The Caribbean

by Rob Kidd

  Carolina liked the feeling of having “sea legs,” as if she really belonged on a ship instead of on land. But she was also excited to be exploring a whole new place. No one in her family had ever been anywhere like this before! She laughed quietly.

  “What?” Diego asked, amused.

  “I was just picturing my aunt’s face if she could see me now,” Carolina said, imitating the old woman’s pinched, disapproving expression. Diego chuckled.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny about getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and dragging my pretty dress through all this mud,” Marcella butted in.

  “Actually, I bet Aunt Reynalda’s face would look a little like that,” Carolina whispered to Diego, and he laughed out loud. Marcella narrowed her eyes at Carolina, but the Spanish princess was too busy gazing up into the trees to notice.

  Gombo came padding back down the trail, holding one finger to his mouth to indicate silence. “There’s a fort up ahead,” he whispered.

  “A fort?” Jack echoed. “Here? What kind of fort?” All of them remembered the last fort they had seen, in the town devastated by the Shadow Army.

  “It flies the Spanish flag,” Gombo said.

  Jack sighed theatrically. “What are they all doing here?”

  “And more important,” Gombo pointed out, “why don’t they want anyone to know they are here? Why has the fort been so carefully hidden?”

  “Did you see many guards?” Barbossa asked. “Is it well fortified?”

  “Irrelevant,” Jack said, waving his hands. “We’ll just sneak past and head straight on into the mountains.”

  “But think about it, Jack,” Barbossa argued.

  “They probably have something to hide. Something worth stealing.”

  “We don’t have time for crazy side excursions based on wild theories,” Jack said. “Not unless they’re my wild theories.”

  “What if I checked it out myself?” Barbossa offered. “You go on ahead, and I’ll meet you back at the ship.”

  Jack was too preoccupied with his illness and his quest for Shadow Gold to notice the ominous gleam in Barbossa’s eyes. “Very well,” he said. “Do what you like. I can find the Incas without you.”

  But Barbossa’s sinister machinations had not escaped everyone’s notice. “I’ll go with Barbossa,” Diego offered. He didn’t trust the first mate out of Jack’s sight. He had a feeling that Barbossa would be more than happy to sail off with the Black Pearl as soon as he got a chance.

  “I, too, will go with Barbossa,” Gombo said, for the same reason. He did not necessarily believe Jack was the best captain—too much jumping at shadows, for one thing—but he owed Jack his loyalty for helping him escape, and he was quite sure Barbossa would be a far worse captain. No, he intended to keep an eye on Barbossa for Jack, even if Jack did not know it.

  “No need for that,” Barbossa said with a sly smile. “I can manage alone.”

  “It’s all the same by me who goes where,” Jack said. “But hurry up and decide—I have Incas to find, Shadow Gold to acquire, and a Shadow Army to hide from.…”

  “We’re going with you,” Gombo said firmly to Barbossa.

  “Fine.” Barbossa spat. They had crept forward to the point where they could see the tall stone walls of the fort ahead of them. The path wound past it and continued uphill toward a mountain peak in the distance.

  “I want to go with Diego,” Marcella piped up.

  “A capital plan,” Jack said. “Much better idea than coming with me. You go ahead with good old Diego.” He pushed her in Diego’s direction.

  “Absolutely not,” Barbossa said. “I’m not risking my neck dragging a girl into a Spanish fort with me. Especially this girl.”

  “Shouldn’t you stay with me, cousin?” Jean asked.

  “I want to go with Diego!” Marcella insisted, stamping her foot. “He’s the only one who understands me!”

  “I am?” Diego said, surprised. “I do?”

  “Alas, the dire consequences of lending a girl your handkerchief,” Carolina whispered to him, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

  “All right, that’s settled, then,” Jack said, waving his hands. “She goes with you. Captain’s final word. Farewell, good luck, have fun storming the fort and all that.” He scampered ahead on the path, and Jean and Carolina followed him quickly. Carolina glanced back once, meeting Diego’s gaze, and mouthed “good luck” to him with a little wave.

