Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (11 page)

“Who?” Colleen asked, her voice little more than a whisper. “Who would pay you to do such a wicked thing?”

“His name is Sir Theodotus Vincent.”

“Oh, dear God, no!”

“Damn!” Jase moaned.

“I was told to tell this to Señor Tom Paxton, but I will tell you and you must tell him for me, do you understand?”

“Dear God!”

“You will say that he stole a man's daughter.” Sanchez's smile was gone and he spoke very clearly so there would be no misunderstanding. “You will say that now the girl's father will have what is left of his daughter on this earth: her sons. You will say that the debt of Thomas Gunn Paxton is paid. Paid with the flesh of his flesh.” With that, Sanchez wheeled about and strode out of the room without a backward glance.

“Wait,” Jase called, struggling to a sitting position. “Come back, damn your hide!”

Stunned, unable to comprehend the enormity of what had happened, Colleen moaned and rocked back and forth. “They're gone,” she cried, her voice choked with anguish. “Oh, dear God, they can't be gone!”

“Our room,” Jase snapped, shaking her by the arm. “The gun on the wall. Get it!”

“We can't, Jase. You might hit—”

He was already dragging himself toward the window. “Now, Colleen,
now
. Hurry!”

Downstairs, a door slammed. The sound galvanized Colleen, who scrambled to her feet and ran for the rifle. The pain in Jase's leg was excruciating, but he forced himself up to the windowsill and threw open the shutter. He grabbed the useless leg and somehow got it out in front of him so he could sit with his left arm out the window to hold him up. The room spun; blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, where he'd bitten through his lip from pain.

A whinny. Hoofbeats from the far side of the house.
They have my grandsons! Have the twins. Can't pass out. Have to stay conscious
. “Colleen!” he roared. “Colleen!”

Colleen materialized at his side and, removing the ramrod, thrust the rifle into his hands. “It's loaded,” she said, dropping the rod and pulling the stopper out of a powder horn.

Jase steadied the rifle on the windowsill and pulled back the flintlock. Colleen poured powder into the pan just as, below, four horses thundered around the corner of the house and headed down the drive toward the road. They would be out of range in seconds. Jase willed the agony of his leg from his mind. A single shot would cure nothing, but no one was going to steal his grandchildren and get away unscathed. At least one of the bastards would pay.…

The light was bad, the targets astride hard-running horses, and there was danger of hitting one of the boys. Jase inhaled, held his breath.
Steady … steady
.…

Sparks flashed, the rifle roared, a tongue of flame, followed by a gout of smoke, leaped from the muzzle and obscured the view momentarily before the breeze blew it away. Nothing happened. The riders slowed for the turn onto the main road, and were out of sight within seconds.

Colleen stood motionless, as if turned to stone. Wearily, Jase tried to pull the rifle in the window but it slipped from his fingers. “I missed,” he mumbled as the rifle landed outside with a thud. His face felt sluggish. A black void opened before his eyes and expanded like a huge stain of ink on a blotter. The pain in his leg was a fire that consumed him. “I missed,” he repeated and, unconscious before he landed, slumped to the floor.

Onofre Sanchez cursed his men in Spanish and commanded the dogs and sons of dogs to row faster. Moonlight twinkled on the calm water of the cove a mile north of Brandborough where his ship, tacking back and forth just offshore, awaited the return of its master and cargo. Too confused and exhausted to offer resistance, the boys lay quietly huddled in the bottom of the boat. The raid had been ridiculously simple, and all had gone according to plan. Sanchez had found horses and had discovered the Paxton house with equal ease. A shame the old man had to break a leg, but that made up a little for the loss of Fouchet. What exactly had happened to Fouchet, Sanchez didn't know. He had looked around after the shot and all three men were still following him, but only two had arrived at the cove. It was a pity. Not so much that Fouchet was missing and probably dead, for no man was promised tomorrow, but his loss meant that Fouchet's woman would get triple his share of earnings for this job, which meant less for Sanchez. Such mishaps were to be expected, though. There would be gold enough, and, more important, six months in which to do as he pleased without interference from the English. Not a bad wage for a few weeks of easy sailing and an hour's work.

