Smugglers' Gold (14 page)

Ryder didn't expect a Revenue Cutter to save him, wasn't even sure he
needed
saving, and besides, he preferred to gather more evidence against Marley's smuggling operation if he could.

As long as he survived to testify.

Once ashore, Ryder waited with the men from Marley's group who had preceded him. Seitz paced along the surf line, restless, while the life boats doubled back, took on another load of able bodies, and returned. The
Banshee
crewmen shipped their oars then, dragged the boats well up on shore, and joined the rest while digging tools were passed around.

“This way,” said Pickering, who'd ridden in the last lifeboat to reach the island. Seitz walked in his shadow, while the rest of them came straggling along behind, the furthest thing from any kind of military order in the ranks. They hiked inshore for something like a mile, then stopped with Pickering as he examined landmarks, matching them against a yellowed, often-folded piece of paper in his hands.

A treasure map?

In other circumstances, Ryder would have smiled at the idea, or maybe laughed out loud, but there was nothing humorous about his present situation. He had good reason to believe the loot existed, based on items he'd already helped unload in Galveston. The Tariff Act of 1857 had taxed imports at an average rate of 17 percent, now on its way to being doubled by Republicans in Congress since war's end. How much was that, lost to the government in revenue of cargo Marley smuggled into Galveston? On gold and silver? Gems? The silly-sounding ganja?

Thousands, certainly, assuming that the pirate booty was not confiscated outright on discovery.

“This is the spot,” said Pickering, grinding a heel in the sand between two live oak trees, set roughly fifteen feet apart.

Ryder half expected to find an X drawn on the ground, after the style of fabled pirate maps from novels he had read in childhood:
Fanny Campbell
,
The Queen of the Sea
, or
The Secret Service Ship
. It was unmarked, however, aside from Pickering's footprint, designating the spot for their digging to start.

“Come on, then!” Pickering bellowed, when no one moved immediately. “Put your backs into it!
Dig!
”

And dig they did, working in relays, following the
Banshee
captain's orders to outline, then excavate, a pit some eight feet long by four feet wide and six feet deep.
A good-sized grave,
thought Ryder, as he took his turn, wielding a spade, careful to step back when the men with pickaxes were swinging. It was sandy soil, all right, but live oak roots made digging difficult until they had been chopped and hacked away.

It anything was buried there, Ryder knew that those roots had sprouted in the meantime, reaching out for sustenance and interweaving to protect whatever lay below them. How long would the treasure have been resting in its hole? If Jean Lafitte had planted it, and he had truly died in 1823—a date disputed, since his corpse was never found—the loot had been underground for at least forty-two years. Plenty of time for trees to sprout, grow tall, and lace the island with a maze of roots. Tack on another decade for the days when the Lafitte brothers had raided British shipping in the War of 1812. What would remain of treasure buried that far in the past?

He knew that gold, silver, and gems would not decay, although the chests or bags that held them might be gone. Ryder supposed they could forget about retrieving any paper currency planted for half a century, but chances were that it would have been printed by some bank long since defunct, in any case. If they found anything, he guessed it would be heavy and would take a fair amount of time for transportation to the
Banshee.

His thoughts were thus engaged when Ryder's spade struck something solid, with a heavy thunk. He hesitated, then began to scrape the dirt away more carefully, two other men with shovels helping him, until the curved lid of a brass-bound chest had been exposed. Encouraged by the sight of it, and by commands from Pickering, they started digging out around the chest's four sides, until a pair of rotting leather handles were revealed. One of them ripped through on the first attempt to hoist it, and more excavation was required before three men could climb into the hole, standing around the chest, and lift it clear.

It was approximately three feet long, two wide, and eighteen inches deep. The padlock on its hasp had long since rusted shut, but three blows with a pickax shattered it. Seitz moved to lift the lid, but Pickering moved in to shoulder him aside and claim that honor for himself. A moment later, sunlight gleamed on golden coins—hundreds, by Ryder's estimate—untarnished by the years.

A cheer went up, cut short when Pickering began selecting men to take the chest, carry it back to where the lifeboats had been beached, and row it over to the clipper. Those who stayed behind, Ryder among them, would keep digging for a second chest that was supposed to occupy the pit.

They found it fifteen minutes later, raised it in the manner of the first one they had found, and let the captain open it. This time, a rainbow glimmered in the sunshine: rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, some in precious settings, others tumbled loose into the chest. No cheering this time, as a second party was selected for the long trek back to shore.

“Now, we fill it in,” said Pickering. “No point in advertisin' what was here.”

