Conquering Kilmarni

by Cave, Hugh

  "Him is home, Peter. Me thinking you should wait here whilst me see if him is sober."

  "If he's drunk, you'll need help, won't you?" Peter argued.

  "All right."

  The light was from an open doorway, and they approached it side by side. The house was much smaller than Miss Lorrie's, Peter saw at once. The front of it didn't have any windows, which was why there was only the one rectangle of light. Following Zackie over the threshold, Peter saw a table with a smoky oil lamp on it. On the floor behind that were two old, stained mattresses, on one of which lay a man asleep and snoring. There seemed to be nothing else in the room, and there was only one room.

  Zackie went forward and kneeled to peer into the man's face, which in the lamplight looked hollow in some places and lumpy in others, and had several days’ stubble on it.

  After studying his father a moment, he let his breath out in a sigh and got to his feet. "Him been drinking, Peter, like always."

  "What's the funny smell in here?" Peter asked. It was not the unpleasant smell of something rotten, but it was making him uneasy. And it seemed to be everywhere in the room, as if it had been there a long time.

  The Jamaican boy did not answer at once. On the other hand, he didn't bother to test the air by sniffing, as he probably would have if the question had surprised him. For a moment he only stood there, gazing down at the little dog by his feet. Then he lifted his gaze to Peter's face and moved his shoulders in a shrug. "You nuh know what ganja smell like, Peter?"

  Ganja, Peter knew, was the Jamaican name for marijuana. "You mean your dad uses it?"

  Zackie nodded.

  With Peter not knowing how to react, a moment of silence went by. Then he said, "Well, Zackie, I guess I'd better get home. My dad might be getting worried."

  "All right."

  Again accompanied by Zackie's little dog, they trudged back up to Peter's house. Long before they reached it, its many lighted windows were visible in the darkness.

  At the foot of the veranda steps, Peter and Zackie stopped. "Look," Peter said. "Why don't you stay here tonight with Dad and me, Zackie? Dad would let you. I know he would."

  "No, Peter, me can't do that."

  "Why can't you?"

  "When me father wake up, him may be real sick and need me there to look after him." He handed Peter the borrowed flashlight. "Thanks for helping me with the pig.”

  Peter stood there watching him go down the path, and didn't turn to climb the steps until Zackie and the dog had disappeared. What would happen, he wondered, when the boy's father heard about the pig and demanded the money Zackie was paid for it? What kind of man was he, anyway, to be drunk all the time, or worse, while expecting a twelve-year-old boy to take care of him?

  Peter's own father was sitting at the big mahogany table in the living room when he walked in. He was writing a letter, Peter saw. Looking up, he pushed the letter aside and said with a frown, "Well, did everything go all right?"

  Peter went to the table and sat down. "Can I talk to you a minute, Dad?"

  "Of course."

  Peter told him everything, even about Zackie's having a secret garden in the high bush. "What did he mean by 'high bush,' Dad?"

  "I'm not quite sure," Mr. Devon admitted. "When our workers use that expression, they mean the plantation land that's too remote or too inaccessible for coffee. I can't imagine anyone having a garden in such a place. He'd have to spend most of his time going and coming."

  Peter thought about it. "That could be what he meant, though. He wouldn't want his father to find out about it, or he'd never get to keep the money for what he grows."

  "Tell me more about this man," Mr. Devon said. Peter told all he could remember.

  "Was the house in bad shape?"

  "If you mean was it real dirty, no. I bet Zackie is the one who keeps it clean, though; his father wouldn't bother. But if they ever had any furniture, Mr. Leonard must have sold it to buy rum and ganja. All I saw was a table and two old mattresses."

  "No bedroom with beds?"

  "Only mattresses. On the floor."

  "Well, just remember we're outsiders here and it's none of our business," Mr. Devon said with a shake of his head. "As I said before, we have problems of our own."

  But even as Walter Devon said those words, Peter knew that he was interested in Zackie Leonard—and it had been years since Dad had cared about anyone or anything outside the family. Dad would try not to care about Zackie, either, but Peter would see what he could do about that.

