Caution to the Wind (American Heroes)

by Mary Jean Adams

  “That he is. Captain Stoakes is his name, but that’s not what his enemies be callin’ him.” Bull’s toothy grin showed a number of gold teeth, but his words were thick with warning.

  “What do his enemies call him?” Amanda asked before she could stop herself.

  “The Sea Wolf.” Bull’s eyes twinkled beneath bushy brows.

  Before Amanda could determine whether the old man was teasing or trying to scare them, Neil chimed in. “Really? How come?”

  He sounded far too enthusiastic for his own good.

  “On account of the way he stalks his prey.” Bull’s voice dropped to a grinding whisper, like the stones of a gristmill. She and Neil leaned in to hear. “Like the wolf, he is bloodthirsty and merciless. No one who is his enemy is safe. Be glad you’re part of his crew.” The acrid smell of tobacco on his breath assailed Amanda’s nose, but she could not muster the will to pull back, opting to hold her breath instead. “But you’d better be careful not to get on his bad side or...” His voice trailed off, leaving them to imagine the unspeakable horrors the Sea Wolf brought down upon those who displeased him.

  The old man paused, and Amanda assumed he had had his fun. Her breath had just returned to her lungs, when he continued, “If there are women or children on the ships he takes,” Bull leaned back and crossed his arms, “well that just don’t matter none. He tosses them over the side and pretends they were never there.” He spat a dark stream at a gull that had wandered close. The bird squawked in distress and hopped sideways to a safer distance. “Well, sometimes he keeps the women for awhile.”

  Amanda scrunched her nose. For a man who hadn’t smiled even once until now, Bull seemed to be grinning a bit too much. Then she remembered the captain’s golden eyes. Hunter’s eyes.

  Maybe he hadn’t been teasing.

  “Well, make your mark,” Bull said, his voice normal as though he had never spoken of the Sea Wolf. He dipped the quill in the inkpot and handed it to Neil.

  Neil signed the book, then passed the quill to Amanda. Amanda held the sharp point above the yellowed parchment, but hesitated. She couldn’t very well sign her real name, but she had never considered, not even once, that she would need a boy’s name in order to complete her disguise.

  “If ya can’t write, ya can just put an X on the line, and that’ll do,” said Bull.

  She cast a glance upward but read nothing of Bull’s earlier mistrust in his grizzled face. He believed her. Either that or he followed the captain’s orders without question. Either way, she was in the clear, for now.

  Turning her attention to the book, she scrawled the first name she thought of in big, bold script...Adam Blakely.

  “Off you go, then.” He waved a dismissive hand toward the narrow boards leading from the dock to the upper deck of the small ship. “Check in with Mr. Smythe when you reach the top. He’ll be showing ya where to stow your things and be explainin’ your duties to ya.”

  Amanda and Neil grabbed their sacks and turned to go. Before starting up the ramp after her brother, she glanced at the page she had just signed. The name of the ship that had become her home ran across the top in large, flowing script. Registry of the Amanda.

  Amanda sucked in a breath. Good omen or bad?

  Neither, she decided, releasing the air from her lungs. Amanda Blakely no longer existed in this new world. From now on, she was Adam Blakely, and she would do well to remember it.

  A tingling in her shoulder reminded her of the man with whom she would be spending the next few months. Nothing in those hard eyes suggested he enjoyed a good ruse. She would need to be especially mindful of her new status around him.

  Amanda gripped the rough rope handhold running along the gangplank with white knuckled fists and trudged up the steep incline. At the top, she stepped over a small rise and onto the deck below. The bustle that greeted her looked more like an anthill than a ship, with all of the worker ants readying themselves for a long winter. Each and every ant knew its job. Not a one shirked his duties.

  “Oh, dear,” Amanda tightened her grip on her canvas sack and pulled it higher onto her shoulder.

