Treasure Island or How Captain John Silver Lost His Leg
A Short Story
“You are my treasure,” he whispered to her every night before they bedded.
It was rainy season. The torrents poured hot, steaming the red earth with their heat. A girl as skinny as the limbs of the spiny trees that lined the island’s coast had caught the captain’s eye at market. He was haggling over sacked tendrils of vanilla. Spirited bargaining was an indulgence he enjoyed on occasion during port stops while the crew restocked.
He saw her glide through the muddy stalls with a strange bird perched on her shoulder. The pink-beaked, gray-feathered parrot looked as if it weighed more than she did. France had established a prosperous slave port here on the Red Island. He had no taste for trading in flesh, though he had no guilt over the duplicities that had fattened his pockets and equipped him with a 100-ton merchant ship and crew.
The girl was stunning with hollows and curves that sculpted the isle of her body. She was tall, like him, like the English Cypress in his homeland. Her black the shade that could be found in a ruby’s prism. He found himself short of breath when she passed by. The bird eyed him but she did not.
“What is your name Miss?” He called after her, hoping she spoke his language.
“No good! No good! Awwk!”
The bird spoke English.
He ran after the girl, reaching for her hand. The Vasa nearly attacked him for the offense puffing up its chest to ward off the foul two-legger.
“What do they call you?” she said without looking at him while she quieted her pet.
“John Longfellow Silver.” He tripped over his name. Giving it another try, he removed his tricorn and bowed low before her. “Captain John Silver.”
When she did face him, she repeated his name with the weight of a French accent heavy on her native dialect. They stared hard at each other. Both had stopped breathing.
“Come away with me!” he said overcome by a dizzying ardor.
“My father will ask a bride price you may not be willing to pay,” she said.
“Just tell me your name and I’ll gladly pay any price.”
She whispered it in his ear and he smiled.
Zaharlo and her captain left the island as man and wife. His leg for her hand a bounty he never regretted.
(This is an edited reprint of my original story published here: https://writersguildtx.org/news/march-2023)
