Part 24 (1/2)
Seanie helped Emer into the rowboat and gave the order to lower them. They tried to hit the water as softly as possible, but the frigate was moving at a hardy pace and their landing was rough. Once they cleared the frigate's wake, they paddled slowly toward the Jamaican sh.o.r.e, toward the darkest spot. Emer prayed aloud.
”Please, G.o.d, just one more favor. Just one more escape.”
They dragged the boat ash.o.r.e, hid it under the canopy of grape trees, and began to walk through the dark forest along the sh.o.r.e, dragging their luggage. Emer stopped to see if the Frenchman's s.h.i.+p had slowed to notice them and saw it sail by, still in hot pursuit of her frigate.
After an hour of walking, the two were exhausted. ”Where the h.e.l.l are we going, anyway?” Emer sighed. They sat on a sand dune to rest.
”I don't know,” Seanie answered.
”These crates are too heavy to carry back to Port Royal, and this foot won't make it much longer.”
”Let's have a rest,” Seanie suggested, and held his arms open for her to lie in. She propped her foot up on a crate and cuddled up to him.
”Why don't we leave them?”
Emer shook her head. ”No, no. It's all I've got to show for all that blood.”
”Then why don't we bury them here and come back for them later?”
Emer nodded in agreement, but stayed buried in his chest for ten minutes. She nearly fell asleep there, until he s.h.i.+fted.
”Okay,” Seanie said. ”Let's get these in the ground, then.” Leaving the crates with Emer, he walked over to a small clearing in the trees, counting his steps, and began to dig with her well-selected crutch. She listened to the rhythm of his digging and accidentally nodded off. When she woke, he was shoulder-deep and sweating.
”You should take a break,” she said.
”You were starting to look pale,” he said. ”You need to take care of that foot.”
He finished. Returning with the shovel, he stuck it upright in the sand, peeled off his wet s.h.i.+rt, and leaned down to her. He kissed her, and she grabbed hold of his hair and held him there until he nearly lost his balance.
”I won't be long,” he whispered, turning toward the sea.
Emer watched him walk into the surf, splas.h.i.+ng water on his face and chest to cool off. She imagined him on his dream farm with his dream children and his dream wife. It seemed only fair that G.o.d granted her this after so many years of hards.h.i.+p-it seemed only just that she would now have a chance to be truly happy. As Seanie walked back into the firelight, she smiled and tilted her head, feeling deep love twist her innards.
And then, a loud report. Seanie stumbled toward the shovel and fell onto it. He clenched his teeth, clutched his bleeding side, and collapsed.
She leapt to Seanie's aid, throwing herself down next to him on the cool night sand. He coughed three or four times, gurgling, and then stopped breathing. Emer cradled his head and hugged and kissed him, her face frozen in grief.
She heard someone walking on the beach. Reloading. She scrambled to her feet and hobbled into the trees behind her. Reaching for her flintlock pistol, she loaded it and waited.
The Frenchman approached slowly from the east, his gun scanning the beach for more enemies. He walked toward the two curious boxes and Seanie's limp body. First, he stopped at the dead body and wiggled it with his foot. Then he took two steps toward the crates, and leaned down to open the lids.
Emer aimed her pistol from the trees and fired.
With one last, almighty roar, the Frenchman fell to his knees and died. When the smoke cleared, Emer kicked him to make sure he was dead. Bent on one knee in the moonlight, holding his head with her left hand, she took a marlinspike and removed his right eyeball with relative ease. She rolled it in the sand next to his head and shoved the spike deep into his empty socket.
Placing her pistol gently into her waistband, she looked toward the sea.
”I curse you!” she screamed at the dark water. ”I curse you for all you gave me and for all you pilfered! I curse you for the journeys you begin and the journeys you end! I curse you until I can't hate you anymore! And I scarcely think I will ever hate you more than on this wretched day!” Her fair hair stuck to her face, wet with sorrow and surf, and her hand-embroidered cotton blouse clung to her, stained with her lover's blood.
