IVORY DAWN (The Razor's Adventures)
Read IVORY DAWN (The Razor's Adventures) Online
Authors: P.S. Bartlett
IVORY DAWN
The Razor’s Adventures
A Novella
P.S. BARTLETT
IVORY DAWN
By
P.S. Bartlett
Copyright © P.S. Bartlett 2015
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
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Printed in the U.S.A.
Part One
“We don’t have anything of value but ourselves,” Miranda said from the porch, as she tapped lightly on the front door to alert our attention and then ducked down behind the railing.
“Miranda, what’s going on?” Cass asked as she opened the front door. She looked toward the sunset and saw six male silhouettes coming from the direction of the river, each carrying a blade of some sort. Their faces weren’t visible, but she could plainly see that they all were intent on some ravenous and bloody mayhem.
“Get back inside and put out the lanterns and candles. And for God’s sakes, that blunderbuss better be loaded!” Miranda ordered.
Cass drew up her skirt and ran back into the house, gathering up anything they could use in defense. After the Spanish raid, knowing how vulnerable they were away from the peninsula which was fortified and protected from such invasions, they’d made sure to arm themselves as well. Keara flew into the front room from the kitchen with a wooden box and flipped open the lid, exposing half a dozen blades. They reached in, took two each, and barricaded the front door with a heavy sideboard.
It was the golden age of piracy in the world, and Charles Towne was not immune to their brutal pillaging, among other horrors. However, knowing the dangers that four young women alone could inevitably face, they’d painstakingly prepared themselves, and weren’t about to go down without a fight. On this evening, just before twilight, their fates were sealed.
“Where’s Ivory?” Miranda gasped, looking over at her cousins at the ready, one crouched at each window.
“Dammit to hell! She went down to the river for water for the chickens about a half hour ago,” Keara whispered. “She’s still out there—alone.”
“Wait, her razor wasn’t in the box. She must have it with her,” Cass said, never taking her eyes from the window.
“Of course she does. She never leaves the house without it,” Keara commented, and then hushed the girls and slid the blunderbuss through the open window, resting it on the ledge.
The pirates were loud and howling like wolves, causing the girls to tremble and eye each other with terror. Keara nearly dropped the gun and then took a deep breath, turning the barrel in the direction of the approaching men. Cass held her pistol at her side, and as the hoots and howls drew nearer, she heard the picket gate kick open. She stood with her back against the wall next to the front door and slowly raised the heavy weapon until it was level with her own head, pointing it straight at the door.
“We know yer in there! We seen the light all the way from the riverbank!”
The girls held their breath and not a muscle or strand of hair strayed from its frozen place. Cass glanced to her right at Keara and mouthed to her, “Don’t shoot until I say so.”
They listened as the weighty boots pounded the porch boards, and once Cass was satisfied that all of the men were now upon them, she motioned to Keara to fire. The screams of the pirates were more terrifying and deafening than their howls as they were splattered with tacks, nails, broken glass and any other sharp object that Keara could cram into that barrel. Cass joined her with the pistol, firing into the night.
“You got ‘em,” Miranda whispered. She drew aside the curtain and was peeking out to see the damage done, when a thick, bloody arm reached in, snatched her by her hair, and pulled her out of the window.
Keara was lying on her back on the floor, having been slammed in the shoulder by the kick back of the gun. She rolled back and forth, holding her arm, when Cass rushed over, grabbing her under her arms and yanking her to her feet, “Get up! One of ‘em has Miranda!”
Cass pushed the sideboard over to open the front door, finding four of the men, either dead or dying, at her doorstep. It was nearly dark, and she stopped for a moment to allow her eyes to adjust. She had just raised the pistol and stepped to her right, when she heard her cousin’s screams coming from the side of the house. She leapt over the bloody body of the dying pirate before her and raced down the steps.
