Bride of the Baja

by Jane Toombs

  They heard a tapping.

  Margarita drew back and they both held their breath, listening.

  "Margarita, are you all right?" The woman's voice came from across the room.

  "Yes, Aunt Maria."

  "Sleep well, my child."

  "And you."

  When she heard the door close, Margarita put her mouth to Jordan's ear. "We must hurry," she told him.

  He nodded and lifted her to the balcony railing. Taking her hands in his, he lowered her, leaning over as far as he could without falling.

  "Now," she whispered.

  Jordan let go. He heard a soft thud and then the rustle of skirts below him.

  "I'm all right," she said.

  He used the rope to lower her chest, then hung by his hands and dropped to the ground beside her. After manhandling the chest up on one shoulder, he followed her along the side of the house. The heavy scent of orange blossoms sweetened the night. Lantern light shone from behind them and, as Margarita led him to the trees on the far side of the road, he heard a woman laugh.

  "The wagon should be waiting near the oaks," he told her.

  Margarita took his hand and they followed a path through the grove of trees. All at once she stopped.

  "I saw a light," she told him.

  He peered into the dark night. He saw nothing, so he waited, interminably, he thought, before a light gleamed for a moment a hundred feet in front of them. The light was gone as quickly as it came.

  "It is good," he told her.

  Now Jordan led the way, with Margarita's hand small and warm in his. When he neared the place where he had seen the light, he stopped.

  "Erin go bragh," he said in a low voice.

  "Faith and begorra," Jack McKinnon said, burlesqueing an Irish brogue, "if it isn't the captain of the Kerry Dancer and his lady."

  "You have the wagon?"

  McKinnon unshielded his lantern long enough for Jordan to see the mule cart concealed in the trees near the road. After Jordan heaved the chest into the back of the cart, he leaned against one of the large wheels, catching his breath and massaging his aching shoulder.

  "What in the name of heaven do you have in that chest?" he asked Margarita when he was seated beside her in the cart.

  "A few dresses," she said. "And a few clothes. Shoes, slippers, hats, gloves. And my wedding gown. I want to be a proper bride for you, Captain Quinn."

  McKinnon switched the mules with a quirt and the cart rumbled slowly down the road in the direction of the beach. No one was abroad in the night. They reached the ship's boat beached on the sand without being challenged. As soon as they were on board, the sailors from the Kerry Dancer shoved the boat into the surf and rowed, their oars muffled with canvas, to the ship.

  After helping Margarita over the side, Jordan stood on the deck looking around him. "Have all hands been called?" he asked the mate.

  "They have, sir."

  "See that the senorita's chest is stowed in my cabin, if you please."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Margarita touched his arm.

  "You may either go to our cabin or else stay on deck," Jordan told her before she had a chance to speak. "Out of the way," he added.

  She walked to the rail, watching the crewmen climb the ratlines into the rigging. One man slipped, caught himself before he fell and cursed loudly.

  "Silence," Jordan ordered. "I don't want the Dons to hear us, Mr. McKinnon." The order was passed from man to man.

  "Ready to set sail, sir," McKinnon told him.

  "Hands to the windlass, Mr. McKinnon." Jordan turned to the helmsman. "Set a course south by southeast to pass through the channel," he told him.

  The windlass clanked as the Kerry Dancer weighed anchor. Jordan slipped the ship's spyglass from its case and scanned the shoreline, seeing an occasional light but nothing more. He nodded, so far he and Margarita had not been missed.

  He watched the sails unfurl and felt the Kerry Dancer gather way before a fair wind that would see her out of the Santa Barbara channel. Already the memory of his time spent ashore had faded--the annoyances, the pettiness, the greed, the tedium of life on land now seemed unimportant. He wondered, for perhaps the thousandth time, how a man could stand to be land-bound all his days when he could be free on the deck of a good ship with all the world awaiting him beyond the horizon.

  Suddenly remembering Margarita, he looked around and saw her at the rail, looking out over the sea. Motioning McKinnon to his side, he said softly, "I never want her to know we had a part in that Indian raid on the rancho's horses. Do you understand?"