  I think I’m going to need it, Diego thought as Marcella, with a triumphant smile, wound her arm through his.

  “It is possible this was not the best plan,” Jack admitted after an hour of climbing through dense jungle. He paused to examine the tree in front of him, which looked much like the tree behind him, and the tree beyond that, and every other blasted tree he’d seen since the beach. The path had ended shortly beyond the fort, and now he and Jean and Carolina were all covered in dirt and insect bites and scratches from all the branches that kept whipping back in their faces.

  The trees were finally beginning to give way to more open terrain, but the air was also getting colder as they climbed farther and farther up the hillside.

  “What plan?” Carolina asked. “Pick a continent and just start walking? Figuring you’ll run into someone who lives there eventually? What could be wrong with that plan?”

  Jack squinted at her. “I think I liked you better when you were more worried about me throwing you off my ship.”

  “Let’s look at the quipu again,” Jean suggested. “Maybe we’re missing something.”

  Jack took it out and walked ahead, aiming for a patch of sunlight where the tree cover was thin over a rocky slope. “Useless bunch of string,” he muttered. “Useless pile of kno—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

  Jack vanished into the earth with a startled yell.

  “Jack!” Jean shouted, sprinting forward with Carolina. “Jack, are you all right?”

  “Of course I am.” Jack’s voice came from down below. He had fallen into a slanting tunnel in the side of the hill, and now he looked up at them, tilting back his hat. “Never better. Did that on purpose, obviously. This is just what I was looking for.” He spread his arms, indicating the cave around him.

  “A hole in the ground?” Carolina asked.

  “A network of secret tunnels,” Jack said with emphasis, pointing to the darkness behind him. “Come down and see.”

  “But how do you know it’s any help?” Jean asked.

  “Shouldn’t we pull you out instead?” Carolina asked.

  “One, always follow secret tunnels,” Jack answered. “That’s just obvious. You’ll learn when you’ve had a few more supernatural adventures. And B, look at this.” He held up the quipu. It was now glowing with an eerie silver light in the darkness of the cave. Jack smiled. “Told you it was mystical!”

  Carolina and Jean carefully climbed down to join him. Tunnels extended from the cave in all directions, but as Jack demonstrated, the quipu glowed brightest when he chose the tunnel to the left, so they decided to follow that.

  “Incroyable,” Carolina whispered, touching the glowing quipu. “How does it do that?”

  “Supernatural whatsits,” Jack said offhandedly. “You get used to it after a while.”

  “Especially if you hang around Jack for very long,” Jean pointed out.

  “Ahem…Captain Jack,” Jack said.

  They walked and walked for a long time, staying close together to share the small circle of light cast by the quipu. Each time the tunnels branched, they watched the glowing string to decide which path to choose. The stone walls on either side of them were cold and damp, and they could hear water dripping in the caves they passed and underground rivers rushing down faraway tunnels. Otherwise it was very still, especially after the wild chatter of the jungle, and Jack became more and more aware of the darting shadows that only he could see.

  But finally the tunnel began to slant up and up and up, and then they could see light ahead of them. With a happy c
ry of triumph, Jack sped up, leading the way out of the tunnel into a wide-open space.

  It was sunrise, which didn’t make sense—it had been the middle of the day when they went into the tunnels, and they couldn’t have been down there that long. Even more impossibly, they were now very clearly standing on a mountaintop surrounded by other mountains, a long, long way from the sea. Jack looked down at the quipu in puzzlement. “Did you do that?” he asked it.

  “Jack,” Jean said warningly. Jack turned around and realized that scattered across the mountaintop was a small city with stone temples, stairs, and wells built high above the jungle. And this city was most definitely occupied. A crowd was gathered around an altar, where a man in a long robe stood holding a tall, golden spear. He was glaring at Jack. In fact, they were all glaring at Jack.

  “Oh, bugger,” Jack said.

  He had found the Incas…but the Incas were clearly not very pleased about it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The fort was small, but the solid stone walls were thick and steep, and the noses of small cannons poked over them ominously. Double wooden doors at the front were reinforced with an iron portcullis. Up above, the Spanish flag fluttered in the warm breeze. But there were no signs of guards—no signs of any human life at all.

