Deadly Shoals (4 page)

Farther along the trail, a burned-out ruin presented a grim contrast to this lively scene. The buildings were so collapsed that it was evident the place had been ravaged years ago, but no one had bothered to rebuild. When Wiki asked about it, Stackpole said that it was one of the many relics of the war between the settlers and the local Indians—which the Indians, of course, had lost.

“So where are the Indians now?”

“The Tehuiliche tribe have their
toldos
—tents—staked on the plain opposite the fort. The governor sends 'em clapped-out military horses to eat, and they make some kind of living by working the hides into leather, and the legs into gaucho boots. They usually look pretty poverty-stricken, but when I last called the young bloods were strutting about very rich, flaunting pretty new clothes. Then I found they'd been away for the past two years, working as sealing hands on the schooner that was tender for the
Athenian,
and had only just got back.”

“I see,” said Wiki. Obviously, when Stackpole had found that the young Tehuiliches had done so well, he had made up his mind that sealing was the way to repair his fortunes. “And that's when you decided to give Adams the draft for the
Athenian
's schooner—the one that's gone missing?”

“The
Grim Reaper,
” Stackpole agreed.

“I beg your pardon?”

“
Grim Reaper.
That's the schooner's name.”

And an apt one, too, considering the brutal nature of the sealing trade, Wiki mused, but was still surprised. He said, “You inspected her before you handed over the money?”

“Of course I did! Do you think I'm a complete bloody fool? She was lying at anchor off the pueblo, and I went on board, looked at her holds, tested her pumps, and rowed around her in a boat. She was oily as hell, and stank like hell, too, but she was as sound as a nut. There were even some furs still stowed in her holds, ready for collection later.”

That sounded odd, Wiki thought. He said, “Were any of the
Athenian
crew on board?”

“Nope. Just Adams and me.”

Odder still, considering the valuable pelts. “The captain of the
Athenian
hadn't hired a shipkeeper?”

“It was broad of day. I guess someone kept watch at night.”

Wiki was prepared to bet that it was Adams himself who had been paid to keep watch. He said, “It sounds as if the
Athenian
came back for the schooner, not just the pelts—that Adams made up the story that the captain intended to sell her, and pocketed the money himself.” It was easy to imagine the storekeeper seizing the chance to “sell” the vessel he was looking after to the first credulous customer who happened along, and smiling complacently as the
Grim Reaper
was sailed away by her rightful owners, leaving him a thousand dollars richer.

Captain Stackpole scowled. “I had no reason not to believe Caleb Adams—I've dealt with him often, and know him well enough to take him at his word. Nope,” he said, his tone definite. “I would've known if he was lying.”

“But did anyone confirm that the vessel was up for sale?”

Dead silence. Then Stackpole admitted, “Adams's clerk didn't know nothing about it.”

“Clerk?” This was the first Wiki had heard of a clerk. However, he didn't have a chance to ask further, because they came around a bend in the path to find a man waiting on the track ahead.

This fellow was holding a horse by the bridle, and looked as if he had been standing there for quite a while, though he had an air of being too important to be the type to be kept hanging around. He was also quite a dandy. With his pointed black beard, his wide-brimmed black hat, his embroidered boots, ruffled shirt, short jacket, and tight black trousers, he could have stepped out of old Spain.

Stackpole muttered, “Goddamn it.” Then he said to Wiki, “Tell him that my ship is off on a cruise for whales; that I'm here on personal business, and don't intend to do any trading. He'll try to persuade you different, but don't listen.”

“Why?”

“Because he's determined to charge me customs duty.”

So this gentleman, Wiki deduced, was the collector of customs. He proved to be as courtly as he looked, once he got over his surprise that a South Seas native should speak intelligent Spanish, listening politely, though very regretfully, to the message that Wiki passed on. As he proceeded to convey in delicate phrases, His Excellency Juán José Hernández, the governor of El Carmen de Patagones, was greatly in need of money. Because General de Rosas, the tyrant of Buenos Aires, was deliberately impoverishing the people of the Río Negro, the exportation of salt and beef was very difficult, and the importation of goods impossible, and so the tax basket was empty. For lack of public funds, the government had not been paid a salary for the past eighteen months.

