A Bottle of Rum

by Steve Goble

  “Who took them? Why?”

  He never heard an answer. In the darkness, Spider never saw the jar arcing toward his face. But he felt the impact, heard the crash and the tinkle of breaking glass, and smelled the acrid odor. A splash of fluid stung his eyes and burned his skin as Little Bob shoved Spider backward. Spider fell. He fired the flintlock, throwing sparks, but the powder failed to ignite.

  Little Bob laughed like a madman, and Spider hurled the useless gun at the sound. The weapon vanished somewhere in the darkness, rattling across the floor.

  Spider heard the door slam as he rolled to his feet, wondering if it was glass shards or a chemist’s foul acid that clawed so violently at his eyes.

  He ran toward the door, or at least where memory told him the door was, but slipped on the wet floor. He fell like a mast hit at just the right spot by a cannoneer’s ball.

  4

  He found the door by touch-and-feel and stumbled into the alley. His boot brushed against something, and he knelt until his fingers found the familiar coarseness of his timeworn hat. He plopped it onto his head, then removed it quickly after it scraped the stinging cut on his brow.

  Heedless of witnesses or watchmen, Spider felt his way along the alley wall as quickly as he could. The foul fluid blinded him and stung his flesh.

  The trough!

  He staggered toward the trough that had almost tripped him and took his best guess as to its location, praying it was not empty. His knee thudded into it, and Spider plunged his tormented face into the chilly water. He forced himself to open his stinging eyes in hopes of flushing whatever the hell it was burning them.

  Spider pulled his head out with a gasp, shook it furiously, then took a deeper breath this time and plunged his face into the trough again. He had not yet determined whether the dousing had cleared his eyes of the foul liquid when someone grabbed his collar and jerked him upward.

  His hand was on Hob’s knife at his belt when he heard Odin’s growl. “It is me, you filthy shabbaroon!”

  Spider spat water onto his beard and coughed.

  “If you be thirsty, Spider John, let’s find better and stronger drink. Smells as though horses pissed in this more than they drank. Ha! Come!”

  Spider, still shaking water from his eyes and unable to see, let Odin lead him down the road. “Thank you, friend. I’ll owe you a bottle of rum.”

  “You already owe me a bottle of rum, for the game.”

  “We didn’t finish the game.”

  “Oh, the game was done. We were still making moves, but the game was done. I won.”

  Spider laughed, coughing up trough water.

  “This town sets a watchman in this neighborhood, I’ve learned, but I sent him and the search party in the wrong direction,” Odin said. “People are fond of your blessed Missus Bonnymeade, however, so they’ve volunteers aplenty searching. They went all about. Some came your way.”

  “They think I killed her husband?”

  “Some of those lobcocks thought so, aye, but your Missus Bonnymeade told them you chased after the killer. Some of them believed her, I think. Some of them think you are screwing her and the two of you killed the fat son of a whore. I told them that was a fool notion, but I don’t think they believed me. And you’ve got the bastard’s blood on your breeches, you know. And the knife.”

  “Well,” Spider said, the stinging in his eyes subsiding somewhat. He could see dancing orange dots he assumed were torches in the distance. He tried the hat again, as proof against the chill on his wet hair, and winced as the cut stung anew.

  “You weren’t screwing her, were you, Spider John?”

  “No!”

  “Because I was a wee bit behind you getting to him, and he was dead and you beside him when I . . .”

  “Jesus!”

  “Well, you are damned clever sometimes and you hated Bonnymeade and seemed to like her. So, well, I thought maybe you and the woman might have schemed together . . .”

  “I did not kill the man, Odin, by thunder! I am the one who wants to leave all the killing behind, aye? Remember? Former pirate!”

  “Aye,” Odin said. “Why did I find you trying to bathe in horse water?”

  “Little Bob hit me with something, burned at my eyes.”

  “Little Bob! That tiny bastard? He’s here? Where? I’ll kill him.”

  “I think he killed Mister Bonnymeade,” Spider said. “No, belay that. I’m certain he did, I should say. I caught up to him, dragged him into a shop, chemist’s, apparently, and he clobbered me with a bottle of . . . I do not know what was in it. It stung my eyes. It feels better now, a tad. Little Bob escaped.”

