“I have no idea.”
“It’s interesting to speculate.”
“You were telling me how you ended up in 1825.”
He shrugged. “I’d read extensively about pirates in the Caribbean and along the African coast. It occurred to me that I’d been born too late. I thought that a much more viable supposition considering I’d already jumped several decades in the time continuum. As for how did I specifically manage to land in the eighteen hundreds…I suppose I was focused on it the day I ended up here.”
“Another ‘incident?”
“I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say I’ll do what’s necessary not to return to 1984. When I landed in 1820, I had several valuable gems with me—and the gun—and wasted no time in finding a crew and a ship. Unlike with the Navy, being the captain of a pirate ship has more to do with personality than experience or previous rank. You don’t earn it, the crew chooses you. It wasn’t difficult at all. In fact, in many ways it was the most natural thing I’ve ever done.
“But why did you pick 1820? Piracy is about to be wiped out, I thought.”
“It’s true I missed the so-called Golden Age, as my brethren are wont to refer to it,” Sully said, tossing a stick onto the fire. “But the trade-off was in a few amenities not available in the seventeen hundreds that I found difficult to live without.”
“I visited 1620 a few years ago,” Ella admitted.
“So you know. A chamber pot, although exceedingly primitive from a nineteen eighties viewpoint, is a luxury compared to a stall full of straw.”
Ella remembered how she had lived in 1620 Heidelberg and found herself begrudgingly agreeing with him.
“No,” he continued, “I chose 1820 because pirates were soon to be eradicated.” He looked at a nonexistent wristwatch on his arm to illustrate his point. “In fact, thanks to Commodore Porter it’s due to happen any minute now. My plan was to ‘go straight,’ as it were.”
“So you know how to manage where you go and when?”
“Don’t you?”
“Rowan and I use a talisman or item of intense personal value. Coupled with extreme emotion—usually fear or longing. But it often happens accidentally.”
“Interesting.”
“It’s not that way for you?”
“Well, it’s true gems and gold do seem to be key and they do have a special place in my heart,” he said, shrugging. “Plus they have the added benefit of enabling me to build a life wherever I land.”
“But you’ve never talked to anyone like a seer or a guide to enlighten you?”
“Just you, Ella,” he said, watching her intently. She found it impossible to read his look. She looked away.
“Your necklace,” he said. “I’ll have it, if you don’t mind.”
Ella snapped her head back to him and clutched the necklace with her hand. “My necklace? What are you talking about?”
“Well, it’s originally mine, is it not? And I’ll need to give it to my future wife.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll get it back by the by.”
“I need it to travel with. To get back to my own time.”
“I thought as much. It is your ‘item of intense personal value.’ I’m honored.”
“Don’t be. It has nothing to do with you,” Ella said hotly, feeling her fear return. If he really wants it, he’ll just take it from me. “And I need it. I have a child waiting for me in 1925.”
He stood again and was staring out through the cave opening. Dawn was coming. Somehow they’d spent the whole night on the island. Ella watched as the barest hint of the rising sun materialized as a vague glimmer on the dark horizon. The rain had stopped, which meant the worst of the storm had passed.
“I’ve never felt such a connection with another living being as I feel with you,” he said, his face intense and flushed. “We have a chance to be a family, you and I. That’s something I don’t remember ever having before.”
“Look, Sully,” Ella said, climbing to her feet, “I’m sorry about that but I can’t be that kind of family for you. Force me to stay in 1825 and I’ll be the kind that wakes up in the middle of the night and sets your bed on fire.”
Sully threw back his head and laughed. “Oh my God, you are definitely my granddaughter.”
“Besides,” she said, “you can’t stay in Key West now. I’m not Adele Morton, remember? You’ll have a target on your back after this.”
“Who said anything about Key West? We’ll sail to Cuba. With this diamond, I can create my own country there. You’ll like Cuba. Great rum, great cigars.”
“I won’t do it.”
“You know I can just take the necklace from you by force. But if you give it willingly, I’ll let you keep the lighter so your husband can leave. Can’t be fairer than that.”
“Don’t do this, Sully,” Ella said, going to him and touching his sleeve. “If you keep me from my child and my husband I’ll only spend every waking minute trying to get back to them—when I’m not busy trying to kill you.”
“Well, let’s just see, shall we?”
26
Bugger.
Rowan bolted out of his hammock and craned his neck to see out the porthole. He relaxed with relief. It was still dark. He sat up and swung his legs out of his hammock when an ice pick of a headache jammed between his eyes and dug in.
Bugger.
It had been a long night, and with the captain gone and Toad who-knows-where the crew had fully enjoyed their evening of rum and scary stories told in the clutch of the storm. Rowan rubbed his eyes and grinned ruefully. The only thing missing had been the pizza and popcorn.
Gingerly, he slipped to the floor of the room, careful not to step on sleeping forms or bump into swaying hammocks with their somnolent, snoring contents. It might be in the middle of the night or just before dawn and there was no way of knowing. He pulled on his shoes and paused to make sure he was the only one awake and then moved to the ladder that led to the main deck.
