Chapter Eight
Mysteries of the Sea
Colt was still breathing heavy as he knelt before me cleaning the wound on my foot with water from a nearby spring. Perspiration was literally dripping down his face and his shirt was soaked. Despite the evident signs of extreme exertion his touch on my foot was gentle.
The wound itself wasn’t all that bad, but left untreated it could become bad. I looked back down the way we had come up through the jungle and acknowledged that there were few men that could compare with the man I’d inadvertently become matched up with in terms of strength and endurance.
He finished cleaning up my wound by pressing some crumpled up leaves of a plant that I remembered from my childhood onto the wound. He pulled a rag out and wrapped my foot tightly with it.
He glanced away to a still higher promontory further up the slope from us and then glancing back at me said, “You’re not going to be able to walk barefoot in these rocks, but your foot should heal up well.”
He glanced back to his destination in mind and I knew he was contemplating as to what it would be like to carry me any further. He looked tired and I had a terrible secret. I’d completely forgotten about the pair of sandals in my pack, but I was quite sure that divulging that secret now could get my neck wrung.
I shifted uneasily on the boulder that I sat on for more than one reason.
His eyes shifted back to me as he caught sight of my shifting motion. Surprisingly I watched a look of something that almost looked like shame fleetingly cross across his strong features.
He rubbed the palm of his hand reflexively as he looked away again and said, “Sorry. Sometimes I forget how strong I am and how soft a woman can be.”
I was touched by his apology, even as I was affronted by it. Soft! He made me sound weak and helpless!
Admittedly in comparison to him I was weak and helpless. It rankled heavily to have to admit that.
He started to reach for me to no doubt sling me back over his shoulder again, but I quickly held up my hands forestalling such an action. My head was already throbbing from being hung upside down and I’d quite had my fill of being carried about caveman style.
“I…… I……” I stuttered to frame the words of my secret.
His gaze turned curious, “You what?”
In a rush I spit out, “I have a pair of sandals in my bag.”
My eyes closed as I waited for his fingers to clamp around my neck. Time stretched out and I peeked out to see him shaking his head as he gazed down the steep pathway that he’d carried me up.
Hurriedly I said, “I forgot! I’m sorry!”
He glanced back to me and surprisingly he didn’t seem overly angry. He seemed to come to some consensus of thought by issuing forth a one word statement, “Women!”
In umbrage I sat up, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He snorted derisively and turned away to my bag which he drug closer to him. He started to open it and I quickly came half off my seat as I reached for my carry-on bag.
It was the only luggage I’d had, as I had thought it best to pack light, but reversely I’d packed the small bag to the point that the seams were about to bust. I didn’t want him rummaging through my stuff. Everything was where it was for a purpose.
His hand smacked my outreaching fingers away.
“But……”
He held one decisive finger up cutting my protest off. I swallowed my words at the look in his hard gray eyes. He spoke, “I have already carried far more weight than needed and you’re going to be doing well just to manage yourself. We have a lot of distance to cover and we don’t need excess baggage to cart along!”
I wanted to protest, but my words remained unsaid.
He glanced back to the bag and opened it and promptly all of its contents spewed out. I couldn’t take it and looked away from the scene. I felt completely violated by his handling of my stuff.
“You have good taste.” He said in a thoughtful tone.
I glanced back to see him picking his way through my bag’s contents and unable to resist I said, “You don’t strike me as a man that’s overly fashion conscious.”
He glanced up and flatly said, “I’m not, but I can appreciate a well-dressed woman.”
I swallowed and nodded, as I retreated into silence. He liked my style. Enough said.
He was busy making two piles. One small the other large. I got the distinct impression that the large pile was staying behind. I had to fight to hold back my objections more than once as more and more was added to the larger pile.
He held up a bra in apparent contemplation over something. He picked up the other bra that the pack contained and looking between the two began to look slightly strained. He glanced at me then, but not at my face but rather down to where the articles of clothing he held were meant to be applied. This was so humiliating!
