by Robin Lloyd
Don Pedro approached Townsend. “Go ahead, young man—choose five for your grandmother.”
“What! . . . No. I can’t possibly.”
“Come Townsend,” he ordered. “Hurry. Which ones do you want?”
Townsend was glad that the darkness hid his shock and dismay. Don Pedro pulled him closer to the bonfire where the slaves were lined up.
“Hurry, before any soldiers or police arrive. The best are being picked now. Choose!”
Townsend crossed his arms and Don Pedro shook his head angrily. The Spaniard chose five slaves and left to work out the details with those in charge in the beach cottage. Shaking and distraught, Townsend turned toward shore. He looked over at a group of planters on the other side of the bonfire who were deep in conversation, studying their faces lit up by the flames. He stared at them angrily, accusingly. Suddenly he gasped, startled by a familiar face. The man had glanced in his direction, and then abruptly looked away. He had grown a beard, and his hair was now dyed solid black, but Townsend thought it could be him. He rushed through the crowd to get to the other side of the bonfire, but there was no trace of him. The man he had seen was wearing a black top hat with a red feather, and he thought, just thought, that he looked faintly like Michael Abbott.
24
The squeal of the brakes and the sudden blast of the train’s steam whistle woke Townsend up with a start. He shook himself awake and looked out of the car at a passing lush green landscape of banana and coconut trees filtered by clouds of red dust. The breeze coming in through the open window was the only relief from the oppressive heat of midday. He tried to recall what it was he’d been dreaming. It was intense, he knew that. His mind seemed to be blocked, distracted by the clacking of the train wheels and the rocking motion of the car.
Don Pedro had told Townsend to return to the city without him so as to oversee the work being done on the boat. The Spaniard would be staying on in the Matanzas area for several more days to finalize the transaction. He had seemed to be in fine spirits, and was already talking about the next trip to Texas and Matamoros. Despite Townsend’s refusal to pick slaves, he could tell he was winning Don Pedro’s trust.
He straightened himself up on the uncomfortable caned seat. As he looked around at the other fifty passengers in the car, all smoking cigars, the horror of the dream suddenly came back to him, in haunting fragments amid the clouds of tobacco smoke. Townsend shook his head to try to forget those disturbing images. In the dream, slaves were crawling ashore, clutching the sand. A ghostly figure stepped into the flames. It was Abbott. He was beckoning Townsend to join him and walk into the fire. That’s all he could remember. That’s when the train’s steam whistle had woken him. He shivered.
One of the conductors yelled out, “¡San Miguel! ¡San Miguel!” as the slow train came to a grinding stop. Outside a jumble of naked Negro children ran about, amid shirtless Chinese and Negro laborers waiting to load and unload. He had one stop to go before they arrived at the end of the line at Regla. He knew what he needed to do over the next few days. He would check on the progress on the boat at the Casa Blanca shipyard, and try to find out where his crewmembers were. But first and foremost, he was going to see the consul general. At their earlier meeting four days ago, he and Savage had agreed they would meet that same afternoon.
From the docks at Regla, Townsend hired a bungo boat to row him across the bay to the fish market landing. He thought if anyone was watching him from shore or in another boat he could lose them in the crowded fish market. Once they’d arrived, he paid the harbor boatman, and gave him an extra dime for his wide-brimmed straw hat. He pulled the sweaty, worn hat over his head to help him blend in. On the landing, he walked by some of the fishing sloops that had just returned from the banks of Florida or the Tortugas with their catches still alive in sea water wells in their boats. One of the larger boats caught his eye. It was a square sailing barge about fifty feet long and twenty feet wide. Townsend recognized the type of vessel. A two-masted, scow schooner, the slowest boat under sails ever built. He’d seen these barges on the Chesapeake hauling freight up and down the Susquehanna River. With their flat bottoms, straight sides, and square ends, they were ugly but they could go where other schooners could not. He remembered how his father had hidden fugitive slaves in those boats.
