by Steve Goble
Even if Redemption did somehow miraculously get out of the cove, say by some favorable trick of the wind gifted to her by a loving God, she still would not outrun that schooner. It mattered not at all what the wind did. Redemption was already at Ned Low’s mercy.
So Spider tossed that hope aside, licked the salty sweat from the corner of his dry mouth, and moved on to his fourth calculation. How soon might Hob and Odin come to his rescue? Would they see what was happening in time to do something? Or did Sam Smoke have allies aboard who already held Odin and Hob—and anyone else who might thwart them—at bay?
“What is your game, Sam?” Spider put a hint of conspiracy into his voice. “Might be one where you could use a steady hand? I am quick and able in a fight.” And I can’t bloody wait to show you, you son of a bitch.
“You ready to join ranks with me now that you realize who has the weather gauge here, John?” Smoke laughed. “I haven’t thought of you and me on friendly terms, and I think I like you right here, with my gun pressed on your skull.”
“You know the value of a good fighter, Sam. I am not, to be sure, happy about the idea of linking my fate to yours, but I see it as a better prospect than being your enemy.”
“I think we shall keep matters just as they are.”
Even as he played for time, Spider moved on to his fifth calculation: If Sam Smoke was not working this scheme alone, who might his henchmen be? Or was it a henchwoman? Sure, Hob had overheard Smoke and the mysterious Anne exchange harsh words, but they obviously knew one another, and Spider had known pirates and thieves to fight among themselves, yet still work together for a common cause. Was Anne working with Smoke, perhaps to capture Redemption and hand it over to Ned Low? Or was Anne playing Smoke like a fish, using him to some purpose of her own?
Spider had to wonder who else among the crew might be working with Smoke, for this current situation seemed a bold play for a solitary brigand. The men Spider could see out of the corners of his eyes were motionless and silent, watching the drama but taking no apparent part. Were they with Wright, or were they with Sam Smoke? Or would they simply try to stay uncommitted until this all played out?
Then there was the last calculation. How long would Wright endure Smoke’s threat to Abigail before he did some goddamned stupid thing? And if Wright did act, could Spider take advantage of the distraction? Spider steeled himself. If Wright sprang and Smoke shot him, Spider would have his knife freed and in Smoke’s throat within a heartbeat.
That did not happen, though. Anne intervened.
“I knew it, you salty, scraggly son of a bitch,” she said, apparently addressing Smoke, although Spider wondered if perhaps she meant him.
Spider glanced upward; Anne stood on the quarterdeck. The woman must have gone up the starboard ladder, seeking higher ground, while all attention was on the action to port. She had traded the dress for britches and a shirt, and wore a bandolier holding at least three knives and two guns. A few stray red tresses streamed from beneath a wide-brimmed hat, but most of her hair had been tied up in a braid that spilled over her shoulder. She had a sheathed cutlass on her hip and a flintlock pistol in each hand. The guns were aimed at Smoke, or at Spider and Wright. It was difficult to tell, since Redemption gently rocked on the water. But one thing was certain. She had chosen a high vantage and could easily keep an eye on the combatants below.
“Good morning, Miss Bonny,” Smoke said. If he was intimidated at all, there was no hint of it in his voice.
The name Bonny bounced around in Spider’s mind. Jesus! Anne Bonny! The woman pirate who reputedly fought as well as any man and better than most. She had sailed and raised hell with Calico Jack Rackham himself. Rumor on the Spanish Main had been that Anne Bonny was in prison, or already hung, but some few held that she had pleaded her belly—gotten pregnant by some prison guard or visiting minister—and so escaped the noose.
Spider formed a seventh calculation. He had assumed things could not get worse, but he had obviously been wrong, and so he began wondering and figuring just what the bloody hell would go wrong next.
“I knew if I followed you, Sam, you would lead me right to that bastard. And I was right,” she said, nodding toward the schooner. “He’s over there, isn’t he?”
“Wicked Pete is over there, indeed,” Smoke said, laughing. “Are you going to bounce your delicious tits right up against him, let him grab your pretty arse while you put a knife in his brain? He’s a dumb one, Pete. He will fall for your beauty, no doubt.”
