Black Nick

On old maps of the Caribbean there is a tiny island called Santa Julia.  There is, of course, no snow on Santa Julia, not even in the deepest nights of winter.  There is only rain, storms, and hurricanes.  Every year storms ripped through the Caribbean, doing great damage to the homes of the people living on Santa Julia. 

Even so, Santa Julia had a thriving port.  The port owed its allegiance to no one country.  The island had been founded by Spain, but was, by a technicality, now an island of England.  However, England was too far away to be of great importance.  There was a governor for Santa Julia, but he knew that more ships docking on his island would bring more money.  And so all were welcome to dock, as long as they could pay the docking fees.  Santa Julia thrived, and money poured into the governor’s coffers in the harbor town of Port Julietta.

As a result, in the winter of 1788 brought the same troubles as usual, with one major problem the people did not usually face… PIRATES!

A group of pirates, banded together under the flag of Captain Bill “Black Nick” Nicolaus, had heard of the riches of Santa Julia.  In late December they sailed out from the pirate haven of Tortuga to the northwest, straight for Santa Julia, a full eight ships, each filled with pirates. 

As they sailed, a winter storm blew up, driving them off-course.  The crews wanted to set anchors, to wait the storm out, but Black Nick drove them on, his wild black beard and hair whipped into a frenzy by the storm.  Any man who baulked was laid into with the cat-o’ nine-tails the captain carried with him.  The ships moved on, slowly inching their way across the Caribbean.  Days passed without a change in wind and storm.  Below-decks, the crew grumbled at one another.  In his cabin, Black Nick growled at the delay.  They needed fresh food and water.  But as the days passed, the storm grew worse…

Finally, on the 23rd of December, they saw the island of Santa Julia.  The harbor was well-guarded by cannon, and even in the storm the lookouts were keeping eyes to the ocean.  Black Nick set an eye to his glass and examined the defenses.  To his surprise, among the defenses were decorations.  He grabbed his shantyman and pointed at the shore. 
“What is that?” he demanded.
The shantyman peered quickly through the glass.  “Christmas decorations, captain.”
“Christmas?”
“Aye.”
Black Nick pushed the shantyman away and stared at the decorations.  Somewhere in his past he remembered Christmas in England, growing up…

There had been seven children in the family then, and they had gathered about the fire, cold and hungry, hoping that someone would bring them something special… Church, prayers, more prayers, and the standard meal, with perhaps a hint of meat for flavor.  Never gifts, never decorations… just cold and wet and hungry. 
Black Nick stood straighter.  Christmas, was it?  He smiled, but it was a frightening smile to behold.  He straightened upright against the fearsome winds, giving nothing to the storm but defiance. 
“I’ve not had a good Christmas before… I think I will have one this year.” 
The shantyman shivered under his captain’s smirk.  Black Nick continued, strolling about the upper deck. 
“They’ll be expecting St. Nick, if I have any memory of such things…” His grin returned.  “Instead they’ll get Black Nick!” His grin became a wild laugh.  He went to his cabin to plan his attack on the town.

The ships anchored off the shore of Santa Julia to wait for the signal from Black Nick.  As they waited, the rains changed…

Black Nick was summoned from his cabin by a chorus of confused cries from his crew.  Throwing open the door, he found that the rain had turned to snow.  He held out his hands, and they rapidly filled with snow.  The snow coated his beard, turning it white.  He laughed, an idea slipping into his mind.

Meanwhile, high above, another man looked for a place to land on Santa Julia.  Santa Claus and his reindeer struggled against the storm, hoping to reach the island safely.  A sudden gust blew them further out to sea.  Santa could see that the reindeer were exhausted, and began to cast about for a safe place to land.  He spied the sails of a ship, and pulled the reindeer about.  They soared down toward the deck, coming to a halt on the main deck.

Black Nick and his crew stared in shock at the reindeer and sleigh now resting on their ship.  They watched Santa climb out of the sleigh and look about the deck.  Black Nick stepped up, the idea in his mind solidifying.  He held out a hand.  “Welcome aboard.”  There was a true welcome in his voice, but his eyes were hard.
“Thank you,” Santa replied, his eyes twinkling.  “We’ve only need of a momentary rest, if you have no objections.”  Behind him, the reindeer eyed the pirates nervously.  The pirates eyed the reindeer with amazement.  They looked past Santa to their captain, who nodded, ushering Santa into his cabin. 
“Not at all.”  He paused in the door, turned to look back at his first mate.  “If you’ve enough time to spare, we’re about to have a nice fresh dinner.”
The first mate grinned, and looked at the reindeer.
“You are too kind,” Santa answered.  “What is your name?”
“Bill Nicolaus,” Black Nick answered.  “But you’ll not know of me.”
“Nonsense.  I know of all children,” Santa protested.
“Do you?”  Black Nick’s voice was mild.
“Yes.”
The door to the cabin closed.

