Pirate Freedom (45 page)

For you to understand, and for me to understand, too.

The Spanish ships reached Panama. We thought of raiding the harbor, but by the time
Weald, Snow Lady, Rescue, Fancy
, and
Princess
joined us, a lot of the gold had been unloaded. Capt. Burt knew the route the mule train would follow if it headed north to Mexico or Veracruz and we decided to cut them off. I say we. Even though I did not get to vote, Capt. Burt let me sit in on the captains' meeting. Having no ship, I did not count.

How would I have voted if I could? To tell the truth, I am not sure. But probably as they did.

We sailed west along the coast to a village of eight or ten houses called Rio Hato, where the road turns inland. Half of each crew was to stay on each ship, as before. I got Novia alone and said, "Now listen to me. I'm not going to lose you. I've already lost a lot of people I liked, and I'm not about to lose the one person I love. I want you to swear to God Almighty, right here and right now, that you'll stay on this ship."

She raised her hand and said, "I, Sabina María de Vega Aranda Guzman, do swear as I live that I will remain behind until this good man who is my
husband before you, O Lord, returns for me. I shall not follow him, save he permits me."

I knew she meant it. I could hear that in her voice and see it in her face. I did not ask her any questions, but she knew me better than anyone else ever has, and she knew. Almost whispering she said, "I have in me a child, Crisóforo."

Half the crews were supposed to stay behind. That was not how it was, although I did not realize it until that evening, when we had laid out our ambush and camped. Novia had not followed, but a lot of men who were supposed to stay with the ships had. Some of them were probably afraid that we would never come back to the ships. (Most of us never did.) Some just felt that this was going to be the biggest thing in their lives and wanted to be in on it, saying, "I was with Burt at Rio Hato," the way people said, "I was with Morgan when he burned Panama." Later I found out that there had been only five men with Novia on the
Magdelena
.

For most of the morning we tramped up the road until we found a good place, with some big trees back from the road and a lot of brush alongside it. We set up our ambush a hundred paces or so after that. Men were stationed every yard or so on both sides, with twenty good musket men to block the end once the soldiers and mules had gotten between the rest. I was in charge of that group; and Mahu came with me, although he did not have a musket. Nobody was to fire until we did.

It seemed like a good plan and would probably have worked. The trouble was that when the mule train ambled into it late that afternoon, somebody got spotted. A soldier shot at him, his friends shot back, and in less than a minute every barrel was hot. We moved out into the road and started shooting the way we were supposed to, but the nearest soldiers were still forty or fifty paces away.

They were shot to rags just the same, but half the mules and mule drivers ran hell-for-leather back toward Panama. We were running after them, yelling for all we were worth, when something happened that just then seemed like a miracle. There was more shooting off to the east, and a terrible pileup when the men and mules who had been at the back of the column turned around and tried to bug out toward us. We shot, and the guys who had been east of us shot, and the soldiers who were left did not stand a chance.

The new pirates—the ones who had been east of us blocking the way
back to the coast—turned out to be Lesage and the crew of the
Bretagne
. We were happy to see them, and they pretended to be happy to see us. I hugged Lesage and got to talk to him a little bit. He said he had missed us at Portobello, but he had known what Capt. Burt planned to do so he had gone after us as fast as he could, and had finally found our ships at Rio Hato.

Maybe I should save what happened after that for a big surprise—which it was to us. All right, I will, but there was a big hole in Lesage's story that I should have thought of right away, and I am going to say that here. I should have seen through him. So should Capt. Burt. We trusted him and so we did not.

Did I think of Valentin? Yes, I did, but that did not seem to be the time to bring it up. Everybody was pulling gold off dead mules, and yelling, and marveling at the weight of the ingots: one dozen to a mule, and solid gold. If Capt. Burt had been right about a mule carrying three hundred pounds, each of those ingots weighed about twenty-five pounds.

For the rest of the day, we were all rich.

The killing started that night when most of us were asleep. I was lying awake. Maybe it was because I had not had anything to drink, but I think it was mostly because of what Novia had said.

I was going to be a father. I had never expected it or thought much about it. Novia had been married to Jaime Guzman for thirty-four months and had never been pregnant, so it had seemed to us that there was a good chance she never would be. Now I knew it had been him. Maybe he had known it, too, and that was why he had been so jealous. All I know is that when I was lying there thinking about the kid who was on the way and money that the three of us would have, I was not jealous of anybody in the whole world.

Somebody started screaming and there were three or four shots. I jumped up, felt around for my belt and pistols, and yelled for Mahu.

He was not there, just a guy with a cutlass coming for me. I could barely see him in the moonlight filtering through the trees and what was left of our little fire: a big guy with a dead-white sling for his pistols that jumped out at you. That, and I saw the gleam of his cutlass.

Just about then, I found mine. If this were TV or a movie he and I would have a big cutlass fight that would last long enough for somebody to go for popcorn, and for sure I would not kill him the same way I killed Yancy. This is real, and that is what happened. I grabbed a burning stick and stuck it in
his face, and cut him down when he dodged it. I have never been really sure, but I think my blade must have caught the side of his neck.

After that four guys came for me, and I dropped my cutlass and ran away like a rat.

