Sword of Vengeance (2 page)

It was in Constantinople, too, that the privateers had heard the rumors of an impending assault on Derna by al-Jezzar’s enemies. They had timed their own intrusion to coincide with the attack on the city.

“We promised we would leave the map with Salim’s name upon it for Bashara al-Jezzar to find,” Kit reminded his friend. Tibbs placed the parchment outside the corridor, where the guards and the pasha would be certain to discover it. The beggar of Constantinople would have the last laugh, after all. Kit removed the pouch and fingered the bullet hole in the center of the bulging surface. A gold anklet had turned the rifle ball and saved Kit’s life.

Kit led the way down the stairs. He risked life and limb on the narrow tread as he descended at a run. Rough stone walls sped past as Kit circled around and around, as if burrowing like a corkscrew into the very earth. Only there was light, not darkness, at the end of his journey: yes, light and the smell of the salt sea air!

A few minutes later Kit emerged from the base of the villa onto a wide ledge carved into the face of a cliff overlooking the sparkling blue expanse of the Mediterranean, some three hundred feet below. What looked like an impossible sheer cliff face had, on closer examination, a narrow footpath chiseled into the stark surface. The narrow switchback was just wide enough for one man to edge along the wall, angling back and across all the way to the water’s edge. Though a precipitous journey, it promised to be a far easier task in daylight than it had been in the predawn hours.

Anchored thirty yards offshore, the
Trenton
rode easy on the wind-rippled surface of the bay. The
Trenton
was a Baltimore clipper, only seventy feet from bow to stern and armed with a swivel cannon amidships. Half of the clipper’s crew, six heavily armed men, waited by the johnboat on order of the clipper’s captain. The landing party was ready to fight or run at a moment’s notice, whatever the
Trenton
’s joint owners required.

“The janissaries will probably start shooting at us from the walls once they discover what we’ve done,” Kit said, dabbing the perspiration from his face on the sleeve of his loose-fitting linen shirt.

“But they are poor marksmen, these Turks,” Tibbs said. His features were sweat-streaked and smudged with black powder.

“And they might even pry loose a few rocks to drop on our heads,” Kit said in a sage voice.

“No problem, my good friend. The pasha’s curse will be our good fortune.” Tibbs lovingly stroked the bejeweled hilt of the scimitar jutting from the leather pouch. Then he reached inside his leather belt and removed a silver flask embossed with the family crest, a mailed fist holding a cross. He passed the brandy to Kit, who grinned and lifted the flask in a toast.

“To Alexander’s luck,” he said.

“To Alexander’s luck,” Tibbs echoed.

Nothing could stop them now.

T
HIRTY-FIVE DAYS LATER
, “Alexander’s luck” played out. After a particularly violent and stormy night, the morning tides washed the wreckage of the
Trenton
onto the seaweed-littered sandy shores of northeast Spanish Florida, two miles north of the thriving mission of St. Augustine. Fragments of a shattered jib, several barrels, a freshly carved coffin, and patches of a sail littered the shore, along with planks of wood ripped from a reef-shattered hull and a section of mizzenmast as long as a man was tall. A johnboat had also been left by the storm-swept waves that had lashed the coast in the hours just after midnight. The rowboat now rested on its side and was rocked to and fro by the surf.

Two men lay as if dead in the bottom of the boat, and a third was sprawled in the froth where the waves played out upon the beach. A leather pouch lay at his side, tethered to his right arm by a single strap. His matted red hair was patched with mud and dried blood.

Little Maria, an eight-year-old, brown-skinned, hazel-eyed bundle of curiosity and courage, gingerly approached the wreckage the winds of fate had wrested from the sea.

“Go on, Maria,” said the boy behind her. Esteban, her brother, was older by five years. He was already grown, as tall as many of the men in his village, but what he had gained in size he had lost in courage, and he held back. These Yankees had been touched by the sea, or worse, by the Angel of Death that the padre told of in his stories. Either way, it was best, Esteban decided, that he not touch such men. Far better to send his nosy sister to tempt fate, and if she withered and died on the spot … well … where was the loss? No doubt his mother would make more sisters. Maybe she even carried another sister for Esteban right now in her swollen belly as she baked the bread for the padre’s noonday meal.

