A Bottle of Rum

by Steve Goble

  So these are indeed Anne Bonny’s men, come looking for bloody revenge. That would mean a real fight, not a bout with village amateurs.

  Spider figured these buccaneers Fawkes had hired were up to the task. So was he.

  He touched the pendant beneath his shirt and thought of Em. Then he closed his eyes in prayer. Even here, miles from the sea, he was about to be caught up in bloodshed, with no choice but to fight or die. Will I never outrun my pirate past? Am I doomed to this, always, punishment for choosing to join the attacking pirates all those years ago instead of letting them heave me overboard to die in the deep?

  He opened his eyes. All he really knew was that he had to fight now if he ever wanted to see Em and his son. And so he would fight.

  He placed one of the flintlocks on the fallen trunk, then took up the other. He wanted to shout to the other men and tell them to hold fire until the attackers were upon them, but he could hear the snaps of branches and the labored breathing of running men. He dared not reveal his own position. The attackers were too close now.

  The interlopers rushed forward as best they could given the slope they climbed and the darkness. None of Fawkes’ men pulled their triggers. Spider nodded, satisfied these men knew their bloody trade.

  The fastest of the attackers was less than a yard away when Spider shot him in the chest. Guns erupted all around him as the dead man plunged forward, sprawling on the fallen tree with a gush of his last breath. Spider had to roll the bastard off his other gun to free it.

  Once he had the second flintlock in hand, Spider leapt from concealment, sidestepped a cutlass thrust and jammed the gun into another man’s belly. He pulled the trigger, winced at the thundercrack, and felt the burn of powder on his arm, followed by the warm gush of blood. He used his shoulder to shove the dying man away as the rising smoke stung his eyes. Spider dropped the spent weapon as another attacker rushed him, only to find Spider’s knife deep in his neck.

  That man dropped a cutlass, and Spider snatched it up. He swung it hard twice, cursing as he detected a warp in the blade that spoiled its aim, but managed to slice a man’s belly with it nonetheless.

  Shouts from the north told Spider that reinforcements were coming, or that the attack was coming from multiple directions. Suddenly, it became impossible to tell which of the skirmishers around him belonged to Fawkes’ crew and which belonged to the assailants. Spider found a place behind a wide oak and decided he would kill anyone who got too goddamned close, whatever side they might be on.

  He looked for Little Bob but did not see him.

  One shadowy figure zigged and zagged drunkenly, and fired a blunderbuss without aiming. Stingo, it was, laughing with drunken madness. He flung his spent gun into the darkness. “I have a surprise! Oh, what a surprise!”

  Stingo reached into a leather pouch strapped over his shoulder and lifted out what seemed to be a small stone. “Oh, what a surprise!”

  The man spun and tossed the small object into the air, not seeming to care much which way it flew. Spider tried to follow the object’s flight but lost it in the darkness. But a sudden flash of orange and green, accompanied by a rumble of thunder, erupted in the night, approximately where Spider judged the flung object should have landed.

  “Holy Jesus,” Spider muttered. He remembered Little Bob’s description of the attack waged against the smugglers. Bob had mentioned explosions and flashes of light.

  He turned back toward Stingo, who laughed madly.

  “Boom!” He danced. “Boom!”

  Then someone sliced the man’s neck and Stingo fell, hard. He landed on the pouch, and Spider ducked in case the satchel contained more of those little bombs. It did not explode, however. Spider thought to grab the pouch, but the man who had cut Stingo came at him. Spider’s cutlass made short work of that foe, but by the time that was done someone else had made off with Stingo’s bombs.

  Loud cries filled the night. Among the shouts, one voice stood out. It was a feminine voice. Ruth, it had to be, although Spider could not spot her amid the tumult.

  Spider moved to the other side of the oak and nearly tripped over a bulk on the ground. He knelt and brushed aside a fallen branch. A dead man stared back at him.

  It was one of Fawkes’ men, Raldo, the Spaniard, dead and on his back. A small trace of blood had trickled from his mouth, but there was no sign of any wound that Spider could see.

