Our search has taken us most of the day. With the canopy of branches above us, it is impossible to tell how much time has passed. As the sun sets and darkness falls, I begin to feel uneasy. I can barely see the ground in front of me. If a snake were lying across my path, I wouldn’t know it until the creature had wrapped itself around my ankle.
“It grows late,” I say to Jabbart. “We should mark the tree and come back for it tomorrow.”
Jabbart agrees. “’Twill take a day or more to chop and carry out.” He carves a wide X onto the tree’s base so that it can easily be spotted the next day.
When we pass between the charred oaks, I see the glow from Cook’s fire. Something strikes me as different, but in the darkness, I can’t place what it is. Then, the fire roars to life and in the light of the flames I see that Peep and the Captain have returned.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Captain greets us as we approach the fire. The night has grown cold and a damp wind blows in from the sea. With each gust the flames flicker, threatening to go out. “Beware of staying in the forest past dusk,” he cautions as we join the circle. “It is unsafe once the stars appear.” The remarks are made casually, as if he had not disappeared for a night and day.
Jabbart holds his hands above the flames to warm them. “Aye,” he says. “’Twas by accident we stayed too long. We found nothing until we walked deep into the woods.”
“Is what you found seaworthy?”
“A strong oak is marked for the mast,” Jabbart replies, “but we’ll need pine for the planking in the storage room.”
“Start out early tomorrow,” the Captain says. “The needles carpeting the forest floor tell me you will find the pine you need.” Turning to me, he says, “You are to be congratulated on your victory this morning. Our stomachs will be full for many nights.”
I smile at the compliment and accept a trencher from Cook. Thick slices of smoked meat float in gravy drippings scraped from the stones. Using my biscuit as a spoon, I scoop some up and place it in my mouth. The rich flavor spreads across my tongue, and I quickly take another bite.
Ferdie burps loudly and pats his stomach. “The beast whetted me appetite for fresh meat. With the boucan built, ‘twould be a good time to fetch the animals off the ship.”
Cook shakes his head. “Mayhap the chickens, but we need the goat for milk, and ’Tis too soon to eat the pigs. Let them roam awhile and grow fat.”
Solitaire Peep has remained silent until now. He glances quickly at the Captain before speaking to me. “The animals are in your care,” he says sharply. “You should’ve fetched them from the ship already.”
I stop eating, surprised at the rebuke. “I had no authority to do so,” I say. “No one told me to fetch them.”
“You should have thought of it yourself,” Peep says, tapping his forehead. “I cain’t be around always to tell you what to do.”
The unfairness of Solitaire Peep’s remarks cut me. It was not as if I had slept the day away. Had I not fought a wild pig and then helped to build a boucan to smoke it? Had I not walked in search of timber until my feet ached?
My tone hard, I say, “If you had told me to fetch the animals, I would have done so. Now that I know what you desire, I’ll go for them at first light.”
“You’ll fetch them this night,” Solitaire Peep snaps. “The moon will guide you.”
Gunther laughs scornfully. “If you send the boy out alone on the longboat, ’Tis likely he’ll sink it. Mayhap I should row him over.”
Gunther’s suggestion alarms me. “No,” I say quickly. “At dawn I can row over alone. The animals will keep until then.”
“The animals must be fed daily or they will grow weak and sick,” the Captain tells me. “Finish your meal and ready the longboat. I must tend to something onboard ship. We’ll go tonight.”
I push the last bite of meat into my mouth, grateful for something to fill it so that I can’t answer back. I don’t want to row out to the ship tonight. I’m sleepy and my leg hurts. If I did not have to tend the animals, I could ask Cook to make a poultice to soothe the wound. There will be no time to do that now. I return the trencher and start down the beach to where the boat is tied.
I glance back toward the camp as I pull the longboat toward the sea. The others have finished their meal and now rest on their pallets. Cook has tapped a small barrel of ale to fill their cups, and the crew’s laughter carries across the wind.
