Stowaway: Curse of the Red Pearl Read online

  STOWAWAY

  Curse of the Red Pearl

  A Tale of Horror

  Stowaway

  Curse of the Red Pearl

  Copyright 2019 © Tracy Fobes

  Ebook Edition

  Print Edition:

  ISBN-13: 978-0692439210

  ISBN-10: 0692439218

  www.tracyfobes.com

  All rights reserved. This work may not be copied, redistributed or stored in a digital database, with the exception of short quotes and passages for the purpose of review or analysis.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Organizations, places and events in this book are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

  Chapter One

  Boston, Massachusetts 1808

  His head was filled with numbers, but his heart longed for the sea.

  So often, this was the case with Kit Cabot, eldest and only son of Edmund Cabot, and heir to the Cabot fortune. He had the thin, gangly body of a youth approaching manhood, with legs like sticks in his close-fitting breeches, a skinny neck sticking out of his cravat and a pale face that still didn’t quite need shaving. His elbows poked at the sleeves of his jacket, and his hands and feet were too big for the rest of his body, like the paws on a puppy destined to grow into a wolfhound.

  At the moment, he and his father were threading their way through Boston Harbor, on their way to the clipper ship Apollyon to reconcile cargo. The sun beat down mercilessly as they made their way to the long pier, where a dinghy awaited them, and Kit found himself sweating beneath his jacket. To make the day even worse, his right leg throbbed with a dull pain that had become his constant friend ever since he’d injured it as a boy. Although it was tolerable today, the pain in his leg joints and muscles often became so bad that he wished he had no leg at all.

  He sighed and massaged his thigh absently as they passed dock workers and gentlemen alike, all of whom parted like the Red Sea as he and his father approached. Edmund Cabot, despite his stooped posture, his cane and his sickly demeanor, commanded the instant respect of everyone in North Boston. Theirs was one of the oldest--and richest--families in the city, with ancestors straight back to the Puritans from England.

  Edmund sniffed with disdain and kept his nose in the air as he and Kit maneuvered around barrels of coffee, sacks of sugar and a crate of rotting fish with a smell that nearly made Kit gag. Mercifully, in a very short time they reached the dinghy manned by Mr. Whyte, an older man with great, bushy whiskers reaching down on either side of his face.

  “Good day, Mr. Whyte,” Edmund said as Mr. Whyte hopped nimbly out of the dinghy, and onto the dock. “I’m relieved to know the Apollyon has finally made port.”

  Mr. Whyte tugged on his hat--a flat-topped, wide-brimmed piece designed to keep the sunshine and salt spray at bay. Dressed in a well-mended yet clean stock, a navy canvas coat, black breeches and polished boots, he looked more like a gentleman than the Apollyon’s quartermaster and ship’s surgeon. “Aye, Mr. Cabot, sir. It’s good to have my feet on land again.” He turned and flashed Kit a secret smile, one that Edmund didn’t notice.

  Kit smiled back, took a deep breath of the salty air flowing in from the harbor, and climbed into the dinghy. Once he’d sat down, Edmund joined him with help from Mr. Whyte, and then Mr. Whyte cast them off from the dock. Mr. Whyte coiled the rope into the dinghy, took up the oars, and began to row.

  Edmund leaned heavily on his cane and swayed slightly with the rhythm of Mr. Whyte’s rowing. He eyed the quartermaster with some annoyance. “What took you so long? You were due back over a month ago. Did my brother delay your return with his boozing and whoring?”

  Mr. Whyte rowed a little slower. “We ran into a bad storm that threw us off course.”

  Kit looked more closely at Mr. Whyte. Bad storms were a frequent hazard on the run from Boston to the West Indies and could devastate the cargo, leaving the ship profitless. But that wasn’t what had caught Kit’s attention. Rather, the slight wobble in Mr. Whyte’s voice had intrigued him. It suggested there was more than just a bad storm afoot here.

  “We heard nothing about a storm from the other ships that travel the same route as the Apollyon’s,” Kit said.

  Mr. Whyte had no answer for him. Seconds passed.

  Edmund narrowed his eyes. “The cargo is sound?”

