The Nine Pound Hammer

by John Claude Bemis

  He smiled weakly. “I must be dead if you’re kissing on me.”

  “You scared me!” She gave him a light slug in the arm, and he winced, laughing.

  “I can’t believe I did it,” Conker panted. “I was stronger somehow, but where the strength came from I can’t figure.”

  The pirates that were gathered about Conker parted. The Pirate Queen’s clanking boots announced her arrival. From around her back the fish-eyed Mister Lamprey whispered, “You think he is, my lady?”

  “No time to find out now.” She looked from Conker to Ray. “You promised you could lead us out of this morass. Does that still hold true? I don’t think you realize where we are. This steamer’s meant for open water, not this shallow swamp. It was ill luck that got us this far from the river’s free flow in the first place.”

  Ray rose to his feet. “I can’t, but she can,” he said, pulling Si up by the elbow.

  Si turned to glare at Ray, her expression full of venom.

  “Come with me,” the Pirate Queen ordered, turning sharply to climb the steps to the pilothouse.

  Si pushed Ray ahead of her. “You’re not leaving me alone up there with her.” Ray cast one look back at Conker, who was now able to sit up and drink from the bucket of water that Big Jimmie held. The pirate crew surrounded Conker admiringly. Reaching the top step to the pilothouse, Ray was amazed to see Rosie the alligator climbing the steps behind him.

  The pilothouse was the highest cabin in the steamer. Only the smokestacks and the davits rose higher. From that moonlit vantage, Ray could see the full extent of where they were. The marsh around them extended like a prairie, cut through with only the narrowest network of waterways. There were a thousand choices of where to go, and surely nine hundred ninety-nine of them would prove too shallow to pass.

  The Pirate Queen began adjusting levers and valves, revving the steam engine to life. There was a large wooden wheel mounted at the helm, like in an old-fashioned clipper ship. To its side was the binnacle, the glass surface of the compass illuminated by an oil lamp fixed into the casing. It would do little good in this situation.

  “Well?” the Pirate Queen snapped to Si. Si scowled and ground her teeth. “You speak English, I assume.”

  “Course I do!” Si said.

  “Then where to? Does that tattooed hand of yours get you out of more than just knots and brigs?”

  Si held up her hand. Ray watched from the back wall of the pilothouse. Against the black of the window, it looked for a moment as if she had no hand at all, the color so perfectly matched the night. But then shapes began to glow on the surface of her skin. It took Ray a closer look to the sky beyond and then back at Si’s hand to realize that the designs upon her skin mirrored the positions of the stars in the sky. Within the celestial points of illuminated ink, other shapes arranged themselves as well. Ray could not tell what these were or what they meant, but Si seemed to be able to read them and pointed to the starboard side of the Snapdragon.

  “That way. The channel that makes an S shape. Follow it.”

  “I wouldn’t call these channels,” the Pirate Queen grumbled. “More like ditches.” The Pirate Queen rolled the wheel and pushed a lever slowly. The steamer answered from deep in its belly, unleashing a gasp of black smoke and silver puffs of steam. The Snapdragon cautiously maneuvered through the marsh.

  “Now turn left,” Si said.

  “Port at the first bend?” the Pirate Queen asked.

  “No, not that one, the bigger channel,” Si answered, her voice a little shaky.

  Ray watched with fixed anticipation. If Si made one mistake, if the Snapdragon again grounded …

  Ray hardly noticed as Rosie rubbed her snout against his leg. As he’d done a hundred times with friendly dogs, Ray stuck his hand down to pat her nose. It was not until he saw the Pirate Queen’s mouth agape that he realized what he was doing.

  “Watch the marsh!” Si cried, and the Pirate Queen’s attention jerked back to the window as she whirled the wheel to the right.

  Behind them Mister Lamprey lumbered into the pilothouse, breathing heavily. “My lady?” he murmured.

  Not taking her eyes from the course, she blurted, “What is it, Lamprey?”

  “If I may mention, the Gog might still be out there waiting for us in the main channel. What then? We en’t got the armaments to fend them off again.”

  She chewed nervously on her now-extinguished cigar. “Not much we can do about that, Lamprey.”

  “But, my lady,” he said tentatively. “There might be … someone who can go … scout out where they are.”

