The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(20)

“They’re long gone if they were ever around.”

“How about you lend us a few men? They could help us track them down. I bet they’re going east, over to Tórtola.”

“This is a sanatorium. I’ve got no men to spare, only patients. As for following your invisible Indians, if you cut a trail through the jungle what you’ll be doing is opening the way for them, and after you find nothing, we might have a real problem if real Indians follow that trail back. A trail is an invitation. You don’t cut trails east. We keep to ourselves here and we keep out of trouble.”

He wasn’t lying. The Maya rebels did raid. They took food, livestock, prisoners. But Yaxaktun was out of the way, and luck had been on their side. If they had a quarrel with the people at Vista Hermosa he wanted nothing to do with it.

The young man snatched his hat back and fanned himself with it. “What is your name, sir?” he asked. He sounded irritated. It was no polite inquiry.

“Montgomery Laughton,” he said, doffing his hat with a flourish. “I am the mayordomo at Yaxaktun.”

“Perfect. I’m Eduardo Lizalde. My father pays your wages. Why don’t you get me a few men and we’ll be along.”

“I work for Dr. Moreau and this is a sanatorium.”

“Then fetch me Dr. Moreau so I can get him to give you your orders.”

“He’d be napping right now. Can’t bother him. Not for this.”

The young man’s companion laughed. He had the same brown hair as his young friend, but his eyes were dark. “Didn’t you hear him, sir? This is Eduardo Lizalde.”

“And I’ve told you. An idiot would cut a trail and try to ride with his horse to Tórtola or wherever you think you’re going.”

“Are you calling us idiots?” Eduardo asked.

“Climb back on your horses, gentlemen.”

“How dare you, you swine! You don’t order us around!”

Montgomery stood up and pointed his rifle at the young man with the casual air of someone lighting a cigar. “I’m suggesting you climb on your horses,” he said.

“I cannot believe this! Isidro, can you believe this?!”

“You better believe I’ll put a bullet through your stomach if you don’t leave now,” Montgomery said. He ought to have been more measured, but he was in a foul mood and couldn’t be bothered to sweeten his words. Moreau might chide him for this later, but for now Montgomery stared the men down and watched them mutter and glare at him.

A voice came from behind Montgomery, pleasant and clear. “Gentlemen, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve taken the liberty of having my father woken up. Dr. Moreau will be with us in a few minutes.”

Carlota had stepped out of the house and was standing next to him. She fixed her eyes on the men, and they bowed their heads. Montgomery also inclined his head, acknowledging her presence.

“Will you come with me to the sitting room? I’m afraid your companions will have to wait here, with your horses, but I can see if we can bring some drink out to them,” Carlota said, her hands fluttering gracefully, indicating the inside of the house.

“That would be appreciated,” Eduardo said, and then he smiled. “I’m sorry, you are the doctor’s daughter?”

“I am Carlota Moreau,” she said and extended her hand to them.

The men pressed a kiss upon it and exchanged a look of astonishment before following the girl. Carlota, in her airy tea gown, looked like a woman in her dishabille, so he couldn’t fault them for gawking. Then again, even if she had been bundled into a tight corset and buttoned up to her neck, she would have evoked notions of assignations and lovers. It was she, not the dress.

Still, he would have shot two bullets into their stomachs for that impudent look that passed between them. Even though that would have done them no good. “Lead the way, Miss Moreau,” he said instead.

Then he waited a minute and walked into the house, the rifle resting on his shoulder.





Chapter 7


    Carlota


The first thing Carlota liked to do in the mornings was feed the birds in the courtyard. She listened to their eager chirping, then went around the house and crossed the dividing wall that led to the old workers’ quarters, where the hybrids made their homes. There Ramona and Carlota kept an herb and vegetable garden. They grew onions, pungent epazote, chiles, sweet smelling mint, all arranged in patches or clay pots. If you boiled mint, yerba buena, and bark from the pixoy tree, Ramona said you could induce a woman’s labor. The yellow, bitter juice of the xikin cured cacochymia, the calabash tree helped settle the stomach, ix k’antunbub countered poisons.

These were the things she knew, along with the Latinate names for many species, gleaned from her father’s books, and the long names of chemicals carefully written on her father’s flasks. She’d been tutored well, if haphazardly, but she could find no fault in her upbringing.

When she was younger, she had feared her father might send her off to a finishing school, as the gentlefolk of Mérida did with their children, but her father had been entirely indifferent to such structured learning. Schools leave you without ambition, he said.

She’d grown, therefore, in the solitude of Yaxaktun, tended to by her father and Ramona, playing with Cachito and Lupe, and jumping into the welcoming cenote on the days when the heat wrapped itself taut around their limbs.