Pirate Blood

“You’ve come at last”, he heard Bartolomeu say.

“I’ve been busy.”

Johnny recognized Avery’s voice. He had told him he didn’t feel well after work and he preferred going to bed early. So, why was he there?

“Are we alone, Bart?”, the old man asked.

“Don’t worry”, the other answered. “I’ve sent the brat to the kitchen. He’ll be busy for a while. Now, sit down and tell me why you wanted to talk with me.”

There was a noise of chairs then. Johnny walked carefully to the door separating the kitchen from the main room. He pushed it slowly, letting it just half-open enough to eavesdrop.

“How is Anne?”, Avery began.

“Not well”, the Portuguese acknowledged. “She has felt better for a few days. That’s giving me some hope, but we can’t be sure without a doctor’s opinion.

“We didn’t need it.”

“That’s right.”

Johnny started. Listening to the two men talking so sadly about his mother’s condition comforted him. He pushed the door open and peeped out. From where he was standing, he could catch a glimpse of Avery’s back.

The old man said: “By the way, I didn’t want to talk about that, but about what happened to Wynne. I’ve been to his execution.”

“Did you know him?”, Bartolomeu asked.

“We used to be on the same ship.”

The boy could just avoid screaming in surprise. So, were the rumours going around about Avery true?

Had he really been a pirate? He had to find a way to get to know it.

He slipped out of the kitchen, pushing the door so slowly that he took ages to do it. Crawling like a baby, he got to the long counter and stopped there, to make his heartbeat calm down. He could feel it pulsing in his temples. He was still holding the wine jug in his hands: he had forgotten he was keeping it. He was so excited that he didn’t even realize he was leaning against a rack full of bottles. When he moved, he made them clink. He opened his eyes wide with fear. Nothing happened for a short moment. Then he heard some footsteps coming closer. He lifted his eyes. Bartolomeu’s horny hand appeared just above his head. It was a few inches far from him. He could even smell the stink of his breath. He was going to grasp his hair soon, drag him out and… he leant over the rank instead and caught a bottle of rum, then he walked back.

“That doesn’t explain why you wanted to meet me”, he claimed while uncorking the bottle.

“It’s easily said”, Avery answered.

The noise of some more footsteps echoed there, followed by the one of the jugs which were being placed next to each other. Johnny leant over the edge if the counter. He saw the two men pouring the rum into their glasses.

“Wynne caused a lot of trouble”, the old man went on and gulped down his rum. “But he was just a poor wretch. He didn’t deserve to come to that bad end.”

“Better him than us”, Bartolomeu stated.

Avery’s expression showed a mix of incredulity and resignation.

“Are you afraid of being caught?”, the Portuguese asked him.

Avery didn’t answer. He started looking around distrustfully. After a while, he added, in a barely perceptible hiss: “The matter concerns what he said before being hanged.”

Johnny shivered, still hiding behind the counter. He could see again the pirate shaking in the slipknot’s grip, his legs kicking in the air and the gush of blood which had stained his face.

“Are you talking about the Devil’s Triangle?”

“Rumours travel fast, Bart.”

“That’s all nonsense”, the latter tried to belittle it.

“That place really exists!” Avery’s look exuded a palpable… and threatening certainty. “Even the most naïve freshwater sailor knows that legend. But I can assure you that it exists.”

“Stop it!”

“What if I told you a story?”

The Portuguese mumbled some words, without committing himself.

“Fine.” Avery poured some more liquor into his glass. His knotty fingers were shaking evidently and some trickles of rum finally slipped down the neck of the bottle. “It all started some years ago. I landed on an island near Antigua with the crew I had joined. We laid at anchor there for several days, trying to understand where we had got.”

“The Anthill’s archipelago is famous for having islands which don’t appear on nautical maps”, Bartolomeu explained.

“I know”, the other man replied, in a condescending voice. “What none of us could have imagined, was that the place was inhabited by some local tribes.”

“Which ones?”

“The Kalinagos.”

Bartolomeu felt puzzled for a few moments. He then shook his head slowly, as if that story wasn’t persuading him completely.

“The death eaters?”, he asked.

