The Buccaneers Read Free Page B

moved, and I thought that if a ship could love, the
Dragon
loved Horn. She fairly flew with him at the helm.
    “He's scared of the sea,” said Horn.
    “Mr. Abbey?” I asked.
    “Your captain.”
    “He is not,” I said.
    “He keeps his cabin darkened, his curtains drawn.”
    “He's
always
been a sailor.”
    “A coastwise sailor,” said Horn.
    He was right. Stanley Butterfield had done all his sailing close to land. “But he's not afraid,” I said.
    “We'll see, Mr. Spencer,” said Horn.
    He turned his face up to the sails, and it was clear that he meant to say no more. I made my way forward and sat at the bow, my favorite spot on the ship. The enormous carved dragon that once had plucked me from the sea chewed the waves in wooden teeth, and spat out foam and spray.
    I loved the fury of it, the smash of water breaking in the open mouth. The secret hatch in that dragon's throat was sealed forever now, the compartment behind it reached only from inside the hull. That space, a relic from the
Dragons
smuggling past, was so dark and cramped that we called it the Cave. But it still echoed all the thunder of the sea and gave a voice to the
Dragon
, a deep and constant roar. I settled there at the bow, to watch and listen, and the last person I wanted beside me was Roland Abbey. But he sat at my side. “You were talking to Horn,” he said.
    “What of it?” I asked.
    “Oh, it's nothing to me,” said the gunner. “Myself, I'd rather talk to the fish. I'd get more answers from them.”
    “You don't like him,” I said.
    “I don't trust him,” said Abbey. “Do you know what he's called in the fo'c's'le?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Spinner. He'll spin you a fine little yarn any moment you please.” Abbey bared his teeth in something less than a smile. “He spins lies into truth, that Horn. He weaves whole pictures from lies, until you'd swear what you see is the truth.”
    “What lies has he told?” I asked.
    “What truths has he told?” countered Abbey.
    The sea frothed toward our feet as the
Dragon
met a wave. The great carved head disappeared, then rose again in a churn of froth.
    “Did he tell you why he turned away when he saw us?” asked Abbey. “Eh, Mr. Spencer? Did he tell you that? Or how he fled from a packet in a boat that was built by the navy? Or who it was that took a lash to his back?”
    “I didn't know that anyone did,” I said. I hadn't seen the man without a shirt.
    “If he says it was the cat, he's lying.” The sun gleamed in Abbey's glass eye. “The cat-o-nine-tails doesn't do a thing like that to a man.”
    “A thing like what?” I asked.
    “Butchery.” He spat the word. “It's something Henry Morgan might have done. Or Captain Kidd, to while away a Sunday.”
    “The buccaneers?” I said.
    “Aye. It's their sort of work.”
    “But they're dead.”
    Abbey cocked his head. “Are they?” he asked mysteriously.
    “Well,
aren't
they?” I snapped.
    He looked at me with his blind eye open, his good one closed, and I didn't know if he meant to squint at me or wink. “It's not so long ago that Kidd went to the gallows. Why, the last of his shipmates died not six months ago.”
    “He must have been more than a hundred years old,” I said.
    “Aye, he looked it, all right,” said Abbey. “He died hard, ranting away about blood and bones and buried treasure. Died at low water, the old parrot he had squawking like a dervish, a parade of fools come to learn the secret of Captain Kidd's treasure.”
    “Where is it?”
    “In the Indies, of course.”
    I felt a twinge of excitement, a tingling in my breast. From the tales I had read of the buccaneers I imagined theislands were riddled with treasure pits. “Where in the Indies?” I asked.
    “Maybe Spinner can tell you.”
    I turned toward the wheel, leaning sideways to see round the masts. The sails cast big, square shadows on the deck, but a shaft of sunlight fell on Horn where he stood on the quarterdeck, more like a god than