Jack Iron (15 page)

“I’ll take that wager, Jean Baptiste.” Laffite held out his hand for Jean Baptiste to shake and seal the bargain. The cajun chuckled and accepted the arrangement, but it was Laffite who appeared the most satisfied.

Kit McQueen had not come alone to the riverfront. Iron Hand O’Keefe stood at his side, and behind him were Nate Russell and Strikes With Club, both of whom had insisted on accompanying O’Keefe on the quest to rescue his daughter.

“I ain’t got to obey a word of your orders, General,” O’Keefe called out.

“And I shall make no attempt to stop you. Pass on through,” Jackson told the war chief of the Choctaw. O’Keefe had expected more of an argument and hesitated.

“Go on. I’ll be along,” Kit told his friend. If trouble came, he did not want the big Irishman in the line of fire. O’Keefe hesitated. “Dammit, man. She’s your daughter. Now get on that boat!”

O’Keefe shrugged, and nodded in agreement. McQueen made sense. He motioned for the two braves to follow him and ambled through the ranks of the Tennesseans. With Kit alone, Jackson walked over to the red-haired lieutenant. He had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Andrew Jackson was a man who liked to keep his plots to himself, a talent that would one day serve him well as President.

“Curse it, mister. You’ve called my hand in this. And left me no choice,” Jackson said, keeping his voice low. Lack of sleep and the pressure of the command had taken its toll. However, once Laffite and his troublemakers were out of the city, he’d be able to relax.

“Do you mean to shoot me, General? Because that’s what you’ll have to do,” said Kit. He was not turning back. And if that meant facing the guns of the militia, then so be it.

“Hell, no. I’m trying to save your life.” Jackson pursed his lips and shook his head, trying to figure out some way of avoiding the issue, but there seemed nothing for it but to confide in McQueen.

“Now see here, Lieutenant… uh… Kit.” Jackson’s sudden familiarity aroused caution in his subordinate officer. “You and I both know why Laffite’s offered his assistance. He intends to recover the gold for himself. Even if you manage to best Obregon and recover what’s been lost, you’ll still have Laffite to contend with. And he is apt to be in an ugly mood… when he discovers my… uh… little ruse.”

“Sir?”

“There is no gold. Merely a chest filled with lead ingots painted to look like real treasure.”

Kit paled. “I don’t understand… the guards… your attempts to keep it hidden.”

“I knew the Baratarians would hear of it. I suspected their loyalty and decided to give them an extra reason to fight. The promise of a reward in gold. After the battle, I planned to arrange a theft so that none of the freebooters would be the wiser.”

“But Cesar Obregon beat you to it.” Kit shook his head in disapproval. Jackson owed much of his victory to men like Laffite. They certainly had deserved more than his distrust. In fact, the general’s trickery had been the catalyst tempting the Hawk of the Antilles to his misdeeds.

“The Castilian has no doubt discovered the truth by now. Should he in turn explain my fabrication to Laffite, then you would undoubtedly bear the brunt of his vengeance.”

“I’ll take that chance.”

Jackson raised his hands in disgust. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Laffite will turn on you like a rabid animal when he learns we used him.”

“I will find Raven and bring her safely home.” Kit remained implacable. “Three days ago I fought for you—and for my country. But this is for me. This is personal.” He saluted and headed for the line of militia blocking the pier.

Jackson tried to think of some other argument, but his weary mind would not respond. He knew without a doubt that if his men attempted to place McQueen under arrest, it would lead to bloodshed. So he lifted a hand, and at his signal the militia parted and Kit McQueen continued onto the pier and, with no small relief on his part, trotted safely up the gangplank of the
Malice.

“Who’s that?” Laffite asked, his gaze fixed on a priest in black robes and a broad-brimmed hat who was hurrying down Conti Street. “Cast off,” the buccaneer ordered. “I have no pulpit aboard this ship.”

The priest lowered his head and quickened his pace as he drew abreast of the general. Jackson glanced at the priest in time to receive a brief blessing from the oddly familiar individual. Jackson was certain he knew the Bible-thumper, but the priest’s features were heavily shaded by the hat he wore. He was obviously a thick-set man, and he grunted with every hurried step as if his feet hurt. Jackson assumed the man had spent far too much time in prayer and not enough at hard honest work. New Orleans, with its French Catholics, had no shortage of black robes. Jackson waved a farewell greeting to the priest.

“So you’re sailing with them, Father.”

