“You do agree don’t you? Their backs were right here, legs over there and their hands on this side,” Bushwacker explained.
“Yes I do,” Nathan replied reluctantly. Even though he couldn’t see anything that Bushwacker claimed to be seeing, he knew it was necessary to agree with the big man so the conversation could quickly come to an end and the chase resume.
“This way! This way!” One of Bushwacker's men yelled out from the bush around a tree. Bushwacker jumped to his feet and was beside the man in no time. Nathan followed and so did Locua. This time Nathan saw the footprints, the dew had fallen on them and then the sun took its turn to cake them in the claylike soil.
A flood of smile swept over Bushwacker's face; the hunt looked like it was going to end just the way he wanted—fast and easy.
“I told you Mr. Nathan, we are professionals,” Bushwacker boasted looking up at Nathan, who smiled encouragingly. “Clearly they went south,” Bushwacker went on, an obvious speck of pride in his tone. They were now all seated on the ground, waiting for the announcement of a new strategy from Bushwacker. “This confirms my hunch, they are heading for Morne Turner and from there they’ll either go to Morne Diablotins, also known as Morne Turner, or they’ll head for the mystery boat towards Dublanc River.”
“What do we do now? I mean which way do we go from here?” asked Nathan, his voice heavy with a mixture of excitement, fear, and anxiety. “Do we split up?”
Bushwacker ignored both questions and continued, “Clearly there is no water in this stretch as far as I know, so soon if not already they'll be out of water and will be as thirsty as hell’s residents and of course very tired.” He rose to his feet and dusted his khaki pants. “Now all we do is pursue; no breaks and no stops until we catch up with them–we must reach them before they get to Morne Turner. It’s getting late and it is imperative that we are there before nightfall.”
“OK,” Nathan agreed excitedly. He had no more questions, suggestions, or objections; Bushwacker made sense, especially with the ‘no breaks and no stops until the slaves were found’ part.
Chapter Twenty-nine
P
aNene had made all the preparation necessary to send signals to the slaves on the other side of Morne Turner; signals that would alert them to look out for Ashana and Jonah. But on the same day that he intended to execute his plan, he was ordered to head to the plantation by Massa Longstands’s wife.
He hadn’t worked at the plantation for many years but Massa’s wife didn’t care that he was too old and too weak to work on the plantations or that he had given his entire youth working the plantations, which earned him the right to do only minor tasks at the Fort. But PaNene’s mind was busy with his plan to send signals to the brothers on the other side of Morne Turner. He’d already secured the birds needed to send out his signals; two birds was the recommendation but he’d secured four birds just to be double sure.
He’d witnessed what he was about to do, done by older folks when he was young; he’d watched as birds were prepared to carry messages about escaped slaves needing assistance, to the other slaves on the other side of Morne Turner. Now it was his turn to do the same. The pigeons always came from the east and travelled south, all you needed to do was catch one or two of them, tie a small stone to their feet and release them.
If you tied the right size of stone—not too heavy and not too light, it was guaranteed that by the time the pigeons reached the first plantation, they’d have become very tired and be forced to stop for rest. But if the stone was too heavy, the birds would become tired before they reached the first plantation. If the stone was too light the birds would be past the plantation before they became tired.
PaNene had promised Ashana and Jonah that the slaves in the plantation to the South would be looking out for them and would assist them to whichever destination they chose to go. He needed a morning when the sky was clear without rain, or the threat of rain, before releasing the birds. He’d already lost a day and only had one more day to deploy the birds; if he returned to the plantation the next day, then he’d have lost his last chance for good and the young couple might run into difficulty and risk being captured—this was something he couldn’t let happen. He had to find a way to stay back at the Fort the following day, there was only way to ensure it; a very risky one but one he had no choice but to attempt—an old time trick that he’d also learned from the older folks.
