Shadow Play (38 page)

Morgan shook his head and, bending near him, said, "I love you, Henry."

He smiled. "I know. I always knew. But it's nice to... hear it at last."

"Please," Morgan pleaded, and this time Henry raised his hand and touched his friend's cheek.

"Morgan? Hold me, Morgan."

He held him tighter, so tight he could feel the final flurry of Henry's small heart against the palm of his hand.

Then he was gone.

Morgan held his lifeless body in his arms as gently as he might a child's, rocking, inconsolable. At some time he raised his head and saw Sarah on her knees beside him, her hands covering her mouth, face streaked with tears, shoulders shaking, and it seemed he could do nothing then but throw back his head and let loose the howl of pain and rage and grief that he had kept inside for a lifetime.

He eased Henry's body to the floor and slowly climbed to his feet. Sarah tried to stand, but she crumpled to her knees and made a frantic grab to stop him.

There was no noise but an intense roaring that he only vaguely recognized as the flow of blood through his head. The room was strangely out of focus... all but King. He stood in the center of it, his gun grasped in both hands, his eyes fixed on him—he looked frightened. Truly frightened. And Morgan realized with a sense of mindless pleasure that he must surely appear to be a madman.

"Stop!" King shouted, backing away.

Everyone seemed frozen, the guards poised but unwilling to move. King raised the gun in front of him, inch by inch, and aimed it square at Morgan's chest. "I'll kill you, Morgan, I swear to your Almighty God!"

Then Morgan was hurling himself onto King, driving him back, clutching the gun and shoving it upward, closing his own fingers over the trigger and pulling it. The blast rattled
the walls and windows and ripped through the plaster on the ceiling, spraying them with debris. Somewhere there were shouts, glass shattering, rifles firing, people running.

They hit the floor and King groaned. Still they struggled for the gun, rolling over and over. It seemed forever before Morgan was at last able to wrench the pistol from his adversary's hands and twist it away. He stumbled to his feet and whirled on his heel, leveling the gun before him, aiming it at Roberto, who was nearly upon him.

He squeezed the trigger and R6berto fell.

Sarah screamed and he turned, aimed at the man who was grabbing her up by her hair, and fired again, splitting the man's head open.

The door burst open behind him and he crouched and spun, pulling up the muzzle of the gun at the last moment as he recognized Teobaldo, and behind him, Kan. "Get Sarah!" he shouted, then turned back for King, aiming the barrel between his eyes, feeling a new sense of rage as he contemplated pulling the trigger. "Bastard!" was all he could shout, over and over and over again. But though he did his best to force himself to fire, something stopped him.

"Kane!" Teobaldo shouted. "Come quickly! My men have taken the boat. It's the only
way out!"

"You'll never make it," King said calmly, his voice muffled by the distant gunfire and shouts. "You're a dead man if you try to go down that river. You're a dead man, anyway, Morgan. Just like your little black friend there—"

Morgan kicked King in the head, fell to one knee, and shoved the gun barrel into his mouth.

"Morgan!" It was Sarah, struggling to rid herself of Kan's arms. "Morgan!"

"Right," he finally said. Removing the revolver from King's face, he grabbed him by his coat lapels and dragged him to his feet, turning him around, gripping the back of his collar and pressing the muzzle of the gun into the flesh
at the base of his skull. "Walk," he ordered, and when his captive refused, he cocked the trigger and shouted, "Walk, you perverted son of a bitch, or I'll blow your brains out!"

King walked.

There was no point in leaving the house through the door. The long line of windows had been shattered, with fragments of glass strewn over the ground. They stepped gingerly onto the lawn, crunching the rubble underfoot. The heat of the evening hit them like a blast from a furnace. Across the lawn torches set the area on fire, appearing and disappearing in and out of the trees, adding to the unreality of the moment.

There came a sudden hail of bullets from somewhere close by, and a louder burst of yelling as slaves ransacked the house and outbuildings lining the river, dragging King's employees by their hair or clothes or feet to the platforms where these same men had roped and tied them to scaffolds and beat them with whips. Mobs of angry men, women, and children rushed upon them with clubs and machetes and
machadinhos,
and their screams of pain and horror filled the evening with terror.

