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Authors: Kerry Newcomb

BOOK: Mad Morgan
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A faint moan escaped her. Don Alonso knelt, wheezing as the walnut grip of his flintlock pistol dug into his gut. He removed the weapon and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then he bent forward and placed his head upon her chest and listened for her breath. Thankfully, he heard it. He examined her head and discovered an egg-sized lump on the back of her skull. Don Alonso cursed softly and then struggled to his feet. He swayed, the world careened, he felt he was striding the deck of a ship in the aftermath of a storm where the slategreen sea swells and pitches.
He shrugged off the sickening sensation and proceeded across the plaza toward the long houses. He was certain once the soldiers within were alerted he could count on them to see him safely to the palace—no, to the house of Saucedo. He would not permit himself to be the subject their idle talk. No matter if Elena Maria refused her favors.
Don Alonso scowled at the thought of her insolence. How dare she treat him this way! He was her husband. All that was hers belonged to him. This conduct must not stand. By right it was his responsibility to administer her fortune as he saw fit. Did she expect him to allow his own family's estate to fall into disrepute? Never. The little
criollos
had much to learn if she thought he was going to tolerate this situation any longer.
Lost in the city and in his thoughts, the governor was midway across the plaza when the moon cleared from behind a gossamer cloud and bathed the plaza in silver moonlight. Don Alonso stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the gallows. A solitary figure was standing astride the trap. The governor caught his breath, stifled a scream of horror. What specter was this? Ghost or man? Could it be Morgan? But he was lost to the jungles lo these many weeks, food for the cougar or slaughtered by Kuna rebels. What arcane force had roused him from the land of the dead and sent him back among the living?
“Well, then, I shall finish what I failed to do before,” Don Alonso muttered, and pulled his pistol from his coat pocket. He lurched toward the gallows, his mind reeling from the sight of this apparition. His blood coursed like ice water through his veins, his steps were leaden as he approached the gallows steps, thirteen in all, and he paused, summoned his resolve, then charged up the steps.
“Bastardo del infierno
, I will send you back to the devil!”
Don Alonso vaulted over the last couple of steps and landed on the deck and leveled the flintlock at the startled figure he had glimpsed from below. He squeezed the trigger. The flint struck the frizzen and sent a minute shower of sparks into the priming pan in which the governor had failed to measure a trace of gunpowder. The weapon misfired, fortunately for Father Estéban Pinzón.
The priest gasped and held up his arms as if to ward off the lead ball. Don Alonso blinked, his eyes grew wide as he recognized the priest who had been the celebrant at his wedding. The governor sheepishly lowered his weapon.
“I dare say, Señor, that I pray it is into the arms of the Father I shall send my soul when my time is ended.”
“Your pardon,
mi padre
, I thought you were …” The governor's voice trailed off, as if he was loath to speak the name for fear of summoning the brigand from his place of torment.
“Morgan?” asked the priest. “No, I am not the man. But I fear I may have as much blood on my hands as that uncommon rogue.” Father Estéban lifted his bony hands from the folds of his brown robe. The moonlight on his face gave him the appearance of a man carved from stone.
“What are you doing here at such an hour?” said the governor. The exertion and rush of energy had sobered him to some degree.
“Looking for answers.”
“Seek them in the Cathedral de Santa Maria. If you cannot find them there, of what use to search the streets? And at such a late hour?”
“Late, yes, the hour may be too late for all of us, Excellency,” Father Estéban replied. He placed a hand upon the timber frame from which the hangman's noose would dangle on a day of execution. “We have built an empire on suffering. Now and then it troubles me. I pray for guidance. I send the young priests to go among the slaves and speak to them of God, to teach them the way of truth. We save their souls even as we break their backs.”
“It is the way of things. God chose us to be their masters. We have built an empire to the glory of God. It why we are blessed, padre. Those who do His Will, prosper.”
“I wonder …” said the priest. “Perhaps I am getting old and think too much. Like some clever merchant, I have begun to weigh everything.”
