The frontiersman returned in a matter of minutes—minutes that crept by like hours for Christopher as he clung to the rigging of the fallen mast and tried to catch his breath between the overwhelming waves. Brandishing an axe, Nathaniel hacked his way through a snarl of tangled rope and canvas until, crouched beneath the shattered trunk of the mast, he was able to reach the door. There was room for only one man, and precious little room at that for wielding an axe against the door, so Christopher had to stand helplessly by, pummeled by the waves that swept across the Liberty's waist, feeling the deck tremble and shift beneath his feet, as the sea surged through great jagged holes in the hull below him and tore at the guts of the doomed vessel.
It seemed like an eternity before Nathaniel called out that he had cut a hole in the door. Christopher scrambled into the captain's cabin, squirming through the hole on his grandfather's heels. He was shocked by the wreckage which filled the cabin. Gaping gashes had been torn out of the flanks of the brigantine, through which the battering sea rushed in with every wave. He called out, in a panic, and was relieved to hear Rebecca's voice in the darkness. Clambering over and under shattered timbers, he and Nathaniel reached her side.
Rebecca was kneeling in the water which sloshed too and fro across the deck, cradling Prissy's head in her lap. A heavy beam lay across Prissy's chest—too heavy for them to budge. Nathaniel attacked it with the axe, but the wood was old and seasoned and nearly as hard as iron, and the frontiersman was quick to realize that it would take hours to cut through. They didn't have hours. The groan of the ship was loud in their ears. At any moment the Liberty would surrender to the sea and break apart. It was as inevitable as death.
"We've got to get you out of here," he told Rebecca.
"I won't go. Prissy's still alive."
Christopher felt the flutter of a pulse in Prissy's wrist. She was unconscious, and blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth.
"He's right, Mother. There is nothing we can do for her. The ship is breaking apart . . . "
"I won't leave her while she lives!" cried Rebecca.
Christopher tried to lift her, hooking his arms beneath hers. She fought him. "Prissy!" she wailed. He got a better hold around her waist and pulled her away, but then another wave struck the brigantine, spewing through the gaps in the cabin wall, and with a tremendous wrenching sound the deck shifted violently and he fell. When he looked up the fallen beam was gone and so was Prissy, and there was a jagged hole where half of the cabin floor had collapsed. A geyser of water spewed up through the hole, temporarily blinding him. The Liberty was moving again, lurching soggily sideways, then tilting at a sickening angle to starboard.
Another wave struck, hurling the wreck against the reef, and part of the quarterdeck gave way, raining debris down upon them. Above the din Christopher heard Nathaniel shouting, saw the frontiersman silhouetted for an instant against the white foam of another incoming comber, legs braced wide apart on the disintegrating deck, swinging the axe with all his might, and knocking out the remnant of the cabin wall on the starboard side. Christopher struggled to his feet, shouldering aside the wreckage of the quarterdeck, his arm still locked around Rebecca's waist.
"Jump!" yelled Nathaniel.
Christopher half-fell, half-jumped through the hole, holding on to his mother, plunging feet first into the sea, and the sea clutched greedily at him with powerful undercurrents, wrenching Rebecca out of his grasp. He flailed frantically, his lungs bursting. Bobbing to the surface, he was struck a stingling blow across the shoulders by a timber. Clutching at it, he saw Rebecca, and reached out his hand, and she took it. He pulled her to the timber. Above them, the stern half of the Liberty disappeared beneath a breaking wave, and the wave descended upon them and drove them underwater. Christopher was slammed against the sandy flank of the reef, an impact so severe that it knocked the wind out of him, and he choked on the seawater pouring into his mouth. Then the sea lifted him up and carried him across the reef, into calmer waters; having almost killed him it now delivered him. Rebecca was still clinging to the timber. The thundering waves spent themselves against the reef, and the gentler surf deposited them on wet Texas sand littered with the debris from the wreck of the brigantine Liberty.
Chapter 23
All day the storm raged, tearing the wreck apart, dragging some of it down into the deep, hurling the rest across the reef, where the surf took it and deposited it on the beach. Broken in two, the brigantine's stern portion sank into deep water. The bow, tilted at a forty-five-degree angle, the bowsprit pointing like an accusing finger at the gray and sullen sky, clung fast to the seaward side of the sand reef, a monument to the helpless inconsequence of man when confronted by the cataclysmic power of nature.
