Dagger Key and Other Stories

Klose divests himself of a small backpack, setting it atop the counter. The woman, whom he introduces as his wife, Selkie, asks if they have a ladies’ room and Fredo tells her there’s a place out back. Klose unzips the pack, extracts a notebook and pen, and says, “I hope you won’t mind if I ask you some questions?”

“As things allow,” says Fredo, gesturing at the tables.

“Yes…yes, of course. I understand you’re busy.” He stares at Fredo admiringly. “I want to ask you about Anne Bonny.”

“Anne Bonny.” Fredo pretends to reflect on the name. “Weren’t that the Yankee girl got herself killed over on the mainland?”

“No, no. She was a privateer. A pirate.”

“We don’t tolerate no pirates on the cay.”

“This was years ago,” Klose said. “Hundreds of years. In the early eighteenth century.”

“Anne Bonny.” Fredo swipes at the counter with a rag. “Maybe I hear something about her. Yeah.”

Wilton scrapes back his chair, heaves a sigh, comes over and drops his money onto the bar. He salutes Klose and says to Fredo, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He calls back to the kitchen, “That some fine salad, Emily.” As he makes for the door, thunder growls. He glances back, gives Fredo a wink, and says, “Right on!” The laborers, who have been talking quietly, laugh and one says to Fredo, on hearing the Jeep’s engine turn over, “Now the mon think he Jesus.”

“Last week he thinks he Bob Marley, so Jesus be a comedown,” says Fredo.

John Bottomley and his son take stools at the bar. Fredo serves them beer and holds a brief conversation about fishing. Selkie, who looks paler for her experience of Swann’s outhouse, retakes her seat and the couple begin whispering heatedly in German. Fredo’s been around tourists enough to know that Selkie wants to go and Klose insists on staying. They break off their argument. Selkie stares at the wall with a frozen expression. Rain seethes on the thatch. Klose, his tone clenched, says, “We will have lunch now.”

He orders the turtle and, after a second heated exchange, Selkie orders the conch salad.

Things get busy and, when next Fredo notices, the German couple are in a better mood. Selkie is drinking a beer. Klose says something that makes her smile, then turns his attention to Fredo, who is clearing their plates.

“Let me tell you a story, Mister Galvez,” he says. “And afterward you can tell me if it sounds familiar.”

“I guess I got time for a tale,” says Fredo.

“It won’t take long.” Again, Klose opens his backpack and removes a paperback with a garish cover. “Anne Cormac,” he says, leafing through the pages, “was a young Irishwoman, barely sixteen, who married a pirate named James Bonny. He carried her off to Nassau—in those days it was known as New Providence. There she engaged in an affair with the notorious pirate Calico Jack. Anne was of a violent disposition, adept as any man with a cutlass, and when Jack put to sea again, she went with him. Some say she disguised herself as a man, but according to members of the crew, she only dressed in men’s clothing before a battle.” Klose offers the paperback to Fredo, open to a central page. “Here. Have a look.”

On the page is a sketch of Annie, a slender woman dressed in trousers and a loose-fitting ruffled shirt, a cutlass in one hand, a pistol in the other. Fredo has never had so precise an image of her and he studies it intently.

“Of course,” Klose goes on, “I’m skipping over a great deal. Anne had many adventures prior to meeting Jack. Many affairs. Her husband James was deathly afraid of her. In fact, he had her arrested at one point by the Governor of New Providence, claiming that she would kill him if set free. But Anne had done the governor a favor, informing him of a plot against his life, and he refused to send her to the gallows. He said if Jack could not persuade James to accept a divorce-by-sale, Anne would be flogged and returned to her husband. She was incensed by the idea that she could be bought and sold like a cow. She and Jack made their escape not long after. They stole a sloop and returned to pirating.”

“An early feminist, nicht wahr?” Selkie says, a sardonic edge to her voice, and asks for another beer.

“In a way, I suppose,” says Klose.

As Fredo sets a fresh bottle on the counter, she places her hand atop his and says, “You must forgive Alvin. He is drunk with these pirate stories.”

“Besotted,” Klose says coldly. “I believe that is the word you want.”

Selkie says something in German that Klose ignores. Thunder grumbles in the distance, the rain beats down harder. Outside, a vehicle pulls up, its engine dieseling.