Fortune's Flame

by French, Judith E.

  He pulled her closer against him and gave a muffled groan. “I’d not hurt ye, Bess, but I’m not a marryin’ man. I was married once, and it brought only pain for us both.”

  She caressed his chest with her fingertips and moved her head to lie against his heart. The beat was fast and strong, and it gave her courage to press him further. “I’m not that woman, Kincaid. I’m—”

  “I know what ye are,” he replied. “Damn it, Bess, can’t ye be satisfied with this? I’ve never felt so with another lass, never.”

  “Nor I with a man.”

  “Then let’s enjoy it and make the most of it without talking of marriage.”

  “Why, Kincaid? Why shouldn’t we be married?”

  He kissed the crown on her head and wound a lock of her damp hair around his index finger. “I’m no planter, Bess. I’m a hired killer. I fight for whoever pays me. I’ve nothing to bring a highborn wife, not even a name. And . . .” He lifted her chin and stared into her eyes. “I don’t think I could trust a woman again.”

  She pushed herself up on one elbow. “I trusted a man and he raped me. Is that any reason for me to give up on all men?”

  “What happened between me and Gillian is different. I loved her. I never slept with another woman while I was married to her. I was such a fool over her that I closed my eyes to what was going on. She was no better than a whore. Worse than a whore. A whore is honest about what she does, and she gives good measure for good coin.” His voice cracked. “I wanted a son, Bess. A son who could be more than I was. And when she swelled with child, I was so damned happy. I would have cut off my sword arm for her if she asked for it.”

  A tear rolled down Bess’s cheek and she dashed it away. “Kincaid . . .” she murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Dinna feel pity for me. Save your pity for Robbie Munro. He was my best friend. We saved each other’s skins more times than you can count. He was like a brother to me. But when I caught him in Gillian’s bed, I called him out, and I put a sword through him.”

  “She wasn’t worth it,” Bess said.

  “The babe wasn’t even mine. She laughed when she told me that. She taunted me with it. ‘Another little bastard,’ she said. What difference did one more little bastard make to a man like me?”

  “Did you kill her too?”

  “Gillian?” Kincaid shook his head. “God knows I wanted to.” His voice grated with pain, and the eyes that looked into Bess’s were desolate. “Nay, I didn’t lay a hand on her. I was afraid to. I wanted to stop her mouth. I wanted to stop her from sayin’ those hurtin’ things.”

  “What happened to her?” Bess asked.

  “She died in childbirth, her and the bairn both. It was stillborn and too small to survive. But it wasn’t mine.”

  “Maybe she lied to hurt you, because of Munro. Maybe it was yours, Kincaid.”

  “Nay. The poor wee lad had an extra finger, ye see, six fingers on one hand. Like Robbie Munro. ’Tis the curse of the Munros. The devil’s mark, they say.” He laughed wryly. “Robbie Munro could fight like one of Lucifer’s fiends. He was hell with a broadsword.”

  “But all that’s past,” she said. “Robbie Munro and Gillian and their son are long dead and buried. You didn’t go in that grave with them. You still have a chance to make something of your life . . . to have the son you wanted.”

  “Ah, Bess, Bess.” He kissed her. “I do love ye,” he admitted. “Devil take me, but I do.”

  “And I love you.”

  “But it’s nay enough. I’d bring ye only unhappiness, woman. Ye need a gentleman, someone of your own kind.”

  “You are my kind, Kincaid. You are the man I want for a husband. What do you say? Will you marry a landed woman and try a planter’s life?”

  “Ye’d wed with me?”

  “I would.”

  “After all that canting about wanting no man to rule you and your precious Fortune’s Gift?”

  “Not any man, Kincaid, just you.”

  “Ye must be sufferin’ from a jungle fever. I do believe you’ve lost your senses.”

  She swallowed hard. “Then the answer is no? You don’t want me?”

  “Want ye? Hellfire and damnation! Of course I want ye. It’s the marryin’ that sticks in my craw. You’re the finest wench it’s been my fortune to know. You’re brave and bold and wily as a Campbell. There’s none I’d rather have at my back in a fight or beside me like we are now. There’s none in all the world I’d rather have as the mother of my child, but it’s too late for all that now.”