His eyes roamed the plantation for a young dasheen plant. It wasn’t long before they fell on one to his right but it was a good distance away from him, about twelve meters. Anthony wouldn’t accept any excuses if he spotted him away from his assigned location and since he couldn’t trust anybody with his plan, he’d have to wait until the workday was over.
“Look! Look! Oh God,” Eliza screamed. “PaNene! PaNene!”
In a few minutes a crowd gathered around the old man; he had suddenly staggered and crashed into the cane plants, lying on the ground with froth coming out of the sides of his tightly closed mouth while his legs and hands trembled severely and his body convulsed every now and then.
“Move; move away from him,” shouted Wanda waving his hands at the crowd. “Let him get some air.” The crowd shifted leaving PaNene and Wanda inside a circle they’d formed around the two. Soon Anthony noticed the commotion and arrived the location; exactly what PaNene was waiting for–he went limp as if life had left his body.
“Oh no!” the crowd shouted. “He is dead! He is dead! Pa is dead!” they cried. Anthony waved everybody away, knelt beside the old man and reluctantly placed his index finger on the PaNene’s neck. He really didn’t care if PaNene died, he was too old and useless, and there were a lot of reasons to believe that he had assisted the slaves to escape.
“He is not dead,” he said nonchalantly. “Take him to the shade,” he added and walked away. Wanda and the rest of the slaves continued to look at Anthony, not sure of what he just said. When Anthony turned around, he met a sea of eyes staring at him. “I said he is not dead, fools,” he yelled at the eyes but there was no response. “You and you lift him up,” Anthony said, pointing to two young men then translating his words with hand movements. The young slaves got the message and went to work immediately, picking up the old man. “The rest of you move it.”
The following day, PaNene would be allowed to stay back at the Fort, he’d have enough time to release the birds and would have kept his promise. He wanted to laugh so badly but he decided to save it until he was alone; his plan had worked flawlessly.
As the slaves began to prepare to leave the farm, he’d moved to the location of the dasheen plant, picked a leaf from the plant, and walked away from the location. Then he chewed the leaf and was careful to swallow only a little bit of the liquid before spitting out the rest. In a few seconds, the liquid flowed into his blood stream and consumed some of the oxygen in it. He felt the farm spinning and then blanked out. Minutes later, he heard commotion around him and began to shake his body like one who had a severe seizure. When Anthony approached, he went limp and seconds later felt the Assistant Slave Massa’s finger on his neck; he didn’t know why and didn’t care. Now he was riding on the shoulders of some younger men on his way back to the Fort. Thanks to the gods of my ancestors, he thought. The stunt he just pulled was a very risky one; it was important to chew the right amount of the dasheen leaf and to swallow the right amount of the sap. If you had any doubt as to any of the quantities it was better to stay away from trying the trick because one thing was certain—if you chewed too much of the leaf or swallowed too much of the liquid, oxygen would cease flowing to your brains instantly and you’d be dead in no time.
As the evening fell and the slaves began to return to their huts, Mr. Longstands retreated from his bedroom and made for the balcony, dressed in his favourite khaki shorts and white shirt.
His favourite bamboo chair let out a mild squeak as he sank into it and his thoughts immediately embarked on a journey as far as the ocean that spread out in f
ront of him. His knees took the liberty to start clapping, at first slowly, gradually increasing until the clapping synchronized with the increased squeaking of the bamboo chair. Mr. Longstands was unaware of the protesting bamboo chair or his clapping knees; he couldn’t wait for his son and the rest of the slaves to return to the Fort. He was starving for a situation report; a million questions swirled in his head like an angry tornado. He missed the peace that characterized his Fort before the arrival of his son and wife; no sooner had they arrived than things began to fall apart. But something else troubled him almost as much. His stomach churned and he felt like vomiting whenever he thought about the instructions in the letter he’d given Edwards for Bushwacker. He loathed himself for ordering the murder of two innocent slaves to hide his own misdeed from his wife and the rest of the world.
