Off the Mangrove Coast (Ss) (2000) (11 page)

It was late in the day and the wind picked up slightly, coming in over the river to where we sat on his porch near the old fort. "I told him about you." Vandover poured cold beer into my glass. "He wants to go up the Baram. You want enough money to get you home and ..." He eyed me mischievously. "I suspect that you wouldn't mind having one more go at the river yourself. All the better if Mr. Lacklan is paying."

We toasted my good fortune and I let the beer slide back down my throat. Cold beer had been a rare and precious luxury in my world for too long. If everything worked out I would soon be done with Borneo and on my way back ... back to the land of cold beer.

It was dark by the time I got home. I navigated my way across the room to the bed. Without lighting a lamp I undressed and lay back under the mosquito netting. Above my head fireflies cruised lazy circles against the ceiling, flickering, on ... off ... on ...

Money to go home. A buck or two to help get my feet back under me at the worst. At the best... ?

I too had come to Borneo hunting diamonds, If you were lucky you washed them out of a river just like panning for gold. I had found a fortune of them, in a pool just below a dried-up waterfall. I had spent a month in the bush digging them from the river, but ultimately, the river had taken them back.

Eager to return with my treasure and careless I'd put my canoe into a rapid at the wrong angle and almost lost my life. As it was I lost the boat, the diamonds, and most of my kit. A family of Iban pulled me from the water and took care of me until I was on my feet again. I was seven weeks getting back, nursing broken ribs and a persistent fever.

What money I had left had slowly trickled away; paid out to Raj, my houseboy, and for food, drink, and quinine. I've heard it said that, in the tropics, you rented your life from the devil malaria and quinine was the collector. After my disaster on the Baram the disease had become a most demanding landlord.

But now I would have another chance. We would go upstream of the pool where I found my diamonds, closer to the source, the find would be better this time and I'd have Lacklan's fee even if we didn't locate a single stone. With the good feeling of money in my pockets I drifted off to sleep.

My place was a deserted bungalow that I'd adopted and repaired. When Lacklan and his wife appeared, I was seated on the verandah idly reading from Norman Douglas's South Wind.

They turned in the path, and I got to my feet and walked to the screen door. "Come in," I called out, "it isn't often I have visitors."

As they came up on the porch, I noticed that Helen's eyes went at once to the book I had been reading. She glanced up quickly, and smiled. "It's rather wonderful, isn't it?"

She was tall and lean, with fine thin limbs and dark blue eyes that shone in the shadow of her wide-brimmed straw hat. She had a face like that of a model from one of those fashion ads but with more character, faint friendly lines around the corners of her eyes and mouth, no makeup. Her nose was large but perfectly shaped and her jaw betrayed strength, a strength that also was apparent in her body, beautifully formed but built for a lifetime of swimming and skiing. Her skin, where it disappeared under the fabric of her sundress, looked like it was taking on a healthy shade of copper from the equatorial sun.

She had commented on my book ... "It's an old friend," I said, smiling.

Lacklan looked from one to the other of us, irritated. "You're Kardec?" he demanded. "I'm John Lacklan." He was tall and slightly stooped. A thin blue vein pulsed in one of his temples as he peered at me from behind glasses with round, nearly black lenses. Vandover had told me he was an administrator at one of the big government labs . back in the States. Atom bombs or something.

Lacklan pushed ahead, up the stairs. "I understand you're the authority on diamonds?" The way he said "authority" indicated that he doubted it.

"Well" I hesitated because I was well aware of all that I didn't know "maybe. Will you sit down? We'll have a drink."

Raj was already at my elbow. He was a Sea Dyak, not over sixteen, but his mind was as quick and intelligent as anyone I've ever encountered.

"Scotch," Helen said, "with soda ... about half."

Raj nodded and glanced at Lacklan, who waved a careless hand. "The same," he said.

When Raj returned with our drinks, Helen sat there sipping hers and watching me. From time to time, she glanced at her husband, and although she said nothing, I had an idea that she missed nothing.

"You've been up the Baram, above Long Sali?" he asked.

"Yes." I saw no reason for explaining just how far I had gone. Marudi was a rough sixty miles from the mouth and Long Sali was a village a hundred fifteen miles farther upriver.

"Are there diamonds up there? Gemstones?"

"There are," I agreed, "but they are scattered and hard to find. Most of the stones are alluvial and are washed out of creeks back up the river. Nobody has ever located their source."

"But you know where diamonds can be found, and you can take us to them. We're not wasting our time?"

In this part of the world I had become used to the cultures of Chinese and Malay, Muslim and British, all of these groups had a sense of politeness or patience bred into them. In comparison the directness and force of Lack-lan's questions was like an attack.

"You are not wasting your time," I assured him. "I've found diamonds. I can't promise, but with luck, I can find more. Whether they are bort or gem quality will be anyone's guess."

"You speak the language?" he asked.

"I speak marketplace Malay," I said, "and a scattering of Iban. Also," I added dryly, "I know that country."

"Good! Can you take us there?"

"Us?" I asked cautiously. "Your wife, too?"

"She will go where I go."

"It's our project, Mr. Kardec," Helen Lacklan said. She stretched out a long, firm hand to show me the ring on her finger. An empty setting stared up at me like a blind eye. "John gave me this ring five years ago. We're going to find the stone together."

It was a wonderful, romantic notion but far easier said than done.

"You know your business best," I said carefully, "but that's no country for a woman. It's jungle, it's miserably hot, and there are natives up there who have never seen a white man, let alone a white woman. Some of them can't be trusted."

I was thinking of one nefarious old codger in particular.

