Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [291]
‘What kind question dat? Mebbe pole rot in de groun’, mebbe tarmeet ’stroy dem. Mebbe timber worm ’stroy de beam.’
‘You tink I fool man? Tarmeet an’ timber worm, dat not de question. Question is, why it happen when my uncle sittin’ under de roof?’
‘Well, I go tell you dis,’ Billy said, after a long pause. ‘I sorry to hear bout you uncle, but dis story prove nottin’.’
Nevertheless, he was agitated at his failure to find a convincing reply, at finding himself once more in these thickets of doubt and contradiction. He glanced up at the sky, which shone now with a faint light. Mist lay over the low ground in shifting swathes. The fan-shaped fronds of the palmettos rose here and there clear of it, hanging heavy and gleaming with wet, quite motionless – there was no breath of wind. The swamp willow alongside the path was coming into flower: he noticed the tight green pimples of the buds on their dangling stalks. It was a particularity of vision unusual with Billy, due perhaps to the indistinctness of everything farther off, in this ubiquituous shrouding of mist.
The kudala notion had its points, he suddenly saw: it saved a man from chance, for one thing. And it took the blame from the Almighty, thus solving a problem that had often bothered Billy. ‘Dey fin’ de one make kudala agin you uncle?’ he said, but the other did not hear him. The track had narrowed, obliging them to walk in file, and Inchebe had paused to crush some cress leaves over his injured knuckles and so fallen behind.
They were nearing the settlement now. The track skirted the lagoon, went some way along the edge of the hardwood hummock, then turned away from the water to pass through a tangle of sea-grape and cabbage palm and wild coffee before emerging on to the open ground where the first huts of the settlement began.
Among the trees it was dark still; emerging from them was at first confusing to the eyes. As they came out into the scrub, Billy saw a form move suddenly in the mist, no more than a dark shape at first, but then as he advanced he saw that it was surmounted with a face and a tall hat. While he still gaped at this, he saw the figure raise its elbows as if to work a pair of bellows. He caught a gleam of metal, then the dark red of the tunic. He turned and took some running steps back towards Inchebe, who was still in the cover of the trees. ‘Redcoats!’ he shouted loudly. ‘Get round through the –’ The crack of the shot came from behind him, drowning out whatever more he said, or tried to say. With this sharp report all arguments were finally resolved for Billy, the frenzy of logic left him for ever. The ball took him in the back, on the left side, and pierced his heart. He ran some further steps but he was dead before he fell.
Inchebe saw Billy turn and run towards him, heard the shot, saw the issue of blood from Billy’s mouth and the heavy pitch of his fall. He hesitated no more than a moment. Billy was beyond help. The people had to be warned. He threw down the string of fish he had been carrying and plunged aside from the track in the nearest direction to the settlement, finding what way he could through the close-growing vegetation. He sobbed lightly as he ran, with fear and shock. The broad-leaved trees of the hummock discharged their moisture on him, the saw palmetto slashed at his legs and arms. He stumbled through stretches of swampland, knee-deep in the sloughs, his feet catching in the stilted roots of the mangroves. Behind him, not very far way, he could hear sounds of pursuit. From moment to moment he expected a shot, but none came and he could not understand this, having forgotten that alive he was worth money. The cane harpoon impeded him, catching in thickets, but he did not abandon it.
Nipke it was who gave pursuit. He had been standing near the panicky fool who disobeyed orders by firing and had seen the sergeant strike the man down with his fist. He knew that the people of the settlement, whether