Young Zorro (11 page)

B
ERNARDO WAS WITH
D
ON
A
LEJANDRO
. They had parted into groups on the ridge. The don's group had continued along the ridge and made its way down the spine of the island to the beach. There they changed directions and crept along the beach, under cover of the dark trees, to the western edge of the slavers' valley.

Now they waited for Scar's signal that his group had reached the eastern edge of the valley. If all went well, he and his vaqueros should be in the trees across from the don's men.

A light from the trees! It went out, appeared again, went out, appeared. Three flashes of light.

Don Alejandro beckoned to Bernardo for the little lantern. He took it carefully. It was hot from the invis
ible candle burning inside it. He pointed it toward the location of the three flashes and opened the lantern's tiny door three times.

Two flashes came back as Scar confirmed that they were ready, and the don opened his own lantern twice. Don Alejandro had taken the longest route. When he was in place, the other groups would almost surely be ready.

“Stay behind me,” he whispered to Bernardo. To his men he said, “Armbands?”

Each fingered the white armband on his left arm. If it came to a hand-to-hand fight, they would identify friends.

“Grenade,” he whispered. A round clay pot packed with gunpowder and a fuse was handed up to him. It was tied to an arm's-length cord.

“Muskets, spread out and be ready. Make sure of your targets.”

Half a dozen blackbirders sat around a campfire, talking and singing.

Don Alejandro opened the lantern and thrust the fuse inside. When the fuse began to hiss, he handed the lantern back to Bernardo and stepped out from the bushes. He swung the grenade around by its cord, faster and faster. The fuse sputtered and made a circle of sparks.

Bernardo could see another circle of sparks where Scar's men lay hidden.

Don Alejandro let the cord go and the grenade soared up and over the clearing. One of the slavers had time to rise, point, and say, “Look!”

The grenade exploded with a roar and a flash of light.

When the grenade from Scar's group exploded, the light caught every slaver looking up with his mouth open. This moment of light was enough for the musket men on each side of them to aim and fire. The rattle of muskets faded into the howls and screams of slavers who had been hit.

Don Alejandro shouted, “Up and at them, caballeros!” Whooping and yelling, the vaqueros picked up swords and pikes and ran up the valley. The noise from Scar's group was just as frightening.

The blackbirders' camp burst into confusion. The slavers around the fire who hadn't been hit leaped and ran uphill from the charging vaqueros. Slavers who had been asleep a moment before bolted from their tents. They met their fleeing comrades and caught their panic. Almost all the slavers ran up toward the stockade.

Don Alejandro stopped and brought up a silver whistle. It screeched in the dark. All of his men and all
of Scar's men stopped their charge immediately. They all fell flat or leaped behind tree trunks. The don pushed Bernardo to the ground behind a fallen trunk and fell over him to protect the boy.

The slavers were still running. They were coming to the stockade. Behind it was safety: a thick forest where they could hide.

“Gentlemen,” Regina said. She stepped out of the tree line with the retired soldiers. Two of them hefted big musketoons with bell-shaped muzzles. The others carried fowling pieces. When they could clearly see the shapes of the slavers coming up the hill, Regina gave out a bone-chilling Gabrieleño war whoop. It may have cheered several of her tribe in the stockade, but it rattled the old soldiers beside her. They fired. Each of the musketoons spat out a hundred musket balls in a blaze of orange and white fire. The fowling pieces fired ten balls each. The line of running slavers was instantly blasted to a stop.

Only a few blackbirders were untouched. These and the wounded who could run changed direction and pelted back downhill, totally confused.

Regina whooped again and pursued them, swinging her sword. The soldiers laid down their flintlocks and followed her with their own swords.

Diego and Estafina bolted out of the tree line with axes. They hurried directly to the stockade. “Stand back, brothers!” Estafina shouted. There was a stir of bodies inside the stockade and Montez called to her, but she was already attacking the stockade wall. Diego slipped around to the front of the stockade and swung his ax at the heavy lashings that made the hinge of the gate.

“Give a heave!” Diego shouted and stepped back. Several of the men inside threw themselves at the hated gate and the rope hinges parted. The gate flew open and bodies tumbled out.

“Uphill! Into the trees!” Diego shouted. “Go for the light! Don't go downhill! Uphill! Away from the beach!”

Men swarmed out of the gate and out of the broken wall. They moved toward the lantern that Trinidad had opened for them to allow the light to show.

