Strange Yesterday (12 page)

John Preswick was left alone in the boat, three dead men and a woman at his feet.

One by one, he cast the dead men into the water, remembering too late that he might need them. At the girl, he paused. He turned her over.

Then she opened her eyes. It came to John Preswick that she was alive!

He began to laugh. Laughing, he staggered back; and until he was sick with the exertion of it, he laughed. Turning to the girl, he found that she had slipped back into her faint.

He tore out his tobacco pouch, emptied it of the powder; and with it dipped water from over the side. Pulling his shirt from his back, he ripped it into bands and wiped her face.

The wound was at her temple; just where the hair ended: a long, nasty gash that had clotted itself with blood. But when he had washed it clean with water, he saw that it was not deep, that the bullet had not even bared the skull. Though the skin had been burnt entirely off in the space of the gash, it did not bleed rapidly. The blood oozed softly forth, running down her cheek as quickly as he wiped it away. He was not satisfied until he had washed the wound with painstaking thoroughness, laid against it a dressing of damp cloth, and bound that to her forehead. He separated the long, heavy strands of her hair, removing the blood as best he could. Then he tried to make her comfortable upon the floor-boards of the boat.

With her eyes closed, she lay, her breast rising and falling beneath the damp covering of her dress. Her pulse was a little quick, but strong. As he took it, holding her hand lightly in his, he felt the contact of her body tremble through him, faint but electric. Suddenly he was terribly weary, longing to stretch himself out and lie by her side, his head over against her breast.

He was glad that the air was warm, and that the sea was restful with a gentle swell. He feared her long unconsciousness; he feared that she was fragile, that anything more would blot her out—as he had seen so many other lives blotted out in the past few hours. He had no fear of pursuit; if only to save his own neck, Mr. Cortlandt would keep all information to himself. But for the girl he was afraid. He sat there and watched her breath lift her bosom.

Now it was quite dark and the water lapped against the sides of the boat. It was a very warm, clear night; one by one the stars shot out of oblivion and settled into their places, until from end to end the sky was netted unevenly. Later a yellow moon rose.

He thought that if he sat there with his back against the stern-seat, he could pillow her head in his lap, and so make it easier for her. With some hesitation, he raised her head and laid it gently upon his thigh, the unbound hair spilling over him. It fell across one wrist and enveloped it. Taking a handful, he crunched it in his fingers. It was like silk, like fine heavy masses of silk. He dared to bend until his cheek was against the top of her head.

11

T
HEN
she opened her eyes. Starting, he drew his head away just in time, looking down full into her face. She gazed at him with a puzzled expression, wrinkling her brow, as trying to remember. And as it came back to her, he could trace its progress, for the horror crept in, spreading over her countenance.

Raising her hands, she covered her eyes, but made no move to change her position, apparently unconscious of where she lay. It seemed to him that her mind was open, and that he could follow the thoughts as they crowded in. She shivered and sobbed beneath her hands; they slid off, and again she looked up at him.

As she attempted to move her head and draw away, he laid a hand upon her shoulder. “Please,” he begged, “don't move. You are hurt. Try to rest. I shall not harm you.”

“Oh, let me go! Don't touch me!”

“But you cannot go. We are alone in an open boat.”

Then the realization came to her. Softly she groaned, closing her eyes, and her face contracted as in pain. And John Preswick sat there, helpless as a babe; and for the first time in all his twenty-eight years he suffered for another person. In an open boat, John Preswick sat, the head of the woman he loved in his lap, and for the first time he said openly to himself that he loved her, and that for her he had murdered and killed. There was much in John Preswick's heart that he did not understand, for he was not a man of overgreat perception, nor was he given to extended introspection; but he sensed the meaning of the hot shudder that ran to his fingers, of the tightening about his heart, and because of that he feared to touch her—feared terribly that she would die.

There was even pathos in his saying: “Please—please believe that I will not harm you. You are hurt, and I want to help you.”

“Give me a drink. I am so thirsty.”

