Caribee

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I understand you, Tegramond,' Tom said. This line is drawn where the sun will be hidden by the mountain as it rises. But does not the sun change its place in the heavens with the seasons?'

  ‘In these latitudes, very little’ Painton said. 'Show the cacique that you understand him’

  Tom stooped, and placed his hand on the line, then he pointed at the mountain, at the sun, and back beyond the mountain again.

  Tegramond nodded, and smiled.

  'He is giving you the use of this land’ Painton said.

  'And how much more, I wonder?’ Tom peered along the beach, shading his eyes.

  Tegramond nodded, and pointed to the next outcrop of rock, perhaps a mile away, and then inland again. He made a swinging motion with his hand, from side to side. Tobacco’

  'He's right there’ Painton agreed. ' Tis a good soil. Well, Captain Warner, are you pleased.?’

  ‘I am overwhelmed’ Tom confessed. ‘It is far more than I had hoped.' He held out his hand, and Tegramond took it. Then he placed his right forefinger on Tom's chest, next on his own, and then took away both his hands together before pointing at the sky.

  ‘You are friends forever more, Captain Warner’ Painton said. 'And I count my wager safe. Yet we shall return in a six month, as I promised.'

  'By then we shall have a crop to be shipped, so we shall be right pleased to see you. And my thanks, John. You truly were an angel in disguise, with your Enchanted Isle.'

  ‘It is my pleasure. Now you'll come back on board and take a glass of wine before we part. You too, Tegramond.' He rested his left hand on the chiefs shoulder, and with his right hand made the gesture of raising a cup to his lips.

  Tegramond smiled, and then laughed, and clapped his hands together, almost like a child.

  'For depend upon it’ Painton said. ‘If these savages have a weakness, it is for strong drink. You’ll understand, Captain Warner, that this land is rather rented than given to you. He will expect his share of European goods, and especially European liquor, from time to time.'

  tndeed, he is welcome to all I can procure’ Tom said.

  "Then there should be no fear as to your future prosperity. Now come, gentlemen. Edward?’

  But Edward was gazing at the forest, where two more Indians had just appeared, although they remained half hidden by the bushes.

  Tegramond made a grunted remark, and the pair came closer. The cacique rested his hand on Edward's shoulder, and then pointed at Tom's belly.

  'Well, yes, in a manner of speaking,' Tom acknowledged.

  Tegramond nodded, and indicated the boy. He was not so tall as Edward, although it was impossible to gauge his age. He resembled the chieftain quite closely, but Tegramond pointed at his own belly and shook his head. Then he embraced the boy and said, 'Wapisiane.' He pointed at the sun, opened and closed his hands several times, and laid his forefinger, most expressively, across his own eyes. Then he touched the tooth necklace he wore, and with the same fingers touched Wapisiane's neck. The boy smiled.

  ‘His successor,' Painton said. 'Already designated.'

  'But not his son?'

  'Oh, he will be a relative of some sort.'

  'And the other?’ Tom asked. "What a splendid child.'

  Tegramond could see the admiration on the white man's face. He gestured the girl forward, and at the same time seized his genitals and moved them to and fro, before pointing, to indicate that she was his daughter. When she came close, he took her hands, and said, 'Yarico.'

  'Maybe you'd do better to stay ashore, Edward,' Tom suggested. ‘If this is to be our home, the sooner you make friends amongst the Caribs the better, and these look a likely pair. If the chief has no objection.'

  He touched Edward on the shoulder, gestured towards Wapisiane, and then at Yarico, and found himself still staring. Because here was no mere savage female, considered as a creature capable of conceiving and bearing children in contrast to her male counterparts. Yarico could hardly have been Edward's age, he supposed; her hips were slender, between which the small cloth square seemed an unnecessary extravagance, and her breasts were no more than pointed mounds on her chest, but she already possessed more height than her companion, and her face, far from being a gaunt, pointed accumulation of bones and tightly drawn skin, had sufficient flesh for beauty, and there was beauty in the black eyes, too, which flickered up and down the white man in response to his obvious admiration. While the whole, face, shoulders, hips, even thighs, was shrouded in the straight, coarse midnight hair, which fluttered in the breeze. Christ, how long had it been since he had touched a woman's hair, felt the softness of a woman's flesh, allowed his fingers to wander through the damp splendour of a woman's crotch. Oh, Rebecca, Rebecca.

