Fair Blows The Wind Part 29

"You fought him once?"

"And was nearly killed. That was long ago and I have learned a lot. I hope I have learned enough."

Again I went below. Dabney was up, his chocolate on the table before him. Guadalupe was there also, tired but awake.

"All is well on deck?" Dabney had papers before him, and was engaged in some problem of navigation.

"So far," I said. "He is at least making us lose sleep."

"Which is probably a part of his plan," Dabney commented calmly. "Being the man you say he is, he will no doubt choose a moment when we least expect an attack. I am sure he knows just what we are doing."

"You mean he has spies here?"

"He needs no spies. He knows we expect an attack, so we must be forever on guard. On the contrary, he expects no attack and he will choose the time. His men can rest, relax, and await the proper moment. That is why I now have but three men on deck. The others are resting."

"But if he should come upon us now?"

"We would have ample warning. How can a boat approach us without our knowing?"

Nonetheless, I was worried. Yet the hot chocolate tasted good as did the scones. "You live well, Captain," I commented.

"Why not? My life is aboard ship. I see no reason for a Spartan existence. One needs the comforts, and I can have them nowhere else."

Suddenly a man appeared in the door. "The pinnace, Captain. She has just come from the inlet, but is not heading toward us."

"Thank you, Samuel. Now alert the men, but have them stay at their posts. See they are served a round of rum. I shall be on deck shortly." He refilled our cups and his.

"You are complacent, Captain."

"Not complacent. Confident. I trust in my ship and my men. Whatever Leckenbie is doing at this moment is not important. He is not planning a direct attack on my ship with his pinnace. His is the smaller vessel with fewer guns, and your Rafe Leckenbie is not a reckless man. He will not see his vessel destroyed until he has another.

"What he is doing now is a feint, perhaps, or he is getting in position for a later attack. For that, one man can watch him as easily as a dozen. We must simply hold ourselves ready. He has the advantage of the attack and the choice of time and place."

He put his cup down. "You have recently been to France, Captain? Did you by any chance meet Montaigne? The man of the essays?"

"I did not. As you know, I was with the Spanish forces, who were waging war against Henry of Navarre. We were defeated and I was taken prisoner. I do know that Montaigne is no longer mayor of Bordeaux. Not since the plague. He has been, I heard, mediating between Henry of Navarre and Henry III."

"King Henry freed you, you say? And spoke to you in person?"

"He did. I believe," I hesitated, choosing my words with care, "that he knew something of my family."

"Ah? Interesting! Most interesting, Captain! Did you know that you also had a mutual friend?"

My expression must have been blank, for he smiled again. "You do make the right friends, Captain Chantry. The helpful ones. I refer to Jacob Binns."

He looked so smug that I was irritated. "I do indeed know Jacob Binns," I replied. "He seems to have acquaintances everywhere, though when we met I thought him but a simple fisherman."

"No doubt. He has been many things in his time, many things." He paused, listening to some movement on deck. He was aware, I believed, of every creak of timber, every scurry of footstep, every lap of water and strain of rigging aboard his vessel. "If you do not know, Captain Chantry, I must explain. In his own way, Jacob Binns is an extremely important man. There is in the world a secret group, a society, if you will, of men of similar experience and ideas. It is old, older than any other, older than even any religion we now know. It is a society that crosses all boundaries, all lands, and all seas. Its numbers are few but they are everywhere.

"Jacob Binns is an envoy, a messenger or communicator between members. No doubt he or someone close to him knew who you were and where you were."

I did not like the mystery of it, nor the feeling that forces might be pulling at me over which I had no control, even though they be friendly. Yet, Binns had been a good friend to me.

Suddenly a man was down from the deck. "Captain? The pinnace is heading for the entrance. I think she is going to sea."

Dabney got to his feet at once. "I think she is not." He turned to me. "Shall we go on deck, Chantry? The attack is about to come."

Instantly I was on my feet. Guadalupe started to rise too, but my hand pressed her down. "Stay ... it will be safer, and I want not to worry about you in what happens."

The clouds were low and gray still. The sea was ruffled with whitecaps but the swell had lessened. We lay scarcely a hundred yards offsh.o.r.e as the cove was not a large one, but the pinnace had skirted its far rim in reaching the entrance. All eyes were upon her.

Suddenly, she seemed to change course toward us, then her bow swung away again. Puzzled, I looked at Dabney. "What is he about? Is he going to sea? Is he going to attack? Is he-?"

Guadalupe screamed.

Spinning around, I was in time to see them coming over the rail, dripping wet, cutla.s.ses in hand. While all our attention had been taken by the seemingly erratic maneuvers of the pinnace, the attackers had swum out from sh.o.r.e. Over the rail they came, some with cutla.s.ses or knives in their teeth to allow both hands for climbing. They spilled onto our lower deck, in a ma.s.s.

They swarmed over the rail ready for attack, and they found the deck was empty!

The Captain and I faced them from the top of the ladders leading from the p.o.o.p deck.

On the deck below there was only Guadalupe, standing in the doorway of the pa.s.sage leading to the main cabin, which was under the p.o.o.p deck.