  Raldo’s bad luck might well be my good fortune, Spider thought, looking about in hopes of seeing one of the man’s weapons. He’d feel a damned sight more comfortable with a pistol in his hand. Nothing lethal presented itself, however, and he cursed the darkness and the ankle-high grass.

  No one was rushing him, though, so he risked rolling the corpse over in hopes of finding an unfired flintlock. It took more effort than expected, because the body was oddly stiff, and cold.

  He did not find a useful gun. He did find a lot of blood, though, and a knife, plunged into the man’s skull, upward from the neck. Spider declined to take that.

  Damn, Spider thought. This death makes no sense. It does not fit the pattern.

  He had no time to ponder, however, because the battle continued in the night around him. As he rose, his hand brushed that of the dead man’s, and against a scrap of cloth. The fabric, a ragged piece less than two inches square, clung to the man’s fingernails. Spider snatched it, tucked it into his tobacco pouch, and cursed himself for letting this new mystery divert his attention from the fight.

  A shadowy figure ran by, limping, and despite the confusion and turmoil Spider recognized him immediately.

  Well, then. Opportunity after all!

  Spider dove, caught the man by the ankle and sent him tumbling. Then Spider crawled atop his prey and put a knife to his throat.

  “I have you, little bastard!”

  “Damn and blast ye, Spider John!” Little Bob Higgins spat in his face and tried in vain to squirm his way free.

  “I should have killed you last time we met, Bob. Put your hands where I can see them.”

  Spider felt a sharp scratch at his side and knew then that Bob had a knife in hand. Spider quickly ran his own dirk through Little Bob’s neck and rolled away.

  “You are welcome, Aggie.”

  He clutched his left side and felt warm blood, but only a little of it.

  “Fuck and bugger!”

  He crawled behind the oak, next to Raldo’s corpse, and sat up. He could not see well in the darkness, but he removed his hand from his wound and licked it. It was not drenched in blood. He touched the wound, and winced, but was relieved to find it was not gushing. He decided he probably would live.

  The gunshots had stopped, but the shouts of combat and the ringing of steel on steel echoed all around him. Spider stayed where he was but kept an eye out for Odin.

  He saw the crusty old son of a bitch soon enough. Odin had gotten his hands on a bloody axe somehow and was spinning like a goddamned waterspout, hewing necks and arms and cackling like a witch. It was his way in any fight like this, to compensate for the missing eye.

  “Like a top,” he always said, “so I can see all around. And it keeps the blade moving, too!”

  If the leg still bothered the old man at all, it didn’t show. Spider watched Odin kill or maim four men—it was impossible to tell how badly he’d cut them in the darkness, but they all fell and remained still. Spider wondered if they worked for Fawkes or for the smugglers.

  He decided it didn’t much matter. They were all going to hell. All of them.

  The sounds of battle continued around him. He rose, crouching to meet any assault, but kept spinning full circle while the battleground revolved, too, and everything became one blurred shadow.

  Then Spider’s battle was over.

  29

  Spider awoke on a hard bench surrounded by foul odors that immediately brought to his mind the apothecary shop back in Lymington. His belly felt hot and itchy on the left side, and his shoulder muscles ached from effort.

&nbs
p; He opened his eyes, and once the bleariness faded the similarity of his situation to that of the druggist’s shop increased. Morning sunlight illuminated shelves full of bottles and jars, and on a table nearby a candle’s flame danced beneath a clay pot suspended above it on a metal frame. A skull beside it stared at him; after a moment or two, Spider decided it likely had once belonged to a cat.

  He could not see it from this vantage, but he felt the warmth of a fireplace somewhere behind him and heard the occasional snap and crackle of burning logs.

  He turned his head to the left and realized he was in the center of a large room. He saw a table covered with beakers, alembics and clay pots tucked between shelves containing books and more jars. Pegs above the table held sharp implements, curved and straight, some unusually short and others quite long. Leather hoses dangled between them. A stack of folded cloths filled the space between a tall vial of blue-green fluid and another that seemed to be filled with salt.

