Call Down Thunder Page 5

  When he said that Reve realized who he was: ‘You the one they call Two-Boat?’

  ‘Some call me that still,’ the man admitted.

  He’d been the first fisherman on their strip of coast to buy a fleet of skiffs, and now near owned San Jerro, his village. He was like Calde, thought Reve, but, he had to admit, without being like him at all; none of his swagger, none of his threat. Two-Boat pulled his cap forward a little. ‘I bring my truck next time and maybe you and your sister come over to my village, meet my family.’

  Then he was gone, walking out across the scrub field behind the dunes, heading up the coast. It was a good walk to his village, five miles easy. He had made that walk just to see her. Reve said as much as soon as he was out of earshot.

  ‘You got no understandin,’ she said.

  ‘You talk ’bout leavin, Mi. I see where you goin. You thinkin of marryin? That what you thinkin?’ He knew he should feel good, but he didn’t. ‘He got money, that man. Rich, I hear—’

  ‘Enough o’ that, Reve!’ She hugged herself and started rocking backwards and forwards. ‘Anyhow, he ask me nothing yet. An’ I don’ know what I want. I’m not safe here, Reve. I got that Hevez pushin more than you know, talkin things at me. ’

  Reve reached over and took her arm. ‘I know,’ he said. There was no reason to be hard with Mi. ‘Don’ fret you’self. Hey. We figure something.’

  ‘Everythin pressin on me, Reve; tha’s why I want her.’

  ‘You could talk to Ciele.’

  Mi puffed out her cheeks and stopped her rocking. ‘Ciele someone else’s mother.’

  ‘You won’t go runnin without me,’ he said.

  ‘Got nowhere to run, Reve.’ She hesitated and he wondered if she was thinking about Two-Boat. Then she said, ‘’Less we find where our mother livin.’

  ‘Told you, she not livin any place.’

  The two of them were turning in circles, smaller and tighter, going nowhere, like when current, wind and tide all pull the water around and make a whirlpool. Suck a boat down so it never come up. Tomas told him that.

  Out on the ocean, if there was a storm coming, all you could do was run in front of it, try to find shelter.

  What kind of shelter could he find for Mi?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Money. Money – that was the only thing you could be sure about. Dollars wrapped in a tight wad, wedged in a jar, buried here, under his arm.

  Reve was awake again.

  There was something grumbling far off. Thunder maybe. Storm back inland somewhere. Mi’s storm?

  Mi.

  Hevez sneering one way, Two-Boat smiling the other, and Mi somewhere in the middle.

  Tomas had seen Calde. All he’d said to Reve afterwards was, ‘That man don’ have listenin ears. I got no threat on him.’

  Now, as Reve lay on his pallet under the shack, hearing the sound of Tomas snoring above him, he thought, Tha’s cos you got no weight, Tomas: you live in a hammock, drink rum, got hardly no money.

  Reve, though, would get dollars. That’s what he would do. Be a rich man like Two-Boat. That way you get respect. People mind what you say if you carry dollar in your pocket.

  With a dollar in his pocket he could find proper shelter for Mi.

  His eyes were wide open now and the dark was solid around him, but he kept expecting to see the sky crackle with lightning because of that thunder that had woken him.

  Then there was a flicker of light, and the rumbling was louder.

  But it wasn’t a storm beating up the sky on the far side of the highway, and that light sweeping across their porch was never lightning, and the voices calling out weren’t shouting because some storm was tearing boats from their moorings or ripping plastic from the shacks. That was a truck and cars, maybe two, three, easing down the bumpy track, heading for the wall.

  He heard more voices, the bang of a shack door snapping shut.

  Sultan stirred, lifted himself, came and sniffed Reve’s face, turned round three times and then lay down again. There were sticks of torchlight now, people hurrying after the cars and the truck. He thought of the way gulls drifted in the air above the boats when the nets were being hauled in. There were always plenty who were hungry for the Night Man’s dollar.

  Reve was one of many.

