The Angels' Share

by Garfield Ellis

  Father disembarks with her and offers to help with her bags. “Let me walk with you.”

  But she takes them from him and tells him it’s all right.

  He walks with her all the same and pats her arm as he leaves her at the gate. I feel now that I should have tried harder to at least forge a closer bond. She sat beside me for over two hours, and as we part, the only person she says goodbye to is my father.

  “She is a nice child,” he says as he reenters the car.

  “It seems so,” I respond.

  “A nice child, just want somebody to take care of her.”

  Ballards Valley is in a place where the land seems to want to hurry from the hill to the sea and one does not notice how steep the hill is until one is trying to get back out. I would not like to be caught on this road when it rains. “This road turn valley and all the water from Junction and the south side use this road like river.” My father smiles at my concern.

  We crest the hill and I stop the car at the foot of a barren rise of land. I ease the stick to park, put my feet on the dashboard, and push my seat back a bit.

  Father smiles. “The place nice, don’t it? That is the spirit—you must relax more.”

  “The place dry, Daddy! Place dry. I am not relaxing. I am stopping so you can tell me the plan. I have done everything you told me to. I gave up my week. And now I think you need to tell me the plan. Where are we going? What are we doing at this spot, right now? What is the next move . . . and so on and so forth.”

  His features soften a bit as he looks at me, then through the windscreen down the valley from which we have come. “The old man trying your patience, don’t it?”

  “That is an understatement.”

  “All right then, we have to go to Alligator Pond.”

  “Where is that?”

  “’Bout half an hour down the road.”

  “And that is where she is, Daddy, Alligator Pond? So this stop was on the way?”

  “Yes, that is why I gave her a ride. It is on the way. And she is a nice child.”

  “I don’t have a problem with giving her a ride. I just need to know. I need information. You know how easy it would have been if you had just told me?”

  “You’re cantankerous, you know that?”

  “So that is where this woman is, Alligator Pond?”

  “Yes, I will meet her there and then we can go home. I will meet her at her cousin’s home.”

  “So today I meet this woman.”

  “No, you meet her tomorrow.”

  “So we are going to Alligator Pond now.”

  “No, man. I want to show you something first.”

  “But what about Alligator Pond?”

  “Yes, we going there, but I have something to show you first. I have a surprise for you.”

  “A surprise for me? Daddy, how you must have a surprise for me when you did not even know I would be here this moment, today? How you must have surprise, what you take me for?”

  “Come, man, drive the car. Turn this way. I have something to show you, a big surprise.”

  EIGHT

  We stop at the edge of the sloping road. There is little shelter from the sun here. The trees are farther in and the little access road turns quickly from bare red dirt to large clumps of sharp limestone rocks. As I step outside, a dry wind wraps the heat around my face and pushes it under my clothing. In five paces I am sweating like a racing dog.

  The land slopes with the road and ahead the limestone rises to where dry trees lie, broken and shattered, along the hillside. The tall trees with leaves that are still standing are few and far between. Off to our left there is a flatland of dry grass and an old field.

  Father has begun to make his way up the large part of the hill to my right. I run after him and by the time I catch up I am panting.

  “Where you going, old man?”

  “Just over that hill.”

  I hate that he is breathing so well, while my words gasp for air. “Is pure bush!” I yell.

  But he ignores me and is walking enthusiastically. I have no choice but to follow him.

  It is a hard climb, for the rugged surface is covered by dry fallen trees. So to get one’s balance, one has to grab a short stubby cactus or fall into a thicket of prickle. He pauses ahead to wait for me, looking back with a broad smile on his face. Puffing and wheezing, I try to catch my breath. A small pain jags through me.

  “Don’t stop. Come, man, don’t bother stop.”

  So I straighten from the rock on which I am leaning and go to meet him at the top where the trees and the land seem to bend away.

  He reaches for me. “Give me you hand.”

  I ignore him and make my way. He grabs my arm and pulls me to him anyway.

