Becket's Last Stand

“Court? Do you see him yet?” Isabella asked, getting to her feet, shaking out the full skirts of her grass-green gown. “I’m so anxious, aren’t I? He promised they’d be back before dinner tonight. And then no more grand adventures for my Geoff, not without me by his side as we all sail to our new home. Imagine it, Court. Nearly three hundred of us, all sailing off together, leaving this island behind, a whole new world opening up ahead of us. But still no sign of Geoff?”

Courtland squinted, concentrating on the horizon, the place where brilliant blue-green water met a cloudless blue sky. “No, ma’am, I don’t see them. Not yet.”

She came to stand beside him, not all that much taller than he, and kissed the soft brown curls on her sleeping daughter’s head. “Are you anxious to sail to England, Courtland? Will you miss our small paradise?”

“Papa Geoff says it’s time to go. Time to be respectable and safe.”

“Being a privateer is respectable, Court,” Isabella told him. “Just not respectable enough for my silly husband. He teases that he prefers cold and damp England to our warmth and sun here, and that we will, too. We shall soon see if he’s right, won’t we?”

Courtland nodded, then looked at the expanse of vibrant greenery and chalk-white sand that led to the water, the horseshoe of land surrounding the natural harbor filled with small houses belonging to the crews of the two ships owned by Geoffrey Baskin. Everywhere was bustling activity as the women added to the small mountains of belongings soon to be loaded on the ships. Transporting three hundred people across the wide ocean was no minor undertaking, but they would be ready to sail within the week.

His gaze singled out Spencer wrestling with Isaac and Rian, two of the boys their Papa Geoff had rescued from the destroyed church. And there was young Fanny, wearing the striped dress cut from extra material from Isabella’s new gown; her hair so blond it was nearly white, daring the small wavelets in her bare feet; charging, retreating. He couldn’t hear her laughter, not up here, but he knew she was laughing, for Fanny was a happy child, her memory of her mother’s death in that same church fading as she grew.

He watched as Fanny began to jump up and down, pointing out to sea, and he followed her direction with his eyes, caught sight of sails flashing in the sunlight as they came around the northernmost part of the island, into the natural harbor. He sighed in relief, knowing Papa Geoff’s last adventure as a privateer was now over, that he would be safe. Yes, Courtland supposed he was happy to be leaving here, no longer being forced to worry for his Papa Geoff, his savior, each time the two ships sailed out of the harbor.

“They’re back,” he said, his breath catching in his throat. “Just as they said they would be.”

Isabella kept her hand on his shoulder, also peering out to sea. But then her fingers dug deeper into Courtland’s shoulder. “No, that’s not Geoff. Three ships, Courtland, see? Three ships, not our two.”

Courtland looked at Isabella, saw the worry in her beautiful eyes, and then looked toward the ships once more. What was wrong? No, they weren’t their ships, the Black Ghost and the SilverGhost. But he did recognize them now; they were the ships of Papa Geoff’s privateering partner, Edmund Beales.

“It’s all right,” he told Isabella. “It’s only Beales.”

But wasn’t he supposed to be with Geoffrey andChance and Jacko and Billy and the others? Wherewere the Black Ghost and the Silver Ghost? Why onlyBeales’s three ships? Something was wrong, wasn’t it?

Rian, leaving Issac sprawled on the ground, seemed to already know that, for he was running toward Fanny, scooping her up into his arms, and heading for the main house with Spencer, the two of them shouting, although Courtland could not make out what they were saying. Isaac watched them go, laughing, and then turned to wave to the approaching long boats, already lowered into the clear, calm waters.

It was then that Courtland realized something, knew what Rian and Spencer had seen. It was the ship that lay parallel to the beach. Its gun ports were open, the small cannon being run out. “Ma’am!”

Isabella must have seen it, too. She raced across the veranda, pressed her body against the railing. “Run! Into the trees! Hide! Run, everyone! Run!”

Odette was with them now, her black face nearly gray as she wrung her hands together, as they all watched the longboats being pulled, one by one, up onto the beach. “Betrayal. Beales wants more than his share. I did not see this. Why did I not see this? Sweet Virgin, Missy Isabella, you have to go. You have to go now!”

But Isabella was still shouting, waving her arms in the air, pleading with everyone who had raced out of their small houses and into the sandy clearing to run, run into the trees, to hide themselves.

Courtland stood very still, holding the sleeping Cassandra, refusing to believe what was happening. He flinched at the first gunshot, squeezing Cassandra’s small body so tightly that she woke, began to cry. Odette took the child from him and hurried back into the bedchamber.

He joined Isabella on the veranda as more gunshots rang out, to see Edmund Beales standing on the beach now, legs spread, hands on hips, looking across the expanse of sand, up at the veranda.

Another man in black. But although tall, although handsome, he was not Geoffrey Baskin, could never be more than he was, a pale-skinned man with a too- thin face and a mass of black curls, a man who wore leather close against his skin even in this heat, like an animal, Courtland had always thought. Beales was smiling now, and Courtland realized that, for all that he’d seen in his short span of years, he’d never before seen true evil. Not until this moment.

