The Thrice Born Page 5

  A rope ladder was tossed down, and moments later Rufio Catalan’s desiccated body was lifted by three men and carried back up the ladder.

  In the days that followed Rufio’s rescue he was so relieved not to have been captured by Barberry Pirates or other supporters of the Ottoman Empire that he cared for little, save being alive. His sun-blistered skin was tended with salve and he was given clothes, food and water in one of the drier cells in the ship’s brig, and beyond that, he wanted for nothing.

  That lasted until his fourth day when, fully nourished and his thirst satiated, his mind began to work again. He asked his jailors about his possessions, but the only response he got back from the guards was, ‘You have no possessions.’

  Rufio knew they’d found his diary and his precious statue, but he had some comfort that they did not know who he was, or even if the diary was his for certain. There was no name on the small boat he’d taken with the Englishman – he’d been careful about that – and there was no way they could connect him with the El tesoro del cielo. Even the diary, which bore his name, wasn’t conclusively his. No one could definitively prove that.

  He was left to wonder at his fate in the damp, straw strewn cell in the belly of the unknown ship for another day or two, and then was summoned to the captain’s quarters by two well-armed guards.

  The master cabin of the ship was far more ornate than any Rufio had been in. The bulbous walls of the galleon were paneled a rich walnut, gold paint edging the window frames, with silver and pewter candlesticks holding wide beeswax pillars burning brightly on the table. The captain was a rotund man with a soft face, filling his fitted uniform from epaulette to ruffled shirt with overstuffed attitude. He sat at the table, his hat to the side of his half empty silver goblet as he breathed noisily over Rufio’s golden statue.

  The flickering candlelight did little to deemphasize the man’s ruddy complexion as he leveled a disdainful look on Rufio. “You are in possession of some very interesting items, sailor,” he said in a nasally voice. “I, too, am interested.”

  Rufio said nothing, watching the man’s sausage-like fingers caress the golden statue’s base.

  “Nothing to add, sailor?”

  Rufio’s eyes flicked to the statue. A slow smile came to his cracked but healing lips.

  “You’ve had good care on my ship. Food, water, your blisters treated. We could flog you within an inch of your life for refusal to state your name alone.” The captain sighed through his nose, lip wrinkling. “If you don’t come clean, my friend,” he said, tone lowering, “I’ll turn you over to the authorities at La Coruña. Would you like that?”

  Rufio didn’t answer.

  “They could make you talk, you understand?”

  Rufio held the captain’s stare.

  Several long moments passed uneasily, and the captain nodded to the guards.

  “Move him,” he ordered, eyes settling back on Rufio. “The lowest cell. The basest of necessities.”

  From then until the ship docked in the seaport of La Coruña, Spain, Rufio found himself on rations of lukewarm water and moldy, worm-infested bread crusts.

  The ship docked in northern Spain the following week and from there Rufio was taken to Santiago de Compostela. His situation changed drastically then, and for the worse. His silence to the Spanish galleon’s fat captain cost him.

  There was no trial, no chance to plead. No mercy to be had.

  After two days of being shackled in the dark, rat-infested cell of the jail located in the shadow of the white limestone cathedral, Rufio found himself calling upon Saint James for mercy – mercy of any sort – as two guards ushered him to the inquisition cell deeper in the prison’s bowels.

  It was a filthy room smelling of rotting flesh and stale blood, implements of torture hanging from chains and embedded into the crumbling stone walls. The guards pushed Rufio to a bloodstained wooden rack and chained him ankle and wrist to the ends, snuggly. Above him the flickering light of the torches danced like Hell’s shadows on the damp ceiling.

  Every nerve in Rufio’s body was on high alert, his limited vision changing to terror as the rack creaked at the first movement. His ankles stretched, pulling taut until his arms were screaming in protest over his head. He gasped, trying to slow his breathing.

  It only helped a little. He could see the shadows move to his right, hear the barred door open and shut. A low chuckle came to his ears.

  “You have disappointed us,” a thick southern Spanish dialect said, nearing the table. “You have refused to divulge the location of your treasure.”

