Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  "I can try."

  Catus looked at him strangely. "If you fail, will you go away from here and leave us alone?"

  Barry wished he had foreseen the trap, but having blundered into it, knew it would only hold him more tightly if he squirmed. "I can't promise that. I was sent here to do a job. I'm bound to stay and keep trying."

  "Even if you are destroyed?"

  "I suppose so, if that's the way it has to be. But I may be able to convince you, you know."

  "I am not easy to convince."

  No, Barry thought, I'll bet you're not.

  They trudged on, past the fences and gardens and houses. At the edge of the red-earth-mission clearing Barry halted and held out his hand. He managed a smile. He didn't feel like smiling.

  "Well, Catus, at least we know where we stand with each other." The houngan accepted the proferred hand, and then folded his arms on his chest. "You will come to see the child tomorrow?"

  "I said I would."

  "I thank you for saving her life."

  "And I thank you for being honest with me. I can find much to admire in an honest man, even when he's an enemy."

  Catus, his arms still folded, watched the new missionary walk across the clearing. There was a man he would have to think about, long and hard. A good man in many ways, dangerous in others. It would be wise to learn as much about him as possible, where he came from and what kind of people his ancestors were. There was that old Guinea belief, too, about every man's having a twin. He wished old Salmador were alive, so that he might consult him on that point.

  At any rate, go slow, be careful. And keep an eye on Micheline, who had given the new Father many a strange look back there at the house and might, if not restrained, make matters extremely difficult and complicated.

  THE FRONT ROOM was empty when Barry entered the rectory. He drew the Christmas tablecloth a little way back and saw Mr. Mitchell asleep on the bed.

  He went out again. He wanted to see the church and preferred to look at it by himself. Hurrying across the clearing, he went inside.

  The heat under the iron roof struck him like a blast from an open furnace door. He winced. The impact of the ugliness was almost as great.

  He walked down the aisle between the two rows of rude wooden benches, shaking his head at the dust stirred up by his shoes. The whole place smelled of dust. He halted and held a finger under his nose to stop a sneeze, shook his head at the untidy dirt floor, the greasy rail, the soiled hangings at the altar. There wasn't a window in the place and it was dark and gloomy, even with the sunlight blazing in the doorway behind him. Not a breath of breeze entered to dispell the heat.

  What must it be like on Sunday when crowded with people?

  He knelt for a moment, and then hurried outside, sweating more from his few minutes in the church than from his walk with Catus. In the front room of the rectory he sank onto a chair and closed his eyes.

  WHEN CATUS REACHED HOME after leaving Barry at the mission clearing, he found his sister waiting for him at the gate in the cactus hedge. She took him by the arm and drew him toward the big mapou. Under the tree she had placed two chairs.

  "Sit down. I want to talk to you."

  He was willing enough to sit after his walk.

  "What are your plans for the new Father?" she asked him.

  Catus tipped his chair against the bole of the tree and scowled at her. The question did not surprise him.

  How old was his sister? Eighteen now. Not a child any more. Not a long-legged tomboy who ran naked out of the house whenever her mother's back was turned, and danced like one possessed about the yard, shouting and singing at the top of her lungs. She was old enough to be thinking about men. She must have been thinking about them for quite a while now.

  She was attractive. She had a good face, a bosom any man would find interesting, strong straight legs, and a hard little bottom. Even her feet were well formed. Oh, yes, she was good-looking. She was also determined and hard to manage. Long ago she had learned that what she wanted she could usually have, if she used her smile or her temper to obtain it.

  "I have not made up my mind yet about the new Father. Why?"

  "You will drive him away?"

  "Possibly, if I think it necessary."

  "Can you drive him away? He is no Père Mitchell. He is young and intelligent and—and—"

  "And good-looking," Catus said, scowling. "And therefore you are interested in him. I warn you, leave him alone!"

  She rose from her chair and came over to him. Her hand stroked his hair. "Why should I?"

