It was similar to what happens when a hole is dug on the beach and it begins filling up with water. The only difference between the method used by the ponies and the one that Adam would employ was that instead of stomping the ground, he would dig a hole at least a hundred feet from the shore so the water wouldn’t be saline.
He made his well not far from his shelter but was frustrated when the sand kept falling back into the hole. He ended up using some of the other flat pieces of driftwood he had found on the beach to keep the sides from caving in. As he dug deeper, the sand became a finer texture, then started to look more like mud, and finally water began seeping in from the bottom of the hole. He had to dig just a bit farther, then he’d be able to use his hands—or better yet, some large shells—to scoop off the uppermost layer of water as it filled the hole that he would dig.
Adam used his pocketknife again to fashion a couple of spears for catching fish. A net would be useful, too, he thought. Maybe the next day he would try and tie together some of the younger, more pliable grapevines. He had seen the men making nets down by the docks. How hard could it be?
While shellfish were prolific, oysters were off-limits. It was May, and Adam had always been taught that oysters should only be eaten in months that have the letter r in them. Otherwise, he’d have easily been able to enjoy a feast of the rough-looking shellfish. As it was, Adam figured they might be a last resort.
He dug for clams and trapped several small crabs, so his first meal on the island consisted of those. He would’ve loved to have speared some flounder to eat, but in spite of using a makeshift torch to go out into the water, there were none that he could find right where he was.
Since he figured his location was such a long distance from the mainland, he was unsure if there would be any warm-blooded wildlife creeping around—at least he hadn’t seen any yet, but he’d know come nightfall if there were raccoons or opossums living nearby. If he was really lucky, there might even be some deer living in the woods.
With no one else to talk to, and especially considering the desperate circumstances of his situation, Adam found himself engaged in a continuous conversation with God. It didn’t feel like praying, he thought. After all, he wasn’t bowing his head and closing his eyes. And he wasn’t particularly worried about what he was saying. He was just talking, as if he had a friend stranded there with him.
His continual dialogue with the Almighty reminded him again of his favorite boyhood book about the brave and tenacious Robinson Crusoe, who found himself entirely dependent on Providence as he worked creatively to survive. Adam could see how you might go crazy in such solitude if you not only felt hopeless but as if you had no one to talk to.
The hardest part of being marooned on that island was thinking about the folks back home in Beaufort. He wondered how his mother was handling him being missing. He knew she’d be heartbroken, but would she blame him for foolishly going to Rasquelle’s warehouse that morning?
Then he thought about Laney. She wasn’t guilty, after all. But she was in danger, and it gnawed at Adam that he couldn’t be there now to make sure she was safe. And Emmanuel. That was a whole different subject. Here Adam had gone and learned that Rasquelle did have some questionable cargo in his warehouse, and yet he could tell no one. But that was Rasquelle’s plan, wasn’t it? That’s why he had told those two oafs to leave Adam on that island.
He tried to be grateful for any positive thing he could think of, like that he was stranded in May rather than December, or that he wasn’t seriously injured, or that he knew he was at least somewhere along the North Carolina coast rather than half a world away. It was his intention to constantly keep a signal fire burning. While he had no idea where exactly he’d been marooned, he did know that if he could find a way to survive long enough, eventually someone would spot him. He wondered if Richard Rasquelle had intended for him to die on that island, or was he just trying to get him out of the way until the trial was over?
Regardless, Adam knew he had to survive. He had to get back for the sake of his mother, who he knew had to be worried sick about him, and to help Emmanuel and Laney.
Chapter Thirty
RICHARD RASQUELLE HAD STAYED BEHIND after his warehouse closed up for the day. He wanted to wait and see what happened with Lot and Ajax. When his henchmen finally got back around six thirty that evening, their boss rushed to greet them as they docked their boat.
“You’re back. I trust everything is taken care of,” said Rasquelle.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Rasquelle. I don’t reckon the boy will be a problem anymore,” said Lot.
Ajax chuckled. “Yeah. I give him three days at most.”
“Three days?” asked a bewildered Rasquelle. “You mean you didn’t . . . ?” He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bring himself to say out loud what his intention had been.
Ajax, on the other hand, had no problem with it. “Now, Mr. Rasquelle. You asked us to get rid of him. You didn’t say how. You didn’t say ‘Kill him,’ so we wasn’t gonna do that. You don’t pay us enough to do that kind of work.”
Lot nodded in agreement with his partner-in-kidnapping. “That’s right, sir. It ain’t a big deal to just dispose of him somewhere, but we ain’t gonna have murder on our hands.”
“You idiots!” Rasquelle exclaimed. “You’ve only been gone about seven hours. You’ve only stranded him! You can’t possibly have taken him so far that he couldn’t be rescued or find his way back eventually. What do you think will happen if he shows up back in town?”
Lot and Ajax just exchanged blank stares.
Rasquelle took a deep breath, then lowered his head, closed his eyes, and pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, exasperated. Finally, he explained, “If Fletcher finds his way back here, he’ll talk. He’ll say you two kidnapped him. And he’ll implicate me as well. Why did you think I wanted you to get rid of him?”
