Jack Iron (19 page)

Kit stiffened and color came to his cheeks. He did not appreciate being the subject of discussion among the likes of such brigands. “I am.”

“My good fellow, look about you. Why seek a flower that is lost when you are sitting in the center of a whole garden of delightful blossoms.” He held up the girl’s smooth, coffee-colored hand. He inhaled her fragrance and a dreamy expression settled over his pale features.

Before Kit could make a derogatory reply, Navarre slapped the flat of his hand on the table and shouted, “At last!” A man with a wooden leg emerged from the Sea Spray Tavern bearing a black iron stewpot, which he carried straight away to the Cayman’s table. “Here’s Tom Bragg, a good mate and loyal seaman. There’s not a man or woman in all the islands who can make a better pot of oil down.”

Kit McQueen watched with deep misgivings as the pot was brought forth from the Sea Spray Tavern. Dining with a cannibal struck him as a risky business. He was relieved when Navarre listed the ingredients. The Cayman mentioned green bananas, breadfruit, coconut, onions, shellfish, and generous chunks of pork, boiled in a broth thickened with flour and seasoned with allspice.

“Evening, gents,” said Tom Bragg. He raised a knuckle to his forehead in salute to Navarre and Laffite. He glanced curiously in Kit’s direction. Then he nodded and limped over to the table. His peg leg crunched the shells underfoot, and where the dirt was moist from spilled rum, Bragg’s hand-carved appendage sank an extra inch or so into the ground and threw the pirate off balance.

Navarre ladled a bowl of oildown for himself, Laffite, and Kit McQueen. “Be on your best behavior, Tom,” said the brigand.

“Sir?”

“Mr. McQueen here is an American lieutenant. He’s come looking for someone special. A woman…”

Bragg appeared to be alarmed by the revelation. His cheeks flushed and he retreated a step from the officer. Navarre laughed aloud and eased the peg-legged seaman’s fears and explained to the Sea Spray Tavern’s unnerved proprietor the nature of Kit’s presence on the island. Bragg grudgingly accepted his captain’s explanation and departed, limping along at a quick if ungainly gait.

“Poor Tom,” said Navarre. “You see, he once served aboard an American warship. But he found there were greater profits to be made beneath the black flag, so he deserted.” Navarre spooned a mouthful of oildown from his bowl and began to chew. A trickle of juice escaped from the corner of his mouth. “You can understand his misgivings. I daresay it would be best if you slept aboard ship tonight. Bragg might not have believed your reasons for coming to Natividad.”

“I’m not worried,” Kit replied, trying the contents of the bowl before him. The oildown had a sweet peppery flavor that would take a little getting used to. It was not unpleasant. And Kit was hungry.

“A man of confidence. And no doubt convictions and high morals,” said Navarre. He glanced at Laffite. “Strange company for one such as yourself, Jean.”

“I’ve reformed,” Laffite replied with a wink and a devilish grin. “I chart a virtuous course. I seek no riches but what I earn as an honest merchant.”

“Well, now, if that is the truth, then perhaps you have knowledge of where Obregon has buried his treasure.” Navarre dabbed at his mouth with a silk scarf, then leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I am told the wealth our absent ‘hawk’ has gathered throughout his career is buried somewhere on Natividad. Did he ever confide in you as to the whereabouts of his gold and trinkets. It would be a shame for his treasure to go to waste, eh?”

“As an honest man, I suppose I would have no use for such ill-gotten gain.” Laffite stroked his chin and allowed the moment to build. Orturo Navarre wasn’t the only man at this table capable of stringing a story out.

“Yes?” said Navarre, hanging on Laffite’s every word.

“Unfortunately Cesar kept his secrets to himself.”

Navarre scowled and returned his attention to his meal. He did not like being toyed with. In fact, he did not like Jean Laffite. But he would tolerate the man for the sake of the pirate brotherhood. And besides, Laffite’s brothers no doubt knew their infamous sibling had come to Morgan Town. If any harm came to Jean Laffite, Navarre would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for Pierre or Dominique to catch up to him. His slave trade was too profitable an undertaking to invite such trouble. The Cayman finished his meal and rose from the table. He bowed to Laffite and to Kit McQueen.

