“That’s not Trask’s boat,” said the reporter. “Let’s go home.”
“Take us down there!” Devon ordered.
The pilot shrugged. “Whatever you say, lady.”
The plane was coming. It was still far away and very high, but it was coming. They had seen his signals, Maynard continued to tip the razor blade in and out of the sun’s rays, aiming the flashes at the oncoming plane.
Something struck Maynard between the shoulders and threw him across the deck. He waited, eyes closed, for the blow that would end his life.
“On your feet, scribe,” said Jack the Bat. He jerked his head toward the plane. “Visitors.”
Maynard had been knocked down by the deckhouse door, flung open by Jack the Bat’s charge from below. As he got up, he saw Jack the Bat drag the body of the strangled man to the gunwale, prop him up, and lay the M-16 across his lap. As a final, cosmetic touch, Jack the Bat raised one of the corpse’s knees and rested one of the already stiffening hands upon it.
Jack the Bat moved to the body of the man on the deckhouse roof. Although the blood had begun to settle in the body, and the skin to gray, the man looked reposed. Jack the Bat scooped a hat off the deck and plopped it on the dead man’s face. “Pleasant dreams,” he said, folding a lifeless hand over the bullet wound in the chest.
“Cover that one.” Jack the Bat pointed to the helmsman.
A canopy, designed to protect the helmsman from the sun, was folded back against the stern. Maynard drew it forward and over the helmsman’s body, careful to leave a clutching hand exposed.
“Now come.” Jack the Bat jammed the last body against the port gunwale and covered it with mops and buckets. Then he sat on the deckhouse roof and patted the spot beside him. “Sit on your chain, scribe.”
Maynard piled the loose end of his chain on the deckhouse roof and sat on it.
Jack the Bat put his arm around Maynard’s shoulders—a chummy gesture if Jack the Bat’s hand had not gripped the coil of chain around Maynard’s neck and if he had not said, “Move your head so much as a twitch and I’ll kill you.”
The altimeter read a hundred feet, and it was still inching downward. The black hull of the schooner sped toward them.
“Low enough?” the pilot said with a smile.
“Fine,” said Devon.
The reporter yelled, “You’re gonna hit the goddamn thing!”
The pilot laughed.
Devon leaned forward, trying not to blink, her eyes scouring the deck of the schooner.
Two men were on the deckhouse, apparently in a drunken embrace, and others lounged around the deck.
“Tough duty,” said the pilot as the plane zoomed over the deck. “Lie around on your ass and drink rum all day.”
“What are they doing?” asked Devon. “They’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Trading with the spades for lobsters. Those are native boats alongside.”
The reporter looked back. “You see that guy asleep? He had a rifle in his lap.”
“Can’t be too careful out here. Guys’ll rip you off for the shine on your shoes.”
The pilot pulled the stick back, and the plane climbed and turned for Great Inagua. “Satisfied?” he said to Devon.
“No, but I don’t know what more we can do.”
C H A P T E R
1 4
There were five survivors of the schooner’s crew—four men and a woman, all young, all dressed in faded denim shorts—and they were herded aft by Nau’s second, a full-bearded man named Basco Tom. Basco was furious. He held a bloodstained cloth to his cheek and glared venom at the woman.
The survivors were scared and confused, but they did not yet know they had reason to despair.
Nau stood in the stern, flanked by the boys and Hizzoner. Beth had stationed Maynard to one side while she examined each article of cargo brought up from the hold.
The men loaded the pinnaces with cases of food and liquor, tools, clothing, kitchen utensils, weapons, and flashlights. That which they didn’t recognize—certain appliances, machines, medicines—was left on the deck for Nau to dispose of. That which experience told them was useless—food mixes that required milk or eggs, paint, cleansers, and frozen foods—was thrown back into the hold.
Beth supervised the loading like a dockmaster, ordering her share to be put in Hizzoner’s pinnace, making sure that she got the 6-12 bug spray and not the Cutter, squeezing melons, sniffing meats, debating between peaches and pears, and finally settling—profligately—on a case of each, and even modeling baubles of jewelry for herself.
