Home From The Sea (35 page)

Juggling with the weapon, swearing fluently, Pledge caught it. Jim might have expected him to assault Toby at least verbally, but avarice had caught Joe Pledge in its long-taloned fists. He weighed the bin between his hands, felt the roll and give, heard the rattle of the contents, and he was so intent on the prize, Jim could have snatched the pistol away from him and cracked it over his skull.

“Nathaniel!” His voice was a raucous bellow “Nathaniel –
I’s
got it! The bastard were true as ’is word – it’s ’ere!”

With that, Pledge dove past the gawping Willie Tuttle and galloped down the stairs like a colt. Tuttle was so intent on the
bin,
he ignored Jim and Toby utterly and raced after Pledge as if the two were roped together.

For a long moment Jim stayed where he was, leaning against the wall under the trapdoor, and lifted one brow at Toby. “You’re sure about this?”

“Oh, I’m positive,” Toby said in the same level, soft tone.

“You just gave them the prize!” Jim was aware of trying to roar in a whisper.

Toby nodded slowly. “Yes, I did.” He draped both arms over Jim’s shoulders, fingertips massaging the back of his neck. “And now, just stay well out of their way.” His eyes glittered with an expression that was far indeed from
humor
. “The fun,” he whispered, “is about to begin. You have a pistol?”

“Same as you do.” Jim’s right hand slipped into his pocket and
molded
about the hard, unfamiliar shape of the weapon.

“Don’t let them see it.” Toby drew his lips across Jim’s forehead and stepped back. “Don’t get between them and the prize. Don’t move quickly or make a noise to draw their attention. Don’t try to leave the tavern ahead of them.”

“All right.”
Jim pulled both hands over his face and gave Toby a hard look. “I hope to God you know what you’re doing.”

For the first time, Toby permitted a wry smile. “So do
I
.”

He was gone then, taking the stairs stealthily, slowly, like a stalking cat. Jim followed, and they stopped a few steps up, with a view of the taproom, the table and the four hard men who had squabbled at the head of the mutineer crew. The eight survivors of the
Rose of Gloucester
– Burke and Pledge, Hobbs and Tuttle, the long-dead Charlie Chegwidden and Rufus Bigelow, Barney Bellowes and Toby Trelane himself – were whittled down to these players –

Four men, four drawn pistols; one earthenware bin, which Pledge was opening as Jim watched.
He pulled the big cork stopper, uptipped it, and out spilled the incredible fortune for which men had died, and were still dying. Jim was not blind to the irony that so much beauty should be sodden with so much blood. For a surreal moment the four brigands stood gawping at the trove they had dreamed of for eight years, and at last it was Burke who said,

“Willie, Joe, put
them
pistols away and make yourselves useful.”

He was giving orders again, but neither Tuttle nor Pledge seemed to care now. Burke and Hobbs continued to hold each other at gunpoint, but Pledge’s pistol clattered down a moment before Tuttle’s, and they went for the treasure of Diego Monteras like hawks after hares. Jim’s eyes narrowed, watching as the gems cascaded across the worn old timbers of the table surface.

In the late afternoon light from window and door precious stones sparkled, shimmered, winked, as if with a life
of their own
. Emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, rubies, amethysts, every
color
, every size, each chosen for its perfection by a man who knew and loved gems; pearls the size of quails’ eggs; gold filigree inset with the tiny sparklets of diamonds; ropes of stones set in ancient silver findings. This was the legacy of Diego Monteras, timeless – unchanged since the day he and Fernando had hidden it.

“Holy Saint Hilda,” Eli Hobbs
whispered,
eyes vast, dark. “I
cannae
believe I’m
seein
’ ’em again.”

“Times were,” Burke agreed, “I thought I’d never live long enough.” With a slow, careful left hand he reached into the inside pocket of his coat and drew out a sheet of parchment, brown with age, much creased and folded. “You remember this, Eli?”

“Och, I recall,” Hobbs said darkly.
“The manifest.”

“The manifest,” Burke agreed. He looked at Hobbs and Tuttle. “Now, will you put them bloody-damn’ cannons away and help us match the prize to the manifest?”

