“Land ho!” shouted the slighter of the two ruffians gamboling across the scrubby field behind the 7-11.

“We’re already upon the land, matey!” reminded the taller one, squinting down at his friend through his right eye—the one not covered by a black patch.

“Ahoy, captain! Ahead be the land … that we be searching for!”

“We’ve many leagues to travel yet, matey.” The captain shook his head at the first mate.

“A—”

“You don’t need to start every sentence with ‘ahoy,’ matey.”

“I wasn’t going to say ‘ahoy’ this time,” he whispered to his captain.

“Fine. Go ahead then.”

“A—vast, this way to the treasure, captain!”

Ahem

“Yes, captain? Have ye a frog in ye throat?”

“Arr, the treasure lieth in that direction, according to our long-lost map.” The captain, fiery hazel shining from his unpatched eye, pointed to the woods on the other side of the field, at a 45-degree vector from the first mate’s suggestion.

“Arr, captain. I be looking at the long-lost map, and it say that way.”

“Matey, I be … having … wrote the map—give me that!” Realigning the map one quarter turn to the right, compass placed at the top, the captain growled, “Joe, you gotta put the compass the right way.”

The two pirates marched on in silence beyond where the sidewalk ended and unkempt brush butted against maple and birch—a stark line of wild nature against the sleepy commerce yawning behind them, like the turbid black water of the harbor meeting the endless azure of the sea.

The first mate swung his knapsack to his frontside like a baby carrier, unzipped the bag, and extracted an apple from his brown bag lunch.

“We may need those tasty vitals come high noon, matey,” warned the captain. “Ahoy! Follow the trail.”

“What trail?” asked the first mate, munching his Granny Smith.

“The trail, ding dong. The dirt path.”

“I see a fork in the road, Captain. What say the map?” He leaned over to sneak a peek.

The captain pulled the map away. “Starboard, ho!”

The first mate blinked.

“That means to the right.”

The first mate took a bite of his apple.

“I know these woods like the back of me hook, matey! There’ll be no mutiny here! I’ll run you off the gangplank and straight into Davey Jones’s Locker.”

The First Mate shrugged, took the last bite of his apple, dropped the core at the head of the trail, and followed his captain to the right.

The two buccaneers marched down the path to the erratic drumbeat of the red-bellied woodpecker, while cardinals alighted on low-hanging limbs along the path to wish the swashbucklers well and see them on their journey. Occasional stabs of light through the canopy reminded of the world outside the forest, what typically awaited them at this time of day: a maze of corridors aglow with disorienting fluorescents; a looming Geometry test; scurvy dogs who sailed the dangerous seas around jungle gym island to plunder the booty of any pirates with lesser crews.

“Arr … you sure this is the way, Captain? Cause it be looking a lot like the fork in the road we encountered nigh too long ago.”

“I know these woods like the back—”

“There’s my apple.”

The Captain looked down at the gnawed remains of the first mate’s snack. “Ah, these seas be filled with scurvy rats! No telling who’s flotsam that be.”

“Flotsa-what? Hey, maybe it’s my turn to be captain now. You said we could switch halfway.”

“Avast, the journey be long and winding. Not even halfway have we breached. Onward ho!” shouted the captain, the map clutched tightly in his craw. He pointed his body resolutely to the path not yet traveled and marched forward without looking back to see if his mate followed.

Dappled light bloomed to golden sunshine as the pirates emerged from the woods to a short field, sloping to the intersection of two perpendicular country roads, one arched over the other. Where the two roads met, an underpass lay shrouded like a desert island, unexplored.

“There be our treasure!” announced the captain.

“Where?” asked the first mate, hoping the captain did not mean that very underpass, but seeing no other landmark on the horizon.

The taller buccaneer wielding the map pointed ahead to the base of the bridge

“Pete, my mom said never go to the underpass,” whispered the first mate.

