Deadweather and Sunrise

by Geoff Rodkey

  “Didn’t Dad keep any money in reserve?”

  “Some, yeh.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Sewn into his coat.”

  “Which coat?”

  “The one he wore to Sunrise.”

  THERE WASN’T MUCH TO DO after that but go to bed and hope things looked a little less bleak in the morning. Millicent disappeared into Venus’s bedroom upstairs, and Guts sacked out on Dad’s bed, snoring almost as soon as he hit the mattress. I could have slept upstairs with them, in Adonis’s room, but I wanted the comfort of being in my own bed for the first time in a month. So I retreated into my familiar little windowless box off the kitchen to lie in the darkness and worry about how I was going to come out of this mess alive.

  The comfort was spoiled a bit by the fact that my bed smelled like a soldier, not to mention the fact that I’d just traded away my family’s plantation for the allegiance of fifty crippled pirates who’d be useless against armed soldiers unless I could somehow find guns for them.

  Then there was the treasure. Assuming it was there, I had no idea how to find it. Dad had stumbled upon it on his way up to clean the cannon, which meant it was somewhere between the house and Rotting Bluff. But Percy had known that, too. And even with upward of fifty men, all digging frantically for a week, he hadn’t found a trace of it.

  Although the more I thought about it, the more pointless all that digging seemed. Dad didn’t have a shovel with him when he went to clean the cannon that morning. So why would anyone need to dig to uncover whatever he’d found?

  It seemed utterly stupid, but then it was probably Percy’s idea, and he’d never had much in the way of brains.

  I could find it—I just had to be clever enough to think it through. To think like Dad.

  What path did he take up the hill that morning? Straight up? Or something roundabout, like following the cliff’s edge? That’s a longer and harder climb, but there’s a view of the ocean.

  Is that thinking like Dad? Did he ever take the scenic route anywhere?

  Not if he could help it. Dad didn’t go places without a purpose. He’d—

  I heard the creak of the wooden steps. Someone was coming downstairs. A moment later, there was a dull thop, followed by a barely audible “mph!” as whoever it was stubbed a toe on my door frame.

  “Who is it?” They were only a few feet away, but without a lantern it was pitch-black, and I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Did I wake you?” asked Millicent.

  “No.”

  “Can I stay down here for a bit? I can’t sleep, and my bed smells like a soldier.”

  “Mine does too,” I said.

  “That’s all right.” I felt her bump into the side of the bed frame. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah.” I felt her weight push down on the thin straw mattress, and I wriggled to the far edge of the narrow bed to make room for her.

  Her arm pressed down on mine, and something soft landed on my head. “I brought a pillow.”

  “Oh.” I shifted my head over to make room for her pillow. My heart was beating fast, but my brain felt thick and slow. I wanted to say something clever, or charming, but I couldn’t think of anything.

  We were silent for a while. The part of her arm that was on top of mine felt warm and soft through my shirt, except for what must have been her shoulder blade, which was digging painfully into my upper arm. I wondered if I should roll onto my side, or if that would ruin everything.

  “Your soldier doesn’t stink as bad as mine did,” she said. Then I felt her shift position, turning away from me, and I thought I’d ruined everything just by doing nothing.

  “Give me your hand.”

  I raised my right hand, the one closest to her, and searched in the darkness until it grasped hers awkwardly.

  “No, the other hand… now turn onto your side.”

  I did as I was told, turning toward her. She took my left hand and pulled it across her like a blanket, tugging me closer until my chest was against her back and her hair tickled my nose. I could feel the gentle rise and fall of her body as she breathed.

  It was wonderful. I just hoped she couldn’t feel my heart thumping through my chest.

  “I’m sorry for not believing you,” she whispered.

  “That’s all right,” I said.

  “I can’t ever go back,” she said. “Not after what he did.”

  “You can stay here.”

  She sighed. “No. Neither of us can. They’ll overrun this place. Even with the pirates on your side. Let’s just run.”

