Starlight & Promises

by Cat Lindler

  “Actually, I was thinking about my second-story work with the gang in Frisco. Though I haven’t had the occasion to use my skills for some time, I still remember the fundamentals.”

  “Neither are you twelve years old any longer.”

  “But I’m younger than you, old man.”

  Christian threw a glance at the tree branches overhanging the open hut. “Think you can climb up there and swing over to another tree? I’ve watched the parakeets climbing about. Surely you’re as nimble as they are.”

  Garrett directed his gaze upward. “Perhaps. I’d have to attempt it in the dark, find the ladder, steal weapons, and break down the door. And, of course, I’d have to complete these tasks in utter silence amongst a hundred natives, thirsting for my blood and breathing down my neck.”

  “You have a problem with that?”

  “God, you’re a hard man to please, aren’t you?”

  “The dark of the moon comes in two weeks,” Christian said with a sharp nod. “If we should manage to hold on to our heads that long, up and out you go.”

  “By all means,” Garrett replied with a sickly smile. “Up and out and into the stewpot.”

  The night was moonless. Once the sun’s light vanished and the sky was at its darkest, Christian hoisted Garrett onto his shoulders and boosted him high enough to grab a branch above the hut. Garrett swung his legs until he gathered momentum. Releasing the branch, he flew across the dark space to a lower branch on a neighboring tree.

  His position allowed Garrett to view the entire encampment. Though the night lay as black as the lava sands, cook fires burned below. Men reclined on pallets around the fires. Silence, broken only by the rusty screeches of nightjars, reigned over the village. A suggestion of movement in the forest ringing the open space caught his attention. As he scrutinized the area, shadows crept out of the trees toward the sleeping men.

  “Chris, something’s happening,” Garrett whispered from his perch among the foliage.

  “What?” Christian called out in a low voice.

  “Shhh, I believe we’re in for some excitement. Men have surrounded the village. It doesn’t look as if it’s a friendly visit.”

  When the village erupted in war cries and weapons clashing, Christian shouted up to Garrett, “Come down!”

  “No,” Garrett said, his gaze fixed on the melee below. “This may be my only chance. While they’re busy slaughtering each other, I can slip through unnoticed and find the ladder.”

  Christian yelled, “Garrett!”

  But Garrett was already making his way down the tree toward the ground.

  Garrett dropped from the last branch and looked about. He was too exposed, too far out in the open. Warriors careened past him or wrestled in combat. Clubs split skulls and broke legs and arms. Darts whistled past his head. After dodging a warrior intent on stabbing him with a wooden dagger, he sped to the forest verge. He paused to hug the trunk of a sandalwood tree and sidled around the bole, casting his gaze about the clearing for the ladder.

  With his attention riveted on the mayhem beyond the trees, Garrett tripped over an obstacle. Looking up from his sprawled position, he stared directly into a pair of blue eyes. He blinked in slack-jawed amazement when the man sitting on the ground extended his hand.

  “Hello,” the man said as calmly as if they were meeting at White’s on St. James Street in London. He grasped and shook Garrett’s hand. “James Truett. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Who are you, and what in the name of Zeus are you doing here?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Though speechless, Garrett could not seem to close his mouth. He examined the man with auburn hair, blue eyes, and Caucasian skin spotted with brown dye like a leopard’s.

  James made a waving gesture. “Do you mind? Were you simply to move to one side, I would be ever so grateful.”

  Garrett clambered to his feet, crab-walked to one side, and peered over the man’s shoulder. What was this man, a white man, doing sitting cross-legged on the jungle floor and sketching a tribal massacre with sharpened charcoal sticks? Garrett felt as if he had climbed down from the tree straight through Lewis Carroll’s looking glass.

  Once Garrett moved out of his view of the action, James resumed his drawing. “You had best sit behind me,” James said. “You stand out like a ghost with your white skin.”

  As though to punctuate his point, a javelin whizzed past them, close enough to stir the air above Garrett’s ear. He threw himself to the ground and inched behind James. His mind barely registered the words the man was saying. A moment later, it did. “James Truett?”

