The Guardship botc-1

by James L. Nelson

  “Our business? Your business, sir, not mine. I do not intend to traffic with a pirate.”

  “Oh, and aren’t you the righteous one? These…people…will rob whether we buy from them or not, to the greater good of those thieves in Savannah or Charleston. If it is going to happen regardless, then it may as well be us who realizes the profit.”

  “You are mad. You have no control over this animal.”

  “Of course I do! He works for me.”

  It was incredible. George Wilkenson shook his head slowly in disbelief. “The sheriff said you had requisitioned supplies from the militia, for some kind of defense?”

  “Oh, yes, that.” Jacob gave a little wave of the hand. “Yes, that was for the guardship.”

  “For the guardship? For the use of the guardship?”

  “No, you fool, to use against the guardship. I had Ripley bring it out to LeRois so that he might have the stores necessary to blow that bastard Marlowe to hell. And as I hear it, that’s just what he did. I told you, he does as I say.”

  “You…you mean to tell me you gave the militia’s stores to that pirate?”

  “He is not a pirate, goddamn your eyes! He is a privateer.

  He works for me!” Jacob Wilkenson stopped pacing, turned on George. His hands were shaking. There were beads of sweat on his forehead. The old man was not as sure of himself as he was acting.

  “It’s my ship they have, I let them keep it!” Jacob continued. He stepped quickly across the room and stared out the window at the distant fields. “I got them their ship, their damned powder and small arms, and they know that perfectly well. They do as I say, damn you, they do as I order!”

  George did not know what to say. The old man had lost all connection with reality. “Father, I think we had best go,” he said softly.

  “Don’t you talk to me in that patronizing tone, you cowardly little sniveling bastard!” Jacob Wilkenson whirled around and glared at his son. “If you had been considerate enough to be killed in Matthew’s place, this would not have happened! Matthew was able to help me keep these people in line, but not you, oh no. I knew you would not soil your lily-white hands with such business! You would think it beneath you!”

  “Oh, I have soiled my lily-white hands, so much so that I cannot bear to think on it. But no, I would not have had truck with your illegal and utterly immoral business, not that you ever thought to ask me. Believe me, I am ashamed of what I have done, and even more so of what you and Matthew have done. And I think you are about to reap the crop you have sown.”

  “Get out! Get out, you sanctimonious coward! Go stand in the hall with the women and the old men!” Jacob screamed, but George’s eyes were drawn past his father to the field through the window. A great column of smoke was suddenly visible at the edge of the frame. The glow of a great fire lit the trees that separated the Wilkenson plantation from the Page home three miles away.

  “What?” Jacob asked, and turned around to see what George was staring at.

  The pirates were pouring into the field by the river, dozens of them, hundreds for all George could tell. They must have

  taken the road that led along the banks of the James from the Page place to theirs. They were half a mile away at the bottom of the field and closing on the house like a pack of wolves. Even over that distance he could hear their howling and screaming.

  The two Wilkensons stared silent for a moment at the coming threat, the wave of death sweeping up from the river.

  George swallowed hard, fought the terror down. “Come, we have to go,” he said. Surprised by the tone of authority in his voice, despite the fear.

  “No,” his father said, as if pleading for permission, “no, I must stay and explain to these men-”

  “Father, we must go.”

  “No!” Jacob whirled around, red-faced, remembering who he was. “No! I did not build all this by letting bastards like that LeRois tell me what is what! These men do not tell me what to do, no man tells me what to do, I tell them! Do you hear me? I tell them!”

  Incredible. Jacob Wilkenson’s pride. His pride was the source of his strength, and his pride would not let him leave, because leaving would be as much as admitting he had done a stupid and horrible thing. Jacob Wilkenson would die before he did that, he would go down insisting that he was right.

  George realized all of that, and he also realized that his father would let his family die as well before even tacitly admitting to a mistake.

  “We’ll be leaving now, Father,” George said.

