HF - 05 - Sunset (12 page)

The throbbing penis had slipped from her grasp, and the boy himself had subsided, lying
beside her. 'Where are you from
?' she asked, amazed at the sound of her own voice, amazed even more at the fact that she had shared so much with someone of whom she knew so little. Of the fact of the sharing, of the fact of his colour, of the fact of their respective positions in the social scale, she dared not think at this moment.

'All about.'

'Where were you born
?' 'Morant Bay.'

Meg raised herself on her elbow. 'Morant Bay?' For there had been the rebellion of 1865, a bloody shambles of murder and vengeance. 'But you are too young.'

'Oh, me daddy escape. They hang he brother. And he sister. So then he come here, later.'

She lay down again. 'But
...
how do you live?' She attempted a smile. 'Apart from stealing my father's goats?'

'We does grow food,' Cleave said. 'We got chicken. There does be fish in the river.'

And there was the sun or the moon above, and the grass beneath, she thought, and when it rained, why, there was a time for bathing. What a magnificent existence. But not for a white person. Supposing the white person ever wished to. Supposing the white person ever dared. But why should Margaret Hilton, the Hilton heiress, wish to abandon all to live in a shanty village whose inhabitants were not even Christians?

But how sweet it was, the air, the softness of the night, the glow of the moon, the heady echoes of the rum she had drunk which swirled in her brain, the still tumultuous throbbing of her heart and her belly and her groin. Nobody would ever believe that feeling, who had not experienced it. She would not believe it herself, come morning, she supposed.

But come morning she would still be here, and able to renew her passion on the altar of his desire. Strange, she thought, he never once kissed me. Perhaps they do not. Or perhaps she had not noticed. But oh yes, she would have noticed.

Meg slept.

A sudden chill had her awake, for some moments uncertain where she was. Her entire body seemed to have risen in a giant goose-pimple, and she shivered. And instinctively reached for the boy who had lain beside her, only opening her eyes when she discovered he wasn't there.

And with that understanding, other understanding as well. She sat up, gazed at the naked white legs which protruded in front of her. They were stained with earth. The earth she had rolled in, during her ecstasy of last night. But at least part of the ecstasy had been induced by the rum fumes. This morning they were gone, and she was sober, and aware of what had happened. Of the enormity of it all. Of
...
she looked to right and left, saw only bushes. But behind her, as she turned on her knees, she saw the clearing, and the still-smouldering fire, and the troolie-palm huts, listened to the clucking of the chickens and the growl of the dogs, watched one of the mongrels sniffing its way through the bushes towards her. And behind the dog there came a man.

She crouched, still shivering, trying to hide her pubes behind the swell of her thigh, closing her hands over her breasts.

Jack smiled at her. 'You got for go. Them white people going be looking.'

He had discarded his red robe and his red turban, wore only his shirt and pants; his bare feet were dusty. In his hand he carried her shift and her riding habit. But perhaps she had dreamed the red robe and the turban. Perhaps she had dreamed everything that had happened, since the river. Perhaps what he had given her to drink had not been pure rum, but some secret potion which had sent her into a fairyland.

Yet she was here, kneeling naked on the ground. And the still-seething nerve ends convinced her that could have been no dream.

Jack stood in front of her. 'Your head hurting?'

She shook it, and discovered that it did possess a faint buzz.

'Well, then, you got for get dress.'

He dropped the shift at her feet. She hesitated, then picked it up. She knew he watched her breasts as she put it on; she dared not look at him. The habit lay in front of her. She stepped into it, buttoned it up.

'Now you look like you should,' Jack said. 'You want bread? I got cassava bread.'

She shook her head. She did not suppose she could digest anything.

'Why you ain' speaking?'

Meg licked her lips. 'Last night
...'

'You come, and you stay with us, because it did be dark,' Jack said.

'But
...
the kid
..

'We did have kid for dinner.' Jack smiled at her. 'So I did steal it. You goin' tell your daddy that?'

She shook her head. 'No. No, I won't tell him. But, that dance
...'

'We got for dance, after we eat,' Jack explained. 'When we got white girl for guest ?'

'Yes, but
...
afterwards
...
Jack
...'

'I ain
' knowing about afterwards, chil’
,' Jack said. 'I ain' knowing why you coming out here for to sleep. Oh, yes, it must be too hot in that hut. Too hot. But it ain' good, sleeping out here. They got big rat and thing.' Again the quick smile. 'You going tell your daddy about sleeping out here?'

She shook her head some more. 'No. No, I won't tell a soul.'

'Well, come then. Your horse waiting.'

He turned away, and she stumbled behind him. She reached out to grasp his arm, and found she dared not. Yet he stopped, and turned, as if she had touched him.

'Why?' she asked. 'I will not tell. I promise. But why did you bring me here, Jack? Why did you let me see the ceremony? Why?'

Jack smiled at her. 'How I going let you stay by that river, in the dark? How I knowing
jumbi
ain' going jump out and get you ?'

But of all people in the world, she knew instinctively that Jack would not be afraid of
jumbis. Jumbis
would be his friends. 'That was not the reason,' she said.

Jack's face seemed to close, for just a moment, then he smiled again. 'We watch you,' he said. 'Riding the plantation, walking with that whitey whitey woman. We know you, Mistress Hilton. One day you must be going to own Hilltop.'

Even the blacks, she thought. Even the blacks. But she waited.

'So, we got for look out for you too, Mistress Hilton. Times is hard. We got for look out for you.'

Did she understand? She supposed she did. 'And can I come back, if I wish ?'

