Voyage of Plunder

by Michele Torrey

  “It's not that simple, lad.” He lurched his way back to his cabin, and I followed.

  “What do you mean, it's not that simple? It's as simple as an order.”

  He didn't answer me right away. Instead, he withdrew four pistols from his sea chest and, after inspecting them, shoved them into his sash. Then, taking a cutlass from the chest, he thrust it into the air and slashed sideways. It was slightly curved, its hilt gleaming of gold. Seeming satisfied, he sheathed his cutlass into the scabbard that hung from his crossbelt. “Because, Daniel, my boy, a captain of the Brethren can give orders only in chase or battle. And since this is neither chase nor battle, I must instead call a meeting and a vote.”

  I was stunned. Of what use was a captain who couldn't give orders? “My father would never stand for such poppycock.”

  Upon my words, Josiah fixed me with a dark look. I forced myself to meet his gaze, wondering if he could see my eyelid twitch or my heart race.

  I realized at that moment how little I knew Josiah Black.

  They crawled out of every crevice of the ship.

  Scars ran chin to ear to mouth, severing lips and breaking teeth. There were eye patches, tattoos, wooden legs. Fine clothes—velvets, laces, brocades—mixed with tattered rags, with kerchiefs knotted about their heads, and earrings of gold. Daggers, pistols, swords, gun belts hung everywhere.

  They reeked of violence.

  If only my father had known what kind of men these were.

  “Go below, Daniel,” ordered Josiah.

  I looked at him towering above me, the top of my head no higher than his shoulder, his skin like alabaster no matter how fiercely the sun shone. “But I don't want to.”

  Josiah's voice hardened. “Go below. This is no place for a child. I shall take care of it, come what may.”

  “I am not a child.”

  Josiah sighed, exasperated. “Grow up then, if you must. But understand this, Daniel—I cannot save you from everything.” With that, he drew a pistol and fired it into the air.

  Where before there had been a stir of voices, now, except for the echo of pistol fire, there was silence. All the pirates faced Josiah, jammed in a circle around him. I smelled rum, beer, and stale sweat. I heard the sound of their breathing, the clink of their weapons. Melting into the bulwarks, away from Josiah's side, away from the circle's center, I suddenly wondered if Josiah was right. But, even as I wondered, I knew I had to stay. For Faith. For Father.

  Josiah's voice was low and soft, yet it sliced through the air like his sword. “The woman is ill. She is with child and requires attention of a womanly sort. Newport is five days’ sail—”

  “Newport!” someone exclaimed. “But we've just sailed from Newport!”

  “Five days’ sail might as well be a year's sail,” said a man with the wary look of a stray dog. “We're on the Round, Captain Black, and I don't know about anyone else, but I intend to stop for no one, sick or otherwise.”

  “Besides,” said a pirate, greasy locks hanging beneath his kerchief, “she's seen too much for her own good, if you get my meaning. Once she's safe, she'll blabber. Women can't help but blab. It's in their nature.”

  “And I, for one,” growled another, fingering the blade of his dagger, “will die before I dance the pirate's jig. There will be no hemp burn on the neck of this old buccaneer, and I'll kill anyone who tries.”

  A man pushed his way through the crowd, weapons clinking. A scar ran straight through his eyeball.

  I unwittingly took a step backward.

  “I say we cut her here,” he said. “Women are bad luck.”

  Fear prickled my spine. Cut her? Does that mean what I think it means?

  I had heard of pirates who ripped out the tongues of their captives and ate them with salt and pepper. Pirates who whipped and pickled people. Pirates who sewed the mouths of their victims closed because they talked too much. As a child, I had thought these mere tales of fancy. But now, I shivered.

  I looked at Josiah. He said nothing, his eyes narrow and unreadable.

  The scar-eyed man continued, “I knew a tar once who dressed his woman like a boy and brought her aboard 'cause he couldn't live without her. His ship vanished. Every mother's son of them—swallowed by the deep. Women—they're the devil's ballast.”

