Alana (28 page)

Levering himself up, he looked into the window and froze. He saw Ledoque strike Alana in the face, and he watched as her body tumbled onto the bed. His rage turned cold when Ledoque twisted her onto her stomach and grasped her hair. When Ledoque yanked her head back and put himself between her legs, Chaco’s anger broke all his control. He opened the window slowly, not once allowing the wood to make any noise. As Alana screamed in defiance, Chaco pulled himself into the bedroom. Freeing the knife from his teeth, Chaco reversed the blade and threw it at Ledoque’s back.

As Ledoque rolled off of her, Alana bolted from the bed. When she stood and saw Chaco, her eyes widened and her breath escaped in a loud sigh. She looked at Ledoque’s body, and knew immediately that he was dead. Realizing she was naked, Alana wrapped the bedspread around herself. “Thank you,” she whispered, tears suddenly spilling from her eyes. She would find out the rest later.

Chaco’s hands moved quickly:
We must go
.

Alana shook away the fog that was part of her mind. “I need my clothes.” Alana looked at the door. “This way.”

Chaco pulled his knife free from Ledoque’s back. He stepped in front of Alana and went to the door. Opening it, he peered cautiously into the hallway. When he saw it was clear, he motioned to Alana.

In the hallway, Alana took the lead, bringing them to the third-floor bedroom where she had left her clothing. Chaco stood guard while Alana dressed. When she was finished, she touched Chaco’s arm.

Once again, Chaco was the first into the hallway. Silently he led Alana down to the main floor, pausing by each doorway to listen before going on.

When they reached the front door, Alana opened it while Chaco stood with his back to her, watching in case one of the staff appeared from the back of the house. A half minute later, they were out the door and into the street.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Alana looked at Chaco. “We don’t have much time,” she said. As they walked quickly toward the hotel, Alana told Chaco everything she had learned.

Alana closed the last trunk and went to the writing desk in her hotel room. She had succeeded in blanking out most of the shame she’d suffered at Ledoque’s hands, and she now concentrated solely on her first objective: to save the crew of the Harmony.

She wrote a note to Captain Sanders, ordering him to wait at the dock until she arrived. She stressed the urgency of her request, stating that there was a dire emergency. Then she sent Chaco to the dock with the note.

While he was on the errand, she went into Rafe’s rooms and collected his belongings. When she found the golden chain with her mother’s band on it, emotion welled up strongly in her. Pushing those emotions aside for now, she took the band and put it on her right hand. Then she returned to the desk and started to write again.

Dipping the pen into the inkwell, Alana first wrote Nathan Bennet, detailing Rafe’s abduction and telling him that she would be leaving on the Harmony in an effort to save Rafe. She put Mike Murphy’s confession in the envelope so the lawyer would have it for safekeeping.

The second letter was to Crystal. In the minutest detail, she wrote Crystal of everything that had happened to her and of her discovery of Ledoque’s plans. She wrote that she would accompany the Harmony and deliver the cargo. Once she arrived in Cape Town, she would not leave until she had found Rafe and freed him from whatever hell Ledoque and James Allison had sent him to. Having never explained to Crystal who her true love in fact was, Alana supplied some of the pertinent details about Rafe, and about the miracle of her finding him again. She finished the letter by telling Crystal that she was leaving all business matters in her hands.

As she sealed and addressed the envelope, Chaco came into the sitting room. Looking up at him, she spoke. “Captain Sanders will wait for me?”

Yes,
Chaco signed.

“Good. I will arrange for my trunks and for a carriage to take me to the dock. Chaco,” she said, pausing for a moment, “I will never be able to thank you for tonight.”

Chaco shook his head emphatically. Then his hands moved slowly so that Alana could read every word they spoke.
It was my fault you were taken. You were hurt because of me.

“No, Chaco,” Alana said as she stood and went to him. She grasped his hands between hers and looked directly into his eyes. “There was nothing you could have done to prevent them from taking me. They would have killed you. But I am here now because of you. That is what is important. And we will never discuss this again!” Alana stated.

Chaco held Alana’s steady gaze for a moment before slowly nodding his head.

“Good,” Alana said with a warm smile. “Chaco, when we go to the docks, I will arrange passage for you back to Charleston. You must see that Crystal gets this letter. It will tell her everything that’s happened.”

Chaco shook his head adamantly. Then his fingers flew in speech.

“Too fast,” Alana said.

