The Bloody Black Flag

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The Bloody Black Flag Page 11

by Steve Goble


  Spider was relieved that Loon was not to be sent off ranging. He had been keeping an eye on Peg and would not want to see the bastard move beyond his reach. Would a man with a wooden leg prompt Ezra to drop his guard? It seemed possible, and Peg seemed a rather friendly sort compared to many other members of the crew. He just might be the type of man to get near enough to Ezra to land a murderous surprise blow, the type to mask murderous intent with friendly manner.

  If Barlow had sent Loon off in search of prey, Spider would have been separated from Peg, and it was even possible he would never see the man again. Spider had not eliminated Addison as a suspect, either, so he was doubly glad.

  Before the prize crew went aboard Loon, however, there would be a celebration. Addison, with the elected help of Dobbin, Weatherall, and Elijah as representatives of the crew, chosen because they could read and write a little, had assessed most of the booty from Loon, and it was substantial. The silver bars’ value surpassed Addison’s estimate by half, and most everything else could easily be sold around the Caribbean, in the colonies, or in Africa or England. There remained some goods to count on the morrow, but even if that all turned out to be useless, Loon had been good prey. The ship itself would prove to be a valuable asset to Barlow and his pirate fleet.

  Along with all that, of course, there was the woman May, bound in the forecastle. Spider figured Weatherall was correct, and that she was destined to be sold as a slave. She may have been Horncastle’s slave, for all he knew, although she had seemed fiercely devoted to him. Spider wondered if she would be mentioned in the assessment of booty, which Addison was reading aloud now.

  Weatherall broke out his fiddle, and Barlow ordered some more of the fine wine hauled from Loon to be shared among the crewmen, and the brigands drank hard and danced beneath diamond-sharp stars in a cloudless sky. The weather had warmed considerably as they had sailed farther south, and the men were ready to loosen up after all the killing, the burials at sea, and the auctioning off of men’s worldly goods. Spider had acquired a silver earring and now had a ring on each ear.

  All that business done, it was time to live. Pirate grief typically was a fleeting thing. When there was time to drink and dance and enjoy this short life, that was what one did.

  “Freedom, I say, is mighty sweet,” Elijah opined, with Dobbin nodding drunkenly nearby and adding an incomprehensible, scarcely audible commentary. Elijah went on. “Do you know where I might be tonight, if not here?”

  Dobbin opened his eyes wide, as though Elijah had asked him to name the capital of every European nation. “How the hell should I know?” At least that was what Spider thought toothless Dobbin had said.

  “On a plantation, no doubt,” Elijah said, “shoveling holes, toiling in fields, or serving tea to a man who thinks himself my master, or breeding him a batch of new slaves, my babies to become his property.” His eyes blazed in his handsome face, and the sweat of alcohol and passion rolled down his ebon cheeks as he took a deep swig of rum. “No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. That is not the life for a man, and that is not the life I choose.”

  “Preach the gospel according to Elijah,” Peg shouted. “Testify!”

  “I choose the sea, and the waves, and the risk, and the bloodshed, and the rewards,” Elijah said. “Come what may, I make my choices here and live or die by my own hand. I am a man. Hear me, Lord? Hear me, gents? I am a man!”

  “And a crack shot,” Peg said, pointing sort of randomly upward. “Perching up there, musket in his hand, powder and balls hanging from his neck, he’s as deadly a bastard as any.”

  Peg staggered drunkenly up to Elijah and put an arm around the man’s shoulders. “Deadly bastard as any.”

  “You smell like a grave,” Elijah said, erupting in laughter. Then he took the one-legged man by the arm and spun him in a country dance.

  The survivors from Loon danced and sang, too. They already seemed part of Dream’s crew. What else could they do? Having already sailed under a pirate flag with Horncastle, they lacked any notion of loyalty. It mattered little that they sailed and fought under a new captain. They could accept Barlow’s terms and sign the articles, or be shot and tossed overboard. There was no choice, really.

  Spider remembered having made that damnable choice himself, long ago. Too many years and too many deaths had passed since then.

  He spat and shook his head hard to rid it of such maudlin thoughts. He had work to do. It was time to find out if wine and rum had loosened any tongues.

