Captured in the Caribbean

by Sara Whitford

  Considering all of the dense vegetation, it appeared to be a fortress for some kind of militia—maybe an abandoned one. While there weren’t many men out in the open, the ones who were looked like a motley bunch.

  “What is this place?” Adam inquired.

  Hector and Carlos laughed.

  “Ay, amigo, this is our business,” said Hector. “We not having a lot of customers, but it is—how you saying?—very . . . ah . . . lucrativo.”

  “And illegal,” Adam remarked. “So your business is kidnapping foreigners for money.”

  “That is my business today, yes, but we doing many kinds of things, because we having many different skills. Every man here is having his own job to do. On this day my job is bringing you here.”

  Adam raised his eyebrows, surprised at the answer.

  Just then Carlos excused himself from the conversation and walked the horse towards what looked like a horse pen and stable. Hector seemed to shout out some instructions to him very quickly in Spanish, to which Carlos waved dismissively and continued walking.

  “Look there,” Hector said to Adam, pointing to a small, skinny man with a very long, thin moustache that drooped around the two sides of his mouth. “He is Flaco. His skill is as a ladrón. He is the king of los ladrones.”

  Adam gave him a confused look. “Ladrón?”

  Hector flipped out his hand and said matter-of-factly, “He is a thief. He is the best thief. Real fast, real quiet.” He pointed to another man, heavyset, balding, and probably in his forties. “See him? He is un asesino. Do you know what asesino is?”

  Adam shook his head. “I don’t know. Asinine?”

  “It means assassin. He is being very good at killing a man with his hands only, very fast.”

  Adam had no idea exactly what that was supposed to mean, and he didn’t really care. He knew he wouldn’t be hanging around long enough to get to know everybody. All he was interested in was figuring out how many men were posted at this hideout and where they all were.

  “Do you live here?” he asked Hector. “I mean, you do all your mischief back in the city and then crawl back into the forest to sleep?”

  “Yes,” said Hector as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  “How many of you are there?”

  Hector smiled. He led Adam into the smallest of the three buildings, a crudely built but apparently strong hut that he soon learned was a prison of sorts. There was another man being held inside, chained to the wall.

  “There are enough of us to making sure you not going anywhere,” said Hector.

  Adam wrinkled his eyebrows and must’ve looked concerned, because Hector added, “Do not worry—I not tying you up if you not trying anything stupid. But you trying anything stupid, and you be in chain like that one, or worse.” He grabbed at his own neck and made a squeezing motion, simulating being choked to death, and Adam quickly understood his meaning.

  “You having any weapons?” Hector asked.

  Adam thought about his pocketknife, which he kept in his boot. “See for yourself,” he said, then held out his arms and stood up straight, inviting Hector to search him.

  Hector patted him down along his arms and torso and legs but seemed to be satisfied to find the boy had only a pocket watch and some money.

  “I taking these right now,” he said, grabbing the two items and putting them into his own pocket.

  “Take the money, but how about if you let me keep the pocket watch?” said Adam. “It was a gift.”

  Hector laughed. “Yes? And now you giving it to me.”

  Adam rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Alright. You go right ahead.” He looked at him calmly and said, “I can promise you, though—I will get it back.”

  “Sure, compadre,” said Hector, chuckling. He patted Adam on the shoulder and then left the prison hut and locked the door.

  Chapter Eight

  SINCE THE PLAZA WAS NEAR the harbor, Santiago suggested to Martin and Charlie that they first go back to the Gypsy once more to see if anyone had heard any news about Adam—or maybe he had returned. Unfortunately, there was no word of him.

  They went straight from there to the plaza, and Santiago took Martin and Charlie to the first place he thought of for getting information—and it happened to be the fonda where Adam had eaten earlier that day. The workers said they had many Americans dining there that morning, but they weren’t sure if the boy they were looking for had been among them.

  Next the captain led them to a couple of the vendors with the largest stalls full of wares—they tended to attract visitors. Again, no luck.

  Finally, Santiago spotted a peanut vendor enter the plaza.

  “Gracias a Dios!” he said. “I know this man. I was looking for him earlier, but he was not here,” he explained to Martin and Charlie.

  Immediately, he strode over to him, with the young men in tow, and began to speak very rapidly in Spanish. Martin and Charlie were completely lost as to what they were saying. Eventually, the peanut vendor motioned towards the northwest gate of the plaza, and they began to think he may have helpful information.

  Santiago then explained to the boys what the man had said. “He thinks the boy you are looking for was here earlier this morning, trying to ask around about something, but he could not understand what he wanted to know, since he does not speak English.”

  “That’s great news! Did he say where he went?” asked Martin.

  The captain took a deep breath. “It is not so great news. This could be very bad. He says that he saw the boy go with a man who is one of these bandits like I mentioned to you.”

  “What? Where would they have gone?” asked Charlie.

  “This I do not know,” said Santiago. He thanked the peanut vendor so he could go back to making money, then said to the young men, “He said he saw them leave through the northwest gate there, but that does not tell us much. It goes in many directions beyond that point, so we cannot know where they went. All we can do is start searching and hope we find something that will help us. If we have no luck, then we will put up a reward for information about the boy.”

