8
Captain Teeth
“Ahoy! It’s Cap’n Teeth!” Eze shouts from the second-story window of Maude’s Tavern as I approach.
Rochelle, Cami, and Esmerelda stick their heads out the window to whistle and call me. Yesterday, I’d have welcomed their attention to lift my spirits. Today, I’m bound to a Kraken—a Kraken who would crack my nutmegs with her tentacles if she found me between their legs. I reach for my hat to wave to the youngster and his purchased bedfellows, only to come away empty-handed. Some lucky sod in Davy Jones’s locker has a new, feather-lined hat.
“I knew the sea would spit you out eventually,” Chub says from the doorway. The half doors of the tavern are eye-level with me hearty, but the way he fills the threshold says volumes about his strength. His arm wraps around Catalina’s hips, bunching her silk- spun dress up her thighs. She’s as scantily dressed as the doxies but by choice instead of profession. She could be collecting gold for her lacy frocks but chooses to weave ropes for us.
“I was too much for the old girl,” I reply with a wink.
“More like the sea didn’t like the taste of whatever grows in your leathers,” he retorts with a loud guffaw.
“She didn’t complain,” I say with a smug smile that has me hearty pausing. I take his bacon face between my palms and stare into his blue eyes. “I met her Chub. When I fell into the drink last night, I met my lady love.”
“I wondered what happened to you. A captain never leaves his ship, especially a quality man like yourself. You scared me, matey.”
“You scared all of us,” Catalina adds. She takes my hand in both of hers and leads me to the first long table.
Greenhorn scrambles to vacate the end of the bench until I lean on his shoulder to stay. Plopping down beside him, I sample the drink Catalina thrusts into my hand. The table digs into my back as I lean my elbows on it, but the pain is good. It reminds me I’m alive and awake—Sabs’s rescue wasn’t a dream. Chub climbs onto the bench on my other side and pulls Catalina onto his thigh. Her tiny feet kick my knees as she swings her legs over Chub’s lap. Just wait until Chub is hit by Sabs’s tentacles when I cuddle her!
“So, your drunk arse fell into the drink,” Chub starts with a wry smile twisting his lips.
“I would have drowned if not for Sabs—Sabrina. My lady love’s name is Sabrina,” I blurt out, the excitement in my heart pouring into the room. “She’s everything I hoped for and more.
“She a mermaid? Or a siren?” Greenhorn asks, barely containing his laughter. Yeah, when I was a whippersnapper, I would have laughed at my current state, too. There was a time when yoking myself to one woman was my worst nightmare.
“Worse,” I sneer. He cowers as he remembers I’m not just his hearty at a bar; I’m his captain who has the right to maroon his arse on this island if I see fit. If he wants a spot on Patricia’s Wish when we leave port, he shouldn’t cross me. “She’s a Kraken most days. She says she’s human on the full moon. That’s how I met her before—we rode the St. George one night under this very roof.”
“A Kraken bussie, I’ll be damned,” Chub says, saluting me with his tankard of rum.
“Sharp-tongued and strong as an ox, too. She dragged me to the beach in last night’s storm—cursing and bitching at me the whole way. I’ve never met such a fiery temper in a woman—"
“You best not be talking about one of my girls, Teeth. I won’t have you blaming your itchy sugarstick on my working girls when we both know you could have caught the Bube anywhere in the Caribbean!” Maude’s tired dress with the faded toucan has seen better days. Her hair still reaches the sky, but half the curls wrapped in the bandana are grey.
The ruby lips that have scolded me since I first docked on Trinidad with Ol’Blackbeard have thinned to a slash across her stern face. I remember how her eyes would twinkle with the potential earnings from stupid, young bucks like me jumping from the ratlines and into her whore’s straw beds. Now, I’m the Crusty Captain who watches my crew ascend her stairs with memories flashing before my eyes. At one point, I climbed those stairs with Sabrina—too stupid to realize what I had in my hands.
Never again.
“Do you remember a redhead named Sabrina?”
“Oh, that girl,” Maude says with a roll of her coal-rimmed eyes. “She’s as scandalous as you. You’d be best to keep away from that troublemaker! She only comes around on the full moon like some bat out of hell and stirs up the men into a frenzy.”
