“I lost it. I put it down somewhere and didn’t mark good where.”
“I go get you some balm. Go on to bed.”
The soothing balm worked, as so much douen medicine did. The itching and burning faded quickly and the swelling subsided. Tan-Tan fell into an exhausted sleep. She ran in her dreams all night, chased by a thing she couldn’t see. When she clambered out from sleep, she realised: Janisette and them hadn’t seemed surprised to see her there in Chigger Bite. They must have been asking the settlements round Junjuh for news of her. Had Al’s mother betrayed her?
Next morning she was helping Benta fold some newly woven cloths. *You could have come to grief last night,* Benta clucked.
Grief come to me long time. “But nothing happen, I was all right.”
*No, you prove you is still a bush baby. You my charge and Chichibud’s, we can’t put you in danger. From now on, you must only go down a-bush during the day.*
And all Tan-Tan protested, she had to obey. The rest of the douens told on her if she tried to escape, and somebody from the nest would come and get her. For a week her curfew made her shamed and furious. She big woman, making baby, and two ratbats telling her what to do!
She couldn’t stand it. One morning she decided to talk to them about it. They were in the kitchen, Chichibud gouging holes in the daddy tree to transplant new herbs into, and Benta trimming back new daddy tree growth with her sharp beak. Tan-Tan opened up her mouth to talk to them.
BANG-bang-bang! rang out through the daddy tree. Tan-Tan threw herself prone to the floor. Benta was by her side in two-twos, sweeping Tan-Tan to safety beneath her body. She screeched for Zake and Abitefa, who scrambled up into the kitchen to hide under her too. BANG-bang-bang! It was coming from groundwards. Chichibud yelled that he would see what the racket was. He leapt for the hole in the floor, grabbing at the rope as he did. There came the slap of his feet hitting the floor downstairs, then running outside.
Zake was only wailing, “Uhu! Uhu!” Benta whistled softly to him. The daddy tree branches were thrumming with the impact of douens running, hurrying down to the bush floor to see is what really going on. Tan-Tan, Zake and Abitefa squatted under Benta’s breast like baby birds in a nest. What strangeness was happening this time? Tan-Tan’s mind skittered in fright.
The bowl of centipede things had spilled. The nasty yellow-green insects that had been released were scuttling hell-for-leather to freedom. And all the while, all you could hear was: BANG-bang-bang! Splutter-splutter-phut-phut.
Then the patter of feet running back inside the nest. *Chichibud?* Benta sang out. Chichibud warbled back. His head appeared in the hole in the floor. “Allyou make haste come and see. Down on the forest floor. You too, Tan-Tan; this have to be tallpeople business.”
No time for the harness once they reached outside the nest. Chichibud climbed up on Benta’s back, grasped her feathered sides with his feet claws. Tan-Tan clambered up behind him and wrapped her arms round his waist. The banging noise was driving out all logic. Chichibud’s nutmeg-and-vinegar smell was strong; he was agitated. Abitefa threw herself down a daddy tree trunk, heading fast for ground level. Benta pumped up her wings and flung herself off the branch. Tan-Tan fought down nausea as the plummet seemed to turn her belly right away round in her body.
All round them douen people were heading down, quiet like duppy spirits as they reached the lower levels. Benta landed on the lowest branch. It was wide like an avenue. Its edge was crowded with douens four deep, but Benta pushed to the front. Tan-Tan and Chichibud slid off her. A few douens climbed up frantically from ground level to join them; the ones who’d been at the foundry. What were they running from?
The sound of explosions was coming from off in the bush, from the direction of Chigger Bite. It was getting closer. Could never happen, say it couldn’t be. Tan-Tan bent and whispered into Chichibud’s ear: “What we looking for?”
“Wait. It coming into sight now. Keep still.”
Is like he give the order to everybody. Every man-jack of the douen people became still and invisible. They slid into shadows or put themselves behind big daddy tree leaves. Is as if nobody was there.
Tan-Tan sank into a crouch and watched at the place where the noise was coming from. Closer. Louder. It broke from the bush into the space beneath the daddy tree. Splutter-splutter-phut-phut-phut. It was the car, limned by the lanterns its occupants were carrying. Tan-Tan squeaked, clapped a hand to her mouth. They had tracked her from Chigger Bite!
The car rolled to a stop. They had wrapped chains round its wheels. The chains had bitten into the loam and tossed up deep chunks of it, leaving a plowed trail all the way from the daddy tree back to Chigger Bite.
“What a way the something ugly!” Chichibud whispered.
Sitting up on the caboose, Janisette was wearing a low-cut black peasant blouse today and tight black dungarees, with a big black straw hat and veil protecting her face and bosom. She favoured La Diablesse, the devil woman. She put her lantern down beside her and rolled the veil up over the hat to look round. For all her widow’s weeds she didn’t look like nobody in mourning, oui? More like a woman on a rampage. Is so thunder cloud does look before the hurricane, so rolling calf does gather heself into a big black ball before he strike. She looked up, up at the height and breadth of the daddy tree.
“What a ugly, obzocky-looking thing! It come in more like a mountain than a tree. Michael, you sure is here the bitch went to?”
“Is here the trail dead out,” Michael responded. “Best we check it out. Rahtid! You ever see a tree big so?”
“What you think Tan-Tan would be doing here?” Janisette looked round, her mouth pursed up in disdain. She cupped her hand to her mouth and sang sweetly out over the bush, “Tan-Tan! You out here? You all right? Come, doux-doux; everything forgive. Mamee looking for you!”
Gladys said, “You know, you is a two-faced woman. Trying to mamaguy the pickney with sweet words.”
“Is no pickney that, is the bitch that killed my husband.”
“Nobody know that for sure.”
Janisette spat over the side of the car. “So is who do it, then?”
“Maybe Antonio get into a fight with one of Tan-Tan man, oui? He had a unhealthy way to be jealous of he own pickney.”
“Hush your mouth!”
“No, Compère. Making this car for you was a good challenge, we learn plenty, but me fatigued with this nonsense now. Me and Michael want to go home.”
Michael smiled at Gladys, shrugged apologetically in Janisette’s direction.
Scowling, Janisette pointed back the way they’d come.
“You want to leave, get out and go then, nuh?”
“Like you forget who construct this vehicle? We ain’t see no payment yet.”
Janisette kissed her teeth, looked away.
But Gladys wasn’t done. “Maybe you bring we on this chase for nothing. That woman-pickney pants too hot for she own damn good, but I tell you, coulda be anybody do for Antonio. Anybody he cheat or insult. Cuffee, for instance. Chichibud. The rest of allyou does trust douen people too easy.”
“And you does run off your blasted mouth too easy. Shit flowing out of it like out of duck behind.”
“Oonuh don’t fight, nuh?” Michael pleaded with them. “It ain’t go help nothing.”
Tan-Tan knew what she had to do. This was about her, she couldn’t make the douens get mixed up in it. She made to start down the nearest trunk, but Chichibud held her back.