9 The Vampire Bat

HE was one of the island’s few plantation owners and a solid pillar of the Crown. He had gone forth at the King’s trumpet call to buck the Boer’s hairy anger. But at last the guerilla warrior had become a glorious ghost and the jaunty buckras were trekking back to Barbadoes.

Flying into a breastwork of foam, the English torpedo boat had suddenly stopped, wedged in a sargasso reef a dozen miles from the Caribbean sea. After landing at a remote corner on the jungle coast, Bellon was forced to make the trip, a twelve mile affair, on drays and mule carts over the brown, hoof-caked road to Mount Tabor.

But Mount Tabor, once a star on a pinnacle of wooded earth, was lost to old Sharon Prout’s Boer-fighting son.

Wrecked in the storm which swept the island the very week Bellon had embarked for South Africa–it was a garden of lustrous desolation. Weedy growth overspread it. The lichened caverns below the stoke hole, once giving berth to hills of cane husk–fodder for the zooming fire–fertilized beds of purple beans. A stable, housing a mare and landau, stood on the old mill’s bank. Rows of taches–troughs into which the cane’s juice was boiled and brewed through a succession of stages until it became a quarry of loaf sugar–frothed green on the rich, muggy land. One was a pond. Frogs and green water lilies floated on it. Another, filled to the maw, gave fathomless earth to breadfruit.

The old shaggy mare, a relic of the refining era at Mount Tabor, plodded through the dead, thick marl. Wearing a cork hat and a cricketer’s white flannel shirt, open at the throat, Bellon drew near the woods to Airy Hill.

He trotted down a slanting road in to Locust Hall. A mulatto cane cutter, poxy progenitor of twenty-one husky mule-driving sons, stood under the raised portcullis, talking to a woman. Pulling at a murky clay pipe he was slyly coaxing her to a spot in the cane piece. His juice-moist bill, bright as a piece of steel, shone in the fern-cluttered gut. Blacks on sluggish bat-eared asses mounted the hill mouthing hymns to drive away the evil spirits.

Father, O Father
… past the fading rays of night
Awake! awake!

Game-vending squatters streamed down from Flat Rock, cocks gleaming on trays which saddled their heads. From the shining hills the estate’s night hands meandered in, pecking at greasy skillets. Corn meal flecked the snowy marl.

Reminiscently Bellon ruffled the horse’s mane. “You old war horse, you.” Once, long before the storm, the blacks at Arise, one of the old man’s estates–a stark, neurotic lot–had burned and pilfered the old sugar mill, while the buckras were confabbing on the seashore of Hastings. Rayside, then but a frisky colt, smelling a rat, had made a wild dash for the city–neighing the tidings to the buckras.

Now it fell to the young heir to be returning to Waterford, the last of the old man’s estates, on the back of the heroic old mare.

It was ten o’clock at night and he had yet fourteen miles to go.

A lone moon-swept cabin or a smoker’s pipe light, blazing in the canes, occasionally broke the drab expanse of night. The road trickled on, deepening into a gully. There rose above it rocky hedges, seeding flower and fruit. Swaying in the wind, the cane brake grew denser, darker. The marl lost its prickly edge and buried the animal’s hoofs in soft, gray flour. Laboriously she loped through it.

The road gently lifted. It perceptibly dazzled the myopic beast. The marl returned. It blazed white, and shone. The earth about it seemed bare and flat and the cane brakes thinner. And the moon hung lower. A rickety donkey cart suddenly came jogging down the hill. A creole woman, atop an ass, trotted by. The wind soared to a higher, sturdier level. It blew like breezes on the gay Caribbean sea. Had it been noon, or dusk, blackbirds would have speckled the corn fields or sped low above the reeling canes. But the moon ribbed the night and gave the canes, tottering on the high flat earth, a crystal cloaking.

Now the road faltered, steadied, and as the road slanted, the marl thickened until it became flour dust again. The cottages at The Turning hove into view.

