The Pirate's Daughter by Robert Girardi Read Free Book Online Page B

was deciding all at once, tonight, with the stars up and the wind in his hair, that perhaps it was time to lead a different sort of life.
    Tulj and N’fumi were arguing loudly in the cab and passing a bottle of tejiyaa back and forth. The Fiat swerved dangerously when they pulled off the highway at Lazarus onto Route 27 and into the confusion of cross-state traffic. Wilson sat up and watched the lights of the city recede behind the nearest tree line; soon there was little more than a dull glow in the sky. Ten minutes later they veered off 27 onto a fire road and then slowed and turned up a dirt track that bumped away into the pine and frog darkness of the Falling Rock Nature Preserve. Soon the stars were lost in the branches, andWilson heard the hoot and scratch of animals in the brush and the slow, long-needled rustling of the firs. About fifteen minutes passed on Wilson’s illuminated digital watch before the truck emerged from the trees into a mud clearing full of cars. At the center, a large cinder-block bunkhouse showed a row of small yellow-lit windows just beneath the eaves.
    Wilson hopped out of the bed and stood on the loamy ground, hands in his pockets, waiting for the Africans to disengage themselves from the cramped interior. The Fiat was so small, like one of those clown cars at the circus. A dull thrumming, which was the sound of men’s voices, came from inside the bunkhouse. Thin, silvery clouds of smoke steamed out of the yellow windows into the clear night air.
    â€œPlease, can you lend a hand here?” It was Tulj from the compartment of the Fiat.
    Wilson stepped over to the passenger-side window and saw that N’fumi had passed out, mouth open against the dashboard.
    â€œToo much tejiyaa,” Tulj said. “He is young yet; he does not know how to handle his liquor.”
    â€œWhat the hell,” Wilson said. “Twenty-one. Everyone’s allowed to float the boat at twenty-one.”
    â€œYes, but I do not want him floating the boat, as you say, in the front seat of my truck,” Tulj said.
    They managed to carry N’fumi around to the back. Tulj let down the gate, and they hoisted him up into the bed and covered him to the chin with an old tarp. N’fumi’s legs stuck out a good two feet over the end, one of his sandals dangling off his foot. The effect was comic or sinister, Wilson couldn’t decide which.
    â€œMy foolish brother is best off sleeping here,” Tulj said. “Meanwhile, we will proceed to the fights. Have you ever attended such an event in the past?”
    Wilson was going to lie, then thought better of it and shook his head.
    â€œIt is much fun,” the African said, then he laughed. “I wasted my youth in such places, at home in the days before the Time of Killing.”

13
    The bunkhouse was packed to the walls with men of many nationalities. Wilson looked around for Cricket but did not see a single woman in the crowd.
    There were Bupandans, Nigerians, Haitians, Salvadorans, Mexicans, Brazilians, Vietnamese, even a few white shack-trash rednecks wearing plaid workshirts and vinyl mesh baseball caps plastered with rebel flags, all gathered around a dirt pit about forty feet across, covered with blood and straw and feathers. The feathers were everywhere, floating on clouds of cigarette smoke in the yellow light. The smell was overpowering. At first, Wilson could hardly breathe. Then, suddenly, he grew used to the stifling, flatulent air.
    Tulj managed to push his way up to the railing over the pit, and Wilson took a position beside him. Sugarcane liquor in cloudy vinegar bottles was passed forward from the back of the crowd. Wilson drank and wiped his mouth on his hand as he’d seen someone do in a movie, and he passed it to Tulj, who drank and passed it to someone else. A dangerous, testosterone-charged atmosphere hung about the place, but it was not alien or unfamiliar. Here, Wilson got the sense, men were doing what