“The lad says she’s carryin’ his brat!” the pirate roared. “But if the stories told be true, it’s more likely Mr. Madison’s leavin’s she’s got in her belly.”
At the remark, raucous laughter erupted. Colin lurched to his feet.
“Filthy, vicious scum!” he yelled. “Rotten, miserable liars!”
A musket barrel caught him along the side of his head. With a yelp of pain, my husband was sent sprawling face down, unconscious, onto the deck.
“Swine!” Jared’s voice rose in fury. “Rob the ship and get the blazes off her! Leave Colin and his wife alone!”
“Leave them alone?” The sailor I’d stabbed sneered. “The bitch tried to kill me. I’ll have a bit of her in payment before I leave this tub.”
He yanked me to my feet. My head groggy and throbbing, I staggered and would have collapsed back onto the deck had he not caught me to him. The stench of his unwashed body and his breath reeking of rum and stale tobacco made my senses reel with horrific memory. Mad with terror, I looked up into his masked face and recognized the small, mean eyes of Simon, the overseer.
“So this is old Abe’s prized daughter-in-law,” he said, his voice trembling with the ecstasy of conquest. “Fling me into that pigsty he calls a jail, will he? By God, I’ll show the old bastard what I think of him and his fine family!” He flung me to another sailor. “Throw her to the deck and part her legs. We’ve earned a little sport!”
“No!” I screamed. “No! Colin, help me!”
But my husband could not come to my aid. He lay semi-conscious on the planks.
“That’ll do!” A big, barrel-chested pirate appeared from out of the darkness near the stern. “There’ll be no raping of young girls. She and her husband will be cast adrift in a lifeboat, with Captain Madison to navigate for them. If he can row as well as he can coerce, they should reach an island due west of here by midday tomorrow. We’ll keep Fletcher and his crew here to sail this trim beauty for us.”
The man’s Scottish accent aroused another memory. The hooded pirate captain was Andrew MacDonald, the man Abe had removed from command of the London Lass and whose ship Barret had been on his way to confiscate.
I had little time to marvel at my discovery. The reprimanded sailor made a lunge at his commander from behind, a cudgel in his hand. He brought it down on Andrew MacDonald’s scull. MacDonald, with a grunt of pain, sank to the deck.
“Now, me lads, hold her down,” Simon returned his attention to me, dripping blood and holding the bat. “We’ll show Mr. Madison how to use his whore.”
Barret gave a bestial roar. All heads turned to see the captain rip free of his ropes with seemingly super-human strength. Then, wrists crimson with blood, he leaped to the deck, his face a portrait of unbridled rage.
“Take on a man, you piece of stable droppings!” he snarled, circling Simon like an attacking wolf. “Let’s see if you’ve got even a semblance of guts in that fat, filthy body.”
“Bastard, whorehouse leavin’s,” Simon rasped, and lunged at Barret.
The pirates moved back to give them room. This was a fair fight; they would not interfere.
The savage battle seemed to last an eternity. First Simon, then Barret would appear to have the upper hand. Both men became bloody and battered. Barret had ripped Simon’s hood away and the former overseer’s ugly face began to show the results of the pummeling he was receiving. Barret’s countenance was blood-streaked from a cut above his right eye.
Finally, locked together in savage embrace, they staggered to the bulwarks. For one heart-stopping moment it appeared Simon would be the victor as he choked Barret over the rail. Then, with a great roar, the captain freed himself, grabbed Simon, and flung him bodily over the rail.
Below, in the water, there was a splash, a few desperate screams, a thrashing about, and then a horrible silence.
“The sharks be quick tonight,” one of the pirates said. “What with him bleedin’ like a stuck pig, they’d get him in seconds.”
“It be the blood,” another agreed. “They smells it quick as sin. Now let us get to the sport Simon wanted. Madison be spent. He’ll give us no more trouble, and it wouldn’t be right to let the old fella die for nothin’.”
“Barret!” I scrambled across the bloody deck and into his arms as he leaned, heaving for breath, against the rail. “Barret, kill me, please kill me before…”
“That’ll do.”
