“I speak of those who collapse from hunger and toil. And we who kick and beat them to rise. We who knock out their teeth with the pommel of our swords. We who, for amusement, wager a single stroke of the sword can split them in two, slice head from neck, or spill entrails with but one plunge of the pike. We who toss infants into rivers, roaring with laughter and saying, ‘Boil there, you offspring of the devil!’ We who attack towns and spare neither children nor the aged, the pregnant nor women in childbed, stabbing and dismembering and cutting them to pieces as if they were sheep in the slaughterhouse. We cut off hands and hang them round the necks of our victims, saying, ‘Go now, carry the message,’ meaning, ‘Take the news to the Indians who have fled to the mountains.’ We tie our victims over smouldering fires so that, little by little, as those captives scream in despair and torment, their souls leave them. Oh, that I could describe even one-hundredth part of the afflictions and calamities that we have wrought among these innocent people! There once were many of these Indians; now there are few. May God grant enlightenment to priest and king, governor and general that they may act with justice and with wisdom. This is what I said to our Ferdinand and Isabella.”
Moishe and I shuddered under such intensity, not to mention the spray of spume from Fray Juan’s ardent mouth, but we knew that such things of which he spoke had truly occurred. We had seen such horrors. He was ranting to ranters.
Moishe turned to me and said, sotto voce, “He speaks of these things in court? In the shtetl, it is believed that when a wise man converses with a fool, two fools are speaking.”
“Unless, like us,” I said, “he speaks with sword.”
“Fray Juan,” Moishe asked, “what did you suggest Their Catastrophic Majesties do?”
“Transport slaves from Africa,” he said.
There was a shout from our ship in the distance. They had seen the Spanish skiffs rowing toward them. Moishe went to the bell and signalled an urgent beat to quarters. Five peals repeated.
Then he grabbed Fray Juan. “A little business,” he said, lowering him onto deck and binding him to the shrouds. The three other Spanish crew were soon roped like rodeo calves.
Then night flash and sky-cleaving thunder.
From our ship, the brain-severing tumult of cannons.
And it’s true what is said: someone else’s tuches is easy to smack. Especially when it sits in a rowboat sculling toward your cannonballs. The Spanish: we’d pissed on their backs and told them it was rain. Then we’d codswalloped them to search for umbrellas.
Now the ocean filled the holes in their bodies as they sank into the sea.
Except for Pedro and the Capitan: their kishkas remained unminced. Hostages are best when intact. Yahíma, Jacome and Shlomo paddled to the first skiff where each of their blades greeted the hostages’ gullets with a silver grin.
Jacome: “Be lambs or have your apple sauced.”
Yahíma laughed and shook her naked bristen in their frightened faces. And though they were fulsome fruit of Platonically perfect form, the source of many a non-Platonic thought to those who beheld them, here they were weaponry, a bitter ironic power wielded to humiliate.
Soon we had secured our captives, brought our ships broadside, thrown heaving lines over gunwales, and bound the two together.
“Have Christian mercy—release the boy’s father, my brother,” the Capitan said.
“Father,” wailed Pedro. “Father.”
“Climb down the ratlines from that cross, bubeleh, we need such lumber for masts,” Moishe said to the sheygets. “But first greet your papa who filled his britches in fear.”
“My father is a brave and honourable man,” Pedro said.
Ham signalled to Moishe from his station near the boy’s draped progenitor.
“He tells me your father is dead,” Moishe said. “This I knew. Nu, I was ship’s surgeon ere I was captain. Before we left the ship, your father died of fear.”
“You killed him. He had much courage and was not afraid to die.”
“It seems to me, he had no hesitation,” Moishe said. “But I thank you for your cooperation.”
The boy fainted, now realizing he had danced to a gun that had already discharged. He hung limp from the shrouds that bound him to the mast.
“When Spain learns of your infamy, you will be hunted down,” the Capitan said.
“I am glad,” Moishe said. “Prey that seeks me is easier to find.”
The Capitan pursed his lips and launched a slobber of spit onto Moishe’s cheek.
Moishe remained still and expressionless, allowing the bubbling spawn to slowly roll down his face.
“This mamzer suffers an excess of fluid,” he said. “We shall correct this by withholding food and drink while he convalesces in the hold below.” Moishe turned and nodded to Shlomo and Jacome who carried the Capitan to the hatch.
“History will not forget your evil,” the Capitan said as they dropped him into the hold.
“History is a game played with the dead,” Moishe replied. “The present actually happens. And nu, when they balance the scales, they’ll find a few shlog-whomped Spanish on one side, kvetching and moaning. And on the other, a heap of dead Jews and Indians. So, we do what we can to add to the Spanish side.”
Unbound from the shrouds, Fray Juan sat on a barrel on the fo’c’s’le, inhaling the smoky ghost of a large tobacco leaf.
“I, too, wish to do what I can for Los Indios,” he said to Moishe. “Though by word and reason, not by murder. Allow me to return to Hispaniola where I will speak for them. I have letters signed by the King. I seek to save souls.”
“As I, too, seek to save souls,” Moishe said. “Our pirate souls. The Spanish will frack the insides of our mortal flesh as soon as you lead them to us. How then can I release you?”
“Because I believe you also wish to save, if not the souls of Los Indios, then at least their bodies,” the priest said. “And … maybe you will accept a ransom for my freedom. A guarantee of my fidelity. You are not the only one who hostages something valuable aboard your ship.”
“We have searched the vessel,” I said. “What remains?”