Townsend was surprised to see a scow schooner in Cuba and he spoke with the fisherman, a thin-faced Cuban with a scruffy beard who was busy hauling squid and barracuda out of the boat’s hold. When he asked where he got it, the man shrugged. He said he had heard it came from the Sabine River in Texas where it was used to carry cordwood. He had no idea how it got to Cuba. He said someone just abandoned it.
“¿Quiere comprarlo? Do you want to buy it,” the fisherman asked in Spanish. “Se lo vendo barato. I will sell it to you cheap.”
“What’s cheap?”
“Four to five hundred dollars,” the man replied with a hopeful expression. “Good ship to run the blockade.”
Townsend shook his head. The fisherman persisted and gave Townsend his name, Raúl Ortiz. “In case you hear of a Confederado wanting to run the blockade, I keep the boat in Casa Blanca near the wharf of Lucas Padrón. Just ask for Ortiz. Everyone knows me. By the way, you speak Spanish well. Como un Cubano, like a Cuban.”
Townsend looked back to see if the boat had a name on its stern. He smiled when he read it. It was called Vírgen Gorda, or Fat Virgin. He walked up the steps into the noisy, crowded open-air market that overlooked the harbor. Inside the building, there was a labyrinth of stalls. The tangy, briny smells made Townsend’s nose twitch as he watched scruffy-faced vendors chop off fish heads with one quick blow and then wipe their scaly hands on their trousers. There must have been one hundred types of different fish with every color in the rainbow, spiny lobster, turtles, dorados, and octopus laid out on square stone tables like mounds of jewelry. He looked at the long sleek bodies of barracuda, their jaws lined with rows of razor teeth lying alongside dozens of yellow and red tail snapper, their dead eyes a lifeless gray. Predator and prey, side by side. At that moment his thoughts turned to the landing of the slaves, the bonfire and Michael Abbott. Had he really seen the man, or was it just his imagination? The visions in his dream had started to blend with reality. He was uncertain what he had seen on that beach.
As if on cue, in the midst of all this noisy confusion, he spotted a familiar face. It was the owner of the fish market, Pancho Marty, who was almost hidden by shadows in a dark corner of the market. Townsend was surprised to see him so soon. He must have come back on an earlier train. He was talking with someone who Townsend couldn’t see, and together they looked like they were examining some of the recent deliveries being brought in from the fishing boats. Townsend ducked behind one of the pillars and watched the two men from there.
He was about to slip away when he caught a head-on view of the man next to Marty. The sight of him stopped him dead in his tracks. It was Salazar, and given the concerned look on the two men’s faces and their anxious hand gestures, they appeared to be having an intense conversation. They clearly knew each other. Townsend pulled his straw hat down farther, giving them a wide berth. He had no idea what those two were talking about, but he supposed it had something to do with investments in Don Pedro’s ships. As he looked down at a tabletop covered with squids still writhing, he was reminded of Don Pedro and his cohorts, slim, elusive creatures adept at spewing out clouds of ink to avoid scrutiny. Slave traders, merchants, and planters all seemed to be close companions in Spanish Cuba.
When he walked into the main office of the US Consulate, Savage got up from his chair to greet him. Before Townsend could even shake his hand, his mouth dropped in astonishment at the person standing beside the vice-consul general. She was the last person he had expected to see. She was wearing a green sleeveless dress, a color he thought suited her.
“Hello, Miss Carpenter,” he said awkwardly.
“Good aft
ernoon, Captain Townsend,” she replied politely with a faint nod of her head. The sunlight from the window shone through her long brown hair.
“I didn’t know you would be—”
Savage cut him short as he stretched out his hand.
“Thank you for keeping your appointment with me, Captain. Have a seat, please. I was worried you might be delayed. The train system in Cuba, despite the help of American and English engineers, leaves much to be desired. Sit down. Please sit down.”
Townsend did as he was told, his eyes still on Emma.
