Bride of the Baja (2 page)

He leaned over her, his lips still locked to hers. Her mouth opened to say his name and she felt his tongue lightly touch her lips and, as quickly, withdraw. She moved back but he kept kissing her, almost angrily she thought, as though to punish her, his mouth nipping her neck and ear until his lips covered hers again. Her arms circled his neck, drawing him to her, her body arching to his, pressing against a hardness that thrilled and frightened her at the same time. She wanted, she wanted—oh, what did she want?

Thomas rolled away, his lips and hands leaving her. He stood up and in the moonlight she saw him standing a short distance away, with his back to her.

"Thomas," she cried without thinking, "don't go, don't leave me now, you can't."

Through a humming blur of passion she heard his quick breathing, saw him walk away to stare out over the river. Slowly she sat up, then rose to her feet, pushing her hair from her eyes. She went to him, her arms going about his waist as her breasts pressed against his back. He disengaged her arms and stepped away. She seemed to hear his words indistinctly, in snatches, words she didn't want to hear yet, afterward, words she couldn't forget.

"Sins of the flesh," he said. "Wait . . . wrong . . . evil . . . don't tempt me, Leeta, don't tempt me. ."

She ran from him, ran as fast as she could, finally tripping over a root and sprawling on the ground with her hands clutching at the mounds of grass, her fingers clawing the loose earth, hearing, as from a distance, sobs. Only after several minutes did she realize they were her own.

She sensed someone beside her, felt Thomas's hand on her shoulder. He gently smoothed her hair.

"Tell me the truth," she said, looking over her shoulder at his face dark above her. "Is it wrong to feel as I did? Is there something wrong with me? Is there, Thomas?"

He hadn't replied, not then or later. She had answered the question for him, though, a hundred times and more, in the lonely emptiness of her room, later as she slept on the cot in her mother's sick chamber, later still in her cabin on the Yankee during the long voyage around the Horn.

Yes, she told herself, there is something wrong with you. You're weak, Alitha Bradford, your flesh is weak, a prey to temptation. If you don't beware you'll become a handmaiden of the devil.

Yet no matter how many times she told herself this, she never completely believed her own words. There was always a part of her that seemed to stand aside and protest, "No! It's not true!"

"Alitha, are you ready?"

Startled, she swung about to see her father standing at the top of the companionway leading from his cabin. He wore his best shore clothes—his blue trousers, the blue jacket with the gold buttons and gold braid and a black cap set squarely on his head—Nehemiah Bradford could never be accused of being rakish. He had trimmed his beard and shined his boots mirror-black. Alitha wanted to run to him, throw her arms about him, press her face against his chest. She couldn't. Six feet tall, a head higher than his daughter, Nehemiah seemed to her the reincarnation of a Biblical patriarch.

She could never really talk to him. Their conversational voyages, she fancied, took them on a triangular course from the weather to their journey to her mother. Then back to home port, the weather. Could you talk to a Noah, to a Moses? If only there were someone to hear whatever outrageous thoughts, dreams and desires might sail through her head. And understand. Someone—a man, yes, it had to be a man—who would accept her as she was. Not someone who wanted to change her. Change her for her own good, of course.

"I'm ready, father," she said, going to him and brushing a fleck of lint from his jacket collar. "My father is the handsomest man in the entire Southern Hemisphere," she told him.

Nehemiah stared down at her in surprise. "And you, Alitha," he said awkwardly, "must be by far the most beautiful woman."

As he looked at her, she saw his eyes mist and she knew he must be thinking of her mother, seeing her mother in her. Nehemiah reached out and for a moment Alitha thought he meant to take her in his arms. If he did, she thought, she could almost forgive him. His hand held in midair and, after a pause, he crooked his arm. She pulled on her gloves, laid her hand on his sleeve and they crossed the deck to the ladder and the waiting ship's boat.

