to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (23 page)

It was no hard thing to understand. They were far from others of their kind, and we'd seen no ships but Bardle's.

The sound was shallow. There were places where, if a man was careful, he could guide a vessel through the water and into the rivers in safety, yet there were shoals here and there, and floods from upriver kept them changing.

A large vessel could not well navigate in the sound unless during a time when the rivers were in flood. Abigail, if well-handled, could do it.

"Who's the leader of those who would be pirates?" I asked.

"Jonathan Delve."

I well knew the man. A good gunner, a fierce fighter, and a tall, sallow-cheeked man with a spotty black beard and always-watchful eyes.

"So Delve's their leader now?"

"Aye. He says nothing of you, mind you. Delve is a wily one, and you'll not catch him out. Only he's talking of going a-pirating ... of ships to be had off the coast. He's already come to me twice, wanting a boat with which to explore.

I think he's got something on his mind, Barnabas. I've watched him ... and listened. He's been on this coast before."

"How many of them are there?"

Pim shrugged. "It could be five, it could be more ... They're restless, like I said."

Pim paused, drank some ale, and then said, "Delve came up with something ... pointblank. Asked me if I'd ever heard of a man named Chantry."

"Chantry?"

"Aye. You mayn't have heard of him, being in the fens, like. He was talked about along the waterfront of Bristol, and in the dives. He was Irish, they say, but there seems some mystery about him. He had great skill with arms, but was a trading man ... or so it seemed. He put money in a voyage to America, and went along."

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Well, he was lost ashore. Indians attacked a watering party and he was killed with the others and the ship pulled off ... only he wasn't dead."

"So?"

"He showed up again in Bristol, a-sailing of his own ship, but how he come by it or a crew, no man could say. He unloaded a few mast-timbers, sold some freshwater pearls and some dried fish, but when he pulled out of Bristol his ship was still deep in the water. There was a lot of talk. You know how it is around the harbor dives. Was it treasure he had aboard? Where did he get his ship and his treasure, if any? Where did he get a crew? And where had he been all that time?

"The next thing known is that he slipped out of harbor, and when we heard of him again he'd set himself up in western Ireland. Living like a King he is, him and the girl."

"Girl?"

"Aye. He was married to her, they say. Some say she was a Spanish lass, and some say an Indian. But she was beautiful, rarely, wonderfully beautiful ... and different."

"He was a lucky man, then. Fortune and a beautiful woman," I said.

"Aye," Pim said, "I should be so lucky! But that is not all of the story. There was gossip about it, and Delve has heard it all. Chantry had looted a Spanish galleon of its treasure, they say. Some say he captured it, some that he found it deserted but for the girl. He took a shipload of treasure from it."

"It's a good story."

"Aye, but the story that Delve likes is that he only brought back a small part of the treasure-that his ship wasn't large enough to take the whole, and that the biggest part of the treasure is still in the bottom of the ship."

"And where is the ship?"

"Run ashore on some island or other, laying there for the taking."

"How long ago was this?"

"Some years back ... maybe twenty ... I don't know. Point is, from the description they got, they think it is somewhere near here. The story is told of some barrier islands, and sounds into which rivers flowed."

I shrugged. "Pim, this whole coast is like that, for miles and miles."

Nevertheless I was remembering a ship in which I had taken shelter, a ship almost buried in sand on the shore of a river islet ... a ship that might be buried or swept out to sea by this time. I said nothing.

"Put a couple of men to watch the Jolly Jack, Pim. Have them report her every move." I got up, thinking of Delve, and well knowing the lure of gold. I might lose almost all who were with me, leaving us vulnerable for any attack.

Now many things that had been keeping their shadows in the back of my mind came to the fore. What future, beyond the promise of land, could I offer those with me?

Other colonists would eventually come ... but when? How long, I thought, must we wait? Most of us were young, but I think that no two men age at the same rate, or learn equal sums from experience. Some men learn by their years, others simply live through them.

I found Jublain at once. It took me only a moment to explain.

"Aye," he said gloomily, "I have had a feeling about Delve, but he has had a feeling about me, so I'd likely be the last he'd speak to."

That night, the Jolly Jack sailed away, to the great relief of all.

It was only later that I discovered Delve had spread the word very well indeed.

On the morning after, he came to me with three other men.

Delve hooked his thumbs in his belt. He was smiling, a kind of taunting, challenging smile it was. "We be going to hunt for gold," he said. "We've heard there's a treasure ship nearby, run aground and beached."

"I know of no such treasure ship," I replied.

Jeremy Ring and Jublain had come to stand beside me.

"Aye, well, mayhap you've your own reasons for not sharing your knowledge with us," he said, still smiling. "But mayn't we hunt on our own?" His sharp little eyes probed mine. "Unless you would try to stop us."

"Why should I do that? Go ahead. You've my permission, if it is needed. Only those who go do not return."

He chuckled. "Like that, is it? Well, it's not likely we'd need to return.

You'll give us food then?"

"For six days only. We can afford no more. After that you'll be on your own.

I'll give you rifles and ten balls per man, and the powder for it, and where you go after that is wherever you like, but I'll have no quitters with me."

I looked him square in the face.

"You'll stay now, or you'll go and not come back. You came knowing what lay ahead, and now at the smell of gold, which probably isn't there, you'd go. Well, go and be damned!"

"You talk very big for a man who'll soon be alone."

"He'll not be alone," said Jublain. "I'll be with him."

"And I," Ring added.

