There is a Land (A Libète Limyè Mystery) (37 page)

The men’s faces showed flashes of reflexive thought, wondering if she had meant to hit them. Truthfully, she didn’t know whether she had.

Two dropped to the ground as ordered. The one who pointed the shotgun at Dimanche did not. She fired toward the ground near his feet. He gave a yelp and slid against the truck. She had hit his ankle. Dimanche grabbed the man’s shotgun in an instant and aimed it at him.

— No! Libète shouted with a shock of repentance. Dimanche looked at her. He was utterly claimed by rage. The one Libète shot gave a fearful screech. His blood was starting to flow.

Dimanche kicked the others’ guns away and moved to the side of the car. He fired into one of the truck’s tires with a deafening sound of shot flooding rubber and denting the hubcap. The car slumped. Pump. He walked to the other side and burst the other tire.

— Get their guns.

Libète tensed, coming back to her senses. She hopped down and grabbed the pistol and rifle and returned them to the sidecar. Dimanche moved to the truck’s hood and fired again into the car’s engine for good measure.

— You bitch! the shot one yelled.

She bristled. She wanted to walk over to him. She wanted to look into his eyes. She wanted to end him. Her shoulders slumped, and she shuddered.

Dimanche ran back to the bike, adding the shotgun to their cache. Within moments they were off.

Her adrenaline pumped. She could not look away from her guardian and the fury that hovered over him.

Again, the question rose:
What are you, Dimanche?

But with it came a new question too:
And what am I?

They have come to loot. They have come to plunder. They have come to steal.

The thoughts fall into place. How had she not seen it? How had Foche not? A benevolent university. Men coming and going. Working day after day for months. Armed guards in their midst. Ha!

— From the beginning, they’ve lied to Foche, she said. They’re here for gold!

— Gold?

Libète’s thoughts kept coming to her. The realizations flow.

She remembered the news stories, gleaned over the months hiding away in Jacmel. Gold was found in the north of Haiti, she told Félix. People always thought that it was here, but it wasn’t confirmed till recently. When companies started
exploring
.

— How . . . do you know all this?

— The whole country knows it. At least the parts connected to the rest of the world! It was on the radio. Online. In the news! I remember now, I remember! President Martelly had the government passing out permits to foreign companies who paid up. It all happened behind closed doors, and the senate finally put a stop to it. A halt on all permitting until the process was opened up. Until they had an idea who was getting what. Companies could prepare to extract, but not actually take.

She held her hand to her head, dumbstruck. Twenty billion, Félix! They think there’s that much gold in the ground here in the north! Who knows how much they might have found here!

— But if it was stopped, how could this be?

Libète chuckled at his naïveté. This is
illegal
. Whoever is behind it, they’re trying to get a head start on the gold rush. Hide what they’re doing and then slip out of here. She was getting louder as her realizations rolled on, dangerously so. Exploration before exploitation! These bastards!

— Maybe they’re good? Félix said, hoping. These people, they’ve given us good things.

— They hand out some seed, cap some springs. They’re just giving Foche breadcrumbs to keep us in our place. Keep us from asking questions. While they strip our wealth from beneath us!

— Strip?

— You don’t know? Of course you don’t. How would you?

— What are you saying?

— Gold mining. They’re starting here, keeping it small to keep from getting noticed. But when this really starts, when it’s too late, they’ll have torn up these fields and disappeared. Already they want the Common Plot. Our water will become ruined. I’ve seen pictures, Félix. Pictures! Everyone will have to leave. Foche won’t exist.

— But Janel wouldn’t let something like this happen. She wouldn’t agree to this. Neither would the Sosyete!

Libète couldn’t piece it together either. Janel must not know the truth. The Sosyete must not . . . no, no, they do! They must have handed Dorsinus over to them! Put him in the ground, then dug him up. He’s a slave doing this work! Look at him. He’s only able to do the things he’s done his entire life. Mining. Whittling. I’m sure they have him working down there, or up above. Maybe letting him become poisoned by the mercury used to separate rock from gold.

Félix was bewildered.
The land
. . .
not the land
. . .
not Foche
. He grabbed Dorsinus’s face and looked into the man’s empty, empty eyes. Now he really
can’t
see. Can’t understand a thing. Poor, poor man.

Félix wept.

As Libète comforted the boy, she whispered into Dorsinus’s ear. You must awaken, dear man. You must come up out of this and regain yourself. He finally stopped his singing, and smiled. Was there some recognition there? He feebly handed her the half-finished bird. She took it. Her own eyes watered.

Félix ripped himself away and reclaimed his machete. He ran at the machine on the edge of the hole. He didn’t know what its different components did, yet he started slashing at a set of hydraulic hoses, bursting some smaller tires at its base.

— Félix! Please, no!

He upended a boxy generator so that it fell into the deep wound drilled into the earth. The clatter rose and escaped. There were new sounds from outside: voices, barking. Lights played across the tarp cover. Libète looked on in horror.

She sprinted for him, pulling him away from the damage he wrought. They slipped out the other end of the tent and into the open night air, leaving Dorsinus behind to sing his endless song.

As they speed away from the checkpoint, Libète begins hyperventilating.

— What are we going to do, Dimanche? What are we going to–

— Calm down!