  “Too late?”

  “I’m afraid, Bess . . . afraid of lettin’ myself dream again.”

  “And this treasure hunt? What is that but a dream?”

  “Aye, but one I can deal with.”

  “And when we find it?”

  “I’ll take ye safe home to Maryland.”

  “And then you’ll leave me?”

  “It’s better for us both, I tell ye. Here we can be together. I’m Munro the mercenary, with no loyalty to anyone or anything. You’re my woman. No questions, no problems other than us stayin’ alive. But on the Tidewater, it’s different. No one expects a woman like you to be with a—”

  “To hell with what anyone else thinks. It’s what we think that matters,” Bess said hotly.

  “Ye say that now, but in time, as ye grow older, you’ll see my faults. I’m a rough, plain man and I belong in a place where there’s few laws. I’ll take my share of the gold and go west to Indian country. I’ll build my own farm, lass, and if the nights are lonely, I’ll find a woman of my own kind to warm my bed.”

  “So you won’t marry me.”

  “It’s what I’ve been sayin’.”

  “You love me.”

  “Aye.” He sighed heavily. “I can see it was a great mistake to admit it. You’ll never let it rest.”

  “You love me, but you won’t marry me, because you think I’m some great lady and you’re a bondsman.”

  He scowled at her. “Ye have a way of twistin’ a man’s words.”

  “What’s not true? That you love me, or that you don’t think you’re good enough for me?”

  “Enough. I won’t marry ye, and that’s that. We’re better as we are, Bess. You’re innocent of the world. What ye think ye feel for me here and now—”

  “Forget it,” she said, turning her back on him. “Forget I asked you. I’ll raise your babe alone.”

  “What babe? You’re not wi’ child; there’s no way ye could be with—”

  “Tonight,” she whispered. “In this hammock. Tonight we made a baby.”

  “You are sufferin’ from the fever.”

  “You admit that I’m a witch, yet you refuse to believe me when I tell you that I’m going to have your child.”

  “Woman, ye are as mad as a shipwrecked sailor.”

  “If I am pregnant, will you marry me then?”

  His forehead creased with exasperation. “Where is your pride that ye’d force a man to wed ye against his will?”

  Bess laughed. “No one ever forced you to do anything you didn’t want to do in your entire life, Kincaid. If you do marry me, it will be for love and forever.”

  “Enough of this talk.” He sat up in the hammock and walked to the edge of the shelter. Rain was pouring down so heavily that it made a shimmering wall of silver and black in the firelight. “Out there somewhere is what we came for, Bess. It’s time to tell me what was on the pages of your grandsire’s journal. If we make a misstep, we could wander out there in the jungle until we rot. I need to know numbers. How many days? What landmarks do we follow? How deep is the treasure buried?”

  Bess’s heartbeat quickened. She’d been afraid of this. She hadn’t seen Kutii since they’d been shipwrecked on the island off Carolina. He’d promised to lead her to the gold, and now she was left without a clue to which way to go.

  She reached for her shirt and pulled it over her head. It was damp and had something crawling on it. She brushed away the insec
t and pulled the long shirttail down over her bottom. Sliding out of the hammock, she knelt by the fire and added wood, one piece at a time.

  “Damn it, woman, do ye never do what you’re told?” Kincaid asked. His words were hard, but his voice still showed his vulnerability.

  She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Her throat felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. Kutii! she screamed inwardly. Kutii, where are you?

  “Has the fever stopped your ears?” he demanded. “I want ye to draw me a map. I’ve a larger one of the land from the Darien swamps to the Azuelo Peninsula. The Chagres River runs roughly west and south from the San Blas Islands. God help ye if you’ve forgotten anything.”

  I can’t tell him, she thought desperately. If she told him the truth . . . Merciful heaven, what had she gotten herself into? Please, God, she prayed, if the power I’ve always had is good and not evil, please send me a sign. Help me out of this.

  “Bess?”

  She stirred the coals of the campfire with a charred stick and tried to picture Kutii in her mind. All she could visualize was confusion, doubt, and fear. “I’m trying to remember the exact words,” she lied.