As they were being rowed to the wharf, Alitha glanced behind her toward the Pacific. The fog had risen, and in the distance she saw the Kerry Dancer under full sail.

"Jordan Quinn," she said half-aloud.

"I beg your pardon," her father said.

"Nothing, father. I'm just daydreaming again."

Jordan Quinn. She repeated the name to herself, liking the sound. I don't know when, Jordan Quinn, she thought, and I don't know where, Jordan Quinn, but one day we'll meet, you and I.

The compass read north by northwest. Captain Quinn nodded with satisfaction.

"Steady as she goes," he ordered the helmsman. Already he could feel the well-remembered surge of the ocean beneath his ship.

"Aye aye, sir," Jack McKinnon said.

"Ah, and wasn't she a beauty, Mr. McKinnon? Have you ever seen her like before?"

"The
Flying Yankee's
been the pride of the Beachum Yards ever since she was launched."

"You know as well as you know port from starboard that I wasn't referring to the ship."

"Might you mean the lass who waved to you from the rail then? The bonny lass with the long golden hair?"

"You know damn well I mean the lass. Did you ever see such a beauty in all your days?"

"A likely looking wench, I'll admit, but not one for me nor for you, either. Myself a happily married man and you about to join our fraternity. In another two months or sooner if this wind holds." He tapped his knuckles on the king-spoke of the wheel.

"A bit of dreaming never harmed a man."

"In another year," McKinnon went on, "if I know the ways of these senoritas, your new bride'll have you living ashore, a Californio like the rest of them, complete with a rancho, herds of cattle and all."

"You're mistaken, Mr. McKinnon. I'll never leave the sea, not for long, certainly not for any woman. My father always said if they sliced into a Quinn's veins they'd find a generous portion of salt water mixed with the blood. When my time comes, I'd like to go as he did, struck down on the deck of a frigate trading cannon shot with a Limey man-o'-war."

"You may have your wish, Captain. These are troubled times."

Jordan smiled. "All times are troubled, Mr. McKinnon, to the men who have to live through them. It's only later we forget the bad and remember the good."

"Aye, there's truth in what you say. You'll have to write that in your journal."

Jordan tensed, ready to lash back at McKinnon
with angry words. Though he knew his journal was no secret, he didn't like having it mentioned. At sea being labeled a literary man was a sign of weakness, even in a captain. Jordan checked himself, though. McKinnon's words had been lightly said--the man meant no harm. Jordan prided himself on running a good ship and knew men were eager to sign aboard the
Kerry Dancer
. He didn't want that to change. He said nothing.

Jordan broke a long silence. "You're right enough about the times," he said. "No sooner is the war with England won than we're on the verge of another with Spain over Florida. Not that the Spaniards don't have enough on their hands with revolutions up and down the length of South America. And in Mexico. The consul in Valparaiso even passed on a report of pirates off Acapulco."

"Pirates? In the Pacific? I thought Lafitte and his crew kept to the Caribbean."

"These buccaneers claim to be patriots fighting for their freedom from Spain. According to Burns, they're led by a renegade Frenchman named Bouchard who's set himself up as an admiral in the navy of the Republic of Buenos Aires, whatever in the name of God that might be."

"Pirates ahead of us and pestilence behind," McKinnon said,

"Pestilence?"

"Last night while I was enjoying a drop of rum, I heard whispers of cholera in the city. The alcalde isn't admitting it, of course, but I was told a hundred or more have died since last February."

"I'd rather face pirates than the plague," Jordan said. "Not that we'll have to face either. We keep a spruce ship and I have a feeling we'll have a good wind and calm seas all the way to Santa Barbara.

"McKinnon nodded. This time the helmsman didn't tap his knuckles on the wood of the wheel—Captain Quinn's hunches had earned his respect.

Jordan's experienced gaze swept up along the rigging and across the sails as he walked to the rail. Putting his foot on a deck cleat, he looked back at the foaming wake of the
Kerry
Dancer
. To the east fishing boats clustered near shore, and in the distance he saw the purple peaks of the Andes. The city of Valparaiso was a receding shimmer of white to the south. He couldn't see the
Yankee
.

