by Steve Goble
“We have been careful, I swear,” Odin answered.
“I know,” Spider said. “I know.”
18
“You think Anne had a sword?” Hob’s eyebrows arched.
Hob, Odin, and Spider sat on the forecastle under a moon-washed sky, eating snapper and curry rolled into bread and washing it down with an extra ration of grog. Wright had ordered the repast in hopes of easing tension aboard Redemption, and Spider had noted the increasing use of the word “captain” when referring to their former sailing master. The trio spoke in hushed tones, for even though it was long past time for the day watch to have bunked in the forecastle or berth deck, no one wanted to sleep. They wanted to get drunk, scan the horizon for pirate sails, and turn about and head for Boston or Jamaica—anyplace but pirate waters.
“A sword, or a gun. Yes, Hob,” Spider John said. “I am certain of it.”
“Why?” The boy did not wish to believe anything bad about Anne.
Spider sighed. “The way she held her right arm behind her body, the way her muscles tensed.” He paused to take a bite of his meal as a pair of hands passed by after setting a jib, and watched them head down the ladder. “One learns a thing or two on the devil’s wind. And I have reason to believe she has a few other weapons tucked away as well.”
“I’ll search her, ha!”
Hob shot Odin a wicked glance, then turned back to Spider. “So now you think she did kill the cap’n?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Bright moon painted the sea, and in the northern distance he could just make out the dark outline of an island. It was not the one they sought—Eden Isle, as Captain Wright called it, saying the name had been given by Captain Brentwood himself—but it made Spider think of their destination just the same. They might reach the isle tomorrow, Captain Wright had said, if the fair winds and calm seas continued. Many of the hands took that as a positive sign, thinking that maybe they could rush in, bury the captain at sea under a fine eulogy from Fox, and then ride the winds on to Boston as swiftly as possible.
Spider had his doubts about all that.
“Damned good fish,” Odin said. “And damned good grog. Bugger those preachers.” The Reverend Down and Rufus Fox both had objected to the extra measure of alcohol, fearing what it might fuel among an already tense crew, but Wright had insisted sailing men needed to unwind, and that sailing men knew best how to do it. Spider had applauded that decision.
“Well, if it wasn’t Little Bob that killed him, as you say now, then who?” Hob handed over the rest of his grog to Spider, who had finished his own rather quickly.
“Thankee,” Spider said quietly. “I don’t know. Little Bob, slippery piss pot that he is, seemed to be truthful when he had us under the gun. I think the shit would have bragged about killing the cap’n, had he done it. He sure as hell wanted to kill him, but the more I think on it, I wonder how he might’ve snuck up from below and hidden inside that damned clock. Hiding in the clock, yes, easy for such a little bugger, but getting from his hidey-hole belowdecks and into the cabin, without us seeing him or Thomas guttin’ him? I don’t think so.”
“And we heard that shot, and hands rushed right in,” Odin said. “Even if he hid in the clock, he wasn’t there when you looked, and how the hell could he have snuck back below? Broad daylight and him so small? Anyone would recognize him.”
“Right,” Spider said after draining Hob’s grog.
“Maybe he had help,” Hob said.
“Maybe. But I doubt it. As Odin said, no one really likes Bob. A couple o’ twits in fear of pirates might help him break captivity if they thought it would help them escape, too, but no one aboard is going to help Little Bob Higgins murder a good cap’n.”
“I think it was Sam Smoke,” Odin said.
“Do you think he could have snuck in there, killed Cap’n Brentwood, hid for a moment, and then joined the rest of us unnoticed?” Spider shook his head. “Not with that pipe reek. I love a good pipe—fuck, I lost mine—but that man smells of all the brimstone in hell. We’d have smelled him in that close cabin soon as we entered. Which reminds me, we should have smelled the powder from the gun, too. Fuck and bugger.”
“So, Anne?”
