" ... I mek dem pay me! Deed I dids! Says to dem, 'pay me, or be Christ
you'll stan' de consequences!' 'Pay me,' I says, 'or I'll sick de
British bulldog on all yo' Omericans!'
"An' dey pay yo' fas' enough, didn' dey?"
"Pay me? Man, yo' should o' see how fas' dey pay me! Pay me fas'
enough, indeed! Five hundred pounds! Ev'y blind cent! Man, I wuz ready
to sick Nelson heself 'pon dem! At a moment's notice, me an' de council
wuz gettin' ready fo ramsack de Isthmus and shoot up de whole blasted
locks! Hell wit' de Canal! We wuz gwine blow up de dam, cut down de
wireless station, an' breck up de gubment house! If dey didn't pay me
fo' my foot!"
"Yo' handle dem fo' true, didn't yo'?"
"Man, don't tahlk! Shut yo' mout'! Handle dem? Dat am not all de
troot. I swallow dem up! Swallow dem up like a salipentah! Sha'? Man,
let me tell yo' something. I let dem understand quick enough dat I
wuz a Englishman and not a bleddy American nigger! A' Englishman--big
distinction in dat, Bruing! An' dat dey couldn't do as dey bleddy well
please wit' a subject o' de King! Whuh? I carry on like a rattlesnake.
Carry on like a true Bimshah! Heah I wuz losin' my foot fo' dem wit'
dere bleddy canal an' dey come tellin' me dey wuzn't to blame, dat
nobody wuz to blame, dat de engine wuz gwine slow an' dat I wuz musta
been layin' down on de job. Hear dem Americans, ni? Layin' down on de
job, hear dat, Bruing? And wuzzahmo' dey say dat why I didn't ketch
holt o' de cow-katcher an' fling meself outa de way! Wha', man, dah
t'ing knock me onconscience! I didn't even know I wuz hit! Dere I wuz
oilin' de switch--oilin' de switch an' de nex' t'ing yo' know I wuz in
de horspitral at Ancong wit' one foot cut off."
Pipes were being smoked ... stinking tobacco smote Ella. Green tobacco
leaves burning in rotting corncob pipes.
Sugar, snuff, codfish, lard oil, sweet oil, corn, rum, kerosene--were
the ingredients of one grand symphonic smell.
"Giv' me a bag o' salt an' a package o' senna."
"Are dat yo', Miss Ella?"
"Yes, it am me."
She turned. Perched on an old biscuit barrel was Pettit Bruin, the
village idiot, smoking a pipe which exuded an odor of burning cow dung.
"Howdy do, Mistah Bruing, how de worle a treat yo'?"
"Oh, so so, gal."
Ella's eyes deserted the old man to light upon the shopkeeper sticking
his black veiny hand in the brine for the salt beef, his back to her.
With a stab to the breast, she noted the protrudent tip of the cork
leg....
"Anything else, miss?" he asked, the brine dripping from his
salt-crusted arm.
"Gahd, he are black in troot," Ella, mulatto Ella observed to herself;
then aloud, "bettah giv' me a gill o' bakin' soda, I might wan' to make
a cake."
"Look out dey, Poyah," mumbled Bruin, "gwine bring down dat salmon tin
'pon yo' head too."
"Oh dat can't hit me," Poyer replied, lowering the baking powder on the
tip of the hook. "I's a man, man."
He faced Ella, piling up the goods on the counter. "I's a man, man," he
said, meeting Ella's frosting eyes. "I wuz a brakesman in Palama, don't
fomembah dat. I wuz de bes' train hooper on de Isthmus!"
"Count up de bill, quick!" Ella hastened, putting a sixpence on the
counter. "It a get dark."
"Frighten fo' duppies?" Poyer said, a suggestion of teasing and mockery
in his voice.
Island bugaboo.... "Who, me?" Ella's eyes blazed, "I ain't frighten fo'
de livin' much mo' de dead!"
"T'ink I is any cry-cry ooman, t'ink I is any cry-cry ooman--yo' lie!"