"We'll be armed." His manner was brusque and I could see his mind was made up. I suddenly had a vision that both amused me and made me very nervous: John Lacklan as Henry Stanley blasting his way through the forests of central Africa. His chin was thrust out in a way that told me he was primed for an argument ... I knew to never come between a man and his weapons, especially when he's a client. I turned to her.

"I don't want to offend you, Mrs. Lacklan, but it is very rough country, bad enough for men alone, and with a woman along ..." I could see I was going to have to give her a better argument. "There will be snakes and leeches. I'm not trying to scare you, it's just a fact. We'll be on the water and in the water all day, every day, and with the humidity we'll never get dry, not until we get back. We'll be eating mostly fish we catch ourselves and rice. There is the risk of infection from any cut or scrape and an infection while you're upriver can kill you."

She was quiet for a moment. "I believe I'll be all right," she said. "I grew up in Louisiana, so the heat and humidity ... well, they are only a little bit worse here." She laughed and her teeth were white and perfect. "Really, Mr. Kardec, I'm quite strong."

"I can see that," I said, and then wished I'd said nothing at all.

Lacklan's head snapped up and for a moment he glared at me. This man was deeply jealous, though Helen didn't seem the kind of person who would give him reason. Of course, that very fact made her all the more attractive.

She caught his reaction to me and quickly said, "Perhaps it would be better if I stayed here, John. Mr. Kardec is right. I might make trouble for you."

"Nonsense!" he replied irritably. "I want you to go."

His eyes narrowed as they turned back to me and burned as they looked into mine. I couldn't tell if he was disturbed about my appreciation of his wife or because I'd made her consider not going upriver with him or, and I only thought of this later, because I'd made her consider staying in Marudi where she would be on her own while we were gone.

"We will both go, Mr. Kardec. Now what will it cost me and when can we leave?"

I explained what they would need in the way of clothing and camping gear. Warned them against wearing shorts, no reason to make life easy for the mosquitoes and leeches. And then told them my price.

"I get a thousand, American. The canoes, Raj, and four Iban crewmen will run you six-fifty. Kits, food, first-aid and mining supplies, maybe another three to three-fifty. Depends on whose palm I have to grease."

"Is that the best you can do?" he objected. "You're taking more than half for yourself!"

"Look, Mr. Lacklan, I've been where you need to go. I've found diamonds ... lots of diamonds. I lost them all but I know where they were. If it was easy, or cheap, I'd be back there working that streambed right now instead of trying to make a deal with you."

I could see something behind his glasses. A calculation taking place, like in one of the computers he probably used at work, punch cards feeding in data, tubes glowing with orange light. "All right," he said. "But how are we going to split up our take? After all, I'm paying for this expedition. I should get a piece of whatever you dig out."

I guess I recoiled a bit. Anyway, Helen looked at me in concern and Lacklan leaned back in his chair smugly. I hadn't really given it much thought. I'd figured that I'd take them there and they'd work the river in one area and I'd find somewhere else. I could see that this might lead to problems, especially once he realized that he could enlist the boat crews in the digging and panning.

"We'll split what we find, fifty-fifty," I said. "With the best stone to be for Mrs. Lacklan's ring." He was still gazing at me, one eyebrow arched above the round steel rim of his dark glasses. I gave in a little more. "I'll give Raj and the boat crews a bonus from my share."

Helen Lacklan turned to him. "That's fair, darling, don't you think?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

We settled on a date, ten days from then, to leave. They went to the door and Helen hesitated there. "Thank you," she said graciously. "I enjoyed the drink."

They walked away toward the town.

It's maybe only once in a lifetime that a man sees such a woman, and I confess I looked after them with envy for him. It made my throat dry out and my blood throb in my pulses just to look at her, and it was that as much as anything else that made me worry about taking the job. A man needed all his attention on such a trip as this ... and no man could remain other than completely aware of such a woman when she was near him.

Nothing moves fast in the tropics, yet despite that I had lined up the boats, boatmen, and equipment within a week. Raj was instrumental in bringing everything together as always. Even when I had no money he stuck with me. "You make better job, boss," he'd say when I pushed him to look for work elsewhere. "We don't work much but we make lots money!" I'm not sure that I'd have liked the irregular pay if I had been in his place. But Raj seemed to come alive when trying to figure out something he'd never done before and the jobs we got were always a challenge of one kind or another.

Around Marudi I caught sight of John and Helen once or twice, it wasn't a big place. He was not one to take his attention from whatever he was doing to nod or say hello but once or twice I got a smile from her. Then for several days in a row I didn't see either of them.

The day before we were supposed to leave I spotted the Lacklans coming up the path from town. And something their postures, the way they walked? told me the plan had gone wrong.

"Kardec?" There was a bluster in his manner that seemed ready to challenge any response that I might have. "We've made other arrangements. I'll pay whatever expenses you've incurred so far." Helen did not meet my eyes.

"Other arrangements?" The answer was evasive. "You've decided not to go?"

"We'll be going, but with someone else. How much do I owe you?"

Frankly, it made me angry. The deal had been all set, and now ... I stated my price and he paid me. Helen merely stood there saying nothing, yet it seemed she was showing a resentment or anger that I had not seen before. "Mind telling me how you're going?" "Not at all. But it doesn't really matter, does it?" His very arrogance and coolness angered me, and also to have all my excellent planning go for nothing. "It matters a great deal," I told him. "There's one other man that would take you upriver who is trustworthy, a native named Inghai, and he's down with a broken leg. If you go back in there with another native, you're a fool!"

"You're calling me a fool?" He turned on me sharply, his eyes ugly. For a minute I thought he was going to swing on me and I'd have welcomed it. I'd have liked nothing so much as to help him lose a few teeth.

Then I had an awful premonition. Jeru was up to his old tricks again. "Look," I asked, "is it a native? Did he show you a diamond? A big stone? Something about twenty carats?"