Pirate Freedom (40 page)

Right.

We were keeping a close watch, because we were almost within shouting distance of the Spanish Main, and there was no port. If the weather had looked like it was going to get rough, we would have to get out to sea in a hurry. Novia and I woke up in the middle of the night, and when we were both sweaty and out of breath we decided to go up on deck, look at the moon, and cool off.

Everything seemed to be in good shape. Boucher was officer of the watch, and he was awake and nearly sober. There was a man at the wheel and another at the masthead, both awake, and the moon—one of those thin crescent moons that always look prettier than anything has a right to—was setting behind the trees. Novia and I watched it go down, tangling itself in the branches and shining through the leaves.

Then she pointed, and I saw a piragua putting out, all dark and not making a sound that I could hear. To its left there was another, and another to its right.

I smacked Boucher a pretty good one, yelled, "Are you blind!," jerked the pistol out of his belt, and fired it in the air.

That woke the watch and we had the guns run out and firing before the piraguas had covered half the distance from shore. That woke men on the
Magdelena
, the
Weald
, and Gosling's
Snow Lady
. The piraguas scooted back, and when the sun came up there were twenty or thirty bodies floating in the water.

Pretty soon some Cimaroons hailed us just as nice as you please and said they wanted to join us, and would we kindly come ashore and pick them up?

We said no thanks, just swim on out and we will throw ropes to you so you can climb on board—no more than ten on each ship.

Eventually they paddled out in piraguas, carrying muskets, hatchets, cane knives, and so forth. Twenty-six came aboard
Sabina
. I do not remember how many went to the other ships. I looked them over and sent back all those who had any kind of wound. That left about twenty. After that, I let my officers pick out one man each, telling each officer that he was responsible for that man and was to kill him if he found him plotting with the rest. At that time, we had a quartermaster (Red Jack), a first mate (Bouton), a second mate (Boucher), a third mate (O'Leary), a bosun (Corson), a bosun's mate (Dell), a gunner (Hansen), and a gunner's mate (Maas). So that took care of eight.

After that, Novia and I picked one together, and Mahu, Big Ned, and Azuka did the same thing, making ten.

We told the rest they had to go back. They wanted to fight, but we were too many for them and we were standing all around them. Eventually they went off with no blood spilled.

We had not done as well at either place as we had hoped, but Captain Burt wanted to take a shot at Maracaibo anyway, and Harker, Gosling, and I went along. We all agreed that if it looked too bad we would not do it. Novia was against it, but I felt like Harker—our luck was bound to change sooner or later.

Which it did in about a week. We took a fair-sized ship carrying cacao beans and twelve thousand pieces of eight. As if that were not good enough, four of its crew joined us. Gosling put a few of his men on board and took it to Jamaica, promising to do some recruiting and meet us at Curaçao, a Dutch island that was about as close to the Gulf of Venezuela as we wanted to go before we were ready to move in.

Everybody except Harker and me, that is. He sailed into the Gulf with me on board one fine evening and dropped me off close enough to see the lights of the city. I do not believe I will ever forget standing there with my boots ankle-deep in mud and watching the
Princess
sail away, as dark and as silent as any shadow. I had some money of my own in my money belt, plus a heavy purse of doubloons Capt. Burt had given me. Besides the money, my long silver-hilted Spanish sword, a Spanish dagger Novia had picked up somewhere, and a letter she and I had forged together.

I also had Captain Burt's words ringing in my ears. "You're the best man I could hope to have for this, Chris. I'm countin' on you more than I've ever
counted on any man in my life. We've got to know about that fort, first and last. After that, the watchtower. After that, the whole city—where to look for money, and how many soldiers there are. Mark where you're landed, because Harker will come lookin' for you in a fortnight. In one fortnight, mind. That's fourteen days, neither more nor less. If you're not finished by then, come back and report anyway. We sent you in once, and we can send you in again."

I had nodded. "I've got it."

"Good." He was trying to smile, but too worried to make it look right. "I'm countin' on you not to get caught. If you are, keep your chin up, stand mum, and don't lose hope. We'll do everythin' we can to get you out. And good luck."

I knew I was going to need it.

IF I WERE
to tell all that happened in Maracaibo, I would be at this for a year. I doubt that I have a month. I hiked into the city, staying out of sight until I was practically there. By the time I got down close to the waterfront, where the action was, it was midmorning. I went from inn to inn looking for a place to eat, and more importantly for a place to stay. There's no better place for a man to listen to gossip and maybe ask a few questions than the taproom of an inn. Eventually I found one that looked clean and decent without being too pricey. The innkeeper had a Native American slave, and on the third day I was there I bought him.

It was the kind of thing I had told myself over and over I should not do, but I did it just the same. That morning, I heard noises like somebody pounding oakum and some pretty fair Spanish cussing in the courtyard and went out to see what was going on. The innkeeper and his sons had their Native American slave down and were beating him with good-sized sticks. He was curled up the way you do, trying to cover his head with his arms. I kept thinking he would yell for mercy any minute, but he never did. He never said a thing until they stopped, and as I watched I started to wonder whether he could talk, and whether they were going to kill him.

Finally they quit, wiping the sweat off their faces and panting. That was when I heard him whisper, "Oh, Jesus …"

It was all he said—but it was in English. Our Lord's name sounds a lot
different in Spanish because the
J
is pronounced like
H
and the
E
like
AY
. "Hay-soos." This was English, no doubt about it. And I felt as though He were standing right behind me, laying His pierced hand on my shoulder.
This is it, Chris. This is the moment. What are you going to do?

