Call Down Thunder

by Daniel Finn

  ‘No,’ said Theon. ‘He played his game. I got different business.’

  Moro nodded. ‘Yes, of course. The boy, this one here, was your messenger. Good. I like things to be tidy. Everything in its place.’ Moro looked around the crowd, seeing, perhaps, if there was anyone else he needed to identify now, anyone who might challenge his authority. There was no one. Cesar had his hand gripped round the back of his brother’s neck. Maybe he feared he would make a fuss. Escal had never been smart.

  ‘Good,’ Moro said again, briskly this time. ‘We do business another time. This is a long drive to make to kill a man, but some things you got to do.’ His eyes found Reve. ‘All right. You and your sister come now and you get in the car.’

  Mi’s grip tightened in Reve’s hand. ‘No,’ she said, her voice barely audible.

  ‘What’s that she say?’ Moro sounded surprised.

  ‘She said No,’ said Reve. ‘She not going with you. She not going to that police captain who murder our father. She not doin any of these thing.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ said Mi, her voice light and clear now. ‘You should leave this place.’

  ‘I think you make a mistake about me, princess.’

  Princess?

  The strange thing was that was exactly how Mi looked. It didn’t matter that her legs were scratched or that she was wearing a crumpled man’s shirt over a crumpled and stained green dress. She stood somehow taller, stronger; her hair, free of the cap, blazed round her serious face. She didn’t looked like the crazy girl who scraped around in a sand garden and lived in a dead car.

  Calde’s men couldn’t take their eyes off her. It was as if they had never seen her before; and not one of them made a move towards her or Reve.

  Even Theon seemed surprised to see this girl stand tall before the señor.

  ‘Put her in the car,’ said Moro. ‘You and you.’ He jerked his head at Cesar and the man beside him. ‘You can leave the boy. Hold him, eh.’

  For a moment Reve thought the men would disobey him, but it was just a moment. Then three quick strides and they had their hands on Mi. A brief silent struggle, with Reve kicking until someone, Escal maybe, had him lifted off the ground with his arms pinned tight by his side, and Mi, silent too, being dragged to the car.

  Why couldn’t she? Oh, why couldn’t she call down a storm? Why couldn’t the sky darken and the waves rear up, tall as rolling cliffs, and thunder down on them, like the sea on the Egyptians in Tomas’s story. He wouldn’t mind; he wouldn’t care at all if he got swept away, if they all got swept away together, but not this helplessness, seeing Mi, her head pushed down, being shovelled into the back of the car. Not this!

  Reve jerked and snapped his right heel back hard and high, catching Escal in a place that sure enough hurt him so badly that the burly fisherman gave a loud ‘huff’ and let Reve drop as he buckled over, clutching his groin.

  The car door slammed shut as Reve ran towards it. He could see Mi’s face through the window. Moro was getting in at the passenger side. Moro’s man, Secondo, was standing beside him, holding the door with one hand and his gun, casually pointing at Reve, in the other. His expression was impossible to read under his dark glasses, though the corner of his mouth lifted. He could have been smiling.

  From either side of the track people were coming out of their shacks, the women, one or two of the men, but mainly women, five, ten, more. Maybe they thought they were safe now; maybe they wanted to watch. He saw Tomas’s neighbours, the whole family and the family next to them and the fisherman who lived two up from Arella.

  Moro’s window whispered down. ‘You had your chance, young bull. You could have worked for me. I showed you the city, eh. You didn’t want it.’ He sounded almost regretful. ‘This is how it is. Now I take the girl because I need her.’ He lifted his shoulders a little, making his neck almost disappear. ‘It’s business.’

  Reve didn’t look at him, this devil. He looked at Mi. She smiled at him through the glass, the sunlight flickering across her face,and he saw her lips moving. What was she saying? Her smile was so sad. She seemed so much older somehow, a woman now, and she was going away from him. She raised her hand as if to wave.

  He clenched his fists. There was no point saying it out loud; she wouldn’t hear him, but he wished the words with all his heart: ‘Call down a storm, Mi. Call down thunder!’

