The Dagger X (The Dagger Chronicles)

by Brian Eames

Kitto jammed the crutch in his armpit. Van had carved it from where a thick branch split into two smaller branches, forming a crook. Ontoquas had wrapped the crook with a layer of reeds to provide padding.

  “It feels good,” Kitto said, lying only a little. He settled his weight into the crook and took a very small hop-step. His wound throbbed, but he tried not to show his discomfort.

  “Here I am wishing I had my old bent foot back,” he said, astonished that it was true. For how long—how many hours adding up to days, months—had he stared at that clubfoot, hating it and wishing that it were gone? Now it was gone, and he couldn’t help feeling that his body was no longer whole. Part of him was missing.

  “Just a few steps, sweetheart,” Sarah said.

  “No. I want to see the beach. I would like to make it that far.” Kitto steeled himself and lurched forward another step.

  Van waved him on. “It’s not but fifty yards or so. You can make it.” Van collected the bundle of pistols and shot and wadding at his feet. Ontoquas had led Van a week ago onto the rocky peak at the island’s southeast corner, and there showed him two more of William Quick’s trunks that had been hidden away in a deep depression. Inside it were several pistols and short muskets wrapped in oilcloth, as well as enough powder and shot to hold off a small army.

  “Van, no. Let’s leave that,” Sarah said.

  Van shrugged, a trace of a smile on his lips. “Now is a good time, ma’am, don’t you think?”

  Kitto thought some strange message was being communicated between them, but he could not attend to it. Each step brought intense pain, and Kitto clenched his teeth and swallowed a groan. He took another step with the crutch, then gave a bit of a hop to catch his good leg up. Crutch, hop. Crutch, hop.

  You can do it. Just one step at a time.

  They reached the edge of the small clearing, and Ontoquas, Bucket in her arms, walked ahead. She swept her arms across the leafy foliage, exposing the narrow path her feet had carved during the months she had lived on the island. Ontoquas felt there was something different about these wompey—these white people. They differed from the ones who had sent her into slavery. Although she could not say quite why it was she felt she could trust them, it was a delicious feeling. So long it had been since she had felt connected to anyone. The white masters had seen her only as an instrument of labor, and the other slaves had kept their distance from her because she looked different than they did. This wounded boy, his mother, and the strong older boy, they were the first people who seemed interested in knowing her.

  “That’s it, mate. You’re nearly running now,” said Van, behind Kitto now with the pistol clutch under his arm. The statement was not remotely true, but Kitto was settling into a rhythm. Crutch, hop. Crutch, hop.

  “Is the pain quite bad?”

  “Always a burning.” Kitto shook his head in frustration, beads of sweat standing out on his brow and darkening his curls. “Maybe the water will do it good, you think?”

  “Sure it will.”

  After ten minutes and three falls in the loose sand of the beach, Kitto had the answer to his question. A smile of pleasure that had hardly lighted his face since his father had died did so now, and the sight made Sarah weak with relief as she watched from higher up on the beach. Kitto lounged in the surf, balancing his hands against the bottom and floating in the eighteen inches of water, his legs aimed out to sea.

  Sarah sat in the sand with Bucket propped upright against her now, his feet kicking as he watched Kitto in the foamy wash.

  “Not too deep!” Sarah said. Kitto hardly heard her. The cool water was unbearably delightful.

  Sarah let her eyes drift seaward, out to the ever empty horizon.

  Oh, sweet Elias. Where are you? Are you safe? Can you feel my love reaching out for you?

  Sarah swept a strand of hair behind her ear. Her skin had not been so dark since she was a little girl. She had tanned deeply in the weeks since their arrival, mostly due to the long hours she spent out on the beach, scanning the horizon for a sign of either Morris’s or William’s ship. Not knowing whether her young son was safe or even alive was an exquisite torture that was wearing her nerves threadbare, as the sun and salt did to the bedraggled shift that clung to her.

  Sarah suddenly became aware of Ontoquas at her side, solemnly reading her features. Sarah shifted Bucket to her other arm and reached out to take the girl’s hand. Their fingers interlaced. Ontoquas looked up at the wompey woman and smiled at her.

