He leaned back in the grass. "I guess you think there's a lot to tell, yet somehow it all adds up to nothing. To lying here under a palm, on an empty island, with a price on my head in England and little to show for all the years." He looked out to sea and shaded his eyes as he studied a sail at the horizon. "It seems I'm something different to everybody. So which story do you want to hear?"
"Why not try the real one?" She pushed him onto his back and raised on her elbow to study his face. It was certainly older than its years. "Why won't you ever tell me about what happened when you first came out here? What was it about that time that troubles you so much?"
"It's not a pretty tale. Before I came, I never even thought much about the New World." He smiled at the irony of it now. "It all started when I was apprenticed and shipped out to the Caribbean for not being royalist enough."
"Where to?"
"Well . . ." He paused automatically, then decided to continue. "In truth it was Tortuga. Back when the Providence Company had a settlement on the island."
"But wasn't that burned out by the Spaniards? We all heard about it. I thought everybody there was killed. How did you survive?"
"As it happens, I'd been sort of banished by then. Since I didn't get along too well with the Puritans there, they'd sent
me over to the north side of Hispaniola, to hunt. Probably saved my life. That's where I was when the Spaniards came."
"On Hispaniola?" She stared at him. "Do you mean to say you were once one of . . ."
"The Cow-Killers." It was said slowly and casually. He waited to see how she would respond, but there was only a brief glimmer of surprise in her eyes.