Chapter 3

"The Heart of a Pirate: The Tale of Anne Bonny" is part of a 25 chapter serial fiction work co-sponsored by The Writing Salon and OurEcho. The work is being written by Jamie Wilson and edited by Allegra Huston.

As part of this of this project, we have developed a homepage specifically for the project to enhance the mood and allow you to lose yourself in the story. All chapters will be posted into the traditional OurEcho intereface, but we invite you to check out The Heart of a Pirate homepage - The Heart of a Pirate.

The saddest day of my life was the one when my mother died.

Charleston had regular outbreaks of the yellow fever, the disease that weakened its victims and burned them up from inside, casting their skin in yellow before it burt out their lives. It came of the swamp miasma, rising up from the dank, slimy roots of trees in the black heart of the land. Some thought it was a curse brought down by the wild Indians who'd died; others thought that it was a curse from God.

I didn't care. The school closed down for the duration of the sickness, with all the girls returning to their homes and hopefully healthier air. I went back to the plantation my father had clawed from the tarry dirt, to a place where the dark swamp was heavier and danker than near the city. I was spared the disease.

Mama was not. It was horrible. Her skin flushed with fever that first night at dinner, and then she collapsed and had to be carried to bed, with me clamoring for my dessert. I didn't understand how ill she was, not for two days, and then it had to be explained to me by our cook, who was also her nurse.

"She has the yellow fever, bebe. She pregnant with another baby, and it makes her too weak."

I shook my head, handing Cook the hot mustard she was putting into a poultice. "She'll be fine. She's been sick before, and she always got better."

"Bebe, you are young. Come help me care for her."

I knew when I saw her that Cook was right. Her eyes were red from illness, and her nose was cracked around the tip and underneath, and her skin was yellow from the burning of the fever. I cared for her that day, until the sun began to set and she died with a sigh, her fingers relaxing in my hand as the fire carried her aloft to heaven.

I never cried for her. I swore to her I would be strong, that I would be impervious to the illnesses and weaknesses that afflict most humans. And I swore most of all that I would live for her.

Papa did not send me back to school. I was needed at home, for he had no mistress over the house. I didn't want to be at school anyway, and I certainly did not want him marrying a stepmother who would lord it over me. So I cared for the house, and I kept the books, and for the first few months I took Papa's drink from his hand late at night and delivered him to Wolfie, the butler, to be helped into bed. I would never again be a girl.

* * *

The years passed quickly, and it seemed no time until I was considering marrying. My father endlessly paraded suitable young men before me, some from good families in town, others self-made young men who he considered to be the up-and-coming leaders of the colony. And like Atalanta of Greek legend, I turned my nose up at all of them.

There was always something wrong with them. William Adams was far too young, only a year older than me, and besides, I'd given him a beating when we were children because he pulled my hair. There was Soonest Johnson, but I couldn't get past his name without fits of giggles. Alexander Richmond seemed nice enough until I saw him slurping his soup at dinner; a man with no social graces whatsoever, I decided.

Besides, I could have my pick. I was young, and beautiful, and spirited, and men loved my red hair and blue eyes. Though other girls in town did not like me, I had no time for them anyway. I did not want a man who would expect me to be tied to a home and babies. Ideally, I wanted a sea captain.

The pirate who'd given me the ring would not leave my imagination. I had begged Papa for a sailboat for my eighteenth birthday, and he at last gave in to me, buying a small sloop and rigging it out, hiring a tar who'd worked for a long time on his own ships to teach me how to sail it.Sloops are small, and only require a crew of first and second mate, deckhand, bosun, and engineer; sometimes, on calmer days, you can even double up jobs and get by with a crew of four. It was on my sloop, the Irish Fox, that I was willing to allow slaves on as crew, and that only because I was certain they would enjoy it as much as I did.

The other women in town were scandalized, of course. How could Papa allow me to sail out with those men? But he always required that I take my maid with me, and so it was never anything less than respectable.