He cranks the accelerator hard, and it sounds as if the bike cries out in its exertion. The vehicles that had paused behind them at the checkpoint are distant, but moving again. Libète wonders if the men–
certainly not police
–have commandeered them.

— They’ll be after us for sure! She had to shout to be heard. Maybe on those trucks!

Dimanche nodded. We need to get rid of the bike. And these guns. Here, up ahead. At the bridge, throw them over.

— All of them?

— Keep the pistol, he said. She nodded. He slowed, and she tossed them into a spindly, shallow waterway below. Libète saw two children watching from the bank as they washed. She worried they might retrieve them and hurt themselves.

— Don’t worry. They’ll be waterlogged. Dimanche said, reading her mind. He pushed the bike harder.

The taptap was still behind them. Its relative size neither grew nor shrank, meaning that it too was speeding. The other direction they saw a roadside market with a few passenger vans and some homes set back.

They pulled into the market, and women ran to them with their hands full of bushels of bananas, fried plantain chips, coated nuts, and sachets of water to sell to passengers through bus windows and the open rears of taptaps.

— Get some food. Water. Stuff that will keep. He gave Libète a wad of cash and sprang from the bike. The vendors encircled her like a pack of hungry beasts.

— Buy from me!

— My fruit is best!

—
Dlo se lavi! Dlo se lavi!
Water is life!

She could scarcely see where Dimanche had gone. She became paralyzed.

— Get away from me! she finally shouted.

— This young man has won the prize! Dimanche announced. Libète saw his arm wrapped around a confused youth.

The teenager was short, wearing a grease-stained apron. Dimanche had pulled him aside from a tent where he cooked meals dumped into Styrofoam takeaway containers. This one, he has won this fine motorcycle!

Libète’s eyes widened. He
what?

— Yes, he’s won. He’s won! But only if he claims it now.
Right now.

— But, the youth said, I have my restaurant. I can’t go.

Libète understood. Yes, go
now
, she said. Or some other soul takes your prize!

— Surely you have an associate here who can watch your restaurant for but a few minutes? Dimanche said. Even we can do so!

The youth was clearly conflicted.

— You really want to give me this?

— As we said, you won. Libète stood like a model showing off a game-show prize. She let herself glance over her shoulder. The taptap truck was not far off, its front grill and bumper resembling a devious grin. Dimanche pulled his bag from the bike’s seat.

— Here, take it for a spin. Dimanche forced a smile. It was utterly unconvincing, and Libète wished he had not tried. Dimanche placed the key in the youth’s hand, and the young man looked at it stupidly.

And then he smiled.

— All right! he said, jumping in the air. All right! Everyone, look! I won!

— Yes, you did! Libète said, guiding him over to the bike’s seat. Now be off!

The youth gave it too much gas as he shifted into gear, causing the bike to buck. He looked anxious, but once he did a quick spin in the gravel, his smile grew enormous. He putted away down a road perpendicular to the highway.

— I’m a winner! he shouted. A winner! A cloud of dust trailed behind. The crowd of sellers and customers split their gazes between the bike and the curious strangers.

Dimanche spoke. Come on. He and Libète ducked into the man’s stall and hid. The vendors flocked toward the arriving taptap, but before they could surround it, it cut right in pursuit of the bike. The vendors cursed as the dust bathed them.

— What jerks!

— They didn’t even slow down!

— They could have run us over!

Dimanche hollered at the sellers. Those vans over there. Where do they go?

— To Hinche, came a reply.

Dimanche clucked and started to fill a container with rice and
legim
. Stock up, he said to Libète. Libète filled another tub with fried chicken legs.

— You going to pay for that? one of the sellers asked.

— He got a motorcycle. That’s worth two plates, he grumbled.

Food in their hands and their bags on their shoulders, the pair ran to the vans.

— When do you depart? Dimanche asked. The driver reclined in his seat, his legs propped up on the steering column. A cap covered his face.

— When the van’s full, he said. He didn’t remove the cap.

There was only one other passenger, an older man wearing a smart suit with a mismatched hat. How long have you been waiting? Dimanche barked.

— W-w-why, an hour, I’d say. The man’s fingers tightened around his satchel.

Libète looked at the other van. It didn’t even have a driver.

— How much is the fare?

— Three hundred goud each, the driver responded.

Dimanche ripped the driver’s cap off his face. Here’s money for twelve passengers. He dropped the cash into the hat. Now go.

The driver feigned indignity, taking his hat back. We pack eighteen into this van.

Dimanche dug back into his pocket and threw more notes at the driver.
Ale.
Go.

The driver sat up, looking at the cash. Yes,
sir
! He gave a mock salute. Dimanche and Libète climbed in.

The van reached Hinche without further event. Dimanche and Libète arrived at a hub of buses, vans, and taptaps. There were police at the station, and Dimanche eyed them carefully. They skirted around them in their search for another ride.

— Will you finally tell me where we’re trying to go? Libète asked. ‘Cap-Haïtien’ was Dimanche’s only reply. It was Haiti’s second-largest city, coastal, and in the north.

— Why there?

— The air is clear, he said dismissively.

Libète grimaced. She followed Dimanche through the crush of people toward a bus that had Cap-Haïtien written on its side. How about this one? She moved toward it. Dimanche tarried.