Isabel Allende - Island Beneath the Sea

Gambo took advantage of those moments alone with the punished slaves to find out how they had escaped, why they had been caught, and what happened to the six who were missing. Those who could talk told him that they had separated when they left the plantation; some had headed to the river with the idea of swimming upstream, but could fight the current only a while; in the end, it always won. They heard shots and were not sure if the others had been killed, but whatever their fate, no doubt it was preferable to that of the captured. He questioned them about the jungle, the trees, the vines, the mud, the stones, and the strength of the wind, the temperature and the light. Cambray and other hunters of blacks knew the region by heart, but there were places they avoided, like the swamps and crossroads of the dead, where escapees never went however desperate they might be, and places inaccessible by mule and horseback. They depended completely on their animals and their firearms, which at times became a hindrance. The horses fractured their pasterns and had to be put down. Loading a musket required several seconds; they tended to get clogged, or the powder got damp, and in the meantime a naked man with a knife for cutting cane seized his advantage. Gambo understood that the most immediate danger were the dogs, able to catch the scent of a man from a kilometer away. Nothing was as terrifying as a chorus of barking coming nearer and nearer.

In Saint-Lazare the dog kennels were behind the stables, on one of the patios of the big house. The hunting and guard dogs were kept locked up by day so they would not get to know people, and taken out by night to make the rounds. The two Jamaica mastiffs, covered with scars and trained to kill, belonged to Prosper Cambray. He had acquired them for dog fights, which had the dual merit of satisfying his taste for both cruelty and gambling; that sport had taken the place of the slave tourneys he'd had to give up when Valmorain forbade them. A good African champion able to kill an opponent with his bare hands could be very lucrative for his owner. Cambray had his tricks; he fed his fighters raw meat, maddened them with a mixture of taffia, gunpowder, and hot chili before every tourney, rewarded them with women after a victory, and made them pay dearly for a defeat. With his champions, a Congo and a Mandingo, he had plumped up his pay when he'd been a Negro hunter, but then he sold them and bought the mastiffs, whose fame had reached as far as Le Cap. He kept them hungry and thirsty, tied so they did not tear each other to shreds. Gambo needed to get rid of them, but if he poisoned them Cambray would torture five slaves for every dog until someone confessed.

At the hour of siesta, when Cambray went to refresh himself at the river, the boy went to the head overseer's cabin, which was located at the end of the avenue of coconut palms, separated from the big house and the quarters for domestic slaves. He had found out the names of the two concubines the overseer had chosen for that week, girls who had just entered puberty and already were as skittish as beaten dogs. They were startled to see him, but he calmed them with slices of cake he had stolen from the kitchen and asked them to get coffee. They began to poke at the fire while he slipped into the house. It was small but comfortable, oriented to catch the breeze and built on an earthen elevation, like the big house, to escape damage in floods. The furnishings, spare and simple, were some Valmorain had discarded when he married. Gambo saw it all in less than a minute. He thought about stealing a blanket, but in a corner he saw a basket of dirty clothing and quickly pulled out one of the overseer's shirts, rolled it into a ball, and threw it out the window into some brush; then he took his time drinking his coffee and told the girls good-bye with the promise of bringing them more cake as soon as he could. As night fell, he returned to look for the shirt. In the pantry, the keys for which were always hanging at Tete's waist, there was a sack of hot chili, a toxic powder used to combat scorpions and rodents; after they smelled it the dawn found them dead and dried up. If Tete realized that too much chili was being used, she said nothing.

On the day indicated by the loas the boy left at dusk, with the last memory of light. He had to pass through the slave quarters, which reminded him of the village where he had lived the first years of his life and which had been blazing like a bonfire the last time he saw it. Workers had not yet returned from the fields, and the quarters were nearly empty. One woman, who was carrying two large pails of water, was not surprised to see an unfamiliar face; there were many slaves, and new ones were always arriving. For Gambo those first hours would make the difference between freedom and death. Tante Rose, who could go at night where others did not dare venture by day, had described the terrain with the pretext of telling him about medicinal plants and also those that were necessary to avoid: lethal mushrooms, trees whose leaves rip off skin, anemones that hide toads whose spit is blinding. She explained to him how to survive in the jungle on fruit, nuts, roots, and stems as succulent as a slice of roast goat, and how to be guided by fireflies, stars, and the whistling of the wind. Gambo had never left Saint-Lazare before, but thanks to Tante Rose he could locate in his head the region of the mangrove swamps, where all the snakes were venomous, and the sites of crossroads between two worlds, where Les Invisibles waited. "I have been there and have seen Baron Kalfour and Ghede with my own eyes, and was not afraid. You have to greet them with respect, request their permission to pass, and ask them which road to follow. If it is not your hour to die, they will help you. They decide," the healer told him. The boy asked her about zombies, whom he had heard mentioned for the first time on the island; in Africa no one suspected they existed. She clarified that they can be recognized by their cadaverous appearance, their rotten odor, and their way of walking with stiff arms and legs. "More than a zombie, you need to fear some of the living, like Cambray," she added. The message did not escape Gambo.

When the moon came out, the boy started to run, following a zigzag course. Every so often he left a piece of the overseer's shirt in the vegetation to confuse the two mastiffs, which since no one else came near them knew only Cambray's smell, and to disorient the other hounds. Two hours later he reached the river. He sank into cool water up to his neck with a moan of relief, but kept his bundle dry on top of his head. He washed away sweat and blood from being scratched by branches and cut by rocks, and used the opportunity to drink and urinate. He moved forward in the water without nearing the shore, although he knew that would not throw off the dogs; they would nose and sniff in wider and wider circles until they picked up the scent, but it would slow them down. He did not intend to cross to the other side. The current was implacable and there were few places where even a good swimmer could risk it, but he did not know them and did not know how to swim. From the position of the moon he guessed that it was about midnight, and calculated the distance he'd come; then he left the water and began to sprinkle the chili powder. He felt no fatigue; he was drunk with freedom.

He kept moving for three days and nights, his only food Tante Rose's magic leaves. The black ball in his mouth numbed his gums and kept him awake and free of hunger. From cane fields he passed to woods, jungle, swamps, skirting the plain in the direction of the mountains. He did not hear dogs barking, and that encouraged him. He drank water from puddles, when he could find them, but he had to make it through the third day with no water and with a fiery sun that painted the world an incandescent white. When he could not take another step, a brief, cool cloudburst fell and revived him. At that time he was in open country, a route only someone demented would dare undertake, which was why Cambray ignored it. Gambo could not waste time looking for food, and if he rested he would not be able to get back on his feet. His legs were moving on their own, pushed by the delirium of hope and the ball of leaves in his mouth. He no longer was thinking, he felt no pain, he had forgotten fear and everything he had left behind, including Zarite's body. All he remembered was his name: warrior. He walked some stretches with long strides, not running, overcoming obstacles of terrain with calm, so as not to wear himself out or lose his way, as Tante Rose had instructed. It seemed to him that at some moment he wept copiously, but he wasn't sure, it could have been a memory of dew or rain on his skin. He saw a bleating nanny goat with a broken foot standing between two sharp boulders and resisted the temptation to slit its throat and drink the blood, just as he resisted hiding in the hills, which looked only a short distance away, or lying down to sleep a moment in the peace of the night. He knew where he had to go. Every step, every minute counted.