by Alex Bledsoe
The man pointed at me. I did as well, raising my eyebrows in a question: Me? He nodded.
“I’ll meet you at the boat,” I said.
“I’ll come with you,” Jane said.
“No,” I said, and my voice sounded strange even to me. “I want to talk to him alone.”
“Why?”
I wasn’t sure myself. “I just do. I’ll tell you what he says.”
“Okay,” Jane said, although she clearly thought I was bonkers.
I went through the cordon of guards, down the steps, and onto the muddy shore, where the man awaited me.
“You wanted to see me?” I asked when I was face-to- face.
He smelled of mud and fish.
“You be the man with the hole in his heart?”
I assumed he meant my scar, although I couldn’t imagine how he knew about it. “Maybe. Who wants to know?”
“My name isn’t important. Just that I hear things before they happen.”
I smiled wryly. “And you heard something about me, right?
How much will it cost me to find out?”
“I don’t want your money,” he said with a twitch. “I just want to tell you that you will find the man you seek. The man with black hair.”
I felt goose bumps on my back. I tried to stay nonchalant.
“Oh. Well… thanks.”
“And you will find him alive.”
“That’s good, too.”
“But don’t seek after his gold. It’s got too much blood on it.”
“I’m not interested in his gold.”
He laughed. “A man may say that, until the gold’s before him.”
“And a man may mean it.”
He shrugged. “As you say. This is my claim, my threatening, and my message.”
“You do your office fairly,” I said in court-speak, and pressed a coin in his hand.
He jumped back as if scalded, and the money landed in the mud at my feet. “I told you, I don’t want your money!” He rushed away toward town and disappeared back into the crowd. I bent and picked up the coin. I wasn’t a superstitious man, but I’d seen enough to convince myself that I had little knowledge of how the universe truly worked. I took his warning under advisement. Very serious advisement.
Back at the dock, the two sailors who rowed us from the Cow rushed to meet us. “Did you hear, Captain?” one said. “The Indigo Ray was found as a ghost ship. They took down a pirate hunter!”
I knew the sailors had no idea who “they” were, which made the concept even scarier. If they got back to the Cow, we might be as marooned as the Copper Lance. I pulled out my money bag and handed each man a gold coin. “You’re to stay here,” I said. “Learn as much as you can. When we get back, I’ll want a full report.” I looked at Clift. “Right?”
Clift understood. “Right.”
Jane and I rowed while Clift navigated the boat back among the anchored ships. When we got to the Red Cow, Clift called for all sails, and in the faint wind, we eased toward the harbor opening. Finally we emerged, the real wind caught us, and we shot forward into the ocean, toward our rendezvous with a nightmare.
Chapter Fifteen
We found the Vile Howl the next day.
The sunrise revealed an ocean as empty as you could imagine. Somehow knowing every ship was huddled back at Blefuscola added to the effect. It seemed like the only things out here were us and whoever had been raiding the ships. There was a breeze, and the waves had little whitecaps that made the ride rougher than normal.
I stood with Seaton at the starboard bow rail. Jane had watched for a while, but left when it became clear nothing was going to happen quickly. Clift slouched with his arms draped over the wheel without an apparent care in the world; he received reports every few minutes from the foremast crosstrees. So far, they’d been variations of “all clear.”
Suhonen appeared over me. “May I have a word with you, Mr. LaCrosse?” He looked at Seaton. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Seaton.”
The quartermaster did not even look at Suhonen, but he said, “Any trouble, you’ll wake up on the bottom of the sea with lobster claws around your pecker, got me?”
“No trouble, sir,” the big man assured him.
I followed him across the forecastle to the port rail, where a seaman quickly scampered away to give us privacy. “Must be handy to intimidate everyone,” I said.
“Sometimes,” he agreed. “Sometimes it’s just a pisser, though.”
“So what can I do for you?”
“I’d like to ask a favor,” the big man said respectfully. “I’d like to be included in whatever you and Cap’n Jane are doing.”
