The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar (36 page)

I could tell of how I used the money to buy and outfit a ship and how I became known as the Pirate Queen of the Caribbean. But I will say only that I did. I could tell of how there was a slave uprising on the plantation one year later in which my stepmother was burnt to death. But I will say only that it happened and that 'twas I who supplied the slaves with weapons.

I could describe the many battles at sea over the course of the next thirty-four years, and how I plundered English merchant vessels and fought English warships. I could tell of how Edward himself, now a knight of the realm, was commissioned by the Crown to stop me and how I trapped and sank his
Sea King
just off Tobago's coral reef. But what would be the point of telling all these stories?

One point: I do not think the Crown sent its warships or commissioned a former pirate to stop me because of my attacks on English merchants. I only sailed once a year, for two to three months, so there were several other pirates far more active than I. But I also attacked slave ships, and I always killed the captain and crew. No white man who dealt in that trade was spared; and I always left the captain nailed to his mast. The slavers' lobby was strong in Britain, and I believe that was the real reason the Crown wanted me stopped.

My crew never liked these attacks. There was little profit in them and we always had to divert to drop the freed slaves on some deserted isle, sometimes sailing as far south as Trinidad which was claimed by Spain but only sparsely settled. But the crew did what I commanded. Not only did they make five times as much as they would have as ordinary sailors, but they received a bigger share of our plunder than they would have under any other captain. I was a better fighter than any of them and they had seen me sustain wounds that should have killed an ordinary man, let alone a woman. But I believe they obeyed me mostly because they saw that there was a kind of madness within me.

I remembered everything I had been. That was why losing my virginity to the lawyer had not bothered me – as Sarah, I had slept with men many more times for much less. It was why, although I was a woman, I was able to command the crew, for as Adam Colon I knew the ways of warfare and as Antam Gonçalves I knew the ways of seafaring. But 'twas a hard task to summon these skills, for with them came Colon's cruelty and Gonçalves' contempt. 'Twas a constant struggle not to let these emotions overwhelm me. That was why I sailed so rarely, and 'twas also why I was so harsh in my treatment of slavers. But I also sailed only once a year and gave most of the spoils to the crew because, as Guiakan, I preferred the simple life.

The rest of my time I used in two ways. Taking a page out of Edward's book, I would pretend to be an English or a Portuguese lady. Sometimes, I even played a Spanish youth. In those few weeks, I gathered all the information I needed for my next voyage. Sometimes, I used the opportunity to spark a slave rebellion, supplying weapons and a plan as I had on Cohiba. But these uprisings were never successful and many slaves were killed, so I eventually stopped.

Once, ten years after Anne-Marie's murder and some years after I sank his ship, I met Edward Henry in Barbados at a ball held by the governor. His face had grown puffy and a paunch now curved his waistcoat. Otherwise, he looked much the same. As usual, the men were all courting or flirting with me, and I did not notice him until he bowed before me.

‘Miss Rackham, surely?'

‘Lady Heath, Mr. Henry. Oh, pardon me, I understand it is Sir Henry now.'

‘Indeed. So you are married now?'

‘Widowed.'

‘Oh,' he said, and I saw that old familiar light in his gaze.

I was spending three weeks on the island, and Edward came every day to the inn where I had my lodgings. We had tea and spoke of trivial things. I was even better at that art now than I had been in my younger days. The day before I was to leave, Edward proposed to me.

I said, ‘Surely you know why I left Jamaica, Sir Henry?'

‘The rumours of your being a mulatto? That was a long time ago. You are a beautiful white woman and I am sure your late husband never knew of these rumours.'

‘Suppose I told you that the rumours are true?'

He blinked at that but, like the perfect gentleman, said, ‘I would admire your honesty.'

I said, curiously, ‘You did not display such interest when I first met you.'

He shrugged. ‘I was a different man then.'

I said, ‘And I am a different woman now.'

The idea of marriage was now absurd. Between voyages, I spent most of my time by myself, often deep in the forests or high in the hills of the islands. The skills of Guiakan made living in this manner easy. I hunted, fished and cooked. I took care of my hut. For several years, this was all I did. My pasts were alive in me, but I did not wish to think about what had been. Forgetfulness was bliss. So I lived the daily round, always in the moment, mindless in my immediate existence.

