Jack Iron (12 page)

Tregoning nodded in understanding. “A decent sort for an officer. In truth, he’s the best man I ever tried to kill. I’m right glad I let him get away.” He proceeded to wolf down his food.

“Kit gave me a different version of your encounter,” Raven said. Hers was a hollow smile. She, too, had heard the faint rumble of a distant cannonade and knew that if the British had begun their attack, the two men she loved most in this world, her father and Kit McQueen, would be right in the thick of things. Raven took in the storeroom at a glance. It was a bleak place but a sight warmer than any of the city’s drafty jails.

“First names, is it?” Tregoning noted. “You must be the lieutenant’s lady. He mentioned you the last time he paid me a visit.” The marine tilted the bottle of sherry to his lips and washed down a mouthful of biscuits and bacon. “I’m surprised the lads outside the door let pass a mere slip of a girl like you.”

“The guards have left. The entire Louisiana Battalion has moved on down to the breastworks south of the city. Something’s happening.” Raven looked toward the open door. “Packenham has begun his final assault.” She remembered good-byes and a farewell kiss that was much too short and the pressure of Kit’s embrace when she thought he might squeeze the life out of her.

Three days had passed since the afternoon when he came to tell her that the British forays had increased and British troops were massing on the opposite bank of the Mississippi and it was obvious to one and all that British patience had worn thin. The city must fall or the British army abandon its attempts to take the city. Provisions were low, and as Kit had said, it was time for the might of the British force to “root hog or die a poor pig.” Kit McQueen would remain at the breastworks until the issue had been resolved.

Raven understood, but she wanted to be at his side. She could handle a gun as well as any man. Yet down deep inside, she knew her place was back in the city. Had she joined the Choctaw, Kit might well get himself killed worrying for her safety. It was an all-too-real possibility.

“You came here alone, then?” Tregoning asked, intrigued. His gaze drifted to the doorway. No guards, she had said. None at all. “You weren’t fearful for your safety?”

“I can take care of myself,” Raven said.

“You’ve more than your share of grit, dear missy. But what’s to stop me from tossing you aside and running out of here right this very minute?” Tregoning started toward her. He meant the half-breed no harm, especially as she was McQueen’s consort, but there was a battle raging in the distance and he needed to look after his own welfare. “Being as you are all that’s between me and freedom.”

“Not all,” Raven said. “There’s me. And this.” She pulled a short-barreled flintlock pistol from the basket and leveled it at the marine’s chest. The look in her eyes and the steady hand gripping the gun gave the marine fair warning Raven was not to be trifled with. Tregoning slumped on one of the stools, his homely features sour and dejected-looking.

“You make a fair point, missy. I’ll not be the fool who argues with you.”

“Good. Then finish your meal and come along. My friend, the Madame Olivia LeBeouf has a bath and a change of clothes waiting for you. Nothing grand, but a simple woolen coat, a shirt, and breeches.”

“I don’t understand,” Tregoning said.

“Kit told us you were a man without a country. Once hostilities have ceased, Jackson will either toss you in prison or hand you over to some English officer. Kit figured you’d find either situation intolerable.”

“English justice will see a noose around my neck. Alas, poor Harry,” the marine muttered.

“But a change of clothes could see you on your way.”

Tregoning scratched his scalp and considered the young woman’s offer. The storeroom prison was hardly the kind of place a man grew attached to. As for soldiering, Harry Tregoning had loved well but not wisely, and it was for the best that he distance himself from the wrath of irate husbands.

Tregoning cocked his head to one side and studied his visitor, searching her expression for any hint of duplicity. What he found was a woman of honest virtue, a woman who was as strong as she was lovely. He envied the lieutenant.

“Don’t try and question his motives, Mr. Tregoning. You will fare no better than I,” Raven added. “Kit believes you are a good man. And as you were his prisoner, he insisted he had the right to offer you parole.” She turned and started toward the unbarred door. “I have a carriage outside,” O’Keefe’s daughter added. “And the streets are thick with mist.” She paused in the doorway and returned the pistol to the basket. Tregoning raised the bottle of sherry and drank deep, emptying a measure of liquid courage down his gullet. Then he corked the bottle and tucked it under his arm. He crossed the storeroom and followed Raven into the gray-shrouded street.

