The Woodcarver's Secret (Samantha Sweet Mysteries) (19 page)

“I’m not sure I like his new style,” Brookie commented.

Enrique laughed. “That’s actually his old style. When we were kids in
Mexico he always painted the popular primitive way. He switched to realism when
he came here because it was what Europeans wanted.” He turned to the older man.
“Stand up. Let’s see about that back of yours.”

He’d handled the mysterious box before coming over and wanted to apply
his healing touch before the effects wore off. From the moment he’d held his
direly ill little sister—was that really almost forty years ago?—he realized
that he had great power with that box. Aurelia’s deadly fever had subsided
within minutes, and since that day he had used his gift to heal hundreds of
people.

Of course he had studied the Western medical books and often used those
medicines that he found useful, but in his experience modern medicine was still
a mixture of experimentation and quackery. Just because men could now name the
organs inside the body, it did not mean that all was understood or that all
cures recommended in 1790s medical practice were effective. In the local
community, many people referred to Enrique as a
curandero
while others
like Brookie actually used the word doctor.

He asked Brookie to lift the back of his shirt and Enrique rested both
of his hands on the skin over the muscles at the lower spine.

“Ah, that feels good,” the old man said.

Slight pressure, gentle movement of the hands. He massaged the area for
five minutes or so, mainly to make it seem as if he was actually doing
something medically.

“Do you still have that salve I gave you?” he asked as Brookie tucked
in his shirt.

The older man nodded.

“Use it, every morning and every night. The herbs in it will help keep
those muscles flexible.”

“And stop trying to kick logs around on my own?”

They both chuckled.

“Papá! Mr. Brookie!” Shrill voices rang through the morning air and the
men turned to see Enrique’s two young sons racing toward the Smythe-Brookington
house as fast as their short legs could carry them.

“Boys! Decorum.” Both boys came to a halt and then approached with
small steps. He agreed with Catherine, his wife and Brookie’s daughter, who
tried valiantly to instill a bit of English manners in their children. Given a
choice, the boys would run wild on the beaches like natives.

“That’s better,” Brookie said. “You know that good little lads get a
story.”

George and Jonathan responded by walking slowly onto the porch and
sitting at Brookie’s feet. “May we hear about the pirates again, sir?”

Brookie and Enrique exchanged a smile at the small triumph.

“Certainly, lads.” He leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped,
elbows on his knees. All part of the anticipation. “Well, when I came here to
Belize with my family, oh, this was many years ago when your father was hardly
bigger than you are now, it had not been that many years since pirates roamed
these beaches at will …”

Enrique stood quietly and tiptoed away to visit his next patient, just
up the dirt road in the town that had grown steadily. How many times he had
heard Brookie’s tales—how British pirates would raid the Spanish settlements
for gold and silver, how the Spaniards would build forts along the coast and
fight back, how ships were hijacked and the two empires battled. Things had
certainly quieted down since then although rivalries were not unknown even now.
Word of a Spanish attack on the settlement of St. George’s Caye had only
reached them two weeks ago.

His father-in-law’s voice rose with the excitement of the story, as
Enrique walked on. Life had changed drastically in that man’s lifetime. The
American colonies had won their freedom, the Caribbean islands were being
sorted out—some attaining nationhood, others remaining under control of their
European discoverers, be they English, Spanish, Dutch or French. People, too,
moved on. He knew of ancestors back in the New Mexico territory but had never
met any of them. Perhaps one day there would be a means more effective than a
horse-drawn cart to travel inland. For now, transportation to other parts of
the world remained best navigated by the hundreds of ships that dominated the
seas.

He put all that rumination aside when he reached the cottage of
Alphonse
Mbaba
, a patient wracked with such a cough
that Enrique suspected some sort of virulent cancer eating away at the poor
man’s insides. This one, he knew, was beyond his help for a recovery. Sometimes
all he could do was offer consolation.

From Alphonse’s bedside he made his way through the village, stopping
to check on three additional patients and responding to a frantic shout for
help when a young mother discovered her son had fallen from a banyan tree. The
lad had the breath knocked out of him but responded quickly to Enrique’s touch.
Luckily, he had landed on soft sand and there were no broken bones.

At home Catherine’s cook had kept his dinner warm in the miraculous new
six-plate cast-iron stove her father had imported from Germany as their wedding
gift. He pecked a kiss on his wife’s cheek as she set his plate on the table.

“Where are the boys?” he asked. “I hope they’ve not overstayed their
welcome with your father. He was in the middle of his famed pirate stories when
I last saw them.”

She laughed, the light musical sound which had drawn his attention when
he was fifteen. “That was long ago. They came home and would have eaten
everything in sight, including your own dinner, I’m afraid, had I not stopped
them. George has gone to study his lessons with the Galbraith children and I
believe Jonathan is reading in the parlor.”

He smiled at the way she clung to the British words, such as parlor. In
his childhood homes there had usually been one common room, sometimes a
separate bedroom or kitchen, sometimes not. His parents would have never conceived
of having different rooms for each purpose and certainly would not have
imagined a thing called a parlor.

Since Ramona’s death five years ago, his father had spread out in the
small wooden house which he had bought from Brookie at some point, now using
the children’s former bedroom as his studio. He lived a solitary life, painting
in the mornings, the better time for his failing eyes to take advantage of the
light. Catherine normally took him some dinner in the early afternoon but
Carlito ate little these days. Enrique recognized the signs—his father would
not live much longer.

