“WHAT WE GOING to do when they don’t come back?” Boggs asked, his hands on his hips. “We let ’em go, just like that, and expect ’em to do as they say?” He shook his head, staring into the thick underbrush where the Indians disappeared moments before. “We won’t be seein’ ’em again. Mark me words.”
“We wait,” Archie told him, sitting down on the trunk of a fallen tree to demonstrate that he planned to do precisely that. “Tiger Lily gave her word that they would return in two hours.”
“Women,” Boggs grumbled, sitting on the opposite end of the tree. It groaned, and the end Archie sat on lifted in the air.
Archie grinned. “All is well, Boggs. Have a bit of faith. If they do not return, we shall go hunting—for them.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Boggs sighed, “Between you an’ me, Cap’n, I hope them Injuns be honest folk. I’m not as young as I used to be. Can’t go runnin’ after…”
A scream echoed up the shoreline, cutting him off. Boggs jumped up from the stump, causing Archie’s end to splat into the ground. Bones jarred and body aching, Archie stood, catching the last glimpse of Boggs running down the sandy beach, a pistol in each hand.
He’s moving faster than I ever would have guessed possible, Archie thought, shooting a fast glance back to the boats on the beach. The pirates had dispersed when they had landed, most of them wandering through the forest in search of food. The handful he spotted were making their way toward him, weapons drawn. Assured that back-up was coming, Archie began his sprint in the sand, following Boggs’s rotund figure.
He tailed his cook all the way down the stretch of shore, until he edged around a small inlet. Another scream followed the first. It sounded—young. Archie’s first thought was of Peter, for the men who had accompanied him to shore had rough voices from years of life on the sea. The youngest among his crew was Harper, but even his voice didn’t hold such a youthful sound.
Boggs turned a corner and disappeared.
“Wait!” Archie yelled, picking up his pace. Though he wished Peter no harm, he also had no desire to lose his cook. Good cooks were hard to come by. He had no intention of serving his men both leadership and their meals. He rounded the bend and bumped into Boggs, who held his pistols before his tattooed belly, cocked and ready.
An enormous crocodile was in the process of hunting his next meal, from what Archie could gather. A smallish, brown animal that looked like a strange, malformed bear cub was trying to escape and didn’t seem to be having the slightest luck. A high edge of dirt, that was impossible to climb, rose behind the bear. It was trapped. The crocodile’s long tail was swishing back and forth, demolishing the cattails at the water’s edge as it advanced on the cub in slow, deliberate steps, as if taunting the smaller animal.
Surely that cub wasn’t the one screaming. Archie hoped the croc hadn’t already eaten Peter as its main course. He was ready to tap Boggs on the shoulder and tell him to retreat a safer distance from that thrashing tail, when the scream came again—from that strange bear.
In an effort to climb the wall, two chubby hands scrambled in the dirt, searching for handholds and a fur cap slid off, revealing a boy’s frightened face.
“Kill the croc,” Archie hissed in Boggs’s ear. “Hurry and shoot it, man, before it eats him.”
“Aye.” The word hadn’t made it out of his mouth, before Boggs shot both pistols.
One shot went wide, puffing into the dirt wall above the croc, to the left of the boy. The other found its way into the top of the croc’s snout, not a killing wound by any means, but enough that the animal stopped its pursuit, wriggling and twisting as it retreated back into the water. It turned to stare up at Archie, as if it knew that he had been the one responsible for the blood coating its scales. It opened its mouth wide, giving Archie a disconcerting view of rows of gleaming white teeth, then it gurgled a low, hissing snarl, and disappeared beneath the surf.
The fur-clad boy stopped clawing the dirt and glanced behind him. Once he realized the crocodile had gone, he slid back to the bottom of the embankment and sat where he landed, looking puzzled as he scratched his mussed, brown head before flopping the bear skin back on top of it.
He hasn’t seen us yet, which is amusing as there are quite a few of us up here. Archie watched the boy stare at the water as if he were wondering why he hadn’t been eaten.
Archie opened his mouth to call down to him, when someone else beat him to it.
