*****
Apples and Ash
*****
If he crouched here long enough, they'd look somewhere else, search down below, in his cabin maybe. He squinted up at the moonlight and the skeletal monsters that made it flicker through the grate above. Looking for him, knowing he was close. Cursed gold giving him away.
They passed quickly enough, stealthily stalking the night for old Bootstrap Bill. If he weren't so terrified, he'd have laughed. Instead, he moved, clamoring through the dark, past the rats and over the muck of the ship's hold. If they saw him emerge, a skeleton like them, bathed in bluish moonlight, if they turned and pointed their allies to him, he didn't know. He wouldn't look back. He ran, incapable of exhaustion even if fear rampaged through him.
How silly to think they wouldn't see him. Of course they were there, right behind him, an undead army of mutinous, bloodthirsty pirates. A ghost story made all too real by the fact that he was just like them.
Barbossa's gruff scream and the thudding of bone feet on sea-bleached wood. His choices presented themselves too quickly and neither one was very appealing; the lifeboats were too far for him to reach before the pirates swarmed to him. And his other choice...
He was looking down at black choppy waters, an expansive graveyard for pirate kills with ship masts bobbing to the surface sadly. Waters filled with the bones of once glorious ships and long-dead sailors, empty wooden hulls, hiding places....
He clutched a skeletal hand around the coin, bones creaking from the strength. He took a firm step onto the wood, grabbing onto rigging and canvas to hold himself steady. They were so near now, a thunderous procession of his "crewmates" storming towards him. One last look at the medallion, a whispered name and then a dive into swirling waters.
"William..."
*****
Perhaps, if he had known then what he learned later, he would have stayed in the water longer, hiding among the wrecked ships until the Black Pearl left, leaving him to his fate. But he hadn't known, hadn't understood the curse at all. So he only stayed under for as long as he thought he could, holding his breath and behaving like any man who thought himself alive would.
But he was not alive.
Still, he made it onto the beach, gasping for air he thought he needed and headed in towards the lights of a port town in the distance, calling to him with the promise of justice.
*****
The messenger didn't understand. Why meet inside the stuffy tavern? There was much to see outside! The sun was slowly setting, true, but the moon would be full and bright, the mood light and jovial. But Bill had insisted, demanded that the man come alone, that they meet indoors, preferably by day...
"You're late..." Bill bit out gruffly, upset by the man's concept of punctuality.
"Sorry 'bout tha'. Bit of trouble at the port. No trouble now, just harried and questioned by everyone s'all."
"Wha' for?" What a liar he was, he sounded so ignorant, so concerned.
"Pirates. They laid anchor far offshore, but they're too close for the navy's likin'. Seems some of 'em came ashore, see? Officers are stopping everyone suspicious, they are. Guess I fit tha' description well enough!"
The messenger laughed at his joke, his mouth parting widely to display the gaps in his smile. He took a long swig of his drink, slammed it onto the scrubbed table and then eyed his friend suspiciously. No greasy tavern meal, no rum, no wench on his arm...
"What, not drinkin' tonight, Bootstrap? S'not the best tastin', but it does the job well enough."
Bill's mouth opened and closed involuntarily, the memory of the taste of dry, bitter ash on his tongue suddenly. He swallowed hard, feeling his thirst, longing to drink. His throat had been so dry for too long now, his stomach painful from emptiness. And his nights, torturous, unable to feel but needing to so badly, craving satisfaction. A thirst of a different kind. No less maddening than the thirst for drink, the drink that his friend gulped and took for granted, but unlike his desire for sustenance, his lust could not be turned off when he slept. Images taunted him, visions of flesh spread out like a feast beneath him. So thirsty...
"I've had my fill of drink," he said, truthfully enough. The messenger didn't seem convinced and made to press the issue, but Bill brought his attention back to the issue at hand soon enough.
"This," he said, dropping a leather pouch and a small note into the man's grubby hand, "is t'be delivered to England at this address. Keep it closed."
His fingers closed around the worn package and his eyes glinted with curiosity. He wanted to open it so badly, but loyalty and favors were nothing to trifle with. Bill had come through many a time for him in the past...
"Why so secret, you coulda sent this through more...er...legal means, righ'?"
Outside, the darkness settled quickly and the boisterous noises from the dock carried through the air like heavy perfume. The tavern was suddenly packed with merrymakers both respectable and questionable. Each time the door opened and moonlight forced its way through with a traveler, Bill cringed, fearing it would creep across the floor and find him, reveal the truth to everyone.
"No," Bill growled, "keep it quiet. Get it there as fast as possible. Tell no one. No one."
The messenger must have detected the desperation just under the surface of his voice and nodded once in understanding. Bill sighed, relieved for the first time in a long time. Even if the pleasures of life were denied to him, justice would be served.
