The Guns of Tortuga

by Brad Strickland

  “The meaning, Captain Hunter,” rumbled M. Gille, “is that I have, how do you say, developed concerns about the wisdom of a joint venture. People in port know little about you or your ship. Oh, we know you have taken prizes, and we have the enthusiastic affidavits of Captain Barrel on your bravery. It is your raisons, your motives, that give me pause.”

  Hunter turned his head slowly. “My motives, sir?”

  Gille toyed with his goblet. “Your crew has been asking questions in Cayona, sir. Questions of a naval nature.”

  Captain Hunter grinned, looking like a blond wolf. A slight frown formed on Gille’s smooth brow. He did not speak, though, and Hunter smoothly began to talk: “So it’s like that, is it? Fine, then, let’s clear the decks! Did you think that I wouldn’t know? Did you really think that Patch wouldn’t tell me?”

  Gille glanced at Meade, who said nothing. The Frenchman said, “I do not know what you—”

  “Brixton!” Hunter snapped, rising like wrath from his chair. “Your precious English guest is Alexander Brixton, late of His Majesty’s frigate Retribution! I thought when she was blown to perdition, she took that smug pig with her!”

  “You know him?” M. Gille asked, sounding more confused than angry.

  “Know him! He ruined my career with his brutality and harshness! Branded me mutineer, tried to hang me like a side of beef, tried to blow me and mine out of Port Royal Harbor when we made good our escape!” The captain was breathing hard now, eyes wide and blazing. “So you think I have some connection with the navy still, do you? Right. Then let us put that to rest! Brixton is alive, and the only reason he would be is for ransom.”

  “Captain Hunter,” warned Mr. Meade, “you cannot expect my employer to answer that. His position—”

  “To blazes with his position!” roared Hunter. “But let me tell you this: The old buzzard has no family and no fortune. You’ll get nothing for him. But by now you should know that. However, you may be willing to sell him.” Hunter yanked a purse loose from his belt and threw it on the table. It landed with a heavy clink, spilling its contents, and the candlelight caught the sunlight gleam of minted gold. I held my breath.

  In the sudden silence, I could hear a faint whistle of breath in Gille’s nostrils. He did not even glance at the gold, but kept his gaze fixed on the captain.

  Hunter sank easily back into his chair and tossed back half his wine. “There’s my offer. Sell him to me, and I’ll take him off your hands.”

  “You wish revengement,” Gille said. “I think I see. But the good Doctor Shea says his patient might not survive, even with his ministrations.”

  With as ghastly a leer as I ever hope to see, Hunter leaned forward. “That devil Brixton ruined Dr. Shea along with the rest of us. Patch is an excellent surgeon. He can keep a man alive for days. Even when he doesn’t want to be!” Hunter leaned further into the candlelight. “Is it a bargain?”

  M. Gille stared at him coldly. Then his eyes took the slightest twitch to the right, where Mr. Meade sat in his shadows. Did I imagine it or did that white wig nod slightly in return? No matter, M. Gille smiled. “I believe we can do business, Captain Hunter. Would you prefer to discuss terms now?”

  “Aye, but first things first. Davy!” Captain Hunter turned to me. The wolfish smile was still on his face, and his eyes were wild. “Run you to the ship and tell Mr. Adams to attend me here. Have him bring some men. Tell him we’ll be taking away some merchandise!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” I squeaked and took to my heels. The house seemed much larger going out than coming in as I pelted for the door. I was through it in a flash and running down the drive and through the gates. It was only when they were safely out of sight behind me that I paused to get my breath. Uncle Patch’s mad plan had actually worked! I could hear his conspiratorial whisper in my mind: “Give ’em a kernel of truth wrapped in a parcel of lies, and buy the old man!”

  But then I heard something that had been no part of my uncle’s plan: the tramp of many feet coming up the road. I hid myself in the woods just in time to avoid a patrol of sailors coming up from town. They were rough-looking men with drawn cutlasses, marching along behind a bulky bald man whose head seemed to be covered in tattoos. As soon as they were past, I took to the road and raced toward the Commodore’s, where the rescue of Jessie and Lieutenant Fairfax should have been well underway.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I arrived at the Commodore’s and saw that the guards at the gate were two sailors from the Aurora. One of them leveled his musket as I came running up.

