Guns of Liberty (27 page)

Esteban took a few tentative steps closer and repositioned himself, the better to see what Maria had found. He craned his neck, and his bare feet trampled a pattern of nervous circles in the moist sand.

“The pouch, Maria, the pouch. Open it.”

“I will,” Maria hissed back, angry at her brother’s incessant instructions. She had her own way of doing things and was not about to be rushed. The pouch appeared to be waterlogged. She reached for the corner flap, attempted to untie the fastenings, and eventually succeeded.

Overhead, a flock of gulls began to gather in lofty spirals. These scavengers of the coastline were willing to wait their turn because their turn always came. Their high-pitched squawking cries filled the air like the banter of shrewish spirits caught between heaven and earth and complaining about the quality of both.

Maria reached down and picked up a six-inch-long, fanlike shell from the sand underfoot. Using the shell, she lifted the pouch flap and gasped as the golden sword hilt fell into view. Sunlight played upon the finely worked grip, and the rubies seemed to pulse as if with a life of their own, like embers waiting to burst into flame. They drew her like a moth. Esteban, too, once he caught sight of the sword, moved closer, youthful greed overcoming his cowardice. Here was something special, and he couldn’t allow his younger sister to claim what ought to be rightfully his.

“Take it out, Maria. Let me see.” The boy inched toward his sister and the red-haired Yankee who must surely be dead. “Bring the whole pouch to me.”

“Perhaps we ought to bring the padre.”

“Foolish girl,” Esteban snapped, and he trotted the rest of the distance and drew up alongside his sister. “The padre will take what we have found and give it to God, or worse, hand it over to Sergeant Morales and his men. Is that what you want?”

Maria was impressed by her older brother’s argument. She had to admit he made a lot of sense. She did not like Sergeant Morales. Every time he paid a visit to the mission he always caused trouble. Once he had taken her mother inside the jacal and would not allow the children to enter, and when her mother appeared later she was crying and Maria knew the sergeant had hurt her. Father Ramon had been furious, too. No, she was not about to hand over anything that was hers to the sergeant. And as for God, well, she had seen the golden cup that the padre drank from during Mass, so it seemed to her God had enough pretty things.

“I want the pretty red stone,” she said.

Esteban grinned. He envisioned buying his sister’s silence with a single stone and keeping the rest of this treasure from the sea for himself.

“Yes—yes, a pretty red stone,” he agreed, and shoving the eight-year-old aside, he caught up the pouch and attempted to drag it free of the dead man’s arm.

The arm suddenly tensed, and the “dead” man partly rose from the sand and turned a bruised and swollen visage toward the startled children as he violently pulled the pouch from their grasp and snarled, “No!”

Esteban screamed and released the pouch, his blood turning to ice water. Maria screamed alongside her brother. She didn’t remain there long. A second later, and she was scampering down the beach and calling out, “Father Ramon! Father Ramon!”

Esteban whirled around and lost his footing in the sand.

“Wait,” the voice behind him ordered.

But the boy was not about to obey the entreaties of a corpse sprung to life. The red-haired man reached for him, and the boy screamed again, leaped away, and ran for his life. He could sense the other dead men leaping out of the boat and pursuing him down the beach, their dead arms flapping, and leering at him with their hideous pointed teeth. The image gave wings to his feet, and the boy soon caught up to and passed his sister.

Maria cried out to him to wait up for her, but alas, she had become expendable once again. So she plowed the moist sand with her chubby little brown legs and ran for her life. Ghost crabs scurried out of harm’s way. The two children headed inland, spooking a flock of sanderlings and sending them winging into the sky.

Kit McQueen watched the brother and sister disappear beyond a rise topped with beach grass and seaside goldenrod.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered, and sank to his knees. He had to brace himself on all fours as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. His head ached terribly. He remembered the storm. Like a fool, Captain Clay had tried to outrun the elements to shore and got caught in treacherous waters. He had fought to turn into the wind and lost when the
Trenton
had ripped its hull open on a submerged reef. Buffeted by the gale, the clipper had capsized. Kit had managed to survive the catastrophe and through sheer luck and determination had found one of the johnboats, climbed aboard, and managed to retrieve two of his shipmates from the black waters.

