The Call of Zulina (22 page)

“I can make certain you have food and water. And I’ll provide you with any other supplies I can secure,” Pieter answered evenly. “Oh, and this door that prevents you from entering the tunnel will no longer be locked. That I can also do.”

Grace repeated his words to the others.

Safya and Oyo laughed for joy, and Hola clapped his hands. Tungo, however, was not impressed. “You are a white man!” he insisted. “Why should I believe that you would help us? It may be that you set a trap.”

“Not all white men are like Joseph Winslow,” Pieter answered, “just like not all Africans are like Lingongo.”

Pieter DeGroot was a man of honor. That, as a matter of fact, lay at the heart of his quandary. Without a doubt, he had an obligation to his host. Joseph Winslow, though a man with many faults, had been generous to him. Now the man was under double attack
—
these armed rebels in the dungeon of his slave fortress on one side, and the blind fury of his wife on the other. Yet Pieter could not abide the thought of him attacking—and killing (for the eventual outcome would certainly be killing)—a defenseless group of people who had been forced into a corner and trapped there. What choice did they have but to fight back with everything at their disposal? So it was that on that very morning, after Joseph Winslow had awakened him and then had walked away and left him standing alone and half-naked in the corridor of Zulina, Pieter DeGroot had come up with his plan.

In just two swift strides, Cabeto was upon Tungo. The two struggled, and Cabeto knocked the musket from Tungo's hands. As soon as the gun clattered to the floor, Grace snatched it up.

“You best not close your eyes tonight,” Tungo hissed at Cabeto.

“We must not fight each other, Tungo,” Cabeto stated evenly “If we are to survive at all, it will only be together as brothers.”

Cabeto looked at Grace and said, “Ask this white man why he comes to us.”

Grace repeated the question, but Pieter didn’t answer her. Instead he stepped up to Cabeto and spoke directly to him. “I come to help you … because I don’t want to see the white men die.”

Behind him, Grace repeated the words in Cabeto's tongue.

“But even more, I don’t want them to kill you,” Pieter continued. “It seems that the scales always tip in the white man's favor. I cannot prevent that. But I want to do what I can to make the scales weigh a bit more equally.”

Antonio chose that moment to step out of the shadows.
“Buenos días, señor,”
he said to Pieter.

At the sound of Antonio's voice, Pieter looked around in confusion. Quickly, though, a grin of recognition spread across his face.

“Ah, Winslow's good luck man!” Pieter said. “What's that he calls you?”

“Juju.
His magic charm.”

“But you were not in here before, were you?” Pieter asked, bewildered.

“Sí,”
Antonio answered.
“Lo vi todo.
I was right here, and I saw everything that happened.”

Pieter DeGroot laughed out loud. “You must have hidden yourself well because Joseph Winslow certainly doesn’t know that! He is searching everywhere for you. He considers you the most loyal of all his trustees. In fact, at this very moment he is telling everyone who will listen that he can always count on you and your magic to fight at his side.” Pieter shook his head at the irony. “If he only knew!”

“Oh, but he must not know!” Grace exclaimed. “Don’t you see? This way, Antonio has a safe way in and out of the dungeon. He has access to my father too.” Turning to Antonio, she said, “And he trusts you!”

Grace translated everything for the others. Before she had even finished, excited voices rang out from every direction. Everyone seemed to have a question, an answer, or just an exclamation.

“iSiléncio, por favor!”
Antonio pleaded. Then to Pieter,
“Señor, estos dos son muertos.”
He gestured to the place where Udobi and Kwate lay. “You and I must carry out the dead and lay them to their rest.”

The blood drained from Pieter's face as he stared at the two bodies.

“Then we will return with water and food,” Antonio added. “All of us here
—
we must drink and we must eat.
Es muy importante.
”

Grace laid her hand on Pieter's arm. “I don’t even know your name, sir,” she said.

“DeGroot. Pieter DeGroot, miss.”

“How did you get in here, Mr. DeGroot?”

“Not really such a clever plan,” Pieter said. “I offered to buy your father his fill of rum, and when he fell asleep, I lifted the keys from his waistcoat.”

“Yes, that would work,” Grace said. “Well, I do thank you. You brought us hope just when we needed it the most.”

“He is a
thila
,” breathed Ikem. “The ancestors sent a guardian to us to stand by our side and protect us.”

Pieter, who could not understand the old man's language, only considered Grace's words. He looked around at the faces fixed on him. “Please,” he said to Grace, while looking at the others, “tell them I am so sorry for my part in all this.” Then he gently took Grace's injured hand in his large calloused ones. “Perhaps, in some small way, I can do something here to help atone for my own mountain of sins.”

“A
thila
from the gods!” Ikem repeated.

“A man sent from Mama's God,” Grace declared.

“’T
onio, me
juju
!” Joseph cried in joy when he caught sight of Antonio standing at the doorway of the corner room. He forced himself up from the cot and made a feeble attempt to smooth the rumples from his clothes. Then his face darkened. “We gots us trouble ’ere, ’Tonio. Bad trouble! I needs yer
obeah
mumbo jumbo. Ye must ’elp me wi’ yer witchcraft.”

“
Sí, señor
,” Antonio responded with a slight bow. “Call down some
obeah
that’ll make ’em rebels all sick an’ die!” Joseph ordered. “Ye kin do that, cain’t ye?”

Hesitating, Antonio reluctantly agreed, “
Sí, señor
. I can do it.”

Joseph, who finally gave in to his hangover, sank back down onto the cot and moaned, “Owww! Me poor achin’ ’ead! Give me a bit of restin’ time, ’Tonio, then ye kin work yer
juju
fer me. Once I is feelin’ some better … then ye’ll set things right fer me.”

