Jack Iron
Authors: Kerry Newcomb
The Medal, Book Six
Kerry Newcomb
For Patty, Amy Rose, P.J., and Emily Anabel
All captains of my ship
Prologue
December 17, 1814.
A
FTER SAILING HIS THREE-MASTED
brig into the harbor of Natividad and unleashing his two-hundred-and-thirteen-man crew on the inhabitants of Morgan Town, Captain Orturo “the Cayman” Navarre promptly captured the island’s governor—Josiah Morgan—and ate him. Navarre neatly prepared his midday meal, flavoring cuts of the governor with peppers, wild onions, garlic, plantain, and chunks of guava. Then, in front of the subdued people gathered in the public square, the Cayman proceeded to dine.
The product of a Spanish father and a Carib mistress, Navarre had been raised by his mother’s people to be strong, to suffer pain without flinching, to be cruel and merciless to his enemies, and ruthless in battle. The Caribs were cannibals; however, Orturo took his ritualistic meals of human flesh more for the effect they had on others than to appease his own gruesome appetites.
Orturo Navarre finished off the governor and washed him down with a tankard of rum, then slowly but succinctly explained to a council of the port’s stunned inhabitants just exactly what he expected from them in return for his protection. The Cayman made his point, gesturing with a rib bone while he spoke, then afterward offered the Cabilde, the town council, a place at his table. Navarre laughed heartily as the merchants politely refused and hurried off to their houses, leaving the pirate and his henchmen a tentative promise of their cooperation. No one wanted to end up as the next day’s “sumptuous feast.”
Orturo Navarre rose from the table in the middle of the town square and, followed by a dozen of his crewmen, retraced his path up the winding street toward the governor’s palace, a walled hacienda that had once belonged to the late Josiah Morgan. The palace was a small fortress with ten-foot-high stone battlements surrounding a two-story stone house. A battery of four 24-pounder cannons were nestled in a redoubt below the hacienda’s walls and guarded the bay and harbor. Swivel guns loaded with grapeshot dominated the walls of the governor’s palace. The island’s steeply sided volcanic mountains swept up from the harbor and formed a natural barrier against any attack except from the sea. The palace’s fortifications, though formidable, had been undermanned—still, the defenders might have put up quite a struggle had not Navarre brought his black-rigged ship into port under cover of night and captured the governor enjoying himself at a local tavern. (It had been Morgan, trusting to the mercy of his captors, who had surrendered the meager garrison and talked his men out from behind the palace’s limestone walls only to see his guardsmen shot down and thrown to the sharks.)
On reaching the hacienda, Orturo Navarre walked to the edge of the cliff overlooking the harbor. The maw of a cannon peered over his shoulder like some baleful black eye. The wind from the bay swept up to ruffle the hem of his dark green brocade cloth coat. He was aptly nicknamed, for his features were mottled and as leathery looking as an alligator’s. And his teeth, like those of the Carib, were filed into points. He stood six feet tall. His head, shaved smooth, was like the rest of his torso, burned dark from the sun by a life spent on the high seas. In contrast to his savage habits, Navarre wore finery befitting a European nobleman. A silk waistcoat, lighter green than his coat, sported mother-of-pearl buttons. He had a fondness for ruffled white shirts with lace cuffs. His skintight trousers matched his coat and were tucked into thigh-high boots. A bandolier draped across his chest held a matched set of flintlock pistols with bone handle-grips. A cutlass dangled at his left side. He folded his arms and looked out across the bay, fringed with soft white sand and coconut palms. A hundred yards inland, the steep ridges of volcanic rock swept up toward the azure sky. The only other protected bay lay on the opposite side of the island in a place called Obregon’s Cove. But it was dotted by reefs and required repeated tacking to reach the shore, a difficult task even for a brig like the
Scourge,
which was gaffe-rigged and could sail close to the wind. But Navarre had a use for Obregon’s Cove as he did for Morgan Town.
He turned toward the collection of shops and taverns and stone houses comprising the port settlement. The town even boasted a church, a squat, thick-walled structure with a bell tower rising above the entrance. The church faced one side of the town square and seemed solid and impervious to the grog halls with which it shared the center of town. These were his people now; every rum runner, farmer, and wharf rat.
His second-in-command, a massive-looking African named NKenai, approached his captain and spoke in a deep, resonant voice.
“Captain Navarre, the priest would speak with you.” He gestured with a wave of a broad hand toward a reed-thin, rum-soaked-looking individual in black robes and broad-brimmed straw hat that the breeze kept trying to lift from his head. Tiny red veins were etched on his cheeks and nose. His bony hands betrayed the beginnings of arthritis, his joints swollen and the knuckles enlarged. Father Albert Bernal nervously awaited permission to approach the fierce-some pirate.
Orturo Navarre nodded to his subordinate. The big African grinned, revealing a row of yellow teeth set in the tattooed ebony mask of his face. Sweat glistened on the black man’s cheeks and soaked the edges of the cobalt blue fez the man wore atop his coarsely braided hair. NKenai kept a scimitar in his belt and throwing knives tucked in sheaths at the small of his back. The priest was ringed by several grim-looking men who took care to block Father Bernal’s path should he try to retreat from Captain Navarre and return to the village below.
