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Silver was accustomed to the stories, the rumors and fancies that emerged from men’s mouths in darkened taverns after one too many drinks. Hell, he’d encouraged them over the years, the more ridiculous the better. But seldom was he able to listen to them unobserved, and he was finding it less than enjoyable.
“All I know is, they say it happened right at the end.” The grizzled old man took a gulp from his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Don’t make no sense.”
“What do you mean, right at the end?” a wide-eyed younger sailor asked, cradling his own rum. “At the end of the battle?”
“At the end of the war itself. The final battle had already been lost. Two men went back into the jungle as the rest were making their escape, claimed they were checking for stragglers. Only one man came back out.”
The younger man whistled low. “John Silver?” At the storyteller’s nod, he blew out a breath. “You think he killed Flint? But why?”
“Had a disagreement over the treasure, didn’t they. The lost hoard of Spanish gold.”
“Oh come off it, Tom, that’s just a story. Makes it all more exciting.”
“It’s real, I tell you! England almost had a war with Spain on their hands when that gold disappeared. That’s why they want you to believe it never existed.”
From Silver’s position at a heavily shadowed table, he watched this Tom lean forward over his rum and squint through the smoky tavern air. “D’you remember that schooner what sailed out of Bristol near six months ago, met with some terrible misfortune with pirates? I been told they had a map to where it was buried.”
The man’s captive audience of one practically spat out his mouthful and let out a squawk of laughter. “So there’s a treasure map now? And I suppose the ghost of old Captain Flint rose from the grave, hellfire blazing in his eyes, and fought them off the gold, too?” He slapped his knee and chuckled some more.
“Aye, you can laugh, but all I’m telling you is facts.” Tom scowled and grumbled something unintelligible under his breath, then looked down at the bar top. “They say Captain Flint and Long John Silver were almost like one unholy creature when they put their minds to it, and nothing could do for ’em then. And mayhap money makes traitors and killers of even the closest of friends. But I just wonder sometimes.”
“Wonder what?” the other man asked obligingly, smiling a little less now.
“Whether or not any killing happened that day in the jungle at all. Maybe Flint’s still out there somewhere. Maybe he just tired of it all and decided to disappear quietly. Aye, like a ghost.” His friend just laughed again, but Tom gazed into the shadows behind the bar, a distant expression on his face.
Well now, they couldn’t be having with that. Especially not at this particular port. Silver drained the dregs of his own tankard and stood slowly, his chair scraping along the floor and catching the attention of the two men at the bar. They went back to ignoring him almost immediately and returned to their conversation. Then Silver grabbed his crutch.
“I’m just saying, lad, how could a one-legged man win that fight, and on uneven ground? I know Mr. Silver had a reputation for violence, but you were just a boy when Flint was still around. Not a man there was who wasn’t afraid of him. He was about the meanest, most bloodthirsty devil to sail the…”
Silver had taken three slow steps into the flickering light of the candles on the bar, and the third heavy clunk of his crutch on the wooden floor had finally diverted old Tom from his narrative path. The two men stared, first at the empty space where Silver’s leg wasn’t, then at his face as he stood there, watching them.
He let them panic for nearly ten whole seconds before he grinned suddenly. “To sail the sea, I believe you meant to say. The meanest, most bloodthirsty devil to sail the sea.”
The young man gawped, seemingly frozen, while Tom spluttered, “Now, mister, I didn’t mean anything by it, just idle talk, I’ve had a bit to drink—”
“No, you’re right.” This silenced Tom immediately. Silver grinned more widely. “He was all that and more. One of the best fighters ever to set foot on a ship.” He leaned forward on his crutch just slightly and narrowed his eyes. He’d been told once that doing so caused firelight to reflect in them to unsettling effect. “In a fair match, that is. But have you considered – and it should be no great revelation to you gentlemen at this moment, after all – that sometimes the most valuable tool in one’s arsenal is the element of surprise?”
And with that, he turned away from the silently staring men, made his way sedately out of the tavern, climbed on his horse, and set off down the winding road inland.
He rode for several hours in darkness, the humid air sticky even under his clothing, a discomfort compounded by the occasional bug that flew into his face. Not a breeze blew to stir the tall grass to either side of the dirt track as it grew narrower and narrower the farther he traveled. It was far too quiet. But he supposed that was the point.
Finally he spotted a light in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief. The light grew larger until it resolved itself into a single window set in the wall of a small cabin, sitting solitary at the base of a hill that rose up out of the plains.
As he was tethering his horse to the post outside, a gruff voice sounded behind him.
“About time. I was expecting you at least three weeks ago.”
Silver tried not to smile. Not too widely, anyway. “I’ve heard that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Had to ensure that you’d welcome me back.”
Arms slid around his waist from behind, and warm breath stirred his hair. “You shit.”
All pretense of solemnity was wiped from Silver’s face as he turned in the circle of those arms, and he couldn’t bring himself to be self-conscious of it. The face inches from his own was more lined than it once had been and presently twisted by a scowl, and the hair and beard framing it were more gray than ginger these days. It was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in months, and he had to tilt his own face up into a kiss to stop something entirely too sentimental from escaping his mouth.
Later, as they lay on James’s small straw mattress, mostly on top of each other so as not to fall off, Silver sighed and relayed the conversation he’d overheard in the tavern.
“We should probably move again. Maybe somewhere mad, like Spain. I’ve heard the food is excellent there.”
James’s hand, which had been stroking slowly through Silver’s hair, stilled. “You want to move because some old drunkard in a tavern miles from here made fireside speculations that his companion didn’t even believe?”
“You and I both know that stories sink ships, James. How do you suppose I’m even still alive?” He kissed James’s shoulder and then bit it a little for good measure. “Come on, it’ll be an adventure. We’ll take an oar with us and wait for it to turn into a shovel.”
“You know, you’ve quite mucked up that metaphor.” James was silent for a few minutes. Then he let out a long breath. “I’m tired. Let’s talk about it in the morning.”
Silver had long ago learned not to push – a fact which astonished no one so much as himself – when James had decided he was finished with a discussion, at least for the moment. One may as well swim behind a man-o-war and attempt to propel it across the ocean singlehandedly for all the good it would do.
James leaned up and blew out the lamp on the table beside the bed. A few minutes later, he said, “You know, we can’t actually afford to move anywhere. At least anywhere decent.”
Silver hid his smile in James’s neck. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.”
James moved away far enough that he could peer suspiciously at Silver’s face. “Why were you so delayed in getting back here, anyway?”
Silver thought of the contents of his horse’s saddlebags, the telltale jingle of which he’d had to heavily pad with cloth, and grinned. “Well, you see, there was an incident with a boy and a map.”