“Exactly”, Avery answered. His smile was askew. That memory was evidently amusing him. Or it made him nervous. Difficult to say. “Let me go on.” He swallowed the second glass of rum and filled a third one. “Our captain decided to send an expedition to explore the island. We waited for days, uselessly. So he decided to go himself, together with some other men. Wynne and myself included. The crew was nervous, even if nobody dared discuss his orders. We left the launches on the beach and walked through the forest.”

“You found the Kaliganos there”, Bartolomeu stated.

“They found us, actually”, the old man specified gloomily. “They caught us just like they had done with our mates. I could never forget what I saw. They are beasts, with no mercy at all.” He gulped down the rum again, letting it drop along his chin and neck. “They cut up their victims when they are still alive, with an incredible fierceness.”

Bartolomeu’s attitude was changing. Unlike his interlocutor, he had hardly sipped his rum. He was laying his arms on the table at the moment, his fingers crossed so tight as to let his white knuckles out.

“Anyway”, Avery went on, “our captain was able to be received by the shaman. We could avoid death, but at a very high price.”

Hidden behind the counter, Johnny started trembling. That matter was really turning interesting. Terribly interesting.

Avery on his side hesitated, pouring some more drink into his glass.

“The captain made an agreement with him”, he explained slowly. “So the man told him about the existence of a great treasure, hidden on an island lying north-east of the Bahamas. He even showed him an ancient drawing cut on a clay tablet. The location of the island seems to be the same area where the Devil’s Triangle is supposed to be.”

“What was the agreement about?”

“The captain had to commit himself to find the treasure. He could keep everything he wanted for himself. In return, he had to bring back an amulet to the shaman.”

“An amulet?”

Avery nodded. “Yes. A jade amulet.”

“Why?”, Bartolomeu insisted.

“No idea. He just told him and the men he trusted the most. We were left outside the hut. I got to know later that, thanks to that amulet, he had promised the captain that he would have what he had lost in the past back.” He stopped to think about it. “I wonder what he was referring to.”

“And then?”

“As soon as the shaman told him, he accepted. He marked both of them with a tattoo, to seal the agreement. He then added that, if one of them didn’t keep to the agreement, that mark would bring him to death.”

“Superstitions”, the Portuguese got to the point.

“Think just as you wish, Bart”, Avery insisted. “I know what I witnessed! And that takes me back to Emmanuel Wynne. But I’m going to explain it later.” He gave out a hollow moan, as if that memories were still tormenting him. “I can swear on my own life that the captain went crazy after that experience. Some men decided to mutiny. They were thirty, included myself. The captain obviously didn’t take it well, so he left us on a deserted islet, east of Portorico, with just a bottle of rum for each of us and no food. After a few weeks, he came back to rescue us. Only fifteen men had survived.”

Bartolomeu gasped, with a grimace of amazement. He slapped his forehead, like someone who has just remembered something important. “You want me to believe that…”

“Exactly”, Avery said in advance, showing a very deep uneasiness. “I was on board the Queen Anne’s Revenge, at Blackbeard’s orders.”

Johnny jumped back in amazement: he instinctively laid both his hands on the floor, forgetting the fact that he was holding a jug in one. He lost his balance badly and bumped once more against the bottles rack. The impact was very strong that time. A fit of pain hit his shoulders. The bottles clinked. One even came out of its place, smashing to smithereens on the floor. Slivers of glass were shining everywhere.

The old man started on his chair. “What was that?”

“A mouse”, Bartolomeu replied, walking to the source of that noise. “A very big one.”

The boy was paralyzed, his eyes grew dull and his pupils dilated. He could hear his own heart hammering crazy. His heartbeats were resounding painfully in his ears, like a hammer’s clangour, so that the Portuguese’s footsteps seemed to come from a far-away, unknown world.

I must do something”, he thought. I must get away from here. Immediately!

Unfortunately, panic got the upper hand over him. It was like being stuck in quicksand: the more he struggled, the more he sank. Finally Bartolomeu’s threatening shade fell over him.

“What are you doing here, brat?”, he inquired.

Johnny smiled with a blank stare.

He understood he had got into trouble.

