Escape!

“Where are we?” asked Tommy.

“Marblehead, just outside of Salem” said Sarah. “about 17 miles from Boston.

“Are we near New Jerusalem?” asked Tommy.

Sarah looked at Little Bear, who shrugged as if to say ‘leave me out of this. These are white man’s names’ “Salem. Salem is short for New Jerusalem. When Salem was founded, they wanted to create a new holy land for Puritans. I’ve never heard anyone call it that before. Where did you hear that?”

“That is what the pirates call it. They have a plot they are hatching.”

“I knew it!” Sarah thumped Little Bear on the shoulder in triumph. “What is their plot?”

Just then, a shot rang out in the woods. It was the middle of the night, and the sound was as foreign as the sight of an elephant would have been. “give me the pistol” whispered Tommy. Little Bear handed it over as the children instinctively made for cover in the woods in the opposite direction of the gunfire. It had only been a single shot, and it had echoed long in the subsequent silence.

Once safely in the cover of the brush, Tommy began drying the inside of the pistol, and produced from his boots powder & lead balls from oilskin pouches. Sarah began to wonder what this magician would produce next.

“They will hear of your escape, and how you were aided by us.” Little Bear said. “They will come looking for us.” Sarah had not considered this.

“They have other concerns more pressing.” said Tommy.

“we shall see. We had best get back to our homes before we are missed” Little Bear said. “You are welcome at my campfire. I believe I can find an extra blanket for you”

Tommy smiled. “That would be much appreciated, Friend. I’ve not slept as a free man for some time.”

As Sarah walked home, she wondered about the turns her life had taken. She had grown to trust Little Bear, and really enjoyed their time together. He showed her secret places in the woods that were beautiful and fascinating. He taught her Indian ways such as moving quietly, reading animal tracks & being able to tell when a storm is coming. She was teaching him to read and do math. They compared religious and superstitious beliefs.

But Tommy was different. He was… dangerous. He spoke Little Bear’s language, he could use a sword, he carried ammunition in his boot! He had an air to him of someone who was hiding something. Why had the pirates locked him up? How had they captured him? How did he fit into whatever was going on? Sarah wasn’t sure she would have believed whatever plot he would have told them about.

She was glad to get home, out of her damp clothes, and into her warm bed.

Hit The Deck!

“Boy! Am I glad to see you two! Quick, throw those keys over here!” the boy said, as if he had been expecting Sarah, and Little Bear. He was dressed all in black, which was not unusual For Massachusetts, but his collar wasn’t fastened all the way to the top, giving him a cavalier appearance. He was lean and tan, and his blond hair fell around his face unkempt. “Do you want those pirates to throw me to the sharks?” he asked. This brought Sarah out of her reverie. It was counter to her upbringing to free a prisoner on his command, but this wasn’t a town drunk in the stockade, he was imprisoned by people who aught to be in prison themselves; ergo, he should be set free, right? She moved to the cell door and unlocked it. “Many thanks. Name’s Mellvill. Tommy Melvill.” He bowed.

“Sarah Good.” Sarah said with a curtsy. “This is my friend, Little Bear.”

Tommy said something to Little Bear in Wampanoag that Sarah couldn’t make out. Little Bear grunted in return. “Let’s get out of here before they come back, eh?” suggested Tommy.

Sarah & Little Bear didn’t need to be told twice. They were up on deck & ready to jump into the water when they heard a drunken shout, “What in the name of the Devil’s tale is going on up here?” As Sarah turned, she saw a pirate coming forward from the stern with a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. She froze and felt the blood drain from her face. What had been a lark was suddenly deadly serious.

“A savage and a towny?” said the pirate assessing the situation. A lecherous smile came across his face. “Well, let’s have some fun, eh? Come here missy, let’s have a look at ye!” Sarah was close enough to the rail to disappear overboard, but she froze at the sight of the pistol. Little Bear moved between the man and Sarah, and the scalawag lifted his gun and aimed waveringly at them. He fired.

