Conquering Kilmarni (7 page)

"It a little noisy in here, don't you would say?" Zackie remarked with a grin. "Mek we go outside to eat, huh?"

They sat outside the hut with their backs against one of its bamboo walls and ate the lunch Zackie had provided, sharing it with Mongoose. Every mouthful tasted good to Peter.

Zackie urged Peter to go back down then. "You will get too tired if you work any more at this," he warned. "Besides, if you don't quit, me must have to give you part
of the money Mr. Campbell will pay me for the job." There was a sparkle in his eyes. "You would not want that to happen, would you, with me so poor me must have to hunt dangerous wild pigs for a living?"

Equally solemn, Peter said, "No, I would not want that to happen," and both boys grinned. Then Peter said goodbye and started back down to the house.

He stopped in field six, thinking his father might still be there, but Mr. Devon had left. "He left soon after you did," Mr. Campbell said. "He had to go to Morant Bay for the paybill money."

At the house Miss Lorrie asked Peter what he wanted for lunch and seemed surprised when he told her he had already eaten lunch with Zackie. "Where?" she asked. "In a shop somewhere?"

He hesitated. Most likely it would be all right to tell her he knew where Zackie's secret garden was—after all, she knew Zackie had such a garden—but then again, maybe he shouldn't. He couldn't say yes to her question, though, or she would ask him what shop and then he would have to tell still another lie and would probably get tangled up in them before she got through questioning him. "We worked together on the track," he said at last, "and he had some sardines."

"Sardines! That is not enough for a growing boy!"

"Zackie had some bammies, too, Miss Lorrie," he said. "I'm not hungry. Honest."

She frowned at him while making up her mind. "Well,
all right. But if you get hungry, you say so. By the way, if you see Zackie again, you must warn him to be extra careful. Him daddy searching high and low for him."

"I'll see him again, Miss Lorrie. I'll warn him."

M
r. Devon returned from the Bay a little after four o'clock and put the paybill money into what he smilingly called his "safe." This was one of a row of books he had bought by mail since becoming the owner of Kilmarnie. They were all books about coffee—how it was first found in Africa, how it was grown and processed in other parts of the world now, and how it was marketed.

Mr. Devon had transformed one of the larger books into a secret hiding place by hollowing out its pages with a razor blade. When it was on the shelf with the others, no one would guess it was only a shell. That day, after putting the money into it, he turned to Peter and said with a touch of weariness, "I think I'll go to my room for a while, son. It was hot down there in the Bay and I'm a little tired. If I'm wanted for anything important, come and call me, will you?"

"Yes, Dad. Of course."

It wasn't the sea-level heat that had taken the starch out of him, Peter knew. The road to Morant Bay went by
the cemetery where Mom and Mark were buried, and when Dad went there alone he never failed to walk in and stand by their graves for a few minutes. Then all the memories came back, and the loneliness took hold again, and for hours—even days, sometimes—he seemed old and tired again.

Peter watched his father walk slowly from the office and then went downstairs to the kitchen, where he knew Miss Lorrie would be putting away the groceries Dad had bought in the Bay supermarkets. Dad always did that because the villages of Rainy Ridge, Trinityville, and Seaforth, between Kilmarnie and the Bay, had only small shops. Mr. Devon had bought a bagful of Jamaican beef patties at a Morant Bay bakery, too, and Miss Lorrie asked Peter if he wanted one.

"You like them, don't you?" she said.

"You bet!" The patties were shaped like half moons and made of flaky pastry filled with a spicy meat mixture. One day last week Peter'd heard a worker complaining that they were too expensive now. "Them used to cost a shilling before the money changed from pounds to dollars. Now some of them cost a dollar, as if all of we did become rich of a sudden."

Peter was standing in the kitchen doorway, eating a patty Miss Lorrie had heated for him, when Mr. Campbell came from the direction of the garage.

"Hello, Peter," the headman said. "Is your father around?"

"Yes, Mr. Campbell. But he's resting. If it's important, though—"

"No, no, it's not important. I just wanted to show him—" The headman glanced back at the garage. "Why don't I show you, and you can tell him about it?"

"Sure."

Peter followed Mr. Campbell to the garage, expecting him to go inside. But the headman walked around the garage to the mule pen in back of it, where he kept the cantankerous riding mule he called Nasty. When he opened the gate, the mule stopped feeding and jerked his head up to stare at them as they went past him to the shelter in the far corner.

Under the shelter's galvanized roof the headman moved a bed of dry grass with his foot and said, "Look at this, Peter."

His foot had uncovered some empty crocus sacks. With them was a paper bag from which he took two tins of sardines, one of them empty, and three rock-hard bammies and some small, half-ripe bananas. "This is where your friend Zackie slept last night, Peter."

Peter nodded. "I know. He told me."

"He told you?"

"Yes, sir. He couldn't go home or to Miss Lorrie's house. His father was looking for him."

Mr. Campbell turned to peer at the mule, who was still standing there like a statue, gazing at them as if trying to make up his mind whether to charge them or not. "Nasty sleeps here in this shelter," he said. "Peter, have
you any idea what would happen if you or I tried to share that animal's bed?"

"What would happen, Mr. Campbell?"

"Most likely we'd get our ribs kicked in. That mule will stay on his best behavior all day just to get a chance to kick you when you're not looking." The headman chuckled, and then frowned again. "I think your dad ought to know about this. I can appreciate why Zackie doesn't want to go home, but if he's planning on turning this into a second home for himself ... Well, he could get hurt, and I don't think we want that."

Peter nodded. "Just as soon as Dad wakes up, I'll tell him."

