As Timothy left, I leaned against the cannon. The fiddle began a melancholy tune, its notes soaring, soaring, seeming to reach the stars above. A guitar played alongside, plaintive notes plucked from each string. It was fine music. Even my father would agree. I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me, absently wondering whether I'd rather be a pirate or a slave.
Much as I hated to admit it, Josiah Black navigated a ship as well as any merchant captain. Just four months after leaving the New World, surviving storms and raging seas, her hull battered and her sails ragged, the Tempest Galley hove to in the bay of Saint Mary's, a lushly green, low-lying island off the eastern coast of Madagascar.
The April day was warm and breezy, the sands white like sugar, the water blue as turquoise.
Two ships lay at anchor—the Defiance and the Sweet Jamaica. Aye, pirate ships they were, for Saint Mary's was a pirates’ nest. Before we even dropped anchor, dozens of villains swarmed into longboats and rowed out to greet us. They climbed aboard, and soon the Tempest Galley teemed with pistol blasts, laughter, vile language, and the clink of bottles.
“Hey, Daniel!” Timothy was on the fo'c'sle deck, lounging around a bowl of rum punch with several others. I could tell by the slur in his voice that he was already half seas over. “C'mon. This stuff'll set your throat afire and send your stomach to hell.” And so saying, he belched juicily and collapsed into gales of laughter as men thumped him on the back.
I tried to smile but was, once again, sorely disappointed in Timothy. No matter how many times I had warned him of the eternal consequences of such riotous living, Timothy had nevertheless thrown in his lot with the devil and embraced the life of sin with gleeful abandon. He didn't seem to care anymore that they had murdered my father, even saying once that my father was no more innocent than were the pirates, and that I had to wake up and smell the stink.
Now I replied, “No, thanks. Not thirsty.”
“Thinks he's too good for us, does he?” one of the pirates mumbled. A greasy mustache drooped over his lip, and his darting eyes reminded me of a rat's.
I looked toward shore, pretending I couldn't hear, wishing these ruffians weren't swarming all over our ship as if they owned it.
“Ah, never mind him,” said Timothy. “He's always like that.”
“Aye, well, that may be so,” the pirate replied. “Can't say I recommend it, though, as a way of living. I once knew a man who was high-and-mighty like that. Hated everything and everyone. So I slit his throat and fed his innards to my dog.”
As everyone started to laugh, Timothy included, a pistol blasted from beside me. Startled, ears ringing, I turned to see Josiah Black glaring at the man who had just spoken. Smoke hovered above Josiah's head. “And I knew a man,” said Josiah, smiling slowly, “who drowned in his own blood because he didn't treat his dog with respect.”
The man paled. His mustache twitched. “Cap-Captain Black! I—I didn't know this was your ship. I—I didn't know you was back on the Round. Honest.” He flicked his gaze over me. “And I was just pulling his leg. Having a bit of fun. Honest I was.”
“That's right,” slurred Timothy, swaying back and forth. “Rat Eye was just pulling his fun and having a bit of leg.”
Josiah sighed, stuck his pistol back in his sash, and pulled me away. I shrugged out of his grasp. “Daniel, my boy, it's best you act as if you're one of them,” he said softly. “Aboard my ship, I can protect you, but acting superior around men like these will only get you killed. They've had their fill of superiority.”
I said nothing, wondering why he was talking to me, again wondering why, after thousands of miles, he continued to show me kindness and protect me. Did he not care that I hated him?
“Why don't you go get yourself something to eat? Surely you're as heartily sick of salt beef and wormy biscuit as I am. There's pineapple, coconut, and yams, and Cook's roasting some pigs. Go ashore if you like.”
I frowned. “But what will I do ashore?”
“It's paradise, Daniel. I'm sure you'll figure it out.”
“Why, blast my hide,” someone exclaimed from behind us, “if it isn't that lousy scoundrel Josiah Black!”
Josiah turned and smiled. “Gideon Fist! Thought someone would have stabbed you in the back by now!”
