Adrift on St. John (36 page)

After walking back and forth across the black tarmac, desperately searching the ever-growing collection of rental cars for the rusty bumper of Charlie’s Jeep, I returned to the empty slot where I’d parked it.

Standing on the hot asphalt, clutching the beach towel around my waist, I finally reached the inevitable conclusion: the Jeep was gone.

One thought coursed through my head: I would never hear the end of this from Charlie and the rest of the Dumpster table gang.

This was rapidly followed by a desperate attempt at mitigation. The only way the Jeep could leave this little twenty-square-mile island was via the car ferry. I had to get down to the dock as quickly as possible.

A short distance away, I spied Manto striding toward his truck. He climbed inside and immediately cranked the engine.

Gripping the towel with one hand, waving in the air with the other, and all the while hollering at the top of my lungs, I ran toward the parking lot exit. After initially speeding up, the truck braked, allowing me to catch up to it.

“Manto,” I panted into his open window. “Someone took Charlie’s Jeep. I’ve got to get back to town. When does the next car ferry leave?”

His ashen face turned toward me. The lines across his forehead seemed to have suddenly deepened.
“Pin, no ferry’s goin’ ta leave tu-day.”

“Oh, good,” I said with relief. Puzzled, I stared at his worried face. “What’s wrong, Manto?”

“Didn’t yu hear thuh booms?”
he asked.

I nodded, vaguely recalling the sounds. I had dismissed them in my search for the missing Jeep.

“That wuz thuh seeg-nal.”

“The signal?” I replied, recalling the whispered message from the Silent John balcony a few nights before.

“Thuh seeg-nal from thuh Slave Preen-cess—she’s takin’ over thuh eye-land.”

50

The ground shook beneath the marchers’ feet as the fuse ignited the first explosion at the Fortsberg ruins. Screams rang out, and smoke filled the air. All along the trail, bodies dove for cover.

By the time the third reverberation echoed from the cannon, Vivian had pulled Hamilton into the brush, ready to buffer his short body with her stout one. The two of them lay in the leaves, Ham with his hands cupped over his ears, Vivian with her arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders.

After a few minutes of silence, the marchers slowly began to raise their heads. Coughing and choking sounds mixed with those of bewilderment.

As they straightened and looked up the hill toward the ruins, the smoky haze began to clear, concentrating down to a dark gray plume.

Near the main road, the Princess crashed through the trees to the spot where she’d hidden the blue nylon satchel with her change of clothes. The marchers’ muffled cries of confusion
drifted down the trail as she hurriedly slipped out of the costume and exchanged it for her blue jeans and T-shirt.

Slinging the satchel over her shoulder, she walked down the road and around the corner to the gas station parking lot. After dislodging a rooster who had taken up residence behind the wheel, she hopped into the Jeep and motored off.

Manto barreled down the North Shore Road, heading east toward Coral Bay, intent on getting to Vivian and Hamilton as quickly as possible. I struggled to slip my shorts and T-shirt on over my still damp swimsuit as the truck swung dangerously around the sharp corners. Meanwhile, a chaotic chatter crackled from the two-way radio.

“I’m here at the ferry building. People are converging on the park. Blowing conch shells. Ai-yep. That man’s got a machete.” A scuffling sound broke off the transmission.

A second report followed. “Everyone’s leaving the resort. I’m taking a truckful into town. I’ve got people hanging off the side.”

A woman’s voice cut in. “Have you all gone mad? What is this nonsense?”

Manto’s truck creaked as it sped up the bumpy connector to Centerline Road. We reached the intersection to find a stream of cars traveling in both directions, panicked looks on the faces of both drivers and passengers.

I closed my eyes as Manto gunned the engine to slip into a tiny hole in the traffic.

“Cum on, Bessie,”
he bellowed over the screech of horns.

A few minutes later, we descended into the melee outside the Moravian church.

Coral Bay was a mass of disheveled people, many of them standing on the side of the road looking up toward Fortsberg and the column of smoke rising from its ruins. Sirens wailed in the distance as a team of fire trucks and ambulances sped through the wilderness to the site.

Vivian rushed up to the truck as Manto pulled into the church parking lot. Her arm was tightly wrapped around Hamilton, whose rumpled hair and clothing gave him the appearance of having been partially smothered.

“What happened?” I exclaimed as I opened the door and stepped out of the cab so that the two of them could climb inside.

I had never seen Vivian in such a state of rage—and I had plenty of examples stored in my memory banks for comparison.

She lifted Hamilton into the cab and then turned back to face me.

Her livid voice was thickly accented as she spit out,
“Eye know who haz been playing thuh role of thuh Slave Preencess.”

51

At the far edge of the resort, in an area slated for upcoming renovations, a former dive shop employee sneaked across the deserted lawn toward the entrance of a one-bedroom condo unit.

A midsized duffel was slung over the man’s shoulder. The bag was about half full, the contents representing almost the entirety of his earthly belongings. There’s not much room on a boat for extraneous possessions.

Jeff ran the palm of his hand over his newly shorn head as he paused and glanced around the lawn, checking for any onlookers. His eyes found only a bright green iguana, studiously chewing on a piece of grass.

“Haircut,” he explained to Fred’s questioning gaze. Then he fed a well-worn key card into the lock.

Inside the condo, he quickly retrieved the item for which he’d returned. In the top drawer of the dresser, the one Pen had set aside for him, he found a single clean shirt. Like always, she’d put it through the resort’s laundry service with the rest of her clothing.

Slinging the shirt over his shoulder, he shuffled briskly out the bedroom and headed for the front door. He didn’t
want to be caught inside the condo when Pen returned from her trip to the beach.

Midway around the couch, however, his hurried pace slowed. He turned toward the tile counter that separated the tiny kitchenette from the living room. On its surface, he spied a ballpoint pen and a pad of paper, both stamped with the resort’s name and logo.

Jeff held his hand out over the pen, his fingers wavering for a long moment before they scooped it up. Using his thumb, he clicked the end button, engaging the metal ink tip. With his free hand, he gripped the pad of paper as the pen wavered above it.

He thought about all the things he might say…all the things he should say. But after a long moment, he carefully placed the pen on counter, leaving the paper blank.

With one last look around, he walked outside and pulled the door shut behind him.

52

Manto’s truck was one of the first to return to the church parking lot, so it was soon loaded with marchers, who—after the morning’s unexpected excitement—were eager to return to Cruz Bay. We packed as many as would safely fit into the truck’s back seating area; then I squeezed into the cab with Hamilton and Vivian. Slowly, we creaked out of the lot and turned onto Centerline Road.

Vivian’s furious mutterings were difficult to interpret, but thanks to Ham’s frequent interjections, I was able to determine the general gist of what had happened.

The explosions, I gathered, had gone off just as the marchers neared the fort’s ruins. A figure in a knee-length sarong, beaded vest, and dark curly hair had been seen fleeing through the woods. The identity of the perpetrator, however, was the subject of some debate.

“It was the Amina Slave Princess,” Ham’s little voice peeped with impish delight, clearly still enamored despite the cannon fire and chaos. “I saw her with my own eyes.”

“It was that Hannah Sheridan
wo-man
,” Vivian corrected him bitterly. “We’re lucky no one was killed.”