Maroon Rising

by John H. Cunningham

  “No,” I said.

  “Get up.” The officer gave me a gentle nudge with his boot.

  “Buck!”

  Nanny’s voice. And she was running over.

  “Hold it, miss!”

  Nanny ignored him, bent down, and hovered over me.

  “Are you … okay? You look …”

  “A little scratched and dented, but—”

  “This is private property!” Gunner, shouting from a distance.

  A loud shuffling sound, closer.

  “Whoa! Get away from those weapons, all of you—arms in the air!”

  The clatter of metal landing hard on tarmac—guns, I assumed.

  “Out of the back, everyone. Now!”

  A loud crash—the tailgate falling open.

  I slowly got to my feet, only to find a dark-skinned police officer pointing a Glock 9mm at me.

  I held my hands up. He waved his gun toward the truck.

  “Hands on the hood. You too, miss!”

  He frisked me—gingerly, but it still hurt like hell. Then he moved to Nanny.

  “I’m a professor with the University of the West Indies! These men robbed us—”

  “Step to the back of the truck,” the officer said.

  We joined Cuffee and two other men. All three had their hands up.

  “What the hell is all this?” One of the policemen was peering inside the bed of the truck. “You rob a museum, or what?”

  “Those are ancient Maroon antiquities these men stole when they attacked us!” Nanny said.

  “That’s bullshit!” Gunner said.

  “My relatives buried all this hundreds of years ago!” Cuffee said, his voice booming with authority.

  I just focused on breathing. My skin felt as if I’d been put through a meat grinder.

  “Officer, thank God you came when you did,” Gunner said. “My name is Richard Rostenkowski, and my company, SCG International, was awarded the contract to restore part of Port Royal. We also have a claim against anything belonging to Captain Morgan.”

  The officer, who by his demeanor was clearly in charge, put both hands on his hips.

  “The rum company?”

  Gunner forced a smile. “The former lieutenant governor of Jamaica back in the late 1600s.”

  “I am Professor Nanny Adou from the University of the West Indies.” Nanny stepped forward with fire in her eyes. “This man is a thief, a liar, and he kidnapped me! He’s a thug, not an archaeologist—”

  “What about you there?” The officer pointed to me, leaning against the truck behind Nanny. “Who are you, Indiana Jones?” He cracked a smile and all his men snickered.

  “I’m just a half-skinned charter pilot trying to help the Mother of us all use Morgan’s treasure for the Jamaican people.”

  The officer looked confused.

  “I have a legal right to this cargo!” Gunner now spoke through gritted teeth. “I demand you release it to me!”

  He stepped toward the officer in charge, who pulled the gun from his holster faster than Josie Wales.

  “Step back, right this second. Your so-called cargo includes illegal weapons, and—”

  “It’s not his cargo!” Nanny cried. “The artifacts are ours!”

  “Every one of them belonged to Njoni, my great—”

  “I have a legal right to this treasure!” Gunner screamed over Cuffee’s booming voice.

  “He’s nothing but a mercenary!” I shouted while jabbing my thumb toward Gunner. “And a thief!”

  BOOM!

  Everyone froze.

  The officer held his gun up in the air, and smoke floated around the end of its barrel.

  “Enough!” he said. “All of you are going to jail.”

  “All rise,” the bailiff said.

  Everyone in the hearing room at the Hibbert House stood up as the committee entered through a side door. Professors Nanny Adou and Keith Quao had recused themselves. I was at one end of the long table, stomach in my throat. Jack was slumped at the opposite end.

  Neither Nanny nor Gunner were in the room, absent for different reasons, and I had Ray Floyd with me now instead of Johnny Blake, with Harry Greenbaum sitting behind us next to Henry Kujo and his trusty sidekick, Clayton. A month had passed since we recovered Morgan’s stash, and the jockeying for control had been vicious. The Jamaican government had immediately seized the treasure, and after a barrage of appeals from all sides agreed to allow 50 percent of it, or the value thereof, to be distributed to the appropriate party.

