by Dan Newman
Nate wasn’t sure why, but he lied without thinking. “The doctor at my local clinic. I got the cut just before I left home—fender bender. Face versus steering wheel.”
“Face loses.”
“Yup. I got the stitches just a few hours before I left. There was no way I was missing my flight.”
“So you’re here on holiday?”
“Yeah, for the most part. Just wanted to come back and see the old place. I’ve been driving around, but the face started to hurt so I thought I’d come get it checked out.”
“I think you’ll be fine. Give me a minute and I’ll speak to the sister about the antibiotics. Are you allergic to anything?”
“No, nothing,” he said. “You sure you’re not a doctor?”
Rachael smiled and walked through the curtain. When she returned she handed him a plastic pill bottle filled with capsules. “So where are you staying?” she asked.
“Well, funny enough, nowhere as of right now. I was at the Breadfruit Inn downtown, but I checked out and now I’m just kind of wandering, going with the flow. That kind of thing.” He tried to make it sound romantic, self-directed, but he wasn’t sure he’d pulled it off.
Rachael sensed it immediately. “Then come up to the house and stay for a few days. I’ve got lots of room.”
“No, no, I don’t want to be a bother…”
“Don’t be silly, Nate. Come up to Cap. I insist.”
Nate was tempted. It would be good to have a base, somewhere familiar, somewhere that felt safe. But just before acquiescing he mustered his courage and threw up his hands. “No, really, I can’t. I’ll tell you what. You give me your phone number, and I’ll call you and we’ll connect for dinner or lunch. But for now I really just want to explore the whole place. It’s been thirty-odd years and I kind of just want to buzz around and check out all the old places. You know, the Yacht Club, the Morne where we lived when I first came here—the old house on Vigie. I also want to go check out the marina where my dad moored that disaster of a boat he bought—Symbols it was called. There was a little restaurant there, on the point, more like a cafe really—the Wikki Up. They made the best burgers.”
“Oh, Nate! You can cross that one off your list. The Wikki Up hasn’t been there for twenty years. It burned down.”
“Really? Shit, that’s too bad. I have some great memories. Anyway, that’s the kind of thing I want to rediscover, you know?”
Rachael looked genuinely disappointed. “Are you sure? It’d be great to have you over…”
“Really, I’m sure. But I do appreciate the offer, and we will connect for dinner or something. I promise.”
Rachael scribbled her number on a pad at the nurse’s station and pressed it into his palm. “Well how about tonight?” she asked.
“How about tomorrow night?” he countered, wincing slightly, as if the question pained him to ask it. “I need to get settled, and I have some more exploring to do before the day’s out—and I might not end up back in Castries tonight. I’d hate to be late and keep you waiting.”
“All right then. Tomorrow it is. Call me in the afternoon and we’ll set up a place.” She took his hands and smiled a far off smile. “It really is so good to see you, Nate,” she said. And then she swirled around and disappeared through the curtain like a spectre.
Wow, Nate thought to himself. Rachael Stanton! As he marveled at his luck in running into her, he looked down at his hands and the bottle of pills. He would need to pay for those, he thought. He came out of the curtained area and leaned over the nurse’s station. “Excuse me,” he said. “Where do I pay for these?”
The nurse, the one who had cleared the curtain area for him, looked up with mild surprise. “It’s taken care of, sir. Have a nice day.” And then she turned back to the notes she was making.
Nate walked out of the hospital somewhat bemused. Rachael had never actually admitted to being a doctor, but she must have been one: she had authority over the nurses, and the ability to prescribe drugs, and the whole visit was covered. There wasn’t a better person to put his mind at ease where the cut under his eye was concerned. No more jungle fever, no rampant infections, no dead chicken juju to worry about.
In the car he swallowed two of the capsules, then sat for a moment to gather his thoughts and plan his next move. He needed to get back to Ti Fenwe Estate. That was the goal. That was the key to the trip and the only thing that really mattered. Smiley, Ma Joop, and their voodoo bullshit would have to wait. What was it Smiley had said? Be back at the shabeen by 5:00 pm tomorrow? That wasn’t going to happen.
