Deadly Shoals

by Joan Druett

  “Dismantling shot,” Rochester remarked once, as he handed the bolas back to Wiki. He was panting and sweating, and flushed with high enjoyment.

  “What?”

  “It’s used to destroy enemy rigging, old chap. Just like the bolas, but made of lengths of chain secured together at a common end. They’re rolled into a ball, and fired from a cannon. Once in the air, the chains spread out and revolve. Any rigging they hit is smashed to smithereens. That is,” George added smugly, “if the gun captain has my knack for accuracy. Admit it, old chap, I’m better than you are.”

  “Fiddlesticks,” said Wiki, and an argument commenced. Finally, George suggested another bout to prove his point, but it was too late for that, being high time to return the hired horses, and so they galloped for the track and the silvered fence.

  After they arrived at the ranch, Wiki thought wryly that the estanciero must certainly be charging him for the four other horses, all of which were still among the missing, because the bill that was presented was even more hefty than he’d feared. However, George helped him out with the necessary coins, and Wiki said goodbye to the mare, who bared her teeth and stretched out her neck for a last try at a bite. Then the two companions climbed back to the headland, and trekked on foot to the flagpole, their folded ponchos draped over their shoulders, their heads down as they talked and trudged.

  George had evidently been thinking in the meantime, because he said, “Why did you say that Bernantio and his gauchos were useful? Is it something to do with the theft of Captain Stackpole’s money?”

  “They are rastreadores—trackers—who offered to find the missing schooner. Manuel Bernantio picked out the tracks of a train of packhorses that had been driven from Adams’s store, and we followed them to the salinas, and from there to the place where we found Adams’s corpse.”

  George said, astonished, “He’s dead?”

  “Very dead. His corpse was seven days old at the very least.” And Wiki described the discovery of the skull under the Gualichú tree, and the body buried beneath it.

  George’s brow wrinkled. “He was killed in a spot that’s sacred to the Indians?”

  “He might have been killed at the salinas.” Wiki remembered the shocking stench, and the sense of something moving slowly and malignantly inside the solid salt. “The killer could have tied his body to the saddle and led the horse to the Gualichú tree to bury him in the salt.”

  “But why the Gualichú tree?”

  “Why?” echoed Wiki. He kicked out at a rolling ball of furze, sending it scudding as it picked up the breeze. He shook his head, and said, “I don’t know.”

  “Is it the custom here on the Río Negro to bury people in salt?”

  Wiki grimaced, remembering the vultures, and said again, “I don’t know.” On the Río de la Plata pampas, as in Arabia, people were buried in open ground, and as quickly as possible—graveyards were only found on ranches like the one that belonged to Ducatel. Men who were lost in the great grassy waste, forced to walk because of a dead or runaway horse, often traveled in mindless circles, to collapse, die, and fertilize the ground where they lay. Twice, he and George had stumbled across a patch where the grass was taller and greener, and found a naked skull rolled in the midst of it, mute evidence of some past crisis.

  “So you set out to uncover a thief, and found a murdered man,” George meditated aloud. “And you have no idea about the killer?”

  “None,” Wiki admitted. “It looks as if it was the same man who stole the schooner, but for all we know it could have been part of some long-standing feud. To be frank, I don’t have a notion what really happened.”

  “It’s not like you to have to leave a place with the murder unsolved, old man.”

  “Well, it’s all too likely in this case,” said Wiki, moodily, too depressed to confess that there was a second murder, equally unsolved. “Not only did Captain Ringgold order me to forget about it, as he reckons it’s a local matter, but Captain Stackpole seems to have lost all interest.”

  “I heard scuttlebutt that the whale the Trojan is boiling out is a buster.”

  “That’s so,” Wiki admitted. But did it account for Stackpole’s strange reversal of attitude? Remembering the whaleman’s anger and mortification at the barefaced robbery, it seemed unlikely.

  Then he was distracted by George, who pointed ahead, and said, “Is that someone trying to get our attention?”

