29
Hoodahs
What I did was mosey up to the innkeeper and ask what the Native American had done. He was stupid, the innkeeper said.
'Yeah,' I said-only in Spanish-'me, too. Listen here. You've pounded him to dog food, and pounding won't fix stupidity anyhow. What you've got now is a cripple you'll just have to feed. I'll take him off your hands for…' Here I pretended to search in my pockets. 'Eight reales. This looks pretty good. Doesn't look like it's been sweated at all.' It was one of the new pieces of eight we had gotten from the cacao-bean ship.
The innkeeper just laughed and turned away, and I said, 'Okay, stupido, you keep him. He's your hard luck. I hope he dies tonight.'
I went to the street gate then and lifted the latch. When I did it, the innkeeper turned back and called, 'One hundred, Senor de Messina, because you are my guest. But not one real less.'
After that we went back and forth for half an hour or so. I knew I was going to buy him, but I had to keep the innkeeper from knowing it, too. I finally got him for eighteen reales, which showed that the innkeeper really and seriously thought that he and his sons might have lamed him for life.
Once I had a signed bill of sale, I helped him stand up and got him up two flights of stairs to my room. That was about as easy as pulling up a four-pounder. There were a couple or maybe three times when I felt certain we were both going to fall.
Up there, I laid him on the bed, which was way too short for me and too short for him, too, got him to drink a glass of wine, and told him I was going out and he should just take it easy in there until I got back. You are not supposed to give Native Americans alcohol is what all the books say, because they have this big alcoholism problem. But that wine was from the inn, and I swear by Monkey King Jasmine that Novia could have downed a whole bottle of it and never stumbled.
(Confession is good for the soul, and so: Monkey King Jasmine is tea. Mr. and Mrs. Briggs gave us a food basket for Christmas, and there is a package of tea in it-Monkey King Jasmine Tea. Fr. Wahl thinks it is hilarious, and I think it is pretty funny myself.)
When I came back, I brought him some good clean water and something to eat. After a couple of days, he started telling me that I should sleep on the bed and he would lie on the floor. That was how I knew he was well enough for us to change inns. Which we did, because I could see there was going to be trouble about him if we stayed where we were.
A day or so before that, I had asked him what his name was. What he said was Spanish and pretty dirty, so I told him we would have to use another one. I tried to find out what his Native American name was, but he played dumb. That was okay, because I knew by then that your real name was a very personal thing with a lot of Native Americans. Maybe with all of them. The way he had been beaten by the innkeeper and his sons reminded me of Saint Jude, who was beaten to death with traveler's staffs, so I called him Hoodahs, which is how you say that saint's name in Spanish. By the time we changed inns I was Captain and he was Hoodahs, and Hoodahs had gotten over the idea that I was planning to do something horrible as soon as I thought he was strong enough to stand it.
The whole time I was just itching to try English, but I was supposed to be a Cuban officer who was in Maracaibo hoping to get a job with the army in Venezuela, so there was no way I was going to risk saying a word in English where anybody could hear it.
The day after we moved, I took him to a blacksmith who took the chain off his feet. It had been about eighteen inches long, a chain that would let him walk but not run, and it had galled both his ankles. When he was loose, I said (in Spanish), 'I'm freeing you, Hoodahs. If you want to split right now, or tonight, or tomorrow, that's fine with me. I'm not going to stand guard over you. The only thing is, if you go now, from here, you'll probably get picked up by some other Spaniard. If that happens, I'll help you if I can but I probably won't ever know about it. But you can take the chance if you want to.'
He shook his head.
'Okay, if you want to stick with me for a while, you can do that. Only you're free to split whenever.'
He shook his head again. I was not really sure what he meant by that, but I thought it was probably 'Not any time soon.' So I said, 'Come on, we're going fishing.'
One of the things I had been doing when I went out was looking at boats, and the day before I had bought a good one, new, a boat small enough that one man could handle it, but big enough to carry three. (Maybe three men and a kid, in a pinch.) It had oars, a mast a little longer than a mop handle, and a sail a little bit bigger than a blanket. We got a pole, some line that should have been for tying up weeds to burn, a few hooks, a piece of salt pork to cut up for bait, and a bucket. Nothing fancy, because I did not care whether I caught anything or not. As long as we looked like a don and his slave out for a bit of fishing, that was good enough.
Hoodahs rowed us away from the dock. Then I showed him how to set up the mast and spread the sail. When we had sailed a little-there was a pretty good breeze-I went to the bow and let him manage the tiller and sheets. After five minutes or so, I knew he was no stranger to boats. He was not an expert, either, but he had been around boats enough to understand the basics.
We sailed between the fort and watchtower just as pretty as you please, and nobody said boo to us. When we were through the strait and out in the Gulf, and not close to anything or anybody, I had Hoodahs put down the sail. I baited my hook, hoping not to catch anything, and held the pole and pretended to fish. Then I said (just as I am writing it now), 'You speak English, Hoodahs. So do I, and I think it's time we leveled with each other. Where did you come from?'
'North, Chris.' He pointed. 'My land north.'
'America?'
He stared, then shook his head, and right then about ninety percent of my hopes washed down the drain. I had been hoping-I had been praying- that he was from the future, just like me.
When I had pulled myself together, I said, 'Who taught you English?'
'Master.'
I got a little bit more than that out of him that day, but not much. Later, Novia and I got a little bit more. If I were to space it all out the way we got it, it would drive you crazy. So I am just going to give the gist of it here and let it go at that.
Hoodahs was a Moskito who had signed up with Captain Swan. They had raided down the Atlantic coast of South America, and maybe around the Horn. (Hoodahs's geography was pretty sketchy.) Eventually they had put in at some islands where there were rocks, trees, and goats, and not much else, hoping to shoot fresh meat. Hoodahs had been in the hunting party, and he had been left behind. Our guess was that a Spanish ship had come up, but it could have been no more than a change in the weather.
Eventually, he made a little raft and paddled it to one of the other islands. There had been a white man on it, and they had made friends and joined forces. Hoodahs called this man Master. Master had taught him English, and more or less converted him to Christianity. By that I mean he still believed everything Moskitos do, but he knew about God and Jesus, too, and I think may have liked them better.
They started building a real boat together, cutting little trees, sawing planks, seasoning the wood, and so forth. They had gotten pretty far with it, from what he said, when a ship came. Master went aboard to go back to England, but Hoodahs did not. Part of it was that he did not want to go to England, and part was that he did not trust the men on the ship. Or that is how it seemed to Novia and me.
He stayed on the island and stopped working on their boat. As well as I can figure, he was on the first island for a year or so, then with Master for at least two years and maybe longer. After that he was alone on Master's island for at least another year.
Spanish ships had come from time to time, and he and Master had al ways hidden their boat and hidden themselves, too. This time Hoodahs hid, but forgot to hide the boat-or maybe could not carry it by himself. These Spanish had dogs, and the dogs hunted him down. The Spanish caught him and made him a slave on their ship. Eventually they had sold him to the innkeeper.
As I said, I got a whole lot less than that when we were out on the boat. I am not sure whether Mahu was the
