“What happened?” he asked after stirring for hours. He saw me attempting to start our fire and couldn’t resist a comment. “You never did that right, James.” He began to shift his weight to his side.
“Don’t move,” I told him. He tried to stand anyway and howled in pain. With each cough, blood spilled from his mouth. Stubborn as anyone I ever knew, he managed to work his way over to me.
“Give me those,” he said. Even injured, William could start and spread a fire faster than a child’s laughter. After seconds of agony, the fire was lit and he gathered his strength to ask me again, “What happened?”
“The ship broke up against rocks in the water,” I lied. He would be better off forgetting the battle all together. I’d be grateful for the chance to forget.
“That’s not what happened,” he said. His memories returned to him quickly, and with them the sights and sounds of battle. Tears welled up and soaked his already clammy and bruised cheeks. I left him to cry so that I might bury my father in peace.
The search for a proper burial site within the forest began with a deep breath. I dragged Father’s body away from the beach and onto more solid ground. I didn’t know how long we were going to call this island home and the last thing I wanted was to have a storm unearth his grave. The ground behind the thin line of trees was wet and dark. The brush that scratched at my legs was so thick that my feet disappeared as they stepped down into it.
A tall palm tree caught my eye. The markings on it were those of a Spaniard. I memorized the words, but not the meaning: Agua de Eterna Juventud. A pool of fresh water bubbled just fifty paces from the tree line. The cliff was framed with hanging vines, and at the end of a wide path leading to it was a dark cave. From the mouth of the cave, all along the path, a stream of water trickled down to the spring. It was a truly beautiful sight, but that didn’t interest me at the moment. Water is life and I thirsted for it. I knelt at the banks and drank deep mouthfuls. I brought William over to the spring and made sure he drank as well.
Happy to have found shelter and fresh water, I decided to take my father another thirty paces east of the spring. The only things of value that my father still had on him were his watch and a gold coin on a silver chain. I could not read the markings on the coin, but it was clearly not a doubloon. Neither of these would be helpful on the island but I decided to take them anyway. That watch had been in my family for generations and I was certain that my father would have wanted me to have it. I placed it in my pocket, hanged the coin around my neck, and began digging.
I had never been to a funeral before. My prayer was crude, but honest. I thanked Father for his service to me in this life and wished him well in the next. I asked that he watch over me from afar so that he may pay closer attention to my mother.
I tried again to feel some form of pain over my father’s death. I began forcing my mind to feel grief or sadness, but the harder I tried the more my mind returned to a single emotion: anger. My mind was consumed with a single thought. Jesse Labette was the pirate who murdered my father and Heath Ashley was the captain who abandoned him to his death. I dropped to my knees and let the anger well up inside of me and fill the empty spaces. The kernel was small, for now, but I was pleased with myself for finding a hook to hang onto.
Chapter Thirteen
The bodies began disappearing the next morning. At first, I thought it was the tide, but no tide I knew had ever left a trail of blood. The mystery deepened three weeks in as I came upon William boiling water in an old pot that washed ashore. As the steam kissed his dirty face, I heard him singing like a schoolboy again. The song started in low tones and built as I approached.
“We’re all alone on island shores,
With nothing left but rot.
But something good is boiling now,
Inside my rusty pot.”
“Look, James, we’re civilized again,” he said. I looked over into the pot and saw three eggs but not any type I had ever seen before. These were somehow different. Spotted. Larger.
“So it seems,” I said. Boiling eggs was a far cry from civilization, but we needed to keep our spirits up. This wasn’t a difficult task since our stay on the island had gone very well so far. We had barrels of preserved food and as much fresh water as we could drink. My injuries healed within a day and William was on his feet the next morning. I was glad that I was wrong about how hurt he really was.
“It’s better than searching for rats or dead fish,” he said, tossing me one of the eggs.
“And how is that you have come across these treasures?” I asked. I cracked the coarse shell and dug out the meat. “I haven't seen many animals on this island.”
“Up in the cave,” William responded.
“Show me.”
He took me behind the spring, where the dirt and leaves clung tightly to the rock wall like Peter’s and Tinkerbell’s clothing, and pointed to the stream of water that trickled from the mouth of the cave.
I had been so preoccupied with food and shelter that I had not even thought to go exploring. As William ran into the mouth of the cave, I saw that he was not as burdened as I was. He took advantage of every opportunity without thought and without planning. I envied that sometimes.
William led me about twenty paces into the cave. It was deeper than I thought. On the outside it seemed that after about twenty or twenty-five paces I should have reached the back wall. I found this curious, but quickly dismissed the idea as I saw the water trickle down into the pool below. Water had to go downhill so we must have been going up an incline. We got only a few more paces in when the darkness made it difficult to see.
“Why don’t you grab some fire from the camp before we go further?”
“There’s no need,” William said. “The nest is only a few feet more.” In an offshoot of the cave, away from the stream of water, we came across a dirt patch dug into the cave floor. It was an empty, sad hole now, but it clearly was the nest that William found earlier. I moved to inspect it more closely, but William blocked me with an arm across the chest.
