The Best of Kage Baker

by Kage Baker

  Then he was too scared to think about gold or anything else but fighting off the Spanish who came at him. John was a big fellow, with fists like round shot, and thick arms. He’d been transported for killing a man in a tavern fight, without meaning to; only the man had been snarling drunk and come at him with a blade. John had been fearful of his life and just whaled away at the bugger until he’d stopped moving. So you may guess that John, now armed and even more fearful, cut down the Spanish before him like summer corn.

  He stumbled over bodies. A musket-ball creased his scalp and tore his hat away, and he scarcely noticed. His ears were ringing, all sound seemed muffled, and his right arm ached something fierce from beating, and beating, and beating down with the cutlass.

  He reached the far rail at last, gasping, and turned to put it at his back—and saw, to his surprise, that there were no Spanish left standing.

  There was fighting going on belowdecks. He went to the companionway and peered down cautiously. Blades ringing, kicking, scuffling—a shrieked curse and a shot, and then Beason was coming up the companionway toward him, laughing, wiping his blade.

  “We got ’em all,” he said.

  ***

  Captain Stalwin came aboard with the Martin Luther’s clerk to take inventory of the galleon’s cargo. It was rice and logwood and salt, and some crates of chinaware in a blue pattern of little heathen men and temples. Profitable enough, if you were of a mind to play the merchant and unload the stuff in certain quiet coves, waiting for the smugglers to turn up and have a good haggle.

  Nothing a man could weight down a purse with, though, or spend in an hour on rum and sweet companionship; no good chinking coin. A certain sour reek of disappointment began to hang over the deck, above the smells of black powder and death. There were murmurings from the crew, as they set about pitching the dead and wounded overboard. Captain Stalwin emerged from the galleon’s hold with a disbelieving look.

  “We’ll search again,” he said. “Tear out the bulkheads. There’ll be pearls here, or gold bars, or silver, only it’s hidden. It must be! My luck’s changed. I felt it spin round like a compass-needle, when that son of a whore’s pistol misfired. Ned Stalwin’s luck’s blowing out of a different quarter now, and our fortune’s on this damned ship!’

  “It is, senor,” said a voice from somewhere down near his feet. “But not in the way you imagine.”

  John looked down with the rest of them, to see one of the Spanish propping himself on his elbow, smiling a little as he peered up at Captain Stalwin. He had taken a stab in the gut, and was cut above his right eye, so that he smiled through a mask of blood, and his teeth were pink with it. He spat blood now, but politely, away from Captain Stalwin’s boots.

  “I swear upon the Cross that I will make you a wealthy man. All I ask is a drink of water, and the grace of leisure to expire before you consign my body to the sea.”

  Captain Stalwin fingered his beard, uncertainty in his eyes. Beason prodded the dying man with his boot, in case he should be hiding a dagger. “Liar,” he said.

  “Senor, I am about to go before God. Would I lie and damn my mortal soul? What I said, I said in truth,” said the man. He reached into his shirt and dragged forth something that winked green and golden in the pitiless sunlight. He kissed it and then held it out to Captain Stalwin, snapping the chain on which it had been worn. The chain was soft gold, with the links curiously worked, and it trailed after his gift, which was a crucifix.

  Beason whistled. He glanced over his shoulder at the others on deck. John leaned close to see. He took the cross to be made of green glass at first, a faceted rod and the two arms held together with gold work, and the little crucified Christ and the INRI sign in gold. Captain Stalwin seized it, his hand shaking.

  “Emeralds,” he said.

  “Very pretty,” said Beason. “But it won’t come to much when it’s divided up into shares, will it? Have you got any more?”

  The man smiled again, and blood ran from the corner of his mouth. “I will tell you where to find them. Water first.”

  So the Captain yelled for water. A cask was brought up and broached, with a drink dippered out for the dying man. He lay his head back and sighed, and asked for a chart. More yelling, then, and hasty searching in the galleon’s great cabin before a chart was found and brought up to them, with Captain Stalwin sweating all the while lest the bastard should die first.

