Jack Iron (5 page)

P
RIVATE DELL HITNER RUBBED
a hand across his weathered features and tried to focus his red-rimmed eyes on the darkness. Guarding the south road was a wearisome chore that he resented being assigned to. No one ever came down the road; certainly no one expected the British to, because the road itself only continued on for another mile or so before petering out in a labyrinth of forests and swamps. There were a couple of plantations up this way, nothing more. Certainly no redcoats, unless one counted the occasional red wolf that could still be glimpsed on moonlit nights stealing out of the black forest in search of its four-legged dinner.

“What’s that!” said the man pulling picket duty with Hitner. He was a skittish lad with an active imagination, who seemed to hear something almost every hour on the hour. Private Francis Pelliere grabbed for his rifled musket and accidentally discharged the weapon as he scrambled clear of the small cookfire that had supplied the two near-frozen soldiers with their only warmth on this winter’s night.

Hitner was older and wiser, but his back hurt and he was out of patience. He dodged the lead slug as it whined past his ear. Inches to the left and he’d have been a casualty. Hitner grabbed the cap from Pelliere’s head and proceeded to slap the nervous youth across the cheeks and shoulders.

“Enough I say! Enough! I’ve lost a lifetime of sleep with you on guard and you’ve scared me nigh on to death with your imaginary patrols, but I’ll not have my lights shot out just because you hear redcoats behind every hedge and bush.”

Pelliere shielded his face with his hands and forearms as he retreated from his companion’s onslaught. He was a thin and clumsy youth with little stomach for the military career that he’d unwittingly undertaken for the love of a cobbler’s daughter who had an all-consuming passion for young men in uniform. Hitner’s would-be assassin pleaded for clemency. “It was an accident!”
It was always an accident.

Dell Hitner relented and tossed Pelliere’s cap down on his chest. Hitner could afford to be merciful to the youngster. Anyway, his back hurt too damn much to continue the lad’s punishment.

“Listen you well, my edgy friend,” said Hitner, leaning forward on his musket, propping himself up to catch his breath. He rubbed a work-roughened hand across his dry mouth, exhaled sharply to clear his throat and nose, and then continued his admonishment. “From now on, you stand your guard with your musket unprimed. That way, if you must awaken me at least I won’t get shot betwixt the eyes for my trouble.”

“But what if the redcoats come a-charging out of the woods?”

“Why, then they’ll kill you, dear boy. And more’s the pity they don’t come on right now.” Hitner chuckled, and sighed, then held out his callused hand. He was a farmer by trade whose own plot of land was nestled between two large plantations upriver. He and his wife held no slaves but worked their soil with the help of two trusty mules and a cantankerous coon hound.

Pelliere hesitated before taking the farmer’s offered hand. But Hitner hauled the youth to his feet and even helped to dust him off. Suddenly Pelliere’s eyes widened, and he gasped and pointed past Hitner and then grabbed for his powder horn.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” the farmer exclaimed, and batted the powder horn from Pelliere’s grasp. “You got wood chips for brains, I swear. Now see here, we just come to an understanding…” Hitner turned and froze as four figures materialized out of the gloom. “Sonovabitch!” He tried to bring his own musket to bear on the shadowy intruders.

“Uh—halt. Who be you? Stand and deliver.”

“I’ll deliver your teeth if you point that musket at me,” Kit growled. An aura of sheer menace preceded him as McQueen slogged out of the underbrush and onto the wheel-rutted road. They had gotten lost in the dark and were soaked to the knees from wandering through a cypress bog. He was cold and hungry and mad as hell and wasn’t about to pause for the formalities of a password. His hard bronze eyes were fixed on an image that no one else could see. Cesar Obregon drifted before him, mocking him, and leading him down the road to town.

“It’s the lieutenant… why, bless my soul. Lieutenant McQueen,” the older sentry exclaimed.

“Thank God,” said Private Pelliere, but his voice trailed off as he added “I think…” for McQueen wasn’t alone. Two fierce-looking Choctaws and bull-necked Henry Tregoning brushed past, chasing the redheaded lieutenant.

“Good evening, gents,” said Tregoning, hoping to pass unnoticed. The deeper he went behind the American lines, the more like a target he felt. “Bloody awful weather, ain’t it?” The three men melted into the night before the sentries had a chance to protest. Pelliere was thankful to be rid of them all. He did not trust these heathen redskins any further than he could toss one. As for Dell Hitner, the crusty farmer stood between the wheel ruts and peered down the road. He scratched his skull and wondered if he was losing his senses. Damn if one of Lieutenant McQueen’s howling savages hadn’t looked and sounded like a blasted Englishman.

