A Sea Too Far (17 page)

~26~
 

Warren walked the edges of Charles Town looking for rural patches of ground that would support a vegetable farm. He remembered the kindly farmer with the two-wheel cart who granted Mary a ride to the Boar’s Tooth Tavern and Inn after they had stumbled off
Fancy
. The man’s mule had appeared old but strong. Hopefully he owned more than one stout mule. A single beast wouldn’t be sufficient for the job Warren had in mind.

A mile north of Market Street the boy spotted a lean-to structure at the edge of a cultivated field.

“I think we’ll try that place, Shelly,” he said to his dog.

Conchshell had enjoyed the long walk. The Labrador had zigzagged across the open spaces and scooted along the dirt paths sniffing the ground happily. The scent of a rabbit struck her nostrils. She detected the passage of several deer through a lightly wooded area. The smell of a fox intrigued the naturally bred hunting dog. The bouquet of wild pheasant was strong in a scruffy patch of bush. Geese and ducks left offal reminders of their presence in a field of crushed corn stalks.

Warren approached the lean-to and called a greeting. “Hello,” he yelled. “Is anybody home?”

The old farmer who had assisted Mary walked out of the shadows of the rickety structure. He wiped his glistening face with a large bandana and waved.

“Hello, youngster,” he said. “How’s that friend of yours doing? Is he all healed up from his injury?”

“Yes,” Warren responded. “She’s . . . he’s doing well, thank you.”

“That’s some handsome dog ye have there,” the farmer observed. “She be a good hunter? I’ve never seen one like that.”

“Shelly is more of a fisherman than a hunter,” Warren said. “We live on a boat. We don’t get much chance to go hunting.”

The farmer dabbed at a drop of perspiration on his upper lip and tucked the handkerchief in his back pocket. “I’d surely enjoy some more of thy company,” he said. “I don’t get many guests out this way. But I have work to do. This godforsaken little patch of ground keeps me plenty busy, and I know ye didn’t walk all the way out here to pass the time of day.”

“No, sir,” Warren answered. “That’s a fact. I came to ask if I could rent a couple of mules for the evening. Three if you have that many.”

“Son, ye have met me entire stable of animals,” the farmer said with a laugh. “I can barely afford to feed ol’ Bessie, let alone two others.”

Warren shook his head slowly. He had been afraid the farmer wouldn’t have more than one mule, but he had asked anyway. Three mules would have made his task far easier. Now he would have to make up for the lack of pulling power with ingenuity.

“I have a gold coin that should purchase a month’s feed for ol’ Bessie,” Warren said. “Can I rent her for the evening?”

The farmer reached for the doubloon and weighed it in his hand dubiously. He placed the coin in his mouth and took an experimental bite. “It’s heavy,” he observed. “And it looks genuine.”

“Does it taste genuine?” Warren asked with a smile. “I’ve never seen anybody test a coin’s authenticity with their teeth.”

“Aye, lad. It be a common thing.”

“So we have a deal,” Warren said. “I can have ol’ Bessie for the evening? I have a little job that requires some pulling power. I think she’ll be up to the chore.”

“Aye,” the farmer said. “Bessie is thine for the evening. She’s a good old girl. Be gentle with her. Will ye be needing the cart, too?”

Warren thought a moment. The cart would be helpful. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll take the cart. Does Bessie know her way home from Charles Town? If so, I may just send her back to you after I’m finished with my task. I hope that’s all right.”

“Ol’ Bessie can find her way back,” the farmer said confidently. “Just set her loose. She may be plodding, but she’ll wind up back here, don’t ye worry.”

* * *

Warren and Conchshell sat on the bench seat in front of the farmer’s cart and rode silently back to Charles Town. The blonde Labrador turned her head side to side as if searching for someone to be impressed with her new means of transportation.

At the end of Market Street, overlooking the river, Warren tugged on the reins and turned Bessie away from the residential area and toward a working pier and the commercial section of town. A single story clapboard building abutted the water. A painted sign announced the establishment as Horace’s Ship Chandlery.

