Mary put her hands on Anne’s wrists and gently encircled them with her fingers. Slowly, deliberately, she removed Anne’s hands from her shoulders and held them in her own.
For a second they stood there, looking into one another’s eyes, Mary holding Anne’s hands in hers. They were soft—woman’s hands— with just the beginnings of calluses, not hands that had seen two decades hard use, like her own.
Mary took Anne’s hands and pressed them against her breasts, held them there, pressing down hard. Her eyes did not leave Anne’s. She watched the expressions play over the younger woman’s face: desire, then uncertainty, confusion. Anne Bonny’s eyebrows came together, her mouth turned down in a frown.
And then, realization. She gasped and jerked her hands back, like she was touching hot iron.
Anne half staggered and half leaned back on the low bench, stared at Mary with wide eyes. Her mouth hung open and her lips moved as if she was trying to say something, but no words would come.
Then an involuntary twitch, a smile flickered on her lips, then disappeared, then came again, and then a laugh—more of a grunt—forced its way up from her throat, and then another and another.
A second later and she could not hold it back. Anne Bonny was laughing, roaring with laughter, so hard she was gasping for air, bent nearly double in that small space.
The laughter was infectious, the absurdity of the situation overwhelming, and Mary could not help but laugh as well.
She sat back on the edge of a tar barrel, the laughter spilling out of her, releasing months, years of pent emotions, the all but unbearable anxiety of the past week. The tears streamed down her face as she laughed, and the sound of the two women, in their hilarity, filled the small room.
And then Calico Jack Rackam kicked in the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
IT HAD NOT BEEN more than ten minutes after Anne refused him his afternoon romp that Jack started in drinking. What he wanted was a bit of a flourish, had been thinking on it all morning. It was not easy for a man like Calico Jack Rackam to change direction so abruptly, so he went for the rum bottle that he had jammed between two of the cushions on the locker instead.
God damn her eyes, he thought as he pulled the cork, felt the first warming draft of rum go down his throat.
She had never refused him before, had never even seemed in the least hesitant. There were even times when he worried about his ability to keep up with her. When he indulged himself in his dreams of a big house ashore, he sometimes wondered if Anne would slow down as she got older, give him enough of a rest that he might have some vigor left for the house girls.
But now she had rejected him.
“Pirates who have their time of the month . . .” She must have her bloody goddamned time of the month every fortnight. He took another drink, stared hard out the window at the blue sea astern, the long white wake. “Thought I saw a sail . . .” my fucking arse. Staring at Read, goddamned Read, I’ll cut his fucking throat.
He took another drink. Read, Read. She had been staring at him from the moment they had taken the Dutchman. What the hell was it about Read?
Read. It seemed every time someone mentioned Read’s name, it was followed with “He almost bested Dicky Corner.”
“Yes, well, I could bloody well almost best Dicky Corner. Could bloody well best him, I could, the goddamned ape.” Jack said it out loud, because that made it sound more believable to his ear, but he was not so far in his cups yet that he could in fact believe it. He could never beat an animal like Corner with a blade or a pistol. Might outwit him—a monkey might outwit him—but beat him? Never.
A shout from the deck had interrupted his bout of self-pity, a strange sail on the horizon. Jack made his way to the quarterdeck, bottle in hand, and remained there for the bulk of the afternoon as they took part in their ultimately futile chase.
At first he did not look for Anne, and told himself he did not care where she was. Finally he could resist no longer. He searched the deck and the rigging. And there she was. Aloft. With Read.
The sight of the two of them made his stomach twist, sent his spirits down to an even darker place than they had been. He finished the bottle and found another. As soon as the sun set he crawled below and passed out on the locker aft.
He awoke with the late morning sun, his head pounding, his spirits as low as ever. He sat up on the locker, stared at the deck. He was sitting on the exact spot that they had last made the beast with two backs. He was aware of that and it made him more depressed still. He reached for the bottle and started in again.