It did give me another way to test my suitors. Papa, of course, would not allow sea captains to court me. "They have a wife in each port, most times."

"My husband," I informed him, "would take me out with him."

He snorted, and pounded his cane on the porch, then spit off the side. He had taken up the habit of chewing tobacco, which I found repulsive. "Any husband who would take you out with him is not a man I would allow to marry with you."

"Papa!"

"Annie, you've been raised a lady. I have given you everything I could -- a fine education, beautiful clothes, and the graces your mother didn't have access to. You're in the American colonies, so no one looks down on you for your parentage. You've been indulged in every way, from your fine horses to your little boat, and I'm putting my foot down here. You'll choose a man to marry this year, or I'll choose one for you."

That was likely a mistake on Papa's part. There was only one man I met who was good enough for me, and he not considered suitable at all.

James Bonny.

Aye, fool that I was, I thought James Bonny moved heaven and earth and the skies between. I suppose all girls have that fancy of their first love, though it's nothing but the rush of blood through their veins that makes them think it. A girl's a fool over a lad, but a lad's ten times the fool for a girl. Unfortunately, Bonny was not a lad, but a man, of nearly two score years. A sea captain, he told me, having met misfortune at the hands of pirates and now trying to work his way back to Massachusetts Bay Colony where he could recoup his fortunes.

Besides being a fair talker, Bonny was the fairest man you ever saw, and though at the time he was but a hand on one of my father's ships, one smile from him and I was fair caught. His blonde hair sparkled in the sunlight like the gold of a general's coat buttons, and his eyes were the clear blue of a lagoon in summer. He walked with a swagger and sway, his cutlass glittering by his side, and when he saw me he grinned with every tooth in his face -- all of them white and strong and present. I twirled my parasol and blushed.

"You're a lovely bit, dearie."

"I'm not a dearie." I stuck my nose in the air, haughty as I had every right to be with a mere sailor, and me in my father's carriage driving it myself despite his disapproval.

"You're as dear as can be." He set down the barrel he was carrying, and I swallowed when I saw the muscles bulge out, then back in. "You can't be a doxie, for you're too fine for that."

Well, and I'd never been called fine. I was grateful, suddenly, that I was wearing my prescribed white gloves to cover hands reddened from sailing and fencing. "I'm the daughter of your employer, sir, if you must know."

"Annie Cormac?"

"The same."

"I thought you'd be a dried-up old stick, not a lovely young thing as you are."

This was my first mistake. How would a common sailor know, and why would he care, what his employer's daughter's name was? For that matter, would he not think of the ship's captain as an employer? Aye, in looking back it was clear as clear that he was looking for me, but I was too green to know it.

And how did I respond to his questionable wit?

I simpered, I regret to say. And giggled.

He took only a few minutes to talk me into dinner, and though I had to sneak out the servants side door, it was worth it to meet with him, to listen to his compliments and blush as he poured me wine and praise. It wasn't long that we found ourselves walking on the beach in the moonlight, sidestepping crabs and tangles of seaweed to focus on one another. Only one night, I'd told myself, and a beautiful moon out anyway rising up over the ocean.

That silver moonlight was captured in the waves traced across the white foam; the tide was rolling in, and little crabs skittered away from the sea seeking hiding places and quiet, leaving holes on the beach that were soon filled in by the sweep of sand and water, or bubbles where they'd burrowed deep. We talked of that, and of the sea. Bonny was as enamored of the ocean as I was, perhaps his only saving grace, and he was the perfect gentleman, taking my hand as I daintily stepped over driftwood and dead fish, giggling as I fell against his arm.

It was a madness came over me. This is why young men all need to be wary of girls, and girls of young men. My madness was the taste of salt in the air - it made me think the same flavor must cling to James's hair. I had to find out.