"Probably if you got close up," McKinnon said as though he had followed his captain's thoughts, "you'd find your blond lass had the scars of the smallpox."

"Worse, she's undoubtedly a shrew. I could tell by the cut of her that she has a mind of her own. Give me a senorita any day."

As he looked across the sun-glittered sea, in his mind's eye Jordan pictured the girl on the
Yankee.
Tall for a woman, slim but generously fashioned—the wind had shown him that, blowing her gown against her body. Hair the color of a new-minted gold piece. Her eyes, he knew, must be as blue as the Caribbean. Suddenly he had a feeling—a premonition, a hunch, call it what you will. He knew, as surely as he had ever known anything in his life, that he would see her again. And soon.

CHAPTER
TWO

`

Able Seaman Peters was on his knees swabbing down the deck as the
Flying Yankee
, three days out of Valparaiso, sailed north before a strong southwesterly wind. Sam Peters moved sluggishly, stopping often to rest.

"Get the lead out of your ass, sailor!” the bosun shouted.

Sam nodded and doggedly returned to his work. All at once he dropped his brush, staggered to the rail and vomited over the side. He leaned on the rail, retching.

"Peters!" It was the mate. "Haven't got your sea legs yet?"

Sam shook his head. Amos Malloy took the seaman by the shoulders and turned him so he could see his face. Peters looked wretched, shivering and hunched over. The mate frowned.

"How be you?" he asked, not unkindly.

Peters took a gulping breath of air. "My bowels feel like the hand of God's twisting them."

"Best go below," Malloy told him.

Sam turned and began weaving his way toward the forecastle.

"Wait," Malloy ordered. "Not to your bunk—take the one fore of the galley. Best to keep away from the others, whatever it is you have. I'll see you get a good dose of laudanum."

Sam Peters looked fearfully at the mate. "My bowels are loose, too, sir. What do you reckon it might be?"

"You had shore leave in Valparaiso?"

"That I did, sir."

"No doubt something you ate. Don't worry, you'll be good as new by tomorrow's sunrise."

Sam nodded and, one hand clutching his belly, shuffled to the ladder. As soon as he was out of sight, the mate strode aft, hurried down the companionway and knocked on the paneled door at the bottom.

Captain Bradford opened the door and motioned the mate into his cabin.

"It's Seaman Peters, sir," Malloy said. "He's come down with the cholera."

The captain's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure, Mr. Mate?"

Malloy described the symptoms.

"Aye," the captain said heavily. "Nine chances out of ten it's the cholera. I'll see that Alitha gives him laudanum and brandy. After that, he's in God's hands."

"Do you think that's wise, sir?"

"I don't follow your tack, Mr. Malloy." The captain drummed his fingers on the table. "Laudanum and brandy are the best remedies for cholera. Are you questioning my judgment, mister?"

"No, sir. Not at all, sir." Malloy shifted his feet. He couldn't help recalling the ancient law of the sea: The crew reports to the mate, the mate to the captain, and the captain to God. "Not the treatment, sir, I didn't mean that. I was thinking of your sending Miss Alitha to nurse the man. After all, we don't know how cholera is passed along."

"Don't say 'we don't know,' Mr. Malloy. Because you may not know the cause of cholera doesn't mean I don’t. Filth, that's what brings on the disease. Filth, swamplands, miasmas. Dirt. That's where cholera breeds, Mr. Malloy, in filth and dirt."

"Aye aye, sir." Malloy felt the tic start at the corner of his mouth. He tightened his lips to a thin line but he couldn't stop the twitching.

"We'll scrub the ship from stem to stern, Mr. Malloy. We'll hunt down and kill every rat in the hold and we'll kill every other vermin as well. See to it, Mr. Malloy. See to it now."

"Aye aye, sir."