  Rufio’s eyes slid to his right as a tall, heavily leather-armored man stepped into view. He smiled at Rufio, showing rotted and stained teeth.

  “Tell me now,” the inquisitor said. “I’ve broken many a man stronger than you, sailor. Speak!”

  There was a creak and a few pops, and Rufio grunted as the gears settled, stretching his torso to painful limits. “The island. The island!”

  The inquisitor nodded, grinning. “More. What island?”

  Rufio shook his head only slightly. “Just, just an island. I don’t know exactly.”

  There was a slap of cat-o-nine tails against the wall where Rufio could see a wooden beam near the ceiling gnawed with deep scratches. The metal barbs stuck, and the inquisitor jerked them free.

  “Stretch him!”

  The guards obeyed. Rufio’s breath was forced from his body, pain skyrocketing.

  “More!”

  Another creak, and Rufio heard his shoulders pop and a snap in his left ankle. A blinding white pain shot through him.

  “Again!”

  For half an hour it went, the slow stretching, the burning pain, the sickening sounds of a human body surrendering to torture. Rufio prayed to every saint he knew for death, or lacking that, collapse into unconsciousness. He also rambled unintelligibly any information he hoped would lessen the torment, to no avail.

  The inquisitor leaned over him, smiling. “Now,” he said slowly, “tell me without delay, where you got the statue?”

  Rufio closed his eyes, sweating profusely and panting. “I’ve told you the story a dozen times. From the island.”

  “And where is this island?” The inquisitor flicked the barbed whip against a table leg. “What are its coordinates?”

  “I told you,” Rufio breathed in pain. “I don’t know. I never had them ... Somewhere in the Caribbean.”

  “How’d you find the island without coordinates?”

  Rufio’s eyes squeezed shut. “There was an old wives’ tale about a strange island.” The blood pounding in his head sounded like drums. “Some drunken fool told me he had found it ... We wandered all over the Dragon’s Teeth.” A strangled laugh squeaked from him. “And there it was! The devil’s luck.”

  “So much gold from a wives’ tale. Sounds like a bit of a stretch to me.” The inquisitor turned to the guards. “Tighten it!”

  Rufio whimpered at the new pain, the gears groaning as the guards wound the rack. “Any more and there will not be anything left of me!”

  “We care not for you,” the inquisitor said close to Rufio’s face contorted with pain. “You worship this statue, don’t you?” He held the golden statue over Rufio. “Don’t you?”

  Rufio looked at the statue, his golden treasure, now the source of his pain. He grunted, unable to shake his head. “No!”

  “Heretic!”

  “No!” Rufio searched his mind for something, anything, to give to his tormenter to make the suffering stop. “You are a sailor,” he said, nearly incoherent, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “You were once first mate until your ungodly crimes ... I, I drank some port left on the captain’s table,” he confessed. “I never thought –”

  “You stole from your captain,” the inquisitor said.

  Rufio looked to him, past pain. “If we were outside this damn dungeon...”

  “But we’re not,” the inquisitor said with a chuckle. “And while we’re here, you must tell me
the truth.”

  “...I have.”

  The tormenter stood straighter. “The Grand Inquisitor does not believe you. You’re of the reputation of a treasure hunter and a brigand. We want to know where the island is...”

  Rufio’s eyes closed slowly, every nerve in his body limited out from pain. In his mind’s eye a light filled him, filled the room, a soft radiant light that took the chill out of the dungeon cell.

  “I will not let you die alone...” a woman’s voice told him.

  He didn’t open his eyes, content to be alone with Astara’s comforting voice, the shining, beautiful woman who’d visited him on the drifting boat when he’d lain parched under the sun. He let his mind savor her words, the soft sound of hope, and let the blackness engulf all his senses.

  * * *

  “Father Elmo!”

  Father Bertrand’s voice broke Father Elmo’s concentration from the diary. By the rapidity of the clipping shoes on the Vatican Library’s tiled floor, Father Elmo knew his colleague was irritated and worse yet, nearing.