But it could not last. The past weighed in upon me like a press, stamping its shape upon the clay of the future. I would stand on the point of whichever island I was on, perhaps fishing, perhaps just gazing, and I would watch how the green waves rose from the endless sea, curling white as they raced shoreward to foam at my feet, and, even as the water lapped at my toes, another strong wave was rousing itself from its mother's constant, treacherous breast. At night, I would lie in my hammock and look at the stars standing in the sky's dark vault and I would feel very small, as though I was looking at the only face of God a man could see without being struck blind. 'Twas a good feeling. But it did not bring me peace.

I could not be killed by mortal men. My wounds always healed; I had even regrown my hand some years before when it had been cut off in battle. Such a talent must mean something. Yet here I was, two hundred and fifty years old, and I had not an inkling what it all meant or might mean.

I began reading books – Shakespeare's plays, which I read with great greed, hearing in my mind the words I had heard with my ears a lifetime ago. Also the poetry of Walter Raleigh and John Donne and John Milton. I especially liked Donne, though most considered him an uncouth versifier. But I felt as though I spoke to God in the poet's voice when I read the first lines of Holy Sonnet I: ‘Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?/Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste;/I run to death, and death meets me as fast,/And all my pleasures are like yesterday.' I read, too, the essays of Sir Thomas More and Thomas Hobbes and, in later years, John Locke. Locke's
Essay Concerning Human Understanding 
was the finest thing I had ever read – an opinion I was to hold for two hundred years more. When I read his thoughts on resurrection, I even wondered if he, too, was an immortal like myself: “It is not necessary to the same person, that his body should always consist of the same numerical particles; this is demonstration, because the particles of the bodies of the same persons, in this life, change every moment... God may, if He pleases, give to everyone a body consisting only of such particles as were before vitally united to his soul.” But I decided eventually that Locke enjoyed a better sort of immortality than my own. I read also the Bible, especially Genesis, Chapter 5: “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Seth lived a hundred and five years and begat Enos: and Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years” and so on through Cainan to Mahalaleel to Jared to Enoch to Methuselah to Lamech to Noah, who was five hundred years old when he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Perhaps, I thought, the Shadowman was such a man as those who had lived when God still walked the Earth (for 'twas clear to me that He no longer trod this world). I wondered if the women of those days had also lived as long as the men. The Bible does not tell of them, but perhaps they had been as I was. Perhaps, I thought, if I were resurrected enough times, I might simply outlast the Shadowman.

I read many more things, but found no answers. And, eventually, I grew weary of books, weary of men who were fortunate enough to be able to write their pretty words and spend their entire lives just thinking, while in distant lands people whose only sin was to have a brown skin toiled and died like beasts in the field. Their wisdom, it seemed to me, was naught but a game.

So came a time when I mostly just thought. I remembered the dead – Caón and Guacamari and Cristobal Colón; and the thousands of my people who had died when the guamakinas came to our islands; I remembered Br. Muñoz, Ledsema and Las Casas; and all the Indians I had killed for my pleasure; I remembered my wife Maria, and Captain Portillo who hanged himself, and my first mate Senor Cebola; and the cargoes of chained Africans; I thought of my mother and Bartleby and Hamilcar; and I remembered Anne-Marie.

I thought much about my dead selves who were yet alive.

Questions that had never before occurred to me now plagued me. Who and what was I? I did not even have a true name, only the one I happened to be born with. How did I outlive mortal men? Was I truly immortal or merely long-lived? And what happened to my soul between my deaths and births? For, looking back, I realized now that several years passed before Guiakan was reborn as Adam Colón and Adam Colón as Antam Gonçalves and Antam Gonçalves as Sarah Wiltshire. Perhaps time passed differently in whatever realm my soul slept. Yet Mary-Anne Rackham was born in the very year that Sarah Wiltshire died.