Come along, Jack, come along. You might not be the man for all this fighting and mayhem, but none is your equal with the ladies. Is there a man alive can take a woman from you? What woman would choose another man over you? Not Annie, never my Annie.
He took another drink.
No, never Annie. Not for some boy like that whoreson Read, barely off his mother’s tit.
He took another drink. Almost bested Dicky Corner.
That was what Annie liked. Dangerous men, men who lived life like they had no concern for losing it. Why had she gone off with him? Because he was a dangerous buccaneer, or so she thought. And here was this bugger Read, fought the pirates like a madman and then joined them. Handsome, dangerous Read.
Oh, God, why did I not hang that whoreson when we took the Dutchman? Charles Vane would have, would have made him pay for fighting back, made him scream out his life for the men’s amusement.
Jack was no Charles Vane. He knew that. It was a point of pride for him. He had never wanted to be like that madman. But now, oh, what he would do for just a bit of Vane’s cruelty! And his courage.
And so it went, for the bulk of the afternoon and into the evening, as Jack watched the level of liquid in the rum bottle drop lower and lower and his thoughts became more and more disorganized, until they were not really thoughts at all, but just wild impressions, trails of logic that seemed so clear at first, but when he tried to follow them, just faded off into nothing.
Annie . . . just got to tell her . . . I love her . . . she’ll see . . .
He stood, with some difficulty, and staggered across the great cabin deck. The roll of the sloop coupled with his own instability made for a wild ride, and the simple act of crossing the eight-foot-wide cabin became a tricky exercise.
But he had a plan now, a good one, as far as his saturated brain could tell. He would find Annie, tell her he loved her, had to have her to himself. That would do it.
He made it at last to the far bulkhead, a flimsy sort of wall that separated the tiny captain’s cabin from the rest of the hold. Against the bulkhead, a ladder led straight up to the weather deck above. He paused there, one hand on the ladder to steady himself, and with the other smoothed out his long calico coat, nicely tapered at the waist and flaring slightly in the long tails.
He ran his palm over his waistcoat. He had spilled rum on it; it felt wet, but there was nothing for that. He tossed his long hair over his shoulders, took a deep breath, then half-climbed, half-crawled up the ladder, emerging onto the open deck.
The night air was warm and fresh, the breeze steady, and he felt his head clear a bit as he breathed deep. It was quiet on deck. He could hear loud snoring from various quarters. He climbed carefully over the hatch combing and stumbled forward, searching through unfocused eyes for Anne Bonny.
“Here, Captain, steady now . . .”
Jack turned toward the voice, saw the ugly, pinched face of Billy Bartlett behind him, the close-set eyes, the wisps of what he styled his beard.
“Billy, what ho?”
“Ah, Captain, been at the old kill-devil, I see. And a good night for it.”
Bartlett looked like a rat. Jack wondered why he had never noticed that before. Small like a rat. Mean.
“Yes, yes . . .” The words were not coming so easy. “Prithee, have you seen Annie at all? Looking for Annie . . .”
“Annie? Oh, Captain, I don’t reckon I should tell
you . . .”
“What?” Was Bartlett smiling?
“Well, it’s just . . . I seen her, not ten minutes before. She was up in the bows, talking with that new fellow, that Read. And then the two of them went below.”
Read. That name, and all Jack’s thoughts of embracing Annie, professing his love, fled like smoke in a breeze. Read!
“Ah, the whoreson! I’ll cut his fucking throat, I’ll . . .” Jack staggered back toward the scuttle. The air and this shot of anger were clearing his head still more, giving stability to his legs.
“Now, Jack, don’t do nothing stupid, eh?” he heard Bartlett say, but his voice was soft and with little conviction and did nothing to sway Jack from his action. He stepped onto the ladder that led back down to the great cabin, took a step down, and heard Bartlett add, “They might have gone to the forepeak, seems to me.”
The forepeak . . . Jack staggered across his cabin, his legs gaining strength and momentum. In his mind he pictured Read fucking Annie in the forepeak at that very moment, perhaps on the little bench, the sundry pots and buckets swept aside.
