The wind, alternately hissing and snarling, brought to Seenie's
ears the roar of the Essequibo belching cargo on the wooded shores
of Waakenam. O! placid, godless wind! It brought heroic tales of
Georgetown muck on a briny dash to the gold fields.
Gold, Pataro gold
O! de rich man
An' de po' man.
O! intimate, loquacious wind! It told epic tales of black men, the salt
of adventure seasoning the marrow in their bones, in _bateaux_ (the
flat-bottomed curses) speeding, nugget laden, down the _tacabah_-paved
river--suddenly becoming songless!
Ovah danger, danger, danger
Danger, danger, danger, danger
Rocks an' Fall--!
You Mistah _Tacabah_! A sea lion, a sea cow, a shark? No! Great big
slices of timber fastened, growing in the river! Deep-rooted, they
were animals--groveling in the bowels of the unsettled stream. And
_Tacabah_, the perpendicular beast, had eyes and ears, feet and heads.
And _tacabah_ could butt. On a starless night, he, the master of the
river's fate, the hairy prowler of its incalculable depths, usually
got on the war path. How easy it was for him! All a headlong _bateau_,
oared by a lot of drunken gold diggers, need do was touch it--it was
hardly necessary to jam it--and _tacabah'd_ get the laugh on _bateau_!
Over it'd go--at _tacabah's_ jerky butt--heading for the eely monster's
bowels, planted deep in the roots of eternity.
Ovah danger, danger, danger,
Danger, danger, danger, danger,
Rocks an' Fall--!
The moon, rambling about in the torrid sky, now and then gleamed on
something Seenie carried on her head. It was a skillet filled with
soup. Dozens of Cayenne peppers, hot as the water blazing in an
equatorial sea, had gone into its making. Only throats of the purest
steel were able to give passage to it. It was ghastly stuff. Eating it
at night, Seenie'd bring heat to bear on heat. After a draught she'd
light the kerosene lamp, discard the chimney, and open her mouth over
the flames till her throat cooled. It was a rite rivaling the starkest
_brujerial_ act. In the skillet of red terra cotta, was Water Spout's
portion of the flaming broth.
All the thwarted sounds of creation rose to a mighty murmur in the
obscuring night. Deep in the thicket four-legged beasts stalked. There
was baying. Sheep, torn by a species of wolf hounds on the Coast,
remained silent. But the dogs were less cultivated, and there was
deadlier tearing done.
Along the road iguana, the sparkle in their eyes jeweling the tropic
night, pursued shy, petty quests. And from the hedge came the silken
slither of snakes about to lather with foam and strike some legless
sheep or ox left by the mutinous pack.
The words of a song sung by the peasants of the East Coast rose on
Seenie's melodious lips:
Minnie, Minnie, come yah!
Salam-bo come yah!
Salam-Matanja, come yah!
Le' Quackah-Tanyah, 'tan' dey!
Abruptly she left the coral road and unerringly stopped, in spite of
the branching of leaf, at the cabin rising a little ways in.
"Water Spout!" she shouted, entering.
A wave of heat flew up at her. It was cane trash, hot hut heat. Heat
smelted in a furnace untouched by a gust of fresh wind.
She called, but only a stream of hot mist, making for the door,
answered her. "Oh berry well," she cried, "'im sleep, po' fellah."
She went to the table on the lower side of the hut and drawing a match
lit the lamp. Darts of light flitted to the dark corners of it. Once
able to distinguish things, she turned, and spied him on the bed.
She went to him, candied words on her mouth. He was in a deep, moist
spot. A hole, really, bored into the rotting mattress. Gently she
lifted him up, and the light fell on his sleeping face.
She took him to the table, and forced some of the soup into his mouth.
But seized by a sudden spasm of energy, he refused, and spat it up,
with a gurgling accompaniment. Then he curled back to her, fumbling for
the avenue to her breasts. But she laid him back on the bed, consoled
that he'd wake up in the night, demanding to be nursed.
"Lahd, me tiad, sah," she cried, yawning and undressing.
Presently she blew out the light and crawled in the bed beside him.
V
O! sleep, soundless sleep!
The night gathered heat. The straw crackled and pricked. Once a board
slipped to the floor.
But sleep!--endowed, concentrated!
Cycles of the day sped through Seenie's head. There was a fugitive line
between them and the half-realized happenings in a dream. It was a work
cycle; not one of song. Cooking, washing, ironing. Peccadilloes. Scraps
for Water Spout. Reining herself in, and not exploding at the golden
rancor of Miss Esteena. Ready at any time to do for the Sergeant, a
grave, white-templed man, who rose at dawn and retired at midnight.
Saying but a word which kept his niece in talk for a week. Men drowning
like rats on the Essequibo. The river a _tacabah_ nest. The Sergeant's
men, dying by the dozens, of fever--worms breeding in the unemptied
casks set to catch rain water--bringing in _hossah_, _corass_, for her
to scale and stew--and bring home to stuff in Water Spout's hardening
belly! Ah, the pepper soup did that. It had, about a barrel of it,
straightened his legs; but at the expense of his gums and his belly
which were hard as rock.
Suddenly--a flash back to reality.
Water Spout had begun to cry. About time. Had she been dozing long?
There was no one to tell. And he was hungry, and he cried.
"Come," she said, awaking, "come to mahmie, son." And she put out a
hand in the dark for him. Ah--there--there he was. Crying. Cockling.
She seized him by the neck, frontwards. It was moist, swobbled. A bit
cold. She drew him to her, forcing the tip of a breast in his mouth.
From her a luxuriant warmth flowed out to him. And she dozed back again.
Dream horses riding her. The Cayenne soup no doubt; whereas usually she
would be dead, dead to the fires of the earthiest hell.
Nibbling at her breast.
Gently tugging.
Sensation sweet--pumping milk in a black child's mouth!
Letting him pump it himself.