The Daughters of Eden Trilogy: The Shadow Catcher, Fever Hill & the Serpent's Tooth (105 page)

‘Are you sure Muffin will be all right?’ said Belle in a small voice. She was clutching Sophie’s hand so hard that it hurt.

‘I don’t know,’ muttered Sophie, too exhausted to lie.

‘But you
said
.’

‘Belle, I don’t know. With any luck, the men will find her when they come to set the firebreak.’

Belle looked slightly mollified. Sophie wished that she herself was as easily reassured. The firebreak was now one of her greatest fears. What if the men reached the crossroads before them, and they were cut off? Trapped between an uncontrolled fire at their backs, and a controlled but none the less deadly one up ahead?

She pushed aside the tattered leaves of a philodendron, and burst through into the clearing of the duppy tree. ‘Thank God,’ she panted, stumbling over to the tree and collapsing onto one of the great folded roots. From here it couldn’t be more than twenty minutes to the bottom of the hill. Provided, of course, that they still had twenty minutes.

Belle looked frightened. ‘You shouldn’t sit there,’ she said, hardly moving her lips.

‘Just for a moment, to catch my breath.’

‘You shouldn’t sit on its roots. It isn’t safe.’

Sophie gave a spurt of laughter. Safe? Nowhere was safe.

She was dizzy with fatigue, and her knee was beginning to stiffen. It seemed impossible that in a moment she would get to her feet and run all the way down the hill.

Belle tugged at her hand. ‘Please can we go now? Please?’

Sophie drew a deep breath. Ash pattered down around her. Up ahead, a horse squealed.

A
horse
?

Suddenly a big foam-flecked bay gelding crashed through the ferns into the clearing. Sophie leaped to her feet as Ben –
Ben
– jumped down and ran over to her and gripped her shoulder so hard that it hurt. ‘Christ, Sophie, Christ. What the hell d’you think you’re doing, just sitting there on a fucking tree root?’ He was out of breath and covered in soot and sweat, and there was a long bloody slash down his cheek.

‘I wasn’t – I mean – I found Belle.’ She held up Belle’s grimy little fist as proof.

‘I’m
really
sorry,’ muttered Belle with a sideways glance at the duppy tree.

‘Christ,’ said Ben to no-one in particular. He let go of Sophie and turned away, and put both hands on the bay’s sweaty neck, and shook his head. Over his shoulder he said, ‘What did you do to your arm?’

‘I fell,’ said Sophie. ‘How did you find us? Did you—’

‘Did you find Muffin?’ said Belle. ‘I tied her to a tree where nobody would see, and she’ll be really sca—’

‘I found her,’ he said. He turned back to Sophie, and whipped out his handkerchief and wrapped it round her forearm so tightly that it hurt.

She yelped, but he ignored her. He’d already turned back to Belle. ‘I untacked her and let her go,’ he told her. ‘She’ll be halfway to Simonstown by now.’

‘Oh,
thank
you!’ Belle sighed with relief. Clearly she was no longer worried, now that her pony was safe, and she had two adults to look after her.

Sophie struggled to loosen the handkerchief on her forearm. ‘Have the men reached the crossroads yet?’ she asked Ben.

‘Not yet, but soon.’ He threw the reins over the bay’s head in readiness to mount.

‘How soon?’ said Sophie.

‘Ten minutes? I don’t know.’

‘We won’t make it.’

‘Yes we will, if we ride hard.’ He turned and met her eyes. ‘What the hell were you doing, riding around in a sodding cane-fire?’

She didn’t get a chance to reply. A flurry of rifle-shots echoed through the forest, as somewhere a clump of bamboo went up in flames. Belle screamed, the bay reared, and the trees exploded with birds.

For a moment Ben had his hands full, calming his mount. Then he turned back to Sophie. ‘Come on, it’s time we were off. Where’s your horse?’

Sophie opened her mouth, then shut it again.

‘She fell,’ said Belle.

He stared at them blankly. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘We were trying to get down the western slope,’ said Sophie, ‘towards Stony Gap. It was too steep and she fell. It was all I could do to get out of the way.’

He looked down at her as if he couldn’t understand what he was hearing. For the first time she saw how exhausted he was. His face was drawn, and there were bluish shadows beneath his eyes.

‘She twitched when she hit the rocks,’ muttered Belle, ‘and then she stopped. We think she broke her neck.’

