The Cannibal Spirit by Harry Whitehead Page A

He saw George at the doorway talking to someone outside, and turning then into the room. The old man stamped across to the fire and squatted before it. He was carrying a wooden box, about a foot and a half on each side, that seemed carved with intricate details, though it was impossible to make them out in the gloom, and which he placed down and rested one palm on its top, firmly, as if he must not ever lose it from his touch. He took up a half-burned faggot with his other hand and pushed at the embers, his fingers almost in the flames as they flickered lazily to life.
    George huddled there, stock-still, his blanket about him, massive as a bear come in out of the forest to the fire’s warmth. After a time, he lifted a hand and ran it slowly across his forehead. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his temples. Then he closed his eyes.
    Harry sat up. He reached across his sleeping wife to find his tobacco tin. He rolled and licked and placed the finished product in his mouth, then flicked alight a match and drew in the cigarette’s smoke. As it curled back out he saw George’s eyes upon him. They gazed at each other as Harry smoked. Nothing was said, and no emotion, nor any sign even of recognition,could Harry see in his father-in-law’s eyes. They were as cold and black as those of a whale. He remembered George roaring like a furnace in his passion, hectoring and railing at the people on the Island of Graves. There was some part of the man that was distinct from ordinary human life. Something outside of reason. In that moment, Harry felt that his own anger toward him lacked any meaning in the world. As well to hurl an insult at a mountain.
    The following morning George was gone. He had taken his canoe and the paraphernalia for a hunting trip, so Francine had told him.
    â€œBut gone where?” Owadi said. “Why go now?”
    â€œI was thinking misery at the death of his son had drove him off,” said Harry. “Though none seem over-willing to share their thoughts on the matter.”
    â€œAh,” said Owadi. “But very wrong go now. For four days after funeral, family must stay, mourn dead, make ceremony. And then they must make funeral pole and song to sing about the dead. And after, the ceremony for his heir as well. David heir is still a boy, so it was for George to do. Many people, they is angry he go away.” He was silent for a time. “And there was what happen on the island too. Many’s not happy for that.”
    â€œWhat happened, Chief?” He’d had no luck in gleaning anything from the people in the days since. He knew something wasn’t right, just by the silence with which his questions had been met, even by his wife.
    â€œSome people think George and the man, Doctor Boas, make their book and put words inside to say we all cannibal men for real. That we eat people, and is savage all through. They is angry for that.”
    â€œThere ain’t no such words. I read enough of it to see it shows you in a favourable light enough.”
    The old man did not speak for a while. Then he drew his hand in a line across in front of him. He said, “You have many blankets. You a wealthy man, Fat Harry.” Then he stepped away down the stairs.
    Harry sat upon a pile of those blankets. The first shafts of the sun broke through the soiled window, throwing light across his family’s petty fortune. He had lived forty-two years, and had travelled the world and come to be here. A brown-skinned savage chief had told him he was wealthy forthe decomposing blankets in his attic. Yet this battered store and all its contents would scarce bring half the value of the Hesperus .
    There’d been warning in Owadi’s words. George had enemies. But that was no news at all; everyone knew it to be true. There must be more to it. Something specific. Yet what that might be, Harry could not know. He’d speak with his wife, though she was away gathering