  “Well, you’ve a gash on your forehead, but you won’t likely die from it. Might catch illness, I suppose, but it is not deep and you won’t lose a lot of blood.”

  “I can actually see a bit now,” Spider said, freeing himself from Odin’s strong grasp. He handed his friend the murder weapon. “When we are under that torch, give this blade a look.”

  Shouts in the distance indicated the killer had not yet been found. Spider and Odin paused beneath a pole-mounted torch and the oneeyed sailor examined the knife. “Ha! You made this for Hob, aye? Throwing knife? That’s his name carved here, Hob, right?”

  “Aye,” Spider answered. “Or so the fellow who showed me the letters said, and Hob never said it was wrong. I made it, the handle, I mean, and I got a blacksmith to forge the blade using the French knife you gave me as a guide. Fuck. I just lost that knife.”

  “I stole that one, I can steal you another one,” Odin said. “So . . . how’s that boy’s blade end up in Little Bob’s hands and in Bonnymeade’s fat neck?”

  Spider shook water from his beard and reached beneath his hat to touch the gash in his forehead. He’d have a new scar, for certain, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. “Let us go ask Missus Bonnymeade, Odin. I’ll wager a bottle of rum . . .”

  “Belay that,” Odin scoffed. “You never pay up anyway, do you?”

  5

  Mister Davies! Mister Hughes!”

  Spider and Odin bowed upon hearing Mrs. Bonnymeade greet them. Several men moved to confront them but stopped rigid when they saw a knife in Odin’s hand.

  The widow looked aghast at Spider’s scratched face and drenched shirt and grabbed a cloth from the bar. The common room drinkers, five of them, gave her leeway as she toddled to Spider and removed his hat. She began wiping his forehead. “Did you catch the blackguard, Mister Davies?”

  “I had him in my grasp,” Spider said, “but he slipped away. I am sorry.”

  Her jaw quivered as her eyes widened. “Who? Who killed my Tom?”

  “A pirate and a smuggler,” Spider said. “A filthy pirate.”

  “Why?” She wiped a tear on her sleeve. “Why?”

  “I will tell you in a moment,” Spider said, noting he had the full attention of several men drinking nearby.

  “So brave of you chasing after the evil man so. You are a good man.” Then she took a deep breath and whispered. “You would not believe what some of these fools are thinking.”

  “I have heard,” he said. “They saw me standing near him with a dripping dirk. So they think I killed him.”

  “They think you and I were . . .”

  “It’s all talk,” Spider said, eyeing the men across the room. “If we can catch the killer, we can make him tell the truth.”

  The men gathered around them. “These gents say they saw you with a knife while Thomas Bonnymeade was still spurting,” said one tall fellow, clearly in his cups. “and then you fled.” His eyes had something of a hawk’s essence in them, and Spider recognized him as the man who earlier had sat with Bonnymeade, over much whispering and ale.

  “And then I came back here,” Spider said. “Fool thing if I killed him, aye?”

  “Maybe you had a reason to come back.” He glanced at Mrs. Bonnymeade.

  Spider strode toward him and stared hard into his eyes. He had to look upward, being short, bu
t Spider was accustomed to that. “You want to accuse me of killing him, do you?”

  The man gulped, and stood his ground, but said nothing.

  Odin moved away from Spider. Good, Spider thought. These fellows will have more than one direction to watch if they truly want to start something.

  Mrs. Bonnymeade tried to douse the rising heat. “Mister Davies did not kill my husband, Bill. I know that.”

  “Can you be certain, Aggie?” Bill looked at her. “He’s a roughlooking sort, and a stranger.”

  “You are not so handsome yourself, Bill,” Mrs. Bonnymeade said, her voice still shaky. “And a missing finger and weathered face don’t make a man a bad man. Mister Davies, and Mister Hughes, too, both were at their chess when I went upstairs not long after Tom, and they were still downstairs when I found him dead. So Mister Davies, bless him, wasn’t the one who killed him. Nor was Mister Hughes.” She began sobbing again, quietly.

  Bill backed away but gave Spider a hard look. “Odd that trouble comes on the heels of these two, I think.”

  “More trouble might come if you don’t get a lot smarter real soon,” Spider said quietly.

