Pirate

I left the wound open to look for anything that might help me close it and went back to the men who were huddled together talking. They stopped as soon as I approached, and I knew something was amiss. As I turned to go back toward Rhames, one of the men jumped on my back. He held me while another slammed his fist into my stomach. I doubled over in pain. Without knowing, I reached for the gun, heard it fire, and collapsed onto the sand, thinking I had shot myself. As I hit the ground I realized it wasn’t me, but the man holding me. The other men stood frozen staring at me, the smoking pistol still in my hand.

11

As quickly as I could, I reloaded, watching the process with one eye while my other watched the men gathered around the downed man. Their disorganization gave me time to finish loading before they could act, and I regained an advantage as I held the pistol in my hand.

“Do we have a problem here?” I asked, looking at Red, who stared at the ground. I met the eyes of the other three dissenters one at a time.

None spoke, but slowly they met my gaze, having realized their gambit had failed. We were six men now with two boats, barely enough man power to move the chests. I looked back at Red. “We together or not? If we stay together we can do this.”

Red nodded and looked at his compatriots. They seemed to reach an unspoken agreement. “Sorry about that, Mister Nick.” He shrugged. “Our greed got the best of us.”

“I want a vote right now. I’m either captain or we elect someone else,” I said. It was a gamble, but the pistol in my hand gave me courage. Red was the decision maker for the other three, and I appealed to him, “We need the numbers to stay alive and keep the treasure.”

“You seem to have learned a bit from the captain.” Everyone dropped their heads at the mention of Gasparilla. “But all the same, we can split the loot and go our separate ways. With just you, and Rhames near dead, I don’t expect you’d get far.”

He was right, and I looked down in defeat.

From behind me I heard a rough voice. “You’d all be best to listen and acknowledge your captain. I know you bastards and not one of you will be alive in a day without him.”

Red finally broke the silence, “Let’s hear your plan, then. Then we’ll vote.”

I paused, knowing what I had in mind was the hard way, but I didn’t want to sugarcoat anything and be forced to have a daily mutiny to deal with. “We can’t go to sea. Lafitte’s at the mouth of the river and he has Rudy, who’s probably sworn him allegiance and told him who we are, as well as how we are provisioned and armed. On the other side is the Navy.” I looked at the men, who were focused on me now, and paused, “And none of us wants to be caught by them.” If we were caught by Lafitte, we stood a better than average chance of surviving by joining his band. The Navy, on the other hand, would hang us.

I could tell from their looks that I had them and let the silence linger for a moment before I continued. “There is another way. There’re no maps and it’ll be a long and dangerous path, but the Indians say the river empties into a huge lake whose southern end turns into a river of grass that leads to the Keys. They won’t expect us to take that route.”

I tried to look uninterested, but strained to listen as the men gathered in a circle. A minute later they faced me again.

Red spoke for the group, “Aye, Nick. It’s the only plan. You’ve got our votes.”

I wasted no time trying to act like I expected this outcome. “Get some food in you and rest for an hour. Then we’re off.” I turned and went to attend to Rhames.

“Nicely done,” he said.

“I’d be dead without you.”

“Stop that and get me some food. I don’t expect you to carry me through this.”

I looked at him and focused on the wound. I’d have to find a way to stitch it if he was to travel. The way it looked now, one wrong movement and he would spill his guts. I looked around and grabbed a discarded coconut husk. Carefully I started to peel the fibers, called coir, into foot-long segments and laid them next to Rhames. Next, I needed a needle. I got up and moved toward the men, who were eating turtle meat and drinking from coconuts. They sat in a circle as far from the dead man as the clearing allowed. There were several pieces of meat laid out, and I took two and brought one to Rhames while I chewed the other.

The meat gave me an idea, and I went to the shell laying in one of the boats. With my dagger I sliced a sliver off the edge of the shell about three inches long and went back to Rhames. I ate and whittled, fashioning a crude needle from the shell. With the fiber threaded, I looked at him.

“Get some help to hold me and get on with it,” he said, as he finished the meat.