The Devil's Wind

by Steve Goble

  Rufus Fox clambered up behind the preacher. “Yes, fellows. Guns and blades and violence are not the answer. Let us talk, come to a reasonable conclusion.”

  Wright shrugged. “I am in no mood to bargain with a murderer.” He glared at Bob.

  “I am no murderer!” Bob shouted so loudly he shook, and it was a bloody miracle the gun did not go off. Chambers and Ames, both shaking with nerves, each took a nervous step away from him.

  “I am no murderer!” Bob’s jaw quivered.

  Damn, Spider thought. I hate the son of a bitch, but I think I believe him.

  “Do this,” Bob said, swinging the pistol around quickly to stave off any surprise pounce, then leveling it again at Wright. He nodded toward the ship’s boat, mounted there amidships. “Hoist this over the side,” he said. “Give me some water and food, and I’ll take my leave with my true mates here.” He nodded toward Ames and Chambers. “Such as want to can come with us. You all know Wright’s leading you into pirate waters, right? Maybe right into the bloody reach of goddamned Ned Low?”

  A chorus of grumbles rose, and Spider wondered just how many men might take Bob up on his offer. As he scanned the crowd, he noticed Anne McCormac on a ratline by the mainmast, wide green eyes catching the light from Bob’s lantern. She had stationed herself well, so that she could see above the men, and her stance convinced Spider she was hiding a cutlass or gun behind her skirt.

  “Be still,” Wright said. “I know what . . .”

  “Damn and blast ye, man, close your mouth!” Bob again wiped sweat away but had the pistol aimed before anyone could react. “I will take my chances at sea, and I dare say a few hands will go with me.”

  The gathered crewmen shuffled and jostled one another, and Bob kept up his weird back-and-forth, with the lantern acting almost as a lighthouse. Spider clutched his knife and cursed. A throw would be too risky.

  “Aye,” one unknown man said quietly. “I will go with you, Bob.”

  A few scattered echoes among the men followed.

  “Would you take that bet, Mister Wright?” Spider turned toward the source of those words and saw Sam Smoke emerge from the crowd. The usual fog of tobacco smoke accompanied him, but it did not hide the cold, hard glare of his eyes. The man smiled wildly, the pipe jutting like a bowsprit from his teeth. “Survival in a boat in these waters? Pirate waters, I hear?”

  Wright spared a quick, irritated glance toward Smoke. “I would not. And neither should any of you. You hear? It is a foolish notion. Bob’s no navigator; he’ll get you lost on the sea.”

  “The boat will serve us; we can reach civilized lands, damn and blast! We can reach the Turks, or Nassau, or Jamaica!”

  “You will not take my boat,” Wright said.

  “I say otherwise,” Bob said, grinning. “Think you can survive a ball in your brain, Wright? Do you?”

  “Men,” Wright said, eyes locked on Bob. “On my word, we rush this bastard. If he fires at me, so be it. You take him down anyway. And cut his throat.”

  Anne McCormac smiled and licked her lips, and Spider could swear her gaze was climbing from Wright’s boots to his ass.

  “To hell with you!” Bob aimed, sighted, and closed one eye.

  “Now!” Wright rushed forward. No one else did.

  Spider lifted the knife over his shoulder.

  Bob’s forearm tensed.

  A streak of yellow-and-white hissing fury launched itself from somewhere and into Bob’s face. Bob’s flintlock sparked and roared.

  His scream was unintelligible and almost lost in the cat’s angry yowling. The errant pistol ball shattered the fiddle’s neck, and the instrument uttered a sad, discordant death cry before clattering to the deck. The fiddler himself, miraculously, seemed unharmed.

  “Goddamn cat!” Bob spun wildly, the lantern’s light streaking like crazy lightning, as Thomas clawed his adversary’s face. Bob climbed atop a tool chest by the rail in a desperate attempt to escape his tormentor. Bob fell, and the lantern burst against the chest in an eruption of flame.

  Thomas dashed away, with something Spider thought might be Bob’s eye glinting in his fangs. Bob screamed and slapped at the burning whale oil that clung to his sleeves and britches.

  Spider suddenly remembered the other two armed men. He spun toward Ames and raised his knife, but before he could throw, a cry from above drew everyone’s attention.

