Patriot (A Jack Sigler Continuum Novella) (8 page)

13

They stepped from the captain’s dining room, through the crew’s quarters and up on deck where they were greeted by the sight of billions of stars in the heavens. They’d managed to skirt the storm with minimal damage to the cutter, and were now moving at a fast clip in a northwesterly direction. The ship rocked back and forth, as it sliced through the last remaining chop of the foul weather.

“Florida,” Finkle said, as they strode up to the bow and gazed past the bowsprit. “We’re heading to Florida.”

King glanced back, peering into the darkness at the sea behind them. Though they would sail without lights, he knew without question that the stalwart and unearthly crew of the
Presley’s Hound
was not too far away. A twinge of guilt cut into his chest at the thought of those poor souls waiting so patiently for him to emerge from his...for lack of a better word...melancholy. They’d endured so much. Suffered so many cruelties before he’d freed them from their horrific bondage. The one who’d done the horrible things to them had seen them as little more than pack animals. Servants. Easily disposable. King had never been able to tolerate it, so when the opportunity came, he’d set a contingent of them free, and they had been loyal to him ever since.

“…are you listening, Mr. Sigler?” Finkle’s soft, even-keeled voice eased him back to the present.

“Sorry. What were you saying?”

“A recently discovered document from Ponce de Leon has surfaced. The British managed to procure it before our spies could get their hands on it, but our people did manage to copy most of it down. The document traces a path deep into the Florida jungles to where a fount of…”

“Let me stop you right there. First, the reason the Spaniards assumed the Fountain of Youth—that
is
what you’re talking about, right? The Fountain of Youth?” Finkle gave a slight nod in response. “Right. The only reason the Spaniards thought it was actually in Florida was that the common height of the European male back in the fifteenth century was less than five feet tall. The Native…um, the Indians, averaged more than six feet tall. The Spaniards had heard rumors about the Fountain since Columbus stumbled there. They mistranslated. Thought the Caribe Indian word for ‘Life’ meant ‘Youth’ instead. So, the taller humans must certainly have drunk from a fountain that bestowed more…
life
. More body mass.”

“But…”

“Second, Ponce de Leon, despite popular misconceptions and legends, never sought the Fountain. I know, because I was with him for much of his expedition to the New World. As far as I know, he never got a chance to search for it. He was too preoccupied with gaining new territory for the Spanish Crown.”

“Oh, please,” Quartermaster Greer scoffed. “Do you really expect us to believe that you are nearly three hundred years old? You must be, if you really sailed with Juan Ponce de Leon, and I, for one, cannot possibly give credence to…”

“Greer!” Reardon shouted. “Stand down.”

“But, sir!”

“I said, stand down, Mr. Greer, or I’ll assign ye to the galley for the remainder of the evening.”

“My apologies for the interruption, Mr. Sigler,” Finkle said. “And while I, too, am utterly fascinated by the prospect that you are as old as your comment implies, I’ll respect your privacy on the matter, and proceed with our discussion.” He glared at Greer to be sure the man wasn’t about to interrupt again before continuing. “Bear in mind, though, I never said the document in question even had anything to do with Ponce de Leon himself—only that it was supposedly in his possession.”

This stopped King in his tracks. “What?”

King was perplexed. He’d sailed with the man. Intentionally. Ever since being tricked into drinking the elixir that had made him near immortal, he’d scoured the Earth for any legends having to do with the subject of longevity, in hopes of better understanding his condition. Like most twentieth century people, he’d been led to believe that Ponce de Leon was a great explorer who came to the New World in search of the legendary fount. But it simply wasn’t true. Ponce de Leon, by then the governor of Hispania, had merely traveled to Florida to expand Spain’s empire. His expedition had been political in nature, and not the legendary adventure most people imagined.

“I said the document wasn’t penned by the famed explorer, Mr. Sigler. But rather by a Spanish soldier named Phillipe Guerrera, who’d become lost, deep in the jungles. Seems the young man had been on a scouting party. His group had been betrayed by one of their Mayaca Indian guides and led into an ambush. These Indians killed everyone in the scouting party, but Guerrera managed to survive by crawling along the ground into a stand of nearby palmetto bushes. He was later found, injured and nearly dead of dehydration, by a Mayacan hunter. He was taken deep into the jungle by way of the St. Johns River—then known as
Rio de Corientes
—until they came to the hunter’s village.”

King shook his head. “This makes no sense. I’m aware of the Mayacans. They were hunter-gatherers…” His three hosts seemed to cock their heads simultaneously in confusion, unfamiliar with the anthropological term. “They weren’t violent. Just wanted to live in peace and take care of their tribe.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Finkle said. “But just hear me out. The story itself may provide the answers to your conundrum.” With a gesture from King, the old man continued. “Guerrera was nursed back to health, only to be forced into a strange type of slave labor.”

“Why do you call it ‘strange?’”

“Because it wasn’t your typical manual labor they forced upon him, Mr. Sigler. It was something far more macabre. You see, the village seemed to have an incredibly high mortality rate. At the same time, Mr. Guerrera noted, their numbers never seemed to ebb. He soon discovered the reason. When they deemed him healthy enough, they set him to his dark labors—carrying the bodies of the dead to a specific point along the St. Johns River. He would then set up some sort of ritualistic tableau around the cadavers, and leave.”

