He shakes his head, downshifts and guides the Land Rover around another obstacle. "Elizabeth said you had an outstanding lack of knowledge about our ways… With us, men are not at risk, women are."

"Elizabeth can certainly take care of herself…"

"Not when she's in heat. Then she belongs to the first male who takes her. You should know that."

"I do," I say. "But what has that to do with leaving Cockpit Country, visiting the coast?"

"You saw how hard it was to find a female in heat. God knows, I've been waiting to find one too. Longer than you, I think… if Elizabeth's right about your age." Derek sighs. "And you were fortunate to have won the fight for her. So if you knew where an immature female was, wouldn't it be tempting to take her and hold her until she reaches her first oestrus-without any further search, without any risk or challenge-after which she'd be yours for life?"

I nod.

"In the old days such kidnappings were common. But no proud female wants a mate who wins her that way. No parents worth their name would want to see their young daughters taken before their time and matched for life with a male too impatient to wait for her, too lazy to search for her and too cowardly to fight for her.

"That's why we keep our young women close to home," he continues. "The men, they're another matter… no one worries about the men."

Derek states the last few words with such venom that I stare at him. "Why do you stay?" I say. "Why not leave Jamaica, search for a bride?"

"My father won't allow it." He barks out a laugh.

I look at the size of him. "How can he stop you?"

"He's killed two sons before me, for disobeying his wishes. Pa prefers that I deal with the outside world for him, bring back whatever riches I can find to add to his coffers."

He looks at me, as if he wants me to think well of his family. "Pa can be difficult, but he's fair. He's promised, I can leave when I pass one hundred. By then my brother will be old enough and experienced enough to take over."

We break out of the greenery once more, crossing a wide trail that Derek tells me leads from the Windsor Caves, six miles below us, to the town of Troy, four miles above. "Bloody damn tourists walk this trail all the time," he mutters, jams on the accelerator and speeds us past it.

Derek stops the Land Rover a few miles later, in a clearing, on a ledge overlooking a wide, deep sinkhole. "Ready to stretch your legs, old man?" he asks as he steps out.

I nod, throw open my door and get out, arch my back as I study the rugged terrain below and above us. "Certainly looks different when you're driving through it rather than flying over it."

"If we were flying, we'd have been home long before this," he says.

"How much longer going this way?"

He stares up at the sun, studies the hills around us. "We're about halfway." Derek goes to the car, releases the catches on a steel, six-gallon jerry jug, holds it in the air and pours water into his mouth. Afterward, he hands it to me.

As I do the same, he asks, "How was it? The scent… I mean, her scent, old man. What was it like? What did it do to you?"

A blush burns its way onto my face. "My god," I say. "I smelled it all the way up in Miami. You had to smell it yourself, here."

"You don't get it, old man." Derek shakes his head, goes about the task of replenishing the gas tank from some of the other jerry jugs the car carries. "Of course I smelled it. The air reeked of it. But it couldn't affect me. A family member's scent can't work on close relatives." He shakes his head again." That would be insane. Didn't your parents teach you anything?"

Derek moans when I tell him about the aphrodisiacal qualities of the aroma, laughs as I describe how out of control it made me. "One day," he says as he gets back in the Land Rover, "I'll leave this bloody small island and find a woman of my own."

"I'm sure you will," I say, getting in too, knowing how hard that task will be, more grateful man ever to have found and won Elizabeth.

The shadows have lengthened, the sun has descended in the western sky by the time we finally come through the narrow pass that leads to Morgan's Hole. The Land Rover skids to a stop next to a small tower of stones piled by the side of the trail, about a half-mile from the house. A similar pile marks the trail only twelve feet ahead of us. "What?" I ask.

Derek waves off my question, leans out the window and whistles a sharp loud blast. Then he drums on the steering wheel and waits until seven Jamaican men run up carrying long, thick wooden planks.

An older Jamaican, the obvious leader of the men, carefully studies both piles of stones, the placement of the car. Then he motions where the men should lay the planks down. At no time do any of them step any closer than the farthest pile of stones.

Derek watches them. Drives forward as soon as the men secure the planks. He stops just past the pile of stones, waits while the men retrieve the planks and trot off toward the house.

Close up I can see the ragged condition of their clothes, the steel rings around their necks, wrists and ankles.

"Slaves?" I ask.

He grins. "Why not?"

I am their guest, I think. Who am I to insist it's okay to eat them, but not to profit from their labor? I choose only to say, "Father said they're more trouble than they're worth, always plotting to revolt or run away."

"Come," Derek says. He gets out of the Land Rover, walks to the pile of stones behind it, waits until I join him.

"There's a narrow chasm that runs the width of the valley right here." Derek holds out his hand, motions for me to clasp it with mine. "Take a step forward," he says.

I do and the ground groans and crackles beneath me.

Derek yanks me back just before it collapses. "The ground's barely thicker than an eggshell here, with a thousand-foot drop beneath it." He tilts his head in the direction the Jamaicans took. "They know that. They know there are hundreds more pitfalls like this all around us."

He whistles a different note, lower, more challenging and somewhere in the distance behind us, the howls of a dog pack answer him. "They know the dogs are out there too." Derek nods. "They'll stay put. They always do."

We pass well-tended fields, pastures packed with cattle, sheep and goats, tidy rows of wood shacks for the workers, carefully maintained stables and paddocks for the family's horses.

Derek parks in the shade of one of the towering silk cotton-wood trees, in the dirt drive in front of the house. Another Land Rover, a beige one, sits under another equally immense silk cotton wood on the other side of the drive. "My spare," he says, tilting his head toward the car.

He honks his horn three times to alert his family to our arrival, then steps out of the Land Rover.

I look at the wide stone steps leading up to their veranda, and realize that this house measures easily twice the size of mine.

"Come on, Peter, you lucky dog!" Derek says, motioning for me to follow him. "The family's waiting for you inside. It wouldn't do to keep Pa and Mum waiting too long you know, old man."

"Coming," I say, breathing deep, forcing myself to move, patting my pocket, making sure the necklace still remains in place, feeling foolish, like a schoolboy before his first date.

"I envy you," Derek says, putting his arm around my neck, whispering as if we had conspired to bring about this evening. "The feast, Peter! If only you had an inkling of what's in store for you."

He laughs at the confusion he sees in my eyes, and says, "Come old man! Pa and Mum grow far too impatient far too quickly."