The Butcher's Daughter, page 20
On our way back to Guadeloupe, we put in at La Asunción on the Island of Margarita, the port that had been closed to us before. We had time to kill until Gilley returned with the fleet and I was curious to see more of this island, an island they say that is mother to countless pearls. La Asunción is a pretty spot, a sleepy town with white beaches surrounded by soft, rolling hills of green. But the town has very little commerce. The Spanish use the island to harvest pearls and not much else. I saw no pearls and soon grew bored. We took on fresh fruit and water and quickly weighed anchor, dropped our sails and headed on to Trinidad next, not my favorite port-of-call, but I thought it wise to try and make new friends whenever and wherever we could.
The Port of Spain was as we had left it, a horrid, filthy stink-hole. I assembled all hands on deck and reminded them about the penalty for betraying clan secrets and about the price they might pay for a single night’s carnal pleasure - the great pox - and then I let them loose on the population with three days’ liberty. My officers and I spent our time making acquaintances with merchants and traders in town and relaxing at our favorite tavern on the square.
And then one afternoon a man, a man familiar to me, strolled into the tavern. He strolled into the tavern with swagger wearing a fine suit, newly purchased, along with a wide brimmed hat, a distinctive floopy hat adorned with a single, yellow plume. I recognized the dapper gentleman at once. This was the pirate who had attacked my ships off the coast of Cartagena. I kept my face hidden in the shadows and considered how best to kill him.
“What is it, Mary?” Hunter asked after returning to our table carrying two tankards of ale. “Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No ghost, James. I see trouble standing nearby in flesh and blood. That man, the handsome one standing at the bar wearing the expensive apparel and the large hat with the long yellow feather...”
Hunter slowly craned his neck around and glanced over at the bar. “I see him, but I know him not.”
“No, but I do. He’s the dirty rascal who attacked us on our way to the Name of God a few months back.”
“Ah-ha. Shit. Mary, I beg you, start no mischief here. We know nothing about this man or who his pirate friends might be.”
“No worries. You are right, James. We need to study our enemy, understand his strengths and weaknesses before we strike with deadly purpose. I will have my vengeance though.”
“That’s my woman.”
“Am I your woman?”
“You know the answer to that question already.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps, but a woman yearns to hear it.”
“Perhaps if you stood before me naked, without a stitch of clothing on, I might better know how to answer you.”
“Oh? Well then, leave your drink, bring your lust and follow me upstairs. I took a room for us earlier...”
After spending three days in the Port of Spain with nothing to show for our efforts, I recalled my crew and we sailed out to sea with the next outgoing tide. As we headed north for Guadeloupe, we passed by a string of small islands between Madinina and Concepción scattered across the sea like so many gems or pearls. Many of those islands are too small for names, too small for anyone to live on and I had never paid them much mind before. But then I realized that I had been a fool, taken an awful risk, pulling into the Port of Spain with our special cargo still on board. So I decided to find a safe, deserted spot to bury it all until the day came to pay the men their fair shares and spend the rest.
I saw Billy busy tightening down the swivel mounts along the rails for Efendi and called out to him. “Billy, pick us out a lucky island! I intend to bury our gold and silver, keep it safe and hidden away for a rainy day.”
The boy instantly dropped his tools and eagerly climbed up on the main mast shrouds. He shielded his eyes with his hand from the sun’s glare and started searching in earnest for our lucky island.
I relieved the helmsman and took tiller. The ship was handling well and I wanted to relish the moment. The skies were turning overcast and it smelled of rain but the cooler air only invigorated me. And then I saw Hunter scurrying up the fore mast and the image of his naked body, his fine physique, pressed against my own flooded my thoughts. I could feel my cheeks turn flush.
My moment’s secret pleasure was interrupted when Atwood straddled up next to me. “Should I ready the longboats, Mary?”
“Aye, and bring our loot up on deck too. All of it.”
“Straight away, Mary. Should I have one of the lads relieve you at the helm? Will you be goin’ ashore?”
