Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (38 page)

Arriaga's nod
verified that her suggestion had been the action he'd intended all along.
 
While he and Tomás supervised a three-man
gun crew readying a cannon with powder, wads, a ball, and a cord dipped in
saltpeter, El Escorpión fired again.

The crew
waited.
 
El Escorpión's next shot
allowed the team to get a bearing on the musket flash.
 
A sailor ignited the match through the
touchhole.
 
Sophie covered her ears.

The cannon
vomited a yard-long tongue of flame, and the
Gloria Maria
quivered with
the force of it.
 
Out in the jungle, the
ball smacked trees and chewed into branches and bushes.
 
The echo of the blast faded from the cove,
and Sophie fanned away the sulfurous stench of burning powder.

A minute of
quiet elapsed, then another.
 
Five
minutes went by, and they still heard nothing from shore.
 
El Escorpión had understood Arriaga's
message.

The captain
strolled back to the four, his expression and bearing dignified.
 
"
Boa noite
, my passengers, and
may your sleep be restful at last."
 
He inclined his head and returned forward.

Sentries took
up posts around the deck, pistols and cutlasses in their sashes and belts.
 
Jacques lowered his voice.
 
"A pity we have not the money to pay
Arriaga to hang El Serpiente.
 
I will
sleep tonight with my gear blocking the door and all my firearms loaded."

"I won't
argue that."
 
David jerked his head
toward the companionway.
 
"Let's
talk."
 
They clambered down, and in
the cramped corridor, he turned a grim face to Sophie.
 
"I thought you'd get us all abandoned
ashore."

She regarded
him with a cool eye.
 
"Why?"

"Catholic
women don't enjoy the liberties of American Colonial women, and they don't
challenge Catholic men."

She cocked an
eyebrow.
 
"To the contrary, it
appears that Catholic men indulge women who stand up to them."

"Only when
it
amuses
them.
 
Watch your
tongue with Arriaga — and in Havana."

Jacques shifted
from one foot to the other.
 
"Enough of the cultural lesson.
 
We have a Spanish demon in the hold.
 
Let us hope the captain and crew take adequate precautions."

David massaged
his temple.
 
"Those assassins must
have chartered that fishing sloop in the cove to the north of us and headed out
around the same time as the
Zealot
.
 
The rotten luck of it all — that the storm blew them our way."

Jacques's face
torqued.
 
"Who else did the storm
blow here?"

David swatted
the Frenchman's shoulder.
 
"Sophie
was right yesterday.
 
Cease tempting the
Fates.
 
Imagine the frigate and
ship-of-the-line on the bottom of the Atlantic, and thank the gods we're
leaving Abaco on the morrow."

***

Predawn on
Monday, the report of a pistol awakened Sophie.
 
Shouts and running on deck pumped disorientation through her
head.
 
She found the empty blanket
beside her still warm and heard Mathias sliding on his trousers.
 
A man on deck screamed in agony.
 
She groped for her clothing.

"Stay put,
Sophie!"

In the corridor
outside, Jacques pounded to the companionway with a war whoop.
 
David's voice roared after him.
 
"You damned old fool, get back
here!"

"Uncle!
 
Damn his eyes —"

"Mathias,
you
stay put, too!"

A second man on
deck hollered with pain.
 
Sophie,
hopping into her trousers, heard a body-sized splash out in the cove, followed
by pistol shots from deck.
 
Barefoot,
she leaned against the bulkhead, trying to steady her breathing.

Mathias found
her in the darkness and stilled her in his arms.
 
"Listen."
 
The
gunshots tapered off.
 
Harsh voices
faded into murmurs.
 
"Whatever
happened is over."

An occasional
murmur of Portuguese punctuated the pacing footsteps overhead.
 
She envisioned El Escorpión swimming across
the cove, climbing aboard to rescue his fellow, and slitting sailors' throats
before the rest of the crew chased him, empty-handed, back into the cove.
 
The sky paled.
 
She heard commands, more footsteps on deck, the splash of the
lowered gig, and the creak of blocks.
 
The brig was underway.
 
Mathias
released her.
 
They finished dressing.

Footsteps down
the companionway preceded David's voice.
 
"Jacques le Coeuvre, what in hell did you think you were doing by
running up there into all that?"

"Had my
old bones been a few seconds quicker, David, one sailor might still be
alive."

Mathias shoved
aside their gear and opened the door.
 
"Come in and give us your account, Uncle."

His thumb
hooked in his belt near his tomahawk, Jacques strutted in.
 
David stood in the open door with an
occasional glance toward the companionway, his fowler in hand.
 
Backlit by the lantern in the corridor, the
Frenchman swung his beady gaze about the cabin.
 
"El Serpiente killed two sailors and escaped.
 
Right over the rail into the water I saw him
fly, and he but ten feet from me."
 
His fist gripped the head of the tomahawk.

David
scowled.
 
"This is madness!
 
How did he escape?
 
Arriaga left him bound and under guard."

"
Oui
."
 
Jacques shook his finger.
 
"I tell them last night to search him
thoroughly.
 
He manages to conceal a
blade smaller than the length of my little finger — see here, eh?
 
He uses this blade to weaken his bonds while
the attention of the guard wanders.
 
He
pretends to fall ill or be in pain.
 
The
guard comes close to investigate.
 
Ssssslck
."
 
Jacques swept his forefinger across his
throat.
 
"Then he takes the guard's
cutlass and runs for the deck.
 
A man on
deck spots him and sounds the alarm by firing a pistol.
 
