Captured in the Caribbean

by Sara Whitford

  “Then just leave him!”

  At that, Willis rode the cart very close to where Santiago was standing. As they drew near, Adam grabbed the flintlock pistol that he had recovered from the hut and smashed Eduardo in the head with the butt of it, knocking him back.

  “Come on!” Adam said to his father.

  It took Santiago a moment to reconcile what was happening, but he climbed on the back of the cart quickly, and Willis snapped the reins to start driving them away again.

  THE MEN ALL RODE HARD AND fast across the compound, but Eduardo’s men were running behind them, firing their pistols at whatever they could hit. The noise was deafening.

  Suddenly, blood splattered inside of the horse cart. Adam quickly looked to see what had happened. His father had been hit. A lead ball had torn through the upper part of his left arm near his shoulder. Santiago howled in pain and shouted something in Spanish that Adam guessed was probably “Oh my God! I’ve been hit!” Considering Adam was seated on Santiago’s left side and they were both leaning on the end of the cart nearest Willis, watching where they were going, it would appear that the bullet was intended for him.

  Drake quickly grabbed the pistol that Adam had earlier, and he readied it to fire. He took aim at Hector, who had stumbled out of the hut to help Eduardo, but he missed. He readied the pistol and fired again, but as they were getting farther away and the pistol had unreliable aim, the only thing it accomplished was causing Eduardo’s men to fall back. All they had going for them at this point was that the men at the compound had no horses now. They would have to go on foot back to town if they wanted to chase down Adam and the others.

  Adam had dealt with a lot of things before, but he had no experience with gunshot wounds, nor did Charlie. Willis knew what had happened, so he looked back and yelled at Adam to tie something around his father’s arm to stop the bleeding.

  Although it didn’t seem like the ball had hit the bone, it had ripped a huge chunk of flesh when it went into his arm. He was losing blood—and fast. Adam tore off his shirt, then used a knife to cut off one of the sleeves and wrapped it tight around Santiago’s upper arm. The wound was massive. The blood was soaking right through the fabric.

  “Here.” Drake leaned over to assist him. “You’re gonna have to get it tight . . . Stop the blood flow, or he could die.”

  Adam was trying hard not to panic. The cart was bumping terribly as they tore through the woods. As he attempted to cut the other sleeve off of his shirt, Willis took off his belt and handed it to Adam.

  “Here,” he said. “Fasten this around his arm over that sleeve. Maybe you can get it tight enough to stop the bleeding.”

  As Drake attempted to hold the sleeve in place, Adam worked quickly to bind it tight with the belt, but the blood was seeping through so quickly that it made his hands slippery, so he was struggling to get the buckle to hold fast. Finally, he was able to get the pin through, and the belt was nice and tight.

  As they broke through the Kapok grove to the shore, Adam worried they wouldn’t be able to get the cart across the beach. They had to get Santiago back to town and to see a physician, and they had no time to lose. He called out for Willis and the others to stop so he could get Santiago off of the cart and put him on a horse. He determined he would ride with him himself. He could go much faster alone than the group of them could.

  The men all worked quickly, and within just a couple of minutes they had hoisted Santiago up onto the horse that Martin had been riding, and Adam climbed up with him and they took off. Drake instructed Jones to ride ahead after Adam, since he seemed to be an experienced horseman. Meanwhile, he and the others continued making their way back towards town as quickly as they could.

  When Adam and Jones neared the river, they knew it was too deep to easily get across at the mouth, so they rode south until they could see that the water wasn’t very deep and then led the horses across and back towards Havana at breakneck speed.

  Santiago passed out along the way, but just before he did he made one request of Adam. “If they cannot help me, please do not stay to watch me die. I want you to remember me as I was alive.”

  “Hush talking,” said Adam. “I’m getting you to the captain. You’re gonna be just fine.”

  He quietly prayed the whole way back to town.

