Captain Kidd and the Jersey Devil

By Steven Paul Winkelstein and Rebecca N Naumchik

Captain Kidd and the Jersey Devil, is set in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and based on actual, historical New Jersey folklore. When Captain Kidd III becomes a pirate out of water after a battle gone wrong along the Batsto River, he must discover his past in order to save his future.

The fourteen-year-old cap

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mystic Waters Publishing
• Release date: Mar 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780982449882

Steven Paul Winkelstein

Steven is an award-winning author. He lives in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, where he often longs for the ocean and bay surrounding his hometown of Margate City, New Jersey. His favorite book is The Old Man and the Sea, and he enjoys reading it in one sitting, preferably on a balcony in downtown Los Angeles. Steven is always on the lookout for a human best friend, since his current best friend is a sock puppet. Steven welcomes praise, inquiries, and best friend requests at [e-mail]. Find out more at www.stevenwinkelstein.com

Book preview

PROLOGUE

A NOTE ON MY OWN ORIGINS

They call me the Black Doctor. And even after so many years of healing folks, I’m often reminded of the first time I saw a man die. No matter how many people I touch, this memory is forever in my soul.

When I saw it, there was a peculiar, biological transformation that occurred within the confines of my own skin. Death happened before my eyes, and I felt my organs change. My guess is that they became self-aware, that my organs recognized themselves and understood that one day they too would be no more. My blood started to flow with a new purpose. My heart felt it, and while I watched that old man die, my heart knew that its own pumping and beating rhythm was on a finite cycle.

The experience started with the ocular sense, those mysterious glittering organic orbs, my eyeballs. The eyes, I once read in a book of ancient medicine, have six parts, and together those parts make a seventh whole. When first my eyes saw that man die, the rest of my body soon understood. My transformation started with seeing, traveled swiftly to feeling, and from there came the metamorphosis. Like the beating heart, we are not forever.

I was ten when they brought me up to New Jersey, away from my ma and pappy. My parents stayed slaves and I, while still not free, was given a chance. It wasn’t fair then, and it isn’t fair now. But that’s the way the river riles. Fair just never had anything to do with it.

There were three of them, I still remember, three men who saved me out from the chain and whip. They were men of the cloth, with trim beards and dressed in heavy robes, all with jingling coin purses on belts of silky rope. Why they picked me out of all my brothers and sisters on that old plantation I never knew. We rode north in the night and kept up until dawn. Our destination was the Pine Barrens, a forest that I would come to be a part of, in every sense that one can be a part of some other whole. They drove those horses hard and we seldom stopped along the way. I recall that journey: the clopping of the horses’ hooves, the cold, salty air, and the quiet energy among those three men. They were silent the whole while, and my mind was fixated on the idea that I would never see my family again.

When we arrived in the morning, they led me to a cabin, speaking in whispers among themselves before showing me inside. There on the bed was a fourth man, old and dying. This man could have been their father, for he looked akin to them and seemed to be the right age. I could smell death within those soft pine walls, a blend of stale urine and rotting meat. The cabin was mostly bare. There was the old man and the bed he would die on, a few sickly books in the corner, a loaf of bread, some hanging meat, and a bucket full of squirming black leeches. I later learned of a pump around the back of the cabin that supplied us with water.

I was instructed to care for the dying man on my own. Then those who’d taken me out from bondage left. I never saw them again. It was only a few days later that the old man died. I’d been by the bedside wiping blood from his arms, where the leeches were sucking. He grabbed my arms and his eyes went wide, an inexplicable light went out from within them, and his hand fell limp, cracking against the dusty floor. As I saw him go, I changed. I knew what death was; he’d looked me in the eye. I’d felt something like the vibrations of a low musical chord, icy and old.

I grew up in those woods, in that very cabin, until I was old enough to build my own house. There I planted a great garden and befriended all sorts of wild things that came around. I studied the flora and the fauna of the Pine Barrens, and learned from the small collection of books that the old man had left. They were mostly medical books, some botanical in nature, and I soon became adept at healing. People from all over the wood caught wind of my talents and started to come when they were sick or injured.

Even the Indians would come for my medicine. There was little in the Pine Barrens forest that didn’t cross paths with me at one time or another. Yes, I’ve seen some bizarre things. This tale is one of the stranger events I became involved with in the forest. It’s about a young pirate who happened to pass my way.

In the middle of the pine forest there runs a river. It’s a nasty river and it goes by the name Batsto. Many creatures dread it. I’ve grown to dread it. Now, there are two beginnings to this story and both beginnings start at The Great Bay, where that river ends. If, my reader, you are faint of heart or prone to a sad disposition, please toss this parchment into some unyielding fire and take your comfort far from Batsto River and these Barrens of Pine. The story of how I met Captain Kidd is not a soft one.