  “The water is good,” Ontoquas said. Her English was improving rapidly now that she had a chance to practice it again. Saying the words made her remember a time long gone when her noeshow, her father, would sit her down with an English fur trader, and the three of them would point at the objects around them and say the words in English and in Wampanoag.

  Kitto pushed out deeper, the froth of the surf washing over his head. He cycled his arms, propelling himself through the water.

  “Oh! Oh!” Sarah cried out.

  “I watch him.” Ontoquas pried her hand free and ran into the water on light feet, leaping the waves until it was deep enough to dive. Ever since the days of digging for suckis suacke in the great water, she had loved to swim. Ontoquas caught up to where Kitto floated on his back twenty yards from shore.

  “The water is good for you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He lifted his head to look at her. “Your English. It is better already.”

  “Your Massachusett?”

  Kitto grinned. “Nippe!” he shouted, and slapped the water.

  Ontoquas splashed water at him, then stopped short. He was not a brother. “The water is good for you.” Ontoquas looked back to the beach where Sarah stood motionless with Bucket in her arms, watching them. “Mother is scared.”

  Kitto didn’t answer. He turned away to the sea and let the rising waves lift him high.

  “I would like to go to the cave. To see the barrels,” he said into the wind. He turned to see if Ontoquas had heard.

  “You are ready?” she said.

  “Any time the bad men might be back,” he said. “I need . . . I need a plan.”

  “But Mother scared.”

  Kitto nodded. “We won’t be long,” he said.

  “Come.” Ontoquas turned from him and paddled toward shore.

  Van waded out to hand Kitto the crutch when he reached the shallows. Kitto cursed quietly as the crutch sank into the wet sand, requiring even greater effort to make progress up the rise of beach.

  “See any sharks?” Van said, smiling.

  “If I didn’t need this crutch for walking I’d slap you with it,” Kitto said.

  Van smirked and pointed up the beach. “Oi. Have a seat up there. I have something for you to see.” He gestured to Sarah.

  Sarah rose and approached with a wry expression on her face, Bucket propped on her shoulder.

  “I do not think this is the time, Van,” she said. “Bucket is frightened by the sound.”

  “We’re all here,” Van said, as Kitto took his last labored steps and threw himself on the sand next to where the unraveled clutch of weapons had been laid. Sarah passed Bucket to Ontoquas.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Kitto said. He swept aside his wet curls.

  Van looked at Kitto, then up at Sarah. “She has something to show you, your mum does.”

  Kitto squinted up at Sarah. The sun was high in the sky behind her, casting her face in shadow. He could not see her face well enough to read it.

  “Mum?”

  Sarah bent and picked up a pistol. Kitto’s mouth dropped open, stunned. He had always known his mother to detest weapons. She straightened and turned the pistol slowly in her hands.

  “You know, Kitto, that I . . . I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends. A Quaker, you would say.” Kitto nodded.

  “My father knew George Fox, who started the movement, and he brought it to Falmouth. That is how I became involved.”

  “You have told me that before,�
� Kitto said.

  “A central principle among Friends is that of peace.” Sarah looked down warily at the weapon in her hands.

  “And for that reason you never tolerated guns in our home,” Kitto said. He remembered times when she had marched tradesmen straight out of the shop because they had entered with pistols in their belts. Sarah took a slow and deep breath and raised the pistol. She sighted along its barrel, aiming down the beach.

  Kitto felt alarmed. “What are you doing?”

  Van stepped away swinging a medium-size turtle shell in one hand. He ran several yards down the beach and turned.

  “Here?” he said to Sarah, grinning broadly. Sarah nodded with a look of resignation. She took a step away from Kitto.

  “You are going to fire it?” Kitto said, even more astonished now. “Do you even know how?”

  Ontoquas held up her palm toward Van to tell him to wait, then retreated up the path by which they had come, pressing Bucket’s turned head to her shoulder to cover the baby’s ears.

