On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers Read Free Book Online

stand.”
    Chandagnac turned to Beth Hurwood, but she was whispering to her father, who didn’t even seem to be aware of her. Looking past the two of them he saw the broad figure of Leo Friend, who was scowling—possibly disappointed that Chandagnac was still alive. Chandagnac had never felt more friendless and unprotected. Suddenly and terribly, he missed his father.
    He turned back to Davies. “I’ll join you.”
    Davies nodded thoughtfully. “That is the standard decision,” he said. “I wasn’t entirely sure it’d be yours.”
    Hanson stood up and stared dubiously at the bandage he’d belted to his chief. “That’s all I can do for you, Phil,” he said. “Get milord Hurwood to make sure it stops bleeding and don’t mortify.”
    Chandagnac glanced at Hanson in surprise. Surely, he thought, you mean Leo Friend. Philosophy doesn’t knit up wounds.
    Hearing his name, Hurwood came out of his reverie and blinked around. “Where’s Thatch?” he asked, too loudly. “He was supposed to be here.”
    â€œHe’s runnin’ late this year,” Davies said, not even bothering to try to twist his head around and face Hurwood. “Right now he’s up in Charles Town getting the supplies you wanted. We’ll meet him in Florida. Now come here and do something to make sure I don’t die of this perforation.”
    Beth started to say something, but Hurwood waved her to silence. “He let
you
have the pointer?” he said, obviously not pleased.
    Davies grimaced. “The mummied dog head? Aye. And it sure enough did start hissing and spinning around in its bucket of rum yesterday, and then at noon or so settled, staring hard south-east, and shifting only when we’d shift course, so we headed where it was looking.” He shrugged as well as he could. “It led us to you, right enough, but it’s sure a nasty-looking bit of trash. Had a time keeping the rats from chewing it up.”
    â€œDamn that lunatic Thatch,” Hurwood exploded, “for letting common brigands carry sophisticated apparatus! If rats have
touched
that pointer, then they’ll devour you entire, Davies, I promise you. You careless fool, how often do you think two-headed dogs are born? Send a man back to your vessel for it immediately.”
    Davies smiled and lay back on the deck. “
Wellll
,” he said, “no. You can have the other half of your filthy pair back as soon as I’ve stepped ashore at New Providence Island, as healthy as I was an hour ago. If I don’t recover totally between now and then, my lads will burn the goddamn thing. Am I right?”
    â€œYou said it, Phil!” shouted one of the pirates, and the others were all nodding happily.
    Hurwood glared around, but crossed to where Davies was lying and knelt beside him. He looked at the bandage and lifted it and peered underneath. “Hell, you might very well recover even without my help,” he said, “but just for the sake of my pointer set I’ll make it certain.” He began digging in the deep pockets of his knee-length coat.
    Chandagnac looked to his left and behind him. Chaworth’s body, clearly dead, shifted loosely back and forth in the sun as the ship rolled, and one outflung hand rocked back and forth, palm up and then palm down, in an oddly philosophical gesture.It comes and goes, the movement seemed to indicate; good and bad, life and death, joy and horror, and nothing should come as a surprise.
    Chandagnac found it embarrassingly inappropriate, as if the dead man had been left with his pants down, and he wished somebody would move the hand to a more fitting position. He looked away.
    Never having seen a wound worked on by a physician, which it seemed Hurwood was, Chandagnac stepped forward to watch; and for one bewildering moment he thought Hurwood was going to begin by tidying up Davies’ appearance, for what he