Although Flint was tired, he knew that he couldn't rest or slow down. The moment he would do that, thoughts and images would flood his mind and shatter him, tear him to pieces. As long as he could keep himself busy, he would do that, desperately so. Because exhaustion was better than being ripped to shreds by anger and grief. He knew it would cripple him beyond belief, if he'd give in to sadness.
So, he came up with a new mission to keep the crew and himself busy. Since the gold was gone and their plan with Abigail had ended in a disaster...
They were now punishing those who dared to hang pirates. It was good...at least the anger went somewhere...but the black despair remained at his heels, chasing him. The only thing he could do about that, was to stay in motion, so it wouldn't catch up with him and swallow him whole.
Right now, they were back in Nassau to get new supplies and Flint hated every second of it.
Usually, he would leave the beach, his crew and 'Flint' behind and visit Miranda. But now...
He was stuck here, in a cramped little hut on the beach, surrounded by his crew. There was simply no way to get rid of 'Flint'. But was that really what he wanted? It dawned on him that the minute he would relax and become James, grief would grab him and rip him apart. And he couldn't risk that, not while he was among his crew. So 'Flint' stayed.
He only noticed that he'd been pacing around in this small hut for quite a while now, when he heard men shouting at each other in the streets close by.
He didn't pay much attention at first, because that was the sort of thing that happened all the time in Nassau, but then he identified one voice as Billy's.
Something wasn't quite right. It was the crew...their behaviour was strange...well, stranger than usual. It was a collective thing. Not just four or five of them being in a bad mood or so. No. It was bigger. Silver saw them whispering to each other, saw them exchanging looks. Some seemed agitated and some concerned but whatever it was, none of them talked to him about it. In fact, every time Silver came close to some of the crew members sitting together on the beach or in their tents, they'd fall silent. It hurt and to be fair it made him pretty paranoid. What could affect the crew like this? Why wouldn't they talk it over with their quartermaster?
Everything had been normal this morning. They'd arrived at Nassau and he had told the crew that they were free to do whatever they wanted but that they had to come back to help get the fresh supplies on board in the late afternoon. There had been no objection or grumbling about it. At least as far as Silver remembered. So this couldn't be the reason. And the longer he observed the men, the more he realised that they weren't unhappy about work or setting sail so soon again. They were confused and uncertain about something.
And whatever it was, he would find out sooner or later. Even if they didn't talk to him, he would find a way to get to the bottom of this. Maybe Billy knew something.
Speaking of Billy...wasn't that him over there? And in a heated argument, too? That did not happen very often. Silver moved closer in an attempt to determine what the fight was about, but not too close though, he didn't want them to stop talking like the others did today when they saw him.
"And you believe him? A stranger? You've known Flint for a long time now and you met this man...what?...four hours ago? How can you believe him? He could come up with just about anything. Don't you see that he's using you to hurt Flint's reputation? Spreading lies to make the whole crew doubt him? But who sailed under Flint? Was it you or that man? You know Flint! He doesn't!" Billy poked a finger at the man's chest in front of him, to emphasize his point.
Silver noticed that the man was Henry, a crew member of the Walrus. Henry wasn't so easily swayed by Billy's words. He seemed to be rather sure that his way of seeing the whole thing was the right one.
"But he said he knows him."
Billy moaned. "Jeez! Don't you think he could've lied about that too?"
Only now, did Silver see that almost everyone standing in the near vicinity had gathered around them. And not just the men from the Walrus, others too. Billy and Henry had attracted quite the crowd. Billy must've realised it as well, because he lowered his voice a bit as he said: "I only want from you, that you stop spreading that nonsense. You don't have any proof that it's true."
"But what if it's true...what he says about Flint? I don't want to sail under a fucking..."
"A fucking 'what'?", growled a deep voice.
Everybody's eyes darted behind Billy, where Flint seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.
Well, that situation had escalated pretty fast and Silver was curious how it would proceed. Something inside of him was screaming at him though, that he should do something, intervene, steer Flint away from it. After all, Silver was the quartermaster. But what could he do or say? He didn't have the faintest idea what this was about. So he remained silent and watched.
At first it seemed like Henry was too afraid to say what he had intended to and Silver was about to breathe a sigh of relief, because seriously, finishing that sentence right now would have been suicide.
Ah, but the moment Silver thought everything would turn out all right, it took a turn for the worse.
Either this man was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. But whatever it was, it made him finish the sentence. He even shouted it, so that everybody could hear.
"A fucking sodomite!"
The captain stared at Henry, seemingly emotionless. Silver noticed though, that one of Flint's eyes was slightly twitching. And he saw how he took out a pistol, shot Henry in the head, turned around and walked back to his hut.
The crowd was silent. No one moved. They stared at the dead man in front of them for quite a while. Until someone finally broke the spell in walking silently away. After that, the crowd dissolved quickly, leaving only a shocked Billy behind, standing next to a corpse.
Sodomite!
The word was echoing inside his head as he walked back to his hut. As if in trance, he staggered up the few wooden steps and pushed the door open.
Sodomite!
How?
How did that word find him again? How did it find its way to Nassau and to him? How? He wasn't McGraw anymore! No one knew him on this island. The people here only knew Flint and Flint had never done anything like that... Flint wasn't ...
The pistol slid out of his hand and landed on the floor with a thud. He felt shaky and nauseous.
What if it all would repeat itself?
What if they would throw him off the island because they'd found out about his past?
But...they couldn't have...right?
Just because one man decided to use this word to insult him...that didn't mean that he knew. But how else would he come up with such a word? Such a specific word! And in combination with that word, he had said that he wouldn't want to sail under him...
He must've known! Oh my god, he must've known!
The second Flint came to that conclusion, a wave of nausea hit him again and force him to his knees. The room started to spin and he let himself fall forward onto his hands for support, to feel the solid ground underneath his palms. But it was no use, the room was still moving. Flint knew that soon he would either lose consciousness or throw up. He tried to will it all away by taking deep breaths and by not thinking about...
Who else knew?!
Who else knew?!
Paranoia engulfed him. It tore at every single nerve inside of him at once, until it became too much to bear.