The Great Alone (39 page)

Boldly she returned his stare. Caleb doubted that she was much more than sixteen. His interest was aroused by the savage beauty of her. It had been a long time since that Hawaiian wahine had entertained him. Or maybe it was simply the urges of a lonely man that swung his thoughts, like the needle of a compass, to a woman. And as captain, he’d known many lonely hours—eating alone, drinking alone, walking the quarterdeck alone, sleeping alone.

“How much Boston man pay for furs?” The chief’s demand sharply interrupted Caleb’s thoughts, bringing him back to the business at hand.

He swung around to examine the bundle of pelts the Indian offered for inspection. Almost immediately, he sensed something different about them, but it took him a while to detect what it was. These skins had been dressed by an Aleut. They weren’t the work of a Tlingit. The pelts were obviously part of the booty from the Russian fort.

He offered a price and the dickering began. All the while he argued with the mustached chief, Caleb was conscious of the Indian girl watching him. The chief wanted a bolt of bright calico that the girl had briefly admired. Caleb found himself wondering if she was the chief’s daughter or his squaw.

“Two lengths of the cloth for one skin, no more,” Caleb stated flatly.

The chief started to gather up his pelts, but the girl touched his arm, said something to him in their tongue, then faced Caleb. “Does Boston man have woman?” It was almost a challenge.

“No.” Although he was aware some merchant captains brought their wives and families along on their voyages, the question faintly surprised him.

“How long Boston man not have woman?” she asked.

“A long time,” he admitted, narrowing his gaze.

“Boston man like have Raven?”

The name fit her, from the shining blackness of her hair to the cunning sharpness of her eyes. Caleb drew his head back and studied her thoughtfully, interested in her proposition despite his better judgment.

“How much?”

“The bundle of cloth.” She indicated the calico. Caleb started to shake his head in refusal, but she continued: “For Raven and furs.”

He glanced at the two braves with her, but he detected no hint of objection in either of their expressions. “Agreed,” he said.

“Raven come back night.” She moved toward the bolt of calico, but Caleb moved more quickly.

“No.” He placed his hand on the upright bolt. “The cloth stays here until Raven comes.” Caleb knew very well that if this calico left the ship, he’d never see her again.

“Boston man have furs and cloth. Maybe he leave and not wait for Raven,” she said.

Not for a minute did he underestimate her cleverness. A pride that was closer to arrogance stamped her features. She couldn’t be called beautiful despite the strong sensuality of those lips, Caleb realized. Beauty implied softness, and there was none in this woman. She was striking, yes, but there was also a quality about her that challenged a man, brought out his instinct to dominate and be the master rather than the slave she wanted to make of him.

“You bring the furs when you come back,” Caleb said.

After the trading party had left the ship, Caleb stood on the quarterdeck. Suddenly he was amused by all the things he’d imagined about her, the riddle he’d tried to make of her. He’d been alone too long.

Caleb looked at the wild grandeur of this land. Mountains rose abruptly from the shore, in places forming sheer cliffs. Dense rain forests that had never known the ravages of fire blanketed the slopes in a woolly mantle of deep emerald green. Above the treeline, the mountains climbed to jagged ridges and sharp peaks, some still bearing the drifts of winter’s snow. The sea battered this whole long chain of breaker islands, its surf crashing over the rocky shores and pounding at the magnificent cliffs.

Yes, Caleb thought, this land could do things to a man, including filling his head with crazy fancies—like making an enigmatic Indian princess out of a comely squaw. He turned from the view, wryly shaking his head.

“Double the anchor watch tonight,” he told Hicks, then headed below. He didn’t know whether or not she’d come, but he’d given permission for a canoe to approach at night and he wanted his ship alert for trouble.

Shortly after eight bells sounded, a shout came down the fore scuttle and the aft hatchway. “All hands ahoy!” In his cabin, Caleb reached for his pistol and thrust it inside the waistband of his trousers. As he moved toward the door, there was a quick knock on it. Caleb opened it.

