Her face paled. “You’re sure about that?”
“They will hang me and make you a slave.”
She grabbed the wooden pony and hurried out. “Where’s Sea Biscuit?”
“A horse cannot be trusted to be quiet.” Harlan stated. “I will carry you on my back. Say nothing.” He lifted her with ease and ran for the jungle.
Shouts came from the landing party. He could only hope they would take some time to feast upon the turtle meat and plums. However, within the span of a quarter hour, he knew at least a few members of the party followed him and they were not far behind for he heard their raucous shouts.
Lesley did not make a sound but her breath blew hot on his neck, filling his mind with unholy thoughts of what he wanted to do with her if they escaped the foe. His own heart thundered loud enough to echo through the heavy canopy of vines.
Struggling through the dense underbrush, he became tangled in vines and slid in mud. At one point, the Spaniards caught sight of him before he hid behind a wide tree. When they fired their muskets, the bullets hit the tree. He and Lesley slid into the ditch beneath the tree. The wide overhang created by the tree’s roots made a small, dark hiding place. He barely breathed as the Spaniards walked past the tree above them. Lesley’s nails dug into his hand but he did not shake her off.
The Spaniards followed the river, but did not cross it. They cursed every time they stumbled as they blundered through the jungle. Once, they shot at a colorful bird but missed it and then spent an inordinate amount of time grumbling about the poor marksmanship of the gunner. Their loud voices reverberated through the jungle, which helped him for as long as he could hear them, he knew their location. Still, they continued to doggedly search for him.
When their voices faded away, Harlan assumed they had wandered toward the west side of the island. He and Lesley scurried from their hiding place. Once more he hefted her upon his back. He could do nothing to cover his tracks, but the small river he had found the previous night would help confuse his pursuers. He waded into it and headed upstream. The cool water did not chill his wayward ideas for he held Lesley’s soft thighs in his hands and as he carried her he envisioned the tender juncture where those limbs met.
The sun began its descent into the sea as he caught sight of the small rivulet that branched off toward the island’s singular promontory. The mountain rose at an abrupt angle from the jungle floor. He had climbed to the top last night and been fortunate to see the edge before he tumbled over it. The sheer, sharp cliff dropped straight to the sea. At the bottom lay the wreckage of the other ship amid a colossal pile of wicked rocks.
He soon found himself struggling along the twisting path of the steep incline of the mountain. Lesley tapped him on the shoulder and wiggled her two fingers. She wanted to walk.
He set her down. They both needed to take a break, but only for a minute. The moment the sun dropped into the sea, the heavy canopy of the jungle would smother everything in darkness. He pointed to the crystal clear stream, and motioned for her to drink. He knelt and took in as much water as he could hold. It might be a long time before they dared to venture out and get more.
She drank very little. He knew she feared those invisible germs. She found a sturdy branch in the stream of a good length to use for a crutch. With the stubborn set of her mouth, she insisted on walking. He hoped she would be able to manage the upward trail. It had proved to be a challenge for him last night.
Yet again, she surprised him when he discovered she could be as agile and nimble as a mountain goat despite her injured ankle. His larger frame became an impediment to their progress for his big feet often slid on the mossy hillside or slick rocks. Whenever he stumbled, he held his breath and listened intently. He had heard nothing from his pursuers for quite some time.
Wading in the stream might have helped to lose them, but he could not be sure. As the sun dropped into the sea, he found the cave he believed would be ideal for a sanctuary. Shrubbery hid the small opening. The passage for the first twenty feet was narrow and low. He got down on his knees and crawled through it. Lesley clutched his ankle and followed.
The passageway turned abruptly to the right and opened into a more spacious hall where the echoing sound of gurgling water could be heard. Total blackness lay all around them. Lesley hung onto his shirt with trembling fingers. However, he had prepared for this circumstance. In a small hollow of rock, he had left some bundled rushes. With the flint and steel in his pocket, he lit the end of his handmade torch. He did not fear the Spaniards would see the glow.