I watched as a bead of sweat ripened on his forehead and traveled the length of his cheek. My eyes followed as it rolled to his chin, dangled, then dropped to the dirt below.
There, sprawled out on the cave floor, was what looked like a suit of armor, only dark and seemingly made of rough leather. I knew it by the drawings in my books and the stories of my mother and father. This crocodile was easily twice my height and length and broader than the two of us were shoulder to shoulder. He was either sleeping or lying in wait. It was impossible to know which when you looked into its cold, black eyes.
To its right, a pile of bones and tattered uniforms screamed their silent warning. In fluid, silent motion, we eased out of the cave. Once outside, we sprinted for the beach. In my terror, I managed to keep up with William until there was sand between my toes. Then, my body collapsed in a heap.
“I don’t ever want to see that thing again,” William panted. He leaned over and helped me stand. “Do you think it has our scent?”
“Are you willing to wait and find out?” I asked between gasps. Knowing looks passed between us. His face went white with shock.
“You’re out of your mind!” William shouted. “There’s no way we can kill that thing.”
“Why not?” I asked. “We know the beast. We know where it lies and we know what it eats.”
“Yeah, us,” he said as he stormed down to the shoreline.
“Only if we let it,” I told him. “If we control its movements, we control its fate.”
“You saw the size of that thing!” William said. He turned and begged me with his eyes, trying to convince me that the job was too difficult.
“Yeah, which means the trap only has to be twelve-by-seven,” I said, proving him wrong. I walked down to him by the water and put my hand on his shoulder. “It just ate, so that gives us some time.”
“Time for what?” he asked.
“Time to dig.”
Chapter
Fourteen
We worked through the night and by sunrise, everything was in place. Fresh sunlight hit our backs as we stood at the cave’s mouth. I was reminded of one of the stories in my literature books about St. George’s adventure in Libya. There, he slew a dragon of terrible might. William and I were about to do the same, which made sense in some twisted way.
In this fantastic world of Peter Pan, why wouldn't I have to fight my own dragon? I was almost disappointed that it was not flying, with black leathery wings, or breathing fire that lit the night up like day. All I needed to do was coax him to come and get me.
“How do we even know that he’s still in here?” William asked.
“Look down,” I told him. “There are no fresh tracks.” Our harried footsteps from our sprint last night were the last impressions in the dirt leading out of the cave. “Get ready.”
We moved to our positions on either side of the cave mouth. I tucked my father’s coin into my shoe so as not to lose it. The watch sat heavily in my pants pocket.
We sacrificed more than just a night’s sleep. Two day’s worth of rations sat atop eight-foot sticks. My blood pounded loudly as I thought again of what we were planning to do here. I was only distracted from the pounding in my ears when William broke our patient silence.
“James,” he said. “Why did you lie to me?”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped at him. “There are no fresh croc tracks and we don’t have time for me to explain the plan to you again.” He backed away a little as if hit with an invisible force. I couldn’t do this alone and I needed him focused or we’d both end up eaten. “What don’t you understand?”
“When I first woke up, you told me that the ship wrecked against rocks,” he said, now meeting my eyes. “Why would you lie to me?” It was now my turn to be hit with an invisible force. The guilt of lying to him paled compared to the shame of not having a good reason for it. My stomach twisted and I gave him the best answer I had.
“Sometimes, William, the fantasy is easier to live with than the truth.” He nodded, even though I wasn’t sure he knew what I meant. I motioned towards the cave, signaling the start of the plan.
We began by casting the line. William pulled three stones from his pocket and threw them into the cave one by one. The first two clanged against the rocky wall, but the third one thudded. Something rustled briefly in the darkness and then became purposely silent. Moments later, bones rattled against one another and the beast emerged from the darkness.
It was as I saw him in the previous night. He was armored with thick scales and bared the deadliest row of teeth in his crushing jaws. He hissed at us as he advanced.
The plan continued as we stood at either side of the croc. We passed his attention back and forth between our bait. When he got too close to me, I raised the bait too high for him to reach and William lowered his bait to attract its attention. We led it down a grooved path so that we were always on elevated terrain. It was a simple trap for a dumb animal. The going was slower than I expected, but the pace was not important.
The plan was flawless, if not for the human factor. William became impatient and let the croc get too close. It lunged and caught William’s bait in its mouth. The wood splintered in the beast’s jaws and we lost one day’s worth of food. William scrambled up the nearest tree with a curse and half of a stick.
William was a fast climber, but the croc was a skilled hunter. He looked up at William and braced his front claws against the trunk of the tree. He jumped and snapped his jaws loudly just below William’s foot. William was safe for now, but the croc was a patient killer and had all the time in the world to wait for William to climb, jump, or fall out of the tree from lack of sleep or food.
“Idiot,” I muttered under my breath. The croc immediately turned to face me, as if the comment was made at his expense. Remembering that I still had my bait, I decided to try killing this monster on my own.