  She had forgotten to follow her own plan. The whole idea had been to stop Neil from signing on to a privateer. Yet, she hadn’t even tried. Instead, she had signed the ship’s registry every bit as eagerly as her brother.

  A sailor in striped trousers and canvas shirt shoved her, and she stumbled toward the center of the activity. A circle of other new recruits closed in, blocking her only avenue of escape.

  Chapter Two

  “Well, it is your choice.” Will held up his glass in a half-hearted toast. “And, James, since it is your choice, I wish you every happiness.”

  “Oh, come on, Will,” Captain James Stoddard raised his voice above the groans of the two officers standing behind his chair and the din of the post-suppertime crowd in the small inn’s cozy taproom. Unlike his lieutenants, he had earned the right to call the dreaded Sea Wolf by his first name, and his forthright tone spoke of their long association. “You can do better than that. I’m getting married for God’s sake, not joining the Royal Navy.”

  Will gave a small nod of acknowledgment.

  He opened his mouth to reply, but one of the enthusiastic young lieutenants beat him to it. “I should hope not, sir. Not when we have them right where we want them.”

  The other young officer, emboldened by drink, clapped his friend on the shoulder and spoke as though each syllable presented a bit of a challenge. “You got that right. Our Cont’nental Navy’ll have ’em runnin’ back to ol’ England,” he paused, his blonde brows on a slow march toward the middle of his forehead. Then, slopping beer over the side, he poked his glass in the general direction of England, “tail between their legs.”

  He punctuated his point with a sharp nod, spilling more beer onto his friend’s polished boot.

  Will grunted. “You Navy men are so sure of yourselves. You’ve only been a Navy for what—three years now?” His dismissive shrug pulled at the seams of his blue velvet coat. “Your enemy is the most powerful fleet in the world and has been for almost two hundred years.”

  “Yeeees!” The flickering light from the oil lamp in the middle of the table illuminated a fine spray of spittle. “But you’ve seen how weak they are now. We’ve almost as many ships as they do, and ours are much newer!”

  He leaned forward, propping a fist on the table, and brandished the glass in his other hand as though fighting an unseen enemy. Will watched the golden waves slosh from side to side, hoping the young man would find an even keel before he upended the entire table.

  “No matter how inelegantly my drunken friend makes his point, Captain Stoakes,” the lieutenant beside him righted his friend and cast him a warning glance, “I think he has a good one. The British Navy is weak.”

  “They are tired,” Will interjected before the upstarts could make complete fools of themselves by defending the Continental Navy’s anemic forces.

  “Tired?” James asked.

  Will sighed into his glass, before taking another swallow. His beer had grown warm in the packed tavern, too warm.

  He and James had been friends since serving together in the Royal Navy in the years before the colonies declared their independence from England. The closest thing Will had to a brother, he also admired the man’s sense of duty to God and country. James had proven himself a damned fine officer and loyal to the cause. He continued to serve in the Continental Navy long after Will had had enough.

  Nevertheless, he found himself dismayed at how little some of the Continental Navy officers, even the best fighting captains, could see of the complete canvas of war between nations.

  They saw the power of their ship’s guns. They saw the health of their men. They saw the fullness of their stores. However, rare was the captain who fully understood the political and financial implications of modern warfare. Beyond the bow of their own ship, most were blind.

  Will sighed again, resigned to explaining what should ha
ve been obvious. “Yes. They have been fighting on two continents.” He twisted his glass, making small wet rings on the linen tablecloth. “In Europe they fought the Seven Years War, and here, in America, they fought the French and Indian War.”

  “But they fought the French in both,” the lieutenant argued. “That makes it the same war.”

  “A war fought on two fronts is as good as two wars.” Will’s frown deepened at the bemused look on the faces of his audience. “And with the war fought in America, it might as well have been three.”

  He waited, his gaze roaming from face to face, hoping for a small glimmer of understanding. Only the flame in the oil lamp flickered.

