THEN YOU AREN’T COMING? the American asks his friend. They are standing inside the Rastaman’s cabin, both men soaked and staring out the door at the rain.
No, the Rastaman will stay here in Nyamkopong, he explains, because he has to watch over the fields of ganja he planted with Rubber. Otherwise, when he returns they will have been stripped bare and half the youths in town will be wearing new clothes and carrying around new tape decks and transistor radios. Some of them will be in Kingston on new Hondas. The Rasta is stuffing a change of clothes into a seed sack. He’ll take his machete and move into the bush, he tells his friend, where he’ll live until he can harvest the crop or until Rubber is out of jail and can relieve him. If one of the youths from town tries sneaking into his field, he’ll be found dead in the morning. The Rasta swings his razor-sharp machete like a samurai. Chop, chop, chop! A dead man! Dead in the morning, all chopped up and flies on the face! Chop, chop, chop!
The American jogs from the cabin to his car. Starting the engine and flicking on the windshield wipers, he backs the vehicle onto the road, chugs up the muddy road to the shop, where he stops and toots the horn to signal Bowra and the others that he is ready to take them home to Gordon Hall. It’s almost dark and the rain is still falling. Unshaven, his hands trembling from fatigue, the man lights a cigarette and raps again on the horn. The interior of the car smells sourly of stale smoke, old rum and sweaty bodies. The man looks at his face in the rearview mirror, grimaces, and raps the horn a third time.
Finally his passengers troop outside and climb into the van, arranging themselves as before, except that now, with the Rasta gone, there is a little more room. As if somehow relieved, Bowra says to the driver, So the Rastaman will stay here this time?
Yes. He has work to do. The cops took away his partner…
I know that, snaps Bowra. I know why the Rastaman is staying here.
You do? The American turns in surprise, and Bowra smiles, the first time since morning that he has smiled.
Mr. Mann has come to the driver’s side of the car, where he taps lightly on the window glass, drawing the driver’s attention away from Bowra’s curiously smiling face.
The American cranks down the window and tells the old man he’ll be back in a week or two. After he’s taken Bowra and his people home, he’ll have to go to Anchovy and check on his family, he explains, but then he’ll come back, and they’ll talk. I want to have a long talk with you, he says.
The old man looks worried, as if he has misplaced something crucial. Silent at first, he suddenly announces, God will protect you, son, and quickly he turns away from the car and steps back inside the darkened bar.
Drive, Johnny! Bowra orders.
And Johnny drives. Down from the Cockpit to the cane fields outside Maggotty, through Maggotty and over the hills south and east toward the coastal plain he drives, like a machine, silent and relentless, beyond exhaustion, his body operating on its own or as if it were a stranger’s. The others in the car sleep and now and then mumble something to one another and reluctantly turn and shift position to make room or relieve a cramped muscle, while outside the rain pounds down endlessly. He stops once outside Spanish Town for gas and no one bothers to wake, even to see how far they have come.
It’s almost midnight when, at last, the blue van turns off the road and enters the narrow valley of Gordon Hall. As if at a signal, or as if he had not been sleeping at all, Bowra wakes and quickly calls out to his brother the Captain. The abeng! You got to blow the abeng! Johnny, he says, stop right here!
The driver slows the car and pulls to the side of the road. The rain drums heavily against the tin roof and washes across the road in shiny skeins. Now the others are awake—Harris swiftly repeats the Colonel’s order to the Captain, who in turn is struggling to untangle the horn from the cloth of his pants pocket, and Charles, who strokes his bird and coos to it, while Gando begins to gasp and jerk and irritate the women on either side of him, as Pie and Steve dutifully reach for the drums.
Finally the Captain opens his window, and sticking his head out, he puts the horn to his lips and rips a blast from it. Then a series of blasts—strong, sustained, high notes—and the drums start up and the women start to sing, their high-pitched voices laying out a new song, a happy, relieved and thankful song, as Johnny puts the car in gear again and drives the final half mile to Bowra’s house in Gordon Hall. When he turns off the lane into Bowra’s muddy yard, the Colonel places a heavy paw onto his right shoulder and says to him, You’re a good boy.
Johnny switches off the ignition and slowly turns and looks across at the big man. Thanks. He is silent for a second. No one in the car has moved to leave yet. Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, Johnny says. Thanks for everything. He speaks in a low, cold voice.
Moving heavily, Bowra opens the door and steps from the car, and everyone else scrambles to get out. As he leaves, Harris reaches forward and taps Johnny on one shoulder. Now you will see what you want to see, he promises.
Thanks, the white man answers. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Slowly, with trembling hands, he lights a cigarette.
Come, Harris says quietly. Come with us.