The Devil's Fire: A Pirate Adventure Novel

by Matt Tomerlin

  With that, Livingston turned and continued along the path. Nathan followed, moving ahead of Gregory so he wouldn't have to look at his fool of a friend. He hoped Gregory felt appropriately ashamed for having placed them both in a dangerous position, but he doubted that he was smart enough to comprehend what he'd done. A man never spoke ill of his captain, pirate or no, unless he was prepared to back his words with the might of the crew.

  As they trekked toward wherever the quartermaster was taking them, Nathan's anger at Gregory's idiocy subsided, and his perplexity with Livingston's sudden resolve heightened. He went over the conversation in his head. He recalled Livingston's offhanded remark on the crime of bringing a woman aboard a ship. The quartermaster's choice of words seemed strange to Nathan now that he thought back on it. "Wasting time is worse a crime than taking a woman to sea," he had said. "What’s your make of that?"

  Nathan shook his head, immediately rejecting the silly notion. Livingston was knowledgeable of his craft, but Nathan did not consider him a wise enough man to execute such a deft segue as a means of uncovering gossip. His comment had simply been an offhanded reference to Thomas Lindsay.

  "This looks pretty," Livingston said, interrupting Nathan's thoughts. Nathan looked up and his breath caught in his throat.

  They had arrived at an expansive clearing lined with wooden fences. The clearing lifted at the center, atop which sat a marvelous white house, and beside it a less spectacular farmhouse. Horses and cows grazed freely about the plantation.

  "Bloody cows," Livingston groaned. "Hope they've got something smaller. I'm not dragging one of those all the way back to the beach."

  "Pigs and some birds maybe," Gregory suggested.

  "I'll wager everything we need be inside that farmhouse. We'll take what we can and send another party back."

  As Nathan looked up at the massive house, an inexplicable foreboding seeped into the pit of his stomach.

  The black of night provided the only cover they needed as they climbed the hill toward the house, which was situated between them and the farmhouse. When they reached the house they ducked low to avoid the windows. There was only one light within, and Nathan couldn't resist a quick peak. A woman sat in the living room reading a book by candlelight. She wore a white nightgown that dipped low from the neck, and her skin was gorgeously accentuated by the soft orange glow. Her blonde hair, which was bound tightly to her head, was golden in the light. She looked more like a painting than a living, breathing person, but the slow heave of her bosom proved that she was indeed real.

  Nathan only managed a glimpse of her, but that would be enough to sear the image in his mind for the rest of his days. She tilted her head slightly in his direction, her eyes lifting from the book to the window. Just then, Livingston grasped his collar and pulled him down.

  "What did you see?" Livingston demanded in a high-pitched whisper.

  "Only a woman."

  "Did she see you?"

  "No. I don't think so."

  Livingston steadied him with a reproachful finger. "Don't do that again."

  "Aye."

  They continued toward the farmhouse, slipping past the front door. Nathan’s thoughts were lingering on the vision of the woman in the house when suddenly the door burst open and a man in his bedclothes emerged with a rifle. Nathan and Gregory scattered in two separate directions.

  Livingston thrust himself at the man, smashing into his stomach. The pair of them went tumbling into the house. Nathan struggled to his feet as the two men noisily thrashed about inside. The woman screamed.

  Nathan glanced around. Gregory was cowering in a batch of flowers, proving no use to anyone. Nathan focused on the door, took a deep breath, and charged inside.

  Before he made it in, a rifle blast sounded, brightening the interior of the house like a contained bolt of lightning. Another glimpse, far shorter than the first, and a second image was forever seared into young Nathan's mind.

  The three pirates returned to the beach dragging behind them sacks packed with the carcasses of slaughtered pigs and chickens, and a single sack filled with vegetables and fruits. Wood was gathered and fires were struck. The pigs and chickens were tenderly roasted and the vegetables were boiled. The splendid aroma carried into the night along soft trails of orange-hued smoke.

