Tangled Passion (22 page)

“Don’t give me any hard time, if you play stubborn, you will suffer but if you are good, I will be good,” he said as they returned to the hurt. Ashana nodded, the rope around her wrist was now slack and the knife was still in her hand, and she was just waiting for the right time to use it.

“Now sit while I get your soup.”

Ashana nodded, working the knife on the floor to lay it flat. Then she sat on it before he returned with a bowl of soup, which he handed to her. “Hurry with it, don’t take forever,” Bushwacker urged.

Ashana nodded and slowly sipped from the cup in her hand, her head racing for want of the best possible way to tackle the giant that was sitting across from her and her heart racing for fear of what might happen if she failed to do something, or if she failed in whatever she did.

“OK that is enough” Bushwacker said a few minutes later, snatching the bowl of soup from Ashana and tossing it against the wall. “Now lie down and don’t try to be smart, I don’t have patience for smart asses.”

Ashana gently lowered herself, tears in her eyes but as Bushwacker worked himself out of his shirt she saw an opportunity, jumped to her feet and buried the knife in his throat. Blood pitched like a ruptured pipe and Bushwacker roared like a hungry lion lashing out blindly in all directions. His right hand caught Ashana in the face and sent her crashing into the wall headlong—she gave a low groan and passed out. Bushwacker fumbled blindly, kicking and knocking down everything in his way, caught in his shirt and in the pain of a knife in his neck. But he was still standing and appeared still full of energy and in no hurry to give up the struggle. “I will kill you,” he cried but Ashana was unconscious and couldn’t hear him. 

Nathan pulled out two papers from his pocket, gave them a brief look and began to unfold one of them.

“Nathan, what are you doing—what is this about?” Longstands began, leaping to his feet, “Don’t do something you’ll regret boy!”

“What is going on here?” Suzanne said, her eyes wide open and oscillating like a pendulum from Nathan to Longstands and back.

“This is the letter that Father sent to Bushwacker through Edwards,” Nathan said, in a tone loaded with pain and then he began to read the letter…”

“Stop Nathan!” Longstands said but his words came like the last bit of air from a deflating balloon as he sank into his chair, rage shuttling up and down his body while he fought to keep his hands steady.

“You instructed Bushwacker to have them murdered in cold blood, you fool!” Suzanne thundered. “And yet you objected to sending them away and called me mean for suggesting it.”

“Wasn’t that what you wanted Suzanne?” Longstands said in a defeated tone. All he wanted to do was choke the life out of Nathan—the boy was simply insane and unreasonable.

“Can’t remember asking you to have them killed, Longstands!” Suzanne shot back in rage, floundering to her feet; it was a good opportunity to put herself on Nathan’s side and leave Longstands on his own and Suzanne wasn’t letting it slip through her fingers. “How could you even think of taking the lives of innocent young people, Longstands! I am really surprised at you and I can’t believe that all these years I have been married to a man who would take innocents lives without remorse.”

“You fooled me into believing that you were searching for the slaves to bring them back to the Fort Father, how could you be so heartless?” Nathan said tears in his eyes.

“Nathan…” Longstands began but Nathan would not listen to his father.

“Don’t you ever call my name, ever again! You are not my father, I do not know you; you are a heartless murderer.” Nathan yelled.

“Shame on you Longstands, look at what you have done to your own son. At least I was very honest and said what I meant. I didn’t deceive anyone as to what I wanted and it definitely did not involve taking innocent lives…”

“Mother you need to read this,” Nathan said, handing the second piece of paper in his hand to Suzanne.

“Nathan no!” Longstands cried, lurching forward for the paper but Suzanne already had it in her hands.

“It’s a page from Father’s diary. Father had a relationship with a slave girl while on another island, he even has a child somewhere in one of the islands.”

Suzanne was on her feet again. She had risen from her chair in a very slow motion that was totally unconscious, completely consumed by what she was reading and what Nathan was saying. Her mouth was as wide open as her eyes. Longstands was also on his feet, pacing back and forth; he knew it was over, all he wanted was a way to find a smooth transition to whatever life was waiting for him.

