Diablero

by Toby Tate

  Hunter made his way up the winding stairs to the second floor and Jason’s office. Finding the door open, he strode in and saw Jason Summerfield clicking away with his mouse on his desktop Mac, oblivious to his arrival.

  The walls were lined with books on every subject, from piracy to antique furniture, glass collecting, and even scuba diving. On one freshly painted wall were Jason’s degrees from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. A painting of Blackbeard’s flagship—the Queen Anne’s Revenge, cannons firing at a long forgotten enemy—hung on a facing wall. A small mountain of papers cluttered Jason’s desk. The papers were anchored with a paperweight that looked uncannily like a miniature, gray skull.

  After a few seconds, Jason looked up, surprised to see Hunter watching him.

  “How long have you been standing there?” he asked.

  “Long enough. What‘s the big news? Is it a mummy or a vampire we’re dealing with here?”

  “Very funny. Here, pull up a chair.”

  Though they were both in their early thirties, the two men could not have been more different. Jason was tall, with short, blonde hair, and decidedly Scandinavian features, which contrasted with Hunter’s shorter frame and darker Native American heritage. With his knack for speaking perfect diction, Jason gave the impression of being the quintessential college professor. He was in shape, as well, spending at least an hour a day at the gym before work, and as progressive in his politics as Hunter was traditional.

  Despite these differences, however, and the fact that Jason and Lisa had once had a fling back in their college years, the two somehow got along as well as any two could, managing to become friends over the years. As people went, Hunter thought, there couldn’t have been a bigger bore or a nicer guy. Not the worst combination.

  Hunter also knew that his friend was very, very smart and very good at his job of recreating history. Hopefully, he would be able to shed some light on the craziness of the last few days.

  He pushed an intricately-carved, antique wooden chair up next to Jason and sat. “Okay, Jason, what are we looking at, here?”

  An animated skeleton appeared on the black screen, running across an invisible landscape, surrounded by skulls that appeared to be laughing and which were partially obscured by smoke. Above all this were the words The Death Defier.

  “Wow, that looks evil,” Hunter said.

  “You could say that. The Death Defier was, or is, a being that is addicted to life. He keeps his life by receiving energy from other people, usually shamans, or practitioners of the black arts, who provide him with human sacrifices. How he gets this energy is unclear, but I believe it’s probably not a pleasant experience for the unfortunate donors. According to legend, the Death Defier has been around for thousands of years, maybe as long as humankind itself, walking the earth and biding its time.”

  “Biding its time for what?”

  “Well, that nobody really knows. But I believe the wait may soon be over.”

  “On the phone you asked if I had ever heard of Diablero. What’s that got to do with the Death Defier?”

  Jason turned back to the monitor and clicked on one of the links. Another screen appeared.

  “Well, Diablero, or Obeah, are other names for the Death Defier,” he continued, “and the name by which he was known by many of his students at the time of the Spanish Conquistadors.”

  “Students?”

  “Yes. In return for energy, the Death Defier provided secrets to many of the shamans, giving them even more power to do their evil magic and control their followers, perhaps to gain wealth.”

  “Okay, I think I’m with you so far. So my next question is what does all this have to do with our psycho? You think he’s the Death Defier?”

  “Not exactly. You’re really going to think I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Too late for that.”

  “Well, I believe that at some point, the Death Defier had made his way to the American Colonies and had amassed somewhat of a following among those of ill repute, mainly pirates. I think that at some point in the early eighteenth century, one of those students decided that learning the tricks wasn’t enough; he wanted to be the teacher. He wanted to be a Death Defier himself. So somehow, he found a way to not only kill the Death Defier, but steal his power as well.”

  “So wait a minute. Are you telling me that this guy running around decapitating people is a descendent of one of these shamans or students?”

  Jason turned to face Hunter. “No. I‘m telling you he is one of the students.”

  “Yeah, you‘re right, I do think you’re crazy.” There was a moment of silence while the gears turned inside Hunter’s head. “Okay, let’s suppose for argument’s sake it was an actual student who has been alive for three centuries. Where has he been hiding and what has he been doing with his time?”

  “I believe I know who this person was when he was alive. In fact, I have read historical documents that prove it almost conclusively. He’s been buried in Ocracoke Bay under tons of sand and silt since 1718.”

  “The Death Defier was buried under tons of sand and silt? I think you’re starting to lose me again.”

  Hunter got up from his chair and began to pace the room, then turned to look at Jason. “Okay, enlighten me with your wisdom. Who do you believe our illustrious psycho Death Defier to be?”

  “It could only be one person, someone who put fear into the hearts of nearly every man, woman, and child in not only the American colonies, but England and the West Indies, as well. Someone who lost his head in a bloody battle aboard an English sloop off the coast of Ocracoke Island almost three hundred years ago.”

  Hunter’s jaw went slack as they stared at each other. Then Hunter spoke the name almost reverently, quietly as a whisper.

  “Blackbeard.”

  Eighteen

  Hunter sat in stunned silence, trying to come to terms with Jason’s revelation. Blackbeard the pirate was alive in the twenty-first century and making his way up the coast of North Carolina for Virginia to do…what?

