by Steve Goble
No, Spider told himself, you are fooling yourself. All these young navy men have a certain bearing, a particular manner. Full of themselves, they are. Line up any six of them together and a mother would be hard-pressed to recognize her own son in the lot.
Spider almost believed it, too, until the tall man’s long strides toward the captain’s quarters brought the green eyes and hawk’s beak nose into full view, and the doffed hat freed a shock of curly brown hair. Lieutenant George Price, by God and devil, one of the very men who’d sent Red Viper below into the bloody depths after locking up her surviving crew. That bastard had been among the officers who had stood over Spider when the shackles were clamped to his wrists. Spider swallowed hard and kept his eyes dead ahead.
Wright waved toward the cabin. Price nodded solemnly and stepped inside, taking no notice of Spider and Hob. Maybe we got lucky, Spider thought. Maybe navy contempt for merchant sailors will keep us beneath his notice.
Wright followed the officer into the cabin. Spider worried his own heartbeat could be heard reverberating within the cabin and tried to settle himself with deep, slow breaths. He hoped Hob was doing the same but would not risk a sideward glance for fear that the motion would catch Price’s attention.
Spider and Hob stood still, afraid to move, while gulls pivoted above the mainmast and mocked them with shrill laughter. After what seemed an hour, but surely could not have been more than a few minutes, the men within the cabin started talking.
“Ghastly business,” Price said quietly.
“We all thought this journey would be good for him,” Wright replied. “His wife’s passing laid him quite low, lower than we realized, apparently. He left a note, or started one, but never finished.”
“Yes,” the lieutenant answered in a tone of disgust that said he’d heard enough. He hurried from the cabin.
Wright followed, and the two men stopped not a dozen steps from Spider and Hob. “We’ve a chaplain aboard Southampton,” the lieutenant said after some time. “I can have him perform a service. It would give the poor fellow something useful to do. Although, suicide being a mortal sin, not part of God’s plan for us, I am not sure . . .”
“The captain’s friend, a Mister Rufus Fox, is a passenger, and he has served the captain as a chaplain, of sorts, certainly as a spiritual advisor. I am certain he will do the honors.”
“Is he ordained, this Fox?”
“Quaker, I am told,” Wright said.
“Quaker?” Price’s nose wrinkled as though Wright had waved shit under it. “Well, then. We shall arrange a gathering of ships and commit him to sea at your Quaker’s convenience, provided he not wait very long. We should not dally. This evening would be best, but morning will suffice. Must give the men a chance to grieve, I should say, merchant men not so well acquainted with sudden death, you know. Perhaps, morning would be best.”
“I agree, sir,” Wright answered. “Coolest part of the day, and it will give his daughter a chance to collect herself. She is horribly shaken.”
“Horrible business, and her aboard to see it,” Price muttered. “And this is she approaching, I take it?”
Abigail Brentwood, looking determined, strode forth after emerging from a hatchway. Her father’s blood had stained her sleeve brown, but she did not seem to have noticed. She also failed to notice Hadley, who sat on a chest near the hatch and watched her intently.
Miss Brentwood stopped before the officer. “Pardon, sir, may I have a word?”
The lieutenant bowed. “Miss Brentwood, on behalf of Captain Shepherd and myself, and indeed our entire crew, allow me to say how very sorry we are to hear of this tragedy. I am Lieutenant George Price, miss, and I am entirely at your disposal.” His sudden gallantry seemed practiced to Spider, who noted that the more the man talked, the closer Nicholas Wright moved toward Abigail Brentwood.
Spider thought Hadley wanted to move closer, too, but the man stayed in his spot. He stared with the intensity of a Caribbean sun.
“I am pleased to hear that, sir,” Miss Brentwood said in a voice that shook. “I want you to know my father did not commit suicide.”
Price looked at her sadly. “I understand it is a difficult thing for you to bear, but . . .”
She lifted her chin. “I know his mettle. I know his feelings on the subject. He would not do it. He would bear any sadness, rather than commit such a sin.”
