Read The Wanderer for Free Online Page B

animated, and the old man darted forward, clawed at the car. His hand struck the wing-mirror.
    ‘Rass! I tink I hit dat tata,’ Clifton said, putting his foot on the brake.
    ‘What?’
    ‘That old man. I’s worried I hit him.’
    The car came to a stop. Clifton put it into reverse. I blenched.
    ‘No, don’t.’
    Clifton took his foot off the accelerator, looked at me.
    ‘What’s up, mon?’
    I turned to look over my shoulder. The old couple stalked toward the cab, glaring baleful, the man shaking his balled fist. I fought to get my breath.
    ‘Just keep going,’ I pleaded. ‘I can’t explain, but I’m in danger…’
    Clifton too turned to look back down the road. The old folk feigned meekness then; the old man switched his gesture to a wave.
    ‘Alright, the old man seem fine. You scared though, no?’
    ‘I am, but I don’t want to talk about it, not now.’
    ‘Sure ting. We get going then.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    We went on our way.
    ‘So, did you lose your finger in the explosion?’ I asked, once my heart had ceased drubbing.
    Clifton shook his head.
    ‘Uh uh, mi have more fi tell,’ he replied, with an enigmatic grimace.
    When Clifton roused, that night of the drug deal turned sour, hewas lying on his side facing the burnt-out van. It still smoked; its paint was blistered, peeling, its tyres were cankered. Clifton realized he’d been out some time, for, though darkest night persisted in the west, a faint greying of the sky in the east augured dawn. There were three blackened figures lying on the ground by the van’s rear doors, and the reek of charred flesh was in the air. Clifton retched. It began to mizzle; the droplets seethed as they fell on the smouldering husk. Clifton’s skull throbbed; he put his hand to his dreads and it came away slick with blood. He passed out again.
    When he came round once more, he lay on his back, staring up at the sky. It was day, though overcast. He’d turned to torpor, was able to move only his eyes. The dark stink of ordure, and a high cloying fetor choked him. Somewhere close by, a cracked clamour. Looking askance, Clifton saw, to his left, a man ringing a hand-bell. He wore a sacking robe and cowl, and his face was in shadow save his eyes – pupils, the pale grey of winter rain, rheumy, and whites, bloodshot. He had posies pinned all over his robe, sprays of spring flowers: daffodils, primroses, bluebells, and snowdrops.
    We had to take a detour due to roadworks outside Holloway Prison, but I didn’t mind; Clifton’s yarn held me rapt. After he’d described the sinister cowled figure, he took his left hand off the wheel, slapped the dash for emphasis.
    ‘It a duppy-man, I’s sure!’
    ‘Duppy?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s what you call a ghost, an evil spectre.’
    Rolling his eyes in their sockets, Clifton looked about him. He lay on a tumbril heaped with corpses, with ashen lesions, hectic cheeks. To his right, he could see the graveyard and beyond it the church. The van was gone. A flock of crows wheeled cawing overhead. To his left was a cluster of low, thatched, wattle-and-daubbuildings, desolated. Aside from the duppy-man, and the dead on the cart, there was no one in sight.
    After stilling his bell, putting it in a pouch with a leather strap, he wore over his shoulder, the duppy-man took up the handles of the barrow, pushed it before him, trudged across a miry field, to the edge of a carcass-filled pit. Then he began peering at the bodies on the cart. He took in Clifton’s seventies garb and dreadlocks without reaction, but started on sighting the signet ring the Rastafarian wore on his left hand. He eyed the ring, tried to pull it from Clifton’s finger. But it would not slide over the knuckle.
    Reaching into his poke, the duppy-man pulled out a knife. He began hacking at Clifton’s finger. Though inert, unable to resist or cry out, the Rasta was not benumbed. The edge of the blade was dull, the cutting, agony. Once he’d sawn through the bone, the