Black Nick appeared on deck later that evening wearing a new coat.  The first mate grinned.  “Gave you a present, did he, Captain?”
“Everything I wanted,” Black Nick sneered.  “Send someone to clean my cabin.”
Not too long after, there was a faint splash as a body dropped overboard.

Nothing remained of the reindeer on deck save a small scuffed mark where hooves might have flailed for purchase.  Nick cocked his head at the sleigh.  “No one has touched it?” he demanded.
The first mate shook his head nervously.  “No, Captain.  Only to unhook the meat.”
“Good.”  Black Nick’s smile widened.  “Find me the best fighters on board.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“And sacks,” Black Nick added, running a hand along the sleigh.  “Plenty of sacks.”

The snow made it impossible to see beyond a few feet, so hard did it fall.  As a result, no one on Santa Julia saw the eight longboats row straight into the harbor and pull ashore.  A single pirate stayed with each boat; others spread out through the town.  Black Nick led the way, clad in Santa Claus’ bright red coat and trousers.  Behind him trailed eight pirates, harnessed to the sleigh, which held nothing but empty bags and the blankets they would use to wrap larger items in.

They stopped at the harbor-master’s home first.  The door was locked, but a single blow from an axe sheared the lock away.  Black Nick entered first, sword ready.  The family was huddled together for warmth against the freak snowstorm, and they woke as the pirates entered.  The father moved to jump to his feet, but a small child called in a voice still half-asleep.
“Santa!”
Black Nick merely nodded.  In the dimness of the house they could not see his sword.  Something in him made him step back to the sleigh.  He grabbed several blankets from the sleigh and brought them to the family.  “Sleep now,” he said, keeping his voice low.
The girl smiled and nestled down into the blankets.  The rest of the family slept soon after. 
Black Nick left the house, closing the door behind them.  “Nothing of value,” he growled, and they moved on to the next house.  He smiled to himself; the people would be confused on the morrow.

The next building was a tavern.  Here the pirates looted with abandon, but also with silence.  If anyone slept, they did not rouse up to investigate noises.  Black Nick nodded.  One bag filled.  They moved on.  Here someone awoke.  Black Nick cut them down without a word, leaving them with a slashed throat in a pool of blood.  Another bag filled with “presents.”

Slowly they made their way through Port Julietta, one building at a time.  Those who woke saw as their last sight Santa Claus bearing down on them with a bloodied cutter.  Men and women alike, it did not matter.  All the adults who woke were slain. 
If a child woke, Black Nick sent them on their way back to bed with a small trinket from the real Santa’s bag and a blanket for warmth.  None of his crew saw but the shantyman, who said nothing.

Finally the only building remaining was the governor’s mansion.  It was well-known among the islands that the governor doted on his three daughters.  Black Nick paused, allowing the snow to re-coat his beard, which had melted in the trek through the town.  He sent his “reindeer” back to the longboats to empty the sleigh.  While they moved off through the snow and sand, Black Nick watched a single light move through the governor’s mansion.

He watched a side door open and a well-bundled figure slink out into the night.  He straightened and moved to intercept the figure.  “Ho ho,” he called.  “What have we here?”
The young woman shrank back in surprise.  “Oh!”  Her eyes took in his stolen outfit, and opened even wider.  “Santa Claus?”
“What are you doing out on Christmas Eve, young woman?”  There was menace in his voice, and she shrank further away.
“Not Santa Claus,” she gasped, spying the sword in his hand.  She turned to run, to lose him in the heavy underbrush nearby.  He launched himself after her.
They raced through the overgrown gardens blindly, the girl trying to escape.  Black Nick followed with a dark laugh.  “Another present!” he cried aloud. 
The snows fell harder.  Black Nick turned away from the chase; his crew would be returning with the sleigh soon, and the woman could not escape the island.  He would come back for her later – it would be easy to find out who she was.
He reached the mansion just as his “reindeer” did.  They shrugged out of their harnesses with the silvered bells.  Black Nick made a mental note to strip the harnesses of silver as well before giving them over to the ocean. 
The girl had left the side door unlocked for her return.  Black Nick and his crew entered without a sound, spreading through the house like a cloud.  Black Nick himself climbed the stairs to the governor’s rooms, the shantyman a few paces behind him, his own knife drawn.  Black Nick looked back with a wicked grin.  “Seen anything you want for Christmas?”
The shantyman smiled.  “Oh, yes, Captain.  Many a thing, but mostly the one that got away.”
Black Nick laughed softly.  “If you can find her, you can have her.”
“On oath?” the shantyman demanded.
“On oath.”
They moved on up the stairs.

