by Susan Wiggs
Hunter Calhoun would be pleased; this much she knew. He had brought her a deranged animal. She would send him home with a champion.
Today.
Hours passed. The sun peaked, sank past noon and was headed toward sunset. Judging by the action of the waves, she knew the tide was coming in and that soon the scow would be afloat.
Sadness haunted her as she walked the stallion back to the settlement, stopping to put him in his pen for the night. This was not the raging, soul-tearing grief she had felt for her father. This hurt held the dull ache of eternity.
When she came upon the clearing, the first thing that struck her was the quiet. Had someone taken the chickens? Frowning, she went inside. At first glance she saw nothing amiss. Then her eyes widened as she noticed the empty shelves.
The books were gone. Shakespeare. Charlotte Brontë. The damaged Bible. The collection of illustrations. Every last one of them—gone. Two other items had been stolen as well—the locker containing the Spanish bride’s trousseau and the crate with her father’s mementos of his career in England.
She was so stunned by this turn of events that she sank to the old driftwood bench and stared at the puncheon floor in a terrible daze. She felt as she had one time when she had swum a pony out into the surf. The animal had panicked and had kicked her in a dozen places before she escaped him. The agony had consumed her, sucked all the air from her lungs.
It was like that now. Hunter Calhoun had removed from her house the only things that meant anything to her, and it was as if he had ripped her heart out.
She felt like an old, old woman as she made herself get up and go outside, down the path to the paddock area.
She got there in time to see him leading the stallion away.
That sight was like a slap of ice water, waking her up. She fairly flew along the path at him.
“What the hell are you doing, Calhoun?” she demanded.
His look was blurry and bemused. She instantly knew that he had been drinking.
“Oh, good,” he said. “You’re just in time to help me get the stallion aboard.”
That had been her plan exactly, to put the stallion on the scow and send him on his way. But Hunter Calhoun wasn’t satisfied merely to leave her be. He had to wreak havoc on her life as well. Dear God, and she had trusted this man? What sort of fool did that make her?
“I’ve brought a blindfold in case he gets balky. He’s ready, isn’t he?” Without waiting for an answer, he led the horse across to the mooring. “It’s a calm sea this evening. We’ll be at Albion before nightfall.”
Peering into the box on the scow, she felt a jolt of white-hot rage. The scow resembled Noah’s ark in miniature, with the Three Nymphs perched nervously on a rail, and Claribel tethered to the base of the tiller. Caliban paced up and down the beach, giving an occasional sharp bark of impatience.
“You’ve put my animals aboard,” she sputtered.
“I couldn’t very well leave them. They seem attached to you.”
“I’m taking them back at once,” she said, starting up the ramp.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to have to stop you. But I will if you don’t cooperate.”
“What?”
“It’s my job to save you,” he said, slurring his words. “It’s the least I can do.”
“I don’t need saving.”
He stopped, stock-still, and gave her a long, lazy look. “Oh, honey. Yes, you do.” He stepped up on the ramp. “I didn’t expect you to surrender easily. You want your things? Your animals? Fine, come aboard and get them.”
She regarded him resentfully. “I’m staying.” She pivoted away from him and strode back toward her house. If it was a battle of wills he wanted, she was determined to prevail. If he called her bluff and stole her things, perhaps she would pursue him to the place called Albion and reclaim her animals, bringing them home with her where they belonged.
She turned to give him a chance to call her back. Instead, she saw him easing the blindfolded stallion up the ramp as the sun settled low on the water. The sight hit her like a blow, but she refused to let herself feel the pain.
After they’d made love, he had accused himself of violating her. Now she realized it was true. He had violated her, though not in the way he thought. He had taken something much more valuable than her virginity. Now he expected her to follow him like a brainless gosling wherever he went. Did he think her belongings meant so much to her that she would follow them to a strange place? Then he didn’t know her at all. Nothing was permanent. Nothing was worth hanging on to. She would learn to do without the things he had stolen from her.
