by Steve Goble
“Pryor Pond is north of here, near Battramsley. The home was empty many years, but Oakes moved in, oh, a year past? Perhaps more? An inheritance, I have heard. It is not terribly far. Manor house, an old one, on the right-hand side of the road. Surrounded by a low stone wall, with pillars beside the gate. Near the south corner of the property there is a wide pond, so you’ll know you have the right place when you see that. I’ve seen it, you see, because I get called out for births or whenever some poor soul cutting trees hacks off a finger, and so I travel a bit. I have nothing at the moment to send to Mister Oakes, however, as Mister Fawkes picks up ample supplies when he comes. I don’t expect another visit from Mister Fawkes anytime soon. Is that the largest fly you ever did see?”
Spider pondered for a moment. “Perhaps, then, you could write this Oakes a letter, thank him for his business, or some such,” Spider said. “We could take that along with us.”
“Well,” Kegley considered, eyes widening. “His business is quite valuable to me. I suppose it would not be amiss to express thanks for his patronage!”
“We’ve no time for that, Spider,” Odin growled. “I see men rushing about. I think our friends from this morning might have been found.” “Damn!” Spider rushed to the window and saw that Odin had spoken the truth. Men were running toward Bill Cooper’s barn, and though they were distant, their shouts were growing louder. It would take them a little while to reach the barn, if that was their destination, but it still would not do for Spider and Odin to tarry.
Spider fished a few dull coins—his last—from his leather pouch and handed them to the apothecary without counting them. “For your help, and for perhaps keeping quiet.”
Kegley looked confused. “Good Lord, are you the brigands who broke through my rear door last night?”
“We’re pirates! Ha!” Odin ran out the door, cackling.
“Goddamn crazy son of a whore!” Spider followed Odin out and quickly caught up to him. They headed north, away from the barn where they’d assaulted Bill and his friend. Once they’d ducked into a side street, Spider punched Odin on the arm. “When we find this scholar’s madhouse, I will just hand you over to him!”
10
Once Lymington’s buildings and spires were out of sight behind them, Spider and Odin sat on an ancient, fallen oak to divide their small arsenal between them. They doffed their coats, as the effort of running and walking had warmed them considerably and the sun had chased away all the cooling mist.
Odin handed over two of the four flintlock pistols they’d taken from Bill. Along with those, they had six knives between them, although only the one from Hob was truly suitable for throwing. Spider dearly missed the French blade he’d received from Odin. It had been the best he’d ever had.
“We probably can leave these here,” Spider said, pointing to the coats. “Inland, summer, we won’t be needing them.”
“Well, this is a good coat and yours is good, too,” Odin said. “I hate to part with one, considering all the times I wanted one and didn’t have it. Who knows when we can steal another one?”
“Aye,” Spider said. “We can carry them. I suppose it would be foolish to part with good coats.”
They inspected the pistols, made certain the flints were secure, and loaded them with powder, balls, and wadding. Odin had filched a bandolier as well. He kept that and beamed with joy once he had a brace of flintlocks strapped against his chest.
Spider tucked one gun into his belt, behind his back, and placed the other within easy reach inside his leather pouch. His share of the knives all went into his belt.
Then he realized they would be walking about with guns and knives showing. “Jesus, Odin, we’re armed for battle, but we aren’t on a sloop deck now, are we? Do landsmen carry weapons like these?”
“Maybe we’re hunting deer.”
Spider scoffed at that. “And without coats on to hide all this weaponry, we look like right criminals.” He stood, pulled the tail of his shirt free from his breeches and arranged things to hide the gun and blades in his belt. Then he pointed at Odin’s bandolier. “How will you hide that?”
“If anyone asks, I will wave a gun in his face and he’ll pay attention to that, and not my weapon belt.”
“Maybe you can carry the coat in front of you, hide the guns behind that.”
“You fret over silly things, Spider John. We haven’t seen anyone on the road yet.”
“Just heed my words if we do. Aye?”
“Aye.”
“Shall we go on?”
As they walked northward, Spider’s eyes occasionally peered into the canopy of oak and ash leaves on each side of the road, wondering what sorts of birds were making the unholy racket.