"One last thing," Bill began by way of warning, "there are things lookin' for that. Th'won't stop 'til they've got it. Move quickly, get a head start. An' I would'na trust anyone..."
The man across from him appeared to take these words to heart even if he wondered at the use of the word "things" instead of "people". He quickly pocketed the pouch, concealing it well beneath layers of filthy clothing. He didn't tarry any longer, but finished his drink and then moved into the night with a stealth that belied his broken-looking body. If that man couldn't deliver it to his son, then it was impossible.
Bill took one last longing look at the mug in front of him, the few precious drops left in the bottom of the messenger's pint. He reached a finger out, a single bead of liquid rolling onto the digit. Slowly, with strained care, he brought the jewel to his lips, sucked it into his mouth, hoping.
If only he could have cried.
He stood too quickly, his chair banging into the wall behind him. He stalked to the back of the tavern to where a crooked door led to the alley outside. Here he could escape unnoticed, through this sad-looking door, move through the streets that glistened with the honesty of moonlight without being seen.
He thought about the taste on his lips and the last word from his mouth before the blow knocked him cold...
"Ash..."
*****
He dreamed despite the throbbing in his head. Strange dreams really.
He was floating on his back in bright blue water, a crystal pond warmed by the sun. And sitting in a rowboat that floated along easily beside him eating a green apple was Jack Sparrow. He gave an involuntary smile at the sight the man presented, all gangly arms and strange motions. Remembered his perpetually slurred words, as if the man was drunk for life and his eccentric garb, scarves and beads thrown together without order. Jack Sparrow, quite a character...
"'Captain' Jack Sparrow, thank you," the man drawled around a bite of fruit, giving him a gold-toothed smile, kohl darkened eyes narrowing cheerily. "Save your life a time or two and I still hav' to suffer disrespect. And look at you now, you scalawag! Floatin' on the sea by your one-sies..."
Jack was the same sly, fast talking scoundrel he remembered. As he floated on the gentle waves that strangely cushioned his body, Bill remembered the last time he had seen Jack and was glad the man beside him in the boat looked somewhat better.
Bill had watched from a distance, restrained by the mutinous crew, as Jack walked the plank, hands bound and a pistol tucked into his belt. At the horizon, an island, all soft tans and vibrant greens. A deserted, horrible place. Jack's new home. His "paradise" Barbossa had chuckled, his monkey joining in with a miserable squeak. The only satisfaction Bill had was that Jack hadn't gone quietly or easily. The crew had suffered more than a few casualties and numerous injuries before Jack had finally slowed down, his blade flashing with less finesse, his bravado suddenly turning to curses and grunts.
Sheer numbers brought him down. Bill knew that in a fair fight, Jack wouldn't have ended up standing on the plank, bloodied and beaten, advancing slowly towards a horrible fate.
The singular splash was anti-climatic somehow, but the tired strokes of the Black Pearl's true captain bringing him to land were enough to amuse the crew. Full rudder and then the Pearl was leaving Jack on the island with only thoughts of starvation or suicide to comfort him. The mutineers had laughed for a time at the site of their one-time captain sprawling onto the sand in exhaustion. Then they had turned their attention to him.
He remembered it so well, arms holding him fast, Barbossa looming over him, scarred face smiling.
"An' what," he breathed, "are we ta do with you, Bootstrap?"
And then the long nights in the holding cell below deck, hungry, filthy, defeated. The sight of his captain falling into the water tormented him. He remembered believing once that nothing could break Jack Sparrow. It seemed he had been wrong. He could only cheer himself with wild ideas; Jack making a daring escape from the island, surviving despite the odds, forming a crew and taking the Pearl again, leaving Barbossa to rot on an island somewhere. It was a sweet dream. Impossible, but sweet.
Those dreams had kept him going until the creak of his cell door had awakened him from starved sleep.
"Time ta go," a snarling pirate said, glaring at him in what was actually a grin. "Captain's got a job fer ya..."
The boat was anchored and tied at some bleak island, black and deserted looking with billowing smoke drifting up from a hopefully dormant volcano. They bound his hands before him and marched him off the Pearl, snickering at his weakness, his plight. The trek through the caves and paths of the island was a long, tension-filled one. Through bone-filled caverns the pirates escorted him, poking him when he didn't move quickly enough or when the hunger and exhaustion brought him to his knees.
"Up!" one of his captors screamed and gave him a fierce kick in the stomach. He reached out to stop the blows, holding his hands before him only to feel the quick swipe of a sword across his hand, the blood coating his fingers warm and thick. He was pulled up roughly and forced to walk by the point of a blade at his back.
It continued until they reached a rocky recess with a high ceiling. Patches of sunlight streamed into the room from jagged openings in the rock above. The effect would have been lovely were not for the fact that something else distracted him.
