Pirate In My Arms

by Danelle Harmon

  She stayed.

  By the time they reached her, Maria was a convincing picture of grief, her tears coming easily after all she’d been through, her hood down and her hair billowing about her face. She heard Justice Doane’s voice above her. “Cease your sniveling, witch. ’Tis wearing on my nerves. Look at you, bawling your eyes out over some villainous blackguard who only got what he deserved. To think you’d waste—”

  His eyes had found the blanketed form.

  “Well, well, now! Just who do we have here, eh?”

  “Leave her alone, Joe,” Tim said quietly. He put a restraining hand on the justice’s arm. “I think it’s obvious who it is.”

  “But oh, I think I should like to see this scoundrel who wreaked such havoc up and down the coast,” Doane said, sneering at Maria. And with that, he reached down and tore the blanket from Sam’s unmoving form.

  Maria’s breath caught in her throat. She went still and her heart stopped beating. But Doane’s lips curved in a satisfied smile as he stood up and let the blanket drop to the pirate captain’s face. “And you’re crying over him? This devil, this blackguard?” He shook his head in disbelief. “But then you are a witch, aren’t you, Maria Hallett? Why should I be surprised?” He jerked his head toward Tim, dug his boot into the body’s ribs, and, bending down, caught up its wrists. “Come on, Tim, let’s take him away. He’s naught but a pirate. Captain or not, he deserves the same burial as the rest of these thieving wretches.”

  “No!” Maria came alive. Doane jumped back in alarm, letting the pirate captain’s wrists thud to the sand.

  Maria’s voice was high, her eyes wild, her hair whipping in the wind. “Don’t you dare touch him!” she cried, shielding Sam’s body with her own. “He was too good for the likes of you! So help me God, if you so much as lay a hand on him I’ll claw your eyes out of your head and feed them to the gulls. Do you hear me?”

  Doane took a step backward.

  From out of the curse they’d bestowed upon her, the answer came. Her voice grew low, threatening. “Touch him, Justice, and I’ll cast a spell on you that’ll make you old before your time! Yes, go ahead, try it! And remember me when your teeth fall out, your skin shrivels up like a dried apple, your leg ripens with gout—”

  “Enough!” he barked, backing away. “I merely wanted to give him a decent burial. You ought to be thanking me for it, not cursing me! You want him? You can have him! Let him rot here to feed the gulls, then! See if I care!”

  “I’ll bury him!” she snarled, eyes flashing.

  She didn’t like the gleam that came into his eyes. “On second thought, no you won’t. The coroner will. By tomorrow morning he’ll have dug a hole big enough for all of these wretches and then, like it or not, your precious captain is going in with the rest of them!” He jammed the pipe back into his mouth, leaving Maria to wonder that he didn’t break a tooth. Throwing her a last look of disgust, he spun on his heel and stormed off down the beach.

  Tim stayed behind for a moment. “Don’t worry, Maria,” he said quietly. “He won’t come near you; none of them will. Despite all of this, they’re still terrified of you.” He looked down at the dead pirate. “Bury your captain, and I’ll keep them away so you can do it privately.” Bending down, he drew the blanket back up over Sam’s face.

  “Sure was a handsome rogue,” he admitted, straightening up. “No wonder I never had a chance. ’Twould be hard to compete with a man like that, even if he is….”

  “Dead,” Maria finished, with just the right amount of grief in her voice. And he soon would be if she didn’t get him off the beach and out of this damp cold. But not even to her friend did she dare to reveal that Sam was alive. “Thank you, Tim.” She passed a knuckle beneath her lower lashes to wipe away a tear. “Thank you for letting me…have this time alone with him.”

  Smiling wanly, he touched her cheek and turned to follow Doane back toward the villagers.

  And Maria was alone.

  The day seemed to stretch on forever, but she held him in her arms, close to her body, close to her heart to try and keep him warm. The sun peeped from behind the clouds, fading in and out as morning grew to afternoon and finally to evening. Sam’s chances for survival lessened with every hour he lay upon the cold beach and suffered the biting wind; yet with the villagers nearby she dared not move him and could only sit in the sand, holding him close and shielding him from the cold with as many blankets as she could pile upon him.