  She bit down hard enough to burst the seams of the cigar, spilling strands of tobacco onto her chin.

  “That thief in the brig is scheduled for execution!”

  “But … my lady. I don’t mean to be insubordinate, but … wouldn’t it seem that he didn’t commit the crime for which we got him locked up? After all, the boy here found your silver dagger. En’t that proof he didn’t steal it?”

  “We all know he stole it!” she growled. “But you’re right, he could prove useful one last time. Unlock him and send him out to scout for the Gog’s ship.”

  “Aye, my lady,” Mister Lamprey said before skipping down the steps.

  The Pirate Queen called to him, “And, Lamprey, bring me the music box.”

  “But, my lady …”

  “Get it!” she shouted, sending Lamprey stumbling down the stairs.

  As Si continued to guide the Pirate Queen, she spat the remnants of her cigar onto the helm and spoke from the corner of her mouth. “I know you three can’t be Ramblers, but somehow you’ve managed to do everything you’ve said.”

  “You’re going to let us go, aren’t you?” Ray asked, adding, “You promised.”

  “Yes, of course. Rambler or not, you know some hoodoo. What I want to know is where you got my silver dagger.”

  Ray tried to suppress the smile on his face. “The Lost Wood, ma’am.”

  The Pirate Queen’s eyes narrowed but then relaxed with acceptance. Their attention was drawn to the deck below, where a perplexed Peter Hobnob peered about as if he hadn’t had fresh air for some time. Mister Lamprey seemed to be explaining the situation, and as he spoke, old Joshua came forward with the dandelion hat. Lamprey grabbed Hobnob by the collar of his shirt, and Ray guessed he was explaining what would happen to him if he didn’t return. From Hobnob’s expression, it seemed he understood completely.

  Placing the hat upon his head, he scattered as he’d done before, into a million tiny seedpods. Si, who had not seen this before, dropped her hand and pressed her nose to the glass, trying to find where the prisoner had gone.

  “Keep guiding—er, what’s your name, girl?”

  “Si,” she said, raising her hand again.

  The Pirate Queen glanced at Ray. “And you, Rambler?”

  “Ray.” As if in greeting, Rosie snapped her jaws open in a whining yawn and lowered to her belly at Ray’s feet.

  It was not long before Hobnob materialized on the stern of the Snapdragon. The small yellow-haired man ran around the pirates gathered on the deck and up the steps to the pilothouse. As he came in the door, he started suddenly at seeing Ray, but Ray gave a quick shake of his head.

  “Uh, my lady. Allow me to first express my gratitude at your eternal wisdom and compassion for releasing—”

  “Shut up and tell me what you found out!”

  “The Gog’s vessel is near three miles north-northwest of us, waiting at the edge of the marsh where we entered.”

  “Can we veer south?” the Pirate Queen asked Si.

  “I’ll try,” she answered.

  “Hobnob, on the half hour I want you airborne and scouting the Gog’s position.”

  “Yes, my lady,” he replied. Before he left, he gave Ray a perplexed glance and a quick smile.

  Lamprey returned shortly with a small trunk brightly painted with nautical images. “Leave it!” she barked.

  Lamprey placed the t
runk on the floor and scurried away.

  Ray looked curiously at the trunk and finally asked, “What is it, ma’am?”

  The Pirate Queen focused on her course but answered, “A music box that plays a mermaid’s song. The Gog wants it, but why, I don’t know.”

  Ray knew. Fear constricted his throat.

  Mother Salagi had told him the Gog needed a way to control a siren. This music box must be how he planned on controlling Jolie. His heart raced with the realization. “Are you going to give it—?”

  “Stop pestering me, boy!”

  Ray bit at his lip. He couldn’t let the Pirate Queen give it to the Gog.

  As Ray fretted, it was slow going for the Snapdragon. A few times, Ray felt the bilge of the steamer brush against a shallow portion, but Si never ran them aground. She did grow tired, and the Pirate Queen sent for plates of food and mugs of steaming bitter coffee.

  At his midnight report, Hobnob arrived noticeably windblown and looking ragged.

  “What happened?” the Pirate Queen shouted.

