"Anyone here require a beverage?"
This stiffened Mr. Haddy like an arrow between his shoulders. He turned around laughing in a sneezing sort of way.
"Or, on the other hand," Father said — he had bent over and picked something from the ground—"maybe they're getting their flashlights repaired. Take a gander at this so-called consumer durable."
It was a crumbled flashlight battery, its rusted case burst open and the paint peeled off and barely recognizable, it was so squashed. It looked like an old sausage.
"Francis, you said they were savages!"
The poor Zambu, who maybe had never seen a flashlight battery — flashlights were forbidden in Jeronimo — just smiled at Father and showed his teeth like a dog hearing a door slam.
"But if they're using these gimcrack things, they probably are savages."
We sat down and waited and watched the wee-wee ants.
"Could be at the gas station, in a long line, waiting to fill up with high-test."
"Ain't seen no gas station round here," Francis said.
"You wouldn't kid me, would you?"
There was evidence that someone was living here — straw beds in the huts, flies rotating over the trash pile, and a tripod with a burned baby on it, or, the nearest thing to it, a roasted monkey with curled-up fingers and toes.
Father said, "How did you talk to them when you were here before?"
Francis opened his mouth and wagged his blue tongue.
"What language?"
Francis did not know what Father meant. He said he just talked to them and they talked to him. "They savvy."
This was a Jeronimo explanation. People spoke English, Spanish, and Creole, but they did not know when they were going from one language to another. It seemed that by looking into a person's face, they knew what language to use, and sometimes they mixed them all together, so that what came out sounded like a new language. I had the habit myself. I could talk to anyone, and often I did not realize that I was not speaking English. But everyone on the Mosquito Coast, no matter what he looked like or what language he spoke, said he was English.
Pacing the clearing with Clover, Father looked like a man showing his daughter around the zoo — impatient and proud and talking the whole time and sort of holding his nose. Then, from the other side of the firepit, we heard his loud voice.
"Okay, the game's over. We can see you! Stop hiding — you're just wasting your time! Come on out of there, we're not going to hurt you! Get out from behind those trees!"
His voice rang against the jungle's straight trees and high ceiling. He kept it up for several minutes, yelling at the bushes, while we watched. Clover peered at the ferns Father was beating with a stick. He looked the way Tiny Polski had when he was flushing bobwhites in Hatfield.
The amazing thing was, it worked. We saw we were surrounded by people, more than twenty of them. This took place as we were staring, and they appeared in the same way as they had vanished before, without a movement or a sound. One second, Father was shouting "Come on out!" in the empty clearing, and the next second the people were there and he was shouting the same thing in their faces. We did not know whether Father had really seen them or was just pretending.
The women wore ragged dresses and the men wore shorts. But these clothes did not hide their nakedness. They seemed to represent clothes rather than serve any covering purpose. We could see their private parts through the rips and tears. And the children — Clover's age and mine — were stark naked, which was embarrassing.
"Carkles and wilks," Mr. Haddy said, and stuck his teeth out.
Father said, "They don't look so bad to me. Are you sure this is the place?"
Francis said it was.
We expected Father to say hello. He didn't. He turned his back on the people, as if he had known them a long time, and he said, "Okay, let's go" over his shoulder — meaning them. "Follow me — we've got work to do."
Three of the men — they looked a little like Francis, except that they were nakeder and had bushier hair — followed Father to the duckboards.
"You stay here," Father said to us. "Relax, get acquainted, make yourselves known."
He went off impatiently, whacking at flies with his hat, and then we heard him kicking the duckboards to scare snakes. The three men followed him without a word.
Clover said, "He's right at home anywhere." She sounded like Mother.
The people stared at Clover through the haze from the firepit's smoke. They had gray blurred faces and wore scorched rags. Mud was caked on their legs.
"See-ville, man," Mr. Haddy said. "What a spearmint!"
Francis said, "Almost went dead here, Haddy. Two time."
Now the people looked at us.
"What you do to these folks, Lungley?"
"Ain't do nothing."
"How is it?" Mr. Haddy spoke to the people. He stuck out his teeth and opened his mouth to listen.
No one replied. "Must be ailing," Mr. Haddy whispered. The naked children hid behind their parents. We looked at each other across the clearing, and it was like looking across the world.
They turned their heads. An old man limp-scraped into the clearing from the pillars of the forest trees. He wore a pair of cut-off striped pants, wire glasses, and socks but no shoes — his toenails were yellow in the rips. A rag was knotted around his neck. There were broken straws in his hair. He wore a bicycle clip on each wrist like a bracelet.
"That is the Gowdy," Francis said.
"Look like he require a bevidge," Mr. Haddy said. "Shoo!"
The next words we heard were Father's. He was hidden and saying, "Careful! Steady there! Don't drop them!"
We had packed the ice so carefully in banana leaves that the blocks were like parcels, tied with vines. The silent men carried two parcels apiece. Father led them to the middle of the clearing and directed that the parcels be placed on the ground.
"Who's in charge here?" Father said.
"Man with speckles," Francis said. "He the Gowdy." He nodded at the man who stood slightly forward of the group of staring people. Seeing our eyes on him, the old man clawed some of the straws out of his hair.
Father shook the man's hand. "You the Gowdy?"
"Gowdy," the man said, and he giggled.
"We've got a little surprise for you," Father said in his friendly way. "Want to get those other people over here?" He took out his jackknife and winked at us. "I'd like to show them something."
When the people were close, Father cut the vines and pushed the leaves aside, uncovering one block of ice. He stabbed his knife blade like an ice pick and hacked off a corner. He gave this hunk of ice to the Gowdy.
The old man bobbied it, just as Tiny Polski had done back in Hatfield, not knowing whether it was hot or cold. The people gathered around to touch it. They laughed and pushed to get near it and stepped on their children. The ones who touched the ice smelled their fingers, or walked a little distance away to lick them.
Father was still winking at us as he spoke to the old man, the Gowdy. "What's the verdict?"
"Good morning to you, sah. I am well, thank you. Where are you garng. I am garng to the bushes." The Gowdy's wire glasses had been knocked crooked by the pushing people. "Today is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Thank you, that is a good lesson."
He bobbied the ice as he spoke.
"Hasn't the slightest idea," Father said to us.
The ice was melting in the old man's hand. Water ran down his arm, leaving dirt streaks on his skin. It dripped from the knob at his elbow.
"Completely in the dark," Father said. He put his arm around the old man's shoulders and gave him a wide smile.
The Gowdy shivered.
"What's that?" Father said, and pointed.