***

The two pirates made him sit down bodily between them. The candles flickered for a moment, moved by an invisible wind, and made the outlines of the big room slightly distorted.

“We have a stowaway here”, Avery giggled.

“How long have you been hiding there?” Bartolomeu sat down again. The fatherly feeling which he had shown at the beginning of their conversation had disappeared from his attitude. There was only resentment now.

“I swear I didn’t want to, Bart…”, the boy stammered. He was trembling all over.

The Portuguese hit the table with a punch. “I don’t give a damn to your excuses! I asked you how long have you been hiding there. Answer me!”

“Looking at him is enough to understand that he heard everything”, the old man stated. He crisped his lips, uncovering his gums. “But I know a way to make him speak.” After those words, he took a big knife from under his clothes and waved it in front of Johnny.

The boy stopped breathing in a moment. The blade was swinging strangely slowly, cold and merciless. He recalled the knife he had made, the one he had used to take his revenge on Alejandro. His knife couldn’t stand a comparison with the other one. Avery could butcher him.

“You are going too far, Bennet”, Bartolomeu warned him. However, he didn’t lift a finger to prevent him from doing what he had in his mind.

“Desperate situations require desperate remedies!”, Avery stated, catching Johnny’s hand. He pressed it on the table and lifted the knife.

The boy screamed with fear. The blade’s reflection pierced through him with its cruel glare. He knew he would soon feel it penetrating into his flesh. The thought that Avery could do something like that was frightening him more than the action itself. He didn’t think about it twice. He burst out crying. He told them what he had heard, in between sobs. When he had finished, the two pirates cast a furtive glance at each other. Then they started laughing their hearts out. Johnny was stunned and he couldn’t really understand what was going on.

Then he finally understood.

“You didn’t mean to hurt me”, he said, feeling very ashamed. “You did it just to force me to speak.”

“That’s true”, Avery admitted. He let him go and sheathed the knife. “That’s an old trick I use to draw out information.”

“Attack is the best form of defence”, the Portuguese said.

The two men started giggling again. Johnny joined them with no reason, sharing that odd connivance. He didn’t care about having been teased by them anymore. Fear had given place to an undefined satisfaction. A vague sense of membership. As if he had come back home after a long journey and had embraced his family again.

“I had to do it”, Avery said. “I had to teach you a lesson.”

“The question is different”, Bartolomeu added drily. He untied his long black hair and started playing with one of his locks. “What are you going to do, as you know the truth about us now?”

The boy surprised them.

“I want to get to know more about it”, he stated.

Nobody talked for a few moments. The two sea wolves were studying each other, puzzled. They looked as if they were hiding some more secret information.

The old man was the first one to break the silence.

“Alright”, he said. “I’m really struck by your firmness, so, if you heard our conversation, I don’t need to add anything else. You watched Wynne’s execution too, anyway.” He poured some more rum into his glass. “I think the time has come to tell you something about him. He wasn’t as crazy as he wanted people to believe. And he left a map showing how to get to the Devil’s Triangle.”

“I can remember him talking about a map”, Johnny ventured.

“I’m not referring to that.” Avery took out his pipe, filled the bowl with a large pinch of tobacco and slipped it into his mouth. He waved to the boy, pointing at a candle end. Johnny handed it to him. After he had lit the pipe, he started smoking slowly and rhythmically. “Wynne had a glass eye. He had lost his own during a boarding. Following the agreement between Edward Teach and the shaman, this one offered to cast a spell on him, so we would be able to sail those seas.”

The Portuguese smiled, without any cheerfulness. “Do you mean you are talking about magic, Bennet?”

“Exactly”, he answered with determination.

“I can’t believe it”, Johnny commented.

“You should, instead.” Avery had trepidation in his eyes and his glance was full of bewildered excitement. “As nobody had noticed it, I decided to exhume the body. That’s the reason why I was late. I was at the cemetery.”

The Portuguese crossed himself. “You’re crazy, Bennet Avery! I’m talking seriously.”

“Thanks”, the old man replied, turning his attention to Johnny. He was smiling greedily. “And I think I’ve found someone as crazy as me, who will help me exhume Wynne’s body. A pair of strong arms are just what I need.”

