by Lewis Shiner
the voyage to Galveston took a day and a half aboard the S.S. Columbia, now-aging stalwart of the Morgan line. Malone saw Chighizola and his woman only once, when the three of them shared a table for dinner. Otherwise Malone remained in his cabin, catching up on accounts and correspondence.
Malone stood on the bow as the ship steamed into Galveston Bay. Even now Sam Williams might have his eye on him. Legend had it that Williams watched incoming ships with a telescope from the cupola of his house, deducing their cargoes from their semaphored messages. He would then hurry into town to corner the market on the incoming merchandise. It did not increase his popularity. Then again, Williams had never seen public opinion as a necessary condition for money and power.
Williams had proven what a man of ambition could do. He had arrived in Texas under an assumed name in May of 1822, fleeing debts as so many others had. He had created himself from scratch. Malone knew that he could do the same. It was not proper that a man should live on his wife’s fortune and social position. He needed to increase and acquire, to shape the world around him.
Chighizola joined him as they swung in toward the harbor. “Do you never miss the sea?” Malone asked him.
“I had enough of her,” Chighizola said. “She care for nobody. You spend your life on top of her, she love you no more than she did the first day. A woman is better.” He squinted at the island. The harbor was crowded with sailboats and steamers, and beyond it the two-story frame buildings of the Strand were clearly visible. “Hard to believe that is the same Campeachy.” He looked at Malone. “Galveston, you call it now. Are there still the snakes?”
“Not like there used to be.”
“Progress. Well, I will be glad to see it. Every new thing, it always is such a surprise for me.”
“You will have to see it another time. We must catch a steamer for the mainland this morning, then a coach to Austin.”
“Yes, I forget the hurry you are in.”
“I have to know. I have to know if it is Lafitte or not.”
“It is him.”
“How can you be certain without even seeing him? I tell you he looks no more than forty years old.”
“And I tell you we buried Lafitte twice, once at the Barataria, once at Campeachy.”
“Buried him?”
“For being dead. Lafitte, he eats the blowfish, him. You understand? Poison fish. In Haiti he learns this. Sometimes he eats it, nothing happens. Sometimes he loses the feeling in his tongue, his mouth. Twice he gets stiff all over and looks dead. Twice we bury him, twice the Haitian spirit man watch the grave and dig him up again. Ten years he eats the blowfish, that I know him. In all that time, he gets no older. But it makes him different, in his head. Money is nothing to him after. Then the second time, he cares about nothing at all. Sets fire to Campeachy, sails off to Yucatan with his brother Pierre.”
“I have read the accounts,” Malone said. “Lt. Kearny and the Enterprise drove him away.”
“You think one man, one ship, stand against Lafitte if he wants to fight? He sees the future that night. He sees more and more Lt. Kearnys in their uniforms, with their laws and courts and papers. More civilization, like in Louisiana. More government telling you what you can do. No more room for privateers. No place left in this country where a man stands alone. So he goes to Mexico. But first, before he goes, we burn the whole town to the ground. So Lt. Kearny does not get Lafitte’s nice red house.”
Malone knew that Lafitte’s pirate camp had numbered two thousand souls by the time Kearny arrived in 1821. Lafitte himself ruled from a two-story red house near the port, surrounded by a moat, guarded by his most loyal men. Campeachy had been a den of vice and iniquity: gaming, whores, liquor, gun-fights and duels. There were those in Galveston still that wondered if the island would ever recover from the evil that had been done there.
Malone shook his head. Chighizola had got him thinking of ghosts and now he could not rid himself of them.
“You did not go with him,” Malone said. “To Mexico. Why not?”
“I do not like the odds. I think, a man looks at Death so many times, then one day Death looks back. Life always seems good to me. I am not like Lafitte, moi. I do not have these ideas and beliefs to keep me awake all night. You are still young, I give you advice. To sleep good at night, this is not such a bad thing.”
the coach took them from Houston to San Felipe along the Lower Road, then overland to Columbus. From there along the Colorado River to La Grange and Bastrop and Austin. Chighizola was exhausted by the trip, and the woman Fabienne blamed Malone for it. Malone was tired and irritable himself. Still he forced himself out of the hotel that night to search for Lafitte.