The shallow water chop lessened beyond the breakers, and the small boat rose and fell over the deeper water's gentle swells. There, coming down on him, was the beautiful shape of his ship, the
Red Dog Song
. It would be good to be aboard and under way again, heading south. “Row, you miserable issue of fish-fed dogs!” he roared, steering a course that would intersect with his ship. “Row, scum, or I'll have your arms for breakfast!”

Yes, a shame about Fouchet. But then, death did come unbidden, like a thief in the night.
One thing I know about is thieves
, Sanchez thought,
thieves and death
. He looked down at the wet and frightened boys lying in the bilge. “But not yours, little ones,” he said aloud, softly. “Not yours.”

CHAPTER VI

The night sky was clear, the moon not yet up. The Big Dipper hung close to the horizon, and Cygnus, the swan, was winging his way toward the southwest through the haze of the Milky Way. It had been a good day. The corn and cotton were in, and the hands had started on the tobacco. The south meadow had been mowed, and the last of the year's hay would be in by Monday or Tuesday if it didn't rain over the weekend. All day long, Tom had moved from field to field, from job to job, working a half-hour here, giving advice there, making decisions, sharing a joke, and generally being a combination of friend, taskmaster, confidant, and overseer. All told, the day confirmed what he had known since he was a child. His pirate great-great-grandparents had been right when they had set free the first slaves they bought, and so began a tradition that had lasted almost a hundred years: that no Paxton would ever own slaves. The Negroes employed by the Paxtons worked for wages and of their own free will. That most were constrained by the very real fear that others might enslave them if they left was beside the point. One did what one believed was right, and if no single person or family could change the world, at least Tom could live with his own conscience. And if Paxton horses were better cared for and Paxton fields were more productive, so much the better. Freedom was right, but happily also profitable, as proved by the family's ledgers. The refusal to hold another human being as chattel was not only good for the conscience, it Was good for business as well.

Maurice had arrived unannounced three days earlier, after having been gone for over a year. On his last trip he'd driven a herd of Paxton mules to Memphis, where he delivered them to Benjamin. There'd been little time for talk between Tom and Maurice during the past two days, but now that the corn was in, Tom felt he could ease off. It was well after dark when supper was finished, and he and Maurice decided that a dip in the pond, along with the jug of beer Maurice had hidden there earlier, was just the medicine they needed. “Where'd you say you put it?” Tom asked.

“'Bout ten feet this side of the dock,” the frontiersman said. “Should be nice and cool by now.”

The pond backed up behind a dam thrown across the creek that ran through the south pasture. Slowly, taking their time, they stood at the water's edge and stripped. Years of hard work had honed Tom's body. Standing exactly six feet tall, he was lean as a whip, wiry, with each muscle sharply defined. Leakey was larger. Two inches over six feet, he was broad in the shoulders and chest and without an ounce of fat. His torso, arms, and legs were massive and chunky but smooth, giving the mistaken impression of softness. He was, in fact, one of those rare men who are not only as strong as mules, but endowed with a quickness that is seldom matched as well as stamina that keeps them going when most others have fallen by the wayside. There had been a time, when Tom was eighteen, that he had thought he could beat Maurice, and had said so in a contemplative sort of way. Maurice had invited him, in just as friendly a manner, to try. Tom remembered his shoulder digging into Maurice's stomach, but that was all. A half-hour later, he'd opened his eyes to see a concerned Maurice looking down at him and bathing his head with a cool cloth. He was sore for a week, and never tried again.

Leakey tested the water with one toe, tentatively stepped in, and felt around with his foot for the jug. “Here 'tis,” he announced, hauling it out. “Feels about right.” Easing gingerly into the water, he jumped up when his bottom hit. “Damn, this stuff's cold!” A white form streaked past him in the dark and hit the water in a shallow dive, drenching him. “Hey! What the hell …?”

Tom swam hard all the way across the pond, rolled onto his back, and took his time returning. “It's not so bad if you jump right in,” he said, propping himself on one elbow in the shallows.

“It's a shock to the system,” Maurice growled. He passed the jug to Tom and lay back with his head on the bank and his legs floating in the dark, cool water.