  “Right, then!” Van said. “Here goes!” Van drew his arm behind his back and then whipped it forward, sending the shell hurtling outward over the surf. Kitto barely had time to comprehend what Van intended before Sarah’s pistol exploded in her hand and recoiled. Instantly the shell shattered into a thousand shards and tumbled into the white foam to vanish.

  Kitto, incredulous, pointed to the spot in the air where the shell had been.

  “How? But . . .”

  Sarah carefully returned the pistol to the oilcloth and draped the excess over the guns to keep the sand from them. She sat down next to Kitto.

  “My father taught me. In secret, of course.”

  Kitto finally found his tongue. “So you . . . all this time you have known how to shoot?” Sarah nodded.

  “And all this time I have greatly been opposed to weapons and to violence.” She hung her head a moment. “And still I am.” She took Kitto’s hand. “You will remember the words I have told you all these years, that what you see in your mind’s eye and deeply believe, you can make come true?” Kitto nodded. How could he ever forget that lesson? Who might he have let himself become without it?

  “Those are not just words for me. They run deep. My father taught them to me, taught me that notion.” Sarah let go Kitto’s hand and stood again. She bent over and took up the musket. “They run deeper than the teachings of Friends.”

  Kitto had forgotten the burning pain in his stump. “I do not understand, Mum.”

  Sarah reached down to Van’s pile of shells, snatched a largish one up and cast it toward Van who caught it neatly. Van grinned, turning and walking down the beach again.

  Sarah set her feet in a wide stance and lifted the musket to shoulder level. She lowered her eye to the site and pulled back the hammer.

  “Morris will be back. He has my boy. I know it. And I will be ready to do whatever a mother must, no matter how it might imperil my soul.” A long way down the beach now, Van hurled the shell out over the surf. Kitto watched Sarah’s body tense. The musket bucked, roared, and a plume of smoke drifted off in the breeze. Kitto turned in time to see the last shards of turtle shell scatter into the white foam.

  Sarah sat down next to Kitto, but Kitto edged away. This was all too much: his clubfoot, this island, a baby . . . now this. His mother knew how to shoot!

  A long moment of silence passed between them until Van charged up and gave Kitto a slap on the shoulder.

  “Is that not something? Your mum could best the king’s own marksmen!” Van’s bright teeth flashed in the sun. “What a wonder, eh?”

  Sarah silenced him with a look. “You are upset, Kitto,” she said.

  Kitto grabbed Van’s shoulder to hoist himself to his feet, crutch in one hand.

  “I do not know what I am,” he said, meaning it in many ways. He took a few hobbled steps along the beach. He spun around and nearly lost his balance.

  “Lies,” he said, glaring at Sarah. “Lies! Father had plenty. Never told me my name, never told any of us his past. And you, Mum”—Kitto steeled himself—“you had your lies too. I never . . .” His thought eluded him and he shook his head violently. “And you treat me like a child, like I was Duck! You never trusted me to know any of this.”

  “That is not true, I simply—”

  “Is there anything else, Mum? Anything else I should know about you?” Kitto’s tone had taken on more than a bit of venom.

  Sarah stood, her face flushed.

  “No, Kitto, I should think that one dark secret is all that I have.”

  Kitto looked down, suddenly ashamed. But there was more he felt he needed to say.

  “I am not a child, and I will not be treated like one any longer.” He spun away again and hobbled his way down the beach.

  Van and Sarah watched Kitto go.

  “Shall I stop him?” Van said.

  “No. When he is upset, it is best to leave him.” Sarah turned out toward the sea and scanned the impossibly distant line of the horizon. Her brow furrowed, and her eyes moistened with tears.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 6:

  * * *

  The Cave

  “How much farther is it?” Kitto said. It had been ten minutes since Ontoquas had caught up to him as he hobbled along the beach, seething with an anger he did not fully understand.

  “Soon.” They were now just coming upon a rocky rise that jutted out into the water. The island here did not slope steadily from forest to beach as it did elsewhere, but instead tumbled sharply from a hundred feet up at the island’s pinnacle to a jumble of craggy rocks upon which the waves thundered and sent up wisps of spray. Kitto’s stump burned from the effort of the walk.

