Ride the Panther (35 page)

One of the pirates, a grizzled, wire-haired man with broken teeth and rope burns on his neck, jabbed the muzzle of his rifled musket into the priest’s side.

“The name is Quince, Bible thumper. Malachi Quince be my name, and I’ve sinned from Maine to Hispaniola. There ain’t be nothin’ I ain’t done. What say you to that?” The swarthy little man spat in the dirt at Bernal’s feet.

“Ask for forgiveness and the Lord will grant it, my son,” the good priest said.

“Only thing I ask for is another twenty good years o’ sinning. I want to earn my place in hell,” Quince slapped the basket hilt of the cutlass at his side, tossed back his head, and belly-laughed.

Orturo the Cayman turned and gestured for the priest to approach. The pirate captain stood with legs splayed wide and arms folded. Indeed the man radiated a kind of cruel royalty. He had stolen Natividad right out from under its defenders and hadn’t lost a single member of his crew. He could hear the songs already praising his daring feat.

“What is it you want, Priest?”

Bernal gulped and stared down at his trembling hands, then looked up at the pirate. “The Cabilde has promised the cooperation of the town and you have offered protection from… uh… others. But we wish to know what you have in mind. Why have you come?”

“Why, to make your people rich, Padre. To put coins in their pockets. What say you to that? Maybe even coins in your pocket, too, eh.”

“I don’t understand.”

The Cayman glanced at the men standing a few feet away and grinned. “Men will come to this port to spend their money on women and grog. They will come to buy what we have to sell. Ships will flock to us.”

“But the island is mostly mountainous. We have some coconut groves near the water, and inland, there are a few valleys where crops grow, but not enough to bring so many ships.” Bernal knew he was treading dangerous ground, yet he intended to press the matter. The Cayman had come to Natividad for a reason and the priest was determined to learn the truth.

“Slaves… the black gold of high commerce. I will bring them from Africa and keep them in Obregon’s Cove. They can work themselves to good health harvesting sugar cane until the slavers arrive. Natividad shall be the hub of a wheel, and along the spokes, ships will come eager to buy slaves, but not wishing to voyage all the way to Africa. They will come to me. And their crews will spend their money in the whore cribs and rum houses I will build in Morgan Town.”

Father Bernal shuddered and his heart was filled with dismay. True, there were many of his flock who had been freebooters and sailed beneath the black flag. But these poor souls had mended their ways and married and lived, brought families to Natividad and made of it a sanctuary. Perhaps such people weren’t as civilized as the inhabitants of the mainland. Indeed they were a rough lot, but they were honest and loyal to one another, and Albert Bernal, with all his vices, had fit right in. He was one of them. And he had helped them build a community and make something of themselves, and it didn’t matter who among them was wanted for thievery or piracy or who had escaped the hangman’s rope, Natividad was a place for a second chance and the priest wasn’t going to see it corrupted by the Cayman.

“Slavers,” Bernal muttered with contempt. “You would turn us into slavers! The devil’s own!” He summoned all his courage. “Perhaps you have made a wrong choice of island,” he said, hoping to reason with the pirate. “The people here are frightened, but they are all rebels. They do not give in quite so simply as you may think. And you will have Cesar Obregon to deal with.”

“Ah, the Hawk of the Antilles,” Navarre said in a mocking tone of voice. “I can handle him—but as for your rebellious flock, you must counsel them to obey me.”

“No!” the priest blurted out. “I am not much. But the pulpit is sacred. They have built me a church. I shall not desecrate the holy ground by aiding you to destroy my flock.”

NKenai started forward. He did not like the priest’s tone of voice. The black robe was being disrespectful. And for the African warrior whose sole allegiance was to the Cayman, disrespect could not be tolerated. He drew a dagger from his belt and started forward. The Cayman read his henchman’s intent and shook his head. The simple gesture stopped NKenai in his tracks. Navarre stroked his chin and studied the priest. He leaned against one of the twenty-four-pounder cannons below the walls of the governor’s palace and looked out over the bay. Below him, mangle-blanc trees clung to the rugged rocky slope. Among those twisted branches nested a variety of lizards, darting dragonflies, and yellow-throated parakeets. There was a constant breeze here, cool and refreshing in the warm glare of sunlight. Orturo the Cayman might be a cannibal, but he was not without an eye for beauty.

