I remembered what Don Miguel had muttered when we had found him. One thing had made sense - that he was told to make for the harbor and take the boat!
I backed the Land Rover, swung it around and drove it back onto the road. Putting my foot down hard to the floor, I drive south to the crossroads where I could turn down the road to the harbor.
Just a hundred yards down that road the headlights pick out a row of figures strung out across the road in front of us!
"They can't have got here before us!" Sue exclaimed. I didn't know any more, though I thought it more likely that these were more of Sable's creatures and that they might be all over the Town!
"Maybe, dey zombies," Billy said, "but dey still made o' flesh an' blood. You keep drive. Dis iron critter squash dem dead good!"
We were nearly on top of them - and they hadn't moved. Perhaps Billy was right - they were just zombies - but they looked like normal people. I couldn't run them down. I braked, hard.
"I fix!" Billy said. "Blow der heads off wi' dis gun. Den dey not seein' go nowhere!"
Before I could stop him, Billy was out of the Land Rover. There was one of him and a dozen of them. They could tear him apart! I jumped out after him. The creatures began to back away. Perhaps they were afraid of Billy's gun - and, suddenly, they were gone - melted into the shadows!
I saw that Sue had also followed me.
"Where's Senor Alvarez?" I asked.
I didn't wait for an answer. The Land Rover was fifty yards behind us. I started to run. The cab of the Land Rover was empty!
We found Mort near to the harbor. The search continued all through the night. At dawn, planes began to land from Nassau. Within an hour, the island was swarming with policemen.
Billy stayed with the search. Sue was almost 'out' on her feet and went back to the inn for a sleep. Seabrook and the Marie Galante had almost gone out of my head. I went down to the harbor to see what was happening. Seabrook was there - now with his whole team. They were going to raise the Marie Galante!
Another bad ending! This path is the one I dislike most, personally, since I don't see any reason how the reader can tell that taking the advice of the man who saved Alvarez at the inn to head for the harbor would be a bad choice. At least I could see some logical thought process that the last 2.There were plenty now involved with the search. I decided to go with Seabrook. He had chosen to direct the operation from the cabin on the salvage vessel which contained the TV monitors. He was in radio contact with the tugs. Je ordered everyone out of the cabin except myself.
I noticed that the cameras giving the view of the wreck from above had been switched off. The ship could still be seen from fore and aft.
Seabrook and his two divers must have worked all night. I saw that all of the plastic sacks had been fitted and the air lines brought to the surface ready to inflate them. None of the diving team was down with the wreck. I could also see that there was a heavy tidal current. In two hours, the tide would have slackened. It would not have been the moment I would have chosen for attempting the left - but I wasn't going to question Seabrook's judgement.
I watched the sacks inflate, saw the cradle shift and slowly begin to rise clear of the bottom. The tugs were alerted to take the strain on the steadying cables. Seabrook began to relay his directions to the tugs - "Winch in on one - and hold. Slacken off on three..."
I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Seabrook seemed, quite deliberately, to be aiming the cradle at the wall of the cleft! I saw it strike and some of its timbers break away!
"Now it's too late to try to change my mind," he said. "switch on the cameras over the hull."
I was looking down inside the cradle at the bottom of the hull of the Marie Galante. Sprawled on it, was a body, face up. It was Senor Miguel Alvarez - but that was not all. Clasped tightly around it were the arms of two skeletons! For a moment, it looked as if they were moving, and then, on the other monitors, I saw that the whole ship was breaking up, the pieces being swept away in the strong tidal current.
Seabrook received no criticism for his 'failure', only sympathy for having been forced to attempt the lift before the ship was destroyed by further tremors!
After three days, the search for Senor Alvarez was abandoned. Neither Sable nor Charlie were found on the island. Officially, all three are 'missing persons'!
Rewinding to the last branch, again....
And it turns out that we still had the fetch in our pocket all along! But since the text didn't exactly mention us picking it back up again after the priest looked at it, it was not unreasonable for the reader to assume that it was left at the inn.I backed the Land Rover, swung it around and drove it back onto the road. Putting my foot down flat on the floor I drove south, passing the crossroads which would have taken us down to the harbor. Where the road ended, I went on into the trees, scraping the branches and flattening the undergrowth until we bumped onto the old timber road. After half a mile I stopped. Twenty yards away was the back garden of the house. I got Billy to help Senor Alvarez down to the cellar while Sue took what food she could find in the refrigerator. I found candles, and filled two big, plastic containers with water.
Once in the cellar, I locked the heavy mahogany door and nailed some stout boards across it and into the door frame. We settled down to wait - and for an hour nothing happened.
Then came the first blow to the outside of the door - then several more, each with the weight which might have come from a sledge hammer. The door held.
"Wen I chile," Billy said, "my mother teach me rhyme to keep de witch off - 'Ten, ten, de Bible, ten!'"
"Say it together!" said Sue.
We all recited, "Ten, ten, the Bible, ten," but the banging continued. I put my hand into my pocket and felt my fingers close on the fetch. I ran to the door and stuck it between the door and one of the boards which I had nailed across it. There was instant silence!
The first person to speak was Senor Alvarez.
"They are not gone. They only wait 'till she finds a way. There is something I must know!"
"Rest," I said. "You've had a blow to the head."
"No," he answered, struggling to his feet. "I may have little time. I know what I am saying. The captain - I want to see the Marie Galante. Is he among the bones stored down here?"
I thought he must delirious, but I pointed to a skeleton feet from where he stood.
"One of the few complete skeletons," I said. "We were able to identify him from personal jewelry on the body. His name was-"
"Yanez Pinzon," interrupted Senor Alvarez. "Look at the feet. See that he has six toes on each foot."
Senor Alvarez had removed one of his shoes and his sock. He too had six toes!
And while this section probably answers the question about the "modern" skeleton with 6 toes found in the second bad ending we came across, it raises the new question of what the hell happened to the original 6-toed skeleton in that event.....
Do we allow our boss to sacrifice himself?"My mother's name was Pinzon," he said. "My own name is Don Miguel; Yanez Pinzon Alvarez. I can follow my ancestors back all the way to that man whose bones lie there. I am a direct descendant of the captain of the Marie Galante. And now you know why that woman seeks to kill me! She must be among the last of her people. I am the surviving symbol of those who almost destroyed her race in the most cruel and shameful ways imaginable. She has the right to kill me."
"She has no such right," I said. "She cannot be judge and jury for 30000 people - just as you cannot carry the blame for what your ancestor did nearly five centuries ago. We will do all we can to protect you."
Sue and Billy added their agreement.
"I thank you for that," Senor Alvarez replied, "but it is in my fate. There is an ancient paper in my family records which speaks of a curse - a curse which would not be lifted for twenty-one generations. If that me lying there is the first, then I am the twenty-first generation."
As he spoke there was a smell of burning. We looked towards the door. The fetch had begun to smoulder. I ran for one of the containers of water, but there was a flash of flame - and the fetch was gone. Immediately, the blows on the door began again. A crack appeared in the mahogany and two of the boards I had nailed across, came loose.
"I told you she would find a way," said Senor Alvarez. "And I cannot let you take the punishment which is mine alone."
He began to move towards the door. I had started after him when another earth tremor threw all of us, violently, to the floor. Still half dazed, I shook myself to my senses. I could see Senor Alvarez pulling the loose boards from the door, as the door itself shook visibly under the blows and, each moment, new cracks appeared in the heavy timber!
I could not stop the thoughts which filled my mind. At any second, the door would give and the creatures would be among us. If I let Senor Alvarez go, then would the rest of us be spared? Did stopping him mean certain death for all of us?