“Gentlemen, you are my guests. Morgan Town is yours for the night.” He looked at McQueen. “I am sorry I was not able to be of more help to you, Lieutenant. I hope you find the woman you seek, but I fear the odds against you finding her are insurmountable. The sea is a cruel mistress who rarely reveals her secrets.”

“Nevertheless, we shall resume our search at first light,” Laffite said. “I’ve ordered food and victuals to be brought aboard tonight.”

“Then I bid you fair wind and high tide, Captain Laffite,” said the Cayman, his mottled features striving to appear earnest. “Some dreams are best abandoned, Lieutenant McQueen.” And with that final discouraging word, the new master of Natividad started back to the governor’s palace. NKenai immediately fell in step a few paces behind his captain. Navarre waved him forward and whispered instructions to the African. The black man immediately left Navarre’s company and returned to the festivities. Kit had the distinct feeling NKenai would be keeping the Cayman’s “guests” under careful observation.

Navarre was not challenged as he approached the gates to the palace. His lean brooding frame and shaved head were instantly recognizable even by moonlight. The gates swung open and a brigand in a faded linsey-woolsey shirt and brown breeches managed a salute as the Cayman entered the courtyard. His keen eyes searched the surrounding walls. Men were stationed by the swivel guns above the front gates at the corners of the north wall. Other members of his crew patrolled the perimeters of the courtyard, the walkways, and the fortified roof of the stone house that had once housed the island’s former governor, Josiah Morgan.

Navarre had left the interior as he found it. The rooms were furnished with luxuriously padded chairs and settees stolen from Spanish galleons or Caribbean plantations plundered by the island’s inhabitants long ago. Navarre ignored the scrutiny of the guards and hurried across the courtyard. Passing a carriage barn, he headed for the magazine built of limestone and timber. Two guards posted before the door to the powder shed straightened as Navarre drew nigh.

The Cayman greeted each man and opening the door, walked down a flight of steps and paused about ten feet belowground. He lit a lamp and instantly a rectangular room approximately thirty feet in length and twenty-five in width became filled with the sallow light. The magazine housed powder and shot of various caliber, stacked muskets and pistols, assorted cutlasses and a half-dozen Congreve rockets Navarre had removed from the burning hold of a British schooner he had sunk back in January. The chamber also held five frightened women. Two were as sleek and black as panthers, their features befitting Nubian queens. The other three women were mulattos, long-limbed and lovely to look at despite the rigors of the ocean crossing. All five women were underweight from lack of proper food and the miseries of life aboard a slave ship. But Navarre intended to correct all that. They’d be filled out and shapely when he was finished. He intended to dress them in finery and personally escort them to Cuba and perhaps even to New Orleans, where beauties such as these commanded a top price.
Five!
The women, none of whom looked older than sixteen, avoided his gaze. They were bound at the wrists and ankles with strands of leather cord. He shifted the lamp in his hand and discovered a pile of sawed-through strands in the dust near the rusty blade of a cutlass whose hilt had been wedged between two powder kegs, allowing the missing woman to saw through her bonds.

Navarre tugged one of his bone-handled pistols from his waistband. He placed his back against the door.

“Where is she?” he asked. None of the captives spoke, but one of the mulattos, the youngest and the most frightened by all that had befallen her, glanced toward a patch of darkness at the rear of the chamber. Navarre held up the lamp and raised his pistol.

“Come out,” he said. Navarre stiffened at the sound of a pistol being cocked.

“Put down the lamp and your gun and turn around or I will kill you,” a voice said.

“I think not,” Navarre replied. “A pistol you might have. But none of the powder kegs have been stove in. To do so would have alerted my guards.” He chuckled softly. “I admire your spirit.” He had confined the women to the magazine in case Laffite had insisted on visiting the hacienda. It had been an instinctively cautious move. Now the pirate’s instincts told him his captive was attempting to bluff her way to freedom. “Drop your pistol and I will forgive this inconvenience. Do not force me to drag you out of hiding.”

“Try and take me. I would rather die than be your bondwoman.” He heard a faint rasp of steel and caught a glimmer of a knife blade. She was indeed resourceful.

“
You
may be willing to die. But is she?” The Cayman shifted his aim and trained his pistol on the young mulatto who saw her death was at hand. She drew up and lowered her head to her knees, and began to softly moan in terror and rock back and forth. Navarre cocked his pistol and started to squeeze the trigger.

