The Brotherhood of Pirates

by William Gilkerson

  The Reverend Corkum had a cold. “Abstinence is the fundamental virtue,” he pronounced, pausing for what might have been dramatic effect, except it was a sneeze coming on. “Because,” he said, recovering with the aid of a handkerchief, “abstinence is the basic discipline that enables all of the other virtues.” The Reverend was making slow but determined progress through the cardinal virtues, giving me a lot of time to examine other things.

  There sat the captain with the choir, wearing the robe, looking contemplative under his dark eyebrows, saintly even, with white hair surrounding his face like a biblical prophet. I saw him as a kind of saviour, to the inn, to me, and all of us, even Meg. Thanks to the concert, she had become something of a local celebrity, written up in the Baywater Beacon. The first weekly Saturday Music Night at the inn, with her and the captain, had brought in new customers, which was all right.

  I felt more estranged from Meg than ever. She was there for her work, and for Chloe, as she’d named her new kitten, but then she was gone, playing with this group or that one. She did not invite the captain. Despite there being something about him that repelled Meg, I was magnetised, and it had come between Meg and me. At the same time, her cautions had lodged in me. He was indeed an actor, enough of one to leave questions. I had been seduced by his stories, but yesterday’s unsettling view of his eyes as black pits in his face was fresh in my mind. It had not felt directly threatening, but I was left with a sense of having experienced something outside of my ken, and a danger.

  Danger attended him, from his entry in a winter storm, to the secret cannon seizure, to bringing in the dangerous Noel Nauss to deal with the Moehner boys, to the shooting of Grendel. He seemed to take nourishment from danger, creating bits of it quite casually, in an ongoing way that I was helplessly drawn to. If my family had gotten any notion of what had been happening I’d have had a lot of explaining, but he had handled everything so well, there had been no fuss. Just secrets.

  “Truth is liberation,” proclaimed Reverend Corkum, concluding a sermon that I had mostly missed, and the captain rose with the choir for the concluding hymn. Nor was I the only one who was drawn to him. He had made a very favourable impression on lots of people, including Jenny, after he had given her the golden link from the chain of Granuaile. Jenny wanted to see him again, with some questions she had about it, and told me after the services that she planned to visit. “On my own,” as she put it, exercising her new freedom that afternoon.

  Sunday dinner was a cheerful gathering, following the success of the music evening and its promise of more to come. Chief Moehner’s visit was discussed, but only briefly, because there was little to make of it, except Uncle Robin noted the missing dog was the one I’d complained about. Aunt Karen got in her customary probe.

  “Captain Johnson,” she addressed him. “I’ve a question to you, as an historian, and because you are Jim’s teacher on a subject. What, in your opinion, is history’s value to us, and how is that lesson best taught?”

  “Madam, in response to the first part of your question, there are two answers. The first is to the individual historian, who learns to read through mountains of ancient documents, putting it all together, with the ultimate realisation that he, or she, is reading about people who were the same people that we are, our own biggest advantage being that we are not yet dead. The second part is that this lesson is never learned. It appears to be our situation. How is it best taught? I would think, ideally, by bringing the student to the earliest possible experience of it.”

  Jenny showed up a couple of hours later, but we could not locate the captain. We had no appointment. He was not at his table, nor in his room. The only other place I could think of was the cellar, where we had spent the previous afternoon with the cannon, so there we went. Sure enough, the latch was off the cellar door, and the light within was burning. There was no sign of the captain, however. Investigating beyond the glare of the electric bulb, I found the iron grill over the deepest basement open. Its rusted lock had been cut off with a hacksaw, likely the one I had found for him.

  “What’s down there?” Jenny asked, peering into the darkness below. I told her the little I knew about the deepest cellars, and she was immediately fascinated, wanting to follow him with our flashlight. I thought it best just to call, which I did, with no response from the blackness.

  “Let’s go,” said Jenny, starting down the stone steps. I tried to protest, but had no choice except to follow her, holding the flashlight so she could see where her feet were leading us.

