Of Beginnings and Endings Read online

  Digesting these unsavory facts, Don Guillermo had dispatched a second, far more urgent message south, then set about preparing El Castillo de San Diego de Boca Osa for repelling a now near-certain attack from the north. He was dead sure that the accursed, hell-spawn French must be responsible, for why else commit the heinous sin of fire-arming and drilling and training the red-skinned barbarian hordes, then leading them in a deadly and destructive raid-in-force against that upriver fortaleza but to season them in combat against and defeat of Spaniards and Moors in preparation for a quick attempt at seizing back the lands from their rightful and God-sanctified owners?

  The assault was yet to materialize, but that was not to say that some happenings of an exceeding strangeness had not been occurring in the castillo during the time since the pinnace had straggled in. First, two large barrels of corned cannon powder had somehow been stolen from out the magazine, along with three casks of finer powder for use in arquebuses and a barrel of a passable wine (stored in such place for reasons of both security and coolness). Somehow, in some way, the thieves had managed to get these unwieldy, world-heavy items out of the locked and bolted magazine, up stairs, down stairs, and along corridors without a noticeable sound and under the very noses of generally alert guards, then through barred gates and—supposedly—aboard a ship or boat, since a more than merely thorough search of the environs of the settlement had not found so much as a trace of any of them; moreover, not one scrap of the wood or the valuable hardware had ever showed up anywhere.

  Nor had this been the sole theft, only the initial one. Despite all manner of enhanced security precautions and procedures, doubled and redoubled layers of guards and the like, the maddeningly impossible thefts had continued unabated—more powder of both sorts, of course, but also garrison guns, sling guns, and long calivers off the very sentry-patrolled walls, and food stores, along with an assortment of hardware for the servicing and laying of cannon and round shot for cannon, pigs of lead, and a brass gang-mold for the casting of caliver balls. And just as Don Guillermo was beginning to wonder why no coins or jewelry had been stolen by whomever, a good three troy pounds of gold onzas and medias disappeared from out his office strongbox, without damaging the fine locks at all—indeed, said locks did not even look as if they had been opened, yet the three purses were gone along with their precious contents.

  Long and thorough experience at properly handling the ignorant, superstition-prone creole common soldiers had allowed Don Guillermo to nip in the very bud rumors that the thefts were performed by no mere earthly person or persons, but rather by the revenant of the one-time French garrison commander, a suicide, forever damned to remain in the place of his death. He had tracked the rumors back to their source, and had the miscreants put upon the triangles and lashed mercilessly, the pain and blood loss achieving true wonders in curing their over-vivid imaginations, much as a chirurgeon's cupping and purging cured fevers of the body. Unlike not a few of his peers, Don Guillermo did not really like witnessing whippings or maimings or torture, but recognized and accepted that such were the only proven ways to maintain discipline among the commoner sorts and the slaves, so he steeled himself and observed those punishments he had ordered as sternly and blank-facedly as a hidalgo knight should.

  In due time—and not overmuch time, considering the snaillike creep of progress among the Cuban bureaucracy, not to mention the vagaries of sea-borne communication and the exceeding delicacy of treating with such sworn enemies as the European interloping, excommunicant trespassers on lands that Rome had long ago given solely to Spanish-Moorish keeping—a guarda costa from Cuba, an armed sloop, had arrived in the basin below El Castillo de San Diego de Boca Osa with a message from the Governor of the Indies noting that neither the Norse, the French, the Irish, nor the Portuguese would any of them admit to knowledge of this dreadful fire-arming and training of the savage indios . . . not that it had been expected that any of them would admit to such knowledge. All had offered aid—types, amounts, and exactly when it would come, all unspecified, of course—in eradicating this dangerous situation. Sanguinely, Don Guillermo and the still-recuperating Don Abdullah had decided not to try holding their breaths until such ephemeral aid actually materialized, and therefore they sent back a letter on the sloop's sailing requesting the temporary loan of additional men, guns, ships, and supplies that they themselves might scotch the upriver menace independently of their European enemies, none of whom could be trusted, anyway.

