Читать книгу The Dark Road - Harold Bindloss - Страница 11
Оглавлениеsiesta
For a hundred yards the channel shone like polished glass. The glare was insupportable, but where the canoes were tied a giant cottonwood spread its branches across the creek. Strong buttresses stayed the light-colored trunk, and orchids sprang from the high fork of a rotten bough. The flowers were not at all beautiful, and on the sandy bank the shade was thin.
In front, mangrove roots straddled the hot mud and crawled into deep water. The trunks they carried were thin but numerous; the pale branches met and locked, and the waterway under them was like a dark tunnel. Behind the canoes another muddy channel curved into thick gloom.
The Rio de la Sombra was not properly a river. For the most part, it did not run between fixed banks; the water rather oozed from under the arched mangrove roots, and sometimes one did not know which way it went. The trees that grew where firm ground was were witch cottonwoods; the crowding mangroves were blotched white, as if by a leprous disease. In Africa the negroes said the trees were sick. Nothing was fresh to Welland, and he knew the languid heaviness that began to bother him.
For all that, he was not alone. Carthew and Huysler had pushed into the wood, and Father Sebastian slept in the canoe astern. The dark-skinned porters took their siesta where the shade was deepest behind the trunks. Nilson, lying in the bottom of the canoe, smoked a cigarette. The big craft, dug out of a cottonwood log and covered at the waist by a palm-leaf thatch, was like the canoes Welland had used on the Oil Rivers, and he imagined her builder was an African.
By and by Nilson looked up.
"Carthew reckons we have made ten miles since sunrise, and he's satisfied. It's not the sort of country where a white man hustles, and until a breed is hungry he hates to move. In the circumstances, the chief might have struck old man Huysler for a power boat."
"You could not carry a motor-launch across the bars," said Welland, indicating a bank of greasy mud where blind-fish splashed.
"I'm not keen to try. All the same, I have portaged an American canoe and my camp truck for five or six miles across the rocks by the Lake of the Woods. A subaltern's job is not to criticize, but we might perhaps have gone another way. There are roads of a sort, and when we were loading up, an old Ford rolled along the street. To hear Lizzie rattle was homelike."
"If I had had friends and an occupation in Minnesota, I doubt if I'd have joined the excursion," Welland remarked.
"Well, why did you?"
"I was broke. In Africa one soon gets old, and I thought I'd try to mend my fortunes while adventure was possible."
"Sorry," said Nilson. "When I'm interested, I am frank; you may have noted something like that. Anyhow, I don't altogether see why I'm mushing through the swamps with this layout. Urge of youth, perhaps, and Jack's my pal. It's probably not important; but while the superheater runs full blast one cannot sleep."
He threw his cigarette in the creek and Welland brooded. But for the splashing of the mud-fish and the current's dull gurgle in the mangrove roots, all was very quiet. Man and birds and animals must rest until the scorching sun got low.
By and by Nilson resumed:
"The North is fresh and bracing. In the tangled pines across Lake Superior, you can track your canoe against the current and portage across the rocks from sun-up until dusk. In our dry sagebrush wastes, you can front the heat and ride a horse all day. Well, I've shot moose and antelope. For some time, it was all I wanted to do. You see, I don't have to work."
Welland thought Nilson's hunting had given him an Indian's nerve and a splendid body. Stretched across the dugout's floor, the young fellow was a model for an ambitious sculptor. Perhaps one could only in marble copy his long flowing lines and his muscles' balanced curves.
"I imagined an American's habit was to work, whether he was forced or not."
Nilson laughed. "We have begun to cultivate the sportsman loafer, but, in a way, the type's exotic, and I believe, until recently, we went to England for our model. Anyhow, the traditions of sterner times survive and my Scandinavian relations were a grimly industrious lot. Then, you see, when I had, for three or four weeks, packed my camp gear across the woods and did shoot a moose, all I got was its head, and to smuggle the trophy across the frontier was some job. The old man's object for sweating was to enlarge his bank-roll, and inherited instincts count for more than one thinks. Then, since I hadn't been there, the South called, and, after all, Carthew might find the crystal gum."
He admitted he talked because he could not sleep, but his humorous apology was plausible and he was typically Nordic. Since the Vikings launched their galleys men of his stock had pushed south and west like conquerors. Welland, by comparison, felt himself old and tired. His habit was not to meddle rashly, but he might perhaps warn the other.
"For a few minutes, one evening at Santa Catalina, I doubted if you would help our search," he said. "Another time you run a risk like that your luck might not be as good."
Nilson lifted his head, and Welland saw his carelessness was gone.
"I expect you mean well, but I don't think you and Carthew quite understand. When I climbed the Viñoles porch, I knew the window I tried to reach was barred. For all that, the exploit was a fool's exploit, and I sent Señora Viñoles word that if she was willing to receive me, I'd like to offer my apologies."
"Who carried your message?"
