“All right,” Antonio said. He looked unhappy.
“You catch the first sleep,” Chichibud told him. “Little bit, I wake you up.”
Tan-Tan and Antonio curled up under their shelter, sharing the cloth Chichibud had lent to Tan-Tan. The firelight danced against the sides of the tent.
“Daddy? How Mummy go find we here? How she go know which Toussaint we come to?”
But Antonio was already snoring. Truth to tell, Tan-Tan was missing Nursie and eshu just as much as Ione. All now so, if she was going to bed back home, she and eshu would have just finished singing a song; “Jane and Louisa” maybe, or “Little Sally Water.” Nursie would have had Tan-Tan pick a nightie from her dresser drawer to put on. Tan-Tan could almost smell the bunch of sweet dried khus-khus grass that Nursie kept inside the drawer to freshen her clothing.
She would pick the yellow nightie. Then Nursie would have hot eggnog sent from the kitchen for both of them, with nutmeg in it to cool their blood. The smell would spice the air, not like in this strange red land where the air smelled like sulphur matches all the time.
Tan-Tan swallowed, pretending she could taste the hot drink. Swallowing cleared her ears a little. Now Nursie was combing out Tan-Tan’s thick black hair. She was plaiting it into two so it wouldn’t knot up at night. Nursie and eshu was singing “Las Solas Market” for her. When the song finished, Nursie kissed her goodnight. Tan-Tan was snuggling down inside the blankets. Eshu wished her good dreams and outed the light.
The wetness on Tan-Tan’s face felt hot, then cool against her skin. She snuffled, trying not to wake Antonio. She clutched her side of the yellow blanket round herself and finally managed to fall asleep.
It felt like she had barely locked her eyelids shut when Chichibud was standing outside the tent, shouting, “Tallpeople man! Your turn to watch the fire.”
“Why the rass you can’t use my name, eh?”
“You tell it to me yet?”
“Oh. Antonio.”
“Time to watch the fire, Antonio.”
“I coming, I coming.”
In her half sleep, Tan-Tan felt Daddy move away from her and crawl out from under the tent. Chichibud crawled in. She heard him move to the opposite side of the tent. He had a strange, spicy-sharp smell; not human, but not unpleasant.
“Chichibud, you want some blanket?”
“You use it, child. The night warm for my blood.”
His voice faded away. She was singing with Nursie: “Come we go down Las Solas, for go buy banana,” but when it came to the chorus, Nursie’s voice turned into a low, raspy buzz. Then Nursie bit her beside her eye with one tooth, sharp like needle. Tan-Tan woke up swiping at a stinging spot in the outside corner of her eye. A small, soft body popped under her fingers, leaving a granular smear. Grit fly? Tan-Tan scrubbed at her eyes, wondering if grit flies looked as nasty as they felt. It was pitch black in the tent. “Chichibud?”
From out of the dark Chichibud said, “The fire.” She heard a whap! like a hand against flesh, the sound of Chichibud getting to his feet. He twittered something, then:
“Your foolish daddy let the fire go out, child. Stay here so. Don’t come out.”
She heard him crawling out, then silence. What was happening? She stuck her head under the tent flap to look out. The only light was the blue-red glow of the coals from the dying fire. If she squinted she could just see Daddy asleep beside them. Chichibud must have been looking in the blackness for sticks and dry leaves to stoke up the fire. He was moving quietly, except for the occasional thump or crackle.
The fire ebbed a little more. Suddenly Tan-Tan had to be near her father’s warmth. She crawled on hands and knees to Antonio, stopping on her way to swat at three more grit flies. She was at his side now. The breaths he blew out smelled sweet and thick. There were dark spots moving round his eyes. Grit flies.
“Daddy. Wake up.”
Antonio knuckled at one eye; mumbled, “…ain’t enough, Ben. Look, just put some more of the paste on the blade, oui?” He flung his arm out and caught Tan-Tan across her chest.
“Oof.” The blow threw her backwards. She reached behind her to break her fall. She landed with a thump that set her ears to ringing again. Her hand touched the empty rum flask. Then Chichibud was there beside them. He threw some kindling on the coals and fanned them till the fire started to come back.
“Pickney,” he whispered, “get back in the tent. Dangerous out here in the dark. I go look after this tallpeople man.”
