“Was Mr. Ramsey alive when you left?” he asked suddenly.
“Of course he was!” Jo said, though now she wondered if that was true. “I left him in the dining room. I did not remain for dessert as Mr. Ramsey was in a poor state.” She sniffed haughtily. “A true English gentleman can hold his liquor.”
The man gave a short laugh. “Aye, that’s Ramsey.” He withdrew from the carriage but did not close the door. “I’d advise you to stop for no one else until you reach the city. The men we are looking for are dangerous.”
“Yes, well, I wouldn’t have stopped for you if I’d had my choice,” she answered imperiously.
The man slammed the door, and in a moment, he and his men mounted and returned the way they’d come.
“Ford!” Jo hissed at Pallet through the open window. “He leapt into the jungle!”
Pallet remained relaxed, waving at the departing men. As soon as they were out of sight, his head snapped to her, the inane smile he’d been wearing disappearing in an instant.
“What do you mean?”
Jo stared at him. She didn’t know how she could be more clear.
“He refused to hide in the compartment. Instead he leapt into the forest back there,” she said, pointing back the way they’d come.
Pallet frowned and chewed his lower lip.
“What is delay?” Odysseus called down from his seat up front.
Pallet walked around the back of the carriage and Jo heard a short, sharp whistle. She strained her ears for a response.
Across from her, Dominique rolled off the bench and lifted the seat, helping Bussa climb out of the cramped space below. The man was ashen and sweating profusely.
Jo dug a crumpled handkerchief out of the pocket of her skirt and gently blotted his face.
“Are you hurt?”
He shook his head shortly, glancing at the small box in which he’d stuffed himself. Dominique slammed the bench down and sat on it.
“You’re safe now,” Jo said, patting his arm gently. He flinched at her touch and she suddenly had an idea of what Odysseus meant by giving Ford space.
“Here, sit down,” she said, moving next to Dominique so he could have the bench to himself.
He slouched warily for a moment before sitting upright.
“Where is the captain?”
“He—he hid in the jungle. Monsieur Pallet is looking for him now.”
Shouldn’t he have heard Pallet’s whistle and returned by now? a worried voice nagged in her head.
Pallet walked past the carriage window without stopping and a moment later they began rolling down the road.
“Wait!” Jo called, scrambling to lean out the window. “We can’t drive on!”
She was more than a little surprised when Pallet and Odysseus did not respond to her, instead focusing intently on the road ahead.
“Odysseus!” she cried.
He held up a hand to tell her to wait. Jo frowned but scanned the road ahead as well. As the carriage rounded a corner, a lone figure stepped out of the foliage. Odysseus slowed the horses only a little as Ford swung himself easily onto the driver’s seat.
Jo sat back, a perplexed frown creasing her brow. Three men on the driver’s bench would be ridiculously cramped. Why didn’t—
“I ‘spect the captain not too fond of any small space right now,” Bussa said. Jo glanced at him and saw the man had recovered his equanimity. She smiled at his attempt to console her and he settled back, pressing his face into the corner of the cushions and appearing to go right to sleep.
The carriage rumbled over the rutted dirt road and Dominique quickly fell back asleep as well, snoring softly. Jo knew it was less than a two-hour drive to the city and they’d travelled at least half an hour before the bush captains had caught up with them, yet the remaining drive felt interminable. She kept expecting the armed group to return, and started at every sound outside the carriage, though it was only the noise of the jungle coming to life.
She felt herself slipping into a pool of self-pity over Ford’s refusal to speak to her. Hadn’t she risked her life and the lives of Odysseus and Pallet to save him? Hadn’t she nearly been raped? The memories of Ramsey’s surprisingly strong hands tearing at her clothing, his fingers digging into the flesh of her arms and her hips, caused her heart to race. A fine sheen of perspiration that was separate from the general dampness of riding in a carriage through the jungle covered her skin.