  “Look at this!” He smiles and waves his hand in front of him.

  The land has fallen away to become a massive plateau that stretches for about a mile or two before it grades into another mountain range. It is a series of pastures and tracks of flat empty land with corn-colored grass that fades to white under the glare of the sun. I cannot see much of it for the grass is high where we stand. I walk to a clump of mango trees a bit up the rise and lean into the low crotch of one to rest. I look back to where we have come from to find a view to the sea as beautiful as the one we saw at Spur Tree.

  “Twenty-five acres.”

  “How you know that?”

  “It is mine. It is yours.”

  “Yes, Father, that is a good one. I believe you.”

  I lean back into the tree. The wind is hot, but the grass cools it before it gets to me. I must contemplate the fact that as my father is getting on in years, his mind may go and come.

  He walks away from me up a small rise and stands the way Jesus must have stood when He addressed the multitude and begins to chant. I have lost a week of my vacation, I am a mile up a hill in the hot sun, and my father is having a nervous breakdown.

  “Daddy,” I call softly to him, “what happen to you, what you singing?”

  But he does not seem crazed. His eyes are focused, he looks happy and free. He is bursting with the pride of a father at Christmas time. On his face is the Santa smile that holds a secret that will blow the mind of a simple, unsuspecting child. But I am not a simple unsuspecting child, he is not a Santa Claus, I can see no gifts, and this is not his land.

  “. . . manumise enfranchise and from every tie of slavery or servitude set free a certain negro woman named Bethesda to hold the same manumission liberty and enfranchisement so thereby granted onto the said Bethesda and her future issue and increase—”

  “What is all this!”

  But he rambles on: “And then is such case I give onto Bethesda all that parcel of land, all that settlement or pen commonly known as Dorril Pen or Guava Nook containing . . .” He smiles at me. “You understand that?”

  “Daddy,” I place my arm around him, “come out of the sun.”

  “I am fitter than you.” He smiles again. “There is a story to this place that you must know.”

  “Come, Father, come. You might get sunstroke.”

  “I have been coming here all the time and I never got sunstroke. But what you think?”

  “Think of what . . . the land?” I pause to find the right thing to tell him, to calm him so he does not get angry. “Well, it . . .” I turn toward the view of the coast, then I smile back at him. “But it . . .” I turn toward the grassy range that extends farther than I had thought now that I have joined him on the little mound. But before I can finish, we notice, halfway to the hill, a large clearing of more than an acre rimmed by large trees where a quadrangle had been deliberately cleared, settled, and farmed.

  His face darkens with curiosity. “I wonder who that is.” He tramps off and disappears on a path through the high grass. I trot to catch up with him, and as I do, we burst through the grass into a large tomato field.

  “Who could this be?”

  “The owner, perhaps,” I quip. “The whole place is farmed up.”<
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  We stop, and he surveys the rows and rows of tomato plants. Neat furrows in the red earth show careful cultivation, each root covered with grass and each plant strong and waist high.

  “Come!” He makes his way through the heart of the tomatoes.

  I am thirty paces into the field before I realize that the tomatoes have given way to marijuana.

  “Daddy, stop, is a marijuana field.”

  “So I see.” He slows for me to catch up. “I wonder who planting ganja up here.”

  “Daddy, come, let us turn back. Come now!”

  “Why?”

  “Because we are standing in the middle of a ganja field on someone’s property in the middle of nowhere in St. Elizabeth.”

  “But is my land.”

  “Is it your ganja field, Daddy?”

  “What kind of damn stupid question that? Is my land!”

  “Well, it might be your land, old man, but is somebody else’s property and I suggest we leave. As a matter of fact, come. Now!”

  “But it is your land. I wanted to show you today. It is your surprise.”

  “Trust me, Daddy, I am very surprised. Come!”

  An engine roars. A jeep is speeding down the hillside, bouncing furiously as it plunges through the high grass toward us.