"Good." The headman let his hand rest on Peter's shoulder. "And see that Zackie gets something fit to eat, will you? He must be hungry."

Peter returned alone to the house and talked to Miss Lorrie in the kitchen. She agreed that something had to be done about where Zackie was sleeping. About his going hungry she was not so concerned. "Him have money," she said. "Him can buy things to eat and drink in any shop."

"He's saving his money to go to Kingston and find his mother."

"Me know that. But him can spare a little to keep alive." She put a hand to her face in that way she had when she was thinking. "Have you thought of asking you dad if Zackie can sleep here in the house?"

Peter nodded. "Yes, I have."

"Well?"

"I think he might say yes, but be unhappy about it. What I mean ... He lives all alone with his memories, Miss Lorrie. Like a hermit. And ... and ..."

"Me understand. Yes."

"Anyway, I don't know if this would be a good time to ask him, Miss Lorrie. He stopped at the cemetery today, I think."

"And did walk in and stand there talking to those two stones with the name Devon on them." The housekeeper sighed and shook her head. "No man should have to suffer like that, Peter. It not right. But taking in Zackie would be good for him, me do believe. So why you don't ask him, anyway?"

When Peter's father came from his room, it was nearly time for the evening meal. Peter was in the living room, reading. By the long, deep lines in Walter Devon's face, Peter knew that his father had not been sleeping. Probably he had not even been lying down, but only sitting in the silence of his room, tormented by his thoughts. When Mr. Devon sat down, Peter told him about Zackie Leonard's sleeping in the mule pen.

"Mr. Campbell says if any of us tried to share that mule's bed, we'd get our ribs kicked in, Dad."

"I'm sure we would."

"Dad. . .”

Mr. Devon looked up slowly, as though his head weighed a lot, and said, "Yes?"

"We've got an awful lot of rooms in this house that we
don't use for anything. You suppose Zackie could have one of them to sleep in?"

Mr. Devon took his time about answering, then said with a frown, "You like this boy, don't you, Peter?"

"Yes, Dad."

Mr. Devon obviously was reluctant to have Zackie move in with them. His frown told Peter that much. After a silence he said, "What does Miss Lorrie say about it? I'm sure you've talked this over with her."

"It was her idea. I'd been thinking about it before she mentioned it, though."

"All right, then. I still don't think it will work out, mind you, but it looks as though I'm overruled." Mr. Devon, too, stood up. "You say he slept with Campbell's mule in the pen last night? It's almost dark out. Let's see if he's there now."

But Zackie was not in the mule pen, either then or half an hour later when they went out to look again just before Miss Lorrie put dinner on the table. The pen's only occupant was Winston Campbell's ill-tempered mule, who on their last visit was actually lying on Zackie's bed of grass under the zinc roof. Peter wondered whether Nasty was promising the Jamaican boy a rough time if he dared to come back or was protecting the bed for him.

A
fter dinner Mr. Devon suggested they go out to the mule pen again. It was really dark now, and the diesel generator was softly chugging away in the garage to provide electricity for the house and for the headman's cot
tage. There would be no light in the mule pen, though, so Mr. Devon handed Peter a flashlight and carried one himself.

As they approached the pen this time, Peter heard something—not in the wire enclosure itself but in some guava bushes nearby. Swiftly turning on one foot, he drilled the bushes with his flashlight beam.

It was not Zackie who crouched there, but the boy's father. Blinking in the sudden glare, Merrick Leonard lurched to his feet with a drunken snarl, then lost his balance and almost fell before one hand grabbed a bush branch. His other hand clutched a length of thick bamboo, and when his eyes adjusted to the flashlight glare they seemed to Peter to be unnaturally small. Their whites were red.

With his heart thumping in his chest, Peter stopped short. But his father was not frightened. Walter Devon strode toward the intruder without hesitation, and the anger in his voice surprised Peter.

"I dislike prowlers, Mr. Leonard!"

"Me nuh prowlin'." The man's words were heavy and slurred. "Me come for me son."

"And hide yourself here with a club? What kind of man are you? Get out of here!"

"If me want to punish me own son for—"

"Out!"

The bamboo stick whistled at Mr. Devon's head as Leonard lurched forward. It struck home, too, and Peter realized that Dad must have felt something like an ex
plosion behind his eyes. His eyes almost popped from their sockets, and Mr. Devon took in a quick, gasping breath.

But then a strange thing happened. Dad did not stagger backward from the blow, as Peter had expected. Instead, he seemed steady as a rock and filled with strength. Dropping his flashlight, he seized the bamboo stick and wrenched it from Leonard's grasp as if Leonard were a mere child.

Never before had Peter seen his father lift a hand to anyone in anger, but he did now. Mr. Devon swung the bamboo high and took a single step forward, ready to bring the stick crashing down on Leonard's head.

"Get out, Mr. Leonard. Now."

It was said so quietly that Peter almost didn't hear it. Leonard did, and recognized the honest fury behind it. The man staggered back with both hands flapping in front of his face, then turned and fled.

Mr.
Devon
did not pursue him. He simply stood there, shaking. Long after the crashing sound of footfalls had died away to silence, he continued to stand there motionless except for the shaking. At last the shaking stopped.

Seemingly unaware that Peter was still with him, he dropped the bamboo stick, picked up his flashlight, and walked slowly back to the house. Peter followed in silence, feeling proud. Not until they reached the veranda steps did Mr. Devon seem to remember he was not alone. Turning, he looked at Peter.

"Oh, there you are. Peter, that man won't return to-night. I don't believe Zackie will be coming at this late hour, either."

"I'm afraid you're right, Dad. And, Dad, you were terrific."

"Thanks, son. Thanks a lot."