Jacob Ross - Pynter Bender

No one knew who called the ambulance. Although it was still very early, it had come and gone long before most of them were there. More people were arriving, some from as far up as the foothills of Mont Airy. A tall, slim-faced woman with a white headwrap kept repeating the story to them of what had happened – Marlo had disappeared, and the police were somewhere up there in the bushes at the foot of the Mardi Gras with their dogs; they were sure to find him before the day was over, she said.

Pynter wiped his eyes and looked up at the Mardi Gras, its head buried in the greyness of the flat, soggy morning. He could hear the dogs barking. He didn’t like dogs. Dogs didn’t like him either. He could have told the police or the dogs that they were not going to find him up there in the forest. Marlo could hardly walk, far less climb a hill or run.

He left them by the side of the road, scratching, shifting and murmuring among themselves, their hands moving aimlessly about them, as if they were rummaging the air for something they’d forgotten or misplaced. He criss-crossed his way back up the hill.

Miss Maddie was on her porch, craning her neck towards the road while still managing to keep her eyes on him.

‘Boy!’

He lifted his face at her.

‘What happenin down there?’ It was the first time he’d ever seen her smile.

‘Don’ know,’ he said, not even bothering to break his stride.

Her smile went out like a light.

‘Is true what I hear about those two down there?’

‘Don’ know, Miss Maddie.’

‘You don’ know and you just come from down there?’

He shrugged.

‘I ask you a question, boy!’ Her tone had hardened.

‘And I answer you,’ he replied, and broke into a run.

He waited till his father had finished eating and then he told him all that he had just heard from the mouths of the people by the roadside.

When his father found his voice, he asked, ‘You sure?’

‘’Bout what?’

The old man passed the heel of his hand across his face. ‘Why?’

‘Uh?’

‘Why he done it?’

‘Missa Marlo?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Don’ know, Pa, don’ know. For piece o’ bread, Miss Tooksie say. For a piece o’ Missa Marlo bread dat Missa Harris take becuz he was hungry. A piece o’ bread, Pa. Marlo rip hi guts out fo’ a piece o’ bread.’

‘Pynter! Don’t talk like that. Don’t talk like that!’

Pynter leaned his head against the bedroom door and stared at the ceiling.

9

THEY CALLED IT Rainbow Weather – that time during the dry season when the sun was bright above their heads and a drizzle came down from the Mardi Gras and covered the valley with a spray so fine it was almost as if the air were filled with talcum powder. There were rainbows everywhere, some of them as faint as washed-out ribbons, but there was always the one they called The Mother. It curved high and glowing above their heads, its foot planted in the water somewhere behind the hills that kept the ocean back.

A gardener might catch a glimpse of it, straighten up and lean against his machete, suddenly aware of the flowering okras, the pigeon peas and the amazing likeness of their blossoms to little yellow butterflies. He might see the manioc differently, how their shiny, dark-limbed trunks resembled the skin of a well-greased child. And he would feel a tiny tug of sadness in his heart that a day would come when he would no longer be there to see all this. A woman would stop mid-laugh and for some reason turn her mind to the children she did not have. Or another would sketch a private smile, remembering the time when Dreena’s little girl-chile – now a woman who worked the canes with them – tried to follow a Mother Rainbow to where she thought its root was planted in the sea. Dreena’s lil girl returned to her mother’s yard exhausted and in tears because, however far she walked, it never got any closer.

Rainbows reminded Pynter of the strap that Paso wore around his waist for a belt. It reminded him of the wish that Deeka carried in her eyes, and then when it faded he took the track to Eden.

Earlier that morning and most of the afternoon, the dogs had been searching the foothills for Marlo, but Pynter could no longer hear them; they must have given up. Men with guns had arrived, their Land Rovers came roaring down the road. He had heard the slamming of doors and the thud of feet on asphalt. But they too had left a couple of hours later. And soon after the sound of their engines had faded in the distance, Gideon’s white Opel came gunning up the hill.

Pynter had forgotten that his father had told him that Gideon was coming. His father also said that he should go to see his mother. But he didn’t feel like it. He wanted this to be one of his by-himself days, and so he was down here at Eden, where it was quiet, even the birds were silent for once. And where Missa Geoffrey made his leaf bed for Miss Petalina, the earth was bare and brown. Maybe they’d found another place. P’raps Pastor Greenway found out and killed Miss Petalina. Everybody was killin everybody these days. For no flippin reason a pusson could understand. But if Pastor Greenway really done that to his best an’ p’raps only daughter, news didn reach nobody yet. And he better not, because he, Pynter Bender, would pussnally ask Birdie to bus’ his arse real bad when Pastor Greenway got sent to jail.

Pynter wondered what Peter was doing now. What would he say when he told him about Marlo and Harris? He sat on the earth, not bothering to settle himself down in his hideaway in the elephant grass. He wanted a stick to make markings like his mother on the ground. He wanted words to make all of it make sense.

He saw the man the instant his hand reached out to pull a twig – a shadow at the corner of his eye almost as if one of the trees had moved. He was on his feet before he’d even thought of it. Felt the wet grass give way beneath him and his shoulder hit the trunk of the guava tree in front of him. He heard a grunt, felt the tree heave. A shower of guavas hit the grass. A hand closed around his ankle. He kept moving. He kept moving because Tan Cee had told him to. He couldn’t remember how long ago, or how many times she’d said it to him and Peter. He’d forgotten where he was or exactly when she’d said so, but now her voice was like a whisper at the back of his ear. ‘If a pusson get hold of you, and you know dat they don’t mean you no good, you don’t jus’ stand up there. You move, you kick, you bite, you make a whole heap o’ noise. You don’ tell yourself you weak, you don’ tell yourself you finish, you never tell yourself you lose. You keep movin, even if they lock you down, you never stop movin, y’hear me? Jus’ move … ’

The hand slipped off his ankle. He swung himself away and in that single eye-blink of a turn he caught a glimpse of Marlo’s fleshy face, the leather scabbard at his side and his bulk against the guava trees. And then there came a shout from another man nearby.

‘Ayyy! What de hell goin on ’cross dere?’

Pynter found his back pressed against Missa Geoffrey’s stomach, the man’s hand holding him firmly there. Missa Geoffrey’s chin was lifted high, his body rigid. He held a large stone firmly in his free hand.

There was a crash of trees, branches breaking, and suddenly Marlo was no longer there.

Missa Geoffrey stepped away from him – with his light brown eyes and a tiny brown moustache. ‘Who de hell is you, and what bring you here?’

‘Pynter – I’z Pynter.’

‘You know who dat was?’ Missa Geoffrey lifted his chin at the bushes beyond them.

Pynter nodded.

‘You know what could’ve happen if it didn cross my mind to come here now?’ His face was hard and unsmiling.

Pynter nodded again. He realised his knees were shaking slightly. Missa Geoffrey was there beside him, yet he sounded as if he were speaking from a far way off.