  Many of the pirates that remained aboard Harbinger boated to shore to partake of the merriment, bringing with them the two musicians (one talented with a fiddle and another not so talented with a recorder), a singer, and three blacks. The singer sang songs from a Dutch prayer book and the blacks danced around a central bonfire as the meat cooked. The beach came alive, and no one gazing on that celebration could have easily dismissed the men that took part in it as barbarous scoundrels.

  However, Nathan Adams took no joy in the festivities. He had departed the beach with an empty stomach and returned with an abundance of food that he would not partake of. There was blood on the animals they had brought back, and not just the blood of the carcasses themselves.

  He closed his eyes and saw a beautiful woman screaming as her husband's brains were splattered all over her white nightgown. The husband had yielded his life in a heartbeat, knowing nothing more of the world’s troubles, but his wife would remain forever deprived of him. In the flurry of seconds that ended with his death, the man hadn't the time to consider his fate. She had a lifetime to contemplate hers.

  Nathan blamed himself, suspecting that the woman had caught sight of him at the window and had alerted her husband. Livingston concurred with this speculation, allowing his guilt no relief, though he was not nearly so distressed by the incident. Livingston was more concerned that the bloodstains on his shirt were not likely to come out after a wash.

  Nathan gathered his troubled thoughts and went for a stroll along the beach. As he walked, he passed the Seven, who were seated around their own personal barbecue, far removed from the celebration. They looked at Nathan. He nodded a greeting. They did not surrender their fierce glares, and he was forced to look away. He felt their eyes on his back as he continued along the beach.

  It was not by intention that Nathan strolled to Katherine Lindsay's little camp. Far from the festivities he found her outside her tent by a small fire with a plate of chicken and potatoes, which he assumed Griffith had brought for her.

  "If it's your captain you're looking for," she started.

  Nathan held up a hand. "No. It's not that."

  "Well what then?" she demanded impatiently. Her raspy voice was wincingly unattractive. "I'm not what you would call a conversationalist."

  "So you say," Nathan smiled, "yet you play at large words."

  "All words are large words where pirates are concerned."

  "I have a name, you know."

  "On a flier somewhere, just above a reward for your capture."

  He grinned, unfazed by the slight. "In very small letters below the reward, mayhap. I’m not of much import, I’m afraid. A pirate only dreams of that kind of fame."

  "So you enjoy all this plundering and murder?"

  "I haven't murdered anybody," he protested.

  "Tell me, pirate, what part of the ship do you maintain?"

  He frowned. What on Earth is this woman getting at?

  "I saw you," she explained, "very high up on a mast. Quite hazardously, I might add. You were fixing the sails."

  He was getting impatient. "I was mending the sails, yes. What of it?"

  "And mending the sails consequences a fast ship, does it not?"

  "That is the general goal," he drawled.

  "Which in turn leads said ship to its destination."

  "That would follow."

  "Which led you to the plunder of my ship and the eventual murder of my husband!" Her face flushed red as tears welled in her eyes, but she did not surrender her hardened glare.

  He looked away. "I did not kill your husband."

  "No," she sighed. "You simply repair the sales that led murderous heathens to his ship. It doesn't reall
y matter who killed him. He is dead just the same and nothing can change that."

  He nodded solemnly. There was nothing to say that would make her feel better or make her words any less true.

  "Did you, by chance, give your captain my name?" she asked suddenly.

  "It hasn't come up."

  Her watery eyes narrowed. "You are sure?"

  "Absolutely certain," he said, though he honestly couldn't recall whether he had or not.

  "I see," she said, and her head dipped low. "Please go. I do not relish the company of pirates."

  Eager to oblige, Nathan nodded and started off, but stopped in his tracks when he saw three pirates staggering his way, passing a bottle of rum between them and giggling like little girls. They were mumbling things like, "Cap won't care if we have a go," and "Can't blame me, it be the rum," and so on.

  Nathan glanced back at Katherine, who was wallowing in her tears and in no condition to notice anything beyond her own self-pity.

  "Hullo," said the tallest of the approaching pirates. He was lean and muscular, with long, stringy black hair, a square-jaw, a broad nose and protruding brow. His face was caked in dirt, lips badly chapped, and cheeks rosy with sunburn. He may have been twenty-five, but his lack of hygiene made it difficult to tell. Nathan did not know the man's name. "Be this your guard, boy?" His pronunciation of the word "boy" sounded more like "bye." The pirates’ accents were often a blend of various inflections, the final product being as muddled as their appearances.