I hold the boat steady so the Captain can board. The water is choppy, and the wind tosses the small vessel into the waves. Water sloshes over the boat’s sides. I am glad the Captain has taken the lead position at the boat’s bow, for I am not sure I could have handled the force of the wind. We row silently, not speaking until we are aboard the ship.
On deck, the Captain strikes a flint and lights two small tapers so that we can see. He hands one to me and I start for the storage room, but he stops me. “Come to my cabin first.”
Inside, he pushes aside the papers on his desk and places the candle in a dish. It casts a dim glow inside the room. Motioning for me to sit, the Captain pulls out his log. He writes for several minutes before slamming the book shut. Stopping the ink bottle, he wipes his quill dry on a small cloth and sighs heavily. “Stop sulking, Jameson,” he says. “It is behavior unbecoming a royal sailor.”
“It is unfair how Solitaire Peep spoke to me,” I say. “I have taken good care of the animals since you placed them in my care. Surely one day without food would not have harmed them.” But as I speak the words I feel pangs of guilt, recalling how famished I had been on the streets of Charles Towne. Stomach pangs led me to step into the bakery and pick up the loaf of bread. Hunger changed the path of my life, to be sure. “I shall not forget them again,” I say.
The Captain nods. “Good, although your forgetfulness served my purpose well.”
“I don’t understand,” I reply. “How is that?”
“I must speak to you of another matter, a private matter that could not be discussed on the island.”
“Are you saying that you and Solitaire Peep played a ruse to get me here? That feeding the animals was an excuse?”
The Captain pushes back from his desk and walks over to the porthole. “You have surprised me over the last few months, Jameson,” he says. “You’ve worked without complaint, and you’ve managed to stay one step ahead of Gunther, who would kill you given the chance.”
I can’t hide the surprise in my voice. “You knew that Gunther tormented me?”
“I knew,” the Captain says. “But a man must find his own way. I told Peep that unless your life was in danger, we would not interfere.”
“Is my life in danger now?” I ask. “Is that why you brought me here?”
“No,” he replies, shaking his head. “I brought you here because I trust you to protect what belongs to Queen Anne.” Unfastening a leather satchel, he pulls out a roll of papers bound by thin strips of leather. “These are the maps of a new world, Jameson,” he says. “When I return to England and show them to Her Majesty, she will send royal protectors to claim the land in her name and armies to defend it.”
My eyes widen as the maps are spread wide upon the desk. I have never seen such drawings. Each map shows detailed markings that could easily guide a ship’s captain.
“You gaze upon my life’s work,” the Captain says. “These maps will ensure that England rules this new world. England and England alone.”
I touch the maps gently. Though my eyes are not as trained as my father’s had been, I can see that each map is a work of art, one that could never be replaced.
“Whose work is this?” I ask, my voice filled with awe.
“Mine and other artists who have sailed with me,” he replies. “But that’s not important right now.”
“What is it that you want me to do?” I ask, raising my eyes to meet his.
The Captain rolls up the maps and reties them. He doesn’t speak for so long that I think that he has changed his mind
. “You are a curious lad,” he says suddenly. “Surely you’ve wondered where Solitaire Peep and I disappeared to.”
I shrug. “Solitaire Peep claims my nose is too long. I did not want to ask.”
The Captain laughs. “It was Peep’s own long nose that led us to the place on the island where he will soon take you. A place hidden deep in the woods.”
“Sir?”
The Captain stands. “Be ready, Jameson. That is all I will say at this time. When the hour is right, Solitaire Peep will take you there. You must follow without comments that will alert the others.”
My head swirls and questions are ready to spill from my mouth, but the Captain waves me silent. “I’ll say no more than this. The maps before you will be used to secure England’s place in the New World. Until I can return, they must be hidden in a place that will keep them safe from harm.
“And you think harm will come to them soon?” I ask quietly.
“We are within our enemy’s reach and soon the weather will turn against us. Had the Spanish merchant not attacked, we would not be in this predicament. Now Destiny is in peril.” He pauses. “Am I right to trust you with England’s future, Jameson? You, above all the others who sail on my ship?”
