by Andrea Jones
“Hook.” Exhausted as she was, she managed a smile. Free at last, her arms wrapped around his waist. Hook had never been so grateful to feel a simple touch.
With a trusting look, she gazed up into his eyes. “I…” But her gaze slid from his face. She looked beyond his shoulder, and her loving expression changed to apprehension. “Oh.”
Only now did Hook become aware of where they stood. The rapids had ended. The water here, waist deep, slipped agreeably past his boots, holding none of the menace of its earlier course. Trees lined the bank, their branches swaying in a breeze, their woodland host to game. The smell of sunbaked wheat drifted on the wind. Just audible above the burbling of the water, birds chirruped, and crickets crooned. Not far from this point, the river met the sea, full of fish, and opened to a route for trade with other islands. And, he knew, a beach of pebbles lay behind him, and beyond that, a pleasant plateau, fringed by forest. A homey site, and a welcoming one. A perfect place to host a village.
Reading Jill’s eyes, Hook discerned that the Indians were assembling behind him, staring at the strangers in their stream, and laying plans for the capture of intruders. Although he had rescued Jill from the peril of the river, she was not yet out of jeopardy. He must save her, again.
Hook didn’t turn to see the natives. He spoke low, to Jill.
“Swoon.”
Still watching the people on the opposite shore, Jill understood, too. She rolled her head backward and sagged into Hook’s ready arms. He bent down, lowering her to the water as if to revive her.
“You must swim under the surface, as deep and as fast as you can. Get out of sight, and when you have rested, fly.” He paused only to lend emphasis to his final command. “Go directly to Captain Cecco.” She drew a breath, then he immersed her, not in stately ritual this time, but in stark necessity.
Hook held his pose as long as he dared, and he did not turn to watch her. He feigned to cradle her in his elbow and hold her body submerged, until in the corner of his eye he saw her topaz trail fade away.
An arrow dashed the surface of the river, spitting contempt at him. Hook had waited for it; now he snatched up the arrow to hold it like a dagger. He straightened.
Then he turned. With an expression of indifference, he confronted his enemies. At a guess, he saw forty braves nocking forty arrows, and each of them aiming for his heart, to liberate his soul.
But Hook knew better. With the time he had bought her, his soul had escaped, downstream. What fear he had felt fled with her.
Hook faced his fate, alone— and, for once in his career, he was pleased to be solitary.
✽ ✽ ✽
“So it’s you, is it?” The bo’sun studied the lad through his spectacles. “Let me place you now….Cabin boy…on the Unity, was it?”
David knew now that this man called Smee with the fine new shirt and the beard trimmed and tamed was indeed the redheaded sailor he’d seen with the other pirates, attacking his uncle’s ship. Reluctant to cooperate, he barely nodded.
“Where’re your fancy brass-buckled shoes now, boy?”
“You ought to know.”
Before David could blink, the back of Smee’s hand struck him, viciously. The boy reeled backward on the deck. The ache in his cheek began, bone deep, and intensified. His hands were still bound behind him, and he could not clutch his face if he wanted to. But he had no wish to show this ruffian he was hurting.
“I’ll be having none of your cocky lip, boy. You’re lucky the commodore didn’t strike you down dead, after the danger you put the lady in.”
David felt the man’s fury, boiling hotter than his words. Plainly, this Irishman, too, was in love with Red-Handed Jill.
“I’d gut you myself, soon as look at you. So mind your manners. You may be marked by the lady, but you’ll soon learn. She’ll not allow disrespect.”
David was puzzled again. Marked? That Indian had said much the same.
“Now get you down those steps.” With brute force, Smee grabbed David’s shoulders and shoved him toward the Roger’s hatch. David couldn’t see much in the sudden dimness, but Smee’s grip bore into him as they descended, turned, and descended again, startling a crateful of chickens that squawked and fluttered, and eventually ending in a hold smelling of bilgewater and straw. Smee threw David into a cage with flat iron bars, then drew his knife. Alarmed, David recoiled. As he realized his mistake, his face seared with embarrassment, and he turned to present his bonds to his jailer.