The attackers halted momentarily, Rafe Leckenbie among them, caught off guard by the empty deck where they had expected enemies. Cutla.s.ses lowered, they stared about them, and at that moment, Captain Dabney fired his pistol.

He shot into the ma.s.s of attackers, and a man fell, but instantly on the shot the ship's crew rushed from under the fo'c'stle and from the cabins aft.

Taken from both sides, the surprise of Leckenbie's men was total. They were doubly shocked, first at the empty deck, and then at the attack.

Leaping to the deck, I took a cut at a brawny pirate with a hairy chest and a ring in his one ear. The cut only scratched him and he lunged at me but I thrust low and hard and he impaled himself on my sword. For a moment we were face to face, then I jammed my palm under his chin and shoved him back off my sword, Rafe Leckenbie stood waiting, smiling. He saluted me with his blade. "It has been a long time since first we met, Tatton Chantry!"

"But worth the waiting, Rafe," I said. "Do you wish to die now?"

He laughed, a great laugh, a fine laugh. "Die? Me? I have just begun to live!"

We crossed blades. His skill, I perceived at once, had grown with time. There was fighting about us, but we ignored it. This was our moment, and I was remembering that awful night on the high moors when he had come so close to killing me.

He fenced coolly, skillfully. He was a man with greed only for power, a man born to dominate-or die in the attempt. If he had one love, this was it. This crossing of blades, the art of the sword. And he was a man created to fight.

For all his great size and strength, he moved with the speed and ease of a dancer, on his toes, poised, smooth. For every move of mine, he had an answer. I felt he was toying with me, and yet...

"Ah!" he said, as I parried his blade, "you have learned!"

He feinted for my head and attempted a flank cut. I parried and thrust to the right cheek. He parried the blow easily, again attempted a head thrust and then to the chest. Again I parried and my point tore his sleeve near the shoulder, but touched no flesh.

The fighting around us ceased, but neither of us noticed nor moved except toward each other. He attacked suddenly, coming in fast with a style I had never encountered before, a whole series of thrusts and cuts, baffling in their speed and unexpectedness. It needed all my skill to escape them. His point, needle sharp, touched my thigh. I parried his next blow and with a quick riposte, drew blood from his cheek. For an instant his eyes flamed with anger, then it was gone.

"You are good!" he said. "Very good!"

Yet I was not to be misled. That he flattered me to lead me into taking unnecessary chances I was sure, yet I fenced cautiously, studying his methods, yet careful not to take anything for granted, for he was a shrewd blade and meant to kill me. He was very sure of himself, fencing with the absolute confidence of a man who had never been bested with a blade. Several times he lunged, yet each time I managed to deflect his blade. Steadily I retreated, circled a little, but fell back. He was constantly upon me, and time and again I had the narrowest of escapes. Once he nicked my shoulder, again he grazed my cheek, drawing blood. He smiled at that. On the instant I moved, grazing his blade and with the slightest flexing of the wrist pressing it out of line, then instantly lunging. My point went two inches into the latissimus muscle, reached by a thrust that went between arm and body.

Recovering instantly, I pressed the attack. Blood stained his shirt and ran down his side. And now his coolness was gone. He had been hurt; I had actually drawn blood. In a fury he came at me and for several wild minutes I was hard put to defend myself.

As he came on fast, I circled and stepped in a spot of blood. I slipped. Instantly he was upon me, his sword lifted for a killing thrust.

As he stabbed downward I threw myself at his legs, and he staggered back. Coming up fast, I grasped his sword arm and pressed him back.

He laughed, and deliberately began to force his arm down. The strength of the man was prodigious. He was laughing at me now, laughing with a terrible rage as he forced my arm down and down, bringing his blade closer and closer to my throat. Yet the years had done much for me, and I was no longer the boy he had fought that first time. The long months of fencing with Fergus MacAskill, the climbing in the mountainous crags of the Hebrides, and the years in the wars, all had conspired to make me a different man.

Suddenly I began to shove back. Harder and harder I pressed and my arm ceased to move downward. His blade stayed firm and then inexorably I was pushing him back.

He could not believe it. Nothing in his life of continual triumph had prepared him for what was happening now. My strength was not only equal to his, but was surpa.s.sing it. His arm went back, and suddenly he sprang away, jerking his wrist from my grip and striking out with a wild slash that ripped wide my shirt and left a b.l.o.o.d.y gash across my stomach.

Swiftly he pressed his attack. He thrust hard and I felt the point of his blade in my side. Another twist of the blade and he had cut my cheek. He was a fighting fury now, filled with hatred of the threat I presented to him.

Nothing I could do seemed to stop him. He came on, pushing hard. Suddenly I gave way, and he came in, closing the distance. My next lunge took him by surprise. I risked all ... but the blade caught him coming in and thrust deep.

For a moment he stared, unbelieving. Then he leaped back. For an instant he swayed, drenched now along his lower side and leg with the red blood of his wound.

He lifted his sword, threw it in the air and caught the blade, then threw it like a spear!

