by Lewis Shiner
He pointed out the purple blossoms of the oleanders that now grew wild all over the city, brought originally from Jamaica in wooden tubs. He led them west to 23rd Street, past Sam Williams’ bank. Then he brought them down the Strand, with its commission houses and government offices.
“The similarities to Manhattan Island are clear,” Malone said. “Galveston stands as the gateway to Texas, a perfect natural harbor, ideally situated on the Gulf.”
“Except for the storms,” Lafitte said.
“Man’s ingenuity will find a way to rob them of their power. Look around you. This is already the largest city in Texas. And everything you see was brought about by human industry. Nature withheld her hand from this place.”
“You need hardly remind me,” Lafitte said. “When we first came here there were salt cedars and scrub oaks, poisonous snakes, and man-eating Indians. And nothing else. Am I right, Nez Coupe?”
Chighizola said, “You leave out the malaria and the infernal gulls.”
“You can see that things have greatly improved,” Malone said.
“Improved? Hardly. I see churches and banks, custom houses and shops, all the fetters and irons of civilization.”
“Shops?” O’Roarke said. “Against shops as well, are you? What would you have?”
“No one owned the land when we lived here. Everything was held in common. The prizes we took were divided according to agreed-upon shares. No one went hungry for lack of money.”
“Communism,” Malone said. “I have heard of it. That German, Karl Marx, has written about it.”
“He was hardly the first,” Lafitte said. “Bonaparte urged many of the same reforms. As did Rousseau, for that matter.”
They had turned east on Water Avenue. At 14th Street Lafitte stopped. He turned back, with one hand shading his eyes, then smiled. “Here,” he said.
“Pardon?” Malone asked.
“La Maison Rouge. This is where my house was. Look, you can see where the ground is sunken. This is where I had my moat. Inland stood the gallows. Rebels and mutineers, those who raided any but Spanish ships, died there.”
Now there was only an abandoned shack, with wide spaces between the boards where the green wood had shrunk. Malone stepped into its shade for a moment to escape the relentless sun. “Truly?” he said. “Truly, you never attacked an American ship?”
“Truly,” Chighizola said. “The Spanish only. He was obsessed.”
“Why?”
Chighizola shook his head.
“A private matter,” Lafitte said. “I was angry then. Angry enough to burn La Maison Rouge and all the rest of it when I left, burn the entire city to the ground.”
“Your anger,” Malone said, “is legendary.”
“No more,” Lafitte said. “To have that much anger, you have to care deeply. To be attached to the world.”
“And you care for nothing?” O’Roarke said. “Nothing at all?”
Lafitte shrugged. “Nothing comes to mind.”
dinner was long and arduous. Lafitte seemed willing enough to play along with Malone’s railroad charade. However his lack of seriousness, bordering on contempt, left Becky’s father deeply suspicious. O’Roarke’s crude speech and spitting would have maddened Becky had she not been upstairs, “feeling poorly,” in the words of her maid. As for Chighizola and Fabienne, they were simply ignored.
Afterwards O’Roarke stopped him in the hall. “How much longer? By thunder, Brimstone Jack is not one for waiting around. We should be after the treasure.”
“If it is any consolation,” Malone said, “I am enjoying this no more than you.”
Malone retired, but was unable to sleep. Exhausted, yet with his nerves wound tight, he lay propped up in bed and listened to the clock on the dresser loudly tick away the seconds. He finally reached the verge of sleep, only to come awake again at the sound of someone moving in the hallway.
He dressed hastily and went downstairs. He found Lafitte in the porch glider, smoking his hemp tobacco.
“Might I join you?” Malone asked.
“It is your house.”
“No,” Malone said, sitting on the porch rail. “It is my wife’s house. It is a difference that has plagued me for some time. I crave my independence.”
“And you think my treasure will buy that for you.”
“That and more. Political power. The ability to change things. To bring real civilization to Galveston, and all of Texas.”
“I am no admirer of civilization.”
