by Brian Eames
“Exactement. Exactly.”
Kitto felt a growing frustration at their predicament. No ideas were coming to him that would end up with both the barrels and them on Morris’s ship unharmed. His mind a stew, Kitto leaned on his crutch and hobbled over to the smaller pool of freshwater.
Toward the back a steady trickle flowed off a bulge of rock, and Kitto lowered his mouth to it. The water was cool and refreshing. It made him think of Pippin. X had told him that crocodiles do not take to saltwater; they can swim in it but prefer freshwater for lounging about in. Kitto sloshed his crutch through the pool’s water.
“What about Pippin?” he said aloud before considering.
“Eh?”
Kitto felt his heart skip a beat. “Pippin!” Kitto spun and hurried back over toward Exquemelin. “Could not Pippin stand guard here in the cave?”
“Stand guard over the barrels?”
“No, stand guard over nothing!” He explained his idea to the sea captain while X savagely tugged at his beaded beard.
“We remove the barrels and hide them somewhere.”
“Where?”
“It does not matter. The far side of the island perhaps, where they will not be found. Why would Morris look for them if he knew they were located in this cave?”
X nodded, his blue eyes growing wider. “Ja, ja, keep going!”
“Morris arrives and puts himself and most of his men ashore. They try to get into the cave right away, but they can’t because there is this terrifying lizard in the cave that attacks them!”
“Pippin is a crocodile. Not a lizard.”
Kitto ignored him. “So they lose time trying to solve their dilemma, at least one night, and during that night we take the ship.”
“What if there is more than one ship?” X said. “William’s ship. What if they pursue us in her?”
Kitto waved a hand at the possibility. “Never. Even if the Blessed William is still afloat after the battle, William himself admitted the Port Royal was a faster ship.”
“And what of Pippin? Will she be hurt? I do not want her hurt.” Kitto thought it through, staring from the cave passage to the pool where he imagined Pippin would happily lurk when she was not making a feast of turtles.
“How would they hurt her?” he said. “My mum shot her, and that did little.”
“She has nasty scratches,” X said, shaking his head.
“Even so, getting weapons into this cave? It would be next to impossible to do without wetting the powder or the pistols . . . And even then, it would not be enough to kill Pippin.”
X paced, nodding. “Ja, ja. I know Morris. He would be patient. He would wait until Pippin left the cave, or he would lure her out.”
“All we need is one night!” Kitto said. “Morris would find out in a day or two that the cave held nothing, but by then we would be far to sea and they would not know how to follow us.”
“And William? We must take him with us.”
Kitto agreed. “And the other crew, at least the loyal ones. And my brother Duck.” X threw Kitto a look. He had been told about the boy but had kept to himself his estimation of how long it would be before Morris pitched him overboard.
X chased away the grim thought by slapping Kitto on the back hard enough for it to sting. Kitto grinned.
“Briljant! If I did not know better, I would say you must be of William Quick’s blood!”
Kitto laughed, shaking his head at the pirate’s error. “But I am! I told you he is my uncle.” X stopped laughing abruptly. A moment of confusion clouded his features for a moment. Then he rapped himself on the forehead and smiled.
“Of course! I am a fool.” X turned to snap in the direction of Quid and Pickle. “Why is it we stand here! Venez, les petites filles!” he shouted, beckoning with the sweep of his arm. “Move the bloody turtles, we have work to do and not so many moments!”
* * *
CHAPTER 14:
* * *
Waiting No More
The work of moving the barrels took all day. Only a handful of the pirates could actually swim—a fact that still astonished Kitto about most seamen—so working in pairs the swimmers would start out in the cave, wrestle a barrel out into the pool, then shove it along out the tunnel and into the open surf. The barrels were buoyant, though barely: Only three or four inches of oak showed above the waterline when they were rolled into the pool. Once through the narrow passage the way was difficult, as the rolling waves pushed the barrels back toward the cliff face. The task required both swimmers to push and prod the barrel ahead of them, round the rocky head, and make for the beach about fifty yards beyond, where the rest of the band waited to fetch the barrels and haul them to a new hiding place Quid had picked out on the opposite end of the island.
Kitto and Ontoquas teamed up to assist with the swimming crew. Kitto knew he would be useless at the overland tasks, and he could not bear the thought of watching while everyone else maneuvered the nutmeg barrels that had had such a profound effect on the course of his life. Over the next several hours he and Ontoquas had transported a dozen barrels from the cave pool to the party of sweating men waiting at the beach, Van among them. Sarah worked back at the camp, cooking up strips of turtle meat over an open pit fire and keeping Bucket at a safe distance. Periodically she came down to the beach with Bucket in one arm and a bundle of browned meat in the other to distribute among the grateful men.
X and Fowler spent the morning out in the jolly boats, surveying the island to get a better sense of where Morris—or any approaching ship, for that matter—would likely drop anchor. When they returned after several hours of rowing, the answer seemed clear to them. The island was difficult to access; on all sides but one it was ringed by a series of reefs ranging from a quarter to about a half mile out. Only a stretch along the southeast end was clear. Certainly an approaching ship would drop anchor there, quite near to the entrance to the cave, in fact, and send in boats to the wide beach nearby.
