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Blood in the Water

by Honorat Selonnet
July 4, 2005

Jack stood alone in the midst of a crowd of sixty men he had not seen for ten years—men with whom he had worked and lived, men at whose sides he had drunk and fought, men whom he had once commanded. They surrounded him now with weapons drawn. By the light of burning torches, he searched their faces and found not one friendly one, not one free of hatred and bloodlust. They circled him like sharks moving in for the kill. Every last one of them. It had been ten years since they had left him to die on that island, ten years for the scar tissue to grow over that wound. But seeing them now, the sense of betrayal returned as fresh as a new sword cut, as though time had frozen for him as well as for them.

They split apart now to open a path for their Captain to approach their captive. Hector Barbossa strode towards Jack like the incarnation of old nightmare—the hardest bitten and dirtiest fighter of a hard bitten and dirty fighting bunch. The slow-acting poison that had finally spread throughout the Black Pearl. Barbossa had clawed and slashed his way to the top of this heap of human refuse. Jack had merely been his final obstacle—and not a particularly difficult one. Or so Barbossa had thought. As an immortal himself, captain of a crew of men who could not die, it perhaps shouldn't have
surprised Barbossa to see a dead man standing before him. But he had been so sure he had sent Jack to his death—to a slow and painful and
very conscious death. There had been nothing on that island. No food. No water. Yet here the man was, as alive and well and infuriating as ever. Barbossa stalked up to his former captain, aware that his men were avidly following this confrontation. He sneered down at the man he had once dismissed as an impossible weakling, but who appeared to have reserves of survival Barbossa couldn't imagine. "How the blazes did you get off that island?" he demanded incredulously. The crew swiveled to observe what Jack would answer to this question.

Jack leaned heavily on an oar, his hands crossed over the blade as though he were perfectly relaxed. He knew the pose would irritate Barbossa, but that was merely a bonus. Only Jack himself knew how much that prop was necessary. In reality, he was about ready to drop with exhaustion and pain. He had not slept for more than a day. First the battle with the storm, then the treacherous navigation to Isla de Muerta and through the ship graveyard. He hadn't dared leave those to anyone else. Then that bloody blacksmith had cracked him over the head and left him to the mercies of Barbossa's crew. Jack had no illusions that they would leave him alive unless he outthought them very quickly. But he could scarcely think at all. His head pounded like a storm-tide against cliffs. His vision kept fading to dark and flashing lightning in time to stabs of pain behind his eyes. And so he clung to the wavering oar with assumed nonchalance, forcing his shaking fingers to remain still. And he smiled. One did not bleed in water that swarmed with sharks.

"When you marooned me on that godforsaken spit of land," he explained, "you forgot one very important thing, mate." Jack paused with an orator's instinct for drawing in an audience. All eyes followed him. Daring to release the oar with at least one hand, he managed to wave his spread fingers in a shadow of his flamboyant revelatory gesture. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!" he proclaimed, his voice soft with mock sympathy, his eyes wide with innocent surprise. His tone implied that surely anyone with the least modicum of intelligence would never have assumed that anything so ineffectual as
a desert island could slow down the legendary pirate captain, but beneath the show lay a bitterness that spoke of painful memory and implacable hatred.

Barbossa heard that steel under those dulcet tones. Stepping threateningly closer to Jack he replied with equally deceitful congeniality, "Ah, well, I won't be making that mistake—again."

Jack had returned to gripping the oar with both hands and now rested his chin on them as well. The effect was remarkably insouciant as well as practical. He had nearly blacked out with the extra effort of that little performance and now he was barely holding on to his upright position.

Resisting the urge to slap that annoying face, Barbossa turned to his crew. "Gents," he smiled with false civility, "you all remember Captain Jack Sparrow?" He made the title an insult. The crew murmured their agreement. It was not a friendly sound. Turning back to his impassive enemy, Barbossa smirked. But while playing mind-games with Jack Sparrow was amusing, and hurting him would be even more amusing, he had no time for such diversions. Sparrow was obviously too canny and slippery for such indulgence. He was a problem best solved immediately. Wiping all traces of good humour from his face, Barbossa spun about and faced the crew again. "Kill him," he ordered.

The cave echoed with the sound of dozens of pistols being cocked. Jack found himself looking down the barrels of more firearms than he was personally comfortable with. He'd been shot before, and it was not an experience he cared to repeat. Now was the time to talk fast. Barbossa was walking off as though Jack's death were a matter of little importance—a disagreeable business best left to underlings.

Jack lifted his head but didn't raise his voice or change his slouched position. He knew Barbossa would hear. "The girl's blood didn't work, did it?" he remarked.

Barbossa froze, his back to Jack. Much as he knew better than to leave Jack Sparrow alive long enough to say anything at all, that topic was sufficient to rivet the attention of any of the cursed pirates. Jack was not acting like a man who knew he held a weak hand. Why, after all, had he been in this cave anyway? Surely the disappearance of the girl and the medallion was not unconnected to his arrival. What had he been up to before he had been captured? What was he still up to? What information did he possess that gave him that sublime confidence? While Barbossa knew Jack to be
extremely capable of bluffing, he could not afford to take that risk. "Hold your fire!" he ordered in exasperation.

The pirates reluctantly lowered their weapons, the sound of hammers being released filling the cave. Discontented grumblings rose from their ranks. They'd been looking forward to drilling Jack so full of holes his hide would never hold water. But necessity would have to come before pleasure. Barbossa turned to meet Jack Sparrow's serious dark eyes and faint mocking smile. Whatever he saw there seemed to decide him, and he stalked towards his greatest enemy. He nodded, an insincere smile on his face. "You know whose blood we need," he said. It was not a question.

Jack tilted his head. His voice was even softer, satisfied, triumphant. Barbossa was his now. "I know whose blood you need." His slow smile glittered gold in the torchlight—the grin of a single shark tasting blood in the water.

End

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