Pirate Freedom (46 page)

That woman was the innkeeper's wife. When she had given Novia an old gown, Novia had told them both that she was a reputable Spanish lady (naming her father and a bunch of distinguished relatives) who had been kidnapped by pirates. (All of which was true, as a matter of fact.) She had promised that if they let her hide in their house and helped her, they would be repaid ten times over. I had enough gold in my money belt to make good on that promise before we left, giving them as much as the room would have brought if they had rented it for a month.

Together, we explained that we were husband and wife. I had thought that Novia had been killed by the pirates, and she had thought I had been. And that was true, too, except that we were not technically married any more than Adam and Eve were.

From that point on, everything we did was dictated by two things. The first thing was the maps I had gotten from Capt. Burt. One was a general map of a part of the Pearl Coast, showing the Pearl Islands and Pearl Lagoon, with a lot of other things. Another one was a not-terribly-detailed map of the Pearls themselves, with the islands marked on which Capt. Burt had buried the money he meant to take back to Surrey.

The last map was on the back of the island map, and it was a sketch map that he had drawn himself. It showed both those islands, and how to find the places to dig.

The second thing was that Novia was pregnant. We knew that even if we made it to the Caribbean just as fast as we could, she was going to be showing a lot by the time we got there. After that we would have to get a boat, fit it out, and so forth. It was bound to be dangerous for her, and might be terribly dangerous. A girl in Port Royal had told me once that rough sailing in a small boat is about as good a way to get a woman to miscarry as there is. She said some of her friends had done that on purpose, and I still get sick just thinking about it.

What it came down to was that Novia wanted to go after the treasure
and I wanted to park her in a good safe place, a place where they had good people and good midwives, and go after it by myself.

In the end, I won—I think mostly because she really wanted me to.

There is not a lot more to tell, and I have not a lot of time left in which to tell it. Eventually we were able to buy horses and a lot of other things. When Mahu joined us (I think two days after we left Puntarenas) we bought him a horse, too. By that time I was Don Crisóforo de Vega, and Novia was Señora de Vega. Mahu became our servant, Manuel. I was pretty worried then about his talking addiction, but need not have been. In the first place, he did not know a whole lot of Spanish. And in the second, we had rescued him from slavery on a pirate ship. The story changed every time he told it, and nobody who took the trouble to listen believed it no matter which version they heard.

If you want to point out that Puntarenas is not on the way to the Pearls, you will be dead right. It is not. I did not want to go anywhere near them for fear that I would give in to temptation, get some kind of a boat, and go off treasure hunting.

There was also the chance we would run into somebody else who had known me when I was Capt. Chris, just like we had run into Mahu. Somebody from Santa Maria, say, or Portobello. Every time I went into an inn, I was scared half to death that somebody who had been drinking in the taproom would set down his glass and stare.

It never happened. We just kept traveling and trying to look like we enjoyed it, asking about the safest roads and taking those, and wondering if so much riding was good for the baby. If there had been good roads and a chance to buy a good coach with decent springs, we would have jumped at it. The roads were all bad, and there was nothing but wagons and farm carts. Neither of those had any springs at all.

We stayed at private houses when we could, because they were generally cleaner and had better food. As soon as the siesta hour was over, we started looking for one. The bigger it was and the richer it looked, the better we liked it. Good clothes and good horses helped, so we bought better ones every chance we got—and always apologized for what we were wearing and riding. Travel, you know. We were thinking of buying a hacienda and settling down in the New World, we told our hosts, and were looking for the right place. Novia's maid had fallen ill and been left behind in … Whatever town seemed most credible at the time. Thinking about what had really happened with
Estrellita could make it tough for me to say that without laughing, but I generally managed.

Somewhere in here I ought to say that I had a nice Spanish sword, a couple of pistols on the pommel of my saddle, and a musket in a boot I had a saddle-maker fix up for it. Novia had a dagger and two guns—not the brass ones she had used for so long, but silver-trimmed iron ones she had found in Managua. All that hardware stayed hidden under the big, full skirts she wore. "Manuel" had a short musket and a fancy machete, partly because he might need them and partly because they established straight off that he was a paid servant, not a slave. That got him better treatment and may have saved a couple of lives. Guys who have crewed on pirate ships awhile are a certain way, and that is something nobody but God can do anything about.

We stayed a week in Mexico. Everybody calls the country "Mexico" now, and the town is "Mexico City." Back then the country was New Spain, and Mexico was just the capital of New Spain. It was nice, but all three of us wanted to be nearer the sea.

I had a special reason for picking Veracruz. If you read this far, you will have guessed it already.

It did not take me long to find the priest who had carried water to the slaves. "Padre," I said, "I know you won't remember me, but …"

He was nodding and smiling. "You are the sailor who showed me how to tie my jug to the hook, my son. An angel of God. How could I ever forget you?"

I shook my head. "I'm not really an angel, Padre."

"God may think otherwise. You have sinned. Did you think angels never sinned? If that were true, my son, they would stand as high in the sight of God as Our Lord. They are not, but are mere servants, even as we."

"There's this girl, Padre. We loved each other and wanted to marry, but we couldn't. We were in a place where it couldn't be done right, just to start with, and there were other problems."

"I see. Is she with child?"

I nodded. "You're going to say I ought to marry her. That's what I want to do. Those other problems aren't around anymore, and we're both right here in Veracruz. We want to be married here in this church, and we want you to do it."

After that he asked about impediments. Were we sister and brother? Cousins? Was either of us married already? And so forth. I explained that we
were not related at all, that I had never been married and that Novia was a widow.