  “Maybe there’s nobody here,” Gombo said. “Perhaps they left their loot unguarded, thinking the jungle was enough to guard it for them.”

  Diego shook his head. “I know the Spanish army,” he said. “The generals would never take that risk. They will have left a squadron here to keep an eye on the fort, no matter what’s in there.”

  “Wow,” Marcella said, leaning on his arm and batting her eyelashes. “You’re so smart, Diego. Not like some people.” She shot Gombo a glare and he glared back. The fight over swabbing the deck had never quite ended between the two of them.

  Diego nodded at the flag above. “But I also know Spanish soldiers, and most would happily take any chance to be lazy. They are probably all inside having an afternoon siesta, or gambling, or just sitting around complaining about what a boring place they are stuck in.”

  “That’s not just Spanish soldiers,” Gombo said. “That’s almost every man I’ve ever met, except perhaps this Jack Sparrow.”

  Barbossa grunted. “Well, let’s make things a little less boring for them, shall we?” he proposed with a cunning grin.

  “First we need to find a way in,” Gombo said, carefully studying the walls.

  “Oh, I can’t wait to hear your clever plan,” Marcella sniped. “Let me guess—march up to the door and knock?”

  Gombo turned and looked at her slowly. A grin spread across his face. “Why, Miss High-and-Mighty,” he said, “I believe that just might work.”

  The other two turned to look at her as well.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no, no,” Marcella said. “Absolutely not! No way! Are you insane? Me? I won’t! I won’t do it! You can’t make me!”

  Fernando Ruiz could not wait to be sent home to Spain. He dreamed of the long paved streets of Madrid, the fiery eyes of the flamenco dancers, the drama and glory of the bullfights. He had thought to capture that glory by becoming a soldier in the Spanish army—but instead here he was, stuck in what was basically a stone prison in the middle of a jungle, without a taberna or a bullfight or a flamenco dancer for hundreds of miles in any direction. Nothing but heat and buzzing insects persecuting him day and night. His red-and-gold uniform made his skin itch, and his tall leather boots made his feet sweat and smell horrible.

  The other three men at the table looked equally hot and lifeless. Even the cards in their hands were limp and damp with sweat. The captain waved away a fly and then paused with his hand still in the air. All four of them raised their heads and listened.

  “Was that knocking?” asked Bartana, one of the card players. “I could almost swear I heard knocking.”

  “And shouting…maybe?” mused Salamanco, another soldier.

  “Out here in the jungle?” Ruiz scoffed. “Who could it be?”

  “Villanueva?” Salamanco guessed placidly. He dropped a card on the table, and the captain scooped it up.

  “A day early?” Bartana said, scratching his nose. “That doesn’t seem like him. No matter how excited he is about the gold we’re holding for him.”

  “Well, who else in this godforsaken wilderness knows we’re here?” Ruiz challenged.

  “The ones looking for that princess,” the captain pointed out, laying down a card. “We got word to keep an eye out for her. They have no idea where she’s vanished to.”

  “Yeah,” said Fernando, “I’m sure there’s a princess knocking at the gate right now.”

  “I guess you better go find out,” the captain said, nodding at Ruiz.

  “Why me?” Fernando protested. “Why not one of them?” He jerked his thumb at the other two soldiers, who were of equally low rank.

  “Because you lost the last round,” the captain said calmly, “and because you’re the only one who’s going to bother anyway.”

  Cursing roundly, Fernando shoved his chair back from the table, slapped his cards down, and stormed out into the courtyard. The knocking at the gate sounded less like knocking now and more like someone throwing big rocks at the doors.

  He slid open the eyehole and peered out. His jaw dropped in shock.

  An angry girl stood outside the gate, her hands on her hips, scowling. She saw his eyes appear in the slot, and her face lit up.

