The Dagger X (The Dagger Chronicles) (13 page)

Momentarily Pippin’s rage was foiled, but then her slitted eyes saw the retreating figures of Quid, Pelota, and Xavier higher up on the loose sand next to the pile of pistols.

“No, no,” Kitto said in as soothing a voice as he could muster. “Good lizard . . . no more running.”

Pippin was unconvinced. She took off like a launched arrow toward the running men, Kitto flopping along astride her now as if she were a horse. The men scrambled for their lives and were fast enough to gain ground on the crocodile, who stopped after several seconds and gave up the chase. When Pippin turned again, Kitto saw the stake X had pounded into the beach. It lay a dozen feet off, the hoop at its end just a few inches above the sand. Kitto scanned about the bundle of rope caught up beneath him and found the other hooked end of the tether dragging in the sand to his left. He reached out for it, but Pippin whirled again, nearly upsetting Kitto’s grip. Kitto risked reaching out with one hand to scratch at the crocodile’s skull.

“ ’Tis okay, Pippin. Sweet Pippin. Good Pippin.” The beast lowered its head. Kitto let go of the ring—his last firm grip on the crocodile—and leaned toward the hooked end of the rope in the sand. He retrieved it without incident, and now eyed the loop end of the stake in the sand, several yards away.

It is too far!
Kitto thought. Too far to reach while still on Pippin’s back.

“Come on, lad! You can do it!” called Little John.

“Secure that latch!” said Fowler.

Up the beach, X had goaded Van to wade into the water to fetch the fiddle bow from the tumbling waves. Van ran with it through the shallows to the pirate. X put it to his instrument to play, but the wet bow would elicit nothing but a squeak. Cursing, X withdrew a scrap of cloth from his cloak and feverishly scrubbed it against the horsehair.

The crocodile turned to face the four men huddled in the tipped jolly boat.

“Oh, rot,” Fowler said, and as if on cue, Pippin shot forward. Risking it all, Kitto rolled off the reptile’s back, still clutching the hooked end of the line in his hand. If Pippin noticed her unburdened state, she did not show it; she charged at the men who were now screaming at one another, trying to coordinate their actions and tip the boat over again, increasingly frantic as the distance between them and the crocodile rapidly diminished.

Kitto scrambled across the sand on hands and knees toward the stake. The slack from the rope was paying
out very quickly, the loops hissing in the sand. Fowler jumped atop the jolly boat, thus frustrating the efforts of the other men to flip it up. The other two men tried vainly to find protection behind the rowers’ seats.

Kitto reached the stake and slapped the hook down onto the loop. The rope snapped tight and the stake jerked in the sand. Pippin strained at the rope, snapping her massive jaws not more than a foot from Little John, whose face had gone ashen. Fowler, standing with the jolly boat between him and the crocodile now, broke out into a lusty, bellowing laugh. The laugh spread to Quid and Pelota and Xavier who walked back slowly from up the beach, and even the men cowering in the jolly boat started to grin too, when they trusted that the stake would hold.

Kitto felt a swell of relief and pride.

I did it.

Quid called out in heavily accented English. “Little John make big mess in pants!” Little John did not find this funny, but the others did.

Pippin spun around again in the direction of the voice—which also happened to be in Kitto’s direction, and instantly the feeling of relief that had washed over Kitto vanished.

I am standing at the stake! I am not safe!
He swallowed hard.

“Lad, I think you best get moving,” Fowler said.

His crutch nowhere in sight, Kitto took one crawling step up the beach.

Pippin clacked her jaws together and made for him.

No! No! No!

“Run, Kitto!” Van screamed.

Kitto crawled forward and then half stood on his left foot, throwing himself forward and falling, the loose sand conspiring against his efforts. Closer and closer and closer rushed the crocodile. The distance was down to only ten yards when out from a thick stand of leafy undergrowth burst Sarah. She ran onto the beach toward Kitto, musket in one hand and three pistols shoved beneath her waistband.

“Kitto, get down!” she wailed, unable to shoot with Kitto standing between her and the animal. Kitto dove for the sand, and Sarah raised the musket.

“Please do not shoot!” X said, but the musket’s report rang out. The ball crackled inches over Kitto’s head and struck Pippin squarely on the snout. The crocodile dug her claws into the sand and stopped dead in her tracks. She shook her head and snorted as if sneezing.

Kitto seized the chance by scrambling forward again, off at an angle so as to give Sarah a better vantage. Again Pippin bolted. Sarah had already dropped the musket to the beach and now held a pistol in each hand, which she discharged in rapid succession, one ball striking Pippin square atop her thick skull, the other on the front right leg. This time Pippin stopped for good, settling down on the sand, her great chest heaving. Kitto crawled farther until he was sure he had exceeded the crocodile’s range.

X rushed forward, holding the fiddle over his eyes to block the sun’s glare.

“A woman! You are a woman? Did I see zees with my own eyes!” He pointed accusingly with the fiddle bow. “You shot my crocodile, you Medusa!” he raged.

Sarah dropped the spent pistols and pulled the third from her sash.

She aimed it at the pirate who now strode toward her angrily.

“I did shoot it,” she said. “But it lives, which you shall not if you come any closer.” She pulled back the hammer. X stopped. The men behind the jolly boat had retrieved their pistols and trained them on Sarah.

“Just give us the word, X, and Medusa is crocodile food!” Fowler said.

