“A pirate haven,” Jane said. “I’ve seen these on other islands. When regular ports are too dangerous for them, they just set up their own. They take supplies from the ships they capture, and kidnap girls to serve their other needs. No rules, no laws, no gods.”
“No soap,” I added.
“You and your hygiene issues,” she shot back.
“Marteen did say I’d never make it as a pirate.”
“He also said someone would be here,” Clift said. “I don’t see anyone. Who would these people be, anyway? Black Edward’s original crew all drowned, didn’t they?”
No one, least of all me, had an answer for that.
“Which house does Black Edward live in?” Duncan asked. “None of these,” I said.
Jane nodded. “No, these shanties are for sailors, not captains. The lord of the manor doesn’t dwell among his serfs.”
“We’ll still check these houses and see if anyone’s hiding,” Clift said. “Make lots of noise. I don’t want to lose anyone to a misunderstanding.”
As we walked up the sand, my legs tried to convince me that I was still on the ship’s rolling deck. I knew it would happen after all this time at sea, but I hoped it would wear off soon.
I estimated fifty dwellings made up the settlement, most no bigger than my cabin on the Cow. The ground between them was a mix of dirt and sand, and the marks of hundreds of footsteps had been set into the sun-baked soil when it was wet following the last storm. My own boots barely left a scuff.
I opened the door to the first hut. It wasn’t really a door, just a woven straw mat attached to the doorframe by rope loops. The smell made me wince. I peeked inside and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.
It was a one-room dwelling, with space for a single bed, a stove, and a sea chest in the corner. Shelves went up one wall and held souvenirs of the owner’s life, mostly knickknacks from various ships. The room was trashed as if someone had gone on a mad search through it. I suppose the men left behind might’ve gotten drunk and done this, but it was impressive destruction for sailors Marteen had described as too old and sick to serve on the Bloody Angel.
An unmistakable rust-colored smear on the wall got my attention. Someone had bled here, and recently enough that the stain was still faintly sticky.
I stepped back to the door, tried to banish my preconceptions and take a fresh, open-minded look at the hut. Two things struck me as odd. One was that the damage was confined to the floor, and rose no higher than my waist. The shelves below that line were knocked aside and their contents scattered; above it, they were intact.
The other odd thing was the clean square spot on one wall above the damage line, where a picture had clearly hung until recently. It was nowhere amongst the debris.
I moved down the line to the next dwelling. The second hut had identical damage, down to the missing picture from the wall. And the third. But in that one, I found something else: a ship’s bell, still highly polished as if it were a treasure and carefully displayed on a high shelf. Engraved on it were the words BLOODIE ANGELLE. It was the first actual confirmation that Marteen had told the truth.
I emerged at the same time Jane did from across the way. She said, “Every place I’ve checked has been trashed, but low to the ground, like drunk midgets had come through. I found some bloodstains, too. And there’s a space on the wall where someone took down a picture.”
“Same here,” Suhonen said as he rejoined us.
“And me,” Clift agreed.
“And me,” Duncan said.
“Likewise,” I said.
We all looked at Dietz. He said guiltily, “I, uh… didn’t notice.”
“Go back and check,” Clift said. As Dietz skulked away like a guilty child, he added, “And put back anything in your pockets. We’re not pirates anymore, remember that.” To the rest of us, he said, “What else did you find?”
“I found an old bell from the Bloody Angel, ” I said. “But no signs of life or bodies,” Jane said. “And not enough blood to indicate a real fight.” She shook her head. “Man, this stench will stick with me. Who lives like that?”
“Pirates,” Clift said.
“We never did,” she insisted.
“I think your memory is turning rosier with time,” he said.
Dietz returned. “Yep, there was a picture missing in every house. Why would somebody take them?”
“We don’t know that anyone took them,” I corrected. “We just know they’re not there.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Dietz said dryly. “Here in the tropics, the art migrates this time of year.”
“We’re migrating, too,” Clift said. “Let’s see what else the island’s got for us.”
A triangular pile of stones, like a cairn, stood at the edge of the jungle. It marked the head of a trail that led off into the thick growth. I dismantled the rocks to see if anything was hidden inside. There was not; it was a mere marker. I glanced at the trail, a dark tunnel into the thick forest of the interior.
“If Black Edward lives here,” I said, “it’s probably at the other end of this.”
“I don’t see any smoke coming from the interior,” Suhonen pointed out.
“If he’s spotted the Cow, I doubt he’s cooking us dinner,” Jane said.
“Unless we’re the main course,” Dietz said. “Man in desperate enough straits isn’t picky about his table fare.”
“Given everything else we have to worry about, Dietz, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop looking for new things,” Clift said. Then he strode off down the trail, the rest of us following.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The trail took the path of least resistance and meandered over the uneven landscape. It went around rocks, fallen trees, and changes in the terrain. Originally, it had been wide enough for two people, but the greenery had encroached on it. In six months, the jungle would close it up, like a healed wound.
By noon, we were exhausted, overheated, and deep in the island’s interior. We stopped at a clearing cut by a spring-fed stream, where we drank and rested in the shade. Strange sounds told us of many curious animals lurking just out of sight. Birds with cries like mocking laughter watched us from high in the trees. Hungry biting insects sought our skin.
“He’s probably dead, you know,” Jane said. She reclined against a tree with her eyes closed. A spot of blood had soaked through the bandage on her thigh, and she kept one hand waving to chase the flies away from it. If she was in pain, it didn’t show.
“Who’s probably dead?” Duncan asked as he took off his tunic, dunked it in the creek, and wiped his face with it. He had scars along his lower back and, by implication, his buttocks. I’d seen those kind of marks before: the physical sign of his foster parents’ tender care.
“Black Edward,” Jane said. “That’s our luck. I bet he died yesterday.”
“Now who needs some optimism?” I said.
She was undeterred. “If we’re extremely lucky, we’ll find his corpse. Although the maggots have likely made short work of him in this heat. He’s probably mostly liquid.”
I nudged her. “You’re a ray of sunshine, you know that?”
She laughed, but her voice was tight. “I’m ready for this leak in my damn leg to stop, that’s what I am.”
Duncan checked to make sure Clift and Dietz, the only ones unaware of his parentage, were too far away to overhear. “I hope he’s not dead. I’ve finally worked out what I’m going to say to him.” I waited, but he didn’t elaborate.
“Just bloody great,” Dietz said as he emerged barefoot from the stream, holding his battered boots. “No one to fight and nothing to loot. Tell me again why I volunteered for this chickenshit boarding party?”
“Because you thought there’d be someone to fight and something to loot,” Clift said. He stood watchfully in the shade while we rested. He was on alert, but hadn’t said why.