In New Orleans on Dumaine Street, Cesar Obregon stood as still as a statue while his mind wrestled with a problem. He could approach Widow LeBeouf’s house from Bourbon Street or turn here and proceed up the alley to the rear of the house and the small but stoutly built barn that housed her carriage, a pair of gray mares, and, most recently, a wagon of “medicines” and supplies. Well, the ruse wasn’t completely a lie. Gold was a sure cure for most wounds.

Obregon grinned and proceeded down the alley. Though he was in a hurry to join LeBeouf’s party and feast his eyes on Iron Hand’s delectable half-breed daughter, gold was a mistress whose charms he had never been able to resist. A wind gust pressed the hem of his greatcoat against his legs as he led his horse toward the rear of the brightest house on the block. Music drifted toward him, borne on the night air and the darkness that seemed to part before him. The buccaneer took note that the entrance to the alley had been unguarded. Obviously Jackson was relying on the ruse of the medical supplies. Old Hickory had no concept of the elaborate network of informers used by the Baratarian smugglers. Jean Laffite, his brothers, and fellow freebooters like Obregon had a thousand eyes and ears along the coast and upriver for a hundred miles. Nothing and no one entered the lower delta country without the sea rovers knowing who and where and why.

Obregon reached the barn unchallenged, his cheeks and ears benumbed from the cold. He’d kept his hands tucked in his coat pockets and was able to reach for the latch with limber fingers. That’s when he heard a musket being cocked and saw a gun barrel poke from between the shutters of a hayloft window directly overhead.

“Who the blazes are you?” a gravelly disembodied voice drifted down from above.

“Cesar Obregon,” the Castilian replied. “At your service, my friend.”

“I ain’t friend to no pirate.”

“A pirate. You discredit me, sir. I am a privateer in the service of these United States,” Obregon said with a disingenuous smile and courtly bow.

“Callin’ sowbelly… uh, turkey and trimmings don’t make it anything but sowbelly,” said Gravel Voice. “Pirates is pirates, now just you stand clear.”

“I am a guest of the Madam LeBeouf and have ridden in from Chalmette. I do not intend to leave my poor mount untended and without shelter.”

“Hell and biscuits, just wait a minute,” said Gravel Voice. “I’ll need to check a moment.”

Obregon nodded. So the guard wasn’t alone. He obviously had someone of superior rank to contend with. But how many companions in all? He stamped his feet to get the blood going and blew in his cupped hands. At last the hayloft shutters opened a crack.

“All right. Leave your horse. We’ll bring it inside.”

“See here. This is a game animal and one I like to care for proper.”

“Your horse will be well looked after.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because the men of the Nashville Mounted Rifles pride themselves on the quality of their stock. Ain’t no finer horses or horsemen in all the state. Just hitch it up and we’ll bring her in after you’re gone.”

Nashville Mounted Rifles, thought Obregon. Another morsel of information and one he hoped to put to good use. Off to the left of the barn doors, a pair of black iron rings dangled from the barn wall. Obregon looped his reins through the ring closest him. He had discovered all he could, for now.

“As you wish,
mi amigo
,” said the buccaneer. “You have been most helpful.”

“Ain’t no ‘
amigo
,’ neither. The name is Whipple. Emory Whipple. I’ll give your nag a combing and straw and bid you a good night.” Gravel Voice closed the shutter and ended the conversation. But Obregon was satisfied. He was convinced the medicine wagon carried gold. And with the alley unguarded, the men in the barn were left virtually blind. General Jackson was clever, but no match for the Hawk of the Antilles. The Castilian smiled, satisfied with his evening’s efforts. He felt like celebrating. And he intended to do just that, with Raven’s help, of course.

A massive gray-bearded figure filled the window overlooking the alley and the widow’s barn. Iron Hand O’Keefe had crept from the bedroom and abandoned the slumbering boy to his dreams.

The music from downstairs was louder in the dark hallway between the bedrooms. All the better to conceal the big man’s rasping cough. Spend a night with that black-hearted lad—not hardly. O’Keefe had outlasted the youth and exited the room in triumph. He knew the way to the widow’s bedroom, but the well-placed window that offered him a view of the barn caught his attention.

O’Keefe’s breath clouded the window. He dabbed a finger and drew a line through the moisture and followed Obregon as the buccaneer crossed the alley and vanished beneath the windowsill, following a stone walkway around the house to the front courtyard.

