Blood And Bones

by B. L. Morgan

  She stepped forward. Her lips were curled into a smile, an evil smile.

  “Since I have killed you once,” she said. “I suppose we can begin a new life together.”

  “I’ll take it under consideration,” Johnny said. “I suppose you have been missing the most famous black cock that ever sailed the seven seas?”

  “Yes,” Carmel answered. “I do have to admit I’m in need of a good shafting. All the others I’ve had these past three months are but wet noodles in comparison.”

  And during all this all I could do was stand there looking like an idiot.

  My stupor was broken almost as quickly as it came over me when a voice from a drunken sailor a bare five feet away from me now rising from a pool of his own vomit on the deck called out, “Bloody hell! The two Johns are back. Have we all been murdered in our sleep and we’re in Hades now? This canna-be! Why I cut Jondar’s throat me-self.”

  A flood of memories came rushing in to my head, so much that if I wasn’t already used to strange occurrences within my skull I would have staggered around like a recently blinded man.

  I saw this man, this red-haired rough-faced giant oaf named Reagan as being the brunt of uncountable jokes by me. He was slow in the head, quick to anger, but as strong as an ox. I always liked to make fun of him when we were ashore wench-hunting. Like the idiot that he was, he always fell for whatever I set him up for.

  That was why when Carmel found out that her Jonydavid, her proclaimed one and true love, fucked a tavern girl and she had him thrown overboard in a jealous rage he’d suggested that she rid her boat and crew of me as well. Jonydavid and Jondar were after all blood brothers, sworn to avenge any wrong done to the other.

  I was held by six crew members, and it hadn’t been easy for them either, while Reagan cut my throat. Then they dumped me over the side as fish food.

  I could even remember the sudden overall weakness as my life blood poured out of me into the ocean and feeling the blackness close around me as I left that body behind.

  Reagan staggered to his feet, still drunk from the night before but sobering up fast. I wasn’t going to give him the chance.

  “Old friend,” I said and reached a hand out to shake.

  He slipped in his own vomit.

  “Bygones be bygones?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said, stepped forward and kicked him in the nuts.

  He bent forward and where I’d thought that his vomiting was over, I was wrong. He tossed up some again.

  I waited for him to finish then grabbed him by the hair of the head and kneed him in the face twice.

  His nose crunched then splattered.

  I dragged him to his feet over to the guard rail and kicked him in the balls again.

  Reagan’s knees sagged.

  I shoved him against the rail and when he hit it, gave him another good kick, this time in the ass, to send him tumbling over into the ocean.

  He made a loud splash.

  Leaning over the rail I looked at him sputtering and splashing his arms.

  “You can make the island if you try real hard,” I yelled at Reagan. “The tribe will be happy to see you.”

  Turning back to Johnny and Carmel they were locked in an embrace. She came up for air long enough to shout at two swaying sailors, “The two Johns are back. Treat them as part of the crew.”

  Then Carmel and Johnny went into the Captain’s Quarters.”

  I leaned back on the steps outside the Captain’s Quarters and as the rest of the crew slowly woke up and began staggering around listened to Johnny go to work.

  Carmel yowled like an alley cat getting fucked up the ass. Well, I thought, maybe Johnny is a backdoor man after all. Riding the Hershey Highway was never my thing but some guys like touring the Chocolate Factory.

  The two sailors that Carmel had told to treat me and Johnny as crew spread the word. The rest of the sailors walked by as I was stretched out on the steps and eyed me suspiciously. A few of them made the sign of the cross when they passed and a few others made signs that were supposed to ward off evil spirits.

  As an answer, I gave them the finger and smiling told each one of them, “And fuck you if you don’t like that!”

  Now that me and Johnny had come back from the dead to a lot of these guys we were Evil Spirits.

  That was fine by me. They could all keep their distance as far as I was concerned.

  As these guys wandered by and gave me the eye I kept getting flashes of memories of most of them.

  There was Kane and Carter and Beltrain and Webster. All of these guys were cut throats that couldn’t be trusted. These were the type of guys that would sell their own mothers for the price of a bottle of cheap rum to a slaver who specializes in filling whore houses.

  Having these guys figure that the two of us were men to be feared could only be a plus for us.

  After what was at least an hour later Carmel quit her screeching and a few minutes after that Johnny came staggering out of her door. Carmel stepped out just behind him looking glassy-eyed and weak at the knees.

  Johnny had a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

  “Yes, I did my job like a good sailor should,” he told me and any member of the crew close enough to hear. “I dropped anchor in the midst of a gale and rode that hurricane until it blew itself completely out.”

  He looked Carmel straight in the eye. “And a mighty blow it was.”

  Carmel punched Johnny on the chest.

  “You bastard,” she told him and then they kissed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Choosing Who’s Who

  Carmel had a chest in her cabin that contained extra weapons, the ones that crew members who were now dead had left behind. Me and Johnny took our pick from what was there.

  We each outfitted ourselves with a cutlass, a pistol and two daggers that hung from our belts.

  I for one felt a lot better being an armed man again.

