ISLANDS

James was a force of nature. I found myself being shepherded through the shopping district and into the native Jungle Town behind it, threading cobbled lanes between peeling plastered walls. Sauntering along, he grinned down from his height at the natives who paused suspiciously to eye me. He called out greetings to women in upstairs windows and teased the big-eyed kids playing games in the streets. Even the packs of prowling Rudes, with their dreadlocks and hivelike knit caps, boom-boxes blasting reggae, and slit T-shirts showing off pectorals and gold chains, parted like the Red Sea before him. James was my ticket to the neighborhood that was officially “suicide for Continentals.”

We passed through a brick archway and down a passage between buildings. A faded wooden sign, Le Lambi, pointed the way up steps onto a thatch-covered landing. A dugout pirogue, hacked from a mahogany log in the style of the original Caribs, hung from the rafters. Beneath it, an elderly man snored on a bench, face the color of the age-blackened wood.

Past him, a dim room with five assorted tables. A plump, sleepy young woman in a red sarong presided over the bar.

“Good day, Lisabet. An how you be dis fine afternoon?” James gave the curvaceous bartender his heart-stopping smile.

She sniffed at me, shrugged, and picked up a glass to polish with a towel.

He sauntered over to a table beside the one small window, pulling out a chair for me. “I go talk to de cook.”

I sat fanning myself with a cardboard beer ad. The decor featured grass thatching hung from the bar and ceiling, a tinseled rope looped around the walls and wound with blinking Christmas lights, a poster of Superman (Caucasian), dusty plastic flowers in Dixie cups, and a dusty jumble of dried puffer fish, shells, sea fans, and liquor bottles on the bar. Among them, what appeared to be a genuine human skull grinned over at me.

From a couple of tables filled with native men, fast patois and laughter. It cut off as James reappeared from behind a plywood partition screening the kitchen area of the dim room.

“You in foh a wake up, gal,” he announced.

I swung around, eyes widening as I took in the white designs painted on the partition beside him. Geometric shapes—diamonds, interlocking triangles, filigreed spikes, dotted spirals.

Veve patterns. Voodoo.

James stepped closer, towering over me and reaching down a huge hand. The one naked overhead bulb and the twinkly little Christmas lights suddenly died. The room plunged into darkness.

~~~

For a black moment, I ricocheted wildly among generic scare stories for women, and the island warnings about Jungle Town. I jumped up in a general clatter of chairs. Hysterical vision of flinging off my clothes in a convenient phone booth to emerge as Superwoman.

An enraged shriek from the kitchen. James chuckled, patting my arm.

I sat with a thump as my eyes adjusted to the sketchy window light. An enormous shape engulfed in a ghostly apron flew out from behind the partition, waving a wooden spoon. The men at the other tables struck matches to candles stuck here and there with wax globs. A candle flared, crimson wax dripping down the cheekbones of another empty-eyed skull. Wavering lights threw shadows of the cook and bartender carrying on a heated exchange in what sounded like a French dialect. The cook finally retreated behind the partition, and the bartender flounced back to her bottles.

“Every body come home foh lunch, turn on de stove, and boom out go de power. Dey cook on gas here, we be cool.”

The sulking bartender eventually brought us warm Elephant Beers. She smacked the bottles down and turned away with a peevish twitch of the hips.

James looked pleased. “Drink up, gal. You gon’ eat de finest food on de island.”

The big cook swept out with a tray and laid heaping platters before us, plenty for four or five people. I looked up from the dishes, glancing at the smirking men across the room. “You invited your friends?”

“Eat up, little Sue! You lookin’ puny. How you find a man watch over you, an you not got plenty soft pillow foh his weary head?”

I picked up my fork. “Guess I’ll have to find a man who’s not so weary.”

He looked taken-aback, then slapped his leg and laughed. “Whoo-whee! You a case sure.” He touched my arm. “Now you dig in.”

I didn’t need urging. There was a rich soup with conch and “root” and “kallaloo.” A huge pile of seasoned rice with round black peas and pungent bits of peppers and chicken. A mound of “fungi,” a firm mixture of corn meal and okra that looked terrible but tasted wonderful with fish sauce spooned over it. Fried little pastry pies with “salt-fish” inside. Cooked plantains with a syrupy coating.

“Ooph. I just died and went to Heaven.” I leaned back in a daze of beer and gluttony.

“We jus startin’ on you, gal. You gon’ lively up here.” He flashed a lot of white teeth.

I smiled back, allowing myself the added indulgence of a frivolous fantasy or two.

He leaned forward, suddenly severe. “Now you tell James. What you do in dat bone yard, why you askin’ dem question? What got you spirit all confuse?”

I studied my hands, finally lifting them. “It’s a mess.”

“Dat de way with life. Plenty messy.” He sat back. “You carryin’ a heavy load. You let James help.”

Maybe I was more like John than I’d thought. My instincts told me I could trust James, so I decided to “go with the flow.” I told him about the threatening Dreads, the rumors of Caviness’s cult, and the pickup nearly running me off the road.

“And poor little Samuel!” I dug knuckles into my throbbing forehead. “Maybe it was my fault for going back to the petroglyphs he’d shown me.”

“Fool talk! An worse fool you, goin’ roun lone like dat. You find ting you don’ want.”

“James, what are those cloth bags for?”

He picked up his fork. “Jus ol’ herb-granny charm.”

“But why would someone make one from my shirt? Why was Frederick afraid of the ‘soul-stealer’ that night in the cemetery?”

He set down the fork. “Fredrick, he jus open mouth and mind be sleepin’. Me, I don’ look trouble in de face, he don’ come foh me.” He gave me a shrewd look. “You maybe jus too curious, like de cat.”

“Maybe I am. But my brother died here, supposedly drowned by accident. Now I’m not so sure it was accidental. I have to find out.”

He looked surprised, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “You be sorrowin’.”

Eyes stinging, I looked down. “Sometimes I still can’t believe it. John was so alive.”

“John? John Dunne? You brother?”

“That’s right.” I raised my face. “Did you know him?”

That too-familiar, guarded look had come into his eyes. What the hell was wrong with this place? He looked away, looked back, laid his hands flat on the table. “I hears ’bout he be drown, all de island talkin’.”

I leaned forward. “He was excavating a wrecked ship in a cove here called Ship Bay, but it’s not on any map. I have to find it.”

“You stay ’way from dat cove!” His vehemence made the tinsel ceiling strips shiver. “Dat one bad place. You brother he lookin’ foh trouble, divin’ there and no body foh help when he drown.”

“I have to find Ship Bay, there are important petroglyphs there.”

“You jus bound, gal! Member dat cat what too curious. Dat de Brotherhood place, dey mad since you brother go dyin’ dere, you got to stay clear.”

“Do you think there are bad Jumbies there? Frederick seemed to think they lived in the carved rocks.”

He snorted. “Don’ know Jumbie. Be powers all ’roun, us namin’ good or bad, who say? Maybe dey live in dem stone, maybe not. Dey be plenty moh carve rock, I know one bro he take you ’roun.”

He jabbed his fork at my half-emptied plate. “Now you stop broodin’ on crazy notions. You don’ eat up—” he tilted his head toward the partitioned cook’s domain— “dat Francine she put a wrath on us. Dat one bad power, you be sure!”