  “Put that down! ’Tis I, Davy Shea! I’ve got to see my uncle Patch!”

  “’Tain’t loaded,” muttered Abel Tate. “The doctor is—”

  “Right behind you,” Uncle Patch snarled as he stood framed in the archway. Quickly, I informed him of all that had happened. He didn’t seem pleased. “What’s Hunter playing at? I warned him to string it out, to keep them debating until midnight or later.”

  “But we didn’t expect Monsieur Gille to doubt us!” I said, trying to defend the captain.

  “And us with such honest faces and all. I’ll see to the men he needs. You go upstairs and see if the lieutenant and his ragged servant are ready. The guards are asleep in the yard, and we caught them as they came on duty, so we’ve nearly four hours to spare.”

  The two guards lay just inside the gate, breathing heavily. I rushed past them and up the stair. Lieutenant Fairfax had changed into clothes that Uncle Patch must have brought with him: canvas trousers, linen shirt, a vest, and a scarf tied around his head. The disguise was topped off with a black eye patch that he was shifting from eye to eye as if looking for the best effect. It all made him look very young, like a child playing at dress-up.

  I was still staring at him when Jessie Cochran came up and hit me hard on the arm. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Faith, that hurts, Jessie!” I complained, rubbing my arm. “Listen, now. I’ve come fresh from Gille’s plantation, and my uncle says to—”

  That was as far as I got before the lieutenant was next to me, demanding to know every detail of what had happened. So I was forced to go through the whole thing, to Jessie’s openmouthed amazement and the lieutenant’s thoughtful nods. Then I mentioned the sailors I had passed, and the man with the tattooed head. Both grew pale at that.

  “A stout man with a great barrel chest?” Fairfax asked urgently. “And the tattoos, were they all kinds of blue swirls over the top of his head?”

  “I can’t answer to the color, for I only saw by moonlight, but as to the swirls, aye, just as you said.”

  “Then we’d best hurry. That man is the captain of the Sultana, the pirate ship that took the Venture and landed Jessie and me in this mess.”

  “We don’t know his true name,” Jessie said breathlessly. “His crew just called him Shark. I watched him pick up one of his own wounded men and throw him over the side!”

  “Come, there is not a moment to lose,” Fairfax said as he buckled a borrowed sword around his waist. He no longer looked like a young boy. Now he looked like a dangerous one. “We had best make our escape so that this Captain Hunter can make his. Davy, my compliments to your terribly effective uncle Patch, and tell him we shall be right behind you. And tell him what we said about this pirate Shark.”

  So down the stairs I pounded, thinking that running was all I was about this day. Uncle Patch was pacing back and forth like an Irish bear, muttering curses under his breath as fast as he could draw it. I gasped out the lieutenant’s compliments and the information that Captain Shark had entered the plan.

  “Brimstone and blazes!” he snarled. “Sure, and this gets better by the minute, it does! The plan sprung too soon, and now real pirates meddling into it as well!”

  “Is the captain in danger?” I asked.

  My uncle flapped his arms. “When have you known him not to be? I’m lumbered with that young popinjay upstairs, and until he’s safely stowed, our hands are tied! I’ve sen
t Abel Tate back to fetch Mr. Adams and some of the others. Perhaps they can bluff their way in and bear Brixton back. Fly back to Gille’s and let William know what’s afoot. Here, you shall take my horse, the roan tied in front of the tavern yonder.”

  We walked to the very end of the next street, and for some minutes I stood wondering whether I dared get in the saddle at all. The beast was a snappish thick-headed brute of a hired horse, but grateful I was not to have to run the five miles back to the Gille plantation. Once I had made the climb, the fool of a horse wanted to dance about the street with me for more minutes, until I began to think it would have been faster to walk.

  Finally, though, I persuaded the animal to start forward. It seemed to know the road, for it did not stumble, though several times the devil tried to throw me off. Nothing I could do would persuade it to go faster than an amble, and all in all the horse was only a trouble to me. At last I swung off the creature while still three hundred yards away from Gille’s, for I had not left riding a mount, and thus wanted no questions about how I had come by one.

