Curse Of The Spanish Gold (The Mountain Men Book 2)

by Terry Grosz

  When the end of spring came, the escape plan was bearing fruit. Martin had talked to Ran Slaten and found a more-than-willing ally. Jacob had discovered that Bill Black was a true and determined partner in the mutiny and, as John Paul had said, an ex-ship’s master who was more than qualified to navigate the Sea Witch back to San Francisco. Martin had met with Leo Suazo and found that him to be a rather stout fellow also ready to join the plot. Suazo told Martin outright that he alone would be the one to kill the first mate because of all the old scores he had to settle with the man. Now all the seven men needed was the right opportunity, and then hell would come riding in on a black horse even though they were at sea...

  For the next thirty days, the ship’s company was stirred into action. The captain wanted to clean out the sea otters from the southern reaches of California, offload in Monterey, resupply, and head for the waters off Alaska to hunt fur seals and kill more sea otters. Jacob and Martin saw to it that sea otters flowed rapidly into the ship so they could get on with their plans. Finally the ship was more than full of curing otter hides and casks of the valuable marine-mammal oils.

  With a freshening wind, the Sea Witch turned north to begin her trip to Monterey. However, it was not to be a fast trip. The next day, the ship was buffeted by intense northerly winds and late-spring storms and was soon blown five hundred miles off course. Finally the weather relented, and with strong southerly winds, the Sea Witch arrived in the port of Monterey a month and a half later than planned.

  Upon their arrival, they found that all the dock space was taken up by other seagoing vessels, so the Sea Witch had to anchor slightly off the end of the pier, and the crew had to ferry all their oil casks and sea-otter pelts to the docks by longboat. Several weeks of backbreaking work transpired, and at the end of each day, Jacob, Martin, and Cain were chained below decks to prevent them from slipping over the side and swimming to shore.

  One evening, the captain, having been paid for his cargo, returned rip-roaring drunk to the Sea Witch. With him he carried a heavy wooden strongbox. The chief boatswain’s mate and the first mate joined him, and it soon became apparent that none of them were feeling any pain as the drinking continued. However, the first mate wisely didn’t join the captain and trusted members of his crew until Jacob, Martin, and Cain had been chained to the ship’s timbers in the hold.

  Realizing the time for escape was right, Martin retrieved the hidden tools and began quietly filing through the chains that held his brother and him to the ship’s massive framing. Laying a heavy rag over the action dulled the filing sounds as Randy, John, Leo, and Bill Black made their way into the hold. All carried knives stolen from the galley and quietly waited for the brothers to free themselves. Once that was done, they filed the chains off Cain’s ankles.

  Jacob placed his index finger against his lips to indicate silence, and the seven men quietly climbed out of the hold and squatted on the deck until their eyes adjusted to the dim evening light. Using hand signals to show that he was carrying out the next step in the plan, Bill crept over to the hatch leading down to the crew’s quarters. Quietly lowering the hatch cover over the snoring men sleeping below, he latched it with a locking iron pin so no one could come up. Then he padded soundlessly, back to the group of men waiting in the shadows below the bridge. From there, John Paul made his way to the ship’s lookout, and soon a soft thud told everyone that his belaying pin had found its mark. Rejoining his mates, John Paul signaled the fate of the lookout with a finger run across his throat. Then Ran Slaten silently padded across the deck and crawled up the stairs to the bridge, and soon they heard the dead body of the helmsman hitting the water. Slaten lashed the wheel of the ship and returned to his shipmates on the main deck. With that, the seven men made their way to the door of the captain’s cabin and paused. Inside, they could hear a wild party going on over the prices the oil and sea otter pelts had brought. It was apparent that the rum was now flowing freely among the trusted members of the captain’s crew.

