Only Life That Mattered

by Nelson, James L.

  “I might yet.”

  The festivities carried on late into the night and one by one the good people of Caibarién drifted away until at last there were only a few of the rougher sort left, along with the buccaneers, well into their cups, and the very weary Abuelito De Jesús.

  At last Anne announced with finality, “Jack, dear, it is time we were off to bed,” and obediently Jack stood and they followed Abuelito back to the De Jesús home.

  It was a single-story house, but its cramped size was deceptive. Abuelito led them through the brightly painted front door and Anne was surprised to find not a tiny, dark hovel but an open courtyard that stretched away fifty feet to the back of the house.

  Lanterns hung at regular intervals illuminated the courtyard enough to see the rough layout, the tall, lush plants, the little tile paths that crisscrossed it in a spoke pattern. There were columns all around the perimeter of the open space that supported a roof, and under the roof, nearly lost in the shadows, doors that led to the numerous rooms of the house. It looked like a hacienda, a monastery, and a Roman villa, all at once.

  “Very nice . . .” Anne said, soft.

  “Pirate gold, my dear,” said Jack. “Calico Jack Rackam is not one to forget a kindness.”

  Abuelito De Jesús took down one of the lanterns, led them along the corridor that bordered one side of the courtyard, and stopped at last at a door near the end, which he opened and beckoned them through with a sweep of the arm.

  The room was twelve feet square with a shuttered window that Anne guessed must look out on the road that ran along the side of the house. There was a large bed and a cross on the white stucco wall over its head. A washbasin with pitcher and bowl and night jar, a big wardrobe made of heavy planks, the door supported by wrought-iron hinges. Spartan, clean, inviting.

  Abuelito said something in Spanish and Jack replied, “La recámara está bien, Abuelito, gracias!”

  Abuelito nodded. “Buenas noches, Juan, y Señora Rackam, buenas noches.” He set the lantern down on the floor and left them alone. Anne crossed the tiled floor and sat wearily on the edge of the bed.

  “Will this answer, my love?” Jack asked.

  “Famously. I won’t pretend to be unhappy about being off the sloop, for the time being.”

  “This is a great improvement, I’ll warrant.”

  “But are you not afraid of young Marie stealing in here and cutting your balls off, dear? These Spanish girls are hot-tempered.”

  “My dear, I have told you, she is only a silly girl. In any event, Abuelito tells me she has gone off to visit her cousins in Santa Clara, a thing she has longed to do.”

  “A somewhat sudden departure, but I’ll not quarrel with her decision. Come, Jack.” She patted the bed. “Come and sit by me.”

  Jack sat down beside her, kicking his shoes off. They landed with a thump in the middle of the floor. Anne put her arms around his shoulders. “You will not mind this, Jack, staying here?”

  “Never in life. I am as relieved as you to be off the sloop.”

  “Thank you, my dearest. I do not think I could endure this without you.”

  “Of course, my love. Of course.”

  “But you will never miss the sweet trade? I do not know how long my confinement will be, but I think it likely we will be here for six weeks. Two months, perhaps.”

  “Oh . . . oh . . .”

  Anne straightened a bit, so she could see Jack’s face. “Is that longer than you had thought, my dear?”

  “Oh, well, the thing of it is . . .”

  Anne knew what was coming, even before he said it. She felt her stomach turn over, felt as if her entire body were slumping down.

  “My dear Annie, I fear you mistake it. I could never remain here for such a time. But,” Calico Jack added brightly, “at the very instant you can go to sea once more, I shall return for you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  MARY AND HER FELLOWS had intended to go back to the sloop that night, but they did not make it.

  They staggered as far as the soft sand, which was cool underfoot with the sun long gone, but difficult to walk on, even when sober. They made it to the longboat and stopped, catching their breath, looking out over the water in silence.

  “So, Read, I was a-wondering . . .” It was Billy Bartlett with his shrill, ratlike voice, his tone always on the edge of mocking.

  “What?”

  “Well, now, when Annie has this little brat, will it have Jack’s ugly face? Or yours? What say you?”