The goons looked at each other and back at Rasquelle, then shrugged.
“So that would never happen!” Rasquelle shouted. “What part of ‘get rid of him’ did you not understand?”
“We did get rid of him,” said Ajax. “And he won’t find his way back. Not where we left him. I also don’t think you have to worry about him getting rescued. Not many ships pass by there, and no one lives for several miles around.”
“Let me see if I understand what you’re telling me. A clever seventeen-year-old boy, healthy as a horse, will die where you left him before there’s any chance he is rescued, even though you left him, presumably, somewhere along this very coast.”
“It was an island,” said Lot.
“Excuse me?” said Rasquelle.
“We left him on an island,” Lot explained. “There ain’t no freshwater. He ain’t got no way to hunt or fish. We left him there blindfolded, with cords tied around his hands and feet. He ain’t goin nowhere. It’d take a miracle for him to survive until somebody found him.”
Rasquelle thought for a moment, then glared at the two men. “It’s not good enough. Tomorrow morning first thing I want you both to go back to where you left him and fix this. I don’t want there to be any chance of him ever setting foot back in this town again.”
“But Mr. Rasquelle,” said Ajax, “we already done told you that you ain’t payin us enough for murder. Now, if you want to renegotiate our wages—well, then maybe . . .” He stroked his chin and waited for an answer.
“Fool,” Rasquelle responded. “You dare try to press me for more money when the two of you are the ones who kidnapped him from this place, who left him on that island. He gets rescued, and you two will hang. Don’t forget that.”
“We understand, sir,” said Lot. “Right, Ajax?” He elbowed his colleague.
Ajax narrowed his eyes and hesitated before he said, “Right.”
“Good,” said Rasquelle. “I’m glad we understand one another. First thing in the morning, boys. Handle it.”
The two nodded and walked away.
Chapter Thirty-One
&nb
sp; EMMANUEL RARELY WENT INTO TOWN, and he certainly didn’t frequent the tavern. He was far too private to enjoy sitting down for meals amongst strangers. So when he and Boaz entered the Topsail Tavern, all heads turned his way.
“Is there somewhere more private we can talk?” Emmanuel asked Valentine Hodges.
Valentine’s face fell. He knew the men couldn’t be bearers of good news. “Mary’s upstairs. Should I go get her?”
“Yes, but perhaps we should talk to you first. Then you can decide the best way for us to proceed.”
Valentine nodded, then motioned for them to follow him into the kitchen. Emmanuel and Boaz went right behind him, through the kitchen, the back garden of the tavern and into Valentine’s house.
“Take a seat, fellas,” said Valentine.
“We’d rather not,” said Emmanuel.
He and Boaz briefly explained to Valentine what had happened in the last twenty-four hours and everything they knew so far about Adam’s disappearance. Valentine stood with his fist on one hip and his other hand rubbing his forehead. He thought for a moment, unable to respond, then finally said, “I’m gonna go get Mary. She’s got to know about this. And y’all are gonna have to be the ones to tell her.”
Emmanuel nodded. “Of course.”
He and Boaz waited impatiently in the sitting room as Valentine went back into the tavern to get Mary and bring her back downstairs to hear the news.
She was already trembling when Valentine escorted her in. She knew something awful had happened, only she didn’t know how bad things were. Emmanuel and Boaz looked at her, then at each other, both wondering who would be the one to break the news.
“Just tell me what happened!” said Mary.
“It’s Adam,” said Emmanuel. “We don’t know where he is.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know where he is? What happened? When did you see him last?”
“He left this morning,” said Boaz. “He was heading over to the Martin estate.”
“What for?” Mary demanded.
“You heard about Emmanuel’s arrest yesterday?” said Boaz.
She nodded. “Yes. What of it?”
“Your son, he found out some information that he needed to tell the Martin girl—for both her safety as well as to help Emmanuel here in the investigation.”
Mary was shaking like a leaf. She was enraged to think someone might have done something to her son.
“Why was he doing your dirty work, old man?” she asked Emmanuel.
“Wait a minute—” said Boaz.
Emmanuel held his hand up. “Hush, son,” he said to Boaz. “She has every reason to be angry. I’d be furious if I were her.”
She stood and began to pace, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We have to look everywhere. We have to find him. He’s all I have!”
Valentine went over to her and wrapped his arms around her in a fatherly embrace. He stroked her hair and said, “Shh . . . We’ll find him, girl. Don’t you worry. We’ll find him, and if anyone has hurt him, they’ll have hell to pay. I’ll see to it.”
She sobbed into his shoulder. “I just want my son.”
“We will do everything we can to find him. As soon as we leave here, we’ll be notifying the constable. But we wanted to let you know about this first,” said Emmanuel.
Valentine nodded as he stroked Mary’s hair in an effort to comfort her and calm her down.
“I will let you know if we hear anything,” said Boaz. “I hope you’ll do the same for us.”
Valentine nodded again.
Emmanuel and Boaz were about to leave when the old man stopped beside Mary and said, “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am, love.”
She lifted her head from Valentine’s shoulder for just a moment and stared at him, before burying her face once again.
