Bride of the Baja

by Jane Toombs

  Now she removed a cartridge and ball from a packet in the rosewood case, tore off the paper end and poured a small amount of the powder into the pistol's hollow pan and the rest down the barrel. She dropped the ball and the paper wrapper into the barrel and rammed them down with a rod. After relocking the sea chest, she picked up the pistol gingerly by the handle and carried it to her cabin.

  Once she had slid home the bolt on her cabin door, Alitha laid the pistol on her bunk. She removed her shoes, unbuttoned and stepped out of her dress and petticoats, then pulled her chemise over her head. She held a sheer white batiste nightgown in front of her, admiring for a moment the delicate blue of the ribbons threaded through the bodice, then put her arms in the sleeves and shrugged the gown down over her body.

  The pistol. Where could she hide the pistol? She was afraid of leaving the gun on the desk or deck, fearful that a sudden lurch of the ship would send the gun slamming against a bulkhead, firing it. Finally she raised the goose-down mattress from her bunk and put the gun between the mattress and the canvas underneath.

  Satisfied, she turned the spirit lamp low, lay on her bunk and pulled the blanket over herself, telling herself she would surely fall asleep at once, she was so tired, so exhausted. But she did not. Thoughts of her father, her mother, Thomas and Amos Malloy whirled through her mind, even thoughts of Jordan Quinn and the Kerry Dancer.

  She forced herself to picture the Sandwich Islands as she imagined them to be, with the Yankee sailing into a sheltered cove where palm trees arched over white sand beaches. Her imaginings mingled with reality as the ship rose and fell to the rhythm of the sea and she heard the creaking of the Yankee's timbers as the ship bore her on toward her destiny.

  She was swimming in warm, milk-white water. Turning onto her back, she floated, feeling the sun on her face. When she looked down she drew in her breath at the sight of her uncovered breasts breaking the surface of the water. She ran her hands down along her sides. She was naked.

  Rolling over in the water again, she swam toward shore, feeling freer than she had ever felt before. When her hand touched bottom she stood up, wading to the beach. She turned, standing at the waterline with her hands on her hips as she looked at the breaking surf. Her nakedness did not shame her, rather, she felt a pride in her body.

  She sensed someone behind her.

  "You are a thing of Satan, a creature of the devil." It was Thomas's voice. "Cover your lustful body, woman."

  Her hands went to her breasts and she began to run, her hair jouncing damply on her shoulders, her toes digging into the wet sand. When she could run no more, she climbed the slope of the beach and threw herself on the sun-baked sand, feeling the granules hot against her breasts and thighs.

  A man's hand closed on the nape of her neck, his fingers moving down to the small of her back. A rough hand. Alitha looked over her shoulder and . . . woke up. The cabin was totally dark--the spirit lamp was out. The ship was pitching more violently than before, rising high to meet each wave and crashing down into its trough. Had she heard a sound in the cabin? Had something or someone touched her? Wakened her? She held her breath, listening. Yes, there was someone here, close by. She hunched herself up in the bunk, holding a blanket in front of her.

  A hand grasped the blanket and tore it from her. She screamed although she realized no one could hear her above the wail of the storm. She felt a hand on her shoulder. The hand felt its way to the neck of her gown and yanked downward. The ribbons pulled loose and the gown opened to the waist, exposing her breasts. She clutched at the cloth.

  The gun. She had hidden the gun beneath the mattress. Shifting her body to the far side of the bunk, she whispered, "Who are you?"

  "Why, 'tis Amos Malloy," a voice answered, "your husband-to-be."

  "You've lost your senses." Her hand slid down between the bulkhead and the mattress, her fingers searching for the gun.

  "You'll never say no to me again," Malloy told her. "Once I've had you, you'll have no choice but to marry me. You'll be begging to marry me."

  Her fingers closed on the gun's barrel and she pulled the weapon from beneath the mattress. Shifting her grip to the handle, she pointed the pistol where she had last heard Malloy's voice. "I have a loaded pistol in my hand," she said. "If you touch me, I'll kill you."