“Right you are, mate,” said the priest, and quickened his pace. Up ahead the
Malice
was just getting under way. The priest would have to hurry or be left behind. Just as he reached the Tennesseans, Jackson recognized the priest’s English accent and shouted, “Hey! Just you wait, sir!”

“Not on your bloody life,” one of the riflemen heard the priest mutter as he lifted his robes and broke into a run. The militia, alerted by Jackson’s outburst, attempted to give chase. A couple of them fired into the air, but the priest never looked back.

The gangplank had already been drawn in, but the priest showed uncommon ability born no doubt of desperation. He reached the edge of the pier and leapt for the side of the schooner and caught hold of a loop of loose rigging inadvertently draped over the side of the ship.

Strong arms reached out to haul the man up over the side lest he be crushed between the ship and the pier. He landed on deck somewhat shaken and gasping for breath but none the worse for wear. Harry Tregoning pulled off his robes and knuckled a salute to Laffite, then to Kit McQueen, who stared at the marine in amazement.

“Mind if I join you, Mr. McQueen? There’s nothing to hold me in New Orleans.”

“What about the widow LeBeouf?” O’Keefe said with a snarl. Jealousy had colored his opinion of the Cornishman.

“I leave that fair flower for you to pluck, old boy,” Tregoning said. “A lifetime of the same face at breakfast is not for Harry Tregoning.” He glanced at Kit. “I owe those brigands of Captain Obregon a knock or two.” He pointed to the scabbed-over lump on his forehead. Then his expression lightened and settled in an earnest smile. “And I owe you, Kit McQueen. And the men of Cornwall always pay their debts. So I’ll fight at your side, mate, till your lady’s rescued, and here’s my hand to seal the pact.”

It was a fool who turned a blind eye to the workings of fate. The two former enemies were together again. Kit reached out and clasped the hand of the man who had once tried to kill him. So be it. The British marine’s very presence closed the chapter on the two-year-long struggle that had engulfed both their countries and set in motion events that would irrevocably change the family McQueen.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Tregoning,” said Kit. Thoughts of Raven filled his mind and heart. He must find her. One war had ended. But on a mist-shrouded street in New Orleans, in a bleak gray courtyard, Cesar Obregon’s treachery had begun another.

Kit walked to starboard and leaned his elbows on the wooden siding and watched the city recede as the ship tacked into the middle of the river. O’Keefe joined his friend’s vigil and watched the shore sweep past.

“I hope you know what you’re about,” said O’Keefe. “Do you have a plan?”

“Sure,” said Kit. “Find Obregon. Kill him. And bring Raven home.”

“Simple,” O’Keefe dryly commented.

“That’s why I like it,” Kit replied.

But Iron Hand O’Keefe was sorry he’d asked.

O
RTURO NAVARRE, CLAD ONLY
in a loincloth, danced on the crest of the limestone bluff overlooking the governor’s palace. A shower had just passed across the island, filling the shallow dimples in the patches of bare rock and leaving the short-leafed grasses slick and glistening. Even the sunlight felt fresh-scrubbed upon the pirate’s muscled brown torso. Droplets of sweat beaded Navarre’s shaved skull and he whirled and slashed the sun-dappled shrubbery with his cutlass. Yellow warblers and green-winged hummingbirds had abandoned the clearing on his arrival only to watch the Cayman’s ritualistic gyrations from the safety of the treetops.

Navarre leaped high and landed lightly on the balls of his feet; he spun in the air and tramped the shallow soil, his actions sudden and spontaneous, as if hearing in his mind the tribal drums of his mother’s people, the fierce Caribs. He danced and became one with the sunlight and shadows surging through this Caribbean isle, one with the warmth and the stillness, one with the green force that was the life’s blood of every tree and fern and flower from the crest of the Cordillera, Natividad’s mountainous spine, to the palm-shaded shoreline. The blue-green sea capped by opalescent froth lapped at the bay’s sandy beaches and, further out from Morgan Town, attacked the limestone rim of the island, gradually eroding and reshaping what a volcanic upheaval had deposited centuries ago.

Navarre was surrounded by a changing world. He saw himself as an important part of that world, as elemental as a hurricane, a violent force of nature striking out to claim what he wished and leaving in his wake a time and place and people forever changed. It was a role he relished, a role he was convinced would bring him riches. He was destiny’s child, and for him there simply was no other course. It seemed a lifetime ago, and yet scarcely more than a decade had passed since he had become master of his own ship and discovered his power to engender fear and command loyalty among men. He had honed those skills and risen among the brotherhood of freebooters until Orturo Navarre, the Cayman, had a reputation second to no one’s.

