Caribbee Part 80

"You mean this little one?" He thumbed at de Fontenay. "Believe me when I tell you he does not have the courage of--"

Now de Fontenay was raising the pistol in his right hand, shakily. "I said to give us the keys, Jacques. You have gone too far."

"You will not live that long, my little _matelot_, to order me what to do." Jacques feigned a menacing step toward him. Startled, de Fontenay edged backward, and Jacques erupted with laughter, then turned back to Winston. "You see, Anglais? Cowards are all the same. Remember when you wanted to kill me? You were point-blank, and you failed. Now this little _putain_ has the same idea." He seized Winston's jerkin. "Give me one of your guns, Anglais, or I will take it with my own hands."

"No!" At the other end of the citadel Katherine stood holding the pistol she had brought. She was gripping it with both hands, rock steady, aimed at them. Slowly she moved down the porch. "I'd like to just be rid of you both. Which one of you should I kill?"

The old boucanier stared at her as she approached, then at Winston.

"Your Anglaise has gone mad."

"I was on that English s.h.i.+p you two are so proud of attacking." She directed the flintlock toward Winston. "Hugh, the woman you remember killing--she was my mother."

The night flared with the report of a pistol, and Jacques flinched in surprise. He glanced down curiously at the splotch of red blossoming against the side of his silk s.h.i.+rt, then looked up at de Fontenay.

"That was a serious mistake, my little _ami_. One you will not live long enough to regret."

The smoking pistol de Fontenay held dropped noisily onto the boards at his feet, while he raised the other. "I said give to me the keys, Jacques. Or I will kill you, I swear it."

"You think I can be killed? By you? _Jamais_." He laughed, then suddenly reached out and wrenched away the pistol Katherine was holding, shoving her aside. With a smile he aimed it directly at de Fontenay's chest. "Now, mon ami . . ."

There was a dead click, then silence. It had misfired.

"I don't want this, Jacques, truly." De Fontenay started to tremble, and abruptly the other pistol he held exploded with a pink arrow of flame.

"Anglais . . ." Jacques jerked lightly, a second splotch of red spreading across his pale s.h.i.+rt. Then he dropped to one knee with a curse.

De Fontenay stepped hesitantly forward. "Perhaps now you will understand, _mon maitre_, what kind of man I can be."

He watched in disbelief as Jacques slowly slumped forward across the boards at his feet. Then he edged closer to where the old boucanier lay, reached down and ripped away a ring of heavy keys secured to his belt. He held them a moment in triumph before he looked down again, suddenly incredulous. "_Mon Dieu_, he is dead."

With a cry of remorse he crouched over the lifeless figure and lovingly touched the bloodstained beard. Finally he remembered himself and glanced up at Winston. "It seems I have finished what you began. He told me today how you two quarreled once. He cared nothing for us, you or me, friend or lover." He hesitated, and his eyes appeared to plead.

"What do we do now?"

Winston was still staring at Katherine, his mind flooded with dismay at the anger in her eyes. At last he seemed to hear de Fontenay and turned back. "Since you've got his keys, you might as well go ahead and throw them down. I a.s.sume you mean to open the dungeon."

"_Oui_. He had begun to lock men there just on his whim. Yesterday he even imprisoned a . . . special friend of mine. It was too much." He walked to the edge of the platform and flung the ring of keys down toward the pavement of the fort.

As the ring of metal against stone cut through the silence, he yelled out, "Purgatory is no more. Jacques le Basque is in h.e.l.l." He abruptly turned and shoved down the ladder. In the courtyard below, pandemonium erupted.

At once a cannon blazed into the night. Then a second, and a third.

Moments later, jubilant musket fire sounded up from the direction of the settlement as men poured into the streets, torches and lanterns blazing.

"Good G.o.d, Katy, I don't know what you've been thinking, but we'd best talk about it later. Right now we've got to get out of here." Winston walked hesitantly to where she stood. "Somebody's apt to get a mind to fire this place."

"No, I don't . . ."

"Katy, come on." He grabbed her arm.