  To his right, sunlight streamed between the iron bars securing a window, illuminating a shelves-and-wheels contraption much like the one Ambrose Oakes had shown him previously. It held open books, and a tall stand next to it held a jar of ink, a cup full of quills, and a jar of blotting sand.

  Spider saw nothing at all of the grounds beyond the window, so he decided he must be on one of the upper floors. He had no memory at all of having left the battle, but he knew it must be over. He heard no gunshots, no shouting, no swordplay.

  A quiet cackle in the opposite corner caught his attention. Spider looked and started violently when he saw a raven perched atop a coat tree. Instinct, fueled by his lifelong fear of all birds, told Spider to cover his face and get the hell out of this room, but he could not.

  Fuck and bugger! I’m bound!

  Indeed, ropes across his naked chest and across his thighs held him to the table. He tried to raise his arms, but found he was bound by the wrists as well.

  The raven stared, mocking him.

  “Jesus!” Spider’s voice sounded weak, and very far away. He stared at the damned black bird, which lifted wings and teetered on its perch. The beak opened and closed, opened and closed, as though the bloody beast was trying to speak, or perhaps chewing on something. Spider raised his head as much as he could and glanced at his side. He saw grayish plaster, with a faint bit of crimson peeking through, which corresponded to the pain he felt. He did not see any sign that the bird had dug into his wound, nor did he see or feel any places on his body where the damned beast might have torn off a piece of his flesh.

  Still, Spider wondered why the thing was not already eating his eyes.

  He tried to shout for help, but his throat was raw and he could not draw a deep breath.

  He closed his eyes tight and turned his face away from the raven. Tugging at his binds, contorting his body as hard as he could, he thought he might rock the table. Topple it, he thought. Tumble to the floor, use the table as a shield!

  He kept it up for what seemed ages, wondering if his heart might give out with the effort and every moment imagining the beak and talons at his throat and eyes. The table legs drummed on the floor as he continued his frantic attempt to escape. But it was a heavy thing, and apparently well built, and he almost wept as he realized the attempt was foolish.

  “Now then, Spider John, what is this?”

  Spider halted his struggle, opened his eyes and saw the bulk of Ambrose Oakes standing in the doorway. “A raven! A goddamned filthy soulless raven!”

  Oakes nodded. “You fear birds? Well, then.”

  “Fuck and bugger, man, I am bound for its fucking feast! Free me from this table before that black fiend tears at me!”

  Oakes laughed. “Old Ben? Come now, Spider John.” The master of the house walked toward the coat tree and coaxed the raven onto his arm. It perched there with dark wings spread.

  “Ben here is quite old, Spider. Likely he will not be long among us, I’m afraid. He has lost an eye, like your friend, although Ben’s was given up in a battle with a cat. The cat lost a good deal more.” Oakes pointed across Spider toward the skull next to the heated beaker.

  Spider’s throat seized up. This fucking bird killed a cat? God help me!

  “But you are not a cat and Ben has little life left in him, so you are quite safe.” He chuckled and returned Ben to his perch. The bird danced there for a few heartbeats, apparently trying to decide whether to face the wall or face into the room. Then it dropped some wet, white dung onto a tray built onto the coat tree below it.

  Oakes chuckled for a moment, then turned serious. “Have you always feared birds, Spider? I would like to discuss it with you, for such irrational fears fascinate me. Such fears are part of what induced me to establish this facility. I have treated a fellow who feared spiders—what would he have made of you, Spider John? I wonder. I wish he was still with us, to gauge his reaction upon hearing your name. He has passed on, I’m afraid.”

  “Get me off this table!”

  Oakes scolded him. “That would be premature. This fear of yours, perhaps it is the lingering effect of some childhood trauma, a frightening incident or perhaps the swooping of a bird that seemed to presage some horrible event in your life. Do you fear all birds, John, or only ravens? Or perhaps only birds black in hue?”

  Spider was in no mood to discuss the state of his mind. “Why am I bound?”