“At last,” the captain cried, and the lanky mare quickened at the proximity of feed. Her reins fell on her back, limp with sweat.

Opposite a Negro baker shop Bellon dismounted, hitched the animal to a guava tree, and knocked upon the door.

“Who dat?” shouted a voice from within.

“Captain Prout,” he replied, and the door swung to.

Squat and stout, Mother Cragwell, a Ba’bajan creole–mixture of white and Negro–admitted him, and shuffled back behind the counter, eying the visitor. She had been kneading dough, the counter was lathered with it, and her hands were scaly with shreds of flour.

“Mas’ Prout,” the old woman exclaimed, wha’ yo’ a do down yah dis time o’ night? Yo’ na’h go home no?”

“Why, yes, Mother Cragwell,” replied the officer jovially, “can’t a law-abiding colonist walk the King’s highway after dark?”

“De King’s highways,” the old woman sarcastically muttered, “wha’ dey care ’bout any King?”

Fixing her brownish red eyes on the buckra, she looked puzzled, skeptical.

“Why, is that the sort of welcome you give a returning soldier, Mother Cragwell?” he inquired, flattered by the old woman’s characteristically racial concern.

She shook her head, ruefully bestirring herself. “Han’ me dat bucket dey,” she said. “How much yo’ want?”

“Oh, fill it,” he said, fetching the pail, “the road is beginning to tell on the old wretch.”

“‘Bout time,” murmured Miss Cragwell, who’d been a fixture at The Turning for over thirty years.

She half-filled the pail with molasses, burst a bag of flour into it and began mixing the mash with a ladle.

“Well, I suppose this is her last trip to Waterford–she’s entitled to a pension for the rest of her life, the horny old nag.”

He took the mare the foaming mash and returned to be confronted by a cup of chocolate, a knot of burnt cane and a tasty banana tart. Among bill twirlers, mule cart drivers, and cork-hatted overseers and estate owners, Mother Cragwell’s “drops” and sweet bread, turnovers and cassava pone, were famous to the farthest ends of the Ba’bajan compass.

He cordially sat down to the mulatto’s informal hospitality. “I knew,” he observed, “that I’d have to wait till I reached The Turning before I could prove I was back in the colony.” He took a relishing sip and the old creole’s glare fell.

“Mas’ Prout,” she said, “yo bes’ don’t go down de gully to-night, yo’ hear?”

“Why, what’s happening in the gully, Mother Cragwell?” he smiled, splitting the sugar cane. “Is the man in the canes prowling about? Or do you think the duppies will be haunting Rayside’s tracks?”

But the young Briton’s banter chilled the old mulattress. “If yo’ know what is good fo’ yo’self, yo’ bes’ hear wha’ Oi tell yo’,” was all she said.

“H’m! this tastes like good old West Indian rum!” he cried, taking another fig of the cane. “Did you burn it yourself, Mother Cragwell?” “Who, me? No, bo,” she retorted, looking up. “Dah cane yo’ got dey come from down de road.”

“What, did they have a fire there recently?”

“Yes, bo. Las’ night. The fire hags ketch it fire las’ night.”

“The who?”

“Hey,” the old woman drawled, shocked at the young man’s density. “Hey, look at his boy, ni. Yo’ don’t fomembah wha’ a fire hag is, no? An’ he say he gwine down de gully to-night.”

Bellon burst into a fit of ridiculing laughter. “Why, shame upon you, Mother Cragwell!”

“Ent yo’ got piece o’ de ve’y cane in yo’ mout’ suckin’?” she cried, fazed, hurt.

“Tommyrot! Some jealous squatter fired the brake, that’s all.”

“Yo’ believe dat?” challenged the old lady, “Orright den, go ‘long. Go ‘long, bo. All yo’ buckras t’ink unna know mo’ dan we neygahs. Go ‘long down de gully ’bout yo’ business, bo.”

