Pirate Freedom (24 page)

Rombeau's ears pricked up when Novia translated that.

Mine had pricked up already. We wanted to know who had that gold now.

"Señora Guzman, of course, Señors. He is dead, so his gold is hers."

We gave Pilar another glass of wine, chained her hands again, and sent her forward with the two men. After that I plumped myself down in her chair, and Novia, Rombeau, and I looked at each other.

"That liar of a shipowner told us Guzman was ruined," Rombeau said. "He will pay for that!"

I nodded. "He did, and he will. He's got guts, just the same, and you've got to give him credit for them. He wanted his stash and Guzman's, too, and he was willing to fight for them."

"Already he has lost them, Crisóforo." Novia was thinking so hard she sounded as if she were talking to herself instead of me.

"Not the way he sees it. Rombeau's promised they won't be killed. That sounds like we're going to let them go eventually. Put them ashore someplace or send them off in a boat. After that we'd probably sell the
Castillo Blanco
, or so he thought. He has friends and business connections, and he might be able to find her and buy her before the new owner finds the money."

"Or the woman will save the gold for him, perhaps." Novia went to the rail to look at the white bulk of the
Castillo Blanco
, a quarter mile away and glowing in the moonlight. "You will not sell her?"

"I don't know. I want to look her over, and I want to find that money." I went to the taffrail, too, and stood there beside Novia with my arm around her
waist, a waist no bigger than a child's. Ten dozen things were swirling around in my mind then, and I could not write them all down here if I wanted to.

She leaned against me, just a little. She was wearing one of the calico gowns she and Azuka had made, and there was perfume in her hair. "Do not sell her, Crisóforo." It was a whisper.

"I won't," I promised. "Not if she's half as fast as she looks." I do not believe either of us were thinking of Pilar's ghost, monster, or whatever it was just then.

FR. PHIL AND
I went for a walk this morning. It was the first time we have ever done that, and was probably the last. At least one priest is supposed to be at the rectory every minute of the day and night in case someone is at the point of death or in urgent need of confession. Fr. Houdek is usually somewhere else, so Fr. Phil and I rarely have a chance to go out together.

Today was different, because Fr. Ed Cole has come to take collections for the missions. He said he planned to spend the rest of the morning reading, so off we went, a couple of young priests on a sunny Monday-morning stroll.

While we walked, we talked about a good many things. Fr. Phil is eager to get a parish of his own, but thinks it will be years. I know I may get one in the next few weeks, and am not at all eager—which is not what I said to Fr. Phil.

One of the things we talked about (maybe the only important thing we talked about) was what it means to be a priest. He is focused on the priest as
leader of a little community of believers. That is what he wants from his priesthood, though he did not put it like that. I am more focused on the sacred nature of the calling. "After all," I said, "a priest living alone on a desert island far away remains a priest. Does God think less of him because he has forsaken the world of men for God?"

"You ought to say, the world of people," Fr. Phil told me.

I have used the word
importance
, but none of this was important at all. The subject is certainly important, but we had nothing of importance to say about it. And we were both right, and both quite willing to concede that both of us were right. If Fr. Houdek had been with us, he would have focused on something else, I am sure, though I am not sure what it would be. Raising money for a new school, or administering the sacraments, or any of a dozen other things.

One thing I am sure of, now that I have had a chance to think our conversation over, it is that the thing we should focus on depends on where we are. My priest on a desert island is not in a parish. Fr. Phil's priest in a parish is not alone on an island. Fr. Luis was in a third place, and so on.

I started writing about this because of what happened at the end. Fr. Phil said something I ought to have said, and felt something I ought to have felt. We were out of character (as an actor would say), both of us. But life is not a TV series, and this was a salutary reminder of it.

We were returning to the rectory when Fr. Phil stopped and pointed to the spire of the church, raising its shining gilt cross to the clear blue sky. "Look at that, Chris! Isn't it inspiring? Every time I see it, I want to cheer."

I did not feel that way. I knew I should have, but I did not. Still, there was a little tickle of memory there for me, and I knew there had been a time when I had felt like that about something. It took me hours to recall what it was. Eventually I realized that it had hit me so hard because I am at that point in this private and probably worthless chronicle—in this, the true story about me that I tell myself each evening at the hour when all or most of the kids have gone home from the Youth Center and we are about to close. It meant a great deal to me then, as it still does. It did not speak in words, however, and I know that no words of mine can make anybody—no, not even this man in black who writes it—feel what I felt then.

When Novia and I went aboard the
Castillo Blanco
, we did not set out to look for the hidden woman or the hidden gold straight off. My first concern
had to be for the ship itself—how well Bouton had been handling her, and how well she handled.

He was full of praise for her, though he had less for the crew Rombeau had given him.

"You don't have a pistol," I said.

"Mine are in my cabin, Captain. I did not feel one was necessary."

"You're right. You need two. Two at least. Go to your cabin and get them. Three would be better."

When he had gone Novia said, "I have mine, Crisóforo," and I told her I hoped she would not have to use them.

"First we'll explain things to them," I told Bouton when he came back with his pistols. "If we do it right, we won't have to worry about their ganging up on us. If you see anybody goofing off, smack his ass with the flat of your cutlass. If anybody hits you or pulls a knife—or if anybody even tries it—kill him. I'll be with you, and I expect you to be with me. We kill him quick, throw him over the side, and get them back to it. Capeesh? We don't give them time to talk it over."

