Voyage of Plunder (11 page)

I turned and ran, I don't know where.

It seemed I ran forever, my lungs burning, my feet cut, stumbling, when I finally burst out of the jungle into the clearing. The lantern still sat on the veranda. Footprints and blood marred the sand. Blood turned black.

I stood for a moment, panting, dazed, then wiped my cutlass on my breeches, sheathed it, and crossed the clearing to the hut. Inside, I stuffed my belongings into my hammock, untied my hammock from its pegs, and rolled it into a bundle. I glanced around quickly and stepped back out onto the veranda.

There beside the pit, blocking the jungle trail, stood Fist. His left arm dangled limply. Blood soaked the sleeve, and I saw a gleam of bone through the gash in his clothing. In his good hand, he gripped his cutlass. And while I stood there, knowing my life was over, he grinned, his teeth glinting gold in the lantern light.

dropped my bundle and drew my cutlass.

It felt like hours, but it took only seconds for me to charge across the clearing. I realized my mouth was open and I was screaming. Wild-sounding, like a savage.

His eyes blazed as our cutlasses collided. He drew back his cutlass and slashed at me. I parried, thrust, and tried to whirl out of the way as his cutlass sliced my ear. Blood seeped down my neck.

Our blades crashed together again, me still screaming, screaming …

Then we were apart, circling, panting.

“Why don't you put down your cutlass, my lad?” Fist was saying. “No reason we can't share the treasure, is there? We'll be
friends. Why shed more blood? It makes such a mess. It's already soiled your fine shirt.”

“I've seen how you treat your friends, you devil.”

“Have you now? Well, my hearty, that's good to know.” Fast as lightning, Fist struck a blow that sent me sprawling, my cutlass flying out of my grasp.

And in the split second before he stabbed me, while the murderous light shone from his eyes, I drew my pistol, cocked it, and fired.

In a blast of smoke, Fist flew back and disappeared into the pit.

I crawled to the edge and peered over, half expecting Fist to stab me in the throat. But he lay on his back, eyes closed, his cutlass fallen from his hand. A circle of blood spread on the belly of his tunic. The air stank of blood, feces, and body odor.

It's over. My God, it's over.

I lay back and closed my eyes, tears coursing down the sides of my face into my hair, muscles quivering like jelly. I sobbed a long time, hardly believing that I had drawn my cutlass and charged Fist, hardly believing that I had crossed swords with a pirate captain and won. Of course, I'd had to win by using my pistol, but where was Fist's honor when he'd blasted his two friends into hell?
It may not have been the most honorable thing to do,
I thought,
but I am alive.

Finally, satisfied that I'd had no other choice, not if I wished to live, I dragged myself to my feet and gathered my things from the veranda. I was halfway down the trail, lantern and bundle in hand, when it occurred to me. Like a match struck, flame to tinder.

The treasure …

I stood motionless, thoughts tumbling over one another in a heartbeat.

It's mine now. No one else knows it is here.

But it is stained with blood.

Yet to leave it here is a waste, a shameful waste.

But if you take it, you must share it with your shipmates.

Why? They will squander the treasure and use it for wicked purposes.

But you have taken an oath.

An oath to share equally in any prize captured by the men of the
Tempest Galley.
But they did not capture the prize. I did.…

I crept back to the pit, for some reason moving stealthily, as if someone could hear me, as if someone was watching. Setting down my lantern and bundle, I drew my dagger and peered in. I let out my breath, not realizing I'd been holding it. All was as before. Three bodies, stacked one atop the other, arms and legs tangled. The treasure chest lay half hidden under Fist's thigh. It would be simple enough to remove the treasure and bury it elsewhere. I did not relish the thought of rotting bodies being its guardians.

I climbed into the pit, standing on a knee, a shin, my skin crawling. I pushed Fist's thigh aside and tugged on the treasure chest. It was heavier than I'd believed. I tugged again. It moved an inch. Sweat broke out, and I stifled the urge to grab my things and dash pell-mell back to the
Tempest Galley.

Instead, I reached out of the pit and emptied my canvas hammock, spreading it flat. I next slipped the key from around Fist's hairy neck, every nerve set afire when his head fell back and his tongue lolled out with a gurgly bubble of blood.
Gas,
I told myself, heart skittering like a rabbit's.
Just the expiration of death. Nothing more.

Hurrying, hands shaking, I unlocked the chest and began scooping great mounds onto my hammock. I emptied the chest and climbed out of the pit.

