by Steve Goble
Anne laughed, and Odin roared along with her.
“They had a spy on the hill, an Iroquois, I think. And what of Sam Smoke? I know you did not care for him, but your lads here—Pete’s men, I presume, don’t recognize them from Redemption—might be in a vengeful mood.” Spider measured the distance he’d have to throw his knife to take down the nearest fellow with ready guns while Odin sidestepped to the left, knuckles whitening as he gripped the haft of his axe.
Anne shrugged. “The lookout is unknown to me, and these men are no longer Wicked Pete’s. They are mine.” She turned to the men who had accompanied her. “Do any of you wish to avenge the lookout?”
Indifference was the only answer.
“There you have it,” she said. “As for Sam Smoke, no one on the high seas had any love for that vicious cock save for Wicked Pete Reese, and he is in no position to avenge anyone. Ever.”
Spider nodded, glad to feel his muscles loosen and his breath come easier. “You seem to be in far better standing than I would have expected, Anne.” He sucked from the pipe and blew a great cloud out of the side of his mouth. “How do you come to be still alive?”
Her men formed up in a crescent behind her, and Anne grinned. “Wicked Pete Reese welcomed me with a smile. He was still smiling at the very end. I killed Pete without so much as a hello. Cutlass, right straight up through his crotch.”
Her eyes danced when Spider winced.
“Then once across his throat for good measure. I think it best to be thorough.” She winked.
Spider cleared his throat. “And Ned Low?”
“Ned Low, alas, was not with them,” she answered. “Ned is still out there somewhere, roaming the sea. He gave Pete command of these ships. I have no business with Ned and hope to avoid him. Anyway, once I had given Reese exactly what he fucking deserved—I had intended to keep his head as a souvenir, but you may have seen one of my overeager gents toss it overboard . . . no?—well, my business with Pete concluded. I planned to implore these good fellows to take me in as one of their crew, but it turned out that this gent”—she pointed behind her toward a scarecrow of a man, naked to the waist and grinning like a clown—“knew me of old. Didn’t you, Sundog?”
“Yes, yes, Cap’n.” The man stared at her like a puppy. For a moment Spider thought the man might lick her hand.
“And Koro here remembered me fondly, too, did you not, dear?”
A hard-eyed fellow, with four pistols in a bandolier and earrings that appeared to be made of human finger bones and gold, nodded.
“So, then, Sundog and Koro, knowing my abilities and prowess, put it forth to the crew that perhaps I should be their new captain. And so now yon schooner, Madeleine Robin, is mine to command.”
The pipe fell from Spider’s jaw, and he caught it in his free hand. The other hand still hid the knife, and he half expected to need it. “If you have no ill will toward us, will you take us off the island? Provide passage?” A vision of Em, smiling brightly as he splashed ashore from a boat at Nantucket, filled Spider’s mind.
“No.”
Spider blinked. “But . . .”
“I said no. I have another man to kill in Nassau, and so my business is there.”
“You might take Robin to Nassau and let Redemption or one of the other ships go north,” Spider said. “There is much good hunting north.” He bowed slightly, in what he thought might be the proper gesture of a courtier to a queen.
“You daft lobcock!” Anne laughed. “I worked and killed for this, and I damn well will enjoy the fruits of my labor. I wish to keep yon Redemption for my own. She is a fine, fine ship. I’ll not send her to Boston. I will sail her to Nassau and perhaps swing my prey from her yardarm. And the lads aboard yon Thorn and Dark Treasurer have plans for raiding already, and they are good plans; I approve heartily. My new crews and I shall profit greatly. And I must keep in mind Ned Low, of course. Should our paths cross, he might take the unreasonable position that all these ships are his, not mine. I will need my ships, should that occur. I shall need manpower, too, I dare say.”
Spider nodded and sighed. “Aye.”
“You have shown yourself to be a man, John.” Her gaze traveled up and down his lean body. “Resourceful. I adore that trick with the powder kegs. Capital thinking, that. And you don’t frighten easily. I watched your face when Sam Smoke had a gun to your head. You were steady, calm. And you got your knife into his neck damned quick. I could use you, and your friends, too. I have a burgeoning new fleet, and I believe in strength in numbers.”
