Chapter Twelve
Adrift
“So your plan consists of setting out to sea and nothing else?” Matt asked skeptically sitting beside me.
I shrugged, “We have nowhere else to go and we need an ally in this fight if we hope to free the slaves.”
“You really think that these Whale People exist and that we’ll find them?” Matt asked doubtfully.
“I think they exist and if we’re meant to we’ll find them. I trust God to provide us with what we need.”
Matt was silent, but I detected he still had doubts.
That conversation had been five days ago now. We’d run out of water almost two days ago.
My face felt cracked and dry and my lips were bleeding. I was the only one still conscious in the boat as I manned the rudder.
My faith was being tested there was no other way about it. Either I was guilty for the murder of all those on board or help would yet come in some fashion.
The prop engine died, as it ran out of gas. In a way it had been a relief to empty the last of the gas into the engine this morning. Believe it or not but to drink the gasoline had been a temptation I’d had to fight against.
Thirsty as I was it didn’t make any sense, but the body’s need for fluid caused desperate thoughts to come to mind that should never have even been rationally considered. We were dying of thirst surrounded by a sea of what we needed to survive.
Even the seawater was tempting, but I’d seen what that could do to a person. Better to die of thirst than die of insanity.
I could rationalize why seawater was not an option, but reversely I’d been considering gasoline as a substitute for it. I’d already gone insane it seemed or just crazy with the need for water.
I closed my eyes as the boat drifted in the flat emptiness that surrounded us. I slumped against the prop engine and husked out, “It’s all yours God. I don’t know what else I can do.”
There was something wrong with what I had just said. What was it?
“You should’ve given it to Me from the beginning. This task was always too hard for you, but I will make a way because I AM that I AM and I will be praised. Trust Me and lean not on your own understanding, fear and seek Me first and it will go well with you.”
If I could have cried I would have. I’d messed up again!
I was getting bailed out again. I didn’t deserve it miserable believer that I was, but I was grateful beyond expression for mercy to be extended to me once again.
“I am always faithful and I will never forsake you Eli.”
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Movement. I felt movement.
I opened my eyes and beneath me I saw water. Why was I not in the water, but rather suspended above it?
My fingers curled into something. Netting?
I lifted my head and the first thing I saw was a pair of toned calf muscles. I closed my eyes again. Had I lost my mind?
I opened my eyes again to see the same pair of toned legs not over five feet in front of me. My eyes traced up the calves and on upward to the ratty edge of a dress like garment that came to mid thigh.
My eyes focused in on a very femininely proportioned derrière for a long moment before I glanced on upward to see a long slender back halfway covered by a mass of dark black hair that lay in beaded ringlets. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, but I wanted to.
I glanced around the oddly shifting platform made of netting and rope. My eyes took in both Christina and Jim sitting back against the netlike sides of the place I found myself in. Both of them wore matching expressions of smugness, which clearly indicated that they had noticed my appreciation of an artfully crafted female rear.
I felt myself flood with embarrassment. I hadn’t meant to stare, but waking up disoriented with it right in front of my face………… what man wouldn’t have?
Matt, Ortega and Flynn were still out. I sat up feeling stiff and Christina crawled across to me with a jug of something that I hoped was water.
It was clear to me that I had already received moisture of some kind given my alertness level, but I wanted more. I took the odd animal skin like bag from Christina and drank from it, but not too much.
I handed it back to Christina, as I relished the taste of water that had something sweet in it.
I felt at my lips. A gel of some sort had been spread over them and they felt better.
I glanced at the woman who still stood facing forward. She had to have done it as I saw no others upon the unique craft that we sailed upon.
Christina had a cheeky smile as she leaned in close and whispered into my ear, “Her name is Keturah and she’s very nice. Just thought you’d like to know her name boss.”
I gave Christina a hard look and whispered back, “You know you’re not too old yet to still be spanked.”
Christina scuttled back out of reach to the safety of Jim’s side, but she was still smiling.
I didn’t need anyone playing matchmaker for me, least of all a sixteen-year-old girl.
I grasped a hold of the rope that formed the backdrop for the netting surround and pulled myself upward. I was a little dizzy when I got to my feet from a combination of lingering weakness and unsteady footing on the flexing net underfoot. A strong hand grasped my forearm and helped me steady my footing.
My eyes met the eyes of the woman who had saved all of us, “Thank you! Thank you for saving us!” I said trying not to be too mesmerized by the charming smile that she gave me as she half ducked her head in embarrassment at my thanks.
Her voice was throaty and had a rich accent to it, “We have not received visitors to our sunken world that I know of ever before. It is my honor to have been of help to you.”
