Jinxie's Orchids

by Maren Smith

  “You want me to take you up the river into Jivaro territory—four days up, four days back—for four hundred dollars? Sorry, princess, but my head is worth more than that. Neither I nor my boat will make that run for less than six.”

  “I’ll do it for three.”

  Both Takura and Levina startled and turned to stare at Montague Harris and his native deck man, Thiago. Both men had come up the dockway, sidling unnoticed through the crowd of fishermen until they’d reached Takura’s tug. God only knew how much of the conversation the Frenchman had overheard, but there was something in the way he was looking at the woman Takura just didn’t like.

  He frowned, one hand automatically dropping behind him, slipping up into the hem of his shirt to grip the handle of the revolver he kept tucked in the waist of his pants. “This doesn’t concern you, Montague.”

  The Frenchman gazed up at him from the dock. “You have declined the fare, merci, my friend?” He smiled and shrugged. “And so, my offer it stands.”

  “You’d take me up the river?” Glancing from Takura to Montague, Levina juggled with her book to pull out her map again. She unfolded it far enough to point out the same section of Basin she’d shown to him. “Here?”

  Thiago obligingly looked where she indicated, but Montague never took his eyes off her. His smile broadened, a blond-haired, blue-eyed devil in the guise of a riverboat captain. “Anywhere you want to go, querida. Do not worry about the Jivaro. On my boat, you have two strong men to protect you, oui?”

  “Until you sell her downriver, you mean,” Takura said bluntly.

  Levina visibly startled, swinging around to stare at Takura before taking a hasty step back and fixing those wide green eyes of hers on Montague, who frowned. Though what common sense she had was in obvious question, since she wanted to travel up the Rio Negro by herself, but at least she had enough to be cautious with someone who deserved it.

  Montague tsked, clucking his tongue against his teeth. “Mon ami, you wound me. To suggest such a thing just to keep a paying fare?” Reaching for Levina’s hand, he bowed low over her fingers, blossoming for her benefit into another of his charming smiles. “Montague Harris, at your service, querida. Pay no attention to that man. He refused your generous offer, non? He had his chance. You come take your ride with us, oui? We take you safely up the river where your heart it wants to go.”

  Takura snorted, shaking his head when Levina turned her head, looking back and forth between he and Montague, blinking and thinking, but offering very little resistance when the Frenchman tugged lightly on her captured fingers. Already Thiago was taking her bags from the porter, dismissing him. He smirked once at Takura before falling into step behind Levina, following as she was led further down the dock to where their boat was tied.

  Standing at the rail, Takura shook his head again, still certain that he valued his head more than three hundred dollars, but equally sure that in Montague’s company, rich little Miss Wainwright was never going to reach her destination upriver.

  It wasn’t his business.

  Taking his hand from his gun, Takura went back to his engine. He tried to concentrate on what he was doing, but within minutes found himself listening to Levina’s faint and growing fainter by the second explanations: “Oh, I’m not sight-seeing, Mr. Harris. I’m a botanist and this is an official scientific exploration.”

  Takura got down on his knees in front of the open engine hatch, picked up his wrench and finished tightening down the bolts. If Montague took her more than two miles up the Negro before turning into a backwater way, out of sight and ear-shot of any other passing boats, then he’d be seriously surprised.

  It still wasn’t any of his business. She’d made her bed; she was about to be bent over and thoroughly ravished in it…either before or after all of her money and anything else of value was liberated into Montague’s possession. And once he and Thiago had had their fill of fun at her naive expense, one of two things would happen: she’d either be sold for someone else’s pleasure or she’d be dumped somewhere, into the river for the caimans and piranha or in the middle of the jungle. She might have been someone in America, but in the middle of Brazil, she wasn’t more than a short snack for the big snakes, jungle cats, poisonous insects or any one of a dozen unfriendly indigenous tribes. Either way, if she went with Montague, she would not be coming back to Manaus alive.

  Takura sat back on his haunches, scowling at the steam engine without really seeing it. The middle of the Amazon was no place for a man with a conscience, but at the moment his just would not shut up.