By
we
, he meant the workmen still remaining, he and Seitz retreating to converse beyond earshot while Ryder and his nine companions sweated through refilling the deep pit, then wiping out all traces of the dig as best they could, scattering sand over the spot.

When they were done and standing idle, Pickering and Seitz returned, taking their time about it, Pickering smoking a pipe. “That does it,” he informed them. “All except one little thing.”

“One piece of business still needs takin' care of,” Otto said. Ryder could feel the short hairs rising on his nape then, as the smuggler's eyes focused on him.

“Bidness?” Harry Morgan echoed.

“I smelled a rat when Bryan brought you into Awful Annie's,” Seitz told Ryder.

Bluff it out,
he thought. And answered back, “How do you figure that?”

“It's pretty damn convenient, how you showed up just the minute that he needed help.”

“Right place, right time,” Ryder replied. “Why would I help him, if I meant him any harm?”

“To worm your way inside, maybe.”

“Hey, Otto,” Morgan interjected, “you ain't makin' any sense.”

“Oh, no? You think it's just coincidence he turns up as we go to war with Menefee?”

“He helped us
kill
Jack Menefee,” Harry shot back. “Don't tell me you're forgettin' that.”

“I ain't fogettin' anything,” Seitz said, drawing his Colt. “I'm takin' out the trash.”

No time to think about it, then. Snarling at Seitz, Ryder lashed out and slammed his spade into the smuggler's face, then turned and ran.

C
haos reigned behind him as he sprinted for the nearest tree line, voices jabbering with questions, Otto howling curses with a nasal twang, Stede Pickering demanding that the men still on their feet go after Ryder. He had covered thirty yards, was in among the trees, before they started chasing him. The first shot made his shoulders hunch reflexively, but it was high and wide, the bullet slapping at a tree trunk somewhere off to Ryder's left.

His swing at Seitz had been instinctive, pure self-preservation, but he wondered now if running afterward had been a poor decision. Harry Morgan had been arguing his side with Otto, and the rest of Marley's men, at least, had seemed surprised by Otto's actions. Should he have remained to plead his case after he'd pasted Seitz?

Too late to think about that now.

Clubbing a man who tried to kill him would be normal and expected by the gang, but running once he'd done it would be tantamount to a confession.

“Over here!” somebody shouted, well behind him.

“There he goes!” another cried.

Not voices that he recognized, offhand, but then again, what of it? Any mother's son could drop him with a lucky shot, or slit his throat if he stood still for it. Ryder had to evade them if he could, hold out till nightfall anyway, and hope they'd lose him in the dark.

Another shot behind him, and the bullet came no closer than the first. Combine a moving target with a shooter on the run, and taking down a man was doubly difficult. The woods helped, too, with cover and their shadows. Still, there were eleven men pursuing him, presumably. Call it an even dozen if he hadn't shaken something loose in Otto's skull. Fanned out, advancing steadily, they had a decent chance of overtaking and surrounding him.

As they'd approached Timbalier Island, Ryder had judged it to be ten miles long, at least. Its width and the square mileage of it still remained a mystery. Ryder wasn't convinced that he could run ten miles without a rest, but even if he managed it, he'd find himself cut off, trapped on another beach with nowhere left to turn. They'd have him then, and it would all be over.

Long shadows in the forest told him it was getting on toward dusk, but slowly. If he wanted to survive, Ryder would have to slow down the pursuit. Make his new enemies think twice about the hunt they were engaged in. Raise the stakes for all concerned.

Still running, Ryder pulled his Colt Army and started looking for a place to make his stand. It wouldn't be his
last
stand, hopefully—no imitation of the Alamo—but if he timed it properly . . .

Live oaks and pines were all around him, offering the only cover he could hope to find. He stopped and crouched behind one of the larger trees, heard hunters calling back and forth to one another in the woods before him, drawing nearer by the moment. Ryder cocked his pistol, scanned the ground, waiting for targets to reveal themselves.

The first was someone from the
Banshee
's crew, bearded and brawny, carrying what looked to be a stubby pepperbox. The little pistol had no barrel in the normal sense, just firing chambers grouped around a central axis. Could be four shots, six, or more, depending on the model, but it would be useful only at the very closest range, compared to fifty yards for Ryder's Colt.

Not that he planned to try a shot from that range in the forest, with the shadows creeping in on him.

Try twenty yards, instead, the pirate blundering along and calling back to others he'd outrun in his enthusiasm for the chase. Feeling no sympathy or urge to spare him, Ryder shot him in the chest and saw him fall, blood spouting from the hole his .44 slug made.