  “It is here. There.” Ontoquas made a sweeping gesture with her hand that indicated they were going around the promontory.

  “Do we swim, or climb over?”

  Ontoquas stepped into the water and motioned for Kitto to follow.

  “Good,” Kitto said, and tossed his crutch high up on the beach where it would be safe from a rising tide. He hopped into the wash, then lowered to hands and knees and crawled his way into the surf.

  Ontoquas was out deep enough to swim now, and Kitto made for her. He welcomed the flow of the water along his body. He had always loved to swim; it was one of the few physical activities that he could do as well with his clubfoot as any other boy. And he found now, even without the last ten inches of his leg, his body could still glide gracefully along. After several strokes he caught up to Ontoquas. They had come just far enough so that Kitto could begin to see around the rocky promontory. It bent along for a good stretch, then eventually gave way to a smooth beach beyond.

  “Where are we going?”

  Ontoquas pointed toward a place along the rocky expanse, perhaps forty yards before the sandy beach resumed. The rocks at the water’s edge seemed shrouded in shadow.

  “That is the cave?”

  “Yes. You like cave. I show you.” Ontoquas continued on, swimming a path that paralleled the island for some time. Kitto kept pace easily, careful to keep his kicks gentle. Shortly, Ontoquas began to angle toward the dark outcropping of rock. Closer they swam toward the crag. Closer.

  Kitto pulled up from his stroke to better look. They were now only ten yards from where the waves washed up against the rocks, and sure enough he could see the top of a dark opening just above the lapping water. From farther back it looked simply like dark rock, but this close he could see that it formed a kind of tunnel. A strange feeling passed over him, sending goose bumps up his spine.

  I know this place, he thought. Was that possible?

  He paddled forward to come alongside Ontoquas just at the opening. She still treaded water but held one hand against the lip of rock that formed the mouth of the tunnel. Her long black tresses fanned out in the water and draped her shoulders.

  “In there?”

  Ontoquas nodded. “Have care,” she said, tapping herself atop the head. Kitto understood. Here the water
did not so much crash against the rocks, as the waves had already broken on the rocky tumble that reached out behind them, but still the water rose and fell several inches. It would be easy to strike one’s head inside the tunnel.

  Ontoquas had just turned from him and was about to enter the shadowy gloom when a dark movement in the water below Kitto gave his heart a flip. Something was there, swimming just below their feet.

  “Watch out!” Kitto cried and clutched at the rocks above as if to pull himself out of the water, the terror of the shark coming back to him in an instant. Ontoquas heard him and ducked back out into the sunlight.

  She gave a toothy smile. She reached out and patted his arm.

  “No! Not shark. No sharks here. Turtles. Many, many. See!” She lowered her head below the surface. Kitto did the same, his cheeks aglow with embarrassment. His eyes open underwater, he could see the entire entrance to the tunnel. It descended several feet to the sea floor and was perhaps a yard or so wide. As Kitto looked on, a turtle about the breadth of two hands paddled its way straight through the middle of the tunnel, swam beneath Ontoquas’s kicking feet, and flippered off into the open sea. A moment later two more followed, smaller, swimming one just behind the other.

  He looked up to see Ontoquas smiling at him. He returned a smile of his own, struck by the rarity of the expression on the girl’s face. Together they broke the surface again. Ontoquas swept her hair from her eyes, her high cheekbones and angular jaw aglow in sunlight. Kitto saw her as pretty for the first time.

  “You are ready?”

  Kitto nodded. “I think I am.”

  Ontoquas took a deep breath, turned from Kitto, and went under the water. He followed suit, paddling himself through the water just behind her kicking feet. Dozens of white air bubbles swirled about her toes and rose slowly to the surface.

  Within a few strokes Kitto and Ontoquas swam in near darkness. The light from outside the tunnel lit the way dimly, but the farther they went, the darker it grew.

  Kitto felt a dull panic beginning to rise.

  Just stay with her. Trust her! He startled when a dark form moved below him; he squinted and made out the outline of a large turtle swimming in the opposite direction. Again the strange sensation struck him, the familiarity of the place.