With a black kerchief around his head, hoop earrings, and teeth that flashed gold, Gideon Fist was a brutish giant of a man. A massive red beard curled to his chest. When he clasped Josiah in a bear hug, pistols and cutlass clanking, I smelled a powerful waft of body odor. “Captain Fist to you, you dog. Captain of the Defiance now.”
“The Defiance!”
“Aye.”
“A fine ship, she is.”
Captain Fist nodded, then fixed his gaze on me. “Who's the puppy?”
“This is my—” Josiah paused. “This is Daniel Markham. He's sharpening his teeth on our—”
“I am not a pirate,” I declared, daring to look Captain Fist in the eye.
Fist's eyes narrowed, but he patted me on the back. “Of course not, lad. Of course not. I like your way of thinking. Like Robin Hood's merry men we are, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, namely, us. Nothing piratical about that. Now run along and let me and Captain Black discuss the finer points of life.”
“Daniel,” Josiah said when I turned to leave, “take this.” He pulled one of his pistols from his sash and handed it to me. It was a fine pistol, with a handle of mahogany and swirls about its stock. “If anyone troubles you, shoot him.”
wandered down the beach, shoes off, sand hot and soft between my toes. My stomach bulged from roasted pork and yams, and I gnawed a slice of pineapple. The tangy sweet taste burst through my mouth like nothing I'd eaten before. Juice dribbled down my arm, down my chin.
Scattered around the beach, knots of pirates yarned, drank, and ate. Malagasy men and women, their skin tones ranging from light brown to almost black, dressed in colorful clothes, sat with them, laughing, smiling. I smelled fire smoke, tobacco, coconut, roasted fish and chicken. Children ran and played, giggling and shrieking.
Some of the pirates reclined on the verandas of their bamboo huts. Built on stilts, many of the huts were only big enough to house a pirate or two, while other huts had several rooms and were decorated with shells and flowering vines. I glimpsed furniture inside.
Abe Corner, the one-legged cook, had told me that scores of pirates lived here. They refused to go home to the cold and control of the colonies. They raided the ships in the Red Sea while the monsoon winds were favorable, then returned to their base at Saint Mary's to live with their Malagasy wives and beget their Malagasy children. One of the pirates had even built a couple of log forts, complete with cannon, to protect his life of robbery and murder.
I remembered Josiah's words to the crew when we'd first sighted Saint Mary's. “As agreed upon, every man is to give two full days of labor to the careening of the Tempest Galley and bending new sails to the yards. We'll rest here awhile, reprovision, and then, when the southwest monsoon begins to blow and the winds favor us, we voyage to the Red Sea.” Then Josiah had drawn his cutlass. “If a man can be hanged for stealing a shilling, he might as well be hanged for stealing a fortune! What do you say, men?”
“Aye, Captain Black!” the crew had shouted. “A gold chain or a wooden leg, we'll stand by you!”
I tossed the pineapple rind into the surf and rinsed my hands. Then I continued down the beach until the sounds of merriment faded away and I heard nothing but the songs of birds, the breezy rustle of palm leaves, and the brush of water against the shore. My turn for careening the ship wasn't for two days. Until then, I was free as a whistle.
First I threw sticks into the water, as far as I could. Then I gathered a pile of shells, listening to the ocean roar inside the big ones. Next I practiced with my cutlass, hearing it sing as I sliced this way and that. I stabbed a tree trunk, again and again. I imagined a great battle, me the naval commander whom no one could slay, Timothy beside me as my se
cond in command.
I took out my pistol and pretended to shoot the swarming pirates—rogues, every one. Hundreds of them. Timothy and I fighting back to back, protecting each other from villains coming at us from every side. Abe Corner choosing at the last moment to join our ranks, using his wooden leg with lethal effect. Basil Higgins deciding to forgo his life of plunder and so fighting alongside Abe. Caesar, unwilling to kill his favorite pupils, turning his blade upon the bloodthirsty pirates … By this time, I was hot and out of breath. I tied my sash around my head, wondering if I looked as mean as Gideon Fist. No longer a puppy, but a man. After all, I was fifteen plus two months now. I shrugged out of my vest and shirt, proud of the way my muscles were shaping up. I flexed and grinned. Try to get me, I thought.