  He quickly slammed the slot shut again. Was he seeing things? Had five months in the jungle finally driven him mad? Or…was it possible that an escaped Spanish princess really was standing right outside the gate of his fort, knocking? She didn’t look Spanish, but you couldn’t always tell. His mind instantly filled with thoughts of the giant reward that had been offered. And while she was waiting for the ship to take her home…perhaps he could teach her to flamenco dance.

  He slid open the slot and discovered that the girl’s face was still on the other side. Startled, he jumped back, and she stuck her tongue out at him. He rethought his flamenco dancing idea. Just the reward would be sufficient.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Jibber jabber jibber,” she said, or, at least, that’s what it sounded like to him. He guessed she was speaking French.

  “Are you not the Spanish princess?” he asked, disappointed. Surely if she were, she’d be speaking Spanish, like him.

  “Jibber jabber!” she yelled. “Blah-blah-blah!” She smacked the door and stamped her foot. He didn’t need to speak French to figure out that she was demanding to be let inside.

  Well, what harm could that do? Perhaps one of the other soldiers could figure out what she was saying. And it wasn’t as if one lost girl could be any threat to the fort. He signaled to her to wait, and then he went to the mechanism that opened the gate. With loud creaks and groans, the portcullis went up and the doors swung open.

  Marcella marched inside, looking pleased with herself and very haughty. Although her bedraggled gown did not match her regal demeanor, Fernando found himself bowing gallantly anyway.

  He straightened up to find a pistol in his face.

  “Surprise,” Barbossa said with a wolfish smile. “Thanks ever so much for inviting us in.” He clubbed the soldier over the head, and Fernando passed out on the yard’s cobblestones.

  Behind Barbossa, Gombo frowned. “Let’s try to do this with minimum bloodshed,” he said. “We don’t need the Spanish government any angrier at the Pearl than it already is.”

  “Stupid princess,” Marcella said, tossing her head. “I wish we could get rid of her and just keep Diego.”

  “Speaking of Diego, where is he?” Gombo said, glancing around. “He should have been inside by now—we watched him scale the wall at the back.”

  “Oh, I hope he’s all right!” Marcella said, clasping her hands. “I couldn’t believe how bravely he climbed those steep stones, using only a few edges for footholds! I so hope nothing terrible h
as happened to him!”

  Gombo rolled his eyes. “It is not such an amazing trick, climbing a stone wall,” he said gruffly.

  “Well, I didn’t see you volunteering,” Marcella snapped.

  “I don’t speak Spanish,” Gombo reminded her. “I could not gather information the way he could by eavesdropping before we got in.”

  “Exactly,” Marcella said. “Just one reason why he’s a hero and you’re not.” They glowered at each other.

  “I’m here,” Diego said, appearing in the low doorway of the inner building of the fort. He had a sword pointed at a Spanish soldier, who was gaping at the four intruders in astonishment. “His friends are tied up in there.” Diego nodded behind him. “And this gentleman has kindly agreed to show us to the office where they are storing the gold for Villanueva.”

  Barbossa’s eyebrows arched. “Villanueva?” he said. “There’s gold for him here?”

  “So I overheard,” Diego said. “A whole chest of it. His deal with the Spanish must be going well.” He nudged the soldier with his sword. “Take us to the gold,” he said in Spanish.

  The soldier nodded, blinking, and led the way inside. Marcella flounced ahead of Gombo, and Barbossa brought up the rear, training his pistol in all directions. But the fort was quiet. They met only two other soldiers on the way to the office, and those were easily taken care of by tying them up and stuffing them into a closet. It seemed that Diego was right—most of them were peacefully enjoying their afternoon naps.

  “Here,” the soldier stammered to Diego in Spanish, stopping at one of the doors. “This is the commander’s office. He has sailed out to meet Villanueva and bring him back here. They should return tomorrow.”

  “Gracias,” Diego said to him. “And in exchange for your help, I will help you as well.” He leaned toward the soldier and whispered, “I have heard a rumor about that Spanish princess everyone is looking for.”

  “Princessa Carolina?” the soldier said eagerly. Marcella caught the name Carolina and looked up with a scowl.