He rose, handed her a shilling and started for the door.

Suddenly a whinny from the mare–a wild scream in the night–startled him.

“Who dat?” shouted Mother Cragwell, seizing an old cricket bat and going towards the door.

“Oh, me Gard, me Gard, me Gard–”

The door was slapped open and a Negro woman, draped in white, shaking a black parasol and a hand bag, entered. She was shivering and white-eyed and breathless.

“Calm yo’self, girl, an’ stop wringin’ yo’ hands. Yo’ gwine poke out a body eye wit’ dat parasol yo’ flo’ish dey.”

“Oh, Miss Cragwell, Miss Cragwell–”

“Hey, sit down, Lizzie. It is Lizzie Coates. Wha’ yo’ doin’ up yah dis time o’ night, girl?”

“Oh, de man in de canes, de man in de canes–”

“Wha’ he do to yo’?”

“Oh, de man in de canes, de man in–”

“Stop cryin’ yo’ big able goat ‘n let a body see what’s de mattah wit’ yo’,” frowned Miss Cragwell; she turned to Bellon. “Go behind de counter,” she said, “an’ like a good boy hand me de candle grease yo’ see dey ‘pon me chest o’ draws.”

“Oh, nutton ain’t do me–he ain’t do me nutton.”

“Hey, yo’ hear ris alarmer, ni,” drawled Mother Cragwell, her lower lip hanging. “Wha’ yo’ mekin’ all dis noise fo’ den?”

A look of revulsion shone on Bellon’s face as he returned. “God, she’s black!”

“Oh, Mother Cragwell,” the woman pleaded, dropping into a seat, “le’ me tell yo’–”

Every word she uttered was punctuated with jabs of the inevitable parasol. “The light fool me,” she said. “It war so light I bin taught it wuz morning.”

“Yo’ mean to say a big able woman like yo’ ain’t got a clock in yo’ house?”

With difficulty the buckra kept back an oath of amused disgust.

“The light fool me, Ah tell yo’–”

“Yo’ got a watch, Mas’ Prout, wha’ time it are?” asked Mother Cragwell.

He shifted his body to the other side. “Quarter to twelve,” he said.

“Hey, it ent even twelve o’clock yet,” breathed the black sweating woman, “an’ here I wuz startin’ fo’ walk to St. Georges. I musta wuz drunk, an’, gal, jess as I tu’n de corner–”

“Wha’ corner?”

“Codrington Corner. By the wall. You know–down dey–”

“Ah’m.”

“Who should I see standin’ up ‘gainst dey but a man.”

“Lahd, tek me!”

“A man, gal, a man!” She fanned her black eagle face, the sweat brilliant on it.

“Wuz he alone?”

“Yes, ni.”

“An’ nobody wuz ‘pon de road?”

“Not a blind soul gwine up or comin’ down! An’ me by meself mekin’ fo’ Waterford Bottom!”

“Gal, wha’ yo’ a do? Try fo’ be a buckra?” And she cast an accusing eye at the white man.

A slow chuckle escaped Bellon as he tapped on his leggings with a black sage switch.

“Soul, I wuz so frighten I couldn’t swallow good. I nearly choke, yes. But anyway I had my trus’ in de Lord–

“Fust I taught it wuz a duppy–one o’ de mans in de canes come back fo’ haunt de po’ neygah.”

“Dey do dat,” agreed Mother Cragwell, irrelevantly.

“Well, soul, when I mek de gap fo’ tu’n into de gulley somet’ing tell me fo’ change me umbrella from my lef’ han’ into my right an’ my bag from my right into my lef’.”

“Whe’ wuz de man all dis time?”

“I put he out o’ me taughts, girl. I wuzn’t t’inkin’ ’bout he. I had my mind ‘pon de Lord an’ de goodness o’ His wuks–”

“Wha’ a foolish ole goat yo’ is! Why, girl, I su’prize at you! Wha’, you ain’t know any bettah? Wha’ de man in de canes got fo’ do wit’ de Lawd? He don’t care nutton’ ’bout he!”

