The Demise of Foxy Jack (Adventures of the X Pirates Book 1)

  ALSO BY EDWARD MEDINA

  It Is Said (MBKS 1)

  A Murder of Crows

  Anthologies

  Enter at Your Own Risk:

  Old Masters, New Voices

  3 Stories Short

  REVIEWS

  “It Is Said is a book for readers who remember what stories can do when in the hands of an author who knows a little magic.”

  — J. Fields Jr, Author

  “If you haven’t tried It Is Said, boy, are you missing out. It’s exquisite.”

  — Jamie DeBree, Author

  “Once upon a time has been reborn and remade. A Murder of Crows is a classic waiting for the rest of the world to discover it.”

  — Lucinda Rose, Blogger

  “A Murder of Crows defies you to accurately nail it down with any category or description, and comes armed with a barrage of blindsiding surprises to defend that quality as it sails into seas entirely its own. ”

  — Amazon Reviewer

  Table of Contents

  I

  The Life of Warren Bronck

  II

  The Island of Bronck

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  My end of days is near. I can feel it. The Grim Reaper is just around the corner of my every aged turn. I can hear her seductive siren song calling to me. I might be exaggerating slightly. I’m known to have a flair for the dramatic.

  I will not apologize for the life I have led. I have enjoyed great joys and felt deep sorrows. I have loved and been loved. I broke a dear heart once and had mine irrevocably broken in return. I have ended some lives by my own hand. Many have died at my word. I don’t know why I have been allowed to live. It appears that fortune truly favors the foolish.

  But for a choice or two, the turn of a key in a different lock, or a path in the road not taken, I could have been a different soul. Upon my death, I hope that I am not judged too harshly. To that end, I have decided to put my life and the circumstances that surrounded it to paper. I have a case to compile for my judgment day.

  I have a story to tell.

  Archibald Jack Burdick Leach

  aka ‘Foxy Jack’

  On the 7th day of the Owl’s Moon

  In the Year of the Firefly

  I

  The Life of Warren Bronck

  Warren Bronck had had enough so he took a rowboat out to sea. He had grown tired of all the jibber jabber, folderol, and twaddle of the populous at large. All he wanted was a place to fish that was all his own. All he wanted was some peace and quiet.

  Everyone knows that pelicans are natural fishers of the seas. Everyone knows that they are jovial, even-tempered, celebratory creatures. Warren Bronck was a pelican, but he was none of those other things. If you encountered him in the morning he was usually grumpy. By evening he was normally using a great deal of salty language.

  Other than his temperament Warren was a striking figure of a pelican. He was tall, big chested, and had a deep rich voice. To most, he seemed distinguished and charming. In truth he was such a master of the obvious and ironic that no one could tell when he was deriding them. What Warren meant as a painful verbal barb, others took to be funny, wise, and sometimes sage advice from an elegant curmudgeon.

  The proud pelican’s attitude and pronouncements weren’t always confused and misunderstood. In the beginning he laughed with his fishing mates and everyone was in on the joke. A sarcastic taunt from Warren was accepted as a badge of honor and everyone would cast off roaring with laughter.

  Inherit a nickname from the bird and it was yours during your life in service to the net and to the catch. If today was the day for you to be the specific target of a majority of his taunts and teasings, you accepted it. By day’s end, after all the boats had returned home safe and full with the hard earned bounty of the sea, you relished it.

  Then one day Warren changed. Everyone remembered the day it happened. Each creature in existence deals with a day like that in their own way. Warren dealt with it by becoming someone he really wasn’t. Everyone else dealt with it by just believing that nothing, not even Warren, had changed. But everyone, and everything in the fishing metropolis of Blithe had indeed changed, and the impact was most profound in the life of Warren Bronck.

  Blithe eventually returned to a sort of normal after that day, when the sound of progress and commerce buzzed and whirred and boomed again. The engines of single minded purpose had begun. There were ships to be built. The Queen had ordered a great many ships. The revenge hungry military beast had to be fed. The Empire itself needed to be fed, and the creatures in it were hungrier than ever. The catch had to be hauled in and brought to market, over and over again, ship after ship. It then had to be processed, iced, packed, and sent to all points by land and sea.

  Before the return of the incessant noise, in the time just after that fateful day, Blithe had been quiet, reserved. Everyone was polite to one another. Everyone had become more aware and understanding of the plight of their fellow creatures. There was of course great pride for the Empire. The Queen herself paid a visit. Political figures basked in the light of the moment. The Empire and its creatures would survive and build again. They would all move on and prevail. But for Warren things were getting too busy, too loud, too normal, much too soon.

  Whenever he felt lost and confused Warren would always turn to his wife.

  He loved her dearly.

