Buccaneers Series

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Thorpe’s eyes squeezed into slits. “You’re lying.”

  “I speak the truth.”

  “Why do we need him? I’d sooner face a shark!”

  “Because,” said Sir Karlton calmly, drawing in on the pipe and watching him evenly, “Foxworth has the map to the treasure.”

  Thorpe’s breath sucked in with a curse. He banged his fist on the table, sending the cups bouncing. “He has the map! You say he has it?”

  “Sure now. He does. He doesn’t know which island, though. So you see, we need one another. And we’ll all be signing articles. Now, captain, shall we talk of terms, like sensible men?”

  Thorpe scowled. “You take me for a fool.”

  “I take you for a clever fellow who knows a bargain when he sees one. With your share of the treasure and pearls to boot, you can retire with ease wheresoever your yearnings take you.”

  Vane, at least, seemed to be satisfied, thought Emerald, glancing nervously at the gangling blond giant.

  He wet his lips and said to his captain, “We need Foxworth, Lex. An’ seeing as ‘ow you have his pert wench here with you, he’s sure to come with the first wind.” Vane smiled. “Ye’ve forgot the price of ransom we can get too. A viscount, even one sportin’ as a buccaneer, has hisself riches even without the treasure his father pirated. He’ll pay for her too.”

  A breath escaped Emerald’s lips as she silently looked from Vane to Thorpe.

  Thorpe’s eyes slitted with interest. “She looks the kind o’ baggage a daw cock like Foxworth would pay plenty for. Now I knows why I keeps you around, Vane.”

  Emerald’s heart raced over the prospect that Baret would be sent for, but was he as close by as her father and Zeddie insisted? She stole a quick glance at her father and saw his subdued spark of satisfaction. She knew matters had proceeded as he had hoped.

  “Now you’re thinking as the pirate ye are, Thorpe,” said Sir Karlton. “A double booty. If Foxworth paid twenty thousand pieces of eight to Levasseur, what will he pay you?”

  “Fifty thousand pieces.” Thorpe’s eager gaze ran over Emerald. “And so worthy a prize stays in my cabin till Foxworth pays.”

  Emerald stepped away, her hand again clutching the pistol hidden in the pocket of her skirts. “Never. Captain Buckington won’t pay you a single piece of eight if you insist.”

  “She stays with me, her father. If not, there’s no signing articles, Thorpe. No matter my willingness to play you against Foxworth when it comes to the treasure, there’s no compromise when it comes to my daughter.”

  Thorpe sat back down and laid his cutlass across his lap, no longer watching Emerald but Karlton. “We’ll call your bluff, Karlton. Keep your daughter, but I’ll send Foxworth the terms I want.”

  “I’d have it no other way,” came the smooth reply, and Karlton stretched his legs before him, appearing entirely at his leisure. “You’ll need send that message to Margarita tonight, and we’ll all sign it—including Emerald.”

  “That’s right smart of you, seeing as how you know I can’t write, nor can Vane.” He gestured his head of curls toward Emerald. “I ‘spect the wench can put pretty words to paper. She’ll write it, and she’ll bid him to come save her, if she’s as smart as she is pert.”

  “I’ll write the letter,” Emerald agreed, surprised that her voice did not shake. “But just how do you expect to get it to him? If he’s waiting on Margarita, won’t the Spanish governor arrest you? Perhaps we should sail first to Barbados—”

  A rude laugh interrupted. “We ain’t that rum-sodden, sweetheart.” He looked at Karlton. “An’ just how do ye expect to get a message to Foxworth?”

  “The Spanish governor is a friend of mine. And Foxworth’s.”

  “A friend! Blow me over, Vane! They ‘ave papist friends, so they says. Look here, Harwick. Maybe ye do, an’ again maybe ye don’t. To protect our own hides in case ye’ve got double-crossin’ plans to turn us over to the guarda costa, we’ll take to land to wait for Foxworth. There’s a cove nearby where we can hole up so the papists can’t see us. I’ll send three of my men, and you can send three of your own to bring Foxworth and Farrow.”

  “Fair enough. And now, shall we sign articles?”

  “Aye, we’ll sign ’em.”

  Her father gestured to Zeddie, who went for paper and writing quill.

