by Pam Hillman
“Hurry, Lydia.”
Paddling the small flatboat they’d unearthed did little to hasten their progress, but finally they rounded the bend, and she gawked at the sight laid out before her.
A whorl of flatboats and rafts all tethered together rocked and bucked as men stumbled for footing on the uneven surfaces. Sparks flew from the clash of weapons, and the grunts and groans of those fighting mixed with the screams of the injured. A splash resounded as someone fell into the river.
She tried to make sense of what was happening.
“It is as I feared,” Lydia whispered. “Micaiah is no fool. He would have had lookouts posted, watching the river. Our men had little chance of succeeding.”
Horrified at the scene before her, all Alanah could do was stand and stare. At the forefront of the timber raft, Caleb would have been the first to encounter the pirates. Alanah’s lips moved, but no sound came out.
Please, Lord, no. Not Caleb. Don’t let him be dead. I can’t bear —
“Get down.” Lydia jerked her down to lie flat on their raft. “We cannot be seen. There’s Betsy to think of.”
Coming out of her stupor, Alanah grabbed one of the sweeps and helped Lydia steer the small flatboat into the side channel. Lydia was right. They’d come to get Betsy, and she couldn’t let the fighting on this side of the island deter her from that goal.
“She will be in camp,” she whispered. “We’ll ease into the channel and pray no one notices us.”
Hugging the shadows along the shoreline, they let their raft drift between Cottonmouth Island and the mainland. The water here was shallow, but their raft had little draft to it. They skimmed along the surface easy as could be.
The towering trees and low-lying fog blocked much of the light from the moon, and Alanah squinted as they floated silently along, the sounds of fighting growing fainter. The narrow channel widened, the ebb and flow of the current cutting into the outer bank on the Louisiana side of the river, the inside curve leaving an exposed sandbar on the island side. A hodgepodge of dilapidated flatboats lay beached, half in the water, half out. But no one guarded the boats. And why should they post a watch here?
There was no need to suspect anyone would dare be caught in the very mouth of the pirates’ lair.
Their raft slid past the makeshift landing, and Alanah didn’t turn in until they’d gone another hundred yards, where the bank rose up out of the water and the underbrush hung low. Without discussion, she and Lydia snugged the small craft close to land and tied it off.
They climbed the bank, then crouched, getting their bearings. Before the river pirates had discovered the island and claimed it for their own, she and Lydia had harvested medicinal herbs from the island, always watchful of the cottonmouths sunning on the sandbars.
But tonight was not the night to be squeamish of snakes.
Other than to search for Betsy, she hadn’t returned, but there was only one place with elevation high enough that anybody with any sense would set up a permanent camp. Micaiah was a lot of things, but dull-witted wasn’t one of them.
She touched Lydia’s arm, then set off toward the highest point on the island.
Jude woke to pitch-darkness, his mouth tasting like cotton, his insides on fire.
He lay there, trying to get his bearings. What had happened and where was he?
He moved his hand, felt the cold, hard-packed earth beneath his fingertips.
The cellar.
The dank earth closed in around him, and like Jonah, he was in the pit of despair. He heard the drip of water, and he groaned with longing. Just one drop of the water that trickled along the back wall of the cellar would slake his thirst, but he lacked the strength to crawl to the seep.
After drifting in and out of consciousness for . . . he knew not how long —he’d resigned himself to the fact that no one was coming. Perhaps his nieces were dead or captives of the murderous swine that roamed the land.
He’d preached to those men, told them of the wrath of God to come, but what had happened? Nothing. They’d continued to flourish as they wallowed in their sin, and he and his were left to die in their piety.
“What do You want from me, God?” His voice was hardly more than a croak.
Cry against the wicked.
“To what end? So that the inhabitants of Natchez Under-the-Hill can gut me as they gutted my brother-in-law? So that as I lay dying, praying for their souls, like my brother-in-law, they can strip me of anything with the least amount of value? Better that they are destroyed, as you destroyed those wicked cities in the days of Lot.”
Cry against the wicked.
