by Steve Goble
“You are his friend,” Spider said. “He is certain to forgive you. But still, he goes in there to work his brain, or to calm it.”
They negotiated another ladder to reach the high aft deck. Sam Smoke, fumes oozing from his nose and mouth, stepped forward. The man had a half dozen men with him, passengers and crewmen not currently on watch, and young Hob as well. The boy carried a bucket containing a canvas bag of gunpowder, bits of wadding, and numerous balls. The crewmen carried guns, and some waited to shoot while others finished packing ball, powder, and wadding into their weapons.
“We have only a little daylight remaining,” Sam Smoke snarled.
“I have many chores, sir,” Spider said. “I am a carpenter. Whole ship is made of wood, you know. Demands much of my attention.” It grated to address Smoke as sir, but the man was a paying passenger and Spider was a crewman. Spider also preferred to keep his disdain to himself, lest Smoke realize his pirate past was known, but it was not easy. “I got to your request as soon as I was able.”
“That looks as though it should suffice,” Smoke growled, pointing at Spider’s target.
“Good,” Spider said. He set the target down, took the coil of rope from Fox, and fixed one end of the line through the eye hook at the front. It took only a second for Spider to fashion a good knot, although he was no Odin. “Hand me that, please.”
A crewman lifted a coil of light rope and handed it to Spider, who fitted that one through the eye hook at the top of the target’s mast. “We’ll lower this for you, then, and you can begin wasting shot and powder.”
Sam Smoke smiled, if you could call it that, and lifted his pipe to his mouth. He clenched it tightly between yellow teeth, and it quivered as he spoke. “Why, mister carpenter, these are dangerous waters, and we’d best all know who can shoot and who cannot, would you disagree? Might even be pirates about.” His eyebrows lifted beneath the broad brim of his hat. “Aye? Heard tell of some nasty sorts that escaped from a frigate in Port Royal. One of them killed a navy officer, the story goes. They caught a few, hung a few, but not all of them, I heard. Some escaped the gallows. Might even be on this ship, for all one can tell.”
Smoke punctuated his speech with a quiet, death-rattle chuckle.
“I heard the stories,” Spider said, lifting the target. Two crewmen took it from him and carried it to port, where they began lowering it to the sea. Spider fixed the tow line to Redemption’s taffrail. Once the tiny vessel caught the water, the crewmen brought up the drop line and Spider paid out the tow line. Soon, the target settled into Redemption’s wake, where it bobbed like a drunkard.
“Dangerous waters, as I said,” Smoke continued, “and us with our captain’s pretty girl aboard. It would not do to let a pirate near that precious cargo. It surely would not.” He chuckled. “No, no, no. So, if we be destined to run into pirates, should we not be prepared?” Smoke pulled a pistol from his belt. “Should we not sharpen our aim with a little practice? Be sure we can hit what we need to hit? Load a weapon quickly? The pirates will be trained, that’s for certain. You can rely upon it.”
“I would not know,” Spider said.
“Wouldn’t you?” Smoke’s hard eyes glistened before another puff of smoke wafted from his mouth and hid them.
“I wouldn’t,” Spider said.
Smoke’s eyes narrowed. “Wouldn’t you? Well, I should like to be prepared proper, if I should meet any pirates.” His head lowered in what seemed to Spider to be a short nod. “I would not mind shooting one of those damned pirates, you may rely on it.” He grinned, and fumes curled through the gaps in his teeth.
“Those gents will deal with any pirates,” Spider said, pointing off the starboard rail. There, HMS Southampton and her guns followed a parallel course but slightly behind. Sunset light filled her sails, painting them reddish-gold. Spider could not recall the last time he’d looked upon one of the king’s ships and thought it beautiful. In the past, a naval vessel was something to elude.
Four merchant vessels had left Port Royal under the frigate’s escort. Aside from the fluyt Redemption, the other ships were all former East Indiamen owned by a Boston merchant of German descent who had given them names Spider found difficult to pronounce—Viel Reisenden, Dame des Nebels, and Altes Huhn. The latter, according to Odin, meant “old chicken.” Spider had wondered aloud why anyone would name a ship that, to which Odin answered, sounding more the Scotsman than usual, “Who knows why a German does goddamned anything?”