  The guns and supplies, for which Don Guillermo would be expected to pay out of his Cuban accounts, of course, had arrived quickly enough, in varying quantities and qualities, but troops had been another matter, as had usable ships. Slowly, only a few at the time, some Appalachees and a very few of the generally better Creek indio mercenaries had been landed by sloops out of more southerly mainland ports, but not many creole soldiers and no white men at all.

  Then, on a day, a shallow-draft pinnace had tacked upriver from the sea to bring advance word of the imminent arrival of a guarda costa which was escorting two French ships-of-war, both of them fully armed and packed with troops, French troops, all under the command of a French knight and sent down from the north to aid Don Guillermo in combating the common menace of indios illegally armed with firearms. A second, tightly sealed message directly from the hand of the Governor had warned Don Guillermo that, knowing as both hidalgos did the well-authenticated tendencies of all Frenchmen to duplicity, treachery, and truthlessness, he and his officers and garrison should receive these "allies" politely, treat them with exceeding diplomacy and tact, but not trust them any farther than a knight could throw an old-fashioned bombard.

  The commander, his officers, and the garrison had taken the note to heart, and it had been as well that they had stayed alert, for in the night following the arrival of the French, the large, two-decked frigata—too deep of draft to tie up at the wharf in the basin and therefore moored in the channel just opposite the Castillo—had loosed off a treacherous broadside which had fired portions of the waterfront, damaged the stern of the guarda costa, and done a certain amount of harm to the smaller French vessel moored on the other side of the wharf, then slipped her cable and tried to ride the current downriver.

  But Don Guillermo's men had been ready and all his guns had been fully charged in preparation for the chance of just such an instance of French perfidy. The well-laid wall batteries had fired as the current brought their target to bear, wreaking horrific damages to both hull and upper works of the frigata, cutting almost all the rigging and even severing the rudder cables (as examination had later determined), so that the unmanageable ship had been driven, willy-nilly, from out the main channel at the first turn below the Castillo to plow deeply into the silt and sand.

  What with the massacring of the landed French troops in and about the town, the fires to be fought there and aboard the two wharfed ships, and other necessary considerations, it had been a full day before Don Guillermo had been able to take a well-armed force by boat down to where the frigata had ended up. They had boarded her without incident, the only Frenchmen aboard her being either dead or dying of wounds by that time. They had discovered the vessel to have sustained severe damage, both by cannon shot and by subsequent fires; her hull had been holed in several places and only the shallowness of the bank on which she had finally foundered had prevented her sinking. Her keel was cracked through and her mainmast sprung, and officers of the guarda costa had advised Don Guillermo of their doubts that she could ever be completely salvaged, though as she was no more than about ten years old, European-built and well—almost lavishly—appointed and armed, she still constituted a lucrative prize even in her deplorable condition. The estimated figure that the captain of the guarda costa rendered regarding the salvage of the unquestionable prize-of-battle brought a broad smile to Don Guillermo's face.

  Never less than generous wherein circumstances so permitted him to be, the commander handsomely gifted the captains of the guarda costa and the pinnace
from the salvage of the French frigata, saying that it was in appreciation of their seamen's aid in stripping the wrecked ship, most of his garrison, then under command of one of his lieutenants, Don Felipe, being out in the riverside swamps hunting Frenchmen. But then, before the two small vessels beat downriver for San Agostino, Don Guillermo hired away one of the officers to captain his captured French sloop-of-war and some half-dozen seamen to man her and train selected Creole soldiers in her proper handling.

  Due principally to an unfortunate spate of over-enthusiasm on the parts of their Appalachee and Creek mercenaries—who seldom got the chance to hunt down and kill white men legally—the only prisoners taken by Don Felipe's force had been two black slaves who, even under torture, could impart to the commander of the castillo no reason why their deceased French masters had so suddenly and treacherously fired on the town, harbor basin, and fortification. Therefore, all that Don Guillermo had been able to send in his letter to the Governor had been the bald facts of what had occurred and his reactions to said occurrences. He also had sent his superior the two black slaves—by then a little the worse for wear—that that high man himself might have them more thoroughly questioned in his more modern, more sophisticated torture chambers in El Castillo del Morro.