  Throwing the door open suddenly, Cain burst into the cabin, heading for the captain’s dinner table, which was bathed in the soft glow of several candles and surrounded by eight men drinking heavily and laughing loudly. The laughter stopped immediately as the seven men from outside surged in. Without a moment’s hesitation, Leo Suazo sprinted across the floor and into the surprised arms of the first mate. There was a soft groan as Leo thrust his knife deeply into the first mate’s heart, followed by a loud crash as Leo’s momentum carried both men away from the captain’s dinner table and onto the floor. Boom went one of the captain’s Remington .44-caliber black-powder pistols, hitting Cain dead center in his upper chest. Cain slumped to the deck, and before the captain could get off another shot, Martin was on him in all his anger. Jacob and Bill Black hit the beefy chief boatswain’s mate at the same time, and all three men sailed across the floor and into the wall in a human ball of fury. John Paul broke out an able seaman’s teeth with the swing of his belaying pin, and when the man grabbed his mouth in agony, that same club found the back of his head, spilling his brains all over the floor. Ran Slaten jumped over the captain’s overturned table and sailed into a group of surprised able seamen, slashing wildly at numerous faces with his knife as he went. Rising from his pile, Jacob in a frenzy lifted the chief boatswain’s mate clear off the floor and smashed him in the face with a crushing right fist. The man, although he had been hit with a fist holding the power of an angry mule’s kick and then slammed to the floor, scrambled back to his feet in an instant like a crazed animal. He let out a loud roar of anger and tackled Jacob in his midsection. Both men slammed to the floor, and then the chief boatswain’s mate moved no more as Bill Black, in one fell swoop, grabbed his long hair, jerked his head violently back, and slit his throat. Lying underneath the dying man, Jacob was drenched with his blood. Boom—boom went more shots from pistols fired by the clump of sailors huddled in terror in the corner of the captain’s cabin, held there by the knife-slashing Ran Slaten. One shot went into Ran’s leg as he finished off one able seaman on the floor with a knife thrust to his throat, and the other sailed harmlessly into the main beam running the length of the cabin. In an instant, a revived Cain, Jacob, and Leo hurled into the three remaining sailors, killing all with knife thrusts to their vitals. Rising slowly with only a knife slash across his ribs, Martin viewed his work with satisfaction. The captain lay lifeless on the floor with a twisted grin on his face and a broken neck to match. Then all was quiet except for the heavy breathing of the survivors. That was followed by yelling and banging under the deck hatch from the rest of the crew. A crew who and had been roused by the violent sounds of shooting and fighting only to find themselves trapped below decks.

  “Everyone okay?” said Jacob as he placed a lighted candle on the now upright table.

  “I’m fine,” Martin answered quietly, happy to see that his brother was also all right.

  “I hurt like hell,” replied Cain, “but the bastard only shot me in the muscular part of my chest. I don’t think the bullet went any further than my breastbone, thank God.” He slowly got up from the floor and eased himself into a chair.

  “I hurt like hell also,” said Ran Slaten, “but the bullet that hit my leg didn’t break any bones. It just ran down the full length of the bone and out the heel, so I think I am all right.”

  “I am fine as frog hair,” Bill Black said happily, “especially since I got to kill that son of a bitch who made my life so miserable.”

  Leo said something in Spanish, and Jacob said teasingly, “Leo, you are in America. As long as you are in this country, you have to speak American.”

  “I am fine, chief,” said Leo, but that was followed by more Spanish, obviously a friendly insult hurled Jacob’s way.

  “John Paul, how you doing?” asked Jacob.

  “Like Leo said, boss, I couldn’t be finer since I now am a free man to do as I please.”

  An hour later, when things had settled down and the seven men had armed themselve
s from the ship’s gun locker, they opened the hatch leading to the crew’s quarters. Out stormed the thirteen remaining crewmen, only to be faced by seven determined and heavily armed men, one of whom was pointing the swivel cannon at the crew from the bridge above.

  Without looking over his shoulder at Leo, who stood ready at the swivel cannon, Jacob said, “Leo, if they get out of hand, shoot down the lot of them!”

  Those words and the determined faces of the men awaiting them on the main deck quelled the feelings of the remaining crew except for a few grumbles.

  “Men, we seven stand before you as shanghaied members of the crew. All of us were removed from our lives, but now we have taken them back by the same force that took us. The captain and his loyal crew are all dead and no longer a threat to any of us. With that in mind, are there any of you who would care to throw in your lot with us?”

