Only Life That Mattered

by Nelson, James L.

  Mary ambled over to where Bartlett sat.

  “Here, now, Billy, how do you do?” she asked.

  Bartlett looked up at her through narrow eyes, wary and suspicious. “What of it?”

  “I just ask how it goes with you, Billy. I’m a shipmate, ain’t I?”

  “Aye . . .” said Billy, alert and nervous, like a deer in a clearing. Some others of the tribe had noticed Mary approaching Billy and were watching their exchange with interest, which was as Mary had hoped.

  “Well, then. I just come over to have a drink with my shipmate,” said Mary, raising her cup.

  “Sod off.”

  “What did you say? You’ll not drink with me?”

  “Sod off, I said,” Billy spat at her. He clearly did not know what she was about, but he would have none of it.

  “Sod off? You tell me to sod off, you little bastard? You whoreson, am I to suffer such an insult from you?” Mary kicked sand on him, right in his face, and Billy leapt to his feet, spitting and rubbing his eyes.

  Mary threw her cup at him and the rum splashed over his shirt. “I’ll not keep company with any man will not raise a glass with me. And no one tells Michael Read to sod off, you little rat. I’ll have your apology, now.”

  All eyes were on them. Some had stood up; those close by were backing away. Jacob had stopped playing and the only sound was the crackling fire and Bartlett’s fast breath. “You’ll get no apology from me,” he said.

  “Then I’ll have satisfaction for your insults. On this beach, tomorrow, at ten in the morning time,” Mary said.

  “Aye, I’ll meet you, and glad of it,” Billy hissed. He paused, and Mary could see on his face the moment that her trick dawned on him. He opened his mouth to protest, but it was too late. The meeting was set, and any attempt on his part to change it would look like equivocation, and that was not acceptable in a duel.

  “Good,” Mary said, and now it was her turn to give him the flash of triumph before she turned and walked away.

  The pirates had an innate sense for theater, whether they realized it or not. They loved a show, and there was no show like a duel, with the stakes as high as they could be. It was the Roman games, writ small, perhaps, but with much less disinterest among the spectators. These were not anonymous gladiators or criminals doing battle. These were their shipmates, their brethren, and when it was over one of them would be dead.

  And so it was with that heightened sense of anticipation that the Pretty Annes began to assemble high up on the beach as the hour of ten o’clock approached.

  Jacob stood off to the side, silent. He did not try to dissuade Mary from what she was about to do. He had already tried that, spent hours pleading with her, looking for some way out, begging her to let him fight Bartlett first. But she continued to refuse, and finally he gave up.

  Anne was at her side. “Mary, dear, I am certain there is some way we can avoid this. Let us have a vote, among the men, on the matter. They will vote that Bartlett has gone too far in this.”

  Mary shook her head. It was a pointless gambit Anne was suggesting, and they both knew it. “There is nothing for it.”

  Anne took up Mary’s hands in hers, met her eyes. Someone would be dead within the hour, and there was every chance it would be Mary. “Godspeed, Mary, my dear.”

  “Godspeed.”

  And then Mary squeezed Anne’s hands and let them drop. No time for morbid good-byes; she had a fight to fight and win.

  Mary stepped into the circle formed by the watching men. She shed her coat and took great pains to drape it carefully over a low bush so that Bartlett would understand she had every intention of donning it again. She pulled her sword and took a few practice lunges, stretched her arms and legs. She had abstained from drink after her challenge was made, and her head felt clear and her body strong and limber.

  Richard Corner came lumbering up from the boat. As quartermaster, the affair was his to run. “Gather round, you two, over here,” he called, and Mary and Billy Bartlett stepped over to him.

  “Pistols at ten paces. Turn and fire on my word. If both of you misses, then cold steel. Agreed?”

  “Aye,” said Mary.

  “Aye,” said Billy. Mary had hoped to see some fear, or some wavering in his confidence, but there was none that she could detect.

