to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) Read online

  And now, because of a few gold coins happened upon when washed from the mud of the dyke, I was accused.

  "That is nonsense," I said. "The coins were obviously lost by some traveler, or dropped by some looter after a battle. I found them in the mud, washed out by a heavy rain. They had been in a leather bag."

  "I believe you, but there are those who do not."

  My thoughts raced ahead. Even to one as relatively inexperienced as I, it was plain to see what would happen. I should be imprisoned and questioned, perhaps tortured. There was nothing for me to tell, so the torture might continue for a long time, and surely imprisonment would follow.

  How could I convince them that I had found nothing beyond the coins I had sold?

  I was suddenly sick and empty. There had been other coins, too. Following upon my little success with my first find, I had obtained the Leland manuscript and set out to investigate another place I recalled from my travels. There, too, I had been fortunate.

  "Believe me, Peter, I know nothing. Only that I must escape, and now. If I do not, I see no way to avoid prison."

  My voice lowered. "Peter, I cannot longer wait." In my mind came something my father had told me. It was a chance. "Peter, go to Tempany. Tell him to sail at once."

  "And you?"

  "Tell him to watch for a boat from off the Bill of Portland."

  "All ports will be watched, you may be sure of it."

  "Tell him to sail, but to take his time when passing the Bill and to keep a sharp lookout. I have a thought of what I can do."

  Turning my head to look, I suddenly noticed that the other man was gone!

  Instantly, I was on my feet. "Peter, I shall send you goods. You market them and buy for me. You'll do this?"

  "As we planned. Of course."

  In an instant, I was out of the door, and in two strides across the narrow stone wharf. Peter followed me. Black Tom took one look at my face and unloosed the mooring.

  From in front of the Prospect, we heard a rush of feet and a rumble of voices.

  Peter stepped quickly into the boat with us. "I do not think they know me," he said, "and if I can get away-"

  We shoved off, but not out into the stream. Hugging the shore where we would not be immediately visible, we eased away from the Prospect-first under some looming houses beside the Thames, then under the reeds that grew along the bank. We were strong men, Tom and I, and we bent to our oars with a will. Behind us we heard curses and shouts, but looking back we could see nothing but the green of the bank, those lovely banks of the Thames that I might never see again.

  "Where are you for?" Peter asked.

  "The Grapes. I promised to leave the boat there."

  "Good! In Limehouse I have friends."

  "Can we trust them?"

  Peter chuckled. "With everything but your money or your wife. Rob you, they might. Betray you, never!"

  It was an old building, patched up and vine-grown, with willows, and in back of these, elms. We left the boat at The Grapes, and went down a lane from the river.

  Peter's friends were a motley lot, as pretty a bunch of rogues as it had ever been my fortune to see-and better seen by daylight than after dark.

  "Horses? Of a surety! Anything for you, Peter! We have excellent horses, and if you'd not be seen, we have covered lanes leading in all directions."

  He leaned toward me, an evil-looking man with a hatchet face and a bad scar pulling down one eyebrow. His breath was foul, but his manner genial enough. I noted a dagger in his waistband.

  "You might," he said, 'leave some'at on the table for the poor o' Limehouse ... the poor being me." He spread wide his mouth in what I took for a grin and looked at me slyly from under his brows. "You be one o' Peter's friends, be ye?

  Peter it is who knows the gents. Peter's a smart one, a shrewd one, knows a thing or two, he does. He's had me out of Newgate twice, lad ... twice! I owe him for that, and a thing or two else."

  The horses were brought around, two fine geldings, and a mare for Peter, who would be riding into the heart of London. We parted, leaving a silver crown.

  We rode north, following devious country lanes. We saw few people, herdsmen who waved at us as we passed, and once a girl milking a cow, from whom we begged a draught of the fresh warm milk.

  At nightfall we came upon a small tavern, and rode into the yard. A swarthy, hard-faced man faced us inside the gate. He looked from one to the other of us, and liked not what he saw.

  "It be a lonely road for travelers," he said.

  "Aye, but a pleasant way to see the land," I replied. I think it was of shillings and pence that he thought, and little else beside.