Regina and her group gathered the surrendering slavers.

“Patrón!”
Juan Three-fingers shouted at Don Alejandro. “Some of them are getting away!”

Slavers from one of the tents had run around Scar's group to the beach and were in a small boat, rowing frantically toward the ship anchored in the sheltered
channel off the beach. In the silence that had fallen over the clearing, their oars could be heard thrashing the water. There was a chopping sound from the ship, and the sound of men running on deck.

Don Alejandro saw a square light open in the ship's side and heard a rumble. He realized with a shock what it was and what was about to happen. He blew his whistle hard. “Down!” he shouted. “Take cover! Take cover from the water side!” Again he threw Bernardo down and covered him.

A moment later there was a giant explosion, louder than the muskets and grenades together. Instantly the air was filled with whining buzzes. The slave ship had run out a cannon and fired a single round of canister. A thousand musket balls came screaming up the valley. But the only human screams came from the water. The escaping slavers were directly in the line of fire. The balls tore them and their boat to pieces.

Bernardo heard a splash beside the ship as its anchor rope was cut. He heard the squeal of ropes running through blocks, and the rustle of sails taking the wind. The slave ship swung away and gathered speed down the channel.

Its cannon couldn't aim for them at this new angle. The guerilla army ashore watched it go. They realized
that they were seeing it in the first dim light of morning.

Conch-shell horns sounded as the little fleet of fishing boats rounded the eastern point, come to take their
Angeleño
friends back home.

 

Stackpole was first off a boat and into the water. He carried a boarding ax, a nasty-looking weapon like a large tomahawk. He surged through the water, faltering as his whalebone peg pushed into the sand but coming ahead with a murderous expression. Don Alejandro and the boys walked down to meet him.

“Trinidad?” Her safety was his first concern.

He hadn't wanted to let her go, but Regina had said, “She has a warrior's heart, Señor Stackpole. You can protect a warrior only so far. I will watch over her for her
papá
.” Stackpole had never dared think of her as his daughter until that moment. He relented.

So now Don Alejandro put his hand on Stackpole's shoulder. “She is well, unharmed. We couldn't have done this thing without her. If I had a medal to give—”

Trinidad came running down the hill, leaping over a slaver's body as if it were a log. “Stackpole,” she crowed, “you should have seen it! It was amazing! Shots everywhere, grenades, explosions, and the slavers tried to kill
us all, but they just killed their own blackbirders!”

Stackpole's face sagged at her description. The danger! The awful possibilities!

Don Alejandro shook Stackpole's shoulder. “Don't trouble yourself,
Capitán
. I will tell you everything later. It wasn't as perilous as our Trinidad describes it. It was more like cattle in the killing chutes. Messy but businesslike.”

The boys could see that Stackpole didn't believe him. He put his arm around Trinidad as she ran up, something they had never seen him do. Of course, he was a Boston man, and the emotions of that distant, rocky coast were cool.

“Now,” the don said, “there are the usual details.”

T
HE BOYS WALKED AWAY
with him, glad to give Stackpole some time with Trinidad. Scar fell in with them.

Don Alejandro asked, “Prisoners?”

“Only a few,
Patrón
. Two of them wounded in the first firing, three who surrendered.”

“Let's have a word or two with the prisoners,” he said.

All five prisoners were propped against the log that had sheltered Bernardo and Don Alejandro. The uninjured had their hands and feet bound. One wounded man was unconscious, one was gasping and crying. The don looked at their wounds, then at Scar, who shook his head: they wouldn't survive.

“Take these three to a tent. No one is to speak with
them,” he ordered. Juan Three-fingers and two of his crew hefted the bound slavers over their shoulders. Diego watched them walk across to the flap of a tent and toss the slavers in, just like sacks of grain. They strode away looking as if they'd bitten into a bad apple. They had no stomach for touching men like that.

Don Alejandro squatted down beside one of the crying prisoners. “Water!” he called. He helped the man to drink. “You are dying,
hermano
. You have led a wicked life. What do you wish to tell me?”

The man gulped and whined, “I did nothing. I am a sailor. This is my only crime. I followed orders.”

The don shook his head. “No, no, that will not do. You have been a thief of lives. You've taken men from their families. You've pushed them into stinking holds in chains. How many died,
hermano
? How many did you throw overboard?”

The man's eyes were frightened.

