Death Head Grin

After weeks of sailing east against wind and tide and weather, eight weeks of prayer to the Lord and to His Blessed Virgin Mother, Captain Viallpando realized that the traveler who’d so handedly taken command of his ship was possessed of the Devil. Any English or Dutch ruffian could pirate, but only someone in league with the Enemy could do so single-handed. Only the Devil’s servants cracked into existence out of the thin Atlantic air itself in flashes of St. Elmo’s fire. Only demons could so casually execute the women and children settlers Captain Viallpando carried to New Spain. Only Satan could provide a man with such monstrously efficient weapons to carry out this task.

The traveler wore an English face, though his skin held a deep bronze cast that the first mate insisted was Italian. The traveler spoke perfect Spanish with only the barest accent. He told the captain little as the days became weeks and the crew and passengers fell, on way or another, to disease, sheer thirst, or the traveler’s attentions.

The traveler’s primary weapon was a pistol no bigger than the flintlocks he instructed captain and crew to toss over the side. Coal black and on the brightest days, when shafts of tropic sunlight danced across its stock, the pistol fired ten rounds or more without the need for reloading. When he did reload, the traveler eschewed match and power charge and ball in favor of ejecting a small metal rectangle from the pistol’s grip. Spare balls—the color of brass with tapered noses—adorned the traveler’s gun belt. He never appeared above deck without it, or the pistol, tied to his hip where a gentlemen might wear a sword. Alfonso, the cook, believed the traveler even slept in his gun belt, though Captain Viallpando held out doubts of that. Why would those in league with darkness require sleep, or drink, or food? If the Devil could empower them with such weapons, or such unholy bloodlust, it must be simple for the Fallen One to remove his servant from human concerns, like sleep or sustenance.

On his eighteenth day aboard ship the traveler appeared on deck. He told the captain to tack south by twenty degrees. "I’ve decided this course is optimum for our purposes," he said, in low, Barcelona tones. "Tell your men to take heart, Captain. All of this will be over soon."

That night captain and select crew met inside Viallpando’s cabin, long past the traveler’s retirement to the quarters of those settlers he’d murdered. Watchers gave no sign of him, above or below.

"That is how we know he is still human," Alfonso the cook insisted. "A knife in his sleep will kill him just as dead as he killed Louis, or Coronado, or—"

Captain Viallpando raised a hand to stop the litany. All present remembered their fallen mates, to say nothing of the settlers. Visions of the traveler’s handiwork invaded the captain’s dreams. For the last five nights he’d woken in cold sweat, teeth aching from how he’d clinched them.

He dreamt of the women and the children, their bodies limp and sagging, a dark, lidless third eye opened in the pale expanses of their foreheads. In his dreams, the captain saw them falling like dolls over the port rail, disappearing into the sea, or floating alongside ship staring up with their last, shocked expressions of horror and disbelief. They accused him with those looks, and why not? It was only just. Hadn’t he failed them with his stubborn refusal to die in their place? Hadn’t he failed everyone now dead at the traveler’s hands by his continued, dishonorable living? Was this not his ship, the people within his responsibility?

Viallpando made sure to record all this in his log, though chances of it reaching Spain were slim. The captain maintained faith, as any Christian should, but faith was a ship that sailed only so far.

The captain turned to the first mate. "Have you reasoned where we’re going, Fedrico? Is there anything out here?"

Fedrico Raphael shook his head as he unfurled a map across the captain’s table. Rough outlines of the Caribbean, Iberia, and Africa surrounded a broad expanse of tropical water. Black arrows marked the flow of tide; white arrows marked the winds. "There is nothing in these waters," he said. "Nothing but monsters, and even then…"

"Men are the only monsters," Diego, one of the hands, muttered. Viallpando chose to ignore this. Like Diego, he had seen war in the Dutch lowlands and knew the truth of what Diego said. Not that it did them any good. He’d seen butchery and bloodshed enough to unman the hardest heart…but nothing like the traveler. The traveler’s was a cold, indifferent breed of slaughter. In a day he’d executed twenty-five passengers. Most died on their knees, praying, shot through the back of the head by the demonic coward. Surely no one man was capable of such barbarity without the Devil’s aid. Would that they’d ferried an Inquisitor on this trip.

