Purgatory's Shore

by Taylor Anderson

  “I can’t get you more, Dr. Newlin!” Varaa said, exasperated. Obviously, this argument had been ongoing. “But the people here have their own natural remedies that work just as well. They don’t always work as quickly or comprehensively,” she cautioned, nodding at the woman beside Lewis, “but she and others will gladly acquaint you with them, as well as remedies for the fever afflicting some of your men. It’s not wholly due to the climate,” she added sternly, obviously returning to another argument. “I strongly suggest you listen to her, as she and others must learn your methods.”

  Resignedly, Newlin nodded. “Of course. We have much to teach each other to prepare for the time to come.” He stood. “Now, Captain Cayce, you seem well enough. Better than most who came with Captain Holland. I’ll leave you to the myriad reports you doubtless crave, but caution you not to exert yourself.”

  To Lewis’s growing consternation, Captain Anson came in with Alcaldes Periz and Truro as Dr. Newlin left. Both alcaldes seemed pleased to see him recovering and very relieved as well. Anson glanced quizzically at Samantha but grinned at Lewis. “Must be strange waking up to a room full of people, but it hasn’t been like this the whole time. Mostly, it’s just been the lady healers an’ Dr. Newlin.” A frown flicked across his face. “An’ Mistress Samantha. Leonor sat with you a little each day as well.” He shook his head. “Somethin’ about you has stirred a maternalism I’ve never seen in that girl. Don’t know what to think about it,” he added flatly. Lewis glanced at Burton. Judging by the lack of surprise on the dragoon officer’s young face, even he must be in on Leonor’s secret now—if it remained a secret at all. He also briefly wondered if Anson was more annoyed by the attention paid him by Leonor or Samantha Wilde.

  “I apologize . . .” Lewis began a little helplessly, but Periz rushed closer, holding out his big, strong hands.

  “You . . . no apologize!” he stated adamantly. “Is us . . . apologize . . . you! You already save Uxmal . . . two times now. Us almost let you destroyed!”

  Wide-eyed, Lewis looked at Anson.

  “He’s learning English fast. They all are!” Anson said with a hint of wonder. “Varaa told ’em there’s not even Uxmalo words for a lot of what we have to teach ’em, an’ our troops can’t learn their language an’ train ’em to fight at the same time.”

  “That’s . . . unfair to them, and very gracious, but probably for the best,” Lewis admitted, then chuckled. “With all their different accents, half our men can barely understand one another. Imagine how they’d butcher the local version of Spanish, or whatever it is. . . .”

  “They call it ‘Spanya,’ ” Anson supplied. “A mix o’ Spanish an’ old Mayan, like we figured.”

  “Makes sense, I suppose,” Lewis said, then nodded at Periz. “But what’s he talking about?” He glared at Holland, who’d kept silent since his first greeting. “I’ll ask again, what happened?”

  They all started talking at once, but seeing Lewis’s pained expression, they silently agreed to take turns. Periz and Varaa first told him that his suspicions were confirmed; Tranquilo had apparently panicked after he saw the might and professionalism of the army that marched into Uxmal, and then got slapped down so hard and humiliatingly at the temple. He and Discipo (neither to be found) quickly plotted to sow confusion in the American camp (which worked too well) and murder all the leaders at the reception when they responded to the disturbance. As Lewis knew, that attempt badly failed. Still, seventeen Americans were murdered in the camp, and almost forty Uxmalos died. Twenty-eight were killed in the camp by soldiers (probably more than were actually traitors, sadly), but all were deemed Tranquilo’s victims. So all the Blood Priest managed to do was inflame the city against his vile order and the Dominion, while further cementing the new alliance.

