Bride of the Baja (11 page)

Bouchard stopped in front of each of his prisoners and looked them up and down as though he were a naval officer inspecting recruits.

"Did you appreciate our ruse?" he asked Jordan.

Jordan didn't answer.

"More experienced captains than yourself have been taken in," Bouchard said.

Still Jordan said nothing.

"Would you care to join me in my cabin for a cup of tea?" Bouchard asked, including McKinnon and Margarita in the invitation by a sweep of his hand.

Jordan stared at him, dumbfounded by the question. Finally he nodded.

Bouchard turned to lead them below, only to find his way blocked by the burly redhead who had discovered Margarita hiding in the Dancer's hold.

"You shan't have her, Bouchard." A cleft palate combined with the harelip to twist the crewman's words. "I'm the one what found her and she's mine."

"Stand aside, Grosbeck," Bouchard ordered.

Another sailor stepped up beside Grosbeck. "Remember you well," he said to Bouchard, "you're our captain by vote of the crew. We made you and, by God, we can unmake you as easily." The men behind him murmured their assent.

“You sons of bitches,” he shouted in a high-pitched voice, "are you so besotted with drink you can't think straight? Have you no sense at all not to know when you're well off? Are you all mad with lust?"

"We ain't in action now," Grosbeck said sullenly. "Have we ever disobeyed you in the face of an enemy?" He turned to the other men. "Have we?" he asked them.

A chorus of nos answered him.

"Is the senorita mine by right?"

"Aye," the men shouted.

Margarita shrank back against Jordan, and he tightened his grip around her shoulders.

"Hear me out, you men," Bouchard said. He removed a pistol from his belt and fired it over his head. The crew retreated a few paces, and Jordan thought he saw the glint of drawn weapons in the crowd.

"Hear me." Bouchard's tone had become conciliatory. He lowered his gun and returned it to his waistband. "I propose we take this captured ship, this
Kerry Dancer
, as a legitimate prize of war. Her cargo will bring us a good price in the Sandwich Islands, the money to be divided among you all as we've agreed. We'll leave her crew ashore, where they'll have a long week's trek to the nearest pueblo. These three"— he gestured behind him—"are as much a prize as their ship. They'll bring us all a bountiful ransom from the dons. The senorita, as you can surely see, is a lady who'll be worth her weight in silver."

"You use fine words, Bouchard," the man who had first supported Grosbeck said, "and I'll admit that much of what you say makes sense. We, need a faster and sturdier ship and we need the cargo. But the senorita's ours by right, not yours. After all, we don't mean to kill her. She'll still fetch a goodly ransom when we're through with her." Again there was a murmur of agreement from the men.

Bouchard raised his eyes heavenward as though asking how any man could be so misunderstood. Shrugging, he motioned to two men who came up behind Jordan and pinioned his arms to his sides. Going to Margarita, Bouchard put his finger beneath her chin, tilting her head. He sighed, then took her by the arm and pushed her toward the men. She sprawled on the deck.

"Jordan," she sobbed. "Help me!"

Jordan lunged at Bouchard but the two men pulled him back, twisting his arms behind him.

"Stop!" It was McKinnon. Jordan saw that the mate held a cocked pistol, the muzzle six inches from Bouchard's ear. "If you touch her," McKinnon said, "your captain's a dead man."

The crewmen hesitated, looking from Margarita huddling on the deck to McKinnon with his pistol.

Out of the corner of his eye Jordan saw a flash of silver as a sword sliced through the air, slashing into McKinnon's wrist. The
Dancer's
mate screamed as his fingers opened and the pistol dropped to the deck. McKinnon stared at his severed hand hanging from his wrist by a length of flesh. Blood surged from the wound and spattered onto his trousers and the deck.

Bouchard pulled his dirk from its sheath, stepped next to McKinnon and drove the blade into the mate's side. McKinnon grunted, lurched toward the rail and collapsed into the scuppers.

