Deadly Shoals (12 page)

After a few moments of this Hale, looking extremely irritated, asked, “What are they talking about?”

Straightfaced, Wiki said, “I haven't a notion.” The Indians' language was the strangest he had ever heard, being composed of clicks, grunts, and a harsh sound made by clenching the throat. However, his knack for picking up repeated phrases, allied to the abundant clues given by gesture, expression, and posture, was serving him well, so he had a very good idea indeed what was happening—the young men were discussing the American, and comparing his pale, soft-featured looks somewhat unfavorably to their own.

“It's very distracting,” Mr. Hale complained.

“I'm sure it is,” agreed Wiki amiably.

“And I think that you are the cause of it. You seem to attract a lot of attention. I really do believe I would do better on my own.”

There was nothing Wiki wanted more than to leave, but he couldn't resist saying, “You're sure you can manage?”

“Of course I can manage!” Horatio Hale snapped, and Wiki took himself off to the
pulpería.

*   *   *

The interior of the adobe building was large, dim, and crowded with both men and goods. The wall by the doorway where Wiki had come in was studded with pegs, from which hung horse gear of all kinds—bridles, stirrups, spurs, and pieces of saddle. He saw sheepskins heaped in a corner of the baked mud floor, great piles of bagged maize and jerked beef, and shelves piled with ponchos and lengths of bright cloth. Barrels of molasses, ship's bread, and salt beef and pork were stacked along another wall, along with hogsheads of tobacco—a telling contrast to the ransacked state of Adams's store.

Wiki found that his guess that this store was a
botillería
was a correct one, too, because at the far end of the room the proprietor stood behind a wooden palisade, presiding over Dutch gin and Spanish wine,
aguardiente
from the Azores, and Brazilian
caña.
There was a strong, all-pervading smell of sweat, leather, wool, aniseed, and horses, and the noise was deafening. Gauchos and Indians hammered on the counter with the flat blades of their knives, saluted each other at the tops of their voices as they passed cups of harsh red wine around, and shouted while they argued about revolutions and horse brands. A drunken musician strummed a guitar just inside the doorway, setting dogs to howling outside.

Captain Stackpole was standing brace-legged in a corner, an empty heavy-bottomed tumbler in his hand, looking all the better for having swallowed whatever had been inside it. Wiki eased over to him, and asked if he had found any of the Indian sealers. When the whaleman glumly shook his head, Wiki lifted his voice, shouting for Ramón, Ramón being the Spanish name the Indian
cacique,
Huinchan, had given his son. Five men answered, but only one was Indian.

Ramón, son of Huinchan, had the same flat, cruel face as his father. He was also half drunk, evidently still celebrating his good fortune on the sealing ground. Luckily, he was in an amenable mood, and ready to chat—in a remarkably polyglot kind of way, as over the sealing voyage he had picked up quite a lot of English to add to his gaucho-style Spanish.

“I liked to go a-sealing,” he informed them. Not only had the adventure yielded wonderful riches, but he'd found he had a natural talent for killing and skinning seals. Also, Captain Hallett had been a fair and just
caudillo,
who worked as hard as his men.

Wiki said curiously, “How many skins did you get?”

“Five thousand,” said the Indian, and puffed his chest out.

It didn't sound terribly many to Wiki. Though he'd be the first to admit that he knew nothing about the sealing trade, he'd read of ventures that yielded twenty thousand pelts or more. However, Ramón was clearly pleased with the number, so Wiki observed, “It must have been tempting to sail with the schooner again.”

“The opportunity, señor, was not there.”

“Because of Captain Hallett's injury?”

“He died,” the Indian told him. “He went to Dr. Ducatel's ranch and when the doctor cut off his arm his life leaked out of the end.”

Stackpole shifted abruptly, exclaiming, “He went to Ducatel's
ranch
?”

“Captain Hallett died at Dr. Ducatel's ranch,” the Indian confirmed, adding solemnly, “He died on the Sabbath.”

“My
God
!” The whaleman sounded on the verge of exploding.