“Aye,” Hobbs said darkly, “in case auld Charlie were a swindler after all … or Trelane, and the other one over there.”

“We took nothing.” Toby stepped out and sat on the bottom step. “Nine powder bags
is
what Charlie hid away. Nine bags
is
what you’ve got there. Count them. We packed the hoard just as we found it. Charlie wouldn’t cross you, Nathan.
Nor would I.”

“Not if he wanted to keep on
breathin
’.
Same as you.”
Burke had unfolded the parchment and was already sorting rubies from emeralds, sapphires from pearls.

With a soft oath, Jim sat on the bottom step, his left thigh pressed to Toby’s right. His voice was a bare murmur. “You’d better be right about this. If Charlie took anything for himself, they’ll call it swindling – and they might call it our crime, since we’re the ones here to answer for it.”

“You didn’t know Charlie as well as I did. He had a mortal dread of Nathaniel,” Toby whispered. “He wanted to live as much as any man does, and Nathaniel scared the wits out of his skull. And even if Charlie did take some small thing out of necessity – perhaps to get
himself
and the prize home, safe – it’d only be counted as an advance against his share. As the custodian, he was granted the same three shares as the gunners. Eli was a gunner.
It’s
three shares he’s trying to protect, and you’ve seen how much it’ll be! Hush now, Jim.”

The gems were sorted by
color
, then by size. Burke lit two lanterns when the afternoon light began to fade as the sun westered, the better to see the manifest. As Jim watched, fascinated, he began to thumb along the lists, matching what he saw to the painstaking tallies which had been made when the treasure was recovered.

Other lists had been made on the same parchment, detailing the shares each man could look forward to, and the lists were
labeled
with each man’s mark. Most of the company could not read or write, so to be fair to all the manifest was made up of
colored
marks and numbers – Jim saw at a glance how it had been drawn up to make sense even to men who were illiterate. Burke’s list bore the same winged ‘B’ as was branded into Toby’s flank; Charlie Chegwidden’s mark was two ‘C’s,’ joined like open links of chain. Of them all, only Rufus Bigelow and Toby himself had written their names.

And three of the company were gone. Charlie, Bigelow and Barney Bellowes had no need of their shares, so a great cascade of gems was unclaimed, to be divvied up afresh.

And this was where the squabbling began. Toby growled a
humorless
laugh beneath his breath. “They’re going to fight.”

“You knew they would.” Jim glanced sidelong at him.

“Oh, yes.” Toby was taut, every muscle tensed as if to spring though he was still sitting on the bottom stair. “Watch yourself, Jim.”

Deep in his right pocket, Jim’s hand curved about the shape of the pistol and his thumb caressed the hammer as Burke bawled,

“
Enough
, Eli Hobbs!
One more word, and –”

The staccato snaps of at least two hammers cocking were like needles in Jim’s nerve endings, a tenth of a second before Hobbs began to sneer.

“An’
ye’ll
what, ye God-rotted
Sassanach
?
Ye’ll
shoot me down, will ye? Like ye think I’ve ever been inclined tae trust ye, Nathaniel high-and-bloody-mighty Burke? To the devil with ye!
Ye’d
believe Sunday were Friday if it suited
ye
. Now, ye can think again. Ye can just divvy Charlie’s share, and
Rufie’s
, and Barney’s, dead even ’twixt the lot of us.
Ye’ll
nae get more than
yer
due, just
fae
havin
’ the spleen to call
yerself
Captain
. I never called
ye
that.”

“Nor me.” Tuttle was so furious, he was spitting. “You
wanna
skipper’s share of dead men’s trove? That’s wicked, that is.”

“I
am
wicked,” Burke said in a voice like gravel. “I’m
evil
. You said it yourself, more than once. You called me the devil hisself – you remember that night?”

“The night in Barbados, on the beach, when you tortured the
Portuguee
for what he knew about the French carrack.”
Tuttle’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “Aye, I said you
was
wicked as friggin’ sin.”