  Oakes approached and glanced at Spider’s side. “To keep you from fussing with the plaster I put on your wound. I know you itch, but I invested time and effort in stopping your bleeding and would hate to see you ruin my work.” The man drew a finger lightly across Spider’s injury. “Perhaps it still pains you mildly?”

  “Aye,” Spider said, while keeping a watchful eye on Ben. He did not trust anyone when it came to goddamned birds and doubted the creature cared what its master said about its behavior.

  “I also wanted to question you, John. Did you suffer any blow to the head, or some other injury? Aside from that long knife scratch, which was not deep, I see naught but minor scrapes and contusions, nothing that might explain why you fell unconscious.”

  “I do not recall,” Spider said. “I do not think anyone hit me.”

  “Hmmmm. You were lucky, Spider John,” Oakes mused. “Your wound was slight. You lost some blood, but not a great deal. Had the blade bit you even a little deeper, it might have been different. As it is, I am surprised you succumbed to it, quite honestly. Judging from old scars, you’ve suffered wounds far more severe than this one.”

  Spider pondered that. At the time, he had considered the cut from Little Bob to be a mere scratch.

  He was no stranger to injury, or to pain. Indeed, he’d learned quite early in his pirating days that it often was best to ignore the hurt and just keep fighting, and seek the surgeon later if you were still alive— if there was a surgeon, of course. That skill was rare on pirate vessels, and Doctor Boddings had been a rare luxury for wounded men aboard Plymouth Dream. On pirate vessels, often the best treatment to be had was from a former loblolly boy who did his best to recall what he’d seen while assisting a genuine surgeon on a Naval ship.

  If Little Bob’s blade had left merely a shallow wound, then why had Spider passed out? The battle against the intruders had been brief, a good deal shorter than many fights he’d seen in his day. And those melees had almost always been followed by hard work. Work such as carrying badly injured shipmates to the surgeon when there was one—or over the gunwale when there was not—or hauling booty from the prey vessel, repairing decks and bulkheads shattered by nine-pound balls, bailing from the bowels of a sinking vessel, stitching sails, hoisting up spars to replace those that had cracked or broken under enemy fire, rolling out a keg to celebrate victory and drink to the memory of the departed.

  Blacking out after a fight was not a common experience for Spider John.

  He gulped. “Might the blade that cut me have been poisoned?”

  “Envenomed?” Oakes shook his head. “It is possible, I suppose, all
things being possible in heaven and Earth, heh, but not at all likely.” The fat man’s large forehead creased deeply in thought. “I examined your wound quite closely. No discoloration or odor or anything else that cannot be explained by the presence of your own blood. I’ve had no chance to examine the knife, of course, and I’m told the men gathered a large number of weapons off the bloody grounds so there would be absolutely no chance of determining which one scratched you. But it’s a fool who goes into a close fight with a sharp blade coated in something that can kill him, if I have learned anything at all in my association with the cunning Mister Fawkes. Would you carry such a weapon into a fracas in the dark, running across wooded fields?”

  “No, I reckon I would not.”

  “No, Spider John. It would be a great risk. One might trip and cut oneself, and what then? No. In all probability, you were not poisoned.”

  Not by the knife, anyway, Spider thought.

  “I believe you will recuperate well, John.”

  Spider sighed and prayed silently. He pictured Em, and his son— who looked remarkably like Hob in Spider’s imagination. He would live. He would get back to them.

  “My friend, Odin,” Spider blinked. “Did he survive?”

  “He did, indeed,” Oakes said, nodding and laughing softly. “Your friend, I am told, is the very devil in a fight, despite his age. Accounted for himself with valor, according to those who saw him, an inspiration even to men Fawkes hired precisely because they had lived violent lives. I am told Odin wielded an axe that I assume he appropriated from my barn. I ought to scold him for that, but given the proficiency he demonstrated, perhaps I should simply reward him with the axe. He’d rather have some of the little bombs, though, or so Fawkes tells me.”

  “He is one who enjoys a skirmish, he is,” Spider said, still casting glances at the raven. “Sees it as a matter of pride, I think, that he can still deal death, old though he be. And I saw those little bombs. What are they?”