She had the urge to leap from the carriage and tear through the jungle as Ford had, but at the same time, the heavy growth of trees, bushes, and vines seemed ominous. Even in the strengthening light, its interior was dark and, to her eyes, unwelcoming and dangerous, whereas the day before it had seemed lush and beautiful.
Dominique awoke a short time later, looking fresh and unperturbed by the morning’s events. Jo marveled that the young woman could appear so unaffected and was about to ask about it when she suddenly realized that compared to what Dominique must have endured her entire life, risking recapture and punishment in her bid for freedom paled in comparison.
Instead, Jo cleared her throat and asked, “What was it like? Working—that is, being a, uh—”
“Slave,” Dominique supplied. She continued to stare out the window, much as Ford had, but after a long moment she shrugged and returned Jo’s gaze.
“Not as bad for me as some. Workin’ in the house a sight easier than workin’ the fields, não?”
Jo remained silent, her eyes wide, trying to envision the other woman’s life.
“My man, he work the cane. Much harder toil, dat. They beat more often than us in the house. We got more food, too on account of the kitchen. And no snake try to bite me when I emptyin’ the piss pot.”
“But Ramsey—” Jo began, her throat tightening, preventing what she’d been about to say next.
Dominique laughed humorlessly. “Aye, that snake do bite. And if he in a temper, the doninha become stronger than you think. He more like a mangusto then. A mongoose,” she explained.
“Yes,” Jo agreed softly.
“He kill two girls that try to refuse him since I old enough to hear such things.” Dominique turned back to look out the window, craning her neck to look ahead.
“By the time he start lookin’ my way, I already marry my man and that set him to plannin’ our escape. He got away two months back.”
Jo frowned. “How would you have escaped if you hadn’t come with us?”
“I was gonna beg to go with the factotum today when he go to market, then make a run for it. He old and fat. He wouldn’t chase me. This better though. In all the rumors about the mast—Ramsey’s—death, it be a while do they look for me.
Jo nodded slowly, marveling at the other woman’s resilience. “What if they suspect you killed him?”
Dominique shrugged. “I did, didn’t I? They won’t find me.”
“And this quilombo where you are going—No, I don’t want to know where it is,” she said hurriedly at Dominique’s frown. “I just hope you’ll be safe there.”
Dominique nodded. “It a site safer than where I was.”
“You know, there are other countries where slavery is illegal. You and your husband could move to one of them and not have to live in worry—” She paused as Dominique shook her head.
“Even could we get on board a ship and not be sold again,” she laughed humorlessly. “I dreadful afraid of the big water. Ramsey and his missus went there last year. Had themselves a picnic on the beach, and the sound of those waves crashing made me jump every time. I rather take my chances here.”
Jo remembered the hurricane, the edge of which they’d ridden, and she nodded in understanding.
“Hey!” the other woman called out, then pounded on the roof of the carriage. She turned back to look at Jo. “Dis where I get off.”
Jo looked outside the window. There were a few scattered houses and a turn off from the main road.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, I sure.” Domin
ique studied Jo closely. “You say you getting’ on a boat? Never comin’ back?”
“We will depart today. And no, I never wish to see this place again!”
Dominique nodded, as if deciding something. “Dey a house not far from here. Dey help people get away.” She pounded again, this time on the wall of the carriage and Odysseus drew to a stop. She threw the door open and hopped out.
Jo scrambled to follow and grabbed her arm, pulling the other woman into a tight hug. “Thank you Dominique. Thank you for everything.” She squeezed tighter, making the other woman laugh as she disentangled herself.
“Fair is fair, I say.” Though Jo’s eyes were blurred with tears, Dominique’s were bright and eager, looking down the road to freedom and her future. She gave one last nod to Jo and walked quickly down the side road. Jo watched her for a moment and then, conscious of their own peril, turned back to the carriage. As she did so, she glanced at Ford and was surprised to find him staring at her as intently as a man dying of thirst stares at water.