“Yet you fought for this country against the British. You were the hero of New Orleans.”
“Yes, I fought for your Union. I was young and foolish, not much older than you. I believed the Union would mean freedom for me and all my men. Instead they pardoned us for crimes we had not committed, then refused to let us make a living. When we removed ourselves to this island of snakes, your Lt. Kearney found us. He came with his laws based on wealth and social position, to tell us we were not to live equally, as brothers. Is this civilization?”
“You cannot judge a country by its frontier. It is always the worst of the old and the new.”
“Perhaps. But I have seen New York and Washington, and there the poor are more oppressed than anywhere else. But I shall not convince you of this. You shall have to see it for yourself.”
They sat for a few moments in silence. A ship’s horn sounded faintly in the distance. “What of your wife?” Lafitte asked. “Do you not love her?”
“Certainly,” Malone said. “Why do you ask that?”
“You seem to blame her for your lack of independence.”
“Rather she seems to blame me, for my lack of a fortune. It is the same fortune I lacked when she married me.”
“She is a lovely woman. I wish there were more happiness between you.”
“What of you? Did you ever marry?”
“Once. Long ago.”
“Was this in France?”
“I never lived in France. I was born and raised in Santo Domingo. My parents were French.” He stopped to relight his pipe. Malone could see him consider whether he would go on or not. At last he said, “They came to the New World to avoid the guillotine. Trouble always found them, just the same. Haiti and Santo Domingo have been fighting since Columbus, two little countries on one island, back and forth, the French against the Spanish, the peasants against the aristocracy.”
“And your wife?”
“She was fourteen when we married. I was twenty. She was pledged to a Spanish aristocrat. We eloped. He took her from me by force. She killed herself.”
“I—”
Lafitte waved away his apologies. “It was long ago. I took my revenge against Spain, many times over. It proved nothing. I always hoped I would find him on one of the ships we captured. Of course I never did. But as I have said, that was long ago. When my anger, as you say, was legend.”
“I do not believe you,” Malone said.
Lafitte raised one eyebrow.
“You have told me again and again how you care nothing for things of this world. Yet you nearly destroyed Spanish shipping in the gulf for the sake of a woman, and that pain eats at you still. As does your hatred of Lt. Kearny and everything he stood for. As does your belief in liberty, equality, fraternity. Perhaps I am young, but I have seen men like you, men who numb themselves with alcohol or other substances to convince themselves they have no feelings. My father was one of them. It is not your lack of feeling that has preserved you. It is your passion and commitment that has kept you young. Whether you have the courage to admit that or not.”
Lafitte sat for at least a minute without moving. Then, slowly, he tapped the ash out of his clay pipe and put it in his coat pocket. He stood up. “Perhaps you are right, perhaps not. But I find myself too weary for argument.” He began to descend the stairs to the street.
“Where are you going?”
“Mexico, perhaps. I should thank you for your hospitality.”
“What, you mean to simply
walk away? With no farewell to Chighizola or the others? All this simply to prove to yourself how unfeeling you are?”
Lafitte shrugged.
“Wait,” Malone said. “You are the only hope I have.”
“Then you have no hope,” Lafitte said, but he paused at the bottom of the steps. Finally he said, “Suppose I took you to the treasure. Tonight. Right now. Would that satisfy you?”
“Are you serious?”
“I do not know. Perhaps.”
“Yes, then. Yes, it would satisfy me.”
He took another half dozen paces, then turned back. “Well?”
“Am I not to wake the others? To fetch tools? To tell anyone where I am bound?”
“If we are meant to succeed, fate will provide. That is my whim. Come now or lose your chance.”
Malone stood, looked uncertainly toward the house. “I will share it with the others,” he said. “Just as we agreed. I swear.”
“That is your concern, not mine. If you are coming, then come now.”
lafitte led him to the harbor at a pace too rapid for conversation. The docks still swarmed with activity. With no attempt at stealth Lafitte stepped into a small sailboat. He motioned Malone to silence and gestured for him to get aboard. Malone saw a shovel, a machete, and several gunny sacks on the floor of the boat.
