The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  "It was Adam! Think, Dulcie! He's dead! It's been months. If he were alive, he'd have come back. He hasn't come. He never will! It's like Dorothy. They're both gone. The dead have given the living to each other."

  Dulcie shook her head, frightened by the possibility it was true.

  "Look at me. Listen. I've got plans for us. This land belongs to me. I inherited from my father. Uncle Kenneth controls it, but I'll appeal to the courts in England. They have the original records. I'll win, then I'll be a wealthy man. This will be ours alone!" His eyes searched hers in the murky light. "Ours. Think of it!"

  Endless years stretched out before her. Years of living with Justin alone on this island, never an escape, never human companionship. She saw herself old, saw herself dying, alone with Justin. She wanted to scream, to tear from the room, even to throw herself on the satanic mercies of Mam'bo Luz. Forcibly she made herself calm as a small hope formed. "When will you leave for England?"

  "I'll go with the mahogany shipment, late in the summer."

  "You won't leave me here, will you?'*

  Laughing, he crushed her against his chest. "Of course not. We'll be married in England, in a church, and there'll be an organ. Do you like music? Dorothy wanted music at our wedding."

  "I like music," Dulcie said weakly. "Why must we wait until summer?"

  "I need the money from the mahogany. You don't think Uncle Kenneth allows me to have money of my own!"

  "But summer is so far away. Justin, I can't stand it.'*

  "You want to marry me! You'll say yes?"

  She squeezed his hand and tried to put life into her voice. "I will. But please give me time to mourn.'*

  "It's been months."

  "But I didn't know! Please!" Dulcie's voice rose to shrill hysteria.

  He considered a moment, then said, "Keep in mind that I am waiting."

  They unlocked the study and crept out, Justin holding the bread knife. He locked Dulcie in her room. He found Amparo in the kitchen. She looked at him fearfully. "Where's Mam'bo Luz?"

  "She went clean outer her haid, doan know nothin*. Pa Bowleg took her back to her hut.'*

  "Lucifer? Costa?"

  "Costa got Lucho lock up. Costa in de bed with sharp -pain in his heart. He goin' ter die, can't draw breff."

  Justin put his hands on Amparo's neck. "You can die, too." His thumbs caressed her throat, harder, harder, until she was gasping and struggling to breathe. When she was half-fainting, he let her drop to the floor. "That's how you'll die, if you give me your stinking herbs again." His boot prodded her ribs. "Did you hear me?"

  Justin went to Costa's room. The old man was in bed. He began to gabble apologies.

  "Shut up, Costa." He stood staring at him. "From now on you'll work in the forest with my men. At night you'll be locked up. You're not to go near Lucifer again."

  Costa turned his head away so that Justin would not see his tears. Only he, Costa, loved Lucifer just as he was.

  When Justin's men had finished, his and Dulcie's rooms were fortified with gratings over the windows, heavy bars and locks on the door. Dulcie lived in the rooms. At first she slept long hours, feeling safe at last. Awake, she dreamed of Adam and combed every memory for some clue that would assure her he still lived. At night the drums sounded, distant reminders that she lived with danger, and she believed Adam was dead.

  By day Justin made a show of elaborate patience. But at night he came to her bed, his mouth hot and searching as he tried to force desire awake in her. But she belonged to Adam Tremain.

  Hot summer came, and Justin lost his patience. "You've had time a-plenty to wallow in your grief, if that's what it was."

  "You, of all people, ought to understand about moumin'

  for someone you've loved and lost," Dulcie replied shortly.

  "Very well said, my sweet. But T don't mourn now, I need you, and you need me. You owe your safety to me.'* He put his hand on her neck. "I burn, Dulcie. I burn, and you've made me wait long enough."

  He jerked her out of her chair and kissed her roughly. He forced her backward onto the floor. Then he raped her.

  For Dulcie, it was worse than that other time. Then she had not known she belonged to Adam. Now she knew, and the knowledge made it more brutal and punishing. She was Justin's vessel of gratification. He showed not the faintest essence of love, or of loving desire. He knew she wasn't Dorothy. She was Dulcie, still grieving. He lusted. He used her.

  Panting, he got to his hands and knees, still between her spread thighs. "There'll be more like this. You might consider before you refuse me again."