CHAPTER ONE

THE GREAT BAY

and the

SECOND BEGINNING

On an early spring evening in 1745, when Adventure Galley had anchored where the Jersey coast filled the horizon, as sea had come to what would one day be called the Great Bay and the bay came to bight, past Leeds Point, with Mystic Island to the north, Captain William Kidd III had a nightmare. It may have been those old waters or the familiar lands that rekindled the memories. It may have been the idea of revenge on his mind. Regardless of the trigger, when Kidd’s first mate, Rush, had dropped anchor and gone to rest on his hammock in the officer’s cabin, and all in the bay was still, save for the egrets and the crickets in the marshland, the ugly recollection of his pappy’s end stirred the young captain from his sleep.

There they rocked, laid to anchor in the Great Bay, when Kidd awoke, sweating and shaken. He sat up on the mattress his pappy had once lain on, and he wiped his curly dark locks from his brow. Black Dog slept on, curled at the foot of the bed. She was a black, wet-nosed, slobbering poodle, loyal as anything in a pinch, and a great old coward when it counted for a lot less.

Kidd leaned forward and scratched the dog behind her ears.

‘Naught but a horror,’ he told her, and then hopped out from his covers.

The captain’s cabin aboard Adventure Galley sat at the stern, and it had a bed and a desk, which was at most times cluttered with charts and seafaring instruments. It would have been cramped for a full-grown man, but for Kidd, even with Black Dog at his heels, it was quite spacious. The walls had room enough for a porthole and two paintings, one of his pappy and the other of the mythical island of San Loyola. In the corner sat a great sea chest that was always locked, the very same chest the traitor Moore had brought aboard the day Kidd’s pappy died, eight years before.

Kidd walked barefoot to his dresser and removed a shirt and pants. He slipped on his boots and blue coat, then wandered soundlessly out of the cabin, through the companion, and up onto the quarterdeck, leaving Black Dog sound asleep. The moon was low, bright and full, watching the anchored Adventure indifferently, cuddling with the clear, almost creamy navy sky around it. There were voices and the sporadic clinking of metal on wood echoing afore. Kidd thought, by the sound of the voices, it was Daniel and Mad Jack playing a game of chuck-farthen on the forecastle, or the fo’c’sle, as the pirates tend to say. It was their watch, the last shift before dawn, and judging by the position of the moon, low in the south, Kidd knew his nightmare had woken him around four in the morning.

Kidd took a spyglass from a pocket in the inside breast of his coat and surveyed the surrounding marshes. An egret swooped silently into a patch of tall grass and out of sight. The lands beyond the marsh appeared wild and boggy. There was no sign of any of the supposed locals, Pineys, they were called, a proud and protective bunch. It was just as Kidd remembered it on that day of his pappy’s death. He pocketed the spyglass and shook the image of the killing from his mind. As his long dark curls flapped around his head, he suddenly felt naked and missed his black tricorne, which usually kept his locks snug against his skull. He’d left it in his cabin.

‘Alack, Gallows! Don’t you be a cheatin’ dog!’ It was the distant voice of Mad Jack Kull and he was berating Daniel Garrow, the ship’s gunner, known to the crew as Gallows. The nickname was dually inspired. Firstly, Gallows was simply similar in sound to the name Garrow, and secondly, when Daniel Garrow set his sights on any soul, he always hit his mark. ‘Curse me for a mutineer if I didn’t seen you push me guinea with your heel!’

Gallows responded with an inaudible grunt. Kidd smiled and headed toward the commotion, fore on the waist, toward the fo’c’sle. The men wouldn’t hear Kidd coming; they expected him to be asleep. It didn’t matter. He liked his current crew. They were starting to feel like a real family and had no reason to fear Kidd. They treated him like a little brother they happened to take orders from. He was their confidant, their chieftain, and he was smart. The men knew that, and they admired him for it. They had faith in their captain because he had saved them from the tyranny of William Moore.

‘Aye,’ said Mad Jack. ‘I count six where once there were seven, or let me drown.’

Kidd saw their bodies, brightened by the moon. Gallows was tall, cloaked in black, with a nasty scar that ran down the side of his face from his forehead to his black-bearded chin. Jack Kull was shorter, but just as lanky. He always wore a red bandanna and a black vest, and he had never, to anyone’s memory, had more than four teeth in his mouth. Mad Jack stood, which could mean a bit more trouble than expected.

Kidd reached the fo’c’sle unnoticed. He eyed about and noticed seven pieces of eight on the deck. Chuck-farthen’s a light game, meant to help pass the time. Trouble only comes into it if there’s gambling. It involves at least two players. They toss coins against a wall, or in the case of Gallows and Mad Jack’s game, the bulwarks. When the coins bounce back, the pirates check to see which player’s money has landed closest to the target, in this case Gallows’s left boot. The crew of Adventure had recently started playing again, after having forgotten about it during Moore’s short reign.

