Captain Adam (41 page)

The sound changed everything. He sat up. He wouldn't have supposed a minute before that he'd be able to sit up again. His heart beat fast.

It was a scrapy sound, underlaid by a tinkle of tiny pebbles being 252

batted together, the whole suggesting that a heavy object was being dragged in a slow and furtive manner across the beach. It was steady: it did not stop and start.

He could not see what caused it, for the sound came from one of the few stretches of beach not visible from his headquarters here in the center of the island; but it was not far away.

The sea all around was completely clear, it was blank. But he could still hear that sound.

He crept toward it. He peered over the top of a small dune—just in time to see something low but very wide and ponderous plop into the water and disappear.

The Devil? It was his first thought, of course, but he quickly discarded it. Everybody knew that the Evil One had a fondness for appearance in the guise of something that retreats, thus luring his humanly inquisitive victim toward him. Nor did Adam think himself so pure that he was impervious to the Devil. What he had done with Elnathan Evans remained on his conscience, for instance, as did indeed, though to a lesser extent, since it was different here, what he had done with Maisie. He was not prepared, the way a man ought to be, to meet his Maker. But he was as much prepared as he could be, now.

No, it wasn't arrogance but just the opposite quality, that of humbleness, which caused Adam to dismiss the thought that the Devil might be pursuing him. That the Duchess' brat should be at heart veritably humble was a notion many a Newporter would have larded with scorn, for in Newport they esteemed him a cocky lad. Yet it was the truth that Adam Long did not think himself of sufficient importance to attract such a personage as the Prince of Darkness to an out-of-the-way place. He knew that in the eyes of God one immortal soul is equal to another, any other; and because he was a man he had a soul, howsoever battered it might be. He knew, too, that Satan or any of Satan's more reputable minions could travel astounding distances in almost no time at all, moved of course by magic. But even then he didn't believe that he was about to be tempted. The Devil had better things to do—or, to put it another way, worse things.

A boat? He had perhaps wildly hoped this, for a split-second. But a boat doesn't slip quietly out of sight into the sea.

A log seemed most likely; and if that's what it had been he ought to get down there and be ready to catch it when it was rolled up on shore again. But it did not come back. There was no break in the water except what the little waves made. A log would—

Suddenly it flashed upon Adam what he had seen.

A turtlel

They come big in those waters, some of them a quarter of a ton, and

to anybody's taste they're a delicacy. Adam had eaten green turtle many times at Providence, where it and buccan, smoked beef, were favored food. He knew nothing about how they were caught or how butchered, but he did know that there was a great deal of meat in a turtle. There would be a great deal of blood, too.

The thought of that blood must have dizzied him even beyond his ordinary state of confusion, for he squatted there staring at the place where the turtle had disappeared for many minutes before he began to ask himself why it had come out of the sea in the first place. Well, he had heard that the female turtle goes ashore only to lay her eggs, which she buries in the sand. Eggs! Slavering, shaking like a man with a fever, he crept down to the beach. But though he crawled for hours, his face close to the sand, peering, squinting, sniffing like a dog that seeks a buried bone, he could find no trace of eggs or a nest.

The moon rose, but Adam didn't rely on his eyesight. He dug with his hands. Again and again he ran sand and stones through his fingers. He divided that whole section of the beach into imaginary squares, and riffled each, and patted it. He enlarged his field. Having been over it once, he went over it again. His fingers cut, his eyes watering, he sobbed —but he continued to search. The dreams were gone now. He scrabbled.

Even when the sun came back, he did not cease to work. He didn't even go to the center of the island for his hat, a carelessness that was his undoing. He never truly quit that task. He simply became aware, after a while, that he was no longer working and was in fact lying flat. His head was a turmoil of pain. If he'd had anything to be sick with, he would have been violently sick; as it was, his innards hurt like fire. All his muscles ached, all his bones and joints. He rolled over—it took mighty near all of his strength—and learned that the sun his enemy was low.

He wanted to give up. He wanted just to close his eyes and relax, drifting into death the way they say a man does when he freezes.

He didn't. Somehow he struggled to his knees again, and somehow went back and forth over the beach, setting it to rights, filling holes he had made, smoothing the surface, straightening the sand, tidying. There wasn't any nest. That turtle somehow had been scared away. It might come back tonight. Do turtles smell? They certainly see. This one, if it returned, must note no change.

Each movement an exquisite agony, Adam dragged himself to the leeward end of this beach, where he lay on his belly, placing sharp stones under his chin in an effort to keep himself from relaxing. He watched the beach. He watched— He didn't stir, but just lay there looking along that beach, striving to keep his eyes open. He did not think of anything save those eyes. He believed that his pain was too acute to let him sleep,

and his one problem, as he saw it, was to face the beach and keep his eyes from closing.

Time can do curious things; and pain, too, is a trickster. Adam might have fallen asleep in the conventional sense, or he might have been brushed by a wave of unconsciousness, as he had been that morning when he suffered the sunstroke. When next he became aware of anything at all it was not of opening his eyes—as far as he could tell he had never closed them—but of the brightness of the beach. The moon was up, the breeze had fallen. And ten feet away, looking right at him, was the biggest turtle he had ever seen.

