Louis L'Amour (22 page)

A man went down beneath my feet grasping wildly at my legs, and I kicked free and fought clear of the mass. Tilly had rallied some of his men around him, and they were encircled by attackers. Yet the broadside had done its work, delayed though it had been, for flames were leaping up from fires aboard their
ship, and I could see men dancing about fighting the fire that suddenly leaped to the sails, which went up in a great billow of flame like an explosion from a powder magazine.

Flaming bits of canvas fell, and one man, his clothing afire, leaped over into the dark, rolling sea. One glimpse I had of him, musket raised to fire when the sail caught and the flame leaped up at him like a great hand with a dozen fingers. I saw his eyes distended with horror, and then the flame was all about him, and he plunged from the topmast into the sea, screaming all the way.

Desperately I fought my way to the ladder and down it to the door that opened from the great cabin to the deck.

It swung wide, and I plunged through. A man opposed me, a man with rings in his ears and broken teeth, a man who swung a cutlass at my head. I parried the blow and went in with the dagger, and it took him in the ribs. His foul breath was an instant in my face, and then he slid down me to the deck, and I stepped over him into the cabin.

Diana stood there, her back to the bulkhead, tall, lovely, and perfectly still. Eyes wide, she faced a man whose back was to me, but I recognized him instantly. It was Joseph Pittingel.

“So now,” he said to her, “I shall kill you!”

“First try to kill the man behind you,” she told him coolly. “I think him too much for you.”

“Such a paltry trick!” he sneered. “I think—”

Then something in her eyes did make him turn, and he reacted instantly. Foolishly I had expected him to speak, to warn, to threaten, to beg, I know not.

He lunged, sword in hand, and the blade might have taken my life but for the pistol I had thrust empty into my belt. The blade struck it, and before he could move again, my own blade had smashed his aside. He thrust wildly at me, eyes bulging with hatred and fury. My fingers turned the blade off mine, and I held my blade up and ready. He came at me again, then stopped
suddenly, and turning his sword, raised it to slash sideways at Diana!

She stood, back to the bulkhead, nothing between her and the swinging sword edge. I struck swiftly up between arm and body, and my blade caught him only in time, cutting deep into the muscles that held arm to shoulder.

His blade flew from his fingers, narrowly missing Diana, and fell with a clatter to the deck.

He turned on me, blood streaming down his half-severed arm.

Ignoring him, I held out my hand. “Diana? Shall we go now?”

W
e reached the deck, and Tilly was there and a half-dozen others he had rallied about him. The fighting was over, and a body rolled in the scuppers; another hung limply on a bulwark, and even as I looked it slid off the bulwark and lay sprawled upon the wet deck.

The black ship was blacker still and far down in the water, her decks awash.

She lay there, a cable's length away, and we could see a few men about the deck.

“How is it, John?” I asked Tilly.

“Bad-bad,” he said. “She's been hulled, I think, and will go down.”

Our deck had an ugly feel to it, a heavy, sullen feel that I liked not. “Will she make the shore?” I suggested. “If we could get some sail on her—?”

“Aye, I was thinkin' o' that. Would you take the chance? It would be safer than the boats, and at least we can have a go at it.”

He started to give the orders, but the crew were already moving.

“What of them?” I asked.

He glanced toward the sinking
Vestal
, if that was indeed who she was. “They've the same chance we have, and they came looking for it. Let them bide.”

Leaving Diana on the quarterdeck, I went along forward, picking things up and making her shipshape. The two bodies left on the deck were only that, the life gone from them, so I dumped both overside.

I found a pistol upon the deck and thrust it behind
my waistband. We were moving, and the man at the wheel had put the helm over.

We were taking on water, and it was a wild chance we took to make for the shore. What if we hung up on a sandbar off the coast? Yet there was a chance to save both crew and ship as well as the cargo, and the ship was the
Abigail
, almost a part of our family.

Yet she had a sullen feel to her, and I liked it not. “Stand by,” I told Diana. “I must know where you are if the worst comes. We'll make the shore together.”