Back at the house, she tried to go through the motions of her evening routine, but there were no eggs to gather, there was no cow to milk.
Night fell with its usual sudden hush. A blanket of dark hid the marsh and the dunes, muffling the sounds of the sea. Her loneliness burned deep. He had taken her books. How dare he? The absence of the books left her alone with herself, truly alone, for the first time in her life. She didn’t like it. It was a shock to realize she wasn’t happy in her own company.
She couldn’t sleep. Restless as a wild thing, she paced the floor. Then, finally, she left her bed and went out to the porch, settling into the hammock that hung empty in the shadows. Sleep came more easily than it should have, but it was a restless unsatisfying sleep plagued by confusing dreams.
Of him. She was transported up onto the lookout platform again, to that night filled with stars, and he was making love to her, and the feelings rising in her made her feel as if she would burst into flames. Hot, she was so hot, on fire for him, and the sweat raced down her temples and between her breasts until she nearly cried out aloud in pleasure and in pain.
The sensations were so real that, when she awoke in the middle of the night, she smelled smoke. A second or two of disorientation lingered, and then reality slammed into her.
Fire.
The roof was on fire.
Even before she could scramble out of the hammock, she heard shouts from the marsh and saw a flaming brand arc through the air. The bomb was a bottle filled with clear liquid—kerosene, she guessed—and stoppered with a rag set aflame.
“That’ll smoke out the vermin,” someone said.
Eliza slithered out of the hammock. Slave-catchers. The men who had killed her father. They had come back, this time for her. They must have pursued the runaway slave to the island.
Dear God, she should have listened to Hunter.
The flaming roof turned night to day. She was certain they would see her, but she had no choice. She could either stay and burn, or run and risk being caught. Her mind filled with terrible images of the marauders, she bent low and dropped over the railing of the porch. Behind her, the roof caved in with a hiss and a groan of ancient, wind-dried timber. On hands and knees she crawled toward the marsh, where the cordgrass rose in tall clumps through the mudflats.
She could hear the men talking. They hunted down fugitives in order to collect a bounty. Now she understood the icy fear of a slave on the run. She had no care for comfort, did not worry when she entered a hot pocket of hungry mosquitoes, did not heed the fact that she was drenched in mud. Her only thought was to get away. She moved deeper and deeper into the marsh, reaching the opposite edge, her feet finding firmer ground.
A rough-throated baying filled the air, and she nearly sobbed with terror. They had dogs, and Hunter Calhoun—damn him to the eternal fires—had sailed away with Caliban, who would have driven off the most ferocious of hounds. She had a vague notion of hiding in the deepest part of the woods, and made for the leeward side of the island. The hounds had scented her by now, she could tell, for their baying grew louder and more frenzied. She heard the rasp and crash of low shrubs being trampled. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she saw that the fire made a bowl of light in the night sky. A man with a long gun angled across his body ran toward her. She could see hi
s bulk backlit by the flames.
Was this what her father had seen, just before he died?
She sucked air between teeth clenched in terror. Closer and closer the dogs came. She imagined she could hear the snap and snarl of them as they closed in on her. In front of her, the water lay like a pool of ink.
Her foot caught the upthrust knee of a cypress and she stumbled and fell, careening to a stop at the base of the tree. She tried to resist the impulse to climb, for the dogs would only keep her there until their masters found her. She felt the hot flow of blood from her foot and cursed, knowing the strong rusty scent of fresh blood would bring on the hounds that much faster. She scrambled across the dunes, making for the open water where she could throw them off the scent.
Her only hope was to plunge into the murk of the night waters, to endure the sting of saltwater in her wound, to lie low and pray she would not be found. It was a feeble plan, but it was better than staying around waiting to be captured.
She took a step toward the water, then another. The scarp of the dune was a high one. It was a long drop into the sea below, but she had to chance it. Another step, then another.