  “Somebody coming!”

  Behind us, two men emerge from beyond the mango tree in which I rested, cutting off our way back down the side of the hill to the car. One has a cutlass and the other has a big gun over his shoulder.

  “They have guns!” I pull him down and reach for my cell phone. “I must call the police. What is the name of this place?” I ask him as I flip it open. “Where are we?” But there is no service on the cell phone. “Daddy!” I scream at him as he begins to tremble slightly. “Daddy, you really know this land?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, how do we get off it? How we get away?”

  “The river, down that way.”

  “River! You have river in St. Elizabeth?”

  I stand to look around. The jeep has stopped. The men have alighted and are making their way across the field toward us. One of them has a gun too. Behind us the other two are getting much closer. The one with the gun waves it at us.

  “Hey!” he shouts. “Hey, hold on there!”

  I duck, and we begin to walk quickly toward the southeastern corner of the field.

  Someone fires, and the sound is loud in my ears. “Run Daddy, run!” I do not have to tell him twice.

  We will be killed here on the hill. No one will know about it. No one saw us come. The killers will steal my van and burn it or hide it. We will die up here, no one will find us. Dead at thirty-seven and I never even had a chance to see Venus Williams play tennis.

  There is a thud of heavy feet and the harsh rustling of dry grass. I can hear their voices. Another bullet rings out. My father stumbles ahead.

  “Father, you shot?”

  “No, I’m tired.” He is fit but not for running.

  “We need to get out of the field,” I pant after him as I catch up.

  “Yes, I know.”

  I hold his hand and pull him. “You can run a little more?”

  “If I have to, I have to.”

  “You have to.”

  He is going to die of exhaustion. He is sixty-seven years old—he will surely have a heart attack.

  “Turn this way,” he points.

  “Where it go?”

  “Out!”

  I follow the direction of his finger. But there is no path here, no neat furrow in which to run. The land rises. The crop turns to tomato. A few paces more and we are on a bank of dry grass. The grass is high and brown and holds the heat of the day. As we plunge into it, sharp blades cut into our skin. I can hardly breathe. But I cannot stop. I hold onto him and drag him along through the hot, dense grass till I feel my head glance off the trunk of a large mango tree.

  We pause here.

  I turn on my knees and look beyond the grass to the center of the field. From where we are, I can see all things below and away toward the large hills. The five men are convening near the southeastern end of the field. They are not sure where we are, but their eyes scan everywhere and do not stray much from our general direction.

  “You know where we are?” I ask him. For I have completely lost my bearings. He glances around and whispers that he is not so sure. But it looks like we are close to the river. He points down the hill. “Way over there, looks like Alligator Pond River.”

  Alligator Pond River! A river that leads to an alligator pond!

  “Alligator Pond River?”

  “Yeah.” There is a sparkle in his eyes. He winks at me. “You think it is a river filled with alligators? It’s just the name of the river and the town. From down there the whole mountain range looks like an alligator. That’s why they call it that.” He amazes me. His face is scratched and dirty, his hair is ragged upon his head, men are chasing us with guns, and he has time to wink at me.

  “That’s it?”

  “It looks so. That’s the way we have to go. But I not so sure how far from the river we are.”

  “Well, we’re going to find out,” I tell him. For even as we whisper, the large red-skinned one who seems to be the leader has hoisted over his big gun to one who had none and sent three of them in our general direction, while he and another return through the field.

  “Find them!”

  The three fan out and head for us.

  If we are careful, we can slip away into the dense grass and be lost in the bush where it slopes away after a few meters or so. So we crawl together into the dry, hot waving grass. It smells like dust, its blades are sharp against my face. Ants and bugs cover my clothes. They bite and crawl. The sun and the heat fill me with fatigue. But we dare not stand to run upright or look back.

  I am weary, I am tired. I am going to die.