Unnoticed in the excitement, Captain MacDonald had regained consciousness and risen to his feet. Now he pushed his way to the center of the group and took command. “There’ll be no raping of women aboard any ship I command. I may be an old man, but I’m still fit enough to take on any one of you lot.”
The sailors shuffled uneasily.
“Very well. Prepare a boat with food, fresh water, and blankets, and lower it over the side. Captain Madison, with the boy and girl, is about to leave us.”
Within minutes Barret, Colin, and I were in a dinghy about to float away from the London Lass and the Linnet into the blackness. A dull thud announced a gunnysack hurled from the ship into our small craft.
“You’ll find a compass, chronometer, and sextant among the supplies, Captain,” Andrew MacDonald’s voice came out of the darkness above us. “They’ll let you navigate to that island, if you’re half the mariner you profess to be.”
“Obliged, Andrew.” Barret’s response reeked of sarcasm. “I’ll remember your kindness when next we meet.”
****
The two ships became black silhouettes in the distance. I was left to huddle against my wounded, semi-conscious husband while Barret rowed, his wrists raw from rope cuts.
All that night and next morning we drifted, Barret rowing intermittently and fighting to keep our course due west toward the promised island. By noon Colin and I were sunburned and parched. Barret would allow us little water. We needed to conserve, he said. I saw the wisdom in his words, but in my discomfort, I hated him for his domineering attitude.
At midday the captain pointed westward. Colin and I, dozing in the stern, followed his outstretched arm. At first I dared not believe what I saw. Then, as my eyes told me I could not be mistaken, I cried out in joy. The currents were moving us slowly but certainly toward a green rise in the sea. We were moving toward an island. Barret’s navigational skills had saved us.
The water shallowed as he rowed our skiff closer to the island. A coral reef inhabited by infinite varieties of colorful fish could be seen beneath its hull. The turquoise water made the lessening depths appear a place of enchanted loveliness. Colin and I stared down into the exotic beauty of the sea, excited by its magnificent scenery.
“It’s a wonderland!” my husband exclaimed. I believe he was feverish from the sun, his wounds, and lack of water. He looked at me with hot, bright eyes. “The water can’t be more than four feet deep beneath us. I’m going to pull this boat ashore.” The next instant he’d leaped out of the dory and was chest deep in that benign-looking tropic sea.
“Colin, get back in the boat!” Barret yelled. He dropped the oars and stumbled to my side to reach out and grab him by the shirtfront.
“Leave me alone, Barret!” he snapped, shaking off the captain’s hands. “I’ll have us ashore in no time.”
“Colin, don’t move. Don’t disturb the water!”
Barret’s fist clutched again at my husband’s shirt, but it was too late. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pair of fins piercing the blue-green surface in the dory’s wake. I had heard of sharks, but until that moment I’d never seen one. I screamed and pointed.
Barret saw them, too, and gave a mighty pull at Colin’s shirt. The thin garment rent under his hands. Colin, still unaware of the danger, broke free. The next instant his mouth opened in a horrific roar of shock and pain.
He screamed, clawing at Barret’s outstretched arms. The water about him became stained an anemic red. Barret leaned far over the edge of the boat and managed to get his arms about Colin’s chest.
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“Help me!” he yelled at me. I flung my arms about his waist and together we pulled. Soon, although it seemed like hours, we had Colin back on board. Gasping for breath, I sank to my knees and gazed in horror at my husband’s legs. His trousers were shredded rags with crimson rivulets of blood pouring through the tatters.
“Barret…” I turned him.
He shot me a glance that ordered me to control myself as he knelt beside Colin.
“Barret…” My husband’s body twitched with shock and pain.
“Try to lie still,” Barret’s words sounded remarkably calm. “We’ll be ashore soon, and I’ll dress your wounds.”
He reached into the provisions given us by Andrew MacDonald and took out a small flask. It contained a familiar reddish-brown liquid.
“Drink this,” he said, putting the bottle to Colin’s lips. “It’ll help.”
