Blaggard's Moon

by George Bryan Polivka

  It didn’t really seem fair. It was hard enough for a man to guess what the future would bring to him on the earth—and that’s where he could make all the plans he wanted, and try to bring a particular thing about. How was he supposed to guess what happened after, where no one could see and no word ever came back from?

  And if a man’s supposed to do good on the earth, why is the doing of it so hard? Like pushing a sledge up a hill, and not an empty one, either, but one full of all kinds of the heavy goods of life, and it keeps sliding back on top of him. The plain fact is, it’s hard to do good. And then when you do good, it hurts more often than it helps. Look at Wentworth. He turned good, and what happened? Wham! Took it square in the kisser. Jenta tried to do good, too, helping Wentworth, and then helping the Gatemen. What did she get for her trouble? Wham! Shayla tried all her life for a better place for her daughter. Wham! Avery Wittle? Wham! Father Dent? Wham! And Delaney. One good deed, saving a little girl, and—Wham! Onka Din Botlay.

  Mermonkeys.

  The more Delaney puzzled, the darker his thoughts grew. What kind of world is it where the Conchs get rich and the Dents get whammed? It was enough to make a man angry. Enough to turn a man mean. Enough to make anyone want to throw the whole thing overboard, turn pirate, and have done with it. Like Sleeve said.

  And not only that, why was it easy to turn bad and hard to turn back good again? How did that make any sense? Like gravity isn’t enough, everyone else has got to go and lean on the sledge from the other side, pushing it back toward the pit, back on top of the poor man trying to move it up the hill. Whatever it was that Jenta did to make Wentworth turn good, there with the Scriptures and the prayers and all, it must have been like pulling teeth. Delaney never did learn what it was. But he got some clues when he’d heard Ham talking about it to one of the men on deck, while the three of them were cleaning their pistols after a little target practice on some sea turtles.

  “How did he do it?” the young sailor asked. “How did Wentworth turn all good like he done?”

  “Now son,” Ham started. “You know this is dangerous territory. You sure you want to hear about it?”

  “Aye. I’m not scared.”

  “You hear it, though, you might just start heading in that direction. The Whale catches wind, and you might want to reconsider getting scared.”

  The sailor shrugged. “Just want to know, that’s all. Not sayin’ I’ll do a thing with it.”

  “I don’t know if I ought.” Ham looked down the barrel of his pistol, then rammed a rag down it with a cleaning rod. “Tell you what, I’ll tell you a part of the story I didn’t tell the others, if you want to hear it. You do what you will with it.”

  “Sure!”

  “Okay. Well, this was back when Wentworth first started visiting Father Dent.”

  “The scarred-up priest?”

  “Aye, the very one. You remember how Wentworth complained to Jenta about how hard it was that, when he tried to turn and do what’s right, suddenly he’s face-to-face with so much more that’s wrong, which he never did see before?”

  “He was talkin’ about his daddy’s agreement with the Conch, which he never knew about whilst drinkin’ his life away. Sure, I remember.”

  “So he tells Carter Dent the same thing, and the priest just nods. Then he explains. ‘The holy Scriptures,’ he says, ‘tell us that good men and women will have three enemies, and each one is worse than the next. They are your own flesh, then the world around you, and lastly the devil below. Wentworth, you overcame the first one. With the help of Jenta and by the grace of God, you beat back the flesh, which is your desire for drinking and gambling and womanizing. But with that one managed, you then came face-to-face with the world. It came dressed as your father, but it was really all the business that’s done in this world that needs a heavy dose of evil to keep it going. To keep all the money rolling in. And I can warn you, too, that once you stand against the world, the world will turn you straight over to the devil.’ ”

  “You mean the Conch?” the young sailor asked.

  Ham shrugged. “Are you sure you want to know more about this?”

  The sailor swallowed hard. “Jenta saved him, though, right? There at the poker table? So it didn’t go all bad for him. And then there’s Damrick. What about him? He licked all his enemies, didn’t he?”

