Dorothy Garlock - [Annie Lash 03]

by Almost Eden

  “Devil man maybe kill him, he go back. If he don’t, he sure t’ cut off ears or nose.”

  “What’s Vega’s next move? Do you think he will go back downriver when he finds out he lost three men?”

  Caleb’s eyes went round with astonishment. No man other than Mr. Mac had ever asked his opinion on anything.

  “No, sah. If that No-Hair man tell ’im Caleb here, he not go . . . yet. Them folks take it hard when a nigga run. He wants t’ get me back an’ cut me t’ pieces with dat whip. Dat’d make ’im feel good.”

  “I understand he’s been here two other times and, each time, he asked about you.”

  “Mis-put him a plenty dat I run an’ he ain’t found me yet.”

  “If he started out with eight crewmen, he has five men left, four to row and one at the steering oar. I have an idea how we can make him even more short-handed than he is, if you and Many Spots will help me.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ for Many Spots, Mista Light, but yo sho’ got my he’p.”

  Light squatted down on his haunches and told Caleb his plan while he drew a map of the river in the dirt with a stick.

  “If he’s tied up here”—Light poked the stick in the ground—“and Many Spots says he is, there is a sandbar that stretches out about twenty feet. Behind it is a thick stand of bushes and trees.”

  “Yo kin get out a sight fast.”

  “That’s the idea. We’ll be using you for bait, Caleb. I’m counting on Vega seeing you and sending some of his men to get you. Many Spots and I will be waiting for them.”

  Caleb’s eyes danced with laughter. “I can sho be the drunkest nigga yo ever did see, Mista Light. An’ I can run like a scalded cat.”

  Light smiled again. He liked the man more and more.

  * * *

  When they left the homestead, Light set a fast pace through the woods. Maggie was behind him; Many Spots and MacMillan brought up the rear. Paul, Eli and Linus were digging graves for the rivermen Linus and Caleb had brought in at daylight. Many Spots had been contemptuous of the burial, but MacMillan had insisted.

  Aee was tending to Zee, who had developed a fever during the night, and was keeping an eye on the disgruntled Osage warriors who prowled about the homestead. They were disappointed that there had been no fighting, and they were eager to be on their ponies and away.

  With Kruger roaming the woods, Light insisted on keeping Maggie with him, even though MacMillan questioned the decision.

  “My wife goes where I go.” Light said the words with such finality that the homesteader said nothing further on the matter.

  In her buckskin britches, her hair pushed up under her old hat, Maggie looked like a slim boy. Carrying her bow, her quiver of arrows on her shoulder, she easily kept pace with Light. She was happy. Light had explained to her what they planned to do. He was including her. She would stand beside him and make him proud. The woods were quiet and restful after the activity at the homestead. Maggie loved the woods, longed to let her feet take wings and run, run, run—

  They walked steadily for half an hour, hearing only the sounds of birds, squirrels and pack rats scurrying through the mat of leaves. Many Spots veered off the trail to check on Caleb’s progress rowing downriver in a canoe with two jugs that, to Vega watching with the spyglass, would appear to be whiskey.

  Abruptly, Light’s arm shot out to stop Maggie and push her into the thick undergrowth alongside the trail. MacMillan followed.

  A long silent moment passed, then Light cautiously raised himself to a kneeling position so that nothing of him was visible from the trail. He waited a moment before motioning to Maggie and MacMillan.

  “Something ahead. No birds.”

  “Animal?”

  “No.”

  When he heard the chirping of birds again, Light beckoned and they moved silently once more along the trail. Maggie remembered to stay calm as she followed Light, her bow in her hand. Light had said nerves were a worse enemy than the meanest Delaware alive.

  They had come around a thick stand of sumac and not a dozen yards ahead was a man lying on the ground. Once again they sidled off the trail and into the undergrowth and waited until Light motioned. Then they cautiously approached the still figure. MacMillan knelt down beside the man on the ground while Light’s sharp eyes searched for movement and his ears for the slightest sound.