What he had thought the previous night when he'd glimpsed the monster slipping back into the sea might well have returned to him now, for there was much that was diabolical in the appearance of this turtle; but it didn't.

The head was low, about on a level with Adam's own, and flat on top though jowly beneath, made up of leathery triangles, and it was extraordinarily wide when you looked right at it, as Adam was doing: it must have been fully a foot across. Though the rest of the beast was the color of mud, the feet and even more the head were scaly, shimmering, iridescent. The tip of the snout was a black shiny pinpoint, very sharp. The mouth, all floppy with folds at the corners, was hooked back in a grin of unspeakable malice. Most compelling were the eyes, small but extremely bright, hard, feline, like the mouth unadulterated evil, in the moonlight glittering sometimes green but sometimes a bright light red.

The turtle did not move. Conceivably it was as astonished to see Adam as Adam was to see it.

Adam felt a tingling all along his body and down his legs. Would he be able to spring up? Would he be able even to get up?

The turtle moved one paw. Adam heaved himself to his feet. The whole world rocked like a tippy canoe and he put his arms out right and left to balance himself. The turtle turned, and started for the water. Adam somehow ran after it.

The beast was amazingly fast. At any other time its retreat would have been ludicrous; it was heavy, clumsy, yet it could cover the ground.

It was within a few feet of the water's edge when Adam stooped and caught it under the plastron, or lower shell. He heaved, all his muscles shrieking in pain.

Jaws that could nip a man's hand off clacked loudly. A flipper struck Adam's wrists: it was like being hit with a sack of wet sand. He dropped the turtle, which immediately started for the water again. Adam got to it barely in time. He caught it further forward this try, about in the middle. He lifted.

Thrashing, the turtle tipped up. Its weight forced Adam to his knees. He got a better grip. His temples were pounding, ears and eyeballs, too. He drew a deep breath. If he didn't make it this time he was dead. He rose, inch by slow inch, while blackness, roaring, swam toward him.

The turtle went over. Adam dropped to the sand.

After a while, when some of his breath was back, Adam looked sideways. The turtle, like Adam himself, was on its back, all its flippers going furiously, while the tip of its bright shiny black nose, upside-down, was no more than inches from the edge of the sea. It couldn't cover those inches: it was helpless. There was rage in its breathing, a deep tubular sound. Grotesquely, all the time it grinned. It glared at Adam, who watched it for a long while.

At last the flippers ceased to work, though the green-sometimes-red eyes were lit still with unabated fury.

"I'm sorry," Adam said in a quiet voice, meaning it. "I reckon it had to be you or me and naturally I'd rather it was you."

The turtle glared.

Adam was thinking of that blood. He sat up, and slowly took off his belt. With his thumb he felt the tolerably sharp tip of the buckle's tongue.

"It's going to be almighty hard," he said sadly to the turtle. "I hope I don't hurt you too much."

When they rescued Captain Long, some four weeks later, about the only things left of that turtle were the carapace, the upper shell, which was inverted and in the bottom of which a few gills of rain-water yet remained, while over it as protection against the sun the gummy lower shell was set. The head, the feet, all the bones, had been sucked and gnawed until there was no taste of sustenance left on them, and very little shape. The intestines had been eaten. There was no blood left, not even a stain. Everything had been licked, again and again.

They had to carry Captain Long to the boat, and later they had to carry him ashore at Providence to Sharpy Boardman's tent. But he was conscious; and they did tell him that the pardon order had been issued by Everard van Bramm himself. Because of Captain Long's condition they did not tell him what the price of that order had been. When he learned the price he wished they had left him on the island to die.

•^^Kwn^:

PART ELEVEN

Vengeance Is Mine

r? O The way they fussed about him, it was funny. Each of these

KJO ruffians had a price on his head and was an avowed outlaw; yet to see them as they clucked and puttered around Sharpy Boardman's tent—tiptoeing ponderously here and there, forefingers raised—you could think of nothing but a barnyardful of ruffled fat old hens.

Adam Long did not laugh. At first he was too weak, in mind and body alike; and on the fifth day he saw something that made him believe he would never laugh again.

From time to time he asked them about van Bramm. What did the scoundrel seek? Why had he thrown a fit of forgiveness? The whole thing hinged on whether Adam had agreed to join the Brethren of the Coast before he slipped away, and since van Bramm had already taken one side, a side so much to his advantage, and since there were no vdtnesses save Adam himself to gainsay him, why should he switch? He might have supposed, as most of them had, that Captain Long already was dead; but even then where would be the profit in fetching back the corpse of a man whose friends were his, van Bramm's, most dangerous enemies? Everard van B. was no fool. He must have been paid to do what he did. What had the price been?

They evaded the question so querulously put. They were forthright men ordinarily, blunt, and not given to delicacy of feeling; yet they waxed embarrassed and strove to change the subject whenever Adam asked who had paid, and with what, for his return. Nor could Adam persist, angry though he was. He hadn't the strength.

