Flashing Swords Press - Crystalwizard

This Being the Tale of Cap’n Jethro ‘Fair-cut’ Henderson, Mutinous Matthews, the Thief, the Whore, the French Fop and the Treasure of Freeport
By Lee Reynoldson
Illustration by A.R. Stone

The boy known in Freeport as Piss-Pike sat on the edge of the quay looking out to sea. He tried not think about food, but his stomach groaned like a hull fit to burst. He knew Sharkey would be grilling mackerel right about now. Without coin, it was knowledge he could do without. So, instead, he concentrated on the row boat headed for the wharf.
Two men sat at the oars, pulling hearty, a third stood aft, braced and upright, hands behind his back. There was something about the man that nagged at Piss-Pike. He squinted into the morning mist, stared hard, forgot about his hunger for a moment.
The passenger looked, at first glance, like any other wharf-rat or jack-tar. His hair, black as a Clergyman’s breeches, was tied back in a pig-tail. He wore knee-length trews of the sort popular with any good rope-monkey. Underneath his gentleman’s greatcoat he was bare-chested. Even from a distance he oozed the sort of command Piss-Pike expected from a captain not a crewman.
It couldn’t be him could it?
No, he wouldn’t be fool enough to come back to Freeport. Would he? Even if the story of his treasure were true, he’d never live to claim it. Excited, Piss-Pike jumped to his feet.

~*~

Jethro stood aft, easy as a lubber might stand on land. The two oarsman looked at each other, in a way that he didn’t appreciate, and shipped their oars. The row boat rocked to a halt. He took his hands from behind his back and thrust them into the pockets of his greatcoat.“Tired lads?”
The oarsman, called Fat Thomas, trailed a pudgy hand over his greasy hair. He sneered at Jethro. “Not so much tired as feeling undervalued.”
His associate, a nervy looking stick of a man by the name of Rat Thatcher, grinned at Jethro.
Jethro nodded to himself. “Like that is it?”
“Aye, that be about the way of it friend,” Rat Thatcher said.
Jethro noted how the man’s hand rested inside his jacket, knew he was meant to.
“Before I boarded your . . . vessel,” Jethro said, “we agreed on a fair price in front of a witness.”
“I don’t see no witness.” Fat Thomas made a mock of casting about, hand over his brow, as if on lookout. He laughed and slapped Rat Thatcher on the back, then stood. He too seemed perfectly at home standing in the boat, hands on hips, fat gut rippling as he chuckled at his own wit. “Besides, that price don’t seem so fair now.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Jethro said. “Perhaps it should cost me more if I want you to row me all the way to the shore.”
“Now yer talking sense,” Fat Thomas said.
“I’ll swim the rest of the way.” Jethro put one foot on the edge of the boat.
“Not so fast.” Fat Thomas slipped a small flintlock pistol from his sleeve to his palm. “Would be difficult to swim if you sprung a leak friend. Now ease yer hands out and nothing tricksy mind. I can empty pockets just as easy with you dead as alive.”
Jethro nodded. “Unless I’m mistaken this is what you’re after.” From his left pocket he pulled the fattest purse any pirate was like to see.
“Well I’ll be a whore’s bedpan!” Rat Thatcher said. “Will you look it the size of that purse.”
Jethro tossed the purse up. It fell into his palm with a satisfying thump and a musical jingle. “Here,” he said, and threw it to Fat Thomas.
The purse arced through the air. Both oarsmen watched it fly. Fat Thomas grabbed for it.
It was all the time Jethro needed.
He reached his right hand through a hole in his pocket and grasped the French naval blunderbuss pistol that hung from a rope round his shoulder. He swung the gun up. No time to clear the greatcoat. He fired through it. The pistol thundered and belched foul smoke. The sound of flesh shredding was followed by an inhuman screech.
A blunderbuss is a terrible weapon — more so when loaded with nails and fired at close range. Most of Fat Thomas slopped into the boat, but bits of him rained down into the sea.
Rat squealed in fear. The cloud of smoke cleared. Jethro saw some of the shot had scraped across Rat’s shoulder and face. Just scratches. Rat held two pistols. He aimed the first at Jethro and fired. The crack and wisp of smoke were pitiful after the blunderbuss, but equally deadly.
A sting like a whip lash cut across his cheek. Jethro felt blood ooze from the graze.
Rat levelled his second pistol, but not fast enough. The belaying pin that Jethro hurled, underarm and left handed, twirled into Rat’s wrist and knocked the pistol from his hand. The axe, he threw over-arm. It spun through the air and buried itself into Rat Thatcher’s forehead with a soft thunk.
Cross-eyed Rat tried to look at the axe until a slew of blood filled his eyes. “Well I’ll be a bedpan’s whore,” he whispered, then slumped back into the boat.
Jethro stepped over Fat Thomas and pulled his axe from Rat’s head. “That be a fair cut,” he said, then eased Rat’s body over the side into the sea. He scooped up his belaying pin and stowed it in his belt along with the axe.
Jethro stood in the middle of the row boat. When it was steady he surveyed the carnage. What was left of Fat Thomas lay in a pool of blood and worse in the bottom of the boat. One pudgy hand grasped the purse that contained nothing more than nails for the blunderbuss.
He’d leave Fat Thomas where he was. Jethro had no mind to cover himself in gore on the man’s account. Instead he took off his shredded greatcoat and threw it over the man, as was decent. Then he unlooped the blunderbuss pistol and threw that down. His powder wouldn’t survive the swim. He’d rely on the belaying pin and axe. They’d served him well enough through his navy days and just as good when he was at his smuggling and pirating.
The scratch on his cheek was sore, but he’d rather the scratch than a hole in his face and lead in his brain.
“Well, Jethro,” he said. “Time for a nice little mornin’ swim I reckons.” He dived into the water, broke the surface with hardly a ripple, resurfaced, breathed, cursed the cold and the salt sting on his wound, then pulled for the shore with strong, steady strokes.
Piss-Pike watched Jethro swim. It was him. It was Cap’n Jethro ‘Fair-cut’ Henderson out of Plymouth Port. Returned to Freeport. Brave or mad, Piss-Pike didn’t know or care which. This news was worth coin. He’d be feasting at Sharkey’s within the hour.

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