  “Good. Here.” Corner handed them each a pistol. They each examined the weapon, snapped the flint down on the frizzen to check the trail of sparks it produced, then each in turn loaded his or her own gun.

  “Ready?” Corner asked, and both nodded.

  “Billy, you stand here.” Corner positioned Billy Bartlett with his back to Mary. Then he paced out ten paces, which was a much greater distance than it would have been if they were Mary’s paces, and said, “And, Michael, you are here.” He took Mary’s shoulders in his big hands and positioned her with her back toward Billy Bartlett.

  Mary held the pistol up so the flintlock was right by her face. With her back to the others she could see nothing but a virgin strip of sand, curving away to the edge of the half-moon bay, and the lovely blue and white surf and the green jungle bunched up near the beach. She thought of her body being lowered into a hole in that white sand. It was paradise, and that made it all the more strange to think that she might be dead in just a minute or so.

  How odd, if it were to end here . . . Mary thought. After all of the many strange turns, for her life to end on this beach, by a pirate’s bullet.

  And then, perhaps not so odd . . . She thought back to the many, many strange circumstances in her life, the many times she had found herself in situations that seemed entirely unlikely. If an angel had appeared to her then and said, “Mary, you will die on a beach in Jamaica in a duel with a pirate,” she reckoned she would have shrugged and thought, That is not so great a surprise.

  “Get ready, then,” Dicky Corner called out, and Mary pulled herself from her reverie. She felt herself tense, felt the little sparks shooting out along her fingers and arms and legs. It was a familiar feeling—the moment before a bayonet charge, or a cavalry attack, or leaping onto the deck of an intended victim.

  “Set . . .”

  Either she would be dead or Bartlett would be in the next few minutes. Better that she should die than see Jacob murdered. She was taking the easy way out. In either event she would not see her lover killed.

  “Turn and fire!”

  Mary came around, bringing the pistol level, holding it at arm’s length, looking over the barrel at Bartlett, who seemed an impossible distance away.

  A blast of smoke from Billy’s pistol and Mary squeezed her trigger, though she was not quite ready, and she thought, Damn it!

  The pistol jumped in her hand and the buzz of Billy’s shot screamed in her ear and Billy was lost in the burst of smoke.

  And then it cleared and she was still standing and Billy was still standing and neither of them was hit.

  Mary tossed her pistol into the sand and drew her sword and Billy did the same. This was the moment of clarity that Mary loved and dreaded, when everything that she was concentrated on the task at hand. It was a sensation like no other, and it could not happen unless one’s life was in the balance.

  She closed quickly with Bartlett, stopped just short of fighting distance and circled, looking at his eyes, his stance, the way he held his sword. There were openings that she could exploit, openings that a more expert swordsman would not have left, but Mary waited. She knew enough about blade work to wait.

  But Billy did not. With a sound like a grunt and a shout he lunged, taking an awkward step to close the distance, and Mary beat his blade away easily, but before she could counter he was beyond the reach of her arm.

  Fast little bastard . . . she thought. That was no surprise—she had guessed he would be—but he was even faster than she had supposed.

  She continued to circle. The sand made the movement hard and tiring, but it was tiring for Billy as well as for her.

  Mary kept her defense in the si
xth position, giving Billy no opening, not attacking, not stepping back, just circling. She could see that Billy was getting confused and frustrated and that was good. He lunged again, more awkward, and Mary got a piece of his shirt before he was able to leap back, and this time Mary continued the attack, lunging as he was off balance, opening a small wound in his shoulder as Bartlett stepped back fast, a few awkward steps.

  The pirates where cheering, Mary realized. She had entirely forgotten about those men sitting in a line in the sand, watching the fight. Her eyes were entirely on Bartlett and she did not see them and had not even heard them until they registered their approval of her thrust.

  Mary lowered her sword, beckoned to Bartlett, a gesture designed to provoke him with its cockiness, and it worked. Bartlett snarled at her, took a few steps forward, and this time Mary attacked first, beating his blade aside, lunging hard and driving the point into Bartlett’s side as he twisted to avoid her onrush. He yelled in pain, jumped back again. He was bleeding now from two places, breathing hard, furious.