  As Lewis expected, Holland’s story was stranger. Under her jury-rigged masts, Tiger’s scratch crew had beaten away from the shore for the run-up to Uxmal Bay. Even in the shape the ship was in, it should’ve only taken a couple of days. With the hazy coast still in sight, however, she’d encountered a Dom ship. Holland described her as a galleon, like something right out of the seventeenth century, likely built on the same lines as the ship that brought the first Spaniards to this land two centuries before. Holland admitted he was tempted to fight, figuring his old ship’s 12pdrs and quarterdeck and fo’c’sle 6pdrs were a match for the galleon’s equal number of bigger, if cruder guns. But Tiger was no longer a warship with a man-o’-war’s crew, and she was packed with wounded. Quickly discovering that, with Tiger’s relatively clean copper bottom and sleeker shape, even her reduced sails could keep her at arm’s length from the more awkward Dom, Holland ran north into the gulf, away from Uxmal. The chase lasted two whole days, all while the enemy closed or fell behind as Holland’s crew strengthened and improved repairs to the masts, bent on new canvas, and exercised the guns. And regardless of her flag, Tiger and her crew now belonged to Captain Holland, even in the mind of First Lieutenant Semmes. He was the one who suggested shifting a pair of guns aft to the taffrail and rigging the necessary tackles to use them there. Allowing the Doms to creep within range of their own forward guns, Holland unleashed his new stern chasers. All it took was half a dozen shots before they shattered the enemy’s fore-topmast and split her forecourse into flapping rags. By dusk of that evening, the wounded Dom was low on the horizon and Holland turned back for Uxmal at dark.

  That’s where the Doms found Tiger again, sweeping down behind her in another gathering twilight as if they’d known where she’d go all along. Holland wouldn’t fool them again—if he ever had—and knew he had to fight. Fortunately, though a sad number of the wounded had passed beyond care, the Ocelomeh healers had helped many recover enough to at least use a musket. Even Major Reed, arm now safe from amputation, was sufficiently fit to insist they stop the Dom ship. So it was that once in the bay—well-known to some of the Uxmalos who’d joined the crew—Tiger turned on those who’d had her by the tail.

  That was the source of the crashing cannon fire Lewis saw on the bay, just as devastating to the pursuing Doms as it was unexpected. Their ship rounded the point and sailed directly into carefully aimed, concentrated raking fire from the hove-to Tiger that sent all their masts crashing down around them and their battered ship wallowing downwind toward the coral heads on the west side of the bay. Their return fire was ill directed and relatively ineffective. There in the darkness of the choppy sea just inside the bay, the Dom ship struck. Jagged coral bashed in her hull, and she heeled on her side, an utter wreck.

  “Well done, Captain Holland,” Lewis said. “How many prisoners? We might learn a great deal from her officers—such as why they were so sure you’d come here.”

  Holland pursed his weather-worn lips, and Anson exchanged looks with Varaa and Alcalde Periz.

  “There were no prisoners, Cap’n Cayce,” Holland said uncomfortably. “No survivors a’tall, in fact.”

  “What?” Lewis exclaimed. “Good Lord. Did she break up before you could get boats to her?”

  Holland shook his head. “It wasn’t that, an’ she didn’t break up. She’s ruined, o’ course, but still lyin’ out there while the Uxmalos strip her.”

  “Then . . .”

  Varaa spoke up. “Captain Cayce,” she said slowly, “you’ve . . . begun to see the evil the Dominion does to others, but they’re equally evil to their own. The worldview of Blood Priests and the man you killed in front of the temple isn’t yet universal among them, but it’s no aberration. The common Dom sailor or soldier may not be as committed to their faith as Tranquilo’s guard, but they’re increasingly subject to those who are.” She hesitated. “With defeat and capture certain, every single man aboard the Dom ship that Captain Holland so gallantly bested was either . . . slaughtered by their more fanatical shipmates and officers, or like those who murdered them, cast themselves into the sea.” She paused, blinking, searching the horror reflected on Lewis�
��s face. “I see you remember what I told you about the predators in the water on this world.”

  “My God.”

  Periz spoke rapidly through Varaa, unwilling to rely on his new English. “You should also see more clearly why we must oppose the Dominion,” Varaa translated. “If they do that to their own, imagine how they’ll treat my people when they conquer us.”

  Periz drew himself up. “Alcalde Ortiz has returned to Pidra Blanca to prepare his people”—he nodded at Alcalde Truro from Itzincab—“but we’re all of one mind. The formation of a true Union will take longer to bring about than we hoped—Colonel De Russy raised a number of issues that must be addressed—but we’ll take his counsel. At the same time, however, all three of our cities—at least—are fully united in opposing the Doms and will do all we can to support your efforts to support us. In all things to do with defense, we’ll follow your direction.”

