Chapter Thirteen

 

HOW MANY TIMES DOES A man have to spend the night hiding out in forests to avoid crazed killers? Adam wondered what the chances were that he was now finding himself in similar circumstances to the ones he had experienced last year when he had to hide out from those men on the island where he had been marooned.

It really didn’t matter. The fact was he was going to do what he needed to do to make it through the night and get back to the port in Havana. He had serious misgivings about Hector and company even having the wherewithal to find the right ship and crew so they could demand their ransom. Even if they had gotten their message through, he wasn’t confident that Captain Phillips and company would be able to get whatever money was being demanded by his captors in the specified time. And finally, at this point he really just wanted to get out of this tropical hell and make it back home.

Furthermore, it did not escape him that yet again, because of his impatience he had gotten himself into trouble. If he had only waited for Martin or insisted someone else go with him, this whole thing probably would have never happened.

Nevertheless, although he had gotten far enough ahead of the gunmen that he no longer heard them running after him, he still had no idea how far he was from the Havana port. He only knew that he was heading east because he had seen the sunrise not too much earlier.

When he finally came to a bay that appeared to be the mouth of a large river emptying into the sea, he wondered if it was the same one he had crossed the day before with Hector and Carlos in the horse cart. It was hard to be sure, since the waterway from the day before was so narrow—almost like a little stream—and shallow enough for the cart to go right across in one section. If it was the same river, then he guessed that he couldn’t be more than four or five miles from the quay where the Gypsy was moored.

It looked like the area across the bay used to be some sort of military fortification. There were stonework walls all around and in the distance what looked like a hewn-stone tower that had apparently been bombarded with cannon fire. Upon further observation he noticed the waterway quickly narrowed just a little to the south, so he ran along the water’s edge until he knew he could swim across quickly and easily.

Once he was on the other side, he headed north again for the shoreline. He knew if he just kept following it, he would end up back at the port in about an hour and a half.

As he neared the tower he had seen, he found it curious that there seemed to be a few men sitting there around a fire cooking something. He had traveled quite a distance without seeing another living soul, and now all of a sudden here were men cooking actual food. When he realized that he recognized them, he wondered if the whole thing might just be a mirage. This can’t be real, he thought. This is too good to be true.

“Hey! Willis! Canady! Jones! Is that really you?” he called out as he got close to the men.

The three of them looked at each other, then quickly looked to see who was calling them. As he got closer, Adam was sure they were his shipmates. The tallest one, sandy-haired Ed Willis, stood up and approached Adam. The rough-looking redhead, Fred Canady, and the raven-haired Englishman, Ricky Jones, followed close behind him.

“Good Lord, man!” Willis exclaimed. “The whole wide world is out lookin for you right now.”

“What?” said Adam. “Who is?”

“You look like hell,” Canady remarked.

Adam rolled his eyes. “I feel like hell. Long story. Who’s out looking for me? And what are you boys doing here?”

“Some chap showed up on the Gypsy yesterday, bringin a note demandin ransom. Said if we didn’t pay up, they’d kill you,” said Jones. “Cap’n Phillips had Martin and Charlie go get this Spanish fellow he knows to help out. Name’s Velasquez. Anyhow, he and this other man—English chap named Drake, I think—and Martin and Charlie, they all went chasin down the men who picked up the ransom this morning.”

“Yep. They wanted to follow ’em back to their hideout to rescue you,” said Canady.

“Y’all paid the ransom?” asked Adam.

“Of course! Well, somebody did. I think it was actually that Spanish captain,” said Willis.

“Captain Velasquez . . .” Adam thought hard. “Wasn’t he that Spanish captain from—what was it called? . . . Oh, I can’t remember the name of the ship. Anyway, I think he was in Beaufort last year, at Laney’s estate.”

“I think they were sayin that’s him, yeah,” said Willis. “I hadn’t met him before, though.”

Adam must have looked like he was about to collapse, because his three shipmates insisted he sit down and eat some of what they had been cooking. But he didn’t want to sit. He wanted to find his friends Martin and Charlie and those other two men. Still, he realized he hadn’t eaten anything since the meal he had at the outdoor café the day before. He’d given his piece of bread to the chained prisoner back at the compound.

He decided to accept his friends’ invitation to eat so he could fortify himself. Then he’d lead the others to the camp where he had been held. He hated thinking his friends were putting themselves in harm’s way when he had already escaped. And as much as he still wanted answers, at this point he wished he had just listened to his mother and not bothered trying to find out anything about his father. It had brought him nothing but misfortune from the start. Maybe it just was not meant to be.

 

 

AFTER SCARFING DOWN A QUICK meal, Adam stood from the broken piece of stone wall upon which he was sitting and said to his friends, “Alright, I’m done. Let’s go.”

“Ya sure about that, mate?” asked Jones. “You ain’t slept all night. This is the first meal you’ve eaten since yesterday morning. Maybe you should rest here. Sketch us out a map and show us where to go.”

“Yeah,” Willis agreed. “Why don’t you do that? You don’t seem like you’re in any condition to be going anywhere.”

Adam didn’t bother answering either of them. He went over to the bags of gear that he’d learned were inside the tower and grabbed a .50 flintlock pistol and a leather satchel of gear. He also grabbed a machete and a holster for his belt.

“What the devil are you doin, mate?” asked Jones.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Adam yelled in response as he purposefully strode back to the point in the river where he had crossed earlier. “Come with me or stay here, but I’m going back to that compound.”

“What about the horses?” asked Willis.

Adam stopped for a minute and turned back, realizing his shipmates planned to come along. “Forget about ’em. That place ain’t too far. We can get there easier on foot. Now hurry up if you’re comin!”

Jones and Willis grabbed pistols and gear, and Canady agreed to go back to the Gypsy to let the captain know what was happening. In no time Adam, Jones, and Willis were fording the river and heading back towards the beach.