I turned and kissed him, full on the lips, in mid-sentence. He was taken aback, I could tell, but recovered fast and kissed me back. He paused long enough to spread his cloak out, then took me in his arms as we sank to the ground, our passion having us touching and holding and kissing all over, our breath lounder now than the rush of the ocean.

It took very little time indeed for him to have my maidenhood. I knew what to do; I'd watched farm animals and listened to dockworkers and doxies alike long enough to learn the basics. I was not prepared for the pain, though it was momentary only; nor was I prepared for the pleasure a man could give a woman. For whatever else I could say about Bonny, he was a man well-versed in that.

I tangled my fingers in his blonde curls after. "Well, and what now?"

Bonny grinned lazily, took my other hand and kissed the fingers. "It was a blessed gift you gave me, Annie, and if you'll have me I'd make an honest woman of you."

Mistake number two: never believe a sailor who says he'll make an honest woman of you. The saying my papa reminded me of, that he has a girl in every port, is no more than the truth. I know a dozen sailors who have four or five wives, one in each country on their journeys.

Bonny didn't have a wife at all at that point. But he was saving himself. He wanted a rich wife, and if she could be beautiful, that was good too.

He approached my dad the very next day, his teeth no doubt gleaming with confidence and secrets.

I found out when my dad came to my room in a roaring fury, my little Irish maid twittering along behind him. "Annie! Have you been foolish! What have you done, girl?"

"Now Papa," I started, thinking I could placate him.

"Now, nothing. Anne! You've given away your most precious treasure, and me the bigger fool that I didn't lock you up!" He stalked over, and I flinched as he took a lock of my russet hair and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. "Aye, I missed this, that you've grown into a woman that can make men mad. 'Tween that and your inheritance, and it was inevitable, I suppose."

He sighed. "Well, and I can pay him off, I suppose."

"Pay him off?"

Papa must have missed the edge in my voice, for he continued, "Aye, and he won't be cheap, not if I want to keep it secret what he's got from you. But don't worry, lass, we can get rid of him."

"Papa."

"He'll be finding another employer, for I won't have him -"

"Papa!"

"And you'll have to go away a bit, lest you turn up pregnant, for the good Lord knows your mother was fertile that first time -"

I seized him by the hand. "Papa! I don't want him sent away. I love him. I want to marry him."

Papa stared at me, his blue eyes vivid in his sun-darkened face, then drew his hand back. I swear it was the first, and the only, time he'd ever laid a hand on me, but it was enough to blacken my eye and cheek and send me to the floor. It wasn't painful, not the blow, for it knocked my sense out of me for a moment, and I didn't know anything for a few seconds, and then wondered how he'd got above me so.

He didn't apologize, either, no. "Take care of her. Lock her in. She can take meals in her room until she comes to her senses, or until we can have her sent to New York."

The maid looked at him, then looked at me where I was gingerly touching my lip to see if it was busted - it wasn't. She was half my size, and well knew she could not manage to get me to my room an I didn't want to go. I stood and brushed past her. For the second time in my life, I felt the rage rising in my throat.

I grabbed my father's shoulder. "Papa! I will not be locked up like a dog!" I was almost of a height with him, and could stand my own when I practiced fencing with him.

I was, however, no match for his strength. He whirled and seized my waist, then tossed me over his shoulder like a sack.

I was livid. I kicked and screamed, pulled at his hair, scratched and screamed some more, but he ignored me, stomping up the steps to my room and tossing me in - roughly - and then slamming the door and locking it. I scrambled back up and ran to the door, scrabbling at the handle, then shaking it to try to shake out the key. It was hopeless.

"Until you come to your senses, Annie-lass!"

I couldn't do anything else, so I stood in the middle of my room and screamed with rage, like a little child denied a treat.

Story ID:	786
Written by:	Jamie Kai Wilson (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Story type:	The Heart of a Pirate
Location:	New Providence Bahamas
Year:	1720
Person:	Anne Bonny