  I meant to tie him to a tree beside the road, only the ill-natured brute yanked the reins from my hands and took off back toward the town. I stared after the beast for a moment, then turned my eyes to the sky. A few stars twinkled there, and the moon, now past full, seemed to be staring down at me. Maybe it was wondering what Davy Shea was doing, tearing about on a night full of doubt and danger such as this.

  For I was myself wondering just that.

  Bloodshed!

  I had NOT REACHED the gate when I heard hoofbeats approaching. Quick as thought, I darted off the road and behind one of the trees whose gnarled roots crept in a web over the stones. I tried to melt against the trunk. The horse and rider came into view, just a dark silhouette against the gray of the moonlit road. Whoever was in the saddle was not a tall figure, and I crouched to pick up a fist-size stone to defend myself with. I might have thrown it too, had the person following me not reined in the galloping horse and called sharply, “Come out! I know you’re there!”

  “Jessie!” I exclaimed, dropping the stone. I stepped out into the moonlight. “What are you doing here? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened,” she insisted, looking down at me from the back of the very horse that had run away from me minutes before. “Except that I’m coming with you.”

  “No, that you are not!” I exclaimed hotly. “I’ll not be responsible for you!”

  “Fiddle-faddle!” she shot back. “You’re a fine one to talk. You’re likely to get yourself killed without some help. You can’t even hold on to a horse.”

  I felt my cheeks burning in the darkness. “I let him go,” I said.

  She leaped from the saddle. “Then so will I.” She gave the horse a smart slap on his rump, and the beast ran away, back toward town. “Come on! We’re wasting time.”

  “But you were supposed to go back to the ship—”

  “They don’t need me. Fairfax, and your uncle, and two sailors are already on their way back to the Aurora. You’re the one I’m worried about. Can’t you hurry?”

  “Not without falling and breaking my head,” I muttered, but we were already within sight of the tall stone wall about the house. I had been worrying about talking our way past the guard, but there was no need at all, for the gate was open and unlocked, and never a guard did we see.

  We stepped into the yard. Down the tree-lined lane, the white house gleamed with light. Every room seemed to have a hundred candles in it, with the yellow glare spilling out into the hot tropical night. “Something’s wrong,” I said. “’Tis strange that the house is all lit up like that, and nothing afoot but supper. How did you get past my uncle?”

  “I crept down and was listening in the shadows when you talked to him,” she said. “While you were fooling with the horse, I got a head start on you, and you didn’t even notice me half a mile back when you went riding him past. If you can call it riding! Anyway, where are the pirates?”

  There she had me. Captain Shark and his men were nowhere in evidence, not that I could see. Perhaps they were in the house, or perhaps they lurked on the grounds. There was no telling, but the best path seemed to be to take our courage in our hands and boldly stroll up to the door, for I had learned that if you look as though you have some urgent business, people tend to let you be. “Come on,” I said, leading the way.

  We stepped onto the deserted veranda, and then I noticed that the front door stood ajar. Without knocking, I pushed it open and we stepped down the hall and into the dark entrance room. No one was there, not a soul, not a servant, not a mouse. I nodded toward the panel that concealed the sickroom and whispered, “Brixton’s in there, but I don’t know how to work the door at all.”

  “Worry about him later,” returned Jessie.

  We were halfway down the hall to the dining room when we heard someone swearing in French—and coming our way. “In here,” Jessie whispered, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me through a doorway.

  We stepped into a sort of study, with an enormous, elaborate desk and two walls that were nothing but bookshelves, floor to ceiling. French doors, closed against the night, were opposite the hall door. Beside them on either side were open windows, with filmy curtains drifting on the sultry night breeze. The whole wall behind the desk was covered by a hanging tapestry showing hunters with lances pursuing a leopard. Overhead, a chandelier blazed with candles. Jessie closed the door, and we flattened ourselves against the wall.

