Call Down Thunder (2 page)

‘Maybe. I seen Hevez and Ramon try to stop her on her way out from Theon’s, but she just push by, came down the track half running she was going so fast, and she was talking to
herself, real angry, and she pass me an’ my mother like we wasn’t there. My mother call to her but she just kept on, smoke lightning. Bet she was haulin a curse on Hevez, bet that was
what she was at. Everybody know she can call down a curse bette’n anyone on the coast, shrivel up the devil and push him down in the hole – that’s what I hear.’

LoJo spat on the sand. For a boy a year younger and almost a head shorter than Reve he sometimes seemed like one of the old fishermen. Only difference maybe was that he had more talk in him than
a radio station.

‘Hevez getting worse all the time, Reve. Reckons no one touch him for anything.’

Of all the bad things in Rinconda, Reve thought, Hevez and his friends, or maybe Hevez and his uncle Calde, were the worst. Hevez was a swagger boy with a dirt mouth, who liked to pick fights
and give hurt, but only when he had his friends at his back, and only when the boy he was picking on was half his size. LoJo got knocked around a fair bit.

Hevez’s uncle, Calde, ran the village and owned most of the skiffs in the fleet. Tomas was quite unusual having his own boat. LoJo’s father, Pelo, a quiet, hardworking fisherman,
owed Calde all the time. Most of anything a body wanted in Rinconda, then it was Calde that got paid. If he got his fat fingers in you, he’d squeeze your gut tight till you paid whatever
dollar you owed him: fishermen like Pelo paying off loans on their boats, boats that Calde’s yard fixed and built; families who had to go burying up on the hill and wanted a coffin, that got
made in the yard as well.

And he had other business: he was hooked up, smuggling for the Night Man. That was business that no one breathed a word about, not unless they wanted to end up beaten, maybe get an accident
happen to them, maybe get tangled in a net.

That was why Hevez felt he could do just what he wanted. He never did a spit of work, just showed off his new jeans and thought any girl in the village lucky if he let her bend down and kiss his
foot. Some did, but Mi never gave him the time of day, looked right through him every time he stepped in her path.

Reve said, ‘They didn’t follow Mi out of the village, did they?’

LoJo shook his head. ‘They up on the wall.’

Reve put his hand up to shade his eyes. He could make out one or two figures working on their nets, which meant it wasn’t Hevez and his friends. ‘They’re not there now, Lo. You
sure they didn’t cut along the beach?’

LoJo looked worried. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so, Reve. I didn’t see them go that way. They never gone out there, have they? That’s her place. Everybody know,
you don’t go out to Mi’s place unless she hold a meeting . . .’

‘They touch my sister, I swear I do some bad thing.’ Reve hurriedly finished wrapping the sail, yanking the cord tight so the canvas wouldn’t come loose. And then checked his
catch. He should take the jackfish straight up to the cold store, but they would be fine for a little while. He’d see Mi was all right first. He scooped fresh seawater over them and covered
them again.

‘What you goin do, Reve? My daddy says your Tomas the only man who can face down Calde. But I reckon you need me if you goin pick a fight with Hevez.’

Even though he was anxious to get going, Reve couldn’t help smiling. LoJo had more talk than muscle; a strong wind would blow him over. ‘Your daddy won’t want you getting in
fights with anyone, LoJo, not with a baby coming.’

‘I can throw a punch good as anyone. I got whipcord and steel in my right arm, Reve.’

‘You got so much muscle, maybe you carry up the sail for me?’

‘Sure I carry it for you, but you goin teach me to box, the way Tomas teach you?’ He stabbed his skinny fist into the air, once, twice, and puffed out his cheeks, like he was doing
some real hurt. ‘Then we pull down anyone who push their weight. See!’ He snapped an upper cut and almost hit himself on the nose. ‘Like that, eh! Land one in Calde’s
belly.’

‘Then you’d be the king of Rinconda. Here –’ he passed him the boom and sail – ‘you take this now.’

‘I’m serious, Reve, hey, you teach me some moves. Hevez don’t push you like he do me – him an’ Ramon an’ Sali.’

‘I’ll teach you, Lo, but not now. You try keepin out of their way.

‘My daddy say everybody in this place got their head tuck in the sand. You tellin me that’s what I got to do?’

‘No. Just take this up for me. I’ll see you later.’

‘OK Reve.’

