The Royal Handmaid

by Gilbert, Morris

  “You got two of ’em. That’s great!” Travis exclaimed, running over to look down at the bound goat that was struggling to get up. “How’d you know how to do this?”

  “Used to rodeo a bit. That’s the way we bulldog yearlings. You tie ’em up like that. Never tried it with a goat, though.”

  Shep ran over and stopped to admire the nanny. “That’s a fine-looking goat. Look, she’s got fresh milk too, for the kid. I might sample a little of that.”

  “Can you milk her?” Pete asked with a grin.

  “No, can you?”

  “Sure I can. You think a Montana boy wouldn’t know how to milk an animal?”

  Travis was excited over the ease of the capture. “We can come again tomorrow and get some more. Maybe bring some of the other guys with us.”

  “We’d better see if we can get these home first,” Shep said, stroking his chin thoughtfully with a cautious eye on the big male. “That fellow there doesn’t look like he’s gonna be led too easy.”

  Indeed, that proved to be the case. The big male was strong, and he proved to be practically impossible to lead. He darted off in all directions, hauling Travis with him. He seemed tireless.

  The female was almost as bad, and when they had covered less than a quarter of the way, they finally put two leads on the big male. Travis and Pete each took one and found they could control him that way. Shep led the nanny, who by now was more placable, and the kid followed along, bleating pitifully at times.

  When they were close to home, Travis shook his head. “This is a hard way to serve the Lord.”

  “Sure is,” Pete panted, struggling with the goat, which never seemed to give up. “Come on, you ornery critter. If you don’t behave yourself, we’ll have barbecued goat for supper!”

  ****

  Rena submerged herself in the stream and came up gasping, for in contrast with the heat of the sun, the water felt colder than it really was. She tried to wash herself, but without soap it seemed rather fruitless. She ducked her head under again, then came up and tried to comb her hair out with her fingers, but it simply stuck together. “Oh, just think of all the soap I’ve thrown away!” she whispered. Her voice sounded loud in the glade, and she looked around quickly to be sure she was alone. She and the other women had made this their bathing station, but it was close to camp. So close, in fact, that once she thought she could hear the faint voices of two of the men arguing over something.

  Finally she waded out of the stream and attempted to dry off with a piece of canvas she had brought for a towel. An image of hot water, fragrant soap, and fluffy washcloths and towels filled her mind, but she shook her head of such thoughts and got dressed. She looked at her thin dress and wondered, What will we do when our clothes wear out? Looking down at her feet, she thought with anguish that it would be even worse when her shoes wore out. Then she noticed that her calves were tanning and her arms also. She had fashioned a bonnet of sorts out of a piece of the ship’s canvas. It looked ridiculous, she knew, but it kept her face from burning under the tropical sun.

  As she walked back toward the camp, she was met by Meredith, who was on her way for her own bath. “You’d better hurry and settle the argument,” she said, shaking her head in disgust.

  “What argument?”

  “It’s Dalton and Jimmy. Jimmy took a can of meat from the storage tent, and Dalton’s giving him grief for it. They’re like children. I give up on them.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Rena said. She walked quickly into the camp, catching the ever-present smell of the woodsmoke, and found Dalton and Jimmy glaring at each other and talking heatedly. Dalton’s face was blistered red with sunburn and his nose was peeling, for he had ignored Karl Benson’s advice to take the sun in small doses. As Rena hurried up to the pair, she heard Dalton say, “I’m telling you, Jimmy, you can’t go eating food from our stores. It’s not fair for the rest of us.”

  “What’s going on?” Rena asked quickly. She put a smile on her face and took her stand beside the two men. “What are you two fussing about?”

  “All I did was take one little can of meat from the stockpile. Abby hasn’t been able to eat the fish we’ve caught, or anything else, for that matter.”