  FOUR

  When he was at Kilmarnie, Peter almost always awoke at daybreak, no matter how poorly he'd slept. That was either because the mountain air was cool and crisp in the morning, or because the workers from Mango Gap came up through the plantation yard in small groups, and the sound of their voices carried in the morning stillness.

  It was a different sound that awoke Peter that morning, though. At the side of the garage stood two sturdy upright posts, supporting a crossbar from which hung an iron hoop and an iron striking bar. It was Kilmarnie's fire alarm. Until then, Peter had heard it only in a drill, but when the hoop was hit with the bar, the sound was an ear-splitting din that carried far.

  That was the purpose of it, to bring the workers on the run if a fire broke out. Not only a fire at the house, but one on the mountain, as well. Peter knew that his father feared fire more than anything else at Kilmarnie, because if a blaze got out of control on the mountain, it could easily wipe out the coffee fields. That was one reason Mr. Devon tried to keep hunters off the property. A careless match or a cook fire left smoldering could bring disaster. So could lightning in a time of drought.

  At that moment someone was pounding the iron hoop by the garage in obvious anger. Not with the striking bar, but with a stick.

  Peter's bedroom had two doors, one opening onto the inside corridor, the other onto the far end of the long veranda. He slid out of bed in his pajamas and trotted barefoot to that one. As he drew it open and stepped outside, a loud voice broke through the noise of the alarm.

  "Devon, me callin' you to come out! Me must talk to you!"

  Peter advanced to the veranda railing and looked toward the garage. He was not surprised. The man doing the pounding was the one he had seen sleeping in Zackie Leonard's shack the evening before.

  Suddenly the double doors at the top of the steps opened, and Walter Devon appeared. That he was fully dressed was no surprise, either. Peter never knew at what hour his dad would be up and about.

  Striding to the top of the steps, Devon called out now to the man by the garage, "Who are you? What do you want at this hour?"

  "Me name Merrick Leonard. Me Zackie Leonard's daddy."

  There was a silence, as if Walter Devon had been caught off guard. Then he said, "Step away from the alarm, please. I can't see you clearly."

  The man slouched to one side and Peter could see him better. He wore the same rags he had worn when asleep on the mattress.

  Mr. Devon went a stride closer to the top of the steps. Neither man seemed aware that Peter was watching. "What do you want?" Walter Devon asked.

  "Me come for the pig me son did shoot. Me want to know why you keeping it."

  "How do you know your son shot a pig?"

  "The men who bring it down did tell me."

  "When?"

  "Last night, in the shop."

  So, Peter thought, the man hadn't stayed all night on his mattress in the shack. He had recovered enough to stagger down to the village for something more to drink. Kilmarnie workers often gathered at the district shops in the evenings. Not all of them drank, of course. Some only talked or played a game called skittles, on small pool tables.

  "Why do you feel the pig belongs to you, Mr. Leonard?" Peter's father said.

  "It do belong me! Him did shoot it with my own gun!"

  "But it was shot on my land."

  "It belong me!" Zackie's father raised an arm and shook his fist in anger, so violently that he lost his balance and had
to grab at one of the fire-alarm posts to keep from falling.

  "I disagree." Walter Devon was having trouble, Peter saw, keeping himself and his voice under control. He, too, was angry now. "I emphatically disagree, sir. So if you think you have a proper claim, I invite you to go to the police." His voice became more level. "In any case go somewhere, off my property, until you have the manners to come here sober! And if you ever again sound a false alarm on that hoop, I will go to the police."

  "Me only use me stick, not the bar," Zackie's father protested.

  "That hoop is not to be struck with anything unless there is a fire! Ever!"

  Merrick Leonard still clutched the stick. It quivered in his hand now, and his face twitched, and he stumbled toward the veranda steps as if he meant to climb them for a confrontation. But Peter's father, arms folded, simply stood there, staring at him.

  The man lost his nerve and lurched away, muttering.

  Peter went to where his father was standing. "Dad, I wish the men hadn't told him about Zackie's pig," he said.

  Mr. Devon nodded. "Peter, I've told you I don't want to become involved in this ugly business. We don't need other people's problems!" He paused, and then shook his head. "But at least the man thinks I have the pig. He doesn't know Lorraine is to sell it and give his boy the money."

