"Suppose we talk about this," Peter's father said quietly. "Come on up." He thumbed a light switch on a post at the head of the steps, and a veranda light came on.
Suddenly there was a scrambling on the steps and a speeding shadow the size of a rabbit scooted between Peter's feet, nearly knocking him off balance. The shadow raced the whole length of the veranda, making the same scratchy sound, spun around with a crazy, high-pitched yelp, and raced back again. It skidded to a stop beside Peter and looked up at him, furiously wagging its tail.
Zackie Leonard, not in the least embarrassed by the little dog's actions, had come boldly up the steps after it and now stood straight as a fence post, waiting.
Mr. Devon looked down at the dog, which with its ridiculous head cocked was still gazing up at Peter. "What in the world is this?" he asked.
"Me call him Mongoose," Zackie said.
"Mongoose?" There were many in Jamaica, Peter knew, offspring of those originally imported from India to destroy rats in the cane fields. About the size of cats, they were noted for their courage.
"Yes, suh, Mongoose," Zackie said. "Because him act like one." He looked down at the little brown-and-black dog, which had pointed, straight-up ears and a face that seemed to wear a perpetual grin.
Peter leaned over to pat the dog's head, and the animal's little tail trembled like a tiny flagpole in a hurricane. Peter had to laugh in spite of himself.
"Suppose we sit down," Mr. Devon suggested, and walked to the row of chairs. Peter and Zackie followed.
"Now," Peter's father said, "by what argument do you claim the pig belongs to you, Zackie?"
"It was me did shoot him, suh. It only right me should have him."
"But you shot him—it—on my property, young man."
"Him would harm the coffee, Mr. Devon! Me do you a big favor!"
Walter Devon leaned forward, cupping his chin in one hand. Watching him, Peter was sure it was hard for him to be so solemn with Zackie Leonard's crazy little dog sitting there, now staring at him as if in judgment. "Did your father send you here to say this to me?" Mr. Devon asked.
Zackie hesitated, and then said in a voice much less steady than before, "No, suh. Him did stone me for taking the gun.”
"Stone you? What do you mean?"
"Him was drunk again and did drive me from the house with stones." The boy thrust out a foot and drew up his
ragged pants leg. "One did catch me here. This other the pig did."
Mr. Devon examined the wounds, one an ugly swelling just under the knee, the other a deep gash above the ankle. "Peter," he said, "has Lorraine gone home, do you know?"
"I don't think so, Dad."
"Then ask her to bring some hot water, will you? I don't want to get involved in any dispute between this boy and his father, you understand. We have our own problems. But this needs attention at once." He frowned at the Jamaican boy. "You, Zackie, come with me, please." He went into the big front room while Peter ran down the outside stairs to the kitchen.
The housekeeper was just finishing up the supper dishes. There was a kettle of hot water on the stove. Peter told her what he wanted it for and carried it, with a basin she gave him, up the inside stairs to the living room.
With Zackie seated on a chair, Walter Devon kneeled before him. "We have to clean these wounds," he explained. "If we don't, they will almost certainly become infected." He dressed the gash first, using a sulfur ointment he had found effective when workers came to him with machete cuts—which they did often because they kept their machetes wickedly sharp and, being so adept with them, at times became careless.
While he was looking after the bruise, Lorraine Crosdale appeared in the doorway and stood there watching. Zackie's little dog watched every move, too, continually shifting his gaze from Mr. Devon's face to that of his
young master. The upright tail was not wagging now. The dog's eyes were wide with pleading, and a series of catlike mewing sounds came from his quivering mouth.
Finished with his doctoring, Mr. Devon got up off his knees. "If you go home, will your father take you in, Zackie?"
A shrug.
"Is that why you want the pig? So he won't be angry?"
"Well, yes, suh. Partly."
Peter saw his father hesitate, and guessed he was still unwilling to become involved. Perhaps he was even angry with himself for having gotten in as deeply as he already had. But, making up his mind, Mr. Devon finally nodded.
"All right, Zackie. Come tomorrow to let me look at this leg again, and you may have the pig."
"Him should be cut up tonight, suh," Zackie said.
"And you know how to do that?"
"Yes, suh, but not in your garage. It make a big mess. Me should carry him home."
Walter Devon shook his head in wonder. "All right, young man. I suggest you go to Mr. Campbell and ask him to help you." Mr. Campbell lived with his wife in the headman's cottage behind the house.
"Thank you, Mr. Devon," Zackie Leonard said, and walked out with dignity, followed first by his dog, Mongoose, and then—out of curiosity—by Peter.
It was strange. Peter had not seen Miss Lorrie leave the living room doorway. But when he went to the veranda railing to watch Zackie and the little dog go along the
path, the kitchen door below him opened and suddenly he saw the housekeeper standing there in a shaft of light. She made a soft hissing noise, and Zackie turned toward her.
When the boy and the woman talked, Peter could hear the murmur of their voices but not what they were saying. It lasted only a moment or two, anyway. Then Miss Lorrie stepped back into the kitchen, and Zackie went on down the path.
Peter stood at the veranda rail awhile longer, and then went back into the living room. To his surprise, Miss Lorrie was there with his father. "What do you think?" Mr. Devon was saying. "Will he have sense enough to come back?"
"Him will not come," the housekeeper predicted.
"I hope he goes to a doctor, then. That leg needs attention."
"It will heal, Mr. Devon. Just like the bush creatures heal when them get hurt."
"Bush creatures?"
"That's what him is, suh. Him seldom go to school, though all children are supposed to. That boy don't do a thing but run all day in the bush."