"We’ve a month of food and six weeks of fresh water left," said Alfonso. "With rationing, we might stretch that to two months at the most. Long enough to reach Brazil with luck, though I’d place no bets, Captain."

Viallpando shook his head. "We’re all gambling with our own lives, regardless," he said. "Betting that he won’t kill us all; that he needs us to man the sails."

"And why?" Diego asked. "If he’s the devil’s own, as you say, Captain, then why keep us at all? All he has is our fear keeping us cowed, taking his orders."

"He’d kill us all, soon as look at us," Martinez, another hand, said.

The captain nodded in agreement. "He said as much to me today, when he ordered us to turn southeast."

The others grew still. First mate and cook leaned forward. "Did he say anything else, Captain?" Raphael asked. Now, with the settlers committed to the deep, the traveler spoke only to the captain, and then only to relay orders.

Viallpando shook his head again. "Only to say that this will all be over soon." The men drew back at this, and their captain met each set of eyes in turn. "I would not dare speak for you, gentlemen, but I find no hope in these words."

All nodded, agreeing.

***

Dawn found the traveler at the forecastle, staring into an orange sky. Captain Viallpando knew enough to know when a man was triangulating their position by the look in his eyes.

When he ceased being distracted by mathematics, the traveler nodded to captain, his tanned, English face broken by a smile. "Good morning, Captain. Take heart, my friend: today will be a good day."

"Is that so? For whom, sir? If I may ask."

"You may ask me anything, Captain. After today, I doubt it shall matter one way or the other."

"And why is that?"

"Because if you check the stars you’ll see we’ve passed what my people call the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. There is now over four thousand feet of water below us. More than enough for my purposes."

"Which are?"

The traveler’s smile became an unnerving grin. His teeth were far too white, far too straight, as if they’d never been used. As far as Viallpando had observed, they weren’t. In nineteen days he’d never seen the traveler eat.

"You’re an inquisitive man, Captain," the traveler said. "I appreciate that. You’ve no idea how rare a thing that is in this day and age. You won’t believe this, but I am genuinely sorry for all I’ve put you and your crew through."

"And what of the women? And the children, sir?" A slight hitch crept into the captain’s voice. He cleared his throat and asked, "Have you anything for them?"

The traveler’s leer disappeared, much to the captain’s relief. "That is different. They are void. Trust me: their deaths have saved countless millions of lives."

"How?"

The leer reappeared as suddenly as it had vanished. It lit the traveler’s green eyes with what could only be madness. Viallpando had seen that look in many a Duchman’s eyes during the Low Country wars. "After today, Captain. Tomorrow at dawn, I swear to tell you everything. Bring me any Bible on the ship and I’ll gladly put my hand on it." And here the traveler leaned into the Captain, his voice descending into whisper. "It won’t burn me with its touch, captain, regardless of what you might think."

Viallpando narrowed his eyes and backed a step away from the traveler, who threw back his head and laughed. The captain saw Diego approaching from the corner of his eye. So too did the traveler after a moment of mirth.

"I’m sorry, Captain," Diego said, raising the pistol he held. "But this must be done."

"You assured me all your weapons were well over the side, Captain," the traveler said. "Is this a mutiny?"

"This is still my ship," Viallpando said. "Put down the pistol, Diego. We both know it’ll be useless."

The traveler wore a double-breasted suit, as black as the shirt beneath was white. Something—the fabric, perhaps, which looked like wool and yet was not—protected the traveler from pistol shots. He’d taken three—two in front, one to the back— within minutes of his arrival in that flash of noise and fire. They’d marred his jacket but left him standing, while his volleys had torn holes in men large enough to shelter fists. In the light of this, Captain Viallpando saw no choice but to order the guns tossed away at the traveler’s insistence. They were like toys to this monster.

"We never tried a headshot, Captain," Diego said, echoing a thought Viallpando had heard from his own mind many a time. "I’ll wager there’s nothing but ordinary flesh behind those eyes."

"It’s a wager you’ll win," the traveler said. "I’ve never claimed to be anything but human."

"Put it down, Diego," the captain said again. "This will solve nothing."

"The hell it won’t," the mate insisted. "I’ve got him in my sights. Take his gun, Captain. For the Lord’s sake, do it now!"

"Your man will be dead before you move, Captain," the traveler said. "I suggest you take his gun and we’ll go about our day. Believe me when I say I understand how trying all of this has been."

