Limekiller!

“Well, good for both of you,” declared Captain Sneed, making an honorable capitulation of the fortress.

May had a question of her own. “Why do we all have to wear boots?” she asked, when there are hardly any wet places along here.”

“Plenty tommy goff, Mees.”

“Tommy Goff? Who is he?”

“Don’t know who he was, common enough name, though, among English-speaking people in this part of the Caribbean. Don’t know why they named a snake after the chap, either…”

A slight pause. “A. snake.?”

“And such a snake, too! The dreaded fer-de-lance, as they call it in the French islands.”

“Uhh. Poisonous?”

Sneed wiped his sweating head, nodded his Digger-style bush hat. “Deadly poisonous. If it’s in full venom, bite can kill a horse. Sometimes does. So do be exceedingly cautious. Please.”

There was a further word on the subject, from Filiberto Marin. “Da castellano, se llame ‘barba amarilla.’ ”

This took a moment to sink in. Then one of the North Americans asked, “Doesn’t that mean ‘yellow beard’?”

“Quite right. In fact, the tommygoff’s other name in English is ‘yellow jaw.’ But the Spanish is, literally, yes, it’s yellow beard."

All three North Americans said, as one, “Oh.” And looked at each other with a wild surmise.

The noises went on all around them. Slash —! Hack —! And, Chop! Chop! Chop! After another moment, May went on, “Well, I must say that seems like quite a collection of watchies that your late Mr. Leopold Pike appointed. Crocodiles. Poison serpents. What else. Oh. Do garobo bite?"

“Bite your nose or finger off if you vex him from the front; yes.”

May said, thoughtfully, “I’m not sure that I really like your late Mr. Leopold Pike —”

Another flash of daytime lightening. Limekiller said, and remembered saying it the day before in the same startled tone, videlicet: “Pike! Pike!” Adding, this time, “Fer-de-lance.

Felix gave him her swift look. Her face said. No, he was not feverish. Next she said, “Fer,' that’s Lrench for ‘iron,’ and. Oh. I see. Yes. Jesus. Fer-de-lance, lance-iron, or spear-head. Or spear-point. Or —”

“Or in other words,” May wound up, “Pike. You dreamed that, too, small John?”

He swung his ax again, nodded. Thunk. “Sort of. one way or another.” Thunk. “He had a, sort of a, pike with him.” Thunk. “Trying to get his point — ha-ha — across. Did I dream the snake, too? Must have… I guess…” Thunk.

“No. I do not like your late Mr. Leopold Pike.”

Sneed declared a break. Took sips of water, slowly, carefully. Wiped his face. Said, “You might have liked Old Pike, though. A hard man in his way. Not without a sense of humor, though. And.

after all. he hasn’t hurt our friend John Limekiller. has he? Old chap Pike was simply trying to do his best for his dead son’s child. May seem an odd way, to us. May be. Pact o’the matter: is. Why didn’t he do it another way? Who’s to say. Didn’t have too much trust in the law and the law’s delays. I’ll sum it up. Pike liked to do things in his own way. A lot of them were Indian ways. Old Indian ways. Used to bum copal gum when he went deer hunting. Always got his deer. And as for this little business, well. the old Indians had no probate courts. What’s the consequence? How does one guarantee that one’s bequest reaches one’s intended heir?

“Why. one dreams it to him! Or, for that matter, her. In this case, however, the her is a small child. So — ”

One of the woodsmen put down his tin cup, and, thinking Sneed had done, said to Limekiller, “Mon, you doesn’t holds de ox de same way we does. But you holds eet well. Where you learns dis?”

“Oh…” said Limekiller, vaguely, “I’ve helped cut down a very small part of Canada without benefit of chain saw. In my even younger days.” Would he, too, he wondered, in his even older days, would he too ramble on about the trees he had felled? — the deeds he had done?

Probably.

Why not?

A wooden chest would have moldered away. An iron one would have rusted. Perhaps for these reasons the “collection of gold and silver coins, not being Coin of the Realm or Legal Tender,” had been lodged in more Indian jars. Larger ones, this time. An examination of one of them showed that the contents were as described. Once again the machetes were put to use; branches, vines, ropes, were cut and trimmed. Litters, or slings, rough but serviceable, were made. Was some collective ethnic unconscious at work here? Had not the Incas, Aztecs, Mayas, ridden in palanquins?

Now for the first time the old woman raised her voice. “Ahl dis fah you, Bet-tv,” she said, touching the ancient urns. “Bet-tah food. Fah you. Bet-tah house. Fah you, Bet-tah school. Fah you." Her gaze was triumphant. “Ahl dis fah you!“