Chapter 4
Sparrow gave orders to drop anchor and made plans to leave the ship immediately, even though they no longer needed to make repairs. The men didn't want to go. They feared some spirit or spell had taken over the ship and wanted to leave the area as soon as possible.
"There's nothin' on that island, you said it yourself. Not even fresh water. And we've a treasure to find," Barbossa reminded the captain.
"Have patience, man! We'll get to it. Right now, this compass is tellin' me to go ashore."
"I'll wager there's not a man will go with ye."
"Then you can wait here till I get back. And if I find treasure, I won't share it with you."
"I'll go with you," said one of the hands, a man named Bootstrap Bill.
"Good," Sparrow replied. "You get some water and I'll make sure the pistols are loaded, just in case."
Barbossa marked Sparrow's words, and as Bootstrap started down to the galley, Barbossa casually trailed after him. He cornered Bootstrap coming back out.
"A man should never ignore divine providence," Barbossa said.
Bootstrap looked confused. "Divine providence?"
"Let me explain what that means."
---
Captain Jack Sparrow and Bootstrap Bill returned to the ship a little more than an hour later.
"It's a small island, " Sparrow announced as he came aboard. "We need –"
But he never got to finish his sentence, for three men pounced on him and wrestled him to the ground. Barbossa calmly but deliberately drew his pistol on Bootstrap. He motioned to the bosun, who grabbed Bootstrap and pinioned his arms behind him.
"You were supposed to leave him behind," said Barbossa.
"I couldn't," Bootstrap protested. "There's nothin' on that island, he'll die."
With a look from Barbossa, the bosun pulled Bootstrap's arms tighter and the man yelped. Barbossa lowered his pistol.
"He'd get a fair chance," Barbossa said. "We voted, remember? We decided we've had enough sailin' under a mad captain. That man's got problems we don't need."
"So that's it," Sparrow said. "I'm to be marooned."
"You catch on fast," said Barbossa. "Take his weapons."
The men started unarming Sparrow, but the captain was sharp. He filched a pistol and wriggled away from them. He took aim straight at Barbossa's chest. "Back off."
Instantly a dozen crewmen drew their own weapons. But the first mate seemed unperturbed. "Back off where? You can't get away." And with three steps, he crossed the deck and stood before Sparrow.
The captain cocked the pistol.
"You won't shoot me," Barbossa said. "In case you hadn't noticed, there's a least ten pistols pointed at you right now."
"This is my ship, and you'll not take it from me."
With an impatient sigh, Barbossa snatched the pistol right out of Sparrow's hand and slapped him hard across the face. Sparrow went to his knees. Barbossa handed the pistol to one of the crewmen and then turned toward Bootstrap. "You have a choice. Stay with us, or go with Captain Sparrow."
For several seconds Bootstrap looked from the men to Sparrow and back again. Finally in defeat he bowed his head. "I can't, Jack. I've got a wife and child."
Sparrow sat on the deck, rubbing his head. "It's alright, Bill. I understand."
Barbossa turned back to Sparrow. "And now, captain, it's time you took a little walk."
---
By morning, the Black Pearl had become quite a different ship. With the fog gone, the black sails shone with a pristine darkness in the sun, the deck gleamed as it hadn't since it was new. Sir Francis Drake, strutting in his new clothes, was renamed Jack and the men elected him honorary captain, fully expecting him to do a better job than the real Jack. Ragetti took the wooden ball and, finding it made a perfect replacement for his eye, ditched the lopsided patch. The cook discovered a goose had turned up among his chickens and roasted a fine dinner for the men, with apple pie for dessert. And Hector Barbossa once again took the helm of his own ship, now in search of Sparrow's gold.
Long past noon, Barbossa remained at the wheel. A crewman named Twigg came up on deck and offered to relieve him but Barbossa turned him down. "I'll stay here a while. A man couldn't ask for a finer ship. Oh, and you can let Bootstrap out o' the brig when he comes to, long as he minds his manners."
"He surprised me, fightin' like that when you put Sparrow to the plank. I'd've never thought it of old Bootstrap."
"Bein' married's not a good thing for a pirate. It divides his loyalties. And he likes Sparrow, too. We'll have to keep a sharp watch on him."
"Aye, captain."
"He could be trouble." Barbossa looked up at the sky. "At least the fog has cleared. The weather looks like it'll hold fine."
"It does," Twigg said.
"We did the right thing, not killin' that reindeer. It wasn't bad luck after all, it was good. We'll be startin' the new year with our hold full of gold."
"Sounds like good luck to me."
Barbossa made a slight adjustment to the wheel and smiled. "Sometimes the wind is with us, sometimes it's against us. This time, we're the fortunate ones."
---
But Jack Sparrow had learned that fate wasn't always what it seemed. As soon as he'd recovered from the stupor of being marooned, he consulted his compass and took up the trail he and Bootstrap had started earlier. Without a shovel, he had to use his hands to dig, but soon enough Sparrow found something more useful, in his eyes, than gold: a cache of rum. Someone must have put it there, and someone likely would be coming back for it. It was surely but a matter of time.
Jack planned to use that time to consider how to keep the rum's owners from killing him outright. Shouldn't be too hard. All he needed was something they considered important enough to keep him alive. And he has plenty such ideas stored away in his head. Just like he kept the days in his head. He didn't need a log to know what day it was. Sparrow proffered a bottle of rum skyward in a toast of gratitude.
"'Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people'," he said. He knocked back a large mouthful of rum. "Excepting Hector Barbossa."
And so, Captain Jack Sparrow spent the twenty-fifth of December lying on a beach in the sunny Caribbean, surrounded by glistening bottles of rum, pistol and compass close at hand, dreaming of what he would do when he caught up to his mutinous first mate again. He had quite a present in mind to give Hector Barbossa, and the day he delivered it would be the best Christmas day ever, whether it came in December or June. It would be a day to remember, to be sure.
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the end