"A while, indeed," Liza replied, still with a gentle smile, perching on the side of the boat, with a relaxed air, as if this was a simple day outing on the river.  "I needed something to do after my husband passed away, and this was that project, Mr. McCurdy.  So I'd say 14 years 3 months and 5 days."  It was all too clear that the lady remembered that event with sad accuracy. "Now it serves to give me relatives and friends I can impose upon, nearly anywhere in the world."  The smile turned impish.

"Bloody 'ell," grumbled Hawksmoore under his breath, as Marianne paced and then spoke to him, the gold doubloon in her hand.  He glared at her, then pointedly looked away at the river, steering the boat along.  "I've paid for the bedamned petroleum, leave be !"

McCurdy smirked with the cigarette between his lips, cutting his eyes at Hawksmoore and the redhead.  Now who was being rude, his expression seemed to say with a bit of satisfaction.  Then he looked at Mrs. Waters again.  “Sorry for your loss, even though it has been a while,” he said.  “Remembering the exact day... he must have meant the world to you.”

He showed her the pack of Camels to see if she wanted one.  “So who is this Cousin Ralph I look so much like?”

"Exactly, Mr. Hawksmoore!" Marianne said with an excited grin, waving the coin in the air.

"You happen to have paid me - in gold - for a can of petroleum that's only worth pennies. This coin is worth far, far more today than when you acquired it two centuries ago, you know," she said with a helpful air.

"Really, Mr. Hawksmoore, you'll have to be more careful. You can't go around paying people in doubloons or miraculously coming back to life after a duel in the town square and expect not to draw attention. If you want people to leave you alone, you're going about it all wrong," she advised, biting back a grin at the young - no, ancient man's annoyance.

"Besides, if you'd just answer my questions, just once, I wouldn't ever bother you again for the rest of your very long life," she pointed out in a very reasonable tone.
This message was last edited by the player at 13:55, Wed 13 July 2005.

Liza Waters nodded, her smile bittersweet, a sad cast to her eyes. "He did," she said simply, but waved away the offer of a cigarette.  "As for Cousin Ralph - he's Ralph Drebbin, a constable in a Highland village, but he's McCurdy on his mother's side.  Perhaps a shade shorter, with darker hair, but the spirit and image of you.  You have four cousins in that immediate area, and one great-uncle.  You would like Uncle Oscar."  She dug in the purse again and came up with the book, and flipped through the pages...but McCurdy had the sense that she was also paying attention to the interchange with Hawksmoore and Marianne.

If looks could kill, Marianne would need an undertaker and casket.  The grey eyes glittered.  He snapped, "Gold has its uses.  I shall give thee another one if twill cease thy prattle !"  The more irritated he got, the more his cadence and style of speech slipped into something almost Shakespearian.  But he did not stop the boat, nor slow it down in the slightest.

McCurdy waited to see what she was going to show him while cutting his eyes at the other two.  Without taking his eyes from the redhead, he asked his “cousin” in a lowered voice: “You’ve any idea what she’s going on about?”

Marianne wasn't bothered by Hawksmoore's reaction, having become accustomed to such reactions to her persistence. "Gold? And what would I do with gold, Mr. Hawksmoore? I'm a writer. I trade in questions and answers, not money. But stories... I can do something with those."

"You must have lived through so many fascinating things... The rise of cities and the changing world... history and people and society... Tell me your story, Mr. Hawksmoore, and I promise, I'll stop my prattling," she said with a twinkle in her eyes.

Hawksmoore sat there, beside the motor, glaring daggers at Marianne.  "Thou hast nothing in trade," he said, loftily.

And just as quickly, he looked back at the river, now completely ignoring her, steering the boat along.  It seemed that getting him to cooperate was going to be a real challenge, for he had no reason to tell Marianne anything.

"'Fraid not," Liza said in an undertone to McCurdy, "but he does have an old-style way of speaking, doesn't he ?"

McCurdy nodded absently as he dragged on his cigarette.  He was already irritated with the redhead, but still not nearly as Hawksmoore appeared to be.  He smiled at some thought and looked at Mrs. Waters again.  “A man’s manner of speak ain’t always a tell, Mrs. Waters.”  He smiled as if he knew a secret, but wasn’t willing to elaborate.  Then, “You know my father’s passed on some time ago, right?  Gotta be near 15 years now ... sixth day of September, nineteen and eleven.”  He dragged on his cigarette again watching the smoke fly away on the wind.