“No,” Spider said. “Bold enough, I think, but too womanly. Somebody would have noticed her, I think, even if she had dressed as a man. And not even a few heartbeats before the shot, she’d been swirling about the deck all pretty as you please, dressed for a Bible reading. And that still leaves us with the gunpowder problem. I’m wondering how the doors got closed from outside but locked from inside, if the killer went out that way. They had to have been open when the shot was fired; that’s the only way I can figure the gun smoke might’ve been blown out before we rushed in—but they were closed and goddamned locked by the time Wright hacked his way through the door.”
“So,” Hob said. “Do you think Anne is the killer? Or not the killer?”
“I am fairly certain she is a killer, but not so certain she killed Cap’n Brentwood, if you take my meaning, Hobgoblin. I’d give her leeway.”
Hob hung his head and ran a hand through his blond hair. He said nothing.
“So the cap’n killed himself after all, then,” Odin chimed in, “or some clever son of a bitch snuck in there, shot him dead, scrawled that note, and left by way of the stern gallery, then locked the damned doors and clambered up a rope like a monkey. Ha! Fucking Blackbeard could not have accomplished all that!”
“A moment ago you were thinking Sam Smoke did,” Spider reminded him.
“Sam Smoke likes to kill men just for joy. I think he did it, hid by the mizzenmast, joined the rest after they rushed in—all eyes on the corpse, right? No one looking back behind them. Not so mysterious, and he is just the man for such a job.”
“But the reek of him,” Spider said.
“Stern gallery is open when he shoots,” Odin said. “Blows away pipe reek and gun reek. He wants it to look like cap’n took his own life, so he closes up and locks it while Wright waits for an axe and hews his way in. Ha!”
“Why does he do all this?” Spider lifted Hob’s cup to his lips, realized it was empty, and handed it to the boy.
“I tell you, Samuel Smoke does not need a reason to kill a man. Or a woman, or a dog.”
Spider thought hard. “I don’t know. Did anyone see him go into the cap’n’s quarters?”
Hob and Odin shook their heads.
“We were standing right in front of those doors,” Spider reminded them. “We should have seen anyone going in.”
“So the killer was already in there,” Odin suggested after a long silence.
“Or a ghost,” Hob said.
“Or the cap’n killed himself,” Odin answered.
“Or a ghost,” Hob repeated.
“Fuck and bugger.” Spider inhaled deeply, sorely wishing it had been through a pipe.
19
“We’ve been roused, Spider.”
Spider opened an eye, cautiously, as Hob swung his hammock. Sunlight poured into the forecastle. The other hands apparently all had departed, and the watch coming off duty had not yet come to hunker down. Spider yawned. God, how he had needed that sleep. Short as it was, it did him some good. A pipe, a tot of rum, and he’d be ready to go.
He swung his feet to the deck. “Aye, Hob, thanks.”
“This is for you,” Hob said, holding forth a clay pipe as though it were a fresh mincemeat pie.
“Did you peer into my head and see my very thoughts, lad? Look in through my ear while I was sleeping?”
“You always want a pipe in the morning, Spider.”
“Well, then, where did you find this?”
“I traded for it.” His gaze wandered as he said it.
“Yes. A trade. I get the pipe, and the fellow who owned it gets to wonder where his pipe went.”
“That is how it goes,” Hob said, laughing.
“Little bastard.” Spider broke off the end of the stem—indented with the p
revious owner’s bite marks—and fetched his tobacco from beneath the shirt he’d used as a pillow. “Off to work, then.”
Upset as he was about the ship’s diversion, Spider was determined to see to his duties. Sitting and fretting would not get him to Nantucket any sooner, and working with his hands often cleared his mind. Maybe he’d think of something. A bite of hardtack, a swig of grog, and a head full of tobacco later, Spider was inspecting the boat, masts, decks, and more for any damage that might have occurred during the previous night’s fracas.
A small portion of the deck was blackened from burning oil, but the crew had doused the flames quickly and the damage was superficial. The boat was intact, too. Spider crossed to starboard and found no significant damage there. The tool chest lid would need to be replaced, though.
Lazare tended a fire box on the deck with one hand and sprinkled salt onto a bucket of fish fillets with the other. Spider crouched beside the sea cook to light his pipe again, then rose. His gaze found the horizon. He made out an island far to the north, one of the many cays dotting this stretch between the Turks and Nassau. The island they sought was one of those, but apparently not this one, for they were sailing away from it. Captain Wright was giving it much leeway, but Spider reckoned he’d have been wiser to avoid coming within sight of it.
