Caribbee Part 56

"If this war's as good as lost--which it is--then I've got to get the _Defiance _afloat. As soon as I can." He vaulted into the saddle, and gave his horse the spur. "The Americas just swapped liberty for sugar.

They can have it."

Chapter Sixteen

They had waited in the open field to watch as the moon broke above the eastern horizon, sending faint pastel shimmers through the rows of cane. The first shadow cast by the moon on this the fourth day of the Yoruba week--the day sacred to Ogun--was the signal to begin.

"May Ogun be with you, son of Balogun."

Tahajo, ancient and brittle as the stalks around them, bent over and brushed Atiba's dusty feet. His voice could scarcely be heard above the chorus of crickets. "Tonight, at the first coming of dark, when I could no longer see the lines in the palm of my hand, I sacrificed a c.o.c.k to Ogun, as a prayer that you succeed."

Atiba looked at him with surprise, secretly annoyed that Tahajo had performed the sacrifice without his knowledge. But the old man had the prerogatives of an elder. "What did the sacrifice foretell?"

"I could not discern, Atiba, in truth I could not. The signs were mixed. But they seemed to hold warning." Concern showed in his aged eyes. "Know that if you do not succeed, there will be no refuge for any of us. Remember what the elders of Ife once warned, when our young men called for a campaign of war against the Fulani in the north. They declared 'The locust can eat, the locust can drink, the locust can go-- but where can the gra.s.shopper hide?' We are like gra.s.shoppers, my son, with no compounds or women to return to for shelter if we fail."

"We will not fail." Atiba held up his new machete. Its polished iron glistened in the light of the moon. "Ogun will not turn his face from us."

"Then I pray for you, Atiba." He sighed. "You are surely like the pigeon who feeds among the hawks, fearless of death."

"Tonight, Tahajo, we are the hawks."

"A hawk has talons." The old man looked up at the moon. "What do you have?"

"We will have the claws of a leopard, of steel, before the sun returns." Atiba saluted him in traditional fashion, then turned to Obewole. The tall drummer's arms were heavy with bundles of straw, ready to be fired and hurled among the cane.

"Is everything prepared?"

"The straw is ready." Obewole glanced around at the expectant faces of the men as he stepped forward. "As we are. You alone have the flint."

Atiba called for quiet. Next he intoned an invocation, a whisper under his breath, then circled the men and cast a few drops of water from a calabash toward the four corners of the world. "We will fire this field first." He stood facing them, proud of the determination in their faces. These men, he told himself, are among the finest warriors of Ife. Tonight the _branco _will learn how a Yoruba fights for his people. "The west wind is freshening now and it will carry the flames to the other fields, those in the direction of the rising moon. Next we will fire the curing house, where the _branco _keeps the sweet salt we have made for him with our own hands. Then we will burn his mill house.

Obewole cast a nervous glance at Atiba. "The mill house shelters the great machine made of the sacred iron of Ogun.

Is it wisdom to bring Shango's fire to that place, sacred to Ogun?"

"You know, good Obewole, that in Ife we say, 'Do not expect to find a man wearing white cloth in the compound of a palm-oil maker.'" Atiba's face was expressionless. "Ogun's spirit is not in the mill house tonight. He is here with us."

The drummer bowed in uncertain acknowledgement and turned to begin distributing the straw bundles down the line of men. The young warrior Derin was first, and he eagerly called for two. Atiba watched silently till each man had a sheaf of straw, then he intoned one last prayer. As the words died away into silence, he produced a flint and struck it against the blade of his machete. A shower of sparks flew against the bundle held by Obewole. After the brown stalks had smoldered into flame, the drummer walked slowly down the line of men and, with a bow to each, fired the rest.

Serina settled the candle carefully atop the iron frame supporting the rollers, then stood for a moment studying the flickering shadows it cast across the thatched ceiling of the mill house. From the gables above her head came the chirp of crickets, mingled with the occasional night murmurs of nesting birds.

The room exuded an eerie peacefulness; again it called to mind the sanctuary of whitewash and frangipani scent that had been her home in Pernambuco. Once before, the magic of this deserted mill house had transported her back to that place of long ago, back to gentle afternoons and soft voices and innocence. To the love of her Yoruba mother Dara, and the kindliness of an old _babalawo _so much like Atiba.

Shango's spirit had taken her home. He had come to this place that night, and he had lifted her into his being and taken her back. And here, for the first time, she had understood his awesome power. Shango.

The great, terrifying G.o.d of West Africa was now here in the Caribbees, to guard his people. One day, she told herself, even the Christians would be on their knees to him.

