Jack's parents jounced below him in the carriage, the sound of his father's voice occasionally trailing through the closed roof. He marveled at his mother's patience. She did not, he knew, share the depth of her uneasiness with her husband, but Jack had seen the dark rings under her eyes this morning. His father appeared oblivious to the fact she hadn't slept; instead, he maintained his conviction that legal delays were not that uncommon and there was no need for concern.
Well, perhaps he's right, Jack thought. Cuba was civilized, if not civil. Law was strictly maintained in the colony, at least for the
privileged. Jack had the sense the authority might even be oppressive. If the count was up to any chicanery, the proper authorities would probably, as his father felt, set it straight. What was it his father loved to speak of in those New England town meetings? Rightful authority; aye, the blind justice of law, not privilege. Time would tell.
Jack decided to sit back and absorb the countryside. Talk of property and taxes and money held his attention just so long when there was raw life to be enjoyed. But these sights were driven from his mind by the sudden memoryânay, visionâof red hair, blowing over a face with laughing green eyes.
The driver, a grizzled man, caught the smile playing over Jack's lips. “Si. ¿Es muy bonito, no?”
Startled the man could read his thoughts, Jack replied, “¿Que dijiste?”
The old man gestured toward the landscape, remarking on the low hills, the reds and greens. Low soft hills indeedâred hair over a full bodice of soft hills. God, he longed to melt under the gaze of those eyes. “SÃ. Es muy, muy, muy, bonito.”
The old man chuckled. Jack realized the man could recognize the symptoms of a lad who had been “struck by lightning,” as they put it in the old country. Just then, he spotted a stone marker on the side of the road, the number 27 engraved on it in blue.
“Pare por favor, señor. ¿Es aquÃ, no?”
The man slowed the rig, “Aiee, es la finca
.”
“What's that, Jack? Why are we stopping?” Ethan's voice from below.
“This map, it shows that marker as the northern boundary . . . I believe we're here, Father. All the fields on the right for the next mile and a half should be mother's estate.”
Ethan stepped from the carriage. “Our land.” He took in the rolling fields of black-tipped green. “Beautiful. Come, my dearest, and look at our future, shining before us.” He walked several steps ahead, hardly able to contain himself.
Jack felt a sudden chill pass through him. The cane! He hopped down from the seat and had his fears confirmed by the look on his mother's face; she had moved back from the window. Her hand was over her mouth, her face white.
“Mother!”
“Jack,” she said evenly. “Get back on the carriage and tell the driver to turn around. I . . . I want to go back to town.”
“But Motherâ”
She leaned forward and said in a hoarse voice, with an intensity he had never seen, “The cane is mature, Jack. I grew up around cane. It has been so for many years.” Pilar lay back as Ethan approached, but her eyes remained fixed on her son's.
“Jack, we were lied to. I am frightened. For now we will tell your father only that I am ill and must return.”
Jack placed his hand on hers.
“Don't worry, Mother, it will be all right, itâ” He reached through the carriage window, squeezed her hand hard and turned. He couldn't lie to her. He too was frightened. Frightened and something else. He felt rage building.
His family had been cheated again, perhaps over a period of many years. His mother had been led to believe that the cane fields had lain fallow and were just recently being nurtured toward a mature, harvestable crop. Somebody had been profiting from these fields for a long time. Somebody powerful, he thought. Worse, whoever had defrauded her would now see her as a threat. De Silva? But why would he have facilitated them seeing the finca? Jack's head spun with confusion. The rich aromas that had captured him this morning suddenly seemed sour, overripe.
When Ethan returned to his wife, she explained to him her need to return to her room. Jack sat staring darkly at the fields. The driver said they would be able to turn around at the copse of trees ahead. Until then, the road was elevated, deep berms running along each side to catch water. Jack left his parents to climb topside, next to the driver. The man must have felt the
dramatic change of mood in his young passenger, but he said nothing.
They had covered no more than a hundred yards when riders came into view ahead of them. Jack watched the driver slip his hand under the seat, making sure his pistola was available. It seemed a perfunctory precaution; although highwaymen could be a concern this far from Habana, they had been assured the guardia had suppressed banditry in the area.
As the distance between them narrowed, Jack saw the old man return the weapon to its holster and visibly relax. The men were now easily recognizable in their blue and red uniforms. Guardia civil. They drew up next to the carriage.
“Buenos dÃas.” A mustachioed sergeant carried the crisp air of authority.
“Buenos dÃas, Sargento. ¿Cómo está usted?”
The soldiers' official manner made Jack uneasy; they seemed particularly aloof, less like protectors of the people and more like keepers. He heard his father open the carriage door.
“Buenos dÃas, Sargento, is there a problem . . . uh ¿un problema?” Jack knew Ethan had exhausted his repertoire of Spanish, but he insisted in asserting himself as head of the household.
“No, no problema, señor. Sargento Matros at your service.” Then to the driver,“¿Quién es?”
“El caballero y la señora son norteamericanos.” The old driver began to explain that his passengers were the owners of the estate to the right of the road when Jack's father once again interjected.
“We are the O'Reillys, Sergeant. My wife is the owner of all that you see to the east.”
The man was looking at a piece of paper in his hand. “SÃ, SÃ . . . bueno eh, su nombre . . . uh, yore name es O'Reilly, sÃ? Y los otros, uh, yore wife es name Pilar? And yoreâ”
Jack stiffened. His father continued in his proud, affable exchange with the man; he seemed not at all curious that a civil patrol leader would happen to know his wife's Christian name.
“Yes, Sergeant, my wife, Pilar, and my son, Jack, recently of New England. We are delighted to see that you and your men are patrolling these roads. We've heard much of the . . . eh . . . bandidos.”