Chaco signed again, slowly.
Crystal say I must stay with you. Chaco stay!

“You must go back to her.”

No!

“Please, Chaco. I am going far away.”

Chaco’s face was expressionless, but Alana thought she saw a flash of amusement in his ebony eyes. His hands spoke again.
You will need me there. It is far away for you. It is home for me.

“Home?” she whispered.

Chaco nodded his head.
I will help you find him. I promise this.
When Chaco finished signing those last words, he tapped his hand over his heart to emphasize he meant Rafe.

Unable to argue with him, she signed,
Thank you.

An hour and a half later, with the hotel clerk having promised to see the two letters posted, Alana’s trunks were loaded into the same cabin on the Harmony she had used on the voyage to New York. Alana herself went to see Captain Sanders to explain the imminent danger.

After she’d told Captain Sanders of Ledoque’s scheme, he’d called the first and second mates to him and ordered them to be prepared for the possibility of piracy and to have the cannons manned as soon as the Harmony left the harbor. Then he told the mates to check each of the new crewmen and find out who worked for Ledoque. After that, he’d given Alana his assurance that somehow they would reach their destination.

When the sun broke on the horizon, Alana went to stand at the bow of the Harmony, and soon New York Harbor was falling quickly behind.

She looked back at the city for one last time as it came to life under the dawn’s light. When she turned away, she saw that three sailors had already uncovered one of the Harmony's four cannons and were bringing out the stock of powder and shells.

“Perhaps we can outrun them,” she whispered hopefully.

South Africa

Cape Town, The Transvaal

1867-69

Rafe
opened his eyes. A solitary beam of sunlight filtered down to where he lay on the earthen floor, trying to breathe the sweltering, humid air. His mouth was dry, his lips cracked, and his tongue swollen. He was weak, but he was also thankful that he was no longer in the hold of the ship.

Rafe blinked several times and forced his muscles into action. Sitting up, he looked around the darkened cavern of his new prison and wondered exactly where in the world he was.

Throughout the long ocean journey, he’d been below, allowed on deck exactly twice, but his brief respites outside had only made it harder to tolerate his fetid prison in the hold. No man on the ship spoke to him, and whatever he’d been able to overhear had given him no insight regarding his destination.

He’d had no food or water for the first three days of the trip. When his captors finally showed themselves, it had been behind several guns. Resistance was hopeless. Weakened and outnumbered, he’d been unable to fight the men who had put manacles on his wrists and ankles.

Then they’d fed him and given him water. No one spoke to him, and he spoke to no one. After that he was fed two small meals a day and given water once a day–just enough nourishment to keep him alive.

Although he’d realized they were trying to break his spirit, he had not given up. Instead, he’d pictured Alana's beautiful face near his and felt her hands on him, her lips kissing his.

He was living like an animal; only rarely was the hold cleaned out. By the time they had arrived in whatever port it was, Rafe was only half-conscious and barely able to move his arms and legs or open his eyes to see where he was.

But he’d been awake enough to smell the strange scents permeating the air. They took him from the hold on the second night and carried to this place–a warehouse, he was sure. He didn’t know how long he’d drifted between awareness and blackness, but when he opened his eyes again, he’d found himself staring up at one thin line of light.

As he had on the journey, he fueled his strength and resolve by thinking of Alana. Again, he recalled the look that had been on her face when they had been attacked.

Rafe had seen, in those few moments before the man had knocked him out again, her look of abject terror. He had also seen the same man who had sneered so openly at him in the Wellington Club.

It had taken him awhile, but during the six long and lonely weeks in the ship’s hold, he had come to the only conclusion possible: the man was Charles Ledoque, the same one who had tried to own Alana once before.

But Rafe never, in all the days of his capture, allowed himself to think of what might have happened to Alana. He made himself believe she’d escaped the madman’s clutches, for to believe anything else would be to lose faith in himself.

There was a noise behind him, but he was too weak to turn. A moment later, footsteps approached his head, and a strangely accented voice spoke.

“Put him with the others. Give him food and water first. He won’t survive the trip otherwise. Remember, he is to live!”

“Yes, sir, I’ll take care of it,” said another voice, this one pure cockney. Both men left, but ten minutes later, the cockney returned and knelt at Rafe’s side.

“You heard the boss. Listen ta me, mate. I’m going ta give ya some food an’ water. Then I’m going ta load ya in the wagon. It’s a long trip, mate, so try ta get yourself ready.”

