Jack Iron (11 page)

“Oh my… I’m a healer of men. Not someone who would stoop to taking a life.” Angel Mendoza was indignant at the mere suggestion he ought to arm himself. He preferred to remain as far from the fighting as possible.

“Those Choctaws are gonna sure take a liking to that fine head of hair of yours,” Biggs said. “They plumb fancy white scalps as being sort of special.”

A look of alarm crossed Mendoza’s aquiline countenance. He did not appreciate any talk of scalping. He was certain that Biggs was bluffing, but just to be on the safe side the physician worked his way back toward his companions, taking care to keep the wagon between himself and the oncoming Choctaw warriors.

Biggs and Longley shared a moment of unspoken amusement at Mendoza’s expense. Behind them, another eleven men exploded from the barn and hurried to form a skirmish line using the wagons as cover. Cesar Obregon was the last to arrive. He strolled leisurely from the warehouse and walked across the soft earth to stand alongside his chief gunner.

“Choctaw.” Biggs was nervous. It made him abrupt.

“I have eyes,” Obregon purred. “And I recognize who is leading them.” The buccaneer was delighted at seeing Raven O’Keefe again, but one look at McQueen made the captain’s jaw ache.

“Shall we rattle them with a volley?” Longley asked, cocking his rifled musket and training his sights on the brave driving the wagon. The privateer braced his elbow on the side of the freight wagon to steady his aim.

“Not with the girl in the lead, you idiot,” Obregon growled.

“These redsticks can’t be trusted,” another man contested. The Hawk of the Antilles silenced the crewman with a single glance from his hard blue eyes.

“I’ll keelhaul the first man who opens fire without my say-so,” Obregon called out. Then, before Biggs could offer a protest, the captain of the
Windthrift
climbed up into the wagon bed in full view of the oncoming warriors. He made a perfect target garbed in his black shirt and breeches, his sun-bleached blond hair held back from his aristocratic features by his ever-present black silk scarf.

As she reined her mare to a stop a few feet from Captain Obregon, Raven felt her own heart stir at the sight of him, for he cut a grand and glorious figure, this Castilian. He was like the wind blowing over the ocean and churning the waves, the constantly changing sea breezes, gentle one moment and raging the next and always unpredictable. She chanced a peek at the man alongside her. Kit was like the land, there was a permanence to him, and yet the land in its own way was as full of mystery as the wind.

“You are either a very brave man or a fool to come here,” Obregon said to Kit. Then he bowed with a flourish to Raven. “Senora, it is a pleasure to see you again. A pity you have not chosen better company for your sojourn in the forest.”

“I am with my friends, Senor Obregon,” Raven replied.

“And why have you come, Senora? Perhaps it is I you seek, no?”

“We’ve come for the guns,” Kit spoke out. He had wearied of Obregon’s arrogance and sure as hell did not care for the way the buccaneer seemed to be undressing Raven with his eyes. Confrontation was one way of diverting the captain’s attention. Raven had called for subtlety, but Kit wasn’t about to put up with the Castilian’s conduct.

A ripple of tension went a-coursing along the ranks of the privateers. Guns were cocked and leveled on both sides, but Obregon, despite being caught off guard by McQueen’s pronouncement, had the calmness to raise his hand as a signal to remind his men to hold their fire.

“Now I have the answer,” said Obregon. “You are indeed a fool.”

“Not all the muskets. A hundred and twenty will do. And powder and shot,” Kit continued, ignoring the captain’s remark.

“These wagons are intended for General Jackson’s troops,” Obregon flatly explained. He twirled the tips of his mustache while he tried, and failed, to stare the lieutenant down.

“The Choctaw are Jackson’s troops,” Kit said. “But many of them have been facing British bayonets with little more than tomahawks and spears.”

“Just think of us as sparing you lads a trip,” O’Keefe interjected, trying to remain at his jovial best. Winning the buccaneer over was certainly better than fighting him, especially as the Choctaw were outnumbered and outgunned. “We brought our own wagon. Just point out the rifles and we’ll be on our way.” The Irishman started forward. Reyner Blanche, standing near the singletree, swung his rifle to bear on the big man.

“You be holding it right there, you tub of guts.”