One of the pirates, a grizzled, wire-haired man with broken teeth and rope burns on his neck, jabbed the muzzle of his rifled musket into the priest’s side.
“The name is Quince, Bible thumper. Malachi Quince be my name, and I’ve sinned from Maine to Hispaniola. There ain’t be nothin’ I ain’t done. What say you to that?” The swarthy little man spat in the dirt at Bernal’s feet.
“Ask for forgiveness and the Lord will grant it, my son,” the good priest said.
“Only thing I ask for is another twenty good years o’ sinning. I want to earn my place in hell,” Quince slapped the basket hilt of the cutlass at his side, tossed back his head, and belly-laughed.
Orturo the Cayman turned and gestured for the priest to approach. The pirate captain stood with legs splayed wide and arms folded. Indeed the man radiated a kind of cruel royalty. He had stolen Natividad right out from under its defenders and hadn’t lost a single member of his crew. He could hear the songs already praising his daring feat.
“What is it you want, Priest?”
Bernal gulped and stared down at his trembling hands, then looked up at the pirate. “The Cabilde has promised the cooperation of the town and you have offered protection from… uh… others. But we wish to know what you have in mind. Why have you come?”
“Why, to make your people rich, Padre. To put coins in their pockets. What say you to that? Maybe even coins in your pocket, too, eh.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Cayman glanced at the men standing a few feet away and grinned. “Men will come to this port to spend their money on women and grog. They will come to buy what we have to sell. Ships will flock to us.”
“But the island is mostly mountainous. We have some coconut groves near the water, and inland, there are a few valleys where crops grow, but not enough to bring so many ships.” Bernal knew he was treading dangerous ground, yet he intended to press the matter. The Cayman had come to Natividad for a reason and the priest was determined to learn the truth.
“Slaves… the black gold of high commerce. I will bring them from Africa and keep them in Obregon’s Cove. They can work themselves to good health harvesting sugar cane until the slavers arrive. Natividad shall be the hub of a wheel, and along the spokes, ships will come eager to buy slaves, but not wishing to voyage all the way to Africa. They will come to me. And their crews will spend their money in the whore cribs and rum houses I will build in Morgan Town.”
Father Bernal shuddered and his heart was filled with dismay. True, there were many of his flock who had been freebooters and sailed beneath the black flag. But these poor souls had mended their ways and married and lived, brought families to Natividad and made of it a sanctuary. Perhaps such people weren’t as civilized as the inhabitants of the mainland. Indeed they were a rough lot, but they were honest and loyal to one another, and Albert Bernal, with all his vices, had fit right in. He was one of them. And he had helped them build a community and make something of themselves, and it didn’t matter who among them was wanted for thievery or piracy or who had escaped the hangman’s rope, Natividad was a place for a second chance and the priest wasn’t going to see it corrupted by the Cayman.
“Slavers,” Bernal muttered with contempt. “You would turn us into slavers! The devil’s own!” He summoned all his courage. “Perhaps you have made a wrong choice of island,” he said, hoping to reason with the pirate. “The people here are frightened, but they are all rebels. They do not give in quite so simply as you may think. And you will have Cesar Obregon to deal with.”
“Ah, the Hawk of the Antilles,” Navarre said in a mocking tone of voice. “I can handle him—but as for your rebellious flock, you must counsel them to obey me.”
“No!” the priest blurted out. “I am not much. But the pulpit is sacred. They have built me a church. I shall not desecrate the holy ground by aiding you to destroy my flock.”
NKenai started forward. He did not like the priest’s tone of voice. The black robe was being disrespectful. And for the African warrior whose sole allegiance was to the Cayman, disrespect could not be tolerated. He drew a dagger from his belt and started forward. The Cayman read his henchman’s intent and shook his head. The simple gesture stopped NKenai in his tracks. Navarre stroked his chin and studied the priest. He leaned against one of the twenty-four-pounder cannons below the walls of the governor’s palace and looked out over the bay. Below him, mangle-blanc trees clung to the rugged rocky slope. Among those twisted branches nested a variety of lizards, darting dragonflies, and yellow-throated parakeets. There was a constant breeze here, cool and refreshing in the warm glare of sunlight. Orturo the Cayman might be a cannibal, but he was not without an eye for beauty.
Navarre considered the priest’s remarks. The last thing he wanted was to deal with some constant and tedious insurrection. He needed Bernal to use his influence to bend the people to Navarre’s will. The death of the governor might not be enough after all.
Inspiration struck him. Navarre called to one of his men, a gnarled-looking freebooter with thinning hair, a full brown beard, and pockmarked features. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and baggy cotton breeches and carried a musket. A pistol and cutlass were tucked in a wide leather belt circling his waist.
The pirate hurried forward, certain Navarre was no doubt sending him out for something important.
“Aye, Cap’n Navarre,” the pirate called. Tom Bragg was eager to take his place among Navarre’s inner circle of cutthroats.