If I had been a hero I would have fought them and died. If I had been a superhero, I would have killed them all. I am not a hero and have never claimed to be. As for superheroes, that is a sandwich. I have no idea how far I ran, but it must have been a good long way. After that I should have gotten myself under control and gone back to the fight.

Right.

You bet.

I did no such thing. When I was certain I had shaken them, I went to my knees and thanked God for preserving my life. I did not try to go back to where the fight had been, either. There had been a fight, people had died, and my side had lost. That was all I knew, and all I needed to know just then. For as long as it was dark, I stayed there on my knees, trying to make some sort of deal with God. When I could see my shadow, I stood up and went looking for the road, knowing it would take me back to Rio Hato.

Sometimes it does not matter what you set out to do. You do what you are fated to do. I did not find the road. I found the battle—where it had been at least, because everybody who could leave was gone by the time I got there. I saw dead mules and dead men, quite a few of them men I knew. Somebody had gone around killing the wounded, I think. Or maybe only killing those hurt so bad they could never recover.

What was for sure was no one had looted the bodies. (No, I did not try to loot them either.) But that was how it had to be. I could see that there had been so much gold on those mules that no one had bothered to turn out pockets or cut off fingers to get rings.

"Chris … Chris …"

It was so faint I thought for a minute I had imagined it. The voice came again, like the sighing of the wind, and I found Capt. Burt.

He had been shot at least twice. Maybe more, I do not know. I started trying to help him, but I could see it was no use, so I stopped when he told me to. A modern ER, with plasma and whole blood and an expert surgeon, might have saved him, though I doubt it. For me, kneeling in the jungle and tearing strips off my shirt, it was as hopeless as trying to sweep away the sea.

"I'm dead man, Chris. Dead man breathin' … Knew you'd come."

I said I was there, I would not go until he died, and would have masses said for his soul.

"You like maps, Chris. Take my maps…. In my coat."

Nodding, I reached into the big blue coat he always wore and pulled them out.

As I did, he died.

He died smiling, still the big boss pirate and still confident. Confident of what? I would love to know.

I was able to fold his hands over his chest in a way that hid one of his wounds, but that was all I did. I thought of burying him or trying to, but I was worried sick about Novia and left him lying there among his men. Now that I have had time to think about it, I know that is how he would have wanted it.

I AM GOING
to end this tonight. If I have to sit up all night writing, that is what I will do. Yes, and catch a plane in the morning. There is not much more to tell, nor any reason that I should not finish before midnight.

Back to Darien, a place I am very glad to be out of.

THE
MAGDELENA
WAS
a mile or so out to sea when I reached Rio Hato. That is the important point, and the only thing I remember accurately.
Weald
had gone already, I feel sure. Perhaps the rest had, too. Or perhaps they were actually closer than
Magdelena
. I cannot be certain. One of the ships I saw may well have been
Bretagne
. If so, I can remember nothing about her rig.

This, although I stood on the little quay and watched them go until
Magdelena
was out of sight. I thought then of buying a fishing boat, stocking her, and chasing them. But nothing could have been more hopeless, and Novia was almost certainly dead.

When the last sail was out of sight I went to the village's tiny inn, bought a bottle of wine I did not particularly want, and asked the innkeeper what he had to eat.

It was bread and cheese, but the first bite reminded me that I was ravenously hungry. After that, I found no reason to complain of it. The first glass of wine soon reminded me, too, that I had fought twice, had been awake all night, and now had been up another half day. I asked the innkeeper whether he rented rooms.

He shrugged. (He was a stocky, cheerful-looking man about ten years older than I was back then.) "One room, Señor. Only one room, and it is occupied already." He leaned a little closer. "A distressed lady, Señor."

"A lady?" I could not believe my ears.

Leaning closer still, he whispered,
"A lady who escaped the pirates!"

I think I had found the room and started pounding on Novia's door before he had finished.

We hugged and kissed and did it all over again, and went to bed in the middle of the day—a siesta, with a little foreplay to begin with. The funny thing is that neither one of us said a lot—we were too happy to find each other alive. Words cannot cover things like that. It takes kisses and hugs, laughter and tears. Eventually we got up, got the innkeeper's wife to feed us, and went back to bed.

Here is what I learned the next day. Lesage had come into the bay with four ships, as friendly as could be. When he saw how few men there were on our ships—Novia had five—he said it was too dangerous. What would they do if the Spanish came? He put twenty men on the
Magdelena
, telling Novia they were a loan, not a gift. She did not know how many he had put on the others, but it was probably a hundred men all told.

As soon as the introductions were over and Lesage and the rest had gone, those men seized the ships. They were going to rape Novia. Or perhaps they did, or some did. She said they had not, only torn off her gown. I believe her, knowing that not everyone would.

Whether they did or not, she got away from them, jumped over the side, and hid under the overhang of the stern until dark. We had both seen enough of pirates by that time to know that hardly any of them could swim.
My guess is that when she did not come up after a minute or two they decided she had drowned.

While we were fighting Lesage, she had swum to shore, penniless and pretty nearly naked. Almost everybody had left the village by then, or else they were hiding in their cellars and keeping quiet. Finally she heard a woman's voice, went to the window, and begged for help. The woman, God bless her, had let her in.