  I thought about it. What I wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to stay with her like this, lying quietly, with my arm around her, forever.

  But as long as he was alive, Roger Pembroke wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Are you sure your father will come here with them?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then we’ve got to stay.”

  “Why?”

  Because I have to try and kill him.

  “Because I can’t let him take that treasure.”

  “If there is a treasure… we’ll find it in the morning,” she said. “Together. Then we’ll run away with it.”

  Her hand found mine again in the dark and squeezed it tightly.

  “All right?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  WE SLEPT LIKE THAT all night. In the morning, we stepped into the kitchen to find Guts and Quint there. Quint was making biscuits, and Guts was watching him.

  “I thought I might wash up a bit,” Millicent said. “How exactly does one do that around here?”

  “There’s a fresh bucket of well water in the room with the tub,” said Quint, gesturing down the hall with a wooden spoon.

  “Thanks so much,” Millicent said, and sauntered off down the hallway. As soon as she was out of earshot, Guts turned to me with a skeptical look.

  “Why’s she in yer room?”

  “Didn’t want to be alone, I guess.”

  He kept looking skeptical.

  “What? I didn’t even kiss her!”

  “Why not?” asked Quint.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  But I did know. Because even after all that, I still couldn’t tell where I stood with her. And I didn’t want to make a hash of things by going and making a fool of myself.

  Guts narrowed his eyes. “Take care round ’er. She’s witchy.”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  Millicent returned, her face bright and damp.

  “Does your sister have any clothes I could wear? This nightgown’s getting a bit iffy.”

  “Yeah. Upstairs in her room.”

  “Biscuits are ready,” Quint said, heaving a hot iron tray onto the countertop. They were like all his biscuits—chewy for the five minutes until they cooled and hard as rocks after that.

  “Oughta fetch that twelve-pounder from the cliff,” Guts said through a mouthful of biscuit. “Been thinkin’—set ’er on the porch, get a clean shot down the road. Can move it quick if they flank us, too.”

  Millicent looked at me. “Is all that really necessary?”

  “We’ll do it later,” I told Guts. “First let’s find the treasure.”

  BUT WE COULDN’T FIND IT. I wandered the hillside with Guts and Millicent all morning and half the afternoon, trying every imaginable route between Rotting Bluff and the house, racking my brain for some clue to what my Dad might have been thinking or doing that morning that would have led him to a hidden treasure.

  In the end, all I got for my trouble was the realization that I didn’t really know much about my father.

  I mean, I knew the obvious things. Like how he never smiled. And he never ate vegetables.

  He liked pork better than chicken.

  He smacked his kids when we broke the rules, although somehow he ended up smacking me more often than Venus or Adonis, even though I broke fewer rules than either of them.

  He didn’t care for talk
of religion or the Savior—but sometimes when he thought no one was watching, he’d pray on his knees with his hands clasped over his bed.

  When there was rum in the house, he’d drink it. And afterward, he’d sing to himself in a low, melancholy voice.

  But the important stuff—what went on in his head, how he thought about his life or any of us who were in it—was all a mystery. Even the plantation—he gave his whole life to it, working his fingers to the bone every day from sunrise to sundown, but the why of it, whether he cared about it for its own sake, or whether it was just a way to put food on the table, that he would’ve abandoned in a heartbeat if he knew an easier way… I had no idea. No one did.

  The one thing I thought I knew for sure was that he didn’t trust anyone, ever. But then he’d gone and gotten into Roger Pembroke’s balloon when he’d only just met the man. So even that was wrong, I guess.

  As the hours dragged by and we trudged back and forth through the dug-up orchards, I got more and more frustrated, and then angry, and finally hollowed-out and despairing.

  Maybe there wasn’t any treasure after all. Maybe we were all going to get killed for a few acres of ugly fruit trees and some piles of dirt.

  Maybe we should do what Millicent wanted and run.

