Quintspinner (48 page)

“Jacko!” A high pitched voice barked out the name. The man with the machete jumped to his feet. One of the islanders stepped forward, and staring at Tess, advanced towards them, with a stride that was purposeful and fearless. As the stranger stepped closer, only two strides away, Tess gasped.

From this close distance she was clearly a woman, her form wrapped in a ragged and sun-bleached caftan. Glancing at William and staring briefly down the barrels of the pistols, the woman then brazenly reached out and touched Tess’s neck.

“Erzulie?”

The foreign syllables in the woman’s question hung in the air between them, but it was not her boldness that had made Tess gasp. There, imbedded into the slight curve of the woman’s shoulder muscle, was the raised scar of the
Bloodhorn
brand.

“Erzulie?” the woman asked again, impatience creeping into her voice.

Tess frowned and pulled the woman’s hand away from her neck where it had rested on her birthmark. Now it was the strange woman’s turn to gasp as daybreak’s climbing light glinted off the blue tourmalines in Tess’s ring. Her eyes narrowed and she stared at Tess.

“Come.”

The command from the woman, in English, startled Tess and she raised a questioning brow at William, who still stood at her side, both pistols raised. He looked around warily but then simply shrugged. His eyes met Tess’s and then regarded the woman’s as he nodded.

“Lead on then,” he consented.

In single file, they walked back into the jungle, retracing one set of foot prints in the sand. Even these were whisked away with a palm frond by the last man in the procession. To the casual eye there were no remaining signs of a human presence upon the beach. It took only several steps past the vegetation’s edge for them to be swallowed up by the dense rain forest.

One of the men led the way, his steps quick and surely placed, yet nearly soundless upon the forest’s floor. Underfoot, a thick, wet carpet of leaves dampened their footfalls.

They trudged through the undergrowth, dodging curtains of ropey vines and pushing through sun-flecked walls of enormous heart-shaped leaves and spiky fronds. Moss coated tree trunks sprouted webs of twisted roots, anchoring them down to the jungle floor, while their leafy crowns stretched overhead and blended into a lacey canopy. A thick green wrap of living velvet coated everything around them–rocks, tree trunks, and the entwining strands which fell from dizzying heights overhead.

All around there was a discordant orchestra of sounds–twitters and shrieks, whistles and clucks–and from time to time there were flashes of brilliant yellows, oranges, and reds, but mostly this strange world was a quilt of endless shades of greens, soft and dappled with thin shafts of tropical sunlight.

The increasing burn in their leg muscles indicated that they were climbing all the while. William’s stiff knee caused him to struggle as the ground underfoot became steeper. At one point, he lost his footing and began to pitch backwards but Tess struck out with her hand, barely grasping the front of his threadbare tunic, as she counterbalanced his sprawl. Sheepishly he regained his balance, remarking, “Thanks for that.”

Pulling him close to her, Tess responded, whispering into his ear in a way that raised gooseflesh on his arms, “Were you falling for me?” Besides being embarrassed at tripping and being rescued by Tess, her attempt at humor under the circumstances left William annoyed. He grunted and continued on past her.

In fact, William had been concentrating on the body language of those around them, rather than watching his footing. He noted the way they walked in a semi-crouch, their eyes never still, constantly scanning as their heads slowly swiveled from side to side. They stepped silently, moved silently, with no conversation between them.

He recognized the signs.

They are afraid of something,
William thought.
But what? There could be all kinds of predators in this place, but surely we would be smelled by them no matter how silently we traveled … what are they afraid of?

The hairs on William’s neck bristled as he felt the imaginary eyes of unseen watchers on his back. He, too, began to glance furtively around him as they traveled. The tension in their small group was palpable. Surveying the jungle to his side, William miscalculated a step and caught his toes on a fallen branch, which sent him sprawling face first. The others recoiled at the unexpected movement as if he had discharged his gun among them.

William lay shame-faced in the jungle mulch for only a few seconds but it was long enough. His nostrils were filled with a scent that was completely out of place and set off alarm bells in his head. The odor was familiar yet screamed of danger.

It was a pungent mixture of horse shit and blood and … the odor of wet dog.

A fraction of intense homesickness stabbed through William as he tried to decipher the scents. The heme scent was faint, older, but still metallic. The manure was relatively fresh, and the dog ….

Jacko had reached down and was pulling William to his feet when William spotted the slight impression in the leafy trail bed. Someone with boots on had stepped in this very spot. Recently. Someone with a dog.

A tracker. Most likely a fierce and skilled hunter whose tracking abilities would be rivaled only by the amount of cruelty and violence that such a job required to be successful.

His discovery did not escape his captor’s notice. Instantly crouching beside William, Jacko squinted at the impression and then back at William, as if trying to anticipate William’s next reaction.

