Tangled Passion (17 page)

“I will be part of your group, Bushwacker,” Nathan said, calmly transferring his allegiance to the expert slave hunter. His major concern was to find Ashana and whatever it required to accomplish that task was very acceptable to him.

“Very well then, if you choose to join us but these cannot come,” Bushwacker replied. “As you can see, my men can ride and each has his own horse, anything different will only slow us down, especially inexperienced hunters on foot.”

“I need at least one of my men with me and if you have no spare horse then he can ride with me,” Nathan said reluctantly. He didn't actually expect Bushwacker to give his proposal a nod and was prepared to go ahead without any of his slaves if Bushwacker stood his ground.

“Very well, the choice of which of your men rides with you is yours, I certainly have no spare horse. Now let’s go get the job done,” Bushwacker declared, steering his horse around to face Nathan.

“You!” Nathan said pointing at Locua, adjusting himself to make room. “Yes you, come over here, get on,” Nathan added, waving Locua over impatiently.

Edwards’s eyes were still on Bushwacker and when he saw the big man shoot a quick glance at the house, scratch his head, and climb off his horse heading for the house, he knew it was his last opportunity and decided that he wasn’t going to let it pass.

Edwards dashed behind Bushwacker, screened by the drama of Locua trying to mount Nathan’s horse; it was a drama that held everybody’s attention and gave Edwards the opportunity he had been waiting for.

By Lacua’s third attempt, it was evident he had never mounted a horse before; he had fallen on his butt several times causing the rest of the slaves to laugh themselves to tears.

Edwards and Bushwacker ran into each other at the corner of the hut. “Good gracious, what is this Edwards?” Bushwacker said, coming to a halt and bracing himself only a few inches from Edwards’s face. “Don’t you ever do that again, ever! You could get hurt, I mean really hurt and really bad too.”

There was no time to waste. Edwards shoved the envelope in his face. Bushwacker's eyes went from the envelope that was only a few inches from his nose, travelled over the short hand that held it to Edward’s contorted face, and then back.

“Massa say give Booshwaaker,” Edwards blurted, very indifferent.

“Bush...Wacker, Edwards, that’s the way you say my name,” he corrected snatching the envelope from Edwards. “Massa Longstands?” Bushwacker asked giving the envelope another suspicious look.

“Yes! Massa!” Edwards replied in a tone of mild and subdued defiance. Bushwacker didn't appreciate what he suspected was in Edwards’s tone and wanted to let his large rough palm explode on the short man’s face but kept his calm. He ripped open the envelope, pulled out a white paper and stared at the contents. He counted the bills in it; the same amount of money that was in the envelope he’d received from Nathan earlier on. The bills disappeared in his pocket immediately and he unfolded the note:

Dear Bushwacker,

Hope this missive reaches you in good condition, it certainly saddens my heart to ask this of you via a simple missive, but this must be done, it is very crucial that when you find the slaves that they be disposed of, this is a matter of utmost importance to me.

It is also imperative that my son, Nathan be kept in the dark where this is concerned, he cannot be a witness to the quiet disposal of the slaves but if it really can’t be helped then you must make it look like an accident.

Hope that you do understand, I shall explain when we meet.

Upon reading this last line, hand this paper back to Edwards.

Thank you.

L.

Edwards had followed closely the wavy movements and gymnastics performed by Bushwacker’s brow as he read the letter–the folding and unfolding of the wrinkles on his forehead, the squinching and widening of his eyes and the twitching of his nearly invincible lips. He could tell that the content of the note had caused the big man some sort of uneasiness; Edwards had had a bad feeling about the envelope from the moment he received it.

After reading the letter, Bushwacker returned the paper into the envelope, shoved it into his pocket and stared over Edwards’s head through the door for a brief moment. Then he quickly reached into his pocket and retrieved the envelope. “Almost forgot this,” he said handing an envelope to Edwards. “Go give this back to your Massa!” Bushwacker said in Creole language, causing Edwards’s mouth to jump open in shock—Bushwacker spoke Creole.

Now as he headed back to the Fort, Edwards’s thoughts oscillated between the message in the envelope that he gave Bushwacker and how the giant could speak fluent Creole. But his thoughts lingered longer on the possible message contained in the envelope; since Nathan arrived and showed interest in Ashana, things had not been the same at the Fort and Edwards had been in the middle of it all. After all, he did all the translations and spent most of his time in the Massa’s quarters.

If Nathan’s parents were bent on stopping Nathan from being with a slave girl that he was bent on marrying and the slave girl was suddenly lost somewhere in the dense forest—what message could Massa Longstands possibly want a thug like Bushwacker to receive secretly. Edwards’s stomach churned as the possible content of the letter he’d delivered to Bushwacker scrolled across the screen of his mind. Could Massa Longstands have instructed Bushwacker to do what he was thinking? Edwards wondered.

As they rode and galloped through the wild terrain, Bushwacker’s thoughts remained imprisoned by the letter from Longstands. He wondered why it was necessary to dispose of the slaves, especially the girl. He cared little about the lives of the slaves, after all they were aware of the consequences of attempting to escape and had often made up their mind to die if caught but could it be that Longstands had gotten the young slave girl pregnant and now wanted his mess quietly buried, in order to avoid a stench that would travel across the West Indian Seas all the way to England? It was a possibility and it wouldn’t be the first time Bushwacker had done some hypocrite, some high and mighty British slave Massa slash politician such a favour—disposing of the mess they made in the West Indian Islands with the slave girls.

Mr. Longstands, on the other hand, was a man he held in high esteem and the thought was beginning to eat on the pillars that held that esteem high and it bothered him just a little bit; or maybe a little more than a little bit, Bushwacker thought.