  McKinnon nodded.

  Jordan crossed the deck, coming up behind Margarita and caressing the nape of her neck with his fingers. She leaned back against him.

  "Do you love the sea?" she asked.

  "Of course--it's my life. I've been coming down to the sea since I was a boy."

  "The sea must be like a mistress to a man, like a lover."

  "A lover? No, Margarita, there's only one woman in my life. You."

  A shout came from the lookout high on the foremast. "A light. A light off the starboard bow."

  Jordan released Margarita, retrieved the spyglass and peered across the dark sea, but the light was still below the horizon. In ten minutes' time he saw it, a faint glimmer some four leagues to the west. Jordan turned to McKinnon.

  "That light's most likely on one of the Channel Islands," he said. "What do you make of it?"

  "A bonfire of some sort. The Indians, I suspect, signaling to one another."

  Already the light was fading, and in another few minutes they couldn't make it out at all.

  "I expect you're right." Jordan shook his head. The unexplained light troubled him.

  "Where are we bound?" Margarita asked after McKinnon left them to go forward.

  "To our cabin," he said, deliberately misunderstanding her.

  "No, this ship. Where is she bound?"

  "To San Diego. We'll be married at the mission before they have a chance to hear of the governor's objections." He guided her to the companionway and down to the captain's cabin, shutting the door behind them.

  "This is for the two of us?" Margarita asked, staring around her. "This tiny cramped room?"

  "There're no spare cabins on the ship."

  She nodded to the single berth. "It's a sin for us to lie together before we marry," she told him.

  "I'll do whatever you want, Margarita. Do you want to wait?"

  She didn't answer. Instead she reached up and unbuttoned her dress and let it fall to the deck, unfastened her petticoats and stepped out of them, lifted the chemise over her head and threw it to one side. She stood naked before him.

  The ship pitched gently and she let herself fall into his arms. With one hand around her bare waist, Jordan began to fumble with the buttons on his shirt with the other.

  "Let me," she said.

  While she undressed him, she said, "I must learn to speak better English."

  "Why?" Her words surprised him; she was continually surprising him. Would she always, for the rest of their life together?

  "So I may learn more ways to tell you how much I love you. I do love you, Jordan, with all my heart and soul."

  He kissed her, wondering if she noticed he hadn't told her he loved her, wondering why he hadn't, for he knew he did. Why were the words so hard to say?

  When he was naked, she lay on the bunk and opened her arms to him. He let her enfold him, trying to enter her gently, yet still she gasped with pain so he waited, moving slowly above her, their lovemaking matching the rhythm of the sea. He felt her cling to him, arch to him as she kissed him, and he sensed that her pain had lessened, replaced, he knew, by a pounding surge of pleasure for she sighed and trembled in his arms. When at last they slept, she lay with her arms and legs wrapped tightly about him.

  CHAPTER 7

  Captain Jordan Quinn paced the lee side of the Kerry Dancer's quarterdeck. The weather had been fair since leaving Santa Barbara
two days before, the sky and the ocean were a deep blue and the sea ran in long, unbroken swells beneath the ship. Though Jordan's eyes moved automatically from the rigging to the wake, his thoughts were below decks.

  "Margarita."

  He said her name aloud while at the same time damning himself for being a romantic fool. He had never imagined a woman could enthrall him as Margarita had—he wanted to be with her now although it was only early afternoon, wanted to feel her arms around him and her smooth skin on his. He wanted to lose himself in her. Now and forever.

  "Sail ho!"

  Jordan shook himself from his reverie. Seeing the lookout on the foremast point off the starboard bow, he raised his spyglass and detected the barest glint of white to the southeast. Jack McKinnon came to stand beside him.

  "Mr. McKinnon," Jordan said, "go aloft and have a look, if you please."

  McKinnon climbed the shrouds to the fore topgallant yard, where he stood holding the rigging with one hand as he scanned the sea through the spyglass.

  "Appears adrift," he shouted to the deck.

