Free Land of the Free by Jeffry Hepple Page B

staggered back to her
bed, slipped under the covers and pulled them over her
head.
    “Are you ill?” Yank
asked.
    “I didn’t sleep all night,”
she mumbled through the blankets.
    Yank dropped a twenty dollar
gold piece on her, then another and another until she uncovered her
head.
    “What’s that?”
    He tossed two more coins
onto the pile. “A hundred dollars.”
    She sat up and gathered the
money. “What’s it for?”
    “It was a reward.” He
unfolded a wanted poster and dropped it onto the bed. “Dead or
alive, one hundred dollars in gold.”
    She looked up at him but
said nothing.
    “I tried to refuse it, but
the Mayor insisted. He said that they were planning to raise it to
five hundred today so I saved the city four hundred by killing him
last night.”
    Marina picked up the poster
and read it. “This says he’s killed over forty people.”
    “They told me at the
constabulary that he’s killed twenty more since the poster was
printed. Not a nice man.” Yank chuckled.
    “His name was McGregor. I
pray he’s not related to our Mr. McGregor. The McGregor that we
hired, I mean.”
    “I doubt that the murderer
was truly a McGregor. Or our McGregor either, for that
matter.”
    “I don’t know what you
mean.”
    “McGregor’s a very common
clan name that people on the run often adopt. John McGregor is only
slightly less popular than John Smith.”
    She looked up from the
poster. “I suppose you think this proves that I was wrong last
night?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t know
about that. I only know that if we permitted all the evildoers to
run amuck, civilization would perish.”
    “The bible says ‘Thou shalt
not kill’ and makes no distinction as to reason.”
    “Matthew says: ‘And
whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment’ which
implies that killing is sometimes justified.” Yank waved his hand
at the money. “If you wish to go your own way, that’s yours. I can
have the marriage annulled for you by sundown.”
    “I never said anything about
going my own way or that I wanted an annulment,” she said in alarm.
“Must you always threaten to throw me away every time we
disagree?”
    He walked to the window and
parted the curtains to look out. “If you are coming with me, then
get up. I want the barges loaded and in the river before
sundown.”
    She kicked off the covers.
“Would you like to watch me dress today?”
    “I would indeed.” He let go
of the curtain. “But I shan’t.” He walked to the door and stopped
with his hand on the knob. “Have you always been like this or has
the killing of Harvey Pique unhinged you?”
    “I don’t know. But I’m
taking off this nightshirt now. If you wish to see my bare breasts
stay, otherwise, get out.”
    He walked out and closed the
door.
     

August 28, 1804
    Above Sabine Lake, Louisiana
Purchase
     
    Colonel Van Buskirk, his new
bride, and thirty-six hired men had departed from New Orleans on
six large, flat-bottomed barges, then followed the Gulf coast for
three days to reach Sabine Lake. Each barge was laden with food,
weapons, ammunition and livestock so that the loss of one would not
wipe out the supply of any single item.
    Sabine Lake was in reality a
salt water estuary of the Gulf of Mexico, and the confluence of the
Sabine and the Neches Rivers. Today, the expedition had completed
the lake crossing, was now deep into the bayou country, and was
navigating the slow moving current by pole.
    “We are indeed surrounded by
wetlands,” Yank said. He looked toward McGregor who was standing at
the prow beside Marina.
    “‘ Tis much deeper than
when last I was here,” McGregor said, eyeing the water hopefully.
“Maybe I was wrong.”
    “What if Mr. McGregor was
right?” Marina asked.
    “Well,” Yank replied, “then
we would have to consider backtracking to the Mississippi,
following it north to the Red River and charting the Sabine
southward rather than northward.”
    “Then we would never reach
the Yellow