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Chapter 18~ All I Ever Wanted
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No one really gets to choose when they die. If I could’ve chosen, it most certainly would’ve been that moment on Kidd’s ship. I didn’t have time for last words. But, I’d been practicing them for a while now. It’s a shame when these things fall through.
But, I sure didn’t feel alive. In fact, I was sure of it, because we were on an island. And my head was cradled in soft pillows of sand. The darkness beneath my eyelids glowed a fiery orange. And it was so so hot. I was breathing—I could feel it deep in my chest. It was thin, slow breaths but breaths nonetheless. And I was weak. Weaker than I’d ever felt my entire life. But, I could open my eyes.
The sun immediately banished me back to the muted orange behind my eyelids. It stung some part in the back of my brain that awoke more parts of me. I could only turn my head and squeeze my eyes shut from the blinding rays.
Then, I felt throbbing pain all along my right side. But, one hand, my only hand now, could feel a warm smooth surface of a beach. And, suddenly there were sounds. Sounds of distant conversation and calm whispers of beach waves. Birds flew overhead like black freckles in the sky. They called out to each other. And there was someone else’s breathing.
“Edmund…” a voice hummed. I almost didn’t hear it over the waves. “Edmund, wake up.”
Then, all of a sudden, new life erupted inside of me and I caught a huge gasp stuck in my chest. I felt as if I hadn’t breathed in a hundred years.
“Reyes! Come here!” the voice called back.
I blinked back the sunshine a bit more and took control of my left arm. I pushed myself up and teetered suddenly to the right. All of the weight from that side had somehow disappeared. Before I hit the ground, hands caught me around my torso and laid me back down on the beach.
“Don’t move yet. You’re not ready.”
Not ready?
“Is he alive?” chirped a very familiar Spanish voice.
“Yes, he’s alive. Where’s the canteen?”
A shuffle of movement followed and now a metal spout touched my lips. I let it enter and clean, cold water flooded my dry mouth. I was most certainly alive.
“Drink,” the voice said. I did. My vision became more focused now. I could make out palm trees above me, swaying softly in the breeze. And a face was hovering over me. The sun shadowed it, but I could make out black hair. Blue eyes.
And I choked. I coughed up some water as the canteen was pulled away from me. And a hand rested on my heaving chest.
“Constantine,” I started, my voice horribly hoarse and weak. She smiled.
“Hello.”
Constantine and Reyes propped me up on a nearby palm tree. It only took a few minutes of agonizing pain, but we made it. They didn’t rush me to speak much but instead fed me a few pieces of bread and half a carrot. I took it all in. I had no clue where we were but it was a golden beach. I could only see the vast ocean ahead of me and a few crabs scuttling across the wet sand.
“Are there any more bandages, Reyes? We’ll need to change them out soon.”
“We’re all out.”
“Shit.”
I stopped them both. “What happened?”
They both looked at me quietly—well, as quietly as we could get. I turned to Constantine and noticed how they both looked. Soot dusted their faces. Constantine’s hair was tangled in sweat and frizzed in the heat. They were covered in scratches and cuts. Reyes had a bloodied lip and a blackened eye.
They shared a look before Constantine spoke. “How much do you remember?”
So, they told me everything—about how the ship finally reached the shore before completely falling to cinders. How the mutiny succeeded and power finally rested in our hands. But, we didn’t win. Not in the slightest. Half of our men had been viciously slaughtered. The other half were either permanently disfigured or lucky to have their lives. Kidd’s men had been cut down, but we hadn’t won by much. Once we reached the shores of Madagascar, the ship was in desperate need of salvaging. The other ships took a few days to reach the shores, too.
But, it was over. And we were alive.
“Is he alive?” was my only question afterward.
Constantine was quiet before nodding. “But, he’s in no position of power.”
I tried to move—to find my footing—but Constantine eased me back down.
“He’s not your problem anymore, Edmund. Other men are taking care of him. They allowed him to meet with a local trader to try to sell off the cargo of your old ship, but they have him under constant watch. You need to rest.”
It didn’t take long for a heavy sadness to begin hanging over me—not for the sake of the still-alive Kidd but for my own. Constantine sent Reyes to search for more bandages. And I stayed with her.
