Captain Adam (18 page)

He had some idea that Major Kellsen would do the same as he was doing—start circling the island, whether to right or to left.

But suddenly he realized that the major, not new at this, was more likely to take a bolder course and charge straight across the island, hoping to reach him before he had found cover.

In that case Adam would be utterly exposed, a sitting duck.

He started to run for the palmetto. He didn't care what the men in the boats back there thought of him. He ran fast, bending low.

What a fool he had been to waste that time!

Gasping, sobbing, he threw himself into the first clump of palmetto. His heart was going like a triphammer, but it was the only thing that he could hear.

He was more scared than he had ever been in his life.

When he got to his knees and peered around, in all directions, cautiously, he saw little enough. He was in a slight natural depression between two dunelike mounds. It was a good place, and he was in no hurry to leave it.

He prayed then. It was not an impassioned prayer. Simply and quietly he asked God to spare him a little longer, for the sake of Maisie, the hands, and the schooner, amen.

It made him feel better, as he had known it would.

He got to his feet, though he squatted, keeping his head low. Some of the powder had slipped out of the firing pan of the pistol, and he rapped the barrel with his left fist to joggle more through the touch-hole. He wiped his mouth. He took up the cutlass. He started to prowl.

It was arduous work, and he felt a fool, though still frightened. He was not accustomed to stoop and crouch and bend, slithering from place to place like some obnoxious animal mankind sought to exterminate. Instinct screamed to stand up like a man, not skulk like a wildcat; but he crushed instinct and continued to crawl.

He was careful not to knock stones together, not to rattle palmetto fronds. Whenever he elected to break cover he looked around first in all directions; then made a dash for it; then lay still, listening, panting.

The ground was irregular, pockmarked like the surface of the moon. Adam sought out the low spots, avoided the high.

It was a strain on his muscles and often he stopped to rest; but he remained alert.

Was Kellsen doing the same thing? Was the Major crawling and creeping from place to place? Or was he a paragon of patience who could wait unstirring for hours until his opponent, restless, twitchy, exposed himself? Adam doubted this. The flamboyant clothes, the drawl, the insistence on supremacy, did not suggest a phlegmatic nature. Major Kellsen, Adam suspected, was out looking for him in exactly the same way he, Adam, was out looking for Major Kellsen.

It was like a game of blind man's buff in which all the players staggered around with bandaged eyes—and the forfeit was the loser's life.

Now and then he came in sight of the sea again, but it was impossible to tell on which side, so nearly round was the island and so much the same everywhere.

More than once it occurred to him that what he really should do was lay out the island in his mind, make a mental diagram of it, and take care not to retrace his own footsteps—in other words, plot this prowl mathematically, so as to be sure that he covered every yard. Yet, again, where was the sense of that? It could only be a useful tactic if Kellsen sat motionless.

They could of course go on creeping around like this for hours—Adam wondered what would happen when night came. Certainly he'd never dare to sleep.

The pistol in his right hand, the cutlass in his left held low so that it should not reflect the sun, he lifted his head out of a clump of palmetto —and saw a strange man.

This man was about fifty feet away and had his back turned. Clad in buff breeches and a brown shirt, neither of them silk, which would have glittered, and black wool stockings, he wore also a brown linen cap. He was large, but bent far over, apelike, his fists almost trailing the ground. His attitude suggested a steel spring: he was set to snap shut. His head jerked back and forth as he looked around. When he turned that head Adam's way, Adam ducked.

A moment later Adam looked again. And Adam came to realize marveling, that this was in fact Major Kellsen. Shorn of periwig, froggery and bravado, this uncertain duelist, like Adam himself, tense, crept from place to place, fearful lest a finger, an unwitting toe, should turn over death.

Adam's pistol was a cannon in miniature. He had seen the charge poured into it, a heavy one. He had seen the ball they'd cut—tremendous. Though it would not carry far with any degree of accuracy, this brass-and-walnut weapon could smash a man's head open, tear a man's shoulder

off, crush his chest. And Major Kellsen, all unaware, made a perfect target.

But Adam couldn't slay a man from behind. He had to say something, make some noise.

He cleared his throat. Kellsen didn't stir.

"Uh, ahoy!" cried Adam.

Kellsen whirled around, his pistol raised. Adam fired.