Another man tries to stop him.
 
Ssssslck
, two blows take off his arm
and slice his neck.
 
The assassin also
kicks Tomás in the groin.
 
Men converge
on him, but even more menacing, Jacques le Coeuvre, warrior for Montcalm,
charges him with his tomahawk."
 
The Frenchman gestured out the port light.
 
"Over the side the coward goes, into the water and the night.
 
The captain should have hanged the cur last
night."

"Uncle,
don't remind Arriaga of your advice.
 
He
lost his bounty and two men.
 
I'm sure
he'd rather lose
us
."

Since the
Portuguese were using the gig to tow the brig into deeper water, the travelers
headed out.
 
Forward on deck, they stood
at the rail and squinted into orange sunrise warming their faces.
 
Dawn trimmed the edges of cumulus with gold
and rose, and a breeze played with the sails of the foremast and repaired
mainmast.
 
After the sailors climbed
back aboard and stowed the gig alongside, the island of Great Abaco slipped
into shadow behind them, its jungle still mottled with the gloom of early
morning.

Sophie shielded
her eyes and squinted westward.
 
"Cuba is southwest.
 
Why are
we headed east?"

Jacques rested
his elbows on the railing.
 
"Perhaps the captain decided to go through the Bahamas, rather than
to the west of the islands.
 
Here he
comes now.
 
Ask him."

From amidships
a somber-faced Arriaga headed their way, a rolled map in his hand.
 
They waited in silence for him, and Sophie
resisted squirming at the hollow look in his eyes.
 
"You must be curious about our bearing.
 
I plan to avoid much of the Gulf Stream by
sailing through the Bahamas.
 
Let me
show you."

He unrolled the
map and pointed with the forefinger of his other hand.
 
"After we tack to south and clear
Abaco, we head west, passing north of Eluthera.
 
We continue south-southeast along the eastern side of the Andros
Islands and round the southernmost of those islands.
 
From there, with continued winds from the southeast, Havana lies
almost straight west, and the trip takes but another day or two."
 
He rolled up the map, tucked it beneath his
arm, and looked east again.

Mathias pitched
his tone low, gentle.
 
"Thank you
for updating us,
capitão
."

Arriaga studied
the sunrise, his bearing formal.
 
"I have been captain of the
Gloria Maria
for six years.
 
Never have I lost a man at sea.
 
At noon today, we will give Juan and Carlos
to the Atlantic."
 
He looked at
Jacques.
 
"Would that I had
listened to you last night,
Monsieur
."

He walked away,
his shoulders back and his head high, yet Sophie nevertheless felt him
diminished.
 
She regarded her
companions.
 
"Gentlemen, we have a
ceremony to attend today at noon."

"Indeed."
 
David's fist braced on the railing.
 
"We certainly do."

Chapter Thirty

THE SWEET SCENT
of tobacco carried in the morning breeze.
 
Pipe in hand, Jacques sauntered forward to join Sophie.
 
"My nephew is about to checkmate your
brother."

"What's
new?
 
After the captain declined playing
cards with David, he needed
some
mountain to climb."

"Chess is
definitely not his mountain, but I admire his perseverance.
 
It must be a St. James trait."

"Hah.
 
I've persevered at little but eating and
sleeping since Monday."
 
She raised
her arms overhead and stretched her ribcage for a few seconds.
 
"Granted, four days of indolence feels
delightful after two weeks of hell, but really, I've been quite dormant."

"Not
so."
 
Jacques puffed his pipe.
 
"You are preoccupied."

Perplexity
wound through her sigh.
 
"I keep
thinking about what David said in St. Augustine.
 
Mathias found no sign that El Serpiente had an accomplice the
morning he shot Hernandez, but how else could he have shot Hernandez and his
horse from opposing directions?
 
Even if
he galloped past — bah!"
 
She threw
her hands up.
 
"And how
coincidental is it that Hernandez sent us to Luciano de Herrera, who sent us to
Evans's Inn, where El Serpiente found us?"

"Let us
leave the peculiarities of the shooting for a moment, for I admit that puzzles
me, too.
 
What does the incident at
Evans's Inn suggest about
Señor
Herrera?"

"That he's
a triple agent for the rebels, the Spaniards, and the Rightful
Blood."
 
Jacques smiled in
agreement.
 
"Gods, what lies he
lives.
 
And this Don Alejandro de Gálvez
character."
 
She flushed.
 
"I've a certain fancy running through
my bones about him, but it cannot be correct —"

"
Non,
non
, trust your instincts.
 
Tell me
what you feel."

She
hesitated.
 
"Don Alejandro is an
impersonator."
 
She burst into
laughter.
 
"Absurd, isn't it?"

Jacques
growled.
 
"
Why
is it
absurd?"

"The
Gálvez wouldn't send anyone except a family member to so important a meeting
because sending an impostor indicates they're playing games with the rebel
couriers.
 
That's hardly a display of
trust from them."

The Frenchman
dripped contempt into his voice.
 
"Trust?
 
Your thinking is as
closed as that of a pig in Parliament."

"Then you
believe Don Alejandro is an impersonator and the Gálvez are toying with the
rebels?
 
Spaniards!
 
I cannot abide with such sneakiness.
 
The idea makes no sense."

Jacques smoked
his pipe with fury, and his eyes hardened.
 
"Britons — fools!
 
Ironic
that they will not trust an honest native, but if a dishonest man extends what
they
consider civility to them, they will give him their very entrails.