  The quartermaster nodded. “It is.”

  Edmund sighed with satisfaction, then laid his cane by his side.

  Kit watched Mr. Whyte for a few more moments, then sat back and enjoyed this rare expedition outdoors. Usually he was stuck inside the warehouse office, a room crowded with books and papers, and lit by only a desk lamp and a few lanterns. It was a lonely room, one that encouraged sleep or daydreaming at the very least, and lately Kit had begun to think of it as a cage. His childhood injury had helped sentence him to that cage and to a life stooped over the books, just like his father. And so, on days like these, when he managed to get some fresh air and do something other than add numbers up in an accounting ledger, he savored every second of it.

  The sun remained hot, but the sea breeze managed to work its way beneath his jacket, relieving some of his discomfort. Kit gazed at the tall ships around him, the clippers and brigantines and frigates that had come from ports unknown, and knew a sharp yearning to be one of them.

  To be free.

  As Mr. Whyte rowed them further out into the harbor, Kit’s attention settled on a gleaming clipper ship with the name Apollyon painted on the side. He thought the ship looked pretty good despite the ‘bad storm’ Mr. Whyte claimed she’d weathered.

  Mr. Whyte settled a friendly smile on Kit. “And you, laddie. How have you been?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Just well enough?”

  Kit saw Mr. Whyte’s teasing grin and shrugged, smiling himself. “As well as can be expected, considering I’m stuck in the company’s offices all day, helping with the business.”

  Edmund’s eyes widened. He began a reply, but then broke off in a fit of coughing. Like Kit, he hadn’t the strongest of constitutions, evident in his blood shot eyes and cheeks hollowed and yellow from years of illness. The work-worn black breeches and dark brown coat he wore only emphasized the sallowness of his complexion.

  Kit sat up a little straighter and peered at his father, concerned for a moment, but then Edmund’s phlegm subsided.

  “I can think of worse fates for you,” Edmund finally managed, his gaze catching and holding Kit’s, “other than having the privilege of running a shipping fleet with over ten vessels.”

  Kit stared at his father. Opened his mouth, then shut it. In the end, he could say nothing. He understood his obligations as the eldest and only Cabot son. He just wished the yoke of familial responsibility didn’t feel so tight around his neck.

  More rowing in silence.

  Kit shifted uncomfortably on the bench. “So, Mr. Whyte, how bad was this storm you ran into?”

  “It was a sneaky one. We didn’t see it coming.”

  “It would take more than bad weather to shipwreck Uncle John,” Kit observed.

  Edmund snorted, his opinion of the Apollyon’s captain considerably lower than either Kit’s or Mr. Whyte’s. “At least you didn’t run into any British or French warships.”

  “Aye, sir,” Mr. Whyte agreed. “I don’t fancy becoming a slave to some limey or frog.” The older man took a moment to give the dinghy a hard row on the left side, steering them more sharply to the right. “Heard you had some excitement on the docks, too.”

  “A wharf rat tried to stow away on board one of our ships,” Edmund replied with a frown. “We caught him hiding in th
e ship’s hold.”

  Kit frowned. “I didn’t hear about this. What happened to him?”

  His father’s lips tightened to a self-righteous line. “He was whipped, then returned to the dock.”

  Mr. Whyte shook his head. “Aye, the little bugger paid the price.” He gave Kit a little half-grin. “Now, if you really wanted to sneak on board ship, you’d have to stow away where no one would look for you. A container, maybe. O’course, if the container lid got stuck, they might not find you until you were as dried up as chipped beef...”

  “And then they’d feed you to the rats,” Kit finished for him.

  Edmund shuddered, but Kit and Mr. Whyte shared a quick laugh as they entered an area where several large clipper ships were anchored, with crews in various stages of unloading cargo, taking on provisions or weighing anchor. Shouts filled the air and competed with seagulls’ cawing, as the birds dived in for food left unattended.

  Kit craned his neck to study the ships looming around him. Their masts reached toward the clouds, with the rigging around them like nets keeping them earthbound. Their acres of sails were drawn down to prevent them from picking up any wind, and their great prows were nuzzled up against the docks and held there by thick ropes.