  They stood side by side, watching Merrick Leonard until he rounded a bend in the path and disappeared. "He won't go to the police, of course," Walter Devon said then. "In a way, I wish he would, but what he'll probably do is try to make some trouble for me, instead. Well . . ."

  With an arm around Peter's shoulder he turned toward the door. "Lorraine isn't here yet, but you and I are up. So why don't we go down to the kitchen and make us some breakfast?"

  Peter was pleased. "And after breakfast, Dad, can I get Mr. Campbell and finish up the field numbers?"

  "Campbell is going to Portland this morning to pick up some coffee seedlings for that new part of field six. In fact, he's probably left already, or he'd have come running to find out what was going on just now."

  "I can finish the job alone."

  "Can you, do you think?"

  "Sure!"

  "Then all right," Mr. Devon said as they entered the kitchen and headed for the fridge. "But be careful, Peter. Please."

  F I N I S H I N G the field numbers wasn't to be that easy, Peter discovered. He couldn't just pull the old field numbers off and nail up new ones. First he had to study the tree and judge whether it could still be seen easily from the track, because other shade trees might be blocking it now. Then if he decided to use a new tree for the number, he would have to select a young one in a good position. It was all pretty important, too. Suppose some new women were hired to pick coffee, and Mr. Campbell sent them to a certain field. Since they were paid according to how much coffee they picked, they had to be able to find the field without wasting any time.

  When he was in field twenty-six, with only two more numbers to change, he began to feel tired and hungry. It was kind of spooky, too, being all alone in that high-up field, so close to what Zackie Leonard called the high bush. The last workers he'd seen were far down in field twelve, clearing away some debris left by the storm.

  Of course, it wasn't as quiet as it seemed to be. If he really listened, Peter could hear all sorts of insects buzzing and humming and chirping, and lizards scurrying around in dead leaves on the ground. And birds. Awhile ago he'd even seen one of the big, beautiful doves they called mountain witches strutting ahead of him along a track, so sure it was safe up here that Peter'd almost been able to reach out and touch it before it took flight. How Mom would have loved to see that! But even so, everything seemed so quiet up here, he could be in another world.

  Suddenly the quiet was shattered, first by a series of shrill yelps, then by a crazy bundle of energy that came racing between rows of trees to jump all over him. The dog actually leaped high enough to lick his face, even before he went to his knees, laughing, to welcome it. And after the dog came its owner, Zackie Leonard.

  "Hi, Peter!"

  "Well, hi, Zackie. What are you doing up here?"

  "Going up to my garden. You want to come?"

  "I thought you wouldn't show anyone where your garden is."

  "I'll show you."

  Peter glanced at the watch on his wrist, a present from his father on his last birthday. It was almost two o'clock. "Look. I have only two more numbers to put up. But it's way past lunch time, and I'm hungry. You had any lunch?"

  "Uh-uh." Zackie wagged his head.

  "How about some of mine? I have plenty. Then you can help me finish what I'm here for, and I'll go with you and help you. Okay?"

  "Okay. But mek we finish the numbers first."

  "How's your leg?" Peter asked.

  "No problem. Your dad did fix it real good."

  "Don't forget he wants to see it again."

  "All right. When we go down."

  With Zackie helping, Peter made short work of changing the last two numbers. Then they sat under a tree and ate the rolls and corned beef Peter had brought—"bully beef," the Jamaican boy called it—sharing some with Mongoose. Peter had to laugh at the way Mongoose begged. The little dog sat up straight and stiff as a statue, with his eyes unblinking and his mouth open, until you offered him a tidbit. Then he put both front paws on your wrist while eating out of your hand.

  "Him always do that," Zackie said. "And, believe me, him nuh hungry. Me feed him."

  Peter remembered the shack with only a table and two mattresses in it. "What do you feed him?"

  "Same thing all of we poor people feed our dogs. Cornmeal porridge and scraps of whatever we have around.

  Rich folk buy dog food in tins, but we nuh can afford that kind of stuff. Country shops don't carry it, anyway."