The carriage had been left in front of the storeroom a few paces from the doorway. Tregoning clambered up and Raven took a place alongside him. She flicked the reins and the mare in its traces broke into a trot that took them through the city at a crisp pace. Twenty minutes later, Raven pulled the mare to a halt before the courtyard gate of Madame LeBeouf’s house. Tregoning jumped out of the wagon and glanced worriedly up and down the street, searching the fog for a glimpse of betrayal.

Raven joined him at the gate that creaked open at her touch. Rust was everywhere, she thought as she led the way into the garden where Harry Tregoning had been arrested.

“I ought to warn you about Olivia. She is a widow…”

“Ah. Some of my very best friends have been widows,” Tregoning chuckled. His smile faded, for the distant cannon fire had yet to abate. It was a low rumble, muffled by the mist. But it had underscored the trip through the deserted streets and it was present now. Men were dying with every step through the widow’s barren garden.
But you’ve been given a second chance, Harry Tregoning. The rest of your life is up to you.

A window exploded in the front of the house and a china pitcher crashed out in the courtyard.

“Raven! Run! It’s—” The outcry was cut short, but Raven recognized the voice of Johnny Fuller as he shouted his warning through the window he had shattered. A trio of rough-looking men rounded the corner of the house and trampled the dry brittle leaves littering the courtyard.

A woman’s scream. A succession of gunshots. Tregoning snatched the pistol from it’s place of concealment in the basket. His eyes blazed with anger.

“Jezebel!” he cursed beneath his breath, and then charged his attackers.

“No!” Raven called after him. Too late. Tregoning was among them. More gunfire and the sound of fists thudding against flesh and the groans of wounded men and the dull flash of a cutlass blade.

Help. They needed help. She had to find Kit and tell him what had happened. Raven turned on her heels, lifted the hem of her dress, and bolted down the garden walk. The moccasins she wore in place of slippers padded soundlessly on the loose cobblestones. She braced herself for a struggle in case another set of brigands rose out of the mist to block her escape.

Her heart leapt with joy as she cleared the front gate and entered the street. The dress hampered her movement, but she still managed to vault into the carriage with most-unladylike grace.

In a single fluid gesture she reached for the reins. A hand reached out and caught her wrist in a grip of iron. The man in black sat beside her in the carriage and lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed her hand. Kit McQueen, General Jackson, and their ragtag army were occupied with the British attack. There was no one to stop Cesar Obregon. The city was his.

“
Mi querida
,” purred the buccaneer in his silken voice. Treasures. A chest of gold coins and this tempestuous half-breed now both belonged to the Hawk of the Antilles. “I have been waiting for you…”

T
HE CONGREVE ROCKET MADE
a horrid swoosh as it spiraled toward the American breastworks. The weapon was an eight-foot stick, as thick as a man’s wrist and capped with a pointed iron head encasing enough black powder to blow a man to doll rags and shower his companions with shrapnel in the process.

“Never you mind ’em, lads. They’re nought but English toys,” Kit McQueen shouted above the din of cannon fire. The Kentuckians cowering nearby did not appear convinced. From behind breastworks of timber and cotton bales and mounded earth, these “rabbit hunters,” as the British called their adversaries, watched the sputtering weapon arc out of the mist. It was but one of many the British had hurled against General Jackson’s makeshift army of volunteers.

Further along the line, the Choctaw fared no better than the wary Kentuckians. To their eyes the rockets were demons unleashed by the British to kill the Americans and their allies. Fortunately men like Strikes With Club and Nate Russell were too proud to run and set an example for many of the others.

Suddenly the iron tip on this latest projectile nosed down. The rocket fell short, about a hundred feet from the breastworks. The menacing weapon continued to sputter and shoot flame as it writhed like a maddened serpent across the grassland toward the unnerved Kentuckians. There was simply no way to predict the rocket’s point of impact or when the fuse within the device would burn its course and explode the powder charge. All along the breastworks the defenders watched with morbid fascination as the rocket bounced and zigzagged over the terrain. Then the weapon hit a clump of dirt and became airborne again, spiraling straight on course about six feet above the meadow.

