Once she had filled her belly, Ivory made her way to the beach and found Keara and James sitting at the water’s edge. “There’s a fine meal courtesy of my new housemate, if you’re hungry.”
“Sounds good to me,” James said rising and dusting himself off. “Are you joining me, Ke?”
“I’ll be along in a minute.”
Ivory plopped down next to Keara and said, “Quite the affair last night.”
“I imagine we’ll all have our heads in a hole today.”
“You stayed behind to speak to me, so speak.”
“This man in Charles Towne, can he be trusted?” Keara stood, rolled her knickers above her knees and waded through the warm shallows.
“He didn’t come with recommendations, only that he buys jewels. You know the sort. It’s a chance we’ll have to take.”
“Why now?”
“The time feels right. I can’t explain it. I just want out of this business, Ke. Don’t you?”
“Where will you go?” Keara asked as she sat back down close to Ivory, and searched her eyes for what she believed was being left unsaid.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet. Somewhere far from here, though; I do know that much.”
Keara nodded and patted her cousin on the shoulder before using it to leverage herself back to her feet. “I’m going to join James. Come find me when you’re ready to load up. Everything will be ready to be brought down by four o’clock.”
“Thank you, Ke.”
Ivory stayed in the sand until the tide tickled her toes, and then she headed up to the house to ready herself for the trip back to America. She had no nostalgic angst or expectations of what she’d find back in Charles Towne, but rather hoped to get in and out as fast as she could.
When they first left their home and found themselves aboard the Demon Sea, headed for some of the most threatening waters known to man, Ivory had managed to ease Barclay’s resentment, and keep his crew of miscreants at bay—for a while. The brief discussion of, once and for all, escaping their lives of piracy, had released Ivory’s memories of how she’d gotten them into it in the first place.
Those were the days of hell on Earth. The dirty, jagged, and blistered days, filled with swelling seas and not a single creature comfort for months. Fear loomed constantly… of disease, starvation, and rape, regardless of Barclay’s word. All the cousins knew of piracy was that their word was their bond, but only to one another, and certainly not to four pretty young things fresh off the farm. Even dressed as men and smelling of salt and sweat, the hungry eyes on them day and night hid no treacherous thought, nor did the crew attempt to shroud their complete disregard for the girls’ young lives.
The first few weeks were nearly unbearable, and they huddled together for some semblance of warmth and security, one always awake keeping watch so the others might find some small measure of sleep in order to meet the brutal demands of every waking moment. Ivory had insisted they work at the side of the crew, as a show of strength, as well as to build up their own. She was not foolish enough to believe that, at some point, they wouldn’t have to fight for their honor, and possibly their lives. They were aware since childhood that freedom comes at a price—a price too high for the meek and frightened. They’d need to thicken their skin with muscle as well as the mental fortitude necessary to reach land again. The first time they heard the hearty wail of “Sail!” Ivory trembled so that she dropped to her knee and tried her best to feign tripping to cover up nearly fainting in terror.
“Miss Shepard, take your ladies below. And should these swabs be foolish enough to fight back and God forbid we lose this fight, kill your cousins… and then yourself. Trust me, you’ll not wish to draw breath should that pack of dogs board us.”
“I’ll send them below, but I’ll not pass up the chance at last to show your own pack of dogs who I am.”
“It’s your pretty head. If the first sight of a sail dropped you, let’s hope you can stay on your feet when they bare their fangs and lunge at your throat.”
“I’ll live Captain. And perhaps you haven’t noticed, but they’re not my ladies anymore. Today shall prove that.”
“Such a shame to waste such charms. Look at you,” he said, taking her roughly by the jaw and she pulled away in disgust. “You’ve lost your youthful glow to the harsh wind and sun, and if you ever had a tender inch, you’ve buried it beneath the vines of bitterness you’ve wrapped yourself in. Tell me Ivory, who did this to you? Who plucked the rose and left the thorns?”
“Those who would step over that rail will meet my blade before another unwanted and indecent hand breaches my striking distance. I’ll remove that hand and take his arm as well, and if that doesn’t stop him, his head.”