  But then the voice stopped right outside the room, angry and loud, and I heard a rattle at the door handle. Jessie again dashed past me, tugging me along, and we dived behind the tapestry. There was barely room for us, but she lay on her stomach, and I did the same, with my head at her feet. Even so, the bottom of the tapestry pushed out from the wall, but we had at least a chance of escaping attention.

  I could see only through the crack between the bottom of the tapestry and the floor, so when the door opened and three men came in, all I could glimpse were feet. The door slammed, and the French rose in pitch and in anger. It was the voice of M. Gille, and he seemed far from pleased.

  A rough English voice cut him off: “Belay! I don’t understand your French jabber. Talk English!”

  There came a pause, and I heard Gille take three or four deep, rasping breaths. Then he spoke in English, but his tone was no less furious: “How dare you! How dare you come to this house? You know our arrangement. I cannot afford to have your ruffians visit this place so openly!”

  “Business,” said the rough voice shortly. “Monkey business, if ye asks me. I don’t like to be cheated, not me. I don’t take kindly to them what cheats me either.”

  “Mr. Meade,” Gille said coldly, “call the servants and throw this dog out!”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” replied Meade’s soft, honeyed voice. “And Captain Shark does have a point, Monsieur.”

  I sensed Jessie ahead of me going stiff with surprise. Meade did not seem the type to defend a roughneck like Shark.

  Gille’s voice dripped with contempt: “So you are afraid of him, are you?”

  “No,” Meade answered slowly. “In fact, sir, I agree with him.”

  “He was the one who told us how much you was cheatin’,” said Shark.

  “And though I did not think this the best time for Captain Shark to press his arguments, I could not in all honesty tell him you would make things right,” added Meade.

  After a baffled silence, Gille asked, “What do you wish of me? What is your complaint?”

  “Nothin’ much,” growled Shark. “Only that the money ye gave Meade to pay us is rather less than half o’ what it should be. Blazes! If I was to take that an’ call it square, why, my men would depose me in a minute, and I couldn’t blame ’em if they did, not I.”

  “Times are hard,” Gille told him. “With that devil Captain Steele threatening all trade, I’d be a fool to buy your goods at full price, not knowing whether I could sh
ip them elsewhere for sale. But if they sell for what they should, I will add to your payment. Only when the sale is made, though!”

  “Not good enough,” snarled Shark. “I say ye’re a lying jackal.”

  Gille swore in French, and I heard the hiss of a sword being drawn from its scabbard. There was a quick, sharp clash of steel on steel, a kind of gurgling gasp, and then the heavy thud of a body on the far side of the desk, where I could not see. I tried hard to press myself into the wall at my back, and to quiet the hammering of my heart.

  “You’ve done ’im,” said the rough voice of Captain Shark. A pause, and then, “Aye, ’e’s dead, all right. What next, Cap’n Steele?”

  At that, my thudding heart leaped right into my mouth. Captain Steele? Here? It was as if Satan himself were striding about the study on his cloven hooves!

  A soft sigh, and then Meade said, “Well, the fool’s time was coming to an end anyway. I had hoped to delay this, but since it has happened, we have to deal with the others. You get some men and secure the gate. I’ll go back to the dining room and tell them Monsieur Gille is detained. When you’ve seen to the gate, bring half a dozen men and we’ll take them prisoner and see if they’re worth anything. Hurry now.”

  “Aye.”

  Peering through the crack, I saw one man’s feet move to the door. It opened, and the man was gone. It had to be Meade, from the elegant, silver-buckled shoes—or rather, it had to be Captain Steele!

  Ahead of me, Jessie was creeping along the floor toward the wall with the French door. I reached to grab her ankle, but too late—she was standing and then she had whisked out from behind the tapestry. I had no choice but to leap to my feet and follow her.

  A fearful glance showed me the fallen Gille, lying facedown in his own blood. Kneeling beside him, with his back to us, was Captain Shark, busily tugging at the dead man’s coat and going through the Frenchman’s pockets.

  I think Jessie had believed that both men were gone. Seeing her mistake, she quickly, quietly stepped to the open window, put a leg over the sill, and slipped through. But her landing made a crunch that seemed as loud to me as the crack of doom itself!