“Tell me your sins, and I will have the padre pray for you. Perhaps you may be forgiven. Perhaps if you tell me who stole the lives of the padre's men, he will grant you forgiveness.”

“
Sí
,
Patrón
.” The man was all cooperation now.

“Tell me your sins, and I will tell the padre.” He bent so his ear was at the man's lips. The lips moved rapidly,
and tears streamed down the man's face, washing a path of clean skin through the filth. The don nodded and rose again. “I will speak to the padre,
hermano
, you have my word. And now tell me who told you to steal these men.”

“Our captain. Captain Pew told us where to land, to pick up blackbirds, and bring them here in boats.”

“But who captured them by land?”

“Hard men. Vaqueros from the south.”

“And who gave orders to these hard men,
hermano
?”

“I don't know,
Patrón
. I would tell you. I swear to you on my death, I don't know.”

Don Alejandro nodded. He turned to one of his vaqueros. “Make this man comfortable. Give him water; do your best.” He looked down at the man again. “Perhaps a little brandy to ease the pain?”

The dying man nodded gratefully.

“See to it,” the don said simply, then rose. “You have my word,
hermano
,” he said, and walked toward the tent.

Diego caught up with him. “You called that slaver ‘brother,'
Papá
.”

The don nodded. “All dying men are brothers, Diego. It is the journey we all make.”

“What will you do with these prisoners?” Diego
asked, looking toward the tent.

The don nodded his head from side to side: We shall see.

Diego suddenly had a notion of what the don would do. As they stepped past one of the slaver's bodies, Diego drew the knife from his boot and wiped blood on it from the man's wounds. He handed it to Don Alejandro.

The don took it. He kept walking, looked at the knife carefully, then said, “Sometimes, Diego, I worry that you can be too cool, too cleverly calculating. You have the ability to be ruthless. Yes, this is what I'm doing. A deception. But I want you to consider something. Your life can be cleaner, more merciful, more just than my life as a soldier. Will you think about that for me?”

“Sí, Papá.”

“Thank you, son. You and Bernardo stay here.” He entered the tent.

The boys didn't stay, but hurried around behind the tent to listen. The don's voice was different now. It had a new edge. “Here, I have given your shipmates help to the other world.” They could imagine him holding the bloody knife before the captives. “They were dying. Who knows how long they would have lasted? But
you…with you I can be an artist. I can keep you healthy men alive for a very long time. Some of my vaqueros have great talent in keeping a man alive and screaming for days. It will take a while, and they will enjoy it. I like to give them their little pleasures.”

“No,
Patrón
!”

“Oh, yes. You are now only a source of amusement for my men.”

“No, we are men too!”

“Hardly. You're slavers. Not men.”

“Patrón!”

“You may be of some small use to me. I might make things simpler for you.”

“Whatever! Tell us! Don't let them at us!”

“Yes, you could be some source of information. For instance, the men who stole
Angeleños
ashore. Who were they?”

“Wicked dogs from the south,
Patrón
! We are simple sailors!”

The don laughed in a way the boys had never heard. It gave them chills. “I believe you will not help me after all.” The boys heard his boots creak as he rose to go.

“No,
Patrón
! We will tell you anything! They were vaqueros from south of Panama. Their leader's name
was Diablura. They brought the men to us on the beach.”

“Did you ever see them in daylight?”

The other prisoner's voice answered, “
Sí
,
Patrón
. Once. We met them on the road between the pueblo and the docks.”

“Think carefully now. Your lives and the way they end may depend on it. The brand on their horses' rumps, what was it?”

A silence, then spluttering as the prisoners tried to remember anything about the brand. “I don't know! I don't know brands!” one whined. “I can't remember anything for sure. All I know is that it was ornate, complicated, all swirls and lines!”

“Diego!” the don called, but the men thought he was summoning his savage vaquero torturers. They cried and wailed. Diego pushed his head through the tent flap.

“
Sí
,
Patrón?
” He would not call him “
Papá
” near these men.

“Across the clearing Scar has found a tent full of hides and tallow. Go cut me off a brand. You know the one.”

Diego ran across the little valley, motioning for Bernardo. “Give me your knife!” he hissed. “Mine is
doing its job in the tent!”

In the warehouse tents, Diego cut the lashings on a block of hides and found the brand on the top hide. He cut it free and ran back to the tent. Don Alejandro took the piece of hide and shook it under the prisoners' noses without a word.