  His eyes moved to the window again. Long shadows tugged at the pirates’ feet as they charged up the hill. He saw blades glinting in those rays of sun that found their way through the trees. He saw heads bound in cloth, crossed belts holding weapons that slapped against bare chests as the men ran, cocked hats, torn coats, bearded, dirty, blood-streaked faces, grinning faces.

  “Yes, yes, good, you go, you goddamned coward, you go and take all those cowards with you, and when this is over

  don’t come back!” Jacob screamed, but George was already out of the room when he finished.

  He ran down the hall to the front door. “All of you, come along, hurry!” he ordered, throwing open the door and gesturing with his arm, and the frightened people in the foyer shuffled out the door.

  “What about your father? Where is your father?” his mother asked as he half pushed her out the door.

  “He will not come, and there is nothing I can do,” George said, and his mother made no reply. She would not be surprised. No one knew better than his mother the kind of idiocy of which Jacob Wilkenson was capable.

  They hurried down the steps and across the circular drive, and George realized that he did not know what he would do next. The old people could hardly walk. They certainly could not make it to Williamsburg on foot, and there was only his horse nearby.

  “Damn it, damn it…” George looked around. The shouting and hooting of the pirates seemed to be right on top of him, but they were still on the other side of the house. “All of you, hurry off into those trees,” he said, pointing toward a stand of oaks near the end of the drive, fifty yards from the house. “I shall go for a wagon of some sort.”

  The others were too frightened to protest, for which George was thankful, for he knew it would take only the mildest of arguments for him to change his mind. They hurried off in their awkward, shuffling way, and he turned and rushed around the house toward the stables.

  The pirates were swarming over the porch of the house, smashing in windows and kicking in the back door. George paused for a second to watch the destruction, then turned and ran.

  He was breathing hard, and his chest ached and burned, when he finally swung open one of the big doors of the dimly lit, whitewashed stable and squeezed through.

  The only transportation there was an old dray, pushed toward the back. The family coach was in the coach house,

  but the horses were there in the stable and he did not care to try to bring them all together under the eyes of the pirates. Rather, he selected one of the draft horses, a great beast of Flemish descent, and led it over to the dray.

  He could hear the primal, terrifying sound of the hordes tearing through his home, the shouting and howling punctuated with breaking glass and shattering wood. He did not want to think of what was happening there as he fumbled with the unfamiliar harness of the dray. The horse shifted nervously.

  George fitted the bit in the big animal’s mouth, slipped the bridle over its head. The slow, intricate work of fitting the horse in the tack had given George’s fear the chance to gather again. He was near panic as he stepped across the straw-covered floor and peered out of the door.

  There were only a few of the brigands still outside, those who had paused to swill from their bottles before plunging in through a smashed door or window. He could see more of them in the house. They were absolutely frenzied, ripping curtains down, slashing with swords at anything that could be destroyed. He had heard that sharks behaved th
at way when feeding, but he had never imagined human beings capable of such. He wondered if his father was still alive. Wondered, but did not care.

  The Wilkensons had done this to themselves, to the colony. He sucked in a long breath.

  His first duty was to get his family safely away. His next was to make some effort to save the tidewater. He knew what that would entail, and the very thought of it made him sick even through the fear.

  Slowly, quietly, he pushed the stable doors open and stepped back into the shadows. No one had noticed, but they would not miss the dray rumbling past. He raced back into the stable and climbed up onto the rough seat. He picked up the reins, took another long breath, held it, and then exhaled, yelling “Hey, yah!” and flicking the reins against the horse’s neck.

  The big horse, already nervous from the noise and from George’s unfamiliar hands, burst into a gallop, barely in con

  trol. They charged out of the stable-horse, dray, and driver-with stalls, tack, tools, and doors flying past, and raced down the beaten road toward the front of the house. George could hear nothing but the thunder of the heavy hooves, the creaking dray, moving faster than it was ever intended to move, and he was suddenly afraid that the horse would not stop when he needed it to.