“Funerary work,” King said. “Not so unusual with these cultures. They have deep superstitions concerning the dead. Makes sense they’d risk a strange white man’s life for such…”

“The next morning, these former corpses would be back within the village. Walking. Talking. Sharing with the community.”

King, who’d been listening carefully, while gazing at the churning water of the Atlantic, spun around. “What?”

“Precisely my reaction when I first read the pilfered account,” Finkle chuckled. “But there was something most definitely wrong with these seemingly resurrected individuals, according to Guerrera. They were indeed there. They were seen by all. But they were hardly tangible.”

“Ghosts? Are you talking about ghosts?”

“Guerrera denies that. His words are literally translated as ‘Shades of Matter.’ They were, as I said,
hardly
tangible…but his account seems to indicate they were indeed tangible on some level. They could touch and be touched. They could affect the environment around them, brandish tools and weapons and even sate their own basest of carnal needs. As a matter of fact, there seemed to even be rites where their shaman practiced this with some regularity with the female Shades.” Finkle blushed at this, then shook his head apologetically. “But I’m getting carried away. The fact is, something within that Floridian jungle brought those people back to life. Guerrera guessed it had something to do with a small tributary of the river, where those funerary rites, as you called them, were carried out. He believed he’d stumbled upon the famed fountain for which adventurers had been searching for centuries.”

King stared in silence for several long moments, then laughed. “That’s it? That’s all you have to go on? Ghost stories?”

“That’s precisely why we went in search of you, lad,” Reardon said, scowling. “The professor here believed ye had found the fountain as well. The reason for yer ‘unnatural longevity,’ he called it.”

King glanced at Finkle, then back to the captain. “Well, he’s wrong. My condition was caused by…by something else entirely.” He stared out into the night, tracing the gentle silver stripes of the moon’s reflection over the water. “So you can take me back. Now. To resume my sleep. I have no business here, in this time.”

“But…”

“Take me back!” He wheeled around on Reardon, his eyes burning with anger. “Or I will call to my crew, and they will take your ship by force. And trust me, Captain, that’s
not
something you want to ever endure.”

“I don’t take kindly to threats,
sir
. I’ve half a mind—”

“Half a mind is right,” Finkle broke in. “Captain Reardon, please walk away, and let me discuss our options with Mr. Sigler here, if you please.”

Reardon glared at the old man, ground his teeth, then spun on his heels and stormed off toward the quarterdeck.

“Forgive him, Captain Sigler. He’s a good man, but he wanted no part in retrieving you to begin with. I’m afraid, that little misadventure was entirely my fault,” Finkle continued with a tilt of his head. “Now, you threaten to hinder our mission’s timeline even further by insisting we take you back, and that’s not something this crew can afford.”

“Then my own crew can bear that burden, and yours can be on their way toward your little pipe dream.”

“Pipe…er, dream?”

“Never mind. Just an expression. Simply put, it just means it’s completely futile. A fairy tale. I’ve traveled the world in search of these legends of immortality, and none of them have ever panned out. Human immortality is just not something that can be found.” He paused before looking up at the stars. “At least, not in nature anyway.”

Finkle edged up to the rail, and looked out over the ocean. He withdrew a pipe from his coat, lit it and proceeded to smoke silently for several minutes. After a while, he exhaled a ring of gray smoke into the air and looked over at King.

“I realize it’s none of my business, but I’m curious…what exactly happened to you?”

King cocked his head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well, I’m just trying to figure out what drives a man to hide away from the world in a grave.” Finkle pointed out at the ocean with the stem of his pipe. “With all the beauty this world has to offer…with the mysteries it continues to conceal…with all there is to experience, why on Earth would someone wish away his life like you have?”

“You have no idea what it’s like to live as long as—”

“Your longevity is not the issue here, and you know it. Look, you may have everyone else fooled, but not me. You’re no pirate. Stories of your voyages are rife with tales of piracy, but you never once acted the part. You were never a cutthroat. Never killed for the sake of killing. And the only ships you ever concerned yourself with were slave ships. You’d take their cargo, and the slaves were said to be set free on several uncharted islands along the Caribbean. Islands in which you helped establish permanent settlements. That isn’t the act of a pirate.”

“Your point is?”

“The point is, Captain Sigler, that it takes something mighty devastating to make a good man crave death over life, and I would sort of like to know—”

“Argh!” Someone screamed near the stern of the ship, followed immediately by the clap of a pistol being fired.

King and Finkle wheeled around to see Captain Reardon grappling with a shadowy form near the wheel. Two more shadows slithered over the railing and onto the quarterdeck. They lunged at three sailors running to help their captain.

Finkle leaned forward, preparing to assist as well, but he was stopped by King’s strong hand against his chest. “No,” he said quietly. “They’ll take one, and only one.”

“What? What are you saying?”

King took a step forward and barked out an indecipherable order. The three shadows quickly stopped their assault. Their faces, covered by black fraying hoods, stared back at him. Their hissing, wheezing gasps of understanding could barely be heard over the sea winds. Then, without warning, they seized the sailor closest to the rail and disappeared over the side with their prize.