Except to William.
He hoped that his strength had been a worthy asset to William, both to protect him with and to pass on to him, but John Robert also trusted that his own courage and life as it had been lived, would be an inspiration to his youngest son, to help him through future quests. For always, he knew, life offered unending struggles and choices.
John Robert had been provided with many experiences. He had known the love of a woman of his own choosing, had been blessed with both a daughter and sons, and had been given the opportunity these past months to bond with William in a way that had brought them closer than either of them could ever have imagined. It had been one last wild ride together.
William’s adventures were not yet done, John Robert realized, even as his own were coming to an end. There would be dangerous trials ahead, and his heart ached fiercely as only a parent’s can for their child, even as a new, acute pain ripped through his chest as the tip of the pirate’s broadsword thrust from behind pierced his body. John Robert looked down in mild surprise–he had not heard the pirates’ approach above the scream of the wind–and then he simply acknowledged to himself that he was a lucky man once more. This second wound would only hasten his release from his disfigured body.
He slumped to the deck and the icy waves which surged across the deck engulfed him and carried him with them, extinguishing the fiery pain in his wounds. The shriek of the storm was silenced as he drifted beneath the ocean’s surface; invisible currents tugged at him, spiraling him down, deeper into their depths. Its cold was comforting.
There were only a few moments of unpleasant air hunger before he slipped into hypoxia, before his mermaids arrived to take John Robert home with them.
Aboard the Bloodhorn, men lay half-mad with raging thirsts, their tongues thickened and black from rat-bite fever and dehydration. Some struggled to their feet and staggered out onto deck, where, seasoned sailors that they were, they recognized their predicament. Although the sudden miserable illness had them all feeling like they were going to die, the approaching storm was far more likely to mete out that ending.
The wind had whipped the ocean’s surface into a furious topography of towering foam-capped mountains which rose above the bow and rails, cresting ominously for a second before breaking into a freefall crash onto the deck below. Sea water cascaded off the quarter deck above and invaded every level of the Bloodhorn below; salt water torrents roared through the peripheries of bat-tened-down hatchways and rushed through every available crack in the decking, coming to a dangerous final pooling in the bilge hold below, turning it into an almost certain deathtrap for those sent to man the pump there. It was therefore no surprise to anyone that Samuel Smith, little Tommy Jones, and the former captain Crowell found themselves all to be deemed dispensable in this way by the pirate crew, and ordered to do continuous shifts with the pump.
It was a great surprise, however, to all in this small group, to be joined in this watery graveyard in the ship’s bowels, by a slender sailor with a woolen Monmouth cap upon his head. He seemed to nearly disappear in the remnants of a too-large topcoat and britches, both of which had been hitched fast around the sailor’s waist with a long strip of material. It was only when a severe roll of the ship suddenly threw them all tumbling and smashing up against the hull’s walls, with their arms flying wildly to steady themselves, that Smith’s jaw dropped open in astonishment. The strange sailor’s arms flew up overhead, stretching the topcoat’s fold out long enough for Smith to glimpse a flash of red ribbon tied around the sailor’s waist.
Cassie had joined them.
It was Tommy who noticed that the strange bundles which had once been stacked in an orderly fashion on top of the gravelly layer of ballast, now floated upon the surface of the rising water level in the bilge compartment. The long and narrow bales of Portuguese cork bark were both naturally buoyant and rot resistant. It took only a few moments of hurried discussion to hatch a backup escape plan to fortify that of stealing the Bloodhorn’s yawl. They would lash some cork sheaves to the narrow rails of the yawl, in an effort to increase the small boat’s chance of remaining afloat in the clutches of the storm. Captain Crowell was offered an invitation to join their escape expedition.
“A captain does not desert a floundering ship,” he declared upon considering their invite. “However, it would seem that I have been demoted these past weeks and therefore,” he grinned and offered his hand forward in a handshake sealing the deal, “although it does go against my officer’s nature, I am under no compunction to stay aboard this vessel. I suggest we make hast to abandon her before the storm’s full wrath is upon her.”
