Louis L'Amour (21 page)

“It is the Welsh in him. When did they not?”

“And Jeremy, lad? And Lila? Fare they well?”

“How else? Although it be months since I have seen them. When I go south again, I shall go calling. Jeremy is a fine woodsman now and an owner of wide lands, and Lila serves no longer but is mistress of her own estate.”

“What of the lass below there?” Tilly asked. “She has eyes for you, lad.”

I felt wary and uncomfortable. “It may be. We have talked a bit.”

“She's a fine lass, a brave, tall girl. You'd be wise to take her, lad, if that is the way you both feel. I deem there's been trouble behind you?”

“She comes from Cape Ann … on the coast of what they are calling New England. They thought her a witch there, and she was twice taken by slavers, the last time through sheer vengeance, dropping down of a sudden, knocking her father about and carrying her off. It was Pittingel. He wished me to see her with him, for to kill is not enough. He wanted me to suffer in my mind as well.”

“And now?”

“To her father again if he lives. What else will come we shall talk of then, but if I take her home with me, it is a far travel for a lass, far through woods and the places where savages are.”

“She'll stand to it. There's a likely craft, lad, and one to sail any sea. You can see it in the clear eyes of her and the way she carries her head. Give me always a woman with pride, and pride of being a woman. She's such a one.”

We talked then of ships and the sea and of the old
ways of men upon the water, of how men measured the altitude of a star by the span of a wrist or a hand outstretched before them and how they guided themselves by the flight of birds, the fish they saw, and the way water curls around an island or a cape and shows itself as a special current in the sea. “Terns will fly far out to sea and rest upon the water when they wish, but the herring gulls never get more than seventy-five or eighty miles from land, and at eventide they fly toward shore to roost. When you see them winging all one way toward evening, there's land there, son, land. It has saved many a seafaring man, knowing that. Men steered by the flight of birds and found their way by the stars for these thousand years or more.”

At last I went to my bunk, but once stretched upon it, I lay long awake. Was Diana indeed the girl for me? Or was I, too, to have that westward feeling?

Jubal Sackett had it. Where was he? How far westward had he gone? Did he live yet, that brother of mine? Or did his body lie in the rich black earth beneath the trees out there near the great river of which he spoke?

We Sacketts wandered far upon the face of the world. Was there something in us truly that moved us ever westward? Did we fulfill some strange destiny? Some drive decreed by God, the wind or the tides that move across the world? Why Jubal, of us all? Why not Brian, who had gone again east? Yet I knew within me that Brian's way was westward, too.
Knew?
Was it the gift of which our father had spoken? The gift of second sight we sometimes had?

My father lay buried in the hills that he sought, but he died bravely there and no doubt rested well. The red men who killed him knew where his body lay, and sometimes they came there and left gifts of meat upon the grave, offerings to a brave man gone, a man who fought well and died well.

Where, in its time, would my body lie?

Westward
, a voice told me, off to the
westward.

So be it. Only that I lived well and strongly before
that time came and left my sons to walk the trails my foot would never tread. For it is given that no man can do it all, that each must carry the future forward a few years and then pass the message on to him who follows.

There must be fine strong boys and goodly women to do what remained to be done, and Diana? Who else to be the mother of them? And the woman to walk beside me on the hills where the rhododendron grew?

Soon.

The dark shore lay off there, somewhere beyond the black wings of night; it lay there, that long white beach upon which I played as a boy. And somewhere, not far from here, was that place of which I had heard, that place upon the open sea where may lie the gates to another world. My father in his time had seen them, or was it a trick of the sun upon the sea? A mirage, perhaps? Who could know. For now we sailed off the Carolina coast. Bermuda lay off to the northeast.

When my eyes opened again, there was a shaft of sunlight falling across the deck, a shaft of sunlight that moved slowly and easily with a gentle roll of the ship. The storm had gone.

Rising from my bed, I looked out—a fair day and a fine breeze blowing.