On the way back up the gap Ella felt unforgivingly warm in the temples
at the very idea of Poyer's thinking she was afraid of ghosts. "Like I
is any mamby-pamby ooman, like I ain't usta to takin' care o' meself."
Six days passed. Ella stuck a pig and corned the meat. The sapodillas
ripened. Shaddocks--tropical grapefruits--filled donkey cart after
donkey cart going through the gap to Eagle Hall Corner. Often as the
sun rose showers fell. And then a visitor came--with a peg-step....
It was dark when he came. He was perspiring furiously. He was one of
those black men whose faces present an onion-like sheen, and upon
whose brow and flabby jaws little fester-bright pimples stand out with
a plaguing glitter.
He met Ella by the side of the well, binding up the spurs of a
pugnacious game cock.
"I shut up de shop," he said abruptly, "why don't yo' come an' buy from
me any mo'?"
"Hey, wha' yo' t'ink o' dat? Wha' wuz I doin' befo' yo' come along? Yo'
t'ink I was starvin'? I look like I is starved out? Look at me good! We
had plenty shops befo' yo' come along, bo."
"I taught--"
"Wha' yo' are taught? Yo' must be a funny man. Hey, yo' lock up yo'
shop fi' come aftah one customah! Dat are a funny business."
"Bruing is dere--besides, it are good business."
"Tell me, how it are good business? Explain yo'self."
"Fo' me it are."
"Me can't see it, sah, furdah mo, I gwine ask yo' fo' excuse me, I got
de chicken dem fo' feed."
"Wait--befo' yo' go, Ella--Miss Ella, yo' don't seem fo' hav' no
feelings at all fo' de po' wooden foot man."
"Gahd! How yo' mean feelings? Wha' yo' want me fo' do? Hug yo' up?"
"Tek pity...."
"Go 'way from heah I say. Don't come near me. Loose me befo' I go get
de cutlass an' chop off yo' udder foot."
"Yo' know yo' won't do dat."
"Is dat so?"
"Yo' know yo' won't...."
"Fo' true?"
"Yo' too kind. Yo' won't--yo' like me--"
"Oh, is dat de saht o' man yo' is, eh?"
"Wha' yo' mean? Tahlk, ooman, what saht o' man is dat?"
"T'ink dat ev'y ooman is de same. But yo' is a dam liar! Nutting can
frighten me. All dem bag o' flour yo' 'a' got, an' dem silk shut, an'
dem gold teets, an' dem Palama hats, yo' a spote round heah wid--dem
don't frighten me. I is a woman what is usta t'ings. I got me hogs an'
me fowls an' me potatoes. No wooden foot neygah man can frighten me
wit' he clothes or he barrels o' cologne...."
Yellow kerchief mopping his brow, he walked off ... peg step, peg step
... leaving Ella by the well, gazing with defiance in her being.
"What he t'ink I is, anyhow?"
"Go back an' lahn, go back an' lahn, dat not de way fi' cote."
The western sky of Barbadoes was ablaze. A mixture of fire and gold,
it burned, and burned--into one vast sulphurous mass. It burned the
houses, the trees, the windowpanes. The burnt glass did amazing color
somersaults--turned brown and gold and lavender and red. It poured a
burning liquid over the gap. It colored the water in the ponds a fierce
dull yellowish gold. It flung on the corn and the peas and the star
apples a lavender glow. It pitched its golden, flaming, iridescent
shadow upon the lush of paw-paw and sunflower. It withered the petals
of rose or sweet pea or violet or morning glory. Its flame upon the
earth was mighty. Sunset over the gap paralyzed. Sunset shot weird
amber tints in the eyes of the black peons ... sent strange poetic
dreams through the crinkly heads of mule boys tiredly bowed over the
reins of some starved-out buckra cart horse.
Sunset at Ella's--"Go in yo' pen, sah, go in...." Hogs, fowls, pigeons,
geese, bastard creations, straggled waywardly in.