A swift shadow streaked out from the brush at the edge of the cliff. A hand clapped over her mouth. A strong arm clamped around her waist. And then the cliff gave way, and she was falling, falling, with the wind racing through her hair.
She didn’t even have time to scream.
Part Two
…make yourself ready for the mischance of the hour…
—William Shakespeare,
The Tempest, I, i
Sixteen
“I’ve never rescued anyone before,” Hunter said, steering into the strong southerly current. He glared at the sputtering, cursing girl on the deck. “I wonder if it’s always this difficult.”
During the first hour of their escape from the island, she had not stopped talking. No, thought Hunter, thirsty for the rum he had already finished, she didn’t talk. She whined. She ranted. She was ranting still.
“…no better than the Portuguese in Africa, capturing slaves. Who gave you the right to snatch me from my home? To steal my things and my animals and carry us off as if we were booty looted from a shipwreck?”
He adjusted the tiller. “Imagine,” he said. “How dare I?”
“You can’t force me to stay. I’ll go home, see if I won’t.”
He’d had enough. Securing the tiller with a line, he thrust himself toward her, moving fast. Surprising her.
He shoved her up against the side of the pen and glared down into her face. “Listen. Because I’m only going to say this once. Your father was killed for helping slaves escape. Last night the slave-catchers burned your house to the ground. Lord knows what they’d have done if they’d found you.”
“Is that why you came back for me?”
“I didn’t come back. I was lying at anchor, waiting for you to come to your senses. Which, I needn’t point out, you failed to do.” He knew he would never tell her how he’d paced the decks, wrestled with indecision until it was almost too late. He’d never confess what the sight of her burning house had done to him. “I couldn’t let you wait around to be killed,” he said brusquely.
“Who are you to make that decision for me?’
Someone who cares. He bit his tongue to keep the words in. Caring brought heartache. He was walking proof of that. “Someone who doesn’t want you on his conscience.”
“And exactly what do you propose to do with me?”
He’d had plenty of time to think about it, but the ideas flew out of his head. When he looked at her now, when he smelled the wild heathery fragrance of her hair, all he could think about was what he had done to her that night. No matter how drunk he got he could still remember the taste of her mouth and the way her breasts had felt cupped in his hand. He could remember the startled sounds of delight she had made and could feel her legs wrapped unabashedly around him.
Hunter had lost count of the women he had loved over the years. But he knew there had never been anyone like Eliza.
“Well?” She pushed for an answer. “Have you thought about that? Have you?”
“Of course I have,” he lied, letting her go and pushing away from the pen. In truth, what would he do with such a girl? A feral woman, raised by her unconventional father at the edge of nowhere. The wild islands had been her classroom, a handful of books her tutors. In terms of horse sense, she was more learned than the most dedicated scholars at Old Dominion. But in terms of living, she was a babe in the woods. She had no idea how to get on in society.
“I’ll pay you for the service you’ve done me,” he said.
She plunked down on the deck and examined the gash in her foot. “You have no money. You said so yourself.”
“When this stallion starts winning, I’ll be flush. You’ll be well compensated, I promise you that. You’ll be able to book passage to California. It’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”
“I never pictured myself doing it,” she said, wrapping a bandanna around her foot. “I never saw myself leaving the island.” She stood up to grasp a shroud, and faced east to the low flat islands behind them. In the uncertain light of the coming dawn, there was little to distinguish them from sea or sky. “I can’t see it anymore,” she said quietly. “I can’t see Flyte Island.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not there,” he pointed out. In a way, he was glad she couldn’t see her former home. The eerie glow from the fire had pulsed unnaturally into the night, illuminating the grief in her face. Now the shadows of dawn softened her drawn features. Still, he reminded himself, the woman had lost her home last night, lost it in a shock of violence. He wished he knew how to comfort her.
“Remember how you said you and your father used to dream of seeing California, the wild herds out there?” he said awkwardly. “I brought all your pictures and maps.”