“I cannot. I will not.” Jude’s anger was kindled anew, and like the men of old, he would have smitten his breast, had he the strength to do so. “My wife, my children, my nieces, all gone, taken from me by this savage land and the vile men who inhabit it. All that is left is my life, and that as good as dead.”
The silence surrounding him was broken only by the incessant drip in the far reaches of the earthen hole.
His meager strength spent arguing with God, Jude fought to remain conscious. Why, he didn’t know. Wouldn’t it be better to quit fighting, give in to the darkness, and simply pass into eternity?
As he hovered between wakefulness and oblivion, he was transported back to his youth, to the brush arbor meeting where a fire-and-brimstone preacher had talked of far-distant lands and the dark and lonely souls who begged for salvation. The man had talked of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the Prodigal Son. If but one repented, he said, all toil and tribulation would be worth it. And Jude remembered the vows he’d made that night. Vows to go wherever God sent him, to pull one lost soul from the very pits of hell.
Would he have made such a vow if he’d known what God would ask of him? Nay! Where was the one soul he’d vowed to save? Had there been one? Who, Lord?
If but one . . .
“Who, Lord?” he croaked. “Who?”
Chapter 27
CALEB’S SHOT had missed its mark when the rafts shifted.
And when he looked again, Micaiah Jones was gone. But he couldn’t be worried over the pirate leader at the moment. He had more pressing matters to attend to.
As the battle raged around him, he squared off with a cutthroat crouched before him, a wicked-looking blade in the man’s hand. Caleb had fought his share of violent men intent on taking his life, and this one would be no different. One of them would come out victorious; the other would die. It was the way of the underworld of cutthroats and highwaymen, rogues and pirates.
Either kill or be killed.
As they circled, his opponent’s eyes shifted left, then right. What had drawn his attention? Caleb had learned to ignore the sounds of battle around him, but he snapped out of the single-minded focus that had kept him alive all these years.
Tiberius, knife drawn, and Moses, wielding a bloody ax, flanked him.
They’d come to his aid, and Caleb realized the clash of blades and the reverberations of shots being fired had become sporadic. He glanced around and spotted the loggers rounding up their captives.
A surge of relief, not pleasure —he found no pleasure in killing —swept over him. It seemed the loggers had gained the upper hand. Perhaps the element of surprise or their sheer numbers had swayed the fight in their favor. Or possibly Mr. Horne’s prayers. Regardless . . .
“Do you surrender?”
With one glance at Moses’s ax, the man tossed his knife away, the blade clattering against the timber raft. Moses grabbed the river pirate and led him away. Tiberius sheathed his long, curved knife and followed, taking account of their losses.
Stomach churning, Caleb surveyed the carnage. After more battles than he could count, he never got used to it. He took a deep breath. With the river pirates subdued, the inhabitants of Cypress Creek and the surrounding areas would be safe. There would be less bloodshed, more families.
And . . . he wanted to be part of one of those families. With a home of his own, a wife
, children. With tawny eyes and golden hair. Even if Jude went north, there was no need in Alanah going, not if she were married to him.
Suddenly he couldn’t wait to find her sister, get back to camp, and —
“Caleb, I need ya.”
He pivoted, saw Quinn bending over William, ripping away the man’s blood-soaked breeches. Caleb crouched next to them. “How bad is it?”
“I’ll live. I always do.”
Caleb arched a brow. “Sounds as if ya’ve been wounded before.”
“Every time I meet up with one of you O’Sheas, it’s inevitable that I get shot or stabbed.” William winced when Quinn probed his leg. He tapped his stomach. “First, I got stabbed here at Brice’s Tavern with Connor. Then shot in the head when highwaymen kidnapped Isabella —”
“Shot in the head? And you survived?” Caleb couldn’t keep the shock from his voice.
“He’s got a hard head, he has.”
“The bullet just grazed me.” William rubbed the side of his head. “I was beaten to a pulp just before the tornado ripped Braxton Hall apart and —” William squinted at Quinn —“beaten again trying to help Quinn rescue Kiera from Le Bonne.”