On the cabin bulkhead, hanging from a length of ribbon tied to the butts, his two best pistols. He pulled them down, took up his powder flask, poured gunpowder down the barrels, then a lead ball in each, and then wadding over the balls and tamped it all down, all the while cursing under his breath.
He draped the pistols over his shoulders, and this time stepped through the narrow door in the bulkhead that communicated directly with the hold. “Bloody put a hole right through his fucking head, what I’ll do,” he said out loud as he stumbled forward, through the cramped berthing area where the men made their home, crammed with sea chests and seabags and ditty bags hanging from hooks, clothing and bottles and rotting food tossed in corners.
He stumbled along, past the stacks of casks piled on casks, containing food, water, rum, powder, all the things necessary to sustain the life on the account, along with the plunder that that life had thus far yielded.
Forward into the dusty cable tier, and as he left the feeble light from the berthing area behind he realized that he should have brought a lantern. He reached out a tentative hand and it came down on the big anchor hawse, ten inches around. With his hand on the rope, half for guidance and half for balance, he made his way forward.
Past the cables he could see the entrance to the forepeak, rimmed in yellow as the light from the lantern that someone had carried in there leaked out around the imperfectly fitting door.
Jack lurched toward it, stumbled, caught himself on an upright post before he fell. Cursed softly. He could hear no noise from the forepeak and he wondered what was going on in there. He steadied himself and stepped forward again.
Just outside the door he paused, because he had not forgotten that Read had almost bested Dicky Corner and such a man had to be killed before he could fight back. Throw open the door, shoot the bastard, right in the heart. Show Annie who the dangerous man is.
Then, from inside the forepeak, laughter. Soft at first, and then building, two voices, and one was Annie’s, laughing like she was about to burst.
Is he fucking her right now? Are they laughing at how they’ve put horns on me?
One of those two possibilities had to be right, and both filled him with rage. All thought of impressing Annie was done. They were both dead, Read and Bonny. He would kill them both in midrut.
With a growl of rage building in his throat he snatched up both pistols, pulled back the flintlocks, cocked his leg, and lashed out at the door. It crashed in with the impact of his boot, splintering under his enraged kick, and he burst in.
Two startled faces looked at him, Read and Annie. They were not rutting, not even undressed, not even in one another’s arms, but Jack was too drunk and wild with rage to care. He lifted a pistol and pointed it at Read’s forehead, three feet away. Read sprung from the barrel on which he sat, went down in a crouch, and his sheath knife appeared in his hand.
Too late for you, bastard! Jack thought, and pulled the trigger and the lock made a loud snap, but no more, because Jack in his drunken rage had failed to prime the pan with powder.
“Son of a bitch!” he roared, and leveled the other gun as Read sprang at him in a great blur of motion. Read’s left hand came down on the gun, jerked it aside as Jack pulled the trigger and heard another loud snap on another unprimed pan, and then that big knife was whirling through the air at his throat.
He had time enough to gasp and then Anne’s hand shot out, grabbed Read’s arm, pulled it aside before Read could plunge the blade into Jack’s neck.
“Enough!” Anne roared, and Jack was stunned by the authority in her voice. Read let go of the pistol in Jack’s hand and Jack staggered back a step, his eyes and Read’s still locked.
“Jack,” Anne said, but Jack was still too drunk and angry to listen, soothing as her tone was.
“God damn your eyes, Anne, I’ll not have you rutting like some animal with this bastard, hear? Make a fool of me, I’ll not stand for it. I’ll take this bastard ashore, run him through!” Jack pointed at Read with his impotent pistol.
“Jack, damn it, shut your gob and listen!” And again Anne’s voice was such that it would not admit protest. Jack stopped talking, lowered his weapon. His breath was coming hard.
“This is nothing as it appears,” Anne continued, her voice now conciliatory again. “Read . . . Do you attend me, Jack? Read is not a man. She is a woman. Like me. A woman, dressing as a man.”
