James slid the weapon out with a flourish. “You haven’t. It’s one of a kind. Made for me by my brother, Rezin,” he proudly revealed. “He’s always tinkering with knives, trying to improve them.”
“Is he a blacksmith?” Davy asked. A logical question, since only a smith could custom forge such a weapon.
James chuckled. “No, no. Rezin is a lot like me. A bit of a rogue. Part scoundrel, some might say. He sketched how he wanted the knife to be, then had the smith on our plantation make it.” James ran a finger along a thin guard that separated the handle from the blade. “This is his main improvement. To protect the hand.”
Davy had to admit it was a clever notion. No one had ever thought to add a guard to a hunting knife before.
“A wild bull deserves some of the credit,” James had gone on. “We used to hunt them when we were younger.” Pausing, he gazed into the distance, as if seeing his past mirrored in the clouds. “You know how boys are. We were ornery as could be back then. Gators, gar, you name it, we hunted it. Our favorites were the huge steers that run wild in these swamps. Our friends would just shoot them, but where’s the thrill in that?”
“How did you do it then?” Davy inquired.
“We’d get in close, use a rope, and trip them. Once they were down, we’d run in with our knives and stab them before they could gore us with their horns. That was about as fair as we could make it.”
Davy had never heard of such a thing. Dangerous game was not to be taken lightly. It gave him new insight into the man’s personality.
“Anyway, one time Rezin lassoed a big, wicked bull. He got the brute down, then sprang in to finish it off. But when he stabbed it in the neck, his butcher knife struck bone. His hand slipped off the hilt and he nearly severed two of his fingers. Hellacious cut. That gave him the inspiration to add a guard.”
“Do tell,” Davy said. “It sounds as if your boyhood was uncommonly wild and woolly.”
“Oh, no more so than most other boys who live in the wilderness,” James responded, and waxed nostalgic. “It was a fine life. My parents loved us dearly. My mother was religious and read to us regularly from Scripture, but at that age we were more interested in tomfoolery than the Ten Commandments.”
Davy recollected his own childhood, and the many hours he had spent in the woods rather than going to school or doing his chores. He grinned. “We were a lot alike, you and I.”
“I could tell the moment we met,” James said. “You should have been with us on the plantation. We had a grand old time. My favorite sport was to ride alligators.”
“Wait a second,” Davy said. “I didn’t come down with yesterday’s rain, you know.”
“Honest to God. We would jump on their backs and ride them until they were tuckered out. The trick is to hold onto their upper jaws so they can’t go under the water, while at the same time you gouge your thumbs into their eyes so they can’t see.”
Davy had to concede the trick might work, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine anyone being reckless enough to try. “You could have been killed.”
James shrugged his broad shoulders. “We never know from one day to the next if we’ll be alive to greet the next dawn. So why not make the most of life before our time is up?” He rose and adjusted his leather pouch. “I’ve always lived life to the fullest, friend. And to do that, a person needs money. Lots and lots of money.”
“So is that why you deal in black ivory?”
“Exactly. Rezin, me, and one other brother went into the business together a couple of years ago. After this trip, I figure we’ll have over sixty thousand dollars to our name.”
Davy whistled softly.
“I’m partial to the good life,” James elaborated. “Fine clothes, fine carriages, fine women, and fine food. When we finally have enough to suit me, I plan to move to New Orleans and set myself up in elegant style.”
“How much is enough?”
“Oh, I don’t rightly know. Maybe a hundred thousand.”
Davy nodded at the blacks, who sat in the shade of a cypress. “And those poor people?”
The tall man’s brow furrowed. “What about them? I treat them decently. You’ve seen for yourself that I don’t whip them or starve them or abuse the women.”
“And once we’ve made it through the swamp?”
“What else? They’ll be sold to the highest bidders at a secret auction. They’ll join hundreds of others just like them on plantations all across the South. How their new masters treat them is out of my control.” Pumping an arm, James called out, “Let’s move out, men. Daylight’s a wasting.”