The opium house was deserted, with no sign left of its former use. He stopped in two or three saloons and left word for O’Roarke, then gave up and retired to the comparative luxury of the Avenue Hotel.
Malone searched all the next day, asking for both O’Roarke and Lafitte by name. The first name met with shrugs, the second with laughter. Malone ordered a cold supper sent to his room, where he ate in silence with Chighizola and the woman.
“It would seem,” the woman said, “that we have come a long, painful distance for nothing.” She was dressed somewhat more formally than Malone had seen her before, in a low-cut yellow frock and a lace cap. The dangling strings of the cap and her dark, flashing eyes made her seem as wanton as ever.
“I do not believe that,” Malone said. “Men have destinies, just as nations do. I cannot believe that my opportunity has passed me by.”
There was a knock and Malone stood up. “That may be destiny even now.”
It was in fact O’Roarke, with Lafitte in tow. “I heard,” O’Roarke said, “you sought for Brimstone Jack. He has answered your summons.” He noticed Fabienne, removed his hat, and directed his gobbet of tobacco juice at the cuspidor rather than the floor.
Malone turned back to the room. Chighizola was on his feet, one hand to his throat. “Holy Christ,” he said, and crossed himself.
Lafitte sank into an armchair. He seemed intoxicated, unable to focus his eyes. “Nez Coupe? Is it really you?”
“Me, I look how I should. You are the one that is not to be believed. Lafitte’s son, you could be.”
Malone said, “I warned you.”
“A test,” Chighizola said. “That is what you want, no?”
Malone shrugged. “I feel certain it would reassure us all.”
Chighizola rubbed a thick scar that ran along the edge of his jaw. “There is a business with a golden thimble I could ask him about.”
Lafitte waved his hand, bored. “Yes, yes, of course I remember the thimble. But I suppose I must tell the story, to satisfy your friends.” He shifted in the chair and picked at something on his shirt. “It happened in the Barataria. We had made the division of the spoils from a galleon taken out in the Gulf. There were three gold coins left over. I tried to give them to your wife.” His eyes moved to Fabienne, then back. “Your wife of the time, of course. But you were greedy and wanted them for yourself. So I had the smith make them into a thimble for her. I think it ended up in a chest full of things that we buried somewhere.”
“It is Lafitte,” Chighizola said to Malone. “If you doubted it.”
“No,” Malone said, “I had no doubt.” He turned to O’Roarke. “How can we reward you for bringing him to us?”
“You can cut me in on the treasure,” O’Roarke said. Lafitte put back his head and laughed.
“I do not know what you mean,” Malone said.
O’Roarke’s face became red. “Do not take Brimstone Jack for an idiot. What you want is obvious. You are not the first to try. If you succeed I would ask for only a modest amount. Say, a hundredth share. It would be simpler to cut me in than to do the things you would have to do to lose me.”
Malone looked at Chighizola. Chighizola said, “It comes from your share, not from ours.” Fabienne smiled her agreement.
“All right, damn it,” Malon
e said. “Done.”
Lafitte leaned forward. “You seem to have matters well in hand. Perhaps I should be on my way.”
Malone stared at him for a second in shock. “Please. Wait.”
“You, sir, though I know your face, I do not know your name. I seem to remember you in connection with the disappearance of my pistol.”
Malone handed the pistol to Lafitte, butt first. With some embarrassment he said, “The name is Malone.”
“Mr. Malone, now that you have divided up my treasure, may I ask a question or two? How do you know the treasure even exists? If it does exist, that I have not long ago spent it? If I have not spent it, that I even recall where it was buried?” Unspoken was the final question: if he recalled it, why should he share?
“Is there a treasure?” Malone asked at last.
Lafitte took out a clay pipe shaped like some Mexican deity and stuffed it with brittle green leaves. He did not offer the odd tobacco to anyone else. When he lit it the fumes were sour and spicy. Lafitte held the smoke in his lungs for several long seconds then exhaled loudly. “Yes, I suppose there is.”