“And you may congratulate yourself for
bein
’ right.” Burke had not moved in his chair, save to snatch up his pistol in the same instant Tuttle pulled his own weapon from its place in his belt. Burke’s aim was unwavering on Tuttle’s gut.
“You
thinkin
’
I’s
grown any sweeter in me old age?”
He stood now, and kicked the chair back, perhaps with the intention of overwhelming the small, slight Hobbs with his own stature. At his left hand, Pledge climbed carefully to his feet as Burke nailed Tuttle with a glare which might have incinerated him. “You want to follow the
Portuguee
to hell? Back off, Willie. Sit your arse back down in your chair, and –”

“
Yer
nae captain o’ mine!”
Hobbs’s voice was shrill with rage he could barely contain – his face was white with it, his hands shaking.

“Nathaniel, watch –” Joe Pledge began, on some blind instinct shoving Burke aside as he saw Hobbs’s trembling hands jump.

In the confines of the stone-walled taproom, the pistol shot hurt the eardrums. Jim’s ears
pinged
and rang, his heart hammered at his ribs. He was halfway to his feet, but Toby held him back with both hands bruising his arms, and Jim stilled.

Given a solid shove, Burke staggered and almost fell. He caught himself one-handed on the table, but it was Pledge who grunted in shock and pain, and his body gave an odd lurch. Jim had never before seen a man shot, and he caught his breath as Pledge spun around, punched by the impact and flung back into his chair. A spot of crimson blossomed on his shirt, growing as if a flower were opening there.

In less time than it took Pledge to fall, Burke recovered his balance. Hobbs had gone down on one knee, putting the solid width of the table between himself and Burke, and now he was fumbling for powder and shot, desperate to reload. Fury was his enemy. He was shaking too much to control his hands, and gunpowder dribbled over his feet.

The real danger was Willie Tuttle, and both Burke and Pledge knew it. They seemed to fire together – the roar was stunning, making Jim’s head spin. His vision dimmed for an instant before he blinked at Tuttle, who had been hurled backward. A great red wound gaped in the middle of his face, obliterating his nose; another darkened in the broadest part of his chest, where heart and lungs and ribs crowded together.

He was dead before he slithered to a halt, jammed into the angle between wall and floor. The body twitched, jerked, but Jim was not fooled. There was no life left in Tuttle. The hazard now came from Hobbs, and Toby’s voice was harsh, barking, as he yelled a warning at Burke.

“
I’s
got no powder and shot, lad,” Burke bellowed back, “and I can’t see the bastard – is he reloaded?”

True enough, Burke’s second pistol and all his powder and shot were in the pockets of Jim’s coat. Toby had one shot in the pistol he had taken from Pledge and still carried, but Burke’s words echoed in Jim’s ears:
Toby would never shoot a man, never risk taking a human life
. Perhaps he had a miserable aim, Jim thought feverishly, and could never be sure of what part of a man he would hit.

But since being just a lad, Jim had shot rabbits, pheasant, pigeons, for the table, and he knew the value of his own aim. Every argument Toby had made about the merits of owning a stainless soul come Judgment Day jabbered at him as he fetched out the pistol.
Don’t take a man’s life, Jim
, Toby would have begged, and Jim saw no reason to go against the sentiment.

Hobbs had spilled gunpowder on the floor and half a dozen lead balls were rolling like marbles away from his boots, but by some charm the pistol was loaded. He was dragging it up into line with both hands, aiming desperately at the looming figure of Burke. Jim kept both eyes open as he had been taught, sighting along the barrel, and at this distance there was little danger of him being far off target.

The pistol snatched itself out of Hobbs’s fingers and he screamed in shock and rage, as if he had been mortally wounded. Bright new blood laved his right hand as he scrambled to his feet, but he was going for his pockets. For a terrible moment Jim was sure he had another pistol, before he saw the wicked flash of lamplight on the slick blade of a knife. Hobbs used it left-handed with more aplomb than most men would have commanded in their right hand.

With a bull-like roar Burke launched himself, half across, half around the table. Jim knew the weight of it, knew what it took to shift it, and swore beneath his breath as the table jerked sideways, tipping a lantern over. Whale oil spilled and flame licked right behind it, leaving a bright lake of fire in the middle of the old wood.