Smoke. Smoke is easy to smell. Ella quickly smelt it. Then she began to
look for it.... Smoke and the sunset. A smoky sunset. No. The setting
sun kept her from seeing it. But slowly it grew dim, dark; slowly the
gold burned into a deep rich bronze ... slowly it burned and burned ...
black.
"Somebody grass burnin'," Ella sniffed and looked about. The dense
night helped. The smoke persisted. "Ah, dere it are." Ella paused, a
hen, sick with the yaws, clutched to her bosom.
"Gahd, a cane fire." Vaults of black smoke rose. A winding, spouting
pyramid of it. Black, greasy, caneless.
"It must be de church steeple, dem ministers is so careless...." Ella
watched, lured by the curving, spouting ascent.
"Miss Heath!" From the gap a voice called. "Fiah, Miss Heath, fiah,
Poyah shop on fiah!" One of the Dalrimple children ... speeding down
the gap, to the rest of the folks....
"Lahd, 'a' massie!"
The hen suddenly took flight out of Ella's arm, spilling the molasses
and corn she had been feeding it. Emptying the bucket containing the
relishes of her evening meal, she ran to the well and jerked it down
it. Swiftly the bucket was jerked back up. Water splashed. It was a
big bucket. With one grand sweep Ella swung it on her head. Ella was
a mulatto, with plenty of soft black hair. She didn't need a cloth
twisted and plaited to form a matting for her head. Her hair did that;
it was thick enough. It could hold, balance a bucket.
The bucket sat on the crown of her head looking as if it had been
created there. And Ella sailed on with it. She forgot to put out the
fire under her food.
And down the gap she fled, the bucket of water on her head. Her strides
were typical of the West Indian peasant woman--free, loose, firm. Zim,
zam, zim, zam. Her feet were made to traverse that stony gap. No stones
defied her free, lithe approach. Left foot to right hand, right hand
to left foot--and Ella swept down with amazing grace and ease. Her toes
were broad; they encountered no obstacles. Her feet did not slip. The
water did not splash. It was safe, firm, serene on top of her head.
Ella got in the broad road--easier. A sigh escaped her lips. The road
was enlivened by one or two people coming up from town--
"Run, dahtah, the shop a bu'n."
"Quick, dem a need it."
It was dry; a little marl dust. Up the stony resilient incline she
went, then swiftly down by the evergreen tree.
"Gahd, he is burnt out clean." All around the evergreen tree there
used to be shadows. The fire sent gleams of firelight pelting through
the dark. The shadows flew. You could have picked up a pin under the
evergreen....
Crowds of anxious hill dwellers gathered up the road. From Eagle Hall
Corner a constable was coming with the white cork hat, the creaking
shoes, the regal swagger of the black constabulary....
It was easy for Ella to strain through the tiny crowd of folk up the
embankment.
Fire singed Ella. Smoke dazed her, choked and repelled her.... "Go back
dere, go back. You--stand back!"
"Where is Missah Poyah, where is Missah Poyah?" Ella screamed. A straw
valise, label spattered--deckers luggage--an old shirt--one or two
stray sacks of split peas--the money canister.
Faces; old Bruin, "Where is Missah Poyah?" Ella pursued madly,
collaring the weed gourmand. "Where is Missah Poyah?"
"Stand back!" the constable ordered, "stand back, and let 'em bring in
de stretcher!"
Old Bruin gave way, talking loudly and excitedly. "He is in dey, yes,
he is in dey ... don't push me 'bout.... I tell yo' he is in dey. Yo'
must be drunk yo'self."
It was then that Ella realized how for-nothing was her bucket of water.
_THE YELLOW ONE_
3
_THE YELLOW ONE_
I
Once catching a glimpse of her, they swooped down like a brood of
starving hawks. But it was the girl's first vision of the sea, and the
superstitions of a Honduras peasant heritage tightened her grip on the
old rusty canister she was dragging with a frantic effort on to the
_Urubamba's_ gangplank.
"Le' me help yo', dahtah," said one.
"Go 'way, man, yo' too farrad--'way!"
