Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland (4 page)

As Cecco cut the first set of fuller, needle-leafed branches, his breath fogged in front of him.
 
He looked back at me and I pointed forward.
 
Cecco nodded, buttoned his shirt tighter, and pushed forward.
 

“But if that’s true,” Billy Jukes said, “once we find the waterfall, we can swim home.”

“Yes,” I said, “but none of us are going back.
 
Not yet.”

“Not until the boy is dead.”

“Right.”
 

“Then let’s make this quick.”
 

Jukes stopped and put his hand up.
 
The large man readied his pistol and looked quickly from Smee to Starkey.

“What’s wrong?”
 

“It’s Cecco,” Jukes said.
 
“He’s stopped.”
 
Jukes pointed to the Italian, who stood at the edge of the wood before a clearing.
 
He sprinted up to meet Cecco, then stopped short and stood frozen as well.
 

I ran up to the two men, but couldn’t see past them.
 
I muscled between them and stepped out in front.
 
There I saw a field bordered by a dense row of trees on all sides, but no branches overhead.
 
It was green and lush and in the field was a garden of bodies, broken and scattered.

“We missed something here,” Jukes said.
 

“Yes,” I said, “and not by long either.”
 

I walked into the clearing and kicked something metal.
 
I bent down and picked up a helmet.
 
It was gold-plated with a high ridge, the same as the one that I found as a boy on the other side of the passage behind the waterfall.
 
País de Nunca
, the carving on the cave wall read.
 
Neverland
.
 

I dropped the helmet and directed the men without a single word.
 

One by one, we checked the bodies.
 

Chapter Three

“Five men dead,” Cecco reported.
 
“All armored.”

“How many attackers?” I asked.
 

“Dunno, Captain,” Smee said.
 
“Could be five to ten.”

“One man,” Noodler said.
 
He knelt close to the ground and felt the grass with his backwards hands.
 
He examined the two bodies in front of him again before meeting my eyes.
 

“Bah,” Smee scoffed. “These were five armored men.
 
No one man did this.”
 
He waved an arm over to Billy Jukes.
 
“He couldn’t have done this.”

“No arrows or punctures,” Cecco said.

“So this wasn’t the Indians either,” said Starkey.

Noodler held up a finger.
 
“One man.”

“Noodler’s right,” said Cecco.
 
The Italian stood atop a low hill and pointed over to the trees that bordered the clearing.
 
“Three horses stood there.
 
One man walked o’er.
 
A large man.”
 
He looked over to Noodler, who nodded his agreement.
 
“I thought the footprints were too big, but there’s only one set o’ them.
 
Look.”
 

Cecco walked over to where Smee and I were and pointed out three depressions in the grass.
 
The width of them were enough for two men to stand in side by side and they were nearly half a yard in length.
 
I stared at the footprints in disbelief.

“One man,” I said.

“Aye, sir.”

“The cuts are clean,” Starkey said.
 
“These men were cleaved by a massive edged weapon.”
 

“And the three horses just waited for him as he cut these men to pieces?” Billy Jukes asked.

“Two had riders,” Noodler said, now hunched over the ground by the trees.
 
“They watched.”

“And the third horse rode on the giant’s back?” Smee asked.
 
Cecco and Noodler shook their heads.
 

“The horse was as big as the man,” Cecco said.
 
He shrugged his shoulders and a pained expression wrinkled his face.
 
“The beast had to have been o’er half a ton.”
 

I bent down to the body closest to me and ran the blade of my hook along the ragged edge of a wound on the man’s throat.
 
“This man wasn’t cut.”

Noodler walked over and knelt beside him.
 
His eyes narrowed as he searched the grass around the body.
 
“Dogs.”
 

“That fits with the tracks I found o’er here,” Cecco said.

“I hate dogs,” Smee said.

“How can you hate dogs?” Starkey asked.

“You ever fight a dog that was trained to kill, Mr. Starkey?” Smee asked.

The gentleman shifted his stance, but didn’t answer.
 

“They’re not like men,” Smee said.
 
“A man can be persuaded with a little pain.
 
A dog knows only that it must live and you must die.”
 
The Irishman stared off for a moment, then met Starkey’s eyes.
 
“I like most dogs, but not dogs like these.
 
I hate these dogs.”
 

At that, one of the bodies jerked up and grasped Cecco’s ankle.
 
The Italian howled in surprise and jumped several feet.
 

“Five dead?” I asked.
 

“Four,” Cecco corrected.
 
“Mi dispiace.”

“You’re forgiven,” I said, smiling.

We circled around the man as he clawed deep handfuls of grass.
 
A gash across his stomach steamed in the now much cooler air.
 
The back of his armor plating still clung to him even though his breastplate was several feet away.
 

The man’s words came out in gurgles at first.
 
When he managed to form them, he said something that I didn’t understand.
 

“Mis costillas están rotos.”

“My ribs are broken,” Cecco said by reflex.
 
I motioned to Cecco and the olive-skinned Italian leaned in close enough that the fog of the man’s breath broke against his cheek.
 
The man spoke again and Cecco shook his head.
 
“He’s not making any sense.”

“Can you catch any of it?” I asked.

“That’s not what I mean,” said the Italian.
 
“He’s saying ‘el gigante verde.’
 
It’s Spanish.
 
It means ‘green giant,’ but it’s nonsense.”
 
The man said more words and Cecco stopped to listen.
 
When he finished talking, Cecco frowned.
 
“‘We were attacked by a green giant with red eyes.’
 
