Call Down Thunder (13 page)

Cesar moved. He sidestepped Reve’s clumsy swipe with the stool and stepped into Tomas. And then, though Tomas turned quickly, his right arm up high, bent at the elbow, fist bunched, he was
too slow. Cesar’s blade caught him in the side. Tomas grunted and jabbed his fist down, cracking Cesar on the forehead, snapping him backwards, the knife still in his hand, crashing into a
table before landing spreadeagled on the floor.

Only then did Tomas take a deep breath in through flattened nostrils, lower his arm and shift his weight so that he stood evenly balanced, his legs slightly apart. Blood darkened his faded blue
T-shirt.

There was a half-beat of silence, with just the sound of breathing.

Calde didn’t answer; he just roared like a wounded bull and launched himself at Tomas’s legs, his big panga blade in his right hand, and suddenly there was mayhem with everyone
shouting and cursing and grabbing bottles and chairs. A couple more of Calde’s men came pushing in from the front porch, while a whole bunch at the bar sided with Tomas.

Tomas hopped clumsily over the slashing blade, kicked Calde’s arm and then staggered, clutching his side. Reve edged closer to him, ducked a flying bottle and whammed the stool at a skinny
dogfish of a man sneaking up behind Tomas. The man
oophed
with surprise and pain and fell back into the open doorway. Reve saw Hevez still by the bar, keeping just out of the scrum, but he
was yelling and beckoning to someone at the side door where LoJo and Reve had been standing. He glimpsed Ramon and Sali standing there but making no sign of moving. He couldn’t see LoJo. The
fighting swirled around him and Tomas. It felt as if they were like a couple of stray fish caught in the belly of a net. Somebody whacked him in the ribs – he didn’t even see who it
was, but he didn’t fall. ‘Never fall.’ Tomas hammered that one into him in every boxing lesson he ever gave. ‘A fallen man just there for someone to kick.’ Maybe Calde
had heard the same lesson because he was on his hands and knees crabbing backwards to safety.

There was a momentary lull. Men, bloodied and wary, stood looking at each other. Fights happened in Rinconda but not here, not like this, and never after the police had spent a day kicking in
doors and making threats.

Maybe people just had the need to fight stuck deep in their belly and all it takes is a beer or two and an excuse; maybe they felt that Calde had his thick fist too tight round the village, and
if Tomas the Boxer was willing to step up to the plate and make a change then they would join in too.

Reve glanced at Tomas. He looked grey in the face and was swaying on his feet. Reve dropped the stool and grabbed him round the waist. If he could push his way to the door before the fighting
started up again, he thought. If he could just do that, maybe he could get him down to his place, clean him up. ‘You’ll be all right, Tomas. I’ll patch you up,’ he muttered
more to himself than to Tomas, whose breathing was rasping in and out, like it was catching and hurting him all the time.

People watched in silence. Except for Hevez, who sneered, ‘You might as well take him up the hill right now.’

Nobody laughed at the jibe.

One step and then another.

LoJo appeared, holding up Tomas on the other side to Reve, and Theon hurried round the counter to help too, making a path for them.

They were almost at the door when Theon stopped. Escal had levered himself up on to his knees and was blocking their way. He shook his head, like a dog bothered by flies, and spat out a bloody
tooth. He looked up at Tomas, his face creased up and angry, and reached for his fallen knife. But Theon moved with surprising swiftness. He snatched up the knife and stood over Escal. ‘What
you want, Calde? You want this rat living or you want to bury him?’

Calde reappeared at the other door. He shrugged and then made a gesture with his hand. Hevez, Cesar, the man with the tattoos and a few of the others slouched over to his side of the room, and
after a moment Escal hauled himself upright and staggered over to them too.

Reve didn’t wait for an invitation to leave; he and LoJo half guided, half carried Tomas out into the sticky night.

‘Whoa!’ LoJo exclaimed, once they were out on the track. ‘Never seen anything before this time. You two the men set to fight the world.’

‘Oh, I done my fightin,’ Tomas said, his voice so faint and breathy, they could hardly hear him. He was hunched forward, gripping his side.

‘No, you like some giant in there!’ LoJo’s eyes were wide with admiration. He hadn’t seen the knife or the wound. ‘You teach me how to put a man down, Tomas? You
teach me? What you say?’

‘Help me get him home,’ said Reve, ‘’fore Calde forget he got whipped.’

