Blood of Cain (Sean O'Brien (Mystery/Thrillers)) (53 page)

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BLOOD OF CAIN

The following is an excerpt from the sixth novel in the Sean O’Brien series coming in 2014.

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BLACK RIVER

BLACK RIVER

by

Tom Lowe

Prologue

North Florida, January, 1862

Henry Hopkins looked over his shoulder and saw his wife disappear behind the mist rising above the river. The fog couldn’t hide the fear on her face. If he wasn’t killed in the next hour, Henry knew that Angelina would be there for him when he rowed the small fishing boat back across the river, after midnight. She would wave the lantern precisely at 1:00 a.m. for a few seconds to help guide him to the clearing on the shore, to the Confederate-controlled side of the St. Johns River. But now Henry and another man rowed toward the most famous racing sailboat in the world, and Henry felt a knot grow in his stomach.

The river was a half mile wide at Horseshoe Bend. The weather-beaten boat smelled of dried fish guts, wet burlap, and burnt pipe tobacco. A crescent moon rose over the eastern shoreline and sent a sliver of light bouncing from the surface of the black river -- a river filled with alligators, some as long as the boat. And it was filled with Union Navy gunboats.

The men rowed quietly, the only sounds coming from water dripping off the oars, and from a great horned owl, its night calls echoing across the river from the top of a large cypress tree near the shore. The moon cast the tree in silhouette, its massive branches holding shadowy beards of Spanish moss hanging straight down. The old cypress tree had been standing since before the first Seminole War with the U.S. government. The tree was a well-known landmark, a visual marker near the secluded entrance to Dunn’s Creek, a deep-water tributary to the St. Johns River. It was in the creek where the Confederates were hiding
America
, the schooner that beat the British ten years earlier in a race now known as the
America’s Cup
. The creek was more than seventy feet deep near the place where it flowed into the St. Johns, a few miles downriver from Jacksonville, Florida.

America
was recently bought by the Confederate Navy and used as a blockade runner to outrun the Union Navy blocking southern ports. It had just made a trans-Atlantic voyage from Liverpool, England, and it sailed with a top-secret crew, cargo, and a contract to be delivered directly to the president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, and his top general, Robert E. Lee.

Henry wore his wide brim hat pulled low over his eyes. His unshaven face was lean and rawboned. He watched the river, eyes as dark as the water, searching for Union gunboats, listening for steam-fired engines coming from down river. His nostrils tested the breeze, trying to detect burning coal, the smell of trouble. The two men rowed silently and spoke in whispers as they got closer to
America,
its mast and stern in a dark profile under the moon rising high above Dunn’s Creek. Henry stopped rowing. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” asked William Kramer, a bull of a man with a thick chest and powerful forearms. He stopped, lifting his paddle from the water and sat erect, listening to the sounds of the night on the river.

Henry looked south. “Sounded like a yank patrol boat.”

“I didn’t hear nothin.' Just an old hoot owl, that's all.”

“C’mon. We gotta get into the creek and scuttle the ship before the yanks take her.”

“Who’d you say we’re supposed to meet?”

“Don’t know. Top secret. Maybe General Lee himself. Time’s a wasting. Let's row.”

They entered the wide mouth of Dunn’s Creek, bordered by towering cypress trees and thick hammocks of palms and live oaks older than the young nation. A weeping willow tree leaned into the creek, its tentacle-like limbs scraping the surface of black water. Bullfrogs competed in a thick chorus of mating calls. Hungry mosquitoes greeted the men with whines, orbiting their heads, biting at necks and ears.

America
, 101 feet in length and more than 170 tons of wood and steel, was anchored in the center of the wide creek. As the men rowed closer to the schooner, they heard the whinny of horses in the foliage on the creek bank. Henry touched his .36 caliber revolver on his side. He said, “Who goes there?”