  Then through the rumble and the pounding he heard a surprised exclamation. A pistol fired and the ball buzzed past. George hunched forward and flicked the reins again, but the horse was running as fast as it could.

  They whipped around the front of the house and down the drive. The stand of oaks was a blur as the cart bucked and shook on the dirt road. George pulled back on the reins, shouting, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” and to his infinite relief the horse slowed and then stopped. It shook its head, whinnied, and shifted nervously on its huge hooves, but it stayed essentially still.

  George leapt down from the seat. “Come along, come along, come along!” he shouted, waving his arms at his family huddled in the trees.

  His sisters were first, bursting like partridges from the underbrush and leaping onto the filthy cart. Next came his mother, helping her mother and father along, and behind them the aunt and uncle.

  “Oh, for the love of God, do hurry,” George said. He looked back at the house. A dozen or so of the brigands had left the building and were racing down the road toward the dray.

  The thought of dying for the amusement of pirates made George flush with anger even as his stomach convulsed with fear. He stepped forward, scooped his grandmother up in his arms, deposited her on top of his sisters in the back of the wagon. He did the same with his grandfather, helped his mother up, pushed his aunt and uncle in after.

  The pirates were twenty yards away, no more. One of them stopped and leveled a pistol and fired. The muzzle flash was brilliant in the fading light.

  The ball whizzed by overhead, and just as George was thanking God for sparing his life the horse shrieked in fear and bucked, nearly toppling the cart and spilling the passengers. The animal came down on its four feet and bolted, and George flung himself at the open bed. He grabbed hold of the side rail and pulled himself in as the dray flew down the road. He climbed forward, stepping on someone, he did not know who, and crawled into the seat.

  The reins were still lying there, and George took them up, though he did not think the horse would respond to any command from God or man. He could see a streak of blood where the pirate’s bullet had grazed its flank.

  The crazed beast was charging down the road, quite out of control, but at least it was running in the right direction, away from the house, so George gave it its head. He could hear the shouting and the gunfire at his back, growing farther away as they left the big house behind. He kept his eyes on the road. He hunched over, tensed, bracing for the tear of a bullet through his back. He did not turn around.

  Chapter 32

  THE VOICES were troubled. They did not think this was good anymore.

  LeRois chewed nervously at a long strand of his beard. Something was making the voices upset. It was time to get back to the ship. The ship was safety. This wide-open country was not.

  Those thoughts bothered him, but the voices were still soft and soothing, had not reached the point of screaming panic. He walked slowly through the house as if through a museum, glancing at those things that were not yet smashed or stolen. Men ran past, men screamed and beat delicate objects apart with their swords, men guzzled from bottles of wine and rum and whiskey, but LeRois just watched. When they had finished with this house they would go back to the ship. It was time.

  At the far end of the hall there was a room that was as yet undisturbed, so he wandered down that way while the men had their fun in the sitting room and the dining room. He could see a wall lined with books, an elegant carpet, a sideboard with bottles. Perhaps he would sit a moment.

  He stepped through the door, and his eyes wandered to the windows across the room. A striking view, clear down to the river, a dark band of water in the fading light, running through the fields on either side. It would be lovely, flickering red and orange as it reflected the light from this house, once they had set it on fire.

  “LeRois?”

  The voice was gruff, demanding. None of his men would speak to him that way. No one who wished to live would speak to him that way. He froze, unsure if his name had really been spoken out loud.

  “LeRois!”

  He jerked his head around. There was a man sitting in a winged chair, a book open in his lap. LeRois had not even noticed him. And the man knew his name. There was something gnawing at the back of his mind, something troubling, but he could not recall what it was.

  “Are you LeRois?” The man stood up and set his book aside.

  LeRois squinted at him. “Oui,” he said at last.

  “Do you know who I am?” the man demanded. “Do you know who I am?”

