The Bloody Black Flag

by Steve Goble

  Spider picked up the cat, tossed it to the deck, and said, “Go on, then, Admiral Thomas, you creepy bastard.” The cat scurried off.

  Spider opened the unlocked chest to reveal a horrid jumble of rope, broken wood, and rusty, dull tools—mallets, chisels, pliers, files, nails, pegs, saws, drills, clamps, knives with no handles, spare metal from guns. Adding to the clutter were candle scraps, leather straps, and whetstones—items that would serve, it appeared, although it would take him a good while to sort it out and put things where he could find them as needed.

  Spider sighed, figuring he’d spend a good deal of time finding tools and repairing them before he could use them to repair anything else. “Is this the whole lot?”

  “Aye, except some hammers and such strewn about among the lumber stores. I can go looking.”

  “Who was carpenter before me?”

  “John Benker was his name,” Hob said. “He got shot dead.”

  “Good,” Spider said, looking at the mess. Things were tossed about haphazardly, and precious space was being wasted.

  Spider asked Hob to fetch him a bucket. The boy did so quickly, and Spider put the best-looking mallet he could readily find into the empty container. He fished about for a decent file, then cursed and decided a smoke was needed. “I am going aft, boy, and will grapple with this mess later. I might use a good hand, if you are free.”

  “I am supposed to help the doctor with the meal,” Hob said. “After that, maybe, if Cap’n says.”

  “Well enough.” Spider grinned. “Let us find the cook. I’ll need his fire.”

  Wandering aft on the gently rolling deck, Spider pulled free the pipe tucked into his belt and filled it from his slack pouch. It would be his last smoke for a while, unless he could filch or purchase some tobacco. Amidships, Dream had a fire box, a brick oven where crews had boiled the blubber from their long voyages. Spider could see where two more such ovens had flanked this one, but those had been removed. The remaining oven, belching smoke as the doctor struggled to close the iron door without burning his hand, served as the galley.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” Spider said, whipping the kerchief from his head and wrapping his hand. He opened the door swiftly, shoved some tinder from a bucket into the box, and lit it. Then he put it to his pipe to bring it to life.

  “Good morning it is not, I dare say,” Boddings growled. “The Lord meant me for finer things than to be ship’s cook.” He tossed a ladle into the deep pot swinging from his right hand, splashing hot water that sizzled on the deck.

  “I will not bother you further,” Spider answered, patting Hob on the shoulder before taking his leave.

  Bright sun washed the deck, and the sails swelled with good wind. Plymouth Dream was meandering her way southward, at about eleven knots, and Spider was glad of it, for there would not be many more bright days such as this at this latitude. He missed the Caribbean. Spider replaced the scarf on his head and gazed into the starboard distance, but he could not make out the coast. He had no idea how far off the land was; in any event, it was unreachable. It might as well have been a million leagues.

  He craned his neck to look about as men shuffled to and fro in confusion, some working, some dangling nets in hopes of capturing fresh fish, others trying to amuse themselves with dice or arguing about politics or theology. Amid the chaos he was able to determine Dream mounted six four-pounders on her main deck. One cannon had a carriage with a nasty crack that would not survive many more firings. A couple of small swivel guns were placed above the forecastle, where they could harry any ship Dream pursued. The four-pounders were mismatched but all carriage-mounted; they were locked down tight now, but could be moved in a hurry. The rail had been cut to accommodate the weapons.

  A glance over the gunwale showed him a dull white hull trimmed in bright, bloody red, with paint mostly in good condition but in need of care here and there.

  He looked about for Ezra and spotted the tall fellow aft at the tiller. He headed that way, a cloud of smoke from his clay pipe streaming in the wind, a pair of chickens crossing his path.

  Spider climbed onto the poop deck and waved at Ezra. “Well, then, they found honest work for you, did they?”

  Ezra grinned. “I suppose you’ve been busy pretending to fit one piece of wood to another in some useful fashion, Spider John.”

  “I’ve been pondering the proper fate for a messy carpenter. It involves brimstone,” Spider said. He pointed at the wheel. “How does she feel?”

  “It’s like dancing with a pig,” Ezra said.

  “Ah, then, you know a thing or two about that, I’d say.”

  Ezra nodded and winced. “She goes where you tell her, but not as easily as she ought.”