Warren secured Bessie to a hitching post and entered the dim building. Merchandise littered the floor. Buckets and rope and fishing nets and cork floats were strewn about the store. Harpoons and gaffs and spars hung on the walls. In one corner a potpourri of old sailing equipment was piled high including several binnacles, ships wheels in a variety of sizes, rudders, centerboards and a collection of old wooden blocks.

Warren had found exactly what he sought.

With two stout blocks in hand, each containing three pulleys, Warren approached the proprietor. “How much do you want for these old three-wheel blocks?” he asked.

The man looked at the cracked wooden blocks, the deteriorated wheels and the rusted iron fastening rings on top. “There’s not much life remaining in them old pieces,” he said. “I hope you’re not going to put them to much use.”

“I only have one task for them,” Warren said. “I’m hoping they’ll last long enough for that. I need about one hundred feet of
rope, too
.”

The proprietor pointed to a pile of old rope. “Grab what you need, son,” he said. “That’ll be one shilling four.”

Warren pulled two of Mary’s coins from his pocket and handed them tentatively over the counter. He had no idea of the value of the shiny pieces. The man dropped the gold pieces in his pants pocket without comment. He returned a selection of smaller coins to Warren’s outstretched hand.

~27~
 

Mary brushed the remaining traces of dirt from the front of her skirt and blouse and turned to face Warren. “How doest thou think I look?” she asked coquettishly.

“You’re absolutely beautiful,” Warren said. “Without question you’re the most gorgeous woman in Charles Town.”

“I was worried me clothes would be ruined by the crawling in that hole last night,” Mary said. “But the fabric the French woman sold me appears to be of excellent quality.”

Warren smiled. “It is you who make the clothes beautiful, Mary,” he said. “It is not the clothes that make you beautiful. I think you’ve dressed as a man too long to know how stunning you really are.”

Mary looked at Warren for several seconds without saying a word. The boy – or was he a young man? – possessed a wisdom far beyond his age. He was polite and brave and considerate and . . . refined in a way none of the other pirates could hope to be. She felt a strong tenderness for the lad, and briefly wondered if . . .

Warren interrupted Mary’s reverie. “I’m certain you’ll have no problem getting the jailer’s attention,” he said. “Just be careful. Don’t get too close to him. I think I’ll only need about five minutes if everything goes well.”

Conchshell paced nervously about the room. It was very late in the evening, hours past the normal time when her master and his friend went to sleep. The dog sensed that something very important was going to happen.

The Labrador had noticed when Warren and Mary had packed their meager possessions in the bandana and tied the corners tightly shut. She knew that meant they were going to leave the room permanently. What new adventure awaited?

* * *

Warren led Bessie across the open meadow until they were directly behind the building that held Blackbeard. He maneuvered the cart until it faced away from the cell window and then he walked in front of the mule.

Kneeling, he held Conchshell’s snout gently in his hand and looked at his Labrador seriously. “Quiet girl,” he said. “Not a single growl or yip. This is important.”

The gravity of her master’s admonition was not lost on the dog. Conch issued the smallest squeak of understanding and shrank down to the ground.

“Remember, Shelly,” Warren continued. “When I tell you, I want you to go find Mary. You know where we just left her a few minutes ago. She’s still right there. You understand, don’t you?”

Mary! Conch stood quickly to her full height and wagged her tail. The Labrador remembered leaving Mary in the open field across from the front of the jail.

“Not yet, Shelly,” Warren said. “Wait until I tell you.”

The Labrador licked her snout and pawed the ground, anxious to play her part in the adventure.

“Okay, Bessie,” Warren whispered in the mule’s ear. “We’re going to do this real easy.” Stroking the animal’s neck and holding her head firmly in his hand, the young man backed the mule and cart toward the jail window. The wooden axle, well greased by the diligent farmer, barely made a sound as the two wheels rolled slowly in the direction of the rear wall of the jailhouse.

When the cart was only a foot from the window opening, Warren stopped Bessie. “Hold here,” he hissed in the animal’s ear. “That’s a good girl.”

The young man walked around to the rear of the wagon and jumped up to the bed of the little cart. On his tiptoes he held one of the pulley blocks and a small length of heavy rope.

“Captain Teach,” he whispered. “Come to the window.”

“Aye, lad. I’m here.”

“Tie this block to the two cell bars in the middle of the window,” Warren said. “Be quick about it.”