John Tilly was on the quarterdeck when I went out to get a smell of the wind. He seemed preoccupied, so I asked no questions. Several times he glanced aloft as if expecting some signal from the lookout at the masthead.

A cabin boy came up the ladder to the quarterdeck. “The lady, maister,” he said, “she asks if you would break fast wi' her?”

“I will be along at once.” I turned to Tilly. “Captain? Will you join us?”

He threw me a quick, impatient glance. “No, eat without me. I shall be busy here.”

Diana was at the table when I came into the cabin, and I had never seen her look more lovely. John Tilly
had gone into his stores and found some captured clothing taken in one of the constant sea battles. Attacked by pirates, they had proved too stiff a foe and had taken the pirate ship as prize.

There was sunlight through the stern light, and we sat long over our food, talking of many things. The cabin boy served us chocolate, the drink from Mexico of which we had heard much. Yet even as we talked, I was disturbed by Tilly's manner. Usually the most gracious of men, he had been abrupt and obviously worried.

The weather was fine. Did he sense a change? And the lookout aloft? What would he—

An enemy ship? Pirates?

Joseph Pittingel had ships, several of them. And we had evidence enough of his hatred. Had that lookout seen something? Or had John Tilly himself?

When our meal was finished, I got up. “Diana, change into something—anything—I do not think our troubles are over.”

She wasted no time asking for explanations. Too often in emergencies had I seen people who took the time to ask “Why” not live long enough to receive an answer.

As for myself, I went to my chest and took my two pistols and charged them anew. Then I laid out my sword and thrust a knife into my waistband. What was happening I knew not, but it was best to be prepared, to stand ready for whatever.

Off to the westward would be the Virginia or Maryland coast, how far I did not know and had best learn. Ours was a good vessel, manned by sturdy men, but the best vessel and the best men can meet their match.

When I appeared on deck, the lookout was talking to Captain Tilly. Avoiding them, I walked to the rail and looked all about. I was perfectly aware that the distance one can see from a ship's deck was limited indeed, not nearly so far as one would believe. At fifteen feet
above the water I could see perhaps four and a half miles, and the lookout from the topmast could see no more than ten.

John Tilly left the lookout to return aloft and walked across the deck to me. He noted the arms. “You do well to go armed,” he said quietly. “I believe we shall have trouble.”

“The lookout has seen a ship?”

“No, and that worries me, for there was one close to us in the night.”

“You are sure? What could have become of him?”

“Ah, that is what bothers me, Master Kin. What, indeed? And why?

“It lacked but an hour or so of dawn when I was awakened. I came on deck, and Tom Carboy—he is my mate—pointed out to me a black shadow of something against the sea. It was some distance off, and by the time I reached the deck, indistinct. I could not make her out, only that there was something.

“Carboy is a good, steady man. He had been watching ahead, for the gale was still blowing, although it had begun to ease somewhat, and some bad cross-seas were running. This is the devil's own stretch of water, you know, and there are currents that create a very mixed-up sea in some storms. He was alert to what happened, to see her ease into those big seas and not take them on the beam.

“He had his eyes glued to those big ones, and his helmsman was ready to meet them across the bow when he happened to turn around and look astern. It seemed it had been only minutes since he had done so, but there was a ship coming up, overhauling him rapidly, a ship without lights.

“He called me, but something must have alarmed the dark vessel because it seemed to fall back, and by the time I reached the deck, it could not be identified.”

“I do not believe in ghost ships,” I said, “although in these waters—”

“I do not believe in them, either. Yet why a ship showing no lights? Why did she fall back?”

“Where is she now?”

“My lookout can see nothing. Once, when he went aloft for the first time and just after daylight, he thought he glimpsed a topm'st.”

“Then if it is a ship, she may be following us? Hanging back, over the horizon, waiting?”

“That is what I fear. She waits until the darkness of another night, then overtakes us for a sudden surprise attack.”

“A pirate?”