She was a mixture of bashful beauty with an underlying cheerfulness of spirit that washed over me like a soothing balm over an old wound. I blinked a couple times as I realized how badly I was losing control.
I asked the first thing I could think of and it came out terribly, “Your black?”
I could’ve slapped myself, but instead of taking offense at a perceived racial slur she laughed and responded with, “As are you”, she said giving me a thorough going over with her eyes.
I held up a hand apologetically, “What I meant was, I thought the Whale People were all white.”
She smiled at me charmingly in a way that said I was off the hook. She had a very gracious demeanor about her that I found addicting the more I was exposed to her.
“The Whale People are one people. Many are white, some are black, but light chocolate babies and black babies with blue eyes are born every day. To survive out here we must be a family who shares and gets along with each other. The Whale People are a people of equality and mutual respect as all people should be regardless of color or previous ancestry. Do you not agree with this?” She asked speculatively.
“I do agree!” I quickly affirmed.
“I’m just surprised that former slave masters would willingly view people of color like you and I as equals.”
She smiled richly, “Survival has a way of breaking down such barriers. We all bleed the same color out here Mister………?” She asked, as she cocked her head to the side inquisitively.
“Eli.” I said trying not to lose any more control then I already had in just a few minutes of being in this woman’s presence.
She had lushly full lips and it was hard not to be impacted by them as they curled apart in another generous smile, “Welcome to Undersea Eli. Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll get us underway.”
As she moved past she brushed up against me and gave me a quick smiling look of warm welcome that had an entirely innocent sensual undertone to it that left my mouth dry. It was clear to me that she knew I was attracted to her and it was just as clear that she openly welcomed my attraction to her.
For all her lushness of physical form and enticing personality I didn’t take her to be a loose woman. Intrinsically I knew that she had integrity, but she was openly showing interest in me. She had gone past simply being interested in a stranger to something more serious. Why?
Matt came up to the railing to stand beside me. I’d been too focused on the girl to notice that he’d come back to consciousness. She was like an intoxicating drug in terms of her impact on me.
Matt tapped my finger and I glanced down to see that he had tapped my wedding ring, “Might be a good time to take this off Eli. I think you’ve worn it long enough.” Matt said with a serious look in his eyes.
Hot anger coursed through me and I had to refrain from hitting him. I think he knew the raw nerve he’d hit even though he foolishly didn’t move away from me.
Reason returned after a few hot and heavy moments of repressed emotion, “I’m not ready to do that Matt. I’ll never be ready!” I said with finality.
“Do you think that’s what Laura would have wanted Eli? She would have wanted you to be happy and you know it.”
I nearly hit him then. The only thing that held me back was that what he had said was the truth. Laura had told me as much just before she had died.
Vainly I searched for a way out of this predicament that was beginning to feel like a trap.
“She’s just a kid Matt for heaven sakes!” I said testily as I tried to shut him up without the use of a fist.
He wasn’t to be dissuaded though, “You’re forty-one Eli, not sixty-one and from where I’m standing she looks all grown up to me.”
“Go plague somebody else and leave me alone Matt!” I said meaning it.
He patted me on the back and leaned in close to say, “Don’t be so hard on yourself for noticing and being attracted to a woman after seven years of nothing.”
I gripped the rope railing hard and was about to retort with something, when gratefully he moved off. He made it sound like I was a eunuch or something!
The truth was I’d been attracted to a lot of women in the past seven years. Staying at sea for long periods of time had helped, but not cured the problem through the years.
The problem with this girl was that somehow with just a few smiles she’d completely worked her way under my skin and gotten up close and personal, which was awful!
No one understood. They thought it was just guilt that held me back from being romantically inclined with another woman and perhaps in a small way it was, but it wasn’t the primary reason. If I was to involve myself with another woman it would have to be for real with all systems a go. I couldn’t do a relationship any less than to give it my all, but to do that I’d have to let go of the past entirely and embrace the future and whatever it may hold.
The thought of doing that and leaving the comfort of my memories was petrifying and yet it seemed like I was being pushed into doing just that.
I didn’t want things to change and that was final!
I let my eyes take in the craft that I found myself on for the first time. It was modeled in a way after a catamaran of sorts. There were two runners held together in a parallel orientation by a crisscross framework of beams that culminated in a central mast supported over the seawater by the adjacent twin narrow hulls that appeared as enclosed dugout canoes.
The mast was rigged with a sail that appeared to be made out of thinly scraped leather, which hung idly in the calm that we seemed to be caught in. Between the two dugout canoes was stretched a netting made of some ropelike material that was borne up by the underpinning that supported the central mast. All in all it was a rather seaworthy vessel and I was impressed with its construction greatly.
