Never Surrender (Uncharted Secrets, Book 4): Endless Horizon Pirate Stories

by Cristi Taijeron

  There, under that black flag, among all those smelly men, was the best place for me to be. I would never be able to be a woman. I would never be able to settle down. I would forever have to hide, and fight, and thieve my way through this ugly world. I had no idea what would happen now, and there was no telling what my dreadful future would bring, but one thing was certain, I would never surrender to love, ever, ever again.

  As the colors of morning slowly painted the jungle, I realized I wasn’t far from the bay. Climbing over a log, I remembered how some of the men had slept on the ship tonight. If Rotty was among them we could leave before Cardozo caught up. Yes! Rotty could navigate us to wherever the hell we wanted to go. Setting my sight on the river our boats were docked in, I picked up my pace. I could see one of the little sails. Aye, that high and mighty Miguel Cardozo could navigate himself back to his stupid whore girl on his own tiny boat.

  Unfurling the sail, I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm my spiraling mind, but rather, I inhaled a bug. While choking on the stupid creature, I looked towards the natural harbor where Seraph was anchored. It wasn’t there. My heart sank into my gut. Oh, my God, Seraph was sailing away! No. “No!” I screamed. “Come back!” Running out into the water, I waved my hands wildly. No! No! Why? She was too far to stop but close enough that I could see Rotty jumping around at the stern. Over the sound of my rapid heartbeat and the ringing in my ears, I heard him cursing me to the hell I came from.

  Looking at my longboat, then back out to the massive blue sea, I began to feel sick. I was trapped. Trapped in the horrible swamps of the Panamanian jungle. Feeling faint, I trudged towards the shore. The world became a blur around me. Everything started to spin. Hurrying my footfalls, I felt weaker with each heavy step. The ghastly song of the birds and monkeys fell silent as my vision hazed over. Falling face first on the murky shore, I landed right next to someone’s bare, white feet.

  “Come here, my lily,” was the last thing I heard before falling unconscious in the last place I wanted to be: Miguel Cardozo’s arms.

  Chapter 15

  Honorable Betrayal

  The only thing worse than being a woman with no rights, was being a woman dressed as a filthy man in a longboat, with a bunch of other filthy men who knew I was a woman. Men who had revoked me of all the rights I’d fought so hard to earn. Aye, after watching Cardozo chase me on bare feet through the jungle—shouting my many different names like a man with no sense—the other men Rotty had left behind picked up on the truth of my identity. This vile act of betrayal upset them greatly, but their complaints were quickly hushed when Cardozo gave them their options. Standing on the swampy shore we were stuck on, he’d said, I am going to Jamaica. If you wish to join me you will follow my rules, and if you follow my rules I will treat you as fair as I always have.

  Wanting out of the godforsaken jungle, and knowing damn well that he was the one man capable of managing safe passage, each man easily agreed to his articles—including the one that read: Any man who offends my woman, be it by eye or limb, will have the offending part removed from his body. I hated being referred to as his woman, when in truth, I never wanted to see him again, but his plan had thus far kept me safe. So here, in the shade of the sail, I sat behind him like a child sentenced to the corner until further notice.

  Staring across the sun beaten horizon—sweating like a pig and smelling like a dog—I thought about how I deserved this punishment for wishing this fate on the man who was now saving my life. All of our lives. For of the seven of us forced into this dreadful voyage, not a one of us would have been capable of performing the masterful navigation with which he was guiding us across the massive sea. Nor had any of us the ability to catch as many fish as he had along the way. And without his strict command keeping us in line, we might have killed each other in this tiny boat already.

  Aye, looking around at the hideous bunch—growling and moaning in their miseries—I was certain that without the strength of our captain, we’d all be dead. But the state we were in was still a far cry from life. The weight of our cargo was causing the boat to ride low, dragging like an injured whale, yet it hardly seemed enough bulk to sustain us on. Salted pork and limes made up the most of our food, while the water barrels made up the majority of our weight. Spending every moment in the godforsaken heat, we craved and yearned and longed for the life-sustaining water, but watching the supply slowly diminish was cause enough to stick with our rations.