Up top, he could see the Die Hard had sustained little to no damage from the storm. All sails were down and tightly tied and wrapped. Although it was still drizzling, it seemed safe to say the day would break clear and cool.
Huh. Wonder when I started knowing shit like that? He moved to the base of the ladder that led to the quarterdeck. Probably after spending four months at sea seeing every possible kind of weather, he realized. He couldn’t see the moon, which meant there were either still too many clouds or it was closer to morning than he thought.
Didn’t matter. There wasn’t a soul on board tonight who wasn’t unconscious to the world.
Rowan ran up the steps to the deserted quarterdeck. He’d expected to have to deal with young Kip, the sentinel at the door, and found the boy’s absence and the creeping feeling up the back of his neck cause to hesitate before dashing across the deck to the captain’s cabin. Even from here he could see the door was open.
He glanced around. A trap? He eyed a large barrel of now stale water next to the cabin door. It was an ideal size for that little slime weasel Toad to be crouching behind. He shook his head. Did that make sense? That Toad would be out here all night waiting for Rowan to make his move?
Shrugging off the ill feeling that had come over him since he stepped foot on the quarterdeck, Rowan strode to the cabin and entered. It was dark, the inhabitant—or prisoner—clearly gone now. What had happened?
He turned and lit a lantern on Sully’s table and instantly the gleam of his lighter leapt out to him from the floor.
Could it really be this easy?
He picked up the lighter, weighing it in his hand with satisfaction. His ticket home. Before he turned to snuff out the light and leave, he stopped and sucked in a breath. The bed was covered in blood. His fingers went cold as he looked at the sheets and wondered whose blood it was and if they could still be alive after having lost so much.
“She’s gone,” a small voice said from the doorway.
Rowan turned to see the ca
bin boy, Kip, standing there, his left eye swollen shut, the other one blinking forlornly at the interior of the cabin. “Cap’n’ll kill me, most like,” he said softly.
“What happened to her?”
Kip’s lips trembled and he touched his eye. “I’m sworn to secrecy,” he said. “But she’s gone.”
Did the prisoner attack Kip and escape? No, with all that blood, more like somebody killed her then flung the body overboard.
God what a world.
He clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder as he passed through the door, feeling the fragile bones under his hand. “Scabs’ll be up soon,” he said. “Go get some grub. The cap’n won’t kill you.”
“Will ye protect me, mkubwa?” the boy said, looking up at Rowan, “from the cap’n, I mean?”
Rowan hesitated. He had the lighter. Now all he had to do was get back to Key West and meet up with Ella at the hotel. This part of his life was over.
“Sure, Kip,” he said. “Sure, I will.”
***
Ella found it difficult to talk with Sully on the walk back to the ship. The water had receded such that although they walked in it up to their ankles, there was no place that was impassible because of it. She saw a few dead animals that hadn’t escaped last night’s flooding—snakes, a hedgehog of some kind, even a sea turtle although that surprised her—but for the most part, the island was already bouncing back to its original pre-storm state, as it must have done thousands and thousands of times before.
What could she say to him? Her demands and then entreaties to keep the necklace had been met with a pleasant but intractable response. Moments after they’d buried all traces of the fire and their night spent in the cave, he’d demanded and she had handed over her mother’s necklace.
Now, as she walked and stumbled toward the ship that loomed larger and larger on the horizon as they approached, she felt a vulnerability she’d never felt before. Her mother had given her that necklace when Ella was just a child. It was the only loving or sentimental gesture she ever remembered from her, and until this morning she had never removed it.
She noticed that Sully walked with a spring in his step. Somehow, knowing him, he’d walk that way even if he were approaching the gallows—which he someday would. It just wasn’t in his nature to brood or take the glass-half-empty approach.
Funny, one doesn’t normally think of cold-blooded Nazi murderers as being the jolly sort.
The only hopeful moment of the whole morning was the realization that Rowan was on that ship and that she was moving ever closer to him. That moment was followed quickly, however, by the dread of what Rowan would likely do when it became clear that Sully didn’t intend to let her go.
Would her grandfather try to murder her husband? What words could she possibly use to tell Rowan that he would need to go back without her? Would he go? Was their son destined to be an orphan, as Ella feared?
Once, when she stumbled over a large mangrove root and fell to her knees, Sully didn’t hesitate but reversed his steps and scooped her up into his arms. When she protested, he held her all the tighter.
“You’re barefooted,” he said simply. “We’ll never get there at this rate and you’ll be a cripple when we do.”
The relief of not having to walk without shoes in this rough terrain outweighed her loathing for him. She decided she could endure his touch until they reached the beach.
“You’re angry with me,” he said as he stood at the top of a small knoll, the Die Hard in the cove below them. There were two men sitting on the beach.
“Gosh, I wonder why.”
“Mark my words,” he said, squinting at the men as if trying to identify them. “A year from now, you’ll thank me for this.”
“Oh, go to hell. What is that? A welcoming party?”
“I was just wondering the same thing.”
“They don’t normally break out the honor guard to herald your return?”
He shifted her weight in his arms. “No, this is new.”
Ella squirmed to get a better look. The men had spotted them coming down the incline and they were standing now. She saw they were armed with pistols.