  “I’m going to go and put together a decent kit of tools, then give the ship a look. Storm probably knocked things about, I’d guess, and her previous carpenter wasn’t one to work too much.”

  “Feels that way,” Ezra said. “I noted a hatch cover missing in the crew hold. Some night a drunk will step in it and bust his head further below.”

  “I saw that,” Spider sighed. “Got other stuff to see to, first, so watch your step.”

  “Aye.” Ezra nodded. Wind blew his red mane all around, and he looked genuinely happy to be at sea once again.

  “I shall give the rudder a look, when I can, see if I can make her dance more like a lady,” Spider promised, turning. He found himself face-to-face with a wild-eyed Peter Tellam.

  The tattooed man roughly shoved him aside and glowered at Ezra. Behind Tellam stood a broad-shouldered but short man. Spider thought he’d heard him called Jenkins. That man had a knife in his hand and glared at Ezra, but Tellam did all the talking.

  “Jesus consigns your soul to hell, Ezra Coombs.” Tellam no longer wore the long cloak, nor did he wear a shirt. Spider wondered what sort of zeal prompted the man to doff his shirt and coat in this brisk October wind. The whorled tattoos covered his sun-browned upper body, and they wriggled like snakes as he moved. So did the muscles in his arms.

  Ezra laughed softly. “Aye, but the Lord is happy to watch you go about the sea robbing and killing, then?”

  Tellam sneered. “I am not without sin, but I can make amends and try to free myself of this life. You, though, will always be Satan’s spawn.

  “I prayed on it, Coombs, and decided I cannot remain silent. You should not have brought your Satan taint aboard this vessel.”

  “No taint,” Ezra said calmly. “I rebuke the devil, praise the Lord.” He brought his hands together quickly in a prayerful gesture, then returned them to the wheel. “I’ve no wish to trouble you, Peter Tellam.”

  “You do not fool me,” Tellam said.

  Odin, sitting low on the mizzenmast ratlines, chuckled quietly, shaking his head and squeezing his lone eye shut.

  Spider, behind the interlopers now, slowly pulled his own knife free. He concealed it beneath crossed arms and measured the distance between himself and the necks of the two men confronting Ezra.

  “Not tryin’ to fool anyone,” Ezra said. “Just need to live, and sailin’ is my trade. This is the only job I could find.”

  Tellam turned to address a slowly growing crowd on the deck below. “That is all you are, eh? Just an honest sailin’ man? Did you tell them your ma was a witch, Coombs?”

  Jenkins snorted, and his fingers fiddled with the knife in his hand.

  “She was not,” Ezra said, controlling his anger admirably, but Spider could detect the signs in his posture and in his voice, and was glad to note Ezra glanced at Jenkins’s blade. “They hung her, but she was no witch.”

  “They hung your ma’s ma, too, didn’t they? I suppose she, too, was no witch?”

  “That is true, she was no witch.” Spider and Ezra made eye contact, and Spider showed him a brief glimpse of the knife he concealed at the ready. Ezra kept at the tiller. “Men do foolish things sometimes, and people die,” Ezra said. “Sometimes innocent people.”

  Tellam faced him aga
in. “Oh, yes, innocent people die. I know that. They die around you, don’t they? Have you told these good gentlemen of the Trusty? How she went down? Showed them your mark, have you?”

  Spider heard a few gasps and muttered curses. Most men of the sea knew the tale of the ill-fated Trusty, a Royal Navy brig lost on her maiden voyage from Plymouth. Powder in the hold had exploded, and most of the hull forward had shattered in a heartbeat. The rest of her sank quickly enough. Very few survived. Ezra Coombs was one of the lucky ones.

  Ezra raised his right arm and pulled at his coat and shirt sleeves, revealing a tattoo: the words “Trusty, 1716” engraved on an anchor.

  “Yes. I was aboard Trusty, part of her one and only crew. Damn tragedy. Good men lost.”

  “You weren’t lost, though,” Tellam said, sneering.

  “Calm this storm, lads.” That came from a voice in the crowd on the deck below, and Spider spotted Weatherall. The man had been unfriendly when pouring their ale, but he was acting as peacemaker now. “The Lord will sort it all out, no need for us to fret.” Weatherall then turned to whisper something to Peg and toothless Dobbin.

  “I was lucky,” Ezra said. “I could have been killed as easily as anyone else.”