  In the aftermath of the incident, however, Don Guillermo found himself and his garrison in possession of a true abundance of the sinews of warfare—small arms of all kinds, sling pieces and cannon up to a size of full culverins and demicannon, piles of equipment, so much powder of various grades that he was obliged to set his men to digging a new, temporary overflow magazine to hold it all in safety, plus a small mountain of assorted supplies which had been intended to feed and maintain a force of Frenchmen while on campaign . . . or more likely, all things considered, thought Don Guillermo and Don Abdullah, to maintain the new, French garrison of the treacherously retaken Castillo de San Diego de Boca Osa. Now all the two knights needed was a force of troops to bear and use the small arms, service the larger arms, and crew the available sloop, pinnace, and whaleboats.

  Also, in the wake of the short, brisk, bloody, and lucrative action against the French, Don Guillermo thought that it might be a good idea to beef up the garrisons of the small satellite strong points to the north, so he set the pinnace and his fine sloop to bearing additional cannon, sling pieces, powder, and other supplies to them, along with the promise of more soldiers whenever they should become available. The heavier armaments and a sternly couched warning to be wary were the best he could do under his circumstances; he could then only pray God that they would be enough until he could provide better without dangerously stripping the larger, more important castillo.

  "Of course, my friend," he remarked of a night over some of his rare, sweet wine of Malaga which he was sharing with the now-convalescent Don Abdullah and Don Felipe, the young knight who showed such promise, "to call this pitiful little pile of stones in which we sit tonight a castillo or presidio, or even to so name the larger one down on the Rio Matanzas at San Agostino is to laugh with much heartiness."

  "Agreed." Don Abdullah nodded. "But even so, ours has now proved itself more than a match for that well-armed and fully manned French frigata. Do we not now own the loot to prove it?"

  "We do, of course," answered Guillermo, still looking worried. "But what if a larger, a stronger and better-armed ship should sail in and set her guns at our walls and anchorage and town, eh?"

  With a grunt of discomfort, Don Abdullah set down his silver cup long enough to use both hands in carefully shifting his still-healing leg on the cushion-covered support. "However, I would not like to have to be the sailing master or the captain of any larger ship-of-war essaying to negotiate that ever-shifting, ever-deadly, ever-treacherous maze of bars and false channels between here and the sea."

  Brightening a little, Guillermo remarked, "Yes, you are of a rightness, my friend, there is that natural outer defense. In fact, I now recall, we grounded at least two vessels on our way up here to drive out the French, years back, and those were in no way ships with a requirement of truly deep water under them."

  Politely, the youngest knight cleared his throat and looked the question at his two superiors, whereupon Don Guillermo smiled expansively, saying, "Hijo mio, in such discussions as is this, we three all are equals in all ways. When you thirst, you take up the decanter and fill your cup; when you have words to be spoken, speak them. Please to understand, your weighted thoughts are of as much value to me as is your strong sword arm and your well-proven courage."

  The slender, olive-skinned young man glowed visibly under the unsolicited praise from the lips of this man for whom he bore so much respect. So he then told them his thoughts on making the approaches to the settlement from the sea even more incipiently deadly, and these thoughts pleased the two older knights mightily.

  * * * *

  Pinky Boyette, Gabe Lauderback, and John Peoples, having earlier boosted a box of thirty-six candy bars, a jug of pink chablis, and some chips from a corner convenience store, were lazing around the old, rotting bandstand in the park, washing down mouthfuls of gooey chocolate with swallows of wine and awaiting the onset of darkness, the time when they could begin to prowl the surrounding streets in search of prey, for the morning would come soon enough and with it would come the need for money to buy the wherewithal to feed their habits.

  The top edge of the westering sun was not yet down behind the bulk of the sewage-treatment plant when a seeming miracle occurred. A shiny four-door sedan turned off the paved drive and moved slowly along the narrow, grass-grown way that once had been a graveled drive almost up to the bush-and-weed-shrouded bandstand itself. Its finely tuned engine making almost no noise at all, the car came to a stop not ten yards from the three hidden predators, and they watched as a man got out of the expensive-looking automobile, half unbelieving that a victim should come to them this way.

  "Man," murmured Pinky Boyette, his candy-smeared lips barely moving in his thin face, "that damn car don' even soun' like it's running. It sure is shiny—mus' be bran' new. How much you reckon we c'n get fer them wheel covers, Gabe?"