  Father Elmo slowly closed the red leather diary, his thoughts still with Rufio Catalán’s torment from centuries past. The account was still vivid in his mind, the mercilessness of the Inquisition, the forced religious beliefs and torment of the infidels. He let one white gloved hand smooth the time-worn diary’s cover, smiling at the account.

  Indeed, Rufio had not given up much to his oppressors, but Father Elmo was not disheartened.

  He carefully placed the diary back into its protective case as Father Bertrand found his table. He didn’t look at the irate father.

  “Again, Father Elmo?”

  Satisfied, Father Elmo fastened the case around his coveted antique dairy and looked slowly to Father Bertrand. He smiled wide.

  “Father Bertrand, let’s be about my paper, shall we?” His smile disarmed his surprised colleague. “Come. Let me get your opinion on a point in it ...”

  Father Elmo stood up, towering over the much shorter Father Bertrand. Father Elmo nodded, pleased with his afternoon’s reading.

  Father Bertrand looked suspiciously for a moment at the taller man, and then fell into step with him as they started across the library.

  “You’ve finally come to your senses of priorities,” Father Bertrand mumbled.

  Father Elmo couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter Three

  LUCK BE A LADY

  The day’s light was heading west into the late afternoon skies across the scrub grass of the large ranch twenty miles outside of Las Vegas, Nevada, on the other side of the world. The hot, dusty day was like most others for the two cowboys fixing the cattle gate near the horse corral.

  Most of the livestock was scattered in clumps of a few dozen over the sandy, rocky terrain, but the paddock for the horses served as an outpost for weary mounts and a kicking-back place for the wranglers who worked the sprawling ranch. The big ranch house was in the distance, and a few acres away, upwind, a well-stocked hog pen housed a dozen prime Duroc and Yorkshire pigs.

  Two cowboys were putting the final touches on the last job of the day, leveling the cattle gate that had become uneven during the last flooding rain whose runoff had eaten away part of the post’s footings. The leaning gate allowed the more adventurous of calves to get free and roam at their pleasure. Larry and Joe had seen their fair share of flash floods, and dealt with the aftermath of repairs that followed, so when the broad skies rumbled with the unseen threat of thunder, they both swore a streak.

  “Damn, we get one problem fixed and now it looks like there’ll be more soon.” Joe shoveled the last bit of quick-dry cement into the hole around the post holding the gate. “It’ll just get washed away again.”

  “Keeps us in a job,” Larry said, shrugging as his scuffed boot swept sand against the newly repaired post. “We’d better pack up,” he added, tilting his cowboy hat back to see the sky as it turned orange and purple with the changing weather. “Not much more we can do.”

  Joe gave the post a shake. It wobbled. “Hell, Larry, give it a coupla minutes to set up.” He eyed the younger calves that were watching them from one of the clusters of cows. Waiting for their opportunity to escape again, he knew. “We don’t want to chase them again tonight. We’ll run the meat off ‘em.”

  Larry glanced at the calves. “Puny things already.” He let Joe hold the gate post as the quick-set cement did its job and gathered up the hand tools laying about the area. He packed them in a dented toolbox.

  A sudden flash of light shot through the darkening amber-violent skies, breaking open in a burst of rain. It annoyed the two ranch hands into working faster. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Another light, this one different than the lightning streak, flashed over the hog pen further on. No thunder followed it. Larry looked in that direction.

  “What on earth...” Larry stood transfixed, staring at the bright light at the pen that wasn’t lightning at all, but seemed to be glowing over top the pen. “Hey, Joe, look there!”

  Joe looked behind him to where the bright light was slowly getting bigger, still hovering over the pen.

  “It’s a fire,” Larry said.

  Joe gave the post a final glimpse, nodding at the strange light in the distance. “There’s nothing to burn there. Damn teens out having fun.”

  Larry grabbed the toolbox and started for the Hummer parked on the two-track drive. “We’ll see about that.”