Spider said nothing, but his mind raced. The last few years he’d spent on the pirate account flooded his thoughts. All the bloodshed. All the fear of being caught, of being hung. He could not return to that. He could not.
“I mean to say you are welcome in my crew, John. You might find it to your liking.” She reached for her right breast, cupped it a moment, then brushed back a cascade of red hair.
No, he thought. Not a bloody chance.
Spider blinked. “I, uh . . . I have a wife and a boy.”
Anne winked. “So?”
Spider scratched his head. Is she trying to keep me off-kilter? Is she about to shoot me? Or stab me?
Nervous, he stuttered onward. “I just want to see them. Her. Her and the boy. Little Johnny. Seven or eight, he must be. I ain’t seen him or her since he was a baby.”
“Seven or eight?” She licked her lips. “You must have been quite young when you fathered him.”
“Aye. Aye.” Quite young, indeed, he thought. Em had been his first, and she’d needed to show him what to do, even. Em was the only one who had mattered.
Anne Bonny stepped closer, nearly touching him, and stared into his eyes. Spider wanted to stop talking, but he couldn’t. “We married, me and her. Em. Emma. She and me. Quiet, but we married. Her father is a preacher.”
“Let me guess.” Anne tickled Spider’s crotch. “You got her with child, first, and then married her. Aye? Her father encouraged you to go to sea, to support your little family.”
“Aye.” Spider stepped backward, but Anne just stepped forward.
“And you are convinced she has spent all this time, all these years, pacing a widow’s walk, watching the horizon for your triumphant return? How precious, that!”
“I do not believe . . .”
“And you’ve been chaste all this time?”
Spider felt himself growing hard. “No. I mean, well, no. There have been times . . .”
“There can be more times,” she whispered. “Join my crew.”
Spider backed away. “I have reasons to be elsewhere in the world, Cap’n. Sorry.”
“Very well,” she said, mocking him with a frown. “John is a saint. So then, how many in your company?”
“I think, um, I mean, I believe, about twenty. Not quite two dozen, surely.” Spider glared at Odin, who kept looking back and forth between Spider and Anne and grinning like a madman.
“Very well.” She tilted her head in thought. “You have your boat, and I shall leave you one of mine, for I like you, John, even if you won’t join my crew. I will take on any who will come, provided they know they must fight if called upon, and any of your lot that won’t throw in with me may take those boats and go where they please. Nassau or the Turks, or Jamaica. Anywhere you please. And I shall wish them well. And you.”
Spider nodded.
“You may not even need to reach a port,” Anne continued. “I imagine that handsome fellow Price might yet be out there looking for Redemption. Or, more likely, for pretty young Abigail.”
“Could be the navy is looking for us,” Spider said.
“You should join me, John. I may just become the scourge of the high seas.”
Spider sighed. “No, Cap’n. I lived the pirate life a few years. I am done with it. I will not speak for all our company, but I will not go with you, even if I must remain here alone.”
“Well then, bathe, John. I may yet have you work off the cost of the boat.”
She winked again. Odin laughed and punched Spider on the arm.
Hob rushed out of the island shade. He had a gun, but it was tucked into his belt. “So it all seems well, then?” His glance went back and forth between Anne Bonny and Spider, and he seemed quite concerned.
“I doubt we deserve such luck, but aye,” Spider said. “It all seems well.”
Hob bowed to Anne. “Congratulations on your captaincy, miss. I overheard. I was waiting in secret, lest we needed a surprise attack!”
“How courteous, and that was an excellent strategy, sir,” she said quietly. “You are well formed.” She stepped toward Hob and grasped his bicep. “Strapping, aren’t you?”
“Aye, and not half as blood-smeared and sweat-soaked as Spider John.”
“Spider John?” Anne rubbed her chin. “I heard that name in Port Royal. You killed a naval officer, I believe.”
“So they say,” Spider answered, glaring at Hob.