  “Right,” Lewis said, unsurprised that the alcaldes, upon reflection, had drawn back from the bigger commitment of joining their city-states into one nation. The notion simply remained too alien for them to leap directly into it without testing the waters first. Hopefully, they’d have time to recognize the advantages for themselves. We’ll have to make them that time, Lewis realized with a sigh. He tried to rise again. “My God, we have so much to do!”

  Anson snorted a laugh and nodded at Lewis’s bare chest. “I guess we can wait for you to put some clothes on.”

  With a reddening glance at Samantha, Lewis lay back again.

  “Tomorrow is soon enough,” Samantha said firmly. “They cleaned and repaired the fine coat Colonel De Russy gave you amazingly well. The things these people can do with cloth! But I suspect you’ll want your everyday things?” She stood. “I’ll have that hopeless orderly of yours, Private Willis, bring them in the morning.” She turned to the other visitors and said, “Now shoo! All of you. Let Captain Cayce rest!”

  When everyone but the Ocelomeh healer had filed through the door, Lewis asked Samantha to stay a moment. The painful memory of the bitter dream/final meeting with his father was still lingering heavy in his mind, and Samantha’s mention of De Russy made him realize it was past time for him to sort something out. “I’ve a somewhat . . . delicate request to make. Pass the word for young Barca to bring my things now, if you please. I’d like to have a word with him in private.”

  “Indeed?” Samantha asked, but her expression told Lewis she might’ve been expecting something like this.

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  Waiting for Barca, Lewis was more anxious than he’d expected to be. Probably more lingering effects of the dream, he thought. He liked and respected De Russy, but his ill-defined, perhaps even hypocritical connection to Barca troubled him deeply. Now his own failure to confront him about it sooner suddenly left him feeling hypocritical. The problem was, there might be a perfectly sensible, even innocent explanation for the association—he’d never seen De Russy treat Barca with anything but respect and appreciation—but he needed an answer to the awkward question that couldn’t be taken back once asked, and regardless of the answer, the question itself might be deeply resented. A rift between him and De Russy now could be disastrous. Getting the truth from Barca first might help him determine whether a dangerous confrontation was even necessary.

  “Good morning, Captain Cayce,” Barca said a short while later after knocking on the door and stepping inside, carrying folded clothes. He had a clean bandage wrapped around his head but was otherwise dressed as usual, as an infantryman, except there was no branch trim on his jacket. Lewis wasn’t surprised to see the new M1835 Springfield slung across his back. On this world, no one had made an issue over arming black men since that very first day. Lewis doubted anyone would, after the attack on the camp.

  “Is it morning? I didn’t even think to ask anyone.”

  Barca nodded. “Yes sir. For a little while yet.” He smiled. “There aren’t any windows in here, and I expect sleeping so long can warp your sense of time.”

  Lewis nodded back and then gestured at a little table when he caught the young man looking for a place to set his burden. He considered asking him to have a seat where the Uxmalo healer had been, but decided too much informality was out of place and might even come across as condescension. “So does activity,” he said when Barca stood straight again. “We’ve been very busy. Still, that’s no excuse for letting things go that should’ve been attended to sooner.” He looked at the Ocelomeh healer and asked her to give them a minute, but she didn’t even look up from the fine embroidery she was working on. “I suppose that means she either doesn’t understand English or she’s Varaa’s spy,” he mused aloud. “Doesn’t matter.” He looked back at Barca. “I’ve been meaning to have a word with you and Colonel De Russy, but decided I’d rather hear from you before I talk to him.” He shifted uncomfortably, and Barca leaned to help him to a better position, but Lewis held up a hand. “First, I’d like to say I appreciate how you’ve attended to your duties so quietly and competently, even managing that villainous Private Willis. Doing much of his work for me, no doubt. I also want you to know . . . Private Anson told me you fought very well during the battle on the beach, but”—he frowned—“now I’ve heard from others that you ‘belong’ to Colonel De Russy. I thought that might be the case, though, considering where he’s from, it surprised me. And it surprises me more the better I get to know him.”

