Stealing is Believing

Gusts of thickly humid wind pulsed against my ears just as the waves below me rhythmically lapped against the dampened wooden hull of our ship. A sail far above my head, the smaller of the two which we had loosened on our land-bound approach, flapped wildly, shaking salted drops off its fabric like a dog fresh from the water. 

I clasped one hand atop my hat to keep it from flying off as I turned to the captain.

“Captain Moodey!” I shouted over the thunderous wind and waves. “Captain Moodey!” I repeated, stepping towards him. His dark scraggly beard, which hung to his breastbone, was flapping like the sail above. 

“What is it, Sinclair?” He asked calmly, his pale eyes fixed avidly and unwaveringly on a far-off point in the distance. 

“Are you sure this is the right island?” As soon as I asked it, I knew I should not have. His wild eyes darted angrily onto me. 

“Of course it is! Have you not seen the map?” He yelled.

“No, I, I mean, yes. Many times, Captain.” 

“Then what is the problem? Is it not clear that this is the island?”

“Well, it’s just that we thought the last four islands all held this, this…” I trailed off, knowing I should not have brought up the made up, mythical, non-existent treasure. But, a crewman does as his captain wishes. “This treasure,” I finished.

“Are you not a loyal crewman? Is your goal not to find this treasure? Should I cast you overboard RIGHT NOW?” He bellowed. 

“No, Captain,” I said, answering only his last question.

“Then you will do as I say! We will dock on this island, follow this map, and find this treasure once and for all!” He huffed and turned his broad, coated back towards me.

“Yes, Captain,” I muttered under my breath, turning to look at the island. Captain Moodey’s treasure was somewhat of a joke between us crewmen. We all knew it was mythical. For one, his map looked as if a child had drawn it in crayon. Two, no other ship’s crewmen or captain had ever heard of Moodey’s treasure. And three, we had already searched four islands from coast to coast and uncovered not so much as a footprint. 

But alas, I was Captain Moodey’s top crewman, and I was destined to continue the search with him until he gave up. And, judging by the constantly crazed look in his wide eyes, I assumed he would never. 

You see, I had thought of everything to get Moodey off the trail of the mythical treasure. I had contemplated switching his child-drawn map with another that lead to an island rumored to hold actual treasure. I had even gone so far as to consider taking some gold from the safe room below deck and planting it on an island, just so Moodey could find something. I had thought of abandoning Moodey’s hunt altogether, but as anyone knows, that leads to death by hanging. Abandoning one’s captain is the utmost punishable crime. It was just my luck that I got stuck with Moodey. 

I stood at the bow of the ship, my hands slipping on the salty mist that covered the rail, gazing at this fifth island. The sun was beating down harshly, reflecting off the whitecaps and portraying the ripples as millions of sparkling, floating diamonds. The island was clearly deserted; there were no hull marks in the sand from previous landings, no signs of civilization, not even an animal in sight. 

“Sinclair! Mind your station!” Moodey roared from his post at the huge wooden steering wheel. I obediently hurried to the main sail, ready to pull its ropes taught, or loose, depending on the wind at landing. 

Some twenty minutes later, with my palms itching from rope burn, our ship glided gracefully onto the sand, stopping with a slight lurch. 

“Land ho!” Moodey shouted from the stern. Wasting no time, he tucked his map in his breast pocket and hopped over the side of the ship, splashing his leather boots through the shallow water. One by one us crewmates followed. Not wanting to be near Moodey, I brought up the rear of the pack. 

My legs, accustomed to the swaying of the ship, nearly collapsed on the stiff sand. It took me several steps to recognize the sturdy feeling of land again. The suns heat pounded through the top of my hat as if I was standing directly underneath a flaming lantern. Palm fronds crinkled and swayed in the wind, sounding like rustling paper. 

I could barely make out Moodey’s deep purple hat bobbing at the front of the crew as he turned into the thick palm forest, ducking under low-hanging fronds and curving around fallen coconuts. I could see him clearly enough to tell that he kept checking his map persistently, sometimes pointing this way or that, and changing directions abruptly. We all followed obediently, knowing that no matter where we went on this vacant island, we would not find any treasure. 

