Kings Pinnacle (14 page)

The Longhunter stopped the
pony as soon as he realized no one was following him. He quickly
rode back to where the girl and Alex were standing in the trail
looking at the grey horse. As soon as he arrived at the disaster,
he bolted out of his saddle to the ground.

“Here, ye two take the pony.
I will hold them off so that ye can get away,” said the Longhunter
holding the reins out to Alex.

“Not on your life,” replied
Alex. “I’m not leaving you here to face the Iroquois alone. The
girl can take the pony; you and I can hold them off while she gets
away.”

Alex didn’t wait for a reply
from the Longhunter. He picked up the girl and lifted her into the
saddle, handed her the reins, and slapped the pony on its flank,
sending it off to the east into the darkness, away from the
Iroquois.

* * * *

Robert and Hugh

“
We may hae gotten away
without being followed,” said Hugh, as he and Robert rode along the
trail north on the west bank of Loch Ryan.

Robert nodded, but then added, “Don’t
count on it.”

They heard the horses coming
after them before they saw them; it was the sheriff and a dozen
troops. The fat innkeeper had sold them out and probably had
collected a bounty on them or at least had been promised one upon
their capture. Hugh hoped he would have a chance to get even with
the fat innkeeper who had been wiping the tankard with the dirty
towel some day in the near future.

The sheriff and the troops
were riding fast and had nearly caught up with them after about two
miles on the trail north along the western shore of the loch.
Robert and Hugh picked up the pace to stay just ahead of their
pursuers. But they knew that there was no way they could find the
old fisherman, get into the boat, and cast off before the troops
would be on them. That was when they would be captured unless they
came up with something else.

“Halt and surrender,”
shouted the sheriff at the two fleeing brothers, who ignored the
warning.

As Robert rode along the
shore trail, he kept glancing out into the loch. In a few minutes
he saw what he was looking for. It was a fishing boat’s lamp
hanging from a mast that looked to be about two or three hundred
yards offshore. Without looking at Hugh, he kicked Hack in the
flanks to pick up the pace, in order to put some more distance
between them and their pursuers. Hugh kept pace with Robert and
soon they had opened up a gap of about a hundred yards ahead of the
sheriff and the soldiers.

“Hugh, follow me,” shouted
Robert as he pulled Hack’s reins to the right when he saw an
opening in the brush that grew alongside the trail.

The horses took them down
the shore toward the beach, with Hugh following closely behind
Robert. Instead of stopping at the water, Robert rode Hack straight
out into the loch, slipped out of his saddle and started swimming
behind his horse toward the boat’s lamp while holding onto Hack’s
tail. Hugh followed Robert, swimming behind him without asking any
questions.

The sheriff and the troops
followed behind them, right down to the water’s edge.

“They’re daft,” shouted the
sheriff who had no idea what the two men were doing. Since it was
dark, no one could see the Scar off in the distance and the sheriff
didn’t realize that it jutted that far south out into the loch. He
was from Wigtown and not all that familiar with Stranraer and the
surrounding area. The sheriff also saw the boat lamp but thought
that it was most likely a fisherman headed out to get an early
start on the day’s catch.

“The loch is three miles
wide here. There’s no way they can swim all the way across it.
Let’s ride up to where the Scar meets the shore and make our way
down it from there to see if we can tell what they’re up to,” said
the sheriff thinking that Robert and Hugh would soon realize their
mistake and swim toward the nearest shore. The sheriff left a few
of the troops on the shore where Robert and Hugh had entered the
water, just in case they doubled back. He led the rest of the
troops back up the bank to the trail and then rode north toward the
well-known fork where the Scar met the shore line.

Robert and Hugh swam their
horses up to the Scar and waded out of the water onto the sandbank.
Grabbing their saddle bags off their horses and running over to the
boat where it was resting on the Scar, they threw their bags over
the gunwale where the old fisherman was sitting at the
tiller.

“Cast us off, lads. Ye
wanted to do some fishing, didn’t ye?” chuckled the old fisherman
as he put out the boat’s lamp and cast the entire area into
darkness.

Robert turned back to Hack and patted
him on the neck.

“You’ve been a good horse,
Hack. I hope you find a good master. I wish we could take you with
us to give you back to Alex, but there’s no room for you in the
fishing boat,” said Robert.

Robert and Hugh worked
together to push the fishing boat out into the water and climbed
in. Robert reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a pouch that
contained two pounds in coins and handed it over to the fisherman.
The old fisherman nodded his thanks to Robert and then raised the
sail after he tucked the money bag into his shirt.

“Thank ye kindly, laddie. I
know who ye and yer brother are, and I’m glad to be able to help
ye,” said the man with a wink as he steered the boat toward the
center of loch Ryan, still sailing north.

The sheriff and the troops
eventually came to the point where the Scar met the shore line,
where they all rode out on the sandbank and then turned south to
ride out to the end of the Scar. By the time they got to where the
boat had been tied up on the Scar, all they found was Hack and
Hugh’s horse standing there. The men were gone, and all the sheriff
could do was scratch his head and wonder what happened to them.
After some consideration, he concluded that they had probably
drowned in the loch. His men rounded up the two horses, and they
rode back up the Scar toward the shore.

“Robber, where exactly are
we headed?” asked Hugh.

“North around Fairland Point
and then west to Ireland,” answered the old fisherman for
Robert.

Robert, of course, just
nodded.

The fisherman had a fair
wind and was as good as his word as he landed them on a deserted
beach just north of Larne. He asked Robert and Hugh to shove his
boat off into the water, and he waved goodbye to them. Then he set
the sail back toward Scotland and Stranraer.

