Brutal Revenge (18 page)

More
shots were fired from the top of the hill as they cleared the little cove and
the bullets plunged into the water all around them. But in thirty seconds they
were clear of the rocks and out of range.

THIRTY
ONE

They
were a mile out when the fog came.

It
rolled in from the west like a cloud on wheels, blotting out the stars one by
one. The greyness swirled thickly around them, cold, clammy, oppressive.
Maclean reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small lightweight compass
which he handed to Parker.

“I
managed to get hold of this on the island,” he explained. “Just make sure we're
headed north, north-east.”

“How's
Bella doing?” Parker asked, taking the compass.

He'd
realized soon after starting out that Bella wouldn't survive the crossing. She
was losing too much blood and her breathing was becoming more and more erratic.

“Not
good,” Maclean said. “I can't keep her awake.”

When
Maclean had opened her coat to look at the wound, Parker had seen it too and it
had turned his stomach. The hole, when the blood was wiped away, wasn't very
big, but the bullet had punctured her chest just above the right breast and he
was able to speculate on the extent of the damage inside. He was surprised, in
fact, that she had lasted this long.

Maclean
was obviously refusing to accept the inevitable. He stroked her forehead and
dabbed at her wound with his already blood-soaked hanky. Parker felt genuinely
sorry for him.

He
looked again at the girl and reflected on the irony of it. There had been three
of them on the jetty and fate had decreed that the bullet fired by one of her
own people should find her — the one among them whose only crime was that she
had fallen in love with a man who was not deserving of it.

Parker
stared ahead into the fog. The water was mirror-flat almost and he knew that
probably meant a storm was brewing. Maclean continued to swab Bella's wound and
her breathing gradually grew fainter.

Five
minutes into the fog, the engine began to stutter. Maclean was too preoccupied
to notice, but Parker became instantly aware of the change in the engine note.

His
first thought was that they were running out of petrol and he prayed that this
wasn't so. The islander had told him it was always kept full. But he had obviously
lied.

The
engine hiccoughed again.

And
again.

Now
Maclean was conscious of it as well and his face became so numbed by terror it
seemed almost spectral against the eerie backdrop of grey, wispy cloud.

Then
the engine gave a final splutter and died.

Parker
reached over and unscrewed the petrol cap. Empty. Not a single bloody drop.

“You're
sure it's not something else?” Maclean enquired anxiously.

Parker
slammed his fist down on top of the outboard.

“Of
course I'm sure. It's as dry as a bone.”

Maclean
lowered his head and stared at Bella, his expression intense. And then he broke
down. The quivering of his shoulders was followed by tears that fell in large
droplets on to her tangled hair.

“No.
No. No,” he cried.

There
were no oars in the boat, so they couldn't attempt to row to Mull. They'd just
have to sit tight and be carried by the current. Sooner or later, if a wave
didn't swamp them, they'd be washed ashore somewhere.

For
another ten minutes they drifted aimlessly without a word passing between them.
Then Maclean sprang to his feet suddenly, and started yelling.

“Bella!
Wake up! Bella!”

Parker
watched, feeling strangely awkward, as Maclean began shaking her by the
shoulders.

“Bella!
Wake up! Please!”

Maclean
sat astride her and started pumping her chest. Once, twice, three times. Hard
enough so that if she was alive there would at least be a response. But there
wasn't. Parker got up and stood over him, looking beyond his shoulders into
Bella's face. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, but she had stopped
breathing.

“She's
gone, Andy,” Parker said.

“No.
She's sleeping. She can't be dead.”

But
she was. And no amount of physical stimulation was going to bring her back to
life.

“We've
got to get her to a doctor,” Maclean shouted.

“A
doctor won't be any use now,” Parker said.

Maclean
turned on Parker. “You just shut up and get that fucking engine going.”

“It
won't go, Andy,” Parker said. “There's no petrol.”

“I
said get it going, dammit. We've only got a few more miles to go.”

 
Parker could see that Maclean was on the verge
of losing control of himself altogether. He backed away from him and made a
move to pick up the rifle — just to be on the safe side. But Maclean suddenly
pushed himself up and lunged at Parker, grabbing instinctively for the throat.
Parker was knocked off balance. His knees clashed with the sharp edge of the
seat and he went over, knocking his shoulder painfully against one of the
rawlocks.

