Voyage of Plunder (9 page)

“Even Josiah?”

“No, not him. He was the only one who voted otherwise.”

I chewed my chicken, surprised, digesting this bit of information, wondering why Josiah would vote on my behalf, why he had not thrown me overboard a dozen times already. Perhaps it was because I was too valuable a hostage—after all, I
was
the grandson of the former governor. “I need another signature. Maybe Caesar will be a witness too.”

Timothy frowned. “He can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because slaves can't be witnesses.”

My mouth dropped open in shock. A piece of chicken plopped onto the parchment before I closed my mouth and swallowed. “Caesar's a
slave
?”

“Used to be, anyway. Him and Cicero and Tom and August. All of them. Here they receive equal treatment. They've signed the Articles just like everyone else.”

It was difficult to fathom … slaves receiving equal treatment. I didn't know what to make of it, only knowing that, despite myself, I liked Caesar. Before my lesson just that morning he had given me a gift of a crossbelt and cutlass, saying it was time Fat Boy stopped using his.

“I'd rather be one of the Brethren any day than a slave,” Timothy added.

“Maybe Abe Corner will sign my statement, then.”

Abe's a good choice.” Timothy wiped his hands on his shirt. “Well, the music's calling me. I'm going to go dance. Want to come?”

“My father says dancing is of the devil.”

Timothy sighed and shrugged. “I dunno, Daniel, but it seems like hell's a much livelier place. There's rum and brandy in case you change your mind.”

As Timothy left, I leaned against the cannon. The fiddle began a melancholy tune, its notes soaring, soaring, seeming to
reach the stars above. A guitar played alongside, plaintive notes plucked from each string. It was fine music. Even my father would agree. I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me, absently wondering whether I'd rather be a pirate or a slave.

Much as I hated to admit it, Josiah Black navigated a ship as well as any merchant captain. Just four months after leaving the New World, surviving storms and raging seas, her hull battered and her sails ragged, the
Tempest Galley
hove to in the bay of Saint Mary's, a lushly green, low-lying island off the eastern coast of Madagascar.

The April day was warm and breezy, the sands white like sugar, the water blue as turquoise.

Two ships lay at anchor—the
Defiance
and the
Sweet Jamaica.
Aye, pirate ships they were, for Saint Mary's was a pirates’ nest. Before we even dropped anchor, dozens of villains swarmed into longboats and rowed out to greet us. They climbed aboard, and soon the
Tempest Galley
teemed with pistol blasts, laughter, vile language, and the clink of bottles.

“Hey, Daniel!” Timothy was on the fo'c'sle deck, lounging around a bowl of rum punch with several others. I could tell by the slur in his voice that he was already half seas over. “C'mon. This stuff'll set your throat afire and send your stomach to hell.” And so saying, he belched juicily and collapsed into gales of laughter as men thumped him on the back.

I tried to smile but was, once again, sorely disappointed in Timothy. No matter how many times I had warned him of the eternal consequences of such riotous living, Timothy had nevertheless thrown in his lot with the devil and embraced the life of sin with gleeful abandon. He didn't seem to care anymore that they had murdered my father, even saying once that my father
was no more innocent than were the pirates, and that I had to wake up and smell the stink.

Now I replied, “No, thanks. Not thirsty.”

“Thinks he's too good for us, does he?” one of the pirates mumbled. A greasy mustache drooped over his lip, and his darting eyes reminded me of a rat's.

I looked toward shore, pretending I couldn't hear, wishing these ruffians weren't swarming all over our ship as if they owned it.

“Ah, never mind him,” said Timothy. “He's always like that.”

“Aye, well, that may be so,” the pirate replied. “Can't say I recommend it, though, as a way of living. I once knew a man who was high-and-mighty like that. Hated everything and everyone. So I slit his throat and fed his innards to my dog.”

As everyone started to laugh, Timothy included, a pistol blasted from beside me. Startled, ears ringing, I turned to see Josiah Black glaring at the man who had just spoken. Smoke hovered above Josiah's head. “And I knew a man,” said Josiah, smiling slowly, “who drowned in his own blood because he didn't treat his dog with respect.”

The man paled. His mustache twitched. “Cap-Captain Black! I—I didn't know this was your ship. I—I didn't know you was back on the Round. Honest.” He flicked his gaze over me. “And I was just pulling his leg. Having a bit of fun. Honest I was.”

“That's right,” slurred Timothy, swaying back and forth. “Rat Eye was just pulling his fun and having a bit of leg.”

Josiah sighed, stuck his pistol back in his sash, and pulled me away. I shrugged out of his grasp. “Daniel, my boy, it's best you act as if you're one of them,” he said softly. “Aboard my ship, I can protect you, but acting superior around men like these will only get you killed. They've had their fill of superiority.”

I said nothing, wondering why he was talking to me, again wondering why, after thousands of miles, he continued to show me kindness and protect me. Did he not care that I hated him?

“Why don't you go get yourself something to eat? Surely you're as heartily sick of salt beef and wormy biscuit as I am. There's pineapple, coconut, and yams, and Cook's roasting some pigs. Go ashore if you like.”

I frowned. “But what will I do ashore?”

“It's paradise, Daniel. I'm sure you'll figure it out.”

“Why, blast my hide,” someone exclaimed from behind us, “if it isn't that lousy scoundrel Josiah Black!”

Josiah turned and smiled. “Gideon Fist! Thought someone would have stabbed you in the back by now!”

