Return to Paradise (Torres Family Saga) (57 page)

      
However, Rani's feelings of triumphant smugness were suddenly transformed to alarm when the youth brutally stuffed the gag back into her mouth, far down her throat. Her unintelligible protests were further muted until they became feeble, choking gasps as he cinched the cloth tighter and tighter, securing the gag. After knotting it he rose to stare down into the terror-filled eyes of his victim. It was his turn to savor triumph.

      
“Now, bitch, I give you your chance to free your hands and feet—if you do not strangle first. Either way, I will certainly be free of you, forever!”

      
With that, he turned from the panicky girl, who was slowly suffocating. As he strolled away, his pretty face was wreathed by a smile that seemed almost beatific.

* * * *

      
Outside, far above ground, Benjamin and Caonu stood behind a dense stand of poui trees, watching two of the corsair's guards pacing before a small opening into the earth. Vero sat silently by Benjamin's side.

      
“This is where my men saw the captain take your dark-haired woman,” Caonu whispered. Guacanagari's younger brother was still a slim man with delicate features, but the exuberant youth had matured into a shrewd and resourceful man who had survived much since the coming of the white men in 1492.

      
“I will take Vero in this back entrance and see if he can find Rani before we attempt to meet with Brienne at the place he has selected for the exchange. If fortune smiles, she is yet within the cave and I can overpower the guards, who are not expecting us to know of this entrance.”

      
“Who do you wish to accompany you?” Caonu asked Benjamin.

      
Benjamin watched his younger brother slip through the poui trees. “I think Bartolome here is eager to prove himself. Select six Tainos to go with us. Then you and Rudolfo are to take the rest of our forces to the appointed meeting place and wait. We will join you there.”

      
Caonu nodded. “It will be as you say.”

      
The Tainos vanished like wraiths into the jungle while the Spanish under Rudolfo Torres headed quietly along the overgrown path to await the rendezvous with the corsair. Every man prayed their leader would find his Rani unharmed.

      
Whispering a command to Vero to follow, Benjamin moved in position near the small clearing before the cave, which lay beyond a dense stand of silk cottons beneath whose towering canopy the jungle floor was overgrown with dense foliage.

      
Bartolome shadowed Benjamin, while two Tainos circled to the other side of the clearing. Then, on a prearranged signal, Benjamin tossed several coins, creating a small clatter. One guard stopped his pacing and raised his arbalest, quickly notching a bolt. His companion did likewise and both men scanned the perimeter. When another clatter sounded, they turned toward it. In a flash, the Tainos were on one guard while Benjamin and Bartolome seized the other. Their throats swiftly cut, the two pirates were rolled into the dense undergrowth.

      
A small torch flickered from deep inside the cave, its light calling to them in an eerie, unsettling way. The wolf trotted ahead of Benjamin, now given the command to find his mistress. Bartolome carried the torch as they moved steadily lower into the bowels of the earth.

      
“Are you certain he knows where he goes? And more to the point, can the beast find his way back once he has found her?” Bartolome's green eyes, so like his mother's, were darkened nearly black in the dimly flickering light.

      
“First let him find Rani, then we shall worry about the rest,” Benjamin murmured low. Vero took a sudden plunge around a large stalagmite and Benjamin darted ahead of his brother, into the shadows after the wolf.

      
Suddenly a slight figure plunged from behind the jagged, calcified formation and leaped at Benjamin, knocking him to the ground.

      
Bartolome came running to reach his brother, but Vero reappeared and lunged unexpectedly between Bartolome and the embroiled pair on the floor.

      
A gasp of recognition, followed by soft laughter carried past the wolf's growl. “Put up your sword, brother,” Benjamin commanded. “I have found my elusive Gypsy wench.” He rose, pulling up the small girl dressed in cabin boy's clothes. Long masses of inky curls tumbled loose from the grimy cap she pulled off her head.