Subconsciously I crossed my arms across my chest as I met his considering gaze with my best look of affront. It didn’t faze him in the slightest. Instead he winked at me and tossed both bras on the small pile.
There was an unsaid statement of intent in that action. He wanted to see both on me.
Mutinously my eyes met his as my face burned with indignation, “I’m not doing anything for or with you! So keep dreaming jerk!”
He carried on as if I hadn’t spoken as he tossed the accompanying boyshorts onto the small pile.
“You’re not in a position to say anything as to what occurs between us.” He said deeply as he stared at me for a long moment to let his point drive home.
He continued on then through the rest of the bag throwing most of the remainder on the big pile. The last thing he came to was my makeup bag and I gave an inadvertent nervous start as a remembered something. Before I could stop it a single word slipped out, “Don’t!”
He glanced up interested, but continued on. Surprisingly he pulled quite a few items free of the bag only to toss them onto the small pile. Then he came to the small cylinder tucked under some makeup jars. I looked the other way. It was my vibrator.
I felt like a coward for my bashfulness and so I looked back at him ready to do battle. The device looked small against the palm of his hand. He looked contemplative again. He flipped it through the air to land on the small pile.
I leaned forward and snatching the vibrator up I chucked it out into the jungle as hard as I could throw it.
His only response was a noncommittal shrug, as if it had been no big deal to him one way or the other. It was a big deal to me though!
I stood up and savagely said, “I’m not your woman! Me being out here alone with you doesn’t give you any right over me! I want nothing to do with you! In fact I hate you!”
“I picked up on that somewhat already.” He said wryly.
He picked out a pair of jeans, a tank top, and one of the sets of underwear and held them out to me, “Get changed Kim.”
He stood up and turned to leave, surprising me in the fact that he wasn’t going to ask me to strip down before him. As I stared at his back, tears of angry frustration spilled out of my eyes and into my emotionally charged voice as I said, “Don’t you care what I think?”
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder, “No I don’t. In fact there’s not much that I do care about in life. However, I think I could learn to care about you Kim. Get changed. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I watched him disappear and bitterly I glanced down at the clothes in my hand. Resignedly I took my clothes off and got dressed. There was nothing to do it seemed, but please the man.
He was back a few minutes later as he’d promised and I didn’t miss the approving way his eyes drifted over me. He added my small pile to his pack and we started out again.
At the edge of the clearing he picked something up that had been resting against a tree. It was a crude walking stick of sorts and he handed it to me. Grateful for the extra support on the uneven terrain I took it from him.
I stared at his back as he continued on. The walking stick had been thoughtful of him.
What manner of man was he?
He denied the value of my expressed thoughts, but he thoughtfully cared for my needs. Sooner or later I’d find out what manner of man he was, but in my mind there was little to be found in that likely occurrence as being positive.
*****
Koke was jarred awake at the jangle of keys. Instinctively he knew his time had come and he did what little he could to prepare.
A lantern was thrust into the murky hold and those gathered there drew back in fear from the big burly pirate who had entered the scene. He leered about at the cowering individuals before spying Koke and saying, “Times up matey. The Captain ah be wanting yuh to warm her up.”
The pirate bellowed out in laughter before continuing on with, “Cold Sally is what we’ze calls her. Never get enough can she.” His hand closed over Koke’s manacled hands and he jerked him along to follow him out of the ship’s hold.
Koke went along without protest. They made their way through the ship and Koke on a fake stumble managed to get ahead of the pirate. He walked along the corridor ahead of the pirate feeling the other man’s lascivious gaze upon him.
“Dats it! I’ze gonna have some first!” The pirate exclaimed in lustful fervor.
Koke found himself abruptly shoved forward and folded over the top of a nearby barrel. The pirate glanced around furtively for a moment before shoving Koke’s pants down.