Then there was the matter of remembrance. Why was there only blankness betwixt my deaths? And, when I was reborn, why did I not have the memories of my past selves? This was the youngest age I had recalled everything about my selves, whereas Antam Gonçalves was almost at his fiftieth year before he remembered living before he was born.

Which led to the questions I dreaded most. Who or what was the Shadowman? Was he like me? It was clear that no one had ever killed him, since he had kept the same form for the past two hundred and fifty years. How did he always find me no matter where I was? Was there any place I could hide from him? If not, how could I defeat him in battle?

As the years rolled away, this last question was the one I kept coming back to.

Three months before my fiftieth rebirthday, I used the last of my gold to buy a new ship and hire a crew. While I did not know for certain the exact dates of all my births, I realized that the Shadowman had always appeared for our last battles on or around the half-century mark of any particular life.

At fifty, I looked twenty years younger. My face was unwrinkled and the hard life in bush and at sea had kept me lean as whipcord. Only the two white streaks on either side of my brown hair suggested my age, and those had actually appeared the day my sister was whipped to death. The important thing was, I was battle-hardened. I had gone to Martinique for several years, where I had trained under a French fencing master. I had lived in England for six months where, disguised as a man, I learned Cornish wrestling. This was also when I began reading books. My tutor, a Welshman, never realized I was female since we always practised in the stout, loose-fitting canvas jackets that all the wrestlers wore. My skills as Adam Colón, I knew, would not be enough to handle the Shadowman. I remembered his uncanny speed and his huge strength. Fencing sharpened my reflexes to their utmost and the wrestling tricks would, I hoped, offset his strength. When we set sail, I also kept two muskets constantly in my belt, even when sleeping. But, knowing my own invulnerability, I could only hope to slow him down with those. But, in truth, I hoped not to encounter him at all. I hoped that, by sailing the Caribbean sea until I was well past my fiftieth year, he would give up hope of finding me. Or that perhaps I could only be killed on my fiftieth rebirthday. Or that living past that mark would mean that I would at least be reborn with my memories intact.

A drowning man, they say, will clutch at a straw.

There is a peace that comes with knowing you may be spending your last days on earth. We had good weather and the seas were calm. The crew had no clue what I was about and dared not ask. At dusk, I watched the sun, caped in orange-red clouds, sink below the horizon; and I was always awake at dawn to see him rise on the other side of his bed, flinging his glittering yellow shadow onto the winking waters.

I stayed at the helm all day, simply breathing in the magnificence of the world about me. Sometimes, dolphins came and sported beside the keel. Several times I saw great swordfish leap dancing from the ocean's depths. There was one which must have weighed about eight hundred pounds and measured at least ten sleek feet; in his silvery grace, he seemed to mock the poor barque on which we puny humans coasted his realm. But even he could not compare to the glimpse I got one morning of a whale off the port bow, whose god-like head rose out of the water with a hiss of his blowhole, one wrinkled eye seeming to survey us calmly before he submerged again, his giant fluke giving a single wave that made the ship rock moments later.

'Twas at such times that I felt I was seeing the true mysteries of Creation, compared to which my own existence was of no real import. Still, I did not wish to die. For were I reborn white, I would have lost the humanity I had worked so hard to restore; and were I reborn black, the humanity would be beaten out of me.

And so came the morn of my fiftieth year as Mary-Anne Rackham. But, more than ever now, I knew I was not she. My body had changed in the past three months. There was an added strength in my shoulders and my legs, and a new sharpness to my gaze, and an additional fluency and balance to my movement.

I had made sure we were far away from all the main islands. I ordered the cannon primed and ready at the portholes. The men were tense, alert, expecting battle. I had them kill a pig and trail it behind us to attract sharks. I did not know what kind of creature the Shadowman was so, like a good strategist, I planned for every contingency. But the sun merely wended its uneventful way across the sky. Only the sharks came and fought over the bloody meat. Night fell and we continued sailing under a new moon sky. The men were grumbling now and I swore foully at them and threatened to throw them to the sharks which kept pace with us, hoping for another treat. All was quiet save for the creak of the ropes and the splash of the waves against the bow. And, just as I was thinking that perhaps I had at last outrun him, it happened.