“I think not. You and Hunter see to things. I’m quite content to stay with the ship and rest my weary bones a bit.”
“There, Mum!” Billy called out and pointed excitedly.
The island Billy found for us, a spec of dirt, couldn’t have been much more than one hundred acres across and I wasn’t certain whether it was even on the map. There were scores of small islands all around us, but it was easy to see why Billy had chosen this particular rock. In the center of the island stood a cluster of four palm trees, curving around each other in a most distinctive way as if they were dancing in a circle and embracing. They formed a natural marker.
“Well done, Master Ferrell,” I said. “Jacob, if you and James are of a like mind, that we can find this place again without much effort, then you have my blessing to lower the boats away and you know what to do.”
“With pleasure, Mary.”
I put a man in the chains with a lead line to call out the water’s depth and eased Phantom in as close to land as I dared. At fifty yards or so off shore I gave the order to let go the anchor and the ship came to a graceful stop. The water was crystal clear, clear enough to see the bottom. Schools of colorful fish circled around our anchor, darting in and out of the coral, and I could see countless clams, oysters, lobsters, shrimp, crabs and other sea creatures sitting on or crawling along the seabed.
Hunter and Atwood took two longboats and one small boat, men, shovels and our loot, now packed inside sturdy chests of oak reinforced with iron fittings, and rowed across the gentle surf and over to the beach. Atwood returned an hour later with all the men and the two longboats, leaving Hunter behind to finish drawing a map of the island, or so he said. After Hunter returned in the small boat, we resumed our voyage north.
The next morning our days of easy sailing abruptly ended. The winds suddenly shifted, from west to east to east to west and the swells began to rise and fall with mounting power. I took in the sky and did not like what I saw. The clouds were hanging low and moving fast and started swirling around us in a most peculiar way. The grey sky turned a dull, sickly yellow. And then it started to drizzle with chunks of intermittent hail. I had Billy fetch my sea cape.
“Mary!” Hunter cried out, racing towards me from the main deck as I worked the tiller. He looked none too pleased.
“What is it, James?”
“Nothing good comes out of the east,” he said. “We must prepare ourselves.”
I scanned the horizon in all directions. “You think what blows our way is more than a summer storm?”
Atwood and Efendi, having seen Hunter’s haste to reach me, soon joined us at the helm.
“What is it, Mary?” Atwood asked, alarmed.
“I know not. Ask Hunter.”
Hunter ignored us and kept eyes fixed on the heavens.
Atwood moved next to him and did he same. “James?”
“I pray I am wrong. But this yellow sky, the clouds moving counterclockwise and the hail - I’ve seen this peculiar phenomenon once before.”
“And?” I asked.
“The last time I saw a sky like this a huracán soon followed.”
“A huracán?” I asked, stunned.
“Aye, Mary.”
“What do we do? Come about and make for the Port of Spain? It’s not far off, no more than one hundred leagues away I’m certain.”
“No. If what blows our way is a huracán, we’ll never make it to Trinidad. We must head for open water. We take our chances out at sea in deep water and stay well clear of any land. Otherwise we risk running aground and foundering on one of these damned islands. Then most likely we’ll all drown.”
Out of nowhere a terrific bolt of lightning split the sky open directly above our heads followed an instant later by a horrific clap of thunder. We all froze. The ungodly din raised the hair on the back of my neck and sent a shiver down my spine. The winds picked-up full of rage, whipping the sea into a frothy, angry beast. Our ship pitched and rolled with mounting violence. Soon the light drizzle gave way to showers and the showers abruptly turned into sheets of blinding, stinging rain. We braced ourselves for the worst.
“Jacob, Mustafa, rouse the men, all hands on deck!” I said, nearly screaming to be heard over the wind’s shrill whistle. The awful din was most unsettling. “We set the storm sails, double lash the heavy guns, secure all the hatches and tie anything down that can shift or move.”
“We move out smartly lads,” Hunter added, “and do what Mary says quickly. Then you best remember how to pray to whatever god or gods you favor.”