“You worried about something, Mister Coombs?”
Spider glanced to his left. “No, Hadley. I am just waking up slowly today.”
Hadley nodded but looked as though he did not believe Spider.
Nor should he have, for Spider was plenty worried. It was not at all uncommon for pirates to use these islands as rendezvous points, or places to careen hulls, repair masts, divide spoils, or simply rest and get drunk for a few days. Hell, he may have set foot on this one himself once or twice, although he could not discern any particular landmarks.
The islands made good cover for pirate ambushes. A man on a high point with a spyglass could see far-off prey and signal a swift sloop—or several sloops—hidden in a convenient bay or on the other side of the isle. Redemption was far off from this island but not far enough for comfort. She was a fluyt and not a fast ship, and the pirates would know that. Redemption, by passing within sight, had already taken a huge risk. Spider inhaled deeply, searched the sea for sails, and exhaled a great cloud of smoke.
Looking aloft, he noted that Captain Wright had set full sail, and because the ship’s current tack was falling away from the island, those sails presented a highly visible profile. Anyone high up on that island was certain to spy them. At least there was a lookout posted to the crow’s nest, and with any luck Redemption would spot any pursuit in time to make preparations—whatever the hell those may be. Redemption had no ship’s guns and few trained fighters. As far as Spider knew, the only men aboard who had ever been in a fight were himself, Odin, and Hob. And Sam Smoke, of course, but there was no trusting that son of a bitch.
Spider turned toward the quarterdeck. He would carry his concerns to the captain, quietly so as to not make the hands more nervous than they already were.
“A word, John?”
Rufus Fox approached, sections of a broken fiddle in each hand. The fragments were joined only by a tangle of slack strings.
“Hello, sir.”
Fox held the broken instrument higher, showing how the pistol ball had torn the maple neck from the spruce body. “I am afraid it was never a superlative violin to begin with, and salt and sun have not been gentle to it, but a man named Allard is in the hold crying over its loss,” Fox said. “Absolutely bawling. Music is such a solace in difficult times, I suppose.”
“Aye.”
“The tuning pegs survived, as did the strings, by the grace of God, but this neck must be replaced. I believe I can do the work, but I wonder if you’ve some good wood that might serve.”
Spider peered at the broken mess. “I think you might need to be a sorcerer to fix this. But I applaud you for trying. Indeed, I even have some maple stowed.”
“Wonderful!” Fox’s voice fluttered like a slightly slack sail, and his gaze wandered to sea.
“Watching for pirates?” Sam Smoke, trailing a cloud as he walked past them, grinned as though he shared a secret with the devil. He chuckled softly and did not wait for an answer.
“May God forgive me, but I detest that man,” Fox said. “The way he leers at Miss Brentwood. It is revolting.”
“Indeed,” Spider agreed. He paused a moment, wondered, then decided to take a sounding. “Are you sweet on the girl, Mister Fox?”
The potato nose reddened a bit, as did the cheeks below the man’s widened eyes. “What? No, sir. No. Why, she’s not half my age.”
“I just wondered. You seem protective of her, is all.”
Fox grinned awkwardly and looked about at everything but Spider’s eyes. “She is a fine girl, and I suppose she sees me as something of an uncle, or rather, I should say, I see her as a niece. Yes, that’s all it is.” He nodded sharply, smiled, and met Spider’s gaze at last.
“Well, then,” Spider said with a nod, “forgive me for thinking otherwise.”
“Are you . . . sweet on the lass, John?”
“I have someone at home.” Spider felt a pang and gulped. “I think Miss Brentwood might be a bit above my reach, in any case. Don’t think she’s meant for a sailor’s wife.”
Fox grinned. “Perhaps.” The man glanced across the waves. “Do you think there are sea robbers about?”