  They said more, but it was all the same. Women were bad luck aboard ships. Life at sea was dangerous enough. Women summoned monsters from the deep. They caused storms and shipwrecks. They made men stupid with jealousy, until they stabbed each other with pleasure and there was none left. Besides, they agreed, Faith had seen too much. And no one wanted to dance the pirate's jig, especially because of a woman.

  With a rising horror, I saw it was hopeless.

  They voted. Faith lost. Eight men versus 140 or some such.

  Then it was as if something inside of me burst. Stars shot across the blackness of my mind, like on the day my father was killed.

  I howled as a wild man, and God's truth, I felt rage enough to take on them all. I raced to the hatch and drew my dagger. My rusted, bent dagger.

  “Touch her and I'll kill you!” I cried.

  nd then the pirates laughed, holding their sides, wiping away tears.

  When the laughter died away, the foremost pirate moved cheerfully toward the hatch, as if I'd told nothing but a jolly joke and he was the better for it. But I was not joking. I lunged for the man, swiping at him. I nicked him on the back of his hand and saw a crease of blood before he drew it away, his face darkening with rage. “Why, you—”

  They held him back, laughing again.

  “Blood and thunder, little Daniel's a fighter!”

  “Full of piss and vinegar, that one!”

  “He'll be one of us 'fore too long.”

  “I'll never be one of you!” I spat.

  More laughter.

  They were murderers, all of them. “My father trusted you. He was your friend, and you murdered him. And now you want to murder his wife as well, and do God knows what else. I hate you. I hate all of you! I swear upon my soul you'll hang for killing my father!”

  Suddenly the laughter died. Above my head the sails snapped with a shift in breeze. I swallowed hard, my breathing ragged.

  One of the pirates stepped forward. Will Putt was his name. I remembered sitting on Will's lap when I was a child. Funny how I'd never realized how huge Will was until now. He was hairy-chested, and muscles bulged from places I never knew had muscles. He crossed his arms. “You have it wrong, Daniel. We trusted your father, and he betrayed us.” Will thumped his chest for emphasis as others nodded.

  I blinked, not understanding.

  “Your father purchased our goods—”

  I glared at him. “Never! If he'd have known what kind of—”

  Will held up his hand to silence me. “He knew. By God, boy, I'm telling you, he knew. For years he sold our stolen goods to the colonists. The colonists were only too eager to purchase our goods because there were no taxes, you see. Your father made a good living. He was a rich man. But he was rich because of us.”

  “You're lying!” Tears stung my eyes. I knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be true! “My father was a righteous man. He never would have—”

  “A few months ago,” said Will, “the government threatened to throw him in prison. To save his own hide, he turned king's evidence. Told them everything he knew. Our names, our faces, everything. So, you see, we had a score to settle. And there's a reward on all of our heads now because of him.”

  “But if you're telling the truth,” I argued, “if he's been working with you for all these years, then why didn't the government threaten him with prison earlier? Why now?”

  Will grinned, his eyes glittering. “Because, lad, a few months ago we looted the Norfolk. Worth a fortune, she was. A fortune belonging to the king. They could no longer look the other way and pretend nothing was happening. Heads had to roll, starting with your father's.”

  Will was wrong! Wrong! They all were! “But my fat
her never did anything dishonest in his life. He was a good man! And he never would have done what you say he did. Never!” I said more, defending my father with every shred of honor, every shred of dignity I had remaining, beseeching all the pirates to believe me. Yet even as I spoke, a vague memory crawled in the back of my mind like a spider, long-legged, cobwebbed, and musty. Norfolk … Norfolk …

  Finally, as each man except Josiah averted his eyes, my words trailed off. The ship settled into silence again, hemp groaning, water gurgling softly. My eyes welled with confusion and I hung my head, watching the deck shimmer through a curtain of tears.

  Then it was as if I was speaking from far away, as if someone else had control of my voice, rather like a puppet on a string. “Sail to the nearest port,” I said, my voice sounding as bleak as I felt. “Let Faith ashore, and I shall stay with you as your hostage. If Faith talks, kill me. She'll say nothing, I promise.”