      
“Oh, Benjamin, you came for me, truly you did!” Her voice was raspy from the cruel gag Piero had used, but her clever
Romani
hands had made swift work of untying the ropes that bound her. She clung to her golden lover, throwing her arms about his neck and kissing him fulsomely.

      
Benjamin held her tightly, his eyes squeezed closed for a moment as he ran his hands up and down her slender body, assuring himself that she was alive and unharmed. “Did you doubt that I would follow, foolish little imp? Oh, Rani, I have lived in such terror of what that corsair might do to you.”

      
“As well you should, my friend,” Luc Brienne said conversationally. He walked from behind yet another maze of stalagmites. Quickly, before Benjamin could do anything but step protectively in front of Rani, the corsair's men fanned out in a neat semicircle, with arquebuses and arbalests trained on Benjamin and Bartolome. The captain smiled. “Well, well, now I have netted even a bigger catch than I had hoped, two of the half-caste's brothers.” He bowed to Rani, who was peering around Benjamin's shoulder with smoldering eyes. “My thanks to you, little
caraque
. Perhaps I shall think of a way to reward you...and punish Piero at the same time, eh?” He smiled again but the curve of his lips did not match the icy coldness in his eyes as he turned toward the quaking boy.

      
“You have me, Brienne. You do not need Rani or Bartolome,” Benjamin said, distracting the corsair from his cruel cat-and-mouse play with his
puto. God, do not let him use Rani in his perverted revenge!

      
Brienne appeared to consider, then shrugged fatalistically. “Ah, but I have been given a very great gift—you, your brother and the
caraque
” He stroked his chin and studied them. “I think my overlord will be well pleased to be rid of the wench. I am certain there is some way in which I can oblige him.”

      
“Your overlord? Reynard, the French spy masquerading as Elzoro?” Benjamin said contemptuously, “or is it another, further away? Back in Marseilles?”

      
At that taunt Brienne's face lost all traces of amusement. “Bind them well.”

      
Two of the seamen moved forward with stout ropes in their hands, but Vero suddenly materialized from the shadows, standing protectively in front of Rani. One of the men aimed his arbalest at the wolf but Benjamin tackled the guard and knocked him to the ground. Several of Brienne's men pulled Torres off the guard and held him.

      
Using the distraction, Rani cried out a command in
Romani
and the wolf took off with a burst of speed, vanishing into the twisting maze of caves. Another guard fired his arbalest, but if it struck the wolf it did not slow him.

      
“Should we pursue the beast, captain?”

      
Brienne spat in disgust. “Do not bother. Tie their hands and let us leave here to reunite our forces with Reynard. I think we shall bargain with Rigo Torres much better now. Yes, much better. We shall slip into the jungle quickly before their allies decide to come in search of them.

* * * *

      
Guacanagari looked from the vantage point, high in the branches of an enormous oak, down into Elzoro's compound. “I do not like it, my nephew. Those great dogs are trained to kill us. They will catch your scent if you enter.”

      
Rigo smiled grimly. “Someone must get inside and open the gates else we shall be forced to besiege the compound. We must deal with the French spy while his raiders are clustered within. If they escape and scatter, they can go to ground and later resume their depredations.”

      
“We should wait until Benjamin returns.” Guacanagari remained unhappy with Rigo's dangerous plan.

      
“He is after the corsair at the opposite end of the valley, searching for that Gypsy girl he is so obsessed with finding. We cannot allow Elzoro to reunite his forces with Brienne's.” With that Rigo began to slide from the tree.

      
One of Guacanagari's grandsons had found a weak place in the heavy thatch wall where the fierce hounds had chewed almost through. It was in an isolated area behind a crude, windowless stockade where Don Esteban held recalcitrant slaves during their punishments. At present it was deserted. Rigo had studied the layout of the compound for over a day, watching the comings and goings of the inhabitants. He knew the raiders were temporarily quartered within, at least forty extra men besides the overseers, and field and house servants that normally worked the plantation.