Well, then, Spider thought, perhaps Hob had not overheard a confession to the captain’s murder during that little spying foray into the guests’ quarters. Perhaps he had heard Anne plotting to kill Wicked Pete instead. Of course, Spider knew, the woman might well have decided to kill one man while on her way to kill another. He didn’t much trust Anne Bonny any more than he trusted a goddamned sparrow flitting about his head.
“A knife in the brain, a lead ball, doesn’t matter,” Anne said. “I will kill him any way I can, and I know a lot of ways. Know this, though. He will see me coming because I will make sure of that, and he will realize in his dying moment that it was me that took his life. Rely on it. You know what the bastard did.”
“Aye,” Smoke said, leering. “I thought about doing the same myself.”
“You are not man enough,” Anne scoffed.
Spider heard Smoke’s low growl. “I am man enough to do this, bitch.”
The gun that was pressed against Spider’s ear moved, aiming its deadly ball at Anne Bonny.
Spider freed the knife from his belt.
Smoke’s gun erupted in thunder and smoke.
Anne Bonny had hit the deck, and a lead ball splintered the rail where she had stood.
Spider pivoted, his knife arcing toward the red blaze of Smoke’s pipe shining inside the blinding cloud of gun and pipe smoke.
The knife caught flesh, slicing through Smoke’s neck. Then a gun erupted, and Sam Smoke’s skull exploded in a shower of bone and blood.
23
Sam Smoke spun slowly, his eyes wide. He looked as though he was laughing as his flying hat spun in the air like a top before plopping on the weather deck. Then he toppled, blood pouring from his head.
“Ha!”
Spider, who had been in more than one bloody scrape over the years and had been hoping Odin and Hob would spring into action, barely flinched. He calmly wiped gore from his face. Others, though, had dodged for cover behind masts and storage boxes.
Abigail shrieked, ran to Captain Wright, and then recoiled in horror as she noted Smoke’s blood splattered across his face and shirt.
“I enjoyed that.” Odin, poised on a ratline, had a smoking flintlock extended in his steady right hand, and his lone eye opened wide despite the gunpowder cloud surrounding his face. “I should have done that years ago!” He tossed the expended gun to Hob and pulled another one free from his belt. The cutlass, the very blade Spider had advised Odin to leave in Port Royal, dangled from Odin’s belt, and for once Spider was glad the old bastard had refused to heed his advice.
Men peered from their hiding places, but none confronted the hideous piratical figure. Hadley, though, placed himself between Abigail and Odin.
Hob, carrying a bucket of pistols and shot and gunpowder, knew better than to put Odin’s hot weapon into his load. He held it in his free hand.
Spider rotated like a dervish, readying his knife for a throw, but no one had made a move to aid or avenge Sam Smoke. Spider turned to the captain, who was embracing Abigail, who apparently had overcome her horror of blood. She clutched at Wright tightly, and tears rolled on her cheeks and fell from her quivering jaw. “What is happening? What is happening?”
“Cap’n,” Spider said as calmly as he could while wiping more of Smoke’s gore from his face and beard, “we must put Cap’n Brentwood overboard now and pray for him later.” He moved toward the rail and pointed. The pirate schooner had begun coming about. There was now nowhere to run that would not be
covered by her long guns. “We are trapped, sir.”
“Who is this man? Why was he holding a gun to John’s head?” Abigail pointed at Sam Smoke. She was shaking like a flag in a hard wind.
“He is a pirate,” Spider told her, “Samuel Lawrence, known on the Spanish Main as Sam Smoke. I think he meant to keep us from fighting or fleeing from this neat little trap.”
Wright gently freed himself from Abigail’s arms and looked at the schooner. He glanced at Smoke and back at the schooner. Then he stared into Abigail’s eyes. “We’ll run,” he said. “We’ll run!”
“No,” Spider urged. “By God, we will not run.”
Wright’s eyes widened, and his face flushed. He nearly knocked Spider over as he shoved his face forward. “What did you say?”