  As the rest of the crew roused themselves so did the captured island girls. The girls were weeping and most crew members were nursing some ugly hangovers. My guess was that the sex the night before wasn’t exactly of a consensual nature.

  The girls were put to work cleaning up last nights mess as the crew had a meal of fish and some fruit that they’d gathered before attacking the village. When the cleaning was over one of the pirates, a big brutish looking guy with a scar across his forehead, who I had no memory whatsoever of, led one of the native girls to the side of the ship.

  “It was really nice knowing you last night,” he told her and gave her a little peck on the top of the head. “But it’s even nicer to see you go.” With that he shoved her over the rail.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shouted at the guy who was maybe twenty feet away as I came toward him.

  All eyes turned on me with surprised looks except for Johnny’s and to a lesser extent Carmel’s. Carmel’s face registered an expression almost like she suddenly had me confirm a growing suspicion.

  “It’s nothing different than what we do every time,” the guy yelled back at me.

  Memories flashed through the inside of my head. Memories that told me he was speaking the truth. We did capture women then throw them overboard when we were through with them.

  One part of me, the part that was rooted in this time, this life, said that was the right, the smart thing to do. The other part of me, the part that came from America in a time of jets, computers, and Civil Rights, when slavery was a distant memory said that there was no way I was going to let defenseless women be drowned for no reason at all.

  Before we jumped through the portal and went back to Ancient Rome Jeanette warned Johnny and me, “Never forget who you are, or you may never find your way back.” I remembered her words at that moment and realized just how right she had been.

  In these other worlds, we were wearing other lives. To become the other person would be just a matter of forgetting who we had been before.

  “That’s not how
we do it now,” I told this pirate stepping forward ready to smash his face in. “Throw her a rope and get her back on board. We’re gonna take them back to their island.”

  The buccaneer turned toward Carmel. The question on his face didn’t need to be voiced.

  “Do as he said,” she told him. “Perhaps it is time for a change.”

  The ship had to be maneuvered around and taken back to the island so that we could drop off the girls. This took up most of the morning. When we were close enough to the beach to lower the women on ropes and have them swim to shore some of the island warriors appeared on the beach dancing around shaking spears at us and shouting curses.

  That was all they could do so the crew just shouted curses back at them.

  The rest of the crew wasn’t happy with me either. Dropping the women off where we knew they would be able to get home alive was a waste of time to them. I didn’t give a shit. I wasn’t there to make friends anyway.

  As the crew grumbled me and Johnny stood at Carmel’s side as she shouted commands and steered the ship. This, as it turned out, was our usual spot.

  The year was 1643.

  We were Carmel’s bodyguards. Her being one of the few women sea captains, especially among pirate captains, she needed someone to watch her back so he hired us to do just that. Of course Johnny wanted more.

  It had taken him quite a while to angle himself into her bed and between her legs. If only he hadn’t gotten drunk and fucked that bar maid who knows what might have happened.

  Who knows what might or might not be in our heads right then.

  But then again, maybe all of these different times and worlds and lives are strangely connected and all that has happened, had to happen.

  That was one thing we would never know.

  Memories of the former life, the one lived in the 1600’s, filtered back into my mind pretty much as they were needed. My childhood in this age seemed to be a total blank. Maybe I’d recall it later if that information was needed. But for now, it was just gone.

  What I did remember was that I had once been a mercenary, then a paid guard for a brothel. That was where I’d met Johnny some years before. Both of us, in this life, as in our life back in the USA, hit it off immediately since we had similar skills and likes.

  We could fight like hell and we liked hard drink and wild women.

  On a drunken night after bedding several women apiece and then kicking the crap out of a gang of thugs we took the blood brother oath where we sliced our palms and shook hands making our blood flow together.

  That oath tied us to each other.

  When one of us was wronged, the other would treat it as a wrong done to him.

  We’d never actually taken an oath like that back in the USA but that’s pretty much how we were back there too.

  Parallel lives? Maybe we repeat this every time.

  After the girls were dropped off Carmel gave the order to set sail for the North. We were going to head into the Mediterranean Sea.

  As the buccaneers set the sails and we headed in that direction Johnny told me that he’d already told Carmel where the two of came us from.

  Carmel smiled a broad smile when Johnny was done informing me of that.

  “Yes,” she said. “I had known that something was different when we renewed relations. I had never known a man, not even Jonydavid, who would root around in a lady’s nether regions the way he rooted around in mine. It was just like an anteater. I demanded he tell me why he was different than before ...”

  Johnny finished for her, “With a knife at my throat.”

  “That is how I get my answers,” Carmel said with a steely glint in her eye.

  Carmel glanced at me and with a motion too fast for the eye to follow she stepped toward me, snatched her dagger from her belt and it flashed to my throat stopping as it touched the skin just outside my Adams’ Apple.

  “No more secrets among the three of us ... aye?” she asked.

  “Since you put it that way,” I told her. “Of course not.”

  “Good,” Carmel said lowering her blade. “Jonydavid has also told me about your need to kill this Countess Elizabeth. We’ll raid some ships then send her to whatever hell she belongs in. It’ll be a good break from the sea. I’m long over due for spending time on solid land.”

