ECLIPSE by Richard North Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

offered.”
    “How did you manage?”
    “Luck, of course. The financial aid office at Harvard didn’t have enough to pay my way. So they directed me to a book with the daunting title
Restricted Scholarships.
Nothing doing: the restrictions were things like ‘Latvian-Americans,’ or ‘graduates of Yale.’” Pierce smiled. “Then, on the second-to-last page, I found the ‘William Stoughton Bequest.’
    “The bequest dated back to 1750. Stoughton was, as I recall, a colonial governor of Massachusetts. His only stipulation was that the recipient of his largesse had to come from Dorchester . . .”
    “Like it was written for you.”
    Pierce laughed. “Stoughton was a total WASP—judging from the oil painting I saw later, the last thing he’d imagined was empowering the Irish hordes. But in 1750 there
were
no Irish living in Dorchester. So William Stoughton became my benefactor. Even my father saw the humor in it. And, of course, the luck.”
    Marissa gave him a keen look. “Do you still feel lucky?”
    “Yes,” he answered seriously. “I take nothing for granted—least of all, despite its faults, this country. If my father hadn’t come to America, God knows who I’d be.”
    Marissa frowned, then shrugged dismissively. “It probably makes a difference if your ancestors came as volunteers. My father’s did. My mother’s didn’t.”
    Something in her tone suggested that the subject was closed—perhaps because its complexities, as suggested by her short story, involved far more than race. Pierce decided to leave it there. Only later did he perceive that this caution was a form of caring, and that he did not wish to lose a woman he did not even have.

6

    C HIEF F EMI O KARI AWAITED B OBBY AND M ARISSA IN THE MAIN room of his home. By village standards, it was sumptuous, with rugs covering the floor and another hanging on the wall behind him, depicting the chief in ceremonial robes. He sat in his ornate carved chair, holding his cane of office, and his robes and gold-beaded headdress reflected those in the portrait. His face was somber, his voice low. “A word,” he told Bobby. “Before darkness comes.”
    Bobby hesitated before nodding. The curt gesture spoke to Marissa of the deep conflict between them, their years of estrangement, and the ingrained deference of the young for the old, a son for his father. “I have heard from Eric Aboh,” the chief said. “Leave your plans for another day.”
    “So
you
are part of this,” Bobby burst out with an anger so raw that Marissa flinched. “You conspire with Eric and the others to betray me.”
    “Betray
you?
” his father asked in a tone of incredulity. “We are
frightened,
as would be any man of reason. Tell me, do you think Okimbo’s offer of ‘protection’ made Aboh feel
safe?
Eric understands well enough what that could mean, and so do you.” His voice lowered again. “I am still chief of this village. If I ask my people to disperse, they will.”
    Bobby managed a dismissive smile. “Will they, now? It is thirty years since you became chief, scarcely longer than the time you have taken PGL money and allowed ‘your’ people to scavenge for themselves in the cesspool you have left them. Especially our youth.” When his father stiffened with outrage, Bobby continued, “Take Marissa’s favorite. By nextyear Omo may be a prostitute in Waro; in five years she may be dead of AIDS. But you will still be ‘chief of this village.’
    “Do ‘your’ people know of your fine house in Port George, the young women you keep there with the money PGL gives you to ‘compensate’ them for this ruin of
their
land? If they do, it is not because I’ve told them. I am, despite all, a dutiful son.”
    His father scrutinized him with weary eyes. “So this is still about your mother.”
    Watching, Marissa wished she could turn away. Bobby’s gaze expressed only pity and contempt. “How much weight you give, Father, to the most paltry of your