Crimson Rapture (18 page)

It
was well known, especially by Jacob, that Justin cared more about the quality
of men sailing his ships than he did even about his ships. While John and the
others might not be parlor room dandies, they were a far cry from the stupid,
base creature Bryce so obviously had been. Justin would never have let the man
scrape barnacles from his ship's bottom, let alone hire him as crew.

"I
can explain," he began. "We were in a snatch. I 'ad 'alf a day after
your trial to set sail after ye and I was at least ten 'ands short. He, and
some others like him, were all I could get."

Justin
was not to be pacified by excuses. "A damned wharf rat could have served
better—" he began angrily, though in truth his anger rose less from Jacob's
indiscriminate hiring than the sheer misfortune of the night's events.

Christina
was not listening to his angry tirade, one that stretched into long minutes;
her gaze fixed on Marianna's face, strangely peaceful in death. Poor Marianna,
never chance or fortune...

Tears
filled her eyes. She was so sick of death, death and violence, the utter
viciousness of this life. Would it never end?

"And
you, Christina." He turned suddenly to her as Jacob and Cajun were finally
dismissed to lift Bryce's body out for burial. "I thought I told you to
wait on the beach?"

She
stood up slowly, but lowered her eyes. "I thought it was Elsie or Hanna
and—"

"No,
sweetheart," he interrupted harshly, impatiently, "I don't care what
you thought. I don't tell you things capriciously; I mean them. I'll not have
you question my orders like that again."

She
bit her lip to stop from crying, boldly meeting his gaze. "I can't believe
you're angry with me when... when Marianna is dead and you," her voice
trailed to a whisper, "you just killed a man."

"Believe
it." He took two steps to stand over her, then lifted her face. "The
last thing I want to see in a dangerous situation is you. You're the easiest
way to get to me and it would take but a fool to know it."

There
was a long silent pause before she turned to leave. "Was it
necessary—" She stopped at the opening. "I mean—killing him?"
She seemed to almost choke on the word.

Justin
was presently far too preoccupied to consider Christina's feelings, thoughts or
values on the taking of life. Her father had indoctrinated her in numerous
pacifist beliefs, teaching her that the taking of life was man's greatest sin,
that violence begat violence and no good came from it, beliefs she had
incorporated into her heart with a naive passion. He never argued with these
views, realizing her experience stood as an ocean of separation from any harsh
reality.

"He's
not the first I've killed, and I daresay, he'll not be the last." With
that seemingly callous statement he dismissed her too. Christina stood with a
frightened pause as she assimilated the cruel words she did not want to
believe. Once done, she turned and, chased by the demons of her heart, she
started running.

* * * * *

The
western lookout was a small indentation carved naturally into a ninety-or-so-foot
cliff that dropped at a straight right angle into the sea. One reached it by
climbing down a long makeshift ladder, secured precariously by ropes tied
around a huge boulder at the top. The only reason any man trusted this ladder
with his life was because Cajun had made it.

Brahms
reached the top of the cliff and called down to Robert, presently on watch.
"Relief has come, my man," Brahms chuckled as Robert, a small, lean
man climbed the ladder as swift as a spider monkey. They spent several moments
shooting the breeze before Brahms took a deep breath, and keeping his gaze
securely fixed on the top, he began the frightening journey down, more than a
little glad that after the first month of sailing with Justin—two long years
ago—hard labor had stolen all excessive poundage.

He
jumped the last three feet, thanked God for safe passage, and, after placing
fresh wood on the signal fire, he settled comfortably on the small plateau. He
removed his favorite pipe from his knapsack. As he leveled his gaze on the shimmery
blue vista, he drew on his pipe, pretending as always that it was filled with
sweet Virginian tobacco. And had his pipe actually been filled with that
tobacco, he might have believed he had journeyed to heaven, so complete was his
contentedness on the island.

