Medusa (NUMA Files 8)

“Sure,” the native said. “We got good medicine. Fix you up. You from New Bedford?”

Dobbs nodded.

“Too bad,” the native said. “New Bedford men take me. I jump ship. Come home.” He smiled, showing pointed teeth. “No medicine. We watch you burn up from fire sickness.”

A quiet voice said, “Are you all right, Captain?”

Caleb had emerged from the shadows and now stood on the deck in the glare of torchlight.

The native leader’s eyes widened and he spat out a single word.

“’Atua!”

The captain had picked up a smattering of Oceanic and knew that ’atua was the islanders’ word for “a bad ghost.” Rising onto his elbows, Dobbs said, “Yes. This is my ’atua. Do what he says or he will curse you and everyone on your island.”

Caleb had sized up the situation and went along with the captain’s bluff.

Lifting his arms wide above his head for dramatic effect, he said, “Put your weapons down or I will use my power.”

The native leader said something in his language and the other men dropped their killing tools to the deck.

“You said you could do something about the fire sickness,” the captain said. “You have medicine. Help my men or the ’atua will be angry.”

The islander seemed unsure of what to do, but his doubts vanished when Caleb removed his hat and the silky white hair caught the tropical breeze. The islander issued a curt order to the others.

The captain blacked out again. His slumber was filled with weird dreams, including one in which he felt a cold, wet sensation and a sting on his chest. When he blinked his eyes open, it was daytime, and crewmen were moving around the deck. The ship was rigged with full sail against a clear blue sky, and waves slapped the hull. White-plumed birds wheeled overhead.

The first mate saw Dobbs struggling to sit up and came over with a jug of water. “Feeling better, Captain?”

“Aye,” the captain croaked between sips of water. The fever had gone, and his stomach felt normal except for a gnawing hunger. “Help me to my feet.”

The captain stood on wobbly legs, with the mate holding an arm to steady him. The ship was on the open sea with no island in view.

“How long have we been under way?”

“Five hours,” the mate said. “It’s a miracle. The men came out of their fever. Rashes disappeared. Cook made soup, and they got the ship moving.”

The captain felt an itch on his chest and lifted his shirt. The rash was gone, replaced by a small red spot and a circle of irritation a few inches above his navel.

“What about the natives?” Dobbs said.

“Natives? We saw no natives.”

Dobbs shook his head. Did he dream it all in his delirium? He told the mate to fetch Caleb. The green hand made his way to the quarterdeck. He wore a straw hat to protect his bleached skin from the sunlight. A smile crossed his pale, wrinkled face when he saw the captain had recovered.

“What happened last night?” Dobbs said.

Caleb told the captain that after Dobbs had passed out, the natives had left the ship and returned carrying wooden buckets that emitted a pale blue luminescence. The natives went from man to man. He couldn’t see what they were doing. Then the natives left. Soon after, the crew started waking up. The captain asked Caleb to help him down to his cabin. He eased into his chair and opened the ship’s log.

“A strange business,” the captain started. Although his hands were still shaking, he wrote down every detail as he remembered it. Then he gazed with longing at a miniature portrait of his pretty young wife, and he finished his entry with a single declaration: “Going home!”

FAIRHAVEN, MASSACHUSETTS, 1878

The French mansard-roofed mansion known to the townspeople as the Ghost House stood back from a secluded street behind a screen of dark-leafed beech trees. Guarding the long driveway were the bleached jawbones of a sperm whale, placed upright in the ground so their tapering tips met in a Gothic arch.

On a golden October day, two boys stood under the whalebone arch, daring each other to sneak up the driveway and look in the windows. Neither youngster would take the first step; they were still trading taunts when a shiny black horse-drawn carriage clattered up to the gate.

The driver was a heavyset man whose expensive russet suit and matching derby hat failed to cloak his villainous looks. His rough-hewn features had been sculpted by the hard knuckles of the opponents he had faced back in his prizefighting days. Age had not been kind to the misshapen nose, the cauliflower ears, and the eyes squeezed to nailheads by scar tissue.