Trailing behind the catamaran was the dinghy. I glanced back to the girl who was moving around busily. Truthfully she wasn’t exactly a girl, as I placed her somewhere above twenty, but just barely.
She was strong. Somehow she had tugged all of us out of the dinghy and onto her craft. How had she managed that by herself?
I weighed in at just over two hundred pounds and Jim had another forty or fifty pounds on top of my weight.
“I was conscious and I helped her.” Jim spoke up from beside me.
I shook my head wryly, “I hate when you do that!” I said in response to him seemingly reading the unspoken thoughts right out of my mind.
He gave a small smile, but said nothing.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Better. When do we go back to free the slaves?” He asked somberly.
I shrugged, “That kind of depends on her people.”
Both of us watched curiously as Keturah began to make way, only she wasn’t. She expertly let the sale furrow downward and secured it with some tie offs. Jim and I glanced at each other blankly. We weren’t going anywhere without the sail up!
Granted we hadn’t been going much of anywhere with it spread out to catch what meager amount of wind that there was, but at least we had been moving slightly. Jim appeared to be in the dark as much as I was as to the girl’s motivations.
I was curious about a lot of things. Where did the wood for this boat come from? Why was a beautiful young woman like her out here alone?
Was she to be trusted?
Something deep inside of me said yes.
She was at the forward prow of one of the dugout canoes that lay beneath the netted platform we were on, when she suddenly bent down at the waist to pick up what looked like a leather plaited rope. My eyes quickly darted away from her, but unfortunately I glanced in Jim’s direction and his eyes were full of unexpressed mirth at my expense.
He looked about ready to say something, but I reached out and touched his arm, “Not you too old friend. Please!”
The mirth in his eyes went away and he nodded to indicate that he understood the torment that I was under. Maybe he did. I knew very little about Jim’s past before he’d come to work for me.
Both of our attentions were pulled back to Keturah as she spiraled around in an arching curve and let go of the leather plaited rope, which sailed out through the air to land with a splash in the water in the distance.
I blinked appreciably at the distance of the splash down of the rope and idly wondered if I could’ve thrown it so far myself. That had been quite the toss, but for what purpose had it been done?
I tried to get past my attraction for this girl of the sea for a moment in order to better understand her. This was most definitely her boat as her familiarity with it testified to long use of it.
She was both a tested sailor and a survivor. This survival of a constant life at sea was a threadbare existence.
There was little laying about the boat to build a picture of her. Her very attire was threadbare to say the least.
The half shift dress that she wore was nothing but one leather patch on top of another. The sails of the boat looked better than her dress did and yet despite her worn attire she was still captivatingly beautiful.
Silently I admonished myself for falling prey to her charms yet again.
She seemed satisfied with the heaved to condition of the boat and turning forward I saw her reach into her dress at the neck and pull out a necklace. On the end of the necklace was what appeared to be a wooden whistle.
It was a whistle, as she held it up to her lips and blew through it. I heard nothing, which meant that the whistle was emanating an extremely high frequency.
Was she really doing what I thought she was?
Was she calling in a whale?
Slowly I walked forward to stand beside her and give her a speculative look. She blew on the silent whistle again and then as if satisfied by some sign I couldn’t discern she nodded and stowed the wooden whistle back inside the top of her dress.
Her eyes met mine and again I was taken aback by the ready warmth of her gaze. What was it about me that caused her to be so open in her intent?
“Yes?” She asked leadingly with another smile.
I felt awkward, even shy, for goodness sake in the face of her open interest for me. I gestured out to the calm sea, “Your calling in a whale aren’t you?”
“Dimbo.” She said nodding.
“Dimbo? What kind of a name is that?” I asked.
She played the part of being mock affronted by my question and in a way I was ashamed of myself. What business was it of mine what names she chose to give to animals?
“You don’t like my name selection?” She asked as demurely as any southern bell could ever have and I backpedaled fast.
“I ah…… It’s different, but original. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard it before. I………” My voice trailed off as she laughed again.
The fingers of one of her hands closed over my arm in a light grasp in a point of contact that turned my thinking processing fuzzy.
She smiled richly, “You’re right of course. It is an odd name, but still I like it.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I mumbled out not sure at all how I had gotten surrounded by enemy forces and forced to surrender ingloriously.
Her fingers trailed down my arm to leave my skin at the wrist as she turned to face the sea just as it broke apart as a massive tusk breached up out of the waves. Dimbo was a jumbo sized whale, incredibly I saw the loop that had been at the end of the rawhide rope securely placed around the base of the giant tusk.
