Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key (15 page)

“These are the last I could shake free,” said Mr. Tudeley, struggling over the sand with a netful of coconuts. “Really, need we bring any more?”

“You’ll want ’em if we get becalmed on our way,” said John. “I make it two weeks to Leauchaud. Six coconuts per person per day, that’s three hundred thirty-six coconuts.”

“There’ll be no room for
us
in the damned thing, then!”

“Ah.” John laid a finger beside his nose. “We load ’em in the boat and tow it after us, see? Which will be handy to have anyhow in case the pinnace sinks.”

“It won’t sink,” said Sejanus, loading in the little chest of navigational gear. “Have a little faith.”

“Faith in what exactly?” said John, glowering after him. “That bit of high wind brought you your fancy hat?”

Sejanus shrugged. “I have all the faith I need, in myself. I don’t plan on dying just yet. Too much to do.”

“There’s some palms in a grove the far side of that rock,” said John to Mr. Tudeley. “Whyn’t you go see what you can collect over there?” When Mr. Tudeley had gone tramping off with an empty net, muttering savagely, John turned back to Sejanus.

“What’ll you do now, after you leave us off at Leauchaud?” he asked. “Sign on with the Brethren? Or set up shop as an obeah man?”

Sejanus raised an eyebrow. “No reason I can’t do both, is there? The one’s a good way to finance the other, seems to me. But I won’t be serving the orishas. I’m no houngan; I have other things to do.”

“You don’t believe in ’em?” John stopped work and stared at him. “After what happened the other night?”

“Chah! Of course I believe in
them
. Not impressed. Didn’t you hear ’em, all pushing and shoving to talk through one poor little old white man? They’re weak; this isn’t their country. But it’s mine.” Sejanus looked out on the Caribbean. “I’ll have to imagine something new. Buy myself a fancy coat, maybe, to go with my hat, and a walking stick to impress folk. Deal a little in the old tricks. Good luck charms, poppets for barren women, fortunetelling, just to build a reputation, you see?

“Get a new religion going, then. Tell blacks: doesn’t matter if your bones don’t lie in Africa. You won’t be cold and lonely in the dark here, once you die; somebody’s going to look after you. You’ll be dancing and drinking good rum, and eating sweet cake!

“And if I can make them believe it, truly believe it, then it’ll be so. That’s how religion works, friend.”

Once upon a time John might have laughed at him, or told him he was a liar. But John thought back on the things he’d seen and done here, in the West Indies, since he’d escaped from the cane fields and gone on the account. On sober consideration, he just grunted and shook his head.

“Hope you get away with it, mate.”

They worked on in silence a while, loading in gear and fastening it down. John retrieved the swivel gun from the salvage-pile and looked at it fondly. He had cleaned and scoured it out with sand, and greased it well with goat fat, and greased up the sack of one-pound balls too.

“Reckon we ought to mount it on the stern, just in case?” he said. Sejanus eyed him.

“You’re precious fond of that gun, for a man who’s going to quit the Brethren and become an honest bricklayer.”

“Well, it handles prettily,” said John. “And you never can tell what sort of bastards are going to come sailing up astern, can you?”

“Just like all those cutlasses you’re stowing away will be useful opening coconuts,” said Sejanus. “And the pistol and balls be useful for shooting seagulls, eh?”

“Old habits die hard,” said John. Mr. Tudeley came trudging up.

“I have here thirty-six coconuts,” he announced in a martyred voice. “And I’m going to go recline in the shade and drink rum now, and if you attempt to stop me, sir, I shall run a cutlass through your damned liver.”

“Peace, Wint,” said Sejanus. “Don’t see why we mayn’t stop work for today, anyhow. We can finish up in the morning.”

“I reckon so,” said John. He heaved his sea chest in over the side of the pinnace and dusted his hands.

They went together up the trail they’d worn through the sea-grape, single file. John came over the crest of the ridge and looked down into the camp. He frowned in puzzlement. He looked out at the horizon. The others slammed into him, as into a wall.

“Damn you, sir!” said Mr. Tudeley. John ignored him and ran down the hill through the camp, which was in disarray, and jumped the palisadoes and kept going down to the beach, which was crossed with many pairs of footprints, and splashed out into the surf to gaze after the black sloop, which was halfway to the horizon.

“BLEEDING JESUS, SHE BEEN kidnapped,” John muttered. He backed out of the surf, thinking all the while of his share of the four thousand pounds, and feeling mean and small to be so mercenary, but there it was. He turned to the others. “We have to go after her!”

