Riley drove slowly through the suburbs of Trois Fourches, hampered by the throngs in the streets. The usual half-naked small boys diced with death before the wheels of his car, shrieking with laughter as he blew his horn; the bullock carts and sagging trucks created their usual traffic jams, and the chatter of the crows was deafening....the situation was normal and Riley relaxed as he got out of the town and was able to increase speed.
The road to St. Simon wound up from Trois Fourches through the lush Ochoa Valley, bordered with banana, pineapple, and sugar plantations and overlooked by the frowning heights of the Massif de Mallicar. "It seems that last night's disturbance was a false alarm," said Riley. "In spite of what Fletcher said this morning."
"I don't know if I really like Fletcher, after all," said Davon pensively. "Newspaper reporters remind me of buzzards, somehow."
"I can't talk about him," said Riley. "He makes a living out of disaster--so do I."
She was shocked. "It's not the same at all. At least you're trying to minimize disaster."
"So is he, according to his lights. I've read some of his stuff and it's very good; full of compassion at the damn silliness of the human race. I think he was truly sorry to find out he was right about the situation here---if he is right, of course. I hope to god he's not."
She made an impatient movement with her shoulders. "Let's forget about him, shall we? Let's forget about him and Martinet and---what's his name---Sorel."
He slowed to avoid collision with a wandering bullock cart loaded with rocks and jerked his head back at the armed soldier by the road. "It's not so easy to forget Martinet, not with that kind of thing going on."
Davon looked back. "Not with what kind of thing going on?"
"The grande douleur---forced labor on the roads. All the peasants have to do it. It's a holdover from pre-revolutionary France which Martinet makes pay most handsomely. It has never stopped on Esperance." He nodded to the roadside. "It's the same with these plantations; they were once owned by foreign companies---French and American, mostly. Martinet nationalized the lot by expropriation when he came to power. He runs them as his own private preserve with convict labor---and it doesn't take much to become a convict on this island, so he's never short of workers. They're becoming run down now."
She said in a low voice. "How can you bear to live here----in the midst of all this misery?"
"My work is here, Davon. What I do here helps to save lives all over the Caribbean and in America, and this is the best place to do it. I can't do anything about Martinet; if I tried I'd be killed, jailed or deported and that would do nobody any good. So, like Rogers and everybody else, I stick close to the Base and concentrate on my own job."
He paused to negotiate a bad bend. "Not that I like it, of course."
"So you wouldn't consider moving out---say, to a Stateside research job?"
"I'm doing my best work here," said Riley. "Besides, I'm a West Indian---this is my home, poor as it is."
He drove for several miles and at last pulled off the road on to the verge. "Do you remember this?"
"How could I forget it?" she said, and left the car to look at the panorama spread before her. In the distance was the sea, a gleaming plate of beaten silver. Immediately below were the winding loops of the dusty road they had just ascended and between the road and the sea was the magnificent Ochoa Valley leading down to St. Simon Bay with Rivière de la Paix on the far side and Trois Fourches, a miniature city,, nestling in the curve of the bay.
Riley didn't look at the view---he found Davon a more satisfying sight as she stood on the edge of the precipitous drop with the trade wind blowing her skirt and molding the dress to her body. She pointed across the valley to where the sun reflected from falling water. "What's that?"
"La Cascade de l'Argent---on the P'tit Ochoa." He walked across and joined her. "The P'tit Ochoa joins the Grande Ochoa down in the valley. You can't see the confluence from here."
She took a deep breath. "It's one of the most wonderful sights I've ever seen. I wondered if you'd ever show it to me again."
"I'm always willing to oblige," he said. "Is this why you came back to Esperance?"
She laughed uncertainly. "One of the reasons."
He nodded. "It's a good reason. I hope the others are as good."
Her voice was muffled because she'd dropped her head. "I hope so, too?"
"Aren't you sure?"
She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. "No, Riley, I'm not sure at all."
He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him. "A pity," he said, and kissed her. She came, unresisting, into his arms and her lips parted under his. He felt her arms go about him, drawing him closer, until at last she broke away.
"I don't know about that," she said. "I'm still not sure---but I'm not sure about being not sure."
He said, "How would you like to live here---on Esperance?"
Davon looked at him warily. "Is that some kind of a proposition?"
"Something like that, yes," Riley said, rubbing the side of his jaw. "I couldn't go on living at the Base, not with you giving up the exotic life of an air hostess, so we'd have to find a house. How would you like to live somewhere up here?"
"Oh, Riley, I'd like that very much," she cried, and they were both incoherent for a considerable time.
After a while Riley said, "I don't understand why you were so standoffish; you clung on to Fletcher like a blood brother last night."
"Damn you, Riley Martin!" Davon retorted. "I was scared. I was chasing a man and women aren't supposed to do that. I got cold feet at the final moment and was scared of making an ass out of myself."
"So you did come here to see me?"
She ruffled his hair. "You don't see much in people, do you, Riley? You're so wrapped up in your hurricanes and formulas. Of course I came to see you!" She picked up his hand and examined the fingers one by one. "I've been out with lots of guys and sometimes I've wondered if this time it was the one---women do think that way, you know. And every time you got in the way of my thinking, so I knew I had to come back to straighten it out. I had to have you in my heart altogether or I had to get you out of my system totally--If I could. And you kept writing those deadpan letters of yours which made me wanted to scream."