They had been on the go for ten minutes or so when Davy realized something. The tall man had said it would be a “secret” auction. But why a secret one, when slaves were sold openly all the time? The government had banned the importing of new slaves, not the exchange of slaves already here. Newly smuggled slaves were routinely given forged papers that established they had been in the country for years.
For this bunch to be sold at a secret auction implied there was more to the situation than a mere smuggling operation. But Davy could not guess what it might be. He kept his ears pricked for tidbits of information, but the slavers did not chat much on the trail. And Arlo and Sedge would not talk to him anyway. They glared at him all morning, nursing grudges from the night before.
Which was too bad. Davy hoped to learn James’s last name, learn more about their operation. Not that he would turn them in. What they did was their business, even if he didn’t approve.
It was how things were done on the frontier. One of the earliest lessons Davy’s pa had taught him was that a man always minded his own affairs. Never, ever, should he meddle in anyone else’s.
Still, Davy could not help but feel sorry for the blacks. And to wish there was something he could do on their behalf.
It was strange how life worked sometimes. All the slaves he had seen over the years, and he never given much thought to their welfare. Never thought twice about the conditions under which they toiled. Experience, he wryly reflected, sure enough had a way of sweating the fat from a man’s brain.
Glancing back, Davy smiled at Flavius, who returned the favor.
But Flavius did not really feel like smiling. He was hot and sore and hungry and thirsty. And he was growing to hate the swamp. Insects always swarmed about his face. Mosquitoes constantly stung him. Serpents were forever slithering out from underfoot. And there was the constant threat of gators.
It didn’t help that they fought shy of the main trail. Instead of being dry and safe, they threaded through the heart of the swamp along a route apparently known only to the slavers. At times the ground was solid, but all too often they were up to their knees in rank swamp water or muck.
Flavius was in dire dread of being snakebit or pulled under by an alligator. Once, when he stepped over a log and something skittered out from under it and shot past his foot, he jumped and yelped like a kicked puppy. But it turned out to be a measly salamander. The river rats guffawed at his expense. Over the next several hours they mocked him, one or the other hopping into the air, squeaking like a mouse, and flailing his arms as if in mortal terror. Flavius was not amused.
Nor was Davy. But for the sake of keeping the peace he held his tongue. When James called another halt along about two in the afternoon, Davy made it a point to sit near him. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Ask whatever you want. Just don't expect an answer if it’s too personal.”
Davy poked a thumb at where Arlo and Sedge sat. “Why on earth did you hook up with a pair like that? They’re as low-down as a worm in a wagon track and as slick as an onion. You might as well team up with a pair of rabid dogs.”
“You think I don’t know that?” James said, and exhaled. “Believe you me, if I had my druthers, I’d be shed of them so fast your head would swim. But there’s that old saw about beggars can’t be choosers. I had no choice.”
“It won’t wash.”
; “Think so, do you?” James regarded the duo with distaste. “I’ll have you know I scoured every tavern and saloon along the waterfront for men brave enough to go with me this trip. Only a few had the gumption. And believe it or not, Sedge and his cousin were the pick of the litter.”
“Some litter,” Davy scoffed. “Why didn’t your brothers come?”
“Rezin had important business to attend to. John’s wife was ailing. So it was just Sam and me. But the way Snake Strangler has been acting up, I decided to bring extra men along. Just in case.”
“My grandma used to say that when you frolic with the Devil, you’re going to have demons for company.”
James grinned. “Nicely put.” He lowered his voice even more. “Just between you and me, Tennessee, I’m glad you and your friend joined us. Having to watch my back every hour of the day and night gets mighty tiresome.”
“Tell you what. You help watch my back and I’ll help watch yours. The same with Flavius and Sam.”
“Agreed.”
Davy leaned against a tree, pondering. Here he was, siding with a slaver, when his conscience told him to have nothing to do with the man. But he had taken a shine to James. The mysterious frontiersman was right; they had a lot in common. Backwoodsmen born and bred, they shared a special bond.