She paused, mentally imploring him to come down off the carriage and embrace her. Instead, his gaze shuttered and he jerked his chin to the side, indicating she should get back in the carriage. He turned to say something to Pallet and Jo stared at the back of his head, completely flummoxed by his reaction. It was as if they were strangers, as if the incredible soul-baring intimacies and quiet moments of companionship had never existed. She hitched her torn skirts up and climbed back in the carriage.
Ford and Bussa’s return to the Nightingale was hailed by cheers and ululations. Jo noticed that, while Bussa allowed himself to be swallowed up in the crowd of crew members, who patted whatever part of him they could reach, Ford hung back. The men seemed to understand his wishes without him saying a word and those that passed close to him simply nodded, smiled, and said things like, “it’s good to have ye back, Cap’n,” or “Welcome home, sir.”
Only when Thomas and Bodega appeared did Ford’s distant aura crack, as he gathered the men to him, cupping the back of one’s head, squeezing the arm of the other.
She heard his voice, hoarse and low, say, “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks to Mrs. Cap’n,” Thomas said brightly. “Snatched us right back from those bastards, didn’t she, Bodega?”
This seemed to startle Ford, for she saw his shoulders jerk just before he turned his head and looked at her. She held her breath, hoping he would now come to her, collect her against his chest, and assure her he was alright.
Instead, he held her gaze and gave her one solemn nod. Tears of disappointment filled her eyes and she turned and fled below deck, ignoring the cheers in her name.
Once below deck, in the quiet dark of the passageway, she allowed the tears to fall. She leaned against a wall, pressing her cheek to its cool smoothness and cried softly, suddenly undone by the events of the past week; the terror, the planning, the fear they wouldn’t be in time, would go to the wrong port, the wrong market, or wouldn’t have enough money.
Then she cried for the loss of what she and Ford had shared. The sounds of the ship being prepared to launch pulled her from her misery. She stumbled down the passageway to the cabin they had shared. Once inside, she struggled out of her torn and bedraggled dress, tossing it on the bunk before fetching her wedding skirt--her last clean garment--from the trunk.
She was pulling her chemise over her head when the cabin door swung open. With a gasp, she clutched the thin fabric to her chest.
Ford stood in the doorway, his features rigid.
“You must wish to—to clean up. I’ll only be a moment,” she said.
“Who did that to you?” His voice was a low, hoarse rumble.
“What?”
He gestured at her and she glanced down to see that her hips, thighs, and arms sported a variety of bruises, some clearly thumb and fingerprints.
She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I—”
“Who did this?” he snarled. He glanced at her gown, picked it up and fingered the large tear where the skirt had separated from the bodice.
“Ramsey,” she finally said. “But—”
“I’m going to kill him.” Ford’s tone made the fine hairs on the back of her neck lift.
“No! That is, he’s already dead.”
She explained quickly about Dominique and her role as rescuer.
“And when she knocked him out, she may have—well, she did strike too hard. He’s dead now.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Those men—the bush captains—who stopped the carriage. They told us he was dead. They assumed you and Bussa—”
She broke off as Ford turned abruptly and made to leave. He paused at the door but did not turn back to look at her.
“I’m glad you were unharmed. And I’m glad Ramsey is dead.”
He opened the door, but before he could step through, she called out to him.
“Ford! Wait!”
He froze, his hand on the knob, his back rigid, his shoulders hunched. She had no idea what to say, but thought if he would simply look at her, the words would come.
After a fraught moment of silence, he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Jo waited for the tears to come, stood frozen where she was a full minute. But her eyes were dry, as if empty from her brief sobs in the passageway.
What she did feel was an overwhelming weariness. When she could rouse herself enough, she poured the little bit of water in the pitcher into the ewer and took a quick sponge bath. She tugged on the full white blouse Ford had bought her in Antigua, climbed into the bunk, and fell into a dark and dreamless slumber.
Chapter Nineteen
Ford stood outside the door of his cabin, shaking from a mix of rage that Ramsey had hurt Jo, impotence that he’d not been the one to rescue her, and frustration at being so close to his wife and yet not able to reach out and touch her.