I had only a moment to take in the great bulk of the tusked whale in alarmed wonder before I was completely taken off my feet as the catamaran was yanked forward. A soft weight fell on top of me and took away most of my air in the process.
Blinking against the suddenness of events I stared upward into the flashing eyes of my whale girl rescuer. I knew what she was going to do before she did it and yet I seemed powerless to stop it.
Her lips pressed down over mine in a wet full-fledged kiss that she held nothing back from. I was startled by the passion of her and angry at being so taken advantage of all at the same time.
She pulled back from the kiss breathing hard and I asked in obvious aggravation, “A little sudden don’t you think?”
She didn’t seem to hear the harshness of my tone, because she gave another of her characteristics smiles that left no doubt as to her intentions.
“Among the Whale People we have a saying, ‘When fortune floats by grab a hold of it because the current may never pass by again.’ I want to be your mate and I don’t mind making a fool of myself to prove it.”
The boat was surging along the wave tops at an unbelievable speed that came in surges that matched the beat of my heart. In savage desperation I said, “Well I don’t want you for a mate!”
Again she didn’t seem off put by my anger in the slightest. She gave me a knowing look before she shifted slightly and let a thigh fall between my legs to rub up against me. Her look was potent seduction as she said, “Your body tells me otherwise Eli.”
“I don’t make decisions based on what my body would like or not like!” I responded heatedly unable to deny the attraction for her that she could feel.
She leaned in close again and I thought she was going to kiss me, but she diverted to my ear to whisper directly into it, “I would not want you as a mate if you did. The next time we kiss it will be you kissing me.”
She rolled off of me and away from me a couple feet in distance on the netting. Even with her gone I still felt out of breath.
I glanced over at her to see her looking at me with her head propped up on her arms as she lay on her belly on top of the deck netting. I was a hard person to startle or surprise and she’d done both in a matter of seconds.
“You’re awfully sure of yourself aren’t you?”
She nodded silently as she continued to watch me.
I craned my head around to see if I was even now the subject of embarrassing witnesses, but I saw no faces. They’d all been thrown flat too and I had come to the forward area of the boat and was now sunk down in the netting out of view of the latter part of the boat.
She may have been entirely wanton in her primal attempt at claiming me as her mate, but at least she’d had the good graces not to make a fool out of me in front of the others. She seemed awfully quiet now given her recent primal outburst and declaration of intent to be my mate.
I looked back to her and despite the oddity of the situation and the rampant confusion on my part I said as honestly as I could to her, “Look Keturah, you need to get something straight. I’m not right for you. Find someone else. I have bad luck written all over me and I’m not available anyway.”
Her gaze fell from mine to the ring on my finger.
She stared at the ring for a moment before she glanced back to me and said, “I guess I’ll have to wait until you are available then.”
In frustration I asked, “Why would you do that? You don’t even know what kind of man I am! How can you be so foolish?”
She was quiet for a moment before saying, “You’re the man I’ve waited and saved myself for all my life and the honor of being your woman will be mine. You’re the foolish one here to think to resist my heartfelt resolve to be yours.”
I half sat up to regard her in complete consternation, “Are you crazy or something?” I exclaimed.
For the first time since I had met her I saw the evidence that I had truly hurt her and I cringed inside as I saw a little of the zesty life dim out of her eyes as she flatly responded with, “It’s been said of me many times. While it may be entirely good fortune on my part to have found you the opposite could be said of you I’m afraid.”
I started to say something to recant my use of the word ‘crazy’, but she cut me off.
“Get some sleep. It will be many hours before we get where we are going.” And with that said she turned over and faced away from me.
I felt rotten and I didn’t even know why.
I was the one who’d been sensually bushwhacked and then taken advantage of!
The right was on my side!
I lay there for a moment gritting my teeth, but eventually I lost the battle. Nine years of lovingly committed marriage wouldn’t let me just lay there and let a wrong go by when I had the power to correct it.
“Keturah?”
No response.
I reached out and grasped her shoulder and pulled her over flat onto her back. She looked a little surprised and guarded all at the same moment.
I glanced down at the netting as eye contact right now was too much, “Of the two of us Keturah I’m the crazy one. I was crazy to come to this place and I’m crazy to attempt to free the slaves on the mainland and no doubt they’ll be something else that I do which will be crazy. Anyway what I’m trying to say is, I don’t mind being labeled as crazy, but apparently you do. I’m sorry that I evidently hurt you. It was my intention to hurt you and for that I’m doubly sorry. My wife died seven years ago and since then I have been a man full of bitterness and anger and somebody simply not pleasant to be around. You’ve stated in bold fashion that you want to be my mate. It’s an unanticipated occurrence on my part and I don’t think you quite understand the ramifications of it, but if it happens I genuinely hope the best for you because you’re not getting much in return. I think you should seriously reevaluate whatever decision-making process that has led you to this point and find yourself a younger man that is not so jaded and has more life left in him than I do.”