  Glancing up, his eyes happened to meet Arapaho’s laughing black gaze. As if he could read Takura’s thoughts, the native fisherman was sitting on a barrel on the dock, studiously pretending to repair an old fishing net, all the while laughing at him.

  Swearing, Takura threw his wrench down and shoved himself back on his feet. The naive Miss Wainwright may have made her bed, but he wasn’t about to let her go off and get her fool self killed without at least making one effort to stop it. Leaning out over the rail, he could just barely see the fluttering white of the silly American’s dress as she was hustled into the captain’s quarters. Montague was all smiles. Thiago was already untying the ship and shoving off the makeshift dock.

  There was no time to alert the authorities. At this point, he had two choices: stand here and stew about it, or go after her.

  Swearing even more vehemently, Takura shut the boiler hatch and went to check how much coal he had in the box. Hopefully, it would be enough to allow him to overtake Montague’s tug and then return.

  Across the dock, Arapaho was slapping his knee. He rocked back, almost falling off his barrel he laughed so hard.

  “Yeah,” Takura muttered, glaring at him. Takura the damn hero. That’s what they all called him.

  * * * * *

  Life was full of funny little surprises. For instance, Levina was three hours into her first open ocean voyage when the first really big wave hit the vessel she’d set sail upon. It was followed by another, and then another, a rocky rhythmic up and down assault her stomach and her senses that didn’t seem to want to end. Ten minutes after that first rocking wave, Levina joined seven other passengers at the railing where she promptly lost both her composure and her lunch.

  It was not a pleasant discovery, that sickly moment when she realized she and the ocean did not and would not ever get on well together. And it was also not a pleasant discovery now, with several miles of coffee-black river water and Manaus well behind them, when she realized it wasn’t just the ocean her stomach didn’t like. It was all large bodies of water.

  This one didn’t have waves; it barely seemed to have a current. In fact, if it weren’t for the constant chug-chug-chug of the coal-fueled boiler engine, they might not even be moving at all. It didn’t matter. Her body didn’t care. Every inch of her still broke out into a sticky sweat. Her head began to pound. Her stomach rolled and then it surrendered completely, and from that point on, all Levina could do was collapse near the rail in what she hoped was an out of the way place and do her best not to throw up on the side of Montague’s boat. She forgot to take her hat off first and she promptly lost it to the Rio Negro.

  “Ooh,” Levina moaned as she hung her head out over the jet black water. Her stomach felt so hollow and empty that it hurt, but that didn’t stop it from trying to disgorge again. And again. And then again.

  Up in the wheelhouse, Montague tsked and then he called down to his deckhand, speaking rapidly and in a language other than French. Whatever he said, it brought Thiago out of the boiler room where he’d been shoveling coal. The dark-skinned native wiped his hands on his trousers, to Levina’s eyes simply smearing the stains of black coal dust around, before fetching her a canvas-wrapped canteen of warm water to drink, apparently so she’d have something to throw up. He laid it in her lap, but she just couldn’t bring herself to add to her misery.

  Whistling cheerfully, Montague looked from her to the unending curtain o
f mangrove trees he was steering them through, and back to her again. “Don’t take well to the water, eh?”

  She moaned again.

  “That’s too bad.” He tsked, sounding more cheerful than he did commiserating. “Is four days to where you want to go, querida. Maybe five if the rains they come. You sure you want to go so far upriver? There is nothing out there, you know. Only frogs and trees and bats and more trees. Many, many more trees.”

  “I know,” she croaked. Climbing back into a sitting position, she sprinkled a little water from the canteen onto her handkerchief and gently washed her face.

  “What are we going up there for, eh? What are we hunting, this ‘scientific exploration’ of yours?”

  “A flower.” She slapped a hand over her mouth and quickly rolled to hang her head over the side again.

  “A flower?” Montague echoed in surprise, and then barked laugher. “Thiago! Selecione uma flor da árvore! Get up there, eh!”