The sailor cut him loose. A set of keys jangled as Smee pulled them from his belt. He left the cell and slammed the door. “I’ll be sending you a dry set of britches. And some soap, to scrub that stink off your carcass. When the lady sends for you, you’d better be looking— and smelling— presentable.” The key turned, and the lock snapped irritably.
Even after Smee stamped up the steps, the man’s anger filled the brig. Once David’s two Indian escorts dragged him aboard, the Irishman had stood aside with them to listen to their story, told with accompanying gestures. Smee’s face had turn redder and his eyes blazed with indignation, but David didn’t know if he himself was the cause of it. Now he was certain. And to judge by the way the man issued orders to the crewmen, David guessed Smee was a high-ranking officer. Touching the swelling of his cheekbone, he decided it would be wiser not to rile the man further. And he’d be grateful for a wash.
David’s heart beat faster as he anticipated nearing Jill again. The Lady, they called her. He wondered what use she might make of him. He hoped she had enough able seamen to work the ship; David could read and write, he could cipher a little. Or maybe she needed a cabin boy. The thought of entering her quarters, of waiting on her personally, made the heat travel from his throbbing cheek to his groin. David was infused with the same giddy pleasure he’d felt aboard the Unity, when he held the book for his uncle as he conducted her marriage, when he’d served her wine to toast the union. She had granted David a sip, from her own cup. He’d touched his lips to the rim where her lips had drunk, and the warmth of the spirits had spread all over him. He would gladly serve her again, in any role she required. He owed her his life, his rescue from that evil Island, deliverance from those warriors. But whatever she needed now, David needed her more.
He peeled off his ragged shirt and his filthy breeches, casting them from him, forever, through the bars of his cage. Despite the confinement of his cell, he was liberated. Fresh, clean sea air bathed his body. He filled his lungs with it. He felt as shameless as those sailors he’d watched with the women in the clearing. He spread his arms and circled, spinning south, west, north and east. Then, as honest and naked as the day he was born, David got down on his knees in the sweet-scented straw to fold his hands, as his pious mother had taught him to do, and offer up a prayer for his future. This time, he had no trouble addressing the proper deity.
When the soap arrived, he would scrub his skin pink to be acceptable to Jill…to be touchable. Above anything he’d ever wanted in his whole young life, David wanted his goddess to answer his pagan prayer.
✽ ✽ ✽
Hook stared straight ahead at the Indian forces. A canoe slid from the bank, its birch bark shushing over the pebbles, to glide downstream. Once in mid-river, the warriors within it turned it broadside to the current and held their paddles firm, anchoring their craft and blocking escape in that direction. But Hook never considered swimming; the rapids lay above him, and fleeing downstream would lead the braves to Jill. He’d never reach the far bank before an arrow pierced his back, nor for the same reason might he take to the air. With no alternative, Hook began wading, leisurely, toward the Indian shore.
The canoe paddled closer. The People’s tension swelled as he drew nearer to their homes. A slope behind them leveled into a plateau, where a totem pole loomed, dark with images carved long ago, and singed black in places by Hook’s own order. Also there, in the center of the encampment, a bonfire smoldered low, wafting smoke toward the heavens. Beyond the fire stood many tepees,
their hides painted bright with symbols so vivid they seemed to move like the creatures they represented. A canopy of green leaves spread its roof on either side of the dwelling place, and other trees grew here and there, uninhibited by the village.
In front of Hook, the people on the beach formed ranks. Warriors, still threatening with their arrows, stepped to the fore; women and young ones moved uneasily backward. A gaggle of elders remained between these groups, all save one appearing aged but proud, some with colored blankets wrapped about their shoulders, their only movement from feathers in their hair, twitching in the wind. Facing this tribe, Hook felt like the solitary he was, entering an atmosphere open to Nature in every way, but stifling to a prisoner.
No children counted coup with this captive. Even the littlest knew He of the Eagle’s Claw to be too much of a legend. His scalp was proclaimed by the council to be taboo. Coveted as it might be, it exuded too much power. The elders in their wisdom understood how a trophy of such magnitude might divide the tribe. And now, as the man himself walked among them, the situation called for words, not war.
