by Rebecca Hale
Between the music, the truck taxi rumbling past, and the numbing effect of their drinks, the pair failed to notice the cannon-fire-mimicking explosion that ricocheted across the island.
After a long slurp from her strawberry concoction, the woman turned to her husband and said, “Honey, maybe we should think about moving down here.”
Fifteen feet away, beneath the Dumpster table, a black rooster with a plump belly and a colorfully plumed tail gobbled hungrily on a small pile of discarded French fries. Richard’s head bobbed up and down as he worked the long pieces of fried potato down through his stringy neck.
More alert than the tourists, the bird immediately picked up on the irregular nature of the explosions.
Upon the third booming blast, he scooped up the last of his treasure trove and took flight to the protection of the alley behind the Crunchy Carrot.
In Pesce’s hot, steaming kitchen, a Puerto Rican sous chef wiped his forearm across his greasy, sweating forehead and leaned back from a counter filled with the day’s fresh seafood delivery. Several dozen fish had been apportioned into a myriad of piles, each grouping designated for a specific component in the night’s appetizer and entrée menu.
Stepping away from the counter, César used his elbow to turn the lever for a nearby faucet, then he thrust his hands beneath the resulting stream of water and let the cool liquid wash the slimy coating from his fingers. After wiping his hands on the nearest clean dish towel, he turned back to the fish and picked up his knife.
“Now,” he said, surveying the piles with a weary cackle, “who wants to go first?”
Swinging a pointed finger over the counter, he chanted, “Eeny, meeny, miny…”
On “moe,” the first explosion rocked through the kitchen.
Startled, César grabbed the edge of the table, in the process catching the tip of a finger with the knife blade.
Sucking on the wounded appendage, he left the fish counter and wandered into the dining area. From the verandah, looking east toward Coral Bay, he could just make out a tiny plume of smoke.
On the oceanfront side of the resort’s reception area, an elderly cleaning woman stood in the middle of a crowd of service workers. Several maids, waitstaff, maintenance workers, and members of the grounds crew encircled her as she cupped a hand around her ear, waiting for the signal.
When the first thudding boom echoed through the air, Beulah raised a pearl-colored conch shell to her lips and blew out a long mournful wail. Many others within the crowd followed suit. Someone began to beat a portable drum. One of the grounds crew slid a coconut-chopping machete from its sheath and raised it in the air.
Chants, conch wails, and drumbeats filled the air as Beulah led the group through the reception area, past several dumbstruck real estate attorneys, and out to the truck taxis waiting on the front drive.
* * *
Inside the storm cellar beneath the administrative building, a sweaty, seemingly deflated man sat on a plastic chair, eating a cold can of baked beans with a plastic spoon. A tepid bottle of water sat open on the rickety plastic table beside him. As he reached the bottom of the can, the man spooned up a small bean and bent down to the sand-covered concrete floor.
“Here you go, Stanley,” the programmer offered to the hermit crab ogling up at the chair. “It’s not in my regular diet either, but we have to keep our strength up. No telling how long we’ll be stuck down he—”
He broke off his sentence as the first boom shook the concrete floor.
As the third explosion rumbled across the island, the computer programmer heard the grating metal sound of a key scraping in the cellar door’s lock. Before he could leap up from his chair, the door swung open, and a young woman’s tentative face peeked inside.
Her green eyes shone, even in the room’s dim light. Dark curly hair hung down to her shoulders. She wore a flowered sundress made up of a light, floating fabric.
The programmer stared at her for a long moment before clearing his throat. He stood from the plastic chair and extended his hand.
“Hannah Sheridan, I presume.”
Across the Pillsbury Sound, on the second floor of the Government House, the governor sat at his desk perusing the local newspaper. He had read halfway through an article reporting on the latest proceedings of the Constitutional Convention when his phone rang.
Calmly, he set the paper on his desk, reached for the receiver, and lifted it to his ear. He listened for a long moment to the voice of the water taxi captain on the other end of the line; then a serene smile stretched across his face.
“Thank you for the update.”
Back on St. John, a middle-aged woman walked through the Trunk Bay parking lot, intent on climbing into her vehicle and driving back to the resort for a quick shower and a change of clothes.
The triad of booms failed to break through her deepening concern as she stared at the empty parking space where she’d left her ride.
“Hey,” she cried out in disbelief.
“What happened to the Jeep?”
49
The Missing Jeep
After walking back and forth across the black tarmac, desperately searching the ever-growing collection of rental cars for the rusty bumper of Charlie’s Jeep, I returned to the empty slot where I’d parked it.
Standing on the hot asphalt, clutching the beach towel around my waist, I finally reached the inevitable conclusion: the Jeep was gone.
One thought coursed through my head: I would never hear the end of this from Charlie and the rest of the Dumpster table gang.
This was rapidly followed by a desperate attempt at mitigation. The only way the Jeep could leave this little twenty-square-mile island was via the car ferry. I had to get down to the dock as quickly as possible.
A short distance away, I spied Manto striding toward his truck. He climbed inside and immediately cranked the engine.