  Quick as a monkey, Thiago climbed the ladder to the roof of the captain’s quarters and as the boat drifted under the heavy leaf-shrouded tree limbs, he reached up into the boughs and plucked a wide red flower from one of many vines that grew twined amongst the branches. He brought it down to the deck and dropped it into her lap.

  “There you go, querida,” Montague said. “A pretty flower for a pretty young lady.”

  “A pretty sick lady,” Levina muttered, slowly crawling upright again. One hand pressed to her churning stomach, she picked up the red blossom, identifying it easily. “Heliconia. Rostrata.”

  “That is not the flower you are seeking for?”

  She shook her head, but even that small motion made her stomach toss and roll. She swallowed convulsively to keep it down.

  “What one then, querida?”

  “Something nobody’s seen…oh…before.” Back over the side she went, gripping the rail for balance to keep from falling headfirst into the water. She was only dry heaving now, but the effort to continue vomiting was making her head ache and her eyes tear.

  Whistling, Montague beckoned Thiago to take the wheel, passing over control of the boat so he could come down onto the deck next to her. “You do not look good. Here.” Glancing first up the river and then craning his head to see as far as he could down it, he picked up the canteen and unscrewed the cap. “Drink, pretty lady of the flowers.”

  “Ugh.” She tried to push the canteen away, but he made her fingers close around it.

  “It make you feel better, querida. Good medicine for the seasickness.”

  She was just miserable enough to try a sip. The water had a slight sweetness to it that felt good against the back of her burning throat. He made her drink a few sips more, and then again when she threw that up. As far as she could tell, it did not make her stomach feel any better. What it did do, was make her sleepy.

  “Whaz in thiz?” she heard herself slur, a distant disconnected part of her mind becoming alarmed when her mouth refused to work right.

  “Good medicine,” Montague said again, distracted. He looked up and down the river once more, and then bent to help her up. None too gently, he pulled her up by one arm before angling her up over his shoulder, like a burdensome bag of grain. She felt about that limp, too, as he carried her below the main deck, out of sight of any other boats they might happen to pass.

  “Where…” she slurred.

  “You need rest,” he soothed as he took her through a narrow hall and down a second short ladder, gripping her carefully as he negotiated the rungs with only one free hand. His other arm was wrapped around her hips, the heat of his hand burning through her clothes and into the back of one thigh. “You will be more comfortable down here, oui?”

  Except that instead of taking her to a room with a bed, she found herself being carried into a small, cramped hold that was lined with cages. Most were empty. There was a small black and white monkey in one and a bright red parrot with green and blue wings in another. All were plush with straw, including the larger cage in which he now pushed her, stuffing her limbs and the extra folds of her skirt into the cramped cell, at least far enough for him to shut and lock the barred door.

  “You sleep there, querida,” he said, smiling that charming smile. He reached in through the bars to stroke her hair while her heavy eyelids drifted shut. “Pretty little flower girl. You going to bring a good price, I think.”

  And with darkness swirling up and over her, the only protest Levina could muster was a soft and ineffective mew.

  * * * * *

  It was thoroughly dark when Takura paddled his skiff as quietly as possible up next to Montague’s boat. True to form, he had steered into a back waterway to avoid any unwanted curiosity and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Little Miss Levina Wainwright had a set of lungs on her unlike anything he’d ever heard before. In a jungle notorious for swallowing up sound, he’d heard her screaming from half a bend on the river away. Which worked to Takura’s advantage. Even under the cover of night, under no other circumstance would he have been able to sneak up on Montague and Thiago had they not already been distracted.

  Lit only by a few onboard lamps, while Levina screamed, beat and pounded on something metal somewhere below decks, Montague and Thiago were systematically going through her belongings, pocketing her money and anything else of value, and paying so little attention to their surroundings that Takura was able to get right up to the rear of the boat. Hugging the shadows, he climbed over the railing and cautiously snuck around the wheelhouse. He could hear the woman more clearly now.

  “Let me out! Brutes! Ruffians!” She was beating on something hard enough for him to feel the vibrations through the deck. “Help!”