He handed his empty plate to his wife and gave her another kiss. His
youngest son sat on the couch, another addition courtesy of Brookie, the
softest piece of furniture in the house, with its padded seat. The wooden arms
and back had been carved to match the room’s other chairs and Catherine took
great pride in seeing that their slave girl dusted and polished them until they
gleamed.

“Not outside playing?” Enrique teased.

Jonathan looked up with copies of his own dark, serious eyes. He
pointed to the book on his lap. “It’s the history of ancient Rome. Did you know
that the Romans held nearly all of Europe and built roads that are still in use
today?”

Enrique actually had not known that last part. “You are an excellent
scholar. Mr. Billingham says so.”

“I like his classes. He loaned me this book but it isn’t part of our
course work.”

“Good. I’m glad you get along with your teacher and that you are
learning so much.”

“Papá? Can I ask you something?”

Enrique nodded and took a seat nearby. While George’s questions always
followed the lines of, “may I take some more pudding?” or “can I sail with one
of the galleons when I’m sixteen?”, Jonathan’s questions were likely to come
from the inner reaches of his intelligent mind and could concern anything. It
was often a challenge to provide answers.

“Papá, that box you keep on the shelf … would you teach me how to use
it one day?”

A knot formed in Enrique’s stomach. “To use it?”

“Yes. I have noticed that you take it down and hold it nearly every
day. Always on the days when you visit your patients.” The boy closed his book
and looked at his lap. “I have a confession, Papá. I touched it once.”

The knot went tighter. His thoughts flashed through a half-dozen
scenes—events where he had cured sickness, times when he found himself with
such unlimited energy that he had to leave the house for fear of the
destruction he might do, and one time when someone else had touched it, an old
woman whose eyes then glowed with the frightening power of the devil itself. He
watched his young son’s expression carefully. “And what happened?”

“I … I am not sure I should say.”

“You will not be in trouble. But you need to tell me.”

“You know how the box is normally somewhat dark and dull? This day, you
had not put it on the shelf. It was on that table by the window. I thought it
looked more attractive, much handsomer in some way. That’s when I touched it.”

“And?”

“The wood was warm. I thought the sunlight had been on it, but that
window was in the shade at the time. I put my hand on it like this …” He laid
his palm flat on the book. “… and the box became even warmer. I think the color
of it grew brighter. The little stones … they were most definitely brighter.”

“Did you open the lid? Put your hands inside?”

The boy’s eyes went wide. “No. Only the lid, I promise. I’m sorry,
Papá, if I should not have done it.”

“But the box has aroused your curiosity and you want to know what makes
it react.”

Jonathan nodded vigorously.

“I will tell you. I promise. But you are not yet twelve and it’s an
important responsibility, an adult responsibility, to use that box. A time will
come in the next few years when I can show it to you, teach you what to do with
it. For now, though, I need your promise that you will not touch it again.”

“I promise.”

Their eyes met, two dark pairs. They understood each other. At least
Enrique hoped they did, for the futures of many people could depend upon his
finding exactly the right person to hand the box to one day.

* * *

Carlito’s time came on the eve of his eightieth birthday, although
dates that far back in time, births that were never officially recorded in the
small pueblo towns of northern New Mexico, were rarely remembered and in Carlito’s
case he had long since lost track of his age. He was unsure even of his
children’s ages. Ramona had once remembered them but she had left this earth
many years ago. They gathered here now, those remaining.

Miguel must be close to sixty—his hair was completely gray—and his own
children were adults. His wife, the freed-woman Adana who had changed her name
to Edna, had died giving birth to their third.

Lorenzo had long since sailed to make his fortune in Spain. The family
had never heard another word, and his fate was unknown. Many ships went down in
those years. He never would know, Carlito realized as his final breaths wheezed
in his lungs.

Francesca went away with a Cuban who came to Belize on a ship that
delivered rum. Once in a great while, during the years her mother was alive,
she had written. That man had beaten her but she met another, a good man. As
far as Carlito knew, she still lived there with him.

His eyes moved to Enrique, the son who had stayed closest, who had
helped his parents through the years. His wife, Catherine, stood at his side
with tears in her eyes. He wanted to tell her not to be sad, that he had
finally reached life’s ultimate goal. Beside the couple were their two boys.
Something in that younger one was special. Carlito knew it but was too tired at
the moment to figure out what that special quality was.

Then he thought of baby Aurelia. Prone to fevers and tropical diseases,
she had fought a brave fight but one day an especially bad bout came. Her
brother cried over her, wanting so badly to save her, but despite the fact that
he was able to cure many people of many troubles he had not been able to keep
her alive. She’d lain in the graveyard beside her mother for several years now.

A tear slipped from Carlito’s eye and ran down the side of his face.
Although his eyes were closed now he heard Catherine sob loudly.

“Do not worry about me. I have lived a good life, a satisfying life,”
he said, wishing his voice did not sound so garbled. Then he exhaled for the
last time.

* * *

“Jonathan, come with me,” Enrique said, motioning his son toward
Brookie’s old study in the house he and Catherine and the boys had moved into
after the old man’s death a decade earlier. He closed the solid door behind
them.

The paneled walls and sturdy furnishings had always felt reassuring and
comfortable to Enrique, here in this place where he had established his medical
office so patients could come at any time to see him. Many had come to the
house during the past two days of visitation, for everyone in town knew the
Martinez family, most had been treated by Enrique and all were respectful of
his father. Now that the burial in the plot next to beloved Ramona was done,
nothing was left but the empty hours until everyone left.