  Jordan's first thought was of the Flying Yankee. Could her crew have taken to the boats only to have the Yankee survive the storm? It wouldn't be the first time a seaworthy ship had been abandoned by a crew. And in this case their captain was already dead. Their tale of being driven onto rocks might be more fancy than fact.

  Jordan raised his speaking trumpet. "What manner of ship?" he asked McKinnon.

  "Three-masted square-rigger, sir."

  The Flying Yankee was a three-master square-rigger.

  McKinnon climbed down and swung onto the deck next to Jordan. "As far as I could tell, sir, her sails are shredded and she's lost part of her foremast."

  "Could you see her colors?"

  "No, sir. And there's no sign of life aboard, though it's hard to be sure at this distance. I'd judge her to be four leagues from us."

  "We'll tack toward her and have a look," Jordan said, estimating that at the Kerry Dancer's speed of five to six knots, it would take them more than two hours to reach the other ship. When McKinnon remained silent, Jordan glanced at him. "You have doubts, Mr. McKinnon?"

  "No, sir, we're duty-bound to take a closer look. There may be crewmen on board who're still alive and 'twould be criminal to leave them at the mercy of the sea. And if she has been abandoned, we can put a crew aboard and sail her to port for the salvage money. That would mean an unexpected bonus for all hands."

  McKinnon hesitated. "There was one thought did cross my mind," he said.

  "Out with it, Mr. McKinnon."

  "It was those pirates," he said.

  "Bouchard? The much talked about pirate who's never seen? I take it you fear a ruse."

  "No, sir, likely the ship's just what she seems, a derelict abandoned in last fortnight's storm. The thought comes to me, though, that was I a buccaneer and feared the Kerry Dancer could outrun me—and we can outrun most any ship in these waters—I'd try to lure her as close as I could."

  McKinnon wants it both ways, Jordan thought. The mate agreed that they had a duty to investigate the derelict at the same time that he cast doubt on that very course of action. A captain, without the luxury of second thoughts, had to act with alacrity and decision.

  As they slowly closed on the drifting ship, Jordan went aloft but could discover no sign of life on the other vessel. Her sails hung in tatters, and the ship rolled as though rudderless. He did make out a flag at the peak, as shredded as the sails, the colors an unmistakable red, white and blue. She could be the Yankee, And yet . . .

  Jordan tried to recall the lines of the Yankee. He'd seen her only once in the fog, and, he admitted, at the time he'd looked far more closely at the golden-haired girl than at the ship. He shook his head, not being able to say for certain whether this was the Yankee or not.

  "Call all hands, Mr. McKinnon," Jordan ordered when he returned to the quarterdeck.They reduced sail, and soon the Kerry Dancer was lying to a half-league from the drifting three-master.

  "Get the long boat ready for launching," Jordan told the mate. "We've three hours of daylight left."

  The sea rolled under them in unbroken swells as it had all day. The Kerry Dancer, no longer underway, bobbed up and down, forcing Jordan to steady his spyglass with his hand as he inspected the hull and then the decks of the other ship. No, it wasn't the Yankee, he decided, this ship was broader in the beam. He raised the glass to the forward rigging, suddenly frowning as a premonition of impending disaster swept over him.

  "Belay that order, Mr. McKinnon," he called.

  "Aye aye, sir."

  "Prepare to make sail." Men scrambled up into the Dancer's rigging.

  "What do you see, sir?" McKinnon asked.

  Jordan handed the glass to the mate. "I don't like the looks of it," he said. "I don't like the looks of it at all. There appear to be snug-furled sails beneath the tattered ones. Her foremast's shattered right enough but a new mast's been jury-rigged behind it. That ship's no more a derelict than the Dancer is."

  "My God, look." McKinnon pointed.

  Men swarmed onto the deck and into the rigging of the other ship. Wooden covers masking gun ports were lifted away, and ten twelve-pounders rolled out into firing position. The Stars and Stripes were lowered and another banner raised.

  "The new flag's green and gold," McKinnon reported, "with a star inside a crescent moon. I never laid eyes on her likes before."

  A puff of smoke rose from the other ship's forward cannon and a ball shrieked across the Dancer's bow. Jordan saw a man station himself amidships with a speaking trumpet raised to his mouth, while above him sails blossomed and the three-master began to tack toward the Dancer.