His thoughts suddenly made a detour and he found himself thinking about Shanika, wondering what had become of the slave girl who was his mistress and had gotten pregnant with his child. He felt like a fool for not gathering enough information that would have aided him in locating the girl after he returned from England. He had neither the name of the boat that she boarded not that of the boat operators. He wondered what she thought about him and hated for her to think of him the only way he knew she had no choice but to think. If she did, he wouldn’t and couldn’t hold it against her.
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Chapter Thirty-one
A
s Bushwacker limped like a dog with a broken hind leg, his right hand around Nathan’s neck, he replayed what had just happened in his mind for the umpteenth time since his recovery. A sudden attack from a devilish wild dog wasn’t something that happened frequently.
Bushwacker and his men had been just about to sing their victory song; they had followed the footprints of the escaping slaves until they met fresh ones. It was only a matter of time before they caught up with the fugitives; they could read tiredness and weariness in the footprints. They were only a kilometre from the runaways when a dog’s bark stopped Bushwacker. “Did you hear that?” he asked Nathan who was to his immediate right.
“Hear what?” Nathan asked.
“I thought I heard something like a bark, I mean a dog’s bark. Did anyone of you hear something like a dog’s bark?” he spoke first to Nathan and then to the others in Creole.
“No, I didn’t hear any barks; crickets and frogs, yes, but a dog’s bark, no,” Nathan said. Bushwacker turned to the slaves, they shook their heads; they too hadn’t heard any bark. Bushwacker shrugged his shoulders and the search resumed but barely an hour later, a beast that seemed to have escaped from the bottom of hell appeared unannounced and unleashed its fury on them.
First, it circled them so fast that each one of them could only tell after it had passed them but none heard or saw it come. And while everybody was still trying to figure out what it was and where it came from, the beast pounced on one of Bushwacker's men and dug its teeth into his neck.
“Wait, stop! Stop moving!” Bushwacker shouted after Dauodo. The man was running haphazardly, blood running out of his mouth, preventing him from uttering anything audible but mumbles. The dog released its vice-like grip teeth and sunk it into the left side of Dauodo’s neck and then with a sharp move ripped the vein before disappearing into the dark.
Bushwacker and the rest of his crew watched in total shock and fear as Dauodo went down, first on his knees, and then buckling forward before hitting the ground on his face. The dumbfounded and fear-marinated three watched the body as it convulsed, twitched, and fought for life, blood still sprouting out of the holes in the neck.
It had happened so fast that it was still tough for them to accept the fact that Dauodo’s body was actually lying in front of them, lifeless. And this kept them glancing over their shoulders, each scared that they might be the beast’s next victim.
They were so engulfed in fear, shock, and deep thought, neither one of them noticed when Dauodo’s torch fell to the ground a few feet away from his body and ignited a heap of dry grass and dead cane trees. Suddenly a huge flame shot into the sky and made for the spot where the dead man lay, in such a hurry that it appeared as though it wanted to engulf the corpse before anyone could get to it.
“Fire! Fire!” Locua screamed, pointing to the flame, he was the first to notice the fire. The others turned to look; Nathan shook his head slowly as the first set of flames licked the dead man’s fingers; the corpse, the fire, and the blood was too much of a horrific sight for him. “Ugh,” he mumbled and staggered into a nearby bush where he threw up so hard it seemed his intestines and everything in him were about to jump through his mouth.
“Grab his legs! Grab his legs,” Bushwacker shouted at Nathan and Locua, but Nathan was still bent over in the nearby bush. Locua immediately grabbed one of Dauodo’s legs, Bushwacker grabbed the other and they pulled the body away from the fire. Then the horses started to protest the approaching fire, becoming frantically restless and agitated. They kicked continuously, neighed, and tugged at their ropes, threatening to break away anytime now. “Calm down,” Bushwacker began, cautiously moving towards the horses but the bush suddenly moved and all three men stood with their backs pressed together. The dog had returned and was circling them again; the hairs on their bodies standing on edge and goose bumps spreading all over their bodies like red ants over a dead roach. The fire, the horses, and the scary expectation of a second attack from any possible direction, anytime, got them huddled together like frightened little children.