  As soon as entered Havana proper, they headed straight for the port and the Carolina Gypsy. Adam didn’t know any doctors in Havana, but he knew the captain had basic skills to patch up a man with a serious wound.

  “Where’s the captain?” Adam yelled to Canady, who was down on the docks near the vessel. “Hurry up and go get him!”

  Canady ran up the ramp to fetch Captain Phillips.

  “Good Lord!” said the captain as he came down the ramp onto the dock. “What’s happened here?”

  “He’s been shot,” said Adam, breathless.

  “You look awful yourself, son, but I’m glad to see you made it back in one piece.”

  Adam dismounted the horse but kept a concerned hand on his father until the captain and Canady could help bring him safely down and carry him on board.

  Within moments they had laid him on the deck of the ship.

  Captain Phillips performed a superficial inspection of the wound, then said, “This looks ugly. I’m worried that ball may have done more damage to his arm than I can fix. I need to see if I can find a surgeon.”

  It dawned on Adam that Captain Phillips didn’t know yet that Santiago was his father, but nevertheless Adam’s face made apparent his intense concern for the man whom Captain Phillips at least knew was one of his rescuers.

  “Now listen,” the captain told him. “We need to get him moved out of the open and into a nice, quiet place. He can rest in my berth.”

  “Alright, Cap’n,” said Adam.

  He, Canady, and the captain all worked together to get Santiago moved into the captain’s bunk.

  “I’m goin to go into town to see if I can find a doctor to come look at him,” said Captain Phillips. “You just make sure nobody moves him under any circumstances. He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’s obviously gonna need stitches. Right now, though, he can just stay here and rest. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

  Adam nodded. “Thank you for everything, Cap’n.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  WHEN DRAKE AND THE OTHERS finally arrived back at the Gypsy, Adam wasted no time asking him if someone should go to the Velasquez estate to make whoever was there aware of what had happened.

  “His mother, Isabel—your grandmother—she’ll need to be informed of what has happened,” said Drake. He hesitated, then added, “And she’ll want to know about you too, lad.”

  “She’s still alive?” asked Adam, surprised at this revelation.

  “Oh, of course. That’s what this whole business is about, you know.”

  Adam wrinkled his brow and shook his head impatiently. “I obviously don’t! I didn’t even know who my father was until a few hours ago, for goodness’ sake!”

  “Understood,” Drake said. “You didn’t understand everything that was said between your father and Eduardo, I would imagine.”

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t speak Spanish, and even when they were talking in English I was lost. That whole thing about him being my father, it kind of had me distracted, so why don’t you explain to me what this is really all about?”

  Drake scratched his head and shuffled down to sit on one of the steps of the ladder that led to the main deck from the quarterdeck. “Come sit down here. This leg is killing me, and I need to rest my weary old bones. You look like you could use a bit of a rest as well.”

  Adam reluctantly walked over and took a seat beside him. “Alright. Would you please tell me what you do know?”

  “I can’t say I’m sure of all the details, but I suppose I’ve pieced together enough from what I’d already heard from your father over the years, along with that whole bit that I heard the two of them—
your father and your uncle, I mean—arguing about today.”

  “So? What is it?”

  “This is how I understand it: your great-uncle is the brother of your grandfather, Juan Diego Velasquez de Castillo.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Adam. “What is this Velasquez de Castillo? I’m fairly certain I remember somebody telling me that Captain Velasquez—my father, I mean—that his name is Velasquez de Leon.”

  “Right. Well, the way it works is Spaniards take their father’s surname, and then their mother’s maiden name goes after that. So if you were named with that convention, you’d be Adam Velasquez Fletcher, or Adam Velasquez de Fletcher. Your paternal grandmother’s maiden name is Leon, so your father is Santiago Velasquez de Leon. Eduardo and Juan Diego’s mother’s maiden name was Castillo, hence the name Velasquez de Castillo.”