William, too, was making an instantaneous decision. To cry out for help and bolt now into the care of this unknown hunter, or to stay with known opponents. Which was going to be the lesser danger? Leaving Tess behind was out of the question–even if he were to manage to escape, Tess would be killed. That was a certainty. William could sense their new captors’ strong drive for self-preservation; it was deeply steeped in primal fear and fueled by their instinct to survive at all costs. Any hint of escape by either William or Tess would be construed as a fatal threat. As well, the open hostility shown towards them upon their discovery on the beach had left little hope that this was a sympathetic search party. Yet he and Tess had not been harmed so far ….
Maroons! These people have to be Maroons!

He had often heard the sailors talk about bounty money there for the taking, by rounding up ex-slaves on the islands and returning them to their owners. Resulting riches or not, the sale of human flesh was repugnant to him.

William quickly made his decision.

“Horseman,” William whispered to Jacko who had remained crouched beside him. “And blood. With a dog.” He saw the man’s eyes widen in understanding and momentarily flash with fear, and then, just as quickly, Jacko issued a short bird-like warble. Simultaneously, his companions dropped to the ground, pulling Tess down with them and disappearing from sight. For long moments no one moved while the rhythm of the jungle filled in the silence around them. William’s back and legs ached with the tension of lying so still when every cell in his body screamed for him to get up and run. His level of anxiety was magnified with the mounting fear of their discovery. He lay face down for what seemed like several minutes and began to wonder if the danger had somehow passed them by.

And then he noticed it.

An audibly steady rhythm. Mouth-breathing. By one who was perhaps overdressed, laboring to breathe in this humidity and heat. By one who wore boots.

Nodding his head ever so slightly in the direction of the sound, William squared his gaze on Jacko lying beside him. Acknowledging the intent of William’s message with a head nod of his own, the man suddenly slithered backwards on his stomach, disappearing into the foliage.

What the hell? Where is he going? Oh my God,
he thought bitterly,
he’s gone. The bastard is saving his own skin and leaving us here to be slaughtered!

A wash of terror swept over William and he could hear the quickening pulse of his blood as it coursed through his veins. He fought to keep his own breathing quiet and under control but survival instincts kicked in and he rolled off the path, slight as it was, and under the fronds of a giant fern. The faint tremor of footfalls reverberated against his cheek as he lay pressed against the ground. He lifted his head as high as he dared, scanning the area where he had lain just moments before.

A harsh sniffing sound filled his ears. The excited huffing rhythm brought back a flash of memory of a time when Lucas had hunted alongside William. The intense snuffling pattern was the same.
The dog! It’s hunting us!

A low menacing growl rumbled close to the ground. William froze as his eyes stared into the animal’s. It was close enough that

William could smell the carnivore’s hot, foul breath. Its lips were pulled back over slavering fangs in a menacing snarl and the dog sank into a low crouch–a familiar posture that screamed of an imminent attack. William’s heart thudded painfully; he could smell his own fear. He hoped the end would come quickly. The animal looked savage and strong enough to make that happen.

A pair of khaki trousers materialized on the trail behind the dog. The hunter advanced another step forward and then slowly sank down onto one knee beside his hound, sighting down the barrel of his musket which he held ready.

A flicker of surprise flashed across the man’s face as his eyes locked onto William’s. William was only partially camouflaged by the fern fronds, and for a moment the man seemed uncertain of what he saw. The tracker’s hound had no such misgivings however, and with a rumbling snarl, launched itself, leaping onto William, fangs bared, aiming for a throat hold. Reflexively, the dagger handles were in William’s hands before he could even think about saving himself and the jungle’s clamor was split by one long howl, as the dog slammed into William’s chest, the force of the attack driving the knives’ lengths into its neck and chest. The dog quivered, and was still.

With his gun still aimed directly at William, the tracker hesitated, not immediately comprehending his animal’s demise. The moment of hesitation proved to be fatal. A hand shot out from behind, covering the man’s mouth and a rusty blade sliced across his throat, unleashing a spray of blood. The hunter’s eyes rolled back in his head, and with no more than a single gurgle, he collapsed, revealing Jacko standing behind.

Rolling out from beneath the dog’s body, William watched as Jacko quickly stripped the body of every piece of clothing as well as the weapons before bending over and pulling the man’s stained boots off. There, stuck between the heel and sole of one, was a wedge of horse manure.

“Slave catcher!” Jacko’s eyes narrowed and his voice trembled as he spat out the hated words. He landed a vicious kick to the corpse’s face, and then, tying the boots’ laces together before slinging them over his shoulder, he called to the only woman in their group. “Mambo!” He handed the machete to her as he picked up the hunter’s long barreled shotgun. Holding the heavy blunderbuss to his chest, he simply pointed uphill.

“We go.”

They had stopped for a brief drink from a stream whose edge they appeared to have been following. Tess sat quietly, her back resting against a mossy tree trunk. Her mind spun with an increasing sense of dread. Where were they being taken to?
What
were they being taken to? Spinning the fine tourmaline gold and silver braid around her finger, she begged her frantic thoughts to settle into some semblance of order.