WHAT I DID
was mosey up to the innkeeper and ask what the Native American had done. He was stupid, the innkeeper said.

"Yeah," I said—only in Spanish—"me, too. Listen here. You've pounded him to dog food, and pounding won't fix stupidity anyhow. What you've got now is a cripple you'll just have to feed. I'll take him off your hands for …" Here I pretended to search in my pockets. "Eight reales. This looks pretty good. Doesn't look like it's been sweated at all." It was one of the new pieces of eight we had gotten from the cacao-bean ship.

The innkeeper just laughed and turned away, and I said, "Okay, stupido, you keep him. He's your hard luck. I hope he dies tonight."

I went to the street gate then and lifted the latch. When I did it, the innkeeper turned back and called, "One hundred, Señor de Messina, because you are my guest. But not one real less."

After that we went back and forth for half an hour or so. I knew I was
going to buy him, but I had to keep the innkeeper from knowing it, too. I finally got him for eighteen reales, which showed that the innkeeper really and seriously thought that he and his sons might have lamed him for life.

Once I had a signed bill of sale, I helped him stand up and got him up two flights of stairs to my room. That was about as easy as pulling up a four-pounder. There were a couple or maybe three times when I felt certain we were both going to fall.

Up there, I laid him on the bed, which was way too short for me and too short for him, too, got him to drink a glass of wine, and told him I was going out and he should just take it easy in there until I got back. You are not supposed to give Native Americans alcohol is what all the books say, because they have this big alcoholism problem. But that wine was from the inn, and I swear by Monkey King Jasmine that Novia could have downed a whole bottle of it and never stumbled.

(Confession is good for the soul, and so: Monkey King Jasmine is tea. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs gave us a food basket for Christmas, and there is a package of tea in it—Monkey King Jasmine Tea. Fr. Wahl thinks it is hilarious, and I think it is pretty funny myself.)

When I came back, I brought him some good clean water and something to eat. After a couple of days, he started telling me that I should sleep on the bed and he would lie on the floor. That was how I knew he was well enough for us to change inns. Which we did, because I could see there was going to be trouble about him if we stayed where we were.

A day or so before that, I had asked him what his name was. What he said was Spanish and pretty dirty, so I told him we would have to use another one. I tried to find out what his Native American name was, but he played dumb. That was okay, because I knew by then that your real name was a very personal thing with a lot of Native Americans. Maybe with all of them. The way he had been beaten by the innkeeper and his sons reminded me of Saint Jude, who was beaten to death with traveler's staffs, so I called him Hoodahs, which is how you say that saint's name in Spanish. By the time we changed inns I was Captain and he was Hoodahs, and Hoodahs had gotten over the idea that I was planning to do something horrible as soon as I thought he was strong enough to stand it.

The whole time I was just itching to try English, but I was supposed to be a Cuban officer who was in Maracaibo hoping to get a job with the army in
Venezuela, so there was no way I was going to risk saying a word in English where anybody could hear it.

The day after we moved, I took him to a blacksmith who took the chain off his feet. It had been about eighteen inches long, a chain that would let him walk but not run, and it had galled both his ankles. When he was loose, I said (in Spanish), "I'm freeing you, Hoodahs. If you want to split right now, or tonight, or tomorrow, that's fine with me. I'm not going to stand guard over you. The only thing is, if you go now, from here, you'll probably get picked up by some other Spaniard. If that happens, I'll help you if I can but I probably won't ever know about it. But you can take the chance if you want to."

He shook his head.

"Okay, if you want to stick with me for a while, you can do that. Only you're free to split whenever."

He shook his head again. I was not really sure what he meant by that, but I thought it was probably "Not any time soon." So I said, "Come on, we're going fishing."

One of the things I had been doing when I went out was looking at boats, and the day before I had bought a good one, new, a boat small enough that one man could handle it, but big enough to carry three. (Maybe three men and a kid, in a pinch.) It had oars, a mast a little longer than a mop handle, and a sail a little bit bigger than a blanket. We got a pole, some line that should have been for tying up weeds to burn, a few hooks, a piece of salt pork to cut up for bait, and a bucket. Nothing fancy, because I did not care whether I caught anything or not. As long as we looked like a don and his slave out for a bit of fishing, that was good enough.

Hoodahs rowed us away from the dock. Then I showed him how to set up the mast and spread the sail. When we had sailed a little—there was a pretty good breeze—I went to the bow and let him manage the tiller and sheets. After five minutes or so, I knew he was no stranger to boats. He was not an expert, either, but he had been around boats enough to understand the basics.

We sailed between the fort and watchtower just as pretty as you please, and nobody said boo to us. When we were through the strait and out in the Gulf, and not close to anything or anybody, I had Hoodahs put down the sail. I baited my hook, hoping not to catch anything, and held the pole and pretended to fish. Then I said (just as I am writing it now), "You speak English,
Hoodahs. So do I, and I think it's time we leveled with each other. Where did you come from?"

"North, Chris." He pointed. "My land north."

"America?"

He stared, then shook his head, and right then about ninety percent of my hopes washed down the drain. I had been hoping—I had been praying— that he was from the future, just like me.