WHETHER BURR’S OVERCONFIDENCE HAD OFFENDED SOME GOD, OR whether he was simply a lodestone for ill fortune, the next few days were more a feat of endurance than an adventure. High winds blasted the river; the men on the steering oars had to lie flat against the roof lest they be carried away, while those at the sides paddled in vain against the whims of the storm. When we lashed the boats together for stability, the wind tore them apart, and several barrels of provisions were lost overboard. Often we could not move at all, but had to lie in the lee of the shore and huddle in the cabins. I had thought the keelboat tolerably well built compared to the rudimentary flatboats, yet the wind managed to find gaps even in the flagship’s timbers. My only consoling thought was that the flatboat which had followed us so diligently seemed to have disappeared in the turbulence. Though I had had no signal that it meant us harm, or even that it was concerned in our business at all, I was glad to be rid of it.
Through all this, Burr retained an exemplary calm. On occasion, when he thought himself unobserved, I might see him gazing at the black skies with a pensive concern, but otherwise he evinced good humour and implacable optimism. The greater the storm’s onslaught, the greater the energy he devoted to his project. It seemed he was forever poring over the large maps spread over every surface in his cabin, or ordering inventories of our powder and shot, or discussing tactics with Tyler. Often, he would consult me on naval matters.
‘Remind me, how are you to make contact with your ships?’
‘They will wait near the mouth of the Mississippi, at the line of twenty-eight degrees north latitude,’ I said, remembering my uncle’s letter. ‘If we can obtain a boat in New Orleans, we should be able to meet them at sea.’
‘They will have marines on board? And cannon?’
‘I believe so.’
‘So you could land a force of, say, two hundred men with artillery in Mobile Bay to open a new front. A touch of Nelson, perhaps. We could reinforce you overland with companies from New Orleans.’
I made some noncommittal answer. Privately, I reckoned that if I could only find a boat in New Orleans I could sail it east and be on a packet from Charleston or Norfolk before Burr was any the wiser. The thought of wading ashore under Spanish guns with a paltry force, relying on Burr’s conjectured army for support, filled me with horror. Nor could I believe that the promised frigates were any more substantial than Lieutenant Jackson’s company. My uncle had written of them, true, but that had been many months previous. By now anything could have happened: a change of heart or government, impatience with Burr’s delay, the discovery of how feeble his scheme actually was. A pair of frigates could not keep their illegitimate station indefinitely. Burr, however, placed great store by them.
‘It is your frigates which are the key to this venture,’ he was fond of telling me. ‘All the Mississippi is ripe for revolt, but each man fears to show his hand before his neighbour. Once they see your ships sail into Mobile Bay, their broadsides blasting apart the rule of Spanish tyranny, then their doubts will fall away. Why, I sometimes think that without your ships to rely on I would give up this whole enterprise.’
How many times did I wish I could look him in the eye and convince him his quest was futile, that my ships were fantasies? Yet each time I tried, I did not have the courage.
One afternoon, five days after leaving Fort Pickering, we put ashore for firewood. Burr disliked the delay – we were within two hundred miles of New Orleans now, and he was forever consulting his Navigator to measure our progress – but we were cold and miserable, and would not continue. Grudgingly, he allowed us to beach our boat at the mouth of a shallow creek on the eastern shore. There was no thought of trying to keep the flotilla together: gales and eddies and sawyers had divided us far apart, and there was no order save to rendezvous down the river at a place called Bayou Pierre.
For once, the weather had abated a little. An icy wind still blew, but the lashing rain had passed on and there were even cracks of blue opening in the sky. Leaving only a solitary picket to guard the boat, we mustered on the foredeck, eager to touch land and stretch our legs. When Catherine emerged from the cabin I noticed she had a bundle of clothes in her hands.
‘My dresses,’ she said, when I enquired. There was a distance in her manner towards me now, and I smarted each time I felt it, though I had no cause to suspect any further indiscretions with Burr. The past week had been too numbing for any of us to think of indulgence. ‘They are quite bedraggled with all we have endured on board this boat, and I could sooner wash them in a sewer than in this filthy river. I hope to find a stream inland.’
‘You won’t go alone, will you, miss?’ asked one of the crew. All the men worshipped her as a goddess in their midst. ‘This is Chactaw country.’