With two men, this plan was doable. With a third, it’d be a cinch. Alone, I was one small mistake away from death. I had to quicken my pace to account for my partner’s absence. I raised and lower the baited stick, careful not to leave myself open for attack. Distance and pace were now everything and my endurance held it all together.
Thick blood slogged through my veins as I backed myself towards the trap. It was dug in a spot on the island where a thick line of trees blocked access to either side of the path. Using the last of my strength, I climbed against the tree line and leapt over the trap to the other side. Once there, I crumbled to my knees as my physical body gave in to exhaustion. I placed the bait on the ground in front of me and stared the beast in his black eyes.
As it glared at me, a thousand possibilities ran through my mind. What if the sticks were too weak or too strong? What if the croc wasn’t heavy enough? What if the ditch wasn’t deep enough? What if he climbed out? The answer to all of these was simple. I die.
I was not the man that St. George was. I had no sword or shield or suit of armor. I only had a knife, a single pistol with only one shot, and a crude tiger trap. Fortunately, the croc was no fire-breathing dragon of legend. He was an animal, nothing more.
The croc moved slowly over the trap at first, readying his jaws to snap shut on me. Then, just as he braced himself to leap, the branches gave way under his weight. The sharp sticks underneath impaled it at four points. The crackle of leaves and twigs muffled its death cry. It writhed for minutes before it finally died. I breathed deeply and promised myself that the next time I had to lead a monster to its death, I would plan more carefully.
Chapter Fifteen
The croc proved to be a hearty meal, giving us three days of full stomachs. We ate the whole thing, not wasting a single part. We couldn’t afford to since the next meal was not promised and we had to keep our strength up. The days ahead would be our most trying.
The cave that William and I made into our home was in a steep rock wall that overlooked the spring. That cliff was the tallest point of the island. Standing on top of it, I saw the coming storm.
The first gusts of autumn carried with it the knowledge that I missed registration at Eton. When registration is up again next fall, I’ll be fourteen, too old to claim the scholarship I earned this cycle.
Birds called out to one another before darting off into the sky. William watched them as they flew away. I knew enough to look in the other direction. Dark clouds gathered miles to the south.
The wind whistled a silent warning. Waves picked up pace. Soon, the gentle temper of the island became menacing. We had hours at most, so I set us to work immediately.
William and I had a good give and take. I requested. He fetched. I assembled. Over the past few weeks, we made chairs, a table, and a workbench. Now, we made traps.
The traps we made weren’t for the animals that live on this island. Those we made weeks ago. Instead, I hoped to collect what fish the storm would surely bring in. I weaved vines into a net and tethered it to the trees at the island’s southern inlet.
The clouds came in like a thick grey sheet within hours, tucking the sun away long before its bedtime. And like a child, the sun peeked through the cracks to get a last look in on what it was missing.
It’s that thought of childhood that brought my mind to William. He had fully recovered from near death. His color returned before that first night. His broken bones and open gashes all mended in days. The first clash of thunder snapped my mind back to the present.
We began to bring the barrels inside to wait out the storm. I dragged the last of the barrels through the mouth of the cave and bumped into William, who stood dumbfounded.
“What are you staring at?” I scolded. But when I turned, I finally saw the state of our home. Our barrels were toppled and shattered. The cots we made from tattered clothing, leaves, and branches were torn to ribbons. Our stores of food were gone. We had nothing.
“What madness is this?” I asked.
William shrugged, “Maybe some animals got in here…�
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“And tore up our beds? No, this was deliberate,” I told him. “Someone wanted to do this to us.”
“Someone?” William asked. “You mean there is someone else here?”
“I’m not sure if he really is a ‘someone’, but I’m almost certain that he’s here,” I told him.
“James, what are you talking about?” William’s face twisted in the same way that Emily’s did that morning I told her about Peter Pan. I resolved to hold myself to the promise I made not to talk about Pan until I had absolute proof. It wasn’t in William’s limited philosophy to allow him to understand. Not yet, anyway.
“Nothing,” I lied. “I’m just spooked is all.” He nodded and turned back to look further into the cave. “Stay here and get a fire going. I’ll check if we forgot anything.”
As I made my way to my father’s grave, terrible thoughts came to mind. William and I made life on the island possible, but for how long? There was no means of escape. No source of food was certain or sustainable. Now, if Peter Pan was having fun at our expense, how else could this end except with our deaths?
“Father,” I started. “I don’t think we’re going to make it off of this island.” I laughed joylessly to myself as I realized how much easier it was to talk to my father now that he was dead. Out of habit, I reached into my pocket and flicked the gold watch open. The loud ticking pierced through the gathering storm, focusing me. “I’m being strong for William, but even he has to realize that we’ll never see home again.” Tears of rage ran down my cheeks as I snapped the watch shut. “I’m sorry that I’ll never avenge you. The monsters that deserved to die go on living while I waste away here.” There was shame in my doubt. Somehow I felt that I had to speak those words aloud to hear how unlike me defeat really was.
Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan Page 5