“Arrr. Ye expect ye be strong enough to pull me bars out of the window.”

“Just do it,” Warren admonished. “I’ve got help.”

Warren stepped from the cart bed and leaned down to Conchshell. “Okay, girl,” he said in a low voice. “Go find Mary. No noise. Just go find Mary.”

The Labrador remembered exactly where Mary was crouched in the vacant lot on Tradd Street across from the jail house. The dog happily bounded away to complete her vital mission.

Warren knew he had a few minutes before Mary would act. He lifted the second block out of the cart and carried it to the thick tree growing near the corner of the building. With a short piece of the heavy rope, he securely tied the three-wheel pulley mechanism to the trunk of the tree. To complete the system, Warren fed one end of the long length of rope through an outside pulley wheel and knotted it off.

Warren then threaded the free end of the rope through an end wheel of the pulley which Blackbeard had tied to the bars of the cell. He walked back to the block bound to the tree and fed the rope through the middle wheel. Next he returned the rope to the block at the cell window and weaved it around that middle wheel, then back through the end wheel of the tree block, and finally around the end wheel of the cell block. Warren then finished the rudimentary mechanical apparatus by tying off the end of the rope to the axle of the cart.

Warren had no idea how much force would be required to snatch the bars from the cell window. The building was not new. The construction appeared shoddy. He assumed if any actual engineering calculations had been used in the building of the cell, it would only be designed to keep a human from freeing himself with his hands.

Ol’ Bessie was a game animal, but she wasn’t young. Warren didn’t know how much power she could exert directly on the rope. But he understood the basic physics of a block and tackle arrangement. He knew by the use of the twin three-wheeled blocks that he had multiplied Bessie’s pulling power by a factor of six. Through his ingenious thinking, the young man had amassed a virtual team of half a dozen mules in front of the cart.

“Help! Help,” drifted across the late night sky from Tradd Street. “Fire! Fire!”

Warren looked into the blackness above the jail house and saw an orange flame emerge above the roofline. Conchshell had found Mary. The Labrador’s arrival had alerted the girl to light the brush fire in the vacant lot across the street. Her cries for help were designed to roust the jail keeper Mikey O’Reilly from his slumbers.

The man’s quick response to their visit the night before indicated he was a light sleeper. Warren feared that his presence in the building when the bars ripped from the window might alert the jail keeper and afford him the ability to foil the escape attempt. The two young pirates had agreed that it was imperative to first decoy O’Reilly from the building with the ruse of a fire and the siren call of a woman in distress.

Warren walked to Bessie’s head and gently took hold of the halter. He led the docile mule ahead slowly until the heavy rope tied to the cart pulled through the combined six wheels of the two blocks. Each tiny pulley axle creaked with age, but the rope rolled over the little wooden wheels until it cinched tight between the block anchored to the tree, through the block fastened to the cell bars, and ultimately to the cart.

“Over here!” Mary shouted from the vacant lot. “Over here!”

Warren looked at the flames licking the night above the jail roof. He nodded at the sound of the prearranged signal from Mary that meant Mikey O’Reilly had emerged from the front of the jail building

“Okay, Bessie,” Warren said. “Just give me one good pull on those cell bars.” The young man slapped the old mule roughly on the rump.

Ol’ Bessie lurched ahead with the vigor of a younger animal. Warren had removed two five foot sections of rope to secure the blocks to the tree and the cell bars. The remaining ninety feet of rope, weaved between the two pulley blocks, pulled tight and then stretched until it reached its natural point of elasticity. A loud screech of protest sounded from the straining rope. The mule’s front hooves slid backward on the ground, her traction gone. The cart stopped in place. The cell bars remained unmoved.

“Arrr, lad,” called Blackbeard from inside his cell. “Ye needs to pull harder.”

Warren placed his palm against Bessie’s snout to halt her efforts. “Good try, girl,” he whispered in her ear. “But we need to do better. Let’s back up and try again.”

The boy backed the mule five feet, careful not to roll the wheels of the cart over the slack rope dangling from the axle. “Once more, girl,” he encouraged. “Give it all you have.”

Warren smacked Bessie on the flank with the palm of his hand. “Go!” he yelled. “Go, girl.”