Conquering Kilmarni (12 page)

"To stop at the cemetery, Dad?"

"Well, yes, we'll do that. But we've been having some heavy afternoon rains lately, remember, and the mountain road can be dangerous in a rain."

"He'll come, Dad. I know he will."

But at four o'clock Zackie still had not shown up. Frowning at the watch on his wrist, Mr. Devon took in a big breath, let it out, and stood up. "I'll bring the car down," he said. "You wait here just in case."

Peter sat there staring at the entrance, praying Zackie
would suddenly appear. But Zackie did not, and when the car came down the ramp with Dad at the wheel, he gave up hope and got into it.

His father was right about the rain. It began before they were out of the city and continued in a downpour all the time they were traveling the coastal highway to the Bay. Peter hoped it would keep up, so that when they reached the cemetery they would not get out of the car and walk in to the graves but only sit there awhile. He could appreciate Dad's feelings—after all, he shared them—but he hated to see his father go into such a state of depression afterward.

The rain quit before they reached the Bay, though, and when they stopped at the cemetery gate, Dad got out of the car. He didn't say, "Come, Peter," or "Are you coming, son?" or anything; he just stepped out and stood waiting until Peter got out, too. Then he took Peter's hand and the two of them walked in over the wet grass to the graves. The graves were side by side, with names and dates on the headstones.

Dad still didn't say anything. He only stood in front of Mom's grave for a few minutes with his head bowed, then moved to Mark's and did the same there. When he turned and started back to the car, it was as though Peter did not exist anymore. In silence Peter followed him to the car and got in.

Before they reached the town of Seaforth, with rain again pounding the car's roof, Dad broke the silence. "How did you say Zackie would get home, son?"

"On the Rainy Ridge truck, Dad. That's what he said, anyway."

"Mmm." Mr. Devon shook his head. "I wonder if the trucker will make the trip in this weather."

Peter knew what he meant. The truck used the mountain road, not this one, because the people who used it for transportation lived along that road. Peter had been over it in a hard rain with his father, and it was a kind of journey not easily forgotten.

The rain had begun that day when they were climbing Cambridge Hill on their way home from town. It was a downpour by the time they reached the bridge over the Yallahs at Ramble. Looking down as they crossed the bridge, Mr. Devon had said, "Up in the mountains it must have begun much earlier than this. See how high the river is.”

Usually they could hear the planks rattle under the car's wheels when they drove over that bridge, which was said to be the highest in the island. That afternoon all they could hear was the roar of the river as it rushed over its rocky bed, far below.

So if Zackie couldn't come home on the Rainy Ridge truck, what would he do? Would he stay with his mother in town, maybe?

It was dark when the little English car rolled into Kilmarnie's garage. All but exhausted from driving with the rain streaming down the windshield and long stretches of the road hidden by rushing water, Mr. Devon let him
self go limp behind the wheel and let out a long "Whew!"

Through the continuing downpour, father and son ran from the garage to the house, where Miss Lorrie had the door open before they reached the top of the veranda steps. "Zackie don't come with you?" she asked, peering out at the yard.

"He'll be on the truck," Peter said.

She waited until they were inside, with the door closed. Then she looked at them and said, "The truck? There will not be no truck in a rain like this, if the driver have any sense."

Looking worried, and perhaps even feeling a little guilty, Mr. Devon said, "I guess we should have waited for him, Peter. I'd better drive down to the village to pick him up when the truck does come." He turned to Lorrie. "What time do you think that might be, Lorrie?"

"Who could even guess, Mr. Devon? Anyway, him can walk. That boy is no stranger to rain." Gazing at both of them, she shook her head. "And look at you two. You must change into some dry clothes whilst me fetch dinner."

Peter went to his room to change. When he returned to the living room, he found Miss Lorrie putting food on the table. "You really don't think the truck will come, Miss Lorne?"

"No, me don't," she said. "Zackie could take the bus to the
Bay,
though."

Zackie had said the same thing, Peter remembered.
But, of course, he might have trouble getting up from the Bay in this weather, too. Nobody liked to drive the island's roads in a hard rain.

Peter and his father ate supper to the sounds of the power plant chugging and the rain relentlessly pounding the roof. Miss Lorrie cleared the table and said she would have to stay the night or drown trying to get home. Mr. Devon made a fire in the fireplace, and then sat in front of it with a loose-leaf notebook. He and some of the other plantation owners were to meet soon to discuss their common problems, and for quite a while now he had been writing down things that he thought ought to be brought up at the meeting. He had to be well prepared, he had said, because he would be the only one present who was not a Jamaican.

Dad looked tired, Peter thought. No wonder, after spending the whole day in Kingston and driving back in such a rain. And, of course, stopping at the cemetery.

Miss Lorrie, coming up from the kitchen, looked at them and shook her head. "If you two waiting for Zackie, you may be sitting here all night," she said. "So me better say good-night and go look me bed."

An hour later Mr. Devon finally stopped studying his notes and rose from his chair. "Perhaps we should leave the front door unlocked, Peter," he said. "I don't believe Zackie would wake us up if he found it locked. What do you think?"

"All right, Dad. Nobody would come prowling around on a night like this, I guess."

"Then let's do it and go to bed," Mr. Devon said. "I'm about as tired as I can get."

T
here was no sign of Zackie when Peter awoke in the morning. The rain had stopped. Miss Lorrie was singing a Jamaican folk song as she set the table for breakfast. "Every time me 'member Liza, water come-a me eye," she sang. "Come back, Liza, come back, gal, water come-a me eye."

Still in his pajamas, Peter looked in his father's room on his way to take a shower and saw that the bed was empty. Good, he thought. Physically, Dad was in great shape from all the walking he had to do on the plantation, and being tired was a thing he could get over fast. What wore him down for days at a time was being depressed.