  “Hmph. I understand. Never knew that before.”

  Drake continued: “Now you’ve only just learned that Santiago is your dad, of course, so you’d have no way of knowing that the Velasquez family is ridiculously wealthy. Well . . .” Drake took a deep breath before he began to speak again. “Let me clarify. Your father is ridiculously wealthy.”

  Adam raised his eyebrows. “Why do you say my father?”

  “Why? Well, because he is the only son of Juan Diego Velasquez de Castillo, and Juan Diego is the oldest of the two sons in that family—and there were many sisters between them. Naturally, the lion’s share of the family’s estate went to him and by extension goes to your father for being his only son. When Señor Juan Diego died, he left everything in the possession of his wife—your grandmother, Isabel—during her widowhood to be held for Santiago, and left only a limited, but still enormous, amount to your father. When Señora Isabel dies, everything will go to Santiago.”

  “Yeah, I did hear Eduardo talk about the inheritance, but I don’t understand why it had him hell-bent on kidnapping me for ransom, and why it made him ready to kill us today.”

  “Ah, well, first of all you should understand that your Uncle Eduardo never cared about the ransom. Eduardo admitted as much—that it was only meant to be a distraction. The way I figure it, I think he just wanted to keep you busy and unable to learn who your father was before you got back on this sloop to return to North Carolina. And I’m sure he hoped that your awful experience here would deter you from wanting to ever return.”

  “So that’s what Eduardo meant about how if I had just stayed his prisoner and everybody went along with the whole ransom thing, I’d already be on my way back home.”

  Drake nodded. Adam rolled his eyes and turned his head to look away, clearly frustrated.

  “Don’t feel bad, son. You’d have never met your father if everything went according to Eduardo’s plan. And anyhow, I think it’s better that it’s all come to a head.”

  “I don’t see how it’s better,” Adam said. “I mean, Eduardo is still angry—not to mention worried—about the estate not going to him. None of that changes. I’m not really sure why he’d have just let me go back to America if that was what he was really planning to do.”

  Drake tipped his head to the side in assent to what Adam had just said. “That’s a good point, but I am seeing a pattern, if you will, with Eduardo. It appears that for some reason—probably just plain old guilt—he doesn’t actually want to have to raise his hand to kill anyone in his own family and—”

  “But that makes no sense. His whole complaint is that my father isn’t legitimately part of his family, that my father’s father is not a Velasquez but is some other man.”

  Drake nodded. “The ravings of a lunatic. I’m not even sure he really believes that. I think he just says that to justify his actions. But regardless of whether he does or doesn’t, he knows that Santiago is still for all intents and purposes thought of as a member of that family, and the son of Señor Juan Diego. If he went so far as to kill Santiago or you, it would likely create a moral dilemma of sorts for him.”

  “Good Lord, man! A moral dilemma? He admitted he tried to kill my mother—with me in her belly!”

  “Ah!” Drake raised his finger in a realization. “But think about it. He also said he did not know that she was with child at the time, so in his mind he was probably just thinking of protecting the family’s fortune by removing an outside threat.”

  Adam twisted up his face in disgust. “You say that like you understand him—like it’s normal. That man is evil.”

  “It’s most certainly not normal, but being blinded by outrage will only accomplish two things: it will cloud your vision, and it will make you hungry for revenge. The thing is you should try to understand the mind of this crazed man, because the fact is he will continue to be a threat to you and your father for as long as he draws breath. By trying to understand him, you may be able to anticipate his next move.”

  Adam hung his head and looked down between his knees to his brown leather boots. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there was blood on them—and also on his dark-tan pants and his cream shirt. It took him back to the moment in the horse cart when his father was shot, blood spattering everywhere. The feelings that came bubbling up from somewhere deep inside told him that what Drake had said was right. And with his history of being impetuous and temperamental, he couldn’t afford to let those kinds of feelings take root in his soul. Considering Drake’s recommendation that he try to understand Eduardo’s mind, he made an observation: “If what you’re saying is true, it sounds like he picks and chooses his morality as he sees fit.”

