Caribbee

by Thomas Hoover

  *

  The sand along the shore of the bay was firm, beaten solid by the squall. The heavy thunderheads that threatened earlier had now blanked the sun, bringing new rain that swept along the darkened shore in hard strokes. Ahead through the gloom he could make out the outlines of his seamen, kegs of water balanced precariously on their shoulders, in an extended line from the thatched-roof warehouse by the careenage at the river mouth down to a longboat bobbing in the surf. After the raid on the Oistins breastwork, he had ordered them di­rectly back to Bridgetown to finish lading. A streak of white cut across the sky, and in its shimmering light he could just make out the Defiance, safely anchored in the shallows, can­vas furled, nodding with the swell.

  Joan. She had said nothing when he asked her to go up and help Katherine. She'd merely glared her disapproval, while ordering the girls to bring her cloak. Joan was saving her thoughts for later, he knew. There'd be more on the sub­ject of Katherine.

  The only sounds now were the pounding of rain along the shore and the occasional distant rumble of thunder. He was so busy watching the men he failed to notice the figure in white emerge from the darkness and move toward his path.

  When the form reached out for him, he whirled and dropped his hand to a pistol.

  "Senhor, desculpe. "

  The rain-mantled shadow curtsied, Portuguese style.

  He realized it was a woman. Briggs' mulata. The one Joan seemed so fond of. Before he could reply, she seized his arm.

  "Faga o favor, senhor, will you help us? I beg you." There was an icy urgency in her touch.

  "What are you doing here?" He studied her, still startled. Her long black hair was coiled across her face in tangled strands, and there were dark new splotches down the front of her white shift.

  "I'm afraid he'll die, senhor. And if he's captured . . ."

  "Who?" Winston tried unsuccessfully to extract his arm from her grasp.

  "I know he wanted to take the guns you have, but they were for us to fight for our freedom. He wished you no harm."

  Good God, so she had been part of it too! He almost laughed aloud, thinking how Benjamin Briggs had been coz­ened by all his slaves, even his half-African mistress. "You mean that Yoruba, Atiba? Tell him he can go straight to hell. Do you have any idea what he had his men do last night?"

  She looked up, puzzled, her eyes still pleading through the rain.

  "No, I don't suppose you could." He shrugged. "It scarcely matters now. But his parting words were an offer to kill me, no more than a few hours ago. So I say damned to him."

  "He is a man. No more than you, but no less. He was born free; yet now he is a slave. His people are slaves." She paused, and when she did, a distant roll of thunder melted into the rain. "He did what he had to do. For his people, for me."

  "All he and his 'people' managed was to help the Commonwealth bring this island to its knees."

  "How? Because he led the Yoruba in a revolt against slavery?" She gripped his arm even tighter. "If he helped defeat the planters, then I am glad. Perhaps it will be the end of slavery after all."

  Winston smiled sadly. "It's only the beginning of that ac­cursed trade. He might have stopped it—who knows?—if he'd won. But he lost. So that's the end of it. For him, for Barba­dos."

  "But you can save him." She tugged Winston back as he tried to brush past her. "I know you are leaving. Take him with you."

  "He belongs to Briggs." He glanced back. "Same as you do. There's nothing I can do about it. Right now, I doubt good master Briggs is of a mind to do anything but hang him."

  "Then if his life has no value to anyone here, take him as a free man."

  A web of white laced across the thunderhead. In its light he could just make out the tall masts of the Defiance, waving against the dark sky like emblems of freedom.

  God damn you, Benjamin Briggs. God damn your island of slaveholders.

  "Where is he?"

  "Derin has hidden him, not too far from here. When Atiba fainted from the loss of blood, he brought him up there." She turned and pointed toward the dark bulk of the island. "In a grove of trees where the branco could not find him. Then he came to me for help."

  "Who's this Derin?"

  "One of the Yoruba men who was with him."

  "Where're the others? There must've been a dozen or so over at Oistins this morning."

  "Some were killed near there. The others were captured. Derin told me they were attacked by the militia. Atiba only escaped because he fainted and Derin carried him to safety. The others stayed to fight, to save him, and they were taken."