Ontoquas leaped out now from the jungle just a few feet from X, so that he stood between her and the men at the rowboat. In her hands was the bow she had made, a crude arrow with a sharpened rock at its tip nocked against the string. Slung to her back in a tight swaddle of sailcloth hung baby Bucket, peacefully craning his neck about to look up at the sunlight playing in the palm leaves.

“Your men shoot her, I shoot you.” X turned an incredulous look on the girl, his mouth gaping open.

“No!” Kitto exclaimed. “Please! No. No one needs to shoot anybody. I did just save some of you your lives, did I not?” Kitto said toward the men in the boat.

“True enough,” Little John said. Bucket let out a
happy cooing noise as he watched a white tropic bird sail over the treetops.

“
Est-ce que un bébé?
Turn around!” X demanded, pointing at Ontoquas. She answered him by pulling back the bowstring a few more inches. Again, Bucket cooed.

X turned to Kitto. “You have a baby and a savage on this island!” Ontoquas took a step closer to him.

“Nenetah ha!”
she shouted, her voice shrill.

“Nenetah ha?”
The pirate called Black Dog stepped out from behind the rowboat. He tossed his pistol to the ground and strode forward.
“Kean wawtom! Kean wawtom!”

Ontoquas never thought she would hear her own tongue again, but this man was telling her that he understood her words. She lowered the tip of her arrow. Black Dog fiercely waved at his companions to lower their pistols.

“Black Dog! What the devil are you doing?”

“You are Wampanoag?” Ontoqaus called out to the man. He shook his head.

“Pokanoket,” he said, naming a tribe a few days journey from her village. “
Wuneekeesuq.”

Ontoquas smiled and returned the greeting.
“Wuneekeesuq.”

The man strode to Ontoquas, his long black hair streaming in the wind, a bright smile cracking his chiseled features. He reached out and put his hand on Ontoquas’s shoulder. Rather than lower her head
as would have been customary for a woman to do, Ontoquas dropped her bow and reached out to place her hand on the arm Black Dog extended to her. Black Dog smiled, then turned to X.

“These people. They are friends. We will not fight them.”

“Lovely!” X said, thoroughly disgusted.

N
ow that Black Dog had declared the island’s five inhabitants “friends,” the rest of the pirates deemed them unworthy of their interest. Sarah turned a few heads when she would pass by, bobbing Bucket, and the men would tip their hats to her or to Ontoquas when the girl returned with their jugs, filled with fresh water. The entire band of men—sixteen in all—pondered their grim situation as they lolled about in the shade of the palm trees overlooking the beach.

Kitto caught Van’s eye and gestured with his head toward the path that led back to the lean-to. He crutched off in that direction, and soon enough Van caught up.

“What do you think of all this?” Van said when he had reached him. Both boys cast wary looks along the path they had come. The jungle obscured their view.

“I keep having an idea,” Kitto said.

“Oh, dear.”

“Shut it and listen, Van. Do you think there is any chance these men could help us?” Kitto said.

“Help us!” Van scowled. “They are pirates, Kitto! Said so themselves.”

“Are we not wanted by the law as well?”

Van shrugged. “True enough.”

“What if I proposed a trade? They help us, we share the nutmeg with them.” Kitto stared intently at Van as he said these words. He knew Van would not like the idea, but his heart told him there was something to the notion. He watched Van’s cheeks color.

“You do that, Kitto, you tell them about the riches on this island, and for sure they will cut our throats!” Van was red to the tips of his ears, the pupils of his blue eyes narrowing to a pinprick.

Kitto took a deep breath. He matched Van’s stare.

“What about that Black Dog fellow? You heard what he said.”

“Fine,” Van said, nodding. “Ontoquas gets spared, the rest of us get run through.”

“I do not think so.”

Van gritted his teeth, and the words came out in a hiss. “Kitto, you’ve got more in here than the deadwood I’ve got, I’ll give you that,” he said, tapping his forehead. “But I’m the one who knows the life of the sea, not you!” He thumped his chest. “I’ve been around men not so different from these most of my life. I don’t trust them, I watch my back, and I get away from them as soon as I bloody well can!”

Van took two steps backward and spun around to head back to the beach, and in so doing he nearly ran
straight into Black Dog. The pirate stood tall and stern, his dark eyes taking in the boys with a deep intensity, one hand at his side and the other resting on a large knife in his belt.

“Excuse me!” Van said hotly and stepped around the towering figure. Black Dog did not flinch as Van maneuvered around him and tromped down the path.

Kitto looked up at the man. Their eyes locked for several seconds. Black Dog had high cheekbones and a broad forehead, and stood with a bearing of pride and strength. There was little to read in the expression, but Kitto was sure it was not simply hatred or anger coming from his eyes.

Can we trust you?
he wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward on the crutch and took a step as to move around the man. When Kitto and he were shoulder to shoulder, Black Dog extended the palm of his hand. Kitto looked up.

Black Dog’s voice was soft, like the whisper of wind through the palm trees.

“Be . . . careful,” he said.

When Kitto returned to the beach, he made his way toward the pirate captain, who lay on his back at the edge of the jungle, dangling his foot over the slight drop-off down to the beach. Van sat several yards away, scowling and dragging a stick through the sand. He stopped short when he saw Kitto approach the captain and toss himself to the ground nearby. X lifted the tricorne hat
he had tipped over his eyes to block out the sun.

“You are not going to ask me for more coffee beans, are you, crocodile boy?” he said.

Kitto snorted. “Not likely.”

“Good.” X pawed through the satchel that balanced on his chest, procured a single bean, and dropped it into his mouth. As he crunched down upon it, the colored strands of beads in his beard gyrated along his chin and neck.