  Barca seemed ready to protest, but Lewis said, “Please, I’d like to get this out. It’s bothered me for a while.” He waved vaguely around. “Involuntary servitude is the way of things in this world, just as it’s been throughout history on ours. At least here it seems only captured enemies are forced to labor, with the only alternative being killing them so they don’t rejoin the fight. That doesn’t make it sit better with me, or keep me from hoping we can change it.

  “On the other hand,” he continued more bleakly, “as I told the men when we got here, I wouldn’t be surprised if Periz and the other alcaldes eventually resort to conscription. That’s ‘involuntary servitude’ of a sort itself, but if the Doms are as bad as they say—and I’ve no reason to doubt it—I don’t even disapprove. Better that than what will happen to their families if the enemy wins. And even in the army, conscripts are still free men, fighting for freedom. I . . .” He hesitated, looking at Barca, who was now watching him with a strange expression. “I just wanted to say, to speak to you before I talk to the colonel . . . I’ll insist you have the same right as anyone to be a free man in this army, to choose whether to stay in his service or transfer to a combat unit of any branch.” He glanced at the dark-skinned Ocelomeh healer and tilted his head to the side with a slight smile. “If our time here has taught our people nothing else, they seem to have begun to grasp that white men—or black—are now a distinct minority, and skin color”—he thought of Varaa and actually chuckled—“or appearance in general, is no basis to judge the quality of an individual.” Lewis snorted. “Background either, since even some of our most . . . belligerently insular troops originally from England and Ireland have lately been heard to use the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ collectively. My point is, between that and your fighting reputation, you’d be welcome in any branch you chose.”

  Barca looked down for a long time as if considering how to reply. Finally, he looked back at Lewis. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate the offer and may even accept when the time is right. But with respect, perhaps I should clarify something. Colonel De Russy did ‘purchase’ me from a family of long acquaintance to his in New Orleans. They were business associates, even related by marriage, and my relationship to their children—and the young De Russys when they visited—was more as a companion than slave. But then Mr. Mounier’s shipping interests and health began to fail. He affected to take great public offense at the words of a creditor and met him under the Oaks in City Park.” Barca sighed. “The duel was with pistols, at which Mr. Mounier excelled, but
he was shot dead. Some suspected it was a ‘suicide duel’ from the start, to provide insurance money for his family, and that was the sentiment that ultimately prevailed in court, denying Mrs. Mounier any money. She was obliged to sell nearly everything of value to meet Mr. Mounier’s debts.” Barca’s voice turned bitter. “That’s when I first fully appreciated the distinction between ‘family’ and ‘property.’ What it really meant to be a slave,” he added bleakly. “My mother had known all along and was terrified we’d all be split up—her, myself, my brother and two sisters—going to God only knew what fate, never to see each other again.” Barca’s expression changed, almost to one of wonder. “But the De Russys bought us all, immediately filing our freedom papers in the deeds office at Philadelphia. Colonel De Russy’s lawyer, a Mr. Emerson, escorted my family to Pennsylvania himself to protect them from the slave catchers that are so active there.”

  He took a long, relieved breath. “For my part, I felt a strong obligation to the De Russys for what they’d done. Knowing the colonel would soon be in New Orleans with his volunteer regiment, I voluntarily remained to serve him in whatever capacity he required when he arrived.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t own me, but he owns my loyalty. Of course I ‘belong’ to him, in a way, after what he and his family did for me and mine.” He looked away, jaw set. “And after the upbringing I had, the learning and sense of freedom and independence I felt—if never the real thing at all . . .” he added caustically, the betrayal he’d felt quite clear in his tone. Touching the musket sling, he continued, “Even the amateur martial training Mr. Mounier gave me alongside his sons—he’d been a militiaman in the battle there, in 1814, you see—just imagine what would’ve become of me if I’d been sold to virtually anyone else. I’m sure I would’ve done murder and been hanged.”

  Lewis was nodding slowly. “I suspect you would have, at that,” he said softly.