Turning again to the two dead bodies, she retrieved the shovel from underneath Seanie-Seanie, her first and only love. She limped back to the clearing. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, she sat down on the edge of the hole and talked to herself.
”There was only one reason to stop all of this poxy business.” She turned and looked at the distant dead. ”What worth is a precious jewel now? d.a.m.n it! In all these years, over all this water! And I end up a fool with a lap full of precious nothing.”
She dragged the two crates into the hole and began to cover them quickly, concerned that the Frenchman's reinforcements would arrive at any minute. She buried the shovel last, on top, and used her hands to fill the remaining depression, covering the sand with sticks and dead leaves.
Returning to the scene of the dead men, she lay down beside Seanie, placed her head on his chest and sobbed.
”It's like two different lives in the same b.l.o.o.d.y day.”
Through her sobs, Emer heard footsteps. A voice boomed from the darkness, making her jump. She scrambled to her feet and reloaded her pistol.
”Foul b.i.t.c.h!” he began, in island-accented English. ”You have meddled in my life for too many too many years! I'm sure you didn't know every wh.o.r.e in these islands heard him scream your name a thousand times! And me, too! Now look at him! Dead!” years! I'm sure you didn't know every wh.o.r.e in these islands heard him scream your name a thousand times! And me, too! Now look at him! Dead!”
Emer saw the man emerging from the tree line, his hands hidden. She had seen him before, on Tortuga and on board the Chester Chester. It was the Frenchman's first mate.
”You will see!” see!” he yelled, jumping from the brush. ”You will see how true love lasts! You will he yelled, jumping from the brush. ”You will see how true love lasts! You will see see how real love spans time and distance we know nothing of!” how real love spans time and distance we know nothing of!”
He rushed forward, then, shaking a small purse toward her. From it came a fine powder that covered Emer's hair and face. She reached up and wiped her eyes clear, confused.
”What are you at?” she asked, spitting dust from her lips.
He stood with his arms and face raised to the night sky. ”I curse you with the power of every spirit who ever knew love!” he screamed. ”I curse you to one hundred lives as the b.i.t.c.h you are, and hope wild dogs tear your heart into the state you've left mine!” He began chanting in a frightful foreign language.
Still brus.h.i.+ng the dust from her hair, Emer took aim with her gun and fired.
As she watched the man fall, she felt a burning prod in her back and stumbled sideways-long enough to see that the Frenchman had miraculously not been all dead, and long enough to see that he was covered in stray pieces of the strange dust his first mate had thrown at her.
She tried to fall as near to Seanie as possible, and managed to get close enough to reach out and grab his cold hand. She took her dying breath lying halfway between her lover and her killer, covered in the dust of one hundred dogs, knowing she was the only person on the planet who knew what was buried beneath the chilly sand ten yards away.
And not knowing she was about to become a French Poodle puppy, two thousand miles away from the Caribbean Sea, with her memory completely intact.
DOG FACT #8.
Learning to Be a Happy Dog Dogs don't need much to be happy. Your dog will most likely be content with the basics. Food, water, exercise, companions.h.i.+p. You don't need to give him warmed gourmet meats or hugs every ten minutes.
Moderation is the key.
The same goes for discipline. A beaten dog behaves no better than a spoiled dog who's never been scolded. A dog must be taught what's right and what's wrong and learn from his mistakes. This goes for humans too, of course. Though dogs can't argue about their mistakes, which is where humans waste so much of their time.
Take the American Civil War, for example. It's hard to believe there was a time in U.S. history when people thought it was okay to enslave other people. It's hard to understand why, when confronted with ideas of equality and progression, people fought instead of changed.
At the time, I was a Yankee dog living in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My owner was an abolitionist who helped move slaves north to become free. He would meet them in the local wood, then bring them to our root cellar to hide until they were rested and fed enough for the next leg of their journey.
Trouble started in late June. My owner sent his wife and girls, on his best horses, to his brother's house many miles northeast, up by the Susquehanna River. As night fell on the county, Confederate cavalry moved in by the thousands.