The Devil's Fire (10 page)

"Of course not," Nathan replied easily, though he did not understand nor care to.

"Of course not," Livingston nodded with wide-eyed sincerity. "That’s a waste of everyone's time; worst of all mine! And wasting time is worse a crime than taking a woman to sea. What’s your make of that?"

"The captain?" Gregory said suddenly, as though he'd been waiting for the opportunity to offer his feelings on the issue. Nathan shot him a sniping glare.

"Not the captain, boy!" Livingston shouted. "Plainly you’re not listening to a word I'm saying. Better you should let your friend talk for you, as usual. What madness possesses you to bring up the captain?"

"No reason," Gregory shrugged innocuously.

Livingston halted, turned, and brought his face dauntingly close to young Gregory's. "That be a fucking lie if I ever heard one. Give us the true reason."

Gregory’s bottom lip quivered.

"It's on everyone's mind, isn't it?" said Livingston. "Don’t be afraid to unveil your woes, boy! We're all alone out here."

Nathan made his movements as natural as possible as he slowly drifted behind Livingston. He waited until Gregory looked at him and then put a hushing finger to his mouth. Livingston caught Gregory's glance and swiveled his head with near the agility and speed of a parrot. "What's that you're doing back there, young Nathan? Giving your friend some silent words? Well belay that! I'm only making certain he hasn't quarrel with our dear Captain."

Gregory's face went pale.

"Of course that's not it," Nathan interjected, chuckling dismissively.

Livingston scowled at Gregory. "That true, boy?"

Gregory’s reply was a silent, frenetic nod.

"Well that's good," Livingston sighed. "You had me worried I’d have to settle things meself out here in the middle of nowhere whilst no one was watching."

"The crew might wonder why we came back with one less," Nathan offered. He instantly regretted saying it.

Livingston whirled on him. "I could say whatever I damn well fancied! I could say a big cat dragged him off, and they might gasp. I could say a flock of birds pecked him to death, and they might laugh. Or I could say I did him meself, with this cutlass." He made an up and down motion with the blade. "And mark me; no one would say a fucking word to that."

With that, Livingston turned and continued along the path. Nathan followed, moving ahead of Gregory so he wouldn't have to look at his fool of a friend. He hoped Gregory felt appropriately ashamed for having placed them both in a dangerous position, but he doubted that he was smart enough to comprehend what he'd done. A man never spoke ill of his captain, pirate or no, unless he was prepared to back his words with the might of the crew.

As they trekked toward wherever the quartermaster was taking them, Nathan's anger at Gregory's idiocy subsided, and his perplexity with Livingston's sudden resolve heightened. He went over the conversation in his head. He recalled Livingston's offhanded remark on the crime of bringing a woman aboard a ship. The quartermaster's choice of words seemed strange to Nathan now that he thought back on it. "Wasting time is worse a crime than taking a woman to sea," he had said. "What’s your make of that?"

Nathan shook his head, immediately rejecting the silly notion. Livingston was knowledgeable of his craft, but Nathan did not consider him a wise enough man to execute such a deft segue as a means of uncovering gossip. His comment had simply been an offhanded reference to Thomas Lindsay.

"This looks pretty," Livingston said, interrupting Nathan's thoughts. Nathan looked up and his breath caught in his throat.

They had arrived at an expansive clearing lined with wooden fences. The clearing lifted at the center, atop which sat a marvelous white house, and beside it a less spectacular farmhouse. Horses and cows grazed freely about the plantation.

"Bloody cows," Livingston groaned. "Hope they've got something smaller. I'm not dragging one of those all the way back to the beach."

"Pigs and some birds maybe," Gregory suggested.

"I'll wager everything we need be inside that farmhouse. We'll take what we can and send another party back."

As Nathan looked up at the massive house, an inexplicable foreboding seeped into the pit of his stomach.

The black of night provided the only cover they needed as they climbed the hill toward the house, which was situated between them and the farmhouse. When they reached the house they ducked low to avoid the windows. There was only one light within, and Nathan couldn't resist a quick peak. A woman sat in the living room reading a book by candlelight. She wore a white nightgown that dipped low from the neck, and her skin was gorgeously accentuated by the soft orange glow. Her blonde hair, which was bound tightly to her head, was golden in the light. She looked more like a painting than a living, breathing person, but the slow heave of her bosom proved that she was indeed real.

