Cross on the Drum

by Cave, Hugh

  He stopped in front of the doors and took in a breath, as though about to plunge into a pool. His heart was thudding. He was soaked with sweat.

  He threw the doors wide and stepped out.

  There was a gasp from the crowd. Two of the three drums were instantly silent. The third gave out a dribble of beats as though its player's hands were incapable of stopping. He saw Catus Laroche unfold his arms and take a step forward before turning to stone. He saw them all staring at him. Folding his own arms, he waited.

  They did not panic. A whisper, a murmur sped through them and for a moment they seemed on the verge of flight, but then they looked at Catus, waiting to see what he would do. Catus turned his head and saw them waiting. He made himself tall. Slowly, step by step, he approached the church. When he reached the foot of the church steps he halted.

  Barry could see his hands and face trembling. Could see the beads of sweat, like balls of bright glass, rolling down his black skin.

  "I have something for you," Barry said. He took the notebook from his pocket and held it out. "Here."

  The houngan climbed toward him, his gaze fixed immovably on Barry's face. His hand mechanically reached out. His fingers closed over the notebook but he seemed incapable of lowering his gaze to look at it.

  "Read it," Barry said. "Read it carefully."

  With an effort Catus looked down at the book. His lips moved as he read. He lifted his head.

  "Where did you get this?"

  "That should be obvious. From Beliard."

  "When?"

  "Less than an hour ago. I went there with Lucille and Madame Lemke. Beliard's mother was there. Their names are under his, as witnesses. Every word of what you see there is true and can't be denied." Barry moved down a step and put his hands on the shoulders of the red shirt. "I've told you all along that I was your friend, Catus. Now if you're the man I think you are, you'll turn around and read that statement to your people."

  Catus read the statement to himself again. Like a blind man, groping, he turned. When he motioned the crowd toward him, his arm trembled. When he began to speak, his voice was a whisper and they could not hear.

  He began again. "The Father has brought a statement from Pradon Beliard. It is true because Pradon has signed it and there were witnesses—his own mother, for one—when he wrote it. I will read it to you." He spoke as though in a trance, and they listened in complete silence, unmoving. " 'I, Pradon Beliard, persuaded Felix Dufour to sell Père Clinton the mule that killed Toto Anestor. It was I who spread the lie that Toto was dead when Louis and the Father carried him to the mainland. He was not dead then but died later in the hospital as the Father has told you. It was I who burned the Father's church and killed the mule at the altar, to make people think the mystères were angry. It was I and Felix Dufour who told Antoine Constant to say he had been cheated out of his land, which is a lie. It was I who spread the lie that Père Clinton accused Catus of killing the Desinor child. Most of these things I did because M'sieu Lemke paid me to do them. The last I did because Micheline Laroche told me to. Why Micheline wished to hurt Père Clinton I do not know. But I know that he is not the father of her child. M'sieu Lemke is the child's father. I saw them together many times."

  Catus stopped reading and let his hand fall. The notebook fluttered from his fingers, sliding down the church steps until it reached the ground. He sat down and stared at it, and Dame Cesar, at the front of the crowd, came forward and picked it up and held it out to him. But he did not see her. His face was in his hands now. The shoulders under the red shirt rose and fell. He was crying.

  The crowd looked at him in silence and began to move backward. In a few minutes there was no one left. The space before the church was empty.

  WARNER LEMKE WAS STARTLED when Barry first appeared in the church doorway. He had not expected such a development. He had come to the ceremony because it promised to be amusing and because he was too drunk to go looking for Tina. The unexpected appearance of Barry sobered him a little, and the words Catus read from the notebook sobered him more. But he had been drinking heavily for hours and was still drunk when he slipped out of the crowd and went stumbling down the path from the ridge.

  He was also shaking with fury.

  That Beliard! That stupid, blundering fool, to write such a statement and sign it! Lemke felt the dark earth heaving under his feet and the trees tumbling to crush him. He was trapped in an earthquake. He was a man fleeing a monstrous black hand that reached out for him.