But there is one thing nature cannot conquer—the indomitable will of man.
Washed up on the beach, like so much flotsam, half-drowned and exhausted, trembling uncontrollably from the cold and the shock of the disaster he had but narrowly survived, Christopher wanted nothing more than to lie there in the wet sand and close his eyes and sleep. Instead, he forced himself to his feet and went to work. Helping Rebecca to the meager shelter from the howling wind and driving rain provided by low sand dunes which began fifty yards from the edge of the sea, and which extended inland as far as the eye could see, Christopher returned to the beach to search for more survivors. Seeing a body floating in the surf, he waded out to it, a prayer on his lips. It wasn't Nathaniel, or O'Connor, or Klesko, but rather a member of the ill-fated Liberty's crew, dead, his skull crushed, his face a bloody mask.
He found Nathaniel next. The frontiersman was struggling to get ashore. His arm was broken. The captain's cabin had disintegrated an instant after Christopher and Rebecca had abandoned ship. A falling beam had struck Nathaniel, breaking bone and hurling him, half-conscious, into the sea. Christopher pronounced him lucky to be alive, and helped him to the place in the dunes where Rebecca was waiting out the storm. Now that she had something to do, someone to care for, Rebecca came to life. She promptly set Nathaniel's arm, using shattered pieces of wood from the Liberty for splints, and tearing the hem out of her skirt for strips of cloth with which she secured the splints to her father's arm.
Christopher continued to patrol the beach, all but oblivious now to the gale force wind that tried to knock him off his feet, as well as to the rain that fell so hard it stung. He could scarcely remember a dry and sunny world. Debris from the wreck was strewn for more than a mile in either direction. He found five men alive, and took each one back to Rebecca and Nathaniel. One of them was Wells, the first mate. He insisted on helping Christopher with his rescue and salvage work. The other men, two of them injured, huddled in the dunes, dazed and listless.
As time went on, Christopher despaired of finding O'Connor and Klesko. He came across four more bodies—all crew members. These were retrieved from the sea and left on the beach for proper burial later. He kept telling himself there was hope for his friends, but he knew that in all likelihood their bodies, like poor Prissy's, had been claimed by the sea.
With the first mate's help, he salvaged some timbers, rope, and a tattered portion of sail, and managed to fashion a makeshift shelter for Rebecca and the others with this material. By now he was staggering from sheer exhaustion. Rebecca begged him to rest, but he refused, staying on his feet until the long and terrible day drew to a close, and the gray cocoon of the storm darkened with the coming of night. In the falling light he made two significant discoveries. One was a crate of oranges. Robertson had made a point of shipping some fresh fruit to his colonists. His people were faring well enough with their crops of corn and other vegetables, and they had planted fruit trees, but these would take a few years to mature and produce. Christopher's last discovery of the day was his own trunk. He couldn't believe his luck. All the trunk's contents—clothes, a few books, including his prized possession, Napoleon's Maxims, and his father's Tripolitan cutlass, were as dry as bone.
Seeing Christopher's trunk, Rebe
cca thought of her own belongings—the four-poster bed, the rocking chair, her books, and most importantly, the box in which she had kept the money, their stake, under lock and key. Thinking of the future, she despaired.
"Don't fret, Becky," said Nathaniel. "We've got our lives. We'll make out just fine."
"Thank God we placed the thoroughbreds in Mr. Robertson's charge," she said, trying to look on the bright side.
Christopher ate an orange and then curled up in the wet sand and went immediately to sleep, the canvas overhead cracking like a whip in the wind.
He was awakened in the middle of the night by the first mate's stentorian voice, opened his bleary, salt-encrusted eyes to see a man, his clothes in tatters, stumbling toward the shelter. The night was pitch black, and he could not see who it was until the man tripped over his legs and fell across him.
"O'Connor!"
The Irishman was too weak to move. Lying where he fell, his eyes fluttering closed, O'Connor managed a wan smile. "Jig on your grave . . . " he mumbled, and passed out.