  “Well, she’s just going to have to eat like the rest of us!” Dalton flared. His face was fixed in a frown, with lines of stubbornness around the edges of his mouth that Rena had learned to recognize. He was usually a smiling man, but she had discovered that he could turn angry quickly if crossed. Now she put her hand on his arm and said, “What harm would there be in letting Abby have just one can, Dalton?”

  “We can’t make exceptions, Rena.”

  “Come along. I need to talk to you.”

  Dalton hesitated, then shrugged. “You mind what I said, Jimmy.”

  Dalton allowed himself to be led away, and when they were out of earshot of the others, Rena reached up and touched his face. “Your poor face. You burn so terribly.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “I know it must be painful. Your skin is peeling off in strips.”

  “Jimmy’s spoiled. He and his wife have to take their lumps just like the rest of us.”

  “I think we have to be careful, especially about Abby. She hasn’t been well the whole trip—even before the wreck.”

  Dalton gave her a cynical sneer. “If you’d discovered the theft instead of me, you would have been peeling their hides the same way I was. You’re bossier than I am.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Rena agreed. She put her hand on his arm and said, “I know it’s harder on Abby.”

  “No harder than on the rest of us.”

  “I really think it is.” Rena sobered and shook her head. “She’s been babied all her life. You know how her mother and father took care of her. Why, they practically didn’t let her feet touch the ground until she was six years old. Carried her all the time. And then Jimmy. He’s much the same way. Abby’s not as tough as you are. You have to be gentle.”

  “I guess so, but it’s going to be tough making it out here.”

  Rena started to answer when she heard a shout, and both turned quickly. “Look,” she said, “Travis is back with the others. C’mon. Let’s see what they’ve caught.”

  She ran back toward camp, where she and Dalton saw the three men dragging the two goats and the kid.

  “You got them!” Maggie was saying. “How’d you do it?”

  “It was Pete here mostly. He’s a cowboy—well, a goat boy, I guess you’d say now,” Travis said, grinning. “We drove ’em into a valley, and he just dropped a rope over them. But they’re the stubbornest critters I ever saw.”

  “How are you gonna keep ’em here?” Captain Barkley asked as the crew gathered around the goats.

  Oscar Blevins knelt down and picked up the kid, which struggled to get away for a moment, then looked into Oscar’s face and bleated piteously. “You’re all right, little fella,” he said.

  “I expect we’ll have to make a pen of some kind, but it’s too late today,” Travis said. “Why don’t we just keep ’em tied up for now?”

  “Now we can have milk in our coffee!” Karl Benson exclaimed. “It’s almost like being civilized.”

  “As long as the coffee holds out,” Professor Dekker grunted.

  Meredith was trying to pet the nanny. “Here,” she said with a laugh, “I think I’ll call you Eve, and we can call the male Adam.”

  “Who is the kid? Cain or Abel?” Maggie asked with a smirk.

  “Call ’em anything you want,” Shep said. “There’s plenty more where these came from. We can get quite a herd.” Shep smiled around at the group. “It’ll be good to have food we can count on.”

  ****

  Building the pen for the goats the next day was fairly simple. The men all joined in, cutting saplings and weaving them together with wire they had salvaged from the ship. It was a small pen, so during the day they staked the goats out where they could graze. It had provided a break from the mo
notony of their lives and given them a bit of hope. They had all sampled the milk and decided they needed more females, so a new expedition was planned after a bigger holding pen had been constructed. Most of the ship’s crew were working on the construction, and even Karl Benson joined in, while Professor Dekker stood and watched, offering his advice.

  Rena had been happy with their progress, but her contentment was shattered when Jimmy Townsend came to her at the end of the week with disturbing news. He found her late one afternoon standing on the beach, staring out over the water.

  “Rena, I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Rena could tell from his tone that something was wrong. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Abby.” Jimmy’s usually carefree boyish face looked troubled. He stared at the ground for a moment, and when he lifted his eyes, Rena saw the anxiety there. “She’s going to have a baby,” he said.