“SÃ, bandidos.” The sergeant directed his words to Ethan but kept his eyes on Jack. If trouble came, he seemed to realize, Jack would be the source. Finally, he turned back to Ethan. “Bienvenidos, Señor y Señora O'Reilly, bienvenidos a Cuba.”
“Gracias,” Ethan said, smiling.
“Vámonos.” The sergeant waved his hand as if to lead his men on, but, without looking toward them, he signaled the soldiers who had moved behind Jack on the right side of the carriage.
Jack had done everything he could to act natural, but he knew the sergeant had become wary. His friends in New England had said Jack's eyes told his emotions and they joked about not wanting to be on the receiving end of one of his “looks.” When the sergeant made his gesture to the men behind him, Jack didn't need to react; his body simply uncoiled like a tightly wound spring. He heard a saber swish and chunk into the wood of the seat behind him as he rolled on top of the driver, never looking back at his assailant.
His instincts told him the blow was coming from behind, but they told him too that the brain of the beast was the sergeant. Jack saw the old driver assume a terrified, hands-over-head crouch. He was blocking access to the pistol, so Jack used what was available. Leaping up, he thrust his foot toward the officer's hip where it pounded into his left thigh, causing him to jerk violently and the horse to spin so swiftly that he was thrown to the ground. Jack himself lost his balance and went careening into the mud, only a few yards from the taller officer. “Have you gone crazy?” Ethan yelled. Jack knew his father had seen none of what transpired outside the carriage. Jack shouted from where he'd landed in the mud. “Go, Father! Take Mother! They're no good!”
“What! For God's sake, Jack, they're constablesâ” His father was trying to scramble out of the carriage when his wife screamed to him to come back inside and bring Jack with him.
Other soldiers were trying to approach Jack but he managed to raise himself up and bounded back to the carriage ladder. “¡Andale! ¡Andale!” he shouted to the driver. When he jumped back to the ground, he held the oaken handle that served as the lever for the carriage brake. The four-foot piece of wood with a fashioned grip had rested loose in its retainer and Jack had easily yanked it from its metal boot.
A young soldier who flanked the sergeant had unsheathed his saber, advancing on Jack. A moment's hesitation gave Jack the opportunity to step to the soldier's left and bring the plank down solidly on the soft muzzle of his horse. The creature jumped back, whinnying in pain. Jack crashed the board down violently on the arm of another soldier, leaping to the side and slashing about in the manner of a two-handed swordsman. Another of the steeds made a high-pitched sound and threw its rider when Jack smashed its left hind hock.
Pandemonium ensued among the mounted men. The young man with the flashing dark eyes had transformed himself into a demon, flailing in rage. Fighting like a cornered tiger, Jack was vaguely aware the carriage had started to move; he could hear his father's voice railing against the tide of hooves and men. “See here, damn it all, that's my son! Leave him be! Driver!”
Two of the guardia civil had fallen in a heap. Jack had forgotten about the sergeant and a second later buckled over, reeling from a punch to the head from behind with what he guessed to be the hilt of a sword. When he turned to confirm, he took the brunt of a steel-banded fist, this time in the face. In Spanish or Englishâhe couldn't sort it outâit came to the same thing: the sergeant had yelled to his comrades, “Kill the dog! Throw his stinking carcass in the ditch. You others, come with me.”
Jack was aware that most of the men were riding off after the carriage. The ones he had injured were left to dispose of him. He felt one of them pull him to his feet. The man moaning on the horse, his arm hanging limply from its socket, screamed for his
comrades to gouge his eyes and slice off his balls. The one who held him yelled for the other to shut up. Coldly, he said to the man on the ground, “Gut him and be done with it.”
Spanishâit was clearly Spanish they were speaking. Jack had the curious thought that he preferred to be killed in English. He knew he was soaked in blood, from the back of his head and face. Still, he had gathered himself for another assault on his attackers when he was suddenly propelled forward by the man holding him. He looked up in time to see the other's sword swing in a vicious backhanded arc and lodge in his side. The man looked him in the eye as he followed through, drawing the sword backward in a long cutting motion. Jack felt himself spin with the retreating blade and felt another man's boot kick him squarely in the back. The water-filled ditch rose to meet him and he blacked out.
When he came to he knew only seconds could have passed, since the men were still talking about him. The man on the horse argued that his friends should at least cut Jack's throat if they wouldn't bring back his balls. Jack knew he was moments from death anyway and hoped it would happen before the screamer had his way. The others told their associate to shut up and bear his pain like a man; they didn't need to crawl in a ditch to cut the throat of a pig they had just gutted. “Let him water the soil with his blood. Let him die slowly.”
No! Wait, goddamn it! My life . . . it's just starting, this can't be my time to die. And these mustachioed, pinch-faced bastards . . . Who's going to avenge? . . . no, this can't be right.
Jack faintly heard them move off. How long does it take to die with one's entrails in one's hands? he thought. The image of what might be happening to his mother stirred him to regain a sitting position. He looked down at the bloody mess that was his side and shivered, remembering the sound the sword had made as it sliced along his mid-section. Fiercely clutching his side, he tried to rise. Oh God! He was falling apart, wide slivers of red and white flesh were peeling off him like the pages of a book. He didn't understandâhe
had been sliced only once. And then he realized that they
were
the pages of a book, and his heart rose in exaltation.
The Pilgrim's Progress
had taken the brunt of the sword.
The realization that death was less imminent than he had imagined spurred Jack on. His parents! Breathing heavily, he packed a wad of the most blood-soaked and pliable pages of the book into the deepest part of the cut on his torso. Then he wrapped his tattered shirt around his middle to hold the makeshift dressing in place. Although weakened almost to the point of immobility, he was satisfied to see the loss of blood essentially stanched. Covered with mud, he continued pursuit of the carriage, staying in the drainage ditch that hugged the side of the road.