Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  "Damn me!" Benjamin Briggs dropped his wooden bucket and watched as the dark cloudbank hovering in the west abruptly flared. Then a boom of thunder shook the night sky. Its sound seemed to unleash a pent-up torrent, as a dense sheet of island rain slammed against the hillside around him with the force of a mallet.

  The fires that blazed in the fields down the hill began to sputter into boiling clouds of steam as they were swallowed in wave after wave of the downpour. The night grew suddenly dark again, save for the crisscross of lightning in the skies.

  "For once, a rain when we needed it. It'll save the sugar, by my life." He turned and yelled for the indentures to re­claim their weapons and assemble. "Try and keep your matchcord dry." He watched with satisfaction as the men, faces smeared with smoke, lined up in front of him. "We've got to round up the Africans now, and try and find out who's responsible for this. God is my witness, I may well hang a couple this very night to make an example."

  "I think I saw a crowd of them headed up toward the mill house, just before the rain started in." The indenture's tanned face was emerging as the rain purged away the soot. "Like as not, they were thinkin' they'd fire that too."

  "God damn them all. We lose the mill and we're ruined." He paused, then his voice came as a yell. "God's blood! The curing house! Some of you get over there quick. They might've tried to fire that as well. I've got a fortune in white sugar curing out.'' He looked up and pointed at two of the men, their straw hats dripping in the rain. "You, and you. Move or I'll have your hide. See there's nothing amiss."

  "Aye, Yor Worship." The men whirled and were gone.

  "Now, lads." Briggs turned back to the others. A half dozen men were left, all carrying ancient matchlock muskets. "Keep an eye on your matchcord, and let's spread out and collect these savages." He quickly checked the prime on his flintlock musket and cocked it. "We've got to stop them be­fore they try to burn the main house." He stared through the rain, then headed up the hill, in the direction of the mill house. "And stay close to me. They're rampaging like a pack of wild island hogs."