I ran, and Charlie’s tiny face turned back to look at me as Del led him away, and his face said he was trying so hard to be brave. I didn’t think about his blue eyes empty or his yellow duck-feathered hair matted with blood. I didn’t think of those things, and I ran faster.
I burst into the clearing before the tree, gasping for air, and I was so wild with anxiety that it took me a moment to realize what I was seeing. All the boys were gathered in a still, silent circle—all but two of them.
One of them was tied to a stake that was driven into the ground. His face and chest were a mass of purpling bruises, but he was still alive. The other one lay on the ground.
He was white and still and he would never get up again. The pool of blood underneath him told me that.
“Oh, Del,” I said, and knuckled away the tears, because I didn’t cry in front of the others. “Oh, Del.”
His sword was in his hand, lying limp in his open palm. He’d fought, or tried to. I was proud of him for that.
“Jamie!” Charlie ran to me and I picked him up without even thinking about it. He trembled all over and his eyes were red and swollen because he was too small to stop himself from crying in front of the boys.
“He saved me,” Charlie said, weeping into my neck. “He protected me.”
I let Charlie cry because I couldn’t, not just then, not while the boys were watching, not while Nip was watching me with a sneer in his eyes even though he was tied to that pole.
Nod and Fog separated themselves from the others and came to me. They seemed unsure whether to be ashamed about Del or proud that they’d caught and tied up Nip.
“He went for Charlie so fast,” Nod said.
“Didn’t even think he could move that fast,” Fog said.
“Del was right next to Charlie and he was taking out his sword as he got in Nip’s way,” Nod said.
“Nip never got a finger on Charlie,” Fog said. “Not one. Del got off one slash”—here he pointed at an ugly wound in Nip’s thigh—“but Nip got Del’s throat before Del could do anything else.”
“Then we caught on to what was happening and jumped on Nip, and us and the others pounded him good and proper, ’cause we can’t have boys just killing other boys. That’s not how it works here.”
The rest of the boys murmured in agreement.
“We were just having a trial before we hung Nip, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, Billy says,” said Nod.
“You’re supposed to tell your story in front of a judge and then the judge says you’re guilty and then you’re hung in the town square,” Billy said proudly. “I saw a hanging once. The fellow’s neck didn’t break when he fell like it was supposed to, and his legs were kicking around and his face was purple for a long time before he died.”
All the boys turned to look at Nip, as if imagining him kicking and turning blue at the end of a rope. None of them seemed particularly troubled by the idea.
“We were just deciding who should be the judge,” Nod said.
“I think it should be me,” Fog said. “’Cause I noticed him killing Del first.”
“No, I did,” Nod said, and punched Fog in the shoulder.
“No, I did,” Fog said, punching back.
I knew it was a short walk from this to the two of them rolling on the ground bloodying each other’s noses. I shifted Charlie to my left arm and moved to break them apart with my right.
Nip’s laugh, slow and congested (he was laughing through broken teeth), cut in before I could. We all turned as one to stare at him.
“Ain’t none of you going to judge me,” he said. “Peter told me to do it, and he’s not about to let me swing from any rope when I’m just doing what I was told.”
Nod broke away first, running at Nip and punching him in the face. Nip’s head cracked against the pole from the force of the blow.
“You’re a liar!” Nod shouted.
Fog, who hated to miss out on anything his brother did, followed suit, punching Nip’s other cheek and shouting, “Liar, liar, liar! Peter would never do that!”
“That’s outside of the rules,” Nod said.
“It’s not fair play,” Fog said. “If we have something to settle, we go to Peter or Jamie, and if fighting’s needed, real fighting, we save it for Battle.”
“Yeah, we don’t stab the other boys just ’cause we feel like it,” Nod said. “And those are Peter’s rules, so we know you’re nothing but a dirty liar.”
The other boys nodded, and the general feeling was that Nip’s lie about Peter was almost worse than his killing Del.
I knew it wasn’t a lie. I knew, but I wasn’t about to save Nip.
Nip’s eyes darted around the closing circle of boys, all of them ready to carve their piece of flesh from the liar in their midst.
“It’s true!” Nip shouted, desperate now. The sneer was all gone, and the knowledge that Peter might not be back in time to save him was dawning.
He was a wreck of himself, covered in the evidence of two beatings, but his strength—or fear—was so powerful that he was able to shift the stake a little as he wrenched to and fro, trying to break free from the ropes that bound him.
“I’m not a liar!” he screamed.
Nip looked right at Charlie and me, who’d ceased his sobbing and stared at the bigger boy with blank eyes. Charlie didn’t much care if they hung Nip either.
“Peter told me to take care of that little brat, and if he was here he’d tell you so! If you hurt me you’ll be sorry!”
“No, we won’t,” Nod said, shaking his head. “You broke the rules.”
“Jamie knows the rules better than anyone,” Fog said, and turned to me for assent.
“Yes, you broke the rules,” I said. I didn’t say that Peter would never tell Nip to go after Charlie. I couldn’t bring myself to speak the lie.
Fog nodded. “Jamie’s passed judgment. We’ll hang you now.”
“I’ll get some rope,” Billy said happily, and ran off to the tree.
We stole rope from the pirates regularly, as it was handy for things like setting snares and much sturdier than the vine ropes we sometimes wove.
In a trice Billy had fashioned a hangman’s noose and thrown it over a branch of the tree. He fixed the rope around the branch in such a way so they could toss it over Nip’s neck and then pull the rope (with Nip in it, of course) up from the ground, sort of a pulley with Nip on one end and the boys on the other.
The rest of the boys surrounded Nip. Fog cut him loose from the stake. Nip immediately tried to fight his way out of the crowd, but he was so wild that none of his blows landed.
The boys were able to subdue him easily and dragged him, screaming incoherently, to his noose.
“Stop making so much noise,” Fog said, and stuffed a filthy rag from his pocket into Nip’s open mouth.
Nip’s eyes widened and he tried to shout through the rag, the result being a kind of intense grunting that made the other boys laugh. A couple of them picked up sticks and poked him to see what other noises Nip might make.
“I don’t want you to look when they string him up,” I told Charlie. I was reluctant to put him down again, sure that if I did, I’d find out that it wasn’t Del’s body in the middle of the clearing but his.
“Okay, Jamie,” Charlie said. “I’ll mind you.”
I remembered the way I’d lost my temper with him at the bottom of the cliff path. It seemed so long ago, and it was only yesterday.
“I don’t want you to have nightmares,” I said, by way of explanation.
Charlie nodded and turned his head away when the boys finished poking at Nip and put the rope around his neck.