  Spider had a million questions, and a rowdy crew might just be the place to find answers. He endeavored to partake slowly, in hopes of commanding his wits while others imbibed deeply. That was his plan, anyway. But tension tied him in knots, and he was both happy and surprised to still be alive, and he found himself drinking a bit more than he intended. He could hear Ezra laughing at him and see the big man shaking his head.

  Weatherall scratched a country dance tune he called “Bartholomew Fair” from his fiddle, accompanied by much clapping of hands and stomping of feet. Captain Barlow and Addison smoked pipes aft, and the scent wafted to Spider and made him wish he had more tobacco. Thinking hard had made him go through it at a furious pace.

  He walked up to a comrade and bowed.

  “Oscar,” Spider said, banging his cup against the black man’s. “Loon looks a sweet little ship. I don’t think you’ll have to work too much to keep her afloat.”

  “Aye,” Oscar said before drinking deeply.

  “Dream is no worse than she was after repairs,” Spider continued, lifting his cup. “I have to replace some planks in the rail, mind you, but she’ll be fine. Loon fared a might worse, but we all shall meet up with the Frenchman safely enough, I dare say.”

  Oscar lowered his cup quickly, looked around wide-eyed, and then got the hell away from Spider in a hurry.

  Spider kept his head down and tried to feel whether anyone was staring at him. He wondered if a ball was about to come flying from Barlow’s gun. He had judged the captain was too far away to hear him with all the music and merrymaking, and considered the calculated risk to have been worthwhile, but Oscar’s instant fright had Spider worried.

  No gunshot roared into the night, no ball tore through his head or back, and Spider eventually relaxed. He wandered about, stole a lit pipe someone had carelessly left sitting on a four-pounder, and tried to work up the nerve to ask more questions.

  Odin sat on a keg, his head on his chest, snoring. A chicken settled in at his feet, as though nesting.

  Hob passed by with a platter of jacks, spilling rum as the boy tried to adjust his gait to Dream’s gentle rolling motion. Spider grabbed a tankard. He drank greedily and imagined Ezra’s rolling eyes. Damn it, he thought, you haunt me, my friend. I will avenge you, by God or devil.

  The staccato drumming of Peg’s wooden leg grew louder, and the aroma of pork filled Spider’s head. He dearly hoped Doctor Boddings would not find a way to render fresh pork inedible.

  Peg approached bearing a harpoon upon which slabs of roasted pork had been skewered. “Have one,” Peg said. “Courtesy of Loon’s larder and the doctor’s kitchen skills.”

  “Ah, yes,” Spider cried. “Spoils to the victor.”

  “They ain’t spoiled,” Peg said. “Hell, we just killed the damn pig today.”

  “I apologize,” Spider answered, lifting a slab of meat from the harpoon. “I am certain the pork is fine.” He took a bite, and juice dripped down his chin. “Indeed, a fine dinner,” he said, somewhat surprised. It seemed Doctor Boddings had even glazed the pig with honey.

  Peg grinned. “Aye,” he said, heading away. Then he pivoted and pointed at Elijah. “Deadly a bastard as any!”

  Peg seemed not at all bothered by his new peg leg, and Spider took a bit of satisfaction in seeing that. He ate the rest of the pork, tossed the bone into the sea, then resumed his smoking.

  Spider’s pipe billowed out a cloud that stung his eyes, and he gazed out over the quiet ocean and ran the suspects through h
is mind once again.

  Captain Barlow. Spider earlier had mostly dismissed him as a suspect, but that episode with Addison had him thinking things over again. Barlow was a calculating man and seemingly loath to waste a good seaman and fighter, but he had demonstrated more than once that he might do any damned thing in a sudden fit of anger. If he was willing to fire his weapon at Addison, he surely would not balk at clubbing Ezra to death.

  But what could Ezra have done to piss off Barlow? Spider had trouble imagining it, for Ezra was a cautious fellow. Only talk of witches and such could prompt his friend to throw caution aside and throw an unwise punch, and Barlow had made clear more than once that he set no real store in what he called superstitious nonsense. It seemed unlikely that Barlow had said something to set Ezra off and spark a fight.

  Peter Tellam. That tattooed devil thought of himself as God’s executioner, and despite his life as a sea reaver he seemed convinced that the Lord would forgive all that, but his every word and action was at odds with the idea of a stealthy attack. Tellam enjoyed causing fear. Tellam enjoyed confrontation. He would not attempt an attack by stealth, and Ezra would never, under any circumstances, let Tellam get close enough to bash in his head. It was unthinkable.

