Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland Read Online Free Page A

waterfall that leads to the one from the island we were stranded on all those years ago.   The croc swims an underwater channel between the two.   I swam it once and ended up here.”
    “I never believed that,” Jukes admitted.   “I knew you believed it, but I figured seeing the boy all those times got to you.”  
    “You thought I was crazy?”
    “Part of me still does,” Jukes said.   “But we’re the only family each of us has left and crazy is better than alone.”
    As we walked deeper into the woods, the trees became smaller.   I peeled off a piece of thin white bark and crumpled it between my fingers.   It fell to the ground in flakes and I turned to see the taller trees behind us.  
    The trees several yards ahead were as short as the ones we just passed, but they were squat.   I used my hook to scratch off a piece of thick, scaly bark and watched something small and black scurry further into the tree.  
    As Cecco cut the first set of fuller, needle-leafed branches, his breath fogged in front of him.   He looked back at me and I pointed forward.   Cecco nodded, buttoned his shirt tighter, and pushed forward.  
    “But if that’s true,” Billy Jukes said, “once we find the waterfall, we can swim home.”
    “Yes,” I said, “but none of us are going back.   Not yet.”
    “Not until the boy is dead.”
    “Right.”  
    “Then let’s make this quick.”  
    Jukes stopped and put his hand up.   The large man readied his pistol and looked quickly from Smee to Starkey.
    “What’s wrong?”  
    “It’s Cecco,” Jukes said.   “He’s stopped.”   Jukes pointed to the Italian, who stood at the edge of the wood before a clearing.   He sprinted up to meet Cecco, then stopped short and stood frozen as well.  
    I ran up to the two men, but couldn’t see past them.   I muscled between them and stepped out in front.   There I saw a field bordered by a dense row of trees on all sides, but no branches overhead.   It was green and lush and in the field was a garden of bodies, broken and scattered.
    “We missed something here,” Jukes said.  
    “Yes,” I said, “and not by long either.”  
    I walked into the clearing and kicked something metal.   I bent down and picked up a helmet.   It was gold-plated with a high ridge, the same as the one that I found as a boy on the other side of the passage behind the waterfall.   País de Nunca , the carving on the cave wall read.   Neverland .  
    I dropped the helmet and directed the men without a single word.  
    One by one, we checked the bodies.  

Chapter Three

    “Five men dead,” Cecco reported.   “All armored.”
    “How many attackers?” I asked.  
    “Dunno, Captain,” Smee said.   “Could be five to ten.”
    “One man,” Noodler said.   He knelt close to the ground and felt the grass with his backwards hands.   He examined the two bodies in front of him again before meeting my eyes.  
    “Bah,” Smee scoffed. “These were five armored men.   No one man did this.”   He waved an arm over to Billy Jukes.   “He couldn’t have done this.”
    “No arrows or punctures,” Cecco said.
    “So this wasn’t the Indians either,” said Starkey.
    Noodler held up a finger.   “One man.”
    “Noodler’s right,” said Cecco.   The Italian stood atop a low hill and pointed over to the trees that bordered the clearing.   “Three horses stood there.   One man walked o’er.   A large man.”   He looked over to Noodler, who nodded his agreement.   “I thought the footprints were too big, but there’s only one set o’ them.   Look.”  
    Cecco walked over to where Smee and I were and pointed out three depressions in the grass.   The width of them were enough for two men to stand in side by side and they were nearly half a yard in length.   I stared at the footprints in disbelief.
    “One man,” I said.
    “Aye, sir.”
    “The cuts are clean,” Starkey said.   “These men were cleaved by a massive