  Thanks to word having leaked about what Nanny planned to do with her 50 percent if she were awarded it, public opinion was heavily lopsided in our favor.

  But public opinion rarely decided cases like these.

  Cuffee’s argument was compelling, as was Jack’s about the work they’d done to restore the underwater structure at Port Royal while pursuing a claim for the treasure, but neither had any real basis in law. Stanley’s team had a similar argument, along with the history of provenance related to Akim’s having sailed with Morgan to Panama. The Leeward and Windward Maroons had agreed to share in the find, since the goal was to use it for all the people.

  All in all, it was a complicated imbroglio, as of course it would be given the history and characters that dated all the way back to the 1600s, not to mention the incredible value of the treasure itself.

  Harry Greenbaum and our team of Jamaican attorneys, advisors, and Maroon leaders had rigorously lobbied behind the scenes, but so had lawyers and consultants for Jack’s side.

  Jack stood and argued that SCG International’s claim and broader salvage rights agreement made the decision clear. He characterized my efforts and those of “others” from Moore Town (he avoided using Nanny’s name) as breaches of the committee’s initial instructions to me—breaches committed despite repeated warnings for me to cease and desist from infringing on SCG’s claim. There was quiet for a moment after he sat down.

  “Colonel Grandy?” the chairman said.

  “Buck Reilly will give our closing statement, sir.”

  He looked at me. Feeling the weight of health, education, and welfare for all Jamaica’s children on my back, I stood.

  “Members of the committee, you all know me from my previous application, and from my success as an archaeologist—okay, treasure hunter.”

  There were a few chuckles.

  “Bottom line is I’m not here to make a case for myself to receive this treasure. Professor Nanny Adou and Colonel Stanley Grandy, as well as other respected members of the community, asked me to help them connect the disparate pieces of information their community had possessed for hundreds of years.” I paused to let that sink in. “I admit I originally argued for a large percentage of the treasure, but their steadfast commitment to dividing the proceeds between the National Maritime Museum and the educational system in Jamaica was extraordinarily compelling.”

  I glanced at each face on the committee.

  “Once I got to know Professor Adou, she shared her vision with me—to use colonial wealth accumulated by Captain Morgan, with the help of Maroon warriors, to establish an educational program that will liberate young Jamaican minds with knowledge for decades to come. Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, of the many treasure hunts I’ve participated in around the globe, not one has been based on such a noble cause, nor one with an upside for anyone other than myself, or former e-Antiquity shareholders. On behalf of everyone who has risked their lives to recover this astonishingly valuable find, I ask you to consider that in your final deliberation.”

  With that I sat down.

  The room was silent as the committee filed out of the room.

  A murmur started to pass through the audience—

  “All rise,” the bailiff said. The committee was returning, not five minutes after they had left the room.

  When the chairman of the committee stood and read their decision “in favor of Professor Nanny Adou,” the room exploded in a frenzy of shouts, hoots, applause
, questions, and flash photography. I absorbed the decision with wordless satisfaction as Ray slapped his hand on the table.

  “Holy crap,” he said.

  Local reporters and correspondents swarmed the front table, from Jack down to Stanley and me, getting comments from both sides. Stanley had tears streaming down his cheeks, and though I was only five feet away, I couldn’t hear what he was saying to the journalists in front of him.

  A reporter zeroed in on me.

  “Buck Reilly,” he said. “So you were able to combine a bunch of microscopic clues and find a treasure few people believed even existed?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “But equally as captivating,” he said, “is the metamorphosis of King Buck.”

  “How so?”

  “You gave up 90 percent for the good of the Jamaican people. For an educational program? What happened to the shrewd, ruthless negotiator from the e-Antiquity days? What happened to the King Buck we saw on the cover of the Wall Street Journal?”

  Not one to seek press coverage, I hesitated, but the message was too important to shirk.

  “Nanny said it best. With knowledge comes power, and who needs knowledge more than children?”

  He jotted that in his notepad. “So you’ve become King Buck the Noble?”