He grinned. "I was never very good at writing passion. But I see I've been properly caught by a designing woman, so let's celebrate." He walked over to the car. "I filled a Thermos with your favorite tipple---Lacan's Nectar. I departed from the strict formula in the name of sobriety and the time of day---this has less rum and more lime. It's quite refreshing."
They sat overlooking the Ochoa and sampled the punch. Davon said, "I don't know much about you, Riley. You said last night that you were born in St. Kitts---Where's that?"
Riley waved. "An island over to the southeast. It's really St. Christopher, but it's been called St. Kitts for the last four hundred years. Christophe, the Black Emperor of Haiti, took his name from St. Kitts---he was a runaway slave. It's quite a place."
"Has your family always lived there?"
"We weren't aborigines, you know, but there have been Martins on St. Kitts since the early 1600s. They were planters, fishermen---sometimes pirates, so I'm told---a motely crowd." He sipped the punch. "I'm the final Martin of St. Kitts."
"That's a shame. What happened?"
"A hurricane in the middle of the last century nearly did in the island. 3/4 of the Martins were killed; in fact, 3/4 of the population were killed. Then came the period of depression in the Caribbean---competition from Brazilian coffee, East African sugar, and so on, and the few Martins that were left moved out. My parents hung on until just after I was born, then they moved down to Grenada where I grew up."
"Where's Grenada?"
"South along the island chain, north of Trinidad. Just north of Grenada lies the Grenadines, a string of little islands which are as close to a tropical paradise as you'll find in the Caribbean. I'll take you down there some day. We lived on one of those until I was ten. Then I went to England."
"Your parents sent you to school there, then?"
He shook his head. "No, they were killed. There was another hurricane. I went to live with an aunt in England; she brought me up and saw to my schooling."
Davon said gently. "Is that why you hate hurricanes?"
"I suppose it is. We've got to get down to controlling the damn things some time, and I thought I'd do my bit. We can't do much yet beyond organizing early warning systems and so on, but the time will come when we'll be able to stop a hurricane in its tracks, powerful though it is. There's quite a bit of work being done on that." He smiled at her. "Now you know all about Riley Martin."
"Not all, but there's plenty of time for the rest," she said contentedly.
"What about your life story?"
"That will have to wait, too," she said, pushing away his questing hand and jumping up, "Now, what about that swim you promised?"
They got into the car and Davon stared up at the viridian-green hills of the Massif de Mallicar. Riley said, "That's bad country---infertile, pathless, disease-ridden. It's where Sorel held out until he was killed. An army could get lost up there---in fact, several have."
"Oh?! When was this?"
"The first time was when Napoleon tried to crush the Slave Revolt. The main effort was in Haiti, of course, but as a side-issue, General LeClerc sent a regiment to Esperance to stifle the slave rebellion here. The regiment landed without incident and marched inland unopposed. Then it marched up here---and was never heard from again."
"What happened to them?"
Riley shrugged. "Ambushes---snipers---fever---exhaustion. White men couldn't live up there, but blacks could. But it swallowed another army---a black one this time---not too many years ago. Marinet tried to bring Sorel to open battle by sending in three battalions of the army. They never came out, either; they were on Sorel's home ground."
Davon looked up at the sun-drenched hills and shivered. "The more I hear of the history of Esperance, the more it scares me."
Riley said, "We West Indians laugh when you Americans and the Europeans think the Antilles are a tropical paradise. Why do you suppose New York is flooded with Puerto Ricans, Miami with Cubans, London with Jamaicans? They are the real centers of paradise today. The Caribbean is rotten with poverty and strife and not just Esperance, although it's just as bad here as it can get." He broke off and laughed embarrassedly. "I was forgetting you said you would come here to live---I'm not giving the place much of a buildup, am I?" He was silent for a few minutes, then said thoughtfully, "What you said about doing research in the States makes sense, after all."
"No, Riley," said Davon quietly. "I wouldn't back you into that kind of a corner. I wouldn't start our lives together by breaking up your job.....it wouldn't do either of us any good. We'll make our home here in Esperance and we'll be very happy." She smiled. "And how long do I have to wait before I can have my swim?"
Riley started the car and drove off again. The country changed as they went higher to go over the shoulder of the mountains, plantations giving way to thick tangled green scrub broken only by an occasional clearing occupied by a ramshackle hut. Once a long snake slithered through the dust in front of the slowly moving car and Davon gave a sharp cry of disgust.
"This is a faint shadow of what it's like up in the mountains," observed Riley. "But there aren't any roads up there." Suddenly he pulled the car to a halt and stared at a hut by the side of the road. Davon also looked at it but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary---it was just another one of the windowless shacks made of rammed earth and with a roughly thatched roof. Near the hut a man was pounding a stake into the hard ground."
Riley said, "Excuse me, Davon---I think I'd better talk to that man."