‘Nenny!’ retorted Gallows, ‘I kicked nothin’!’

Gallows spit on the floor. He stayed seated against the side of an apple barrel, despite Mad Jack’s towering over him. Kidd took a quiet, deep breath. The stillness of the ship was unusual. Mad Jack grabbed the hilt on his cutlass, but stopped short of drawing it. Kidd thought it was time.

‘Gents,’ he said, stepping out from the shadows. He enjoyed his miniature physique, and the ability it allowed him to exercise stealth around the crew, and in other, more dangerous situations.

They were startled, and Gallows stood up, lopsided on one boot. Jack took his hand off his blade.

‘Cap’n,’ grumbled Gallows.

‘Playin’ a little friendly game o’ chuck, are you?’ asked Kidd.

‘Aye, Cap’n,’ said Jack. ‘And friendly it be.’

Kidd let his grin spread, revealing a fairly straight set of large teeth. The men sometimes teased him affectionately about the pretty state of his pearls. Mad Jack and Gallows laughed, and they gestured for the captain to sit on the apple barrel Gallows had been leaning on. Kidd hopped onto the barrel and the other pirates sat on the boards around him. His legs dangling over the side, Kidd sighed and brushed his curls from his oval-shaped blue eyes.

‘What’s the trouble, Cap’n?’ asked Gallows as he pulled his boot back onto his foot. Jack was busy collecting the scattered coins, but he kept an eye and an ear on the captain.

‘Nothin’ but a horror, mates,’ said Kidd. As the captain spoke, Jack discovered the guinea Gallows had kicked with his heel and gave the other pirate a dark look. ‘About me father.’

The men removed their head coverings, Gallows his hood and Mad Jack his bandanna.

‘As he sleeps!’ said Gallows, while Mad Jack nodded with his head down.

‘Mates,’ said Kidd, ‘I don’t know if we’ll find the beast who killed me father, and I don’t know if we can defeat it if we do find it. But it’s for me and me father we’re here, and for us alone, true as true. There’ll be no booty on this voyage, no loot at all. And, fellows, your loyal hearts and brave backbones boost me strength. It makes me feel drunk.’

Mad Jack laughed, but Gallows looked offended. A wind ruffled the foresails above their heads, and the bay lapped playfully against the hull.

‘Shiver me timbers, Cap’n!’ Gallows said. ‘At that I feel slighted, I do. Your boys’d follow you to nowhere’s end for nowhy, Cap’n, and you can lay to that!’

‘Just so!’ Mad Jack affirmed.

‘I see that, gents, and it’s I who marks it, too.’ Kidd pulled his legs up onto the apple barrel and sat in the style of an Indian. He moved his hands around as he spoke. ‘But revenge is me aim and if’ll it be the death o’ this Captain Kidd, let it be. When I meet the Devil, and let him come, the crew might save yourselves before anchorin’ to me and gettin’ dragged down to the locker with your fool o’ a captain. You’ll take Adventure and head for the sea.’

‘By hell, Cap’n!’ said Gallows. ‘To what crime does we owe this sting? To what disointment did we earn the titles coward and turntail? When you led the mutiny ’gainst Moore, who were with you and your dog? Us that were! When you were cast in irons and headed for the hangin’ tree on Três Ilhas Mortal, who were it that broke you free? Us were! And who went into the poisonous caverns o’ Cap’n Firebeard with you, even though the legends told o’ certain death? Us!’

Gallows was about to go on when Kidd exploded with laughter. Gallows looked like he’d been slapped in the face. Kidd jumped down from the barrel.

‘I get your points,’ he said, reaching to clap both pirates on their elbows. ‘I stand corrected, never to doubt this crew’s loyal hearts again.’

At that the pirates grumbled their agreements and Kidd told them to open a cask of grog, an order that they were happy to obey. There was an understanding between Kidd and his men. He was a lenient captain during downtime, and they in turn followed his orders, no matter how reckless they sometimes seemed, in times of action. There had been times in the beginning when some of the crew had shown disdain and even aggression toward Kidd, because he was so young. But First Mate Bartolomeo Rush had kept them in line when things turned ugly. Rush was the closest thing Kidd had to a pappy anymore.

As the men drank, Kidd munched on an apple. Whenever the crew drank they offered Kidd a swig, but being fourteen, and still having not developed a good taste for any stout drink but grape wine, he nearly always refused. The men teased him about it. Jim Hill, Adventure’s boatswain, had once been mighty drunk and had told the captain it was a damn shame that Kidd didn’t drink whiskey because it might have put some hair on his chest. Then the men had feared an action from the captain, but Kidd never needed to move, for a moment after the quip Jim Hill had fallen overboard, unbalanced from brandy and rum. The crew had raised the boatswain up with the net, and he slept until noon the next day.

So they drank while Kidd chewed his apple and