Ben wasn’t listening. He was looking from Sophie to Belle, and back to the gelding. Then he rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right.’

He went over to Belle and grabbed her under the arms and swung her up into the saddle. Then he turned to Sophie, and before she knew what he was doing he’d given her a leg-up and propelled her into the saddle behind Belle. ‘Keep your head down,’ he said as he shortened the stirrups for her, ‘and use your heels. His name’s Partisan and he’s had enough, but he’ll get you past the crossroads. Whatever you do,
don’t stop
. Just keep going – and yell, both of you, so that the men know you’re coming. You’ll make it through all right.’

Then it dawned on her that he wasn’t coming with them. Until that moment she couldn’t have imagined that things could get any worse. She leaned down and grabbed his shoulder. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ll take my chances,’ he muttered as he flicked up the saddle flap and started tightening the girth.

‘I’m not leaving you here.’

‘Yes you are.’

‘No!’

‘For Christ’s sake, Sophie,’ he burst out, ‘use your head! One knackered horse isn’t going to carry a man, a woman and a child!’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said again. Her eyes were beginning to burn.

‘So what are you going to do?’ he retorted. ‘D’you fancy putting Partisan into a nice, slow trot, so that I don’t get left behind, and we can all go up in smoke?’

Tears stung her eyes. In front of her, Belle clutched handfuls of mane and started to shake.

‘Look,’ said Ben more quietly, ‘for once in my life I’m making the right choice. I’m not going to let you spoil it now. All right?’

‘Choice? What choice? What are you talking about?’

But he only shook his head, and threw the reins over Partisan’s neck, and closed her hands over them with his own.

Another explosion of bamboo. The gelding snorted and sidestepped in alarm.

‘Go on,’ said Ben, grabbing hold of the bridle and turning Partisan round. ‘Get out of here.’

But Sophie reined in, and leaned down and grasped his hand. ‘There’s something you’ve got to know,’ she said fiercely. ‘Nothing’s changed. I mean, about you and me. What I feel – it’s just the same as it’s always been. Always.’

He looked up at her and his eyes were glittering. ‘I know, sweetheart. Same with me.’ Then he pulled her down towards him and kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘Better late than never, eh?’

‘Promise me –
promise
you’ll be right behind us.’

He didn’t reply.

‘Ben, I won’t go unless—’

‘Just keep going and don’t look back. Now go on, go.’

‘Ben,
please
—’

He slapped Partisan on the rump. ‘Go
on
!’

Still crying, she dug in her heels and started off through the undergrowth.

She looked back once, and her last sight of him, through a stinging blur of tears, was as he stooped for the bottle of rum by the duppy tree, and took a long, slow pull.

Then the bitter blue smoke closed in around him.

Chapter Thirty-Five

It was still raining when Sophie and Belle left Eden great house and started slowly along the riverbank towards Romilly.

The wind had changed a couple of hours before, bringing in rain from the north. Not a tropical downpour, but a steady, penetrating drizzle: ‘old woman rain’, as they called it in Jamaica, for it went on and on until you thought it would never stop.

‘Shouldn’t we have waited at the house?’ said Belle in a small voice. She was huddled in front of Sophie in her mackintosh, and clutching handfuls of mane, for Partisan was stumbling with fatigue.

‘Your papa needs to know that you’re safe,’ muttered Sophie. It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. The fact was, she couldn’t have stood the empty house another moment.

They had reached the crossroads at the same time as Cameron’s men, and made it across to the sound of ragged cheers. Cameron himself wasn’t to be found, and no-one seemed to know where he was. The men had suggested that she go and wait at the house. They said he’d be sure to turn up soon.

She’d found the house deserted, and just as she’d left it, hours before. After fetching bread and milk for Belle, she’d run out onto the verandah to wait for Ben.

He didn’t come. She’d leaned out as far as she could, straining to penetrate the cloud of smoke and steam and drizzle which shrouded Overlook Hill; telling herself that of course he’d got through.

But nobody came. And she kept remembering the look on his face as he’d told her to go without him.
For once in my life I’m making the
right choice
. What did he mean? It sounded horribly like an epitaph.

A gust of wind shivered the giant bamboo, showering them with raindrops. Partisan shook his mane and plodded on, and Sophie gritted her teeth. Dimly she perceived that she was wet and cold and exhausted, but she didn’t really feel it. She was in a long, dark tunnel with only one way forward: find Cameron, leave Belle with him, then go and look for Ben. Nothing else mattered, because it was outside the tunnel.

