The Penalty Read Online Free Page B

stopped again. The gun man stumbled and would have fallen on top of us if he had not wrapped one arm around the mast. I looked down into the water and saw swirls of mud and dark tangles of underwater grass. The only sounds were the hiss and prickle of the rain falling onto the river.
    Morro stood up. Water dripped from his chin and beak. He kicked the boat and said the same word many times.
Mierda
,
mierda
,
mierda
. The same word he used for us.
Shit
.
    Morro looked down at us with his bloodstained eyes. He spoke, but not to us, because the gun man replied. We knew Morro did not like the answer because he roared the same words again. The gun man lifted his shoulders, then opened a box and took out a hammer and a thick iron pin. He gave them to Morro who stooped and seized Abela’s arm. He laid it on the edge of the boat, then used the hammer and the pin to drive the bolt free of the iron bracelet on Abela’s wrist. The chain fell away. Abela was now divided from the rest of us. Strangely, I felt a kind of sadness. Then Morro took my arm and used the hammer and pin to free me from the next man. Abela and I looked up at Morro trying to understand his shouts and signs. We could not. The rain was thick now and cloaked his words and everything around us. It seemed that he wanted us to stand, so we stood. He showed his teeth and pushed us and we fell backwards into the water. It smacked us with a soft warm hand, like a mother.
    The boat was heavy, not like my people’s boats. Abela and I heaved at it with our hands and shoulders while Morro cursed down on us. The water was up to our armpits and the mud ran away beneath our feet. The oarsmen pushed against the river bed and signalled strength and courage, but we could not understand their words, and sometimes when we moved to a new position we sank deep and could find nothing to stand on. I worried because I knew the full strength of the river was waiting to carry the boat away like a leaf.
    It happened suddenly. The bow swung out. I looked up and saw the gun man’s face pass above me, his mouth a red hole in its fur. Then there was nothing but water beneath me and the great weight of the boat sliding onto me, forcing me under. I sucked in a breath, saw Abela vanish, then I was in almost-darkness.
    I learned then that the spirit of this river was not like Loma. It had a savage playfulness and its water was full of strong thin fingers. They snatched and dragged at me when I had kicked free of the boat’s shadow, and it took all my strength to escape them and climb into the air. The boat was already a spear-throw away from me. I heard shouts through the rain, saw Morro crouched at the stern, his arm raised, saw the oarsmen struggling to turn the boat into the current. I spread myself in the water and worked my legs. The clothes made me heavy. I thought that death and freedom were both close to me but I could not choose between them. Then I thought of Abela, and I lifted myself and turned this way and that but I could not see him.
    When I was facing the boat again it was much closer, as if by some magic. A snake fell from the air and hit the water close to me. A rope. I reached it and held it, turning on my back to breathe what air there was between the river and the rain. I felt something hard and warm strike my legs, and I cried out, choking water.
    Abela rose up close to me with death in his face. He may have known me, because he raised his arm with the iron bracelet on it. I tried to reach him with my hand but I could not and he was gone.
    I pulled myself along the rope until hands grasped me, and then I was kneeling on the floor of the boat. The oarsmen had steadied it now, holding it skilfully into the current. Morro and the other white man were staring into the rain. The four chained men looked at me with eyes like moons. Then Morro shouted and pointed. The river and the rain were green smoke and grey smoke. Close to where they met and melted I saw something black for a