Trying, the captain thought. Good Lord of our salvation, he calls it "trying." "Give it to me, Deigo," Viallpando said, holding out a hand. "This is not the way. We’ll find another, I promise you, but this…" Viallpando shook his head.

The pistol shook in Diego’s hand. He looked from captain to traveler with the eyes of rabbit caught by snarling dogs. He licked his chapped lips and said, "I have a wife."

"I know," Viallpando said.

"Children. I have a son in Cadiz. In a month he’ll be twenty-three."

"I know, Diego," the captain said. "Give me the pistol."

Diego licked his lips again. Feet shuffling, sweat shinning, he tapped out the powder, settled the flint, and turned the pistol over. The captain slipped it into his belt.

"Thank you, Captain," the traveler said. "I knew you’d listen to reason."

The traveler drew his gun in a smooth, practiced blur and fired from the hip. All heads turned at the short, sharp bark of the traveler’s weapon. A cloud of bloody vapor spouted from Diego’s back. The mate swayed with the shot, refusing to fall, his eyes wide and full of disbelief. They looked into the captain’s eyes and Viallpando knew he’d see that look in his dreams for the rest of his life…however long that might be.

Then Diego fell to his knees, kneeling forward with the ship’s slow, steady pitch. The new, ragged hole in the center of his back still smoked from the traveler’s shot.

"You’ll most likely wish to hold services for him," the traveler said. His voice was as cold and even as a frozen stream. "You may do so, but then we must be about the day. We’re close Captain. Again, I swear to you that this is almost…almost over."

Captain Viallpando found nothing to say to the demonic traveler. Diego’s corpse filled his vision. The traveler must have realized this, for he moved below quietly, and with no further comment, the crew members giving him as wide a birth as they gave their captain when, after a moment to ensure that he would not stumble, Viallpando walked across the main deck and stepped below himself.

A southern wind, warm and full of brine, carried the scent of cordite across the uncaring Atlantic.

***

Viallpando lay awake that night. In memory of Diego, the men agreed to hold no councils. The captain informed his crew all of the traveler’s promise upon concluding Diego’s funeral. With no priest aboard Captain Viallpando performed the service, mouthing his way through prayers his men knew better than he. They fired many a question at him, none of which he could answer. Was Diego in hell now, having died without confession? Or did he swelter in Purgatory? Surely God would understand, given the extraordinary circumstances. After all, God was merciful, as were His Son and Virgin Mother. If soldiers in the field, charged with their holy cause, could enter heaven after death in the midst of a pitched battle, then how could God deny Diego?

The captain reasoned He could not…and yet he prayed inside his cabin, far into the night, just in case. He prayed to Father, Son, and Holy Sprit for all those taken by this hellish voyage. He prayed for wisdom, for a sign. Eventually he prayed only for the sleep.

It did not come, and so Captain Viallpando was wide awake, kneeling in the wan light of his single oil lamp, when the air before his table began to shimmer. At once he drew Diego’s pistol, already reloaded, cocked back the hammer, and took aim. A sailor, any sailor, survives first by not making mistakes, and secondly by never repeating them.

As before, the air wove and bent like windblown grain. It shimmered as the distance shimmers on a hot day on the plains. Blue lightning sparked and crackled from the center, coalescing into a pillar of that same St. Elmo’s fire that heralded the traveler’s arrival. Something else, another being, another demon sought this plane of existence, clawing its way into the world from God-knew-what-kind of hideous pit. Captain Viallpando set his jaw, wrapped both hands around the pistol grip and waited.

The fire coagulated around a human shape. A man stepped from it into the cabin, deck boards creaking beneath his weight. The fire disappeared, and the air took on a sweet, burnt smell. The captain’s vision doubled for a moment and he fought to the urge to blink, to sway, or vomit from the stink, the pure sweetness lightening his head.

The new arrival was paler than the traveler. He wore a coat so long its hem scrapped the tops if his black boots. It buttoned from his waist to the pale skin of his neck. Long, dark hair spilled over his shoulders, framing a waxy, angular face. Another Englishman, this one with gray, sword-colored eyes. Eyes that stared into the Captain with a knowing, probing look Viallpando recognized at once. It was the look of a hardened soldier who’d seen too many battles, one who fights until the last man even as he watches all around him fall dead.