Sitting high on a rise in the ground, a chest waited, glowing from the sunlight or perhaps its own aura. The strange markings, like little rough people dancing, circled the entire chest and seemed to bode of evil things, dark mysterious things.
"Ah, Bootstrap!" Barbossa greeted him with a wide sweep of his arms from beside the treasure. "Glad you're awake. We'll be needin' a favor of ye."
He was brought forward roughly and forced onto his knees before the chest, the twisted design suddenly dominating his vision, sickening him. Barbossa's voice added to the feeling, the captain's enthusiasm twisting Bill's insides into knots.
"See this," Barbossa asked, pointing at the chest. He circled to stand before Bill and then dropped onto one knee before him. "We've had a bit of a discussion, see? From what we hear, this gold was cursed by heathen gods." He was grinning now, dirty teeth making the lopsided expression more gruesome. "An' we figured there'd be no use for all of us ta suffer with the curse. So do us all a favor and open the trunk."
"Open it yourself, you mutinous coward," he managed in a voice he hoped sounded as confidant as Jack's might have. Even with his mouth sore from multiple blows and kicks, he still felt like smiling at the thought.
"Figured you'd say somethin' like that," Barbossa said as he stood and aimed a pistol at his head. "So here are your choices, Bootstrap. You can open that trunk and we might let you live, or you can refuse to open it and die in a most horrible fashion. What we did to Jack will seem kind by comparison." The words rang through the cool, cavern and Bill swallowed, as a realization dawned on him, heavy and terrifying.
In those long hours in his cell he had thought about two things: Jack Sparrow and his only son, William. In his mind, he believed that he had said goodbye to them well enough, in his prayers, in his thoughts. Somehow he had convinced himself that he was ready to die, that Barbossa would kill him soon and that he would be prepared for it when that time came. But at that moment, staring up at the pistil that was pressed into his skull like so much unavoidable death, Bill was aware of the truth he had hidden from himself. He was not ready to die. William would grow into a fine boy. Jack would fight again; grinning and talking like the devil himself. And Bill wanted to see it. By God he did.
He only gave a singular nod to show his assent then waited for the pistol to drop from his forehead. With a rough push, he was tumbling forward but found his arms free to break the fall. Lifting his head he was again staring at the chest, its designs intriguing him as surely as they repulsed him. He stumbled towards it, limping from the pain in his legs.
When he lay his hands on the lid, he felt something, a shaking pulse ran through his fingers and the feeling circled all around and inside him. He looked towards Barbossa, his face questioning.
"Aye, I felt it too, that ripple through me fingers," Barbossa looked uncertain about the power that caused the feeling until his customary greed replaced the expression.
Bill returned his attention to the chest, suddenly more curious than was healthy, he was sure. As much as he wanted to live, he also wanted to know what was inside the heavy, golden chest. Thoughts of a cleverly darting and dodging figure, quick with his blade and his wit, and a smiling dark- haired baby left his mind while thoughts of treasure and riches took over.
He pushed. A heavy clash, a shuffling of feet moving closer, surrounding him, and then a gasp from the gathering of pirates. The blinding reality of golden coins glittering in spotted sunlight--just beneath his fingers a real treasure. Like the kind in fairy tales, the very metal of dreams. He was dazzled, his breath stolen from him as if by a thief, his eyes greedy to see more and his hands...
He felt his fingers close on that first coin, lift it to his eyes and rub over the skull carved deep into it, sweep around the smooth edges. Cool from laying in shadows, pulsing slightly with a power. A sudden jolt wracked his body, a numbness that spread, settling like lead in his limbs, his stomach. It was the last thing he remembered feeling.
Beside him, Jack was finishing the apple, his eyes fixed on the horizon as if he couldn't tire of staring at it. He never even blinked, afraid to miss a moment of the freedom he glimpsed in the distance.
"We had some times, William," the captain whispered, using his proper name as his eyes broke away from the line of sky and sea to look at him.
"Surely did, Captain," he replied with a smile before he sobered. "S'wrong what they did to you, sir. S'wrong."
"Nothing to be done. Pirates you see, they do what they want," Jack's sun- baked face cracked in amusement even as long fingers tossed the apple core behind him causing a satisfactory "plop" in the water and a ripple Bill felt against his back.
"But there's the code!" he found himself protesting, sure that Jack would defend it forever.
"The code," Jack spat, "didn't help me when they took my Pearl."
"Jack..." he began, trying to comfort his captain, his friend.
"Oh, don't be getting sentimental," he waved his concern away and pierced him with a hard look. "And another thing, William..." he said the name with such familiarity, such camaraderie, that Bill was immediately curious.
"Yes?" Bill breathed the question, waiting.