  His eyes burned and stung.

  And when he blinked furiously to clear away that stinging feeling, he suddenly saw it was her! Without any mistake, this grown-up Mi was the woman he had seen smiling sadly up at him through water that had seemed so clear and clean that it was like looking through glass. And now here she was, looking through the glass of this rich man’s car.

  What Reve had seen was the future, but that future was now. This moment. His sister being stolen away.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Moro’s car engine purred into life and the car rolled backwards, jolting slowly on the broken ground, making its unhurried three-point turn. Why should he ever hurry? He had everything in his pocket: the village, the Barrio and the Captain himself.

  He just come in so easy, thought Reve. Take what he want; take a girl; take a boy maybe; take a life and then all he got to do is glide out, the heavy wheel of his car grinding the sand and stone, leaving nothing that the wind won’t blow away, and people forget.

  And then a strange thing happened.

  Miracle maybe.

  When the rich man’s car had turned and was just starting to drive off, five, six, seven women suddenly surged out across the track and blocked the way. There were more hurrying down from the shacks further up the village.

  ‘Let her go!’ one shouted. Reve saw that it was sharpfaced Maria Scatta, who had lost her own child a while back. She was always visiting Mi, asking her things, asking what it was like on the other side and was her little girl all right.

  ‘You let her go!’ Another woman shouted the same thing. Then another. A row of angry women, like a living fence.

  The car stopped and blasted its horn.

  They jeered at it while Calde’s men stood around like sheep, not knowing what to do.

  Moro’s window hissed down. ‘Get out of the way, or I run you down!’

  Reve looked around for Theon. At first he thought he had disappeared, but then he saw him crouched down on the ground beside the poor bundled-up shape of Tomas.

  The car’s engine revved and the driver blasted the horn again.

  ‘Filth!’ they screamed. ‘Pig!’ They shook their fists as they shouted. One picked up a rock and threw it at the car; it hit the bonnet with a tinny pop. The car lurched forward but the track was so uneven that it couldn’t accelerate properly and all the women did was take a step back; someone else threw another rock, and this one cracked against the windscreen.

  If the car got past the women, and then up on to where the track ran smoother, Reve would lose Mi for good. Now was his only chance.

  He sprinted.

  He yelled, ‘Let her go, Moro!’

  He reached the limousine and banged on the roof. ‘Let her go! Let her go!’ He banged again. Another stone smacked into the windscreen just as the car began to pick up speed. The women scattered. One of Moro’s men was so angry he leaned right out of the window, cursed and loosed off a wild shot towards the running women. Reve didn’t see whether it hit anyone or not because, instinctively, he hurled himself forward, catching the man’s arm with all his weight, bringing it down hard, so the man yelled in pain and the gun suddenly hammered off five, six shots in a violent burst that sent bullets flying and hissing out into the edge of the track or ricocheting off stone. Someone gave a sharp cry.

  Reve hit the ground hard, snatched the fallen revolver and was then jerked, twisted, tumbled over this way and that. His leg felt as if it had been jammed into the jaws of a mako shark, and he was being dragged along the track. The rear bumper had snagged his leg, and although the car was going no more than a smart walki
ng pace, Reve’s vision blurred. He got a jumbled impression of a hand, the back of the car, dirt, a foot, orange sky. All the time there was yelling and the horn blaring and his back burned . . .

  He tried to twist himself free but the car swerved, swinging him sideways. His head whacked against something hard and he felt the iron taste of blood in his mouth and his eyes hazed.

  Then, he realized with relief, his foot had wrenched free and he wasn’t being dragged any more.

  And then, behind the shouting and the blasting of the horn, Reve heard another sound: the roar of trucks and gears grinding. He managed to tip up his head and look to where the sun was dipping down, resting like a red-hot dollar on the tip of the hills, and there he saw the trucks, three of them, pulling down from the highway, one after the other. They were painted blue and gold and red, flags and bunting fluttering from the cabs, and the backs of the trucks loaded up with men.