I can’t make out the rest.”

“He can’t be talking about the boy,” Starkey said.

“That’s unlikely,” I said.
 
I knelt down to feel the ragged edges of the man’s broken chest plate.
 
My fingers traced the outline of two broad punctures and I frowned.
 
“It couldn’t have been him.”

“The wounds are too wide,” Noodler said.
 

“And see how the steel is bent here?” I asked.
 
I held up the chest plate and showed them the inwardly curved neckline.
 

“You’re not saying someone ripped the man’s armor off by hand?” Starkey asked.

“That is what happened,” I said.
 
“Look for yourself.”
 
I handed the chest plate to Starkey.
 

“No man could have done that and neither could the boy,” Starkey said.
 
“He’s as fast as the devil, but he’s not strong.”

“Mr. Starkey,” I said in an icy tone, “I would thank you to get into the habit of calling the boy by his name.”

“Yes, Captain,” Starkey said.
 
“There is no way this could have been done by Peter Pan.”

Upon hearing the name, the dying man seized.
 
Blood flushed his face and he gripped my coat with such strength that he lifted himself off of the ground a few inches.
 
“Al diablo con ese niño, Peter Pan!”
 

The man released his grasp and slumped dead in the grass.
 
This time, I understood him perfectly.

Silence filled in the moments, quieting the trees, the beasts, and the men as though the island itself held its breath.
 

A snapping branch tore our attention away from the body.
 

“What was that?” Starkey asked.

“Quiet,” I snapped.
 
“Listen.”
 
A ticking rose above the background.
 
The sound of my father’s watch struck a curious and rapid series of feelings in me.
 
My heart fluttered in time with the methodical beat.
 
The soft, gentle ticking always reassured and comforted me.
 
The moment of joy left me and a sickening dread filled the open spaces in my heart.
 
A visceral panic gripped me and I looked from Smee to Jukes.
 
“It’s her.”

Both men drew their pistols and held them at the ready.
 
Starkey, Noodler, and Cecco followed their lead.
 

“Steady yourselves,” I ordered.
 
My eyes scanned the trees for the croc.
 
Thick blood pounded in my ears as I drew my pistol and clicked back the hammer.
 

It was in these seconds of silence that I first wondered how much time we’d been on the island.
 
It felt like an hour, but the setting sun suggested that it could have been much longer.
 
I thought about my father’s watch, mere feet away in the stomach of the beast, and how wonderful it would have been to coordinate it with the clock in my cabin.
 
The thought frustrated me, which was a feeling that I liked better than the fear I felt just before.
 

A slow wind pushed through the trees and rustling leaves drowned out the watch.
 
I strained to hear it, but the measured beats faded into the background again.
 

I tucked my pistol into my belt and Smee blew out a sigh.
 

“You sure it was the croc?” Cecco asked.

“As sure as I’m standing here,” I said.
 

Twigs crackled behind me.
 
Without thought, I pulled the pistol from my belt and fired in the direction of the sound.
 
An explosion of noise erupted from the bush.
 
Screams were followed by footfalls, then a single thud.
 

The men sprinted past me towards the source of the screaming.
 
They followed the panicked scramble of feet in three directions and disappeared into the trees.
 

I reloaded my pistol and made a direct line to where the first twig broke.
 
As I approached, I heard a slight whimper, then silence.
 
I peeled the thin branches away with my hook and looked over the bush.
 

There, on a patch of grass, lay a boy.

Chapter Four

The boy’s deep brown eyes fixed on me and moved as rapidly as his breath.
 
He was dirty from his dark brow to his fingernails and could not have been older than eleven, by my estimation.
 
His torn pants stuck to the sides of his legs and he clutched his midsection as though he were hiding a secret.
 

I stepped through the bush and the boy kicked at me.
 
When he tried to stand, he fell on his side and rolled face down.
 
He dug his fingers into the dirt and pulled himself a few yards.
 
I watched the boy smear a red trail across the grass.
 
He stopped, curled into a ball, and whimpered.
 

I knelt down by the child and he flailed at me.
 
I grabbed the boy’s wrist and held it across his chest to pin the other arm down as well.
 

“Stop,” I ordered.
 
We locked eyes.
 
I let go of the wrist and the boy remained still.
 

I ripped the tattered cloth that served as the boy’s shirt and examined the wound.
 
It was a true hit, right into the stomach.
 
I felt the boy’s back and discovered that the shot didn’t go through completely.
 
It was still inside, tearing him apart from within.
 
Despite not being immediate, the wound was as sure a death as cutting off a man’s head.

I saw the boy watching me closely and tried to mask my frown.
 

“It will be alright,” I said.
 
I looked into the boy’s eyes again and could tell that he knew I was lying.
 
I sighed and added the truth, “In a few minutes, you won’t feel a thing.
 
I’ll be here the whole time.”

“C-cold,” the boy said.
 
It was only one word, but it struck me as having an accent, as if it was a word he learned later in life.
 

I took my long red coat off and pulled it over the boy like a blanket.
 

The boy coughed and blood came out of his mouth.
 
He clutched his stomach and curled into a ball on his side.
 
His breaths became shorter and I watched the color drain from his face.
 

Heavy footfalls and snapping twigs heralded the approach of Billy Jukes.
 

“They’re gone,” Jukes said.
 
“Cecco might have one, but I doubt it…”
 
More words caught in his throat as he saw the boy.
 
Jukes took a deep breath and asked, “Is that…?”