"The Shouters tell me about them, and lots of folks, even Zambu fellers, believe in Duppies. Mainly. Fadder, they is ghosts."
'Of dead people," Father said.
"Of alive people."
"I see."
"Everyone got a Duppy. They is the same as youself. But they is you other self. They got bodies of they own."
"So half the world is people and the other half is Duppies, is that right?"
"Never mind," Mr. Maywit said.
Mrs. Maywit was wringing her fingers. She said, "Cep you cain't ketchum."
"Invisible?" Father said.
"They is here," Mr. Maywit said. "Somewhere. Waitin. They shows up every time to time. But they ain't hot you. Make you shout, Duppies do. That is why Shouters see them. Me, I never see my Duppy."
Father said, "How do you know I'm not your Duppy?"
Mr. Maywit did not say another word. He stared at Father and his coffee-dust face became slack with fear. His eyes grew another rim around the sockets. It was as if at last he understood who this man was, and was about to surrender to this belief.
"That's enough, Allie," Mother said. She spoke to Mr. Maywit. "Can't you see he's joking?"
"Never mind." But Mr. Maywit's voice trembled as he said so.
***
Father was interested in what Mr. Maywit had said, but he went on joking about Munchies and Duppies. I was sure he believed some of it — it was too good not to believe. Live ghosts! White Indians! And I knew from past experience that Father was never more mocking than when he was discussing something serious. If someone was fearful, Father joked. If the person tried to be funny, Father quoted the Bible or said, "Haven't you heard there's a war coming?"
He was complicated in other ways. After we got to Jeronimo he claimed that he could go without sleep. He was awake when we went to bed, and he was at work when we got up in the morning. He also said he could go for days without food, and never got sick, and wasn't bitten by mosquitoes. This mystified the Maywits and the Zambus, but I knew he was trying to set an example — if he worked hard and did not complain, the others would have to. Work and lack of sleep did not make him irritable. In fact, I had never seen him happier. And Mother, who loved him in this mood, was happy too.
Now we had a house and a number of inventions that made life convenient. The Zambus, whom we had met by chance on that Fish Bucket riverbank, seemed contented. They walked around in trunks and short-sleeved shirts that Mother had made for them out of sailcloth. And the Maywits, with Father's help, improved their own house.
Our miracle beans were more than half grown and already had pods that Father said would be ready for picking in a few weeks. The other crops nourished beside the spillways of irrigation ditches. Entering Jeronimo from the Swampmouth path, you saw something that looked like a settlement — houses, gardens, stone-paved paths, and the pump wheel flinging water into the drum. It was the civilized place Father had seen that first day, when all we had seen was tall grass and a mud bank and a smoldering armchair.
I was luckier than anyone. When the twins went down with squitters because of stomach trouble, and then Mother and Jerry, I did not get sick. And I noticed that Father liked me a little better for that. He had a way of insinuating that if anyone was sick he was faking, or at least exaggerating. He never said "He's sick," but always "He says he's sick" or "She claims she's ill."
"I haven't the time to get sick," he said. "If I had a little spare time, I'd probably get sick as a dog!"
One day, Mr. Haddy returned. By then, Father had started building what he called the Plant, which was so far only a large framework of peeled poles two stories high, in the hollow at the back of the cleared land. The boilers were dumped there. We heard the motor before we saw the launch. Father made me climb to the top of the poles to get a look at it.
"Who is it?" he said, sounding angry for the first time in Jeronimo.
"It's the Little Haddy," I said. I could see the torn awning and the little wheel house.
Father was glad about this, but when he got down to the landing he did not like what he saw. Mr. Haddy was not alone. There was a man with him — a white man, carrying a suitcase ashore.
Mr. Haddy explained that he had pumped out the launch at Fish Bucket, and patched it. He had found that without the boilers and scrap metal there was enough freeboard for it to float easily in the shallowest river. After spending two weeks at Santa Rosa getting it properly fixed, he decided to see if he could make it all the way to Jeronimo, by sailing up the Bonito River, where it branched from the Aguan.
"I bring you some real food from Rosy — carkles and conks and wilks." These shellfish were in kegs on the deck. Then he showed us a dead turtle. Its flippers had been hacked off, and its lizard head of beaky bone hung out of its big barnacled shell. "And a hicatee."
But Father was not interested.
He said, "Who's this hamburger?"
"This here Mr. Struss from Rosy."
"How do you do," the man said. He stepped forward onto the mushy bank and set his suitcase down. Then he took his sunglasses off and tried to smile, but his eyes wrinkled shut in the sunlight and gave him a squinched face. He was a bit older than Father, and fleshy, and there was a dark sweat patch on every bulge of his body — moons under his arms, and a belt of wet around his waist. He turned his suffering smile on us. "What lovely kids." He looked beyond us. "And you've made yourself a beautiful home."
"What do you want?" Father said, blocking the path and keeping the man sinking in mush.
The Zambus had put down their tools, and the Maywits had trooped from the garden. There were about seventeen of us here, watching Father and the stranger.
"Mr. Haddy said he was coming up this way. He kindly let me hitch a ride."
Mr. Haddy said, "He a paying passenger, but I do all the steering. He work the sounding chain. He know the way."
"I've been here before. Mr. Roper knows me. Don't you, Mr. Roper."
He was speaking to Mr. Maywit.
Father said, "There's no Mr. Roper here. It's a case of mistaken identity. The heat is making you rave."
Mr. Maywit just goggled and kept his mouth shut.
The man was confused. He put his sunglasses on again and picked at the sweat patches on his shirt and said, "I came here to ask you all a question."
"We're not interested in your questions," Father said.
"You just answered it, brother. And I'm glad I came. Because the question is, 'Are you saved?' And I've got a funny feeling, the Lord—"
"The Lord is up in that tree," Father said, pointing with his finger stump at a bill-bird on a branch.
The man stared at Father's finger, and even adjusted his sunglasses to get a better look.
"Go away," Father said, and gave the man his deaf-man's smile.
"You can't answer for these people here."
"I'm not answering at all," Father said. "As far as I'm concerned, you didn't even open your mouth or ask a question. You're not allowed to. I own this place, and you don't have my permission to come ashore. If you want to talk to these people, you'll have to do it somewhere else, outside Jeronimo. About half a mile due north of here you'll come to a little swamp. That's Swampmouth, the Jeronimo line. Can't miss it. You go there and do all the preaching you like. Start walking, Mr. Struss."
He handed the man his suitcase.
"The Lord sent me here," Mr. Struss said.
"Bull," Father said. "The Lord hasn't got the slightest idea that this place exists. If he had, he would have done something about it a long time ago."
"This river doesn't belong to you, brother."