The Devil's Tide

by Tomerlin, Matt

  "Or he might just leave us here to rot," the fat man sighed. "He barely feeds us. I'd starve if not for Kate sneaking us a good meal now and again."

  "You're always starving, Farley," quipped the thin lad. "And why does Lindsay get to roam free, anyways?"

  "Don't know, but I'm glad she does," Farley replied, rubbing his stomach.

  "Adams is probably afraid to lock her up," Laurent laughed.

  "Bah!" Avery sneered. "She's just a woman."

  "She's always been nice to me," said Farley.

  "She wasn't nice to Bart," scoffed the thin lad.

  "Bart fell off the ship," the dark-skinned islander replied.

  "You keep telling yourself that, Bastion," chuckled the thin lad. "I'd wager he had a bit of help over the side."

  "He probably deserved it," said Laurent.

  Billie Dowling picked at the blistered skin on one of his arms. "No one deserves to die in the ocean, all alone."

  Avery cackled scathingly in his little brother's face. "Billie here captains his own ship, did all you know that? It's called The Obvious."

  "Didn't know Billie's tongue still worked," Laurent said, shocked. He set a hand on Billie's shoulder. "We thought you'd gone mute, boy."

  "I'm tired, is all."

  Avery waved a dismissive hand. "We're all tired, boy."

  After that, all of them fell silent and stared distantly as they pondered their dire situation.

  Dillahunt looked at Calloway, who was rocking slowly back and forth. He lifted his head slightly, straining the muscles in his neck. "How long?" he managed. He felt his lips split when he talked. He ran his tongue over the flaked, dry surface.

  She gazed woefully at him. "Three days since we left the island. Nathan is taking us to Tortuga."

  "Skullduggerous little shit."

  "He gave you new bandages," she replied in halfhearted defense.

  "Bah! I shall see his cock removed and stuffed up his ass, along with all the rest of them." He frowned. "Why are you in here?"

  She blinked, looking away. "I tried to kill Blackbeard."

  "Oh," he said, nodding. "Right, then."

  She didn't seem to want to talk about it, so he didn't bother to ask. Her face was somehow less complicated than he remembered. Her smile was slow and steady, as though calculated, or maybe just difficult to muster. As much as patterns vexed him, the notion of a simpler Calloway made him profoundly sad, though he couldn't explain why.

  He struggled to sit up, wincing as pain spiked through his stomach muscles. His arms ached from lack of use, riddled with scabbed lacerations wherever the bandages had been removed. The wounds beneath the bandages that remained must have been truly dreadful. Calloway helped him lean against a crate that was inside the little cell with them. "Drink this," she said, handing him a half drained bottle of rum. He took a hefty swig, letting it trickle down the sides of his mouth and saturate the bandages on his chest.

  "Nice of our captors to supply us," Dillahunt said, handing the bottle back to her.

  "It was Lindsay," Calloway said with a flicker of irritation. "She visits when everyone else is sleeping. Brings extra food and drink. All good deeds, that one."

  "Until you get in her way," he grunted. "Lindsay's keen enough to know how quickly the tide can change."

  Calloway's freckles bunched in a perplexed scowl. "She's always trying to talk to me. It's like she wants to be friends. I try to be mean. I say horrible things, and she puts on a stupid sad face, but she keeps coming back, always asking if I'm okay or if I need anything. It's maddening!"

  Dillahunt shrugged as though it was obvious. "She's lacking for female company."

  Calloway's head sank between her shoulders. "I'm a poor substitute for that."

  Dillahunt set a hand on her leg, lightly stroking with his thumb. "You're far more skilled at being a woman than you think. As a boy, you're an utter disgrace."

  She giggled in spite of herself.

  "Good God!" Dillahunt jerked his hand from her leg and stared at his nails, which were long and jagged, like shards of broken glass. "I might have slit my own throat in my sleep! Did no one bother to trim them?"

  She snorted. "Hygiene is not a priority on this ship."

  "Bloody savages!" Dillahunt exclaimed. "The next time Lindsay is about, have her fetch me some clippers, elsewise I might saw through these bars with my fingers. Jesus! I dare not look at my toes!"

  "I think Nathan will let us go in Tortuga," Calloway said hopefully.

