Fallen Mangrove (Jesse McDermitt Series Book 5)

FALLEN

MANGROVE

A Jesse McDermitt Novel

Wayne Stinnett

Published by Down Island Press, 2014, Travelers Rest, SC

Copyright © 2014 by Wayne Stinnett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, or electronic form without express written permission. Please do not participate in, or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication Data

Stinnett, Wayne/Wayne Stinnett

p. cm. - (A Jesse McDermott novel)

ISBN-13: 978-0692303528 (Down Island Press)

ISBN-10: 0692303529

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Books by the author:

Fallen Out

Fallen Palm

Fallen Hunter

Fallen Pride

Fallen Mangrove

Fallen Reef (Due out in Feb. 2015)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental

Most of the locations herein are also fictional, or used fictitiously. However, I took great pains to depict the location and description of the many islands, locales, beaches, reefs, bars, and restaurants in the Keys, and the Caribbean, to the best of my ability. The
Rusty Anchor
is not a real place, but if I were to open a bar in the Florida Keys, it would probably be a lot like depicted here. I’ve tried my best to convey the island attitude in this work.

Forward

I’d like to take a minute to thank the people who helped me to write my fifth novel. Through her love, words of encouragement, and support for our dreams, my wife Greta, is by far my biggest fan.

My youngest daughter, Jordy, will be a teenager by the time this book comes out. God help us. She’s been the source of a lot of laughs while I’m writing. I wouldn’t trade the interruptions for the world.

I drew on my relationship with my older daughter, Laura, in writing parts of this book. She’s a strong-willed, independent woman, who is a fantastic mommy to three of my grandkids. My wife’s two older kids are always encouraging me also.

Tim Ebaugh, of Tim Ebaugh Photography and Design created yet another great cover, playing with different lighting during a beautiful Florida sunset. You can see more of his work at
www.timebaughdesigns.com
.

Lastly, where would a writer be without a great editor and proofreader? While I can come up with a decent story line and characters, it’s Clio Editing Services who makes it make sense. Donna Rich has final eyes on each of my books, before they get to you. Thanks also to beta readers Sergeant Major Thomas Crisp, USMC (retired), Marcus Lowe, Timothy Artus, Joe Lipshetz, Nicole Godsey, Mike Ramsey, TSgt Alan Fader, USAF (Retired), and Bill Cooksey. Thanks also to Tripp Wacker of Ryan Aviation Seaplanes Inc. in Palm Coast, FL, for his knowledgeable assistance with the deHavilland Beaver DHC-2 amphibian. Lastly, thanks to my high school classmate
,
Debbie Kocol, owner of Crystal Waters and Crystal Villas on Elbow Cay, Bahamas, for her valuable assistance with much of the books location.

Dedication

To my late brother, Eric. For many years Eric and I, along with a constantly rotating cast of fun people, would go to the Florida Keys to dive, drink, and have fun. Many times, he and I were able to feed up to ten people from the sea, by diving for lobster and spear fishing. My most consistent and trusted dive buddy.

He was my very best friend.

“Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.”

Ernest Hemingway, “On the Blue Water,” 1936

The Florida Keys

Jesse’s Island

September, 1566

Try as they might, the crew was unable to stay close to the fleet through the thick fog that enveloped them at dusk. Previous nights hadn’t been a problem. The lanterns on the other ships had been visible on the inky blackness of the ocean for nearly a league. Those, however, had been clear nights. On this night, the ship drifted more than sailed, with almost no wind to speak of, shrouded by a dense, heavy fog.

The previous evening, as the fog began to set in, the Captain had suggested to the ship’s Master that they might steer slightly more easterly for a time to keep from colliding with one of the other vessels of the fleet in the fog. Eduardo Santiago de Camara was a man of some means in Seville who had served in the Spanish Army and been appointed to his current position as the ship’s Captain by the King himself.

The ship’s Master thought it unwise, even with the fog bank approaching. He was a younger man, but one who had sailed for many years in the Spanish flotas and worked his way up to his current rank as Master of the carrack
Nuestra Señora de Magdalena y las Angustias
. In deference to His Majesty King Philip II’s appointee, he turned to the pilot. Knowing that the Captain had almost no sailing experience at all, Master Miguel Vasquez de Benito gave the order.

“Come easterly one point.”

Having overheard the Captain, the pilot, also a seasoned sailor, nodded his understanding to the Master. A course change of one point would only separate them from the rest of the fleet by half a league over half a day. They could easily rejoin the convoy when the sun rose and burned off the fog. The pilot theatrically spun the helm more than half a turn, stopped it and spun it back after a short second’s pause. Checking the compass and noting the single degree of course change in the nearly still air, he nodded again to the Master, who smiled.

“I’ll be in my quarters if needed,” the Captain said and left the poop deck, descending the stairs to his quarters directly below.

