Pirate's Wraith, The (27 page)

She heard him fall, but she could not see him in the darkness. She leaned over the edge of the ledge. “Are you okay?”

“Jump.” He whispered back.

Her blood pooled in her feet. Could she trust him to catch her? She tossed her makeshift crutch to him first. She didn’t hear it crash so she assumed he caught it, but she weighed far more than a piece of wood.

She sat on the edge, took a deep breath, and wondered if there was another way to do this. A bat flew out of the cave, slid past her head, and touched her hair.

She jumped. He caught her as if she weighed no more than a bale of hay.

“Good.” He whispered and gave her a brief kiss. He stood her on her feet and she swayed. She could not tell if the touch of his lips on hers made her drunk with desire or if she had become dizzy from her fast descent. He handed her the crutch, hoisted her on his back, and set off.

She had no idea where they were or where they were headed and she wondered how he could tell. The jungle lay pitch black in the night. He moved like a beast stalking its prey. She felt the pounding of his heart and her own. Their breathing sounded harsh in the gloom. The situation could have been sexually stimulating but the constant screaming of animals in the dense tropical underbrush set her nerves on edge. If they did not run into some hungry beast, they could stumble upon their enemies. They had only knives for defense but the Spaniards had guns. It would not be a fair fight.

It would be slaughter.

At last, she heard the gurgling of a stream. Soon they were both gulping down gallons of cold water and she didn’t care about the number of malignant microorganisms in the water. It tasted better than any glass of champagne she had ever sampled.

From there, they wandered to the area where the wild plums grew and gorged themselves on the fruit. She did not know what time it was, though it had to be rather late. However, she remained wide-awake and keyed-up listening to every sound.

“Most of the Spaniards will be asleep, but there will be some on watch,” he whispered. “I will kill the guards and take one of their boats.”

“Can’t we just hide and wait for them to leave the island?”

“I will not wait.”

“Killing is murder.”

“There is no choice.”

“Yes, there is. You can knock them out. Hit them on the head or in the solar plexus.”

“Where is that?”

“A bit above the gut. Here.” She pointed to the center of her upper abdomen. “You knock them out. I’ll tie them up.”

“We have no rope.”

“Hmmm. I suppose duct tape hasn’t been invented yet.” Living so close to the end of the Dark Ages caused an inordinate amount of problems.

“There will be rope in the boats,” he grumbled. “I can cut it with my knife, but it would be easier to cut their throats.”

She nearly gagged. “That is horrible. You sound like a vicious, cold-blooded killer.”

“They will kill us if they get the chance.”

“Maybe they would be willing to negotiate.”

“They are Spaniards.”

“I can speak a little Spanish.”

“You cannot speak the King
’s English.”

“
I speak American English, which is just as good.”

“
That will not help us.”

She ran her hand along his thigh and nearly swooned with delight at his hard muscles. “We could tear up your britches and use the strips of cloth for rope.”

“No.” He growled.

She laughed.

“If I don’t hit them hard enough, they will wake up and shout.” He complained.

“I’ll gag them with your scarf and mine.”

“We will need our scarves for the journey.”

“Okay. We can use their scarves, once you knock them out. Although, it would be a whole lot easier to wait until they leave and then build another raft.”

“They have food. We will take that along with the boat.”

“What if they come after us?”

“If we are quiet, they will not notice anything amiss until dawn. By then, with a good wind, we could be miles from here.”

“You don’t know where we are now. How will you know which way to steer out in the ocean?”

“This time of year, the westerlies should carry us toward New Providence.”

“I’d rather go back to New Jersey.”

“Impractical.”

“Figures.” Why did she have to wind up with a pirate? If going back in time was inevitable, why couldn’t she have landed on a farm?
Though she didn’t think there could ever be a farmer quite as magnificent as Harlan.

“They are camped on the beach south of the wreck. They drag whatever they can salvage from the wreck to the camp and then ferry it to the ship.”

“Are you sure about this? You did get clobbered by some rocks. That may have affected your judgment.”

She heard his deep, exasperated sigh.

“It may be bibble-babble to you, but the fact of the matter is that you could have a brain injury.” She reached up to pat his head. “Your brain could have been shaken.”

He took her hand in his and the wonder of his touch set her whole body swirling with that special hum.

“If my brain has been shaken, it is your fault.”

She could see the gleam of his teeth despite the murky darkness all about. He smiled and her heart danced.
Dammit.

* * * *

Harlan recognized the biggest risk factor in his plan was Lesley. Stealing a boat and getting himself off the island presented some difficulties, but including her put his plan in jeopardy. Worse, he agreed not to kill the sentries.

Women had such annoying sensibilities.

He would not have any difficulty rendering the men unconscious, but any noise—no matter how slight—increased the danger.

He must succeed for he knew what the Spaniards would do to Lesley. He had seen the death, ruin and destruction left in the aftermath of a Spanish raid.

The camp lay in a small bay edged by a rock-covered spit of land. He and Lesley hid behind the rocks, while he assessed the situation. The most significant danger came from the ship at anchor in the bay where men would be on watch and if they spied the boat leaving the shore, a chase would ensue. However, as long as the sky remained dark, he and Lesley had an important advantage.

“T
hirty feet from here there are two dark shapes at the water’s edge. Those are two boats. We will take the one nearest this spot.”

“Okay.”

“We will go around to the back of the camp and hide behind the barrels over there.” He pointed to the spot. “The sentries will change positions and meet in the middle of the camp. That will be the best time for us to move to the boats.”