  "You'll bear in mind that she's the cacique's daughter,' Painton whispered

  Tom started, and flushed. Til bear my own oath in mind, Mr Painton. And the child's youth. And my own marriage. But there's no harm in admiring beauty. What does the chief say?'

  Tegramond smiled, and waved his hand, and then turned and walked back along the beach. The white men followed, with the Carib women. Hilton was last to go. ‘I never thought I'd want to be your age again, Ned,' he said. 'Now I wonder what's the good of being a man, after all’

  Edward stared after them in some anxiety. He had not been afraid of the Arawaks. He had been terrified of the forest, but the Indians had never been other than gentle. He could not imagine them being otherwise. But he could feel no gentleness here, although both Wapisiane and Yarico were gazing at him in a perfectly friendly fashion.

  He licked his lips. 'Good day to you, Master Wapisiane’ he said. 'And to you, Miss Yarico’

  Yarico stared at him, frowning slightly. Wapisiane reached forward and plucked the pistol from his belt.

  'Hey’ Edward said. 'Just hold on a moment.. ‘

  Wapisiane was sighting the pistol at a tree, and now he released the lever. And then lowered the weapon and examined it. He glanced at Edward. 'Bang?"

  ‘It is not primed.' Edward rolled the match with his fingers, made the movement of pouring powder into the touchhole.

  Wapisiane gave a grunt, and looked up expectantly.

  'Here’ Edward touched the pouch which hung from his belt. 'But well not fire it,' he insisted, shaking his hand as Wapisiane reached for the belt.

  The Indian boy scowled, and made a gesture with the pistol, but was checked by the girl, who said something, removed the weapon from his grasp, and handed it back to Edward. She did not immethately release it, however, but left it as a bridge between their hands for a moment. When she did let go of the weapon, it was to touch the cloth of his shirt, allowing her fingers to stroke up to his neck.

  'Would you like a shirt?' he asked. ‘It would be more fitting.’

  Her fingers released the ties, and her hand slipped inside before he could stop her, to squeeze the flesh of his breast.

  Edward thrust the pistol back into his belt, yet was strangely reluctant to try to pull her hand out. But she was withdrawing it, smiling and making a remark to Wapisiane.

  He merely turned, to walk off down the beach.

  ‘I did not mean to offend him,' Edward said.

  To his dismay, Yarico also turned, not towards the beach, but to begin walking into the trees.

  'Oh, don'‘I go,' Edward cried.

  Yarico paused, at the edge of the grass, and looked over her shoulder. It was a strange look, and yet familiar; he had seen in on other girls' faces, perhaps even on his mother's face—but never directed at him.

  He glanced from left to right. The white men and Tegramond had disappeared round the corner of the beach; Wapisiane stood on the edge of the sea, gazing at the horizon. Edward ran up the sand, his feet scuffing the soft surface, his breath quickly beginning to pant. For Yarico had disappeared also. Yet she was there; he could hear her moving in front of him, after a moment he caught up with her. This was no Guyanese jungle, but dry, and with far less undergrowth. He wondered if there were any sn
akes and poisonous spiders in St Christopher's forest, but he would not have liked to ask her, even had he known how; he did not wish her to suppose him afraid.

  In any event, he was too occupied with watching her, moving in front of him. For now they climbed, and the grass was giving way to pebbles and loose rock, and occasional firm outcrops. Over which Yarico passed with indifference, although some of the coral heads hurt his feet right through his shoes.

  He had never observed someone so closely before. Her hair swayed from side to side. Little balls of warm muscle moved up her calf whenever she rose on to her toes; longer slivers of hardening muscle drifted up and down her thighs and her buttocks moved in separate spasms, seeming to tighten and then relax, to spread apart and then come back together, almost like gigantic lips, opening and closing. He realized that he had never in his life actually watched a girl's buttocks moving before, or a man's for that matter. He sweated, and had the discomfort of an erection while he walked, together with a peculiar lightness in his stomach. It was a feeling he had not known since he had watched Mr Walkden lying on his back, staring at the knife which was about to destroy him.