  “When you say he was a bandit,” said Martin, “what kind of bandit is he? I just don’t understand why Adam would’ve gone off with somebody like that.”

  “What was the boy doing here this morning? You say he was looking for this Alonso Cordova? How? Does he even speak Spanish?”

  Martin and Charlie both shook their heads.

  “Then he was needing to find someone who speaks English,” Santiago observed. “This man might be one who preys on foreigners. It is impossible to say where they might have gone, but the sooner we start looking for them, the better.”

  They left back out through the southeast gate. Their horses were tied up near there. Santiago paid the man who was watching them, and they all mounted up and were about to leave when they heard one of the crew members of the Gypsy calling out to them, out of breath.

  It was Jones. “I’ve been all over the place searchin for you lot. Look at this!”

  He handed Martin something that looked like a note. The wax seal had been broken, so it had obviously been already read by Jones and whoever else was on the Gypsy when it arrived.

  Martin tried to read it aloud. He strained at the penmanship, but he was able to make out at least the start of it. “‘We having you friend. He is safe for now, but if you wanting him back, deliver twelve hundred pesos or’—what does this say?” He showed the letter to Santiago.

  “It says dos veces—two times that in bienes de calidad—quality goods to the place on this marked map by tomorrow morning before amanecer—daybreak. After that time, within six hours we will . . .” He struggled to read what was next in the letter. “¡Ay! ¡Que un palurdo! This man writes like a child! I think it says they will be delivering him somewhere near the plaza by noon. At the bottom it says if we do not meet their demands, they will kill him and only deliver his head.”

 
“Twelve hundred pesos. How many pounds is that?” asked Martin.

  “I think it is about four pesos to a pound, so that would be three hundred pounds,” answered Santiago.

  “Good Lord!” exclaimed Charlie. “We don’t have that kind of money lyin around! We’d have to go into the revenue from the cargo.”

  “I would think that was the purpose of this little exercise,” said Santiago. “Men like these, they know cargo ships are on strict schedules, so they do not worry much about the authorities getting involved. They do not demand an enormous ransom, but it is still quite a lot. Enough to make them a handsome profit, but not so much that many are unwilling to pay it just so they can be on their way.”

  “What choice do we have, then?” asked Charlie. “Let’s go back and talk to my brother and arrange the payment. We obviously can’t go back without Adam. Even if Emmanuel doesn’t kill us, Mary Fletcher will.”

  “No, you idiot,” said Martin dismissively. “We can’t just deliver the money. We have no guarantee that they’ll even return Adam like they say. They’re criminals. It’s not like we can trust ’em!”

  Santiago nodded. “Your friend is right. We need to go back to the ship and get a few more men. Then we will make a plan. We will get your friend back, but that is not all. We are going to put a stop to these criminals. They are a pestilence in Havana, and I am going to see to it that they are brought to justice.”

  Chapter Nine

  AS SOON AS HECTOR HAD locked him in the prison hut, Adam tried to push on the door to try to figure out how it was locked, since he hadn’t noticed while he was being thrown inside. A gun was fired just outside the hut, and Hector shouted as he banged on the door and warned Adam, “I said to you nothing stupid. I was not joking with you, chico.”

  Adam backed away from the door. He wouldn’t try that again. Anyway, he had found out what he wanted to know. By the way that the door gave a little bit but then held tight on one side, he figured there must be a padlock of some sort securing the entry.

  He turned to the man who was chained to the wall and said, “You speak English?”

  The prisoner, who looked gaunt and emaciated, shrugged. He apparently didn’t understand.

  Adam walked along the perimeter of the room to see how well the hut was constructed. The log walls were full of gaps, but they were very strong, and they extended a good ways down into the ground. It occurred to him that even if he could come up with a way out of that prison, it’d be a huge risk, since he was in the middle of a dense forest and at this point had no idea how to get back to the city.

  He needed time to think—and to pray for a miracle.

  Not long after sunset Adam began to hear the sound of huge waves crashing against the shore. That means we’re near the ocean, he thought. He hadn’t realized that before, since the men had led him so far out of town and deep into the woods, but apparently they had wended their way in a more northerly direction as they were traveling. It had been hard to keep track of which way they were going, because the sun was so obscured by the trees. But then maybe that had been the whole point.

  The floor was covered by woven grass mats. Adam wondered what the ground was like underneath them. I’m going to dig out of this thing, he thought. If I can make it to the ocean, I can find my way back to town.

  He peeled back one of the mats closest to the wall and scraped at the damp, sandy ground with his hands. As he tried to dig, his mind started running fast. Little worries began nagging at him. This is almost too easy. They have to know I can dig right out of here. There could be somebody waiting to kill me as soon as I crawl out the other side.