  "Should oughta look good, asshole," was the hissed reply of him addressed. "That's a fuckin' German car, one the ones costs thirty-five, forty thousan' dollars, new . . . an' it sure looks new to me."

  "Forty thousan' dollars?" breathed the third of their unwashed, stubbly, sore-infested number, in a tone closely resembling that of a fervent prayer. "Man oh man! Sheeit! That kinda bread, we could go inta big-time dealin', you know . . . at leas', stay stoned out for a fuckin' long time, you know."

  "How much you thank ol' Perlman, the fence, he'll give us for the whole car, then, Gabe?" this from Pinky Boyette.

  "Aw, how the shit we gon' get it to him, asshole?" that worthy demanded. "Les you done learned to drive recent, 'cause I sure Lawd don't and neither does John Peckerhead here, you know."

  "Well," suggested Peoples, taking no offense at what Gabe had called him, most of his concentration going toward the removal of a particularly itchy scab from one cheek, "then why don' we go over and git one them gang fellers to drive it over to Perlman's for us, huh? All these damn country yokels lives down here drives, you know—ain't like it is up home where it's subways and all and don't hardly nobody need to drive, you know."

  "Asswipe," said Gabe disgustedly, "you better be goddam glad you and this other shithead got somebody got some brains to do your damn thinkin' for you, hear? You go tellin' that bunch of asshole punks 'bout thishere car and all, they'll take it 'way from us faster'n you can cut a fart and prob'ly beat us half to death or off us in the bargain, too, you know. Naw, you and Pinky and me, we'll settle for whatall we can carry our own se'fs—the wheel covers, anything we can get from outa the inside, mebbe some the fucking tires and wheels, too. But first off, we gone see how much we can get off that honky drivin' it, see, you know. I got me my screwdriver—you and Pinky got yours, brother? Good. Minnit he gits out they car, we goes for the ofay, hear?"


  But when the three actually saw the automobile glide to a halt, heard the engine cut off, and watched the big, stocky, well-dressed man get out and carefully lock the door, then pocket the key, Pinky shook his head and whisperingly whined, "Gabe, man, I . . . he looks mean, man, mebbe we should oughta . . ."

  "Lissen, chickenshit," Gabe growled in quiet reply, "I don't give a rat's ass how mean he look—it's three of us and only one of him, and we got our fucking screwdrivers, too, you jerk, good as any fucking wop stiletto, too, but legal to carry. Now, c'mon!"

  But when the three footpads burst through the thick growth of bushes that masked the entrance to the bandstand, the man was not anywhere in sight!

  Led by the snarling Gabe, the three searched every clump of unpruned bushes within the distance he estimated the turkey could have moved in the few seconds of elapsed time. They looked under the car and in it, all in vain. Raving at this sudden unexpected, patently unfair deprivation, the three kicked at the locked car and deeply scored its finish with the honed points of their Phillips screwdrivers, and, at length, Gabe picked up a sizable rock and used it to smash out the driver-side window, then reached inside and pulled up the lock knob before opening the door.

  He was lying prone across the two bucket seats trying to pry open the locked glove box when a scream of terror in two voices erupted from outside, followed by the thud of running footsteps. Next, a pair of powerful hands took firm hold upon his ankles and easily jerked him out of the car to a face-first and very painful landing on the imbedded gravel. But he retained a grip on his screwdriver, and immediately his skinny legs were under him, he went for the torso of the stocky white man with his needle-tracked arm fully extended and pure murder in his mind.

  6

  But fast as was the raging Gabe, his intended victim was far faster. His body swayed just far enough to the right that the needle-tipped screwdriver and the needle-scarred arm propelling it missed, and the thin body itself would have slammed into the thicker, meatier one had not two big hands stopped it; one of these hands clamped onto the weapon arm and the other took hold of the shoulder of the free arm. Then both thumbs unerringly found certain spots in those body parts and the pressures they commenced to exert suddenly created an explosion of unbearable pain that seemed to suffuse every fiber of Gabe's entire being. The sharpened screwdriver slipped from nerveless fingers even as consciousness departed his agonized body.