Escape From Fear (9 page)

Unfolding the paper, he placed it in Jack's hands. Three names were written down, two men's and one woman's:
Bené Phillipe, Arlen Smith,
and
Cimmaron
had been carefully transcribed in Forrest's precise script.

“The man leaving the message was some official from the Virgin Islands. He said there was going to be an investigation on St. John, that they were planning to arrest everyone on the list and that he wanted to let my father know Cimmaron was one of them. He said he remembered that Cimmaron was the mother of his adopted son, and he kept saying that he was uncomfortable apprehending her but that he'd have to if she was working with the others. He told my father he hoped by giving him a ‘heads-up,' he could prevent something embarrassing. ‘Professional courtesy,' he said.” As Forrest practically spat the word “courtesy,” Jack felt Ashley wince.

“You've got to understand—my parents have never given me any information about my birth mother except her name. Nothing about who she was or how they met her or why she let them adopt me.”

“I still don't get it—what were the people on the list doing?” Ashley asked.

Forrest pressed his lips together, making a grim line. “I honestly don't know. The message said it was illegal. Cimmaron would get arrested. I had to warn her.”

Jack shook his head. “How can you protect her when you don't know what she's into? What if it's drugs?”

“Don't you think I've thought of that?” Forrest flared. “But she's my mother! She's my blood! My ‘parents' have held back the truth from me—I don't know what to believe anymore.” Pacing, Forrest walked a tight circle at the end of the bed. “You met her. Do you honestly think Cimmaron would be a part of anything evil? Do you really want her to go to jail?”

“No,” Ashley began, “but—”

“Let me do this for her. Please!” Forrest begged. “Don't stop me.”

Ashley and Jack looked helplessly at one another. How much truth did they owe their parents? How much loyalty did they owe Forrest, whom they hadn't even known a day and a half ago?

Jack couldn't answer that.

H
arbor Park was only a football-field-size patch of grass, cut through with sidewalks and surrounded by old, flat-faced buildings. The south side of the park, which was where the Landons stood now, abruptly ended at the bay. Jack noticed that the water was murky-brown instead of jewel-colored like the waters of Jumbie Bay, and he wondered at the difference those few miles made. Steven explained that the harbor had been dredged so that ships could come in, which made it much deeper and therefore darker.

Overhead, seagulls screeched, as if in answer to a tugboat that blew its whistle in the distance. A colorful assortment of people streamed past, people of all shades. Everyone seemed happy—joking, laughing, even singing right out loud. Jack would have liked to watch the ships, to drink in the salty smell of the water and take in the carnival atmosphere, but there was no way he could stand still for more than a moment, at least not while Forrest was with them. Since the park wasn't far from their motel, they'd decided to walk, which had been a mistake. Forrest never stopped pressing them forward, pushing and prodding like a sheepdog herding its flock. “Let's go!” he urged. “Cimmaron's waiting!”

“Forrest, chill. It's not time for her to start yet,” Ashley said.

“I know, but I need to get a good seat.”

“That's not going to be a problem,” Jack retorted. “Look—no one's even in the park.” That was true. Most people walking along the park's sidewalks seemed to be passing through in order to get to one restaurant or another that ringed its edge. A few middle-aged couples sauntered toward a café decorated with white Christmas lights, while younger ones were headed to an open-fronted bar where a steel band played loudly. Most of the park benches stood empty.

“Do you even see Cimmaron?” Olivia asked him.

Forrest shielded his eyes, a worried expression on his face. Excitedly, he pointed to the opposite end. “That must be her, over there. Look at all those kids!”

In the distance Jack could see a cluster of children sitting cross-legged on the grass. One girl turned cartwheels, her long legs and arms at right angles as she spun up and down, up and down, like a pinwheel. Cimmaron sat on a bench in front of the group, her head bent back in laughter. “I'm going to her,” Forrest announced. He began to run, leaving the Landons to watch his retreating figure.

“Bye, Forrest,” Ashley called to his back.

Steven sighed. “You can't blame him for being eager. This whole thing has got to be pretty hard on him. When I was a kid being bounced around from one foster home to another, I used to dream I had a mother out there, somewhere in the world. I'd pretend that finding her would make my life perfect, but of course for me it never happened. In a way, it's happening for Forrest.”

“The difference is that Forrest already has a mother,” Jack reminded him. “And a father. How did they sound on the phone?”

“Like I told you before, his father seemed genuinely concerned about Forrest's happiness. I was impressed with him.” He stopped walking now, and Olivia stood still as well. “What did you two think of Cimmaron?”