  But there was nowhere to run. If we stayed on Deadweather, they’d hunt us down. If we left in Millicent’s sailboat, we’d only get lost at sea. And if we could somehow find a ship and depart before the soldiers arrived… they’d still hunt us down. And anyway, if we went to sea, how could I protect Millicent? What had happened on the Grift would happen again, only Healy wouldn’t be there to stop it.

  So we couldn’t run.

  But we couldn’t stay, either, because Millicent was right—we couldn’t beat them. Not with six rifles and a cannon.

  We were doomed either way, but I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept wandering the hillside looking for the treasure, long after I’d given up on finding it.

  When Guts finally grumbled that it was getting late and we needed to bring the cannon down to the house, it was almost a relief to quit looking.

  Millicent begged us not to give up, and as I followed Guts to the cliff to get the cannon, she stormed off toward the house in a sulk.

  It was tough work dragging the cannon through the trench that Percy and his men had dug around Rotting Bluff, because the wooden wheels couldn’t get traction in the loose earth. But once we got it up the far side, gravity took over, and pretty soon the challenge wasn’t getting the cannon to roll but keeping it from barreling out of control down the hill.

  By dinnertime, we’d maneuvered it into position on the front porch and were filling empty fruit bushels with dug-up dirt from the hillside for use as fortifications. Two full bushels, stacked on top of each other behind the porch rail, were the perfect size to shoot over from a crouch. I didn’t know how well they’d stop a bullet, but it wasn’t like we had any other options.

  Millicent eventually came out of the house and helped us, scowling the whole time. We had the front of the porch pretty well socked in when we heard wagon wheels on the road.

  Guts and I went for our guns, and Millicent grudgingly retreated inside. But it turned out to be Stumpy, in a small open wagon pulled by the horse he’d ridden down the hill.

  He reined the horse to a stop in front of the house and grinned at me from the seat.

  “Took ’em till noon to hire a boat. Then the tide was out. Didn’t push off till four. Not likely ’ey’ll be back before morning.”

  “Where’d you get the wagon?”

  “Present for ye. ’Long with the cargo. Think ye’ll like it.”

  Guts and I climbed into the wagon bed. Inside were half a dozen long crates. I opened the top one.

  It was filled with rifles—at least two dozen of them, Cartager made and so new the metal plates around the flintlocks shone like mirrors. Guts made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a shout.

  “There’s pistols and grenades as well,” said Stumpy. “And paper cartridges—sight faster to load’n loose powder and shot.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Where did it all come from?”

  “’Ang on—came with a note.” Stumpy pulled a small card from his pocket, drew himself up to his full height of four feet, and cleared his throat with a big show of formality.

  “A-ha-hem…” He held the card in front of his nose, with a snooty look like a royal attendant. Then he chuckled as he handed over the card with a shrug.

  “Pullin’ yer leg. Can’t read a word.”

  I looked at the card in my hands. It was a heavy, fine ivory stock. Written on it, in an elegant hand, were the words:

  Good luck. You’ll need it.

  Burn Healy

  I read it out loud to Guts. He shook his head slowly. “Burn — Healy. Why?”

  I was wondering the same thing. “Maybe he just doesn’t like Pembroke.”

  “Maybe.” Guts pulled a grenade from one of the crates and held it up for me to admire. “Changes the odds, don’t it? ’Ow many soldiers ye think one o’ these kills?”

  “A lot.” I was smiling from ear to ear when I realized Millicent was glaring at us from the porch steps.

  I nudged Guts to put the grenade away. “Let’s get this unloaded.”

  We stored the crates just inside the house, where Quint cooed over them excitedly. As we emptied the wagon, Stumpy fed and watered his horse so he could make the trip back down the hill to watch for the soldiers’ return.

  After he left, Guts wanted to test the cannon to fix its range on the spot where the road first emerged through the trees. I was about to help him load a cannonball when Millicent pulled me aside.

