by Lila Guzmán
William laced his hands behind his head. “My father wants me to take up a profession, instead of tramping through the woods. Thinks I’ll wander off on another trip with Dan’l Boone and get myself killed. When the war’s over, I’m going to settle in Kentucky. Kentucky.” He said the name with great fondness. “Now there’s the place to be. More game than you can shake a stick at. Buffalo, deer, turkey.”
Calderón looked my way and gave me a sympathetic smile that seemed to say, “That man will talk your ear off.”
We continued upstream in this manner for another hour. Other than William’s lowered voice, the only sound was the stroking of the oars against the water and the grind of wood in the oarlocks.
A few hours later, Calderón raised his voice over the rush of water. “Strip your oars. Odd men first.”
Every other rower removed strips of cloth that had been wrapped around the oars to muffle the sound. That operation finished, I gathered the cloth and laid it out on deck to dry. Given the hot night air, it didn’t take long. I folded them neatly into a pile and took them to the cabin.
“Our Father, who art in heaven,” I silently prayed, “let me never need them as bandages.”
Chapter Twelve
“Ursula Major. Ursula Minor. Orion.” I lolled back on the cabin roof, looking up at the constellations. From my vantage point, I could see rowers on both sides of the boat. They had worked the oars night and day. Sweat ran off them in rivulets.
We were making good time. Twentyfour hours after leaving New Orleans, we were fifty miles north of the city.
Feeling as useless as wet gunpowder, I decided it was time to water the Lambs again.
At first I merely put the dipper to their lips so they could drink without breaking the rhythm of the oars. On a whim, I poured water over Corporal García’s head to help him cool off. He shut his eyes tight and laughed, but never missed a stroke. “Thanks, Mr. Bannister. That felt good.”
“Watch out,” a man called out as I drew near. “Here comes John the Baptist.” He bent his head to accept the refreshing water.
“Hey, Baptizer,” Red called out. “My stomach is rubbing against my backbone. Can you fetch me some hardtack?”
“What’s the point?” I shot back with a grin. “You’ll just get hungry again.”
Laughter rippled up and down the side of the boat.
No sooner had I finished watering the Lambs than a new problem presented itself. We rowed straight into clouds of mosquitoes. They lit on arms and necks and backs and produced monstrous welts. Between slapping at the insects and scratching bites, an idea sprang to mind. I slipped into the cabin and took a tin of cooking grease from the shelf. I added charcoal and soot from the fireplace to make an ointment that I offered the men. They dipped their hands into the tin and smeared gobs of grease all over them.
Calderón frowned at me and for a moment I thought he would reprimand me for misuse of cooking grease. Instead, a smile erased his scowl. “Thank you, Mister Bannister,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “I admire a man with initiative and foresight.”
William wrinkled his nose in disgust at the strong, disagreeable odor, until he saw no one else but him scratching and slapping at mosquitoes.
Hours and hours went by. A wave of sleepiness rolled over me. I squeezed myself into a tight ball on the foredeck beside a canvas-covered box of muskets and shut my eyes. I dreamed I was back in San Antonio on that fatal evening, August 7, 1776.
Stiff from riding, I swung down from my horse and led her toward the stable, leaving my fellow ranch hands by the corral gate discussing how to spend their weekly earnings. As I unbuckled the cinch, I heard the hurried slap-slap of sandals on the sun-baked ground. I turned.
A monk from the mission trotted toward me, his brown robes snapping in the breeze. “Lorenzo! Come quick. Your father is dying.”
My insides turned to water. Resting my forehead against the leather saddle, I tried to absorb the words. For months I’d watched the slow progress of Papá’s disease. I’d had time to prepare for Papá’s death, but I couldn’t accept it.
The monk’s voice brought me out of my stupor. “I’ll take care of your horse. Go to your father.”
