The Last Bookaneer (23 page)

“Not at present, Mr. Fergins, no. The natives never want a war; it benefits no one but the white officials. But the foreign powers are always blowing the coals at each other. In fact, they say that when the next war comes, it will begin with the killing of all the whites. In any matter, those heads were not taken from Samoans; you can tell from the skin.”

“Then who were these poor souls?”

“They are Solomon Islanders, Mr. Fergins. Men rounded up forcibly from a group of islands not far from here, past Fiji, to work on the German plantations.”

“We've heard about them before,” chimed in Davenport, “from Cipaou, our native man, and from Thomas.”

“Cannibals, so it is said. It is funny to see the disgust and terror the Samoans have for cannibals, even as they will sever a head from its body.”

“What happened to those three?”

“They must have escaped from the Germans, and been caught by the Samoans they control, the king's men. This is a warning. The Firm would have you believe it has almost never happened that their laborers—slaves, for all intents and purposes—have escaped.”

“Is it untrue?” I asked.

“Past that deep valley”—Stevenson gestured—“across a very fast-moving river, and through the forest that borders it, there is a hive of fugitives from the Firm. These men must have been traveling to take shelter there when they were overtaken.”

“So this warning . . .” Davenport began.

“Is for any other laborer who tries to escape and for men like me—us—to mind my own affairs.”

Suddenly, Jack reared up with a terrible snort and began walking on his hind legs like a man. It was an unreal sight with the heads as audience.

“Your horse!” I called. “Tusitala, there's something wrong with your horse!”

“Oh, there's nothing wrong with Jack, Mr. Fergins.” Stevenson took the reins and tugged twice. The animal gave a complaining whinny and planted his hooves back on the ground. “He was just bored because we were standing around too long.”

“Bored? A horse?”

“Terribly so. You see,” Stevenson explained as he returned to the saddle, “Jack was a circus horse in his prime. The circus came to Samoa but Jack didn't sail well, so the performers sold him before they folded up their tent and left the island. Sometimes he does his tightrope trick or his dancing for old time's sake.” He patted the horse warmly. “You're safe,” he cooed to the animal. “He is really quite converted, and is as steady as a doctor's cob. When he has to be fast, he is the fastest animal you have ever seen.” The novelist began to hum a melody so silly I guessed it had to be a tune he had heard at Jack's old circus.

I was still hearing the ridiculous tune and seeing the horrible heads hours later at Vailima when we were seated at dinner. Belial said grace. I could not pay much attention to it nor to Fanny, though her discussion of a new plan for her garden—where she would put tomato seeds, and artichoke, and eggplant—was a welcome distraction.

“You were born to be in the garden, Barkis,” Stevenson said.

Her hand froze before her cup reached her lips. “What do you mean to say, Louis?” she asked with a sidelong glance.

“Just that. You have the soul of a peasant,” he said cheerfully, “not because you love working in the earth, but because you like to know it is your own earth that you are delving in.”

“But you are not of a peasant soul. Only me. Is it so?”

The rest of the room, even the native servants, watched with dread as Stevenson sipped his 'ava and considered how to answer.

“Now, now, mother,” Lloyd tried to interject with his meandering, lackadaisical calm, “what is it we're talking about here?”

“I am an artist,” Stevenson answered his wife bluntly.

“It is a
lovely
garden, if I may interject,” I tried, but I don't think anyone heard.

“Louis—” Lloyd tried again.

“Well, I suppose if I had the soul of an artist, instead of that of a peasant, the stupidity of possessions would have no power over me. You may be more right than you know.”

“Barkis, my dear fellow, you misunderstand,” he offered, a little late. “You know I think you are the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Before any of us had more than a few bites of the first course of stewed beef and potatoes, the tension was broken by the sound of screaming.

“Can we not even sup in peace around here?” Belle said with a petulant toss of her fork. “If it is not arguing over some patches of brown grass, it's another loony islander to interrupt us.”

“Quiet, Belle. That's Charlie,” Fanny said.