  Perhaps he expected too much. James’s lieutenants couldn’t be much more than twenty. Could either of them remember the savage conflict between the French, their Indian allies and the British? He studied their unlined faces, the vibrant enthusiasm in their eyes and the lack of observable scars that marked so many men tested in battle.

  They had been too young to fight, but perhaps they were old enough to hold at least some memory of the bloody struggle. Those who had been there told the stories of the colonists, many women and children, brutally massacred by Indian tribes with a savagery unimaginable to the regimented British forces. Those who had not seen the bloodshed themselves had certainly heard about it. Subsequent years and multiple retellings had done nothing to diminish the horror.

  “Do you think you’ll ever join the Navy again, sir?” the sober lieutenant asked with polite deference.

  Will knew the young officer referred to the Continental Navy even though the only Navy he had ever officially belonged to had been the Royal Navy. He took a final swig from his glass, grimacing at the bitter tang of the foamy remnants. The sour taste in his mouth matched his mood.

  This was supposed to be a celebration of the betrothal of his closest friend. With the Amanda not ready to sail until tomorrow, he had decided he might as well join James and his officers for a celebration supper at one of the finer inns in the small port town of Baltimore. Although a humble establishment, the Horse Head Inn boasted a card room that readily attracted American privateers, flush with cash from recent prize auctions. Later, they planned to join the tables where they would spend the evening putting considerable sums at risk in the hopes of even more substantial gains.

  Except now, not yet midnight, all Will could think about was how to extricate himself from the betrothal party and return to his ship. He had a new crew waiting for him, and he wanted time to get to know them before they got underway. He needed to take their measure; assess their strength and their heart.

  A pair of emerald green eyes, framed by long lashes, slightly turned up at the corners, flashed in his memory. The boy’s eyes? No, these were not the eyes of an adolescent boy.

  But, if not the boy’s eyes, whose eyes were they? No matter. He shoved the image aside. They were probably the eyes of some long-forgotten paramour, the kind of entangling connection he could mercifully cast aside once his Amanda weighed anchor.

  Will raised his glass to his lips, then remembering he had already drained it, set it down with a thud. Looking about for a barmaid, he realized his companions seemed to be waiting for a response.

  “No,” Will said, answering the lieutenant’s question, “I don’t think I’ll be joining the Navy again.” Continental or Royal.

  “Of course not.” The drunken officer teetered, catching himself just in time. “Money’s better as a pirate.”

  Will gave the man a look intended to make it clear to even the most inebriated of the group that he had overstepped his bounds. The young officer flushed to the tips of his ears and took a swig of ale. Foam dripped from the ends of his wiry, blonde moustache when he finally pulled his face out of his glass.

  “Ah, yes, well I think I’ll see what kind of ac—” the lieutenant’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat, “action I can find at the tables.”

  “I’ll join you.” The other officer clasped his friend about the shoulders and ushered him away from the two captains who remained seated.

  “Seriously, Will,” James said once they were alone, “we could use a man like you in the Continental Navy. With your skills, your reputation...your luck. Sailors would be signing up in droves.”

  Will caught the eye of a girl of no more than seventeen or eighteen. Carrying several pints of beer in her sturdy hands, she wove her way through the crowded taproom until she reached the table next to them. She flashed him a crooked toothed grin over one shoulder, then set her burden down in front of a table full of young merchants who seemed as interested in her as the brew. She said something to them that made them laugh, with the exception of the one who appeared to be the youngest. His face took on the appearance of a ripe persimmon.

  Turning, she wiped red, wet hands on a stained apron.

  “Get you another one, Captain?” Her brown eyes roamed over Will’s well-tailored form with obvious appreciation.

  Noting the lines at the corners of her eyes when smiled, Will reassessed his initial impression of the girl’s age. Not so young as he first thought. Old enough to have the experience of a woman, yet young enough to give the impression of innocence.

  She leaned forward, far more than necessary, to take his glass.

  Well, almost innocent.

  “No, but thank you. That will be all. For now.”