“Le Bonne?”
As Quinn scowled at the name, William waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s a long story. Anyway, I should have known better than to think I could just float on down the river with my cotton and the timber unscathed if an O’Shea was within a hundred miles of me.”
“Ya do seem prone t’ getting into scrapes, William. Ya should stick closer t’ home.”
“Yes, that is my plan from now on. Close to home and as far away from you O’Sheas as humanly possible.”
Quinn chuckled, and Caleb had the feeling his brother didn’t believe a word of it.
A shadow fell over them. Tiberius with his report. The Moor spoke, his voice devoid of emotion. “We lost five men. Many injured. Two unaccounted for.”
Caleb eyed the murky water. Bodies that would probably never be found. God rest their souls.
“And the pirates?”
“Eleven dead, seven captured, two who will not live to see another day. There is no accounting for how many fell overboard, either dead or alive.”
“And what o’ Micaiah Jones?”
“He is not among the dead or the living.” Tiberius’s black eyes scanned the river. “Perhaps he fell in the river.”
“Perhaps.” But Caleb’s instincts told him otherwise. “Divide the men. Half keep watch and half bury the dead. Then cast off and head for Natchez.”
“Cast off?” William struggled to sit up. “What of the girl?”
“I’ll see t’ the girl.” Caleb motioned to the flatboats abandoned on the sandbar. “There are plenty o’ boats here for the taking. We’ll catch up.”
A commotion onshore had Caleb drawing his pistol, the other survivors crouching as they palmed their weapons. Were they to be attacked yet again?
Skirts billowing behind her, a tall, robust woman burst from the tree line, half-carrying, half-dragging another female. The women staggered toward the jumble of rafts grounded on the sandbar.
Lydia? And Betsy?
Caleb jumped off the raft, Tiberius not far behind. They rushed forward, and Caleb took Betsy as Tiberius lifted Lydia as if she weighed no more than a feather.
Lydia’s gaze met his, the fear in the dark depths piercing his soul.
“Alanah. Micaiah is after Alanah.”
Keep coming, Micaiah. Keep coming.
Alanah broke from cover and raced away, making enough noise that Micaiah was sure to follow. She heard him crashing through the forest, chasing her like a deranged bear. She zigzagged down a bank, ran along a sandy beach, and dove into the forest again. Leading him farther away from the direction Lydia and Betsy had gone.
Ten minutes later, she hunkered down in the shadows beneath a massive oak and deliberately slowed her breathing. Not a sound disturbed the predawn hours, save the nocturnal creatures that went about their business. Crickets chirped, a whip-poor-will called, and the occasional splash resounded. Whether the sounds came from a fish jumping, a snake capturing a frog, or nothing more than a dead limb falling into the river, she couldn’t tell.
But one thing was for sure. She’d managed to lose Micaiah in the darkness.
And that was the last thing she wanted.
Had he given up the chase? Alanah’s heart thudded as another thought ricocheted through her brain. Or had he figured out that he’d been hoodwinked and gone after Lydia and Betsy instead?
On her own, Lydia might be able to avoid detection, but not with Betsy in tow.
Betsy had been practically comatose when they found her. Not injured, just not all there. After a cursory examination, Lydia had assured Alanah that she’d be fine with time. Alanah prayed it was so. They were still inside the cabin when Micaiah returned, yelling for Betsy to get out there.
Alanah had done the only thing she knew to do. She’d darted out of the cabin, and as expected, Micaiah had taken up the chase, bellowing with rage.
She eased out of her hiding place and retraced her steps, determined to keep him occupied as long as it took. She wouldn’t take chances, but she’d use herself as bait if it meant Betsy would be free. She’d never dreamed she’d be stalking Micaiah Jones when she’d made the decision to rescue Betsy. All she could think of at the time was that Caleb and the other men would have too much on their minds to worry about her sister.
