Only Life That Mattered

by Nelson, James L.

  “I don’t think I ever told him that, but it was so. After I fell in love with him, and that was not so long after I met him, I can assure you, I would not suffer him to go into a fight without me. Terrified he would do something bold and foolish. We were tent-mates, Frederick and me, if you can believe it . . .”

  Anne sat quietly and listened as Mary talked, stumbling over the words, backtracking, filling in bits she had missed. It had none of the quality of a story often repeated. Mary was pulling it from her inner self, unearthing it from a place in her soul where it had been long buried.

  “When I could no longer support myself I sold the inn, let everyone go. I dressed as a man again, served a bit in an infantry unit near the wilderness . . .”

  Dear God, dear God, Anne thought. What this poor girl has suffered . . . She listened to Mary’s simple tale and felt as if she, too, knew Frederick Heesch and loved him as Mary did and grieved for his passing.

  Lord, I willingly tossed away all the things that this poor girl has ever desired. What sort of a spoiled little doxy am I?

  Mary was tight-lipped as she spoke, holding back tears. “And then I went to Amsterdam and found a berth aboard the Hoorn. The rest I reckon you know.”

  Silence again, save for the rushing water. Anne stood awkwardly and waded out to Mary. Mary straightened, turning toward her, and Anne reached out with open arms. Mary fell into them, all but collapsing against Anne, and buried her face in Anne’s shoulder. They stood like that for a moment, and then Anne could see Mary’s shoulders convulsing, could hear the sobs muffled by her own shoulder.

  She said nothing. There was nothing to say. She just held Mary, let the tears pour out, soak through the thin fabric of her peasant dress. Mary’s silence was a dam, and as long as it held, the tears would not come. But she had breached the wall now, she had told her friend the full tale, and the tears flowed unchecked.

  It is better, it is better this way, Anne thought. Like draining a wound. It could not be healthy to keep all that inside.

  At last Mary straightened, looking at Anne with red and puffy eyes. “Thank you . . .” she said.

  Anne reached out, running her fingers along Mary’s cheek, and brushed her hair away from her face. “I grieve that I did not have the chance to meet your Frederick,” she said.

  Mary nodded. “You would have approved of him, I’ll warrant.”

  “I know I would have. It is a tragedy that his life was so short. But at least, for that time, you had one another. And some small dose of happiness.” Anne smiled. “A short life and a merry one, that is our motto.”

  Mary smiled back at her. “It’s to be preferred to a long life of misery, I’ll warrant.”

  “Come, let us go home now. In your enthusiasm you have beat those clothes near to rags. If I do not mistake it, Abuelita will have some of those fish things for our dinner, and I am famished enough that even those sound good.”

  Mary gathered up the wash, put it in the basket, waded out of the stream, and the two women walked back along the warm, dusty road to the De Jesús home.

  “Quiet this afternoon,” Mary said. The streets seemed deserted. “Is it siesta time, already?”

  “It couldn’t be. Perhaps it is one of the popish feast days. They seem to have one every other day or so.”

  “Perhaps . . .” Mary’s instincts were telling her something was wrong; Anne could tell without asking. And that made Anne wary as well, because she trusted Mary’s instincts more than her own.

  They crossed the main street, also deserted, to the red front door of the De Jesús home. Anne opened it, holding it open for Mary to carry the basket through, and then stepped inside behind her.

  Abuelita De Jesús was standing there, facing the door, her hands clasped together, clenching them nervously. She looked frightened.

  “Cómo estás?” Mary asked, and then someone behind them slammed the heavy door shut.

  Anne and Mary whirled around. Against the wall, half-hidden in shadow, stood soldiers, half a dozen of them. Their uniforms—blue coats with red facings, once white waistcoats and shirts—were stained and dusty. Some wore breeches, some the loose trousers worn by Cuban peasants. They held dilapidated muskets in their hands. Long stringy hair stuck out from under battered cocked hats. They each had the leer of criminals, depraved, avaricious. They looked like pirates, only worse.

  One of the soldiers stepped forward, a greasy fellow with round belly and high boots. He had an epaulet on one shoulder, and Anne guessed him to be the commanding officer, if there was such a thing.

  “Ellas son las piratas inglesas?” he asked.

  Abuelita De Jesús shook her head. “No, no hay piratas inglesas . . .”

  It was easy enough for Anne to follow what was happening, even with her minimal Spanish. The soldiers had been sent to find English pirates rumored to be in Caibarién. They must have come from Santa Clara, it was the closest town of any note. But how would they know about the pirates’ visit?

  Marie.

  Anne had to smile, despite the predicament they were in. Of course. A woman scorned thus would not pause before sending the soldiers to hang them all. She would have, were she Marie.

  What the hell are they doing here now? It was well over a month since Marie had left town in her fury. But then, the Spaniards were never too quick to their duty.

  Now I wish I had just pissed on Jack’s leg after all, Anne thought.

  The discussion was taking place in rapid Spanish, and Anne and Mary could do no more than listen and try to guess what was being said. Whatever argument Abuelita De Jesús was mounting seemed to have little effect. The Spanish officer was clearly having none of it, and the others were shuffling closer, grinning more lasciviously. One pointed at Anne’s belly, said something which set the others laughing.

  “Sí no hay piratas para ahogar, quizás encontraremos placer con sus mujeres,” the officer said. He stepped up to Mary, ran his fat fingers over her cheek. Mary shied away, with barely repressed revulsion.

  Anne did not know what the officer said, but she understood his intentions clearly enough. The soldiers would have some satisfaction before they left. If they could not arrest pirates, then they would rape the pirates’ women. First the officer, then the others, one at a time.

  Maybe that is it . . . maybe they did not care to fight pirates . . . waited, till the men were certain to be gone . . .

  She looked around, searching for some way out. But the soldiers had managed to surround them, nearly. Six armed men against three unarmed women, one old, one nine months pregnant, and all the men of the village out fishing. She felt the first inkling of panic creeping over her. She could see no escape.

  One of the greasy men in the tattered peasant trousers stepped up behind Mary, ran his bony fingers through her hair, and smiled, displaying his rotting and intermittent teeth.

  Very well, Mary, what do we do now? Anne thought.

  And then Mary did the one thing Anne did not expect, the one thing she would never have expected from her battle-hardened friend. Mary screamed. Loud, hysterical, feminine, a sound of pure runaway panic, of mindless terror.

  She dropped the laundry basket and screamed again, her eyes wide, her hands balled up in fists. She pulled her hair free of the soldier’s hand, whirled around, shoved two of the surprised men aside, and bolted for the door. She jerked it open as the soldiers lunged for her and missed and she ran shrieking out into the street.

  Through the open door Anne could see Mary running, still screaming in terror, as she abandoned Anne and Abuelita De Jesús to their fate.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  MARY RAN as hard as she could. In front of her, the dusty road, on either side, the whitewashed stucco homes, shoulder to shoulder, seemed to fly past. Her legs kicked at the long dress as she ran.

  She screamed again, loud and hysterical, but the voice seemed disembodied, as if it were coming from somewhere else, and her throat, burning with the effort, was the only proof that it was
really her making that unearthly sound.

  Come on, come on, you sons of whores. Her mind was moving fast, like her feet. She looked over her shoulder, wide-eyed, thought, Three of them, at least . . . three are following me . . . divide them up . . .

  Up the gently sloping street, where just the evening before she and Anne had gone for their stroll. Up ahead, bobbing in her vision, the big church, so familiar to her now, so comforting. She had thought at first to go there, but realized now that this business could not be done in that hallowed place.

  Twenty yards more, another frantic look over her shoulder. The one who had run his hand through her hair was gaining, pulling away from his comrades.

  Ten more yards, Mary’s breath was coming fast. Now, now, now!

  She stumbled on some imaginary obstacle, took a few faltering steps, and fell, face-first, hands outstretched to block her fall. She hit the road in a cloud of dust, rolled on her back, shielding herself with crooked arm.

  The soldier, ten feet behind, came at her, his pace never slackening, his broken-tooth leer obscene. Three paces and he was over her and she braced herself with her elbows, cocked her leg, and drove her calloused heel right into his crotch, grunting with the effort.

  The impact was solid and direct. Her leg jarred and the soldier was lifted inches off the ground and his eyes went wide and he doubled over, forward. But Mary was ready for that, because that was what they always did, and she snatched his musket as it dropped and rolled clear as he collapsed in the place where she had been.

  It was one fluid motion for her: roll to her left and push herself up to her feet, come up with musket held at the charge bayonet stance, butt at her hip, the end of the muzzle at eye level, sorry that there was no bayonet there.

  Here was the next of the soldiers, still running hard to catch up, though she was no longer running. She could see the confusion on his face. He tried to stop, but his momentum carried him along and she drove the end of the barrel into his stomach.

  The wind was knocked from him, blown out like the last breath of a dying man. He, too, doubled over forward, and as his face went down it met Mary’s knee coming up and he was snapped back and fell spread-eagle in the dust.

  He had not even come to rest before Mary was stepping over him going after the third man, who had stopped short, who was not so callously plunging into the fray.

  No gunshots, no gunshots, she reminded herself. She flipped the musket over, held it by the barrel, club fashion, and descended on the third man, who had come to a halt five feet from the crazy woman. He hesitated, took a tentative step back, as if trying to assess what had happened, how this amusing pursuit, this whimsical prelude to rape, had suddenly turned so completely around.

  Mary brought the musket back, like she was chopping a tree with an ax, and then the soldier understood that the danger was real. He shouldered his weapon, thumbed back the flintlock, and tried to train it on Mary just as Mary’s musket came around and slammed into the side of his head, knocking him from his feet. He hit the road on his right shoulder, sent the dust flying, and did not move again.

  Mary stood for a second, catching her breath, searching the road and the perimeter of the square for further pursuit. The soldier who had caught the musket on the side of the head was not moving, and Mary did not think he would again, but the other two were thrashing, moaning, starting to recover. Bam, bam, the butt of her musket came down on their heads and they were still, and because they were no longer a part of her tactical considerations, Mary had no more thought for them.

  She rolled the men over with her foot. They did not carry pistols, she was sorry to see, but pistols were an officer’s weapon and she did not really expect to see them. She took up a musket, checked the priming in the pan, and slung it over her shoulder. She picked up a second one, checked the priming, pulled a bayonet from one of the motionless soldiers’ belts, fixed it onto the musket barrel, and she was off.

  Back down the road she ran, toward the red door of the De Jesús home, and her eyes were fixed on that.

  She was twenty feet away when the door swung open and the fat one with the officer’s epaulet stepped out. He wore an expression of mild irritation as he looked up the road for his absent men. His eyes met Mary’s, his eyebrows came together in surprise, then his mouth came open in fear and then Mary drove the bayonet through his chest, drove it right up to the muzzle end with all the momentum she had gathered running downhill.

  The officer made a strangled, gurgling sound and Mary jerked the bayonet free, wheeled around, and charged through the door.

  Anne and Abuelita De Jesús were on their knees, and flanking them, the two remaining soldiers. Mary thumbed the flintlock as she burst through the door, leveled the gun and fired into the soldier standing by Abuelita, and he was blown away before he even knew what had happened.

  Mary let the gun fall, whipped the other one off her shoulder, thumbed the lock, brought it up to her shoulder, but she was a second too late.

  The remaining soldier, rather than try to shoot her, leveled his musket at Anne’s head, the barrel inches away.

  “No! No!” he shouted, his rapid Spanish tinged with hysteria. Mary paused, just for an instant, and then they were at a stalemate, her gun pointed at his head, his gun at Anne’s. No one moved.

  Damn it, goddamn it, Mary thought, why didn’t I shoot this bastard?