  “Which way?” she asked. I had no idea where he was. The corridor at the bottom of the steps went in two directions; each led to interconnected chambers, but the left-hand fork was the longest one, and the most complex. I called out again. The dank darkness was like a sponge, absorbing my cries. Off to the left went Jenny. “Come on,” she said. I warned her there were big rats, which didn’t seem to bother her. She went right ahead anyway, and I had to follow along, so that she didn’t slip on the slick spots, or take a stumble. When I decided we had gone far enough, I stopped, so she had to also. “C’mon,” she beckoned, but she couldn’t budge me.

  “I don’t like it down here,” I told her, “and I don’t know my way around in it, either. Hullooo . . .” I called out again. Again my voice was swallowed by the darkness.

  “Well then, let me have the light,” she said, coming back to me and reaching. I pulled my arm away to keep her from grabbing it, hit my elbow, and dropped it. The tin flashlight fell on stone and went out. “Now you’ve done it,” she said. “You’d better get it going again.” But no shaking or clicking worked, and the darkness was absolute. Even when our eyes had fully adjusted to it, we could see nothing. Holding hands to keep track of one another, we started back the way we had come, clinging to the right-hand wall of the corridor for reference. There were side chambers, however, and other passages, which were immediately confusing.

  “I think I can find our way out,” said Jenny, but I didn’t trust her with that, insisting that we stick to the wall, and find the other side of its gaps one by one, until we came back to the steps leading above. “Shhhhh,” she hushed me. I listened into the silence, hearing nothing except drips from the ceiling splashing into puddles. No, there was something else, the sound of water lapping. On top of our other difficulties, the tide was flooding in—how rapidly I did not know, or to what depth. I told Jenny I thought we had better keep moving. Underfoot, further impeding us, were fallen stones and fragments of ancient mortar.

  “This way,” Jenny said, trying to tug me in a direction other than the one I was following. I told her she was going into a side-alley, and we argued about it, whispering. There was something about the place that suppressed loud conversation. In the midst of this, at the same time, I heard a gurgling noise, then felt my shoes filling with icy water. I stooped to feel the floor; dipped my hand into a fast-flowing stream, and experienced a moment of terror. Which way to turn? We were soon going to be wading, and then swimming,

  “I know it’s this way,” I insisted, and we were arguing some more, when we both were transfixed by an explosion of light out of a side passage.

  “Master Hawkins? Mistress MacGregor?” came the captain’s voice, as he played the beam of his flashlight on us. I was standing in water; Jenny had taken refuge on a fallen stone, and still had dry feet. He waded to her and picked her up.

  “What are you two doing down here?” he asked, starting to carry her in the direction I had wanted to go. I waded along behind, following his light, nursing the same question about him that he had just asked us. In short order, we found the steps leading above, beyond danger.

  “What were you doing down here?” Jenny put my question for me. “Because we were just trying to follow you.”

  “Exploring the foundations, with the natural interest of an elderly historian, and also with an electric torch. I would recommend one of those to yourselves next time you take a notion to go down there, which I would not recommend at all. P
articularly without consulting a tide table, or getting proper footwear.” He was wearing fisherman’s boots, I noticed as I emptied streams of water from my shoes.

  “What were you looking for down there?” asked Jenny. “Treasure?”

  This got a laugh out of him. “Treasure to be sure, Mistress, the pearl of knowledge. Let’s get young Jim here up into the warmth before he gets frostbite in his feet.” He started ushering us out of the cellar.

  “What did you find down there?” asked Jenny.

  “Nothing so precious as yourselves,” he answered, slamming down the grating over the stairs, and securing it with a brand-new padlock. Above, I was trying to think of how to explain to Mother my wet shoes, assuming that everything that had just happened was to be kept secret, as usual. I was getting used to secrecy, even developing a taste for it. “Don’t tell anybody about this,” I cautioned Jenny on our way above.

  Jenny had a last question for him. “Do you think there could be pirate treasure buried down there?”

