Read Online Owned by the Ocean by Christine Steendam - Free Book Online Page B

weight to let those words out,
then tapped the chart one last time before walking away.
    Brant frowned
and looked back down at the map. Just in case. The way things were
going it wasn’t “just in case”, it was just a matter of time.
     
    ***
     
    Brant sat in
the mess hall that night in silence, surrounded by men that had him
both disappointed and feeling a little sick. They had willingly
betrayed and murdered their captain, and now their murmurs of
discontent were rising up again; this time against the man that
they had put into power.
    Their course had been altered to go near the island Karl had
pointed out, but they wouldn’t be near there for another week.
Brant hoped things would hold together until then. Another mutiny
would tear the crew apart. If LaFleur had three loyal followers,
Jacob easily had close to half the crew, but the other half was
growing more and more upset with his poor leadership. If it reached
a boiling point, the BlackFox would be washed in blood, and no one would make
it out unscathed.
    A couple men
sitting beside Brant were muttering angrily to each other as they
ate stale bread dipped in stew.
    “ This swill ain’t worthy of a dog,” muttered one man, tossing
the hard lump of crust aside. “We need to make port and stock up
and we ain’t near no harbor.”
    The man beside
him nodded. “Cap’n don’t know what he’s doing. Picking on the wrong
ships. We ain’t had a good raid even once this whole season.”
    Brant got up
and took his empty bowl to the washing pot and deposited it there,
then walked on deck. Karl was already up there, smoking his pipe in
the cool evening air.
    “ Tis calm,” he said when Brant walked up to join
him.
    “ Too calm. There’s a storm brewing.”
    “ Aye.”
    But Brant
wasn’t referring to the weather, and although it was calm out, the
belly of the ship was simmering slowly into a boil. “We won’t
weather this one well.”
    Karl shook his
head, puffing thoughtfully on his pipe as he stared out at the
ocean. “One good raid, it’ll calm things for a time.”
    “ Long enough?”
    Karl
nodded.
    “ What if we don’t get that raid?”
    Karl smiled
and pointed ahead. “Can’t see her yet, but I saw a ship from the
nest through the glass. She’s sittin’ low. We’ll be on her tomorrow
sometime.”
    Brant smiled
slightly, but it was bitter sweet. He wasn’t sure he could stomach
more blood, but Karl was right; it would blow off enough steam to
keep the men under control until they were in a better
position.
    “ If a stray bullet found the captain—” Brant trailed off. He
could end things tomorrow if they were in a raid. No one would
notice that friendly fire had taken down their captain.
    “ There’ll be a power struggle for who be captain. Best we let
things be until the last possible moment, then take public action.
Establish leadership.”
    Brant reached
into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, slightly bent and
wrinkled. He lit it and inhaled the smoke. Karl was right, if he
ended it during a raid, in secret, it would tear apart the crew
more than any mutiny would. They had to be perfect in their timing
and act just at the point before boiling, when the men were good
and ready to accept a leader who would present himself but not
quite ready to draw blood. The only problem was finding that
perfect moment.
     
    ***
     
    Karl was
right, there was a raid the next day. But it didn’t go as expected.
Jacob was over eager, making the wrong calls at the wrong time and
refusing to take advice from the more seasoned sailors on his
crew.
    Brant took
second watch that night. He wandered the deck, cigarette hanging
from his lip and staring out at the water on all sides. He couldn’t
look down at the deck, still stained with the blood of crewmembers
that shouldn’t have been screaming in pain, dying, bleeding out on
the deck boards of their home. The raid today had been a blood
bath. They’d lost three men. Three! Three good men that