Atiba started in surprise, shot a quick glance toward the crowd of whites, then turned away, as though he hadn't heard. Winston moved closer and lowered his voice.
"Fala portugues, senhor?"
After a long moment he turned back and examined Winston.
“Sim. Suficiente.'' His whisper was almost buried in the din of bidding. He paused a moment, then continued, in barely audible Portuguese. "How many of my people will you try to buy, senhor?"
"Only free men serve under my command.'
"Then you have saved yourself the loss of many strings of money shells, senhor. The branco here may have escaped our sword for now. But they have placed themselves in our scabbard." He looked back toward the shore. "Before the next rainy season comes, you will see us put on the skin of the leopard. I swear to you in the name of Ogun, god of war."
[Chapter Two]
Joan Fuller sighed and gently eased herself out of the clammy feather bed, unsure why she felt so oddly listless. Like as not it was the patter of the noonday shower, now in full force, gusting through the open jalousies in its daily drenching of the tavern's rear quarters. A shower was supposed to be cooling, so why did she always feel hotter and more miserable afterwards? Even now, threads of sweat lined down between her full breasts, inside the curve of each long leg. She moved quietly to the window and one by one began tilting the louvres upward, hoping to shut out some of the salty mist.
Day in and day out, the same pattern. First the harsh sun, then the rain, then the sun again. Mind you, it had brought to life all those new rows of sugar cane marshalled down the hillsides, raising hope the planters might eventually settle their accounts in something besides weedy tobacco. But money mattered so little anymore. Time, that's the commodity no purse on earth could buy. And the Barbados sun and rain, day after day, were like a heartless cadence marking time's theft of the only thing a woman had truly worth holding on to.
The tropical sun and salt air would be telling enough on the face of some girl of twenty, but for a woman all but thirty—well, in God's own truth some nine years past—it was ruination. Still, there it was, every morning, like a knife come to etch deeper those telltale lines at the corners of her eyes. And after she’d frayed her plain brown hair coloring it with yellow dye, hoping to bring out a bit of the sparkle in her hazel eyes, she could count on the harsh salt wind to finish turning it to straw. God damn miserable Barbados.