By the Bay (13 page)

Philippe decided the old man would be a formidable enemy and was glad he was in charge of defending the place he considered to be his home.

They spent a fast-moving hour discussing plans. Jackson’s troops were already hard at work building their fortifications and developing a battle plan to defend the city
and Philippe with his superior knowledge of the terrain was able to quickly make sugge
stions
for improvements and as readily agreed to make immediate attempts to meet with his Baratarians to attempt to unite them with the cause.

“You got to remember, son,” the old general said, “they think you dead and buried and you know how it is when there’s a power vacuum. No doubt others are already fighting to take your place.”

Philippe nodded. Nobody knew the world of the privateers better than he. He was fully aware of its dangers.

By the time he left the meeting, he
knew
he must return to the bayous as soon as possible and since throughout the hour he had been intensely conscious of Jillian waiting in the ballroom, he hurried back in, scouring the large, crowded room for her to no avail.

Neither could he find Bloody Mac, whom he’d left outside to keep watch
on an unwitting Jillian
from as close range as he could manage. Finally he had to admit, heart racing, but appearing outwardly calm, that both were gone.

Not knowing who
,
if anyone, was to be trusted, he met with contacts throughout the city and was unable to get any information about their whereabouts. Sick with fear, he went back to the rooming house, hoping against hope that his
impulsive
wife might simply have gotten annoyed at being excluded and left standing at the ball,
and
had departed for her rooms.

They were empty, but a note lay on the bed informing him in excellent English that if he wished to see the woman alive again, he’d best stay out of politics.

Now he knew who had her, and most likely Mac as well. The British!

Quickly removing his formal clothes and dressing for the wild, he left the city before dawn in the company of two men he’d left as watchman.
Before mid-day
they were meeting with the Baratarians, already forewarned by crew members that he was not only
still alive, but ready to take command.

To his considerable relief, he found that not only was there not the power vacuum that
Andy Jackson had promised, but that t
wo captains ruled: both of them brothers
of the now non-existent Jean
Lafitte
, the
fierce looking Dominique
You
and the tradesman turned privateer, Pierre
Lafitte
.

So not all the
Lafitte
s had disappeared. He still had family among the buccaneers and was warmly greeted by both men.

One man stood aside,
tall
and scowling and not at all glad to see him. Apparently the reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Philippe put his hand to the handle of his sword as he calmly met the gaze of his old enemy, the mutineer Lightning Jack.

The bayous were not a safe place under any conditions, not considering the presence of alligators, venomous snakes, and
other
sorts of dangerous creatures, but Philippe knew no other was as intent on his own death as this man, sworn enemy of the
Lafitte
s, who harbored a burning desire to command the Baratarians and their accumulated wealth. This was the last thing they needed, a division in their midst, just as they were about to go into the fight of their lives.

Jack had
once pretended to be a friend, and here
he was and
who could know what his stance would be.

Philippe, his hand on his sword, quickly took charge. The captains, who were accustomed to being led by profit, treated him with the respect they’d once shown to Jean
Lafitte
, though they were never easily led and  in the long run made their own decisions.

With fear for Jillian choking his throat, he began questioning to find out if an
y
body knew what had happened to her. The
buccaneers
of Barataria had ears in every part of the city and though, no one had direct information, they determined that his woman was being held as a pawn in this game of war.

Most of them didn’t like this, that a foreign invader would capture their leader’s woman to force his behavior. Not
only
that, several of the captains had wives or sweethearts currently living
in New O
r
leans, now that their base on
Grande
Terre
had been destroyed.

Speaking in French, Pierre told him that one of the main centers for the British command was at Hawthorne planation.
Quickly gathering a small force of his most loyal supporters, Philippe headed for that location, leaving behind a force no longer supporting the British.
He didn’t plan on anybody telling the invasion force of this switch in loyalty, brought about by the force of his own personality and long built connections within the privateer community.

He was not Jean
Lafitte
, but he was the next best thing, and had played on the real loyalty the privateer captains and their men had for the country that had taken them in after their bases in the islands had been overtaken. Like him, most of the men hated the British only second to the Spanish, their old enemies.

The day broke, cold and raw as they approached the plantation house with the stealth that was their stock in trade. The place was well guarded by the red coats and, quickly assessing the situation, he determined that his small troop had little chance of a successful
frontal
attack. Fairly certain that Jillian, and hopefully, Mac as well, were inside
, he laid his plans.
His heart ached to think how frightened she must be.

Chapter
Eighteen

They referred to her openly as
d
e Beauv
ois’
tart and she didn’t bother to correct them. She was fairly sure these so proper Englishmen would not be much impressed by being told of a marriage at sea conducted by a pirate captain.

And she didn’t care what they thought of her, only hoped that they would underestimate what resources a Texas girl could bring to bear.

They had removed her gag and untied the ropes that bound her, leaving her to do the same for Mac, who was beginning to stir, though bleeding profusely from a scalp wound that soaked his long hair with blood.