Like
most of life's paths, it had been chance, pure and simple, that he had met
Justin and Jacob in Boston two long years ago. Crying in his cups, drunk and
destitute and wishing he were dead, he had been tossed physically out of an ale
house. He had lain in the gutter for hours, kicked, spit at, and scorned by
passersby, and some pitiful part of his soul actually welcomed the harsh
treatment. That was until he looked up to see Justin staring down at him, and
not all too kindly.

Something
about that one look of Justin's suddenly filled him with the decent emotion of
shame. He had tried to struggle up, wanting to get away, not wanting to feel
anything, especially anything decent. And that was the last thing he
remembered. He woke up on Justin's ship, cared for by one of Justin's many
pretty maids.

When
he was finally given a chance to see the man who had rescued him from the
gutter again, Justin had somehow known all about him. Justin knew he had been a
reverend, knew of the tragedy—his wife's death—that had stolen his will to
live. Justin then made him a straightforward offer: "You can sign up as
crew. The work is long and hard, the money is better than good, and since you
seem bent on destruction, you might be glad to know it also involves considerable
danger. If one could discount my luck, the odds of you surviving the next two
years are slim to nil. But you should also know that I won't tolerate drinking
by any man who needs it. You'd have to give it up."

Brahms
had never been at sea, never thought of going to sea, but he had agreed
immediately. And he would never forget that Justin had added as he was leaving:
"Someday I hope you come to see that fortune has blessed you. Any man who
has known a love bringing him such happiness—if even for a short time—that its
loss steals his very will to live, is a man to be envied."

With
these words, his new life had started.

Brahms
sighed and leaned back, reflecting on the last two full years. Not a day had
passed in which he had regret, though no, he would never know that happiness
again. It came only once in any man's lifetime. But he had his memories of Beth
and eventually he came to learn the truth of Justin's words.

Thinking
of Christina, Brahms smiled. It seemed Justin was—or would soon be—a man to be
envied. He only hoped, and with all his heart, that instead of such a short
time, Justin's love lasted his lifetime. For if any man deserved such a gift,
it was Justin.

Brahms
drifted lazily into a light sleep and woke several hours later to a darkening
sky promising a warm tropical rain. He threw another log onto the fire and
stood up and stretched as his gaze scanned the horizon. Instantly, his eye
riveted to a spot on the distant horizon.

What
was that? Not porpoises...

He
scrambled quickly for the glass and, standing at the very edge of the cliff, he
lifted it into place. And once he saw what was drifting toward the island, he
gasped, "Oh my God!"

Jacob
found Justin and Christina wrapped in each other's arms, sound asleep beneath a
magnolia-type tree and oblivious to the warm rain and impending darkness. Like
Adam and Eve before the Fall. He could not fathom—though he did try—the scene
that must have transpired to create such abandonment. Now Hanna be a fine lass,
he thought, her good nature and humor, her pleasing shape, and even those red
curls of hers had all struck his heart in a powerful way he hadn't expected and
still he could not imagine getting so lost in a tumble that he forgot to notice
it was raining on his back.

Jacob
would never think of intruding if the event didn't demand it but it was
hard—nay, impossible, even with Cajun's help—to keep the men from falling to
chaos without Justin. His youth aside, something about Justin, his sharp wits,
strength, and commanding presence like a judge's gavel, could bring order where
none previously existed.

"Justin,"
Jacob loudly called out.

Justin
woke with a start. Perhaps it was the primitive response of a man sleeping with
his woman out in the open and vulnerable to attack, but he bolted to his feet
and held his saber in his hand before Christina had even opened her eyes. His
entire body was mobilized for a fight, while Beau, too, had jumped to all fours
and searched the area for the cause of alarm.

Jacob
laughed at this. "Be thar demons trespassin' through the night?"

Justin
relaxed all at once and, spotting his friend through the overhanging branches
of the tree, he placed himself between Jacob's view and Christina.

"What
is it?"

"You're
not going to believe. Brahms spotted a lifeboat from the
Defiant.
Cajun
and some others took off in our boat to pull 'em in."