  He was finished. He would have to leave the island now. At once, tonight, he must find a boat and get across to the mainland, before Catus Laroche recovered from the shock of that damned confession and came after him. Even on the mainland he might not be safe. Catus might follow him. Catus would follow him. He was sure of it. He would have to run, keep on running, until he was clear of St. Joseph altogether.

  He sobbed as he went reeling down the ridge in the dark. But he was shaking with rage too. He would find a boat, yes, but on his way to the shore he would stop at Beliard's house and settle this thing. No sniveling black bastard was going to turn on Warner Lemke and get away with it.

  FELIX DUFOUR LEFT THE RIDGE in haste too. Panic made his feet fly.

  Those words read by Catus sang in his head like wasps, and the sound of their singing made his eyes pop. "It was I and Felix Dufour who told Antoine Constant to say he had been cheated out of his land, which is a lie." God in heaven!

  What would happen now? That lawyer from the capital would go to Constant, and Constant in his terror would babble the whole story. The stupid fool wanted an excuse to back out anyway; he was terrified of the Father. And this confession of Beliard's would allow him to renege without fear of punishment. He would claim to be the frightened victim of two shrewd schemers.

  Felix moaned as he ran. It was he and Beliard who would be arrested and thrown into jail, not Constant. Arrested! He, a magistrate! But he was no longer magistrate. At this very moment, now, he was a fugitive. Why, why had he listened to that insufferable Beliard? Why? What had he been thinking of?

  He stumbled up the steps of his house and got the door open, rushed inside and lit a lamp. For a moment, helpless, he stood in the center of his living room gazing wildly about him. What would he take? What could he take? He wanted so many things—the beautiful mahogany furniture for which he had paid so much, the handsome calendars on the walls, especially that lovely one with the snow-topped mountains, his clothes . . . But there was no time, no time!

  He rushed into the bedroom and dragged a suitcase from under the bed. Hurry! Hurry! He must be gone before Sergeant Edma returned from the ceremony. That Edma was a man who couldn't be talked out of a thing, couldn't be bribed. He threw things into the suitcase and slammed it shut, scurried back to the living room, looked around, blew out the lamp.

  There was a man in Tete Cabrit who would take him across to the mainland if paid enough. But hurry! Edma would be here any minute. Run, run! Good-bye, house. Good-bye to being magistrate. Good-bye to Ile du Vent and being important. Oh God. Good-bye to everything.

  Bent by the weight of his suitcase, he hurried down the dark village street. As he reached the lower end of it and turned along the path to Tete Cabrit, Sergeant Edma entered the village from above.

  EDMA CLIMBED THE STEPS and banged a clenched hand against the magistrate's door. He waited a moment, scowling, then seized the knob and pushed the door open. He strode inside.

  "Dufour!" His voice was very stern, very much the voice of authority. He used it again. "Dufour!" He struck a match and bent over the lamp.

  The lamp was hot. Dufour was here then, or had been here and was gone. The sergeant finished lighting the lamp and drew his revolver from its holster. He looked around. He strode into the bedroom.

  Clothes on the bed. More clothes on the floor. Bureau drawers open. The sergeant rubbed his jaw with the barrel of his gun. How the devil had Dufour got here from the ceremony ahead of him, that short-legged little politici
an? He himself had walked fast all the way. To be sure, he had not run—for a soldier to go bounding through the dark like a common peasant would be undignified. But he had wasted no time.

  He walked through the house. Empty. Well, Dufour was gone. Gone where? Probably to Pradon Beliard's house. They would want to talk things over, those two, before either made a move. The sergeant shrugged. He had to arrest Beliard anyway. He would get them both at once. He returned his weapon to its holster and went out, not forgetting to put out the lamp and close the door behind him.

  WARNER LEMKE ARRIVED at Beliard's house five minutes before Sergeant Edma left the house of the magistrate. He thrust open the gate and staggered up the path to the door. He was still very drunk. Somewhere along the way from the ridge he had flung away the rum bottle, but he had tipped it to his mouth and emptied it first. His mouth was sticky and burning. He kept licking his lips to keep them from sticking together.