  “Indeed,” Drake agreed.

  Adam thought for a moment, then said, “What about Isabel—my grandmother, I mean? Why has he never made an attempt on her life?”

  “Hmm . . . That’s a fair question. I really have no idea . . . unless it is because he knows that will only lead to Santiago finally receiving his inheritance.”

  “I get the feeling Eduardo hasn’t thought all of this through. I mean, he may have had some reason for restraining his hand against my father and me in the past, but now . . . Well, now I just don’t see what he has to lose by killing both of us.”

  “You may be right,” Drake conceded. “Until just recently he didn’t even know you were alive. And maybe his own wishful thinking has stayed his hand all this time.”

  The two sat in silence for a few moments, both utterly exhausted at the lack of sleep in the last twenty-four hours. Finally, Drake stood to excuse himself. He told Adam he wanted to go home so he could rest and see his wife and baby. He encouraged Adam to try and get some rest as well.

  Adam didn’t get up, however. Now that he had time to actually sit, he realized he was too tired to even stand. Instead, he just rested his elbows on the quarterdeck behind him and gazed out across the harbor. There were so many ships from diverse parts in nearly every direction all around him. He remembered how excited he had been just a few days earlier when he and his shipmates on the Gypsy first spotted Cuba in the distance.

  From the time he learned he would be sailing to Havana, and that there may be a man there who might be able to tell him about his father, Adam could hardly contain his excitement. In spite of the fact that the Gypsy stopped in a couple of beautiful ports in the Bahamas before finally arriving in Havana, Adam could only think about getting to Cuba, and how his life might change if he could only find Alonso Cordova, the man whose name was scrawled on a piece of paper, the first real hope he’d had for locating his father.

  Things went much further than he ever could have imagined, though. Not only did he find out who his father was, he also came face-to-face with him. It felt like a knife in the gut finding him only to be now on the verge of losing him forever.

  It occurred to him that while the man who lay there in such a critical state in the captain’s quarters might share his blood—and might have even once been his mother’s greatest love—he was a complete stranger to him. Sure, they had met once before, but what difference did that make? He would’ve never guessed that the Sp
anish captain he’d met the year before was his father.

  But when he thought about the little bag of treats Captain Velasquez had given him—the candies and those fireworks that wouldn’t explode—it made him smile. Even though the firecrackers might have been duds, they still ended up helping him out of a sticky situation the night he had sneaked into that warehouse. In a way, he thought, it was as though his father wanted to help him even then. Santiago didn’t have to give Adam those things. He had done it because he felt compassion for him. He said everyone should go away from his ship with something, so even though Adam had no money to buy anything and tried to pretend he just wasn’t interested, Santiago wouldn’t take no for an answer, instead opting to fill up one of his little cloth sacks with a variety of goodies free of charge.

  Adam knew that he should pray. He wanted to ask God for any little bit of wisdom and guidance that he could give so that he might be able to understand the situation in which he now found himself, but he was too tired to even string his thoughts together coherently enough to pray. He would’ve spread out right on the stairs where he sat, but they were too uncomfortable. Instead, he went down to the berthing area and found his hammock and collapsed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “GET UP, FLETCHER!”

  Adam was awakened by someone shoving repeatedly on his shoulder. It was Martin. Adam knew without even seeing who it was. He had woken him up in that same way almost every single day that they had been on the Gypsy. It was an annoying way to be woken up, considering it caused his berth to swing back and forth.

  It took him a minute to collect himself and piece together where he was and all that had happened, and then he turned himself over in his hammock to face Martin. “Is he alright?”

  “It’s hard to say. I reckon you oughta just come up and see for yourself.”

  Adam slid out of his berth and went up the ladder to the main deck and then ascended the short ladder up to the quarterdeck.