Once when he thought that he was dying—more definitely and immediately, indeed, than he had ever thought this while on the key—he begged them to take him to Tarpaulin Hall, so that he could look again at the place where he and his love had been happy. They side-stepped this request, turning their heads away, mumbling something. He raged, or tried to, in a voice he couldn't raise above a whisper. It was useless. They pretended that they did not understand; and after a while he fell back, sobbing.

Again, clearer, though still pitifully weak, he demanded that Mistress Treadvvay be notified that he was alive. They could surely get word to her through Walter's. He was very earnest about this, sitting up and staring hard at them. They nodded, averting their heads. They muttered that the lady would learn, sure.

In all other matters they were attentiveness itself, fairly fawning upon him. He was never alone. They crowded into the tent, plaguing his self-appointed nurses with requests to be allowed to speak to him, even just to look at him. He was a hero, no doubt of it. He was the man who, in a vessel of his own designing, and with one of his booms a jury at that, had given them the chanciest chase in the history of the settlement; who had killed Major Kellsen; who had lordily instructed Captain van Bramm to wait; who'd slipped away under the fire of the fort's cannon, only to return alone of his own free will; and who, finally, had survived for more than a month an ordeal that would have killed any other man inside of three days. The makings of a myth were here; and the pirates of Providence, always childishly fascinated by miracles, took up the tale with avidity.

It came out soon enough what they wanted of him. Here was his revolt, ready-made. Hatred of van Bramm had reached a new high. Those pirates who had been sent on a trumped-up mission in order that they might be absent when their friend Captain Long was tried, back now, resented this; and they and others sought somebody who would lead them against the chief. The colony indeed seethed with dissatisfaction. Its financial affairs were not going well. Booty there was, but truly useful supplies were scarce. There were fewer women, fewer merchants. The buyers and sellers were clearing up their books and on one excuse or another sailing away. They were the ones who caused the camp to function. The complaint of the corsairs themselves, who didn't understand matters economic, was that van Bramm, the dirty whoreson, was snatching too big a share of the spoils. This, they thought, explained everything. And the logical way to cure this was to kill van Bramm.

The man, however, would take some killing. He wasn't an ant you could step on. The disaffected, having seen him in action, were not afraid of their chief, but they were wary. They wished to be sure of themselves—sure, that is, that they were properly led—before they started. One misstep was all you were allowed on Providence.

Adam shook a groggy head, refusing to discuss this subject. It scarcely made sense to him, the way he was.

Here was no fever, yet it was like fever. His body was not hot, he didn't sweat, but things were blurred in his vision, having a tendency to seem very far away, or, less often, startlingly close at hand. Voices 258

reached him as though from a great distance. He was incredibly weak. They had to feed him with a spoon.

The morning of the fifth day he woke with an uneasy conviction that somebody had just been bending over him. Men were moving about, the usual ones. They were silent, and it seemed to Adam that they were furtive, avoiding his eyes. He sat up. He could actually smell something! And what he smelled, he swore, was Maisie Treadway.

He sank back. Of course this was only his imagination, which had been playing strange tricks of late. It was no more than another touch, if a singularly cruel one, of the fever-that-wasn't-a-fever. It would be no use to speak to Boardman or any of the rest about what, for a little while there, he'd thought he smelled. It made no sense. Tarnation! Love ain't a toilet water! Anyway, they had all been hush-up on the subject of Maisie. Whenever he mentioned her they would turn the talk to something else.

He was stronger and clearer-headed this morning, he thought; yet that feeling of uneasiness persisted.

The camp was curiously quiet.

"Open the flap," he commanded.

Sharpy Boardman complied without a word, and he and Frenchy Foureau, his tentmate, lugged Adam's cot to the entrance.

Ordinarily, even at this hour, the lane would be crowded. Now there was nobody in sight. The sun was fully up but not yet warm—otherwise he wouldn't have ventured to loll in it like this—and the dew was disappearing, to leave dust. Not even a mongrel gave movement to the scene; yet Adam sensed that behind tarpaulins and tent flaps men were watching, waiting. For what?

Adam turned. Boardman was just behind him; Foureau on the other side, near. They, too, were expecting something. They scarcely breathed.

This tent was the unofficial headquarters of an unofficial plot, and as such it was suspect by the orthodox. Doubtless somebody watched it, night and day, though Adam could see nobody now.

No, there was somebody! Far down near the beach a person in yellow had appeared. Gay colors were commonplace on Providence, but this was a remarkable yellow even here.

A woman? Yes. He saw now that it was a woman, and that there were men behind her.

He sat up. He peered, his heart beating fast.

It was more than just a woman—it was Maisie!

He might have shouted something. He must have tried to rise, for he became aware that Foureau and Boardman were holding him from behind, one grasping each elbow.

Was he raving? Had he gone mad entirely? He closed his eyes. Gasp ing, he kept them closed for a full two minutes.

When he opened them, Maisie was only fifteen or twenty feet away, still coming toward him. She was a vision of frills and furbelows, and her glorious hair was piled higher than ever and surmounted by a rickety but magnificent commode. There were rings on her fingers, where diamonds sparkled, and around her neck was a triple string of pearls. Her lips were painted, and there was rouge on her cheeks, patches, too, on her chin. She w^as laughing.