I nodded and mumbled my thanks. Head spinning, I dashed from the stable, through the mission patio, into the tiled hallway. Tears blurred my vision. I paused in the doorway of our room and wiped my eyes. Gathering my courage, I focused on the labored rise and fall of Papá’s chest. Wordless, the monk by Papá’s bedside rose and left. Nothing had changed since I had checked on Papá at noon. His lunch rested on the night stand untouched. Our meager baggage remained piled in one corner, as if we were ready to take flight at a moment’s notice.
To keep from pacing around in circles, I eased into a chair beside Papá’s bed, took his pulse, and wiped his forehead with a cool cloth. Not knowing what else to do, I picked up a medical book. For the thousandth time, I flipped it open and read the description and treatment for consumption. I searched for something, anything, to help Papá. A new treatment. A promising drug. Day after day, night after night, Papá suffered. I would have done anything to save him, but consumption had no cure. A numbing sense of defeat settled over me.
The bugle called all mission soldiers to evening parade. I leaned forward in the cane-bottomed chair beside Papá’s bed and took his pulse. It grew weaker by the hour. Papá was slipping away.
A sob welled up inside me, but I forced it down. He expected me to be brave. To hide my tears, I poured water into a tin basin and scrubbed caked-on dirt from my face. After a day of riding herd on longhorn cattle, I smelled of horse sweat and worse. I still wore mud-splattered chaps, dusty boots, and a flannel shirt.
I fished out five Spanish pillar dollars, my weekly salary as a ranch hand, and stared at the gold coins in my hand. Five Spanish pillar dollars. Our money had run out long ago. I hid the truth from Papá. He didn’t know we were living on the monks’ charity, although he probably suspected our financial situation was bleak.
God bless the ranch foreman who had suspected my financial situation and had given me a job. Plus, work took my mind off Papá’s condition.
Through the open window, I watched fifty or so soldiers with muskets and bayonets muster on the central plaza of the mission. In my head, I went through the manual of arms with them. “Port arms! Shoulder arms! Right face! March!” How I longed to be a soldier guarding Spanish missions and forts in the Province of Texas and protecting settlers from marauding Indians.
Papá let out a long, ragged cough. I took his hand. His skin felt paper-thin. Pale, propped up by a half dozen pillows, he looked fragile. Dark circles ringed his eyes. “Lorenzo,” Papá said, his voice barely a whisper. “What is the fascination with muskets and bayonets?”
For as long as I could remember, Papá worked as a civilian doctor for the Spanish army. I grew up around the military. Maybe that explained the excitement that surged through me whenever I heard the bugle call or saw soldiers in colorful uniforms.
“Papá, why didn’t you join the military?”
“I don’t like to take orders. Your grandfather … “ He paused to take a breath. “ … wanted me to join the British navy. I wanted to be a doctor.”
“Is that why you all quarreled?”
Papá’s gaze held mine. “No. It was because of your mother. He didn’t want me to have a relationship with ‘a woman beneath my station,’ as he put it.”
Papá put a blood-flecked handkerchief to his lips and coughed. For a long time, he hid his condition from me. Then one day, three months ago, he spit up blood and I realized he was dying of consumption.
“I was right to take you and your mother from Virginia.” He rested a moment. “My father has finally recognized that.”
My eyes roved to a note wedged between two candlesticks on the night stand. “Come home, Jack,” my grandfather had written, “and we will work out the differences between us.”
Papá gestured toward a sealed envelope
addressed to my grandfather. “I dictated a letter to a monk while you were gone. This letter is important, Lorenzo. Promise me you will deliver it.”
“Upon my word of honor …”
The slap of a hand against the cabin wall jolted me awake.
“All hands up and at their oars,” Calderón ordered.
Men stumbled up from the rough floorboards where they had spent the night with no more room than a man in his coffin. They stretched. Yawned. Squinted against the morning glare. Scratched themselves. Relieved themselves over the boat edge.
I pretended to rub the sleep from my eyes, but in reality I was wiping away tears. My chest throbbed with pain whenever I thought about Papá. How I missed him. I looked up at flights of waterfowl slicing the morning fog. Pink clouds appeared over twisted cypress trees bordering the river. I bounded up and headed toward the narrow footwalk that ran the length of the boat on both sides. Staying busy always helped ease the pain.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Calderón asked, stepping in front of me.