  The pirates roared.

  Mary was breathing hard as well and her legs felt rubbery and she knew they would have to end this. If they grew too weary for swords, if it devolved to knives, then Billy’s superior strength of arm would give him the advantage and she would lose. Time to end it.

  Mary gulped air. “Come along . . . you little prancing dance master . . . let me stick you again . . .”

  “Son of a bitch!” Bartlett roared, and Mary recognized the moment when anger trampled subtlety and caution underfoot.

  Bartlett took two quick steps and they clashed blades, thrust and parry, counter, parry, thrust. Bartlett knocked Mary’s blade aside and rushed her, charging flat out, but Mary snapped her blade back, backhand, knocking Bartlett’s aside with a smack, and held the weapon straight out. Billy Bartlett ran right onto the point of her sword with all the momentum he had thrown into his final assault.

  Mary’s blade ripped through him and she saw the bloody, gleaming point over his shoulder as it came out his back.

  Blood erupted from his mouth, his eyes went wide and he fell toward her and she was all but holding him up with her sword.

  Their eyes met and Bartlett reached out at her, reached for her neck. As his last act on earth he would try and strangle her.

  Clawlike, his hand went for her, but she shied away and his fingers missed her throat and came down her neck. He grabbed the collar of her shirt and his fingers hooked there as he fell. Mary tried to push him away, but his weight was on her and he was going down and she could not get out from under.

  She stepped back, let go of her sword, grunting as she shoved the dying Bartlett aside, but his fingers were clenched on the fabric of her shirt.

  Down he went, into a dark spot of his own blood, down, in a chorus of cheers from the watching pirates and tearing and rending cloth as Mary’s shirt and waistcoat tore, down into the sand.

  And then he was still, his face pressed into the sand, and above him, Mary stood, shocked and horrified, covered in his blood, her shirt and waistcoat torn open before the silent and stunned pirate horde.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MARY GATHERED UP the torn remains of her shirt, turned, and fled. Her feet found the trail that cut into the jungle and she ran along it, blindly, not looking or thinking. Just running.

  She was exposed, stripped naked and held up to scrutiny, and she could no longer deny who she was, not to the pirates, not to herself.

  She wept as she ran, wept as the knife edge of tension from the fight dulled into horror and revulsion. Wept with the humiliation of the thing, with fear of what trouble her exposure would bring, wept for Frederick and for the fact that she was still dressing like a man and for all the sorrow in her. She ran and she wept for herself.

  At last she stopped as the trail widened out at a big pool of water and overhead a gap in the canopy of trees over the pool let the sunlight pour down into the forest. She stopped and breathed hard and looked at the dried tracks around the pool, the marks where barrels had been rolled that way. This was why the trail was there, she realized. Local fishermen and coastal traders must use this place to water their vessels.

  Two hundred yards from the beach the trail ended at that spring-fed pool. She and Jacob would not have made it very far if they had tried to run that way.

  Mary sat down on a big, warm rock and put her head in her hands. She was a broken vessel and the tears poured out of her. She knew better than think that life was in any way just, but she did not understand why it had to be so damned, damned unjust to her, and the frustration sometimes was overwhelming.

  There were soft footfalls on the trail and Mary looked up. Anne was there, and behind her, Jacob. She turned away from them, sunk her face in her hands again. She wanted to be alone and she wanted them there, all at the same time.

  She heard footsteps coming up to her and then felt Anne’s hand on her shoulder, just resting there, and for a long time neither of them said anything. At length Anne spoke. “That was one surprised damn bunch of pirates you left on the beach, dear.”

  Mary smiled despite herself, choked back a sob. “What do they say? Will they maroon me now?”

  “No, no, I do not believe so. They have always esteemed you one of their own, you know. And I think they feel that anyone drives a bloody great sword through Billy Bartlett has done them a good turn.”