And too, James had a personality hard to dislike. Forceful yet friendly, commanding yet generous. The sort of man it would do to ride the river with, as the Texicans liked to say. If not for the business of the slaves, Davy would like him even more.
Everyone had flaws, though. Everyone. Davy’s was his wanderlust, his compulsive curiosity to see what lay over the next horizon. Flavius was too timid for his own good, but otherwise as fine a fellow as ever trod the earth. James, it was quite plain, craved money above all else, and was willing to work the shady side of the law to acquire a lot of it.
Suddenly, crackling broke out in the undergrowth. Davy pushed to his feet, his hands falling to his flintlocks.
“It’s only Sam,” James said.
Out came the black man, in a state of excited agitation. “They’re after us, Master Jimmy, just as you said they would be. I climbed that tree like you wanted and saw them about a mile back.”
“How many?”
“Ten or more would be my guess. It’s awful hard to say, them being so far away and all.”
Arlo and Sedge hurried over. So did Flavius. James swore, then said, “The Karankawas are hot on our trail. They’ll catch us unless we make it too costly for them. So the rest of you will push on while I do just that.”
“Alone?” Davy said, and found himself adding, “The odds are too great. I’ll stick by your side to even them some.”
Dismay seared Flavius. Gripping his partner’s wrist, he steered the Irishman to one side, out of earshot, and demanded, “What’s gotten into you? Why risk your hide for a man you hardly know?”
“Our lives are at stake too,” Davy reminded him. “The Karankawas nearly made worm food of us once. We’ll have the whole tribe down on our heads if we don’t stop them while we still can.” He leaned closer. “Don’t fret. I’ll be fine. I want you to go with the others.”
“Not on your life. Where you go, I go.”
“Listen. Someone has to keep an eye on those two ruffians. They’re not to be trusted any further than either of us could chuck a black bear.” Davy squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “It’s in both our interests to help James out. He can get us safely to New Orleans. And remember, he saved our lives yesterday. We owe him.”
Against Flavius’s better judgment, he agreed to do as Crockett requested. “But you had better not get yourself killed or I’ll never forgive you.”
With some misgivings Davy stood in the center of the clearing and watched the column file off. Flavius and Sam brought up the rear, Flavius waving until a bend hid them. Hoping he had not made a grave mistake, Davy hefted Liz. “Ready when you are.”
James was honing his big knife. “We have time yet.” Looking up directly into Davy’s eyes, he asked, “Can I trust you, Tennessee? Really and truly trust you?”
“Yes,” Davy said, and meant it.
“I guess you’ve noticed that I. haven’t told you my last name. Wondered why?”
“You must have your reasons.”
“I do. I didn’t want you to know who I was so you couldn’t report me to the federal authorities if you learned the truth.” James stopping stroking the long blade over the whetstone. “Those slaves aren’t ordinary slaves. They’re stolen.”
“Who did you steal them from?”
“I didn’t. Lafitte did.”
“Lafitte? Not Jean Lafitte the pirate?” Davy was astonished. Everyone knew of the notorious privateer who had helped Andrew Jackson defeat the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
James nodded. “Jean is a close friend of mine. I’ve often been a guest of his at Campeachy.”
Davy was trying to recall all the facts he could about Lafitte. Years ago the man had taken over the smuggling operation out of Grande Terre Isle in the Bay of Barataria. At one time, it was rumored, he’d had over a thousand men under him, and over fifty fine ships that roamed the high seas seeking plunder.
Shortly before the Battle of New Orleans, fearing Lafitte might go over to the British, the American Navy had attacked the pirate’s stronghold. Lafitte had never lifted a finger to defend himself. Nor had he allowed his men to fire on an American flag. So the pirates had fled and their sanctuary had been destroyed.
Lafitte had gone to meet General Andrew Jackson personally, and offered his services in return for a pardon for him and his followers. After the war, the pirate had set up another base on an island off the Texas coast. Campeachy, he had called it.
