Boyett-Compo Charlotte - Wind Tales 01 (53 page)

“Naturally,” Genevieve replied, eyeing Neevens with a pretend look of admonishment. “I don't believe in

ghosts."

“And what about beasties?” Neevens snapped. “You afraid of them, missy?” The old man held her gaze,

his whiskered chin thrust out, his watery eyes steady.

“There are no beasties on that ship!” Weir shouted. “Ghost, either!"

“You'll see,” the First Mate shot back. “You'll see!” He spat a thick stream of tobacco juice over the rail

and squinted his fading eyes at his employer. “You come back without a head attached to them smug

shoulders, Cap'n, we'll see who was right about beasties and such! You ever heard the tales of the

NightWind?"

A vicious crosswind, aided by a troubled sea which was beginning to show signs of a coming blow,

heeled the Wind Lass over on the starboard tack and cold waves broke over the knightheads, shot high

in the air and dropped with a roar onto the forecastle as the brigantine made for the unknown vessel.

“See?” Neevens grumbled. “NightWinds don't like to be bothered!"

Looking windward, the Captain frowned and his voice was a curt bellow as he looked up into the

shrouds. “I want those topsails close reefed.” He turned his eyes down to his sister. “I don't like the

looks of that sky."

Genevieve turned her head and saw what had her brother concerned. The sky was a mottled gray;

darker streaks of yellow were shot through the lower section of sky, making the flesh of the horizon

appear bruised and sickly.

“Gale?"

Weir nodded, his mind on the nimble-footed sailors scurrying up the rigging. “Take in the topgallants

while you're at it!"

The Wind Lass slipped effortlessly over the heaving waves, a steady hand at her helm. She slid in beside

the unknown vessel and dropped anchor, riding the sea with a rolling pitch that left no doubt as to the

turn of the weather.

“You going with us or not?” Weir asked his First Mate as the old man peered cautiously over the

distance between the two ships as though something would lurch across the spans to take hold of his

scrawny body.

Mr. Neevens snorted, spat, and looked at his Captain. “Might as well,” he grumbled.

Genevieve hid a smile as she turned to study the other ship. There was no name on her bow, no

identification markings. Her hull had been painted black but here and there along the wood, great gouges

of paint had flaked away leaving gray streaks where the weathered wood shown through. Her rails were

tarnished, the wood chipped in places, some of her rigging flapping loose in the freshening wind. Her sails

had been furled, lashed down to the yards and masts, and the creaking timbers and the rub of the

shrouds were the only sounds that greeted the boarding party as they boarded her at a quarter to nine on

that Friday morn.

“Where the hell is the crew?” Weir asked as he studied the decks, which looked as though they hadn't

been sluiced in a good many days. Salt was caked in the cracks of the decking, splashed up the masts.

The hatchway stood open, the darkness from below decks a sinister gash of silence.

There was a smell about the ship, an alien, somewhat malevolent aroma which seemed to make the eerie

quiet all the more prevailing.

“You ever smelled anything like that?” Mr. Tarnes, the Second Mate, asked his captain.

Weir shook his head. “Smells almost like burnt flesh, doesn't it?"

“Do you suppose the beasties had a barbecue last eve?” Genevieve quipped, elbowing Mr. Neevens in

his scrawny ribs.

“That'll do, Genny,” her brother cautioned, giving her a stern look from beneath his chestnut brows.

“Well, let's go on below and see what we can find,” the girl quipped, unconcerned by her brother's

fierce scowl. “There's nothing up here."

“You afraid of anything?” Mr. Tarnes snorted. He looked at the young girl with the look of a man

long-accustomed to dealing with precocious females.

“I'm not particularly fond of snakes,” Genny admitted.

“Well, I'll venture to say there are no snakes on board,” Weir growled as he walked to the hatchway.

He looked down into the darkness, and then with a deep breath, stepped gingerly down the

companionway.

The cabins were empty, the galley devoid of provisions, and the captain's stateroom almost denuded of

both furniture and nautical charts and equipment.

“Pirates,” Mr. Tarnes said, nodding. “They was hit by pirates.” He looked around the great cabin.