  He shoved Sultan out of the way and rolled off his pallet, pulled on his jeans and scrabbled out from the end of the shack. He checked to see whether Tomas’s lamp had come on. Maybe he would sleep through it all: hear nothing, see nothing. Reve hoped so. But whether he woke or not, whether he found out and raged and shook his Bible, it would just be spit in the wind, Reve was going to earn the Night Man’s dollar, and that was that.

  He slipped through the makeshift gate, picked his way over the stony part of the track and then ran straight down to where the truck and the cars were humped like landed whales on the deck of the pier, men and boys shoaling round, waiting for the boats to come in and the work to start.

  This was Mi’s storm, wasn’t it?

  Money and sickness.

  Money. That was the Night Man, the smuggling man.

  Sickness. That could be him too.

  Do the Night Man’s work right and keep your mouth shut and you’d be all right, but talk out of turn and then bad things happened. Everybody knew about that: hammer and club and a person turns into a meal for crabs.

  Only a fool ended up feeding himself to the crabs, Reve reckoned.

  He joined the edge of a group of men gathered in a loose circle round the first car, where a señor stood, a cigar lighting up his face with an orange glow. He wondered if he’d see LoJo. Calde was there, of course, up beside that señor, half in the light of the truck’s headlight, his stubbled face turned to the señor, telling him this, telling him that, nodding to one in the crowd, picking out another, to go down to where the boats would come in, be ready to take the line, to hold them steady while everyone else lined up to carry whatever load the boats brought in. Calde was this señor’s man, anyone who hadn’t known this before knew it now.

  He saw the señor talking into his cellphone, his men in suits leaning up against the side of the car, smoking, guns slung over their shoulders, so relaxed, like this was a thing they did most every day. Reve didn’t know how you could lean like that, look so easy. Funny thing was, these men weren’t so different from the police when they came into the village: stood the same, carried the same sort of gun, looked at Rinconda people the same way, right through them, like they were hardly there.

  Reve didn’t care about that one way or another so long as he got a chance to do their work. His chest felt tight as a drum; his eyes strained to see into the darkness beyond the pier.

  The night was still. The sea was slick and flat like the highway, and there was just enough moonlight for the men driving the black-hulled boats to read the coastline. He itched for the boats to come in, to carry whatever he had to carry, to scurry with all the men round him and earn as much as he could. He could almost feel the wad of notes they would pay him.

  Someone lit a cigarette; another murmured to the shadowy figure next to him.

  ‘Hey.’ LoJo slipped up beside him, shoulders hunched, like he didn’t know whether to try to be bigger than he was or smaller so no one would see him there and tell his father.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘What you thinkin, Reve? You think we get our share of work when the boats come in?’

  Reve nodded.

  They waited and talked, and glanced at who was around them. They saw Hevez along with Sali. There was Ramon and a younger boy, his little brother; and then there was something almost like a sigh as the boats appeared.

  Reve heard the high whine of their powerful outboard engines moments before he saw the slash of white arrowing in towards the pier. Four boats, five, no, more, six, seven . . . ten! There had never been an operation this big.

  One after the other the black-hulled speedboats curved into the pier, their engines suddenly stilled so that just fo
r a second, before anyone moved, all you could hear was the slap of the wash against the stone and the creak of the hulls moving against rubber fenders slung down from the pier’s side.

  Only a moment though, because then the work started. It looked like chaos but it wasn’t. The group Reve had been standing with dissolved as they ran, marking the boat they intended to help unload. Then sacks wrapped tight in black plastic, heavy as a fish box, were hurried to the truck, where two of the señor’s men stood, directing where the cartons were to be put. It was smooth as grease.

  Reve ran with LoJo, the two of them panting, the night clammy on their faces, sweat running down their arms, making the plastic slippy in their hands.

  ‘You!’ Calde called out. ‘Move you’self. Do nothing, get nothing. You want to see a beach rat get more than you?’ For half a moment, Reve thought he was yelling at him and LoJo, but it was Hevez.