  “Lucky, you say,” Tellam spat. “Can’t say the same for your shipmates, now, can we?”

  Jenkins snorted again and tightened his grip on the knife hilt.

  “I had nothin’ to do with the blast, damn you,” Ezra said. “If you’ve a point to prove, let’s have a go.” He nodded at a fellow who had been smoking aft. That man took over the tiller; then Ezra stepped back and plucked his dirk from his belt.

  Tellam smiled. “Let us do just that.” He drew his own knife. Tellam showed no fear of Ezra’s size.

  “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” That came from someone in the crowd. Toothless Dobbin bellowed something incomprehensible in reply.

  “Whoa, lads, whoa!” Elijah waved his arms, spinning in a circle, addressing all aboard from a spot near the poop deck ladder. Spider could smell the man’s perfume. “The Lord has a plan. It is not for us to judge. Perhaps Ezra was spared because it was the Lord’s will.”

  Some crewmen nodded. Others seemed dubious. Odin, his one eye shining brightly, laughed at a joke only he could hear. Spider saw no change in attitude from the pair confronting Ezra, however.

  “Cursed witch!” Jenkins was in motion even as he said it, the knife aimed at Ezra’s throat. Tellam stepped back, and Ezra moved to defend himself.

  Jenkins lunged with a shout, but Ezra stepped aside and clubbed him hard on the shoulder with the bone hilt of his own knife. Jenkins stumbled but regained his footing quickly and spun about. Ezra was taller, and certainly stronger, Spider judged, but Jenkins was quick.

  Spider figured Ezra would handle Jenkins, so he tried to keep a weather eye on Tellam. That man stood back, grinning and muttering. Spider thought he made out the word “Jesus” once or twice.

  Jenkins feinted left, then moved in again, bringing his knife upward in a big sweeping curve that started low and drove toward Ezra’s belly. Jenkins’s left hand slipped behind his back and brought forth a second knife while Ezra grabbed the attacking arm with his left hand. Spider shouted a warning, but Ezra didn’t need it. When Jenkins stabbed with the second knife, Ezra’s blade was there to parry, and Ezra’s knee drove upward into his assailant’s crotch.

  Jenkins howled, doubled over, and got a knee in the face. Bloodied, he fell backward. Spider silently willed Ezra to go ahead and kill the son of a bitch, but Ezra stood grinning.

  “If you’d like to dance some more, I will oblige,” Ezra told Jenkins, who was coughing and snorting blood.

  “Belay that!” Barlow shoved his way through the surrounding men and climbed the ladder to the poop deck.

  “Son of the devil,” Jenkins hissed, rising more quickly than Spider expected and lunging with his knife at the ready. Ezra squared for battle again just as a thundercrack made Spider jump. A large hole erupted in Jenkins’s forehead. The man’s legs went limp, and he fell nose-first onto the deck.

  “Damn and blazes!” Barlow roared, a smoking blunderbuss in one hand and his cane in the other. The first mate Addison followed, pistol in hand and sword drawn. No one else made a move, nor uttered a word. “When I say belay, goddamn it, belay! What in hell goes on here?”

  Tellam spat. “Coombs is a witch’s son!”

  Barlow raised his eyebrows. “Well, now. True, is it?” He stared at the dead man and shook his head slowly.

  “Aye,” Tellam said. “Trusty sank under his curse! Jenk was goin’ to throw his cursed ass overboard!” Tellam turned toward Ezra, as if to avenge his friend, but dropped his knife as Addison raised his pistol and said quietly, “Think, man.”

  Barlow glanced at the dropped blade and smiled. “Well, damned silly thing to lose an able-bodied man about.” He tapped Jenkins with the cane. “Dead. For nothing. Goddamn ye, Tellam. I don’t believe in curses.”

  “Ask Bent Thomas about curses, then.” Tellam’s eyes were wide and gleaming. “Trusty weren’t the only ship this bastard cursed. Coombs was aboard Lamia when she went under, too. His friend said so, aye? Two ships lost with this bastard aboard. Shall we be the third?”

  Barlow spun slowly, pointing his cane at Ezra and glancing quickly at Spider. “That is true enough, now ain’t it? Bent Thomas took you on, and his ship is gone. Maybe he’s gone, too. Good man, Bent Thomas.”

