بخش 02

CHAPTER 2

THE CHOICE

THE AIR SUDDENLY TASTED OF LAND.

Captain Nerezza turned his pox-eaten face windward, where two small, puffy clouds hugged the horizon, reminding him of the mashed potatoes in a shepherd’s pie.

Everything reminded Nerezza of food these days: he and his crew had dined on hardtack and skinned rats for the past two weeks, having run low on food and, far worse, water, as they wandered the sea aimlessly, increasingly desperate. Nerezza had begun to wonder if there really was an island, or just a madman’s confused memories.

But now these midmorning clouds hovered, stationary, all alone, not another spot of white in the rich, cobalt-blue sky. And that tantalizing taste lay ever so gently on his salty, parched tongue.

Land.

Nerezza started to bark out an order, then caught himself. But the crewmen around him had heard his intake of breath and—knowing the painful punishment that awaited any man who failed to instantly obey Nerezza’s orders—were watching him intently.

The sight they saw would have shocked anyone unaccustomed to it. Nerezza’s cheeks and brow were deeply cratered and scarred from a disease he’d picked up in some godforsaken port. His eyes were small, close-set, ratlike; his teeth, a disaster. But these weren’t the most distinctive features of his ravaged face.

Nerezza had no nose.

The one he’d been born with had been lost in a knife fight. In its place was a smooth-finished piece of African blackwood, shaped remarkably like the original, though without any nostrils. It was held to his face by a leather strap. When Nerezza wanted to smell something, he lifted the nosepiece to reveal a black hole in the center of his face. Through that hole he could pick up a scent as well as a bloodhound—although when he sneezed, you didn’t want to be standing in front of him.

Nerezza lifted his nosepiece and sucked sea air into the hole. No question. Land.

Nerezza replaced the nosepiece and, ignoring the crewmen awaiting his orders, strode toward the mainmast. He grabbed the ratline and began to climb toward the first yardarm. The entire crew had stopped to watch this unusual sight; the only shipboard sounds were the whistle of lines and the random snap of dry canvas.

Hand over hand, Nerezza climbed. He was careful with his feet: where most of his crew went barefoot, he wore a fine pair of black leather boots, polished with whale oil for waterproofing, but ill-suited to climbing rope.

Steady now, he thought, glancing at the deck far below and the curious faces of the crew. Normally he’d have ordered them back to work, but he wanted them to see this. Wanted to make a point about who ran this ship, and what would not be tolerated.

He switched to another rope, avoiding the bulge of a sail. He pulled himself up onto the second of three yardarms and climbed the mast the rest of the way, passing the topgallant and coming up through a hole in the bottom of the crow’s nest. He pushed the trapdoor out of his way and pulled himself up. The lookout, a sallow, thin-faced man, was slumped against the side of the crow’s nest, snoring.

“Palmer!” bellowed Nerezza.

“Aye, sir! Captain, sir!” said the startled lookout as he clambered to his feet. He kept his face turned away from Nerezza, fearing the captain would smell the grog that had put him to sleep on his watch. “Captain,” he stammered, “sir, I—”

Nerezza cut him off, his voice calm, cold. “South-southeast, Mister Palmer. See anything?”

Palmer spun in the wrong direction, corrected himself, and finally raised his spyglass. “A pair of cumulus, sir! Captain Nerezza, sir.” He was sweating now.

Slowly, deliberately, Nerezza pulled his knife from his belt. He held it in his right hand, the blade sparkling in the sun. Palmer pretended to keep looking though the spyglass, but his free eye was locked on the knife.

Nerezza’s voice remained calm. “Wind speed, Mister Palmer?”

Palmer took a look at the long pieces of cloth tied to the rigging at the ends of several yardarms. “Fourteen, fifteen knots, Captain, sir.”

“And those clouds, Mister Palmer…are they moving with the wind?”

The end of Palmer’s spyglass shook. Nerezza reached out and steadied it for him. Nerezza said, “Well?”

“No, sir. They ain’t.”

“Ain’t moving, you say?” Nerezza asked. “And why would that be?”

Palmer lowered the spyglass. Terror turned his face from deep tan to the color of dirty soap.

“Can’t you smell it, lad?” Nerezza asked, lifting his nose-piece and sniffing loudly in the direction of the two clouds. “Or has the grog clouded your ability to smell, eh?”

Nerezza smiled at his wordplay. Not a pretty smile.

Palmer, shaking, tried to answer; words formed on his lips, but they were too soft, and the wind carried them away.

“What’s that you say?” Nerezza bellowed.

“They ain’t moving because…because they’re over an island, sir.”

“And what exactly has we been out here searching for these past eight weeks, you pitiful excuse for a sailor?”

“An island, sir.”

“Yes, Mister Palmer. An island. That island, I’m willing to wager. The island that you missed because you was sleeping on your watch. Now wasn’t you, Mister Palmer?”

“I was, yes, sir,” Palmer said, shaking harder now.