  “Okay, Jason, you make a good case, though I still find the whole thing unbelievable. I mean, a man from the eighteenth century alive today? It’s just…well, impossible. And why now?”

  Jason straightened in his chair, placing his hands on his knees and looked at Hunter. “Ah, yes, the hows and the whys. I’m glad you asked, because I am prepared, my friend.”

  Jason rose from his chair and crossed over to one of the bookshelves adorning the large office. Hunter eyed his back, wondering what the man would come up with next.

  Jason reached out and fingered several newer books, then stopped on a decidedly older volume and gently slid it from its place. He turned and walked back to Hunter, seating himself on the edge of the desk next to him, then opened the book and began thumbing through it, searching for something.

  “Here it is,” he said after a few seconds. “This book was written by one of the descendants of Blackbeard’s original crew aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge. He told the story of the voyages Blackbeard took after being pardoned by Governor Eden in 1717.”

  Jason prided himself on his knowledge of the age of piracy, and was considered an expert on the life of Blackbeard. He had managed over the years to acquire written materials, including original documents signed by Governor Eden himself, and rare books, many of which were never known to exist, such as the one he now held.

  “What many people don’t know, and Blackbeard never spoke of, was the fact that after he was pardoned and had decided to make a life for himself in Bath, he met a man he called The Teacher. Apparently, this man was very, very old and had seen things and been places that staggered the imagination. He told tales of watching the construction of the pyramids and of the Peloponnesian Wars, things that no one in the eighteenth century could have seen. He spoke in strange riddles and had dreams of things that would come to pass. This man gathered a large following—mostly pirates like Blackbeard and his crewmen—and made the
m his disciples. They gathered wherever they could, and learned magic and listened to stories of centuries gone by. According to this book, the Teacher had the power to shape-shift and become anyone or anything he desired. He was also able to control his environment, move things at will, cause inanimate things to come alive…”

  “Sounds familiar,” Hunter said.

  “Unfortunately, the Teacher, in order to maintain his existence, needed energy, and this energy could only come from one place—other living beings, mainly humans. They would place the victim, usually a wandering vagrant or a prostitute, even homeless children, upon a stone altar at some undisclosed location deep in the swamp and decapitate them with a cutlass. The Teacher would capture the escaping spirit, so the story goes, and reenergize himself with it.”

  “Lovely. So what happened to this Teacher?”

  “Edward Teach, or Blackbeard, figured if he killed the Teacher, he would be able to catch his spirit and become a Death Defier himself. I believe that Teach probably crept up on The Teacher as he was sleeping, which the Teacher rarely did, and cut off his head. The rest, as they say, is history. Blackbeard went back to pirating and became even more fearsome. Then he met Captain Maynard of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.”

  “That’s the guy who killed Blackbeard, right?”

  “Maynard was the only person who knew what Blackbeard really was, and how to kill him.”

  “How exactly did he know that?”

  Jason shrugged. “People told stories, and the stories got back around to Maynard. Unlike many people, though, Maynard took them seriously.”

  Nineteen

  Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina

  November 22, 1718

  It was a good day for killing a demon.

  The orange ball of sun crept up over the horizon, splashing the high, thin clouds with hues of red and gold. The Atlantic Ocean lay below, spread out like a green blanket, giving no hint of the life that teemed beneath it. Swells of water rose and fell like miniature mountains and valleys, gently rocking the two wooden vessels that dimpled its vast surface. The wind blew cold, sending up a fine salt spray that slowly cocooned everything like a million busy silkworms. Seagulls squawked overhead, indifferent but watchful, floating on gusts of wind as if hanging from invisible threads.

  The beaches of what would one day be known as Ocracoke Island did their best to hold back the sea that lapped their shores. Small sanderlings chased tiny crabs to and fro in the wet sand, oblivious to the battle about to take place just offshore.

  The irony of a beautiful sunrise on this day was not lost on Captain Robert Maynard. Thinking of what lay ahead, his stomach knotted like a clenched fist. His mouth was dry as dirt and the cold wind bit into his skin like stinging horseflies, only heightening his apprehension. Seamen in stocking caps and breeches groggily made their way to various parts of the flagship to perform their duties, hoping the mundane repetition of their tasks would somehow distract the shadow of death that hovered nearby. But the captain of the Royal Navy, commanding a small armada of only two sloops and a hundred men, dared not show fear, for he knew to do so could jeopardize the confidence of his crew, and that he could not afford.

  His eyes watered and burned from the cold as he watched the first mate bark orders to lower a rowboat into the water. The ship swayed in the current, wooden beams creaking as the waves lapped against the side. Though the ship was small, it dwarfed the boat being let down by ropes into the sea. The captain looked to the south over the shoreline of the island, his hands behind him in silent repose. In the distance he could see the main mast of a sloop, the Adventure.

  Maynard was still a young man, but the years of salt-sea air and relentless sun had aged his skin like tanned leather. He had not been home for some time, and though this particular job would likely prove difficult, he would see it through to the bitter end, and perhaps return home a hero.