My husband obeyed. The jerking spasms slowly ceased, and he lay still, his eyes glazed.
The boat drifted slowly, at a snail’s pace it seemed, toward the shore. The oars which Barret had used to row us this far lay useless across the gunwales. To further disturb the water would draw more sharks, Barret said. Our small craft could not withstand an attack of an entire school.
Finally we were in water Barret deemed too shallow for sharks. He lowered himself out of the boat and pulled it ashore.
Once our craft had been beached, the captain climbed back into the dory and lifted Colin into his arms. My husband started and moaned, but the laudanum had removed his consciousness to a place beyond the reach of most of the pain. He lay against Barret’s chest, his eyes slits beneath fallen lids.
Leaving a horrifying trail of red dots behind them, Barret carried him over a beach of white sand. I followed, thinking how strange the sand did not feel hot beneath my feet, thinking about my filthy person, thinking about anything but Colin and the horror of his wounds.
Barret laid my husband beneath a palm tree. “Give me your underwear,” he said grimly, turning to me. “I need white cloth to dress these gashes.”
I hesitated.
“Dear God, woman, your husband is bleeding to death!” he barked. “This is no time for modesty!”
He knelt beside Colin, and I began to unbutton the blue linen dress Captain MacDonald had allowed me to don before being set adrift.
****
Colin was dying. Barret and I sat beside him beneath the gently swaying palm fronds and watched his life ebbing as the day waned. There was nothing we could do. As the beach grew dark and the horizon alone stayed bright with a rainbow sunset, my husband opened his eyes and looked up at me. He was incredibly young and innocent in that moment. I put my hand to his burning forehead.
“Starr,” he rasped.
“Don’t try to talk,” I begged. “Save your strength.”
“No,” he said. “I must. Where is Barret?”
“Right here, brother.” Barret moved closer to allow Colin to see him without turning his head. “I won’t leave you.”
“You are my friend, aren’t you, Barret? You’d do anything for me?”
“Rest, lad.” Barret’s voice was gentler than I had ever heard it. He brushed blond curls back from my husband’s wet forehead.
“Barret.” With a grimace of pain, Colin grasped at Barret’s shirt and drew him near. “Take care of Starr. Don’t let my father send her away. Do what I couldn’t do for her. Make love to her, Barret. Give her a baby my father will believe is mine.”
“You’re feverish,” Barret said, hiding the shock I was certain Colin’s bizarre request must have given him as fully as it astounded me. “Don’t say things you’ll regret.”
“I won’t regret my words. Promise me, Barret! Promise me you’ll take care of my wife. Promise me you’ll sleep with her.” He was begging as his eyelids drooped slowly shut. He was sinking fast.
“I promise,” I heard Barret mutter.
A slight smile tipped Colin’s lips. “Thank you,” he whispered.
His face contorted in a spasm of agony. His fingers clutching Barret’s shirtfront turned into white-knuckled balls. When it was over, he exhaled long and exhaustedly. It appeared all the strength had drained from his body. A moment later, his expression brightened and he smiled up in astonished delight at something he appeared to be seeing beyond me. His hand released Barret and fell to his side. His eyes closed.
“Colin!” I screamed as the full realization came to me. I flung myself across his chest, sobbing. “Colin, don’t leave me!”
“Starr, no.” Barret was taking me from my husband’s body and drawing me against him as he crouched beside me. Half-mad with grief, I fell against him and screamed out my pain and despair.
He let me air my sorrow. Finally, sheer exhaustion brought an end to my tirade, and I lapsed into a troubled sleep.
When I awoke it was morning. I found myself wrapped in a blanket, on a bed of palm fronds. A few feet away Barret Madison sat, his back against a tree, his face buried in his hands.
He was weeping.
****
We laid Colin to rest in a shallow depression on a grassy knoll near our landing site, then covered his grave with stones. Trembling with grief, I knelt to pray beside the rocky mound. Barret stood behind me, his face like chiseled stone.
