Bride of the Baja (4 page)

He looked back at Alitha as though confused. "Norah?" he asked.

"I'm Alitha," she said.

"Alitha? Of course, Alitha, how quietly she sleeps. She's the most beautiful child in all of New England."

Nehemiah Bradford looked seaward again. Releasing the wheel, he took a step toward the rail as Alitha hurried forward to support him. He took another step and another, at last clutching the rail with both hands and staring across the water to the west. "She's there in that outrigger," he said. "Do you see her?" He half-turned to Alitha and, because of the spray wetting his face, it was a moment before she realized he was crying. He grasped her upper arm, hurting her. Though she flinched she refused to cry out.

"Do you see her?" her father demanded.

"I see her," she told him, not understanding what he meant.

The captain stumbled along the rail as though to get closer to the outrigger only he could see.

"Just as she was when first we met," he said. "Her hair so golden, her skin so fair, a broad-brimmed hat on her head tied beneath her chin with a red ribbon. So lovely. So lovely. I knew she'd come. Look, she's smiling up at me, she's holding her arms out for me."

Her father straightened to his full height, smoothing his jacket with one hand, his other hand going to his cap. He lifted the cap from his head and swept it across his chest, bending forward as though in a bow. He groaned, lurched back from the rail and fell to the deck. Alitha threw herself beside him, turning him from his side onto his back and burying her face in his chest, sobbing.

"Norah," he whispered. His hand found his daughter's hand and he interlaced his fingers with hers. "Norah," he said. "Do you forgive me?"

He was dying, she could no longer deny it. He would never sail the seas again with a fresh wind at his back and a good ship under his feet. She would never see him smile again, never hear his voice, never feel the comfort of his nearness.

"I forgive you," she told him, speaking for her mother.

"I forgive you," she repeated, speaking this time for herself.

"Then I’m--" he began. He gagged, mumbled words she could not hear. ". . . peace," he said clearly and then lay still.

How long she clung to him Alitha never knew. Her numbness was not broken until the mate lifted her away. Her hand was still laced with her father's, and Malloy had to loosen the fingers one by one. The mate knelt beside the captain.

"He's dead," he told her.

"Yes," was all she could say.

"Go below now, Alitha."

She drew in her breath, quelling her sobs. "Who are you to tell me what to do?" she demanded.

"I'm the master now," he said.

She stood straight and looked him in the eye. "You're mistaken, Mr. Malloy. You are not the master of the
Flying Yankee
."

"If I'm not master, who is?"

"I am, Mr. Malloy.”

CHAPTER
THREE

Amos Malloy stared at Alitha, not knowing what to say. He felt the tic begin at the corner of his mouth.

"The
Flying Yankee
belonged to father," Alitha said. "Now that he's--" Her voice broke but she went on. "Now that he's dead, the ship is mine."

"What do you know of sailing a square-rigger? Even if the crew was fit you'd likely run us aground on one of those God-forsaken isles off the California coast."

"Perhaps I'm not making myself clear, Mr. Malloy. You're quite correct. What do I know of navigation other than the little my father taught me on the voyage around the Horn? I'm not intending to pilot the
Yankee
. I just don't want you to have any question as to who her master is."

"And who shall captain the ship?"

"Why you, Mr. Malloy, of course." She sounded surprised by his question. "You will, won't you?"

He smiled at the doubt he heard in her voice. Damn her, he thought. Damn women, damn them one and all. A female master! Women had no place on board a ship. He'd said it before and he'd say it again. They brought nothing but trouble in their wake. Once a woman was aboard, bad luck followed. They were Jonahs. From the moment Nehemiah Bradford had escorted his daughter up the gangplank in Boston, the Yankee was a cursed ship.

"You will captain the
Yankee
, won't you?" Alitha asked again when Malloy remained silent.

"And why should I?" he said at last. "This ship is hoodooed, half the crew's dead or dying. Who'll be next? Me? You? There's naught to be gained from captaining a ghost ship."

"The cholera is the will of God, not a curse," she said. Alitha reached out to put her hand on his arm, stopped, then touched him briefly on the sleeve before drawing her hand quickly away. "You've been my father's first mate all these years," she said. "He trusted you, he taught you all he knew. Now you're the man who must captain the
Yankee.
You're the only man who can captain her. The entire crew's depending on you, Mr. Malloy. And I'm depending on you."

"I'll bring the
Yankee
into Yerbe Buena," he said stiffly, trying to hide the glow her words made him feel. "I only wanted it clear that I'm captain of this ship and my orders are to be obeyed. By the crew and by you. Is that understood, Alitha?"

She frowned at his familiar use of her name. "Perfectly, Mr. Malloy," she said. The ice in her voice made his anger flare. He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and looked down into her face. She started to twist away, then appeared to decide to suffer his touch. When he saw the dark shadows under her eyes, Malloy's anger softened.

"You should rest," he told her, dropping his hand to his side. "You've been up most of the night with the men."

She nodded, pulling out her handkerchief, then glanced across the deck to her father's body.

"I'll see the captain's buried as soon as possible," Malloy said, following her gaze. Seeing the tears start in her eyes, he felt a rush of sympathy. She had suffered a great tragedy, losing her mother and father in the span of a year, and now she was alone, with no one to turn to. He wanted to help her, take care of her, tell her he understood her sorrow. He, Amos Malloy, would protect her. When he started to put his arm about her comfortingly, Alitha glanced up sharply and stepped away with a glint of fear in her eyes.

"I—" Malloy began, wanting to soothe her fears, to show his sympathy. Why didn't he know what to say? Why wouldn't the right words come? He stepped toward her.

"I'm sure you have a great deal to do," she said. Before he could answer, she turned from him, walking to the companionway and going below.