“
Sí
,
sí!
That is the brand on the horses! Don't let them kill us,
Patrón
!”

Don Alejandro rose and walked out of the tent as the prisoners wailed, trying to call him back, calling on the names of God and saints. He nodded toward the tent and said to Juan, “Give them some water. They don't deserve it, but give them some anyway.”

Bernardo took the hide from the don's hand and turned it over. Some of the brand was burned deeper than other parts. Bernardo traced the de la Vega
V
in the shallow burns. The don nodded. Scar spat into the sand.

 

Regina and Trinidad, with the vaqueros and the old soldiers, had crossed the ridge to boats drawn up on the other side of the island. The skilled men of the pueblo were wading out to the fishermen's boats. There would surely be a fiesta in the pueblo tonight.

Only Don Alejandro, Scar, Stackpole, Juan Three-
fingers, Diego, and Bernardo were left on the beach. Scar nodded to the pile of slaver bodies on the sand.

“They came from the sea, let the sea take them back,” Don Alejandro said. “Have the prisoners push them out into the current.”

“What then for the prisoners,
Patrón
?” Scar asked. From his look, he had ideas of his own.

The don looked at Diego. “Mercy,” he said. “I want you to think about mercy, Diego. Mere justice is hollow without it.”

“Should we take our prisoners to the
comandante
in the pueblo?” Diego asked.

“We could, but would it be merciful? These men could be an embarrassment for Don Moncada. The
comandante
is close to the don. It might be too convenient if the prisoners met a quick and quiet accident in their cell one night. I plan to leave these men here. It's a harsh island. Perhaps they will not last out the season. They may be taken up by another ship. I will leave their fate in their own hands. Perhaps—though it is a dim possibility—they will even learn something.”

“
Patrón
?” Scar asked again.

“Take anything you can find in the camp. We'll dump it at sea. Give each man a flask of water and a knife. Chance enough. They'll probably kill one
another, but it's a chance.”

“Moncada's hides and tallow?”

“Burn them. Moncada will never make a penny on his stolen goods, and I don't want any part of them. Burn the whole camp.”

After all the excitement and noise, after the stink of gunpowder and blood, Diego didn't feel like himself. The boy who read and dreamed and played games in the comfortable hacienda was far away. He hoped he could return to being that boy. It helped, he found, to think of something purely beautiful—like Esmeralda Avila. He clung to her image now. He wondered if that was why love was important: it gave you hope that life could be fresh again.

 

The sun climbed, the fishing boats set sail one by one, and the line of boats sailed down the channel past the bodies of blackbirders just beginning to attract the attention of small fish.

Diego and Bernardo were in the fishing boat piloted by Stackpole, with Scar and the don.

Bernardo looked back toward the billowing black smoke from the burning hides and tallow. He nudged Diego. On the beach the three unwounded slavers were dancing up and down in a fury, making rude ges
tures, calling out challenges and waving the knives they'd been given.

“They seem to have a new supply of courage,” Diego said. “
Capitán
Stackpole, can you do something for me?”

“Sure,” Stackpole said.

“Turn the boat around for a moment and head back to the beach. Just for a moment.”

Stackpole grinned and put the tiller hard over, taking in the sheet. The boat spun and headed back for the beach.

The slavers stopped leaping and stood still for a heartbeat. The boat with the guerrilla army was coming back to get them! They fled from the beach, kicking up sand with every leap.

“Thank you,” Diego said.

“No, thank you,” Stackpole replied, spinning the boat again to follow the others. “I wouldn't have missed that for anything.”

When they reached the channel between the island and the mainland, they saw Trinidad's boat in the distance. Regina was with her. Fishing boats carried the old soldiers. All the boats were on converging courses, headed for the point above San Pedro.

Looking ahead, Stackpole grew worried. “Take the
tiller,” he said to Diego. “Just hold it steady.” He pulled a telescope from a canvas bag under the seat and stood up, steadying himself at the mast. “Bad luck!” he said.

“What?” Don Alejandro asked.

“The slave ship. It's run down to San Pedro ahead of us.”

“What are they doing?” Diego asked.

“If I was them,” Stackpole replied, “I'd be picking up the rest of my crew and any trace that they'd been there. They have hours before we can reach them.”

“That means—” Diego began.

“That means the waters will be muddied,” Don Alejandro said.