I stare at the maps spread out before me, still awed by the perfect lettering and drawing. Even without knowing their value to Queen Anne, I would have protected them from harm.
I nod firmly. “I can be trusted,” I reply.
“I pray you speak the truth, Jameson. Because if I’ve misjudged you, God help us both. Betray me and our heads will adorn a pike on London Bridge.”
I swallow hard. My mouth feels dry as I speak. “I will follow Peep without question,” I say, “and I shall tell no one where I go or what I see. I give you my word.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Two mornings after the animals are brought to shore, we guide Destiny into shallow waters and carefully tip her onto her side so that we can scrape her clean from bow to stern. Peep orders me to start beneath the bow, but I have flicked off only a few barnacles with my dagger when he suddenly changes his mind and says I must help Cook and Ratty Tom catch and salt fish to carry with us when we sail to Charles Towne. I start to protest that I am capable of doing more than salting fish but then I see Gunther checking the ropes that hold our ship in place. Peep changed my orders, I think, for the purpose of protecting me. My head could have easily ended up squashed like a melon if Gunther had found a way to let the ship fall on top of me.
The food supplies have dwindled so low that the crew now grumbles when they see what fills their bowls each night, and Cook is intent on filling every empty barrel with fish.
Ratty Tom and I head down the beach away from the noise of the crew at work on the ship, walking until all we can hear are waves crashing onto the shore. Then, we wade out into the sea up to our chins to sink our nets. After they are in place, we move closer to the shore and begin to fish, using poles that Jabbart made out of strong saplings he found in the forest, with bent nails for hooks.
This becomes a daily routine. Each morning we search out a new place along the shoreline to sink our nets and cast out our fishing lines. The fish seem to have a taste for the fat brown wrigglers that we dig after each afternoon rain and the tiny crabs that run along the shore each night just before the moon appears. I have concocted a treat for them of two worms wrapped around a crab, with the hook through the middle.
We fish from dawn to dusk, taking time only to eat the meager rations Cook sends with us for our noon meal. My arm aches from casting out my line, and the skin on my chest peels off in wide pieces from where I have sizzled beneath the sun. Cook visits us throughout the day to gather the fish we have placed on strings for him. He takes the fish back to our camp to smoke some in the boucan and salt the rest. Fish has become our breakfast, lunch, and supper, with little else alongside it. A few days ago, though, Cook trapped three wild birds and a fat squirrel, which he stewed with wild onions. To go along with that, he scraped out the fat that lined the squirrel’s carcass and used it to flavor several bunches of jagged green leaves topped with yellow flowers that he found just inside the woods. The change was welcomed, and though we wished for more, no one complained.
Yesterday, when we pulled in our nets at sunset, a loggerhead turtle larger than any I have ever seen peered back at me with wet black eyes. Cook whooped when he saw it. Though I felt bad to know its fate, I cannot deny that the meat, sweet with just a hint of the salty sea, made me long to catch another one the next day. Cook cut the meat from the shell and then chopped it into thick chunks, which he divided evenly amongst the crew. For supper, we speared the turtle meat with our daggers and roasted it over the fire, along with long slivers of the rattlesnake that Jabbart killed while searching for more kindling.
We have been on Crossed Island almost two moons, and Jabbart finished the new mast last night. After breakfast, Peep calls the crew together to help pull the mast down the beach to where Destiny, scraped clean, waits.
There is much grunting and shouting as we hoist the mast into place. A high tide helps us to get the ship upright and into the water. With Peep’s permission, Cook untaps a new barrel of ale and our cups are filled in celebration. We raise our cups to the sky as the Captain offers a toast to his ship, that she always stay ahead of our enemies and that she remains seaworthy as we sail from this place. We stand on the beach with the sea swirling around our ankles and drink the warm ale, our eyes upon Destiny as she floats offshore with her new mast. Jabbart boasts that England’s finest shipbuilder could not have done a better job nor used a stronger wood. I sense he feels a pride much like I did whenever I penned perfect letters for my father. They are alike in some ways, I think, the molding of wood and words.