  “Seeing as how ye say Foxworth has the map, he’ll be signin’ ’em too, or maybe your lying tongue will see you dead and floating with the seaweed before it’s over.”

  Emerald looked on as Thorpe and Vane dipped the quill to ink and scratched their names on the articles of agreement, followed by her father.

  Then Thorpe stood, Vane with him, and both pirates left the cabin.

  Emerald knelt beside his chair, grabbing his hand and pressing it to her cheek. “Papa…”

  He leaned toward her, his eyes pained, and held her with his good arm. “It will be all right, lass,” he whispered. “We’ll make it, you’ll see. Baret will come.”

  Zeddie came now with paper for Emerald to write the letter.

  She sat down and wrote swiftly, then handed it to her father. “What will we do when Thorpe discovers there is no treasure?”

  Her father sank back in his chair and frowned, looking from Emerald to Zeddie. “It’s not Thorpe I’m worried about when it comes to the treasure of the Prince Philip,” he confessed in a low voice. “It’s Baret.”

  Emerald grew uneasy. “What do you mean? Why should you be concerned about Baret?”

  “Because what I told Thorpe and Vane is true, lass. I was with Baret’s father. And Margarita is the island where the treasure is stored. I was with Royce, Maynerd, and Lucca that wild, rainy night we staggered ashore with the chest.”

  Emerald’s breathing paused, and she stared at him, shocked, stricken. “Papa! And you didn’t tell him all these years?” she whispered.

  “No,” he confessed, “I had plans of my own to come for it. It was to be the treasure I came home with after pretending to sail with Morgan.” He sighed. “My wicked way, lass, has turned against me—but far worse, it has come against you. If I hadn’t come here…”

  “But—why did you wait so long to try to locate the treasure again?”

  “Because of where it’s kept. I’ll say no more until Baret arrives. It is best for your sakes that I don’t. And now, the letter must be delivered in case my man didn’t get through on the longboat.”

  4

  MAROONED

  Emerald removed her slippers, lifted the hem of her full skirt, and stepped from the longboat. The warm, wet sand sank beneath her feet, pulling away again as a tiny wavelet withdrew to the water’s edge. Another rolled in, splashing her ankles.

  Glancing about the isolated cove of white beach and palm trees, she had no notion of where Captain Lex Thorpe had brought them, but Zeddie concluded it was somewhere along the coast of the Arya Peninsula. To the northeast, the smaller islands near Margarita, like giant purple sleeping turtles, sat in the twilight near the Gulf of Venezuela.

  The day’s sultry heat clung to her skin, causing her deliberately chosen, modest cotton frock with its high neck to stick uncomfortably. Behind her, the evening horizon began to speckle over with gold dust, and ahead in the thickly vegetated interior, indigo shadows draped the trees like netting.

  Minette crowded close to her elbow, whispering nervously, “Do you expect the viscount and Captain Farrow will come?”

  Emerald’s hopes were anchored in the memory that Baret Buckington, though often a rogue, had proven himself on several occasions to be extremely gallant.

  “He’ll come if the message reaches him.” She glanced about at the pirates. Their presence evoked an unflattering comparison in her mind to a pack of wary foxes sniffing cautiously about a hen house guarded by traps. “You can be sure of trouble when he does come. Stay close, and don’t look eye-to-eye at any of them.”

  She was as worried about her father as she was about herself and Minette. His in
jury had left him weaker than he had let on in the cabin, and she took his arm.

  Minette followed them up the wooded beach, and Zeddie came just behind her, carrying his pistols and occasionally eyeing Thorpe and Vane, who prowled still farther behind, keeping them all under surveillance.

  “Things are going better than I hoped,” Sir Karlton murmured. “That he decided to come here to wait for Baret is to our advantage. I was afraid he’d decide to hole up nearer Margarita.”

  His reasoning confused her. “Isn’t Baret on this island?”

  “He’s more likely to be anchored not far from here, off Cumaná.”

  That encouraging thought lent her new bravery to endure the unpleasant situation of setting up camp for the night.