“Well, anyway, when I got down in de gulley it wuz so quiet yo’ could heah de mongoose runnin’ in de canes. It wuz so dahk yo’ couldn’t see yo’ own hand.”

“Hey …”

“Den I mek out anudder man comin’ down de road …”

“Me po’ Lizzie.”

“Down de road. He wuz lightin’ he pipe an’ walkin’ fast.”

“Did he see yo’?”

“No, I don’t t’ink he see me, but I could see he, dough, an’ just ez I get up to he, I move one side fo’ let he pass. An’ soul just ez I got out o’ he way, he bump right into somebody walkin’ behind me!”

“Gard!”

“De man behine me wuz followin’ me, gal, dah’s wha’ it wuz. Followin’ me all dis time an’ dere I wuz wouldn’t knowin’ it!”

“Yo’ lucky, yes.”

“Gal, I’m lucky fo’ true! Soul, he bump into de man so ha’d de man even bu’n he mout’ wit’ de matches.”

“An’ wha’ he do, buss he mout’?”

“De man comin’ down de hill ax he pardin, but, soul, yo’ should o’ hear how he cuss he! ‘Why yo’ don’t look where yo’ gwine,’ he shout out, ‘yo’ t’ink yo’ own de road, no?'”

“An’ wha’ de man say to he?”

“Oh, de man only ax he pardin, an’ went ‘long ’bout he business.”

“Why didn’t he look whey he wuz goin’–”

“Shucks, he wuz so bent ‘pon wha’ he wuz gwine do he couldn’t hav’ eyes fo’ nobody but me! An’ de man humbug he object, dat’s all. But wait, le’ me tell yo’. Dah happen down in de gully. An’ I went long, ent eben t’inkin’ ’bout no man–”

“Ah tell all you’ Seven Day ‘Ventists unna is a pack o’ nanny goats–”

“When all uva suggen somebody from behind put two long greasy arms roun’ me neck, like he wan’ fo’ hug me!”

“De Lord hav’ mercy!”

“Gal, I wuz so frighten I tek me umbrella an’ I jerk it back ovah my lef’ shoulder so ha’d de muscles still a hu’t me!”

“Go ‘way!”

“Jook! Straight in he eye–”

“Murdah!”

“Deed I did! Wha’ business he ha’ puttin’ he ole nasty claws roun’ me!”

“An’ what he do, ni?”

“Gal, he le’ me go so fas’ yo’ would ‘a’ t’ink de lightnin’ strike he! An’ I wuz so frighten I tu’n roun’ ready fo’ hollow fo’ blue murder, but de Lord was wit’ me an’ He protect me. Fo’ girl, he wen’ runnin’ in de gutter, pickin’ up stones an’ shying them at me.”

“De wutliss whelp–”

“But girl, like I wuz heah, he was firin’ dem ovah yondah! ‘Yo’ brute,’ he say, ‘yo’ whelp, yo’ wan’ to jook out my eye, no! Yo’ wan’ to mek me blind, no!’ An’ all de time he was peltin’ an’ peltin’ de rock stones at somebody a mile f’um fo’m me!”

“Yo’ musta jook he in he eye–”

“Chile, if it wuzn’t fo’ dis umbrella I wouldn’t know where I’d be by now. It’s de Lord’s own staff o’ life.”

With a piercing chuckle the buckra walked to the door. “Well,” he drawled, “I guess I’d better be going. It’s getting late.”

Abruptly Mother Cragwell rose and went to him. “Yo’ still gwine down de gully, son?” she begged, half-tearfully.

“Oh, don’t be sentimental, Mother Cragwell,” he said, with good-humor. “I’ll manage somehow.”

“Orright, bo,” she shrugged, helplessly, “I can’t say any mo’ to yo’,” and he went forth, loftily.

