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Only after he had crested the rise, and was winding his way through the tangle of tents and huts, did it occur to him that the derelict he'd left hooting into an empty rum bottle really was, or had been, at least, governor of this island - as well as of every other island between here and Florida.
He was striding along between the tents, mentally calculating how much of Davies' money he still had after three months of spending it lavishly on rum, and wondering how long a voyage he could afford - of course it wouldn't have to be very long, Christmas was less than two weeks away, and Hurwood had said that he'd consummate the eviction of Beth from her body "come Yule" - when a figure stepped in front of him. He looked up, and recognized Ann Bonny. He remembered that she had started up a romance with another pardoned pirate, Calico Jack Rackam, very shortly after Shandy had sailed for Haiti, and that the two of them had tried, unsuccessfully, to get Ann a divorce-by-sale.>"But .. Jack, Venner's going to wait till January, to link up with Charlie Vane ... "
"Damn Venner. Did I ever say I was resigning the captaincy of the Jenny?"
"Well, no, Jack, but we all assumed - "
"Damn your assumptions. Round 'em up and get aboard.
Skank's puzzled frown became a smile. "Sure ... cap'n." He turned and hurried away, his bare feet kicking up sprays of white sand.
Shandy had just run to a beached rowboat and begun to drag it to the water when he remembered where he'd heard of Carib Indians. Crazy old Governor Sawney had mentioned them to him, the night before the Carmichael and the Jenny sailed to meet Blackbeard in Florida. What had the old man said? Something about having killed his share of them in his day.
Shandy paused to squint speculatively up the slope toward the corner of the settlement where the weird old man had set up a little tent for himself. No, he told himself, resuming his struggle with the heavy boat - Sawney's old, but he's not two hundred.
But Shandy paused again a moment later, for he'd remembered something else. The old man had said something about "when you get to that geyser." The Fountain of Youth had been a sort of geyser. And when Shandy gave that first puppet show, and Sawney interrupted it with his ravings, hadn't he said, "faces in the spray ... almas de los perditos ... "? Faces in the spray, souls of the damned ...
Had Sawney been there at one time?
If so, he might be more than two hundred years old. It wouldn't really be surprising. Though it is surprising that he's so deteriorated. I wonder, he thought as once again he resumed tugging at the boat, what he did wrong.
Again he stopped. Well, now, if there is something, he thought, some effect, that can make a babbling idiot of a sorceror who's powerful enough to get to Erebus and buy a century or two of added lifetime, it's something I damn well better know about - if I want to do something more this time than just be picked up and dropped into the ocean.
Slowly at first, then more quickly as he remembered other puzzling things about old Sawney - his flawless but archaic Spanish, his handiness with magic - Shandy climbed back up the slope to the tents.
"Seen the governor around today?" he asked one lean old ex-pirate. "Sawney, I mean - not Rogers."
Shandy was smiling and had tried to keep his tone casual, but the man had seen the end of his conversation with the young ensign, and he stepped back and raised his hands placatingly as he answered. "Sure, Jack, he's in that tent of his, up toward the inlet. Take it easy, huh?"
Oblivious to the muttering and head-shaking in his wake, Shandy sprinted across the sand, broad-jumped over the cold cooking pit and pounded away toward the inlet where, half a year ago, he'd helped refit the Carmichael; and he paused to grin and catch his breath when he saw old Sawney crouched in front of the sailcloth tent he lived in these days, alternately taking swigs from, and peering intently into, a half-full bottle of rum.
The old man was wearing baggy, bright yellow trousers and an embroidered silk jacket, and if he had on any sort of neck-cloth it was concealed under his tangled beard, which was the color of old bleached bones.
Shandy plodded down the slope and sat down near him. "I'd like to talk to you, governor."
"Ah?" Sawney squinted at him. "Not fevered again, are you? Stay away from them chickens."
"No, governor. I want to know ... about bocors, magicians. Especially ones that have been to the ... the Fountain of Youth."
Sawney had another gulp from, and peek into, his bottle. "Plenty of bocors about. I ain't one."
"But you know what I mean by the Fountain of Youth? The ... geyser?"
The old man's only response was to spin the liquor around in the bottle and sing, in a high, cracked voice,
Mas molera si Dios quisiere - Cuenta y pasa, que buen viaje faza.
Shandy did a rough translation of this in his head - More will flow if God wills - count and let it happen, and the voyage will pass more quickly - and decided it was no help. "Very well," he said, controlling his impatience, "let's start somewhere else. Do you remember the Carib Indians?"
"Aye, cannibals. We wiped 'em out. Killed 'em all in the Cordoba expedition in '17 amd '18, killed 'em or took 'em to be slaves in Cuba, which meant the same thing. They had all the magic; they kept pens of Arawak Indians, the way you'd keep cattle. To eat, sure - but you know what was more important than that? Hah? The blood, fresh blood. The Caribs kept those Arawaks alive like you'd keep gunpower dry."
"Did they know about the place in the rain forest in Florida? The Fountain in the place where it feels like the ground is ... too solid?"
"Ah, Dios ... si," Sawney whispered, darting a glance at the sunlit harbor as if something in the sea might overhear. "It wasn't so dark there, I've heard, before they came ... damned hole into hell ... "
Shandy leaned forward a little and spoke quietly. "When did you go there?"
"1521," said Sawney clearly. He took an enormous gulp of rum. "I knew by then where it had to be - I could read the signs, in spite of the padres with their holy water and prayers ... I went in, and kept the gnat-clouds of ghosts away until I found it; vinegar will drive lice away from your body, but you need the black tobacco weed to drive away ghosts ... and I shed blood there, by the Fountain ... sprouted that plant. Did it just in time, too - as soon as I got out of that swamp there was a skirmish with the Indians, and I caught an arrow, and the wound festered ... I made sure some of my blood got into the sea. Blood and sea water, and I'll live forever, over and over again, while that plant's still there ... "
