by Steve Goble
“Aye. And by fighting with men who aren’t afraid of birds. Ha!” Odin gazed up the hill, smiling weirdly. “Fun, fun,” he muttered in a singsong.
Spider glanced at the blunderbuss. “Damn.” The stock had broken in the fall, and from the looks of it the damned thing had been cracked a long time and had been just waiting to give way. “This is good, though.” He pointed to a wineskin on the dead man’s belt. He grabbed it and pulled the cork free with his teeth, sniffed the contents, and was disappointed to find only a little water. He took a quick drink and tossed it toward Odin. Then Spider grabbed the painted axe and tucked it into his belt behind him, placed the throwing knife back into its spot on his belt, and pulled his guns free. “We do not seem to have drawn attention,” he said.
“Not that I can tell,” Odin replied, setting down one of his guns long enough to finish off the wineskin. “Fucking water. Did you say you knew who killed the cap’n?” He snatched up the dead man’s tricorn and set it upon his own head before tucking the dead man’s pistols into his own belt. Then he picked up his own gun.
“Aye,” Spider said. “I have it down to a couple of suspects, at least. But let us make certain there is no one else up there before we talk about that. I suppose a quiet approach is rather pointless now.”
“Aye.” Odin picked up his cutlass and tucked it away.
They spread a few yards apart, aiming their guns ahead of them, and worked their way to the summit. As they neared it, odors of urine and shit assaulted them. Once they topped the hill, they found a small lean-to shelter, a fire ring of blackened stones around a mound of ash, and a sharpened stick with a burnt end. A small sack contained cheeses and bread, all of it smelling of mold. A small spyglass stood on its end near the fire ring, like a tiny lighthouse. “Does not look like a camp for more than one man,” Spider said.
“Aye.” Odin looked over the ocean. “Nice view from here. Don’t see any other ships but ours and Ned’s.”
Spider grabbed the spyglass and took a look. The schooner and its companion vessels commanded the entrance to the cove now, and helpless Redemption still rode anchor. A boat was tied to Redemption, but no other boats were in transit. There was no sign that the pirates had sent anyone ashore.
“I hope they don’t come looking for their hilltop spy,” Spider muttered.
“I wouldn’t,” Odin said. “He doesn’t have nothing valuable up here. Not even whiskey. I like this hat, though. Makes me look like a pirate.”
Spider wished he could make out what was transpiring on Redemption, but he could only determine that people moved about on deck. He could not discern faces, nor hear voices. That was good, he realized after a moment, for Redemption was as close to this spy’s nest as she’d ever been, and if he could not make out faces, then perhaps the Iroquois had not been able to do so, either. Maybe the bastard had not known there was a girl and had not signaled that knowledge to anyone peering at him through a spyglass from Ned’s ship.
Spider tucked the spyglass into his belt. It was uncomfortable now, what with the addition of the axe and now the spyglass, but it was a damned nice spyglass, and he’d always wanted one. “I think we got lucky, Odin. They may not have figured out about Miss Brentwood, that is, if no one aboard Redemption opened his fool mouth. I don’t think anyone aboard is mean enough for that, do you?”
“No. Well, Little Bob, maybe. He’s shit. Now who killed her father?”
“Let’s get back to the others,” Spider said. “I will tell you what I think on the way, and you can tell me if drinking too much kill-devil has turned my brain to chowder. If you think me right, we shall have some justice.”
27
“Thank God,” Rufus Fox exclaimed. “We heard a shot.” The man was heating water over a campfire.
“We had a tense moment or two,” Spider said. “We don’t think anyone else is on the island now. Gather around.” He called up into the tall palm. “Any sign of pirates coming ashore?”
“Hell, yes,” Hob answered, dropping out of the tree. “Six men, pistols and cutlasses, rowing ashore this bloody instant!”
“Fuck and bugger.” Spider wiped sweat from his brow. “I reckon it would be too goddamned much to suppose they be waving a white flag of truce?”
“They be waving the guns and swords,” Hob said. “We ought to wave a few of our own.”
