Peter and the Starcatchers (35 page)

B
LACK STACHE HELD UP A HAND, silently stopping Smee and the others, and signaled them off the jungle path. Stache, too, stepped aside, concealing himself amid the enormous leaves of a plant.

The sounds of someone running drew closer. A
native
? Stache crouched and laid his sword across the path. When the runner was upon him, Stache lifted the sword a few inches, and the runner, with a cry of pain, sprawled face-first onto the ground.

“Crenshaw,” said Stache, stepping out.

“Cap’n!” said Crenshaw, out of breath. He hurried painful y to his feet.

“Wel , man,” said Stache. “What is it?”

Crenshaw attempted to answer. “I seen—”

“—that lizard?” said Smee, interrupting.

“Shut up, Smee,” said Stache. “Crenshaw?”

“The longboat, Cap’n,” said Crenshaw, stil gasping for breath.

“The
longboat
?” said Stache, bewildered.
“Our
longboat?” By his recol ection, it should have been wel down the island.

“Yes, sir. I seen it just now.”

“Where?”

“It was…
flying,
Cap’n.”

“It was what?”

“Flying, Cap’n. Up in the air. Like a bird. But it weren’t no bird. It was the longboat, sure as I’m standing here.” The other pirates gathered around now, muttering about this strange and unlucky island, where things kept flying that were not supposed to fly.

“Belay that talk!” said Stache. “Crenshaw, where did you see this flying longboat?”

“Up this path, where you sent me. It leads to a beach…a lagoon, sir. I’d just gotten there when I sees the longboat pass right in front of the moon, plain as anything. And there was
men
in it.”

More muttering from the crew.

“I SAID BELAY IT!” said Stache. To Crenshaw, he said: “How many men? What men?”

“Two, I reckon. One of ’em big as fright, he was. Right across the moon, they flied. Fast as a bird, they was. But it weren’t no bird. It was a flying…”

“Yes, yes, a longboat,” said Stache, eyeing Crenshaw curiously. “And where exactly did this longboat
go
?”

“Can’t says for certain, Cap’n. There was trees and such in me way. It went from this ways to that,” he said, indicating right to left. “Went past the moon and headed down.”

“Down?”

“Yes, Cap’n. Down. I reckon toward the water.”

“What about the trunk? The treasure?”

“Didn’t see nothing of the sort. Just the flying longboat. She went past and I turned high tail to run back to tel you, and then you tripped me up, and then you asked me what I seen, and then I…”

“I KNOW THIS PART, YOU IDJIT!”

“Yes, sir.”

Stache reviewed the situation. The trunk could not be far off, that was for certain. When things started flying that should not be flying, the trunk had to be near. But who were these two men, and what were they doing in his longboat?

“Al right, men,” said Stache. “We double-time down to this lagoon. Crenshaw, you lead the way, and show us where you seen this flying longboat. MOVE!” Trotting with a pronounced limp, Crenshaw headed back down the path, fol owed by Stache, and, somewhat more reluctantly, Smee and the others. In a few minutes the path widened. Patches of low fog shone in the moonlight, like tiny puffs of gray cotton. Crenshaw had left out mention of the swirling fog.

Stache smel ed the lagoon before he saw it: like a fresh rainfal . From far to his left came the trickling sound of water—a stream, and waterfal that fed the lagoon. Then, above the sounds of the water, he heard distinctly human sounds—grunting, shouting, splashing, the crack of a whip—familiar sounds to a pirate:
fighting.

The path led to a smal sand dune. Stache stopped his men short. By the sound of it, the fight was raging in the water just on the other side.
No reason to join a fight until you
know what side you’re on.

Another crack of the whip. Then, a scream: a
woman’
s scream.

His men stopped, al eyes on Stache.

“Here’s what we do,” he whispered. “Whoever’s out there, we let them kil each other off. When they’re done and the fighting stops, we’l take care of whoever’s left. Get your weapons ready.” He was thinking:
flying boats and fighting…the treasure’s at the heart of this.

Then, drawing his sword, Stache began to creep up the side of the dune.

P
ETER’S HANDS WERE BLEEDING, sliced time and again by the jagged lava as he fought his way up the hilside. As he neared the top, the slope became very steep, almost vertical, causing Peter to question the wisdom of his plan. He periodical y glanced back down along the hil side, but could no longer see Mol y or the others; he wondered if he’d be able to find them again.

Final y he reached the top, and saw immediately that his suspicion had been correct: the hil was in fact a narrow neck, separating the cove from a wide, curved lagoon. The slope on the other side of the hil was as steep as the one he had ascended, leading down to another beach. He swept his gaze along it, starting on the far right, seeing nothing of interest until some huge rock formations in the center of the lagoon curve, near the beach. He focused on these, his eyes straining to pick up details in the moonlight.

After a moment, he saw it: a slim, dark shape on the silver water.

A boat.