"You're certain of that, my son?"

I was, naturally, and I told him so. He married us the next day.

My guess is that Novia thought I would get a boat and go after Capt. Burt's treasure right after the ceremony, and she liked it a lot when I did not. The truth is that I did not want to, because I was so worried about her. I could leave her quite a lot of money, and I would. Still, I knew that I would be worried sick as soon as I cast off. If waiting until our child was born was all it was, I would have done it, and been glad to. It would only have been a couple more months, so that would have been okay. The trouble was that I could not risk taking our child out on a boat for weeks and maybe a month or more until he or she was a lot older, eight at least, and ten would be better. So I would have to leave Novia alone with only Mahu to look after her, and it scared me half to death.

Then one day I was walking down the street and I saw a tall, thin man with a beat-up face. I stared and stared, and he just grinned at me.

"Brother Ignacio! Goombah!" I yelled it so loud everybody must have thought I had gone crazy.

"Hello, Chris." He stopped grinning, but he could not stop smiling. "How are things with you?"

I brought him back to meet Novia and heard his story while the four of us ate and drank a little wine.

"There really isn't much to tell, Señora. I was a lay brother at the monastery in which Chris was educated. The students had to work as well as study— working is one of the most important things a boy must learn—and Chris used to help me, hoeing the garden and pruning our vines and orange trees. Minding our pigs. I came to love him like a son, and I know he looked up to me."

I said, "He still does."

"Thank you, Chris." Grinning from ear to ear, he went back to Novia. "When he left our monastery, I realized I didn't want to stay without him. I followed him, hoping to help him."

He tried to stop grinning but could not. "You owed me this chicken, Chris. I'd paid for one, and you stole it."

"That was you!" I could not believe it.

"It certainly was. So you owe me one, but I'm being repaid tonight. Might I have another helping?"

Novia passed the chicken to him.

"I lost sight of you after that," he said, "and there is not much left to tell. I found honest work, confess often, attend mass when I can, and here I am. You've done well for yourself, Chris, as I always knew you would."

"In some ways I have," I told him, "and in some ways I haven't. Maybe someday we'll have to talk about that. Now I have to ask my wife something. Novia, do you remember what I said about Brother Ignacio when we were on Virgin Gorda?"

She nodded. "You said he was the second father to you, Crisóforo. I have remember what you say of him ever since, and you speak of him many times."

"Right. I also said I'd trust him further than I'd trust myself."

She nodded again. "This I remember also."

"Do you trust him, too, Novia? Now that you've seen him?"

"Oh, sí!" She gave Ignacio a warm smile. "He is very like you, though more old. A good man."

She had lifted a load from my shoulders, and I could not have stopped myself from smiling if I had tried. I asked Ignacio what he was doing now.

"Little enough, Chris. I left my ship when it got here, wanting to stay awhile. Since then I've had a few odd jobs. If you're thinking of hiring me, I'll work cheap."

I named a salary, about twice what a sailor usually earns and the same as what we were paying Mahu.

"Fine, if I can do the work. What is it?"

"Looking after Novia while I'm gone. The midwife we've lined up says another six weeks, and I'm hoping to be back before then. But meanwhile I'd like to be certain there's somebody with her who has a good level head and a Spanish background—most of all, someone who'll have her best interest at heart."

"And the baby's," he said.

So that was how we worked it. Novia got most of the gold left in my money belt. She would pay Ignacio and Mahu, and could fire either or both of them if she thought that was the best thing to do. I bought a fine little sloop that I could manage alone, stocked it with supplies, and put out.

I hit the storm on the fifth day out, and lasted in it maybe five hours tops. Probably it was not even that long. My guess is that it was a hurricane, although it was early in the season for them.

I stayed afloat by holding on to a ringbolt I had mounted on my beautiful little sloop so I could rig a jib on her. It had stayed attached to the biggest
piece of wreckage, and after a while I was able to climb up on it. I was about dead when some Mexican fishermen took me on board.

They had a little radio so they could listen to the weather forecasts, and that was when I knew when I was.

I AM WRITING
this on the plane to Miami. I will have a three-hour layover there, then catch a plane for Havana. I plan to mail this to you before I go. I know you will not believe it, but I cannot help that.

There will not be time enough for me to write about all the things that happened to me after that, and I would not want to anyway. I worked on Mexican boats awhile, then crossed into the U.S., which was pretty easy. This happened and that happened, and twice I was nearly sent to jail. I got into the seminary by explaining that I had grown up in Cuba. With the communists in power, they could not look for records there. They made sure I was not in the FBI's files and took me.

Now I am a priest. Let me repeat that: NOW I am a priest. But when the monastery is reopened, I will not tell them. I will come in as a lay brother, able to read and write because all Cubans can, and able to speak a little English because I worked in a hotel. Pious in the good sense, and willing to turn my hand to any kind of work.

Soon a young I, called Christopher, will come as a student. We will work together sometimes, tending the pigs and the other livestock, planting cucumbers and harvesting okra and peppers. I will stay close to him, and when he drifts back, I will drift back with him.

When he needs someone in Veracruz, I will be there. I will look after Sabina and our child as if they were my own—because they will be.

As the years pass, she will come to know the truth. You may say I will violate my vow of chastity then, but you will be wrong if you do. God will not hold me to a vow I have not yet taken. I know Him, and He is just. No just judge holds a man to a vow to be made in the future.

The maps I carried aboard the sloop have been lost forever, but I studied them a thousand times and recall every detail. When the time is ripe, Sabina and I will claim Capt. Burt's treasure.