“Cold, are you, Mister Palmer?” Nerezza said. It was hot enough to melt the pitch between the planks on the deck. Nerezza leaned close, to where his breath played against Palmer’s ear. “You want to experience cold, Mister Palmer, perhaps I could arrange a visit with our esteemed guest, the one who travels in the cabin next to mine. The one who don’t come out except at night. Would you like to meet him, Mister Palmer? Want to spend a few minutes alone with him?”

“NO!” said Palmer, a new level of terror in his eyes. “I mean, no, sir, Captain. No. Thank you, no.” His teeth were clattering now. He put a hand over his mouth to shut himself up.

“You sure, Mister Palmer?” Nerezza said. “I could arrange it.”

Palmer shook his head violently.

“I didn’t think so,” said Nerezza softly. “Not that I blame you.”

Nerezza stepped away from Palmer and looked down. The crow’s nest towered a hundred feet above the waterline. The ship, on its current tack, was heeled over, so the sea was directly beneath Nerezza. The deck, to the side, looked impossibly small in the vast expanse of blue ocean. Nerezza saw the upturned faces of the crew, all intently watching the drama taking place aloft. That pleased Nerezza. He wanted their full attention.

He turned back toward Palmer and held his knife up for all to see. Raising his voice—the powerful voice of a captain used to making himself heard throughout his ship—he addressed Palmer’s cowering form.

“I offers you a choice, Mister Palmer,” he bellowed. “Three choices, in fact, as I am a fair and evenhanded captain. One, you can pay a visit tonight to our esteemed guest in the cabin next to mine.”

This brought gasps from the men below. Palmer whimpered, and again shook his head violently.

“Two,” continued Nerezza, “I can carve a set of gills into you and toss you into the sea for the sharks to play with.” He turned his knife so it glinted in the sunlight. Palmer was sobbing now.

“Three,” bellowed Nerezza, “you can jump. Right now. Without another word from your worthless trap. If you can reach that island—the island you should have spotted—I’ll welcome you back aboard, Mister Palmer, as I am a forgiving man.”

Nerezza drew in a deep breath, the air whistling past his wooden nosepiece.

“Now, which is it to be? The swim? The sharks? Or a visit with—”

Palmer was gone. Nerezza leaned over the side and calmly watched as the receding body grew smaller, then disappeared in a splash of white foam that quickly dropped behind the fast-moving ship.

Whether Palmer surfaced or not, Nerezza neither knew nor cared. He never looked back as he gave the orders—orders that the crew executed even more quickly than usual—to start the ship tacking toward the two small clouds in the distance. CHAPTER 3

THE WRONG SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN

“CAP’N,” BAWLED THE LOOKOUT perched atop a tall palm. “It’s the boy!”

“Where away?” bellowed a rasping voice from inside the fort. A moment later the owner of the voice appeared in the doorway: a tall, rangy man with long, greasy black hair, a hatchet face, close-set dark eyes, and a hooked nose protruding over the extravagant foot-wide flourish of facial hair that had given him his legendary and feared pirate nickname: Black Stache.

“East-nor’east, Cap’n!” shouted the lookout. “Coming down the mountain!”

The fort was made of felled palm trees, vines, and nameless barbed and spiked plants, lashed together into an ugly but surprisingly sturdy wall, which enclosed a half dozen huts and lean-tos. On one corner of this wall, high up, was the lookout’s perch: a lonely palm tree, its fronds turning brown. Black Stache stepped through the massive double-door gate, the only break in the walled compound. He abruptly halted, a look of concern crossing his usually fearsome face.

“Is that…that creature around?” he called up to the lookout, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

The lookout scanned the area around the fort.

“No, Cap’n,” he said. “It’s gone, least for now.”

Confident again, Black Stache strode into the clearing in front of the fort and looked up toward the mountain, squinting in the blazing sunlight.

“Smee!” he shouted. “My glass!”

“Aye, Cap’n!” came the response. “Here it…OW!”

First Mate Smee—a short, baggy man in short, baggy pants—tripped hard over the doorsill, as he had a dozen times a day since the fort had been erected. He sprawled in the dirt, the spyglass flying from his hand and rolling to the feet of Black Stache, who looked down at it, then back at Smee.

“Smee,” he said, more wearily than angrily, “you are a supreme idjit.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” said Smee, scrambling to his feet. He picked up the spyglass and handed it to Black Stache, who took it with his right hand and, turning to the mountain, held it to his right eye.

“Focus!” he said.

Smee scuttled alongside the captain and slowly turned the lens piece of the spyglass—a task that Black Stache had not yet learned to perform for himself with the hook he wore in place of his left hand. The hook was a nasty-looking semicircle of shining steel fashioned from a dagger by one of Black Stache’s handier crewmen, and bound to the captain’s wrist stump by a stout leather strap. It was sharp as a razor, so sharp that Black Stache had several times cut himself in unfortunate places by absentmindedly scratching.