“Keara, watch them!” she shouted. In the darkness, she came upon Miranda, with that same bloody arm pulled tightly around her neck and a dirk pointed at her side. The man was enormous and stood at least a foot over Miranda’s head. His arm looked like the low, thick branch of a tree covered in sap in the now risen moonlight.
“Cass, stop…he’ll kill me.”
“Not before I splatter his tiny brains all over the yard, he won’t.”
A moment later, the tree branch fell as if struck by lightning, and Miranda ran towards Cass shouting, “Shoot him! Shoot him now!” But when Cass raised the pistol to fire, the man already lay on his back on the ground. Bent over his slit throat was Ivory, wiping her razor on his shirt.
“Is everyone accounted for?” she asked as she stood and folded the razor in her hand.
“Wait, weren’t there six of them?” Keara asked, looking in every direction. “Let’s get back in the house and figure out what to do.”
“I saw Mister Six take off for the riverbank. From the looks of him, he was hit, but obviously not as bad off as this bunch,” Ivory stated upon seeing the rest of the damage littering the front porch. “Cass, help me with these bodies.”
“Ivory, I think it’s best if we regroup inside and put together some sort of plan.”
“A plan, Cass? How do you plan on explaining to the next wave of pirates how their mates ended up dead on our property?”
“We stood our ground tonight, and we’ll keep standing our ground until…”
“Until when? The Carolinas run out of pirates?”
Cass stood silent for a few moments, as Keara and Miranda looked on in the darkness, and then said, “What say you two? Should we call a vote or something?”
“Vote all you want. I’m dragging these bastards to the river, rowing them out to the current, weighing them down, and letting them go.” Ivory had grown into a hard-headed, strong-willed young woman, and her survival instinct probably outweighed every other instinct she had.
“Well, I guess that’s settled then,” Cass said as she brushed her hands together. “Miranda, go to the shed and get the rope. Keara, grab an arm.” Cass realized Ivory was right. This wasn’t about how much corn to plant or how to keep foxes out of the henhouse. These were dead pirates, and sooner or later someone was going to come looking for them.
“It’s a shame. This one was very handsome,” Miranda commented nudging one of the men with her boot.
One by one, they dragged the blood-stained and lifeless bodies of the men down to the river bank and tied their legs together at the ankles. Ivory and Cass climbed into the rowboat and pulled them along through the water. They weighed them down with the heaviest rocks they could find, and then they cut them loose. The water was black and murky from the previous day’s rain, which helped shroud the bodies and relieved some of the angst of their deed. The bodies disappeared quickly below the surface and were soon out of sight.
There were about two hours left of night when they’d finally completed their task. They bathed themselves in the river and huddled together around a small fire in the parlor, drying and warming their ice cold stares. “Someone please say something before I vomit,” Keara whispered, shivering beneath her blanket.
“We had no choice. They gave us…no choice,” Cass answered, putting her arm around Keara’s shoulder.
“I pulled the trigger. I murdered those men,” Keara murmured, pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping the blanket around them.
“We both pulled triggers,” Cass shot back at her.
“But we’ve never killed anyone before,” Miranda said, leaning over on Cass’s other shoulder—the flame dancing in her eyes.
There was no sound but for the crackling fire for several moments, when Ivory rose to her feet and dropped her blanket. She stood there in her bloomers and bodice looking down into the fireplace, her white undergarments glowing orange as the light and shadows from the flames danced over her. Then, she walked into the kitchen and pulled an unopened bottle of rum from the cabinet. She took four glasses and lined them up on the table, filling each one about a half an inch deep, and called them all to join her. Once assembled, they each picked up a glass and raised it into the air. Just as they were about to tap the glasses together, Cass finally spoke, “I have.”
“Have what?” Miranda asked.
“Killed.”
“Who? Wh…when?” Keara sputtered.
“It doesn’t matter. That’s behind us now. I’m sorry I told you. Now, drink.”
Both Miranda and Keara stared at their cousin, while Ivory’s eyes wandered into the darkness.