They found the governor’s rooms without trouble.  A pair of guards shivered in the hallway, talking in low voices.  Black Nick’s appearance made them hesitate, and it was the moment they needed.  Both lay dead on the floor before they thought to sound an alarm.  The second’s sword clattered against the wooden floor, and Black Nick and the shantyman froze.  A voice sounded inside the room, a woman, sleepy but growing wakeful.
“Sorry, m’lady,” the shantyman muttered.  “Dropped m’ sword.”  His voice was chilled, and the governor’s wife did not call again.  Black Nick laughed silently.

They waited, listening, outside the door, until they could hear nothing but the smooth breaths of two sleepers.  Slowly Black Nick opened the door.  The governor and his wife were wrapped in several layers of blankets.  The pirate captain swept across the room, pouncing upon the two.  Before they were fully awake they were well-wrapped in their own blankets and bound with stout rope.  Black Nick dropped sacks over their heads. 
“Merry Christmas, governor,” he announced.  Sudden cries from other rooms told him his crew had pounced as well, seizing the governor’s daughters.

The first mate appeared in the doorway.  “One of the daughters is away,” he reported.  The shantyman looked to his captain.
“Shall I seek out my Christmas gift, ‘Santa?’” he asked with a grin.
“Yes.  Go.  Report back here before dawn.”  Black Nick threw himself into a chair.  “So, shall we go or stay?  I rather like this house.”
The governor struggled in his bindings, his protests muffled by the bag over his head.
“Oh, be silent.  I’ve no more use for a house than you have for your manhood,” Black Nick growled, thumping the governor with a fist.

         They ransacked the house with abandon now, tearing away decorations, ripping down from the walls anything that looked to be of value.  The governor, his wife, and two of his daughters sat against a wall in the grand entry, waiting for whatever the pirates would do.
         “Who are you?” the governor’s wife suddenly demanded, her voice carrying even though the heavy sacking.
         Black Nick strolled over to her, dropped to one knee.  “Shall I let you see?” he asked.  He ripped the bag from her head and stood.  She gasped, and the look of fear in her eyes made his own eyes sparkle. “Have you met my reindeer, m’lady?” he asked, gesturing at the pirates waiting patiently in the harnesses of the sleigh.  “And m’ elves?” with a wave at the pirates still plundering the mansion.  “We’ve decided we’ve given long enough.  ‘Tis time YOU gave to US.”
         She swallowed, and her eyes filled with tears of fright.  “My daughter Rebecca.  What have you done with her?”
         “Nothing at all, m’lady,” Black Nick answered, his hand on his heart.  “We’d never hurt a child, would we?”
         “Never,” the pirates chorused. 

         The shantyman made a hasty path to the cave he knew she waited in.  She was shivering with fear and cold, and leapt to her feet at his entrance.  He hugged her hard and draped his own stolen coat about her shoulders.  “The captain has given you to me as a gift,” he said.  “Don’t fight it, and we can escape yet.”
         She nodded, but there was terror in her eyes.
         He kissed her.  “I promise, Rebecca.  We’ll get back to England yet.”  Together they moved back toward the governor’s mansion and the waiting Black Nick.

         “Captain.”  As he approached, the shantyman called out.  Black Nick sauntered down the stairs of the mansion’s porch, a trail of pirates behind him carrying stolen goods, as well as the governor’s other two daughters.
         “Well done.”  Black Nick climbed into the sleigh.  He rummaged in the seat next to him, brought out a light whip.  “Climb aboard, elf.”  He grinned; the shantyman smiled back and climbed aboard, drawing the governor’s youngest daughter with him. 
         Black Nick lay his lash across the backs of the rearmost “reindeer” harnessed to the sleigh.  “You will be my head elf now!  You’ve done very well indeed!”  He bellowed with laughter as the sleigh moved across the snowy sand toward the waiting ship.

         Aboard the ship, each daughter was bound to a mast.  The shantyman hovered about the mizzenmast, where Rebecca was bound, tears streaming down her face.  The sleigh and harness had been dropped overboard and the deck holystoned clean of reindeer blood.  Provisioned with fresh meat and food stolen from islanders, the ships raised anchors.  Black Nick moved back toward his cabin, calling a jovial “Merry Christmas” to his crew.  They responded cheerfully enough, their bellies full for the first time in months.
         Silver bells stolen from the reindeers’ harness chimed wildly in the wind of the still-snowing storm. 