His father was waiting to have breakfast with him when Peter finished showering, and Miss Lorrie said they would probably hear soon if the truck had come in from the city the night before. "Some of the coffee workers will know," she predicted.

But while Peter was on the veranda after breakfast, waiting for the first of the workers to come up from Mango Gap so he could question them, the police Land-Rover came growling down the driveway. Corporal Buckley was driving it.

The tall policeman climbed the veranda steps slowly, as though carrying an invisible weight on his back. "Good morning, lad," he said. "Is your father here?"

The double doors were open, and Mr. Devon was at the big mahogany table, copying into an account book some figures from scraps of paper Mr. Campbell had given him over the past few days. "Come in, Corporal," he called, getting up. "What can I do for you?"

The policeman came only a few feet into the room. "I have bad news, Mr. Devon."

In the silence that followed, Peter went to stand beside his father. Somehow he was certain the bad news concerned Zackie.

"What is it, Corporal?" Mr. Devon said.

"Zackie Leonard has been hurt."

Peter felt his father's hand on his own, first only touching it, then clasping it. "Hurt?" Mr. Devon said. "How badly?"

"I'm not sure. He was on a bus coming from Kingston to Morant Bay, it seems, and there was an accident. The road was wet, of course. The bus skidded off it near White Horses to avoid some animal and tipped over. Zackie and three others were taken to the hospital."

"The Princess Margaret, you mean?" That was a hospital near the Bay.

The corporal nodded. "If you go there to see him, I would appreciate your stopping at the station on your way back, to tell me how he is. Will you be going, do you think?"

Mr. Devon did not answer the question right away. Still clutching Peter's hand, he looked at Peter, and his face was white as he said in a low voice, "This is my fault,
Peter. If I hadn't been so anxious to stop at the cemetery if we had waited for him a little longer. . ." Then he seemed to pull himself together by giving his head a shake, and said to Corporal Buckley, "Of course, of course. We'll go right away. Right now!"

The corporal said, "I'd go with you to check on the boy and talk to him again about this thieving, but I can't leave here. He knows more about it than he's letting on, you can be sure." His voice became less stern. "By the way, a woman who was on the bus said she sat beside him and talked to him before the accident. She said you took him to Kingston to look for his mother."

"Yes, we did."

"He found her, the woman told me."

"I'm glad, Corporal," Mr. Devon said.

"So am I. She was a fine woman when I knew her. A fine country girl. I hope she comes back here to live, now that she knows the boy wants her. The city is no fit place for country people."

Mr. Devon nodded. "Do they have visiting hours at the hospital, Corporal?" he asked.

"Yes. But I'm sure if you want to see him—"

"We do. And we thank you for coming to tell us about this. But now, if you'll excuse us, we ought to be finding out. . ." Mr. Devon turned to Peter. "Are you ready, son?"

"Yes, Dad, I'm ready." Peter's mouth had gone dry, and he had trouble getting the words out. How badly, he asked himself, was Zackie hurt? Thinking about it scared him.

T
he hospital was just outside the town of Morant Bay, on the coastal road that ran around the island. Peter guessed it had been built and named the Princess Margaret when Jamaica was still an English colony.

His father parked the car, and the two of them hurried up the walk to the main entrance. A woman in white, at a desk, listened to Mr. Devon's explanation of why they had come and said, yes, they could see Zackie. She told them where to go, and they climbed a flight of stairs to a ward with a number of beds in it. A doctor was walking from bed to bed, talking to the patients.

"There he is!" Peter said, pointing. "Over by the window, Dad!"

The doctor glanced at them but said nothing as they passed him on their way to Zackie's bed. The boy was sitting up with his back against some pillows, staring into space as if his thoughts were far away. When he saw them, his whole face changed.

"Hey!" Zackie cried. "Mr. Devon and Peter!"

They stood beside the bed, Peter on one side, his father on the other. Zackie's left arm was bandaged from the shoulder to the elbow, Peter saw. He was able to move it, though.

"How are you feeling?" Mr. Devon asked, and something in his voice made Peter glance at him. Then something in his eyes caused Peter to keep on looking.

"Me all right, Mr. Devon," Zackie replied. "The doctor say me can go home tomorrow, maybe."

"He can go home today if you folks came in a car," said a voice behind Peter, and Peter turned quickly to see the doctor standing there. He was a young brown man with a beard, and he was smiling. "Is Zackie a friend of yours?"

Mr. Devon nodded. "Yes, doctor, he is. How badly is he hurt, please?"

"He gashed his arm on broken glass. Others on the bus were more seriously injured, I'm sorry to say." The doctor reached out to put a hand on Zackie's head. "This boy has been a good patient. Are you the Mr. Devon he works for?"

Peter's father smiled. "I'm Walter Devon. I own the Kilmarnie estate, and, yes, Zackie does work for me."

The doctor smiled back. "Zackie, would you like to go home now?" he asked.

Zackie said, "Yes, suh!" in a voice loud enough to wake up the ward.

"I trust you know where the clinic is in Rainy Ridge," the doctor said.

Zackie nodded.

"I'll give you a note to the doctor there, and you should call on him tomorrow. If he wants to see you after that, he'll tell you. Agreed?"

"Yes, suh!"

"You can get dressed now, while I write the note." Nodding to Mr. Devon and Peter, the doctor hurried from the room.

By the time he returned, Mr. Devon and Peter had helped Zackie wriggle out of the hospital gown he was wearing, and into his clothes. They were the same clothes the boy had worn all along, Peter realized. Zackie certainly didn't spend any of his hard-earned money on things he didn't consider important.