The others see him, too, and they begin pointing in his direction with angry shouts. But their attacker has a gun. They don’t. With betrayal in their eyes as they look at me, Tomas and another man lift Winston up, and the eight men begin running back to town to seek medical treatment.
“I had nothing to do with that!” I yell at them as they flee, but if they hear me, they don’t respond.
Now angry at my friend, I wheel around to search for him, prepared to give him a piece of my mind. Although I appreciate him coming to my rescue during my escape, I am beyond angry over how he chose to do it.
Those men were no threat to me. They were listening to what I had to say. Believing me. And Morris couldn’t have been far enough away that he couldn’t have heard them. So why’d he do it? Why take the cheap shot like that?
“Morris?” I shout. “They’re gone. You can come out now!”
He doesn’t respond, and there’s no movement anywhere near me.
“Morris?”
I wait five heartbeats and glance up in a nearby tree. Moe is staring down at me, gnawing on a nut of some kind.
“Did you see where he went?” I let out a low growl of frustration. “Of course not. That would make you useful for a change.”
Satisfied the excitement is over and with his fill of foraged nuts, the monkey clambers down the tree and leaps onto my back once more. I give the top of his head a pat, while scanning the area for a ridiculously bright red shit. But there’s no sign at all.
Swell. Leave me high and dry at Angelique’s. Shoot an innocent man in the gut. Then disappear all over again.
“Who’s side are you on anyway?” I shout into the jungle.
I freeze at the thought. I had meant it as a joke, but the more I consider it, the more the question makes a lot of sense. Just whose side is Morris Grant on? He’s a spy, sure. But whose spy? Does he really work for the Central Intelligence Agency, like he claims? Sure, I’ve been buddies with the guy for years, but I don’t really know much about him. Not really.
An ice cold wave of dread washes up my spine.
Did Morris kill Angelique and frame me for it?
The sound of braying rips me away from my runaway thoughts. The posse is back on the trail. Our little run put me at a pretty good distance from town. Winston and his men can’t have possibly made it back there yet to inform everyone where I am. But the dogs are a reminder that I’m not out of the…well, out of the woods yet.
“First things first,” I say to Moe in a whisper. “We need to find a good place to lay low for the time being. Then, we can figure out what Morris is up to.”
With that, I turn south and begin following the edge of the cliff as quietly, but as quickly as I can, searching for the rope bridge that will lead me deeper into uncharted jungle. And hopefully, to freedom.
11
The sun now hangs directly above me, heating the jungle up like an unattended pressure cooker. Every breath I take feels like I’m swallowing a wet sponge. Sweat pours down my face, burns into my eye, and works to cool down my neck and back, as I trudge forward into sections of the island I’ve never traveled before.
Geographically, St. Noel is a rather small island, stretching roughly thirteen miles north to southwest in an apostrophe-shaped volcanic landmass. Although there are a few fishing and farming colonies along the coastline, as well as a large sugar cane plantation owned by none other than Governor Lagrange, the island only has one permanent settlement: Port Lucine, with a population of maybe one hundred and fifty people. The town is a tightly packed, close-knit community. The remaining eighty-seven percent of the island is mostly untamed wilderness that’s proved far more difficult to develop than it’s worth. And while there are no large land predators or venomous snakes to contend with, the few dangers that are present in the jungle are enough to discourage many islanders from venturing into the interior to explore. The only ones I know of who brave the unmapped wilderness are a handful of miners looking for veins of bauxite, which is plentiful on St. Noel, and some of the more courageous kids who come out to hunt for whistling frogs that they catch for pets.
For the most part, the island’s interior is like being marooned on a desert island, and that’s what I’m counting on. While small, St. Noel’s lush landscape and rugged terrain provides me with the best possible coverage to avoid the posse I have no doubt is still hunting me down.