Moving stealthily through the forest, focusing on the sights and sounds around her, she prayed that Lydia and Betsy had made it to safety. But was there safety on the other side of the island? Surely if Micaiah’s men had been successful in routing Caleb and the others, all of them would have returned to their camp flush with victory. Instead, she’d seen only one man —Micaiah.
Did that mean he’d abandoned the others in the heat of battle?
If it came to it, he would. She swallowed the disgusted snort that threatened to erupt. Micaiah looked out for himself, and if that meant saving his skin over anybody else’s, there was no question what he’d do.
Without encountering a soul, she retraced her steps, skirted the ramshackle huts, and made her way to the highest point on the island. Crouching, she could see snatches of the moonlit river through the trees. By her calculations, the northern tip, where the fighting had taken place, was about a mile upstream, the abandoned camp a half mile behind her. There had been plenty of time for Lydia and Betsy to make it by now.
But what of Micaiah? Had he completely abandoned the search and escaped by raft or gone across the channel to lose himself in the wilds of Louisiana? Was he even yet still on the island? As terrible as it would be to have him return someday to exact his revenge, she prayed he’d taken the coward’s way out and fled.
She tried not to think about whether Caleb, Quinn, Tiberius, and the others had survived the fight, but their fate —along with Betsy and Lydia’s —lay heavy on her mind.
When Micaiah held Betsy captive, she hoped and prayed that her sister would return, but as time passed, she’d held out little faith she’d ever see Betsy again or even that she might still be alive. And while she didn’t wish her uncle ill, she knew she couldn’t depend on him to be around to help in an emergency. Her life consisted of keeping herself and Lydia alive in a place that had become a den of cutthroats. Her goal had been to simply survive day by day, keep body and soul together, nothing more, nothing less.
But then Caleb had shown up. Caleb, with the same rough edges as the river pirates, but an honor that defied their fiendish cruelty. And as Kiera had assured her, Caleb was a man who had shown that he would risk life and limb for her and her sister.
Tears pricked her eyes, and she suddenly wanted to be safe on the timber raft with the loggers, with Betsy and Lydia and with Caleb.
She started to ease out of her hiding place, then froze as movement on the river caught her eye. Slowly, like sap rising, the massive timber raft loaded with bales of cotton glided ar
ound the bend. Four smaller flatboats followed close behind, like sentinels keeping watch.
Her thoughts collided and fought for attention even as her heart turned to lead inside her chest.
Who was manning the rafts, and were Lydia and Betsy on board?
As soon as the flatboats disappeared around the bend, Caleb gathered his weapons and slipped into the trees. Lydia had told him to head for the highest point on the island, and he couldn’t miss Micaiah’s lair. As he climbed, he caught glimpses of the timber raft through the gaps in the trees, flanked by the flatboats they’d confiscated from the pirates, the entire flotilla meandering peacefully toward the middle of the river as if there hadn’t just been a bloodbath on Cottonmouth Island.
Betsy and Lydia were on one of those boats, with Tiberius and the crew charged with seeing them safely back to camp along with William and the other injured. They’d angle across the river, make landfall a half mile or so downstream, then hike back up.
Quinn had insisted on going downriver with the logs, the cotton, and the captured river pirates.
His brother, the landlubber, in charge of a flotilla of flatboats, logs, cotton, and prisoners. But the raftsmen they’d hired in Natchez knew the river, and they’d proven their loyalty this night. By God’s grace and mercy, they’d make it to Natchez without further incident.
Caleb had his own duty to fulfill. He turned away, followed the faint smell of woodsmoke wafting through the underbrush, and soon crouched on the outskirts of the camp. Empty, save for a couple of chickens pecking at the ground and the remains of a fire that had almost burned itself out.
Had Micaiah taken Alanah and made a run for it?
He eased back into the shadows, hunkered down next to a massive tree. It would be daylight soon, and he had no hope of finding Alanah now, unless —
His next thought turned his stomach. He’d seen what Micaiah had done to Betsy —the shell of a woman-child left behind. Would he take Alanah on the spot, kill her, and leave her body on this island for the scavengers to find? Or spirit her away to some place where Caleb would never find her?