  James nodded and pursed his lips while the charcoal flew across the sketchbook page made from pressed tree bark. “And you are?” he muttered.

  “Garrett Jakes. We’ve been searching for you.”

  James turned his head, cocking a brow at Garrett. “Have you now?” His eyes lit with sudden revelation. “By ‘we’ you mean Samantha, do you not?”

  “Well, yes, but we left her in Hobart.”

  “Good for you.” James returned to his illustration. “This is hardly a proper place for a lady. Imagine she gave you a bit of trouble over it, I mean, leaving her behind. She can be a bit willful.”

  “I know,” Garrett said. He remembered what he’d meant to ask. “Is Lord Stanbury with you?”

  James pointed with his charcoal stick to a man in the thick of the fighting. “Right there. He’s been posing beautifully for me. Has a great economy of movement, don’t you think?”

  Garrett followed James’s gesture. Richard, dressed only in a loincloth, his body painted with tigerlike stripes, wielded a knife in one hand. In the other he held a short javelin. “Damnation!” Garrett swore when Richard took a jab to the ribs with a spear and warriors swarmed over him. He appeared to be losing ground and fighting for his life.

  Garrett took off at a run. He plucked up an abandoned spear as he swept by it, ducked a war club, and skewered the warrior swinging it. Grabbing the war club, he threw himself into the fight beside Richard, disabling two of Richard’s assailants. When he lunged at another native, Richard stayed his hand. “No,” he shouted above the din. “They’re on our side.”

  The battle lasted less than an hour. Warriors lay bleeding on the ground, dead or dying. Women and children remained to one side, calmly awaiting the outcome, while the captured chiefs, guarded by a contingent of armed men, stood in stoic silence, their chins held high, shoulders thrown back in defiant postures.

  Garrett finally caught his wind, turned to Richard, and grasped his hand. “Garrett Jakes,” he said, panting. “We’ve come to rescue you.”

  “Capital,” Richard replied. “James and I have a wager. Is Samantha among your number?”

  Garrett shook his head. “Not at this time. We left her in Hobart, but her husband accompanied me.”

  Richard’s brows shot up. “Husband? Samantha married? Where is he?”

  Garrett pointed to the hut of reeds high over their heads. “In there, along with our surviving crew.”

  The hut door burst open, and Christian’s tall frame filled the doorway. He glared down on the carnage and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Find the damn ladder, Garrett. Now!” he bellowed.

  Garrett raced to follow Christian’s order, and Richard chuckled. “By Jove, Samantha’s husband. This is one man whose acquaintance I must make.”

  Garrett located the ladder under a tree, and Christian climbed down, followed by those men well enough to negotiate the rungs. Then he strode directly to Richard and put out his hand. “Stanbury?” he said.

  Richard grinned and clasped Christian’s hand. “I understand you wed my niece, Samantha. My condolences.”

  Christian smiled dryly. “I would have observed the formalities and sought your permission. Unfortunately, you had gone missing and were presumed dead.”

  Richard studied Christian, a glimmer of recognition kindling on his face. “You are an American. I know you. Wait a minute; it’s on the tip of my
tongue. A zoologist, ah, Professor Badia, Christian Badia. We met briefly during a conference at Oxford some years ago.”

  “The same.”

  “How did you become involved in a search for me?” Christian gave him a pained look. “It’s a long story. Suffice it to say, Samantha can be rather persuasive.” “You mean stubborn, I daresay.”

  “Of course.”

  A glint sparked in Richard’s gold-colored eyes. “I begin to understand. Samantha must have contacted you about the Smilodon. How did you come to wed?”

  “It’s quite complicated. As I said, Samantha is a persuasive woman.” Christian cleared his throat. “But we suit well. I should probably qualify that statement by saying we shall once she resigns herself to a wifely role. She’ll eventually learn to find contentment as a wife and mother.”

  James walked up beside Richard, and they exchanged a glance. Both doubled over in laughter.

  Christian eyed them as though they had gone daft.