“Wounded, Basco?” said Nau.
Basco pressed the cloth to his cheek. “Vixen bit me.”
“Did you abuse her?”
Basco smiled and raised the middle finger of his right hand. “I but took her measure, l’Ollonois.”
“You know the law on meddling with a prudent woman.”
“If she be righteous, why, I’m the Pope.”
One of the survivors said, “Where are you taking us?”
Nau looked at him and replied evenly, “You’ll be going home, lad.”
The survivors were relieved. They exchanged glances and secret smiles. “Where are you guys from?” said one. He looked at Nau and Hizzoner and Maynard. When he received no reply, he went on, “You sure tricked the shit out of us, I’ll give you that.”
They don’t know, Maynard thought. The place stinks of death; there are bodies all around them, and they still don’t know.
Nau said to the five, “Which of you is the master?”
A young man stepped forward. “I am.”
“What’s your cargo?”
The young man gestured at the cases on the stern. “You got it, man.”
“That’s provender, not cargo.”
“What’s provender?” Emboldened by the certainty that, after whatever minor reprimand, whatever insignificant humiliation, they would be set free, the young man affected a slight swagger. He smiled at his friends. “I mean, what are you, the heat?”
“Your cargo.”
“You’re lookin’ at it, chief.”
Nau tipped his head at Basco, who grabbed the young man’s hand, slapped it down on the gunwale and, with a swipe of his cutlass, amputated the little finger.
The young man pulled his hand back and looked at it. “Hey, man . . .” The hand was as before, except that instead of five fingers, now there were four, and where the fifth had been all that remained was a pulpy nub of bone. “Hey, shit . . .”
Maynard saw the color drain from the man’s face, saw him weave as if a last, unneeded drink had suddenly taken hold.
“Your cargo.”
“I’m gonna bleed to death!”
“You’ll be home before that can happen. Don’t try my patience, or your journey will be paved with misery.” Again Nau tipped his head at Basco.
This time Basco grabbed the girl, but she struggled and pulled away from him, and before he could catch her she screamed, “No”
“Your cargo, lady.”
“It’s down there!” She pointed to the hold. “Under a lot of shit.”
“And it be . . . ?”
“Coke, hash . . .”
Nau didn’t understand. He looked at Hizzoner and Basco, but they didn’t know, either.
“Drugs,” Maynard volunteered, shaking his head.
“Medicines, scribe?”
“No, drugs. You know . . . like narcotics. Drugs.” Maynard reached back in his mind and found the word used in the covenant. “Pharmaceuticals.”
“We will see it.” Nau dispatched two of his men below.
Hizzoner said, “The doctor’s purse . . .”
“Ah, yes.” Nau addressed the woman. “Tell me lady, where be your ship’s purse?”
“What?”
Maynard said, “Cash.”
“I don’t know.” She nudged the wounded man, who was staring at his bleeding hand. “Dingo, where’s the cash?”
“Huh?” Th
e man seemed to resent having the contemplation of his stump interrupted. “You want a couple bucks?”
“He wants the fucking cash, man!” She shook his shoulder. “Where is it?”
“Only got a few bucks,” the man said blankly. “It’s in my bunk.”
“We didn’t make the drop yet,” the woman apologized to Maynard.
Maynard felt ridiculous. The woman was using him as an interpreter. He wanted to tell her that he was a prisoner, too, to warn her. But the information would have been useless, the warning pointless.
“The cargo was to be sold,” he said to Nau. “Until then, they have little money.”
This Nau understood. He nodded to Hizzoner. Hizzoner drew breath, preparing to orate, but the woman interrupted. “We can make a deal. That coke is worth a shit-pot.”
Nau said to Maynard, “The woman has a hard tongue.”
“She wants to bargain with you.” Maynard saw no harm in speaking for the woman. He sensed that she, alone among the survivors, had begun to recognize the imminence of death. To stall for her would be a small kindness. “Their freedom in exchange for their cargo.”
