Bride of the Night (5 page)

A second later, their cannon fire boomed.

Tara stared out at the enemy ship, relieved to see a small burst of fire explode near her aft section.

“Direct hit, first volley!” she said.

Richard had his spyglass on the ship.

“She's lamed, she isn't dead,” he said flatly.

As he spoke, another volley exploded from the enemy ship.

“Hold on!” Richard roared to her, bracing himself.

The water exploded to their front aft side. A miss, though the
Peace
rocked precariously.

Tara held tight to the mast, weighing the possible consequences of the battle. It might be time for them to abandon ship, and use Richard's knowledge of the islands and the water to survive. “Where are we?” she asked him quickly.

“Near the mainland,” he told her. “Just a few islands southwest of the mainland. And it's time for you to go. Head northeast—”

“I will not leave you. You're—well, you've a safety net in me, if we're together. We'll head northeast. By ship, or by foot. They will flounder in the channel—they're floundering now! I'm not leaving you, so please don't waste your time trying to get me to do so.”

He stared at her with exasperation. But even as he did so, he bellowed to his men below.

“Fire!”

 

T
HE
U
NION SHIP WAS ROCKING
like a cradle in the water, ablaze in the aft section, and Tremblay was shouting orders to his men.

Finn balanced easily enough, watching as men hurried about, stumbling here and there, and turning a slight shade of green at the pitch and heave of the ship.

Tremblay was a seasoned captain. He held his sea legs steady, moving with the motion of the ship, a pitch and roll he probably knew far too well.

“Gunners!” he shouted out, his voice calm and powerful. “Stay your posts! Seamen, douse that fire! See if we're taking on water!”

Tremblay swore beneath his breath. “She hit us! The lucky Reb actually hit us…?.
Keep us steady men!
We'll come apart on the reef! Gunners, fire! Take to the cannons, boy, and give her a long volley, one after the other, all ablaze!”

Finn turned to him. “Captain, we don't want all aboard killed.”

“We'll man the boats, and bring them in. We must
stop her—before she stops us.” He stared at Finn. “We may be floundering already. If she scrapes coral now…”

“Demand her surrender,” Finn urged.

“Her surrender? We've been hit!” Tremblay said.

“Aye, but she is listing worse. Demand her surrender,” Finn insisted. “She can't know that we're taking on water just as badly.”

“Hold fire!” Tremblay called.

His order came just as someone fired a gun prematurely.

 

T
HE NIGHT WAS SPLIT
again with a great boom of sound, and the earth itself seemed to tremble.

That time, the thunder in the air was followed by a shuddering explosion; they'd been hit again, and hard. The repercussion swept Tara off her feet. She fell and discovered that she was lying under Richard. She quickly eased from beneath and rose above him, touching his face. “Richard, Richard…”

He opened his eyes slowly, and then blinked rapidly. “We've been hit…we've been hit a death blow…?. Take the helm and try to steady her until we can abandon ship. I've got to get below…to the others…?.”

“Richard, it's burning. It's—it's too late!”

“Have to…have to get down there… My men…”

He staggered to his feet; she feared he wouldn't make it to the deck below, but there would be no stopping him. The night that had been so pleasantly dark and quiet was now ominous in its silence between small bursts of fire
that ignited about the ship. Black smoke was heavy on the air.

“Richard, please,” she said softly.

He grabbed her by the shoulders; his eyes seemed almost blank. He was shell-shocked, she knew, but she couldn't stop him.

“I have to see,” he said thickly. “You know I have to see…?. Someone could be…injured.”

No. She wished that it was true, but no one could have survived that explosion.

He thrust himself from her, heading for the steps below.

Tara staggered back and grabbed the wildly jerking wheel, using all her strength to steady the ship, trying to keep her limping forward. But another volley followed, and another. It was all she could do, just to hold tight.

Richard burst out from the deck below, his face covered in soot, his features twisted in a grim mask.

He grabbed her by the shoulders, jerking her around to face him. “They're dead…the men are dead, and we're taking on water. Get out of here, now!”

Past Richard, she could see that the enemy steamer was moving in on them.

They stared at each other—Richard angry and impotent to get her away, Tara determined that she'd never leave him, not at any cost.