Fox cleared his throat. He approached and stood nearby, trying to catch Miss Brentwood’s attention. “You know your father longed to see your mother again,” he said. “Perhaps, then, God would not judge him so harshly.”
“He did not kill himself. I know it.”
“The note, Abigail. The gun in his hand,” Wright said gently. “He was locked in there, for God’s sake.”
“Someone killed him,” Miss Brentwood said. “I will find out who, if you men will not.”
“We have examined the evidence very thoroughly,” the lieutenant said softly. “Sad as it may be, miss, I fear your father, indeed, took his own life.”
She waved a hand in dismissal. “I will learn the truth of it. For now, I have a particular favor to ask. My father had a particular place, an island. Loveliest place in the world, he thought, and I believe he’d want to be committed to the deep there, within sight of it. Mister Wright can show you on a map, or a chart as you call it, I am sure. He knows where it is.”
Wright nodded reluctantly. “Once through the Windward Passage, sir, we can bear westward and find it easily enough. I know the spot well. It would add but a few days to our journey, and we could sail direct north from there.”
Price turned his hawkish nose toward Wright, and the maneuver put Spider within the man’s range of vision. “Absolutely out of the question, Mister Wright. I know those waters, and I know many of the islands. Pirate rendezvous points, many of them. Hiding grounds. Cover for predators. My duty is to see this convoy safely to Boston, Mister Wright, not to lead it into pirate territory.”
“Aye, sir,” Wright said, nodding. “I thought that might be your reply, but I promised Abby . . . Miss Brentwood, rather . . . that I would discuss it with you.”
Abigail Brentwood tilted her head. “But, sir, you’ve a powerful frigate, all freighted with heavy guns, those long nines or whatever you call them. Surely, a pirate would run before the wind rather than cope with all that.”
“A wise pirate, yes, but wisdom is a rare commodity among the sea robbers, Miss Brentwood. And they are more bold when they can dodge in and out among island waters they call home. Their sloops can enter shallows where we cannot. It is why they choose such places.” He smiled and softened his voice. “I admire your devotion and your courage. Indeed, I do, and if it were but you and I to make the trip, I would gladly escort you to your father’s beautiful island.”
Good Christ, Spider thought, he sounds as though he means it. The lieutenant’s eyes, though, indicated he had other reasons to muse about sailing off alone with the girl.
Wright crossed his arms, inhaled sharply through his nose, and stared at Miss Brentwood.
“But it is not just you and I,” the lieutenant continued. “We’ve several vessels to fret about. A fool pirate might think he can sweep in and take a ship unawares, or distract us in one direction with one ship whilst another strikes from a different quarter. They often attack in droves, you know, small fleets. They are quite brazen, these fellows, and swift as Southampton is, she cannot be in all places at once. The pirates know this, miss, and may well make a run at us if they think they can succeed. I do not mean to frighten you. . . .”
“I do not frighten easily, sir,” she said. “And if pirates attack in numbers, then why have we only one frigate for escort?”
Price stiffened. “There are many demands upon His Majesty’s ships, Miss Brentwood. I assure you Southampton is quite up to the task, on open water. Provided, of course, that we do not rush upon a dangerous course.”
Wright put an arm around her shoulder. She cast a glance at him
before returning her gaze to the navy man.
“I see that cowering is not in your nature,” Price said to her. “But nor do your pirates cower. Greed makes them take foolish chances. But even if they should fail in taking one of our ships, well, they might yet cost us dear in terms of lives lost. No. I shall not even mention the notion of your father’s lovely isle to the captain. Forgive me, but I have my duty. And I have my career to think of.” He smiled. “Proposing such a risk would no doubt leave me a lieutenant forever, if not cost me my rank altogether.”
“I thought you and your cohorts had done your duty so diligently that piracy was all but dead.” Miss Brentwood punctuated her statement with a frown. “Calico Jack, Stede Bonnet, Bartholomew Roberts, even Blackbeard, where are they now? Gone, I am told. Hanged, or shot dead, or drowned. Nary a pirate left on the high seas. I have read of many such victories.”