“I am a professional,” he whispered to himself. He had to remind himself that there was no point in trying to figure these things out, he got well paid, he did the job well, and everybody was happy. He wanted to ask Nathan some questions but hesitated many times. If the young man’s father was hiding the plan to dispose of Ashana from his son, then his theory might be right. Longstands was probably hiding his deed from his son; as a matter of fact it was possible that Longstands was the one who’d sent the girl away and was now sending Bushwacker to go get rid of her. “Forget it,” he whispered to himself again and returned his thoughts to the journey. “We have another two, at most three more hours of riding before a break,” he announced.

 For the first time, the two were ecstatic; it was now only a matter of time before they arrived at the foot of Morne Turner. It was no longer a destination that they feared they might never reach, as they once had.

Later that night they sat next to each other, looking up at Morne Turner; it suddenly seemed unbelievably within reach and inviting. They took turns saying the first things they intended to do the moment they arrived at the foot of the mountain. “There is supposed to be a stream there,” Jonah said, “PaNene told me the stream ran around the mountain.”

“I’ll drink from it until my stomach is full and then I’ll jump into it and splash the water like a madwoman,” Ashana replied.

“OK my dear, but now we must keep moving,” Jonah said, helping Ashana to her feet.

Clouds of dust rose as the horse hooves slammed against the ground with each gallop; the horses tore through the bushes urged by their riders. Bushwacker was at the lead while Nathan and Locua followed at the tail of the pack. They had rested for a drink of water and a bite of whatever snack they brought along but Bushwacker had made it clear that it was only a break and by the time the last bit of his snack settled underneath his crushing molars he was already mounting his horse.

Nathan's heart overflowed with anxiety, the amount of progress made so far pleased him greatly. At the pace they were travelling, he knew it was only a matter of time before they closed up on Ashana and Jonah. He hadn’t decided on what to do with Jonah; his primary concern at the moment was Ashana. But on several occasions, he had caught himself wondering if Ashana went along with the young man of her own free will and without any form of coercion—if that was the case, he worried what his next move should be.

The possibility that his parents, especially his mother had something to do with the so-called escape also nagged Nathan and was something he wasn’t yet ready to rule out, until he spoke with Ashana. He was also aware that if it wasn’t for his mother’s pressure on his father, the situation would have been a lot less explosive. He had to bring his mother under control but how, he wondered.

“Halt!” Bushwacker suddenly shouted, his right hand shooting into the air; the horses neighed as they scrambled to come to a sudden stop. Bushwacker had his feet on the ground before his horse came to a complete stop and so did his boys. Nathan watched in puzzlement as the big man and his men went to their knees, scrutinizing every inch of the grounds and attempting to read every single clue it had offer.

“What is it?” Nathan asked as he approached Bushwacker who was bent over a depression made in the sand under a tree.

“Somebody was laying here; there is an impression to testify to that and it is recent,” Bushwacker explained proudly, “as a matter of fact, more than one person rested here not too long ago; not more than twenty four hours ago.”

Nathan descended on all fours and peered closely at the spot from where Bushwacker was reading all his clues but it was difficult to tell from the uneven distribution of sand in one location that some people or person was recently lying there.

“You do agree don’t you? Their backs were right here, legs over there and their hands on this side,” Bushwacker explained.

“Yes I do,” Nathan replied reluctantly. Even though he couldn’t see anything that Bushwacker claimed to be seeing, he knew it was necessary to agree with the big man so the conversation could quickly come to an end and the chase resume.

“This way! This way!” One of Bushwacker's men yelled out from the bush around a tree. Bushwacker jumped to his feet and was beside the man in no time. Nathan followed and so did Locua. This time Nathan saw the footprints, the dew had fallen on them and then the sun took its turn to cake them in the claylike soil.

A flood of smile swept over Bushwacker's face; the hunt looked like it was going to end just the way he wanted—fast and easy.

“I told you Mr. Nathan, we are professionals,” Bushwacker boasted looking up at Nathan, who smiled encouragingly. “Clearly they went south,” Bushwacker went on, an obvious speck of pride in his tone. They were now all seated on the ground, waiting for the announcement of a new strategy from Bushwacker. “This confirms my hunch, they are heading for Morne Turner and from there they’ll either go to Morne Diablotins, also known as Morne Turner, or they’ll head for the mystery boat towards Dublanc River.”

“What do we do now? I mean which way do we go from here?” asked Nathan, his voice heavy with a mixture of excitement, fear, and anxiety. “Do we split up?”

Bushwacker ignored both questions and continued, “Clearly there is no water in this stretch as far as I know, so soon if not already they'll be out of water and will be as thirsty as hell’s residents and of course very tired.” He rose to his feet and dusted his khaki pants. “Now all we do is pursue; no breaks and no stops until we catch up with them–we must reach them before they get to Morne Turner. It’s getting late and it is imperative that we are there before nightfall.”

“OK,” Nathan agreed excitedly. He had no more questions, suggestions, or objections; Bushwacker made sense, especially with the ‘no breaks and no stops until the slaves were found’ part.

He hadn’t worked at the plantation for many years but Massa’s wife didn’t care that he was too old and too weak to work on the plantations or that he had given his entire youth working the plantations, which earned him the right to do only minor tasks at the Fort. But PaNene’s mind was busy with his plan to send signals to the brothers on the other side of Morne Turner. He’d already secured the birds needed to send out his signals; two birds was the recommendation but he’d secured four birds just to be double sure.

He’d witnessed what he was about to do, done by older folks when he was young; he’d watched as birds were prepared to carry messages about escaped slaves needing assistance, to the other slaves on the other side of Morne Turner. Now it was his turn to do the same. The pigeons always came from the east and travelled south, all you needed to do was catch one or two of them, tie a small stone to their feet and release them.