“They won’t come peck your eyes out, Spider.”
“You are an expert with sails and rigging, Odin. You don’t know a goddamned thing about birds.”
Forest occasionally gave way to open fields blanketed with heather, but not often enough to prevent Spider from constantly expecting ambush from the trees. Being on land always made Spider nervous. He tried to distract himself from bird chatter by forming a plan.
“I think maybe we take you to this Oakes and tell him you are crazed,” Spider said. “You are, I reckon.”
“Ha!”
“Is your leg pained? You walk oddly.”
“I am fine. I took a whack in the barn. That fellow was bigger and stronger than he looked, and he had a stick, a stouter one than the goddamned chair leg I attacked him with. My leg will heal, though. I’ve suffered worse.”
Spider nodded, and glanced at his friend’s ugly, scared face. “Aye.”
Odin certainly had taken his share of knocks in his long life on the Spanish Main. The old man knew his business, too, so Spider trusted him to be the judge of his own leg.
“Think, Odin. We’ll need to get close, to get inside. We being a couple of rough fellows coming about, they’ll turn us away, probably. But if we have a purpose, like we’d have got if the apothecary had written a letter, well, that’s not so suspicious.”
“I don’t mean to get locked up anywhere, nor drink whatever foul brew this Oakes buys from that smelly shop. I say we just go in, grab Hob, and fight our way out.”
“I am sure Half-Jim and his band won’t mind that at all,” Spider said. “We’ll just have a nice little country dance, share a drink or two, or maybe a nice civil fucking tea, and just quietly take Hob on out with us. Did you bring a fiddle? No, Odin, we’ll need to see what we see, and make a real plan. I’ve seen Half-Jim fight, and I’ve a good notion of the kind of men who’d follow him. I don’t want him fighting me.”
“He is less an arm and a leg, Spider, or so you’ve said.”
“And he is still more man than many. Trust me in this.”
“So, we’re making plans, then? Ha! So much thinking! Give me a gunwale to leap over and some throats to slit before my own neck gets a red necklace, by God!”
Spider shook his head and took a quick look behind them to assure himself they were not being followed. He had no doubt the attack on Bill Cooper and his friend had added to the intensity of the manhunt for Tom Bonnymeade’s killer, and doubted the apothecary would keep his mouth shut. Spider had not given him much coin.
“What I need is a pipe.” He drew the instrument from the band of his hat and began fishing about in his pouch. He filled the clay bowl with tobacco—exhausting his supply in the process—and then sought and found a spare flint. He set his pouch on the road, stepped away from it to prevent any wayward spark from hitting the gun inside it, and used the flint and a knife to bring the pipe to fiery life.
“There now,” he said, retrieving his bag and coat, tucking the latter over the former. “I shall be able to think.” He inhaled deeply and lofted a huge plume of smoke toward the birds in the trees. “Birds hate pipe smoke, I reckon.”
“No, they love it,” Odin said, carrying his coat over his shoulder. “Blackbeard, he once tied up a man to a tree and lit gre
at piles of tobacco around him. Big black crows came quick, a whole fucking flock. Sniffed up all that smoke and it riled them up, like buccaneers swooping onto a fat Dutch trader. They ate the poor bastard a peck at a time. He lived through half of that. I can still hear him wailing. Ha!”
Spider shook his head slowly. “I fret a great deal about you, Odin.” Spider sighed. “I do not believe you ever met Blackbeard, you lying one-eyed son of a bitch.” Nonetheless, Spider kept an eye out for hovering crows.
Half an hour passed before they encountered anything but trees and heather and the occasional rabbit. Then a lone rider rounded a bend ahead, coming slowly toward them. He had a musket resting across the saddle in front of him, but he did not lift it, nor did he spur his mount to increase its pace. He did notice them, though, and kept his eyes on them as he slowly approached.
The distance was about fifty yards, Spider judged.
“One of Half-Jim’s men, do you reckon?”
“I do not know,” Spider answered. “He could be. Hold your coat against your chest, hide the damned guns.”
“Nobody holds a coat that way, Spider, unless they are hiding guns or a knife.”