  “He ain’t dead. Gol-durnit, he ain’t no more’n a boy with peach fuzz on his jaws. Why ya reckon somebody hit ’im for?” MacMillan turned Dixon over. “Hellfire! If he had a gun or a knife, he ain’t got it now. He’s got nothin’ on him but a eatin’ knife.”

  “I just betcha it was that mean old Kruger,” Maggie said.

  “Wasn’t no tomahawk what done it. He’d a been dead.”

  Many Spots trotted toward them from the river. “Caleb comin’. What this here?” He touched Dixon with his foot. “Want me kill ’im?”

  “No, he be just a boy.”

  “We must go,” Light said urgently. “We can tend him on the way back . . . if he’s here.”

  “Whoever hit ’im heard us comin’.”

  Before they came out of the woods above the river where Caleb was to beach his canoe, Light motioned the others to stay behind. He crept forward to peer through the bushes. Now he could hear Caleb coming along just outside the reeds. He appeared to be drunk and was singing what he called a “moaning” song.

  Light melted back into the forest where the others waited.

  “Caleb is almost there. If they send a boat out, he will pretend not to notice until they are almost ready to beach it, then he’ll run toward that tree.” Light pointed to a tree that had been uprooted during the last storm.

  “We kill?” Many Spots asked.

  “Depends,” Light said. “We’ll see what they do. Use only the bows. No gunfire. We want to keep Vega guessing for as long as we can.”

  “What you want captives for?” Many Spots asked MacMillan.

  MacMillan shrugged. “If they be like the German, I kill ’em. I can’t have that sort ’round my womenfolk.”

  “Kill ’em now,” Many Spots said.

  “Ya can see he ain’t got much use for rivermen,” MacMillan explained to Light. “It was rivermen who killed his two boys last year. He thinks it was men from Vega’s boat. The younguns was jist playin’ along the riverbank. Bastards used ’em t’ practice on.”

  Light positioned Maggie well back behind a tree with some branches low enough to reach so that she could scramble into the upper ones should the need arise.

  “Chérie, you watch all around. Kruger may be close by. Give our call if you see anything.”

  “Be careful, Light.”

  He tucked a stray curl under her hat, his eyes telling her how precious she was to him.

  “You will obey me?”

  “Yes, Light.”

  “Stay here. I will see about Caleb. It is his life that is in danger now.”

  When Light parted the bushes to view Caleb’s performance, he could almost believe that the big Negro was drunk. He pulled the canoe up onto the sandbar, falling twice as he did so. He lay laughing each time, then got up to go look at the canoe Dixon had left there. He staggered about for a time, taking drinks from the jug. He began to sing loudly, mournfully, and off-key.

  “I’se jist a po trav . . . ler,

  A-goin’ through dis world a sin

  an’ woe.

  Wanderin’ on . . . a’ creakin’ on . . .

  through dis world a sin an’ woe—”

  Caleb fell to his knees, hung there for a minute, then flopped on his back and poured the liquid from the jug into his mouth.

  Light made the sound of a bullfrog to let Caleb know he was there, then watched as a canoe was lowered into the river from the keelboat. Two men, one with a long gun, stepped into the canoe and took up paddles. The man with the gun had a black bushy beard and wore a red knit cap low over his eyes. A richly dressed dandy on the keelboat held a spyglass, and waved a hand for
them to hurry. When the canoe was no more than a dozen or so yards from the sandbar, Light made the sound again.

  Caleb sat up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at the men in the boat, then leisurely got to his feet.

  Run, Caleb. Now!

  The big man staggered a few feet, picked up his jug, and turned to look at the men, who had run the canoe up onto the sandbar and were getting out. Light’s heart jumped in his throat when Caleb took a step toward the men. Then, quick as a flash, he whirled around and ran for the woods.

  “Shoot him! Shoot him!” The words came over the water from the keelboat.

  The man who toted the long gun hesitated and pushed back his cap; he didn’t dare waste his shot until he had a clear view of the fleeing man zigzagging through the trees. He lowered the gun and crashed through the bushes after Caleb. The other man followed at a slower pace. Caleb led them toward the downed tree, keeping just far enough ahead so they could catch a glimpse of him from time to time.