“Where are the rest of the pages?” Suzanne barked, sinking heavily into her chair.

“I gave him one of the pages. If he had done what I asked, I wouldn’t have revealed this; the diary itself is safe…”

“Are you out of your mind, Nathan? Do you mean you had plans to keep this from me—that you would have actually kept this secret?”

Nathan nodded, “It was the deal…”

“What bloody deal?” Suzanne interrupted but Nathan ignored her. “You are just like your father, just as evil, I can’t believe you two; I demand to have the rest of the diary immediately!”

“I don’t have it and even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you mother—not yet.”

“Edwards!” Suzanne screamed out, knocking the table over as she scurried to her feet, “Edwards!”

“Massa,” Edwards answered, appearing immediately.

“Get out of my way–go get the horse ready, I need to get to Roseau immediately.”

“Yes Massa…”

“Don’t Massa me, just get lost and go get the horse ready,” Suzanne yelled, as if Edwards was a mile away and suffering from hearing difficulties. Then turning to her husband, she raised her voice even higher; “Longstands I am sure you know what this means,” she was shaking and her breathing was very heavy. “I suggest you get your things ready before I return; my father is about to learn about your other child with a slave girl!”

“Nathan, how could you? How could you do this?” Longstands began facing his son.

“Shut up and get lost, Longstands and Nathan get ready. We go together to Roseau together; you never know, he might try to kill you too.”

“I am not going anywhere with you, Mother!” Nathan said very calmly.

“What?”

Longstands quietly returned to his room and gathered a few things; he wasn’t going to wait for twenty-four hours; it was a long and rough road ahead to nowhere and it was wiser to start while there was still daylight. “Edwards!” he called out.

“Massa!” Edwards came running.

“Get back to your quarters,” Suzanne yelled, stopping Edwards in his tracks. “He is not your Massa anymore, now get out of my sight!”

“Mother!” Nathan shouted. He was still mad at his father but his mother was being heartless and he didn’t understand her insensitivity.

“Nathan you better keep yourself out of this.”

“I want my horse ready Suzanne, that’s all…”

“Well go get it ready yourself. You are no longer in any position to ask for or receive any service in this Fort, hurry and get the bloody hell out of here.”

A few minutes later, Longstands was on his horse. Suzanne had objected vehemently to his taking of the horse but he simply ignored her venting. He gave the Fort one last look, kicked his horse, and galloped away, his heart shattered in pieces—When he looked back he’d seen Nathan looking from the window. Poor thing, he thought; the boy couldn’t have imagined that his holiday would turn out the way it was doing. But Longstands snatched his mind away from the Fort and all that was in it and focused on his immediate mission. All his military instincts were back in place and his senses were heightened; his first mission was to find Bushwacker and make him pay for the pain he’d caused him—that was his immediate mission and he was determined to complete that before thinking about anything else.

About two hours later, Longstands was quietly tying his horse to a tree one hundred meters from Bushwacker’s house. Although the house was in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by tall bushes and trees, Longstands knew that he couldn’t be too careful. He didn’t want Bushwacker taking off and escaping into the jungle—the man knew the bush like the back of his palm; he lived in the bush and on it. Besides, Bushwacker was an ex soldier like himself. He was taller and better built; there was no arguing the fact that he would beat Longstands if there was a physical fight. In addition to all these advantages, Bushwacker also had slaves as big and strong as he was and mightily loyal. The only way Longstands stood a chance was to take Bushwacker by surprise, catch him off guard and bring him to his knees immediately. Bushwacker was probably expecting him and in that case had already prepared for a confrontation.