"Mariquita. Our meeting was perfectly correct. Mariquita was taking a pasear with a fat but very watchful relation. Then Señora Viñoles did receive me."
"I wonder whether you know all your visiting at the house implies?" said Welland with some dryness.
"I do know," said Nilson quietly, but his face got red. "In a way, it's important. If Carthew talks about it, you can put him wise."
Welland hesitated, but the young fellow was impulsive, and perhaps his business was to see that he was not carried away.
"The ground is awkward, but you are an American, from a northern State. Your people are Scandinavian. Señorita Viñoles springs from another stock."
"Iberian stock," said Nilson. "I want you to get that. Cuban and Filipino colonists are Spaniards. Mariquita's folk are Peninsulares. There's a difference."
"At all events, she is a Catholic."
"Not long since our lot were Lutheran, but the old man and my mother helped support a Methodist church," said Nilson, smiling. "Anyhow, what has a man like me to do with the intricacies of jarring creeds? Mine is, I love Mariquita. And I believe in splendid adventure that carries you where the cautious never get. And if you hate to be shabby, you must not be afraid. You must trust your luck, and follow the gleam. Well, if we get back from the swamps, I hope to send you and Carthew with a formal proposition to the Viñoles family. One understands it's the rule in Spain."
Welland knew where to stop. He could not move Nilson, and, after all, the boy's philosophy was finer than his.
"You imply you are not altogether sure about our getting back?" he said.
"Oh, well, I begin to think our chief takes some chances. Don't you?"
"I don't know all the obstacles. You, however, are not forced to go and, in the circumstances, you might be justified to start for Catalina when we send back the peons."
"The circumstances are the obstacle," Nilson rejoined. "Do you propose to quit?"
"My pay is pretty good. I need the sum I'll get."
"But I do not need money? Well, before I knew Mariquita, I agreed to see Jack through. Now that it looks as if the job is bigger than I thought, I might cry off and steal back to Mariquita, because she wouldn't like me to get hurt? She's proud. I reckon she would not have much use for that sort of lover."
Welland said nothing. After all, he had not imagined Nilson would quit; moreover, on board the yacht, Miss Whitney had given him her confidence. In a world of jazz and vulgar extravagance, these young people had somehow cultivated a fine chivalrous spirit. The boys had their code; modern youth, at all events, was not shabbily afraid. Perhaps the strange thing was, they felt he would approve.
After a minute or two, Father Sebastian strolled along the bank and, getting on board, lighted a maize-husk cigarette.
"The afternoon is for siesta, but you talk. In Spain they say only dogs and Englishmen do not fear the sun."
"Mr. Nilson is American. However, we were weighing a moral problem and the effort banished our sleepiness. I think his solution was better than mine."
"If you were Catholics, you would not be bothered by problems. You would use the Church's rules."
"Rules get out of date. Then I don't know if mechanical obedience is better than the proper choice you make for yourself."
"Sometimes the choice is not the proper choice," said Father Sebastian dryly. "Stubborn independence may cost one much."
Nilson turned and languidly studied the pair. They were worn by sickness and tropical heat, and their lined faces were ascetic. Welland's look, on the whole, was calmly humorous. Father Sebastian's was brooding; although his skin was yellow and shriveled, Nilson sensed force. By temperament and tradition they were jarring types, but both were men whose influence was felt.
"I suppose your friend yet refuses to pay Señor Galdos's toll?" Father Sebastian resumed.
"I had thought it done with," said Welland carelessly. "If you imply that he will be given a fresh chance, I certainly think he will refuse. Since it cost us a useful sum to negotiate at the capital, we are not going to be robbed by a fresh politician."
"All politicians are robbers," Father Sebastian remarked. "Well, I expect a messenger from Galdos will presently arrive, and if you do not satisfy him, you must bear the consequences."
"Señor Galdos is the President's officer."
"In this country, the President's officers sometimes seize his post. However, the business is not mine, and Vallon yet rules at the capital. When he is dead, Galdos may be President, for a time."
"Then, you reckon on Vallon's dying?"
Father Sebastian shrugged. "All are mortal, and the President's enemies are numerous. In a republic of equal opportunities, one ruler is as good as another, so long as he has bribes to give and gets there first. When his supporters begin to grumble he robs the Church. Then, if one can divide the citizens, to rule is easier. Ours are meztisos, Indians and negroes; but there is another party, the persecuted Catholics, whose strength the President does not know."
"You are on your way to join them?"
"I was banished and the others think my road from the coast is closed," Father Sebastian replied. "There are many ways to stop an obstinate traveler, and the negroes believe that devils haunt the swamps. The belief perhaps is not altogether ridiculous—" He shrugged and resumed: "Well, one must not bore you. I am wanted, and I go."
He threw his cigarette in the creek, stretched his thin legs across the palm mat, and in a few minutes was asleep.
"The padre's hard stuff," said Nilson in a thoughtful voice. "Not the sort you can bluff and bully; he puts across his job. All the same, I'd sooner he had not joined up with us."
