“Dew-dew,” croaked Slurpy Jones, then tumbled limp and silent to the ground.
Quick as a lizard, Jethro tore at Matthews, axe raised.
Matthews dropped the discharged pistol and whipped a second from his belt. Jethro braced himself for the shot. It might kill him, but he’d be damn sure he’d close the gap and finish Matthews before he died.
No shot came. Matthews hadn’t fired. Instead, he put the barrel to Gracie’s temple.
In an instant, Jethro was a statue.
“I reckon a man who loves his daughter might want to drop his weapons.”
Jethro tossed axe and pin onto the ground. He growled at Matthews, a hoarse, low sound made of pure hate.
“I reckon,” Matthews said. “A man who loved his daughter would tell his old pals where his famous treasure might be.”
Jethro felt sick. He forced his words through dry throat and tight lips. “You already have my Treasure, Matthews.”
Matthews narrowed his eyes. “You buried it here? You’re a bigger fool than I thought, Jethro.”
“No, Matthews. You have my Treasure.” Jethro stared at Gracie.
Matthews’ brow crumpled like a ship’s prow hitting rocks. “Don’t play me false, Jethro. If you’re gambling on me not harming this here poppet.” He poked the girl with his pistol. “Then you’re making a bad bet.”
“It’s true Matthews. She is my Treasure. It was my sweetheart name for her mother. When I swore I’d come back to Freeport for my Treasure it was my daughter I spoke of.”
“A good jest, Jethro now tell the truth or she dies.”
A single tear traced its way down Jethro’s weatherworn cheek. Matthews’ gaze followed it. His face turned white, a thin-lipped rage overtook him. His eyes twitched and bulged as he struggled with the truth.
“Then you’re no use to me.” Matthews aimed his pistol at Jethro. “Know this before you die, yer precious Treasure shall be mine forever. Think on that while you dangle on the Devil’s yardarm.”
“I think, Monsieur, it is you who shall be damned.” Frenchie emerged from the tree-line, Matthews fixed in his sights.
“My patience has run aground. Don’t vex me, Frenchie.”
“My name—” began Frenchie and Jethro winced, but Frenchie just shrugged. “It matters not. I, monsieur, was ze finest marksman in all Napoleon’s Imperial Navy.”
Matthews sneered but did not shoot.
“Now,” Frenchie said. “Lower your pistol. I have, as you British say, ze drop on you.”
Grimm pointed his flintlock at Frenchie’s stomach. “Not if I gut-shot you first.”
Palm leaves rustled, silk ripped. Imelda burst into the open, hair dishevelled, face dirty, dress shredded, both dueling pistols aimed at Grimm. “And you won’t be gut-shooting anyone if I put two shots in your eye.” She said.
Grimm glared balefully at her, but did not move. His man, Jacky Boy drew his own pistol and pointed it at Imelda. “And you darling,” he said, “won’t be the first whore I killed, nor the last.” But his leer disappeared when Imelda shifted one of her pistols from Grimm and aimed it at his groin.
There was silence. Nobody moved. Nobody, it seemed, dared even breathe.
“Pirate stand off,” Imelda said. “Bet you wish you hadn’t shot old Slurpy Jones now, don’t you.”
The humour was lost on Matthews. He glared at Imelda, but kept his pistol on Jethro.
“Well, looks like we’re gonna be here for a time,” Grimm said to Jethro. “Unless Piss-Pike’s gonna come running from the trees with yer blunderbuss in his thieving hands.”
A shadow, like a bird in flight, arced overhead. They all looked up to see a coconut flying towards Grimm in a lazy looping trajectory.
Grimm squinted up at it with his one good eye. “How far away is that coconut?” he asked, before it bounced off his head with a pronounced ‘clacking’ sound.
Chaos ensued.
Grimm staggered back, jerked his trigger. His wild shot caught Frenchie in the shoulder.
Frenchie swung his musket from Matthews and shot Grimm.
Imelda shrieked, fired, missed, cursed.
Matthews fired at Jethro, but he dived, hit the ground hard.
Jacky Boy pulled his trigger. The lock clicked. Nothing happened. Imelda fired back. Missed. He leered at her, drew his knife.
