Judith E French (25 page)

Moonfeather handed Ross his knife belt, a Shawnee axe, and a pistol. “I need a bow,” he said, “and a good musket.”

“Are you fit to ride?” Cameron asked Ross.

“Aye—fit enough for this.” Moonfeather’s leaves had dissipated the fog in his head, but they had done nothing to calm the raw fury rising in his chest. Murrane had dared to come and take Anne. Even now, while he stood here doing nothing, she was at that butcher’s mercy.

Someone shoved a bow and quiver full of arrows into his hands, and he slung them over his back. A musket with a leather strap and a powderhorn followed. Grimly, he loaded the gun, ramming home the lead slug and priming the pan. Anne . . . his Anne. When he caught up with Murrane, the Englishman would wish he’d died on Sheriffmuir Field.

Hoofbeats heralded the coming of a rider on a fast horse. The man yanked the animal up hard, and Ross recognized the horseman as the guard from the Annapolis prison. “Lord Dunnkell,” Tom Pate shouted. “M’lord, I rode to Gentleman’s Folly, but they told me I could find ye here. The
Cumberland
upped anchor and sailed out of the harbor, sir. On the tide, three—four hours ago.” He looked around him at the smoking remains of the barn. “Saints in heaven—what’s happened here?”

“Murrane’s ship sailed?” Cameron said. “Three hours ago? That’s not possible. He attacked King’s Gift less than an hour ago.” He ran a hand through his hair. “For the love of God! They rode south—toward the bay.”

“He’s moved the
Cumberland
and anchored her somewhere off the shore,” Ross finished. “Murrane had to break the governor’s law to come after Anne. He’d not be fool enough to return to Annapolis Harbor after raiding the plantation and kidnapping Anne.”

“I’ve a fast sloop at my dock,” Cameron replied. “The
Cumberland
wasn’t built for speed. We can catch her before she gets out of the Chesapeake.” He turned back to Tom Pate. “You’ll be rewarded for taking the trouble to find me. I want you to ride back to the governor’s house and tell him what’s happened—wake him if you have to. Tell him we need ships with cannon and men to take the
Cumberland
and save Lady Anne.”

Moonfeather stepped close to Ross. “Murrane took the south road. On the shore of King’s Gift, in the marsh along the bay, Brandon and I keep a canoe for duck hunting and fishing. Niipan can find it in the dark.”

“Bring your sloop,” Ross said to Cameron, “and all the fighting men you can gather. I’ll track him overland.”

“Are you mad, Ross?” Cameron cried. “You can’t attack a three-mated merchant vessel with a canoe full of Indians.”

But Ross had already yanked Tom Pate from the saddle and swung up in his place. He pulled the horse’s head around and dug his heels into the animal’s sides. Niipan galloped after him on a gray horse with another Shawnee riding double behind him.

“Good hunting,
jai-nai-nah,
” Moonfeather whispered as her remaining warriors took up the trail at a hard run.

“Crazy fool,” Cameron said.

“Aye,” Moonfeather agreed as she clasped her amulet in her fist, “that he may be, Father. He could well be riding to his death—but since he is Ross Campbell, he has no other choice.”

 

Murrane was sick. He leaned over the edge of the captain’s bunk and threw up into a bucket. “Bring me wine,” he ordered Anne as he raised his head and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

Anne glared at him. She was sitting on the floor as far from Murrane as she could get in this small cabin. Her face was swollen, and one of her back teeth felt loose. She was covered with bruises. Her head ached, and her stomach was none too steady—but her mind was clear. “Go to hell,” she answered. The way Murrane was sweating and clutching his chest, his agitation, all pointed to a weak heart. She knew that deliberately provoking him could earn her another beating or even cost her her life, but she had to chance it.

She didn’t know if Ross was dead or alive. She prayed that someone had rescued him from the burning house—and that Murrane hadn’t shot him upstairs. If her father came looking for her, he’d go to Annapolis. That meant any rescue party would come too late. If she was to save her life and that of Ross’s unborn babe, she had to rely on her own wits.

Murrane had ordered the
Cumberland
’s captain to bring the vessel down the bay. They’d anchored as close to shore as possible, lowered the small boats, and come ashore. Anne didn’t know where they’d procured the horses some of them had ridden—she supposed they were stolen, or perhaps Murrane had arranged for part of his force to come overland from Annapolis and meet him.