“Why is that?”
“I want to see how you work. A man can’t stay on the sea his whole life. I want to live to an old age, like you.”
He said this with a straight face, and I was really glad Jane wasn’t there to hear it. I suppose, for him, I did seem old; he was maybe twenty-five. I said, “Well, okay, but isn’t Jane a better role model? She was a pirate and a pirate hunter, too, just like you.”
With a completely straight face, he said, “She’s a little scarier than you. I wouldn’t know how to talk to her.”
Now I did smile. “She scares me sometimes, too. All right, you can tag along, but there’s no extra pay in it, just so we’re clear. No trea sure.”
“Aye,” he agreed with no hesitation.
When I returned to Seaton, he asked, “Suhonen give you more trouble? I thought you two had settled things. Want me to have a word with him?”
“No, he just wanted some career advice,” I said.
Seaton’s eyebrows rose, but he did not comment.
The lookout standing on the foremast crosstrees cried out, “Ship right ahead!”
Everyone on deck rushed to the rail, the opposite of their casual interest when we sighted the Mellow Wine. Blefuscola had them all on edge, even though they hadn’t left the ship.
“Battle stations, Mr. Seaton,” Clift called nonchalantly.
Seaton repeated the order, and men rushed to the rails, glad to have a task. They snapped the ballistae into place, cranked the strings tight, and loaded the first bolts. Mr. Dancer, the gunnery master, strode behind them checking their preparations.
Now I could make out the approaching vessel well enough to see it veer, tack, and plunge with no apparent purpose. It pitched fitfully over the waves, riding the swells and then falling off. “Searching for a man overboard, perhaps,” Seaton muttered, but he didn’t sound like he believed it.
“Not enough sail for this wind,” he added a few moments later. That was true-the Cow had many sails set to capitalize on the light breeze, but this stranger showed only a few hung from its rigging.
“It’s the Vile Howl, ” Seaton said at last. His words were picked up by a seaman passing close behind us, and moments later the whole crew seemed to know. The rest of the men came on deck, some of them armed. I spotted Duncan Tew among them. I had that tingly urge to have my own sword close at hand, but there was no graceful way to scamper back to my cabin for it.
At last, the Howl was close enough to truly observe. She was about the same size as the Cow, but with a slightly larger stern and without the mysterious extra-long bowsprit. Only a jib was flying, and a foresail that was still partly tied up on one end. She rolled from starboard to port with the motion of the waves that passed beneath her.
“Signal flags, Mr. Seaton,” Clift said. Seaton relayed the command, and a young sailor with a pair of flags made an elaborate dance to get the other ship’s attention. There was no response. There was no one visible on deck at all.
“Mirror signals,” Clift said, and these were duly used to reflect sunlight at the other ship, concentrating on the portholes. Again, there was no response.
“I seen a ghost ship off Kolantar Head,” I heard one seaman tell another. “Came out of the fog on a moonlit night-so close, I could see the blind eyes of the skull-faced crew.”
“More like the
blind eyes of a shit- faced sailor,” his friend mocked.
“Say what you will, I know what transpired.”
“Well, whatever this ship be, she’s no ghost,” his friend said.
Jane appeared beside me. “I’m going to get my sword,” she said quietly. “Want yours?”
I glanced at her, expecting mockery, but her expression was dead serious. I nodded. If something rattled Jane Argo, I definitely wanted to be armed.
Clift steered us parallel to the Vile Howl, staying well out of ballista range, although no gunners were visible on her deck. In the whole time we watched, there was no sign of life or movement. There appeared to be no overt damage, only what might have occurred from neglect or abandonment.
At last, Clift turned the wheel over to Greaves and joined us at the bow. “Opinions?”
“Seems we won’t learn much by watching,” I said.
“Are you volunteering to go aboard her?” Clift asked.
“Sure. It’s my area of expertise, after all.”
“Seems ill-advised to let the man with the gold go into danger.” Clift turned to Jane, who had returned with our weapons. “I suppose you’ll want to go as well?”