As the afternoon sun became an orange ball, floating above the horizon, I collapsed on the sand and stared at the sky, at the sea birds floating in the breeze. The more I stared, the more a lump grew in my throat.
Timothy's voice echoed in my mind: Your father was no more innocent than were the pirates. Wake up and smell the stink.
But that's different! I had argued. My father was a good man. A decent man who never harmed a living soul.
No one's saying he wasn't decent, Timothy had replied, picking his toes as he sat atop a barrel. I'm only saying he wasn't a saint, is all. None of us is.
As I lay on the beach, I tried to imagine my father looking down upon me from heaven, tried to envision his face, but it kept slipping away, a vague shadow. Can you see me, Father? Do you know where I am and what has happened to me? Do you care what is to become of me? Are you—are you in heaven?
As daylight dimmed, I wiped my eyes and sat up, only then noticing a trail that snaked into the jungle almost imperceptibly. An animal trail? Knowing I had only moments before night fell, I hurried down the trail, curious, pushing away vines and leaves. It was darker in the jungle, night almost. It smelled of rot, of things growing, of dampness. Three hundred paces from the beach, the path opened into a sandy clearing. Dim light filtered into the clearing from an opening overhead. An animal scuttled away into the brush.
Off to the side of the clearing stood a hut, roof long gone, elevated floor littered with jungle debris, steps broken, stinking of animal droppings. It had been a long time since anyone had lived there. I gave the floor a shake. Still solid.
Well, I thought, what do you know. A hideaway. Secret and alone. After pondering another moment or two, I smiled, then turned and dashed through the jungle toward the beach as if I had wings, thinking, I claim this hut for Daniel Markham, gentleman adventurer and seeker of revenge.
Over the next week, besides my two days spent careening the Tempest Galley, I worked on my hut.
First I hacked away the vines and plants that had grown over it, swept out the debris, and scrubbed both the floor and walls with vinegar to rid it of the stench. (I was delighted to learn that the floor was fine and smooth, made of some kind of hardwood.) Next I constructed rafters of bamboo like I'd seen on the other huts of the island, securing the ends with vine. Afterward I covered the rafters with banana leaves, weaving them together with more vine so they wouldn't blow off.
Both the roof and floor of the hut continued past the front wall, creating a covered veranda that, in my opinion, was quite cheery. I built railings of bamboo and fixed the rickety steps that led off the veranda to the clearing. Finally I cleaned underneath the hut and around the clearing itself. Brush, leaves, animal droppings, discarded construction materials—I hauled it all to a nearby area in the jungle that I had designated as both my privy and my dump.
I fetched my belongings from the Tempest Galley and brought Timothy back with me as my first houseguest. We sat on the veranda as the heavens opened and it began to rain. We chewed on pineapple slices, quite dry as rain pounded the roof of banana leaves and rivulets of water streamed off the edges. A lizard crawled along the railing. I slapped a bug on my neck, leaving a sticky smear of pineapple juice.
“Nice place,” Timothy said as he gazed around, his mouth full of pineapple.
“You could move in with me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“There's enough room for several hammocks. Maybe Abe is looking for a place to stay.…” My voice trailed off as I remembered Abe was a pirate. But, I reminded myself, he was really a cook more than a pirate. In fact, it had been years since he'd participated in battle.
“I dunno,” Timothy said.
“But I thought you liked it.”
“Sure I do.” Then he looked at me from beneath his mop of hair. “It's just that—you know.”
“What.”
He shrugged again. “Well, it doesn't seem as much fun, is all.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment. “Tomorrow after our sword-fighting lesson with Caesar, we can build some furniture. A table and a chair, certainly. Maybe a real bed. You can sleep in it first.”
He wiped his hands on his breeches. “You don't have any rum punch by any chance, do you?”
“No.”
After a while, Timothy stood. “Well, I guess I'll be going.”
“But—it's raining. You'll get wet. Why don't you stay here for the night? You can have the hammock.”
He gave a crooked smile. “Another time. See you.” And with a wave, off he ran into the hard rain, disappearing from sight down the path.
I watched the lizard for a long time, telling myself that it didn't matter.
It was still raining hours later when I blew out my candle and climbed in my hammock, the darkness of the jungle closing about me.
