Horsman, Jennifer

by Crimson Rapture

  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.

  After the first feeding, the survivors were handwashed and cleaned, and their exposed skin oiled. The worst sores were bandaged. Lady Knolls awakened as Christina
and Elsie gently oiled her face, scalp, neck, and arms. She seemed to be dreaming, though, speaking unintelligibly. "I had to," she said in a nearby inaudible voice. "Don't you see? Those filthy old hands... I had to..."

  "Who is she?" Justin asked as he came to Christina's side to stare down at the only surviving woman.

  "Lady Knolls—Caroline Knolls," Christina replied.

  Justin tried to recall where he had heard that name.

  "She's my lady," Elsie added, "and I daresay, she's the living proof that God didn't favor the good on this trip—

  "Elsie!" Christina scolded.

  'Tis true." Elsie wrung the washcloth in the bucket, eyeing the woman with open animosity. "Not a kind woman at all. Nothin' was ever good enough for the likes of her, oh no. Uppity and insufferable. She 'ad airs enough for a queen, she did."

  Justin chuckled at Elsie's description. "Rest assured, lassie, our island's life-style will have no room for queens, even less for self-appointed ones."

  "And I'm thankful for small mercies," Elsie promptly replied.

  "Christina," Justin said, lifting her up by the arm. She looked up at him expectantly but he paused, studying her. Her hair was lifted into a loose knot on the top of her head and she wore what he knew was the last item of clothing in the trunk. A pale pink long-sleeved nightdress hung loosely on her frame, tied with a hair ribbon at her waist. He was not altogether comfortable with the angelic look the garment created. It was just that much worse than the tattered chemise and skirt that solicited his men's blatant admiration. And he'd be even less comfortable when he cut the skirt and sleeves. But nothing, he realized, could hide her beauty anyway.

  "What are you doing?" she asked as he knelt and removed his knife.

  "I'm afraid we need the extra cloth. It's the last left."

  "But... but what for?"

  "Cajun has to amputate that man's leg," he said on the heels of a solemn pause.

  She looked over where Colonel Carrington lay. "Oh no... Is he certain?"

  Justin nodded. "He'll die if it's not done."

  "I'm sorry..."

  Justin looked up to find an expression of guilt on her face. He quickly cut off the skirt as high as he dared, and then rose. "That is not your fault," he said simply.

  "But if I hadn't been out on deck—"

  "No, I don't want to hear it." He stopped her. "I'll be forever amazed at how women blame themselves, carrying the burden of guilt when it is the man who violates them." He thought of the Arab countries that kill women for being violated, this no matter what the circumstances, and then wondered sardonically if death might not be preferable to the persecution most women received in western countries. "No, Christina, it's not your fault," he continued as he cut each sleeve at the seam. "That bastard should be glad he'll lose only a limb and not his life, for had I not been—"

  "No, please," she interrupted in turn, not wanting to hear the rest. Justin thoughtfully looked down at her and then leaned over to kiss her before leaving for Cajun's side.

  The torchlight danced over Colonel Carrington's naked body, where he lay on a bed of fresh moss. A pile of various torn clothes, a bucket of hot water, and Cajun's saber waited to be put into use at his side. Cajun's ebony darkness, his half-naked frame, the solemnity in his dark gaze as he knelt in silent prayer at the man's side, all created the impression that some ancient sacrificial rite was about to be performed. Elsie, Hanna, Brahms, and the few others who had been helping had all left, not able to bear witness to the operation.

  Christina hastened to join them.

  She stepped out from the dwelling to the dark rainy night. No one was in sight but then darkness shielded any sight. The darkness was complete, and while she would like to sleep with Hanna and Elsie tonight, she had little hope of reaching their caves in the rain without light. The ladder up to their own cave was somewhere around the side, but one thought of walking along the slippery edge at the pond in the dark stopped her from any attempt to seek it.

  Having no choice, she sat inside the mouth of the cave, careful to keep her back to the inside. She smiled hearing Beau's friendly whimper and feeling his wet fur against her legs. She could barely make out his huge shape. "At least I have some company now," she whispered and petted him affectionately.

  She felt the full effects of exhaustion. The air was heavy with moisture but still warm and this, taken with the ever-present luring sound of rain falling into the pond, put her into a light sleep, despite the uncomfortable position. A light sleep that was instantly shattered with a long terrified scream.

