sunlit shutters inched its way across the floor toward them. And still the massa sat—his breath sometimes heavy and weighted with sighs, sometimes shallow and quick, as if he were being chased.
A gecko scrambled over both Nimrod and July’s head. And still the massa sat. He moved his left foot a little, then he crossed one leg over the other before parting them to sit astride again. The gecko, returning, scrambled back the other way across them. And still the massa sat. And he sat.
July began to wriggle. She needed to stretch her limbs, to find air that was not heavy with the stench of Nimrod’s breath. She needed a little moisture for her parched mouth. But Nimrod, laying a hand upon her shoulder, held her firm. And their eyes, finally meeting in the anxious gloom of that cave below the bed asked each other silently, What is he doing? When can we go?
Then the massa’s mumbling began again. He was fiddling with something. There was the sound of a click and the scrape of a fingernail upon wood. Suddenly there was a flash-bang! so loud, so bright that Nimrod and July, jolted by the burst of it, both struck their heads upon the bed’s underside.
A shot! It was a shot! And the massa, felled like a pole-axed steer, clattered on to the floor. His head struck the ground an arm’s length from where July and Nimrod hid. Dirty smoke billowed from his open mouth. His eyes were wide and staring upon them with grim shock, as if he had just discovered them concealed there. But he had not. For a thick spout of blood that sprang from the back of his head spilled down his blackened face and across the floor.
CHAPTER 13
RUN! RUN! GET FAR from here. Trouble! White man’s trouble! Flee! But there was no time. For Caroline Mortimer was already within the doorway—her face pallid, her mouth slack, her breath stopped. Trapped lying beneath the bed, Nimrod’s limbs twitched with phantom running, and a fretful July still needed to piss water.
Seeing her brother lying upon the floor, Caroline decided to believe him drunk; after all it would not have been the first time. The overturned chair, the unmistakable clap of a pistol firing (for she now knew that sound well) would, she thought, have some simple explanation; as would that grey drift of gun-smoke that dimmed the room. ‘John,’ she said, almost gaily, ‘what has happened?’
But then Tam Dewar entered in upon the scene. He pushed roughly past her, then dropped to his knees next to her brother and turned his prone body over. He leaned his ear to her brother’s chest before prising the spent pistol from between his fingers. It was only when the overseer, taking her brother’s head within his hands, stared aghast at the grievous lesion—the gory blood-black crater that was once the back of his head—that Caroline Mortimer’s innocent fancy vanished. Her legs went limp beneath her. She staggered across the room to land with a hefty fall upon the bed. She did not hear the overseer declare her brother dead for she was too busy screaming, ‘Bring the doctor! Someone, someone run for the physic! Marguerite, quickly! Marguerite! Where is Marguerite? She must bring the doctor. Marguerite!’
Molly, arriving, took in the circumstance faster than the missus did with her two good eyes. ‘The massa be shot,’ Molly shouted. While Byron, eyeballs gawping like a whistling frog’s, ran in-and-out, in-and-out the room, proclaiming, ‘Massa dead, massa dead.’ Which brought Florence and Lucy to the doorway. ‘Dead, dead, him is no more,’ they relayed over their shoulder for who knows who to carry it upon the next breath. It was Patience who caught the blare of that fierce chat-chat. She rushed in upon the room, demanding loudly, ‘Massa John? Is Massa John dead? Dead you say, Massa John?’
‘Stop your gawking,’ Caroline exclaimed, ‘and bring the doctor.’
The dog growled wild at the overseer bent fiddling over the massa’s body. And, Molly, smirking unmistakably with the excitement of it all said, ‘Lord, how him head mash up, missus. It mash up.’
‘Shut up! Just hold your tongue, the lot of you,’ Tam Dewar blasted upon the air. He stamped his foot, lunging at the dog until the hound turned tail. He grabbed Molly by the scruff and threw her at the doorway. She landed, stunned, against the frame. Patience, he pushed, punched, and poked, toward the door. She stumbled over Molly and both scrabbled from the