  “It’s not about me—”

  Just then applause burst out behind me. I turned in time for Nanny to wrap her arms around me in a tight squeeze, her cheeks wet from tears pressed against my neck. When she pulled away, she slapped me two high-fives.

  Stanley pushed his way through to hug Nanny, Ray, and me.

  “Chris Blackwell was right about you,” Stanley said. “He said you could be trusted, and that you’d come through for Jamaica.”

  I’d never met Blackwell until this trip, though we had some mutual friends—hell, he’d been on the plane with Jimmy Buffett when some overzealous law enforcement officials shot up Buffett’s Albatross years ago. But why would—

  “He had a sense about you, Buck. Don’t try to figure it out. The man picks talent better than anyone.”

  “Hear, hear,” Harry Greenbaum said.

  The crowd—media, commissioners, onlookers—began a surge toward the exit. The human funnel was carrying me to the inevitable face-to-face with Jack Dodson.

  At least Heather wasn’t here.

  I felt for the envelope in my back pocket and pulled it free.

  Once we emptied out onto the stairs and into the downtown street, I was surprised at the number of people who’d gathered to await the outcome, many of them now cheering. Schoolchildren in adorable uniforms jumped up and down, and one of them started a chant: “iPads! iPads! iPads!”

  Jack was making a hasty exit toward the familiar black Land Rover on Duke Street. I had to run, jockeying through the crowd, to reach him.

  “Jack!”

  He paused and looked over his shoulder just as I broke through the crowd. By the turn of his mouth I knew he’d spotted me. He hesitated, then crossed his arms and waited.

  “Your turn to gloat, Buck?”

  I stepped close enough to see wrinkles on his face I hadn’t noticed before.

  “No, I—”

  “Congratulations,” he said. “You always were the best at finding treasure, just not so good at keeping it.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “But first, answer me a question, honestly. There’s no reason to lie—it’s all past now.”

  “What’s the question, Buck?”

  The passenger window lowered and I saw Gunner behind the wheel.

  “Fuck you, Reilly!”

  Jack and I stepped away from the Land Rover.

  “Did you have anything to do with Nanny getting kidnapped?”

  Jack shook his head. “No. Straight up. Believe it or not, that knucklehead didn’t either.” He jerked a thumb toward the Land Rover. “Johnny had been feeding us info, but when he told us he and some buddies had grabbed her for leverage, I cut him off.” He shook his head. “I did five years in the state pen. I’m not doing more time, and certainly not in a place like this.”

  I believed him. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I believed him.

  And being an idiot, I handed him the envelope.

  “Take a look at this.”

  Thirty Days Later

  The beach at Negril was calm and not too crowded yet charged with energy thanks to the special guests assembled at an impromptu celebration. The new Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition shot on Jamaica a few months ago had just been released.

  Heather Drake was on the cover.

  That would have held no attraction for me, except that Thom Shepherd’s CD Saltwater Cowboy had also just been released, its first track his latest number-one hit “Rum Punch.” He’d again persuaded me to fly him down here to partake in the celebration. A video for the song had been filmed using several models from the shoot standing with the Beast, so the song and plane had been co-promoted.

  Chronixx and I-Wayne, two Jamaican reggae stars, were also here, and all of the musicians had been jamming with each other, to the small crowd’s delight. Ray was having the time of his life, posing with the swimsuit models and basking in his fifteen days of fame for having been a part of the Morgan treasure team. His joy gave me nearly as much pleasure as the beautiful woman at my side.

  Nanny was explaining the lyrics of Chronixx’s song “Capture Land,” which he was playing at the moment, accompanied by Thom Shepherd on guitar.

  “He’s saying all the places and people mentioned are unclean due to their past exploitation of slaves and the Rasta’s descendents—”

  Nanny stopped midsentence as another beautiful woman stepped up to us.

  Heather.

  She wore tight orange shorts and the same skimpy orange bikini top she had on in her cover shot.

  “Buck,” she said, “I was hoping we could spend some time together while we’re both here.”

