Brave Hearts (24 page)

“You will come, Catharine.” Spencer spoke harshly.

“Yes.” The look in Jack's eyes hurt her. “We must all stay together,” she said quickly.

Jack looked at her for a long moment, shrugged then turned to Billy Miller. “We'd better get started.”

Catharine felt his anger inside; it hurt more than a physical wound. She needed him, needed his support. She was frightened deep inside, frightened of the jungle, frightened of the Japanese, frightened that she couldn't stay up with all of them, do her share. She needed him now, needed him more than she ever had before. Oh, God, Jack, please don't be angry. Please understand.

She would talk to him as soon as she possibly could.

Once again, they climbed steep hills, skirted the edges of precipices, followed rushing mountain streams, walked until each muscle cried out for rest. Their thin cotton slacks and blouses offered little protection from the cool mountain air. At night, they stopped at native huts. One room would hold all of the Bukidnon family, perhaps twelve or more, the party of Americans, their cargadores, and the gold.

Each evening, the women walked down to a stream, pulled off their muddy clothes, bathed quickly in the icy rushing water, rinsed out their clothes, and put on something clean from their packs. None of them had much to wear: a couple of pairs of slacks, blouses and underwear, and one pair of shoes, which were wearing thin. Sally had tied a cotton bandana around one foot to keep the sole attached to her shoe. Catharine cut a scarf into squares and used the soft cloth to line her shoes.

Sally squealed when she stepped into the cold water. She crouched down, splashed water on herself, and began to shiver. “I swear to God, if I ever get home to St. Louis, I'm going to sit in a hot bath for three months.”

No one answered. Frances, the second nurse, was older. She'd managed to keep up, but it was with a tremendous effort.

Sally moved quickly. Hopping out, she dried off with the small, square towel that she'd tucked into her pack at the last minute before they left Corregidor, dressed quickly, then gently reached out to help Frances. “Come on, pal. Time to join the polar bear club.”

Catharine stripped too, and stepped into the stream. It was so painfully cold that it took her breath away, but it felt wonderful to wash away the dirt and mud. There was always mud because the rain fell almost every day. She shared a bit of her precious soap, then helped Sally dry off Frances.

As they started back up the faint trail toward the hut where they would stay the night, Catharine said quietly to Sally, “I'll talk to Jack. We're traveling too fast for Frances.”

It was almost dusk, so Catharine couldn't see Sally's face very distinctly. But she heard Sally's soft words clearly. “It's about time you talked to him, isn't it?”

The light from the quinqui wavered from the night breeze that rippled through the ill-fitting bamboo walls. Jack sat on the far side of the room, talking in slow Visayan to the village chief, the teniente. Catharine sat with her back against the ridged wall. She'd never felt more alone in her life. Every available inch of space in the one-room hut was absorbed by the party of Americans, their cargadores, and the teniente's family. Frances's elbow crowded Catharine on her right. Billy Miller's bony shoulder pushed at her from the left. The room throbbed with warmth, the smell of dirty bodies, and a pungent odor of partially cooked pork. Despite their hunger for meat, the Americans had declined the pork. They'd seen it butchered, seen the writhing mass of worms in it, and watched it sizzle for too short a time above a smoky fire. Instead, they'd eaten the hot rice and shared hard green bananas.

Catharine watched the light from the quinqui flare briefly and illuminate Jack's dark, strong face. She wondered how it could be that two people could love as they had loved, with a passion that rivaled the heat and power of an exploding volcano, and sit in a small, confined space and be as distant as the poles.

He didn't glance at her once.

She would have known. She couldn't have missed it.

Where had their love gone? Why didn't he know with an absolute, unwavering instinct that he was her heart, her soul, the only link to reality that would ever matter to her?

His face looked heavy, somber, in the uncertain light. He seemed totally intent upon his labored conversation with the flattered teniente.

Catharine couldn't see the color of his eyes in the dim light, but she didn't need to see them to remember their brilliance, the vivid aquamarine brighter and clearer than any sea. She could see the strong fullness of his shoulders, powerful arms that had once held her so gently, so lovingly.

She wanted him. She wanted to love him, to feel his lips on hers and the wonderful warmth and strength of his body. Desire pulsed within her. She tightened her hands into fists, into tight, hard balls. Couldn't he feel this current between them?

Then, just for an instant, so quickly it might never have happened, his head turned. His eyes looked across the wavering darkness at her, and Catharine knew that he wanted her, too.