Jack frowned, looked from Anne to Read and back. A woman? What sort of a story was this? Was this some monstrous lie . . . or did Anne mean that she and Read were engaged in some kind of unnatural act . . . or . . . Jack could not seem to get his thoughts around this news.
“A woman?”
Then Read spoke. “That’s right, Captain. My name is Mary. Mary Read. I have played the man the better part of my life. No one was ever the wiser. But Anne, she smoked the truth directly, soon as ever I came aboard.”
Now Anne was talking. “You can well imagine, my beloved, that Mary and I have had much to say to each other, what with the sameness of our circumstances, but we reckoned it best if the others did not know Mary’s secret, and that is why we have been sneaking about. I am sorry, my dearest, but I should have told you. Forgive me?”
Jack looked at her, but his brain was still five sentences back. Read is a woman? Read . . . almost bested Dicky Corner . . .
No, it’s not possible . . . no woman could stand up to that beast. And yet . . . there was always something odd about Read . . . the voice . . . the smooth chin . . . His manner had always seemed too old for a beardless youth . . .
It was more than Jack’s rum-sodden mind could cope with. He looked Mary in the eyes, tried to focus. “You’re a woman?”
“Aye.”
“You swear to it?”
Mary sighed, seemed to come to some decision. “I’ll prove it to you, if you wish.” Her hand moved to her red waistcoat, began to unbutton the buttons, and Jack watched, stunned, mystified.
“No, no,” he said at last. Somehow he could not endure it, seeing the proof in the flesh. It was too bizarre by half. “No, I believe you . . .” he stammered.
Then Anne was there, a comforting arm around his shoulder. “Come, Jack, my beloved, let us go to our cabin and have a lie-down. You have had a long day, I’ll warrant, and are quite ready for sleep.”
She said that, and suddenly the thought of sleep was delicious and Jack wondered if he would even make it back to the cabin before passing out.
Sleep was what he wanted. To close his eyes, have it all go away: the fear of Anne’s infidelity, the shock of Read’s being a woman. Let sleep whisk him away, let him forget all that had happened during the past hour, a single hour that had spun his world off on some new and hardly comprehensible course.
Mary took the lantern down from the nail, followed after Anne Bonny and Calico Jack as Anne led the drunk buccaneer aft, steering him around the vario
us obstacles in the hold.
Her heartbeat was settling back to something like normal, the surge of energy was subsiding. She had come close to death before, plenty of times, but still there was no sensation quite like having a pistol stuck in your face and seeing the flint come down on the pan.
How the gun—both guns—had failed to fire, she couldn’t imagine.
Mary watched young Anne Bonny maneuver Jack Rackam aft, watched her strong, feline body as she took most of his weight, and him near to passing out.
Anne had reacted well, Mary thought, to the startling discovery that she was making love to another woman. She had not become furious, or indignant, or horrified. She had seen the absurdity in it, the wild coincidence. The humor. She had reacted well when Mary had nearly killer her lover.
And she had reacted well to Mary’s lie, had picked up the thread of it and carried it along, the tale of how she, Anne, had known all along of Mary’s being a woman.
Anne Bonny might be a bit of a slut, but she was quick of hand and mind. She could laugh at her own folly and support her fellow in a lie with never a pause. One moment she could order Jack around and the next soothe his inflated male pride.
Mary had been watching Anne from their first meeting, curious, trying to fathom who she was. Up until that point she had not been much impressed.
But the events of the past fifteen minutes had changed all that. Anne Bonny might actually be a woman whom she could respect. Perhaps even a woman she could befriend.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CALICO JACK RACKAM wanted to wipe his palm, but he was afraid.
He could feel the big sword slipping in his hand, he could not hold it securely with his sweating grip, but he was not sure what to do. What if they should see me wipe my palm? What would they think about that, eh? Fearsome Calico Jack’s palms are sweating, he is so damned afraid.
He looked aloft, like he was checking the set of the sails, then let his eyes move over the deck. The men were all at the rail, all looking outboard, and so he rested the point of his sword on the deck and wiped his hand quick on his coat, then readjusted his grip on the weapon.
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