Blaggard's Moon by George Bryan Polivka Page B

his belt, his fourth. “Here, take this,” he said, holding it out for Lye.
    Lye took it. “Why?”
    â€œGive me yours.”
    Lye handed it over. Damrick looked at the wet weapon, then tipped the barrel down. After a moment, a dark gray goo, wet gunpowder, dripped from the barrel. A second or two later, the ball dropped to the floorboards.
    â€œYou might have traded with me a tad earlier,” Lye seethed, turning red.
    Damrick’s eyes shone in the moonlight.
    Sharkbit sat up, held the back of his head, and looked around through slitted eyes. “What happened?”
    â€œI declined your offer,” Damrick told him. “Now, get in the boat.”
    â€œWait, I always heard Sharkbit was shot in the back!”
    â€œAye, from a coward’s pistol! Everybody knows that story.”
    â€œYou’re gettin’ it wrong again. Tell it how it really happened!”
    The men were restless, unhappy. “You boys need some sleep, is the problem here,” Ham informed them with infinite patience. “I should have quit the story when I said.”
    â€œBut ye got it wrong!” another complained.
    â€œDid I now?” Ham asked.
    They all answered him in the affirmative, adding a wide variety of colorful intensifiers.
    â€œWell, let’s just put the story away and lock it up for the evening. Before I do, though, I’ll say this: Sharkbit was not one to go quietly.”
    â€œAye!” and “Now yer sayin’ right!”
    â€œHe carried on him a weapon that Lye Mogene had not found. A dirk, tucked down the back of his hood. So as he walked to the rail, he reached up as though to scratch his skull, and he pulled the blade. He wheeled around, meaning to kill Damrick Fellows. But he failed, lads. For ye see,” Ham continued in the brooding silence, “our Captain Sharkbit believed he could not be killed. And a man who believes he cannot be killed has no reason to believe he can be taken alive. Sharkbit’s long knife came around in a flash of silver, but Mr. Fellows was ready. He had the pistol. He had the will. He fired. And you already know what a crack shot he was. Could be but one result. Sharkbit tumbled over the rail, landing smack on top of our two drunken would-be pirates, a pistol ball clean through his head, entering at the left eye.
    â€œ ‘Go home,’ Damrick then says to all the other pirates gathered there, as they stared in stunned silence at their fallen leader. For they too had believed that Sharkbit Sutter could not be killed. ‘Go home,’ he says, ‘or die likewise.’ Then he and Lye threw all their boots into the drink, so as not to be followed, and climbed down the side of the ship, rowed to shore, and carried Sharkbit’s body all the way back to Mann for the reward. And from then on, Damrick Fellows never thought about any line of work other than ridding the seas of the likes of us.”
    â€œI don’t like ’im,” Sleeve said aloud. “All righteous-like. He’s a killer, and likes to kill, I say, as much as any pirate ever did. Don’t he?”
    â€œMaybe so,” Ham said. “Certainly, he killed more men than all but a very few of the most legendary cutthroats. But I tell you this story so you’ll know who he is. So you’ll know what we’re up against, when he comes to fight a man like Conch Imbry.”
    â€œThe Conch!”
    â€œAye, the Conch!” others echoed. “He’ll take ’im down!”
    â€œAye, the Conch,” Ham confirmed. “So what we have now, gents, is what’s called a bit of drama. It means that when we do get a fight between the chief of the pirates and the chief of the pirate hunters, it’s likely to be a good one.”
    Delaney sighed. His anger had dissipated. Fighting like a madman would get a man killed off right enough, but it wouldn’t get him out of a jam. Foolhardy as it may have been to climb