Topside, the sickened and storm battered crew clung for their lives to the ratlines and yardarms as they fought to control their sails’ canvasses in the shrieking winds. They took no notice of the group of four nor of the long items that each clutched tightly, the four having hauled the strange cargo out of the hatch opening and over towards the rail where the jolly boat was fastened to the Bloodhorn.
Just as they arrived at the side railing, a thunderous crack behind them pierced through the sounds of the storm.
“Look out!” Captain Crowell’s screamed words of warning were lost, ripped from his lips by the fury of the gales, and he sprang forward towards his three shipmates. His violent push into Smith and Tommy sent them flying into Cassie, and in a domino effect, all three crashed into the railing, just as a piece of broken mast smashed heavily onto the deck beside them.
Scrambling to their feet, they were sickened to see the side of the jolly boat crushed and broken by the mast’s massive weight. Shock gave way to raw horror as they saw, at the mast’s middle, the captain lying face down on the deck, pinned beneath the giant piece of wood. It took the combined strength of all three to lift the jagged timber off of him. He gritted his teeth against the pain, and his face twisted in agony as they rolled him face up.
“C’mon, Captain!” Smith yelled, as he attempted to hoist the captain to his feet. The captain’s body sagged, a dead weight in his arms. Smith shouted desperately, still tugging upwards under the man’s armpits, “Up and into the boat with ya’!”
“Save yourselves!” Captain Crowell’s tone had once again taken on the hard edge of a commander. “The jolly’s too badly damaged,” he grunted between clenched teeth. “Clasp fast to the cork oak and leap into the sea. I have seen it float when all else sinks. It’s your only hope! Go!”
“But we can’t leave ya’, Sir!” screamed Smith trying to be heard above the roar of the storm.
“Go! Now! While you still have the chance!” He cut off any further objections with a somber announcement. “My back is broken. I cannot move my legs.” Captain Crowell was announcing his own death in the most simplest of terms. “It seems that it was not in my destiny to leave this vessel after all ….”
“Do something!” Cassie sobbed. “We can’t just leave him!”
“He’s as good as dead if his back’s broke!” Smith countered, ignoring Cassie’s pleading. “The most I can do is make it quick fer him.” He brandished a small blade and knelt beside his captain.
Captain Crowell nodded in immediate understanding, his eyes unflinchingly locked on Smith’s face.
“You have my gratitude, Mr. Smith.”
“No, wait! You can’t!” Cassie screamed and, grabbing Smith’s arm with all of her might, she wrenched it backwards.
“It’s a final help to the Captain, don’cha see?” Smith shouted, struggling to loosen his arm from her grip. “Fer God’s sake, woman! Let me do this fer the man!”
At that moment the sea took matters out of his hands, as a wall of water crashed over the deck again, sweeping them off their feet, and carrying them all through the break in the railing.
Aboard the Mary Jane, sailors staggered from their bunks and hammocks, and groped their way to the main deck, struggling to climb up the rat lines which vibrated and hummed fiercely in the grip of the howling gales. The lines threatened to shake th
em loose and send them spiraling to their deaths below. The sails, already reefed, still offered too much resistance to the oncoming blasts and men climbed and clung, desperate to make their way up to the heavy sheets of canvas, risking their lives in an effort to lash the escaping edges that flapped like great wings, securely to the yardarms.
Far below them, on the pitching surface of the sea, the jolly boat heaved and dropped, then rose and reared. Suddenly free of its mooring line to the Mary Jane, it began spinning and bobbing at her side like a cork caught in a river’s angry eddy. The wild sea had been whipped into great white frothy peaks alternating with dark troughs and the small boat slipped her nose nearly vertically downwards before she suddenly bucked backwards on the uplift. Her occupants hung on precariously, desperate to prevent being thrown over her sides.
“William!” Tess shrieked as his plummeting body hit the cresting water, piercing its surface and sinking under. Seconds later, his head broke the surface, only an arm’s length from the boat, and he gasped and kicked his face clear of the water. Even in the darkness Tess could see that William held one arm bent at a peculiar angle.
