The Columbus Affair: A Novel

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BÉNE STEPPED FROM HIS TRUCK AND WALKED TOWARD THE MUSEUM’S entrance. He’d come alone. He never brought men or guns here. No need. The tiny village of Charles Town sat in the Buff Bay River valley, a peaceful notch a few kilometers south from Jamaica’s north shore. After the Maroons Windward sect, led by Captain Quao, defeated the British in 1793, a signed peace treaty between former slaves and masters granted 1,000 acres of land to the Charles Town Maroons, tax-free, in perpetuity. About 1,200 Maroons still lived on that land, in the shadows of the mountains, beside the river, struggling with high unemployment and continual impoverishment. Farming remained their main source of income, tiny mountainside tracts leased from absentee owners that produced coffee, nutmeg, and charcoal. But there was also a block-making and furniture shop, a school, and a few rum bars.

He knew all of the prominent families. Dean, Duncan, Irving, Hartley, Shackleford. Most sat on the Council of Elders. Frank Clarke served as the Maroon colonel, elected three years ago to be in charge of the community.

Béne liked the colonel, an educated man full of expertise and caution. A graduate of the University of the West Indies, born nearby, Clarke worked in the United States for three decades as a stockbroker before rediscovering himself and returning home to Charles Town. He now championed causes islandwide, becoming as close to a national spokesperson as the Maroons ever had.

“Ah, Béne, yuh noh dead yet?” Clarke called out.

He smiled at the patois way of asking how have you been?

“Not dead yet, my friend. But not for the lack of trying.”

Frank grinned. He was pushing seventy, but with only a dusting of gray in his short brown locks. Little fat adorned his lanky frame. He wore thick glasses with round metal-rimmed lenses that provided a singularly intense look to his dark eyes. He was dressed in jeans shredded at both knees and a dirty black shirt that hung shirttail out. One hand held a rusted machet.

“You working today?” Béne asked, pointing to the old clothes.

“Taking some people up the mountain. To the ruins. Going to teach them the old ways.”

Frank Clarke was passionate about Maroon history. He’d been taught by a great-grandaunt who’d been a local chieftain. Last year Clarke had brought life to that heritage by starting the Charles Town Maroon Museum. Béne had helped with money for the construction of a building, erected in the old style of hewn timber pilings, tin sides, and a thatched roof.

“How’s all this doing?” he asked.

He’d not visited in a few months.

“We get people. Not many, but some. The tour guides bring ’em. Slow and steady. Every dollar we make helps keep the place open.”

Colonels headed the various Maroon communities islandwide. He knew they all met at least once a month in a loose form of Parliament. Maroon land was not subject to Jamaican taxation or much regulation. They governed themselves, treaties from long ago assuring that independence.

He liked coming here, discussing the old ways, and he’d learned many things about the lost mine from Frank Clarke.

A Taino legend told the story of two caves. One called Amayauna, meaning “of no importance.” The other, Cacibajagua, “of great importance.” Neither had ever been found. Part of the tale, which Maroons adopted as their own, included how the Tainos showed Columbus a place in the mountains, a cave, where veins of gold ran two inches wide. But after 500 years of searching no trace of any mine had ever been found. A myth? Maybe not. Something Tre Halliburton mentioned yesterday had tugged at his brain all night.

“The Columbus family’s hold on the island was gone. The Spanish had regained control, and the Inquisition would shortly arrive. No longer would anyone protect Jamaican Jews. Thankfully, the community had taken precautions, secreting away its wealth in a location known only to a man identified as the Levite.”

So he’d driven across the mountains from his estate on the south slope to here, on the north, to see a man with knowledge.

“I need to know more about the mine,” he said to Clarke.

“You still lookin’? Can’t shake it?”

“Not now.”

Frank once told him about another legend. A cave supposedly guarded by an iron gate that no Maroon had ever been able to penetrate. They called it Cacibajagua, place of importance, same as the Tainos. Many had tried to pass through the gate, all had failed. He realized Maroons, like the Tainos, lived by their stories. The more fantastical the better. Jamaicans liked to say how proud they were of Maroons, but few knew anything about them. Even stranger, Maroons knew little about themselves. Like the Tainos, Maroons left no written history, no edifices, nothing to remember them by except songs, proverbs, place-names, and trails in the forest. His hope was that this old story might be grounded in some fact.

So he asked, “The Jews. How were they with the Maroons?”

This was a subject they’d never broached, but now he wanted to know.

“The Jews were different,” Frank said. “Not really Spanish or English. Not African. Not Taino. But they were persecuted, as we were. Sure, they owned most of the businesses and made money, but they weren’t equals with the Spanish or English. They were beat down. Many laws were passed against them. Did you know that Jews could only own two slaves, no more. Unless they owned a plantation, and that was rare. And they could only have other Jews as indentured servants.”

No, he’d not known that.

“No laws, though, stopped Jews from doing business with slaves,” Frank said. “They sold goods to ’em and white people hated that. They said it encouraged slaves to steal from masters, since Jews gave ’em a place to spend the money. That led to a lot of bad feeling toward them. Jews also sold Maroons ammunition. That was the one thing we could never make on our own. Guns we stole off dead British soldiers, ammunition had to be bought.”

“You never told me any of this before.”

“Béne, there’s a lot you’ve never asked about.”

“Where is this place of the iron gate?”

Frank smiled. “There are things I can’t speak of.”

“I’m Maroon.”

“That you are. So you should know that there are things we don’t speak of.”

“Then tell me more about the Jews.”

The colonel apprised him with a skeptical eye. “Like I said, they sold Maroons powder and shot when we fought the English. But they also sold to the English. Bad feelings came from that on both sides. Colored people acquired full rights here in 1830. After that, the Jews were the only free men without the right to vote. That didn’t come until years later, and it was the freed colored who fought against Jewish equality for so long.” He paused. “Always thought that strange. But the Jews can’t be faulted. They were businesspeople. They feared the English would lose tolerance and seize their property, expelling them. So they played both sides.”

He relieved Clarke of his machet and used the blade to sketch in the dirt.

“What is that?” Béne asked his friend.

Only bird twitters and humming insects disturbed the peaceful morning.

“Where did you see this?”

The words came thin, rasping, and harsh.

“What is it?”

Frank stared at him.

“The key to the iron gate.”