Spider sighed. He liked Rufus Fox, and did not wish to lie, but he did not wish to frighten the man either. He felt a bit like a ship he’d heard a tale about, caught between a man-eating monster and ship-bashing rocks. Spider drew deeply from the pipe, exhaled slowly, then decided an honest answer was best. “I think it could be the case. Certainly, these waters are known pirate haunts.” He pointed west. “Not far that way is Nassau. Woodes Rogers, governor there, has hunted down or chased away a great many pirates, so you might think yourself safe. But he could not have hung or cowed them all, and word back in Port Royal was that Rogers has gone back to England. That news alone is enough, probably, to bring some men out of hiding and back on the account.”
“I see,” Fox said, eyes lowering.
“And there are few better places to hide than these islands. Indeed, I was on my way to urge our cap’n to not draw so near them. Ships can slip right out from behind them, and pirates pick vessels much swifter than this massive . . .”
“Good Lord, then,” Fox said, looking a bit green. “I shall not detain you.”
“I will have my mate fetch you some nice maple soon as may be,” Spider replied before dashing off.
He found Captain Wright on the quarterdeck. “Come about, north by northwest. Smartly there,” the man hollered, sparking responses from the helm and the men aloft, before turning to acknowledge Spider’s presence with a weary sigh. “What is it, carpenter?”
“Forgive me, Cap’n,” Spider said, not wishing to embarrass the commander. A quick glance confirmed the island still was within sight, so coming about now would only keep Redemption within view. “It would be best to continue away, beyond sight of the island, and make our course more southerly.”
Wright turned his broad shoulders. Captains could be temperamental beasts, and Spider wondered whether he might receive an ear-bursting bellow or a backhand across the face. All he got was a calm response. “I am listening, Mister Coombs.”
Spider released the breath he had been holding and explained his concerns about an ambush. He spoke almost in a whisper to avoid spreading worries. Wright gave him full attention.
“And how do you know so much about pirate ways, John Coombs?”
“Survived an attack once, just plain luck,” Spider answered.
He and the captain locked eyes for a few seconds. “You saved Little Bob, though I and everyone else aboard might have preferred you hadn’t,” Wright said, brushing long hair from his eyes. “I do not suppose that was the action of a pirate.”
Spider forced himself not to turn his eyes from the captain’s.
“I shall do as you suggest, carpenter.”
“Aye, sir.”
Captain Wright looked aloft. “Was that smartly done, men? Are we Frenchmen? Can we come about no more sailorly than the bloody French? I believe we shall practice this until it is done to my satisfaction! South by southwest, lubbers!”
With that, Wright gave commands to set Redemption on her former course, away from the island, and Spider left his side, scanning the sea and hoping nothing pounced at them.
He saw no sails and pulled free Em’s pendant to kiss it. Their luck seemed to be holding.
For now.
20
Captain Wright rapidly descended on a ratline and dropped the last seven feet, landing in a crouch and a loud thunk that startled people nearby.
“Eden Isle, by God!”
Anne, who had been strolling amidships and staring off at the early-evening sea, hustled toward the bow in a swirl of skirts and red hair. Sam Smoke, for once without a pipe clenched in his yellow teeth, trailed her, a few feet behind. The man pulled the pipe from the band in his wide-brimmed hat and the tobacco pouch from his belt without once taking his gaze off Anne’s slender figure.
Hob watched her, too. The boy sat atop the forecastle, gazing at Anne as she climbed the ladder. The woman noticed Hob and smiled, and the boy’s face beamed like the sun.
Jesus, Spider thought. That is not what we fucking need right now.
Abigail Brentwood, who had been alternatively weeping silently and playing at her makeshift keyboard, became suddenly still before finally shaking her head and inhaling sharply.
Rufus Fox turned toward the captain so quickly that he nearly lost his balance on the swaying deck; only an assist from the Reverend Down saved him. Down seemed ridiculously pleased with himself. “Lean on me, sir, but lean not on your own understanding,” he said wryly.
Fox smiled. “I do not pretend to understand so much, Reverend, nor do I suppose you understand as much as you believe.” He pulled his arm gently from Down’s grasp. “I do thank you for preventing my physical stumble, if not my perceived theological ones.”