“No, that ain’t needed,” said the boatswain, and the surgeon relaxed. “No skin off my rosy nose if what your boss’s up to ain’t above-board. All I wants to make sure of is me own protection. Bright and Silver’ll be none too pleased when they catch on they been tricked. I’ll do what you ask, but you tell that captain of yours from me, those two oughta be dispatched right quick if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Uh, yes, of course,” muttered Doc Lewiston and raised his mug of ale to his mouth to hide his frown of dismay.
By God, just what was he getting himself into?
Chapter 8
The Knot That Was Not
“PLEBLLLLEFFFFFF!” Bonnie Mary spluttered, pulling her head out of the basin of cold water. Instantly, she knew it would be a Three Cups of Coffee Morning. What had she been thinking by making an early appointment for the morning after their party?
Long John helped his wife into her dress, lacing her up in seconds with his nimble sailor’s fingers. Bonnie Mary pulled a pair of clean white gloves over her calloused hands and tugged a few curls out of her mobcap, carefully positioning them over her bad eye. Last, she powdered her face to soften the effect of her sea-weathered features.
Long John straightened his white horse-hair wig and tied his finest silk cravat before the mirror. Bonnie Mary fluffed up the new orange feather in his hat, while he gave the gold-topped cane he carried for special occasions a final polish. At last they were ready to go.
Bonnie Mary glanced over at Little Jane, still huddled in her little hammock bed. She had hoped to bring her along, seeing as how it would be a lesson in the business side of smuggling and pirating, but the previous night’s revelry seemed to have exhausted the child.
“Let her rest,” said Long John, extending his hand to his wife. “It won’t do to keep the coffee trader waiting.”
Bonnie Mary took the proffered arm and the two sauntered down the gangplank to the pier, looking for all the world like any well-dressed, middle-aged couple out for a morning stroll.
A few hours later, Little Jane woke. She stretched out luxuriantly against the pillow of her bed, watching the sun stream in through the cabin window, sending dust specks glowing in the air. A magical morning. She stumbled into her clothes, taking note of her parents’ empty bed.
Where were they?
Patrolling the deck of the Pieces once more, even Ned Ronk felt in good spirits as schemes of sabotage wove their twisty way through his devious brain. He watched a few stray sailors mop the deck.
Someday he’d have a ship of his own, he mused. Perhaps this ship, even. All it would take was a little finesse. The important thing, Ned realized suddenly, was not, as Doc Lewiston had said, for the act of sabotage to be completely untraceable. No, what really mattered was only that it be completely untraceable to him.
All he’d have to do was find the appropriate dupe to pin the thing on, someone no one would ever suspect of having any connection to him …
As if on cue, Ned Ronk noticed Little Jane’s small, braided head poke up from the entrance to the midships. He clenched his fists with the desire the squeeze someone’s throat, but then a flash of inspiration struck him. With a grin of supreme friendliness and goodwill, he waved at Little Jane.
Little Jane ducked back down to the comforting darkness of the hold, barely able to breathe. Her heart banged in her chest as memories from the night before all came flooding back.
Ned! That sardonic wave of the hand … He knew! He knew she had followed him to Sharky’s! Of course he knew! He had to know! And that meant she was done for!
Whatever Ned had been planning with the man he’d met in the tavern, she knew it wouldn’t bode well for her. Something had to be done. It was time to tell someone. But then she remembered the empty bed in the captains’ cabin and knew by the angle of the sunlight shining down on her that it was afternoon already. Her parents would be at the coffee merchant’s by now.
She realized that Ned Ronk wouldn’t dare try anything in Habana, not with all the soldiers and townspeople about. Her parents could find a new boatswain to replace him — they were probably a dime a dozen around here — this was Habana, after all! She had to tell them and tell them NOW — now, before they went out to sea with Ned. Out at sea where there would be nowhere to run …
Suddenly, as if he’d read her very thoughts, there was Ned, standing right above her! From up on the deck, he peered down at Little Jane in the hold. She trembled under his squinty gaze, fixed like a butterfly on a collector’s table by the pin of her fear.
“Little Jane …” his voice rumbled.
She chewed on one of her braids, sniffing the vaguely salty scent of her hair for comfort, as the clasp-knife gleamed in her imagination. But the clasp-knife never made an appearance. Instead, Ned Ronk smiled, actually smiled at her. He even reached down and patted her on the head!
“Why don’t you get a mop and give Rufus a hand cleaning,” was all he said, his tone unusually mild. “There’s shrimp stew all over the bowsprit.”
“Aye-aye, sir!” cried Little Jane in surprise and she ran off looking for a bucket.
Little Jane never did get a good moment alone with her parents to tell them about Ned Ronk’s secret with the stranger in Habana. For the next two days, the boatswain watched her like a hawk and stuck to her like tar to a feather. Worse luck was the hard work of getting the ship ready for departure that kept her parents up on deck at all hours instructing the crew on how to load and unload the goods they were trading. Little Jane tried to stay awake, but much to her chagrin, she always managed to fall asleep long before her parents came down to go to bed at night.
The time came for them to sail far too quickly. Little Jane gazed miserably at the buildings of Habana harbour as they receded from view along the blue horizon. The snapping sails carried the Pieces of Eight out to sea, seemingly in no time at all.
However, Little Jane had no intention of taking these difficult circumstances lying down. “If I can’t tell anyone,” she reasoned to herself, “least ways I can keep an eye on things and make sure Ned don’t get up to more mischief.” In that spirit, Little Jane spent a few monotonous days spying on the boatswain. Strangely enough, Ned did nothing more suspicious than urinate off the quarter deck when he was supposed to be on watch. As the days went by, her spying activities dwindled to the occasional sneaky hour or two caught in between her own ship’s duties.
Little Jane wondered if perhaps she had confused the meaning of what she’d seen that night in Habana. Maybe the man she’d seen climb down the rope hadn’t really been Ned at all. Even if it was Ned, it didn’t mean he’d necessarily been up to no good. And even if he had been up to no good, he was only one man. As long as she stayed near her parents, she was protected, for he was certainly no match for the two greatest pirate captains to ever sail the seven seas. There was nothing to worry about, nothing at all.
A good captain always retains a level head in the face of danger and makes decisions based on proper evidence, not fear. Wasn’t that what she’d been told to write down in her book by her mother?
She could manage to convince herself of it during the day, but in bed at night, with “How to Be a Good Pirate” unreadable in the dark, she found a level head was not the easiest of things to maintain.