THE NIGHT WAS treed with mastheads. Cool spring wind off the Atlantic left an extra measure of chill in its salty wake. Old South Wharf was its own kind of hinterland—separated, surrounded by an expanse of water, reaching its long wooden arms out into that vastness as though to embrace the sea that nourished it. In the obliqueness of night, every ship docked looked derelict. Rigging buzzed and whistled as the breeze twisted through the ropes, hulls creaked and moaned, rails bumped the pilings, bowsprits swayed slowly back and forth, deckhouses were overshadowed by the bases of big mainmasts, and not a living soul walked on any deck.
There didn’t seem to be anyone there at all, not at all. If there had been just the slightest glow of a lamp inside a wheelhouse. a shuffle of footsteps inside a fo’c’sle, a whiff of beans cooking in a galley—anything would have been comforting. But tonight the wharf was a graveyard. The only sound was that of waves lapping at the pilings. There was no Jake, there was no Pollock. There was no one.
Abbey scrutinized every ship and boat that looked even remotely familiar, toying with the idea that the boat where she’d seen Jake lurking about might have been moved here for some reason. But to someone who could tell cows apart at a glance, boats all look pretty much the same.
All this would have been disappointing but acceptable had Abbey not also been awash with the feeling that someone was following her, watching her. The wharf appeared completely abandoned, yet there were ghosts. These sleeping ships had eyes. The sensation prevented her from calling out to Jake, though she started to several times, only to swallow her words without uttering a sound. It made her tread lightly on the dock planks, not letting her boot heels clack, and she flinched every time the wood groaned under her weight.
She walked, slowly, all the way to the end of Old South Wharf, scrutinizing every ship as much as was possible without boarding any of them. Some were large barks and brigs, and she couldn’t see over the rails. Others were small schooners and even smaller sloops and sandbaggers, all dark, all uninhabited.
A sense of futility struck her about what she was really doing out here. What had she hoped to accomplish? In the hours that had passed since Pollock and Jake had disappeared on Nantucket’s quiet Colonial streets, they could have gone anywhere on the island, even have left Nantucket entirely. And then there was the question of what she would even say to him about all this.
A terrible aching began in the pit of her stomach and moved outward to her limbs. Her arms quaked to hold him as they had expected to, her legs throbbed with the want. They’d been promised something, and they still craved it. Somehow she had been foolish enough to convince herself—if shallowly—that if she could just find him, all would fall into place. She would discover that he knew nothing of Pollock’s past and had been swindled into dealing with the man. She would find herself in Jake’s arms, their hearts beating in unison with the melody she was sure they both knew, her lips toying with his.
Hopeless. None of that would happen tonight; she had just reached the end of Old South Wharf. There was nowhere left to search, at least not here. She turned and shivered in the ominous quiet of the wharf. The walk back down the dock to town appeared much longer and eerier from this vantage point halfway at sea. Old South Wharf was a long wooden centipede, leggy with extensions and hairy with masts jutting up into the blue-black night sky, twisting its thin body this way and that.
The wharf extended off Whale Street and from here it seemed to merge with Straight Wharf to her right and another wharf, whose name she couldn’t remember, to her left. Town Dock was beyond that one. A mess of masts. What minutes ago had looked like a forest of possibilities now just looked like a breezy, damp walk all the way back to town.
A moment later, that damp walk became even more ominous. As she turned along one of the dock’s bends, her feeling of being watched realized itself in the forms of three men, not ten feet away. Their faces darkened to shadows by cap brims, and they came at her. Now toward her—at her.
Abbey had seen the threatening set of human forms before; there was no mistaking it. She knew it instantly—by the determination in their shoulders, the slight bend to their legs, their lack of conversation. And they knew she knew. With a scream she scrambled backward in her tracks. But they had her.
Or they thought they had her. Abbey bellowed a single howl for help. One of the men tried to cover her mouth, but she clamped down on his hand with a healthy set of teeth. His yowl was even louder than hers had been as he tried to get his forefinger back.
“She’s biting me!” he bellowed, moving his hand out of the way and digging his stubby fingertips into her chin.