“It may be, or your old friend Pittingel following you still. The
Abigail
is a good sailer and by most accounts a fast ship, but she is nowhere near as speedy as some of the pirate vessels. Joseph Pittingel has one—the
Vestal
—that is very fast.”

Again I glanced astern. If she lay back there, twelve or thirteen miles off, she would need three hours to close in, perhaps four. Yet as soon as it became dark, she could begin to move closer, and we would not see her until she was just a short distance off, within cannon shot or nearly so. I liked it not and said so.

“Is there no way we can evade her? Sail toward shore, for example?”

He shrugged. “It might be, but we draw too close in, and we might get caught against a lee shore, and no sailor wishes to sail too close in because of the hazards.”

We stood silent then, each busy with what thoughts he had. Suddenly the bright sea had become a menacing place where danger lurked just beyond the horizon.

“We shall try,” Tilly said at last, “but 'tis a bad shore yonder, and many a fair ship has been trapped there. He would not fall back unless he was sure of his speed.”

“Why did he not attack this morning?”

Tilly shrugged. “It was late. By the time he overtook us, day would be breaking, for as he moved toward us, we were moving away. His chance for surprise was gone.”

Throughout the day we sailed, yet we did more.
We cleared the deck for action and made ready the guns. She had fewer guns than in my father's time, for the weight of them deprived her of cargo.

Tilly kept a man aloft, but he saw nothing, reported nothing. Dusk came, and we made ready. Darkness came at last, and Tilly sent word forward to extinguish all lights. I went below. “Diana? Trouble comes. The light must go out.”

“It is a bother,” she protested. “I was remaking a dress.” She put out the light and in the darkness said, “I shall fix the curtains, then mayhap a little light?”

“None,” I warned her. “None at all. There is a dark ship yonder that will attack, we think, this night. We will move in toward shore, and anything may happen, so be ready.”

She was silent for a long moment. “What shore is it, Kin? Where are we now?”

It irritated me that I had not thought to ask Tilly, for it was always important to have a location, and I could only surmise it was somewhere north of that coast of which I knew a little. Perhaps north of the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.

After saying as much and warning her we might be in a boat erelong and to dress warmly, taking whatever she might need that could be easily carried, I went on deck.

It was cold and windy there. The sails pulled well, and we were tacking across the wind, working in toward shore, and well I knew how a mariner dreaded sailing along a shore at any time, let alone at night. When landsmen write of such things, they always tell of the first mariners hugging the shore, which is utter nonsense and something no seaman in his right mind would do. The open sea has fewer dangers.

John Tilly loomed near me. “She's back there and closing in. I saw a mast draw a black thread across a star.”

“It might have been a bird.”

“Might have been, but it was not.”

“Is not Maryland somewhere about here?” I asked.

“It is, and a coast of which I know little. Always along here I am well at sea and wanting only more sea room. Yet I hear there are islets and reefs, offshore winds. Who knows?”

No darker night had I seen and no blacker a sea. The wind held steady, and the
Abigail
was sailing well. I walked to the taffrail, standing over where Diana must be, and looked astern.

Nothing.

Only the night, only the darkness, only the wind and the sea. Occasionally a star showed among scudding clouds. And then, suddenly, she was there coming up alongside like a black ghost from a black and glassy sea. She was at our stern, her bowsprit dangerously near, and I saw a huge man with a black beard making ready to swing a grapnel. They would board us then.

He swung the grapnel, and I shot him. I never recalled drawing my pistol, only the flare of the gun and the startled look of the man as the ball took him in the chest. He fell forward, his grapnel going wild, and then she was alongside us, and her men were swarming over.

Somewhere I heard Tilly shout, and from our guns there was a belch of flame. I saw a section of bulwark go flying, heard a man scream, and then all was flames and fighting. I fired again, my second gun; it was knocked from my fist, and I smashed the man in the mouth and drew a knife, plunging it deep in his side.

Then I had a sword out, shifting the knife to the other hand, Italian style, and I went among them, cutting, slashing, thrusting. Men were all about me, and it was a wild corner of hell we were in.