  Nathan swallowed. "Aye. Captain Griffith wanted I should watch over the lady for the duration of his absence."

  The tall pirate raised an eyebrow and the two shorter men snickered to each other. The tall pirate gave Nathan's shoulder a nudge. "What be your name, mate?"

  "Nathan."

  "Nayton!" the tall man announced and held out his massive arms for an embrace. Nathan kept his distance. The tall man waved the potential offense away with false modesty. "I be Magellan."

  "Magellan?" Nathan stifled an urge to laugh and ask the man’s real name.

  Magellan’s congeniality faded. "Right then, let’s get right to it."

  "And what would you be getting right to?" Nathan said.

  "We're all of us entitled to our shares of our treasure, Nayton," Magellan proclaimed, and he pointed at Katherine. "Including that shiny piece right there."

  "Captain Griffith won't have that!" Nathan said, stepping closer. The shorter men repeated Nathan's protest in a mocking tone, then burst into giggles. "You're drunk. You've misplaced your wits and I suggest you recover them."

  "Thought we might find them here," Magellan said, looking around.

  "I surely would have seen them," Nathan smiled. "Be off."

  Magellan screwed up his face. "I didn’t hear that."

  "Have you misplaced your ears as well?"

  "I don't think me boys be listenin' to their ears, if you take my meaning." Magellan snapped his fingers, and the shorter men flanked Nathan, seizing him by the shoulders and giggling uncontrollably. Magellan loomed over Katherine. She looked very small and pathetic beneath him.

  "What's this then?" said Griffith as he came sprinting up the beach.

  The giggling men instantly released Nathan and backed away. Magellan turned, maintaining a smug expression where his companions had relinquished theirs. "Well hullo, Cap'n."

  "Is this what I think it is?" Griffith said, catching his breath.

  "That depends on what you think it is, Cap'n."

  Griffith's hand fell to his cutlass. "You've had too much to drink, mates. Let's return to the fires and I'll make certain you have plenty more."

  "That's a fine gesture, Cap'n, but it's not what I'm needing." Magellan smiled dangerously and tapped his cutlass. An agonizingly long and uncomfortable silence followed, during which the two men stared at each other with narrow eyes as Nathan, Katherine, and the other two pirates, who were no longer giggling, glanced anxiously from man to man.

  The silence was finally broken when Livingston appeared. "Keep your hands from them cutlasses, the both of you. What be this? A quarrel and no one tells me?"

  "Doesn't need to be a quarrel," Griffith said.

  "Aye," Magellan agreed, smiling suggestively.

  "Hold on!" Livingston interjected. "What the bloody hell are you talking about? Of course it needs to be a quarrel! Without quarrel, I’d question the necessity of me job. I’ll have this done proper. We wait till morning so as everyone can see, per the usual rules."

  "Not till we settle the terms," Magellan said.

  Livingston threw his hands in the air. "Terms? A thousand hells! Name your bloody terms."

  "I get a go with the girl after I kill the Cap'n."

  Griffith shrugged. "If you kill me, she's all yours, though it's certain you'll be in for a few surprises once you have her. She bites."

  The tall man grinned. "I'll cover me ears."

  Griffith smirked. "That's not all she bites, I'm sure."

  "At least I have the guts to find out."

  "It's set then," Livingston said, clapping his hands. "Tomorrow morning."

  Magellan smiled politely at Griffith and started on his way back to the celebration. The shorter men followed after him, glancing over their shoulders. When they were a good distance away, they broke into another fit of giggles.

  Griffith smiled reassuringly to Katherine. "He won't kill me."

  She shrugged. "Shame."

  Livingston spat in disgust. "You’ll die for this bitch?"

  "I won’t die," Griffith replied. "You know that."

  "Aye, I know that. I was talking to Nathan."

  Nathan looked up. "Me?"

  "Never come between a pirate and his prey," Livingston said. "That man would have killed you."

