wishes and they are in full agreement.
(The baracoa is for all Jamaica) We’re also in mutual agreement that it
is unnecessary to involve the survey director, Dr. McAuliff, as his
immediate interests are rightfully in conflict with ours. A substitute
botanist will join the survey within a matter of days.
I look forward to renewing our acquaintance.
Very truly yours, Arthur Craft, Senior James Ferguson held his breath in
astonishment as he reread the letter.
He had done it.
He had really done it.
Everything.
He looked up at the carrier, who smiled and spoke softly.
“We leave late afternoon, mon. Before dark. Come back early from your
work. I will meet you on the riverbank and we will go.”
The priest figure identified himself by the single name of Malcolm. They
traveled south on hidden routes That alternated between steep rocky
climbs, winding grottoes, and dense jungle. The Halidonite in the
ragged clothes and the field jacket led the way, effortlessly finding
concealed paths in the forests and covered openings that led through
long dark tunnels of ancient stone-the dank smell of deep grotto waters
ever present, the bright reflection of stalactites, suspended in
alabaster isolation, caught in the beams of flashlights.
It seemed to McAuliff that at times they were descending into the
cellars of the earth, only to emerge from the darkness of a grotto onto
higher ground. A geological phenomenon, tunneled caves that inexorably
progressed upward, evidence of oceanic-terrestrial upheavals that
bespoke an epoch of incredible geophysical combustion. The cores of
mountains rising out of the faults and trenches, doing infinite battle
to reach the heat of the sun.
Twice they passed hill communities by circling above them on ridges at
the edge of the forest. Malcolm both times identified the sects,
telling of their particular beliefs and the religious justification for
their withdrawal from the outside world. He explained that there were
approximately twenty-three Cock Pit communities dedicated to isolation.
The figure had to be approximate, for there was ever present the
rebellion of youth who found in their intermittent journeys to the
marketplace temptations outweighing the threats of Obeah. Strangely
enough, as one community, or two or three, disintegrated, there were
always others that sprang up to take their places … and often their
small villages.
. “The ‘opiate of the people’ is often an escape from simple hardship
and the agonizing pointlessness of the coastal towns.”
“Then eliminate the pointlessness.” Alex remembered the sights of Old
Kingston, the corrugated tin shacks across in the abandoned, filthy
barges peopled by outcasts; the emaciated dogs, the bone-thin cats, the
eyes of numbed futility on the young-old women. The man with no teeth
praying for the price of a pint of wine, defecating in the shadows of
dark alleys.
And three blocks above, the shining, immaculate banks with their
shining, tinted windows. Shining, immaculate, and obscene in their
choice of location.
“Yes, you are right,” replied Malcolm the Halidonite. “It is the
pointlessness that erodes the people most rapidly. It is so easy to say
“give meaning.” And so difficult to know how. So many complications.”
They continued their journey for eight hours, resting after difficult
sections of jungle and steep clifflike inclines and endless caves.
McAuliff judged that they had gone no further than seventeen, perhaps
eighteen miles into the Cock Pit country, each mile more treacherous and
enervating than the last.
Shortly after five in the afternoon, while high in the Flagstaff range,
they came to the end of a mountain pass.
Suddenly in front of them was a plateau of grassland about a half mile
long and no more than five hundred yards wide.
The plateau fronted the banks of a mountain cliff, at three-quarters
altitude. Malcolm led them to the right, to the western edge. The
slope of the plateau descended into thick jungle, as dense and
forbidding as any McAuliff had ever seen.
“That is called the Maze of Acquaba,” said Malcolm, seeing the look of
astonishment on Alex’s face. “We have borrowed a custom from ancient
Sparta. Each male child, on his eleventh birthday, is taken into the
core and must remain for a period of four days and nights.”
“Units of four…” McAuliff spoke as much to himself as to Malcolm as he
stared down at the unbelievably cruel density of jungle beneath. “The
odyssey of death.”