Those ships now were in line ahead, out of sight from Spider’s vantage as Redemption and the frigate brought up the convoy’s rear. The frigate, swift and agile, darted ahead at times and fell back at others, watchful for pirates. It still felt odd to Spider to realize he was comforted by the navy’s presence, so long as her captain and crew stayed on their own vessel, and he was glad to remind Smoke that the king’s men were within hailing distance.
“Yes,” Smoke said, laughing softly. “Those navy boys will protect us. Surely, they will.” He lowered his head and shook it slowly back and forth. “Such confidence you have.”
“I have never fired a weapon,” Fox said, his keen eyes fixed on a pistol Hob held, “but I should be glad of the experience. Is there a spare I could fire?”
Sam Smoke turned toward Fox. “We can trade off. We have a half dozen pistols and plenty of shot and powder.”
“Excellent,” Fox said, handing his blanket to Hob. “Fascinating contraptions, these pistols.”
Indeed, Spider thought, the flintlock pistols stored aboard Redemption were quite well made, with sixteen-inch barrels mounted on good walnut stocks, not ornate but sanded smooth. They were solid but too heavy for target work, in Spider’s opinion. French-made, if he was not mistaken. They were fascinating enough contraptions.
This exercise, though, was futile. Flintlocks were unreliable, misfiring often, and they weren’t of much account if your foe was more than a few feet away. Spider had fired one in battle many, many times and almost always stuck the damned thing right in his opponent’s belly before pulling the trigger, just to have a chance at felling his target. The gun made a right bloody mess at such range, of course, but even that was not foolproof, for the damned things sometimes just flipped a useless spark into the air and the powder never lit. It was always best to follow up a gunshot with a sword or knife in case the damned gun failed to fire.
Spider could not think of a single useful thing to be learned by shooting at a target towed some thirty yards behind Redemption. And considering how the ship bobbed and swayed, and the target did likewise in her wake, any hits on the target were likely to be mere accidents.
“It is done like this,” Smoke said, nodding toward Fox and then turning suddenly toward the target. The mast and plank were silhouetted against the red arc of the sun on the horizon. Smoke watched for several heartbeats, judging the motion of ship, sea, and target. Then he squinted until his eyes were nearly shut, inhaled sharply so that his pipe bowl fired like a small sun, held his breath, raised the pistol quickly, and fired.
The upper left corner of the makeshift plank burst in a shower of splinters.
“Jesus,” Hob exclaimed, leaping and spinning. “I would not have bet you could hit it! I think it the finest shot I have ever seen, sir!”
Fox had jumped from the sparks and the sharp thunderclap of exploding powder. Spider waved away the cloud of gun smoke that brushed his face. “Calm down, Hob.”
The lad was right, though. It had been an extraordinary shot, or else a merely lucky one. Smoke’s wink and yellow grin professed he could do it again anytime he liked, and Hob basked in the man’s confidence and swagger.
Spider would have to sit the boy down for a long talk.
“Excellent shot,” Fox said. Others nodded approvingly.
“I’ll believe so if he can do it again,” Spider said quietly, evoking a chortle from Smoke.
“Now you try,” Smoke said.
Fox grinned. “I doubt I will . . .”
&n
bsp; “Shoot the damned thing.”
Fox nodded. “Very well.” He took a gun from Hob, who said, “It is a powerful feeling, sir. This is loaded and ready.”
Fox nodded. He examined the gun, stood squarely, wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, aimed, and held his breath. The man’s head nodded almost imperceptibly in time with the rise and fall of the ship as he tried to carefully time his shot, and to Spider’s eye the man looked a tad green.
They all stood in silence, and Smoke’s damned pipe glowed brightly three times before Fox’s gun cracked.
The floating plank showed no sign of damage, but a gull squawked.
Smoke laughed. “You fired over your man’s head, I think, and he cut you twenty times before you shot at him. You will be of no account in a fight, friend Fox.”
“It would never be my desire to shoot a person,” Fox said, although he seemed disappointed with himself. He handed the gun to Hob and took back his blanket.
