Pirate

“Start a fire,” Lucy called to Blue. “He’ll be alright. Just been too long without medicine,” she reassured the group. “We must stay here until he heals.”

25

From the height of the sun in the sky, I figured it was early in the afternoon when I woke. I looked down at my leg and saw only the linen wrapping. The crippling pain was gone, replaced with a dull burning.

“You going to help out around here, or do I have to pull your weight as well?” Rory walked up to me.

I was about to respond when I saw the smile on her face and remembered the closeness we had shared in the storm. “Aye. Might need you for a while,” I said.

“Lucy says we need to stay here for a few days. You should be healed enough to travel by then.” She carried something dark in a palmetto leaf and set it down beside me.

I looked warily at what appeared to be fresh charcoal from the tree. “What are you doing with that? And where’s Lucy?”

The smile was gone, “She’s gone fishing with Blue. It’s my turn to watch you, or I’d be with them as well, instead of playing nursemaid.”

She kneeled down next to me and removed the linen. I tensed, preparing for the pain as the fabric released from the open cuts. The wound looked better, but the claw marks were still open and swollen. A bowl of what looked like water sat next to her, and she mixed the charcoal into the liquid and stirred it with a branch. When it had dissolved, she used the linen and washed the wound with it. “Lucy says this will take the evil from it. Me, I’d leave it in you. You could use some toughening up.”

I shrank from her comment, but she smiled again. “How long did she say?”

“Probably two days and it’ll scab over.” She continued washing the wound, digging a little deeper each time to clean out the cuts. “It’s not a bad thing, really. The group is as relaxed as we’ve been since you rescued me. There’s plenty of food, and a little rest won’t hurt.”

She was right, but I was impatient. We might have felt safe, but I was apprehensive about the unknown, uncharted waters surrounding us. In my view, the sooner we left this river of grass and entered the open water of the Keys, the better, but I kept my feelings to myself.

We sat next to each other, talking about our individual struggles for freedom among the pirates, when we heard a scream. I got to my feet and followed her. When we got to the beach, Syd was a hundred feet out, a pole stuck in the mud, neck deep in the water. He must have been trying to spear a fish and stepped into a soft spot.

Red and Swift were first into the water to help Syd. I limped over, standing behind Rory, and watched them sink into the silt as well. With every movement they further entangled themselves in the muddy loam. The water soon turned brown as centuries of rotting vegetation floated to the surface.

“Johnnie and Blue, take a boat to them,” I yelled. Rhames glanced back at me, as if his name should have been called, but I was still suspect of his health. We would talk later. The two men grabbed an empty canoe and poled toward the victims. Syd was chest deep in the muck and sinking further with every movement. We yelled for him to be still, but he was in a panic and continued trying to extricate himself. Swift was halfway to him and now trapped in knee-deep muck.

The boat pulled alongside Syd, and he grabbed the gunwale and started to pull. “Rest your body on the boat and let them pull you out,” I yelled. “Take it slow,” I cautioned, aware of the instability of the narrow canoe. The last thing we needed was two more men trapped in the water. Bubbles surfaced around Syd as they pulled, and his body started to slide free. Another minute and he was in the boat, collapsed on the deck.

I heard a loud grunt and turned to Swift. The noise repeated itself and echoed several times, but I was focused on the rescue and ignored it. Syd was back on shore, and the canoe moved toward the next man.

“Is the gators, Mr. Nick,” Blue called to me, as the grunts continued. I looked around, but saw no sign of the beasts and turned my focus back to Swift. Having watched Syd’s rescue, Swift was calm and soon aboard the boat. While this had been going on, Rhames and Rory had used two poles and pulled Red onto dry land.

We were back on the beach when we all turned to the loudest grunt yet. This time I saw the eyes of the gator and followed the ridges on his back that jutted out of the water all the way to his tail, a good dozen feet away. He raised his snout and grunted again; another chorus echoed back. His tail swept from side to side, and we stood in place as he walked onto the beach.