‘Jackdaws?’ said Miss Lyell, puzzled.
The man, little more than a youth, giggled, then broke off as he saw that Catherine was in no mood for sport. ‘The Chactaws is Injuns, miss. Fearsome cruel. You don’t want to come across one of their bone pickers.’
‘What is a bone picker?’ I felt a strong premonition I would rather not know.
The youth leaned close. ‘When one of the Chactaws dies, they leave the corpse in the woods to soften up some. When it’s nice and ripe, the bone pickers come.’ He raised his arms before him, curling over the fingers like talons. ‘They tear that flesh clear off the bones, clean as carrion. Some say it’s to burn it, but I heard tell they eat it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I also heard that sometimes, if they catch a white man, they don’t even wait for him to die.’
I was beginning to suffer grave reservations about going ashore. Catherine, however, briskly dismissed the warning. ‘Well, they cannot practise such abominations in this climate. It would be April before the bodies thawed.’
That seemed a poor premise on which to hazard her life. I began to edge back towards the cabin, suddenly far less keen on exploring the shore.
‘I hope you are not abandoning me, Lieutenant. I am sure you would never forgive yourself if I were torn apart by savage Indians.’ Catherine stood poised on the bow, ready to leap down onto the riverbank; most of the others had already landed.
‘I was merely going to get my pistol.’ And plenty of ammunition.
‘If it comes to that, make sure you save the last ball for yourself,’ advised the youth. ‘You don’t want them taking you alive.’
I could quite happily have turned the pistol on him, but I refrained. A few minutes later, my pockets bulging with powder and shot, I emerged from the cabin and reluctantly dropped over the side onto the shore. Catherine followed, disdaining the hand I offered.
‘I am told there may be a stream further up the creek,’ she said. ‘You need not accompany me; I am quite able to protect myself.’
I did not disagree. I remembered too well the fatal shock on Mr Harris’s face when he discovered what she kept in her reticule. She wandered away up the creek, stepping carefully over the exposed roots and fissures in the bank. I was left alone.
For a moment, I felt a powerful temptation to follow her, to press my affections and see if her coolness towards me would not melt. Reluctantly, I dismissed the notion. I would more likely earn scorn than pity. Instead, I chose a path which led away from both the river and the creek, through the silent forest. The rest of the crew had dispersed, and though they could not have gone far I had neither sight nor sound of them. The grey palings of leafless trees were my only companions.
I trudged along the path, up a shallow hill heading inland. The ground was thick with fallen leaves, frozen together in clusters which crackled and broke apart beneath my feet. With a part of myself I lazily scanned the ground for firewood, though I did not take any. I could collect it on my return, I reasoned. Sometimes I would pick up a stick or a twig, but only to snap it into pieces and discard it. Then I remembered the unpleasant habits of the Chactaws, and decided it would be best not to signal my presence.
I suppose I ought to have enjoyed my walk. Away from the cheek-by-jowl of the boat it was a rare moment of solitude, a chance to breathe without constriction and to consider my predicament in private. Yet the fears and pressures which bound me could not be left behind in the cabin. If anything, they were more present there in the woods, for aboard the boat I could at least take solace in my helplessness. Now I had no such excuses. But nor did I have any conception of what I might do to extricate myself. I was still hundreds of miles from civilization, in the company of a lunatic whose delusions would most likely see us all massacred by the Spaniards. Had it not been for the menace of the Chactaws, I might have run there and then, right across the Mississippi valley until I found the sea. But that was an idle hope, and an almost certain death.
The rustles and murmurs of the forest seemed to tighten around me as I progressed. Still I could see no sign of Burr’s men. Belatedly, I began to wonder what creature had made the path I trod; might it be a Chactaw trail which would lead me straight into their encampment and the lacerating attentions of the dread bone pickers?
I turned, and paused. What had seemed an obvious path on the way up had now vanished completely; all I could see was a mottled carpet of leaves and debris. I had not even left footprints in the frozen earth. With mounting desperation, I searched the surrounding woods for any hint of the way I had come, but that only disoriented me further.