  Ezra nodded. “Aye, a good man,” he said, breathing hard but keeping his voice calm and even. “Hope he lives yet. I’ve seen more than my share of troubles, it is true. A lot of us have, I reckon. Dangerous work, aye? Being a sailor, a pirate? But I’ve sailed aboard a number of ships, and most of them didn’t sink.”

  “He doesn’t belong on this vessel, I say,” Tellam said. “He deserves to burn.”

  “Should he, now? Should he?” Barlow seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Well, I will be damned,” Barlow said at last, spinning slowly as he talked so that all could hear. “And so will all of you, and it ain’t nothing to do with anyone’s ma or witch blood. I’d say most of us have earned our own hellish fates twice over. If there is a hell, it was made for us, gents. You, too, Tellam. You, too.”

  As the captain spoke, he randomly pointed his flintlock here and there, so each man could imagine a ball flying through his brain. All hands quieted. Spider returned his knife to his belt; Ezra did likewise.

  “We prevail through strength in numbers, gentlemen,” Barlow continued. “We can scarce afford to be ripping up our own strength.” He stared at Tellam. “We all know you can fight, Tell. Jenkins could fight, too. He could handle gun and blade, but we have lost that, have we not? Over nothing? And now,” he said, turning toward Ezra. “We know Coombs here can fight as well. So we’ve lost one, and we’ve gained one. Very good. Scales balance, gents, and that is about as fair as any of us has a right to expect. Maybe more so. Let us not wager more,” he added, glaring at Tellam.

  “We’re stronger together, gents, stronger together,” the captain said. “We make our own luck, and fucking fight together, and need every fucking able hand we can muster. Roberts is done, his crew hung, so many wolves have fled these waters. We’ve got the prey all to ourselves, if we be smart. Have we made money, men?”

  A few cheers went up.

  “Have we made money, I ask?”

  A louder, more enthusiastic chorus rose.

  “And we will make more. Much, much more.” Barlow lifted his cane to the sky. “I do not believe in witches, or curses, or bogeymen, or mermaids, or little fucking fairies, but if this man proves to be unlucky”—he aimed the pistol at Ezra’s head—“I will shoot him myself, without hesitation, without remorse, just as I shot Jenkins for disobeying my order. Until such time as I deem it fit to shoot this man, though, we will all keep our pretty little knives tucked away where we don’t get hurt, and we will use our strength and our daring to make us all rich men. Agreed?”

  Me
n nodded and cheered.

  “Now, then, Tellam. You see to your friend. Distribute his goods, per the articles. Spider John, have you work to do?”

  “About to get to it, sir.”

  “Do that,” Barlow growled. He gave Ezra a long look. “You can fight, for certain. Save it for when we need it. Don’t go lookin’ for more trouble.”

  “Aye,” Ezra said.

  The captain climbed down the ladder and stalked off. “Out of my way, Peg, damn ye!” The man with the wooden leg jumped aside, quite nimbly, and his peg thunked hard on the deck.

  Addison picked up Tellam’s knife and gave it back to him. Tellam glared at Ezra, then knelt by Jenkins’s corpse. Ezra went back to work at the tiller.

  Spider stood by Ezra’s shoulder. “This is not good. . . .”

  “No,” Ezra said. “Not at all good.”

  They sat together later, Spider athwart a four-pounder and quaffing bad beer, Ezra whittling on a walrus bone as he sat on the gunwale. The workday had been long, but Spider had been right about the rudder needing some care. Dream had been idle most of the day while he opened her up below and replaced a cracked brace, but she was under sail again now and behaving herself admirably. Barlow, who had grumbled ceaselessly while Spider worked, was all smiles and nods once Dream was catching wind again. She was not a bad little lady, Spider had decided of this craft. He deemed it a shame her decks went almost entirely without washing. Her canvas and rigging were in good shape, though. Odin had primary responsibility for those.

  Evening had come at last, and the doctor had produced a somewhat edible chicken stew. Tellam was keeping below. No one else was eager to approach Spider and Ezra, but every now and then Spider would see Weatherall or toothless Dobbin or the doctor staring at them. Others stared, too, but eyes always averted quickly.

  Men talked quietly. Spider could catch none of what they said, but he could guess most of it. Jenkins was mentioned more than once.

  “Perhaps we should have a scuffle between us two,” Ezra said, keeping his voice low. “So these gents don’t think you are a curse, too. I won’t hurt you.”