The air was chill but they were warmed by the afternoon sunshine. Ned was their guide at each junction, only pausing once or twice to recollect the route he had originally taken. He crowed with satisfaction when he spied the farm from which he had appropriated the donkey. “Just over yonder hill, an’ we be there.”
The salt smell of the sea permeated the air and, as they crested the last rise, they saw roiling grey waves spread out to the horizon. Horace could hear them crashing angrily on the rocks below. It was as if some giant had taken a massive bite out of the land, he thought, as he surveyed the outline of the cove before them.
“Bring us over there, gal,” Ned directed, “there’s a path down.”
The two men clambered to the ground as the cart came to a halt. “Oi, you too,” Borrows called, and Horace rolled out of the back, stumbling to his knees.
“Come an’ take a look at her, Bill.” Ned hobbled towards the edge of the cliff and gazed down. Borrows followed and Horace ambled in his wake, wondering momentarily if Borrows would seize the opportunity to shove Ned over the edge now that they had arrived at their destination. Perhaps the two of them needed each other a while yet though.
Horace looked down upon the tumultuous vista below, the foreboding water surging around jagged black rocks, white foam spuming upwards and falling back upon the waves in a continual spray. And there she lay, perched impossibly across a massive protruding finger of black rock. Her back was most certainly broken and yet the two halves of the ship clung to each other still, a mass of broken rigging tying them together. What he presumed to be the main mast had been sheared clean off and was wedged diagonally into the cliff face nearby. Spars and broken timbers were strewn across the rocks and were being tossed back and forth relentlessly by the unceasing action of the sea, together with a good amount of random flotsam. One large rock was wrapped in a soaked canvas which must have once been the mainsail.
“Down here.” Ned limped away. As Horace followed the two men he made out the rough hewn steps that led down the face of the cliff. “Good job these are here, Bill. It’s a smuggler’s cove, that’s what I thinks.”
Borrows reached out and grabbed Horace by the collar. “Oi! Stop gapin’ and get down them there steps,” he ordered, pushing him ahead, “and you, girl, if yer want to see ’im again, you’ll be stayin’ put.”
Ned was already making his way downwards with sure and steady progress considering he only had one leg. Horace followed hesitantly, clinging to the slick wet rock face as he went. “Fuck it,” he heard Borrows mumble from behind as the robber began his own descent.
“Ned,” Borrows called, over the crescendo of the breakers below, “what d’ we do at the bottom? Bloody swim fer it?”
“Tide’s on its way out, Bill,” Ned shouted back, “we need all the time we can get, and we mightn’t have another chance. Another day and she might break up completely.”
Or someone else might happen upon it, Horace pondered, remaining focused upon how carefully he put one foot before the other.
Ned was correct, for by the time they reached the base of the stony staircase the waters had receded sufficiently for the three of them to make soggy progress across the shingle beach towards the wreck.
“Up here,” said Ned, when they reached her, and they watched as he clambered up a series of slippery rocks and gained entry to the ship via a massive rent in her hull. Borrows pushed him ahead as they followed.
It was dark within the belly of the vessel and Horace had to blink a few times before he could make out a wooden staircase that rose at an odd angle amongst the smashed timbers. Borrows dragged him along and together they climbed up. Ned was waiting within a hold that housed the disarray of many small timber crates that had presumably been dislodged and strewn about when the ship had struck. A number of them were broken open and a myriad of shiny golden coins were spilled out across the uneven wooden boards.
Borrows whistled. “So ’ere we is then.”
“Aye, Bill. But we must hurry. We have to get as much out as we can, you understand?”
Borrows nodded, not seeming to believe what his eyes were telling him. Oddly though, in the face of all these riches, something else appeared to be nagging at him. “What occurred ’ere?” he asked, “what ’appened to yer crew mates, Ned?”
“None survived, Bill. I be tellin’ you that before.”
“But ’ow did they die, Ned? That’s what I’m askin’. If yer don’t mind me sayin’, it sounds a bit odd that an experienced crew’d let ’em selves get wrecked ’ere like this.”
