Leslie Charteris The Saint 22 The Saint in Miami

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back to the reckless smile that so seldom left them.
"I'm hungry and sleepy and the mosquitoes have taken enough blood out of me
for a transfusion, and I've tooled this cockeyed charabanc around all night
through stuff that I didn't think anything on wheels would go through," he
drawled. "After that, what's another day more or less? I always wanted to see
these Everglades, anyway. Let's have some breakfast, and I'll drive on."
They built a small fire to boil water to make coffee, since that was the only
way to disguise the colour of the swamp water and at the same time reduce its
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probable bacterial content. They ate corned beef and canned beans cold-or as
cold as the outside temperature allowed them to be, which was really lukewarm.
And the Saint drove on.
On and on.
It was like winding through a labyrinth with walls which only Charlie Halwuk
could see. There was the sun now to give Simon a sense of direction, but that
would have been no help to him if he had been alone. The trail that Charlie
Halwuk knew would have looked on a map like the track of an intoxicated eel.
And always the wilderness opened before them with sullen hostility and
timeless patience, as though it were a sentient hungry thing that knew they
must weaken in the end and be devoured . . .
The marsh buggy chugged through endless alternations of jungle and swamp and
grass and groves where the ghostly remnants of cypress trees spired upwards to
make circular pincushions of mysterious pools. As the heat grew more stifling,
jutting ends of logs became the sun-roofs of assorted turtles basking in
friendly fashion beside deadly cotton-mouths. As the buggy approached, snakes
and turtles quietly slipped away, leaving nothing but widening circles in
stream or pool; and roseate spoonbills, blacknecked stilts, burrowing owls and
stately herons rose before their intrusion and took refuge in the air. But
only once the Seminole caught Simon's arm as a small bird much like a falcon
rose before them.
"Look," he whispered.
The Saint's eyes followed the speeding flash of blue and grey.
"Everglade kite," said Charlie Halwuk. "Maybe last time white man ever see.
One time plenty. No more. Twenty, thirty maybe now. Soon come be gone like
Indian. White man never see!"
Time crawled on as slowly as they moved.
The marsh buggy took to shallow milky water. Simon wrenched it along the
serpentine course for a few hundred yards, and then the denseness of a bayhead
barred them with a wiry thorny wall. The soil about them was a deep quaking
humus that clung like salve to the broad soft tyres. Following Charlie
Halwuk's pointing, the Saint turned south and skirted the impenetrable barrier
until he found a knoll of comparatively higher and drier ground. He stopped
there for another brief rest and a cigarette.
Mr Uniatz moved his Neanderthal bulk, yawned with the daintiness of a
breathing switch engine, and said: "Dis jalopy is makin' me seasick, boss.
When do we eat again?"
Simon saw from his watch that it was after one o'clock.
"Very soon, I think," he said, and started the buggy again.
Almost at once, as if in answer to the movement, a dog hidden somewhere in
the undergrowth yapped loudly. Others joined in, shattering the barren
deadness with their snarling bedlam. The noise was so sharp and savage and
unexpected that the Saint's hackles rose and Gallipolis fumbled for his gun;
but the Indian showed a trace of pleasure.
"Chikee there," he said. "My people camp. We get plenty sofkee. Drive on."
In a hundred yards the bayhead fell away. Simon pulled up in astonishment.
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They had run into a great moss-draped amphitheatre floored with dry loamy
ground. A fire burned in the centre, blazing brightly in the hub of ten
enormous logs arranged like the spokes of a wheel. High above the fire was a
roof of thatched palmetto leaves supported by four uprights driven into the
ground. Pots and pans interspersed with dried meat and herbs hung from the
rafters. At one corner of the tribal fireplace was a mortar hollowed from the
head of a cypress log, where their arrival failed to interrupt an ancient
squaw who sat pounding corn with a wooden pestle.
Chikees formed a square around the central kitchen. They were similar to the
roofed fireplace, except that they had floors of plaited saplings raised
several feet above the ground. Blanketed forms roused from the floors at the
stopping of the marsh buggy, while others rose from where they had been
sitting on the fire logs; and when Simon stepped down and stretched his aching
limbs he found himself surrounded by a curious group of them.
Charlie Halwuk spoke quickly, and the circle of faces lightened. A clatter of
welcome, which Simon decided was friendly, broke out in the liquid Seminole
tongue.
"They give us sofkee," interpreted Charlie Halwuk, and got down.
Mr Uniatz followed stiffly, and Gallipolis without his gun. One of the
Seminoles reached out suddenly and felt the material of Hoppy's blazer. He
made a comment which brought back several excited echoes. More Indians crowded
up, chatterring guttural enthusiasm for the screaming colours of the blazer,
and formed a guard of honour to escort Hoppy to a log which served as a chair.
Charlie Halwuk watched the demonstration with a certain possessive pride.
"Him damn good man," he said, reverting to a previous impression.
"Boss," Hoppy said pathetically, "what goes on?"
"They like you," said the Saint. "You seem to have carried away half of the
Seminole nation with your irresistible charm. For God's sake try to look as if
you appreciated it."
A wizened Indian, whom Charlie Halwuk treated with the deference due to a
chief, ceremoniously passed out sofkee in coconut bowls. It proved to be
ground cornmeal mush, undoubtedly wholesome enough, but a dish which any [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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