Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves

by James Matlack Raney

  An entire crew of pirates, taking little notice of the cold air, littered the sloop’s deck in waistcoat jackets, threadbare scarves wrapped loosely about their necks, some of them resting their hands on the pommels of cutlasses or the grips of pistols, others twirling and balancing knives on the tips of their deft fingers. The lot of them gathered around a couple of small stoves, aglow with orange and white coals, joking and laughing, or singing old pirate songs to the organ grinder’s tune. Despite his situation, Jim couldn’t help but feel that they were a happier bunch than most of the people he’d seen in the dark streets of London these last months.

  On their way to the main cabin, MacGuffy found a particularly plump pirate, thicker around the middle than anywhere else on his whole body, slumped up against an empty beer barrel, with an even emptier cup loose in his fingers, snoring loudly. A black raven sat on the beer barrel above the portly sailor’s head, eating what seemed to be corn from the top of the old pirate’s top hat.

  “Not even a proper parrot,” George whispered to Jim, but the raven looked right at the two boys and winked.

  “Cornelius?” Jim whispered, he and Lacey exchanging startled looks. But the clever raven flew off to the topmast without saying a word.

  “What did you say?” George asked, but Jim just kept his mouth shut, wondering what the blasted talking bird was doing hanging about here.

  MacGuffy, meanwhile, kicked the old pirate’s thigh with the toe of his boot and shouted, “Avast Mister Gilly!”

  Gilly snorted and flew suddenly awake. “FIRE THE CANNONS AND HOIST THE JOLLY ROGER!” he roared with a slurred voice, all of the pirates gathered around having a hearty laugh at the old man’s expense.

  “Caught you nappin’ again, did I, Mister Gilly?”

  “I’m no’ on watch, Mister MacGuffy,” Gilly said slowly and through his nose, as though inflicted with the worst of all colds. “I was jus’ havin’ a nap ’ere and dreamin’ about somefin…somefin a long time ago…” He furrowed his brow and clenched his teeth trying to remember, and Jim thought his head might pop off if he kept it up, but he eventually released all his pent-up efforts with a deep sigh that flapped his old lips. “But it seems to ’ave escaped me, naturally, sir.”

  “Well if you ain’t on the watch, then who it be?”

  “I,” announced a voice as deep and rumbling as thunder. The boys and Lacey craned their necks to look up at the huge man who now stepped before them. The ship’s deck groaned beneath his weight, for he was as tall as a doorway and at least as broad, his head was shaved bald and his skin as a black as midnight, strange scars swirled beneath his dark eyes, the likes of which Jim had never seen before. The huge man crossed his arms over his broad chest and smiled down at old MacGuffy.

  “Ah, Mufwalme.” If old MacGuffy was at all intimidated by the big man, he showed no sign, slapping the watchman on his huge bicep. “Excellent choice to have you on guard while nothin’ o’ value is on board, excellent choice indeed.”

  Mufwalme eyed the children suspiciously, and Jim was certain his eyes, which were a fantastic white against the man’s black skin, lingered on his face for an even longer moment. He growled at old MacGuffy and put his huge hands on his hips. “I grow tired of your jokes, old man. If this were my country—”

  “But it ain’t your country, now is it?” MacGuffy said with a smile, his gold tooth gleaming in the moonlight. “Which be a cryin’ shame if ye ask me, for it would be a mite bit warmer if it were!”

  “What do you want, old man?”

  “Prisoners to see the captain.”

  “Prisoners?” Mufwalme raised an eyebrow and sneered. “They look highly dangerous, MacGuffy. Perhaps you should have called for my help to round them up.”

  “Don’t let the looks deceive ya, lad.” MacGuffy smiled lazily and nearly laughed. “These be highly resourceful thieves yer beholdin’, and they’ll be meetin’ the captain if ye don’t mind.”

  “So be it,” Mufwalme finally agreed, stepping his giant frame aside to reveal a small set of steps leading down to the sloop’s main cabin door.

  MacGuffy and his mates rudely corralled Jim, the Ratts, and Lacey down the steps and into the captain’s cabin. It was a small room, lit by a hanging lamp in the corner and furnished with only a table and an old leather chair. The cabin’s lone decoration was a large map hanging on the wall, one that seemed to cover the entire known world. It was a rather fanciful map, Jim imagined, for it was populated with all manner of animated sea creatures and merpeople and odd monuments in places Jim had never heard of, much less seen before.