  The barmaid gave a throaty chuckle and regarded him through her lashes. “Well now, Captain, you just let me know when you might be needin’ something else.”

  She sashayed toward the taps, holding their empty glasses in her hands, her skirts swishing from the exaggerated sway of her hips.

  James rolled his eyes, cleared his throat, and turned back to Will. “Forget the Navy, Will. When will you realize the sea does not offer everything a man needs?”

  “I have everything I need.” Will said, staring at the woman’s voluptuous backside even while his mind strayed to thoughts of his ship.

  James glanced over his shoulder, then leaned forward. “You know what I mean,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper.

  Will turned his full attention to his friend. “Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

  Of course, he did. This was hardly the first time James had lectured him on the need for a wife.

  The barmaid glanced up from refilling a glass at the tap and caught Will’s gaze. She dipped her eyes until her long lashes brushed her cheeks. A knowing smile touched her lips.

  Hell! What had made him say something to give her false hope?

  “I am not talking about companionship of that sort,” James protested, bringing Will’s gaze back once again to his friend’s earnest, but annoyed face. James ran his hand through his hair, his fingers leaving furrows in his brown locks. “Look, Will, our work is dangerous. Our lives may be short. I want you to find the same kind of happiness I’ve found with Isabella in whatever time you have left.” He paused, “Isa has a cousin who has come to visit—”

  “Perhaps I will find it tonight,” Will interrupted his friend before he could hear, again, all about Isabella’s wonderful cousin. It seemed Isabella had an unending supply of cousins, all fresh from Spain and in search of husbands.

  He heartily approved of his friend’s choice of a bride, the small, dark-haired and quite delectable Isabella. The two had overcome their initial differences, her hot temper and James’s colder English demeanor, and settled down to a largely peaceful courtship that eventually ensnared his best friend. Of course, James’s work kept him at sea most of the time so he didn’t expect he and his young bride would see much of each other, at least not until the war ended.

  Will coughed into his hand to hide a cynical chuckle. The end of the war may bring peace to America, but perhaps not to his friend.

  “Whoring is still more your style, I suppose,” said James, giving the barmaid a disapproving glare when she bent forward to serve another round of ale, the rough fabric of her skirt accentuating her plump, inviting derriere.
>
  Will made a show of studying the woman. “I doubt she is a whore.”

  At least she wouldn’t be with him. Women never named a price before they shared his bed, and they never asked for a thing afterwards. And Will never offered. He would take what they willingly gave, but he wouldn’t be the one to turn them into whores.

  Now, with the passing of the years, this little game of self-absolution wore thin. Occasionally, he felt guilty about using the women, despite their willingness. It left him disgusted with them and his needs never fully sated regardless of their expertise and his physical fulfillment.

  This time, maybe he would pay her but not bed her. He still wouldn’t be turning her into a whore, and she’d get something out of it. It would be a refreshing change.

  He tossed some coins on the table and said his goodbyes to his friend before signaling for his coat. On his way out, he caught the girl’s eye with a look that promised he’d be back sooner or later.

  Stepping into the darkness and a cold spring drizzle, he knew he never would.

  ****

  “Well, Captain.” A tall man with a refined bearing and a crisp New England accent came to stand beside Will at the ship’s stern. “Our fresh water stores are replenished, we are just about re-supplied and the men have all reported to duty. We shall be ready to sail on the evening tide.”

  “It’s about time, Buck,” Will grumbled, watching the loading of the last of the stores, an interminably slow business.

  He clasped his hands behind his back, one tight fist firmly locked in the palm of his other hand, and watched two sailors struggle to carry a crate of chickens up the steep slope of the gangplank. The birds flapped about with such fury that the sailor who had the misfortune of being in the lead and walking backwards stumbled and fought to keep his balance.

  “Careful there!” a corpulent man in a white butcher’s apron yelled from behind the men “or ya’ll be drowning the Captain’s breakfast, and I’ll be sending ya in after it.”