According to the captain, the
Cumberland
had sailed from Annapolis harbor on the outgoing tide. The ship had ridden at anchor while Murrane and his soldiers attacked King’s Gift. They’d used the small boats to return to the
Cumberland,
and then Murrane had expected to set sail before any pursuers could catch up with him.

What they hadn’t counted on was a sandbar and an unusually low tide—a combination that had grounded the
Cumberland
until the next incoming tide lifted them off the bottom.

Murrane had gone berserk when he’d learned the ship was stuck. He’d ranted and raved. He’d cursed the crew and the captain—he’d even put a pistol to the master’s head and threatened to blow his brains out if he didn’t find a way to get the
Cumberland
off the sandbar immediately.

Anne was certain Murrane’s tantrum had brought on his sudden illness. He’d dragged her below and locked her in the cabin with him. For the past half hour, she’d been watching him without the slightest trace of pity—hoping his heart would fail and he would die before they could sail for England.

Swearing foully, he staggered to his feet and stood there swaying, clutching his left arm with his right hand. “You bitch,” he muttered. “You thought you’d make a fool of me with that half-breed Scot, didn’t you?” His face was chalk-white, and his bulging eyes revealed his suffering. “But John Brown made a cannon ball of Campbell’s head before you killed him. That was a sight for you, I’ll wager.”

Anne tensed her muscles and scanned the room for some weapon to use against him if he tried to harm her again. He looked like a man with one foot in the grave, but even if he was dying, he was still dangerous.

“I’m not a well man,” he complained in a guttural voice. He waved toward the bottle on the table. “Fetch me wine, woman.”

“You’re mad,” she said defiantly. “You’ve no right to order me about as though I were your servant. I’m not your wife, Fitzhugh—I never was. God help any woman under your roof.”

“Get! Me! Wine!”

“I’d sooner bring you coals in hell.” Warily, she got to her feet and took a few steps toward the table. Murrane began to choke again. His roupy cough grated on Anne’s nerves and raised gooseflesh on her skin. “You’re dying,” she taunted him. “You’d be better to spend your last hour praying for forgiveness for your black sins than drinking and cursing.”

He lowered himself onto the bunk and sat facing her, panting for breath. “You . . . you think you’d be free if I die?” he gasped. “You’re wrong. I’ve promised . . . promised your services to my men if anything happens to me. It’s . . . it’s a long voyage . . . to England.” He leered at her. “Soldiers need entertainment . . . to keep them from . . . getting stale.” He wiped his mouth again with his damp sleeve. “A lady would be . . . a novelty. Don’t you think?”

“I won’t whore for you, and I won’t whore for the filth you employ,” she flung back. Anne reached the table and uncorked the decanter. She’d give him the wine if he wanted it—a pity she couldn’t lace it with poison. “I’d sooner be dead,” she added softly as she approached him with the brimming cup.

He laughed. “You may learn to like it. Soldiers are hard men.” He laughed louder at his crude jest. “The softer the lady, the rougher they like their men.”

“You swine.” She threw the contents of the cup into his face and dodged away from his swinging fist. Murrane let out an angry roar and lunged at her. She ran around a chair and overturned it so that he stumbled over it and fell flat on the floor.

“I’ll kill you!” he screamed hoarsely. The veins stood out on his forehead as he rose on one knee and pulled the sword from his sheath. Anne grabbed the wine decanter and hurled that at his head, then ran for the bolted cabin door.

 

Ross dipped the paddle deep into the water and drove the canoe toward the stranded
Cumberland
. His face and body were smeared with black mud to make him invisible against the dark water. His eyes were fixed on the ship; his ears strained to hear every sound. He was beyond feeling the pain of his wound—every fiber of his being was concentrated on reaching the ship before the sailors in the longboats could tow the vessel free of the sandbar.

Behind him, he heard the rhythmic swish of Niipan’s paddle. The third man, Manese, crouching in the center of the canoe, made no sound. He waited, bow in hand, for Ross to give the signal.

The
Cumberland
had anchored where Ross had expected it—had prayed for it to be. His heart had skipped a beat when the clouds had parted long enough for the pale crescent moon to show the silhouette of the three-masted vessel lying only a hundred yards off shore. He knew then that if Anne lived, he would wrest her from Murrane, and if she didn’t, he would take many of them with him before he died.