  “Wait here, darlin’s,” MacGuffy said with a leer. “The captain’ll be with ye shortly.” With that, MacGuffy and all of the crew left the black-bearded pirate and another, who must have been Chinese, Jim guessed, with a mustache that sprouted from each side of his upper lip like long vines of black hair, to stand guard.

  It was awfully quiet in the cabin, the faint hissing of the lamp and the soft lapping of water against the creaking ship being the only sounds.

  “What do you think the captain’ll look like?” Paul asked.

  “Probably huge with a beard as long as I am tall, and a necklace made out of human skulls!” Peter quailed.

  “I saw a picture of a pirate captain once,” George said, his face as pale as the man on the moon’s. “He had a sword the size of a windmill blade, and one of his hands must have been chopped off, ‘cause he had a hook in place of it! A hook!”

  “Maybe the pirate captain is a she!” Lacey mumbled, but the fear in her eyes plainly told Jim she was wishing she had listened to herself instead of these stupid boys…again. Of course the boys just stared at her incredulously, and Peter and Paul said something about that being the most ridiculous thing they had ever heard.

  “This is serious!” Jim cried. “Besides, there are no such things as woman pirates!”

  “On that point, young sir, you are mistaken,” a low voice said from behind them, and the children nearly jumped out of their jackets in surprise. Jim whirled around to find the speaker, and icy tendrils of fear crawled over his skin. The pirate standing before them wore no eye patch, had neither a hook hand nor peg leg, and no parrot resting upon his shoulder, instead he wore only a charcoal great cloak, pulled up close to his chin, and a black tricorn hat pulled low over his brow, masking his face in shadow. He was the one Jim had seen twice before. He was the shadow pirate.

  “Welcome aboard my ship,” the pirate said and with that, removed his hat.

  His skin was permanently darkened by the kiss of the sun, his eyes dark as coal and his hair just as black, but streaked with lines of silvery gray. He was neither greatly tall nor overly short, neither was he extremely large nor dreadfully thin; he was a man one could pass in the street and not remember after one block, but, Jim realized as he studied the pirate intently, if you took a good long look at him, his was a face you could never entirely forget, both calm as a breeze and violent as a hurricane in the same glance. Jim knew he wouldn’t forget that face, for, with an even deeper chill, he realized he had seen it before, along with his father’s and two others, hanging in a picture frame in his father’s study.

  “You…you’re the one I saw,” Jim said. “On the streets outside my home, but you were also in the picture, the one in my father’s study!”

  “So, that’s where that old painting went to,” the pirate said more to himself than to anyone else. “I thought he would have gotten rid of that long ago.” Then, just at the corner of his mouth, the pirate twitched a small breath of a smile. “Then again, he always held out hope, didn’t he?”

  “You knew him?” Jim now felt a rising heat in his chest, burning the cold vines of fear away. “You knew my father?”

  “Yes.” The pirate nodded grimly. “I suppose he never mentioned me, though, did he? Never mentioned the name of Dread Steele?”

  “Dread Steele?” the three Ratts exclaimed together, their eyes growing wide with wonder as Jim stood there like a sta
tue, trying to grasp the meaning of this sudden revelation. His father’s greatest enemy, Dread Steele, had once been his friend, just like Count Cromier.

  “The Lord of the Pirates!” George cried, and all of the fear from not a moment ago vanished from his face. “I’ve heard all about you. You’re a legend!”

  “Well, it seems you all have heard of me, but who are you?” Steele scanned the children’s faces one by one, starting with Lacey. “A young lady.” He leaned down and searched deep into Lacey’s blue eyes with his own ink blacks. “You know, there truly are women pirates that sail the seven seas, my dear. But don’t let that make you think that they’re sweet or lovely like you. They’re meaner than lightning and rougher than bark on a tree. Now, what is your name?”

  “Lacey,” Lacey said without even batting an eye. She set her little jaw and stared right back into Steele’s face without a blink. “And don’t think that just because I’m a girl that I’m sweet or lovely either. I’ll knock the block off of any stupid boy that crosses me!”