  “Redemption!” Hob arced on a rope from the mainmast, his heels driving toward Ames.

  “Idiot boy!” Spider held his knife in check.

  Ames lifted his pistol toward Hob and fired just before the lad’s boots hit him like a battering ram. Hob’s heels caught Ames square in the chest, while the lead ball zipped through a sail, leaving a tiny hole. Ames slammed into the rail with a gusher of breath, and his smoking gun clattered to the deck. Before Ames could catch his wind, Hob had a pistol tucked right under the man’s chin.

  “I shall blow a hole through your skull, man, from chin to crown,” Hob said. “Damn me if I won’t.”

  Spider turned toward the spot where he’d last seen Chambers, but Wright, bathed in orange from the firelight on the tool chest and deck, blocked his vision. That same light revealed Sam Smoke, diving toward Chambers. Smoke’s shoulder took Chambers right in the gut, and the men toppled. Spider lost sight of them as crewmen scurried across the deck, some to get out of harm’s way, others to get a better view.

  “Fire! Buckets! Now!” Wright’s commands drew instant action, for fire on a sailing vessel was the last goddamned thing anyone wanted. Men rushed to fetch pails of water. Others ripped off their own shirts and batted at the flaming deck. Some swatted at Bob, who rose screaming and burning atop the tool chest.

  Redemption was heeled slightly to port, though, and Bob lost his balance. He lurched toward the rail and ended up with his head and shoulders hanging over the sea. He surely was about to go overboard.

  Spider dropped his throwing knife, dove at Bob’s burning legs, and kept the son of a bitch from going into the deep. Sailcloth and shirts flailed them both, and buckets of water drenched them as they lay in a heap next to the rail.

  “Silence!” Wright fought his way through the hands, shoving men aside as easily as he tossed dice. Bob wailed, and once the moonlight caught the man’s face Spider knew why. His right eye was gone, and the black-and-red burns on his forehead still smoked despite the drenching. In what seemed an odd bit of undeserved mercy, the fire had staunched the bleeding, but Bob would spend what little life he had left looking much like the hideous Odin.

  Spider rolled away from Bob and sat with his back against the rail. He eyed the assembled crowd, noted Hob still had his man under control, then saw Smoke crouching over Chambers. Smoke’s hands were clamped on the man’s neck, and Chambers alternatively pounded the weather deck and clawed at Smoke’s fingers. Smoke ignored the man’s futile resistance and grinned savagely as Chambers fought for breath. The man’s gun lay nearby until a deck hand snatched it up.

  Bob groaned, looked as though he would move to help his friends, and then Wright kicked him in the face, spattering hot blood and oil on Spider’s chin. “I said silence! And you, Mister Lawrence! You have subdued the man, so desist. We will turn these men over to the navy when we can. Alive!”

  Smoke, leering, grinned at Wright. He waited at least five heartbeats before he released his grip on Chambers’s neck, and the man sucked in air like a bellows.

  Bob remained as silent as he could, but the pain was too much. The man’s pathetic whimper snatched at Spider’s soul.

  “Are you burned, John?”

  “No, sir,” Spider answered Wright. “I think not, anyway.” Spider stood. His shirt would need mending, and it smelled of burnt wood and oil, but his skin seemed intact and he felt no sting from salt water digging into cuts or burns.

  “Good. You are a brave man, John. That was well done.” Wright dug a boot toe into Bob’s side. “And you, you had better hope you see the Admiralty, because I have a mind t
o cut your intestines out of you and watch you eat them!”

  A quiet chuckle followed, and Spider saw Smoke’s eyes. He looked as though he really liked Wright’s suggestion.

  Wright pointed at two men. “Go below, see what has happened to the guards. And you”—he pointed at Hob and two others—“bind this burnt bastard up so tight that he can scarce breathe. And get him and his friends below, and see that they all stay there. I will send guards to relieve you.”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Hob grinned and waved his gun theatrically. “This way, you son of a whore! Did you see me, John?”

  “Yes, Hob, I saw. That was foolish, boy.”

  “I got him, I did,” Hob growled.

  The prisoners were escorted below.

  Spider saw Abigail Brentwood passing by. “Are you well, Miss Brentwood? No injuries from a stray ball or . . . ?”