“Hmmm,” O’Keefe muttered to himself. “Wonder what that Spaniard’s up to.” Kit had entrusted O’Keefe with news of the gold’s arrival. The Irishman had kept the news to himself. “He might know something. When a freebooter smells gold, trouble’s sure to follow.” It was General Jackson’s intention to keep the wagon under a token guard, hoping to avoid suspicion and free more of the Tennessee militia for the breastworks where those eagle-eyed riflemen would do the most good. Kit had suggested to O’Keefe that a couple of Choctaw warriors stationed at either end of the alley might be a wise precaution. However, O’Keefe had yet to choose the braves.

“Well, Captain Obregon, I have my eye on you,” the Irishman grumbled. “It’ll take a better man than you to catch Iron Hand O’Keefe off guard.” He turned from the window and collided with Johnny Fuller, who had stolen up behind the Irishman while his attention was centered on the events in the alley.

O’Keefe gave such a start he crashed back against the window and cracked a glass pane with the back of his head. Being cautious by nature, the Irishman immediately took the small shadowy figure for a threat.

“Ah!” he bellowed, and hand and hook shot up to block a blow that never fell. Seconds later he realized the identity of the intruder who had crept up on him in the hall. “Gawd strike ye, or has ol’ Scratch sent you to end my days!”

“Did I do something wrong?” Johnny Fuller asked, feigning innocence. He enjoyed giving the big man a scare. “You told me you had the keenest ear in the woods.”

“Well, sure and by golly I ain’t in the woods!” O’Keefe said bringing his lantern-jawed, leathery face close to Fuller’s. “Now why don’t you be a good lad and toddle off to bed and leave a man to a man’s business.”

“You mean a widow’s business,” the boy corrected, and retraced his steps down the dark hall to his room. He paused by a tall narrow table on which an oil lamp was precipitously balanced alongside a little wooden figure, a keel boatman carved of cypress wood. “Of course, it won’t do you no good. She’s got her sights set on a Frenchman. So it’s best you bring your poor old bones to bed.”

O’Keefe blinked and stared in disbelief at the boy. Little Johnny Fuller sounded almost motherly. The Irish-born Choctaw chieftain strode purposefully up to the widow’s bedroom and tried the knob. By damn, it was locked. No doubt she anticipated he might try to wait for the widow in her room and ambush any would-be consort who tried to follow her through the door.

He scowled and scratched at his silvery beard, gave his predicament some thought, then shrugged and lumbered off to his bedroom.

Johnny Fuller sat propped up in bed, O’Keefe’s clay pipe clenched between his teeth, tobacco smoke curled from the bowl. The boy puffed merrily and watched himself in a hand mirror to see how grown-up he looked.

“Not my pipe, you little varlet,” O’Keefe growled. “Enough is enough!” He swept down on the boy with all the fury of a spring squall. Thunder filled the big man’s voice; lightning crackled in his red-rimmed eyes. “I’d sooner run a gauntlet of howling redsticks than abide ye one moment longer. I’ll—”

Johnny Fuller reached inside his nightshirt and retrieved a leaden bit of metal that he held out toward Iron Hand O’Keefe, stopping him in his tracks.

“I’ll trade your pipe for this.”

O’Keefe’s bluster subsided and he squinted at the youth’s outstretched hand. A lesser spirit would have been reduced to tears before the Irishman’s terrible onslaught. But here was Johnny Fuller trying to work a bargain.

“A man’s tobacco pipe can be a real comfort on a cold night,” O’Keefe scoffed. “What’s a lad like you got to offer in trade.”

Fuller opened his hand. “The key to the widow’s bedroom door. I snuck it off’n her dressing table before she brung me over.”

O’Keefe stared at the key. A slow grin crawled across his grizzled countenance. “Hmmm. Stealing don’t make a man special,” he soberly pronounced, as if preparing to give the lad a stern lecture. “But knowing what to steal…” The grin broadened. “Younker, there may be hope for you yet.”

The widow LeBeouf knew how to host a party. A cordial temptress, always deferring to the needs and the wants of her guests, she flitted from one acquaintance to the next. She danced a quadrille with Major DuClerc of the Louisiana Battalion and another with Wainright Vasquez, a local plantation owner whose warehouses languished empty thanks to the British blockade at the entrance to the Mississippi. The Spaniard Vasquez had lent his slaves to the effort of fortifying the port with a series of breastworks and ramparts guarding the approaches to the town from both the river and landward sides.