After Atwood and Efendi spun around and hurried off below to fetch the men, Hunter pulled me into him; he held me tightly and kissed me hard. “With everything I have, with my whole heart, truly I love you, Mary,” he told me as if he were saying goodbye, as if this was the end. Then he raced after the others before I could say a word, before I could even kiss him in return. I’d never seen fear in Hunter’s eyes before. I’d never heard him say farewell.
When Atwood returned he took the tiller from me. The brawny Scot was the strongest man among us by far. He pointed our ship’s nose into the wind and we made for the open sea. And when darkness closed in all around us, when the winds howled so fiercely it hurt our ears, when the ship’s planks and timbers groaned so badly we thought she was breaking-up, we offered up our prayers.
Walls of water assaulted us head-on. After cresting each roller, Phantom nose-dived hard into the bottom of every trough and each time her bow disappeared beneath the waves, I took a deep breath and braced myself for a cold and unhappy end. But then, when Phantom’s bow reemerged from the inky blackness and lurched forward to scale the next high roller, I found my courage again. It was a wet and wild ride.
Hunter, coming from the bow, struggled against the winds and rain to reach the quarter deck and when he made it to my side, he used one arm to hold me firmly around the waist and wrapped the other securely around rail for balance. I knew he wanted me to go below. But I would have none of it. I had not forged my reputation of steel in a world of iron men by cowering out of sight from danger.
Our nao smashed her way through the heaving seas, she fought tenaciously for her crew and my hopes began to rise as the day wore on. But when night fell the storm had more to show us. Towering waves, thirty footers or better, battered us on our starboard flank. Water cascaded over the rails, ruthlessly knocking our poor ship to and fro. Men lost their balance and went flying. Many suffered cuts and bruises and there was a broken bone or two. More than one sailor went down with the mal de mer and spilled his guts. No one slept. I must confess, never have I been more terrified than during those harrowing hours I lived through the raw, awesome fury of the huracán.
When morning broke, when the sun pierced the steel-gray clouds with her shafts of golden light, the winds subsided and the sea turned calm again. I was stunned we had survived. I was amazed Phantom had bludgeoned her way through the tempest intact - a testament to the remarkable skills of her gifted, French craftsmen. We could see the huge and terrifying storm behind us moving off to the north-west, hurrying on in the direction of Hispaniola and I thought of our Spanish friends. I worried about Gilley too.
After making some quick repairs, my weary men and I eased our disheveled ship into Guadeloupe’s small harbor a few days later. The storm had mercifully spared the island. When we set foot on the beach, sailors fell to their knees and kissed the ground. I saw a few men weep.
And when Chief Paka Wokili came out to greet us, I paid him his fair tribute - a fortune to him, a trifling sum to me - and he rewarded me with a grand smile. I had a hard time explaining to the chief though that Henry was not dead, that he had gone off with the fleet to see our fair island across the ocean. We raised our tents along the shore and spent our days in Guadeloupe resting and waiting anxiously for Gilley. For all we knew the huracán had devoured Gilley and all my ships and men.
Two weeks after landing in Guadeloupe, as I was taking my morning stroll along the beach, four handsome vessels, four familiar ships, suddenly appeared through the early morning mist. The ships skimmed across the calm, silvery waters of the bay and dropped anchor next to Phantom. Standing tall on Star’s grand forecastle I saw my greathearted Gilley, a man who was dear to me like a father, waving and smiling at me.
I hurried back to our camp to start breakfast. I gathered all my officers around the fire as the longboats floated in. And as was my custom when we were all reunited, I cooked and served each man as they prepared to tell their stories in turn. Billy sat on a tree stump near us, took out his mandolin and began playing old, Irish folk tunes. He chose sad, wistful lyrics set to haunting melodies, songs that tell the story of our people. He had a soft touch and a strong voice and I saw more than one cheek around our campfire stained with tears.