Rafe didn’t argue. He drank all the water and ate all the food.

Some strength returning, but when he tried to stand, he found his legs would not yet support him.

“Gave ya a rough time, didn’t they?” the man asked as he helped Rafe up and half-carried him to the door. When the door opened, Rafe closed his eyes against the brilliance of the sun.

“Where am I?” he asked in a croaking voice. The man leaned him against the side of the building while he closed the door.

“It ain’t where ya are mate but where yer going. The Transvaal–ya be going ta work the mines.”

Rafe’s hand grasped the man’s arm. “Where am I? What country?”

The man shook his head sadly. “Cape Town, mate. Cape Town, South Africa.” Then the man started to bring him to a wagon.

Rafe used the few seconds of rest to will strength into his weakened limbs. He knew that, weak though he was, this might be his only chance for escape. When the man reached out to help him again, Rafe forced himself into action.

Lurching sideways, Rafe pretended to stumble. He moved quickly, bringing his manacled arms up to strike the cockney guard. A sudden, unexpected pain burst ill the back of his head, and blackness took him before he hit the ground.

“Perhaps next time you’ll listen when you’re told that a man is dangerous.”

The cockney guard nodded his head silently to the man who had originally given him his orders. Then, with the man’s help, he carried Rafe into the wagon, secured his manacles to the long bar on the wagon’s side, and closed the gate.

While the cockney guard climbed into the driver’s seat and started the horses, the other four prisoners in the wagon looked at the unconscious man in sympathy.

Two hours later, Rafe groaned and tried to sit up. A wave of dizziness washed over him. Then he felt hands helping him. When he opened his eyes, he saw a man sitting next to him.

“You okay?” the man asked.

Rafe looked around in an effort to get his bearings. It was dusk, and there was just enough light to see the somewhat barren land they were crossing. The earth seemed to have a purplish hue, and there were great parched cracks wherever he looked.

The man who had helped him was about Rafe’s own size and had a beard. Across from them, chained to the side of the wagon three black men watched silently.

“I think so,” Rafe replied as he tried to organize his senses. “Where are we?”

“Two hours out of Cape Town, on the way to the Transvaal,” the man answered.

Rafe moistened his lips as he readied another question; at the same time, he realized the man was an American like himself. “Why?”

The man shook his head. “I guess that blow you got back there addled your brain. No one could be that dumb!” Getting no response from Rafe, he continued, “This is a prison wagon. We’re being sent to the mines to work out our sentences.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Rafe whispered.

“I’m not either,” the man said sarcastically, shaking his chains. “But if you’re on this wagon, friend, that’s just what you are, no matter what you think. I tried to smuggle diamonds out of the mine I worked for.” The bearded man paused, his eyes suddenly far away. “But I didn’t think I’d end up dying for them stones. What are you in for?”