The
Magdalena
was a fifteen-year-old square-rigged carrack, built and launched in Seville in 1551. Though much larger and a few years older than most in the fleet, she was still fast enough to keep up with the smaller, newer galleons. This was due in part to her added topsails, bowsprit sails, and lateen-rigged mizzen. It was also due in larger part to her Master and crew.

With a beam of nine meters and a deck length of forty meters, she displaced six-hundred tons when loaded with cargo, passengers, and crew. She was fully loaded on this voyage, having a crew of seventy-five men and an additional twenty-two passengers. Her cargo consisted of silver, gold, rare gems, and pearls bound for the government in Spain, along with trade goods of rum, sugar, spices, tobacco, and silk from the Far East.

The fleet had left Havana Harbor nine days before. Miguel was not very concerned about weather this time of year; it was September, and hurricanes were unlikely. His greatest concerns were the heavy gold and silver in the bottom of the hold and, of course, his passengers. The big ship rode low in the water and was very steady in the strong southwesterly breeze out of Havana.

Before loading in Havana, his Quartermaster had advised removing all of the ballast stones they always added to the hold before leaving the docks in the mouth of Rio Guadalquivir outside of Seville. That was how heavy the treasure currently in the hold was.

They’d sighted Cayo Hueso the evening of the second day and turned east-northeast, following close to the chain of islands known as Los Cayos de Florida. But not too close. The reefs just to the south of those wretched, dry rocks were treacherous and had laid claim to many a ship and man. Although Cayo Hueso had fresh water, it was the only island in the long chain that did, and it produced very little. Save for that one grace and the diminutive deer that could be found on one of the larger islands, none were considered habitable.

For another day and a half, they had the wind astern, sailing at a good speed. The ships made it to the eastern end of the keys and sighted the mainland for the first time. The skies were favorable and the seas nearly calm as they made the turn to the northeast, following the coastline, sometimes less than half a league off shore. The shallow reefs were fewer here and much closer to shore.

For three more days, they held course, until finally the coastline began to curve away to the northwest and they started to encounter the long, slow-moving rollers of the open ocean. The
Magdalena
trailed the convoy of five caravels and four galleons, the latter bristling with cannons from both sides, on the gently rolling sea.

Two days later, just past midday, they sighted puffy white clouds building to the southeast, indicating the larger islands of the northern Bahamas. Spaniards had killed or enslaved all of the Lucayos, the primitive inhabitants of these northern islands. Since the Spaniards found the islands unsuitable for anything, they had remained uninhabited for more than a generation now.

It was on the evening of their ninth day at sea, of the planned eight-week crossing back to Spain, that they encountered the fog bank. It was unusual this far to the east, but Miguel had seen many unusual things in his twenty years before the mast. He’d started at the age of eight as a page, doing the most menial of tasks aboard ship, then worked his way up to apprentice, which was none the better. He’d then been promoted to able sailor, second mate, first mate, and now Master of his own ship. With the Captain abed, the ship was his. Not that it wasn’t when the fool was on deck. He was a mere figurehead, a pompous Lord that had tired of waging war on land and wanted to see the West Indies.

An hour after the sun had gone down, the fog had enveloped them so completely he could see nothing beyond the rails. Having roused himself from his bunk in the officers’ quarters, the second mate joined Miguel on the poop deck. Giving the man his heading, Miguel turned command of the ship over to him, then went to his own cabin to sleep.

Miguel hadn’t been asleep long when a change in the ship’s attitude roused him. He lay in his bunk listening.
Probably just a wharf rat scurrying around
, he thought. Then he felt an almost imperceptible nudge, as if some giant denizen of the deep had gently pushed against the hull of the ship.

He came out of his bunk quickly and made his way to the main deck, where he was dazzled by the number of stars in the sky. The fog had apparently lifted.

He climbed the stairs to the poop deck and spoke to the second mate. “What was it that I felt a moment ago? Did you change course?”

“No, sir,” replied the mate, a short, stout, well-seasoned sailor of twelve years with dark curly hair. “We hold the course yet that we’ve been on for two hours.”

Miguel went to the port rail and looked ahead and to the left of the ship. The rest of the fleet was not to be seen, just the eerie darkness of the sea and the stars above it.
Far above
, he thought.
As clear as this night’s sky is, I should be able to see stars all the way to the horizon.
The realization hit him—the fog bank.
The rest of the fleet must yet be blanketed in the cursed fog.

He returned to the helm and called down to the pilot, who was sleeping on a mat on the quarterdeck by the stairs. “Señor Martinez, rouse yourself and give me a knot speed.”

Martinez rose from his mat and gathered his knotted line, which was hanging on the bulkhead of the Captain’s cabin. It had a triangle of wood attached to the end and knots tied at regular intervals along its length. He descended to the main deck and dropped a third of the coil into the water. A moment later, the wooden triangle caught the water and the line became taut in the pilot’s hand.

Miguel turned a sandglass on a bezel and said, “Read it.”

