Part 78 (2/2)

”Well, Mademoiselle, after the Anglais had bagged a bull for every man, we'd bring all the meat and hides back to the base camp, the rendezvous. Then we would put up a _boucan_,

like the one down there below us now, and begin smoking the meat while we finished sc.r.a.ping the hides.” He smiled through his graying beard.

”You would scarcely have recognized the Anglais, or me, in those days, Mademoiselle. Half the time our breeches were so caked with blood they looked like we'd been tarred.” He glanced back at the island. ”By nightfall the _barbacoa_ would be finished, and we would eat some, then salt the rest and put it away in an _ajoupa_, together with the hides.

Finally, we'd bed down beside the fire of the _boucan_, to smoke away the mosquitoes, sleeping in those canvas sacks we used to keep off ants. Then, at first light of dawn, we rose to go out again.”

”And then you would sell your . . . _barbacoa_ and hides here on Tortuga?”

”Exactly, Mademoiselle. I see my old friend the Anglais has already told you something of those days.” He smiled and caught her eye. ”Yes, often as not we'd come back over here and barter with the s.h.i.+ps that put in to refit. But then sometimes we'd just sell them over there.

When we had a load, we would start watching for a sail, and if we saw a s.h.i.+p nearing the coast, we'd paddle out in our canoes . . .”

”Canoes?” She felt the night grow chill. Suddenly a memory from long ago welled up again, bearded men firing on their s.h.i.+p, her mother falling. . . .

”_Oui_, Mademoiselle. Dugout canoes. In truth they're all we had those days. We made them by hollowing out the heart of a tree, burning it away, just like the Indians on Hispaniola used to do.” He sipped his brandy, then motioned toward Winston. ”They were quite seaworthy, _n 'est-ce pas_? Enough so we actually used them on our first raid.” He turned back. ”Though after that we naturally had Spanish s.h.i.+ps.”

”And where . . . was your first raid, Monsieur le Basque?” She felt her grip tighten involuntarily on the pewter handle of her tankard.

”Did the Anglais never tell you about that little episode, Mademoiselle?” He laughed sarcastically. ”No, perhaps it

is not something he chooses to remember. Though at the time we thought we could depend on him. I have explained to you that no man among us could shoot as well as he. We wanted him to fire the first shot, as he did when we were hunting. Truly we had high hopes for him.” Jacques drank again, a broad silhouette against the panorama of the sunset.

”He told me how you got together to fight the Spaniards, but ...”

”Did he? _Bon_.” He paused to check the _boucan_ below them, then the men. Finally he shrugged and turned back. ”It was the start of the legend of the _boucaniers_, Mademoiselle. And you can take pride that the Anglais was part of it. Few men are still alive now to tell that tale.”

”What happened to the others, Jacques?” Winston's voice hardened as he moved next to one of the nine-pound cannon. ”I seem to remember there were almost thirty of us. Guy Bartholomew was on that raid, for one. I saw him down below last night. I knew a lot of those men well.”

”_Oui_, you had many friends. But after you . . . left us, a few unfortunate incidents transpired.”

Winston tensed. ”Did the s.h.i.+p . . .?”

”I discovered what can occur when there is not proper organization, Anglais. But now I am getting ahead of our story. Surely you remember the island we had encamped on. Well, we waited on that cursed sand spit several weeks more, hoping there would be another prize. But alas, we saw nothing, _rien_. Then finally one day around noon, when it was so hot you could scarcely breathe, we spied a Spanish sail--far at sea. By then all our supplies were down. We were desperate. So we launched our canoes and put to sea, with a vow we would seize the s.h.i.+p or perish trying.”

”And you took it?” Winston had set down his tankard on the railing and was listening intently.

”_Mais oui_. But of course. Desperate men rarely fail. Later we learned that when the captain saw our canoes approaching he scoffed, saying what could a few dugouts do against his

guns. He paid for that misjudgment with his life. We waited till dark, then stormed her. The s.h.i.+p was ours in minutes.”

”Congratulations.”

”Not so quickly, Anglais. Unfortunately, all did not go smoothly after that. Perhaps it's just as well you were no longer with us, _mon ami_.

Naturally, we threw all the Spaniards overboard, crew and pa.s.sengers.

And then we sailed her back here, to Ba.s.se Terre. A three-hundred-ton brigantine. There was some plate aboard--perhaps the capitaine was h.o.a.rding it--and considerable coin among the pa.s.sengers. But when we dropped anchor here, a misunderstanding arose over how it all was to be divided.” He sighed. ”There were problems. I regret to say it led to bloodshed.”

”What do you mean?” Winston glared at him. ”I thought we'd agreed to split all prizes equally.”

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