***

A shade was moving stealthily at the foot of Fort Charles’s walls. He was carrying a bulging sack on his back.

He followed the perimeter of the fortress, going round a rampart after the other, till he got to the side overhanging the sea. He carefully slipped to the beach section between the cliffs and the walls.

He took some steps, then he stopped.

He suddenly heard some voices above himself.

He raised his eyes and saw the soldier patrol on its rounds. He waited for them to move away, then he went on, till he reached the first cannon battery. They were standing out like brass poles on the stone floor, smoothed by the usual bad weather coming from the south. Climbing there barehanded was impossible. He had brought a strong rope luckily, with a hook on one end. He opened his sack: the rope came suddenly out.

He had arrived in Port Royal twenty days before. The sloop he had used to land there hadn’t been noticed and bribing the local officer had been enough for him to get a small dock far from impudent eyes. Before he started on that mission, the captain had made it clear: he had to find out everything he could about Wynne. And he had succeeded in doing it. The pirate’s execution had enabled him to carry out his task, but also to study the fortress’s defences.

He whirled the rope and threw the hook towards the highest side of the wall. The metal hit the stone and a slight tinkling reached his ear. He tugged at the rope. The hook fell to the ground. He coursed silently, stopping to listen. No sounds, nothing showing that someone had heard it.

He threw the rope for the second time, watching it fly over the walls. He pulled again and he had to move, to avoid being hit by the piece of iron falling back.

I’m taking too long, he thought angrily. I must keep calm… and hurry up.

He scanned the open sea. The darkness of the night was merging with the black colour of deep waters. He knew that the vessel was waiting somewhere over there. The captain was probably watching him at that moment. He could imagine him standing on the quarterdeck, with his unsheathed spyglass and a sardonic grin spreading on his face.

He tried for the third time and the hook gripped. A moment later, he could hear another patrol chattering as it approached. He held his breath, hoping they wouldn’t notice the sharp piece of iron stuck into the stone. He saw them move away as if nothing were the matter. He then started climbing. That wasn’t easy at all: the sack on his shoulders was heavy and it made climbing difficult. He had to use the cannons he found on his way, as if he was climbing among tree branches. He got to the bulwark, he crouched down and took the rope.

Fort Charles was deep in silence, apart from the low voices of some guards. Some of them looked drunk, while non sign of movements came from the cabins around the main square.

He slipped over the battlements softly, enveloped in darkness. The cannons on the first terrace were aiming at the open sea silently. He remembered very well that three more footbridges had been built underneath, each of them with a battery ready to fire. And the powder magazine lay below them.

He had seen it during the execution. A pair of soldiers stood on guard at the cabin with a self-confident look.

Later, thanks to the mess following the pirate’s horrible death, he had been able to slip closer: one of the guards had opened the door and he had seen almost fifty barrels full of gunpowder. The Englishmen had made his task easier again: if he made them blow out, the deflagration would make the terraces burst out, damaging the guns.

It couldn’t be easier, he thought.

He moved forward, hidden by the familiar shadows. He made some short stops, just to prevent anyone from approaching him. He walked down the stairs carefully at last and got to the square.

No sign of guards.

“They might be inside”, he mumbled. He got to the cabin and leant his ear on the door. He could hear a deep snoring coming from inside. Without surrendering to panic, he unsheathed the knife he kept inside his boot, then he walked in.

The interior was covered with metal plates, a protective device which should avoid accidents. The room was lit by a single, small shielded lantern, hanging from the ceiling by a curved hook. The barrels had been placed carefully on both sides. A soldier was snoring deeply at the bottom.

He was walking on tiptoe. It all happened suddenly: he shut the soldier’s mouth by a hand, while he drove the knife into his throat by the other one. The victim opened his eyes wide and started kicking. The blade went still deeper, cutting his trachea and larynx. It then found something harder, probably a bone. The guard made a single gurgling sound, then he bent his head aside.

“Excellent”, he stated, taking the knife out. He wiped it quickly on his jacket and started bustling about his sack. He took almost ten sticks out, tied together by a long and thin fuse. He placed them carefully on the floor. He was smiling.