“Suit yourself, matey. But while ye be hiding behind your mother’s skirts, I’ll be counting me treasure!” The captain plowed forward down the sloping bank toward that point where the lower road burrowed under the bridge.

The first mate hesitated, but a red X on a map holds an undeniable attraction for a true swashbuckler. His heart throbbed with the very force of magnetism from the earthly manifestation of the X, and so he followed at a distance, testing his land legs.

The slope from the shoulder of the road plateaued to a stretch of grass shaded under the belly of the bridge six feet above—a verdant garden replete with treasures.

Next to the concrete foundation a domed tent rose like an arched gate, whether welcoming or warning the pirate officers, impossible to tell from its sheen glare. A moat of blankets and an embankment of debris that could be hiding any number of rubies or gold doubloons surrounded the tent.

“Maybe we should go,” whispered the first mate.

“Not without me treasure,” hissed the captain. Sliding the folded map and the compass into the pocket of his dungarees, he led the way forward with prudent steps—unwavering, yet mindful of booby traps.

Within striking distance of the tent, he growled with a low “Arr,” as though retesting his voice.

Nothing stirred inside the tent.

His courage fed by the pervasive silence, the captain reached into his belly for a hardy call—“Ahoy there!”

The first mate grabbed the captain’s elbow.

No response. No movement. Not even the wind visited the underpass, lest the stray newspapers and other jetsam strewn about would have been carried out to sea.  

An unlikely treasure protruded from the debris at the edge of the encampment—a rocking horse, its grimy taupe coat barely noticeable among the panoply of plundered sundries but for one golden eye capturing a ray from the fleeing boundary of sunlight.

“Ay, there she blows. Me white whale,” said the captain, entranced.

The first mate contemplated the value of informing his friend that Ahab was not a pirate. But, instead, stared at the dubious treasure in silence.

With his eyes fixed on the fat bubble of nylon looming over the trove, the first mate followed the captain along to the rocking horse at the edge of the sunlight.

The captain stroked the horse’s coat, then grasped the handle behind its ear with one hand and the hard plastic saddle with the other.

“We should go,” murmured the first mate, looking side to side for any sign of poisonous darts or boulders rolling down a track in their direction.

The captain picked up the rocking horse.

No booby traps.

Then, a rustling in the tent and the unmistakable rip of zipper.

The first mate glanced at the tent and then back to the captain in time to see his friend’s eyes frost over with terror. He ran for the edge of the underpass and into the field beyond. He did not stop. He did not look back to see the captain tighten his grip on the rocking horse and chase, as fast as his steed would allow.

The young pirates hurtled across the seemingly endless expanse of crabgrass and white-haired  dandelions, trembling under their harried footsteps.

Not until breaching the woods on the far end of the field did the boys stop. Under the protective shade of mighty oaks, hands on knees, they sucked oxygen and attempted to gather their bearings.

“Why did you bring that?” the first mate shrieked, with scarcely enough air in his lungs to portray his distress.

The captain looked down at the rocking horse, at his hand strangling the wooden grip.

“We should bring it back,” counseled the first mate.

“Did Blackbeard trade in his spoils?” posed the captain without the practiced grit in his voice.

“I’ve never seen a pirate on a horse,” said the first mate, eyes scanning the field they had just traversed.

“Ay. We will be the most feared swashbucklers on sea and on land.”

The first mate changed tacks. “Where will you … stable it, captain?

The captain looked down at the horse without an answer.

“What if someone comes looking for it?” continued the first mate.

Silence.

“Or asks where we acquired such a noble steed?”

A grunt of contemplation from the captain.

“Shouldn’t a true pirate horse be free?”

A longer grunt from the captain, this one born of concession. “All right, you lily-livered cur. Have it your way.” The captain gripped the rocking horse by the handle behind the ear and dragged it over the scrub brush at the edge of the woods and into the field. “Fly free young colt! May ye be a pirate horse for all your days!” he yelled with a slap of encouragement on the horse’s hindquarters.