The second mate stood outside. “Two canoes comin’, sir.”

Caleb motioned him topside and followed him up the narrow passageway to the steps. On deck, the crew were scrambling to their defense positions. Caleb mounted the quarterdeck and looked across the moonlit waters toward the Tlingit encampment. A pair of canoes glided silently toward the ship, dark silhouettes with white flashing from the painted designs along their high prows. All the lights on deck were out, save the one in the binnacle.

As the canoes swung parallel to the starboard side of the ship, Caleb murmured, “Watch bright on the la’board, lads.”

A blanket-draped figure stood up in one of the canoes. “Boston man.” It was a low-pitched call, but sound travels easily over water.

“Aye,” Caleb responded in a normal voice.

“Raven comes.”

He had doubted she would, suspecting the offer had merely been an attempt to get the calico from him. “Come aboard.”

The tension in the air was palpable as one canoe came alongside the vessel. But it was a tension of a different sort that claimed the crew when the canoe pulled away and Raven stood on deck wrapped in a blue and white blanket.

Caleb knew what his men were thinking and feeling. He’d lived below deck and knew how long these three-year voyages could seem, and the cravings that could gnaw at men deprived of female company for long stretches of time, with only the white-cheeked bottom of the bucko in the next bunk to satisfy them. Rare was the sailor who hadn’t submitted to such desires—on one end or the other—including himself.

Caleb wasted no time taking the Indian girl below to his cabin. As he shut the door, he watched her look around his quarters. Her eyes hadn’t been still since she came on board; they darted everywhere, taking in everything. He removed the pistol from the waistband of his trousers and laid it in its case on the sideboard. She turned at the sound and watched him snap the lid closed.

He stood, making no move toward her, while she regarded him confidently, boldly. The bolt of calico was propped in a corner of the cabin. Her glance strayed to it, then back to him. With a casual lift of her arms, she removed the blanket from her shoulders. Beneath it she wore a creamy-white deerskin garment, and her black hair hung all the way to her breasts.

“Boston man like Raven?”

“My name is Caleb.” Slowly he moved toward her.

“Caleb,” she repeated, not lifting her chin when he stopped in front of her, yet holding his gaze with a look that encompassed all the female wiles he’d ever encountered from a white woman.

She made no resistance as he gathered her into his arms. Automatically she tilted her head up in the age-old gesture that invited his kiss. Caleb took it, covering her mouth and feeling the movement of her tongue against his. She pressed her body against him.

Caleb lifted his head, conscious of the slugging beat of the vein in his throat, and gazed at her upturned face. Her lips lay together in a smugly confident line as she watched him through half-closed eyes. She showed him no artifice of innocence or reticence, nor any of the coyness he frequently encountered from Boston prostitutes.

Stepping back, he pulled off the blanket, loosely hooked at her elbows, and guided her to his bunk. He shrugged out of his jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt. At no urging from him, she pulled the deerskin garment over her head. Caleb watched her body gradually revealed—the long, muscled legs and thighs, the curly, jet-black snatch, the firmly rounded hips, and the full breasts. Naked, she crawled onto the blanket-covered bunk, stretching out like a sleepy cat to wait for him.

As Caleb removed the rest of his clothes, her attention unabashedly focused on his erection. Her bold interest aroused him more. He lay down on the bunk beside her and let his hand play over her body, enjoying the smooth warmth of her skin and the firm mounds of her breasts. She arched into the caress of his hand, responding to its touch. He kissed her lips, then her breasts, savoring the hard nipples while she skillfully fondled him, the stroke of her hand eliciting a groan from his throat. Fully aroused, he shifted position and pushed a knee between her legs to spread them so he could mount her.

Her upraised knee prevented him. “No,” she said firmly. “Not white man’s way. Indian.”