The explosion was terrific. The recoil threw his arm high. There was a great deal of smoke.

But when the smoke had sauntered away, Major Kellsen still stood there. He looked thunderstruck, his eyes bugged out. But assuredly he had not been hit. And in a moment he began to grin.

His pistol high, he started to walk toward Adam. He placed his feet carefully. He would be sure of himself when he shot.

And all this while he was grinning. He was a very happy man, teeming with the joy relief brings, a relaxation of the tension. For now he had won the duel.

His thumb cocked the pistol. It made a sharp "click!"

He came on, and on.

Adam Long might have turned and run, saving himself a few minutes of life, conceivably even a few hours; but where could he go? Kellsen, with but one precious ball, would hold fire until he could not possibly miss.

Yes, Adam could have run, dodging from place to place, from hole to hole, like a rabbit. To hell with that! He was going to die, but he didn't have to die whimpering.

He rose. He threw his pistol straight at Major Kellsen's face.

There was an explosion, as Kellsen's foot slipped. His gun, like Adam's, had been hair-triggered.

There was a great deal of smoke.

And Adam Long, with a gurgle of delight, a throaty sound, realized that he was alive.

He didn't grin. He laughed.

It was not often that Adam Long laughed.

He shifted the cutlass to his right hand. He fairly whooped as he made for the major.

Kellsen was strong, and he had long arms, long legs, a reach longer than Adam's.

This was a spirited fight, though a short one. It would not have gladdened the heart of a fencing master. The men were clumsy. But thev were fierce.

Kellsen stood erect, hacking down. Adam went in low, crouching, his guard high above his head.

Three times they locked hilts, after a brave sparking and slapping of 114

steel. Three times, by common consent, though without word of mouth, or even a grunt, each sprang back.

The fourth time Adam went in lower than ever, but with his blade also low this time. He didn't try to slash. He swept into a straight classic lunge, as though it was a Spanish rapier he held. For you can lunge with a cutlass, which had a point as well as an edge. That is, you can if you don't mind exposing your whole head. Adam ran a terrible risk. If Kellsen was f ast—

Kellsen wasn't fast. His sword never came down—except that it slipped out of nerveless fingers. He was slow in falling, like some colossal oak. Yet he died rapidly enough, coughing up great gouts of blood, quarts of it.

Adam had trouble getting the sword out. He carried it, together with Kellsen's, down to the beach. It was a beautiful day.

"All right, ye dogs! Come and take me away I"

Adam knew from Newport how news travels fast in a small place; but the pirates of Providence had some system of their own for disseminating information, and it was a system that would have made the tongues of Rhode Island matrons seem slow. Long before the flotilla of small boats even got past the fort and into the bay the whole population of the island, including the Honorable Maisie de L'oin Treadway-Paul, lined up along the beach, knew the outcome of the contest on Cockroach Key.

She had thrown herself into his arms with a fervor that took the breath out of him, embarrassed him, too, in front of all those people. Yet the others appeared to expect this, and there were even cheers for the lady mixed with the cheers for Captain Long. He put her aside, tut-tut-ting, near to tears because of what he saw in her eyes, the anxiety there, the love; and of course it wouldn't do to let anybody see him acting that way.

"You shouldn't have done a thing like that for me," she cried again and again. "I'm not worth it, Adam! You shouldn't have done it for me!"

Well, he hadn't done it for her, except maybe indirectly; and later on, in the comparative privacy of Tarpaulin Hall, he tried to explain this. He had done it for her, yes; but he'd also done it for himself, for the two of them, and fw Jeth Gardner and Resolved Forbes and the others, and last but by no means least for the Goodwill to Men. It had not been a grudge fight, a matter of jealousy. It had been done, it had had to be

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done, in order to get his standing straightened out. Sniggered over, he could do nothing toward escape. Admired, he might be able to do much.

He had tried to explain to Maisie that when he went to England, soon, he would certainly seek out, among others—he did not mention his father the Earl of Tillinghast, who was high on his list of those-to-be-seen—her seducer. Sir Jervis Johnston. He had sworn that, and he'd do it. That would be personal: it would be directly and entirely for love of her. But this affair on Cay Cucaracha—

She'd have none of the explanation. His intent to call out Jervis Johnston she had never appeared to take seriously anyway, but she was impressed, and deeply touched, by the fact that Adam had killed Major Kellsen. That was immediate, undeniable. It was not part of a dream seated in the future: and Lady Maisie could understand it. His protests were swept aside as evidence of his too great modesty. She cried repeatedly that he shouldn't have done it for her. She insisted upon fussing over him.