  Richard wiped a tear from his eye. “I beg your pardon, Badia. I fear you are in for a bumpy ride with Samantha. Have you heard her ‘modern woman’ theory?”

  “She has yet to explain it to me. Nevertheless, I’m well aware of her … peculiarities and shortcomings. I daresay I can handle her.”

  “I wish you luck.” Richard patted Christian on the back. “I don’t envy you the task ahead. How did you manage to sail out of Hobart without her?”

  Garrett jumped in. “He locked her in their honeymoon suite until the ship sailed.”

  Richard and James laughed again. “Perhaps you know her better than I supposed,” Richard said. “You will have hell to pay when you return.”

  “No doubt,” Christian said with a frown. He gestured to the warriors surrounding them. “Who are these natives, and where are we?”

  “The o tagata o fanua o la’ua,” Richard replied, “which loosely translates as ‘People of the Tree Land.’ The other chaps are their traditional enemies, the o tagata o fanua i afi, ‘People of the Fire Land.’ Kiha, the son of the high chief, Kamaiole, pressed for a preemptory attack while the afi were recovering from the effects of the tsunami, the goal being the capture of women and livestock. ‘Tis a familiar occupation. The tribes battle on a frequent basis. The majority of the women have moved back and forth between them numerous times. As to our location, I’m not truly certain, but I suspect somewhere near New Caledonia, judging by the flora.”

  “And the people?” Christian asked. “Surely they are Samoan.”

  “Yes, or at least of Samoan origin. The culture resembles that of Samoa, and the language is a Samoan dialect.”

  While they conversed, the priests decapitated the dead la’ua warriors, buried the bodies with ritual, and deposited the heads in decorated animal-skin sacks. They dispatched the injured afi warriors on the spot, taking the heads, which they collected in large nets, and leaving the bodies on the battlefield for the scavengers. They loaded the bodies of their own chiefs onto litters for ceremonial burial in their village.

  When Kiha and the other chiefs approached, Richard turned and introduced Christian and Garrett. They retrieved the remainder of the Maiden Anne’s crew from the hut. Preceded by the captured chiefs, the women and children, and the la’ua warriors, they took off through the jungle toward the southern coast. Additional litters, constructed for the injured crewmen and warriors, transported those unable to walk.

  With the burden of carrying the injured and the presence of several dozen women and children, the return trip took six days. The well-traveled path linking the two villages curved like the spine of a serpent through a dense forest of Araucaria pines and sandalwood trees. Torches carried by warriors flickered through the leaves, painting checkerboard patterns of light and shadow on the leaf-carpeted ground. The four white men exchanged stories during the journey.

  “After being attacked on the streets of Hobart and rendered unconscious, we came to in the hold of a ship, which we soon discovered to be manned by pirates,” Richard said, his eyes turning hard. “They flogged us without mercy. I was certain the beastly creature wielding the whip had killed James. When the crew of another ship boarded ours, I managed to slip overboard with James and tie us to barrels, where we floated for an endless time, eventually fetching up on this island. The la’ua rescued us. Tapia, the taulaitus, their spiritual leader, nursed us back to health.”

  A silent flight of flying foxes glided overhead, torchlight reflecting off their furry bellies, making them golden beneath, black above. The close encounter of their large bodies stirred the air like a gentle wind, though none, other than Christian and James, paused to observe them.

  Turning his gaze from the bats, Christian explained how they had also utilized barrels to follow the ocean currents.

  Glancing up and back down to his sketchbook, trying to render an image of the foxes as he walked, James replied, “Ingenious. Never would have thought of it myself.”

  Garrett took up the story. “We didn’t count on the tsunami and were right in its path. It pushed us backward onto the reef, and the ship broke apart. The natives captured us and locked us up in that aerie. We still have no notion of what they intended to do with us.”

  “Probably eat you,” Richard said with a straight face, ducking and sweeping a leafy frond the size of a dinghy out of his way.

  Garrett grinned at Christian. “Seems you were right, old man.”

  Christian shrugged.

