Pirate Freedom (39 page)

He turned to me, and I would swear his eyes twinkled. "I mean to send him to Maracaibo ahead of us to take the lay of the land."

"No! You cannot!" Novia jumped to her feet, knocking over her chair.

I made her sit down again and said, "Yes, he can. I'll go, of course, Captain."

"Knew you would, Chris." Capt. Burt cleared his throat. "Somethin' was said about trustin' a while back. Just to show you two how much I trust you both, I'm goin' to tell you somethin' more. Mum's the word on this. Do you recollect the Spanish pinnace? The one that scared us out of Portobello?"

We nodded.

"Well, shipmates, the captain of that pinnace is sittin' at this table with us this very minute."

I do not know whether Novia's jaw dropped, but I am sure mine did.

Capt. Burt's laughter filled the cabin. "Hal flew Spanish colors, thinkin' there might be a galleon or two about. A good sensible precaution, I call it."

"This you knew, Capitán?"

"Not at first, Señora. I came flash only after I'd talked to Hal here. But think, now. Leaky ships, most shot up a bit by that fort. Foul bottoms on some of 'em. Small crews. But got out without seein' so much as the topsails of a galleon, and why didn't the pinnace shadow us? It's what they do, usually, Señora. Take station 'tween you and the galleons, where the galleons will see their signals."

I said, "Now that you know, shouldn't you send the ships back to Portobello?"

"I will, Chris. Trust me for that. But not yet. Not till they're in better shape, and there's been time for the crews to shake off their fevers. Only tell me now, you were with us, and the señora, too. Is Dobkin comin' back? Honest, now."

"He could," I said. "There's a chance." Somehow I felt that if I said no, I would be dooming him and all the
Sabina
men who had gone with him.

"Odds, Chris?"

"Ten to one, maybe."

Capt. Burt grunted. "You're more generous than Bram Burt would've been, let me tell you. My ten doubloons to your one, hey? If we don't see him within a year, or hear that he got out alive, you'll owe me your one. If we do, I'll owe you my ten. Bet?"

"Bet," I said. "But I've another question—one that has nothing to do with Dobkin. Can I ask it?"

"Fire away."

"It may be for Captain Harker, really. More for him than for you. Where's Lesage?"

Capt. Burt nodded. "That's for Hal, right enough. All I know is what he's told me. Hal?"

Novia said, "We spoke to you at the Long Bay. You say you must wait for this Lesage, but we must go. Now you are come. What has befallen him?"

"An unshipped rudder, madam. No more than that. We set out in company. The second day, it was. He signaled me to proceed with all speed, saying he would follow when practicable. He's senior to me, madam, so I did as ordered, though I offered our assistance first. He thanked me for that, but said it was not needed. So off I went."

Novia turned to me. "We were many days in the forest, Crisóforo."

"We were." I tried to recall the entries I had made in the log, and the ones Bouton and Boucher had made as well. "From the time we went ashore to take Portobello to the time we sailed away from it comes to thirty-three days, I would say. I don't believe that can be off by much."

"So I think, Capitán Harker. A month, I say. We women are given a reason to take note of the moon. You waited long when we had gone?"

Harker nodded. "Those were my orders, madam. I was to wait until your good captain came and Captain Lesage. Not one, but both. Wait I did."

"So may God wait my soul. Long and long, I hope. Capitán Burt, you are our man of wisdom. Where is this Lesage, who was Chris's lieutenant once?"

Capt. Burt spread his hands. "I have no more notion than you, Señora. A thousand things may chance at sea."

I said, "He may be hanging from a Spanish rope right now." The thought cheered me, I admit.

"Aye," Harker put in. "Or his crew may have voted him out and gone elsewhere—he's a hard man, by repute."

"He may be nosin' around Portobello lookin' for us, Chris."

I felt Novia's small, hard hand slip into mine as she said, "You will send this man back to see, Capitán Burt?"

With a slight frown, he shook his head.

"When we come, Chris wish to know. Now I, too, wish to know this. I do not like them, this capitán and his ship which disappear."

"You fear some treachery, Señora. What is it?"

Her hand tightened on mine. "I do not know."

"No more do I, Señora. What could he do? Tell the Spanish we intended Portobello? By the time he learned of that, Portobello had fallen to us. Tell the Spanish we intended Maracaibo? Yes, certainly, and it seems someone did. You'll remember Goslin's letters, eh? So that may have been Lesage. But it may have been any of two dozen others as well."

Novia did not speak.

"We held a meetin', Señora. A council of war. You weren't there, and neither was Chris, nor Lesage for that matter. The rest were. Hal and I were for Maracaibo. Only us. Not Goslin', not Cox, not Dobkin, not Ogg, though I'd counted on Ogg. Not another soul. What does that tell you?"

I said, "I don't know, Captain, and I don't think Novia does either."

Capt. Burt leaned back in his chair, making a steeple of his fingers. For about half a minute, nobody spoke. Then Novia burst out, "We wish to know what it tell
you
, Capitán."

"Suppose that you'd known I meant to raid Maracaibo, Señora. Suppose further that you, famished for gold, had sold your knowledge to the Spanish. Would you want to send Chris here off to help me raid the place?"

She shook her head violently. "Not I!"

Capt. Burt nodded. "What about you, yourself, Señora? You marched with us from Portobello to Santa Maria."

"Back also, Capitán. Who is carry me?"

"Would you want to march on Maracaibo?"

"No! They are warn. I have say this."