Still, some celebration seemed in order. The People had trapped a potent foe, and jubilation danced on their faces. The older boys who had not yet earned names ran to stoke up the fire, and the pop of igniting tinder soon mixed with the triumph of their ululations. The children beat their tom-toms, lending rhythm to the ritual.
While Hook approached the encampment, the braves in the canoe pulled their paddles from the water, and the craft turned downriver. Hook’s heart jumped with the drums. Beyond doubt, the natives meant to hunt Jill down. If they caught her, if they killed her, the Indians would at last hold sway over the Island. The celebration just beginning would mount to full pitch, then.
Hook knew his legend alone kept this fearsome people at bay. Now that the Black Chief had taken a mate, to eliminate her, and thus eradicate the Black Chief’s line— his ‘family’— would emasculate his threat. With Jill in their hands, the council could tip the balance of power. Although Hook’s attack on the village had produced no enduring damage, he understood the rancor it caused, and the zeal it engendered in the warriors to prove their mettle. For that very reason it had been a bold move. Hook knew it to be a risk, had known it when he designed that assault to win his way to Jill. Now the supremacy it gained him might destroy them both, for, once giving Hook a reason to wreak vengeance in blood, the tribe must rise up to slay him before he took it. A lethal eagerness seethed in every soul who watched him. He felt it beating in the tom-toms.
As for Jill herself, she had cunning enough to hide from the scouts— if she wasn’t too wearied by her ordeal. For his own sake Hook would have to stall, keep the Indians debating, to allow her time to reach the ship and alert Captain Cecco to his capture. He hoped that if Jill eluded the natives, if they could not exterminate Hook’s clan in a single blow, they would decline to eliminate Hook himself. But, as the light of victory burned in the warriors’ eyes, Hook could not be certain.
Yet displaying no trace of anxiety, Hook took his last stride from the water. His boots crunched on the beach, one step each, and stopped. He looked only at the Old Ones. He held his hook at the ready, the arrow in his left hand raised waist high. Unflinching, he watched the council as the warriors began to dance to the drums, still aiming their weapons.
With every step, their lithe, oiled figures gained momentum. Soon they leapt up high, yelping, twisting, then hunched low to point their arrows at him, creeping forward as if stalking game. They whirled and crouched, and ended each pass with their arrowheads menacing, closer to their prey. Their mouths set in ferocious grins. More drums took up the cadence, throbbing inside the captive’s chest. A harsh kind of rattle joined in, and before long Hook was surrounded by a dozen leering men, a dozen arrow points dancing about him, always circling, always drawing nearer to his vitals. The yells that accompanied these movements rang through the forest, long, loud, and savage enough to wither the stoutest heart. Hook endured it, and hoped Jill was far enough away not to shudder at the sound.
Hook guessed the meaning of this rite. It was a test of his courage, and that of his captors. To the warrior who provoked him to fight, honor would accrue; to the warrior who wounded him, likewise. But if Hook stood firm, if he failed to show fright, the honor would be his— and he would win a better basis for his bargaining. He guessed, also, that because he was a prisoner in their home camp and not at war upon the battlefield, the man who wounded him without provocation would suffer discredit. Adhering to this conviction, Hook continued to gaze straight ahead, his expression haughty, and his eyes upon the elders.
Even for a man of Hook’s experience, the situation proved harrowing. With every war cry, he felt the hair rise up on his scalp. He recognized that the Indians practiced the same tactic he exhorted in his men: before boarding any ship, his pirates hollered as horribly as possible, to intimidate their victims and thus reduce resistance. Only now did Hook fully appreciate the effectiveness of his ploy. Strengthened by the thought, he stood unwavering. And with every brittle moment, Hook understood that Jill might travel farther, and his deliverance move closer. For this reason, he did not begrudge the Indians their harassment. He welcomed it.
Another spine-shattering yelp erupted from behind him, nearly knocking him off balance. The ankle he had wrenched in the riverbed began to ache under his weight. If it gave way beneath him, he might never recapture his dignity. The dancers’ arrow tips flitted a hairsbreadth from his body now. Their breezes brushed by as they nearly scored him. Standing in his damp shirt and breeches, he could not allow himself to shiver, trying instead to summon the sun’s heat. The elders watched, and witnessed as he held steadfast.