“Took everything that wasn't nailed down and then some."

“Shanghaied the crew?” Weir asked, trusting Tarnes’ knowledge of the subject.

“That'd be my guess, Cap'n.” He poked among a pile of scattered papers on the captain's desk and

lifted a single sheet of parchment. Squinting his eyes, he read the paper, drew in a quick, troubled breath

and then handed it to Weir as though it were poisonous. “Sailing order, Sir."

Weir scanned the parchment. His brows drew together and he looked up at Tarnes. “A prison ship?"

“Ain't marked as such,” Tarnes told him, “but that there order says she was carrying prisoners bound for

Ghurn Colony.” A wry grin settled over the man's rugged features. “Looks like the pirates got them some

additional workers if this here lady was carrying prisoners."

Genny shivered. It wasn't that she was bothered by the mention of pirates; after all, wasn't that what she

and Weir had decided to take up now that they had lost their family holdings? Wasn't that why they were

out here in the middle of the South Boreal Sea learning the ropes from Tarnes and Neevens? What

bothered Genny Saur was the mention of the penal colony at Ghurn. If things didn't go right for her and

Weir, that was where he was bound to wind up. As for her, she'd swing from the nearest yardarm since

there were no prisons for women, only nunneries, and she knew gods-be-damned well she wouldn't let

them place her in one of those hell-holes.

“Did you hear that?” the First Mate suddenly squawked as he pushed up hard against Nathaniel Tarnes.

He grabbed the other man's arm in a punishing grip and plastered himself to Tarnes.

“Hear what, you old fool?” Tarnes snarled, pushing the First Mate away from him. “All I hear is your

teeth chattering!"

“No,” Genny replied, looking at her brother. “I heard something, too."

“Like what?"

“A thump. There! Did you hear it?"

Weir cocked his head to one side, listening. His eyes narrowed. “Aye, I heard that."

“Sounds like it's coming from the hold.” Tarnes shoved Neevens out of his way and ducked out of the

Captain's cabin and walked to the forward companionway which led the lower deck. He stopped,

listened. “Aye. It's coming from the hold."

“Could they have locked the crew down there?” Genny asked.

“We've been on this ship nearly an hour. Don't you think they'd have heard us board and have made

some noise before now?” Neevens inquired, his eyes jerking about for the beasties he expected to see at

any moment.

“Could have thought the pirates had come back,” Tarnes told him.

“I ain't going down there,” Neevens informed them. He pushed himself against the cabin wall. “I just

ain't, that's all there is to it."

“Fool!” Tarnes called him.

The hatchway down into the hold was battened down, locked with a heavy padlock that appeared to be

newer than the hasp into which it had been fitted. It took both Weir and Tarnes’ combined strengths to

pry the padlock open with a crowbar Genny found above decks. Once the padlock was off and the

hatch opened, an overbearing stench assaulted the boarding party's nostrils, making eyes water and

stomachs roll.

“By the holy ghost!” Tarnes gasped, covering his mouth and nose with a hastily-drawn kerchief. “What

the hell is that smell?” He gagged, swallowing a rapidly-rising clump of bile which was threatening to

erupt from his watering mouth.

“If that's the crew, they've been down there awhile,” Genny murmured, holding her nose and breathing

heavily through her parted lips.

“I've never smelled such foulness,” Tarnes mumbled, his eyes watering from the stench.

“Ho, there!” Weir called into the blackness of the hold. “We're from the Wind Lass. Is anyone there?"

There was silence from the ebony depths.

“It could have been rats we heard,” Weir said.

“Mighty damned big rats to have made a thump like we heard.” Tarnes squinted his eyes, leaned over

the hatchway and peered into the darkness.

“I can't see a bloody thing."

“Genny, go find us a lantern or something. I'm not going down there without a light of some kind.” Weir

Saur was a brave man, but darkness was not something he was comfortable with.

Genny nodded at her brother's request, well understanding his one weakness, and left to do his bidding.

“Ho, there!” Weir called out again. “Is anyone there?” Only more silence and a horrible waft of the

stomach-churning stench greeted his hail.

