The Rhythm of the August Rain (31 page)

He eyed the envelope. “No need.”

“Please tell me what you know. There are people in Canada who still care about Katlyn.” Shannon took a deep breath, tightening and untightening one fist. “Did you know her—the woman in the photograph I showed you?”

Redemption straightened his head, a sudden sadness in his eyes. He took his time opening a brass box on the table before him, rolling a fat joint, and lighting it. Shannon watched him, prepared to wait, even if she had to miss the wedding, because something was here, despite Shad's misgivings. After inhaling, Redemption offered Ransom the joint.

The professor declined. “I'm driving.”

The Rasta took another pull, exhaled, and stared at the joint. “We never call her no Katlyn. We call her Kay. We was living in another place and we was all young then.”

Shannon's heart started pounding in her chest.

“I and I met her in the grocery shop one day and we start talking.” He looked up, the mouth smiling, the eyes still cheerless. “She want to learn
kumina
dancing, she say. We used to do it around the fire—African dancing from slavery times, we don't do it much anymore—and she say she want to learn Rasta drumming and singing. I invite her to come to the camp for a Nyabinghi and she love it. Then I start teaching her Rasta ways, teaching her the language, lending her books and so. She see the truth and she become Rasta. She change her name, call herself Akila. It mean ‘wisdom,' and that was what she wanted. Her hair start to locks up”—he waved one hand over his head—“and she start to spend plenty time in the camp, visit me all the time. We become good friends, you know what I mean?”

His gaze traveled from Shannon to Ransom, the smile fading. “But I was too young for her. She need a more—a older man. She was a bigger woman to me and she had travel around and everything, so we stop. . . .” He shook his head and took another puff. “You want some?”

“Yes, please.” Shannon took the spliff, her thank-you to him for giving her the truth to take back. It also signaled her acceptance, she'd later realize, of Rastafari. They were just people, people who loved and lost, like Redemption, like her.

When she inhaled, she held her breath too long, and the smoke shot out in a bout of coughing. Ransom patted her on the back.

“Do you know what happened to her?” she wheezed.

The elderly man rubbed his knees, maybe his arthritis. “We never quarrel or nothing, and she kept coming back to the camp, teaching the children and so. The leader of the yard start to talk to her, a big man, ten years or so older than her. The land we was living on was his family land, so he was the leader. Next thing, Akila move into the camp and start living in his house with him. It break my heart, but I happy for her, because she was a good woman. She take care of him, cook for him, clean his house, and wash his clothes, and she decorate the house pretty-pretty with her own things.

“Everybody like her. She teach the children something she call
square dance
, which look like our quadrille, and they used to dance for us sometimes. And she teach reading and writing in the little school we had for the
pickney
. Everything was nice for a while. But it look like the life too hard for her. She not used to outhouse and washing clothes with her hand and sleeping on old mattress, you could see it. A few months later, she get sick with running belly and lose plenty weight—”

“Running belly?” Shannon queried.

“Diarrhea,” Ransom said under his breath.

“And we call the Rasta doctor, a woman who give us herb and tonic when we sick, and she give her medicine, but she don't get better. She draw down so thin she couldn't walk, so she stay in the house and the women cook for her and for him.” Redemption took the joint from Shannon's outstretched hand.

“Next thing we know, she and the man gone and the house lock up. Then he come back one night when we sleeping, and after that he just shut himself up in the house. Don't talk to nobody. We never see her, so we know she gone left him. When he have to come out to get little water or food, if we say something to him, he turn mean. Any little thing and he start to quarrel with us, and when we remind him that Rasta man is a peaceful man, he curse us off and tell us to leave if we don't like it. He start calling us
Babylon
. That come like a bad word to us, and one by one, we leave the place. One of the brethren rent a piece of land over here, and we build up a new yard with new rules and new leaders. We stop farming so much and start carving sculptures, because I used to carve, so I teach the younger ones.”

Shannon leaned forward, the ganja messing with her head already, remembering she had to be the professional. “Did you ever—ever see Akila again?”