His small light shone on a strange and intriguing landscape of oddly shaped rocks. Stalactites and stalagmites had formed from the limestone dripping from the ceiling of the cave. He had seen other caves, but this one contained remarkable configurations. Some appeared as if sculptured.
“That rock looks like a throne.” He pointed to it.
Lesley nodded. “That one looks like an ice cream cone.”
He sighed, wishing he understood her strange talk. Ice. Cream. Cone. He recognized each word, but together they made no sense.
He swung his torch to the left to illuminate the central pool, which reflected all the shapes in its flat, mirrored surface.
“It’s really beautiful, in a sort of creepy dark way,” Lesley whispered.
“They are curious,” he muttered. He did not find them beautiful. They were cold and hard. He glanced at Lesley. Her soft skin held a gentle warmth and her eyes lured him. Gazing at her filled him with heat.
A fresh breeze with the tang of the sea wafted through the cave from many fissures and cracks. Sea birds and bats lived in some areas, but he had found a relatively clean room off to the side of that one great hall.
He led her to the small alcove and lifted her into it, for it stood four feet above the floor of the cave. He climbed in, but he could not stand at his full height for he would bump his head. Unlike the great hall with the pool, the small enclosure had a soft bed of sand.
“We stay here for the night,” he whispered.
She nodded and glanced around with her eyes wide and fearful. “This just gets weirder and weirder.”
He sensed her unease. “The Spaniards will cease their search in the dark. We are safe for now.” He blew out his torch and her hands grabbed his shirt.
“Can we leave the light on?”
“We dare not waste it.” He drew her close.
“I am sorry I attracted their attention. I didn’t know who they were. I only wanted to be ... rescued.”
The catch in her voice touched a painful place inside him. She longed for home and he remembered the feeling, though he had abandoned the idea of home years ago. For him, all connections to the past had been severed.
“I know I can’t go back and I’m not sorry about dumping Jim, but my sister, my niece and nephew--it hurts to think I’ll never see them again.” She trembled—every inch of her.
He wiped away the dampness on her cheek. His heart echoed her sorrow. He knew of love and loss. The old pain dug into him.
“Getting back to civilization, even one as prehistoric as this, has got to be an improvement. I’d like to eat regular meals, sitting at a table. I want to feel safe. I don’t want to worry about being drawn and quartered ....”
“We are safe.” He patted her shoulder, hoping to reassure her, though he doubted his own words. The island was small. He could only hope the Spaniards would soon depart. “We will be rescued.”
With his boast, she calmed. “You should stop this pirating business. It’s not a healthy lifestyle. Wouldn’t you like to go home, too?”
In the darkened cave the old memories flooded him. Once he had a home, comfortable, warm and secure, but it had been taken from him. All the bright hopes of his youth crumbled. He struggled to care for his own small family but despite his best efforts, that failed, too. Melancholy swept over him as he thought of his son who had been granted few moments of happiness in his brief life.
Weariness began to ta
ke hold of him and his eyelids grew heavy. “I lost everything that mattered.”
“You can start over. Look at me. I’ve had to make some major adjustments in my life--like pretending to be a different sex. I’d like to see you pretend to be a woman.”
He chuckled. “I would make a very ugly woman.”
“Well, you are rather hairy, but waxing might help.”
As usual, he did not comprehend her words. Exhaustion dropped down upon his shoulders. In the midst of their escape, he experienced powerful yearnings toward her, but now he could not keep awake any longer. He had gotten no sleep last night and though his back leaned against solid rock, her soft babble lulled him into blissful oblivion.
* * * *
Lesley started at every sound. The wind whistling through the cave sounded like wailing ghosts. She clutched the small toy horse to her bosom as she leaned against Harlan’s side. He had fallen so deeply asleep she doubted whether he would hear her if the Spaniards found the cave and dragged her away.
She had been such a fool. She shuddered as she remembered how she had waved and whistled to get the attention of those aboard the ship. She had visions of drinking tea and noshing on hardtack without a single complaint. The turtle meat had been good but she had not eaten enough of it. She should have taken some of the plums, too—even with the pinto’s saliva coating. She briefly wondered if horse saliva was more antiseptic than human saliva. She decided it had to have bacteria in it, after all, horses ate grass from the ground with soil in it.