“Such a tragedy you are and since I’ve my own tragic story to write, it’s time to give back to the world what she’s bestowed upon us, my dear. Ready the guns! Do not fire until I give the order! She’s no fucking good in a million pieces!” Barclay roared over their heads as he raced, broadsword in hand, to the stern and stood at her highest point. “Shepard, get your skinny ass up here!” Ivory raced towards him, taking the steps two at a time until she was at his back. “You want to be free?”
“I will be free!”
“Bring her around! We’ll rake her from the bow and then take her from the starboard side!” He barked to the helmsman.
A deafening hum pierced her brain, and she sheathed her sword and cupped the sides of her head in an attempt to silence it. When she let go, the only sound she heard was her own heartbeat, which she imagined was well over one hundred beats per minute. In the background, buried beneath the thumping drumbeats that felt as if they were about to split her chest, were the roaring cries of the crew. The muffled screams and fearsome bellows of men in search of blood and fortune were barely audible behind the wall of her excruciating terror.
Ivory glanced up and over the side, watching as the panicked crew of their prey scrambled wildly about, dodging the incoming arrows and gunfire, obviously unprepared in both arms and numbers for such an assault. She lowered her hands for a moment and pitied them, as she watched the first man at the rail of their prize lose the left side of his skull in a spatter of bone and bloodied skin. The gun flew from his hands and his feet left the deck simultaneously, sending him bouncing backwards out of this life and unnaturally into the next, as nothing more than a heap of dead flesh.
Her own scream caused a pop deep within her eardrums, and all at once, the echoes of deadly battle bashed their way in. Gunfire and the thumps and clinks of grappling hooks dropping to the deck in preparation to make capture were sharp, and what she could clearly see and hear was matched sight for sound at last.
“Fire!” Barclay ordered, as all five guns kicked back with a deafening boom, shaking the Demon Sea. Gunpowder and choking smoke filled the air, but as they came about to the starboard side of what was obviously no more than a merchant ship, the smoke cleared in the windy spray, and Barclay called to hold fire. Ivory looked across the water to find all those left standing shoulder to shoulder on their deck. Their arms were raised and their meager weapons lay at their feet. The damage done by chain shot, Barclay’s preferred method of maximum devastation, left blood, flesh, and splintered wood littered throughout their ship.
“Take her lads; she’s all ours!” Barclay shouted as he sheathed his sword and snatched Ivory by the back of her neck. “Look, girl! Do you see those twenty or so swabs with their tails tucked in their asses? I’m about to give the order of no quarter. Do you know what that means?”
“No quarter?” Ivory asked, shaking free of his grip and pushing him off, as she backed away in horror. “Why? They surrendered, and yet you’d…”
“That’s right, lass. Kill them all.”
“That’s a coward’s maneuver, Barclay. Those aren’t pirates; they’re sailors trying to make a living.”
“We’re about to take their living! What will they have to live for, once it’s ours?” Barclay eyes shi
ned, and Ivory could see the monster he truly was.
Ivory pulled her sword and pointed it at him. Her lips went flat, and her brow lowered to the point where he could see only the bottom of her eyes. “Call them off. Take the loot and let the living go.”
Barclay burst into laughter. “Hold your claws, little kitty, before I rip them out and feed you to the dogs!”
“We’ve been here before, remember? This time, I won’t stop when I pierce your yellow hide.”
“Oh, but you will.” Barclay said with a smooth purr, as a thick forearm clamped around her neck and pulled her off her feet. Ivory dropped her sword and dug her nails into the man’s hard flesh, as she kicked him again and again with her heels. The more she resisted, the more his grip tightened against her throat. The man twisted and turned, causing her to swing from the neck down like a clock’s pendulum. With a loud pop and a violent jerk, his arm suddenly pulled free and he flung her, sending her hard against the boards. She rolled to a motionless stop, face down.
Still alive, but gasping for breath, she raised her head slightly and opened her eyes to find her attacker lying next to her. A gaping wound opened from the back of his head straight through to what was left of his face. She clutched at her neck with one hand and pushed herself up on one knee to draw a deep breath. Once her vision cleared, she looked up to find Cassandra, blankly staring down at the dead man, with a smoldering pistol dangling from her left hand.