“Of course,” Don Alonso assured him, mopping his sweat-beaded brow on the sleeve of his shirt. The warehouse of Elena Maria de
Saucedo was filled with gold and silver ore, silks and chests of jeweled trinkets, and gold doubloons,
reales
, and pieces of eight. That was all the assurance he needed that he had God's favor.
“And yet here we stand,” the old priest said, “on a gallows in the middle of the night, fearing the retribution of Divine Providence.” He sighed. “And the wrath of a ghost.”
T
he waterfall spilled down from a jagged line cliffs over a hundred feet above the hillside trail that had brought the column of freebooters up from the valley floor. The waters cascaded down the moss-gray face of the cliff and plunged into a deep-green pool large enough for half the column to gather round and drink their fill.
After leaving a token force under Sir William Jolly's command, to guard the ships or pilot them out into open water if necessary, Morgan had lost no time in marching the remainder of his command away from the coast and into the rain forest. He assumed, and rightly so, once these sea rovers were good and lost beneath the canopy of towering white-trunked trees, the naysayers among them would cease their grumbling and complaints. His ploy worked. By the afternoon of the first day it became clear there was no turning back, not without a proper guide. The grousing and grumbling ceased. It was now a matter of Conquer or Die.
They'd pressed hard, walking from sunup to sundown, with only brief stops to rest and slake their thirst and gnaw a strip of jerked beef. Tightening their belts, the motley little army had managed to cross a good portion of the isthmus in less than a week. Eventually they filed out from beneath the canopy of guayacan trees and climbed into the highlands, where the waterfall was a welcome discovery. Morgan had permitted an early camp, fearing if he pushed
them too hard, his force would arrive exhausted at the gates of Panama City.
Hastiler's Royal Marines, and the Maroons from the Jamaican highlands, were in the best shape. The soldiers were accustomed to being drilled and marching on parade. The Maroons, on the other hand, spent much of their lives crisscrossing the Jamaican highlands in search of game; walking mile after mile through vine-thick jungle was of little concern. The buccaneers and the Kingston men fared the worst, and were grateful for the opportunity to stack their muskets and take an early rest.
Morgan posted pickets along the trail in both directions and then returned to the pool to drink his fill. He worked his way to the water's edge through a thicket of birds of paradise, whose claw-shaped blossoms made a startling pattern of scarlet-and-pink splashes against a backdrop of emerald fronds.
The water was cool to the taste. Morgan removed his sleeveless brown waistcoat and cupped water to his face and splashed it over his head and neck. He promised himself he would return in the morning for a proper bath. Emerging from the thicket he saw that Rafiki Kogi had built a cookfire over which Nell began to prepare a meal of beans and rice and flatbread.
Morgan acknowledged them both, but instead of joining his friends, he continued through the encampment. He wanted to make his presence known, to gauge for himself how the men were holding up. It was a unique assortment, this force of brave souls who had followed him from Jamaica. And amazingly, save for the Kuna, the rest of the column intermingled. Royal Marines in their lobster-red coats and faded white breeches conversed with dusky-skinned Maroons in homespun garments. Young squires, the landed gentry of the island, hobnobbed with freebooters and pirates. A familiar voice called out from one fire as Morgan passed a circle of marines.
“Well, now, Captain Morgan, come by later and break bread with us,” Sergeant McCready called out.
“I should be in your debt if you've a meat pasty among your possibles,” Morgan grinned.
“Maybe when we reach the city. I'll serve you a proper feast on Spanish finery,” said McCready, while the men around him cleaned and primed their muskets and sharpened their bayonets.
“You'll have your pick of gold plates and silver spoons,” Morgan chuckled. He ambled past the good-natured soul and followed the line of redcoats until he came to Captain Hastiler. The officer looked
haggard, like he'd been twisted and wrung out and hung to dry. He had been in discomfort and unable to keep anything in his stomach for the past couple of days.
“How do you fare, Captain?” Morgan asked.