  “I can almost feel their longing to return to the open sea,” Kit murmured. “Their dismay at being bound and gagged so tightly to shore.”

  His eyebrows lifted, Edmund studied the ships around him. “Who’s longing?”

  “The ships around us.”

  Edmund gave Kit a pitying look. “Spare us the poetry, Kit. Stick with facts and figures, they suit you better.”

  Kit had no reply for his father. Absently he rubbed his aching thigh. The pain he was feeling and the sense of the ships not being able to move brought back terrible recollections of his childhood: the clipper ship docked in the harbor, with him scrambling around the rigging...Uncle John encouraging him to climb higher, and then the plummeting sensation as he slipped and fell to the deck...the leg brace made of wood and canvas, wrapped around him so tightly...in his bed, unable to move, feeling so embarrassed because he’d soiled the sheets...his mother at his bedside, reading The Arabian Nights to him in her gentle voice...the first, agonizing time he tried to stand up.

  It had been ten years since the fateful day that had changed him from a rambunctious boy to a housebound shadow. Ten long years of struggling with the injured nerves in his leg muscles and joints. Ten years of insisting his mother stopping blaming Uncle John for his injury, of his father being disappointed in him. On some days, like this one, he wasn’t certain what felt worse: the physical pain of his damaged leg or the emotional pain of the memories that haunted him still.

  Several minutes later, they reached the Apollyon. Mr. Whyte maneuvered the dinghy next to a ladder which extended down from the ship’s weather deck. Kit stared with wide eyes and parted lips at the magnificent vessel, with its burnished wood hull and trimmed white sails.

  Mr. Whyte put the oars down and stood, balancing himself carefully as the dinghy gently rose and fell with the ocean swells. “Apollyon, ho! Permission to board!”

  A man in a sailor’s cap poked his head over the ship’s railing. “Permission granted!”

  Kit needed no more encouragement. He awkwardly grabbed the ladder and hauled himself to the railing. The Apollyon’s Bosun, a pock-marked sailor with an air of authority and a long, thin scar down the side of his face, helped him onto the weather deck. Kit thanked him, then gave Mr. Greene, the ship’s carpenter, a nod.

  The Bosun turned from Kit and lowered a chair to the dinghy. With Mr. Whyte’s help, Edmund sat on the chair, strapped himself in and held on as the Bosun and Mr. Greene pulled on the chair’s rope to lift him. The chair wobbled and Edmund gasped, but they managed to get the elder Cabot on board without further mishap.

  Mr. Whyte climbed on board a second later. He handed Edmund his cane, then tugged on his hat again. “Welcome on board the Apollyon, sir.”

  Chapter Two

  Using his cane as a support, Edmund walked around the Bosun and Mr. Greene, examining them as another man might study horses he was considering buying. He sniffed, then looked quizzically around the rest of the ship. “Where is my brother?”

  Mr. Whyte glanced pointedly at the Bosun and cleared his throat.

  The Bosun snapped to attention. “He’s still in his quarters, Mr. Cabot, sir.”

  “But the ship’s been docked for hours now,” Edmund pointed out.

  “Well, ah, he’s been sick—”

  Edmund jabbed the weather deck with his cane. “Drunk, you mean! Go get him. Now.”

  The Bosun exchanged a concerned look with Mr. Whyte, then scurried toward the corridor leading belowdecks. Edmund, Kit, and the rest of them stood silently and waited.

  Moments later, the sound of a crash reverberated through the corridor.

  A few seconds of silence. And then--

  “Captain, please...” the Bosun whined.

  A man’s deep voice bellowed from somewhere deep within the bowels of the ship. “Get out, before I wring your irritating little head from your scrawny body!”

  “But Cap’n—”

  Something smashed violently belowdecks.

  Edmund snorted and looked heavenward, as if praying for patience.

  “Leave me alone, damn you!” the male voice demanded.

  A minute later, the Bosun returned to the weather deck with a red bump on his forehead. Mr. Greene smiled at his reappearance, but Mr. Whyte remained solemn.