Jack was obviously tickled by Bill's seriousness as he only smiled again, something he did easily and to great effect. "Wake up, mate. S'time to pay the piper..."
Reality hit him as hard as the blow to the head that had knocked him cold.
"So, you're awake," Barbossa drawled from somewhere to his left. The scene fuzzed in an out of focus before his eyes. There seemed to be thousands of blurry pirates glaring down at him and the world beneath him was rocking. On the deck, he figured, wincing from the pain it took to think. Overhead, low wispy clouds blocked the moonlight but they were moving quickly, the wind making the sea and sky churn.
"Welcome back to the Pearl, Bootstrap," the "captain" mocked earning the typical monkey-like laughter from the crew.
"Now, I don't suppose you'll be tellin' us where you put that coin? It's not on your personage and we're mighty interested in getting it back..."
The moonlight cleared and the rotting body of the captain strolled heavily towards where he lay on the deck, bound and helpless.
"'Cause if you think this is hell now, just wait 'til we're through with you."
Covered in the dust of years in his mind, still shining beneath all the grime of his sins and misdeeds, there was an image of a child, twirling, dancing, smiling. He kept it in his mind, laying on that damp deck, feeling the memory of warmth on a summer's day and the gangly hug of a child, his boy, his son. For that glowing child to die, to be hunted down, that would be hell--to live an unholy life forever knowing his son was dead. For what he could no longer feel at all, he glared up at the "captain" and kept his mouth firmly shut, trading one hell for another.
*****
The weight was inescapable, the pull at his legs, his arms flailing above him in the water. Downwards through darkening midnight depths he fell with no chance of stopping until the waiting arms of the bottom of the ocean caught him.
The horror of the situation occurred to him as the fall lengthened and stretched for minutes and then what seemed like hours.
He couldn't die.
He would fall to the bottom of the ocean and stay there forever, chained to a canon, a testament to Barbossa's cruelty. The chains themselves wrapped up his legs, around and under his arms and back down to fasten at his waist with a heavy lock, somehow leaving his arms free. And would he live down here until the chains rusted and he could break free, seek out Barbossa and avenge both Jack and himself?
Only the muffled thud of the canon hitting the ocean floor answered him. Even his scream was deadened by the inky darkness of the water.
*****
In the early weeks of the curse, they hadn't understood. Hadn't realized how truly "immortal" they were and the price of such power. Immortality seemed such a wonderful bonus to the gold they had originally sought. All the wealth in the world within their grasps and no one capable of stopping them from taking it. It was so easy to tip Bootstrap into the water, watch him sink sure that he would die that way.
They played with it at first, taking turns shooting one another just to test it. That the food had lost its taste seemed a small price to pay at first. That they had more gold than they could spend and only wanted more didn't seem too strange. That no woman or man seemed to satisfy the ache in their loins was infuriating, but tolerable if it was temporary. They pinned their hopes on temporary. So they played, darting in and out of cabins onto the deck to watch their bodies change and shrivel. It was a game.
And then the truth had revealed itself. How quickly the fun had ended, how quickly they wanted feeling again, even the taste of bad food appealed to them. Pain, cold, joy, anything. They would take it and be glad so long as they could feel again.
So they searched for the answers. What they found only darkened their sadness. The last words of a mystic, selling fortunes to travelers for shillings, the holder of the secret of Cortez's gold, the one who knew why they were what they were and how they came to be that way.
"The coins," he had wailed with the knife pressed into his throat, pressed flat to the floor of the dirty hut, "they must be returned! All of them! And..."
"And..." Barbossa had growled, eyes already losing the spark of sanity he once had; his mind twisted from the taste foul taste in his mouth, the ache in his belly....
"T-the ones who took it, they must repay the debt with their blood once their coins are returned and accounted for. Every last one of the thieves..."
The word "thieves" earned him a hard blow to the head from a mean-looking thug. But Babossa had stared at him, long and hard. "Everyone," he repeated, uncertain.
Unwelcome, an image surfaced in his mind, a battered man standing before the chest, bloodied and bruised. His hand closing on the cursed coin, holding it, keeping it...
Then he recalled the same man later, his flailing body slipping downwards into the cold, dark water.
"Bootstrap," Babossa hissed and desperation made him shiver, the idea that by damning Bootstrap, he had damned himself.
"An' what if one of the crew is no longer able to give his blood?" Barbossa wondered aloud pressing the knife further into the man's dark throat.
"Then...then close kin, a child or a brother. Their blood..."
"Kin, eh?"
His grin was a gash of cruelty. He looked toward his crew and asked, "Who d'ya think ol' Bootstrap sent that coin to, eh, boys?"
One and all grinned. A flick of his wrist and the mystic fell over dead. Barbossa never even gave him time to scream.
