They had run into the thickest of the woods and now I came upon them. Without doubt their captors were already searching for them. I must get them far away, or into some kind of hiding. Turley’s place was best, but I knew I could not find it, nor could I find him, so I must trust him to find us.
Leading them through a shallow stream and up the opposite bank, I turned downstream as swiftly as possible, weaving a way among the close-growing trees.
All the while my mind raced ahead. The captors would be able to put no more than a few men to hunting for us. Some of their people must be left to guard Don Diego and his party. Nonetheless, they could be upon us within minutes.
We came into a thick stand of what Turley had called chestnut oaks, fine, tall trees growing very straight and thick. There was little brush there and we ran more swiftly, yet I kept looking around at the girls to see how they came. Despite their skirts, which they gathered in their hands and held high, they both ran well.
I saw an opening between the trees and led the way off along the hillside. Glancing back, I saw that Conchita had fallen, but was getting up. I could see Guadalupe’s breast heaving with effort. “I am afraid…I cannot…”
“We will go slower,” I told her. Then we went over the ridge into the forest beyond. That we were pursued I had no doubt.
Suddenly I was face to face with Silliman Turley.
“How far is it to your place in the swamp?” I asked him.
He hesitated, suddenly uneasy. “ ’T’aint far, only—”
“Only what?”
“Don’t think I’m backin’ off, but a place that will hide one man who does mighty little movin’ around mayn’t hide all of us. The savages never found that place o’ mine, but surely as I take so many in, they will. Be no use to me more, an’ it’s a tidy spot.”
“You won’t need it much longer, Turley. You’ll be coming away with us.”
“Don’t cal’clate on it. This here’s a good land. I been thinkin’ a sight since you showed up and I ain’t a-tall sure I want to leave. Maybe they’ll fetch my scalp sometime, but this here’s a good country.
“There’s plenty of fish, there’s game in the woods for the takin’, an’ you know, back to home a man could get hanged for killin’ a deer or even a rabbit. All the game back there belongs to the Queen or the gentry. Here I got only to kill it and butcher it. Then there’s roots, nuts, fruit about, whatever a man could want. Of course, I do miss the bread, and I miss settin’ over a glass with friends. I do miss that.”
“There will be settlements here,” I commented. “It won’t be long.”
“Here? You’re mad. Who’d want to leave all that behind and come out here where there’s nothin’ to drink but branch water? Maybe a few wild ones like me, but—”
“Let’s go to your place, Turley. We don’t have any choice. They’ll be finding us soon.”
“All right,” he agreed reluctantly.
The brush was thick the way he went, and he wove an intricate pattern, turning back and forth, doubling on his way, occasionally returning to straighten up grass and conceal the trail.
After a half-hour of steady travel, we paused. Glancing at Turley, I said, “Where are you taking us? This way doesn’t ever seem to have been traveled.”
“It ain’t been. That’s why the savages can’t find me. I never use the same route twice.”
We walked on and now he seemed to be seeking something along the river’s bank. He turned abruptly and walked into the water. Halfway across he said, “Walk right behind me. But take a step wrong right or left and you’ll go into thirty feet of water.”
Two feet below the surface of the water were two logs, side by side, a bridge hidden underwater and virtually invisible.
One by one we crossed, following him closely. Had he not guided us, we could never have found our way.
Almost two-thirds of the way across, he stopped. “This here is pretty fancy. You see that blaze on the tree? The one over on the point?”
“I see it.”
“When that blaze is faced right toward you, stop. Then feel underwater on the side toward the blaze. You’ll find more logs. Track turns at right angles there. Then you got to count. Take ten steps, no more, no less. Then you feel on the side nearest the nigh bank an’ you’ll find the rest of the bridge. Once a body knows his way you can just about run it if you’re surefooted.”
When we reached the bank he led us into the swamp. Here and there were hummocks of earth, usually carrying a stand of cypress. Turley still twisted and turned. Most of the time we were on dry ground, occasionally wading through thick patches of reed, often a tangle of trumpet vine.
We came at last to a narrow hummock of earth and a narrow path through thick brush. At the end of the path was a body of deep water. Beyond the water lay acres upon acres of reeds, growing very tall. Turley went past me and moved off to the left a dozen feet, then put his hand in the water alongside a rotting log. When his hand lifted it held a rope which arose from the water across the narrows. Water fell dripping from the rope as he held it; then he gave a tug and a log slid from among the reeds. He reeled in the rope, pulling the log across, and when the end of the rope reached him he guided it into a notch in the rotting log where the rope had lain.
Then, he walked out on the log and we followed, balancing as best we could, to reach the far side of the water. Once there, he drew the log back into the reeds.
He led us through the reeds along a muddy ridge we had not seen from the opposite side, until we reached a raft of logs moored in an open place among the reeds. On the raft was built a crude circular hut of branches and slabs of bark, and close to it a lean-to. On a rack nearby a hide was stretched—deer, I presumed.
Under the lean-to were baskets of chinkapin and hickory nuts. Turley had told me the Indians used them not only to eat as they were but to make bread from the meal or thicken their soup. We tried it that night and a very wholesome thing it was, and goodly to eat.