Navarre considered the priest’s remarks. The last thing he wanted was to deal with some constant and tedious insurrection. He needed Bernal to use his influence to bend the people to Navarre’s will. The death of the governor might not be enough after all.

Inspiration struck him. Navarre called to one of his men, a gnarled-looking freebooter with thinning hair, a full brown beard, and pockmarked features. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and baggy cotton breeches and carried a musket. A pistol and cutlass were tucked in a wide leather belt circling his waist.

The pirate hurried forward, certain Navarre was no doubt sending him out for something important.

“Aye, Cap’n Navarre,” the pirate called. Tom Bragg was eager to take his place among Navarre’s inner circle of cutthroats.

“How long have you faithfully served me, old friend?” asked Navarre.

“Ever since you fished me out of the sea, Cap’n, and kept my hide from becoming shark bait. Must be nigh on to six years now since the
Magnus
went down.” The pirate scratched at his pitted cheek and tried to tabulate the months that had passed since he’d been accepted into the
Scourge
’s crew.

“No man has been more reliable. No man has shown more courage.”

“Thankee, Cap’n Navarre,” Bragg said, beaming.

The Cayman drew a pistol and fired. Blood spurted from Bragg’s left calf and the pirate howled and crumpled to earth. He groaned and clutched at his wounded leg. NKenai moved quickly to disarm his comrade to prevent him from doing anything rash.

“Oh, sweet mother of God,” Bragg groaned through clenched teeth. A lizard darted out from under rock and across a patch of blood on the earth.

Navarre turned and held the smoking gun up to Father Bernal’s face. The priest grew pale. He had never in his life confronted such raw evil. It left him speechless. The groaning from poor Tom Bragg punctuated the priest’s silence. Finally Father Bernal spoke out in indignation.

“This man is your trusted comrade. How could you treat him in so base a manner. What kind of monster are you?”

“Precisely,” Navarre said, drawing close to Bernal and placing his hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “Hear me, Priest. This man was like my brother. Look at him and think to yourself what course my wrath might take toward the men, women, and children of Natividad who mean no more to me than what I leave in my chamber pot.”

Bernal grew pale and his rail-thin frame shuddered at the thought of the endless possibilities, each one more gruesome than the one before.

“In the name of God…” he muttered.

“I leave you your God,” said Navarre. “But Natividad is mine.” He returned the gun to his belt. The Cayman waved a hand, and NKenai took the priest by the arm and started him back down the shell-paved road to town. Bragg was carried away to the ship’s surgeon to have his wound staunched and cauterized. Navarre tucked a small pouch of Spanish doubloons into Bragg’s shirt as he was carried off. “The gold will ease the pain,” Navarre told the African, who returned to his captain’s side.

NKenai nodded. He could see the brilliance in the Cayman’s scheme. “Now the Christian shaman will guide his people in the proper way. He will see they do your bidding. You are a clever man, my captain. The heart of a lion but the crafty mind of the fox has Captain Orturo Navarre. Orturo the Magnificent.”

Navarre grinned and looked out across the bay dominated by his brig and guarded by the shore batteries he now commanded. The first stage of his empire. He was filled with a sense of triumph. “I will make these people my own; Natividad shall be my kingdom.” He held out his arms as if to embrace the earth and sea and the limitless horizon. “This is only the beginning, NKenai. Who is there to stand against me?” His chest swelled as the wind pressed against him and with fists clenched, the Cayman shouted in exultation, “Who can stand against me!”

K
IT MCQUEEN WASN’T LAUGHING
as the British marine clubbed him with the butt of his musket and sent the redheaded American sprawling in the dirt alongside the lightning-shattered hickory tree that served as a makeshift redoubt. The fallen timber capped a ridge of earth above Drake’s Creek five miles east of the Mississippi River. It was the first day of 1815. And about to be the last for me, Kit thought as the heavyset Cornishman landed on his chest and drew a dagger from his white canvas belt. Kit could read the name stitched into the marine’s leather cartridge box.
TREGONING.

“Now, you Yankee bastard, I’ll lift that red scalp of yours the same as your heathen friends would do me,” Tregoning snarled. White spittle clung to his lower lip. His brown eyes widened, his nostrils flared, and his hands trembled with the bloodlust that was upon him. His breath was heavy with the rum he and his mates had been sampling when the Choctaws surprised them.