Iron Hand O’Keefe gave the young privateer a hard look and proceeded to grumble about the insolence of youth. Then he shrugged and nodded to Blanche. “As you say, me bucko. You have the musket. But one day I mean to take you aside and have a
pointed
conversation with you.” He held up the black iron hook jutting from his left sleeve and wiped the sharpened tip on his broad buckskin-covered chest.

“I had hopes of making you understand our predicament,” Raven said, walking her mount another step closer to Obregon.

“If you had come alone,” Obregon said with a shrug. “
Mi querida.
Still, there is a chance. Bartering is an honored custom among the Baratarians. Now let me see, I have the guns and now what do you have to offer in trade? Hmmm. Perhaps together we might come up with something.”

His meaning was as clear as the fiery passion smoldering in his eyes. He did not care how he wound up with this raven-haired senorita whom he perceived as a lady one moment and then, in the next, as a wanton savage, elemental and untamed.

“I will trade you for the guns,” Kit said. “I offer you that which you and your men no doubt prize above all other goods.”

Obregon was intrigued. He was always ready to make a profit. Love could wait. He returned his attention to McQueen and carefully scrutinized the soldier in army-issue coat and beaded buckskin breeches. What manner of soldier was this McQueen who was as much at home among the savages as his own kind? “I have no use for trade beads.” Behind him, the crew of the
Windthrift
laughed at the lieutenant’s expense.

“Do you have any use for your lives?” Kit asked.

In a matter of seconds the air had thickened with tension, and the silence that followed was as loud as the roar of a cyclone.

“Do you think we came alone?” Kit called out. “There are more warriors in the forest, three times your number hiding behind every tree and bush along the trail to New Orleans. You’ve more than an hour’s ride to Chalmette through dense thickets and stands of timber in which the entire Choctaw Nation could hide. Your crew is no doubt a brave bunch of lads, Obregon. But they’ll never see the faces of their killers. And in the end, the Choctaw will have all your muskets and all your powder and shot.” Kit swept the line of buccaneers in a single contemptuous glance as if he were counting so many graves. It had the desired effect. The privateers were obviously unnerved by McQueen’s revelation and even Obregon shifted his gaze to the surrounding forest.

The Castilian was at a loss to explain how McQueen had discovered the warehouse. However disconcerting, it paled alongside the prospect of being plagued by unseen assailants all the way back to the breastworks.

“You are bluffing, Lieutenant McQueen,” said Obregon.

“So be it,” Kit replied. He tugged on the reins of his mare to turn the animal about.

“Seems a waste of good men,” O’Keefe said, playing along with the ruse. He looked back toward the forest and lifted a bugle to his lips. It was a battered instrument that dangled from the Irishman’s neck like Roland’s horn. O’Keefe never went into battle without trumpeting his defiance. He split the air with a blast loud enough to wake the dead. But to Obregon’s thinking, the Irishman had just signaled the Choctaws concealed in the depths of the woods.

“Wait!” Obregon called out. Kit and Iron Hand O’Keefe faced him again. “These are General Jackson’s guns. I will not lose a man for them. Load what you need. But be quick, for you have tried my patience this day.” Obregon bowed to Raven. “I will see you again, senorita.” He leaped down from the wagon and started back up the path to the warehouse, pausing only once to bark an order to his men to assist the Choctaw in obtaining the muskets and ammunition they desired.

With all the men working, it only took half an hour for Nate Russell’s wagon to be loaded. Kit was as anxious as anyone to be on his way. O’Keefe spent the time regaling everyone within earshot with orders and swaggering around the clearing. He cut quite a picture with Johnny Fuller tagging along in Iron Hand’s shadow. When the Choctaw had started back down the frail, Obregon emerged from the doorway of the warehouse and dispatched a man to bring more wagons. He intended to remove all the stores and burn the warehouse to the ground now that its location had been discovered. He straightened as Kit left the departing Choctaw column and rode back across the clearing, and the buccaneer’s hands drifted to his concealed daggers, for he was unsure of the lieutenant’s intentions.

“We’ve only taken enough to adequately arm each of O’Keefe’s men. I’ll clear it with Jackson.”

“That is not what you rode back to tell me.”

“No,” Kit said. “I want you to leave Raven alone. She is not for you.”

“Oh. And why?”

“Because you don’t love her… and I do.”

“And she loves you?”

“Yes.”