  “They spotted me, my lady. Opened fire on me with that repeating gun mounted on their deck.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  Hobnob gave himself a quick inspection before saying, “No. But they’re moving south and just entered the marsh. They’re coming our way.”

  The Pirate Queen maneuvered the Snapdragon deeper and deeper through the marsh, following Si’s directions. As they crossed a wide stream, Mister Lamprey shouted from the deck, “My lady, they’re on our—!”

  A crack echoed across the marsh, followed by an eruption of water about a hundred feet from the front of the Snapdragon.

  “Cannons!” the pirates shouted from the deck. Mister Lamprey began issuing orders as the pirates rushed to position for combat. Ray looked out the side window and saw a low vessel covered with metal plates approaching from the north. It looked like an enormous shadowy alligator breaking through the shallow marsh. It wound its way until it was in the channel behind the Snapdragon.

  “What is that?” Ray asked.

  “A genuine ironclad,” the Pirate Queen said. “Si, get us out of here quickly!”

  Another cannon fired from the top of the ironclad, this time splashing water onto the starboard side of the deck. Si frantically inspected her hand.

  “Take that channel, to the left!”

  “But it’s wider where we are,” the Pirate Queen argued. “That one’s nothing but marsh grass. We’ll run aground.”

  “It’ll get us through,” Si said. “Trust me.”

  The Pirate Queen twirled the wheel, throwing pirates around on the deck. The ironclad approached them faster. A cannon shot whirled just past the window of the pilothouse, making the glass tremble. Mud and grass exploded on the port side. But just when Ray thought they’d been lucky, a cannonball struck part of the stern, dashing a spray of wood and metal.

  “Damn! That’s it!” the Pirate Queen roared. “Lamprey!”

  Lamprey shoved his face in through the pilothouse door. “My lady?”

  “Signal the ironclad. We’re turning over the music box.”

  “No! Please!” Ray shouted.

  The Pirate Queen wheeled around, her eyes wide and terrible.

  “Please,” Ray said. “Trust Si. She’ll get us out of here.”

  The Pirate Queen peered at Si and then back at Ray, a suspicious expression boring into him.

  “Which way, girl?” the Pirate Queen growled.

  “Straight!” Si shouted. “Keep following the channel.”

  “It’s too narrow!” the Pirate Queen shouted back. “It turns to nothing but grass ahead.”

  “We’ll make it,” Si urged.

  The Pirate Queen cursed, her knuckles turning bony white on the wheel. Ray, barely able to watch, gripped the golden rabbit’s foot in his pocket anxiously. He wondered if Si was making a mistake. The marsh looked impossible to cross. It seemed far too shallow for the Snapdragon.

  Si turned her head slightly, not taking her eyes off her hand. “Did they take the bait?” she asked Ray.

  “What?” he said.

  “Are they following us?”

  Ray saw the ironclad had turned into a wider channel in the thick marsh behind them.

  “No,” he gasped. “They’re taking a shortcut.”

  “Good.” She smiled, weariness pulling at her face.

  The cannon fire continued for several tense minutes, but as abruptly as a summer storm that has come and gone, the firing stopped. Ray turned to see that the ironclad was getting farther behind. Mister Lamprey burst into the pilothouse.

  “My lady, they’re stuck! The Gog’s ironclad ran aground.”

  The Pirate Queen handed Lamprey the music box. “Put it back.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  The Pirate Queen struck a match and lit the end of a fresh cigar. She looked back with ember-glowing eyes and gave Si a wide smile. “Well done, Si,” she said. “Well done.”

  AN HOUR AFTER THE GOG’S IRONCLAD WAS LEFT MIRED in the marsh, the Snapdragon entered the wide, flowing course of the river. The pirates howled about the deck, cheering for Si, and then, remembering their manners, cheering Conker and Ray. With the excitement of the chase over, Ray felt exhausted. He wanted a bed; even a dry spot on the deck would work fine. But there was no chance for sleep yet. The Pirate Queen continued farther down the river until she found a hidden, tree-lined creek to dock the Snapdragon, then she shouted for Etienne Beauvais, the ship’s cook, to prepare a late-night feast in celebration of their escape.

