The swim to shore should warm her at any rate, she mused, paddling for a moment to get her bearings. It would be dreadful if she were to accidentally swim out to sea! The water was dark, because the moon had not yet risen. Fortunately, the shore was even darker, an inky black line puntuated with tiny pinpricks of light. Taking a deep breath, Cathy pushed off toward them, using the Margarita’s hull for leverage. She swam steadily, arm over arm as she had been taught. Her only problem was the hat. It floated away the first time her head touched the water, and every time she crammed it back on her head it did the same thing again. Finally she took it off, fighting an urge to throw the pesky thing in as far away from her as she could. Once ashore, she would need it. She gripped it between her teeth and held it like a dog with a bone. It tasted vile—like someone had soaked it in a bottle of rum. Which they probably had, knowing Jon’s proclivities!
Cathy had been swimming for what seemed like hours and the shore looked as far away as ever. She glanced back at the Margarita to make certain she was still headed in the right direction. Yes, the ship was still directly behind her. Cathy was just congratulating herself on her navigation when her mind was struck by what she had seen. She almost sank herself in her haste to look at the Margarita again. Sure enough, down the side of the ship like a tell-tale white serpent snaked her sheet-rope! Damn and blast, Cathy swore under her breath, borrowing one of Jon’s favorite oaths without even realizing it. If she could see the rope so clearly from her position more than halfway across the bay, it must be just a little less visible from the town. She should have pulled it down! Too late now, she thought grimly, striking out for shore with renewed vigor. Now she was certain to be missed the first time one of the crew looked toward the ship.
Well, there was nothing for it but to swim as hard as she could and pray that the men would be so taken up with their revelries that they wouldn’t spare a glance for the ship. Cathy pushed herself relentlessly, swimming until her arms felt like they would drop from their sockets. Her breath rasped in her throat and her teeth chattered with cold, but still she kept going. Just as she was beginning to despair of ever making it, her feet smacked hard into something solid. With an inward whoop of triumph, Cathy realized that she had succeeded. She stopped swimming and stood up. The muddy bottom felt like the finest carpet beneath her feet. Grinning happily, and wrapping her shivering arms around her equally cold body, she waded toward the shore.
The smell hit her even before she reached dry land. Sweet and rotten, it was a compound of equal parts of rotting fish, garbage, and human waste. Cathy gagged. She had never smelled anything like it in her life.
As she squelched onto the sand beneath the rickety wooden dock, it became obvious that her navigation had steered her into an extremely disreputable section of town. Cathy hastily pulled on her shoes and clamped Jon’s cap down on her head. All her instincts warned her not to linger.
She set off toward what she perceived to be the center of town at a brisk walk. Sinister-looking men and women prowled the streets alongside her. Cathy closed her mind as well as she could to her surroundings, thankful that the people she passed were too intent on their own questionable business to spare her more than a casual glance. Clearly, it behooved her to find the authorities as quickly as she could. To wander aimlessly through this hell-hole of a town was to risk having her throat slit.
The alley she had been walking down turned off into a wider street, lighted at either end with flaming torches. Drunken men laughed uproariously as they staggered from one rowdy establishment to another, their arms more often then not tight about the waist of a blowzy woman. Cathy started to go back the way she had come, then stopped. If she was ever to be safe, she needed directions. Surely, dressed as she was, there was no harm in asking.
As far as Cathy could tell, all of the open establishments seemed to be saloons of one sort or another. One adobe building, a trifle quieter than the others, had a hanging sign out front proclaiming it to be the Red Dog. Cathy’s Spanish was practically nonexistent, so it seemed the logical choice. Yet some latent instinct for self-preservation caused her to hesitate.
She had to do something. She couldn’t just wander through the streets all night hoping a constable would happen by. In the first place, it was dangerous. In the second, Jon would be looking for her as soon as he had discovered that she was missing. She had to be somewhere safe before then. Anyway, what harm could she come to dressed as a young boy, even in a saloon? She looked down at herself. Not the smallest hint of her sex showed. All she had to do was remember to lower her voice, and no one would suspect that she was a female. For some reason, Cathy was certain that in this section of town, at this time of night, female was not a good thing to be.