“Try to keep me from it.”
“We all know the futility of that,” he said without making eye contact with her. “Mr. Seaton, can we grapple up to her?”
“Yes, sir. The wind isn’t too bad and she’s not showing much canvas. We can hook up.”
“Then do it.”
“I think Suhonen will want to go, too,” I said.
“Oh, he’s going whether he wants to or not,” Clift assured me. “He’s going to watch you like a wandering babe.”
I looked at the other ship. Its dark portholes and open hatches seem to beckon us to an unspecific but nonetheless serious doom.
Seaton, now at the wheel, nudged the Red Cow closer to the Vile Howl. The crew had trimmed sail until we ran under no more canvas than the other ship, and we began to bounce in the waves at the same rate.
As we neared, we saw that the hull was intact. A few lines and bits of sail hung over the rail and dragged in the water, but it wasn’t enough to affect its course. There was still no sign of the crew.
“A hoy, Vile Howl!” Clift yelled through a megaphone. “It’s Dylan Clift and the Red Cow!” The only reply was the snap of the sail tatters.
Suhonen stood behind me. I wondered if this new master- apprentice relationship meant I’d have to get used to his looming presence at the periphery of my vision. I asked him, “Do you see anything that looks like deliberate damage?”
He shook his head. “Nothing that neglect wouldn’t cause.” Clift hailed them again, then passed the megaphone to Greaves. “Won’t learn anything listening to ourselves talk,” the captain said. “Mr. Dancer, hook us up.”
Dancer shouted out commands, and three men shot bolts attached to lines across to the other ship. The bolts had grappling hooks for heads, and men on the Cow yanked the lines tight. Each shouted, “Hooked!” when the grapple attached itself to the Vile Howl ’s rail. Crews at winches took up the slack and hauled the two ships together. The vessels struck with a solid bump, and the hulls squealed when they rubbed against each other.
Instead of steadying the Howl, though, the maneuver made the Cow pitch in unison with it. It was the first time I’d truly had to struggle to keep my feet under me. “Turn us into the swells, Mr. Seaton,” Clift ordered. Slowly the Cow swung around, dragging the Howl with it, until we were cutting through the wave crests instead of riding limply over them.
“We’ll have silence while the boarding party is over there, Mr. Seaton,” Clift said. “If they holler for help, I want to be sure to hear it.”
“Aye, sir,” the quartermaster said, then bellowed, “All hands will be silent!”
“Does he appreciate the irony of yelling for silence?” I whispered to Jane.
“Well, he could use a whistle, but I think he likes the personal touch.”
Jane, Suhonen, and I swung over on ropes. It was something I hadn’t done since childhood, and I realized it when my shoulders protested the move. We all crouched, letting our legs absorb the deck’s movement while we listened for anything unusual. Except for the creak of the rigging and the shiver as the two hulls slid together, there was nothing. The crew of the Cow crowded the rails, watching us, armed and ready for any eventuality. They hoped.
“Damn my bloodshot eyes,” Suhonen said softly. “It’s a ghost ship for sure.”
“I’ll change your diaper later,” Jane said in annoyance. “Spread out and search the deck. Don’t go below.”
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, or at, since I didn’t know ships well enough to spot something out of place. Just like the Indigo Ray, the Howl looked abandoned but not damaged- there were plenty of old scars in the wood, but no sign of recent battle action. The others found nothing as well.
“We’re going to check below,” Jane called to the Cow.
Belowdecks, the Vile Howl mirrored the Red Cow in general outline. We found no evidence of anyone, alive or dead. The sleeping hammocks were all in place, and all empty. Some items had been knocked askew, but it looked more like the result of the ship’s uncertain motion than any struggle or fight.
“Pipes,” Jane said, pointing at a table. Four of them lay there, a pouch of dried leaves on the floor where it had fallen. “Sailors don’t go anywhere without their pipes.”
“These did,” I said, and nodded at two empty scabbards hanging from wall pegs. “But they did take their swords.”