Even though I could not see them, I knew his eyes were only growing wilder, more feverish, angrier. Every second Moodey went without finding his mythical treasure, the closer he got to losing his sanity.

Occasionally, Moodey would order handfuls of crewmen to dig here or there. Of course, their holes never uncovered anything. 

After around two hours or so of trudging through the deep sand, wiping sweat from our brows, murmurs from the crew started to arise. From my position at the rear of the crowd, I could see crewmen nudging one another and whispering annoyances in each other’s ears. 

As top crewman, I knew it was my time to stand up for us against the unhinged Captain.

“Stop!” I shouted exasperatedly. Every crewman turned around to look at me. They parted down the middle, leaving a perfect aisle between me and Moodey. Moodey, however, did not turn to face me. He stopped dead in his tracks, stiff, facing forward. 

“What did you say?” He asked in a normal, too-calm tone.

“I said stop, Moodey.”

“Stop?”

“Yes, stop, for Pete’s sake!” 

He turned eerily slowly around, his crazed pale eyes piercing me even from a distance away. 

“And why?” A crazy-man’s smile formed on his chapped lips. 

“Because this is mad! We all know the treasure isn’t real, right men?” I addressed the crewmen, most of whom stayed silent, staring at the ground. Some men grunted and looked away; some shook their heads. 

“Oh, so you are all in agreeance? What, have you been gossiping below deck?” Moodey sneered. 

“Moodey, look at the facts. Your map is fake. There is no treasure. There never has been, and if we keep following you, there never will be any left for us to find.”

He didn’t say anything in return. His eyes simply glowed like flames.

“You can leave me here on this island for dead if that’s what it will take. I won’t be dragged around by you and your delusions any longer,” I said, matter-of-factly.

"Ah, now there is an idea,” Moodey said calmly, stroking his long wiry beard. 

“What?” I asked.

“Leaving you here for dead. That is a splendid idea. Does anyone else wish to stay here with Sinclair?”

I looked desperately around to the other men, who were now all decidedly shaking their heads no. 

“Alright. That is settled then. Men, back to the ship! Sinclair, you will stay here. Rot, for all I care.” And with that, Moodey tramped through the aisle of crewmen towards me. 

When he reached me, he paused and put his face only one inch from mine so that his sunburnt, grubby nose rubbed against mine. “We will find that treasure, and when we do, you will still be here,” he hissed, pulling away and marching back towards the beach, trailed single file by the other crewmen. 

As they grew further out of view, I was seconds away from calling out my protests and begging for forgiveness when something caught my eye through the trees in the opposite direction. A wooden house. I squinted and stepped sideways to look through a gap in the trees. A house with masts and sails? No… could it be?

I started eagerly through the palm forest, my leather boots slipping in the deep sand. I ran as quickly as I could, weaving and dodging coastal underbrush and precarious rocks. The island heat penetrated my hat and jacket and thick boots. Soon enough, though, I was through the thicket of fronds and onto another sandy beach clearing. 

There, docked on the sand was a wooden ship that was twice as large as Moodey’s.

I didn’t want my hopes to rise too much, maybe this ship had leaks and was abandoned or maybe the sails were rotten. Maybe the steering wheel had cracked clean off. Maybe, worst of all, it was a trap.

But as I approached it, I saw no problems with the ship or any sign of other men. There were no footprints in the sand around the hull, indicating that it had in fact been left alone for quite some time, and the hull itself was bone dry, meaning it had been landed for a while. 

I spun around myself, looking for any clue of who it belonged to or how it got here, but there was no sign of any other humans. 

That’s when I remembered- I am a pirate. Stealing is what we do. 

I sprinted towards the side of the ship, and seeing no ladder, hoisted myself aboard by climbing the hull’s wooden siding. The smooth deck was magnificent compared to Moodey’s; there were no cracks in the floorboards, the ropes weren’t covered in mildew, the brass knobs weren’t dull nor rusted, and there was an actual door leading below deck. I unlatched the door and went, slightly apprehensively, to explore down below. 

