Scarlett

by Christopher C Tubbs

  “Will she swim?” she asked Steven when he came aft after inspecting the damage.

  “If we take it slowly. We need to find somewhere we can spend time to repair the bow and the foremast. The main top mast is gone as well and all the rigging needs resetting. We can’t make the crossing until we do. We are lucky we have any masts at all!”

  Daniel knew of an inlet about fifty mile North and they set sail, losing the other Spaniard in the dark. It was slow going as they couldn’t make much more than five knots and if the sea got up, they would have to go even slower. They were constantly having to pump as it was, which placed a heavy load on the men.

  It was a nervous time. They would have a hard time defending themselves if they were attacked again, but they had no choice they could only plod along.

  The lookouts kept a special watch behind them as much as any other direction as they half expected the Santa Sabina to come up behind to finish them off.

  Twelve hours later, they entered the inlet and dropped the stern anchor. The bow anchor couldn’t be used as the cable would get in the way of the repairs, so they tied off to trees on the shore on one side and ran out a cable to an anchor from the centreline on the other.

  The first thing the carpenters did was to build a working platform around the damaged bow and start removing the broken planks and timbers. They salvaged what they could, fishing and splinting new sections to replace the damaged ones. That took four days and while that was being done the crew reset the foremast and replaced the damaged stays. They decided they could do without the main topmast at first, but when they realised how long it was going to take to fix the bow they went to work shaping up a new one.

  Ernest was called by the carpenter,

  “You and Bill get ashore and look for suitable timber to replace ribs, knees and planking, you know what to look for. The cap’ain has a group of men waiting to go with you. Take saws and axes and bring back the pieces whole we will shape them here.”

  With that, he was hustled into a boat full of armed men and rowed ashore. He sat in the middle next to Montoya all painted up in his war paint, as they called it. He looked around for Scarlett.

  “She not coming,” Montoya said.

  “Then why are you here?” Ernest asked.

  “This is Jeaga country. I come to talk to them, ask them to leave the sailors alone.”

  “Are they dangerous?”

  “They not like outsiders. They like taking totem and steal stuff.”

  Ernest checked his sailor’s knife was in it sheath and swallowed hard as his mouth dried up. It was hot and humid, and the mosquitos were biting any exposed flesh.

  “Is there anything else dangerous on shore?” he asked nervously.

  Montoya smiled, which was meant to reassure but actually looked frightening to the boy.

  “Only snakes and gaitors.”

  “Gaitors? What be them?”

  “Long animal like a lizard but much bigger, lots of teeth, live in the water, eat people.”

  The boat bumped into the shore cutting their conversation off. Ernest grabbed an axe and followed Montoya onto the bank, nervously looking around.

  Montoya stood and looked around. He knew the Jeaga would already know they were there and would be watching and waiting for an opportunity to either attack or steal some goods. He let his mind relax and allowed his eyes to take in the surroundings without focusing on any one thing. It took a minute or two but then he spotted a colour that was out of place.

  “Keep men together, and don’t shoot at shadows. I will return,” he told the bosun in charge of the work party before walking into the trees and disappearing.

  They were looking for trees that were the right shape and the right wood to make the parts they needed. If the grain ran around the shape the part would be stronger than if it were carved out of any old lump of wood. They were lucky as Mahogany, white oak, and cedar were all prevalent and they were soon cutting trees and sectioning out what they needed.

  They were working by a body of water, surrounded by rush like grasses when one of the men screamed and fell to the ground clutching his ankle. Men near him shied away and one pointed to a brown mottled snake that was slithering away into the water.

  The man started to shake as the pain hit. He was bitten by a copperhead just above the ankle when he had trodden on it. The snake bit him in indignation and slid off before anyone could think to kill it. The bosun detailed off four men to get him back to the boat.

  “Watch where you put yer damn feet and get back to work,” he ordered, ignoring their concerns.

  Montoya chose that moment to return, popping out of the bushes close to one of their sentries, making the man jump.

  “Did you see them?” Ernest asked as he walked past.

  “Yes,” was all he said in reply.

  He walked straight to the boat and climbed in before they pushed off to take the injured man back to the ship. He looked at his ankle and asked what they saw.

  “Copperhead, not kill you. Hurt like hell, though,” was his only comment.

  His words barely sunk into the man. The pain was intense, and he lurched to the side to throw up his lunch.

  “You must come to the village and meet the elders. I told them you are on a spirit quest and they want to see you,” he told Scarlett when he got back on the Fox.

  “Do they speak the same language as you?” Scarlett asked, wondering how he communicated.

  “No, but one of the women speak Spanish. She had Spanish man for a while.”

  Scarlett carefully applied her face paint. Montoya watched until she finished then took a band of woven coloured threads from his pouch and tied it around her head. He looked over to the box under Elvira’s perch, picked out a tail feather that she had shed and attached it along with the feather that Kefash had gifted her to the band so they hung down over her right ear.

  “Good, now come,” he instructed.

  Scarlett smiled. In this, he was in charge and she didn’t mind at all.