“I can see you are surprised to see Miss Carpenter here, Captain,” Savage said. “Let me explain. It’s about that Englishman, Michael Abbott. I know I said I was not going to do this, but I had a change of mind. It is a serious matter. I took the liberty of mentioning the man’s name to the captain general, when I saw him the other day. I was curious to see his reaction. I explained to His Excellency the man had been missing for quite some time.”
Emma asked expectantly, “What did he say?”
“Well, I must say I was quite surprised. The mere mention of the name Abbott made the captain general quite nervous. He began squirming in his seat. I could see he was taken by surprise.”
“So he knows something?” Emma nodded with a frown.
“He said they have no record of a man fitting that description.”
“No mention of his imprisonment and his escape?” Townsend asked incredulously.
“He assured me he knew nothing of such a man with that name or anyone fitting that description, and then he asked where I had gotten my information. Of course I made no mention of you, Captain Townsend, or anything that might make him suspect you or Miss Carpenter or Mrs. Carpenter. I merely said that one of my foreign friends here in Havana had known Abbott and even heard about his imprisonment in El Morro and he was concerned.”
“How did he react?” Townsend asked.
“He seemed eager to be rid of me. When I continued to press him on the matter he sent one of his aides to check the records. The aide came back to reassure me that no such man had ever come to Cuba.”
“So they are covering it up,” Emma said.
“So it would seem. Michael Abbott is someone the Cubans refer to as one of the “disappeared ones.” All records of the man appear to have been eliminated.”
An awkward silence settled in the room. Emma looked away. Townsend wondered if he should mention the slave landing and the glimpse he’d had of a man resembling Abbott. But something told him to hold off. It was too extraordinary. What would Abbott be doing there, anyway? Abbott was supposed to be gone. Disappeared, as Savage had said.
“My advice to you both is that you close the book on this Abbott matter,” Savage stated emphatically. “That was my first instinct, but I allowed my curiosity to get the better of me. It may have been a mistake I will regret. Now the Guardia Civil and their agents no doubt are spying on me more closely. When you leave I will show you to a back door that leads through a doctor’s office, and out onto an alleyway.”
Savage got up and started walking around the room, his pale, thin hands held behind his back.
“However, there is more business to discuss before our meeting ends. I think you know what I am talking about, Captain, don’t you?”
Townsend nodded.
“Have you given proper thought to what we spoke about last week?”
“I have. I will do it.” He avoided looking at Emma, but he could feel her warm gaze turn toward him.
Savage smiled. “Excellent. I am pleased to hear that. Now that I know what side you are on, Captain Townsend, I can give you the good news we just received. The USS Huntsville has captured the Spanish steamer, Union, of and from Havana, with a cargo of considerable value. But even more important, the flagship of the Havana blockade runners has also been destroyed.”
“Which one?” Townsend asked. “Not the Cuba?”
“Yes, the notorious Cuba. On May 19th, her own sailors set fire to her to avoid her being taken as a prize. The USS De Soto chased her for eighteen hours. Finally caught up with her off the Alabama coast. Reportedly more than a million dollars of cargo went up in smoke before the ship sank to the bottom. Major losses for the merchants, and a major victory for the Union’s blockade effort!”
“That is . . . wonderful news,” Townsend said, trying to hide his ambivalence about other blockade runners’ fates.
“But let me get back to the matter at hand. After much consideration and some initial reservations, I have decided to allow Miss Carpenter to help in our intelligence gathering efforts. She is a stubborn young lady, and does not like to take no for an answer. Like her mother, she seems to have something of the Beecher Stowe woman about her. I have asked her to observe the guests at her mother’s boarding house and listen for news about visiting Confederate agents in the city. The two of you will both be working as my eyes and ears.”
Townsend glanced at Emma, who had an enigmatic expression on her face. There were so many things he wanted to ask her.
Savage continued his lecture.
“When either of you need to contact me, there is a lottery salesman who is always at the Alameda de Paula. Name of Gutiérrez. I have worked with the man for years. He is easy to spot. He’s a dwarf, and is always well dressed. No one should take notice if you approach him. Please choose a code word. Give me a name, any name, but something in Spanish.”