TBC
If he crouched here long enough, they'd look somewhere else, search down below, in his cabin maybe. He squinted up at the moonlight and the skeletal monsters that made it flicker through the grate above. Looking for him, knowing he was close. Cursed gold giving him away.
They passed quickly enough, stealthily stalking the night for old Bootstrap Bill. If he weren't so terrified, he'd have laughed. Instead, he moved, clamoring through the dark, past the rats and over the muck of the ship's hold. If they saw him emerge, a skeleton like them, bathed in bluish moonlight, if they turned and pointed their allies to him, he didn't know. He wouldn't look back. He ran, incapable of exhaustion even if fear rampaged through him.
How silly to think they wouldn't see him. Of course they were there, right behind him, an undead army of mutinous, bloodthirsty pirates. A ghost story made all too real by the fact that he was just like them.
Barbossa's gruff scream and the thudding of bone feet on sea-bleached wood. His choices presented themselves too quickly and neither one was very appealing; the lifeboats were too far for him to reach before the pirates swarmed to him. And his other choice...
He was looking down at black choppy waters, an expansive graveyard for pirate kills with ship masts bobbing to the surface sadly. Waters filled with the bones of once glorious ships and long-dead sailors, empty wooden hulls, hiding places....
He clutched a skeletal hand around the coin, bones creaking from the strength. He took a firm step onto the wood, grabbing onto rigging and canvas to hold himself steady. They were so near now, a thunderous procession of his "crewmates" storming towards him. One last look at the medallion, a whispered name and then a dive into swirling waters.
"William..."
*****
Perhaps, if he had known then what he learned later, he would have stayed in the water longer, hiding among the wrecked ships until the Black Pearl left, leaving him to his fate. But he hadn't known, hadn't understood the curse at all. So he only stayed under for as long as he thought he could, holding his breath and behaving like any man who thought himself alive would.
But he was not alive.
Still, he made it onto the beach, gasping for air he thought he needed and headed in towards the lights of a port town in the distance, calling to him with the promise of justice.
*****
The messenger didn't understand. Why meet inside the stuffy tavern? There was much to see outside! The sun was slowly setting, true, but the moon would be full and bright, the mood light and jovial. But Bill had insisted, demanded that the man come alone, that they meet indoors, preferably by day...
"You're late..." Bill bit out gruffly, upset by the man's concept of punctuality.
"Sorry 'bout tha'. Bit of trouble at the port. No trouble now, just harried and questioned by everyone s'all."
"Wha' for?" What a liar he was, he sounded so ignorant, so concerned.
"Pirates. They laid anchor far offshore, but they're too close for the navy's likin'. Seems some of 'em came ashore, see? Officers are stopping everyone suspicious, they are. Guess I fit tha' description well enough!"
The messenger laughed at his joke, his mouth parting widely to display the gaps in his smile. He took a long swig of his drink, slammed it onto the scrubbed table and then eyed his friend suspiciously. No greasy tavern meal, no rum, no wench on his arm...
"What, not drinkin' tonight, Bootstrap? S'not the best tastin', but it does the job well enough."
Bill's mouth opened and closed involuntarily, the memory of the taste of dry, bitter ash on his tongue suddenly. He swallowed hard, feeling his thirst, longing to drink. His throat had been so dry for too long now, his stomach painful from emptiness. And his nights, torturous, unable to feel but needing to so badly, craving satisfaction. A thirst of a different kind. No less maddening than the thirst for drink, the drink that his friend gulped and took for granted, but unlike his desire for sustenance, his lust could not be turned off when he slept. Images taunted him, visions of flesh spread out like a feast beneath him. So thirsty...
"I've had my fill of drink," he said, truthfully enough. The messenger didn't seem convinced and made to press the issue, but Bill brought his attention back to the issue at hand soon enough.
"This," he said, dropping a leather pouch and a small note into the man's grubby hand, "is t'be delivered to England at this address. Keep it closed."
His fingers closed around the worn package and his eyes glinted with curiosity. He wanted to open it so badly, but loyalty and favors were nothing to trifle with. Bill had come through many a time for him in the past...
"Why so secret, you coulda sent this through more...er...legal means, righ'?"
Outside, the darkness settled quickly and the boisterous noises from the dock carried through the air like heavy perfume. The tavern was suddenly packed with merrymakers both respectable and questionable. Each time the door opened and moonlight forced its way through with a traveler, Bill cringed, fearing it would creep across the floor and find him, reveal the truth to everyone.
"No," Bill growled, "keep it quiet. Get it there as fast as possible. Tell no one. No one."
The messenger must have detected the desperation just under the surface of his voice and nodded once in understanding. Bill sighed, relieved for the first time in a long time. Even if the pleasures of life were denied to him, justice would be served.
