Archer, Jane (4 page)

After they were down the coast and the sun had risen on the first day, Alexandra had felt the need of fresh air so she left her cabin. Once on deck, she quickly realized what it was like to be a woman alone on a schooner with only a doubtful captain and his motley crew for companions. The sailors were dirty, rugged, and considered the trip more of a vacation than work. That in itself made her uneasy, but soon the captain left the running of the schooner to his men and came to Alexandra's side. She had easily read the leer and obvious passion on the man's weather-hardened face, and the intentions of his hands when he had placed them around her waist was all too clear. She had pushed him away, then fled below. And she had spent the rest of that day and the next two in her cabin with her door locked and her trunk against it. Food and water were left outside her door at certain hours, always accompanied by the sniggling laughter of the cook's mate.

Although the schooner had continued on its course down the coast since that first day, the sailors had paid less and less attention to their job and more and more attention to their drinking, joking, and continuous remarks about the passenger hiding in her cabin.

And as Alexandra sat there now, the noisy party above deck, which had kept her awake as the night had progressed into morning, continued. The sailors had gotten worse as the trip lengthened until now she didn't know how they even kept the schooner on course, reeling drunk as they must be. Also, she had gradually become more and more worried about the weather for she could hear the loud crack of thunder and her cabin grew lighter fitfully as lightning brightened the sky. Perhaps they should dock somewhere if a storm was brewing, but she dared not go on deck to check with the captain.

Suddenly, the noise above stopped. Alexandra soon heard the stumbling yet determined steps of the crew making their way to her cabin. She clutched her cape more closely around her, a poor excuse for protection, she well knew.

There was nowhere to go, no place to escape. Voices began to call to Alexandra from outside her cabin door, making loud, obscene remarks. They beat upon the door, rattling it as they tried to get in. She recognized Captain Sully's voice as it rose above the others in command.

"Open the door, my beauty. We're lonely men who wish the pleasure of your company on a cold, lonely night," he said, his voice slurred.

Alexandra shrunk further back into her berth, realizing that her worst fears were upon her. She could only regret that the captain and his men were not drunker—so drunk that they would be unable to move. Instead, they had had just enough to feel capable of anything and were determined to satisfy their lusts.

"Go away, Captain Sully. You and your men are interrupting my sleep. Go away," she called out to them in as strong and assured a voice as she could muster.

Drunken laughter was their reply. Then the strong shoulders of the sailors began striking the thin door which separated them from their quarry.

They were not long in breaking down the door. The whole group came falling into the cabin as they tripped over the trunk. Alexandra looked down at the jumbled, smelly heap and shook her head as if to clear away her nightmare. But when she looked again, it was to see the men picking themselves up in triumph.

Captain Sully disentangled himself, then took the few steps that brought him close to her bunk. Leering down at her, his legs wide apart, he said, "You're right where I want you, beauty. Now, all we need to do is rid you of those unnecessary clothes."

"You must be mad, Captain Sully. You forget that I am a paid passenger on your schooner and
you
should be at its helm," Alexandra said coldly, trying to make him remember his station.

He threw back his head and laughed heartily, his sailors joining him. "I could make this run in my sleep. I did it often enough—when there was better profit to be made. Right, boys?" he asked. They agreed with him vigorously.

"And I have an idea that you just might be a little hot contraband, too, my pretty, classy lady," he said, leering at her as he moved still closer.

"You're drunk and have no idea of what you're speaking," Alexandra said quickly, realizing that this man must be talking about blockade running during the Civil War. Some of the most daring and ruthless of men on both sides had been involved in that lucrative business, she had heard, until the blockade had grown too tight toward the end of the war.

"Sure I'm drunk—we're all drunk, but not that drunk, beauty, not too drunk to take advantage of what God gives me," he said, laughing wickedly as his cruel eyes ran over her body.

"Frankly, I doubt if God even admits you're one of his flock."