         The shantyman watched the change of watch without obvious interest.  Those coming on deck were reluctant to do so; the winds seemed to blow even fiercer than before.  As he watched, the first mate checked their log, then hurried back below-decks.  Almost before the hatch closed the shantyman was on his feet.  He stood in front of Rebecca.  “I promised you would go back to England,” he said as softly as he could.  She raised her face.  “But I’ll not go.  After this I cannot.”  He slipped a small knife into her hand.  “Wait until you have a use for this – it will be a friend in those minutes.”
         Before she could speak he moved along the deck, vanishing into the snowfall.  He knocked on Black Nick’s door.  The door opened enough to allow him entry.  He slipped inside, closing the door behind himself.
         “Captain.”
         “Ah – my head elf!” Black Nick had stripped off the coat and sat at his table, dining on reindeer steak.  “What do you need?”  His mood was expansive; the shantyman could see that he had already been into the governor’s wine supply.
         “My gift – you promised the one daughter to me.  I would have her now.”  The shantyman kept his voice pleasant, hoping the pirate captain would not sense anything unusual.
         “Bring her to me first.”
         The shantyman turned and left.  Obediently, he cut Rebecca loose and whispering in her ear, brought her to Black Nick’s cabin.  The false Santa stood at their entry, bowing mockingly.
         “Miss Porter.”
         “Captain.”  Rebecca tried to gather the shreds of her dignity, but failed, her courage ebbing.  “What do you want of me?”
         “A gift.  Nothing more.”  He shrugged out of his shirt and began to unbuckle his belt.  Rebecca shrieked and tried to flee into the snow; only the shantyman’s grip on her arm halted her flight.  Black Nick reached out and snared her from the younger man’s grasp, wrenched the coat away from her, tearing her dress.  Still screaming, the governor’s daughter was carried to his bunk and thrown down.  The captain pinned her arms with his weight, silencing her screams with one hand.
         
         The shantyman lifted the sword that had slashed so many lives that night and drove it deep into his captain’s unprotected back.  With a roar Black Nick stood upright, tried to spin to face his attacker.  The shantyman yanked the blade free, struck again, slicing through the captain’s bared chest.  He backed away as Black Nick kept moving, darting in to slash and slice.  Blood flowed across the cabin once more.  Black Nick gurgled once more deep in his throat and was silent.
         The shantyman buried the blade in Black Nick’s chest and dropped Santa Claus’ coat over the body.  “I used to enjoy Christmas,” he growled.  Rebecca stared at him in shock.  “Get dressed.”  His voice was sharp now, had lost all of the deference with which he had once spoken.  She opened her mouth to protest; he silenced her with a look.  “Now.”

         The cabin door opened and the first mate entered.  He stared at the coat-draped body, the shantyman, and the blood now drying on the cabin floor.  The shantyman smiled thinly.  “Send someone to clean my cabin.”
         “Your?”
         In an instant the shantyman had a second, smaller blade at the first mate’s throat.  “Mine.”
         “Yes, sir.”
         “Call the crews.”
         “Aye… captain.”
         “Better.”  The first mate withdrew from the cabin. 
         The former shantyman turned to Rebecca, who had dressed hastily.  “We’ll put you ashore.  I don’t know if your parents still live, but there are children left alive on Santa Julia.  Take them from here.  Take them somewhere they’ll forget Christmas.”
         “What of you?”
         “I have something else to do.”
         The first mate knocked and entered, leading a cabin boy.  He issued sharp orders to the boy, who began resignedly to clean the cabin again.  The new captain strode past him without looking down.

         They swore allegiance to him on the deck, and the pirate flag stayed up.  No one dared to cross the man who had slain their captain.  “There will be no change in names,” the former shantyman growled.  “I will take the name our … lamented … captain took to himself.  I was born Nicolas Essex, and I will be Black Nick from this day on.”  He indicated Rebecca and her now-freed sisters.  “Set them ashore on Santa Julia.”
         The crew obeyed, bringing Black Nick’s ship close enough to set the sisters safely on shore.  Rebecca drew close, but the new Black Nick pushed her away.  “Go now.”
         As the sisters stepped out onto shore, the snow became rain once more.  The pirates muttered nervously.  The former shantyman opened a watch he had looted from his former captain’s corpse and nodded.  “December 26th,” he announced.  “Christmas is over.”
         
         They moved back out towards open water.  “Captain….”  The first mate spoke unhappily.  “Where to?”
         The shantyman grinned, his smile as wicked as Black Nick’s had ever been.  “North, I think.  North.  Somewhere there is a place where Santa Claus lived.  If we can find it, we will have safe harbor from which to raid the world….” 
         The first mate cocked his head.  “How?”
         “It involves sleighs… and reindeer…”