“Remember, kill the men and boys right away. And the old women—I hate that wailing they do. We go in, get the gold from the church and the girls from the huts, then go. I want this done fast.”
A fisherman heading down to his boat saw the crowd coming up the hill and called out to them, “Good morning. Are you here for the copra and banana cargo? You are several days early, señores. We did not expect you until—”
The knife was fast, but not fast enough. The fisherman let out a scream, which set off all of the dogs of the village, which woke the people sleeping. The first to come out of a hut was a grandmother, already awake and getting breakfast ready. Her death was preceded by a scream that included the word dreaded on that coast.
“Piratas!”
While the others fanned out through the village, Romero headed immediately for the church at the plaza, knowing there would be gold gilt on the altar, the walls, even the doors. It was the way of the poor villages. The church was their communal source of pride and wealth. And it was there for the picking.
The villagers—mostly zambos, part Indian and part African—did not run to the church. Instead, the older people instantly grabbed the hands of their children and ran into the jungle, leaving everything behind in their homes. They ran and ran until they could run no more and, cut and bruised and bleeding, the families spread out and lay down in the bushes and vines, holding hands over the faces of their babies so their cries could not be heard. This instinctual flight was the product of three centuries of raids. It was the first and only thing they did.
The priest did not run. When he woke up in his small room in the back of the church and heard the cry of “piratas” from Señora Paloma, Father Damien knew what he must do. All his life had merely been training for this moment. As he walked into the sanctuary, the priest also knew that he could not fight the pirates off, or reason with them to desist.
Romero shook his head when he saw the robed figure emerge from the shadows. “Get away now, priest. I’ll kill you easier than the others.”
Father Damien knew his body was shaking as he stood in front of the altar, but felt an odd calm in his heart. The decision was already made, the hard part done. He raised his hands and face in supplication.
“Lord, forgive them what they do, for they are the wayward lambs and need your spirit and guidance. Please help their hearts, Lord, for they need your help more than anyone I have ever known.” Father Damien turned his gaze to Romero and smiled. “I love you, my son. And Jesus loves you too.”
“You stupid old fool,” Romero hissed as he walked up and swung his cutlass into the side of the priest’s neck. The body spun and fell down at the base of the statue behind the altar. Romero didn’t take time to look up at the statue in the dim gloom of the few votive candles. He concentrated on gathering up the sacred golden instruments of the church and wrapping them in the altar cloth.
The front door burst open and three of his men staggered in, laughing maniacally as they pushed a girl down to the floor. Her eyes went to the wall above the altar, to the statue in the shadow. Romero followed her eyes and finally looked up, seeing a statue of Christ, the likes of which he had never seen in his life.
It was a black Jesus. Its gentle face mesmerized the pirate and he couldn’t look away, thinking of what the priest had said. Suddenly the whining of the girl became a scream and Romero turned around, seeing the beginning of daylight out in the plaza through the open doors.
“We have to go. Now!” he said to the men grabbing the girl.
“But Romero, this one will be good. Very good, amigo.”
“I said . . . now!”
The men recoiled at his wrath and let go of the girl, who ran to the body of the priest. As Romero followed them through the door he turned, and stared at the Black Jesus, a sneer spreading across his face as he raised his pistol.
“Here’s a little gift from the great Romero to you, Jesus.”
The first shot entered the black plaster cheek just under the eye and ricocheted into the far wall. The second hit the forehead, sending a crack down through the face.
Then the renegade pirate left the church, rounded up his men, and left the village of Porto Bello.
Word spread faster than it would have with a telegraph—the zambo drums echoing every mile or so along the coast in all directions, warning of the pirates’ descent upon the region and telling of the outrage upon the Church of the Black Jesus. It went faster than a ship could steam. By the time Romero came up the channel later that day to the remote island where Cadena waited angrily, the native Cuna people of those islands knew what had happened among the zambos, and what their own fate very likely would be.
Romero worried when he saw the look on Cadena’s face as they met on the beach that afternoon. He had no idea that Cadena would soon be the least of his problems, after what he had started that morning.
***
The sayla peered through the bright sunlight from under the palmetto bush. The distance was great, but he still had good eyesight, as befitting the chief leader of the Cuna people among the little islands at the western end of the 365 islands of the Cuna Yala, their domain on the Caribbean coast of Panama. Around the ancient leathery man sat the area’s nele, or seer; the kantule, or historian; and the clan elders of the individual islands—all waiting for his opinion on this unfolding situation. It would be expressed in a chant and translated by the arkar, or spokesman, of the sayla. The Cuna elders were free to ignore the sayla’s opinion, but they never did. He was wise from the knowledge handed down to him by generations of repeated chants. The wisdom of Tiolele, the great god of the world, was known by the sayla. Even the nele and kantule agreed.
The Cuna men were on an islet a mile away from the anchorage of the two steamers and old schooner, and the carousing of the pirate men aboard the ships and on the beach could be heard even that far. For many days and nights the outsiders had been drinking and shouting and sometimes fighting each other, each night their voices getting stronger, more violent. The sounds were foreign, but the tone was understood. The Cuna were worried.
