Fathom by Cherie Priest Read Free Book Online

ship moved fast across the Gulf and around the rocky edges, rough with coral, where the land sticks its fingers out into this place of mine. He accumulated wealth, and captives, and ransoms. He earned esteem, and respect, and fear. He investigated the forgotten places where the fresh rivers flow into the salt; and inthese places he found estuaries and wells and places where things can be hidden, and lost, and forgotten.
    “I waited for him to learn some more.
    “Out in the open water, he laced his guns together with knotted rope and slung them around his neck. He leaped from deck to deck, and he fired them quickly, one after another, one shot into one body, and the next, and the next. The wood that creaked underfoot was baptized with the entrails and vomit of men, and women, too. He learned that wealth and power cost blood, and he took the lesson to heart. He learned it well.
    “I waited for him to learn the rest.
    “Once, he chose a woman from his captives. He did not yet fathom the way a heart is won, or which hearts are worthy of winning. He chose poorly, and she resisted him. He should have cast her into the water, wrapped in chains, but he resisted killing her. The crew saw his hesitation as weakness, and they, in turn, resisted his rule.
    “In desperation, and in anger, and in fright, he ran her through with his first mate’s sword. It met her at the throat, and nearly took her head. And with that sacrifice, he learned much, much more about the company he should keep. He regained control of his ship, and of his heart. He seized the next vessel and annihilated its contents, man and beast and treasure alike.
    “I only had to wait a little longer, though if I counted out the years to you, you might think it an eternity. When I wait, I am patient. I have more seasons and suns behind me and before me than you’d ever dream. I have more time than any God you’ve ever prayed to.
    “I waited until he had finished, almost. I waited until he’d had a long life, and a long career for a man of his kind. And I knew he was mine—I knew he was meant to join me, when his greed would not let him retire to die an old man in his bed. He tried to bewise and withdraw while the odds might let him vanish; but there was one more boat, fat and low in the water with gold or slaves. And it sailed under a flag he hated, a flag from the country that first compelled him to leave his land-life and come to my domain.
    “He called his crewmen off the beach where they were sorting out their spoils, and he said to them, ‘Look, in the bay, you can see it there. It’s a beautiful ship and it is heavy in the water. One last venture, then. One last ship and its treasure, and then we can part ways. You can go to your island, Roberto; you can return to your Sanibel in Spain, Arturo. This is the last of the wealth we’ve grown between us, and now it is divided according to rank and skill. But one last ship, my men. One last ship and we will call ourselves kings and retreat to distant shores, distant homes, and distant memory. It is fair and fitting that we have been so long spared the squad or the noose.’
    “And the sailors on the shore agreed with him, and they rallied beside him, running to the ship and raising the anchor, unfurling the sails. They urged their ship into the bay, and out through the water, and they drew their vessel alongside the easy victim, and they raised their flag of plunder.
    “But the other ship had a secret. Its flag was a false one, and its mission was one of deceit. It had set itself against the shore to serve as bait, as a tempting lure to draw the Spaniard out.
    “When the attack began, the other vessel lowered its treacherous sheet and raised its true colors. It was no merchant ship but a ship of war, a ship called the
Enterprise
from the New World. The other craft returned fire and the Spaniard was furious. It was a trick that he had taught them, the lure and the attack, and now they used it against