The horse lurched forward violently, then backward on its convex track, as if rearing for momentum to charge into the infinite yonder.

Before the pirate captain and first mate could watch the horse gallop to freedom, a figure crested the hill from the direction of the underpass, loping toward them.

The captain hastened with an “Arr,” as he turned tail and fled into the woods, his first mate keeping pace with high-kneed urgency to get over and through the bramble of roots and vines afoot, any one of them threatening to tangle the pirates.

Deeper and deeper into the woods they ran, making their own path. They paused to catch their breath. Waited longer when they heard no noise but for their own haggard breathing. The bearded oaks and maples looked down upon the boys, concerned about their next move.

“I think we’re lost, Pete.”

“Arr, a true captain is never lost at sea! ‘Tis only a matter of which path brings greater glory!”

The captain’s words may have been more reassuring, thought the first mate, had he not been looking around for any sign of a trail as he spoke.

“Pete, it’s okay to admit if you’re lost.”

“Arr. To the plank with ye!” declared the captain with a defiant fist high the air. Though he made no move forward.

The first mate put a hand on the captain’s arm, not quite reaching the shoulder, and pointed to the ground off the left side of the trail, where the core of an apple lay atop a patch of fuzzy, green moss. “It’s my turn, Pete.”

Pete lowered his fist—drawing down the sail for a lack of wind. Staring down at the apple core, he nodded. “Ay. You’ve been a loyal first mate.” He handed his friend the map and compass.

The first mate, now captain by virtue of possessing the map, aligned his tools—a courtesy to the former captain—and strode down the path to the right.

The two weary buccaneers cleared the forest, retracing their steps through the field behind the 7-11.

“Arr … captain,” the unfamiliar word caught in Pete’s throat, “it be too early to go home.”

The newly adorned captain registered no understanding.

“We’re supposed to be at school,” clarified the taller pirate, still grappling with his new role.

The captain’s head bobbed as he caught up with his mate’s meaning, and they changed course from the chipped concrete to an earthen path through the trees on the far side of the field. Not a new forest to the buccaneers; one they traveled often before their swashbuckling days.

At the end of the trail, they came to a park that they had haunted in their youthier youth—a short stroll for thumb over calendar, but an unfathomable journey over distant seas, as the pirate sails.

The captain and the first mate, the first mate and the captain, settled into an open patch of woodchips near the Merry Go Round. They gazed ahead, as if that playground fixture would spin by the power of their concentration alone.

Minutes passed, maybe an hour, as time gained speed. Then the shorter of the two—the captain, or the first mate, or maybe just Joe—fired a shot over the bow. “What do you think he would have done to us?”

The first mate, or captain, or maybe just Pete, cleared a rainbow in the woodchips with his left foot. He looked at his companion and shrugged.

“Maybe we’ll find another map,” said Joe.

Pete took a deep breath and grabbed the map from the ground between them. He rose, took two steps forward, peeled the eye patch from his head, placed it on top of the map ceremoniously, and crouched to the base of the Merry Go Round, where he swiped away a thin layer of woodchips and earth underneath the platform. There he placed the buccaneer’s bundle, hidden from the fading sunlight of mid-afternoon. He moved some woodchips back over top of the treasure and stood up.

With a nod of the head, he turned away and started walking toward the sun, which crouched lower and lower to get a better look at what the boys were up to. His friend followed. They left the park behind.

“What are you having for dinner, Pete?”

“Meatloaf Monday. You?”

“Fish sticks. Meatless Monday.”

“Arr. Shiver me timbers.”

---

Jimmy Lis lives in Grand Rapids, MI, where he spends his days selling collagen and bone broth and nights reading, writing, or subjecting his children to his latest board game prototype. His work has been published in Nifty Lit, Bright Flash Literary Review, Spank the Carp, Apocalypse Confidential, The Other Journal, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, and elsewhere. You can read more and connect with him at www.jimmylis.com.