Savannah Heat (36 page)

“I think he likes this kind of life.”

“Some,” Cookie agreed, “but I believe he’s ready to settle down.”

She wondered at his pointed expression. “Do you really think he’ll be all right?”

“Cap’n’s a damned fine hand with rifle and saber. I just wish he’d a let me go along.”

“Why didn’t he?”

Cookie looked at her hard. “Cap’n’s real taken with you, missy. He left me to see you come to no harm. He knows I won’t let him down.”

“But surely the ship is in no danger.”

“Prob’ly not …” He reached for the huge blue tin coffeepot that sat at the back of the stove and topped off her cup. He started to say something more when Jordy rushed in.

“Benson’s spotted troop movements.” He was the man on duty in the crow’s nest. “They ain’t—aren’t—headin’ north; they’re headed inland. Looks like they may be trying to intercept the major.”

“Oh, my God.” Silver came to her feet.

“Mr. Flagg wants to see you,” Jordy finished.

“How many?” Cookie asked, forcing Jordy to calm down.

“Two, maybe three hundred men. They’re ridin’ with lance and long arm and draggin’ cannon and caisson. Cap’n don’t stand a chance.”

“He will if we get word to him,” Cookie said.

“But how?” Silver asked.

“I’ll ride after him.” Cookie seemed suddenly taller. There was no mistaking the fierce resolve in his eyes. “Cap’n’s marked his trail on the map he left behind. It shows the location of the prison, the direction he and the men are taking to get there, and the place we’re supposed to meet him on his return.”

“But you’ll need horses,” Silver pressed, “and someone who knows the country.”

“There’s Mexicans and Indians all along the coast. Enough money’ll buy all the help I need.”

“I’m going with you,” Silver said.

“No, miss. Cap’n wouldn’t want that.”

“Listen to me, Cookie. Something might happen to you out there. We can’t take any chances. This message has got to get through, and there isn’t anyone aboard who can be spared besides you and me. I can ride as well as a man and shoot if I have to. Something happens, one of us will make it.”

Cookie seemed to ponder her words.

“Let me go instead,” Jordy said to him. “Cap’n will skin you alive, you take Silver.”

“You got a job to do here,” Cookie told him. “She can’t handle sail and line.”

“But—”

“Cap’n’s in a heap of trouble, son.” He looked at Silver, who stood with her shoulders squared, her jaw set with determination. “This woman loves him. She’ll get through when nobody else can.”

Silver felt a hard lump swell in her throat. Were her feelings so transparent? “He’s right,” she said softly. “I’ve got to help him.”

“It’s gonna take the devil’s own luck to reach him before those troops do.”

“Mr. Flagg said something about sailin’ upriver,” Jordy said. “Goin’ inland as far as we could get.”

“The Champotón. Damned good idea,” Cookie agreed. “That’s about the only way we can get ahead of those bastards.” He’d no more than said the words when Silver felt the ship shudder and begin to come about. In minutes the
Savannah
heeled the opposite way, cutting across the water toward the shore.

“Won’t take long to reach the Champotón. I hope
she’s deep enough. Won’t do the cap’n much good, we run aground.”

“I’ll change clothes and meet you on deck.” Silver turned and dashed toward the ladder.

“I’ll fetch what supplies we’ll be needin’,” Cookie said to Jordy, “then speak to Flagg.”

“Aye.”

“Flagg’ll take the ship back out to sea, soon as we’re ashore. We gotta set a rendezvous point. We don’t want those soldiers findin’ out the ship’s location.”

“No, sir,” Jordy said. Cookie hurried for the ladder. “Look out for Silver,” Jordy called from behind him. “She ain’t—isn’t—as tough as she lets on.”

Cookie smiled. “I know that, son. I’ll watch out for her. She’s the cap’n’s lady, ain’t she?”

“Isn’t she,” Jordy corrected.

Cookie grunted, but inside he smiled.

The harrowing trip upriver set all their nerves on edge. Determined to get as far inland as they could, the men poled the depths from shore boats when the river narrowed, and the ship kept on sailing. The sun rested low on the horizon when they finally gave up and readied a boat to row Silver and Cookie ashore.