"If you fire," the new arrival said, "he’ll hear and know I’ve arrived. Then all of this will be for naught and all your crew will all die. Understand?"

The newcomer’s Spanish was rougher and heavily accented. A simple tongue, devoid of the traveler’s high, needless formality. The newcomer wore no satanic gun …though there could be any number of weapons within that coat.

As if in answer to this thought, the new arrival held up his hands. "I’m unarmed, Captain, and I’ve come to help." One hand slid beneath the collar of his coat and a chorus of snaps sounded as the newcomer opening it with a smooth, practiced motion. "My name is Seth Walsh," he said. Below the coat he wore a pair of black trousers and a simple shirt with no ties or buttons. A glowing box, no bigger than a playing card, hung from his hip where the traveler wore a gun. White words the captain could not read (they were English) stood out in the black field of this Seth’s shirt. "I’ve come for the man who’s taken your ship from you. You know of whom I speak?"

The captain nodded, not trusting his voice. He cleared his throat and tried: "That man…is he a devil?"

"No," this Seth Walsh said. "His name is Carl Hernandez Denning and he is only a man. I’ve come to undo what he’s done. With your help, and a little luck, I may be able to stop all this from happening."

"I do not understand, sir," the captain said, "What is he, then, if only a man? Why has he done these…monstrous things to us? My ship, my crew…my passengers…?"

"He believes that by doing them he can change the course of history," Seth said. "In a way, he has."

"I still—"

"You had children aboard your ship," the new arrival said, not a question.

Captain Viallpando nodded anyway. "They were among the first he executed. Barbaric monster."

Seth Walsh nodded, as if in agreement long-since reached between them. "Several of those children carried smallpox in their blood. The disease is common throughout Europe, particularly in childhood. Most of your crew fought it in their own time and survived. But when those children reach their destination the disease will spread throughout the natives of…what you call ‘New Spain.’ It will decimate them, wiping out whole villages, spreading north with trade and movement. From my perspective, it already has destroyed them. It must if history is to stand unchanged."

The captain lowered his pistol and shook this off as well. "What is this talk of history, sir? I still do not—"

"This man you think of as ‘the traveler,’" Seth said, "comes from what you…and even I consider the future. He believes that the destruction of your ship will avert the outbreak of disease in New Spain. He is mistaken…and insane, but that’s never stopped anyone at any point in time. As I’m sure you’re well aware. Seven hundred and twenty-three years from now, this man, Denning, will steal a piece of technology and use it to travel here. I need to know the exact date, the exact time, and the exact position of your ship when he first appeared. It’s the only way he can be stopped. Will you help me, Captain?"

Viallpando eyed this Seth. "Only if you swear you will destroy him. Swear it to me and I’ll give you all the aid within my power to give."

Seth nodded. "You have my word, Captain. Now tell me what I need to know."

The captain crossed his cabin and pulled out a log book from the shelf. "It was nineteen days ago," he said. "This…man…Denning, you call him? He appeared on deck at half-noon on the seventeenth of April. He stepped out of the air…just as you did." The captain eyed the glowing box clipped to Seth’s waist. "Is that the…technology he uses?"

"Yes," Seth said. "Do you know your position? It must be exact, or all of this will be for nothing."

"We were within a day’s sailing of San Salvador," Captain Vialpando said. "Say…forty leagues from the shore."

Seth Walsh shook his head. "Not good enough." He let out a deep, resigned sigh of one who knows what he must do and dreads it.

The captain nodded, choosing not to consider the implications of this Seth’s words. To travel, to sail through time as easily as he sailed oceans…that was as insane a thought as the traveler…or any of his actions. "There was a battle. As soon as he appeared my crew fell upon him. We thought he was a devil. He has a weapon, a demonic pistol that—"

"I know," Seth said. "We call it a SIG-Saucer." He stared into the cabin’s wall and his gray eyes appeared to cool and grow harder. "In our times they are common, sold in shops on street corners."

Viallpando’s eyes widened. "Madness," he said.

Seth Walsh snorted in derision. "Yes…madness lives in every age…How many are you left aboard?"

"Thirteen, sir, from an original compliment of twenty-one, not counting passengers…of them there were more than five score. He killed them all."

Seth Walsh frowned down at the table of logs and charts. "You couldn’t take a bearing at the time, I know. Show me your best guess, Captain, and make it your very best."