Nate had a car, he had a few hours of daylight left, and a clean bill of health. He turned back onto the Millennium highway, which was nothing like a highway at all, but more a fairly serviceable road that ran along the harbor at the industrial end of Castries. He followed it out of town running south, relying on nothing more than instinct to guide him. The buildings soon fell away, and he drove through lush green stretches of nothing but sea grape and windswept bushes. The sea peeked through constantly on his right, until he swung eastward and inland, and started the climb into the interior. He was heading for Dennery, a small town on the east coast, and the only solid landmark he had in his memory of where Ti Fenwe Estate actually lay.
His plan was simple, unfettered with complexities and cunning. He would go to Dennery, find a place to spend the night, and ask the locals how to get to Ti Fenwe.
And then, in the morning, he would go there and give the damn thing back.
19
The three boys and the women in the tiny hut stared intently at the doorway. The candles in the room cast a nervous fluttering of light into the darkness outside
“Something’s out there,” said Richard in a voice that was eerily calm.
On the other side of the table, the old woman with the crackling voice and a fistful of rosary solemnly agreed. “Mm hmm. Me hear it, too. Sometin’ outside. Sometin’ waitin’.”
Nate was standing again, legs bent and at the ready, hands hovering lightly above the table. His every sense was on full alert. And like the others, Richard, too, watched the doorway intently.
With no one speaking, the sounds of the night took on a palpable, throbbing beat, as if the insects were goading something on, jeering, willing it forward. And then, as if on cue, the sounds stopped all at once.
They saw the cutlass blade first: it came slowly around the corner of the door frame, slicing steadily into the light from the darkness. It was the color of dark honey, flecked along the sharpened edge with orange and black rust. Holding it was a large and gnarled hand, thick with calluses and weathered knuckles. Finally the whole form of a man came into the soft candlelight, and as he stood in the doorway he easily filled it.
He wore a beaten palm-frond hat, a scowl to match, and nothing else but a pair of old cut-off jeans pulled tight at the top with a thick and worn leather belt. In the light of the naked flame, his black torso was licked with blacker shadows, and the sinewy muscles beneath his skin were lean to the point of wasting. It was the man the boys had seen earlier at the copra oven.
The relief in the room was practically audible, like a kettle being taken off the boil, and the shoulders of everyone around the table loosened, if only a fraction. The man spoke quickly and in a deep baritone, and while the Creole was unintelligible to Pip and Nate, they could tell that what he was saying was grim, and the reaction in the faces of the three women confirmed it.
The woman holding Pip asked a question, and the man answered it sharply as if reprimanding a disobedient child. He spat out a parting comment, turned and plunged back into the darkness. The boys could see now that there were other forms outside, moving past the doorway like shadows, heading up the hill toward the forest. Among them there were undulating pools of soft yellow light cast by hurricane lanterns, rocking gently as they walked up the hill, leaving the scent of burnt kerosene behind them. The light was diffused and tentative, and cast long, dancing shadows about the legs of the men.
The blackness swirled quickly behind them, jealously filling the spots the light had brightened only moments before.
The boys silently moved to the doorway, watching as a group of about seven men and their pools of yellow light moved up the hill and into the forest. Soon the glow of their lights turned into twinkles, strangled by the bows and branches, and then it was gone, snuffed out by the forest night. They watched the spot where the men had been swallowed by the darkness.
“What’s going on, Rich?” Nate finally asked in a whisper. “What did he say?”
“He said he was going up to the north ridge with a group of laborers. They say the Bolom took a…” He turned to one of the women at the table. “Kabwit?” he asked.
“Goat,” she said in English.
Richard turned back to Nate. “A goat—they said the Bolom took a goat.”
“What do you mean, took a goat?”
“Well, we don’t farm any animals here, but the laborers have them for food. They think the Bolom killed one to eat it. Tristan’s really in trouble now.”
“Tristan? Why’s Tristan in trouble?” said Pip.