  It was Dr. John Fox, waving from the flagpole, and looking more dusty and disheveled than ever. Wiki often wondered if Fox remembered him from the time of their youth in Salem, but thought not, because he never acknowledged him by name. Now, when he introduced Rochester, instead of embarking on polite pleasantries the doctor expostulated, “They’ve marooned us again. And what the hell happened to you?” he demanded.

  Wiki frowned. “I’ve been delivering the horses,” he said stiffly, and didn’t feel as if he owed the arrogant scientific any more than that. Instead, he asked, “Why aren’t you on the riverbank, according to orders? You were supposed to be there at nine, ready to be picked up.”

  “We did! We were!” John Fox exclaimed. “We waited for hours, and then saw Ringgold’s party on the other side of the river! We waved, but they didn’t pay attention. We made a signal for a boat, and that, too, was ignored. We’re camped here for the rest of our poor lives, apparently! It’s just as Mr. Peale says—the officers consider the scientific corps nothing more than a confounded nuisance! They foil us at each and every opportunity! It’s a bloody scandal, and we are all going to post a strong complaint to Captain Wilkes.”

  Rochester, with perfect propriety, made no comment on this, instead asking, “So what are you doing up here?”

  “We talked it over, and decided to fly a signal for someone in the fleet to save us. I volunteered, and saw you coming.”

  “Then the problem is fixed, old chap,” Rochester assured him. “I’m sure Mr. Seward—who is a most obliging fellow, I’ve found—will have you on board the schooner in a trice.” And, with that, he led the way down the cliff to the beach.

  Getting to the bottom was a slow business, the surgeon being not nearly as lively on his feet as a sailor who was accustomed to heights, but eventually they arrived on the beach, to find Mr. Seward leaning against a rock smoking a tiny clay pipe with a very long stem, indulgently watching the cadets paddle about in rock pools. When the problem was communicated, he nodded, and the surgeon was heaved into the boat by two strong lads. Wiki, Rochester, and Seward jumped inside, and the boys shoved the craft into the waves before scrambling in and taking up the oars.

  No sooner were they floating, than Rochester and Seward had a battle of wills. George wanted Wiki to be the steersman—probably because he was so accustomed to asking him to take over the helm in emergencies, Wiki thought. He felt most embarrassed, and wished that the argument wasn’t happening, especially as the six boys listened with such lively interest, and knew it would be reported to his father. In the end Mr. Seward nodded, though he watched with a look of brooding resentment as Wiki negotiated the length of the boat toward him.

  Arriving in the stern, Wiki took over the heavy length of ash, and Alf Seward shifted out of the way. A peglike grip projected about a foot from the head of the oar, and Wiki gripped this with his left hand, the oar turned so that the shaft led backward through the crook of his left elbow, and his forearm was laid along it. When he leaned on this arm, the blade dug about in their wake, while the oarsmen looked up at him as they rowed, watching his face for a hint of what dangers lay ahead.

  The surf was breasted with a few sickening plunges and surges, and then they were back on the smoother open sea. There was quite a lot of company out here, just as George had described. The Flying Fish was sailing on short tacks back and forth across the seaward end of the estuary, dragging a logline. A man was out on the bow heaving a sounding lead, evidently to determine the depth of the water. Dinghies from various expedition ships were dipping up and down at anchor off
the mouth of the river, men standing precariously inside them to drop shot-laden tide-staffs into the treacherous shoals, measuring the rise and fall of the tide. One of the cutters was working from one anchored dinghy to another with a man standing in the bows shouting orders. Wiki thought he recognized the slight, wiry form of Benjamin Harden, the river pilot with the murky past.

  Giving the cutter a wide berth, he brought the boat around for the entrance of the Río Negro. Here, he faced breakers again—even bigger breakers, forced high by the pressure of the outflowing river, smashing over rocks, hiding sandbars, and setting the boat to jumping and banging. Three vertiginous plunges, and they entered the dark, gleaming rush of the river, where the unbroken crests of the waves were streaked with russet and yellow.

  Thrusting the long blade deep into the water to keep the bow pointing forward, Wiki ordered the boys to still the boat, and then stared over their heads as he searched for a passage. For a long moment, they fought to stay in the same spot, with the boat tossing and plunging beneath them. Then, just as Dr. Fox was beginning to turn green and gulp, Wiki spied a snake of deeper blackness in the dark waters. He heaved down on the oar, telling the boys on one side to pull forward and those on the other to pull sternward, thus swiveling the lively boat to enter the narrow, winding passage.

