Steel (2 page)

H
er mother was very into the idea of togetherness. “Jill, you’re going to go away to college in a couple of years. Who knows what’ll happen after that? This may be our last big family trip together and I want us to spend as much time together as we can.”

No pressure or anything.

The day after the beach, Mom planned a boat tour.

“What kind of boat?” Tom kept asking as Mom herded them all into the rental car.

“Will it have sails?” Mandy said.

“Or cannons?” Tom asked.

“No cannons,” their mother said. “It’s just a tour boat; it goes up and down the coast and that’s it.”

Jill’s silence was a contrast to the laughing and joking of the others. She wasn’t encouraged when they arrived at the dock and a banner hanging on the side of the office announced:
PARTY CRUISES
. The sign showed lots of cartoon pictures of parrots with eye patches holding margaritas in clawed feet. Scratchy reggae music played through speakers. Now Jill was going to be trapped on a boat full of people having more fun than she was.

She hung back and kept her hands in the pockets of her clamdiggers, fingers brushing the rusted piece of rapier she’d brought with her. Last night, she’d put it on the windowsill next to her bed. She didn’t want to leave it alone, as if it might start speaking, whispering cryptic and important secrets, and she had to be there to hear it. Maybe it would be a good luck charm.

The tour company did, in fact, have sailing ships with cannons—fake ships that ran on motors, with fake masts and sails and plastic cannons. The boat for their tour was more mundane, thirty or forty feet long with a cabin toward the front, a clean white hull, a big motor, and plastic cushions on the seats around the outside. Very modern. The oily smell of diesel overcame the salt smell of the ocean.

A dozen people had signed up for the tour, and a dockhand guided them onto the back of the boat—and he yelled at Tom and Mandy to stop running. Jill found a place to sit toward the back and looked over the water through her sunglasses.

Dad picked a place next to her on the boat. The first day on the island he’d forgotten to use sunscreen and had a sunburn that was already peeling across his nose and cheeks. That didn’t keep him from smiling. Today, he had on a sheen of sunscreen and was wearing a wide-brimmed hat that shaded his whole face. He also wore a plaid cotton shirt and looked every bit the tourist.

“This ought to be fun,” he said, striking up a conversation.

“Yeah,” Jill said, noncommittal, looking out at the water.

“Mom says you’re still upset about the tournament.” He’d just glanced at her mother, who must have put him up to this. Jill could almost hear her saying,
You try talking to her
….

Jill shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about it. It was so close.”

“There’ll be other tournaments.”

“That’s kind of the problem.”

“Ah. Your mom and I—I hope you’ve never felt like we’ve pushed you, or put too much pressure on you.”

“No,” Jill said, shaking her head. “No, this is all me. It’s just—I’m disappointed, and everyone else must be disappointed. I was so close.”

“I guess if I said, ‘Winning isn’t everything,’ you’d give me one of those looks, wouldn’t you?” he said.

And she gave him one of those looks, but tried to turn it into a smile. She probably just ended up looking confused.

“Well,” he said. “Try to forget about it for a little while, at least. Try to enjoy yourself.”

Mandy and Tom were now leaning over the side, trying to reach into the water, and Mom was pulling them back to their seats. Jill was suddenly jealous of them.

After twenty more minutes of waiting for people to settle, the boat motored away from the dock, chugging and trailing wisps of black smoke, which seemed ironic, considering they were supposed to be enjoying the pristine scenery. Tom and Mandy may actually have been right—sails and wind seemed more suited to boating in a tropical paradise.

Once on the water, the waves hardly rocked them. They traveled smoothly while the tour guide told them stories.

The guide was a beach bum–looking guy, skin tanned like leather, white hair rough and windblown, stubble for a beard. He looked ancient but seemed younger in the quickness of his movements and the brightness in his voice. Sitting near the cabin, the PA microphone in one hand, he gestured widely, pointing vaguely toward the island or out to sea as he talked about the old weathered forts overlooking the harbor, naval battles between the British and Spanish, and what pirates did to capture merchant ships. More pirate stories. Legends such as Blackbeard had found a haven here. They lived reckless, lawless lives. The words condemned the pirate culture, but the guide had a gleam in his eye.

“So is there buried treasure on the island?” Tom asked.

