t remember anything since coming into the shack with the dog following. ‘Where’s your dog?’ he asked.
She poured something from a pan into a bowl. ‘He’s on guard outside. Here, have some broth.’
‘Thank you.’ He took it from her. ‘Do you live alone here?’
‘Right now I do, but my man’ll be back from market any time.’
He drank the soup from the bowl, as she hadn’t offered him a spoon. It was thick and hot but he had no idea what the flavour was.
‘What does he do? Is he a boatman?’
‘You sure ask a lot o’ questions, mister.’ She sat down on a chair, folded her arms across her ample chest and surveyed him. ‘He’s a farmer.’
‘Really? Can you farm the land around here? It seems like swamp to me.’
‘It is swamp. We keep pigs. Where you from? You a city boy? You talk kinda funny.’
His head still ached. I wonder if I’ve got malaria like Allen had? Those mosquitoes certainly had a good feed off me. ‘I’m from England,’ he said. ‘I was robbed in New Orleans, then put on a boat and finished up here. I’ve no money or papers.’
‘Papers? What kinda papers?’
‘To say who I am! My identity.’
She laughed, showing gaps in her teeth. ‘We don’t bother with that kinda thing out here, mister. We know who we are. Don’t ya know who you are?’
He pondered for a second and wondered how far Rodriguez’ domination stretched. ‘Yes, I know who I am,’ he said. ‘My name is Robert Allen.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘May I have a wash?’ he asked later after he’d got up from the bed and stretched his aching limbs. He felt much better – the soup had given him some energy though his legs still felt weak.
‘Sure.’ She looked him over. ‘The water butt’s outside. If you take your pants off I’ll wash them for you.’
‘Erm—’ He cleared his throat. He wasn’t sure how he would feel about being in his undergarments in front of a strange woman.
‘No need to feel bashful.’ She winked at him. ‘You ain’t got nuthin’ Ah ain’t seen before. Ah grew up with six brothers and they didn’t own a pair of underpants between ’em. Besides,’ she gave him a sly look, ‘you’ve bin sharing my bed for the last couple o’ nights so it won’t matter too much.’ She grinned. ‘You kept calling me Ruby.’
He stared at her and his mouth opened and closed. He flushed. He hadn’t thought to wonder where she had slept! There was only one bed in the room. ‘I’m sorry—’ he began. ‘I didn’t think to ask—’
‘You were dead to the world,’ she remarked. ‘So you didn’t even notice.’
I wish I could remember, he thought uneasily. How could I have lost a couple of days?
She washed his trousers and jacket and hung them on a clothes line which stretched between the shanty and a dilapidated pig pen. It was empty of pigs but the guard dog lay sleeping inside and only opened one eye when he looked in. A few scrawny chickens clucked around and a nanny goat tied on a long rope bleated at him.
There didn’t seem to be a bowl to use for washing, so he dipped his head into the water butt and rubbed his hands through his hair to be rid of the tangle of weed. The woman called to him from the doorway. ‘Guess you’re a good-lookin’ fella when you’re cleaned up?’
‘Well,’ he began modestly. ‘This isn’t how I usually look or dress.’ Then he remembered his role as Robert Allen. ‘How can I get back to New Orleans?’ he asked. ‘My er, my employer will be wondering where I am.’
‘Can’t say.’ She finished pegging out the rest of her laundry. He thought that his trousers and jacket didn’t look any cleaner for washing, they were still stained with green, though maybe they smelt a little sweeter. ‘I ain’t never bin.’
She came towards him and looked him up and down, which he found disconcerting, standing only in his underclothes. ‘Why do you want to go back there? You can stay along a’ us.’
He gave a tense laugh. ‘I must get back. I, er, I have work to do. I need money.’
‘You can help us with the pigs. You wouldn’t need money out here.’ She gave him what he interpreted as a very warm smile, which, with her raised suggestive eyebrows, made him extremely apprehensive.
‘There surely isn’t enough work for two men to do? You said your man would be back soon.’
‘He might be. He might not.’ Again she smiled. ‘Ah ain’t too bothered if he ain’t.’
‘How long has he been gone?’ he asked uneasily.