The barrels now huddled in a dense stand of palm trees and various greenery at the northwest end of the island, draped in layers of cut brush they had secured with stones and rope. If all went according to plan, the company would steal a ship and sail off, returning in the middle of the night to the other end of the island, where they would make quick work of retrieving the nutmeg.
Kitto stood with his crutch at the edge of the beach when X and several of the pirates—including Little John—returned in the jolly boat after depositing Pippin at the mouth of the cave entrance.
“Did Pippin not go inside?” Kitto called to them. X splashed down into shin deep water from the bow, his expression pinched.
“Eh? Oh, ja, ja. My sweet Pippin was very brave.”
Pulling up the boat nearby, Fowler rolled his eyes. “Aye, very brave. Took one look at a juicy turtle heading inside and took off after him like she went after Little John the other day.”
“I worry about her. She has not been in the wild for a long time.” X chewed on a knuckle and looked out to sea. “I wish my nanny was here. She says the right thing to stop this mad brain from spinning.”
“Pippin will live like a queen in that cave,” Kitto said. “Maybe you are worried that she will like it better than when she was under your care.”
X made a sour face but then nodded. “Perhaps you are right. And she is one of us, after all. She must do her part, ah?” X slapped Kitto on the back. “Do you think this will work?”
If there was one quality of X’s madness that Kitto truly appreciated, it was that he held no regard for status of any kind. X would comically insult any member of his crew should he feel they had stepped out of bounds. No one was untouchable, not even Sarah, who he teased now and again for her steadfast optimism. Likewise, X would seek advice of those he respected regardless of age—including Kitto—something Kitto’s father had never done, nor even his uncle William.
Kitto rubbed his chin. “I think we will get our chance if Morris arrives. Our night, I mean. The part th
at worries me more is getting aboard the Port Royal without being seen.”
X smiled. “That!” He shook his head. “That is child’s play. You wait and see.”
After three days on the island X had munched his way through the rest of his coffee beans. His mood declined precipitously, and he spent much of his day with his hat clenched in one hand and a fistful of his madly tangled locks in the other, as if considering whether or not to tear out his hair. Even Fowler, who seemed always ready to challenge X on any point of discussion, steered clear.
A watch rotation had been set up: one on the island’s high point at the southeast, another on the northwest beach. Between those two points Exquemelin was certain they could see any approaching ship in plenty of time to make ready.
The days passed with painful slowness, and with each one Sarah’s brow seemed to furrow deeper. Kitto would often join her down at the beach, holding her hand and looking out to sea. Sometimes they would speak of Duck, of the silly exploits he often got himself into, and over and over they would tell themselves that the little boy was a survivor—like Bucket, he would find a way into hands that would help him.
On the sixth day since Exquemelin and his band had arrived on the island, Ontoquas and Kitto were serving watch at the island’s northwest end just before noon. Kitto had insisted that he, too, serve on the watch, but since his difficulty in hobbling around on the crutch meant that he could not spread an alarm quickly, X relented only when Ontoquas volunteered to serve with Kitto. The two of them, then, spent a few hours together each day. They filled the time by sharing stories about their lives as young children as they strolled the beach at the island’s far tip. Kitto helped Ontoquas with her English and did his best to master a few words in Massachusett.
“Does it still hurt?” Ontoquas said. She and Kitto sat on a shelf formed by the edge of the forest and a small drop-off down to the sandy beach. Kitto had kicked up both his legs and was inspecting them against the brilliant white of the sand below.
“Sometimes. Mostly I just cannot quite believe that it is gone.”
“Are you happy for this? You told me that the boys tunketappin beat you.”
“Yes. And that was not the worst part.” Kitto remembered the stolen glances from the adults. “Looks of pity were worse.”
“Pity?”
“People on the street, they would look at me and show sadness in their faces. They all thought my foot meant I was somehow tainted—bad or evil, in some way I could not help.”
Ontoquas nodded.
“But you are not happy the foot is gone?”
Kitto shrugged. “Sometimes I am. Even if I am clumsier than I used to be, people won’t look at me like they once did. They’ll just see someone who got in an accident.”
“Not someone who is evil.”
“Yes. And I do not know why, but that just burns me.” Kitto knew he was less able now than he had been with his clubfoot, yet he would be seen from here on in a better light by the world. He always knew how wrong those looks were, those beatings. . . . But once they were gone? Their absence would be a constant reminder of how bent the world was.
Can I stop myself from growing bitter? Perhaps my father’s bitterness took its root from the same place. Kitto turned to Ontoquas.
“Is it like that with your people? Do those with bodies that are . . . not well made . . . are they scorned?”
Ontoquas looked at Kitto through her black bangs. She considered how to tell him that the ways of the wompey were strange, unnatural even. She knew a boy who was born with six fingers on one hand. People said that he had been blessed.
“No. It is not that way.” She sat up and stared out at the crashing surf. “Was not,” she said, her improved English helping her to understand the implication in the verb tense.
For several minutes the two of them stared out to the blank horizon.
“If this all works, if we get away from this island,” Kitto said, “where will you go? Will you try to go home?”