“Contrary to all the stories, pirates didn’t bury their treasure, lad,” the guide said kindly. Just like Jill had told him. “Most of them spent it all before they’d ever have a chance to bury it. They’d come to shore and go straight to the tavern. Not much has changed, eh?” A few of the passengers chuckled.

Tom looked disappointed, and the guide continued. “Sometimes people find gold doubloons or other things washed up on the beach. A lot of ships wrecked between here and Florida. That’s where the real treasure is.”

Jill touched the rapier point in her pocket, still feeling like she’d stolen something precious.

“Now, a lot of people ask me, why are pirates so fascinating? They were vicious criminals, weren’t they? They robbed and murdered, didn’t they? The modern pirates out in Somalia sure aren’t heroes. So why do we make these pirates into heroes? I say it’s because they were free in a time when not many people were. Did you know pirate ships were some of the first democracies? Crews voted on their captains. A good captain had to listen to his crew, and the ship was only as good as the crew. A good crew was a family. There’s something admirable in that.”

It all seemed unreal to Jill, remembering the shore that was crowded with hotels and the harbor that was filled with sleek white sailboats and massive cruise ships.

“Are there any ghosts on the island?” Mandy said.

The guide launched into more stories about pirate ghosts and ghostly cannons firing from Fort Charlotte at midnight.

Jill sat close to the edge, her arm over the side, turning her face to the wind and letting the sea spray touch her. The coast continued to look like a postcard—white sand, palm trees, and amazing blue water. She gave up on thinking about her life and let her mind wander. There was something about the way the sunlight played on the water. She could even ignore her siblings.

Once they’d passed a certain point, leaving the sheltered part of the coast, the sea became rougher. Jill found herself holding on to the side with both hands as the ship rose and fell, rocking and slapping against the waves, which seemed larger than they had at the start of the cruise. A few people cried out as they lost their balance, then laughed it off. Tom and Mandy seemed to think it was huge fun. The wind blew Jill’s hair into her face; she brushed it away.

They were supposed to be having lunch at noon. The crew had already pulled out a box full of sandwiches and a cooler that they said was full of rum punch. Jill didn’t bother asking her mother if she could have any. But they paused; white clouds that had gathered picturesquely on the horizon all morning were darkening. Gray streaks from cloud to ocean showed rain. They’d traveled farther out to sea—the island was a rough smudge behind them, a crowd of foliage, no details visible. The laughter turned nervous—but they couldn’t be heading into a storm, because a tour boat would never do that. Right?

Now this was exciting.

“Everyone take a seat,” the guide said. “We’ll be through this in a moment. And if you feel like heaving ho, do it over the side, okay?”

Most of passengers chuckled, but a few of them sat quickly on cushions around the sides, just in case.

“Jill? Jill, where are you?” Jill’s mother called from the other side of the cabin. Mom was herding the kids; Jill recognized the tone of voice. She stood and turned toward the front of the boat to answer.

A large wave surged under them then, sending the boat rocking steeply. Jill, the world-class athlete who’d never yet lost her balance in a fencing bout, fell. Stumbling back, she hit the side of the boat and went over. Grabbing uselessly for the edge, she rolled into the ocean. Her father shouted, scrambling to his feet. She saw his arms reaching for her as she went under.

From dry land, the ocean looked so calm, peaceful. Serene blue waters. All that great scenery the adults talked about. From underwater, it was chaos. Waves pitched her, her sunglasses were torn away, the water was cold, shocking after the tropical air. She couldn’t catch her breath—swallowed water instead. Flailing, she searched for up, groped for the surface—couldn’t find it. Her lungs were tightening. It had been sunny a moment ago—where was the sun?

Someone grabbed her. Hands twisted into her clothing and pulled her into the air. She clutched at her rescuers, gasped for air, heaving deep breaths that tasted of brine, slimy and salty. But she was out of the water. She was safe. She wasn’t going to die.

She landed hard on an unsteady wooden surface. The hands let her go, and she grabbed for some kind of hold to steady herself against the rocking of the waves.

Scrubbing water from her face, she opened her eyes and looked.

