NaNoWriMo 2007 Nineteenth Chapter

Fresh Water Pirates- Chapter 19

Raven Red Tooth paced back and forth in the captain's office, rubbing the stones in his braids and muttering cryptic gypsy gibberish to himself.  Captain Charles watched him do this many times before.  Once many years ago before a terrible tsunami, another time before a tribe of head-hunters could find them and shrink their heads.  Sometimes Raven had these pacing fits before finding disease-ridden harlots sprawled out all over the tavern they planned to spend their booty in, other times he paced furiously before soldiers raided a pirate-friendly village with nooses made and ready for hangings.  Thanks to Raven's superstitions, most of The Others survived many an otherwise unseen deadly incident, and Captain Charles tried to never forget it.

This pacing fit looked quite similar to all the others, only this time Raven looked more angry than frightened, irritated rather than apprehensive.  Captain Charles found himself to be surprised at this, and therefore very concerned.  Not that all these pirates get angry often, they do, that's part of the pirate character, but usually during a pacing fit, Raven is merely trying to put a puzzle together in his mind that will tell the warning.  Anger usually had no place in his premonitions of danger ahead.  This combination of concern and anger certainly created an unsettling feeling in Captain Charles gut, but he knew not to talk first.  Raven must initiate the verbal communication of the perceived problem.

Attempting to practice patience, Captain Charles wound his long blond curls around his finger, smoothed out the snarls and knots with his thumb nail, and spin beads in his braids.  These charms and beads act as the pirate version of a rosary in situations such as this.  One never wants to cross a particularly nervous pirate.  The results of such an encounter are never very favorable, and disastrously unpredictable.

Finally Raven stopped pacing and held his leathery, callused palm outward for Captain Charles to see what little bones and sticks and stones were arranged there.  Raven's long gnarly fingers stretched out like black twigs and came to an alarmingly sharp point.  Never-minding this, Captain Charles took a good long look, as he always does when Raven shows him these witchy things, and, as always, he had absolutely no clue what any of it meant.

Raven, on the other hand, showed the most disconcerting emotion on his face, his black wiry eyebrows curled into thin storm clouds, wrinkles on his forehead formed thunderbolts.  He looked at Captain Charles square in the eyes and said, "Black Jenny, she be the wench who will kill you, Cap'n.  I see it plain as the sun in the sky."

Captain Charles stepped back in disbelief.  He thought of taking care of her on the Rotten Rose, disposing of her dead child, and holding her for an entire night while she wept in his chest.  He planned this entire trip for her, although he would say out loud he needed to seek new lands, new treasures, he knew deep down that he had the secret desire to find Black Jenny a peaceful life with him, in a sweet village where no one knew what pirates were, or their names, their histories.  He had been trying to deny to himself and to The Others that he truly cared for her.  Dare he admit to his heart, he loved her?

Captain Charles started to shake his head and back away from Raven and his spells.  "No, no.  No, Black Jenny would not be killing me, not by her meanin' to."  His eyes started to dart around the small cabin with a strange desperate attempt to not focus on anything, to keep wondering about the room lost and unknowing.

Raven closed his hand and slipped the charms back into their respective bag on his belt.  He approached Captain Charles slowly, with one arm reaching for his.  Captain Charles started to lose his equilibrium and fell heavily into his wooden chair.  His head fell into his hands and he started to weep.  Raven stood over him, silently, wishing he had seen otherwise, but the vision formed so clearly.

What Raven saw when he fell into his trance repeated over and over in his mind.  He saw a field covered in rings of juniper bushes, all about waist high.  The berries glowed blue in the full moon light.  Few clouds traveled the sky, only a few thin wisps grazed past the moon at moments.  No stars shone in the sky, as the moon shone too bright.  A forest of white trees with yellow leaves bordered the field, and a rock pile fence stretched across the field and disappeared into the forest.  One small deer, a fawn, stumbles clumsily out of the forest, and tries to walk amongst the junipers, but his skinny little wobbly legs constantly get stuck in the prickly long branches.  Captain Charles enters the scene, from the forest, as if he were following it, and he too has difficulty walking through the junipers, but he tries to be careful not to scare the fawn.  That's when Black Jenny appears, holding a bow and arrow, her hand holding the arrow in place against the bowstring.  She aims, pulls the bow and arrow back past her ear, waits, holding her breath.  Captain Charles does not see her.  He has his eyes set on the baby deer.  Black Jenny stands and waits, behind a white tree with yellow leaves.  Just as the baby deer frees itself and successfully leaps over the junipers, Black Jenny releases the arrow, and it sticks Captain Charles in the back and out through his heart.  Before the vision goes black for Raven, the moon seems to shine peculiarly bright on the captains' streaming blood.  The moon shimmers in Black Jenny's eyes.

Raven kneels down in front of Captain Charles and tries to slowly pry the hands away from his wet crying face.  

"Are ye sure?" Captain Charles asked, his voice pinched from a swollen throat, his eyes already puffy, and his lips fat and lined with thick saliva.  "How can ye be sure?  What happens exactly, I want t' be knowin' how we cen stop this, Raven.  He cen we be sure?"  Captain Charles buried his hand in his hands again while his body shook and trembled a bit.  

Raven never saw the Captain cry like this before.   He knew the captain could have a little bit of a soft spot, but he always kept a tough and important state about him.  He knew how to act like a man in control, like a captain.  If any of the pirates started to slip out of line too much, Captain Charles had his own gentleman's way of reminding the pirates who was in charge, and what the consequences of disobeying were.  To see the captain curled up and crying in front of him hit Raven with a burning sting in his heart.

"Cap'n, I be very certain what I saw.  She shot you good in the heart, Cap'n, actually she shot you in the back and it came out through your heart.  I can't be sayin' this no more, it makes the curse come true.  I can't be talkin' ‘bout it no more, ye understan' Cap'n?  We has to be believin' it t' be true, and protect yerself from her evil ways.  I can't be sayin' no more.  Don't ye be makin' me say anymor'in I have t', Cap'n."

Raven fought tears himself- that stinging burning feeling kept creeping up his throat and swelling the back of his tongue.  His eyes burned and tried to tear up but Raven fought it back.  He wouldn't cry over this vision and verify its truth.  From here on in he had to put his energy into keeping a hard eye on Black Jenny, and Sheila for that matter, to protect his captain, and long time friend.

"Cap'n?" Raven grabbed Captain Charles' shoulders and squeezed them hard.  "Cap'n we be needin' to run this ship, now.  The Rotten Rose, she be hittin' land late this evenin' an' ye gots some swordplay in yer near future.  Ye needs be showin' these scurvy rats what it mean t' be a pirate, Cap'n.  Come on, Cap'n.  Shake ‘er off, now.  I be sorry I see sech things, Cap'n.  Jest ye be blamin' it all on these fresh waters, Cap'n.  I'd be havin' more true visions on salt water, anyways."

Captain Charles lifted his head, mopped his tears with his blouse sleeves, and reached over to the parlor chair.  He grabbed a small soft pillow and handed it to Raven.  Raven looked completely confused.  His heart started to race a bit.  "Now Cap'n, this ain't no way t'..."

Captain Charles cut him off.  "Raven.  Hit me in th' face wi' th' pillow."

Raven's eyebrows wriggled across his face in more confusion.

"Raven, I command ye t' hit me in th' face wi' the' pillow.  I be cryin' an' I can't be lettin' on so.  Hit me in th' pillow wi' th' pillow.  Several times, too, ‘til me face look like a man's."

  Copyright 2007 Laura Beck Nielsen