  The villagers. ’Twas a blessing they thought him dead. Surprisingly, none of them save for Doane and Tim had come to satisfy their curiosity about the infamous Captain Black Sam Bellamy. But then, goods salvaged from a wrecked pirate ship were worth more than a look at its dead captain, she mused. Tomorrow, though…. Tomorrow, they’d be back. To stare at him, to gawk. To strip his body of its fine clothes. And, she thought fearfully, to bury him.

  She shuddered. Tomorrow was tomorrow, and she had all of tonight. Somehow, some way, she’d have to get him to the safety of her hut atop the bluffs—but how?

  Doubtfully, she eyed those great precipices rising almost vertically from the beach, and knew there was no other way.

  She would have to do it, unless she wanted to leave him here to die. She had to do it, and when darkness settled in to conceal her labors, she would do it.

  Already, the sun was beginning its descent behind those seemingly insurmountable escarpments. The wind was getting colder now, drying Sam’s hair so that it fell in thick waves over her arm. If only he’d awaken and make it up those cliffs under his own power. He might have done the impossible in surviving a shipwreck, but she had her doubts if she could perform a similar miracle. And getting him up the sand cliffs would require nothing short of one.

  The villagers were leaving, taking as much of Whydah’s remains as they could pile into their groaning carts. A flock of gulls winged past in timeless flight, skimming low over the waves and casting purple shadows upon the water. To the east the sky was pink and mauve, the clouds that hung suspended there, great hulking masses of slate and purple. The sea, still marbled with whitecaps, was now changing in hue from angry green to slate blue lacquered with pink and mauve to match the sky above.

  And to the west, the sun finally sank behind the cliffs, snuffing the light from their steep, sloping banks, making silhouettes of the poverty grass that studded their plateaus.

  Night began to fall.

  Maria swallowed. It was almost time.

  She ignored the complaints of her hungry stomach, her body’s plea for dry clothes and warmth. Sam was all that mattered. Struggling with his weight she sat up, pulling him up against her and cradling his lolling head against her breast to shield his face from the punishing, wind-driven sand. She closed her eyes, leaned her cheek against the top of his head, and as she had once done with little Charles, rocked him slowly back and forth.

  Finally, the last villager led his horse off the beach and disappeared into the twilight. The sea turned to pewter and on the horizon, the moon rose up through the clouds.

  She was alone at last, with only the wind’s moan and rhythmic roll and clap of the waves to keep her company. Even Gunner was absent, no doubt back in her hut and asleep on her bed.

  She sat there for a long moment, listening to the breakers slapping the beach and trying to summon her courage, her confidence. She heard the hollow, thundering pop of the undertow, and knew she could delay no longer.

  “Come on, Sam. It’s time to go home.”

  With great effort, she managed to roll him onto one of the blankets and, taking its corners in one hand and his wrists in the other, dug her heels into the sand and pulled.

  At first he didn’t budge and neither did she. It was to be a fight then, but Maria was determined. Trying again, she took a deep breath and put all of her weight into the effort.

  He moved. One inch. Two. And then, as she gained momentum, the blanket began to pass sled-like over the beach. Breathing hard, putting all of her strength into the
task, Maria trudged toward the base of the sand cliffs.

  There, she stopped, looking up at their nearly vertical faces that seemed even steeper in the darkness. Her lungs heaved in exhaustion and despite the cold, sweat trickled from her brow and into her eyes. She’d managed to drag him a full thirty, maybe forty feet. The effort had all but sapped her strength, and as she gazed hopelessly up at that wall of sand, she knew there was no way on earth that she’d be able to get him up those cliffs.

  But there was no way he should have lived through the shipwreck, either. Had God let him survive, only to let him die upon this lonely beach? Gritting her teeth, Maria took up his wrists once more.

  She got him moving again and with jaw clenched in determination, began to climb. But for every excruciating step she took, she made little headway. Her feet could not get a grip in the loose sand, and it only raced down like a miniature avalanche until it swallowed up her shoes and ankles and left the hem of her gown puddled around the spot where they should’ve been.