My God! Tess panicked. His arm is broken! He’ll drown right in front of me!
“Help me!” he pleaded and kicked furiously again, raising himself a few inches higher in the water.
“Grab hold!” Mr. Lancaster held an oar out to him, battling to stay within the tossing boat himself. Against the bottomless blackness of the ocean, it was nearly impossible to even see William.
“Take her!” William gasped, groping blindly with one hand for the end of the oar offered to him, just as a wave threatened to suck him out of reach.
“What?” The howl of the storm and the crash of the waves as they battered against the Mary Jane made it impossible to hear clearly if at all. “Take what?” Mr. Lancaster shouted, and then demanded, “Hang on with both hands, boy!” as he began to haul the length of the oar back towards the boat. Over head brilliant stabs of lightning sizzled and flared, the boom of its deafening thunder arriving almost simultaneously.
Drawn to the craft’s side, William coughed and retched on a mouthful of sea water. “Gerta!” he shouted. “Take her!” And from within the crook of his bent arm, Tess could see a small muzzle, the whites of the terrified goat’s eyes glinting in the light of the heavenly flame as the lightning crackled overhead.
All three of them reflexively reached out, grabbing at William and Gerta, but their combined weight on one side threatened to capsize the small boat. Clutching Gerta to her bosom, Mrs. Hanley immediately pushed back to the opposite side, counterbalancing the rescue efforts of Tess and Mr. Lancaster. Mr. Lancaster seized William by a handful of hair and Tess reached out, grabbing William’s outstretched hand. Together, they held him fast to the side of the boat, as a wave lifted William’s body up with its fresh surge over the craft’s edge. In a synchronized effort, they half pulled, half floated William over the top edge into the boat.
“Da’!” William struggled for breath as he lay on the bottom of the dory, almost totally immersed in water that was collecting there at an alarming rate. Sitting up, William looked around wildly. It was only then that any of them realized just how far they had become separated from the Mary Jane. Illuminated by another sheet of lightning, the stern of the great ship was barely visible to them.
“Da’!” William bellowed, scanning across the mountainous seas. “Da’!”
“Yer Da’ dinna make it off!” Mr. Lancaster’s voice was desperately strident, laboring with the effort to be heard above the storm, and strained with fear and grief for their situation. Prying open a small hatch to a secret compartment behind a second wall that William had built into the boat’s side, he reached inside and withdrew an armful of tin tankards, thrusting one into each pair of hands.
“Bail!” he ordered. “By God, this dammed sea has not yet claimed us! We must survive this night’s storm!”
Powered by both wind and waves, their boat was driven onward in the direction of a waiting land mass which lay guarded by the deadly ragged teeth of its protective reef. In spite of their most frantic efforts, water poured over the edges and continued to engulf them waist high. For nearly an hour they bailed, their arms becoming heavy and slow with fatigue, their muscles numb from the lashing cold of the wind and water.
Lightning crackled overhead again setting the gems in Tess’s ring to glow. Staring at them, she felt a sense of grim satisfaction. At least I foiled Edward in his quest for the rings. For all of his fine training and wealth, he is just a common pirate in a gentleman’s disguise. Tess’s thoughts began to drift, her body too chilled and her mind too tired to be frightened any more.
The anticipated warmth of Port Royal in Jamaica played like a daydream in her head. There were strange animals and brightly colored birds there, her father had told her, with the land being covered by a carpet of green lushness, the likes of which she could not even begin to imagine. As her father had talked about it, and had spoken about their new home-to-be, with its palm trees, soft sands, and gentle turquoise waters, it had been the sunshine and the pleasure of the warm seas that Tess had been looking forward to the most ….
Dimly aware of her present surroundings, she was not alarmed but only vaguely annoyed when the water-laden boat gave way beneath them, spilling them out into the icy clutches of the roiling water.
A crushing wave broke over them, pounding down upon them, sucking each of them deeper into its plexus. It’s supposed to be warm! she thought sullenly as she sank.