Gripping the towel with one hand, waving in the air with the other, and all the while hollering at the top of my lungs, I ran toward the parking lot exit. After initially speeding up, the truck braked, allowing me to catch up to it.
“Manto,” I panted into his open window. “Someone took Charlie’s Jeep. I’ve got to get back to town. When does the next car ferry leave?”
His ashen face turned toward me. The lines across his forehead seemed to have suddenly deepened. “Pin, no ferry’s goin’ ta leave tu-day.”
“Oh, good,” I said with relief. Puzzled, I stared at his worried face. “What’s wrong, Manto?”
“Didn’t yu hear thuh booms?” he asked.
I nodded, vaguely recalling the sounds. I had dismissed them in my search for the missing Jeep.
“That wuz thuh seeg-nal.”
“The signal?” I replied, recalling the whispered message from the Silent John balcony a few nights before.
“Thuh seeg-nal from thuh Slave Preen-cess—she’s takin’ over thuh eye-land.”
50
A Leet-tle Chaos
The ground shook beneath the marchers’ feet as the fuse ignited the first explosion at the Fortsberg ruins. Screams rang out, and smoke filled the air. All along the trail, bodies dove for cover.
By the time the third reverberation echoed from the cannon, Vivian had pulled Hamilton into the brush, ready to buffer his short body with her stout one. The two of them lay in the leaves, Ham with his hands cupped over his ears, Vivian with her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders.
After a few minutes of silence, the marchers slowly began to raise their heads. Coughing and choking sounds mixed with those of bewilderment.
As they straightened and looked up the hill toward the ruins, the smoky haze began to clear, concentrating down to a dark gray plume.
Near the main road, the Princess crashed through the trees to the spot where she’d hidden the blue nylon satchel with her change of clothes. The marchers’ muffled cries of confusion drifted down the trail as she hurriedly slipped out of the costume and exchanged it for her blue jeans
and T-shirt.
Slinging the satchel over her shoulder, she walked down the road and around the corner to the gas station parking lot. After dislodging a rooster who had taken up residence behind the wheel, she hopped into the Jeep and motored off.
Manto barreled down the North Shore Road, heading east toward Coral Bay, intent on getting to Vivian and Hamilton as quickly as possible. I struggled to slip my shorts and T-shirt on over my still damp swimsuit as the truck swung dangerously around the sharp corners. Meanwhile, a chaotic chatter crackled from the two-way radio.
“I’m here at the ferry building. People are converging on the park. Blowing conch shells. Ai-yep. That man’s got a machete.” A scuffling sound broke off the transmission.
A second report followed. “Everyone’s leaving the resort. I’m taking a truckful into town. I’ve got people hanging off the side.”
A woman’s voice cut in. “Have you all gone mad? What is this nonsense?”
Manto’s truck creaked as it sped up the bumpy connector to Centerline Road. We reached the intersection to find a stream of cars traveling in both directions, panicked looks on the faces of both drivers and passengers.
I closed my eyes as Manto gunned the engine to slip into a tiny hole in the traffic.
“Cum on, Bessie,” he bellowed over the screech of horns.
A few minutes later, we descended into the melee outside the Moravian church.
Coral Bay was a mass of disheveled people, many of them standing on the side of the road looking up toward Fortsberg and the column of smoke rising from its ruins. Sirens wailed in the distance as a team of fire trucks and ambulances sped through the wilderness to the site.
Vivian rushed up to the truck as Manto pulled into the church parking lot. Her arm was tightly wrapped around Hamilton, whose rumpled hair and clothing gave him the appearance of having been partially smothered.
“What happened?” I exclaimed as I opened the door and stepped out of the cab so that the two of them could climb inside.
I had never seen Vivian in such a state of rage—and I had plenty of examples stored in my memory banks for comparison.
She lifted Hamilton into the cab and then turned back to face me.
Her livid voice was thickly accented as she spit out, “Eye know who haz been playing thuh role of thuh Slave Preencess.”
51
The Condo
At the far edge of the resort, in an area slated for upcoming renovations, a former dive shop employee sneaked across the deserted lawn toward the entrance of a one-bedroom condo unit.
A midsized duffel was slung over the man’s shoulder. The bag was about half full, the contents representing almost the entirety of his earthly belongings. There’s not much room on a boat for extraneous possessions.
Jeff ran the palm of his hand over his newly shorn head as he paused and glanced around the lawn, checking for any onlookers. His eyes found only a bright green iguana, studiously chewing on a piece of grass.
“Haircut,” he explained to Fred’s questioning gaze. Then he fed a well-worn key card into the lock.
Inside the condo, he quickly retrieved the item for which he’d returned. In the top drawer of the dresser, the one Pen had set aside for him, he found a single clean shirt. Like always, she’d put it through the resort’s laundry service with the rest of her clothing.
Slinging the shirt over his shoulder, he shuffled briskly out the bedroom and headed for the front door. He didn’t want to be caught inside the condo when Pen returned from her trip to the beach.
Midway around the couch, however, his hurried pace slowed. He turned toward the tile counter that separated the tiny kitchenette from the living room. On its surface, he spied a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper, both stamped with the resort’s name and logo.