“Hey Beetles, you might wanna get out of there,” a voice called from the other side of the inlet. “There’s a pile of big people over there watching you.”
“Ahhh!” The bear boy yelled in fright, jumping to his feet and tackling the dirt wall with renewed vigor. He made it halfway up, when another boy appeared at the top and dropped to his knees, reaching an arm down in an effort to pull the younger lad up. The one doing the pulling was a tall, skinny boy—clad much the same as his chubby friend below—only this one had a fur cap with two long, floppy ears that danced around his head each time he jerked his friend’s hand.
I believe he’s wearing rabbit ears, Archie decided. They will both land down there to be eaten if they don’t soon hurry up.
“Come on, lads. Let’s give ’em a hand up,” he instructed his men as he set off around the wide semi-circle of the cove.
“Does this mean they be our prisoners?” Boggs voiced popped up behind him, sounding hopeful, as they ducked around tree branches.
“No, Boggs. We don’t need any more extra mouths to feed. We just released the Indians for that reason, you know.”
“Hmph,” came the unhappy reply, followed by silence.
Well, if that’s all he’s going to say, it isn’t bad at all, Archie thought, looking across at the two boys Boggs wished to capture. They still hadn’t made any progress, though they were becoming more frantic in their pulling.
“Hurry up, Beetles. They’re coming for us,” the tall boy urged, jerking the other boy’s arm hard enough that his round torso bounced, back and forth against the dirt. He didn’t gain any progress upward. Archie winced, the boy’s arm would be sore for days at this rate, not to mention his belly.
“We mean you no harm,” he said, slowing the last few steps to make sure they heard his approach. “We only want to help you get your friend up safely. No man should suffer a fate at the jaws of a crocodile.”
The tall boy stopped pulling, indecision playing across his face as if he were deciding whether to trust Archie, or to drop his friend and save his own skin. “You know, if you hadn’t decided to show off and go hunting that crocodile all alone, they wouldn’t have caught us,” Archie heard the boy hiss over the ledge, “Now Peter will be angry.”
Archie chose to pretend he hadn’t heard anything as he knelt down to grasp Beetles’s free arm. It took both of them pulling to get the hefty boy over the edge. Once free of danger, he shrugged them both off and rolled a safe distance away from Archie, before getting to his feet. He rubbed his arm and watched Archie with the same distrusting look that Archie guessed had been aimed at the crocodile moments before.
“There aren’t any grown-ups on Neverland.”
“So I’ve heard,” Archie said dryly, “Yet, we appear to be here, nonetheless.”
“You’d better thank him, Beetles,” the tall boy said, nudging him in the shoulder. “You’d have been eaten already if they hadn’t stopped Tic-Tock.” He stopped and looked contemplative for a few seconds. “How did you stop him? He eats whoever he wants.”
“I shot him,” Boggs spoke up from behind Archie.
Archie moved over to let the cook walk through. Boggs stood as proudly as his short, round frame would allow. His head held high, looking down at the two boys before them. “I am the dread pirate Percy Boggs,” he informed them in an imperious tone, thrusting out his round belly as he put his hands on his hips. “But don’t call me Percy.”
Archie bit back a smile, watching as the boys took in the tattooed woman with wide eyes.
“He’s painted a woman on his belly—wonder why he did that?”
“I dunno, but I bet she’s stuck on there for good.”
Deciding now was the time to interrupt, in case Boggs were to demonstrate his dancing moves next and scar their young minds, Archie said, “I am Captain Jameson, of the pirate ship, the Jolig Roger. Might I have the pleasure of your acquaintances?”
“Oh, sure. I’m Patch, and that is Beetles.” The rabbit ears that hung down the boy’s head swayed as he nodded his head and gestured to his friend.
“I am pleased to meet you.” Archie gave them a low, elaborate bow, which seemed to please them both to no end. As he straightened, two wide smiles were given in return. “Now to satisfy my curiosity, I simply must ask, why is the crocodile named Tic-Tock?”
“Oh, that’s because he sounds like a clock.” Patch shrugged.