“But...” he said.
Lafitte held a finger to his lips and then pointed it angrily at Malone. Malone untied the stern line and got in. Lafitte rowed them out into the channel. Once they were well away from land Malone whispered, “This is not your boat!”
Lafitte smiled. There was little humor in it. “Do you accuse me of piracy, sir? I warn you I am not fond of the term.”
“Is this not theft, at least?”
“Reparations. Owed me by the Republic of Texas and the United States of America. Besides which, you shall have it back before dawn.”
Once into Galveston Bay the wind picked up. A chill came off the water and Malone was glad for his coat. In the moonlight the Texas coast was clearly visible, a gray expanse dotted with darker patches of brush. Malone counted at least another dozen sails on the water. Shrimpers, probably, though smuggling was still common. As they passed Jones Point the mainland receded again.
Lafitte was a mediocre sailor at best. He steered them inside South Deer Island, barely avoiding the sandbars. At one point they had to wait for a swell to lift them free. Then, a few minutes later, they rounded a spit of land and headed into Gang’s Bayou. It was little better than a swamp, full of marsh grass and sucking mud. Mesquite bushes, with their thorns and spindly branches, grew along the banks around an occasional salt cedar or dwarf willow. It seemed unlikely that Lafitte could hope to find anything in this shifting landscape. Malone began to fear for his life. He should not, he thought, have challenged Lafitte on his lack of feeling.
Lafitte passed one paddle to Malone and kept the other for himself. He lowered the sail and together they pulled the boat into the bayou. The inlet turned quickly around a U-shaped intrusion of land. At the base of it, out of sight of the bay, Lafitte tied up to a squat, massive old oak.
“Bring the shovel,” Lafitte said. Malone gathered it up with the gunny sacks. He brought the machete as well, though the thought of violence appalled him. Lafitte took his bearings from the low, marshy ground around them, then drew an X with his boot near the base of the tree. “Dig here,” he said.
“How far?”
“Until you strike the chest.”
Malone removed his coat and waistcoat and began to dig. He soon lost his chill. Sweat ran into his eyes and his hands began to blister. Lafitte sat a few yards away, uphill on a hummock of grass, smoking his pipe again. The swamp dirt was fine-grained and damp and had a cloying smell of decay. Malone managed a hole three feet around and at least that deep before giving out. It was as if the evil air that came up from the earth had robbed him of his strength.
“I must rest,” he said. He laid the shovel by the hole and then crawled over to the trunk of the tree.
“Rest, then,” Lafitte said. “I will take a turn.”
malone fell into a trance between waking and sleep. He knew he was on Gangs Bayou, on the north shore of Galveston Island. He had lost track of the year. From where he sat it seemed he could see the entire city of Galveston. The streets of the city began to pulse and swell, like an animate creature. Bricks and blocks of quarried stone floated in the air overhead, then alighted on the ground. They formed themselves into towering heaps, not in the shape of houses and churches and schools, but rather in chaotic columns that swayed to impossible heights, blocking the sun. They filled nearly every inch of the island.
Then Malone noticed bits of paper floating in the air between the towers. They seemed to guide the shape of the buildings as they grew. There was printing on the bits of paper and Malone suddenly recognized them. They were paper notes from Sam Williams’ C&A Bank. As he watched they folded themselves into halves and quarters and diagonals. He had once seen a Japanese sailor fold paper that way. They made themselves into people and dogs and birds, and they crawled over the crevices between the bricks, as if looking for shelter. Then, slowly, their edges turned brittle and brown. They began to burn. As they burned the wind carried them toward Malone, who huddled in terror as they began to fall on him.
“Wake up,” Lafitte said. “I need your help.”
Malone lurched forward, grabbing at nothing. It took him a moment to remember himself. “Forgive me,” he said. “I have had the strangest dream. Less a dream than some sort of vision.” His head hurt from it, a dull ache that went all the way down his neck.