  Kincaid stood there stark naked with his fists braced against his hips and his brows set in a straight, scowling line. He held himself so rigidly that Bess could barely make out the rise and fall of his chest as he drew breath in the hot, humid air. “If ye’ve tricked me . . .” he said softly. The unspoken threat sent shivers down her spine.

  “ ‘Morgan sent us another way,’ ” she said, repeating the lines that had been set down by her grandfather so long ago. “ ‘He’d had word of a heavily guarded mule train carrying a load of treasure to Porto Bello. He was following the Chagres River with his main body of men while we traversed the overland route . . .’ ” Bess’s mouth was dry; she had to will the hand that held the stick not to tremble.

  Swirls of smoke rose from the fire, spreading out under the roof of the hut and seeping into the flood of falling water outside. At least the smoke keeps away the mosquitoes, she thought.

  Even the scent of the burning wood was unfamiliar; it smelled like nothing she had ever known. And when she looked down at her hands, she saw that they were stained with blood-red sap.

  Kincaid came closer and squatted across the fire pit from her. The drumming rain on the roof and soaked earth seemed to chill her to the bone, not with an earthly cold, but with a freezing of the soul.

  Why did I do it? she thought. Why did I leave the blue of Chesapeake skies to come to this green hell? I should have let them take part of the land. In time I could have cleared more forest and planted a larger crop. I could have fed my people on fish and game. It would have been hard, but no harder than . . .

  She inhaled deeply of the spicy, rain-drenched air. No, she said firmly to herself. I chose this path. I made a decision, and I’ll stick by it so long as I have breath in my body. Right or wrong, we’re here, and we’ll finish this treasure hunt, one way or another.

  And then, in the distant shadows of her mind, Bess heard a faint whisper. “All that Lacy was is in you. You bear the blood of those who seek what lies beyond . . .” She held her breath and waited, but there was only silence.

  “All that she was,” Bess murmured.

  “What did ye say?” Kincaid asked.

  She had the God-given power, Bess thought. “My grandmother was a good woman, not an evil one. She never let a child go hungry or failed to speak up when she thought someone was being wronged.”

  “Your grandmother? What does your grandmother have to do with anything? ‘Tis your grandfather’s journal that’s important.”

  “No.” Bess smiled and shook her head. “No, it’s not.” My Grandmama Lacy had the power, she thought. And I have it too. “I have it,” she said triumphantly. “I do.”

  “Well, then? Show me,” he insisted. Quickly he removed a folded map from an oilskin wrapping. “Show me where the treasure is.”

  Bess looked down at the map. For long seconds, she held her index finger over the damp parchment, then—guided purely by intuition—she closed her eyes and touched a spot. “Here,” she said. “The gold is buried here.”

  Kincaid looked up at her. “You’re certain?”

  “Would I lie to you? After all we’ve been through?” she asked as she slipped her left hand behind her back and crossed her fingers.

  It had been Bess who’d convinced the Cuna to guide them through the jungle to the place where the treasure was buried. All of Evan Davis’s promises and bribery had been in vain. Pablo had insisted that he’d not risk his warriors’ lives for steel machetes and bolts of cloth, at least that was what he’d said until an old woman had whispered in his ear and he’d summoned Bess before him.

  “Quién you?” the Cuna chief had asked her in a mixture of broken English and Spanish. Evan had translated Pablo’s words.

  “Bess,” she’d replied, knowing that her full name would only be confusing to this wise, primitive man.

  He had stared at her with eyes as dark and fathomless as Kutii’s. Then the old woman, the same one who’d been in charge of cutting up the meat the day before, had whispered something more to Pablo. Abruptly, the chief’s demeanor had changed from wary to genuinely warm. “We are honored to have you among us,” he’d said. Again, a puzzled Evan explained the meaning to Bess and Kincaid.

  Pablo waved his hand and gave an order in his own language. Immediately, a woman ran to a hut and returned with a beautiful multicolored cloak of tightly woven feathers. “Esta es para la mujer estrella. ”

  Evan shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know enough Spanish to get that,” Kincaid said. “He said the cloak was for the star woman.”