The pilot loosened his grip and let the line slide through his hands, counting the knots precisely spaced.

When the thirty-second sandglass ran out, Miguel said, “Time,” and looked down over to where the pilot stood, two decks below.

The pilot looked up and said, “Three and a half knots, Master de Benito.”

“Three and a half knots? Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir,” came the reply.

“Very well, go back to sleep.” As he returned to the helm, he muttered, “Three and a half knots.” Then he turned to the second mate and asked, “How long ago did the fog lift?”

“Mere minutes after you took to bed, sir,” the mate replied.

“I assume the wind picked up slightly about that time?”

“Slowly, sir. Almost imperceptibly. And more southerly.”

He looked at the mate in alarm for a moment.
A southerly wind?
He thought. “Three and a half knots for two hours,” he muttered again as he looked out toward the fog bank. He calculated the distance in his head. With the rest of the fleet in irons in the fog and the
Magdalena
angling slightly away, the fleet would be nearly two full leagues astern and falling back.

He went to the stern rail but saw no lights save the stars. He knew that this late in the hurricane season, most storms formed in the far eastern ocean, just off the coast of Africa, and remained at low latitudes before turning toward the mainland of Florida or the great cape to its north. Such a storm would produce northerly winds as it approached. While storms that formed early in the season usually rose up south of Cuba in the vast North Sea, or even the large gulf to the west of Florida, some had been known to cross the whole of the peninsula into the Atlantic. These were the storms that brought southerly winds. He’d never heard of a storm late in the season doing this, but it was exactly what he was thinking.

He shouted to the pilot over the rail, “Belay that, Antonio. Roust the navigator, if you would.”

A few minutes later, while Miguel considered what they should do, the ship’s navigator climbed to the poop deck carrying his charts and logbooks.

“You wished to see me, Master de Benito.”

“My apologies for interrupting your slumber, Señor Castellano. What can you tell me of these northern islands? Is there a harbor where a ship can anchor to be safe from a storm?”

“A storm?”

“Supposing there were a storm. Where might we find refuge?”

Juan Castellano was a learned man, tall and slight of build. He’d studied at Universidad de Sevilla, but he had an adventurous spirit that drove him to use his knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and cartography to secure a position with the Flota de Indias, the Spanish West Indies Fleet.

“Yes, there is such a place,” Juan replied. “However, it is many leagues to the south. Between Curateo and San Salvador Island there is a vast sound called Xuma.”

“Please show me where it is, Juan.”

Choosing one of his charts from his chest, he laid the others aside and rolled it out on the desk behind the helm. “We are northwest of here,” he said pointing to a spot on the chart. “This is Isla Barionegne and there are reefs and cays all along the east side.”

Moving his finger along the chart marked by many
X
’s, he came to a large island. “This is Lucaioneque, with many small islands to the east, the Abaco Keys.”

Pointing to another spot on the chart, he said, “Here is the entrance to Xuma Sound.” Looking up at the canvas and then to the stars, he quickly calculated their heading in his head and added, “I fear it is a good two-day sail with favorable winds.”

“What about this harbor?” Miguel asked, pointing at a spot nearer their location between Lucaioneque and Barionegne.

“Those waters are controlled by the French, only recently.”

Miguel considered what the navigator had shown him. If a hurricane were approaching from the west, it would be wise to sail south toward the sheltered waters of the Sound.
But, what of the rest of the fleet?
He wondered. Again, his thoughts turned toward his primary responsibility—his ship, his cargo, and his passengers.

Miguel had sailed through three hurricanes, the ships he’d crewed sustaining heavy damage and losing many of his fellow crewmen. He seemed to reach a decision and glanced up at his navigator and friend. “It will be a difficult two-day sail, Juan. With many course changes in this unfavorable wind. I fear a late season hurricane is upon us, coming across the peninsula of Florida. Can you get us to this Xuma Sound?”

The navigator again looked up at the stars for a moment and said, “Yes, Miguel. I can get us there. As you said, with this southerly wind, it will be difficult.”

Looking around at the horizon, Juan asked, “What of the other ships of the convoy?”

“I know not where they are,” Miguel replied. “The Captain ordered a course change to separate us in the fog. It may very well be our saving grace, if indeed this is an east-moving hurricane I feel approaching.”

“I will plot a course with appropriate turns to arrive safely as quickly as possible,” Juan said.

“If it is a hurricane,” said Miguel thoughtfully, “the present wind direction tells me that it will pass to the north of us. Sailing south, even against unfavorable winds, seems most prudent.”

A few minutes later, the navigator handed the second mate a scroll on which he’d written the courses to be steered and for how long, throughout the night, barring any change in wind direction. He then went back to his bunk to be rested for the next day. His instructions, as always, were based on a speed of three knots. Though he lacked the intellect of the navigator, the second mate knew the sea and would make adjustments to the timing of the turns if their speed increased or decreased.