“Take care o’ yourselves,” Jordy said stoically, and Silver gave him a hug.

Flagg shook their hands. “We’ll be waiting for you,” the lanky second mate assured them. “You just warn the cap’n and get yourselves back to the ship.”

“Aye, Mr. Flagg,” Cookie said.

Once they reached the shore, just as Cookie had predicted, it was easy to buy the needed horses—crowbait that they were—and even a short, hooknosed, broad-faced Mayan man to guide them inland.

They had come upon the small native village a few miles farther upriver, just a cluster of oblong thatched houses called
huotoches
made of saplings plastered with mud. The village circled a cenote, a
deep limestone well, shaded by a grove of chicle trees.

Wearing Jordy’s breeches and shirt, Silver caused quite a stir among the Mayans, who gathered around just to look at her pale blond hair. Although the people welcomed them, the task of explaining their needs seemed impossible, since the Indians spoke only their native tongue. Then the wife of one of them, a wide-girthed Mexican woman, appeared, and Cookie, who spoke a goodly amount of Spanish, was able to convey his wishes and the urgency of their request. Apparently the Centralists held no popularity with the woman, and the lure of the gold
real
Cookie held up to glint in the sunlight sealed the bargain.

Mounted on a scrawny, swaybacked horse, Cookie followed the Mayan, who wore the skin of a jaguar and carried only a water gourd, a food bag made of henequen, and a billhook machete. Silver followed Cookie, moving northeast across a terrain that was far more tropical than any they had seen so far.

Overgrown ferns covered the, ground beneath towering trees, and the dense vegetation had to be teeming with spiders and snakes. Bright-plumed birds screeched above them, hibiscus bloomed, and monkeys shrilled in the tops of the tallest trees. The badly overgrown trail they followed forced them to ride single file.

Though Silver had ridden often back on Katonga—astride much of the time—she hadn’t been in the saddle since she’d left there some months ago. The ache in her thighs and calves convinced her that she was badly out of condition, but the breeches she wore eased the friction of her legs against the woven wool blanket, which was all that covered the horse’s
bony back. In time she knew her body would limber and begin to move in the familiar jogging rhythm.

“We gotta keep ahead of the main body of soldiers,” Cookie told her. “Hope to God I made that clear to the heathen.”

Silver hoped so, too. Morgan’s life was at stake, along with dozens of others. Her own and Cookie’s as well.

They rode for the better part of the day, resting only briefly, pushing the animals as hard as they dared, pushing themselves even harder. The Mayan seemed tireless, and the horses far tougher than at first they had appeared. Though the trail they followed led them in the right direction, discovering the exact location of Morgan and his men seemed a Herculean task at best.

Still, they rode on. Never had two more determined people set off to accomplish a task.

“Lieutenant Riley!” Buckland shouted, and the sandy-haired man rode up beside him. “Give the men fifteen minutes’ rest.” They had been marching for hours, the sun hot overhead through the dense canopy of trees. The farther southeast they moved, the thicker and greener the foliage, the hotter and more humid the weather.

Morgan reined up his big sorrel stallion and dismounted along with the others. He might have pressed on a little farther, but then he had a personal stake in driving the men. Besides, for once Buckland was right. They still had a day’s march ahead of them; staying fit and able to fight was of utmost importance.

Morgan sat down on a rock and took a drink from his tin canteen. Jacques sat down beside him. “Where’s Teresa?” Morgan asked.

“She needed a moment alone,” Jacques said, explaining the lady’s need for privacy. “She is some woman,
n’est-ce pas?”

A corner of Morgan’s mouth curved upward. “So what do you plan to do about it?”

Jacques looked perturbed. “What do you ask,
mon ami
? You think I should marry again?” He scoffed at the notion. “I ’ave ’ad two lusty wives, two grown sons any man would be proud of. What more could I ask?”

Only Jacques knew the answer to that. “What did she say to get you to bring her along?”