He got the watch up to the quarterdeck rail for me. This is more or less what I said, only I said it in my second-rate French:

"Friends, we're on our way to Port Royal to sell the
Rosa
and her cargo. When we do there will be plenty of money for everybody."

Some of them cheered.

"We're not going to sell this ship, though. She's fast, and we're going to make her faster. Handled right, she'll bring us ten times more than she'd fetch at auction. The thing is, she's got to be handled right. We can't slug it out with a Spanish galleon, not even with the
Magdelena
doing most of the fighting. So we've got to be able to run, and we've got to be able to catch. Anybody want to argue with that?"

Nobody did.

"Fine. We're going to put her through some maneuvers now. Me and Bouton are going to be jumping around yelling at you, trying to get everything better and faster. If you don't like that, I don't blame you. I've been yelled at a lot, and I never liked it for shit. But those officers who yelled at me were trying to save me from drowning. If the ship wasn't handled right and fast, we were all going to drown. That's true here on the
Castillo Blanco
, too. We handle it right or we drown. Or hang. I'm a pirate, so I've got a noose
around my neck right now. You've got a noose around yours, too, every man of you. Feel it?

"Stations now! Stations, everybody!"

After that we tacked, wore ship, and so on. We took in canvas, and we let canvas out. At first we had to yell at the men to get down when she gybed, but they caught on faster than I expected. We kept them at it until the watch was over, then we went to it with the next watch while they stayed out of the way and jeered. One of the good things was that we did not have to kill anybody.

Another good thing was that I took the wheel for the last hour or so of that second watch. I wanted to see how she answered her helm, and she drove like a sports car. What a ship! I had been shouting out the maneuvers,
stand by to go about
and all that. Finally I called, "Mister Bouton! Run up the black flag!"

Although he was a big, solid man, he was back up on the quarterdeck and into the signal chest like a boy, and had the flag climbing its halyard almost before I caught my breath. We had a good breeze by then, and I stood there at the wheel looking up at that flag snapping at the masthead while the whole crew cheered. I was as happy right then as I have ever been in my life.

We ate at eight bells, Bouton, Novia, and me messing together at the little table Don José had talked about. It was a lot better food than Novia and I had been getting, and we enjoyed it. There is nothing like warm sunshine, salt air, and a stiff breeze to give you an appetite.

Looking at all that good food, I happened to think of the fat woman back in Spain who had told me to take a walk. I asked Novia whether she had been a good cook and easy to work with. Novia said no and no, but did not want to talk about her. I would not mention it here if it had not been for what happened that night.

After dinner, Bouton and I went down for a look in the sail locker. There were studding sails for every sail on the ship, sailmaker's supplies, and a lot of spare canvas. Everything was new. As I said, I had already fallen for that ship, and just looking at her stuff made me feel good. When I went back up on deck, I got a couple of men started on a jib for one of the forestays.

Maybe here I should explain that both masts were raked. That means the foremast slanted forward and the main backward, so their tops were farther apart than their bases. Raking the masts like that meant that each could carry more sail, and that the main was less liable to kill the wind for the fore
with a following breeze. It also meant that there was more rigging and more complicated rigging, and things were more likely to go wrong with it. The foremast had a stay running to the top of the lower mast and another running to the top of the topmast. We bent that first jib sail on the fore topmast stay.

After that, I took the keys to the cabins and let Bouton drill the men at the guns while we searched. The first place we looked was the cabins that had belonged to de Santiago and his wife, and Guzman and his. It seemed to me that those were the most likely places for them to have hidden their money, where they could keep an eye on it.

I know I have written before about the smallness of the cabins on ships. These were smaller than that. There are rich people with walk-in closets that are bigger than those two little cabins under the quarterdeck. I had to walk bent way over in them. Novia could stand up straight, but it always looked to me like the top of her comb was going to hit the deck beams.

There were two doors, both locked and very small and narrow, down a few steps from the main deck. One went straight into the tiny cabin that had been the Guzmans'. The other went into a hall a few steps long that was so tight my shoulders rubbed both walls. It led into the back cabin, the one that had been the de Santiagos'. That cabin was a shade bigger and had two windows. (The Guzmans' cabin only had one.) When she saw it, Novia said very firmly, "This is where we sleep, Crisóforo."

I said, "Yeah, sure," and sat down, which was a big relief after all the bending over. The little table was in that cabin, with two chairs, chests, a cabinet, and two tiny little bunks. The Guzmans' cabin had not had anything beyond bunks, a matching cabinet, and four chests, and it had been crowded just with those. "When we get to Port Royal," I told Novia, "I'm going to have that wall torn out and make one cabin for us back here."

"One door, too, Crisóforo."

"Right. One door, twice as wide as those two little ones. They must go crazy getting this table out of here."

"It folds." She showed me how, and while I did it myself she went back to looking up between the deck beams. Finally I asked what she was looking for.

"A box. A wooden box for the money and fit between the beams. It is dark up there in the spaces, no? A box the same color, not so deep as the beams. Open it, and the money is in a bag so it will not scatter. That is what I would do."