Then one of the ships opened fire from the harbor, and a cannonball hit high in the palm trees to the left of the house, severing one so that its top crashed to the ground.

Children cried, called for their mothers. But the mothers, the old men, the young boys, most all of them were running toward the attackers now, armed with pistols of their own, with metal-tipped pikes, with swords whose deadly blades caught the sunlight.

“Isabella!”

“Oh, sweet Jesus protect us,” Isabella said at Beales’s shout.

“Isabella! You’re mine now! Isabella! Geoff is dead! You’re mine. Everything is mine!”

Isabella swayed where she stood and Odette roughly pushed Cassandra, now wrapped tightly in a blanket, into Courtland’s arms as she caught her mistress close against her. “He lies. I did not see this, but I would have seen the Cap’n’s death. I would have known that in my heart. She kept me from seeing the treachery, my own wicked twin. I am so sorry! Come with me now. Into the trees, to the cave. Now, Missy Isabella! For your husband, your child—now!”

Isabella held tightly to the wooden railing for a few moments longer, even as the wives of her husband’s crews were put upon by Beales’s men, and the older crew, crippled and maimed and gray of hair, fell or were subdued, one by one.

At last she turned away, grabbing Courtland’s arm and pulling him back from the open windows. “Take Cassandra, Courtland. Take her and follow Odette. Go with the others, to the cave, just as Papa Geoff has always talked about if we were attacked, remember? Take her now!”

“And you,” Courtland said, pleaded. “You’ll come, too.”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t want you, he wants me. If I go with you, he won’t stop until he finds us all. I’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll talk to him, reason with him until Geoff comes to save us. But take Cassandra for me, keep her safe for us. Never leave her, Courtland, not for a moment, not until Geoff returns.”

“No! I won’t leave you! You can’t make me leave you!”

She slapped him. Isabella, the gentle one, the always smiling, laughing one. The one he loved above all others. Slapped him.

“Do what I say! You have to live, Courtland. For your Callie, you have to live. You are her protector! Never leave her, not ever! Promise me!”

Courtland nodded, unable to speak, and Isabella put her arms around him, pulling him and her child close, kissing both their foreheads.

She looked at Odette, who only nodded, and then turned away, stepped back onto the veranda, to stand there, her hands on the railing, daring Edmund Beales to do his worst. “I am here, Edmund. Stop this, and we’ll talk! I’ll give you what you want— just stop your men, now!”

Odette tugged on Courtland’s arm, pulling him out of the bedchamber, through one of the bedrooms across the wide hallway, onto the veranda there, the wooden stairs that led down the rear of the house. Once on the ground, they ran into the trees, meeting up with one of the other women, Edythe, who carried young Morgan, and they all pressed on together into previously forbidden territory for the children, the sounds of cannon fire, of gunshot, of unholy screams, chasing at their heels.

“They didn’t stop,” Courtland said, looking to Odette. “He didn’t listen to her. I’ve got to go back, help her.”

“You are a child, and you’ve got to do what she said for you to do,” Odette told him, her large brown eyes filled with tears. “If you love her, you’ll do as she said. It is all we can do. You know the way? Guide us.”

Reluctantly, Courtland led the others deeper into the trees, avoiding the deadfalls Geoffrey Baskin had shown him, the deceptively normal-looking ground that hid deep pits lined with dozens of pointed wooden spikes. On and on they ran, twisting and turning through a path known only to those who had been trained to recognize the signs, until at last they reached the cave.

Some were already there. Spencer, Rian, Fanny, three dozen or more women and even more children sitting wide-eyed and silent in the damp and dark. No more came, not as the screams continued to reach them, as night fell, as some of the young ones began to cry for their mothers, for their empty bellies.

The hours stretched out into an eternity.

At last Courtland could take no more. He reluctantly relinquished Cassandra, whom he’d been holding still for hours and hours, and gave her over to Odette.

He walked slowly, not to avoid the deadfalls, but because he didn’t want to see what he felt sure he would see.

The sun was just rising as he stepped out of the trees, skirting the side of the big house, walking onto the beginnings of the wide beach. The wide, red beach. Buzzing with flies; littered with broken, gutted bodies. Women, children, babies. Animals. They all lay on the sand. They hung from trees. Bodies, pieces of bodies.

The three ships were gone.

Young Isaac was among the dead. Isaac, and so many others who had survived the raid on the church, just to die here. Geoffrey Baskin had saved them, taken them in as his own—for this? Why? Why?

Courtland went to his knees beside Isaac, pressed a hand to the boy’s chest, hoping for a heartbeat, but only came away with blood on his hands. Everywhere he went, every body he knelt beside, he touched, said a prayer for before moving on to the next, and then the next…

The silence rang in his ears like the sound of the whip whistling above his head, ready to sting, to cut. Even the exotic birds in the trees were silent.

At last he turned toward the huge house, his shoulders squaring as he prepared himself for whatever he might face inside those white walls. It was then that he saw the words, written high and wide on the wood. Written in blood.