“Well, then,” Odin said. “If no one here is going to kill anyone, or screw anyone, can you finally tell us all who killed the goddamned cap’n, Spider John? You had it narrowed down, as I recall.”
“Do you still think I killed him?” Anne asked.
“I cannot help but notice you arrived exactly where you wished to be, where you could kill Wicked Pete.” Spider’s fingers prepared for a knife throw. “Not certain that would have happened without the cap’n’s death, and I hate coincidences.”
“Koro, Spider John has a knife hidden in his hand. Kill him if that hand moves.”
Koro drew two pistols. “Aye, Cap’n.”
“I think you should drop the knife, John.” She cooed the words, as though she were asking him to buy her a pretty hat.
Spider dropped the knife into the hot sand.
“Spider John, know this. I followed Sam Smoke, because I knew that he eventually would lead me to Wicked Pete. I did not kill Captain Brentwood. If I had, I would have done so openly, and I would have dared you or anyone else to do anything about it. I do not pounce like an eel hiding in a reef. I approach openly, blade and gun in hand. When I kill a man, I want the whole bloody world to know it.”
“You did not kill the cap’n, then convince poor Nicholas Wright to come this way?” Spider could easily imagine how she might have won the young man over.
“No, Spider, I surely did not. Wright is a finely built man, and I enjoyed turning his head, but if anyone led him to these waters it was Sam Smoke, not me.”
“Hmm.” Spider drew hard on the pipe. “I thought it possible you killed him to arrange all this, yes, but now . . . I am thinking it would not be your way of doing things. I do not believe you killed the cap’n.”
Spider grabbed the flask of Porto from Odin. He took a deep swig and dropped the empty vessel on the beach. “Very well. Hmm.”
He popped the pipe back in his mouth.
“You seem confused?” Anne’s brows arched above fine eyes.
“Aye,” Spider said, bending to pick up his knife, slowly, while Anne told her men the danger had passed. He tucked the knife into his belt. “I am wondering why you came ashore, if not to avenge these dead men. You could have sailed away and left us to rot. Your coming ashore seems, I think, unnecessary.”
Anne smiled. “I came ashore because I figured it out, Spider. I know who killed the captain! And I like the girl enough to want to tell her.” She batted her eyes. “Perhaps she will reward me.”
“That is all, nothing more?”
“You are a suspicious bastard, Spider John.”
“Aye. Let us rendezvous with the others, then. Hob, you go ahead and tell them it is safe, so they do not fucking shoot us. And we’ll all gather and find out who killed the good cap’n.”
29
“Good, everyone. All is good. The danger, I believe, is past.” Spider urged them out of hiding. Thomas the cat was first, rushing to Odin and rubbing against the man’s wet, bloody britches.
Anne Bonny and company, at Spider’s suggestion, stood with outstretched arms, and Koro waved the white truce flag. Still wary, the castaways from Redemption kept weapons to hand, and all gazes remained fixed on Anne’s dangerous-looking fellows.
Spider took a position in the center of their makeshift camp on the stream’s southern bank. The campfire was still going, despite Spider’s earlier order to extinguish it, so he refilled his pipe and lit it.
Abigail, slowly shaking her head, broke the uneasy silence. “Anne, these men with you . . . what is happening here? Tell me, please, as my declared friend.”
“These men answer to me, and you need not worry, Abigail.” Anne turned slowly, drawing a pistol from her belt. “I like you, dear girl, and no one who answers to me shall hurt you. This, I swear. Indeed, there is but one person here who needs to fear me, and that is the person who killed your father.”
Spider heard a few gasps.
Anne strode toward Abigail, halted abruptly, and whispered, “I know the man who did it, girl!”
Abigail shook. “Who?”
“That bastard right there!”
Anne Bonny lifted her pistol and took aim at Rufus Fox.
Bloody hell, Spider thought.
Spider’s shoulder collided with Anne’s belly just as she fired, and the errant ball ripped leaves from trees. Spider and Anne rolled on the ground, and once he’d untangled himself from her he looked up into the barrels of six guns, all wielded by Anne’s men.
“Hold your fire, gents,” Anne ordered, though she glared at Spider.