  Silence, and a palpable tension among the men, and then Mary pushed off from the boat, stepped over to Bartlett. He was not much taller than she was and she looked him right in the eye. “What do you mean?”

  Bartlett shrugged. “I don’t know . . .”

  “I said, what do you mean? Must I loosen your tongue? Cold steel?” She was angry and not in the least afraid of the mean little bastard, Billy Bartlett. She knew that killing him would not be frowned upon by the others, not in that circumstance. She knew that such rumors had to be quashed.

  “Cold steel, is it?” Bartlett asked. “You challenge me to a fight, you little whoreson?” Bartlett spat. “Very well, then, I am for you!” His hand wrapped around the grip of his sword and Mary grabbed hers, and then George Fetherston was between them, looming over them both, and his big hands pushed them both away.

  “That’s enough of that! Drink’s in and wit’s out, I say. We’ll have no killing on so fine a night, and these here people so kind to us!”

  And that was an end to it, because Bartlett was, in his heart, a coward and because Mary was not in the mood for a fight and because Fetherston was big enough and carried enough authority that he could put an end to such a thing, if he so chose.

  “Come now,” Fetherston said next, “let’s get this damnable boat in the water.”

  They made a halfhearted effort to push the boat off the beach, but the enthusiastic men of Caibarién had pulled it far up the sand, and the falling tide had left it farther still from the water’s edge, so they soon abandoned the project.

  They sat heavily, reclining in the cool sand, ostensibly to rest from the effort of pushing the boat, and soon they were all asleep.

  It was bright daylight when Mary opened her eyes. For a moment she did not move because she did not know where she was and she reckoned it was best to continue looking asleep, or dead, or however she looked.

  And then she recalled, and she sat up with a groan and looked around. A few of her fellow pirates were already stirring, but most were still asleep and snoring loud. Out on the water, which looked like a thick sheet of light blue tinted glass, the fishing fleet of Caibarién was already at work, the one- and two-man crews of the canoes and pettiaugas hauling nets, the larger vessels standing out toward open water. The Pretty Anne was riding comfortably at her anchor, like a child’s toy in a pond.

  She stood, shook the sand off her clothes and out of her trousers, scratched. I wonder how Anne is faring. It was the first conscious thought to come to her. The second was, I wonder if that Marie has cut Jack’s balls off. If she had not, Mary imagined that Anne might just do it for her.

  No, not yet. Annie needed Jack. He was the father of her baby, and she needed him by her side, if for no other reason than the surprising fact that he spoke Spanish, and there did not seem to be anyone in the village who spoke English.

  Father of her baby . . . The thought of having a baby gave Mary a dull ache inside. She wished she had had a baby. She thought of such a loving and helpless bundle of flesh, mewing, crying, nursing, a tiny person she might have created with her own body and nourished with her own body, a part of Frederick that would have carried on long after he was gone. It made her feel wistful and sad.

  She breathed deep, pushed that aside. Rubbed a sore spot on her hip where she had apparently slept on the hilt of her cutlass, then headed up the beach toward the main road of Caibarién.

  She was not sure where she was going, what she intended to
do. May as well find Annie, see what’s acting, she thought. It occurred to her that she did not know what Jack’s plans were, if he intended to send the Pretty Anne on her way, without her captain, and have the sloop return later, or if he intended that the pirates remain at anchor for the next month or so. She wondered how long it would be before they wore out their welcome. Not long, she figured.

  She walked slowly up the wide central street, aware of the curious eyes that followed her, the children who peeked out of doorways, the old women who stopped their sweeping to watch her stroll by. She looked a fearsome sight, she realized, with her sea-battered clothing and her cocked hat pushed over her red damask headcloth, loaded down with weapons, which was the buccaneer’s way.

  The houses were neat and well-tended, though a closer look in the glare of the morning sun revealed a poverty that was not immediately apparent. There were patches of stucco peeled away from brick which had then been whitewashed over, sections of tile missing from roofs, crude, home-built tables and chairs sitting just outside doorways.

  Mary stopped a young boy who was stepping boldly toward the beach, a fishing pole over his shoulder. “Garçon,” she said, and only after she said it did she remember that that word was French.