  But Yarico sweated too. This was as fascinating as her movement. Great beads of sweat trickled out from her hair and rolled down her legs, and when, without warning, she stopped and turned, he saw that there was sweat on her stomach and rolling over her small breasts, and incredibly, sweat on her upper hp. He wanted to wipe it off, but he was afraid to touch her.

  Yarico wiped away her own sweat, with a flick of her finger, and tossed her hair to dislodge more liquid, and send it scattering into the bushes. Suddenly he was obsessed by her scent, at once fresh and stale, repulsive and compellingly attractive. He had the most amazing wonder, as to what she would taste like.

  She pointed. They had reached the top of the first slope, although the tree clad mountain rose ever before them. But in the dip which lay at their feet was a pool of water. Yarico stretched out her arm once more, and with her finger stroked down his shirt and across his breeches, before he could stop her. She laughed, the most delicious sound he had ever heard, and shook her head. Her fingers moved back to her own waist, and she untied the rawhide holding her cloth in place.

  Edward found himself licking his lips in a mixture of fascination and admiration. Like the Arawak girls, she had no body hair, only the faintest darkening of her crotch. He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but he hoped she wasn'‘I going to stand there while he also undressed. This whole business was distinctly indecent, and if Father were ever to find out about it... yet it had not really crossed his mind to refuse to join her.

  Yarico laughed again, and dived into the water. Edward scrabbled at his breeches, but before he could get them off she had surfaced on the far side of the pool, which seemed to be deeper than he had supposed, for he could see her legs moving to and fro as she trod water. He turned his back to finish removing his clothes, and then jumped into the water without looking at her. He went down, down, into the clear, fresh, and unexpectedly cold water, sinking far into the depths, and yet, looking down, it seemed to stretch away forever. He had never been in water this deep before, and suddenly he was afraid. He thrashed his arms, kicked his legs, and saw the brown body in front of him, black hair now rising away from her head and towards the surface as she sank beside him. Her presence restored his confidence, and a moment later he had regained the air and the warmth of the afternoon sun. But he felt too tired to remain in the water, and so swam to the edge and climbed out on to the smoothest of the rocks, to sit there panting.

  Yarico leaned on the rock immethately below him. Her gaze was anxious, and tentatively she put out her hand and stroked the palm down his thighs, where the weary muscles still jumped beneath the wet flesh. He felt a sudden necessity for conversation, placed the edge of his hand on the earth, and wriggled the whole arm through the dust, hissing and spitting. Yarico gazed at him in wonder, and then placed a finger on her lips, while her eyes darted to and fro. Now he could hear a faint rustling, and fear sweat stood out on his neck. Yet he remained still, watching the girl; she moved with startling speed, whipped her hand into the bushes, and brought out a lizard, green, clammy and terrified, its tongue a wisp of shuddering flesh. Yarico held it up before him, laughed, and tossed it back into the bushes. That done, she cast him a quick glance, and he smiled his congratulations. Her confidence grew, and her smile widened. He watched her hand, mesmerized by its gentle and yet quick movements. It slid across his thigh once again, reminding him of the slither of the bushmaster, and then moved between his legs to seize his flaccid penis and draw it once more into erection.

  For a moment he sat still, gazing down at her, his body filling with warmth and belly lightness, his mind crying out for so many things, most of which he did not even understand, and then the complete wrongness of what he was allowing, especially after Father's instructions, overwhelmed him. Before he could stop himself, he had seized her wrist and thrown it away from him.

  Yarico stared at him for a moment, in surprise and perhaps, he thought, even fear. Then the expression on her face became more certainly one of anger. Her head tossed, to scatter hair and clouds of water, and she released the rock and sank back into the pool.

  'Don'‘I go,' he begged. 'Let me explain.'

  But Yarico was already swimming away from him, if swimming was the right word for a body which seemed merely to flick and be out of his reach. On the far side she crawled out, stooped and picked up her cloth from the bush where it had lain, and disappeared into the trees. It had all happened so quickly Edward was left with only the impression of her, and the desire in his belly.

