by Tony Masero
This caused Minnie some pause, she did not want to let anyone know her real name nor leave a trail that James Burk might discover. With a humorous quirk of the lip she lowered her head and wrote – Minnie LaBone – on the sheet.
‘Good then, Mistress LaBone. We have a deal, no?’ and they shook on it.
Hans made no query as to the origin of the horses and Minnie supposed that he was either so fresh to the country that he was ignorant of any necessity for bills of sale or maybe he was just smart enough not to miss out on a good bargain. Either way it was, when Minnie left them later in the day, it was with full saddlebags of supplies and cash money in her pockets.
She had enough now if she so wished for a train fare to get her far away from James Burk and any immediate fear of his vengeance.
It was with a lighter heart that Minnie rode on and she made good time without the train of ponies dragging behind. Soon the forests enclosed her, great pines that kept the going silent as she crossed the dense beds of pine needles. It was gloomy under the trees and the only sound was the breeze moving the higher branches with a susurrating swish that left Minnie feeling the immensity of the forest that surrounded her.
Finally it was too dark to progress further and she decided to settle for the night. Another night in the open but Minnie decided it was something she was going to have to get used to from now on. She collected fallen pinecones and dry needles from the forest floor and began a blaze with the matches she had bought at the German’s store. The pine oil in the cones quickly caught and she soon had a substantial fire going, fallen branches were easily come by and she stacked the fire high against the chill coming down from the mountains.
It felt good to be next to the blaze surrounded by the shadowy forest where the creaks and whispering movement of the trees in the darkness only made the comforting light a greater pleasure. She prepared herself a meal of pancakes using a small iron skillet from her pack and then began the process of trying to swallow it without a tongue to help. It was a tiresome process that needed a great deal of liquid to aid the new method of eating she now had to acquire. With each difficult swallow she swore that James Burk would pay for what he had done, somehow and sometime she would claim revenge for his abuse.
Once the meal was over she set too making a money belt from the bandana, unwinding it from her head and using a sewing kit supplied by the stolen saddlebags. She settled down to stitch the cloth into a bag sufficient to hold her cash and with a tail long enough to tie about her body. Once it was done, Minnie filled the pack and tied it under the baggy shirt around her waist.
She needed to pee after all the drinking and moved some way off into the brush to squat and find relief. She was part way through the process when she looked up to see a dark shape flick across the firelight.
Minnie froze.
Was it a wild animal she had seen invading her camp or one of the more dangerous two-legged variety. Could Burk’s men have caught up to her already? Quickly, Minnie rearranged her clothing, she realized then that she had taken off her gun belt and revolver and left them lying beside the tree where she had been sitting. She cursed her stupidity and the false sense of security she had fallen into.
Cautiously she crept back towards her campsite. She could see nothing untoward and it occurred to her that maybe she had imagined the shadow. Might it have been only a flicker of the fire that burned bright and high with the branches she had added, some of them as thick as a man’s arm.
Nobody was there. Minnie relaxed and felt the pounding of her heart slow. She went over to collect her gun, swearing she would never leave it out of her sight again.
It was gone.
Nothing lay in the spot beside her empty skillet and the spread blanket she had arranged beside the tree.
She recognized the man the instant he stepped out from behind the tree.
It was Freddie, the hired hand at the German farm. He was dressed in a long oiled slicker and a low brimmed Stetson hat and now looked a whole lot less like a farmer.
He grinned at her and spun her revolver languidly around one finger by the trigger guard, ‘Evening, ma’am,’ he said in perfect English.
She spread her hands in query.
‘What do I want?’ he smiled. ‘Obvious, ain’t it? You got yourself two hundred dollars off that German. You got it and we aim to take it, ain’t that right, boys?’
Three other men stepped out from hiding, all of them armed and looking mean and ornery.
‘Thanks for the horses too,’ smiled Freddie. ‘Me and the boys really did appreciate that. Poor old Hans never knew what hit him when we come and took them. Now we are all a mounted and regular band of right proper villains, ain’t that the truth?’