Kit joined the others as they ducked down. The rocket struck about thirteen feet from his position, near a redoubt where one of the six-pounders valiantly returned fire. The explosion shook the ground, and one of the men by the cannon arched and rose up on his toes, then dropped to his knees. He continued to clutch at his lower back as his companions dragged him from the redoubt and hurried back to load the cannon.

Kit estimated they’d endured about forty minutes of bombardment. To the credit of Jean Laffite and his Baratarians, the artillerymen were according themselves with honor. Each redoubt was manned by cannoneers who had seen plenty of action on the high seas. One by one the American cannons aimed and fired by these former corsairs silenced the British rocket launchers.

Kit heard his name called, and he glanced around to see O’Keefe crawling toward him. The big man was dressed for battle. His chest was crisscrossed with two broad leather belts sporting three flintlock pistols to a belt. Another pair of pistols were tucked in his waistband along with a tomahawk. He did not intend to reload once battle was joined.

Kit wore the garb he usually favored, his military coat, a loose-fitting shirt of homespun cotton, and buckskin breeches. His Quakers, a Pennsylvania rifle, and an Arkansas “toothpick” with a double-edged twelve-inch steel blade were his weapons of choice.

“What is it?” Kit said.

“Yellow Leaper just come at a run from the woods. He said the British have sent their Haitians into the bayou to flank us.”

“Damn!” Kit muttered beneath his breath. Such an assault was the last thing they needed. The American fortifications stretched from the river to the woods where the ground turned soft and became treacherous with pools of water and quicksand. The approach to the city was successfully blocked as long as the American troops held the breastworks and redoubts. However, if the Haitian troops managed to flank McQueen’s command, then General Jackson’s entire line of defense could be jeopardized. The men at the breastworks were already outnumbered and could never repulse a frontal assault and a flank attack simultaneously.

“Give Nate Russell fifty men and he’ll stop them.” O’Keefe knew his adopted people and what they were capable of doing.

“Have him take every third man,” Kit suggested. “That will give him about sixty braves.”

“More’n enough.” O’Keefe grinned. “I ain’t seen the day that a Choctaw warrior wasn’t worth three of them West Indians in a tussle.”

O’Keefe turned and crawled on hands and knees back to his position. The breastworks were built high enough that the big man could have stood and simply run at a crouch, but the rockets streaking overhead made a man want to hug mother earth. Kit returned his attention to the battlefield and the curtains of mist and powder smoke behind which the British were no doubt advancing, marshaling their forces, and preparing to attack. He had heard rumors that the Black Watch might lead the way. Kit McQueen came from Highland stock, and he could not fail to note the irony that today he might well be responsible for the death of a blood relative, perhaps a distant cousin. Who could tell? He forced the speculation from his mind.

Suddenly the English cannons fell silent. And the American gunners quickly followed suit, reading a dread purpose in the British actions. Even the rockets ceased to fall. A silence settled on the smoldering landscape that seemed more horrible than the thunderous exchange that preceded it.

“Never heard anything so loud,” a Kentuckian named Kemp Howard said, peering over the breastworks. He was a good-natured, even-tempered soul with a ready smile and a helping hand for any man. Kit had become acquainted with the trapper only this morning, but he had taken an instant liking to the man. Howard leaned on his long-barreled rifle and fished a pouch of tobacco from his possibles bag and tucked a plug in his cheek. “Reckon they quit and went on back to their boats.” He scratched at his week-old growth of chin whiskers.

“Don’t count on it,” Kit replied. He liked these Kentuckians. They were men with the bark on. Lord Packenham was a fool to hold this rough lot in contempt. The English general had made it plain that he considered the American forces arrayed against him nothing but pirates, savages, “dirty shirts,” and drunkards. The British were about to discover the truth. Maybe there wasn’t a pretty uniform to be seen behind the American lines, but Kit McQueen would not have traded this command for any other in the world.

These volunteers had come to fight for their country. They were determined to drive the British army from America’s shores. Its diversity was its strength, men from every walk of life, physicians, farmers, barristers and frontiersmen, keelboat men and umbrella makers, soldiers and Indians and pirates standing shoulder to shoulder against a common foe. What would history say of these events? What tales would the children hear of those who sacrificed today? A hundred years from now, would the country still remember?