As soon as Emmanuel and Boaz left their meeting with Mary and Valentine, they went across town to a different tavern, where one of the local constables spent a lot of his time. Although there were other constables appointed in the county, Constable Lawson Squires had a family connection to Boaz, so they felt comfortable telling him information that they might not want to pass along to less familiar lawmen.
They informed him of Adam’s disappearance and told him about why they suspected Richard Rasquelle and Absalom Reading. Constable Squires recommended they let all the local fishermen know as well as submit the information to the local print shop so that signs could be made and posted around town. Emmanuel assured him that those tasks would be first on his list as soon as the morning came.
After a lengthy discussion, they ruled out the likelihood of the boy being held somewhere in town. Beaufort was far too small for anyone to keep that kind of secret for very long. Their limited knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Adam’s disappearance fomented a fear that the worse had happened to him. Would someone have actually killed him to keep him quiet? Although Emmanuel and Boaz never trusted Richard Rasquelle, they wouldn’t have thought he could kill a man, but if Adam had been foolish enough to confront him with what he knew, Rasquelle might’ve felt backed into a corner and taken drastic action to save himself.
Constable Squires also reminded them that they shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the notion of the boy running away. He said that if Adam felt he was in immediate danger, he might have taken off and gone into hiding. He told them that if that was the case, Adam might turn up again in a day or two once he figured the coast was clear.
Chapter Thirty-Two
LATE MORNING ON WEDNESDAY, AJAX and Lot made it back to the island where they had marooned Adam. They went to the very spot, or near about, where they had left him on the beach, but he wasn’t there. At least he wasn’t there like they expected him to be, which would have been still bound up and blindfolded. What they did find, however, was a smoldering fire, a crudely constructed shelter, and evidence that their kidnap victim had not only managed to free himself but had enjoyed a productive time since they’d abandoned him there. The color completely left their faces when they realized the boy was surviving on the island.
“What do we do, then?” said Lot.
“We gotta find him. That’s what,” said Ajax.
After the men looked in the shelter to see if Adam was inside, they started walking along the edge of the woods and calling out the boy’s name.
“Maybe if we call him he’ll come to us. Maybe he’ll be happy to see us and think we’re here to rescue him,” Lot suggested.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a right good plan. You stay here by the boat in case he comes back to his camp. I’ll go search for him.”
Lot nodded and did as he was told.
While Ajax began the search, Adam was exploring the island’s interior. He was trying to learn more about his new, hopefully temporary home. When he heard someone calling his name, he quickly ran through the woods towards the sound to see who it was. The voice was becoming clearer, and a shiver ran through him when he realized who it was. The ruffian Ajax had a very distinctive manner of speech. His sharp-toned, nasally voice sounded hyper when he spoke.
What are they doing here? Adam wondered if he was being rescued or a more sinister plan was at work. He had to think fast, and logically. Why would they be coming to rescue him? Maybe they were having second thoughts and felt bad about leaving him there.
Nah. That would be ridiculous. They had left him on this spit of land. It was unlikely they were suddenly feeling pangs of guilt about it. No, the more likely explanation was that they were having second thoughts about leaving him there alive.
Adam tried to move quietly towards his camp to see if the men had left their boat unattended. If so, he could hop in and try to sail the thing towards civilization. Although sailing was a skill he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to learn, he was willing to take his chances if he could get off of the island and out into the shipping lanes.
Unfortunately, Lot’s hulking presence keeping watch in the boat dashed that hope. Still, Adam made a mental note to a
sk Emmanuel to teach him to sail if he ever made it back to town. He decided his best course of action would be to hide. Just knowing that they had come back for him, Adam calculated that meant they thought there was a reasonable chance he could be rescued, or even find his way back, if he could survive long enough.
He stopped long enough to listen again for Ajax’s voice so he could try to position where he was. It wasn’t easy, but he determined vaguely what direction he was in, so Adam took off in the opposite direction.
Suddenly he heard Ajax call out, “I hear you runnin, boy, but it sounds like you’re goin the wrong way. Follow the sound of my voice. We’re here to take you back to town.”
Adam wanted to stop again but decided it would probably be best if he kept running without acknowledging the man’s voice. Maybe Ajax would think the sound might be a deer.
Meanwhile, Lot suddenly called out to his partner. “Ajax! Get out here!”
He walked back over to where Adam’s camp was, and he looked around a bit. He went over to where Ajax had entered the wood and he called for him again.
Finally, Ajax emerged from the trees. “What is it? I still haven’t found him.”
“I can see that. Listen, I just thought of something.”
“What is it?”
“He might’ve already been rescued. Or maybe something happened to him.”
“I just heard somebody runnin in the woods. It had to be him,” said Ajax.
“Or it could’ve been a deer or even a wolf.”
“A wolf? Out here?” Ajax was skeptical. He’d seen deer on some of the local islands but never heard of any wolves—at least not since he’d been living in the colony.
“What I’m tryin to tell you is, he might not still be here, or if he is, he might already be dead. If he was still here, don’t you think he’d rush right out to us thinkin we can rescue him?”
The Smuggler's Gambit (Adam Fletcher Adventure Series Book 1) Page 21