Minnie looked around in desperation and her heart sunk as she realized the impossibility of her situation. Unarmed and confronted by four rough looking fellows, what chance did she stand?
‘Now,’ said Freddie, his eyes narrowing and the smile dropping from his face. ‘You give us that money!’
Chapter Four
Billy Lee was drifting, literally as well as mentally.
He was awake, but barely, his shivering had stopped now and he could hardly feel his extremities.
The waves slapped against him as the fast current gave him up and he floated on his back in the swells, his body spread out like a starfish on the surface. Everything was numb and his mind ranged over memories that flickered across his mind uncoordinated and unconnected in a strange array of past events.
He was in blue again. The blue uniform of the cavalry and speaking with the Crow Indian scout Broken Hat. The Indian was also there in the waves, bobbing alongside and still wearing that dented stovepipe hat some politician had given when he went up to Washington to collect his Peace Medal.
‘What the hell you doing here, Broken Hat?’ Billy Lee murmured, his lips having difficulty finding the words.
The Indian made sign with his hands, something obscure that Billy Lee could not fathom.
‘Deep water, ‘Tenant,’ Broken Hat said in a solemn voice.
‘You got that right,’ smiled Billy Lee.
‘Remember The Battle Where the Girl Saved her Brother, ‘Tenant?’
‘The Rosebud, yeah, I remember. That was a hard one.’
‘You were strong that day.’
‘Was I? I don’t rightly recall.’
Broken Hat stamped one bunched fist on top of the other, ‘Be strong now, soldier.’
‘Don’t go, Broken Hat. Where you going?’
But the phantasm had faded and he was alone in the water again.
‘I thought you were dead, Broken Hat,’ he cried after the vanished ghost. ‘Where’d you go?’
Something surged against Billy Lee, a great pressure wave that pushed him on its breast and he felt something suddenly grip him. It dug deep in his neck and caught in the collar of his jacket. He was pulled along, suddenly jerked into a speeding wake. His body was tossed against something hard and unresisting and the blow brought Billy Lee back to awareness. He reached out to find himself against a great wall of solid wood, rough with barnacles and sea slime.
‘We have you, mister,’ cried a voice from somewhere above and Billy Lee felt himself being hoisted from the waves. He hung limply at the end of a gaff, the metal hook twisted into the cloth of his jacket as his dripping body was lifted. Hands grasped him, rough and sturdy hands and Billy Lee felt his soaking body dragged across the gunwale and dropped heavily onto a plank deck.
‘Who is he?’ asked one of then.
‘Light a tinder and let’s see if he still breaths.’
‘No lights!’ roared a voice and a dark figure thumped across the desk to stand over Billy Lee. ‘I told you men; I want no lights just yet. Least, not ‘til we’re out of sight of the Nazareth Light.’
‘Aye, Cap’n,’ the men mumbled.
‘Pump him out and bring him below.’
‘Your cabin, Cap’n?’
‘Aye, my cabin, we’ll see
who he is in there.’
Somebody sat on Billy Lee’s stomach and he heaved a spit of water that gushed from his mouth.
‘That’s it, fella,’ said the sailor. ‘Get it out. Come on now, you heard the Captain, we’ve to get you below.’
‘Goddamn! Where am I?’ gasped Billy Lee, at last able to speak.
‘This here is the good ship ‘Bentley Sound’, my friend. I reckon you was close to the end out there, we just got you in time.’
Billy Lee was lifted to his feet and a blanket thrown over his shoulders, he stumbled dizzily and willing hands helped him across the deck and through a door. In the darkness he was carried down a flight of stairs and bustled along a low corridor so narrow that the figures alongside him bumped against the walls.
‘Steady now, you idiot,’ one complained to his companion. ‘You’ll have me over yet.’
‘Ah!’ spat the other. ‘Quit grumbling, you make more noise than a greeting girl.’
‘Damn you, Elijah, just get this poor fool to the Captain’s cabin without breaking my shoulder, will you?’