At the same time, wherever I decide to set up shop, it can’t be too far away from Port Lucine. I can’t live out here forever. I need to be able to come and go into town easily enough to investigate who killed Angelique and framed me. And to find the blasted list the KGB lugs are so hot and bothered over. Which means, now that I’m good and royally lost, I need to turn around and find a good spot for a base camp. It has to be far enough away from town to keep me safe, while close enough to allow me quick and easy access to anything I might need.
An hour later, I’m drenched from head to toe with sweat, but now it’s an easy five mile hike to town. Far enough out of the way to keep prying eyes from seeing me. So, I spend the next thirty minutes or so looking for a place to call ‘home.’ A cave, perhaps. Or at least an outcrop of rocks along the nearby range of hills that can hide a campfire.
What I find instead is far more ghastly. As I walk quietly through the palms and banana trees that cover the ground like the hairs on the head of an immense giant, I notice something horrid and foul in the air. A distinct, unmistakable scent of decay.
I sniff, trying to pinpoint the location of the putrefaction, and I move farther south. Soon, I begin to hear a low, gentle hum in a clearing about a hundred yards in front of me. As I approach, the humming grows louder, until I reassess the sound as more of a buzzing.
I quickly locate the source of the noise, as I enter the clearing.
The entire area is covered in blood, soaking into the ground. A vast cloud of flies buzzes through the air, landing here and there, wherever the faintest traces of blood and viscera might be found.
I can’t help but stifle a gag, as I take in the sight and smell of the place, but I focus my mind on deciphering what transpired here.
An iron cauldron sits, cold and lifeless, on the remains of what used to be a fire pit. Though the firewood is now cold, the ash still smolders, and a slight trace of smoke still spirals into the sky. I peer into the cauldron. Sticks of various sizes and lengths protrude from the opening. Everything else inside appears as little more than char and ash.
I’ve seen similar sights before. Nearby islands have practitioners of a religion known as Palo Mayombe, a much darker, scarier faith than voodoo could ever be. Those who practice Palo use similar cauldrons, known as ngangas, which are used for all manner of dreadful rituals.
Carefully, I take one of the sticks from the cauldron and start stirring the contents, hoping to disprove my theory. But I’m disappointed when the churning stick slowly uncovers the charred remains of a human skull, a handful of ribs, and a long bone. It’s precisely what I thought it was. A ritual nganga, recently utilized in a ceremony, no doubt, to curse someone. Considering I’m the island’s current numero uno on the Most Wanted list, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take me more than one guess to identify the curse’s intended target.
Or the one who placed the curse to begin with.
The Candyman.
But Jacques Lagrange doesn’t practice Palo Mayombe. He’s a voodoo priest. He’s always found the other religion’s obsession with death and revenge to be distasteful. A disgrace to the loa, who he serves. If the Candyman has taken to the dark religion, now that his wife was so callously murdered, it means he’s become truly unhinged. There’s no telling what he’ll do to me, if he actually gets his hands around my neck.
I swat away a circling fly, as I study the ritualistic scene. Several headless chickens have been strewn around the clearing, their blood no doubt used to fuel the magic Jacques intended to summon. Weird symbols and glyphs, painted in the same blood, are scrawled along the trees
around me. I’m not sure whether the site is a warning to me, or if I was even supposed to see the place, but I can’t control the shiver that vibrates down my body as I take it all in.
But one thing is abundantly clear to me now. First, I’ll have to be even more cautious from this point forward than I originally planned. Better to spend the rest of my life in a French prison than to let the Candyman get ahold of me. Second, the site is a painful reminder that I’m far too close to Port Lucine to make a safe camp. I’ll need to move on and find a better spot, because I have no idea whether Jacques and his followers will return to conduct even more secret dark magic against me. And if they do, I better not be within three miles of this place.
I’m about to press on when something crunches in the woods behind me. I turn around, reaching for the gun in my shoulder holster, only to remember it was confiscated when I was arrested yesterday morning. With no weapon to defend myself, I dash across the blood-soaked earth and move behind a tree, waiting and watching for whatever made the sound.