De Fontenay was still at the railing along the edge of the platform, as though not yet fully comprehending the enormity of his act. Below him a string of prisoners, still shackled, was being led from the dungeon beneath the "dovecote."

Winston forcibly guided Katherine down the ladder and onto the stone steps below. Now guards had already begun dismantling the _boucan _with the b.u.t.ts of their muskets, sending sparks sailing upward into the night air.

Then the iron gateway of the fortress burst open and a mob of seamen began pouring through, waving pistols and cheering. Finally one of them spotted Winston on the steps and pressed through the crowd.

"G.o.d's blood, is it true?"

Winston looked down and recognized Guy Bartholomew.

"Jacques is dead."

"An' they're all claiming you did it. That you came up here and killed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. The very thing we all wanted, and you managed it." He reached up and pumped Winston's hand. "Maybe now I can stand you a drink. For my money, I say you should be new commandant of this p.i.s.s- hole, by virtue of ridding the place of him."

"I didn't kill him, Bartholomew. That 'honor' goes to his _matelot_. "

The excited seaman scarcely paused. "'Tis no matter, sir. That little wh.o.r.e is nothing. I know one thing; every Englishman here'll sail for you, or I'm not a Christian."

"Maybe we can call some of the s.h.i.+ps' masters together and see what they want to do."

"You can name the time, sir. And I'll tell you this: there're going to be a few changes around here, that I can warrant." He turned to look at the other men, several of whom were offering flasks of brandy to the prisoners. Around them, the French guards had remembered Jacques's store of liquor and were shoving past, headed up the ladder. In moments they were flinging down flasks of brandy.

Bartholomew turned and gazed down toward the collection of mast lights below them. "There's scarcely an Englishman here who'd not have left that wh.o.r.eson's service long ago, save there's no place else but Tortuga the likes of us can drop anchor. But now with him gone we can .

"Until further notice, this island is going to be under my administration, as representative of the Chevalier de Poncy, _gouverneur_ of St. Christophe." De Fontenay had appeared at the top of the steps and begun to shout over the tumult in the yard. His curls fluttered in the wind as he called for quiet. "By the Code of the boucaniers, the Telle Etoit la Coutume de la Cote, I am Jacques's legal heir. Which means I can claim the office of acting commandant de place.

Bartholomew yelled up at him. "You can claim whatever you like, you pimp. But no Englishman'll sail for you, an' that's a fact. We'll spike these cannon if you're thinking to try any of the old tricks. It's a new day, by all that's holy."

"What do you mean?" De Fontenay glanced down.

"I mean from this day forth we'll sail for whatever master we've a mind to."

De Fontenay called to Winston. "You saw who killed him, Monsieur. Tell them." He looked back toward Bartholomew. "This man knew Jacques better than any of you. His friend, the Anglais, from the very first days of the _boucaniers_. He will tell you the Code makes me . . ."

"Anglais!" Bartholomew stared at Winston a moment, then a smile erupted across his hard face. "Good G.o.d, I do believe it is. You've aged mightily, lad, on my honor. Please take no offense I didn't recognize you before."

"It's been a long time."

"G.o.d's blood, none of us ever knew your Christian name. We all thought you dead after you and Jacques had that little shooting spree." He grasped Winston's hand. "Do you have any idea how proud we were of you?

I tell you we all saw it when you pulled a pistol on that b.a.s.t.a.r.d. You may not know it, sir, but it was because of you his band of French rogues didn't rape that English frigate. All the Englishmen amongst us wanted to stop it, but we had no chance." He laughed. "In truth, sir, that was the start of all our troubles here. We never got along with the d.a.m.n'd Frenchmen after that. Articles or no.

"Hugh, what's he saying?" Katherine was staring at him.

"What do you mean?"

"Is it true you stopped Jacques and his men from taking our s.h.i.+p? The one you were talking about tonight?"

"The idea was we were only to kill Spaniards. No Englishman had done anything to us. It wouldn't have been honorable. When Jacques didn't agree with me on that point, things got a little unpleasant. That's when somebody started firing on the s.h.i.+p."