Suddenly there was a rustling sound at the double front doors, which were still open to let in the cool night breeze, and Zackie Leonard's little dog came racing in. At the same time, a voice said from the doorway, "Mr. Devon, me nuh find Mr. Campbell. Him not in the cottage."
When opportunity knocked that loudly, Peter was not one to ignore it. He said quickly, "Dad, why don't I help him carry the pig down? It's not late yet."
His father looked from one boy to the other and seemed undecided. But at last he said, "Can the two of you handle a thing that heavy?"
"Yes, suh!" Zackie Leonard almost shouted.
"Hey, of course!" cried Peter.
"All right. Take a couple of flashlights, Peter. I don't believe you're as used to the dark as Zackie is. And be careful, Peter. Please be careful."
He was thinking of Mark again, Peter guessed. Still, what was it Miss Lorrie had said only a little while ago? "Him love you. If anything was to happen to you..."
W
ith Zackie leading the way, the two boys proceeded slowly down the steep path to the village of Mango Gap, each using a flashlight to show him where to put his feet. The wild pig hung between them from a bamboo pole that rested on their shoulders, and, as Walter Devon had predicted, it was heavy. Zackie's dog seemed content to trot quietly along with them.
Peter wondered how heavy the pig actually was. Some wild pigs in Jamaica's Blue Mountains weighed more than a hundred and fifty pounds, he had heard. This one was probably not fully grown, though. He would have to ask Zackie about it. There was so much here that he wished he knew more about. That was another reason for staying with his dad and going to school in Jamaica.
Zackie slowed his pace, then stopped altogether and turned his head. "You must be tired, Peter. Mek we rest a minute."
"All right," Peter said. "But, hey, if I'm tired, you must be, too. We're both about the same age, I bet. How old are you?"
"Twelve."
"Well, so am I. But almost thirteen."
"That's good. Anyway, me must have to tell you something."
"Go ahead," Peter said. "What is it?"
"We can't go to my house. Mek we put this pig down for a minute and talk." Zackie lowered his end of the pole to the ground, and Peter did the same.
What Zackie said then took all of five minutes, while the two of them sat together on a slab of stone at the side of the track, in the dark, with the dead pig lying a few feet away. Mongoose watched them with his head atilt, as if he understood every word.
If the pig were carried to his house, Zackie explained, his father would claim it because it had been shot with his gun. "And the trouble is, we will not have it to eat, even though there is no other food in the house. What him will do is sell it and buy rum to stay drunk on."
"So what should we do?" Peter asked.
"When me did leave your house the first time, Peter, Miss Lorrie was waiting by the kitchen door. She did say me can leave the pig at her house. So that's where we must go, Peter, to her house. She will sell the pig and give me the money."
"And what will you do with the money?" Peter asked. "Buy food with it?"
"Only with some of it. The rest me will put with some other money me been saving, to run away with when me have enough saved up."
"You're planning to run away?" Peter was not only astonished, but suddenly sad.
He needed a friend. Mark and he had never known any of the village kids well—mostly because they'd gone to school in another parish, but also because they lived on the plantation, which the local people didn't think of as belonging to the village. "Where will you go?" he asked softly.
"Kingston." There was only one Kingston in Jamaica, the island's capital city. "Me can get a job there, and go to school."
"You say you have some other money saved up. How'd you earn that?"
"Me have a secret garden."
"A what?"
"A secret garden up in the high bush," Zackie said proudly. "Never mind where. Me not telling nobody, not even you. But me been growing things there to sell to higglers—things like yams and scallions and carrots." By higglers he meant people, mostly women, who bought from farmers, then sold in the marketplace. Some carried what they bought to markets in Kingston.
"So," Peter said slowly, "you don't run wild in the bush, like Miss Lorrie said."
"Run wild?" Zackie shook his head. "Uh-uh. Me work!"
"And that's why you won't go to school?"
"What time me have for school, huh? Tell me that! If me don't work to earn money, me and me daddy would
both hungry. Even worse could happen to him, if him don't eat whilst drinking like him do all the time. So . . ." Shaking his head, Zackie pushed himself to his feet.
"So we take the pig to Miss Lorrie's," Peter finished. "Okay, let's go."
It took them about twenty minutes to reach Lorraine Crosdale's house, and they met no one on the way. The house was like most of the others in the village, with plastered wattle walls and a zinc roof. Peter had seen such places being built by the people themselves and understood now why they all seemed a little crooked. It was because the saplings they were framed with were not very straight. Still, most of them were sturdy and attractive.
Lorraine Crosdale had not yet come home from work, but Zackie knew what to do. With his dog trotting at his heels, he hurried to the end of the yard and came back with some broad green leaves pulled from a banana plant. These he placed on the concrete floor of her kitchen, which was a small separate building in the yard. Then, after he and Peter had laid the pig down on the leaves, Zackie went for more with which to cover it.
"We should have a crocus bag, Peter. Here are some!"
From a little pile in a corner he lifted two burlap bags and spread them over the pig to protect it.
"Don't we have to cut this pig up?" Peter asked. "I heard you tell my dad—"
"Miss Lorrie will get her brother Aubrey to do it. Him is a butcher. Come!" Zackie got up from his knees and turned to the door. "We must go to my house now to see
if me father is all right. Then me will walk back up to your house with you."
With Zackie again leading the way, the two boys went on down the village path. The houses were far apart, and the lamps burning inside them transformed some of the windows into yellow eyes. Peter had a spooky feeling they really were eyes and were watching. After a few minutes Zackie turned to the left along a narrow side path.