Richard turned back from the doorway and sat again at the table. The others followed suit. “Do you guys remember when that man—the one who was just here—when he was speaking to Tristan by the copra oven?”
The boys both nodded.
“Well, he was mad at Tristan because Tristan hadn’t put the food out. It’s Tristan’s job. Whenever Tristan is at the Estate, he’s supposed to do the feeding.” He shook his head slowly. “Uncle Vince is gonna kill him. He’s supposed to have it up there before the sun goes down. So that it can get smelly. It’s really hot up there and it makes the thing stink, but that’s how the Bolom likes it.”
“What do you feed it?”
“Chicken. A dead, plucked chicken. You take it into the attic and leave it in the corner in this big tin bowl, and by the time the Bolom shows up, the thing is good and ripe.”
“And Tristan forgot?” asked Nate.
“Maybe. Or maybe he just decided not to do it. Either way Uncle Vince is gonna kill him. Someone’s going to have to pay for the goat—it’s worth a lot of money to the laborers.”
“So why was that guy so pissed at Tristan?” asked Pip. “Why should he care if Tristan doesn’t do his chores?”
“‘Cause he cares about Tristan. When it doesn’t get fed, the Bolom does bad things—like killing the goat. So now because of Tristan, Uncle Vince will have to pay for the goat.”
Nate could feel a knot of anxiety twisting tighter and tighter in his gut. He took a long, deep breath, but he couldn’t shake it. “This is fucked up.”
Even Pip was surprised to hear Nate swear, but if there was ever an appropriate time, this was it.
After a silence long enough to let the word soak in, Pip wrinkled his face in question. “How come only the family can feed the Bolom?”
“It’s something to do with the smell,” said Richard. “The Bolom needs to know who’s feeding it. I think that’s how it knows who the master is. Tristan’s supposed to prepare it with his hands, his bare hands, so that his smell is on it when the Bolom eats. And if Tristan’s not here, it has to be Uncle Vince. No one else’s smell is allowed on the chicken.”
“And if your uncle’s not around?”
“Nobody’s happy when my Uncle’s not around. A lot of bad stuff happens.”
And then, without having made a single sound, Tristan stepped into the hut from the darkness. All three boys let out a yell, the women shrieked and jerked in their seats and their combined weight rippled through the floor like an earthquake. The table shuddered, glasses spilled, hands flew to mouths and Pip began to cry.
Tristan stood in the doorway, barefoot and clad only in a dirty T-shirt and shorts, and began to laugh.
Nate, who had cleared the room and was already against the back wall of the shack, was momentarily furious. “Tristan! You…”
It made Tristan laugh all the more, and soon everyone was infected with a highly contagious, if at first nervous, laughter. Everyone but Pip.
“Aw, you need your mommy?” said Tristan, immediately picking on Pip.
“Leave him alone, Tristan!” barked Nate, a little surprised himself at fierceness in his voice, and how quickly he had gone from nervous laughter to hackled anger.
“Oh yeah? Or what?” Tristan knew the program. Or what would be followed with, Just keep going and you’ll see, to which he would reply, Oh yeah? You and what army? And so Tristan was caught completely off-guard when Nate launched himself forward, smashing headlong into him and driving the pair into the night.
The two boys tumbled backwards through the door, howling and swearing as they went. Behind them a string of bodies followed, led by Richard and then Augustine, who was surprisingly nimble for such a large, old woman. Stop it! yelled Richard, but the two boys were locked in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs. Before Richard could shout again, Augustine was upon them like a dark cloud. She reached into the fray and extracted the boys, one in each hand, and pulled them roughly apart. “Stop dis nonsense now or you backsides gwan feel my hand! Now I say!”
The two ceased their struggling and glared at each other through bruised expressions and wildly mussed hair. “What’s your problem?” screamed Tristan at Nate.
“No more, you hear?” said Augustine sternly, releasing Tristan and putting her finger on his nose. “And dat go fuh you, too, boy!” she said, switching her attention to Nate. Both boys folded their arms and brooded. They dared not anger Augustine, who was simmering just below something ugly. “Back inside,” she ordered.
