Casca 15: The Pirate (12 page)

Burning wood.

The blast had set the ship afire, as yet only in the companionway. But Casca, whose back was to the door he had blasted open, could now feel the intense heat. The door must be afire. He saw Tarleton Duncan's eyes flick toward the opening, and immediately the pirate captain began to edge his way around the table, fighting, but trying to retreat toward the heavily curtained stern window of the cabin.

Casca would not let him get away. Duncan was an excellent swordsman but Casca's arm had had the experience of countless years, and the blade in his hand might just as well have been part of Casca's body. He not only fought Duncan to a standstill, he took the attack and pressed the pirate captain steadily back until he had him against the wall against the side bulkhead, two steps away from the possible safety of the curtained window.

Duncan did not make any mistakes. In fact, he lunged suddenly, a perfect thrust that would have gone deep into Casca's guts had not the scar faced one anticipated it and danced out of the way.

Then Duncan tried for the window.

He was too late. Casca's blade snapped the sword from his hands, and he was powerless. He stood motionless, a crafty look corning into his eyes as he anticipated the end of the fight, knowing full well that this one in front of him would not kill an unarmed man.

Casca, however, had seen what Duncan intended to do to the slave girl, and the question of whether or not to kill an unarmed man never occurred to him. The matter of destroying vermin did, however. He simply swung his sword quickly, the point slitting Duncan's throat from ear to ear. And, to make doubly sure, when the pirate captain started to fail forward, he made one quick thrust into the guts, turning and twisting the blade in order to sever the spinal cord and insure that this particular pirate captain would never get his jollies in his
favorite way again...

“Hell Scarface,” Katie whispered as she helped Casca lower the unconscious Michelle who had fainted at the shock of the battle into the gig from the stern window, "you set the damn ship afire."

He turned back up to the stern window, to the frightened face of the naked slave he had cut loose from the table. Smoke was billowing all around her. "Get your ass down in the boat! Quick!" She climbed out the window and slid down the rope as ordered. Casca leaped for the second pair of oars. "Let's get the hell out of here."

It was none too soon. There was a sudden cry from on deck. Confused voices. They must have smelled the smoke.

"Row like hell, Scarfa
ce! " Katie suddenly said. Stupid order.

"Why?" he grunted.

"Because..." she said, straining at the oars, "I think I set... too short a... fuse!"

She had.

The gunpowder canisters she had placed and which she had lighted when she got the signal from Casca at the stern window she had been lying in the gig waiting suddenly blew. By then flames were licking up on the deck of the Scorpion. By the time they reached the sails they would also be at the powder magazine.

Casca and Katie rowed like hell...

Casca did not regret saving the young slave. She had friends.

By morning he had the Portuguese ship under sail and standing out to sea with an
all black crew. Casca did not ask questions. He needed a crew and they fit the bill. That's all he cared about.

The young female slave was helpful, too. She took care of Michelle. A woman like Katie, Casca could handle mostly because when you got right down to it Katie wasn't like a woman at all. More like a comrade.

Katie was the navigator. "Look, Scarface," she said, "we don't have charts for this part of the world, but I know this coast pretty well. Go north about fifty miles or so and there's this town some damn name I can't say, but it begins with Saint Something or other, and likely as not we'll find a ship of some kind there that'll take you to Jamaica."

So they had started. But on the way, they had made friendly contact with a small sloop a Brotherhood sloop and Katie had known the captain. So Casca invited them aboard to have a friendly cup of wine.

And since the black crew had brought aboard new provisions, there was definitely a lot of wine to be drunk. The sloop captain was a young fellow, maybe twenty five, and Casca liked him. For once Katie played the woman. After a couple of drinks she left the cabin to the men. Casca noticed this, but he didn't think much of it until after the sloop officers had left and the pirate ship had pulled away. He didn't see Katie. He went back to his own cabin, and the young female slave met him.

"Missy woman say give you this,
Cap'n Long." The letter was short, though the penmanship was bold and decisive:

Scarface,

It's been great fun, but it's just one of those things. I'm not ready for respectability. Yet. Give my regards to Jamaica, and maybe we'll cut across each other's bows some other time.

Your obedient servant
(Casca grinned at her writing "obedient servant")

Katie Parnell

The blacks had helped him out of a spot, so when they got to the port Katie had indicated, Casca had the ship anchored offshore and he, Michelle, Big Jim, and Julio rowed to shore in the gig. What the blacks did with the ship from there on out was their affair.