  “Sorry, Mr. Cabot,” the Bosun said between gasps of air, “but the Cap’n, he doesn—”

  “What happened?” Edmund asked, cutting in. “Did that scurvy dog frighten you? I’ll get him myself.”

  Kit quickly put a hand on his father’s arm. “I’ll go.”

  Edmund moved away and examined Kit critically. “I’ll not send a man to do a boy’s work.”

  Kit stiffened, but lifted his chin. “I’ll go. Uncle John listens to me more than he listens to you.”

  “Aye, he’s right, Mr. Cabot,” Mr. Whyte said. “He stands a better chance of talking the Cap’n into a good mood.”

  Edmund banged his cane imperiously against the deck. “You have five minutes. If John doesn’t present himself by then, I’ll come down there myself.”

  Kit nodded and limped belowdecks.

  Kit stood outside an oak door. He hesitated a moment, squared his shoulders, and then knocked.

  “I said to leave me alone!” John Cabot shouted from behind the door.

  Kit grinned at the sound of his uncle’s surly tone. Uncle John was back...finally...and had no doubt brought a fine cargo with him, too. Part of that cargo included contraband rum, which Kit routinely hid from his father and the harbor master, by falsifying the cargo ledgers. Kit knew that he and his uncle’s smuggling efforts weren’t the noblest of deeds, but it was the only way Kit made money for himself, and it brought him one step closer to buying that clipper ship.

  At times, Kit wondered what life would be like without his uncle in it. Doubtless, he mused, it would be completely lacking in intrigue and terribly boring as a consequence. He had no illusions about his uncle—John Cabot was alternately a rakehell, a thug, and a womanizer; among other things. But he was also a damned good sea captain and he treated Kit like an equal, making him the one bright spot in Kit’s otherwise dreary life.

  Kit knocked again. “Come on, Uncle John, open the door.”

  The door opened about six inches, and a boot sailed into the hallway. Kit ducked just in time.

  Just as quickly, the door slammed shut.

  Kit waited a moment, then knocked softly once more. “Uncle John, it’s me.”

  “Kit?”

  “Yes.”

  The door opened a crack, then creaked wider. Beyond the door, the cabin was dark.

  Eyes wide, Kit stuck his head in. “Can I come in?”

  “If you must.”

  Kit pushed the door open all the way and
stepped inside. He blinked a couple of times and tried to get a grip on what he was seeing. The captain’s cabin was the largest of all of the cabins on board ship. It spanned the stern, had large windows, and looked quite comfortable—if one preferred living in a pigpen. Dirty clothes were draped on wooden shelves built into the wall and on a wicker chair that sat in front of a desk. The sheets on the bunk looked wrinkled and dirty, several bureau drawers stood half-open, and a myriad of compasses, maps, and books lay scattered about in piles on the floor. A whiskey jug sat open upon the desk and a pewter tankard lay on its side nearby. The large sea chest in the corner was the only thing that didn’t appear wrecked in some way.

  Kit frowned with concern. This wasn’t like his uncle at all.

  “Uncle John?”

  “Over here.”

  He turned toward the voice and saw his uncle laying on his bunk, a second whiskey jug at his side.

  John had his hand up by his eyes, to shield them from the light streaming through the doorway. “Close the door, damnit,” he growled.

  Kit pushed the door open a few inches further and walked into the room. He assessed his uncle more closely, then shook his head. He couldn’t keep a smile off his lips. “You’ve arrived so far behind schedule, we thought something had happened to you.”

  “Goddamn, you’re not shutting the door.” John groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position.

  Kit’s smile widened as John hung his head and clutched the whiskey jug in a vise-like grip.

  “Don’t just stand there gawking,” John rasped. “Help me up.”

  Kit hurried to his uncle’s side and grabbed his arm. He helped John stand, and held on until his uncle stopped swaying on his feet.

  John groaned and took a swig of whiskey. “Just give me a minute.”

  Kit nodded and waited patiently. While he waited, a breeze wound through the cabin. He shivered and looked for its source. “It’s cold in here. Damp. Smells a little, too.”

  “Stop whining.”

  Kit walked over to one of the portholes and yanked the cloth covering it down. Light flooded the room.