They stumbled through the hibiscus bushes, despite the thorns that tore into their flesh, and when King tripped and fell to his knees, Morgan dragged him facedown through the brambles. He would have pulled him the entire way to the river had King not finally managed to secure his footing on his own and scramble up.

The steamboat was a great blaze of torchlight against the ink-black river. As Morgan shoved King toward the gang- plank, someone shouted overhead, and suddenly the rails were lined with gunbearing Indians whose sweating faces were lit by fire and the sweet, blessed taste of freedom at long last.

"Viva la revolucidn!"
the cheer arose.

"Viva
el Americano!

"Viva
Morgan Kane!"

Chapter Nineteen

Morgan forced King to the bow of the boat, sat him on a stool, and tied his ankles to its legs, then his hands behind his back. He surrounded him with torches so there was no possible way the guards remaining on the riverbanks would fail to see him. Then he pulled up another stool, sat upon it, and pointed the gun at King's head.

Sarah watched all this from the upper deck with Kan, who was doing his best to keep her standing when what she wanted was to collapse and cry her heart out. She barely heard him explain how he and the men had managed to make contact with the Indian slaves on the compound, learned of the impending uprising and waited impatiently for news of her and Henry's welfare. Then the exuberant cries of the insurgents rose in frantic jubilation; the cacophony was as frightening as the takeover had been. There were calls for vengeance against King and his men, talk of returning to the compound and murdering the employees who'd been left behind, and of course demands that Morgan turn King over to them so they could execute him.

Yet Morgan refused, never moving from his stool, his gun never wavering as he told the rebels that they needed King alive if they were going to get past the guards on the river. King's men would never attack if they, believed their
patrao
would be endangered. Once the boat was safely beyond King's domain, the rebels could have him.

The night wore on, and the steamer moved ponderously downriver, piloted by a crew that had happily cast their lot with the anti-King forces. Occasionally they were approached by men in canoes who carried rifles. They fell back upon seeing King and shouted to the others hidden in the trees to let the boat pass. Eventually Morgan left his stool and began to pace, stopping to stare at King with such outrage that his body trembled visibly. Sarah positioned herself in the shadows near him and did her best to talk to him calmly, only to realize that he didn't appear to hear her. Weakened with fear and heartache, she sat down on the deck and tried her best to rid her mind of Henry's sacrifice, and her horror as she watched him throw himself at King in order to save Morgan.

Dear Henry, who had held her hand the past week when she had been terrified of being murdered by King, assuring her that once Morgan knew they were there, he would find some way to free them. He said he was certain Morgan must have some sort of plan to destroy King or he would never have taken up with the hated man. Henry, who never lost faith in anything. Now he was gone, and she must do what she could to continue to believe in Morgan, to help him believe in himself.

By the time sunlight filtered through the trees, the gun in Morgan's hand had begun to
hang heavily at his side. He looked down at his coat, which was stained with Henry's blood, and groaning, he shed it, then threw it overboard. His shirt, too, was a grim reminder of his friend's death, and once noting it, he ripped it open down the front, spraying the deck with buttons. But he didn't remove it. It hung open, the tail of it half in and half out of his breeches,
spotted with blood and dirt, ripped ragged by thorns and sticking to his skin by patches of sweat.

And he shook, freezing one minute, burning the next, so that he began looking to the water in desperation. But even as he glanced repeatedly toward its beckoning surface, he knew that it could never quench the fever of madness that seemed to be rising inside him so fiercely he could not think.

King sat on his stool, his curls fluttering in the wind as the boat cruised down the Japura River. His blue eyes never left Morgan, nor did the knowing smile disappear from his mouth, even when the rebels on the upper decks chanted out their murderous rage toward him. At one point someone fired a rifle at him, purposefully missing him by inches; but still he didn't waiver, just squared his shoulders and laughed.

