Conquering Kilmarni (9 page)

The corporal did not look pleased. But before he could speak in anger, if that was what he meant to do, Mr. Campbell leaned across the table and motioned to catch his attention.

"Look, Corpie," Mr. Campbell said. "What Mr. Devon is afraid of is you making a whole lot of trouble with so many workers here. It would cause a big commotion, if you see what I mean. Why don't you just stand back over there, sort of out of the way, and see if young Leonard actually does come for his money. That way all the other workers won't be wondering what's going on."

The corporal looked around, as if trying to decide where to position himself.

"Over there by the veranda steps would be a good place," Mr. Campbell said.

The corporal turned and walked to the foot of the steps. He was still standing there straight as a flagpole when
Mr. Devon and Mr. Campbell and Peter finished getting the pay envelopes ready, and was still there, though not quite so much at attention, when four o'clock came and the workers began to arrive.

Some came in groups, others alone. One at a time they stepped up to the table for their envelopes, then moved away to take out the money to count it.

Before long Zackie Leonard came walking down the driveway, Mongoose at his heels.

At the sight of them, Peter thought his heart would stop beating. It was obvious Zackie did not know Corporal Buckley was standing by the veranda steps. Evidently he hadn't even considered the possibility that a policeman might be waiting for him. As he hurried to the table, with Mongoose bouncing along after him, he waved to Peter and said, "Hi!" Then when he stepped into the line, he had his back to the yard and did not see Corporal Buckley coming up behind him.

There had been a hum of voices in the yard, as there always was when the workers assembled for their pay. It stopped dead now, and the policeman took his last few steps in a kind of frightening silence.

Suddenly Zackie must have sensed he was the reason for that silence. A look of fear touched his face, and he spun around to see what was happening.

The corporal's right hand closed on his arm. Mongoose voiced a shrill yelp of protest and dashed forward to grab a red-striped trouser leg in his teeth. Zackie all but twisted himself into a knot in his strug
gle to escape, but it was no use. The corporal simply stood there and held him. Trying to help him, Mongoose tugged wildly at the man's pant leg. At the table, Peter leaned forward, almost not breathing as he waited to see what the policeman would do next.

What he did was a surprise, in a way. Still holding on to Zackie, he looked down at the dog, gave the captured leg a shake, and said almost mildly, "Hey! You stop that now!" Then when Mongoose ignored him, he didn't kick the dog, as Peter thought he might, but only reached down with his free hand, picked Mongoose up by the scruff of the neck, and held him off the ground until he let go. When he was dropped, Mongoose backed away a yard or so and sat there looking up at the corporal, as if puzzled by such nonviolent behavior.

Then the corporal turned his attention to the boy and did what he had told Peter's father he would do. He asked questions. "Zackie," he said, "there has been a lot of thieving going on around here in the past few days. Are you the one doing it?"

Zackie stopped staring at Mongoose and shifted his gaze to the corporal. "No!" he answered loudly.

"Why should I believe you when you say that?" the policeman demanded. "Tell me why, please. You were caught stealing in Mr. Lee's shop not long ago."

"That different! Me daddy, him sick with a bad headache and did want some aspirin, and me didn't have nuh money fe buy it!" Zackie meant, Peter supposed, that he hadn't had any money in his pockets, because even then
he must have had some hidden in his secret garden. "Anyway, me never did steal the aspirin," Zackie protested loudly. "Mr. Lee did run me out of him shop before me could take it."

The corporal continued to hold him, while everyone present, including Mongoose, watched and waited. "Zackie, I went to your house last night to talk to you, and you weren't there. Where were you?" he demanded.

Zackie hesitated for a few seconds while returning the man's stare. Then he said defiantly, "Me not saying where in front of all these people, Corpie. Someone could tell me daddy."

"You mean your father doesn't know where you were? What's going on here, anyway? Are you hiding from him?"

Zackie nodded reluctantly.

"Why?" the policeman wanted to know.

Mr. Devon answered that from the table. "Because this boy shot a wild pig on my property, Corporal, and his father wanted it."

The tall policeman turned his head. "I thought you didn't allow shooting on this property, Mr. Devon."

"I don't. But that's a matter for the boy and me to settle."

"And his father wanted the pig? To sell, you mean?"

"To sell, yes. So he could buy more rum to stay drunk on, it would seem. And I believe there are some other things you ought to know before you accuse this boy of stealing," Mr. Devon added quietly. "So why don't you
and I have a little talk at the house, Corporal, as soon as I'm finished with the paybill here?"

"Well . . ."

"You owe Zackie that, wouldn't you say?"

The corporal thought about it, then turned to Zackie. "All right, boy," he said. "But if you
are
the one who's been doing the thieving around here, you'll have me to deal with in the end, and you'll wish you'd told the truth, I'm warning you." His hand fell away from Zackie's arm, letting the boy step back.

Peter half expected Zackie to turn and run then, before Corporal Buckley could change his mind. But instead of running, the boy stood motionless for a few seconds, gazing up at the tall man's face, then turned slowly to direct his gaze at the table.

"Mr. Devon," he said, "me thank you, suh." Then, looking down at the ground, he walked slowly across the yard and up the driveway, Mongoose beside him, while everyone in the yard watched.

Peter first wanted to leap up and run after them, then to call out to Zackie to wait. But he felt that Zackie would not like it. So he simply sat there with his father and Mr. Campbell until the boy was out of sight.

The unreal silence ended then, and the murmuring began again, swelling to a peak as the workers talked excitedly about what had happened. Mr. Devon gathered up the paybill books and motioned Corporal Buckley to follow him to the house.