  The wind cut through my clothing, and I shivered. Hair whipped into my eyes, and I wiped it away with a cold hand. I stared behind me into the blackness, rowing for the wharf, wishing the moon were visible, yet at the same time thanking my fortune that I was cloaked by darkness. No one had seen me.

  I had escaped.

  Just that morning—a morning of fat gray clouds and a nasty wet wind—the Tempest Galley had anchored in Newport Harbor, bright pennants flying from her masts. As morning turned to midday, Faith was rowed ashore. I stood at the rail wondering when I would see her again, if I would see her again, still feeling the hot moistness of her hand against mine as she'd whispered good-bye and her eyes had fluttered closed.

  After replenishing their water casks and food supplies—an easy task, as they had so recently reprovisioned—the pirate crew prepared to weigh anchor before the sun set. All of them fearing Faith might yap. All of them anxious to go on the Round. All of them imagining swimming in jewels.

  Forty men circled the capstan, pushing the bars, singing lustily to the rhythmic clanking of the pawl. But then the wind shifted, the sky crackled with thunder, and their singing changed to curses. And while they swore (and while my ears burned with the vileness of it all), the tide turned against them. The Tempest tossed at her anchors. There would be no leaving tonight. Josiah and the others cursed their luck, but I prayed the wind would stay its course.

  Shortly after the distant cry of midnight, I slipped away.

  One does not keep promises with thieves and murderers. That I knew. I would tell the townspeople everything I had seen. I would tell them who had pulled the trigger and murdered my father. By morning, all the pirates would be in prison. Once they were tried and hanged and once Faith was cured of her illness, she and I would return to Boston, to my father's house. And there I would care for her and her child as my father had wished.

  I just had not counted on it being so cold and windy.

  The rowboat bumped against the wharf. It took me some fumbling minutes to tie it fast, but finally I succeeded and climbed out. My legs felt shaky, and the wharf seemed to bob before my eyes, ebbing and flowing. I crept along the wharf as best I could, anxious to make no sound, as the pirates might open fire from the ship if they suspected anything amiss.

  See if they laugh at little Daniel Markham again, I thought as I picked my way over a fishnet. I'll show them. I'll especially show you, Josiah Black.

  I was halfway down the wharf when, suddenly a shape loomed beside me. A hand clamped over my mouth as an arm gripped my shoulders. Panic raced through my veins like ice water, and I struggled. I am caught! The pirates must have been watching me!

  “Hush, you young fool,” he whispered sharply in my ear. “I am your friend.”

  For a wild second, I wondered if I should bite his hand and shout anyway, but I decided not to be an idiot. If I shouted, all would be over. Besides, perhaps he was telling the truth. Perhaps he really was a friend. I ceased my struggling, and he slowly removed his hand. “Who are you?” I whispered.

  “Not here,” he replied. “Come. Follow me.” And he led the way toward the town.

  A lone guard melted back into deep shadow, his musket at his side, saying nothing as we passed into Newport.

  He took me to a nearby house, the house of a well-to-do man by the look of it, smelling of fresh paint, with shutters framing the leaded-glass windows and candlelight glowing within. Following him into the sitting room, I finally had a look at the man.

  He was middle-aged, a little stout—rather like my father in appearance. From beneath his periwig, his eyes twinkled with a curious look, and I thought, Surely, this is a friend. I felt myself relax, thanking heaven he had found me. I sat in the chair he offered and waited while he instructed a servant as to our refreshment. A fire burned in the grate. Warmth spread over me like butter on hot bread. I suddenly felt very, very tired.

  In the morning, the pirates would find themselves surrounded. The nightmare was finally, finally over.

  He sat across from me, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Your name?”

  “Oh, sorry. Daniel Markham of Boston.” Just then the servant returned, handing each of us a mug of spiced cider.

  “I must say,” my friend continued, taking a drink of his cider, “you've intrigued me terribly. What's a fine lad from Boston doing on a Newport wharf in the middle of the night?”

  I did not answer immediately. Instead, I cupped the mug in my hands and sipped my cider. It was hot and, like the fire, seemed to melt through me. I sipped again and again. A sleepiness pressed upon me, a delicious sleepiness. I settled back in my chair, cradled my mug, and finally told my story.

