Savage Surrender

by Natasha Peters

  "Save some of that for later," he advised. "We got a long way to go yet."

  I scowled at him. "We're trapped together on this miserable leaking washtub like two fighting cocks in a pen," I fumed. "We keep pecking and clawing at each other. I hate the sight of him, Joseph, and he hates the sight of me. We'll destroy each other, I know we will." Joseph sighed deeply. "Oh, Joseph, I'm sorry! I know this is hard on you. I wish—I wish it didn't have to be this way. I should never have come. I should have stayed with Robert Ross. Why didn't I?"

  Joseph said, "It only hurts me because I love you both, 'Lise. And because there's really no need for you two to carry on like this. Tell him, 'Lise. Tell him the truth about what happened to you. He'll understand, I know he will."

  "No," I said stubbornly. "You think that would change anything? You don't know him, Joseph." I raised my voice so that Garth, who had taken the wheel, would hear me. "He would still treat me like a whore because he's always treated me that way. He treats all women like whores."

  Garth stiffened and glared at me. Joseph rested a kindly hand on my shoulder and said, "You'd better go below for a little while. You're tired, I know. We're all tired."

  His gentleness brought tears to my eyes. "Oh, Joseph," I whispered, "I can't take much more of this." And I dove down the short ladder to the privacy of the cabin.

  A severe storm overtook us when we were three days out of Norfolk. Clouds gathered all through the day and by evening the winds became stronger, but Garth insisted on waiting to put into shore until night fell or until the storm worsened.

  "It's going to be a pretty bad blow, Garth," Joseph argued. "Some of these gusts feel like ninety knots."

  "We'll find an inlet where we can ride out the storm before it breaks," Garth said. "There's time yet."

  "But we're fighting a headwind anyway," Joseph said. "We're working like dogs, doing only about three miles an hour. Why don't we just put in now—"

  "No," said Garth tersely. "Damnation, Joseph, can't I get any cooperation from anyone on board this boat? Please do as I ask and make sure everything is battened down."

  Joseph shrugged and went about his duties. Our little schooner bobbed around on the huge swells like a cork in a bathtub.

  "Garth," I called over the roar of the wind. The boat heeled sharply and I found myself skittering perilously around on the deck. "Garth, there's a bad leak in the hold. The water is coming in faster than I can bail it out."

  "Take the wheel," he ordered. He went below.

  I peered over the helm and saw a white sail on the horizon. The Sea Demon reared and plunged on the waves and I lost sight of it for a moment but as we rode the crest of another swell I saw the sail again, coming closer. I called to Joseph. He took the wheel and told me to get Garth at once.

  I plunged down the ladder into the cabin and moved forward to the little trap door that led to the hold. "Sail on the northeast horizon," I shouted at Garth. "It's approaching us fast."

  We went up on deck. Garth followed my arm and saw the sail. He reached for his spyglass and peered at it.

  "British," he said. "She's coming straight towards us. We'll put into shore immediately." He shouted orders and Joseph and I ran to obey. This was no time for argument. We pulled the Sea Demon about and headed for the Carolina coast. I heard a faint rumble and saw small puffs of smoke hovering around the pursuing vessel. They were firing at us. The first cannonball fell far short of us, the second went wide of its mark.

  "It's all right," I shouted to Joseph, "their gunner has no aim." I felt a red-hot ball whiz past my ear. I yelped and threw myself face down on the deck.

  Joseph laughed. "That must have been his lucky shot, 'Lise. Garth, ain't we awful near Cape Fear?"

  "That's what I'm afraid of," Garth answered over the wind. "If we can just make it around the point and into the inlet he wouldn't dare follow. The rocks are treacherous around here and they know it."

  The boat lurched and heeled over so violently that if Joseph hadn't thrown his arms around me I would have gone over. We heard a sickening crunch and a scraping noise, and we saw Garth wrestling with the wheel, which was spinning madly in his hands.

  "We're on the rocks," Garth yelled. I ran to assist him while Joseph started shifting the sails so that the wind would carry us away from danger. Garth soon abandoned the wheel to help Joseph with the sails. A long look at the horizon assured me that the British had given up the chase when they thought we had run aground.

