“Did he work alone?” I asked her, as we stood in a circle. I was worried that if he had accomplices they might be on the river as well.
“Yes,” she muttered, finally meeting my eye.
The group relaxed with her statement. We had a watch on the river in case there were more, but it appeared, unless someone distant heard the gunshot, that we would remain unnoticed.
I went to the canoe and started piling the clothes and trinkets on the ground. Many Indians favored our style of clothes, and he probably did good business trading with them. As I pulled out the last coat, I saw the dull glint of metal hidden below it. I withdrew two pair of handcuffs, spotted with blood, and held them for the group to see. I looked over at Rory, but she was looking down. The men seemed to murmur approval at what she had done.
The hull was nearly empty when I discovered an oilskin folder. I opened the flap and removed several hand-drawn maps. One I recognized immediately as the area around Gasparilla Island, and the other looked unfamiliar. I only took a minute to realize it was a map of the area we sought to travel; the big lake labeled Mayaca. It showed the shores and a small river exiting from the south. I knew from the sun that we were traveling east and knew the southern outlet was the river of grass.
17
It’s a different feeling, having arrows fly over your head when you are used to steel weapons and inaccurate firearms. The projectiles whistled as they passed overhead and thumped when they struck in the dirt or a tree. We huddled in a small cove, our backs to the beach, using the overturned canoes as a barricade. Our group had been quiet and on alert since the incident with the trader yesterday. Aside from the circumstances surrounding his demise and the loss of the information unspoken from his lips, it was almost a blessing. A crew suspicious and looking for any unusual activity was easier to manage than a bored band of pirates.
We had combined all the treasure into four heavy chests, which allowed us to transport each one to a canoe. It was an awkward arrangement, but the only one we had. With the trader’s vessel, we now had four canoes, six men, and Rory. At dawn yesterday, we had pushed off the shores of the river after carrying the two empty chests to the depression where the boats were stashed. We then buried the trader in a shallow grave to avoid the telltale buzzards that would seek out his rotting flesh.
I had studied the map, memorized any distinguishing feature before we left. The problem was that Rory had killed the trader before he could disclose our location on the river. Another few minutes with the man might have saved us from our present situation, as I feared we had come up on the lake and the large village marked there sooner than we expected. Had I known this, we would have set up a camp further downriver and sent scouts to the river mouth.
Although we had been vigilant, the smoke from the fires in the village was invisible, and the Indians were capable of more stealth than we gave them credit. We had rounded a bend and spotted a group of men moving from the bushes with bows drawn. Before we could react, the air was full of arrows, and we took cover in the hollowed-out cypress of our boats, holding our coats over our heads to stave off the arrows. Fortunately, although their aim was good, the distance prevented the arrows from striking with much velocity.
As the arrows flew, I started to take in our surroundings in the waning sunlight. The minutes passed, and the shadows grew longer. The smoke visible to our right and upriver marked the location of the village. I pulled the map from its oilcloth holder and tried to ascertain our position relative to the Indian camp. The village was shown on the southern bank of the river just before it emptied into the lake. We were taking fire from a small band of fighters on the opposite side of the river from the village. I turned away from the attackers and suspected their ploy.
“They aim to pin us down here, and my guess is they will attack from behind us as soon as the sun sets.” I looked inland, trying to judge where they would come from and how to defend ourselves. “Least they don’t have firearms,” I said.
Rhames shot me a look, “Don’t be so sure. They may be holding them in reserve. That’s what I would do. They know from this distance they would be ineffective. Bastards just want to pin us down.”
I saw no way out. “We have to take a chance and get back on the river before they attack,” I called out.
“Aye, no choice there,” Rhames backed me up.
As yet we had offered no defense, but we would need to use the pistol and rifle to cover our exit. I planned it in my head and got an idea from the thick moss hanging from the cypress trees. “Help me with this,” I asked Rory, who was almost entirely inside one of the hulls, the fear of being recaptured by the Indians clear in her eyes.
She was frozen in place, so I tapped Red on the shoulder, and he followed me as I crawled to the nearest tree. The moss hung to within a few feet of the dirt, and I was able to reach up and pull a large clump of it without revealing myself. Branches swayed as I did, but the aim of the archers remained on the cluster of boats. I kneeled in the dirt and started wrapping myself in the dense and fibrous moss, starting at my head and winding it around my neck and then my body. Red reached out to touch me and, as I hoped, the material appeared to be thick enough to repel an arrow, at least from the distance they were shooting.
We both gathered armloads of moss and returned to the group, who surrounded us with scared and questioning faces. “As soon as the sun dips behind those trees we need to move out. They’ll come from the land behind us as soon as it gets dark. Use the moss like this.” I showed my technique. “With any luck we’ll blend into the river.”
Heads nodded, and two other men helped collect enough moss to cover both ourselves and the boats. If we were quiet in the dim light I hoped we would be invisible to the attackers. The deep shadows cast from the moss-covered trees gave the illusion of twilight, and the quantity of arrows dwindled to several a minute as we wrapped ourselves from the waist up. I knew the land-based attack would likely come soon, and we braved the intermittent arrows to right the boats, drape moss over their sides and load the chests and supplies. Minutes later we were ready.
I had been so involved in preparing the boats that I failed to notice the arrows had stopped, a sure sign the attack was imminent. “Into the boats,” I called out and waded into the water, pushing the first boat in front of me. I didn’t wait for the others. They knew the urgency of the situation, and I soon heard the men behind me.
Just as my pole hit the sandy bottom and the boat moved into the channel, I heard activity on the shore and a woman scream. I looked back, and in the fading light could see Rory standing ankle deep in the water, surrounded by Indians. I cursed myself for not keeping an eye on her, but there was nothing we could do, as arrows rained down on us from the shore as they led her inland.
18
We absorbed a flurry of arrows as we poled the boats past the far bank, but the moss held and, although we could feel the arrows strike, they did not reach our skin. Soon, the only indication of our passing was the barely audible sound of the poles as they occasionally scraped against the wooden hulls. Our camouflage was so convincing that as twilight turned to night I had to struggle to see the canoe in front of ours. I watched behind us and scanned both banks of the river for any activity, but there was no movement or sound. Although capable of stealth, the Indians had no need for it now—they had the woman. The moon was a quarter up the sky when we finally decided to stop and pulled our cutlasses and guns out. We were all aware of each other and our surroundings as the bottoms of the burnished cypress boats scraped against the gravelly bottom.