Free The Guns of Tortuga by Brad Strickland, THOMAS E. FULLER Page A

Michael in a voice I knew, all hoarseness and whispering gone. “Who is it? It’s apirate, that’s who it is! It’s a renegade, a jailbreaker, a … a … a great
mooncalf!
”
    Mooncalf?
    Only one person had ever called me that.
    Staring at the boy, I felt as if the scales had fallen from my eyes, like the blind man in the Bible. And then I knew, and I could not help crying aloud the true name of “Michael.”
    â€œSaints in heaven! Jessie Cochran!” I said.
    Lieutenant Fairfax stood up and ordered us to speak more quietly, and then the story tumbled out. “How come you to be here?” I asked in a whisper.
    Jessie sank the floor, glaring at me. Now that I knew her, I wondered how she had ever fooled me, for there were her freckles, and her brown hair, and all that I remembered so well. “I come to be here,” she said bitterly, “because my mother thought Port Royal wasn’t safe enough for me!”
    â€œQuietly,” warned the lieutenant.
    Jessie pointed to the china fragments in the corner. “If they didn’t hear that, they won’t hear us talking.”
    It was a good point, I thought. Jessie looked almost as if she was about to cry when she mentioned her mother. Moll Cochran was a widow and the owner of The King’s Mercy Inn in Port Royal. ’Twas there I had lived with my uncle during the previous summer, up until we joined Captain Hunter and sailed away pretending to be pirates. “I don’t understand,” I said.
    Jessie shrugged. “People talked about us after you and your uncle left, for they knew he had lodged there. And it’s a rough town, crammed with sailors who drink too much and don’t mind their manners. So last fall we found it hot for us, what with the navy sailors angry with us for giving house room to a pirate. Trade fell off, and times were hard.”
    â€œWe meant no harm to you,” I said.
    â€œAnd I’m glad you and your uncle got away,” she replied half-grudgingly. In truth, Jessie had actually helped me as much as she could when I had gone to free my uncle from jail. “Then my mother learned that Lady Wellesley, whose husband, Sir Milo, had just died, was sailing back to England, for her own health was not good. Lady Wellesleywas a highborn woman, but she was kind to my mother, and my mother asked her to take me in service as her maid, to get me passage back to England. There I was to live with my aunt and learn how to be”—she almost spat the words—“more genteel.”
    Fairfax had sat back down on the sofa, leaning forward with his arms crossed on his chest. He took up the tale: “They shipped aboard the
Venture,
my packet. But Lady Wellesley suddenly died a week into the voyage. Then, south of Bermuda, we were taken by a pirate ship. On my instructions, Jessie disguised herself as a boy, and when they took all the officers prisoner, she came with me as my servant.”
    â€œWhy?” I asked. “Why not stay with the packet?”
    Jessie snorted. “With all the officers gone, and the sailors left alone and in charge? I’d sooner take my chances here!”
    Fairfax glanced toward the door. “We haven’t much time. The guards will come in if you don’t leave soon. What’s afoot?”
    Remembering my errand, I said, “Mich—Jessie has a letter for you, sir. My captain will do all in hispower to help you escape. You and Jessie together.”
    Shaking his head, Fairfax said, “I’m not sure that can be done. The pirate who took our ship is not alone in this. He has a master, a man named Gille—what’s the matter?”
    â€œI know the man,” I said. “And I know he is holding another English prisoner as well, a Captain Brixton.”
    The name seemed to mean nothing to Fairfax, which struck me as a little odd, for the British Navy was not numerous here, and all of them knew the others.