  They reached shore to find Berko and Emeka already there. The two big men were bare chested, wore cut off trousers and had bare feet. They had painted white lines on their faces and looked seriously fierce. Scarlett smiled at them and got grins in return their white teeth dazzling against the jet black of their skins.

  Montoya led them inland, skirting the swamps, following a trail which Scarlett wouldn’t have seen in a month of Sundays. It was very hot and humid, and she was soon sweating and being bothered by mosquitos. She hoped that her makeup didn’t run as she would look a fright.

  Montoya stopped them at the edge of a clearing and Scarlett could see sturdy lodges made of tree branches and thatch. An old man approached. He was not so tall- about five feet, wore a loin cloth and his face was painted white. He had feathers in his hair. A woman walked up and stood beside him. She was pretty in her own way and wore a blanket wrapped around her shoulders fixed with a copper broach at the neck. She was naked underneath.

  “Is this the one you say is on a spirit quest?” she asked in rough Spanish.

  “This is Scarlett. She is on a quest and she is our leader,” Montoya confirmed.

  The woman talked to the old man in a language that she couldn’t follow. They seemed to use hand movements to supplement it.

  “Come to the fire.”

  She looked appraisingly at Berko and Emeka,

  “Are they hers?” she asked as they walked to the central firepit.

  “She freed them from the Spanish. She is now their chief,” Montoya answered.

  Her interest wasn’t lost on the old man, who barked something at her, which made he cast her eyes down and behave more modestly.

  Scarlett looked up to the sky and spotted a familiar speck circling above.

  “Elvira!” she called and held out her left arm, which was sheathed in the leather bracer.

  The speck rapidly resolved into the shape of the stooping eagle as the bird dropped towards her at enormous speed, flaring it
s wings at the last moment to land on her wrist. She gave her a treat of some dried meat from her pouch.

  This had a visible and audible effect on the people in the village, a muttering built up after the initial gasps of surprise. Scarlett ignored it and sat where the old man indicated, keeping her face straight and expressionless.

  The old man looked at her carefully, taking in the face paint and its pattern. He noticed the tears painted on her cheek, the pattern and colours of the headband and most of all the Eagle perched quite happily on her arm. He realized her hair was naturally that colour, and her skin was very pale, even where the sun had given it a slight copper burnish.

  He took out his pipe and filled it from a pouch he had on his belt. They would smoke the aromatic tobacco and herb mix to bring the spirits forward. They would judge this woman.

  Montoya watched and knew what was coming. His people had been using tobacco in rituals and ceremonies for as long as anyone knew and the pipe the old man had produced was not dissimilar to the type they used.

  “You must follow what the old man does,” he instructed.

  Scarlett raised an eyebrow in question, but all Montoya said was,

  “It important, just do.”

  Scarlett knew about tobacco. It’s how her father got his nickname. It made her feel sick when she and Ray snuck a try when they were younger.

  The old man finished filling the bowl, which looked enormous to her, and took a burning twig from the fire to light it. Soon, he was puffing clouds of aromatic smoke into the air that drifted towards her. Elvira decided at that point that she would rather be in the air and took off with a flurry of wings.

  Once the pipe was burning satisfactorily, the old man passed it to Scarlett. Sensing the solemnity of the occasion, she took it respectfully in both hands, nodding her head to the man in thanks. Then, bracing herself, she put it in her mouth and sucked the sweet smoke into her lungs. She expected to go into a fit of coughing, but she found she could control the impulse and blew the smoke out of her mouth in a stream before passing the pipe to Montoya.

  Then she realized there was probably more than just tobacco in the mix. There was a slight herby edge to the taste and her vision started to change.

  Montoya saw her eyes glaze and her head bow forward as the pipe smoke took effect. This was her first experience of it and she had taken a lung full, so the effect was almost immediate. Then her head rolled back, and her eyes opened; she was seeing something or someone, and her lips moved as she talked to it.

  The old man watched intently. She appeared to be arguing with someone then looked sad as if she was saying goodbye. Her head drooped forward and she toppled to the side as she fainted, Montoya caught her before she hit the ground and gathered her in his arms.

  Scarlett woke up in an unfamiliar place. It was a lodge and the native woman sat across from where she lay on a dear skin. She tried to remember what happened. She remembered smoking the pipe, then Françoise appeared to her, she pleaded with him to come back to her, but he had told her that he couldn’t, that he still loved her dearly. He thanked her for ending things quickly, saying he feared he would suffer for days if not weeks in the gibbet and at the end, they said goodbye.

  She sat up and the woman passed her a carved wooden beaker of water. She realized she was really thirsty and was very hungry. She drank the water gratefully and then chewed on a strip of sweet cured meat that the woman passed to her. She felt more at peace than since Françoise died but had a bubble of loss inside her that only a good cry would resolve.

  She found Montoya sitting by the fire when she left the lodge. He was showing the old man how to weave a particular pattern using coloured threads. She looked at the sky and saw it was getting on towards dusk. Montoya stood and Berko and Emeka appeared behind him,

  “Time to go back to the ship,” he said and led her back the way they had come.

