by Diego Vega
Bernardo pointed out to sea. Trinidad had gotten her boat out of the breakers and was running down the channel toward San Pedro. He motioned toward the cliffs ahead: Let’s go.
The hacienda door was barred, so they climbed in over the sleeping porch. Not a good idea.
They had walked only a few paces when both Don Alejandro and Regina stepped out of the shadows in their nightshirts, each holding a sword at the ready. Estafina appeared in the hallway with a cocked pistol, and Scar called from the veranda, “Patrón?”
“It’s Diego and Bernardo, Scar,” the don called back. “Come in through the front. Estafina, uncock that pistol and unbar the front door.” His face was serious as he turned to the boys. “Where have you been? We’ve all been upset! Worried sick! You can’t rattle around like this on your own!” He was angry, but the boys could see that it came out of his concern for them. He didn’t wait for answers. “Get out of those clothes. Dry off and come to the kitchen.”
Regina said nothing, but Diego caught her glance and saw the gladness in her face. She was relieved they were back.
The kitchen was warm and bright with candles when they came in. Estafina was kneeling by the hearth fire, feeding it kindling and swinging a pot of stew over the flame. Her creed was simple: If there is trouble, fix food.
“Now, Diego. And you, Bernardo. Explain to me how you justify—”
Diego held up his hand. “Forgive me, Papá.” He kneeled down beside Estafina and put his arm around her. “I have seen Montez. I have talked to him. He is being held captive, but he is well and sends his love.”
Her strong face didn’t change expression. There was, perhaps, a tiny trembling of her lips. Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded once and turned back to the fire to hide them. She was one reason Diego was proud to have the warrior blood of the Gabrieleño in him.
Later, after explanations and details, they sat at the table as the morning light rose around the hacienda.
“The four dozen prisoners, they are in a stout stockade, yes?” Don Alejandro was going over some of the situation. When Diego nodded, he continued. “There are fifteen or twenty guards, heavily armed. The camp is in a little…” He struggled for a description.
“It’s something like a ravine, Papá. It opens onto the beach where there is a line of trees at the edge of the sand.”
The don nodded. “And there is a path that leads down from the ridge, a path you found by coming up the other side of the ridge?”
“We didn’t stumble on it, Papá. Trinidad knew it well. She knows the island and all the water around it.”
“I wish this child, Trinidad, were here. Is she reliable?”
Bernardo put his hand flat on the table: Absolutely.
Diego said, “She is honest and she has courage. She is at home on the water as Scar is in the saddle.”
Don Alejandro looked under raised brows to Diego, doubting this. Then to Scar.
Scar lifted his shoulders a finger’s width: Let’s hope she is.
“Stackpole has faith in her. And Stackpole is a man we can trust,” Diego said.
The don thought a moment, then nodded.
“Stackpole says that if these slavers are frightened, they will leave immediately with whatever prisoners they have now. He thinks time is important.”
The don looked at Scar and turned back. “I just hope we have enough time.”
“I took a risk, Papá. I’ve asked Stackpole to gather several fishermen and their boats, men he can trust, for tonight.”
“That was a risk,” the don agreed, “but it was sensible. We’ll need them. And I agree that time is crucial. We will strike tonight. But I still need to know more about that island. Scar…”
The mayordomo leaned forward.
“Send for Juan Three-fingers and his crew, and for six other vaqueros who will be good in a fight. Send word for some of our old soldiers—Hermosa, Juarez, Padillo, Verde—”
“I will be with you,” Regina announced. It wasn’t a question.
“And I.” Estafina rose and placed both of her big hands on the table.
Don Alejandro paused, looked at Estafina’s hands, and said, “Está bien. That’s good.” He turned to Scar. “Muskets, fifty rounds for each man…and woman. Swords for all and pikes for those who want to carry them. Can you fix me a couple of grenades, like in the old days, Esteban?” Scar grinned around the saber cut on his cheek, looking forward to making some grenades.