Wiki waited, but Stackpole didn't elaborate, so he carried on with the cross-examination, saying to the Indian in Spanish, “The schooner was bought from Captain Hallett for another captain, who was taking the schooner a-sealing again. Would he not want to use the same gang that had done so well with you as
capataz
?”

“Another captain?” Ramón let out a derisive sound, and then said in English, “Ah, who could that be?”

Wiki had been thinking of Stackpole, but instead he said tentatively, “Señor Adams?”

“Adams?” Another contemptuous snort. “What kind of man would allow himself to be shipped by a
pulpero
?”

“A
pulpero
who is missing,” Wiki remarked meaningfully, and waited.

Silence. The Indian looked away, glancing all about the crowded store.

Giving up, Wiki said in English, “What about the schooner?”

“Ah, she sailed away.”

Stackpole exclaimed, “Where?”

“Up the river.”

Stackpole and Wiki looked at each other. Then the whaleman demanded, “When did she come back?”

“I did not see her come back,” said Ramón indifferently.

“So who was it who sailed her up the river?” Wiki asked.

“Peter and Dick, they sailed her,” said Ramón.

“
Who?”
said Stackpole, thunderstruck.

“Our seamen,” said the Indian, and then added in Spanish to Wiki, “My men and I, you understand, were the sealers, not the sailors. We did not sail the schooner. Peter and Dick did the sailing work.”

So Peter and Dick were members of the
Athenian
crew—men who had been seconded to the schooner. Wiki wondered if they had been opportunistic enough to pirate the
Grim Reaper
after Adams had failed to come back from the
salinas
. More likely still, he suddenly realized, they could have been recruited by the killer after he'd returned from burying the corpse. Or were they murderers themselves?

He said, “Did she not have a captain when she sailed up the river?”

“No captain of the schooner I saw, just a common
pulpero
who held the tiller while Peter and Dick worked the sails,” Ramón said with disdain, and lifted his glass and drank.

Wiki stared at him. While this confirmed that Adams had stolen the schooner and sailed her upriver, it simply deepened the mystery of the men who had driven the packhorses to the salt dunes, and the horseman who had pursued them. Then, while he was phrasing another question, all hell let loose in the
toldería
outside.

Threatening shouts in the Indian tongue were punctuated with bloodcurdling screams, and the insane yapping of dozens of dogs. When Wiki shouldered his way through the crowd and out of the
pulpería,
it was to see Horatio Hale backing off rapidly from the tent where he had been collecting words. A young Indian man was jabbing menacingly with his long knife as he advanced on the philologist.

Wiki found himself shoved aside as Bernantio and his gauchos rushed with enthusiasm to the rescue. Their ponchos had been wound around their left arms, which were held across their stomachs to protect their vital organs; their facóns were gripped in their right hands, and their lean, high-cheeked faces were hungry for battle. The Indian stared at them aggressively, but his knife was lifted to jab the philologist.

Wiki raced obliquely toward Hale, dived, and wrestled him to one side just as the Indian's knife started its downward plunge. The young scientist thumped to the ground with a startled yell. Wiki rolled, staggered to his feet, and yanked him up again. Then he propelled him into a headlong dash with a palm planted between his shoulder blades.

When they were well clear, he said, “What the devil happened?”

“I was merely about my work.” The philologist was looking back at the developing fight with a bewildered air. “After eliciting the words for horse, house, knife, and writing them down, I was then trying out the adjuncts,
your
horse,
his
house,
my
knife—and he took fire, supposing some awful insult.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Wiki, instantly seeing what had happened. “He thought you were challenging his ownership of these things—that you were calling him a liar.”

“But we were doing so
well
until the misunderstanding. Even the
dogs
were friendly. In fact, they gave me fleas. Can't you
explain
it to him, so we can go back to work?”

“God, no,” said Wiki, casting a comprehensive glance at the scene. “
You're
the cause of the trouble, I'm afraid. The sooner we remove you, the better.”