Tomas seemed even heavier now, a deadweight on Reve’s shoulder, but somehow they managed to stumble down the track as far as Ciele’s. She was standing in the doorway, looking out for
LoJo, fretting. When she saw them she clapped her hands to her mouth and came running. ‘Jesu Maria!’ she said. ‘What is it with this place!’ The boys didn’t say
anything and the three of them hauled Tomas up the steps and into the room. They leaned him against the wall, just till they could get a bunk ready, but his legs gave out on him and he slumped down
on to the floor, his legs splayed out.

Ciele sent LoJo for water while she carefully peeled up Tomas’s sodden T-shirt. ‘Goin have to cut this off him,’ she said.

Reve turned away. He didn’t want to see the wound. He felt a pain in his gut and he was suddenly aching in every bone; and his eyes burned too. They were so dry and itching badly.

He thought Tomas looked like a dead man.

Reve tried to ignore the blood leaking from Tomas on to the floor. ‘We can’t stop in this place,’ he said. ‘Calde goin come and cause you more trouble
if he find him here.’

‘Boy’s right.’ Tomas’s voice was barely a whisper.

Ciele grunted, pressed a clean cloth against the wound to soak up the blood and then made Reve take over, keeping up the pressure while she stood up and rummaged in a tin. She came back a second
later, a needle in her hand and a reel of thread, the end of which she was running through her mouth. ‘That hole he got so big you push him out to sea he gonna sink.’ She threaded the
needle. ‘Take off that cloth, Reve. Lo, I want water. And that sheet from my bed.’

They both did as they were told.

There was a tap on the door and LoJo hissed, ‘Who goin come lookin so soon?’

Reve stood and silently moved to the door.

Ciele didn’t even look up, just slid the needle into Tomas’s skin. He breathed sharply and Ciele’s brow furrowed a little. Then she started to stitch. Neither Tomas nor she
made a sound. It could have been a sail she was mending.

There was a second tap at the door.

‘Open it, Reve. Calde don’t bother tapping like a mouse,’ said Ciele.

Sultan’s ears pricked up and he gave a soft growl. Reve opened the door a crack.

It was Ramon. His sharp face shadowed, his hands held up, palms out to show he wasn’t carrying anything.

Reve clenched his fists. ‘You on your own?’

Ramon nodded.

Reve pulled the door back wider. He was telling the truth. ‘What you want?’

‘You got problem,’ Ramon said, speaking quickly, that acid voice of his all washed away. ‘Hevez want go burning . . .’

‘This place?’

Ramon shook his head. ‘He sayin Tomas – but tha’s not what he really want. Hevez mostly a lot o’ talk, but this time he drinkin with the men. They all tightening
themselves up, you know what I mean. He’ll get ’em all to run out to your sister, burn up her old car.’ He glanced over his shoulder as if Hevez was standing right behind him.

Hevez would do it. And worse maybe. ‘Why you sayin this to me?’ Reve tried to keep his voice even.

‘You done me favour. Save my brother.’

Reve studied him for a second. There was nothing soft about Ramon, but nothing hidden either, he thought.

‘You didn’t step in that fight?’

‘Got no grief with the Boxer.’ He took a step back. ‘You better move fast. They not goin to be drinking their beer all night.’

Reve nodded. ‘OK. How many he got with him?’

‘Maybe six, I don’t know, but he got that fool Escal. That man’s animal; given half a chance he’ll do your sister harm.’ He took another step back into the darkness
and was gone.

LoJo looked at Reve.

Ciele was looking at him too.

Even the dog was looking at him.

Where was safe?

The boat? Then he looked at Tomas, his back propped against the wall, his chin on his chest, eyes closed, hardly seeming to breathe as Ciele wound her makeshift bandage tight round his ribs.
They wouldn’t even be able to lift him into the skiff.

Reve could think of only one place.

‘Pack your things,’ he said to Ciele. ‘Get your baby and what you need. Anything you got to take got to be light. Lo, you go round the backs and get to Theon. Say he got to
have Tomas stay on his roof and you come straight back this place. Then you help your mother take Tomas there, using the back way. You do that, then you get the sail for the skiff and go to the
beach. You move real fast, Lo. I’ll find you at the skiff.’

LoJo looked at his mother, and when she nodded he slipped cat-like out of the door.

Sultan stretched, padded over to Tomas, sniffed his face and then came back to Reve.