“Think not of fleeing, sir,” Spider said, stepping back and raising his voice now so others could hear. “We already squandered any time we might have had for that. Redemption is a fine ship, sir, but she is slow as a sermon.”
Somewhere behind him, the Reverend Down scoffed.
“I remind you who commands here, carpenter.” Wright’s nostrils flared.
“I know that, sir, forgive me, but . . . our situation is desperate and . . . I know something of pirates and their ways.”
“You do, it seems. Just how . . . ?”
“Sir, we have no prayer of outrunning that schooner, nor staying beyond reach of her guns, not if we mounted all the sail our trees can hold, not even if we added stunsails, skysails, and moonrakers.” Spider turned slowly, meeting as many eyes as he could. “She’ll ride closer to the wind than we can and sail faster. Her guns will be on us like a wolf pack; she’ll get within reach, blast us with grape, and even if we have enough timber and canvas left to tack away, she’ll just do it again and again until we’ve got no sail left. It would be folly to run.”
Spider drew a deep breath. “Am I right, lads?” He hoped to rally a few voices in support, and indeed Hob tossed out an “amen,” but everyone else seemed dubious. Spider considered his next rallying words, then paused a moment, arrested by the sight of Sam Smoke’s blood running in rivulets down the surface of the door he had replaced on Captain Brentwood’s cabin. The good man’s remains, wrapped in thick sail canvas, were still in there. Even as the pirates closed off Redemption’s means of escape, even as he steeled himself for battle, Spider’s mind filled with the scene of that horrible morning when they found the captain dead. Blood then, blood now . . .
The blood flowed slowly down the oak, streaming in lines with the grain of the wood and soaking into it in spots.
Jesus, Spider thought. How fucking drunk was I that day? What a fool, what a bloody idiot . . .
“What then do you think, John?” The question came from Rufus Fox. “Must we fight? We have women aboard.”
“Look hard at this woman, sir, and you shall see steel in my sword and in my eyes. I can fight, I assure you,” Anne said, looking as if she meant it.
“No,” Spider said. “No, we must bloody well not fight.” He was almost stuttering because his mind was suddenly working on two problems at once. So that’s how the captain was murdered, aye? He could at least narrow the list of suspects now. He just needed to think, but the pirates’ approach left him no goddamned time for that.
A couple of gunshots—blunderbusses, thank God, and not the schooner’s long guns—brought Spider back to the moment. A glance showed men aboard the schooner, waving guns and swords. Spider expected that soon they would begin to hum and growl ominously, a tactic designed to instill fear.
He glanced around at Redemption’s men. They were frightened enough already. These men will piss themselves once battle is joined, he thought.
Spider inhaled sharply, then cursed. Two more vessels, a sloop and a brigantine, were coming into view in the schooner’s wake. They were farther out but flying black flags. Redemption had wandered into serious trouble.
“Lord have mercy. We stand no chance in a battle. None,” Spider said. “We have few aboard who have ever been in a real fight, if I am any judge, and every bugger aboard that schooner will be a killer many times over. The same goes for those ships yonder. They will be well armed, and they’ll not hesitate to cut throats or shoot us down.” They may bloody well rip us to tatters with grapeshot before they even set foot aboard Redemption, he thought but did not say.
“Then we will have to negotiate,” Wright said, his chest swelling and his voice rising. He looked into the eyes of his crew, his expression firm. “We have goods. We will let them take what they want without a fight, we will see to Captain Brentwood, and go our separate ways.”
“Sir,” Spider replied, “these bastards know only two kinds of men—men they can use . . . and witnesses. And they will want the whole damned ship, sir, not just her cargo.”
Wright and Spider locked eyes.
“There is nothing reasonable about them,” Spider said quietly. “And if that be Ned Low pouncing on us . . .”
Anne Bonny weighed in. “Ned and Wicked Pete are seldom far apart.”
Whispers and gasps filled the air around them.
“Let us leave the ship,” Spider said. “Drop anchor. Then let us get the boat and some supplies overboard before they board us. We cannot take much, for they’ll rush if they think we are taking anything valuable.