Unable to walk, they dragged Billy Lee on his toes into the cabin and set him down heavily in a chair.
‘Good enough,’ said the Captain. ‘Leave off now and get back to your stations, I’ll see to him. We clear of the Light yet?’
‘Can’t see her no more, Cap’n.’
‘Very well, set up the running lights then. We’ll not want to run up against another ship in the dark, especially not the Coast Guard.’
As the two sailors left, the Captain lit a lantern and then pressed a full glass into Billy Lee’s cold hands.
‘Get that down you, boy. But don’t tell the others or they’ll all want a share.’
Billy Lee did as he was told and felt the burn of raw brandy trickle down his throat. He coughed at the fiery liquid and widened his eyes to look around the cabin.
The middle-aged man that faced him was short and stocky with white whiskers and a handsome naval officer’s thigh length jacket of blue with a double panel of brass buttons down the front. He wore a peaked flat cap over a set of stern features.
‘Your name, sir?’ he asked.
‘Billy Lee LaBone.’
‘And how came you to be adrift, Mister LaBone? Are you a lobster man out of Nazareth?’
‘No, sir,’ blurred Billy Lee, he was exhausted, wet and cold and it was difficult for him to focus. ‘Excuse me but where am I and who are you?’
‘I, sir, am Captain Bernard and this is the brigantine Bentley Sound that you are aboard.’
‘My thanks for the rescue, Captain. May I ask where you are bound?’
‘South, Mister LaBone, south. It can do no harm to tell you, we are blackbirders. That’s the nature of our trade, you’d best know it from me as the crew will certainly tell you anyway.’
‘Blackbirders?’ said Billy Lee, unaware of the meaning.
‘Aye, we help out employers, as it were. Find labor for them and transport to where needed. Right now we have a cargo of Passamaquoddy Indians due for farm work on a plantation in Virginia.’
It sounded suspiciously like slave trading to Billy Lee and he wondered at the legitimacy of the ship’s employment.
‘We have a full load in the hold,’ the Captain went on. ‘But can always do with an extra hand above deck. You seem an able enough fellow, Mister LaBone. You can work your passage until we dock.’
‘I fear I know little of sailoring, Captain.’
‘No? Then how came you to be in the water?’
‘An altercation ashore, it was necessary for me to take my leave precipitously.’
‘Ah!’ breathed Captain Bernard, nodding wisely. ‘Perhaps you are in flight of certain legal proceedings then?’
‘Something like that but also in fear of my life, sir.’
‘Then you should fit in quite well with us, Mister LaBone, as we too are not quite on the right side of the law here. Our trade is frowned upon by the government but a body must make his way where he can, wouldn’t you say?’
He reached for Billy Lee’s glass that was about to slip from his tired fingers and drop to the deck.
‘You need rest and sustenance I think. I run a tight ship, Mister LaBone, keep on the right side of me and we’ll get along fine. Any problems and I shall not hesitate to put you back where we found you.’
‘I understand,’ said Billy Lee tiredly.
‘Very well, run along to the galley, get something to eat and rest up. We’ll get you sorted out after you’ve recovered from your ordeal.’
Billy Lee tried to rise, he realized the Captain was a firm but not unreasonable man despite the business he was involved in and there was little he could do about his situation but accept his lot and get along as best he could.
‘I thank you, Captain,’ he managed before dizziness enfolded him and he fell forward in a faint and blacked out on the deck at the Captain’s feet.
When Billy Lee awoke he found himself encased between two walls of canvas and for a moment was confused until he realized the swinging motion indicated he was in a hammock. As the ship moved so did the hammock. It was not an unpleasant sensation once he became accustomed and he lay in the warmth of awakening and stared up at the slowly moving beams overhead and dreamily went over recent events.
He thought of Minnie and wondered how she fared. It hurt him bad to remember her beaten face and the prospect promised her by James Burk of service as a whore in The Broken Wing. Anger rose in him at the thought and the rage burned until he brought it under control and knew he would have to bide his time, for he was sure in his mind that he would return when he could and pay back Burk for his treatment of them both.