“I beg your pardon?” Archie was certain he had misunderstood.
“He sounds like a clock.” It was Beetles who repeated the words, and then added, “You know, tic-tock, tic-tock. It’s because he swallowed Peter’s clock.”
Archie was finding the story intriguing, however improbable it seemed. “And how did that happen?”
“Peter always brings things back from the grown-up land. One time he brought a clock, just to see if it would work on Neverland. Tic-Tock and Peter have never gotten along. One is always trying to get the other,” Patch explained. “One day, the croc saw Peter coming back from the grown-up world. Peter was busy looking at his clock and didn’t realize he was flying so low. Then the croc jumped out of the water and snapped his jaws just inches away from him. It didn’t get Peter, but it startled him enough that he dropped the clock right into Tic-Tock’s mouth. The croc swallowed it. Now if you get too close to him, you can hear it ticking, so we named him Tic-Tock.”
“A ticking crocodile,” Archie heard Boggs say, “that be a new one. How long ago did he swallow that clock?”
Both Patch and Beetles shrugged, as if neither knew the answer and didn’t care to know it.
“Well, I was wonderin’ how it stayed wound, is all,” Boggs mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest, clearly not believing the story that had been told.
“How do you ‘wound’ a clock?” Beetles asked.
“Well, you twist the knob in the back…” Archie stopped at the blank expressions on their faces. “You do know what a clock looks like, don’t you?”
The boys shook their heads. “How are we supposed to know what it looks like when it got eaten before we saw it?” Patch asked, flipping his rabbit ears over his shoulders to get a better look at Archie.
“You are telling me you have never seen a clock. Never?” He asked again, just to be sure.
Two definite no’s, as the boys shook their heads.
“Might I ask where you are from?”
“Neverland.” The answer was immediate, leaving Archie no choice but to query further.
“But where were you born before Peter brought you here? Where are your parents?” The questions were piling up in his head faster than he could spit them out now. “And why was Beetles down there with a crocodile?”
“You sure are asking strange questions.” Patch wrinkled his nose, looking more rabbit than boy with the gesture. “What’s born and parents?”
“I went down there to kill Tic-Tock,” Beetles said, crossing his arms over his chest, looking much like a smaller, untattooed version of Boggs, “I wanted to show Peter that I wasn’t afraid of him.”
“You should have been afraid,” Patch frowned, “You like to show off too much.”
“I do not,” Beetles mumbled.
“Yes, you do,” Patch argued. “Besides, Peter isn’t even around to show off for!”
Archie rolled his eyes and fought the urge to pull his hair out, while the two continued to bicker back and forth.
“Go back to the shore and wait for Tiger Lily. I’ll be there presently,” he told Boggs, “Best we be there, when she returns.”
“If she returns,” Boggs grumbled. Archie wondered if he and the cook would end up quarreling like the two boys a few feet away, but the pirate turned and started back around the inlet, collecting his crewmates along the way.
The boys were oblivious to everything but their disagreement, which had escalated to the point of the two of them rolling around on the ground in a ball of arms, legs, and fur. As he watched the two scuffle, Archie debated just letting them fight it out as he returned with his men. They weren’t showing any signs of slowing down.
Archie cleared his throat in hopes that they’d notice. They didn’t. The fighting now included various pieces of brown and grey fur being ripped off and thrown into the air. Archie sidestepped the long-eared rabbit hat that came hurtling toward him. At the rate they were going, it wasn’t going to stop any time soon and he had a young woman coming to bring supplies. The thought of Tiger Lily made up his mind rather quickly.
“Please do tell Peter I send my regards,” he called out over the scuffle.
At the sound of his voice, the two stopped just long enough to answer in unison. “Okay.” Then, they went back to their fight and Archie left them to it.
His timing was perfect. When he rounded the corner and the boats came into view, so did Tiger Lily and six men from her tribe.
I’m glad she wasn’t joking when she boasted of her people’s skill, Archie thought, grinning. Several deer and one enormous black bear lay at the edge of the trees. His men had started carrying the deer carcasses to the boats.