Damn her to hell, he thought. She thinks she's too good for me because I never had book learning, because I had to fight my way up from the gutter. Old Nehemiah Bradford spoiled her and now she thinks she's better than the rest of us mortals. She needs to be humbled, that one.

The ship rolled drunkenly in the trough of a wave, forcing Malloy to steady the wheel. Signaling the helmsman to return to his post, he strode to the rail above the quarterdeck. "Bosun," he called, seeing Jonathan Linton making for the galley. He had to hail the man a second, then a third time before Linton heard him above the pounding of the sea and came aft.

"The captain's dead of the cholera," Malloy told him, nodding to the body huddled on the deck.

"May God rest his soul," the bosun said. "And may God have mercy on us all."

"See he's made ready for a Christian burial. English George as well."

"Aye ..." Linton hesitated for an instant before he added, "Captain."

Captain! After all these years, after all his back-breaking toil for a pittance of a wage, the taking of orders, the constant "Aye aye, sir," the groveling before men who knew less of the sea than he, at last he had a ship of his own. A plague ship.

"I've studied the charts," Malloy told the bosun. "Our latitude's 33 degrees 45 minutes north, so we're north of San Diego in Alta California. As for our longitude ..." He paused for a fraction of a second, then wondered if Linton had noticed. Malloy had never been good with figures--angles and interpolations confused him. He was both slow and impatient yet wise enough to recognize this as a dangerous combination of traits.

"By my dead reckoning," he went on hastily, "I judge we're some four hundred miles off the coast."

Linton's eyebrows went up ever so slightly. "I'd 'spect we'd be closer than that," he said, his fingers massaging his grizzled chin. "There's been gulls following us for the last day or so, and this morning I saw a cloud to starboard. A cloud that didn't move with the wind, like fog sitting offshore."

Malloy nodded. He respected Linton's judgment, knowing the bosun had been to sea for more years than he, Malloy, had lived. Linton was probably one of those seamen who, when they reached the age of, say, fifty-four, accidentally signed on their next ship as forty-five and started anew from there.

"Keep a lookout at the fore topmast," Malloy ordered, "as long as the weather allows."

"Anything else, sir?"

"No, bosun. See to the burials. See to them now."

After he spoke Malloy realized that he had imitated Captain Bradford's way of giving commands and, catching the amused curl of the bosun's mouth, knew he'd been caught out. As Linton went forward to organize a burial crew, Malloy silently cursed himself.

Within an hour the two bodies had been committed to the deep and, as though appeased by this human sacrifice, the storm held off. The seas ran high, yet the wind, though still strong, diminished, and the clouds to the south held their distance as the Yankee fled north.

Only after the sun had set behind sullen clouds did Malloy finally go below. He was tired, satisfied with his first day as captain, yet still uneasy. The bosun's warning of the possible nearness of land had nagged him into going to the chart room and laboriously recalculating the ship's position. When he had finished, he nodded to himself. They were a good three hundred miles from shore, approaching the coast at an angle that would keep them out of sight of land for at least two more days. Pushing down the last of his doubts, Malloy sat heavily on the edge of his bunk and looked around his small cabin.

Damn! He was captain. He didn't have to stay in this hovel. He strode along the passageway and pushed open the paneled door to the captain's cabin. Once inside he paused, half-expecting Captain Bradford to appear and order him out. Then he sat in front of the desk clamped to the bulkhead, putting his feet on Captain Bradford's sea chest and nodding in satisfaction. This was more like it! This was a cabin befitting a man responsible for a three-master.

Spying a whiskey bottle on its side in the bunk, he pulled out the cork and poured himself a full measure. The whiskey burned his throat. In a few minutes his spirits lifted. He'd worked hard, he told himself, he deserved a drop of good cheer. He refilled the glass, sipping the liquor this time. Closing his eyes, he smiled. Wait until he sailed into San Francisco Bay to exchange the Yankee's woolen goods, linen, lead shot, tools and guns for a cargo of fur and hides. Wait till he returned to Boston with a ship of his own and a generous profit from the voyage besides.

Opening his eyes, he watched the light from the lamp glinting on the empty glass. One more measure to hurry sleep wouldn't be amiss, he decided.

He'd have to hold off the Boston women with both hands. And Alitha. That bitch'd be singing a different tune by then. Why, she acted as if she was afraid he'd touch her. He looked down at his hands. They were a man's hands. He splayed his fingers in front of him. A sailor's hands. Suddenly he folded his arms across his chest, his hands hidden beneath his biceps.

Alitha. By God, she was a beauty. A beautiful bitch who thought she was too good for him.

He remembered the night she had turned down his proposal of marriage, how he'd smiled and nodded, shaking hands ever so politely with her father as he bid the captain goodnight. Remembered how he'd stormed into town thinking to lose himself in drink. After a few rounds he'd spent his last dollar for an hour with one of the girls in the house on Dock Hill Road. One of the girls? Malloy snorted. Like hell she was a girl! That one hadn't been a girl for a good twenty years or more. He'd had to take the leavings, a man-worn harridan with orange-red hair and sagging tits. He grimaced with distaste.

How different it would be with Alitha. He took a swallow of the whiskey, thinking of Alitha's soft hair cascading over her shoulders, her blue eyes that made him catch his breath whenever she looked at him, the whiteness of her skin above the scooped neckline of her dress, her breasts high, full and firm and her body slim as a girl's yet as rounded as any woman's.

He had often imagined her taking his hand, the fingers of her other hand going to her lips to silence his questions as she led him into her cabin on the Yankee and bolted the door behind them. She turned to him, tall and proud, unbuttoning her dress and stepping out of it, pulling her undergarments over her head and hastily slipping into the bunk and clutching the covers to her neck, leaving only her slim white arms exposed. She reached for him, whispering, "Come to me, Amos. Hurry."