Then thunder burst through the sky again, so loud that it was painful, and when the ship shuddered, it was as if they'd been hit by the hand of God.

Perhaps they had been….

Tara landed hard, stunned and breathless. For a moment, even she was completely disoriented, seeing only darkness. Then color and light returned to her world. She grasped a trunk and pulled herself to her feet. Looking around desperately for Richard, she saw that he was hanging over the portside of the ship.

A wave crested over the ship. Water washed around her friend.

And when the water was gone, Richard was gone.

With a scream, Tara rushed to the rail, and saw his body being swallowed by the darkness of the ocean.

She pitched herself over the rail to follow him.

 

“J
ESUS
, M
ARY AND
J
OSEPH
!” Tremblay raged. “Who's responsible? The last volley wasn't on order!”

Finn could have echoed his furious sentiments, but it would do no good. A gunner ran up to them, soot-faced and frantic.

“Captain! There was a spark that flew from the match…it caught the wick. We didn't fire to destroy her!”

“Destroyed or not, I
need
the men aboard that ship,” Finn said.

Another filthy man ran up to the captain. “Sir, we're taking on water—heavily. We're working the pumps, bailing…?. She's on a reef, sir. Cut by the coral as well as their return fire!”

“Lower the longboats!”
Tremblay ordered in a booming voice.

As the men hurried to do as told, Finn stared out at the Rebel runner.

“We're sinking, Agent Dunne!” Tremblay told him.

“I am aware, sir.”

He stood his ground, staring at the enemy ship. The masts were shattered; she was listing badly to the landward side. Fire had broken out in her aft; he'd seen the explosion that had hit her there. The way that flames were leaping and burning, he assumed they'd hit her powder supply.

Whatever cargo she carried would soon be lost.

Anyone caught in the aft was dead; they had, at the least, died swiftly. The portside of the ship and her fore still stood in the night, though the fire would soon consume them, as well.

He quickly reckoned the distance from the dying ship to the shore; a strong swimmer could make it. Theoretically, others—if not killed by the blast—might well still be aboard, dead or dying, or unconscious.

Finn didn't want to wait for the tenders; he stripped off his jacket and headed for the rail.

“Agent Dunne!” Tremblay called. “Sir! The boats will be speedy—”

“Not speedy enough.”

Finn dove from the ship's deck, hitting the water hard and pitching downward. The water was cold, a hard slap of ice against his flesh as he landed and thrust through its density. In the night, not even his eyesight was much against the depths, but he had little interest
in what was around him. When his legs scraped coral, it only confirmed that their ship would have floundered had it come out this far. The Rebel captain they chased knew his landscape, and knew it well.

Finn swam hard, picking up greater speed with every length he cleared from the Union boat. He could see the Rebel ship burning and listing, and he swam harder; it was war, of course. A Union ship destroying a blockade runner and all aboard was a regrettable fact of war.

To Finn, it meant a dead end. If all aboard had perished, he might never know if he had found Gator, if this threat to Lincoln still remained; if failed, he might not be able to return to the president's side.

There were shouts audible in the air. The Union men had lowered the longboats, and crews were coming in his wake.

He reached the burning ship. It listed so badly to the side, he could climb straight aboard. The remnants of her shell would remain where it was in the days to come, her skeleton caught on the reef.

Despite the heavy smoke on the air, he could smell the sickly sweet scent of burning flesh, and he prayed that those caught in the inferno had been baked before the fire even reached them. Crawling aboard, dripping with seawater, he lifted his arm against the rise of the flame to protect his face. He quickly ascertained that there was no getting belowdeck; anyone caught there was gone.

But a hurried search topside against the rip of the
flames in the night revealed no bodies consumed by fire or otherwise. And if anyone had survived, they had not gone for their longboats—they had done as he had, diving into the night.

Someone was out there. Even if the ship's crew had been small, there had been someone topside. Someone running the operation.

Gator?

In just another second, Finn realized that the heat of the fire had already nearly dried his sea-soaked clothing.

He could feel his flesh beginning to sear.

He dove back into the water, and began to swim again, aware that the water felt even more frigid against the heat of his body. The difference between the fire heat aboard the ship and the winter water was extreme; he knew that he had to keep moving, and move fast. The fire illuminated the night, and he looked toward the shore. He could just see a tangle of mangroves, and beyond that, the small spit of a beach.