“Why did you do this?” I said, barely even a whisper.
She looked up from washing my neck and shoulders. “What are you talking about?”
I shot her a look and frowned. “Why did you save me?”
Her brows knit together as if I’d just insulted her. “Would you have preferred I leave you to bleed out on that ship?”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to.
“We are a team,” she snapped back at me, cheeks flushed pink, “Not anything nor anyone is going to take you from me. Not again. Complain all you wish, but you will not die on me so long as I’m around.”
I almost had to laugh at her tenacity. It was so very admirable yet dangerous. But, she didn’t understand.
“You can’t keep me on like this, love.”
“And why the hell not?”
“I’m not even a man anymore, Constantine! I will never be what I was and I’ll always be a burden to you.” She ignored my pleas. “That’s not true.”
“It is! What kind of doctor performs surgeries with only one arm!?” I didn’t mean to yell. I didn’t mean to start sobbing again, but everything inside of me ached to the core. I only wanted to bring her home—to bring us home. She just watched me in a mix of emotions I could not distinguish. I continued, “All I ever wanted was to bring you home, love.”
“What home?” she pressed.
“England! I wanted to bring home to England. I wanted to marry you there and I’d find a profession as a doctor or maybe go to school. And that’s when we’d start a family, not here and now. But, we were so poor. We had nothin'! I thought if I left, I could make enough coin to start that dream for us. But, now…now, there’s nothin’ left for us.”
Her hand slipped into my weak one. She clutched it tight against her breast and planted a kiss over my fingers. The sobs still rose up in my throat as I watched soft tears dampen her eyes.
“So, that’s why you…” she sighed and said, “That’s not my dream, Edmund. England was never my dream. We could go anywhere in the world, do anything we wish. My only dream was to be by your side through it all. I don’t need anything else.”
And she kissed me, tenderly. It didn’t hurt as much anymore. In fact, it was almost musical, the heartbeat in my arm and my chest. I kissed her back. And suddenly, things weren’t so different as they seemed. It was our job to fix each other. And we did a pretty good job of that.
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Reyes eventually found bandages and they both managed to patch me up enough to keep us going. But, I wouldn’t be able to stay like that for long. When we rejoined our group, we were lucky to find that Samvel was still alive and leading the leftover men from the mutiny. But, now that it was over—now that we won—what was there left to do?
It wasn’t long before Kidd tried to assume power again. An old sailor of his had returned to Madagascar with a ship and a new crew of his own—the same sailor who had led a mutiny against Kidd the first time around. One day, Kidd ordered his ‘crew’ to fight. We threatened a bullet in his back. He was finished. And he knew it, too. We didn’t see much of Kidd for several days after that. He became despondent, tired. No one wanted to fight anymore and maybe that was the problem. It stayed that way until one day, his hundreds of loyal men were cut down to only thirteen. Samvel and his men had made plans of their own. And we learned of the sailor-turned-captain named Robert Culliford. He had a ship and a crew of his own and apparently had quite the history with William Kidd. Culliford was better for them. Better for the crew.
“You know I didn’t ask for this sort of life, Edmund,” Samvel told me one day, “But if I’m to die plundering and living outside Her Majesty’s laws, I’d rather die with a captain I respect.”
And, I couldn’t argue.
In a few weeks, Samvel and the others were gone, and only Kidd and his men were left behind. Picking up the pieces of his shattered career, Kidd took action. He made the wisest decision he ever made and ordered the Quedagh Merchant to be burnt down once and for all. It burned for hours, all through the night until the great vessel that housed us all was nothing more than ash floating on the surface of the water. The crew collected what they could—scraps of metal to sell, pieces of the ship they thought might be worth a shilling or two. And not long after that, Kidd and his thirteen men were gone. And so was the Quedagh Merchant. The only clue as to where he might’ve gone next was the rumor that Kidd wanted to ‘finally go home.’
Kidd had ruined our lives, but part of me knew we’d done just the same to him.
And before we realized what was changing all around us, we were alone. No one chasing after us, no one telling us where we needed to go or what to do. We were free.
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