“Or drown,” she said.

“We'll make the shore,” I said, “for I am wishful of taking you to my cabin in the mountains yonder, the far blue mountains, as my father called them. And we'll make it, too. I will need sons to seed the plains with men and build a country there, a place with homes.”

She could carry but little sail, but we moved, and somewhere off to the westward was land, a lee shore but a shore.

Once the canvas was set, there was little we could do except to wait. Slowly the remaining sailors came on deck, each with a small parcel of his belongings.

“Make the boat ready,” Tilly suggested. “Store her with food and water, what bedding we will need, and arms as well as powder.”

“You expect more trouble?” one of the men asked.

Tilly glanced at him. “To be prepared, that is the price of existence, lad. Help them pack the boat now.”

He took the wheel himself as we neared shore. The sky was faintly gray behind us, but the dim, low line of the shore offered nothing, promised nothing.

Of the sinking
Vestal
, we saw nothing. It was likely she might sink where she was, but she might float as well, might float for some time.

Suddenly I bethought myself of Pittingel. The man was below in the cabin, whether dead or dying, I did not know. Yet when I went below, sword in hand, he was gone.

There was much blood upon the deck, and there was blood on the sill of the stern light. He had dropped
into the sea, when or where I did not know, or even whether he had done so of choice or been dropped by somebody.

Gone. It made me uneasy to think he might still live. Yet he had been badly cut, if not fatally. That he had lost much blood was obvious, yet his disappearance left us with one less thing to worry about at the moment, and the moment was all important.

For me the shore loomed near and vastly to be desired, for as fine a seaman as my father may have been, I knew that I was not. In time I might have become one, but there was to be no such time if I could help it. My destiny lay in the mountains of my own homeland, and the shore yonder was the first step. Once ashore, I could go anywhere. At sea I was at best uncomfortable.

Fortune seemed to be with us now that our vessel was sinking beneath us, for the wind had lessened, and the waves were nothing to speak of. Slowly but steadily we moved toward the coast. Now we could hear the beat of it upon the long, sandy shore. It was a familiar sound, for it was upon such a barrier of sand that I had played as a child, on the Carolina sounds.

“There's enough sea to carry us in. She'll hit hard enough to wedge herself in the sand.”

“It is my fault, John,” I said. “Had I not come to you, none of this would have happened.”

He brushed my comment away with a gesture. “Your father gave me this ship. Owned a piece of it, actually, although I never had a chance to give him his share. She's a good vessel, and I'd like to save her.”

“We can try,” I offered.

He considered that. He was a thoughtful, careful man, and to lose his ship hurt him hard. He eased her speed by taking in some canvas, not that she was making any speed to speak of, but he kept on just enough to give her a little help with the steering.

There were no toppling combers, no welcoming crowds, no fanfare of trumpets when we came in to the shore. The sea had quieted still more, and the dawn had turned the sand from dull gray to pale flesh color,
and we came in easy like bobbing flotsam on the tide, and we bumped our bow into the sand and stayed there.

We had the boat over and got some men ashore, and with a sigh of relief, I was first to put a foot on land. On land I was my own man again, subject to no vagaries of wind or sea. Yonder was the forest, here was the shore, and both were matters I understood. Somewhere far off, beyond the sand and the trees, there would be mountains, the blue mountains of home.

We unloaded what we could on the shore and at my advice moved back into the forest's edge where we not only would have fuel but would be less easily seen and our numbers estimated. Then we got a line ashore tied about a buried log or “deadman.”

The cook made a meal over a fire of my building. I loaded a musket and my two pistols, and leaving all close by the fire, I scouted a bit. We had landed on a narrow barrier island, but the mainland was but a short distance away. I found tracks of deer and glimpsed some wild turkeys but did not shoot. We had food enough for the time; and it was of no use to warn anyone who might be within hearing of our presence. I went back and sat on the sand with my back against a great driftwood log and watched the fire.