She held herself very stiff and straight as the rounded bow pushed into the low mist on the water. “It’s easy to dream. Harder to face the dream coming true.”
When they passed the tiny port of Cape Charles, a shrill steam whistle sounded and a few fishing boats scudded by, shrouded in nets. The bay was opening up to a new morning. A vessel hove into view, emerging from the fog like a watery ghost.
“Get down, quickly,” Hunter ordered her.
Eliza dropped to the deck and lay in the shadow of the stock pen. “Who is it?”
“Might be the scum who burned your place.”
“Ahoy! What’re you shipping?” came the demand from the boat. It was a skipjack, small and swift, flying enough canvas to outrun the scow in any wind.
“Livestock, and not a very good lot,” Hunter said, sounding chagrined. He squinted through the fog, trying to see how many manned the skipjack. “And you? Out fishing today?” He already knew the answer to that. He saw no lines or weirs.
“There’s been a slave escape from a place in Northampton County,” a voice from the other boat said. “Handsome reward out for him.”
Eliza closed her hand around a marlinespike, and Hunter’s blood chilled. He had taken charge of keeping her out of danger. Reaching down, he snatched the pointed tool from her. “Haven’t seen a soul, slave or free,” he said loudly.
“My partner and I, we’re after a lone runaway,” one of the men explained. The bow of the sailboat angled toward the scow and cut cleanly through the gray water, drawing close with unexpected speed. “Young buck, crippled by a mantrap, last seen a bit north of here.”
“Well, you’re braver souls than I,” Hunter said, “taking off after such a vicious character.”
The man spat a stream of brown tobacco juice overboard. “You watch what you say, mister.”
“You sure you only got livestock there?” the other asked. “If’n you’re telling the truth, you oughtn’t to worry.”
Hunter could see, by the ruffles in the water ahead, that he had a chance of catching the oncoming breeze if he could get there in time. But the other
boat was steep-sided and sleek, quicker and more maneuverable than the ungainly scow. He had nothing to hide, though, and Ryan’s ship was long gone. Still, he knew these two had burned Eliza’s home and could well be the ones who had murdered her father. Elaborately casual, he unlashed his tiller and steered into the wind. “I’m not worried, gentlemen,” he said easily. “Kind of you to inquire, though.”
“Slacken sail!” The skipjack closed the distance fast, outfitted with plenty of canvas for fast runs to the big cities in the north. The sailboat hove in and out of the mist, finally emerging too close for comfort. The man on the deck held a long percussion shotgun pointed straight at Hunter.
“You hard of hearing?” the man demanded. “I said, slacken sail!”
Hunter was outmanned, outgunned and outmaneuvered. He had no choice. He grasped the mainsheet and gave it a quick jerk. The sail slackened instantly.
The pair of men on the skipjack worked with piratical precision. A grappling hook swung across, thunking against the side a few times before it grabbed hold. They pulled hand over hand, dragging the helpless scow toward them. The sailors were a weather-beaten pair, their hard faces creased with that special brutality of men who hunted slaves for profit.
Caliban planted his forepaws on the gunwale, black lips drawn back in a vicious grin. He didn’t bark but made a far more threatening vibration deep in his throat. In the pen, the stallion whistled and thumped his hooves. Nervously the slave-catcher swung his weapon toward the big dog.
“Hold your fire,” Eliza yelled, jumping up from her hiding place.
Hunter set his jaw. He wondered if she understood what a bother it was, keeping her safe.
“Well, now,” the slave-catcher said, and despite the distance of several yards, Hunter could see the hard glitter in his eyes. “What have we here?”
Two sharply hungry gazes locked onto Eliza. Her wet dress hugged her form, showing the outline of her nipples, chilled to hardness, the tender curve of her belly and hips, the V-shape between her legs. Neither of them said a word. They didn’t have to. They saw a woman, ripe for the plucking, and they wanted her in the crudest way possible.