Raised By Wolves 2 - Matelots (37 page)

Gaston appeared and dropped to his knees in front of me with a hissed, “Do not shoot the head.” He fired before I did.

Then time slowed. The bull was charging straight on to us. Gaston’s ball struck its withers and did not slow it. I had my musket up. All I could focus on was that massive head. I understood, though: the ball would not penetrate the skull. I was aware of Gaston reloading. I wanted to scream that he should run. It was too close. I dropped the muzzle of my musket down and to the right, to the fleshy fore-shoulder just visible beside the wagging head. I fired. The ball hit true and the animal staggered for a single stride. I already had a cartouche in hand and the musket down. Gaston fired. His ball hit the other fore-shoulder and the beast staggered for a single stride again. I was ramming the ball and patch home. I could not remember if I had added the powder. It did not matter. We would get one more shot. Somehow, there was powder in the pan and the musket was at my shoulder. I fired. I hit. The beast’s left front leg gave way and it spilled into the dirt before us. And then I was thrown sideways as Gaston plowed me from the collapsing bull’s path.

Then he was upon it, cutlass in hand. Blood sprayed as I collapsed to my knees. The animal had landed where I had stood.

And then we were not alone with the dead beast.

“Gaston!” I cried, as I leapt to my feet and pulled both pistols.

But he had already seen the five men appearing out of the brush to surround us with aimed muskets. We stood back to back beside the bull. Gaston had a pistol in his left hand and a cutlass in his right. I eyed the two men I could see clearly on my side of the circle. I recognized neither of them. As they had not fired, I spared a glance over my shoulder to the other men. Two flanked Gaston as their comrades flanked me, and one man stood squarely before my matelot.

“Le Croix,” Gaston growled.

“Gaston,” a man said. I placed him as the one directly in front of Gaston.

“You will pay for what you did to our good surgeon,” the man said in French. “We have no quarrel with your matelot. It is his sad fortune to pair with you; do not make it sadder still. If you wish him to live, tell him to drop his weapons and leave. If you move, I will fire and drive the ball through both of you.”

I thought them fools. Primarily because they thought I would walk away, and secondly, because one should not bring a musket to a pistol fight. Muskets are weapons best used at range. All five men were very close.

“My love,” I said in English. “Do you trust me?”

“In all things,” Gaston replied.

One of the men to my right translated my words to French. I thanked the Gods for this distraction, as I saw the two men before me glance to their companion as he spoke.

“Since we are men who must always be in the right,” I said with emphasis on the last. “Down!”

I was moving as the word left my lips. I felt Gaston move behind me. I trusted him. I could do nothing else. I squatted, swung my right pistol up and around, as if it were a weight at the end of my arm, and I dropped my chest to lie atop my right thigh. When I saw the man who had addressed Gaston, I fired. At less than ten paces, the ball took no time to tear out his throat. He had fired into the air above me. Gaston was gone.

Then I was rolling forward, the left pistol tucked to my belly. When I saw the man closest to me, I snapped the piece up and placed a ball in his left shoulder before he could depress the muzzle of his long musket enough to reach me. He fired into the ground.

Another ball slammed into the ground near my hip, and I dove up and away from it to my feet. My rapier was drawn before I spied the other man who had shot at me. He was swinging his now-empty musket at me like a club. I thrust up and under, and ran him through.

As I began to pull back, his head was severed from his shoulders by a cutlass swing.

I stood. Gaston was looking for more targets, now that he had decapitated my last one. Across the bull, there were two bodies in the grass.

“Thank you,” I said. “I was slowed a bit by my injuries.”

He snorted derisively and kissed me quickly. “Reload,” he hissed, when he left my mouth.

I did as he bade. We spied other men approaching at a run as I reloaded my second pistol. Thankfully, they were friends and not foes.

Liam pulled up when he reached us and looked at the bull and surrounding carnage.

“An’ ’ere we be, worried an’ all!” he scoffed.

“Aye, we thought we might have to hunt for breakfast,” Otter added.

I rolled my eyes and sat with great relief. Now that the danger was past, I was acutely aware of all the pain I had caused myself.