. . . . . . .

The mare took the road at a jog and a trot, till the huts grew dim, the canes and the hedges bushy. The moon was buried in a lake of blue mist and the marl ate into the animal’s hoofs.

The Negro woman’s tale excited a magic concern in the buckra.

There was a road opposite the baker shop which led through a dismantled estate, providing a short cut to Waterford. But Bellon remembered that it led over a steep gulley range–a tunnel a mile deep–a rattling river when it rained or stormed–now a rocky cave harboring wild dogs and lame mules, tusky boars and other, mystic finds.

He evaded it–the old Negress’ tale ringing in his ears.

Somber, ruthless–the marl. The mare pawed and sieved it, stones soared topwards.

The moon burned the mist. It burned it away, leaving but a white crest of flame fire.

Suddenly, over the earth of gentle winds and sugar canes, balls of crimson fire plagued the sky! Fire hags at night–St. Lucia sluts, <em>obeah</em> ridden, shedding their skins and waltzing forth at night as sheep and goats, on errands of fiery vengeance. Sometimes, on returning, at the end of the eventful night, they would find their skins salted–by the enemy–and, unable to ease back into them, the wretches would inquire, “Skin, skin yo’ no know me?” And for the balance of their thwarted lives they’d go about, half-slave, half-free, muttering: “Skin yo’ no know me, Skin yo’ no know me?”

A bright-spirited party of Negro farm folk wrestling up the hill on basket-laden mules, came into view.

“Howdy, Massa.”

“God bless yo’ Massa.”

“Gwine town, Massa?”

“Be ca’ful–de fire hag dem a prowl ’bout yah, Massa.”

He pulled up the horse, puzzled at the spreading of the squirting fire.

“God–fire hags–surely the niggers can’t be right.”

He turned ashen, the reins in his hands tight, the horse pawing and pegging the marl understandingly.

The balls of fire subsided, but he was deep in the marl gully and unable to trace the origin of the pink hazes bursting on the sky’s crest. The wind, however, was a pure carrier of smell, and the tainted odor of burnt cane filled the road.

“Wonder whose canes they’re burning–”

Burning cane–the sky reflecting the distant glow–casks of rum boiling to waste at the will of some illiterate field hand!

He shouted to the animal.

“Giddup, horse!”

His head went swirling–the temptation to relapse conquered–barbaric obeah images filled his buckra consciousness.

Sugar canes burning–men in the canes–fire hags–nigger corpses–

Perspiration salted Bellon’s brow.

Nigger corpses–nigger corpses–

And a legend, rooted deep in the tropic earth, passed pell-mell before him.

. . . . . . .

It concerned a river, a river red as burning copper and peopled by barques and brigantines, manned by blacks wedded to the obeah.

Once, the master of a vessel, taking a cargo of dry cocoanuts to a mulatto merchant on the other side of the coast, cheated; a few English crowns were at stake. But the trader was a high-priest of the obeah, and was silently aware of it. Forthwith he proceeded to invoke the magic of the obeah against the vessel.

At late dusk the returning vessel hoisted anchor. The festival rites, incident to her voyage, had drawn to the wharf, selling mango and grape, the mulatto courtesans of the river town. And the crew rained on them silver and gold, and bartered till the sun went down.

Upon reaching the vessel’s deck the crew–the wine of lust red on their lips–grew noisy and gay at the sinking of the river sun. From below they brought a cask of rum, part of the cheated trader’s store, and drank of it. With a calabash they dipped and wallowed in it, finding it sweeter than falernum.

Stars bedecked the night and a torch was lit. The vessel rocked on, falling in with the trade winds.

The rum was a siren, it led one on. The cask was deep, immense, but the liquor shrank till the huskiest of the Islanders had to be pummeled to lean over into it and dip the liquid out. With a score of itching throats there was a limit to the cask’s largess, and the bottom was early plumbed. When they got to it, however, it was to find a rum soaked Negro corpse doubled up in the bottom!