  "If I find you playing around with a white man, I'll kill you. Stop pawing me." He jerked his head away from her hand. "I'll kill both of you. I told you that the day M'sieu Lemke came here to the island."

  "What's wrong with my liking a white man?" she demanded, pouting.

  "You are black."

  "Old Père Mitchell once said we were all alike, no matter what the color of our skin. It was one of the things his faith would teach us, he said. The new Father has the same faith, hasn't he?"

  Catus remembered the Father's offer of a drink of water from the thermos. It had startled him. If he had accepted the drink, would Père Clinton have drunk from the same thermos top afterward? Or would he have drunk from the thermos itself?

  "What the new Father believes, I don't know. But I know this: in St. Joseph when a white man looks at a native girl he wants only one thing, and after he gets it he is through with her. Our family is a good one. We are respected. If you do anything to endanger that respect, even the loa will punish you, not to mention what I'll do to you myself."

  Micheline turned her back on him and went toward the house, laughing. He was always the same, her brother. So serious. So certain the world would come to an end if one didn't follow the rules exactly as they were laid down. Well, he didn't know everything, even if people thought he did. There were many things he didn't know.

  The new Father had a nice smile. He had looked up at her when she brushed against him, serving the coffee. Tomorrow he would be coming here again.

  5

  THE REVEREND LEANDER MITCHELL departed from Ile du Vent the following morning at eight o'clock. "There's no sense in your coming down to the beach with me," he told Barry. "No sense at all. You'd only have to drag yourself back up again, and for what? Just to stand there and wave good-by when I'll be too seasick to look at you." But despite the old man's protests, Barry accompanied him to the boat, helping him over the rough spots on the path. Four boys trailed behind, carrying Mr. Mitchell's belongings on their heads.

  When the boat sailed, Barry stood on the beach watching it. What would become of the old man, he wondered. What was left?

  He returned to the mission, had breakfast, and went straight to the village to keep his promise to Catus. Little Fifine's fever had all but disappeared. He gave her a second injection of penicillin. This time, instead of turning from him in terror, she flung both arms around his neck and put her cheek against his. He dressed her foot again and kissed her. She was an adorable child.

  He accepted coffee without hesitation. While he was drinking it, Micheline came into the caille and sat down. She thought up things to say, mostly the very things they had all discussed yesterday. Barry in vain sought a chance to depart.

  Big Louis supplied it in the end. "How can we pay you, Father?" he asked when the girl gave him an opening.

  "You don't have to."

  "We wish to."

  Barry frowned for a moment. He could use a man as husky as this one. "Would you like to work for me, Louis?"

  "Work, mon Père?"

  "I want to set out a garden. There isn't one at the mission. Mr. Mitchell never thought of having one, I suppose."

  "Nothing will grow in that soil."

  "On the ridge, then. The church owns some property up there, I'm told. At any rate, I can use you and two or three others if you're willing to work. I'll pay the standard wage."

  Louis' homely face became a que
stion mark. His wife, squatting beside the child on the mat, looked up quickly and said, "He will help you, Father."

  "Good." Barry glanced at Micheline. She had seated herself and was gazing at him with curious intensity. He guessed why she had come over from her own house. She had forgotten to button her dress, he noticed. It was all she had on and was too small for her. He tried not to look at her half-revealed breasts.

  "Can we start this morning, Louis?" he asked. "I think it's important not to waste time."

  "I will meet you on the ridge," Louis said.

  BACK AT THE RECTORY, Barry went into Leander Mitchell's bedroom. It was his now and he was glad to have it after sleeping on a cot in the office last night. He opened his suitcase, selecting khaki trousers and a short-sleeved sport shirt. He was in charge here now; he could wear what he liked. The clerical outfit would be saved for Sundays. The peasants would understand, even if the Bishop raised an eyebrow. What must the peasants have thought of poor old Mitchell, staggering about under a tropic sun in clothes suitable for New Hampshire in winter?