“Who was this Le Croix?” I asked Gaston when he handed me my musket, which he had thankfully loaded, as I was not sure of my ability to carry it at the moment.

“Doucette saved his life,” he said tiredly.

“They took off after ya last evenin’,” Liam said. “Striker sent us on along, an’ Pierrot sent Tooco an’ Crème here ta join us.”

I looked at the men who had arrived with them. Both wore floppy leather hats like Liam’s, and stained leather breeches and jerkins.

They were not young; their weathered faces appeared older than the Scotsman’s by a number of years.

To my surprise, Gaston nodded at them respectfully, and they returned it.

“You know them too?” I asked, as the four men turned to butchering the bull and moving the meat to the shade at the edge of the field.

“I know them from the Haiti,” Gaston said. “They are good men.

When I have roved with them they have been kind to me.”

“It is good to know that you have not made enemies everywhere you have gone,” I teased.

He smiled. “It is better to know I have married well.”

“’Ey,” Liam called. “Four shots in this ’ere. Ya done good. I take it Will reloaded quick enough.”

“Aye,” Gaston said proudly. “He did.”

“I do not remember much of loading the musket,” I said.

This garnered great amusement from them, even the Frenchmen after Otter translated.

There was something odd about Otter translating, but I could not name it.

Gaston joined them, and hacked at the bull’s right flank. He soon returned to me with the animal’s thigh bone, and split it so that we could scoop out the marrow. It did indeed taste somewhat like butter, but I did not think I would ever consider it a delicacy.

Soon, we had moved to the shade along with the beef, and the Frenchmen had run off to fetch the captains and others to recover the bodies. Liam and Otter were roasting a nice piece of meat over a fire.

Gaston joined me and handed me a water skin.

“That might not be the end of it,” he said.

“I know,” I sighed.

“That was an excellent shot.”

“Perhaps I should have tried lower on the leg, or we should have signaled each other as to which to aim for so that we did not waste a ball on the opposite member,” I muttered.

“I did not mean the bull, and you signaled me very well.”

“Oh that.” I chuckled. “That was a very aggressive dueling stance, and not one that will be accepted in a formal setting.”

“I was not able to witness it, only the result,” he said quietly.

“Ah, well, I will show you once I recover sufficiently. I hope someone has the good sense to bring a bottle.”

He rummaged about in my bag and produced a flask I vaguely remembered placing there. I grinned and took a swig of rum.

“We were greatly aided by the fellow translating,” I said as the burning spread out from my stomach.

Then I remembered what was odd about Otter translating. “I did not know Otter spoke French,” I said.

“He always has,” Gaston said with a shrug and a frown. “Liam does not.”

“I find it odd,” I said, as I thought back over the last year and my relationship with Otter and Liam. “Damn it, then why did he not appear to know what Cudro said that first day upon the North Wind?”

Gaston shrugged again. “Liam is the gossip; Otter is polite. I do not believe he listens unless it involves them.”

I snorted. “I have never mastered the art of not listening; unless, of course, I am distracted. Then I am daft as a cow. And you have been a constant distraction this last year.”

He grinned. “At least I have not impaired your aim.”

“Not when your life is at stake,” I said soberly.

He regarded me with wonder, and I sensed a change in him. He appeared younger, in that strange way I could not attempt to explain to another, much less myself.

His eyes grew moist. “I am so filled with love for you, I do not know how to contain it.”

I cursed my foolishness. He had appeared in control during the insanity about us, but as he had not been settled before the matter, he was now far more unsettled than I at the events. I was not sure how to calm him. I did know I must cast aside my troubled heart and frazzled temper in the aftermath and pick up the reins.

I said as lightly as I could manage, “I know, you did a poor job of containing it last night.”

He shook his head and frowned at my jest. “Will, truly, it is a huge thing, and I do not know how to carry it.”

“That is why we have a cart,” I said gently. “And we pull it together.

Because love is heavier than gold, and love such as ours is more than one man can bear, perhaps.”