  “There be five of us,” Bill said, his hawk’s gaze narrowing, “and but two of you.”

  “Ha!” Odin laughed, as though Bill had told a joke.

  “I can count,” Spider said, taking note of which men had knives tucked into their belts. “And I am not worried.”

  Bill backed off, and the other gents followed him to a far table. They sat. “More small beer, Aggie, if you please.”

  “No, gentlemen, I’ll not be serving more ale,” Mrs. Bonnymeade said. “My God, my husband just dead and you want beer! Home with the lot of you, please.”

  They all left slowly, looking disappointed and suspicious. Spider studied their faces.

  “I don’t think they like you much. Ha!”

  “They don’t like you any more than they like me, Odin,” Spider answered.

  “Nobody likes me, save for you and dead Blackbeard. Ha!”

  Mrs. Bonnymeade resumed mopping blood from Spider’s forehead, and he winced as the cloth crossed his wound. “Those men are . . . well, ignore them. Thank you for chasing the villain. You are hurt, and all sopping. Did he flee to the river?”

  Spider took the cloth from her and pressed it to his head himself, tossing his hat onto a table. “I am sorry I let him escape. Did you get a look at the killer, Missus Bonnymeade?”

  “Aggie. You’ve a right to call me Aggie,” she said. “No, I did not see him! I was in the next room. I heard a thump, or a thud, and I ran to see if Tom had fallen again. He drinks and he falls, he does. I mean, he did.” Her jaw quivered. “What will I do?”

  Odin sat at the table with the neglected chessboard, mumbling to himself.

  “Perhaps a good sleep, Mrs. Bonnymeade,” Spider suggested, “then morning light might make things clear.”

  “No. No sleep. I must keep myself busy. So much to do, and now no Tom. Sit, Mister Davies, sit. I’ll fetch you gentlemen some ale. You’ve earned it.” She rushed off before Spider could object, and he heard her muttering again, “so much to do, and no Tom!”

  Spider sat across from Odin. “I do not recall seeing Thomas Bonnymeade do a damned thing around here but drink and talk, do you?” Spider picked up his clay pipe, next to the board.

  “No, he’s a fat sot, is all he is. Was.” Odin pulled a leather pouch of tobacco from somewhere within his muslin shirt and handed it to Spider. The latter emptied the dottle onto the floor, filled his pipe, used a candle to fire it to life, and inhaled deeply. Once he’d blown a cloud toward the rafters, he looked at Odin.

  “Little Bob escaped before I could learn anything of Hob,” he said.

  Odin lifted his jack, found it empty, and cursed.

  “Bob said him and Hob and some others got sent off to smuggle some goods, and were waylaid.” Spider inhaled again, then spoke around the pipe clamped in his teeth. Curling smoke surrounded his words. “He said Hob was taken by the crew that jumped them.”

  Odin shook his head. “Taken? Why?”

  “I do not know.”

  Odin sighed. “I know you are fond of the lad. So am I. Ha! Hob’s a fine fellow in a fight, bold as they come, and a funny, randy little shit. Handy at pilfering tobacco and rum for us, too, he was. Ha! But he left us marooned and ran off with that red-haired bitch Anne Bonny on his own, no fault of yours or mine if he listens to his tallywags instead of his shipmates. And he’d tasted enough pirating to know what he was going to find, Spider. I don’t think you ought to go looking for him. I don’t even know that he wants you to.”

  “Aye,” Spider said. “I ought to forget him. Find us some honest work—no more piracy for you and me, by thunder!—and set sail for Nantucket.” He had been trying to get back to Em and his son ever since he’d been given the choice long ago: join the pirate marauders who’d attacked Lily or go overboard with the rest of her crew. He’d lost count of the years since that dark day.

  But he could not shake Hob from his mind. Hob had been a boy when he and Spider had met aboard Plymouth Dream, and all but a man by the time Spider had watched Madeliene Robin slip below the horizon with Hob aboard. The young fool was too full of pirate glory dreams, and too besotted with Anne Bonny, to remain as an island castaway with Spider and the rest. So he’d snuck off.

  Odin was right. Hob had been responsible for his own actions and was smart enough to know the risks. And yet here Spider sat, trying to figure out a way to find the buffle-headed fool and drag him away from the pirate life.

