Synopsys: A dark short story for an otherwise light-hearted film. Finding Tulio and Miguel on his ship, COrtes condemns the two conmen to be flogged and then enslaved in the Cuban Sugar Plantations. Tulio and Miguel, however, believe they can escape.
Author's Note: This is an extended version of "Not Again". I wasn't fully satisfied with what I originally posted, even going into it, I had intended for a longer story, but it came out short. I sent the link to some friends and explained I was planning to extend it and asked them if I should post the extended version separately or just edit the original posting. It was suggested I post the extended version separately, so here it is. ^_^
"My crew was as carefully chosen as the disciples of Christ, and I will not tolerate stowaways," Cortes's voice rang through Tulio's mind as he watched a now half conscious Miguel being drug to the brig below.
"Your turn," the first mate said, grabbing Tulio's shoulders and dragging him forward.
"Hey, wait, no!" Tulio pleaded, "Can't we talk about this?"
"You will be flogged," Cortes's voice continued to echo, "And when we put into Cuba to resupply, God willing, you will be flogged some more... and then enslaved on the sugar plantations... for the rest of your miserable lives."
Miguel had acted as though 'Cuba' was the only thing he'd heard, but the blonde's plucky optimism disappeared at the first crack of the whip. Seeing a defiant look of hopefulness in both Miguel's and Tulio's eyes, the pair knowing that once reaching Cuba, they would be able to look for a way to escape, the first mate decided to rip that hope away from them. Rather than setting them side by side and letting the whip take them both in one blow, he had two of the crew members hold Tulio in place to watch as Miguel was flogged first, believing that forcing one to watch the other's fate would crush that hope.
Miguel's shrieks of pain as the whip cracked against his bare back didn't seem to faze the crew, but Tulio had winced at his friend's every cry. Pleads for mercy, from both men, fell on deaf ears. The first mate had been right, to a point. It had been torture for Tulio to sit by and watch helplessly as his partner took such a brutal beating. Tulio arched his back and let out a shout of pain as the whip came down on his own back. He closed his eyes and gasped for air during the brief moment of relief between the first lash and the next. "We can't stay here until we reach Cuba," Tulio thought to himself. "We could easily escape, we're clever enough for that," he told himself, "But this..." Tulio gasped as the whip cracked down on him again. "We can't go through this a second time."
Tulio gritted his teeth and instead of shouting, gave a muffled groan as the third lash came down upon him. He was determined not to give the first mate any more satisfaction than possible. The mand seemed to have taken too much pleasure in torturing the blonde earlier, he and the other crewmen laughing at Miguel's every pained shriek, as if it were a game. "This is all Miguel's fault," he thought irritably to himself, "If he hadn't talked me into trying to win that stupid map..." Tulio clenched his fists, digging his nails into his palm as the fourth lash took him. "No. I can't pin this all on Miguel. I LET him talk me into trying for that map. Everything would have been fine if I hadn't dropped my dice, or if we'd landed in the water, rather than those barrels..." Tulio twitched as another lash came across him. He'd stopped taking count, now. His thoughts were keeping him distracted.
Tulio reflected on what had lead them down this path. He'd been using loaded dice to swindel a group of sailors out of their money. As he and his partner were about to take their leave, they produced a map claiming to lead to El Dorado, the City of gold. Tulio had started to walk away, but Miguel convinced him otherwise. The sailors insited on a different set of dice. By some random stroke of luck, Tulio won the roll, and the map. He'd gloated as he bent down to pick up his winnings. That's when his dice rolled out of his pocket, revealing his trick. As the seventh(or was it the eighth lash of the whip now?) struck him, he regretted having gloated. The sailors' cries of foul play had drawn the attention of the city guards. Tulio had quickly thrown the blame on Miguel, insisting 'He gave me loaded dice!' This lead to a sword fight between the two of them. Wowing the crowds that had gathered round, they'd 'fought'
their way to safety. Tulio was always pleased with how well that rouse worked. Normally Tulio had the upper hand, but this time, a roof tile had slipped out from under him, giving Miguel the 'win'. Either way, it had worked like a charm, just as it always did. Unfortunately, neither of them had counted on the bull waiting for them on the other side of the building. Between the bull and the angry mob, their only salvation was to take a leap of faith into some barrels full of water. However, neither of them had expected those barrels to be loaded onto a ship, let alone a ship under the command of the infamous Cortes. Worse, fait has a horrible sense of humor, as the sailors the pair had swindled earlier were among the crew that found them.
Once Cortes had sentanced them to being flogged, they were drug back to the deck to be flogged and made a specticale of in front of the rest of the crew. "Tulio, you have a plan to get us out of here, right?" Miguel had asked in a hushed whisper. Even though he was whispering, his voice was disconcerted. His green eyes locked with Tulio's blue ones, full of hopeful trust.
"Yeah, yeah, Miguel," Tulio had promised, his eyes darting around, "We'll get out of this... Just give me a moment to..." He wasn't able to reach the locks on the pillory yoke around his neck, and his words and thoughts had been cut off as the first mate approached them, cracking the whip against the ground to grab their attention.
The two men looked up at the first mate. The first mate glared down at them. "I don't like that look of defiance in your eyes," he growled, bending down, and pressing the butt of the whip handle under Tulio's chin. The first mate looked quite intimidating, bent over the two shackled conmen, who were still on their knees. Miguel almost shrank away, but the look of defyance remained in Tulio's eyes. His partner was counting on him to find a way to get them out of this mess, just as he always did. If not for anything other than that reason alone, Tulio had to at least LOOK like he had a plan. He had to look confident. In truth, Tulio currently had nothing. He was doing an amazing job of hiding his own internal panic. The first mate gave a sinister laugh. "You're thinking I'm going to flog you both at once? Make this quick and painless? Oh no. You've stowed away on this ship, which has made our captain rather angry, and it appears you have a bit of history with some of our crew, and they want to make sure you get what's coming to you."