The noises were coming from the stables. Davenport, unnerved from what we had already witnessed today, appeared ashen and turned whiter as the melancholy sounds continued. We all got up and walked in a line to the stables to investigate.

“Poor, poor Charlie,” Stevenson said, leading us inside.

Inside the paddock the servant was bound to a makeshift bed at his ankles and wrists. He had become horribly gaunt and continued to perspire heavily even as Fanny rotated wet rags on his head and body. Two doctors, covered in more tattoos than the warriors, looked him over, chanting heathen songs, sprinkling some herbs into his mouth and ears, rubbing and kneading pungent arrowroot pulp into his skin. Belial placed himself next to them, delivering an urgent prayer. A few of the other servants were sitting nearby, heeding all of Fanny's instructions. Belle clutched her hands to her heart.

“I'm afraid we'll have no choice now but to keep Charlie restrained,” Fanny said, her voice breaking. “We have had the best native doctor here three times to administer the herbs and other stronger medicines from the bush, but since the day he began acting like a lunatic Charlie's fever has not broken and he remains delirious. He is a danger to himself and to the others.”

“I fear you will think we are a sort of imitation Wuthering Heights with all this drama.”

“Not at all, Tusitala,” Davenport assured him. “I only hope the boy recovers—and soon.”

“I will not let a young man die in Vailima under my care,” Fanny said, with tears in her eyes but with a robust voice. “Not in Vailima.”

The noises that came from Charlie could be described only as yelps. Belle appeared faint at the dire condition of the man. She stumbled back and Davenport steadied her.

“Thank you,” she whispered, folding herself into his arm.

“Your mother is right, Miss Strong. He will recover,” Davenport said with the conviction of a promise.

That night, the conch sounded a mournful cry. Charlie had died, consumed by fever. His funeral out on the grounds was presided over by Belial. Even his big voice was nearly drowned out by the sobbing of the mourners from Vailima. Stevenson was bedridden for hours the next day, Fanny inconsolable. For all I felt over the loss of a young man with so much life in him, I was taken by the depth of sorrow in Davenport, a man who usually swallowed his emotions. He could hardly speak—this time not as a result of a stubborn or petulant mood, but because he was moved. Or so I thought. When he secluded himself in our dismal hut among the spiders and roaches and the howling wind beating at the shutters, I had a new thought. I began to suspect I had missed something.

“Davenport, I insist you tell me what's really happened.”

“Damned fools,” he said, banging his fist violently on one of the beams that supported our walls. He was sitting on the floor and his head was hanging low.

“You believe it was Belial,” I said. “That's it, isn't it? That he caused this somehow? I do not know why I did not see it before. But no. No. I accept your great rivalry with him, but consider it with a clearer head. Would he do that to Charlie? Just to ingratiate himself further into the Stevensons' household by ministering to him, then by comforting them after he died? No, I do not believe it.”

He raised his head toward me very slowly. His eyes were red with tears.

I realized at once what this was about, before he confessed.

“You're a fool to think Belial wouldn't do such a thing. But he did not. I did.” He closed his eyes and let out a sigh from deep in his chest. “Charlie. Damned Charlie saw me searching through the papers in Stevenson's library, after I came across those original pages from
Jekyll and Hyde
. The damned dog was always sneaking up right behind us silent as Golgotha. You see how loyal the natives are to Stevenson. Charlie was likely to talk sooner or later, and Stevenson's slowed pace with his book meant there was more and more time for Charlie to reveal something that could sabotage us. I had to do
something
.”

“You gave Charlie the mixture you gave me onboard the ship, didn't you?”

He shook his head again. “No, a different one. Stronger. But still quite . . . well, harmless enough.”

He gestured weakly toward a square leather case in his trunk. I opened it to find several rows of glass vials of powders and oily liquids. “I wasn't the first person you sedated, then.”