  We struggled for what seemed like hours to get away from the rocks. When Garth felt we were out of danger he lowered the anchor a few feet to help give our wildly pitching boat some stability, then we limped towards a sheltered inlet south of Cape Fear to ride out the storm. We were all drenched to the skin, and we huddled shivering in the cabin, sipping whiskey to ward off the numbing effects of the wet cold. Joseph and Garth took turns with the deck watch. I offered to take my turn, too. Garth ignored me and left the cabin abruptly, while Joseph told me soothingly to sleep, if I could. Sleep was impossible. I started awake each time the men changed their watch. We were riding lower in the water because of the water in the hold, and with every pitch and lunge I thought we would be swamped. The cabin floor was ankle deep in water, the bunks and blankets were sodden, and I was too scared and cold to close my eyes even for a minute.

  The next morning we found a good spot behind a breakwater to anchor and we beached the boat for repairs. Garth and Joseph scoured the shoreline for driftwood logs that they could use as rollers, and after I helped them unload our gear to lighten the weight of the Sea Demon they maneuvered her out of the water and braced her up so that the damaged rudder was exposed.

  I spread our blankets out in the sun to dry and built a fire to heat water for making tea and washing clothes. I scrubbed and scoured my shirts and breeches and spread them over tufts of dune grass to dry. By mid-morning the sun had banished the deep chill I had felt since we had left Norfolk. After lunch I took a clean skirt and blouse, a blanket, a comb and brush and small piece of soap, and walked along the beach to search for a place to bathe. The tide was high, and I found the ideal spot: a small pool where the sun had warmed the trapped water to bath temperature. I soaked and soaped myself and washed the accumulation of salt and sand out of my hair. I put on my skirt and slipped on my blouse but didn't button it, then spread out my blanket on the warm sand and started to comb out my wet hair. After a while I stretched out and fell asleep.

  "Elise? Elise, where are you?"

  I sat up and reached instinctively for my dagger. Garth was calling me. I got to my feet and gathered up my things, sticking my knife into the waistband of my skirt.

  He came over the crest of a dune and stopped. "Where in hell have you been?" he demanded angrily. "You know better than to go wandering off without saying anything. What's the matter with you?"

  I had had a very pleasant day and I didn't want to spoil it. So I just shrugged and said, "Don't be absurd, Garth. Are you afraid the Indians might get me?"

  "May I remind you that this is not Fontainebleau, Madame," he said tightly. His eyes went to my open blouse and his lips curled into a sneer. "This land is wild, vast, and untamed. There's no telling—"

  "Oh, for God's sake," I interrupted him impatiently, "there's no one around for miles and miles. Any fool can see that." I folded my blanket over my arm and started to walk past him.

  "Damn you, Elise," he said through his teeth, "I'm just telling you for your own good—"

  I turned on him. "That's a lie," I said. "You've never done anything for anybody's good but your own. You looked around and saw that your little slave, Elise, was out of earshot and you decided to drag her back so she could wait on you. Well, I am not your servant, Senator McClelland, and I am not at your beck and call. I go where I please when I please, and if I want to get away from you for a few hours, who can blame me?"

  He put his hand around my upper arm. "Listen to me, Elise," he said evenly. "No one regrets your presence on this trip mor
e than I, but I want to make it clear that I expect—"

  I dropped my things and drew my dagger out of its sheath. "Take your hand off me, Garth, or I swear I'll castrate you!"

  His eyes gleamed strangely and his lips curved slowly into a leering grin. Without saying a word he grabbed my wrist and twisted it hard until I dropped my weapon. Then he hooked his leg behind me and came down hard on top of me.

  "You haven't learned a damned thing," he muttered under his breath.

  He pushed up my skirt. I felt his rough sailor's hands on my thighs and a cold, sick dread came over me. I strained and struggled, but I only succeeded in exhausting myself. It was useless to fight him. I raged at my powerlessness, my weak, helpless femininity.

  He unleashed his fiery weapon and thrust it into me. I shuddered and went limp. I remembered the days when I would have swooned with pleasure, delighting in the lovely weakness and warmth that always engulfed me when he had me in his power. But no more. I felt dead and cold inside, and I was enveloped not by delirious pleasure but by a leaden hatred that sat on me like an incubus, weighing me down and suffocating me.

