The Good Adventurer

In the Year of Our Lord 1870, Charles Lancaster was itching for adventure. He was born to a proud family of Virginians, who had lived in America since the foundation of Jamestown. However, the Lancasters rebelled against the British crown in 1776, and Charles himself rebelled against the tyrant Lincoln in 1861. He had served in the Confederate Army as a major, fighting in several major battles in the Civil War. Now, he lived in utter boredom as he squandered away his masculine vigor and energy in the halls of his family’s plantation house. However, after doing research on the nations of Latin America, he came up with the perfect plan.

Charles had contacted several of his fellow Civil War veterans and propositioned them with the adventure of a lifetime. His plan was to invade the nation of Costa Rica in Central America and turn it into a powerful slaveowner’s republic. The first step of this plan was to invade and conquer the city of Val Verde, located in the eponymous province, a jungled area that was constantly disputed between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Many of his former rebel compatriots were immediately on board with his goal of filibustering. He wrote to his younger brother, Jesse Lancaster, who was currently operating a fruit selling business in Florida, that if the expedition was successful, there would be acres of land for the Lancasters to grow fruit.

After assembling a private army of two hundred men, Lancaster’s army departed from Norfolk, Virginia, travelling in three sloops. Along the way, the Lancaster fleet stopped in Havana to restock on supplies. Charles fondly remembered the old Southern conspiracy to annex Cuba as a slave state. While this was still a lofty ambition of his, he knew he could not complete it with his feeble numbers.

The Lancaster fleet finally arrived at Costa Rica, at the small port town of Velaya. Charles’ ship went into port, while the other two ships beached as the men unloaded their supplies. Charles walked along until he encountered a portly castizo man laughing boorishly. He had hideous black hair, and abhorrent olive skin. He stood at a pygmy height; Charles’ Anglo-Teutonic build towered over the jungle savage.

“Hola,” Charles asked in broken Spanish. “Nosotros somos americanos. ¿Dónde está Val Verde?”

“Todos somos americanos, gringo,” the castizo man laughed. “Val Verde está a diez millas al oeste, a través de la selva.”

“Gracias,” Charles nodded, cringing inside as he had to speak such a dreaded tongue.

“De nada. Soy Enrique, y tu?”

“I’m your new ruler, Enrique,” Charles sneered. He pulled a revolver from his pocket and shot Enrique in the head. This was the signal, as his men charged the coastline and into the town. Velaya’s population was so small that the town guard were quickly overpowered by Charles’ men. Once the surviving populace were rounded up, they were sorted out accordingly. The men were ordered to be menial field slaves, and those who refused were summarily executed. The women would become slaves; the older ones for typical servile activities that Latin drudges were known for, like cooking and cleaning, while the younger ones would be used as sex slaves, their attractiveness corresponding to the rank of their assigned master. Charles was the one in charge, so he picked the most attractive woman in his eyes, a fair skinned, tawny haired young woman who appeared to have hardly any Indian blood within her. Her name was Claudia, but Charles would only address her as woman. Though he found her desirable, he was still disgusted at her Iberian heritage. Finally, the children would be made indentured apprentices to the men in Charles’ army.

Charles decided to stay the night in Velaya, taking quarters in the late mayor’s house. He brought Claudia into the mayor’s bedroom, pulled out his Spanish dictionary, and tried forming a sentence.

“Yo quiero follar tu,” he uttered. Claudia laughed at him, which made him red with anger.

“Hablas como un gallego,” Claudia snickered. “Es ‘quiero cogerte,’ gringo estupido.”

“Now, woman!” Charles yelled, pushing her onto the bed.

“¡Tengo catorce, no puedo!” she screamed. Charles ignored her pleas, yet he found himself impotent, unable to achieve an erection. Claudia again laughed at him, and he stormed out of the room, where he murdered one of the male villagers out of anger.

In the morning, hoping to move past his defeat of the night, Charles began the trek to Val Verde. He left a garrison of fifteen men behind to keep the slaves of Velaya in check. The Dixie battle flag was raised high in the town square as the Lancaster men rode out and into the jungle. The trek through that tropical inferno was awful. It was extremely hot and sticky, and mosquitoes whizzed past and pricked at everyone’s skin.

When they arrived at the city of Val Verde, Charles was disgusted at the primitive Spanish architecture that pervaded the city. He hoped to burn it all down and replace with the beautiful antebellum architecture of his homeland. When the Lancaster men encountered civilians, Charles ordered his men to fire upon them without hesitation, starting the battle of Val Verde. However, Val Verde was a much larger settlement, and their violence was promptly responded to by the city police, as well as Costa Rican soldiers garrisoned in the city.

The Lancaster militia was equally matched with the city’s strength, and after suffering a few losses, they retreated into an old Spanish fort in the outskirts of the city. Charles and his men hoisted the Dixie battle flag above the fort. However, the commanding officer of the city’s garrison, Colonel Rafael Valdez, vowed to hunt the filibusters down. The colonel and his army promptly swept through the Lancaster stronghold, killing the American gunmen without a second thought. Despite his military acumen, Charles’ small crew of noble filibusters could not withstand a national army, even from an inferior Latin country like Costa Rica. While he attempted to make a last stand, he was thwarted when Colonel Valdez and his men broke into his hiding spot as he was loading his revolver.

“Yankee de mierda,” Colonel Valdez sneered, pointing a rifle at Charles’ head. “You thought you could just take over Val Verde like that? Slaughter mi gente like animals?”

“Never call me a Yankee!” Charles screamed. “And for the record, yes, I did think so. You Latinos were supposed to be uncivilized jungle savages.”

“Typical ignorance of your kind,” the colonel laughed.

“My cause was righteous,” Charles scoffed. He looked around the room; he was surrounded by mestizo brutes, staring at him with hate in their primitive Indian eyes. Claudia was standing in the back, her arms crossed and a triumphant smirk across her face.

“Any last words, gringo de mierda?” the colonel asked.

“I wish I were in Dixie…” Charles cried.

“I’m sure you do, pendejo.” Colonel Valdez laughed and fired the rifle at point blank range, blowing Charles’ noble and valuable brains out onto the walls of the fort. His lifeless body fell over, with a gaping hole through his beautiful head, and his superior Anglo-Teutonic blood puddled on the floor.