She expected to see the tour boat. But this boat was too small, almost a rowboat, with two sets of oars. Bottom and sides of plain wood, not polished fiberglass. No motor grumbled. And what should have been a clear stretch of ocean was filled with debris—broken wood, barrels bobbing along the waves, tangles of rope and canvas floating on the water. Something had been smashed to pieces here. A faint scent of burning touched the air.

Then there were the people.

Inside the rowboat, five men surrounded her, one bald, the others with long, greasy hair tied back. The ones without full beards still looked like they hadn’t shaved in days. A couple had gold rings in their ears. One had a ring in his nose, through the middle. They wore rough shirts and loose trousers, and went barefoot.

They’d started rowing the little boat to a ship a few hundred feet away. A long, two-masted sailing ship, sails furled, riding the waves, up and down.

Jill had seen some of the other party boats that advertised as pirate ships, with their tall masts, rippling canvas sails, and skull-and-crossbones flags. This must have been one of those, with a particularly enthusiastic crew. Maybe it was a theme party with costumes. She’d fallen out of the tour boat, and these guys came along and picked her up. Maybe they’d let her have some of the rum punch. But that didn’t explain the wreckage in the water. She didn’t think she’d been in the water that long. Maybe a minute. On the other hand, maybe it had been longer—she felt like she had almost drowned. Could she have drifted that far from the tour boat in that time?

When she leaned on the edge of the rowboat to look for the tour boat her family was on, she couldn’t see anything. No other vessel was in sight. The shore of the island was even farther away—a gray haze, that was all. Maybe the tour boat was behind the pirate party ship. The sky over them was scattered with clouds, thin, dissipating in a brisk wind, as if the threatening storm had ended.

The men on the rowboat weren’t smiling, and didn’t look like they’d come from any party.

Jill stayed alone in the middle of the boat, gripping the sides, while four of the men rowed. The fifth, the bald one, glared at her but didn’t say a word. None of them even looked at her, just a piece of flotsam they’d picked out of the water.

“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice shaking. She tried to sound braver. “Who are you guys?”

They didn’t answer.

The boat was coming alongside the larger vessel, with its wide, sloping hull, two tall masts, and collection of triangular sails. Maybe she could ask someone there what this was all about, and they could take her back to the island.

The bald man shouted orders, a few monosyllabic calls that Jill didn’t understand, and ropes came down from the deck of the ship. She expected to see some kind of ladder, some easy way for them to climb on board—then there’d be a radio or something the captain could use to call the tour bout.

The men in the rowboat got to work tying ropes to cleats. The ropes looped over struts attached perpendicularly to the masts. Men on deck started pulling, ropes started creaking, and the rowboat lifted out of the water.

The rest of the men were climbing up the hull of the larger ship as lengths of rope were passed down to them. Instead of a ladder there were thin wooden slats nailed into the hull to use as toe holds. Not very helpful, Jill thought.

The bald man handed the end of a rope to her. “Climb,” he ordered.

Was he kidding? She didn’t know if she could, but she thought she’d better try. She watched the others expertly pull themselves up, hand over hand, using their feet to balance against the hull. Under other circumstances—like if this really was a party boat and she was supposed to be here—she might have had fun with it. But everything about the situation was wrong. Nobody checked to see if she was okay, and nobody was smiling.

She gripped the rope and started climbing.

The climb took forever, it seemed. She was shaking from the shock of falling in the water, and her muscles felt like rubber—too soft, too stretchy, like they did after a full day of fencing. And she didn’t know what was going to happen when she reached the deck of the ship. But she climbed, slowly, one step at a time, remembering to breathe.

The bald man rode in the rowboat as it was hauled up the side.

Finally, she reached the side—made of plain, weathered wood, like the rowboat. She hooked her arms over it, managed to swing one leg up, then rolled onto the new ship. She sprawled out on the deck.

The boards under her smelled like mildew, rotten with salt and damp that was never going to go away. There were cannons on wheels lined up along the side and lashed into place. The ship creaked—wood bending, ropes twisting, waves lapping against the hull. She heard this because all else was silent. The deck was filled with people, all shapes, sizes, colors. All men. And all of them looked angry. Or hungry. They were all staring at her. They’d left a space open around her, but in a second they could close that space, they could close in on
her
. When they pressed forward, she could feel their steps under her hands, where she crouched on the deck. She stood clumsily.