Odin, on the perimeter, held a gun in each hand and swept both weapons back and forth, making sure each of Anne’s men felt like a potential target. Hob drew a pistol, too.
Thomas scurried into the brush.
“Yes, wait!” Spider held his open hands up and rose slowly. “Let us hear the case! If your cap’n proves his guilt, you can all shoot Fox! But let us hear the case!”
Once he determined no one was going to shoot him this instant, he picked up the pipe and stuck it in his mouth.
“I will prove it,” Anne said, rising. Her men lowered their guns. She looked at Spider and winked. “You may be as quick a man as I have ever seen. If I do not end up killing you over this, you still might be of use on my crew.”
Spider nodded. “Just tell us why you think Rufus Fox killed Cap’n Brentwood.”
“He could not have,” Abigail whispered as her gaze shifted across the ground. “It is not true.”
“I have killed no one!” Fox threw his hat in anger. “This charge is preposterous!”
“Present your case, Cap’n.” Spider kept his gaze on Fox, and his fingers near the throwing knife.
“When Abigail persisted in her belief that her father had not taken his own life,” Anne told them, “I began to believe it, too. She knew him best of anyone in the world, and the man she spoke of, I believe, would not have killed himself.”
“He most certainly would not have done so,” Abigail said.
“I could not figure why anyone would kill the man, though,” Anne continued. “He seemed a decent sort. Then I thought maybe that bastard Sam Smoke did it. That useless son of a whore would kill anyone and would need no reason at all. He liked watching men die. But it could not have been Sam, could it? Sam does not have the cleverness to kill a man in a locked room and make it look like a suicide. He simply doesn’t. And once I came to that conclusion, I thought of other objections. I supposed Sam Smoke would be unable to have committed the crime without torturing the captain. He’d never have been able to resist cutting him, making him beg. This killing was done with one quick, clean shot to the head. That is not the way Sam Smoke ever killed anyone.”
Anne smiled, pleased to have everyone’s attention. Spider noted Hob, gazing stupefied.
Anne continued. “If Smoke was not the killer, then, who might have done it? I could see no reason in it. But then I noted how much attention Fox had lavished on Abigail. How he always seemed to be looking at her. How maybe the captain was an obstacle in
his suit for the girl’s hand, and how he might feel she had nowhere else to turn if that obstacle was removed.”
“Of all the monstrous . . .” Fox looked as though he wanted to scream, but his words caught in his throat.
“And you are a clever man, too, are you not?” Anne slowly drew another pistol. “You are good with tools. If anyone could make a contraption to shoot the captain in his own cabin, I figure, it had to be you.” She aimed at Fox’s chest. “Shall I kill him, Abigail? Or would you prefer to pull the trigger yourself?”
Spider gulped and stepped between the gun-wielding woman and the nervous Quaker. “Is that all of your evidence?”
Anne laughed. “What more is needed?”
“Well, let me tell you some things I noticed,” Spider said as calmly as he could. “Then we can decide whether to shoot this man, or shoot someone else.”
“You think I am wrong, Spider John?”
“Perhaps, Cap’n. Hear me out.” He turned toward Abigail. “I told you I would try to sort this all out. I believe I have. Will you hear me out?”
She nodded.
Spider looked at Anne. “One big objection to your idea is that the cap’n had a gun in his hand and a note on his desk. Do you think Fox arranged all that through the grating?”
She blinked. “Well . . .” She lowered her pistol. “Very well. Speak, John.”
Spider cleared his throat. “Miss Brentwood. You said you did not believe your father had killed himself, and I believe you.”
Abigail looked confused. “Yes. I am sure he would not have taken his own life.”
Wright groaned with pain. Abigail returned to sit by him and wiped his damp forehead. Wright, plopped up on a blanket, took her hand. Abigail shook her head. “Father would not do that. He thought suicide to be a mortal sin, a coward’s way out, and about the worst thing one could do with God’s gift. But we know he did not kill himself. Do we not? It was that horrible Little Bob. John reckoned it all out. Bob hated my father. He killed him, I am certain of it. It was just like you described earlier, John. Bob hid in the clock and killed my father.”