The meat appeared cooked, and I doused the fire, using the hard base of a dead palm frond as a shovel. “I need to check on Rhames,” I said to the group, then looked at Rory, who I hoped would follow and walked out of the clearing toward the boats.
He sat in the stern of one of the longboats, propped against the seat. His eyes were wide open; a vacant look was on his face, and I had a moment of panic as I thought he was dead. Finally he snapped out of his trance, looked at the girl, but spoke to me, “See, you’ve found a bit of trouble there, boy.”
“It had to be done. I couldn’t leave her with those heathens,” I replied, unsure how a real pirate would have acted.
“Aye, but now we’ve got more trouble than Lafitte and the Navy.” He sat up.
“We should have lost them by now. No one goes this far upriver.”
He turned his gaze to me. “No one but a bunch of pirates with treasure. They’ll follow us through the gates of hell for what we’ve got in these chests.”
I turned to the chests. “Right. So we should move out,” was all I could think to say. It seemed that leading was much easier when we were moving than when we were camped.
“Think we might at least want to know who’s after us? If they’re fighters and how they’re armed,” he said.
“How would we know?” I asked, and shrunk as I watched him turn toward Rory.
“Got a name, girl?” he asked.
“Rory,” she responded. “And they are properly equipped to fight you. They hunt with the bow, but they have firearms.”
I watched her recount their manpower and armaments, feeling stupid, as I had spent most of the day fixated on her beauty and ignoring her brain. As she told Rhames about their ways, I swore I would not make the same mistake again.
“Hear that, boy? We’ve got plenty of trouble on our hands. I figure with rowing against the river and pulling the canoes that we made ten miles today. They know the land and even without boats they can be on us in minutes.”
I did the math in my head and realized he was right. A war band knowing their footing could easily make three, maybe four, miles an hour. The head start I thought we had was gone.
“Can you travel?” I asked him.
“Aye. Get the men.”
I watched his face and saw a twinge as he repositioned himself, but there was nothing to be done. “Stay with him,” I told Rory, and went back to the clearing to get the men.
They must have sensed my urgency, because they were already packed up and ready to leave. In minutes, we loaded the boats and were ready to push off. I felt the need to stay close to Rhames and Rory, and we took a longboat, hoping she could row as well as she handled the canoe.
“I can row,” she said, and sat by the port oar.
The other men sorted themselves out; two in the longboat pulling the canoes, as the other two pushed us off the bank before taking the canoe that Rory and I had brought. I was impressed again, watching Rory row. I kept watch behind us and cursed, as I noticed the first buzzard circle the camp.
“What’s that you’re thinking?” she asked.
Rhames cut me off, “The bird. It’ll surely attract the Indians.”
“Any luck it’ll be dark before they see it,” I said, as I watched the sun break the horizon behind us. As it sank, I noticed the grunts of the gators from the banks as they slid into the water for their evening hunt. I knew we were safe behind several inches of oak, and I tried to ignore them as we moved upriver.
I tried to quiz Rory about the geography here as we rowed, but we were well past the extent of her travels. The hours slipped numbly by as we ate up miles of water, and I was in the kind of trance a man can fall into when working monotonous labor.
Until I lost my oar—and my body shot forward.
15
I regained my balance and looked around the dark water, not sure if I had been asleep. There was a small moon hanging in the east, but it provided little light. My first thought had been that we were under attack, but I soon saw that we had just hit a cypress stump. Its gnarly head stuck from the water, and I realized how the features of the river had changed. It was narrow and shallow here, not like the wide and deep river we had entered. Moss hung from the trees just above our heads, dropping the occasional insect as we brushed it.
The other longboat in front of us was also having trouble moving through the cluttered river, but the canoe manned by the other men was having no trouble navigating. The pole was able to pick its way around the obstructions, while the oars extending from the longboats were unable to gain purchase on the water.
“Pull to the side,” I called to the boats, surprised by how easily my voice carried in the night. It was past time to abandon the worthless oars, and I slid over the side. As we neared the bank, the bottom sucked at my feet, but as I pulled the boat to the beach the footing became more secure. Behind me, Red was also in the water, pulling the other longboat ashore. The brush came within a few feet of us, and we had to fight to beach the boats. “We’ll never get through with these. It’s time to abandon them,” I said, and looked at the river.
“The boats?” Red asked.
“We’ve got the canoes. That’s what they’re made for.” I peered inland, knowing we would have to drag the longboats out of sight to ditch them. Several sets of eyes glowed from the darkness, and I wondered what lived in these woods. We had seen deer and gators along the bank and had heard larger animals. There were rumors of big cats, called panthers, as well as bears. “Pull everything out of the longboats and hide those canoes out of sight,” I said.
The darkness was broken as the sun climbed above the horizon. I grabbed my cutlass from the boat and checked that the dagger was still secure in my belt. As I entered the woods, I extended the blade of the sword in front of me to move the hanging moss aside and to cut away the tangles of berry bushes.
The sun began to light the area in front of me as I moved through the dense brush lining the river. Ten feet in, the bank rose a few feet to its high-water mark, and the brush thinned as I climbed from the river bed. Cypress trees were scattered about, but the thorny berry bushes were gone, and the palmettos grew in clumps, making the walking easier. Slashing several tree trunks as I went to mark the path for my return, I searched for any sign that men traveled along these shores. The flora thinned further as I walked, making it easier to see the landscape. The sky was light, and I scanned the ground for any tracks—left by either man or animal—and found none. A small depression covered in palmettos lay ahead. It was the only break in the land, and I hoped it was deep enough to hide the boats. I would have preferred to burn them and bury the metal fittings, but the smoke would signal our presence.
I reached the depression and hacked away the closest leaves. It was several feet deep, the bottom lined with standing water and covered with berry bushes. I snatched at the fruit and paused to enjoy the berries and catch my breath. The area was large and deep enough to hold the boats, and I expected the berry bushes would quickly envelope them, making them all but invisible. I grabbed another handful of berries and started back to camp.
The chests had been unloaded and stacked on the shore, along with our meager supplies, when I returned. Rory was beside Rhames, who lay next to one of the boats. She was tending his wound. The other men were all side by side, some asleep.