Wake of the Perdido Star (45 page)

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Authors: Gene Hackman

BOOK: Wake of the Perdido Star
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“Right, and if I say it again, you'll kill me.” Quince and Mentor both chuckled, but Jack was miffed and unsmiling.
“Now look you.”
Paul, for his part, was getting increasingly exasperated. He jabbed his fork in Jack's direction. “Old sod, it was just a figure of speech—but it's also based on true observations.”
Quince and Mentor listened solemnly to what they figured would be one of Paul's soliloquies. “I love you like a brother, but you must admit, you've developed the habit of thrashing an uncomfortably large percentage of the people you meet.”
Jack, agitated and unsure of what to say, looked at the two older sailors for assurance, but they just studied the wood grain in the top of the table.
Paul continued: “Granted, your temper has proved handy in our circumstances. And true, you show a strong sense of righteousness and judgment in how and when you fight. But damn it, Jack, you're carrying around a chip on your shoulder the size of a hatch cover. You come alive when you fight. Oh, you're more able
to enjoy yourself than you were before our adventures in Belaur—hell, you're actually fun sometimes. But man, Cuba's buried inside of you like a hot ember.”
Paul had obviously been working up to this for some time; there was no stopping him now. “You've got to purge this from your guts. You'd have skewered those two men in an eyeblink. Why? Because they ridiculed Klett and threatened me. With words! You really are becoming Black Jack O'Reilly. People have good reason to be afraid.”
Jack stared blankly at the table as Paul spoke. His friend's words were strangely disturbing to him. Paul had overstated the case, but not by much. He wouldn't have skewered the men as nonchalantly as Paul indicated, but Paul was right about having to fight to maintain control. The people bullying Klett, making the fool of his friend, then threatening Paul when he stood up for him, was irrationally provocative to him. He was finding violence too satisfying a solution—it confused and frightened him.
“There's more to live for,” Paul went on. “Quen-Li once said you kill but are no killer—I don't know if that's true anymore. There's a lighthearted, happy person in there that used to temper the fighter in you, that gave it balance. Whatever it takes, we have to finish what needs finishing in Habana because that coal is going to eat its way out some day.”
Jack got up and started to leave.
Paul followed him. “See that Chamorran serving girl? She's been eyeing you all night. If you were healthy inside, you'd take more pleasure in making her tear the sheets off the bed than you would in running your sword through some buffoon's guts.”
Jack bolted outside, but Paul pursued him.
“Look, man. These men are your brothers—they'll even take a chance on some crazy journey to help you set things right on the other side of the world—but you need to get right with yourself—” Paul stopped abruptly, realization dawning, and put his arm around his friend's shoulder.
“That's it, isn't it? Brothers—I mean—you turn into the angel of death when your new family, your shipmates, are threatened, don't you? Afraid you didn't do enough to defend your first family?”
Jack had bitten through his lip; blood was dripping down his chin, onto his white vest. The young man collapsed to a sitting position, his shoulders started shaking. Some people on their way into the Orchid became curious, but there were now two large, formidable looking sailors standing with their backs to Paul and Jack, puffing on their pipes, their demeanor suggesting the onlookers stare somewhere else.
Jack collected himself and started to walk back toward the
Star
.
Quince called, “There's compensation in this world, lad, and I think the time has come to get some of it. And you're not alone, lad, there's a bunch of us ready to pack our bags and head to hell with you, remember that. Even Black Jack O'Reilly, the devil himself, needs help in Habana.”
As Paul followed Mentor and Quince back into the Orchid, his thoughts were still with Jack. Green wounds. For some reason the term “green wounds” kept popping into his head. Totally engrossed in his thoughts, he passed a group of men clustered about a table where someone was earnestly holding forth on some subject in low raspy tones. Paul froze in his steps—he recognized that voice.
“That was him I tell you, the one the natives call Dyak. That knave you almost got into a row with is Jack O'Reilly.”
“Black Jack O'Reilly! He seems young. Are you sure?” The man nervously asking the question was the one who had threatened Paul.
“Of course I'm sure—I don't forget people who shoot me. If this was a civilized part of the world, I'd have that wretch arrested and hung.” Heinrich De Vries looked much the worse for wear since Paul had last dealt with him aboard the
Stuyvesant
. He was just as pompous, but his reddened eyes and a twitch in his upper lip showed the strain of almost having his head blown off, losing a
ship he shared responsibility for, and what must have been a grueling journey to some form of rescue in the islands.
De Vries continued: “That big rogue with him is their leader. I didn't recognize him with that hook he's now sporting for a hand.” Paul had edged close to the others in the group surrounding De Vries and looked into his face; he felt himself shaking with anger as the feelings of fear and humiliation swept over him from what the Dutch had done to him. De Vries had shrugged his shoulders when Arloon had ordered his finger broken, as if he couldn't be bothered with such minor issues.
“So, Heinrich, who will it be?” The group parted as Paul loudly posed the question to De Vries.
De Vries's look of annoyance turned to astonishment tinged with alarm.“What? It's you! What did you say?”
“I said, who will it be? You know . . . friends, Romans, or countrymen? I mean somebody's just got to lend you an ear—you're looking awfully lopsided, old bean.”
The group of men were dumbfounded, but Quince and Mentor, finding where Paul had disappeared to, were happy to add to the conversation.
“Sweet Jesus,” blurted Quince. “It's that ugly maggot of a Dutchman. Come on, Lord Le Maire, we'll have to leave this establishment. A place that caters to blackbirders is beneath our standards.” He grabbed Paul by the collar and yanked him back to the table occupied by the Brotherhood, leaving De Vries sputtering in his wake.