Spider sighed. “I just want to go home, goddamn it.” Then he spat. “Well, then. We have a fight on our hands, and not a lot of weapons. Odin, Hob, grab anything you can kill with and come with me. Fuck, grab a brand from the fire, too, each of you. Go!”
Odin set the dead Iroquois’s pistols on the ground. “Those are primed and ready, for anyone needing one.”
Spider turned to the others. “Arm yourselves, sharpen some goddamn branches if you have to. Douse the fire and take cover. Do what you can.”
“Just you three going to meet the pirates?” Lazare, the cook, brandished a long knife.
“We have . . . done this sort of thing before,” Spider said softly. “Miss Brentwood, wake Mister Wright, gently. . . .”
“He awoke once,” she said. “He was disoriented, and I bid him sleep some more.”
“Well, wake him again, and explain to him what is happening. He will be groggy. Give him some strong drink. You might need to pour some on his face. But wake him. He is a strong man, and we will need him for this fight.”
She nodded. “Take Hadley with you. You are outnumbered, and he is a brave fellow.”
Spider looked at Hadley. “You can come with us, too. I’ll give you an axe.”
“I will stay with Miss Brentwood.”
Spider handed him the Iroquois axe. “Very well, then.”
Spider turned to follow Hob and Odin, who were already headed to the beach.
“Should you not wait for Nicholas?” Abigail’s voice was high and quavering.
“Fuck no,” Spider hollered. “No time to spare! Keep him here and let him protect you!”
Spider’s legs were not long, but he was fast and agile. He caught up to his friends quickly. They splashed in the creek, Hob and Odin holding their burning sticks high to avoid the water, the rush of air stoking the torches brighter. Spider drew knife and pistol. They ran as fast as they could, without a thought of sneaking, for everything depended upon them reaching the beach before the pirates came too far inland.
The bright sky opened up before them as they neared the edge of the shady woods, and they slowed their frantic pace. A few steps farther and they dove for cover behind trees and boulders, Odin and Hob veering to the left and right. Spider, breathing heavily, uttered a silent thanks. They had made it, and his companions were now crawling toward the spots from which they would spring the trap Spider had devised.
The pirates, six of them, reached the sand. Two of them leapt ashore, crouching with guns ready, eyes peering into the woods. The rest hauled the boat ashore quickly, then turned it broadside and upside down. Then all six men took cover behind the boat.
They had done it quickly and efficiently. Fuck, Spider thought, this might not be so easy.
Everyone waited, and Spider’s heart drummed like a beat to quarters. He wondered if the pirates would notice the thin curling smoke rising from the brands Hob and Odin held in their hiding places. He glanced about and decided they could not have noticed the thin trails of powder leading across the beach; those were concealed nicely behind the mounds of sand that covered the two buried powder kegs. If only the bastards would come nearer before the goddamned brands go dead. . . .
Gulls circled, their cries ripping the air. Out in the cove, a bell rang on one of the ships. Spider clenched his teeth and hoped at least one of these men coming to kill him had tobacco or a flask. He craved both and knew he’d desire them more after the fight, if he still lived.
A swarthy fellow with a red scarf tied about his head leapt over the boat and started coming forward. He crouched low, a pistol in each hand and a goddamned battle-axe strapped across his
back. Slowly, he crept.
The man with the axe did not get shot, so the other five went over or around the boat and started forward. Confident now, they broke into a slow trot, weapons ready and murder in their eyes.
Spider nodded at Hob, then Odin. Both grinned in reply. They knew what to do next and, unlike Spider, looked forward to the action to come.
Odin and Hob lit the powder trails leading from their hiding places to the hidden bombs. It was a race now. Would the pirates notice the burning powder in time to duck low and avoid the worst of the carnage? Spider, willing himself to remain planted in his hiding place, shook his head. Probably not. And the only real cover was the boat they’d left behind.
Fire and sparks raced toward the buried kegs. The pirates came onward. Small twisting pillars of smoke rose, darkening as they danced toward the buried kegs, and the swarthy bastard with the battle-axe pointed with a gun and cried an alarm.
“Trap!”
Hell, yes, it’s a trap. Spider inhaled sharply. It’s a nasty goddamned pirate-killing trap.