‘And us? You think we leave this place?’ said Ciele.

‘You got no choice,’ said Reve. ‘You want Calde visit you, you stay here. You want to stay safe, you got to go to Theon. Calde won’t go lookin for you all if you stay low
in the cantina and he sees the skiff gone. He’ll think we made a run up the coast some place.’

‘You goin to sail off?’

‘No, Lo’ll take the boat; I’m goin to run to Mi.’

‘When you get so old, Reve?’ she said. He didn’t know what to say. He was just the way he was.

She wiped her hand on a wet cloth. ‘It’s OK, don’t answer. We do what you say.’

While Ciele quickly wrapped a few things in a shawl, gathered up Mayash and settled her into a sling on her back, Reve eased Tomas upright. ‘You goin have to stand, Tomas. Can you do
that?’

They were helping Tomas down from the back porch, when LoJo reappeared. He took over from Reve, draping Tomas’s arm round his shoulder, murmuring to him. ‘Just a
little way. One step. You all right?’ He was so little compared with Tomas, Reve wondered whether he and his mother would manage. But they did, slowly, one step at a time, into the pitch
darkness.

Over to their left he could hear raised voices, and there was that acrid smell in the air again. His stomach tightened. Six of them. What could he do against six?

Aware that Sultan was close to his heels, he stepped over the wire and cut through to the dried maize field, holding his arms up high to keep the hard stalks from scraping his face, praying that
Mi was ready to leave. He would go mad if she decided to act stubborn and told him she needed to bring a whole bunch of her crazy things with her.

The maize stretched forever, that’s what it felt like, shifting and rustling around him. It was just a breeze, he had to keep telling himself, not Hevez and his drinking pals on his
trail.

Ten minutes later he was at the edge. He could hear the sea breaking gently on the shore, and there was the tree and beetle black hump of the car.

He stopped and called softly. ‘Mi? You there?’ No answer. He called again, louder this time. Silence. ‘Don’t do this,’ he said to himself. ‘Don’t you do
this, Mi. Don’t go disappear on me!’ He slipped out of the edge of the field and scuttled to the tree. Nothing. From there, he ran the few steps over to the car and tapped on the
window. No response. He yanked open the driver door and peered inside. Nothing but dark. He swung round, imagining he heard the shuffle of a footstep in the sand. Sultan flopped down by his
feet.

‘Mi! You here somewhere?’ he called a little louder, his voice cracking. ‘Mi, you got to come out . . .’

Had they or someone been already? Had she been dragged off by dumb, ugly Escal . . . No. He’d left Hevez and his crew in the village. No one had come here.

‘Mi?’

He was tired and finding it hard to think straight. Nothing would stick in his head, just panic thoughts flipping to and fro.

Had she just forgotten they were leaving tomorrow, that they had to meet up at the road, forgotten and just gone wandering?

No, she wasn’t going to forget. Mi wasn’t that lost in herself. She wanted to leave more than anything.

Or was she hiding? Something had frightened her. Yes. She could have got a notion, one of her feelings. Hiding was good. Hiding meant that Hevez wouldn’t find her.

There was no way she could have forgotten.

He remembered that she’d said to him, ‘You can’t mind everyone all the time.’ She’d probably been thinking of him and Tomas, and Arella – she wouldn’t
have put herself in the equation. But this was it. She was right. He couldn’t mind them all, not all the time.

And he had to meet LoJo or his plan would dribble away like dry sand through fingers. If Lo didn’t take the skiff, Calde would know for sure they were all still in the village and he would
root them out, wouldn’t stop till he had. Reve’d help Lo get away and then come back to the car just to check . . . just to be sure.

He ran. How many times that day had he run down this beach? It seemed like he never stopped running.

Stop running and they catch you.

The sand was hard; every step sent a jolt up his spine. Pain was good, kept the brain from telling him how tired he was.

Up ahead Reve saw what looked like a giant insect with a long, long neck scuttling down from the wall. LoJo carrying the sail. That was also good. It meant Tomas was safe up at
Theon’s.

They met at the skiff and Reve explained what he wanted LoJo to do.

‘You take my skiff up the coast to San Jerro. Can you do that?’

LoJo nodded.

‘You find Two-Boat – anyone tell you who he is – and you tell what happen here. He’ll help. And Lo, you got to promise this. You stay there till . . . your daddy come
home.’