Pearce pulls to a standing position. He squints up at the sun. He thinks about his strange hunger, which has conquered all. In the end it was this that won over sleep, that tightened bladder of a stomach folding in upon itself, gnawing and spitting acidic juice, keeping the sharp eyes of Alexander Pearce keen, alert.
A few days later Alexander Pearce is found by a farmer. He is dismembering and eating a sheep, fresh from the field. The farmer knows Pearce, recognizes him—despite his strange table manners—as Irish and arms him. To the bush with you, Pearce. No fork-and-knife-boiled-mutton life for you. Pearce stays at large with other Irishmen, looting and hunted, murderously free, until he is finally caught.
“What makes Pearce so special?” said Travis.
“Well, he escaped with seven other men, but was the only one to survive,” I said.
“You admire his determination?” said Travis.
“Among other things,” I replied. My coffee had grown cold, so I got up to get some more. Pearce was not tried for cannibalism, although he readily confessed. He explained with pride his small act of survival. The authorities, confusing the truth with altruism, decided he was lying in order to create a myth of death around the others, who could at this very moment be boarding a Dutch freighter bound for Indonesia. They bundled Pearce off to Macquarie Harbor and determine to keep better guard over him.
“Pearce was also the only man to escape Macquarie twice,” I added.
“Why didn’t they hang him the first time?” asked Arthur.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe they admired him.”
The second time Alexander Pearce escaped by land. Despite Pearce’s history, he had a willing companion, a Thomas Cox. Who can say what Cox had heard? Pearce was legendary. The other convicts revered him. To escape and return to tell about it was an accomplishment; the substance of Pearce’s stories was of little consequence. Cox and Pearce traveled together, but apparently had a falling out over the fact that Cox could not swim. This is understandable when you consider the rush the men were in and the fact that they were standing on the bank of the King’s River. When the authorities caught up with Pearce (they were in a boat and sighted him by his campfire high on a cliff) they were horrified to discover that although Cox was with him, Cox was not whole, as much of his body had been eaten by Pearce, although Pearce still had bread on him, as well as salted beef. But the beef smelled rancid, the bread was peppered with mold, and here, high on the cliff, with Macquarie far enough and the city of Hobart beyond reach, Mother England—the old bitch—clinging like a barnacle to the earth’s distant backside, a man like Pearce could live and breathe. A man like Pearce could eat his meat in peace. So when the arresting party interrupted his meal, Pearce had no apology and little to say. He managed the comment, “The best eating’s the upper arms.” Good advice for these soldiers who, despite their freedom, seemed to need a few pointers on how to use it.
Outside, the sound of a truck moving down the drive announced that we would soon have heat. But Australia was still appealing. Fifty years after Pearce, Captain Thomas Dudley, tried for cannibalism in England and found innocent, sought sanctuary in Australia. They called him “Cannibal Tom,” but it didn’t stop him from becoming a successful businessman. He is entered in the history books twice: first, for eating his cabin boy, and second for being the first person in Australia to die of bubonic plague. He was, I supposed, another hero of mine, but I thought it best to keep this to myself.
24
Travis was very polite and in a strange way I think both Arthur and I appreciated having him there to absorb some of the silence. He also had a take-charge quality, and it was Travis who tracked down Johnny’s family (three brothers, one sister, an uncle, and his mother) and broke the news to them. He told them how the police thought the murderer was Bad Billy, that although the lab had been unable to lift any prints from the shovel, they had identified the teeth marks as human. We had all admired Johnny, Travis said, and he would be missed. But that wasn’t really true. Travis had never met Johnny—at least not alive—and even I was losing my discomfort and sadness at his passing. As the police presence began to thin out I found myself saying, “Johnny’s dead. Johnny’s dead. Johnny’s dead.” But it was more out of guilt of not missing him than actual sorrow. My burgeoning fears had subsided too, as if all the uncommon events of the last few months were the work of my overactive and powerful imagination.
A couple of weeks went by. Travis was working on a novel. I wasn’t sure when he was leaving, and he seemed fairly content. He seemed to think he was in an adventure, although Arthur and I weren’t that exciting, as far as I could tell. Maybe Travis was embellishing us. Arthur was spending more time in town and it seemed that we had established a routine. Travis had set his old Olympia up in the end room on a sewing machine stand. I could hear the endless sputter of his keys, noted a pile of bottles in the corner of the room—no more Maker’s Mark but something called Evan Williams, which made up for its taste with an aggressive cheapness. Travis never seemed drunk to me, although at times he was louder than others, and sometimes his humor was a bit off-color, but he was always funny.
He liked to walk around in his boots, even in the house. His wore his jeans tight and shaved every morning, even though there was no one around to care. He cared. He even ironed his shirts, in strict adherence to some sort of code of honor.
“Do you use starch?” I asked him one morning.
“No, Ma’am.”
“What do you write about all day in your little room?”
He set down the iron. “Now why would I tell you that? Let’s just wait till the damn thing sells, and then you can buy it with some of that Boris money.”
“I think we’ve all gotten enough out of Boris,” I said. “Go on, Travis, let me have a peek.”
“At least wait until I have a complete draft.”
“How much do you have now?”
“About a hundred pages.”
“In only two weeks?”
“The question you should ask is, ‘Is it any good?’”
“Is it any good?”
“Depends on the weather, the tide, and how drunk I am.” Travis turned off the iron and shook out his shirt. There was no wrinkle on it and somehow he had made everything symmetrical, the sleeves, the collar. He put the shirt on over his undershirt and carefully did up the buttons.
“Do you need any help?” I asked.
“Darling,” Travis said, “you must be dying of boredom.”
“Not boredom,” I said. “But I’m hungry. Starving. I have an idea. Why don’t you go out and get some firewood and I’ll make us a real breakfast. Bacon. Eggs. Gravy.”
“Where’s the firewood?”
“You’re going to have to walk around the woods and chop some up. Should help you work up an appetite.”
“Where’s Arthur?”
“He’s in town hunting down a violin string and a new shirt.”
“Is he auditioning?”
I nodded. “An Irish band. They do weddings and have a few regular gigs, some in Boston. He thinks it could be steady money.”
“I hope it works out,” said Travis. “I’ll go get the wood.”
“Don’t mess your shirt up,” I said.
As soon as Travis was out the door, I set out the eggs and bacon for breakfast, then went down the corridor to his room. There was a manuscript—loose sheets neatly stacked—on the floor beside the typewriter. The title of the manuscript, stricken through but still clear, said Angeline.