  He laughed in disbelief. When she felt his huge hand close on her knee, her finger tightened on the trigger and she heard a snap. The gun had misfired. She pulled the trigger again. Still the gun failed to fire. What had she done wrong when she loaded it? She took the weapon by the barrel and swung it at Malloy, the butt grazing his head. He cursed her and his hand found her wrist, twisting her arm until she cried out in pain. He seized the pistol and tossed it behind him to the deck.

  "You bitch, you did have a gun," he said.

  He gripped her ankle and pulled her down so she lay full-length on the bunk. His hands went up her body beneath her gown, closing on her hips and pulling her to him. When his chest brushed against her breasts, she knew he was naked. She screamed, fighting him, clawing at him. He laughed and grabbed the open front of her nightgown so that the thin cotton tore. A moment later her entire body was bared to his hands. Those terrible huge hands.

  "I've waited a long time for this," he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Alitha stopped struggling. I must think, she told herself desperately. I can't outfight Malloy--my only hope is to outwit him.

  His fingers slid roughly up her leg to her inner thigh and, though she felt her flesh shiver in revulsion, she forced herself to lie still. He pushed her thighs apart with his hands and knelt on the bunk between her legs, his hands going to her breasts.

  Her breath came rapidly, not with desire but with fear. Every touch of Malloy's enormous hands made her cringe. How could I have imagined wanting this man to hold me in his arms? she wondered. She wanted to hurt him. Yes, to kill him if she could. Still she made no move to defend herself. Though her tense body quivered, she lay before him as though defeated and helpless.

  Malloy's hands left her breasts and she felt the mattress shift under his weight as he leaned toward her. His lips touched her breast. When his tongue circled her nipple, she gagged. Swallowing, she raised her hands and put them on his shoulders, her fingers kneading his flesh in the briefest of caresses—she couldn't force herself to do any more to make him lower his guard. She heard Malloy draw in his breath.

  With all the strength she had left, she shoved against his shoulders with both of her hands, at the same time hurling herself away so she fell backward from the bunk, her shoulder slamming heavily on the deck. Malloy grunted in surprise and she heard him scrambling to his feet. She rolled sideways until her leg struck the sea chest, and then she was on her feet plunging toward the cabin door.

  Malloy was there ahead of her. Catching her by the arm, he held her as she struggled, then forced her back step by step, his strength overpowering her. She felt the edge of the bunk pressing against the backs of her legs.

  A pounding came from the passageway outside the cabin. Malloy hesitated and, with both of them frozen in surprise, they listened. A voice called out.

  "Captain. Captain Malloy." Linton? Yes, surely it was the bosun.

  Malloy's hand closed over Alitha's mouth. She heard more pounding, as though Linton had gone from Malloy's cabin to her father's.

  "Captain, Captain Malloy," Linton called again. "Surf to starboard, Captain."

  Malloy cursed, shoving Alitha from him so she fell back across her bunk. She lay exhausted, feeling pain stab her shoulder while she listened to Malloy searching in the dark for his clothes. Only after several minutes did she hear the cabin door bang open and then close.

  "I'm coming," Malloy shouted to Linton from the passageway.

  Surf! The storm was sweeping the Yankee toward the California coast. Alitha had been so numbed that at first the meaning of the bosun's words had almost escaped her. Above the sound of the wind and waves, she thought she heard a distant rumble lik
e the roll of thunder in the mountains.

  She pushed herself from the bunk, hurriedly slipping a chemise over her head. Taking the first dress her searching fingers found, she put it on, then slid her feet into slippers and ran from the cabin. She climbed the companionway, having to stop and cling to the railing as the Yankee listed precipitously to port. The ship shuddered, righted herself, and Alitha climbed the rest of the way to the deck.

  The wind struck her a savage blow from behind and she went to her knees to keep from falling across the wet deck. The night was so dark she saw only the faint outline of the ship. Huge waves rose and fell blackly against the dark gray of the sky. When she stood up, a rain-soaked cloth slapped her face. Reaching over her head, she felt the cloth and recognized it as a torn section of sail. Without enough crewmen to work aloft, the Yankee's sails had been shredded by the wind.