“We’re neither that Spartan nor Arawak,” said Malcolm, laughing softly.
“The children do not realize it, but there are others with them….
Come.”
The two Halidonites turned and started toward the opposite ledge of the
plateau. Alex took a last look at the Maze of Acquaba and joined them.
At the eastern edge, the contradictory effect was immediate.
Below was a valley no more than a half a mile in length, perhaps a mile
wide, in the center of which was a quiet lake.
The valley itself was enclosed by hills that were the first inclines of
the mountains beyond. On the north side were mountain streams
converging into a high waterfall that cascaded down into a relatively
wide, defined avenue of water.
On the far side of the lake were fields-pastures, for there were cattle
grazing lazily. Cows, goats, a few burros, and several horses. This
area had been cleared and seededgenerations ago, thought Alex.
On the near side of the lake, below them, were thatched huts, protected
by tall ceiba trees. At first glance, there seemed to be seventy or
eighty such dwellings. They were barely visible because of the trees
and arcing vines and dense tropical foliage that filled whatever spaces
might have been empty with the bright colors of the Caribbean. A
community roofed by nature, thought Alex.
Then he pictured the sight from the air. Not as he was seeing it, on a
vertical-diagonal, but from above, from a plane. The village-and it was
a village-would look like any number of isolated hill communities with
thatched roofs and nearby grazing fields. But the difference was in the
surrounding mountains. The plateau was an indentation formed at high
altitude. This section of the Flagstaff range was filled with harsh
updrafts and uncontrollable wind variants; jets would remain at a
twelve-thousand-foot minimum, light aircraft would avoid direct
overhead. The first would have no place to land, the second would
undoubtedly crash if it attempted to do so.
The community was protected by natural phenomena above it and by a
tortuous passage on the ground that could never be defined on a map.
“Not very prepossessing, it is?” Malcolm stood next to McAuliff. A
stream of children were running down a bordered path toward the lake,
their shouts carried on the wind.
Natives could be seen walking around the huts; larger groups strolled by
the avenue of water that flowed from the waterfall.
“It’s all … very neat.” It was the only word McAuliff could think of
at the moment.
“Yes , replied the Halidonite. “It’s orderly. Come, let’s go down.
There is a man waiting for you.”
The runner-guide led them down the rocky slope. Five minutes later the
three of them were on the western level of the thatched community. From
above Alex had not fully realized the height of the trees that were on
all sides of the primitive dwellings. Thick vines sloped and twisted,
immense ferns sprayed out of the ground and from within dark recesses of
the underbrush.
Had the view from the plateau above been fifty feet high, thought
McAuliff, none of what he had seen would have been visible.
Roofed by nature.
The guide started across a path that seemed to intersect a cluster of
huts within the junglelike area.
The inhabitants were dressed, like most Jamaican hill people, in a
variety of soft, loose clothing, but there was something different that
McAuliff could not at first discern.
There was a profusion of rolled-up khaki trousers and darkcolored skirts
and white cotton shirts and printed blousesall normal, all seen
throughout the island. Seen really in all outback areas-Africa,
Australia, New Zealand-where the natives had taken what they
could-stolen what they could-of the white invaders’ protective comforts.
Nothing unusual … but something was very different, and Alex was
damned if he could pinpoint that difference.
And then he did so. At the same instant that he realized there was
something else he had been observing. Books.
A few-three of four or five, perhaps-of the dozens of natives within
this jungle community were carrying books.
Carrying books under their arms and in their hands.
And the clothing was clean. It was as simple as that.
There were stains of wetness, of sweat, obviously, and the dirt of field
work and the mud of the lake, but there was a cleanliness, a neatness,
that was not usual in the hill or outback communities. Africa,
Australia, New Guinea, or Jacksonville, Florida.
It was a normal sight to see clothing worn by natives in varying stages
of disrepair-torn, ripped, even shredded.
But the garments worn by these hill people were whole, untorn, unripped.