  Finally, Montague had had enough. Still shifting and sorting through the woman’s bags, he growled a few words and sent Thiago below deck to shut her up. With only one man to deal with now, Takura found a nice, sturdy belaying pin and moved in behind the slaver.

  Catching movement from the corner of his eye, Montague had only time enough to glance up before Takura cracked a blow across the side of his head hard enough to knock the Frenchman sprawling. Unfortunately, he managed the feat one split second after Levina abruptly stopped screaming, and when Montague hit the floor, he hit it loud and hard. Every hair on the back of his neck prickled in cold awareness as, suddenly, the Amazon jungle became a strangely silent place.

  All except for the sound of running footsteps, thundering up the ladder from the level below.

  Takura came around the wheelhouse, belaying pin raised and ready just as Thiago poked his head up out of the hatch. This was a bad move, and he knew it. But if he waited and Thiago rabbited back down into the hold, going in blind after him would be a whole lot harder.

  Takura rushed him. His timing was the best that it could be and yet still was off. The deckhand spotted him and fell backwards down the ladder to get away. Swearing prolifically, Takura jumped down into the hold after him and was nearly skewered on the knife that seemed to simply appear in the other man’s hand.

  The tip of the blade skimmed his ribs as Takura twisted sideways, and then lunged in swinging. The belaying pin glanced off Thiago’s temple, dropping him to his knees. Takura hit him again, and this time he went all the way down. A crumpled heap that lay still, unmoving even when Takura nudged him cautiously with the toe of his boot. Taking Thiago’s knife, Takura headed deeper into the hold.

  “Where are you?” he called out.

  There was only silence. Again he felt that cold prickling dread tickle along his nape. Montague wouldn’t have killed her, surely. Not when there was still money to be made by selling her.

  “Where the hell are you?” he bellowed again. “Answer me, woman!”

  She made no sound, but there weren’t a lot of hiding places on a riverboat. He found her in a crawl space below. Huddled at the back of a small cage, her green eyes were wide and stared panicked back at him. She had been gagged with a lacy strip of cloth from her own dress and her hands were tied to he
r ankles via a short length of rope.

  “I told you not to go with them,” Takura snapped as he got the cage open. He quickly cut through the ropes binding her wrist-to-ankle. She squeaked when the knife flashed past her face, but then he was sawing through her gag, too.

  “Thank you so much!” she gasped, stretching her jaw.

  He hauled her out of the cage by her arms. “Get up. Hurry.”

  “They stole my money!”

  “If you’re still sitting here when they wake up, they’re going to take a whole lot more than that. Now, move!”

  She scrambled to get her feet under her, following as if she were a second shadow as she followed him down the crawl space to the hatch.

  Grabbing her arm, Takura shoved her toward the ladder. “Climb, dammit!”

  Whether it was ladders that she was unfamiliar with or the concept of hurrying, Takura had no idea, but he was out of patience for both before her feet had even reached the second and last rung. He planted a hand on the curve of Levina’s shapely ass and boosted her all the way up and out of the hatch.

  Grabbing onto the upper deck, Takura heaved himself out of the lower crawl space and hit the upper deck running. Or at least, he would have if he hadn’t had to pick Levina up off the floorboards, where she was still kneeling exactly as she’d landed.

  Her eyes were huge and one hand was planted in shock on her no doubt thoroughly molested sensibilities. “You…y-you touched my…”

  He hauled her roughly to her feet. “Move, princess!”

  He shoved her out ahead of him, but when they came across Thiago’s fallen form, she stumbled to another awkward stop.

  “Oh!” She drew back with a squeak of alarm. “Is—is he dead?”

  “One can only hope.”

  Thiago groaned, and this time, Takura didn’t wait for her to start up the ladder to the main deck. If Thiago was waking up, then Montague would probably be stirring as well. The minute Levina grabbed onto the first rung, Takura ducked down to plant his hand under her (yeah, definitely shapely) rump and shoved her straight up through the hatch.