The steady sound of water dripping did not bother her, but there were other noises she could not identify—a sort of rush that sounded like wings flapping. She knew there had to be bats somewhere in the cave. What if they were vampire bats?
Vampire bats did not live in New Jersey, but they did live in the tropics somewhere. What if she fell asleep and a vampire bat came and drank all her blood? She could die here in this cave and nobody would know. Hundreds of years from now, someone would open the cave as a tourist trap and they would show people around for twenty dollars a head and make millions. Would they find her bones and Harlan’s bones sitting up against the hard rock wall? Would they make up a story about them? Would it be a story about two lovers lost in the cave?
She sighed and listened to his breathing.
The cave was cool in addition to being a bit damp. She huddled up closer to Harlan to take advantage of his body heat. As usual, the toy horse sent out comforting warmth as well.
The hours wore on and despite her anxiety, exhaustion soon claimed her and she slept.
Elsbeth could not get the horse to move faster. The old nag had already tried to bite her. Between coughing fits, Josiah slept on the horse’s neck. The moon had risen full and white, guiding Elsbeth along the road to the Widow Vetter’s cottage, which lay at the end of the marsh road close to the edge of the sea.
There were those who called the old widow a witch, but others whispered praise for the woman who knew how to cure the ague, who could birth babies without pain, and most wondrous of all, who knew how a woman could lie with a man and not have a child.
Elsbeth wanted only to save her son. He grew weaker and sicker everyday and nothing helped him. He had run out of their burning house in time, but inhaling the smoke had worsened his cough.
With no house, they now slept in a corner of the shed at the inn, but it was cold and damp. Elsbeth had only a bed warmer with coals in it from the fire to keep off the chill. Both she and Josiah slept on the floor of the shed for Mistress Wiggs insisted she needed every bed at the inn for paying customers.
She had taken the horse from the stable at the inn. The stable boy had fallen asleep and she quickly slipped on a bridle, lifted Josiah to the horse’s bareback and managed to get on herself by climbing on a fence rail. She whacked the horse’s rump a number of times to no avail. The old nag ambled along looking for sweet green grass or the last leaves of the blueberry shrubs.
She had wrapped her son as well as she could in the one quilt she had saved from her burning house. But the child still shivered in the chill autumn night. His cheeks and forehead burned with fever. Mistress Wiggs told her he looked consumptive.
Widow Vetter was her only hope.
Elsbeth nearly nodded off several times during the journey as she dreamed of happier days and the love she had found in Harlan’s arms. But Harlan had gone off to sea and left her with memories and Josiah. A few tears of self-pity rolled down her cheeks.
Morning tinged the horizon when at last the cottage came into view. As Elsbeth approached she saw the widow sitting on a stump outside the cottage and drinking from a mug. Elsbeth shuddered. The old woman did not have a single tooth in her mouth and her face resembled tree bark.
“Ah, and it’s the wife of the sailor ‘as come to visit me.” The widow nodded as Elsbeth slid down from the horse.
“I’ve brought Josiah. He is sick with fever.”
Elsbeth tied the horse to a bayberry bush and pulled Josiah into her arms. “My son has been ailing. Mistress Wiggs thinks he’s consumptive.”
“Aye, and Mistress Wiggs knows more about other people’s business than ‘er own.” The old woman’s laugh blended with the calls of the seagulls on the beach. “Bring the child inside and lay ‘im on the bed.”
Josiah was so weak he could no longer stand without assistance so Elsbeth carried him into the cottage. The tiny dwelling had only one room but it did not appear cluttered. However, the heavy and pervasive odor of burning sage repelled Elsbeth. She could barely draw a breath and Josiah began coughing repeatedly.
Elsbeth placed Josiah gently on the bed. The old woman shuffled in the door and sat on the rickety chair beside the bed.
“Ye’ll have to unwrap ‘im, m’dear. ‘E’s in a pitiful state but I ‘ave to see all of ‘im.”