At the question, Ashley shot Jack a look, then locked her eyes on the ground. She seemed suddenly fascinated with a grubby seagull feather, moving it back and forth along the path with her toe. How, Jack wondered, could he answer that without lying? Taking a pair of mental scissors, Jack cut out the parts of Cimmaron that might reveal too much; he ended up with a short list of her qualities, the number one being “proud.”

“Good,” Steven said, moving again. “I'm sure she has a lot to be proud of. Forrest seems like a great kid.”

“Hey, look over there,” Ashley cried, pointing to the building where a drum beat wildly. “Isn't that Denise?”

A set of double doors stood wide open, allowing both music and light to radiate from within. Denise, who had traded her park uniform for a coral sheath, moved fluidly around the small dance floor, while her partner, a tall, muscular black man, pivoted rhythmically to match her every move. The two of them seemed to be having a marvelous time. They looked like a poster for everything that was appealing about St. John.

“Should we go say hi?” Ashley asked.

Olivia shook her head no. “Let's give the poor woman a break. She's already put in a full day with the Landon crew.”

Strolling leisurely, they made their way toward Forrest. He was sitting on the bench next to his mother, his head close to hers, deep in conversation. He must have already given her the list because she held a piece of paper in her hand. So he'd done it. Now Forrest had become part of whatever it was Cimmaron was involved with. A dark taste rose in Jack's mouth as he watched Cimmaron fold the paper small and drop it into her purse. Once again he thought of telling his parents about the mysterious list of names. No, he knew before the thought was half-formed he couldn't do it. This had become way too important to Forrest.

In a flash, Jack saw clearly that it didn't matter that he didn't have the money Forrest had or the fancy education. Jack had a great family, one without any complicated history, who got along with each other most of the time and who laughed at the same jokes. Who could guess how Jack would have turned out if his life had been different? It was possible that he might have been just as demanding as Forrest. Maybe worse. As Jack approached the park bench, he suddenly felt grateful for his more ordinary existence. He wouldn't trade places for anything.

“Well, we meet again,” Cimmaron said, nodding to Jack and Ashley. “You must be the Landons.” Rising to her feet, she extended her hand to Steven, then Olivia. “I want to thank you for taking care of Forrest. He told me what you did for him.”

“I'm glad this has turned out so well. Forrest says you're a storyteller,” Olivia said.

“Yes, I tell the stories about my people, stories of where we came from. I'm almost ready to tell the children. Would you like to join them?”

Jack looked at the group of wiggling children, who ranged in age from four to twelve. An older girl had a baby slung on her hip, its dark hair parted in cornrows shaped like lightning bolts. It was almost seven o'clock, and as if on cue, the group gathered at Cimmaron's feet, jostling to see who could get closest. Forrest stayed by Cimmaron's side, beaming at the small crowd. After his latest shower, he'd put on khaki pants, pressed with a knife pleat, and a purple polo shirt. He'd stayed in the bathroom almost an hour getting ready and emerged looking as though each curl had been individually formed. He looked perfect.

“Do you mind sitting on the grass, Dr. Landon?” Forrest asked.

“Me? No, that's fine,” Olivia told him. She settled next to Steven, leaning her head back on his shoulder. What was it about St. John that made people act so romantic? Jack dropped down beside his father. Ashley was on his right.

As Cimmaron gathered her thoughts to begin, Ashley asked softly, “Did Forrest…?”

“Yes,” Jack answered. “I saw her holding it.”

Ashley didn't say any more, but she chewed the edge of her lip, a sure sign she felt worried.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” Cimmaron boomed, “I bid you welcome. Before I tell the story of our past, I must introduce you to someone very special. This is Forrest, a boy from Colorado and the city of Denver. He will sit by my side while I tell the stories.”

Cimmaron put her hands on her knees, and Forrest quickly did the same. Chin high, Forrest looked out over the knot of children, swelling with pride as Cimmaron began the story of her people's island history.

 

Many, many years ago, at the beginning of the 18th century—yes, way back then—the island was called St. Jan, and it was part of the Danish West Indies. White planters grew cotton, but the main crop was sugarcane, sugar to make rum, to bring wealth to the island. Did any white planter ever work in the cane fields? Never! That was slave work. Slaves planted the sugarcane, chopped it with machetes, and squeezed it into rum. The only trade that brought in greater wealth than rum was the buying and selling of slaves.

Not only white people owned slaves. No. It grieves me to say that in the black homeland, all over Africa, one tribe would make a raid on another tribe. Warriors would capture a few or a dozen enemies and turn them into slaves.

