Rio Tinto: Lost Coconuts

by Sealie Vaughn West

Overview

I’m just nine years old, not knowing what life is all about, looking at the grains of white sand, hoping that someday soon I will become a man. I’m a warrior; I’m a hunter; I’m a fisherman; I’m a survivor. In this godforsaken place, I can only see the darkness that lies before me as my destiny, in this bleak place called Rio Tinto.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781491825617
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	10/24/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	822 KB

Read an Excerpt

Rio Tinto

Lost Coconuts

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By Sealie Vaughn West

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2013 Sealie Vaughn West
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-2560-0

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CHAPTER 1

The Pirates

Up high on Pumpkin Hill, on a hot mid-afternoon, a group of native Indian people are chopping wood for fire, clearing the bush with homemade tools. One of the men, young and strong, is wearing piercing rings all over his body—his lips, his eyelids, and one through his nose. He clears a coconut branch that is blocking his vision. The young man looks up at the sky and then toward the ocean. In the distance, he notices a dark object that is motionless on the horizon. He rubs his eyes, and then he yells to the other members of his tribe. They run towards the young man and as they approach him, he points to the object that appears to be standing still on the ocean. They are scared and all run down the hill to the village. They shout for the chief. They drag him to the water's edge, signaling and pointing.

The chief walks slowly with a slight hesitation and the rest of the men run toward the water's edge, afraid, not knowing their future with this new revelation. Talking about what it could be. There, the men try to show the chief what they saw. But the dark object is no longer in sight. The chief puts a knife to the throat of the young man for telling lies, and he threatens the others for making up stories.

The chief and the other men walk away and return to the woods and resume their work. The women are cooking food on the open flames outside of their huts. The children are playing. There's a lot of commotion going on, men trying to saddle their horses, women carrying buckets of water over their heads, children playing hide and seek. It is a normal happy day, a typical day for the kids, and for the women as they prepare the daily meals. The men are returning from hunting with the daily kill.

The young man goes back to the hilltop and watches for the dark object. After a while, he finds it again. This time, it seems bigger and clearer. He runs down the hill, yelling to the chief again. The chief is in his hut smoking a long pipe. He hears the young man yelling, but he does not pay any attention. The young man bursts into the chief's hut, out of breath and excitedly tells him what he saw again. The chief calls him a liar and threatens to kill him for being so loud and waking up the young child that had been sleeping next to him.

The young man grabs the chief by the arm and starts to drag him outside. At this time, everyone has gathered outside the chief's hut wanting to see what all the commotion is about. The chief gets out of his hut and slowly walks to the water's edge. The villagers follow at the same slow pace through the village and to the water.

The young man points to the ocean, but the object is no longer there. The chief orders some of the other men to put a rope around the young man's neck. One of the men grabs a rope and does so. As he is doing this, the object appears again on the distant horizon again. Everyone is surprised and scared, not knowing what it is. They have never seen anything like it before.

Even the chief seems scared, he orders the men to remove the rope from the young man's neck. He tells the men to prepare for war just in case. Some of the men board their canoes and row toward the object to get a closer look. Chanting native songs, the men look young and strong, as if they are ready for war. Some of them are carrying sharp homemade spears, harpoons; in one of the canoes a man stands in the front holding his spear, ready to throw it.

The men remain a safe distance while trying to explore this new floating object. They row around the vessel slowly but do not see anyone on the deck. They row around the vessel, searching curiously, looking frightened. Some of the men are standing with spears in their hands. After circling the ship several times, the men do not see anyone. They talk among themselves, telling the elder in the canoe to get closer, but the elder hesitates and tells the man in the front of the canoe to be careful.

Meanwhile, below deck the captain and his crew peer through the small windows of the ship watching the natives circle the ship.

The natives return to shore and tell the chief that they did not see anything. The natives have not seen anything from the outside world, for them to see this huge floating vessel makes them nervous, so the chief alerts all the villagers to go and take whatever they need and to go and hide. They return to their huts to secure their belongings. One of the elders gathers all the children and leads them to the woods to an underground cave they have built for protection. The children look scared as they line up to follow one of the elders to the cave. The elder grabs a torch, lights it, and shines the lighted torch around the cave illuminating the bats, snakes, spiders, spider webs, other night creatures. This is an awful place for kids. He leads them into the center of the cave. They gather in a circle, holding hands, chanting. The cave is decorated with animals' bones, human skulls, and other handmade artifacts.

The men in the village sharpen their spears and paint their faces with different colors and patterns. The chief is in his hut, smoking a pipe made from a crab claw.

The ship's captain wears a patch over his left eye, and he only has one arm. He has a scar across his face from a previous battle, so the legend goes. He waits until nightfall to send a group of his men to shore to see what is on the island. He orders his first officer to form a hunting party. The first officer gathers his men and heads for the island. They slowly and quietly row in the darkness toward the island. They scout the island quietly and return to the ship.