  "Stop calling him 'Nathan,'" he huffed, folding his arms. "When we get to Tortuga, I shall find the nearest blacksmith and fetch a sword to run across that boy's throat."

  Her face twisted acrimoniously. "He occupies your cabin, diddling the strumpet he traded Hornigold for."

  "Hornigold is surely dead now," he said. "Rogers will have my head for this, mounted above his desk as a warning to all others who would fail him so miserably."

  "But you were mutinied against. He must understand that."

  Dillahunt chuckled through his teeth. "There was no mutiny. I handed my ship to Adams on a platter. If Candler hadn't been pissing all over himself, I might have roused from slumber in proper quarters, rather than a cage."

  "Candler's an idiot," Calloway reminded him. "And were he truly your friend, he would be in this cage with us, refusing to aid Adams. Instead he struts about freely. He checks in on you occasionally, and I think he's disappointed when he sees you have not perished."

  Without thinking he started to scratch a scab on his right arm, finger probing between two bandages, and Calloway snatched his wrist. "Don't," she snapped. "You'll make it worse." For a fleeting moment, her sudden concern for his wellbeing revitalized her face, crowding it with several emotions at once. She withdrew just as swiftly, and the complexity was gone.

  "Have you stayed by my side the entire time?" he asked.

  She tilted her eyes his way without moving her head. "I tried to get away, but these damned bars made it difficult."

  Dillahunt smiled. It was good to know Calloway was still in there somewhere, ready to emerge at any moment. Resolve was no match for youth.

  "I have to take my ship back," he said.

  "You're not giving up?"

  "Why should I?"

  She angrily flicked one of the bars with her middle finger, and it made a ringing sound. "Because we're in a cage! Most would stop there."

  "Most would," he grinned, ignoring a plethora of pain as the raw skin of his cheeks stretched taut. "An opportunity will present itself. Half this crew is not to be trusted, and the other half just wants to live. Adams doesn't realize the danger he's in."

  "I wouldn't underestimate him," Calloway said.

  "Oh, clearly I don't," Dillahunt said, glancing irritably at the bars. "But the odds are against him. We need only wait."

  A few hours later, Phillip Candler timidly descended the stairs at the far end of the hold. It seemed to take him an hour to make his way through the crates and barrels. He approached Dillahunt's cage with the look of a mouse hoping to befriend a cat. "I thought you might never w-w-wake" he stammered.

  "Disappointed?" said Dillahunt.

  "Relieved," Candler insisted, though his obvious trepidation suggested otherwise.

  "You don't look it," Dillahunt replied. "Set yourself at ease, Phillip. You've committed no treason."

  "The hell he hasn't," Calloway spat. "He serves pirates now."

  Candler seized the bars in desperation. "Who surely would have killed me had I not shifted allegiance!"

  Hornigold's nine men burst into fits of laughter.

  Candler's face darkened against the bars.

  "They may kill you still," Dillahunt reminded him.

  "What would you have me do?" his old first mate demanded.

  "Set me free," Dillahunt replied.

  Candler pushed himself away from the bars. "So you can do what? Confront Adams and die for your trouble? I think not!"

  "Adams is no killer," Calloway
objected.

  "He killed plenty of Hornigold's men!"

  "Aye," called Andrew Harrow from afar.

  "In defense," Calloway said.

  "Those were pirates," Dillahunt reminded Candler. He jabbed a thumb against his own chest. "I am no pirate."

  "Shame, that," shouted Harrow. "You'd make a fine one."

  "Quiet, Andrew!" urged Fat Farley.

  "Or what?" Harrow balked. "He'll slip out of his cage and box me ears? I gave him a compliment!"

  Farley shrugged. "We might be on his side when we're sprung."

  "You, fat sir, are on no one's side!" Dillahunt shouted over. "You are all traitorous dogs, and I'll see you all at the end of a noose."

  Calloway's fingers dug into Dillahunt's arm. "We might need them," she hissed.

  Avery Dowling chuckled. "We'll see what a few more days makes of the good captain's resolve. I wager he'll look to us as mates soon enough."

  Candler was backing away from the cell. "I must return topside. I only meant to check on you."