“God, but that's a right offensive odor!” Tarnes said. “What the hell could cause such a smell?"

Weir didn't know and he wasn't so sure he really wanted to find out. The smell had an evil about it that

bespoke the very bubbling pits of hell. “Whatever it is, there sure can't be anything human living in it. I

can hardly breathe up here."

A flicker of light washed over the men and they looked over their shoulder to see Genny striding forward

with two lanterns swinging in her hands. The light from the amber-tinted shades cast her small oval face in

an ivory glow, lighting her forehead while the area below her nose was lost in deep shadow. If Mr.

Neevens had seen her coming at him like that, he would have bolted for sure.

“When I was in the galley, I found something very interesting, Weir,” she told her brother.

“What?” Weir Saur accepted one of the lanterns from his sister.

Genny handed the other lantern to Tarnes. “There were a lot of herbs and roots lying scattered about the

cook table and there was a crucible of quinine on one of the shelves."

“Sounds like they had fever on board,” Tarnes said.

Genny nodded. “There's a lot of that at the penal colonies, I hear. Looked as though they were brewing

a remedy for malaria."

A sound from behind them made the three turn in surprise, but upon seeing who had joined them, they

relaxed.

“Find anything?” the newcomer asked.

“We're about to go down into the hold. We heard a sound earlier, but there wasn't any answer to my

call,” Weir said.

Genny looked at the newcomer and smiled, as she smiled every time she was within eyesight of Patrick

Kasella. Her gray eyes twinkled, her ivory complexion ran a peach blush and her heart skipped a beat or

two every time her brother's best friend and partner looked her way.

“What is that godawful smell? Is that coming from the hold?” Patrick asked, smiling briefly, brotherly, at

Genny before turning his attention to Weir. “Surely that can't just be bilge water."

“I don't think so neither, and it's getting worse the longer we stand here,” Tarnes quipped. He stepped

gingerly over the hatch and put his booted foot on the top rung of the ladder leading into the hold. “I'm

either going to see what's causing it or faint from the smell of it."

The men didn't see the hurt look fall over Genny's face at Patrick's easy dismissal of her; not that the

Ionarian had ever looked at her with anything other than easy dismissal. In his charming, North Boreal

way, Patrick, or Paddy as his friends called him, treated Genny no differently than he did the rest of

Weir's crew. That he didn't seem to see her as a budding young woman bothered no one but Genny;

certainly not Weir who didn't want any man looking at his sister in any way other than brotherly.

Weir stepped down the ladder behind Tarnes and Patrick followed. The men didn't think of Genny until

she bumped into Paddy's back as she stepped off the ladder.

“Damn it, Genevieve!” Weir cursed, eyeing her with displeasure. “We don't know what we're going to

find down here!"

Her pert nose in the air, Genny glared at him, her lips pursed tightly together, still stung by Patrick's

unknowing disregard. “So?” she challenged.

“You've got no business being down here until we find out what's causing that godawful smell!” Weir

snarled. “There could be plague or the likes down here!"

“Hush!” Tarnes cautioned. He squinted. “There it is again.” He hefted his lantern and peered about the

hold. The stench was worse where they stood, enveloping the four of them in an atmosphere that was

almost palpable.

“I'll look to the aft,” Weir said as he took Genny's arm. “You come with me."

Paddy followed behind Tarnes as the Second Mate made his way amidships and then, finding nothing

but splintered wood from broken open cargo, ventured further into the deeper darkness of the stinking

hold.

Weir stumbled over a coil of hemp and bumped hard into the bulkhead, banging his shoulder painfully

against the wood. He almost dropped the lantern in the process, but Genny reached out to steady him.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“I didn't hear anything,” Weir grumbled as he wiped his hand down his pant leg. There was thick, slimy

moisture on the wall of the ship's hold. “What did it sound like?"

The young woman listened hard, shushing her brother as he repeated his question. She inched forward,

searching the planking beneath her feet.

“Look at this, Weir,” she said as she pointed.

Weir came forward and lowered the lantern. “There's nothing but bulkhead back there."