Nathan only managed a glimpse of her, but that would be enough to sear the image in his mind for the rest of his days. She tilted her head slightly in his direction, her eyes lifting from the book to the window. Just then, Livingston grasped his collar and pulled him down.

"What did you see?" Livingston demanded in a high-pitched whisper.

"Only a woman."

"Did she see you?"

"No. I don't think so."

Livingston steadied him with a reproachful finger. "Don't do that again."

"Aye."

They continued toward the farmhouse, slipping past the front door. Nathan’s thoughts were lingering on the vision of the woman in the house when suddenly the door burst open and a man in his bedclothes emerged with a rifle. Nathan and Gregory scattered in two separate directions.

Livingston thrust himself at the man, smashing into his stomach. The pair of them went tumbling into the house. Nathan struggled to his feet as the two men noisily thrashed about inside. The woman screamed.

Nathan glanced around. Gregory was cowering in a batch of flowers, proving no use to anyone. Nathan focused on the door, took a deep breath, and charged inside.

Before he made it in, a rifle blast sounded, brightening the interior of the house like a contained bolt of lightning. Another glimpse, far shorter than the first, and a second image was forever seared into young Nathan's mind.

The three pirates returned to the beach dragging behind them sacks packed with the carcasses of slaughtered pigs and chickens, and a single sack filled with vegetables and fruits. Wood was gathered and fires were struck. The pigs and chickens were tenderly roasted and the vegetables were boiled. The splendid aroma carried into the night along soft trails of orange-hued smoke.

Many of the pirates that remained aboard
Harbinger
boated to shore to partake of the merriment, bringing with them the two musicians (one talented with a fiddle and another not so talented with a recorder), a singer, and three blacks. The singer sang songs from a Dutch prayer book and the blacks danced around a central bonfire as the meat cooked. The beach came alive, and no one gazing on that celebration could have easily dismissed the men that took part in it as barbarous scoundrels.

However, Nathan Adams took no joy in the festivities. He had departed the beach with an empty stomach and returned with an abundance of food that he would not partake of. There was blood on the animals they had brought back, and not just the blood of the carcasses themselves.

He closed his eyes and saw a beautiful woman screaming as her husband's brains were splattered all over her white nightgown. The husband had yielded his life in a heartbeat, knowing nothing more of the world’s troubles, but his wife would remain forever deprived of him. In the flurry of seconds that ended with his death, the man hadn't the time to consider his fate. She had a lifetime to contemplate hers.

Nathan blamed himself, suspecting that the woman had caught sight of him at the window and had alerted her husband. Livingston concurred with this speculation, allowing his guilt no relief, though he was not nearly so distressed by the incident. Livingston was more concerned that the bloodstains on his shirt were not likely to come out after a wash.

Nathan gathered his troubled thoughts and went for a stroll along the beach. As he walked, he passed the Seven, who were seated around their own personal barbecue, far removed from the celebration. They looked at Nathan. He nodded a greeting. They did not surrender their fierce glares, and he was forced to look away. He felt their eyes on his back as he continued along the beach.

It was not by intention that Nathan strolled to Katherine Lindsay's little camp. Far from the festivities he found her outside her tent by a small fire with a plate of chicken and potatoes, which he assumed Griffith had brought for her.

"If it's your captain you're looking for," she started.

Nathan held up a hand. "No. It's not that."

"Well what then?" she demanded impatiently. Her raspy voice was wincingly unattractive. "I'm not what you would call a conversationalist."

"So you say," Nathan smiled, "yet you play at large words."

"All words are large words where pirates are concerned."

"I have a name, you know."

"On a flier somewhere, just above a reward for your capture."

He grinned, unfazed by the slight. "In very small letters
below
the reward, mayhap. I’m not of much import, I’m afraid. A pirate only dreams of that kind of fame."

"So you enjoy all this plundering and murder?"

"I haven't murdered anybody," he protested.

"Tell me, pirate, what part of the ship do you maintain?"

He frowned.
What on Earth is this woman getting at?