  Several hundred yards inland, the pirates paused. The man with the red cap kept the rifle at ready. He turned a half-circle, scanning the trees, looking for movement. It was then MacMillan called out.

  “We got ya in our sights. Put down the gun—”

  The red-capped man spun and aimed the gun in the direction from which the voice had come. He never fired. A silent arrow, which seemed to come from nowhere, pierced his chest with a dull thud. The other man looked down in horror, then lifted his clasped hands high over his head. Sure that he was about to die, he waited, trembling. A white man and an Indian came out from behind the fallen tree, then the Negro they had been sent to capture emerged.

  He wasn’t drunk! It was a trap!

  The thought crowded into the boatman’s mind amid all the others as Light and Maggie filed silently from the woods. Maggie’s hat had come off. She had slammed it back on her head without taking the time to poke the mass of heavy ringlets up into the crown. The riverman gaped. This was the beautiful woman the German had described. His eyes went to the man beside her. And the half-breed Kruger had said would be so easy to kill.

  They stood looking at him, then turned their attention to his fallen companion when the Indian reached down and yanked the red cap from the man’s head.

  “He be the one. Had red cap, black hair on head, black hair on face.”

  “If he be the one, ’twas yore right t’ kill him. How about this other feller? Was he there too?”

  “Not there,” Many Spots stated emphatically. “Rivermen had black hair. That’n too skinny. Hair not black.” With a few deft movements of his knife, Many Spots made a circle on the top of the dead man’s head. With his foot on the man’s face, he twisted his hand in the dark hair and yanked. He held up the bloody scalp. “Take to Chattering Tongue. She no grieve. She give me more sons.”

  After a glance at his mutilated companion, the riverman blurted:

  “I ain’t never kilt nobody. Not even . . . not even a Inj—” He cut off his words and looked fearfully at Many Spots. “Vega don’t let us have guns or knives on board.”

  “What did Vega tell ya t’ do?”

  “Get the nigga. Said cripple ’im if we had to, but get ’im. Mister, this be my first trip upriver. I didn’t know he was a river pirate, waylayin’ trappers and takin’ their furs and Indian women. I swear to God.”

  “Did the German come back to the boat?” Until now Light had said nothing.

  “Nobody come back . . . yet. That’s why Vega’s worked up an’ sent Dixon to look around.”

  “How many Indian women does he have.”

  “Three. Got a white woman too, but she’s not a captive. He don’t tie up the women no more. They kiss his feet t’ get the dope he lets ’em smoke. Then they sits like they ain’t even knowin’ where they’re at.”

  “It be what he get off that ship in Orleans,” Caleb said with disgust, then bent over to go through the dead man’s pockets. “Didn’t have nothin’ but the gun.”

  “He had his eatin’ knife, like the other’n had.” MacMillan said.

  “The other ’n? Mister, he sent Dixon ashore a couple hours ago to look around for the German an’ Rico an’ the others. He ain’t come back. He’s not much more’n a youngun, ain’t shaved yet, an’ mighty scared Vega’ll kill him ’fore he gets back home. Did ya see anythin’ of him?”

  “Why’er ya carin’?” MacMillan asked bluntly. “Ya best be lookin’ ’bout yore own hide.”

  “Wal . . . me an’ him was tryin’ to stay alive to get back to St. Louie. We was goin’ to jump off—”

  “Desert?”

  The man’s eyes scanned the expressionless faces of the men and the beautiful young woman who watched him. To admit planning to desert was like admitting to plotting a mutiny in the eyes of a riverman.

  He hesitated, then said, “I . . . guess we was—but we wasn’t sartin we’d live to get back. Vega killed two of the rowers, lopped Dixon’s finger off—and two more don’t have ears no more. One ain’t got no nose to speak of.”

  “What’s yore name?”

  “Bodkin. Linton Bodkin.”

  “What’d ya do afore ya signed on with Vega?”

  “Worked for a cooper.”

  “Why’d ya quit makin’ barrels an’ tubs?”

  “To see . . . what was upriver, I guess,” he finished lamely.

  “Want me kill ’im?” Many Spots asked.

  Bodkin’s frightened eyes went first to MacMillan and then to Light.