  Her voice cracked. "I heard Master Briggs say the ones who were captured, Obewole and the others, would be burned alive tomorrow."

  "Burned alive!"

  "All the planters have agreed that is what they must do. It is to be made the punishment on Barbados for any slave who revolts, so the rest of the Africans will always fear the branco. "

  "Such a thing would never be allowed on English soil."

  "This is not your England, senhor. This is Barbados. Where slavery has become the lifeblood of all wealth. They will do it."

  "Bedford would never allow . . ." He stopped, and felt his heart wrench. "Good Christ. Now there's no one to stop them. Damn these bloodthirsty Puritans." He turned to her. "Can you get him down here? Without being seen?"

  "We will try."

  "If you can do it, I'll take him."

  "And Derin too?"

  "In for a penny, in for a pound." His smile was bitter. "Pox on it. I'll take them both."

  "Senhor." She dropped to her knees. "Tell me how I can thank you."

  "Just be gone. Before my boys get wind of this." He pulled her to her feet and glanced toward the rain-swept line of seamen carrying water kegs. "They'll not fancy it, you can be sure. I've got worries enough as is, God knows."

  "Muito, muito obrigada, senhor." She stood unmoving, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  "Just go." He stepped around her and moved on down the shore, toward the moored longboat where the men were working. Now John Mewes was standing alongside, mini­mally supervising the seamen as they stacked kegs. Mingled with his own men were several of the Irish indentures.

  "Damn this squall, Cap'n. We'll not be able to get underway till she lets up. It's no weather for a Christian to be at sea, that I promise you."

  "I think it's apt to ease up around nightfall." He checked the clouds again. "What're we needing?"

  "Once we get this laded, there'll be water aboard and to spare." He wiped the rain from his eyes and glanced at the sky. "God knows the whole of the island's seen enough water to float to sea.'Tis salt pork we're wanting now, and biscuit."

  "Can we get any cassava flour?"

  "There's scarcely any to be had. The island's half starved, Cap'n."

  "Did you check all the warehouses along here?"

  "Aye, we invited ourselves in and rifled what we could find. But there's pitiful little left, save batches of moldy to­bacco waitin' to be shipped."

  "Damn. Then we'll just have to sail with what we've got." Winston turned and stared down the shore. There had not been any provisions off-loaded from Europe since the fleet arrived. There were no ships in the harbor now, save the Defiance and the Zeelander.

  The Zeelander.

  "When's the last time you saw Ruyters?"

  "This very mornin', as't happens. He came nosing by to enquire how it was we're afloat, and I told him it must've been the tide lifted her off." Mewes turned and peered through the rain toward the Dutch frigate. "What're you thinking?"

  "I'm thinking he still owes me a man, a Spaniard by the name of Vargas, which I've yet to collect."

  "That damned Butterbox'll be in no mood to accommo­date you, I swear it."

  "All the same, we made a bargain. I want you and some of the boys to go over and settle it." He thumbed at the Zeelander, lodged in the sand not two hundred yards down the beach. "In the meantime, I have to go back up to Joan's and collect . . . a few
things. Why don't you try and find Ruyters? Get that Spaniard, however you have to do it, and maybe see if he'll part with any of their biscuit."

  "Aye, I'll tend to it." He turned to go.

  "And John . . ." Winston waved him back.

  "Aye."

  "We may be having some company before we weigh an­chor. Remember that Yoruba we caught on board a few nights back?"

  "Aye, I recollect the heathen well enough. I've not seen him since, thank God, though some of the lads claim there was one up at Oistins this mornin' who sounded a lot like him."

  "Same man. I've a mind to take him with us, and maybe another one. But don't say anything to the boys. Just let him on board if he shows up."

  "You're the captain. But I'd sooner have a viper between decks as that godless savage. They're sayin' he and a bunch of his kind gutted a good dozen Englishmen this mornin' like they was no better'n so many Spaniards."

  "Well, that's done and past. Just see he gets on board and the boys keep quiet about it."

  "They'll not be likin' it, by my life."

  "That's an order."

  "Aye." Mewes turned with a shrug, whistled for some of the seamen, then headed through the rain, down the shore toward the beached hulk of the Zeelander.