“How so?” Catalina asks with eyes wide with concern.
“Sometimes she beds the whole bar—two or three at a time. Other times, she won’t touch a soul and sleeps alone upstairs. Men love a fickle woman because the chase is half the fun.”
“Was she on the payroll?” Chub asks with his drink casually lifting to his mouth. He’s testing Maude, but to what end? To see if she would keep us apart? To learn more about Sabs? I wish I could pull him aside and ask where his mind has sailed his questions.
“She knew the business because she tipped out to me each morning,” Maude says with a shrug. Chub taps the table with his marriage finger. I see! Maude curls her fingers into fists. She’s not so indifferent to Sabrina’s antics. “She always paid for her room, unlike a girl on my payroll—I take care of my girls—and tipped the barmen handsomely. Sometimes the moon would rise, and she wouldn’t show up. Then the real trouble would start. Sailors from rival boats would blame one another for scaring her off or hoarding her under their decks. She’s more trouble than she’s worth if you ask me.”
“Yet you never turned her away,” Catalina says with a cold undercurrent that has Chub holding her closer .
“Money is money,” Maude says, returning to her jovial facade. “I took what I could from her while I could. I doubt I’ll see her again.”
“Because she will be married soon,” I say with pride, puffing out my chest.
“Oh no,” Maude says with an ominous shake of her head. “Because those scouts from the mainland came looking for her.”
“Scouts?”
“They hunt for talent to work their shows on the continent, but once a year, they host performances on the islands. They need girls to lift the curtains from their acts and sell tobacco in the crowds. It’s a bonus if the girl can sing or dance—and Sabrina can do both. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s in the island’s show this month. When they leave for the next island and eventually sail to the continent, she will travel with them.”
“Does that worry you? Are the men kind?”
“I worry about all my girls,” Maude says as she squints fake tears to the corners of her eyes. “The girls who go into the shows never return, and I’m overjoyed for them. They get a new start, in a new town, as showgirls instead of whores. They meet husbands and settle down—I just know it.”
“That’s not what will happen to Sabs,” I growl. “We have an understanding.”
“Do you, now? Oh Teeth, half the men who drink at these tables think they have an understanding with Sabrina. Don’t be a fool,” she scolds.
My insecurities wash over me like a tidal wave. All the years of hiding my uneducated mind behind Chub’s schemes and my pretty face come back to haunt me like ghosts long drowned in my psyche. I can read, but only with me hearty’s lessons in the past year. My missing fingers aren’t why I can’t write more than my signature. I never learned. I spent my youth begging for food and dodging brothels that pedaled young boys. My years on the ratlines alternated between blowing my earnings and pirate raids instead of apprenticing under learned sailors and bettering myself.
If only I had followed Chub’s lead instead of laughing at him. Would I know if Sabrina was pulling one over on me?
You can’t fake having tentacles…but what if I wanted the fortune teller’s prophecy to be true so badly that I fell for the first tentacled lady I met? I mean…how many tentacled ladies does a man meet in a lifetime? Any sane pirate would say zero, but I’m the captain of Patricia’s Wish, where we seem to attract women who are other . Does that include Sabrina?
“By order of King George the First—stay where you are!” Shouts a voice from the doorway.
“You can’t burst in here and tell my patrons what to do!” Maude leaves our table to bump chests with the trio of English soldiers in her doorway. “You can take your war outside! I don’t care who owns this island—Spain or England—in this tavern, it doesn’t change a thing. I’ve owned this business since you were a babe sucking your mother’s tit and will continue operations long after your daughters become my working girls!”
“Leave my daughters out of this,” sneers the soldier closest to her.
“Then leave the building because I think I recognize you. I employ a whore with a nose just like yours—”
The crack of his backhand across Maude’s face echoes throughout the tavern.
Nobody moves.
Silence descends on the tavern as everyone gawks at Maude’s fall to the floor. She rubs her cheek as she stands, pats her hair, and straightens the threadbare shawl around her shoulders. Like a queen, she turns her back on the soldiers and addresses the bar with her chin held high…but tears flow down her face.
“Whoever brings me this soldier’s head gets free drinks for life,” she declares.