“Let’s just say that there was a disagreement of sorts.”
Borrows’ gaze swept around the room once again. “Aye, I can well imagine how that might ’appen.”
Horace was put to work then, hauling a crate up to his chest, grateful that it wasn’t larger. Borrows was studying him, possibly thankful that he’d allowed him to live. With a sigh, he bent to follow suit. “Don’t s’pose ye’ll be doin’ any carryin’?” he asked Ned.
“With this?” The other man laughed, rapping his wooden leg, “no chance, mate. But I would if I could, you know it.”
“Ar, I’m sure yer would.” Borrows replied as he hoisted a crate onto his shoulder.
They made steady progress in the fading light, a race against the tide which Ned assured them was rising once more. Between them, Horace and Borrows lugged each of the intact crates up the perilous stairway to the cart and deposited them into its rear, huffing and puffing as they went about it. Horace flagged on more than one occasion but Borrows cuffed him back into action each time. Ned supervised.
“An’ what ’bout these?” Borrows asked Ned when all that remained were broken crates and spilled gold.
“Time’s against us, I fear, but let’s face it. There’s a fortune at the top of that cliff now. I was thinkin’ that the two of us might be having another game.”
“What?” Borrows smiled, wiping the sweat from his brow, “with me dice yer mean?”
“Aye, Bill, I fancy me chances this time, I do.”
Horace listened in amazement. All this gold and the two of them wanted to play games!
Borrows appeared to be weighing matters up. “And what be the prize, Ned?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Ned said, innocence spread across his face.
Borrows roared with laughter. “Yer greedy bastard! Yer really does want the lot. And yer thinks yer can win with me lucky dice, too! Now I’ve heard it all.” He sat down upon a broken crate in order to recover.
Ned looked perplexed. “Oh no, Bill. I thought you could roll the dice this time.”
Borrows seemed to consider this. “Why?”
“’Cos if they’re bound to you as you believe they are, you shouldn’t have too much trouble turning up the thirteen, should you?”
“An’ if I do, I takes the lot, right?”
Ned Withershank nodded his agreement. “Aye, Bill. You can leave me here to rot and ride off into the sunset. And I be givin’ you three goes, too!”
“Awful kind’a yer, Sir,” Borrows said, standing up and straightening his attire, “but I’ll only be needin’ the one.” Horace saw him withdraw the pouch and tip the contents into his palm.
Ned stood beside Borrows, creating a space upon which the dice could be tossed. He watched with a smile as Borrows cupped them in his hand, held them to his lips and whispered some sweet nothings. He gave Ned a wink and, bending to one knee, cast them across the floor.
Horace watched from the staircase as Borrows scuttled forwards on his hands and knees to catch up with them. “Thirteen,” he yelled out in surprise, “and thirteen, and this one too,” he scrambled in the direction of the other dice, “an’ another. Good lord, Ned, they’ve all ended up as thirteen! I told yer I wern’t called Lucky Bill Borrows fer nothin’!”
“Congratulations, Bill,” said Ned, as he hobbled up beside him and planted his peg leg upon the other man’s back.
Horace covered his mouth with a hand as
he caught the glint of the dagger in Ned’s right hand.
“Wha..?” Borrows’ words were stifled as Ned plunged the weapon squarely into the centre of his back.
“Thought you was lucky, didn’t you, mate?” Ned breathed as he bent down to collect up the dice, “well, not today you ain’t!”
As he watched Borrows slump to the deck, Horace realised that this might be his one and only opportunity to flee. Whilst Ned’s back remained turned, he plucked up the courage to slip quietly down the stairs.
He was out of the wreck and scrabbling down the rocks before he heard Ned calling out to him. “Boy, where are you? Show yourself!”
Was he searching the ship for him?
His feet sank into muddy sand as he landed and, glancing to one side, he realised that the tide was fast coming in, just as Ned had predicted.
“Oi! Stop!” Clearer this time. He must have spotted Horace as he trudged inshore towards the base of the cliff.
“I’ve got a name!” Horace hollered, without looking back, “and it’s not Oi!”
