The transit through time was a blur for me, as the landforms flew west beneath our feet and 1,340 seasons strobed by.
This time Ariyl and I arrived nearly together—she appeared beside me on the beach a handful of seconds after I arrived. It was either near dawn, or after sundown, to judge from the pink sky in the east/west. The humid air was cool. There wasn’t a soul in sight. About a mile distant lay the little settlement of Nassau on New Providence Island. We began walking toward the town.
“Where are we, and what are we doing here?” Ariyl asked.
I gave her the Cliff Notes version of how Ludlo stole Blackbeard’s treasure, and saved the boy pirate John King, whose crazy descendant caused the asteroid impact.
But all Ariyl heard was...
“Pirates!” she exulted. “I want to be Anne Bonny!”
“Who?” It was my turn to be the clueless one.
“Arrh! D’ye not know the lady buccaneerrr? The sultry scourrrge o’ the Spanish Main?” she growled.
“That’s the worst Robert Newton impression I ever heard,” I said, trying not to laugh.
“Whooo be that?”
“He be the actor who played Long John Silver for Disney. ‘Arrh, young Jim ’awrkins!’ Everybody who talks like a pirate is imitating him.”
“Arrh, thanks, Roberrt!” she grinned. She touched her shoulder and ordered her SmartFab to morph into “Anne Bonny outfit!”
All of a sudden, I wasn’t in such a merry mood.
“What is it?” she said.
She looked a lot like the Maureen O’Hara clone in Ludlo’s penthouse. I was trying to forget that world.
“Nothing,” I told her. “You look gorgeous.”
“Awww!”
“But by gorgeous, I mean, too gorgeous.”
Her face fell as she anticipated my next words.
“Oh, no. I have to dress like a guy again? Why?”
“These are pirates, Ariyl. Murderers, torturers, rapists—the scum of the earth.”
She took offense.
“Hey, in Blackbeard’s Brethren, the pirates had democracy before America came along. They voted for their captains and could vote them out, they had like a constitution that set out what everyone’s share would be...”
“Pirate articles. Yeah, that’s true, but...”
“And Blackbeard didn’t torture, and he never killed anyone until his last big battle.”
“Seems like I remember hearing that. But trust me, if you walk in that tavern looking female at all, you can bet one of these fine democratic brigands—probably all of ’em—are gonna jump you.”
“I can take care of myself.” A grin spread across her face as she pictured it.
“No! That’s the last thing we want! No fighting! No tossing men around! No gun bending or sword snapping or bone crushing. We have to leave zero historical footprint here. I beg of you, just blend in for ten minutes and let me find out where Blackbeard went down!”
“On who?” she winked.
“Enough of the Arrh-rated humor,” I said.
Ariyl ordered up a ragged seadog outfit, complete with long burgundy coat. She kept her tousled redhead mane but her static-headband hung a lot of it along her chin as a beard, and capped it all with a tricorn hat worn low on her nose.
“How do I look?” I asked her.
She surveyed my V-necked shirt (sans buttons), black pants and boots.
“Cute.”
“Nothing anachronous?”
“You’re asking me?”
We trudged closer, picking up the faint sound of singing.
We passed an old stone fort that overlooked Nassau’s harbor. It was largely a ruin, with battlements like a derelict’s smile, missing big chunks, no doubt blown away by cannon fire during the endless War of the Spanish Succession.
Then I noticed an oddity atop the fort.
“The Union Jack!”
“That flag?”
“I’m no expert on colonial America, but I’m pretty sure in 1717, Nassau was a wide-open pirate port. An outlaw capital. The only flag they flew was the Jolly Roger.” Then I added, “The skull and crossbones.”
“I know what the Jolly Roger is! I’m not an idiot.” She paused. “What’s a Union Jack?”
I didn’t want to get into a long lecture on the history of the United Kingdom.
“It’s the flag of the British king.”
“Oh. So do you think the Crystals messed up the date?”
Then we heard voices again far down the beach, singing lustily if somewhat slurred. The melody was an odd variation on the one I knew, but it was clear we’d arrived on my requested day, from the words of perhaps the oldest English carol of them all:
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day.
I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
“Not to worry,” I told Ariyl. “’Tis the season.”
And indeed, within view of the fort was anchored a huge Spanish galleon bristling with cannon, and two smaller sloops nearby.
And what was in those ships all three?
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day.
And what was in those ships all three?
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Coming closer, we saw no piers or wharves, but a dozen wooden skeletons of stripped ships run aground on the sand, many of them torched. Along the shoreline above the high-water mark were scattered a hundred or more wooden shacks, hovels thatched with palm fronds, tents made of broken ship timbers and canvas, plus several older timber-framed houses and brick and adobe structures that had fallen into disrepair during the war.
“But why’d you say Christmas Day?” asked Ariyl.
“Fewer syllables than December the twenty-fifth,” I said. “When you’re staring down a gun barrel, a second matters.”
We kept trudging toward the singing.
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day.
The Virgin Mary and Christ were there,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
“All right, but why December twenty-fifth?” she pressed.
“Because Ludlo said he stole the treasure the night Blackbeard’s ship went down. And his son Octavius Junior told Edison his ancestor did that May seventh, 1717. I figured by Christmas of this year, word of the sinking must have reached Nassau.”
The sky was growing pinker—it was dawn, after all. Merry Christmas.
One of the damaged adobes had a sailcloth awning covering a weathered gap—no doubt blasted years ago by one of those Spanish cannonballs. It now served as an alehouse, to judge from the laughter and off-key caroling coming from under the canvas. We headed for it.
