Pirate

We had been moving for what I figured was half an hour. I stopped to catch my breath and looked behind us. If we had gone a mile, it would have been hopeful. I had never been in the estuary before, but from where its entry lined up with the tip of the island to seaward, I estimated we had to cover two miles to reach the river mouth. “About the same. Maybe another mile,” I replied and started moving again. Sweat stung my eyes and my throat was parched, but this was not the time to show weakness.

We picked up our pace as we heard the grunts from several gators concealed in a small creek on our left. Finally the bottom started to turn hard and we could see the river. Although it was a relief to be able to walk on hard bottom, I noticed the water was getting shallower as well. By the time we reached the middle of the small pass, we were ankle deep at best. The mangrove roots along the shore revealed what I suspected that we were close to high tide now. If we wanted to use this pass, and we had little choice, as any other route would expose us, and we would have to portage the boats. Red must have come to the same conclusion.

“Gonna be a bit of work here to get the boats over,” he said, and turned around to go back.

“Wait. I want to go out to the point and have a look.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, and remained where he was.

I ran the hundred yards to the seaward side of the small inlet and went down the beach as far as I dared. I didn’t want him out of my sight and turned back several times to confirm he was still there. From the point, I had an unobstructed view of the river mouth and, as I suspected, Lafitte’s frigate guarded the entrance, but the shoals near shore forced him to stand half a mile out to sea. I couldn’t see any longboats in the water, but I suspected he would launch a reconnaissance before the day was out. Our only chance would be to make the portage and enter the river at night.

Lafitte was a seasoned and capable seaman. He and his men had been double-crossed by the US government following his help in fighting the British in their attack on New Orleans in the War of 1812. The Navy soon labeled his small community on an island near Galveston a pirate haven and burned it to the ground. I considered myself fortunate to meet the man and had learned much about both strategy and business by listening to his talks with Gasparilla. They had become friends, but there was no doubt Lafitte knew of his demise and now sought the treasure.

I ran back to Red who stood in the same spot.

“Well?”

“Lafitte’s ship is in the mouth of the river. We’re going to need to make the portage tonight if we want to get upriver.”

“There’s no other way,” Red stated.

“No. The Navy is on the other end and Lafitte is here. Neither will be willing to go too far upriver, especially if they don’t have any reason to suspect we have gone there.”

“Let’s get back, then,” Red said, and started wading through the muck.

We reached the clearing an hour later and collapsed by the boats. Rhames was still alive, but hovering on the edge of consciousness. I looked toward the west to gauge how much daylight was left and realized we would have several hours to wait before leaving. “We move in two hours,” I called to the men, and went for one of the boats, where several coconuts were floating in the bilge water. I took two and went toward Rhames, who opened one eye. From my belt, I pulled out a small dagger, took the steel point, and inserted it into the coconut. Once it was embedded I started to push and twist. It was far from clean, but I pulled the blade out and saw a residue of milk on it. I handed it to Rhames and watched with satisfaction as he held it to his mouth and drained the juice. I took the other and repeated the process, keeping this one for myself, before cleaving them open and sharing the meat.

Rhames looked better after the nourishment, but I was worried about his wound and knew I needed to care for it while we still had daylight. I went to him and started to remove the dressing. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound was weeping and ugly. Its edges looked like the leaves of a palmetto palm and were starting to turn green and fill with puss. I left him and went to gather the discarded coconut halves and brought several back. From these I scooped the paste from the edges and started to apply it to the wound. He jumped when I touched it, but knew as I did that something in the oily meat of the coconut helped the healing process. I just hoped he wasn’t too far gone.