One day, on the island of Tortuga, a young Ishmael found himself sitting at a dingy bar--one that stunk of stale tobacco and dissipated lives. As he nursed a watery rum in hopes of finding work, he attempted small talk with an old pirate at the bar. Young Ishmael was shocked to learn he was speaking with none other than the great and legendary Dread Pirate Steven. Young Ishmael was even a bit skeptical that this wizened old man was indeed, THE Dread Pirate Steven, but the sailor before him did indeed have the key signs: A peg leg, a hook hand, and an eyepatch.
Once a few drinks in, Young Ishmael worked up the courage to ask about the peg leg.
Dread Pirate Steven proceeded to tell a long and colorful tale about stowing away aboard Blackbeard's ship in order to pursue Blackbeard's raven-haired daughter. But before he could either woo the lass or be discovered by the crew, the ship was attacked by a military vessel. Within the great battle that followed, Blackbeard's ship struck a coral reef which gouged a great gash in the hull, rendering the fight hopeless and the ship wreckage. It broke into mostly flotsam and corpses, as the attackers tried to retrieve booty from the water and shoot all floating pirates for target practice. The Dread Pirate Steven escaped by floating away behind a crate into the dark. After clinging to the box for days, he began to weaken from thirst, hunger, and exposure. Just as he drifted near a small island and hoped for sanctuary, he was surrounded by sharks in search of an easy meal. The largest shark circled him for an hour as Dread Pirate Steven weakly paddled for shore, while the smaller ones occasionally came in for a probing nibble. Dread Pirate Steven fended them off as best he could with his trusty knife and well-placed punches to their snouts. But when the largest shark finally came in for a bite, between the shark's chomp and Steven's poorly-placed kick, the shark swallowed and nearly choked on almost all of the pirate's leg. The shark bit down hard, nearly through to the bone. With blood in the water, the other sharks became frenzied and frothed the sea. Dread Pirate Steven, in his last strength, slashed with his blade, which he had long named "Marie" out of some strange devotion to the Madonna, and stabbed the great shark with Marie over and over, attempting to at least blind the shark if not pierce its small brain. Maybe thanks to the mother of Grace, with the shark's blood billowing, the other sharks attacked the great one, ripping it to pieces. But even in death, that shark never let go of the pirate's leg. Dread Pirate Steven got to shore with half the shark still hanging below his knee. He even managed to strip meat off the carcass once ashore for his first meal in days. Providentially, he was soon found and rescued by passersby, and the doctors gave him the peg leg he has to this day.
Young Ishmael was astounded and enthralled by this story. Mustering courage, he bought the Dread Pirate Steven a stein of mead before asking about the hook hand.
Picking up the story many years later, Dread Pirate Steven spoke of the time wherein he had captained his own vessel as a legitimate captain. By then, he had by then sworn off privateering, piracy, and thievery in a effort to be an honest merchant seaman. But in doing so, he had broken some longstanding friendships with his former fellows. Many resented his attempts to leave the life, as if he was too good for the Skull and Crossbones. There were also rumors of how he may have cheated former mates in order to gather the capital needed to afford his own ship and persuade new clients that he would be honest with their cargo. Those assurances may or may not also have involved the divulgence of several secrets to authorities regarding where some of those former mates and their treasuries might be found. But after some years of honest sailing, Dread Pirate Steven was on another run to Hispaniola, when he was beset himself by pirates. For hours he evaded them through deft cat-and-mouse tactics, trying first to outrun and then to out-maneuver the pursuing pirates. But Dread Pirate Steven could not outrun the pirate ship "Blackmaid." Eventually, as the ships danced on the sea, each trying to obtain a favorable gunnery position on the other, the Dread Pirate Steven remembered his old pirate ways and commanded his crew to reverse strategy, bringing his ship suddenly alongside the Blackmaid in order to board it and take the fight to the pirates' decks. Dread Pirate Steven took the offensive, and indeed, his crew boarded the Blackmaid, bringing close-quarter gun shots and bloody hand-to-hand combat. With a number of former pirates on his own crew, they hesitated little to bring the fight to their pursuers, showing little mercy. Dread Pirate Steven boarded the enemy vessel just as his crew was breaking into the Captain's quarters to secure a full surrender. They kicked in the door, and as Dread Pirate Steven entered the cabin, he was stopped in his tracks, with his mouth agape and his arms out, as he realized the pirate captain of the Blackmaid was none other than Blackbeard's daughter, who had been taken captive all those years ago. As Dread Pirate Steven stood stammering for words of both greeting and condemnation, the dark-haired maiden lifted a pistol from her skirts and blew a musket ball through Dread Pirate Steven's hand, taking most of it right off the arm.
"It hurt like hell" said the pirate at the bar, "but the ships Doctor stopped the bleeding and it wasn't long before the surgeons on Hispaniola were able to fit me with this hook. "It took some time, but I now find the hook is preferable to a hand, in some ways," said the pirate as he skewered two olives and scooped a cask of gin right to his lips with his artificial limb. He knocked his hook twice on the bar and said, "it's darn indestructible and handy for trying knots!"
Having by now worked through several bottles of rum, Young Ismael felt he had no choice but to press on for the trifecta. He finally asked: "So, how about the eye patch? How did you lose the eye?"
The Dread Pirate Steven said, "O that. It was the first night I had the hook. I had an itch."
Comments