  “Naw,” MacMillan said with a twinkle in his eye, after he let the man sweat for a while. “He’s got a good strong back.

  We’ll let him tote his friend Dixon back to the homestead if he ain’t already dead.”

  “Ya got Dixon?”

  “If that’s his name. We found him with a lump on his head. What weapons was he carryin’?”

  “I don’t reckon he had any.”

  “Vega sent a man off without weapons?”

  “Nobody’s got weapons but him and Julio. He’s scared somebody’ll slip up on him an’ cut his throat. He’s been crazy mean lately. He give him the gun”—he jerked his head toward the dead man—“’cause he wanted him to get the nigga or kill him. He can’t stand thin’s not goin’ his way.” His eyes slid over Maggie and away—glad she had escaped the debasement she would have suffered at the hands of the Spaniard.

  MacMillan picked up the dead man’s rifle and handed it to Many Spots.

  “Me no want. Too heavy.”

  “Yore plan worked, Light.” MacMillan tossed the gun to Caleb, who caught it with one huge fist. “Vega’s short two more men, three counting the one with the bashed head. That leaves two beside himself.” He looked at Bodkin. “What’ll he do?”

  “Put the women to the oars.”

  “It’ll take a strong wind, a good steersman and luck to get a boat that size back downriver without running aground.”

  “Julio is as good a steersman as they come. My guess is he’ll make it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MacMillan and Many Spots, with their prisoner in tow, went back to pick up Dixon and take him to the homestead.

  “We go to watch Vega.” As Light spoke to Caleb, he moved to put his body between Maggie and the dead man. Flies had begun to swarm around his bloody head.

  “Yas’sah. What we do with this?” Caleb’s head jerked toward the dead man.

  “In the river, when Vega leaves.”

  “Light—” Maggie placed her hand on his arm. “Would be decent t’ put him in the ground.”

  “He was the worst kind of man, chérie. He doesn’t deserve a decent burial.”

  “Hee, hee, hee.” Deep chuckles came rolling up out of Caleb’s massive chest. “Missy ’fraid he make dem catfish plumb sick, Masta Light.”

  “I didn’t mean that an’ ya know it.” Maggie put her hand on her hips and glared at the big man.

  Caleb sobered immediately. “Yas’m. I put him in the hole where them tree roots w
as.” Grasping the body by the feet, he dragged it toward the tree toppled by the storm. “An’ I ain’t carin’ if the wolves gets at ’im,” he added under his breath.

  “Keep an eye out for Kruger. He has no gun or knife—that we know of. But he’ll be desperate now.”

  “I watch.”

  “What’ll Kruger do, Light?”

  “There are only two places he can go, chérie. To Vega or to MacMillan’s. Let’s go watch and see if he goes to Vega.”

  Maggie and Light moved upriver through the woods until they came to a place where they could part the bushes and see Vega’s boat. With his spyglass, the pirate was searching the area where his men had followed Caleb into the woods. His movements were jerky, and the voice that came over the water was high-pitched and angry. He was speaking in rapid Spanish.

  If there were no women aboard, Light thought, he would shoot fire arrows and try to blow up the boat.

  As they watched, two men and a blond-haired woman took up poles and strained to turn the keelboat around. With the bow pointed toward the shore where the canoes were beached, the poles were stuck in the river bottom to hold the craft in place.

  “Mon Dieu! He’s going to use the cannon.” Light got to his feet. “Chérie. Come. We must warn Caleb.”

  “You go on. I hold you back—”

  “Obey me! I’ve not got time to argue,” Light said sternly.

  “Yes, Light.”

  He pushed her ahead of him until they came to the path, then ran ahead, shouting for her to keep up. He didn’t dare send her toward MacMillan’s with Kruger somewhere nearby.

  They ran zigzagging through the woods. Light had no idea how long it would take to load and fire the cannon. That fool Vega was going to fire into the woods in the hope of getting Caleb even though his own men were there. Bodkin was right; the man had lost his reason.

  “Caleb!” Light did not care if the pirate heard his shout. “Caleb!” he bellowed. The Negro had heard him and was halfway across the clearing when Light reached it. “Hurry! He’s firing the cannon.”