  “Oh, Jimmy! Are you certain?”

  “Yes, it’s true. She’s waited long enough to know, but I’d feel better if Karl examined her just to make sure she’s healthy and the baby’s okay.”

  “When do you think the baby is due?”

  “Abby says maybe the middle or end of March.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine, Jimmy. We’ll be rescued long before then, and you and Abby can go back to the States.”

  “But what if you’re wrong and we’re still here? She can’t have a baby out here. She’s not as tough as you are, Rena.”

  “We’ll all take care of her, and you’ll have a healthy child.”

  “Abby’s scared witless about having the baby and what’ll happen afterward.”

  “It’ll be all right,” Rena assured him. “Let me talk to Karl. I’ll have him look at her.”

  She went off to talk to Karl, who was on the other end of the beach, squatting on a weed-covered rock beside a shallow pool. He had baited his hook with a bit of meat, weighted it with a bolt, and thrown it out into the deep water on the other side of the rock.

  “I’ve got to talk to you, Karl,” she said as she approached him.

  “What is it?” Benson asked. He was a lonely man, tall with very light blue eyes and a crop of tawny hair. He had always reminded Rena of the paintings of Vikings she had seen, and at one time she had fancied herself attracted to him. That had passed, however, for he kept himself shut off from others almost as if he had posted a big sign on his chest that read KEEP OUT.

  “It’s about Abby. Jimmy says she’s pregnant.”

  “I was pretty sure she was,” he murmured.

  “You’ll have to help her, Karl.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you people? I’m not a doctor.”

  “But you were going to be.”

  “Yes, but it’s not the same thing.”

  Rena tried to persuade him, but as Karl continued stubbornly to resist, she grew angry. “What kind of a man are you, Karl? You call yourself a Christian, don’t you? And here is one of your own in trouble. You have more medical knowledge than any of us. You have to help her.”

  Benson stared at her with an unreadable expression. Finally he felt a tug on the line and turned back to pull in what he’d caught. She watched him pull in a fish almost a foot long, and then she repeated, “You must help her, Karl, you must!”

  “I’m not a doctor,” Benson repeated. “You help her. It’s a woman’s business.”

  Rena stared at Benson, unable to believe what she was hearing. “You’re a sorry excuse for a man, Karl Benson!” she exclaimed. She turned around and walked back down the beach, her back stiff and disappointment filling her.

  Benson stared at her for a long time, then removed the fish, tossed it back in, and began walking the other direction down the lonely beach.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A Lesson in Humility

  Chipoa, who was never called anything but Chip by the castaways, had become the most valuable member of the party. He was good at finding food and could point out which roots were safe and which ones were poisonous. Travis had gone fishing with him and caught an odd- looking fish about a foot long with a small mouth and a strange square body. Travis looked at the odd black-and-white checkered fish. “What’s this, Chip?”

  “A huehue,” Chip said. “There’s poison in them.”

  “Poison!” Travis started to throw the fish back, but Chip stopped him.

  “Don’t throw it back. The flesh is sweet and wholesome if the gallbladder is removed. The gall’s without color and has no strong taste, but a few drops of it will kill a man.”

  Travis shook his head. “I don’t think we want to fool with that,” he said.

  But Chip insisted that he would gladly eat it, so the two brought their catch back to the camp. Chip told the group he was going to go looking for eggs out on the cliff over to the east.

  “Eggs? That sounds good,” Meredith said. “Can I go along?”

  “It’s pretty dangerous up there,” Chip said, “but I guess you could come if you think you’re up to it.”

  “I want to go too,” Rena was quick to put in. She had become quite jealous of Meredith, for the other woman had adjusted more easily to the hardships of island life and had often gone out on expeditions with the men.

  Travis looked up from where he was laying the checkered fish out to be cleaned. “Why don’t we all go?” he said. “It’ll be kind of like an Easter egg hunt.”