“Shooting a person is what this is for,” Smoke said, holding his own gun aloft. “I hope you have the steel to do it if you need to. But . . . you won’t, will you?”
Fox stared at Smoke for ten seconds. “I will leave you to your practice, sir.” He pulled the blanket tightly around his shoulders and headed toward the ladder without looking back. Smoke laughed quietly.
“Let us try a volley,” Smoke said while loading powder, shot, and wadding down the barrel of a fresh gun. “Best way to take a man down at a distance is for all of us to fire at him at once. We all aim and fire together, on my command.”
“Do not stand too closely together,” Spider warned. “These things throw a shower of sparks. Fire a bunch at once and it is like a rain in hell. We don’t want to toss a spark into someone else’s weapon, or into Hob’s damned bucket.”
Smoke winked. “So you know a thing or two about guns, then.” Around them, men loaded their weapons.
Spider shrugged. “A man learns things at sea.”
“Indeed. How did you lose the finger?”
“Accident with an axe.”
“Carpenter’s peril, I suppose.” Smoke looked Spider in the eye. “One of them piratical fellows that escaped the navy, he had a missing finger. On his left hand. Like yours.”
This man’s leering eyes would look better with a dirk in one of them, Spider thought. He inhaled sharply, to expand his gut a bit so he would feel the hilt of his knife pressing against it and thus know exactly where his weapon was. Spider envisioned the attack and decided a gut strike would be best, his hand whipping the knife free from his belt and arcing the blade across Sam Smoke’s belly. Spider knew he could do it without ever freeing his gaze from Smoke’s, and he knew the shock of that first slash would give him all the time he needed to finish the job. Smoke would be over the taffrail and sinking before he ever knew he was dead.
But Redemption was a legitimate merchant vessel, not some damned pirate ship, and Sam Smoke was a paying voyager. Spider willed himself to calm down.
“At least three other men on this vessel are missing a finger or two,” Spider said. “Don’t recall which hands. Sea life is hazardous. We all get hurt, eventually.”
“Oh, yes,” Smoke said. “All seamen get hurt. Sometimes bad. Real bad.” He laughed quietly, and the pipe bobbed up and down.
Spider’s spine iced, despite the Caribbean heat.
“All ready, sir,” Hob said.
“Very good,” Smoke said as Hob retreated with the bucket. Smoke yanked the pipe from his mouth and emptied the bowl into the sea, then tucked the thing into his belt. “Let us see if we can tear up the carpenter’s hard work.”
Spider turned away, glad for the interruption.
“Ready!” Smoke bellowed. A half dozen arms extended over the taffrail, guns in hand.
“Aim!”
Spider braced himself. No matter how many times a man heard a bunch of guns going off at once, the first volley was always a jolt.
“Fire!”
Six hammers snapped, five flash pans erupted in sparks, and five balls flew out to sea. As near as Spider could tell, not a single ball had hit the target.
“Fuck,” said an able-bodied seaman named Jones, staring at his weapon. “It did not spark. I might as well have just pointed a stick at it.” He started examining the thing, and Spider snatched it away. “You aim it at the enemy’s face, not your own.”
Smoke grinned. “Let us have another go. Powder and balls, Hob. Hob!”
“Sorry, sir,” Hob said, turning sharply and reddening a bit. He glanced behind himself quickly, toward the weather deck below, then faced Smoke and strode forth with his bucket. “Here we are.”
Spider peered below to see what had distracted the boy. He expected to see Miss Brentwood, a sight to distract any man. He whistled softly when he saw someone else instead, just as feminine as Miss Brentwood but crowned with long red hair like a shock of flames. “Who the hell is she? And where has she been hiding?”
“I do not know her name, sir,” Hob said, peering back over his shoulder as the shooters gathered powder and balls from his bucket. “But I aim to meet her. I saw her when she came aboard, but she stayed below, until now.”
The woman wore a simple dress of gray, and once the wind died, her long red tresses spilled down her back. She had a fine figure, and when she turned her head Spider saw enough to deem her handsome. A small hat, adorned with bright scarlet flowers Spider could not name, tugged in the wind against the hairpins that kept it in place.
“Did you happen to see if she has a wedding band, Hob?”