"One last thing," Bill began by way of warning, "there are things lookin' for that. Th'won't stop 'til they've got it. Move quickly, get a head start. An' I would'na trust anyone..."
The man across from him appeared to take these words to heart even if he wondered at the use of the word "things" instead of "people". He quickly pocketed the pouch, concealing it well beneath layers of filthy clothing. He didn't tarry any longer, but finished his drink and then moved into the night with a stealth that belied his broken-looking body. If that man couldn't deliver it to his son, then it was impossible.
Bill took one last longing look at the mug in front of him, the few precious drops left in the bottom of the messenger's pint. He reached a finger out, a single bead of liquid rolling onto the digit. Slowly, with strained care, he brought the jewel to his lips, sucked it into his mouth, hoping.
If only he could have cried.
He stood too quickly, his chair banging into the wall behind him. He stalked to the back of the tavern to where a crooked door led to the alley outside. Here he could escape unnoticed, through this sad-looking door, move through the streets that glistened with the honesty of moonlight without being seen.
He thought about the taste on his lips and the last word from his mouth before the blow knocked him cold...
"Ash..."
*****
He dreamed despite the throbbing in his head. Strange dreams really.
He was floating on his back in bright blue water, a crystal pond warmed by the sun. And sitting in a rowboat that floated along easily beside him eating a green apple was Jack Sparrow. He gave an involuntary smile at the sight the man presented, all gangly arms and strange motions. Remembered his perpetually slurred words, as if the man was drunk for life and his eccentric garb, scarves and beads thrown together without order. Jack Sparrow, quite a character...
"'Captain' Jack Sparrow, thank you," the man drawled around a bite of fruit, giving him a gold-toothed smile, kohl darkened eyes narrowing cheerily. "Save your life a time or two and I still hav' to suffer disrespect. And look at you now, you scalawag! Floatin' on the sea by your one-sies..."
Jack was the same sly, fast talking scoundrel he remembered. As he floated on the gentle waves that strangely cushioned his body, Bill remembered the last time he had seen Jack and was glad the man beside him in the boat looked somewhat better.
Bill had watched from a distance, restrained by the mutinous crew, as Jack walked the plank, hands bound and a pistol tucked into his belt. At the horizon, an island, all soft tans and vibrant greens. A deserted, horrible place. Jack's new home. His "paradise" Barbossa had chuckled, his monkey joining in with a miserable squeak. The only satisfaction Bill had was that Jack hadn't gone quietly or easily. The crew had suffered more than a few casualties and numerous injuries before Jack had finally slowed down, his blade flashing with less finesse, his bravado suddenly turning to curses and grunts.
Sheer numbers brought him down. Bill knew that in a fair fight, Jack wouldn't have ended up standing on the plank, bloodied and beaten, advancing slowly towards a horrible fate.
The singular splash was anti-climatic somehow, but the tired strokes of the Black Pearl's true captain bringing him to land were enough to amuse the crew. Full rudder and then the Pearl was leaving Jack on the island with only thoughts of starvation or suicide to comfort him. The mutineers had laughed for a time at the site of their one-time captain sprawling onto the sand in exhaustion. Then they had turned their attention to him.
He remembered it so well, arms holding him fast, Barbossa looming over him, scarred face smiling.
"An' what," he breathed, "are we ta do with you, Bootstrap?"
And then the long nights in the holding cell below deck, hungry, filthy, defeated. The sight of his captain falling into the water tormented him. He remembered believing once that nothing could break Jack Sparrow. It seemed he had been wrong. He could only cheer himself with wild ideas; Jack making a daring escape from the island, surviving despite the odds, forming a crew and taking the Pearl again, leaving Barbossa to rot on an island somewhere. It was a sweet dream. Impossible, but sweet.
Those dreams had kept him going until the creak of his cell door had awakened him from starved sleep.
"Time ta go," a snarling pirate said, glaring at him in what was actually a grin. "Captain's got a job fer ya..."
The boat was anchored and tied at some bleak island, black and deserted looking with billowing smoke drifting up from a hopefully dormant volcano. They bound his hands before him and marched him off the Pearl, snickering at his weakness, his plight. The trek through the caves and paths of the island was a long, tension-filled one. Through bone-filled caverns the pirates escorted him, poking him when he didn't move quickly enough or when the hunger and exhaustion brought him to his knees.
"Up!" one of his captors screamed and gave him a fierce kick in the stomach. He reached out to stop the blows, holding his hands before him only to feel the quick swipe of a sword across his hand, the blood coating his fingers warm and thick. He was pulled up roughly and forced to walk by the point of a blade at his back.
It continued until they reached a rocky recess with a high ceiling. Patches of sunlight streamed into the room from jagged openings in the rock above. The effect would have been lovely were not for the fact that something else distracted him.