  Regardless, it worked. The boy stopped, cocked his head. “Sí?”

  “Ahh . . . De Jesús? Juan Rackam?”

  The boy’s face lit up. “Sí! Sí! El capitán Juan Rackam!” He beckoned her to follow, and Mary had to nearly jog to keep up with him. At last he stopped at the bright red door of a modest house a block from the town square. “Es la casa de De Jesús! El capitán Juan se queda con ellos!” the boy exclaimed.

  Mary did not understand the words, would not have understood even if the boy did not speak so very fast, but she caught “De Jesús” and “El capitán Juan” and she could deduce from that that this was where Jack and Anne were staying. She fished in the leather purse that was tied to her belt, fingered the first of the odd assortment of coins she happened to touch and pulled it out. It was Spanish piece of eight: she handed it to the boy.

  “Gracias, gracias!” he said, his eyes as big as the coin, and then, apparently afraid that Mary would realize she had made a mistake in giving him such an ungodly sum, he raced off toward the beach.

  Mary watched him run, chuckling to herself. She liked children, though she could count on her fingers the number of times she had had any contact with them. Then she knocked on the door.

  A minute later it opened and Abuelita De Jesús was standing there. Her head was covered with a bright cloth, tied behind, and she was dressed in a coarse linen dress, washed so often it looked soft and nearly white, with a bright pattern of embroidery around the neck and the hems, a big airy garment, perfect for that climate.

  Mary paused for a second, taken with how very comfortable it looked, how heavy and stifling her own coat and waistcoat and trousers and linen shirt were.

  Before she could recover to speak, Abuelita De Jesús said, “El capitán Juan?”

  “Sí.” She thought that meant yes, judging from the way the boy had used it.

  And apparently she was right, because Abuelita opened the door wider, welcomed her in. She stepped through and found the door opened into a cool inner courtyard, with a garden and paths and a roof that overhung the various doors along the three other walls.

  “Esta muy bueno,” Mary said, another bit of Spanish she had picked up the night before. She turned to Abuelita, unsure that she had said the right thing. But Abuelita smiled, said, “Gracias,” so Mary guessed that her words had meant what she thought they meant.

  She followed Abuelita along the corridor that skirted the courtyard, to an open door near the corner of the back wall. Abuelita paused, knocked on the doorframe. Jack, unseen in the room, called, “Sí ?” and Abuelita replied, something in Spanish that did not contain any of the half dozen words Mary now possessed.

  Jack stuck his head out the door. He was dressed only in his shirt and breeches. He looked Mary up and down, did not look overjoyed to see her, but said, “Ah, Read. Come in, come in!”

  Mary nodded to Abuelita, stepped into the cool, spare, but comfortable room. Anne was sitting on the edge of her bed, wearing only a shift. The thin cloth was piled up on her belly, pulled tight and spilling off like a frozen waterfall. There was a tenseness about her, a tight-lipped quality, and the tension emanated from her, filled the room.

  “Ah, Mary, how good of you to come,” Anne said, biting the words off. “I was afraid I would not see you before you sailed.”

  “Oh? Are we to sail this morning?”

  “Yes. Yes you are. Is that not right, Captain Rackam?”

  Jack ignored the sarcasm, busied himself with the washbasin, wetting his face. “Yes, yes, when the winds turn offshore we will win our anchor.”

  We? Mary did not understand.

  “But you will be back in a few months’ time, is that not right? Dear?” Anne said.

  “Yes, yes, a few months.”

  “I . . .” Mary said, “I was not aware . . .”

  “You see, my dear,” Anne said, in a mock matter-of-fact tone, “it would never do for the notorious Calico Jack to be found loitering about the Cuban coast. The Guarda del Costa and all that, and you know how beastly these Spaniards can be. Besides, such vicious pirates as Jack’s crew would not suffer to wait around here for some doxy to have a baby, and they can’t sail without the captain, so he must be away. But I am in good hands, never doubt it.” There was not the least bit of sincerity in her words; the sarcasm was thinly veiled. It was clear to Mary that she was repeating the arguments that Jack had made to her.

  “Jack,” Mary asked, “you intend to leave her here? Alone?”