  “Trust us,” the Ratts chimed in. “She will.”

  “I believe you,” the captain said with a smile, then laughed, but it wasn’t a cruel or sarcastic laugh - in fact, it was one of the jolliest laughs Jim had heard in a long time, like the way his father had laughed with Hudson that day on the hill, which felt like so long ago.

  “And you three gentlemen.” The pirate captain stood tall again. crossing his arms, observing the three Ratt brothers like a dark-eyed sergeant at a military review. The Ratts immediately straightened up and snapped their shoulders back, their faces dripping with shameless idol worship. “Nearly three of a kind, I’d say. What are your names?”

  The opportunity was too good to pass up. The Ratts took one look at one another and nodded. The time had finally come.

  “WE ARE GEORGE …”

  “PETER …”

  “PAUL …”

  “THE BROTHERS RATT!”

  “Thieves extraordinaire!” George threw in as they all stood together, arms outstretched with hats in hand and leaning over in a deep bow.

  “Good improvisation, George!” Peter exclaimed.

  “We are thieves extraordinaire,” Paul agreed happily, as though realizing how good that sounded for the first time. Lacey, however, just shook her head in red-faced mortification.

  “Yes,” Captain Steele smiled, seeming to have a hard time controlling a sudden cough, covering his mouth with his hand. “Well, I am honored to be in the presence of such notoriety, for we pirates always honor those that live by the skill of their own two hands. Although it seems that you, along with some other local gangs, have been attempting to thieve from me.”

  “Not from you, sir,” George said, he and his brothers falling back into attention.

  “From that old man.”

  “That old man is a member of my crew.” The captain’s face grew stern and nearly terrible for a moment. “And I consider an affront to any member of my crew, no matter how big or small, important or not, an affront to my own person and character.” Fear began to creep back into the boys’ faces, but no sooner had the brief storm boiled up in the captain’s eyes than it blew away again, and his formal politeness returned. “And what was so valuable on old MacGuffy that you thought worthy enough to scheme an entire inn full of bloodthirsty scalawags?”

  “Well, sir,” Paul began. “You see, he has this —”

  “Don’t tell him anything!” Jim interrupted. “Just keep your traps shut!” Now, all this time, while Lacey had been defiantly charming and the Ratts had practically fallen in love with the living legend before them, Jim’s jaw had been tightening, and his blood pumping angry red into his face. He’d been trying to put it all together, trying to fit the jagged edges of this mystery in place, but the only thought driving through his mind was that both Count Cromier and Dread Steele had been in that picture with his father, and that both of them somehow knew about his father’s treasure, and so in some way, both of them had brought about his father’s death.

  “Ah,” the captain said, turning his dark eyes on young Jim Morgan and studying him fiercely. “Taking the lead on things now, are we?”

  “I’m not the leader of anything,” Jim snapped, glaring right back, summoning up the nastiest stare he could muster.

  “Those eyes,” the pirate captain said quietly to Jim. “Now that I see them up close, I would know them anywhere. For they are the mirror image of your father’s, James Morgan.”

  “Jim, he knows your name,” George said. “How does he know your name?” The slightest hint of jealousy flushed the eldest Ratt’s cheeks.

  “Shut up!” Jim growled, failing to hold onto his rage any longer. “He knows my name because he knew my father. They were enemies a long time ago, but before that they must have been friends! And I’ll bet you anything he’s here because he had something to do with killing him!”

  “Oh, Jim!” Lacey cried, covering her mouth with her hands.

  Fast as a cobra, the captain’s hand lashed out, snatching Jim up off the floor by the front of his shirt. “Never accuse me of that! NEVER!” the captain roared, his face afire as though a match had been struck to a hidden oil well beneath his rough skin. Jim’s defiant flash of anger melted into shivering fear, and the other children shrunk back from the suddenly terrifying shadow pirate.

  But after holding Jim under the fire of his gaze for a long moment, the captain took a deep breath and set him back on the floor with a small shove. He stood up and turned his back to them all, straightened his coat, and ran a hand through his hair. When he turned to face them again, an icy calm once more covered his face.