  “The tribes on this island are cannibals,” Richard said, “but they differ in their habits. The la’ua are ritualistic cannibals and consume only the flesh, which they call io, of enemies defeated in battle. But some other tribes eat human flesh as a regular part of their diet. They believe it gives them strength. The afi are among those.”

  “What is our fate now?” Christian asked with a frown, raising his voice to be heard over the whistling duets of an abundance of indigenous nightjars and the crashing of the flying foxes into the foliage, where they attempted to catch hold of branches, then swing upside down. Once attached and hanging, a fox would draw food to its mouth with one of its hind feet or with the clawed thumbs at the top of its wings.

  Richard laughed and said loudly, “Have no worry. You now fall into the category of friends, uo, and are in no danger.”

  “You said we were on an island. How did you discover that?” Christian asked. The nocturnal birds’ calls faded, and Christian resumed in a normal tone of voice. “Have you explored it?”

  “Not completely. The la’ua have no word for ‘island.’ They call this land lau’ele’ele i sami, which translates as ‘land in the sea.’ From the descriptive name, I always assumed it was a volcanic island. You’ll soon see two peaks, fanua o la’ua, the forested caldera of an extinct volcano, and fanua i afi, an active volcano. As the other natives are less accommodating to strangers than the la’ua, we’ve remained close to the village. This excursion was our first extended trip.”

  “Is fanua i afi the highest point?” Garrett asked. He bent and picked up a slender black branch that resembled ironwood, tapping it against his leg as he walked.

  Richard looked pointedly at the stick. “You might want to watch where you put your hands and what you retrieve from the brush. This area has an interesting gecko species with sharp teeth, and a giant gecko. If you hear some animal growling in the trees, it’s probably a giant gecko. The natives call it the ‘devil in the trees.’”

  Garrett peered at the stick as though he expected it to come to life in his hand. When it remained naught more than a stick, he shrugged and employed it to poke about in the leaf litter beneath the trees.

  “As to the volcano,” Richard continued, “I would assume it to be the highest point, since it’s still active.”

  Christian rubbed his whiskered jaw. “If we climb to the top, perhaps we could gain a sense of what we’re facing.” He looked at Richard. “I gather you wish to leave?”

  “Certainly. I’ve enjoyed my little holiday, but the time has come
for us to depart and commence searching for the Smilodon.”

  “Whoa!” Garrett yelled and jumped back when his stick-probing elicited a crackling and slithering beneath a pile of leaves.

  After sending Garrett a black look, Christian turned back to Richard with a cynical smile. “You’re certain it was a Smilodon? I would hate to have come all this way because of a dream you had one night when foxed on brandy.”

  Richard’s brows lowered. “Most certain, but even are we not fortunate enough to find the Smilodon again, you’ll not return empty-handed. You found Samantha.”

  “That I did.” He sighed. “I’ll be paying the price for that lapse in sanity for the remainder of my life.” He pushed aside thoughts of his wife and struggled to refocus on their predicament and the one mystery that still bothered him. “Other than Samantha, to whom did you disclose your discovery?”

  Richard frowned. “I’ve asked myself that same question. The answer is always the same. No one. James and I discussed that sticking point and concluded that someone must have overheard us making plans to contact Samantha. The pirates kidnapped us shortly after I sent the missive off to her, requesting her aid in putting together a proper expedition.”

  “You came across no old acquaintances in Hobart? A scientist, perhaps, who would understand the significance of your find?”

  “No. In fact, James and I spent little time in Hobart.”

  “I suppose we’ll have to wait until we return to uncover the name of your abductor,” Christian said. “When we arrive at the village, we can devise a workable plan to remove ourselves from this island and return to Hobart.”

  The nightjars began their serenade again, the eerie music a perfect complement to the deep, evergreen forest, black night, sputtering torches, and softly padding bare feet.

  A smile played across Richard’s mouth. “Anxious to return to the little woman?”

  “Partly,” Christian said, his look more grim than amused. “Mostly I fear for her safety. The last I heard, the mystery man who paid for your abduction may still be hanging about Tasmania. More likely than not, Samantha has been stirring up mischief during my absence. I expect that locked door slowed her no more than an hour or two.”