Magnolia Nights

by Martha Hix

  A staccato knock at the door reverberated through the cabin.

  “The captain of that Mex schooner wants a word with you,” Reese McDonald said a few moments later.

  Hat in hand, the vanquished man stepped around McDonald. “I’ve been told you’ve a surgeon aboard, Captain Rousseau,” he said, his intonation clearly English. “Could you spare him? My men . . . My men are suffering. I beg of you . . .”

  Paul opened his mouth to demur for the time being, but Emma interceded. Now appearing to be in the bloom of health, she stepped determinedly between him and the Briton. “I’m this ship’s surgeon, sir, and I’m at your men’s service.”

  “Thank you, good woman.”

  “Just a minute.” Paul clutched Emma’s elbow. “Surgeon Rousseau has my permission to go aboard, but she is going to eat her dinner and rest for a while. If she goes against my orders, Surgeon Rousseau will be locked in the hold of this ship, and she will not leave there until we reach Galveston.” He exerted pressure on her arm. “Surgeon Rousseau, I’ll not tolerate insubordination.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Emma said and turned toward the food tray. “I do need my strength.” Her eyes on the Centralist, she then added, “I’ll be with you in thirty minutes.”

  Paul didn’t believe a half-hour was proper rest, but she had made a concession and that stood for something.

  At midnight the Bay of Campeche was quiet. Stars shone down on the surrendered schooner, but for safety’s sake Paul went aboard with Emma and her two assistants.

  While she tended the injured he inspected the ship. It was still seaworthy, and with Moore’s permission, he intended to turn it over to the Yucatecans. However, any munitions aboard might be needed on the journey back to Galveston, so he strode toward the powder magazine. Anger, old and painful, whipped through him as he eyed the crates that lined the storage room.

  They were stamped COPPER PIPING—OLIVER SUGAR MILL, HAVANA.

  Rankin Oliver’s munitions had killed and maimed men both Yucatecan and Texan. At long last Paul had damning proof that was sure to convict his old enemy.

  Emma, in her delicate condition, didn’t need to know about it. Not now. Maybe never. A strange feeling filled Paul. He almost wished he hadn’t found evidence of Rankin Oliver’s misdeeds. “Get some of the crew and have them load these crates into our longboat,” Paul demanded of Wayne Ellery. “Have them taken back to the Wharton and hidden in the hold.”

  “Aye, aye, Cap’n. Anthing else?”

  “Yes. Round up four or five of the officers.” Paul’s eyes never left the evidence. “They are going to attest in writing that these crates were stored on this schooner.”

  The deed done, Paul went to the schooner’s sick bay. He pulled Emma aside. “Let’s go.”

  “I can’t leave. There’s so much yet to be done.”

  “Our own men need you. I’m going to do what I should’ve done in the beginning. I’ve ordered a longboat to take the injured into Campeche. They’ll get medical attention there.”

  “It goes against my principles to leave until these men are under another doctor’s care.”

  He touched her cheek. “Do your principles extend to putting our child in peril? He needs his mother to think of him.”

  “She.”

  “He.”

  “She.”

  “Sacre bleu! Your daughter needs you. Let’s go.”

  She did.

  In Campeche the Wharton and the Austin were made seaworthy. The Centralist Navy, after signing an armistice agreement favorable to the Yucatecans, finally sailed for its home port in Vera Cruz. A day in advance of the flagship, the Wharton slipped out of Campeche harbor and set a course for Texas.

  Two days out of Galveston, Paul spied a strange sight. Through his scope he saw Henry Packert’s corvette tacking into the wind, making for the Wharton. A signal of peace went up her flagstaff.

  In the many months since the factor-house fire, Paul hadn’t laid eyes on Henry Packert, and he was itching for a few answers. He called from the bridge, “Weigh anchor.” The hawseholes groaned as the anchors were dropped. Though he wanted those answers, he wouldn’t trust the pirate. “Man the larboard batteries,” he ordered.

  “Why did we stop?” Emma asked as the black-hulled Barbara Elaine came abreast. “Isn’t that a pirate ship?”

  “Yes. But I know this particular pirate. I’m going to talk with him.”