  Nathan looked at Katherine. Her eyes flickered toward him, and her lips vaguely curved into what might have been the hint of a smile.

  "You did the right thing," Griffith said. He gave a nod of thanks before starting back up the beach. Livingston followed after him, sparing Nathan with a quick disapproving scowl.

  "I hope he loses," Katherine muttered under her breath.

  "It’s in your best interests that he doesn’t," Nathan replied.

  She laughed bitterly. "My interests are no longer my own."

  The next morning, the duel was the first order of business, and Nathan made certain that he had a place in the frontlines of the crowd.

  Every pirate that had traveled to shore the prior night gathered round as Livingston informed the two participants of the regulations, though neither man needed any introduction. The quartermaster handed them their pistols and allowed them a moment to inspect their weapons. Magellan scrutinized his thoroughly, squeezing one eye shut and peering down the muzzle, checking the trigger and hammer, and finally nodding his approval. Griffith didn't spare his weapon with as much as a glance. Livingston positioned the two men with their backs to one another and instructed each to walk ten paces, turn, and discharge his weapon. The quartermaster then took a step back and shouted, "Go!"

  The crowd held its collective breath as the two men steadily paced, neither seeming the slightest bit nervous. At ten paces they spun and aimed. Griffith's gun discharged with an ear-shattering crack, billowing white smoke. Magellan's pistol exploded in his hand, snapping out of his grasp and spiraling away. He yelped pitifully.

  Griffith drew his cutlass and lunged forward, growling like an animal. Magellan took notice and raised his damaged hand in protest. When that failed to stop Griffith's charge, he went for his cutlass. Before he could pry it free of the sheath, Griffith was on him with his sword raised high. Magellan's high-pitched shriek ended abruptly as the cutlass's blade parted his head from his neck.

  "It's six hundred pieces of eight for a lost right arm," Griffith yelled to the crowd. "It's a shame we never figured compensation for the head." He then kicked the decapitated head to the oncoming tide, blooding spurting from the neck in a morbid spiral.

  The cr
owd's cheer was deafening.

  KATHERINE

  Katherine watched through a foggy window in the captain's cabin as the shore tapered to a thin line, barely distinguishable along the horizon. Her journey had brought her to America as promised, though not in the company she would have liked, and now she was being whisked away from the New World just as swiftly as she had arrived. The experience was far too ephemeral for her to derive any lasting impressions.

  She left the window and moved to the bed, soreness echoing throughout her limbs. The ache wasn't entirely unpleasant; her muscles felt taut, as though she had never used them to their full potential.

  She propped herself upright on the mattress and crossed her legs under her petticoat, which spread out around her in a circle. She smoothed the ravaged skirt and plucked at loose strands of thread. Fancy dresses had no place on a pirate ship. If she continued at this rate, she would literally tear through her wardrobe in less than a month.

  She examined her chest, noting that her skin had darkened to a fetching shade of copper, though there were still tinges of red here and there. She assumed that her face had taken on the same tone.

  The wounds on her wrists were closing nicely, but they would leave scars. Her head no longer ached from the blow to her scalp, and the lesion seemed to be healing properly. She was thankful that the ghastly wound was cloaked by her thick hair.

  The huskiness in her voice shocked her whenever she spoke, and she wasn't sure when, if ever, it would return to its original clarity. The water that the pirates had gathered from the estuary was a welcome change from rum, and it soothed her sore throat.

  Her back throbbed where Griffith had stricken her with the oar, but that was a mere sting after hearing him utter her name. For the past several days her mind reeled over every conceivable possibility. The most horrible option she considered first and discarded swiftly thereafter; she would not entertain the notion that Thomas, her adoring husband, had surrendered her to this band of murderous thieves. Still, she had been puzzled from the beginning by Griffith's apparent knowledge of her hiding place prior to uncovering her. She recalled with a shudder the terrible moment he entered the room, and his deliberate footsteps toward the bed. Either this pirate was a remarkably deductive man, or he had been alerted to her hiding place beforehand. Neither accounted for him knowing her name. The ship was, of course, named Lady Katherine, but it had yet to be branded.