“We have a lucrative arrangement,” James went on. “Lafitte’s men board Spanish and British slavers, take the slaves, and bring them to Jean’s stronghold. My brothers and I then smuggle them from Campeachy into Louisiana. We pay Jean an average of one hundred and forty dollars for a healthy black man.” He slid the knife into its sheath. “They fetch upwards of eight hundred at auction. So Jean makes money, we make money, and no one is hurt.”
“It doesn’t bother you? Selling people as if they were cattle?”
“No,” James said. Frowning, he sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “All right. Maybe a little. But I need a lot of money, and I want it fast. This is the best way to obtain it.”
“The ends justify the means? Is that how it is?”
The tall man grew indignant. “Damn it, Tennessee! Who are you to sit in judgment? The slave trade has been around for hundreds of years. Hell, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves, and they were Presidents. I’m not doing anything the leaders of our own country haven’t done.”
“They owned slaves, true, but they didn’t smuggle any.”
“A shady distinction, if you ask me.”
Davy changed the subject. “Why are you telling me all this?”
It was a full half a minute before the other man answered. “Odd, isn’t it? We’ve only just met, yet I feel as if I could trust you with my life. What I’ve told you just now could get me hung if you reported it, but something tells me you won’t.” He paused. “So I might as well go whole hog. My last name is Bowie.”
“James Bowie,” Davy said, grinning. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Again.”
They clasped hands warmly. Davy was about to assure his newfound friend that he would indeed never betray Bowie’s confidence when a bird twittered to the west. A cry Davy had heard before—when the Karankawas were hot on his trail.
Bowie whirled and darted in among the trees. “Hurry.”
Davy followed suit, the tail on his coonskin cap flopping against an ear. Veering to the left, they jogged twenty yards, to a log that lay near the clearing’s perimeter. James dropped onto his knees, rested his rifle on top, and whispered, “Snake Strangler is the one we want. Kill him, and the rest will take it as a bad omen and leave us be.”
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br /> Davy wedged Liz to his shoulder. It would be another minute before the Indians caught up. He must make every shot count. He lowered his cheek to the stock, peered at the vegetation, and stiffened.
A Karankawa was already there, his bronzed body painted for war. The man had materialized out of thin air. Acting suspicious, an arrow notched to the sinew string of his short bow, he scanned the clearing, then stooped to read the sign.
“Let him go by,” James Bowie whispered.
The warrior slowly advanced, pivoting right and left. At one spot he knelt and examined tufts of trampled grass. On reaching the other side, he crisscrossed back and forth until he found where the slaves had been led off into the swamp. Then, tossing his head back, he gave voice to another of those trilling calls.
Off in the heavy growth the cry was answered. Presently, like a pack of two-legged wolves, Karankawas padded into view. Seven, eight, nine more all told, they cautiously hurried to their waiting companion.
Bowie’s jaw muscles twitched. “Snake Strangler isn’t with them,” he whispered in disappointment. “There must be other search parties out. This one got lucky.”
The Karankawas gathered together. A discussion ensued, and when it was over, two of the warriors sprinted back across the clearing.
“They’ll bring the rest,” Bowie said. “We can’t let them.” So saying, he brought his rifle to bear and felled one of them like a poled ox.
Davy shot the second messenger. The man seemed to dive face-first into the hard ground, rolled once, and was still. Davy immediately set to work reloading, while James Bowie unslung his spare rifle.
The Karankawas were not idle either. At the initial shot, they’d scattered every which way, hurtling under cover before the sound of the blast died.
“Only eight left,” James said, as if that should be encouraging.
The swamp had fallen silent, as deathly still as a tomb. Where a moment ago sparrows had gaily warbled and crickets had merrily chirped, now nothing could be heard. Even the wind had died, stilling the rustle of leaves.
“We should move,” Davy suggested. The Indians were bound to know where they were, so it was crucial they change position before they were pinned down. He started to rise, but Bowie suddenly seized his arm and threw him to the side. He did not need to ask why. A quivering arrow imbedded in the log was ample explanation.
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