Deadly Shoals by Joan Druett Page B

we’re going to El Carmen by land, I need horses.”
    â€œHow many horses?”
    â€œLieutenant Perry will come, and I’ll take Mr. Waldron, and Mr. Hale, too—so we need four, quick as you can.”
    Wiki had heard of all three men before, though the only one he had met personally was Mr. Waldron, the purser of the Vincennes and one of Captain Wilkes’s particular cronies. Wiki had noticed Mr. Waldron on board the Sea Gull the night before, but had not paid much attention to anyone else. The schooner had been extremely crowded, having two surgeon-scientists on board as well as Mr. Peale and the crew of fifteen men, and Wiki’s major goal had been to find a place to sleep—which had turned out to be within the folds of a spare sail stowed on the foredeck, where he had reposed quite comfortably, wrapped securely in his poncho.
    Now, realizing that the crowd must have included Mr. Hale, who was the expedition philologist, he wondered why the oddly named Titian Peale was not taking part in the jaunt to El Carmen. And what about the two surgeon-scientifics? Wiki knew only one, Dr. Fox, by sight—not just because he lived on the Vincennes, but also because he was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, Captain Coffin’s hometown. John Fox was only three years older than Wiki himself, and during Wiki’s first year or so in Salem, he had often seen him walking in and out of the prestigious Salem Latin School, where he was a noted scholar. The other surgeon looked equally high-toned and intelligent, so why had the pair been excluded?
    Wiki wasn’t foolish enough to ask. Instead, as soon as the boat had pushed off for the Sea Gull with the new pilot on board, he went back to the pilots’ cabin. His mare, thankfully, was still tethered to the hitching post, the lancers having forgotten to steal her. She shied madly when she saw him, greatly disliking the prospect of another jaunt, and it took several minutes to get the saddle cinched. Then she bucked and kicked viciously when Wiki grabbed a hank of mane, set a bare toe on her knee, and jumped on board.
    Curbing her with difficulty, Wiki set off along the top of the headland for the estancia where he and Stackpole had hired the horses. So much had happened in the meantime that when the silvery fence and then the cluster of buildings came into sight, it seemed much more than two days since he’d been here last. The estanciero had no trouble remembering him, though. Another bout of bargaining commenced, and then, after signing a paper on behalf of Captain Ringgold, Wiki led a string of four ponies back, to find the schooner a half-mile farther upstream, well out of the shoals and bobbing serenely at her anchors. Obviously, Harden had made good his boast that he could pilot her to safety.
    However, another crisis had arisen. To Wiki’s consternation, when he got to the landing place on the riverbank, he found the six men of the boat’s crew holding a posse of gauchos at bay with pistols and rifles, while Ringgold and three companions watched from the safety of the boat.
    â€œThey’re friends,” Wiki hastily said.
    The gauchos were, in fact, Manuel Bernantio and his men. They sat at ease in their great sheep-fleece saddles, not even deigning to notice the seamen, who looked scared to death despite their armament. Bernantio was smoking, while others scraped at tobacco plugs with the enormous cut-down swords they used as knives, the little squares of paper they used for making their cigars gripped between their bare toes.
    â€œ Friends? They look even more rascally than you do, Wiki,” Ringgold declared, stepping from boat to shore. “What the devil do they want?”
    Wiki asked Bernantio, tactfully rephrasing what Ringgold had said. Then he turned back and said, “They say you need an armed escort to El Carmen, the countryside being in a ferment, still. For a sum, they are willing to provide