“How about, cocuyo,” Townsend said quickly. It was all he could think of.
“Excellent. I will tell Gutiérrez. If you mention the code name cocuyo, he will know you are sending me a message. Just buy a lottery ticket from him with your written note, and even if you are being followed no one will suspect anything. Everybody buys lottery tickets in this city.”
Savage called the secretary to bring in coffee and some guava dulces. He wanted to hear about Townsend’s tour of Cuba’s sugar plantations. Townsend paused before speaking and then began his unusual story of how he had come to meet his grandmother. Both Emma and the consul general sat spellbound as they heard the puzzling details of Townsend’s family story, and how this connection had been hidden from him by Don Pedro all these months.
“How extraordinary,” Savage muttered as he thoughtfully stroked his clean-shaven chin. “How strange that Don Pedro would get so involved in your family affairs. I don’t think of him as a person who does anything outside his own self-interest and personal gain.”
Townsend remained silent. Savage fixed him with an intense stare.
“Perhaps you feel differently now, Captain,” the vice-consul general said. “After all, you are related to a Cuban plantation owner who is openly sympathetic with the Southern cause. Like so many of the Matanzas planters, Doña Cecilia de Vargas is known to be a strong supporter of slavery. As her grandson, it might be difficult to continue to be an informant for me.”
“She may be my grandmother, but let’s just say I find that I feel more like my mother did about the family business and what’s at stake in this war.”
“Won’t you feel like you are betraying your grandmother?” Emma asked.
“No, I feel like I’m honoring my mother,” he replied.
“And Don Pedro?”
“Nothing has changed. I feel no loyalty to him. I have never trusted him, and now even less so.”
“What other surprises do you have for me Captain?” Savage asked with a probing stare.
Townsend mentioned the visit to the plantation near the coast and how Don Pedro had met with the owner, Don Eugenio Hernández, and his business associate, Don Julián Zulueta. He also told him about witnessing the slave landing and Pancho Marty.
“You have certainly had a busy week, Captain. In Zulueta and Marty, you have met two of the island’s most influential men of business, and Don Eugenio is one of the wealthiest planters in Cuba, a venerable caballero.”
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br /> Savage sat back in his chair with a studied scholarly look on his face.
“Be careful, Captain. Zulueta and Marty are two of Cuba’s most notorious slave traders with a reputation for taking the law into their own hands. They see themselves as the island’s political bosses. They may look polished but they haven’t forgotten how to slit a throat. Just last year, their names came up in connection with the murder of two men who bought Negroes from the slavers, but then refused to pay the full price.”
Savage paused to sip his coffee.
“Are slave traders here in Cuba then immune from prosecution?” Townsend asked.
“About ten years ago, Zulueta was put in jail, but only for about two months. Then he was released and he resumed his illegal shipments with even more audacity. His arrest was mostly done for show. The captain general in Cuba at the time, Don Valentín Cañedo, was considered a partisan and friend of the slave traders. But he was pressured by the British to arrest Zulueta. A Royal Navy brig had captured one of Zulueta’s slave ships, the Lady Suffolk, while attempting to make a landing of three hundred Negroes on the southwestern end of the island in Batabano.”
“Was that during the time Backhouse was here in Cuba?” Townsend asked pointedly as he looked over at Emma.
“I suppose it was, now that you mention it. The capture of the Lady Suffolk must have been the summer of 1853. The Backhouses had arrived a few months earlier. I don’t imagine Don Julián Zulueta had any warm feelings for Judge Backhouse. I am sure he viewed his arrest as a terrible affront. He’s a proud man, Zulueta. Rich and proud. And like many of the extremely wealthy Spaniards here, he sees nothing wrong with slave trading.”
Townsend remained silent as he and Emma exchanged glances. He knew they were both thinking the same thing. This is the kind of information Michael Abbott had been after.
“Tell me, did you hear anything about what business matters Don Pedro was concerned with, besides buying slaves for your grandmother? What did he talk to Zulueta and Don Eugenio about?”