  "It's a bed we want, and a bit of something to eat," I said. "And we've enough to pay."

  "Aye. Get down then. The woman's inside."

  "The horses will be wanting a rubbing down," I said, "and oats."

  "If there's a rubbing down, you'll do it yourself," he replied. "As for oats, we've none about."

  "Hold up, Tom," I said to Watkins. "We'll go down the road a bit. There's grass a-plenty there, and our horses will fare the better for it."

  The tavern keeper saw his pence leaving and it upset him. "Oh, be not so much in a hurry," he protested. "Maybe I can find a bit of grain."

  "Find it," I said, "and the rubdown, too. I'll pay for what I get, but I'll get it, too."

  He liked me not. There was a hard, even look to his eye, but the thought of a bed was on me, and a warm meal, else we'd have gone down the road to whatever lay ahead.

  The door opened under our hand and the common room of the inn. The woman who came out drying her hands on her apron was pleasant-faced.

  "A place to sleep," I said, "and something to eat."

  She gestured at a table. "Sit. There's a bit of meat and bread."

  The bread was good, freshly baked and tasty. The meat was likewise. Whatever else he did, the man lived well. With such food before him, he'd little reason to growl.

  He came into the room, drew a draught of ale, and sat at another table. He'd have a swallow and then he'd stare at us. Finally he said, "Do you come far?"

  "Far enough for hunger," I said.

  "From London town?"

  "London!" I said. "Hah!" Then I added grimly, "I've no liking for towns. I'm a country man."

  That he had no liking for strangers was obvious. I wondered if it was the way here, or whether he had another reason.

  He looked at Tom. "You be lookin' like a man from the sea," he ventured.

  "Aye," Tom said, "I've been there."

  "So have I," he said then. And to our surprise, he continued. "I did m'self well on a voyage with Hawkins, so I left the sea and came here to where I was born.

  I've the inn," he said, "a few cows and pigs and some land of my own out yonder.

  It is better than the sea."

  He took a draught of ale. "But I liked the sea, liked it well, and Hawkins was a good man. No trouble made him show worry."

  A thought suddenly came to me. "Did you know David Ingram?"

  He turned and looked at me sharply. "I knew him. Was he by way of bein' a friend to you?"

  "I did not know him," I said, "but I'd give a piece to talk to him. He made a walk I'd like to hear about."

  He snorted. "It took no trouble to hear him. He talked of little else. Browne ... now there was the man. He saw it all, but had little to say."

  "From the land of Mexico to Nova Scotia is a far walk," I said. "It was a time to see what no white man had seen before."

  He took his ale and moved to our table. Putting it down, he leaned forward.

  "Ingram was a fool," he said. "He was always a fool, to my mind, though there were those who thought much of him. He was good enough at sea, only he had a loose mouth. Browne was the better man."

  He went into another room and came back with a sheet of parchment. "See this? He drew it for me. Drew it the year after he got back. He's gone now, but this he drew with his own fist."

 
He pointed at a place on what was the coast of the Mexican gulf. "They walked from there along the shore, traveling at night to avoid Indians, much of the time. They crossed a big river here," he put his hand on a spot, "on a raft they built. It landed here. They saw some big mounds ... walked north by east."

  I watched his hand. "Here." He put his finger on a point almost halfway up the river and east of it. "They found some of the finest land under heaven right here. Great bulls ... shaggy ones ... wandering about in grass to their knees.

  Streams flowing down from mountains ..."

  "Mountains?"

  "Aye ... mountains to the east. They found a way through those mountains, but that was much farther north, I think."

  The parchment lay on the table before us, and I looked long upon it as we talked. This man Browne had been beyond the blue mountains of which I had heard.

  He had seen a fair land, and great rivers. I had no need to copy the sheet before me, for it was engraven in my mind.

  Chapter 4

  We rode westward.

  Yet soon we were angling off to the south, into areas I knew not of. Here Black Tom had the advantage of me, for he had traveled to Bristol ere this, and even into Cornwall.

