Maddock and Bones used the opportunity to knock them fully unconscious, and then they tied them up with their boot laces. When they were finished they looked up to see Willis peering down through the hole, waving.
Bones waved back. “I thought your hands were tied?”
“I got loose. Who do y'all think gave those fellows a push from behind? Nice assist, though, Bones. Now go ahead and step into the loop, for real, and I’ll pull you up. Ladies first.”
Fabi allowed Willis to haul her up out of the torture chamber. They repeated the process with Bones and then Maddock, who asked Willis if there could be other intruders where those had come from.
“Just those two bozos.”
Maddock reiterated the need to get back to their boat. While the rain had let up some, the wind was now more forceful than before. They left the fort grounds and made their way back through the jungle, Willis in particular very wary of monkeys. But they emerged from the narrow path onto the beach without incident, only to be greeted by an unexpected sight.
A simple wooden boat with a large outboard motor lay beached up on the sand, not far from their dinghy. Maddock headed for the unknown craft.
“I’m guessing this is the boat your fan club took out here, Fabi.” He reached the open vessel and began searching it, rummaging through the console to see if he could find an ID. The others joined him and they overturned life jackets, a cooler, coils of rope. It didn’t take long for Bones to come up with something. He held it up: a solid brick of white powder.
Willis raised his eyebrows. “Bones, you gonna share some of that? Because that’s a little too much for one person.”
“Well, there’s Fabi…”
She shook her head and was about to say something when Maddock cut them off by taking a rope from the drug boat and tossing it to Willis. “Tie this off to the dinghy. Bones, help me push this thing out.”
Bones threw the block of powder into the water and the men shoved the boat out into the water until it floated while Willis connected the tow rope. Maddock pulled the dinghy out into the water and then got in it. “C’mon, let’s drag this thing out to sea, buy ourselves a little more time.”
With all four in the dinghy, they motored out into the bay, towing the drug boat behind them. When they neared the Sea Foam, they undid the rope, casting the interlopers’ boat adrift. Then they boarded the Sea Foam and pulled the dinghy aboard.
Maddock got behind the wheel and fired up the engine. “We need more information. Let’s get back into town and see what else we can learn about this sailor held prisoner.”
Chapter 13
The ripe smell of fish hung over the market that dominated the waterfront in the town’s modest commercial district. The four of them wandered through it, Fabi pointing out local delicacies to Bones and Willis while Maddock remained singularly fixated on their current objective: finding the elderly fisherman who was reputed to know all of the local legends and lore.
Upon arriving back at town and securing the boat, they had first visited the library. Fabi had explained to the librarian that they sought information about a sailor from long ago, and the librarian had referred them to an individual she said they would find at the fish market.
Far from an industrial scene like the seafood exchanges of Tokyo or even Havana, the market here was casual and mostly sedate. A line of crude wooden stalls were erected near the water, with a few fishermen still unloading the day’s catch. They unloaded nets and ice chests from dories and pulled up to the beach, haggling with the vendors in good-natured fashion. A gaggle of locals perused the offerings, which were often placed in burlap sacks for the trip home. Besides many types of fish, there were also oysters, clams, crabs, lobster, and shrimp on display.
Maddock eyed the fishermen he passed, but most of them, while adult males, were not what he would call elderly. He and the others traversed the length of the market without seeing a likely candidate. He turned around, looking for anyone who might help him find an elderly fisherman knowledgeable about local maritime history. He was about to admit they would just have to start approaching people at random when he spotted someone lying down on the deck of a weather-beaten fishing boat. The vessel lay right off the beach, in water so shallow it was barely floating, and its sole occupant reclined on a pile of nets. An old man.
“Old man and the sea, there?” Bones gave a subtle nod of the head.
Maddock nodded. “Fabi…” He looked over toward the boat, indicating that her language skills would likely be required. He asked Bones and Willis to wait in the market so that they wouldn’t appear too intimidating, four people boarding the boat at once.
“No problem,” Willis said. “We’ll keep an eye on you from here.”
“Maybe keep an eye on some of these shrimp, too.” Bones began chatting up a seafood vendor, pointing to the tasty crustaceans, while Maddock and Fabi waded out into ankle deep water until they were in a position to board the fishing boat.
“What’s this guy’s name again?” Maddock asked in a low voice.
“She said it was Jean-Claude Panier. I’ll do the greeting, you just smile and look friendly.”
“Got it.”
Fabi ascended the short boarding ladder and said something in Creole. The old man, who wore only a pair of rolled-up trousers stained with fish blood, and whose hair and beard were stark white, rose to a sitting position atop his mound of netting. He answered back in the same language while pointing to the vendor stands on the beach.
“He thinks we want fish,” Fabi translated for Maddock. She turned back to the fisherman and said something else, at the end of which the man waved them aboard. Maddock followed Fabi onto the deck of the old boat, which reeked of fish and saltwater and fuel. Maddock smiled and nodded to Panier, who nodded in return but did not bother to stand up.
Fabi spoke at length in Creole and then the man’s eyes seemed to light with recognition. He said some words in Creole with a raspy voice that had experienced much rum over the decades, and then Fabi turned to Maddock.
“He says he has heard a story of a ‘mad sailor’ who claimed to know the location of a shipwreck treasure — a very valuable one with many coins — that locals have searched for extensively but never found any trace of.”
The old man nodded at Maddock when Fabi paused, as if to assert that what he had said was true even though he could not understand the translation. Panier then added some more detail, which Fabi again passed on to Maddock.
“Now he says that either the sailor was lying or the shipwreck must be a long way from here, because if it was anywhere around here someone would have found it by now.”
Maddock and Fabi exchanged a glance while the fisherman remained silent, watching them.
“Ask him if he knows anything else… any other details at all.” Maddock made eye contact with the man as he said this, to show that he was serious, that this was an important matter to him. The mariner flexed his toes in the netting while he appeared to think about it. At length, he nodded and spoke with deliberation.
“There is one more thing,” Fabi relayed. The old man spoke again and Maddock watched Fabi’s eyebrows rise. Then she translated.
“He says that, according to local teachings, a priest came to exorcise the sailor of his demons. He persuaded the French to let him take the sailor with him. They went to the cathedral in Hinche, here in Haiti.