Where were the others? I had not come so very far from the boat – I should surely have seen some of them by now. What if they had left without me, abandoned me to a lingering death in the desolate wilderness? Had that been Burr’s plan? Had he known of my treachery and resolved to be rid of me where my fate would remain forever unknown? Had he even, perhaps, contracted with the Chactaws to be sure that even my bones could never be found? In my mind’s eye, a pair of talons reached forward to claw me apart and I cried out in horror.
The noise of my own cry returned me to my senses. Listening to the sound echoing in the dead woods, I became aware of another noise, the trickle of water. I hurried towards it, and in a few moments found a stream running along the bottom of a low gully. The surface was frozen, but the water still flowed beneath the ice, breaking into the air every so often where a steeper drop or a cluster of rocks speeded its course.
Relief flooded my spirits. The stream must empty into the creek or the river; I could follow it to its mouth, and then make my way along the shore back to the boat. I scrambled down the embankment. The going was treacherous, for the damp ground had frozen solid, but I could cling to the overhanging branches to steady myself. In this manner, I lunged and slithered my way forward, looking up occasionally to find the next purchase or hazard, but otherwise keeping my gaze rooted to the sloping ground.
I must have gone about two hundred yards when, as I glanced up, a movement ahead caught my eye, flitting through the trees on the far side of the gully. Thinking it must be one of the crew I was about to hail him, when the image of the bone picker’s hands once more invaded my thoughts. I did not wish to betray my presence to an enemy. Trying to be as silent as possible, I carried on, peering forward with every step. Occasionally the figure would come into view, though even then I could not see much of him; more often he melted into the depths of the woods.
After another hundred yards the gully opened out into a bowl, a shallow impression in the forest floor strewn with boulders and fallen trees. The stream flowed across it, spreading into a succession of gentle pools before resuming its course. Kneeling beside one of them, with Burr’s greatcoat wrapped tightly about her, was Catherine. She had chopped a hole in the ice and was dunking a green dress into the water beneath; two more dresses and a pair of petticoats were arranged carefully on the adjacent rocks, though they were more likely to freeze there than to dry.
‘Catherine,’ I called.
She looked around, startled.
‘Martin? What are you doing here?’
I put my fingers to my lips and crept over. Catherine watched with mounting alarm, perhaps fearful of what dishonour I might intend. I tried a smile of reassurance, always keeping a wary eye for the figure in the woods beyond.
‘What is wrong with you, Martin? You seem quite distracted.’
‘There is a man over there,’ I whispered. ‘Hiding among the trees.’
To my consternation, she laughed. ‘Do not be so silly. Do you think it is a jackdaw come to eat your flesh? It is probably one of the crew, or Colonel Burr. He promised to help me carry my laundry back to the boat.’
‘I do not think it was Colonel Burr.’
Catherine wrung out one of her petticoats. ‘Really, Martin, you may be a lion at sea but you are a veritable lamb ashore. You—’
She broke off in a scream as a shot exploded from the forest opposite. A cobweb of smoke hung between the trees, and as I dropped to the ground I smelled the black tang of powder. I rolled down the last few feet of the slope almost landing on top of Catherine, and dragged her behind the shelter of a boulder. Only then did I realize I was bleeding.
‘My cheek.’ I touched it. My hand came away smeared with blood. Had I been hit?
Catherine pointed back to the slope where I had stood. The bullet must have struck a rock, carving a white scar in the surface and throwing up a shower of splinters. One of them had cut my cheek.
As the shock of the blood began to recede, I pulled out my pistol and rammed home the ball. My hands still shook, and black powder spilled over the ground as I tried to prime the pan. Beside me, Catherine’s pistol was in her hand, her laundry forgotten.
‘Pass me that dress.’
Catherine looked mystified, but did as I asked. The damp cloth was heavy as a corpse and I struggled under the burden. Passing my pistol to Catherine, I cast around among the leaves for a stout branch. When I had found one, I prodded its end through the sleeves of the dress and edged my makeshift scarecrow around the edge of the boulder.
The reply was instantaneous. Another shot rang out from the far side of the stream, closer than before; the dress twitched off its stick and flopped to the ground as a bullet ripped through, ploughing into the earth with a flutter of fallen leaves.
I tugged on the hem of the dress and dragged it back behind the boulder. A neat, round hole had been punched two inches below the collar, with a corresponding mark between the shoulders where the ball had come out.