When Christopher awoke he could not tell if it was morning or afternoon. Rain was still pouring out of an overcast sky. The sea was still rough, the combers booming as they spent their fury against the reef.
He and Wells continued their salvage work. They found little of value until, some hours later, the first mate spotted a crate half-buried in the sand some yards offshore. With the surf foaming around their waists, they tried to carry the crate ashore, but could hardly budge it. Returning to camp, they enlisted the aid of O'Connor and one of the crew members. The others were in no condition to walk, much less work. Gathering up some rope, the four men managed to drag the crate up onto the beach. Intent on acquainting themselves with its contents, they broke open the lid.
Inside, nestled in straw, was the barrel of a cannon.
"What the hell is that?" asked Wells.
"Six-pounder," said Christopher. "Brass-mounted, of French manufacture."
"Cannon?" Wells was dumbfounded. "This couldn't be from the ship. We carried no cannon."
"None that you knew of," said O'Connor. "It had to have been on the Liberty. Did you handle the manifest?"
"Why no. The captain did. But . . . " The first mate's denial died stillborn. Staring at the cannon, and realizing that O'Connor was right—it must have come from the brigantine's cargo hold—he comprehended the truth of the matter.
"Interesting supplies Mr. Robertson was sending to his people," remarked Christopher. "Somewhat more lethal than the usual coffee and tobacco."
"Coffee and tobacco are contraband," said Wells. "The Mexicans reserve for themselves the right to sell those commodities."
"Yet we had coffee and tobacoo aboard."
"Yes. Usually, a bribe is sufficient to persuade a customs officer to turn a blind eye."
"I doubt if he would turn a blind eye to this."
"I wonder if there was powder and shot?" murmured O'Connor.
"One thing is certain," said Wells. "If the Mexicans find this it will go badly for us."
They decided to conceal the crated gun in the sand dunes, burying it in a shallow grave which Christopher marked with two shattered timbers from the wrecked ship.
Later in the day the wind and rain slackened, and they caught their first glimpse of the sun as it set in a blaze of orange glory behind strips of purple clouds. Christopher had never been so happy to see anything in his whole life. The next day dawned warm and clear. No one ventured far from camp that day. Everyone lay about in the sun, drying out, eating oranges, drinking rainwater which had collected in the canvas of their makeshift shelter. Rebecca tended to the two wounded sailors as best she could. One had a broken leg, which she set, and several crushed ribs, which she could do nothing about. He was bleeding internally, and she feared he would not survive. The other had a hole in his side, having been impaled on a jagged piece of spar.
"Someone has got to go for help," Nathaniel told Christopher. "We can't stay here forever, and those two men need a doctor's care. I'll leave in the morning."
"I'll go. You're in no condition with that arm. Stay here, Grandpa, and keep everybody alive until I get back."
"Fresh water's the problem," said the frontiersman. "Or it will be before long. We may have to move inland to find a creek or something. If so, I'll leave plenty of sign, so you can find us."
Before sunrise the next morning, Christopher was ready to go. Using a rope for a sling, he carried the Tripolitan cutlass on his back. He also had a makeshift pouch containing several oranges.
"You might be mistaken for a pirate," said O'Connor, only half-joking.
Christopher had to agree. He was barefoot, his trousers ending in tatters at his ankles, and one leg torn to the knee. His shirt wasn't in much better condition. His trunk had contained several shirts and an extra pair of pants, but he had given O'Connor one of his shirts—the Irishman had been without one—and another had been sacrificed to make bandages for the wounded, leaving him a single change of clothes. He wasn't going to ruin them on an excursion like this one. He had tried to fit into his extra pair of boots, but to no avail. His feet were too swollen. On his head, as protection against the sun, he wore a strip of cloth tied in a knot at the back.
"All I lack is a ring in my ear," he said.
"I ought to be going with you," said O'Connor.
"No. I'd feel better knowing you were here to look after my folks."
"Look out for them?" The Irishman laughed. "It's your grandfather who will be taking care of the rest of us, I'm sure. He's a pretty remarkable fellow."
"He is that," agreed Christopher.
