Hungry, she reached into her pocket for a protein bar and settled into the driving, marveling as she always did at the spectacular landscape and the variety of fruit there. The rain forest around her contained an astonishing mixture of trees: breadfruit and banana, cinnamon and nutmeg—the island’s most famous spice—clove, coconut palm, mango, cocoa, apple, soursop, cashew, avocado, plum. And more. Papaya. Orange. The list of edibles was endless.

For those whose taste ran to meat, there were all manner of animals, some of them unique to the region. The forest hid the armadillo or tatoo, the manicou or opossum, not to speak of the Mona monkey—an island delicacy.

Through her open window, Peta could feel the increasing humidity and hear the song of exotic night birds. For too long, she had claimed to be too busy to climb the trails. Too busy trying not to think.

She passed a house where several young men and women were partially dressed in brightly colored satins. Carnival dancers preparing for the next day’s parade.

Carnival season in Grenada was joyous for some, anathema to others. There was dancing in the streets and strange business afoot as gangs of young locals, faces painted with tar, created equal parts of music and mayhem. They wore masks and devil costumes soaked in a combination of charcoal and engine oil and jumped out at you, pulling you close to dance with them and leaving you smeared with greasy black residue.

As a child, she had been terrified of them. They represented both the devil and the priesthood, warning in both personas of hell and damnation, yet promising redemption, too, to those who did not thwart them. As an adult, she avoided them where possible and wore old clothes throughout Carnival in case she ran into them anyway.

The Jab Jab Molassi.

Another all-male club, she thought, recalling Arthur’s tales of his years among them.

It took her a minute to remember the last time she had participated in the parade, or any of the revelry of Grenada’s late-summer festival. She had told herself that she didn’t have time for that, either. In truth, neither the activities nor the hedonism held any appeal, but at this time of year, they were hard to avoid. As July became August, the people of Grenada geared up for the days of revelry as if they were readying for war.

Beginning with the Rainbow Festival in St. Andrew’s, during the first weekend in August, big tents mushroomed around the island for the steel-band and calypso competitions. Because the calypsos were, in the main, politically based, the lyrics inevitably spawned more fights than were usual on the island and, under cover of Carnival’s loose attitude, more assaults on tourist.

This year however, there were fewer political songs, and many more that stretched the moral boundaries of the island. Watching the frenzy mount and the competition grow ever fiercer, Peta could not but wonder how many—or how few—Grenadians remembered that Carnival was supposed to be about Lent. It had been easier to remember when it coincided with the Lenten season. Once the influx of summer tourists induced a change to August, none but the most religious among the revelers gave much thought to its origins.

She chuckled somewhat wryly at herself.

For the first time since she could remember, her Catholic roots were showing. As an intelligent being and as a doctor, she had an intense awareness of life’s transience, but she’d never concerned herself with what lay at the end of her tunnel.

Not so these days.

These days she thought a lot about her own mortality.

Doubtless, this was related to Arthur’s death. This would be her first Carnival without him. Wherever he was, that was where she wanted to go. Not right away, of course, but ultimately. When it was her time.

Meanwhile, the annual celebration had to be endured.

In the gloom of dusk among the trees of the mountain, a light flashed ahead of her. Glancing at the odometer, she realized that she was nearing the location of her house call. She had been averaging no more than fifteen miles an hour. Even had she not recalled the location on her own, she was hardly likely to have missed the figure waving a flashlight at the side of the road.

She stopped the car and stuck her head out of the open window.

The messenger directed the flashlight’s beam into her eyes. She covered them with one hand and, with the other, opened the car door.

“How’s the patient?”

“Patient be dead.”

The stranger, a masked male youth judging by the width of his shoulders, stepped into Peta’s line of vision. He was quickly joined by a group, seven or eight strong, of Jab Jab Molassi.

In the distance, she heard drumbeats, punctuated every now and again by the bleating of a goat. At the Grand E

´ tang Lake, Mama Glo, the goddess of the river, was worshiped, especially during Saraka, the period of honoring the dead and appeasing evil spirits. Animals were sacrificed. The days of feasting and singing and dancing attracted Shango worshipers, who believed that the African god of thunder and thunderbolts punished troublemakers and rewarded his worshipers.

Heart pounding, Peta reached for her cell phone—and realized that she had left it inside the car. She felt for her belt and pushed the button on the left of her beeper. It went off with resounding clarity in the night darkness.

A Jab Jab laughed and closed in on her. He removed the pager from her belt and tossed it into the trees.

“We have maldjo,” he said, in a mixture of patois and English. “We have the evil eye.”

“Maldjo,” his buddies chanted. They were close enough that she could hear their breathing. Feel it. The smell of the cheap rum they’d been drinking mixed with the stench of tar and engine oil smeared across their bodies.

One of them tousled her hair from behind.

“You want my money?” Peta reached into her pocket, ready to give them whatever she had on her.

They laughed, quietly, and pressed closer.

One of them smacked his lips, as if anticipating a tasty morsel. “This one’s delicious. I gon’ eather a-w-e-l up.”

Another stuck his head through the open car window. “Hey. Look-a what I found.” He slid his body into the car and emerged with her medical bag. “Must be good stuff in here, me t’ink.”

A hand tugged at her blouse, another at her skirt. She pulled away, into the arms of a third, who kissed her resoundingly on the mouth. What an idiot she was coming out here alone, at night, during Carnival. She was heavily outnumbered. They were young and they were strong and, judging by the alcohol on the breath of the one who had kissed her, they were considerably more than a couple of sheets to the wind. If they decided to rape her, which seemed inevitable, there was nothing she could do. If she shouted, who would hear her?

Still, it couldn’t hurt to scream. Maybe kick a few gonads.

“You want to use your maldjo on me?” She turned to face the one who had kissed her. Immediately she heard what she expected, the sound of one of the Jab Jab coming at her from behind.

Using all of the knowledge Ray had taught her, she kicked backward. Her foot found substance and one of the boys screamed and doubled over.

“You wan’ it rough, bitch?” another youth said as he grabbed her by the hair.

She pummeled him with both fists and screamed at the top of her lungs.

A Moke rounded the corner and came to a screeching halt in front of them. Her would-be molesters froze in the vehicle’s headlights as, crossbow in hand, Frikkie Van Alman jumped out of the driver’s seat of his low four-wheel-drive jeep.

Immediately, the Jab Jab Molassi scattered, shouting, “Sorry, man…mistake, man…sorry, man,” as they vanished into the surrounding forest.

Peta took in a deep breath. “Great white hunter rescues damsel in distress,” she said, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart.