Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

There was no mule train, though, and only a little gold. Everybody we captured said that the officer in charge of the mule train had decided that Santa Maria was too dangerous. He had taken the mules and the gold back along the coast to Panama.

We had another meeting the next day-not just the captains, the whole bunch of us. I was starting to hate those meetings. It seems to me that the more people there are at a meeting the more nuts there are, and the nuts are always the loudest people there. At this one, what seemed like just about everybody wanted to follow the mule train again. It was only a day and a half ahead of us, maybe two days, and if it beat us to Panama-it could not by much-we would take Panama and the gold, too.

Finally Capt. Burt stood up and said very sensibly that it was common knowledge that Panama had been rebuilt and fortified since Henry Morgan had taken it and burned it, and we had no more chance of taking it than we would have of taking Mexico.

They did not like that, but he was the senior captain there, and they had to let him talk.

Which he did, pointing out that there were supposed to be about two thousand soldiers in Panama now. Maybe more. If we caught up to the mule train now, it was bound to be close to there, and some of the soldiers guarding it were bound to make it back there. It would mean that we would be crossing the isthmus driving tired mules carrying heavy loads of gold, with a thousand or more soldiers after us.

He sat down, we voted, and it was something like five hundred and ninety for chasing the mule train. Capt. Burt stood up again and said he was not going. He was going to lead a party back to Portobello and the ships. If nobody would go with him, he was going back alone.

I jumped up then and said he would not have to. I would be with him, and so would Novia. By noon, it had all been settled. Capt. Burt would go back, with Rombeau and me, and Capt. Gosling. We would have about sixty men. Both the women would go with us, of course.

Captains Dobkin, Cox, Isham, and Ogg would go after the mule train with the rest, including the Kuna. Capt. Dobkin would be in command of their group. For our part, we promised to tell the men that had been left on their ships what had gone on when we got back to Portobello.

Which we did.

Both groups marched as soon as everything had been decided, Dobkin's because they were hoping to overtake the mule train and knew that one hour might make all the difference. Us, because we were worried about our ships, and most of all because we wanted to put the whole fool enterprise behind us.

We were slower even so. As well as I can remember now, Dobkin's bunch had left a couple of hours before we had everyone rounded up and ready to go. Dobkin's bunch, I said. That did not include the Kuna, even though the Kuna had promised to guide them. The Kuna stayed behind. I was hardly aware that they were still there when Novia and I were rounding up as much food as we could find and filling empty wine bottles with good water.

And of course, stealing anything else we could find that seemed worth carrying back to Portobello. It was a couple of doubloons and a ring-or that is all that I can remember.

Finally we left, after getting together all the men we could find. Jarden went with Dobkin, I am sure. Antonio stayed with us. So did Azuka and Mahu, and various others. There is little point in my trying to write a roster here. I would be certain to make some mistakes.

The screams as we tramped away are the part I remember most clearly. I have heard those screams in my sleep on and off ever since. Behind us, the Kuna were spearing the Spanish we had spared-the men, the women, and the kids. I do not believe I had ever felt sorry for any Spanish up to that moment.

We reached Portobello ready to drop. Just the same, we put out the same day. A Spanish pinnace had been sighted the day before, everyone felt the galleons could not be far behind, and the mates left in charge had practically been holding their crews at pistol-point. When they heard that Dobkin, Cox, and the rest were not with us, they hoisted anchor within an hour. We would meet in the Saint Blaise Islands to decide what to do next.

Before we got there, however, Capt. Harker joined us in his sloop, the Princess. Novia and I watched him board the Weald and speculated a good deal on what news he might bring-a sport in which we were soon joined by Boucher. When I saw signal flags being run up the mizzen of the Weald, I felt certain the signal was to be "All Captains." When the flags were shaken out, however, it was only "Capt. Chris" who was asked to join Capt. Burt.

To head off a row I took Novia with me, and Capt. Burt made no objection. TWO DAYS, AND I have written nothing. My passport came, but no one is answering the telephone at the Cuban consulate in New York. None of the airlines I have called is offering service to Havana yet. Nor would I wish to try to make my way to the airport through this snow, to be entirely honest; mono service is not to be relied upon in weather as cold as we have had.

Before I write any more, I ought to explain that I have been generally called Capt. Chris or Fr. Chris because of the length and difficulty of my last name. Few know it, and fewer can pronounce it correctly. As for spelling out my name in signal flags, there is not a signalman in the world who would not abbreviate it.

After mass today, I went trolling for some pirate Web sites and found several. One offered a short biography of a Capt. Cos or Kruss, believed to have been Dutch or German. It was not until I read that he had disappeared after sailing from Havana alone in a small craft that I realized that I was "Capt. Cos," although the detail that Cos was said to have made his wife his chief lieutenant should have alerted me. When the four of us were seated in Capt. Burt's cabin, he said, "You two have met Captain Harker before, I know. I left him at Long Bay to speed the bigger vessels to me, and he's done well. I've already given him his company's share of what we got at Portobello and Santa Maria. That was little enough, I'm afraid."

Harker nodded. "Not what we were hoping for, but bad luck can't last forever."

"Exactly. Forgive me now, Hal. I'm goin' to repeat a few things you've already heard.

"Chris, you know what I planned earlier. Maracaibo's a different article from that damned Portobello. Or Santa Maria, either. Portobello may be the most disease-ridden town in the world. Maracaibo's healthy. Portobello's a coastal place. Because it is, the good cits feel exposed and are forever demandin' more protection from the Spanish Crown. Maracaibo's an inland port, at the tail end of the Gulf of Venezuela. Think of jolly old London, up the Thames from the sea. Better still, think of Santa Maria, miles and miles up its river from the Gulf of Saint Michael."

I nodded.

"You say Maracaibo is not like." Novia looked worn and tired, as all of us except for Harker did. "How is different?"

"Santa Maria's little more than a fishing village, Senora. Maracaibo's a city, larger than Portobello and Santa Maria combined."

"A rich city," Harker added.

Novia shrugged. "Ver es creer." I doubt that either Capt. Burt or Harker understood her.

"A damnation rich city. The cacao trade alone…" Burt shook his head. "Great fortunes have been made in that. More are bein' made every day. Besides that, the land behind Maracaibo's prime cattle country. Hides, tallow, and dried and salt beef flow like water through the city, tons of 'em."

"What is cacao?" I asked. "I've never heard of it."

Novia grinned. "We say chocolate, Crisoforo. What is your English word?"

Capt. Burt answered for me. "Pretty much the same, Senora-chocolate." He turned to me. "Chocolate's made from cacao beans, and they say the best beans in the world are grown in Venezuela."