So they split: LoJo shouldering the long boom and sail, hurrying up the beach towards the little harbour, while Reve started to run along the hard sand to the right, heading the same way as his
dog had gone. The real burning heat had gone out of the day, but the breeze was warm and sticky in his lungs and his body ached from the hard rowing, but he was used to that. He ran grimly. He
didn’t have his head in the sand. He reckoned he could see what was happening.

Mi was getting a name that stretched out beyond Rinconda. People brought her things so she would make a prayer or go step in the spirit world for them. But there were others who didn’t
like having her anywhere near the village, a few sour-faced women mainly. She didn’t care ’bout them. Didn’t care what people said. Never had, but maybe that was because she was
the one who had her head ‘tuck in the sand’.

Part of the trouble was that with her flame-red hair there wasn’t anybody looked like her in Rinconda, not even Reve; and then she took herself off to live on her own in a busted-up old
car. Asking for trouble, Tomas said.

Hevez was trouble, him and his pack, dogs always sniffing round her. Only way to stop a dog sniffing was to give it a hard lesson. Reve bunched his fist as he ran.

A third of a mile along the strand he could see the acacia tree that gave a bit of shade to her car. But he couldn’t see her sitting in her usual place, crosslegged up on
the roof of the Beetle, staring out to sea.

‘Mi!’

He ran up from the shore, pushing himself to go fast through the soft dry sand.

He heard Sultan barking and then he heard Mi scream, shrill and angry, ‘You come another step I tear a hole in you!’ She never yelled at Sultan. It was the boys.

Reve tore past her crazy little sand garden of fishbone, stick and sea-washed glass bottles and there they were on the far side of the car. Mi down on her knees, her face twisted up with rage,
spitting curses at them, her red hair like a storm cloud round her head, the sleeve half torn off her shirt, a little trickle of blood on her shin. It looked like she’d fallen or been thrown,
but she had a broken bottle in her hand, and whether it was the cursing or the sight of that sharp glass, the three boys facing her were keeping their distance.

Hevez with his slick-back hair and neat city jeans was half a pace in front of the other two, a stumpy little knife in one hand.

Reve stopped beside Mi and touched her shoulder. ‘What you been doin, Hevez? Why don’ you back off before someone get killed here? You hear me!’

Hevez glanced at Reve but gave absolutely no reaction to what he had said. All his attention was on Mi. ‘Say all you want, witch-girl,’ he said, his voice trying to sneer but
trembling a little with nerves and excitement. There was nothing bold or brave about Hevez. Then he held out his left hand and Reve saw he had a whole twist of Mi’s hair in his fist.
‘We goin see if this is real or if you go putting paint in it, make yourself a Babbylong whore like my uncle call you.’

Sali, the youngest of the three, sniggered. With his narrow, sloping shoulders and the fluffy shadow of a moustache on his upper lip, Sali wasn’t a threat to anyone; he was a sheep,
nothing on his own. Ramon, the other one, was a different matter; he was grit-hard and sour, like he had a grudge against the world. He was always ready for a fight. He lived up by the highway, no
parents, but he had a younger brother that he looked out for.

Reve didn’t care about either of them. It was Hevez he wanted to break. He felt the blood pounding in his head.

‘Your uncle Calde . . .’ said Mi, her voice oddly matterof- fact now, as if she had drained out her pool of curses, ‘your uncle goin pick up the phone one time, you hearin me,
an’ he goin hear death talking to him. An’ on that day . . . You,’ she said slowly and deliberately, ‘Goin. Be. Nothin. Nothin. Nothin . . .’ Her voice turning harsh
and strange as she kept chanting the one word over and over again.

That really spooked Hevez, spooked them all, but it was Hevez who shouted and swore and tried to drown out what she was saying. But he couldn’t. He shook his knife at her, threatened to
cut off the rest of her hair, and when she still didn’t stop he took a step forward.

Tomas always said to pick your time; if you got to fight, make it one-on-one and watch for the snake who carries a blade, but Reve wasn’t thinking about Tomas. He threw himself head first
at Hevez and hit him hard in the chest, sent him tumbling sideways. Hevez hit the ground with a thud and a startled shriek. Reve was right on top of him, grabbing at his arm, trying to get at his
knife hand, and everyone was shouting and yelling. It sounded more like a riot than a scuffle.

Hevez was howling so loudly Reve thought he’d fallen on the blade, and Mi was shrieking but it seemed to be at Reve, not at Hevez, telling him to get out of there, which didn’t make
any sense; and Sultan was dancing about in a barking frenzy.

