Pirate's Wraith, The (25 page)

“Do you think the Spaniards left?” Lesley asked. 

“Dawn has come.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear seabirds.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. She could appreciate seabirds. Birds were far, far better than bats.

Tiny sparks flew as he worked with his flint and steel to ignite his homemade torch. In a few minutes, the torch’s blaze lit the cave, but harsh shadows wavered as he swung his crude lamp. Goosebumps rose on her skin. The scenario brought to mind all those old horror films she had watched as a teenager. She wondered if somebody—or something—would jump out of the shadows.

“Edison was truly a genius,” she sighed.

“Who is he?”

“He invented electric light bulbs in the nineteenth century, a big step for mankind. People didn’t need candles anymore.”

“Ridiculous. People will always need candles.” He stood.

“
True, they will use them, but not for illumination. They use them for ambience.”

“Bibble-babble.”

Irritated, she ground out her words. “You should try a little harder to listen when I’m speaking.”

“Your words are mere inventions.”

“Just because you haven’t heard them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”

He jumped out of the alcove.

“Hey! You’re not leaving me here.”
In the dark. By myself.

“Hush.” He warned holding up his hand. “This cave has many openings.”

“Terrific.” She scurried to the edge of the alcove. “Then ... someone might kidnap me while you’re gone.”

“One opening in the cave lies not far from here. It looks down upon the area where the Spaniards are salvaging the wreckage.”

Lesley grabbed her crutch. “I can move quickly. I did well climbing up the mountain. My ankle doesn’t hurt much anymore—”

“No.”

“Please?”

“There are bats.” The stern set of his mouth and his narrowed eyes seemed a good indication that he meant exactly what he said.

A great wave of dismay swept over her. “Are they small?”

“Yes, but there are many and their droppings are ... unpleasant ... as well as slippery.”

“Bat poop?” Her stomach sloshed uneasily despite the fact that there wasn’t anything in it.

“Stay here and be quiet.”

She gave a slow nod, but something unexpected happened. He leaned forward and kissed her. The light touch on her lips shocked her at first, but then all the emotion she had dammed up broke through the floodgates of her desire. She pulled him against her and plunged her tongue into his mouth. A rush of heat ignited in her veins. All fear left her and she gave no heed to the consequences of her action. Her hormones controlled her--she acted on instinct and need.

He growled or groaned, she barely acknowledged the sound, but when he pushed her away she could only whimper.

“Hush,” he whispered. With one hand he cupped her chin and ran his thumb along her lower lip. Then he moved on, as quiet as a cat, leaving her to stare at the flickering shadows his torch left behind him.

She ran her fingers over her lips, not quite sure how to classify that kiss. Could it be an I’m-off-to-work kind of kiss or a don’t-get-hysterical-on-me kind of kiss. At any rate, it boosted her temperature a few degrees, a good thing in the damp, dark cave. Maybe that was his orig
inal intention until she kissed him back.

She liked it. More than that, s
he wanted to continue especially since every nerve in her body squirmed, screaming for release. The taste of him lingered on her tongue and she savored it until the flavor disappeared. The cloying aroma of sage returned and filled her nostrils while the horrible memories of the dream took hold of her.

Her heart ached for Josiah. In the dream, she had been Elsbeth. How that could be, she could not imagine. All the science she had studied disproved theories of psychic connections, but she could not define it any other way. She had never believed in such phenomena, but she could not deny that she experienced everything as if she had been in Elsbeth’s mind—in El
sbeth’s body.

She had held Josiah and kissed him, sung his favorite song, and rocked him. When she took the toy horse from him, it seemed she had torn her own heart asunder. She would have fought the entire world to keep her child, but the constable had ended her struggle with one blow.

In the dream, Elsbeth’s pain had become her pain. Elsbeth’s struggle, her struggle and Harlan understood none of it.

He had thrown the small toy into the fire and gone right back to sea feeling sorry for himself, but giving nary a thought to all the suffering Elsbeth had endured, alone and friendless.

The widow had been kind to her and had not asked for money.

Trembling in the dark, and pondering the sorrowful remnants of the dream had her feeling as if she would suffocate. She decided she had to do ... something.

Her stomach grumbled so loudly she rubbed it in an attempt to end it from making so much noise. She gnawed on a fingernail as the minutes crept by.

Finally, she heard something. She barely breathed. A light beamed in the darkness, but it did come from the direction in which Harlan had gone.

“Vistazo a esta.”

The Spaniards
! They laughed as they wandered along. She saw two torches. Were these the same two men who had pursued them last night?

Now her heart pounded far louder than the growling of her stomach. She scooted back to the farthest corner of the alcove, but she doubted whether she would escape notice. However, they were on the other side of the cave pool. She did not know whether a path circled all around the pool, or if a stone bridge crossed over it.

She listened to their boisterous chatter.

“Uno, dos, tres, cuatro ...” 
They counted their echoes.

Surely, Harlan would hear them, wherever he was. 

She caught some of the words despite her horrible high school Spanish and the three intervening centuries, which had caused the language to evolve. They seemed to be wandering around the cave and enjoying the sights. She barely breathed and her mouth had all the moisture of crepe paper. She wished she could become invisible.

Then one of the men shot off a gun. The sound of the blast caused a reverberation in the cave. She
covered her ears. After a minute or so, the noise died away. The men laughed.

“Me toca a mí.”

Again, one of the men fired a shot. This time, in addition to the deafening echoes reverberating through the cave, Lesley heard a splash as part of a stalactite fell into the pool. Were they using stalactites for target practice? Were they stupid or drunk? Maybe  both.