“Rest of my kin are scattered over Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.  I think.  Arkansas I know ... don’t know about Oklahoma or Texas any more.”  He didn’t know why he was telling a complete stranger these things.  So he dragged his cigarette to death and got out another as if the work of it took so much of his attention he couldn’t speak any more.

"No, I don't have anything to trade," Marianne agreed. "But not everything in life is a trade, Mr. Hawksmoore. Some things are gifts to be shared - things like love, and voice, hope, art, and stories..." The expression in her eyes was serious, even a little angry. It was a belief close to her heart, and she couldn't do the work she did if she didn't believe it. If the Spaniard and the Baroness weren't proof that living for centuries was antithetical to the human condition, this surly, cynical man was enough.

"I'm on the trail of the legend, Mr. Hawksmoore, your legend. We'll meet again at the end of the journey - you, the Spaniard, the Baroness... and how many others? And I'll be there to witness it," she said with a dreamy smile, determination in her eyes as she locked gazes with Hawksmoore.

"And Liza, and Basil, of course," she added, turning back to her fellow author, her voice as light and cheerful as ever.

"A family reunion on a boat in the middle of the Amazon, Liza? Trust you to find someone you know in the most improbable corners of the world," she said with a grin.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:32, Thu 14 July 2005.

"Hang on..." Liza was digging for a pencil, and finally produced a slim sterling mechanical one, and jotted down some notes.  "I'm horribly unfamiliar with the United States of America.  You must fill me in on the details."

Hawksmoore favored Marianne with a hostile look, and another scowl. "Happens I've already told my story, to a man who wrote it up in a bloody book, as a faerie-tale for children," he said, sourly, and turned his attention away from her again. "And you ought to have bargained better; I said I'd let you off at the next village.  Never that you'd go a step further along with me.  We have no accord." The young-old, cutlass-wielding fellow was apparently not entertaining her idea.

Marianne turned her attention to Liza and McCurdy.  Liza's face turned thoughtful. "I can just imagine what book it might be," she murmured softly, gazing at the sullen Hawksmoore, who frowned at her.  Then she nodded. "Oh, they do get around, the family; I'd lost track of the ones who came to America, but Mr. McCurdy has got a line on them for me."

At the mention of Basil, though, there was a startled cough from Hawksmoore.  "Basil Ringrose ?  Thou hast seen him ?"

"I don't need to bargain with you to take me anywhere, Mr. Hawksmoore. I already have a guide to the trail... who is a wonderful storyteller besides. I can find my own way to the legend's end.

It seems to me, Mr. Hawksmoore, that it is you who should have bargained better, if you weren't satisfied with the person who wrote your story," Marianne returned cheerfully.

"As for Basil Rose... Ringrose... Yes, I believe I do know the man you refer to. The very person of congeniality, a gentle old soul with a young, adventurous heart. What of him?" she asked with a faint frown.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:34, Fri 15 July 2005.

Hawksmoore's reply to Marianne's speech was a derisive bark of a laugh, and he returned his gaze to the murky waters he was navigating the boat through.

McCurdy watched the exchange between the two more closely than he appeared to be, but he wasn’t going to get involved.  He had a feeling he would have learned the most of Hawksmoore’s mystery before long — even without wanting to know — but with the redhead’s appearance that just took a nose dive.  Didn’t matter anyway, he supposed.  He was after something else, not a legend.  If his purpose was the same as hers, he would know the truth of it already and be heading home by now.  Hawksmoore didn't seem to be too difficult an egg to crack.


He dragged on his cigarette, the glow of it lost in the light of the sun, the smoke of it swept away by the wind and the moving boat.  He cut his eyes at Liza Waters and wondered where she came from.  “How’d you end up down here, Mrs. Waters?”

Marianne grinned at Hawksmoore's latest, and filed it away to puzzle over later.

"Mr. Hawksmoore, from your actions one would almost think you like all the attention from me and want me to keep bothering you," she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement. "If that's your aim, there's really no need for all these adolescent theatrics."

"I'm sure that if you had something to say to Basil, nothing could stop you from saying it. You certainly haven't kept your opinion of me secret. So please, don't censor yourself on any of our accounts," she said pleasantly.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:27, Fri 15 July 2005.