And the pistols were in their hands.
“Sully,” she whispered. “Are you sure about this?”
“They’re my own men,” he said, but she noticed a brief tic in his temple. When they reached the beach, he set her on her feet and straightened his coat. She noticed his hand grazed the butt of his musket, as if to confirm to himself it was there.
“This is a problem, isn’t it?” she said, eyeing the men who were walking toward them, their guns hanging at their sides as they came.
“Not at all,” Sully said. “Just a misunderstanding. Even so, please be so kind as to stand behind me.”
When the men reached them, Sully ignored the fact that one of them aimed his gun at him and said, “Ahoy, men. A welcoming committee was not necessary, but I’ll appreciate the oarsman back to the ship.”
One of the men was tall, black and bald. His eyes flicked to Ella and then back to Sully.
“It’s over, Sully,” he said, his accent thick with the sound of the islands. “We got us a new cap’n.”
“So that’s the tune, is it? Funny, I don’t remember a vote.”
“We did it while ye was off with yer whore digging up the Dutchman’s treasure,” the other man, a short, sallow-faced youth said.
“Well, can’t put it any more succinctly than that,” Sully said. “I don’t suppose I need to ask who the new captain is. May I assume you are here to escort me back to the Die Hard?”
“We are,” the bald man said, reaching out and relieving Sully of his pistol. Ella gasped. Up to then, Sully had been in charge and she had just gotten to the point where she didn’t think he was going to kill her.
All that was changed now.
“Lead on, then.” Sully put his hand in the small of Ella’s back and steered her beside him.
The four climbed into the beached dinghy. Ella tried to get eye contact with Sully to get some idea of what he was thinking but his face was implacable.
“You’ve still got the Glock?” Ella whispered to him.
“I’m afraid in my enthusiasm with the demonstration…”
“You emptied the clip.”
The tension built as no one spoke again during the few minutes it took to row to the Die Hard. Once there, a grim nod from the short pirate urged Ella to climb up the rope ladder on the side of the ship, followed by Sully.
She found her hands were shaking as she gripped the ladder. All she knew for sure was that the man who had tried to rape her was either still on board—with a vengeance—or he was dead. Either way, there was going to be hell to pay, and the one person who might have been able to protect her was now a prisoner the same as she was.
The sun was rising over the beach beyond the ship’s rail as Ella pulled herself to the top of the ladder. For a moment, the light blinded her and she shielded her eyes until she could see that there was a crowd of men—ragtag, violent looking men—assembled on deck, and in the center of them all was the one person she hoped never to see again in her life.
The quartermaster, Toad, a bloody rag tied around his face and neck and a pistol in his hand, glared at her with all the hate and intensity of a demented executioner.
27
“Ella!”
She saw him barreling toward her but she almost didn’t recognize him. Dressed in a linen shirt tucked at the waist and a leather belt holding two pistols, he looked as fierce as any pirate on the ship. His hair was wild and blowing. Gone was the man she had held in her arms just a day earlier. This man striding toward her, the other pirates parting as he came, was as at home on this ship as any of them.
This man was a pirate.
“Rowan!” she said, her eyes darting from him to the quartermaster, who snapped his head to see Rowan approach. The young pirate who’d escorted them from the beach suddenly grabbed her by her arms and twisted them behind her
and she shrieked. When she turned to look at Rowan she saw him pulling both guns from his belt, his face a thunderous fury.
“Let ‘er go, Tibbs,” Rowan barked, “or I’ll feed your guts to the sharks.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sully pull a flintlock pistol from the belt of the big black pirate, who grabbed for it unsuccessfully.
“Avast, ye bastard,” Toad snarled to Rowan, stepping in front of his advance and aiming his pistol at Rowan’s head. One of the pirates who had stood watching the action suddenly materialized by Toad and knocked the gun from his hand. The second he did, she felt her captor release her. Rowan kicked Toad’s gun out of his way, jammed his own weapons back in his belt and, before she could say a word, took her hand, bent over, and scooped her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She gasped at how fast it happened as he turned and strode back to the far side of the ship railing.
It broke the tension. Before he put her back on her feet she’d heard several of the crew call out to Rowan in good-natured ribbing as he passed. “Cor, mkubwa, she’s spent the night out there with Sully. Might be she learned a few new things for ye!”
Rowan turned to look at her and she instantly recognized the man she loved under the tan and the grit and the fierce expression. “What the hell are you doing here, Ella? Are you kidding me?”
She jerked her arm away from him, hurt now that he didn’t appear as happy to see her as she was to see him. “I was kidnapped, if you want to know!” she hissed. “Do you think I’d come here deliberately, as you clearly did?”
“We’ll discuss it later,” he growled. “Wait, was that you in the cabin?”
“We’ll discuss it later,” she said primly, turning her back to him to watch with the other pirates.
Toad ran over to where Rowan had kicked his pistol next to one of the large rope coils on the deck and snatched it up. His face was purple with humiliation and rage and he turned toward Rowan. Instantly, the crew of thirty-five men folded their arms and stepped in front of Rowan and Ella. Toad hesitated, then swiveled back to Sully in frustration.
Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) Page 25