Once upon the raft we rested, for all were weary from much walking up and down dale and through swamp and brush. Nor were we free from fear, for our enemies would not soon give up their chase.
The big man, their leader, had been abroad searching for the San Juan de Dios—or else our escape might have ended in disaster. He had taken a number of his men with him. My own treasure worried me, for hidden though it was, they might come upon it. I reflected how a man cannot be free until he has possessions—and then he is no longer free but bound by them.
Now I had but one desire—to be free of this land, to secure my treasure and escape to sea where we might come upon a ship, even the Good Catherine, for their intent was to trade along this shore.
Guadalupe Romana looked upon me with cool eyes. “You have freed us from them,” she said. “Now what do you propose to do?”
“Get away to the sea. Find there a ship that will take us to England or some foreign land. Once there we can be secure and arrange for our futures.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You would plan my future?”
“Nothing would please me more,” I said, surprising myself at the words, but adding very hastily, “yet I would hesitate to more than suggest. Safety in England would give us time to plan, and perhaps we can arrange for you to return to Peru.”
She shrugged. “I was not safe there before. Why should I be again?”
“Perhaps to return to one of those hidden places still maintained by the Incas,” I suggested.
“I escaped from there, too,” she admitted, “nor can I well return.”
“All this can be decided at another time. Now it is enough to bring you alive into England, and with our friends.”
For a moment there was silence and then I said, “Señorita, I, too, know what it means to escape. I had to flee my own land. Even in England, if they discovered who I was, I would be in danger. I would say this to none but you, but I wish you to know that I do understand.”
We rested, then ate, then
rested some more. Silliman Turley and I talked, and from time to time I translated for Armand and Felipe, although the former, having been a fisherman, had picked up some words of English.
The original plan of the Good Catherine had been to trade to the south as far as the mouth of the Savannah River, avoiding any contact with the Spanish, and then to turn about and come back up the coast. This she might already have done, although I’d been but a few days ashore and doubted there had been time. There was every chance she might come again along the coast.
She might and she might not. In any case, I must recover my boat and its treasure!
CHAPTER 30
“BEFORE THE FIRST light,” I suggested, and they agreed, content now to rest.
Over a slight fire, built upon a bed of flat stones, Turley with Conchita’s help made a gruel and some cakes, using the nuts for meal. There was smoked fish as well, and we were hungry.
It was a tidy place he had here, and it spoke well for Silliman Turley. He was no idler, but a workman competent with many skills.
“I have a boat,” I said, “a ship’s boat. It is loaded but will still carry us all if we can reach it.”
With the fire out the night was very dark, yet bright with stars. We heard vague sounds, and a sort of whoosh as some great bird, an owl no doubt, swept by on wide, slow-moving wings. The girls could have slept in the house, if such it could be called, but they preferred the cooler outside air.
Guadalupe was no more sleepy than I, so we sat together listening to the sounds of the night and watching the stars.
“Where was your home?” she asked. “I mean, when you were very young?”
I told her, choosing my words with care, and without naming places, of my boyhood. I told her what little I remembered of my mother, and of my father and his teaching, of his sharing with me those things he loved, the beauties of the wilder world and the love of learning and of pleasure in the word.
“You loved it, and yet you left?”
“My father was killed, part of my home was in flames. Whether it was the house or the stables, I know not. I escaped, and they pursued.”
“But you did get away.”
“That I did, but only because my father had expected that day and had taught me well. Each possible route we might take, and what I must do if alone, where I must go.”
“If you go back will they know you?”
“I think not. The name I shall use now is another name, and I shall return to the place from England. A few about may know the look of me, but the ones who know will never speak. There I shall go, and there I shall live.”
She sat close to me in the darkness and told me of her Andes mountains, and of the far land beyond those mountains where she had lived, but she, too, mentioned no names. And it pleased me that she was wary, although she had others to protect, and I did not.
At last she went away to lie near Conchita and to sleep. And I slept, too, awakening, shivering, in the first chill moments before the dawning.
Turley was awake also and he brought the canoe around. A dugout canoe it was, but good enough. We loaded into it what we required and pushed off. There was a soft rain falling and no great visibility, which was helpful in avoiding our enemies—or would be, if they appeared.
We held close to the southern shore of what was obviously a large sound, a place of only brackish water, affected by the tides and also by the fresh water flowing down from several rivers that rose somewhere far inland.
Turley sat in the bow, as it was he who knew the way, and Armand held the steering oar, guided by gestures from Turley. I sat amidships, keeping my weapons dry under my blanket…or so I hoped.
We had been moving an hour before day came, only a vague graying of the mist about us. We glided through the still water like a ghost boat, shielded or at least screened by the mistlike rain.
We had far to go. We crept from the swamp into open water, holding up for just a minute close against a wall of reeds to study the sound. All was still. We could see less than a hundred yards. Felipe and I now took up our paddles and the canoe moved forward, gaining speed. Water dripped from our paddles when we lifted them.