  Peter said carefully, "Your dad was at the house this morning, Zackie."

  "Me know."

  "You mean he told you?"

  "Not him. Some people going to them field did hear him yelling and knocking the fire alarm. Them say him drunk." Zackie looked off into space and shook his head. "A little after me did get back from walking with you up to house, him wake up and go out. Most likely him have a bottle hid somewhere. Then when him drunk enough, him did go up to call you daddy out."

  "He thought we still had the pig."

  "Yes, and him could make trouble, Peter. You must have to be careful."

  "My dad was real angry about the fire alarm. Nobody is supposed to touch that unless there's a fire."

  "Him did tell me daddy that?"

  "He sure did."

  "Me just hope it don't give him an idea," Zackie said. "About making trouble, me mean."

  The sandwiches finished, the two boys left the last of the coffee fields behind and continued climbing. Although other parts of Kilmarnie were heavily forested, the land there was open. Tough, sticky grass about a foot high covered the steep slope. Zackie said some foolish person, years ago, had brought that particular kind of grass to the island, hoping to feed cattle with it, but the animals wouldn't eat it and the wind had carried the seeds all through the mountains. "It hard to root up when you make a garden," he said. "Then it hard to keep out afterward."

  He had done both successfully, though, Peter saw a little later. The "secret garden" occupied a shallow gully between gentle slopes, and was bigger than any garden Peter had seen in Mango Gap. Zackie must have spent hours preparing the soil and planting it, and now had to spend hours more keeping it free of weeds and grass so the vegetables would have a chance. And, as Dad had remarked, he must have to spend a lot of time just walking up here and back, too.

  Peter studied the garden and recognized all kinds of vegetables in it: scallions, carrots, cabbages, beets. At one end there was even a small forest of yam sticks, with the vines already reaching the tops of the sticks.

  Going to a little shed that had bamboo walls and a sheet of old zinc for a roof, Zackie came back with a machete and a hoe. He handed the hoe with its
homemade handle to Peter. "If you will use this in the carrots, Peter, me can dig some yams and scallions to take back down. If it too heavy—"

  "I'll be okay," Peter said quickly, and went to work with enthusiasm.

  They labored for an hour or so, stopping often to talk. In the beginning the talk was of nothing in particular, with Peter asking questions and Zackie either answering or trying not to. How often did Zackie come up here?

  About three times a week, the Jamaican boy said. Didn't anyone know he had a garden here? No, not a soul. What about the higglers who bought vegetables from him—didn't they ever ask where he grew them? No, the higglers didn't question him.

  There was one question Peter really wanted to ask, but didn't. It was, "How come you trusted me enough to show me this garden, Zackie?" The answer, maybe, was that Zackie needed a friend as much as he did.

  "You say you want to move to Kingston, Zackie, to go to school and find work. Where will you live if you go there?"

  "Me will find me mother."

  "But she left you with her mother soon after you were born, Mr. Campbell told me."

  "Only because me father drinking too much and using ganja all the time, Granny did tell me. That was in Seaforth, near Morant Bay. Then Granny dead, and me father find the house we in now. Nobody did live in it or even want it. Him bring me here."

  "So he could look after you."

  Zackie's low laugh had a kind of sneer in it. "No, Peter. So me would look after him."

  "But if you haven't seen your mother since she went away, how will you find her?"

  "She name Elaine Grant and she in Kingston somewhere. Don't worry. Me will find her."

  "What if—" Peter was about to say, "What if she doesn't want you to find her?" but changed his mind.

  That might hurt too much. "What if you can't?" he asked instead.

  "Well, me nuh know. Me will think about that if me have to."

  Between spells of talking, Peter had finished hoeing the weeds between rows of carrots and Zackie had gathered up the vegetables he wanted. They left then, with the Jamaican boy carrying the load of vegetables in a basket on his head, the way the country women carried almost everything. Once Peter had even seen a woman carrying a single egg on her head, in a little nest of grass she had put together to hold it. "You know, I envy you being able to do that," he said to Zackie. "It must be a lot easier than carrying a heavy basket in your arms or on your shoulder. If you don't get a headache or a sore neck, that is.”