“I've seen better days.”
“It will be worth it when we take the city.”
“The way I feel right now, it will be worth it if I get killed trying,” Hastiler groaned, rubbing his abdomen. He leaned on his musket, using the weapon for a crutch.
“Another day and we'll be at the walls. Will you be able to command your men?”
“I did not come all this way to hand these good lads over to another. You point me to the Spaniards, my lads and I shall have at them,” Hastiler replied, forcing himself to straighten up and put on a good face for his men. They derived their confidence from him. He was not about to let them down. “And should I survive this, perhaps your luck will shelter me from Purselley's wrath. He will have the admiralty convinced I have mutinied.”
“Purselley is finished,” Morgan replied. The confidence in his voice allayed the officer's fears. “I shall personally speak on your behalf. Those were Englishmen the Spaniards killed. You are merely acting on their behalf for King and Country.”
“Still, the Dons might save you the trouble.” Hastiler groaned and, pressing a hand to his belly, excused himself and darted off behind the bushes.
Morgan made his farewell and headed for Kintana's campsite. He had questions. It was time for answers. Their Kuna war party had settled down in a clearing apart from the buccaneers. The natives in the clearing studied Morgan as he approached. Felipe and Chaua, unlike their suspicious companions, shouted their greetings.
The two were hunched over a cookfire of their own. Felipe was turning a pair of plump lizards on a spit. Chaua waited patiently, his eyes on the searing meat. Several of their companions had killed, skinned, and butchered a capybara. Chunks of dark meat sizzled above the flames. Morgan was offered a place at the makeshift feast but politely declined. There had been days when he'd been hungry enough to eat rat, but this wasn't one of them. He searched the clearing and discovered Kintana standing in the shadow of a cluster of trees bedecked with orchids. The rebel leader was lost in an animated conversation with a squat, barrel-chested, tattooed native who had been waiting by the waterfall.
Kintana appeared upset, and grew more so the longer the interchange continued. Eventually they noticed Morgan. Kintana dispatched the warrior, who trotted off down the slope while the rebel leader continued along the hillside until he came to a bluff overlooking a path that wound across the ridge and dropped off in a steady decline to the emerald cloud forests in the valley below.
As the column behind him settled in for the night, Morgan kept Kintana in sight, and when the warrior paused on the overlook, Morgan chose that moment to approach him. The music from the cascading waters filled the air while a whole chorus of wildlife noises—parrots, parakeets, umbrellabirds, and motmots—created a symphony at sunset the likes of which Adam might have heard in Eden. Morgan was satisfied that they were far enough removed from the main camp that Kintana could speak without anyone overhearing what he had to say.
Morgan waited, hooked his thumbs in his belt while the diminutive Indian leaned in toward him. “My brother Miguel,” the warrior said, indicating the crushed trail the departing Kuna had left in the tall grass behind them—“he brings bad news, Anglais.”
“I can guess,” Morgan said.
Although Kintana had met them on the shore with about thirty men, he had promised just about every Kuna rebel in Panama would join the column here in the highlands. At the beginning of the march, Morgan had estimated the Kuna reinforcements might swell his ranks to more than a thousand men—an army still outnumbered by the Spaniards, but a force to be reckoned with all the same. From Kintana's sick expression and the lack of anyone to greet them here by the highland pool, it appeared Morgan had woefully overestimated the resolve of the Kuna people.
“Where are the others?” Morgan asked. “Will they not fight to free themselves?”
“They fight and they die,” Kintana retorted, offended by the pirate's attitude. “But my people do not trust you. No matter what I tell them: Anglais, the Spaniards, all the same. My people will remain in the jungle, to watch, to wait, hoping you and the Dons kill one another off.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Morgan replied glumly. He couldn't blame them. The Kuna had been invaded and subjugated and driven from their homeland. To them, this army of cutthroats and English soldiers was to be regarded with suspicion. “Maybe you and the others should join the rest of your people.”
“I will fight at your side,” Kintana said flatly.
