Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett

“Is it on account of the war? Are you pretending to be some sort of spy?”
    â€œNot at all,” said Wiki. “And there isn’t any war—it was just a comical mistake. As for me, I was simply investigating a robbery, only it turned out to be a murder. Tell me,” he went on, “did you happen to raise a sealer when you were on the way into the coast?”
    â€œWhat the devil are you talking about?”
    And Wiki proceeded to explain.

Five
    January 27, 1839
    â€œForget this murder,” Captain Ringgold crisply instructed in the morning.
    Wiki frowned. “Just like that?” He and Ringgold were standing on the diminutive deck of the schooner, watching the boat being put overboard ready for a return to shore. The early wind was chilly, and Wiki pulled his poncho closer.
    â€œEven a blind fool could see what happened. Adams stole the schooner after he bought her from Hallett, sent her upriver to load with salt, packed goods from his own store to provision her, and then was murdered by some local ruffian who dumped his corpse in the desert and sailed off with the prize. It’s a matter for the governor’s attention, not ours. Report it to him, and put it out of your mind. Do you hear me?”
    â€œAye, sir,” said Wiki, though he wondered what Stackpole would say about it, and wondered, too, if the whaling master had had any luck in tracking down either Hallett—who might not be as innocent as Captain Ringgold suggested—or the clerk. He also thought that if Ringgold had been the one to find the half-buried corpse, he would not be nearly so dismissive of the matter.
    â€œAnd you should’ve reported to the governor the moment you arrived in El Carmen,” Ringgold continued, quite unaware of this. “Even a blithering idiot could see that informing him the expedition was on the way would’ve prevented all this panic and confusion. And why the devil did you cut your hair?” he demanded with a disconcerting change of subject. “At least it was tidy when you tied it back, even though it made you look like an out-of-work opera singer, but now it’s a bloody disgrace.”
    â€œI thought the bandanna would keep it neat,” protested Wiki, who had no intention whatsoever of revealing the romantic reason for cutting his hair.
    â€œIt’s mostly on account of that red rag that you look like a rascal of a gaucho. You’re damned lucky you weren’t shot as a spy during the fright about the French,” opined Ringgold, who appeared to have spies on the brain. “Or hanged,” he went on meditatively. “Did you know that the great Connecticut patriot Nathan Hale, the first American spy of the Glorious Revolution, was hanged by the British?”
    â€œGood heavens, was he?” murmured Wiki.
    â€œHe was,” Ringgold assured him. “And where the hell is the pilot? Mr. Peale was positive he’d be here by dawn to get us up the river.”
    Wiki looked around. Mr. Peale—like the pilot—was nowhere to be seen. “It seems we have to fetch the pilot from the pilothouse,” he said, and followed Ringgold into the boat, where a boat’s crew was ready to pull them ashore.
    To their consternation and dismay, as they arrived on the riverbank a guard of lancers galloped around a bend, hauled their steeds to a stop, and jumped down with leveled weapons. The boat’s crew and Captain Ringgold beat a hasty retreat to the safety of the boat, while Wiki explained the situation to the man who was in charge of the squad. Finally, to his relief, the pikes and cutlasses were lowered, and Ringgold bravely stepped ashore. Then the chief guard revealed that though they were still very jumpy about the rumored French invasion, their real mission was to arrest the pilots and carry them off to the fort.
    â€œFor God’s sake, why?” Ringgold demanded, after Wiki had conveyed this.
    â€œIt seems that