More shouting then, but Ryder didn't wait for any of the others to arrive. When they kept after him—
if
they kept after him—he'd try to snipe another one, and so on, whittling down their will to hunt. With two spare cylinders and one shot gone, he had enough rounds left to deal with all of those who'd stayed behind, but that would be a losing gamble, even if he managed it somehow. The men who'd gone back to the
Banshee
would return for Pickering if Ryder failed to appear, and that would be the end of it.

Hang on,
he thought.
Just stay alive for now.

One minute at a time.

*   *   *

H
e bwoke ma goddamn node!” Seitz bawled, probing his blood-caked face with cautious fingertips, then glaring at Pickering. “Da hell you gwinnin' at?”

Still smiling, Pickering replied, “I never seen you look so good.”

“Weal fuddy!” Seitz was checking his front teeth now, grimacing as one wiggled under the pressure of his thumb. “I'm gonna kid 'im!”

“Then we'd better hurry up,” said Pickering, “before the others beat you to it.”

Seitz picked up his Colt, spinning the cylinder and blowing sand out of the works as best he could, checking to satisfy himself the barrel hadn't fouled when he had dropped it. “C'mod, den,” he told the
Banshee
's captain, setting off after the hunting party that was chasing George Revere.

It hurt to run, each jolting step driving a white-hot lance of agony into his skull. It might not be the worst pain he had ever felt, but Seitz reckoned that it was close enough. Each burning stab increased his fury, pulled the knot of hatred in his stomach that much tighter.

He had known that there was something out of plumb about Revere from the first time he'd met the bastard. Marley wouldn't listen, but he'd have to pay attention now. Seitz would have liked to bring Revere's head to him in a basket, but he didn't want to push it. Find the rat and finish him—but not before Revere had spilled who he was working for and why he'd come to Galveston.

Asking the questions could be fun, but that meant catching up with Georgie Boy before the others ran him down and shot him out of hand. Seitz needed him alive, just long enough to answer certain questions.

And to hear him scream.

The sharp clap of a gunshot up ahead spurred Otto on to greater speed—and greater pain. Trying to keep Revere alive, Seitz bleated out to those who'd gone ahead, “Doan kid 'im! Wade fuh me!”

Long moments later, Otto stood over a corpse, with others grouped around him. It was one of Stede's, which set the
Banshee
's captain cursing in rare form, using some terms that Seitz took to be nautical. Seitz tried to mask his own sense of relief, assisted in that effort by the throbbing misery inside his head.

He quickly counted those who'd stopped to view the fallen sailor. Four of nine who'd set off in pursuit of George Revere, plus one dead on the ground, left four still on the hunt. Otto had barely finished calculating when another shot rang out, off to the east, and he was running once again, dizzy and nearly sobbing from the pain and the exertion.

Another body on the ground, and three men crouched around it, staring off into the woods. Seitz jostled Harry Morgan as he slid in to a halt and recognized Bob Jacobs stretched out on his back. He only had one eye now, and a bloody socket where a slug had punched the other back into his brain.

“George shot him,” Morgan said.

“Still dink he's one ob us?”

“I'm gonna kill him,” Harry said.

“You'll do it on your own, then,” Pickering informed him, as he joined their group with his surviving sailors. “I'm not puttin' any more of my men on the chopping block for your mistake.”

“The hell you mead?” Otto demanded.

“What I
mean
is that I'm sailin' now. You wanna stay behind and hunt this boyo to your heart's content, I leave you to it.”

“Jud like dat?”

“You heard me,” Pickering replied. “Do what you want on land, but I'm the master of the
Banshee
. And she's sailin' just as soon as I get back aboard her. Come on, men!”

With that, the captain turned away and started trekking westward, toward the beach where they had landed. The remaining members of his party followed, one shrugging for Seitz, to show he had no other choice. Within a few short moments, they were swallowed by the dusk, nearly invisible from where Seitz stood.

It galled him, leaving George Revere alive, but Otto knew that Pickering would sail without him and would not be coming back. It might be days before Marley could find another ship to come and pick them up—or would he even bother? Might it seem a better choice for him to wash his hands of the whole problem?

Let the dead bury the dead.

Slurring a curse, he told his men, “Come odd. We'll let the bastid starb.”

*   *   *

R
yder heard the trackers leaving, but he didn't trust it right away. He had nothing to gain by trailing them, except a bullet in the head, but common sense dictated that he see if they were leaving, or if they would camp out on the island, ready to resume the hunt the next morning.