  Maynard turned as the boat lowered into the water. The wind blew his long ponytail, trying its best to blow the tri-cornered hat off his head. The sun rose yet another foot over the sea, causing him to squint. The boat splashed down into the frigid water. A few of the crew selected for the journey eyed the first mate.

  “Off with you, then,” he growled.

  The three men obediently turned and crawled through the rigging, unfurling a rope ladder down the side, then climbed in succession over the rail and down into the small dingy. Two men topside passed pistols and a sounding line to the men in the boat, and then cast off the lines holding it. They bumped against the side of the sloop, splashing seawater inside as one of the sailors manned the oars and turned toward the shoreline.

  Twenty

  Caesar smiled, shaking his head as he listened to the four men joking inside the captain’s quarters of the Adventure. The loud, slurred speech of drunken conversation was punctuated by raucous bouts of laughter. He continued swabbing the wooden main deck outside, singing to himself an old song his mother taught him when he was a boy.

  Where’re you bound? Bound for Canaan land,

  O, you must not lie, you must not steal, you must not take God’s name in vain, I’m bound for Canaan land.

  Your horse is white, your garment is bright, you look like a man of war,

  Raise up your head with courage bold, for your race is almost run.

  Caesar, his mother, father, and nine brothers and sisters had all lived on a large plantation in a one-room, dirt-floored shack in Georgia, working from sun-up until sun-down in the tobacco fields of a man named Jefferson. The work was hard, sometimes backbreaking, and the elements were not kind. The sun was like a torch that slowly roasted their skin. Their hands became raw and tobacco-stained from the constant picking of leaves, and their feet ached from walking the endless rows day after day. Those who were too young to work in the fields did other chores around the house and plantation, such as cooking, cleaning, pruning trees, and anything else that needed doing.

  Of course, Caesar—who his mother named after the great Roman emperor, a man revered and feared by many—was the eldest and the smartest. His job was also the hardest, because he was, as his daddy would say in his broken Igbo/English, “The prince and successor to this great kingdom.” Meaning that when daddy was gone, Caesar would be the man of the house. Somehow his father had known that life was not only hard, it would likely be short. Stolen from his mother in Africa by his own people and sold to a white man in a strange land, Caesar’s father was all the boy desperately did not want to be: enslaved by man and cursed by God.

  His mother and father were married by Mr. Jefferson’s red-faced Lutheran preacher after his mother was purchased by the farmer for a large amount of tobacco. In his own way, Mr. Jefferson was a good man. He was born on American soil to a wealthy land owner, and inherited the plantation. The farmer was not keen on slavery, but found it necessary to run the huge plantation, and to keep the political peace. He even thought about setting Caesar’s father free at one time, but instead opted to find him a good wife. Companionship could not be denied a man, no matter the color of his skin or status of life. That was his belief.

  When Caesar was sixteen years old, his father died of heart failure, working in the fields on a hot summer day. Mr. Jefferson held a small service for Caesar’s father, attended by all ten children and their mother, along with a few other local slaves. He was placed in a casket purchased by the farmer, and prayed over by the Lutheran preacher. The two eldest boys, Caesar and Thomas, dug the grave in the back forty of the plantation and laid their father to rest the very next day. There were no tears.

  When he was eighteen, Caesar ran away and headed for what would later become North Carolina. There, he met up with an old pirate named Israel Hands, who had been looking for a crew to man a newly acquired fleet of ships. Hands, a surly man resplendent in breeches, waistcoat, bucket boots, and tri-cornered hat, told Caesar stories of the sea and of vast riches in exotic, faraway lands. Caesar knew almost immediately that he had finally found his calling: piracy. No one
cared whether you were white or black, free or slave, male or female, only if you had courage and the ability to handle a pistol and a swab. Later, Caesar would learn the art of the cutlass, how to man a sail, how to chart a course by the stars, how to plunder and how to intimidate. And he would learn from the best: Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard the Pirate.

  Caesar finished swabbing the foc’sle, picked up the swab and laid it over his shoulder, then grabbed the bucket. He stepped down onto the main deck and began to make his way aft when he noticed something on the horizon.

  The main masts of two ships were moving in their direction. Leading the way was a rowboat.

  Twenty-one

  Seaman Galloway looked in awe at the pirate sloop as it loomed ever closer, her eight cannons peeking out of its side like huge snakes poised to spit deadly venom. The rowboat seemed like a toy.

  Galloway took the cap off his head, scratched his scalp, and slipped the hat back on. “Do you think they see us? They must have spotted us by now.”

  “Aw, stop your worrying. Even if they see us, they won’t fire on a bloody rowboat!” hissed the bosun.

  Galloway eyed the bosun incredulously, and then looked again at the great sloop, now close enough to see the Adventure crudely lettered in white on the side of its wooden hull. He could hear the faintest sound of laughter, as if the men on board were flaunting their contempt for authority, partying and carrying on like Nero while Rome burned to the ground.

  Galloway picked up the sounding line and dropped the plumb bob until it hit bottom, marked the line, and brought it back up. He looked at the line thoughtfully, then announced, “Only about three fathoms, but she can make it.”

  The bosun signaled the great warship following behind, showing the way to traverse safely through the shallow waters.