Robert and Hugh were
exhausted from their activities of the night, so they pulled their
kits out of their saddle bags, found a secluded spot on the beach,
and dropped into their bedrolls.

“Welcome to Ireland,” said
Hugh as he collapsed into his blankets.

Robert nodded and they both
fell asleep to the sounds of the surf coming in to the shore from
the Sheuch.

* * * *

Alex

“
Let’s see what cover we
can find, lad,” said the Longhunter.

Alex and the Longhunter knew
that their situation was nearly hopeless. The odds were heavily
against them, and there was nowhere to run. Even if there had been
a safe haven, the Iroquois had horses, and they didn’t. Alex’s foot
speed was not going to help him now; he couldn’t outrun a horse.
Alex and the Longhunter were probably dead men, and they knew it,
so Alex decided that he would sell his life dearly.

The Iroquois couldn’t miss
the dead horse lying in the middle of the trail. The braves were
sure to stop and investigate. That would at least give the girl a
better than even chance of getting away. She looked like she knew
how to handle a horse. She had ridden off holding the reins in both
hands and leaning over the horse’s neck like she had run a horse
many times before. So if she didn’t run into anything, she was
probably on her way to freedom.

There wasn’t a lot of cover
to be found around the dead horse, so Alex and the Longhunter
decided to head off in the same direction that the girl had taken
until they found something that looked promising. They were jogging
along the trail when they spied a large stream that crossed the
trail. It was fully dark by then and visibility was poor under the
canopy of the trees.

“Alex, let’s follow this
stream a ways and see what we can find. If we can dodge the band
tonight, maybe tomorrow morning something will happen to give us a
chance to escape,” said the Longhunter.

They followed the stream
bank until they found a large, flat and wide area where the water
flow had undercut the stream bank as it made a broad turn in its
course. The two men crawled down the bank and under the cut, where
they found a pile of brush and a few dead logs that had accumulated
there.

“Here lad, let’s hide under
here and cover up with mud from the stream. We might be able to
wedge ourselves behind those dead logs for the night. The moon is
only half full tonight. Since the clouds have blocked it for now,
the braves would have to step on us to find us in the dark. Then
we’ll see what tomorrow brings,” said the Longhunter.

First they backtracked and
erased all of their footprints that they could find in the soft
bank and then waded in the water back down the stream to the
undercut bank with logs jammed up against it. Alex and the
Longhunter took turns pasting mud all over each other while they
waited for the Iroquois to approach. As soon as they were
completely covered with mud, they lay down on their backs beside
the logs and covered themselves up with leaves and twigs so that
they looked like a pile of brush that had blown up between the logs
and the bank. They thought that this might work to help them
survive through the night, but they figured that the Iroquois would
most likely unravel their ploy with the rising sun.

It was only a few minutes
until they saw the approach of the first Iroquois scout. He was
padding along the bank while scanning both sides of the creek. When
he came to the brush and log pile, he jumped down off the bank and
hopped up on top of the log beside which Alex and the Longhunter
were lying. He stood on the log for a while to have a look around
at the area. Alex and the Longhunter dared not take a breath. Alex
prayed that the Iroquois wouldn’t look down or investigate the pile
of leaves too closely as he eyed the Iroquois from beneath the
leaves. The scout was within an arm’s length from him as he stood
on top of the log.

* * * *

Robert and Hugh

Robert and Hugh woke up in
the late morning to the sound of a dog barking. Robert turned over
in his bedroll and spied a man standing over Hugh. Hugh was a heavy
sleeper; the barking dog had no effect on him. Finally, Hugh was
roused by the stranger kicking him in the back.

“Can’t a lad get any descent
sleep around here?” asked Hugh, rolling over in his bedroll to eye
the man standing over him while brushing the sand out of his
hair.

Robert didn’t say anything.

“You two lads look like
ye’ve just landed on the Irish shore,” said the
stranger.

“Aye, we might have. Is that
where we are?” asked the grinning Hugh.

“Do you mean that you don’t
know where you are, lad?” asked the smiling stranger.

“Aye, we were fishing in
Loch Ryan when our boat sprung a leak and sunk. The next thing we
knew, we washed up on this beach last night,” said Hugh.

“A likely story, lad, but it
won’t fly with me,” said the stranger laughing softly under his
breath.

“What business is it of
yours anyway?” asked Hugh.

“I’m the Sheriff of Larne
and those are my men standing off there on the coast road holding
those mean looking pistols,” said the sheriff, pointing to the
group of men who had dismounted and were standing by the road near
their horses.

“One of my duties as Sheriff
of Larne is to insure that new arrivals to Ireland are proper
persons of genteel appearance or at least have proper documentation
and references. My charge is to reject and or correct any arrivals
of low and mean appearance and you two lads look mighty low and
mean to me. That’s one strike against you. Do you two have any
documentation or references?” asked the sheriff.

“
Here be my references,”
said Hugh rolling to his feet into a fighters crouch while pulling
his knife from his boot.

“Nae, Hugh,” said Robert
coming to his feet and walking over to stand between the sheriff
and Hugh.

“We’ll come along
peacefully, Sheriff” said Robert with his back turned to
Hugh.

That broke the tension of
the situation and Hugh replaced his boot knife. As he reached down
to grab his belongings, the sheriff stopped him by placing his boot
on Hugh’s saddle bag.

“You two lads won’t be
needing anything in those saddle bags for a long time,” said the
sheriff with a wicked smile.

The sheriff instructed his
men to bring Robert and Hugh into Larne for further questioning. It
was only about a ten mile walk from the beach into Larne, south
along the coast road. After the questions were completed, Robert
and Hugh found themselves locked up in the Larne gaol and robbed of
all their money and possessions by the Sheriff of Larne. That left
them with no money to buy their passage to America.