  We’d brought extra bolts of canvas to keep us shaded from the horrendous sun, but each one of us was getting sunburned and Dusty had even fallen blind from the brightness. Rain had pummeled us and the sea for more than half of our journey, and though the moisture relieved the heat and lessened the glare, being soaking wet brought on a whole new type of misery. Each one of us smelled like death, looked like hell, and the mood aboard plainly mirrored the ghastly image of our failing health.

  From this tiny little boat the ocean looked bigger than ever, and it was hard to stay positive when one day bled into the next with no defining marks of land to prove we had progressed—yet I believed in our captain. I had faith in those life defining marks on his map, and I understood his reasons for being so harsh with us. But it was becoming dangerously apparent that not everyone aboard shared my view of things.

  “Are we going in circles?” Blind ol’ Dusty wailed like a ghost from where he lay on the floor of the boat.

  Wiping the sweat off his sunburned forehead, Cardozo added his next mark to the map. “No. We are not going in circles. In fact, we’ve covered about a third of the course.”

  “Is that all?” Cruz roared out above the whimpering complaints of the exhausted group. “I’m beginning to wonder if you aren’t trying to kill us off out here.”

  Though Cruz was one of Rotty’s best mates, he had somehow ended up among the abandoned and now hated us more than ever. Especially me, for as he said it, I had fooled him into thinking I was a man he hated, when in truth I was a woman who had been fucking the captain he hated.

  Cardozo calmly answered while measuring between marks, “If I wanted you dead, you would be. It would have provided us with more water and limes had I gutted you back on the shore and left your spineless body to rot among the other shallow, soulless monsters prowling the swampy grounds of that hideous jungle. But I did not. And if death shall find you on this mission, it will not be by my wishes, but by your own request.”

  Cruz huffed in irritation as he rowed. “Ah, I’m just making sure you’re not as lost as we are.”

  Pauly bulked up beside Cruz, ready to defend his mate if this dispute turned to war.

  Finally looking away from his map, Cardozo shot them a murderous glare. “If I were as easily lost as you are, Mister Cruz, then we would be dead already. But I will remind you again that I am doing my very best to keep each one of us alive, and if you two continue to defile the morale of my men with your insistent bickering, you will most certainly find yourselves lost at the bottom of the sea.”

  Though neither of them responded, I could tell they were seething with hatred as they rowed along.

  Cardozo waved his hand past the group. “Now, if haste is what you filthy salts want, then rowing will be far more productive than crying like wee little babes.”

  “Speaking of wee little babes,” Henry stood up and dropped his breeches, “I got to birth one out my backside.”

  Turning my head away from the sight of Henry’s bare naked bottom half, I joined the other men for the routine of balancing the boat while he dropped his load of shit. The lack of privacy was absurd. I never wanted to be this close to anyone or ever know the things I now knew about this vile lot.

  Hearing the old hog groan and squirt and then sigh in relief, I plopped back on my designated bench and crossed my arms. Though I once was the finest sailor of the bunch, I was now nothing more than a pitiful woman riding on the captain’s coattails, and all I could do was accept my place in his shadow. Like Cardozo had said, and mumbled, and e
ven shouted at us many, many times, whining wouldn’t get us through to sunset.

  Looking up at the high afternoon sun, feeling its terrible rays beating through the thick fabric of my coat, I sighed. Sunset seemed so bloody far away. Yet, the slew of clouds that rolled in with the darkness I longed for, made me wish the sun was still shining bright. Watching the thunderheads flicker and spark, I felt the wind it was kicking up blasting against my face. This was horrible. Just as I thought it couldn’t get worse, rain started to fall. That ugly storm was going to hit us. I knew it. Why? Because things could always be worse. Holding my hat down so it wouldn’t blow away, I snickered deliriously, “Because for me, things will always get worse.”

  The rain quickly turned to a pummeling downpour that led to rolling swells, which forced us to cope like blood-bonded brethren as the night turned to day, and the day into many more days and many long, miserable nights. The seas smoothed, the sun shone, the rain fell, the smells worsened, the moods darkened, and worst of all, the shield Cardozo had built to protect me was thinning as the madness of the men thickened.