      
“Now I finally have you, you jackal, with all your ravaging thieves penned up.” Of course, the dogs were a significant deterrent. There were several dozen of the big hounds, all trained to rip open a man's throat. Rigo was not pleased about entering the compound, but he would not ask another to take this risk for him. Anyway, the dogs were penned up during the daylight hours. He was the one both Elzoro and Brienne wanted dead. Today he would find out why.

      
Guacanagari's warriors and the men from the
hato
comprised a force less than the Frenchman had inside, but Rigo had surprise on his side. Once he opened the heavy gates, his forces could swarm in and overtake the brigands. Their first target was the dog pens, for they must keep the animals confined. Then the rest of the force would move to the crude huts where the raiders were quartered. It was just past dawn and the dogs had been summoned by an overseer. Obediently they bounded into their large pen to be fed the meager rations which kept them so lean and deadly.

      
Inside the large, elaborately furnished stone mansion, Don Esteban paced, slapping the message he had just received from Brienne against his thigh in fury. First that accursed priest had drugged his guard and made off with damning evidence linking him to his associate in Marseilles. Now that arrogant little wharf rat was traipsing through the jungle doubtless swarming with Taino spies. And he was bringing both Torres brothers here. If anything happened to Benjamin Torres! He shuddered to think of the repercussions. At least Yarros had brought his raiders into the compound. Now he must devise a plan using them to dispose of Rigo Torres and recover the evidence from that priest. The infuriating old fool had seemingly vanished, but Elzoro was certain the documents had been sent to the Torres
hato
with an Indian runner.

      
“The time has come, Aaron, my old adversary, for me to drive you from Espanola, once and for all!” He rang for a slave and instructed the cowering Indian to send for Vincente Yarros. The leader of his raiders would not be pleased with the early summons. “If I must be awakened before dawn, so can he.” Elzoro threw Brienne's message onto the table and took a deep drink of watered wine, then sat back to think.

      
Suddenly the hounds erupted in frantic baying and yipping, as if on the trail of a runaway. He dropped the goblet and raced from the dining hall to the front entry.

      
Yarros was approaching with half a dozen armed soldiers. At least three of the men, including Vincente, were bloodied. Two of them were dragging a captive. Rigo Torres.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

      
Rudolfo watched the procession wind its way sinuously across the jungle floor. “They are widely spaced, easy prey for the darts. Have you the Caribee poison?”

      
Caonu nodded silently, then said, “I will position a dozen men with blow guns in those candlebushes and another high in the silk cottons ahead. They can take down at least half of the men in front and in back of the prisoners.”

      
“Good. I will have my men ready to attack the guards around Benjamin, Bartolome and the girl right there, after they have crossed the stream.”

      
“We must time this most carefully, Rudolfo, else your brothers-in-law will be in grave danger.”

      
“When I give the signal, strike. Remember, act at once.” Rudolfo smiled, then said, “Repeat the call to Benjamin and Bartolome, just to reassure them.”

      
Caonu smiled. The trill of the aliyah bird had long been a means of communication between Taino boys at play, hunting in the jungle.

      
Benjamin and Bartolome heard the trilling sounds and exchanged glances. Somehow their companions had found them. Knowing that they and the Tainos were far more at home here than the seamen gave them an advantage—yet Benjamin dearly wished he knew Rudolfo's exact plan. And above all, he wanted Rani out of harm's way.

      
His eyes scanned the dense vegetation around the shallow stream ahead. Then he looked up toward the tall canopy of silk cottons beyond. He smiled, guessing Rudolfo's plan, then whispered in Taino to Bartolome, “Be ready. I'll push Rani to the ground when all hell breaks loose in the water.”

      
The first mate came up behind Benjamin and jabbed him roughly with the hilt of his sword. “No talking in that heathen tongue. No talking at all!”

      
Brienne had walked briskly at the front of the line, but for some perverse reason, suddenly decided to fall back. Benjamin swore to himself, then saw Piero, who was dawdling near the Taino prisoners. That
puto
might try to kill Rani out of jealous spite!