  'By Christ, the heat,' Henry Ashton complained, dropping to his knees and fanning himself with a wide palm leaf. For the month was April; it had been November when they had arrived. 'Without that damnable sun, this would be a paradise.'

  ‘It is a paradise, Hal,' Tom Warner insisted. ‘I bless the day that John Painton's path crossed mine. Ours. The heat is but an aspect of paradise. Has any of us known a day's illness since we arrived? Are there any pests on this blessed island? Snakes, spiders? Even the rain is as moderate as we had hoped. El Dorado. We have no need to look farther.'

  Tony Hilton lay on his back, his hat over his face. 'A complete heaven, Tom. Maybe just a shade too much like heaven in truth. It completely lacks female companionship. At least...'

  He sat up, watched Yarico walk by, at the water's edge. She did this every day. No doubt she had somewhere to visit, and the English village lay on her route. They could not be sure of this. They had explored little of the island, Tom not wanting in any way to offend Tegramond.

  And meanwhile, he thought, they had done well. He leaned against a good wooden wall, with the roof of the porch over his head. Inside there were two rooms, furnished only with one or two wooden utensils, and the inevitable hammocks, made of plaited coconut fibres, which had been Tegramond's presents to the white men. He had never slept in so comfortable a bed, swaying gently to and fro, cooled at once above and below. Rebecca would look magnificent in a hammock. She would feel magnificent, in a hammock. But to dream of Rebecca was to drive himself mad. Tony had a point. And to Tony, young and never married, the difficulty must be greater than for most. Berwicke was also unmarried, but in Berwicke the urges of manhood no longer made themselves felt. Or so he pretended. As for Ashton, his wife was the sea. He had but to look at the ocean, as he was doing now, and he was content

  Yarico disappeared up the beach. She never looked at the white men, never appeared to notice them. She just passed, no doubt well aware that they were noticing her.

  'By Christ,' Tony muttered. To think that I shall have to watch that child grow.... Tom, you'd have no objection to a proper marriage, now, would you?’

  Tom sat up. This was delicate ground, now risked for the first time, although he had known it must come. He looked around him. They had christened the settlement Sandy Point, appropriately enough. Theirs was a wor
ld of sand, and sea, and sun, and utter peace, which only internal discontent could ever disrupt. Berwicke was on kitchen duty today, and thus scraped away at the luncheon platters. Ashton remained lying on the hot sand in front of his house. Edward sat not far from his father, also gazing after the girl. But Edward scarcely mattered at this point, for all that he was growing fast, not upwards but outwards; muscles filled his arms and chest, and as he never wore a sliirt his flesh was almost as brown as Hilton's or indeed the Indians'. He would make a fine figure of a man; he was already a fine figure of a man. But he was still only diirteen. Hilton was the problem here.

  But Hilton also lounged on the porch of his own house. There was a suitable starting place.

  Tom got up. 'You'll be married, Tony. Soon. But not to one of these girls.' He pointed at the cross of St George, fluttering above the village. "We're Englishmen, and we'll stay English.'

  'You're a dreamer, Tom. We made our decision when we refused to sail home with Roger North.'

  'We made a decision, Tony. The right one. Listen to me.' He stepped on to the sand, turned to face the four houses which formed a half moon just inside the cleared jungle. "You'll agree this island beats any part of England you've ever seen?" He glared at them. 'You'll agree that these Caribs are as friendly and pleasant a lot as we've ever known. There's the first part of my dream, come true. You tell me where are the laws, the burnings and hangings, you show me our star chamber, or high churchmen, or covenanters. We pray to God every Sunday morning, because we are Christians. That's all a man needs, to be Christian. And God has been good to us. Look around you. Every man of us has a house of his own. Modest, maybe, but it's a house, and nobody is going to take it away from you. Come out here.' He stamped aside, to gaze inland, and feel his heart swell with pride. Five months' work, and it was all done, now. Tegramond had played his part, there. No men had come; the Carib males considered it unmanly to work in the fields, and indeed they had gathered in groups to watch the white men. But their women had worked as hard as anyone. They had cleared the ground, burning it to destroy the last tree stumps, and then they had dug trenches three feet apart as Tom wished; he had not wasted his time on the voyage from England, and had