The island was some distance. And though it might be far warmer than any sea farther north, the icy hand of winter had stretched even down here. Could an injured man have possibly survived?

Yes.

Possibly.

Whatever it took, he had to know.

Finn couldn't help his thoughts from spinning, even as he kept his arms and legs moving in swift, even
strokes through the water. He was sick at the thought of the men caught by the cannons as the ship exploded. He was angry that he had come so far, and that he might never know if they had or hadn't killed Gator.

No.

Someone had to have been topside. And that person had survived.

Someone was out there, alive and well, or dying, in the midst of the mangrove isle, and he was going to find them.

T
ARA'S DESPERATE DIVES
beneath the surface had paid off—she'd found Richard and quickly brought him to the surface.

But he wasn't conscious, and with the frigid water washing around her, salt waves rocking hard against them minute after minute, it was difficult to even ascertain at first if he was alive. Mindless of the water, she squeezed his torso to force water from him…and he coughed, and he breathed.

And he lived.

“Tara…?.” he gasped.

“I've got you, Richard, I've got you,” she assured him.

“Too far from shore. I can't make it. Go…for the love of God, go.”

“Ease back. I've got you.”

“Tara, you can get—” Richard's words were cut off as a wave washed over them. He coughed violently again. “Get away!”

“Shut up! Quit talking. Keep your mouth closed and lie back. Damn you, Richard, I can swim with you. Stop fighting me or I'll knock you out and drag you, so don't
make it harder for me,” she warned him with a note of steel in her voice.

Water washed over him again. He sputtered it out, and she took advantage of his weakness to force him flat and slip her left arm around his chest in a hold that would allow him to keep his head above the surface while she fought the waves with her right arm and legs. She had a reserve of strength that was deep, fortunately, as the sea itself seemed to be against them that night.

As she kicked harder, she was dimly aware of some form of shadow that seemed to linger over Richard's boat.

Death?

She gave herself a mental shake; she couldn't think that way. She had to use her entire concentration to get her friend to the shore. She didn't even dare look back at the Yankee ship. Richard had been thrown severely about his wounded ship, and if she didn't get him to land, nothing else about the night would really matter.

An explosion suddenly burst through the night and Tara realized that a powder keg had exploded.

The resulting mass of waves wrenched Richard from her arms. Skyrocketing flames illuminated the water, and she couldn't see Richard anymore.

Even with her exceptional sight and strength, it seemed like an eternity in agony, diving and searching, diving and searching.

While the blazing fire on the ship illuminated the surface of the water, creating an almost beautiful array
of golden splendor on the now-gentling waves, beneath the glowing sheen the water remained stygian in the night. She could barely see, and while she knew about where Richard had gone in, she couldn't pinpoint the precise location, and she might not have found him at all had he not bobbed to the surface.

Facedown.

“Richard!” she shouted, swimming to him, turning him over in the water. His eyes were closed; his form was limp.

“Richard!” she cried again, and then squeezed his torso with gentle pressure, fighting the waves around them. To her relief, he coughed and choked, and water spewed from his mouth. A wave lapped around them, covering his face, and he coughed again, trying to fight the water that seemed so ready to claim him.

“Easy, easy, just float, I've got you!” Tara assured him.

“The ship…the men,” Richard said, and choked as icy salt water moved over his mouth again.

“Shhh… Stop talking.” She wondered if he'd been struck in the head…?. But he was breathing; he was alive and breathing and she was going to make sure nothing changed that.

“The men…” he repeated.

“Stop. We've been through this.” She was terribly afraid that her friend didn't want to live, that guilt over his men would infect his thoughts and keep him from
assisting her rescue attempt. “Richard! Shut up! The war has taken many lives—I won't let it take yours.”

Richard wasn't a small man, and the water felt bitterly cold, and it wasn't easy managing the weight and length of his lean and muscled body—especially when he wasn't cooperating.

“Fire,” he said, as if he hadn't heard her, glazed eyes reflecting the burst of fire in the sky.

She was tempted to knock him out again. He was the dearest friend she'd ever had, or would have, and she would not lose him.