Then he apologized about being obliged to ask an impertinent question, adding, “We are forced to be cautious, because of the war with the French, you understand.”

Wiki listened, and then turned to Stackpole and said, “He wants to know what we're up to, since we're not conducting any business here.”

“Tell him we wish to arrest an American thief by the name of Caleb Adams.”

“He'll want to know the details.”

“Just tell him you're an officer of the American law.”

Wiki conveyed this. “Undoubtedly you have proof of your office,” the customs official remarked, with yet another apologetic smile.

Wiki produced his letter of authority from the sheriff's department of Portsmouth, Virginia. He had unfolded this grand document several times already during the voyage, but this was the first time it had been spread out on the back of a horse.

The officer was marvelously impressed by the crest, the ribbons, the seal, and the flourishing signatures, even if he couldn't comprehend the flowing English script. “But you must pay your respects to His Excellency the Governor-general before attempting any kind of investigation,” he objected, however. “He, you understand, is in charge of law and order here.”

Wiki translated this for Stackpole, who merely jerked his head. “Tomorrow,” he said curtly, and galloped off without another word.

*   *   *

It was just noon when they arrived at El Carmen. Here, the river widened even further, and started to become dotted with little islets thickly clothed in drooping willow trees. The town was laid out like a chessboard on an embayment, sloping all the way up to the buttress of the cliff. The space was so limited that some of the rearmost houses were hunched as tightly into the sandstone as if they had been hewn out of the rock. Various small craft lay on the surface of the water, the current tugging at their anchors.

A palisade curved around the western fringe of the village and climbed up the long slope to the clifftop, where a walled fort with a single tall tower bulked against the sky. Wiki pointed to it and said, “Is that the barracks?”

“Aye. About two hundred ex-felons what call themselves soldiers live there.”

“What about the governor?”

“He has quarters there, too, along with his staff.”

“We really should go up and report.”

“What the hell for? Can't you see it's just the start of siesta? We won't raise a living soul for hours.” Without troubling to argue further, Stackpole set his horse into a canter, clattering up a flight of shallow stone steps into the heart of the town.

Wiki followed, heading up an alley that was lined with single-storied, flat-roofed buildings. Made of whitewashed adobe, they stood out sharply against the reddish sandstone cliffs and the bright blue sky, throwing short black shadows onto the baked mud street. Beyond, the streets intersected each other in squares, trapping heat and light. In many ways, Wiki thought, El Carmen looked like paintings he had seen of towns in the Arabian desert. The church had a tower like a minaret, and a domed roof like a mosque, and there was a plaza with a well. Even the horses, with their arched necks and sloping shoulders, looked Arabian. Every building had a hitching rail outside, where at least one pony stamped and whisked its tail at the flies. An abundance of yellow dogs slunk about, too, but the human populace was invisible, though a smell of burning charcoal and cooking food pervaded the warm, still air.

Stackpole drew to a halt outside a rectangular building that stood out from the rest because it was made of red brick instead of adobe. Iron gratings over the windows indicated that this was a trading post, with goods inside that thieves might consider worth stealing, and a small, weathered sign confirmed that this was Adams's store. The door was wide open. Wiki tied his horse to the rail, and walked across the echoing boards of the verandah to follow Stackpole inside.

The dim interior was shaped like an inverted
L
,
being a lot wider at the back than at the front. The narrow leg of the
L
was the place where sales were made, being furnished with a counter. Opposite this was a door bearing a notice attesting in Spanish that it led to a surgery, which Wiki judged must be quite a large room. Beyond, the wide back part of the store was used both for storage and for receiving and discharging goods, because a double door, shut and stoutly bolted and barred, was set into the wall of the farthest left-hand end.