Two golden teeth shone evil in the dim light of the lamp.

***

Johnny was astonished when he found out that Avery wanted to carry out his task that night. Bartolomeu had tried to talk it over with him, but he hadn’t succeeded.

“The weather is on our side”, the old man stated, hearing a faraway thunder, followed by the rain pouring down a bit later. “There will be nobody to bother us and the ground will be softer and easier to dig.”

So they decided to go.

The Portuguese was going to cover the boy till he came back; if Anne suspected them, that would be the end of it all.

“Be careful”, he whispered. “For God’s sake.”

They didn’t meet anyone, as the old man had foreseen. Johnny was happy about it. The idea of being discovered was making him nervous.

They passed by a row of houses till they went down a deserted street. The last part of it made a sudden bent to the left; they could see the cemetery on the other side, beyond a stream crossed by a bridge.

“The time of truth has come”, Avery said, walking stoically over the bridge. “Hurry up! We’ve got a job to do.”

An iron fence stood in front of them, bounding the cemetery borders. The gate had been broken, so they could go in easily. Some rough wooden crosses were standing along a path winding to a chapel, which had been built in the austere style which made the colons famous.

Avery pointed his finger at the building. “We must get inside.”

“Pirates are usually thrown into common graves”, the boy stated in a whisper.

“You’re right, but I have something to do before.”

They got to the small temple. A Latin sentence had been cut above the door. Johnny stopped for a moment, sheltering his forehead from the rain and trying to understand those words. The old man interrupted him, asking Johnny to follow him. The door gave a hellish creaking and they walked on in absolute darkness. After a while, a flame burst through the dark.

“Hold this one, brat.” Avery handed a torch to him. He put the lighter and the firestone back, then he leant over some piled up coffins. He took out a sheet made of sail cloth. “I brought all the tools we need to dig. I knew they would be safe here.”

Johnny saw two barrels coming out of the sheet. “The only problem will be finding the pirate’s grave out.”

“Don’t worry. The governor wanted the dead man to be buried in a single grave. I could find it almost at once.”

“I didn’t know he was so generous.”

The other man shook his head and loaded the bulky tools on his shoulders. “He did it just to show himself merciful, after what had happened. What’s more, he wanted to save his face. There is nothing generous in it.”

After they had gone out, they walked through a scanty wood standing close to the chapel. The air seemed made of lead while they walked among the tangled branches and roots; it was heavy, loaded with gloomy omens. A bit farther, the ground slightly sloped down and the green disappeared. The crosses had disappeared too, giving place to some simple tombstones planted on the ground.

“There it is!” Avery suddenly stopped, pointing at a grave not far from them.

They started fumbling about it, without wasting any more time talking. It was a hard job; the ground was a cold and granular mud and they got stuck into the mire till ankle length. The digging work took a very long time. After a while, Avery had to stop. He was panting hard.

“Go on”, he said, sitting down on the muddy edge of the grave.

The boy went on. The more he drove the spade into the ground, the more his heart beat fast. After a while, his hands started hurting too. He tried not to give up. That absurd excitement he was feeling, was pushing him to go on. Then he stopped. The spade wasn’t digging the ground anymore. It was making a rasping sound, like claws scratching greedily underground. That image made him freeze: what if the dead man came out of his grave and dragged Johnny away with him?

“I’m going on now”, Avery said providentially. He took out from under the sheet a tool looking like a metal pole. One of its ends was sharp and slightly bending.

Johnny couldn’t ask for more and climbed out of the grave, sitting down on its edge, next to the torch stuck into the ground to light the place: the wet wood was going to burn just for a short time more. They had to hurry up.

The old man went down again, being careful not to slip. When he got to the bottom, he turned the ground over, till the rough boards of the coffin came out. He bent down, testing their thickness by his fingertips. He was probably weighing the question up, or paying Wynne homage. When he looked satisfied, he opened his legs wide, drove his boots on both sides of the grave and stuck the pole between the boards, then he started undermining them. The cracking wood made a horrible sound: it was like the noise of broken bones. The cover was torn up bit by bit, till the corpse came out.