He said his goodbyes to the others. Rebecca put on a brave front, but he saw right through it. He told her not to worry, and promised to return with help within a fortnight.
Striking out due north, he crossed more than a mile of sand dunes before coming to a large body of water. Tasting it, he found it to be seawater. He turned west, and traveled several more miles before coming to a point of land from whence he could see breakers foaming over a hidden reef and, beyond, the limitless blue-green expanse of the Gulf of Mexico.
The truth was apparent to him then. They had been shipwrecked on an island.
Retracing his steps, Christopher returned to the place where the inland waterway was at its most narrow, some two hundred yards. He swam it without difficulty, and it wasn't until he was on the other shore, sitting down to rest for a moment and eat an orange, that he saw the fins of the sharks cleaving the water right where he had made the crossing. He shuddered, forced himself to finish the orange, and moved on.
Heading north again, he soon found himself in the blessed shade of a hardwood forest. He was cheered just to see a tree again. The woodlands opened up here and there to meadows of lush grass and an occasional salt marsh. He spotted wild turkey and quail in abundance, as well as several white-tailed deer. His mouth watered and his stomach clenched at the thought of venison steak or a nice juicy turkey leg roasting over a fire, and he wished fervently that he had a rifle. The cutlass was less than worthless under these circumstances.
Christopher didn't care if he ever saw the open sea again, and he was reluctant to leave the forest, but he realized that his wisest course would be to return to the coast and follow it until he came to either the mouth of a navigable river or—the best case—a town. Wells had told him that there were several villages along the coast, and all the colonies he had ever heard of were located on one of the rivers: the Trinity, the Neches, the Brazos, or the Colorado. With this in mind, he turned back. Reaching the coast, he headed west, a sun brown scarecrow in tattered clothes leaving lonely footprints in the wet sand of a beach that curved off into a hazy infinity.
He slept that night among the dunes, and awoke to the eternal roar of the surf and the raucous cries of seagulls. The sun was already high and hot, bleeding the blue out of the Texas sky. Christopher lay there a moment, wincing at the cramps in his empty stomach. The inside of his mouth was dry as old
leather, and he knew he would have to detour inland and find a freshwater source before the day was out. He did not relish taking another step. But the thought of Nathaniel and his mother and the rest motivated him, and he picked himself up with a groan. They were depending on him, and he would not let them down.
Then he saw the row of lances, beyond the next dune, and heard the creak of saddles, the jingle of bit chains, and then someone barking a harsh command—in Spanish.
Christopher threw himself to the ground. Heart racing, he crawled to the crest of the next dune and dared to raise his head for a look down at the beach.
They were Mexican troops—lancers, with their weapons held at the vertical, couched in stirrup cups. They rode by twos, and the lances of the first pair were adorned with red-and-green pennants. In front of the column rode an officer, and in front of him by a good twenty paces was an Indian, jogging to keep ahead of the horsemen, his head constantly swiveling back and forth as he scanned the sand for sign, raising his eyes now and again to check the horizon. The Indian wore a breechclout and headband. He was short and stocky, nothing like the tall, slender, handsome Indians of the eastern forests that Christopher was accustomed to.
The lancers wore straight-brimmed black hats, green chaquetas, and black pants tucked into cavalry boots. In addition to the lance, each was armed with a pistol and a short saber. The officer was similarly attired, distinguishable from his men by the shoulder tabs on his jacket. He, too, carried pistol and saber, but was without a lance.
Christopher took a quick head count. Sixteen lancers, not counting the officer. Two of them were in charge of four pack horses. One of the packhorses was carrying a brass-mounted French six-pounder barrel identical to the one he and Wells had found among the wreckage of the Liberty.
Behind the packhorse trudged four men. Their hands were pinioned behind their backs, and a long rope was looped around their necks. The end of the rope was secured to a heavy ship's timber in such a way that the prisoners were forced to drag the timber along behind them. The timber laid a deep furrow in the sand, and the men were straining to make headway. The sheer brutality of this sadistic arrangement turned Christopher's blood to ice. With the rope around their necks all four men were slowly but surely choking to death. They were guarded by two lancers, and when one of the captives faltered, a guard would prod him with his lance.
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