  “Ah, but you haven’t heard the end of their stories yet.”

  “No, I guess not.” He thought a moment longer, scratched a patchy beard. “Still, I’d like to know how it works. How a man turns good. But just to know,” he repeated.

  “Okay, then.” Ham took a deep breath. Then he spoke low, in a whisper so quiet that Delaney had to lean in close to overhear. “There’s passages of Scripture that are straight about it. Tell you plainly what you must do to be saved.”

  “What do they say?” the sailor asked, also in a whisper, eyes wide.

  “They say it’s all about believing. It happens inside.” Ham tapped his chest.

  “Oh.” The sailor seemed disappointed. “ ’Cause I thought it had to do with priests. You know, wavin’ their hands and chantin’ certain things over you.”

  “I’m not saying that can’t help. But here’s the thing. There are certain particulars that if you agree with them, even once, just one time in the secrecy of your own heart, why, you’ll cross over from darkness to light. And there’s no turning back neither, because once you do that, you’ve handed your very soul over to God. And He don’t ever forget. And He don’t ever let go. Now. Do you want to know what those things are, those things you got to agree with and believe?” Ham asked.

  “Aye,” the sailor nodded, his mouth open, his eyes wide.

  Then Ham looked over toward Delaney, who had stopped cleaning his pistol and was hanging on every word, his heart in his throat. “How about you?” Ham asked him. “You want to know what those things are?”

  “No sir!” Delaney said, shooting to his feet, heart hammering his chest like a drum. “No, I was just needin’ to go get some more oil!”

  Ham pointed to the can of gun oil at his feet.

  Delaney looked at that can like it would grab his ankle. “No, not that oil. Some other oil,” he explained, and he collected up his pistol parts and got out of there as quick as he could.

  But now he kind of wished he’d stayed. Just to know. Whatever it was, it must be a very hard thing to agree with, Delaney figured, because so few turned good. Those Scriptures must say that you have to believe something that’s almost impossible to believe. Otherwise more would believe it, some maybe even accidentally, and then they’d end up turning good in spite of themselves.

  Delaney watched that sailor close, from then on. He wanted to see if he ever went good, and then if he got whammed. But there was never anything to notice. Maybe he’d hang back a bit from a plunder, where jumping in would have got him some nice silverware or a brooch or something. But that could have been caused by indigestion, or any other little thing. It was hard to say there was a change. Until one day in port, he didn’t come back to the ship. Maybe he’d got killed or jailed. Or maybe he just didn’t feel like pirating anymore. If that was the case, then the next time the Whale saw him, he’d get whammed for sure. Pirate captains put up with a lot of strange behaviors, but one thing that they could not tolerate was disloyalty.

  Another was cowardice. Delaney sighed. He could feel a great, dark fear creeping up on him; a dark tide of gloom rolling in with the gloaming.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WIDOWS MIGHT

  DANCER CLANG RECEIVED the news at about two in the morning. The captain of the Widows Might set down her mug, folded her hand, rose from the card table and collected her winnings. Then she went about the task of rounding up her crew. The Widow had hit port just about dinnertime, and so the crew had been ashore just long enough to hurt themselves in the usual ways in the usual taverns and inns. But Dancer Clang understood the lure of gold.

  By six in the morning almost all of her sail
ors had shuffled, staggered, or been carried aboard. Those that weren’t retching over the gunwales were standing, sitting, or reclining on the main deck, where they found gallons of hot coffee steaming in an open pot, and a table laid out with pounds of sausages and sliced smoked hams, dozens of boiled eggs, and a vat of porridge.

  By ten, they were under sail.

  By three, they had caught the much slower freighters.

  Damrick Fellows watched the ship through a spyglass. This was the latest of half-a-dozen gray shadows that had lurked on one horizon or another since they left port. But unlike the others, this one had sailed close enough to see and be seen clearly, close enough that the Gatemen recognized her black standard, and the white skull emblazoned on it. Close enough that she in turn was sure to have seen the blood-red flags of the Gatemen, one flying over each of the three rogue Ryland ships as they sailed north in tight formation. But Damrick was watching the curious ship’s stern now. She had turned away, apparently content to sail on like the rest.