First, before he started trailing them, he swapped the Colt Army's cylinder, two rounds gone, for one still fully loaded. If he walked into an ambush he would have six shots, at least, no fumbling in the dark while trying to reload with bullets flying all around him.

Not that it would matter much, but he preferred to go down fighting if it came to that.

The only light he had to guide by on Timbalier Island was the moon, now, as he made his slow way westward toward their landing beach. Each step he took seemed dangerously loud and grating to his ears, but no one challenged him along the way. No muzzle flashes blasted at him from the shadows as he tracked the smugglers' party back toward shore.

And Ryder saw the reason why as he approached the final tree line, overlooking sand and surf. The last lifeboat had nearly reached the
Banshee
, lamps on deck keeping the oarsmen on a straight course toward the clipper. No one from the crew or Marley's gang had stayed on shore.

Next question: were they leaving, sailing back to Galveston, or would they ride at anchor through the night, then come back looking for him in the morning? Was it worth their time, the risk of being spotted, to remain and run him down, scouring the island end to end?

Ryder walked halfway to the water's edge and sat down on the sand. It didn't matter now if he was visible from the retreating lifeboat, though he doubted it. Plain logic told him that they would not turn around and risk another landing, this time under fire. As far as sniping at him from the lifeboat or the clipper, distance and the cloak of night should keep him safe enough.

For now.

He sat and stared across the moonlit water, watching as the lifeboat reached the
Banshee
, was tied off to hoisting lines, then started to unload its crew. They scrambled up a long rope ladder, one man at a time, until all nine were safely on the weather deck. At that point, other crewmen raised the lifeboat, aided by a block and tackle system, swung it inboard, and prepared to lash it down.

No answer yet to Ryder's question, but he soon received one, as the
Banshee'
s crew began unfurling sails. It didn't take them long, with practiced hands at work. Within a quarter of an hour, maybe less, the clipper had weighed anchor and was underway, gliding eastward, away from Ryder on his lonely stretch of sand, with moonlight on its sails.

His first, fleeting sensation of relief quickly gave way to something more like dread.
Marooned,
he thought,
like Robinson Crusoe.
And how was he supposed to deal with that?

His stomach growled out a reminder that he'd eaten nothing since that morning's breakfast of reheated stew aboard the clipper. It was common knowledge that a man of average size could last a month or more without a meal, before he starved to death. Fresh water was more critical, but Ryder guessed that he could dig for some if necessary, starting where the island's trees and shrubbery grew thickest. Getting off Timbalier Island was his first priority, of course, but that could pose a problem.

Sailing up to it, aboard the
Banshee
, he had calculated that the island lay ten miles from the Louisiana mainland, likely farther. Could he swim ten miles? The thought had never crossed his mind before, and now it seemed a daunting task. Adding the risk of sharks and other predators sharply reduced his prospect of surviving. And if he
could
reach the distant shore, where would he find himself? From what he'd seen of the Louisiana coastline as they passed, it was a maze of rivers, swamps, and hummocks overgrown with jungle. What was waiting for him there, except a wild menagerie of alligators, snakes, and panthers?

Speaking of animals . . .

Ryder decided that the first thing he required, immediately, was a fire. He had a box of matches in his pocket, driftwood on the beach, and there was bound to be some kindling back beyond the tree line. Weary as he was, he rose and set about the task of making camp.

*   *   *

D
espite the fire that warmed him, sleep eluded Ryder as the night wore on. Crabs the size of dinner plates appeared from somewhere after sundown, clicking and skittering over the beach around him. They avoided Ryder's campfire, but their shadows lurched across the sand like monstrous spiders, circling him as if they hoped he might dispense morsels of food.

There was no food, of course. Though maybe if they didn't move too quickly he could rustle himself up some of those crabs. His stomach had progressed from growling to a kind of hollow achy feeling. He was thirsty, too, and while that combination likely would have been enough to keep Ryder from sleeping, he was focused on escape. His mind presented fantasy scenarios—building a raft, meeting a kindly fisherman who'd strayed ashore—and quickly moved from there to visions of revenge, confronting Otto Seitz and tracking down the others who had stranded him.

Near midnight by his pocket watch, Ryder heard something he could not identify at first. A chugging sound that brought to mind a locomotive, running in the distance, but he didn't think that sound could carry from the mainland to his camp. Besides, from what he'd seen by daylight, there were only mangrove swamps along the coastline of Terrebonne Bay, no solid ground that would support a set of railroad tracks.