Limekiller!

Key shrugged. “Sometimes somebody goes down there, goes up the river, along the old bush trails, buys cam. About now, you know, mon, cam bring good price, up in King Town.”

Limekiller knew that. He often did think about that. He could quote the prices Brad Welcome paid for corn: white, corn, yellow com, cracked and ground. “I know,” he said. “In King Town they have a lot of money and only a little corn. Along Nutmeg River they have a lot of com and only a little money. Someone who brings down money from the Town can buy com along the Nutmeg. Too bad I didn’t think of that before I left.”

Key allowed himself a small sigh. He knew that it wasn’t any lack of thought, and that Limekiller had had no money before he left, or, likely, he wouldn’t have left. “May-be they trust you down along the Nutmeg. They trust old Bob Blaine. Year after year he go up the Nutmeg, he go up and down the bush trail, he buy earn on credit, bring it bock up to King Town.”

Off in the shadow at the other end of the barroom someone began to sing, softly.

W’ol’ Bob Blaine, he done gone.

W’ol’ Bob Blaine, he done gone.

Ahl, ahl me money gone

Gone, to Spahnish Hidalgo..

In King Town, Old Bob Blaine had sold the corn, season after season. Old Bob Blaine had bought salt, he had bought shotgun shells, canned milk, white flour, cotton cloth from the Turkish merchants. Lish hooks, sweet candy, rubber boots, kerosene, lamp chimney. Old Bob Blaine had returned and paid for com in kind — not, to be sure, immediately after selling the corn. Things did not move that swiftly even today, in British Hidalgo, and certainly had not Back When. Old Bob Blaine returned with the merchandise on his next buying trip. It was more convenient, he did not have to make so many trips up and down the mangrove coast. By and by it must almost have seemed that he was paying in advance, when he came, buying corn down along the Nutmeg River, the boundary between the Colony of British Hidalgo and the country which the Colony still called Spanish Hidalgo, though it had not been Spain’s for a century and a half.

“Yes mon,” Alfonso Key agreed. “Only, that one last time, he not come bock. They say he buy one marine engine yard, down in Republican waters.”

“I heard,” Limekiller said, “that he bought a garage down there.”

The soft voice from the back of the bar said, “No, mon. Twas a coconut walk he bought. Yes, mon.”

Jack wondered why people, foreign people, usually, sometimes complained that it was difficult to get information in British Hidalgo. In his experience, information was the easiest thing in the world, there — all the information you wanted. In fact, sometimes you could get more than you wanted. Sometimes, of course, it was contradictory. Sometimes it was outright wrong. But that, of course, was another matter.

“Anybody else ever take up the trade down there?” Even if the information, the answer, if there was an answer, even if it were negative, what difference would it make?

“No,” said Key. “No-body. May-be you try, eh, Jock? May-be they trust you.”

There was no reason why the small cultivators, slashing their small cornfields by main force out of the almighty bush and, then burning the slash and then planting, corn in the, ashes, so to speak — maybe they would trust him, even though there was no reason why they should trust him. Still. Who knows. They might. They just might. Well. some of them just might. For a moment a brief hope rose in his mind.

“Naaa… I haven’t even got any crocus sacks.” There wasn’t much point in any of it after all. Not if he’d have to tote the corn wrapped up in his shirt. The jute sacks were fifty cents apiece in local currency; they were as good as money, sometimes even better than money.

Key, who had been watching rather unsleepingly as these thoughts were passing through Jack’s mind, slowly sank back in his chair. “Ah,” he said, very softly. “You haven’t got any crocus sock.”

“Een de w’ol’ days,” the voice from the back said, “every good ’oman, she di know which bush verb good fah wyes, fah kid-ney, which bush verb good fah heart, which bush verb good fah fever. But ahl of dem good w’ol’ ’omen, noew, dev dead, you see. Yes mon. Ahl poss ahway. Nobody know bush medicine nowadays. Only bush-doc-tor. And dev very few, sah, very few.”

“What you say, Coptain Cudgel, you not bush doc-tor you w’own self? Nah true, Coptain?”

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the old man answered. “Well sah. Me know few teeng. Fah true. Me know few teeng. Not like in w’ol’ days. In w’ol’ davs, me dive fah conch. Yes mon. Fetch up plan-ty conch. De sahlt wah-tah hort me wyes, take bush-yerb fah cure dem. But nomah. No, mon. Me no dive no mah. Ahl de time, me wyes hort, stay out of strahng sun noew. Yes mon. ”