“Quiet!” she whispered softly. She hooked her arm around his body, trying to get him to relax and let her use the power of her right arm and legs against the water. “Lay back, Richard, and let me take you. Please. Please…” Just when she thought she couldn't wrestle with him for one minute more, he mercifully passed out once again. She felt the fight leave his muscles.

Finally, she was able to begin a hard crawl toward the shore.

The water was deep; the ship had floundered in the channel between isles, where a coral shelf rested just to the Atlantic side. They couldn't be in more than thirty feet of water, and yet, now the length of her body burned with the exertion of her muscles and her lips continued to quiver from the cold.

She had never felt so strained, nor so exhausted, in her life.

Just when she thought that the agony in her arms and
legs would cripple her, she felt ground at the tips of her feet. She realized that she could stand, having reached the gnarled toes of the island. She slipped off the submerged root, dragging Richard with her. Doggedly, she found a foothold again, paused, breathed and waited. She looked back to the Yankee ship, on fire now.

At last, she managed to drag him up on a spit of sand between the gnarled and twisted “legs” of a spiderlike clump of mangroves. She lay there next to him, panting, and feeling as if her muscles burned with the same fire that still illuminated the night sky. She breathed in the acrid and smoky air.

Turning then to Richard, she felt for his pulse—faint, but steady—and warmth jumped in her heart. She allowed herself to fall back for another moment, just breathing and gathering her strength. She was drenched, and her skirts were heavy with water. She felt the winter's nip that lay around her, even here.

She thanked God that they hadn't gone in farther north, where temperatures would have been far more wicked.

She rested, and then, even as she breathed more easily, she bolted up. Looking out over the dying remnants of the
Peace,
she could see that the Union ship floundered, too.

She had grounded herself; she wasn't injured and limping, but she was caught on the reef, and there was no escape for her. The Union boat would have a number
of longboats, easy to send into the inlets, saving the lives of the men aboard.

Richard was alive, she knew that, and she believed in her heart that he would survive. But he wasn't coming around, and they had to leave their present position; they were like sitting ducks at a county fair.

She dragged herself to her feet. Half of the heaviness of the weight she had borne, she realized, had been that of her skirts. She wrenched off the cumbersome petticoat that had nicely provided warmth—before becoming saturated with seawater. Rolling the cotton and lace into a ball, she stuffed it into a gap in the tree roots, shoving up a pile of seaweed and sand to hide the telltale sign that this was where survivors had come ashore.

Something in the water caught her eye, some form of movement. It might have just been a shadow created on the water by the rise and fall of flames that still tore from the desiccating ship. Soon, the
Peace
would be down to charred, skeletal remains, and she would sink to the seabed. At the moment, enough of the hull remained above the surface to allow the flames to continue to lap at the sky, shooting upward with dying sparks now and then.

A shadow on the water… The Unionists would be coming…coming after a blockade runner.

She reached down, dragging Richard's body up. He was far bigger than she was, but she managed to get him over her shoulder. Taking a last glance back at the
flame-riddled night, she started to move through the mangroves that rimmed the edge of the isle.

 

T
HE FIRE ON THE BLOCKADE
runner was just beginning to subside, but Finn could still hear the lick of the flames as they consumed tinder, and the split of wood as it disintegrated in the conflagration. Soon, however, the sea would claim the fire, and the night would be lit by only the stars.

He couldn't wait for the longboats; he surveyed his surroundings from the mangrove roots he stood upon.

This side of the islet—new to time and history, created by the tenacious roots and the silt and debris caught with those roots—was really nothing more than a tangle of gnarled tree, slick ponds and beds of seaweed. But looking toward the east, he could see that there was a spit of sand. He began crawling over the roots, heedless when he stepped knee-deep in a cache of water. Tiny crabs scurried around his intrusion, and he could hear the squish of his boots. When he cleared the heaviest thicket, he paused, leaning on a tree, to empty the water from his boots.

Shortly after he resumed moving through the thinning foliage, he heard a grunting sound. He paused. Alligators roamed the freshwater areas of the upper Keys, and even crocodiles made a home in the brackish waters off the southern coast. But Finn wasn't hearing the odd, piglike grunt of a gator. He was hearing the snuffling grunt made by wild pigs. There was hope that water was to be found on the island, and if pigs were surviv
ing here, then man could, too. Good to know, in case this was a long excursion.

