Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

After that, Novia and I picked one together, and Mahu, Big Ned, and Azuka did the same thing, making ten.

We told the rest they had to go back. They wanted to fight, but we were too many for them and we were standing all around them. Eventually they went off with no blood spilled.

We had not done as well at either place as we had hoped, but Captain Burt wanted to take a shot at Maracaibo anyway, and Harker, Gosling, and I went along. We all agreed that if it looked too bad we would not do it. Novia was against it, but I felt like Harker-our luck was bound to change sooner or later.

Which it did in about a week. We took a fair-sized ship carrying cacao beans and twelve thousand pieces of eight. As if that were not good enough, four of its crew joined us. Gosling put a few of his men on board and took it to Jamaica, promising to do some recruiting and meet us at Curacao, a Dutch island that was about as close to the Gulf of Venezuela as we wanted to go before we were ready to move in.

Everybody except Harker and me, that is. He sailed into the Gulf with me on board one fine evening and dropped me off close enough to see the lights of the city. I do not believe I will ever forget standing there with my boots ankle-deep in mud and watching the Princess sail away, as dark and as silent as any shadow. I had some money of my own in my money belt, plus a heavy purse of doubloons Capt. Burt had given me. Besides the money, my long silver-hilted Spanish sword, a Spanish dagger Novia had picked up somewhere, and a letter she and I had forged together.

I also had Captain Burt's words ringing in my ears. "You're the best man I could hope to have for this, Chris. I'm countin' on you more than I've ever counted on any man in my life. We've got to know about that fort, first and last. After that, the watchtower. After that, the whole city-where to look for money, and how many soldiers there are. Mark where you're landed, because Harker will come lookin' for you in a fortnight. In one fortnight, mind. That's fourteen days, neither more nor less. If you're not finished by then, come back and report anyway. We sent you in once, and we can send you in again."

I had nodded. "I've got it."

"Good." He was trying to smile, but too worried to make it look right. "I'm countin' on you not to get caught. If you are, keep your chin up, stand mum, and don't lose hope. We'll do everythin' we can to get you out. And good luck."

I knew I was going to need it. IF I WERE to tell all that happened in Maracaibo, I would be at this for a year. I doubt that I have a month. I hiked into the city, staying out of sight until I was practically there. By the time I got down close to the waterfront, where the action was, it was midmorning. I went from inn to inn looking for a place to eat, and more importantly for a place to stay. There's no better place for a man to listen to gossip and maybe ask a few questions than the taproom of an inn. Eventually I found one that looked clean and decent without being too pricey. The innkeeper had a Native American slave, and on the third day I was there I bought him.

It was the kind of thing I had told myself over and over I should not do, but I did it just the same. That morning, I heard noises like somebody pounding oakum and some pretty fair Spanish cussing in the courtyard and went out to see what was going on. The innkeeper and his sons had their Native American slave down and were beating him with good-sized sticks. He was curled up the way you do, trying to cover his head with his arms. I kept thinking he would yell for mercy any minute, but he never did. He never said a thing until they stopped, and as I watched I started to wonder whether he could talk, and whether they were going to kill him.

Finally they quit, wiping the sweat off their faces and panting. That was when I heard him whisper, "Oh, Jesus…"

It was all he said-but it was in English. Our Lord's name sounds a lot different in Spanish because the J is pronounced like H and the E like AY. "Hay-soos." This was English, no doubt about it. And I felt as though He were standing right behind me, laying His pierced hand on my shoulder. This is it, Chris. This is the moment. What are you going to do?

What I did was mosey up to the innkeeper and ask what the Native American had done. He was stupid, the innkeeper said.

"Yeah," I said-only in Spanish-"me, too. Listen here. You've pounded him to dog food, and pounding won't fix stupidity anyhow. What you've got now is a cripple you'll just have to feed. I'll take him off your hands for…" Here I pretended to search in my pockets. "Eight reales. This looks pretty good. Doesn't look like it's been sweated at all." It was one of the new pieces of eight we had gotten from the cacao-bean ship.

The innkeeper just laughed and turned away, and I said, "Okay, stupido, you keep him. He's your hard luck. I hope he dies tonight."

I went to the street gate then and lifted the latch. When I did it, the innkeeper turned back and called, "One hundred, Senor de Messina, because you are my guest. But not one real less."

After that we went back and forth for half an hour or so. I knew I was going to buy him, but I had to keep the innkeeper from knowing it, too. I finally got him for eighteen reales, which showed that the innkeeper really and seriously thought that he and his sons might have lamed him for life.

Once I had a signed bill of sale, I helped him stand up and got him up two flights of stairs to my room. That was about as easy as pulling up a four-pounder. There were a couple or maybe three times when I felt certain we were both going to fall.

Up there, I laid him on the bed, which was way too short for me and too short for him, too, got him to drink a glass of wine, and told him I was going out and he should just take it easy in there until I got back. You are not supposed to give Native Americans alcohol is what all the books say, because they have this big alcoholism problem. But that wine was from the inn, and I swear by Monkey King Jasmine that Novia could have downed a whole bottle of it and never stumbled.

(Confession is good for the soul, and so: Monkey King Jasmine is tea. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs gave us a food basket for Christmas, and there is a package of tea in it-Monkey King Jasmine Tea. Fr. Wahl thinks it is hilarious, and I think it is pretty funny myself.)

When I came back, I brought him some good clean water and something to eat. After a couple of days, he started telling me that I should sleep on the bed and he would lie on the floor. That was how I knew he was well enough for us to change inns. Which we did, because I could see there was going to be trouble about him if we stayed where we were.

A day or so before that, I had asked him what his name was. What he said was Spanish and pretty dirty, so I told him we would have to use another one. I tried to find out what his Native American name was, but he played dumb. That was okay, because I knew by then that your real name was a very personal thing with a lot of Native Americans. Maybe with all of them. The way he had been beaten by the innkeeper and his sons reminded me of Saint Jude, who was beaten to death with traveler's staffs, so I called him Hoodahs, which is how you say that saint's name in Spanish. By the time we changed inns I was Captain and he was Hoodahs, and Hoodahs had gotten over the idea that I was planning to do something horrible as soon as I thought he was strong enough to stand it.

The whole time I was just itching to try English, but I was supposed to be a Cuban officer who was in Maracaibo hoping to get a job with the army in Venezuela, so there was no way I was going to risk saying a word in English where anybody could hear it.

The day after we moved, I took him to a blacksmith who took the chain off his feet. It had been about eighteen inches long, a chain that would let him walk but not run, and it had galled both his ankles. When he was loose, I said (in Spanish), "I'm freeing you, Hoodahs. If you want to split right now, or tonight, or tomorrow, that's fine with me. I'm not going to stand guard over you. The only thing is, if you go now, from here, you'll probably get picked up by some other Spaniard. If that happens, I'll help you if I can but I probably won't ever know about it. But you can take the chance if you want to."