Uncharted Journey (The Uncharted Series Book 6)

by Keely Brooke Keith

  Bailey stepped out of the boat, and her reef shoes found the shifting sand just below the water’s dark surface. Micah refused to be helped out of the boat, but he stayed close to Bailey as the group trudged through the last laps of water to the dry sand. Her joy at having land beneath her feet was stifled by Micah’s pain-filled breath. His broken arm needed to be set, and soon.

  The boat swished over the sand behind her as the crewmen dragged it by a rope. The full moon shone brightly enough the four of them cast gunmetal-gray shadows on the beach. Above the boat’s scratchy noise, the distant male voice called out again.

  It wasn’t Bailey’s imagination.

  Someone was close by. If they had landed where Justin Mercer claimed was the only entry point to the Land, the village of Good Springs was a short hike beyond those trees. Bailey held up a hand, pausing the crewmen. “Did you hear that voice?”

  The crewmen stopped beside her and Micah. They exchanged a look and reached for their weapons. The rope they used to pull the boat slacked as they glanced around.

  Micah said, “Maybe it was my uncle.”

  Bailey looked back to see the distant yacht. “No, it wasn’t Tim.” She scanned the dark water for his boat, but it wasn’t in sight. “He should have made it to shore by now. Do you think something is wrong?”

  Micah squinted. “He’s fine. I can see his tender.”

  “I can’t. Where is—”

  “Stay where you are!” A man shouted from the shadowed tree line. “Don’t move!”

  As Bailey turned toward the voice, the crewmen dropped the rope, sidestepped Bailey, and pulled their handguns. “No!” she yelled.

  Deafening pops of gunfire pierced the air as the crewmen shot toward the tree line.

  The authoritative voice bellowed from the shadows. “Drop your weapons!”

  The crewmen fired more, shooting haphazardly into the darkness, their eyes lit with fear and fury.

  Bailey began to shout at them again, but Micah pulled her behind himself, shielding her with his body. She neither needed nor wanted his chivalry. As she moved to see around him, she caught a moonlit glimpse of men running between the trees.

  Bailey sucked in a breath as something flew past her through the air from the tree line. She reached for the zipper on her backpack to get the radio and warn Tim not to come ashore, but the sharp hisses of ammunition flying made her flinch. No martial arts block would stop a bullet.

  Both of the crewmen fell to the sand, motionless. Their gunfire ceased. Long, thin lines protruded from their torsos.

  Before Bailey’s eyes could focus on the objects, Micah jerked backward, knocking her down. He landed on top of her legs and didn’t move. Her left knee popped, and the outside of her thigh stung with a white-hot pain.

  The air went silent, except for the hum of the incoming waves. The crewmen didn’t move, nor did Micah. Bailey struggled to sit up, her leg pulsing with pain. She scanned the tree line but saw no one.

  Micah’s head lulled to the side. She reached for him, and her hand hit a long thin bolt that jutted from his ribcage. She tried to pull it out, but its tip was lodged between his ribs. Warm liquid soaked his shirt around the arrow’s entry point. Her stinging leg felt wet too.

  She yanked herself out from under Micah, and his unconscious body slumped to the sand. “Micah!” she tried to rouse him.

  He groaned.

  She rose to her knees to lean over him. Her leg burned. She had finished tournaments before with pulled muscles and jammed fingers; surely, she could ignore this pain while she got Tim’s nephew to safety. “Micah!”

  She reached for his neck to check his pulse but stopped as several people armed with crossbows ran toward her from the trees. One, two, three, four, five of them, all males in their twenties or thirties, aiming their crossbows at her.

  This couldn’t be Good Springs. Justin had said the people were peaceful—Quaker-like almost. These definitely weren’t the Colburn relatives he’d told her about.

  The tallest man moved in front of the others and stopped them about ten feet away from Bailey. Moonlight struck his angular face. “Hands where I can see them!” he commanded with a forceful American accent.

  Bailey considered every possibility for escape, Tim’s probable distance behind them, and whether she could defeat five armed men by herself with an injured leg.