Taking a deep breath, Cathy pulled Jon’s still damp cap low over her forehead and marched boldly through the swinging door. Faint heart never got anything done! Still, her movements became considerably more cautious once she was actually inside. Men sat drinking at round tables, rough, dirty men who looked far more like pirates than the Margarita’s crew. They were certainly not gentlemen, with their raucous voices and filthy language. And the women who waited on them, bringing them ale and whiskey and sometimes lingering for a pinch or cuddle, were certainly not ladies! Whores would be more like it, Cathy thought contemptuously, barely controlling a blush as one would-be Lothario tugged at a gaily dressed woman’s bodice, causing her ample bosom to spring free. The woman giggled, pressing the jiggling mounds wantonly against the perpetrator’s face while the other men urged her on with obscene cries.
“Animals!” thought Cathy with a shudder, as she sidled around to the bar. It appeared that all men were dirty, disgusting beasts—it seemed to be inbred. She was beginning to think that, even when she got home again, she would never marry. She had a sneaking suspicion that even the most gentlemanly-seeming of men might share at least some part of that built-in brutishness.
Cathy stood at the bar, pulling her hat down over her eyes again and being very careful to attract no undue attention. She wanted time to get her bearings before asking anyone for anything. The barkeep seemed the most likely choice. He was a huge, meaty fellow with grizzled red hair and a white butcher’s apron that was liberally adorned with stains. Although he looked no less of a ruffian than any other man in the room, he had one advantage—he was stone-cold sober.
“Sir?” How did one address a barkeep? Oh, Lord, she should have thought of that. Somehow she couldn’t imagine any of the louts around her using such a courtesy title. Still, she didn’t have to worry. Her “sir” had produced no response.
“Hey, you!” she tried in a louder, gruffer voice. This time she got results. The burly barkeep turned slowly around as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“You talkin’ to me, boy?” he bellowed in a belligerent tone. Cathy blinked at him, dismayed, before hastily recovering herself.
“I am.” She tried to inject a note of boyish confidence into her voice as the man swaggered down the bar toward her. As he got nearer, she swallowed. Somehow she hadn’t expected anything quite so overpowering. At close quarters he looked exactly like a huge, hairless red ape.
The barkeep seemed to be making an inspection of his own. His eyes lingered consideringly on the soft white skin and wide blue eyes beneath the too-big cap.
“Why, we got us a pretty boy here!” he called to the room in general. The men stopped drinking to stare at Cathy. She paled under the regard of so many hostile eyes.
“Haul him up so’s we can see him!” one of the men at the opposite end of the bar shouted.
“Hey, Mac, I didn’t know you was interested in boys!” His drinking companion jabbed the first speaker in the ribs with his elbow, grinning hugely. “Whatsa matter, has Bella turned you offa women?”
A red-haired, very generously endowed woman, who was plainly the maligned Bella, turned around to give the second man a playful tweak on the cheek.
“I’ll turn you on to women, honey. All you have to do is
say the word!” she giggled.
During the course of these events, Cathy perceived that she had made a grave mistake in coming into this particular saloon. The best thing she could do was leave again just as quietly as she had entered. She moved unobtrusively toward the door, hoping to pass through it unnoticed while everyone’s attention was centered on Mac and his companions. Unfortunately, the bartender saw her sidling away and stopped her with a meaty hand on her shoulder just as she thought she was going to make it.
“Not so fast, boy,” the man growled. “You never did state your business!”
Cathy looked up at him a trifle wildly. “I—uh—I just wondered if there was a place around here where I could get a bed for the night!”
She felt proud of her inventive abilities. Obviously, the mention of her true purpose would find no favor with these thugs. They all looked to be on the shady side of the law themselves.
“You need a bed for the night?” the giant asked ruminatively. “Well, I misdoubt that Bella there would be willing to share hers. She’s always had a hankerin’ for baby-faced lads!”
This remark brought more hoots and catcalls. A black-haired woman, a local resident from her appearance, flounced over to stare at Cathy speculatively.