“Good shot, Cass! Duck!” Ivory shouted as she dove for her sword, picking it up and swinging it at the sailor about to do mortal damage to Cassandra from behind. She leaped forward and opened the man’s throat with the tip of her sword and watched him fall.
“Get them!” Barclay ordered as he barreled towards Ivory, but most of the crew had already gone over to the merchant ship, and but a handful remained. He swung wildly at her with his broadsword and nearly caught the sleeve of her shirt with his backswing, but Ivory spun away. She swiped hard at him and met his blade low. Barclay came up from under with his sword and swirled hers, tossing it off, and then came at her again with a powerful fore swing, as their blades rang out against each other. The blow set Ivory back a few feet. She stumbled, but recovered, and squared her stance before striking out again.
Cassandra watched as she reloaded the pistol in her trembling hands. When she heard running steps approaching fast behind her, she turned, aimed, and fired into the chest of one of Barclay’s men, knocking him off of his feet, dead in the air. Keara rushed to her and knelt down, pulling the sword from the dead man’s hand. “Cass, reload!”
“What are we doing, Ke?” Cassandra shouted as she stuffed another round into the gun barrel.
“Saving our asses! Now, shoot!” Keara screamed over the mayhem, as she swung her sword at the pirate approaching quickly on her right. The grip was thick, and she held on with both hands as it crossed his body, tearing away the front of his shirt, but missing skin. He crossed her sword with his ax on her backswing and caught it, flipping it from her hands. The sword bounced across the deck three feet from her, and she ducked his blows until he, too, met Cassandra’s dead shot.
“Where’s Miranda?”
“I’m over here!” she cried out, “Help me cut us free!” Miranda picked up the ax and began swinging at every line that connected them to the merchant ship. The ropes popped and snapped with every blow she landed. Cassandra dropped the pistol and ran. She pulled a dagger from her belt and tried cutting through the lines, but they were too thick. “Cass, get the gun!” Keara shouted, as two sailors came battling towards them.
Keara swung her broadsword, cut the last line, and then turned fast, meeting one of the men straight on. She pulled the sword back over her head and brought it forward with a force from deep inside and let it go. The steel entered the sailor’s chest with a solid thud. He staggered backwards two steps and then fell forward, driving the blade through to the grip. Cassandra made easy work of the other with her pistol aimed neatly to the side of his head.
Ivory’s arms felt like lead as she continued to battle Barclay on the quarterdeck. As the ships pulled apart, Barclay turned his attention to the rail for a second, and Ivory let out a roar and swung hard. With a powerful blow, she sliced through the thick linen sleeve of his surcoat, taking his arm from the elbow down. Barclay wailed in agony as he watched his severed limb, still gripping his broadsword, roll to a stop.
Covered in his own blood, Barclay staggered to the rail of the ship, clutching his bloodied stump. He fell to his left, catching himself on the rail under his arm, and he gritted his teeth as he looked up at Ivory one final time. “I told you, didn’t I?”
“You’ve told me many things. None of which I find worth mentioning at the moment.”
“I told you that you were a pirate.”
Ivory scoffed at him and moved in until the tip of her sword was mere inches from his nose. “What was that you said before about no quarter?”
“Look at me,” Barclay groaned and then laughed. “I’m already dead.”
Ivory drew back her sword as her cousins looked on in horror. With slow, calculated precision, she pressed the point of her blade to Barclay’s chest. But, before she could drive it through, he rose up and pushed himself forward onto her, until the brass buttons on his coat pressed hard into her knuckles. Ivory shoved him off and pulled back. Barclay’s dead body fell away from her as the sword, soaked red, slid free of him and hung from her hand.
The merchant ship was now a good three hundred yards away, and the water between the two ships was littered with sailors who’d tried to scramble back as the lines were cut. “What do we do now?” Keara asked, flopping down onto the deck.
“We go after that ship and find us a crew. We can’t sail this thing alone.”