Yet my blade lifted and caught his, throwing it aside. I went at him then, standing close to the rail, and he stood, braced to meet me, no weapon in his hands. Then his left hand went behind his back to his belt and came from under his jerkin with a knife, a sword-breaker such as Fergus had carried!

I feinted, and he moved to catch my blade but I swept it down and then up, ripping the inside seam of his breeches and cutting half through his wide leather belt.

Blood was pooling beneath him. He crouched, teeth bared in anger. Then suddenly like a flash he turned and threw himself over the rail and into the water!

Leaning over the rail, I saw blood on the water. His body had gone down, his blood mixing with the bubbles of the sea.

The pinnace had stopped not fifty yards off. Our guns were bearing on her; our men stood with lighted matches ready for a broadside.

The pinnace held still, and for an instant I believed they might chance it.

Long I stared at the water, yet I saw no further sign of Rafe Leckenbie. He had gone down, bleeding profusely, into the depths. Then, as if impelled by his disappearance, the pinnace began slowly to back off.

We held our fire, waiting.

33.

The house of gray granite sits in the hollow of a green hill with all the bay and the rocks below it. A strong walker may climb to where the old fort lies, its black stones made blacker still by the blood of those who died there, and the burning of the fires that ate away its heart more times than one, yet each tune by a son rebuilt.

Ours is a quiet place with the gray sea before us, rarely still, and the black rocks and islets rising from it. Here and there lies a patch of green where the gra.s.s grows or a tree.

To this place have I come after my wandering years.

My father died somewhere near but where his body lies no man knows. It matters not, for his spirit haunts these gray rocks, resting or moving among them as he forever did. By now he knows that I have come again, bought back the old place and some of the land around. And if my name is another's the hearth at least is mine, and my sons will grow tall from the same deep roots.

You have not failed me, Father, for you gave much, asking only this in return: that I come again and rebuild the old fires that the name and the blood shall live.

Guadalupe is here, and my firstborn, and a fine lad he is, named for you, my father.

The chests I brought back from America were fatly filled, and the Irish folk know me for who I am and say nothing, but greet me gently as they pa.s.s. The English whom I also love, although it seems traitorous to some, think of me as a sailor from the days of the Armada, a sometime prisoner in Spain, and a wanderer come home.

My fine Irish horses graze on the salt green gra.s.s, and there are cattle here, and sheep. The chests are not empty although I have bought lands here and some in France. And we live quietly but well, going only now and again to Dublintown or Belfast, and mayhap to Cork or London.

Long ago there was a lady left money with me. She has never returned and when I tried the name she gave me and the place, nothing was known, but someday needing it, she will seek me out. She will find lands she owns and a house here and there, and each year I study the money and judge what must be done with it, for she was a woman who trusted at least one man and shall not regret it.

Yet when the gray geese fly west for Iceland, bound on to Greenland and then to Labrador, there is sometimes in the heart of me a longing for distant sh.o.r.es and the beat of waves upon the long golden sands, and the distant view of mountains, far and blue against the horizon, and always the winds that whisper of enchantments beyond the purple ridges.

I shall not go. Guadalupe is here, and my son. My destiny lies here. Like my father before me I shall walk these old paths with my son and show him where the Skelligs lie and old Staigue Fort and the ruins of Derryquin Castle. I shall speak to him of Achilles, Hector, and Conn of the Hundred Battles, of the old kings who lived at Tara and mayhap of a b.l.o.o.d.y man who went over the rail into the waters behind the cape at Lookout.

Of Jacob Binns I have seen no more, but my door stands open always for him, or for Fergus MacAskill or even for Tosti Padget.

Kory comes sometimes, with Porter Bob and Porter Bill, and we trade a little and lie a little and talk of the old days that are better gone.

Of Emma Delahay I have no word. Gone she was and gone she is, and some small money with her, although most was accounted for by Captain Dabney of the Good Catherine. Was she murdered? Fled? I know not, although sometimes I wonder.

Last year in London a lovely girl crossed the floor, holding out both hands to me. "You are Tatton," she said, "and I am Eve Vypont, and I wish you to know that our horse came back, and you may walk in my forest when you will!"

Silliman Turley keeps a tavern in Ballydehob and sometimes when the Good Catherine sails into Roaring Water Bay, we meet there to share a bottle and a loaf with Captain Dabney. So all things at last come to an end.

Guadalupe beside me wears her golden medallion that I took from the deck of a long-lost ship in a far place beyond the sea.

Now I shall go back from the hills to sit beside my fire in the house my own hands built, and sometimes I shall lift my eyes to see the firelight play upon the silver handle of a sheathed sword that hangs there above the fireplace. And when the fire crackles upon the hearth I shall look down from the window to where the gray ghosts of the rainstorms sweep across the distant sea, like veiled women to their prayers. I have come home again, and I go now to where love lies waiting...

About the Author.

"I think of myself in the oral tradition-of a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered-as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world recreated in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own family in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, a.s.sessment miner, and officer on tank destroyers during World War II. During his "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontier and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full-length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 100 books is in print; there are nearly 230 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the best-selling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.