But there was nothing to give her—no water. The boat had been lightened for the towing, and there was neither food nor water in it.

“Give me some water—please.”

Her eyes remained closed. In her voice there was no hostility, no recognition; something there was in it of a child. She was pleading—strange, but he could not have imagined her as pleading—even for life itself. Placing a hand upon her brow, he found it was warm, but not with the heat of fever. He dreaded the fever.

“If you will rest for just a little, I will have some water.”

“My head hurts.”

He placed a corner of his handkerchief in his mouth, chewing and sucking upon it until it was wet; then he placed it between her lips. It was all he could do.

He stroked her brow beneath the bandage; when she did not resist, he thought that perhaps she did not know.

“Yes,” he thought to himself, “that is surely it. She does not know, because of her head, and because of the burning in her throat. When she knows, she will hate me as she did in that instant when she opened her eyes and knew me.”

He found himself wondering whether she would open her eyes again.

The moon was out, and the night was almost as clear as day. Just the faintest breeze lulled them through the waves, and as they went, the moon went with them, sending the sparkling trail of its light out to the horizon. It was a full moon, like a round and yellow cheese; there were two moons, one in the water and one in the sky. The moon in the water smiled up at the moon in the sky.

And there was a swell to the sea that lifted the boat up and dropped it down, as though it were in a gigantic cradle. It was such a warm night too!

He thought that now she slept, for her breath was more regular. As he sat, his back was half on the stern-seat and half against the side of the boat. She lay stretched out, a little upon one side, her head pillowed in his lap, her hair spread. She breathed softly, and her breasts rose and fell evenly as the water itself. Her frock was drying, but it still lay smooth against her, outlining her small form. It was a very lovely form.

Yes, he thought, it was quite the loveliest form he had ever laid eyes upon. Slim, childish, with just enough of rounding to it to give it that implication of full maturity. He dared much as he sat there; he dared reach down a hand and lay it upon her bosom, above and between her breasts, half on her dress, half on the warm skin. Slowly and cautiously, he rested the hand, fearful that she might wake. She did not, and there the hand remained, feeling the heart whisper beneath it, feeling the rush of blood. For many hours John Preswick sat in that manner, the hand resting against her flesh; they were such hours as he would not soon forget; for then he was happy. It was the first time in all his life he had ever known the sort of hot, throbbing happiness that completes everything. He wanted no more; but how could he desire more?

Sometimes, stretching his fingers, he would feel the rising roundness of the breast itself; sometimes he would run his other hand lightly against her bare arm; he was very happy.

Her hair spilled over his lap—thick, wavy hair. It was a dark brown color in the night, and it gave off a subtle perfume. It flowed back from the bandage he had placed across her brow. It was such hair—

At last he too slept. His tawny head lay back against the jutting edge of the stern-seat, and he slept.

Morning came, and though the sun rose clear in the east, clouds were piling in the west. Together they came: from the east the sun, from the west the clouds, until the one was hidden behind the other. There was no wind, and nothing to the water but the same unchanging rise and fall. It began to rain, softly at first, and then with a quick flourish. The rain woke the two who slept in the boat.

Opening his eyes, John Preswick started and spread wide his hands. “Rain!” he cried. “For the love of God, it is rain, and we are saved!”. Parting his mouth, he let the water fall into it, and over his face. It is a curious thing to live again, after death has been sure—and life good.

She woke too. She woke with the burning in her throat, and she was content to lie as she was, her lips spread, to catch the quick, pattering drops and feel them roll over her cheeks. The two of them basked in the water, drinking it in almost through their skin. The rain grew stronger; sweeping down, it rattled fiercely over the boat; and it formed into a small pool upon the bottom, covering and washing away the clotted blood.

But it was inevitable that she should realize who he was, and it was inevitable that she should recoil, as she had recoiled the night before. Sitting up, she looked at him through the blurring curtain of rain. She did not say anything now, but she rose, stepped over the seat, and sat again with it between them, still staring at him. He did not move. With his back against the stern-seat, he remained, facing her. The night had dropped away; the night well might have been a dream.