“And let’s get this Trinidad girl up here. And Stackpole. Send a good man to San Pedro with horses to bring them back. I want everyone here by mid-afternoon with all our tools laid out. We need a council of war, my children.”
The don addressed them all as his children, but no one was insulted. Capitán Alejandro de la Vega was merely reassuming his rank and station as a leader of troops. True, they were irregular troops: an unusual little army of vaqueros, retired soldiers, boys and women, plus a small navy consisting of a one-legged Yankee, the abandoned child of an Acapulco prostitute, and some mestízo fishermen.
The capitán lit a cigar with jaunty confidence: with a force like this, the blackbirders didn’t have a chance.
Diego and Bernardo looked at each other. Diego had at first thought the rough-talking dock orphan Trinidad would offend his reserved, often argumentative mother. On second thought, however, they were both wildly independent, strong women.
Doña Regina strode out of the hacienda dressed scandalously in men’s riding trousers and a black silk blouse. Her hair was pulled back under a black scarf. She took one look at Trinidad clinging to the saddle horn, at her wild, red hair and her mended trousers dusty from the road. She called, “You are Trinidad? Look at the way these brutes have treated you, all the way from San Pedro!” She gave the vaqueros an evil look.
She passed over Stackpole (who had ridden the same distance and with a whalebone leg that didn’t fit a stirrup) with “Señor Stackpole. You are welcome.”
Then she returned all her attention to Trinidad. “You must excuse them, little sister. They are accustomed to the company of cows, little more. You will come with me now and refresh yourself.”
Trinidad nearly fell from the big mare she had ridden. Regina rushed to help her while the boys stood by. Diego was just as happy that she couldn’t ride worth a bean. The two women disappeared into the hacienda.
Don Alejandro was impatient to begin his council of war and paced around the table. But Regina believed there were more important things to do. She reappeared with Trinidad only after the girl’s hair had been brushed, she had been washed, and was dressed in clean clothes—fresh trousers with a silk blouse. Bernardo recognized his trousers and Diego the shirt.
“We are at your disposal, gentlemen,” Regina said, as if the two women had been waiting all along. She took her place at the table, and the men returned to their seats—Stackpole, Scar and his vaqueros, and half a dozen former soldiers who had served under Don Alejandro. They were older men, with gray in their hair but unmistakable iron in their bearing. Estafina stood in her usual place beside the table. On it was a map of Santa Cruz Island.
“Está bien,” Don Alejandro said. “Can you read a map, child?”
“She’s been raised with nautical charts,” Stackpole said, but Trinidad held up her hand to him. She would answer for herself.
“Yes, Señor.”
“Bueno. Here is a map of Santa Cruz Island. Can you show me approximately where the trails you took are located?”
“No, Señor,” she said.
Don Alejandro looked at her, surprised.
“I can show you exactly where they are located. Here”—she traced a route with her finger from an indent in the southeastern coast of the island to its ridge—“along the ridge, here, then down to this little valley, here.”
The don nodded his approval. “And this ridge road, it goes both ways? Do any other trails descend from it to the southwestern side of the island?”
Trinidad nodded. “The ridge road run
s out to here. There is a trail to this beach. It also runs farther to the southeast and connects to a trail here that runs down to this beach.”
“Excellent,” the don said. There were many questions and many comments, and the table went through a big pot of coffee before the don was satisfied.
“Make no mistake,” he addressed everyone in the room, “these slavers are evil men. They are outlaws, no better than pirates. I don’t want any of you hurt because you offer too much mercy. Be sensible, be hard, leave your pity at home. We’ve met some of these men before in the pueblo. My impression is that they’ll put up a fight to defend their…property.” The don’s face showed his disgust for slavery. “We must assume they have been in a real battle before. But at sea, on their own terms. We have them on land, and we can box them up like rabbits in a pen. They will not have come up against disciplined soldiers, caballeros. I expect them to crumble and run.”
He had drawn a rough map of the valley, showing the stockade where the prisoners were kept, the general locations of the tents and fires Diego had described, and the places trails came down from the ridges.