The pirates dove toward the hot sand but not soon enough. The kegs, one to either side of the approaching marauders, exploded in lightning flashes of bright orange and yellow, bellowing thunder. Spider ducked behind his tree, for he knew the nails would fly far.
Once they’d covered the kegs with sand, in spots close to the trees so the spy on the hill could not see what they were up to, Spider had grabbed a couple of sacks of nails from his tool kit and given them to Hob and Odin. They’d packed the sharp bits of metal into the sand covering the kegs, the nails ready to fly with musket ball speed once the ignition came. Those nails, along with splinters from the demolished kegs, chewed up the rushing pirates like grapeshot ripping sails. Flying metal streaked through the air, shedding blood that resembled the tails of tiny comets. A flying spike gashed the trunk of the very tree Spider crouched behind, then whistled into the underbrush behind him.
“Redemption!” Hob rushed forth, gun and sword in hand, even before the smoke cleared. Spider and Odin leapt forth from their hiding places and joined him, ducking low to see beneath the black-and-white smoke roiling across the sand. Odin’s feather-adorned hat, taken from the Iroquois they’d killed, fluttered to the ground.
Spider took in the carnage, men streaked with blood and faces ripped, before plunging his knife into the neck of a poor bastard who tried to rise. Knowing that fellow would die any second, Spider shot another wailing pirate whose arm lifted a pistol aimed at Odin. The man’s back erupted in red, and the banshee howl died with him.
“Ha!” Odin charged toward the swarthy man with the battle-axe who rose, staggering, with two red-dripping nails protruding from his shoulder. The man lifted his axe, and Odin fired both of his guns.
The man fell and twitched in the hot sand as Odin pounced on the axe. “Ha!” The crazy one-eyed bastard then rushed toward a lanky fellow trying to get up. A quick sweep of the axe and that man was nearly decapitated.
Spider, choking on smoke, spun like a dervish. “Hob!”
Spider need not have worried. Hob was neatly slitting one man’s throat while another lay quite obviously dead nearby. That poor soul had taken the brunt of one explosion, and his face, full of nails, looked like a red pincushion.
Hob looked up, saw Spider, and grinned. “Look, Spider John! That fucker’s arm blew ten feet away!”
“Aye,” Spider said. “Aye.” He dropped to the sand, breathing hard, and clutched at Em’s pendant. Jesus, he thought. Let these be the last men I kill.
With no one left to fight, Hob and Odin joined Spider on the sand. “I am keeping this axe,” Odin said. “Goddamn, I love this!”
“Can I have your cutlass then? We showed them, didn’t we?” Hob did not notice his right bicep was bleeding.
“Did they get you, boy?” Spider rose to examine the wound.
“Splinter or nail from our trap. Those ugly shit-eaters did not touch me!” Hob nodded as Odin gave him the sword.
“I’ll be wanting that back, Hob.”
“Aye, thank you!”
Spider glanced toward the schooner. “There’s more ugly shit-eaters over there,” he said. “And there is no way they didn’t note what happened here.”
“Those kegs were fucking loud! Ha!” Odin rose and danced, sweeping his new axe through the air.
“Brilliant idea you had, Spider John.” Hob nodded. “Bloody brilliant.”
Spider looked at the dead men lying around him. “I wonder how many of these gents wished they could leave piracy behind before they came to such a bloody end. I do not feel brilliant, Hob. I am weary of this.”
“We live, and they don’t.” Hob saluted Spider. “That is all I fucking need to know. Sir.”
“Let’s get under cover. Yon schooner might hurl cannon balls at us any moment.” Spider peered across the sea, expecting to see guns being run out. Instead, he saw another boat plying the waters—and it was flying a white flag.
“What?” Hob exclaimed. “They give up?”
“They fear my axe! Ha!”
“That fellow standing in the rear,” Spider mused, pointing, “has long red hair.”
“Hell, that’s not a fellow,” Hob said.
“No,” Spider replied. “It’s Anne Bonny.”
28
“Run, Hob, and warn the others. I am all out of tricks.” Spider tried to slow his rapid breath. The scent of burnt powder lingered, and a stream of smoke now and then stung his eyes.