  Ray followed Si and the Pirate Queen from the pilothouse. The laughing pirates had already led Conker into the galley. Tables and chairs littered the cozy room where the pirates took their meals. The room filled quickly, and the pirates pressed to the sides to allow their queen to cross to her seat. It was a velvet-cushioned bench built into the wall that ran along the back of the galley. She gestured with her cigar for Ray, Si, and Conker to join her on the bench.

  Etienne had no time to cook a proper feast, but he carried in platters of pungent cheese, tropical fruits, cold slabs of smoked cod, and vol-au-vents. The Pirate Queen opened several casks of her favorite claret, but most of the pirates opted for the rum. During the noisy, lip-smacking feast, the crew toasted the three over and over before settling into roaring conversations, belching, and other gastronomical noises.

  “Your promise is fulfilled, and so is mine,” the Pirate Queen announced, giving Ray a nod. “If you’re in need of work, we could use three such as yourselves on the Snapdragon.”

  Conker licked the fruit from his fingers. “No thank you, ma’am. We best get on in the morning. Nel will be wanting us to get back.”

  “Nel?” she asked. “Would that be Peg Leg Nel?”

  Conker swallowed hard with surprise, and looked guiltily at Ray and Si. “Uh, yes, ma’am. You know Mister Nel?”

  “Know of him. Ramblers, huh? I knew you weren’t Ramblers. You three are nothing more than scruffs in his medicine show.”

  None of the three could muster a reply, and the Pirate Queen unleashed a loud laugh. She tossed back her claret and sucked on her cigar as Mister Lamprey refilled her outstretched glass.

  “Medicine show scruffs. Well, if I’m not mistaken, there is a cowboy among you. Eustace Buckthorn?”

  Ray smiled, remembering the rumor that Conker and Eddie had shared: that Buck had once been in love with the Pirate Queen.

  “Sure. We know Buck.”

  Mister Lamprey scowled, splattering rum from his lips. “He was once with the crew of the Snapdragon, and a right terrifying outlaw. That was back before he turned yellow and joined up with them Ramblers. And now you telling us he ain’t nothing more than a carnival attraction?”

  The Pirate Queen laughed. “Eustace is a good man. Too good for our ilk.” She added almost wistfully, “And with much more goodness than he himself is willing to recognize.”

  Ray imagined that the wine must be softening the Pirate Queen’s mood
. Either that or the memory of Buck.

  “Why do you say that?” Ray asked.

  “You know Eustace killed his own brother?”

  Ray remembered Eddie telling him this, but now that he knew Buck, he thought it must just be a twisted rumor.

  “Buck ain’t a murderer, ma’am,” Conker said. “I heard others tell it, but never from Buck. It can’t be true.”

  “It is,” she said. “But it’s hardly the circumstances you’d think. Eustace’s tough, and I’ve seen him get downright mean, but he ain’t so mean as to kill his own brother in cold blood. It’s a long tale and this night’s for celebrating, but I’ll tell you a bit of how it happened. Sometime you might get him to tell it right.

  “Eustace loved his brother more than any brother loved another in this world. They grew up in the Wyoming Territory back before the Sioux were tamed, back when that country was still a wild place. His brother, Baldree, was the golden one, the eldest and full of greatness. The clear opposite of Eustace. Being blind since birth, Eustace’s parents always saw him as an invalid.

  “But over time Eustace figured how to overcome his blindness. He learned other ways of seeing, using his other senses. Mostly by smell, but there’s more factors involved: instinct, guts, luck. With this talent, he secretly learned to shoot a pistol—the very thing in the West that marks a man as a man. He figured if he could shoot like a man, he’d win his father’s respect.”

  The Pirate Queen continued, “It was on Christmas Day, his father was holding a big celebration with the other rancher families. Eustace announced that he had a special surprise. As everybody gathered in the snowy yard, he pulled his pistols and began showing off his secret gift. He had people call out things for him to shoot: a post or a horseshoe nailed to the barn. That kind of thing. Naturally they were all amazed.

  “As someone called out ‘mistletoe,’ Eustace fired. What Eustace didn’t know was that his brother, Baldree, had a sprig of mistletoe in the breast pocket of his coat because he intended to corner the daughter of a local rancher he fancied. Before anyone could stop him, Eustace shot his brother through the heart.”

  Ray gasped. A quiet settled over the room. Not a pirate dared let his plate rattle.