“All we need to know is where his ship was, and I bet anybody in port could tell us that for the price of a drink.”
“I’m all out of pieces of eight. You buying?” she asked.
I showed her my doubloon.
“Probably buy the whole tavern with that,” she commented, surveying our destination.
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
And all the bells on earth shall ring,
On Christmas Day in the morning.
Nassau smelled of days-old fish, woodsmoke, frying onions, roasting meat and simmering molasses, plus some less-pleasant reeks I didn’t care to identify.
As we entered the tavern, all those scents were present, only stronger, and mixed with body odor, perfume and puke, plus spilt wine, beer and rum.
At least it was well lit. As were its patrons, who had been celebrating since Christmas Eve.
Then let us all rejoice, amain,
On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,
Then let us all rejoice, amain,
On Christmas Day in the morning!
The song ended as we stepped up to the plank between two barrels that served as the bar. The proprietor eyed us, suspicious. I wanted to make a good first impression.
“God save all here,” I said. “And a merry Christmas to one and all.”
Dead silence.
“You’re from Bennett’s crew, then?” the barkeep growled.
Ariyl and I exchanged a look. This was no doubt a tight-knit community, so they assumed two strangers came from the latest ship to arrive.
“Yes,” I said, simultaneous with Ariyl’s “No.”
I shot her an exasperated look.
“Which is it?” demanded the alehouse owner.
“Yes, we ‘know’ him,” I explained.
“’Cause we be in his crew,” Ariyl added in her gravelliest pirate voice.
“I don’t like Bennett,” snarled the owner. “Squinny-gut governor’s son.”
Ariyl shot a look back at me.
“Well, he has aught but good things to say about this establishment,” I grinned. “He said I’d find no finer alehouse in Nassau than this.”
The owner nodded, satisfied if not convinced.
“What’ll it be?”
“Rum, for all hands,” I said, plunking the doubloon down on the board.
Eyes bulged, then a cheer went up around the room and the whole scurvy lot of them crowded in to top off their tankards.
We were popular, at last.
“What be your names, strangers?” asked a tall man with brown hair and beard, and a long calico sash that wrapped around him and trailed on the floor.
“Roberrrt Newton, ha-harrh!” rasped Ariyl.
I gave her a don’t-overdo-it look.
“And yours?” he asked.
“Errol Flynn,” I said.
“Not a Boston man, are you?” demanded a pirate in a too-big coat, who looked to be about thirty, but hadn’t a trace of beard.
My dad was born in Boston, but from the pirate’s shrill demand, I sensed it was better to shake my head.
“Leave him be, Marty,” said the man in the bright scarf. “Jack Rackham, at your service.”
“Calico Jack!” laughed one of the tavern wenches.
Jack nodded; it seemed he enjoyed the sobriquet. Then he gestured at the other brigands with his tankard.
“May I present Edward England?”
“Before ye ask, I’m Irish!” barked England.
“Good to know,” I said.
“And these worthy captains be Paulsgrave Williams,” said Rackham, indicating a deeply tanned man wearing a white wig as if he were a barrister at court. He went on naming the rest: “Edmond Condant, Nicholas Brown, Christopher Winter.”
Each man gestured with his tankard, grateful for my playing Santa Claus.
“And this be Charles Vane.”
A leather-clad pirate with a scar down the side of his face also raised his tankard to me, but gave me a look over its rim that said he’d just as soon slit my throat.
My pirate friend “Robert” pulled me aside and whispered in my ear.
“Remember what I said about Blackbeard not torturing or murdering his captives? Vane’s just the opposite. Watch out.”
Looking into Vane’s dead-shark eyes, I believed her. I nodded and moved back to the bar, where I could address the rest of my thirsty beneficiaries.
“Gentlemen,” I began.
At that moment, I felt an unfamiliar (yet too familiar) hand fishing around in my pants.
I caught the wrist and pulled it out—it belonged to a buxom, redheaded lass who flashed me a shameless grin as the pirates laughed.
“Got any more o’ them doubloons, duck?”
My pal Robert turned away (covering, I suspect, her own laugh.)
“That was the lot, miss. Besides, are you old enough to drink?” I smiled. She could have passed for a college freshman.
“Am I what?” she said, outraged.
Oops.
“Forget it. I was thinking of a different time. Barkeep, rum for the lady, on me.”
She grabbed the nearest tankard.
“Aye! Rum for the lady, on you!”
She poured it over my head.
The entire tavern broke into gales of laughter, and none louder than me ol’ pal Roberrrt.
Rackham clapped me on my shoulder, guffawing.
“Ye see where courtesy gets ye ’round here?”
The proprietor threw me a rag and I swabbed off as much rum as I could. My eyes stung but I needed to keep this crowd in a merry humor, until I got the answer to one simple question. I moved away from the little redhead, who snuggled up next to Vane.
“Gentlemen, I give you a toast to the memory of that fearless raider of the Spanish Main, Blackbeard.”
Everyone froze. I was the only one ready to put a cup to my lips.
“What do you mean, memory?” snarled Vane.
It’s been seven months...they must have heard about it by now, I thought.
“I mean no disrespect. I heard that his ship had gone down this past May, and I was hoping someone here knew where that sad event occurred.”
Two score eyes bored into me. I was no longer popular. Without moving from his bench, Vane put the point of his cutlass to my throat in the blink of an eye.