  Hevez didn’t know much about work, only knew how to swagger and push his weight. He was standing back by the truck, smoking, but when his uncle called him, he ran down to the edge of the pier and took his turn to ferry one of the sacks. Reve nudged LoJo when Hevez staggered under the weight, almost losing his footing.

  ‘Nobody grieve if he fall in and drown,’ Reve muttered, running past LoJo to the truck.

  ‘’Cept his mother maybe.’

  ‘Who knows about her. She look like she suck on lime all day.’

  Reve had just thrown his tenth sack into the truck and was about to run back for his next load when he heard a ratcheting noise that seemed to come from the highway, but higher up, in the air; and growing louder and louder until it sounded heavy as thunder. Helicopter! Everyone froze, thirty-odd figures caught in the moonlight, heads all tilted up at the sky. Now the thunder was sweeping towards them. The air thrummed and shook as if it were being pounded with a jackhammer and Reve found himself pressing his hands to his ears.

  Brilliant stabbing columns of white light swept over the frail shacks of Rinconda, slashing big zigzags towards the pier, picking out the smugglers’ boats, pinning the group on the edge of the pier unloading the cargo. Then it slowed and hovered above them.

  ‘This is a coastguard warning!’ The voice sounded like metal and filled the air it was so loud, louder than the hammering roar of the helicopter itself. ‘Move away from the boats. Move away from the truck . . .’

  There was the flat crack of first one gunshot and then instantly another and another and the helicopter bucked and lifted, twisted about and then like a wild giant black hornet jinked first one way and then another while the señor’s men’s automatic rifles spattered up at it, and then the chopper swept down low along the length of the pier.

  And suddenly everyone was running and yelling and scattering back towards the shore, trying to get away from the pier as the chopper howled just overhead, its guns sending out a stream of red dots that stitched lines across the darkness, hissing into the water, rippling and spitting off the stone. Reve grabbed LoJo and spun him hard across into the shelter of the wall that ran like a lip along the seaward side of the pier. He dived after him, scuffing his hands and knees but feeling nothing. There was only noise and fear. He pressed himself into the stone, wishing he could push himself right inside it, wishing he had listened to Mi and stayed at home.

  Almost in front of them was the truck. Reve could see two men struggling to pull something heavy from the back, big and awkward – some kind of gun or rocket launcher, he thought. The señor was there beside them, his cigar still glowing, snapping instructions but standing straight, not bothering to scuttle and stoop like everyone else. Calde and two of the señor’s men were over on the far side of the pier, crouched down by a bollard, following the helicopter, turning as it turned, guns up and ready to take another shot.

  ‘It comin again!’ someone shouted. Two or three people burst from the shelter of a stack of empty fish boxes and pelted up the pier. It was Hevez and Ramon and two others Reve couldn’t see so clearly. They ran straight to the side the boats were on and hurled themselves into the water.

  There was the whine of the helicopter, the stutter of guns and the brilliant white stalks of light, cutting one way and another, and catching a small figure running as hard as he could. It was Ramon’s little brother. What was he doing down here! He was too small to do any of the lifting and carrying so all he could do was get in the way, get shouted at and now, Reve realized, get killed.

  The boy’s face was suddenly visible in a flashing sweep of the helicopter’s spotlight. He looked as if he had a race to win, but he was too late to follow his brother into the water. He ran past the truck and Reve saw the señor glance at him and then turn back to what he was doing.

  The chopper wheeled again, the spotlight slipped off Ramon’s little brother and before Reve even knew what he was doing, he sprang away from the slight safety of the wall and grabbed the boy, who was running so fast he spun round Reve and made the two of them fall hard. Ramon’s brother cried out as he struck the ground, and his fist caught Reve under the eye, but Reve held him tight to stop him scrabbling up and start running again; then, just before the spatter of bullets hissed and whipped across the stone, Reve hauled him back to where LoJo, his eyes white and staring, reached out to grab the boy and pull him into their little bit of shelter.

  There was more noise, more gunfire, a sudden loud crump so close Reve felt the air bang his face and his eyes jerked open. A great ball of flame burst up into the darkness from one of the boats. They would all be burned, all those boats and then the houses in the village, they would burn too.