Catherine gave a chill smile. ‘I shall have to darn that when we get back to the boat.’
I barely heard her. I was counting the seconds since the shot, wondering whether I had time to risk one of my own. By the time I had made up my mind the opportunity was past.
I looked around. The boulder was large enough to shield us for the moment, but we were at the bottom of the dell with open ground all about. We could not reach the woods behind without exposing ourselves to our opponent. But if we stayed, we would be trapped in a lethal game of hide-and-seek, trying to guess which side of the boulder the enemy would come around. His last shot had come from our right – would he stay there, or double back to our left? And what of Burr and his men? Surely they had heard the shots and would even now be coming to our aid.
Remounting the dress on my stick, I handed it to Catherine. ‘Wave this to your right. And give me your gun.’
She held out the decoy while I edged around to the left. Every sinew in my body was drawn tight, clenched with fear. Catherine now had the dress extended well past the rim of the boulder, but still the shot did not come. Had our enemy guessed the deception?
Too late, I realized that if he had seen through the ruse, he would also have guessed which way I was coming. Even as the thought occurred to me I saw a flash of movement from around the corner. A shudder of terror convulsed through me – too much for the delicate trigger of the duelling pistol. It jerked back, and a spray of sparks and smoke erupted in my face as the shot went harmlessly wide. I was dimly aware of another shot, the noise overlapping my own like two stones cast into a pond, and had just the wit to recognize that I had provoked my opponent to fire. Instantly, I saw my opportunity. Dropping the Manton, I switched Miss Lyell’s gun to my right hand and stepped smartly out around the boulder.
My enemy stood before me. He was a slight man, little taller than Burr, and dark-skinned, though no savage Indian. He was dressed in a brown suit. His black hair was ruffled where he had lost his hat, and there was something inexplicably familiar in his moustachioed face which I did not dwell on. I raised my gun and fired.
He was only yards away; even I should have been able to put a bullet clean through his heart at that distance. Yet whether by my haste, the shock in my veins or the icy numbness of my hands, I did not kill him, did not even touch him. The ball bored harmlessly into the frozen earth, a danger only to rabbits.
I looked down at my gun in disbelief, then raised my gaze to my enemy. Only then did I notice what I had not seen before. He too had pistols in both hands: one smoking gently at the muzzle; the other trained on me with the hammer still cocked. His features loomed large in my vision; inconsequentially, I suddenly remembered his name. Vidal. The Spaniard who had tried to take my package on the road to Princeton. He must have followed me all the way down the river. Now, I presumed, he meant to kill me.
With nothing left to me but instinct, I dived to my right. Sheer luck timed the move almost perfectly: had I moved a moment earlier, he would have allowed for it and adjusted his aim; a second afterwards and I would never have moved again. Even so, I was too slow. Vidal dissolved behind a cloud of smoke, and I felt a bite on my arm as if it had been snapped in two, though curiously no pain.
Vidal stepped through the smoke and stood over me. One of the spent pistols still dangled from his left hand; the other he had discarded. In its place he held a long hunting knife. He said nothing, but lifted the knife like some terrible priest of the ancients bent on sacrifice. Lying flat on the frozen earth, with pain rushing into my arm even as the blood seeped out, I did not have the strength to move.
Without warning, another shot exploded in the clearing. From the corner of my eye I saw a telltale puff of smoke at the edge of the treeline, but my attention was seized by the blurred hiss of a bullet rending the space which divided me from Vidal.
For a moment we looked at each other – or rather, at the air between us – each wondering which had been the marksman’s target. Then Vidal turned and ran. At any other time that would have sufficed me, but now it served only to unleash a new wave of dangerous euphoria. Swept forward by a wave of dizzy courage – madness, I later decided – I lifted myself off the ground and followed. We sprinted up an incline, darting between trees and vaulting over the rocks and gullies which littered the forest floor. He was faster than I – long, sedentary weeks on the flatboats had seen to that – but I managed to keep him in sight. I needed to keep close enough that he did not have time to turn and reload. That thought, and the energy still pouring through my veins, sustained me in pursuit.
A voice called something from behind me and I ignored it. Again it came; through the madness and confusion it almost sounded English instead of American.
‘Get down!’