I
n time
-
honored tradition from books she’d read, she knew petticoats could make good bandages
and tore strips from the bottom
of her own
to clean and dress his wound. By the time she’d finished, he was awake, though still groggy and refusing food, saying he didn’t think he could keep it down.

She slipped the pistol from its hiding place in the pocket she’d made under her skirt and was ready the next time a soldier came in bearing food. She leveled the weapon straight at him.

“Come on,” she called to Mac. He slowly stood and blinked at them, looking like he was still half out.

A large grin spread across the redcoat’s face. “Come on, Missy, a pretty little thing like you wouldn’t know how to shoot that thing.” He took a couple of steps toward her, th
a
n paused, something in her face apparently convincing him that his first estimate of her abilities might not be correct.

She waved it at him
and
ordered Mac to use his own bloody discarded gag to silence the soldier.
“I don’t want to kill you,” she said softly, “but if I have to, I will.”

He tried to protest, but the gag prevented any understandable words from coming out. She watched while Mac fumbled with the ropes that had so recently constrained his own person, tying
the soldier’s
arms and legs. “Hurry,” she whispered, afraid another might come at any time to investigate what had happened to this one.

Luck was with them. Jillian breathed a little easier as they edged their way down the long corridor. She could hear voices in the distance, but no one was in sight.

They were out of the house and almost across the yard to the nearby trees. Jillian had hold of Mac with her left hand, tugging at his still dazed figure and holding the pistol in her right hand as they ran. They were almost to the woods, when a wordless shout sound
ed
from behind them. She glanced over
her
shoulder to see a soldier with a large gun running after him. He seemed to have some doubts about shooting a young woman in a rather damaged ball gown and a man who stumbled as though he were drunk, even though they seemed to be fleeing the si
te
.

Still he pointed his gun in their direction and in a split second Jillian made the decision. She had no choice but to fire. The shot brought him down and, now with a suddenly more alert Mac urging her on, she ran for the cover of the woods.

“Oh, I do hope I didn’t kill him,” she murmured more to herself, or maybe to God, than to her companion. “I didn’t mean to!”

Mac tripped just then and fell over a
downed
branch. She hurried to help him up. “Hurry! Hurry! I hear them coming.”  Sure enough the sound of yelling voices and running feet sounded behind them.

“Run!” Mac yelled and she took one flying step forward, barely constrained by her long dress and dancing slippers, and was in the air. But when she came down to earth, she was in another place.

It was, it seemed at first, a very familiar place. She looked across Laguna Madre to Padre Island and the town behind her was modern, a 1942 version of her community.

Jillian’s frustration came out in a long raging yell that startled the gulls into flying and screeching. She waded into the edge of the water and protested, “No! No! No!” as she stamped her slipper clad feet in the shallow bay.

She had things to do. She was busy rescuing Mac and herself and getting back to Philippe. At the thought of her husband, all her anger drained away and she felt profoundly sa
d
.

They were separated by such a barrier that she didn’t know if it could ever be surmounted.

Slowly she stepped back on the sand, the edges of her once beautifu
l
gown
dripping water. Torn and filthy, it was the most inconvenient of
clothing
and her hair had long ago fallen out of its updo and dripped in untidy strings around her face. As for her pistol, it was gone and she only hoped it had fallen into Mac’s hands.

Her gaze cast down on the sand, she trudged toward the cottage, determined to find more reasonabl
e
clothing while she decided what she must do.

When she finally looked up, she
glimpsed
a small brown building where the first three cottages had set and as she looked upward she saw to her surprise that only the Lone Star Flag waved overhead and words chiseled into
a
stone read ‘Republic of Texas
.’

Panicked, refusing to admit the possibility of another mistake, she rushed up the walk and went inside.

She let out her breath in a sigh of relief when she saw the familiar figure behind the desk. Her longtime neighbor,
Gene
Stewart
sat behind the desk. His eyes widened as he took in her decidedly strange appearance in the well-worn green ball gown.

“Jillian, thank goodness. Your family has been worried to death about  you
.
”

She was way too upset to follow his train of conversation. “What is this Republic of Texas nonsense, Mr.
Stewart
?” she asked bluntly.

He looked around, bewildered. “Same as always, Jillian. You know I’ve worked for the country here at the southmost office for nearly twenty years
now
.”

“Country?” she spat out the question. “You mean state.”

A puzzled frown settled on his genial face. She’d known the
Stewart
s all her life and the
y
were nearly as close as family.
Country
, he’d said,
not state
.

Texas had once been in a country, but that had been long, long ago. A history teacher, she should know all about the war for Texas independence from Mexico back in the 1830s. Every Texas school child grew up on tales of the Alamo, Goliad, San Jacinto, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett . . .

Deliberately she stopped her mind in its spinning course.

“Your aunt’s been real worried about you?” He tried to keep from looking at what must seem to him the very strange dress she was wearing. “She said you eloped with that French fellow?’