Maclean
was on top of him at once, trying to strangle him, crying, “You killed her, you
bastard. You killed her.”

Parker
clawed desperately at his hands but they didn't give an inch.

Maclean
yelled, “If it hadn't been for you, she'd still be alive. You led them to us.”

Parker
placed a hand under Maclean's chin and began to push upwards.

“I'll
kill you!” Maclean was yelling. “I'll kill you!”

At
last his hands fell away from Parker's throat and Parker gave one final shove
which sent him reeling backwards.

But
they were both as quick as one another to get up. Maclean dived for the rifle
first. But Parker had anticipated the move and was on him just as his fingers
touched the barrel. They rolled to one side locked in a violent embrace, and
came crashing down on the side of the boat. The deck boards reared up under
their feet and the boat keeled over, throwing them both into the ice-cold
water.

They
both went under and Parker found himself spinning aimlessly in a vortex of
flying bubbles and flailing limbs. The suitcases, weighted down with the
treasure, brushed past his left shoulder towards the bottom of the sea. He
rolled this way and that, did a complete somersault and swallowed mouthfuls of
foul-tasting water.

Then
the chaos cleared and he struggled to an upright position, trying at the same
time to get his bearings. The first thing to take shape was Maclean's shrinking
form. He was swimming downwards, deeper, not in some mad attempt to rescue the
treasure, but trying for some absurd reason to catch up to Bella, who was
sinking rapidly as water flooded her lungs.

His
own insides bursting, Parker kicked out towards the surface. He broke through
after a few seconds and sucked in the sweet, chilled air. The upturned boat was
close by. He swam to it and clung on to dear life while he struggled to catch
his breath.

Around
him the sea remained calm. There was only a slight breeze to stir the fog. He
felt sick, cold, helpless. The seconds ticked away and Maclean did not appear.

*

Twenty
feet below the surface, Maclean ran out of time. Too late, he realized that he
had been carried away by his emotions virtually to the point of insanity. He
was holding Bella's left arm, and had been about to pull her upwards, when his
lungs gave out. His nostrils flared and his eyes swelled to golf-ball size.
Then his mouth fell open involuntarily and the water poured in.

He
drowned in a matter of seconds.

THIRTY
TWO

Parker
gave up on Maclean after ten minutes. Only a fish could hold out that long
under water and Maclean was no fish.

Strangely
enough, he felt a deep sense of loss. Not for the treasure, which never even
entered his head, but for Maclean and the islanders who had suffered and would
go on suffering. The grieving widows and orphaned children. The ones who would
never be able to forget the four men who had come one night to their island and
had done such irretrievable damage to their lives.

The
current pushed him on into the night and for over three hours his fingers,
number by the cold, grasped relentlessly to the upturned hull. But eventually
he lost his grip. He slid under the water, and when he came up, choking and
spluttering, he was already several feet from the boat. He tried to reach it,
but couldn't. He was too tired even to raise one arm to complete a single stroke.
The boat continued to drift further and further away from him and in time it
was swallowed by the fog.

He
closed his eyes. He wanted to sleep. But at the same time he somehow found the
energy to move his legs just enough to keep his body afloat. But his
consciousness was slipping. Soon he wouldn't even be able to do that.

THIRTY
THREE

“Is
he dead?”

The
taller of the two men knelt beside the body. It had been washed up on the beach
in the early hours of the morning.

He
stared for a long moment at the sand-encrusted face, the bluish colour of the
skin, and the soaking wet clothes. He noticed, too, the almost imperceptible up
and down movement of the man's chest.

“Aye,”
he said. “He's breathing. Look.” The other man lowered himself to the sand and
confirmed his friend's finding.

“Amazing,”
he said.

“What
is?”

“Why,
that he didn’t die, of course. He must have a gut full of water though.”

“I
wonder how far they got.”

“From
the look of this one, at least a mile, I’d say.”

“What
could have happened? There was no storm last night as I recall. Just the fog.”

“It's
obvious to me. Our prayers were answered. God Himself was out there. He sent
this one back so we can punish him our way.”

The
tall man stood up. “We should get him to Angus, then. He'll know how best to go
about it.”

“Aye,
but let's be careful. We don't want him to die on us just yet, do we? Not until
we’ve made the bastard suffer.”

One
took his feet, the other his arms, and they started to carry Parker along the
beach towards the village.

THE END

Copyright James
Raven