A couple of days later he and Michelle were on a schooner
. Casca thought it was one of McAdams' ships, though he could not be sure as paying passenger on their way to Jamaica. He left Big Jim and Julio back at port. He would meet them after he finished his business with McAdams.

Michelle seemed to have recovered, but she was not the kind of woman Casca could get close to.
Or, maybe it was because Katie Parnell was still fresh in his mind...

Any fears Casca might have had about the kind of man McAdams was were allayed when, almost at twilight, the stage stopped at McAdams' compound and the fatherly old Scotsman himself met them.

"Michelle! My poor Michelle!"

Casca watched the greeting. Admittedly he had been a little suspicious. An old man and a rich old man at that and a pretty young girl.
I've seen too much of the dark side of life
, he told himself. It will be good to move on.

And McAdams seemed equally appreciative of Casca after he had welcomed Michelle, of course. At first he was surprised to see Cass Long. But the surprise quickly left his face.
The man is obviously better than I thought.
He insisted that Casca stay for dinner, but the scar faced one was anxious to return to the coast, to go aboard ship and get some distance between them though, of course, he did not tell McAdams that.

There was one thing, though, the pungent
odor in the air, the smell of the boiling syrup in the sugar vats. Odd that it should be in the air this high up in the mountains.

McAdams caught the motion of Casca's nose, sniffing. He smiled. "A whim of a rich old man," he explained a little sheepishly. "I made my fortune in sugar, so I keep one small vat always boiling up here.
Irrational, I fear, but it's a relatively inexpensive peculiarity. The cost of transporting the cane up here from the fields is small. Besides, with all my money, why should I not spend it as I see fit?"

No argument there, Casca thought. Particularly since, in McAdams' office next to the bedroom where Casca had entered weeks ago before an ornate mahogany desk and in the light of a multi candled chandelier, McAdams promptly paid him in gold exactly what he had promised.

"About Tarleton Duncan... "

"I assume you had to kill him."

"Aye.”

"Unfortunate, of course. But when such a thing is necessary... " McAdams let the words trail off.

Casca did end up staying for a mug of rum and for some discussion of the pirate situation. McAdams seemed genuinely glad that the concept of a Pirate Empire had run into snags, and Casca was ashamed that he had considered McAdams, like Governor Eden of North Carolina, might be involved with the pirates. Sitting in the office, watching the candlelight play on the lined face of the fatherly old Scotsman, he was reminded of the dim memory of his childhood and his own father in Falerno, Italy, centuries before...  Bitterness welled in his heart, bitterness for not being like other men.

Abruptly he got to his feet.

"Ah!" McAdams said. "You must be anxious to be on your way... wherever it is." He called for a servant. It was now quite dark outside, the brief tropical twilight having given way to a dense, moonless night. "A toast for the road and my thanks to you, Cass Long."

It was in the narrow stone corridor leading to the outside that Casca, a step behind the young slave who was his guide, first felt the dizziness.

Damn!

The "fatherly" McAdams had drugged that last mug of rum.

He stopped and stuck a finger as far down his throat as he could until he gagged, and then threw up. The slave who had been leading him looked back, fear in his black face. Casca retched as deeply as he could. But the drug had already begun to take effect. Everything before his eyes was blurring. He fought to keep from dropping into sleep. Damn! When the Jew gave his body power to repair wounds so he could stay alive, why hadn't there also been the power to resist drugs? Anger... Anger at the thought helped. He was still nearly blind, almost helpless, but the anger helped. He fought the weakness in his arms.

The slave who had been leading him suddenly took to his heels, running, shouting something that the dazed Casca could not quite make out. But Casca had enough sense to draw his sword. He leaned against the stone wall of the passageway, fighting the drug within him.

He could hear voices.

Arguing voices.

The drug effects were slowing. Some of his vision was coming back. Ahead of him, blurred but partially distinguishable, were the two who were supposed to waylay him where the passageway was crossed by another. They had poked their heads around the corner. As Casca's vision cleared he could see the expressions of uncertainty in their faces. He waited. And they waited. The longer the minutes dragged by, the more the drug slowed in its power over his body.
But something was wrong and he was too drugged to figure out what.

Then he knew.

Maybe it was the whisper of sound. Maybe it was the momentary flicker of expression in the eyes of one or the other of the two before him. Maybe it was simply knowledge gained from past experience. No matter. He heard. And immediately dropped to one knee.