Kit doubled over and retched, leaving a puddle of muddy water on the sand along with the contents of his stomach. His head throbbed. He staggered back from the water’s edge, noticed the johnboat, and managed to stumble over to the battered craft. He rounded the bow and saw that Bill Tibbs and Augustus LaFarge, the
Trenton
’s first mate, were sprawled in the boat. He reached down, probed LaFarge’s neck, and felt no pulse. The sailor was stone cold dead. But Tibbs moaned, and his eyelids flickered as Kit shook him.

Kit tossed the treasure pouch onto shore, then caught Tibbs underneath the arms, dragged him out of the boat, and stretched the big man out upon the sand well away from the lapping waves. Kit stumbled, then braced himself on his friend’s shoulder and gasped for breath.

“Christ almighty,” he muttered, and gingerly felt his scalp, probing the lump at the base of his skull. He winced and brought his hand away; the fingertips were moist and red. Blood trickled down the back of his neck. It felt like sweat. Kit’s stomach flip-flopped, and he almost heaved. But he fought it and won, though the victory left him gasping for breath.

He staggered toward the broad leather pouch that had almost cost him his life by dragging him under the wind-churned waves of the night before. He bent over, grasped the leather strap, and the world tilted on its axis and he fell over. Shards of broken seashells dug into his knees. His skull felt as if it were coming apart. A groan of agony escaped his lips as he rolled onto his side.

“Damn,” he cursed softly. He needed help. So did Tibbs. Where did the children go?

He began to crawl on his hands and knees toward the fringe of beach grass that the children had vanished behind, while the gulls overhead kept up a merry chorus of jeers. Kit pulled himself along; he didn’t know how far he had come because he never looked back. He concentrated on moving one leg after another, one arm after another. At last he gained enough confidence to try to stand again. He balanced on his wobbly legs like a year-old taking his first steps, and he lasted about as long. He pitched forward and never remembered hitting the ground.

M
EN CAN ALWAYS FIND
ways to get themselves killed. The crew of the
Trenton
did. The Baltimore clipper had battled the gale-force winds to within two miles of shore when Captain Horatio Clay tried to “thread the needle” between two reefs and brought his ship and crew to ruin. Kit McQueen, having fought his way to the wildly pitching deck, had tried to lend a hand as best he could under the worst of circumstances. In his dream, he watched once more the waves crashing over the deck and the valiant efforts of the crew to trim the sails in direct disobedience of the captain’s orders.

Clay had been a man so sure of his skill that he could not imagine failure, not even when the bow reared up with a great grinding and splintering of wood and the whole ship shuddered like a mortally wounded beast. The mizzenmast came down in a tangle of canvas and timber and rope that buried the captain and several of the crew. The rest were pitched into the storm-tossed sea as the
Trenton
capsized.

Kit could feel the cold embrace of the water. Something cracked him across the back of the skull. He choked as the turbulent waters carried him under, borne down by the weight of the treasure pouch. To his horror, the pouch flap had torn loose and gold bracelets, rings, and necklaces spilled into the depths.

Clutching the bag, he fought the ocean’s grip, refusing to release his hold on the treasure pouch as he clawed at the black water. He managed by sheer chance to catch hold of a rope lashed around a section of mast. Hand over hand, he pulled himself to the surface, thrusting his head out of the ashen sea to gulp air and cling to life.

Where was the
Trenton
? Surely not that shapeless mass of timber coming to pieces on the submerged reef.

Seawater stung his eyes. Waves lifted him and carried him toward the distant shore. God, how much of al-Jezzar’s gold had the sea reclaimed? There was no time to look. Despite his pain-blurred vision, he glimpsed a johnboat riding the crests of the storm-swept surface. The boat leaped like a dolphin and crashed with a thud against the section of mast Kit had found. He reached for the side of the boat, stretched his trembling fingers. In another couple of seconds it would be too late.

Reach. Reach, damn you, or drown.

Kit opened his eyes and found himself groping toward a wall of mud and coquina shells. He rolled on his back and stared up at a cedar-plank ceiling. Sunlight spilled into the room through an open doorway and the unshuttered windows permitted a gentle cross breeze through to freshen the hut’s interior. A crucifix hung above the doorsill. Kit was lying on a hard but not uncomfortable cot set in one corner of the coquina-walled hut. Kit noted at a glance he was not alone in the room. Long-legged Bill Tibbs was stretched out on a second cot, his bootheels dangling just inches above the floor.

