We brought the boats together in the lee of the island, and I found all eyes on me.
“Alright, Nick,” Rhames said. “What’s the plan?”
I hesitated, still uncomfortable with my new authority and unsure if the men had the fortitude for the dangers that lay ahead. “We can’t lose them on the open water. There are too many. Their boats are faster and they’re well armed.” I started to plead my case and waited while the men looked at each other and grunted in assent. “I’m thinking we row down the coast and hide out.”
“That’s a lot of open water to cover,” one of the men, named Red, said as he slapped the side of his boat. Several other men nodded in agreement.
“We’ll have to row at night, but if we stay out here, we’re dead men and all this will be lost.” I waved my hands at the chests.
“What about the lady?” another asked.
“That’s the first place they’ll look,” I responded.
Rhames eyed the group, instantly stopping the dissent. “Boy’s right.”
That was all he said, but it was all that was needed. In agreement we turned to the west and led the small convoy through the chain of islands. By noon, the wind had started to die and the rowing became easier but, as our anxiety about the seas diminished, our hunger and thirst began to dominate our thoughts.
“We have to find some food,” I said to Rhames, who only grunted.
“We get a turtle, it’ll hold us for a while.” I pointed toward an inlet that looked like it turned into a small river. “They won’t think of looking in there, and I have an idea.”
He pulled hard on his oar, and we swung toward the mouth of the inlet. The other boats followed, and we made landfall on a gravel beach about a hundred feet in. We gathered around the boats, the group again looking to me for leadership.
“They’re going to think that we are heading for the Spanish Homestead and the Lady Boggess. We should be safe in here. Red, take five men and follow the river in. We need fresh water and food—oysters, turtle—even a gator. Some coconuts would be good as well.
“What about you?” Red asked. “You gonna sit here and sleep?”
I met the first resistance to my leadership easily. “Rhames and I are going to create a diversion.” They all looked at me again. “We need to empty one of the chests.” They eyed me suspiciously, but I ignored them. “We meet back here at sunset—and be ready to row.”
“What about the loot?” Red asked.
He was quickly becoming my opposition, “We empty one chest and combine its contents with the others. You take the rest.” That seemed to satisfy him, and we split into two groups. Rhames and I waited as the men took three of the boats and started to move inland. We set the empty chest in the boat so it was visible above the gunwales.
“Well, I hope you have a plan,” Rhames said.
I sat on the beach with my back to the boat. “We need the tide,” I said and closed my eyes to give the illusion that I actually knew what I was doing. Unable to sleep, my mind was trying to finish cooking the half-baked plan that I had sold the men on. I was counting on the tide to float the empty boat toward the Peace River, giving the Navy men reinforcement for what they already thought—that we were heading to Spanish Harbor. We would hike back here after sending the boat. With their attention upriver, I intended to regroup at sunset and head west, using the night for cover. The chain of islands that protected us ended a mile from here, and we would be exposed for several hours once we left their cover and be visible to the frigate until we reached the channel leading to the Caloosahatchee River. From there, we could continue down the coast and seek refuge in the marshes.
We would need to leave close to midnight and before the moon rose. We would pass the river mouth, exit the protection of the waterway, and head for Estero Bay. The portage required to enter the bay from the north ought to discourage pursuit. The bay offered excellent vantage points to observe anyone entering from sea, and its many islands offered refuge. We could regroup and plan there.
Rhames was asleep when I woke him an hour later. “Time.” He seemed to like simple commands.
He rose and shook his dreadlocks out. With his help, we pushed the boat into the shallow water. We jumped into the lead boat and started to row, the empty hull with its barren chest following behind. The wind had died a bit, but was still brisk, and helped push us toward the mouth of the Peace River as we exited the protection of the inlet. I motioned for Rhames to hold water. The wind and tide were working in our favor now. We stayed in the lee of the islands and out of view of the longboats I expected to be close by. At the headland we beached the boat. As I was about to push the sacrificial craft into the current, Rhames stopped me. “It’s a bit of a walk back there.”
I nodded, and we pushed the boat off the bank. We stood there as the tide and wind took it around the headland and into the river. I heard someone yell and turned to look back into the bay, where a handful of longboats were speeding toward the river mouth. The boat had been spotted. With no time to watch our plan unfold, we started a fast hike back toward the inlet, trudging through the marshy muck that permeated the shallows. As we approached, I saw a small stream of smoke coming from the beach we had departed from and picked up our pace.
7
“Douse it now!” I yelled, as we pushed through the brush and onto the beach. Rhames didn’t wait, he ran to the firepit and hurled sand onto the flames. The men had killed and brought back a large loggerhead turtle, which now lay on its back in the embers. Worried we might have been spotted, I sent two men with one of the boats to the mouth of the inlet to stand watch. The Navy ship lay less than a half-mile away and, although we were screened by the island and brush, they could still see the smoke.
The fire was smoldering now, and we pulled the turtle out. “You want to eat now, it needs to be raw. Open up the belly and start butchering. We’ll take it with us, maybe get a hot meal tomorrow, but before that we have a long night ahead.” Several men pulled knives from their belts, and I flinched for a second, thinking they were coming for me, but they went to work on the turtle. They sliced the belly and started cutting slabs of meat from the two-hundred-fifty-pound animal. This would be enough food to see us for a week if we were careful and able to preserve it. Within minutes all the meat was out of the shell, sitting on palm fronds cut from the brush. “Clean the shell, too. We’ll need that.”
I caught a look from Rhames and followed him down the beach.
“You’re doing well, boy. They listen to you and what you say makes sense.” He paused and pulled on his braided beard. “You take the lead, but watch me.”
This was the most I had ever heard him speak. I grasped his meaning, and thought we could make a good team. He had let me know that I could lead, but he was in charge. I could live with this arrangement; it would keep me alive. Without Rhames behind me, the other men would soon turn against each other. With his menacing figure backing me up, the crew would fall in line. Red seemed to be the only dissenter among them, and I knew from the past few years how he worked. He would whisper to the men, planting the seeds for unrest, then sit back and wait for them to blossom. We walked back to the makeshift camp.
I looked up at the sun, which was starting to sink in its low winter arc. I had planned on pushing off around midnight when the watches on the Navy boat would be less attentive. We had a long, exposed row before we reached the cover of Pine Island and the protection of the clusters of islands along the shore, and a good part of the journey would be in clear sight of the frigate anchored in the mouth of the harbor. I sent a relief party to replace the men on watch and lay back in the sand. Some of the men were eating raw turtle but, though my stomach rumbled, I was not ready to eat raw meat. If all went to plan, we would be far enough up the river by tomorrow morning to start a fire and smoke the meat. Small bands of Indians were common along the river, and our fire would blend with theirs.