“You men on the beach, remember your fields of fire. Don’t fire directly up the valley, but across it at an angle. We don’t want to hit our captive Angeleños with bullets meant to free them.”
The men nodded.
“And when the signal is given, get under cover, quick!”
They nodded their assent again.
“Questions?”
The groups of men had been assigned, they had their orders and their places, they knew what was expected of them. They looked at one another. Juan Three-fingers said, “I think we’re ready, Patrón. There’s just one thing….”
“What’s that?”
“We’re horsemen. We’re a tiny bit worried about how we’ll do as sailors. Some of us…well, it’s a long way from the land.”
Stackpole spoke up. “I will be with you, amigos. You will do well, I know. If you throw your dinner up, do it away from the wind. This is all that is asked of you for the sailor part of things.”
The vaqueros grinned and nodded, and Juan said, “Away from the wind, right?”
“Sí, and away from me.”
20
THE ASSAULT
BERNARDO WAS WITH DON ALEJANDRO. They had parted into groups on the ridge. The don’s group had continued along the ridge and made its way down the spine of the island to the beach. There they changed directions and crept along the beach, under cover of the dark trees, to the western edge of the slavers’ valley.
Now they waited for Scar’s signal that his group had reached the eastern edge of the valley. If all went well, he and his vaqueros should be in the trees across from the don’s men.
A light from the trees! It went out, appeared again, went out, appeared. Three flashes of light.
Don Alejandro beckoned to Bernardo for the little lantern. He took it carefully. It was hot from the invisible candle burning inside it. He pointed it toward the location of the three flashes and opened the lantern’s tiny door three times.
Two flashes came back as Scar confirmed that they were ready, and the don opened his own lantern twice. Don Alejandro had taken the longest route. When he was in place, the other groups would almost surely be ready.
“Stay behind me,” he whispered to Bernardo. To his men he said, “Armbands?”
Each fingered the white armband on his left arm. If it came to a hand-to-hand fight, they would identify friends.
“Grenade,” he whispered. A round clay pot packed with gunpowder and a fuse was handed up to him. It was tied to an arm’s-length cord.
“Muskets, spread out and be ready. Make sure of your targets.”
Half a dozen blackbirders sat around a campfire, talking and singing.
Don Alejandro opened the lantern and thrust the fuse inside. When the fuse began to hiss, he handed the lantern back to Bernardo and stepped out from the bushes. He swung the grenade around by its cord, faster and faster. The fuse sputtered and made a circle of sparks.
Bernardo could see another circle of sparks where Scar’s men lay hidden.
Don Alejandro let the cord go and the grenade soared up and over the clearing. One of the slavers had time to rise, point, and say, “Look!”
The grenade exploded with a roar and a flash of light.
When the grenade from Scar’s group exploded, the light caught every slaver looking up with his mouth open. This moment of light was enough for the musket men on each side of them to aim and fire. The rattle of muskets faded into the howls and screams of slavers who had been hit.
Don Alejandro shouted, “Up and at them, caballeros!” Whooping and yelling, the vaqueros picked up swords and pikes and ran up the valley. The noise from Scar’s group was just as frightening.
The blackbirders’ camp burst into confusion. The slavers around the fire who hadn’t been hit leaped and ran uphill from the charging vaqueros. Slavers who had been asleep a moment before bolted from their tents. They met their fleeing comrades and caught their panic. Almost all the slavers ran up toward the stockade.
Don Alejandro stopped and brought up a silver whistle. It screeched in the dark. All of his men and all of Scar’s men stopped their charge immediately. They all fell flat or leaped behind tree trunks. The don pushed Bernardo to the ground behind a fallen trunk and fell over him to protect the boy.
The slavers were still running. They were coming to the stockade. Behind it was safety: a thick forest where they could hide.