Something along the terrain caught his eye and he paused. The remaining fire that had lit the sky was all but gone, little more than a flicker. He paused, seeing nothing, and retraced his footsteps, wincing as he stepped knee-deep into a pool again. But even with this, his efforts were rewarded. There, deep in a crevice, was something. He reached for it, and was surprised when something big and white and heavily laden with seawater fell into his hands. He frowned, puzzled for a moment, and then smiled grimly.

A petticoat. A woman's petticoat. Soaked and salty, ripped and torn and encrusted with sand and muck.

It hadn't been there long. It hadn't been there long at all.

He looked ahead to the beach, where a survivor might conceivably find a dry spot in the chill night. Where a survivor just might have to risk building a fire, or freeze. There was certainly no snow this far south, but it was a bitter night. They were probably hitting down close to freezing.

He set the petticoat down, studying it, and felt a sweep of tension wash over him. He did his work well, and he knew that he did, and he felt passionately that the future of the country—the decency, the healing—were in the hands of a good man. He had followed through on every threat, perceived or real, and he had lost his suspect only once.

At Gettysburg.

The woman had slipped cleanly through his fingers, and he had never forgotten, and now…

He couldn't help but look at the petticoat, and wonder, as impossible as the odds might be, if he hadn't come upon her again.

Was
she
Gator?

 

T
ARA FOUND A SPOT SHIELDED
by a strip of land where pines had taken root. She looked around carefully before lowering Richard's body to the soft, chill ground, and then paused for a minute to stretch her agonized muscles. She fell into a seated position next to Richard and leaned her head against one of the protecting trees. She was exhausted and, despite her exertion, very cold.

She checked Richard's pulse and breathing again, and assured herself that he was going to make it. But his limbs felt like ice. She forced herself back to her feet. She would gather fallen palm branches to make a blanket for her friend. Now that she had gotten him out of the water, she wished that he would come to—there were others out there in the night, and it was imperative that they stay hidden until she could find a way off the island. Another blockade runner would eventually come by. They would survive; they both knew how to hold out in such an environment. If there were palms on the island, there were coconuts. And she had heard the scurry of wildlife. But they had to get through the night.

And avoid the men from the Union ship that had gone down. They would be seeking shelter, as well.

“Richard?” she whispered, caressing his cheek. He didn't open his eyes; he didn't acknowledge her in any way. She groaned inwardly, checking for his pulse once again.

Still steady.

She wanted to build a fire; she didn't dare. “Richard, I so wish that you would wake up and speak!”

His chest rose and fell as he breathed. But his eyes didn't open. She consoled herself that it was better that he got some rest; the death of his men was a crushing blow to him. It had almost been a fatal blow.

She eased against him, trying to use her body to warm his. The winter breeze seemed to rise with a low moan, as if it wailed for the bloodshed that night.

She listened to the sound of the wind, and the waves, and she watched as the fire left the sky, and cloud cover came over. The night became dark again, as if it had consumed all the events that had taken place, and nature had been the victor.

She knew she needed rest also, but she didn't want to doze. She had to stay awake.

And listen.

 

S
O
G
ATOR JUST MIGHT
be a woman. No matter, he told himself, she had to be dealt with as harshly as a man. He wasn't sure at all why women were considered to be the weaker sex; he'd met many who could make strong men cower. But still…

In the darkness, he did his best to follow a trail. It was difficult with the watery sand washing over every footprint. Finally, however, he cleared the mangroves, and found the part of the isle that had surely found birth at the beginning, and had gained substance from the passing sea. There was one beautiful, clear area of beach, residing almost like a haven, visible only in the pale starlight that fell upon it, and, in that starlight, almost magical. As he stood there for a moment, he thought of the great majesty of the sea and the sky. He might have been at the ends of the earth, he was so far removed from Washington, D.C. No troops marched through the streets, no civilians at work and play, and no great buildings rising around him. There were no buildings at all. Just the crisp darkness of the night, the wash of the waves and the soft whimpering of the wind.