  All Colonel Carrington saw was a huge, half-naked savage kneeling over him with a raised saber. A vision from hell. He tried to form his scream into a nooo or help or please, but his terror permitted only one expression. He could not stop it. Then hands were upon him—

  Christina heard Justin trying to calm the man. She first thought the scream was the result of pain, that the amputation was over, but as Justin tried to quiet him, explaining what had happened and where he was, she realized that the operation had not occurred yet. For several minutes the scream turned into incoherent mutterings and questions until the situation finally became clear.

  "No! God no! I forbid... I—nooo!"

  "You will likely die unless it is removed," Cajun said softly.

  "I'd rather be dead! God knows I am familiar with death now. Too, too familiar with death. I have learned to accept it. If I am to die, then so be it. But I will not live as half a man!"

  Christina would have been surprised, even shocked, by Justin's strange expression of understanding—an expression of admiration. She heard him say only, "It is his decision, Cajun. Do what you can."

  Holding a torch upside down to combat the rain, Justin found Christina waiting outside. He helped her up and brushed back a stray lock of wet hair, answering her anxious look with a smile.

  "Will he die?"

  "No, I don't think so," he replied with an assurance he didn't understand. The answer relieved her and together they made their way around to the ladder.

  "Beau can't follow," she said.

  "I'll have to build some stairs for him," Justin replied, petting his dog. "To Cajun, Beau." He pointed. But Beau waited to watch them climb the ladder before turning back with a half whimper, half bark.

  The ledge was slippery but wide enough for safe passage under the waterfall and through the opening of the cave. Torches were lit inside and it was dry and warm. A bed of fresh moss covered the middle of the floor, her trunk rested against the side of the cavern and, on it, Hanna had at some point during the long day placed a turtle shell bowl filled with fresh fruit. Directly over the bed and in the center of the cave was the skylight, covered now with the canvas sail to catch the rain. This was their home.

  The shadows lengthened and the light died as Justin put out all but one of the torches. He removed his belt and wet breeches, smiling when he caught Christina suddenly lower her eyes. As he came to her and untied the ribbon at her waist, then lifted the wet shift over her head, he wondered about this innocence of hers.

  Christina thought he was going to kiss her. But after setting the wet shift on the trunk to dry, he stretched out on the bed. "Come here," was all he said.

  She paused in a sudden understanding of something, something important. The passion between them, the startling force of it, came not from her love but from her uncertainty of this love and her fear of him. Without words, Justin understood this too and as though to tip the scales in his favor, he forced her to relinquish everything—self and love, her very will—in each act of love.

  She felt his eyes upon her as she came to him. She lay down alongside him, front to front, entwining herself in his warmth with a naturalness that still surprised her. She felt his lips tenderly caressing her forehead. Passion lay dormant, waiting for another time and she closed her eyes and almost instantly fell asleep.

  Sleep did not come as easily for Justin. It was not just his ever-present desire for her, especially difficult
to suppress with her small figure pressed so intimately against him but his thoughts rested uneasily on his mind. He, too, was thinking of their love and her innocence. She would always be this way, nothing and no one could destroy it. Certainly not time. A part of himself saw, too, that in a strange way he was just as innocent. By the time of his tenth and eighth year and countless couplings, he learned to separate infatuation and lust for women from love. He never made the mistake again.

  He knew now that he was in love. And his love for her was both powerful and profound. His vulnerability sometimes shocked him and made him think of Brahms; made him wonder if she knew just how easily she could destroy such a large and vital part of himself.

  Theirs was not a perfect match, he knew. The startling gentleness of her person would always find a part of his world frighteningly harsh. But he could not change. He lived in a world he would always have to change, usually from necessity and sometimes for the better, destruction for creation.

  Hopefully, she would come to understand this, to accept all of him...

  * * * * *

  Cajun gently pinched one of the colonel's toes and the man grimaced with pain, nodding. "Yes, I can feel it."

  "It is a good sign," Cajun replied.

  The colonel watched as Cajun first washed his battered leg, then began applying the thick salve, a salve made from God-knew-what concoctions this man had found on the island. It smelled vaguely like rotting earth, though oddly not altogether unpleasant. Perhaps he was just getting used to the putrid scent of it. In any case, whenever the mixture was applied he felt a cool soothing relief soak through his skin, much like the sweet sensation one finds in an after-dinner mint.

  After a mere five days, he was getting stronger and, as the savage said, his leg showed signs of mending. Watching the man skillfully wrap his leg in a moist cloth, tightly but not too, he was beginning to see he owed the astonishing fact that he still belonged to the living to this strange man, Cajun. He felt an odd sense of gratitude and this was an entirely new experience for him.