The Dagger X (The Dagger Chronicles) (7 page)

It was a hammer, its steel head obscured by a thick layer of orange rust. Again she smiled. The hammer had a long wooden handle and a weighty metal head, wide on one end and narrow on the other.

“Nenetah ha!”
She warned the barrel she had pulled free. Holding the hammer with two hands she scratched a mark in the center of the lid with the narrow end of the head.

She raised the hammer high and brought it swinging down with everything she had.

“K
itto! Truly, I do not believe you are ready for this.”

Kitto leaned against Van’s shoulder to keep balance on his good leg.

“I cannot lie here forever, Mum,” he said. The wounded leg hung in midair. He looked down at it, draped now in the new pair of pants Sarah had stitched for him. Sarah had found a bolt of well-preserved sailcloth in the trunk inside Ontoquas’s shelter. It was the same trunk with the pewter hardware in the shape of a dolphin that Kitto had identified as belonging to William Quick the morning after they had landed on the island. The trunk was what told them they had made it to the very island where William Quick had stashed his treasured nutmeg. Rich as kings, that spice could make them.

Kitto watched the eerie flapping of the pants leg with nothing to fill it—no shin, no ankle, no foot.

My clubfoot is gone,
he told himself, and the admixture of emotions the thought gave him made his head hurt.

His memory of the incident was clear now. He had
nearly made it. He had pulled Van from the water—saved him from drowning—and just as he was about to climb into the rowboat, the shark had struck. It had taken hold of him below the knee, and the impossible ferocity of the shark’s jaw power combined with the razor edges of its myriad teeth allowed it to sever Kitto’s shinbone near the top of his calf muscle before it dragged him down to the depths. And then his mum had jumped in after him and hauled him back to the boat.

I saved her life, and she saved mine,
he thought.

Today was not the first attempt Kitto had made to stand or to walk, but he intended now to test the crutch Van had made him, and he was nervous. Any contact with his wound—even when the wind picked up and the sailcloth pants rippled against the tender skin that formed an oozing and uncertain scab, fiery tendrils of pain shot through his entire body.

“I need to learn to get about, or little Bucket will be walking before I am.”

Bucket lay cuddled nearby with Ontoquas on the palm-frond pallet inside the lean-to, sucking a thumb knuckle. Ontoquas, too, wore new clothing: a shirt, also made of sailcloth by Sarah.

“Two weeks is not a long time for healing,” Sarah said. Thirteen days had passed since Van had burned him with the flat of an ax head held over a fire until it glowed a faint red. The burning heat of the ax still haunted Kitto. When he was awake, he seemed always to be thirsty, and Ontoquas had to fetch freshwater two
and three times a day to satisfy him. She would disappear with the cut barrel that had once carried Bucket, and return later with a few gallons sloshing in the bottom. None of them knew where she procured it. Van had offered to help her, but it seemed that to reach the freshwater he would need to swim, and Van had no interest in ever doing that again.

“Here, Kitto.” Van plucked the crutch from where it leaned against the sea chest. Using Kitto’s dagger, Van had fashioned it from the branch of a tree. “If it’s too tall, I can whittle it down in a trice.” Van held it out to him, hopeful that Kitto would be pleased. He had come to accept his guilt at the living nightmare he had helped to visit on Kitto and his entire family. Van needed money to carry out his dream, which was to be reunited with his sister, whom he had not seen since she had been taken from the orphanage many years ago. He fed Captain John Morris and Spider the information they needed to follow William Quick from New York to Falmouth in exchange for payment. And once in Falmouth, Van had told the men where Kitto lived. Morris wanted to silence Kitto’s father, and to take revenge.

Van had traded a man’s life for a small bag of silver, and now that too was gone, heaved into the sea by Sarah after Van confessed to his role in her husband’s death.

Kitto jammed the crutch in his armpit. Van had carved it from where a thick branch split into two smaller branches, forming a crook. Ontoquas had wrapped the crook with a layer of reeds to provide padding.