  It was a long moment after those words were spoken before anyone answered, and then an able seaman known as Ross, a known troublemaker, said, “None of us want this rotten fish you have given us. A ship’s mutiny is a hanging offense in this country. So you can take your offer and stick it.”

  “Is that how the rest of you feel?” asked Jacob.

  No one moved or spoke, so Jacob said, “That be fine with us, men. All of you will return below decks, and if anyone tries to escape or cause trouble, he will be killed just as dead as your captain and his body tossed overboard for the sharks.”

  With more grumbling, the men shuffled belowdecks to their quarters, and the mutineers pinned the hatch cover shut once again to prevent escape from below.

  Gathering the seven men around him, Jacob said, “Bill, you take the helm. The rest of us will quietly slip farther out to sea under reduced sail so as not to cause any suspicion. Once out to sea, we will increase sail and set a course north toward San Francisco. However, before we get there, we will release the rest of the crew in longboats along the coast in some deserted area between Monterey and Frisco. By the time they get back to civilization and raise the alarm, we will be in Frisco, off this bloody ship, and long gone. Any questions?” Not hearing any, Jacob went on, “Then let’s get cracking and get the hell out of here before anyone on shore is any the wiser!”

  Slowly the Sea Witch moved offshore and into the ever-present fog bank off the coast of California. Bill set the ship’s course north toward San Francisco under reduced sail as Jacob had the assistant ship’s carpenter come forth from the hold. Once the man was on deck, Jacob ordered him to tend to Cain’s and Ran’s wounds. In a matter of moments, he had dug the flattened bullet out of Cain’s chest. He offered the information that Cain had a cracked sternum, which although painful would probably heal. Then the assistant ship’s carpenter cleaned out Ran’s bullet hole, poured the wound channel full of whiskey from the captain’s stores, and bound it tightly with a piece of clean gun cotton. He was escorted back belowdecks, and the hatch to the crew hold was again locked and guarded by an armed man.

  Once safely away from the harbor and miles out to sea, Martin and Jacob hurled the bodies of the captain, the chief boatswain’s mate, the first mate, and their henchmen into the sea. Since sharks usually followed in the wake of the ship, the men were assured that any evidence of the killings would soon be lost to Davy Jones’s locker.

  The following day, Jacob had Bill put into a quiet, uninhabited bay along the California coast south of San Francisco. As the untrustworthy crew members got into two longboats, Jacob came forth from the captain’s cabin. Carrying a wooden chest, obviously heavy with gold coin, he paused at the rail.

  “Men,” he shouted, “we found the take from our several voyages in the captain’s cabin from the sale of sea-otter pelts and oil. I have counted out each man’s share according to rank and service. Each of you will find that share in individual canvas sacks with your name pinned to the bags. I have also split up the share from the dead men and included that in your bags. Bill Black tells me that according to our charts, there is a small harbor town ten miles to the northwest along the coast. I suggest you head that way, and you will be there sometime tomorrow or the next day. Good luck, men, and Godspeed.”

  He handed the heavy chest down to one of the boats’ coxswains. Then the men pushed off, happily talking among themselves about their good fortune in finally getting paid their rightful shares.

  Quietly pulling in among the dozens of abandoned sailing ships in San Francisco Bay whose crews had deserted so they could work the gold fields, the Sea Witch dropped anchor several days later. Waiting until dark, the seven men left the ship in a longboat pulling for the docks of San Francisco. They quietly landed at the end of a series of docks, and Leo disembarked as planned, disappearing into the dark of the night. An hour later, he arrived back at the docks driving a heavy wagon with a span of horses that he had rented from a liveryman in the city. The men climbed into the straw-filled wagon box after loading over $90,000 in gold coin from their labors as sea-otter hunters and one set of saddlebags still full of gold nuggets that had been taken from the brothers when they had been shanghaied almost a year before.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Homeward Bound

  It had been over a year since Jacob and Martin had left Sierra Valley. As they made their ways back toward Sutter’s Fort to reclaim their already-paid-for cattle, hogs, and high walled wagons, Jacob turned in his saddle and had to smile. Behind him rode Bill Black, Ran Slaten, Leo Suazo, John Paul, Cain, and Martin. Aside from his brother and Cain, Jacob had expected the other men to return to their seafaring lives. But to his happy surprise, all of them had decided they wanted to remain with Jacob and Martin and see if they wanted to settle down as ranchers and farmers in Sierra Valley.