With Destiny back in the water and ready to sail, I sense we will soon leave Crossed Island. Lightning flashes against the sky daily now, and last night I slept poorly because of the loud rumbling of thunder. Cook says a fierce storm nears. The signs are everywhere. The trees along the wood’s edge bend and sway in the wind, as if preparing for an assault. And I’ve never seen quite so many lizards—long green ones the color of the stones in Peep’s patch and tiny yellow ones with black stripes. They scurry back and forth across the sand, as if uncertain as to which way to go. The pigs and goat have roamed free in the woods since being brought from the ship, and we have not seen them in days, not since the winds started blowing hard. Jabbart and Ferdie have tried to catch them, but the animals are too cunning for them and will not let themselves be trapped. Perhaps the pigs sense that the boucan awaits them, but Peep says the goat will sail with us to Charles Towne, for Cook craves her milk to make his stews and broths.
For the first time, our nets came up empty today. Cook claims it’s because the fish sense the storm and seek safety by swimming deeper into the ocean. He says, “When nature’s frightened, man should take heed.” There is worry in his voice. At supper, I overhear him whisper to Peep that we should set sail soon, before a storm destroys our ship and maroons us here with no food.
The winds make it hard to keep the fire lit, and the rain that began at dusk has become so forceful that we must shout to one another to be heard. There was talk of sleeping on the ship to shield us from the weather, but Solitaire Peep said we will be stuck on the ship soon enough. There are no games of dice in the sand tonight, and I turn in early with others, bedding beneath four sails that have been tied together and secured to the ground with thick stakes. Peep assigns me a spot near the outer edge where the wind blows rain on me, but I do not complain; in truth, there is no guarantee of shelter for any of us. Before morning the wind will likely sweep the sails out to sea.
The sound of the rain beating upon the sails and the waves crashing into the shoreline drowns out all else during the night. Though I wish I could sketch the dancing of the tall grass upon the dunes and the waves, tall and tipped silver in the moonlight, the gusts would rip the parchment from my hands. Instead, I turn my back to the wind,
pull my knees closer to my chest, and close my eyes.
I bolt upright as a hand clamps down hard across my mouth. I grab at the hand and struggle, until Peep holds his lantern to his face. He places his finger before his lips and jerks his head toward the woods. When I nod, he moves silently into the darkness.
My heart pounds as I pull on my boots. So many nights have passed since my conversation with the Captain that I thought he had changed his mind. Beneath the sails, the others snore loudly. The heavy rain muffles the sound of my movements as I pull on my boots. I duck from beneath the sail, and follow the light from Peep’s lantern down the beach. The wind is fierce, and it shoves me along as if I am its prisoner. My hair blows about wildly, stinging my face; I push the locks aside and grope for the rawhide I use to gather them together, but it is gone, lost somewhere along the beach.
Thick clouds hide the moon, but the flickering light from the lantern guides me down the long stretch of sand to the woods. When Solitaire Peep rounds the bend in the beach, the light dims and I quicken my steps.
The beach grows dark suddenly, and I know Peep has stepped between the charred oaks, where the dense foliage hides the lantern’s light. I enter the woods a few moments later and see him standing beneath the wide branch of an oak tree. “Hurry, boy,” Peep snaps, stepping forward. “’Twill be dawn in a few hours and there’s work to be done.”
Peep carries a leather satchel that I recognize as the one from the Captain’s cabin. Tossing me a small shovel, Peep says, “Follow me and keep up. If you become lost, you’ll stay that way.”
Despite the darkness and the thick tangle of trees and shrubs, we walk at a quick pace. My legs tire, but I don’t dare slow down. The rain is so heavy the canopy of trees can’t shield us. The ground turns soggy beneath my feet and twice I stumble, but Solitaire Peep continues on, never once looking back to see if I’m keeping up. Curiosity and fear of being left behind push me forward. I have never been so deep into the woods.
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