  Jack was applying lather to his face, studying himself in the mirror, too intent to meet her eye. “Nothing for it, I fear. I am as distraught as you.” There was a hint of accusation in his voice, as if to say, If she does not care to be left, she should not have gotten herself pregnant.

  Anne made a disgusted sound. Mary did not know what to say.

  For a long moment it was quiet, the only sound the scrape of Jack’s razor across his cheeks. Mary imagined that Anne was at that moment thinking of stepping across the room, snatching the razor from Jack’s hand, and cutting his throat with it. She was thinking the same thing herself. He would leave her among strangers, in a foreign land, in her condition, with not a word of Spanish, and sail off?

  “I’ll stay,” Mary said with finality.

  “Pardon?” Anne asked.

  “I will stay. You cannot be here alone. I will stay with you.”

  Anne smiled. The look of relief on her face was gratifying.

  Jack turned at last, met Mary’s eyes, smiled. He looked relieved as well. Mary wanted to slap him.

  “Thank you, Read,” Jack said. “I—”

  “I’m not bloody doing it for you!” Mary cut him off. He closed his mouth, frowned.

  “Thank you, sister,” Anne said, soft.

  “You are welcome. Now let us see to some breakfast.”

  They stood on the beach, side by side, their bare feet in the warm sand, and watched the Pretty Anne fill away on a quartering breeze. Two figures appeared on the topsail yard, Quick and Howard, it looked to Mary. They loosened off the topsail and let it tumble off the yard and hang in a gray pile of canvas. A minute later that sail was set and drawing, and the Pretty Anne picked up speed, leaving them farther behind.

  “That sloop was an honest merchantman the last time she sailed without me aboard,” Anne said.

  “The last time I saw her under way from a distance, I was an honest merchantman,” Mary said.

  “Quite the pair we make,” Anne said.

  They returned to the De Jesús home in time for a dinner of tortillas and fish and rice, served out by a gracious Abuelita, who chattered away in Spanish, though neither Anne nor Mary could understand a word. After that, they retired to their rooms for siesta, a Spanish custom that Mary found
entirely civilized and agreeable.

  She woke in the cooler hours of the late afternoon, kicked the thin blanket off and sat up in bed. She was wearing only her loose linen shirt, which hung down to her knees. It felt good, in that hot climate, to be so lightly dressed. It was rare indeed that she had the opportunity and the privacy to disrobe to that degree.

  She sat for a moment, surveying the room. There was a wardrobe, a heavy thing made of big planks that might have been taken off a shipwreck, much like the one in Anne’s room. Mary stood and walked over to it, opened one of the doors. She had expected to find it empty, but in fact there were a number of dresses there—soft, worn linen dresses like the kind Abuelita De Jesús wore, and shawls as well.

  Mary picked one up, ran her fingers over it. One of Abuelita’s perhaps, one that had not worn out before her girth had increased beyond its limits? Suddenly Mary could not endure the thought of putting on her man’s clothing again.

  What would they think, Abuelita and the others, to see Mary go in the room a man and come out a woman? Perhaps they would find it a relief, to know that she was not a dangerous pirate after all. Not a dangerous male pirate, anyway. If there was any talk of making a cuckold out of the beloved Capitán Juan, that would put an end to it.

  Might someone in Caibarién give her secret away when the Pretty Anne returned?

  And then she knew that she no longer cared. She was too sick of worrying to worry anymore. The Caribbean was luring her deeper into its arms. She could not endure her European clothes, not there. She would not play the man there in paradise.

  Mary smiled, laid the dress on her bed, and stripped off her linen shirt. She stood there for a moment, naked, let the cool air that came in through the slats of the shutters caress her body. She ran her hands over her stomach, her breasts. It felt so nice, hands on skin, even her own hands. The breeze raised little goose bumps all over her and made her even more sensitive to her own caresses.

  Lord, it had been so long! So long since she had been naked at all, let alone naked with a man. Always on her guard on shipboard, never able to strip down, even in the worst heat. Sneaking off to some dark corner to furtively change when it was time to wash whatever suit of clothes she had on. It had become ingrained in her, second nature, but that was very different from liking it.