“Enough to know there is great danger. My advice would be to return to your boat, repair it, then sail south to your settlements in Florida.”
“Who knows how to repair a boat? We are gentlemen and soldiers, not workmen. Boats are for fishermen and sailors.”
“You wish to die, then?” It was a time for brutal honesty. “A few years back a ship was wrecked on the shores of southeast Africa. It was Portuguese. The only way the people could survive was to walk, but they were mostly gentlemen and ladies who had never walked. One man was so fat he could not walk and had to be carried. The few sailors carried him only a little way, then refused to carry him further. They left him sitting on the sand. He died rather than make the effort.”
“But the boat is damaged! We scarcely made the shore!”
“If it brought you this far the leaks cannot be so great. It is my thought to repair it. Believe me, the journey will be easier, and safer, than if you go by land.”
“But who could do this, Captain? A gentleman such as yourself would not have the skills—”
“I have lived in your country, Don Diego, and know that a gentleman there does not work with his hands, but we Irish … we do what needs to be done.”
Guadalupe Romana walked over to us and stopped beside Don Diego. She was looking at me and her gaze was disconcerting.
“Don Diego, if you attempt to march north now, you will surely encounter the Indians who killed my men. Dangerous as the sea may be, it is preferable to the land, especially as you have women along.”
“We have seen no savages,” Don Manuel interrupted. “Nor do we fear them.”
“If you do not fear the savages,” I did not wish to offend him more, so tempered my language, “you might ask yourself if you and the women are prepared to swim the mouths of rivers? Or to cross swamps infested with snakes and alligators.”
Don Manuel did not like me. What he might have said I do not know, but a fourth man now approached us, and spoke. “Señor Chantry speaks truly. On my last voyage along this coast, we came close inshore and sailed past the mouths of several rivers. There are miles of swamps. If the boat can be repaired, I would recommend it.”
Don Manuel turned on his heel and walked away, disdaining to talk longer. Don Diego lingered, then followed Don Manuel, and they stood together, talking, with many gestures.
The third man remained beside me. He was a man perhaps ten years older than I, with a stern, confident way about him, a man of substance, I thought, a man who knows himself.
“Tell me,” he said, “do you think we could reach Florida?”
“It is not far … I have heard there is a colony on the Savannah River, which is even closer.” I hesitated, glanced at him, and then said, “I do not know the situation there … or here, but I have a feeling all is not well. Perhaps you would know better than I whether it is safe to go to Florida.”
“Your feelings do not lie, Captain. Don Diego and Don Manuel have agreed to the marriage of the señorita. Her marriage is to a creature of Don Manuel’s, through which both hope to profit. Now there is trouble.”
I waited. He glanced at them, but they were concerned only with their own affairs. Señorita Romana was standing by herself near a tree. “There is trouble, indeed,” he said. “Don Manuel now wishes to marry the señorita himself, and this Don Diego does not want. For if she marries Don Manuel she is out of his hands, and he will get nothing more from her. If she marries this man to whom they take her, both have a hold upon him.”
“And she is but a pawn in their games?”
“A very pretty pawn, Captain, with millions at stake.”
“Millions?”
He shrugged. “If the story is true. I believe but a part of it, myself. The point is they believe it, or enough to gamble upon it, and there is much at stake.”
“And you?”
“A chance bystander, who knows more than either of them but has no chance of making a penny from it. Nor would I try.” He smiled wryly. “Captain, to be an honest man is not easy, but I fear that that is what I am. It is an affliction of mine that tries me sorely. Yet … what can a man do? I want only what is mine, and not to trade upon the happiness or unhappiness of others.”
“It is a fault we share, señor. To a degree.” I smiled. “My friend, I have been many things in my life, and when at the end they speak of me I fear all they can say will be: ‘he survived.’ ”
“So must we all. The rest comes after.”
“You are of their party?”
He shrugged. “I was a passenger upon their ship. I am a man whose honesty has defeated him. I commanded soldiers in the armies operating from Luna. I was ordered to take my men against a foe I knew to be too formidable. I replied I would be taking the men to destruction. I was told I had no choice, to do as I was told or resign my command and return to Spain. I knew the Araucanians, Captain. I could beat them but not as they wished—”
“You gave up your command?”
“What else? And in doing so I gave up all. I am no longer a boy who can play games with fortune, Captain. I will not have another command in the armies of Spain. I have no other trade. But I do have a wife and a son.”
“There are other armies.”
“Of course. That has been much in my thoughts. And you, señor? Have you fought elsewhere?”
“I am Irish. At home we have no future, so we of good family have become like the wild geese. We fly away to whatever army will employ us. We are everywhere.”
“And now you are here. Why?”
“I saved a little, and made a venture. It brought me here. I had a dream, you see. I fled my own land after my parents were killed, yet I love it still. I thought to win a fortune abroad and then return and buy the old place again … buy what is rightfully mine anyway.”
“It is a good dream. I wish you good fortune.”
“And Guadalupe Romana?” I suggested. “What of her?”
“What, indeed? Somehow she must escape their designs. Somehow, I believe she will. She is beautiful, but make no mistake, there is steel in her, too. When we reach the end of our journey, she will be there still. She may be the strongest of us all.”
Suddenly his mood changed. “Come! Let us look at the boat.”
We started, and as we passed Guadalupe Romana she fell in step beside us. “You are going to the boat? May I come?”
“Please do,” I said.
It was only a short distance to the stream where the boat lay. Twice along the path, snagged by brush, I found threads from the clothing of the women. If I found them, then so might the Indians.
The boat was of a common enough type, built to carry twenty men easily and a few more under crowded conditions. I walked around the bow, looking at the damage and the contents, about which I offered no comment.
There was a mast and sail, unused on the trip ashore, three sets of oars, a water cask … empty … a sea anchor, and a few tools.
Obviously, the boat had been banged about in the launching or afterward. A plank near the bow was splintered and a shirt stuffed in to stop the leak. I removed the shirt—well worth saving under the circumstances.
Someone moved up beside me. It was Guadalupe Romana. She looked at the boat. “What do you think?” She spoke softly.
“It can be done,” I said.
She looked at me, right into my eyes. “Are you then good for something?”
I liked her, and I smiled. “It is a matter of opinion, but that…” I indicated the damage, “I can do.”
“We must pray for good weather. Still, it will be better than walking along the shore.” She looked up at me. “They are such fools. I could not believe they would contemplate such a thing. One would think they had never traveled along a shore.”
“And you have?”
“I am of Peru. We lived in the mountains at the jungle’s edge, but sometimes we came to the shore where some of our people had lived long ago.”
“I would like to have known Peru,” I said, “in the time of the Incas or before.”