So the one slipping up so silently behind him in the passageway overshot his blow, the knife in his hand slicing close to Casca's head but missing it. His body tumbled over Casca's bent form.

Casca had no time for niceties. The drug still had a heavy effect on him and there were three of them. He swung the sword quickly down at the side of his assailant's throat and was lucky. The head was neatly severed and began rolling like a ball down toward the two who were now rushing for Casca, swords drawn.

The rolling head of their compatriot gave both of them a little something to think about, so their attack on Casca was not quite as well timed as it should have been. Casca rammed his own sword in the gut of one and immediately sidestepped, taking what cover there was behind the body of the dead man and letting go completely of his own sword. As he expected, the third assailant, presented with a moving target, slipped momentarily in the blood gushing from the stump of the dead man's
body, and the blow aimed at Casca missed. Immediately Casca had him by the arm, pulling with all the failing strength in his still drugged body. Coupled with the slippery footing from the blood it was enough. The man lost his balance and was falling forward when Casca let go of him and chopped him violently behind the ear with a balled fist. There was no time to regain his own sword, so he picked up the downed man's sword and brought the edge sharply against the third man's face, slicing away the cheek and cutting into the eye. But the man still wasn't dead. Casca drove the sword into his kidneys, twisted the blade, and pulled. After that he was sure the man had lost interest in the proceedings. He kicked the other dying man in the face, regained his sword, wiped it clean on the man's clothing, and started to step around the bodies.

That was when he heard the scream.
A woman's scream. A scream of sheer terror.

There was no need for him to wonder who was doing the screaming.

It could only be Michelle.

For a long moment Casca stood perfectly motionless in the passageway. He had been wrong about McAdams. He had delivered an innocent girl into a madman's hands.

Hell!

But he had done his job. The girl was nothing to him. It was none of his business. If McAdams wanted to rape her, why, hell! let him rape away. Women had been raped before. Dam
mit, he told himself, it's none of my business.

But
…

Oh, hell!

He turned and started back down the passageway, sheathing his sword.

"Welcome back, Master Long!"

Casca spun on his heels and looked up at the balcony above him.

McAdams stood there hands on his hips, his expression that of one who has just heard an extremely amusing story.

"What's this all about, you son of a bitch? I
did your job for you."

McAdams grinned benevolently. "Come up to my rooms and we'll discuss the matter."

Casca hesitated.

"What's the matter, Squire Long. You did come back to see me, didn't you? Well here I am. Come on up. No one will try to stop you."

Might as well get it over with. Won't find out what he has in mind until I do.

Men had gathered at the doorway but were held back by McAdams' command. "Let him alone. I'll call if I need you."

There was a tension to the house now that he hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it was caused by the sudden change in McAdams. When he'd told Casca to come on up, he was no longer the concerned relative who only wanted his lost relative back. There was now a heavy, pervading touch of evil to him that Casca had seen many times before. This was a sick man. Casca didn't know what his particular form of sickness was but he had the uneasy feeling that he would soon find out.

Cautious, he advanced up the steps past portraits of men who waited patiently on their canvases staring out at the world with eyes that never changed or faces that never grew old.

From McAdams' room Casca could hear a muffled sound issuing. He couldn't make it out clearly but he knew pain and fear when he heard it. There was something evil going on up there. His fingers tightened around the grip of his sword. The door to McAdams' room was slightly open. A beam of light came from within. Casca hesitated a moment. Through the crack he could see McAdams sitting at his desk, waiting. Come in said the spider to the fly. "Well, man, are you going to stand out there all night?"

Casca gave the door a heavy kick with his foot just in case there was anyone standing behind it. The door bounced back. Only a quick movement of his left hand stopped it from shutting in his face. McAdams laughed pleasantly. "I don't blame you. I promise that none of my men will interrupt, at least not until I order them to."

The muffled sounds of pain were clearer now. Casca knew who it was making them without having to see. Michelle. But why? He entered, closed the door behind him, and bolted it. He knew that there was no way he could keep out McAdams' men for long but all too often a matter of seconds meant the difference between life and death. In the right hand corner of the room on a low couch covered with a gold embroidered damask cloth, Michelle lay face down, her back bared where her gown had been ripped from her shoulders. Thin red streaks crisscrossed her back. His own welted hide twinged at the memory of his too frequent beatings. The whipping had been done with either a thin reedlike cane or something similar. The skin wasn't broken but he knew the pain that the bastinado carried in its slender length. McAdams' mouth turned up a bit at the corner. He was obviously enjoying the whole scenario.

