But neither had there been anything reassuring.
Jack made his way back into the cabin. The walls let the moonlight in, and the fine rain, too. But not so much of either as to prevent his falling asleep again.
Next day, passion—well, that was not exactly the right word—but what was? Infatuation? Scarcely even that. An uncommon interest in, plus a great desire for, an uncommonly comely young woman who also spoke his own language with familiar, or familiar enough accents—oh, well—Hell!—whatever the word was, whatever his own state of mind had been, next morning had given way to something more like common sense. Common sense, then, told him that if the young woman (vaguely he amended this to the young women) had intended to come to St. Michael of the Mountains to stay at a hotel . . . or wherever it was, which they thought might take a reservation . . . had even considered writing for the reservation, well, they had not intended to come here at once. In other words: enthusiasm (that was the word! . . . damn it . . .) enthusiasm had made him arrive early.
So, since he was already there, he might as well relax and enjoy it.
—He was already where?
Filiberto Marín plunged his hands into the river and was noisily splashing water onto his soapy face. Jack paused in the act of doing the same thing for himself, waited till his host had become a trifle less audible—how the man could snort!—"Don Fili, what is the name of this place?"
Don Fili beamed at him, reached for the towel. "These place?" He waved his broad hand to include the broad river and the broad clearing, with its scattered fields and cabins. "These place, Jock, se llame Pahrot Bend. You like reside here? Tell me, just. I build you house." He buried his face in his towel. Jack had no doubt that the man meant exactly what he said, gave another look around to see what was being so openhandedly—and openheartedly—offered him; this time he looked across to the other bank. Great boles of trees: Immense! Immense! The eye grew lost and dizzy gazing upward toward the lofty, distant crowns. Suddenly a flock of parrots, yellowheads, flew shrieking round and round; then vanished.
Was it-some kind of an omen? Any kind of an omen? To live here would not be to live just anywhere. He thought of the piss-soaked bogs which made up too large a part of the slums of King Town, wondered how anybody could live there when anybody could live here. But here was simply too far from the sea, and it was to live upon the sunwarm sea that he had come to this small country, so far from his vast own one. Still . . . might not be such a bad idea . . . well, not to live here all the time. But . . . a smaller version of the not-very-large cabins of the hamlet . . . a sort of country home . . . as it were . . . ha-ha . . . well, why not? Something to think about . . . anyway.
"Crahs de river, be one nice spot for build you cabanita," said Don Filiberto, reading his mind.
"Mmm . . . what might it cost?" he could not help asking, even though knowing whatever answer he might receive would almost certainly not in the long run prove accurate.
"Cahst?" Filiberto Marin, pulling his shirt over his huge dark torso, considered. Cost, clearly, was not a matter of daily concern. Calculations, muttering from his mouth, living and audible thoughts, struggling to take form: "Cahst. . .May-be, ooohhh, say-be torty dollar?"
"Forty dollars?"
Don Filiberto started to shake his head, reconsidered. "I suppose may-be. Not take lahng. May-be one hahf day, collect wild cane for make wall, bay leaf for make techo, roof. An may-be 'nother hahf day for put everything togedder. Cahst? So: Twenty dollar. Torty dollar. An ten dollar rum! Most eeem-por-tont!" He laughed. Rum! The oil which lubricates the neighbors' labors. A house-raising bee, Hidalgo style.
"And the land itself? The cost of the land?"
But Don Fili was done with figures. "What 'cahst of de lond?' Lond not cahst nah-ting. Lond belahng to Pike Estate."
A bell went ding-a-ling in Limekiller's ear. The Pike Estate. The great Pike Estate Case was the Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce of British Hidalgo. Half the lawyers in the colony lived off it. Was there a valid will? Where there valid heirs? Had old Pike died intestate? ¿Quien sabe? There were barroom barristers would talk your ears off about the First Codicil and the Second Codicil and the Alleged Statement of Intention and the Holograph Document and all the rest of it. Limekiller had heard enough about the Pike Estate Case. He followed after Don Fili up the bank. Ah, but—
"Well, maybe nobody would bother me now if I had a cabin built there. But what about when the estate is finally settled?"
Marín waved an arm, as impatiently as his vast good nature would allow. "By dot time, hijo mio, what you care? You no hahv Squatter Rights by den? Meb-be you dead by den!"
Mrs. Don Filiberto, part American Indian, part East Indian, and altogether Amiable and Fat, was already fanning the coals on the raised fire-hearth for breakfast.
Nobody was boating back to town then, although earnest guarantees were offered that "by and by somebody" would be boating back, for sure. Limekiller knew such sureties. He knew, too, that he might certainly stay on with the Marín family at Parrot Bend until then—and longer—and be fully welcome. But he had after all come to "Mountains" for something else besides rural hospitality along the Ningoon River (a former Commissioner of Historical Sites and Antiquities had argued that the name came from an Indian word, or words, meaning Region of Bounteous Plenty; local Indians asserted that a more literal and less literary translation would be Big Wet). The fine rain of the night before began to fall again as he walked along, and soon he was soaked.
It did not bother him. By the time he got back into town the sun would have come out and dried him. Nobody bothered with oilskins or mackintoshes on the Bay of Hidalgo, nor did he intend to worry about his lack of them here in the Mountains of Saint Michael Archangel and Prince of Israel.
Along the road (to give it its courtesy title) he saw a beautiful flurry of white birds—were they indeed cattle egrets? living in symbiosis, or commensality, with the cattle? was one, indeed, heavy with egg, "blown over from Africa"? Whatever their name or origin, they did follow the kine around, heads bobbing as they, presumably, ate the insects the heavy cloven hooves stirred up. But what did the cattle get out of it? Company?
The rain stopped, sure enough.
It was a beautiful river, with clear water, green and bending banks. He wondered how high the highest flood waters came. A "top gallon flood," they called that. Was there a hint of an old tradition that the highest floods would come as high as the topgallant sails of a ship? Maybe.
The rain began again. Oh, well.
An oilcloth serving as door of a tiny cabin was hauled aside and an old woman appeared and gazed anxiously at Jack. "Oh, sah, why you wahk around in dis eager rain?" she cried at him. "Best you come in, bide, till eet stop!"
He laughed. "It doesn't seem all that eager to me, Grandy," he said, "but thank you anyway."
In a little while it had stopped. See?
Further on, a small girl under a tree called, "Oh, see what beauty harse, meester!"
Limekiller looked. Several horses were coming from a stable and down the path to the river; they were indeed beautiful, and several men were discussing a sad story of how the malfeasance of a jockey (evidently not present) had lost first place in a recent race for one of them to the famous Tigre Rojo, the Red Tiger, of which even Limekiller, not a racing buff, had heard.