Slipping her legs free of him, she rolled onto her stomach and drew her knees up under her, presenting him with her elevated bottom. For an instant he could only stare at her hanging breasts and rounded cheeks. Then a hot lust swept him and he positioned himself behind her, holding her hipbones and pushing his engorged cock into her. He rocked with a primitive rhythm, driving in and out, the tempo building into a final paroxysm of shuddering release that shot his seed into her.

Spent, he sank onto the cot. He felt her shifting movement and turned his head to look at her. A sheen of perspiration coated her upper lip. Her half-closed eyes studied him with a satisfied look that said she knew she had drained him.

“Caleb happy.” It was a purring sound.

Again he felt inexplicably challenged by her. Maybe it was the energy he sensed she still had. “No.” He snarled his fingers in the black curtain of her hair and pulled her to him, kissing her and roughly pinching her erect nipples. It didn’t take long for him to become hard again. This time he rolled her onto her back and levered himself onto her. “Now white man’s way,” he said and invaded her moist opening again.

But he moved slowly, drawing almost completely out before plunging back in, resisting the arching exhortations of her hips. He watched her excitement grow, the pressure build until she strained under it. Her fingers clawed him, raking his shoulders and back. Only then did he allow her to pull him down and grind his hips against hers as she wanted. Seconds after she stiffened under him, straining in little jerks, he came into her.

This time when he moved off of her, he had the satisfaction of seeing that she breathed as hard as he did. Her eyes were closed. He felt as though he’d won something, but he didn’t know what the hell it was. He chuckled at the fanciful thought and closed his eyes, feeling fully relaxed for the first time in months.

Something awakened him, some faint sound that wasn’t the normal creaking and groaning of the ship. He lay still, listening for it to come again. Then he heard the soft, melodic clinking of metal—the copper ankle bracelets Raven wore. She wasn’t beside him on the bunk. Caleb could sense it without looking.

She moved quietly somewhere in the cabin, almost silently, only the soft jingle of the bracelets giving her away. He was fully awake now, suspicion sharpening his senses. He doubted that she was concerned about waking him. Her stealth was motivated by something else.

A long silence followed. Then a board creaked in the passageway, and Caleb realized that she’d left the cabin. Moving swiftly, he swung out of the bunk and pulled on his trousers. All the while he looked about the shadowed room. The blanket was gone; so was the bolt of cloth. The lid to his pistol case stood open. He felt inside; the gun was gone, too. He didn’t take the time to discover what else she had stolen, but stepped out of the cabin as silently as she had, only he avoided the creaking board.

The low hooting call of an owl sounded overhead. Or was it an owl? Cautiously Caleb emerged from the hatchway. A thick gray mist enveloped the ship, drifting through the rigging and obscuring the foredeck. He couldn’t see any of the deckhands who were supposed to be standing watch. If they’d fallen asleep, he swore he’d see them spread-eagled on the shrouds.

At the moment, he was more concerned with locating Raven. He knew she didn’t intend to try to swim ashore, not with that bolt of cloth and his pistol to weigh her down. Again he heard the half-muffled hoot of an owl—or was it a
raven?
He peered onto the quarterdeck and noticed a lumpy shape crouched low beside the taffrail. The raucous cry of some other nightbird broke the eerie stillness of the mist.

Caleb crept onto the quarterdeck, certain it was the Indian girl by the rail, but he angled away from her, heading toward the blunderbuss. The mist condensed on the rigging and fell in scattered droplets. At first, Caleb didn’t distinguish its dripping and the lap of water against the brig’s hull from the faint watery sound of dipping oar blades. The sound came from several directions. He swiveled the blunderbuss to point its flared muzzle at the closest sound and fired as he shouted, “All hands on deck!”

Swinging around, he saw Raven rise up from her hiding place. Wild cries came from the water, accompanied by the noisy scrambling of the crew. Caleb started for the second blunderbuss that was swivel-mounted on the taffrail. Halfway there he noticed Raven’s arms extended in front of her, pointing at him, with his pistol in her hands. He grabbed up a boarding pike and swung it at her outstretched arms. It struck her forearms just as the gun went off. The bullet sang past his ear.