Sackett's Land (1974) (13 page)

We carried the bales inside, covering them with broken willow branches and reeds.

Returning to the gig, we shoved off, raised our sail and crossed back to a safe distance from home shore.

Our gig anchored, we crept back overland to the rocks, but they were deserted. All was still as death in the cloudy light, the sand churned by charging feet, a spot or two of blood.

"They will have returned to their vessel," I said. "We must follow."

"You will try to get him back?"

"He is one of us. We will have him back, if he lives."

"He is but bait for the trap," Sakim replied. "It is you they want."

"Nevertheless, he was one of us. You are with me?"

"Where you go, I follow."

If there was a sun that day it remained unseen, for there were lowering clouds and raindrops dripping from leaves in branches. We found the narrow game trail they had taken, but we turned aside from it and searched out another, almost parallel.

The fowling piece I left on the gig, but took my sword, dagger, bow and arrows. Sakim recharged a brace of the pistols and took them along, tucked in his sash. He also carried his scimitar and a spear.

It was wet under the trees. The path was slippery, but we moved in silence, pausing from time to time to listen for what we might hear, and we heard nothing. We covered what must have been a mile, then found ourselves climbing, ever so slightly. At the end of the second hour we reached the crest of a low hill that gave us a view of all that laid east and south of us, and there, not half a mile away, was theJolly Jack.

For all my confident talk I knew not what to do to recover our companion, only that it must be done. And done by wit and wile rather than strength of arm and hand.

We worked our way down through brush and trees, avoiding the trail that might be guarded, until finally we came to the edge of a high woods not one hundred and fifty feet from theJolly Jack. We were well hidden.

There could be but one reason for Bardle not killing Rufisco immediately. They hoped to have from him our hiding place. To save him suffering, we must somehow free him at once.

"What is there to do?" Sakim whispered, staring at the vessel.

A man with a crossbow loitered near the ladder. On the shore nearby were several crude huts, hastily built of ship's canvas, driftwood poles and the like. A fire was blazing on the shore.

This was no place found by accident, but one known to Bardle or someone else aboard, for the bank was steep and the vessel lay in close, one line running from the bow to an oak tree, the other from the stern.

"They are close," I commented.

Sakim shrugged. "In my country we run our ships on the sand, then let the tide float them clear. It has always been so."

"Here there is a current," I said thoughtfully, studying the water on which they lay, as much as it could be seen. "Another river must come into the sound from somewhere west of them."

"There he is. They did not take him aboard," Sakim said suddenly. He pointed. "Two of those with him just came from that hut."

I could see them. If they would just leave Rufisco there, and if we could create a diversion ...

They were a rough, ugly lot, and I had no desire to see them go to work on Rufisco. He was a good man, if surly and given to sarcasm and doubt--too good a man to be tortured by this lot of scoundrels, who were little better than pirates.

It worried me that they should have chosen to stop at this place, for it was my wish to establish good relations with the savages. With such a lot as the crew of theJolly Jack it would be impossible, for they were a pack of greedy brutes.

"There is a thought, Sakim," I said, "a thought that has come to me."

He glanced at me. "It must be a good thought," Sakim suggested, "I think there is not much time, and they are very many."

Turning, I led the way back into the woods, circling wide around toward the shore. There was a thing I must know. My father had always told me the way to win was to attack. No matter how outnumbered, there was always a good way to attack.

It was a little time before we came to our objective. It was the tree to which the upstream line was made fast. "It is a strong current," I said.

Sakim squatted on his haunches, his teeth flashing through the darkness of his pointed beard. "A strong current," he agreed. "And if this line were cut--?"

Crouching close, I noticed there was no watch on the line. Nobody was closer than us to the ship itself, and the line was a good long one. It was made fast around the lower trunk of the tree, and heavily screened by brush.

"The big roots will help," I said, "but we must build up some shelter with mud."

"Mud?"

"We will not cut the line," I said, "because both of us will be needed to rescue Rufisco. We must bethere when the line breaks, not here. We will start a fire, a very small fire, and leave it burning. It will be screened by roots and mud as well as the brush. When the line gives way, we will be ready and waiting."

Sakim considered, then nodded. "Allah be with us," he said. "It is a fearsome thing we do."

Carefully we prepared our small fire, and added fuel. It began to burn; flames touched the heavy line. Adding a little fuel, we turned and went swiftly back to our former place.

Now we must hope. If the fire did not die out, or if it was not discovered and killed, then the line must part. Caught by the current the stern would swing into the stream, turning counterclockwise. All hands would immediately rush to save their ship, and then, if all went as we hoped ...

We waited ... and waited. Nothing happened.

The same two men stood at the door of the hut where Rufisco was likely imprisoned. Others were gathered about their cooking fires. I notched an arrow and looked at the man nearest me by the hut.

All was quiet. The vessel lay gently upon the waters, only straining a little at the lines. Had our fire gone out? Had someone discovered it?

Suddenly there was a sharp cracking sound as the line parted, and instantly the stern of the ship swung into the current. Somebody let go with a wild yell, and there were shouts and running from aboard the vessel. Men dashed toward the bow where a rope ladder hung.

"Now," I said, and we went forward, not running, but walking carefully, swiftly. A step, two steps ... The heavier guard turned and I let fly my arrow. It was high, but lucky. It took the guard in the throat and he fell, grasping the arrow's shaft with both hands.

Around the shore there were wild yells, shouts, orders, recriminations.

The second guard had run out a small way, and Sakim put an arm across his throat and a knife into his ribs. I ducked into the hut.