"You really are a sick son of a bitch, aren't you?" Casca growled as the awareness of just what McAdams really was began to come to him.

McAdams merely let the grin go all the way, his eyes lighting up with passion. "Sick? That is only a matter of opinion, my friend. To the contrary, I believe that the only sick thing in the world would be to deprive myself of the pleasures that I need."

Casca never took his eyes from McAdams.

"Why did I try to have you stopped, or why did I bother having you return my niece to me?"

Casca had had just about enough bullshit. "Either tell me or get off your ass. I don't like to kill dogs that aren't on their feet.
”

"Don't be so impatient, Master Long. I told you my pleasures were important to me, and it pleased me at that minute to prevent your leaving. Depriving you of your wages and your life would have been quite a humorous moment for me. Just think, after all the trouble and danger you went through to be killed at the moment of your reward."

"Go on with it. What about Michelle? Why did you want me to bring her to you if this is all you had planned for her? Surely you have enough slaves that you could use for your pleasures?"

"
Ahh, yes! There lies the rub. Simply put, the slaves belong to me because I have bought and paid for them. Michelle, however, is another matter. Since I first saw her in France when she was no more than a child I knew that I would have to have her one day. Therefore, in a manner of speaking, I paid for her too. Her father, my brother in law, never had two pence to rub together. I paid for her education, her clothes, her food to have her molded into that which I desired. Everything she is I created. You should have seen her. A few months ago she was full of pride and arrogance, confident that no harm could ever touch her and not caring who else it came to. A fitting consort to a king." McAdams paused to catch his breath, his face growing red with the impassioned heat of telling his story.

"But that damned beast, Duncan, has cheated me! He has taken that which I reserved for myself. She has been spoiled. See how she cringes at my voice. She is good for nothing now save what few minuscule pieces of pleasure I may derive from her body and her pain." His voice rose to crescendo. "I have been cheated do you hear?"

Casca knew now. McAdams was a madman who only fulfilled himself by the amount of suffering and horror he could inflict on others. Incest merely added to the spice of the terror he had planned for Michelle. He planned to abase her and break what remained of her mind and spirit. The whippings were just the first step in the training of his pet.

"What about Duncan?"

McAdams hissed. "Duncan had been my partner for many years and together we shared many pleasures among the captives he took. Most of his prizes came from information supplied by me and I would serve as the middleman for the disposal of the goods he captured. Through me he became rich and could have become the leader of the entire Brotherhood. But he betrayed me. He knew of my passion for my niece for we had talked many times over the years of how I had been so patiently awaiting her maturity when she would be at exactly the right moment in her life for what I had planned. I should have seen the hunger in his eyes when I showed him her portraits as she grew into womanhood. When we had a parting of the ways, so to speak, he went after what he knew would distress me the most. He took the ship he carried her off in as a prize. I offered him much to have her brought back to me unspoiled. But he decided to keep her. Therefore I had to try and arrange a real rescue with you as my agent!"

McAdams closed his eyes, holding the lids tightly shut for a moment. He sighed almost sadly and said: "That is the way of my life. Everyone l am good to always betrays me. But no more... Do not look so disgusted, Squire Long. You are a man who kills for money. There is little difference between us."

Casca started to move forward but was stopped by McAdams' upraised hand. "Hold it one moment, my friend. I have a thought. You have come back for revenge because I tried to have you robbed. Well if it's money you want, I can arrange for you to take Duncan's place. I will outfit you with the finest ship and guns that money can buy. Together we can take control of the Brotherhood of the Sea and rule the Caribbean as our own private lake, taking what we want when we want it. Now, how's that for a fine offer?"

McAdams knew that his offer had missed the mark when Casca started for him. His confidence that his wealth and the well-known greed of men gave him immunity passed rapidly as he saw the redness in Casca's eyes. Scrambling back from his desk he came up with a rapier, slashing the air in front of him to keep Casca at bay. "To me," he cried. "Hurry!"

The response was immediate. Once Casca had shut and locked the door McAdams' hirelings had come to wait by it. Now they beat and pounded at the solid oak panels.

Casca was crawling over the desk, his sword beating back the more slender point of the lighter blade when the door gave. Four of McAdams' henchmen stumbled into the room, clubs and cutlasses in their hands. He had to turn away from McAdams to avoid a clumsy blow to his head with a club. When he did McAdams gave a cry of victory and lunged, running the slender blade all the way through Casca's back and out his chest. Casca jerked to avoid another strike by the same club. When he did McAdams' sword blade snapped near the ornate hilt. Casca didn't stop moving though the broken sword protruded from his front and back. He severed the wrist of the man with the club then caught him across his throat as he raised his sword back up to ward off the cutlass coming at his face.

