Rhames was prone on a cot, snoring loudly. I smacked his head and waited as he slowly gathered his wits.
“What happened?” I asked.
He looked up and squinted, “Well, look at the bloody likes of you. Damn site for sore eyes.”
I knew he was still under the influence, but I needed to know what happened to Red and the treasure. “Come on. Snap out of it. Blue said there were men in uniform that took Red.”
“Bloody hell, those Navy bastards.” They came in the longboats. Old Red was drunk and didn’t get to the canoe in time.
He probably wasn’t the only drunk one, but I was glad to see Rhames all the same and left him to sleep it off.
38
I could tell from the look on Lucy’s face that the man was in a bad way. “Doesn’t look good,” I said, as I stood by her side. Sweat poured from his skin, and his face was swollen and red. She was hovering over him, washing him with what looked like the same concoction she had used on me.
“No, Mr. Nick. I think it is too late,” she said as she worked.
I walked outside and stood by Mason, who was staring at the sky. “She’s doing all she can.”
He just shrugged and continued to stare.
“I’ll be heading back to the ship. We’ll stay for the night and see what tomorrow brings.”
He acknowledged me with a nod.
I found the canoe that Rhames, Blue, and Lucy had used to escape the Navy, and paddled it back to the boat. I tied it to the line from our ship and climbed the rope ladder hung over the side.
“Might have brought a bit of rum with you,” Syd slurred, as he tapped the empty keg.
They had been drinking, but as far as I could tell were not quite drunk. “I could use a bit myself, but there are some complications.” I told them of the raid on the island, the capture of Red, and the escape of the others.
“That’s all I know for now. Rhames is passed out, and Lucy is working on the man,” I said, and rose.
“What about Red?” Swift asked about his friend.
“We won’t leave him to hang, but we need to find out if he’s in a jail cell in Key West or in the brig of the frigate. If it’s the brig, there’s nothing we can do, but he’ll be safe until they put ashore. If he’s held on land, they could swing him any time.”
“Fair enough. Then we leave for Key West?” Syd asked.
“Let me sleep on it.” I walked away. Back in my cabin, I laid out on the bunk and started to think. Although Red was a constant thorn in my side, he was part of my crew. Despite any feelings I had about him, if the Navy had not already found our treasure, he knew where it was. I did not want him to use its location as a bargaining chip to negotiate for his freedom, or let them torture it out of him. One way or another we had to rescue him.
The wind woke me late in the night, and I cursed myself for falling asleep without assigning a watch. I rubbed my eyes and swung my feet onto the deck. The boat was bobbing like a cork in a pool and the wind was whistling through the rigging. I left the cabin, climbed the stairs onto the deck, and walked toward the bow.
Whitecaps topped the small, wind-blown waves in the harbor and ,although I couldn’t see the open water, I knew from the wind that the seas would be higher than my head. I turned back to shore and was surprised to see lanterns lit in the cabins. I moved back to the companionway and yelled down for Swift and Syd to wake up.
A few minutes later they joined me on deck, and we watched the activity on land as several figures were preparing the schooner for sea. The boat was similar to ours in rigging, but was beamier to accommodate more in its holds. The men were talking, but the wind was in my face and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I suspected we were not in danger. If they had wanted, they could have snuck onto the boat in the night and slit our throats. A large man staggered out of the shack where I had left Rhames, and I struggled to see if it was him. He waved both arms in our direction and yelled, but I couldn’t make out his words over the clatter in the rigging.
He cupped his hands together. “Make ready to sail, Nick. There’s a wreck on the reef,” he yelled.
Mason had told me about the men here and called them wreckers, a trade I could only understand as a legal form of pirating. The reef did the work, and although he had said that lives were saved more often than not, the spoils were ill-gotten gains.
“Right then,” I called to Swift and Syd. “Get the boat ready. I’ll get Rhames.”
I could see their excitement at the prospect of adventure as I climbed over the ladder and swung myself into the canoe. The small craft rocked with the waves, and I was careful not to lean over when I released the line. Rhames was waiting when I reached the beach and, before I had grounded, he waded into the water and spun the boat around before hopping in.
“Wait a minute. Let me check on Mason. He’s a good hand and knows how this is done.”
He looked at me with that queer look he used when he’s not sure what I meant, and I realized he didn’t know of our discovery of the men in the hold of the ship. I didn’t have time to tell him now and stepped into the water, leaving him alone in the canoe. Mason was standing on the end of the pier, talking to the man he had introduced as Joshua Appleby. They turned to me as I approached.
“Joshua wants to partner with you. Word is there’s a boat wrecked on Sombrero Key.” Mason spoke for them. “Says the wreck is too big to salvage with just his boat.”
I was not sure about this whole business, or what a partnership involved, but the only way to learn was to take a risk and find out. “As long as you pilot our ship, you have a deal.” I extended my hand to the men.
They looked at each other and nodded. “We leave in ten minutes,” Joshua said. “Listen to Mason, son. He knows the trade.”
I ignored the insult and ran to the shack where Lucy and Blue were tending the man. I wanted them both onboard, but would settle for Blue if Lucy was still needed here. In calm seas, the boat could be sailed with a handful of men, as we had done before, but in heavy seas we would need every able body I could muster. I entered the room and saw Blue in the corner sitting on his haunches.
“We ready, Mr. Nick. Lucy will stay with the man, but I will go,” he said, and grabbed his tube. Without a word to Lucy, he walked past me through the door and into the night.
The four of us would have capsized in the choppy waters, so we split and took two shuttles. Once aboard, I looked over at the other boat. “Raise the main with two reefs,” I ordered, copying what Appleby had done. Rhames and Swift were already in the rigging and unlashed the ties. The sail rose out of the lazy jacks and we started to move.
“Tie off the anchor line to the canoe,” Mason called to me, and winked.
He didn’t want the ballast examined, and I doubted it would hold in open water anyway. I went forward, took a turn of the line on the winch, and pulled enough slack to reach the stern, where the tender line was tied to the rail. Braced against the rail to keep slack in the anchor line, I removed the canoe’s line and tied a sheet bend, and let them go. We were underway now, and I watched Mason turn from the wind to allow the other boat the lead.
The reefed main caught as he steered us back to the wind, and we moved forward. Leaving the harbor was easy with the wind at our backs but, as we rounded the point and the sun started to rise, I saw the churning water ahead. On days like this, pirates drank rum. But this weather is when wreckers worked, and we clung to anything we could as the waves crashed over the bowsprit, covering the deck with spray.
We were less than five miles from the reef, and I could see a mast askew on the horizon. Mason called to raise the foresail, and we picked up more speed. For the better part of an hour we fought the wind and waves. Finally, we came within hailing distance of the wrecked boat and shortened sail. We kept a safe distance and watched Appleby, his boat standing off in deeper water, at the tip of the bowsprit yelling back and forth with a man on the sinking ship. I couldn’t make out the words, but expected they were negotiating for the rights to the cargo in exchange for saving the crew. Suddenly, the captain broke off the negotiation and looked toward shore. We all turned to follow his gaze and saw two other boats heading toward us.