The next morning, a group of natives—men and women—gather near the bay. The chief puts on his huge headdress made of chicken feathers and animals' skulls, with a small human skull in the front. In the back hangs a snakeskin. He walks toward the beach to meet the ship's captain. Looking very elaborate, with their faces full of war paint, a group of elders follows him. They stare at the captain while holding sharp spears, and bows and arrows at the ready.

The natives look afraid and worried. The captain, the first officer, and a group of the men approach the shore. They get out of the dinghy, and the captain studies all of the men, women, and children. The natives look concerned, with sweat rolling down their foreheads. The captain says, "I want to talk to your leader."

The captain's men look at each other with concern, not understanding what was said.

"Who is your leader? I have a gift to give to him from Her Majesty, the queen of England." The captain laughs. He looks around, and then he turns to his men and says, "These people are dumb. They don't speak English! What language do they speak?" He turns back and looks at the natives. He walks slowly in front of them.

After many days of visiting the natives, the captain has grown to trust them, and the natives have grown to trust the captain's men. They have eaten and played together so they feel comfortable with each other now.

The captain puts his hand in his coat pocket and pulls out a mirror. All the natives are stunned at what they see—at the fact that they can see themselves. They think it is magic. They don't know what to make of it.

"See, this is for your leader. There's more where this comes from."

The chief hesitantly distances himself from the group. He looks very elaborate with his gold and silver necklace, a big feather crown on his head, and a long pipe made of gold. Not able to communicate with the stranger, he just nudges his head and points the captain to his tent. The chief orders his servants to bring something to drink and to eat.

The native servant women enter the tent while the captain and the chief are talking and laughing. The women offer the captain a wild pig's head with the eyes still in the head. The captain looks at his men and then looks away, closing his eyes in disgust. The women stand in front of him, still offering him the food. The chief is watching with a smile on his face. The chief and his men take pieces of the smoked meat and eat it. The captain looks around at the other men eating, so he grabs some of the meat from the pig's head and eats too.

The captain says, "Men! We'd better eat. We do not want to insult these bastards and have us be their next meal."

The captain very reluctantly picks up a gold cup and raises it to his lips. He asks, "What is this?" He notices that it's red. "It looks like blood!" The rest of the men stop and look at the captain. The captain takes a drink and spits it out. "This shit tastes like rotten blood!" His men laugh.

The captain and the other men are eating and drinking like wild savages and are playing with the women, touching and kissing them.

The chief brings out a chest and he orders one of the natives to open it. The captain is amazed at the gold and silver he sees. Later, he comes out of the tent and calls his men to head back to the ship. The chief and the other natives walk with the captain to the water's edge, singing native songs, dancing, and laughing.

The captain looks back at the natives who are waving and laughing.

Later that night, the captain calls his first officer. "I want you to form a party and go to the island. Kill all of these bastards."

The young lieutenant looks at the captain with amazement. "Sir," says the lieutenant, "You mean kill them all, sir?"

The captain, smoking his pipe, sits down in a chair made out of animals' bones. "That is exactly what I mean. I want their gold and silver."

The lieutenant, still looking amazed, says, "Sir, you want me to do this tonight?" The captain feeds his bird. "Yes, lieutenant, tonight, before sunup."

The lieutenant goes below deck to the sleeping quarters and looks around at the men, he says, "The captain wants me to go ashore and get rid of 'em."

The men look at each other with amazement.

"So I'm going with twelve of you."

They all try to volunteer. One of the men says, "I'm going to take some of them women and bring them here so they can serve me, every night!"

"Enough," says the lieutenant. "Let's get ready. We only have a few hours left until sun-up."

The captain is in his quarters looking into the dark night, staring at the island. He's smoking his pipe with his bird on his shoulder. He sees his lieutenant boarding the dinghy with the twelve men.

The captain goes on deck and shouts, "I want all men on deck and to the battle stations, at once."

All of the men run from their bunks onto the deck. At their battle stations, they aim their cannons at the island.

The captain orders, "Men, on my command, I want to fire at them bastards, and aim good."

The lieutenant approaches the island very quietly, and the men surround the villager's huts and set them on fire. The native men, women, and children run terrified, screaming. The men fight with spears. There is total chaos. The lieutenant with his coat covered in blood, one of his legs with an open wound, lays helpless with a villager's body on top of him. One of his men comes and removes the body rolling it to the side.

Meanwhile, on the ship, the captain orders all stations to stand by, to be ready to fire on his command. "Once we get the signal from the lieutenant."

As the sun rises, the captain leans against the superstructure on the starboard side of the ship, smoking his pipe with satisfaction. He stares, emotionless, at the smoky island. He boards one of his dinghies with the rest of his men following who cheer at the prospect of killing.

They get to the shore, and can barely see through the smoke that is enveloping the island. The captain, walking slowly, looks around and stumbles upon a young villager's body. He spits on it. As he surveys the devastation he has brought to these people, he hears a familiar voice and enters a smoky hut, and he sees his young lieutenant with blood running down his jacket and a spear in his chest. The captain calls the other men.

The young lieutenant lies helpless, looking at the captain, tears rolling down his bloody face, and he says, "I failed you! Papa, I failed you."

