Lackbeard

by Cody B. Stewart

  Major North’s jaw sat on the jungle floor. He suddenly felt very sorry for Humbolt. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “101st Airborne.”

  If his jaw could have fallen any further, it would have.” You’re a Screamin’ Eagle?”

  “Heck no,” she answered. “But I dated one for a stitch.” She pumped her eyebrows, but the major could see that her eyes didn’t shimmer with that same sparkle of mischief. “Gave me some weapons training, y’know what I mean?” His smile fell at the corners. “And a daughter.”

  There was some sadness in her voice, but she did her best to hide it. And she did it quickly. “Well? Let’s do this thing.” Her face lit up in a way that Major North now realized was familiar.

  He’d seen it on countless cadets. Kids like Humbolt with a chip on their shoulder, but damned if you’d know it, because they put on a face for the world. A strong, happy face, so no one was the wiser as to what was really going on inside.

  Major North loaded his Milkor. “Yeah, we’re doing this.”

  The cadets reached for the open cargo hatch. “What do we get?”

  Major North slapped their hands away. “No guns for minors.” He removed two rods with forked tongs at the ends. “You get this. More than enough to take down your enemy.”

  The initial look of despair quickly left their faces after each cadet sparked their cattle prod. Little sparks of blue danced in their eyes. They said in unison, “Valley Forge Military Academy! Hoo-rah!”

  The company set off from the chopper toward the shore. They all hunched down on the beach, staring at the sailboat anchored thirty yards out at sea. All of the lights were off. It rocked like a piece of driftwood as the tide rolled in.

  “What’s the plan, sir?” the cadets said.

  Major North studied the situation. He pinpointed the goal, listed his assets and the challenges ahead. He smiled at the cadets. “You two have your swimming certifications, right? Two of the best swimmers in the academy, if I recall.”

  The cadets gulped, and nodded.

  “You two are going to do some recon.”

  The cadets stripped off their gear and dropped it in a pile on the beach. They waded into the water, moving slowly and quietly. Then they were gone, swimming through the dark.

  Ms. Roberts sighed contentedly and laid back on her elbows. “Isn’t this romantic?”

  The major tensed. He felt like an enemy had snuck up behind him and put a machete to his neck.

  “The beach,” Ms. Roberts continued. “The sound of the water. The gentle breeze just ever so casually tousling my hair in the flirtiest of ways. The full moon. Just the two of us.”

  “It won’t be just the two of us for long,” Major North said.

  “But it’s just the two of us right now,” Ms. Roberts said, patting the sand next to her, inviting Major North to sit. “So relax. Take a load off.”

  “We’re on mission,” the major said. “There is no relaxing.”

  “You don’t like to live in the moment, do you?” A serious edge had crept into her voice, but still wore mischief like a blanket.

  “No,” the major answered. “One can’t strategize while living in the moment.”

  Ms. Roberts folded her hands behind her head and laid back on the sand. “This moment is the only one that matters. Until the next moment. Looking ahead, looking back, I think that’ll just disappoint you.”

  Major North thought on this while he looked out at the water. It was a heavier thought than he ever expected to hear from her. And one he, thankfully, did not need to respond to, courtesy of the return of the cadets.

  They rose from the water, panting, graceless. Tim flopped onto the beach like a fish sucking for air. Kevin doubled over, gasping.

  “Report,” Major North ordered.

  “I think,” Tim said in syllables broken by breathlessness.

  “They’re sleeping,” Kevin finished.

  “Perfect,” Major North said. He slipped his grenade launcher off his shoulder, and began stacking all their gear in some nearby brush. The others did the same. Then he took a waterproof bag and filled it with a few things he would need. He zipped it closed, and smiled. “Let’s go swimming.”

  The cadets groaned but followed Major North into the water. The major looked over his shoulder, half expecting Ms. Roberts to be right by his side. But she wasn’t. He felt a pinch of guilt in his gut for every time he wished she would disappear. She could be abrasive, true. But she was upfront, and he respected that. There was a genuine quality to her that could be endearing.