"You're fools then," he said. "There'll be few else."

"That may be," I replied, "but there may be more loyal men here than you think."

For the first time I saw doubt in his eyes, but he shook it off. The dream was more pleasant to believe than to doubt.

The taunting expression came to his face. He wanted to get back at me, to hurt me, worry me, anger me. "Well, Barnabas, if there's no gold I can always join Nick Bardle."

"Why not? There's always room on a gibbet."

He turned sharply away, and Jublain made as if to start after him. "He needs killing," he said, when I stopped him.

"No doubt, but here is a good time to be rid of any troublemakers. I want nobody with me who will not go the distance."

Yet there were steps I could take, and I took them. Recharging several pistols and a musket, I kept them at hand, and suggested to Jublain, Jeremy, and Pim that they stay close about.

Delve went to the edge of the wood with a dozen others and there was much talk going on.

"Pim," I said, "do you go to the Abigail. Tell Tilly what goes on, and tell him to stand by for trouble and allow no one aboard unless with an order writ by my hand."

Aboard the Abigail, I felt sure John Tilly would stand.

Pim was back within the hour. "They'll stand for you," he said, "every man of them."

"Good! Now let us close the gate."

We did so, and Jeremy went to the walls where he could keep a lookout, and a weather-eye on the dissenters.

When they were up and coming to the gate in a group, Ring called softly and I came up to the wall with him. Wa-ga-su came to me and wished to know what it was that had happened, and I explained to him. He shook his head in amazement, but went back to squat against the wall and watch.

Jonathan Delve was in the lead. When they came up to the gate and found it closed, they stopped, obviously surprised.

"Well, men, what is it?"

"Open the gate!" Delve shouted. "We want our belongings. We are going for the gold."

"It shall be as agreed," I said. "I think you go upon a fool's errand. Yet you shall have what I promised."

Then we lowered over to them the muskets and the food, and with much angry grumbling and shouting they marched away.

Some we did well without, yet others were good men led astray by a promise of gold. We stood together upon the walls, making a brave show of it, but we knew all too well that we were too few to defend the fort against a strong attack as Bardle might make. Not to mention the Indians.

"Do you think they know how many have gone? The Indians, I mean?" Jublain asked.

"If they do not know, they will. There will be tracks left, and they will follow and observe. I think our friends have not chosen wisely."

I was already thinking of what was to come. We had a winter to get through before we could march to the mountains.

In the following days we stayed close by, gathering food, drying the meat from our hunting, gathering clams along the shore, fishing. Always, two of us remained within the fort, and now the great gate was always closed, and we used the smaller gate. It was easier to open and shut as well as to guard.

"I fear for them." Tilly had come to the fort to eat, leaving Blue in command of the Abigail. "They will find much trouble at Roanoke, unless they have great luck."

The lost colony. Would the same fate overtake us?

There was time then to get out the maps and charts and pore over them, to speculate on what lay beyond the blue mountains and the best way to reach them.

Wa-ga-su had a quick intelligence, and grasped at once almost any idea that was not totally beyond the range of his experience. Our needs he understood at once.

He would guide us to his home country. He would show us a way into the mountains, but when we offered him a chance to go along, he refused.

"Have you thought of a voyage first?" Tilly suggested. "We have many timbers cut for masts, many skins, and much potash. It would be a valuable cargo."

"I cannot risk England," I said.

"Then what of the Spanish islands? Or France?"

Uneasily, I considered the subject. It was true we had a full and heavy cargo.

Our work would be for naught if we left it on the ground and went away to the mountains.

The decision would have to be mine. To go meant to move, to move meant to risk the sea, conflict, and possibly capture and death.

John Tilly wished to go. There were good reasons for it and Abby, I knew, would leave the choice to me.

The rain fell softly, whispering gently down upon our roofs, beating a soft tattoo upon our walls. It would be wet in the forest, wet upon the trails, and out beyond the Banks would be the cold gray wintry sea, rolling its combers down from the northland. The great breakers would be snarling along the sand. Again I seemed to feel the tip and bow of a deck beneath my feet.

Once more the lights of a harbor seemed to beckon to me, once more the sound of music and laughter.

Tomorrow, I promised myself, I would decide ...

Our walls were strong here, our food supply good. Out there? No wall could stand against the sea, and good ship though we had, there were ships that were faster, more heavily gunned.

The weight of the burden lay heavy upon me. Now that I must decide for others, my decisions came not so quickly, for any move might mean the death of my wife, of a friend, or the loss of our ship.

Yet each move one makes is a risk, and if one thinks too long one does not move at all, for fear of what may come, and so becomes immobile, crouched in a shell, fearful of any move.

I would sleep the night, I would think much upon what I might do, but I think the decision was already made.

We would go to sea once more.

Chapter
20

Our first task was to bring closer to the fort the Abigail, and to careen her there so her bottom might be scraped free of encrusted barnacles. If this was not done, not only would her bottom soon be damaged but her sailing speed would be slowed, and this we could not have. In many a situation to be encountered at sea, only speed could lead to safety.

By night I sat over my table, working upon our meager supply of paper to see what could be done as to armament and cargo. Again and again I went over the stowage of that cargo to keep our vessel seaworthy and in balance, for the stowage of cargo is no simple matter.

Tilly, Ring, and Jublain were often with me. Tilly was the most knowing as to stowage and the management of such cargo. Jublain knew the most of the use of ordnance, and Ring, to my surprise, knew much of marketing.