I looked up to see what impact if any my words had on her. The smile was back both in her face and in her eyes and that meant I had failed to dissuade her from seeing me as a poor catch.
“Thank you for apologizing, but I’m not reconsidering my choice of having you for a mate. I’m yours when you want me.”
I sighed heavily and glanced away and upwards towards the shifting clouds overhead.
Was God setting me up with this girl or was she just a distraction to be powered through and ultimately ignored?
I honestly didn’t know.
All I knew was that the painful and very personal process of facing my past and perhaps healing from it had gotten a lot more complex and perhaps eminently more painful.
I glanced back over at Keturah to find her already asleep with a smile on her face as she now faced me instead of facing away from me. What made a beautiful girl like her willingly shackle herself to a has been like me?
What did she see worthy enough about me that would cause her to take such a leap of faith? Or reversely was she really crazy?
Time would tell and unfortunately my reawakened libido was playing favorites against me.
“God help me.” I whispered out softly as I drifted off to sleep under the impetuous of the rhythmic surge forward followed by a slight lull before surging forward again.
Blinking I sat up and looked around. I didn’t think I would ever get used to this constant light. All in all though I felt surprisingly rested.
I glanced to the netting beside me, but Keturah was gone. Something was different. We weren’t surging ahead anymore.
I got up and located the others who were awakening as I had from the lack of the steady expected motion of the whale tugging the boat onward. In alarm I searched the open expanses of the catamaran, but saw Keturah nowhere!
Where was she?
Matt came up alongside of me and pointed out to sea at something. I turned to see the massive whale that been pulling us like a trusty steed through the waves for hours basking on the surface, only he wasn’t alone!
Keturah was sitting on the front end of the whale’s snout and appeared to be in deep conversation with the giant beast. Crazy came to mind but then I had to admonish myself some as I remembered how my wife had talked to her pet cat as if it understood all of life’s troubles. Admittedly the cat had seemed to understand some of it or perhaps it had just been a world-class faker.
A pet cat was one thing, but a pet whale?
Everyone else on board was standing beside me now as we watched the girl and her whale. Keturah seemed to notice our gazes all of a sudden and abruptly stopped talking to Dimbo. Was this why she was called crazy?
It was extreme, but I didn’t think it was crazy. Well maybe a little, but it wasn’t alarming anyway.
Keturah said something and the great bulk of the whale shifted in the water without hardly a ripple. The whale came towards us and it was hard to hold onto courage as it came at us slowly head on. Where were we going to flee to anyway?
Its great tusk that had to be close to fifteen feet in length rose out of the water until it was suspended just over the side of the ship’s netting. Keturah slid down the scarred rubbery snout to the tusk and gracefully walked the broad length of it barefoot.
That tusk had been rammed through countless sea monsters no doubt, but Keturah showed no fear. She stepped down onto the deck netting and the whale drew back as graceful and as calculated as the swish of a cat’s tail.
Keturah smiled a little nervously and quickly stepped through our shock and awed ranks to head for the mainmast of the boat. She was obviously embarrassed over having been caught talking to an animal. She really had been scarred by someone into believing that she was crazy.
I looked from her at the mainmast back out to the sea. I was somewhat startled to see that the whale had come silently broad side of the vessel and its great eye was directly in front of me. It stared at me with an intensity that was undeniable. Just how much intelligence had God given to these creatures?
I knew that whales had their own language much the same as dolphins did, but I felt like I was getting a stern lecture through the one eyed glare of a higher significance. I got the message. Don’t hurt his pretty master or there will be consequences.
Message delivered the whale dipped down silently beneath the waves and was gone from view.
Matt glanced from the still water to me with a knowing smirk, “Well you’re still here so I guess he approves.”
I gave him a dirty look and turned back to see what Keturah was up to. There was more of a sea breeze than there had been before and Keturah in the absence of my attention had already unfurled the sail and made the necessary tie offs of ropes attached to it. She really was a superb sailor and I respected her as such.
I stepped aft and undid the directional sail swing boom. So lost in the repetition of her timeworn habits Keturah was reaching for what I had just done when she saw I had already done it. She gave me a ready smile that had real pleasure in it.
“I hope you don’t mind.” I said, as the wind caught the sails more fully.