"'Im did got de fastiness fi' try fi' jump ahead o' me again, but mahn
if yo' t'ink yo' gwine duh me outa a meal yo' is a dam pitty liar!"
"Wha' yo' ah try fi' do, leggo!" cried the girl, slapping the nearest
one. But the shock of her words was enough to paralyze them.
They were a harum scarum lot, hucksters, ex-cable divers and thugs of
the coast, bare-footed, brown-faced, raggedly--drifting from every cave
and creek of the Spanish Main.
They withdrew, shocked, uncertain of their ears, staring at her; at her
whom the peons of the lagoon idealized as _la madurita_: the yellow one.
Sensing the hostility, but unable to fathom it, she felt guilty of some
untoward act, and guardedly lowered her eyes.
Flushed and hot, she seized the canister by the handle and started
resuming the journey. It was heavy. More energy was required to move it
than she had bargained on.
In the dilemma rescuing footsteps were heard coming down the gangplank.
She was glad to admit she was stumped, and stood back, confronted by
one of the crew. He was tall, some six feet and over, and a mestizo
like herself. Latin blood bubbled in his veins, and it served at once
to establish a ready means of communication between them.
"I'll take it," he said, quietly, "you go aboard--"
"Oh, many thanks," she said, "and do be careful, I've got the baby
bottle in there and I wouldn't like to break it." All this in Spanish,
a tongue spontaneously springing up between them.
She struggled up the gangplank, dodging a sling drooping tipsily on to
the wharf. "Where are the passengers for Kingston station?" she asked.
"Yonder!" he pointed, speeding past her. Amongst a contortion of
machinery, cargo, nets and hatch panels he deposited the trunk.
Gazing at his hardy hulk, two emotions seared her. She wanted to be
grateful but he wasn't the sort of person she could offer a tip to. And
he would readily see through her telling him that Alfred was down the
dock changing the money.
But he warmed to her rescue. "Oh, that's all right," he said, quite
illogically, "stay here till they close the hatch, then if I am not
around, somebody will help you put it where you want it."
Noises beat upon her. Vendors of tropical fruits cluttered the wharf,
kept up sensuous cries; stir and clamor and screams rose from every
corner of the ship. Men swerved about her, the dock hands, the crew,
digging cargo off the pier and spinning it into the yawning hatch.
"Wha' ah lot o' dem," she observed, "an' dem so black and ugly.
R--r--!" Her words had the anti-native quality of her Jamaica spouse's,
Alfred St. Xavier Mendez.
The hatch swelled, the bos'n closed it, and the siege commenced. "If Ah
did got any sense Ah would Ah wait till dem clean way de rope befo' me
mek de sailor boy put down de trunk. Howsomevah, de Lawd will provide,
an' all me got fi' do is put me trus' in Him till Halfred come."
With startling alacrity, her prayers were answered, for there suddenly
appeared a thin moon-faced decker, a coal-black fellow with a red
greasy scarf around his neck, his teeth giddy with an ague he had
caught in Puerta Tela and which was destined never to leave him. He
seized the trunk by one end and helped her hoist it on the hatch. When
he had finished, he didn't wait for her trepid words of thanks but flew
to the ship's rail, convulsively shaking.
She grew restive. "Wha' dat Halfred, dey, eh," she cried, "wha' a man
can pacify time dough, eh?"
The stream of amassing deckers overran the _Urubamba's_ decks. The
din of parts being slugged to rights buzzed. An oily strip of canvas
screened the hatch. Deckers clamorously crept underneath it.
The sea lay torpid, sizzling. Blue rust flaked off the ship's sides
shone upon it. It dazzled you. It was difficult to divine its true
color. Sometimes it was so blue it blinded you. Another time it would
turn with the cannon roar of the sun, red. Nor was it the red of fire
or of youth, of roses or of red tulips. But a sullen, grizzled red.
The red of a North Sea rover's icicled beard; the red of a red-headed
woman's hair, the red of a red-hot oven. It gave to the water engulfing
the ship a dark, copper-colored hue. It left on it jeweled crusts.