“That case accompanies me on the most precarious missions, and I was well trained by an apothecary who had assisted Kitten and some of the finest bookaneers of old. My preference is to leave this untouched, and I have concealed it from you in the past because I knew you would disapprove. But there are, on occasion, people who need to be safely removed or kept temporarily quiet on a mission. Never before have I had a problem with these. Harmless as a blank shot. You must have known; you must have at least guessed I had some methods out of your view. Didn't you, Fergins?”

“Why is Charlie dead, if it's all so harmless?”

As usual when pushed, Davenport shifted blame. “Those damned herbal leaves and ointments from the island the witch doctors were giving him. The combination of those tinctures with what I gave him just seemed to make him sicker and sicker at every turn of their so-called treatments. I merely wanted him out of the way until Stevenson was finished writing—I thought if nosy Charlie fell ill briefly, Stevenson might send him away to his home village for a couple of weeks to recover, or at least would think him confused if he mentioned anything about seeing me dipping into his papers. What should have happened is they left him to get better himself, without their potions. Those so-called doctors concluded that a devil spirit had entered his head through his ears. Damned savage fools, this whole island is full of damned fools who never so much as laid their hands on a book!”

I had not seen him so distraught since Kitten's disappearance. I suppose I should have offered words of comfort, some wisdom of an older friend that could assuage his mind from the torment it inflicted on itself. But I could only think of poor, kindhearted Charlie, bound by sheets and straps, his hands and legs trembling uncontrollably, his oncoming death chilling his blood and ours. My thoughts then turned to the black dots that had overtaken my vision, to the collapse that had stolen the life from me for nearly two days aboard the
Colossus
. Charlie was me, unluckier.

The bookaneer was in shambles on the floor of our hut, actually pulling out his hair in thick handfuls. I heard him call my name out before I exited, but I did not pause to show that I heard him. I withheld even that. I walked out of the hut, and kept walking along the bank of the stream, though after a quarter of an hour I had only the light of the moon, and I was hearing strange noises in the bush, which I hoped were just the tree frogs and crickets. There was such a strong wind my spectacles were pinned hard against my face and filling with dust. I took them off and I closed my eyes, the soothing breath of the stream becoming the roar of the Thames, then our little winding stream again. Coming from nowhere, leading nowhere. Never had I felt so pried away from home. My life, so it seemed, was somewhere on the other side, the stream impassable.

Even after I heard a rider approaching, it took me a moment to consider how unusual that was out here, especially as night fell. By the time I had gathered myself, I watched the slow approach of a medium-sized black mare I had seen around Vailima, and a blurred figure riding sidesaddle. I fished my spectacles out from between the buttons of my vest. There was a lamp hanging from the saddle of the horse. Fanny Stevenson wore mourning black.

I helped the short but muscular woman down. I braced myself for the confrontation that had been waiting to occur for several days now, though I still did not know what had prompted it. Had Charlie somehow told her about Davenport's snooping while she was tending to him? Had she come to discover it through other means? Perhaps she had found something else: our true purpose in being in Samoa, or worse, Davenport's negligence and its role in Charlie's death.

There was no forthcoming recrimination, nor was there an explanation given for her appearing at our remote plot of land. Instead, she began peering around with her light with a surveyor's concentration. Though my anger toward Davenport still burned high, part of me hoped he had heard the approach and would come out to save me from saying the wrong thing.

“I have not been here before, Mr. Fergins,” she finally said. “Do you have many birds flocking here? They say that the last dodo birds in the world are somewhere on these islands.”

“I have seen some ducks, and a pigeon or two. Dodos?”

“Yes. It would be delightful to possess the last dodo on earth for a pet, though our cats might have a different opinion.”

“Fanny, once again, if I may express to you my condolences about Charlie, and say how admirable your nursing of the poor fellow was.”

She remained distracted by the flora and fauna illuminated by her lamp. “The lima beans started coming up today in my garden, and some of the cantaloupes are ready. I brought one for you and Mr. Porter. Here.”

I accepted the gift she had carried in a saddlebag.

Her face tightened. “Mr. Fergins, you know that I welcomed your presence around Vailima from the time of your arrival. I have not been able to speak freely for fear of Louis hearing, but I have tried to warn you.”