  Emma shook her head. “That’s dangerous! Houston’s invited the world to seize us.”

  He grimaced. It was more perilous to allow Henry on the Wharton. Emma knew him—he had stolen the brooch from her, and his ladylove had been the one who had told her of Paul’s innocence in the fire. Questions—there would be plenty.

  Paul strode from the bridge and made for the longboat. “Keep a keen eye on that corvette,” he said to his second mate. “If anything looks amiss, fire.”

  Emma hurried behind him. “Paul, don’t go.”

  “I’m going.”

  The Barbara Elaine creaked as if she had an old man’s joints. Her crew, ragged and cutthroat, eyed Paul as he climbed the ratline. Wearing worn boots and a red-and-white striped shirt that exposed two inches of his snow-white belly, Henry Packert stood on the poop deck. A black cloth was wound around his head at a rakish angle so that it touched the crusty patch he wore over one eye, yet he was anything but a rake. Reprobate was a more fitting term for him. And Paul noticed something else. A certain defeat in the man’s expression.

  “Ahoy, if it ain’t me old mate Paul Rousseau. Long time, no see, matey.”

  Paul eyed him warily. “I beg to differ on the ‘mate.’ Our alliance ceased last year. At the factor-house. When you set it afire and attacked me with that crowbar. Remember?”

  “Sorry ’bout that. ’Twas a fit of mad-dog on me part.” One side of Packert’s mouth pulled into a grimace. “You ain’t of a mind to take a pound of me flesh, are you?”

  “I ought to.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for what happened, laddie.” Packert crooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing downward. “Whaddya say we share a bottle o’ rum and talk it over? Got a few things to tell ya,” he added to sweeten the pot.

  “Lead the way.”

  The old salt’s cabin was in a general state of disarray. Soiled clothing and linen littered every surface, and the rancid stench would have gagged a maggot.

  Clearing only the seat of a chair, Packert motioned Paul to it. Then he picked up two mugs and blew dust out of them. After filling the mugs with rum, he said, “Hear that ol’ Raven in Texas is after your hide.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “I’m in the same predicament. Almost. The Brits are after me and me lads,” Packert confessed. “They was out looking for you and Moore, and we saw an opportunity . . . sacked one o’ their merchantmen, we did.”

  “If you’re wanting me to help the likes of you, you can forget it.”

  “Never said nothing ’bout that.” The corsair seated himself on one of the wooden chairs. It groaned under his weight. “’Twould be worth me while to capture that brig of yours, and take ’er back to Galveston. Might get those Brits off me tail.”

  “Since the entire Centralist Navy couldn’t take her, I doubt you and your motley crew could do it.”

  “Aw now. Don’t get on the defensive.” He waved a thorny thumb. “’Twas only voicing a thought. If I’d o’ been set on them ideas, I wouldn’t o’ offered me hospitality.”

  “What is on your mind?”

  “Just thought you might be interested in a piece of gossip that’s come down the pike.”

  “That being?”

  “Simon Dyer’s dead. Killed hisself. His body washed up on the bayou a few weeks back.”

  A smile of satisfaction broke over Paul’s face, but he said, “Come now. You didn’t stop my brig just to tell me that my father’s turncoat second did away with himself. Let’s hear the real reason.”

  “Our mutual compadre Rankin Oliver’s h
eaded for Campeche. Word has it his merchant ship’s loaded with ordnance.”

  “Don’t fiddle with me, dammit. I’ve heard that before.”

  “Yes, me as well. But this time, ol’ mate, he ain’t gonna get away with it.”

  “Wait a minute. Something doesn’t ring true. You’ve said, and I know, that Oliver doesn’t leave his scent. Why would he personally accompany contraband meant for the Centralists?”

  “Getting lax in his old age is me guess.” The old man lifted a fleshy shoulder. “But I’m gonna find him . . . and kill him. With me bare hands, if me Bowie knife don’t do the trick.”

  “And you needed to tell me?”

  “Naw. Was hoping for your help. Whaddya say we team up, make a run down to Campeche and catch him?”

  At one time Paul would have jumped at this opportunity. Now he hesitated. The Wharton was on a course for home port, with Emma and their unborn child aboard. Paul would not put her in further danger nor would he cause her undue distress.