  When she wasn’t being a chore.

  He checked his gear one last time. You could never be too prepared. When he turned back toward the sea, he saw Ms. Roberts already in a full front crawl heading toward the boat.

  He smiled and dove forward.

  They reached the sailboat in just a few minutes. Major North climbed the side first. Once on the deck, he reached down and pulled both cadets up at once. He reached back again for Ms. Roberts, but she was already climbing.

  He was so used to teaching, to showing how to do things, to providing assistance. She didn’t need any of that.

  The four of them skulked across the deck and paused at the hatch that led below. Major North unzipped the bag and pulled out a cylinder about eight inches long with a pin in one end and lever on the side. Flash-bang grenade. Talk about a wake-up call.

  Using his fingers, the major counted down from three. Then he pulled the pin, released the lever, and dropped the grenade down the hatch. The four of them hunched down, covering their eyes and ears.

  A concussive wave of sound smacked the underside of the deck, punching Major North in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Not allowing it to slow him down, the major launched to his feet. He ran down the stairs, ready to catch the kids off-guard.

  Ms. Roberts and the cadet ran down behind him.

  “Waste of a good grenade,” Ms. Roberts said as she looked around at the empty boat.

  The cadets cringed.

  “Sleeping?” the major said.

  “Well, it was dark and super quiet,” Kevin said.

  “So, maybe we assumed?” Tim said.

  Major North turned on them. “Assume again, and you’ll be walking home.” He marched topside.

  Kevin looked confused. “But, we’re on an island. How can we…?”

  Tim smacked his brother in the back of the head. “That’s the point.”

  Ms. Roberts pushed past them and followed the major.

  22

  Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!”

  Without direction or order, the crew dove for the ground like a pack of rabid moles. They dug into the earth, flinging dirt everywhere, turning the grassy area where they’d stopped into a minefield of holes.

  As the sun peaked over the horizon, the pale light of morning shone on Eleuthera. It illuminated the ground around Carter, and the cliff’s edge only yards from the crew. His stomach turned when he thought about trudging through the dark, unaware of the sudden rocky plummet. If that engraving said sixty paces, he might have paced right over the edge.

  A roar of grumbling from the dig site drew him away from the cliff.

  “I give up,” Nestor said, his hands and face completely covered in dirt. “There’s nothing here.”

  “There has to be,” Carter argued. “You saw the rock.”

  “Hate to break it to you, kid, but pirates ain’t always the most trustworthy of people. Maybe it’s a misdirect.” Nestor climbed out of his hole. He kicked JJ, who had fallen asleep sometime during the excavation. “Get up. We need to talk.”

  JJ stirred and wiped dirt and sleep from his eyes. The two walked off and out of sight.

  Brad dropped down next to Darla, who had also fallen asleep. He looked as dejected as Nestor.

  Darla woke slowly, sitting up and resting her head on Brad’s shoulder. “We rich?”

  “No, just dirty.”

  She looked around, taking stock of the situatio
n. “Where’d our pirate friends run off to?”

  “In congress in the bushes,” Carter said, gesturing with his chin to the spot in the jungle they’d disappeared to.

  “I thought someone was supposed to keep an eye on them.” She leaned around to look in Brad’s face.

  He stared off at nothing in particular with an intense, thoughtful look in his eyes.

  She waved her hand in front of his face. “Anyone home?”

  Suddenly, Brad leapt to his feet. He ran off down the same path they’d taken from the boulder.

  “What’d you do to him?” Carter asked Darla.

  She shrugged.

  “Tummy troubles?” Carter suggested. “He is, after all, a nervous pooper.”

  “Gross,” Darla answered.

  A few moments later, Brad emerged from the jungle, taking long, deliberate strides, and counting as he went.

  “I did that already,” Carter said. “I know how to count.”