Ross ceased paddling and raised his hand. Deftly, Niipan steered the canoe around the stern of the ship. The
Cumberland
was listing hard to the shoreward; the top deck was barely ten feet above water. Ross laid his paddle in the bottom of the canoe and touched Anne’s amulet for luck. Then he handed Manese his pistol. “Give me the time it takes to skin a deer,” Ross whispered in the Shawnee tongue, “then fill the sails with fire arrows.”

Manese grunted, taking care not to lower the deerskin vest he held over his lap as a shield. Beneath it, glowing coals nestled in a hearth of wet mud between the Shawnee’s outspread legs. On either side of the warrior’s legs, heaps of dry marsh grass lay ready to fuel the infant fire. The points of Ross’s arrows were already wrapped with cedar shavings and leaves.

Ross glanced back toward the shore. It was so dark that it was impossible to tell where water left off and land began—too dark for anyone on the ship to see the ten Shawnee braves swimming toward the merchant vessel from the marsh.

“Watch your back,” Niipan warned softly.

“And yours, my brother.” The two Indians braced themselves as Ross lowered himself over the left side of the canoe. He let himself sink down, then kicked to propel himself underwater until his hands touched the side of the ship. He took a gulp of air and looked back—the canoe was gone.

Inching along the barnacle-encrusted wood planks, he reached out searching fingers and found a closed cannon port. Cautiously, Ross pulled his hatchet from the tie at his belt and used the blade to pry open the port. Once the cover came loose, it was a simple matter to sink the hatchet blade into the wale and heave himself up and through the open port. He was halfway through when he heard Anne scream.

The sound of her voice stripped away Ross’s last vestige of civilization. With the instincts of a hunting wolf, he loped through the darkness of the gundeck. A soldier moved from the shadows to bar his way, and Ross felled him with one blow to the throat. The mercenary went down like a poled ox, his would-be cry of warning strangled as the man’s lungs struggled for air. Ross took the ladder to the next deck two steps at a time.

Anne screamed again. Ross flung open the cabin door, and she burst into the dark passageway with a cursing Murrane close on her heels. She stared up at Ross’s blackened face in confusion, slowly recognizing him in the dim light, then shrank back against the wall.

Like a shadow that had taken on solid form, Ross leaped through the doorway and met Murrane’s sword thrust with the oak handle of his steel trade hatchet. The sword blade cut through the seasoned oak, but not before Ross’s left fist arced forward to connect with Murrane’s chin. The Englishman’s head snapped back, and Ross brought his knee up hard into Murrane’s groin. As Murrane fell, Ross twisted the sword from his limp hand.

“Ross.” Anne touched him to see if he was real. “You’re alive!”

“Aye, hinney,” he said. “So it seems. Has the brute harmed ye? Are ye all right?”

“I am now.”

His powerful mud-streaked arm clamped around her, and he pulled her against his chest. “Anne,” he said. “I feared that ye . . .” He swallowed hard, unable to voice his feelings. “No time . . . We maun get ye out of here before the—“

He broke off as two armed soldiers appeared in the passageway that led toward the gundeck ladder. Ross pushed Anne behind him and raised Murrane’s sword.

“Help!” Murrane called from the cabin. “All hands!”

“Topside,” Ross said. “Quick now.”

Anne dashed for the steps leading to the top deck. The two soldiers charged Ross. He gave the leader four inches of steel through the chest; the second backed away and took aim with a flintlock pistol.

“Look out!” Anne cried. She yanked the lantern off the wall and heaved it over Ross’s shoulder toward the gunman. The glass smashed against the wall, leaving the passageway black for an instant, then enveloping it in flames as the whale oil spread.

The topdeck exploded in a volley of musket shots and shouting. Bare feet and hobnail boots pounded overhead. Men screamed, and Anne heard the shrill whistle as a ship’s officer sounded the alarm. “Fire! We’re under attack!”

“Man battle stations!”

Ross grabbed Anne’s hand. Together they ran up the steps and out onto the deck. “Keep low,” he ordered.

An aft staysail and the mainsail were already in flames. Anne ducked as a fiery arrow flew into the rigging over her head. Ross knocked a sailor out of the way and gathered a boarding net off the deck. Before anyone could stop him, he heaved it over the starboard side.