“Okay.”

“We must not talk. There are men sleeping in the tents.”

“Right.” 

“Follow me.” He turned to go. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. The steady vibration that always accompanied her touch never failed to alarm him, for it could not be natural. It must be due to a curse or a spell woven upon  him.

“What if something goes wrong?” Her voice sounded high and tight with emotion.   

Despite his misgivings, he found his heart responding to her fear. “You take the boat and leave without me.”

“I won’t leave you.” Her defiance showed in the set of her chin and her narrowed eyes.

“The Spaniards will rape you.”

“I will kick them in the balls.”

If the situation were not so desperate, he would have drawn her against him and allayed all her fears with a kiss, but they had no time to lose.

“Okay.” His use of her word brought a tremulous smile to her lips. Her perfect teeth glowed in the
moonlight.

A few minutes later, they crouched behind some of the salvaged barrels and listened to the snores of the men sleeping in the two tents. He believed there were four of them. Some would relieve the men on duty. Those two sentries stood at opposite ends of the camp. When the bell rang on the ship
out in the water to mark the hours, they switched positions, meeting in the middle and sharing a joke before marching onward to their posts.

He must knock them out separately when they were alone at their respective posts, but he decided to wait until they traded positions.

His hands became slick with his sweat as time moved slowly along. His mind kept drifting as he crouched in the dark. He must succeed. He could not fail. He had spent a year on an island the last time with his former captain. He never wanted to do that again.

But all of the pleasures Lesley had to offer intruded on his thoughts. He wanted to sample each one, slowly. 

One of the men in the tent stopped snoring. He grumbled about something and then all was quiet. Harlan hoped the man did not have to waken to relieve himself.

After some minutes more, the regular sound of snoring continued, but by then sweat drenched every inch of Harlan’s clothing.

At last, the ship’s bell rang and the two sentries began their march. They met in the middle, chatted for several minutes, laughed and shared a drink. While they amused themselves, he, with Lesley on his back, slid from hiding behind the barrels and scurried to a spot behind the boat closest to the sentry’s post. 

The sentry hummed a tune as he reached the end of his march. When he turned, Harlan slid up behind him and knocked him over the head with a solid piece of wood. The man keeled over.

Harlan propped him up against the boat so that he would appear to be sleeping. Lesley quickly gagged him with his own scarf and proceeded to tie his hands and feet together with rope she had found in the boat. Harlan cut a length of it to use on the other sentry. He sliced up the sails and pulled out the pieces that held the rudder in place. Taking the rudder, he placed it in the boat he and Lesley would steal.

They hurried around the back of the camp, along the edge of the jungle, to the spot where the other sentry sat nodding on a large crate. He did not succumb as easily as the first sentry, but a punch to the solar plexus—
as Lesley recommended—soon rendered him insensible.

Harlan glanced up and the cold chill of alarm went through him. The edge of dawn appeared on the horizon. He decided to run straight through the camp to get to the boat, for they had not a moment to spare.

Before they finished the mad dash to the boat, a familiar voice cried out.

“Captain Sterford
! Save me!”

Chapter
Seventeen

Lesley saw Jibby tied to a small cannon. She slipped off Harlan’s back intending to hobble as fast as she could to the boy.

Harlan reached out to grab her, but she dodged his hand.

“No,” she whispered. “He comes, too.”

“Go to the boat.” The glare he gave her could have sliced through sheet metal, but she stood her ground until he capitulated. “I will get him.”

She swung her crude crutch under her arm and hurried to the boat while Harlan went for the boy. She had to wade to the boat since the tide had rolled in and it stood anchored in three feet of water. With difficulty, she scrambled into it. When she looked up, she saw Harlan running toward the boat carrying Jibby. However, she also saw two men step out of one of the tents.

She went to the sails and hoisted them, another great lesson she had learned at camp. The two sails went up and filled with the steady wind the morning’s light had brought with it.

The men on the shore shouted, woke their sleeping compatriots, and reached for their weapons

Harlan waded into the water and handed Jibby to her. She wanted to cry when she saw what had happened to him. He had been beaten. His stomach had bruises everywhere.

“It hurts here.” He lay his hand over his left side.

She touched the area gently to locate the source of the pain but he moaned in agony and fainted in her arms.

“His spleen.” She swallowed hard past the tight ache in her throat as she recalled the fact that with spleen injuries the muscles in the abdomen would be rigid—and his appeared that way. If she was right, there would be no hope for him. A surgeon could repair it, but in 1711 surgeons were nothing but butchers. 

Harlan jumped into the boat and sliced the line for the anchor with his knife as the men ran toward them firing their weapons. Out in the bay, the ship’s bell rang the alarm.

“Stay down,” he ordered as he crawled toward the stern with the musket balls flying past. Grabbing the rudder, he guided the vessel around the rock-covered spit of land encompassing the bay.

Meanwhile, the men in the camp jumped into the other boat and prepared to follow them. The squealing winches on the ship at anchor indicated that another boat was being lowered to give chase.

The wind blew from the island out to sea and Harlan’s sailing skill sped the boat along at a crazy angle. The men in the boat Harlan disabled rowed furiously but made little headway. However, the boat lowered from the ship had the advantage of the same wind, and briskly sped toward them.

Lesley hoped Harlan’s nautical knack would best them, though she worried about the boat capsizing since it did not have a stabilizing keel. Nevertheless, Harlan obviously knew the boat’s capabilities and he pushed it to the limit.