  He jerked the door wide and lurched inside. At once he began cursing the man who lay there in pajamas on the couch. Beliard's mother rose from a chair beside the couch and looked at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  Lemke staggered forward. "You double-crossing nigger bastard!" he shouted. "I'll teach you! I'll wring your rotten neck! I'll break every bone in your body!" He thrust out his hands.

  Beliard's mother recovered from her paralysis. She looked wildly about her and rushed across the room. She seized a broom.

  "You get out of here!" she screamed. Her thin hands curled on the broom handle and she brandished her weapon in Lemke's face.

  Lemke tried to knock it aside.

  She hurled herself at him. The broom crashed against his face and head again and again, like a huge moth against a lamp shade. It was a peasant thing made of twigs. It raked his eyes, and when he threw up his arms to protect his eyes it tore his mouth and neck. He stumbled backward, the woman relentlessly pursuing him. He could not catch the thing and hold it. When he tried, it eluded his grasping hands and found his face.

  He turned and fled over the threshold. Beliard's mother slammed the door.

  Lemke staggered into the yard and halted. Tears streamed down his cheeks, mingling with the blood drawn by the woman's broom. He was sobbing now. His own tears blinded him. A woman! An old woman with a broom. It was more than he could stand. A miserable old peasant woman with nothing more than a broom had driven him from the house as though he were a dog. He turned away, crying like a child. But he could not find the gate. His dragging feet took him blindly across the yard in the wrong direction.

  Sergeant Edma, halting at the gate, saw a shadowy figure moving toward the rear of the yard. He drew his revolver. The police-and-army training manual was quite clear about a situation such as this. He knew exactly what to do.

  "Halt!"

  The figure did halt for an instant. He thought it turned toward him. But then it moved away again, faster.

  "Halt or I shoot!"

  The figure broke into a staggering run.

  Sergeant Edma raised his gun and took careful aim. It was his duty. He fired twice. The fleeing figure stumbled, fell, and was still.

  The sergeant, hurrying forward, wondered which of the criminals he had stopped from escaping, Beliard or Felix Dufour. When he shone his flashlight on the fallen man's face and saw that it was white, he opened his eyes wide and began trembling. After a while, though—after making certain there was nothing he could to do bring his victim back to life—he shrugged his shoulders.

  This would take some explaining, yes, but he could hardly be disciplined for it. He had twice ordered the man to halt, hadn't he? The fault was M'sieu Lemke's then, not his own.

  29

  THE REVEREND PETER AMBROSE reached Ile du Vent at eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning, nine days after the affair on the ridge and its island-shaking aftermath. He was a bit wobbly from the sailboat voyage across the channel and allowed himself to be carried from the boat to the beach in the arms of a husky young native who set him down very gently and grinned at him.

  "Will you wish a horse from the mission, mon Père?" the fellow asked. "I can go up and bring one down for you."

  Peter decided to walk. It was not a particularly hot morning, in fact it looked like rain, and he had a good deal to think about. A letter he had received yesterday from Barry was in his pocket: an amazing document, full of really wonderful news.

  He climbed the trail slowly, meeting a number of islanders on their way down. Without exception they greeted him politely, the men lifting their hands to their hatbrims. Peter was pleased. A line in Barry's letter about the "essential goodness" of the islanders came back to him. He hadn't questioned Barry's judgment, of course. An outsider might have found it difficult to discover anything essentially good in people who only a few days ago had been bent on murder, but the peasant mind was no riddle to Peter. He smiled at the thought that it would be no riddle to the new Bishop, either. The latter was coming to St. Joseph directly from service in Africa. More-over, he was a man Peter had known for years and regularly corresponded with. There would be a decided change of atmosphere in St. Joseph when he arrived.

  As he neared the mission the old man began to smile. He was not expected. He had sent no message to announce his coming. He had visions of a startled Barry gazing at him in utter astonishment and rushing forward to pump his hand.

  He trudged into the clearing and saw a line of people outside the rectory door, and a woman in a white dress in the doorway talking to them. Alma Lemke, he thought, and began to frown.

  "And we hope," Barry had written, "that when the talk has died down a bit you will pay us a visit and make us man and wife. We simply can't think of being married by anyone else."