  He struggled dizzily to his knees, clutching the gun, a vague thought that he should shoot out the tyres of the car, but the gun was heavy in his hand and wobbled badly when he tried to aim. He squinted and then felt a hard grip, pushing his arm down. ‘You don’t need this,’ said Theon. ‘Leave it, Reve.’

  ‘They takin Mi . . .’

  ‘No. You don’t got need for that, Reve. Look.’

  The car had stopped. The driver had tried to turn off the track, and now its back wheels were spinning in the sand, sinking in deeper as the driver furiously gunned the engine and then in frustration switched it off.

  Moro got out, his men flanking him, one of them with a right arm hanging limp, Secondo gripping Mi and holding a pistol to her head.

  Moro glanced at Reve, quite expressionless, as if he had never seen him before, never taken him up to the roof of the Slow Bar and shown him his city. Then he turned to face the new threat.

  The trucks rattled past the cantina and slewed across the track, blocking the way, just as the women had tried to do before. Men vaulted down from the sides clutching an assortment of clubs and wicked-looking knives, and Reve saw some of them holding guns – nothing fancy like Moro’s men, not snub-nosed and oily grey but more like old hunting shotguns. Women who only a few moments before had scattered out of the way were now hurrying back.

  Climbing down from the cab of the first truck was a stern-faced man in a baseball cap. Two-Boat.

  The two men faced each other.

  ‘Who’re you?’ said Moro. ‘You’re in my way.’

  Two-Boat tipped his cap back. He studied Moro and then he looked around him, at the women and their families who had been blocking the route. He took in Calde’s men, still waiting it seemed for someone to tell them what to do, and Theon. Finally his eyes rested for a moment on Reve.

  ‘You don’t look like a man who’s goin any place,’ said Two-Boat eventually. ‘Not unless you put some manners on your asking.’

  Moro nodded, as if this was a reasonable comment. ‘Maybe you don’t know who I am.’ He shrugged and glanced back at Mi. ‘All I need do is—’

  ‘I don’t give bishop spit who you are,’ said Two-Boat, interrupting him. ‘You got something that don’t belong to you; and you don’t let her go now, this moment, you goin be fish bait. You hear me?’

  Moro held the fisherman’s gaze for what seemed like a long time. ‘This is my place here,’ he said, still keeping his voice level, but anyone could tell he was angry. This was the señor who planned to control the Captain of police, this was the man who wanted to feed off the whole city; and then here was some fisherman telling him what he could and couldn’t do. ‘You cause me trouble here, you got no idea what I bring down on you.’

  ‘No,’ said Two-Boat. He had a different kind of authority from Moro. It didn’t come from the men ranged up behind him but from the heavy certainty with which he spoke. ‘You listen. You got a nothin share of nothin here. Who you got to call down and help you? No one. So if you want to go back to your city, you let the girl go right now.’

  Moro looked around, as if counting the number of men ranged against him, checking the odds maybe. But he didn’t have any choices. ‘You let me drive out of here?’

  ‘You got my word.’

  Moro nodded to Secondo, who lowered his gun and released Mi.

  She walked away from Moro and his men towards Two-Boat and then she stopped. Her head was high, her shoulders straight, and she waited for him to come to her.

  There she was, a girl and a queen at the same time; and she didn’t seem to need anyone to tell her how to be – didn’t need her mother, didn’t need Reve either.

  Two-Boat smiled for the first time and strode to her and took her in his arms; and although he wasn’t a tall man, she seemed tiny against him. He bent his head and kissed her forehead, and the women clapped and laughed. Reve thought he should smile but his leg hurt too much and there was a feeling in his chest that he didn’t recognize, a different kind of hurt, and he didn’t know what it was.

  ‘I’ll take this, yes?’ said Theon, unlocking Reve’s fingers from the revolver and then gently helping him to his feet. ‘You don’t need to go shooting anyone now.’

  ‘He’s still here,’ said Reve anxiously, keeping his voice low so only Theon could hear him. ‘No one safe with him here. He could do something.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Moro and his men hadn’t moved. When Two-Boat released Mi Moro said, ‘My car needs digging out.’