A comely Creek Indian woman in the late months of her pregnancy sat on a stool alongside Tibbs, who was not only conscious but propped up to receive the broth she was spooning into his mouth. His upper torso was naked, and his shoulder was bandaged. If Tibbs was in pain it didn’t show. He obviously enjoyed the attention he was receiving from the woman. The rope and wood frame of the cot creaked as Kit shifted his weight. The woman turned at the sound, and on seeing the second Yankee was awake she set the bowl of broth on the floor within Tibbs’s reach and hurried from the room.

“Well, you sure spoiled that.” Tibbs scowled at his friend.

“From the look of her, she was spoken for,” Kit replied. He sat back against the wall and felt a sharp, stabbing pain lance through his skull. He brought a hand to his head and touched a cloth bandage.

Across the room, within view of both men, the large leather pouch had been securely fastened and left on a narrow but solid-looking table crafted from the dark wood of a young loblolly pine. An oil lantern, a worn leatherbound Bible, and a quill and ink had been left on the table, no doubt by the room’s owner, but shoved to one side to make room for the treasure pack.

“Spoken for, indeed … but talking was the farthest thing from my mind.” Tibbs sighed, a wicked grin on his face.

“Half drowned and still as horny as a goat.” Kit chuckled and then sucked in his breath as his wound sent a sharp protest from his head to his shoulder blades.

“Goats? Yes, we have goats,” a brown-robed priest said from the doorway. He had brought another bowl of soup.

Father Ramon Saucedo at sixty moved with the grace and energy of a man twenty years younger. His skin was as dark as that of the Creek Indians he served, the color of old bark. Indeed, the lines and wrinkles that creased his features gave his skin not only a barklike color but the texture of some aged forest monarch that had survived wind and rain and fire. His hair was stringy, silver and unkempt, but his mustache and goatee, also silver, were neatly trimmed. And if he had lost the beauty of his youth (once women had called him handsome and contested with one another to catch his eye), he had replaced such a transitory appeal with an air of wisdom and dignity that shone from his features as brightly as the Florida sunlight.

“Good morning, my friends,” the priest said. His sandals shuffled softly over the packed earth floor of the single-roomed cabin. “It has been a while since I have spoken English. I am Padre Ramon Saucedo. You understand me, yes?”

He handed the bowl of soup to Kit, who nodded his thanks and chanced a sip. It was salty, and chunks of fish and scallops floated in this broth. He found the sample to his liking.

Father Ramon pulled over a three-legged stool and sat down. “You washed ashore on the island. Barely a strip of sand and beach grass. I go there to cast my nets. Maria and Esteban found you and brought me to you. Which was fortunate for you both.” The padre toyed with the wooden cross dangling from a leather string around his neck. “My humble house is a palace compared to the prison Sergeant Morales would offer you at the garrison in St. Augustine.”

“Prison?” Kit said. He set the wooden bowl aside and introduced himself and Bill Tibbs and then continued with his initial question. “Why prison?”

“There has been much trouble of late. Yankees from the north have come across the border and declared all of Florida a republic, free of Spanish rule. But the mission Indians have been well treated. Our colonists are of Spanish descent. We do not wish to break ties with our mother country, so we fight. The soldiers have hunted these Yankees down and killed or imprisoned most of them.”

“Be we are … uh, traders,” Tibbs blurted out. “We’ve nothing to do with any of this. A storm wrecked our ship, or we would never have troubled you.”

“I believe you,” the padre said, leaning forward. “But then my heart is filled with peace toward all men.” Father Ramon kissed the cross he wore. “Sergeant Morales is a soldier, a man of war. If he discovers you, then …” The padre shook his head. The implication was quite clear: Their fates would be sealed.

“Do not worry,” the padre spoke reassuringly. “I am no friend of Sergeant Morales. You are safe here. He seldom comes to visit. I have promised him the wrath of God if he touches one of my flock again.” The priest seemed momentarily lost in thought, and he looked back to the barefoot Indian woman standing in the doorway. In a matter of weeks Sara would be having Morales’s child. The woman disappeared into the sunlight; she was none of his guests’ concern. He returned his attention to the matter at hand. “I will not reveal your presence here. But you cannot remain long. You will be in danger until you cross the border.”