Pirate

The fire was smoldering now, and we pulled the turtle out. “You want to eat now, it needs to be raw. Open up the belly and start butchering. We’ll take it with us, maybe get a hot meal tomorrow, but before that we have a long night ahead.” Several men pulled knives from their belts, and I flinched for a second, thinking they were coming for me, but they went to work on the turtle. They sliced the belly and started cutting slabs of meat from the two-hundred-fifty-pound animal. This would be enough food to see us for a week if we were careful and able to preserve it. Within minutes all the meat was out of the shell, sitting on palm fronds cut from the brush. “Clean the shell, too. We’ll need that.”

I caught a look from Rhames and followed him down the beach.

“You’re doing well, boy. They listen to you and what you say makes sense.” He paused and pulled on his braided beard. “You take the lead, but watch me.”

This was the most I had ever heard him speak. I grasped his meaning, and thought we could make a good team. He had let me know that I could lead, but he was in charge. I could live with this arrangement; it would keep me alive. Without Rhames behind me, the other men would soon turn against each other. With his menacing figure backing me up, the crew would fall in line. Red seemed to be the only dissenter among them, and I knew from the past few years how he worked. He would whisper to the men, planting the seeds for unrest, then sit back and wait for them to blossom. We walked back to the makeshift camp.

I looked up at the sun, which was starting to sink in its low winter arc. I had planned on pushing off around midnight when the watches on the Navy boat would be less attentive. We had a long, exposed row before we reached the cover of Pine Island and the protection of the clusters of islands along the shore, and a good part of the journey would be in clear sight of the frigate anchored in the mouth of the harbor. I sent a relief party to replace the men on watch and lay back in the sand. Some of the men were eating raw turtle but, though my stomach rumbled, I was not ready to eat raw meat. If all went to plan, we would be far enough up the river by tomorrow morning to start a fire and smoke the meat. Small bands of Indians were common along the river, and our fire would blend with theirs.

I tried to sleep, but between the cotton feeling in my mouth, the rumble in my stomach, and the thoughts racing through my mind, I failed. Although we had a good chance of escaping detection and reaching the bay below the mouth of the river, we were far from safe. The diversion would have been discovered by now and the longboats were probably on their way back to the frigate. I had no doubt the captain of the Navy ship would send more boats, but he would wait until morning, giving us a decent head start.

Rhames came and sat by me, “Don’t take a watch, not something the captain would do. Better to stay here and keep an eye on these worthless bastards.”

I nodded. “We need to leave around midnight. That’ll give us six hours to get past the mouth of the river. I’m guessing it’s close to twenty miles. You think the men have it in them?”

“They’ve got the treasure—they’ll die for it.”

He was right and that brought up my next conundrum. We were running heavy; the chests were loaded and cumbersome. The smart thing to do would be to bury them here on the beach and travel light to escape. We could double back when we knew our pursuers had given up and then split the bounty. But I could already see the looks cast back and forth at the chests and knew the greed of the men. There was no chance any of them would let the treasure out of their sight. Trust among pirates was rare if it even existed at all.

Time passed slowly. I changed the watch one more time and tried to rest. As the sky darkened, I started to second guess my decision. Confident that the diversion had been discovered by now, maybe doubling back and going toward the Peace River was the safer route. Would the Navy captain be shrewd enough to think us patient enough to wait them out and follow our own diversion? Pirates, by nature, were impatient, and I tried to place myself in his place, asking myself what I would do. My answer surprised me, and I knew the Peace River was the wrong destination. Even if the Navy searched elsewhere, the river was heavily populated and word would surely have reached the settlers there. Everyone would have an eye out for us and the treasure. The men were all restless, and I decided to scout the mouth of the river and if all was clear we would move now.

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