  A wave roared across the deck as though trying to sweep her into the sea, but she had found a rope along the starboard side and kept her feet. Though she peered to both port and starboard, she couldn't see the telltale white of the surf nor could she hear its boom above the howling of the storm and the shrieks and groans of the ship around her.

  A brilliant flash illuminated the deck. Lightning! The flash, gone in an instant, was followed by a crack of thunder that seemed to rend the sky. In that moment of intense light, Alitha had stared in horror at the shambles of the once-proud Yankee—the mizzenmast was gone, carried away. Rigging and sails hung over the port side in a jumble of ropes and spars. Forward, near the forecastle, she had seen men in black oilskins and sea boots straining to free the ship's boat from beneath a tangle of debris. Were they abandoning ship?

  She waited until another wave crashed across the main deck. Then, holding the rail with both hands, she inched her way forward, slipping and sliding on the wet, pitching deck. Her hair was soaked and her dress clung to her legs, the cold of the water sending chills coursing through her body.

  Lightning flickered in the distance. Seeing a man looming ahead of her, Alitha took him by the arm. He turned to her with an oath.

  "It's Alitha Bradford," she shouted.

  When he recognized her, he leaned toward her and bellowed in her ear. "Get thee to the starboard side. We'll soon have the boat ready for launching."

  So they did mean to launch the boat—they were abandoning the Yankee. Alitha couldn't imagine her father giving up this ship, his ship, without more of a fight. Could they have been swept closer to the shore than she realized? Had they fought the sea and the storm and lost?

  She tensed, waiting for her chance to let go of the rail so she could cross the deck to the starboard side. The ship pitched and tossed, the sea rougher than she had ever known it. Now? No, the Yankee's bow rose high on the next wave, and she had to wrap her arms around the rail. If only we had a full crew, she thought, even now we could outrun this storm and save the ship. If only the cholera hadn't—

  She gasped. She had forgotten the men in the forecastle. They probably lay huddled helplessly in their bunks, deathly ill yet confident the ship would ride out this storm as she had so many others. After all, the Flying Yankee had faced the worst of the Cape Horn gales and survived.

  When the ship steadied, Alitha clambered up the sloping deck, pushed open the door and climbed down the ladder into the terrible stench of the forecastle. A lamp, swinging with every rise and dip of the Yankee, burned dimly overhead. All around her men lay groaning in their bunks. The deck was aslop with sea water and vomit.

  "You have to get out," she cried, steadying herself in the doorway. "They're abandoning the ship."

  None of the men seemed to hear. Lost in their misery, they lay curled on their bunks, some dead, others unconscious, the rest heedless of all but the extremes of their agony. Alitha sloshed across the forecastle deck to Jenkins's bunk—he had been more alert than the others that afternoon when, together, they had prayed for his recovery. She looked down into his unseeing eyes. Jenkins was dead.

  She returned to the ladder, recalling a phrase from Shakespeare. The men were "past hope, past cure, past help." After one last despairing look around the forecastle that burned the scene into her memory forever, she climbed to the main deck. The ship still raced forward, but the wind had lessened and the Yankee's pitching had abated. They'll launch the ship's boat now, she told herself. When lightning flickered again, she looked to where the boat should be.

  The deck was empty, the boat and the men were gone. Only the litter of sails and rigging remained. She looked ahead—during the lightning's flash she thought she had seen something from the corner of her eye--and saw a line of white to starboard only a cable length from the ship—the white line of surf. A grinding crash shook the ship. The deck tilted and she heard a pistol-like crack from above and a thudding from behind. A yardarm must have splintered, she told herself, and come hurtling to the deck. The ship no longer plunged ahead. She had grounded on rocks and, listing at least thirty degrees to port, offered no resistance to the waves thundering over her stern. For the first time Alitha felt gusts of rain pelting against her face.