  Another afternoon was upon us. Burning rays of sunlight beat down hard on our bodies that were still wet from the previous night’s rain. There was no wind. Everyone was quiet. Without a word spoken among us for quite some time, I began to wonder if I hated the silence or the bickering more. I think I hated everything. All of it. And everyone.

  While Thomas Rock and Henry Bail worked the sweeps, Cruz and Pauly jabbered on at the stern. I couldn’t hear their words, but I watched their burnt and blistered lips moving. Mumble, mumble, silence. Mumble, mumble, silence. The cycle was driving me mad. The more I listened and watched, the more annoyed I became.

  Hatred and agony swarmed in my mind like the sharks that had been following us.

  The agony I had become accustomed to, but the hatred was exhausting. The energy I exuded plotting the deaths of Pauly and Cruz, quickly wore me thin. I hadn’t had enough water today. My mind was going. I could feel it slipping away. Feeling dizzy, I stared at Cardozo to keep my mind straight. Kneeling beside Dusty, he was slicing him a lime. Above the silence I heard the knife tearing through the meaty skin of the citrus fruit. As the juices expelled, my parched mouth watered.

  Slice by slice, Cardozo helped the blind man take hold of his life-giving portion. He was smiling as he did so. Dusty laughed about whatever Cardozo was saying. Though filthy, sunburned, and hideously blistered like the rest of us, Cardozo had somehow managed to keep his sanity, and the strange moment of peace he shared with Dusty gave me hope. Hope that we’d survive. Hope that I would one day take a bath in warm water. Hope that I would soon enough be lying in a bed somewhere ashore. A bed that didn’t roll and bob and teeter. In a place where I didn’t have to assist the old men who hated me when they took their smelly shits. In a place where I did not have to hide in fear behind the man who had broken my heart when I took a shit of my own.

  While wishing I felt well enough to join in on the rare moment of simple peace that Cardozo and Dusty were sharing, I saw the paddle of an oar come sweeping through the air. The same way that heavy and flat hunk of wood would slap against the face of the sea, it bashed Cardozo across the head.

  Like a bag of sand, he flopped over, clearing the path between me and the man who had hit him. Cruz. My hazy mind could hardly process the dreadful reality. Pauly crept up right behind him. Before I had a chance to react, they were both on top of me, ripping at my clothes and growling about how the captain could no longer keep his slut to himself. I tried to fight. My body was too weak. My sick and spiraling mind could not manage a defense. Snarly and snappy as they were, it felt like I was being attacked by a pack of dogs. I was too dazed to know if it hurt or not, and I was too lost in my own version of hell to know if it would ever end. But I did have enough sense to realize I didn’t want them to ruin Mason’s journal. Hugging tight to the coat pocket where I kept the precious piece, the terror whirled around me void of sound. But the silence plugging my muffled hearing busted out like volcanic lava when I heard Cruz scream out in bloodcurdling pain.

  His suffocating weight lifted off of me. Through my blurry eyes, my suddenly sane and sober mind processed the sight of Cardozo throwing Cruz overboard. The bloodied knife he had stabbed into Cruz’s back was still in his hand as he yanked Pauly off of me.

  Holding Pauly stiff by the neck, Cardozo began bashing his face against my bench until his nose busted open. Tucking into the bow, I quickly found blind Dusty in front of me, acting as my shield as Cardozo beat the hell out of Pauly.

  Violent as the horrific scene before me was, I had nearly forgotten about Cruz going overboard, but soon enough Rock shouted, “The sharks are after him!”

  Grinding Pauly’s battered face against the bench, Cardozo roared at his men, “Keep rowing! Keep rowing or you’ll be swimming beside him!”

  From over Dusty’s shoulder, I could see Cruz flapping about in the blue water. Just as Rock had said, the sharks that had been following us started bumping and testing him, making passes around his body. Then the most curious and hungriest one took a bite! Cruz’s mortifying scream rivaled the horrible sound of ripping and tearing flesh, causing me to scream out as well. All the men aboard started stirring like scared little girls.

  “Row, you dogs! Row!” Cardozo shouted again. I wanted to help row. We were not going fast enough. The slippery beasts were so close to our little boat that was riding so low, that I began imagining their terrible teeth ripping the wooden hull to bits.