  "Certainly not to aid me," Dillahunt growled. "Do not check on me again, unless you bring a key."

  Candler nodded sadly and hurried off.

  Later that night, after Lindsay had snuck in more food, Dillahunt was drifting in and out of a light slumber when he heard the whispers, low and conspiratorial from a far corner of the hold. He glanced through the seam of the crates that separated his cell from Hornigold's men and saw them all fast asleep, save for Avery who was wide awake. The carpenter was sitting against the bars with one arm casually strung across a bent knee. He briefly locked eyes with Dillahunt, drawing his index finger to his mouth and shaking his head. He tilted the finger in the direction of the two shadows.

  They were hunched near a dark cluster of double-stacked barrels, grunting as they pulled one of the barrels from the top and set it on the floor. There were two of them, both very large.

  "It's Ogle and Red Devil," Calloway whispered, opening her eyes but not getting up.

  "Treacherous swine," he hissed.

  She reached over to grasp his hand, shaking her head. "Quiet. Those two worry me. Whatever they're doing, they don't want anyone to know about it."

  "I'm not afraid of them," he scoffed.

  The two men turned an empty barrel on its side and rolled it toward the stairs. As they stepped into the soft amber light flowing down from a lantern on the main deck above, Dillahunt glimpsed the nervous faces of Ogle and Red Devil.

  Under her breath, Calloway said, "Every night they come down here and remove a few empty barrels."

  Dillahunt frowned. "Why?"

  She shrugged. "Hornigold's men have been trying to figure that out. No one knows."

  Red Devil suddenly started for Dillahunt and Calloway, moving at an alarming speed. Dillahunt sank into his blankets. Red Devil glanced at the cell as he passed by. He continued on to the black treasure chests, which were striped with lantern light from above. He opened one, and the stripes of light fell on brightly colored silks. Red Devil plucked a few silks from the chest and slammed the lid closed. He returned to Ogle, stuffing the silks into the barrel. "Let's take them up," Ogle said. Red Devil nodded, and they worked together to heave the barrel up the stairs.

  "That can't mean anything good," Dillahunt said.

  NATHAN

  Nathan cocked the hammer and tightened the screw that ran through the jaws, securing a fresh chunk of flint between the clamps. It had been raining all day as he attended to his duties on deck, and the powder was soaked. He sprinkled fresh powder into the priming pan and covered it beneath the L-shaped frizzen. He spent another few minutes polishing the pistol and then set the weapon on the little round table beside the bed, as had been his ritual for the past five days.

  He looked over at Annabelle. Her breasts slowly lifted and fell. Her body was slick with sweat. She had been even more energetic than usual, as if she feared she might never make love again. He felt useless beneath her. She wouldn't even let him get on top. She might as well have been writhing atop a corpse, albeit a very stiff corpse. When it was over, she rolled off of him, sighing happily, and was soon asleep.

  As exhausted as he was, he had no wish to join her. When he slept, he saw Hornigold's face, desperately pleading with him or furiously accusing him, while the monster Blackbeard dragged him kicking and screaming across the sand toward a roiling black sea. Blackbeard was always impossibly tall in the dreams, dwarfing Hornigold, who was barely larger than a ten year old boy, hopeless in his grasp, lost beneath the shadow of a giant.

  Nathan slid quietly out of the bed, careful not to wake Annabelle. If she's actually sleeping. He looked at the gun on the table. There it is, my love. If that's what you came here to do, there will never be a better time.

  He slipped on his pants and threw on a clean white shirt, leaving it unlaced at the neck. It took too long to lace a shirt one-handed. He stepped outside, closing the door without looking at Annabelle again. The deck was dim, with only two lanterns flickering softly, as per Nathan's instructions. He didn't want Crusader to appear as a beacon of light for miles around. Most of the pirates up top were sleeping, save for Ogle, Gabe Jenkins, Red Devil, and a few others he didn't recognize, all huddled near the capstan, engaged in a game of dice. Ogle and Jenkins smiled all too generously at him as he passed, while Red Devil merely nodded, with a strange twinkle in his eye that suggested he knew something Nathan didn't.

  "Evenin', captain," Jenkins called. "Nice night, isn't it?"