Piss-Pike ran from the tree-line, a coconut held above his head. He hurled it forward. It smashed into Jacky Boy’s jaw. The pirate staggered sideways and fell from the cliff with a single short scream.
Matthews whipped out his cutlass. Gracie darted out from under his hook and teetered at the cliff’s edge. Jethro threw his belaying pin, but Matthews swatted it aside with his cutlass.
Jethro charged. But too late. Matthews swiped his cutlass at Gracie who leapt away. The soft soil crumbled under her feet. She dropped out of sight.
Only to be followed by Piss-Pike who leapt after her. Imelda dived after him, snatched, caught his ankle. The weight dragged her down onto her belly where she hung half on the cliff, half over the precipice.
Rooted to the spot, Jethro’s heart beat like a ragged volley of cannon fire. Over the sound of the waves came Piss-Pike’s voice, faint and jagged with fear, “I’ve got her, I’ve got her. Pull me up!”
Full of fury, Matthews swung his cutlass at Imelda’s back, but Frenchie was there. His musket blocked the cutlass stroke with a loud clang. Deftly, he disarmed Matthews of his cutlass. A wiley fighter, Matthews stepped in past the bayonet to close quarters. Before Frenchie could reach for his Naval dirk, he was on him and drove his hook into Frenchie’s wounded shoulder. The colour drained from Frenchie and he flopped onto Imelda. She squealed and inched further over the cliff.
“Up! Up!” Piss-Pike screamed. “Not down!”
Jethro swung his axe at Matthews, but the pirate caught his wrist and swung his hook in a nasty upward arc. Jethro grappled him and held the hook away. As they wrestled face to face, Jethro was aware that, inch by inch, Imelda slipped from the cliff.
“I knew it would be just us two in the end, Jethro lad,” Matthews said. With a final cackle he tried to dance them over the cliff.
“Wrong, just me and my Treasure.” With the savage desperation of a parent defending a child, he smashed his head into Matthews’ face. There was an audible crack. Matthews’ nose erupted in a crimson spray. He fell back, swung at Jethro with his hook, but Jethro put his palm to his chest and shoved.
Without even pause to watch Matthews fall, Jethro dived and grabbed at Imelda’s legs as she disappeared over the side. Hands steady, heart frantic, he dragged all three of them back from the drop, onto the safety of solid earth.
For a second they all lay there, joined by white knuckled grips, a bizarre human ladder, then, as if by consent, they separated.
Jethro scooped his daughter into his arms, held her close, planted kisses on her forehead. Owlish eyes blinked twice at him, then she wriggled free of his embrace, toddled over to her doll, plonked herself down, picked it up and snuggled it close. “That’s papa,” she told the doll and looked at Jethro uncertainly.
“Merde,” Frenchie said. He sat up. “Frenchie has been how you say shot, oui?” He looked at his shoulder, turned impossibly pale, and lay down again.
Piss-Pike’s stomach growled. On legs that wobbled like a lubber’s in a storm, he staggered over to a discarded pistol, snatched it up and smashed its handle down on one of his coconuts. When it cracked open he slurped down the milk then gnawed at the coconut flesh.
Imelda surveyed the silken wreckage that used to be her frock. “You owe me a new dress.”
“I owe you so much more. All of you,” Jethro said, his gaze fixed firmly on Gracie.
They sat there in silence. Waves and wind sloshed and whooshed, the only sounds on Dead Man’s Drop.
“Help me, Jethro. Help yer old mate.” The voice, just audible, belonged to Matthews. There was no doubting it. Jethro saw the glint of sunlight on his hook. It was embedded i
n the cliff’s edge. He picked up his axe and strode toward the cliff.
When he peered over the edge, there dangling by his hook, sea and rocks below him, was Matthews.
“Help yer old pal, Jethro. Help us up.” Even as the man wheedled and begged for his life, Jethro saw his free hand reach into his jacket. Grubby fingers grasped the handle of a pistol. “Help old Matty up, lad.”
Jethro’s axe rose and fell in one fast flick. There was a soft ‘thunk’ followed by a shriek of pain that ended as quick as it started. Then nothing. Just wind, waves, and silence.
Sunlight glinted off the hook dug into the cliff-top.
“That,” Jethro said. “be a fair cut.”
The End
Cap'n Jethro Page 3