  When the chart was held before his eyes, the man peered at it a long moment. He looked about helplessly, as though searching for a pen; then giggled, and dabbed his finger in his own blood, and daubed a spot south of Tobago.

  “There,” he said. “San Cucao. Two hills rising out of the sea. You will find there the mine from which these emeralds came, senor. Very rich mine. Emeralds green as the jungle.”

  Captain Stalwin licked his lips. “And is it garrisoned?”

  The Spaniard smiled again. “Only with the dead. The island was my brother’s, and mine; he died six weeks ago, and I was his heir. Now you are mine. All the island holds, I bequeath to you freely, God be my witness.”

  “Lying bugger,” said Beason.

  Captain Stalwin drew breath, and looked around. He gave sharp orders that the men should get busy moving the galleon’s cargo into the Martin Luther. John rose and labored with the rest of them, up and down, back and forth, hauling the kegs of salt and the sacks of rice, hefting the logwood. As he went to and fro he would glance over, now and then, at where Captain Stalwin crouched on the deck and conversed with the Spaniard. He only caught a few phrases of their speech together; but every other man of the crew was doing the same as John.

  In the days afterward they talked it over amongst themselves, in the night watches or belowdecks, and put together enough scraps of what each man had heard to flesh out the Spaniard’s story, which was:

  That he and his brother were somebodies in Cartagena, rich in land and Indian slaves, but poor otherwise in their generation. That some ten years since his brother, Don Emidio, having had occasion to travel, was shipwrecked on this little island of San Cucao. It had a spring of fresh water, and enough of the wreck landed for this Don Emidio to live on some few preserved stores while he built himself a raft. When he wasn’t working on the raft he would explore the island; and there he found emeralds sticking out of a bluff where the earth had fallen away.

  He carried some with him when he put off from the island. When he got home, he took his brother into his confidence. They resolved to go back to the island and mine the emeralds.

  Being Spaniards as they were, they did it in proper Spanish fashion, with servants to wait on them and a friar to say the Mass for them, and Indian slaves to labor for them. The overseers cracked their whips, the Indians set to work with picks and mattocks, and soon the brothers had a prince’s ransom in fine emeralds, with plenty more still winking out of the earth.

  But then, the Indians had all taken sick with the Black Pox. The brothers were supping on board their ship when they heard the news, shouted from the shore. They resolved to flee, leaving the workers there, taking only those servants on board when the news came. They’d a coffer full of emeralds to console them. Only their friar objected; he took a boat and rowed himself ashore, that he might tend the dying and harvest their souls for God.

  The brothers agreed to wait seven years before returning to the island, by which time the contagion might reasonably be supposed to have blown away. This was, the Spaniard had said, the seventh year, and the wealth from the emeralds they had carried away with them was now long gone. His brother being dead, he had planned to find a patron to fund his journey back.

  Well, as the only patron he found rode a pale horse, he bought him another journey entirely. With the story told, the Spaniard murmured an Act of Contrition and died grinning. Captain Stalwin relieved him of his rings and a fine pearl that had dangled from his ear, and ordered him pitched into the sea.

  ***

  “They say Drake brought back such emeralds,” sa
id Perkin, as he gazed up at the stars. “Like big sticks of sugar candy, and green as…as the green in a church window.”

  “I seen some like that, once,” said Collyer. “I was with Mansvelt when he took the Santa Cruz. There was a statue of one of their saints, all painted like, and stuck all over with precious stones. The emeralds was the biggest. I remember, there was one big as a medlar.”

  “Liar,” said Beason. “And that Spaniard was a liar, too. We’re sailing straight for some Spanish garrison with big guns, you mark me.”

  Jessup only shook his head, but John said: “Why would the fellow lie, with him dying?”

  “Because we sliced his liver,” said Beason. “Wouldn’t you be spiteful, if it was you?”

  “I’d fret more about the Black Pox,” said Cooper. “Belike he was hoping we’d catch it. It’s fearful way to die.”

  “I had the smallpox,” said John. “Is it like that?”

  “The same, only worse. Your skin turns black and bursts.”