  “Can I speak with you privately?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  Guts shook his head in disapproval as I followed her into the yard, far enough that we wouldn’t be heard.

  Millicent fixed me with a worried stare. “This is madness! A handful of guns doesn’t change anything.”

  “It’s a lot more than a handful,” I said.

  “All it means is more people die! You can’t win, Egg! We’ve got to run.”

  “Millicent, I have to—”

  “No, you don’t! You’re just being stupid! There’s still time to get out of here.”

  “What the——?!” I turned to see Guts pull his arm out of the cannon barrel with a loud curse and a twitch of distaste. He swiveled his head to yell at me. “Thought yer dad cleaned it!”

  “He did.”

  “Nuts to that! Nest o’ rats been livin’ in ’ere. Look—” He stuck his knife deep into the barrel, scraped around, and pulled it out to reveal a knotted clump of filth, straw, and animal hair.

  “He must have found the treasure before he got to the cannon,” I said.

  Guts snorted. “Look at these droppin’s. Dry as dust.”

  “So?”

  “’Asn’t been cleaned in years.”

  “That’s impossible,” I said. “My father cleaned it all the time.”

  “Ever see ’im do it?” Guts asked.

  “No. He’d go alone. Take the brush and bucket, and go up the hill…”

  My voice trailed off. The three of us stared at each other, all coming to the same realization.

  “Why ELSE would he go up that hill?”

  The answer came so quickly I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. I started up the hillside.

  “Follow me,” I said. “And hurry. There’s not much daylight left, and it’s all the way around the mountain.”

  “What is?”

  “My mother’s grave.”

  THE GRAVE

  I led Millicent and Guts up the mountain, half a mile past Rotting Bluff to where a wide stretch of mossy scrub separated the tree line from the black crumble of the lava fields. From there, we turned and skirted around the western slope of the volcano to the only field of wildflowers on the entire island.

  My mother was buried in t
he middle of it. Dad took us there twice a year to pay our respects, but I realized now that he must have gone alone much more often, which explained why, even though the surrounding hillside buckled and cracked with every new earthquake or sputtery cough of lava, the grave always looked clean and undisturbed, its lonely wooden cross standing perfectly straight at the top of a low rectangular border of white stones.

  The sun was almost touching the horizon when we got there. I stood at the foot of the grave, the sun at my back, and looked around. Stretched out above me was the long slope of the volcano, a glum expanse of rough black rock that tapered as it rose up to the rim, where a few thin curls of smoke wafted into the sky.

  It looked just like it always had, a colorless wasteland… except for one spot, off to the right a hundred yards above the grave, where a section of rock had crumbled away to reveal a sharp seam of nearly white granite, jutting six feet straight up out of the earth like the blade of a knife. I’d never seen it before, but it must have been there all along, buried under a frozen crust of black lava, and had reemerged after some minor earthquake shook its cover loose.

  I started toward it, and Millicent and Guts followed. As we approached from the side, an opening came into view. It was a two-foot-wide crack down the middle of the granite face. The sunlight was hitting it at an angle that revealed the beginnings of a cave inside.

  Guts nudged me. “You first.”

  I squeezed sideways through the opening, stepping to one side once I’d entered so the others could come in behind me.

  We were in a wide, low-ceilinged chamber, twenty feet across and half as deep, and not quite tall enough for me to stand up straight inside it.

  At first, it seemed barren. But once my eyes got used to the dim light, I realized there were markings on the far wall—dozens of small, squarish figures, painted in a dark color on the smooth white surface of the granite. They were arranged in two large clusters of long, straight rows, set two feet apart with a series of random-looking squiggled lines and marks in the space between the clusters.

  Each little square figure was about the size of a fist, a blotch of wavy lines inside of rectangles, forming geometric shapes… no, they were hieroglyphs, picture-writing—a bird, a spear, an eye… a face, with long hair and lines radiating out from its head…