They have a spy on the hill, there, too, so they will know what we are doing.”
Spider caught sight of Abigail Brentwood, hair streaming in the wind, and his backbone went cold despite the Caribbean heat. He cursed himself. He had so much going through his mind, but there was no excuse for his slovenly thinking. He should have ordered her below already.
“Miss Brentwood, get out of sight.”
“I don’t understand.” Fear seemed to have erased any lingering anger she might have harbored against Spider. She was confused but attentive.
“Hide, girl! They may have seen you already.”
“So . . .”
“So they may not have seen a woman in some time, and there are places in the world where a pretty girl is considered a valuable commodity.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Oh.”
“Get below, dress like a sailor.”
She ran off, Hadley trailing, and Spider turned back to the captain. “We’ll get Miss Brentwood, the passengers, and as many as want to go ashore out of harm’s way. Maybe these pirates will be happy with the ship and cargo and leave us be.”
Wright paced, chewed on his lip, and wrung his hands. That seemed to go on forever. Meanwhile, the enemy vessels moved to close off any hope of escape.
Spider sighed and spat on the weather deck. “It is the only way, sir.”
“I suppose you are right.” Wright sighed deeply. “That island is our best hope. Abby’s best hope, anyway. She must go ashore.”
“How is this?” Abigail stood nearby, arms wide. The long hair had been cropped short, and she wore britches and a shirt. A smelly wide-brimmed hat that had seen too much salt and sun hid most of her face.
“Good,” Spider said. “That was fast.”
“Hadley lent me clothes and chopped my hair with an axe.”
Spider glanced at Hadley, who now held a knife and a hand axe.
“You’ve done all you can do,” Spider told her, “short of growing a beard.”
Wright turned to Abigail. “You will go ashore, Abby?”
She nodded. “We’ll be marooned. But that will be better than being taken, I suppose?”
“The island is green,” Spider said. “That means freshwater springs. And we can fish; we will take nets. The cove will be teeming with life. We will be fine. And once settled, we can send some lads off in the boat to fetch help. It will be fine.”
Wright turned to holler up at the helmsman and the men in the rigging. “Furl sails! We will anchor here.” Men rushed to comply. He pointed at a few other seamen. “You lads, help Mister Fox and Reverend Down. Commend the captain to the deep, gentlemen.”
Down and Fox nodded. Abigail shook her head in protest.
“And do it quickly,” Wright added.
“Nicholas, my father, he . . .”
“He deserves better, I know, Abby. But . . . I have to protect you. I’ve put you in harm’s way. I thought I could protect you. Your father . . .”
Spider cleared his throat. “It is the only way, miss.”
She nodded slowly. “Very well,” she said. “We shall have a proper ceremony after we go ashore.”
“Not we,” Wright said.
“What are you saying, Nicholas?”
The splash of an anchor filled the air.
“I am captain now,” he said calmly. “I am staying with my ship. Others might, too,” he added louder. “If they think it better to join with pirates than to be marooned on an island.”
Abigail grabbed Wright’s collar. “You fool, do not do this! Father would not ask it of you, nor should anyone!”
“I will be fine,” Wright said, “and it is my duty. To Redemption, and to you. They will accept me, Abby. I am a navigator and brave enough. And I can protect you, keep them from knowing about you. I vow that much.” He punctuated that with a stern glance around.
The man was all puffed up with love and virtue. Spider felt sort of sorry for him.
Redemption settled slowly to a stop as the anchor took hold. The ship turned as the helmsman guided her, and another anchor was dropped aft to hold her in position. Men began freeing the boat, and already some kegs and barrels were being hoisted from the hold.
Spider pulled a belaying pin free from its slot.
“Nicholas, come with us,” Abigail pleaded. “Don’t be a fool. I am sorry. I do not . . . I never was in love with you, you know that. Even had my father approved, I would not have . . . been yours.” She was whispering, aware of all the eyes and ears surrounding them. “But you have nothing to prove to me. I know you to be a good man.”