Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett Page A

agreeing to pilot a foreign vessel without getting permission from the governor first is a heinous offense.” The crime, Wiki thought, was trivial enough, but the state of the two pilots when they were dragged out of their cabin was pitiable. As they were hauled off in shackles they begged Captain Ringgold to intercede for them, vowing their lives were at stake.
    Ringgold scarcely listened. Instead, as the lancers cantered off down the riverside path with the pilots in tow, he fell into a fit of swearing. He had good reason, Wiki admitted. Since she had grounded, the Sea Gull had been sitting relatively still, but now, as they could all see from the riverbank, with the ebb tide she was starting to thump up and down.
    Then Ringgold’s flow of invective was abruptly interrupted. A man stepped out of the scrub, glanced around in a surreptitious fashion to make sure that the troopers had left, and then offered his piloting services in good American English.
    He was a weathered man in his thirties, with a short beard that was redder than his brown hair. Though not large in stature, he carried such a strong impression of an electric abundance of energy that he seemed bigger than his size. He also had wonderful self-confidence. Everyone stared in silence, completely confounded by this sudden apparition, but this didn’t faze him in the slightest. Stepping up to Captain Ringgold with his hand outstretched, he announced in hearty Yankee tones, “Benjamin Harden, junior, at your service.”
    Instead of shaking hands, Ringgold took a quick pace backward, saying with disgust, “You’re an American ?”
    â€œWas left behind by my ship in Buenos Aires quite some years ago,” said this fellow, not put out in the slightest. “Came here to make my pile, sir—an ambition that has remained unrealized, unfortunately.”
    Ringgold stared him up and down, and then observed to Wiki, without bothering to lower his voice, “He’s nothing but a confounded adventurer!”
    â€œThere’s two or three of them around here, sir, or so Captain Stackpole told me,” Wiki told him.
    â€œGood God. What’s our great nation coming to?”
    Wiki was saved from finding an answer by Harden himself, who abruptly improved his position by revealing, “I have my Protection, sir.”
    Ringgold’s brows shot up, and Wiki was equally surprised. The Seaman’s Protection was a slip of paper testifying that the bearer was a citizen of the United States, with the right to apply to a U.S. consul for help if he was sick, marooned, or shipwrecked. Any American seaman who failed to go to the local customshouse and get this certificate before he sailed was foolish, as it was valuable evidence of his identity. However, if Harden had been adrift in South America for years, as he claimed, it was amazing that he’d managed to retain it.
    While they all watched, Harden felt around in the interior of his shirt, and hauled it out. The captain stared at him for a long moment before taking it, and then gave it only a brief look. “You’re a Rhode Islander?”
    â€œBorn in Providence thirty-five years ago, sir, just the way it says there.”
    â€œAnd you reckon you can pilot our schooner off the sandbar?”
    â€œAnd back out to the fleet, sir.”
    â€œNot up the river to El Carmen?”
    â€œAin’t possible, sir, not with the tide against us.” Harden licked a finger, wetting it, and then held it up in the air, reminding them all that there was no breeze at all, let alone one that would help waft the Sea Gull upriver.
    Another pause. Then Ringgold nodded, and handed the paper back. “All right,” he grunted. “Come on board and navigate her off the sandbank and into deeper water, so we can get her a hundred or so fathoms upstream with the sweeps. Then we’ll discuss what happens next.” He turned to Wiki, and said abruptly, “Since