  Holding Pauly by the hair, Cardozo forced him to face the massacre. “Feast your eyes upon the fate of your leader! In his footsteps you soon will follow!”

  Unable to contain my horror over Cruz’s fate and Pauly’s future, I screamed and screamed as Cruz was grabbed and torn apart by the feeding frenzy that had taken place. Twisting and flailing under Dusty’s hold on me, my heart beat against my ribcage so harshly I thought it would bust through. I watched with wide, horrified eyes as the sharks dipped him under again and again, only to tug him back up with their gnashing teeth. He was a bloodier, uglier mess every time he resurfaced. The puddle of blood had spread afar. I wondered how long this would go on. Why was he still alive? Crying and wailing, he was bit and torn and shredded to pieces limb by limb.

  Eventually, the frenzy silenced the helpless man, but the gnashing and gnawing of the deadly teeth echoed in my mind as Cardozo held Pauly’s arm flat on the bench. None of this was over.

  Pauly flipped and flailed, trying to break loose.

  “Hold still! Hold him still!” Cardozo grabbed Dusty and made him brace my attacker as he cocked his axe. As promised, he sliced off Pauly’s offending limb. Grabbing the severed hand, he threw it towards the sharks. While still holding tight to Pauly, who was screaming at the sight of his bloodied stump, Cardozo quickly dug into his eye socket with a knife and plucked his offending eyeball out of his head. With his bare hand he grabbed the eye he had ripped out, and pitched it into the sea.

  Mortified by the entire scene, I threw up on my lap as Cardozo tossed Pauly overboard.

  Losing my hold on consciousness—mind spiraling and gut churning—I heard Cardozo shout to the surviving men. “This will not happen again! You will follow me or you will follow the bloodied trail behind us!”

  Just then, one of the sharks bumped the boat. I wailed in terror as Cardozo lost his balance and fell to his knees. Rising quickly, he yanked the oar from Henry and began rowing himself. Wanting nothing more than to pass out, or even die, my mind nevertheless stayed alert as the shark’s hard head thumped against the hull again.

  Everyone aboard yelled and flailed so wildly, my girlish yelps were easily lost among the awful sounds.

  “Keep rowing. All we can do is keep going. They will bump us again if we slow down,” Cardozo hollered above the chaos.

  “When will it stop?” I cried.

  Looking back at the bloody face of the sea where the sharks were still gnawing on what was left of their su
pper, Cardozo said, “They will follow us all the way to Jamaica hoping for another bite to eat.”

  That was the last thing I wanted to hear.

  Until I heard another thud.

  As Cardozo said, the sharks followed us into the night, but the bumping of the boat had ceased. No longer able to see what lurked in the black waters, I forced myself to believe the sea monsters were gone. I needed to rest. But there was no way I could sleep. I didn’t want to see what my mind would unearth in my dreams while living such a horrendous nightmare.

  With Dusty and Henry rowing away and Rock resting, Cardozo leaned back at the bow. He called to me, “Come here, Rory.”

  I was frozen stiff on my bench.

  Letting out a light chuckle, he reached for me and pulled me against his chest. Tense as a board, I remained locked in my paranoid trance until he started rubbing my shoulder. “Calma, calma, meu bem. You must rest, and here in my arms there is nothing to fear.”

  The melody of his voice and the warmth of his touch slowly melted through the ice encasing my body in the Caribbean heat. Bit by bit my tension loosened, allowing my exhausted body to mold around his. Finally, lying limp on top of him, I exhaled the breath it seemed I’d been holding since Cruz had hit him with that oar. “Thank you.”

  He petted my head. “You will always be safe with me, Rory. Whether you are sharing a bed with me or not, you are my friend and I love you in my own way.”

  Gaining enough strength to squeeze the man I thought I never wanted to touch again, I thought about how only days ago I would have considered it weak to fall back into his arms. But this, ah, this was no submission at all. It was an act of survival. After all I had endured without complaint, I needed to be held, I needed to be loved, and the feel of his big, warm body so close to mine, offered my soul the relief my body had been so deprived of.

  Settling into the rare moment of peace, I mumbled with my eyes closed, “You make it quite difficult for me to hate you, Miguel Cardozo.”