On the opposite side of the stream that ran along our property, two riders were approaching. One wide-shouldered man who had coffee-colored skin cut a strong figure; he was thin-lipped and steady, his head wrapped up in a red and white bandanna. As he came closer, I was surprised to notice that he appeared Chinese, for his garments were a strange mix of European and native Samoan, with a white shirt and a long loincloth made of tree bark. The second rider was gaunt and tall, with long, dark hair straggling out from under the brim of an old yachting cap. His mustache hung in low waves, matching his flowing hair. He was, in short, as odd-looking and long-limbed as his bony, odd-looking horse.
It was Robert Louis Stevenson. Unlike other authors, who looked nothing in person like the faces that were claimed as their likenesses for the purpose of promotion, his face was instantly distinctive as his frontispiece portrait. His years of illness made him appear far older than forty. He rode a piebald horse of white with patterns of light brown spots and a shaggy mane; the creature, who had a face like a donkey’s, seemed old and his legs a little bowed, his back bent. The Chinese rider waited for Stevenson to step down from his horse before he did the same. Time seemed to slow as the novelist positioned two thick branches across the stream as a temporary bridge.
While I had pictured this to myself, there was something more incredible about the sight of the famous author, the invalid in exile, than I had anticipated. First, there was his physical appearance. His head. You have never seen eyes so far apart in your life. Unusual eyes, too. They appeared as though they were carrying some just-seen secret and were busy scanning for another. The sheer width of the man’s brow was remarkable. If Samoa really had been another planet, we surely would have assumed this was the king of its life forms.
These were the words spoken by Stevenson after he crossed over to our side of the stream: “Do either of you know today’s date?”
“The seventh, I believe,” offered Davenport.
“Month?”
I answered March.
“Well! I thought it might be April. Thank you. Americans?”
“Yes,” said Davenport. “That is, I am. My friend, Mr. Fergins, is a thorough Englishman.”
The man extended a long, unsteady arm to me and then to Davenport. His fingers and big palm were cold to the touch. It was startling in the hot, moist tropics. His eyes and hands had the nervous movement of sickness.
“Tusitala is what I am called here. John Chinaman is over there”—he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb—“and, of course, Jack.”
I looked for the other member of their party, until I realized he meant the bowlegged horse.
The novelist continued. “What brings you gentlemen to Upolu?”
“A book, actually,” Davenport said enthusiastically. “I am hoping to write a book about traveling the South Seas. The ones I’ve encountered have been lacking. Life, customs, and so on.”
“It is hard to reach the truth in these islands,” Stevenson said cryptically.
“You must appreciate the place to be here.”
“After being through most of the South Seas, I can tell you this is my favorite island.”
“Is it?”
“Without a doubt,” said Stevenson cheerfully, glancing at his companion for affirmation. “Hawaii is nice, yes. This is better. It is far more . . . savage. There is more of the savage in me than Honolulu can satisfy.”
We both replied with polite laughter, but Stevenson did not join in, nor did his implacable companion. On past missions when I accompanied Davenport, I would spend most of my time doing research on his behalf in libraries and museums, delivering or receiving messages, transporting books, and making his sleeping arrangements. I was usually at a distance from the heart of things. Now I kept my eyes on Davenport for hints on how I should behave, while through it all the quick glances of Stevenson’s silent Chinese companion traced our slightest movements. The murky brown orbs of the novelist, meanwhile, betrayed no sign of any particular feeling toward us—neither friendship nor suspicion, and certainly no great curiosity.
The whole conversation must have been only three or four minutes, with brief exchanges about the plant life and the roads, or lack of them, and about the land near the cottage, before Stevenson and his companion took their leave and crossed the stream. “Death on a pale horse,” the novelist called out of himself, with a grim laugh, when he returned to his saddle.
We rode behind Cipaou in silence on the way back to the cottage, though I was bursting to speak. Reaching our destination, I immediately retrieved my notebook and flipped through it.
“Here!” I said, stretching out the word.
“What?”
“You said to me shipboard, Davenport, during our discussions of the history of the profession—I shall quote you, my friend, so you do not allege that my memory grows faulty with old age. Yes, the sixth rule of the trade: ‘The bookaneer avoids, whenever possible, in crafting a disguised identity, the appearance of any interest in publishing or books in order to leave their subjects unsuspecting of their intentions.’”
“I must have said something to that effect.”
“You told Stevenson you’re an author.”
“If you think I violate my own law, you misunderstood. I was telling you how typical bookaneers behave, but, in that instance, they would be decidedly wrong. Those bookaneers believe they are being inconspicuous. But the writer is a peculiar breed. A man or woman whose very profession and trade is built upon the elevation of his or her own ego as capable of a task most others are not. An author is an author because people cannot do what he does, not because they do not want to.”
“Did you ever want that? To become an author, I mean,” I said. When Davenport did not like a question, or did not want to answer, he pretended he did not hear it. Given that as the only response, I reverted to the earlier subject: “Stevenson—or Talofa, or whatever it was he called himself—parted from us without an invitation or suggestion of any reunion. If you presented yourself as a politician, a dignitary, a missionary, a merchant, even a census taker—surely you could contrive some reason to enter his home and start to gain the intelligence you will need to see the mission through. I’m afraid to say, Davenport, that your claim to be a writer failed to excite any feeling in him at all.”
“Tusitala.”
“What?”