So he let her. If a woman is bound and determined to believe something, he reasoned, it was better to agree. After all, it was pleasant. It was ridiculous in one sense, true—Maisie demanding that he lie still while she fetched him this and fetched him that, and washed him, and anxiously brought him things to eat and drink, quite as though he was near death, whereas he hadn't a scratch on him and wasn't even tired, not having had to row either way—but in the long run it soothed, it flattered. Besides, the attitude reassured Adam. Feeling sneaky, feeling disloyal, he had from time to time recently caught himself wondering if maybe the tropical sunshine had brought out in Maisie a certain crassness he had not previously supposed was there. She was not, or not always, the same girl he had known on the schooner. It was not just that her unconcealed and even exuberant enjoyment of their intimacy somewhat shocked Adam Long, who had more than once caught himself blushing, too, at her habit of exposing her body; it was also, and perhaps even more, the way she looked and acted in public—a note of shrillness had crept into her voice, a touch of tautness at the corners of her mouth. He loved her, and thoughts like this were a torture for him to bear. But now he felt better about it. Now he knew beyond doubt that she loved him. It wasn't only a matter of words: it was a lot more than that. It wasn't just the way she had thrown herself into his arms, down there on the beach. It was a feeling he had when he was with her. She had been stirred, a condition she couldn't have concealed if she'd wanted to. Through all her fussing, silly as some of it was, this truth stuck out. She loved him.

So he lay back and enjoyed it. A man doesn't get tfrat kind of attention every day, and there was no reason why he shouldn't have a good time.

As far as his physical condition was concerned, he was able to prove ii6

to her beyond all doubt that it was excellent; and this, too, he enjoyed, though it was disconcerting to have that crowd surging and stewing outside, scarcely beyond reach, sometimes even causing the walls of Tarpaulin Hall to sway, and never quiet. But you can get used to anything, he learned.

Once in the night he woke up and lay for a time staring at a ceiling he couldn't see and thinking, unexpectedly, of Major Kellsen.

Kellsen was dead and you shouldn't think of him any more, Adam knew. Nobody else here did. He heard the sounds of the camp, where there was no respect for the clock and where a most prodigious celebration was going on. Those men and women out there, by no means unaided by rum, had worked themselves into a frenzy of admiration for him, Adam Long—admiration that almost approached, sacrilegiously, adoration. The fight on Cucaracha was the first part of the process of being built into a legend; and Adam was its hero. Liked before, now, by tarnation, he was fairly revered. This threw him ofiF, for it was not at all what he had sought; and he wasn't sure that popularity was a good thing to have on Providence Island in the Bahamas this year of Our Lord 1702.

Kellsen had sought popularity and achieved a certain measure of it, and who thought of Kellsen now? Kellsen was the only man Adam Long had ever killed, but he felt no squeamishness about this. He was not proud of himself, but he wasn't ashamed of himself either. It had been a job of work, and he'd done it. He'd had his reasons. The results flummoxed him—all this clamor and praise—but he still thought that he'd done what he should have done, and if he'd had to do it over again he would do it the same way.

But Kellsen—didn't anybody think of him? Kellsen only a few hours ago had been a man of some magnificence. Something between a pouter pigeon and a peacock perhaps, but a man all the same, with a man s heart, a man's feelings. He, too, had risked everything. The only difference between him and Adam was that he had lost, Adam had won. And because Kellsen had lost he was forgotten. So far as Adam knew, nobody had even taken the trouble to go back to the middle of Cockroach Key and view the body, much less bury it. And when they landed on the beach here, Adam had spotted one pirate wearing that high full flamboyant periwig of Kellsen's, while three or four others wore coats that had belonged to the dead man. So early! It did seem indecent. They had a curious outlook on the matter of property here at Providence. Any man would snick his knife out in a dispute about sixpence; but that was cash, and different. The same man would gladly give you, or at least sell you for a song, weapons, articles of clothing, pieces of furniture, which indeed constituted something close to communal property. Kellsen's ward-