He studied the ground and wiped away the tears. His nod was thoughtful when it came; but he was still not himself, or quite as he had been the last few days, either. Though I supposed he was, and this was simply not a facet he had shown because there had not been the proper events to trigger this face of his madness. With dismay, I saw he was rocking back and forth in little movements.

I looked to Liam and Otter; they were not watching us. I wondered how long we had before the others arrived.

I took his hand, and spoke as I would to a child. “I have the reins.”

He nodded and his gaze was earnest when it met mine. “I know.

Thank you.”

He stood and walked back into the field. I pushed to my feet and followed him. He went to the place where the bull had fallen and turned slowly about, regarding the bodies. I joined him and did the same. With surprise I saw that Le Croix only had one leg.

In an effort to keep Gaston talking, I asked, “Does his missing leg have something to do with how Doucette saved him?”

Gaston was rocking back and forth again. He nodded with great effort. His voice was very soft, as if he whispered out of respect for the dead, or fear that they would hear him. “He lost his foot to a shark. The leg putrefied before they could get him to Doucette. And he fevered.”

Liam joined us. He was frowning at Gaston, and I supposed my matelot’s state of mind was evident to any but the blind.

“He canna’ be touchin’ the bodies, Will,” Liam said. “These men be ours, na’ the Spanish.”

Belatedly, I remembered that Gaston was called the Ghoul for a reason. I had only seen him arrange bodies the one time on the galleon, but he had been behaving like he was now just before he did.

I put a light arm over his shoulder and spoke French. “Let us go back to the trees, my love.”

His eyes were hard and dangerous when he turned on me; all vestiges of the childlike mien were gone.

I did not flinch. “Quit bucking about and help me pull,” I said levelly.

He frowned, but the anger left him.

“I know you wish to honor them,” I said gently. “I understand. But no one else will, and I cannot explain it to them.”

Now he appeared perplexed.

I tentatively applied pressure across his shoulders, to steer him away to the trees. To my relief, he moved as I wished. When I had him back where we had sat before, I pushed him to sit. I knelt stiffly, and rummaged in my bag until I found the manacles.

He shook his head at the sight of them. There was no defiance in the gesture, just reluctance. “I will behave.” Then the childlike mien returned and he appeared scared.

I hid the chains away and sat with him. Exhaustion swept over me, to such an extent that I felt despair. I cast about for anything to anchor myself before I drifted away into a sea of despondency.

“Are you always like this after a battle?” I asked. “You were thus on the galleon; before that, on the flute, you had me to tend to and that distracted you. Do you… suffer regret to this extent, or is there some…?”

His fingers were on my lips. “It is wrong to kill.”

I gently pulled his hand away. “It is right to defend your matelot. It is right to defend yourself.”

That seemed to please him, and he nodded with growing confidence.

“Thank you for putting it so.”

“You are welcome.”

And then I could say no more, as the others were arriving and I could only pray to the Gods that Gaston stayed calm and quiet and they did not notice his state.

The three captains, and those who arrived with them, went to look at the dead men in the field. A lone figure broke from them: it was Dickey. He cast about until he spied us and then he ran to our side. He appeared distraught.

“We are well,” I assured him as he approached.

He ignored my words. “Will, it has all gone awry,” he hissed, as he collapsed to kneel with us on the ground.

“How so?”

“Tom, he said, oh damn, he… we quarreled. He challenged me to a duel and I accepted!”

I wondered how many shots I could get off if the Gods decided to charge me instead of merely throwing things.

The captains were approaching.

“Dickey, what is the gist of it?” I asked. “And speak quickly, because we are not long alone.” I smiled to soften the last.

He glanced over his shoulder at the other men and gave a short huffing sigh. When he spoke, it was a prolonged rush. “Tom feels I betrayed him. And truly, it was as if he had an agenda. Our quarrel was nonsensical, such that I did not feel anger so much as confusion.

He even blamed Francis for seducing me into corruption. Then he said some nastiness about how he had always known I lusted for him, him being Tom that is. But it seemed to be all a show for his fellows who were gathered about. One of them translated the lot of it and they were quite amused. They goaded him on. I have seen similar things.