Peter squinted. There were people in the boat; there was commotion around it. Pirates, he was sure of it. Who else could it be?

And they’ve got the trunk, I wager.

Peter considered the situation. He was certain that Ammm, forced to take the water route, was leading Mol y around the point to this boat. He decided it made no sense for him to go back down the way he had come, over the rough lava, and try to catch up with Mol y. Obviously, he should proceed down to this new beach and wait for the others there.

So he descended, finding the going-down much quicker than the climbing-up had been. He stood on the beach for five long minutes, then five more, then five more, peering down the beach to his right, waiting impatiently for Mol y and the others to come into view, remembering how slow their progress had been when he’d left them.

Final y his impatience got the better of him.

I’ll just go down and have a look,
he thought.

And so he set off, keeping out of the moonlight, staying under the tal palms that edged the beach, trotting toward the big rocks, and the longboat.

F
OUR DISTINCT Vs APPEARED in the moonlit water, al aimed at the port side of the longboat.

“Broadsides!” Slank cal ed out. Too late.

The mermaids timed their strike perfectly, lifting the port side high just as Little Richard was leaning the wrong way. He fel , flailing, and his massive weight flipped the boat, catapulting Slank into the air, and then into the lagoon.

Slank bobbed to the surface, frantical y stabbing into the water and thrashing with his legs, expecting at any second to feel mermaid teeth sink into his flesh. Instead, he felt…

He felt the bottom.
During the fight, the boat had drifted within ten yards of shore; Slank could stand easily.

Little Richard was also standing, peering nervously at the water, whip at the ready. “Where’d they go?” he asked.

Slank looked around, seeing no sign of tails or splashes, only the now-gentle lagoon surface, mirroring the moon. Then it hit him.

“Where’s the trunk?” he said.

The two men spun in circles.
Gone. Again.

Slank spat a curse at the sky, then took a deep breath.

“Al right,” he said. “Let’s get the boat ashore.”

They grabbed the swamped longboat, walked it to the beach, dumped the water out and hauled the boat onto the sand.

“I don’t get it,” panted Little Richard, when they were done. “They was after us like banshees, then they was gone!” Slank had been thinking about that.

“They was trying to rescue the one I had in the boat,” he said. “That’s why they capsized us. But then they saw she wasn’t there, and went looking for her. It’s the only explanation.”

“But where’d she go?” Little Richard asked.

“I don’t care where she went,” Slank said. “What I care about is the trunk, and I’m thinking if we didn’t see it drift off, them she-devils didn’t see it neither.” Slank was studying the lagoon intently now, hands on hips. To the left, fresh water poured in over the waterfal and swirled in a deep pool by the island of rocks. Watching the movement of the foam, Slank detected a slight current, moving to the right, down the curve of the beach.

“Come on!” he said, setting off at a trot. “Where are we going now?” said Little Richard, none too happy, lumbering behind.

“If the trunk comes ashore,” said Slank, “it’l be this way.”

K
EEPING TO THE MOON-CAST SHADOWS beneath the palms, Peter trotted along the beach toward the longboat. As he drew closer, he heard angry shouts, and a cracking sound, as wel as other—stranger—noises; and saw figures in and around the boat in frenzied activity, apparently fighting.

Who would the pirates be fighting?

He stopped and looked back toward the rocky point. There was stil no sign of Ammm, or Mol y.

It’s taking them forever.

Peter hesitated. On the one hand, he was reluctant to get too close to the battle ahead, and risk capture; on the other hand, he was very curious to know who was fighting the pirates, and where the trunk was. He decided he could risk getting a little closer.

He had walked no more than twenty feet when he heard it: a moan, coming from his right, at the water’s edge. He stopped, and heard it again, louder this time. He glanced ahead at the shouting figures, then, keeping his head low, darted down the beach to the water.

He saw her immediately: a girl lying facedown in the shal ow water, her long blond hair splayed forward, touching the sand. She appeared to be struggling to crawl onto the beach. Her arms moved feebly, her hands clawing at the wet sand.

Peter ran to the girl, dropping to his knees into the water. He took her by the shoulders and turned her over, and immediately noticed several things. The first was that she was startlingly beautiful, with astonishingly large, luminescent green eyes. The second was that she did not appear to be wearing any clothes, her only covering coming from her lush cascade of hair.

Ordinarily this second thing would have gotten Peter’s ful attention, but he was much distracted by the third thing, which was blood seeping from a deep gash in her forehead.

Supporting the girl’s head in his hands, Peter looked frantical y around for something to put over the wound.

My shirt,
he thought.

He decided to pul the girl farther up on the sand, so he could rest her head on the beach while he removed his shirt. Getting his hand under her arms, he heaved backward.

That was when Peter noticed a fourth, even more startling thing.

She had a tail.

“Aaah!” said Peter, jumping up, dropping her head. The girl, or fish, or whatever she was, moaned piteously, and writhed in pain. Peter stood over her, water dripping from his body.