“
Love
… A man can love a good ship, a sail full of wind, the temptress sea. But a woman… you sail dangerous waters, Lieutenant McQueen. Go and sail them alone and trouble me no more. I am done with you both!” Kit studied the privateer for a moment longer, then whirled his mount and left the Hawk of the Antilles in the settling dust.

Honeyboy Biggs had watched what transpired, trying not to appear obvious as he strained to overhear the brief conversation between the two antagonists. After Kit had departed, Biggs stepped out of the shadowy interior of the barn.

The gunner wiped beads of sweat from his bald plate. Loading wagons was work for younger muscles, but he was too stubborn to stand aside and not lend his back to the efforts of the other men of the
Windthrift.
Nor was the gunner about to subject himself to their jibes about his encroaching age. Honeyboy Biggs was determined to prove he was the match for any of the crewmen.

Obregon’s remarks to Kit McQueen had been music to the older man’s ears. Biggs had been worried sick over the Castilian’s obsession with the half-breed daughter of Iron Hand O’Keefe. It was time to put an end to such fancies and concentrate on the tasks at hand.

“Wisely put, Captain. You are well rid of the woman. Her kind bring nothing but misfortune.” Biggs was fairly beaming as if a great weight had been lifted from his soul. But his happiness was shortlived.

“You old rum pot,” said Obregon with a mirthless chuckle. “I lied.”

“P
OOR HARRY TREGONING,” THE
marine muttered to himself, and kicked at a cockroach crawling sluggishly across the straw-littered floor of the storage shed that served as his jail. It was the eighth of January, a gray and dreary dawn. Daybreak had brought not only echoes of distant thunder but another bone-chilling mist from the river. It blanketed the shoreline and wound along the apartment and tavern-lined streets of the French Quarter and drifted past the shuttered windows of Tregoning’s prison. He reached over and scooped up the cockroach and tossed it through the black grate of the Franklin stove, where the hapless insect exploded with a pop and melted into an oily black glob among the chunks of firewood.

He immediately regretted the act. It wasn’t like Harry Tregoning to punish a helpless creature. He shook his head and sighed. “What’s to become of this poor Cornishman?” The thunder had yet to abate. The marine listened carefully to what he had taken to be a most peculiar storm. Spring thunderheads in the dead of winter? “Harry Tregoning, you deaf fool. Have you been locked in this damn storeroom so long you’ve forgotten the roar of cannons when you hear ’em?” His blood turned icy in his veins. Unless he missed his guess, the battle for New Orleans had begun.

A rattle of the door warned him that someone was about to enter. He tensed. Had General Jackson changed his mind about hanging the British marine? It had been over a week since his capture, but Tregoning was still suspicious of the general’s intentions.

He heard the bolt slide back. The door creaked open on its rusted iron hinges, metal ground against metal, then, to Tregoning’s surprise, a young woman in a pale blue woolen dress and wrapped in a heavy shawl entered the storeroom. She carried a woven reed basket whose contents were hidden beneath a beige cloth. Tregoning relaxed his grip on the three-legged stool with which he intended to fight off the imagined lynching party.

“By heaven, what do we have here?” he exclaimed, completely taken aback by the gender of his visitor. Harry Tregoning had a weakness for the fairer sex. And this was a comely young maiden indeed. Why, she looked part injun despite her attire.

“Well, if this ain’t a grand thing. Dear missy, but you are a welcome sight. Already my damp and miserable abode seems brighter.” Tregoning stepped aside and turned up the flame in one of his lanterns and then gestured to the room’s spare furnishings, which consisted of a cot, a rather rickety looking table, and two stools. “You have a seat right here.” He dipped his hands in a nearby bucket of water and smoothed down the fringe of black hair that wreathed his skull.

He sniffed the air and caught the aroma of the fresh-baked biscuits still warm from the oven. Tregoning’s eyes grew wide as the woman unloaded the contents of her basket: a platter of biscuits, several thick slices of honey-cured ham, and a bottle of sherry Raven O’Keefe had personally selected from Madam LeBeouf’s wine cabinet.

“By all the saints, you’re an angel of mercy,” Tregoning exclaimed, and dug into the food. Half a minute into his meal he glanced up sharply, crumbs spilling from his mouth and cheeks bulging. “This ain’t poor Harry’s last meal, is it? They ain’t planning to hang me for a spy what with the commence of fighting?”

“Kit… uh… Lieutenant McQueen thought you might be hungry and asked if I would bring you something to eat,” Raven said.