“Do you honestly believe that any of that lot will follow us now? Ivory, we’re surrounded by men who were loyal to Barclay.”
Ivory turned and glanced over the bodies scattered about. She breathed deeply and a sense of pride, laden with remorse, washed over her. She looked down at the bloody sword in her hand and shook it away from her. Then, she pulled a rag from one of the dead men’s pockets and wiped one side, and then other, until the blade was clean. “You ask me that as if we haven’t done this before. So, my answer is, in a word… yes.”
“Yes?” Miranda asked.
“The code says any man who wants to be captain can, when they challenge the captain and win. I’d say I won, wouldn’t you?” Ivory answered, flipping her head at Barclay’s lifeless body.
“You would be correct,” said the very thick voice of a native Jamaican man, as he appeared seemingly out of nowhere with his hands in the air.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Keara asked, leaping to her feet and raising her sword at him.
“I have been here all along. I am no one, really; only a man who wishes to stay alive until we reach Jamaica.”
“Turn around,” Ivory ordered, as she nodded to Cassandra to search the huge man for weapons, of which he had none.
“I can assure you I am unarmed. I will obey the code. I only want to live so that I may return to Kingston once we make land.”
“What do you think, Ivory?” Keara asked aside.
“Can you sail this ship?”
“That I can do, yes, but I will need assistance.”
“If you help me with that lot, I’ll take you to Kingston,” Ivory said, pointing her sword at the drifting ship.
“What about the crew?” Cassandra asked Ivory, but her eyes remained fixed on the stranger, and his unusual green eyes.
“Any man left standing will go free, but the ship is greatly damaged, so they won’t be going anywhere until they can make repairs. Let’s turn this bitch around and go get what we came for.”
Once back aside the merchant ship, Ivory told the Jamaican man to keep his hands in the air and feign capture as she called out to the crew of the Demon Sea and offered them to return to the ship. She added that any able-bodied man abo
ard the merchant ship was welcome as well.
“Ye killed the Cap’n, did ye?” Barclay’s bosun called out across the water.
Ivory only gave the man a hard nod.
“I s’pose by order of the code, we have no choice but ta’ name ye the new Cap’n. Doesn’t mean none of us like it, but we’ve only a few more days ‘til we make Port Royal. Once we’re on land, you ain’t me Cap’n no more.”
Once all of the remaining crew was brought back aboard, as well as most of the leftovers of the merchant ship, they were loaded down with fine silks, spices, and sugar, and were back on their course, but now with a detour to Kingston. There were other sails sharing the waters, but Captain Ivory Shepard, now known aloud by those who’d heard the story of her conquest in Charles Towne as the Razor, lowered Barclay’s red demon colors and cared only to reach Port Royal… and get on with a new life for them all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“She’s loaded and ready for sail, Cap’n,” Willy said as he approached Ivory. She sat lying back on the steps leading to the beach house, waiting for Keara. She turned back over her shoulder as she heard her cousin close and lock the door.
“Keara, do you…?”
“I’ve got them. Let’s get this done,” Keara groaned as she exited the house and nudged Ivory on her way past then stopped, and reached out her hand. Ivory snatched it and pulled fast to her feet. “Aren’t you the lively one this evening?”
“I was thinking back on some things,” Ivory said.
“You’re the one who always tells us that’s the worst thing you can do,” Keara pointed out.
“I was right.” Ivory tramped through the sand in her knee boots and leapt into the last boat out to the Cutlass. She pulled an oar and spoke not a word for the short trip. Reflecting on the death of Barclay and those of his crew didn’t pain her so much as recalling the look on her cousins’ faces when she had pointed the sword at his chest. To that very day, she wasn’t sure if she’d have done him in, if he hadn’t done it himself, and if he didn’t bleed out anyway. Ivory didn’t go in for cold-blooded murder, but in defense of herself and her loved ones, she’d take an arm and a life with little thought of it afterward. Turning points were her boldest memories. Even points that most people may not find worth mentioning again stood out to her like the color red. Everything else just fluttered by in shades of gray.
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