That last emotion plagued him as he caught a crewmember and ordered water and fresh clothes.
“I’ll be in the saloon,” Ford called after the man, who stopped and turned.
“Aye, Cap’n,” the man said and though his face betrayed no surprise, Ford knew the man must be wondering why a man only recently reunited with the wife who’d risked everything to save him, was now retiring to a different cabin.
Ford asked himself the same thing as he scrubbed weeks’ worth of filth from his body.
He lathered his face and shaved the itchy beard and mustache. He never wore facial hair beyond a small goatee because of the way it felt, and there had been times during his first days of imprisonment when he’d thought it the worst punishment. He’d quickly learned it was not of course, and now he would forgo even the goatee for the feeling of clean skin.
He glanced in the tiny mirror above the ewer to see if he’d missed any spots. He studied the hair on his head and on impulse, shaved it off as well.
A quarter hour later, he was on deck, clean, shaved, wearing a new set of clothes and finishing off the bread and meat Pallet had delivered to him as he bathed.
With no small feeling of relief, he saw that Brazil was not visible. All around the Nightingale were miles of open ocean and as Ford took a deep breath of salty air, he felt one small knot that was every inch of his mind and body begin to unravel.
He helped the men in the rigging, ignoring their surprised looks and the discomfort from his various wounds and bruises. He checked and rechecked the sextant. They were headed north, though Ford had yet to settle on a destination. He had a few days before they would round the eastern bulge of Brazil and head into the Caribbean. Eventually he had to get Pallet back to St. Kitts where the man’s crew had returned after he left them in Havana. And Jo—his mind shied away from thoughts of her and he checked the sextant a third time.
His greatest sense of peace came when he set his hands on the wheel. He closed his eyes and let the feel of the smooth wood soothe him. His knees instinctively bent with the swell of the deck beneath his feet. His
ears were attuned to the calls of the crew as they bantered while they worked, the creak of wood, the crisp snap of the sails as they were unfurled, or the soft fluffluffluff as they luffed before being tightened. He inhaled deeply, taking into his very soul the power of the sea, the capable yet simultaneous fragility of his craft, and the utter freedom of the wide ocean around them.
He would have to make a decision regarding their destination soon, but for now, he would relish the utter freedom of simply sailing.
Ford’s hand shook as he reached for the door handle into the saloon where dinner was laid out for his officers. And his wife. He longed to see her, longed to take her into his arms and never let her go. He yearned to bury his face in her soft, fragrant hair, bury his hardness in her womanly softness. He longed above all else to simply lay in bed next to her and laugh at some silly, shared joke. It felt as if he had not laughed in a decade instead of a few weeks. He was unsure if the muscles in his face would remember how to pull his mouth into a grin, if his voice would remember how to make the sound of laughter. He felt his breath tighten and his heart beat, fast and light.
He pushed those thoughts deep into a far corner of his mind, and willed himself to remain calm, to focus his senses. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he heard: the susurrus of the water slipping by the ship, the creak of ropes and wood, the distant call of the man at the helm to another in the rigging. Closer by, he could hear the rumble of male voices on the other side of the door, the mixture of accents providing a soothing, indistinct rumble. Ford felt his breath calm, his heart slow. He settled his hand on the knob and was in the process of opening the door when Jo’s voice rang out, light and radiant as a bell over the deeper rumble of the men’s voices. His carefully won serenity shattered. He felt his heart threaten to pound out of his chest and his hand was unsteady on the door handle. He forced himself to quickly enter the small, candlelit room, nodding at the scattered greetings. He was peripherally aware of Jo sitting near one end of the table. He was also aware that there were empty chairs near her but he pretended not to see that as he sat in the open chair nearest him. A mug was placed in his hands and a plate heaped with food set before him. He dug into the offering, though he hadn’t much of an appetite. It gave him an excuse to keep his head down and focus only on the square foot of table in front of him.
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