“It feels good,” Kitto said, lying only a little. He settled his weight into the crook and took a very small hop-step. His wound throbbed, but he tried not to show his discomfort.

“Here I am wishing I had my old bent foot back,” he said, astonished that it was true. For how long—how many hours adding up to days, months—had he stared at that clubfoot, hating it and wishing that it were gone? Now it was gone, and he couldn’t help feeling that his body was no longer whole. Part of him was missing.

“Just a few steps, sweetheart,” Sarah said.

“No. I want to see the beach. I would like to make it that far.” Kitto steeled himself and lurched forward another step.

Van waved him on. “It’s not but fifty yards or so. You can make it.” Van collected the bundle of pistols and shot and wadding at his feet. Ontoquas had led Van a week ago onto the rocky peak at the island’s southeast corner, and there showed him two more of William Quick’s trunks that had been hidden away in a deep depression. Inside it were several pistols and short muskets wrapped in oilcloth, as well as enough powder and shot to hold off a small army.

“Van, no. Let’s leave that,” Sarah said.

Van shrugged, a trace of a smile on his lips. “Now is a good time, ma’am, don’t you think?”

Kitto thought some strange message was being communicated between them, but he could not attend to it. Each step brought intense pain, and Kitto clenched his teeth and swallowed a groan. He took another step with
the crutch, then gave a bit of a hop to catch his good leg up. Crutch, hop. Crutch, hop.

You can do it. Just one step at a time.

They reached the edge of the small clearing, and Ontoquas, Bucket in her arms, walked ahead. She swept her arms across the leafy foliage, exposing the narrow path her feet had carved during the months she had lived on the island. Ontoquas felt there was something different about these
wompey
—these white people. They differed from the ones who had sent her into slavery. Although she could not say quite why it was she felt she could trust them, it was a delicious feeling. So long it had been since she had felt connected to anyone. The white masters had seen her only as an instrument of labor, and the other slaves had kept their distance from her because she looked different than they did. This wounded boy, his mother, and the strong older boy, they were the first people who seemed interested in knowing her.

“That’s it, mate. You’re nearly running now,” said Van, behind Kitto now with the pistol clutch under his arm. The statement was not remotely true, but Kitto was settling into a rhythm. Crutch, hop. Crutch, hop.

“Is the pain quite bad?”

“Always a burning.” Kitto shook his head in frustration, beads of sweat standing out on his brow and darkening his curls. “Maybe the water will do it good, you think?”

“Sure it will.”

After ten minutes and three falls in the loose sand of the beach, Kitto had the answer to his question. A
smile of pleasure that had hardly lighted his face since his father had died did so now, and the sight made Sarah weak with relief as she watched from higher up on the beach. Kitto lounged in the surf, balancing his hands against the bottom and floating in the eighteen inches of water, his legs aimed out to sea.

Sarah sat in the sand with Bucket propped upright against her now, his feet kicking as he watched Kitto in the foamy wash.

“Not too deep!” Sarah said. Kitto hardly heard her. The cool water was unbearably delightful.

Sarah let her eyes drift seaward, out to the ever empty horizon.

Oh, sweet Elias. Where are you? Are you safe? Can you feel my love reaching out for you?

Sarah swept a strand of hair behind her ear. Her skin had not been so dark since she was a little girl. She had tanned deeply in the weeks since their arrival, mostly due to the long hours she spent out on the beach, scanning the horizon for a sign of either Morris’s or William’s ship. Not knowing whether her young son was safe or even alive was an exquisite torture that was wearing her nerves threadbare, as the sun and salt did to the bedraggled shift that clung to her.

Sarah suddenly became aware of Ontoquas at her side, solemnly reading her features. Sarah shifted Bucket to her other arm and reached out to take the girl’s hand. Their fingers interlaced. Ontoquas looked
up at the
wompey
woman and smiled at her.