Bowing slightly, Antonio gratefully backed out of the room. Pieter would need time.

Finally, everything was assembled, ready and waiting for Antonio and Pieter to move up the tunnel and into the dungeon. This was their chance. A barrel of water. Two loaves of bread that Pieter had managed to sneak out of the kitchen. Dried fish from the storeroom. A sack of raw vegetables he had pulled from the garden. Alcohol for treating wounds. A keg of gunpowder. And a yarrow poultice for Grace's wounded hand.

But where was DeGroot?

After his hangover abated, Joseph insisted Antonio hear his plans to storm the dungeon. He boasted about his cleverness and led his trustee all the way around the fortress, but now that Joseph had finally made his way back to his cot, the Dutchman was nowhere to be found.

Then Antonio remembered DeGroot's comment about the solace and comfort he found on the back side of the fortress, so he made his way around to where the road led up from town. As he walked past the road, something caught his eye. It was a brightly colored piece of cloth
—
green and yellow and red. It seemed to be snagged on a thornbush, and yet … Antonio drew closer. It was only a ragged piece of worn cloth, the kind many African women wore wrapped around their heads. Still, something struck him as unusual about this cloth. It wasn’t just caught on the bush. No, it looked as if it had been deliberately folded into an unusual shape. And to Antonio's eye, it looked almost as if it had been hung on that thornbush on purpose. Carefully, Antonio pulled the cloth free from the briars and tucked it into his shirt.

Sure enough, he found Pieter behind Zulina, gazing wistfully out to sea. When Antonio asked for his help, DeGroot quickly headed for the tunnel opening, with Antonio a respectful distance behind.

“What took so long?” Tungo hissed as he eased up behind Antonio. “We came to find you.”

They opened the door to the tunnel, where Gamka waited just inside. “I thought you went white with the Dutchman,” he said to Antonio.

Getting the pile of supplies up the tunnel and into the dungeon was difficult work
—
hot and sweaty. It took much more time than they expected.

“Master is going to be looking for me,” Antonio said anxiously. “I must get back to him.”

“Don’t call him ‘Master’!” Gamka snapped.

Antonio said nothing. Gamka was young. There was much he did not understand. He had not lived long enough. But the time would come when he would know and grasp it all— perhaps—if he were fortunate enough to live that long.

Antonio had been born a slave in Spain. When he was little more than a boy, he was taken aboard a Spanish ship to help with the new African slaves on a Spanish-run plantation far up the river—to
domesticado
them. He was at Zulina assisting his Spanish
jefe
, Señor Miguel De La Vega, in selecting new slaves when Joseph Winslow lured Antonio's master into a game of lanterloo. De La Vega had never played the game before, a fact that caused Winslow's eyes to glisten with eager anticipation, and the ivory fish flew faster than either the Spaniard or Antonio could follow. De La Vega's gambling blood was flowing hot, and although he was on a losing streak, he could not stop. Before he knew what happened, Antonio belonged to Winslow.

In shock and desperation, Antonio had fallen to his knees and made the sign of the cross the way he had so often seen his master do. At the same time, he had tried to repeat his master's Latin prayer—although he couldn’t remember the right words, since they had no meaning to him. As his hands fumbled and his tongue twisted, Antonio cried out in exasperation, first in the language of his master, then in the language of his African father. And Joseph Winslow, who had been losing badly for many days, won that game and every other game until not a single man had anything left to wager.

Joseph Winslow, his eyes glistening with greed, looked at his new slave and exclaimed,
“Juju!
Magic!”

Antonio gazed at Hola, so eager to help, and his eyes filled with unexpected tears. This boy, so young! When Antonio looked at him, he saw himself not so many years ago.

“Oooh!” Grace cried out as Pieter unwound the filthy cloth from around her hand. It was the piece of fabric Tungo had ripped from her skirt, now stiff with dried blood. Grace's wound had not been tended since her finger was hacked off almost a week before.

For the first time, Grace saw what Tungo had done to her
—
a jagged, crosswise cut between the first and second knuckles of her first finger. Already the flap of skin that crookedly covered the exposed end had started to grow into place. But her finger was fiery red, and when Pieter touched it, Grace screamed and jerked her hand away.

“Hand me the alcohol,” Peter instructed.

Oyo stepped up. “I will help my sister,” she stated.

Kneeling beside Grace, Oyo gently took hold of the injured hand and held it in her lap. With a steady hand she poured out a small stream of alcohol, and when Grace cried out, she murmured words of comfort. Then, with Pieter's help, Oyo tied the yarrow poultice firmly in place.

“The
samanka
, it pains now,” Oyo said tenderly. “But it holds a powerful death spirit that will suck the poison out and ward off harmful powers. Tomorrow your hand will be on the way to healing.”

Antonio started to squeeze back through the tunnel opening, but halfway through, he stopped.
“/'
Mire
.'
”
he called back to the dungeon. “Look at this!” Pulling the green, yellow, and red-checked cloth out of his shirt, he said, “I found this on a bush at the head of the road.” He tossed the cloth to the floor and then squeezed on through and slid the door closed behind him.

“Mama!” Grace exclaimed as she sprang to her feet. “That's Mama Muco's headcloth!”

But before Grace could reach the folded cloth, Gamka rushed over and grabbed it up. He carried it under the grate so that the shaft of light shone on it, and there he stood for some time carefully studying it. He turned the folded cloth over and over in his hands, inspecting it from all sides. Cabeto, Sunba, and Tungo hurried over to gaze at the cloth with him.