Josiah already trembled with cold, but Elsbeth did as she was bid. She reminded herself that it was this or bleeding the child to death. Tears welled in her eyes, but she held them back.
Nearly insensible, Josiah cried, “Mama. Mama.”
The old woman put her ear down on the child’s chest and listened to the sound of his coughing.
Elsbeth wrung her hands as she watched the widow place her hand on his forehead and then peer into Josiah’s glassy eyes. Afterward, she pressed the tips of her fingers on his neck and stomach.
“You kin wrap ‘im up agin.” The widow got off her chair and moved to a shelf lined with crocks.
Elsbeth tugged the quilt around her son, sat on the bed, and pulled him into her lap. She rocked back and forth with him and tried to soothe him with one of the sweet tunes he favored, but it did little good. He whimpered, cried, and shivered uncontrollably.
“I kin make an infusion to bring the fever down a bit, but ‘e’s got to sweat.”
“Our house burned.” Elsbeth lip quivered.
“I ‘eard of it.”
“Mistess Wiggs allows us to sleep in the shed.”
“The child needs to be beside the fireplace. Put ‘im in the kitchen and tell Mistress Wiggs there’ll be a curse on her if she objects.”
Elsbeth nodded but she could not speak because her throat burned with emotion.
“There’s some things I know and some things I kin fix, but there’s that as is out of me ‘ands.” The widow poured boiling water into a bowl she had filled with herbs. “If ye ‘ave something of the child’s to leave with me, I kin try some of me special charms on it.”
Elsbeth’s felt the blood leave her face. “They told me you can heal any disease.”
“And ‘oo might they be? Be they the ones ‘oo also say I be a witch and dances with the devil? Might they be the ones ‘oo blame me when it doesn’t rain. Or the ones ‘oo blame me for the floods.” The old woman rolled her eyes. “They’d be ‘anging me if they weren’t afraid of me.” She cackled again.
Elsbeth shivered.
The widow strained out the herbs and poured the infusion into an empty crock. “Ye be giving ‘im
as much as ‘e kin drink every ‘our or so. If ye’ve nothing of the child’s to leave with me, I kin take a bit of ‘is ‘air.”
Elsbeth clutched Josiah closer to her bosom. She had heard what witches did with hair and fingernails. They could create powerful spells that would force people to commit terrible, inhuman acts.
The widow reached for a pair of scissors.
Elsbeth fumbled deep within the quilt to find the toy pony clutched in Josiah’s feverish hands. She pried it from his grasp as he wailed.
“No, Mama! No. Papa gave it to me!”
She sobbed as she handed it to the widow.
“This will do, m’dear. ‘Is father made it on a long voyage. Much love went into it.” The widow placed the toy in a small cradle beside the hearth. The cradle had only a quilt in it.
Josiah wailed and Elsbeth wept. The old widow patted her on the shoulder.
“There, there. Twill all come right in the end, m’dear.”
The old widow helped her put Josiah on the horse’s back and once Elsbeth was on the horse, she handed her the crock with the infusion.
When Widow Vetter slapped the horse’s rump, the animal ran as if it had seen the devil. Elsbeth clung to the horse’s mane, her child, and the crock.
By the time she returned to the village, the sun had risen well overhead.
Mistress Wiggs waited for her along with the constable.
“You have stolen my horse,” Mistress Wiggs pronounced.
“I borrowed it. You can see I’m bringing it back and I’ll curry the mare and put a blanket on her, too.”
“I’ve given you shelter and you repay me with thievery.” Mistress Wiggs pointed a finger at her.
“Horse stealing’s the worst of crimes.” The constable nodded. “You’ll be going to jail Mistress Sterford.”
“I did not steal the horse. My child is ill. I went to get him some medicine.” Elsbeth held up the crock.
The constable pulled her off the horse. “Now move along Mistress.” He shoved her.
“I must take Josiah with me!” She stood her ground.
“He can stay with Mistress Wiggs. I said move!”
Pirate's Wraith, The Page 17