  She answered him with a glare of contempt. “He killed my father, and you . . . you saved his life.”

  She spun away and vanished before Spider could find any words to answer her. Hadley followed her.

  “Do not let her dismay you, friend John.” Fox rushed to his side. “It was the Lord’s work you just did, even if Bob is a murderer, and the girl will come to understand that.”

  “I hope it may be so,” Spider answered.

  “Rely upon it. It is the Lord’s place to decide life and death, and ours to offer one another every chance of mercy and forgiveness. Even for such as Little Bob. The girl will see the good in your deed. Miss Brentwood has a tender heart, and though it is hurting grievously now, it will lead her to see you favorably again. I am quite certain of it.”

  “I hate to see her suffer,” Spider said.

  “Indeed. But I do not think she broods the way her father did,” Fox answered. “He held his feelings in, gave them no vent, and the sadness ate at him from within once his dear wife passed. He wore a brave face around his daughter, mind you, and would rather have suffered boils than let his crew see him dejected, but he was not a happy man.”

  “I got that sense,” Spider replied. “Do you think it merciful, then, that he has gone on to join his wife?”

  Fox drew a deep breath. “I do not know, John. Merciful for him, perhaps, but not for others. He no longer suffers, of course, but his girl, and his friends . . .”

  “Aye.” Spider nodded but kept his gaze on Fox.

  “Miss Brentwood is young, and resilient, and not so much like her father,” the man said after a few moments as the ship kicked up spray around them. “She will recover, may even fall in love”—he grinned, for only a heartbeat—“and she will certainly forgive you, John, for saving Little Bob. I know she will. She has a pure soul.”

  Fox’s gaze lowered to the deck. “She will not, of course, forgive Little Bob.”

  The man’s earnest expression raised a thought in Spider’s mind. “You think a wretched soul like Bob might yet find his way to heaven?”

  “I think we all have equal opportunity for that just reward, God being Lord of us all, and merciful beyond our worth. At least, it is to be hoped. Yes. Even such as Little Bob might find grace, if given ample time to ask for it. Time that he has, now, thanks to you.”

  “Grace? Even if he killed a man?” Spider shook his head slowly.

  Fox looked skyward. “We all fall short, carpenter. Each and every one of us. Let us hope and pray that he”—and Fox pointed to the sky—“can forgive us our worst trespasses.”

  “I am wondering now if I was wrong,” Spider said. “Bob’s a wretch, but he seemed in earnest when he said he didn’t kill Cap’n Brentwood.”

  “Do you mean to say he is innocent?” Fox looked perplexed, then continued the conversation in hushed tones. “Who else might have done the deed?”

  “When you were on the quarterdeck, and the shot was fired, you and the Reverend Down peered through the grating. I remember looking up and you were there.”

  “Yes.” Fox wrung his hands briefly, then put them behind his back.

  “When you looked down, at first, what did you see?”

  The man’s head worked slowly back and forth. “Just the captain, there on the deck, gun in his hand.”

  “No one moving about?”

  “No.”

  “And did you get there quickly?”

  “As soon as we heard the shot,” Fox said. “Well, there was a confused moment, the Reverend Down and I staring at one another wondering what had happened; then we rushed, simultaneously as I recall it, to look into the cabin below. And we saw the poor man.”

  “No one else was in there?”

  “No.”

  “Then do you suppose Bob had time to shoot the cap’n, scrawl a note, and hide before you looked down?”

  “I . . . I suppose not.” Fox’s lips tightened. He shook his head vigorously. “Perhaps Bob shot him from a place of concealment.”

  “And then crept out of hiding to write that note?” Spider wagged a finger. “And then hid again before you looked? That all seems unlikely. Cap’n is hardly going to stand there while Little Bob writes a note. That had to come after the slaying.”

  “Well, then,” Fox said after a pause, “that puts us back to a self-inflicted death, then, as it seemed from the beginning. Poor Abigail. She will not take this well.”

  An idea popped into Spider’s head, and he decided to make a direct thrust. “Was the grating latched down?”

  “Excuse me, John?”

  “The grating, the one you peered through. Was it latched down tight?”