  By the time the Hummer had climbed the dry gullies and sand beds to the hog pen, the light had settled lower over the pigs, a slow ebbing and throbbing coming from its center, an eerie stillness in the rainy, darkening afternoon. The pigs had congregated under the focal point of the light, oddly, and seemed to Joe and Larry almost to huddle around something there. Or someone.

  They parked the Hummer and grabbed flashlights from under the seats, flicking them on to get a better look at the light.

  Joe chuckled wryly as they started to the disturbance. “Miss Piggy must have crashed her spaceship.”

  There was a great whooshing sound, and then the light shot up and disappeared in a point in the darkened skies. Both cowboys paused at the horse corral near the hog pen, looking up at the spot where the light had vanished. They exchanged looks, and then continued on.

  The pigs squealed and grunted noisily as the men climbed the fencing. Dots of flashlight beams searched the pen. The pigs parted from the center, and there lay a black cloth covered form.

  “Hell, I hope that’s not a dead body,” Larry said.

  Joe nodded.

  They approached the form that was slowly becoming soaked with rain, and the shapely outline of a young woman became evident. They both trained their flashlights on her. Joe chanced to pull back the robe’s hood that covered her face.

  Despite the mud and pig manure bouncing in the falling rain, the woman’s beauty was undeniable, even in the poor light. Her hair was curly, long golden locks that framed her well-defined face, skin seeming to be almost a luminescent pale. She coughed.

  Both men stepped nearer, crouching to see her better.

  Her eyes opened weakly, her voice dry despite the rain. “The Crib ...” she said in a raspy tone. She tried to put one elbow beneath her to sit up.

  “Hey, just take it easy,” Joe said.

  She coughed again, and then collapsed into the mud.

  The men looked to each other as the skies opened a torrent of rain.

  “Ugh, damn she stinks,” Joe said, looking over her unmoving form.

  “Considering she’s laying in a pile of pig dung, yeah.” Larry sighed.

  Joe saw her robe move as she breathed, the rain splattering her face, washing away some of the mud. “She sure is beautiful.”

  Larry shone the light on her face better, nodding. “Let’s get her out of here.”

  It took Larry a moment to collect the very beautiful but smelly weight of the young woman and scoop her bridal style to carry to the Hummer. He gently put her in the back seat, arranging the old sleepi
ng bag there to make her more comfortable. The walk washed away a bit more dirt, but she was still unpleasant smelling and dripping wet.

  Moments later Larry and Joe were taking their anti-fragrant passenger down the rough road cutting over the rain pelted terrain.

  Larry looked to Joe as he drove, shaking the water off his hat onto the floor mat. “Should we take her back to the ranch house?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Joe glanced to the rear view mirror at the woman stirring behind them. “Let’s take her to The Crib.”

  “The Crib?”

  “The casino, dummy,” Joe said.

  “What if she didn’t mean the casino? Maybe she meant her place, her crib. You know. Slang.”

  “Come on,” Joe said, checking the mirror again as the woman struggled into a sitting position in the back seat. “Look at her. She’s beautiful.”

  Larry looked over the back of his seat. “She’s filthy.”

  “She got in trouble. They dumped her.” Joe decided not to clarify who they could be.

  “What about the light?” Larry looked back to him. “I think whoever dumped her, you know, maybe they come from,” he paused, looking out the windshield at the sky heavy with rain, “somewhere else.”

  “Be real,” Joe said with a chuckle, skepticism lacing his tone. “Look at her. She’s a showgirl, or hostess or something. Probably works in The Crib, but got in some kind of trouble. Wants to go back where she knows it’s safe.”

  Larry watched the woman sit up and push a hand through her hair. “She looks like she could use a doctor.”

  Joe turned the Hummer onto a main highway that led into the city. “They have doctors there.”

  For ten minutes they drove in silence, both men stealing looks in the mirror at the woman slowly gaining strength in the back seat. She didn’t speak despite a few of their questions directed her way, but spent her time looking with interest at the roadside as the signs and billboards increased. She smiled at some of the livelier billboards that advertised the casinos in movement and glittering light.