  In the end Adam didn’t care, though. He was doubtful of his captors’ ability to find the Gypsy to demand their ransom. In fact, he didn’t even know what kind of payment they were demanding even if they did find the ship, or if Captain Phillips would have that kind of money on board. Regardless, he wasn’t going to risk sticking around to find out what would happen if the transaction didn’t go through as planned. The last thing he wanted would be to end up chained to the wall like that other man—or worse, as Hector had threatened.

  He started digging faster. When he came to some roots, he remembered the pocketknife he had in his boot. He pulled it out and cut at the roots, then used it to break up the ground. Before long he had a decent hole made, but he knew he’d need to do something with the dirt he’d displaced.

  He lifted the floor mats to each side of the one he had been digging beneath and began to spread out the mound of dirt under them.

  All of a sudden the man chained to the wall said, “¡Oye, tu!”

  Adam turned to look at him. “What?”

  “¡Idiota! ¿No piensas que yo ya habia tratado esa misma cosa?”

  Adam just shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re saying, man. I’m sorry.”

  The man pointed with his free arm to one of the mats on the floor near where he was chained to the wall.

  “What is it?” said Adam.

  He shouted something, then made a come-here motion to Adam and pointed angrily at the mat beside him. Adam covered the hole he was digging with a mat, then went over and lifted the mat the man was pointing at. There was evidence of a huge hole underneath that had been filled back in. Once the man was satisfied that Adam had seen the hole, he motioned to the chain that had him fastened to the wall. “¡Esto es lo que te pasará si te encuentran cavando!”

  “Hmm.” Adam took stock of the situation. He figured out what the man was saying, or at least he got the gist. “Well, I’m not going to just sit here,” he told the man. “They’d probably chain me up anyway. Then I’ll be as bad off as you. Sorry, fella. I’ve at least got to try to get out of this place.”

  The man stared at him blankly, then rolled his eyes.

  Adam returned to the place where he had been digging and went back to work. Suddenly, he heard the lock rattle outside the door. He covered over the hole with the mat, then went over to a different wall, sat down, and rested his head on his arms, which were crossed on top of his knees as though he had been napping.

  He popped his head up just long enough to motion “Shh!” to the other man, then put his head back down. Seconds later another man—one Adam hadn’t seen before—came through the door, tore half a loaf of bread into two pieces, and threw one piece at each of the prisoners.

  “You got anything to wash this down with?” Adam asked sarcastically, knowing full well the man probably didn’t even understand what he was saying.

  The man narrowed his eyes at him and then went back out and locked the door again.

  Adam looked over at the other prisoner. “Now I see why you’re so skinny.” He got up from where he was sitting and gave his piece of bread to him. “Looks like you need it more than I do, fella. I’m getting out of here tonight.”

  The prisoner looked surprised. He nodded his head and said, “Gracias. Que Dios te bendiga.”

  Adam understood the gracias part, so he said, “You’re welcome.”

  He continued digging, then spreading out the displaced dirt. He noticed the man reach into a bucket that was beside him with his hand and drink. He realized that it was a water bucket and not what he had previously assumed it to be. That made him wonder what the man did use as a privy. Then he decided it’d be better if he didn’t think too hard trying to figure that one out.

  Every so often he’d creep around inside the building and peer through the cracks in the walls to see if he could determine what was happening outside. While there were a few lamps lit around the fortress, he didn’t see anyone out there. He was able to hear noise coming from the large building on the other side of the hut. He was guessing that must be some kind of common room. It sounded like there were a lot of men. Far more than he had noticed around the grounds earlier in the day.

  Once he had dug down deep enough on his side of the wall so that he felt sure he’d be able to fit through, he decided to stop digging until everything w
as quiet in the camp. He knew he wouldn’t make a run for it while men were still awake and wandering around outside.

  He decided to stop and rest awhile, and since his hands weren’t busy, his thoughts drifted back home . . . He wished he could be back at the Topsail Tavern. It was around this same time last year that Adam had left his home at the tavern to go work for Emmanuel, and now he wondered if he’d make it back.

  He thought about his poor mother, and he was glad she had no way of knowing his circumstances right now. She nearly fell apart when he disappeared last year. He briefly contemplated how she’d handle it if the Gypsy arrived back in Beaufort and he wasn’t on it. It was an awful thought that he quickly pushed out of his mind. Plain and simple, he knew she’d never get over it. She never wanted him to go on that trip in the first place. In fact, she had burst into tears the day he told her that he was going.

  Then he started thinking about Laney Martin. I’m gonna marry that girl eventually, he thought. He remembered the day he first went up and introduced himself to her at Rasquelle’s party. He didn’t think he’d actually have a chance with her, but he didn’t care. He had spotted the honey-blond, green-eyed beauty from across the lawn and knew he had to at least talk to her. It took his disappearance last year to get her to finally warm up to him. Since that time the two had become close friends—well, as much as any young man and young woman could be without tongues wagging relentlessly. He remembered how happy she was when she learned he had been rescued, and when she found out what he had uncovered, she actually called him her hero. Just knowing that she thought of him in that way made Adam feel confident—not that he ever needed help in that area. Thinking about her set his heart racing again, but right now he needed to focus on his current circumstances. It was time to get out of that hut and on his way back to the ship.