She turned her head and saw on the other side of the river the bright, untouched cane of Bullet Tree Piece, preternaturally green in the rainy light of the failing day. That’s good, she told herself numbly, it means the firebreak has held. She knew it was good, but she didn’t really feel it. It was outside the tunnel.

Voices up ahead. They must be nearing Romilly. They reached the creeper-clad enclosure of tumbled cut-stone in which, seven years before, Ben had built himself a fire. She looked for cockleshell orchids, but couldn’t see any. It felt like the worst kind of omen. She lacked the strength to convince herself that it didn’t mean anything.

Suddenly they were out of the bamboo and into the clearing, and Partisan was picking his way between little groups of astonished field-hands resting on the ground.

‘Look, there’s Papa!’ cried Belle, squirming in front of her in the saddle.

Cameron was down by the bridge, and hadn’t seen them yet. He was hatless and soaked, and had plainly just run down to meet the rider who’d ridden up from town. It took Sophie a moment to recognize her sister. Madeleine too was hatless and soaked, and incongruously dressed in a bronze-coloured afternoon gown which was smeared with soot, and had been hitched up to her knees so that she could ride astride. She must have just dismounted, for she was gripping Cameron’s shoulders, and they were staring into one another’s face, appalled and oblivious of their surroundings. As Sophie rode down towards them, their voices drifted over to her.

‘But I thought she was with you,’ said Cameron.

‘She
was
,’ cried Madeleine, ‘at least, she was with Quaco till she gave him the slip. God knows where she is by now—’ Her voice broke.

At that moment Belle scrambled down into the mud. ‘I’m fine! Here I am! I’m saved!’

They turned and saw her at the same time. Madeleine pressed both her hands to her mouth. Cameron went forward and scooped up his daughter and held her up fiercely, high above him, as if he couldn’t believe it was really her. Then he set her down with a splash, and Madeleine went down onto her knees in the mud and seized her by the shoulders. ‘Where have you
been
?’ she cried, shaking her.

Belle was disconcerted. ‘The duppy tree.’ she mumbled.

‘The
duppy tree
?’ cried her parents in horror.

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Cameron. ‘What were you doing up there?’

‘I was making an offering,’ said Belle, who was beginning to realize the depth of trouble she was in. ‘There was nobody at home so we thought we’d better come and tell you.’ She glanced at Sophie for corroboration, but neither Madeleine nor Cameron took their eyes from their daughter’s face. ‘You’re all sooty,’ Belle said to her mother. ‘Did you ride through the fire to save me?’

‘Of course not,’ snapped Madeleine, who was fast recovering her composure. ‘It was over by the time I got there. What sort of offering?’

‘I had a list,’ said Belle defensively. ‘Aunt Sophie was absolutely
brilliant
! She followed me all the way to Eden,
and
guessed about the duppy tree,
and
found me in the forest – well, not actually
in
the forest, because by then I’d . . .’ While she went on breathlessly, Madeleine raised her head and spotted Sophie.

Sophie dismounted and handed the reins to Moses, and went over to her. She felt numb and cold and distant, as if she were seeing her sister from a long way away.

Still on her knees in the mud, Madeleine reached up and grasped her hand. Her face worked. ‘Your hand’s like ice,’ she said. ‘And you forgot your mackintosh.’

Sophie didn’t reply. She knew that if she tried to speak she would burst into tears.

‘Thank you,’ whispered Madeleine.

Sophie shook her head. She tried to pull away, but Madeleine kept hold of her hand. ‘
Thank
you,’ she whispered again.

‘. . . and Mr Kelly was
so
brave,’ Belle was telling her father. ‘He lent us his horse, his name’s Partisan, because Aunt Sophie’s had fallen down a ravine,
and
he saved Muffin – have you found her yet?’

Cameron shook his head, clearly struggling to take it all in.

‘And he wouldn’t come with us because he said he’d slow us down and then we’d all go up in smoke. He said a knackered horse can’t carry a man, a woman, and a child. So we had to leave him behind.’

Cameron turned to Sophie. ‘Is this true?’

She nodded. ‘That’s his horse,’ she said, jerking her head at Partisan. ‘He was supposed to follow us on foot,’ she went on, her teeth beginning to chatter, ‘but I don’t think he got through. He can’t have done, can he? We waited at the house for hours.’