  Twenty hard strokes, a stream of quick orders that set them twisting from one side to another, and all at once they were floating in smooth, mirrorlike water, with only the current against them. To Wiki’s further embarrassment, George Rochester led the boys in a round of hearty cheers. Alf Seward simply cupped his pipe to relight it, his lean face quite expressionless.

  Ten minutes more, and they had pulled over to the northern bank, taken three highly relieved scientifics on board, and were rowing for the Sea Gull, which was still lying at anchor. When they arrived alongside, one of the boys put out a hand and grabbed a hanging rope, and then the overloaded whaleboat stilled. There was no one at all on the decks.

  Rochester stood up, and shouted, “Ship ahoy!”

  Silence. Then a head poked out of the forward hatch that led to the forecastle, followed by the unfolding body of a seaman. He took one look at the magnificent sight of an officer in uniform, scurried to the hatch that led to the aftercabin, and hollered for Captain Ringgold.

  The patrician figure emerged at leisure, strolled over to the rail, and cast a casual glance at the complement in the crowded boat. All at once his eyes widened, and his brows shot up. “Congratulations are in order, George!” he exclaimed. “Or did your looking glass deceive you when you pinned on your swab this morn’?”

  “Congratulations are indeed in order,” Rochester complacently agreed, and stepped out of the boat and onto the deck. An explanation of how he’d found out about the blessed elevation in rank was demanded and given, and the two captains warmly shook hands, while the four scientifics, still in the boat, watched blankly, with no comprehension at all of what was going on.

  Then Titian Peale abruptly regained his wits, stood up, bounded onto the deck with remarkable agility, and advanced on Ringgold like an avenging nemesis. “What the hell did you mean by leaving orders to abandon us on shore while you were off on your jaunt to El Carmen?” he shouted, and, when Ringgold lifted a haughty eyebrow instead of deigning to answer, promised to report the whole disgraceful affair to Captain Wilkes at the first opportunity.

  “And where was the boat at nine this morning, that’s what I would like to know!” chimed in Dr. Fox, clambering up beside him. “We were left without anything—no provisions, no word, no communication, not even tobacco!”

  Ringgold still didn’t bother to respond, instead fixing Wiki with a very cold eye. “I want a word with you, Wiki Coffin,” he said grimly, and crooked a finger.

  Wiki, still standing at the steering oar, protested, “But Mr. Seward has agreed to take me to the brig Swallow—”

  “The hell he will! Captain Wilkes wants a meeting with all the scientifics in the morning—and that includes you, sir! So you will spend the night aboard the Sea Gull—and that’s an order you will obey for once, confound it!”

  Wiki winced. Surely, he thought, no one had told Ringgold that he had deliberately disobeyed orders, and cross-examined Dr. Ducatel about the death of Captain Hallett and the loss of Captain Stackpole’s money. Then a movement caught his attention. As he watched with disbelief, the flamboyant figure of the surgeon stepped out of the cabin and onto the deck.

  * * *

  George Rochester did his best for his friend, arguing that Wiki’s presence was urgently needed on board the brig Swallow. They were setting up preventer stays to brace the masts ready for the doubling of Cape Horn, and Mr. Coffin’s expertise was essential, he said. Ringgold didn’t believe him for a minute. All that resulted was a lively technical discussion, along with Ringgold pointing out that Wiki Coffin had been shipped to perform scientific duties, not to help out with the work of the ship.

  At that stage, much to Wiki’s astonishment, Titian Peale backed him up as well, arguing that if Wiki were a scientist, he couldn’t be ordered around like a seaman. However, Ringgold remained adamant, with the result that the Osprey boat pulled away with Alf Seward back in charge of the steering oar, leaving Wiki braced for a lecture. Once they got down into the cabin, however, the scolding was surprisingly brief, perhaps because pursuing the mystery had been justified by the discovery of the clerk’s corpse. Then Wiki found out Ringgold’s real reason for wanting him to spend the night on board—to interview Dr. Ducatel about the economy of the Río Negro, and write up a report for Captain Wilkes.