  She froze. She should stay with the ship, she told herself, until the storm abated and she could reach shore. Surely the crew had abandoned the Yankee too soon. No, she argued with herself, the waves would surely break the ship apart on the rocks. She should lower herself from the side into the sea and try to swim to shore even though she was a weak swimmer. Undecided, she felt a quiver of fear for the first time since she had fled from her cabin.

  Fighting down her fear and hopelessness, she pulled herself along the rail, making her way aft. She would go to her father's cabin. Only there would she be safe.

  A roar filled her ears as the ship shuddered. Water cascaded over her and she grasped for a rope, found none and was swept forward and over the port side into the sea. Fighting her way to the surface, she gasped for air. When she tried to swim, her dress tangled around her legs, so she held her breath and went under as she frantically unbuttoned the front of the dress and shrugged her arms out of the sleeves. After long moments she felt her legs kick their way free, and she surfaced once again.

  She couldn't swim in the strong current. Time after time she struggled to the surface and gulped air into her lungs, only to be pushed under again as she was borne forward by the sea. An object struck her arm and her fingers closed on a board as she dimly realized it must be planking from the ship or a piece of crating wrested loose from the hold by the waves. Wrapping her arms around the board, she shut her eyes, concentrating all her energy on holding fast as she let the current sweep her on.

  When Alitha opened her eyes, she found herself on a rocky shelf of land with her feet entangled in strands of a brown tubular growth. Water flowed up along her legs, fell away, then rose again. Rain beat down on her back, and the wind moaned mournfully overhead. She had no strength left, her shoulder ached and every muscle in her body seemed sore. She kicked her feet free of the kelp and crawled a few yards higher on the beach, cradled her head in her arms and slept.

  When she wakened, the rain had stopped. A strong wind off the Pacific sent dark clouds scudding overhead and drove menacing waves onto the rocks below. The Flying Yankee was nowhere to be seen. The only evidence that the ship had ever existed was the timber scattered on the shingled beach.

  Alitha pushed herself to her feet, her body aching, her legs and arms blackened by bruises. The torn white chemise, which came only to her thighs, clung wetly to her body and she shivered in the cold wind. Climbing in her bare feet to the top of a rise behind the beach, she looked around and saw that she stood on a point of land thrusting into the sea. A few hundred feet inland the ground rose to twin hills. There were no trees, only the barren, black rocks along the shore and the fields of April-green grass on the hillsides.

  She walked along the water's edge—the clouds hid the sun so that she had no idea of the direction she was taking—and found nothing except more timbers and shattered crates washed up on the shore. Overhead, gu
lls screamed at her, the birds hovering almost motionlessly above her as they fought against the force of the wind. When she had walked about a mile, she stopped and began retracing her steps, passing the place where she had come ashore during the night.

  At first she thought the black mass ahead of her on the beach was just another rock. When she realized it was a man with one arm outstretched, the other curled under him, she ran toward him. One of the crewmen, she thought, thrown onto the rocks as she had been. When she drew near, she saw the fingers of the man's huge hand spread out on the black of the rock and knew it was Malloy.

  She put her hand on his chest and felt the slow rise and fall of his breathing. He was alive! She stood up and looked both ways along the beach, glanced inland and then out to sea as though seeking help while knowing she would find none. When she looked down at Malloy once more, she remembered his hands on her body and the taste of bile rose in her throat.

  A few feet away she found a large boulder. Lifting it, using all her remaining strength, she returned to stand next to Malloy, holding the rock above his head. She would dash it down on him, kill him. She raised the boulder to her chest, then higher, to her chin. Now! she told herself.

  She swung around, staggering away and letting the rock fall from her hands. No, she couldn't kill him. The day before, in the cabin, she could have shot him and felt little remorse. Here, with Malloy helpless at her feet, she found it impossible. She lowered her face into her hands.

  "You meant to kill me."

  She looked down to see Malloy's brown eyes flick away from her face. He raised himself on one arm, then sat with his arms around his knees, staring at the ground between his legs.

  "Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?" he asked. "You had cause enough."

  "I don't know," she told him. "I couldn't."

  He looked to sea “They managed to get the boat away," he said slowly. "I stayed with the Yankee until she broke up on the rocks."