  Doctor Boddings. The surgeon had made his feelings about witches and their spawn well known. Spider tried to imagine Boddings strolling toward Ezra on the moonlit deck. Would Ezra see the chubby old man as any kind of threat? Probably not, Spider decided, and that could have provided the surgeon with opportunity. Was Boddings a man to act so boldly as to murder another man? Spider decided to keep a close eye on the surgeon.

  Addison. The first mate was a mystery. The bossy son of a bitch seemed just a little bit drunk most of the time, but nonetheless had shown himself to be a capable seaman and fighter. Spider recalled the utter fearlessness Addison had displayed when Barlow shot at him. He followed Barlow’s orders, but he clearly did not fear him. Such a man might do anything. But could he get close enough to Ezra to land a surprise blow? Perhaps. If he could keep calm as Barlow’s blunderbuss ball whizzed past his head, he might well disguise his intentions enough to catch Ezra off guard.

  Peg. The man was surprisingly agile for one who had a wooden leg, and so he could not be written off as a suspect just because of his injury. Also, he had tried to direct attention to Weatherall. No one else aboard Dream had mentioned the flask at all. The flask was the one physical clue that might be tied to the killer, the one physical clue that proved beyond a ghost of doubt that Ezra Coombs had been murdered as opposed to dying in a drunken accident. Spider had mentioned it aloud, hoping to provoke a reaction, and only Peg had reacted.

  Peg had brought up the topic twice. Did he need to retrieve the flask for some reason?

  One other fact had anchored itself in Spider’s mind. Peg’s missing spare wooden leg was made of applewood, like the splinters in Ezra’s crushed skull.

  John Weatherall. The man was a hell of a fighter, judging from what Spider had seen during the taking of Loon. Weatherall, perhaps, could have stood up to Ezra in a fight. But could he have gotten close enough to Ezra to land a surprise blow? Spider doubted it.

  Weatherall, despite his battle prowess, had seemed reluctant to fight before Dream and Loon joined battle. He struck Spider as a man who knew how to fight, but who would prefer to avoid it. A decent sort, not a murderer. Plus, he was relatively new to Dream, having come aboard not long before Spider and Ezra, so he was an unlikely recruit for someone else’s machinations.

  Spider spat and dumped the burnt remnants of his pipe tobacco into the sea. Given the fuss about witchcraft raised by the confrontation between Tellam and Ezra, almost anyone aboard might have killed Ezra. Damn me, Spider thought. Even bloody Hob might have killed him for all I know.

  As soon as he had that thought, he had another. As bitter as Spider was, he honestly could not see Hob as a killer—but he could see him as an ally. Hob darted all over the vessel on chore after chore, worked a great deal with Doctor Boddings, and carried messages to and fro for Barlow and Addison. Few of the crewmen paid much attention to the boy. Hob might very well prove a valuable ally, and so Spider resolved to recruit him.

  He spun slowly, in search of the boy, only to see Tellam’s tattooed face emerge from the shadows. Tellam stopped in front of Spider, grinning wickedly.

  “You look about you as though you are always seeking something,” Tellam said, sneering. “Your friend’s ghost, maybe? Or someone besides the Lord to blame for his death?”

  Spider thought long and hard about disemboweling the man before him. He stared into Tellam’s frozen eyes and imagined his knife plunging into the bastard’s gut, twisting into his intestine and jerking free with a bloody rip. He wanted to show them all who was as deadly a bastard as any.

  But Spider had already felt the imagined impact of Barlow’s bullet once this night, and so reined in his violent emotions.

  “I keep my thoughts to myself, Peter,” Spider finally said. “It is an admirable trait, you see.” He pushed his way past Tellam.

  “Coward,” Tellam growled in a low voice.

  Spider kept walking.

  “You heard me, I know,” Tellam said. “You always listen and watch. Always lurking about.”

  “Aye,” Spider growled, turning. “But your thoughts amount to shit, so I ignore them.”

  The men stared one another down for several seconds, each aware of the knife tucked into the other’s belt, and Spider, at least, wondering whether Barlow was taking notice of the confrontation.

  Odin awoke suddenly and laughed.

  Tellam made no move. He simply leered, his hand near his knife handle. Spider eventually turned and headed for the hold. He felt Tellam’s eyes digging into the back of his skull.