It took me an hour to bury the treasure, to drag it plus a shovel, plus a lantern, through the jungle. To dig and dig, to stop and tie up my bleeding ear, to dig and dig. I buried the treasure deep, secure once again inside the chest.

Before I left, I paused to memorize my surroundings—each tree, each root, each branch, the way the vines tangled. Tomorrow I would return and draw a map so that I wouldn't forget. By this time, the sky to the east was beginning to lighten. On the way back to the clearing, I memorized my route, carving a notch in a tree trunk every now and then to mark my way.

There was one last thing I needed to do before I could return to the ship.

I had to cover the bodies.

If anyone discovered them, I would have a hard time explaining myself. I'd have a hard enough time as it was, what with my ear sliced, blood covering me, and my feet torn to shreds. Surely there would be a hunt for the missing pirates, wouldn't there?

I stepped back into the clearing for what I hoped would be the last time.

And when I looked into the pit, my blood froze. Where before there had been three bodies, now there were only two.

Fist was gone.

I whirled, dagger in hand. Trees and shadows loomed around the edges of the clearing. Each palm leaf a cutlass. Each vine an arm. Each droplet of water an eye. Already I could feel the blade of a cutlass in my back, piercing and deep.

Fist is alive!

Then I saw it. A trail of blood leading out of the pit and down the path toward the beach. Footsteps in the sand—the dragging footsteps of someone staggering. I dropped to my knees, shaking again like a lily in the wind, forcing myself to
reason. Fist was as near death as he could be without being dead. And for all he knew, I was long gone. His only chance to survive would be to return to his shipmates. For now, I believed, I was safe.

I mopped my brow and commenced work.

By the time I finished filling the grave and erasing all traces of my presence from the clearing, I was near famished and drenched with sweat. Sunlight filtered lazily through the trees. Birds twittered and squawked, flitting from tree to tree as if nothing had happened the night before. The underbrush rustled with creatures, but I had stopped jumping out of my skin at every noise, convincing myself that Fist was either stone cold dead on the trail or back aboard the
Defiance.

I knew he would say nothing of what had happened. After all, he had stolen goods from his shipmates, and the penalty for that was to have his ears and nose slit and to be marooned on a sandbar with only a bullet to put him out of his misery. Nay, he would say nothing. But as I gathered my belongings and headed down the trail, sunlight gradually growing stronger, I knew Fist would be after me. If he did not die of his wound, he would pursue me and torture me until I told him the whereabouts of his treasure.

He could yank my toenails from their roots, roast the bottoms of my feet, and still I would never tell. For once he had the treasure, my life wouldn't be worth spit. He'd slit my throat quick as gunpowder. And besides, the treasure was mine now.

Mine.

s I crawled up the side of the ship and onto the deck, Josiah stood blocking my way.

Already the sun was fierce, the air dripping with moisture. Josiah seemed unaffected by the heat and humidity, for he was fully dressed with a white shirt tucked into his breeches, a kerchief tied round his head, topped with a cocked hat trimmed with galloon. A crossbelt ran from his shoulder across his chest to his hip. Clipped to his crossbelt were three pistols.

“What happened?” he demanded, his gaze taking in my sliced ear. My shirt, both bloody and torn. My legs and feet, scratched, bitten, and swollen.

“Nothing.”

“Where were you?”

“What do you care?”

Josiah took me by the arm and steered me around lollygag-ging pirates. Some of the more industrious of the lot were mending sails or repairing rigging. Others were sleeping in whatever shade they could find, mouths open, snoring. Abe was cutting the head off a chicken. Timothy was playing dice with one of his scoundrel friends. In his cabin, Josiah gave me a drink of liquid fire—toke, he called it—brewed by the locals. Several choking, spluttering gulps later, my head was spinning and I didn't care about anything.

“What happened?” he demanded again.

“Nothing.” My voice seemed to come from somewhere else, from far away. My thoughts as well, for I suddenly realized that I could trust Josiah, that I could tell him everything that had happened to me and that he'd still protect me from Fist just as he'd protected me from the pirates when I'd twice tried to betray them. Part of me longed to tell him everything, but instead I clenched my jaw, ordering my thoughts to go away.

“Fist was shot last night. Do you know anything about that?”

The toke nearly loosened my tongue, but then I remembered the treasure. It was mine. “No.”

“I suppose you sliced off half your ear with your own cutlass?”

“Uh-huh.” The room spun. Josiah looked strange, sounded strange.

He began to wash my wound with a wet rag. I winced and pulled away before letting him continue. Next he patched up my ear with a needle and thread. I just kept drinking toke and denying everything until he finally let me go.