  The captain made a helpless gesture. “Dear Mistress MacGregor. Jennifer. Jenny. May I call you Jenny? The pirates hardly ever buried treasure. They simply didn’t go around doing that. On the whole, the legends of pirate treasure are myths.” Jenny asked again about the buried treasure of Captain Kidd. The captain made a face. “Quite. Well, he’s one of the exceptions, but his treasure didn’t stay buried for very long; same story with Calico Jack. It’s your Robert Louis Stevenson chap who’s given everybody the notion of pirates burying treasure, shooting the poor sods who buried it, making secret maps, with X’s and skulls and whatnot. Rubbish.” Jenny was not satisfied with his answer, I could tell, but she had to leave. After she was gone, I told him that she could be trusted not to say anything to anybody. Both of his eyebrows lifted.

  “Not say anything about what?” he asked. “You mean about going into the cellar?” Here he flagged Mother, who was passing by. “Madam, please take this,” he said, handing her a key, explaining it was to the new lock he had put on the grating over the deep cellar. She wanted to know why he had removed the older lock. “Historical curiosity,” was his response.

  “You went down there?” she asked with an alarmed look, and a glance at me. “Did you take Jim?”

  “No, Madam, I did not,” he truthfully answered. Mother launched into the various reasons why nobody was allowed in the cellars, starting with the dangers. There were also all the vague, old, dark tales: even if they were discounted, there was nothing good or redeeming in those lower regions. Last, there was a specific clause in our insurance policy that called for the lowest cellar to be sealed at all times.

  He nodded. “And so it is, but now you have a working lock again.”

  “I’d prefer it not working,” she fussed. He assured her that he was educated to the dangers of archaeological investigation, and had the experience to pursue it without risk.

  “What do you hope to find?”

  He shrugged. “You never know. Possibly a bit more information about whatever the present structure was built over. By my reckoning, it was indeed here long before the town. It’s of no great importance, I suppose. But don’t you think it would be enlightening to know more about this ancient treasure of a place that you’re caretaking for history?” He was persuasive, but Mother shook her head, not thinking it an important enough reason to risk our insurance. The captain took a new tack. “There’s also the possibility that something with some antique value might be found.” This got her attention, but she pointed out that Grandfather had explored the place, finding nothing, and no doubt it had been well picked through by others, earlier. “Quite,” he nodded, “and perhaps there’s nothing to be found, but did you know there’s a side corridor that’s been planked closed? Nobody’s touched that in the last century, I’d say, and who’s to know what’s behind it?”

  “What could be?” she asked.

  “That’s my point. Who’s to know until we pull away some old planks and go in?” He allowed a moment for this question to be absorbed while fussing with his pipe. “My proposal is, I’ll supervise the investigation, and if I find anything in that chamber, behind its barrier, I’ll take a share of its value. Then the inn should have a share, and yourself, and Jim here. So there’s a quarter to me, and the rest of it to you. What do you say?”

  The upshot of it was that he got not only Mother’s agreement to probe the secrets of the labyrinth below the inn, but my services as well. “I insist,” he said, “that anything I might find be witnessed in situ by a loyal representative of the establishment. Also, I’ll need somebody to hold a light while I break through and then do my work.” Whatever questions or doubts that I’d had, they were dispelled by his openness. I agreed, resolving to take two flashlights down there next time.

  “Why are you wearing your Sunday shoes?” asked Mother, noticing my footwear. I told her I’d gotten my regular ones wet.

  11

  My First Toast

  HAVING GOTTEN PERMISSION to explore the inn’s deep cellar, the captain appeared to lose interest in it. He spent long days working on Merry Adventure in Tom’s shop, returning for supper. Then he would write, or weave his macramé, always bringing out his pennywhistle around the time Meg finished her duties. Often enough she ignored him. “You know he wants to play music with you,” I told her in passing one evening. Alone by his fire, he was piping a sad Gaelic air with long tremolos. She listened with a critical ear.