“And you could find it again?”
Lafitte shrugged again. “Perhaps.”
“You make sport of us, sir. You know our interests, and you seem to take pleasure in encouraging them. But you give us no satisfaction. What are your motives in this? Has money in fact lost all appeal for you?”
“I never cared for it,” Lafitte said. “You may believe that or not. I cared for justice and freedom. Spain stood against those principles, and so I carried letters of marque to make war upon her. The riches were incidental, necessary merely to prolong that war. But time has moved on. Justice and freedom are antique concepts, of no importance to our modern world. The world, in the person of Lt. Kearny, made it clear that it had no use for me or my kind. I have learned to return the sentiment. I have no use for the things of this world.”
He relighted his pipe and took another lungfull of smoke. “You ask about my appearance. I met a brahman from the Indian continent a few years ago. He explained that it is our connection to worldly things that ages us. Karma, he called it. I believe I am living proof of the Brahman’s beliefs.”
“What of those of us still in the world?” Malone said. “I see in you the signs of a former idealist, now disillusioned. I still have ideals. There are still wars to be fought, against ignorance and disease and natural disaster. Wars your treasure could fight. And what of Chighizola, your shipmate? Is he not entitled to his share?” For some reason the fumes from Lafitte’s pipe had left Malone terribly hungry. He cast a sideways glance toward the remains of supper.
“If you sailed with him,” O’Roarke said to Chighizola, “you must persuade him.”
“I think,” Chighizola said, “people try that for years now.”
“You never answered my question,” Malone said to Lafitte. “Money does not motivate you. Neither, it seems, does idealism. At least not any longer. So what is it you care for? What can we offer you?”
“A trip to Galveston,” Lafitte said. “I would like to see my island again. To see how things have changed in thirty years. Then we will talk some more.” He set his pipe down. “And for the moment, you could hand me the remains of that loaf of bread. I find myself suddenly famished.”
they occupied an entire coach on the return trip. Between O’Roarke’s spitting and Lafitte’s pipe, it was even less pleasant than the outbound journey. They got off the steamer in Galveston late in the evening of a Sunday. The wharf was crowded nonetheless. Several freighters were being filled with cotton, the bales crammed into place with mechanical jackscrews to allow larger loads. The screwmen were the kings of the dock and shouldered their way contemptuously through the newly-arrived passengers, carrying huge bales of cotton on their backs.
Malone led his party, now including a couple of Negro porters, past Water Street to the Strand. It felt good to have the familiar sand and crushed shells under his feet again. “The Tremont Hotel is just over there, on 23rd Street,” he said. “If there’s any problem with your rooms, just mention the Commercial and Agricultural Bank. Mr. Williams, my employer, is part owner of the hotel.”
“And where do you live?” Lafitte asked. He had not ceased to smile in the entire time Malone had known him.
“About a mile from here. On 22nd Street. With my wife and her family.”
“Do they not have guest rooms?”
“Yes, of course, but it would be awkward...”
“In other words, since this is a purely business venture, you would prefer to put us up like strangers, well away from the sanctity of your home.”
“That was never my intent. My wife, you see, is...highly strung. I try not to impose on her, if at all possible.”
“We are an imposition, then,” Lafitte said. “I see.”
“Very well! Enough! You will stop at our house then. We shall manage somehow.”
“That is gracious of you,” Lafitte said. “I should be delighted.”
there was no time, of course, to warn Becky. Thus Malone arrived on his wife’s doorstep with four strangers. He had the porters bring the luggage up the long flight of steps to the porch; like most Galveston houses, it was supported by eight-foot columns of brick.
Jefferson, the Negro butler, answered the door. “Please get the guest room ready,” Malone told him. “I shall put a pair of cots in the study as well, I suppose. And tell Mrs. Malone that I have returned.”
“Sir.”
Chighizola and his woman left with Jefferson. Malone paid the porters and took Lafitte and O’Roarke into the study.
“Nice place,” O’Roarke said.