  He went in search of Lucille and found her in the kitchen, in the other wing of the L. This wing was larger. It contained, in addition to the kitchen and Lucille's tiny bedroom, a small dining room and a kind of storeroom. The woman sat on a stool, slicing string beans lengthwise with a sharp knife. She wore the same ragged dress. He leaned against the table, watching her.

  "There are some things I ought to know, Lucy, that Mr. Mitchell didn't have time to tell me."

  She looked up, her hands still.

  "Are you the only person he employed?"

  "Oui, mon Père."

  "Do you mind telling me what he paid you?"

  "Forty gourdes a month."

  Eight dollars. Not a bad salary for St. Joseph. It was two dollars less than Peter Ambrose paid his housekeeper at Fond Marie, but Peter employed a cook and a yard boy as well.

  "I'd better plan on paying you the same, for the time being. That is, if you're staying on. You will be staying, won't you?"

  She let a moment of silence pass, and then looked straight at him, her long slack face pulling itself together so that it was almost attractive. "I will stay until Père Mitchell sends for me. Then I must go."

  He was startled. Until Père Mitchell sent for her? What kind of talk was this? Mitchell was never going to send for her.

  Barry looked closer. The woman had been crying, by heaven! She had been fond of the old man. She actually believed he would want her to look after him at his next post.

  "Well—all right, Lucille. You'll stay until he sends for you. By the way, is that your only dress?"

  She looked at herself. "No. I have another."

  "I mean do you have another work dress." She had a white one for Sundays, of course, and shoes and a hat to go with it. They all did. "No, mon Père."

  He took two five-gourde notes from his billfold and pressed them into her hand. "Please buy one then. Throw that one away. I'm going up to the ridge now. I've work to do." He smiled at her and stepped outside to go to the office for the strongbox in which old Mitchell had left the mission's records, including the deed to the property at the top of the island.

  Before the office doorway an old man in rags leaned on a cocomacaque stick. Around his jaw was tied a strip of filthy blue cloth. He slouched forward.

  "Mon Père, I have a tooth that is killing me," he mumbled. "You helped the little Cesar girl, they say. Can you find time to do the same for me, please?"

  IT WAS AFTER ELEVEN when Barry started for the ridge.

  The old fellow with the abscessed molar had been only the first patient. After him had come a young woman with a sick baby, a lad of fifteen with a nasty coral cut on one hand, and an old grandmother with a grandson crippled by polio.

  He had welcomed them all, not only with his smile but with an inner exultation that must have made him seem a little strange to them. This was what he had come to Ile du Vent for, to help these people who so sorely needed help.

  He pulled the tooth, calling Lucille from the kitchen to hold the old fellow's head. He treated the young woman's baby for a bad cold that could easily have turned into pneumonia. He washed and dressed the coral cut and told the boy to come back. He patiently showed the grandmother how, with the proper massage and exercise, her grandson's useless arm might be made useful again.

  What a miracle it was, his having treated the Cesar child so soon after his arrival! The word had got around. He was accepted already as a man to be turned to in time of trouble.

  I'll have to make the office over into a clinic, he thought. Even that won't do if they keep coming. I'll have to build a clinic. I must ask Peter to send me more supplies . . .

  The path to the ridge went up and up, becoming steeper at every turn, yet most of the land was planted. On Ile du Vent a farmer could kill himself by falling out of a garden patch. At times he stopped to examine the corn, millet, and sweet potatoes growing near the trail. The soil looked rich enough and certainly supported some healthy-seeming weeds, but the vegetables were poor.

  He reached the top in twenty minutes and stopped to take in the view. Almost the entire island was in sight. Far below on one side lay the multicolored waters of the channel, the pretty beaches lined with coco palms, the two channel-shore villages. On the other side the land dropped steeply to a broad bed of boulders. He saw a number of dugouts among the boulders but no sign of life, no houses. Evidently the natives fished there occasionally but no one lived there. He could hear the sea pounding on the rocks.

  He looked along the ridge. A lively breeze fluttered the legs of his trousers. The air was salty-sweet and untainted. The grass at his feet was ankle-high and green, and the glossy dark-green leaves of countless pomme-rose trees danced in the wind. He felt again an almost spiritual reaction to the island's beauty.