Captain Viallpando hesitated, calculating backwards in his head. After an extended time he placed a finger to the east of Admiral Columbus’ profitable colony, where it was said men rode the natives like two-legged mules.

Seth Walsh nodded at Viallpando’s indication. "There’s nothing for it," Seth Walsh said in a low, conspiratorial tone, talking only to himself. "Nothing to do but do it." He straightened and extended a hand. "Thank you for your assistance, Captain."

Viallpando gladly shook the pale Englishman’s hand in both of his. "I must ask, sir…from where do you and this man come? From what place? And…what time? If you have truly come from some distant time?"

"I have," Seth said. "And I can only tell you that we come from far into your future, from a country that will not be born for another two hundred years. I’ve already said too much, and only because if my mission is a success I’ll have never been here. And you, captain, will have no memory of our meeting."

Captain Viallpando shook all of this away as well. "I…apologize, sir. But how could anyone forget this?"

Half of Seth Walsh’s mouth stretched into a smile. Lamplight etched shadows into the many lines of his face. Small pinwheels of soft, red light appeared within his eyes and in that moment he looked more demonic than his quarry ever had.

"Do not worry, Captain," Seth Walsh said, bowing from the waist. "If I am successful, all of this will be a dream, forgotten." He touched the glowing box on his belt. The air shimmered in its telling way. The pillar of fire reappeared, humming as it burnt the air, giving off a scent like lighting. Seth Walsh disappeared into this as the captain watched. The fire faded into a dark after-image inside Vialpando’s eyes. Exactly like a lightning strike, he thought, as the room swam back to focus.

Afterward, Viallpando knelt again in prayer. He prayed for the death of this monster, Denning, now that he knew the traveler’s name. He prayed for the success of Seth Walsh, assuming the visitor was not a demon as well. He prayed for the souls of his dead men and dead passengers. Most of all he prayed to Father, Son and Spirit that, whatever the future might bring, it would be better than the past.

"Captain?"

Captain Viallpando startled at the sound of Diego’s voice. He shook his head, clearing it, and found himself on deck, hands gripping the forecastle. The main sails snapped and rippled in the morning wind…but had it not just been the depth of night?
"Captain?" Diego’s voice, cautious now, hesitant. As only fits the dead…wasn’t Diego dead? For a frightened moment Captain Viallpando was sure of it. I watched him die, he thought. Didn’t it? Or had that been a dream?

"Everything all right, sir?" Diego asked, drawing closer. He looked askance into his captain’s eyes with suspicion and a true concern. "Anything you require?"

A plan, the captain thought. A plan to escape…from what?

He looked out over the ship’s shirt. Mates and hands scurried about their business. A gaggled of ladies took their afternoon walk along deck, one towheaded boy clinging to the dress of a plump woman Captain Viallpando had considered escorting below decks when she’d first arrived…

Somehow this struck the captain wrong, pulling a cord deep in his heart. He was sure these women, that child, were all dead. But how could that be? Here they were, alive.

"Bit of dizziness, I think, Diego," Captain Viallpando said. "And something…strange."

"A feeling in your bones, Captain?" the mate asked, smiling so his mustache rolled like a fat caterpillar on hot stones. "Last night’s French rum, I think. Woke up with a bit of it still inside myself. That north wind we hit at half-past eight, and the way it moved the ship…I don’t might telling you, Captain, that move sent the last of it flying out of me right quick. Over the side with it, I say. Damned stuff will rot you out."

The captain nodded. He’d come across a case of the wine in Seville. With nowhere to store it and no potential buyers (the French marks on the bottles being enough to dissuade a buyer) he’d hauled it below and there it stayed, until last night. The men of first watch had taken to it in celebration for their passage through the Pillars and into the open sea. Surely that caused today’s disquiet…along last night’s strange dreams.

Captain Viallpando returned Diego’s smile, clapping him on the shoulder. "You’re a wiser man than I, Diego."

"Does that mean I have leave to chat up that farmer’s daughter to starboard?"

"Not on your life, man," Captain Viallpando said, cuffing him again, harder this time. "You’re married. Back to work. Keep the others sharp. God only knows what that French poison’s done to them."

"Aye, Captain," Diego said, still eyeing the supple farmer’s daughter.