The Red Ripper Read Online Free Page A

a single word: revenge . And if he was unprepared for such a course, well then, who better to chart his way than a cutthroat like the Butcher of Barbados?
    â€œTeach me,” William said.
    â€œWhat?”
    Wallace stretched out his right hand, pretending it was clasped around the staghorn grip of an imaginary knife. “One punishes … the other destroys.”
    Capt. Mad Jack Flambeau paused a moment, then gravely nodded. He guided the rawboned young giant up from the beach, where his Tainos servants, Manuel and Josefina, waited to help William up once more astride the mare. Wallace offered no resistance. He was too weak, too dizzy, and full of grief. Manuel held the reins while Mad Jack forged ahead with quick sure steps, following a game trail through the palm trees and onto the road where it began to climb into the hills.
    William struggled to remain alert. He tried to focus on the road but could not see their destination for the trees. “Where does this lead?”
    Mad Jack replied, “To the rest of your life.”

3
    â€œCOME AND KILL ME.”
    November 1830
    Mad Jack roared with laughter, intending to infuriate his younger, larger opponent. Knife blades flashed in the sunlight, glittering like steel fangs as the two men warily circled each other. “That’s it. Here now. Do I strike here … or there? Watch out!” the buccaneer said, his right arm extended. He jabbed and William stumbled back. “Big and slow, like an ox. Easy to slaughter.” Both men were streaked with sweat and sand from their exertions. Flambeau kept up a stream of insults and chatter, hoping to goad his hulking twenty-year-old opponent into a foolish move. The ploy had always worked.
    Until now.
    â€œNow, now, that’s a good lad. Come and kill me. If you can … .”
    It was a game they played, like children, with knives sharpened to a razor’s edge. A man must be honed like the blade he holds.
    A year had passed, a year of watching the ever-changing sea and reliving the nightmare of his brother’s murder, a year learning the wild ways from the Tainos natives, a year spent devouring the volumes of stolen books in the Frenchman’s library, a year of the game .
    The hackles rose on the back of William’s neck, and
his cheeks flushed with anger. But this time he ignored the insults. For once he refused to be baited into a mistake that might cost him his life.
    This time the game continued, for William had a good teacher. The Butcher of Barbados had forged and tempered the substance of Wallace’s youth and inexperience and taught him to rely on more things than his great size and strength. Even a rawboned giant of a man could be quick and cunning. Even a heart sworn to vengeance could discover the value of patience.
    So William waited, bided his time, feinted, darted back, and then lunged forward as he had done in the past, hoping to bull his way past the buccaneer’s guard. The move tricked Mad Jack into a costly response. Mistaking this second feint for William’s attack, Flambeau committed himself. He darted to one side and thrust forward, but William danced from harm’s way with catlike grace, batted the short sword from the buccaneer’s grip, stepped in past the Frenchman’s guard, and placed the tip of his own knife under Flambeau’s chin.
    Mad Jack froze. Death was a pinprick away. And then it slowly dawned on the knife fighter that he had been bested.
    Manuel and Josefina Tamayo good-naturedly applauded their master’s downfall from where they watched on the porch of the whitewashed house on the hillside above the bay. The Tainos couple, though loyal to a fault, were not above taking pleasure at William’s victory. The gentle rawboned youth had become a part of the family, someone for Manuel to instruct in the ways of the forest and for Josefina to mother.
    â€œYou’re dead,” William drawled, staring down at the smaller man