But for all his civilized trappings, for all his pretended civility and the finery he wore, there were times when the savage in him burst forth, and he would depart from the affairs of men and in solitude enact the sacred rituals taught him by the shamans of his mother’s tribe. His bare feet tramped a frantic rhythm on the hard-packed earth as the drumming in his brain reached a feverish pitch.

A twig cracked. A pebble kicked loose, rattled down the hillside. Neither sound had been particularly intrusive, but Navarre heard. He always… heard. In an instant he grabbed his bone-handled pistols and melted into the underbrush, abandoning the clearing on the bluff to the westerly breeze and the unseen intruders.

NKenai removed the blue fez he wore and dabbed his ebony features with a white silk cloth he had stolen off the altar in Father Bernal’s church. The climb up from the hacienda had winded him. Ignoring his muscular physique, the Cayman’s African lieutenant scolded himself for growing fat and lazy during the three and a half months he’d been in Morgan Town. NKenai had indulged every whim, swilling copious quantities of rum from dawn to dusk and taking a woman to bed every night.

With the arrival of the first slave ships, the supply of available women had increased on the island. Navarre had personally dispatched another half-dozen girls to the Sea Spray Tavern, a riotous establishment just off of Market Square, across the plaza from Father Bernal’s church. The tavern’s former owner, Josiah Morgan, was dead and digested and not around to protest when Navarre made a present of the place to Tom Bragg, whose gangrenous left leg had been amputated below the knee back in December. Navarre considered such an arrangement ample compensation for shooting Bragg in front of the priest as an example of what would happen if the island’s population resisted the Cayman’s control. NKenai coveted Bragg’s ownership and was anxious to try out these recent arrivals, none of whom spoke English. Two were familiar with the Kiswahili dialect that was NKenai’s native tongue. Ah, but the pleasure these girls had to offer must wait, for there was mischief afoot in Morgan Town.

He studied the surrounding woods, a dense thicket of West Indian cedar obscuring the inland trail. NKenai rested his hand on the hilt of his scimitar and left the hillside path to amble across the clearing. He was certain Navarre was close-by. The captain’s clothes were strewn upon the ground and patches of bare rock had been branded by his muddy footprints.

“Captain Navarre.
Usini-dan-gan-ye.
Do not deceive me. I come with important news.”

“Speak it,” a voice said behind him.

The African whirled about and found himself staring down the gunbarrels of Navarre’s pistols. He held out his hands in an attitude of mock surrender. “My life is already yours, my captain, you do not need to take it.”

Navarre grinned and stepped around the African. On a whim the Cayman had rescued NKenai from a slave ship many years ago, and the black man had sworn eternal fealty to the enigmatic pirate and sealed the pact in his own blood. Navarre understood NKenai and trusted him above all the other men of his crew.

The new master of Natividad strolled over to his clothes and started to dress, pulling on a pale yellow shirt trimmed with ruffles at the wrists, white breeches, black boots, and a faded brown waistcoat decorated with a delicate pattern of finely stitched flowers, embroidered with black thread.

“
Njoo-uone
,” said the African. “Come and see,” he repeated in English. “It is the priest. He may be causing trouble again.”

“It is the priest’s day of prayer. Every Sunday he gathers his flock.”

“Prayer to the white man’s God,” NKenai muttered with contempt. “This cannot hurt us. But a woman in the plaza told Malachi Quince that the priest has begun to speak of other things than the Christian God. That the white shaman speaks words of war against my captain.”

“The pulpit-pounder is becoming tiresome.” Navarre scowled. The last thing he needed was some foolish old drunkard of a priest preaching popular dissent against the Cayman’s authority. Navarre had business to exact this afternoon. One Artemus Callaghan had arrived in port but a couple of days ago. Callaghan, a well-to-do slaver hailing from Charleston, South Carolina, had established a lucrative trade with the plantation owners throughout the southeast United States and in Cuba. Fully eight months ago, Navarre had visited Charleston and convinced Callaghan that Natividad was the proper place to conduct their transactions. Navarre would receive slaves and hold them at Obregon Cove, where the hapless captives would be worked but well cared for while they regained the health they lost due to the miserable conditions aboard the slave ships. Already two ships from Africa, one of which Navarre owned, had visited Natividad and discharged their human cargo and headed back for more.