  There were rapid pinpricks of light stippling the dark, a blustering crackle of gunfire from the armed men that seemed nothing against the frightening wheeling and banking monster of the air. Then there was a shout from the truck, whatever gun it was the señor had assembled was ready. There was an angry barking cough, once, twice, three times in rapid succession: Thok! Thok! Thok!

  Then, as abruptly and as terrifyingly as it had all begun, it was over: the stabbing lights were gone and the helicopter itself was scudding along the shoreline, jinking left and right like a big dirt fly, skimming low over the sand, rearing up and over Mi’s car. Maybe Mi cast a spell on it, scare it right away. A plume of flame poured out from the chopper’s tail, trailing fire like a comet across the sky. It flew straight for a few heartbeats then lurched wildly to the right. A moment later there was a loud whoomph and it jerked straight up into the air, hung for a second and then piled down into the ground, erupting in a sheet of dazzling orange and white flame, so bright that Reve had to shield his eyes against the burst of light, even though it must have been at least half a mile away.

  There was silence apart from the sea slopping against the pier, the hiss of fire and water. Then Reve heard someone moaning, someone else calling and the pattering of running feet, engines starting up. Some of the motorboats must have cast off and headed into the dark rather than sit there, easy targets, and now they were nosing back to the pier.

  He touched LoJo’s shoulder. ‘You OK?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Ramon’s brother was hunched against the wall, his arms wrapped over his head, his body quivering still. ‘You want to go look for your brother?’ Reve said. ‘I think he’s all right, you know. Maybe a little wet.’

  The boy clambered to his feet. Looked down at his torn-up knee raw from the fall. He poked it with his finger and winced. ‘You nearly broke my leg,’ he said.

  ‘He saved your life,’ said LoJo.

  ‘Yeah?’ He shrugged. But he peered at Reve and after half a second said, ‘I know you. Hevez don’t like you much.’ Then he grinned. ‘Don’t like me much either.’ Then he ran off, or tried to – his hurt knee made him hobble.

  At that moment the truck’s headlights flicked on, and in the sudden glare Reve saw men hurrying down towards where the boats had been moored. There was fuel burning on the water and the boats that had cast off as soon as the helicopter attacked were now drifting a few
lengths away from the pier, outside the ring of fire. Like hungry dogs, Reve thought, ready to come in again but not too sure if it was safe.

  The señor had Calde and his men gathered round him. A moment later bulky Calde was running back to the edge of the pier, gesturing for the boats to come in.

  ‘How many we lost?’ shouted the señor.

  ‘One only,’ Calde called back.

  ‘One only,’ mimicked the señor to his men. ‘How that country pig Calde like to walk round with only one cojon, hey?’ His men laughed and then peeled away as he gave more orders, to dismantle the gun, strap down the load.

  The señor took a couple of steps from the truck towards where Reve and LoJo were watching from the deep shadow of the wall. He flipped open his cellphone.

  ‘It’s me, Moro . . .’ His voice was low and ugly. ‘I want to know who gave a call to these dirt-fly coastguards . . . Yes. You’re the lawyer. You find out.’ The señor was silent, listening for a moment and then said, ‘Fix it.’ He snapped the cell shut.

  The señor was now standing so close that Reve could smell him: something sweet and musky, not the village smell of salt, fish and sweat. He noticed now that, though the señor wore a suit like his men, there was something shabby about him too. He wore a stringy vest under his dark jacket, an old pair of trainers on his feet. The señor scratched the back of his neck, looked at the phone in his hand and then made another call. ‘Captain,’ he said, his voice low, polite this time, ‘I have a problem here . . .’ and then he turned his back and Reve couldn’t hear what else he said. The señor ended the call, took one last draw on the butt of his cigar and tossed it away towards where Reve and LoJo were standing and then walked swiftly back to where the boats were docking.

  LoJo let out his breath. ‘You think he saw us?’

  Reve shook his head, but he reckoned if the señor knew he’d been overheard he would not be happy. ‘You heard nothing, hey.’