With a black kerchief around his head, hoop earrings, and teeth that flashed gold, Gideon Fist was a brutish giant of a man. A massive red beard curled to his chest. When he clasped Josiah in a bear hug, pistols and cutlass clanking, I smelled a powerful waft of body odor.
“Captain
Fist to you, you dog. Captain of the
Defiance
now.”

“The
Defiance
!”

“Aye.”

“A fine ship, she is.”

Captain Fist nodded, then fixed his gaze on me. “Who's the puppy?”

“This is my—” Josiah paused. “This is Daniel Markham. He's sharpening his teeth on our—”

“I am not a pirate,” I declared, daring to look Captain Fist in the eye.

Fist's eyes narrowed, but he patted me on the back. “Of course not, lad. Of course not. I like your way of thinking. Like Robin Hood's merry men we are, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, namely, us. Nothing piratical about that. Now
run along and let me and Captain Black discuss the finer points of life.”

“Daniel,” Josiah said when I turned to leave, “take this.” He pulled one of his pistols from his sash and handed it to me. It was a fine pistol, with a handle of mahogany and swirls about its stock. “If anyone troubles you, shoot him.”

wandered down the beach, shoes off, sand hot and soft between my toes. My stomach bulged from roasted pork and yams, and I gnawed a slice of pineapple. The tangy sweet taste burst through my mouth like nothing I'd eaten before. Juice dribbled down my arm, down my chin.

Scattered around the beach, knots of pirates yarned, drank, and ate. Malagasy men and women, their skin tones ranging from light brown to almost black, dressed in colorful clothes, sat with them, laughing, smiling. I smelled fire smoke, tobacco, coconut, roasted fish and chicken. Children ran and played, giggling and shrieking.

Some of the pirates reclined on the verandas of their bamboo huts. Built on stilts, many of the huts were only big enough to
house a pirate or two, while other huts had several rooms and were decorated with shells and flowering vines. I glimpsed furniture inside.

Abe Corner, the one-legged cook, had told me that scores of pirates lived here. They refused to go home to the cold and control of the colonies. They raided the ships in the Red Sea while the monsoon winds were favorable, then returned to their base at Saint Mary's to live with their Malagasy wives and beget their Malagasy children. One of the pirates had even built a couple of log forts, complete with cannon, to protect his life of robbery and murder.

I remembered Josiah's words to the crew when we'd first sighted Saint Mary's. “As agreed upon, every man is to give two full days of labor to the careening of the
Tempest Galley
and bending new sails to the yards. We'll rest here awhile, reprovision, and then, when the southwest monsoon begins to blow and the winds favor us, we voyage to the Red Sea.” Then Josiah had drawn his cutlass. “If a man can be hanged for stealing a shilling, he might as well be hanged for stealing a fortune! What do you say, men?”

“Aye, Captain Black!” the crew had shouted. “A gold chain or a wooden leg, we'll stand by you!”

I tossed the pineapple rind into the surf and rinsed my hands. Then I continued down the beach until the sounds of merriment faded away and I heard nothing but the songs of birds, the breezy rustle of palm leaves, and the brush of water against the shore. My turn for careening the ship wasn't for two days. Until then, I was free as a whistle.

First I threw sticks into the water, as far as I could. Then I gathered a pile of shells, listening to the ocean roar inside the big ones. Next I practiced with my cutlass, hearing it sing as I sliced this way and that. I stabbed a tree trunk, again and again. I imagined a great
battle, me the naval commander whom no one could slay, Timothy beside me as my second in command.

I took out my pistol and pretended to shoot the swarming pirates—rogues, every one. Hundreds of them. Timothy and I fighting back to back, protecting each other from villains coming at us from every side. Abe Corner choosing at the last moment to join our ranks, using his wooden leg with lethal effect. Basil Higgins deciding to forgo his life of plunder and so fighting alongside Abe. Caesar, unwilling to kill his favorite pupils, turning his blade upon the bloodthirsty pirates … By this time, I was hot and out of breath. I tied my sash around my head, wondering if I looked as mean as Gideon Fist. No longer a puppy, but a man. After all, I was fifteen plus two months now. I shrugged out of my vest and shirt, proud of the way my muscles were shaping up. I flexed and grinned.
Try to get me,
I thought.

As the afternoon sun became an orange ball, floating above the horizon, I collapsed on the sand and stared at the sky, at the sea birds floating in the breeze. The more I stared, the more a lump grew in my throat.

Timothy's voice echoed in my mind:
Your father was no more innocent than were the pirates. Wake up and smell the stink.

But that's different!
I had argued.
My father was a good man. A decent man who never harmed a living soul.

No one's saying he wasn't decent,
Timothy had replied, picking his toes as he sat atop a barrel.
I'm only saying he wasn't a saint, is all. None of us is.

As I lay on the beach, I tried to imagine my father looking down upon me from heaven, tried to envision his face, but it kept slipping away, a vague shadow.
Can you see me, Father? Do you know where I am and what has happened to me? Do you care what is to become of me? Are you—are you in heaven?

As daylight dimmed, I wiped my eyes and sat up, only then
noticing a trail that snaked into the jungle almost imperceptibly. An animal trail? Knowing I had only moments before night fell, I hurried down the trail, curious, pushing away vines and leaves. It was darker in the jungle, night almost. It smelled of rot, of things growing, of dampness. Three hundred paces from the beach, the path opened into a sandy clearing. Dim light filtered into the clearing from an opening overhead. An animal scuttled away into the brush.

Off to the side of the clearing stood a hut, roof long gone, elevated floor littered with jungle debris, steps broken, stinking of animal droppings. It had been a long time since anyone had lived there. I gave the floor a shake. Still solid.