“We have had great successes, indeed, miss,” the lieutenant said, trying to hide agitation and failing. “But we captured pirates not very long ago, miss, near these very waters, and we hung a few, by God. But some escaped our grasp. Some men never learn, never give up.”
And Ned Low is one of those who won’t ever give up, Spider thought. He looked to port and starboard. Was Ned Low out there somewhere?
“It is simply too dangerous to ask all these captains to sail their ships into such waters,” Price said. “And I cannot very well expect them to give up their escort so that I might fulfill your wish. Nor should they.”
Miss Brentwood lowered her eyes. “I see.”
“It is for the best, Abby,” Wright said. He tightened his grasp on her shoulder and brushed hair from her face. She did not seem to notice. Wright leaned his face closer to hers. “Perhaps you should accompany the lieutenant aboard Southampton, get away from all this.”
She twisted from his embrace. “How could you think I would leave him?”
“Abby, he is . . .”
“He needs me,” she said. “He needs to be made presentable, for his . . . for his burial. Wherever that may be.”
“Southampton has a surgeon,” Wright suggested, looking at Price, who nodded. “He can dress your father’s wound, clean him up.”
“I am his daughter,” she answered pointedly. “I will see to him. And he would not want to leave his command.”
Wright, defeated, stepped back and nodded.
“I thank you for your time, Lieutenant.” Miss Brentwood curtsied, and Price and Wright bowed, seemingly trying to outperform one another in dignity, to Spider’s mind. Then she returned below, Price and Wright strode back amidships—Price giving Hadley a very stern look—and Spider exhaled. He longed for a pipe and a moment’s peace. And a jug of whiskey.
“I don’t know if I have ever been so scared,” Hob said, giggling nervously.
“Aye,” Spider said.
“What were you going to tell me?”
“Eh?”
“Before we got posted guard here, you were going to tell me something. You said the cap’n’s cabin was not as foul as it should have been, or something of that nature.”
“Aye,” Spider said, nodding. “The cabin air. It smelled foul with blood, aye?”
“Yes, of course,” Hob said. “Damned thick with it, like a butcher shop.”
“No surprise in cramped quarters, all closed off. But it was not foul with burnt gunpowder, was it?”
Hob’s face scrunched up, until he looked a bit like a seal. “Aye! You are right!”
“Quiet,” Spider admonished. “Now you tell me how a pistol fired in such cramped quarters, all sealed up, doesn’t leave the whole bloody cabin smelling like brimstone. The hatch above was open, aye, but all else was closed up and air wasn’t moving much. Why would gun stench clear and blood stench not?”
“Lord, you think he was shot from outside? From the stern gallery? Or from above, through the hatch?”
“I don’t know,” Spider said. “The gallery was closed off from inside. But maybe there is a way. I don’t know. I need a pipe and time to ponder, and perhaps to snoop. But I reckon it may be that the lass has judged right. Our cap’n did not die by his own hand.”
“Lord,” Hob said.
“I believe it may be murder.”
8
Spider could not recall a more somber evening at sea.
Redemption followed the little convoy north by northeast, plying through the Windward Passage, on a steady breeze. Soon, she would leave Caribbean waters behind and plunge northward through the Atlantic, marking one more milestone on Spider’s journey to a normal life with wife and child.
But Spider could not help but think the current situation aboard Redemption was a barrier. He imagined naval inquiries, possibly even a diversion to England, stemming from Captain Brentwood’s death. Lieutenant Price had seemed to accept the explanation of suicide, and appeared to want nothing more than to leave the whole miserable business behind him, but if the man suddenly picked up on some clue, or heard someone aboard Redemption mention murder, that could change everything. That could make the goddamned Royal Navy decide its interests outweighed everything else, and to hell with getting any lowly merchant’s cargo to Boston or Spider home to Em. If the navy decided all the witnesses had to go to England, by God, all the witnesses would go to England.
The mere thought latched onto Spider’s stomach like a kraken.