“Ghosts, most likely,” Lafitte said. “They favor treasure. Now come help me get it out of the hole.”
“The gold?” Malone said. “You have found it?” It seemed beyond belief.
“See for yourself.”
Malone got up and peered into the hole. There did seem to be a sort of trunk there, though mud obscured its details. The top of it was more than four feet down, one end higher than the other. The hole around it, seeping water, was another two feet deep. The thing seemed to have fetched up against the roots of the tree, else it might have sunk to the center of the earth. Malone climbed into the hole and found a handle on one end. Lafitte joined him at the other and together they wrestled the box up onto solid ground.
“Have you the key?” Malone asked, his voice unsteady.
“It is not locked.”
Malone used the machete to pry open the lid. Inside he found a greasy bundle of oilcloth. He tugged at it until it unfolded before him.
Even in the moonlight its contents glowed. Gold, silver, precious gems. Malone knelt before it. He took out a golden demitasse and rubbed it against a clean spot on his sleeve. It gleamed like a lantern.
A voice behind him said, “So. This is what you made off to do.”
It was O’Roarke. Malone got up to face him. Behind O’Roarke stood Chighizola and the woman. O’Roarke kept walking, right up to Malone. He took the demitasse from Malone’s left hand, looked it over, then threw it in the chest. “We thought as long as you were determined to cross us, we would let you do the work. I see now what your promises are worth. You never intended me to gain from all my efforts on your behalf. You merely waited for me to turn my back.”
“I swore I would share this with you,” Malone stammered, knowing how weak it sounded. “Lafitte witnessed my vow.”
“Liar,” O’Roarke said. He turned to Lafitte, looming half a foot over him. “And as for you. I should have expected no less from your kind. Once a pirate, always a pirate.”
Lafitte slapped him, hard enough to send O’Roarke staggering backward. Malone was suddenly aware of the machete, still in his hand. He wished he were rid of it but was afraid to let it go, afraid to do anything to call attention to himself.
O’Roarke’s hand went to his waist. It came up with a pistol, a two-shot derringer. “Die here, then,” he said to Lafitte. “Treacherous bastard.�
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Malone knew he had to act. This was neither dream nor vision, and in a second Lafitte would die. He took a single step forward and swung the machete blindly at O’Roarke’s head. O’Roarke’s eyes moved to follow the blade and Malone realized, too late, how terribly slow it moved. But O’Roarke turned into the blow and the machete buried itself two inches into his neck.
O’Roarke dropped to his knees. The blade came free, bringing a geyser of blood from the wound. O’Roarke’s eyes lost focus and his arms began to jerk. A stain appeared on his trousers and Malone smelled feces, almost indistinguishable from the odor of the swamp. O’Roarke slowly tumbled onto his back, arms and legs quivering like a dreaming dog’s.
“Christ,” Fabienne said, turning away.
“Finish him, for God’s sake,” Lafitte said.
Malone was unable to move, unable to look away. He had witnessed violence all his life: the drowned, the mangled, the amputated. But never before had he been the cause.
Chighizola grabbed Malone’s arm. “Kill him, you stinking coward, eh? Or I do it myself.” The old man jerked the machete from Malone’s hand and brought it down swiftly on O’Roarke’s neck. It made the same noise as the shovel going into the mud. The head rolled sideways, connected only by a thin strip of skin and muscle, and the hideous tremors stopped.
“So, Lafitte, what you up to here, eh? What tricks you pull now?”
“Whim,” Lafitte said. “I thought you did not care for this treasure.”
“I do not care to play the fool.” He threw the machete toward the hillock and it buried itself in the ground. The man’s scars were monstrous, inhuman, in the moonlight. Malone could barely stand to look at them, barely get breath into his lungs. “It makes no difference now,” Chighizola said. “The deed is done. Help me put this dead one in the ground.”