One of the smaller sailors from earlier nudged the bigger one, the one who'd lost the map. "How much you wanna' bet the blonde doesn't last ten lashes?"
The bigger sailor laughed, "Ten peasos says he makes it to five. And another ten says the other doesn't make it past twenty."
"You're on," the smaller sailor laughed.
The first mate chuckled. "I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to take that fire right out of your eyes." He turned his attention to Miguel, with a wry smile. "You're first," he growled, grabbing Miguel, not by his shirt, or the pillory yoke, but by his long scraggly golden locks and dragging him away from Tulio. Tulio opened his mouth to comment and tried to move, but the two sailors who'd been placing bets caught him and held him fast in place. The first mate threw Miguel forward, face first on the deck. A rough set of fingers intwined into the red fabric of Miguel's shirt and pulled it up, folding it over the yoke, to expose the blonde's bare back. The first mate laughed and glanced back at Tulio. "I'm going to make you watch your friend suffer, first. Then I'll deal with you."
Tulio couldn't figure out why the first mate had chosen Miguel first. Or why he thought forcing one to watch the other would work at all. Granted, there were wanted posters littering the city they'd just set sail away from showing the two young conmen were partners, but no one KNEW how their partnership worked. True, Tulio and Miguel were like brothers, having worked together for years. True, while Miguel WAS the weaker link and often needed someone reasonably responsible, like Tulio, to keep an eye on him, the blonde was perfectly cable of taking care of himself. But no one here KNEW that about them. Not all crime partners took care of each other the way they did. The first mate had completely hinged his bets on this to work. Tulio wanted to try to pretend it didn't bother him to watch as Miguel was flogged. He'd tried to make it seem as though any squeamishness he had came from the thought that his turn would be next, NOT that his best friend was being brutally manhandled, while he was forced to sit by and helplessly watch. Unfortunately, he hadn't fooled anyone into believing it. Some of the crew had already seen how well they worked together, already knew how Tulio could 'sell Miguel out' in order to try and sway himself out of trouble, only for the pair to fake fight their way out of a situation. In their current situation, however, they had no chance for making that happen.
The bigger sailor laughed, "Listen to him scream. I'm guessing he's never taken a proper beating in his life."
Tulio closed his eyes, trying to ignore the comment. It had been deliberate, the sailor leaning in towards his ear to say it, trying to get a rise out of him. After all, Tulio was the one the sailor was really mad at. He was the one who'd rolled the dice, then gloated about taking the sailors' money. However, he knew it was true. Tulio had come from a rough background. It was what made him so cautious, so synical, so money-hungry. Miguel's past wasn't nearly as dark; he'd been in a few scraps before, but nothing this brutal, and it was the blonde's plucky optimism that Tulio had found endearing about him. Miguel was the only person that had ever managed to make Tulio look on the bright side of a bad situation and relax. It was why they worked so well together, no matter how much they argued. He felt his stomach lurch as he watched the bull whip crack down on his partner's back. He wished he could have acted faster, gotten them out of this before it had all started. Miguel hadn't asked for this, didn't diserve this. The blonde had only wanted a life of adventure, after all.
Another crack across his own back snapped Tulio back to his present situation. Miguel had already been tossed in the brig. He hadn't even realized that it had been a good two-and-a-half minutes between the previous lash and this one. Not until the whip slashed into his skin, forcing a yowl of pain to escape his throat, that is. The first mate had noticed he'd been distracting himself with other thoughts and perpously waited between strokes, so as to prevent the old pain from darting straight into the new. Tulio's inability not to cry out made it apparent this tactic had worked. "You're stubborn, that's for sure, but I'm not finished with you, yet!"
Thirty strokes. The whip had crossed Tulio's back thirty times, before he fell over forward, gasping for air. Miguel had lasted 20, and Tulio 30. Even now, luck was not on the bigger sailor's side. His back stung and felt as though there may have been some blood running down it. His shirt had been folded over the pillory yoke around his neck and wrists in order to keep it out of the way of the whip. The crew laughed, and the first mate gave him a shove with his boot. "Is that all you've got? You took more than your friend," the first mate laughed, as his toes connected with Tulio's ribs, "I'll give you that." The first mate sat aside the whip and motioned toward the brig. "Get this long lout of my sight!"
The crewmen forced Tulio to his feet and drug him to the brig. Removing the pillory yoke, they tossed him in with Miguel and locked the grate. Tulio landed on his back with a thudding "Ooof" of pain. He groaned and lay flat, staring up at the metal grate above him. "We have to get out of here," he groaned in pain.
"Tulio?" Miguel's pain-filled voice cracked against his ears.
"M-Miguel?" Tulio groaned as he forced himself to roll over onto his stomach and push himself to his hands and knees. Miguel was sprawled out on the floor, and apparently hadn't made any attempts to move, until now. Tulio crawled his way over to his partner. "Miguel, are you alright?" He closed his eyes and shook his head. "I'm sorry, amigo, I wasn't fast enough this time."
"Tu..." Miguel grabbed at one of Tulio's sleeves and gave a pained cough for air, "Tulio, we've got to get out of here." Miguel's voice held no hint of accusation. Even through the obvious pain, there was still a look of trusting hope in the blonde's green eyes that Tulio could, and still would find a way to get them to safety.
"Yeah," Tulio nodded, helping Miguel sit up right. "Yeah, I know. We can't wait for Cuba to make a break for it." Tulio closed his eyes and sighed, trying to think.
"God, that stings like Hell Fire," Miguel complained as Tulio helped him upright.
"Hang in there, Partner, I'll find a way to get us out of here. We can't go through that... Not again."