  “It was. I remember because for a frantic moment I considered lifting the grate and leaping into the cabin in hopes of a rescue. Then Mister Wright burst through the door. But, yes, the grating was latched tightly.”

  “So no one got out that way.”

  “Well, no,” Fox said, confused. “And the Reverend Down and I would have seen them anyway.”

  “Aye,” Spider said. “I am thinking on it too hard.”

  “And we would have seen if anyone had fired a gun from above,” Fox added, nodding. “Surely, we would have.”

  “I do not think the shot came from above,” Spider said, “not unless someone could make a lead ball change its course. Impossible, that.”

  Fox, eyebrows working up and down and eyes squinting above the potato nose, finally shrugged. “Yes. Impossible. So, will you tell Nicholas about all this, then, that you think Little Bob is innocent?”

  “I need to think on it more,” Spider answered. “We can’t turn Bob and his friends over to the navy right now anyway, and I kind of like having Little Bob tied up, killer or no.”

  Fox turned his face toward Spider and smiled. “Those points all seem well considered.” He clapped a hand on Spider’s shoulder. “I do know this. If Little Bob has not yet sought the Lord’s forgiveness, for whatever crimes he may have done, he has time yet to do so. Thanks to you. It would have been a sorrowful thing had he fallen overboard, unredeemed. You did well, Spider John.”

  Spider’s eyes widened. He and Hob and Odin had tried hard to avoid that nickname aboard Redemption. Spider John Rush was a wanted pirate.

  “Forgive me,” Fox said. “Do you find the appellation distasteful? I overheard young Hob call you that at some point. I do not mean to offend, or be overly familiar.”

  “It is well,” Spider stammered. “Do not trouble yourself over it. It is merely a name my friends tease me with. I ate spiders as a lad, to make my sister scream. I don’t much care for the name.”

  “Forgive me, John. I did not mean to offend.”

  “Forgiven, sir.” Spider nodded, and Fox departed.

  Moments later, Odin approached Spider. “Why the bloody hell did you not let that son of a bitch Bob go overboard? He killed the cap’n, and no one aboard likes his ugly arse anyway!”

  “I do not think he killed Cap’n Brentwood,” Spider said. “His voice had the ring of truth to it.”

  “You should not trust that little bugger. There’s a fair number of us jealous
of Thomas getting to claw that man’s eye. I might kiss the furry little shit! And catch him a fresh fish! No one likes Bob, and the world would not miss him.”

  Spider groaned. “Bob is in this predicament because of me, Odin. Because I said he killed the cap’n. And, damn me, I am not so sure now that he did. If I had let him go overboard, it would have been as though I had knifed him, or shot him.”

  “If you had done either, a lot of us would envy you. Ha! You dropped this.” Odin handed Spider the French throwing knife. “No one would care if you had stabbed him dead.”

  “I would care. Thanks for fetching the knife. I love this knife.”

  “Caring is going to get you killed one day.”

  “What happened to Bob’s guards? Do you know?”

  Odin laughed. “Aye. His guards were clubbed and hog-tied, probably by Bob’s friends, Ames and Chambers.”

  “Ah.” Spider scratched his head.

  “Seems those two buggers knew Bob was aboard the whole time, too, to hear them talk,” Odin said. “Helped him get back aboard, stole him food. They were begging for mercy all the way down to their chains, the bastards.”

  Spider nodded and snapped his fingers, earning a nod from Odin. “That’s why they went all odd when I asked them questions. I wanted to know if they had seen anything suspicious, like ropes dangling down the hull or anything. They probably snuck food to Bob that way, maybe.”

  Odin shrugged. “So maybe some people like Little Bob after all. Seems Bob convinced those two bastards that taking the boat and rowing to Nassau was a better thing than waiting for Wright to sail us into goddamned Ned Low’s bloody clutches. Hell, they may be right. But their mutiny failed, and those boys are in irons now.”

  Spider sighed. “I just want to get home to Em, and my boy, with a wee bit of my soul intact. That is truly all I desire in life, Odin.”

  “I know,” Odin said. “A soul is a tricksy goddamned thing. Glad I lost mine to the devil a long time ago. I don’t need to worry on it anymore. God help you, though. Ha!”

  “Fox called me Spider John,” Spider whispered. “How might he know that?”