“Thank you,” Malone said, painfully pinching a finger as he set up the cots. “Use the cuspidor while in the house, if you do not mind.”
Becky appeared in the doorway. “How nice to see you again,” she said to Malone, without sincerity. “It would appear your expedition was more successful than you expected.”
“This is Mr. O’Roarke and Mr....Lafflin,” he said. Lafitte smiled at the name. “This is my wife, Becky.”
She sketched a curtsy. “How do you do.”
“They are business associates of mine. I regret not letting you know they would be stopping here. It came up rather suddenly.”
“I trust you will find a way to explain this to my father. I know it is hopeless to expect you to offer any explanation to me.” She turned and disappeared.
“When I lived on the island,” Lafitte said, “we had a whorehouse on this very spot.”
“Thank you for that bit of history,” Malone said. “My night is now complete.”
“Is there anything to eat?” O’Roarke asked.
“If you cannot wait until morning, you are welcome to go down to the kitchen and see what you can find. Please do not disturb Jefferson unless you have to.” Malone felt sorry for the old Negro. In keeping with current abolitionist sentiment in Texas he had been freed, but his wages consisted of his room and board only. “And now, if you have no objections, I shall withdraw. It is late, and we can resume our business in the morning.”
the house was brutally hot, even with the doors and windows open. There had been a southeast breeze when it was first built; the city’s growth had long since diverted it. Malone put on his nightshirt and crawled under the mosquito net. He arranged the big square pillow under his shoulders so that night-borne fevers would not settle in his lungs. Becky lay under the covers, arms pressed against her sides, feigning sleep.
“Good night,” he said. She made no answer. He knew that he would be within his rights to pull the covers off and take her, willing or not. She had made it clear she would not resist him. No, she would lie there, eyes closed, soundless, like a corpse. He was almost tempted. The days of confinement with Fabienne had taken their toll.
He could recall the flush of Fabienne’s golden skin, her scent, her cascading hair. She would not receive a man so passively, he thought. She could, he imagined, bre
ak a man’s ribs with the heat of her passion.
Malone got up and drank a small glass of whisky. Imagination had always been his curse. Lately it kept him from sleep and interfered with his accounts. Enough gold, he thought, would cure that. The rich needed no imagination.
malone rose before his guests, eyes bloodshot and head aching. He scrubbed his face at the basin, dressed, and went downstairs. He found his father-in-law in the breakfast room and quickly put his lies in order. He explained Lafitte and the others as investors, wealthy but eccentric, here to look at the possibility of a railroad causeway to the mainland. Becky’s father was mad for progress, in love with the idea of the railroad. He smiled and shook Malone’s hand.
“Good work, son,” he said. “I knew you would make your mark. Eventually.”
Chighizola and Fabienne came down for breakfast at eight. Becky had left word for Cook and there were chafing dishes on the sideboard filled with poached eggs, liver, flounder, sausage, broiled tomatoes, and steak. There was a toast rack, a coffee service, a jug of orange juice, a tray of biscuits, and a large selection of jams in small porcelain pots. O’Roarke joined them shortly before nine. He seemed rather sullen, though he consumed two large plates full of food. He ate in silence, tugging on his orange side whiskers with his left hand.
Lafitte, in contrast, was cheerful when he finally arrived. He was unshaven, without collar, braces, or waistcoat, and his long hair was in disarray. He ate only fish and vegetables and refused Malone’s offer of coffee.
When Jefferson came to clear away the dishes Malone asked, “Where is Mrs. Malone this morning?”
“In her room, sir. She said to tell you she had letter writing to see to.”
She might come down for supper, then. Unless, of course, she suddenly felt unwell, a condition he could predict with some confidence. “If she asks, you may tell her I have taken our visitors for a walk.”
First he showed them St. Mary’s cathedral, at 21st Street and Avenue F, with its twin Gothic towers on either side of the arched entranceway. It was barely two years old, the first church on the island and the first cathedral in Texas. To Malone it was a symbol. Virtually the entire city had been rebuilt since 1837 and structures like St. Mary’s showed a fresh determination, a resolution to stay no matter what the odds.