  Nathan nodded curtly at him. He wasn't sure what to make of Jenkins, who always seemed uncomfortable around him, rarely making eye contact.

  Nathan wandered to the bow, where light didn't reach. A shadow was lingering there, too slender for a man, with wild hair tossing in the breeze. She was hunched over the port bulwark, gazing into the darkness below.

  "Kate," he called, not wanting to startle her, for fear she'd plunge her cutlass into his belly.

  "I wondered when you'd start speaking to me," she replied.

  "I've run out of reasons not to," he admitted.

  "Or girls to send in your place. Maybe if you hadn't locked up poor Calloway. She fancies me, I think. Especially my hair." Kate giggled at her own jest.

  "Really?" he said, pleased. "I was hoping you'd get along."

  "It was a joke, Nathan. She hates me."

  "Oh."

  "But I might be wearing her down. She reminds me of you, a bit."

  He was suddenly intrigued. "How so?"

  She grinned. "Not so good at holding a grudge."

  "I wouldn't say that. She did try to murder Teach. I think she's got more in common with you."

  Kate smirked. "I would have succeeded."

  "I can't trust her," he replied, stepping beside her to join in the view, not that there was much to see. The sky was black with clouds, allowing the sea no reflection. It was as though Crusader sailed through an endless abyss. "She nearly ruined everything, and she's infatuated with Dillahunt."

  "Why does everyone think Blackbeard an unkillable wraith? You should have aided her."

  Nathan stared at her. "Killed Teach?"

  "Why not?" Kate sputtered. "You had your precious Annabelle. You could have easily overpowered the men he brought with him."

  "And Queen Anne's Revenge would have sunk Crusader in retaliation."

  "Crusader could hold her own against Teach's ship."

  "The odds are slippery," Nathan argued. "Not everyone is favored with your brand of luck."

  Kate's lips curved wickedly behind wavering strands of hair. "I am lucky, aren't I? Is that why you let me roam free?"

  He chuckled lightly. "You'd be far more dangerous in a cage."

  "You know me." She turned around and propped her rear on the rail, looking down on him. She wobbled slightly, and Nathan started to reach for her leg, to steady her in place, but stopped himself.

  "Besides," he added, "the crew likes you. I'd be a fool to infringe upon their happiness."

 
; "The happier the crew, the less inclined they are to murder you."

  "That's one way to look at it."

  "That's the only way to look at it, Nathan," she reminded him. "These are very dangerous men, and you're as careless as ever."

  He smiled up at her. "I'm not the one dangling over the bow of a ship. Do you know what happens to a person when swept under the keel of a ship?"

  She smiled. "If I were in any danger of stumbling off a ship, I would have done so a long time ago."

  Her hair blew in her face, and she freed a hand to push it away. He studied her casual movements. There was no longer any stiff calculation in her mannerisms. "Why are you out here?" he said.

  She considered that while chewing on her lower lip. "Where else would I be?"

  "London."

  She scoffed. "If I ever chance upon you in London, I'll ask why you're not in the Caribbean."

  Nathan moved to cross his arms but remembered he only had one to cross. "London sounds nice, actually."

  "Change always does," she sighed. "Until it's no longer change."

  "Maybe you'll tire of the sea," he suggested.

  "Maybe I will," she said with a careless toss of her hand.

  "And when you do?"

  "I'll go somewhere else. Maybe the Americas."

  He shook his head and smiled. "It's all so easy for you, isn't it?"

  "For now," she said. Her gaze trailed off toward the darkness beyond the ship. "But that will change. Might be a year. Might be a month. Might be a minute. Nothing lasts."

  Nathan nearly shuddered as he recalled the shriek Kate had unleashed when Jonathan Griffith plunged his sword into her husband's breast. He shook the grisly memory from his head and cleared his throat. It had been little more than a year, but Kate was already so much more than that naïve, pale girl in a spotless saffron dress. "What will you do when we get to Tortuga?"

  She shrugged. "I dunno. Disappear with my share of the plunder, probably." She lifted a finger before he could think to object. "And you will be giving me my fair share. I earned it just as much as you, if not more. You know that better than anyone, Nathan."

  "Yes," he admitted. "I know."

  "Of course, this is all assuming Blackbeard doesn't arrive to claim it all for himself."