Another round of gunfire shook the cave and a larger chunk of one stalactite fell into the pool, which created some rather large ripples. The men’s hilarity almost drowned
out the echoes of the gunfire—until the rumble started.

The men stopped laughing. Another stalactite fell into the pond, and a noise louder than the explosion of gunfire filled the cave as the ceiling gave way.

“¡Santo dios!”
The men yelled and ran.

Lesley had no escape route and even if she did, she could not run. She clung to the toy horse, drew her knees up to her chin, and closed her eyes. The cave shook as huge rocks collapsed in the cavern. The deafening blast of the collapse had the ring of doom.
I’m going to be buried alive.

Thick dust choked her though she covered her nose with her shirt. Chunks of broken rocks pelted her as they flew into the small alcove. Although the alcove was elevated above the main floor of the cavern, the water from the pool rose up and splashed into the small space. She cowered in terror.

Still, the small alcove maintained its integrity despite the collapse of the great cavern. The wave of water quickly receded and within ten minutes, the cave quieted, save for the sounds of shifting rocks, running water, and falling sand. 

Coughing from the thick dust caught in her lungs, Lesley could see nothing in the darkness when she opened her eyes. Not a single beam of light from the world outside penetrated the Stygian gloom of the cave. Utter despair took hold of her. There would be no point in crying, but she could not help but wonder why she had met with this particular fate.

Had Harlan survived the cataclysm? Even if he had managed to escape, he had no tools to dig her out. She still had the small knife in her boot and she decided she would have to muster up the courage to kill herself rather than die a slow and painful death.

As she contemplated what she believed to be the inevitable, the small horse in her hand grew hotter than usual. She glanced down and realized it had started to glow. The light from the small object soon filled the small alcove.

Lesley stared in wonder at the gleaming toy. The widow truly had imbued the small object with magic. What other explanation could there be? The shimmering radiance gave her new courage and as the dust settled, she saw she was not entirely trapped. She could crawl out of her niche, but finding the way out of the cave would be a major challenge. The exit could be blocked—or there could be a new opening. In addition, the rocks continued to shift in the cave. 

The enemy could still be searching around for her outside, too.

What if Harlan had not survived? The idea filled her with panic. She relied on him. He had been with her through so much trauma she could not imagine life in 1711 without him.

She touched her fingers to her dry and dust-covered lips. Would his kiss be the last thing s
he would have to remember him? Was he buried beneath the rubble? The thought of him crushed, cold, and lifeless sent a keen pain to her heart.

She could have enjoyed making love with him but now he could be dead—and she might die if she could not find her way out of the cave. She had been so afraid of germs and having a child in this virtual wilderness that she might have thrown away one of the greatest moments of her life.

She let out a sob and the little horse glowed even brighter.

“Okay.” She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I’ll see how far I can go.”

With her crutch, she shoved at several small boulders to widen her exit from the alcove, but shifting those rocks caused several others to move and that created a new avalanche of tumbling rocks.

When the dust settled once more, she held the glowing toy horse above her head and stared out into what had been a lovely cavern. Now it had the look of a moonscape. She wondered how long it took for stalactites and stalagmites to form. Could the cave return to its former glory in say ... three hundred years?

Picking her way with care over the uneven surface, she moved toward her left, which is the way she had come with Harlan. However, the small wooden toy in her hand dimmed as she turned in that direction. Its light faded quickly and she soon could not see anything.

“Dammit.” The soul within her grew as dark as the murky cave. She could not continue without any bright beam to guide her. She swung around to turn back into the alcove, but when she did the horse shone again.

Hope ignited in her breast. Once more, she headed to the left to attempt to retrace the way she had come into the cave—and the glow from the horse died.

When she turned right, the horse sent out a cheerful gleam.

“Alright ... I guess I’m supposed to go that way. Are you a compass, too?” Since she had no other choice, she decided to allow the toy horse its head.

Walking on the uneven surface with boulders and loose rocks presented a challenge but the ominous rumbles, which sounded every few minutes, pulled her nerves so taut she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. The cave continued to be unstable. Pebbles rained down and once a large slab fell only a few feet from where she stood. She would have been crushed to death if it had landed on her.

With her heart pounding, she struggled onward until she smelled a fresh breeze laden with the scent of brine. She thought she heard the call of gulls, too, though the sound came to her ears as muffled echoes.

Harlan had spoken of an opening in the cave from which he could see the wreck of the Spanish ship. Perhaps, she could find that opening simply by fol
lowing the fresh air. He had also told her that the mountain on that side dropped straight down. She swallowed hard. How would she reach the bottom? What if the Spaniards were still there? Would they really make her a slave if they captured her?

What if the Spaniards had already captured Harlan? She drew in a deep breath and clenched her jaw. If he had become a prisoner, she would help him escape.

Hell.
She had a college degree and mad marketing skills. Somehow, someway she could figure out how to save the day.

She edged around the corner where the scent of the sea seemed strongest. Again, the glow from the toy went out.

“Come on.” She muttered as she shook it. It refused to send out a beam until she retreated. Eventually, by obeying the light from the toy she came to an opening no more than four feet high and partially blocked by fallen rocks.

She did not like the look of it and an unpleas
ant odor repelled her as well, but she pulled away some the rocks until she could wiggle through the opening. She stepped into a chamber, which appeared to have suffered only minor damage from the cave collapse. When her foot slid on a slippery substance, she glanced down and her stomach turned. Panic gripped her as she held up her glowing toy and stared at the ceiling of the chamber. It was covered with bats. Thousands of shiny eyes peered down at her.