  Two-Boat nodded. ‘Paolo,’ he called out, ‘give this man a spade.’

  A couple of spades were thrown down from the truck and carried across to Moro and Secondo, and then the two city men sweated and dug into the sand around the rear wheels of the car while everyone else watched. The third man sat in the shade, barely conscious, cradling his broken arm.

  When the rear axle was clear, and the driver had bumped the car up on to the track, and the third man had been helped into the back seat, Moro turned to Two-Boat again. ‘You think I forget this?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Two-Boat, ‘you remember. You remember how lucky you been this time.’

  Moro looked at the fisherman for a long time and then he turned and stepped into the car, which immediately rolled up the track towards the highway.

  Everyone watched till it reached the road and turned north, and then it was as if a soft wind had picked up, because the air seemed somehow fresher and people eased their shoulders and started to talk. The women came down and chatted to the men by the trucks, and Theon helped Reve limp slowly back to Tomas, each step sending a spike of pain up from his right ankle.

  ‘You think that man goin come back?’ he asked, gritting his teeth and leaning on Theon. He couldn’t help it, but he had a vision of Moro and his men tearing up the village because of the way he had been shamed.

  ‘He’s a businessman. He’ll come back if he think he can do business. That’s the way it is.’

  ‘And you’ll do business with him.’

  ‘Reve, you gone to the city and you learn nothing? Everyone got to do business with everyone. That’s the way it is.’

  ‘Even do business with the devil?’

  Theon paused, letting Reve take a breath. ‘When he come knocking on the door, sometimes you don’t got a choice.’

  Although Reve’s mind was muzzy with hurt, he thought that Theon, for all that he was clever, didn’t have this right, but he couldn’t argue it now; maybe it was one of those things that you can’t argue anyhow. And it didn’t seem important, not now that Mi was wrapped up with Two-Boat, and Tomas was maybe dying, and Pelo was dead too, had to be.

  The sun disappeared and the darkness, as always, fell suddenly and there was a moment or two when it was pitch black and you couldn’t see anything at all, and then the headlamps on the trucks were switched on and lamps and fires were lit and the village seemed to breathe again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It should have been dark down at Tomas’s end of the village, because Arella never had a light in her place, never had nee
d, and now that Tomas’s shack was burned away there was no light coming from that direction. But someone had set a brazier burning, and someone else had hung lamps on Arella’s porch, so when Theon brought Reve close enough to see what was going on he was half dazzled by the light and the giant shadows stretching and bending with the soft inshore breeze and people hurrying this way and that to tend Tomas.

  Reve stopped a little back from where Tomas was lying up on Arella’s porch, suddenly unwilling to come any closer. He gripped Theon’s arm. ‘Tomas was safe in the cantina. What happen?’

  ‘Tomas come down from the roof,’ said Theon. ‘Couldn’t stop him. Calde know Tomas some place in the village; goin come a time when he get roun’ to my place . . . And Tomas fretting. He know if they goin find him, they goin find Ciele and her baby. So he come down; call out Calde. Then,’ he said flatly, ‘while Calde’s men beat him, I get Ciele out the back, across the field, tell her to keep walkin till she make San Jerro. Life for life – that’s what Tomas say to me. The old way.’

  The old way? Tomas giving up his life for Ciele. What kind of a way was that if it left you beaten dead and wrapped in a net?

  ‘That business with the cellphone?’

  ‘Best you don’t talk about that.’ He looked at Reve and the lights glinted off his glasses blanking out his eyes. ‘Sometimes you make a long-term plan, you know, set things moving and hope the pieces fall out right; we got lucky Moro roll up when he did . . .’

  Reve frowned. ‘Were you the one call the coastguard?’

  Theon acted as if he hadn’t heard. ‘You a’right?’ he said. ‘You want to stop here?’

  ‘But that chopper could’ve finish them all off: Calde, Moro . . .’

  Theon nodded. ‘An’ would that have been a good thing?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Reve quietly. ‘An’ when it didn’t work, you tried something else . . . an’ all the time, until things fall the way you want, you do business . . .’

  ‘You’re learnin,’ said Theon.