  The leader had black hair and a warrior’s posture. “Drop your weapon!”

  “I don’t have a weapon.”

  “Hands up!”

  She raised both hands, her fingers still wet with Micah’s blood.

  The guy to the leader’s left wore a flat-brimmed hat and suspenders. He had frantic eyes that darted from her to Micah and the fallen crewmen and then back to his leader. Shock quaked his deep voice. “It’s a woman. She’s wearing men’s trousers and has short hair, but it’s a woman.”

  The leader didn’t care she was female, and he didn’t look surprised. He wasn’t from here, but maybe the others were. Suspenders Guy definitely wasn’t from America, at least not this century.

  The leader yelled at her, “Face down on the ground! Now!”

  She could disable two maybe three of the men, but not five while they were armed. And what good would come from it if she tried to fight? She would be a fugitive in a foreign land—a land she’d been told was peaceful. Besides, the crewmen had fired first and initiated the fight. Since she was with the crewmen, the locals saw her as the enemy. By the look in their leader’s eyes, he would hunt her down if she escaped. And Professor Tim had yet to come ashore. When he did, they might attack him too.

  She would comply for now and try to contact Connor Bradshaw. Justin Mercer had assured her his former navy co-pilot was happily living the good life here with the Colburn family. She was supposed to deliver Justin’s sunglasses and a note to Connor when she found him.

  If she found him.

  She lowered her body to the ground and squeezed her eyes shut to keep the sand out while footsteps scurried around her.

  “Keep her covered,” the leader yelled to his men. His voice grew closer to where Bailey was lying beside Micah. He pulled off her backpack, bending her shoulders unnaturally. “What’s in this?”

  “Girl stuff.”

  “Any firearms?”

  “No.”

  One of the locals who stood near the fallen crewmen spoke with a quick clip to his words, and she couldn’t place his accent. “This man is shot clean through.” Then after a few seconds, “So is this one.”

  “Take their guns but be careful. Keep them pointed at the ground. Don’t touch the trigger,” the leader said, as if his men had never handled a gun. Then he squatted beside Micah. “This one is bleeding but still alive. Carry him to the medical cottage. Quickly.”

  At that, Bailey lifted her head from the ground. Three of the five men were walking away, each carrying one of her wounded and none of them seeming weakened by the task. Now it was just her, the leader, and Suspenders Guy, who looked like he’d never seen blood.

  The leader patted her down. “Do you have any weapons?”

  “I told you I don’t. I’m a scientist.”

  When his palm hit her stinging thigh, she almost screamed.

  The leader motioned to Suspenders Guy. “Help her up. Take her to Lydia too.” Then he looked at her. “Don’t try anything stupid.”

  Chapter Five

  After an enjoyable evening of supper and cards with the inn’s other guests in the dining hall, Solo walked out to the stables to check on King. Then he retired to his room. He sat at the rolltop writing desk by the south-facing window and pulled off his boots.

  Lace curtains trimmed both of his corner room’s windows and a full moon’s blueish glow made him reluctant to light the chamber lantern on the desk. He leaned into the chair’s padded back and looked out across the inn’s majestically illuminated property.

  From his upstairs view he could see the shadowy roofs of Leonard and Claudia’s cottage and the la
undry house next door to it. To the left a slice of the bunkhouse was visible behind Leonard’s cottage and the side of the big barn blocked the paddock. If he leaned close to the glass, he could see the greenhouse through the big gray leaf tree to the right. He would have to go to the other window for a view of the stone bridge and the road, but he didn’t feel like standing up.

  The moonlit property awakened his imagination, and even though his eyes wanted to keep staring out the window, stories stirred inside him as strong as the ocean currents around the Land. He had forty days to write, and he didn’t intend to waste one of them.

  The brown leather satchel his granddad had given him on the first day of secondary school waited atop his wooden trunk. He opened the satchel’s leather flap and withdrew the writing paper he’d acquired by trade back home in Riverside. He laid four sharpened pencils on the desk beside the blank paper and opened his notebook.