“We have to fight back,” Bushwacker whispered, but neither Locua nor Nathan responded, mostly because they both were wondering the same thing—how on earth do you fight something that was too fast for you to even see? The frightened horses increased their neighing and then suddenly broke loose and dashed into the darkness as if chased by a cloud of bees.
It was during the commotion that the dog attacked again, this time it had Bushwacker by his calf. The giant screamed and launched to the ground like a huge tree. The sudden fall twisted the dog's head; it gave a low squeal and varnished into the dark bush once again. This time they all had a glimpse of it, it was a black, mean-looking, wild dog, and its colour gave it a perfect cover and advantage over them. It could disappear and blend into the dark that surrounded the men and attack them at will and as often as it wanted.
“Nathan, don’t you have a gun? Shoot the crazy beast for heaven's sakes,” Bushwacker snarled at Nathan.
“I do!” Nathan said reaching for his gun but froze almost immediately; the dog had reappeared and before any one of them could do anything, it leaped into the air going after Locua. Locua was already on the run, but his legs soon failed and he fell on his face. Turning around very quickly, Locua propped himself up on his elbows in an attempt to get back on his feet but the beast was now only a couple feet from him and was approaching slowly. Its razor-sharp set of killer teeth completely exposed as it growled angrily at a frozen and helpless Locua as if it had a special beef to settle with him.
Bushwacker’s finger was still trembling against his gun’s trigger as he balanced and rebalanced his weight on one foot; he was still concerned about missing the beast and hitting Lacua when a loud bang went off from behind him.
“Holy Mary!” Bushwacker snarled, turning to face Nathan, his index finger in his left ear as he tried to stop the tingling feeling deposited in it by the loud bang from Nathan’s pistol.
The beast let out a loud shriek as Nathan’s bullet caught it in its left hind leg causing it to buckle to the left. It was a devastating blow; Bushwacker noticed the shimmer produced by the blood gushing from the dog’s wound. There was no doubt the beast was badly hurt; it was bleeding profusely but it didn’t give up instead it seemed angrier. It turned around, saw the two men and without giving them any chance to fire another shot charged in their direction.
The men scattered in all directions and the dog detoured into the bush; bullets escaped the nozzles of their guns just a
s wildly as the beast was traveling. When Tora re-emerged from the bush once more, she was right in front of them, her upper lip rolled up; almost touching her nose while the lower lip rolled down exposing her fangs. Their guns dropped to the ground in unison and once again they dashed helter-skelter into the bushes. But the dog didn’t go after them; instead it turned around and went after Locua as though she meant to finish what she’d begun. Locua didn’t see the dog coming; he was crawling on his belly, still too paralyzed to stand on his feet.
“Locua!” Bushwacker yelled out.
When Locua turned around, the dog was already in the air, it came down and sank its teeth into Lacua’s neck and locked its jaws. Blood from Lacua’s ruptured arteries shot into the air causing his eyes to dim immediately. He offered a weak struggle before a second loud bang rang and the dog screamed again. Locua heard the bang very faintly and didn’t feel the weight of the dog as it collapsed on him; they both took their last breaths and closed their eyes at the same time.
When Nathan emerged from the bush where he had taken refuge, he noticed that the entire expanse of land in front of him was on fire. Dauodo's body was part of the fire and those of Locua and the dog were only seconds away from joining it too. Nathan assisted Bushwacker to a spot far from the raging fire and soon enough, two of Bushwacker’s men emerged from their hiding places. Bushwacker’s face turned red as the gravity of what had just happened hit him. “Go find the horses, what are you waiting for, you cowards!” He yelled at his men, as if they were totally responsible for the night’s mishap. The slaves dashed into the bushes as if the same beast that had just taken the lives of two men and brought down the mighty Bushwacker was now after them.
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