Once again the shadow seemed to pass across his face, to be relieved by the smile. 'You can come back, Mistress Hilton. But not until you is ready. When you come back, you walk up in these hills by yourself, and we going find you.'

'How will I know?’

'You got for know, Mistress Hilton. You got for know.'

She chewed her lip, followed him across the clearing to where Candy waited, her bridle held by Cleave. Cleave. Her heart gave a little leap. 'And when I know, Jack, when I come back, will I be able to take part in the dance?'

Jack gave his quiet smile. 'Oh, yes, mistress. When you come back, you got for take part in the dance. When you come back, you got for be one of us.'

She sighed with pleasure, faced Cleave.

'She rested good, mistress,' he said. His gaze flickered over her face, for just a moment, then drifted down her body.

'He going lead you out,' Jack said.

Meg grasped the bridle, swung herself into the saddle, once again sitting astride. Her heart was pounding so she supposed the two men must be able to hear it. It was the strangest of sensations, because her skin was still chilled by the dawn mist and the dawn breeze, and yet heat was surging outwards. But Cleave was going to lead her out.

He held the bridle, turned Candy's head. She twisted in the saddle, to look back at the village, at the clearing, at the burned-out fire. She had to imprint it on her mind, or who could say that tomorrow it would
not
be only a dream. But how could it be a dream if Cleave was leading her out. And already the houses were disappearing in the mist curtain, and the trees were clinging close to either side, the mist seeming to droop from their branches.

Now it was daylight and she was sober, she looked around her with more interest, and yet could discern no obvious
landmarks. Cleave walked, picking his way through the underbrush, and the mare walked behind him, until they came to the stony ravine, where the cliffs rose on either side like walls.

'Is here a Hilton woman did flog a black man to death one time,' Cleave said, without turning his head. 'I don't believe you.'

'Fact,' he said. 'Me daddy tell me, and he daddy tell he, and he daddy did tell he.' 'That is going back a long time,' Meg said. 'Not so long.'

They reached the end of the ravine, and forded the stream and came once again to the fern grove. Here all was absolutely quiet; the sun had risen and the dawn breeze had died. The mist was beginning to dissipate as the first heat struck at it. And there were no drums. Only the thud of Candy's hooves on the soft earth; Cleave walked without a sound.

'Cleave,' she said.

He stopped, and turned to look at her.

She bit her lip, and sucked air into her lungs. How to tell a black boy, whose ancestors had been slaves, one of whom had been flogged to death by one of her ancestors, that she wanted him to
...
she did not know how to put it into words, even in her own mind. 'Will
...
will you help me down?'

He released the bridle, held up his hands for her. She swung her leg over, felt his fingers settle on her ribs, and place her gently on the earth. Then they released her.

I can't do it, she thought. I cannot, I cannot, I cannot. But her fingers were releasing the buttons of her riding habit. 'Cleave
...'

His head jerked, it seemed moments before she heard the sound, the distant crack of a rifle, seeping through the trees, reverberating from cliff face to cliff face.

'They is your people, mistress,' he said. 'You got for go.'

Oh, confound them, she tho
ught. 'Will I see you again?'

Did he smile? She couldn't be sure. 'When you come back, mistress.'

'Not before that? You come down from the hills, often enough.'

'But how I going see you, mistress ? Them people down there, if they catch a hold of me, they going shoot me like they did shoot Henry.'

Amazingly, she realized, there was no anger in his voice. To be shot, by a white man, for stealing, was one of life's hazards, like malaria fever or bellyache.

'No,' she said. ‘I
would not let them.'

Now he did smile. 'When you owning Hilltop, mistress, then maybe. But now is your daddy, and he going be too angry with what happen.'

'Oh, Lord,' she muttered. She hadn't really thought of that. Or if indeed she had thought of it, it had not seemed important in the heat and excitement of last night. Now those things were fading in the cold light of the morning, and the knowledge that her pursuers were close. 'Then I will come back to the mountains. Soon.'

'We going be happy about that,' Cleave said.

She chewed her lip again. 'But
...
before I go, will you not touch me once more?'

His turn to hesitate; almost a frown passed across his forehead. Then he reached out his hand, unfastened two more buttons of her habit, slipped his hand inside. It lay on her shift, but the cotton was thin, and he could cup her breast, slowly elongate the nipple between thumb and forefinger, as he had done last night. And now, as then, she wanted to scream for pleasure.

'Cleave
...'

'You got for go, mistress,' he said. 'You just ride down this hillside, and you going come to the big river. That is the boundary of Hilltop. By then you going find your people. Make haste, mistress.'

The hand was gone, and so
was he. When she opened her
eyes he was no longer in front of her. She turned, and saw his back disappearing into the trees.

Slowly she climbed back into the saddle, started at the noise of another shot. Her people, coming to look for her, with rifles.

She turned her horse's head towards the sound.

She walked Candy through the fern grove, came out on the far side, reined, and waited; the next explosion was that much closer. She could see the hideous bald-headed John Crows circling, disturbed from their usual perches high in the trees, waiting for death. And then she saw a dozen mounted men, following a black man on foot, who was obviously the tracker. For some minutes they did not notice her, gazing as they were at the ground and at the cliffs rising to either side. But as they came closer she could identify them, and recognized both her father and Harry McAvoy.

She nudged Candy with her bare heels, and the mare obediently moved forward. 'There,' someone shouted.

They stared at her as if she were a ghost, as she slowly approached. Her heart seemed to have slowed, her entire body seemed to be suspended, waiting, uncertain as to their reaction.

'Meg?' Anthony Hilton's voice was quiet. He left the group and came forward. 'Meg? Is it really you?'

'No
jumbi,
Papa,' she said, attempting a smile.