  Emerald, who knew the trials of the West Indies as well as its lush beauty, was spared a hungry night. Guarded by Zeddie, she sat on the beach with Minette while the pirates and her father and their crewmen scavenged about before sunset to come up with their supper. She had recognized the trees called carmetia, on which grew small edible fruit like plums. They also dined on bunches of cabbagelike leaves, red-brown plantain, oranges, and stone crabs, which Zeddie roasted in the fire.

  As the night deepened over the cove, she watched Thorpe and Vane gulping rum with their cutthroat crew, sprawled on the sand a distance away. Emerald avoided being seen looking in their direction. She sat with Minette on a log bleached white by years of sun and surf. Her father rested close at hand, and his drawn face, pale in the flickering firelight, reminded her of how uncertain was their predicament. What if he was wrong and Baret was not anchored near Cumaná? What if for some reason he had remained at Tortuga to await Henry Morgan and Mansfield?

  Thorpe was volatile, dangerous, and his mood had changed into one of sullen discontent as he guzzled Barbados rum. Her pistol was still concealed within reach, and both her father and Zeddie kept their weapons at hand, but with every stir of the trade wind that ruffled the strands of hair against the back of her neck, she felt her skin prickle with unease.

  Please, Lord, she prayed, see us safely through this evil night. Send Baret soon to deliver us.

  Even before the stars blinked through a rose-colored sky left by the setting sun, Thorpe ordered his crew to kick out the fire.

  Karlton stirred. “There’ll be no darkness tonight.”

  “Stow your sauce, Harwick. Do you take me for a rum-sodden fool? The sight of fire will draw filthy, sneaking Caribs or Spaniards. An’ ye know it as well as I.”

  “Aye, I know it, and we’ll tread warily and set up a guard on the beach, but you and your crew will sleep on the other side of that rock. An’ the first bloke we find prowling anywhere near here will find their brains splattered in the sand come sunrise.”

  Thorpe stood and spat. “Ye needn’t threaten me nor me men over your highborn wench and her cousin. Foxworth’s woman be worth more as ransom then booty.”

  He snatched up his rum and said something to Vane and the others, who struggled to their bare feet and strode away into the shadows.

  Emerald was not satisfied, for there was more than Thorpe to worry about. Just how efficiently did the pirate captain rein in his crew? Too much rum could provoke any one of them to come creeping about when the moon set. She heard her father speaking quietly to Zeddie about their safety and realized he knew that as well.

  The water in the cove became a glassy purple-black beneath white stars. The wind grew cooler, but the warmth of the sand, still heated from the day’s sun, seeped through to her fingers and toes. She smelled the odd fragrance of sea and flowers stirring together as she listened to the mournful breaking of the waves onto the deserted beach.

  She leaned over to where Minette huddled and whispered a verse from the Psalms, “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”

  Emerald’s confidence was too soon tested by the fires of fear. After lapsing into a restless slumber, she awoke, alarmed by the heart-stilling silence. She sat up trembling, blinking into the dark night, listening hard.

  Minette clutched her wrist, whispering, “Uncle Karlton and Zeddie are gone!”

  “Gone! They’d never leave us willingly!”

  For a moment, raw panic reigned, but then, before she could answer Minette, Zeddie crawled up from the direction of a sheltered gully.

  “Never thought I’d be glad for rum, but Thorpe an’ Vane’s crew is dead out. Quick, follow me, m’gal.”

  “Follow to where? Where’s my father?”

  “He’s waitin’ in the trees. He didn’t want to say anything, not sure if that Barbados rum would work on the innards of a tough old gizzard like Thorpe, but Foxworth is anchored about six miles from here.”

  The thought that Baret could be a mere six miles away sent joyous expectation rippling through her heart.

  “Can Father walk that far? He’s terribly wounded. And what of the message already sent to Baret—was it delivered to Cumaná?”

  “That’s the ill news. It was sent to Margarita.”

  “Then,” she said in a small voice barely above a whisper, “Baret doesn’t know we’re here yet.”

  “No, but we’ve our chance now. We’ll make it, m’gal, if I have to carry him.” In the starlight Zeddie grinned. “Your father was always a shrewd one. That particular cask of rum from the Madeleine was kept on board for just such an emergency. It had a hefty dose of drugs in it, straight from the Carib Indians. It’ll put most any man to sleep. He learned that bit o’ trick from Foxworth.”

  “But if our message was sent to Margarita, then how does he know Baret is anchored near Cumaná?”