He got out of the car and walked over to the hut to look at the roof. It was covered by a network of cords made from the local sisal. From the net hung longer cords, three of which were attached to stakes driven into the ground. He went around the hut two times, then looked thoughtfully at the man who had not ceased his slow pounding with the big hammer. Formulating his phrases carefully in the barbarous French that these people spoke, he said, "I say, man, what is this thing you do?"
The man looked up, his black face shiny with sweat. He was old, but Riley could not tell how old.....it was difficult with these people. He looked to be about seventy years of age, but was likely about fifty. "Pied-blanc, I make my house safe."
Riley produced a pack of cigarettes and flicked one out. "It is hard work to make your house safe," he said carefully.
The man balanced the hammer on its head and took the cigarette which Riley offered. He bent his head to the match and, sucking the smoke into his lungs, said, "Very hard work, pied-blanc, but I must do it." He examined the cigarette. "American---very good."
Riley lit his own cigarette and turned to survey the hut. "The roof, it must not come off," he agreed. "A house without a roof is like a man without a woman---unfinished. "Have you a woman?"
The man nodded and puffed on his cigarette.
"Why do I not see her?" Riley persisted.
The man blew a cloud of blue-gray smoke into the air, then looked at Riley with blood-flecked brown eyes. "She has gone visiting, pied-blanc."
"With all the children?" said Riley quietly.
"Yes, pied-blanc."
"And you fasten the roof of your house." Riley tapped his foot. "You must fear greatly."
The man's eyes slid away and he shuffled his feet. "Only a fool would not be afraid. No man can fight what is to come."
"The big wind?" asked Riley softly.
The man looked up in surprise. "Of course, pied-blanc, what else?" He struck his hands together smartly and let them fly up into the air. "When the big wind comes---le grand boom."
Riley nodded. "Of course. You do right to make sure of the roof of your house." He paused. "How do you know that the wind comes?"
The man's bare feet scuffled in the hot dust and he looked away. "I know," he mumbled. "I know."
Riley knew better than to persist in that line of questioning.....he'd tried that before. He said, "When will the wind come?"
The man looked at the cloudless blue sky, then stopped and picked up a handful of dust which he dribbled from his fingers. "Two days," he said. "Maybe three days. Not longer."
Riley was shocked at the accuracy of his prediction. If Magda were to strike Esperance at all then those were the time limits, and yet how could this ignorant old man know? He said matter-of-factly, "You have sent your woman and children away."
"There is a cave in the hills," the man said. "When I finish this, I go too."
Riley looked at the hut. "When you go, leave the door open," he said. "The wind does not like closed doors."
"Of course," agreed the man. "A closed door is inhospitable." He looked at Riley with a glint of humor in his eyes. "There may be another wind, pied-blanc; perhaps worse than the hurricane. Sorel is coming down from the mountains."
"He cannot. Sorel is dead."
The man shrugged. "Sorel is coming down from the mountains," he repeated, and swung the hammer again at the top of the stake.
Riley walked back to the car and got into the driver's seat. "What was that all about?" asked Davon.
"He says there's a big wind coming so he's tying down the roof of his house. When the big wind comes---le grand boom."
"What does that mean?"
"A very free translation is that everything is going to come down with one hell of a smash." Riley looked across at the hut and at the man toiling patiently in the blazing sun. "He knows even to leave his door open, too---but I doubt if I could tell you why." He turned to Davon. "I'm sorry, Davon, but I'd like to get back to the Base. There's something I've got to check."
"Of course," said Davon. "You've got to do what you've got to do."
He swung the car around in the clearing and they went down the road. Davon said, "Pat Rogers told me you were worried about Magda. Has this anything to do with it?"
He said, "It's against all logic, of course. It's against everything that I've been taught, but I think we're going to get slammed. I think Magda is going to hit Esperance." He laughed wryly. "Now I've got to convince Turner."
"Will he believe you?"
"What evidence can I give him? A sinking feeling in my guts? An ignorant old man tying on his roof? Turner wants hard facts---pressure gradients, adiabatic rates---figures he can measure and check in the textbooks. I doubt if I'll be able to do it. But I've got to. Trois Fourches is in no batter shape to whether a hurricane than it was in 1911. You've seen the shanty town that's sprung outside---how long do you suppose those shacks would resist a strong wind? And the population has gone up---it's now 60,000. A hurricane hitting now would be a disaster too scary to contemplate."
Unconsciously he had upped the pressure on the accelerator and he slithered around a corner, tires squealing in protest. Davon said, "You won't make things better by getting yourself killed going down this hill."
He slowed down. "Sorry, Davon; I suppose I'm a bit worked up." He shook his head. "It's the fact that I'm helpless that worries me."
She said thoughtfully, "Couldn't you fake your figures or something so that Commodore Rodriguez would have to take notice? If the hurricane didn't come you'd be ruined professionally---but I think you'd be willing to run that risk."
"If I thought it would work, I would do it," said Riley grimly. "But Turner would see through it; he might be stupid but he's not a damn fool and he knows his job from that angle. It can't be done that way."
"Then what are you going to do?"230Please respect copyright.PENANA2aUBZ6nkJY
"I don't know," he said. "I don't know."
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