Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (32 page)

Boisterous laughter exploded from the six mutineers. Two of them fired their flintlocks into the air and waggled their empty pistols at their prisoners. One of them danced a drunken jig, and another toppled facedown in the sand.

“And plenty of rum.”

CHAPTER XVI

It had not been the best of days for Onofre Sanchez. In truth, his future looked as bleak as the night-shrouded sky. The beach was black and forbidding and a chill wind blew off the Atlantic. Sanchez strained at his bonds and lamented his dismal predicament. A quarrel with Crow Johnny. Outright mutiny. The ignominy of being trussed like a lamb waiting for slaughter. And worst of all, the supreme indignity: Crow Johnny had stolen the hat and crimson feather of Onofre Sanchez.

“I should never have listened to you,” LaFrocque said. A small, wiry Frenchman, Gabriel LaFrocque had stood by his captain and now sat beside him, a prisoner.

“And I shouldn't have,” said Ruiz, a portly olive-skinned Spaniard from Barcelona who served—who
had
served—as surgeon and cook. “‘Take arms with me,'” he continued, mimicking Sanchez. “‘Crow Johnny is a misbegotten dog with no following.'”

“But who now wears your hat,” LaFrocque added unkindly.

Sanchez glared in response, and said nothing.

“‘But who now wears your hat,'” Crow Johnny echoed. The new self-appointed captain squatted in front of Sanchez, who pretended not to see him. Crow Johnny took off the hat and tickled Sanchez's foot. “That is what the first crab will feel like, no, Señor Sanchez? They tickle before they bite, but I think you will not laugh.” He cackled and replaced the hat on his head. “But that is not my problem, eh? Soon the others will return with water and fruit and maybe a little fresh game. Then, a nice supper, a drink or two, and it's off to see if your friend Walsh can be persuaded to let us come aboard.” Crow Johnny smiled, but the word
persuaded
carried an ominous tone.

“Too bad about Walsh,” a new voice broke in as a weasel-faced, emaciated man named Lupe stumbled away from the campfire. “A nice boy. At least he'll die fast. Not like some, right, LaFrocque?”

Not wishing to attract any more attention than necessary, the Frenchman lowered his eyes.

“Yes,
sir
!” Lupe screamed. “Say it to me, you slime!”

LaFrocque mumbled something unintelligible.

Lupe backhanded LaFrocque across the face. “Say it, you miserable scum, just like you said it to
him
when he told you to tie me to the mast.”

Blood oozed from the corner of LaFrocque's mouth. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

“So you could take the cat to me,” Lupe slurred, turning to Sanchez. “You liked that, didn't you, Sanchez?”

“You raped the girl in Martinique,” Sanchez said quietly.

“And for that you peeled my back like a piece of fruit?”

“She was only a child. A whipping was a mercy. I should have cut off your ears. Or something else!”

Lupe pulled his knife, then stopped as the alcoholic fog rolled back far enough for him to remember the treat he'd prepared for Sanchez. “And I should cut out your eyes,” he said, shoving the knife back in its sheath, “but I won't. Instead, I've brought you something to drink—so you'll live longer and have a day more in which to remember what you did to Lupe.”

Squatting, he uncorked the bottle he carried and tilted it to Sanchez's lips. Sanchez smelled the mouth of the bottle and jerked his head sideways at the last moment, then gritted his teeth as the warm liquid poured down his chest and soaked his breeches.

“
Sacrebleu!
” LaFrocque snorted, recognizing the stench of urine.

“I warned you,” Ruiz said as Lupe, choking with laughter, staggered back to the campfire. “‘Trouble is coming,' I said. ‘The men are unhappy. We should take that ship.' Are we not raiders? And Lupe—what of him? Girls have been taken before, and that one was no exception.”

“The girl was too young,” Sanchez snarled. “And he cut her. And the ship was British.”

“She wasn't too young, and she had been cut before,” Ruiz said. “You took the cat to Lupe for what I have seen you do yourself.”

“Shut up, Ruiz,” LaFrocque growled. “Your advice is of no help to us now.”

“Maybe mine will be,” a voice whispered from the shadows behind the prisoners. “Be quiet and pretend nothing is happening.”

A moth fluttered out of the firelight to dash itself against Sanchez's nose. The pirate captain snorted at the insect as it darted away.
God in heaven, I am hearing insects speak!
he thought mournfully, and then stiffened as the point of a knife scratched his back and the blade began to saw at the rope securing his hands.