“Never see her again.”

“Hear anything about her after that?”

Redemption shook his head.

“Is her Rasta friend still alive?” Ransom asked.

“He must be dead long time, brethren.”

“Where was the camp?” the journalist asked.

The elderly man gave the directions. “But it cover up with bush now.”

“What was the man's name?” the professor said.

“Ras Zadock, but we start calling him Dread after he start calling us Babylon.”

Shannon sat up straight, trying to remember something. “I think that's helpful.”

“Walk good, then.”

“Thank you, brother man,” Ransom said as he stood up.

“I and I don't like no secrets,” the old man answered, reaching for the envelope.

T
he tuxedo seemed to be a different size. “Maybe I lose weight since I try it on,” Shad said.

“Like you swimming in it.” Frank poked a white carnation into the groom's lapel.

“Nothing I can do about it now.” Shad shrugged his shoulders to fit. “And the best man supposed to make me feel good, not tell me the suit too big.”

“I just talking the truth.”

“Some truth you supposed to hide.”

“Come, friend, time to go.”

“Yes, boy.” Shad threw his head back, laughing as he clapped and spun on one heel. “Like a lamb to the slaughter.”

“I glad you so happy,” Frank commented with a curled lip. “Marjorie buying magazines with wedding gowns already.”

The two men jogged down the steps of Frank's house, where Shad had stayed the night, and started the short walk to the church. Beth had insisted that the bride and the groom shouldn't see each other for a night and a day before the wedding, and besides, her sister and brother-in-law needed the bed.

“Remember to pick up the ice for the reception,” Shad reminded Frank. “And Miss Maisie need help taking the fruit salad to the bar.”

“How you expect me to pick up ice
and
fruit salad?”

Shad was about to offer a solution when he saw the silver Volvo flying down the road past them. The car screeched to a halt and reversed—Carlton in the driver's seat.

When it came parallel, Shad called out, “Where the professor?” He could see Carlton's desperate eyes as he rolled down the passenger window.

“Trouble—plenty—plenty trouble, man!” the taxi driver babbled.

Shad ran to the window. The professor was lying with his eyes closed on the backseat. One of his sneakers had come off and his foot hung over the seat, lifeless in its sock.

“We was up in Gordon Gap—Shannon and the professor and me—and we—we go to a place—”

“Where I-Verse and Redemption—?”

“We went there first, then—then we went to another place way up in the bush, at the end of the road, and the two of them went in and I stay in the Volvo—and after one hour I went to find them. And all the buildings them was empty except one little house, and I look through the window and I see Mistah Ransom on the ground like he sleeping, so I pick him up and carry him to the car.”

“And Shannon?”

“Shannon gone. I call out and—and I even walk around, but nobody else there.”

“Take Ransom to the hospital,” the groom said, jumping into the passenger seat. “Drop me at the church first, though, to tell them I can't come.”

“What about the wedding?” the best man said from the sidewalk.

“We can marry tomorrow.”

“And Beth going to kill me today,” Frank said, squeezing into the back beside the inert professor.

A quarter mile farther on, a line of four cars on one side of the road announced the church, the doorway now adorned with streamers and balloons. Beth's sister and daughters were laughing on the front steps, and the Delgado family was walking up the short pathway with Eric and Eve.

“Don't wait for us,” Shad instructed Carlton. “If anything, I using the Jeep. Go straight to the hospital.”

Shad hopped out after the car had coasted to a stop, Frank on his heels. “Going right now,” the taxi driver said, and shot off.

“Glad to see you're on time,” Eric called. Everyone turned around, smiling to see the groom and best man arriving.

“We have a problem, boss,” Shad said.

“I know. Shannon is late so we had to leave her.”

“Is a bigger problem than that.”

“Is it something to do with Mom?” Eve whispered.

“What's the matter?” Lambert said.

“I going inside to break the news.” Frank rushed into the church.

“Jennifer,” Shad asked, “can you help Beth plan the wedding for tomorrow?”

