“Damn decent of you. Just show us where they are and Mudge and I will try and do the rest. This isn’t your fight. There’s no reason for you to risk your life.”
“Me, I ain’t got much life.” His face was sad. “Two year ago big storm hit swamp. Big wave come all the way in from sea, right through village. Most of us know it coming so go up in trees until wave go by, then climb down and fix up house.” His voice grew raspy. “My mate and two cubs way out picking oysters. They doen get back in time and I doen get out in time to warn them. Oysters get washed away, wife and babies get washed away.” He swallowed hard, his voice breaking. It was dead silent inside the cabin.
“So that’s why you want to ‘elp us?” Mudge finally murmured.
“That why I know what you feeling. Storm take my loved ones from me. Pirates take yours. Can’t do nothin’ about storm, maybe can do something about pirates. So you doen worry about oP Cautious, you hear?”
“We hear.” Jon-Tom considered. Could they believe the raccoon, put their trust in him completely? Was the story about losing his family just that, a clever story they were about to buy unknowingly?
The same thought had occurred to Mudge. “No offense, mate, but ‘ow do we know you ain’t making this tragedy up as you go along? ‘Ow can we be sure you ain’t plannin’ to sell somethin’ besides shellfish and shellac to these pirates?”
“Maybe I leave you find them on your own.” Cautious took a step toward the doorway. Mudge restrained him.
“Easy, guv’nor. Consider our position ‘ere.”
The coon hesitated, glanced from otterish visage to human. “Hokay. This time I forget you say something like what you said. You say it again and I disappear into trees.”
He led them out the back of the cabin. The village was silent, sleeping off the previous evening’s binge.
“Come on now, quick. I hear about your boat.”
“What’s the rush? Just because everyone else was intentionally evasive doesn’t mean they’d try and stop us.”
“No telling what they might do. Swamp folk like that. Party with you one night, put you in the gumbo next. Fox and others make good living off pirates. You sneak up on their camp and steal one of their prizes, maybe you jeopardize that living. Better go quiet.”
“Me feelin’ precisely.”Mudge pushed aside a branch. It snapped back to smack Jon-Tom in the gut. Murmured curses rose above the drone of the crickets.
“Funny boat,” Cautious commented when they reached the place where the zodiac was tied. “Sure like to see animal builder took skin from.”
“It’s an artificial fabric, not a skin.” Jon-Tom was looking anxiously in the direction of the village. There was no sign of pursuit. “It came from a polyethelene plant.”
“Must be some damn fine big leaves.” The raccoon gestured downstream. “We go that ways toward ocean some then cut back in through hidden channel. Try to sneak up on them from other direction or they see us for sure.” Mudge nodded. “You can bet your arse on that. The one runnin’ that crew’s the suspicious type.”
“What you say? You know this bunch of picaroons?”
“We’ve ‘ad occasion to chat with ‘em before.” Mudge paddled steadily down river. “Their Captain’s got a score to settle with us, so we’d just as soon snatch back me lady quiet-like and slip away same.”
“Oh ho. Gets to be interesting, this business.”
“Take Mudge’s word for it; you don’t want to make this bastard’s acquaintance.”
“Hokay. Had few dealings with them myself. Mostly fox, he go and do business with them. How you come to know them, eh?”
Jon-Tom and Mudge took turns relating to their guide the tale of their earlier encounter with Sasheem and the rest of Corroboc’s crew. By the time they had finished the story the sun had put in an appearance, peeping uncertainly over the tallest trees. Shafts of light sliced down through the vines and moss. They were paddling through a deep water inlet over a sandy bottom. “Good place for big boat, but we coming up on them from behind. We find a good spot to leave this funny-skinned craft and go through trees, get your lady, then run like crazy back same way. If lucky, I doen think they see us.”
Jon-Tom frowned at the sky. “We’ll have to wait a whole day until it’s dark again.”
“No problem.” He settled down in the bottom of the boat. “This good place for sleeping.”
“So close to their camp?”
“Doen worry. They never come in swamp. Stick to open water and their boat. Why you think they buy food from us instead of looking for it themselves?”
“What if they take Weegee and sail off?”
“You worry too much, man. You say they just got beaten off your big ship. Now they got to rest up and lick their wounds.”
“ ‘Ow about you, mate? Won’t they miss you back ‘ome?”
“Nobody is missed until they been gone two weeks maybe. Ever’body go hunting and fishing back in swamp for long time, nobody miss them. Miss you maybe, but not me. I bet they figure you get tired and leave early. Maybe fox and others suspicious, maybe they want to talk mote, but I think they all just relieved you gone. Now you not their problem anymore. They know you don’t know where to find pirates, so they forget you real soon.”
To Jon-Tom’s considerable surprise he found he had no trouble sleeping away most of the day. His body was more than willing to make up for all the sleep he hadn’t enjoyed out on the open ocean. When he woke again it was to see the sun setting behind the swamp and the nearby sea. He felt fully rested and ready to begin the tricky business of effecting Weegee’s rescue.
They secured the zodiac to a large hollow fastump and concealed it with palm fronds and moss. Then they started into the woods. Jon-Tom had the usual hard time ducking branches and stepping over protruding roots and was glad it wasn’t far to the pirate encampment. They heard it before they could see it.
Drunken laughter, shouts, blithe obscenities filled the air. Cautious gestured for them to slow down as they neared a place where much of the underbrush had been cleared away. It was an ideal anchorage. Morgels and cypress gave way to a wide sandy beach. The action of the current had cut a small inlet into the shore and a crude dock had been built out into the water. The ketch was moored to this ramshackle jetty. On the beach a single large one-story structure had been erected. It had the look of an old warehouse. Perhaps at one time some hopeful entrepreneur had tried to start a plantation in this part of the world, only to eventually abandon it and several smaller outbuildings to the unyielding swamp from whence it had subsequently been reclaimed by the pirates.
A few of the brigands were much closer than the beach. All were in an advanced state of intoxication. They were lying or standing around an isolated wepper tree, playing paddle ball with something hanging from one branch. Jon-Tom had to physically restrain Mudge from rushing forward.
Weegee’s wrists and ankles were bound together by a single rope. Her head hung toward the ground. She had not been gagged. As far as her tormentors were concerned this only added spice to the game. As they swung her dizzily back and forth she tried to take a mouthful of flesh out of each of her persecutors, who would dance aside as her teeth neared them, laughing and taunting one another. Two of them were utilizing long paddles both to protect their fingers and enhance the sport. The solid bang of wood on fur and flesh echoed across the clearing.
“Rotten bloody bastards.”
Jon-Tom kept his hand on his friend’s trembling shoulder. “Easy, Mudge. We’ve rested ail day. They haven’t. At the rate they’re collapsing they’ll all be asleep soon enough. Then we’ll get ‘em. Don’t look.”
“I ‘ave to look, mate. I ‘ave some faces to memorize.”