  “Can’t do it, Packert.”

  “You gone soft in the head?”

  “Perhaps.” Paul took a sip of cheap, esophagus-burning rum. “You’re not the patriotic sort, the kind to stick his neck out for nothing. Tell me something. Why do you hate Rankin Oliver?”

  Dropping his chin as if to stare at the tips of his worn-out boots, the weathered seafarer flattened his wrinkle-folded lips. He refilled his chipped mug and guzzled the contents, then wiped a shaking hand across his mouth. He belched.

  “Did he cut you out of a deal?” Paul prompted.

  Packert took a long time answering. “Has to do with me woman. Katie. Remember her? She be his daughter.”

  “I know. Kathryn told my wife. She also told her you’d set that fire, not me.”

  Paul expected a heated response, yet none came.

  Painful memories dulled the pirate’s eyes as he rolled a cigarette and brought a candle from the table to light the smoke. “Kathryn,” he said, speaking the name with a sentimental sweetness that took Paul aback. “Me Katie. She liked to be called Kathryn.”

  “So you hate Rankin Oliver because he is Kathryn’s father.”

  “Started out that way. Yea, it did.” A fiery piece of tobacco fell onto Packert’s belly and burned through his shirt, yet he didn’t flinch. “Afore I bought her, he whipped her regular. Put her on the auction block for any buzzard to buy. Like she was a piece of meat.” A tear meandered down the wrinkled troughs of Packert’s right cheek. “That was a hurting thing for her. She’d been raised by her ma—a good woman o’ high training, I understand. They both deserved better than to be put on the block. He sold them both.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause the ma wanted her freedom. Just the rights most octoroons enjoy in New Orleans. A place o’ her own, a chance to introduce Katie to decent white men at the Octoroon Ball.”

  Was there no end to Rankin Oliver’s evil? Paul shook his head in disgust. Murderer, consorter with the enemy, uncaring father and lover. How many people had been hurt by him?

  The older man blew his nose on a gray handkerchief. “I would o’ turned to the pulpit for me Katie . . . me Kathryn.”

  “It’s not too late,” Paul said dryly.

  Packert snuffed out his cigarette, placed his forearms on the table and looked him squarely in the eye. “Yes, ’tis. She’s . . . she’s dead.”

  Remembering the beautiful, regal young woman he had met in Packert’s shotgun shack—the woman who had told Emma of his innocence—it was no mere platitude when Paul declared, “I’m sorry.”

  “The fever took her,” the wretched man explained without being asked. “I was holding her in me arms when she passed. She died calling for ‘Papa.’” What had been a tear was now a stream of them. “She was the only good thing ever happened to me. Afore I just wanted to make that bastard suffer for hurting me Katie. Now I’m going to kill him. And there ain’t nobody gonna stop me.”

  Paul thought of Emma, and his mind’s eye drew a picture of her. In that vision she was etched with pain.

  Could he allow Packert to continue on his quest? Kathryn was gone. The munitions had already done damage to the Texans. Karla was gone. Nothing would bring Étienne back from the grave.

  At that moment a sturdy young buccaneer burst into the cabin. “Trouble, Pack! That Brit frigate is headed this way.”

  “We’d better both make a run for it, matey,” Packert said.

  Already Paul was charging up the companionway. Rankin’s fate was left to the wind. The Wharton had to be saved.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  At that same moment Rankin Oliver rested his head of graying blond hair on a wealth of satin-covered pillows. He was two days out of Campeche, and his cabin aboard the Ransomed Princess was lavish, befitting his station in life. He had everything money could buy. Yet he was miserable.

  His wife was a twittering piece of rippling flesh, yet for some reason she continued, despite his indifference, to love him. William, his only child, was dead. And all the women he desired were out of his life, one way or another. Angélique had become Étienne Rousseau’s wife. Estella, his comely high-yellow chattel of fonder days, had made unmeetable demands on him; he might have granted them if she hadn’t lied to him over the years. But no matter what Estella had said, her daughter Katie was not his child. So he had sold them. And then there had been Karla. Teutonic and infinitely desirable—a Valkyrie amid the brown-bellied peasants of the Yucatán peninsula—yet gone now, too.