Jack waited impatiently at the edge of the clearing. The Americans arranged at each night's stop for a new team of cargo carriers because the natives didn't want to go too far from their home area. The fresh cargadores leisurely began to arrange their burdens. Jack lit a second precious cigarette and knew he was squandering his small hoard. Why didn't Miller push them harder?

He drew the smoke down into his lungs, and some of his irritation dissipated. Frances was having a hard time keeping up. And what difference did it make when they reached the guerrillas? Once, it would have mattered. It might have meant he was that much nearer to being with Catharine—if she'd stayed in the miners' camp as he had intended. But Catharine hadn't stayed. None of them had stayed, so his objectives to get the damned gold away from the women, to protect them from the Japanese, wasn't being realized. What difference would it make when they reached the guerrilla camp? Not a damn bit.

Catharine had made it clear, very clear, that Spencer came first.

The cargadores had their loads arranged now and were listening to the teniente, who spoke first to Miller, then to the men.

Jack looked across the clearing. The women were climbing down the notched log ladder from the hut, Frances first, then Catharine and Sally.

It shouldn't hurt so much.

Catharine was beautiful in the soft, misty early morning light. But she was always beautiful, even when Spencer pulled her into his arms and held her as a husband may hold his wife.

Jack wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He'd managed to avoid her ever since the day they'd left the miners' camp. There wasn't anything left to say, but now, as he watched her climb down the ladder, the old excitement churned inside him. It was hell to be so near her and not be able to touch her. It would be better, far better, to be away from her. As soon as they reached the guerrilla camp, he'd break free from this group. The miners had told them the latest word. The Japanese had ordered all Americans to come into Davao. Those who didn't would be killed when they were found.

Jack finished his cigarette and walked toward the cargadores. He'd stayed close to the leader the last few days, avoiding any contact with the other Americans. Especially Catharine. He walked swiftly, then paused and felt his face grow rigid.

Catharine was walking toward him. Her face was pale, almost luminous, in the dim morning light. Her incredibly violet eyes looked enormous. Despite fatigue and hunger, her face was strikingly beautiful: the soft curve of her mouth, the high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes. He wanted to turn away. But she stood squarely in front of him, barring his way. The others moved sluggishly behind them.

There was no artifice in her face. There was only pain.

“Jack, please, don't be angry with me.”

He felt unutterably tired. Wearily, he shook his head. “I'm not angry.”

Tears glistened in her eyes.

He felt a hot ache in his throat.

“You've avoided me—ever since the day we crossed that broken path.”

Jack looked away from her face and stared down at the uneven ground strewn with leaves, broken fronds, and pieces of bamboo. “I wanted you to stay with the miners. I wanted you to be safe,” he said harshly.

“I would rather be dead than be separated from you.”

His head jerked up. When Spencer was in trouble, he turned to her—and she helped him. When Spencer ordered her to come with him, she came.

His mouth would have quivered, but he held his face rigid. He swallowed once, then said shortly, violently, “Sure.” Turning, he walked swiftly away, shouldering past the cargadores to start up the trail.

The moment came with shocking suddenness.

Jack finished his breakfast of rice with a little bit of coconut milk and looked at their missionary host, Dr. Michaels. He spoke to him directly, and there was an abrupt and complete silence among the group that had struggled together since leaving Corregidor.

“Is there any chance, sir, of finding a boat along the coast?”

Dr. Michaels was oblivious to the effect of Jack's words among his fellow refugees. The missionary considered the question, then smiled gently. “Perhaps an outrigger canoe. Everything else has been taken over or destroyed by the Japanese.”

Foreboding swept Catharine. She leaned forward, her tin plate forgotten in her lap, and watched Jack's face.

There was so much power and passion in his face. He looked more alive than any man there in the dim half-light of early morning. There was a fierceness about him, the same sense of unfettered drive suggested by a hawk poised to soar.

Jack frowned. “If we could find any kind of halfway decent boat, maybe . . .”

Billy Miller interrupted, his drawl puzzled. “Man, what do we need with a boat? We're only a day's hike from the guerrilla camp.”

Jack lit a cigarette, drew deeply on it, then answered mildly enough. “I'm striking out on my own from here on, Miller.”

Miller frowned. “You can't do that.”

Jack smiled. “Miller, I'm not in your navy. And I don't give a damn about the gold. Take it to the guerrillas. Dump it in the ocean. Do whatever you please, but count me out.”