Koke gripped the barrel hard as he put up no fight against what was to come. The pirate’s own pants fell as he stepped up behind Koke. He lunged forward with a triumphant cackle.
The cackle abruptly turned to a screamed exclamation of pain. The pirate stumbled backward from Koke clutching at his bleeding member in shock.
Koke wasted no time as he turned and stooped down to pick up the pirate’s dropped cutlass. He raised it high and the pirate’s panicked eyes rose to Koke as he caught sight of the upraised blade in the dim light given off by the lantern on the floor. His cry for help was abruptly cut off as the cutlass came down again and again.
Shaking with the release of the nerved up tension that had just been released Koke stepped back from the hacked up corpse on the floor. He laid the cutlass down on a barrel top and removed the protruding jagged piece of bone with a sigh of relief from his rear. He pulled his pants back up and took stock of the situation.
The pirate’s cut off scream for help had failed to bring anyone to investigate. Koke reached down and pulled the key ring wet with blood from the pirate’s belt. Quickly he went through the rusty keys until he found the one that unlocked his manacles, as they fell free of this chaffed wrists and upsurgent wave of hope flooded into him.
He’d take his chances in the water as opposed to this ship’s motley crew of cutthroat undesirables. His foot was on the rung of the ladder that led topside before his consciousness overtook him.
He glanced back to the hold. He couldn’t just leave them to the same fate that he’d just narrowly averted himself.
Koke made his way back the way the pirate had brought him quickly. The people stood up with a hopeful murmur at his appearance.
“Shhhh!” Was all he said as he fit the key into the lock.
The rusty bars opened with a squeak and Koke turned back the way he had come as the others followed along in silence after him. Cautiously he made his way up the ladder.
The ladder went past another interior deck that was full of pirates. They were all snoring away in a drunken stupor, at least Koke hoped so as one by one the fearful people made their way up past the intervening deck.
Koke eased up onto the main deck and quickly glanced around. Pirates were slumped here and there all along the ship’s deck, but none appeared to be conscious. He stood up and walked confidently over to the ship’s railing as if he belonged to the scene and wasn’t a captive in the process of leading an escape attempt.
The others quickly joined him somewhat less confidently as they peered around at the sleeping pirates in fear. Koke motioned to the tied off rowboat and started helping the others into it. He and another man undid the ropes to either side that led up to the winches.
With a protesting creak of the pulleys the boat began to lower over the side. Both Koke and the other man glanced around furtively for any sign of stirring pirates, but they snored on dead to the world.
The boat touched the water with a louder splat of sound than either man had intended. None of the sleeping pirates stirred though.
Those in the boat below cast off the ropes and immediately started rowing away from the pirate galley. Koke and his helper stared in shock at the betrayal of them by the others. Both men were going to have to dive for it to catch up with the boat.
“Where’s my boy stud!” Came a drunken shout.
It was Sally the Captain and she saw both men at virtually the same moment as they saw her.
“Get them!!!” Captain Sally screamed out in fury.
Koke’s helper jumped up onto the ship’s railing to dive overboard, only to pitch over the side with a cry of pain. A cutlass was stuck fast in his back from where a pirate had thrown it overhand.
Koke flipped over the railing, but was hung up from dropping to the water as a knife transfixed his hand to the ship’s railing. Crying out in the pain it caused him Koke yanked the knife free, but before he could drop to the water rough hands seized him and the edge of a rusty cutlass was held against his throat by none other than an enraged Captain Sally.
Her face was a caricature of a human in that moment that appeared more skeleton than it did flesh and blood.
“Not so fast loverboy! I’ze gonna have your hide for this!”
Koke struggled against the hold on him that was dragging him back on board. In his struggle to be free he caught sight of the fleeing rowboat. The layers of civility gained from a life in the social graces of a polite society disintegrated as he yelled out at the departing boat, “I curse you cowards for this!”
It took several pirates to stifle Koke’s adrenalined attempt to be free, but in the end he was pulled back on board.