Through a mist of tears I heard again in my soul my young husband’s wonderful music while images of the two of us as we had once been washed through my mind. I saw us riding our horses through meadows rich with sunshine and wildflowers, huddling beneath the limbs of a lofty white pine when a summer storm caught us abroad on foot during a fishing expedition, running barefoot in the shallows of the river, enjoying his music in the drawing room in a peaceful twilight, struggling for an orange in the parlor, and even sobbing over lost loves in each other’s arms.
I recalled him as he had been with the servants and workers in his father’s employ, as he had always been with me…compassionate and understanding. Dear God, I prayed. Care for him tenderly as he cared for me and for everyone his life touched.
“Come.” Barret moved forward, bent, and took my arm to draw me to my feet. “We have work to do.” His fingers beneath my elbow trembled.
****
We built a lean-to of palm fronds, grasses, and stakes near a sheltered lagoon that first day. Then we set out in search of food and fresh water. Fortunately we discovered the island abounded with fruits Barret knew to be edible, and there was a spring of fresh water within easy access of our crude shelter.
Much to my relief, we encountered no evidence of dangerous wildlife or hostile natives. The island appeared to be inhabited mainly by a vast variety of birds. In places its rocks were plastered with guano, which Barret kicked from his boots in disgust.
“We’ll survive,” he said, as we returned to our shelter, our arms full of fruit.
“How long do you think it will be before we’re rescued?” I asked, leaning back wearily on the palm leaves we’d used as flooring.
“It probably won’t be any time soon.” His pessimism startled me. “Jared’s course had veered off the usual shipping lanes just before we were attacked. I questioned him about it, but he told me I was wrong, that we were on a normal course toward the Caribbean.”
“Are you saying we’re so far from the shipping lanes we might never be found?”
“Never is a very long time.” Barret flexed work-raw hands. “I’m simply saying I think it could be weeks, maybe even months, before a ship passes this way. Our best plan of action is to settle ourselves as comfortably as possible and wait.”
“Very well.” I sat up stiff and prim. “This island seems relatively safe and amply supplied with the necessities of life. We can survive for as long as we must in order to be rescued.”
“Survive, most definitely.” His tone took on a more optimistic note. “And much more. Starr, I was raised in these islands. A place like this can be paradise. Life in the Caribbean can be a glorious experience…sensuous and exciting. I’ll teach you
.”
“I don’t know… If only Colin were…”
“Starr, don’t. We can’t allow ourselves to dwell on him. If we do, unhappiness will destroy us both. Now let’s get some rest. We’ve had an arduous day. Tomorrow I’ll teach you to fish in the lagoon. The entrance is too shallow to allow sharks or any other dangerous marine life to enter.”
I lay down on my palm frond bed and he drew a blanket over me. Before going to his own mattress on the far side of the hut, he brushed my forehead with a kiss.
“Sleep well, princess,” he murmured, and moved away into the deepening twilight.
****
I awoke as the first rays of a magnificent Caribbean morning crept in under the blanket-draped doorway of our hut. Stretching like a contented feline, I rolled to look at Barret and discovered he was gone from his bed.
I got up and went outside. Shielding my eyes against the huge tropic sun rising into a clear blue sky, I looked toward the lagoon and saw him swimming toward shore. When he struck bottom and stood, his powerful chest and shoulders glistened in the sun. He waded toward shore, and as he came into the shallows, I choked. He was naked.
I hurried back into the hut. The sensations coursing through me had to be indecent. My husband had been dead only a single day. The sight of another man’s naked body should not so soon set my pulses racing, my body stirring.
But could it be wrong? Barret Madison was not just a man; he was the man I loved, the man who’d said he loved me.
“Good morning.”
I turned to see him silhouetted in the doorway.
“What are you wearing?”
“It’s called a loin cloth,” he said, moving into the hut, naked except for a brief bit of white cloth about his thighs. “The natives find it the most practical garment a man can wear in these climes. I agree. Only Caucasian prudery keeps whites in the region from adopting it. And since there are no prudish Caucasians about, I see no reason why I shouldn’t wear it. Does it offend you?”
Shadows of Love Page 23