An ingrained habit of obedience penetrated my thoughts. I flung myself forward into the frozen leaves. Behind me, I heard the crack of a rifle; the bullet whizzed overhead and thumped into a tree-trunk. Ahead, Vidal checked over his shoulder and changed direction, weaving this way and that between the trees. I crawled after him; then, when no more shots came, I pulled myself to my feet and kept running.
The forest was thicker now, the going slower. Vidal was barely visible, though it was easy enough to follow the erratic course he had torn through the undergrowth. Without warning, the trees gave way to open space. Caught unprepared, I stumbled forward down an earthy embankment and almost fell on my face. I had come out on a sunken track, stretching away on both sides, and I felt a convulsion of fear at being so suddenly exposed. I looked to my right. A chestnut stallion with a white blaze on its nose was standing quietly by the roadside, its reins looped around a stump. Vidal was running towards it, either oblivious or careless to my presence; once more the beating need to prevent him reloading drew me after him. He arrived at the horse and snatched its reins off the stump, lifted his foot into the stirrup and swung himself up. The whole manoeuvre was accomplished with the ease of habit, yet it gave me enough time to cover the scant distance between us. I pointed Catherine’s pistol at him but he merely laughed, knowing as well as I did that it was empty.
‘Adios, Señor Jerrold. Maybe we meet again down the river.’
I flung myself at him and tried to grab his leg, but he kicked himself free. Thankfully, he was not wearing spurs or he might have slit my throat. I recoiled, then made one final lunge to stop him. My hands fastened around his saddlebag and I tugged it back with all my might. I heard a terse ‘Hah’ as he urged the horse forward, and I tightened my grip; then there came the crack of snapping leather and a stinging blow to my cheek. With a cry of despair I felt Vidal break free. Suddenly I was pulling against air. I stumbled backwards and fell on my backside.
Dazed, I opened my eyes. Vidal was riding away, his horse’s hooves kicking up great clods of mud as it accelerated. I did not even try to reload my pistol, for he had galloped around the first corner before I could have pulled out my powder horn. My only consolation was that he seemed more bent on escape than on prolonging the battle.
All at once, the fervour which had driven me drained away. The chill air clenched tight about me and I began to tremble uncontrollably. There was an ache in my arm, I realized, and when I looked down it was to see my sleeve dyed red with blood. I pulled off my jacket and tore open the gash in my shirt. A deep cut had been gouged in my upper arm, and when I tried to move my elbow it sparked a searing pain which had my screams echoing through the woods.
I crawled across to the edge of the track, slumping back against the earthen embankment. Burr’s men had been following me; they would be here soon, I promised myself. I tried to wrap my coat around my shoulders to stem the shivering. Something cold and damp touched the end of my nose; then the back of my hand; then my cheek. Looking up, I saw a flurry of fine snowflakes drifting down between the trees, dappling the grey trunks with a white haze. Those which landed on me quickly melted to water and dribbled off, but those which touched the frozen ground settled instantly. Where were Burr and his men?
Between the snow, the cold and the pain of my wound, I could barely see a thing. I closed my eyes. In a short while I heard footsteps crunching towards me but I could not be troubled to look. Even when I felt firm hands tugging on my arm and binding a cloth around the wound, I barely opened my eyes. In the gathering darkness, through the haze of snow and half-shut eyelids, I could see a stooped figure in a dark coat kneeling beside me. His hair was very white, though perhaps that was just the snow settling on it. Something about him seemed familiar. In my delirium, I could almost imagine I was back aboard the Adventure, and that Fothergill the steward was at my side helping me to a glass of claret.
He stepped away from me, allowing himself a brief approving murmur at the results of his work. He might have bound the wound – I could not see – but the pain was as unbearable as ever.
Some way down the track, I heard cracking branches and shouts of consternation as the rest of Burr’s men finally found the road. I opened my eyes further. There were men running towards me down the road, but of the man who had tended me I could see nothing. Had my delirious mind conjured him from nothing? No – if I reached my good arm across my body I could feel his bandage still wrapped tight.
Whatever had become of him, the rest of my pursuers had now reached me. I looked up, and saw Burr’s eyes blazing down on me in concern.
‘Thank God we found you,’ he said. ‘There is no time to lose.’