“Indeed!” Nau laughed. “A generous bargain. I have their ship, their cargo, and their persons. What can they offer me that I do not have?”
There was no answer. Justin broke the silence: “Be done with it!”
Nau smiled. “Aye, Tue-Barbe. Talk wastes breath.” He cued Hizzoner.
Hizzoner began to speak, gazing reverently at the heavens, waving his arms, ostensibly addressing the survivors but, in fact, reciting a litany of justification. It was a time-worn speech, and one, Maynard was certain, that Hizzoner altered only slightly from one delivery to the next.
“The crimes you have committed are known to you and to God, but crimes they are and punishment they carry, and they who commit them are threatened to have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death, Revelation 21:8. See Chapter 22:15.” All this Hizzoner delivered in one breath, and as he gasped for more fuel, he looked at the survivors, expecting to see signs of repentance, or at least of fear. All he saw was stunned perplexity.
Hizzoner continued, as the first plastic bags of cocaine were dragged onto the deck.
“Words which carry that terror with them, that considering your circumstances and your guilt, surely the sound of them must make you tremble: for who can dwell with everlasting burnings? As the testimony of your conscience must convince you of the great and many evils you have committed, by which you have highly offended God, and provoked most justly his wrath and indignation against you, so I suppose I need not tell you that the only way of obtaining pardon and remission of your sins from God is by a true and unfeigned repentance and faith in Christ, by whose meritorious death and passion you can only hope for salvation.”
While Hizzoner droned on, Nau pointed to the heap of bags of cocaine and said to Maynard, “What is that for?”
“It changes your mood. It’s like . . . well, like rum, sort of.”
“Does it give courage?”
“No.”
“Then what purpose does it serve?”
“It makes you feel good. That’s what people say.”
“Do you drink it?”
“No. You sniff it.”
“Sniff it? Snuff?” Nau sliced open one of the bags and scooped some of the white powder on the blade of his knife. He sniffed deeply and waited for something to happen. He shook his head and, derisively, spat on the deck. “Into the deep with it,” he said, and the men began to pitch the bags overboard.
“Hey, man,” protested one of the survivors. “That’s like throwin’ fuckin’ money away.”
“Silence!”
Hizzoner stopped in mid-exhortation.
“Proceed, Hizzoner,” said Nau, “but give more sail to it. You’ll kill these unfortunates with tedium.”
“Tedium!” Hizzoner was offended. “I prescribe the way to salvation. Is that tedious?”
“The way you tell it, it’s everlasting. Proceed.”
“Had your delight been in the law of the Lord,” Hizzoner went on, “and had you meditated therein day and night, Psalms 1:2, you would then have found that God’s word was a lamp unto your feet and a light to your path, Psalms 119:105, and that you would account all other knowledge but loss, in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, Philippians 3:8, who to them that are called is the power of God, and the wisdom of God, I Corinthians, 1:24, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world, Chapter 2:7. You would then have esteemed the Scriptures as the great charter of heaven, for in them only is to be found the great mystery of fallen man’s redemption, and they would have taught you that sin is the debasing of human nature, as being a deviation from that purity, rectitude, and holiness in which God created us, and that virtue and religion, and walking by the laws of God, were altogether preferable to the laws of sin and Satan; for the ways of virtue are ways of pleasantness, and all their paths are peace, Proverbs 3:17.”
The last of the bags of cocaine splashed into the water and fell in line with the others being carried south by the swiftly moving tide. The chain of white dumplings bobbed for a hundred yards behind the boat.
Nau tapped his knife, impatiently, on the railing.
Hizzoner noticed him and said, “I arrive.”
“None too soon.”