“Nah, he’s too little!” she pronounced after a critical inspection. “Throw him back!”
The men exploded with hilarity. Cathy, ears burning at the lewd jests, tried to wriggle out from under the barkeep’s hand while the pouting Maria held center stage. It was no use. The man’s hand stuck to her shoulder like glue!
“Here, boy, there’s no reason to hurry off now. Just you sit up here where you can watch the fun!”
So saying, the man grabbed Jon’s shirt by the collar and hoisted Cathy up until she was sitting on the bar. To her utter horror she heard the material give with a loud ripping noise. Oh, no! But maybe it wasn’t too bad. Maybe nothing showed.…
“Sorry about the shirt, boy,” the barkeep said, looking down at her. His eyes widened fractionally. “By damn, would you look at that!”
His booming voice attracted the attention of everyone in the room. Cathy followed the barrage of eyes down her front. Dear God, she thought weakly, she was undone. Her whole left breast was exposed in all its pink and white glory! Quickly she jerked the material back up to cover herself, but one harried glance around told her that it was too late to do any good. Every man in the room was staring at her avidly.
“Goddamn!” a hoarse voice yelled from the back of the room. “It’s a wench!”
“It’s a wench! It’s a wench!” The inebriated gang at the bar took up the chorus.
“Show us that tit again, Big Jim!” another man urged. The chorus echoed, “Show us that tit! Show us that tit!”
The barkeep, apparently Big Jim by name, caught Cathy around the waist with one huge arm. With his free hand he snatched the hat from her head. Her braids, loosened by the long swim to shore, tumbled down. The meaty fingers ran through her damp hair, separating the strands so that they fell over her shoulders and curled around her waist. Cathy, more frightened than she had ever been in her life, tried frantically to free herself. But an iron-thewed arm held her mercilessly, its fingers digging painfully into her waist.
“Man, show us that tit!” a man in the far corner called urgently. Big Jim caught Cathy’s hands, pulling them down to imprison them at her sides. The torn shirt, with nothing to hold it in place, fluttered down like a dying bird. Cathy felt her whole body flush as every male eye in the saloon turned lustfully upon her exposed breast. Oh, God, what would happen to her now? Would they all rape her? Suddenly Cathy wished with all her heart that she was back safely on the Margarita. Safely? Yes! Although Jon made disgusting demands on her body, he had never actually harmed her. Certainly his use of her was preferable to gang rape!
“Eh, Jim, pass her down here! I haven’t set eyes on such a bellisima in years!”
“Nah, hand her over to me! It wouldn’t take me more than a brace of seconds to toss her on her pretty little ass and give her me all!”
The badinage continued, growing gradually hotter. There seemed no doubt in anyone’s mind as to Cathy’s eventual fate. The only question was, who got first go?
“I seen her first!”
“Like hell you did! I seen her first!”
“You goddamn liar! I did! Green, you remember me tellin’ you to look at that kid?”
Cathy began to feel sick. This couldn’t be happening! Those animals would tear her apart! She had to do something to save herself. Fighting a man the size of Big Jim was likely to earn her a broken jaw. He didn’t look like he’d have any qualms about hitting a woman. On the other hand, maybe she could bribe him.…
“Big Jim,” she whispered to the man whose huge arms held her as much a prisoner as a helpless babe. “How would you like to make some money? My father’s a rich man. He’d pay you well—let me go.”
“I hate women,” Big Jim remarked dispassionately. “And I especially hate lyin’ women. Last woman who lied to me, know what happened to her? I broke her neck with these two hands.”
He flexed the fingers that held Cathy’s arms penned to her waist and Cathy trembled at the feel of his huge chest pressed against her back. He had the strength to do it, without a doubt. But she couldn’t give up.…
“I’m not lying, Big Jim,” she whispered urgently. “My father.…”
“Even if you’re not lyin’, wench, your father ain’t here, is he?” Cathy had to forlornly shake her head. Big Jim looked sad. “I didn’t think so. Then we got nothin’ to talk about, do we?”
“Big Jim …” Cathy began desperately, only to be silenced by his impatient snort.