  Brad kept going. As he reached the spot where they’d been digging, he said, “Thirty-five, thirty-six.” He shot Carter a knowing look as he continued on. “Forty-eight, forty-nine…”

  Brad stopped at the cliff’s edge and pointed over. “Fifty.”

  The crew gathered along the cliff’s edge, looking over.

  “There probably weren’t too many eleven-year-old pirates,” Brad said. “I’m guessing whoever wrote that riddle was a little bit older and had longer legs. They meant fifty man paces, not fifty little kid paces.”

  Carter nodded, shrugging off the attempt at insult. “Okay, then why don’t you go ahead and take that fiftieth step?” Maybe he didn’t shrug it off completely.

  Backing away from the ledge, Louis tugged on Yvette’s sleeve. “I need to, uh, powder my nose. Will you watch?”

  “Gross.”

  “Not me! Keep watch,” Louis said, the urgency of his situation straining his voice. “I don’t want a snake or something crawling up on me while I’m copping a squat.”

  Reluctantly, Yvette agreed. It was mandated by the unspoken girl code.

  The two disappeared into the jungle as the others scratched their chins about the riddle.

  “Maybe the treasure is all the way down there,” Marcus said. “Do we climb down?”

  “Maybe the riddle was just what we thought it was,” Brad said. “A misdirect. A way to get people searching for the treasure to die like fools.”

  Walking off a cliff is a bad way to go. Certainly a foolish one.

  Carter turned away from the cliff, hoping to clear his head and get a fresh perspective on the whole thing. But that isn’t at all what he saw. Instead, he watched as Louis and Yvette were ushered out of the jungle at gunpoint.

  “Battle stations!”

  Carter’s order snapped the crew from their contemplation.

  The two military academy cadets sprinted around the major and ran straight for them. Marcus sprung forward, quick-drawing his bat.

  “Chill. I got this,” he said.

  The cadets skidded to a halt just out of face-smashing range. “Valley Forge Military Academy! Hoo-rah!” They each pressed a button on the prods they carried, and the ends sparked and crackled with electricity.

  Brad stepped forward, shoulder-to-shoulder with Marcus. “Take another step and this ends badly.”

  “Yeah,” Tim said. “For you.”

  Major North stepped up behind the cadets. They flanked him like a pair of guard dogs. “This has gone far enough.”

  Darla, incensed, screamed from behind Brad. “Who the hell are you to tell us anything? You’re totally bat-crap, man. Why would you follow us all the way out here?”

  “Hello, honey,” came a voice from behind the major. “Miss me?” Ms. Roberts stepped out from behind the musclebound goon.

  Color drained from Darla’s face. “What in the actual crap is happening right now?”

  “Playtime’s over,” Ms. Roberts said. “You’re all coming with us.”

  “Why should we?” Brad asked.

  Major North chuckled, as if it were a crazy question. “Because those who have the weapons make the rules.” The major turned suddenly, the muzzle of his grenade launcher following and landing on Nestor and JJ who’d just wandered back from wherever they’d snuck off to. “You two, over there with the rest. Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

  “We aren’t with them,” JJ said.

  “You are now,” answered the major.

  Carter pushed past Marcus and Brad, his chin high and chest out. “If anyone’s to be punished, ‘tis I, Captain Lackbeard. My crew won’t take the lashings meant for my back.”

  “You’re a stand-up kid,” the major said. “You take your responsibilities seriously. Take care of your crew. I respect that. You’re also in serious need of a psych eval, but that’s beyond the point.” He aimed his grenade launcher at Carter. “Are you truly ready to accept the burden of leadership?”

  Carter shut his eyes tight, but still held his chin high. “Aye.”

  A metal click sounded. Removing the safety probably. Several clicks. What could that be?

  Carter opened his eyes to see a fishing line being cast from somewhere in the jungle. As soon as it wrapped around the major’s gun, it yanked backwards. The gun popped out of the major’s hands and landed with a thud on the ground.

  Before anyone could react, the line was cast again. This time, it wrapped around Ms. Roberts’s gun and yanked it from her hands.