“I’m going to row.”
“You are our physician.”
“So? It’s my turn …”
“No.”
“I’ve never taken a turn at the oars, and these men have been rowing …”
“Enough.” Calderón drew his finger across his neck in a quick slicing motion. “In the cabin, please.”
Reluctantly, I complied.
Calderón closed the door behind him and turned to face me. “First. Don’t argue with me in front of the men. It’s bad form. Second. I am in command here and you will obey me. Third. The physician on board always enjoys the prerogatives of officers, and no officer takes to the oars.”
“I don’t like the idea of special privileges.”
“You are educated and hold privileges over your elders who are not.”
“I just wanted to help the men.”
Calderón held my gaze, his face expressionless. After a long moment, he picked up an amber-colored bottle, examined it, then gave me a sidelong look. He put the bottle back, squinted at another bottle, neatly labeled in black ink, then shot me a questioning look. “Your father taught you what all this is for?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The flotilla has sixteen Spaniards, fifteen Americans, but only one physician.”
“Do you really expect me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while others work?”
Calderón slapped his hands to his sides in exasperation. “Yes! Because I want all your thumbs and fingers capable of surgery should my men fall wounded.”
I pulled my lips back in a tight line. “I get your point.”
“About time.” Calderón gestured toward the door, signaling I was dismissed.
I tried to think of an appropriate reply, but failed, so I whirled around and marched away, feeling like a child leaving the woodshed.
The Mississippi stretched a mile and a half from shore to shore. Waves slapped gently against the flatboat and helped calm me. Now and then a piece of driftwood thumped against the bow. Sunlight glittered on the looping ribbon of water ahead of us. At the corner of each flatboat stood guards combing the forest with nervous eyes.
Calderón was right. The men depended on my skill as a surgeon. I did not want to let them down.
A faint shape half-hidden behind the trees stood along the riverbank. I borrowed a telescope from one of the guardsmen, raised it, and saw a vague figure, about a half-mile away. “Lieutenant,” I said in a level voice. I jerked my head toward the bronze-colored man in a buckskin breechcloth, moccasins, and leggings.
Calderón scanned the shore with his own spyglass. “Choctaw,” he said.
The flatboat navigated around a turn in the river, and the Choctaw warrior was lost from view.
ZZZZ! Thud!
Something whistled past my ear and buried itself in the cabin wall. I dropped to the deck, as did everyone around me. I looked up to find an arrow in the cabin wall two inches from where I had stood.
Chapter Thirteen
More arrows whirred past and embedded themselves in the wall. Indians bolted from behind a curtain of trees and raced towards us, attacking us at the bend in the river, when the canoes and flatboats were closest to shore.
Alarm scurried down my spine. I saw a flash of scarlet. At least one British soldier, a tall man about the size of Saber-Scar, was with them.
“Musketeers! Starboard!” Calderón’s voice rang with a note of command.
Soldiers lined the decks fore and aft and primed their muskets. Only four soldiers. Against how many Choctaws?
Calderón snatched up his weapon and joined them. “Ready! Aim! Fire!”
A withering volley of flame and smoke exploded across the water.
“Reload!”
His soldiers followed orders with drilled precision and waited for the smoke to clear.
“Keep rowing!” Calderón bellowed to the frightened oarsmen who had broken rhythm and were allowing the boat to drift. “Pull to port.”
I realized Calderón was snapping out orders in Spanish to men who spoke only English. I translated, but added, “Lt. Calderón is giving you cover with musket smoke.”
Twenty pairs of arms strained to turn the flatboat toward the left bank.
Little by little the gun smoke obscuring our view of the Choctaws cleared. Arrows whistled by, followed quickly by a salvo of gunfire. A flaming arrow buried itself in the roof. William dashed up the ladder, pulled out the arrow with a gasp of pain, and threw it into the Mississippi.
If a spark ignited the canvas-covered gunpowder, it would blow us beyond tomorrow. In one swift move, I grabbed a leather bucket filled with water, and doused the canvas.