  Well, that solved a few of our most pressing problems and let me know one other thing. This time Johnny was the one hooked up with a psycho-bitch.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Pirate’s Way

  With the salty wind in our hair and the sound of a single cawing sea gull that was perched on the edge of the top sail cutting through the wind The Bad Omen sailed north.

  The Bad Omen was what Carmel renamed this stolen ship. She had the old name painted over black and when asked what it had been called she said that it didn’t matter.

  They did not paint the new name on The Bad Omen.

  Soon I was to find out why.

  Days drifted into weeks and weeks soon turned into months.

  We ate meals of fish and fruit from the island. When the fresh fruit ran low we ate dried fruit and salted fish. Catching fish off the side of a large boat was next to impossible because fish avoided large moving objects.

  The occasional bird was brought down by one of the crew with a firearm. Usually the gun was a blunderbuss.

  Supplies ran low after three months and the crew took to catching rats and mice to eat. This was nothing unusual. On the longer sea journeys supplies almost always ran low.

  Fried rat actually tastes pretty good once you get past the idea of what it is. An empty stomach makes just about anything taste as good as Kentucky Fried Chicken.

  Our navigator was guiding us to an unnamed island off the Northern coast of Morocco for resupplying when the crow’s nest look out spotted a Spanish Galleon far ahead of us at about the same time as spotting the island. The Galleon was disappearing around the other side of the island and our boat was small enough so that we knew we had probably not been spotted. Even if we had been, The Bad Omen never ran any flags at all until there was a reason to. So they couldn’t know what country we hailed from.

  The Spanish Galleon was easily twice the size of The Bad Omen but as it vanished around the curve of the island and the sun sank into the ocean Carmel told Johnny and me, “We’re going to take her before morning.”

  For some reason, that didn’t surprise me one bit.

  The sun was sinking into the ocean to the West when Carmel had the word passed that we were going after the Galleon. She also immediately steered The Bad Omen so that the greater bulk of the island was between us and them.

  I would have expected the men to grumble about going after a ship so much larger than their own but I was wrong. These cut throats were so ocean stare crazy that anything that promised a little excitement was agreeable to them. The taking of a good sized warship, well that definitely promised a lot of excitement.

  As evening fell and the sky grew dark the command was given that no lamps were to be lit and all fires, even ones so small as to be used to light smoking pipes were to be extinguished. We glided around the island as the light in the sky died away and the ocean around us turned dark.

  Carmel was a master at giving just the right commands, always in a firm voice but with no out of control shouting, to keep The Bad Omen slowly drifting along the curve of the land. She guided us as though she knew this coastline well, and for all I knew she might have.

  As for myself, I searched all the memories that I gained about this day and age and I do not believe I had ever seen these shores before that moment.

  Evening turned to night. We slowed the ship’s speed and just as the final rays of the sun bled away we crept around the Eastern edge of the island. This was where Carmel gave the order for us to drop anchor.

  Carmel called Kane and Carter to her side at the Captain’s Wheel.

  Kane was a brawny man with muscle knotted arms, long shoulder length black hair, and a scar
across the length of his right cheek.

  Carter was a thin wiry twitchy type guy who always reminded me of an underfed rat.

  “You will swim to the shore and locate the Galleon,” Carmel told them. “Then get back here.”

  There was not a questioning word from either of them. They both went to the side of the ship, then leaping over the rail dove into the ocean and swam toward the beach.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Code of Blood

  By the time Kane and Carter got back it was pitch black. Clouds had rolled across the moon and no stars shone. I was amazed that the two sailors managed to find their way back at all.

  Kane reported to Carmel, “Just up ahead, around a bend in the island there’s a lagoon barely large enough for the Galleon to drop anchor in its mouth. That’s where she is.”

  Carter spoke up, “I’d have to figure that none of the crew has went ashore as yet. We didn’t spot not-one life boat on the lagoon’s beach. They’re probably waiting for morning to go searching the island for food.”

  “So, they’re all on the ship?” was Carmel’s question.

  “That’s what I’d guess,” Kane answered.

  “Good,” Carmel said. “They’ve already trapped themselves.”

  Mine and Johnny’s primary purpose on this ship was to keep Carmel alive.

  Johnny was fine with that. He was laying the meat to the girl so keeping her healthy and alive was in his best interest. As for me, I could have given a shit less about her. I was just as antsy as the rest of the crew for some action. I wanted to get over on that Galleon and shed some blood.

  Carmel ordered that a life boat be lowered into the water. Then she had two more crew members go to shore in the life boat. In the dark I couldn’t tell who she tapped on the shoulder to do the job. After that she gave orders and The Bad Omen drew up anchor once again.

  Creeping, drifting slowly and silently like a huge ghost in the night The Bad Omen slipped through the water around the curve of the shore. With only the slightest slap of water against the hull and the smallest ripple of the sail on the night breeze to betray we were there, The Bad Omen came past the edge of the land and pulled up alongside the huge Spanish Galleon blocking her inside the mouth of the lagoon.