Peter waited for the yard to clear before he left the
garage. Climbing the veranda steps, he hesitated at the top. The big double doors were open at that hour to catch the warmth and brightness of the late-afternoon sun, and he saw his father and the policeman seated in the living room. They stopped talking and looked at him as he approached the threshold.

"Will it be all right if I come in?" he said.

The sudden frown on the corporal's face probably meant no, but Mr. Devon was the one who answered. "I think you should," he said with a nod. "Come and sit down, please."

What interested Peter for the next hour or so was not so much what his father and Corporal Buckley said. It was the slow but steady change of expression on his dad's face while they were talking.

Mr. Devon had not willingly become involved with Zackie Leonard's troubles. Peter knew that. Probably he was still fighting it. But the man talking to Corporal Buckley in the Kilmarnie living room was not quite the same Walter Devon who had come home full of despair and loneliness the day after visiting the cemetery where Mom and Mark were buried. It might be against his will that he was changing, but a change was taking place.

Mr. Devon told the corporal about Zackie and the pig, filling in some details of what had happened. He told how Zackie was afraid of his father, yet felt he had a duty to look after the man whenever he could.

The corporal talked mostly about the beginnings of
Zackie's troubles. "Before I came to Rainy Ridge I was stationed in Seaforth," he said, "and I knew Merrick Leonard when he lived there with Zackie's mother. Her name is Elaine Grant."

"You knew the boy's mother, Corporal?"

The tall man nodded. "I knew her. She is a good woman, younger than Leonard. When I was her friend, she was keeping house for a lady on a sugar plantation, and it was like going to school again. I mean, the lady taught her to read and write better, and to speak good English. But then Elaine took up with Merrick Leonard—he worked on the plantation—and went to live with him, and had Zackie."

"And then realized Leonard was no good, and left him?"

"And went to Kingston to find work, leaving the baby with her own mother. I'm sure she had no idea what would happen when she did that, Mr. Devon."

"Do you know where she is now?" Mr. Devon asked.

Peter had been trying to do two things at once: listen to what his father and Corporal Buckley were saying, and think about Zackie. Rain had begun to fall again and he was remembering how the Jamaican boy had walked up the driveway with his head down, as if he were walking out of their lives forever. With the rain pounding the roof, he wondered where Zackie was sleeping now. It could be cold in the Blue Mountains on a rainy night.

Zackie wouldn't be seeking shelter at Miss Lorrie's house; it wasn't safe for him there. Maybe he would walk up to his garden. If he did that, he would find the note.

But would he want to walk all that way in a rain so hard it would soak him to the skin? There were small fertilizer shelters scattered through the coffee fields. He might decide to bed down in one of those.

Mr. Devon's question snapped Peter out of his anxious reverie. Did the corporal know where Zackie's mother was? Alert again, Peter stared at the tall man and waited for the answer.

"Yes, Mr. Devon, I do."

"You do?"

Corporal Buckley nodded. "As it happens, I have a sister who lives near the Constant Spring market in Kingston. Elaine is now a higgler there, she tells me." He hesitated, as if not sure he ought to say any more. Then he added very quietly, "I've been thinking I might go there and look for her, Mr. Devon."

Mr. Devon hesitated, too, then apparently decided not to respond to the corporal's last remark. "A higgler?" he said. "She sells things in the market, you mean?"

Corporal Buckley nodded. "She buys certain vegetables from farmers who bring them in from the country, and sells them there at Constant Spring. Most of the city higglers work that way. Some sell one thing, some another."

Peter felt that his ears must be sticking straight out from his head and quivering. He sat statue still, not wanting to miss a word of what came next. If only the rain, now falling harder, would stop making such a racket on the roof!

"Just where is this market?" Mr. Devon asked. "I've
heard of it, but I'm afraid I have no idea how to get there."

"You know where Half Way Tree is, of course."

"Yes."

"Well, you go out Constant Spring Road from there, same way you would go to Stony Hill or across the island to the north coast. It's a big open-air market. You can't miss it."

"I see," Mr. Devon said. "This is most interesting, Corporal. I'm glad we had this little talk."

"But now I'd better go." The man with the red stripes on his pants stood up. "This rain sounds like it's going to get worse and last awhile." To Peter's surprise, he held out his hand. "Sorry if I seemed a little rough before, Mr. Devon, but this stealing is a serious thing. We have a good deal of stealing from gardens and such, of course, but breaking into houses is something that must be nipped in the bud."

"I understand, Corporal."

"And I still say it could be the Leonard boy, in spite of your defending him. I'll be keeping an eye on him."

Mr. Devon nodded, but said quietly, "May I suggest, Corporal, that you also keep an eye on his father? With his addiction to ganja and his drinking—both very expensive habits—to me he also seems a likely suspect."

"I'll do that, too," the policeman said on his way to the door.

He left, and Mr. Devon turned to Peter. "Well, Peter, what do you think?"

"Dad," Peter said, "we're going to Kingston tomorrow, aren't we? You said we were."

"Yes. Why?"

"Can Zackie go with us?"

"Well . . ."

"And can we visit this Constant Spring market Corporal Buckley talked about, so he can look for his mother?"

The change of expression on his father's face told Peter he hoped for too much. The long silence that followed his question did, too. Finally Mr. Devon took in a deep breath, let it out, and said, "Peter, I don't believe we should get any deeper into this than we already are. I do want to be sure Zackie is treated fairly by the police, of course. I think I've shown you that. But to get even more involved . . ."

"But he needs help, Dad. And we're the only ones he can turn to."