  A hundred yards distant big Louis Cesar and two other men rose from an outcrop of limestone at sight of him. Barry waved.

  "We have been waiting," Louis said when he reached them. "We did not know what to do."

  Barry shook hands with all three and showed them a paper he had taken from the strongbox. It was a sketch-map of the island showing the location of the church property. Leander Mitchell had purchased two carreaux, about six acres, on the ridge. The eastern boundary was the outcrop of limestone on which the three men had been sitting. It was marked with an iron pipe driven into the ground.

  "I wonder why Mr. Mitchell bought this land," Barry said.

  "He intended to build the church and house up here. But after obtaining the property, he discovered there was no water."

  That old St. Joseph bugaboo, water. Barry wistfully looked about him. What a place for the mission! The rectory leaped full-blown into his mind, two stories tall to take full advantage of the breeze, a veranda running completely around the second story. The upstairs rooms would be the bedrooms, open at each end so the air could sweep through them no matter which side of the island it came from. Downstairs would be the clinic, with beds for patients who required hospitalization. He sighed. At least he could have a garden here.

  There were other stakes. When Louis had pointed them out to him, he sat on the outcrop and with pencil and paper showed the big man what he wanted. It would not be a large garden at first. The important thing was to get started.

  "Did you bring any tools, Louis?"

  "We have our hoes, mon Père."

  "How soon can you have the ground ready for planting?"

  "If we start work at once, by tomorrow evening, perhaps. Certainly the day after."

  "Good. I've got some seeds at the house, and I'll get more. Let me have your hoe for a minute."

  It was a primitive tool, wickedly heavy, the massive iron head fitted to a handle hewn from a small tree trunk. The first experimental stroke told him that if he attempted any real work with it he would be staggering in a few minutes. Nevertheless he would not have forgone the exquisite pleasure of turning up the first few clods of earth for
anything in the world.

  Big Louis and the others watched him. Presently the great ugly-gentle face blossomed in a grin.

  Barry worked until the sweat streamed down his face, and the monstrous hoe handle had burned his palms crimson. Grinning himself, he handed the tool to its owner. "I'll leave it to you now. I've got to clean the church today for Sunday's service. If I finish in time, I'll come back—"

  There was a movement among the pomme-rose trees. A slender shape in khaki trousers and a white sport shirt, the very attire Barry wore himself, came limping toward them. It was Pradon Beliard, the boy from Couronne. His sharp eyes took in Louis and the other two with a quick glance. He halted before Barry with an expression of one deeply offended.

  "You should have waited for me, sir. I told you I would come today to look after you."

  "So you did." And I haven't missed you a bit, Barry thought. "But you weren't around."

  "I came as soon as I could. I live in Petit Trou."

  Barry frowned. If he dismissed the lad, Jeff Barnett might be offended. "Well," he said, "now that you're here, you can help if you like. I was just going down to the mission to clean the church."

  Pradon seemed to hesitate. "Sir, don't you think you should call on M'sieu Dufour first? He was asking me about you."

  "Dufour? Who's he?"

  Felix Dufour, Pradon explained, was the magistrate on Ile du Vent and a most important person, perhaps the most important person on the island. Ile du Vent had no government as such; it was only a sadly neglected stepchild of the Department du Nord. Dufour ruled it with a small police force in charge of one Jean Marie Edma, who was a sergeant in the army of St. Joseph. "It would be wise, sir, to call on both men," Pradon advised. "It will not take long. They live in my village."

  Barry shrugged. "I guess I'd better, if it seems to you worth a speech as long as that. All right, let's go."

  FELIX DUFOUR turned out to be a white-haired, pockmarked little rooster outlandishly attired in white trousers, pink shirt, black tie, and two-toned shoes. His teeth were bad and he talked with a lisp. He was certainly important, though. He occupied the largest house in the channel-shore village of Petit Trou, a much too attractive community to deserve the name of "Little Hole," and obviously thought himself king of the island.