“Ha! I expect the lady will vigorously defend herself,” said Mr. Tudeley, but on seeing John’s face, Sejanus grabbed him and turned him around.

“Don’t argue, Wint. A gentleman always helps a lady in distress, eh? Come on!”

They ran back up and over the island. By the time they got to the pinnace John was in such a rage that he seized its stern and launched it himself, shoving it down the shingle beach as though it was a toy boat. The others splashed through the shallows and vaulted in over the gunwales as he was setting the sail.

“You take the tiller,” John told Sejanus. “And
you
can sit down and keep your bloody mouth shut if you ain’t got anything helpful to say!”

“Quite,” said Mr. Tudeley. “I don’t suppose we remembered the rum?”

John turned from him, snarling. For the next few minutes he was very busy handling the sail, but at last they came around the end of the island and spotted the black sloop, now nearly hull-down on the horizon.

John ranted and swore, until they picked up a favorable breeze and the pinnace shot forward, racing over the swells. The water broke fair and white on the prow, whispered along the hull and creamed out into a cleft wake. He thought of Mrs. Waverly’s white thighs, at least her thighs as he’d imagined them, and how he might never see them in the flesh now. He thought of two thousand pounds in gold, and how Mrs. Waverly was the only person with any idea where Tom had hidden it, and how there’d be no way to recover the loot should anything untoward happen to her.

The pinnace proved more than seaworthy; she was swift. They arrowed along after the sloop, keeping her in sight, and steadily over the hours crept up on her.

“Who do you suppose they are?” said Mr. Tudeley, at last.

“Kidnappers, who d’you think?” John growled. He had been straining to make out details on the craft, and could see no flag.

“They don’t seem in much of a hurry to run away from us,” said Sejanus, shading his eyes with his hand. “Not much sail set. Good thing, too; she looks as though she could cut through the water pretty fast, if she had a mind to.”

“She does indeed,” said Mr. Tudeley. “I expect they don’t know we’re after them.”

“That would be handy,” said Sejanus.

Mr. Tudeley lifted the flap of a canvas bundle, and looked down at the cutlasses John had stowed there that afternoon. “Upon my word, Mr. James, you’ve armed us well. Just the sort of things one would need for a daring rescue.”

“Didn’t know I’d need ’em though, did I?” said John, squinting over his shoulder at the low red sun. “Damn! It’ll be night soon.”

Mr. Tudeley looked thoughtfully after the sloop. “I wonder how many fellows are on board?”

“Wouldn’t take many to carry off one woman,” said John. “The bastards!”

“They probably came ashore for to get water,” said Sejanus, rubbing his chin. “Funny we didn’t hear any screaming for help, or anything.”

“Isn’t it?” Mr. Tudeley gave him a significant look. “Perhaps they weren’t pirates. Perhaps it’s a trading vessel.”

“With cargo on board? Hmm.”

“Rum, perhaps.” Mr. Tudeley licked his lips. “I wonder how well they’re armed?”

“Shame we had to leave the boat behind,” said Sejanus. “Hope we don’t spring a leak. I’ll bet that sloop doesn’t leak. It looks fine and seaworthy.”

“So it does,” said Mr. Tudeley.

“What are you lot babbling about?” demanded John in exasperation.

“Not much,” said Sejanus, poking the sack of one-pound balls. “Look behind you, Wint. I think you’re leaning on a powder keg, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed,” said Mr. Tudeley. “And here’s a coil of slow-match. I wonder if one might start a little blaze in, say, a coconut shell like this one? If one packed in a bit of tinder. Here are wood chips aplenty, under the thwarts. They’d smolder nicely.”

“Flint and steel in the navigation box.”

“Is there? There is! That’s useful.”

“They’re lighting her stern lanterns!” announced John. “That’s something anyhow. We won’t lose ’em in the dark!”

“Oh, good.” Mr. Tudeley took out a clasp-knife and began methodically shaving bits off the gunwale, tucking the long dry curls into his coconut shell.

“Shame we haven’t got all those coconuts you gathered, Wint,” said Sejanus. He looked over his shoulder, where the island had receded to a mere irregularity on the horizon, black against the sunset. “Here we are at sea with almost no provisions. We’re going to be powerfully thirsty soon.”

“I fear so,” said Mr. Tudeley. He looked sidelong at Sejanus. “Life is a rather grim matter of survival, after all. One must do what one must.”