  Dulcie said coldly, "Did you find it satisfyin'? I didn't!**

  He slapped her on one cheek, then the other. She flinched but did not cry out. "You'll beg me to take you next time."

  "Never! If you rape me a thousand times, I'll still never beg!"

  His lips curved upward. "You'll change your mind, I promise you."

  He adjusted his clothing and left, coming back shortly with Costa. With a few taps of a hammer upon a thin-bladed chisel, Costa removed the hinge pins from both doors. He carried the doors away.

  Dulcie said, "J~Justin—you can't. Luz can come in. P-please—^put them back on! I'm sorry! I'll do w-whatever you say."

  He looked at her without concern. "I'm sure you will. Sleep well."

  "Where are you goin'? Justin—^please! Justin! I beg you."

  He went down the stairs. She heard a key turn.

  Far away, but sounding ponderously on the night air, the ogan and the drums beat. Dulcie scuttled back to her room, sitting tightly curled in the wardrobe. When morning came, Justin did not appear. By noon, hungry and thu*sty enotJgh to dare, she crept downstairs.

  There was no one about, not even Lucifer. Constantly watching for the eyes she felt upon herself, she snatched

  bread and fruit and a jug of water, retreating hastily to the wardrobe. She ate a Httle, hid the rest from the mice, and sat down facing the door.

  After a few sleepless days and nights, her nerves were taut beyond endurance. She had to escape from Satan's Keep, but she couldn't do it alone. She didn't know where to find a ship or how to stay away from Mam'bo Luz. Amparo had hidden the food. She would starve to death.

  On the fifth evening she went to dinner. Justin put a large piece of meat in his mouth. Lucifer watched, excitement making his black eyes glitter.

  "Justin, I've come to ask you to put the doors back— please."

  "Doors?" asked Kenneth. "Something's happened to the doors?"

  "I haven't heard any apology." Justin crammed in a large spoonful of vegetables.

  Dulcie's stomach growled. "I'm sorry for the things I have done to displease you. In the future, I will do what you want me to."

  "You'll do that anyway."

  "Justin—I beg you . . ." She could not say it.

  His eyes were on her, desiring her, hating her. He waited.

  Her glance darted to Kenneth, holding his fork suspended; to Lucifer; to Amparo, whose looks were daggers. She met Justin's gaze again. "I beg you to take me . . . make love to me. I . . . want you, Justin.'*

  "You're interrupting my dinner."

  "Justin, please—I can't go upstairs. I can't stand it aay-more."

  "I'm very sorry, Dulcie. Amparo, please bring me a clean spoon."

  Amparo said sourly, "Since when you sayin* please to me?"

  "What do I have to do? Please don't make me beg anymore! I'm crawlin' now!"

  "You haven't even begun."

  "Justin, I don't know what to do!" Defeated, she walked to the stairs. She looked up, into the yawning blackness. She turned and ran to him, throwing herself at his feet. She clung to his leg. "I'll be anythin' you want! I'U love you—do anythin', be anythin' for you I"

  "Get up off the floor."

  **Justin—don't send me awayl Love me—here—anywhere you want."

  He dragged her to her feet, shoving her up the stairs. The doors were propped up against the wal].

  T
he thought of making love in an open room, where Lucifer would watch, repulsed her. "Could we—wait until dark?"

  " *Love me here, anywhere you want. Isn't that what you said?"

  Dulcie had never hated herself more. She put her arms up around Justin's neck. "Make love to me. I want you to." She closed her eyes and put her mouth on his, expecting him to respond. "Please," she whispered.

  His voice was cool. "Make love to me as though I were Adam. Give me what you gave Adam."

  "I can't. It's you I love and want, Justin." She kissed him again. "Now and always.'*

  Dulcie was unable to bear thinking of him as she undressed herself and Justin. When he stood naked she whispered, "Lie down, please.'*

  He lay on his back, and she knelt over him. When she had stroked, caressed, and kissed him to the peak of tension, she joined his body to hers, moving against him, feeling his fingers dig into her buttocks. She shuddered as he moaned in ecstasy.

  Afterward, in his embrace, she was filled with shame. If she wanted to survive, she had to be Justin's whore.

  Once convinced that Dulcie had forgotten Adam and loved him instead, Justin became the considerate husband-to-be. Though Dulcie lived locked in the two rooms, it became less onerous, for each day she was nearer to leaving Satan's Keep.

