Reborn as a Pirate Captain – My Journey to Build a Pirate Republic

James led them to the tavern, a short climb up from the waterfront.

Its thatched roof had darkened with the last rain, and the door swung constantly as men ducked in and out for their first drink of the morning. James steered clear of the noise and led the others onto a deck built over the shallows on sturdy pilings. The voices inside thinned to a murmur, leaving only the calm slap of water against the timbers below.

He claimed a table and waved over whoever was tending the place.

Rum came first, two cups poured without ceremony. Water followed for Mateo and Elena, with plain bread, salted fish, and another jug that Mateo had already emptied by the time he sat down into his chair.

Elena drank more cautiously. She held the cup in both hands, as though some part of her still expected it to be taken away.

James let them eat before he spoke.

"So."

He rolled his own cup slowly between his palms. "I counted your boats comin’ in. Half your people Spanish, half of ’em not, and I’ve seen towns where the two wouldn’t share a table, let alone a boat. How’d the lot of you end up crossin’ together?"

Elena lowered her cup.

"Truth?"

She met his eyes. "First, no trust between us. Long time, no trust. They work cane since children. We work in house, in mill office."

Mateo took up the thread where she left off. When the plantation died, the owner came to retrieve what was left. He picked up the cane, the mules, the tools."

His eyes darkened.

"He never tried to help us, we had no room in his boats. Cheap to replace."

"First days on water, still no trust."

Elena continued calmly, "Nobody talk much, but water don’t care whose skin darker. Everybody thirsty same."

Weariness crept into her words. "By third day, despair make us one thing, lost people."

Bonnet inclined his head. There was no polish in the gesture.

"The sea has a curious habit of making neighbours of strangers. I’ve always thought it one of its better qualities."

James let the silence sit a moment, then clapped his hands once against his knees.

"Well, no sense spendin’ all day talkin’ about what can’t be changed."

He looked over Mateo and Elena, and then continued, "Here’s what I know we’re short on. Sawpit needs more hands, so does the cookhouse goin’ up near the storehouse. And the huntin’ parties could use folk who actually know the bush, ’cause half of what we’ve managed’s been guesswork and luck."

Bonnet leaned in as though sharing a secret. "And should either of you possess any talent whatsoever in the kitchen, I can assure you will be greeted as nothing short of a national treasure. Sailors are, on the whole, excellent workers and dreadful chefs. A meal aboard ship is always an adventure, though not necessarily one undertaken willingly."

Mateo’s mouth twitched toward a smile.

"Your bay is calm, calmer than anything we crossed to reach it."

He looked toward the water. "My uncle fished water like this his whole life, before he died. I know boats. I know where the fish go when the tide turns, even if we don’t have nets yet."

"And the land?"

Elena looked past the tavern toward the forest beyond it. "Is it good? For planting?"

"So I’m told."

James shrugged. "We’ve not walked much beyond what we’ve already cleared, but there’s folk among us reckon it’ll grow cane, corn, whatever a body’s patient enough to put in the ground."

Elena’s gaze drifted toward the houses rising on the new street, then back to the crowded pier where the last of her people were finally stepping ashore.

"This is not hideout." She spoke slowly, as though thinking over the words. "This is town."

"Aye." James grinned. "Took me longer than it should’ve to figure that out myself."

Bonnet set his cup down. For a moment, the easy confidence left his face entirely.

"I confess I’ve thought of little else since your boats came through the bay."

He turned the empty cup between his fingers. "I was a landowner myself once, on Barbados. Fine house, tenants enough to fill it twice over, more sugar than any sensible man knew what to do with. Every day of the rest of my life planned, and I hadn’t truly lived a single hour of it."

He looked directly at Elena.

"I walked away because it felt a dreadful waste. Nothing chased me from that life except my own boredom."

Bonnet lowered his eyes to the cup in his hands. The admission seemed to leave him with nowhere comfortable to look.

"When I hear myself say it aloud..."

A faint, self-conscious smile came and went. "It strikes me as a rather shameful reason to abandon so much."

Elena watched him in silence.

Her expression tightened for a moment. Plantation owner. The words existed between them without being spoken. Once, she would never have shared a table with such a man. Once, neither would the people who had cut cane beneath his windows.

Yet days at sea had stripped away more than comfort.

"You gave up a house because of frustration. We lost ours because another man found easier."

She stared at him for another moment.

"Not the same road."

Bonnet inclined his head without argument.

Elena’s eyes drifted toward the settlement beyond the deck, and the promise of it.

She let out a slow breath.

"But perhaps..." A tired smile touched her lips. "Same country now."

Bonnet managed a rueful smile. A little of his familiar charm returned with it.

"Forgive me. I find myself entirely without the wit that normally carries me through moments such as this."

James watched him a little longer than he’d meant to. He’d known Bonnet for several weeks now and had seen him charm his way through Nassau without missing a beat. This was the first time James had seen that confidence fail him on its own.

Mateo eventually interrupted them. He set down his cup.

"Before we agree to all this, what do we sign? What rules bind us here?"

James lips parted open, expecting the answer to come easily.

It did not.

Every soul aboard either of his ships had signed the Articles before they sailed from Nassau. It was a code written for people who chose life at sea and understood exactly what they wanted.

These two, and their people, wanted something else entirely.

They meant to put their feet on land and never leave it again.

Bonnet caught the hesitation before James fully recognized it himself.

"The Articles, my dear fellow, were written for men bound for open water."

He glanced toward Elena. "I rather suspect they say nothing at all about someone who never intends to sail aboard the ships."

James nodded slowly.

"Aye, that’s the trouble."

He rubbed a hand along his jaw. "I’ve got a code for a crew, near two hundred souls already livin’ under it. Now I’ve got another eighty who never meant to spend a day at my ships, and there’s not a page written for the lot of you."

Elena’s brow rose. The caution she’d set aside after sitting down returned at once.

"So we have no rules? No protection?"

"Nay."

James lifted a hand. "The rules I’ve got just weren’t written for you. Doesn’t mean I aim to leave ye standin’ in a yard again, countin’ for nothin’."

Elena went very stiff.

"Give me the night."

James grinned. "I’ll have somethin’ worked out by mornin’. Then I’ll say it plain before the whole place, crew and your lot. You deserve better than promises I’m inventin’ as I go."

Elena thought about that before giving a single nod.

"Fair."

"By morning," Mateo said.

"Aye" James met his gaze. "You’ve my word."

Elena’s hand had stopped around her cup some time ago, though James only noticed it then. Her shoulders had eased against the chair, and her eyes rested somewhere beyond, on a place only she could see.

Mateo noticed it immediately.

He touched her arm.

"Tía." His voice stayed gentle. "Is enough for today?"

Elena blinked and seemed to pull herself back from somewhere far away. A small, tired smile crossed her face, the first James had seen since the pier.

"Journey on water make an old woman older."

She accepted Mateo’s help as she stood. "Thank you, Captain. Both of you."

James rose with them.

"Some lad’ll find you a bed before the hour’s out. Rest easy."

Mateo nodded to both men, then helped his aunt away, one hand steady beneath her elbow until they disappeared off the deck.

James watched them go before dropping back into his chair and reaching for the rum.

"You did good work there, Bonnet. Better than I could’ve managed alone."

"I merely poured the water and said what needed saying, Captain."

Bonnet filled his own cup again. "You’re the one who let them off those boats in the first place."

James let out a laugh and looked across the bay. The pier was still busy with the last few arrivals finding their footing on solid ground.

"Bonnet."

He turned his cup between his fingers again. "Reckon you good any ideas to name this place?"