  LeRois just looked at him. The man had shouted. He could not believe it. This man had actually raised his voice in speaking to him.

  “I am Jacob Wilkenson! I am the man who employs you! The one who sent Ripley to set this whole deal up, and now look what you have done! This cannot be tolerated!”

  LeRois squinted again. The man’s hands were trembling. He was sweating. He shifted from one foot to another under LeRois’s gaze. LeRois could smell the fear-it was a smell he knew well. The man’s bluster was all merde, shit, nothing more.

  “You work for me!” the man screamed, an edge of hysteria in his voice.

  LeRois sensed movement at his back. He turned to find a dozen of his men standing behind him, watching the confrontation, and more filing in. They had paused in their destruction to see what was happening.

  “All of you, listen to me,” the man was saying. “My name is Jacob Wilkenson. I am the man who has been buying your

  goods. I am the one who has provided you with specie. We have a good arrangement, and I do not care to see it fall apart now. We can make each other very wealthy, but you must go back to your ship now!”

  LeRois could not fathom what the man was talking about, and he concluded that he was insane. There was no other explanation.

  The Vengeances began to step around Jacob Wilkenson, to fill the room, to encircle the man. Wilkenson in turn was forcing himself to stand more straight, to meet LeRois’s eye, but his bravado was running out.

  “I order you to leave at once!”

  “Order?” LeRois spoke at last. “You ‘order’? You do not order me.”

  “Very well, then, I ask that you please-”

  “Sweat him.”

  The Vengeances were now completely encircling the man, watching LeRois, waiting for the word.

  “Listen, you-” the man began again, and once more LeRois said, “Sweat him.”

  One of the Vengeances pulled a sword from his belt and with an ingratiating smile poked Jacob Wilkenson with the tip.

  “Ow, son of a bitch, stop that!” Wilkenson shouted, and stepped away. Then the man standing beside the first poked him and made him step back farther.

&n
bsp; All around the circle swords came out and cutlasses were raised and their dagger points reached out and jabbed at Jacob Wilkenson. He backed away and backed away, but he was surrounded and the points reached out at him from every direction.

  He stepped around the winged chair, trying to escape, but they were on his every side. He moved faster, but still the blades found him. He moved faster still, around and around the chair. He began to breathe hard. He began to sweat.

  Then one of the brigands grabbed him and pinned his arms, and another pulled a knife. With a motion like skinning a bird, the man with the knife cut away Wilkenson’s coat and

  his waistcoat and shirt to reveal an obese, white midriff, already bleeding from a dozen minor wounds.

  The pirate that was holding Wilkenson pushed him forward. He stumbled and then flinched as another and another sword point jabbed at him, and soon he was running around the chair again, stumbling, heaving for breath, bleeding.

  “Oh God, oh God, no more,” he gasped, falling to the floor. LeRois’s eyes fixed on the strange patterns his blood made on the Oriental rug as the fat man rolled in agony, bleeding from dozens of cuts. They seemed to swim around, swirling and forming more patterns before his eyes. He could not understand the man’s words.

  One of the pirates stepped forward and with deft strokes of a dagger stripped Wilkenson of his breeches and socks so that he was lying on the rug naked, save for his shoes.

  The voices were now screaming in LeRois’s head, screaming to be heard over the raucous laughter of the Vengeances, the gunshots, the breaking glass, the gasping pleas of this Jacob Wilkenson.

  Two of the pirates hauled the fat man to his feet again, and again he was made to stagger around the chair. His white skin was streaked with blood, which ran freely now down his sides and legs. Bottles were smashed over his head and shoulders and gouged into his flesh. He was whimpering and pleading and praying, and that made his tormentors laugh harder still.

  Malachias Barrett! Malachias Barrett! The voices broke through the din, screaming their warning in LeRois’s brain. The room seemed to swirl around, the faces undulating, the fat man coming in and out of focus.