  Blinking back tears of frustration, Maria sank to her knees, watching loosened sand trickle down to the beach. Her hands were slippery with sweat, clammy with brine. Doggedly, she wiped first one palm, then the other, upon her cloak to dry them.

  Resolved, she tilted her head back and looked up at that imposing wall rising above her. But the cliffs were no less intimidating than they’d been before and seemed to leer down at her, smug in their imposing majesty. Waves crashed upon the beach in timeless rhythm, mocking her. You can’t do it, Maria…. You can’t….

  “I can!” she cried to the night, her hair blowing wildly about her face. Dauntless, she faced the dark expanse of the sea and the wind swept her words out over its barren vastness until even the waves heard her impassioned vow. “I can, and I will! I didn’t pull him from your reach just to let you have him back! He’s mine now, do you understand?” She took his wrists once more. “Mine!” Planting her feet in the unforgiving sand, she gave a mighty tug and pulled for all she was worth.

  And made slow, painful progress. She gained a foot, two, then stopped to rest. Climb and rest, climb and rest. Arms screaming in agony. Sand pooling in her shoes and clumping beneath the arches of her feet. Hands numb with cold, breath frosting the air—and still she climbed, somehow, with resolve, determination, and perhaps a kind hand from God himself, managing to move Sam.

  One quarter of the way…. Halfway…. Ten feet from the top she paused, her breath knifing in and out of her lungs, the blood roaring in her ears. The beach was far below her now, the cliffs here almost vertical. She wiped her brow and again took up Sam’s wrists. His skin was now as damp and hot as hers as fever began to rage within his body. She managed to drag him another two inches, paused to wait for her heartbeat to slow, then started again, making another foot of progress. She took another step. Another. Now she was crying in anticipation and hope, for she could almost see over the top of the plateau. Another few feet and they would be there—

  And then the sand gave out beneath her feet, throwing her onto her back and sweeping them both downward. Frantically, Maria drove her heels into the cliff, straining, crying out, until at last she managed to stop their descent.

  She heard the soft sigh of the wind, the rustle of the breeze through the sea grass. And then the waves again, mocking her, laughing at her.

  Told you so…. Told you so…. You can’t do it.

  Her arms aching with fatigue, her muscles in spasm, tears streaming from her eyes, Maria threw back her head and beseeched the night sky above.

  “Oh, please, please, ple-e-e-e-e-e-e-ase, God, help me!”

  And this time, she found that last bit of strength she didn’t know she had. Now, she fought her way up the sand cliff with grim-faced resolution. Fervently uttered prayers tumbled from her lips. Her head fell forward as she crawled backward up the slope. Below her, Sam’s heels traced twin lines in the sand and sent a shower of loose granules down to the beach below.

  But they were not losing headway.

  Higher and higher she climbed, her breathing ragged, her heart swelling against her ribs until she thought her chest would explode. Sobbing in triumph, for the plateau was at eye level now, Maria took the last, agonizing step.

  Her hand groped in the dark, closed around a clump of poverty grass. With a final, desperate lunge that sapped the last of her strength, she hauled herself and Sam’s heavy body onto the firm sand that topped the cliff. There she lay gasping, her sides heaving like a winded horse.

  She had done it.

  Chapter 11

  A mystic Shape did move

  Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;

  And a voice said in mastery, while I strove…

  “Guess now who holds thee?”—“Death!” I said. But there,

  The silver answer rang… “Not Death, but Love.”

  — Browning

  Nightmares.

  Madigan, his crushed body coming up from out of the breaking waves. Andrew Crumpstey, the ex-captain of the wine pink, still shackled below and unable to escape the rising water, cursing him until it finally rose over his head and choked off his strangled, gurgling screams. Lambeth, eyes cold and accusing in a face that was swollen, hideous, nightmarishly purple.

  “All your fault, Captain. All your fault….”