"Makes no matter who claims me—God or the devil. I'll accept whatever comes my way and, my sweet, you're here so—"

There was a loud clap of thunder. He glanced up quickly, frowning.

"Damn it all to hell. I'm sure going to have you now, beauty. If I have to outrun a storm, I'm going to have something to remember while I'm at it."

"Don't touch me, you heathen," she cried desperately as he lunged for her in the bunk, catching her in the folds of her cape, gown, and petticoats as she tried to escape. She felt suffocated by his huge, stifling body, his clawing, searching hands.

"Now I've got you, my pretty. Wait your turns, mates. She's mine first," the captain bellowed as he ripped Alexandra's cape off her, throwing it to the group of men who grabbed it, tearing it apart in their frenzy.

"No! You're all madmen," Alexandra screamed as Captain Sully, his eyes glassy, reached for her. She kicked out at him savagely, striking his most vulnerable area, and as he doubled over, cursing her, she sprang from the bunk.

The other sailors quickly turned on her, and she heard her gown tearing as she pushed, shoved and clawed her way toward the doorway through the seemingly endless sea of groping hands, hands which caught at her and ripped more and more of her clothing away as she struggled stubbornly onward, thanking God for the liquor that made them weak and uncoordinated. At last she leaped over the trunk and through the doorway to freedom. But when she suddenly felt the cool night air caressing her bare skin, she glanced down and realized in horror that she was nearly naked, clad only in her thin chemise. She ran frantically up the stairs onto the open deck, and despite the obvious hopelessness of her dangerous predicament she vowed to herself never to give in voluntarily to the bestial passions of the drunken, sex-crazed men.

Desperately she ran around the deck, stumbling into trunks, over ropes as she tried to find some place to hide or at least something she could use as a weapon. But before she could do either, the captain and his men were on deck searching for her, Captain Sully holding a torch high so that they could better find her.

"There, there she is," one of the sailors bellowed, catching sight of Alexandra. The others turned toward her, catching scent of their quarry, and began stalking her in earnest.

Alexandra shivered with cold and fear as she began backing away from the sailors who slowly pressed closer, sure now of their ultimate victory. She stumbled, and looking down, saw a large oar that someone had misplaced. Hope swelled in her breast as she quickly knelt and picked up the weighty, bulky wooden oar. This, then, would be her weapon and she would clout any man who dared to come near her. She held it out away from herself in defense, but brought it closer to her body when she felt its weight tearing at the muscles in her arms.

But still the men stalked, grouping together now, and she backed away again—into the railing, she could retreat no further. A flash of lightning splashed over the schooner, revealing the sailors' leering faces to her. She glared angrily at them as they formed a semicircle around her, laughing at her desperate attempts to fend them off with the heavy oar. Thunder crashed, drowning out their degrading taunts.

Then, suddenly, one of the sailors rushed her. She struggled with him, pushing with the heavy oar until she lost her balance. She felt herself going over the side, falling down, down toward the cold waters of the Atlantic. Clutching the oar desperately, she hit the water, plunging into its depths, into its dark oblivion.

Chapter 2

The captain of
The Flying J
stood on the bridge of his ship watching the gathering storm with a frown creasing his forehead. He had raced through these waters many a time with the Yankees hot on his tail when he was blockade running during the war, but this was the first time he had raced a storm. He had won the other races, but he did not think victory would be his this time. The storm was gathering so fast that he had little hope of making port in Nassau before it broke.

Hell, he hadn't planned to stop in the Bahamas this last trip at all. There was nothing to say to Caroline that he hadn't said before, although, and a smile spread over his face at the thought, there was still plenty he wouldn't mind doing with her.

But that all belonged to another time—when he was younger, when she was younger, when Nassau had been the hottest port around, and when money had been tossed around like waves on water because the sailors were making at least triple wages.