“I don’t know it, son. I’m sorry,” Ned cried, “you’ve nothing to fear from me, you know? I don’t mean you any harm. You nor your sister.”
Connie! To reach her was the only thing on his mind now. He stumbled as he reached the foot of the steps, saw Ned hobbling through the breakers towards him as he turned to begin his ascent. He had mounted this precarious flight countless times these past few hours and now, without the burden of gold coin, he scaled them rapidly, mindful of each available handhold.
“Stop there!” Ned screamed from below, “I commands yer! I’ll skin yer alive if you don’t, the bloody pair of yer!”
You’ll have to catch me first! he had a mind to shout back, but he conserved his breath. And, for the remainder of the climb, all Horace heard from beneath him were grunts interspersed with the occasional muffled curse.
With a final glance towards the cliff edge, Connie urged the horse onwards. “Are you sure…” she asked.
“It’s the chance we’ve been waiting for,” he replied between ragged breaths. “Can you get us home?”
“I saw signposts along the way,” she replied. “I can get us to Mortonbury and I think I recall the way from there.”
“Don’t stop for anything, or anyone, Connie. We won’t be caught on foot, and certainly not on one leg!”
As they distanced themselves from the coast, Horace looked back only once. In the increasing gloom he thought he spied the figure of Ned Withershank cresting the cliff top.
He pondered over the characteristics of that pirate and of the highwayman that had held them captive. They had been similar in many ways. Withershank had undoubtedly taken many a chance to create his own luck. Borrows, who had believed himself fated, had been an opportunist in much the same, albeit slightly disillusioned, way. Horace was distracted by the occasional jingle of the golden coin that accompanied them. At least Borrows had those lucky dice! Or were they magical after all?
And Connie and he? Could it be said that they’d had their own slice of luck this day? He felt an affinity with the jetsam from the wreck, dispassionately tossed about by the careless ocean. But perhaps his outlook should be more optimistic now that their destiny was in their own hands.
He smiled at Connie for the first time in as long as he could remember. She shook the reins and they rode on into the cold Winter night.
T’ End
Nils Durban
Nils Durban was born at sea in 1970 and, aged six months, became the adopted son of a Swedish shipping forecaster and a South African diamond mine manager. With influences ranging from Clarke and Clavell to Tolkien and Tolstoy, he has been writing since an early age and has been labouring upon his tentatively titled novel, ‘Shadow on the Sun’, for the past five years. He has worked within the UK construction industry for 25 years and has occupied the roles of Tea Boy and Director, although not necessarily in that order. He dwells amongst the gently rolling hills of Worcestershire with his wife, Maria, their son and two cats. Nils can be contacted at nilsdurban.weebly.com where more of his work is freely available (visiting hours permitting).
2. Thirteen Bullets
Andrew Leon Hudson
Joe Bellow opens the door with my face, not quite fast enough that I can’t take the blow on my cheek and save a broken nose. I get a row of splinters that I can just see from the corner of my eye, rising tall and thick and brown from my skin like the towers of Monument Valley.
He turns me round and pushes me into a creaking seat by the sheriff’s desk. All my weight comes down on my fists, crushed into the gap between chair and ass. Something pops and one of my fingers folds in a new direction across the palm. That hurts, yes, but not as much as it might. Bellow tied my wrists so tightly my hands are probably cold and blue right now.
“Huh,” he says when he sees how my beautiful looks aren’t quite ruined yet, then swings a big fist and—bam—that’s my nose after all, and it hurts like a third eye opening for the first time in the middle of my face, stabbed by the light. Between that and the egg still growing on the back of my skull from yesterday’s pistol whipping, I’d just as soon be elsewhere.
“That’s enough of that,” says the sheriff, a rather ordinary-looking type, which accounts for the town having a resident part-time bounty hunter as well. “He’s here for a trial, not an execution.”
Bellow snorts. “That would be cause and effect you’re talkin’ about, right? Or is it that you’re gonna effect a trial and cause a hangin’?” He looks pleased with himself, and I have to admit I’m reluctantly impressed by his grasp of the concept.