Tan-Tan was almost at the tent when Chichibud said with a low, urgent calm, “Child. Don’t move.” Tan-Tan looked back. Chichibud was holding himself in an alert quiet, staring up into the sky. Something rustled in the trees far, far above them. It sounded big.
“Me say don’t move, Tan-Tan. Not a muscle. Don’t even turn your head again. Stay just how you is. A mako jumbie just come out of the bush.”
“What that?” Tan-Tan’s voice was quavering out of control.
“Sshh. Talk soft. A bird, tall like this tree here. Stay still like the dead, pickney. It don’t hear so good, but it eyes sharp.”
Tan-Tan froze as she was, with one foot pointed in front of her and her head twisted back to look at Chichibud. Antonio was still unconscious on the ground beside him. From her blind side Tan-Tan heard the crash of twigs breaking. She shook with the effort not to turn her head to the sound. Snot filled up her nose. She panted shallowly through her mouth, tasting the salt tears that ran into it.
An enormous clawed foot landed bap! in her line of sight. Tan-Tan made a small noise in her throat. It looked like a chicken foot, but it was the same length as Tan-Tan’s whole body. She turned her eyes up to follow the leg of the mako jumbie, long as a bamboo stem, but in the darkness she couldn’t see the body way up in the trees. It was high like a house. The next foot slammed down beside the first. Tremble, she just a-tremble.
“Pickney, all you do, don’t move. Them birds stupid, oui? Hold still, it will think you is bush or stick.”
“Chichibud, I frighten.”
“I know, pickney,” he said in that eerily calm voice. “All we could do is wait until the fire catch. That go scare it away.”
Tan-Tan nearly expired on the spot when the mako jumbie peered down low to look round the clearing. Its head was as big as their tent. A hungry, dead-cold eye rolled above its thick, sharp beak. Its snaky giraffe neck was covered in black feathers the length of Tan-Tan’s arm.
It swung its monster head right by her, so close she could feel the breeze as it passed. The sulphur-stench of carnivore breath almost choked her. The mako jumbie looked round the campsite, cocking its head to one side to see better, just as Chichibud had done. Tan-Tan didn’t laugh this time. It would take a step, it would crush them, she should run, hide. She heard her own prayerful whimpering, felt her body readying to flee. “Still, Tan-Tan, root yourself still like the halwa tree, like the lizard you see today. Yes, good pickney.”
She and Chichibud remained frozen for a lifetime, watching the fire slowly get brighter. Her neck ached in its twisted position, her poised foot was cramping.
The fire leapt into flame. Spitting, the mako jumbie pulled its head back up into the treetops and took a step out of the clearing.
“Just two-three second more, little one. You being brave.” The smell of its hot, sticky spittle in her hair was worse than its breath. It stepped over them and shoved between two trees. It was leaving.
Antonio flung himself upright in his sleep and shouted, “Get away! You can’t jail me!”
Quick as death, the mako jumbie turned and struck at Antonio. His scream turned Tan-Tan’s blood to ice water in her veins. It had him by one arm, was yanking him into the air when Chichibud leapt onto it, wrapping his legs round its neck. The mako jumbie dropped Antonio like Chichibud had dropped the killed rat-thing. There was a snapping sound. He screamed again. The bird threw its head from side to side, trying to shake Chichibud off. Tan-Tan ran to her daddy. He was moaning and rocking on the ground, his arm bent back on itself. A white tooth of bone was sticking through the skin, with a red spongy tip. In desperation, Tan-Tan grabbed his shirt collar and tried to pull him away from the battle. The bird screeched, thickening the air with its dead-meat breath. Still howling in pain, Antonio helped Tan-Tan by pushing and pushing his heels against the ground to move himself until the two of them reached a low tree to cower against. Tan-Tan looked up in time to see the mako jumbie scrape its neck against the trunk of the halwa tree, but still Chichibud didn’t drop off. He hauled out his knife from its holster and jooked it right into the mako jumbie’s throat. With a gurgle the bird went silent, but its thrashing became even more destructive. It stepped on the tent, piercing its own foot on the staves. It screeched its agony without vocal chords, a stinking harmattan wind. Chichibud dragged his knife right through the bird’s throat. In the firelight, its blood jetted out blackish in the air, thick and rank so till Tan-Tan nearly vomited when a gout of it, enough to fill a bucket, splashed to the ground nearby, splattering foul drops on her.