He shoved Hale toward his horse, saw him mount, leaped on board his own mare, and looked about for Stackpole. The whaleman, as alert to trouble as all of his kind, had found his own steed in the confusion, and the three of them galloped down the steep slope to the river, hooves kicking and sliding in the rush. Into the water they plunged, and labored briskly toward the other side, getting ashore a couple of hundred yards downstream from the pueblo.

*   *   *

When they arrived back at the steps that led up to the village, Dr. Ducatel was standing in the middle of the path, just as if he expected them.

“Mr. Coffin,” he said with a formal little bow. “Mr. Hale. Captain Stackpole.”

Stackpole roared,
“Ducatel!”

Everyone jumped with fright, including the surgeon, who spluttered, “I have merely come to deliver a message from—”

“I heard just now that Rowland Hallett died at your ranch, not up at the barracks the way that I thought!”

Ducatel licked his lips, visibly gathered rags of dignity about him, and muttered, “Like any rational man who was lucky enough to be able to afford the cost, Captain Hallett preferred not to be sent to the hole they call a sick bay at the fort.”

“Afford the cost?” Stackpole echoed with thunderous fury. “Of course he could afford the bloody cost—and do you know why? Because he had my money!”

“What m-money?” the surgeon stuttered, backing off a step.

Wiki interrupted, “How much did Hallett have on him when he died?”

“Enough,” Ducatel answered, his look becoming evasive.

Stackpole thundered, “What do you mean,
enough
?”

“Enough for my fee! Once I'd subtracted the amount of that, I put all the deceased's possessions into official hands. If you don't believe me, you can ask the governor! I handed over Captain Hallett's sea chest the very same day that he died, even before I buried him—in my own burying ground on the ranch,” he said with an air of wounded virtue. “After filling out the death certificate, naturally,” he added.

Wiki scowled, thinking that it had all happened in rather a rush, and said, “When did this happen?”

Ducatel didn't need to stop to think, saying at once, “He passed away on January thirteenth. The Sabbath,” he added, in the same solemn tone the Indian had used.

“Was Captain Hallett at your house all the time he was ill?”

“Right from the hour he came to consult—which he did the first possible moment after the
Grim Reaper
arrived off the pueblo.”

“What date was that?”

“January sixth.”

So Hallett had been under the surgeon's care for a week before he died. Thinking that the fee Ducatel charged must have been a substantial one, Wiki looked at Stackpole, and asked, “Did Adams have the money on the sixth?”

Stackpole shook his head. “I gave it to him on the eighth, the same day I inspected the schooner. I handed it over, got a receipt, and that's the last I saw of it, because I headed back to my ship.”

“And he didn't mention that Captain Hallett was on shore?”

“Didn't say a bloody word,” said Stackpole moodily. “He was too busy planning to steal the schooner, I reckon.”

The whaling master was probably right, Wiki thought, but then wondered when the transaction had taken place. He asked the surgeon, “When did Caleb Adams come to the ranch?”

“I've already told you I haven't seen Adams for weeks!”

So how had Adams managed to buy the schooner? Wiki was silent a moment, abstractedly restraining his mare as she shifted restlessly from one hoof to another, and wishing he could remember the details of the deed of sale.

He said, “And when you subtracted the amount of your fee from the money in the dead man's pockets, you didn't see a bank draft?”

“What draft?” the surgeon cried. “I don't know anything about any draft!”

Stackpole snapped, “We're talking about a draft to the amount of one thousand dollars that Adams paid Hallett for that goddamned schooner!”

Ducatel's eyes popped. “One
thousand
dollars?”

“That's what I said—and I want to know what happened to it after Hallett died!”

The surgeon cried, “I didn't even know that the schooner was sold! And you're trying to accuse me of stealing one thousand dollars from Captain Hallett? On what grounds, pray? No one has whispered a single word about any sale—the schooner was here, and then she was gone, and that's all I know about it! Do you have any proof? I bet you don't! And Adams never came to the ranch, I swear! If anyone stole any draft, it was him!”