Catharine stared across the crowded sala. The missionaries and their wives listened curiously, excited by the arrival of these strangers. But the two nurses glanced at Catharine, then pretended to study their food. Spencer looked pleased.

Catharine stared at Spencer. How could he have so little understanding of her and her life? How could he not sense the enormous struggle within her?

The moment of decision had finally come. She realized that this moment would determine the course of her life. It was to be a public moment in a peculiarly private place.

Last night when it was time to plunge down into the dank, wet gully, she had been reluctant even though their new guide nodded reassuringly. The cargadores led the way as always, using their bolos to whip back the clinging tendrils that hung from the trees and shrubs. Catharine had been certain they were going into a dead end. The vegetation looked impenetrable. Catharine followed and tried to repulse a shudder at the gloom and darkness. The trail had wound down and down. They'd arrived just as night fell at the well-hidden camp of the missionaries, a cluster of five nipa huts on stilts near a rushing stream. The missionaries themselves, several families and two nurses, had greeted them cheerily. Catharine's sense of imprisonment subsided, although she slept with a feeling of dread and uneasiness.

But she hadn't imagined this moment. Nothing in her past had prepared her for this moment. She'd always avoided confrontations, though she'd come to understand since meeting Jack that her heart and mind were capable of great and sustained passion.

Jack didn't look her way when he stood and smiled down at the missionary.

“If you can loan me a guide to the coast, I'll be on my way.”

“Of course, young man. We will be delighted to help out.”

Spencer watched with a half-smile. He looked satisfied. It was, Catharine realized, a look she disliked intensely. Billy Miller frowned but said no more.

Slowly, Catharine stood.

Someone near her gasped. It must have been one of the nurses, Frances or Sally. Catharine heard the sound, followed by a sudden, taut silence. She was terribly aware of the hush and the startled faces turned toward her. She could feel the blood draining from her face.

Jack, too, looked across the crowded sala at her. For an instant, he seemed a distant stranger, his eyes questioning, his face somber.

They all waited.

She was a very private person, but now, in this very public moment, she must make her choice. She could not delay because she knew Jack too well. He had made his decision. He would leave the group, and he would never return.

She faced the most profound crisis of her life. Everything that she had ever known and experienced came together, with the clear understanding that her life came to nothing if she didn't follow where her heart led.

Catharine closed them all out of her consciousness. She looked at Jack across the crowded sala and spoke to him alone. “I am coming with you.”

Again, as if from a far distance, she heard the sharp intake of breath and heard, too, Spencer's harsh call of her name, but she closed out the sound as she had closed out the presence of the others. She looked at Jack, waited for his answer, and knew that there need not be an answer. She saw his face, the face of a man who no longer believed in miracles and was watching a miracle happen.

There was for that moment in the nipa hut, so far from safety and from the reality of life as they'd known it, a clarity and greatness that could never be surpassed.

She was moving across the congested space when Spencer grabbed her arm and jerked her around to face him. An angry red flush stained his face; his mouth twisted in fury. “You can't do this, Catharine. You can't make a fool of me, do you hear?”

Catharine knew Jack was lunging forward. She held up a hand to stop him as she pulled free of Spencer's grip. She looked at her husband and felt a surge of anger. So this was Spencer's feeling—concern for his status, for his standing. It was as it had always been. He didn't love her. She had been an accomplished, useful, decorative wife and once a mother—nothing more. She felt free—no matter what society might think or say. She owed Spencer nothing more.

“You are making a fool of yourself,” she rejoined quietly. “What I do or where I go is no concern of yours, Spencer, not anymore.”

“You are still my wife.” He rasped the words.

“We have not been husband and wife for many years,” she said wearily, hating this public exchange but determined to be honest for Jack's sake.

“The fellow's a boor, a second-rate, seedy newspaperman.”

“He's the finest, bravest man I've ever known. I love him—and I'm going with him.” Her words hung clearly in the stillness of the sala. Catharine struggled across the crowded room and realized that some of the missionaries frowned darkly and drew away as she passed. She lifted her chin, looked at Jack, and reached out to take his hand.

They climbed down the ladder of the hut. When they stood on the ground, he pulled her into his arms, and his smile exploded.

“You're wonderful. I always knew you were wonderful, but that was magnificent, Catharine.”

He gave her a quick, hard hug, then took her hand and turned toward the faint path that plunged into the heavy growth.

“Where are we going?” she called out.

Jack was still grinning. “Hell, I don't know, but it doesn't matter, not so long as you're with me.”

