Gene Wolfe - Pirate Freedom

He shook his head.

"Okay, if you want to stick with me for a while, you can do that. Only you're free to split whenever."

He shook his head again. I was not really sure what he meant by that, but I thought it was probably "Not any time soon." So I said, "Come on, we're going fishing."

One of the things I had been doing when I went out was looking at boats, and the day before I had bought a good one, new, a boat small enough that one man could handle it, but big enough to carry three. (Maybe three men and a kid, in a pinch.) It had oars, a mast a little longer than a mop handle, and a sail a little bit bigger than a blanket. We got a pole, some line that should have been for tying up weeds to burn, a few hooks, a piece of salt pork to cut up for bait, and a bucket. Nothing fancy, because I did not care whether I caught anything or not. As long as we looked like a don and his slave out for a bit of fishing, that was good enough.

Hoodahs rowed us away from the dock. Then I showed him how to set up the mast and spread the sail. When we had sailed a little-there was a pretty good breeze-I went to the bow and let him manage the tiller and sheets. After five minutes or so, I knew he was no stranger to boats. He was not an expert, either, but he had been around boats enough to understand the basics.

We sailed between the fort and watchtower just as pretty as you please, and nobody said boo to us. When we were through the strait and out in the Gulf, and not close to anything or anybody, I had Hoodahs put down the sail. I baited my hook, hoping not to catch anything, and held the pole and pretended to fish. Then I said (just as I am writing it now), "You speak English, Hoodahs. So do I, and I think it's time we leveled with each other. Where did you come from?"

"North, Chris." He pointed. "My land north."

"America?"

He stared, then shook his head, and right then about ninety percent of my hopes washed down the drain. I had been hoping-I had been praying- that he was from the future, just like me.

When I had pulled myself together, I said, "Who taught you English?"

"Master."

I got a little bit more than that out of him that day, but not much. Later, Novia and I got a little bit more. If I were to space it all out the way we got it, it would drive you crazy. So I am just going to give the gist of it here and let it go at that.

Hoodahs was a Moskito who had signed up with Captain Swan. They had raided down the Atlantic coast of South America, and maybe around the Horn. (Hoodahs's geography was pretty sketchy.) Eventually they had put in at some islands where there were rocks, trees, and goats, and not much else, hoping to shoot fresh meat. Hoodahs had been in the hunting party, and he had been left behind. Our guess was that a Spanish ship had come up, but it could have been no more than a change in the weather.

Eventually, he made a little raft and paddled it to one of the other islands. There had been a white man on it, and they had made friends and joined forces. Hoodahs called this man Master. Master had taught him English, and more or less converted him to Christianity. By that I mean he still believed everything Moskitos do, but he knew about God and Jesus, too, and I think may have liked them better.

They started building a real boat together, cutting little trees, sawing planks, seasoning the wood, and so forth. They had gotten pretty far with it, from what he said, when a ship came. Master went aboard to go back to England, but Hoodahs did not. Part of it was that he did not want to go to England, and part was that he did not trust the men on the ship. Or that is how it seemed to Novia and me.

He stayed on the island and stopped working on their boat. As well as I can figure, he was on the first island for a year or so, then with Master for at least two years and maybe longer. After that he was alone on Master's island for at least another year.

Spanish ships had come from time to time, and he and Master had al ways hidden their boat and hidden themselves, too. This time Hoodahs hid, but forgot to hide the boat-or maybe could not carry it by himself. These Spanish had dogs, and the dogs hunted him down. The Spanish caught him and made him a slave on their ship. Eventually they had sold him to the innkeeper.

As I said, I got a whole lot less than that when we were out on the boat. I am not sure whether Mahu was the most talkative man I have ever met, but I am absolutely certain that Hoodahs was the most closemouthed. I told him not to speak English to Spaniards, and warned him that he was never to tell anybody I did. At first I worried that he might do it anyway. As I got to know him better, I realized that I had wasted my breath telling him to clam up. Hoodahs was not big on telling anybody anything, and that is putting it mildly.

Nobody had stopped us, or questioned us, or made any other kind of trouble, so the next day we went fishing again, this time south into Lake Maracaibo. It was a funny setup. The eastern shore of the lake was Spanish, with a lot of agriculture and a little town called Gibraltar down toward the south end. The western shore was still wild jungle, with Native Americans there that the Spanish called Indios Bravos. Boats that came too close to their side were likely to be in trouble. I asked Hoodahs whether he wanted to join the Indios Bravos, saying that he could dive over the side and swim, and it would be okay with me. I would not try to stop him. He said no, the Indios Bravos would kill him, he was not of their tribe.

We stopped at Gibraltar, got some wine and something to eat, and I talked about fishing with a couple of men where we ate. The man who sold us our food said that Hoodahs would have to take his outside, then said that Hoodahs would run away when he saw he was not chained. I said he would not, don't worry about it. He got his food, ate outside, and did not run away.

The day after that, we decided to try the Gulf again. It was a nice setup for defense, with a narrow strait that was too shallow for ships anywhere except right down the middle between Lookout Island and Pigeon Island. The watchtower was on Lookout Island, on top of a little hill that was just about the whole island.

Pigeon Island was bigger, maybe twenty or thirty acres. The fort was stone, built so that any ship that went down the strait to Maracaibo had to sail right under the guns. When I had gotten a look at it two days before, I had seen right away that the only way to capture it was to attack it on the landward side. Eight or ten big galleons might have been able to knock it down, but they would have lost four or five ships first.

There was a little cove over on the shallow-water side, pretty well hidden by trees. We tied up there, and I explained to Hoodahs that I needed to have a look at that side of the fort without being seen. He said, "Me first. Watch hands," and faded into the underbrush like smoke. I followed him, trying to move fast without making any noise. Trying, I said. I moved less than half as fast as he did, and made ten times more noise. Or a hundred, because he did not make any noise at all, and I did. I would move ahead as fast as I could for five or ten minutes, then I would catch sight of him waiting for me. He would wait to make sure I had seen him, motion for me to follow, and fade out.

After that had happened twice he did not go, but stayed right where he was, pointing. There was a little clearing in front of us, and he was pointing to the other side. I caught up with him and looked across that clearing as hard as I could. What I saw was more trees and more brush. Nothing else.

Hoodahs motioned for me to follow, and faded off to his left, not going into the clearing at all. I am dumb, but I was not dumb enough to step out there. I followed him, and when we had gone maybe twenty or thirty feet, there was a trench about three feet deep with gravel on the bottom, and a thick wall of dirt not quite two feet high in front of it. There were little bushes scattered along the top of that wall, looking like they had been planted there. In front of it were more little bushes, not high enough to block the view of anybody looking over it.