Pirate

My plan to extract her from the hut from behind faltered, and I knew we would have to make a frontal assault. With my cutlass extended, I slid around the side wall to see if the guards were present and steeled myself for a close-quarters fight, something I was not comfortable with. The entry was unguarded, and I chanced a glance at the fire that had now spread to two other huts. Every man, woman, and child appeared to be fighting it. I hurried to the entrance, pushed aside the curtain with the edge of my sword, and entered the hut.

The interior was dark, but I sensed more than one body. I shut my eyes for a second to try and acclimate to the dim light. When I opened them, I saw a large figure lunge toward me. The inside of the hut was too small to swing the sword, so I did the only thing I was able. With my body braced, I extended the cutlass towards the figure and waited for contact. He must not have seen the sword, and I felt the impact and took his entire weight as he impaled himself and fell on top of me. Blood spurted as I released the sword handle and slid out from underneath his bulk. I looked around wildly, trying to see if there was another threat, but felt a hand on my shoulder and saw Rory in front of me. She wiped tears from her face and adjusted her clothing.

I stood staring at her, frozen for a moment, until she spoke.

“Hurry. If you’re here to rescue me, we better get on with it.”

I gathered my wits and pulled the cutlass from the prone man. We looked at each other, and I nodded as she exited the hut. The fire still occupied the Indians, but I feared they would soon have it under control. “Wait here,” I said, as I ran toward the fire in the center of the clearing. If I could set fire to her hut, they might not find the dead man right away and assume she was burned alive. It would at least buy us some time. I reached the fire and grabbed a small log that I carried back to the hut and held to the walls. It caught, and I tossed the torch inside, grabbed Rory’s hand, and took off through the brush. I could only hope that Red and Swift had done their part.

21

We stumbled through the brush in the dark, blindly following Blue to the small beach where we had left the canoes. Slashed and bloody from the palmettos, we reached the boats, but Red and Swift were not there.

“Where are they?” I asked Rhames, who sat unmoved by the cypress stump where we had left him.

“Don’t know,” he grimaced.

Lucy went toward him and checked his wound, while Syd and I pulled the canoes from the brush and onto the shore. I looked up and, seeing the small outline of Blue against the shoreline, grabbed two rifles and took off after him after giving a stern warning to Syd to guard the women and Rhames. Confident we were not followed from the village, I caught up to Blue. He was working slowly around a bend in the river as if he had heard something, but it was difficult to see anything ahead of us, our night vision dulled by the bright flames of the fire.

He halted, and I felt a hand on my arm. I stood next to him, using all my powers of observation, but I could not see or hear what disturbed him. We stood in the calf-deep water waiting for some unknown danger, and I tried to hand him a rifle, which he refused. With one long gun slung over my shoulder, I readied the other and prepared myself. I heard the boat before I saw it and looked at the tracker, who nodded. Then the bow of the first boat emerged from around the corner, and I saw Red and Swift, each standing in a canoe poling frantically toward us.

I was about to call out to them when Blue squeezed my arm and pulled me out of sight. The two canoes passed, and I saw the cause for his concern. I heard a shot and a boat appeared. Blue caught my attention as I was about to fire and pushed the barrel of the rifle down. He had a long tube in his hand that he brought to his mouth and inhaled, his cheeks filling with more air than they looked like they could hold, and released his breath. A second later I heard a grunt, and the man with the gun fell into the water. The man poling looked around, but his eyes, also blinded by the light of the fires, didn’t see us and passed by.

Suddenly two more canoes appeared, and Blue fired two more projectiles, hitting both helmsmen. The three unguided canoes started drifting downriver, back toward the village. As soon as they were back around the bend and out of sight, Blue tapped me again, and we hurried to the clearing. The Indians would certainly regroup and follow.

We reached the clearing, where we each grabbed a canoe, pulled it into the water, and waited for Red and Swift as they pushed their boats to the bank. There was no need to exchange words; we all knew we had to move. I glanced over at Lucy and Rory, who were bent over Rhames, distressed looks on their faces. As I approached, I saw the wound was still bound, but a slimy green fluid penetrated the cloth and oozed onto his stomach.