  “Never accuse a man of a crime for which you have no proof, young Morgan,” Steele said matter-of-factly. Jim just hung his head and refused to look up at the captain, wetness glazing over his eyes. “Even amongst Pirates it’s unforgivable form. Now I, on the other hand, have several eye witnesses that can attest to the fact that all of you tried to steal this from my man MacGuffy.” Steele pulled the amulet from inside his coat pocket, holding it up for the children to see. The round, jeweled medallion spun around on its chain, glimmering brightly in the lamplight. “The Amulet of Portunes, able to unlock any treasure a man’s heart might desire.” The captain stared at the medallion as though its gleam might hypnotize him. “Now what could five young children such as yourselves possibly want to unlock with this? Or need I ask, Jim Morgan?”

  “I just want my box back,” Jim spouted. “I just want back what’s mine.”

  “I see,” said Dread Steele, his eyes narrowing on Jim. “And I don’t suppose this box would happen to have the symbol of a great pirate treasure engraved upon its lid, would it? And I also don’t suppose that you count that very treasure in the lists of what is yours to be had!”

  “What’s he talking about, Jim?” George asked, looking back and forth between the Pirate and Jim.

  “Ah, so you haven’t told your friends, have you?” The Pirate smiled grimly. “That comes as little surprise to me, young Morgan.”

  “Haven’t told us what, Jim?” Lacey looked at Jim, her bright blue eyes quivering.

  Jim’s mouth suddenly refused to work. He stared dumbly at his friends, his cheeks growing hot and red. Finally, he mustered a few shaky words. “I was going to tell you, honestly! I just—”

  “Just chose not to?” Dread Steele interrupted. When Jim looked at the man’s face, he found not the haughty, accusing smile he expected, but instead downcast eyes of the utmost disappointment, disappointment much like what had been in his father’s eyes that day on the beach not so long ago.

  “Just chose not to tell them how your father knew the secret to a vast treasure?” Dread Steele continued mercilessly. “Just chose not to tell them how he had passed that secret on to you, and like the irresponsible whelp you are, you lost it, and how you were using them to get it back…all for yourself?”

  “That’s not true!” Jim tried to defend himself, but it was too late. He saw
the blank, devastated looks in his friends’ eyes.

  “You lied to us?” George said, tears brimming. His brothers Peter and Paul seemed to be waiting for Jim to say something to convince them that he had planned on sharing his great treasure with them all along, but Jim had nothing to offer but regret.

  “George, I’m sorry,” Jim said, his own eyes stinging.

  “It seems to me,” Dread Steele announced, stepping between Jim and the Ratts. “That it is time for this evening to end. Murdoch,” the pirate captain called for the rough-hewn sailor with the black beard. “Take the Amulet to where it will be safest. Put it in the Pirate Vault of Treasures.”

  Murdoch’s eyes went wide with what Jim could only imagine was fear or surprise, or both. “Yes, sir,” the pirate finally stammered, taking the Amulet and immediately leaving to fulfill his duty.

  “As for you.” Dread Steele turned his attention back on the children. “It’s obvious that your present ties are nigh already severed. Which is always the best time to make new ones. I think you three would make ideal pirates.” He nodded at the Ratts, a hard smile in his eyes. But when he turned to Jim, the smile left and only the hardness remained. “You, on the other hand, have some obvious issues to work through.” Then his eyes fell on Lacey. “And you my dear, really are sweeter than you’d like to admit, too sweet for pirating I’m afraid. Wang-chi, if you please, show our guests out.”

  The Chinese pirate snatched Jim and Lacey up by the backs of their necks, dragging them out of the cabin as the Ratts watched helplessly, George’s eyes filling with tears.

  “No!” Lacey cried, tears instantly falling down her own cheeks. “We have to stay together, please don’t pull us apart!”

  The captain grinned for a moment, and Jim thought just for a second that he was going to let them go, but the grin slowly widened into a toothy, pirate smile. “Sorry friends, but this is called press ganging, not volunteering. Life is like a tide, young ones – it sweeps close to home, then far out into the great unknown again, with little care for that which is caught in its pull. Time to say goodbye!” With a sweep of his arm, the captain shoved the Ratts back into the cabin and slammed the door behind him, locking it with a key as he followed Wang-chi out of the cabin.