Sanchez cast a wide shadow, but not so large that he could move about without Tom being discovered. “Be quiet!” Tom ordered in a harsh whisper. “Don't look!”

As if sensing something, Crow Johnny turned from the fire.

Sanchez smiled beatifically. “He's looking this way,” he whispered without moving his lips, and then, a moment later, “Safe.”

“What's that?” a voice at the fire asked.

“You're too damned drunk to see,” Lupe said, shoving the other man over with a hand to his face. He lurched out of the firelight and squinted down the beach.

“What is it?” Crow Johnny asked. He booted one of his companions. “Wake up, Cipriano. On your feet. Damn it, Lupe, what do you see?”

“I don't know. Maybe they come back. It's time.”

Cipriano, a razor-thin brown man with a stubbled, scarred face that looked as if it had never known a mother's love, propped himself up on his cutlass. “Maybe it's Caribs.” He chuckled. “They smell Sanchez and come to put him in a cook pot. Or maybe wild dogs,” he added, that idea so appealing that he bayed comically and, sniffing like a dog, followed an imaginary scent toward the prisoners.

“That you, Pelter?” Crow Johnny called. “You bring back plenty of fruits like I told you?”

The darkness offered no response.

Tom worked his knife under the last length of rope and peeked past Sanchez's elbow at Cipriano. Drunk and playing the fool, the pirate whined and scratched the sand and sniffed. “They'll like you, Captain. Oh, yes. Put you in a pot and boil all that fat away and …”

The rope parted.

“… all that'll be left is a big chunk …”

Tom placed the knife in Sanchez's fist.

“… of nice pink meat.” Cipriano bent over and leaned on the basket hilt of his cutlass. “Captain Long Pig.” He laughed. “Do you hear, Crow Johnny? A new name for him. Captain Long Pig!”

In a single swift motion, Sanchez grabbed Cipriano by the hair and thrust the knife completely through his throat, then quickly into his heart.

Cipriano gurgled once, then dropped silently to the ground. His death might have passed unnoticed had not Sanchez risen from the ground and, roaring loud enough to wake the dead, pulled Cipriano's cutlass from the sand and charged straight for Crow Johnny. “My hat, you scum-fed whelp of a Barbary she-bitch, fathered by the cream of a hundred lepers!” he howled. “I'll have my hat!”

“Damn,” Tom cursed, their surprise attack obviously thwarted. “Maurice! Topaz! Slurry!” Rapier in hand, he rolled to his feet and yelled to attract the attention of Lupe, who turned, wide-eyed with surprise. The other three mutineers roused themselves from a rum-induced stupor to claw for their weapons.

Crow Johnny grabbed for the pistol at his waist, but the revolver caught in the material of his coat and then snagged on a button. And for a button, he lost his head. Sanchez, with one terrible swipe of Cipriano's cutlass, retrieved his black hat and crimson feather in a most gruesome manner.

Tom moved swiftly. He knocked aside one man, pummeled a second with his rapier's silver guard, then leaped the campfire to parry the thrust Lupe had started toward Sanchez's back. The rapier's thin steel rang on the heavier cutlass blade and knocked it aside. Lupe turned, switched opponents, and slashed twice—missing both times—before Tom could check his momentum. Remembering his father's advice that any two fools could bang blades together, Tom dropped the tip of his rapier to draw a thrust and lunge. Lupe took the bait and, in the soft sand, threw himself off balance by the lack of resistance. It was all the advantage Tom needed. Almost casually, he stepped outside Lupe's thrust, lunged over his extended arm, and sank his rapier into the pirate's chest.

“Who are you?” Lupe gasped, his visage contorted with pain and his cutlass sliding from his grasp.

“The man who killed you,” Tom said simply, pulling the rapier free.

The other three pirates, unable to decide whether to attack or defend themselves, broke and ran when Maurice, Topaz, and Slurry came barreling into the light. “What took you so long?” Tom asked.

“Why'd you start so soon?” Maurice retorted.

“Hey, little rabbits!” Sanchez bellowed. “Run, my little
conejos
!” Glowing, he turned to his benefactors, bowed low with a sweeping gesture, and placed his feathered hat on his head. “My friends!”

“Oh, my God,” Slurry muttered, recognizing the pirate captain for the first time. A glance told him that Tom was ignorant of Sanchez's identity.