  He threaded his long fingers through the hair at my temples. "What's the matter, bitch," he said savagely, "isn't this what you've been waiting for? Praying for? You used to thrill to the merest touch of my hand, Elise. Remember? You were alive then, girl. Alive. More exciting than any woman—" He gripped my jaw with his fingers and plundered my mouth with his tongue. "I suppose," he said between kisses, "that having lain with generals you no longer wish to dally with a mere politician, is that right?"

  "You—sicken—me," I said breathlessly.

  He shrugged. "And you are beginning to weary me, Madame Slut. But a starving man cannot beg for caviar when someone offers him stale bread, can he? I just hope you're not diseased, wench."

  I bared my teeth at him. "Stinking vermin!" I spat. "Scum! It is you who is diseased, in your heart and in your mind!" I swiveled my head, trying to bite the hands that held me prisoner.

  He lifted his hand. I thought he was going to strike me. Hazy visions of Edward Hennessy danced in front of me, and I sucked in my breath and closed my eyes.

  "Don't hit me," I moaned, "I beg you, don't hit me again."

  I felt him stiffen and pause only for a moment, then he renewed his attack on me. I bore it all silently, limply. Finally he grunted and lay quiet for a moment before rolling off me.

  "I'm not surprised that you looked like you were starving in Washington," he remarked. "I wouldn't pay you two cents for a performance like that, my sweet. And you a professional!"

  "You filthy bastard," I breathed, raising myself up on my elbow. "You'll pay for that, Garth. You will die! You can't watch me all the time. You have to sleep. And some night I swear I'll drive my knife so deep into that hollow shell you call a heart—"

  He clucked his tongue. "Always the little firebrand, eh, Elise? You like to stir up trouble, and then you get angry if no one quenches the fires you set. But you have lost some of your verve, your splendid spirit. You disappoint me, child."

  I stood up slowly, painfully. My hair was tumbling around my shoulders in wild disarray, and it was so full of sand and sweat that I would need to bathe all over again. He turned his back on me and started to walk away. I saw my knife lying in the sand where it had fallen when he attacked me. In a split second I had it cradled in my hand. Its fine steel blade gleamed wickedly in the sunlight. Murmuring a prayer to the gods of vengeance I sprang after him, my knife poised to plunge into his heart.

  He anticipated my attack. He swung around swiftly and warded off my deadly blow, which was propelled by a maniacal strength that surprised me, but not before I felt the blade cut into the flesh of his sweeping forearm. I gave an exultant cry and darted away from him, ready to defend myself. But he had grabbed at me as I moved away, and I heard the tearing of fabric as he pulled my blouse away from my back.

  I gave an agonized whimper and tried to cover my nakedness with the tattered garment. He was watching me closely, paying no attention at all to the river of blood that cursed down his arm. He stepped towards me and I raised my blood-stained knife.

  "Don't come any closer, Garth! Get away from me. Get away!"

  This time he chopped at my wrist as he lunged and my knife went spinning. Clutching me around the waist, he spun me around so that my back was towards him. He held my blouse away from the brand and traced it lightly with his finger.

  "Let me go!" I sobbed. He released me and I stumbled away from him, trying vainly to cover my breasts with the torn blouse.

  "Where did you get that?" he asked in a low voice.

  I backed away from him, shaking my head soundlessly.

  "Tell me!" His face was quite pale but his eyes were burning with a fanatical light. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me close to him. He jerked my head so that my face was close to him. "Tell me!"

  "How do you think I got it?" I sneered. "I did it myself. Branding is all the rage on the really good plantations this year, Garth. Where have you been?"

  He was breathing deeply, glaring at me. Then he let me go and almost pushed me away from him.

  "You'd better tell me everything, Elise," he said. "From the beginning. Did you kill Jacques?"

  I was weeping and trembling with shock and anger. "Oh, yes, I killed him. I have many talents, Garth: whoring and murdering not the least among them. He was beginning to bore me and so I drove a knife through his heart."