Kit worked a hand loose from underneath the man straddling him and grabbed a fistful of Tregoning’s genitalia and squeezed with all his strength. The marine howled and thrust his knife, but the pain ruined his aim and the blade sank up to the hilt in the black earth inches from McQueen’s throat. The marine grabbed the smaller man by the front of his loose-fitting buckskin shirt and dragged him to his feet, forcing Kit to lose his hold.

“You Brits can sing a pretty note,” McQueen taunted. He felt the leather cord tear from around his neck as Tregoning staggered back, clutching a torn patch of shirt and the medal, a silver English crown sterling bearing the crudely scrawled initials of George Washington. The coin was a family keepsake, for General Washington himself had presented the makeshift medal to Kit’s father, Daniel McQueen.

The English marine glanced around and saw his companions had abandoned him among his enemies. Tregoning knew when to cut his losses. He spun around and leaped over the log and started down the creekbank. He spied the rest of the skirmishers fleeing into the trees on the other side of the creek. The cowards had scattered at the first volley from the American and his Choctaw allies.

“No, you don’t,” Kit shouted, and vaulted the fallen hickory. He landed square on the burly Cornishman’s shoulders. The impact tumbled them both down the creekbank and left the men splashing in the muddy shallows. The three remaining Choctaw warriors Kit had brought from General Jackson’s camp below New Orleans stared at one another in mute amazement, then watched with alarm as another dozen English marines from General Packenham’s formidable invasion force filtered through the trees. The soldiers wore faded red coats and white linen trousers and short-brimmed black hats. Their features were windburned masks of menace.

Kit and Tregoning weren’t alone in the creek. They shared the mud with three dead marines and a dead Choctaw brave. The brave lay belly down in the mud of the creekbank. His tomahawk was buried in the chest of one of the Englishmen. The rest of Tregoning’s companions crouched among the trees on the other side of the creek and were feverishly reloading their rifled muskets when reinforcements arrived.

Kit counted a dozen marines rise up from the emerald shadows; a dozen muskets were aimed at him. McQueen hauled Tregoning, sputtering, out of the water and placed the half-drowned Cornishman between himself and these lethal-looking newcomers about thirty yards away.

“Kill me and you’ll kill your mate,” Kit shouted, figuring he had the reinforcements stymied. Tregoning would shield him all the way up the embankment to safety. The sergeant in command stepped forward, ran a hand across his neatly trimmed beard, and scowled as he recognized Tregoning.

“Shoot them down!” he shouted.

“Christ!” Kit dove to one side and Tregoning the other as this second wave of marines opened fire. Kit and Tregoning chose different routes as they scrambled up toward the Choctaw defenders. Slugs sent geysers of earth erupting from the steep bank. At five foot eight, Kit McQueen offered a smaller target than Tregoning. Kit was as nimble as a panther as he climbed the embankment. The Choctaws returned the gunfire in an attempt to cover his retreat. McQueen and Tregoning darted and leaped through a gauntlet of lead death. For all McQueen’s feline grace and quickness, he reached the redoubt but a few seconds ahead of Tregoning, who lumbered across the hickory log and slumped wearily alongside the man who moments ago he’d been attempting to kill.

Tregoning’s chest rose and fell as he sucked in the cold damp air. His breath clouded before his lips. He’d lost his hat, revealing a bald head ringed by a fringe of black hair. His nose had been flattened by a well-thrown punch sometime in the past and issued a faint whistling sound with each and every breath.

Kit McQueen, with his keen bronze gaze, shrewdly appraised his adversary. McQueen ran a hand through his curly mane of red hair that Tregoning had recently attempted to lift with scalping knife in hand. Slugs gouged the makeshift barricade, showering both men with splinters. One of the Choctaws, a youthful brave named Three Snakes, clutched his throat as he rose up to take aim. The brave slumped onto his side and stared with a weakening gaze at the rivulet of blood showing from his wound. Kit watched the man die and his features grew dark with fury. A waste, a damn waste.

“Your friends have won this day, Tregoning. But there will come another, mark my words.”

“Friends, hell,” Tregoning said. “Your heathens scattered my mates. Them behind the trees are the Chiltern Rifles. They answer only to Sergeant Tiberius, who has no use for me at all.”