He remembered Minnie’s slender frame between his hands and her willingness to comply. The soft roundness of her form and the taste of her lips on his when they kissed and of the whispered words her hot breath breathed in his ear as she urged him on. They had been foolish, it was to be sure but nothing had warranted the cruelty James Burk had meted out. He would pay, that Billy Lee promised himself and if he could save Minnie he would.
‘Time to rise, Billy boy,’ said a voice as a big paw came over and shook the hammock.
Billy Lee looked up to see a ruddy cheerful face, with the broken nose and heavy brows of a brawler.
‘You’re awake then and look a sight better than the drowned rat you did last evening, by God, you do. I’m the First Mate, you call me Begs Partner for that will be my name and it’s Mister Partner to the likes of you. Now get you up, the cook will see you fed and then there’s a days work to be done.’
Unused to the hammock, Billy Lee promptly tumbled out and dropped heavily to the deck.
‘Ha!’ laughed Partner. ‘You’ll get used to it, fella. Now on your feet and off you go tout-de-sweet, as we say.’
By dint of exploration, Billy Lee found he had been bedded down in the sickbay situated in the forecastle and that bypassing the fore hatchway he found himself in the men’s mess. It was empty now as the crew was already above at work but there was food set aside on the table and he helped himself. Billy Lee was ravenous and he ploughed through the beans, bacon and bread with abandon.
Below him, in the hold, even with the motion and creaking of the ship he could hear movement and the sounds of voices. He guessed it was the transported Indians that he could hear and wondered at their plight.
The Mate, Partner came in with a dish of coffee in his hand and rested a foot up on the bench where Billy Lee sat, watching him as he ate.
‘The Captain wants me to tell you the run of the rig here,’ said Partner, slurping his coffee. ‘You’re on a two-masted brig, old son. Square rigged on the foremast with a mainsail fore and aft and with a squared up topsail. Two hundred and thirty four tons and a hundred and twenty six feet long, you got it?’
Billy Lee nodded vaguely.
‘She carried an eleven foot draft, which makes her good for river work as sometimes we needs to slip in shallow like, given the nature
of our work.’
‘What exactly is the nature of your work, Mister Partner?’ asked Billy Lee around a wedge of bread.
‘You knows we are blackbirders. We catch up the sad and sorry and carry them off for a better and more fruitful life.’
‘Are you slavers?’ Billy Lee asked bluntly.
‘Lord bless you, no. You look here; we have a load of Indians aboard. Useless types where they is, living in birch bark hovels, wearing skins or little else, with no knowledge of the English and worst of all no belief in God or Jesus Christ. Savages, Billy boy, no better than animals. Now we’re off to take them to do something productive for their keep.’
Billy Lee knew this was the common perception of the Native American but he had a different perspective. He had seen the Plains Indians up close, the Sioux and Cheyenne, he had fought against them and recognized their great courage and determination and in the doing had come across their beliefs and knew they were no savages. Their ways were different but they were not to be considered on the level of any beast, far from it, they were a handsome people, bold and fearless in the face of overwhelming odds.
‘These beggars here,’ Partner went on. ‘They is almost wiped out by disease and sickness, ain’t but a handful of them left now. But I reckon they’ll have a better life once we offload them down in the Chesapeake Bay.’
Billy Lee knew there was no arguing with the Mate, with such justifications, many of which he had come across in his lifetime already, he had found it was far better to keep his own council.
‘The Captain says you don’t know your way around a sailing ship,’ said Partner. ‘So we’ll take it easy ‘til you get your legs. I want you up there washing down the deck this day but not too worry we’ll soon have you aloft and bringing in the sail, have no fear.’
‘Can’t wait,’ said Billy Lee doubtfully.
‘What was the nature of your employment ashore, if I may ask?’
‘I was a soldier one time,’ shrugged Billy Lee. ‘I made my way with the gun since then.’
Partner chuckled, ‘Well, I reckon you’ll have no need of that here. Now finish up and get up on deck.’