Reve twisted sideways, his elbow against Hevez’s chin, and managed to grip his wrist. One of the boys darted in and aimed a savage kick, which caught Reve in the ribs and made him gasp.
Then Ramon had him round his neck. Reve smelt the sharp tang of the other boy’s sweat and felt the air pinched out of his throat before he was yanked backwards and found himself winded, half
blinded by sun and grits of sand and with Sultan’s stickyhot, fish-breath on his face.

He pushed Sultan away and struggled to his feet. There was blood on his hands and for a second he thought he had got cut, but then he saw, as Sali and Ramon were helping Hevez up, that Hevez had
dropped the knife and was clutching his left arm. His fingers were red and blood was dropping on to the sand. He grimaced and with a whimper pulled a long nail from his arm. That must have been
what he fell on, thought Reve. Unlucky for him – apart from the bits of stone and glass with which she decorated her sand garden, Mi kept her place clear of all rubbish.

‘You come by here another time,’ hissed Mi, still kneeling, still with the jagged bottle neck in her hand, ‘and you find you get something come tearing at you worse than that
old cut.’

Hevez was breathing hard, his nose pinched and his face tight with rage and embarrassment. ‘You got more trouble comin than you dream of,’ he said. ‘An’ I got this! Yeah!
See it! I got your hair, you witch.’ Ramon and Sali were on either side of him, helping him to his feet, and then the three of them started to back away.

‘People goin hear what you done, Hevez,’ said Reve. ‘They not goin to care too much who your uncle; they goin burn you down for this.’

‘Burn,’ he sneered. ‘I show you burn. You nothin but Tomas run-aroun’, and she the Babbylong whore.’ He shrugged himself away from his friends, all his attention
back on Mi. ‘An’ you,’ he said to her, ‘you so good telling what goin happen, maybe you see the fool who goin to marry you! You see that man? Cos no one else do! No one in
their good mind goin to come near you and your stupid car and your stones!’ He kicked at the sand so that it sprayed back at them. Then Ramon put his arm around Hevez’s shoulder and
said something in his ear and the two of them laughed, and Sali laughed too. And they sauntered off like they had been in some gunfight, all swagger and loud voices.

They watched them go, not speaking. Reve’s rib hurt but it was Mi he was concerned about. She’d dropped the bottle neck and was hugging herself with her left arm;
her right hand was threading through her hair, trying to find where he had hacked off a clump. ‘A’most down to my head,’ she said more to herself than to Reve. She bit her lip and
Reve saw a tear roll down her cheek. She smudged it away with her forearm and sniffed crossly.

‘He was the one who got hurt,’ said Reve, thinking to comfort her. ‘A nail! How come you got one nail in the sand there and he the fool go fallin on it?’

She took a deep breath and then stood up. ‘Sewn it with nail and glass,’ she said. ‘Don’t you go steppin on it, Reve. Them flower are for that boy and his friends. I
knowed they’d come botherin . . .’

‘I did step on it, Mi. Nothin happen to me.’

She shrugged, no longer interested. ‘You just lucky, Reve; nothin touch you.’

He followed her around to the front of the rusty old Beetle, wondering if she really had done what she had said and made some sort of a trap in the sand. It was just as possible that she only
thought she had, or had started and then got bored and given up. It was hard to tell with Mi. One thing for sure though, Hevez was hurting; that old nail could make him sick if he didn’t go
and clean it quick, not that Reve cared what happened to him.

‘I don’t think they’ll come botherin’ you again, Mi.’ He said it, but he didn’t really believe it. He wanted to comfort her but he didn’t know how. A
fright like she’d had could have pushed her over the edge, started up her juddering and eye rolling, the fits that took her right out of this world, that left her sick, bruised, dizzy and
sometimes with her tongue bleeding. ‘Reckon you taught them a lesson.’

Mi didn’t respond. She wiped her hands on her faded blue skirt and then knelt down and began to tend her garden. She shifted a blood-coloured stone one way, then her hand, which he saw was
trembling slightly, hesitated over a delicate, eggshell-thin bird’s skull, but almost instantly snatched it back as if the fragile skull might have burned her. Then she carefully put a shell
on top of a half-buried plastic Coke bottle, dusted her hands and wiped her eyes again.

He squatted down beside her. He ought to go, but he didn’t want to leave her. And he wanted to tell her about the woman he’d seen down in the water. He chewed his lip. Maybe
tomorrow, he thought.