  All were dumbfounded except Walter, who strutted out of the jungle like a peacock, shining his knuckles on his chest. “I still got it.”

  “You crazy old geezer,” Ms. Roberts yelled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving these kids.”

  “From what?” Ms. Roberts was about to march over and deck the old man.

  “From us,” Nestor said. “Well, he tried, anyway.”

  All eyes shifted to the pirates. They cradled the grenade launchers in their arms like cute little babies capable of wanton destruction.

  “Exactly,” Walter said. “Now, who are you guys, exactly?”

  Nestor ignored him. He ignored everyone except Carter. “You and me got unfinished business.”

  “I thought we’d put that behind us,” Carter said.

  “You thought wrong.”

  The next few seconds were a blur of shock and awe and pain. Carter remembered the sound like fireworks shooting off, before they exploded in the sky—that hollow pop. Then Brad appeared in front of him. He was floating, suspended in midair. Until the beanbag fired from the pirate’s gun hit him in the chest. The wicked force of it knocked Brad backwards.

  He collided with Carter.

  Carter fell back. He planted his foot to catch himself. At least, he would have…if there’d been any ground behind him to stand on.

  His back foot went over the edge of the cliff, and the rest of his body followed.

  23

  Carter’s mother—Eileen was her name—he’d seen her only in a few pictures, the ones Brad kept sewn into the lining of his jacket. Brad looked like her. Carter might have, too, but it’s hard to look at yourself and realize who you look like. People had commented that Carter looked like Brad, so maybe he did look like her.

  He liked to think that he was like her. That his pirate soul had come from her. He didn’t remember her beyond some hazy recollections, some echoes of her presence at the museum that one time. But he thought he had a sense of her.

  She was a wild girl when she was a child. Other girls didn’t want to play with her because she played boys’ games. Boys didn’t want to play with her because she played boys’ games better than they did. So she played alone. But that didn’t bother her. Because she had an infinite number of worlds to play in. She created a new one every day, filled with people and creatures that were happy to see her. Unless they were villains, of course, and then they ran at the sight of her.

  But she wasn’t the hero of these worlds. She didn’t give herself a cape and sa
ve the day. She would, obviously, if the opportunity presented itself, but that wasn’t her purpose. Adventure was her purpose. Adventure that brought her outside of the rules. Outside of the role little girls were meant to play. And that scared people.

  When people are scared of you, they push you away.

  So, maybe she was lonely sometimes, but she wasn’t sad.

  Because she had a pirate’s soul.

  Carter saw her has he fell. She looked like she did in her pictures, but she was…more. He couldn’t explain it. It seemed like his memory of her had stepped out of his head and wrapped itself around the shell of a real person. Like she became real. Flesh and blood.

  She leaned over, put her face so close to his, close enough that he could see the waves in her eyes. “Never give up. Never surrender. Never stop being who you are.” Her words took hold of him. Her hair wrapped around him.

  And then she was gone.

  For half a second, Carter felt like he was weightless. But as he woke up and realized where he was, his heart kicked into overdrive. Every muscle fiber in his body tightened, and he felt like the heaviest thing in the world.

  He was tangled in a nest of vines that snaked out from the edge of the cliff. They wrapped around his waist and legs, dangling him upside down. He stared straight down at the rocky, churning sea, and it stared back at him.

  He tried to study it, to find out exactly which vine was holding him up, to find a way to climb out, but he was too scared to move.

  He heard yelling from above. Screams, angry shouting.

  They didn’t know he was there. They thought he was gone.

  He needed to let them know he was still alive. At least, he was for the moment. “Help!” he yelled as loud as he thought he could without shaking loose from the tangle. But it wasn’t loud enough. His plea just dropped into the foam down below.

  He took a deep breath, held it, and then let out a quick burst of noise. Then he waited.

  The yelling up above stopped.

  And then, “Did you hear that?” It sounded like Louis.