Rafe looked into the other’s eyes and exhaled slowly. “Stupidity.”

~~~~~

Hearing an unusual commotion in the outer office, Edward Parkins left his desk and went to the door. When he opened it slightly to look out, he realized this simple motion was either the gravest mistake of his life or the most fortuitous action he’d ever taken. As he watched the scene before him, he fell in love.

Looking out into the office, he watched a beautiful woman with a deeply tanned face and sparkling, jewel-like blue eyes that, like pale sapphires, blazed angrily at the clerk. Her voice grew louder and more deliberate.

The wealthiest and most powerful man in Cape Town stood transfixed by the sight of the woman. She wore a simple traveling dress that rose to the base of her throat; in no way did it hide the absolute perfection of her body. As she argued with the clerk, he became entranced with her lyrical accent, recognizing it as both American and deeply southern

Sensing that things had gone far enough, he stepped into the large, open office. When he did, several heads swung around. The clerks sitting at their desks watched him with smirks on their faces and pity in their eyes for the hapless woman.

“What seems to be the problem?” Parkins asked in a commanding voice. The woman and the clerk turned to look at him. From the corner of his eye, he saw a tall thin black man stiffen when he approached the woman.

“M-Mr. Par-Parkins,” the clerk stammered. “Th-this woman insists that her sh-ship has a cargo to be delivered to us.”

Edward Parkins looked at the woman, his eyebrows raised slightly. “And you are?” he asked.

“Alana Landow,” she replied tersely. “And you?” she challenged.

Edward Parkins bowed his head to her in a polite gesture. “I am Edward Parkins, the owner of this company.”

“I see. Then I have a manifest for you,” she stated.

“There must be some mistake,” he told her. He saw anger flash on her face. “However, if you would come into my office, I will try to get to the bottom of the problem.”

“There is no mistake, and no problem!” Alana stated, b ut let him usher her into his office. Before she entered, she turned to nod at the black man who had started following them. Chaco entered with them and went to the sidewall, where he continued to watch.

After closing the office door, Parkins led Alana to a chair and returned to his desk. “Miss Landow,” he began.

“Mrs. Landow,” Alana corrected, studying him for the first time since he’d appeared in the outer office. He was a distinguished looking man in his mid-forties, with a pleasant yet strong face, salt-and-pepper hair, and gentle brown eyes. He had, Alana sensed, an air of honesty about him. Yet she would not allow any of her senses to interfere with her goals.

“Mrs. Landow,” he repeated, aware that she was appraising him closely, “would you please enlighten me about this–difficulty?”

“My ship is attempting to deliver a consignment of mining equipment for which my company, Landow Shipping, was contracted,” she told him.

“And our shipping is done through Marquette,” he replied.

“So I’ve been informed,” Alana declared. “For three days my captain and myself have been arguing with your warehouse manager and every clerk that we’ve been sent to.”

Parkins shook his head slowly. “I still don’t understand.”

Alana took a deep breath, stood, and put several sheets of what appeared to be a signed agreement on the man’s desk. When she stepped back, she did not return to her seat; rather, she paced the floor.

Before Parkins could look at the papers, Alana stopped in the middle of the floor to rivet him with a gaze that combined pure hatred with unrestrained fury. Edward Parkins had never seen that look in a woman’s eyes before.

“My attorney will be notified of everything that has happened. I intend to bring charges against Marquette and the Maklin-Parkins company for fraud and piracy unless the terms of our contract with both your company and Marquette are honored to the letter!”

“Madame,” Parkins said, his tone stiff and formal, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and unless you enlighten me, I shall have no choice but to consider you beautiful but somewhat insane.”

Alana stiffened. She thrust her shoulders back; her eyes blazed. “Perhaps I am somewhat insane. Why else would I have crossed thousands of miles of ocean, involved in a running battle most of the way against another ship that was trying to pirate mine? My ship lost five men during the battles, and another seven were wounded–all to deliver your equipment.” Parkins stared at her, astonishment plainly written on his face. He held the papers Alana had put on the desk, but he was not looking at them; his eyes were for Alana only.

She pointed one slim finger at the papers. “Those are the manifests and our contract with the shipping agent, Jonathan Martin, in New York. If you will look them over, you will see that they are in order.”

Ten minutes later, with Alana still pacing the floor, Edward Parkins looked up from his reading. “Everything is in order. But I still don’t understand. Our agreement with Marquette is exclusive. This is a violation of that agreement.”

“That is not all that has been violated,” Alana said bitterly.

Again, Parkins shook his head. “Please, Mrs. Landow, I am sorrier than you could imagine for your troubles, but I know nothing of what has happened. My company has an exclusive contract with the Marquette Company for all American shipments. However, your allegations disturb me greatly, and the validity of these contracts cannot be denied.”

“Then you will accept delivery and make payment?”

“Absolutely. But I also want to know why this has happened. I want to know everything!”

“The story isn’t short,” Alana said in a voice softer than she’d yet used that day.

“In that case, Mrs. Landow, please join me for dinner so that you can tell me your story. Seven thirty?”

Alana gazed at him, wondering whether she should accept his offer. She was by no means certain that he wasn’t involved with Ledoque or the consortium.

“Please, I would consider it an honor.”

A sudden, intuitive feeling told Alana she could trust him. For a change, she gave in to that feeling. “Seven-thirty,” she agreed.

Alana arrived at precisely seven thirty. When she stepped down from the carriage Edward Parkins had sent to her, she stared up at the stone facade of his huge home. It reminded her, in many ways, of Riverbend. The house’s lines were simple yet elegant, and she felt comforted looking at it.

When she and Chaco reached the top step, the door opened and a butler, momentarily astonished by Chaco, ushered them in. He brought Alana to a well-appointed salon and informed her that Mr. Parkins would be with her directly. Chaco took up a position by the door, and the butler had no choice but to leave him alone.