  Chip laughed, his white teeth gleaming against his olive skin. “I don’t think it’ll be quite that much fun,” he said. “And like I said, it’s dangerous.”

  He could not have said anything that would have challenged Rena more, and soon the four of them headed for the cliffs, having turned the checkered fish over to Oscar, who had received very specific instructions from Chip on how to clean it. They each carried a canvas bag tied with a cord.

  The sun was high in the sky as the four went along, Chip leading the way with Meredith and followed by Rena and Travis. They first made their way up the hill behind their camp, then walked eastward, where they could approach the cliffs from the top. When they reached the high cliffs that plunged straight down to the beach, Chip walked right over to the edge and looked down. “Lots of eggs,” he announced. “Not so easy to get.”

  “That’s quite a drop,” Meredith said. “Where are the birds?”

  “The wind and water make holes in the cliffs. The birds nest in them,” Chip said.

  Travis and Rena joined them. “Wow,” Travis said, “that is a drop! How do you get down?”

  “Oh, it’s not as steep as it looks,” Chip said, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. “Come along. I’ll show you.” He looped his bag around his neck and started to climb down. He had gone about ten feet when he said, “Here, these will be good.”

  Travis was still peering over the edge, but Meredith eagerly followed, with a sack tied around her own neck, and soon she and Chip were moving along the face of the cliff. They both were laughing and seemed to have developed a contest as to who could get the most eggs.

  Rena came to the cliff edge very cautiously, standing as far away as she could, and leaned over. She did not want to admit it to Travis, but she was uncomfortable in high places. At least, that was what she called it—”uncomfortable.” In fact, she was terrified.

  “Look at Meredith sticking to that cliff,” Travis said with admiration. “She’s like a fly on the wall.”

  Rena looked at him. “Meredith has a lot of talents, doesn’t she?”

  Travis was surprised and turned to face her. “Why, yes, I guess she does. She’s one of the smartest women I’ll ever know.”

  “And attractive too.”

  “Well,” Travis said with a shrug, “yes, she is, but I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about how few women would go down a cliff like that. I’m not too good at heights myself.”

  Rena was a proud young woman who felt that she needed to excel in everything. She stood looking down, then forced her fears away and said, “I think
I’ll go help them. It looks like fun.”

  Travis, however, had noticed that Rena was a bit pale. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Let them do the egg gathering. You and I can go fishing.”

  “You think I’m afraid?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t say it, but you thought it. I’m going down.”

  Taking a deep breath, Rena forced herself to climb down onto the cliff face. She kept her eye on the ledge beneath her, with her face turned toward the cliff so she would not have to look down at the water. She never removed her hands from the wall, and soon she had descended about twenty feet. She took a different direction from the other two, and when she found a hole she was afraid to put her hand in it, although she could see the eggs inside. What if there’s a spider in there or a centipede? The thought frightened her, but she looked up and saw Travis watching her, a worried expression on his face. “I found some,” she said cheerily. She made herself reach inside, snatched the three eggs out quickly, and put them in her bag. “There’s nothing to it,” she called back up to Travis.

  “It looks like that ledge you’re on ends just over there, Rena. You’d better come back and at least let me tie a line about you.”

  Rena stubbornly refused. “No, I see another hole. I’m going to get what’s in there.” She ignored Travis’s calls and started back along the face of the cliff. The ledge she was on started to narrow, and she made the mistake of looking down at the water. The whole world started to spin, and she flattened herself against the cliff face and tried to dig her fingers into the rock. She felt her fingernails scraping the edge, and she heard Travis cry out, “What’s the matter, Rena?”

  “I . . . I think I’m going to fall.”

  “Hang on. I’ll be right there.”

  Rena closed her eyes and hugged the wall, trying to press her body into the side of the cliff. She could feel the empty space and was acutely aware of the sound of the surf far, far below. A fear greater than anything she had ever known caused her stomach to churn, and she thought she might faint.