  I started at the beginning, with Father's marriage to Faith and our sudden move to Jamaica. I told him about the attack, the murder, Faith's illness. Halfway through my story, I even unclasped my locket and showed him my mother's likeness and told him she was the daughter of the governor and that I was the governor's grandson and that both my grandfather and my mother had died long ago. I thought he'd want to know.

  He listened intently, rubbing his chin, occasionally saying, “I see,” or “‘Tis a shame,” or “Poor, poor lad,” or “Drink up, now.”

  As I talked, I could scarcely keep my eyes open. My tongue thickened. My words slurred together. “They've no idea I've escaped. If we surround them, they'll have nowhere to go come dawn. It will be over. Then the men who murdered my father will face the justice they deserve.”

  The embers snapped, sending a billow of sparks up the chimney. The man said nothing and leaned back into his chair, lost in shadow. I realized, with a heavy sleepiness, that I did not even know his name. But it did not matter. He would take care of everything now. Besides, I thought, I am too sleepy. And my head is so heavy.…

  I heard the town crier cry, “One o'clock and all's well.” I heard movement behind me.

  My friend asking, “What took you so long?” A voice replying, “Did anyone see?” “None excepting the guard, and he'll say nothing.” A hand on my shoulder. “Come, Daniel, my boy. Tis time to leave.” A hand under my arm, urging me to my feet. Eyes of black swimming before me like pools of midnight. So sleepy …

  or days I huddled by the rail, wrapped in a blanket.

  For days nothing met my gaze except an endless ocean, an endless sky. All gray, everything gray.

  Of course, there was much movement around me on the fo'c'sle deck—with this many men aboard, it was impossible to be entirely alone. Men gambling, drinking, mending sails or tarring ropes if the mood struck them, playing fiddles, dancing, target shooting, or spinning raucous yarns. But I ignored the yarns, the music, the shooting, and the men. I only took the food that was offered me, shrugging off anyone who tried to pat my shoulder or talk to me.

  I dreamed of Boston. I dreamed of my father and the way things used to be. And always , when my eyes would clear of my dream, there would be the ocean. The endless, gray ocean.

  I cursed my life. I cursed Josiah Black. I cursed the man from Newport who had called himself my “friend.” Doubtl
ess he had mixed some sleeping potion into my cider. I scarcely remembered Josiah rowing me back to the Tempest Galley. “Breathe not a word about what you've done,” he had whispered before I collapsed into a deep sleep.

  Much as I did not want to admit that Josiah was right about anything, I knew enough to stay silent. Josiah was the only one, it appeared, who knew what I'd done, or rather, what I'd intended to do. In fact, so certain had Josiah been of my intentions, he'd earlier arranged to have his friend on the dock, waiting for me. I knew if the pirates found out I'd meant to betray them, I'd not live to catch my next breath. So I huddled by the rail, wrapped in my blanket, staring at nothing, saying nothing, cursing my miserable life.

  One day as I cursed my miserable life, my memory regarding the Norfolk crawled back into my mind, spinning its spidery web, despite all my attempts to push it away. I remembered finding the Norfolk's manifest on the night my father had announced we were moving to Jamaica. I remembered showing it to my father. Him setting it aside, brushing away my questions, saying, I'll take care of it later … Daniel, please. Not now.

  I wondered, How on earth would my father have had the manifest in his possession, unless … unless …

  Strand by strand, I untangled the web until I could no longer deny the truth.

  It was so simple.

  My father had known. He'd known what kind of men took supper at the family board. He'd known what kind of men hoisted me onto their shoulders. He'd known what kind of men gave me treasures—treasures stained with blood. He'd known, and he'd never told me. He'd known, and still he sat in the best pew at the meetinghouse.

  A wretched despair stole over my soul just as the heavens opened and sheets of water poured from the sky. I pulled my blanket tighter and hung my head. Why, Father, why? Rainwater streamed off my cocked hat and puddled in my lap.

  Even so, I love you.

  “Hey, Daniel,” someone said, “sitting out here getting soaked to the innards is no place for anybody with half a brain. Go below where it's warmer or you'll catch your death.”