“Go on, Maria. What is there?” Esteban called out. “Are you afraid?” he chided.

“I am not!” the little girl retorted, taking affront at even the mere suggestion of fear, though to be sure her insides were about to turn to jelly and her bare legs trembled as she crept up to the johnboat and peered over the battered bow. She saw the two men up close, and yes, they were indeed Yankees, but as to whether they were alive or dead she could not tell.

One of the men was very big, with large hands whose backs were matted with black hair, and his black-bearded features were red and peeling from sunburn on his forehead and cheeks.

The other man was average in height, as best as she could tell; he lay curled up like a baby in his mother’s arms, only his mother this time was the bottom of the boat. He was bearded too, with a thick brown beard, and his mouth was open and she could glimpse a line of broken yellow teeth. And his thinning brown hair was plastered to his skull. There was a knot on his forehead, a swollen, purplish mound that was flecked with blood. Both men wore torn shirts and breeches tucked into high-topped boots.

The larger of the two men had a brace of pistols jutting from the broad leather belt circling his waist.

“Señor?” the girl found her voice and spoke to the men in a soft whisper. After all, she did not wish to wake the dead. Neither of the men stirred, for which she was profoundly grateful. Esteban might like the Yankee’s pistols, but then let him come and take them.

The girl backed away from the boat and crossed over to the red-haired man lying facedown in the sand. He was smaller than the others, only a little taller than Esteban, but she could see he was powerfully built, for his shirt was in shreds and his shoulders and back, even in repose, were corded with muscles. She knelt by his side, her eyes on the pouch whose strap was looped around his sun-bronzed right arm.

Esteban took a few tentative steps closer and repositioned himself, the better to see what Maria had found. He craned his neck, and his bare feet trampled a pattern of nervous circles in the moist sand.

“The pouch, Maria, the pouch. Open it.”

“I will,” Maria hissed back, angry at her brother’s incessant instructions. She had her own way of doing things and was not about to be rushed. The pouch appeared to be waterlogged. She reached for the corner flap, attempted to untie the fastenings, and eventually succeeded.

Overhead, a flock of gulls began to gather in lofty spirals. These scavengers of the coastline were willing to wait their turn because their turn always came. Their high-pitched squawking cries filled the air like the banter of shrewish spirits caught between heaven and earth and complaining about the quality of both.

Maria reached down and picked up a six-inch-long, fanlike shell from the sand underfoot. Using the shell, she lifted the pouch flap and gasped as the golden sword hilt fell into view. Sunlight played upon the finely worked grip, and the rubies seemed to pulse as if with a life of their own, like embers waiting to burst into flame. They drew her like a moth. Esteban, too, once he caught sight of the sword, moved closer, youthful greed overcoming his cowardice. Here was something special, and he couldn’t allow his younger sister to claim what ought to be rightfully his.

“Take it out, Maria. Let me see.” The boy inched toward his sister and the red-haired Yankee who must surely be dead. “Bring the whole pouch to me.”

“Perhaps we ought to bring the padre.”

“Foolish girl,” Esteban snapped, and he trotted the rest of the distance and drew up alongside his sister. “The padre will take what we have found and give it to God, or worse, hand it over to Sergeant Morales and his men. Is that what you want?”

Maria was impressed by her older brother’s argument. She had to admit he made a lot of sense. She did not like Sergeant Morales. Every time he paid a visit to the mission he always caused trouble. Once he had taken her mother inside the jacal and would not allow the children to enter, and when her mother appeared later she was crying and Maria knew the sergeant had hurt her. Father Ramon had been furious, too. No, she was not about to hand over anything that was hers to the sergeant. And as for God, well, she had seen the golden cup that the padre drank from during Mass, so it seemed to her God had enough pretty things.

“I want the pretty red stone,” she said.

Esteban grinned. He envisioned buying his sister’s silence with a single stone and keeping the rest of this treasure from the sea for himself.

“Yes—yes, a pretty red stone,” he agreed, and shoving the eight-year-old aside, he caught up the pouch and attempted to drag it free of the dead man’s arm.