  Jordan heard a faint though clear voice. "Surrender or we'll blow you out of the water."

  "They could do it, sir," McKinnon said.

  Jordan nodded. The Kerry Dancer, relying on her speed, carried only one small cannon and barely enough handguns to arm half the crew. Judging from the horde of men on the deck of the other ship, the Dancer was outnumbered five to one and completely outgunned. Putting up a fight would only lead to disaster. Jordan clenched his fists in futile desperation. They were trapped. He had led his ship and crew into the hands of the pirates.

  Another puff of smoke came from the other ship. The cannonball whistled overhead, closer this time, and Jordan saw it splash into the ocean a cable's length beyond his bow.

  "Order the men down," he told McKinnon. "We'll offer no resistance. It's too late to outrun them and we can't outfight them. See that the senorita is well hidden in the hold." As an afterthought he said, "Bring my pistol from the cabin."

  The other ship, her captain seeing that the Kerry Dancer intended to remain lying to, approached to within three cable lengths and launched a longboat.

  Twenty men clambered from the boat over the Dancer's side and ranged themselves on the quarterdeck behind a short, red-faced man who stood facing Jordan with his hands on his hips. The boarding party was well armed, Jordan saw, with pistols, knives thrust in belts and sheathed swords. Four of the boarders were naked except for loincloths, and Jordan guessed they were Kanakas from the Sandwich Islands.

  “Allow me to introduce myself, the leader said in English to Jordan. "I'm Thomas Burns, quartermaster of the frigate Argentina."

  "How dare you fire on us in time of peace?" Jordan demanded.

  "We're not at peace, we're at war. We represent the Republic of Buenos Aires, fighting for our freedom from the Spanish overlords."

  "Ours isn't a Spanish ship, as you can clearly see. We're American registered, out of Portsmouth. I'm Captain Quinn of the Kerry Dancer."

  "Any ship trading with Californios is an enemy of freedom--you should realize that, Captain. Admiral Bouchard means to drive the dons back to Spain where they belong. Failing that, he means to destroy them one and all. California must be a free country, not a vassal."

  When Jordan started to protest, Burns turned his back on him and motioned three me
n to the hatch leading below decks. The men disappeared from view.

  "If any of your crew is foolhardy enough to fight," Burns told Jordan, "they'll be killed forthwith."

  "There will be no resistance," Jordan said curtly.

  Burns nodded and walked away, pausing to examine the halyards, the masts and the wheel. He climbed the foremast to the yardarm, looking at the newly tarred shrouds and running his fingers over the furled sails. By the time he returned to the deck, one of his men had come up from below.

  "She carries a full cargo of woolens, yard goods and tools," he reported. "And a consignment of bourbon. No gold or specie that I could find."

  Burns grunted and turned to Jordan. "You captain a taut ship," he told him.

  A second rebel sailor, a redheaded giant of a man with a harelip, appeared at the hatch. "I found me a prize," he announced, his words blurred by his affliction. Climbing down out of sight, he reappeared with Margarita slung over his back. Although she flailed at him with her fists, he carried her easily across the deck, shrugging her from his shoulder in front of Burns. She staggered backward and fell to the deck.

  "Jordan!" she cried.

  Jordan sprang forward. One of the Argentina's men waved him back with his pistol while Burns reached out and pulled the gun from Jordan's belt and tossed it to a man behind him.

  "We'll take the captain and the mate to the Argentina,” he said.

  "And the senorita," the red-haired man added.

  "And the senorita. Lock the rest of their men below."

  Leaving a skeleton crew aboard the Kerry Dancer, the boarding party rowed its three prisoners to the rebel ship. When Jordan climbed onto the main deck, he found the ship aswarm with a ragtag assortment of men who crowded around staring at their captives.

  Jordan held Margarita close. "You'll be all right," he assured her. "I won't let anything happen to you." He wished he were as confident as he sounded.

  "These men terrify me." He felt her body shiver against his. "They're like vultures circling wounded animals."