He frowned again, the smile wiped suddenly from his hard, determined face. A lot of things had been different then, different before the South had gone down in its final agony of defeat. Yet, it had been much more than defeat. It had been the death of a way of life, a way of thinking, and even though he had been able to see the end long before most of the others, he was still shocked when confronted with the ruin and destruction that was now the South. The Bahamas had ridden the high crest of the wave of blockade running, but it had gone down with the South when the war had ended.

He shook his head remembering the yellow fever that had ravaged Nassau and Wilmington that fatal summer of 1864. A fourth of the residents of Wilmington had died and Nassau had not fared much better when the blockade runners had carried the disease back and forth. But Nassau had felt that less because of the influx of money and people than the disasters of 1866 when the money had gone and the people, too. Not only had typhoid ravaged the islands in that year, killing almost half of what was left of the population, but a hurricane had hit New Providence island, destroying many of the new buildings that had gone up during the war, as well as more of the people.

Nassau had suffered, of course, and there had been no recovery in the islands. No, 1867 had seen no new recovery from the depression that had hit the Bahamas, and the captain of
The Flying J
was not anxious to make port there. He had seen enough ghosts in the South to last him forever.

There would have been no need to stop in the islands if the storm hadn't been brewing for he had planned to make it to New Orleans with all haste. There was no dallying around once his mind was made up, and he had decided to sell
The Flying J
to the highest bidder in New Orleans. He could get the best price there, and he would need all the money he could get once he returned to Texas.

Thoughts of Texas brought fire to his blood as he remembered the wide open spaces where a man could breathe free and easy, and make what he wanted out of his life. He had chosen it a long time ago over the South, even though he appreciated the quiet beauty that it once had been, but a man couldn't live in the South now—not anymore. A man could only starve there on his half-forgotten dreams. Texas was the place, a place where a man could build an empire, make a fortune, and make his own laws. He loved the sea, but Texas was like the ocean—vast, endless, ever-changing, ever-challenging. Yes, Texas was where he would put down his roots, deep in its rich soil.

"What the hell?" he swore under his breath as his thoughts were pulled abruptly back to the present.

There was something ahead in the ocean, but he couldn't be sure just what it was. Straining his eyes, he began to make out a shape.

"Cap'n? Cap'n Jake? Is—is it a mermaid?" The rough voice of the old sailor sounded hollow as it pierced the heavy, silver-gray dawn, followed by lightning and a loud clap of thunder.

The busy sailors stopped their activity. There was a moment of absolute silence broken only by the creaking of
The Flying J
as the sailors gazed down at the eerie, beautiful sight in the water.

Against the dark opaqueness of the ocean, the shimmering white body framed by long, golden red hair seemed scarcely real to the journey-tired sailors who stood gaping at the apparition which grew steadily closer.

The spell was broken suddenly as the old sailor asked hesitantly, "Is—is she dead?"

"We'll see."

The brusk reply was followed by several quick orders from the captain which sent two men over the side and slowed the ship to near stop.

Silence once more hung heavily over the deck of
The Flying J
and the men looked up uneasily at the sky then back down at the dark water with the unnatural being floating atop its depths. The approaching storm which held the sun at bay was bad enough, but this being from the sea lying in the path of their ship brought all their superstitions rapidly to their minds.

The two sailors swam swiftly toward the form. When they got close to the body, they approached her cautiously, treading water by her side. They saw that she had draped herself over a heavy, wooden oar. That could easily keep a tiny thing like her afloat they knew, but how had she come to be in the ocean all alone and with only the oar to keep death at bay? They had never seen one so lovely, or so close to death.

One sailor gently pulled her from the oar, making sure her head stayed free of the water, and began swimming toward the ship. The other grinned wryly to himself and brought the oar, thinking that he never had any luck. But then perhaps his luck would be that he had never touched the girl for surely she now belonged to the water spirits, and would they let such a prize be taken from them so easily? He looked up at the leaden sky, wondering if their time had come at last. Would the ocean take them all to regain its prize?