A huge old snag lifted suddenly from the water like the head of some primeval monster, and Turley’s gestures guided us around it. Ahead there were patches of outlying reeds and we went between them.
We saw nothing, heard nothing but the occasional lonely cry of some gull overhead. The sky above was clearing. The rain ceased. Yet suddenly the sky was darkened again, and looking up, we saw an immense cloud of birds.
Turley looked around at me. “Passenger pigeons,” he said. “The savages kill them for their oil. Knock ’em down with a long pole when they are roosting. I’ve seen ’em killed by the thousands. Good eatin’, too.”
“Turn in toward the shore,” I said, “toward that lightning-struck pine.”
We eased in toward shore. Stepping off to a log which lay half-in, half-out of the water, I told them, “I’ll not be long!”
Swiftly I moved, holding to solid ground when I could find it until I was safely among the trees, mostly cypress and swamp gum mingled with a few pines. Walking the log again, I got back to the narrow, sandy islet where my boat had been hidden.
It was still there! A hasty check showed me that nothing had been changed. Taking in the painter, I shoved off with an oar, pushing the boat back out of the narrow waterway in which it had been snugged down.
Once clear of the islet I settled the oars in place and pulled strongly, with a glance over my shoulder from time to time to maintain the proper heading.
Yet for all of that it was nearly an hour until I came alongside the canoe. The boxes were covered by a tarpaulin brought from the ship.
Despite the heavy load the boat carried there was plenty of room for the others. Silliman Turley got out and with Felipe’s help got the canoe ashore and turned bottom-up.
There was no sign of the big man or his followers, no evidence of Don Diego or Don Manuel. Yet I doubted I had seen the last of them and was eager to be away.
Once in the boat we wasted no time but hoisted our sail and moved off. Guadalupe came aft to sit by me in the stern where I held the tiller.
She indicated the tarp-covered mound in the boat’s center. “What is it there?”
“Some food from the San Juan de Dios, some of my things and some of yours.”
“Mine?”
“I was aboard the ship. I found some of your clothing so I bundled it up to bring to you.”
“May I have it?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to loosen that tarp, and the less moving around we do, the better.”
A thought came to me. “Turley? There’s several muskets under that canvas. They’d better be checked, but I left them charged. There’s powder and shot there, too.”
He dug under the canvas and got out the muskets. He looked them over with satisfaction. “All shipshape, Cap’n!” His eyes swept the horizon. Nothing in sight but the distant shore. “Where we headin’ for?”
“South by a little west, right down the sound. There’s an inlet runs through the bank there into a little cove behind Cape Lookout. That’s where we’re going.”
After a bit I said, “It’s a chance we have to take. The Good Catherine should be beating back up the coast by now. The skipper told me he sometimes used that cove to lie up in. Anyway, it’s our best chance of sighting him.”
Turley was quiet for a moment. “What we don’t know was where the pirate ship is—if they are pirates.”
The clouds were low and the wind held fair. Off to our left now we could see the long yellow line of the inner side of the bank that broke the force of the sea. It was a long, narrow island stretching away for how many miles I knew not, but fifty or sixty miles of which I knew. The Atlantic side was straight and smooth, offering no inlets, no passages for most of its length. On the inner side facing toward the sound, the shore of the bank was broken by many small, sandy islets and shoals
.
An hour passed. I glanced at the sky. Only clouds, broken here and there now, showing patches of blue. We could not see the Atlantic across the dunes of the outer banks. Had a ship been there we would have missed it.
“Who were those men?” I asked suddenly, of Guadalupe. “How did they come upon you?”
“I know not. Suddenly they were all about us, and we had no chance. Yet they seemed to know who we were and where we had come from, and they addressed both Don Diego and Don Manuel by name. They said Don Manuel had a ship soon to be here.”
“Aye, I heard them speak of that. The San Juan de Dios was never in danger of sinking. She had only made water, I do not know how, and somehow they managed to frighten Don Diego.”
“He knows nothing of the sea. He is much thought of as an administrator, but he has crossed the sea but once and knows it not.”
She watched the sea for a moment, then said, “There was one among them…not much older than you, I think, who seemed a not bad man. He would have helped us had he been able, and I believe he intended to. He said their captain was interested only in money…and power. They were all Englishmen, I believe.”
The wind seemed to be picking up. I eased the tiller to bring us a little closer to the outer island. On the chart I had been shown the cove behind Cape Lookout and the narrow inlet that led to it from the sound. Turley glanced at the sky, and then at me. The clouds were building up and the southeastern sky had a yellow look that I did not like.
Turley and Armand were taking in sail. Suddenly Turley seemed to stop all movement, looking back over my head. “Sail, ho!” he yelled then.
Turning, I looked aft. A pinnace by the look of her, three masts, and a good ship under sail. She was crowding on all canvas, trying to overtake us.
Obviously she had come from behind one of the shore-side islands and was no more than a half-mile off and closing fast.
Another glance shoreward told me we were coming up to the coastal banks and fast…but none too fast. Yet the pinnace drew more water than we and would not dare, or so I hoped, follow us much further.
Fair Blows the Wind (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 25