  Mrs. Bonnymeade returned with a platter. “Ale, and some more good cheese, and a flask. Whisky. I know you like your whisky, Mister Davies.” She tried to sound casual, but a current of emotion flowed beneath her controlled voice.

  “Thank you,” Spider said. “Join us. You could use a drink, I reckon.”

  She sat, and Spider caught a pungent hint of port on her breath. “I have been at a bottle a bit, but, yes,” she said.

  “We are sorry you lost your husband,” Spider told her.

  She nodded silently. “I want to know why. I must know why.” They each took a swig from the flask, then Spider looked at Mrs. Bonnymeade. “I have a notion as to why. Please don’t mind me asking, but I want to find your husband’s killer, just as you do, so I’ll ask. What did your husband do around here?”

  She looked confused. “I do not know what you mean.”

  “He didn’t fix the stairs, and they’d needed work for years. He didn’t cook, nor clean, nor pour ale, nor do anything, as far as I could tell. A man came in tonight asking for ale and a sausage and your man didn’t even know what to charge him. Had to ask you, he did. So . . . why do you worry about having more to do with him gone?”

  “Well,” she said, then paused to take another swig. “Well, there’s . . . I’ll have to . . . I mean . . .” She thought hard and took another drink. “I’ve a dead husband up there, don’t I? I’ll have to arrange a procession, and a funeral. I’ll need to mend my black skirt, it’s got a tear or two in it. Oh, so much to do . . .”

  And no Tom, she’d said earlier.

  “Did he do any work around here?” Spider took the flask and drank from it. He handed it to Odin, who gave him an evil stare.

  “He was a businessman, not one for labor,” she said. “A thinker and a planner. He arranged for kegs and food for the larders, mostly.”

  Spider had overheard Mrs. Bonnymeade doing those things herself.

  “And Tom did a bit of brokering for some of the carters. Finding men to haul things for merchants, and salt for shipping, because he knew so many carters. A lot of them drink here, they do.”

  “That fool Bill. I’ve seen him talking with your husband. He’s a carter?”

  “Yes, he is. He works with Tom a lot. Worked.” She sobbed. “Worked.”

  “Why would someone want to kill your husband?”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea at all. You said it was a p
irate and a smuggler.”

  “Aye.”

  She gulped. “Well, they are killers, then, aren’t they? Filthy murderers?”

  Spider and Odin glanced at one another. They both had sailed with killers aplenty. “Aye,” Spider answered. “Dirty thieves and killers. But they don’t go climbing up into tavern windows to stab a man, not unless they have a strong reason. We need to reckon what that reason is.”

  She stared at him.

  “Aggie,” Spider said, “I talked a bit with the scoundrel before he got away from me. He spoke of smuggling.”

  Mrs. Bonnymeade grabbed the flask and tilted it up violently.

  “You said your husband did some brokering.”

  Her eyes widened, but she said nothing.

  “A tavern is a wonderful spot for smugglers and merchants to arrange matters. Am I right, Odin?”

  “Aye,” the man said, begrudgingly. “But it is a better place for getting drunk and minding your own goddamned business, I’d say.”

  Spider ignored that. “The killer told me he was with some smugglers, and they had made arrangements to sell some goods but got waylaid. Someone attacked them as they unloaded their merchandise. And now your husband is dead, by the hand of one of those smugglers. So, was your husband a smuggler, Mrs. Bonnymeade? Or did he buy their wares? Or help make arrangements ashore?”

  She stared at Spider.

  “Did he betray some smugglers, and that’s why they stabbed him in the throat?”

  6

  “Mister Davies! Are you accusing . . .”

  “Yes,” Spider said. “I know I should not speak him ill, because it pains you, but I am accusing your husband of some sort of illegal enterprise, and suspecting he ran afoul of some very wretched souls, men who live by the gun and sword and who do not take kindly to being betrayed.”

  Odin’s lone eye rolled to glance heavenward, for he and Spider fit that very description quite well.

  Mrs. Bonnymeade missed Odin’s expression, and stared at Spider. “Thomas did not tell me all of his business,” she said. “Nor did I ask. It was his work, the planning and arranging of things.”