  “That’s pirates,” Lye said with a nod. “They fight those who’ll run, and run from those who’ll fight.”

  “Widows Might,” Damrick told him. “That’s Dancer Clang’s ship.”

  “Dancer Clang? Here, let me look.” Damrick gave up the telescope to his friend and partner. “She’s really a woman, ye think?” Lye asked.

  “That’s what they say. But woman or man, if the Widow comes in range we’ll take her down.”

  Lye adjusted the barrels, trying to make the ship come into focus. “I never fought no woman before.” After a few moments he lowered the apparatus, disappointed. He could see nothing particularly feminine about the cutter. “Just feels wrong, don’t it? Fightin’ a woman.”

  “Do you suppose she’ll have pity on you because you’re a man?”

  “The opposite, what I hear.”

  Damrick took the telescope back. After a moment, he said, “She’s not retreating. She’s coming about.” The ship had approached from starboard astern, on the same northerly heading as their own Ayes of Destiny. The wind was from the southeast, and all fours ships were on a starboard tack. Though she kept her distance, Clang had brought the Widow up almost even with the Gatemen, just a couple of points abaft the beam, before turning hard to starboard, showing them her stern as if in retreat. But now it was clear she wasn’t running; she held her starboard turn until she was beating to windward, and past. Now she was coming across the wind facing southeast, in irons, but only for the moment. As Damrick watched, her crew brought the boom of the mainsail across the ship’s stern. The sail luffed momentarily, then caught full. Now she was on a port tack that would take her directly behind all three freighters, and quickly.

  “That cutter is fast,” Damrick reported. “Better call the men to stations. Rather it be too early than too late.”

  The cry went up, and the Ayes of Destiny and her two sister ships, Blue Horizon and Lion’s Pride, burst into activity. Sailors scrambled into the rigging, sharpshooters collected their long guns and positioned themselves at the rails, and smithies stoked up their stoves. For this voyage, each ship had not one, but three small furnaces, one positioned near each mast. And this time they were not manned by novices like Lye Mogene, but by blacksmiths and ironwrights who’d been selected from the recruits in Skaelington for just this purpose. The marksmen would not run low on hot loads again.

  But while the smiths were more experienced, the shooters were less so. With all the volunteers to choose from, Damrick had found many with sailing experience, and many more crack shots. But finding men who had sea legs and dead eyes, both, was a challenge. Generally, Damrick had chosen in favor of those who could shoot. But he knew that the skill required to account for the motion of a ship on the waves was not one that could be acquired in a day, nor in a week, nor even in a month. He hoped that the sheer numbers of hot iron musket balls from a dozen more shooters would help to balance out the experience and the precision he’d lost.

  And, he had one new idea he was anxious to try.

  “Let’s make quick work of these tubs,” Dancer Clang sang out. “There’s a heap a’ gold on every one of ’em. It’s two coins apiece if we can show we took ’em down today.”

  Her crew, mostly recovered from their intemperate night, shouted out their support.

  The Widows Might was a small ship, and the crew was a small outfit, just twenty-five souls. But they were among the most successful pirates on the seas, and every hand aboard was rich by almost any count. Clang was not the cruelest, nor the most colorful, nor the greediest, nor even the most cunning of pirate captains. But no one could deny that she was among the most successful.

  She had never been a dancer. That was a myth. Dancer was her given name, bestowed by parents who expected somewhat more delicate graces. “Clang” was the nickname. It replaced her married name, which she’d quit using shortly after her first husband died of severe gastric distress, a disorder commonly assumed to have been brought on by a generous dash of arsenic in his evening stew. Running from the law, she dropped her last name altogether, disguised herself as a man, and joined the first cutthroat crew she found sailing from port. As a pirate, she was known simply as Dancer. By the time her secret was known, it didn’t much matter. She’d already proven herself with a sword and a pistol and a dirk—not the greatest technique but as bloodthirsty as any. The revelation of her gender caused slackened jaws and amazed oaths and whispered comments, but then she settled right back into the work.