“You have made a friend for life of—”

“We better get outa here,” Slurry shouted, eliciting a glare of annoyance from Sanchez. “Them others is bound to be back before long.”

A flurry of musket fire confirmed his prediction. Blossoms of gunfire bloomed on the edge of the jungled hillside to their right and gouts of sand erupted around the campfire.

“To the boats!” Sanchez yelled.

“Wait!” LaFrocque screamed, still bound. “Don't leave us.
Mon Dieu
, we will be killed!”

Topaz reached them first, sliced through their bonds, and helped them to their feet.

Tom sheathed his rapier, took a pair of flaming brands from the fire. “Grab a couple jugs of that rum and let's get!” he shouted to Maurice.

The musket fire was coming closer. Scrambling, ducking, everyone ran for the two boats pulled up on the beach. Tom and Maurice had worked and fought together too long to need to resort to words. “Take that one into the water,” Tom ordered the others as Maurice splashed rum over the interior of the second boat.

As the first boat slid farther into the water, Tom fired the second. Knees high, he and Maurice splashed through the water and dived into the first boat, now pulling away from the beach.

“Row, you slackards!” Sanchez bellowed. “We aren't free yet.”

Five minutes later, a hundred and fifty yards off the beach, they rowed behind the
Red Dog Song
. “Walsh!” Sanchez called.

“That you, Captain?”

“Aye, lad, so hold your fire. I've settled accounts with Crow Johnny. Light a light. We're coming aboard.”

Lines snaked down to them as the small boat scraped the hull of its mother ship. Tom reached for one, but LaFrocque stopped him. “Pardon,
mon ami
, but the first face Walsh sees better be one he knows. You understand?”

A tow-haired young man, not much more than a boy, helped LaFrocque over the side. Last to board, Sanchez embraced the youth with a bear hug, admiringly held him at arm's length. “How'd you do it, lad?”

“Played dead,” Walsh said with a shrug. He touched a huge knot and bruise on his forehead. “It wasn't hard to do at first, and then when Gustav wasn't watching, I hit him over the head with a full water keg.”

“Magnificent!” Sanchez roared with delight. “A water keg. What a weapon!” He bent and picked up the dead Gustav in his arms, then balanced the body on the rail between boat and burial. “You hear that, boys?” he shouted into the darkness. “Done in by a wounded lad. Gustav was no better than you or Crow Johnny. Listen carefully, boys. Maybe you'll hear his corpse hit the water. Maybe you'll hear the sharks tear him to pieces, eh?”

Ruiz sighed in satisfaction as Gustav's body hit the water. “He never did like my cooking,” he said, evidently pleased that such a heinous crime had at last resulted in an appropriate punishment.

Tom scowled. “Where we come from, we say words over a dead man no matter what he did.”

“We're not where you come from,” Sanchez retorted. He swaggered to the middle of the deck, his face bronze in the lantern light, then stared up at the furled sails as a particularly large swell rocked the ship. “By heaven, the
Red Dog Song
is mine again! I have dared the fates and won. Aye, and rid myself of a mean and cowardly crew. And you, my friends, will not go unrewarded,” he added, turning to the four men who had saved his life. “And what reward, you wonder? Aye, and well you should. This day, you have won the undying gratitude of Captain Onofre Sanchez, scourge of the—”

“Oh, shit,” Slurry mumbled, ducking for cover.

“You!” Tom roared, the name striking him like a thunderbolt. With a roar of hatred and fury unleashed, he leaped forward. Before Sanchez could even realize he was being attacked, Tom staggered him with two vicious blows to the face. Sanchez tried to back away, but tripped over a coiled line and fell over backward. “You bastard!” Tom roared, landing on Sanchez's chest and throttling him. “It's you, by blessed fate. You!”

LaFrocque and Ruiz started to go to the aid of Sanchez, but, unarmed and weakened by their ordeal, they stopped at the sight of Maurice and Topaz's knives. “Stand and live; take a step and die,” Maurice said. “Keep track of the boy, Slurry. Tom, wait!”

Sanchez's face was contorted in pain and his eyes bulged with fear as he tried to pry Tom's hands from his throat.

Maurice knelt facing Tom, grabbed his wrists, and gradually pulled his hands from Sanchez's throat. “Wait,” he repeated gently. “You can kill him later, but not now.”