“Is that a clue?” Suhonen asked.
“It sure as hell is,” Jane said. She knelt by the hanging sword belts, examining them minutely without touching them. A quick search found a dozen more empty scabbards. “They snatched their weapons without taking time to strap on their belts.” She looked back at Suhonen. “What does that tell you?”
The big man pondered this. “Something came up suddenly?”
Jane smiled, and I nodded. I said, “They grabbed them and ran. But to where?”
“And to do what?” Jane said. “It’s not like another ship could just slip up on them. These were ex-pirates.”
“Wherever the fight was, it must’ve come up in a hurry,” I said. “But it doesn’t look like it happened here.”
“The crew didn’t vanish,” Suhonen said succinctly. “They just.. left.”
We proceeded to the officers’ quarters, which were in the same condition. The captain’s door was marked with the same double X — or rather W above an M — that we’d seen on the Indigo Ray. Jane went immediately to the desk and sought out the logbook. She opened it, turned to the last completed page, and muttered, “Damn.”
I looked idly over the captain’s bunk and belongings. Sometimes not looking for something specific helped you find it, especially when you didn’t know what it was. To Jane, I said, “No clues in the log?”
“ ‘Quartering Tendecca Shoals per orders,’ ” she read. “ ‘No sign of any pirate activity or abandoned ships.’ That’s the last entry, and it was dated a week ago.”
“Does that tally up with the ship’s condition?”
“Untended for a week? Yeah.”
Suddenly I stopped, backed up, and looked at the bunk again. The hairs stood up on my neck. “Jane,” I said casually, “look at this.”
She joined me, puzzled, and then it registered. She whispered, “No fucking way.”
Suhonen came over and looked at the black yarn hair sticking out from under a pillow. Using her knife, Jane lifted the pillow to reveal button eyes, a hand-sewn dress, and the wear and tear of a favorite toy.
“Would the captain of this ship really have brought his child along?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He might.”
“On a ship that was sure to see combat?”
“These guys are tough,” Suhonen said. “Served with a Captain Lyvers once who brought his twin teenage daughters along. Apparently he hadn’t noticed that the
y weren’t six years old anymore, but the rest of us did.”
“I don’t follow,” I said.
“The idea that there’s something he can’t handle might not even occur to a man like the Howl ’s captain,” Suhonen said. “Sure didn’t occur to Captain Lyvers.”
Jane shook her head. “Bloody hell,” she whispered, speaking for us all. “Where are they?”
We found one thing missing-the medicine chest, just like the Ray and the Mellow Wine. We brought the charts and logbook back on board the Red Cow. Seaton was given the unenviable task of reconstructing the Vile Howl ’s previous course using her present locale, the last position noted in the log, and the weather as best he could estimate it. Meanwhile Jane, Suhonen, and I gave Clift a detailed report in his cabin. Jane did most of the talking, and covered everything succinctly.
“You’d make a good first mate,” Clift said with the hint of a smile.
“The best in any damn navy,” Jane shot back.
He chuckled, but it passed quickly. He said, “So what are we dealing with here? Mutiny?”
I shook my head. “No sign of violence. And way too many personal effects lying around. If the crew left, they did it very damn calmly, and they didn’t take their pipes, which tells me they thought they were coming back.”
“Or they were so surprised, all they had time to grab were their blades,” Suhonen added. I nodded in agreement.
“Another ship, then?” Clift mused. “But what kind? That whole ‘no sign of violence’ seems to rule out an actual pirate attack.” He paused thoughtfully. “I suppose we have no choice except to assume that whatever happened here is the same thing that happened to those other ships back at Blefuscola.”
“Seems silly not to,” I agreed.
“Very well: once we get an approximate course from Mr. Seaton, we’ll proceed to backtrack. If the wave gods are with us, we will find the solution to everyone’s mysteries at the other end.”
“Or just more mysteries,” Suhonen said. He learned fast.
Chapter Sixteen