  A week ago all I could think of were the long legs of the most graceful tennis player in the world. Today I am about to die in the dusty hills of St. Elizabeth, playing Indiana Jones with my father.

  How quickly things change.

  “This way,” he says, veering to the left. “Come . . . and watch your step.”

  The grass is thinning, and I am a bit unsteady because the ground is sloping downward, and off to my right the trees are a bit denser and the shadow is thick among them. I head for their coolness.

  “Stay with me.” I hear the short whisper, but he is heading down, away from the coolness of the long trees.

  He is getting his second wind and is now racing ahead, low and fast like a rabbit. Through the thinning bush, I see a trailhead to the right. I yell at him. “Stop! No, Daddy, it’s this way. Come!”

  He stops quickly and calls back to me, but I am already dashing eagerly through the grass. Suddenly the ground drops away from in front of me and I am plunging down a jagged bushy hillside.

  I hear my father scream my name. The shout is like a gunshot in the afternoon. Maybe there is a gunshot too, but it does not matter for the ground before me has disappeared and I have catapulted over the steep sloping edge. My face buries into the hot red dirt, my body summersaults, slamming me flat on my back, and I am sliding through the bush like a Rastaman on a bobsled.

  I feel the razor-like grate of every inch of every ridge of this jagged limestone mountainside. I knock into the trunk of every tree. I am grazed and scratched by the whip and snarl of every angry twig. I am going so fast I cannot hold on to anything. I dig dirt with my fingers. I even try to grab the jagged limestone. I hit a large tree. I hug it quickly, but it is prickly and I cannot hold on. I snap my hand away from the sharp thorns and I am heading down again to God knows where. Then directly ahead of me a large clump of grass appears and I slam, crotch-first, into it, my legs splayed on both sides, my face burying into its dry hot blades.

  I am numb with pain, but a clump of hot, dusty, bug-infested grass has never felt so good. I hug into it like a child burrowing into the folds of his
mother’s dress. I close my eyes momentarily, to calm myself and try to fight an uncontrollable urge to sob. What in heaven’s name am I doing here in this place on the side of a hill, lying in this grass?

  What the hell am I doing here, how did my day turn to this?

  So I rise now—or make to rise—and as I do, I realize that this is just the beginning of my problems. For whereas I am able to gain purchase against a hard surface with my left foot, my right foot, from the heel forward, seems to be suspended in air. I part the grass from my face with a tentative hand and see with gut-wrenching terror that the clump of grass holding me is the last piece of vegetation or tree on the hillside.

  I am sitting on the edge of a cliff. All I see beyond the grass is empty space. And I cannot tell how far it drops. Now I am sure I will die today.

  Somewhere up above I hear my father call my name again.

  I hope he shouts loud enough for them to hear so they may catch him and skin him alive for getting me into this. I hope he never survives this after I am dead.

  But I cannot curse my father now. I must think. I must move. I look around me.

  Though steep, it is the kind of hillside that a man could make his way up or down if he walks slowly and cautiously enough, if he picks his spots and grips the shrubbery or even the craggy limestone carefully. It is near the end, where I now sit, that the danger is, for this spot is void of all vegetation, and except for loose dirt and gravel, the rock is as close to smooth as limestone can get. Had it not been for the clump of grass, I would have shot off into the air like goods from a chute. For about six to ten feet behind me, the rock has little to hold on to and is too steep to crawl on. But if I can launch myself from the grass, I may catch one of the trees above me and haul myself to a more vegetated space. From there it would be just a matter of picking my way carefully up the hill.

  But first I must cross this barren space.

  My only chance is to backpedal till I am able to place my foot at the root of the grass that now holds my crotch. Then perhaps I may stretch my full length up the slope to a tree behind me and pull myself to safety.

  My Bally loafers are the color of dirt.

  I move my foot gingerly and begin to inch up the incline on my backside. My shoes are not designed to climb loose-graveled mountainsides. So it is my bottom that holds the ground as I edge my way backward up the hill.