  They kept their departure plans secret. If Amparo found out, she and Mam'bo Luz would stop them from leaving.

  She began pressing him to take her to New York. She could not convince him to go to Savannah. But one evening, unable to hold back her longing, she began to speak of Patricia and Jem, Mad and Oliver, evoking aching memories of Mossrose. Then she talked of New York. Overcome with homesickness, she burst into tears.

  "What's wrong with you?'*

  Dulcie cried harder, gulping out her words. "Oh, Justin,

  I know you won't understand. But I love my father and m-mother. I miss them terribly! I'm so homesick, I could die!"

  "After we're married, I might take you to see them—^if you please me."

  "It's been so long! Couldn't we be married in New York? You'd like my family, Justin. I want them to meet you."

  "Impossible. I'll be busy. I must get top price for the cargo."

  That night Dulcie was her most loving, doing everything that she knew would heighten Justin's pleasure in her. It no longer mattered how deeply she had to degrade herself. She was determined to get to New York—and away from Justin Gilmartin.

  Chapter Seven

  Adam entered Nassau harbor feeling like an exile from all the people and places of his past. From the bridge he watched the off-loading of the cotton. Once, the bustling excitement of the docks and the bawdy rowdyisms of the shore crews had set his blood racing, his mouth watering with the taste of adventure.

  What had happened to the man he had been, Adam didn't know, but he was gone. In his place stood a man whose eyes viewed the people, the times, and the war with a stark reality devoid of humor. He was missing the spirit of adventure that had made "the business" important to the Southern cause and essential to assuage a youthful hunger for danger and bold fun.

  Now, in March 1863, the bold fun was over. The festive lights and colors of Nassau had a tarnish, a glitter of falsity, as he made his way to the offices of Fraser, Tren-holm and Company to draw his salary—^five thousand dollars—^for a single run. The bulk of the money was deposited in an account in Liverpool.

  Not even Fraser, Trenholm knew Adam's identity. They were not aware that Adam Tremain was not an alias. False names were the rule in "the business." In the beginning Adam, Ben, and Beau had tried to identify the mysterious

  owners of blockade-running fleets. Many men on leave from the British Royal Navy were particularly anxious not to be identified. Others were Northerners for whom the politics of war translated into the politics of profit. And there were Southerners, some dedicated to the cause, some to lining their pockets. All wanted their names kept secret. One alias led to another. While Adam had always dealt straightforwardly, using his own name, that was less believable than if he had chosen an alias. He had thought it a fine joke that his own name as ship's master was accepted as false.

  It no longer seemed a joke; the thrill of making so much money had gone. The agents deposited nearly four hundred thousand dollars per trip—the profits over and above his salary—into the account in Liverpool. He had felt like a child counting multihued sugarplums when he reached the first million. Profits had not been so great at the start of the war, but they had seemed more fairly earned.

  Now, with Confederate paper money all but worthless, he could buy one ounce of quinine in Nassau for two dollars and eighty cents in gold and sell it for twelve hundred Confederate dollars in the Carolinas. With deflated Confederate currency he then bought Southern cotton for eight to ten cents a pound. Twelve thousand pounds of cotton would sell in Nassau for nearly ten thousand dollars. The profits grew of their own volition. Making only one run a month, Adam would make five million dollars each year the war lasted.

  He also knew that with each increase in the fabulous profits the South was weakening. He was tempted not to make the runs, yet if he didn't, needed supplies wouldn't get through. Nor could he undercut the other runners' prices. Not only would he make them his enemies but the auctioneers would raise the prices as soon as Adam discharged his cargo. And yet, such profit had clouded his patriotism. When men had to pay one hundred thirty-five dollars for a dozen brown cotton shirts, and soldiers walked barefoot across snow-covered mountains in Tennessee for lack of supplies, where was the nobility in his work?

  He turned on Bay Street, pausing at the Halyard Light, then went on down the line of boisterous grogshops, entering the raucous, murky interior of the Red Beacon. It was packed with an ill-smelling, ill-tempered crowd of packet-rats formerly on the Liverpool-New York run. Un-

  shaven, surly-mouth men with ears pierced for gold loops, necks bedecked with bright silk kerchiefs.