Many ships, great and small, met their deaths when pitted against the enormous power of seas churned by such devil winds. Often capsizing on the open water or being driven into and torn asunder by the ragged reefs which lined the shorelines, the great vessels and their weighty treasures of gold, silver, ivory, jewels, and human cargo frequently sank. Any bits of wrecks which washed ashore were quickly scavenged and salvaged by the island inhabitants who regularly scoured the beaches in the aftermath of such storms.
On this particular morning, those brought to the water’s edge by the potential opportunity of finding useable items–canvas or wood scraps, perhaps even a surviving cask of rum or two–crept in silence not wishing to be seen, darting among the predawn shadows of the lush vegetation. Between this and the ocean’s edge, a stretch of fine powdery sand had been blown into finger dunes pointing inland. Palm trees rose above the more dense undergrowth, their fronds rustling in the remaining breezes. The sun had not yet risen above the horizon, although a pink hue heralded its arrival.
A bare foot nudged at a mound half buried in the storm-strewn sand, sending a stream of young land crabs scuttling out from beneath the mound. The mound remained unresponsive. The only movement came from the flush of the waves which rocked it from side to side. Reaching down, a pair of hands rolled the mound over and the owner of the bare foot stepped back in surprise.
Barely aware that someone had rolled her over, Tess sucked in a large shuddering breath and momentarily sank back into the safety of unconscious exhaustion. An incessant tugging at her finger roused her–the grip was rough and strong and the pain was intensely acute. Her finger’s joints felt like they were going to dislocate.
Edward! Her heart pounded frantically. He survived! A voice screamed in her head. He’s trying to steal my ring!
Too numb to cry out, she curled her fingers into a fist and attempted to pull her hand out of the strange grasp but her fingers were pried open and splayed out upon a piece of exposed sandstone. She blinked and tried to clear her vision. Shafts of the early morning sun streaked over the horizon and scalded her salt-burned eyes. Through her watery vision Tess saw the flash of a knife blade and realized, My God! He’s going to cut my finger off to get the ring!
A scream strangled in her throat just as a familiar voice rang out.
“Leave her alone, you son of a bitch! If you even touch her, I will kill you!”
For just a split second, the grip on Tess’s hand let go and sh
e twisted away, pulling her hand free and rolling onto her stomach before struggling onto her knees. Looking up, she saw William, a pistol held steadily in either hand and both leveled at her attacker. Looking back she was stunned to see, not Edward, but a man, in tattered dungarees, with skin as black as charcoal. He held a broad-bladed machete in one hand and even from his knees, stared steadily at William, as though gauging the threat.
Shadows in the underbrush behind William suddenly merged into human forms as three more people stepped forward, their skin colors an artist’s mixed palette of gilded browns to inky sable. Steadily they advanced on Tess and William, encircling them in an ever tightening ring. Outnumbered, William held the pistols at arm’s length and slowly turned on the spot, pivoting around on his damaged and stiffened knee.
“When I say so, you run!” he whispered to Tess out of the corner of his mouth.
“Where did you get the guns?’’ Tess softly inquired.
“I got two blades as well,” he replied softly. “They’re from the false compartment in the boat’s wall. It was the sturdiest section.” William continued in a hushed tone. “It survived and washed up on shore alongside me just beyond that spit of land over there.”
“Jacko!” A high pitched voice barked out the name. The man with the machete jumped to his feet. One of the islanders stepped forward, and staring at Tess, advanced towards them, with a stride that was purposeful and fearless. As the stranger stepped closer, only two strides away, Tess gasped.
From this close distance she was clearly a woman, her form wrapped in a ragged and sun-bleached caftan. Glancing at William and staring briefly down the barrels of the pistols, the woman then brazenly reached out and touched Tess’s neck.
“Erzulie?”
The foreign syllables in the woman’s question hung in the air between them, but it was not her boldness that had made Tess gasp. There, imbedded into the slight curve of the woman’s shoulder muscle, was the raised scar of the Bloodhorn brand.
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