  "They're a rum lot," he commented, speaking of the villagers. "Some are fine people, friendly to strangers, but others will have nothing for him, not even a word. You'd think they'd be curious and wanting news, but no such thing. They are content with what is about them.

  "It is changing," he continued. "Twenty years ago it was much worse, but with Drake, Hawkins, and all the talk of them, many of the country folk know as much of what goes on as do those in London."

  After a bit our course changed, to the south. There was only the small beginning of a plan in my thoughts, something of which my father had told me in one of his odd bits of talk, although nothing he said was ever a careless thing. He had lived too long, close to wars and rebellions, not to expect such things to occur again, and there were times when a man must take shelter. It was with this in mind that he had told me of various places, caves, ruins, coves ... all manner of spots where a man might go in need of hiding.

  When I had told Peter to have the ship pick me up off Portland Bill it was this I had in mind, for there was a cave on the seaward side of the Portland isle of which few men knew, a cove large enough to hide a fair-sized vessel, as it had on one or another occasion.

  Even local fishermen knew little of it. Although some were aware of a black opening there, they had better things to do than prowl about against the face of dangerous rocks. If I could get there I could remain out of sight until my ship appeared offshore. Then a quick dash, and with luck we'd be aboard unseen.

  Tom talked much as we rode, yet I listened with only half an ear, for I'd a feeling there was a troublous time before us. If it was truly believed we had found King John's royal treasure, the search for us would be wide as England.

  Riders would have gone out to all the ports and towns, and it behooved us to hold to the back ways, as we had done.

  Another night we stopped in a village and bought cheese, bread, and ale. Then we found ourselves a woodcutters' hut in Pamber forest, built a small fire on the hearth, rolled up on the floor in our coats, and went to sleep.

  Suddenly, I heard a faint creak. How long had I slept? In an instant my eyes were open. There was someone at the door. Slowly the door was pushed open, and a head appeared, a head and a hand, then a blade.

  A man stepped in. Behind him was another. With my left hand I threw back my blanket and with my right I lifted the pistol from my saddle holster.

  I heard Tom stir.

  "Come in, gentlemen!" I said. "But please, no quick movements as I've no wish to be cleaning scattered brains from the wall, and my pistol never travels alone.

  It has a mate."

  Tom came to his feet near the wall, a cutlass in his hand.

  "If you wish, Barnabas, I'll carve a bit of meat for you," he said.

  "Now, now!" The man in the door came a step farther into the hut. "No need to get your backs up."

  "Stand fast!" I said quietly. "Tom, throw some fuel on the fire. We'll want to see our guests in a better light."

  With his left hand, Tom threw a handful of brush to start the morning fire on the dying coals. When the fire flared up, he added sticks.

  The man in the doorway was blond and smiling, although his leather jerkin was scarred and torn, his shirt almost gone, and there were bloody stains on both shirt and jerkin. The light in his eyes was cheerful.

  "Aye!" he said, "A lucky chance is this! You'll be Barnabas Sackett, and a lot of the devil's trouble you've brought us!"

  "Us? Who might you be referring to?"

  "Let me get closer to the fire and I'll do some talking. You've naught to fear from us, though we're perhaps the only men in England can say that. What a noise you've raised, my friend! Why, the woods and roads are alive with men, all searching for Barnabas Sackett! What is it you've done, man? Stolen the Crown jewels?"

  "Are you followed?" Tom asked. "Speak up, man!"

  "No. We gave them the slip, the ruddy beggars. But not by much, and I'd say that before the day is broad you'd best not be about here. They've roused the country to search for you."

  He squatted by the fire. "Not four hours agone they came suddenly upon us, rushed in with halberds and blades, even some with forks. We'd a lively set-to there, for a bit, and we lost a lad, but accounted for two or more of them, and some hurt. We drove them off, then we went through the hole in the wall of an old abbey and escaped." He laughed with satisfaction. "They thought us surrounded, snug and tight. Tell us, Barnabas. Are you guilty?"

  There was no use lying. "Almost a year back," I explained, "I came upon a rotting leather purse, buried in mud on the Devil's Dyke, nigh on to Reach.