  The California sun and the soft blue sky greeted him as he turned back in his saddle and headed northeast toward Sacramento and Sutter’s Fort, and he silently gave heartfelt thanks for their survival during the past year.

  “Veil, I be a son of a monkey’s uncle!” came the heavily Swiss-accented voice of John Sutter as he entered the room in which the brothers waited at his fort. “Vere haff you two been? I already giff you up for lost ven you didn’t return in two veeks like you said.”

  “It is a long story, Mr. Sutter, but suffice to say we both were shanghaied and put to work on a vessel hunting sea otters and seals along the coast of California. But that escapade is now ancient history as far as we are concerned. We are here to pick up our cattle, hogs, and wagons so we can return home,” said Jacob.

  “Veil, you two look none the vorse for vear, so let’s get down to business,” answered Sutter with a big grin and a friendly wave of his massive, paw-like hand.

  One week later the seven men were pushing a herd of cattle and dairy cows toward Sutter’s Hock Farm. During the week they had waited for Sutter to round up their cattle, the men had shopped in nearby Sacramento for the staples they thought the valley residents would be able to use in the season ahead as well as purchasing the newest in rifles and pistols because theirs had been lost. They filled four of their remaining eight wagons with those goods and staples. The saddlebags full of gold nuggets that they had retrieved from the captain’s cabin just about paid for everything. And they still had $90,000 in silver and gold coins and California Territorial gold slugs taken from the ship after the deadly battle for their freedom. Additionally, Sutter lent the men six Mexican cowboys from his vast holdings to help in the cattle drive.

  Arriving two days later at Sutter’s Hock Farm near Marysville, the men lined their remaining four high-walled wagons deeply with straw. Then they loaded their hogs and bags of feed into them for transport to the ranches in Sierra Valley. Sutter had warned Jacob and Martin that to trail the hogs along with the cattle would invite trouble. He felt the area they were going into was still full of grizzly bears, mountain lions, and gray wolves. Under such conditions, he felt that trailing the slow-moving hogs would invite heavy predation and losses. But Jacob and Martin decided to go ahead after hiring four more Mexican labo
rers from the hock farm to drive the wagons and tend to the pigs and a fifth to drive the chuck wagon and act as the group’s cook. The following morning, the men began their long trek back up over the Beckwourth Trail leading back towards their ranches in Sierra Valley.

  Trailing the herd across the Sacramento Valley was easy, and the group of men made good time. Their first trouble occurred just east of Oroville as they headed for Bidwell’s Bar and mining camp. Stopping one evening high up on a ridge overlooking the Feather River, the men were preparing for their evening meal when several shots rang out near where the herd was grazing. Racing to the scene, Jacob and Martin discovered several Mexican herders standing guard over two sad-looking California Maidu Indians. It seemed that the Indian camp was down along the Feather River, and the lowing of the cattle had brought the Maidu men to investigate. Coming across a feeding steer, they had shot it with their bow and arrows and prepared to carry it back in pieces to their band. However, before they could accomplish their mission, they had been discovered by the Mexican cowboys, who were now prepared to kill them. With the arrival of Jacob and Martin, the cowboys backed off, and the brothers looked down on the obviously very poor examples of hungry Maidu humanity.

  “Does anyone speak their lingo?” asked Martin.

  “I do, señor,” responded one of the Mexican cowboys.

  “Ask him why they killed my steer,” said Martin.

  The Mexican spoke to one of the Indians in the Maidu language, and they responded.

  Turning, the Mexican cowboy said, “They say they are very hungry, patron.”

  After looking at Jacob, Martin turned and told the Mexican, “Tell the Indians they can have this one animal to eat, but no more. Let them know in the clearest language that if they try to kill any more animals, they will be shot on sight and left for the birds to eat.”