Sitting high on a rise in the ground, a chest waited, glowing from the sunlight or perhaps its own aura. The strange markings, like little rough people dancing, circled the entire chest and seemed to bode of evil things, dark mysterious things.
"Ah, Bootstrap!" Barbossa greeted him with a wide sweep of his arms from beside the treasure. "Glad you're awake. We'll be needin' a favor of ye."
He was brought forward roughly and forced onto his knees before the chest, the twisted design suddenly dominating his vision, sickening him. Barbossa's voice added to the feeling, the captain's enthusiasm twisting Bill's insides into knots.
"See this," Barbossa asked, pointing at the chest. He circled to stand before Bill and then dropped onto one knee before him. "We've had a bit of a discussion, see? From what we hear, this gold was cursed by heathen gods." He was grinning now, dirty teeth making the lopsided expression more gruesome. "An' we figured there'd be no use for all of us ta suffer with the curse. So do us all a favor and open the trunk."
"Open it yourself, you mutinous coward," he managed in a voice he hoped sounded as confidant as Jack's might have. Even with his mouth sore from multiple blows and kicks, he still felt like smiling at the thought.
"Figured you'd say somethin' like that," Barbossa said as he stood and aimed a pistol at his head. "So here are your choices, Bootstrap. You can open that trunk and we might let you live, or you can refuse to open it and die in a most horrible fashion. What we did to Jack will seem kind by comparison." The words rang through the cool, cavern and Bill swallowed, as a realization dawned on him, heavy and terrifying.
In those long hours in his cell he had thought about two things: Jack Sparrow and his only son, William. In his mind, he believed that he had said goodbye to them well enough, in his prayers, in his thoughts. Somehow he had convinced himself that he was ready to die, that Barbossa would kill him soon and that he would be prepared for it when that time came. But at that moment, staring up at the pistil that was pressed into his skull like so much unavoidable death, Bill was aware of the truth he had hidden from himself. He was not ready to die. William would grow into a fine boy. Jack would fight again; grinning and talking like the devil himself. And Bill wanted to see it. By God he did.
He only gave a singular nod to show his assent then waited for the pistol to drop from his forehead. With a rough push, he was tumbling forward but found his arms free to break the fall. Lifting his head he was again staring at the chest, its designs intriguing him as surely as they repulsed him. He stumbled towards it, limping from the pain in his legs.
When he lay his hands on the lid, he felt something, a shaking pulse ran through his fingers and the feeling circled all around and inside him. He looked towards Barbossa, his face questioning.
"Aye, I felt it too, that ripple through me fingers," Barbossa looked uncertain about the power that caused the feeling until his customary greed replaced the expression.
Bill returned his attention to the chest, suddenly more curious than was healthy, he was sure. As much as he wanted to live, he also wanted to know what was inside the heavy, golden chest. Thoughts of a cleverly darting and dodging figure, quick with his blade and his wit, and a smiling dark- haired baby left his mind while thoughts of treasure and riches took over.
He pushed. A heavy clash, a shuffling of feet moving closer, surrounding him, and then a gasp from the gathering of pirates. The blinding reality of golden coins glittering in spotted sunlight--just beneath his fingers a real treasure. Like the kind in fairy tales, the very metal of dreams. He was dazzled, his breath stolen from him as if by a thief, his eyes greedy to see more and his hands...
He felt his fingers close on that first coin, lift it to his eyes and rub over the skull carved deep into it, sweep around the smooth edges. Cool from laying in shadows, pulsing slightly with a power. A sudden jolt wracked his body, a numbness that spread, settling like lead in his limbs, his stomach. It was the last thing he remembered feeling.
Beside him, Jack was finishing the apple, his eyes fixed on the horizon as if he couldn't tire of staring at it. He never even blinked, afraid to miss a moment of the freedom he glimpsed in the distance.
"We had some times, William," the captain whispered, using his proper name as his eyes broke away from the line of sky and sea to look at him.
"Surely did, Captain," he replied with a smile before he sobered. "S'wrong what they did to you, sir. S'wrong."
"Nothing to be done. Pirates you see, they do what they want," Jack's sun- baked face cracked in amusement even as long fingers tossed the apple core behind him causing a satisfactory "plop" in the water and a ripple Bill felt against his back.
"But there's the code!" he found himself protesting, sure that Jack would defend it forever.
"The code," Jack spat, "didn't help me when they took my Pearl."
"Jack..." he began, trying to comfort his captain, his friend.
"Oh, don't be getting sentimental," he waved his concern away and pierced him with a hard look. "And another thing, William..." he said the name with such familiarity, such camaraderie, that Bill was immediately curious.
"Yes?" Bill breathed the question, waiting.