  Yet there was Emmie. The light of his life. She should have been his daughter, instead of his brother’s. Quentin had always ignored her or had thwarted her ambitions; he didn’t deserve such a treasure. Life wasn’t fair. Quentin had all the happiness in the world—marriage to the woman he loved, fine sons to follow in his footsteps, three daughters to love and cherish. And what did he, Rankin Oliver, have beyond riches?

  “If Emmie were mine,” Rankin bemoaned to himself, “oh, how different my life would’ve been.”

  But he had made her his daughter in spirit. He was the one who had been her buoy during the storms of life. Until Paul Rousseau had taken her away. And now . . .

  Defeated, Rankin buried his face in his hands. Always he had wanted her to think only the best of him. Yet she knew his feet were made of clay.

  He squeezed his lids shut, remembering. . . .

  Simon Dyer—the wretch!—had come to Magnolia Hall. Coughing and spitting blood, he had laughed in Rankin’s face. “Your beloved niece knows about you. I told her about our deal with the Mexs.”

  Emmie! Rankin’s muscles had tensed. The last time he had seen his niece, he had suspected as much, but he had figured Paul had filled her head with suspicions. Now it was Paul’s and Dyer’s word against his.

  “Got nothing to say, Rankin?”

  He had had his fill of this blackmailer’s fourteen years of harassment. “That was yer deal with Santa Anna, not mine.”

  “But your name was on the cargo manifest.”

  “Put there by ye.” Rankin didn’t give a damn if Simon knew the whole truth now. “I went along with it to set a trap, to catch ye, then turn yer stinking hide over to the Texans.”

  “Well, old partner in crime,” Simon wheezed, “it didn’t work. I got the ordnance to Vera Cruz before you could catch me.” His mean eyes hardened. “And aren’t you the noble one? Turn me over to the Texans? Ha! You don’t give a tinker’s damn about them.”

  “True. But I care less about ye, Simon Dyer, ye miserable extortionist. I was, and am, sick of yer money-sucking.”

  Simon was eager to pour forth more venom. “Let’s get back to our neighbors south of the border, I’m the one who killed your Sisal lover gal. Told her I was doing the deed for you.”

  A niggling of pain clutched at Rankin’s chest, yet he spoke each word with forced indifference. “Karla was expendable. Tell me something that isn’t a surprise.”

  “Your niece, the honorable Mrs. Paul Rousseau, knows we killed �
�tienne. I told her, and I’m glad I did.”

  Rankin’s previously controlled anger burst forth. “Bloody bastard!” he shouted, and went for Simon’s throat. “I’ll kill ye, too!”

  “Do it,” Simon croaked, his face reddening and spittle oozing from one corner of his mouth.

  The two men stared at each other. It was obvious Simon wanted his own life to end. Suddenly Rankin yearned to rectify his mistakes with the one person who had believed him above reproach. Emmie.

  He thrust Simon from him, and his nemesis fell to the ground. “I won’t do ye in. Ye’re not worth the effort.”

  Turning away, Rankin decided to change his life. Someway, somehow he’d do a good deed that would show Emmie his love, so he traveled to Feuille de Chêne. She wasn’t there, and he learned she had accompanied her lawless, pirate husband to the Yucatán! . . .

  Rankin opened his eyes to the present. The wide-hulled Ransomed Princess listed to larboard, and the lamps on his cabin walls swayed to the left. He rose from his bed to stretch his aching muscles. Beneath him, in the hold, were supplies sufficient to replenish the Texas Navy. The finest sailors and fighting men money could buy manned Rankin’s merchant vessel, and her guns were mounted.

  Armed and ready for battle at sea—for Emmie’s sake—Rankin Oliver and his crew were sailing to the aid of Paul Rousseau. He had no idea his help was too late and not needed.

  The Wharton outdistanced the British frigate. The next day Paul rendezvoused with Moore, and they sailed side by side toward home port. Dropping their anchors south of the Galveston sandbar, they were on the threshold of their next battle—that with President Sam Houston.

  Emma yearned to take Paul’s hand, but she hesitated to make a gesture of affection and reassurance in front of his men. So she watched emotions—anger, anxiety, pride—play across his face.