“If now you will sincerely turn to Christ Jesus,” Hizzoner told the survivors, “though late, even at the eleventh hour (Matthew 20:6-9) he will receive you. But, surely, I need not tell you that the terms of his mercy are faith and repentance. And do not mistake the nature of repentance to be only a bare sorrow for your sins, arising from the consideration of the evil and punishment they have now brought upon you; but your sorrow must arise from the consideration of your having offended a gracious and merciful God. But I shall not pretend to give you any particular directions as to the nature of repentance: I consider that I speak to persons whose offenses have proceeded not so much from not knowing, as sighting and neglecting their duty. I only heartily wish that what, in compassion to your souls, I have now said to you upon this sad and solemn occasion, by exhorting you in general to faith and repentance, may have that due effect upon you, that thereby you. may become true penitents.”
“Judas priest!” Nau erupted. “As the boy begged, be done with it!”
“It becomes you ill,” Hizzoner chided Nau, “to call upon the archtraitor for relief. It was he who, when faced with just such a decision, when salvation and damnation were warring for his soul, chose to—”
“I know what he did! Be on with it!”
“Yes . . . well . . .” Hizzoner harumphed. “And now therefore, having discharged my duty to you as a Christian, by giving you the best counsel I can, with respect to the salvation of your souls, I must now do my office as a judge. It is the sentence of this court, for the court is where the judge sits, even if the judge stands but does not sit, and even if he stands at sea, that you . . .” He stopped. “What are your names?”
“Who cares what be their names?” Nau roared. “Call them Willy and Billy and Millie!”
“That you, Willy and Billy and Millie . . . and Willy and Billy again, for you are five . . . that you shall be presently rendered dead, dead, dead!”
Maynard looked at the survivors. The wounded man seemed not to hear, or, if he heard, not to care; he was hypnotized by his hand. Two of the other men were incredulous; they shuffled their feet and eyed each other and muttered things like, “Hey, man . . .” and “C’mon, chief . . .” and “Hey, let’s cut the shit . . .”
But the woman knew, and believed, and was hysterical. She screamed.
Nau said, “Basco . . .”
Basco stepped forward, grabbed the woman’s hair, and slit her throat.
Without waiting to be told, Justin pulled the Walther from its holster and shot the wounded man in the chest. The man fell without a sound. As he slumped to the deck, Justin aimed
at him again, but Nau stayed his hand.
“Add not insult to injury. He’s done. Besides, bullets are precious.”
Swiftly, with three efficient slashes of his cutlass, Basco dispatched the others.
Maynard stood at the stern, trembling with horror and outrage. He said to Nau, “You’ve made a monster of him.”
“A monster? Not at all. An engine. A job to do what must be done. Do you weep for these five? For these?” With his toe, Nau nudged one of the still twitching bodies. “What’s the loss?”
“For them? No, but I should. I weep for my son.”
“Aye, that’s a loss. But take comfort: Your loss is our gain.” Nau spoke to Manuel. “Put her down.”
“Fired?”
Nau scanned the sky, looking for the airplane. “No. Put her down easy. Show Tue-Barbe how it’s done.”
The boys ran forward and disappeared down an open hatch.
The pinnaces were loaded above the gunwales; they had only an inch or two of freeboard. If the sea had not been calm, they would have swamped.
Three pinnaces stood off. The fourth, Nau’s, stayed tethered to the schooner’s stern, awaiting the boys.
The schooner lay perfectly still in the water. As Maynard watched from fifty yards away, the bow began slowly—barely perceptibly—to sink. After a few moments, the stern, too, settled slightly. The boys appeared on deck, scampered aft, shinnied down the rudder, and tiptoed onto Nau’s overloaded pinnace.
The schooner seesawed—sinking first by the bow, then by the stern, then by the bow again—until, when the decks were almost awash, either something substantial shifted below or a compartment refused to surrender its air, and the balance in the hull changed and the stern rose out of water and the bow knifed downward with a reptilian hiss.
When the schooner was gone, there were a few residual noises—or perhaps they were not noises but sensations that reverberated through the water and the wooden hulls of the pinnaces, feelings of cracking and crushing and splitting.
Bubbles rose and burst where the schooner had been. The sea had swallowed and digested it, and the surface was normal again, as if the schooner had never been.
“Set your sails, lads!” Nau called, “and wish for a fair westerly. There’s rum to drink and whores to dandle!”