Sarah crouched in the shade, moving only when Kan brought her food or water, but eating and drinking little. Once she approached Morgan with a bowl of
feijoada
and a cup of water, yet he refused them both, looking at her as if he didn't know her. He was losing his grip on reality. That frightened her more than the threat of King's men, or even King himself.

"Morgan," she pleaded, "you need to rest. You need food and water. You can't continue like this."

He turned away and paced again. The hours dragged on. The heat intensified, shimmering off the deck in waves. They were being approached by fewer guards now, and there was talk among the men mat soon they would pass out of King's domain and be safe at last. Others argued that they would never be safe, that even now those same guards who had not fired on the boat would be formulating a plan to rescue their
patrao.
Their numbers would be great and would represent a grave danger, should they decide to launch an offensive against the refugees.

"All the more reason why we should keep King alive," Teobaldo explained.

"Alive?" someone repeated. "Don't talk to us about
sparing King's miserable life. Talk to the American."

So the murmurs started, whispers that Kane had gone crazy. Sarah refused to leave the
bow of the steamer for fear of hearing them speak about Morgan that way, though in reality she was fighting her own doubts about his state of mind.

Sometime after noon, rain began to fall. Parched by the sun, her lips cracked by the heat, Sarah lay down on the deck and turned her face into the deluge. How cool it was, and delicious, running over her body in rivulets, drawing the heat from her aching muscles, soothing her blistered and bruised skin. Closing her eyes, she listened to the churn- ing of the paddle wheel and the water slipping along the hull of the boat. For a blissful moment she tumbled back to those days when, perched between Henry and Morgan in the canoe, she had dozed in the twilight, enjoying then- effortless slide through the darkening waters, thinking only of where they would camp for the night.

Lulled by the murmur of the engines, she slept, and when she awoke again the shadows had deepened. The river was no longer gold, but a rosy brown that reflected the patterns of overhanging trees and the wash of color from the cascading orchids that swayed from their limbs. Among the bright and muted hues something moved, a flock of parrots, spreading their long blue and red tails, flapping their emerald wings, and taking to the air in undulating waves of startling color and sound. A lone howler monkey cried out, and the haunting wail echoed through the jungle. Then a movement caught her eye, and she turned her head to find Morgan's marmoset crouched in a corner, peering at her through its ruff of gray-tipped fur. She held out her hand to it, but it refused to come.

"It was an accident, Morgan," came the words, barely discernible above the rhythm of the paddle wheel. "I think you know that I wouldn't have killed him had I known he meant so much to you. Had I wanted to kill him and that woman, I would have done so much earlier. But he sprang
at me. It was reflex. You did the same when Roberto came at you. We do what we must to survive. We always have."

Morgan leaned against the railing. The gun hung in one hand at his side.

Fatigue showing around his eyes, King regarded him in silence before continuing. "You're sick, Morgan. You're going to die if you don't get treatment. What's going to happen to me if you die and leave me here with them? They'll kill me, and despite what you feel now, I don't think you want that. You don't want me dead."

"Yes, I do," he said in a hoarse voice. "I want that very much."

"Had you wanted me dead, you would have pulled the trigger when you had a chance, back at
la casa blanca."

Morgan pushed away from the railing and shuffled across the planking. The terrible ache in his head had encompassed his body. To move was an effort; to think was futile.

"You're failing, Morgan. How much longer can you go on? You've been stricken with

malaria, you know. If you don't get treatment, it's going to kill you. The chills and fever will get worse, and the pain in your head will drive you out of your mind."

Morgan looked into King's eyes and sneered. "Shut up or I'll blow your stupid brains out."

"And who would be left for you, Morgan? Who else knows you like I do? Respects you? Loves you?"

Morgan lifted the gun, holding it with both hands, and the deck seemed to pitch and sway, causing him to stumble before righting himself. The revolver was too heavy. To raise it for more than a moment was a torment he couldn't endure.

"And what if you did kill me? What would it accomplish? Would it end the killing that's
going on in the streets of New Orleans or London or Paris, or Georgetown for
that matter? Even as we speak, someone's son lies dead in a gutter, a victim of neglect
and starvation and abuse. I could have taken you out of the gutter. I was your only
chance.