Long giggled. Short said that the fact of her calling her Felix instead of Felicia shouldn't be allowed to give any wrong ideas. It was just that Felicia always sounded so goddamn silly. They were both talking at once. The sound was very comforting.
The current of the river carried them all off, and then it got so very still.
Quite early next morning.
Limekiller felt fine.
So he got up and got dressed. Someone, probably Purificación, had carefully washed his clothes and dried and ironed them. He hadn't imagined everything: there was the very large cup with the twigs of country yerba in it. He went downstairs in the early morning quiet, cocking an ear. Not even a buzzard scrabbled on the iron roof. There on the hall table was the old record book used as a register. On the impulse, he opened it. Disappointment washed over him. John L. Limekiller, sloop Sacarissa, out of King Town. There were several names after that, all male, all ending in -oglu, and all from the various lumber camps round about in the back bush: Wild Hog Eddy, Funny Gal Hat, Garobo Stream. . . .
Garobo.
Struck a faint echo. Too faint to bother with.
But no one named Felix. Or even Felicia. Or May.
Shite and onions.
There on the corner was someone.
"Lahvly morning," said someone. "Just come from hospital, seeing about the accident victims. Name is Pauls, George Pauls. Teach the Red Cross clahsses. British. You?"
"Jack Limekiller. Canadian. Have you seen two women, one a redhead?"
The Red Cross teacher had seen them, right there on that corner, but knew nothing more helpful than that. So, anyway, that hadn't been any delirium or dreams, either, thank God. (For how often had he not dreamed of fine friends and comely companions, only to wake and know that they had not been and would never be.)
At Tía Sani's. In came Captain Sneed. "I say! Terribly sorry! Shameful of me—I don't know how—Well. There'd been a motor accident, lorry overturned, eight people injured, so we all had to pitch in, there in hospital—Ah, by the way. I did meet your young ladies, thought you'd imagined them, you know—District Engineer gave them a ride from King Town—I told them about you, went on up to hospital, then there was this damned accident—By the time we had taken care of them, poor chaps, fact is, I am ashamed to say, I'd forgotten all about you.—But you look all right, now." He scanned Limekiller closely. "Hm, still, you should see the doctor. I wonder. . . ."
He walked back to the restaurant door, looked up the street, looked down the street. "Doc-tor!—Here he comes now."
In came a slender Eurasian man; the District Medical Officer himself. (Things were always happening like that in Hidalgo. Sometimes it was, "You should see the Premier. Ah, here he comes now. Prem-ier!") The D.M.O. felt Limekiller's pulse, pulled down his lower eyelid, poked at spleen and liver, listened to an account of yesterday. Said, "Evidently you have had a brief though severe fever. Something like the one-day flu. Feeling all right now? Good. Well, eat your usual breakfast, and if you can't hold it down, come see me at my office."
And was gone.
"Where are they now? The young women, I mean."
Captain Sneed said that he was blessed if he knew, adding immediately, "Ah. Here they come now."
Both talking at once, they asked Jack if he felt all right, assured him that he looked well, said that they'd spent the night at Government Guest House (there was one of these in every out-district capital and was best not confused with Government House, which existed only in the colonial capital itself: the Royal Governor lived there, and he was not prepared to put up guests below the rank of, well, Governor).
"Mr. Boyd arranged it. We met him in King Town. He was coming here anyway," said Felix, looking long and lovely. "He's an engineer. He's . . . how would you describe him, May?"
"He's an engineer," May said.
Felix's sherry-colored eyes met Limekiller's. "Come and live on my boat with me and we will sail the Spanish Main together and I will tell you all about myself and frequently make love to you," he said at once. Out loud, however, all he could say was, "Uh . . . thanks for wiping my beard last night . . . uh. . . ."
"Don't mention it," she said.
May said, "I want lots and lots of exotic foods for breakfast." She got two fried eggs, buttered toast of thick-sliced, home-baked bread, beans (mashed), tea, orange juice. "There is nothing like these exotic foods," she said.
Felix got egg on her chin. Jack took his napkin and wiped. She said that turnabout was fair play. He said that one good turn deserved another. She asked him if he had ever been to Kettle Point Lagoon, said by They to be beautiful. A spirit touched his lips with a glowing coal.
"I am going there today!" he exclaimed. He had never heard of it.
"Oh, good! Then we can all go together!"
Whom did he see as they walked towards the river, but Filiberto Marín. Who greeted him with glad cries, and a wink, evidently intended as compliments on Jack's company. "Don Fili, can you take us to Kettle Point Lagoon?"
Don Fili, who had at once begun to nod, stopped nodding. "Oh, Juanito, only wan mon hahv boat which go to Kettle Point Lagoon, ahn dot is Very Big Bakeman. He get so vex, do anybody else try for go dot side, none ahv we odder boatmen adventure do it. But I bring you to him. May-be he go today. Veremos."
Very Big Bakeman, so-called to distinguish him from his cousin, Big Bakeman, was very big indeed. What he might be like when "vex," Limekiller (no squab himself) thought he would pass up knowing.
Bakeman's was the only tunnel boat in sight, probably the only one still in service. His answer was short. "Not before Torsday, becahs not enough wah-teh get me boat ahcross de bar. Torsday," he concluded and, yawning, leaned back against the cabin. Monopolists the world over see no reason to prolong conversation with the public.
Felix said something which sounded like, "Oh, spit," but wasn't. Limekiller blinked. Could those lovely lips have uttered That Word? If so, he concluded without much difficulty, he would learn to like it. Love it. "Don Fili will take us to," he racked his brains, "somewhere just as interesting," he wound up with almost no pause. And looked at Don Fili, appealingly.
Filiberto Marín was equal to the occasion. "Verdad. In wan leetle while I going up de Right Branch. Muy linda. You will have pleasure. I telling Juanito about it, day before yesterday.
Limekiller recalled no such conversation, but he would have corroborated a deal with the devil, rather than let her out of his sight for a long while yet. He nodded knowingly. "Fascinating," he said.
"We'll get that nice lady to pack us a lunch."
Jack had a quick vision of Tía Sani packing them fried eggs, toast, beans, tea, and orange juice. But that nice lady fooled him. Her sandwiches were immense. Her eggs were deviled. She gave them empenadas and she gave them "crusts"—pastries with coconut and other sweet fillings—and then, behaving like aunts the whole world over, she ladled soup into a huge jar and capped it and handed it to Limekiller with the caution to hold it like this so that it didn't leak. . . . Not having any intention to have his hands thus occupied the whole trip, he lashed it and shimmed it securely in the stern of Marín's boat.