  Adam shouldered his way to the bar. He ordered lager ale, downing it thirstily, his eyes lighting with a perverse excitement, as he surveyed the men around him. Theirs were wary faces. Belligerent faces. Brutal faces. Faces of men who had lived so long by need and instinct, they knew nothing else. Perhaps the only honest men. For didn't all men hide beneath their civilized outer shell a primitive beast capable of hate, murder, destruction? Didn't Adam himself?

  He had believed himself better than some men, certainly better than Edmund Revanche. He had thought himself honest, decent, honorable until grief, drink, and war had turned him into a man capable of lusting after Tom's fifteen-year-old virginal daughter. Even now he had difficulty admitting his base animal lust without providing himself with heady excuses.

  Ale sloshed from the mug onto Adam's tunic as a thickset man backed into him. "You God-damned bastard! Look what you did!" Adam bawled, and shoved his hand in the face of a squat ship's fireman.

  "Watch who ya calls a bastard, ya motherfucker!" The man rolled forward, ramming his fist into Adam's stomach with the full force of his two hundred fifty pounds. Adam doubled over, coughing, spewing beer, and gasping for air. Then he heaved upward, the heavy mug tight in his right hand. Like a glass hammer he slammed it under the fireman's bulldog chin. The man reeled, arms outspread as he cushioned himself against the crowd.

  "Kill the tar! Kill him!"

  The fireman was slow to regain his feet. Belligerently Adam eyed the other men, daring them to come near him. One blond brute sneered in disdain and lifted his mug to his lips. Adam's fist shot out, smashing the man's cheekbone.

  Paiii shot through Adam's arm as his knuckles connected with firm, yielding flesh and hard, unyielding bone. He fought like a madman, not even knowing whom he hit. It was a catharsis, a cleansing by pain and fire. His instinct was to hurt and be hurt.

  The Red Beacon became an arena as its patrons joined the flailing, brawling melee. Men skittered across the floor on their bellies like fallen ten pins. Jaws were dislocated,

  eyes blackened, skulls cracked. Kniv
es, ice picks, awls, flashed sharp deadly spears in traces of lamplight. Blocxl dripped on the already dark-stained floor.

  Dodging the enraged blond brute whose cheekbone he had smashed, Adam kicked viciously at the man's hand, missing and throwing himself off balance. The blond roared, and lunged forward to take the advantage, his sailor's sheath knife broad and sharp, Adam twisted, rolling to his left. The knife nicked the bony crest of his shoulder, lodging hilt deep in the paneling, pinning him tight to the wall by his tunic. The blond's left fist streaked before Adam's eyes as his head snapped back, slamming dizzily into the wall. The man's right fist pounded into his abdomen. Hand stiff, Adam thrust with all his strength to the man's diaphragm, bringing his knee up hard into his attacker's face as he doubled over. The big blond crumpled. Adam ripped away the fabric that held him captive, kicked aside the unconscious man, and left the brawling to the others.

  His step was brisk as he swaggered into the Halyard Light. He felt good. He was a man who knew what he could do and had done it. Tonight he knew who he was: Adam Tremain, who could and would beat the devil out of any man who dared challenge or interfere with him. He had recognized the blond, a back-alley fighter who boasted of carrying no marks and having no losses. He'd carry marks now. And he'd know who put them there.

  Ramona Rose was onstage, her hips swaying. Her black eyes found him in the smoky dimness. "Turn down the lamps an' light up my tassels, boys. Here comes Ramona Rose's pussycat!"

  Ramona sauntered toward him. Adam kept right on walking, his eyes linked with hers until their two bodies met. Ramona stood flat against him, her bosom thrust forward, her legs planted firmly. Only a fragment of what had once been a diamond-hard beauty remained in her sensuously cruel face. "Whatta ya gonna do now, big fella?'* She tilted her head back, looking at him through deep-set shadowed eyes.

  "Ay! Ramona baby!" a drunk howled. "Sweetie! Come back 'ere!"

  Adam's arm shot out, catching the drunk in the throat as he staggered up to reclaim Ramona Rose.

  Adam moved forward again. Ramona moved her body

  in perfect timing with his, moving back as he moved forward a step at a time, until her back was to the last table. "I've danced as much as I will. Is there anything more to you, or are you all tease and no deliver?" Adam said.