Right now, though, this area was a yawning, empty space. Where bags and barrels had been recently stacked, there were only outlines in the dust on the floor, surrounded by the scuffles of many feet. All that remained was a smell of tobacco, dusty corn, old brine, and vinegar. Shelves hung on the wall between the dispensary door and the front entrance, but, save for a few boxes of figs and sardines, a couple of square bottles of gin, and a cask of
aguardiente,
these were equally bare.

Puzzled, Wiki said to Stackpole, “The provisions have all gone.”

“I gave Adams instructions to supply the schooner, didn't I?” the whaling master growled. “Obviously, the string-shanked bastard did just that before he run off with the vessel and my money.”

The long, broad counter did carry a few goods, but nothing more substantial than a few red-striped shirts, a small pile of wool ponchos, and a box of red silk bandannas. Behind this, a wizened old man was perched on a stool, pretending that he hadn't heard them come in. He was reading a Portuguese book, so Wiki used that language when he addressed him.

“I am the clerk of Senhor Adams,” the fellow grudgingly replied, without the slightest hint of surprise at being questioned in his mother tongue. He kept a finger in his book to mark his place, and refused to meet Wiki's gaze, focusing on the wall by the surgery door instead.

“Where is your employer?”

At this, the clerk did look at Wiki. “Why do you ask?”

“Captain Stackpole is anxious to speak to him.”

“As I told the captain one week ago, Senhor Adams is not available.”

“He has not returned?”

“He has not.”

“How long is it since you saw him last?”

There was a long pause as the little, hostile eyes looked everywhere except at Wiki's face, and then the clerk grunted, “I have told Captain Stackpole this already.”

“But you have not told me,” Wiki pointed out.

“Indeed, I have not,” the clerk agreed, and prepared to return to his book.

Wiki produced his sheriff's certificate. The inspection the Portuguese gave the document was insultingly brief. “What has this to do with Senhor Adams?”

“Senhor Adams is a citizen of America, and subject to United States law—of which I am an agent, as this paper certifies.”

The clerk remained unimpressed. “I can say nothing of use to you.”

“Let me be the judge of that,” Wiki advised him. “Just tell me exactly what you told Captain Stackpole.”

This elicited a martyred sigh. Then the Portuguese recited, “On January fifteenth—ten days ago, now—I arrived here as is my usual habit, but Senhor Adams, he was not here, so I let myself in with my own key. Alone, I attended the counter until the evening. Then I locked up and went home. The next day, Captain Stackpole arrived to see Senhor Adams, but he was not here. Still, he has not returned. Myself, I have looked after the store as usual.”

“Did Senhor Adams leave a note for you?”

“A note was not necessary.”

“This has happened before?”

“Many times.”

“But where does Senhor Adams go?”

“I would never inquire.” As the clerk haughtily intimated, he had been Senhor Adams's trusted employee for several years, and was not the type to ask his employer impertinent questions.

“Your job is just to look after the store?”

“And to help keep the books, too,” the clerk said, unable to stop himself from bragging, and Wiki instantly demanded to see them.

Very reluctantly, two ledgers were produced from a cubbyhole in the back of the counter. Wiki took them both, while the clerk's eyes suspiciously followed every movement. Ignoring this, Wiki settled down to read, half listening as Stackpole started a halting exchange in English with the clerk, and then losing interest as it became obvious that the whaleman was simply covering the ground he had gone over during his last visit, with as little result as before.

The first book was one of those usually kept as a ship's logbook, its ruled columns for position and weather assigned to lists of purchases, sales, and customers' names instead. Everything was written in English, the script very neat. The catalogue was initially a very long one, and there had been a great deal of trade in both dry and salt provisions for ships. Captain Stackpole's name featured many times, mostly in connection with the purchase of large quantities of salt beef, much of it carrying the notation that it had come from a ranch owned by a man named Ducatel. Stackpole had been a trader as well, however, having sold Adams rather a lot of tobacco, and Wiki wondered if the collector of customs knew about this.