There’s another crunch, the sound of a foot coming down on the detritus of fallen branches littering the jungle floor. I crouch down, preparing myself to pound on anyone who enters the sacrificial clearing. Every muscle in my body tenses, despite my exhaustion from the escape from the jail.
More footsteps echo slightly off to my left, maybe less than a few dozen yards away. Whoever it is doesn’t seem concerned with stealth.
My hands are clenched into tightly wound fists now.
I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet, still crouched and well out of sight from anyone not directly behind me.
I see movement: a pair of bare brown legs and old worn sneakers. I blink and do a double-take. The legs are small, attached to someone wearing a pair of ragged shorts and a baseball mitt on one hand. He stops when he sees the carnage in the clearing, his little eyes stretch twice their normal size, as his mouth drops open.
“Malik?” I say, standing from my hiding spot.
The young orphan boy jumps at the sound of my voice. He turns to me, and a smile instantly spreads across his face.
“Cap’n Joe! I found you!”
He turns his attention back to the sacrificial site, and his smile melts away with worry.
“Malik, don’t look at it,” I say. “Keep your eyes on me. Just keep them on me.”
The boy is an islander, born and raised. Although Nessie has tried to raise him Catholic, I know he’s been to a great number of the voodoo ceremonies that happen on St. Noel all the time…ceremonies involving sacrifices and blood. He’s used to it. But seeing his nervous demeanor around the gruesome sight in the clearing makes me feel better that I haven’t exaggerated its significance. There’s something about the bloody tableau that’s just wrong. Evil. And Malik doesn’t seem to like it any more than I do.
The boy, keeping his eyes locked on mine, circumvents the clearing and runs to me. I watch him as he struggles not to let his eyes drift back to the gruesome vision, but he finally makes it to me and wraps his arms around my waist in a big hug.
I crouch down, take his shoulders in my hands, and look at him. “Malik, what are you doing out here? You shouldn’t be here.”
Secretly, I’m on cloud nine at seeing such a friendly face. If he knows what’s going on—what I’ve been accused of—he doesn’t seem to believe it. He’s trusting me, literally, with open arms, and that means the world to me.
“I ’ad to come,” he says. “Miss Trixie asked me to find you. Told me everyt’ing. Told me you were innocent and d’at you needed my help.”
Bless that woman.
Then, reality hits. “Malik, you can’t help me. If you get caught helping me, you’ll be accused…”
“They won’t catch us, Cap’n Joe. Never.” His bright smile is infectious. “I know d’is jungle better d’an anybody. I take you someplace no one will ever find you.”
“Really? Where?”
He takes off to the east, waving at me to follow. With no reason to argue, I run after him and hope to God I’m not leading the kid down a rotten path.
12
We can’t have walked more than a mile or two before Malik begins to slow down. He turns his head to look at me as he comes to a full stop.
“We’re here.”
I look around, but all I see are the same hills, trees, bushes, and web-like vines I’ve been seeing all day. Before I can protest, he hands me his mitt and waits for me to reverently tuck it under my arm before he turns again to face the wall of ivy directly in front of him. He reaches out and begins pulling the vines apart, until he reveals the opening of a low-ceilinged cave and points.
Moe takes a look at the cave entrance and lets out a series of nervous whoops.
“Oh, stop being such a wise guy,” I say to the monkey. “It’s not so bad.”
“Yes, Moe,” Malik laughs. “You’ll love it in there. I promise.” With that, the kid ducks and slips into the opening without another word.
With a quick look over my shoulders, I crouch and follow, with Moe nearly strangling my neck all the way. I’m just under the lip of the cave when I’m instantly greeted by the warm orange light of torches lining the walls and a campfire just out of sight. I push forward and the cave begins to expand, until I’m standing at full height again. I look up, but the cavern ceiling is beyond my ability to see. This place is, quite simply, huge. And as I look around, I being to suspect it carries other secrets with it as well.
Along the rock walls to both my left and right, there are a number of large wooden barrels stacked up on top of each other. The type of barrels people store rum in, in fact.