. . . . . . .

The horse came to a dead, rigid stop. It was death dark and they had just entered the heart of the marl gully.

He was already fidgety, and grew urgent. “Come on, Rayside,” he shouted, “giddup.” But the mare shook, stamped, shuddered.

He stroked her mane, but a strange strong-headedness took hold of her. She flung her ears forward.

Bellon dismounted, and the mare’s inelegant tail switched her bony flanks. He coaxed and patted her, but all she did was jerk her head the more.

Resorting to a flashlight, Bellon clicked it at her feet.

As the glare hit the marl, he recoiled, as one struck, at the spectacle it revealed–a little Negro baby sleeping in the marl!

“God, what’s next!”–

Hesitatingly he approached, discerning that it lived, and moved.

For a spell he gazed at it, half-afraid. But for a diaper of green leaves it was nude. Then it occurred to him to pick it up.

Instantly the child reacted to its contact with human warmth and snuggled to Bellon’s bosom. He smoothed its soft, bronze skin and the waif, with hands flagrantly like a bird’s claws, burrowed closer to him.

With the child held close the buckra started for the horse, but–like a shot–Rayside bolted!

“Steady, mare!” Bellon growled, quietly reining her back in, “Easy, horse!”

One ear pasted flat on her mane, she stood impatiently still while he reached for the chamois blanket and swaddled the Negro baby in it.

Only then was he able to remount her.

Another of the colony’s lurking evils, the desertion–often the murder of illegitimate Negro babes.

O God–another of the island’s depraved nigger curses!

All the way up the hill Rayside reared and trotted, kicked and pranced, keeping to the edge of the marl road.

And the Negro waif’s bird-like claws dug deeper into the buckra‘s shirt bosom.

He rode up the hill’s moon-white crest until the shadow of Waterford fell upon him. He was tired, his brain fagged, his legs sore, his nerves on edge.

On the brink of a rocky hill extending beyond the estate stood a buckra overseer’s cabin. Here Bellon’s journey ended. He stabled the mare in the shed, glad to be rid of her. “Why, you don’t even give me a chance to be temperamental–”

He took the Negro child in the cabin, angry at the physical proximity of it. “If any one had told me three weeks ago that after dodging Boer-shot I’d next be mothering a deserted nigger ragamuffin at two o’clock in the morning on a West Indian country road, I’d certainly have called him a God damned liar!”

He found a spot on the floor and brusquely cushioned the burden in it.

. . . . . . .

He was edgy, unstrung; he could not sleep. He tossed, half-awake, tortured by the night’s fairy-like happenings.

As a boy at Arise the old man’d tell of fresh-born Negro babes dropped in eely wells in remote parts of the plantation jungle or wrapped in crocus bags and left in the canes for some ferocious sow to gnaw or rout.

Rapacious Negro ghosts–“men in the canes”–ha! ha! preying upon the fears of the uncivilized blacks.

Fire hags! St. Lucia mulatto sluts–changing their skins–turning to goats–sheep–prowling–going forth–

And weirdly interchangeable–Black Negro babes and vampire bats!

. . . . . . .

All night the fussy mare, with glassy eyes glued on the buckra hut, refused to touch corn or oats–stamping, kicking, growing uneasy.

The glory of the morning sun neared the cane hills. It burned past the mare’s shed, leaving the animal still nervously gazing out it.

Inside the hut there sprawled the dead body of Bellon Prout. With a perforation pecked in its forehead, it was utterly white and bloodless.

On the ground the chamois blanket was curiously empty.

. . . . . . .

Coming up the hill the mulatto obeah girl who tidied the overseer’s hut felt deeply exultant. For she was strangely conscious of the fact—by the crystal glow of the sun, perhaps–that a vampire bat, with its blood-sucking passion, had passed there in the night.