“Paul, I'm going to wring your neck someday. We don't need to advertise our presence any more than we already have.” Then to the rest of the shipmates, “Our banty rooster here is gonna get us kicked out of the foreign sector, or arrested. I don't know what it'll take to get the authorities here provoked, so drink up and it's back to the ship.” He glanced back in the direction of De Vries's table. It was vacated; the man must have left by the back door.
L
YING HALF ASLEEP on the bunk in Quince's cabin, Jack watched the first mate regard the stump of his right arm, then thrust the tip of his hook through a ring in the bottom of an oil lantern swinging from an overhead beam in his cabin. As the ship swayed, the prosthesis cast a bizarre shadow, a batlike creature circling the room . . . Jack imagined the creature lighting on Quince's head.
The
Found Star
had undergone a remarkable overhaul at the hands of the Philippine craftsmen. Jack had marveled at the skill and speed of the workers. Many of the repairs the Americans had painstakingly made in the islands were efficiently fortified by the artisans in less than a week. Soon the keel, keelsons, and major structural elements of the lower hull were declared sound after inspection. Most of the energy from the explosion of the powder magazine had vented upward—due, they were told, to the damping effect of the water. The reinforcement of the stern superstructure and midships area was completed in less than a month.
A sweet sailer to begin with, the reborn
Found Star
retained her sleek lines where wood met water. Now she was freshly careened, sheathed below the waterline with copper, and trimmed in mahogany. Along with a less pronounced fantail, the changes gave her a dark, trim profile to match her performance. With her new rigging, lignum vitae blocks, and dark hemp cordage, the ship was a thing of beauty.
In a strange way, though, she looked “too damned much like what she is,” in Coop's words. She seemed some sort of marine predator, a perception the men didn't want to encourage in civilized ports. Through force of circumstance, the men of the
Star
had become sharks in a perilous sea; as a drunken Paul put it, they had chosen to “take up arms against a sea of troubles rather than bear the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” To the great relief and cheers of the Brotherhood, he had passed out before getting much further.
Quince clumsily shuffled aside the papers he had been examining earlier in the evening. He told Jack he really could feel his fingers sometimes. It didn't seem fair a man should suffer the loss of a limb and still have to put up with aches and pains in his nonexistent extremities. He rummaged now though bills and receipts for services rendered and paid for. Jack promised to look them over, too.
The last of their spoils from the original Dutch owners had been spent on the repair, refitting, and reprovisioning of the
Star
. Smithers had chosen to take his share and melt into the bustling maritime world of Manila. He bore a gullet of ill will for his shipmates, and none were sorry to see him go, except perhaps Cheatum. What surprised Jack more than Smithers going was Cheatum staying.
The possibility of riches in Cuba was chancy, as all the men knew. A decision to stay with the
Star
was more an act of allegiance to their mates and the new way of life thrust upon them. The seafaring world of the Western Pacific was a place of high risk
and uncertainty. News traveled slowly, and no one seemed to know who was fighting whom from month to month, what flag might be that of an enemy. Seamen were used like chattel; but the men of the
Star
had tasted something else. For better or worse, they were now all part owners of a ship, in theory more rich than they ever could have dreamed of becoming.
They had no legal status, but most of the successful merchant enterprises in the Pacific broke the law routinely. No one in Manila had challenged them for their act of piracy and, in fact, they sensed a measure of respect in their interactions with others once it was known they were men of the
Star
. Jack's name was spoken with awe, but it seemed to make other seamen wary rather than hostile.
Now that the ship was almost ready for sea and obviously carried no cargo, the officials were becoming a little more tense. Twice in the last week they had asked Quince about his departure plans. He mused to Jack that in the twilight of his career as an honest seaman he was suddenly a figure prudent businessmen feared, a principal in an enterprise that caused foreign patrol sloops to be warily alert and nearby merchant vessels to double their night watches. And in a port as tough as Manila.
Well, they would be leaving soon enough. They would give no warning of their departure, he reckoned, but he knew that any flag vessel, not just Dutch, would be watching closely and might interfere before they could clear the area for open ocean. A well-armed, fast barkentine shipping out in ballast was suspicious enough; East India Company packets sometimes sailed long distances without cargo. But the
Star
was no company ship, and she was reputed to be under the command of Black Jack O'Reilly. Quince said there would be no fanfare; Manila would just wake one moment and the
Star
would be gone.
Although they had reoccupied their ship since the overhaul, the Brotherhood voted to spend a last night on the town. Jack hadn't quite bounced back from his depression after the incident in the Orchid, and declined to join the festivities. Quince, Jack, and
Hansumbob would stay aboard while the rest of the men went ashore in two longboats.
Earlier, Jack had walked to the port side while his shipmates were boisterously boarding a launch to starboard. A small boat carrying several Chinese gentlemen had quietly pulled alongside the
Star
. He had motioned for Quince to come watch.
The Chinese crew of the skiff was quiet, well dressed, and formal. An older man took to the ladder to come on board and embrace Quen-Li. Then, in turn, the four men who had been rowing stood in the boat and bowed to the
Star'
s mysterious cook. He returned the bows to each one, much like an admiral acknowledging the salutes of inferior officers.
It appeared that the closer to China they sailed, the more evident was the emperor's network. Jack guessed Quen-Li was checking in with his countrymen. He wondered if there were any new names on Quen-Li's list.
Quince turned to the men leaving for the night's revelry and yelled to Mentor, “Keep those grog-sloppin', whorin' ship's hounds to the lee of any trouble they can't handle.”
“Aye, Skip,” he answered back, already on his way down the rope ladder.
Jack, who had joined Quince at the rail, yelled after the men that perhaps they should gag Paul now—it would increase their chances of coming back alive. The men hooted and pounded Paul on the back while he made obscene gestures at Jack as they rowed into the night.

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