“These men are not like the others, the traders and labor buyers,” intoned the sayla to the akar as he scrutinized the foreigners. “The others were not good men, but these men are evil. Our ancestors met their kind many moon paths ago. It is told in the chant of the great prophecy. The third chant of the story of nuu, the bird, and the nusu, the worms.”
The arkar, nele, and the kantule nodded their understanding. The coming of the dangerous outsiders was very important and not to be ignored. The chant, one of the very oldest, told of a crisis long ago, and it would render a decisive verdict on what they should do. The arkar would wait until the sayla sang the chant, then tell the others.
The Cuna had dealt with outsiders for three hundred years, usually through trading or voluntary migrant labor on farms or ships. Outsiders were permitted to enter Cuna territory at designated islands, such as Cayos Holandes just to the west of where the sayla was this day, and not to venture beyond them. During those centuries, the Spanish had always looked at the Cuna as simplistic aborigines. The Cuna looked at all the Hispanics as potential invaders, and the arm’s-length relationship had continued for centuries.
Occasionally though, the Cuna had used force to defend their area and way of life. Known as hunters, fishermen, and cultivators, they could also be courageous warriors when the situation was severe enough and the saylas decided it was the only option left. War was very seldom used, but had been employed skillfully enough that the Colombian district authorities in Panama had learned to leave the Cuna alone and warn settlers against going there. Christian missionaries also were practically nonexistent. The Cuna preferred it all to remain that way.
But the sayla could tell these outsiders were not settlers or traders or labor contractors. The zambo drums along the mainland had spread the word of wh
at these men had done at Porto Bello. And what seemed far worse to the Cuna than the thefts and attacks on the females was the fact that these outsiders had desecrated the idol of Cristo, the one god of the zambo people. The Cuna called that god Ibeorgun, the great sage and prophet that Tiolele sent to earth, and it offended the Cuna, for that was something no one had ever done. No human had ever done, the sayla corrected himself. It was obvious that these were not humans, but were really monsters who went about wearing human skins as a disguise.
He turned away from the scene across the bay and looked up to the sky, closing his eyes. The chant started soft and low, increasing in volume until the elders were concerned that even the foreigners might hear it at the other island so far away. The chant went up and down in tone, with a rhythmic staccato beat, the sayla swaying to the sounds, lost in some other place and time. The elders listened closely but could not understand all of the sounds, they only knew that the sayla was entranced beyond anything they had ever seen. It frightened them.
***
Cadena eyed the man standing in front of him, conscious that dozens were watching the confrontation. Every word, every gesture, would be weighed by everyone there. It was the moment of truth. Either he would stay in charge, or he would die and Romero would take over.
“I told you to remain here. You violated that order and endangered us all.”
Romero’s worry had turned to arrogance, knowing that this was his opportunity and that most of the men agreed with him—that Cadena had turned into something less than a man by being so scared of el gringo.
“Cadena, you act like a nervous woman. Your yanqui master isn’t here right now. Don’t worry. You can relax.”
Several of the men laughed at the remark, but Romero noted no smile on Cadena, who remained silent for a long time, then spoke loudly, so all could hear. “We were hiding here. Safe here. Waiting for el Jefe to return, so we could go back out there with our fleet of three ships and get even more riches. But no, you decided to endanger us all by going to, of all the places, a town that has roads to Colón! The alarm will spread and our opportunity for surprise is gone.”
Romero shifted his stance, seeing several among the crowd nodding as they listened. The men were beginning to separate into two groups, those of Cadena’s crew aboard the captured packet steamer and those of Romero’s crew aboard the old original steamer.
Cadena continued. “And for what exactly did you do that, Romero? A few pieces of gold in a church? A girl or two?”
“Amigo, it was more than we had here. Cadena, this place has nothing. No loot, no women, and even the rum is running out.”
Cadena cocked his head, his eyes widening. He looked at Romero incredulously. “Did you dare to call me amigo? I am not your amigo, Romero. I am your worst nightmare!”
Cadena nodded to a man in the crowd and a shotgun blasted out, cutting Romero down into a lump on the sand. Cadena stepped past the body and swept his gaze around the two groups of men.
“Anyone else feel like being my amigo?”
His sarcasm was met with silence and sullen looks from Romero’s men as they turned away. Cadena knew they weren’t loyal to Romero, or angered at his death, they were sullen because they didn’t want to submit to discipline. He would have to watch them carefully.
28
The Prophecy
“There’s Sirena and Plover, sir,” reported Custen.
“We’ll anchor just aft of Sirena. I want minimal steam kept up and a guard detail against bumboats. No liberty and no bumboats alongside. This is a fever port in the summer. Understood?” Wake remembered very well what yellow fever had done to naval crews in Florida during the war. What it had almost done to Linda when she got sick.
