The Devil's Fire (25 page)

Griffith smirked as he watched him intently, no doubt catching the fleeting look of doubt that passed over Cunningham’s face. "You forget that we sailed the seas together and shared many a plunder. I know you well, Jack. What are you not telling me?"

Cunningham swallowed, his throat suddenly parched. He was acutely aware of the thick humidity of the room. He glanced at Griffith's liquor cabinet and glimpsed a long-necked bottle of wine. He wished that Griffith would offer him some, and repeatedly he moved his eyes in the direction of the cabinet as an indication of his thirst, but his old friend who knew him so well was not obliging the obvious hint. Perhaps it was too fine a vintage.

"Those days are past," Cunningham said finally.

Griffith regarded him narrowly. Finally he stood and said, "Would you like some wine?"

"I thought you'd never ask."

Cunningham had recounted in full the events of Woodes Rogers' arrival at Nassau and, with less enthusiasm, revealed his own abandonment of piracy and the present task of seeking out pirates. When he was finished, he leaned back and gulped down the rest of the wine while waiting for Griffith's response.

It was long before Griffith finally broke the silence. "Why is it you never took on a woman, Jack? I don’t believe I so much as saw you take refuge in the arms of a whore."

"What has that to do with anything?"

"Your fondness for this Woodes Rogers fellow makes me suspicious of your inclinations."

Cunningham blinked through a flush of anger and did his best to preserve a cool tone. "I'm not here to arrest you, Jon."

"Nor could you if you tried," Griffith replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"I'm not your enemy."

"That's lucky for you. My enemies are all dead."

"And neither is Rogers."

"That’s lucky for him," Griffith retorted, bearing his teeth. "Seems to me Rogers would make an enemy of all true pirates."

"There are but few ‘true pirates’ left," said Cunningham. "And do you know why? True pirates sink with their ships and die with their treasures. Ever heard tale of a pirate’s retirement?"

"Many."

"Truly? Lend me their names and addresses, so I might congratulate them in person."

"If they advertised their whereabouts, they wouldn’t be alive. Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist."

"I could say the same of mermaids."

Griffith flinched. "One day someone will put a knife in Rogers' spine." And then he smiled, the strain easing from his face as he came to a conclusion. "But it won’t be me. I'll take Rogers' pardon, and I'll smile in the dead man's face as I do."

The tension fled Cunningham’s muscles. He felt ashamed for doubting that his old friend would make the right choice. Through all their years of undaunted piracy Griffith had always been one step ahead of him, and now for the first time Cunningham was setting the path. It was an awkward role that had made him nervous.

Griffith slapped his palms on the table and pushed himself to his feet. "Well," he said, "help yourself to spirits aplenty. My cabin is yours. I have duties I must attend to. As you said, my deck is affright and wanting for repairs. I'll return as swiftly as I’m able."

Griffith left Cunningham alone in the cabin. Or so he thought, until the woman stirred in the bed. She had completely slipped his mind. "He leaves me with a man I do not know," she groaned.

"You have nothing to fear from me," he assured. He poured himself another glass of wine. "Except, perhaps, a bout of drunken philosophizing."

She sat up in the bed, her eyes puffy and her cheeks flushed. "I could not sleep through all your chatter."

"Sleep? It's barely after sunset."

"The clouds make it dark," she snapped.

He could think of nothing to say, so he sipped at his wine. He glanced at her briefly and found that she was fixing him with an ugly glare. He struggled to know why her brilliant mane nagged at his mind. "What was your name?" he asked.

"It 'was' Katherine," she coarsely replied.

"And you're last?"

"It
was
Lindsay," she sighed. "And that truly is past tense."

The name agitated him, for it was so familiar. For the better part of an hour he swallowed entire glasses of wine, hoping to quench this undying need to rediscover some crucial piece of information that had too efficiently been locked away. Whatever it was, it had been inconsequential until now.

And then it came to him at last. The red hair. The accent. The name.

Katherine Lindsay!

Here she had been all along in Jonathon Griffith's cabin, while men in taverns spoke of her as though she were legend, hoping they might stumble across her and seize the staggering reward that her murdered husband's family had promised for her. Most figured she was dead and gone by now, with a lonely grave at the bottom of the sea. Cunningham had heard those tales and never for a moment did he believe that a wellborn woman could survive among pirates.