“Jesus, Odin. Aye, then. Try to look friendly.”
He tugged Odin’s sleeve, and they both moved off the road on the east side. “Keep your hands away from your guns,” Spider whispered. “He might be a highwayman, or he might think we are highwaymen. Best not to provoke him.”
Odin spat. “Or maybe best to kill him before he kills us. We are pirates, remember?” The old man made no aggressive move, however.
“Former pirates.” Spider emptied his spent pipe and tucked it into the band of his hat.
The rider stopped alongside them, still not raising his gun. His dark eyes revealed no intention; his expression might as well have been a wooden mask. It was a practiced look, Spider decided, and this man was no stranger to action. He was no stranger to booze, either. Spider caught the aroma of whisky on the man’s breath.
He stayed atop the roan mare and nodded. “Well met, gents. Where do you travel?” As he spoke, the man peered into the woods to either side of the road, but his eyes never left Spider and Odin for more than a heartbeat. Spider noted a cutlass sheathed on the man’s saddle, and the hilt of a knife projecting from his boot.
“Battramsley,” Spider lied. “We’ve come from Lymington. Good beer at the Crosskeys, and plentiful food, when you get to Lymington.”
“I thank you.” He sounded friendly, but Spider was not convinced. The stranger’s eyes still sought signs of ambush. “What business takes you to Battramsley?”
“Business of our own, I reckon, not yours,” Spider answered.
“Fair enough,” the man said. He stared at them, pondering, and eventually spurred his mount to continue. “I would not tarry on this road over long, friends,” he said over his shoulder. “There have been troublemakers of late, no doubt robbers and thieves. Property holders get nervous, take up arms, watch the road. Wise travelers would hurry on to their destination without lingering.”
“Very well,” Spider nodded. “We wish you safe travels.” He resumed his northward trek, Odin beside him.
After they were beyond the stranger’s sight, Odin stopped. “Well, then, which of us is mad?”
“What do you mean, Odin?”
“I am thinking this dark-haired rider with the gun and sword goes to see your lady Aggie and quaffs that beer you sang sweetly about. Suppose he talks of us in front of anyone looking for the fellows who pounded on Bill and his ugly fool friend? Suppose this rider says he saw a one-eyed bastard and a little man with a missing finger walking north to Battramsley? There’s been a right ugly lot of crime in Lymington of late, Spider. A murder, an apothecary robbed, Bill and his fool friend knocked about like little boats in a gale. Tongues will wag, Spider. Tongues will wag.”
Spider nodded. “Perhaps you are in the right, Odin, but Missus Bonnymeade was kind to us and I wanted to repay her by sending her some business. I doubt my one good deed will be our undoing. Indeed, the preachers say our good deeds will come back to us, or some such thing.”
“That is why I do not listen to preachers,” Odin scoffed. “And neither should you! Leads to fool things like good deeds and turning the other cheek!”
Spider laughed. “She isn’t selling as much liquor since the two of us hauled up anchor and set sail. Well, we didn’t pay for most of what we drank, I reckon, but that’s just another debt we owe her. And she’ll need money, won’t she, what with her man not dealing as he was?”
“That is all gospel.” Odin shook his head. “But you should not have said anything.”
Spider sighed. “Aye, perhaps. But it’s done, and I do not think we’ll be hurt by it. I do not suppose anyone cares enough about Bill and his friend to pursue us beyond the town’s cobbled streets. And we didn’t kill them, did we?”
“I broke the ugly man’s leg after he near broke mine.”
“So he won’t chase us, then.”
They stared at one another until Odin finally laughed, then Spider laughed, too.
“And the great rash of crime probably ended just as we vanished, too,” Spider joked.
“God damn, Spider John! I am the crazy one, remember?”
“I never, never forget.”
“Some folk might care about lazy Tom Bonnymeade getting killed, and wonder where we went,” Odin said once they caught their breath. “Remember, you diddled his wife and she pretended to find him dead while you were conveniently downstairs. It’s the talk of the Crosskeys.”