Custen acknowledged the order and began preparations for anchoring, the officers and crew very aware that the professionals of two other navies were watching their entry to Colón.
Fifteen minutes later Wake congratulated Custen on a job well done and, accompanied by Monteblanco, descended the side to the gig, to be rowed to Plover.
Terrington had not emerged from his cabin since Cartagena, wallowing incoherently in his bed most of the time, and at times truculently demanding his steward. Wake decided to just let it go and gave orders for no one, not even his steward, to disturb the captain. He didn’t want the crew to see Terrington this way. Besides, Wake was the de facto commander of the ship, and by this point everyone aboard knew it.
When he got to Plover, Wake was told that Russell had been hastily summoned ashore and had left a request for the other naval officers to meet him at an office at five o’clock that afternoon in Colón. The message said that crucial intelligence had come in and they needed to act with dispatch.
***
“You shot him?” asked the renegade American as the last rays of sunlight shafted into the cabin. They were drinking rum in the packet steamer’s captain’s cabin as Cadena explained what had happened since his leader had left the hideaway to go to Cartagena.
“Yes,” answered Cadena. “As I explained, Jefe, he endangered all of us by going to Porto Bello. He had gotten out of control. He still wasn’t listening, so yesterday I had Gomera shoot him. The others are still complaining about a lack of women, but they won’t step over the line anymore.”
“Good. You did right, Cadena. I had to do the same in Cartagena.”
Cadena poured more rum for them, then broached the topic he had been considering. “Jefe, while you’ve been gone I have thought about the lack of women here. The men are uneasy, tense. They need a woman.” He shrugged. “I know they are not much to look at, but there are women at that Indian village—the one on the island over to the east.”
“So?”
“I think the boys should be allowed to go there and get rid of some of that tension, Jefe. Otherwise we will have to shoot more of them, and that could become a problem bigger than the lack of women.”
“We are supposed to be hiding, you idiot. Laying low, out of sight. Besides, we’re leaving tomorrow.”
Cadena trod softly. “Yes, but what would be the harm, Jefe? The men are lonely. Even an ugly Indian would be better than nothing.”
The gringo pounded the table. “Dammit, Cadena! All right, go ahead and do your little demented deed, then. I’m tired of arguing. Pick twenty men and take that old bitch of a schooner of Rosas’ over there to that island. But you had better be back by the tide at four in the morning. I won’t wait for any of you. And don’t forget to leave no witnesses. I don’t need any more problems.”
“As you command, Jefe. This will make the men happy. Very happy.”
“Cadena, you perverted little scum. I know that it’ll make you happy and that’s why you want to do it. Just get it done and be ready to leave at four.”
***
The meeting was held at John Kramer’s railroad and shipping company office on Front Street, amongst the seedy hotels and sailors’ taverns that faced the harbor, which undulated barely four feet below the level of the dirt street. The squalor of Colón, or Aspinwall as some of the older Americans still called it, was vividly impressed upon Wake by the sight of rotting garbage and animal waste lying everywhere, and by the incredible stench of putrefaction. The smells followed him into the building and up to the second-floor room where the others were already gathered.
“We’re glad you’re here, Lieutenant Wake, Mr. Monteblanco,” said Russell. “Where’s Captain Terrington?”
“Sick, unfortunately, sir,” replied Wake. “I am here in his stead.”
Russell, now the senior naval officer in Terrrington’s absence, showed the trace of a smile as he went on. “Yes, well, we are very sorry to hear of that. Anything learned in Cartagena?”
“The head outlaw is, I am sad to report, a former American naval officer named Symons. Presley Theodocious Symons, age thirty, six foot three
, dishonorably discharged from the navy. He had people in Cartagena to receive and sell the loot. We didn’t find the pirates themselves but did have run-ins with two of the pirates’ local facilitators. One is now dead.”
Wake waited for questions and glanced at Monteblanco, standing there with a neutral mien, but there were none. He was glad, because though he wouldn’t lie to these men, Wake just didn’t feel it was the right time to tell them of his own further suspicions. They had ominous overtones for the United States’ image.
Russell spoke up again. “Very well. I want to bring you all up to date on what has happened recently. The pirate struck yesterday morning at dawn, quite close to us here at Colón.”
The men, including Kramer, who was also the American consul, were sitting in rattan chairs around the room, drinking cooled fruit juice flavored with dark syrupy rum and smoking cigars. Normally, Wake did not like the smell of cigars in confined spaces, but anything that displaced the ambient fetidness was welcome and he lit one up himself. Kramer, in response to a glance from Russell, stood and pointed to a chart on the wall.
“Yesterday morning, just before dawn, pirates in an old steamer attacked Porto Bello, just twenty miles east of Colón. They ransacked the village, raped several girls, and vandalized the church and the statue of the Black Jesus that is revered by the people there. The black inhabitants, mostly zambos of African-Indian descent, were outraged and sent word by drums along the coast.”
“Where did they go? Anyone spot them after they left?” asked Monteblanco.
A Dishonorable Few (The Honor Series) Page 18