Redemption leaned a bit to port as Spider, Hob, and Odin sat on hawser coils and ate ackee and salt cod from wooden bowls. Lazare had made dumplings to go with the fruit and fish, though the Frenchman had skimped on the peppers, in Spider’s estimation. Still, it was a fine dish and had been intended as a Sunday treat. It was the kind of small pleasure that meant so much to men at sea.
This day, the splendid food went almost unnoticed.
Rufus Fox sat across the deck, holding his Bible close to his eyes in the dimming light and muttering to himself, his bowl untouched beside him. No doubt he was preparing his words for the morning when Captain Brentwood, now lying wrapped in clean sailcloth within his freshly scrubbed cabin that still smelled of blood, would be committed to the deep. The Reverend Down, scowling at Fox from time to time, paced the main deck and waved his hands about in slow gesticulations as he whispered, pausing now and then to gaze skyward and clasp his hands slowly together beneath his chin. The man probably was readying a competing sermon, Spider supposed. “Would you reckon it sinful if we just gave those two cutlasses and let them fight?”
“Ha!” Odin quickly swallowed a bit of fish. “Don’t matter what you and I reckon, Spider John, and I’ll wager the Almighty laughs at these two bastards every day.”
Spider watched Fox. The man’s gaze lifted from his Bible, sought among the lines and sheets for the answer to some philosophical question, then went back to the Good Book.
Fox’s brief upward glance and the Reverend Down’s pacing were about as much action as Spider had seen on Redemption’s weather deck in the last quarter hour or so. Men sat, ate, and muttered among themselves. Hadley had paced the deck quite a bit earlier, lost in thought and peering at the hatch that led to the guest quarters below. Now he sat alone with his thoughts, perched on a spar just above the main course.
Abigail Brentwood had not come up from her cabin below since she and the flame-haired woman, Anne McCormac, had cleaned up the captain and bound him within his shroud. Hob had gathered spare tackle to insert within the sheets to provide weight that would carry the captain below. He had taken advantage of the moment to learn Anne’s name, but he had not learned much else. He’d asked about her husband, and he received naught but a playful scowl in return.
The thought of Anne McCormac reminded Spider of something.
“Hob, after you tried to meet the lass with the red hair, did you ever go back to collect the guns?”
“What? Oh, aye, from target practice. I did. I know my duty.”
“Did you get them all back?”
“No, got five, one short.”
“Hmm
.”
“Sam Smoke said one of the lads dropped one overboard, didn’t expect the kick and it popped right out of his grip.”
“Sam said that, he did?”
“Aye.”
“Any of the lads that were shooting own up to losing a gun?”
“No, but . . . well . . . I did not ask. I didn’t wish to get some fool lashed for losing a gun.”
“Aye, Hob.” Spider wiped a bit of fish from his lip. “Aye. No need to cause a fellow trouble.”
Spider glanced at Odin. “That bastard Smoke is probably armed now. That might have been his aim all along with the stupid shooting, to get his hands on a gun.”
“Aye.” Odin nodded.
Spider winked at Hob. “I think a few more of the ship’s guns need to disappear. Balls and powder, too.”
“Aye,” Hob said, grinning. “I know right where they are.”
“You think Smoke shot Brentwood?” Odin’s leathery face screwed up tight, as though he was thinking hard.
“I don’t see how,” Spider sighed. “Cabin was locked up from inside. Still, if that son of a bitch walked away from the shooting with a gun, I want one, too.” It was worth the risk. With luck, Mister Wright would be too busy with sailing the ship, burying the captain at sea, and courting Abigail Brentwood to notice a few missing pistols, a bit of gunpowder, and some shot.
“Same goes for me,” Odin said. “I want a gun. Maybe two. And I have my cutlass, too.”
“I am not surprised.” Spider shook his head. “I told you not to bring that.”
“I don’t listen to half of what anyone says, Spider John.”
“Maybe the shot came from the quarterdeck above? Through the grating?” Hob scratched his chin.
“Doubtful,” Spider answered. “The preachers were up there, remember? And both were standing at the rail when the shot was fired. They’d have seen a killer.”