  “That’s what’s crazy,” Evan said. He looked at the chief questioningly. “Mujer estrella?”

  “Yes,” Pablo answered firmly. “Wom-man de star.”

  Bess had not known why the Cuna had called her that either, but for her he said he would send four canoes of warriors. Only for her, he insisted, and he refused all payment.

  And Bess’s reply had been a wide smile of thanks, and the most gracious curtsy she could manage in breeches and boy’s shoes.

  Now, after three days of paddling down some godforsaken river in the rain, she wondered if Pablo had done them a favor or not.

  Actually, there were interludes during the rainfall. But whenever the downpour stopped, the earth began to steam. Clouds of fog and mist rose from the surface of the water and the land. Insects swarmed around their exposed bodies, buzzing and crawling, finding their way into noses and mouths and ears. They were saved from being devoured by the biting creatures by more of the potion the woman had given Bess back in the village. The mixture kept most insects from stinging, but did nothing to keep them from driving Bess frantic. And any spot of flesh that she’d missed when she applied the herbal potion was quickly discovered by the mosquitoes and attacked in full force.

  Not that Bess didn’t find a strange beauty in the land. She watched the riverbanks and surrounding jungle with a sense of wonder. There were huge crabs and toads, alligators, slender red deer, black-bearded monkeys, and tree sloths that hung like petrified fruit from the branches. Iguanas and wild hogs, birds of every size and color, and once, a snake so long and thick that it could have devoured a man whole.

  Huge bats drifted like ghostly shadows over the river at night, and the sound of the rain was often pierced by the hunting cry of the big cats and the scream of dying animals. Bess napped from time to time in the darkness, wrapped in her feathered cloak, but the paddlers never slept. They drove the canoes on and on, carrying the Englishmen deeper and deeper into the interior until Bess thought they must surely have crossed the isthmus and be close to the Pacific coast.

  And finally, when she’d given up hope of ever setting foot on dry land again, the Cuna beached their dugout canoes and the headman pointed into the jungle.

  Evan spoke to him briefly,
then turned to Kincaid. “This is as far as they can take us by boat,” he said. “From here on, they will give us one guide. The other Cuna will remain here. They call this place ‘El Tigre’s hunt.’ They say there is great danger in this place.”

  “From wild beasts?” Kincaid asked.

  “No.” The headman spoke again rapidly, and Evan exchanged words with him. “He says there is another tribe here. This is their hunting grounds. They are not Cuna or Choco or Guaymis.” He glanced at Bess. “This man says they call them the Tiger People, and that they steal Cuna babies and eat them.”

  “Superstitious nonsense,” Kincaid said gruffly.

  Bess regarded the frightened faces of the Cuna warriors and felt a sudden draft of icy wind. “No,” she said. “It’s true. Look at them.”

  “So we go on alone,” Kincaid said. “Bess?”

  She nodded. She didn’t want to walk into the jungle any more than the Cuna did, but she knew they were near the end of their search. She could feel the pull of something elusive and indescribable. “We have to go on,” she said. “We’re close to the spot.”

  Kincaid, Evan, and the eight sailors they’d brought with them from the ship took machetes and weapons, and loaded packs on their backs. Kincaid thrust an oilskin bag into Bess’s hands.

  “The map is in there,” he said, “along with a pistol. Keep it dry, if you value your life.”

  Two Cuna warriors stepped forward.

  “Can we trust them?” Kincaid asked Evan. He shrugged, and Kincaid glanced at Bess. “Touch them,” he ordered. “Touch their hands and tell me if they’ll betray us.”

  Bess’s eyes widened. “But you said you didn’t believe me,” she protested. “You said—”

  “Damn it, woman, do as I say.”

  Hesitantly, she walked forward and held out her hand to the nearest of the two guides. He stood motionless. “May I?” she asked. He raised his hands, palms outward, and she pressed her hands against his.

  “What is this?” Evan said. Several of the sailors began to grumble among themselves.

  Bess smiled as she saw a welcome tint of blue. “This man will be faithful,” she said. The second man turned and darted off into the jungle. Before anyone could move to stop him, he was hidden by the dense foliage.