Ontoquas shook her head. “Home is gone. No home is left.” She dragged a finger through the sand. “In Barbados I heard slaves talk about people like me in a place called Florida. Do you know it?”
Kitto shrugged. “Sounds Spanish.”
“Yes. In Florida there are those who look like me, other People of the Sun, but different. Maybe I go there.”
Kitto hoped not to offend his new friend, but he wanted to offer.
“If you would like, you could stay with us. With Sarah, Duck, and me. For as long as you like. If we live through all this, I mean.”
Ontoquas turned to look at him. Did she blush? Kitto wondered. There was something soft in her look before she turned away.
“The other wompey, they will not like it,” she said. It was true, of course. Kitto could not deny it. He laughed.
“I stopped caring what they thought a long time ago.”
Ontoquas tried to imagine it, living as a Wampanoag among wompey. She had lived for years now among wompey who treated her like an animal. Could other wompey be as different as this boy here with her now? It was a decision for another day.
“What about the gold?” she said, avoiding a direct answer. “The gold and the silver and jewels we found. Deep in the cave. You do not want to tell this X about it?”
Kitto narrowed his eyes. “That part is odd. It is such riches, but Exquemelin does not seem to know about it at all. I am not sure that I should tell him, at least just yet. William never planned on all of this. If we can meet up with him again . . .” Kitto did not bother to finish his thought.
“Morris cannot get the gold?” Ontoquas said.
Kitto shook his head. “You and I could barely pass through that opening. Van could not even fit. And there was no boy on Morris’s ship, just men. Even if they make it into the larger cave, they shall be none the wiser.
Kitto ran his hands through the sand. There was one part of this whole plan that still irked him.
“If we should succeed,” he said, “—unlikely, but possible—have we not just succeeded in stealing? The gold, after all, was stolen from the Spanish.”
Ontoquas shook her head. “No. The gold was stolen from the people of those lands. And they are dead.”
Ontoquas’s eyes froze toward a spot on the horizon out to sea. She stood suddenly and pointed.
“Ship!” she said. She reached a hand to Kitto and helped pull him to his feet. Kitto extended the spyglass that Fowler had handed to him when they relieved him of his earlier watch. He balanced one forearm on Ontoquas’s shoulder so that he could peer through the instrument without falling over. The ship approached from the northwest, its masts aligned in almost a straight line, the bow pointing almost directly at the island. He could clearly make out the sails of the foremast and the great sail billowing behind it on the mainmast.
“Square rigger,” he said. “And just one. I see no sign of a second ship.”
“Is it this man, Morris?”
“I believe it is, yes.”
After the first day on the island the pirates had moved their camp farther inland, wanting to make sure that when Morris arrived, there would be no sign on the beach of their occupation. That is where Kitto found them all gathered, along with Van and Sarah, who bobbed Bucket in her arms nervously while the boy sucked on a shard of coconut as big as his fist. Bucket’s knuckles were grimed with white ooze. Ontoquas stood nearby, having run ahead of Kitto to relay the information. She gave him a smile from across the circle, glad that he had made it back.
They all formed a ring around Exquemelin, who had cleared the undergrowth away and drawn a rude sketch of the island in the dirt with the stub of a stick.
“Best check on their progress,” X said, handing the spyglass Ontoquas had carried back with her to Black Dog. The towering man stepped forward and accepted the instrument wordlessly, then disappeared through the leaves toward the beach.
X squatted on his haunches and marked a spot just off the island’s shore on the dia
gram.
“We hope they drop anchor roughly here and make to the shore with their boats. We count what number arrive to shore. It will likely be three parts out of four of how many crew total, which tells us how many to expect when we take the ship.”
Fowler broke in. “We take it in the dead of night, aye?”
“Ja, ja. We take the ship in the night and we sail off.”
“And we come back for the barrels?” Van said. X flicked his fingers at the beads on his beard again in thought.
“This part I do not love, but oui. We sail off. Morris watches his ship disappear, believing that never will he see her again. Then we return, very early perhaps. We row the jollies past the reefs and fetch the barrels, gone again after two trips at the most.” X looked up at his men. He grinned his gold tooth at them.
“Is anybody else ready to be rich?”
X trained the spyglass to his eye. The Port Royal lay at anchor in gently rolling waves, its spars bare.
“Have they launched a boat?” Kitto asked. X handed him the instrument.
“Into the water it goes. Very exciting, no?” He poked Kitto’s ribs. What Kitto felt could not be called excitement—something closer to nausea would be more accurate.
Kitto squinted through the spyglass, balancing his elbows against the rocks, being sure to let as little of himself show as possible.
“Oh, Kitto, do you see him? Can you see Duck?” Sarah said from behind him. He turned to watch her chew at her lip, her face tight with anxiety.
X, Van, Kitto, and Sarah huddled together atop the craggy rocks close to the crevice that shed light into the cave below. Kitto scanned frantically for some sign of Duck, but in all the deck activity of dozens of men, he could see none.
Duck, where are you? Still hidden?
“He is not there, Mum,” Kitto said. “But that might be a good thing!” he added.