  It’s never the big things in life.

  She would tell him.

  It’s always the little things.

  He would often get lost in her eyes.

  Take care of the little things Warren.

  She had such beautiful eyes.

  The big things will take care of themselves.

  She was his entire world.

  You’re not listening to me.

  Her laughter was intoxicating.

  I love you Barbara Bronck.

  Those powerful words were never enough.

  I love you Warren Bronck.

  He loved her smile.

  Always have.

  He could see forever in her eyes.

  Always will.

  Warren and Barbara together were love personified.

  Having sought his counseling it was time to get on with what needed to be done. Warren decided to focus on one part of the great chaos before him. He tried to bring attention to the one thing had that recently began to mean a great deal to him. The work they did as fishers of the seas and the relationship and responsibility they had to the oceans and sea life that provided them all so much. Warren believed there was a great danger out in those waters and it was coming for their way of life so he began speaking out against overfishing.

  This was such a bizarre concept to everyone in Blithe that not one pelican understood him at all.

  What are you saying to us?

  They would say.

  I’m saying to you,

  Warren would say.

  Don’t go out there so much.

  Their blank stares were so disheartening.

  There’s but so many fish.

  Warren would slowly clarify.

  Then we should go out and get it now.

  Their unfounded certainty was so maddening.

  No, you brilliant idiots.

  They’d all smile at the compliment.

  Don’t go. Stay here.

&nbs
p; Warren would break it down further.

  Fish less now. Haul in more, later.

  Pelican eyes would dart back and forth in confusion.

  Given a choice I say we go fishing now.

  With that revelation of misunderstanding the pelicans would all cheer and then set out.

  This went on this way, every day, for quite some time. Every bird that worked the docks thought Warren was inspiring them to fish more frequently. The angrier Warren became at their willingness to risk so much, the more eager they all became to increase their catch. The straw that finally broke the bird’s back came when they mistook one of his pronouncements on the subject for a call to fish, all together, all at once, for an even greater catch.

  Every misinformed and misguided pelican on the docks cheered Warren’s command and set out to sea at once. The orator of their collective passions watched every fishing boat in Blithe melt into the horizon. The only seaworthy vessel left to Warren was a dinghy, so he climbed aboard and took it out to sea.

  Pelicans, like crows and many other birds, became walkers when the Great Evolution occured. Most creatures of flight had left their original homes and spread themselves over great distances, but the pelicans never wandered far from their natural home. Since the beginning of time the pelican had found sustenance, in all its forms, from the riches of the oceans. When the Great Evolution came at first they fished from the shore. Then they set out in makeshift boats. Then they became great ship builders.

  Wherever pelicans settled, it was always by a beautiful sea. One side of the community would be for the building of ships for themselves and for others who were willing and able to pay the price for their superior craftsmanship. The other side of their community would be where they moored their own vessels. Sleek smaller ships, very fast and able to be crewed by a handful, or in some designs, just one. Their ability to harvest the oceans with speed and efficiency helped enormously in sustaining the Empire.

  Pelicans love to build, they love to fish even more, but above all that pelicans just love to be out on the open sea. Out at sea is where pelicans become reborn. Warren began finding his ancestral peace again. The rhythmic sound of the oars entering, pushing, and exiting the water soothed his aching ears. The smell of the sea air uplifted him and powered his lungs as he rowed faster and faster. Salt water splashed on his furrowed brow and released all the tension locked deep where feathers pierce the flesh.

  Warren closed his eyes and kept right on rowing. He rowed until his shoulders burned and his muscles ached. He rowed until one day passed into the next and into the next again. When he couldn’t row another stroke he let his tiny vessel drift. He just tilted his head back and gave himself to the chance and solitude of the sea and the black of yet another night sky.

  Warren knew there would be no sleep for him. The best he could do was let go of his thoughts and let them wander. In those wanderings his mind calmed and drifted toward his beloved.

  Warren and Barbara were both born in Blithe. They were childhood sweethearts and the writing of love letters began early with them. They would pass notes to each other in class. They would hide them in each other’s books and bags. It was in that way that they came to know one another and support each other. When Warren became an apprentice to Santiago Manolin, the greatest fisher ever known, he found a note on the first page of his new journal.

  For my strapping apprentice of the seas,

  As the sun rises each morning I thank creation that we came to exist for one another. I reminisce with the dwindling stars and celebrate with the new light of day that we have always been bonded at the heart. I know you have worries and doubts as you begin your new role. Believe in yourself Warren because I believe in you, we believe in each other, and there is nothing our beliefs cannot conquer.

  I love you.

  Yours, Babs.