“Gentlemen,” Regina said. She stepped out of the tree line with the retired soldiers. Two of them hefted big musketoons with bell-shaped muzzles. The others carried fowling pieces. When they could clearly see the shapes of the slavers coming up the hill, Regina gave out a bone-chilling Gabrieleño war whoop. It may have cheered several of her tribe in the stockade, but it rattled the old soldiers beside her. They fired. Each of the musketoons spat out a hundred musket balls in a blaze of orange and white fire. The fowling pieces fired ten balls each. The line of running slavers was instantly blasted to a stop.
Only a few blackbirders were untouched. These and the wounded who could run changed direction and pelted back downhill, totally confused.
Regina whooped again and pursued them, swinging her sword. The soldiers laid down their flintlocks and followed her with their own swords.
Diego and Estafina bolted out of the tree line with axes. They hurried directly to the stockade. “Stand back, brothers!” Estafina shouted. There was a stir of bodies inside the stockade and Montez called to her, but she was already attacking the stockade wall. Diego slipped around to the front of the stockade and swung his ax at the heavy lashings that made the hinge of the gate.
“Give a heave!” Diego shouted and stepped back. Several of the men inside threw themselves at the hated gate and the rope hinges parted. The gate flew open and bodies tumbled out.
“Uphill! Into the trees!” Diego shouted. “Go for the light! Don’t go downhill! Uphill! Away from the beach!”
Men swarmed out of the gate and out of the broken wall. They moved toward the lantern that Trinidad had opened for them to allow the light to show.
Regina and her group gathered the surrendering slavers.
“Patrón!” Juan Three-fingers shouted at Don Alejandro. “Some of them are getting away!”
Slavers from one of the tents had run around Scar’s group to the beach and were in a small boat, rowing frantically toward the ship anchored in the sheltered channel off the beach. In the silence that had fallen over the clearing, their oars could be heard thrashing the water. There was a chopping sound from the ship, and the sound of men running on deck.
Don Alejandro saw a square light open in the ship’s side and heard a rumble. He realized with a shock what it was and what was about to happen. He blew his whistle hard. “Down!” he shouted. “Take cover! Take cover from the water side!” Again he threw Bernardo down and covered him.
A moment later there was a
giant explosion, louder than the muskets and grenades together. Instantly the air was filled with whining buzzes. The slave ship had run out a cannon and fired a single round of canister. A thousand musket balls came screaming up the valley. But the only human screams came from the water. The escaping slavers were directly in the line of fire. The balls tore them and their boat to pieces.
Bernardo heard a splash beside the ship as its anchor rope was cut. He heard the squeal of ropes running through blocks, and the rustle of sails taking the wind. The slave ship swung away and gathered speed down the channel.
Its cannon couldn’t aim for them at this new angle. The guerilla army ashore watched it go. They realized that they were seeing it in the first dim light of morning.
Conch-shell horns sounded as the little fleet of fishing boats rounded the eastern point, come to take their Angeleño friends back home.
Stackpole was first off a boat and into the water. He carried a boarding ax, a nasty-looking weapon like a large tomahawk. He surged through the water, faltering as his whalebone peg pushed into the sand but coming ahead with a murderous expression. Don Alejandro and the boys walked down to meet him.
“Trinidad?” Her safety was his first concern.
He hadn’t wanted to let her go, but Regina had said, “She has a warrior’s heart, Señor Stackpole. You can protect a warrior only so far. I will watch over her for her papá.” Stackpole had never dared think of her as his daughter until that moment. He relented.
So now Don Alejandro put his hand on Stackpole’s shoulder. “She is well, unharmed. We couldn’t have done this thing without her. If I had a medal to give—”
Trinidad came running down the hill, leaping over a slaver’s body as if it were a log. “Stackpole,” she crowed, “you should have seen it! It was amazing! Shots everywhere, grenades, explosions, and the slavers tried to kill us all, but they just killed their own blackbirders!”
Stackpole’s face sagged at her description. The danger! The awful possibilities!
Don Alejandro shook Stackpole’s shoulder. “Don’t trouble yourself, Capitán. I will tell you everything later. It wasn’t as perilous as our Trinidad describes it. It was more like cattle in the killing chutes. Messy but businesslike.”