At last, when the warriors had proved themselves as bold as their prisoner, the tallest of the elders stepped forward, a sinewy, hawk faced man, younger than the rest but one who carried himself with importance. The white and silver hair of the others blew loose or hung braided; he alone wore a scalp lock of long, dark hair. He was dressed in fringed leggings and moccasins, exquisite with beading. The string of bear claws at his neck spoke as fiercely of his courage as the scars upon his chest. Hook waited and kept silent. The further his enemies prolonged their formalities, the better.
The Indian raised his hand, and the braves ceased their torments. As the dancers stilled, the drums by the fire halted. Rattles hissed as they hit the ground, and the warriors uncocked their bows. Hook found the stillness nearly as ominous as the frenzy, as, no doubt, it was intended to be.
The tall man dropped his arm.
“White Bear speaks for the Council of Elders.”
“Hook speaks for himself,” he retorted. He relaxed his hand on the arrow. All through his ordeal, he had held it poised to strike.
“Come.” White Bear gestured to a patch of sun, several yards from the shore. Clearly, the natives had no desire to bring this pirate into their village. Not taking his eyes from the captive, White Bear sat down, settling cross-legged on the beach. The elders, too, dropped their blankets and seated themselves. A few females assisted them. In the center of the group, the only woman among the council attended the commodore with blue-hazed eyes and blue-veined ears, eyes that, no doubt, resented the ostentation of his victory, ears that surely echoed with the arrogance of his commands. When the elders were still again and the younger women had retreated, the crone nodded to White Bear, and he spoke.
“The People show respect to a noble captive. Courage earns our enemy the right to sit among us.”
Hook, too, held his adversary’s eyes. He disguised his limp, taking his time. He lowered himself to sit opposite White Bear, the river to his right, the council to his left. Higher on the slope, the young ones knelt to listen, their backs to the fire that crackled high with fuel, its smoke now curling thick into the sky. The smart of his ankle faded as he eased his weight off of it. Slowly, he laid the arrow before him, to point in a neutral direction, toward the stream. Water still dripped from his hair, his bear
d, and his clothing. White Bear took notice.
“My tepee holds many blankets. You will accept one?”
Unhurried, his captive spoke without emotion. “I will.”
White Bear looked to the women who had assisted the elders. To one, he shook his head. To her neighbor, he jerked a silent command. Hook paid no attention to the movement within the crowd. He betrayed neither curiosity nor trepidation. Understanding the scrutiny to which he was subjected, he kept his eyes on the warrior before him.
When White Bear turned back to face his captive, he remained silent until Hook’s needs should be tended. Soon Hook heard a light step on the pebbles behind him. He smelled a woodsy scent; he sensed a woman.
White Bear gestured his approval. With her eyes lowered, the woman stole to Hook’s right. Silently, she held out a woven blanket in offering. Hook turned to her, and felt instantly drawn to this woman. He beheld a lovely creature, well proportioned, past the age of marriage but bearing no bracelet. She was slim and handsome with, surprisingly, a head of close-trimmed, raven-black hair. He sensed her discomfort; she disliked calling attention to herself, and she dreaded the copper-skinned brave who commanded her.
Hook raised his arm to accept the blanket, but the metal of his claw shone severe in the sunlight, an obvious hazard to the fabric. The woman gasped at his gesture, stepping backward. Hook permitted himself a half-smile at her distress, then, with evident pleasure, he allowed his eyes to linger over her figure. As always, he sought his enemy’s weakness.
White Bear uttered a command, “Woman, attend the Black Chief of the Eagle’s Claw.”
She obeyed, quickly composing herself and spreading the blanket open. She approached Hook again, and this time she bent to hang it over his shoulders. Glad as he was to block out the chill, Hook did not reach to secure the mantle. He waited for the woman to pull it together for him, her cool hands grazing his chest. When she finished, he turned to look again at her, and, with his fingers, he brushed at one side of his hair.