The Frenchman chuckled softly. “She was bound and determined to ’elp ’er father. ‘If you will not take me,’ she said, ‘I will follow in your path. I will be there when you break into the prison—with or without your ’elp!’ ” He chuckled again. “She would ’ave done it. I saw it then; I see it now.”

Jacques watched the woman who stepped from behind a cluster of low thorny bushes and walked toward them, her hips swaying with unconscious seductiveness. “You,
mon ami
, ’ave your hands full with Silver. Hypolyte Jacques Bouillard ’as a problem of ’is own.”

“Riders coming in!”

At the sound of the lookout’s words, both Jacques and Morgan came to their feet. They strode the rocky path toward the colonel, who awaited the two approaching men. One was dressed in the uniform of a Texas Marine, though the clothes had seen better days; the other was a thick-chested, brawny-looking man with a clean-shaven head and a long, thin, drooping black mustache. With his smooth, slitted eyes, he appeared to be Asian, maybe a Mongol or a Turk. Morgan figured him for one of the mercenaries who were part of the original Texian forces.

It was the younger man, the marine, who spoke. “Corporal Nathan Gibbons, sir.” He forced a weary salute. “This man is Bayram Sit. We bring greetings from Archibald Spray, our commanding officer.” The young corporal grinned. “And if you’ll pardon my sayin’ so, Colonel, we’re mighty glad to see you.”

The colonel swelled a little, Morgan thought. With warm words of welcome, Buckland led the corporal beneath a tree and offered him a drink of water. The Asian approached the major.

“You are Morgan Trask?”

Morgan nodded. “How did you know?”

“I bring word of your brother. You look a good deal like him.”

Brendan’s hair was brown instead of blond, his eyes light blue instead of green. But the brothers were built much the same, with the same shaped brow, hard jaw, and straight nose. Brendan had always smiled a lot more. Morgan wondered if his brother was smiling now.

“How is he?”

“Alive. How well he fares I cannot say. Word comes to us only now and then.”

“How is it you bring this message?”

“He and I are friends of a sort. We met on board ship. It seems we had a mutual acquaintance. My good friend Alexandre du Villier is also a friend to you and your brother.”

Alex du Villier was a wealthy Creole sugar planter from New Orleans. Morgan had known him for years. “Bayram Sit.” Morgan rolled the name across his tongue, stirring distant memories. “Yes. I know of you. The Ram.” A Turk, as he recalled.

The big man chuckled softly. “I am called Ram by my friends … and maybe those who have not fared so well at my hand.”

“Alex has spoken of you often. We met over shipping contracts, many years ago. He’s a good man.”

“As he says of you.”

Morgan acknowledged the compliment with a nod. “What else have you heard?”

“The rest is even more unpleasant. It seems two weeks ago news reached the prison of your journey to Campeche. General Hernández—he is in charge of the prison—wanted information about your ship and your men. They began torturing the prisoners. Still, the men would not speak. Each day for the last ten, they have forced the prisoners to draw straws. The man who holds the short straw dies by the firing squad.”

Morgan’s stomach clenched along with his jaw, and a muscle jumped in his cheek.

“There is little more I can tell you,” Ram finished. “Our last report was that your brother still lives. But you can see the urgency of freeing him and the others. Each day that passes, another good man dies.”

Morgan raked a hand through his thick dark blond hair. “Will we reach your men by tomorrow?”

“Yes. The prison is another day’s ride southeast.”

“What are our chances?”

“With the guns you bring, there is a chance. As long as the Centralists get no more reinforcements.”

Morgan extended a hand. “Thank you, my friend, for coming so far.”

“Do not worry. Soon your brother will be free.”

Unless he draws the shortest straw
.

“
¡Alto!
” came the gruff Spanish command.

The Mayan looked surprised. Cookie and Silver hesitated only an instant, whirled their horses, dug their heels in, and charged off in different directions. They’d gone only a few great leaps when a group of
mounted
soldados
, lances in hand, blocked their path.

They spun again, trying to rein away, but more men rode up until they were completely surrounded. At least twenty men encircled them, silently halting their movements.