  Mary nodded because she did not trust herself to speak. Anne gave her shoulder a squeeze and said, “I am going to return to the beach now. I do believe your Jacob has something he wishes to say.”

  Mary reached up and put her hand on Anne’s, then turned and looked up into her friend’s face. She smiled through the tears and Anne smiled back and then she was gone.

  Jacob stepped up, knelt before her, but not close. He glanced out into the woods, as if gathering his thoughts, then looked her in the eye. When he spoke, his voice was measured. “I have to tell you, I was angry, damned angry, when you got yourself in a fight with Bartlett just to protect me. I’ve never asked any man’s protection. And now . . .” He looked away again.

  “Now it’s worse?” Mary asked. “Now you’ve had a woman’s protection?”

  Jacob met her eyes again. “Yes,” he said, simply. “Yes. And no. I’m not such an arrogant bastard that I’m not grateful for what you done.” He shook his head. “Damn it, I don’t know . . .”

  Mary stood, reached out for Jacob. Without a word, he stood as well and they stepped into each other’s arms. Her shirt fell open and her naked skin pressed against his body. Her head swam with the sensation of it. Jacob’s big hands slid around her back and up her shoulders and he pressed her closer still and their mouths came together in a desperate and hungry kiss.

  Mary looked at her hands pressed against Jacob’s chest. They were covered with blood, Billy Bartlett’s blood, as was her shirt and her chest, and it felt sticky and repulsive.

  Jacob looked at the blood and with never a word he pulled off his own shirt and plunged it into the pool, then pulled it dripping from the water and wrung it out. He stood before Mary once more and gently opened up her shirt and began to clean the blood from her.

  The wet cloth felt cool and sensual against her skin, and Jacob’s touch was light and sure as he gently ran the shirt over her stomach, her chest, her breasts. Mary closed her eyes and let the luxurious sensations wash over her.

  When he was done Jacob rinsed the shirt in the pool and then laid it on a rock to dry in the sun. His body was tanned from his time at sea, and lean and hard, the muscles on his arms rippling as he moved with his quiet elegance. Mary stepped over to him, where he stood in the mottled sunlight coming through the trees. She wrapped her arms around him and they kissed again.

  They remained like that for a moment, lost in one another, and then Jacob reached down and with one fluid motion scooped Mary up and held her in his arms.

  “Oh!” Mary gave a little shout of surprise and resisted the urge to regain her
feet. She could not recall the last time she had been held in a man’s arms, completely supported. It was wonderful and frightening all at once, to be so cradled and so vulnerable. For so long had she affected a man’s swaggering confidence and relied on no one but herself that it seemed unnatural to be carried in that way.

  But she ran her hands through Jacob’s hair and they kissed again, he holding her in his strong arms as if she weighed nothing, and soon Mary was delighting in it. He carried her away from the pool to a place where the foot-tall grass marked the outer edge of the encroaching jungle, and laid her down easily, then lay down beside her. He ran his lips over her neck and behind her ears and she closed her eyes and let the sensation consume her. His long fingers played over her stomach and caressed her breasts and she gave a little moan, quite involuntarily.

  Jacob moved over her, half on top of her, supporting his weight with his elbows as he ran his lips over her neck. Mary could feel his passion building, and hers as well, and there would be no stopping it soon.

  “Oh, Jacob, oh, my dear Jacob . . .” Mary shuffled away from him. Jacob sat back and their eyes met.

  “What is it, my love?”

  “I have been with only one man before, and he was my husband. I never wished to have such conversation without I was married.”

  “Oh, my dear.” Jacob closed his eyes, struggled to regroup. “I would marry you this instant, if I could, or wait a lifetime if I thought there was any chance we could ever be man and wife, such as the law says. But we’re outlaws now, you know. We have missed the main chance.”

  Mary nodded. For a long moment Jacob just looked at Mary, then he ran his finger along the edge of her face and her jaw. “It is funny, you know. I thought you a man for so long. But now I see you are not only a woman, but a very beautiful one at that.”