"Oh
my goodness," Christina whispered.

"Survivors?"
Justin questioned.

"Don't
know. Can't imagine any, though. Three weeks exposure, probably without food or
water."

Justin
quickly pulled on his breeches and secured his belt. He gathered Christina's
shift and handed it to her while calling to Jacob for his canvas cape. She
slipped the cape over her head and, once dressed, he took her hand to lead her
through the jungle.

"Is
there hope?" she asked.

"There's
always hope."

* * * * *

Cajun
quickly separated the dead from the living.

Eight
people had managed to hang on to a bare thread of life. Except for one man
mumbling incoherently, they were all blissfully unconscious, sprawled randomly
between twelve dead corpses. He and Kafir lifted the dead out, lowering each
unceremoniously into burial at sea. Brahms and another man wasted no time and
rowed silently, quickly, to shore.

Brahms
thought about objecting to a sea burial, partially because of religious reasons
and partially because he was able to imagine a washed-up corpse on the beach.
He refrained, though—any objection would waste time and these people needed
immediate help if they had any hope in heaven, as Cajun undoubtedly had already
realized. He supposed there were enough sharks in these waters anyway...

"Allah
have mercy," Kafir muttered as he looked down at one man. All the
survivors showed the gruesome signs of slow starvation as well as dehydration.
They were emaciated skeletons, with all areas of exposed skin covered in ugly
red blisters and sores. But this one man's leg looked like nothing but a
swollen mass of dead flesh. "What is the nature of it?" he asked
Cajun.

Cajun
had no idea. The man wore tattered remnants of a soldier's uniform, so perhaps
he had been in the exchange of fire at Justin's rescue. He peered closer,
lifting a bloodied bandage and saw that it wasn't a bullet wound. "It has
been broken."

"He
will lose it?"

Cajun
nodded. He was more gifted in the healing arts than most surgeons coming out of
Cambridge but it took no such knowledge to be amazed that the man had survived
with such a diseased limb. He should be dead, Cajun knew, and, sadly, he would
wish for death if they could not perform the amputation while he was still
unconscious.

Justin,
Christina, and the others waited impatiently on shore for the two lifeboats.
Christina clasped her hands together as though in prayer and, like the others,
she took no notice of the heavy rain falling from the dark sky. She started
forward with Justin but he motioned her back. "No—wait here until I call
you.

Christina
took Elsie's and Hanna's hand in hers as they watched the men secure the
lifeboat on shore. Justin shouted orders to the men. Cajun lifted the first
survivor, Kafir lifted another.

"Lady
Knolls!" Hanna gasped in shock, and before anyone could stop her, she
dashed toward the boat to see if Lady Everett, too, was among the living.

Christina
barely recognized Colonel Carrington in Cajun's arms or Lady Knolls in Kafir's.
Three weeks of exposure and starvation left what seemed the bare skeletal
remains of their frames while their face, arms, and the colonel's bare chest
were raw with blisters and sores. And the colonel's leg—

"Step
strong,
la niña,"
Cajun called sharply. "They will need you."
Christina swallowed her revulsion and nodded as Cajun called out orders.
"Prepare a large mixture of part fish oil, fruit juice, and milk. Warm it
over a fire. Also prepare a batch of oil for their skin, gather what clothes
are available, and boil a large pot of salt water."

One
by one the survivors were brought to the large cave at the foot of the mud
flats, where Diego and Marianna were once housed. Hanna and Elsie gathered moss
for beds, while the others hurried to carry out Cajun's orders.

Many
of the eight survivors roused during their first drink of water. Cajun's warmed
food mixture followed the water. One man's throat was too swollen to allow even
water through. Justin held the man up and kept his head tilted while Cajun
poured minute drops of watered milk into his mouth. It took over an hour to get
barely half a cup down his throat but finally his passage seemed to open enough
to consume what Cajun hoped was an adequate portion to sustain him.