  Sam gasped for air, seaweed filling his mouth and choking him with moist, cloying tendrils that slid up and down his face. And still they came on, no longer his faithful crew but a vengeful pack of demons with dead eyes and hands that were stretching toward him with menace and vengeance.

  And now those hands were on his shoulders, pinning him down, forcing him back into the icy seawater. He fought them, screaming in terror when he realized he was too weak to throw them off.

  All your fault….

  Water closed over his head, filling his lungs—

  “Sam!”

  He struggled, going mad at the feel of their flesh against his skin, their hands pressing him down, trying to drown him—

  “Sam! Sam, wake up! ’Tis me!”

  The demons were fading into the murky darkness. Whydah was sinking gracefully out of sight, down, down, down. Peace drifted over him, and up from the depths a mermaid was swimming, yellow hair waving like kelp in the current, hands gentle upon his shoulders, sea-colored eyes wide with concern as she took his hand and pulled him up, up, up, toward air. Her arms enclosed him. Her hair brushed his cheeks. And then, with the last of his strength, Sam gave a mighty kick and broke the surface.

  His eyes shot open. There were no bodies. No sunken ships, and no mermaids. Just Maria Hallett, her arms wrapped about his shoulders, the ends of her hair damp with his own sweat.

  He lay staring at her.

  “’Twas a nightmare, Sam,” she said gently. “Nothing more.”

  “Maria?”

  “Yes, Sam. ’Tis I.”

  “Maria? My Maria?”

  She smoothed the damp hair back from his brow, her hand cool against his skin. “You need to rest,” she whispered. “Please…just rest.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You are with me.”

  “My ship?”

  It was a moment before she answered him. “It was lost to the storm,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  He tried to speak, but his tongue was dry and swollen, filling his mouth. Where was he? And surely, there were other survivors; where were they? Again he struggled to speak, but her fingers touched his parched lips, stilling his efforts to get the words out.

  “Shh, my love,” she whispered. “You’re going to be all right. I want you to sleep, now. You’ve been very, very ill.”

  “My crew—” he rasped.

  He felt her touch against his cheek. Heard her gentle, soothing voice. He closed his eyes and leaned his throbbing head back against her supporting arms. Strange, but it seemed as though she’d been here all along. He was dreaming, of course. Maybe the loss of Whydah had been a dream as well. He couldn’t think. Couldn’
t grasp reality. Was this all part of the dream? Was he still in his cabin on Whydah, and everything—the storm, the breakers, the ship foundering—all part of his raging fever? Yet the physical sensations were painfully real and becoming more so by the minute. The taste of salt when he passed his tongue over his cracked lips. The deep, searing pain in every muscle and limb. The awful ache that rang in his head, the nausea in his stomach, the chills that were making his body tremble in the seawater—

  Seawater?

  His eyes shot open, and with sudden clarity he knew he wasn’t dreaming. It was seawater all right, and he was in a damned tub of it, an icy tub of it, and immersed clear up to his bare chest. And as he threw off the last smothering mists of unconsciousness, he realized there was something in his mouth, something bitter and foul tasting, something alien—

  Cursing, he spat it out and lunged upward.

  “Sam!” Her hands, not as delicate as they looked, pushed him back down into the tub. Icy water sloshed against his neck and set his teeth to chattering. Was she that strong or had he grown that weak?

  He, weak? Never!

  “What the bloody hell am I doing in a tub of seawater?”

  It was not the kind of reunion that either had anticipated; certainly not the triumphant one that Sam had envisioned, nor the sweetly romantic one that Maria had dreamed about. “I told you, you’ve been sick,” she said, her hand pressing against his chest to hold him down and feeling deliciously warm against his cold, shrunken nipple.

  “Sick? God’s teeth, I wonder why!”

  “’Twas a fever, and if it hadn’t been for the seawater you wouldn’t be alive to complain about it. Now, please. Just sit there and be still.”

  “Be still? Are you out of your bloody mind? No wonder I had a fever! What manner of man wouldn’t, being stuck in seawater after nearly drowning in it?” He spat the last of the foul stuff out of his mouth. “And what the devil have you been feeding me?”