Free Isle of Swords by Wayne Thomas Batson Page A

otherwise, Anne thinks her only lot in life is to become a pirate. I’ll burn before I let that happen.”
    â€œThere b’ no need to burn. Anne is smart, like you. She’ll come round. And the treasure b’ opening doors beyond the lure of the sea.”
    â€œI hope you’re right,” Ross replied, looking out across the waves. But he wondered if Anne was already too far gone.

12
THE CAT’S OUT OF THE BAG
    I s there anything I can do to help?” the lad asked.
    â€œWell, look who’s up and walking around on deck!” Ross exclaimed. “Don’t let Nubby see you out of bed.”
    â€œToo late,” said the lad. “He threatened to hit me with a spoon.” They laughed. The lad stared out on the sea. A low gray mantle of rain clouds waited on the horizon, but there was no land in sight. “Where are we?”
    â€œAbout a day southwest of Dominica,” the captain replied.
    The lad nodded absently. He spotted Anne across the deck. She carried a large wooden bucket and disappeared at the forecastle. Uncomfortable silence fell upon them both.
    Ross stood at the helm. He had one hand on the wheel. The fingers of the other twirled curly strands of his coppery beard. “Anne told me,” Ross said at last. “About your memory, I mean.” More silence. “Anything come back?” The lad looked away, rubbed his hand across the diminishing welts on his forehead, and brushed back his hair.
    â€œThat’s hard, lad,” said Ross without a trace of pity in his eyes. “But the sea is hard. I’ve seen men—good men—take ill and die from a scratch no bigger than an inch. And here’s you, near flayed alive. No infection. Nubby says you’ll be fine in a week. You got something to live for, and that’s a fact.”
    Ross scratched through his beard to his chin. “For now, you’ll be living with us on the William Wallace . And as the captain of this old brigantine, I’ve a mind to accept your offer to help. But . . . I won’t be going around calling you lad or boy or some such. If you can’t remember your name, I’ll give you one.”
    The lad laughed in spite of himself. This red-bearded pirate with twinkling gray eyes had an odd air about him. Confidence, arrogance, or insanity—the lad wasn’t sure which.
    â€œNow we got Nubby, whose real name is William Christopher Jenkins, but we call him Nubs, well . . . for obvious reasons. Then we got Red Eye Bill Scanlon, who had a bit of trouble with a powder cartridge. Some men win a name in combat like Cutlass Jack Bonnet and Musketoon MacGready. But you, I was thinking, you’ve been whipped near to death, that’s plain. And by the look of those wounds, by a cato’-nine-tails, no doubt. Not one man in fifty lives through the beating you took. Nine lives you got, or so it seems. So, for now—at least until you remember your rightful name—I, and my crew, will call you Cat.”
    â€œCat?” The lad rolled the name over in his mouth.
    â€œDone and done,” said the captain. “Now, you said you wanted to help out, and that’s good. Every man aboard must earn his keep.
    You ever worked on a ship before?” The words were barely out of his mouth when he realized how stupid the question was. “Of course, you don’t remember. Right.” Cat sighed.
    Ross looked out to sea and up and down the deck. “Ah!” he said.
    He pointed off the port rail. “See that squall line. The wind’s going to come at us from the east—a better breeze than we’ve got now.
    We’ll want another sail.” Ross gestured for Cat to follow. They came to the mainmast and stood beneath a vast white sail billowing softly in the wind. But up above the main, another sail was bound, tied to a wide spar. “That’s the topsail,” Ross said. He pointed to the web of ropes and rigging that stretched