“I count six, aside from her, Spider.” Hob held a steady hand against his forehead to shield it from the sun. “They are waving a white flag, but even if it is a lie, I still think we can take them.”
“Well, you are bloody wrong,” Spider growled. “We are out of powder and already tired from fighting. I am tired, anyway. And I do not trust that woman there; I surely don’t.”
Hob started to speak but kept quiet for a moment. “Aye, Spider,” he answered reluctantly. “What message for the other castaways?” He tucked Odin’s sword into his belt.
“Tell them what happened here and what’s coming. Tell them to crouch and hide, ready to ambush. And tell them Odin and me aren’t likely to stop these bastards if they are intent on killing. The best we might be able to do is slow them down, delay them. Make sure Miss Brentwood hears that. We can’t stop them. Go now.”
“Aye,” Hob said. “But I am coming back.”
“Come back quiet,” Spider ordered. “And with a primed pistol or two. Maybe we’ll need a surprise on our side.”
“Aye.” Hob ran off.
“So, what do you think we ought to do, Spider John? I am out of guns, but I can swing this goddamned thing.” Odin’s new axe cut the air between them, and he buried the blade in the hot sand. “Line the bastards up for me; I’ll lop off three heads in a single stroke!”
He pulled the axe head from the sand and kissed it tenderly.
“I deem you a friend, Odin,” Spider said, “but you scare me near to pissing my britches.”
“Ha!”
Spider eyed the approaching boat and reached toward the belt of the nearest dead man. He found a flask and a pouch of leaf. “Well, then.”
Spider took a deep swig, delighted to discover the flask contained good Porto. He sighed with satisfaction and tossed the pewter flask to Odin. Then he pulled his pipe free, stuffed it with the dead man’s tobacco, and looked about for a burning keg shard to light it. In a moment he had it going, and two deep draws later he almost felt as if he could relax. “I aim to ask that lady some questions, and I will talk and talk and talk to give our friends in the woods as much time to arrange a defense as possible.”
He palmed the hilt of his throwing knife, tucking the sharp blade up along his forearm and concealing the hilt behind his hand. “And I aim to sell my life dear if they decide to fight. They might be of a mind to avenge these bastards.”
Odin nodded. “They will find us tough to kill, goddamn it. You are a damned good man, Spider John. Fi
ne as any.” Odin turned his eye toward the oncoming boat. “Don’t know why they would avenge these useless louts, though. Ain’t worth it.”
“We shall see what we see. Be ready for anything.”
The boat approached the sand, and Anne Bonny leapt out with a splash. She strode through the water, smiling widely, and waved at Spider as the men accompanying her pulled the boat up next to the one already on the beach. One of those men planted the white flag’s pole into the sand with a heavy thunk.
Truce flag or no, Spider remained alert.
Anne Bonny had a sword and guns in her belt, but her hands were stretched out as though she was preparing to hug someone.
Spider’s grip on the knife tightened.
“Well, John, you looked better to me before you drenched yourself in other men’s blood—but that has a certain appeal, too, I dare say.” She winked. “How came you to be such a mess? From what I saw, yon dead fellows here nary put up a fight.”
She waved her hands over the scattered dead, as though she were asking a theatrical troupe to take a bow. Then she leaned forward, scooped a wickedly bent nail from the sand, and grinned. “Lovely little trap you set up.”
She tossed the nail behind her.
“We were outnumbered, so we tilted the scales a bit.”
“Indeed. I saw the bombs go off. Nicely done.” Meanwhile, her men looked as though they wanted a little violence.
Spider bowed. “We always aim to give a good account of ourselves.”
Anne Bonny looked at him as though she expected more.
“Are we going to have a dispute, Anne, over the bloodshed here? Over Sam Smoke?”
“You need not worry, John.” Anne glanced around at the carnage. “These poor souls were sent to their fate by Pete Reese, not by me. I’d have had the good sense and forethought to have warned them about potential traps, were they my men. But they knew there might be opposition, and they knew every day on the pirate account might be their last. May God bless them, or damn them, as he pleases. Or the devil take them, for that matter. It is not my concern.”