The rain pattered on. Silent, they gazed at each other. Finally he said: “Your bandage is slipping. May I fix it?”

She took off the bandage, after feeling the cut with her fingers, but she did not answer him. The rain soaked her hair, plastering it to her face and upon her shoulders; her dress clung to her; she was a frail porcelain statuette, as they make in the far east. She was lovely now too, for it was a part of her to be lovely in numberless ways.

“Drink,” he said to her. “Keep drinking the water while it falls. It is best that way. You cannot drink too much.”

“Where are—the ships?” she asked him.

“Gone,” he shrugged.

“And I am alone with you?”

“Yes.”

Bending her face, looking down into the bottom of the boat, she shuddered.

“Is it so terrible?” he inquired. “I saved you.” But he had not wanted to say that. “You would have died.”

“I would rather have died.”

“You hate me—so much?”

“I saw you kill that man beside me as you killed Mr. Lennox, as—but those others who were with us in the boat—?”

“Yes.”

“The same way?”

“Yes.”

She buried her face in her hands, and she sobbed; the rain swept down over her in a swift, blinding sheet.

John Preswick attempted to look at himself; but he found it difficult, and he gave it up. Still he dared not cross the seat and go to her. Unmindful of the rain, he sat, staring, hearing her soft cries. He was like a dumb brute that has been struck—unjustly, for he could not see that he deserved it. He had tried to repair things—tried in the only sure way he knew: with violence, with death, which was, indeed, the shortest path to any end. He stared up into the sky; the rain beat down upon his face.

Then he thought to himself that here was fresh water, and he sought about for something to catch it in. But the boat was bare, stripped clean except for a knife and two double-barreled pistols lying in the muck of rain and blood. Yet he must have water if they would live after the rain had gone. Looking at the stern-seat, it occurred to him that after the manner of the time there would be an air-tight tin tank beneath the wood. Using the knife as a lever and the pistols as hammers, he pried off the top, gasping in relief as he saw the tin surface of the tank. Using again the knife, and a pistol as a hammer, he forced an opening in the top of the tank, and began to fill it with water from the bottom of the boat, making a scoop out of the tobacco pouch. Fascinated, the girl watched him. He turned about and saw her.

“Why are you doing that?” she inquired slowly, knowing without asking the question, her face clearly showing her disgust.

“We must drink. It will not rain forever.”

“But that water is filthy. There is blood in it.”

Shrugging, he continued to fill the tank. “We must drink.”

Then she went to the prow, curled up on the seat nearest to it, and looked away from him. He stared at her back, doggedly filling the tank, until he had taken as much water from the bottom of the boat as might be had. The rain was coming down with terrific force, such a cloudburst as could not last any length of time. Glancing at the sky, he judged that by the middle part of the afternoon it would be over. His guess was not far from right. At perhaps an hour past noon, it stopped raining, and perhaps an hour after that, the sun was again in the sky.

But they were drenched, the two of them, water running from their hair and their clothes, water running from the ends of their fingers. And as they were not uncomely persons, an observer with a leaning towards fantasy might have thought of them as two water-dwellers, perhaps a god and goddess sprung from the deep…. For themselves, they were both wet and uncomfortable.

He was bare to the waist. His yellowish slacks, rolled knee high, clung to his muscular thighs. He wore a belt of dark brown leather, a wide belt with a knife sheath and a money-sack upon it, and black clogs on stocking-less feet; and that was all. From his thighs, his trunk bulged in a wide, rippling barrel; his shoulders were broad, flat, and heavy; his yellow hair hung about his ears and neck; his blue eyes gleamed in a brown face; there was a little blue ring of turquoise about his index finger; on his arm, above the elbow, there was a band of worked and hammered gold. He was a very large, and powerful, and beautiful man.

As she was a beautiful woman. The test of beauty is to disregard time, place, and dress. She was beautiful, with her hair and dress fastened grimly to her by the rain. But he did not consciously think that; it had become a part of his complete impression of her.