  Peter shook his head. He was not enthusiastic about this. Did Barry really think himself in love with that woman?—really believe she was the right wife for him? Of course it was none of his business and he certainly had no intention of interfering, but he had always been just a little wary of her. Edith Barnett, now, would have made any man a good wife. A thoroughly charming girl. Still, there might be a side to Mrs. Lemke that he was unaware of. And Barry was no fool. If they wanted him to marry them, he could hardly refuse.

  Alma had seen him. She was running across the red-earth clearing to greet him, calling his name as she came. Peter halted and held out his hand.

  "Mr. Ambrose! What a wonderful surprise! 'Why didn't you tell us you were coming?"

  "I thought I'd let it be a surprise," he chuckled. "I've some very good news for Barry."

  "Good news?" He saw an expression of apprehension wipe away her smile. "You don't mean he's being transferred?"

  "No, no, my dear. The very opposite. I mean we're going to have a new Bishop in St. Joseph and there's no longer any danger of his being transferred."

  Her reaction was so tremendous that Peter was puzzled. It was as though he had told her she was guaranteed a place in heaven. Her face became radiant. A light filled her eyes. She was a most attractive woman, he suddenly realized, and wondered why he had never noticed it before. A most attractive woman. Really beautiful.

  "Please," she said, clinging to his hand, "oh, please go up to the ridge and tell him! He's got to know at once! I can't leave. I have all these patients to look after and some of them have been waiting hours. Please go, Mr. Ambrose!"

  "He's up there at the new church?" Peter asked.

  "He took the morning off to work on the rectory. We didn't expect so many patients today."

  "I'll go at once," Peter said, and squeezed her hand before turning away.

  He heard the sound of hammering long before he arrived on the ridge. Good, he thought; the boy has been able to find some workers again. When he reached the top of the path and saw how many workers were swarming over the nearly finished rectory, he stopped in astonishment. There were twenty, at least. They were flooring the upstairs veranda. Big Louis Cesar, on the ground below, was handing up planks.

  A man on the veranda saw Peter and spoke to
Barry, who was on his knees, bare to the waist, wielding a hammer. Barry stood up. A glad shout left his lips. He swung himself over the veranda rail, dropped to the ground, and made for Peter at a dead run.

  "Peter! Peter Ambrose!"

  It was several minutes before he was calm enough for Peter to tell him about the new Bishop. Another moment passed before Barry was able to answer.

  "You mean I'll be allowed to stay here?"

  "I'm sure you will," Peter said, smiling. "I know this man well."

  "And he won't—he won't insist on my tearing down everything they believe in and leaving them in a vacuum?"

  "He may have a few suggestions, my boy. After all, he's had a good deal of experience in situations similar to this. But on the whole I think you'll find him an understanding man. I seem to remember that he admires Albert Schweitzer a good deal and maintains that the important thing in missionary work is to put across Christ's teachings and bring men together in the Lord's brotherhood. He'll expect results, mind you, but I think you'll find him quite liberal as to methods."

  "Thank God," Barry said fervently.

  "I've just been talking to Mrs. Lemke. She seemed as pleased as you are."

  "Of course she is! Alma would be heartbroken if we had to leave here!"

  "I had no idea she was so interested in our work," Peter said.

  Barry seized him by the hand and drew him toward the rectory. "You've no idea what kind of woman she is, Peter. The finest in the world, that's all. Absolutely the finest. Did you see her working with the natives? How they worship her? Here, look at this house of mine. It's nearly finished." The words came from him in a flood as he pulled Peter into the rectory and led him from room to room. "Kitchen. Dining room. The new clinic, twice as big as the one down below. And a waiting room to boot, so they won't have to sit outside under the trees when the place is jumping. Come upstairs! Watch your feet on these treads, we haven't got them nailed down yet. Look at this. Our room, hers and mine, when you've done your duty by us. I'm using it now. Alma sleeps at the old place. Can you beat that view of the sea and the channel? That breeze? And these other two are guest rooms. One is for you, when you come here on vacation this summer. We'll want you to marry us then, Peter. We'll wait that long for appearance's sake but no longer, I warn you. Peter! Peter! Thank God for the new Bishop!"