  "He was shot," Garth said tonelessly. "Did you quarrel?"

  "Why should we? We weren't lovers. He had a lover long before I met him. Your wife's cousin."

  "Arnold? Arnold killed him? You—you didn't do it?"

  "No, I'm afraid not. Are you disappointed, Garth? I seem destined to disappoint you today, don't I? I'm glad. You've been entirely too satisfied with yourself lately. It feels good to deflate you a little. A pity I couldn't deflate you with my knife, but you can't say I didn't try, can you? Maybe I can have the pleasure of murdering you tomorrow."

  "Arnold killed Jacques and then arranged for you to disappear," Garth said to himself. "Everyone would assume you were guilty—"

  "Yes, wasn't he clever? Only don't give him all the credit. Your dear wife had a hand in it all. You would have been very proud of her, Garth. She very nearly destroyed me. She and dear Arnold sold me to Bose Niles. Do you know him? They call him the Flesh Peddler." His head jerked slightly. I knew he had heard about Niles. "I had a lovely trip up the Mississippi with some really charming men, Garth. So thoughtful and kind, you Americans. But you're always in such a hurry. When there is no time to woo or love a woman, voilà, you rape her. And it's so convenient to have a woman on board if you're sailing. Any time you feel like it, day or night—"

  "Stop it, Elise," he said sharply.

  "Stop?" I looked puzzled. "Why, don't you want to hear what happened next? I must be a very bad storyteller, Garth, if I can't hold your attention with a sordid little tale like this! Then I will be brief: the brand that caught your eye a few moments ago was the gift of another generous American, my last owner. He'll never brand anyone again, though, because he is dead. I shot him with his own pistol. So fitting. Lafitte would have been proud of me. Bang, one shot, right between the eyes. He would have called it lucky, but it wasn't luck. It was salvation to me, a reprieve from certain death. That handbill you picked up at Sandy Bottom was fairly accurate about the details, except for my name and age. They called me Frenchie. Very imaginative, you people."

  Garth frowned. "Handbill? What are you talking about, Elise?"

  "I'm a runaway slave, Garth," I explained with mock patience. "Here's your chance to be rid of me once and for all. All you have to do is turn me over to the slave catchers when we reach New Orleans. You might even get a reward. To compensate you for your disappointments."

  He stared at me for a long time, impassively. Then he said softly, "Let's go back to the boat, Elise. We can discuss this later."

  "No!" I roared. I stood
in front of him with the palm of my hand on his chest. "I want to talk about it now, Garth. What gives you the right to play God, Mr. Senator? You passed judgment on me, remember? You condemned me without having a scrap of evidence. But now you've seen evidence, haven't you? What now, Garth? Will you pardon me, Garth? Even make me your mistress again? Surely you won't let this pass and do—nothing! Are you going to forget it, pretend that it never happened? I can't forget. I can't pretend that nothing has happened, that nothing has changed. Everything has changed. I have changed! I am sick of being treated like a mindless piece of meat, a whore, a slut. You never cared about me. You used me because when we lay together it was good, magical almost, and you could forget everything else: your grotesque wife, your responsibilities, your problems. You could even forget me, Garth, and you did, time and again. Did you know I found Jacques in the cottage where we had made love in the rain? The place where you said you would meet me, and you never came. I—I was ready to go with you, Garth. But you didn't come. Only death came. And evil."

  "Elise." His eyes were sad. He covered my hand with his. I moved away quickly, as if I had been burned. "I want to tell you—"

  "Don't!" I said, sobbing. "Don't talk about it. I'm not interested in anything you can say to me, Garth McClelland. I just want to go home to France where I can forget the horror I have seen in this country, where I can forget—you!"

  My fists were clenched, tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was half-naked, dirty and disheveled, crazy with anger and with sorrow, but I didn't care. I didn't care what he saw when he looked at me. I wiped my eyes with grubby hands and retrieved my scattered possessions. I restored my dagger to my waistband. I paused in front of Garth, who was standing immobile, watching me, and I spat into the sand at his feet. Then I returned to camp.

  Joseph looked up from the brace he was carving for the broken rudder. The smile on his face faded when he saw my tattered clothes and tear-stained cheeks.