  The first story he’d outlined wasn’t his story at all but one his granddad told him when he was a boy. That would be the final story in the children’s storybook he was compiling, and he would end the book with a dedication to the man who had taught him the art of storytelling.

  The other stories outlined in the notebook were his own creations. They came from a lifetime of days spent alone with the horses and the hills, weeks of travel across the Land, and years of seeing God’s truth displayed in nature.

  With the strike of a match, he summoned the lantern’s wick to life. As he replaced the chimney on the lamp, a soft knock rattled the bedroom door. He quickly hid his notebook in the writing desk’s empty drawer. “The door is unlocked.”

  After a long pause, the knock came again.

  Whoever it was, they would have heard him the first time. He trudged to the door and opened it. “Yes?”

  Eva stood in the hallway, holding out a folded towel and a washcloth. A day’s work had tired her eyes, but it hadn’t stolen her beauty. “Sorry to disturb you. Claudia forgot to put towels in the guest rooms today. It was just brought to my attention.”

  “Thank you.” He accepted the soft towels, which still bore the crisp floral scent of laundry soap. When he opened his mouth to say goodnight, she held up a hand.

  “Might I have a word with you?”

  “Sure.” He stepped back and widened the door. “Come in.”

  “No, thank you.” She took a half step forward and stopped at the threshold. “When did you and my father make this deal for a forty-night stay?” Although she spoke coolly, a flare in her gaze gave away her suspicion.

  He glanced back at the desk, eager to return to it. His anticipation to write surely outweighed whatever personal qualms the inn’s manager had with her father’s business arrangement. He started to close the door. “I’m not one to come between family members. If you have a problem with Frederick’s decision, you should take it up with him.”

  She pressed her foot against the door, not allowing him to shut it, but kept her tone professional. “Answer my question, please. When did my father agree to this?”

  It didn’t matter how she said it, or how pretty her feminine figure looked standing outside his door, she had crossed a line. He’d left his boss behind in Riverside and had come here for peace. The threat of harassment tightened his stomach, so he used the tone he usually reserved for obstinate horses. “Our trade has been in the making for a long time.”

  “A long time?”

  “That’s right. Good night, Eva.”

  “How long?” She didn’t remove her foot from the doorframe. “I was never made aware of your paying us any extra trade. Have you kept records?”

  He blew out a long breath. “Yes. So has your father. Good night.”

  “May I see your records?”

  “Again, if you have a problem with this arrangement, that is between you and Frederick. I suggest you ask him for his records.”

  She still didn’t back away. “He hasn’t been himself lately. His memory is slipping.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Good night.”

  “You knew?” The flare in her eyes grew into a flame. “Is that how you took advantage of him?”

  He could have closed the door on her rude behavior and forgotten about it by morning, but being accused of tricking an elderly man out of room and board reminded him of how his brother used to make up accusations to get him into trouble when they were kids. It set his teeth grinding. “I would never do such a thing. You don’t know me well, but your father does, and he suggested this deal for reasons that have nothing to do with you or the inn. For the last time, good night, Eva.”

  The fire in her brown eyes cooled, and all that was left was sadness. Surely, his honesty hadn’t grieved her. Whatever the cause, it must have been there before, but he was only seeing it now.

  She pressed her lips in a grim line and backed away. “Forgive me, Solomon. Good night.”

  The latch clicked against the strike plate as he closed the door. He’d never met Eva’s late husband, but Ezekiel Vestal must have had nerves of iron to be able to stand such a woman. Solo had come through the inn shortly after Ezekiel’s death and remembered the thick sense of tragedy that lurked in the air. The next time he’d stopped at the inn, Eva was holding her infant son, and the following year she was managing the inn with Zeke toddling around in her office.

  Solo couldn’t imagine the turmoil Eva had endured, losing a husband while carrying his child. All at once, reality hit him like a horse kick to the chest. Even though she appeared to possess the strength to overcome anything, she was still a widowed mother, a sole parent doing the job of two people.

