Mile Zero Read Online Free PDF Page B

his lips so you can hear what he’s saying.”
    St. Cloud fell to his knees, the rasp of the boy’s breath coming into his ear.
    “What is it? What’s he saying?” Justo grabbed St. Cloud by the arm. “Come over here.” He pulled St. Cloud to the side of the boat. “I don’t want anybody else to hear. Now, what is it?”
    “Hard to make out.” St. Cloud wiped his forehead, rum made him sweat, kept him cool in the subtropical swelter. “It’s some kind of Creole dialect, obscure. Something like,
Hail Papa Agwé who dwells in the sea, loa of ships. The Negro’s boat is in danger. Papa Agwé brings it to safety. Hail.”
    “Christ. The poor bastard. There’s a lot of African stuff in Santería I learned from my Aunt Oris, but I don’t know who Papa Agwé is. Don’t recall Aunt Oris talking about Papa Agwé.”
    “Voudoun, if I remember right. It’s been years since I studied it. I think Papa Agwé is a spirit, lord of the sea, symbolized by a boat and—”
    “That’s enough. Come over here.” Justo tightened his grip on St. Cloud’s shoulder, pulling him back to the boy. “Okay, men.” Justo pointed at the ambulance attendants. “Pick up the stretcher and get this refugee out of here. You know where to take him.”
    The attendants carefully lifted the stretcher. One of the boy’s clenched fists opened in a slight spasm, releasing a small pigskin bag secured with a knot of goat hair. Justo scooped the bag up, hiding it in his shirt pocket. He glanced at the dock to see if anyone noticed what he had done. The Captain was staring directly at him from beneath the stiff brim of his officer’s cap.
    “Captain.” Justo stood up. “We’ve got to take this political refugee into custody. I’m appointing St. Cloud the refugee’s interpreter. He’s the only one who can understand him. St. Cloud could save his life.”
    “This issue won’t be settled here, Tamarindo.” The Captain turned to go, his men stiffening to attention with hands raised in salute. “You’ll be hearing from the Department of Transportation and theImmigration and Naturalization Service for obstruction of governmental policy. It’s your goose.” The Captain nodded to his armed escorts and they quickly opened an exit path for him through the pushing crowd.
    Justo pulled St. Cloud close and whispered, “It’s your goose too.”
    “What do you mean? I just got here, wondered what all the commotion was.”
    “You’re an accessory to murder after the fact.”
    “The hell I am.” St. Cloud tried to pull away from Justo’s hand digging into his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
    “I want you to play ball with me, to be a team player. Could change your life. Look down there.” Justo released his grip and pointed to the splintered planking of the boat’s gunwale. Crude letters faded brown by the sun were painted the length of the boat’s upper edge.
    St. Cloud squinted at the scrawl, trying to decipher its meaning, reading the words out loud.
“Re … zis … to. Li … berté … ou … lan … mo
. Liberation or death.”
    “It’s written in blood.” Justo fingered his wishbone, his eyes going back and forth over the faded letters, “I know the look of dried blood.”
    While Justo rubbed his gold bone, St. Cloud congratulated himself for having started off such a strange day by drinking the sun up with a bottle of Haiti’s finest. “Thing is,” St. Cloud mumbled, speaking more to himself than Justo, who turned to hear the slurred words running together in rum-slickened syllables, “while ago, standing up there behind the rope watching what was going on, couldn’t help think about something which occurred to me early this morning. These
paysans
were at sea, probably had no compass, overhead a Space Shuttle was heaven bound. Can’t shake the feeling we’re living in a modern Christopher Columbus age, at the beginning of one world, end of another.”
    “That’s why this Haitian kid is so