Catharine didn't hesitate, and she didn't look back at the nipa huts.

She didn't pause either at the sound of Spencer's angry voice shouting her name. She was only a few feet up the jungle path when the sound was gone, lost and muted in the tropical growth.

The barrio was deserted. Not even a single pig wallowed in the heavy mud at the edge of the clearing.

Jack paused where the trail flared into the clearing, one hand up to keep Catharine behind, the other raised with his bolo held high.

It was eerily quiet, the light filtering through the tall trees, shining down in slanted bars of silver, falling across the nipa huts that had the unmistakable air of abandonment.

Catharine watched tensely as Jack moved soft-footed through the clearing and cautiously checked each hut. Their cargadores waited with her at the edge of the clearing. When Jack returned, he made no effort to be quiet. He stopped beside one hut and knelt. Catharine joined him and looked down, too.

He was staring at a print in the soft ground, the small, mitten-shaped print of a tennis shoe.

He looked up at her. “Japs,” he said briefly.

Catharine said nothing, but she wondered how long the print had been there. Had the Japanese been here since the brief shower that morning?

Catharine looked around the ominously quiet clearing. She'd learned to know barrios as they trudged up to mountain heights and down again to the coast in search of escape. The tribesmen always welcomed them, shared what they had, and looked shyly but with great interest at Catharine. She'd learned to expect the solemn gazes of the children when she took quick plunges into mountain streams to bathe. She'd become accustomed to the giggles of the younger wives and the shy friendliness of the older women, but this was the first time they'd entered a barrio to find no one, only the sharp call of the macaws and the occasional chatter of treetop monkeys.

Their head cargadore, Vincente, frowned. “We can't stay here.”

“It's all right now,” Jack replied.

“I don't like it either,” Catharine said uneasily. “Jack, what are we going to do?”

The cargadores were busy making a fire. It would be their usual lunch: boiled rice and boiled coffee with a fresh banana for dessert.

“I think I'd better take a look ahead.”

Catharine pushed away from the bole of the coconut tree. “I'll go with you.”

“No.” At her quick frown, he explained. “This is just a reconnaissance, Catharine. I can move more quietly by myself with Vincente. You'll be safer here. I'll post a look-out.”

She understood the logic, but she didn't like it. She hated this ghostly, deserted barrio. There was nothing but silence and the imprint of a Japanese sneaker on the damp earth.

Catharine felt a wave of despair when Jack and Vincente left, but she smiled and raised a hand in farewell. She was being foolish, a combination of fatigue and fear. It was certainly good to have an afternoon to rest, and Jack and Vincente could move faster without all of them. They would find a boat, and she and Jack would be on their way. She pushed aside her memory of the Pacific and its endless empty space. What kind of boat could Jack find that would be seaworthy enough to get them to Australia? How would they sail it? He would have to find, too, a navy man willing to risk the journey. That, perhaps, would be the easiest task of all. The island, with all its incredible wilderness, was a refuge for growing numbers of Americans, including the army and navy men who had ignored Wainwright's order to surrender.

Perhaps they were only hours away from escaping the Philippines. Catharine wandered aimlessly around the barrio. Perhaps it had been a prosperous small community. There were almost a dozen huts on stilts. She wondered where all of its citizens had fled. Her walk reinforced her sense of oppression. The cargadores had doused the fire and were stretched out asleep in the shade of a hut, except for Pilo serving as a sentry. Catharine hesitated, then climbed up the ladder of one of the huts, where there was a broad bamboo sleeping platform against the back wall. She crossed to it and sank gratefully down. She smiled a little as she drifted into sleep.

It was a sound that woke her, brought her upright, one hand tight against her throat: a mélange of noises, the thudding of feet, a frantic thrashing through thick undergrowth, shouts, a high, broken-off scream.

Catharine knew even before she flattened herself to one side of the opening to look down into the clearing. From her height, she could see perfectly. She could see the blood welling from the throat of Pilo, her favorite among the cargadores, a slender, laughing young man who liked to whistle American songs. Now he wavered on his feet; his hands came slowly up to try and staunch the flow of blood. The Japanese soldier raised his sword, swung again, and Pilo's head rocketed backwards to bounce against the hard-packed dirt.

The sun-drenched, blood-splotched clearing wavered in her sight. Catharine pressed hard against the side of the nipa wall, knowing what must come, knowing with a growing horror that they would find her. She would be a woman and an enemy for them to do with as they chose; she had no means of protection, no way of resisting.