  “No fear,” said Collyer. “There’s a keg of vinegar below, and a chest of sweet herbs, taken off that galleon; lavender-flowers and such, that the dons use to perfume their beards. We mix them up with the vinegar and make us pomanders to smell, and we’ll keep hale and sound on that island.”

  “Captain’s on deck,” muttered Perkin. They fell silent, as Captain Stalwin came up the companionway. He looked at the stars, and drew a deep breath. Then he went to the rail and watched south a while. The green phosphorescence foamed and boiled in the bow-wake, and reflected in his glittering eyes.

  ***

  San Cucao was just as the Spaniard had said it was, two hills in the sea, poking up steep. It was cliffs most of the way around, with only one bit of shingle beach for a landing. They were able to moor the Martin Luther quite close, and from her deck could see the signs that men had been there once; a bit of an overgrown trail leading into the interior, and some stone huts or walls.

  Captain Stalwin gave orders that arms should be served out, so the crew grabbed up cutlasses and muskets readily enough. Collyer ran below and fetched up the preventative he’d mixed from the vinegar, and made each man take a strip of sailcloth and dip it in the reeking stuff. They tied them round their wrists, or stuck them under their hats, muttering about the smell.

  All this while there wasn’t a sound from the island, baking in the bright sun of noonday; not the cry of a bird, not the call of a monkey, not the drone of a single cicada in its long grass. Its green trees drooped as though asleep.

  Silent too the Martin Luther’s crew went ashore, with Captain Stalwin leading them, and only a couple of men left on board. No breath of wind, either; John was soaked with sweat by the time they had walked up the beach, and come to the verge where the jungle began, a sort of overgrown meadow. He looked around him uneasily, thinking that all the quiet reminded him of a churchyard. Then he caught sight of a stone cross.

  “It is a churchyard,” he blurted out.

  “What?” Captain Stalwin turned. John pointed at the cross. They all stood staring, and now they saw that the humps and hummocks in the vines and long grass were gravestones, grown over here and there, and knew the roofless ruin at the far end must be a chapel.

  Jessup reached out and pulled the creepers back from the stone cross. It had a long inscription on it. Jessup, who knew some Spanish, read out: “‘Sacred to the memory of Alessandro, born a pagan, in his extremity embraced Christ. A better Christian than his masters.’”

  “Here’s another one,” said Cooper, clearing another stone. This was a cross surmounted by a skull, cut rudely. Jessup leaned down and read:

  “‘Diego, who became a faithful Christian. Suffered the torments of Hell on this earth, now in glorious repose in Paradise. When all are judged, his cruel masters will beg for a drop of water from his hand, in the flames where they burn.’”

  They moved slowly across the meadow, reading carefully, and every few paces uncovered another gravestone. John noticed that they got bigger, the farther down the row they went, and more crudely cut. Jessup read them out, one after another:

  “‘Baltasar, obedient Christian, betrayed and left to die by Christians who do not deserve the name. Departed this vale of sorrow aged no more than 11 years. Angels carried him up. Devils will drag his masters down.’

  “‘Juan, humblest of Christians, endured the scourge and lash without complaint, and who for his obedience was left for dead in his hour of affliction. God sees! All the horrors of the Pit will be inflicted on the brothers Claveria.’

  “‘Narciso, exchanged the sweat and toil of this world for the heavenly kingdom after taking the Blessed Sacrament. He suffered greatly before he died. I had nothing left with which to comfort him. They are damned, both of them, for false and heartless vipers.’

  “‘Francisco lies here. God be thanked he went quickly and could not see at the end. His soul is with God. Whose ways cannot be comprehended.’

  “‘Timoteo, Christian. Why was this permitted, O Lord?’”

  As they went to look at the last stone, a great rough slab on which the writing was chiseled carelessly, John put his foot down and felt nothing there to support him. He yelled as he toppled over, dropping his cutlass. Jessup and Beason caught him, and set him on his feet again, pulling him clear of the open grave: for that was what it was, screened over with gourd vines.

  Perkin meanwhile had stepped carefully across and pulled the creepers back from the headstone.

  “What’s this one say?”