"Damnable woman !"  was the retort from Sebastian Hawksmoore to Marianne.  He seemed to be seething with anger, but since Marianne was a woman, he was holding back. "You shall be let off at the village and be done !  My business is none of thine !"

Liza Waters was similiarly keeping tabs on the exchange. "I had been going to Bermuda to visit my niece and nephew. Then, a pirate took over my cruise ship, I got into a lifeboat, and wound up on another cruise ship with Marianne aboard, really quite serendipitous actually.  She was hired by a man named Basil Rose to write up his memoirs, on a journey into Brazil.  Charming gentleman.  We really ought to have told him we were going out, but...circumstances arose."

Marianne simply grinned at Hawksmoore's furious expression, decidedly satisfied by his reaction. "And I am very grateful for the ride, Mr. Hawksmoore, I really am. But as for whether your business remains yours, well... we shall see, won't we?" she announced.

She turned back to Liza and McCurdy's conversation, nodding as Liza narrated the events leading up to their present position. But her smile faded at the mention of the 'circumstances' that had arisen, and her lips tightened in anger. She stared out over the water, paying no more attention to McCurdy or to Hawksmoore.

McCurdy cut his eyes at the redhead as Waters mentioned the "circumstances", and noted her reaction.  He smiled inwardly.  "So where did you leave this other fellow?" he asked of Liza.

"Oh, at a lovely little hotel in town -"  Liza Waters broke off speaking to McCurdy as there was a loud sound upriver, a sharp report as of a firearm.  She ducked down quickly enough, but could not resist craning her neck and looking around for what it might be.  "That sounded like a shot !"

Sebastian Hawksmoore was also looking around, somewhat more cautiously.  There was another shot; still ahead, out of sight, but now McCurdy could establish the basic facts, which were that the shot was not directed at them.

"It was," McCurdy said, looking around.  "Not at us though so you can sit back up if you like."  He fingered first one pistol out of a holster and checked the chamber and then the other.  Then he continued to watch ahead of them for anything that didn't belong.

The shot broke through Marianne's rather somber thoughts, and she looked around, startled. But her eyes darkened again as it was determined that the shot wasn't aimed at them. She sank down to the floor just in case and continued to brood over something.

Liza nodded, watching alertly for signs of what was going on.  She was a game sort of lady, as curious as a cat.

Hawksmoore stopped the engine, and smoothly got to his feet to take up a long pole clipped to the side of the boat.  This he used to gently move the boat along, in silence.  There was another shot, then a bunch of them all together, a ratatat-tat sound that McCurdy recognised as a Thompson gun.  Then the sound of a motor, fainter, going away.

Gradually, the animals sounds began again, and the river returned to normal...apart from the body of a native man that was floating in the river towards the boat, his heat a bloody mess.  Liza yelped and covered her mouth, looking stricken with shock.

McCurdy tried to pin-point which way the boat motor was going, listening with his ears and looking with his eyes until the body was close enough to examine.  It looked like he had been introduced to a machine-gun alright.  A plate of meat loaf on a bad day looked better than this guy did.

He holstered the one pistol he had been holding and looked at the native as he floated by.  He didn’t try to grab him — he didn’t want to risk going over the side, but he tried to memorize what he looked like — or used to look like...

He looked at Hawksmoore.  “Could you tell which way the other boat went?” he said quietly, not wanting to risk giving their position.

Marianne tensed and braced herself at the continuing sound of gunshots, suddenly deeply appreciative of why Carson carried enough ammunition for a small army on him. The silence of the jungle, the calm of the river - the appearance of civilization - was just a sham. The gruesome sight of the corpse floating towards them brought that home to her sure enough.

She paled and quickly turned away with a sickened expression. That poor man... Nobody deserved to die with his heart blasted out like that. And nobody deserved to be disemboweled by a person he was trying to help either. Was everybody in this part of the world completely mad? She looked frightened and uneasy.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:29, Mon 18 July 2005.

"You two might want to keep down," McCurdy said.  "Just in case."  He sat forward, leaning over the front, his body low and his eyes scouring the bank for signs of where the dead man might have come from...

Liza obediently hushed up at McCurdy's warning, her eyes bright with curiousity.

Hawksmoore merely pointed forward, and kept poling slowly along, to keep them in the river, moving against the slow current.  The sound of the motor ahead was receding, indicating that it was moving onward at a faster rate.



(scene change to The Dark Amazon)
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:30, Mon 18 July 2005.