  Her new last name came years later, when she struck out on her own. She found a ship she fancied and commandeered it, stealing it from the harbor of a southern port with the help of a handful of accomplices. She quickly proved to be an excellent captain. She knew how to sail, and she understood strategy. And she knew how to motivate her men. It was her habit, after a successful raid, to dole out shares in gold coin while sitting at a tin-covered table.

  “Love that clang,” she’d say.

  Pretty soon her crew took to the term. “Let’s go collect our clang.” And, “I reckon that ship’s carrying a whole lotta clang.” Once the term came to mean plunder, it was only a matter of time before they hung it on the captain herself, who kept them knee-deep in it and, more importantly, kept them alive to enjoy it. They in turn happily took and kept their oaths of allegiance. Clang’s crew developed a reputation. They took a vicious, carnivorous pride in their work. They were good at it, and they knew it.

  The woman who could inspire such fierce loyalty in two-dozen brutes stood five-feet-four-inches tall, and weighed one hundred and forty pounds. She was no beauty, but neither was she the hag that rumors would have her be. Now at almost forty years of age, her round face was lined but not wrinkled. Her skin was weathered but not leathered. She wore a black bandana tied tight around her skull, from under which tufts of stringy blond hair escaped. Her only adornment was a thin gold coin, an ostentatious bit of clang garnered from some tropical kingdom. She wore it as an earring.

  But those who met her rarely remarked about her appearance. They always commented on her tenacity, her drive. “That’s one tough woman,” they’d say. Or “I’d hate to be the man standing in her way when she wants something.”

  Right now, the man standing in her way was Damrick Fellows.

  “Stand by hot loads,” Hale Starpus called out. The orders were relayed not just to the crew of the Destiny, but through a flagman to the Horizon and the Pride as well. The smiths were already busy. “Hot shot coming!” one of the men with the mitts shouted, sweat pouring from him.

  “Don’t get anxious on me!” Hale called back. “Hold for my order!”

  “That thing is fast,” Damrick repeated, as the cutter raced toward them.

  “They ain’t turnin’, Captain,” Dancer Clang’s first mate told her. He was six-feet-four, slouched, scarred, rumpled, calm as sunset. “They gonna let us run up on ’em?”

  “They may,” she answered.

  “That’s a lot a’ smoke. Maybe they�
�re burnin’, is why they take no notice.”

  “They’re heating their cannon shot,” she said, watching the smoke rise from the decks of all three ships.

  The mate looked with renewed respect on their prey. “The Gatemen,” was all he said.

  “Aye, the Gatemen. Let’s fly by, and see what they’ve got. What do you guess is their range?” She handed the first mate her telescope.

  “As far as cannon, it looks like swivel guns is all. Four I can see on the starboard rails. None fore, none aft. All small bore. Maybe four-pounders. Range…three-hundred yards, I’d say. If they can shoot.”

  “They can shoot.” She took back the scope, studied a while longer. “Don’t recognize the make of cannon. Plenty of musketeers, for what good that’ll do ’em.” She lowered the spyglass. “They all say this Damrick Fellows is cagey. I don’t see it. He looks like a duck on our pond.”

  “Then let’s kill ’im and roast ’im.”

  “Pass the stern of the laggard ship at about two-and-a-half-hundred yards. See what they do. In and out quick as you please.”

  “Aye, aye.” The mate gave the orders.

  “They’re in range, Damrick,” Hale told him. “Give the order and we fire.”

  Damrick leaned on the starboard rail of the quarterdeck. Lye Mogene eyed the approaching ship through a spyglass. “They got six guns to a side. Half of ’em smashers.”

  “Smashers? Lemme see,” Hale said. Lye gladly handed off the scope, and the responsibility.

  Damrick was thoughtful for a moment. “Carronades on a sloop like that. Why?”

  “They’re smaller and lighter?” Lye suggested.