Two men on horseback stepped into wedge of moonlight spilling between the limbs of a cypress tree near the creek. Both men were dressed in Confederate uniforms. They dismounted and signaled for Henry and William to row to the shore. Captain John Jackson Dickinson, brown eyes hard as steel, watched the men approach. His gaunt face was unreadable. A shaggy moustache curled over his top lip. He wore a Stetson hat, gray coat and pants, and a saber at his side. A crooked, unlit cigar protruded from the corner of his mouth. He held his horse's reins and waited. The other man, a sergeant, wore similar clothes, but disheveled, as if he'd slept in them. Dickinson stepped closer and said, “Good evening, men. I’m Captain Dickinson. This is Sergeant Reese. Which one of you is Henry Hopkins?”

“I am, sir. This is my friend, Corporal William Kramer.”

Dickinson nodded. “What are your plans to scuttle the ship?”

William spoke. “Sir, I have two very sharp augers. I believe I can drill half a dozen holes just below the waterline and she'll sink in no time.”

Dickinson snorted, releasing a deep breath. He removed the cigar from his mouth, spit out a sliver of tobacco, and looked at the yacht, his eyes softening, following the masts skyward. “Damn shame.
America
beat fourteen of the fastest yachts in the world from the British Royal Fleet in 1851. Back then the race was called the 100 Guinea Cup. After
America
took it by finishing eight miles ahead of the nearest yacht, Queen Victoria renamed the race
America's Cup
in honor of that yacht anchored in front of us.” He lit the cigar and blew smoke at the mosquitoes in front of his face. “It's just a matter of days before the yanks bring in the whole damn Union Navy to seize her. We can't let that happen. They'll outfit her with canons and aim 'em down our throats. Orders come from the very top. Commence your drillin', sir. Looks like you have the arms and shoulders to do it. There's one final matter.” He looked at William and asked, “Corporal, do you need help with your task?”

“I'm just gonna lean over the edge of the rowboat and bore holes into the yacht right below the waterline. I figure it won't take too long. Three in the bow and three in the stern.”

Dickinson turned to his sergeant. “Go on and sit in the boat, keep it from flipping over as Corporal Kramer cuts the holes. Lieutenant Hopkins, step ashore. I need to fill you in on your mission, and it’s your mission alone. Are we clear on this?”

Henry nodded. “Yes sir.”

As Henry stepped on dry land, the sergeant climbed in the boat. Within two minutes the men in the boat were at the bow of
America,
the auger chewing the first hole through wood.

Captain Dickinson watched the progress for a moment, eyes heavy, and then turned to Henry. “We removed all her cargo right after she arrived from England last week. She's made a trip over there to bring back something.” He opened a haversack tied to his horse, lifting a strongbox from the sack. He also removed a leather satchel.

“What's that?” asked Henry.

“No one, not the corporal, no one is to hear what I’m about to tell you. Understand?”

“Yes sir.”

“Inside this pouch is a letter of agreement between England and the Confederate States of America. It is signed by the Prime Minister and President Davis. I hear it has the blessing of the Queen. Your job is to get it this fully executed contract, and the strong box, to President Davis, and to do it traveling behind enemy lines. If you feel you are about to be captured, or worse, your last mission on earth is to make sure this agreement doesn’t fall into Union hands.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I’m told you were hand-picked by our Secret Service to carry out this job.”

“What’s in that box, sir?”

“A good faith payment from England. It’ll go into the Confederate treasury to help the CSA sustain the cause, and to give us added financial stability to fight this damn war.”

Henry nodded. “Understood, sir. I just wonder why England would do this, ‘cause I heard Queen Victoria’s neutral in the war.”

“Maybe, at least in public. But it boils down to business. For England, it’s about cotton and manufacturing. The Confederate Navy is ordering most of our ships, all being built from the shipyards in Liverpool.” Dickinson glanced at his horse. “I also hear you’re one of the best riders we have.”

“I do all right.”

“You’ll be traveling great distances, mostly by night. The strongbox is fairly light. A diamond doesn’t have the weight of gold.”

“Diamond?”