  There were some gold coins inside. I sold them."

  The blond man stared at me, his eyes twinkling a bit. "And they think you've found the royal treasure! Have you?" He searched my eyes.

  "The gold coins was all, and I think them lost by other means at another time,"

  I replied. "But they'll have me hidden deep in a dungeon at Newgate, trying to torture it out of me, and I have other plans."

  He held out his hand to me. "Pimmerton Burke is the name. Pim to my friends, and you'll be among them, I hope. I am afraid I cannot vouch for all the scruples of my companion here, but he's a likely lad in a bit of trouble. Sam Cobbett's his name yon. He took a wicked blow on his pate with a club, and he's been addled ever since."

  "Addled? Who says I'm addled?" Cobbett grumbled. "I'm not so addled as you, Pim, but I'll confess the head aches something fierce."

  Outside, the wind was picking up. Wind blew down the chimney and guttered the fire. We added fuel and huddled closer. These were landless men and probably thieves, wanted, maybe, by the law. Or, worse still, wanted by no one.

  Pim looked a good man, but I wanted to test him.

  "You know the country about here?" I asked.

  "I know it." He drew in the dust of the floor. "See? There's an old place, some earthworks ... ditches and a rampart. It is a mile or so, perhaps two miles this side of the village."

  "I think," I said abruptly, "that we'll go west." I got up. "And we'll go now."

  "Now?" Pim was reluctant.

  "Now," I said.

  Sam Cobbett looked up at us. "Leave a place like this? It's blowing out, and there's rain a'coming. You go if you like. I'm snugged in here, and here I'll stay."

  Pim shrugged. "I'll go along."

  Outside, we saddled quickly. Pim led off, but when we were scarce a half mile out, I stopped him. "Now for your earthworks," I said.

  He stared at me, then laughed. "You don't trust easily," he said.

  "I don't," I said.

  "Well, now. There's a man," he said, and led off into the driving rain, our cloaks billowing about us, the track slippery beneath.

  We came to the earthworks, low green mounds and trees c
overing several acres.

  With Pim and Tom I went to the top of the wall, just our heads rising above it.

  Pim pointed a way that led down lanes among trees, a way that would keep us free of people unless there was a chance meeting on the road.

  "It would help," he said, "if I knew exactly where you were going."

  It was then I took a risk. This man could help me with his knowledge of the people and the area, knowledge I did not possess. "I am for the New World," I said. "I love England, but my destiny lies yonder ... over the seas. Come with me, Pim."

  "I have thought of it," he agreed. "It is a temptation when all else is gone. I have only strength and ingenuity, and neither trade nor land."

  "It is a far land," I said, "and a dangerous one."

  "I'd venture it," he said, "though a simpler land would be more to my wishing."

  He pointed. "A track lies yonder. The road is traveled by few, and will take us well on our way."

  He looked at me. "Is it Bristol, then?"

  "A likely place," I agreed, "with ships for any land, but mostly for ships to the west."

  We mounted once more. It was a weary time, for neither Tom nor I had slept but the least bit, and our eyelids drooped. Pim Burke led the way, pausing from time to time as he approached a turn in the lane to look before him.

  It was scarcely light when we came up to the door of an inn, in Odiham, a fine-looking timbered building scarcely fifty years old, and Tom led our horses around to the stable while Pim Burke opened the door and led the way inside.

  A stout, red-faced man was kindling a fire. He turned to look. "Ah? Is it you again? You are a rascal, Pim. Will the Queen's men never take you?"

  "I hope not," Pim said cheerfully, "although Newgate might be better than some places my head has lain this past fortnight. Can you have something put on for us, Henry? My friends and I have a hunger two days old ... or so it feels."

  "Sit yon." Henry pointed toward a table in a corner near another door. "

  'Friends' did you say? Are there more?"

  "One more. He stables the horses now."

  "We will pay," I said.

  "Ah? Did you hear that, Pim? Did you listen well? Such words are music to an innkeeper's ears. You would think we held open house here, the way you come by to eat whenever you're near."