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"Frugality turns farthings into ha'pennies; pence into shillings, and so on. That, and I'm not a drunkard." The pastor gave a knowing smile at this and motioned for the baby. Turnbull lowered his glance into its little face, perfect in formation as the gloom accentuated its features. He ran a calloused hand over its head, toying with a stray lock of sweat-damp hair. The man in the doorway studied him, seeing something indefinable in the smoothing crags of his face--a longing, or a gentility born of contact with purity and helplessness. "Worry not, friend," whispered the clergyman. "She'll find good care, here." "'She?'" said Turnbull, eyes narrowing as he looked closer. "Aye, a girl-child, if my eyes don't deceive me." Turnbull shook his head and parted with the bundle. "I know naught of children, save that they wail and eat, and cry the more." He hitched up his breeches and looked into the minister's eyes. "She must have kinsmen in England. Mayhap someone local knows her family." "Alas, I'm ignorant of shipping schedules," the man said. "But I'd begin in the town square." He nodded and offered a hand. "My name is Clifton Turnbull. Expect me back on your stoop in a fortnight." The man accepted the proffered hand. "Pastor Jacobsen," he said. "We'll await your return." Turnbull disappeared into the growing night, a sense of urgency lending his tired feet wings. # Three days later, Clifton Turnbull bade the captain of the fishing boat in his charter drop anchor off Finch Island, standing alone off Jamaica's southeastern coast. With further reassurances of reward for the master's patience, he made off in a skiff for a cave sheltered by high rocks and ebony trees. "If I don't return by eventide, tomorrow," he said before leaving, "make for your home port and consider all duties fulfilled." He dragged the skiff up the beach and manhandled it into the trees, tugging and pushing it along for about twenty yards. Sighting a narrow gully choked with vines and lesser creepers, he tore away the obstacles and flipped the boat over into the depression. Perspiration streamed down his face and wrought havoc on his eyes as he replaced the uprooted foliage, obscuring the craft from all but the most discerning observers. He regained the beach and used palm fronds and driftwood in masking signs of the boat's passage up the hill and into the forest. All drag marks brushed away, he crouched in a hollow between two boulders and rested. Shade brought a brief reprieve from the heat, and he devoured a breadfruit and two small bananas. Gulls bickering near the tide pools awoke him from an unintended nap. He examined his surroundings. Seeing no one, he vacated the rock berth and made haste for a stream he remembered inland. Thirst parched his lips and ravened down his throat. He found the rivulet of water and fell to his knees, cupping his hands and drinking his fill. Rising, he put his back against a tree and contemplated the situation. I hope Hogarth has had enough time for offloading his plunder from the last haul, he thought. His eyes traveled up the mild slope of trees and assorted flora culminating in a hillock aspiring to mountainhood. A half-visible trail made its ascent from the west. He knew the conduit ended at a cave mouth, and at the back of that grotto waited the prize he sought. His ruminations returned to a crying babe and a nameless woman lying in a pool of her own life's blood. He cleaned his cutlass and dirk, and methodically polished his old double-barreled flintlock pistol with a soiled rag. And waited. # Come evening the birds tired in their queries and settled in their nests. Voices came to Turnbull from the jungle--words, and movements. Three figures materialized on the trail, tramping uphill. The first stood taller than the others, topped with a garish hat. "Ripper" Hogarth, at your service. He tarried a quarter-hour after the last man had entered the cave, then minced his way up the incline. He secluded himself in an overgrowth of weeds off the path and set about watching the entrance. Gnats harried him, finding his nostrils an appealing sanctuary. He swatted them in quick swipes, afraid someone might notice this activity from the subterranean interior, yet finding resistance impossible. He marveled at his actions over the last four days, flustered by the turn of events, and his reaction to it. Why am I here? he asked himself. The answer eluded him; but his presence in the tall grass--nerves tense as a gibbet's rope--felt more proper than anything he'd done in many a long year. He settled in for a long interval, but it was not to be. In a half-hour, a man appeared at the cave mouth and sauntered outside. He crossed the trail and relieved himself just past Turnbull's hiding place. Turning on his heel, he stood and chewed a long blade of grass. Turnbull saw that it was Tut Martin. Heat boiled up in his breast and face, radiating outward to his arms. He erupted from his ambush like a striking adder, latching onto the stunned pirate's lapels and yanking him backward into the brush. Martin fought and thrashed, clawing for his knife. They grappled with the sun beating down, Turnbull's hand clamped over his enemy's open mouth. Martin's eyes welled and goggled at him, full moons of horror. And then Turnbull's blade found its sheath in Martin's heart. The man seized up and pummeled the ground, once, limbs stiffening. The light fled his eyes and he relaxed in the dirt. "Here lies Tut Martin," Turnbull grated in the stillness. "Murderer of women and children. May the worms feed well upon ye." He wrenched his weapon free and cleaned it on the corpse's shirt. Turnbull squatted on his haunches, wondering if anyone had spied the commotion. Soon satisfied that his efforts had drawn no curiosity, he gathered dried twigs and leaves and heaped them outside the cave. Striking flint on steel, he set the pile ablaze, adding more fuel and fanning the flames as they rose higher. He drew his cutlass with one hand, his pistol with the other. # From inside came a shout of astonishment, followed by profanity and fumblings and the scrape of boots on stone. A man leapt over the fire and into the open, hands cupping his nose and mouth. Turnbull realized that it was a buccaneer named Kinlan, a sometime purse-snatcher and cutthroat before graduating to a higher station of theft and murder under Hogarth.
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