Smee had offered to dull the hook, but Black Stache liked it gleaming sharp—liked the nervousness he saw in the eyes of his men when he thrust it toward them. Black Stache was coming to believe that, despite the inconveniences, a man like him—a man whose authority depended on the fear he created in others—was better off with a hook than a hand.

He had even grown secretly fond of the name his crew had taken to calling him when they thought he could not hear. Yes, the name had first come from the boy, the hated, cursed boy. But despite that, Black Stache had come to like the sound of it. Captain Hook. A name to fear.

“Avast focusing,” he growled, shoving Smee away. “There he is, the little bugger.”

With a steady hand gained from years at sea, Captain Hook kept the glass trained on the form of the boy swooping down the side of the mountain, skimming the tops of the jungle trees. As the boy drew nearer, Hook could see that he carried something dark and round in his hand—a coconut, perhaps, or a piece of rock. He knew what was coming—of late, the boy had taken to raiding the pirate encampment almost daily.

“Smee!” Hook snarled. “Fetch my pistol!”

“Aye, Cap’n,” said Smee, running to the doorway. “OW!” he added, tripping into the fort.

“Hurry, you idjit!” shouted Hook.

“Got it, Cap’n,” said Smee, re-emerging from the fort. “OW!”

As he tripped, the pistol flew forward, past Hook; it hit the ground and went off, emitting a puff of smoke and a sad little sound: phut. The pistol ball dribbled out the end.

Hook picked up the pistol. “Smee,” he said, in the calm, reasonable tone he used only when he was very close to killing somebody. “Do we have any more gunpowder? Any dry gunpowder?”

“No, Cap’n,” said Smee, getting warily to his feet. “You used it all up yesterday, when you was—”

“I know what I was doing yesterday,” snapped Hook. He had been shooting at the boy, who had spent a half hour dropping coconuts on the fort. The boy avoided the pistol shots with infuriating ease while laughing—laughing—at the man who had once been the most feared pirate in the world.

Hook cursed and hurled the pistol to the ground, almost weeping with frustration. He could not believe that he had come to this: marooned on this strange island; taunted by this horrid boy who had cut off his hand; unable to retaliate against the horrid boy’s horrid little friends because of the horrid savages protecting them.

Worst of all, Hook, who had once roamed the seven seas at will, no longer dared venture more than a few yards from the cramped confines of the fort for fear of encountering the beast that had gulped down his hand after the cursed boy cut it off—the giant crocodile, longer than a longboat, known as “Mister Grin.” It had taken to lurking near the fort, watching, waiting, its vast, jagged jaws smiling a hungry, toothful, expectant smile.

Hook had tried sending men out to lure Mister Grin away, but the beast showed no interest in others. Having tasted Hook, it seemed to want only him, lumbering forward when Hook showed himself, sometimes brushing its massive tail against the outside of the log walls while Hook cowered inside, drenched in fear-sweat, his wrist-stump throbbing.

Oh, yes, Hook hated his situation with a white-hot fury that burned in his brain. And the cause of it all was this boy flying down the mountain toward him now, ready to jeer at him yet again. And he was helpless to do anything about it.

“Cap’n,” said Smee, picking up the useless pistol, “you best get in the fort, before he starts dropping things on you again.”

Hook stood a moment longer, staring in frustrated fury at the oncoming form of the boy, less than a mile away now. But Smee was, for once, right: better to go into the fort. Without his favorite target, the boy would become bored in time, and leave.

Hook turned toward the door. He was stopped by another hail from the top of the tall palm tree.

“Cap’n,” called the lookout. “There’s another one.”

Hook whirled and looked up. “Another what?” he shouted.

“Another boy, coming down the mountain.”

“Flying?” asked Hook.

“No, Cap’n. He’s on foot. Maybe a third of the way down.”

A boy, on foot. On the wrong side of the mountain. The plan formed instantly in Hook’s mind.

“Crenshaw! Bates!” he barked.

Two crewmen stumbled from the fort, blinking.

“There’s a boy coming down the mountain,” said Hook. He turned toward the lookout and said, “Davis, show them which way.”

The lookout pointed toward the mountain; Crenshaw and Bates nodded.

“I want you to go up there and get him,” said Hook. “I want you to stay under the trees, away from the clearings, so the flying boy don’t see you, understand?”

The two men nodded.

“When we get him,” said Bates, “do we kill him?”

“No,” said Hook softly. “You bring him to me.” He glanced toward the mountain again; the flying boy was only a few hundred yards off. Hook turned back to the two men. “Go,” he hissed. “Hurry!”

Crenshaw and Bates trotted into the jungle.

“Cap’n,” said Smee. “You best get inside now.”

“No, Mister Smee,” said Hook. “I think I’ll stay outside for a bit.”

“But, Cap’n,” said Smee. “If the flying boy sees you, he’ll stay around bothering you all day.”

Hook smiled for the first time in months, showing a mouthful of yellow-brown, sharklike teeth.

“Exactly,” he said.