“No. Wait.” The woman in the shadows would not be the cause of an innocent’s death.

Navarre recognized the tone of defeat. He had heard it often enough in his life and times. A knife thudded to the floor. A flintlock pistol struck the hard-packed earth. Silence…

“Come out where I can see you,” the Cayman ordered.

The woman in the shadows hesitated another brief moment, desperately seeking a way out. But Orturo Navarre had left her no alternative but surrender.

Raven O’Keefe stepped into the light.

“I
TRUST THE FOOD
was to your liking,” said Navarre.

The fire in the hearth caused shadows to dance like rapturous souls caught in the frenzy of some hellish jubilee. His bootheels tapped across the cold stone floor of the former governor’s bedroom, then became muffled as he reached the coarsely woven wool rug near the bed where Raven O’Keefe waited with her fists clenched. A couple of hours had passed since her attempted escape. Since then the women had been brought from the magazine and returned to the hacienda. Raven had been separated from the other captives and escorted to the master bedroom by a pair of swarthy freebooters who made no attempt to hide their lust for the half-breed woman. But the cutthroats had made no move against her, despite their base urges, and Raven suspected Navarre’s hand in this.

Malachi Quince had arrived, close on the heels of Raven’s lecherous escort, and brought her food and drink, a small platter of cassava biscuits, and a pot of aromatic bittersweet tea. Hunger and thirst overrode the captive woman’s cautious nature—it would do her no good to starve herself—so she devoured the contents of the platter and washed the biscuits down with a clay cup full of the dark pungent tea. Easing her hunger pains did nothing to ameliorate the cold fury with which she greeted Navarre when at last he came to call. The defiance in her eyes was an almost-palpable force that had temporarily held him at bay.

Navarre had decided imprisoning the women in the powder magazine wasn’t worth the risk. If Kit McQueen or Captain Laffite insisted on visiting the governor’s palace, Navarre could always return the captives to their bleak chamber. But the Cayman preferred not to. A woman like Raven, even bound hand and foot, might find a way to set off a powder charge just for spite. He did not want to take any chances.

“I have ordered clothes to be brought for you, to replace the rags you are wearing.” Navarre picked up the clay cup she had left on a table near the bed. The empty platter was nearby, but it was the cup that held his interest. He was obviously pleased she had broken her fast. “Good. You must keep up your strength.” His movements were broad and magnanimous, his tone of voice surprisingly congenial. Raven found the man an enigma. A few hours ago he had threatened her life. Now he was treating her like a pampered guest. What had caused this sudden metamorphosis? She eyed him suspiciously. Even in her tattered raiment, she seemed draped in an aura of royalty befitting a princess. It was a quality worth its weight in gold and one Orturo Navarre intended to exploit to the fullest. There were rich men in these Americas willing to pay a handsome price for a woman like this.

He reached out for her, his fingers touching her shoulder. She drew away and tried to brush his hand aside, but her actions were sloppy and uncoordinated and she almost lost her footing. O’Keefe’s half-breed daughter was by nature as agile as a cat. It bothered her that she suddenly seemed so clumsy. That was the first warning. Navarre opened the lid of the teapot and dipped his fingers into the liquid, then held up his hand and rubbed his thumb across his moistened fingertips until they glistened. He sniffed the liquid.

“The datura grows in Hispaniola,” he said. “My mother’s people, the Carib, would gather the roots and dry them and blend them with the dried stems and pulp of the ortanique and brew them to make what the shamans call ‘dream tea.’”

Raven was trying to listen, but Navarre seemed to be speaking to her from inside her skull. His voice reverberated along with the rustle of his garments and the buzzing of an insect outside her shuttered window and the crackling hissing flames filling the fireplace as the dried mesquite logs splintered and burst apart. Her vision intensified even as she gradually lost control of her limbs. The whitewashed ceiling became brilliant and pulsing with amber light. The walls appeared to expand and contract as if the bedroom were breathing. Raven lost her balance and reached out for the four-poster behind her and managed to lower herself to the bedcovers. The pace of her breathing increased. She felt herself sinking into the feather mattress and heard the throbbing cadence of her own beating heart.