‘’Bout five, six, weeks, I guess.’
‘That’s a long time just to take pigs to market. Did you have many pigs?’
‘Just the two,’ she said, nodding.
I think I’m going mad! This is as bad as being on the boat. How do I get out of this situation? And, he deliberated fearfully, where do I sleep tonight?
He slept on one of the chairs though she urged him to ‘Come alongside o’ me,’ but he told her that he couldn’t possibly sleep in the same bed as another man’s wife, not now that he was fully conscious of what he was doing.
‘It wouldn’t be right,’ he insisted. ‘And whatever would he think?’ he added. ‘Your man, if he should come home unexpectedly?’
‘Oh, Ah guess Guthrie wouldn’t mind too much,’ she said. ‘Ah was in bed with him when Eli came home.’
‘Eli?’ he asked.
‘My first fella. He was a mite annoyed, but he went quietly enough after Guthrie peppered him with shot.’
I am going mad, he decided. Or I will be if I don’t get out of here.
He was up early the next morning and dressed in his clean trousers, which appeared to have shrunk, for his ankles showed below them. He was determined to depart, even if it meant walking for miles again. There was no habitation in the landscape around him, only a vast area of swamp and open fields in the distance. I’ll have to make a dash when she’s doing something, he decided, and I’ll have to run, otherwise I’m quite sure I’ll be peppered with shot just as Eli was.
She called him in for breakfast and he sat down with her to a bowl of gruel and a slice of bread. ‘Here’s my neighbour coming,’ she said suddenly. ‘Ah guessed he’d be along sometime soon.’
He glanced across at her. She hadn’t stirred from the chair so how did she know someone was coming? Even the dog hadn’t barked. ‘Your neighbour? Where does he live?’
‘Five, six, miles along the track. He’s bringing me my groceries.’ She looked at him questioningly. ‘Can’t you hear him?’
He concentrated hard, then shook his head. She must be so used to living in isolation that she could hear every little rumble or crack of sound that was out of the ordinary.
‘Heard you, way back, on the night you came,’ she said, keeping her eyes on him. ‘That’s why Ah had my gun ready. We git some strange folks coming up from that ole river. Folks that have bin tipped off
the boats same as you were.’
‘Do you mean that fellow back there, Cap’n Mac, knew that I would get off the boat rather than risk travelling any further?’
‘Yip. Guess so. Saves him the bother of dumping you.’
The dog barked and Edward got up from the table and looked out. He couldn’t see anyone, but there was a dark shape on the horizon which he guessed could be a waggon or cart coming towards them. He felt a tingle of excitement. Perhaps I could get a lift. I don’t care where he’s going as long as it’s out of here.
‘Howdy, Rube!’ The woman greeted the man driving a waggon as he drew up at the door ten minutes later. ‘Heard you comin’.’
‘Howdy, Martha. Got yourself a visitor, Ah see.’
‘This is Bob,’ Martha said. ‘He got tipped off a boat.’
Bob? Edward thought. I told her I was Robert Allen. But he nodded at the stranger. ‘How do you do.’
‘Ah’m doin’ all right, thank you kindly, sir.’ He looked at Edward from beneath his battered hat. ‘Ah’ve just brought Martha some vittles. Sack o’ cornmeal.’ He sucked on his teeth, making a whistling sound. ‘Cooking oil. Coffee.’
I don’t need an inventory, Edward brooded. What I need is to hide in the back of that waggon and drive out of here. A vague notion of stealing the horse and waggon once Rube had unloaded the supplies entered his mind, but he decided against the idea as he wouldn’t have known in which direction to travel. If Rube will drive me to the nearest settlement, surely I can then find my way back to New Orleans?
The delivery of supplies also meant Rube sitting down to a pot of coffee and a gossip about neighbours, then partaking of a bowl of gruel and discussing the price of pigs at market, and all the while he kept glancing across at Edward. Then another pot of coffee and Rube told of his son who was set on going to California and who had bought a new wheelbarrow, before he finally rose up from his chair, stating that he would have to rush along.
Edward went outside before him and looked in the back of the uncovered waggon. There were several empty sacks and a coil of rope which had been thrown in haphazardly, but not enough to cover a man.