  And now with her father’s failing memory, she was doing the job of three and fighting to protect her family’s business.

  Maybe he should tell her the real reason he was here. Surely, she wouldn’t mock him for writing children’s stories; she was a mother after all. She wasn’t the schoolyard bullies who had stolen his journals or the ridiculing ranch boss who refused him a moment of peace to write. He would speak to her first thing tomorrow morning.

  He sat at the desk but instead of working on his stories, he blew out the lamp and got lost in the stillness of the moonlit property outside his window.

  Chapter Six

  The burning pain in Bailey’s left thigh tempted her to limp as she took her first few steps on the beach’s shell-covered sand. She must have been jabbed by something or pinched a nerve when Micah collapsed on her. The spasm in her quadriceps kept her from being able to diagnose the injury, and she wasn’t about to look at it or touch it in front of her captors. It could be deadly to reveal weakness to an opponent. She drew a deep breath and forced her gait to appear as normal as possible.

  Suspenders Guy slid Bailey’s backpack straps over his shoulder and carried his crossbow in his left hand. He walked beside her with his right hand gently splayed on the middle of her back, more like he was shepherding an errant child than capturing an enemy combatant. The quiver at his side was empty, but his leader was walking a few paces behind them, dragging the little boat. She shouldn’t try to take both men down and escape because Micah would need her when he regained consciousness.

  The three locals carrying Micah and the crewmen had already disappeared ahead. Bailey glanced back at the ocean once more. Professor Tim was nowhere in sight. The leader followed her line-of-vision to the ocean then raised a dark eyebrow at her. “Keep walking,” he commanded.

  Pine needles crackled underfoot as Bailey left the beach and entered a path between the trees, Suspenders Guy still touching her back. She almost jerked away, but the overwhelming aroma of the gray leaf filled her lungs. If she’d been welcomed to the Land as warmly as Justin had implied, she would be relaxing with deep inhales of the peace-giving scent and enjoying the details of the terrain. Instead she was trying not to limp while being escorted into captivity by a nineteenth-century plowboy and an American crossbow-wielding five-o.

  Towering limbs blocked out most of the moonlight until she exited the forest. Susp
enders Guy escorted her along the path through a pasture, past a barn, and toward the back of a Federal-style brick home. Great, she was a prisoner in Colonial Williamsburg. At least Justin Mercer had been right about that part.

  Suspenders Guy took his hand off Bailey and pointed at a white two-story cottage near the brick house. He spoke with less angst than he had on the beach, but he still looked shell-shocked. “That’s the doctor’s office.”

  The slithering sound of the boat being dragged along the path stopped, and the leader’s footsteps grew closer behind Bailey. She didn’t have to look back to know he was close enough she could plant a roundhouse kick in his throat if she wanted to. For Micah and Tim’s sake, she didn’t. But if he got any closer to her heels, her reflexes might engage before her mind had the chance to stop them.

  A lamp outside the cottage’s open door burned brightly, illuminating the structure’s white clapboard and gingerbread shutters. A flatbed farm wagon was parked between the brick house and the cottage. The two horses hitched to the wagon raised their heads to give Bailey a disapproving look then went back to munching the driveway’s sparse grass.

  As Bailey neared the cottage door, the leader came around the front of Suspenders Guy and stopped him. “Wait out here with her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  While the leader stepped inside, Bailey tried to see what was happening in the doctor’s crowded office. Three of the locals who’d been at the beach were standing with their backs to the doorway. The lantern light glowed between the men, but Bailey couldn’t see past them.

  The men’s muffled words all had the same quick clip like phonograph recordings of historical American speeches from the late 1800s, except the leader. He spoke with a modern accent. “Revel is outside with the female. She has an injured leg but managed to walk here.”

  Then a woman’s voice said, “Everett, Levi, Nicholas, take these men to the wagon for now. Then, Levi, get Father. He needs to know what’s happening.”

  The leader walked back outside. He glared at Bailey. “Was anyone else on that sinking yacht with you?”