The arm suddenly tensed, and the “dead” man partly rose from the sand and turned a bruised and swollen visage toward the startled children as he violently pulled the pouch from their grasp and snarled, “No!”

Esteban screamed and released the pouch, his blood turning to ice water. Maria screamed alongside her brother. She didn’t remain there long. A second later, and she was scampering down the beach and calling out, “Father Ramon! Father Ramon!”

Esteban whirled around and lost his footing in the sand.

“Wait,” the voice behind him ordered.

But the boy was not about to obey the entreaties of a corpse sprung to life. The red-haired man reached for him, and the boy screamed again, leaped away, and ran for his life. He could sense the other dead men leaping out of the boat and pursuing him down the beach, their dead arms flapping, and leering at him with their hideous pointed teeth. The image gave wings to his feet, and the boy soon caught up to and passed his sister.

Maria cried out to him to wait up for her, but alas, she had become expendable once again. So she plowed the moist sand with her chubby little brown legs and ran for her life. Ghost crabs scurried out of harm’s way. The two children headed inland, spooking a flock of sanderlings and sending them winging into the sky.

Kit McQueen watched the brother and sister disappear beyond a rise topped with beach grass and seaside goldenrod.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered, and sank to his knees. He had to brace himself on all fours as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. His head ached terribly. He remembered the storm. Like a fool, Captain Clay had tried to outrun the elements to shore and got caught in treacherous waters. He had fought to turn into the wind and lost when the
Trenton
had ripped its hull open on a submerged reef. Buffeted by the gale, the clipper had capsized. Kit had managed to survive the catastrophe and through sheer luck and determination had found one of the johnboats, climbed aboard, and managed to retrieve two of his shipmates from the black waters.

Kit doubled over and retched, leaving a puddle of muddy water on the sand along with the contents of his stomach. His head throbbed. He staggered back from the water’s edge, noticed the johnboat, and managed to stumble over to the battered craft. He rounded the bow and saw that Bill Tibbs and Augustus LaFarge, the
Trenton
’s first mate, were sprawled in the boat. He reached down, probed LaFarge’s neck, and felt no pulse. The sailor was stone cold dead. But Tibbs moaned, and his eyelids flickered as Kit shook him.

Kit tossed the treasure pouch onto shore, then caught Tibbs underneath the arms, dragged him out of the boat, and stretched the big man out upon the sand well away from the lapping waves. Kit stumbled, then braced himself on his friend’s shoulder and gasped for breath.

“Christ almighty,” he muttered, and gingerly felt his scalp, probing the lump at the base of his skull. He winced and brought his hand away; the fingertips were moist and red. Blood trickled down the back of his neck. It felt like sweat. Kit’s stomach flip-flopped, and he almost heaved. But he fought it and won, though the victory left him gasping for breath.

He staggered toward the broad leather pouch that had almost cost him his life by dragging him under the wind-churned waves of the night before. He bent over, grasped the leather strap, and the world tilted on its axis and he fell over. Shards of broken seashells dug into his knees. His skull felt as if it were coming apart. A groan of agony escaped his lips as he rolled onto his side.

“Damn,” he cursed softly. He needed help. So did Tibbs. Where did the children go?

He began to crawl on his hands and knees toward the fringe of beach grass that the children had vanished behind, while the gulls overhead kept up a merry chorus of jeers. Kit pulled himself along; he didn’t know how far he had come because he never looked back. He concentrated on moving one leg after another, one arm after another. At last he gained enough confidence to try to stand again. He balanced on his wobbly legs like a year-old taking his first steps, and he lasted about as long. He pitched forward and never remembered hitting the ground.

M
EN CAN ALWAYS FIND
ways to get themselves killed. The crew of the
Trenton
did. The Baltimore clipper had battled the gale-force winds to within two miles of shore when Captain Horatio Clay tried to “thread the needle” between two reefs and brought his ship and crew to ruin. Kit McQueen, having fought his way to the wildly pitching deck, had tried to lend a hand as best he could under the worst of circumstances. In his dream, he watched once more the waves crashing over the deck and the valiant efforts of the crew to trim the sails in direct disobedience of the captain’s orders.