Jeff held his hand out over the pen, his fingers wavering for a long moment before they scooped it up. Using his thumb, he clicked the end button, engaging the metal ink tip. With his free hand, he gripped the pad of paper as the pen wavered above it.
He thought about all the things he might say…all the things he should say. But after a long moment, he carefully placed the pen on counter, leaving the paper blank.
With one last look around, he walked outside and pulled the door shut behind him.
52
Clean Towels
Manto’s truck was one of the first to return to the church parking lot, so it was soon loaded with marchers, who—after the morning’s unexpected excitement—were eager to return to Cruz Bay. We packed as many as would safely fit into the truck’s back seating area; then I squeezed into the cab with Hamilton and Vivian. Slowly, we creaked out of the lot and turned onto Centerline Road.
Vivian’s furious mutterings were difficult to interpret, but thanks to Ham’s frequent interjections, I was able to determine the general gist of what had happened.
The explosions, I gathered, had gone off just as the marchers neared the fort’s ruins. A figure in a knee-length sarong, beaded vest, and dark curly hair had been seen fleeing through the woods. The identity of the perpetrator, however, was the subject of some debate.
“It was the Amina Slave Princess,” Ham’s little voice peeped with impish delight, clearly still enamored despite the cannon fire and chaos. “I saw her with my own eyes.”
“It was that Hannah Sheridan wo-man,” Vivian corrected him bitterly. “We’re lucky no one was killed.”
Ham peeked around his mother’s chest. “Slave Princess,” he mouthed at me with an assuring nod.
After her flash appearance running through the woods near the old Danish fort, the Slave Princess had temporarily dropped out of sight. No one knew where she would show up next, but many were placing odds on the Freedom Memorial across from the ferry building.
Following that lead, the majority of Manto’s passengers disembarked at the outskirts of Cruz Bay, which was as close as he could get due to the gathering crowds.
The truck was nearly empty by the time we finally reached the resort. It had been several hours since Charlie had first picked me up there that morning. I was famished and long past ready to change out of my swimsuit.
I hopped from the cab and headed into the reception area, my thoughts firmly focused on picking up lunch and taking it back to my condo—unfortunately, food preparation was one of the many services temporarily on hold.
I ran smack dab into a confused and complaining mass of forty or fifty guests, none of whom I was eager to comingle with. By way of escape, I slipped behind the unmanned front desk. The following snippets of conversation reached me as I crawled along the floor:
“I called for clean towels an hour ago,” a woman snapped. “I don’t understand. It’s like there’s no one here.”
“I saw them all leaving,” a man replied. “The cleaning staff hopped onto the truck taxis and bolted out of here. I think it’s a strike.”
After keeping well below the counter to avoid being identified as someone who might be sought out to address these concerns, I made my way down the hallway toward the break room, where the few staff who hadn’t left for Cruz Bay had collected.
Vivian had beaten me there, wisely circling around through the service entrance to avoid the reception area. She strode back and forth in front of the metal lockers, her face fuming in anger.
“How long is this supposed to last?” she demanded of one of the maids.
The woman shrugged her reply.
Vivian muttered something inaudible under her breath. She sucked in a huge volume of air and then slowly breathed it out.
“Where’s Hannah?” she asked firmly. “Hannah Sheridan. She’s got some explaining to do.”
Slowly, I backed out of the break room, trying not to draw attention to myself. Using the side service door, I returned to the front drive.
Recalling Hannah’s conversation with the real estate attorney at the concierge desk, I could guess her current whereabouts—and the location of the Slave Princess’s next appearance.
I just hoped she was the one who had run off with Charlie’s Jeep.
53
A Darkening Drive
Manto’s truck was still outside the reception area, parked in one of the taxi slots near the front door. Manto had taken Hamilton over to the playground by the tennis courts to keep him occupied while Vivian sorted out the mess inside the resort.
I rushed over to the cab and peered in the window. As was customary among the truck-taxi drivers, Manto had left the truck’s keys on the dashboard in case someone needed to move it while he was gone.
Clearly, he hadn’t learned from my experience with Charlie’s Jeep.
With a brief flash of guilt, I climbed inside and grabbed the keys. A few moments later, I was bumping down the road that tracked the southwest shoreline. With all of the island’s traffic now concentrated in town, I reasoned, it would be far more expedient to detour around Cruz Bay to get to Centerline Road.
If I was a hazard driving Charlie’s Jeep, I was a menace in Manto’s truck. The side mirrors had been angled to suit Manto’s much larger frame, and they were hopelessly out of whack for my shorter height. The wheelbase was so wide, it took up nearly three-fourths of the road—or, at least, that’s how it appeared from behind the steering wheel.
I felt as if I were piloting a tank. The big engine rumbled like a freight train as I powered up the hill toward Centerline; at its juncture, I turned east toward Coral Bay.
Just past the island’s crest, the afternoon sun illuminated the mounded tops of the surrounding islands, their dark green cones floating in a murky blue ocean. Storm clouds stretched across the horizon, raining out the sun above the boulders of Virgin Gorda. The next soaking would reach St. John within the hour.
