Inocencio

"Inocencio" by Rex Ellingwood Beach is a novel set in the early 20th century that explores themes of love, passion, and the complexities of human relationships. The story follows the life of Inocencio, a character navigating the challenges of his environment, influenced by socio-economic struggles and personal desires. Beach's rich storytelling and vivid characterizations bring to life the struggles and triumphs of individuals caught in the tides of fate, making it a compelling read that reflects on the nature of identity and resilience.

• Short story

								
I

Captain Inocencio prepared to let himself self over the side of the
schooner. Outside, the Caribbean was all agleam, save where the
coral-reef teeth gnashed it into foam; inside, a sand beach, yellow in
the moonlight, curved east and west like a causeway until the distance
swallowed it. Back of that lay the groves of cocoanut-trees, their
plumes waving in the undying undulations that had never ceased since
first the trade-winds breathed upon them. Beneath the palms themselves
the jungle was ink-black, patched here and there with silver. The air
was heavy with the slow rumble of an ever-restless surf and, all about,
the sea was whispering, whispering, as if minded to tell its mysteries
to the moon, not yet two hours high.

It was the sort of night that had ever wakened wild impulses in Captain
Inocencio's breast. It was on such a night that he had first felt the
touch of a woman's lips; it was on such another night that he had first
felt a man's warm blood upon his hands. That had been long ago, to be
sure, in far Hayti, and since that time both of those sensations had
lost much of their novelty, for he had lived fast and hard, and his
exile had plunged him into many evils. It was on such a night, also,
that he had begun his wanderings, fleeing southward between moonrise and
moonset; southward, whither all the scum of the Indies floated. But,
even to this day, when the full of a February moon came round with the
fragrant salt trades blowing and the sound of a throbbing surf beneath
it, the sated, stagnant blood of Captain Inocencio went hot, his thin
mulatto face grew hard, and a certain strange exultance blazed within
him.

His crew had long since come to recognize this frenzy, and had they now
beheld him, poised half nude at the rail, his fierce eyes bent upon the
forbidden shore, they would have ventured no remark. As it happened,
however, they were all asleep, all three of them, and the captain's lips
curled scornfully. What could black men know about such subtleties as
the call of moonlight? What odds to them if yonder palm fronds beckoned?
They had no curiosity, no resentfulness; otherwise they, too, might have
dared to break the San Blas law.

It was four years now since he had begun to sail this coast, and even
though he was known on every cay and bay from Nombre de Dios to
Tiburon, and even though it was recognized that the Señor "Beel
Weelliams" paid proper price for cocoa and ivory nuts, his head trader
had never beaten down the people's distrust. On the contrary, their
vigilance had increased, if anything, and now, after four years of
scrupulous fair dealing, he, Captain Inocencio, was still compelled to
sleep offshore and under guard, like any common stranger.

It had made the Haytian laugh at first; for who would wish to harm a San
Blas woman, with the streets of Colon but a hundred miles to the west?
Then, as the months crept into years, and for voyage after voyage he
never saw a San Blas woman's face, he became furious. Next he grew
angry, then sullen, and a sense of injury burned into him. He set his
wits against theirs; but invariably the sight of his schooner's sails
was a signal for the women to melt away--invariably, when night came,
and he and his blacks had been herded back aboard their craft, the women
returned, and the sound of their voices served to fan the flame within
his breast.

Night after night, in sheltered coves or open river-mouths, the captain
of the Espirita had lain, belly down, upon the little roof of the
deck-house, his head raised serpent-wise, his gloomy eyes fixed upon the
cook-fires in the distance. And when some woman's figure suddenly stood
out against the firelit walls, or when some maiden's song came floating
seaward, he had breathed curses in his bastard French, and directed a
message of hate at the sentinel he knew was posted in the jungle
shadows. At times he had railed at his crew of spiritless Jamaican
"niggers," and lusted for a following of his own kind--men with the
French blood of his island in their veins, men who would follow where
the moonlight flickered. He had even gone so far, at one time, as to
search the water-fronts from Port Limon to Santa Marta in quest of such
fellows; he had winnowed the off-scourings of the four seas gathered
there, but without success. They were villainous chaps, for the main
part, crossed with many creeds and colors, and ready for any desperate
venture; but he could not find three helpers of sufficient hardihood to
tamper with the San Blas virgins. Instead, they had retold him the tales
he already knew by heart; tales of swift and sudden retribution
overtaking blacks and whites; retribution that did not halt even at the
French or the hated Americanos. They told him that, of all the motley
races gathered here since earliest Spanish days, the San Blas blood
alone retained its purity. It was his boss, the Señor Williams, who had
gone back farthest into history, and it was he likewise who had
threatened him with prompt discharge if he presumed to trespass. The
Señor Williams was not one to permit profitable trade relations to be
jeopardized by the whim of a Haytian mulatto.

Inocencio had listened passively; then, when alone, smiled. He owed no
loyalty. He had no law. Even the name he went by was a fiction.

He continued to make his trips and, when he came driving in ahead of the
humming trade-winds, his schooner laden with the treasures of the
islands, the back streets of Colon awoke to his presence and prepared to
greet him. But however loud the music in the cantinas, however fierce
the exaltation of the liquor in him, however wild the orgy into which he
plunged, he could never quite drown the memory of those sleepless vigils
far to the eastward. Ever in his quiet moments he heard the faint song
of San Blas women wafted by the breath of the sea, ever in his dreams he
saw the slim outlines of girlish figures black against a flaring
camp-fire.

Four years this thing had grown upon him, during which he haunted the
San Blas coast. And then, one night, he slipped overside and swam
ashore. It was not so dangerous as it seemed, for, once he had gained
the shelter of the jungle, no less than a pack of hounds could have
followed him, inasmuch as the thickets were laced by a network of trails
that gave forth no sound to naked soles, and the rustling branches
overhead, played upon by the never-ceasing breeze, drowned all signal of
his presence. Once he had defied the tribal law, he knew no further
peace. It was like the first taste of blood to an animal. Thereafter
Inocencio, the outlaw, whose name was a symbol of daring, became a
jackal prowling through the midnight glades, tasting the scent of the
villages, and staring with hungry eyes from just beyond the shadow's
edge. Rather he became a panther, for in his caution was no cowardice,
only a feline patience. Village after village he hunted until he had
marked his prey. Then he waited to spring.

To be sure, he had never spoken with the girl, nor even seen her

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