Archie spotted Boggs looking the bear over with an authoritative air, as he walked around the beast, taking it in. Noticing Archie approach, he stopped his inspection and looked up with a wide grin. “We be set, Cap’n.”
“Is there enough here?” He already knew the answer, but wanted to hear it confirmed by his ship’s cook. Tiger Lily stood nearby, also waiting for Boggs’s reply.
“Oh aye, Cap’n. We’ll eat like kings,” came the easy reply as Boggs left the bear and made his way to Tiger Lily. He took her hand and bent over to kiss it. “My dear, ye be a wonderful woman. The sun itself canna’ hold a light to yer beauty. You have eyes the color of old sherry and hair as dark as me Great-Aunt Maddie’s.”
Archie had never heard such a grand speech from any of the pirates. He wondered if perhaps Boggs might be working himself up to a marriage proposal. Worried that the pirate might start pointing out other fine qualities not fit to be heard, Archie cut in, “That’s enough, Boggs. Best you keep an eye on your bear. ’Twould be a shame if the crocodile would come by and rob you of it while your attention was held elsewhere.”
Boggs released Tiger Lily’s hand and spun around, as if expecting the giant croc to burst through the trees at any given moment. The young woman forgotten, Boggs took off in the direction of the strongest man on shore. “I need yer help, Beckett. We need to get that bear on the ship.”
“I apologize.” Archie smiled at Tiger Lily. “I believe he was trying to say thank you, and it got a little out of hand.”
A wide grin blossomed over her face, lighting up her eyes. “That’s all right. I was enjoying it.”
“You were?”
“Oh, yes. It’s not every day I’m given such strange compliments. I am glad he liked the bear.”
Said bear was being toted to a boat by three men, plus Beckett, who seemed to be shouldering the majority of the weight. They made it to the boat, and heaved the animal in, then looked at the boat with pride, as if they had captured the beast themselves.
Archie rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Tiger Lily. “Have your people found shelter for the night? Is there anything you need?”
“They have started toward the mountains. It feels like home here, so we are going to be fine.” She stepped closer and reached out, tracing the line of his cheek. “You have done what I needed. I cannot ask you for anything more.”
He captured her hand in his and placed a kiss in her palm. “If you need anyth
ing at all, you need only ask. If it is in my power to give, it will be yours.”
She moved her hand away and took that last step that brought her body close to his. A soft breeze blew her hair toward him, framing her face in a soft outline of shining silk as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. When the kiss broke, he rested his forehead to hers. “Each day that passes, I will watch for you. And every day I do not see your face, an eternity shall pass.”
ARCHIE HAD NEVER heard any of his crew giggle as a side effect of their rum ration. He’d seen them drunk more times than he could count, so wasted the majority of them couldn’t stand, and those few who could, teetered about on deck like the ship was in the worst of seas, only to end up falling head over heels, sprawled out on the planking. Two unlucky pirates had gone over the railings as a result of not being able to discern where the ship ended and the sea began.
It was after those two unceremonious deaths that Archie started his own code, adding his rules to the end of Blackbeard’s in the book.
No man to drink spirits or be drunk whilst on the main deck.
It had worked thus far. Pirates might be a thieving, unruly lot, but they tended to follow the rules laid before them, especially when it held the power to affect their share of plunder. So when Archie heard the high-pitched giggle so close to the quarterdeck, he was a bit surprised. At first, he thought that his rule had been disobeyed, since the sound came so loud and clear.
As it happened, the sound came from below, though not far. I am not sure it is a good sound, Archie decided, taking in Smee’s jovial face. The doctor sat on the steps leading up to the deck, giggling like a school girl.
“I say, man. What, pray tell, do you have in that cup?” Archie asked, crinkling his nose as the stench assaulted his senses. The smell was terrible. A rotten, fruity smell. At first, he thought his wine had been discovered, but this was far, far worse than his grape juice had ever been. Besides, the smell of his wine had changed as quickly as the taste and filled his quarters with a sweet smell any time he uncorked the barrel.
The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set Page 18