When Jordan heaved forward trying to free himself, Bouchard raised the bloodied dirk to Jordan's throat. "Are you ready to die, Captain?" His high-pitched laugh was almost a giggle.

Jordan closed his eyes as Bouchard's blade traced a stinging line across his neck. Margarita screamed. Then the blade was gone. Jordan opened his eyes and saw Bouchard shoving the weapon back into his belt.

“Take the good captain below and put him in chains," Bouchard ordered.

Jordan was shoved to the forecastle hatch and manhandled down a ladder into the depths of the ship. As he was thrust to his knees on the deck and manacles were locked on his wrists, he smelled the dank odor of bilge water and heard the scuttling of rats. A door closed and he was alone.

McKinnon had sacrificed his life, he thought. Now McKinnon was dead and Margarita—dear God he couldn't bear to think of the fate awaiting her. He, Jordan Quinn, captain of the
Kerry Dancer
, had failed his ship, his crew, and his bride-to-be. He was a coward.

Jordan shook his head. What could he have done? McKinnon. He whispered the name as though answering himself. McKinnon had given his life while he, Jordan Quinn, had done nothing.

He closed his eyes and felt the sting of tears. He hadn't cried since, when he was a boy, he'd been whipped by his father, but he cried now, for himself, for McKinnon and for Margarita. He vowed that he would redeem himself. He would avenge McKinnon, he would avenge Margarita. And, if he must, he would die doing so.

Grosbeck carried Margarita below over his shoulder as he had carried her from the hold of the
Kerry Dancer
. He laid her in his hammock, but she tumbled herself from the far side and ran. The other men laughed, grasping her, their hands exploring her breasts and buttocks as they pushed her from one crewman to the next.

Grosbeck put one arm around her waist from behind and again lifted her into the hammock, getting on top of her before she could flee. She raked his face with her nails, and the watching crewmen laughed. He slapped her once, twice, three times, his hand striking her face with the monotony of a pendulum. He stopped only when she at last lay still.

He yanked her skirts and petticoats up around her waist. He loosened his own clothing, but when he had bared himself she struck his sex with her fist and he grunted, doubling over in pain. Again the men laughed.

Grosbeck found a roll of twine and bound Margarita's hands beneath the hammock. She screamed, kicking at him as he climbed into the hammock, but to no avail.

Seven other men ravished her after Grosbeck was done with her. At last Grosbeck carried her, bleeding and unconscious, to the captain's cabin. He knocked, and when Bouchard opened the door, Grosbeck held Margarita toward him.

"You wanted her," he said. "Now take her."

Bouchard took Margarita in his arms and carried her across his cabin, laying her gently on his berth. He shook his head sadly as he removed her soiled clothes. Bringing a basin of water, he placed it on the deck beside the berth and used a cloth to bathe the blood and filth from her naked body.

When he had finished, Bouchard dimmed the lamp until the cabin was in almost total darkness. After removing his clothes he folded them carefully over the back of a chair, went to the berth and stood looking down at Margarita. He spread her legs, took her limp body in his arms and entered her.

When she recovered consciousness her body ached and her head throbbed, and when she tried to raise her head, she gagged. Bouchard lay asleep beside her. She crawled from the berth, pulling herself to her feet and leaning against the table. Her hands examined the clothing on the chair but found nothing of hers. Hanging from a peg on the bulkhead, though, she found a pistol and the dirk. After she pulled the dirk from its sheath, she ran her finger along the blade, the dried blood flaking off under her touch.

Margarita turned, holding the dirk in her hand, and looked down at the sleeping figure of Bouchard. She shook her head, then knelt beside the berth, holding the dirk in both hands as though it was an offering. She tried to say the rosary but the familiar words of the prayers eluded her.

"Hail Mary," she whispered. "Oh, Mother Mary, forgive me for what I'm about to do."

She bowed her head and put the point of the blade against her bare flesh beneath her left breast, under her lowermost rib, then plunged the dirk upward into her body to its hilt.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Alitha stared at the spear protruding from Malloy's back. She looked past his fallen body and saw an Indian, naked, brown-skinned, black-haired, running toward her. She edged away, fearfully crossing her hands over her breasts.