And yet here she was.

"What?" she said with a raised eyebrow. A desperate look came into her eyes as she sat taller in the bed. "What is it?"

Steadily he fell back into reality. "Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "It's a pretty name."

The desperation faded from her eyes like a dimming candlelight. She withered and was once again the ill-tempered woman that had emerged from the covers. It was unsettling how sourly she twisted so lovely a face. "Yes it’s very pretty. A pretty name for a pretty girl."

"That you are," he agreed.

She laughed bitterly and retreated to her hiding place beneath the covers. They spoke not another word to each other. Cunningham returned to his wine and drank until the bottle was dry. So fine was the vintage that he went to the cabinet for more. He poured and drank glass after glass, until dizziness prodded at his brow and threatened to render him cross-eyed.

And still his mind stubbornly fought his arduous attempts to silence it.
Poor girl,
he thought.
Poor girl. Afraid and all alone. Her husband killed. Stuck with pirates. The sort of company I enjoy; not the sort she enjoys. Jonathon Griffith, my dear friend, has made a whore of her. Poor girl.

When finally Griffith returned, Cunningham sprang from his chair, seized him by the collar and forced him out of the cabin and onto the deck. It was pitch black and the air was thick with moisture. Though he could see nothing in the sky, the lack of stars told him the clouds had lingered.

"What madness has taken you?" said Griffith.

"That woman is Katherine Lindsay!"

Griffith balked at the stench of Cunningham’s breath. "Jesus, you reek of wine."

"Wine and truth!" he proclaimed.

Griffith stared at him for a moment and then burst into a painful fit of laughter. With a reddened face and shortened breath he said, "By the powers, Cunningham, I haven't the slightest notion what you're talking about. Let's take you inside where there's far less weather. Rain will fall on our heads any minute. And there's that lightning to consider."

"Are you daft or what are you?" he slurred, clutching Griffith’s shoulders and shaking him. "You've stolen a woman with a high price on her head! Half the sailing world is hoping to stumble across her! She's known from here to Bristol! She has a high price on her head!"

Griffith glanced nervously about. "All right, Jack, I hear you. Just keep your voice down."

Cunningham released his friend's shoulders. "You have to give her up."

"She enjoys her life here," Griffith persisted. "She won't admit as much, but I see it in her eyes. She is not the same woman I removed from the
Lady Katherine
."

"Removed? You took her!"

"What’s done is done."

"She looks dismal."

"Her pet died."

"You killed her husband!" Cunningham boomed. The masts of the ship swayed this way and that. He couldn’t be sure if he was staggering or the world was betraying his feet.

"I've killed many husbands," Griffith replied indifferently. "She says nothing of him with my cock inside her."

Cunningham shook his head in disgust and gracelessly tried to turn away. He struggled to keep from faltering, seizing Griffith’s arm for balance. "She has a price on her head!"

"Yes, you’ve mentioned that a few times."

He squeezed Griffith’s wrist. "A high price!"

Griffith yanked free of Cunningham’s hand and fixed him with an accusatory glare. "You want the reward!"

It was rapidly occurring to Cunningham that this was not the same man he had known so many years ago. Bitterness had since tainted Griffith's tongue, and his eyes now burned with avarice.

And then Griffith blinked. He smiled, and Cunningham found the face of his old friend once more. "My apologies," Griffith said. "Our recent plunder was great, but it pales in comparison to her. I’m passionate about her, in a way I’ve never been about anything. I would guard her with my life, if the need arose."

"Plunder?" said Cunningham. The word was sugar on his tongue.

"Oh yes," Griffith grinned. And then he tossed a conspiratorial glance about the deck. "Far greater than any mere reward, I'd wager. What if I were to bring you in on a share? Would that stay your tongue, old friend?"

Indeed this was not the man he remembered; he was changed by his love for a woman and clearly he would do anything for her.
How lucky for her,
Cunningham thought,
that a man should love her so deeply.
Surely her dead husband had not offered such affection. And why shouldn’t he profit from Griffith's love? Cunningham was no longer a pirate, but his inexhaustible lust for treasure remained, no matter how adamantly he had tried to suppress it. What was the harm in taking one final piece of plunder and leaving two lovers to their harmony?