Gilley slapped his knee and laughed after Hunter and Efendi finished recounting our adventures in the jungles of New Spain. “Whoa, Aztec gold! You actually found it with that wretched, old map of yours, eh James? I was wondering what happened to your hair, Mary! Did we take as much loot as we took from Dowlin?”
“More,” Hunter replied. “How is it you escaped the huracán, Tom?”
“Huracán? We sailed through no huracán. We saw a massive beast a fair distance off to the south. Even so, I’m not too proud to say we swung our ships to the north and ran. Praise God we did. One of the storm’s tentacles reached out and caught us a few hours later. We sailed through heavy seas and waterfalls of rain for a day and a night. You weathered the storm safely on the island I take it?”
“Ha!” Hunter scoffed. “What fun would that be? Mary took us out to sea and sailed us straight through the monster’s heart. She laughed as waves as big as mountains crashed down all around us! We sailed through no mere storm - we sailed through the huracán!”
Gilley looked at me in disbelief. “Good God!”
“You can’t believe everything a sailor says,” I said nonchalantly as I moved around the fire to pour more coffee. “What news in Ireland?”
“The same, more or less,” Gilley answered with a weary sigh. “The English continue settling Ireland like the Spanish are settling the New World - displacing the natives as they do so. And like the Spanish, they are moving in none too gently. There is a lot of bloody fighting, mostly in the south. The Irish lords are slowly, methodically, being crushed by the iron fist of that English usurper sitting on the thrown in London. Then there is the Reformation. The Protestants grow stronger and bolder by the day. The land I saw was not the Ireland I once knew. Ah, but as for business, we were most successful. All four ships are burdened down with Old World finished goods, prime quality too, which should fetch us a pretty penny.”
“You hauled finished goods half way around the world to fetch us a pretty penny you say, old man?” Hunter asked playfully. “That’s your boast? How embarrassing for you! Why we purchased our gold, gold enough to buy a kingdom, at the meager cost of a few mosquito bites and Mary’s shorn hair! Now that my good man is how one turns a handsome profit I’d say!”
Gilley yawned. “I’ve suffered enough of this English braggart. I’ve heard a lot of bold talk about this Aztec gold and silver but have yet to see a single coin or one gold bar.”
“I’d worry far more,” I said sweetly and leaned down to kiss Gilley on his bald head, “if James tries to convince you that we pitched our treasure over the side to appease a cruel god’s temper.”
“To trim the ship,” Hunter interjected, “I only needed to sacrifice Gilley’s share to the blue-maned lord of the sea. Gilley may be poor, but the rest of us will make out quite nicely, Mary.”
We spent the next few days cleaning and repairing our ships and once we had our fleet in fighting trim, we set out for Santo Domingo on the Island of Hispaniola in force. We all agreed it best to keep the fleet together for this journey.
Once we neared Santo Domingo though I took only the Phantom inside the port so as not to make the Spanish nervous. I knew the treasure fleet had to be somewhere nearby in the Caribbean and the Spanish I assumed would be on high alert. We moored our ship underneath the long noses of heavy cannon at Ozama and after a customs agent from the Casa de Contratación came aboard to inspect our empty cargo holds, I took Gilley, Hunter, Atwood and Efendi with me into town to find Cortés.
Santo Domingo was not as we had left it. The town had been ravaged savagely by the huracán. I was saddened to see so much devastation. We saw houses flattened by the storm and many others with walls still standing but no roofs. Ferocious winds had ripped away wood framing, straw and tile. Some homes had simply vanished without a trace. Everywhere we walked we saw debris littering the roads and alleys. We walked past broken chairs and tables, pottery and clothes and countless branches, leaves and fronds. On the edge of town some frightful force had mowed down a swath of trees deep into the jungle. How anyone survived such power seemed a miracle to me.
As luck would have it, we found our friend Cortés at his home on the edge of town. Except for a few minor scratches across his face he seemed uninjured. His house appeared undamaged.
“Mary!” Cortés exclaimed as he met us at the door. He smiled and waved us inside with genuine enthusiasm. We embraced and exchanged kisses on the cheeks. “Praise be God, you are alive and well!”