  Warren took to his tasks quickly, excelled at the work, and gained the respect and admiration of everyone in Blithe. Once his apprenticeship was complete Warren and Barbara were married in the Hall of Candles and Candle Light, in the coastal village of Bourne. Then they returned home and embarked on their life of bliss in Blithe.

  The first fishing boat he built for them Warren named the Barbara. It was their home away from home at sea. They spent a great deal of time on the water. They worked the boat together, fishing and hauling, and bringing the catch to market. Together they made the best of teams. It wasn’t long at all before Warren built the Barbara Too.

  As the sun rose on the fourth day the rowboat came to a sudden stop. Warren opened his eyes. The peripatetic pelican had found his island. The bird stepped out of the boat and into the crystal clear warm water. Warren could already sense the fish nearby. He dragged his boat ashore and when he was done he stood on the beach tall and proud. There was nothing on the horizon as far as the eye could see. He listened to the wind moving through the foliage and the waves meeting the shoreline. Warren smiled his first smile in a long time because there was no other noise to be heard.

  The itinerant pelican spent the day surveying his new found home. He found it to be quite acceptable by his standards. By his measure, the small island was just over a mile long and just under five miles wide. Warren refused to name this dot on a map or any place on it. He thought it would be a conceit on his part considering all of the natural beauty he had found there. This island was its own place. Warren just wanted to live on a small piece of it.

  He built a fire on the beach that first night and slept deeply under a canopy of shooting stars. This was a remarkable occurrence because Warren had not slept well in quite some time. He was always tired, exhausted, and spent, yet deep sleep eluded him. Warren would toss and turn and grumble under his breath. He would eventually fall into a light sleep, but that would only last for moments. Then he would wake and begin the process all over again.

  The truth was that Warren just didn’t want to have the dream again. It was all the recent noise in his life that reminded him of the noise in his life that fateful day. That day that had robbed him of so much. The more he fought to hold the nightmare back, the more it wanted to take hold of him. It was there on his private island that Warren lost his battle.

  As he began to dream, he was there on the hill overlooking Blithe. He had gone up there to write Barbara a letter that he would read to her at their anniversary dinner that evening.

  My dearest.

  He began.

  After so many letters between us I fear that I can no longer find words to express how much you mean to me.

  Warren looked out over his world.

  How much our lives together have meant to me.

  Everything below him, everything he saw as he looked at Blithe, made him gloriously happy about his life.

  Each word I think to use has already been spent in the hopeless quest of grasping just the right set of syllables to bring out the sounds in my heart.

  Warren looked out towards the vast ocean.

  Each word I think to use can no longer contain the depth and breadth of my love for you.

  He noticed there were two ships on the horizon.

  My heart beats only for you.

  They were at full sail and heading towards Blithe.

  I cannot, and will not, imagine my life without you.

  Warren stopped writing when he recognized the two ships in the now near distance. They were the sloops of war Advantage and Provocateur. They were built in Blithe. All four of Her Majesty’s pirate killer ships were built there. All four were hunted and destroyed by Benjamin Nightthorn and the ghost ship Revenge after the Battle of Bourne.

  Warren watched as the citizens of Blithe began lining the docks. They started waving and cheering as the two unaccounted for ships raced in closer. Wreckage from Valiant and Courageous was found washed ashore in various places over vast distances of the Em
pire. Advantage and Provocateur never returned to port. They had simply vanished.

  Warren stood up when he caught sight of the crazed and deadly crow at the helm of Advantage. Everyone in Blithe saw the flash of her cannon, just before they heard the thunderous booms. Warren watched as his world exploded into deadly chaos below him. Volley after volley laid waste to everything in it. Blithe had no defenses. No attack was ever imminent. There had been no warning.

  Nothing Warren was seeing made any sense to him. It couldn’t be real. Benjamin Nightthorn’s attacks were all at sea. Everyday creatures had no real fear of him directly. Those who could afford to travel understood the risk they took. Attacking Blithe was his first land assault ever and it became even more brutal when Provocateur joined the fray and set fire upon the fishing docks and all the boats moored there.

  Barbara Bronck died on board the ship her husband built for her and the last ship that bore her name. Despite all the sadness, Warren would wake with a smile on his lips. He smiled because the dream always ended with the last words she spoke to him. With debris and smoke and madness all around her Warren could see her looking at him up on the hill.

  He watched her lips move with her last silent words.

  I love you Warren Bronck.

  Warren could see her smile.

  Always have.

  Warren could see her tears.

  Always will.

  Then in a flash she was gone.

  This time Warren woke from the dream screaming out Barbara’s name. His body was drenched in sweat and his face was soaked in tears. That had never happened before. Warren crawled, sobbing and crying out for his wife, to the shoreline. He slipped into the water and he let the waves wash over him. Barbara always believed that salt water healed all wounds.