  He would have to talk to Hob later. Right now, he could not stand to be on the deck.

  Spider grabbed a swinging lantern from a brace and took it with him below. With everyone drinking and dancing above, he had an opportunity to search the crewmen’s chests and sacks. Perhaps he could find a mate to that pewter flask, or a possible murder weapon of applewood. Any sort of clue would be welcome at this point, for he felt himself adrift.

  Spider hung the lantern on a hook and started with the oak case for Weatherall’s violin. The man had left it open on his hammock. Weatherall had the instrument and the bow up on deck, scratching away at dance tunes while the men wailed in song, but the case included a small compartment within. Spider tugged it open, but it contained nothing but some small tuning wrenches and some rags used for wiping the fiddle down after performing.

  He found Peg’s rucksack and rifled through it to find it held naught but clothes and a pouch of tobacco. Spider stole that.

  Tellam kept his belongings in a small oak chest, protected by a padlock. Spider pulled down the lantern and tried to peer into the keyhole. It seemed it would be easy enough to pick. He glanced up the ladder and saw no one coming down. The ruckus from above had grown louder, and the celebration was still young. No one was likely to go below as long as the booze was flowing freely above. Spider decided to risk it.

  He hung up the lantern again and pulled one of Weatherall’s tuning wrenches from the fiddle case. This he used as an improvised key. Sweating, and constantly looking toward the ladder, he fiddled with the padlock. It took forever, and sweat beaded on his brow, but at last it came open with a loud clack.

  Spider tossed the wrench back into the fiddle case and then plundered Tellam’s chest. Grimy clothing, a tricorn hat that time had reduced almost to a rag and—well, damn me, Spider thought—a machete, with a blade as long as Spider’s forearm and a handle of carved applewood.

  The weapon was tucked into a heavy leather sheath and wrapped in a shirt. No doubt the captain knew nothing of this, and Tellam was wise to keep it hidden and locked away. Had he taken the weapon up on deck with him that bloody night and used it to break Ezra’s skull?

  Spider held the weapon up to the lantern and examined the h
andle. It was heavily beaten by time, full of dings and chinks, none of which stood out as fresh in the lantern light. It bore no sign of bloodstains, but it certainly was heavy enough to have caused Ezra’s wounds. Tellam might have held it by the leather sheath and wielded it like a club. That way, he could kill without leaving telltale incisions in his victim.

  Was Tellam that clever? Spider wondered.

  He arranged Tellam’s belongings back in the chest and closed it up. Once the padlock was in place, Spider started going through other sacks and boxes, but found nothing as damning as that weapon of Tellam’s.

  He wanted to lie down and think but talked himself out of it. He did not want anyone coming down the ladder to find him alone in the hold. That would not do if anyone noticed some of the goods had been tossed about.

  Hatchways gave access to the lower hold and to the giant main hold amidships, so he could easily search belowdecks thoroughly, but Spider deemed it unwise to disappear for too long.

  Reluctantly, Spider went above and rejoined the revelry, resolving to take the next opportunity to poke around below. Peg, pissing over the rail, raised a leather jack and shouted a heigh-ho. “Where have you been, Spider John? We tapped another keg!”

  “I was having a smoke, away from the cat scratching at the fiddle.”

  “Oh, Weatherall plays well enough,” Peg said. “You are a harsh critic, Spider, a harsh critic.” Drunk, Peg managed to cram most of those sentences into about ten syllables. “And deadly a bastard as any!”

  “I suppose I can be pure hell when I need to be,” Spider said. “Where is the keg?”

  14

  It was morning before Spider got an opportunity to speak to Hob in relative privacy. Spider was mounting a swivel gun brought over from Loon to serve Plymouth Dream as another stern chaser. He’d asked for Hob as an assistant, and once the gun was hoisted into place, Spider had dismissed the fellows who had done the heavy lifting but kept Hob at hand while he tightened everything down.

  Plymouth Dream sailed easily now, making at least twelve knots with Loon trailing a mile or so off the port stern. South of them in the distance, Bermuda rose like a dark mountain from the sea. Spider could make out a few of her sister islands as well, and he thought Barlow’s ruse was well considered. There were many places in these waters where a ship might lay up and hide a while, and if their frigate pursuer spent time checking out even a few of them, Dream might be well on her way to Jamaica before the hunters realized she was nowhere in sight.

 

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