  They were motionless, all of them. Anne on her knees, erect, teeth clenched, looking straight ahead, looking at nothing, the picture of stoicism. Abuelita had folded over as much as her girth would allow, and was weeping into her hands, but no one paid any attention to her. For long seconds her sobbing was the only sound in the room.

  “Tira la arma! Tira la arma!” the soldier shouted, his voice rising in pitch, his eyes wild. It was clear enough what he wanted. Someone had to lower a weapon, and it was not going to be him.

  Mary nodded. The soldier was young and he was profoundly frightened and that made him dangerous in the way of a cornered and panicked animal. He could easily blow Anne’s brains out with an involuntary spasm of his finger, brought on by fear alone.

  “Very well, very well,” Mary said. Her tone was soothing, like a mother to a child. “Very well . . .”

  Mary brought the musket down from her shoulder, lowering it slowly. The soldier nodded and Mary saw the tension drain from him as his eyes followed the butt of the gun coming down to Mary’s hip. He did not notice that it was only the butt that Mary moved, that the muzzle never wavered from its aim, right at his chest.

  The soldier was starting to smile and lower his own weapon when Mary pulled the trigger. The impact of the ball spun him around, threw him back. His musket discharged as he fell, blasting apart one of the red tiles on the floor. Mary could feel shards of the tile hit her legs.

  The soldier fell back and Anne was shouting, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” She watched him fall, sprang to her feet, then doubled over in pain.

  “Annie, Annie, are you all right?” Mary dropped her musket, rushed up to her.

  “Yes, yes . . . Goddamn my eyes, woman, what the hell was that?”

  “Oh, he would never have got his shot off before me,” Mary assured her.

  “You have done the like of this before?”

  “No. But I reckoned it was so.”

  “Humph,” Anne said, then, “Well, you scared me half to death, I’ll warrant. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’ve gone and pissed myself.”

  Mary looked down. Anne’s dress was soaked through and there was a puddle of liquid on the floor where she was standing.

  “Ay, Dios mío!” Here was Abuelita De Jesús, struggling to her feet, pointing at the puddle on the floor. “Se rompió la fuente! Tú vas a dar a luz ahorita mismo!” she said excitedly. The tears were glistening on her cheeks, her hands and lips trembled, but she was smiling.

  Anne and Mary looked at her, shook their heads by way of saying that they did not understand. Abuelita patted Anne’s tummy. “Baby . . . now . . .” she said.r />
  “Now?” Mary asked, stupidly.

  “Ohh,” Anne gasped, grabbed her abdomen, doubled over in pain.

  Two hours later the gasps had turned to teeth-clenching, deep-throated moans, the sound of a person in great pain who is set on a course of stoicism, and those sounds started coming at more frequent intervals.

  Anne was stretched out on her bed, sweating with abandon, clutching Mary’s hand until the muscles in her forearm knotted, and then relaxing as the pain passed.

  Mary sat beside her, mopping her brow, holding her hand when the contractions came.

  “Squeeze my hand, squeeze my hand!” Anne gasped, and Mary squeezed, not so hard as to cause Anne more pain, but Anne shouted, “Squeeze my hand, goddamn you!” and so Mary squeezed for all she was worth, squeezed with the considerable strength in her hand and her arm, and Anne gritted her teeth and then the pain passed and Anne said, “Yes, Mary, dear, like that. Pray, squeeze like that from now on.”

  “Yes, Annie, of course. Lemonade?”

  It was all so beyond Mary’s experience, and yet so familiar as well. How many times, she wondered, had she held the hand of some poor boy, racked with the agony of wounds inflicted by gunshot, grapeshot, saber, hand grenadoe? How often had she blocked her ears to the screams, the cries, as the boys called out for help that could not be rendered? This scene, here at the bedside, was so much a part of her history, even if the stucco walls, the brilliant sun, the cool room were not.

  And yet . . . those boys with their bloody and gaping wounds had been screaming their lives away, and the only relief they found came when their souls finally abandoned their shattered bodies. But Anne was not wounded, and she would not die; at least Mary hoped she would not. Abuelita did not seem concerned, and Abuelita knew about such things.