"I saw you," she explained, "very high up on a mast. Quite hazardously, I might add. You were fixing the sails."

He was getting impatient. "I was
mending
the sails, yes. What of it?"

"And mending the sails consequences a fast ship, does it not?"

"That is the general goal," he drawled.

"Which in turn leads said ship to its destination."

"That would follow."

"Which led you to the plunder of my ship and the eventual murder of my husband!" Her face flushed red as tears welled in her eyes, but she did not surrender her hardened glare.

He looked away. "I did not kill your husband."

"No," she sighed. "You simply repair the sales that led murderous heathens to his ship. It doesn't really matter who killed him. He is dead just the same and nothing can change that."

He nodded solemnly. There was nothing to say that would make her feel better or make her words any less true.

"Did you, by chance, give your captain my name?" she asked suddenly.

"It hasn't come up."

Her watery eyes narrowed. "You are sure?"

"Absolutely certain," he said, though he honestly couldn't recall whether he had or not.

"I see," she said, and her head dipped low. "Please go. I do not relish the company of pirates."

Eager to oblige, Nathan nodded and started off, but stopped in his tracks when he saw three pirates staggering his way, passing a bottle of rum between them and giggling like little girls. They were mumbling things like, "Cap won't care if we have a go," and "Can't blame me, it be the rum," and so on.

Nathan glanced back at Katherine, who was wallowing in her tears and in no condition to notice anything beyond her own self-pity.

"Hullo," said the tallest of the approaching pirates. He was lean and muscular, with long, stringy black hair, a square-jaw, a broad nose and protruding brow. His face was caked in dirt, lips badly chapped, and cheeks rosy with sunburn. He may have been twenty-five, but his lack of hygiene made it difficult to tell. Nathan did not know the man's name. "Be this your guard, boy?" His pronunciation of the word "boy" sounded more like "bye." The pirates’ accents were often a blend of various inflections, the final product being as muddled as their appearances.

Nathan swallowed. "Aye. Captain Griffith wanted I should watch over the lady for the duration of his absence."

The tall pirate raised an eyebrow and the two shorter men snickered to each other. The tall pirate gave Nathan's shoulder a nudge. "What be your name, mate?"

"Nathan."

"Nayton!" the tall man announced and held out his massive arms for an embrace. Nathan kept his distance. The tall man waved the potential offense away with false modesty. "I be Magellan."

"Magellan?" Nathan stifled an urge to laugh and ask the man’s real name.

Magellan’s congeniality faded. "Right then, let’s get right to it."

"And what would you be getting right to?" Nathan said.

"We're all of us entitled to our shares of our treasure, Nayton," Magellan proclaimed, and he pointed at Katherine. "Including that shiny piece right there."

"Captain Griffith won't have that!" Nathan said, stepping closer. The shorter men repeated Nathan's protest in a mocking tone, then burst into giggles. "You're drunk. You've misplaced your wits and I suggest you recover them."

"Thought we might find them here," Magellan said, looking around.

"I surely would have seen them," Nathan smiled. "Be off."

Magellan screwed up his face. "I didn’t hear that."

"Have you misplaced your ears as well?"

"I don't think me boys be listenin' to their ears, if you take my meaning." Magellan snapped his fingers, and the shorter men flanked Nathan, seizing him by the shoulders and giggling uncontrollably. Magellan loomed over Katherine. She looked very small and pathetic beneath him.

"What's this then?" said Griffith as he came sprinting up the beach.

The giggling men instantly released Nathan and backed away. Magellan turned, maintaining a smug expression where his companions had relinquished theirs. "Well hullo, Cap'n."

"Is this what I think it is?" Griffith said, catching his breath.

"That depends on what you think it is, Cap'n."

Griffith's hand fell to his cutlass. "You've had too much to drink, mates. Let's return to the fires and I'll make certain you have plenty more."

"That's a fine gesture, Cap'n, but it's not what I'm needing." Magellan smiled dangerously and tapped his cutlass. An agonizingly long and uncomfortable silence followed, during which the two men stared at each other with narrow eyes as Nathan, Katherine, and the other two pirates, who were no longer giggling, glanced anxiously from man to man.