The Indian stopped and held out both hands with his open palms upward. The little finger of his left hand, she noticed, was missing. He had a net bag slung over one shoulder and a piece of wood thrust in his thick hair. When she suddenly realized he wasn't a man at all but a boy, she stepped forward, raising her own hands as he had. The boy, who must have been no more than ten or eleven, she decided, stared at her, then lowered his hands and looked down at Malloy.

Putting his foot on Malloy's back, the Indian grasped the end of the spear and levered it from side to side. Alitha closed her eyes. When she heard a wild cry, she opened her eyes to see the Indian standing with the blood-tipped spear held high above his head. Raising his face to the darkening sky, he began a slow, rhythmic chant.

She watched him in wonderment and fear. The chant over, he lowered his spear and stared at her. Alitha drew back. The boy took the spear, pantomimed breaking it over his knee, and threw the weapon onto the rocks at his feet.

He approached and walked around her, looking up at her—he was several inches shorter—seemingly fascinated by her blond hair. Putting his right hand on his chest, he said, "Chia." When she stared at him he again said, "Chia."

Of course, she thought. She put her own hand to her chest and said, "Alitha." He tried to repeat the name. "Leeta," he said. She felt a fleeting pang, for Leeta was the name Thomas always called her by.

"Chia," she said, pointing at him, and he nodded. All this time his face had shown no expression. He seemed incapable, she thought, of either frowning or smiling. But his dark eyes gleamed.

Chia pointed down at Malloy's body and made pawing motions with his hands. He wanted to bury Malloy. Alitha knelt at the mate's side, seeing a dark circle staining the back of his shirt--there was no question but that the mate was dead. She thought of taking the shirt to wear. No, she couldn't, she'd rather wear nothing at all.

Alitha looked up at Chia and nodded. When he stared at her, not seeming to understand, she repeated his digging motions. He trotted a few feet away, stopping near the spot where Alitha had intended to spend the night and, dropping to his knees, began to scoop the sand to one side. She joined him, and when, a few minutes later, they reached wet, close-packed sand, Chia took the piece of wood from his hair and she saw that it was a knife with a tongue-shaped blade made not of metal but of some gray, stone-like substance. The short handle was decorated with mother-of-pearl. By the time the grave was four feet deep, the night was darkening around them. Chia stopped digging.

She followed him back to the mate's body, barely able to see him in the darkness. Chia picked up one of Malloy's legs and, fighting back her repugnance, Alitha took the other leg and together they dragged him to the grave, where Chia rolled him into the burial hole. As Alitha was about to scoop sand over the body, Chia touched her arm. She stopped and watched him.

Chia walked to the water's edge and, seeing him outlined against the sea and sky, she realized the night had become lighter. Looking over the calm sea, she saw a glowing aureole on the horizon. Chia began to chant, not the harsh cries of triumph he had uttered after he had killed Malloy, but an almost lyrical song of thanksgiving.

She gasped, for as the boy raised his arms above his head, facing east, the rim of the three-quarter moon rose slowly out of the sea. She could almost believe that the moon had risen not because of the turning of the earth but because Chia had, in some mysterious way, called it forth.

As soon as the moon's circle was completely above the ocean, Chia lowered his arms and trotted up the beach. Together they covered the body of the mate and, after they were finished, Alitha knelt beside the grave and prayed aloud as she had heard her father do over the bodies of fallen shipmates.

When she stood up, Chia walked away without looking at her, without making a sign to her. He must expect her to follow, she decided, so she ran after him until she was a few paces behind. He retrieved his spear, then climbed a hillock and then another, stopping finally in a grassy hollow protected from the wind by a rise of ground shaped like a breaking wave.

Chia lay in an indentation in the ground, and she knew he meant to sleep. Probably he had spent many nights here. For the first time she wondered what had brought him to this island. He certainly didn't live here. Had he been swept ashore by the storm as she had been?