“Are you certain this is wise?”
“No,” Kintana conceded. The man was blunt if nothing else. “Last night, I saw a flaming light fall across the sky and burn itself out like an ember from my campfire. It was my death. Or perhaps, yours.”
“Kintana, I have seen this before. It means nothing,” Morgan protested.
The warrior shook his head in dismay. Then he shrugged and started back the way he had come. That was the trouble with Anglais and the Spaniards—all of them—they could not see the Great Circle of Life, they were blind to the fact that there was meaning and portent in the simplest act of beauty.
 
 
The buccaneers filled their water casks and devoured the last of the beans and rice, and with the evening, settled down for the last night's rest some of them would ever have. Calico Jack, Anne Bonney, and the Dutch Hannah Lee sprawled together on the same blanket, Calico Jack in the middle—and and there was not a man among the column who envied his position. Nell pointed them out with a grin as the sun settled beyond the hills and shadows lengthened across the landscape. Blue butterflies drifted down from the trees, attracted by the waterfall. Toucans and bellbirds announced the approach of night, and sang down the sunlight. A few of the pirates produced their concertinas and played a merry round but no one had the energy to dance. At last, the musicians wearied and the music died out.
Henry Morgan sat by the fire, with Nell at his side. The woman had a whetstone and was sharpening her daggers. She spat on the surface, used the coarse side to grind the steel, then the fine surface to give the blades the razor-edge she favored. Israel Goodnough, Rafiki Kogi, and Pierre Voisin, the little thief, were never far from the couple.
The world might brand them brigands, but Morgan knew them as good men, loyal and true, who could be counted on when things were at their darkest. They had sailed long and far together, through fair wind and foul, ridden out the storms, torn down the flags of Spain, and run up the Jolly Roger on a dozen ports and countless merchant ships, whenever they could pick one off from its well-armed escort. They'd roamed where they would, free men, bound by no code but their own. Morgan could ask for no better company.
“Take care, Toto, you'll make the edge too keen.”
“A knife can't be too sharp,” she said. “Nor a man too ardent.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Ask any woman.”
“Maybe I will,” he grinned.
Nell scowled and decided to change the topic. The closer they came to Panama City, the more she sensed Elena Maria's “poison” still affected Morgan. “Best you worry about how to get us past the walls of Panama City.”
“Perhaps the Spaniards will believe we are pilgrims and pass us through.” Israel spoke up from his blanket. Their conversation had carried to the men around them.
“Mai oui, mon frère
, and perhaps the next pigs we see will have wings,” Voisin chided.
“And roost in the treetops,” Kogi added. “In my village, I have seen many strange things. I have heard the dead moan from their graves. I have watched a demon pass from a snake to a man and then into a bird. In my village we know all things are possible.”
“I heard a snake quote chapter and verse,” Morgan said. “Just the other morning, as we broke camp.”
“Be wary of that serpent, it has a deadly bite,” Israel warned. Practically everyone had heard the Black Cleric, at one time or another, rant on about some biblical verse.
“I can handle LeBishop,” Morgan said.
“That's what the blind man said when he caught the copperhead by the tail,” Rafiki Kogi muttered.
“He and I have reached an understanding.”
“That's what the shark said,” Voisin chuckled.
“All the same, watch your back whenever LeBishop or that toad of his, Tregoning, is about,” Nell told him, setting the whetstone aside. “Not all your enemies will be in front of you when we storm the city.” She wiped the knife clean on the hem of his shirt and held the dagger aloft until it captured the last golden rays of sunlight. She glanced toward the water, glimpsed the blue butterflies, and marveled at the beauty of this place. Too bad a person could not find contentment among the simple things. The world was full of riches, if only there were time to notice.
The men around the fire grew quiet. The flames danced and fed along the surface of the timber, branches cracked and sizzled, moisture popped, and embers exploded, sending streamers of glowing sparks spiraling into the night. Then Nell asked the question that was on everyone's mind. “Can we do this?”

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