I look over at Malik, who’s grinning ear to ear. “It’s an old smuggler’s hideaway my grandpa told me about before he died,” he says. “Back during da time of slavery, grandpa’s pa and his pals made rum. D’ey used d’is cavern, and others like it, to store d’eir wares ’til it was time to smuggle d’em off da island.”
We walk past the barrels, approaching a bottleneck passage. The campfire light can now be seen clearly on the other side. Malik, for his part, simply walks through with little effort. Moe jumps down and quickly follows the boy. I, on the other hand, am forced to turn sideways and scrape through the passage, while sucking in my breath. It’s a tight squeeze, and claustrophobia begins to beat down on me just as I pull through into a vast chamber that stretches far beyond the reach of the firelight.
As we approach the campfire, I see a couple of bedrolls sitting there, as well as an overstuffed backpack. The kid has come prepared, and I pat him on the shoulder to let him know how proud of him I am.
Malik, nodding gratitude for my silent compliment, gestures for me to sit down before taking the mitt from me and setting it down next to his pack. “Miss Trixie told me we now need to wait a while,” he says, while rifling through the pack. A moment later, he withdraws a couple of cigars, a pocket knife, and a pearl-handled Colt .45, and he brings them all over to me before returning to the pack.
The .45 isn’t mine, but it’ll do real nice in a pinch.
“Where’d you get a gun?” I ask, taking it and slipping it into my holster. I slip the knife in my pants pocket, bite off the tip of a cigar, and use the campfire to light it. Before I’ve inhaled the first sweet taste of the cigar, Malik pulls out an iron coffee pot, and he walks a few feet outside of my field of vision. Moe is right on his heels, as if the little monkey is his guardian angel or something.
“Nessie wanted you to ’ave it,” the kid says in the darkness. “She says you might need it before d’is is all over.”
I take another puff of the cigar, silently thanking the old woman for the gift. Then, something Malik said a few minutes ago, leaps to the forefront of my thought.
“Hold on a second,” I ask. “What are we supposed to be waiting for?”
Somewhere nearby I hear the gentle trickle of water and the kerplunk of the pot going into some kind of pool. A moment later, Malik appears with a full pot and sets it down
on the open flames. The monkey is now clinging to his neck.
“Huh?”
“You said Trixie mentioned that we might have to wait a while. Wait for what?”
The kid looks down at his shoes for a brief second, then, as if he hasn’t heard me, he thumbs over his shoulder. “D’ere’s an underground river,” he says, as he rummages through his pack for two metal cups. “Leads out to da ocean on da other side of da island. It’s how my great-grandpa and his pals got da rum off da island wit’out d’eir masters knowin’.”
I shake my head, releasing a series of smoke rings in the air to calm my nerves. “That’s not what I asked, Malik. Why does Trixie want me to wait here? What’s she up to?”
The boy just shrugs. “Don’t know. She just told me to keep you here until she arrived.”
“She’s coming here?” I stand up. “That’s just stupid. Crazy broad’s gonna get us both caught.”
Malik laughs.
“What?” I glare at him.
“Miss Trixie told me you’d say all d’at. Almost word for word.”
I roll my eye at the kid, which only makes him giggle some more. I then sit down again, Indian style, and take the cup of coffee he pours me.
“So, what’s it like in town now?” I toss the remainder of the cigar into the fire and take a sip of the dark brown liquid. It’s passable enough for coffee, but only barely. It’s not the kid’s fault. Just the product of trying to brew it in such a dank place over open flames.
“It’s, how do you always say it? Looney Tunes.” He sits across the campfire from me, digs into his pockets, and pulls out three of pieces of candy. He unwraps one and hands it to Moe, who dashes off to the side to munch down on the sweet little treat. Malik then tosses me one and unwraps the other before tossing it into his mouth. “Everyone’s so angry. Don’t no one believe you’re innocent neither. No one ’cept Nessie and Trixie, d’at is.”
“And you, apparently.” I wink at him, while placing the hard candy in the pocket of my flight jacket.
Killypso Island Page 8