Carefully she unwrapped the wand--its wood carved with an African woman's fertile shape, then topped with a double-headed axe--and placed it beside the candle. Atiba had made it with his own hands, and he always kept it hidden in his hut, as part of his _babalawo's _cache of sacred implements.

The mill had not turned since the day the great ships of the Ingles appeared in the bay, before the night of the storm. Traces of white ca.s.sava flour were still mingled with the fine dust on the floor. The place where Atiba had drawn Shango's sign was . . . she squinted in the candlelight . . . was there, near the square comer of the iron frame.

Nothing remained now of the symbol save a scattering of pale powder.

But across the room, near the post by the doorway, lay the small bag of ca.s.sava flour he had used. It must, she told herself, have been knocked there during the ceremony.

Perhaps it was not empty.

Timorously she picked it up and probed inside. Some flour still remained, dry and fine as coral dust. As she drew out a handful and let it sift through her fingers, the idea came--almost as though Shango had whispered it to her in the dark.

The drawing of the double-headed axe. Shango's sign. Had it somehow summoned him that night? Beckoned him forth from the ancient consciousness of Africa, to this puny room?

She stood for a moment and tried again to breathe a prayer. What precisely had Atiba done? How had he drawn the symbol? Her legs trembling, she knelt with a handful of the white powder and carefully began laying down the first line.

It was not as straight as she had wished, nor was its width even, but the flour flowed more readily than she had thought it might. The symbol Atiba had drawn was still etched in her memory. It was simple, powerful, it almost drew itself: the crossed lines, their ends joined, formed two triangles meeting at a common point, and then down the middle the bold stroke that was its handle. The drawing came into form so readily she found herself thinking that Shango must be guiding her hand, urging her on in this uncertain homage to his power.

She stood away and, taking the candle, studied the figure at her feet.

The white seemed to undulate in the flickering light. She held the candle a moment longer, then reached out and placed it directly in the center of the double axe-head.

Perhaps it was a gust of wind, but the wick suddenly flared brighter, as though it now drew strength from the symbol it illuminated. The mill, the walls of the room, all glowed in its warm, quivering flame.

Was it imagination or was the candle now giving off that same pale radiance she remembered from languorous afternoons long ago in Brazil-- the half-light of mist and rainbows that bathed their courtyard in a gossamer sheen when an afternoon storm swept overhead.

She backed away, uneasy and disturbed, groping blindly toward the mill frame. When her touch caught the hard metal, she slipped her hand across the top till her grasp closed on the wand. The stone axe at its tip was strangely warm now, as though it had drawn heat from the iron.

Or perhaps it had been from the candle.

She clasped it against her shift, feeling its warmth flow into her.

First it filled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with a sensation of whiteness, then it pa.s.sed downward till it mingled in her thighs. It was a sensation of being fulfilled, brought to completeness, by some essence that flowed out of Shango.

She glanced back at the flickering candle. Now it washed the drawing with a glow of yellow and gold. The candle, too, seemed to be becoming part of her. She wanted to draw its fiery tip into her body, to possess it.

Sweat poured down her thighs; and in its warmth she felt the desire of Shango. As she clasped the wand ever more tightly against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she gasped, then shuddered. The white presence was entering her, taking her body for its own. She sensed a heat in her eyes, as though they might now b.u.m through the dark.

A heaviness was growing in her legs, and she planted her feet wide apart to receive and support the burden she felt swelling in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The room was hot and cold and dark and light. She no longer saw anything save whiteness. Then she plunged the wand skyward and called out in a distant voice, resonant.

"_E wa nibi! SHANGO_!"

The flames billowed along the edge of the field, and the crackling of the cane swelled into a roar as a carpet of red crept up the hillside.

Cl.u.s.ters of gray rats scurried to escape, lending a chorus of high- pitched shrieks to the din. As the night breeze quickened from the west, it whipped the flames toward the dense, unharvested acres that lay beyond.

Suddenly the urgent clanging of a bell sounded from the direction of the main compound, and soon after, silhouettes appeared at the perimeter of the indentures' quarters, the circle of thatched-roof huts beside the pathway leading to the sugarworks. Figures of straw-hatted women--the men were all gone away with the militia--stood out against the moonlit sky is they watched in fearful silence. Never had a fire in the fields erupted so suddenly.

_Now_! Atiba wanted to shout. _Join us_! Throw off your chains. Free yourselves!

He had not been able to enlist their help sooner, for fear a traitor among them might betray the revolt. But now, now they would see that freedom was within their grasp. He tried to call to them. To beckon them forward.