At the table Pip had stopped crying, and was once again wide-eyed in amazement—this time at the sudden eruption between the boys. They took their seats again and everyone settled, this time with Nate and Tristan staring sullenly at the floor.
“What was that all about?” asked Richard, smiling wryly. He was stifling a laugh, but doing a poor job of it. “He really got you there, Tristan…”
“Pé la!” shouted Tristan. Shut up!
But it was too late, Richard had begun to giggle.
Tristan went on, “I wasn’t looking!” Tristan was getting upset again, and Augustine was about to intervene.
Nate beat her to it. “Tristan, look, I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I just wanted you to lay off Pip.”
The room fell once again into silence, and Richard’s giggles sunk away. Tristan sat awkwardly looking at Richard and then Nate, and finally draped something smile-like across his face and bobbed his head side to side. “If I’d seen you coming you’d still be out there—black eye and knocked out…”
“Whatever,” said Richard, rolling his eyes.
And, quick as a mongoose, Tristan reached out and smacked him on the back of his head. “Remember you’re still just a lightee…” he said to his younger cousin.
Richard held his head and glowered at Tristan. An instant later, Augustine reacted. In a blur of speed she reached across the table, administered a sizeable smack to the back of Tristan’s head, then brought her hand crisply around to his face. Before Tristan could even react to the pain he had Augustine’s finger on his nose for the second time that night.
“I can reach all of you from ’ere,” she said in an icy calm voice. “I dun warn you.”
Pip asked a question about a small statue on the wooden shelf, and Augustine was glad of the normality it brought back to the room. She answered it calmly, which started a murmur of conversation among the women, Nate and Pip. Richard, however, was not part of it, nor was his cousin.
Richard’s gaze had fallen to Tristan’s hand, and to something shiny he saw held there. Tristan seemed to feel the weight of that gaze, and when he slowly opened his hand he appeared almost surprised to see the metal tube sitting there. It was a brand new flashlight, small enough to almost disappear in his hand, still marked with the orange price tag from M&C’s. Tristan looked up at Richard, and a small knowing passed between them. It l
asted only a second, and then Tristan thrust the flashlight deep into his pocket, and turned physically away from Richard.
But the blonde boy had already sunk back into his chair. It was a flashlight this time, but in the past it had been a knife, a small balsa wood glider, and even a Daisy pellet gun among other things. But today it was a flashlight. And Richard knew where the flashlight had come from, and worse, he knew why.
He heard the words in his head, and he heard them in Vincent’s voice. There were at least three occasions where he’d been close enough to hear them spoken himself—always at the completion of one of Vincent’s violent outbursts at Tristan. It was always the same: after the beating, the gift. And the words ran through his head again: Learn the lesson, earn the reward—spoken, as always, in that softened paternal voice Uncle Vince only used with Tristan, and only once his anger had burned itself fully through.
Outside in the darkness, shapes were moving again, and the soft pools of swaying yellow lights were making their way past. Instinctively, the group rose from the table, relieved to be out from under the watchful eye of Augustine, and filed out into the darkness. With men moving from the forest down past the shack, the darkness outside lost its menace and the boys watched as the figures filed by. They spoke in hushed tones, some with glowing red embers at their lips, others with swaying pools of yellow light cast by their hurricane lanterns.
The last two men in the group walked single file with a long bamboo pole between them supported on their shoulders, and from the pole hung the carcass of a large white goat bound by its feet. As they approached Augustine spoke to them in Creole, and the men stopped and lay their load on the grass outside the shack as they spoke with her. The boys crowded around the still, white shape, and as one of the other men approached, the lantern he was carrying exposed the scene.
The goat had died horribly. Its throat had been torn out, and there was a gaping cavity starting just under its chin, extending down to the middle of its chest. Its white coat was spattered with a pink hue all around the wound, and a length of blue entrails lay in a tangled heap that had been dragging along the ground since the goat had been trussed up on the pole.
