Free the Sackett Companion (1992) by Louis L'amour Page A

there was no need to save. The seas were a rich hunting ground for the men of the Black Flag. This continued until one sweltering morning in June, 1692, when an earthquake struck. Three rapid shocks, close together, and in three minutes or less Port Royal was destroyed as efficiently as Sodom and Gomorrah. The city slid off to the bottom of the sea, taking most of its population along with it. One moment the wild, roistering town was booming at its best and in the next there was nothing but a turmoil in the water, floating wreckage, and here and there a body the earth did not swallow.

    It was to this port, still in its heyday, that Kin-Ring came on his quest for the slave traders.

    THE MAROONS: Escaped slaves who took refuge in the Cockpit country of Jamaica. There were Maroons elsewhere but those in Jamaica were the best known and won themselves a position unequaled by any others.

    From the Cockpit country they fiercely resisted all efforts to recapture them and finally won independent status. It is likely that many of them were of Ashanti blood. One detachment that was captured was shipped off to Nova Scotia and later to Sierra Leone, where they fell back into their old way of life. Most of those remaining in Jamaica are now Seventh-Day Adventists.

    Their capital is at Accompong, and but few trails lead into the Cockpit country, so-called because of a series of pits or inverted cones in the rock. The pits are from one hundred to five hundred feet in depth, in diameter from ten to one hundred yards, many of them overgrown with brush and trees. From this hide-out of more than two hundred square miles they fought the Spanish, from whom they escaped, and later the British, until a treaty was negotiated that left the Maroons in a very favorable position.

    AUGUSTUS JAYNE: A tailor in Port Royal, but he was much else besides. A man known to Peter Tallis, with whom he had dealings. A man with an ear to the ground and aware of all that was happening around him, as well as elsewhere.

    RAFE BOGARDUS: A fine swordsman and a professional killer in a town where every man had done his share of killing and was prepared to do more. Kin defeated but did not kill him, so no doubt he will appear again in his own good time.

    CLAIBORNE: An historical character who had a trading station on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay.

    ADELE LEGARE: A feisty young lady of unusual intelligence who matured very quickly when necessity demanded; who adapted herself to the situations in which she found herself and became a person of quality and decision. Kidnapped and sold as a slave, she did not despair, nor did she forget those responsible. From the crowd at the slave auction she selected a quiet young man and lured him into buying her, then persuaded him that she'd make a better wife than a slave. She not only became his wife, and one of whom he could be proud, but she assisted him in his business affairs. Most important, she did not forget the men who had kidnapped her.

    LEGARE: The planter who became Adele's husband; a plantation owner and dabbler in government affairs who found in Adele the woman he needed, and who needed him. Kin suggested his brother Brian as London agent for Legare.
    DEAL WEBSTER: A trader on Kent Island.
    CAPE ANN: A granite peninsula into the Atlantic now largely occupied by Gloucester and Rockport. A place familiar to seafaring men from the first days of sail along the Atlantic coast.

    GALLEON BAY: Located on the northeastern side of Goat Island, a shallow but excellent shelter for small craft; not far from Port Royal and Kingston, Jamaica.

    Jamaica was for many years the most important of the West Indian Islands to the colonists, and one of the many causes leading to the Revolutionary War was the restriction put upon direct trade to and from that island. England insisted that all trade with the West Indies be routed through English ports. Traders found it much easier to sail directly from the West Indies to North American