“That’s a fact for certain,” Sejanus drawled. “
Ad victorem spolias.
”

“I’d no idea you were so well educated, sir. How pleasant. ‘To the victors go the spoils!’ Words to live by, indeed.” Mr. Tudeley reached into the instrument chest for flint and steel, and set about making a few coals to smolder in his coconut shell.

They kept the sloop in sight through the night hours, John watching her stern lanterns all the while in agony of mind. Mrs. Waverly had not seemed like the sort of woman to kill herself over a bit of violation, but his imagination kept conjuring up scenes with her backing away into a corner of the captain’s cabin, holding up a dagger and threatening to plunge it into her heart. A lady had done that on the stage once, in a play he’d seen, and it had all been very dramatically lit and dreadfully moving, even though the lady was a man under the dress and you could tell his left bubbie was a pig’s bladder full of stage blood.

And perhaps John nodded off where he sat once or twice, because the twin beaming stern lanterns seemed to be shining out from Mrs. Waverly’s shift, and she hoisted up her shift and revealed her bubbies shining like lamps, bright and hard and hot, and she was begging of him to cool them down, so badly had she sunburned on that island…

They were getting bigger, and bigger. He hadn’t thought a woman’s bubbies ever got that big. They were like two suns now. “Oh, Mr. James,” she was whimpering, “Do something! Please! I’m ever so hot!”

They were so hot they were setting fire to her shift. He could smell the burning. It smelled like saltpeter…

He realized with a start that the sloop’s stern lanterns were very near now, and Mr. Tudeley had just lit a length of slow match and was saying, in a complacent tone: “There! Quite serviceable, I think. Shall you carry the pistol, or shall I?”

John rubbed his eyes and looked around. Dawn was coming up pink in the east. The sloop was no more than a half-mile off now. Mr. Tudeley had unwrapped the cutlasses and was sorting through them, weighing each in his hand for balance.

“
Very
nice,” he said, taking an experimental swipe at the air with one. “And I suppose one just lays about one as though one were wielding a meat cleaver.”

“That’s the way,” said Sejanus.

“I must endeavor not to lose my other ear this time. What ho, Mr. James! A good morning to you. She’s a fair ship, is she not?”

John peered across at the sloop, where it cruised there backlit by the dawn. Low and rakish, with elegant lines, it was still just idling along. The silhouetted helmsman wasn’t even bothering to look behind him.

John clenched his fists, feeling the return of his anger. How many might be aboard? Five men? Six? Had they all had their way with Mrs. Waverly? Had she, perhaps in fear of her life, told them about the four thousand pounds? Were they even now on their way to Leauchaud?

He reached around and grabbed up the swivel gun, and loaded it with a pair of one-pound balls. “Where’s the damned powder?”

“Ready,” said Mr. Tudeley, handing him the powder horn. “Match?”

“Aye.” John took the length of slow-match and clamped it between his teeth while he filled the touch-hole and stuck a couple of extra balls in his coat pocket.

“I don’t think we want to give them a one-pound broadside,” Sejanus cautioned. John shook his head, glaring. They came alongside the sloop, making out her name at last:
Le Rossignol
. The helmsman saw them now, and filled his lungs to cry the alarm. John stood up on a thwart and aimed at him with the swivel gun, touching fire to powder with the match in his teeth.

“You idiot—” began Sejanus.

Boom!
The helmsman was blown clear overboard, and John himself nearly pitched backward out of the pinnace. Sejanus and Mr. Tudeley swarmed up over the sloop’s rail as the sun rose, brandishing weapons. When John had caught his balance and reloaded he followed them.

Sleepy men came boiling up on deck, to face a terrible sight: a giant hoisting a cannon in his arms to aim it at them, and to one side a grinning black devil with a pair of cutlasses and a horde of shadows at his shoulder, and to the other side a ragged creature in the nadir of his fall from grace—bloodlust in his eye, snarling gap-toothed as he swung his blade, his broken spectacles glinting in the golden light of the sun.

There followed a brief but quite bloody fray. One of the crew threw down his weapon and fell to his knees. Three unwisely decided to fight, and died there on the deck, one half-beheaded and shot by Mr. Tudeley and another run through by Sejanus, with the third smashed down by John’s fist. Last of all a handsome man came rushing up shirtless from the great cabin, a slender elegant-looking fellow with a little downy mustache of the sort ladies fancy on a man. John ground his teeth. He took aim with the swivel gun and blew the captain clear to Hell.