“Lorenzo! Get inside!” Calderón grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and propelled me past the cannon two men were loading. He shoved me through the cabin door. “Stay here. Get ready.”
I opened Papá’s medical bag and arranged his instruments on a clean cloth. Outside the cabin’s eight-inchthick oak walls, I heard someone cry out in agony. Muskets popped.
Two men came in and deposited Corporal García on a bunk. I cut away his shirt. A gaping gunshot wound exposed his intestines. Nausea gripped me as I applied bandages in a futile attempt to save his life. I gave him a dose of opium for the pain and said a silent prayer. Within minutes I closed his eyes and covered him with a sheet.
Our cannon thundered, making the boat rock.
The door banged open. Calderón staggered in, his hand to his shoulder. I grabbed him before he collapsed and led him to an empty bunk. He took his hands away from the holes in his jacket. Dark red patches about three inches below the shoulder grew larger as I examined his wound. I placed bandages very gently inside Calderón’s jacket over the blood in front and back. “That should hold the flow. Take it easy, Calderón. Keep your left arm tight across your chest.”
More cannon fire. I grabbed the edge of the bunk to steady myself.
Calderón’s gaze fixed on the sheet-covered form on the opposite bunk, then turned back to me with a questioning look.
“Corporal García’s gone,” I said gently.
Calderón lowered his head. “He was a good soldier.”
I cut away Calderón’s jacket and washed the wounds with water and a clean cloth. My stomach churned. The entrance wound was a small, neat circle just below the shoulder bone. The bullet had exited in a star-shaped explosion about the size of a Spanish pillar dollar.
Beyond the cabin walls, men shouted, Indians whooped, guns banged.
“You were lucky, Calderón. It didn’t hit a bone. Went clean through the flesh.” He grimaced in pain when I rubbed ointment on his wound. “I know it hurts, but you’re going to be fine.”
Placing a rolled blanket behind him, I made him comfortable and gave him a dose of opium to ease the pain.
The door flew open. Two men carried William Linn inside and placed him on the floor. An arrow protruded from his upper thigh.
As I ben
t over him to treat his wound, the shooting and yelling abruptly stopped. Either we had rowed out of range or everyone outside the cabin was dead.
Chapter Fourteen
September 29: Lt. Linn’s hand is badly burned. His arrow wound has confined him to bed. I have taken over his duty of recording our progress in the log book. Lt. Calderón is resting comfortably. I pray his wound does not become infected. With both Lt. Linn and Lt. Calderón wounded, I am in charge of the flatboats. A bullet grazed Red in the head, but his wound is minor. We wrapped Corporal García’s body in a sail, tied a cannon ball to his ankles, and buried him in a watery grave after praying over him. The fear of another Indian attack prevented us from pulling to shore and giving him a proper burial on land.
September 30: The men are in good spirits, though exhausted and on constant alert. The threat of more attacks hangs over our head like the sword of Damocles. Calderón is running a high fever.
October 1: We are making good time. We can use the sails now, and have increased speed. Calderón’s fever has broken.
October 2: The possibility that British spies in New Orleans learned of our escape worries me. I can only hope the attack three days ago was aimed at stealing our cargo, not stopping our mission.
October 3: Another 18 miles behind us.
October 6: Flatboat ran aground on a sandbar. Men pushed with oars as hard as they could until the boat swung free.
October 11: Saw two Natchez Indians on shore. They stared at us and we stared back. All quiet.
October 13: Passed Fort Rosalie, an abandoned French fort. From here on, the river becomes more treacherous. Navigating at night is now impossible. We pull to shore at dusk and make fast to trees along the bank. Anchors are useless because the soft mud on the river bottom is covered with submerged logs. Some of the men are so exhausted, they have to be carried ashore in blankets.
October 16: It is a long and difficult haul up the Mississippi. The muddiness of the river slows us, but that isn’t the worst part. The river twists and turns like a snake. A distance of 100 miles measured in a straight line winds up being 180.