“The water is good,” Ontoquas said. Her English was improving rapidly now that she had a chance to practice it again. Saying the words made her remember a time long gone when her
noeshow
, her father, would sit her down with an English fur trader, and the three of them would point at the objects around them and say the words in English and in Wampanoag.

Kitto pushed out deeper, the froth of the surf washing over his head. He cycled his arms, propelling himself through the water.

“Oh! Oh!” Sarah cried out.

“I watch him.” Ontoquas pried her hand free and ran into the water on light feet, leaping the waves until it was deep enough to dive. Ever since the days of digging for
suckis suacke
in the great water, she had loved to swim. Ontoquas caught up to where Kitto floated on his back twenty yards from shore.

“The water is good for you?” she asked.

“Yes.” He lifted his head to look at her. “Your English. It is better already.”

“Your Massachusett?”

Kitto grinned.
“Nippe!”
he shouted, and slapped the water.

Ontoquas splashed water at him, then stopped short. He was not a brother. “The water
is
good for you.” Ontoquas looked back to the beach where Sarah stood motionless with Bucket in her arms, watching them. “Mother is scared.”

Kitto didn’t answer. He turned away to the sea and let the rising waves lift him high.

“I would like to go to the cave. To see the barrels,” he said into the wind. He turned to see if Ontoquas had heard.

“You are ready?” she said.

“Any time the bad men might be back,” he said. “I need . . . I need a plan.”

“But Mother scared.”

Kitto nodded. “We won’t be long,” he said.

“Come.” Ontoquas turned from him and paddled toward shore.

Van waded out to hand Kitto the crutch when he reached the shallows. Kitto cursed quietly as the crutch sank into the wet sand, requiring even greater effort to make progress up the rise of beach.

“See any sharks?” Van said, smiling.

“If I didn’t need this crutch for walking I’d slap you with it,” Kitto said.

Van smirked and pointed up the beach. “Oi. Have a seat up there. I have something for you to see.” He gestured to Sarah.

Sarah rose and approached with a wry expression on her face, Bucket propped on her shoulder.

“I do not think this is the time, Van,” she said. “Bucket is frightened by the sound.”

“We’re all here,” Van said, as Kitto took his last labored steps and threw himself on the sand next to where the unraveled clutch of weapons had been laid. Sarah passed Bucket to Ontoquas.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Kitto said. He swept aside his wet curls.

Van looked at Kitto, then up at Sarah. “She has something to show you, your mum does.”

Kitto squinted up at Sarah. The sun was high in the sky behind her, casting her face in shadow. He could not see her face well enough to read it.

“Mum?”

Sarah bent and picked up a pistol. Kitto’s mouth dropped open, stunned. He had always known his mother to detest weapons. She straightened and turned the pistol slowly in her hands.

“You know, Kitto, that I . . . I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends. A Quaker, you would say.” Kitto nodded.

“My father knew George Fox, who started the movement, and he brought it to Falmouth. That is how I became involved.”

“You have told me that before,” Kitto said.

“A central principle among Friends is that of peace.” Sarah looked down warily at the weapon in her hands.

“And for that reason you never tolerated guns in our home,” Kitto said. He remembered times when she had marched tradesmen straight out of the shop because they had entered with pistols in their belts. Sarah took a slow and deep breath and raised the pistol. She sighted along its barrel, aiming down the beach.

Kitto felt alarmed. “What are you doing?”

Van stepped away swinging a medium-size turtle
shell in one hand. He ran several yards down the beach and turned.

“Here?” he said to Sarah, grinning broadly. Sarah nodded with a look of resignation. She took a step away from Kitto.

“You are going to fire it?” Kitto said, even more astonished now. “Do you even know how?”

Ontoquas held up her palm toward Van to tell him to wait, then retreated up the path by which they had come, pressing Bucket’s turned head to her shoulder to cover the baby’s ears.