“At least one might have come from the Crown Jewels.”

“The Crown Jewels? One, sir? Which one?”

“We’re under strict orders not to open the box. But I’m told one of the most valuable diamonds in the world is in there. It’s here as a loan of sorts. A gamble to keep the South solvent. If this war drags on, and if the CSA treasury is drained, the diamond, if sold to the right people, might keep the cause alive. However, if the war begins to look like a losing proposition, regardless of a cash infusion, we’re supposed to return the diamond to England. All to be done with the utmost confidentially. It’s spelled out in this contract.”

A movement caught Dickinson’s eye.
America
was taking on water, slowly sinking. The men in the rowboat were now paddling back to shore. Dickinson said, “The irony tonight is that we are scuttling a ship that beat the British, and yet we might need their money to keep the Confederate states afloat. Are you prepared for what might be the most important, and most dangerous, one-man mission in this war?”

“I hope so, sir.”

“Henry Hopkins, son, I do, too. I sure as hell do.” Dickinson turned to watch
America
drop below the surface. Within minutes, the massive schooner vanished beneath the dark water. Only the three masts and their cross-beams protruded from the deep creek as if three crosses rose up in the moonlight to mark a watery grave.

***

An hour later, Henry Hopkins and William Kramer quietly began rowing back across the St. Johns River. Clouds passed slowly in front of the moon providing the cloak of darkness they needed. The breeze from the north brought the slight odor of burning coal.

Henry rowed, his eyes scanning the dark water, north to south. “Yanks are out there somewhere. I can smell them, smell the coal burning. It’s got to be a gunboat.”

William stopped rowing for a moment, listening, his eyes straining in the dark. “Yeah, I smell it. Can almost feel the steam on my skin. But I don’t see or hear anything.”

“Row. We’re only halfway across.” He looked toward the far western shore, the tree-line a slight silhouette in the dim moonlight. “There’s the lantern! Angelina’s signaling.”

William nodded. “Yep, she’s right on time. You got a fine woman, Henry. How’d a fella like you manage that?” William chuckled.

“I ask myself that all the time.”

William glanced down at the strongbox in the center of the boat. “I guess you’re not gonna tell me what’s in the box, huh?”

“You guessed right. I swore an oath. I’m just the courier.”

“Can you tell me what’s in that haversack around your neck? I know it’s important, or we wouldn’t be meeting those men and sinking the most famous schooner in the world. Is it something that sailed across on
America
from England to Florida?”

“I can tell you that … yes, it is. Come on, we gotta get to the other side of this river.”

The moon climbed out of the clouds like shedding dark clothes, the St. Johns now bathed in moonlight, the ripples across the black water shimmering with brushstrokes of buttery light. Henry said, “Let’ move! We’re sitting ducks out here.”

William rowed harder, looking north for a second. A bullet hit him in his throat, the impact knocking him on his back, his dying eyes focused on Henry.

“William!” Dear God! Hold on! I’ll get us to the other side.”

William tried to speak, his words gurgling, blood flowing out of his mouth.

Henry rowed with all his strength, looking over his shoulder to the spot on the distant shore where his wife waved the lantern, the moving pulse of light like the glow of a firefly in the black. He glanced back at his friend just as a dozen rounds burst from the gunboat skirting an oxbow bend in the river. The heavy bullets ripped through the wooden boat, blowing the sides and bottom out.

Within seconds, the boat began sinking, William Kruger’s body slipping beneath the black water, his wide eyes gazing up at the stars. Henry reached for the strongbox just as the boat split in half taking the strongbox and the body of William Kruger to the bottom of the river.

Henry clutched the haversack around his neck, trying to hold it above the surface of the cool water. A cloud slipped over the face of the moon and the river was black again. He could hear the steam engine on the patrol boat in the distance, somewhere in the inky darkness. Henry swam with all his strength toward the glow of the lantern. He swam toward the promise of a life with Angelina.

And he swam toward the hope of the South.