  Jessup turned and peered at it. “‘Brother Casildo Fernandez Molina. Traveler, have the kindness to cover my bones with earth, as you would hope your bones will rest. I bear witness to the perfidy of Don Emidio Claveria Martinez and Don Benecio Claveria Martinez. They are traitors to God. They will suffer and die cruelly, as they left us to die. I bear witness. I am God’s hand in—’”

  The letters, big angry block capitals, ran right off the edge of the stone.

  “But the grave’s empty,” said Perkin, looking in.

  There was an uneasy silence while they all considered that.

  “Maybe he got rescued before he died,” said John. Captain Stalwin shrugged.

  “Dead or alive, he’s no enemy of ours. Didn’t we do for one of ’em? It’s a judgment of God, ain’t it?” He raised his voice. “Don Benecio, he es muerto! Savvy?”

  Nobody answered him.

  “We cut his liver open!” shouted Collyer.

  “Threw his body in the sea without one prayer!” shouted Cooper.

  “Bugger this,” said Beason, and stepped warily past the grave to the ruins beyond. “Look! This was his chapel.”

  It had been a building of unmortared stone, thatched with palm leaves, but they had fallen in years since and were scattered everywhere. A rough-hewn wooden cross had fallen too, and lay worm-riddled at the far end. Maybe the place had served as Brother Casildo’s workshop too; broken iron tools lay rusting where they had been dropped, and fragments of cut stone.

  When they had poked about long enough to learn there was nothing useful for them there, they came out, and Captain Stalwin spotted the track that led away from the beach into the jungle. It was swift vanishing in green, but it was there.

  “I’d reckon the mines’d be this way,” he said. “Perkin, go before. Cut the creepers back as we go.”

  “And be mindful of that friar,” said Cooper, looking uneasily over his shoulder.

  So they followed the track, and the sun beat down, and the sound of the sea grew fainter. John was looking all around as he walked, with his cutlass held up before him, and sniffing now and then at his little strip of sailcloth. His mother had told him once that if you got the smallpox and didn’t die of it, you need never fear it again; but that had been in Hackney. Out here, the old rules never seemed to apply.

  It was all silent now on the path, but for the ring and hiss of Perkin’s cutlass slicing through the overgrowth. The noise had taken on a comfortable sort of rhythm l
ike music, so they were taken by surprise rather when Perkin suddenly yelled and toppled backward into Jessup.

  “What is it?”

  “Is it a snake?”

  “Back! Back!” said Perkin, who had gone white. “Trap!”

  They all staggered back a few paces, and spread out on the path to get a look at what they had narrowly missed walking into. There were creepers dragged craftily across the path. When they’d been green and fresh with the broad leaves spread out they might indeed have concealed what lay below; but they were long dead and withered, and showed clear that someone had dug a little pit in the midst of the track.

  “That ain’t enough to hurt anybody,” said Cooper in scorn, but Perkin pointed a shaking finger at the beam that was laid to one side, with one end projecting out across the pit. He’d come close to putting his foot down on the end of the beam. If he had, his foot had pushed the end on the beam down into the pit, levering up the beam’s other end. And the beam’s other end—

  They followed it with their eyes, silent to a man. The long beam was arranged over a fulcrum of cut stone. If its seesaw had gone up, it would have smacked away a bit of wood above it…which was supporting another bit of wood…which was supporting another…and so on, up the steep hillside to the great pile of stones carefully arranged to thunder down on the path if they were dislodged.

  “Jesus Bleeding Christ,” said Cooper.

  “He was a good stonecutter, that friar,” said Jessup, with a sick kind

  of laugh.

  “But he didn’t catch us. Didn’t I tell you my luck had changed?” said Captain Stalwin. “Two shares to you, Perkin, for sharp eyes. We’ll go on, and every man minds his God-damned feet, and watch close lest there’s anything else.”

  John thought about the friar, left all alone here after the last of the Indians died, and how he must have wandered around in the jungle getting crazier and crazier, setting traps for the two brothers, babbling Latin-talk, nothing left for him but the thirst for vengeance. Was he watching them even now? He’d be emaciated, his priestly robe in rags. Maybe he was lying in wait just around the next bend in the trail, eager to garrote somebody with his rosary beads…