"I see gears turning," Griffith said, teeth showing through his grin. "Have I gotten through?"

It was a fair toll. Cunningham had been forever trapped in
Harbinger
's wake. She had assisted in several of
Harbinger
's earliest victories. Griffith had once suggested that Cunningham name his next ship "
Abettor
." Cunningham found the name amusing at the time, but now he was sick of its debasing connotation.

A report of thunder stole away his nostalgic thoughts and rooted him firmly in the present. Griffith was unfazed by the sound; he was keenly awaiting Cunningham's reply with an intense gaze, his convivial grin spread wide. "What say you, old friend?"

"My lips are sealed," Cunningham answered.

"We buried the treasure late last night," Griffith revealed at once, all business. "We must go now, while it's dark."

"The sooner the better."

"Good. Permit me a moment with Livingston. I must contrive a story to account for our absence. My crew cannot know of our dealings, and they are an untrusting lot."

Cunningham nodded his understanding and said, "I’ll wait in your cabin." As he turned, he tripped on a loose plank. Griffith steadied him before he toppled.

They shared a hearty laugh.

By the time the two of them had rowed to the beach, a warm rain was falling in light sheets. They hefted the boat onto the sand and Griffith hefted a shovel and a sack. Cunningham pushed his dampened blonde locks out of his face and followed Griffith up the beach.

They plunged into the jungle, which was as thicker inside than it appeared from the outside. Deeper and deeper they went, and in Cunningham's intoxicated state it seemed to him that every twist and turn was the same as the last. Griffith pushed ahead of him and in his wake massive wet leaves swung back to slap Cunningham in the face. As he pushed one leafy branch out of his way, another would bend to greet him. The rain fell harder and the mud they trudged through was sloppier with every step.

They came to the end of the indistinct jungle, where the ground was rocky and inclined steeply toward the peak. Cunningham leaned back for a look, but the tip was shrouded in dark clouds. Griffith must have spied his grim look, because he said, "Don't worry. We go around it, not up it."

Cunningham sighed. "Thank the powers for that."

And around it they went. So windy and labyrinthine was the path through trees and rock that no one would stumble across this road unless they knew the route. It seemed half an hour before they came to an entrance into jungle, on what Cunningham presumed to be the western side of the island. They took the downward sloping path into the darkness and walked for a long time. The rain pattered the leaves above, but only a few wayward droplets made it through breaches in the densely thatched roof.

When Cunningham's legs started to ache and his head began to clear of intoxication, he said, "I doubt I would remember this path if I tried."

"That’s the idea, my friend," Griffith replied between heavy breaths.

"How much further?"

"We're almost there."

After several more paces they came upon a small muddy clearing where the rain fell openly upon the ground. Griffith handed Cunningham the shovel and said, "I've dug and covered this hole once already and so I will again someday. I don't see a need to make it three times."

Cunningham took the shovel and pushed it into the mud. It was another miserable hour, with thick droplets of rain patting the crown of his head, before the shovel's scoop struck metal. He fell to his knees in the three-foot hole he had dug and cleared mud from the top of the chest. He opened the lid. Even in the gloom the jewels and coins brightly ensnared what little light there was. Never in all his years of piracy had Cunningham looked on so abundant and beautiful a treasure.

"And that's only one of thirteen chests," Griffith said from above. He tossed the sack down to Cunningham. "Take as much as will fill it."

Cunningham was speechless. Once again, he realized with a slight smirk, Griffith was a step ahead.

"It's strange," Griffith said, voice suddenly peculiar. "You think naught of treachery."

Cunningham peered up at him. "Why would I expect treachery from an old friend?"

Griffith's face was shadowed, but the curves of his cheeks were bent in a smile. And then, all around the edges of the hole, six pirates stepped into view. The only one Cunningham recognized was Edward Livingston. Too late Cunningham realized his folly. He wasn't certain which had been of greater influence, but both alcohol and greed had stolen his wits and successfully conspired against him. The inward admission of defeat did little to quell the rising terror in his gut. "You bring me all this way to kill me?"