  “Very seductive, but he gets enough of my time as it is, and he’s not getting me tonight.” So saying, she went off to her room to play her fiddle to her cat, and it was the same tune, minus tremolo.

  With Grendel out of the way, the trip to and from school was like floating, though school itself remained unimproved. I told Jenny about my startling experience of seeing the captain’s eyes as black holes, then regretted it right away, because it got her into her occult theories. She wanted to see for herself. I assured her whatever I had experienced had to have been some kind of hallucination. Also, she was eager to get back into the cellars. As to that, he hadn’t mentioned it again. Nor had he been inclined toward any more stories, and nothing was happening at all. It was like a moment of dead air at sea, soon to change.

  He had left me preparing to sail with Morgan’s buccaneers, and I reminded him about it several times, finally getting a commitment. He would deal with Morgan on Sunday, after supper, when everybody had cleared out. The two of us were about to be left alone. Robin was driving Aunt Karen and Mother up to Halifax for errands and a doctor’s appointment. Meg was going off to play her fiddle at the Longliner Café in Baywater with a guitar player named Lenny. Nobody would be back before suppertime Monday. Mother would leave us a pot of her leek and potato soup, plus plenty of sausages, sauerkraut, solomongundy, and such. We both assured her we would be very well off, and would take good care of the inn. The family left around midafternoon, in a last-minute flurry of instructions from Mother, as though she were going away for a year.

  “Yes, Mother,” I said, and she finally did leave, again reminding me not to forget to water her plants. At last I was able to present myself at the captain’s table, ready to be with him. He was warming up his pennywhistle by the fire.

  “Don’t you have homework other than your pirates paper?” he asked. I confessed that I did have math and English. “Well, let’s get the decks cleared,” he said, starting to play his instrument. I brought my books to a next-door table, working my way through some plane geometry while he played amazing variations on little themes that he seemed to make up as he went along. Meg was still around somewhere, waiting for Lenny the guitar player to come with his car. Her bag was packed and by the door, with her violin case. She was going to stay over with friends.

  The captain’s improvisations must have gotten to her, because she came downstairs, took her fiddle out of its case, tuned it, and began playing with him, picking up the music. This time, she was forced to follow his wanderings because they were no known tune. The
music began to really get going, with Meg improvising to the captain’s improvisations, when the bell rang over the door as it opened, and Lenny came in, very lanky, with a grin and a friendly slouch. “Should I get my guitar?” he asked.

  “We’re going,” said Meg, putting her fiddle back in its case. “I’ll take my instrument and Chloe,” she said. “You take my bag.” Lenny picked it up, gave us a parting grin, and ambled along after her. The captain’s gaze followed them out; then he caught me watching him.

  “I don’t know why Meg’s so rude to you,” I tried to apologise for her. “I mean, I don’t know why she doesn’t like you, what with all you have done for her . . .” He stopped me with a wave of his hand.

  “My problem with Meg’s not that she doesn’t like me, but that she likes me too well.” He followed this improbable-sounding pronouncement with a big wink, before picking up his music where he had left off. He used the loud ticking of the old clock as a metronome, weaving it with syncopations. After a while he stopped playing and laughed.

  “I think I’ve got it,” he chuckled.

  “What?”

  “The tune I’ve been looking for,” he said, looking mightily pleased, “and I think I’ll celebrate that tonight.”

  I reminded him he’d promised me Morgan’s story.

  “And I’ll give it to you.” The clock chimed. “First, suppertime,” said he, rising, and the next hour was given to meal preparation, which he directed as though our kitchen were his own. With the potatoes baking, the soup and sauerkraut simmering, and Lunenburg sausages just starting to sizzle, he commanded the solomongundy to be brought out. “We’ll start with that, and you’ll find a bottle of aquavit in the freezer,” he told me, turning the sausages. I found it there, almighty cold, a kind of liquor that he must have brought from Merry, because it wasn’t known locally. He wanted a beer to go with it. I said that I guessed his gout must be gone.