Captain Sally in a crazed manner turned to a gunnery crew, “Billy light’em up!”
Several seconds later a cannon reared back on its pins as it belched flame and smoke. The rowboat in the distance along with its occupants disintegrated into fragments as the well-placed shot blew it up.
Captain Sally was back in Koke’s face in an instant. Her spit landed on his face as she spoke out loudly, “Now I has just the likes of you to play with sugar boy! Tie him to the mast! I’ll have the flesh off of him for this! Fetch me the cat-a’nines!
Koke was jerked forward by a knot of pirates, who looked cowed by the insane fury of their leader. Within seconds Koke found himself tied off to the ship’s mainmast.
The bindings of the rope were beyond tight. He more or less sensed that Captain Sally was behind him and the knowledge of that caused him to tense up in anticipation of what he knew was to come. It was like a pirate movie he’d watched as a kid, only this was reality.
There was a sharp crack of the whip and Koke screamed out in agony as the individual strands of the whip each capped with a jagged metal barb chewed into his back and shoulders.
“Scream boy! I’m gonna paint my ship red with your blood!” Stormed out the vengeful Captain Sally.
She flailed away with the cat-a’nine tails mercilessly. Koke’s back turned red along with his legs and where the metal jagged pieces wrapped around to his front.
Koke was in a realm beyond agony as he sobbed against the pole that in his pain he had bitten a chunk out of.
The strikes of the whip stopped.
In his agony Koke noticed that the congregated pirates were gone. Where were they?
Surely they weren’t lining up to rape him. Laughing hysterically he turned his head to confirm his fate, but the pirates weren’t even focused on him. They were all gathered at the ship’s railing looking out to sea.
Captain Sally was yelling out something and Koke tried to keep a hold of consciousness in order to figure out whether or not help was coming. He already felt dead in some ways.
“Get the sails out you scally wags! Well what are you waiting for? Do you want to be blown to bits! Weigh anchor!”
“What do you want done with him?” Came a pirate’s voice from the mob.
“Throw him over the side for shark bait. Get moving!”
The tight bonds holding Koke to the mainmast were slashed and Koke slumped in a bloody heap to the deck. He was unceremoniously drug across the deck then. Something was wrapped around his ankles and then rough hands sent him flying.
Downward he fell with a hard smack into the water. Contact with the water charged him to semi consciousness and reflexively he gasped for air before he was pulled down by something heavy.
Invigorated by the water and a chance at escape he vainly waved his arms, but it did no good as he continued to sink. He glanced down to see a ball and chain looped about his ankles. He wasn’t going to make it. All this effort to survive and he was still going to die!
Bitterly he watched the sea floor approach. Moments later he was mired in a wash of stirred up sediment as the ball and chain clanged into the ocean floor. The sediment cleared and he looked around at the surrounding coral reefs and exotic fish species that were in abundant display.
There were worse places to die other than this he thought abstractly to himself. He choked with the vital need to receive more oxygen.
Dazedly he glanced at the crystalline water around him and noticed that there was a red tinge to it. It was his blood. He was putting out and all beacons alert to every shark and sea monster in the area. He’d rather drown then feel himself being fed upon, but his mouth remained closed.
He saw a shadow of an approaching shark and then he saw her. Koke blinked his eyes. He had to be dreaming. Lack of oxygen, that had to be it, as nothing else made sense.
She was moving toward him then and somehow the shark was leaving. Was any of this real?
It really didn’t matter anymore because he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. Her fingers touched his face and he opened his eyes to see her right there before him as her long blonde hair clouded around him in the water.
Oh darn what a terrible time to die!
His mouth opened hopelessly and to his surprise her lips closed over his and somehow he was breathing and drowning all at the same time. Somehow drowning didn’t seem to matter as kissing this woman come from the realms of heavenly fantasy was a dream come true.
Surely this wasn’t allowed in heaven, but the kiss went on and on and he lost track of time. Who knew this was what heaven was like was his last conscious thought.