“She does. But unless I see a husband, I am not sure I care,” Hob said.
“You had better care,” Spider said sharply. “We don’t want trouble.”
“Perhaps she’s a widow.”
“Hob.”
Smoke bellowed orders. “Ready! Aim! Fire!”
Spider’s gaze remained fixed on Hob’s, until drifting smoke forced him to blink.
“It gets lonely at sea,” Hob said. “She might get lonely, I think.”
“It was not so long ago you spent your pay on a whore, boy. I do not believe you will die if you don’t empty your sack again before we get to Boston, but if you are that desperate, grab your own pickle and have a tug. A married woman is trouble.”
“I am not a child.”
“Then be a man and think,” Spider growled. “You give her leeway, by God, do you hear me?”
Neither of them had noticed Smoke’s approach, at least not until they smelled the ever-present tobacco fumes. “Well, won’t we all be damned,” he said, his eyes locked on the mystery woman.
“Do you know her?” Hob frowned, and his eyebrows furrowed.
Smoke smiled widely. “Does anyone really know a woman? They are all mysteries, aye?” Then he laughed, clapped Spider on the shoulder, took Hob’s bucket, and walked back to the taffrail.
Hob was already headed down the ladder.
“Damn it, Hob.” Spider followed and noted the red-headed woman was approaching Nicholas Wright. Spider hoped Hob had sense enough to not interrupt the master’s conversation with her. That was a false hope, though, as the boy rushed to the next ladder, slid down it, and headed directly toward them.
“Fool,” Spider muttered. He crossed the quarterdeck and descended to the weather deck as quickly as he could, in hopes of heading off trouble.
He was too late. Hob had already joined Wright and the mystery woman. Wright, always a busy man, was clearly being polite to her but glowered at Hob. The man carried a burlap sack, and for a moment Spider thought he might hit Hob with it.
“Fuck and bugger,” Spider muttered.
A meow answered him. Thomas curled against the captain’s cabin door, staring at Spider. “Leave me alone,” Spider said, stepping away from the ladder. He got another meow in return.
“If you’ve no duties to attend to at the moment, be off,” Wright said sharply to Hob, who turned and ran, leaving a “yes, sir” in his wake.
“I wil
l leave you to your duty, as well,” the woman said. She bowed slightly, turned, saw Spider, and bowed slightly again, then headed forward along the port rail. Wright also headed forward but chose the starboard path.
Spider could not tell where Hob had gone. “I am going to saw off that boy’s whore pipe,” he muttered to himself. “But for now, Lord, I need a drink.”
Fortunately, he knew where the cook kept his secret rum stash.
6
“The words of the preacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem.”
“Oh, for pity, not that book for this ungodly lot.”
The first phrase, intoned by Rufus Fox, was scarcely audible above the morning breeze humming in the lines, as he whispered in rehearsal for his upcoming Bible reading. The second, growled somewhat louder and more aggressively by the Reverend Down, came from somewhere behind Spider and was quickly followed by more. “Give them not the subtleties of Ecclesiastes but rather the purifying fire of Revelation. Perhaps they will understand that.”
It was too much for Spider, whose head throbbed with a boozy headache, and he snapped. “Some of us ignorant men can build ships and navigate them, Reverend. Can you?”
Spider received several appreciative nods from his fellow crewmen. The Reverend Down muttered toward him. “You speak of ephemeral, worldly things,” the clergyman said. “Your ships, and indeed the stars you sail by, will not outlast the eternal perdition that awaits you if you do not learn the path to salvation.”
“Amen,” said Hadley, head bowed and eyes closed. Thomas, curled up against a bulkhead, meowed as if in agreement.
The preacher nodded in assent at Hadley, then sneered at Spider. “There is a man with his mind in the right place,” the Reverend Down said, pointing at the former slave. “You might follow his lead, else eternity might not be pleasant for you.”
For one flicker of a moment, Spider imagined himself sending the Reverend Down on his merry way to whatever eternity had in store for him, but Rufus Fox attempted to quiet things down. Fox looked up from the book in his hands and smiled. “Reverend,” he said with a nod. “We talked about this, and I thought it was settled. Good morning. And good morning to you all,” he told the sailors gathered for the reading.