The shot was loud and blinding. There was an instantaneous following thunder as the ball sundered the deck to Sarah’s right about two feet from where she stood, leaving a hole about two inches around. She looked up to see that Tommy had spoiled the pirate’s aim by pulling his arm from behind with a deck mop. The same motion had spun the buccaneer around to face Tommy and he was now swinging his cutlass at the lad with ferocity. Instead of dodging, Tommy leaned into the pirate, jabbing him with the mop handle in the gut.

Little Bear had taken this moment to close the distance to come to Tommy’s aid. The native leaped onto the scalawag’s back, and got him in a headlock. Tommy punched the pirate in the face, and he lost his balance falling backward. Little Bear leaped free before the pirate fell on him. As he hit the deck, he lost his sword, and Tommy scooped it up.

Tommy pointed the cutlass in the pirate’s face. “I’ll have that, Matey.” he said of the empty pistol, which the scalawag dropped onto the deck near Little Bear’s feet. Little Bear picked it up.

“Let’s get out of here!” Sarah said.

“That,” said Tommy, “is the best idea I have heard all day!” and the three of them plunged into the sea.

Swashbuckler!

“I cannot believe that I let you talk me into this, Little Bear!” Sarah managed to say between gasping coughs as she tried not to swallow the water that kept splashing over her head.

“Be quiet!” Hissed Little Bear, who could tell that Sarah was mad by the way she called him by his first name. It was little wonder; she was quite literally out of her element. “They will hear you!” Little Bear was actually amused; Sarah was rarely flummoxed.

“You said,” Sarah’s voice came in an approximation of a yelled whisper, “that there would be no one on board! That is why we have chosen to swim out into the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night to board a pirate ship!” Each phrase was given special emphasis to demonstrate the compounded danger in their excursion.

“It would be foolish to be unnecessarily noisy” Little Bear said. The moon provided ample light, and they came along side the black silhouette of the ship. Little Bear felt along side the hull until he found some netting slung over the side, low enough for them to reach. “Try not to make any noise.” he said.

He had to give her credit; there were few people Little Bear knew of that would have come with him to the pirate ship, whether they were men, boys, women, girls, Indians, or Pilgrims. Sarah was brave indeed. Once onto the deck, they saw that the ship did indeed seem deserted. Why were the pirates in Salem? Little Bear had little interest in the goings on of the colonists, but this was intriguing. Pirates usually kept to the south. On the rare occasion that they ventured north, it would be to nearby Boston that they would go.

“Let us go below to see if we can find a clue to their plans.” said Little Bear. Of course, he did not know that such plans would probably be in the captain’s quarters which were aft and above, not below the main deck. Nevertheless, what they would find below would answer some of their questions, and create even more…

Sarah was dripping wet. They had argued over what she would wear on the swim out to the ship. Sarah had been swimming before, but not at night, with a boy so far to a pirate ship. Her usual skirt, apron, and several layers of undergarments would have been impractical. In the end, she had decided to wear stripped stockings, over this went her under bloomers, and her old blouse that she had stopped wearing when it had torn on a thorn last summer. The tear was in the back over the kidney, and wouldn’t be noticed; nevertheless, she had been compelled to get a new one and discard the old one in her dresser, until tonight. She felt she was dressed a bit like a pirate herself.

As they crept below, the hold was lit by lanterns which threw lurching shadows as the ship tilted back and forth on the tide. The smell was a combination of sweat, seawater, wet wood, and smoke. They both stopped short and froze when they heard the sound of a human voice.

“Are you going to show your coward faces or not!?” came the call from behind a door. The two children wanted to run, and in fact they had both begun to do just that, when something made Sarah stop in her tracks again. She pulled on Little Bear’s arm and he followed more from not wanting to think a girl was braver than him, than anything else.

The door was locked; however, they noticed the key was hanging on the wall next to it. Sarah pulled the key off its hook and unlocked the door. As it creaked open, Sarah saw what she had suspected from the timbre of the voice. What she had not expected was that the voice would belong to someone behind bars.

She and Little Bear stared into the ship’s brig at the face of a boy not much older than them, standing for all the world like he was in charge of everything.