“Aye,” Spider conceded. “I am a criminal, and here I set this bastard with the gun on our trail because I wanted to help the nice lady I diddled sell some ale. I was foolish, led astray. No more good deeds, then. I shall be a right fucking bastard from this day on, Odin. I’ll spit on children, kick their dogs, shoot their fathers, and fuck their mothers.”
“Thank you. Ha!”
They trudged onward. Spider glanced at purple flowers and tried to remember what Nantucket or Boston looked like this time of year. He pictured Em filling a basket with heather, Johnny running about, both laughing. Does she wait for me? What does she tell our son of his father? Do they know why I have not come home? Have they heard the pirate tales?
Spider opened the flask Mrs. Bonnymeade had given him and took a heavy swig. Between Odin and himself, they drained it rather quickly. Spider felt the warmth on his cheeks and the slight swirl in his head and wondered if he’d drunk too much again.
Odin, perhaps noticing Spider’s mood, started talking again.
“Well, maybe helping Aggie sell some beer won’t hurt us. I don’t suppose we’ll live all that long, anyway. Our undoing likely will be when we find this Ambrose Oakes.”
“Aye, perhaps.”
“I still think this is a foolish mission, Spider John, and I don’t know Hob is worth it.”
“He is.”
“Just stop being kind to strangers, and talking so much,” Odin said. “We never done it on the Spanish Main, and it’s a bad habit for pirates.”
“Former pirates,” Spider corrected him.
Odin tapped his guns and pointed to the weapons in Spider’s belt. “Former pirates, you say? We are armed for battle, Spider, and ready to raise hell. All we really lack, Spider John, is a fucking ship. Ha!”
11
By the time the road paralleled a low fieldstone fence to their right Spider noticed Odin was still limping.
“Is that leg worse than you told me, old man?”
“No. I’ve had worse, Spider John, and you bloody well know it. Look at my goddamned face, for the devil’s sake! A bump on the knee ain’t to be noticed.”
Spider sighed. “I reckon all this hiking is doing you no good. Do you want me to give it a look? There’s plenty of wood about. I can fashion a splint for you, if need be.”
“You won’t be pulling my breeches down, Spider. I told you to get a woman in Lymington. Ha!”
“Stubborn old bastard,” Spider said. “Well, this wall is likely the one our apothecary told us about. We won’t be much longer, I suppose, and you can sit a spell. Do we want to change our plan?”
The plan, such as it was, meant walking past the gate to Ambrose Oakes’ property so they could scout things out, much as they had done before their skirmish at Bill’s barn. But if Odin’s leg was injured, Spider would adjust.
“No,” Odin said. “I like your plans, except for when they mean we must dodge lead balls or get marooned on an island or some such. Ha!” The old man spat. “I haven’t clung to life this long to let a bruise on my knee slow me down, Spider. Lead on.”
“Aye.”
They continued their walk along the low wall, Spider intentionally slowing the pace.
“I am not crippled,” Odin growled.
“We are spying on this place, remember?”
Beyond the wall, the land rose in a low hill dotted with oaks and blanketed with ankle-high grass. The house was beyond sight. Spider looked for signs of trails or tree stands that might indicate guard patrols or sentries but saw nothing of the sort. Mallards floated on a large pond between the wall and the hill.
Spider pointed. “Mark, Pryor Pond, methinks.”
“Aye, most like.”
They walked onward. “Think Little Bob is in with this lot?” Odin asked. “I’d love to stick a knife in Little Bob. I was hoping he’d die in chains, but I am ready to finish the job.”
Indeed, the last time Odin had seen Little Bob Higgins the little shit had been locked away on Redemption, after waving guns about and trying to steal a boat to flee. The ship later became Anne Bonny’s prize, and they’d assumed Bob had either died of starvation before being discovered locked away deep in the ship or joined up with her crew when he had the chance.
“I don’t think we’ll find Bob here,” Spider said. “I’d like a word with the little bastard myself, but I doubt the chance. It seems to me Bob killed Bonnymeade as revenge, thinking the barkeeper sold out his smuggling crew to this Oakes, so it is not likely Little Bob is signed up here. He might be skulking about, though, meaning to kill Oakes, or Half-Jim, or just to rough up people on the road or some such. If we see him, he and I will have some words.”