  I’d forgotten the subtle freckles on her nose and cheeks you could only see in sunlight. She gave me that smile—once mine, now the world’s thanks to magazine covers, advertising campaigns, and talk shows.

  “What’s it you wanted to talk about?”

  Those sky-blue eyes looked directly into mine.

  “About how much I miss you.” Her eyes fluttered. “Are you free tomorrow?”

  I reached around Heather, grabbed Nanny’s hand, and pulled her close.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Nanny turned and gave me a soft, sweet kiss. I opened my lips and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Heather was gone.

  Ray pressed up next to me and handed me a Black and Stormy.

  “That was close,” he said.

  “Not really.”

  I glanced over at Nanny, who was laughing with Stanley, Harry Greenbaum, Henry Kujo, and Professor Keith.

  “Last Resort Charter and Salvage is now capitalized and doubled in size.” Ray raised his glass as Thom Shepherd launched into “Rum Punch.”

  I turned back to Ray. “The future is bright,” I said. “Partner.”

  He scratched his head. “But I still can’t believe you did that deal—”

  “Don’t start, Ray.”

  “I mean I get it—but, jeez, did you do the math when you gave away 25 percent of your 10 percent? It—”

  “Didn’t mean a thing to me.”

  I followed his gaze out to the ocean, turquoise blue with highlights of orange on the wave crests. On the beach was the Beast, resting askew in the sand, a regal old bird indeed.

  My face bent in a broad smile when I looked past her—to my other girl.

  “Betty, however, means everything,” I said.

  The End

  Acknowledgments

  Writing Maroon Rising provided a great opportunity to research another wonderful location, this time Jamaica. I studied the island’s rich, and varied history, and was able to meet many people who care deeply about their nation’s past, future
and culture. I’d like to thank several people who contributed significantly to this effort.

  First, thank you to Chris Blackwell, who I had the pleasure to meet with at GoldenEye Resort, drink some Blackwell rum, talk music, history, and Buck Reilly. As the founder of Island Records, Chris has touched all of our lives through discovering or helping to make successful many amazing musicians, including Bob Marley, U2, Jethro Tull, Cat Stevens, Tom Waits, Melissa Etheridge, and many others. His family has a long history in Jamaica, and he’s involved with and very serious about historic preservation and the future of the country. It was Chris who gave me the idea that school children in Jamaica would benefit by receiving iPads, and he was very generous to allow me to include him in several scenes in Maroon Rising.

  Also in Jamaica, my friend, Lancelot Thompson, a.k.a. McGyver, was instrumental in introducing me to, and helping me research many of the locations depicted in the story, as well as different foods, stories, trends, music and introductions to key people like Chris Blackwell and I-Wayne. McGyver’s knowledge, passion, ability to work around obstacles and his persistence was truly inspirational. And he too allowed me to portray him in the story.

  Singer songwriter, Thom Shepherd, who has penned numerous #1 hits, and has over 100 songwriting credits for some of Country Music’s top recording artists, and was himself recently awarded the Country Music Association (CMA) of Texas’ Songwriter of the Year award, was also very gracious to allow me to portray him in the story. Thom is one of the hardest working and most talented people I know, and he never stops smiling. I also had the pleasure of co-writing a song with him, called “Rum Punch,” and accompanied him when he recorded it in Nashville with legendary musician, songwriter and studio owner, Jim “Moose” Brown and Noah Gordon. Thom tours nonstop and has performed for American Military servicemen and women in 17 different countries. Thom also appeared in Maroon Rising and it was a blast to have him ride shotgun with Buck Reilly.

  Clemens and Nancy Von Merveldt, the General Managers of Strawberry Hill Resort, located in the heart of the Blue Mountain range, were also very gracious in sharing their perspectives on Jamaica, and to introducing me to other amazing people and facts about the country, as well as appear in the novel. International reggae star, I-Wayne, was kind and generous to allow me to include him in the book, and like all of the other “real people” who agreed to appear, also wanted to first understand what the book was about, and showed concern and care about the moral of the story being positive for the Jamaican people.