It was pitch-black and smelled moldy and I immediately felt a chill trickle down my spine. I switched my eye patch to my other eye, but it was so dark that I could still barely make out shapes. I knew my eye was playing a trick on me when I thought I could make out a shadowed face at the end of the hall. With my heart beating faster, I felt the walls frantically for a lantern. 

When I lit it I startled and yelped. There was, indeed, a face staring back at me, but it was not a living person. 

It was a skeleton’s face. A skeleton wearing a captain’s hat. I approached the ex-captain apprehensively.

“Hello?” I called into the other rooms, but there was no answer. It was just me and the skeleton. I took off his captain’s hat, removed my dingy crewmen’s hat, and placed his atop my head. 

That’s when I noticed what the skeleton was sitting on. 

A treasure chest.

Could it be? 

I carefully pulled the skeleton off of the chest and threw open the lid. The flickering lantern light sparkled against piles of glinting gold coins, gemstones of every color, glowing jewelry, and shimmering silver dollars. I gasped as my jaw fell open. 

It was the most admirable treasure chest I had ever laid eyes on. That’s when I wondered…

Could it be Moodey’s treasure? Did this skeleton captain, all alone, abandoned by his crew, devote his life to the very same, seemingly unachievable, path that Moodey was currently on? 

I ran back above deck, heart pounding, and opened my arms wide to the heavens. I let out a triumphant roar, my chest rising and falling heavily, my smile permanent. 

I had my own ship, my own captain’s hat, my own treasure, but I lacked one thing. A crew. 

“I can still catch them,” I said under my breath. Hastily, I unraveled the sails, pulled the ropes taught, and made my way to the steering wheel, which was also twice as large as Moodey’s. The sails puffed full of wind at the same time a large wave crashed onto the beach, pulling the hull of my ship back into the sea with it. 

Still grinning with victory, I steered around the island, feeling the refreshing oceanic breeze differently now. As I rounded the other beach, I could still see Moodey’s ship docked. I headed straight for it. 

So long I had been waiting for this moment.

I threw down my anchor just several yards from the other ship. Some of the crewmen had seen me approaching, and they began pointing and calling to each other. News of my arrival spread very quickly, and I was face to face once again with Captain Moodey.

“Just what show do you think you’re putting on?” He called from his deck.

“You left me for dead. And me? I found what you have devoted your life to,” I called back. He looked stunned.

“What do you mean?” He yelled. The wind picked up aggressively.

“I found your treasure!” I roared over it, spreading my arms again in triumph. Even from a ship-length away, I could see the heat rising in Moodey’s face. His eyes, as angry as ever, were no longer flames. They were ice.

“I’ve come to your ship because I need a crew!” I yelled, purposely ignoring his growing anger, secretly enjoying it. His crewmen started whispering among themselves. 

“Who will join me?” I called.

I thought it would be difficult to convince the crewmen to join me. I thought they would fear disobeying Moodey and fear his revenge. But, to my surprise, at least half of them immediately agreed to join me, several of them jumped straight off Moodey’s boat and began swimming to mine. I guess they were just as eager as I was to find a way out.

As they swam over one by one, I stared vehemently at Moodey with a smile that I imagine was as crazy as his eyes. 

A total of twelve crewmen ageed to join me, leaving Moodery with a mere six. Once they had all climbed aboard my ship and taken their stations, we were ready to set sail once more. After, of course, they had each taken long looks at the treasure. 

With my captain’s hat snug on my head and my calloused hands gripping the pegs of the wooden steering wheel, I took one last look at the failed captain Moodey. His eyes had not left mine since freezing, and I could have sworn I saw a twinge of pained sorrow behind the frozen anger. His icy, deranged stare followed me until we disappeared over the horizon. 

Part of me felt guilty for stealing his treasure, but it did not take long for me to remind myself once more: we are pirates, stealing is more than our job, it is how we survive.

There was no doubt in my mind that Moodey would have stolen the treasure from me. I knew I would be seeing Captain Moodey again one day. When he decided to steal it back, that is. It was just a matter of time.

The once-deafening sounds of the rumbling wind, the crashing waves, and the flapping sails no longer bothered my eardrums. They now sounded like a symphonious backdrop to my future as a captain. An already-rich captain, at that.