"So you have, though I intend Maracaibo even so. If you had been a captain in that council of war to which I referred, wouldn't you say the same? Maracaibo's fly? Let's go somewhere else?"

Capt. Burt looked at each of us in turn. "Recollect now that every captain there, save for Hal and me, said just that."

Harker said, "They won't all have spilled the works, Captain."

"Naturally not, Hal. I'm saying only that if our Judas was there, he'd have
spoken as the rest did—and might, perhaps, have suggested Portobello. The ideal result of our meetin'—from his perspective, mind—would be for me and some others to go off after Maracaibo, while he and the rest went elsewhere. He might've asked himself where Bram Burt wouldn't care to go, d'ye see? And been answered Portobello, for saucy Bram knows Portobello to be a hellhole.

"Of them that was at the meetin', who could Bram trust then, shipmates?"

I said, "Only Captain Harker here, I would think."

"Well said, Chris, but there's one other. Besides myself."

I probably looked as blank as my mind was at that moment.

"Hal? Care to have a go?"

He shook his head.

"Señora? You've a long head."

"Capitán Isham, I think. Because you have say nothing of him here."

"Clever." Capt. Burt smiled and leaned toward us, his elbows on the table. "Clever, but not right. No, I ask you, shipmates, if you had played Judas with Spain, and had afterward found letters saying the Spanish had been warned, would you tell Bram Burt?"

Novia shook her head.

I said, "I see."

"So you should, Chris. There's a good reason to trust Goslin', and here's another. When the rest went off to Panama and left me, who stayed by me? Why, it was Goslin' again. You with him, to be sure, and your man Rombeau. So there's four captains I can trust. I suppose everybody'd like a spot more wine?"

When it had been poured, Novia said, "Four to trust, but I do not count four here."

"Correct, Señora. Goslin' spoke against Maracaibo at the meetin'. If I was to say to him what I've said to you today, he'd always think he was not trusted. He is, but he'd think the contrary, d'ye see? I wouldn't want that. You can't trust a man who thinks he ain't trusted, Señora, and you can make book on that. As for Rombeau, I called him Chris's man, which he is. It's my wish he should make fast there, for the time bein'. If he were drinkin' with us now, he'd begin to think himself Chris's equal, and I don't want it. Do you, Señora?"

CAPTAIN BURT HAD
told us we would be going to the Bay of Campeche. We did, but first we took a sort of working vacation in the Saint Blaise Islands. They are small and very lush—sort of jungle light—and there must be hundreds of them. Because the sea breezes tend to blow away flying bugs, they are nowhere near as bug-ridden as the lowlands of Darien or Hispaniola. You get beautiful beaches, big trees (mostly cedars), and parrots everywhere. Altogether, it is about as nice a place as I have ever seen.

The people are Kunas, like those we knew in Darien. Our Kunas there had been small, smaller than we were and smaller than the Moskitos. These Island Kunas were smaller yet, but they spoke the same language and seemed to have about the same customs. That was when I really wished Novia had let me bring Pinkie back with us when we left Santa Maria. I do not believe there would have been any trouble about getting her on board, and when we
reached the islands she could have interpreted for us and I would have known a lot more Kuna than I did.

As it was, all of us did our best to make friends. The Kuna did not have anything we wanted, and it was pretty obvious that they would be good people to have on our side. We explained as well as we could that we were not Spanish and would not raid them for slaves the way the Spanish did. We were the enemies of the Spanish, who were their enemies, too. We proved it by giving them hatchets, axes, knives, and needles, the same kinds of gifts we had given the other Kuna. The Island Kuna liked them as much as the others had, and repaid us with meat, fish, and fruit.

We careened two ships there and scraped their bottoms, and made some other repairs. We also loafed a lot and ate a lot of fruit, and I taught Novia how to swim. At that time, I do not believe I had gone swimming since I had been on Hispaniola, and it was good to get back into the water. Once we were joined by two Kuna girls who could swim like seals, and anybody who saw the three of them playing would have found it easy to believe there were girls with fish tails right over the next wave. I have had some bad times in my life, but I have had a lot of wonderful times, too, times I would love to go back to. That was one of those.

Another one was just this morning. I bundled up in my sweater, my overcoat, and so on, and unlocked the church so I could go in to say my mass. (We have to say mass every day, whether anybody comes or not.) The furnace had been turned down the night before, and the church was so cold that there was a skin of ice on the fonts. But the warm presence of God was waiting, and He and I were alone in there together. After I had received, I was no longer aware of Him.

But I knew that He had not gone away.

THE LOGWOOD CUTTERS
lived in the swamps and cut a kind of wood used to make red dye. They said it pays better than anything else a man can do, but their living conditions are about as bad as living conditions can get. Imagine the march to Santa Maria—the part through the lowlands. Now imagine living like that all the time. Imagine sleeping in a swamp and eating in a swamp. Instead of marching with the hope of getting out, you go off each day to fell trees and haul logs. The Spanish try to drive the logwood cutters out from time to time, just like they did when we were buccaneers
on Hispaniola. It comes, and it goes. That is what the cutters say. They fight if there are not too many Spanish, and hide in the swamps if there are.

They fight with Spanish logwood cutters, too.

We signed up a few men—three for my ship—but not what we had hoped.

The Cimaroons were something else. I have seen some tough men, but I never saw any tougher than they were. Most are black—escaped slaves, and men whose fathers were escaped slaves. Some are Zambo Moskitos, some white. (The whites are mostly runaway slaves, too.) We went ashore and talked with them, explaining what we wanted. They said they would talk it over that night and call us in the morning.