Jack was obviously tickled by Bill's seriousness as he only smiled again, something he did easily and to great effect. "Wake up, mate. S'time to pay the piper..."
Reality hit him as hard as the blow to the head that had knocked him cold.
"So, you're awake," Barbossa drawled from somewhere to his left. The scene fuzzed in an out of focus before his eyes. There seemed to be thousands of blurry pirates glaring down at him and the world beneath him was rocking. On the deck, he figured, wincing from the pain it took to think. Overhead, low wispy clouds blocked the moonlight but they were moving quickly, the wind making the sea and sky churn.
"Welcome back to the Pearl, Bootstrap," the "captain" mocked earning the typical monkey-like laughter from the crew.
"Now, I don't suppose you'll be tellin' us where you put that coin? It's not on your personage and we're mighty interested in getting it back..."
The moonlight cleared and the rotting body of the captain strolled heavily towards where he lay on the deck, bound and helpless.
"'Cause if you think this is hell now, just wait 'til we're through with you."
Covered in the dust of years in his mind, still shining beneath all the grime of his sins and misdeeds, there was an image of a child, twirling, dancing, smiling. He kept it in his mind, laying on that damp deck, feeling the memory of warmth on a summer's day and the gangly hug of a child, his boy, his son. For that glowing child to die, to be hunted down, that would be hell--to live an unholy life forever knowing his son was dead. For what he could no longer feel at all, he glared up at the "captain" and kept his mouth firmly shut, trading one hell for another.
*****
The weight was inescapable, the pull at his legs, his arms flailing above him in the water. Downwards through darkening midnight depths he fell with no chance of stopping until the waiting arms of the bottom of the ocean caught him.
The horror of the situation occurred to him as the fall lengthened and stretched for minutes and then what seemed like hours.
He couldn't die.
He would fall to the bottom of the ocean and stay there forever, chained to a canon, a testament to Barbossa's cruelty. The chains themselves wrapped up his legs, around and under his arms and back down to fasten at his waist with a heavy lock, somehow leaving his arms free. And would he live down here until the chains rusted and he could break free, seek out Barbossa and avenge both Jack and himself?
Only the muffled thud of the canon hitting the ocean floor answered him. Even his scream was deadened by the inky darkness of the water.
*****
In the early weeks of the curse, they hadn't understood. Hadn't realized how truly "immortal" they were and the price of such power. Immortality seemed such a wonderful bonus to the gold they had originally sought. All the wealth in the world within their grasps and no one capable of stopping them from taking it. It was so easy to tip Bootstrap into the water, watch him sink sure that he would die that way.
They played with it at first, taking turns shooting one another just to test it. That the food had lost its taste seemed a small price to pay at first. That they had more gold than they could spend and only wanted more didn't seem too strange. That no woman or man seemed to satisfy the ache in their loins was infuriating, but tolerable if it was temporary. They pinned their hopes on temporary. So they played, darting in and out of cabins onto the deck to watch their bodies change and shrivel. It was a game.
And then the truth had revealed itself. How quickly the fun had ended, how quickly they wanted feeling again, even the taste of bad food appealed to them. Pain, cold, joy, anything. They would take it and be glad so long as they could feel again.
So they searched for the answers. What they found only darkened their sadness. The last words of a mystic, selling fortunes to travelers for shillings, the holder of the secret of Cortez's gold, the one who knew why they were what they were and how they came to be that way.
"The coins," he had wailed with the knife pressed into his throat, pressed flat to the floor of the dirty hut, "they must be returned! All of them! And..."
"And..." Barbossa had growled, eyes already losing the spark of sanity he once had; his mind twisted from the taste foul taste in his mouth, the ache in his belly....
"T-the ones who took it, they must repay the debt with their blood once their coins are returned and accounted for. Every last one of the thieves..."
The word "thieves" earned him a hard blow to the head from a mean-looking thug. But Babossa had stared at him, long and hard. "Everyone," he repeated, uncertain.
Unwelcome, an image surfaced in his mind, a battered man standing before the chest, bloodied and bruised. His hand closing on the cursed coin, holding it, keeping it...
Then he recalled the same man later, his flailing body slipping downwards into the cold, dark water.
"Bootstrap," Babossa hissed and desperation made him shiver, the idea that by damning Bootstrap, he had damned himself.
"An' what if one of the crew is no longer able to give his blood?" Barbossa wondered aloud pressing the knife further into the man's dark throat.
"Then...then close kin, a child or a brother. Their blood..."
"Kin, eh?"
His grin was a gash of cruelty. He looked toward his crew and asked, "Who d'ya think ol' Bootstrap sent that coin to, eh, boys?"
One and all grinned. A flick of his wrist and the mystic fell over dead. Barbossa never even gave him time to scream.
TBC
