Chapter 151: The Burden of Popularity
The camp met them a few strides outside the entrance, canvas stretched between the trees, pry bars and coils of rope stacked beneath a lean-to somebody had actually gone to the trouble of leveling.
One of the diggers came over with a dipper and a water barrel, filling each man’s cup before he’d properly finished setting it down. Caesar took his without a word and made straight for the cook-fire while Hands and Williams wandered off among the working hands, already telling the story of the stone loudly enough to gather a crowd of their own.
That left the four of them standing in the shade, and Thatch wasted no time.
He caught James across the shoulder hard enough to knock him a step sideways.
"Christ, would ye listen to yerself, ye salt-soaked bastard."
Thatch grinned wide enough to show his back teeth. "Built a whole town from nothin’, sank the Royal Navy, dove a sunk man o’ war for her own guns. And now the job’s simple as spittin’ rum, ye come cryin’ for help."
"Even a man good at everythin’ needs a friend now and then, Thatch."
"Aye, or free hands. Which is a pirate’s favorite kind."
"That too."
Sam dragged a second crate beneath the canvas, kicked the sand from it, then set down a bottle and four cups. He began pouring before anybody had thought to ask.
James turned his cup once in his hand. "My lasses are stuffed near to burstin’ with prize goods, and there’s not a merchant left in Nassau willin’ to pay good coin for it."
"Heard Cudjoe grumblin’ about that." Thatch took his cup from Sam.
"So I mean to sail for Havana, find some crooked bastard willin’ to take British goods off a pirate’s hands without troublin’ a customs house. And not just the once, but a standin’ partnership."
Bonnet politely rose a hand, to add, "If I may, Captain. A man in that trade isn’t approached the way you’d board a merchantman. He wants to believe he’s dealing with respectable gentlemen, enough to protect his own neck, so flatter him into thinking himself clever for taking the risk, and he’ll take it gladly."
James pointed at him.
"That’s why I love you, my dear refined friend. Appreciate the advice"
"I do try to serve in more than one capacity, Captain."
Sam tapped his fingers against the crate. "So who goes, then? Can’t sail into a Spanish harbor with the whole bloody fleet hangin’ off yer stern like a pack o’ barnacles."
"Can’t be the Rose, that much’s plain."
Thatch reached across and tapped two fingers against James’s chest. "Forty-four guns on a brigantine’s hull, painted red as a butcher’s apron, with a name that tells every dockside rat exactly whose broadside he’s about to meet. Sail her into Havana and the fort’ll have ye sunk before ye reach the exterior piers."
James snorted.
"Fair point, the lass’s not built for creepin’ about unnoticed."
Thatch laughed. "Bah, don’t act shocked she can’t slip through a harbor like a thief in a tavern kitchen."
"Never said shocked, said fair point."
"And yer Fortune’s no better."
Thatch nodded toward James’s boot, already drawing a line through the dirt.
"Her reputation is bound with the Rose, they’ll recognize her if only due that."
James traced the shape out, a rough gouge, then scuffed it away with his heel.
"Can’t argue that either, both my own ships too famous to be any bloody use to me today."
"Price of bein’ popular, Calloway."
Thatch grinned. "Every fool from Tortuga to Port Royal knows yer ugly mug. Hard to play the ghost trader when half the Caribbean’s heard yer name shouted from a quarterdeck."
Bonnet reached for the bottle before it came round and topped off his own cup.
"The answer’s at this table already, gentlemen."
He gestured with his cup, first toward Thatch, then toward Sam. "The Revenge or the Marianne. Either one’s no more remarkable than a hundred sloops crowding any harbor in these waters, and nobody looks twice at a sloop showing up to trade."
Every eye at the crate turned toward the two of them.
Sam raised an eyebrow. Thatch simply watched, waitin’ to see who’d claim it first.
He reached inside his coat and drew out a scrap of paper, soft from bein’ hauled around too long in too damp a pocket. He smoothed it flat against the crate and tapped it once.
"Word’s reached me of a lass worth considerably more than what I’m carryin’ now."
He kept his eyes on the paper. "Fat merchant out o’ French waters, near Martinique, with more room for guns than the Revenge could hang off her sides. I mean to be sittin’ in the right water when the moment to take her comes."
James raised an eyebrow. Was this one year too early? He couldn’t recall the exact date, but he had an inkling his actions had already started to change the course of history.
"Sounds a fine prize, if your word’s good."
"My word’s always good."
Thatch folded the paper away.
Sam laughed, breaking whatever had hung over the crate, and pulled a scrap of tally from his own coat that he’d plainly been carrying since Nassau. He tossed it onto the wood.
"Since Thatch has gone and made himself unavailable, seems the job’s fallen to me."
He tapped the paper.
"Marianne’s hold’s packed nigh as tight as yours, Calloway."
"So this suits ye both ways."
Sam’s mouth curved. "Aye, fair enough. We can find yer Spaniard, sell my own cargo in the same breath, and get to tell folk I did James Calloway a favor while I was at it."
"Generous of ye. I’ll have a medal struck in Nassau."
"I try."
"Right then."
James stood, wiped his palm against his breeches, and held it out over the crate. "But for the fun, if Thatch could go, which of ye reckons himself charmin’ enough to talk a Spaniard out of his own scruples without gettin’ both of ye hanged?"
Thatch leaned back. "Charm’s never been yer strong suit, Bellamy, ye’ll talk the poor bastard’s ear off about liberty till he calls the guards just to shut ye up."
"Better than talkin’ him to death with insults, as you’d manage."
Sam shot back. "At least he’d be laughin’ before they put the rope round me neck."
"Bah, you’ll both botch it." James said, grinning. "But I’ve more faith in Sam’s tongue than Thatch’s fists."
"Wounded, Calloway." Thatch pressed a hand to his chest. "And here I thought we were friends."
Bonnet cleared his throat. "Should the venture go poorly, gentlemen, Havana’s gallows are said to offer quite a view of the harbor, I’m told."
"Comfortin’. I’ll be sure to wave at the ships from up there."
James spat into his own palm and held it out. One by one the others did the same, gripping round it over the crate’s splintered wood, the old way.
"Done, then. We sail to find that Spaniard."
Their discussion done, Bonnet crossed to the supply lean-to and returned with four cutting blades, passing one to each man in turn and keeping the last for himself.
"For the walk back, gentlemen. I understand the swamp doesn’t much care for company."
They set off through the mangroves with the light slantin’ low, four men who’d just walked out from beneath a curse and a heartbeat both, and none in any hurry to speak of it again.
They’d gone perhaps a hundred yards when the water gave a long, low hiss.
Somethin’ a good deal too patient and a good deal too long slid off the near bank without so much as a splash.
Nobody waited to find out whether it was scaled or coiled.
"MOVE!"
Thatch roared, and moved first.
Bonnet went next, coat and all, leaving his own hat behind in the mud. Sam laughed the whole way up the nearest rise, half fright and half somethin’ he couldn’t quite help. James brought up the rear, boots sliding, cackling harder than the lot of them by the time solid ground caught his feet.
They stood there a moment, catching their breath and watching the water settle back into nothin’ at all.
Then Thatch started laughing too, and them they followed, four grown men who’d just outrun heathen temple’s curse only to go scrambling up a bank like schoolboys over a snake.