“My system works just fine, thank you.”

“Yeah? Well, it won't forever.” Maurice shook his head. “A man oughtn't to work out in the heat of the day the way you do, Tom. You make me sweat just watchin' you.”

“Then don't.”

“Pretty hard not to, you slapdashin' all around the place.” He took back the jug, drank deeply, and emitted a long, satisfying belch. “That's civilization, though, I guess.”

“Yup,” Tom agreed, contemplating his toes. “That's civilization. An honest day's work for a day's pay.”

Maurice grunted and passed the jug. “Too damn much work, you ask me.”

“Hell's bells, Maurice. I've seen you go for forty-eight hours straight on the deck of a ship that was pitching like mad in a storm. And I'd wager the mountains have offered you no easy time of it, either.”

“Walked and trotted sixty miles in a day two months ago out in Tennessee with a bunch of heathen Cherokees after me,” Maurice admitted, “but that was different.”

“I'll bet it was.”

“It sure as hell wasn't boring, I'll tell you. Hell, Tom. Think of all the scrapes we pulled each other out of, all them places we went, things we seen.” He sighed and lay back again. “It plumb breaks my heart to see you all civilized and missin' so much fun.”

“Fun for you,” Tom said, laughing. “But not for any sane man.”

Maurice found the polestar, let his eyes wander to the west, where a man was meant to be. “Well, now,” he said softly. “I never did claim to be sane, did I?”

The beer was cool and rich, the water restful and refreshing. The smell of horses and freshly mown hay lay over the land like a blanket into which threads of cricket and night-bird song had been woven. A man could do worse than to lie in a pond and drink beer while he talked to a friend and contemplated the night and the stars after a hard day's work. “You know what?” Tom asked. “I was thinking about that time in—”

“Shhh!” The water sloshed as Leakey came to his feet. His skin white, he stood motionless; only his head moved, turning slowly until he pinpointed the direction from which the sound came.

“What is it?” Tom whispered, rising as quietly as possible.

“Rider. Coming fast for nighttime. Any ideas?”

“None that sound good,” Tom said. “Let's go.”

Taking no time to dry, they pulled on breeches, socks, and boots. Only Maurice had a weapon, a twelve-inch-long double-edged blade that he called his arkansas toothpick and that he'd laid close by on his shirt. The hoofbeats were close enough for Tom to hear now as the horse pounded up the long drive toward the house. Together, Tom and Maurice ran across the field.

“Tom! Tom!”

Lavinia's voice. It had to be bad news. Something from town. One of the twins … both of them.… Tom leaped the fence, ran unheedingly across the remnants of the garden. “Here!” he yelled. “I'm coming!”

A lathered horse stood in front of the porch. Its rider waited next to Lavinia on the top step. “What happened?” Tom asked, gasping, as he joined them.

Neither answered right away. Lavinia looked as if she'd seen a ghost. The man, Emory Pembroke, Jason's stable keeper, stared at Tom with an open mouth.

“Speak up, damn you!” Tom shouted. “What the hell's going on?”

“It … it's the twins, Mr. Paxton,” Emory said. “They've been took, kidnapped by pirates, and Mr. Paxton's leg broke.”

“What?” Tom asked, stepping back as if struck and almost falling down the stairs. “
What?
”

“It's true, sir. Kidnapped by pirates—”

Maurice took charge. He sent Lavinia to find Vestal and have him saddle Tom's clay-colored mare and his own roan gelding. He led Tom upstairs and saw he got into dry breeches and boots and shirt. Ten minutes after they'd received the news, he and Tom were galloping down the drive toward the meadow and beyond, into the darkness of the swamp.

Low in the saddle, racing past the great oaks, they slowed as the land sloped into the swamp. There, where the cypresses blocked out the starlight and the horses' eyes were more to be trusted than their own, they slowed to a walk. The pace was excruciating, but a wise man knows that a horse with a broken leg takes him nowhere. Not soon enough, but eventually, the land rose out of the swamp and the cypresses fell behind, and once again they were racing, now along the low ridge, now through Brandborough, and now, two hours after leaving the plantation, up the drive in a flurry of crushed shell.