“What you so scared about, anyway? These fellows ain’t gonna hurt you none. They just want a little fun for tonight, and tomorrow they’ll let you go about your business as nice as you please. O’ course, you might be a little sore, but that don’t matter to the likes of you.”
Cathy wanted to scream, to cry, to laugh hysterically. Apparently he thought she was of the same type as the women who worked for him! Oh, God, this was out of the frying pan and into the fire—with a vengeance! But she wouldn’t make it easy for them, she vowed. She would fight.…
The two men who were arguing the loudest about which of them had seen her first suddenly jumped to their feet, knives flashing. Before they could fall on each other, Big Jim’s meaty fist crashed down hard on the bar beside Cathy, making her start nervously.
“Hold!” he bellowed. “There’s to be no bloodlettin’ in here! I say every man who wants the wench should roll for her!”
“Aye! Aye! We’ll roll for her!” The suggestion was enthusiastically embraced by all. Cathy was frightened as well as bewildered. Roll for her? What in the name of heaven—or should she say hell—was that? She was enlightened seconds later.
“Who’s got some dice? All right, high roller gets first turn, second roller next, and so on. That agreeable?” The men boisterously indicated their approval. “In case of a tie, the winners roll again. Right?”
“Right!”
The men gathered around a large round table in the center of the room. One of them produced a pair of dice from his pocket. Another looked back over his shoulder at Cathy, his eyes glistening appreciatively.
“Bring the prize!” he roared suddenly. Cathy blanched.
“Yeah, put her in the middle of the table so’s we can see what we’re gaming for!”
Two men crossed the room eagerly to grab Cathy away from Big Jim. He let her go without a murmur. Cathy kicked and clawed in a frenzy of fear as she was carried bodily across toward where the rest of the men had gathered in a tight little circle about the table. The man who was holding her under her armpits took advantage of his position to squeeze her bare breast painfully. Oh, God, this couldn’t be happening! She bit savagely at his arm. He cursed, almost dropping her. The man holding her feet chortled at his companion’s pain. Cathy tried to kick him, but he was holding her
about her ankles and she couldn’t get free. When they set her on her feet at last, the man she had bitten drew back his arm and deliberately slapped her across the face. The blow was so hard that Cathy reeled backward. Another man caught her, grinning, and ran his hands over her body intimately. Cathy kicked him in the shin. He howled, grabbing the injured place. Before he could retaliate, Cathy was grabbed from behind and swung off her feet.
“Tie the bitch up!” the bitten man growled. His companions needed no urging. Before Cathy quite knew what was happening, she was hoisted to the center of the table, and her hands were tied tightly behind her back. She tried to kick at her tormentors only to have her ankles bound too. For good measure they even passed a rope around her waist securing it to a meathook high overhead. Cathy was completely immobilized, and unable to help herself in any way. The only thing she could do was express her terror and rage with her tongue.
“You filthy pigs, you’ll answer for this!” she screamed, her voice shaking. “If you don’t let me go … !”
Her words were choked off abruptly, as a grimy rag was thrust into her mouth. Cathy gagged and spat, but she couldn’t rid herself of it. God, she was suffocating! But that would be preferable to the fate these animals had planned for her. Through a haze of shame and horror she felt her shirt being ripped completely off.
Cathy’s knees threatened to give way as she stared down at the leering circle of men. She couldn’t faint! Then she would be completely at their mercy. Grimly, she forced herself to breathe deeply through her nose. After a moment she felt her strength returning. The man she had bitten reached both hands up to pinch hurtfully at her bare nipples. Cathy cringed in pain and fear.
“Hey, Billy, that ain’t fair! You gotta wait your turn like the rest of us,” one of the men protested. The man called Billy dropped his hands reluctantly. Cathy tried her best to shield her body from their devouring gazes, but it was impossible. She was forced to stand, gagged and bound, in the center of that table, surrounded by drooling men whose eyes feasted on her bare breasts. Summoning the last reserves of her will, Cathy stiffened her spine, standing straight and glaring at them ferociously.
Island Flame Page 11