  Ray was almost frantic with worry. Scarlett had been gone for almost the whole day and he was pestering Steven to gather a search party when they appeared on the bank and whistled for a boat.

  When they came aboard, she wouldn’t say anything about what happened and just went to her cabin, leaving then all on the deck. Montoya asked Ray to leave her alone for a while, when she didn’t appear after an hour he made his way down, knocked, and entered without waiting for an answer.

  He heard her crying in her bed chamber and crossed the room to go to her. Absalom had taught him to count steps, memorize the position of things, and to use a cane to feel ahead so he didn’t run into things so he didn’t trip over the discarded leather bodice or her boots. He sat on the bed and held her. He didn’t say anything. She would open up to him when she was ready.

  It took four weeks of hard sweaty work to repair the Fox sufficiently to be confident of it making the crossing to England and in that time, Scarlett visited the Jeaga and traded goods for venison and wild pig meat for her crew. She became quite friendly with the woman, who was called Leaping Fawn in the Jeaga language, and Leaping Fawn got friendly with Eneka.

  The old chief was so put out with Leaping Fawn that he asked Scarlett to take her with her. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time she had ‘wandered’ and the chief decided she had to leave the tribe she was such a disgrace.

  Eneka was very happy to have her come along but Scarlett wasn’t so sure, she could cause a lot of trouble on the ship. If Eneka could have a woman in his berth why couldn’t they all.

  “If we not take her, they will kill her,” Montoya explained.

  Scarlett thought about it and eventually agreed to let her on board as her cabin servant. She made it clear if she caused any trouble, she would toss her over the side.

  They slipped out of the inlet under headsails only just after dawn and as soon as they were in open water, started increasing the sail step by step to try out the new woodwork and rigging.

  The carpenters had done a good job. The bow was tight, a split that revealed itself in the foremast when it was put under pressure, was splinted and wrapped and the rigging held up just fine. It was time to go home.

  Chapter 20: Revenge and Retribution.

  They were less than a day out when the hail came from the topmast lookout,

  “Sail Ho! Off the starboard quarter! Topsails!” a pause, “looks Spanish!”

  Scarlett exchanged a look with Steven. Could it be the Santa Sabina?

  Steven grabbed a telescope and climbed the mainmast. He passed the lookout, who was on the topsail yard, and went up onto the royal yard. He stood on it; an arm wrapped around the mast to secure himself and lifted the telescope to his eye.

  He scanned the horizon then focused on the strange sail. He could see the stranger was heading straight for them as their masts were in line and he could make out the top of her mainsails now.

  Damn, it could be, he thought.

  Back on the deck, he ordered all sail set she could safely carry then turned to Scarlett.

  “It could be the same ship; her mainsail looks newer than the others and she is making straight for us flying everything she can carry.”

  “If it is, he must have been patrolling this stretch of coast waiting for us to finish repairs. We wounded them last time. Do you think they are back to full strength?” Scarlett asked.

  “Probably not fully, but enough to want to take us on again,” Steven replied, looking troubled.

  “How many of the old Tigre’s crew are on board?” Scarlett asked. She let the men that had made it on to the Fox join her crew and so far, they had integrated well but she was far from trusting them.

  “About a dozen. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking that I don’t trust them not to do something to hurt us if we get into a fight with one of their own.”

  She considered before continuing,

  “Leave them for now but make sure that they are watched all the time,” then she had a vision of a sail flapping uselessly as a critical time in the chase. “No, belay that, gather them up and
put them in irons, we can’t afford to take the risk.”

  The Spanish were rounded up and secured in the cable tier. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was pointed out that it was this or the skipper would have them thrown over the side so they went quietly.

  It developed into a stern chase. The Spanish were slightly faster some of the time and gained a little and then through some fickle turn of fate the Fox would have a better wind and ease out the lead a little. They had another day to go before they would pick up the trades and turn to cross the Atlantic.

  They dare not reduce sail overnight so maintained a good ten knot average and were off Charleston by midday. The wind was dead astern but as they sailed a little further North it swung around to come more from the West. They had reached the trades.

  They turned to head a little North of East and home, keeping the wind dead astern, their best point of sail. Unfortunately, it was the Spaniard’s as well, and the gap slowly closed.

  Scarlett wasn’t worried as at this rate, they would be almost able to see Ireland by the time they were caught. On they sailed, Daniel worked out the range and the rate of closure by repeatedly taking the angle to the top of the Santa Sabina’s main mast and working out the trigonometry. This gave Scarlett a chance to practice using the quadrant herself and over the following days her maths improved as well as Daniel was a hard taskmaster Captain or not.

  Eventually, the Spaniard closed to less than a mile and they got a surprise. Scarlett was watching them when there was a puff of smoke and gout of flame from their bow followed by a bang. A shot splashed down a cable short of their stern. The Spanish had taken a leaf out of their book and moved one of their lower deck guns up on to their fore castle.