La Salle was still far from healthy. He was worried that, if the expedition did not sail soon, it might never make it off the island. Spanish buccaneers had already captured St. François, the expedition’s thirty-ton ketch assigned to carry fresh meat and vegetables for the colony. In addition, the French sailors had spent most of the last two months in Haiti, drunk and disorderly. To compound the troubles, the settlers, who were tasked with forging a colony in the New World, were at odds with the sailors. Of the more than three hundred that had left La Rochelle, sickness and desertion had taken a third. And then there was the festering revolt by the captains. Word had leaked back to La Salle about the frequent meetings between them, and he feared the worst.

The situation for the expedition was grim — and growing more deplorable by the hour.

“We must sail in the morning,” La Salle murmured weakly. “We cannot wait another day.”

“My friend,” Tonty said, “if that is your desire, I will alert Captain Beaujeu.”

Leaving the house in Port-de-Paix, Tonty descended the hill to the port. A stiff wind was blowing from the north, and the temperature, which usually hovered near ninety degrees, had dropped into the low sixties. Rounding a curve in the cobblestone street, Tonty stared at the three remaining ships anchored in the bay. The thirty-six-gun ship of the expedition, Joly, was farthest to sea. The Belle, a small frigate mounting six guns, was closer to shore. The 300-ton store ship for the expedition, L‘Aimable, lay just off the docks at anchor. As the sun slipped behind the clouds, the water in the bay turned a midnight black. Tonty continued to the dock. Once there, he boarded one of L’Aimable’s launches for the short ride out to the vessel.

Captain Aigron had been alerted by the lookout that Tonty was on his way out. Defiantly, instead of leaving his cabin to stand on deck as a show of respect, he remained below until Tonty was led down.

“Monsieur Tonty,” the sailor said, after knocking on the captain’s door.

“You may enter,” Aigron said quietly.

The sailor opened the door, then stepped aside to allow Tonty entrance. L’Aimable’s captain’s cabin was high in the rounded stem of the vessel. Though not particularly large, the cabin was fitted out in a splendor not seen in the rest of the ship. Several brass whale-oil lamps were mounted on swivels that rocked with the ship. One lamp was placed near the berth, another near the table where Aigron sat, and another near an angled shelf mounted to the wall where the navigation charts were kept. A finely woven Persian rug, now becoming moth-eaten and worn from foot traffic, lay on the floor. To the right was Aigron’s berth. Little more than a wooden shelf with high sides to prevent a person from rolling out as the ship rocked, it was fitted with linen sheets and a pair of feather pillows.

Atop one of the pillows lay the ship’s cat. The aged feline looked worse for wear. He was a dusty yellow-and-brown color with a missing ear, the result of a rat attack deep in L’Aimable’s hold. The cat hissed as Tonty entered the cabin.

“Monsieur Tonty,” Aigron said, still sitting at the table, “what brings you here?”

“La Salle orders you to prepare L’Aimable to sail in the morning,” Tonty said evenly.

Tonty did not care for Aigron, and the feeling was mutual.

“Captain Beaujeu and I have been talking,” Aigron said haughtily, “and before we will set sail we must see Monsieur La Salle’s charts. We have no idea of the location of the river. More important, we need a solid course to sail.”

“I see,” Tonty said quietly. “So you and Beaujeu have decided this?”

“Yes, we have,” Aigron said forcefully.

“Then you leave me little choice,” Tonty said.

Tonty took two steps closer to Aigron, then grabbed him with his iron hand by the neck and held tightly. Dragging him along the passageway to the ladder, he pulled him topside to the deck. Once on the main deck, he shouted to the closest sailor.

“Who is the second in command?” Tonty asked.

A tall, thin man stepped forth. “I am, Monsieur Tonty.”

“Scrub this ship from stem to stem,” Tonty said. “We sail in the morning with La Salle as your captain. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the second officer said.

Aigron started to speak, but Tonty squeezed his Adam’s apple tighter.

“Captain Aigron will be going ashore with me,” Tonty said, as he led the captain to the ladder going down to the shore boat. “La Salle will be back in a few hours. We weigh anchor at first light.”

“As you wish, sir,” the second in command said solicitously.

Tonty dragged Aigron across the deck to the ladder and then down the few feet to the shore boat. Stepping into the boat, he pulled the captain into a seat and motioned for the sailor to shove off. The boat was halfway to the dock before Tonty released his grip on Aigron’s neck.

Staring straight into the captain’s eyes, he spoke in a low voice. “You may take over command of Belle or I’ll toss you into the drink right now. What is your choice?”

The hook had crushed his voice box — Aigron could barely speak.

“The Belle, please, Monsieur Tonty,” Aigron said in a hoarse whisper.

The shore boat was pulling abreast of the dock.

“You defy La Salle’s orders again,” Tonty said, “and your neck will feel my cutlass.”

Aigron gave a tiny nod.

Then Tonty climbed from the shore boat and walked down the dock without looking back. His friend La Salle dreamed of conquering a continent for his king.

But dreams do not always come true.

For La Salle, the last two weeks had been a living hell. The fevers had returned and, with them, his feelings of isolation and indecision. Once the trio of ships rounded Cuba and entered the Gulf of Mexico, the tension of the Spanish death sentence made matters worse. At sea any ill will or imagined slights are magnified a hundredfold, and that was the case for La Salle’s expedition. Sailors barely talked to settlers — La Salle and the captains had taken to communicating only through intermediaries.

Just in the nick of time, on January 1, 1685, the bottom soundings turned up land.

In L’Aimable’s cabin, La Salle, Tonty, and their faithful Indian guide, Nika, held a hushed meeting. The success of the whole expedition hinged on what these men would decide. It was a decision made under pressure, and those rarely are fruitful.

“What are your thoughts, Nika?” La Salle asked the taciturn guide.

“I think we are close,” Nika noted, “but we have yet to see the brown streak from the muddy waters of the great river.”

La Salle mopped his sweating brow with an embroidered handkerchief. The temperature outside was barely fifty degrees, but he could not stop sweating.

“Tonty?” he asked.

“I say we continue sailing due north until we make landfall, then send a party ashore,” Tonty said logically. “That should give us an idea where we are.”

“My thoughts exactly,” La Salle said.

Three hours later, the dim outline of land was spotted by the crow’s-nest lookout. La Salle went ashore to explore. From land, the area looked different from what he remembered, but there could be good reasons for that. First, the flat marshland featured less vegetation in January than in springtime, which was the only time he had seen it. Second, approaching from water was always tricky; the perspective was different, and landmarks were harder to identify.

Unless the expedition made land near the Head of Passes and could spot the brown outflow, the land might look the same from the Florida panhandle to the Red River. Whatever La Salle decided, it could go either way. The shore boat slid to a stop up a small tributary. The tangled growth of cypress trees and underbrush nearly blotted out the sun. Mullet splashed on top of the water. La Salle brushed a black fly from his neck, then dipped his hand into the water and tasted.