Steel

“We follow the coast. It’s easy.” He sounded desperate and unbelievable.

She was absolutely sure that Emory didn’t care anything about her, only about getting what he wanted. He’d use her and she might or might not get a pardon out of it. At least Cooper and the others seemed to care about her, so long as she was part of the crew anyway.

“If I untied you, what do you think the captain would do to me?”

They both knew the answer: killed, marooned, both. Emory said, “She wouldn’t, not to you. Not to another female.”

Like that would make any difference to Captain Cooper. Jill moved away to spread her blanket on her own patch of sand, to try to sleep.

But she thought about what he’d said. Getting captured by the Royal Navy would certainly be one way of getting out of here. But it wouldn’t get her any closer to home. She could almost sympathize with Emory, though. This was a strange place for him, too. But his path was so much clearer.

Though exhausted, Jill had trouble sleeping in the open, on a sandy bed in a deserted cove. Wrapping the blanket around herself, she curled up in a warm pocket of sand. The air grew surprisingly cool, even in the tropics, as a breeze blew in from the ocean. She wished for a room and a bed. She was never going to get all the sand out of her hair.

Sleep came in fits and starts. The ground kept moving under her, starting her awake. But no, it was only the phantom movement of the schooner’s rocking that her muscles still braced against. Her arms were numb, dead from the endless work of scraping the hull. The blisters and sore muscles were a solid ache. Her head hurt even worse when she closed her eyes. What kind of life was this? How could the others sing and laugh every night? And the waves never quieted, continually rustling, nudging Jill back into consciousness.

Then the watch shouted an anxious hail—someone was coming. In the shadows of the campfire, wavering against the wall of trees and vegetation at the edge of the beach, silhouettes appeared, human shapes emerging to stand in the open.

“Captain!” the man on watch shouted again. More of the crew awoke; their agitated murmurs grew louder.

“Settle down,” Cooper answered. Unlike the others, she didn’t sound sleepy or worried. The woman’s figure joined the wavering shadows. She was upright, fully dressed, moving quickly, as if she’d never gone to sleep. Maybe she hadn’t.

A dozen people—lithe, dark-skinned—had emerged from the trees. Jill recognized their stances, the way they moved—wary, like they were ready for a fight. They held weapons in front of them—swords with short, thick blades. Machetes, maybe. Some of them held long shotguns—muskets, rather. The fireli

ght burnished them and their weapons to a shade of copper.

The captain faced the new arrivals and said, “Nanny?”

One of the shadows stepped forward—a woman, her hair bound tight to her head; wiry, with powerful limbs, wearing a long skirt and a full blouse. She was shorter than the walking staff she leaned on, but could surely use the length of wood as a weapon. She held it as if she could raise and swing it in a moment.

“Marjory,” the woman said in a low voice that carried over the beach. “You bring trouble.”

“I know, Nanny. I’m sorry for it,” the captain said, and Jill was shocked to hear the deference in her voice. Captain Cooper didn’t defer to anyone. She might have been the strongest person Jill had ever met—but Jill wondered if maybe this Nanny was the strongest person Marjory Cooper had ever met.

“Tell me the story,” Nanny said in a broad, round accent. The woman gestured to the central fire, still burning low in its pit of sand. Cooper led Nanny to it, and they sat in its light.

The others who had come with Nanny stayed around the perimeter of the camp, keeping a lookout.

Jill watched the two women at the fire. She didn’t dare approach, though she was fascinated. But now she couldn’t even try to sleep, so she sat up, wrapped in her blanket, and watched.

“We raided a ship of slavers,” Cooper said. “Abe and me raided it—you know how it is. We couldn’t take them back home so we brought them here. It’s the only safe place for them, Nanny. I know you won’t turn them away.”

“You take advantage of my hospitality. We’ve all escaped, we all fight every day to keep the freedom we won. There are still hunters from the plantations crawling through these trees looking for us. How am I supposed to hide all these folk? And how we going to feed so many new mouths?”

“You’ll find a way. We’ve got some stores on the ship we can give you. But I know you won’t let me take these folk to the market in Havana.”

The woman chuckled, a rich, sly sound. “Oh, you won’t do that, or you would have already. I know you, Marjory.”

The captain looked away, just for a moment.

Nanny said, “Let me meet them, speak to them.”

The group of Africans was still at their own camp a little way off from the others, away from the work, the fire, and the pirates. But they had not left; Jill had expected them to just walk away. Nothing was keeping them from leaving—except the jungle and the unknown. The same reason Emory had tried to signal a ship rather than simply walk away.

Jill supposed she could walk away, except that she still didn’t know exactly where she was, still didn’t have any idea how to fend for herself, how to get food or water, and she didn’t know how to get back home. So maybe she did understand them, a little. But then she didn’t have sores around her ankles like they did, from where the shackles had bound them, so maybe she didn’t understand at all.

Nanny went to the group and spoke in a different language. One of them answered her, and a conversation began. Occasionally one of the others would speak up—and the first one who’d spoken would seem to repeat, but with different words. They didn’t all speak the same language, and maybe Nanny didn’t speak the same languages that Abe did. Nanny asked questions, and the one who understood her answered. Even though Jill didn’t understand what they were saying, she stayed awake, listening to the voices lilting like music.

Captain Cooper remained standing nearby, watching. She sent her own crew to sleep, so Nanny’s people were the only ones keeping watch.