Sometime during the night, after the rain had stopped, I was awakened by a noise. I raised my head, listening. There it was again. Branches snapping. Leaves being thrust aside. Footsteps.
Timothy? Is that you?
I jerked up too quickly and accidentally tumbled out of my hammock. I stood, cursing, tangling my hand in my hammock, bumping my head against the wall, kicking a shoe across the floor.
Voices.
Shaking, still blurry from sleep, I lurched out onto the veranda.
Not forty paces away, three men moved toward me, following the path. One held a lantern, its brownish light casting monstrous, swaying shadows.
As yet, no one had seen me.
I returned to my hut, blindly searching for my pistol and cutlass. My hand touched the pistol, and I shoved it in the waistband of my pants, feeling the sting of metal. After groping around for a few more seconds, I touched leather—my crossbelt. I fastened on my crossbelt with its cutlass and stumbled for the door.
Without a sound, I descended the stairs and fled. A few moments later, I was at my dump. I crouched behind a plant with dense foliage, watching, breathing like a hurricane, my heart crashing, leaves wet against my cheek. Whatever these riffraff were up to, it was no good, of that I was certain. I hoped against hope they would not find my hut.
As they stepped into the clearing, I recognized two of the pirates: Rat Eye and Gideon Fist. The other pirate I did not know. Black hair sprouted from him like on an ape I had once seen in a cage back in Boston. Like the other two, he was heavily armed.
“Under the marked tree,” said Fist, pointing.
Aye,” growled Rat Eye. “I remember it well.”
Carved into the trunk of one of the palm trees was a crooked X. I had seen the mark before and wondered about its significance. I had a dread that I was about to find out.
Rat Eye set down the lantern, and the hairy pirate handed him a shovel before taking another shovel in hand and starting to dig. The two of them labored while Fist lit his pipe, squinting at the proceedings through the smoke. Occasionally he glanced back down the trail as if to be sure no one had followed them.
For the next half hour or so, I heard nothing but grunts and oaths, the slice of the shovels, the whisper of thrown sand, and the patter of rainwater from a jungle so recently drenched. A bug bit my arm, and I crushed the insect, hoping that whatever the scoundrels wer
e looking for, they would find it quickly and leave. As yet, no one had tossed so much as a glance at the hut, hidden in shadows on the far side of the clearing.
Thunk! Thunk!
“Found it!” cried the hairy man.
“A lovelier sound I've never heard,” said Rat Eye, grinning. He straightened, puffing hard, his shoulders and head extending above the pit. He wiped his brow with his sleeve.
“Well done, men.” Fist emptied his pipe before stowing it back in his pocket. “Just set it up here next to me, and I'll take care of the rest.”
With a grunt and a heave-ho, Rat Eye and Hairy hoisted a wooden chest onto the ground next to the pit. Then they clambered out of the pit as Fist took a key from around his neck, unlocked the chest, and lifted the lid. Sand trickled away, and the hinges creaked.
My breath caught. Jewels, coins, gold and silver bars, crowns, bracelets, necklaces—it was a king's ransom. Fist dug in a hand, and I heard the sound of treasure.
Rat Eye giggled, and his eyes gleamed.
Hairy grabbed a handful of loot and began to dance about. “By the devil, 'tis good to see it again. We're rich! We're bloody rich!”
“Those half-wits aboard the Defiance don't know we stole 'em blind,” said Rat Eye. “They still think we nabbed nothing but sails and kettles aboard our last prize.”
“Nor will they ever know.” So saying, Fist drew two pistols, one in each hand, and aimed them at Rat Eye and Hairy.
airy stopped midtwirl, mouth hanging. A ruby slipped from his hand.
“Cap-Captain Fist,” stammered Rat Eye. “What—what're you doing?”
“I'm obliged to you rascals on three accounts,” said Fist. “First, for stealing the goods. Second, for keeping your mouths shut about it.…”
Suddenly one of the pistols blasted. With no more than a wheeze, eyes wide, Hairy crumpled to the ground. I clamped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.
“And third, I'm much obliged to you for digging your grave and saving me the trouble.”
Voyage of Plunder Page 6