“That remains to be seen, and the decision won’t be made by you.” The sheriff reaches back to the notice board behind him and tears a wanted poster down off its tack. “It says to bring him in alive. Well I say you leave him with me that way too, unless you want to pass on that hundred. Your choice.”
Bellow takes the poster, smirks at it, turns it my way so I can see. Apart from the nose, I guess, it’s a pretty good likeness. “You think you’re worth that much, Leonard Baker?” he asks. Rhetorically, I presume. Then he leans into my face, all rank breath and riding stink—or at least it was yesterday. Today all I can smell and taste is copper from the blood slicking out of my nose and down in my mouth.
“I ain’t sure you’re even worth a bullet, Leonard. It’s a toss up for me. Maybe I’ll save the state the cost.” He says my name like it was Lee O’Nard. It would be worth the bullet for me just to not hear him do it again.
“You’ll take this to the bank, claim your money and go home,” says the sheriff. He holds out an envelope.
Bellow takes it, and as easy as that it’s as if he’d forgotten I’d ever existed. “See you tonight,” he says on his way out. “You can buy me a drink as a thank you.”
“See you later, Joe,” says the sheriff. He gets up, hooks a hand in my armpit to lift me out of my chair, then guides me towards the backroom and the cells.
This jail is a new one on me, but there’s no real surprises. Three open cells in a row, strong bars, heavy locks. There’s a single bench along the whole back wall which, judging by the three wide holes and the wooden bowls underneath each one, serves as both bed and commode.
He puts me in the middle one, closes the door, then reaches through the bars with a short, sharp knife to cut my hands free. He collects the cord as I try to flex my fingers. One of them is out of its socket and starting to swell. Looks like I won’t be getting married this week.
“Get settled,” says my new landlord. “Stay quiet and you’ll have breakfast and dinner for a week, plus my testimony to your good behaviour. Give me trouble, you’ll be a good deal hungrier and less well-regarded when the big day comes. Any questions?”
Better now than when the feeling returns. I manage to close my hand around the bad finger tight enough that, with a rough twist, I can ram it back into place. Ouch. The sheriff winces.
“You got water and a cloth for my nos
e, sir?” I ask and he nods, grudgingly. “Thanks.”
He goes to fetch it like a good little boy and I take a seat. I start pulling the thick splinters out of my cheek. They rest in my hand like long, sharp, rotten teeth. I bend down and leave them in the dark under the bench. I can’t think how they’ll be useful, but I don’t have anything else to keep.
The sheriff returns with water and an old rag, which means he’s probably a decent man. The blood has stopped flowing by then, but it starts with a vengeance when I straighten my nose again. I do it quick, right in front of him, so he’ll know what the noise is about and not come back to crack my head or refuse me supper or tell my jury that I deserve to die.
When I know what’s going on again, I’m on my hands and knees with a stream of blood splashing into the porcelain bowl he brought, spiralling in the water. I dip the rag before it’s all pink and wipe my face down, then plug up my snout with it and go lie on the bench. He waits until I’m horizontal, then pulls the bowl back out and leaves me to it.
The day is long and hot.
Sometime in the afternoon he comes in hauling in an unconscious drunk with the help of a man in a bartender’s waistcoat. The sheriff doesn’t give me a second glance as they dump the sot on the floor, but the bartender does. I’ll be news at the saloon tonight, if Bellow’s not made me that already. I guess I’ll be able to judge my chances around here by whether the town can wait until Friday for justice or feels the need to come and get it tonight.
In the night, the screaming starts.
I’m on my feet pretty fast for a guy whose head feels like murder—what else?—but it’s not like I can do anything but listen. The drunk doesn’t even roll over.
It builds west of the jail, that’s the far side of town, ebbing and flowing. Coming this way. At first I’m thinking it’s a mob, riled up by the bible thumper. Or maybe just by Bellow, who seemed pretty keen to deal with me personally. But the more I hear, the less I think so.
Lucky or Unlucky? 13 Stories of Fate Page 3