“It can't be tomorrow,” Jennifer protested. “That's Miss Louise's funeral, Bertha's aunt.”

“Tell Beth I sorry, but is emergency this.”

“What's wrong?” Eve whined, biting a nail. “Daddy?”

“I told her not to—” Eric started.

“I know where she is,” Shad said. “We just have to go and get her.”

“We're coming with you,” Lambert said, and looked at Eric. “Let's go in my car.”

“Good,” Shad said. “The Volvo gone somewhere else.”

“Where's Mom?” Eve cried, a tear starting down one cheek.

“We'll find her,” Eric reassured her.

Jennifer wrapped her arms around the girl. “I'm sure she's okay, honey.” Jennifer nodded to Shad. “I'll talk to Beth.”

“Come on, guys,” Lambert urged. When they were out of earshot, he murmured, “Let's stop at the house for my gun.”

The drive to Gordon Gap seemed long, made longer by the air-conditioned silence in the Range Rover. Eric clutched the overhead handle while Lambert drove like a maniac. In Port Antonio, Shad unknotted his black tie and put it in his pocket. In Annotto Bay, he freed the top buttons of his shirt. At the turning to Gordon Gap, he shrugged off the rented jacket, folded it beside him, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. The light was starting to fade as they climbed the hill, and Shad leaned back on the headrest, saying a prayer for Shannon and adding another that Beth would forgive him.

“Where exactly are we going?” Lambert asked as he accelerated the Rover past the empty sculpture shack.

“It sounding like she went to an old Rasta camp that I went to on Monday,” Shad reported. “Carlton found Mistah Ransom there. He look like he dead.”

“Ransom was—dead?” Eric said, turning around, his knuckles white on the overhead handlebar.

“Where is he now?” Lambert asked.

“Carlton taking him to the hospital.”

“Turn here,” Shad instructed Lambert. “We need to pick up another man.” Lambert drove down the driveway while Eric muttered dire warnings.

As soon as the car stopped, Shad jumped out of the SUV and ran into the Nyabinghi compound, crickets claiming the darkness around him. One of the cooks in the kitchen gave him directions, and he found I-Verse, fresh from taking a shower, and explained the situation (Ransom now dead, by Shad's description).

The Rasta immediately agreed to go with them. “I and I hear about Dread, but everybody say he die long time. Maybe is somebody else living up there.”

Back in the car, Shad introduced the sculptor to the men in the front while Lambert headed to the road. “Like you was going somewhere nice, the way you all dress up,” the sculptor commented.

“We was going to a wedding,” the bridegroom said, swallowing hard. “My wedding.”

He told Lambert to turn left up the hill. “Just keep driving.”

The abandoned camp came into sight at the dead end. “Park here,” Shad murmured.

“There's nobody here, man,” Eric commented. “It's black as pitch.”

“I telling you, that was where Shannon disappear. Carlton describe it and I been here myself. I meant to tell her little more I remember, a picture I see on a wall, but she find the place already.”

“Let we split up,” I-Verse suggested. “I bring a flashlight.”

Lambert took a sleek, gray gun out of the glove compartment.

“I hate this part,” Eric groaned, and opened his door.

“Follow me,” Shad ordered. “I know where he live.”

S
hannon felt as if she were coming up for air, swimming upward through the bellows of frogs. She opened her eyes a slit and willed herself not to panic—even if she was in a strange place, lying outdoors, and it was night, too dark to see anything but a few stars. She could feel the cool grit of dirt under her hands and heels, smell the greenness around her.

Shuffling footsteps were approaching, the thump-thump of a stick keeping time with her pounding heart. Yellow light danced around the bushes. She shut her eyes as the footsteps came closer.

“Wake up, my beauty,” a rough voice said. He wanted to be called Zadock, not Dread, he'd told her and Ransom. His stinking warmth was above her now and she could see the lamplight through closed lids.

“Wake up!” he barked.

“What—what happened?” she murmured, opening her eyes, not looking up.

“You sleep a little.” The man towered over her with his stick and lamp.