Michelle was ignored during the fight. Crawling from her couch to a corner, she curled up into a
fetal knot and awaited the outcome. She was sure it was going to be the death of the man who had saved her from Duncan only to deliver her to one even worse.

The remaining two men began to back away, fear of the crazy man before them on their faces and in their eyes. They couldn't understand why he kept coming at them slashing and cursing. He should have gone down by now.

One gathered enough courage to make a desperate lunge only to be kicked in the balls. The man doubled over in time to have his head half taken off. The other showed more sense and decided that McAdams didn't pay him enough money to die. He fled down the stairs into the dark not stopping till he was far away from the house where the devil with the sword through his body was on a rampage. Exhausted he sat under a tree to catch his breath, not aware of the eyes that watched him from the brush. The eyes were red rimmed from the smoking of ganja. Maroons who had known his lash in the past would keep him company this night.

Meanwhile, McAdams rushed past shoving Casca to one side as he tried to escape. Casca caught his balance and followed. McAdams tried to find refuge. From across the nearest of his cane fields he saw a light coming from the warehouse where the sugar cane was boiled down. There were people there. He ran through the stubble of the fields which had only been cut down within the last week. He cursed his workers for it. He had no place to hide. Afraid to look back he could hear the dried cane stalks crushing under the steps of the one called Cass Long as the man gained on him.

At the edge of the field where the man sized pots were boiling the work stopped as McAdams' hysterical form came out of the darkness. Around the vats were over a dozen black slaves, their dark hides oily with the effort of the night's warm work. Machetes or long cane knives hung at each man's side. To McAdams this was safety. Surely there was enough of them to stop the devil on his heels. Hurtling into their center between the large bubbling vats he cried out, "Stop him!" He pointed back to the stubbled fields where Casca was just entering the light cast by the cooking fires. "Stop him and you're all free men with gold in your pockets. I promise it.” At the promise of freedom most of the men moved a few steps closer to the cane field, then stopped. Casca came at them, the broken sword still protruding from his chest, blood covering the front of his body as well as his hands and face.

McAdams screamed, "That's him! Kill him! Kill him and you and your families all go free."
The blacks hesitated as Casca came at them, the weapons in their hands trembling. The dark beliefs of their native land were still too strong within them. Casca heard one of them whisper something hoarsely. It sounded a bit like, Dumbala! Then they all turned and fled leaving McAdams to face the demon alone.

McAdams couldn't run any further. His legs were more used to gripping the barrel of one of his fine chestnut geldings. Between two of the large vats he waited, legs barely able to hold his weight as fear and terror nearly paralyzed him. Casca came closer, his face reddened by the glow of the fires.

McAdams whimpered. He was used to being the one who inflicted terror and pain. This was wrong! "Why don't you die?" he sobbed. "Why don't you fall down!" Casca was only a step away. He dropped his sword and reached out his bloody hands for McAdams and roughly pulled the man against his upper body driving the point of McAdams' own broken sword into the whimpering man's chest. Casca held him there like a lover.

"I can't..." Casca whispered in McAdams' ear as he held him tightly in his arms.

McAdams screamed in agony as Casca pushed him away off the point of the sword.

Then he shrieked again as strong scarred hands lifted him off the ground till he was extended above Casca's head. McAdams' mouth was already filling with blood as he looked down to see that he was being raised over one of the boiling sugar pots.

"Sweet Jesus! No!"

Casca dropped him into the thick bubbling substance. McAdams' screams were stopped when the boiling sugar flowed into his open mouth. He tried to stand and climb out of the vat but couldn't find the strength, and the pain was impossible to imagine. Raising his hands in front of his eyes he saw his own skin peel away from the bone leaving clean skeletal fingers. He slipped, this time silently, back into the thick pungent mixture.

Casca pulled the rapier from his chest and tossed it in the vat with what remained of McAdams. Not looking back he re
-crossed the fields to the house.

By the time he'd returned to the house, the rest of McAdams' guards had arrived. They didn't move. Without McAdams to give them orders they didn't know what to do. And a man doesn't risk his life for pay when the paymaster is dead. They shrugged at Casca and then exited out the front door.