  “A friendly boucan hunter sent word tonight through a Carib. The Carib says the Spaniards caught Flynn. Come along, now. Two crewmen is on guard till we get a head start, then they’ll cover our trail.”

  Emerald groped for her shoes and the cloak she’d used for a pillow, then followed Zeddie across the warm, soft sand. She could just make him out ahead, crouching beneath dew-drenched aloe branches. She glanced back.

  Minette, with shoes in hand, was circling the small area where they had made their bed of dried ferns, perhaps searching for the canvas bag so precious to them both, since it contained personal items not easily replaced.

  “It’s gone!” she hissed.

  Emerald heard the despair in her voice. And what was that other sound? Voices? Zeddie had said the pirates were sleeping! Had they already stirred awake?

  She tensed, hearing men talking in some foreign tongue. These were not Thorpe’s rogues! A quiver raced along her skin. Spaniards!

  The thought froze her with terror as accounts of devilish torture flashed across her mind. The guarda costa must have spotted the Black Dragon and the Madeleine. Maybe someone had been sent to warn the governor of the two ships fighting. The voices seemed to come from a circle of darkness surrounding the encampment. She knew that any strangers daring to penetrate the Spanish Main were routed and ofttimes massacred. Perspiration burst out along her brow.

  “Minette, run! Minette!”

  Emerald started back, but Zeddie latched hold of her so tightly she winced.

  “No time! Run!”

  Terror gripped her throat. “I can’t leave her!”

  In the semidarkness she glimpsed leather-and-steel-clad figures surging forward from among the trees, swords brandished and glinting silver in the moonlight.

  “¡ Santiago! ¡Muerto a las piratas! ¡Las heréticos!”

  She glimpsed pirates staggering awake beyond the rock, calling out in a daze. Others groped to get to their feet, shaking rum-crazed heads. They fumbled for pistols, swords, daggers.

  More Spanish soldiers came running up the moonlit beach. There was the shivering clash of steel, and the roar of firearms crackled in the hot night.

  “Come then, ye murderin’ papists!” She heard Vane’s voice. “I’ll carve out yer innards for the buzzards!”

  Zeddie, leading Emerald, struggled deeper into the thic
ket. She tripped in the sand, scrambled to her feet again, stumbled forward for cover. Minette, where was she? Minette, and her father? The dread baying of a hound sent chills down her back. The dog would pick up the trail of any who sought to flee or hide. And then she heard Minette scream.

  Emerald’s blood ran cold. “Oh, God, help us,” she sobbed, even as Zeddie relentlessly pulled her forward.

  They didn’t get far. Thorny vines caught at her ankles. Branches raked across her face. She lost her footing, and a sharp pain skewered her ankle. She had tripped on something sticking up from the ground.

  Zeddie pulled her to her feet, but Emerald gasped, “There’s no use—they’ll find us—the dogs—”

  “Faith, m’gal! We got to try.”

  Wet with sweat, she broke into a sob. “Go—without me—”

  “Never, lass!” His grip on her arm tightened.

  “It’s no use, Zeddie. My ankle … I can’t—” She sank to her knees, gasping.

  “Sink me if’n I didn’t think of it sooner—up that tree—!”

  “The dogs will pick up our scent—”

  “It’s worth a try. If them Spaniards stay in the camp, the dogs won’t come either. Look! It’s a ycoa tree! Easy to climb!”

  The hope the tree offered was slender at best.

  Zeddie hobbled her toward it. “Ye can do it—up with ye!”

  As Emerald stared at the low, spreading branches above her head, Zeddie cast a backward glance. Then he stooped, interlaced the fingers of both hands, and formed a stirrup. “Come, m’gal, an’ don’t break the bark,” he whispered. “God speed ye!”

  She held to the trunk with one trembling hand, carefully balancing her good foot on his palms, and with her other hand lay hold of an overhead branch. She pulled herself upward as he steadied her, until her foot was mounted on his shoulder. Then she agonized to work her way up the tree trunk, feeling the pain in her ankle and the creepers scratching her arms and neck. A branch snagged her hair. She struggled to free it, nearly losing her hold.

  Trying to hurry, she worked her way higher until she was able to straddle a large branch and catch her breath.