John Tilly and some of his men were going over the vessel.

“Hulled twice,” Tilly said, “and she took on a bit of water, but if the weather holds, we can pump her out and float her again.”

“I am a fair hand with working wood,” I said, “and a better hand at what needs a strong back, so I'll stand a trick at the pumps.”

We talked it over, weighing this and that in conversation as we ate. Nor would we wait until dawn, for who knew what might develop with the weather.

“And the
Vestal?
” I said. “Do you think she sank?”

“I do, but Hans—he's a fo'c'sle hand—said he saw them get a boat or two free of her. So we'd best keep a sharp lookout.”

“Aye.” We could see the beach for a good stretch in either direction, but there were woods behind us. Yet I fancied myself in the woods and feared naught but an Indian.

“If they get her afloat again,” Diana said, “what will you do?”

“Turn inland,” I said. “It is a far piece to where my home lies and almost as far to Shooting Creek, but we'll be for it.

“John?” I spoke suddenly, remembering. “There's an island in a bay not far from here where a man named Claiborne has a station. He does a bit of trade, has a pinnace or two. You might sell him some of your cargo if all is not spoiled or trade for furs. He's a good man. Cantankerous but good.”

“Aye. I know the name.”

Several of the crew were already at work on the hull; others were already manning the pumps. Leaving Diana to get together what clothes she could, for Tilly had told her to take whatever she found that was useful, I went to the pumps. Any kind of physical work was always a pleasure. I was strong and enjoyed using my strength, and the pumps were a simple matter that left one time to think.

For hours we pumped, and the water flowed from the hull in a steady stream. By nightfall we had lowered the level considerably, and one of the holes in the hull had been repaired. Other men, while not busy at the pumps, went about repairing damage to lines and rigging that had been incurred during the brief fight.

We had lost four men: two had fallen over the side, and two had been struck down on deck. How many the
Vestal
lost we had no idea. Our sudden broadside as they came up to use their grappling irons had been totally unexpected.

The day remained quiet and the sea calm. The sunlight was bright, not too warm, and the work went forward swiftly. In the late afternoon I went ashore and gathered fuel for the night, taking the time to scout around while doing so. The long stretch of beach and
shore was empty, nor could I see any smoke or sign of life to the shoreward.

None knew better than I that while thousands of square miles of land went unoccupied and unused except by the casual hunter, Indian war parties were constantly coming and going through the country. If we escaped a visit, we would be fortunate indeed.

Over the campfire we sat together. John Tilly spoke of floating his ship on the morrow, then asked of our plans.

“I am ashore,” I said, “and it is my world. I think we will go inland from here.”

“It is a long way.” Tilly glanced at Diana. “Are you prepared for such a walk?”

“Where he goes, I shall go.” She smiled. “I have walked much, Captain. At Cape Ann there were no horses nor carriages.”

“There will be savages. You understand that?”

“I do.”

Henry had come up close to the fire. I had seen but little of him these past days aboard ship, for he had stayed much by himself, leaving Diana and me to talk when we could. It was a thoughtfulness I appreciated.

He spoke now. “And if you wish, I shall go with you.”

“We wish it, Henry,” I said. “You will like my mountain country.”

He shrugged. “I have no home now. There is no use returning across the sea, for much would have changed, and I have changed, also. If you will have my company, I will come with you.”

“There is one thing that yet must be done, John. As you did for my father, so I would have you do for us.”

He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Marry you? Aye, I will do it, lad, and be glad. She's a fine lass.”

Tom Carboy had also come up to the fire, leaving behind the work on the ship to drink a bowl of broth. “If the lass will have me, I would be glad to stand in her father's place, to give her away.”

She looked up at him very seriously. “Tom, had I no father of my own, I'd be glad to claim you for mine. Would you stand for him?”

The old sailor looked around, suddenly shy. “I would, miss, I would indeed.”

“Tomorrow, then?” Tilly suggested. “At the nooning, to give all a chance to make ready.”