The captain looking down at him sadly says, "A job done well, my son! A bloody job done well, my son!" The men surround their fallen comrade, sadness showing on their faces. The captain orders the men to sort through the rest of the bodies and separate them, the women in one pile and the men in another, the children all together. The men gathered all the bodies and pile them accordingly as the captain ordered.

The captain grabs the spear that is in the young lieutenant's chest and looks at him.

"My son!" says the captain.

He pulls the spear out. The lieutenant screams. The captain kneels down and puts his son's head in his lap. The lieutenant looks at the captain with tears rolling down his cheeks as if to say something, but he just closes his eyes and takes his last breath. The captain sobbing holds his son's head on his arms.

The captain orders the men to dig a hole nearby. The men carry the lieutenant's body and gently put his body in the hole. The captain says, with tears rolling down his face, "Men, this is my son! My son gave his life! Just as God who, gave his son! I do not feel any remorse for the fact that my son is going to hell."

With the smoke from the attack lingering in the air around the island, the men cover the grave of the young lieutenant. The captain waits at the water's edge, looking at the horizon, feeling proud of the battle, but sad for the loss of his son. He orders the rest of the men to put the bodies at the other side of the island and to gather all of the gold and silver to be brought back to the ship.

The smoky, lonely island lies quietly with no sound to be heard for miles. There is only smoke and bodies—of men, women, and children—and lots of blood.

The rest of the captain's men have tears in their eyes grieving for the loss of their close brother and shipmate—some of them are wounded, others are bloody. The calm breeze blows, and the smoke of death and the smell of blood hang in the air. The island that once existed peacefully with the laughter and noise of children playing fades into the abyss of forgotten civilization.

CHAPTER 2

Luther

Ten years later ... an old bearded man in his well-worn and dirty clothes, who is in his early fifties and has most of his front teeth missing, is on a small tattered single-sail ship and floats somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. With a light wind, there is only the sound of the ocean slapping against the vessel. In the hot mid-day sun, the man leans on the tiller and squints as he looks up at the clear sky. He watches a bird flying overhead. He surveys the direction of the wind with one finger. He reaches for his weathered jug of whiskey and pours it into an old mason jar. While taking a sip, he makes a face, drinks more, and then continues smoking the small stub of a cigar.

He's enjoying the day, the stillness of the ocean, cruising with the light wind. He stomps his foot on the deck. Talking to himself and to the people down below, he shouts, stomps his foot again, and sips from the jar again.

"You dumb animals, better bring me good money."

Coughing hard and spitting on the deck, he leans over the side and extends his arms to touch the water.

"I'm getting tired of this damn shit. Yes, sir!"

Holding his jar in a toast, he slurs, "This drink is in the name of the damn queen! All you dumb animals down below who don't like me swearing the name of the queen, damn you, too. After being on the sea for as long as I have, first I see a dumb bird that has been following me, now I don't know what I see! Men tend to see things they do not want to see even if it is land, land, land. You hear me, animals? I see land! Land! In the name of the bloody queen of bloody England, I see land! Now I will sell you all and make gold. It has to be an English land. What if it is not? We are all going to be dead!"

Luther's vessel approaches the land and drops anchor. He sticks his head below deck and shouts over the loud cry of a child, "I'm going to go ashore. All you bitch animals better behave. You're all going to bring me lots of money."

He gets into his dinghy and heads toward shore. Astor Hill, a slim white Englishman in his early forties, stands at the water's edge with a paper and a pen in his hands watching the approaching dinghy.

Luther docks, gets out of the dinghy and introduces himself. "Sir, my name is Luther Lowell, from Her Majesty the bloody queen of England, at your service."

The Englishman replies, "Well, from the bloody queen of England, I'm Astor Hill, at your service sir, and what might you be carrying in your vessel? More Negro slaves?"

Luther responds rather cautiously, "Well sir, Mr. Hill, would you be interested in trading some of my Negro slaves for some British pounds or, perhaps a meal and a bath? All of my Negro slaves are strong and can offer you much."

Astor Hill looks rather interested, and smiles, "I have property here on the island and I already have a few Negro slaves, perhaps not as strong as yours, sir. Luther, perhaps we can talk later, but there is a man named Henry Morgan on this island who would be much interested in your Negroes. I will go to his house tonight, and I will mention to him that you have Negro slaves and that you are looking to trade for gold."
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Rio Tinto by Sealie Vaughn West. Copyright © 2013 Sealie Vaughn West. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments....................     vii     

Lonely Grains of White Sand....................     xi     

Chapter 1 The Pirates....................     1     

Chapter 2 Luther....................     11     

Chapter 3 Ernest Lowell....................     33     

Chapter 4 Sealie Malone Lowell....................     62     

Chapter 5 Young Sealie....................     87     

Chapter 6 The Beatings....................     117     

Chapter 7 Battan....................     141     

Chapter 8 The Escape....................     152     

Chapter 9 The Orphanage....................     179     

Chapter 10 Hope....................     198     

How to Grow a Coconut Palm....................     219     

Basic Garifuna Language....................     221