A few meters from the house, Longstands pulled out his revolver and surveyed the house carefully; there was movement inside, one of the windows was wide open and some sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Perspiration built up in Longstands’s armpits as he crawled towards the house on his stomach. He had not been in a combat-ready mode since he’d left the military, several years back. The door swung open at Longstands’s kick and he dashed into the parlour, his gun sweeping the room swiftly and his finger slightly pressing down on the trigger. The parlour was empty but there was a sudden movement in the room to his right. He was just about to approach it when a dog shot through the door and disappeared through the main door. “Bloody dog,” he whispered, still breathing heavily. Five minutes later, he had swept the house clean. Neither Bushwacker nor his boys were around and there weren’t any horses in the stable either. “Where are you—you sonofagun?” he swore, frustrated and very bitter. Bushwacker was not one to be easily tracked; if you didn’t catch him at his house, it was a near-impossible mission to try to find him. The man had no friends and rarely hung out in social settings, in fact the average person hadn’t heard of Bushwacker; only those who required his services knew him and these people were mostly men in high positions who would not be inviting him to their homes for supper or want to be seen in public with him. The situation was that Jonah and Nathan had been shot but nobody knew anything about Ashana’s whereabouts; Longstands was still having difficulties discerning a reason why Bushwacker would shoot his son.

There was no doubt that Nathan could be difficult at times, so the possibility that he could have gotten into an escalated altercation with Longstands, resulting in the shooting did cross Longstands’s mind a few times but it didn’t stay. Nathan and Jonah vehemently denied any altercation and even if there were, Bushwacker couldn’t have shot Nathan for that. Longstands’s head swirled with questions swimming in all directions: Could Bushwacker have shot Nathan and Jonah so he could run away with Ashana? The man hardly ever saw a woman and was occasionally mentally dysfunctional—it was the reason he’d been discharged from the military. Bushwacker must have figured that he could keep the girl. After all, he’d been ordered to dispose of her so he wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with keeping her. But why shoot Nathan?

“When you return you’ll answer my questions before you take a bullet,” Longstands said. He’d resolved to wait for Bushwacker; surely the man would return to his house and whenever he did, Longstands would be right there waiting for him. Four hours later, Longstands changed his mind, sitting in one location waiting for Bushwacker was driving him crazy. Besides, Bushwacker might have decided that it was safer to abandon his house; after all it was the very first place Longstands would look when he realized that his son had been killed. By the end of the day, Longstands had crossed seven plantations and consulted with the owners but none of them had seen Bushwacker. Hungry, exhausted and frustrated, Longstands tied his horse to a horse stand by the Sweet Coco bar in the middle of Roseau and stumbled in. He meant to get something to eat, get a few drinks, and retire in one of the rooms on the second floor of the Sweet Coco.

“Holy Mary!” the man behind the counter exclaimed, staring at Longstands floundering to a chair. “Holy Mary, mother of God,” the rest of the men repeated. Longstands was not one to be seen in places like that and for him to be seen at the Sweet Coco bar in the state he was in was enough to shock anyone who knew who Longstands was.

“Johnson, get me something to eat, something to drink and a clean room. Hello fellas.”

“Right away Mr Longstands,” Johnson said and disappeared in the back. By the time Johnson returned minutes later, the men in the bar had congregated in five different groups, talking in whispers. Longstands ignored them all; he knew that in a few days the rumour of his misfortune would travel the island.

“Is everything okay?” Johnson asked, taking a seat opposite Longstands. “Need any kind of help?

“I am looking for Bushwacker, he shot my son…”

“Holy…” Johnson began then paused and turned around. “Did any one of you fellas happen to have seen Bushwacker lately?”

“Bushwacker?” the men chorused.

“He died years ago, I killed him myself,” one of them said, staggering to his feet and then collapsing to the floor.

“Shut up Winston and get off my floor before I kick you out,” Johnson yelled out. “This is serious business. Now anyone who has any information can drink on the house till he’s blind.” This caused a roar of excitement to go up. “I mean information in the past five days, not past five years, and if you come to me with any cooked-up stories, it’ll be the last time you’ll see the inside of Sweet Coco; don’t think any one of you can bear that.”