  The next hours were spent in eating supper, and quizzing the Río Negro surgeon about the tariff of duties, what inducements there were for merchant vessels to visit the port, the productions of the place, the climate, the principal articles of trade, the condition of the government, the restrictive policies of de Rosas, and relations with the Indians. Writing down the answers resulted in a dozen neatly written pages. Stacking them into a tidy pile, Wiki mused that Captain Wilkes would be quite impressed when the document was delivered in the morning.

  After Ducatel was finally released from the cross-examination, and had left the cramped little captain’s cabin, Wiki sat back and contemplated Ringgold, shrewdly guessing that it was Ringgold himself who had been commanded to produce the report. The banquet had distracted him from following Wilkes’s orders, no doubt, along with the novelty of the sights of the Río Negro.

  Very innocently, he said, “Would you like me to sign it?”

  Ringgold cleared his throat, and shook his head.

  “I can give it to Captain Wilkes, if you like.”

  “No, no—I’ll do that.”

  Straight-faced, Wiki folded the report and handed it over. As he watched Ringgold stow it safely away in an inside jacket pocket, he finished off the mug of coffee at his elbow—which was remarkably good, most unlike the bitter brew he was usually served when visiting other ships of the fleet.

  Then he said, “Did you know that Captain Wilkes has requisitioned Harden for the survey?”

  Ringgold’s expression became dour. “So I was told—which leaves me without a pilot to navigate me out, unless the governor releases the regular pilots before morning.”

  “Harden has the reputation of a troublemaker. He was in the de Rosas army for a while, and then was cashiered for inciting mutiny—a mutiny during which he killed a couple of men. Now, he’s involved with the local revolutionaries.”

  “Mutiny?” Ringgold frowned deeply, mutiny being a dire word in a navy officer’s lexicon. “Are you certain of that?”

  Wiki hesitated, then admitted that it was hearsay, but still Captain Ringgold looked grim. “I didn’t like the look of the cove in the slightest,” he confessed. “If I hadn’t been desperate for someone to navigate us off that confounded sandbar, I wouldn’t have countenanced him for a single moment.” Then he added, “That he had his Protection Paper made a difference, too.”

  “Didn�
�t you think it was strange?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was surprised he still had it,” said Wiki. “Even if he managed to keep it from being stolen when he was in prison, it’s amazing that the army didn’t confiscate it to make sure he couldn’t escape their clutches.”

  “He must have hidden it well.”

  “It seems odd, too, that he didn’t ship out with the first Yankee captain to call.”

  “Maybe there’s some reason he doesn’t want to go home to Rhode Island.”

  That was very possible, Wiki thought. He said, “George Rochester told me that Harden’s been requisitioned for more than the survey—he’s been signed on for the entire voyage.”

  “What? We’re always in need of seamen, but I didn’t know we were that bloody desperate!”

  “So you’ll have a word with Captain Wilkes?”

  “God, no,” Ringgold said hastily. “Navy discipline will fix him.”

  So, thought Wiki resignedly, that was something else he would need to talk over with Captain Wilkes. As he left the cabin to search out a place to sleep, he ruminated that the conference promised to be very tricky indeed.

  Nine

  January 29, 1839

  As before, dawn arrived with no sign of a pilot to get them out of the river. Instead, two of the governor’s nephews came trotting along the riverside path. First, they announced that they had returned the horses Captain Ringgold, Mr. Waldron, and Lieutenant Perry had hired to the estanciero who had rented them out. Then, they begged an invitation on board.

  The entire complement of the schooner thought them interestingly exotic, with the result that they were made very welcome. They were fine, active-looking young men in gaucho dress, who wanted to know everything about the schooner and the expedition, which everyone found flattering. However, they spoke no English, and so Wiki was forced to translate. Back and forth the lively conversation went, while all the time he wondered about the state of Captain Wilkes’s temper, which was bound to be deteriorating as he waited for the Sea Gull to arrive with its burden of scientifics. It was near noon before the nephews finally made a reluctant departure, taking Dr. Ducatel with them.