Rufisco, barely visible in reflected firelight, was struggling. I slipped my blade under his bonds and the razor edge parted them. "Rub your legs," I said. "We'll have to run."

"I can run," he replied grimly, and we ducked outside. I sheathed my sword and took up the bow again.

I notched an arrow and followed, backing up, watching to cover our retreat.

My eyes were seeking Nick Bardle. An arrow for him and I would consider myself well paid.

Just one arrow!

He was there, but shifting about among the running men, and there was no good target.

"Another time, Captain," I told myself. "Another time." I turned and walked into the woods, and in a few minutes had caught up with my friends.

We had been quick, but lucky too. I had no good feeling about that luck of ours. It was too good. It was building us for a smashing blow... I could feel it in my bones.

Chapter
12

We found our way to our gig. Under the shelter of the shrubs and trees we slept, awakened, cooked a meal, then slept again.

Finally when my eyes opened the others still slept, and I lay awake, a lonely man, thinking back to England, the fens, and even more to a girl with a lamp in her hand. I'd no cause to be thinking of her, yet each man has some girl he thinks of, and my thoughts kept turning back to her.

We Sacketts had a feeling for home and family, and although I'd had no family but my father, the sense was strong within me. Now we had furs, one half of which were mine. It was a goodly sum, but insufficient. We must go along the coast and keep a sharp lookout for theTiger, Tempany's ship. By now it might be near.

If we could exchange our furs for more trade goods, another venture might be even more profitable.

Rufisco awakened as I was broiling a piece of venison.

"I have not thanked you," he said.

"It is not important." I stirred the coals. "You would have done the same for me."

He sat up. "Perhaps. I have been wondering about that."

"Well," I said, "in my place you would have."

"Your place?"

"I was your leader. I was responsible. It makes a difference, you know."

He chuckled grimly. "I avoid leadership. I do not wish to decide such things, nor to be responsible."

With my knife I cut off a sliver of my meat, burning my fingers in the process. "When you and Sakim chose to come with me I accepted responsibility for your lives. I became no longer a free agent. Unless one is at heart a rascal, I think he becomes a little better in many ways by assuming leadership."

"You may have it." He reached for a chunk of the meat, impaled in on a stick and held it to the flames. "And now what, Oh Mighty Leader?"

"We go to sea. If she survived the crossing, theTiger may now be alongshore. I saw her charts, and it was toward this place she intended to come."

"And then?"

"Exchange our furs and return to trading."

"For you ... not for me."

"No?"

"I have a foreboding upon me. This land is not for me. I shall return to Naples, or even to Florence or to Ravenna. I shall bask in the sun on a terrace somewhere and watch the pretty girls go by. I shall drink wine and smell the smells ... No, my friend, I want to live."

He gestured widely. "I have no taste for wilderness like this. I do not like swamps, lonely beaches and forests. Nor your mountains yonder. I am a man of the streets. I like to push through crowds, feel bodies about me. I am a man of the world, not of the wilderness."

Sakim was awake and he was smiling. "I, too, miss the world and the women," he said, "but this ... this isnew ! It is splendid! It is unknown! What feet have trod this soil? What lungs have breathed this air? What mysteries lie beyond the mountains?"

Rufisco shrugged. "I know what lies beyond your mountains, and it is only more mountains. Beyond each bend in the road there is another bend in the road. You may go, but I shall sit in a tavern and drink the wine of the land, of whatever land, and pinch the girls of the country and perhaps be slapped for my pinching, but smiled at, too.

"You are a merchant, Barnabas, and you, Sakim, a poet. I am a lover. This voyage has convinced me finally. I shall sit somewhere with a glass and throw bread to the pigeons."

I arose. "Very well, but for the present we had best be getting out upon the sound, and wary of theJolly Jack. "

"A neat trick," Rufisco commented, "to be seen by the one ... if it is there ... and not by the other, which is certainly there."

From the river bank I studied the river. It flowed, brown and muddy, toward the sound. There was nothing upon the water but a great dead tree upon whose bare branches a brown bird perched, in ruffled contentment, accepting the free ride.

We shoved off, and lifting our sail, scudded along before the breeze, our eyes alert for theJack, for floating snags, and for the sound that lay before us where the river's wide mouth ended. Clearing the river mouth finally we turned into the main sound.

Midday was past, but no sail lifted against the sky. There were only clouds and gulls, their white wings catching the modest flash of a sullen sun. Far away to the east we thought we could see the coastal banks, yet we saw no mast, no dark hull, only the gray water and behind us the darker green of the shore.

Huddled in the stern I unrolled my charts and gave them study. Two great sounds were here protected from the sea by narrow coastal islands, and into these sounds flowed several rivers, large and small. I believed it was the southermost from which we had come. Several openings through the coastal banks permitted access to the sounds from the sea, and these as well as some of the rivers were mapped in astonishing detail. Obviously someone had explored this coast most carefully, or portions of it, at least.

Through the night we sailed, taking turns at the tiller, the wind holding well. At daybreak it fell off and we dipped and bobbed in a choppy sea, with the dim gray line of dawn off to the northwest.

Visibility was poor, yet we saw no ship. The sun arose and after a while we caught an offshore breeze and worked in closer to the shore, watching for a cove or bay into which we might go for shelter.

It was a low shore when we found it, a swampy place, yet offering shelter. Sakim threw a weighted line ashore and let it wind around a tree, then we hauled in closer. Wading ashore, we made fast with a simple slipknot, knowing well how swiftly we might leave.