A bow-legged old Maroon, with a trunk on his head, explored the deck,
smoking a gawky clay pipe of some fiery Jamaica bush and wailing,
"Scout bway, scout bway, wha' yo' dey? De old man ah look fa' yo'."
The trunk was beardy and fuzzy with the lashes of much-used rope. It
was rapidly dusking, and a woman and an amazing brood of children
came on. One pulled, screaming, at her skirt, one was astride a hip,
another, an unclothed one, tugged enthusiastically at a full, ripened
breast. A hoary old black man, in a long black coat, who had taken
the Word, no doubt, to the yellow "heathen" of the fever-hot lagoon,
shoeless, his hard white crash pants rolled up above his hairy, veiny
calves, with a lone yellow pineapple as his sole earthly reward.
A tar-black Jamaica sister, in a gown of some noisy West Indian silk,
her face entirely removed by the shadowy girth of a leghorn hat,
waltzed grandly up on the deck. The edge of her skirt in one hand,
after the manner of the ladies at Wimbledon, in the other a fluttering
macaw, she was twittering, "Hawfissah, hawfissah, wear is de hawfissah,
he?" Among the battering hordes there were less brusque folk; a native
girl,--a flower, a brown flower--was alone, rejecting the opulent offer
of a bunk, quietly vowing to pass two nights of sleepful concern
until she got to Santiago. And two Costa Rica maidens, white, dainty,
resentful and uncommunicative.
He came swaggering at last. La Madurita said, "Wha' yo' been, Halfred,
all dis lang time, no?"
"Cho, it wuz de man dem down dey," he replied, "dem keep me back." He
gave her the sleeping child, and slipped down to doze on the narrow
hatch.
In a mood of selfless bluster he was returning to Kingston. He adored
Jamaica. He would go on sprees of work and daring, to the jungles of
Changuinola or the Cut at Culebra, but such flights, whether for a
duration of one or ten years, were uplifted mainly by the traditional
deprivations of Hindu coolies or Polish immigrants--sunless, joyless.
Similarly up in Cabello; work, sleep, work; day in and day out for
six forest-hewing years. And on Sabbaths a Kentucky evangelist, a
red-headed hypochondriac, the murky hue of a British buckra from the
beat of the tropic sun, tearfully urged the blacks to embrace the
teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ before the wrath of Satan engulfed
them. Then, one day, on a tramp to Salamanca, a fancy struck him. It
stung, was unexpected. He was unused to the sensations it set going.
It related to a vision--something he had surreptitiously encountered.
Behind a planter's hut he had seen it. He was slowly walking along the
street, shaded by a row of plum trees, and there she was, gloriously
unaware of him, bathing her feet in ample view of the sky. She was
lovely to behold. Her skin was the ripe red gold of the Honduras
half-breed. It sent the blood streaming to his head. He paused
and wiped the sweat from his face. He looked at her, calculating.
Five--six--seven-fifty. Yes, that'd do. With seven hundred and fifty
pounds, he'd dazzle the foxy folk of Kingston with the mellow _Spanish_
beauty of her.
In due time, and by ample means, he had been able to bring round the
girl's hitherto _chumbo_-hating folk.
"Him mus' be hungry," she said, gazing intently at the baby's face.
"Cho'," replied Alfred, "leave de picknee alone, le' de gal picknee
sleep." He rolled over, face downwards, and folded his arms under
his chin. He wore a dirty khaki shirt, made in the States, dark green
corduroy pants and big yellow shoes which he seldom took off.
Upright on the trunk, the woman rocked the baby and nursed it. By this
time the hatch was overcrowded with deckers.
Down on the dock, oxen were yoked behind wagons of crated bananas.
Gnawing on plugs of hard black tobacco and firing reels of spit to
every side of them, New Orleans "crackers" swearingly cursed the
leisurely lack of native labor. Scaly ragamuffins darted after boxes of
stale cheese and crates of sun-sopped iced apples that were dumped in
the sea.