Lando (1962) by Louis - Sackett's 08 L'amour Page A

was to affect a change in all their lives.
    Thirty-odd years before, Jean LaFitte, pirate and slave trader, was beating north along the Gulf coast with two heavily laden treasure ships. During a gale one of these ships was driven ashore, its exact position unknown.
    LaFitte believed, or professed to believe, that the vessel had gone ashore on Padre Island, that very long, narrow island that parallels many miles of the Gulf coast of Texas. As a matter of fact, the ship had gone ashore some sixty miles south of Padre.
    Five men, and five only, made it to shore.
    Of these, one died within a matter of hours of injuries sustained during the wreck, and a second was slain by roving Karankawa Indians while struggling through the brush just back from the shore.
    The three who reached a settlement were more thirsty than wise. Staggering exhausted into the tiny village, rain-soaked and bedraggled, coming from out of nowhere, they hurried to the cantina, where they proceeded to get roaring drunk on the gold they carried in their pockets.
    They woke up in prison.
    The commandant at the village was both a greedy and cruel man, and the three drunken sailors carried in their pockets more than three hundred dollars ... a veritable fortune at that place and time.
    Upon a coast where tales of buried treasure and lost galleons are absorbed with the milk of the mother, this gold could mean but one thing: the three sailors had stumbled upon such a treasure and could be, by one means or another, persuaded to tell its location.
    The commandant had no idea with what kind of men he dealt, for the three were pirates and tough men, accustomed to hardship, pain, and cruelty. They were also realistic. They knew that as soon as the commandant knew what they knew, he would no longer have any need for them. They wanted the gold, and they wanted to live, and both these things were at stake.
    So they kept their secret well. They denied knowing anything of pirate treasure ... they had won the money playing cards in Callao, in Peru.
    Much of what they were asked could be denied with all honesty, for the commandant was positive they had stumbled upon gold long buried, and never suspected that they themselves might have brought the gold to the shores of Mexico.
    Under the torture one man died, and the commandant grew frightened. If the others died, he might never learn their secret. Torture, then, was not the answer.
    He would get them drunk. Under the influence, they would talk.
    The trouble was, he underestimated their capacity, and overestimated that of himself and his guards. He judged their capacity by the effect of the first drinks, not realizing they had been taken on stomachs three days empty of food.
    The result was that he got drunk, his guards got drunk, and the prisoners escaped. And before they escaped they cleaned out the pockets of the commandant and his guards, as well as the office strongbox (their own gold had been hidden elsewhere), and then they fled Mexico.
    The border was close and they nearly killed their horses reaching it. Splashing across the Rio Grande, alternately wading or swimming, they arrived in Texas.
    The year was 1816.
    Texas was still Mexico, so they stole horses and headed northeast for Louisiana. En route one of the three men was killed by Indians, and now only two remained who knew exactly where the gold lay, and each was suspicious of the other.
    Knowing where a treasure is, is one thing; going there to get it, quite another. Financing such a wildcat venture is always a problem; moreover, a "cover" is needed in the event the authorities ask what you are doing there. And there is always the question: who can be trusted?
    Both men intended to go back at once, either together or each by himself, but neither could manage it.
    Both were out of funds, which meant work, and their work was on the sea. So they went to sea, on separate ships, and neither ever saw the other again. Each knew where there was a vast treasure in gold, but