“Just kill her,” I said.
“Easiest way.”
“Just like that.”
He clapped me on the shoulder again. Plum had a point, I thought; he would be a real pleasure to abandon. He said, “You gettin’ butterflies, Tanner cat. I’ll go on and do it for you. Don’t make me no never mind.”
“No.”
“If you want.”
“No,” I said. “No, go down by the river, give Plum a hand.” An unfortunate choice of words, that. “I’ll be along.”
I was panting by the time I reached the riverbank. I got to where the boat was beached and my knees started to buckle, but I stayed on my feet.
Plum and Sam were looking at me as though I had lost my mind.
“Tanner cat-”
“Evan-”
“Not now,” I said. “I can’t talk. I can barely breathe. Later.”
“But-”
“Later.”
I put Sheena in the back of the dugout and arranged her animal skins over her. Then I straightened up again and tried to catch my breath.
Bowman was scratching his head. Plum was shaking hers. I couldn’t honestly blame them, but I was damned if I felt like talking about it.
Chapter 13
Some conversations which took place between or among various persons floating down the Yellowfoot River over a period of several days:
“Tanner cat, you must be out of your head. Like totally stone bonkers.”
“Ours not to reason why.”
“How’s that, man?”
“You know the Chief, Bowman cat. You worked for him long enough yourself. When he gives out an assignment, he wants it followed every step of the way. Right?”
“Right as rain. But-”
“The last thing he wants to see is a man who starts improvising. He wants me to carry out the plan. I could try to simplify things, and if I was all alone I might. But I’ve got you along for the ride, and that makes it different.”
“How so?”
“He might hear from you that I left Sheena to go on queening it.”
“You think I’d tell him?”
“I don’t even trust myself, Bowman cat.”
“A sound policy. You never said Sheena was part of the assignment.”
“You never asked.”
“Yeah, well. What’s so important about her?”
“That’s just one of the things the Chief keeps under that crazy plaid hat he always wears.”
“That nutty old hat.”
“You know it, man. I don’t ask him embarrassing questions. I just follow orders. Saves a lot of heartache when it’s time to type up the report.”
“Evan? Obviously you no longer love me. You love this white woman.”
“There’s a big difference between love and the milk of human kindness.”
“Would you overflow with this milk if she were not beautiful?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Plum.”
“It is enough that we are encumbered with him. My bottom is sore from pinches. I do not think I can endure very much more of this, Evan.”
“I thought he was keeping hands off.”
“Well, he is not. I believe it was a mistake to take the stain out of my hair and skin. I believe it is my color that has this effect upon him. Evan?”
“What?”
“Can we not put her overboard?”
“Plum, you’re being very foolish about this. She was a ten-year-old girl, a child. And that personality is all locked up inside her just waiting to be brought to the surface.”
“I have not seen it. When she is awake she does nothing but call down the wrath of the Lord upon us.”
“She’s being Sheena now. When she’s Jane-”
“I have never seen her be Jane.”
“Well, she only does it after an experience that moves her very deeply.”
“I believe I know the sort of experience you mean.”
“I thought you might.”
“Is that what you plan, Evan? You will give her such experiences constantly so that she will remain Jane?”
“Oh, cut it out, will you? Look, there are clinics that can do wonders with personality disorders like this. It’s just a matter of rooting out the Sheena person and bringing the Jane person to the surface.”
“And then there will be this beautiful woman with the mind of a ten-year-old.”
“Well, most beautiful women have the mind of a ten-year-old.”
“Evan-”
“Some other time, okay? I think he’s waking up.”
“No, he sleeps. Evan, I was-”
“You’re not paddling right, Plum. Try to slip your blade into the water at a little more of an angle.”
“Like this?”
“That’s a little better.”
“But that is how I was doing it. I believe you are attempting to change the subject, Evan.”
“Why, that’s very perceptive of you, Plum.”
“Opium.”
“That’s what it is, Tanner cat. Fields and fields of it. As far as the eye can see. Nothing but instant happiness growing up nice and green.”
“Miles of opium. I suppose you could call it a growing monument to the Modonoland Retriever.”
“It’s his monument is what it is. Before he thought to plant it, this country didn’t have a thing going for it. Tons of potential but not a pound of right-now action, you dig? Wasn’t nothin’ Modonoland could produce that somebody else couldn’t manage cheaper and faster and better. But when you come to opium you’ve got a seller’s market. And ain’t nobody else on the continent that’s growin’ it.”
“There’s the little matter of international law.”
“International laws are made to be broken, man. Nobody pays any attention to them if they cut you out of a dollar. Look, who makes the money out of opium if Modonoland don’t? Nobody but China.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“What’s good for Modonoland-”
“Uh-huh. I understand the Glorious Retriever made a few cents himself from the opium.”
“That’s the American Way, ain’t it?”
“Don’t be touchy.”
“Ain’t bein’ touchy, man. Only-”
“My point was that the royal treasure must have come to quite a sum.”
“It must have done, I suppose.”
“I wonder what happened to the treasure.”
“Still back in Griggstown, I reckon.”
“I don’t.”
“That right?”
“Uh-huh. We know Knanda Ndoro got it out. A fortune in negotiable paper and cut gems, according to what we heard.”
“You heard that.”
“Uh-huh. I thought you might be carrying it, but you didn’t bring it on the boat. Where is it stashed?”
“The Retriever hid it.”
“And died without being able to tell you where he had put it?”
“I don’t know as you’ll buy that one.”
“Not much chance that I will.”
“Well, then.”
“Be tough for you to get it out of the country on your own, Bowman cat. But I’ve got worlds of contacts. MMM people and such.”
“You know those creeps?”
“Uh-huh. They might be handy.”
“Might. Course, a straight arrow like you, Tanner cat, like you would want to turn it all over to the man with the plaid hat.”
“I might not be all that straight myself, Bowman cat.”
“That so?”
“That’s so.”
“I might maybe like to think on that a spell.”
“You might at that.”
“Hey, Plum kitten.”
“No.”
“Now you are being silly.”
“Stay where you are. You will tip the boat.”
“Couldn’t tip this battleship with twenty men. What I want to know is why old Tanner cat has to always sleep in the middle. Like he’s trying to keep us two apart.”
“Look, I don’t-”
“No sense in you bein’ all hung up on him. He don’t care for you.”
“How do you know?”
“What he said.”
“You’re lying.”
“And the way he’s actin’. Why you think he brought old Sheena girl along? You never heard him say nothin’ about bringin’ her until he put it to her, did you? But soon as he had it off with her, then he’s keen on bringin’ her along. He’s just not your kind, kitten, and you ain’t his kind, and she is.”
“Or your kind either.”
“Oh, now. Close enough.”
“And I’m only a child. I don’t suppose that means anything to you, does it?”
“You big enough, you old enough.”