The ring of Chub’s machete as he unsheathes it behind Catalina’s back is the signal of authority I need.
“You heard her, mateys! Who’s thirsty?” My shouts are met with a chorus of cheers from me hearties. I jump to my feet and thrust my longsword in the air with a roar. In seconds, I’m surrounded by bloodthirsty pirates, the chronically arrested, and day-drunk patrons spoiling for a fight. We crash the entrance with the business end of our swords leading the way.
The leather binding Catalina’s wrists flutters to the ground as she unleashes her spinnerets. Ten strands of spider’s thread fly across the bar’s entrance and wrap around Maude’s arms. Chub grabs his spider lady’s hands, and the pair tug Maude out of the fray. He tucks the ladies behind him before joining me on my left flank—the designated place for a quartermaster.
This is why I’d never survive the life of a landlubber. I’d pick fights with these mollies for amusement every day. The trio uses practiced moves from their academies with fancy footwork and designated pauses between each coordinated sequence. They puff to twice their size when six more soldiers and the street police join them. I’d bend over and laugh my arse off if they wouldn’t stab me in the back.
The soldier who assaulted Maude points a short gun at my face. With a shouted order, the soldiers in front of him duck…but so do the pirates they have engaged in combat. We meet eyes. The barrel waves as the tremors in his hands give away his fear. I stand my ground and glare at him, daring him to shoot me in cold blood. He fires. I hit the deck before the smoke clears. With my belly collecting dust from the dirty floor, I watch his shiny boots exit the tavern and clack down the cobblestone street.
Lilly-livered Molly.
Raising to my feet, I’m instantly engaged in swordplay against two enemies. I slash the largest soldier across the belly when he lifts his sword over his head. His free hand covers the wound as his sword comes down with half the strength required. I bat it away like a mosquito and tsk at him. He doubles over to look at the damage to his waistline as if he believes I’ll pause the battle for him. Does he think he’s in a training yard and I’m a fellow student? I can’t resist. The handle of my sword slams into the back of his head, and he drops like a sack of potatoes.
I raise an eyebrow at his partner. The man is frozen until I wiggle my fingers at him. He swings his sword with his left hand in a broad arc. I lazily step out of the way and sucker punch him in the grogblossom. Blood sprays from his left nostril, combining with the tracks of tears down his cheeks. He drops his sword to cup his hands over his face. A strange wheezing noise reverberates from behind his fingers before he bends over to catch his breath. I slam the hilt of my sword onto the top of his head to drop him next to his partner.
I find no joy in stabbing them through the heart…the fight was over too soon.
Where have all the competent soldiers gone?
“Captain,” shrieks Greenhorn, my newest addition to my crew. He slashes and thrashes his short sword at a soldier who hasn’t broken a sweat. If the soldier would break his choreographed steps and actually fight, Greenhorn would be a filling for a pine box.
“For all that’s holy, watch his movements! He’s repeating the same bloody steps,” I grouse as I step over my former opponent. I stomp with Chub at my heels to where Greenhorn has frozen. His sword is fast enough to block the soldier’s thrusts and jabs without all the fancy footwork.
“Jab left, jab left, right thrust, parlay back,” Greenhorn sings as if the soldier can’t hear him. “You’re right! This nutmeg is stuck in his head as if he’s swirling down a whirlpool.”
“I’ll kill you, scoundrel,” his opponent yells. “We will clean the streets of pirating scum like you and claim this island in the name of King—”
“Oh, save it!” Chub yells as he slashes the soldier across the throat. “I have no patience for royal rhetoric without booze!”
“You saved the tavern! How can I ever repay you?” Maude’s sour milk smell fills my nose as she presses against me.
“Looks like one of you land lubbers will earn Maude’s free drinks. The yellow-bellied sod who hit Maude went rogue. Remember her promise and bring her his head!” I yell to the crowd, who raise their weapons and cheer. “Me hearties’ work here is done. Let’s weigh anchor! We’ve got a Kraken to hunt!”
“A Kraken? Did it threaten your boat? Is it dangerous?” Maude asks, fluttering her eyelashes.
“Not to you—” I remove her hand from my chest and glide a few inches away from her “—but she will be the death of my patronage to your working girls. The next time you see me, I’ll be a married man.”