Sometimes those enemies who were captured and sold into slavery had been princes in their own tribes or even kings. These were proud, handsome warriors who had never done such lowly work as digging or planting, because those jobs were women's work.

Hundreds of slaves—men, women, and children—were crowded onto ships and borne across the seas. If they survived the brutal voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea—and far too many did not—they would be stood up on the auction block in St. Thomas. Auction day was a rare treat for the island's citizens. Free and slave alike, all the island people would crowd the marketplace where the frightened slaves, who did not understand a word of the strange languages they heard, were sold to the highest bidders. For the islanders, who had little in the way of entertainment, a slave auction was like a holiday.

The docile captives, the ones who kept their heads down to hide their tears of despair, were prodded to walk forward and backward and to raise their arms high, so that prospective buyers could judge whether their bodies were strong and healthy enough to perform the brutally hard work. The prouder, angry captives—the ones of royal blood who had owned slaves of their own in Africa—were chained to the rails and beaten with whips. Too often, the smoldering rage that seethed from their eyes and their clenched fists would discourage planters from bidding high prices for them.

In 1732, two Africans of royal blood, one a king of the Adampe tribe and the other a prince of the Aquambo tribe, were taken to St. Jan in manacles and leg irons, chained night and day so they would not run away. One thousand slaves lived on the island of St. Jan, all of them owned by only 200 white planters.

For the planters on St. Jan, that year—1732—was the worst they'd ever known. A terrible drought seared the fruits on the trees and shrank the vegetables in the ground. Water barrels stood empty for so long their wooden staves dried out and split. When at last a little rain fell, it moistened the ground only enough for a plague of grasshoppers to arise. When the grasshoppers had eaten everything left above ground, a plague of caterpillars consumed everything below the ground.

The slaves were starving. As if their suffering were not already unbearable, a terrible hurricane struck the island, ripping away roofs, flattening walls, sinking boats in the harbors, and sweeping donkeys and goats and roosters out to sea.

There was nothing left to eat, because everything had been destroyed. “Work harder!” the overseers cried, slashing their whips across the naked backs of the slaves, backs already scarred by crisscross welts. One by one the slaves began to slip away from the plantations, hiding in the bush under cover of darkness, in the wild, overgrown thickness through which no white man could find his way.

At night the drums sounded, sending messages from one end of the island to the other. The sound of the drums guided the runaways, who were called “marons”—the word “maron” coming from “Cimmaron,” meaning “wild and unruly and free.”

Cimmaron paused to allow her audience to make the connection. As they did, a ripple of murmurs swept through the children. Then she continued.

Always the drums told the marons where to come, where to hide. The prince of the Aquambo tribe and the king of the Adampe tribe were among the first to escape from their masters. Those two men were sworn enemies, but their hatred of their masters and their yearning for freedom united them. When they met in the bush, the king and the prince banded together with other slaves to lead a revolt. They believed that every slave on the island of St. Jan would join them in their revolt. They believed they could drive all the white people from St. Jan. When that was done, they believed they would rule St. Jan as their own kingdom.

At night, the drums never stopped beating their message. At three in the morning on November 23, 1733, the sound of drums was swallowed by the boom of cannon. The rebels had captured the garrison at Coral Bay, where they killed all the Danish soldiers. Then, slowly, swiftly, secretly, the rebels slipped into the houses of the planters and killed the ones who could not escape. They ordered household slaves and field slaves to join them in the revolt, until their ranks swelled, but only into the hundreds because many of the slaves stayed loyal to their white masters.

Months passed, and each night the drums thundered, sending messages from one rebel stronghold to the next. Then, because France and Denmark were allies, French ships arrived from the island of Martinique, bearing hundreds of highly trained French soldiers with guns.

Soon the rebels saw that their cause was hopeless. As the French soldiers advanced on them, shooting them, hanging them, and beheading them, the rebels decided they would rather be dead than be slaves again. Some leaped to their deaths, falling from a cliff to the rocks below. Others shot themselves with guns captured from the soldiers. Among those who committed suicide was the king of the Adampes.

The prince of the Aquambo and his followers still hid in the bush. By then, there were so few slaves left that the governor decided to pardon the remaining rebels, providing they promised to return to work on the plantations. When the drums sent this message to the prince, he led his ragged band of followers onto the estate where he had once worked like a woman in the fields. He knew the revolt had failed, but he trusted the governor to pardon him, as had been promised.

As the prince of the Aquambo walked toward the place of surrender, his head held high even in defeat, a sergeant of the Danish guard took aim and shot him. The prince fell, his life's blood flowing out onto the ground that had never been his.