The taste of blood drove Abbey through fear and into rage, and she growled her response to him around his finger until he managed to wrench it out. A second shout for help ran across the water, obscuring her location even if anyone had heard it. She would have cried out a third time, but like the rest of her body her lungs were gathering for a fight. She was alone, and that meant she had to do her own work. They might win, but it would be a hard victory for them.
She twisted a hand free from the two men who now shackled her arms, and she let swing. Her fist rang against an ear, and her left side fell free of its captor. The man staggered away, clutching the side of his head and cursing. His cohorts were yelling at each other, but the roaring of her own breath in Abbey’s ears muddled their words. It was clear they hadn’t expected her to fight them, but years of life on the ruthless frontier had taught Abbey to move on her instincts and let the facts surface at more convenient times.
But these men learned quickly. After her feet and fists landed a few impolite blows, Abbey found her arms forced behind her back and a length of ship’s rope wound around her ankles.
“Got her,” snapped the man who was tying her legs. “Go get him.”
One of the other men disappeared down the dock, his feet rapping little staccato echoes as he ran.
She started to demand who they were and what they wanted of her, but the two who remained must have assumed she was about to scream. In an instant, there was a gritty cloth in her mouth, and any chance of shouting had been snuffed. A touch of panic made her writhe in the arms of her captors as her feet left the ground. She was being carried. For a wild, terrifying moment as the water passed beneath her, she thought they meant to fling her over the dock’s edge, arms and legs tied, to die at the bottom of the harbor without ever knowing why. Then shoes scraped against wood, and she realized that they were lowering her not into the water, but onto a ship’s deck.
Enraged, Abbey continued twisting and flexing and even managed to bloody one of the men’s noses before they stuffed her into a wheelhouse and slammed the door gratefully.
Her buckskin skirt came in handy against the splintery wooden floor that grated under her hips. She had been dropped in the middle of the small area with nothing to lean on, and she had to raise her feet up into the air before she could force herself into a sitting position. Eyes wide with fury, she sucked a deep breath through her nose and bellowed a whiny nasal shriek, just to vent her anger and clear her head. That done, she began the business of using her tongue and her lips to push the rotten rag out of her mouth. By the time it flopped into her lap, the rag had made her lips raw and dried her mouth completely. That was all right; it just made her madder.
For the first time since coming east, she found herself wishing for the soft eastern shoes she’d been trying to get used to. Her favorite old boots were stiff-soled and made of thick leather, which only made it easy for the rope to keep a purchase around her ankles and feet. No matter how she scuffed and rubbed, her ankles stayed bound. And so they would remain until she could get her hands free.
She stopped struggling for a moment and looked about the dim wheelhouse. The only light came from the moon shining through the clouds as they parted over the harbor, and that little milky glow was muddied by grime on the wheelhouse windows. She would never see very clearly in here, but she could tell well enough there was nothing to cut a rope with. In fact, there was less than nothing. Only the ship’s big wheel kept her company here.
Breathing heavily, Abbey suddenly stopped moving and began to listen. Voices. Men. Her captors. She wriggled to one side of the wheelhouse and put her ear against the wall.
They were out on the dock, speaking softly to each other. She couldn’t make out a single word, which only piled frustration on top of her curiosity and . . .
And her fear. Now that she realized she was at their whim, now that she had no fingers to bite or noses to kick, that reality sank in. She was still angry, but now the fear came slinking in. Even an oak tree can be cut down and reduced to planks by the right number of men. She couldn’t fight forever.
All she could do was not be here when they came for her. Yes! Of course! There had to be a good answer, and that was it.
“I can swim,” she growled, convincing herself. As she dragged her feet under her and used the wheelhouse corner to lever herself to her feet—an annoyingly long process—she fought against trying to remember when she had last tried swimming. Better that she not start counting years just now.
All she could do was hop about the wheelhouse, looking out each window for perspective. Her captors were obviously waiting for their compatriot to return with “him,” and on the other side was the open water of the harbor.
“Windows,” she murmured, scooting back a few hops. “Glass breaks.” . . .
Yes, the glass would break, but it would also make noise. And right now all she had to hit it with was her face. Not the best option.
If she took a good leap . . . and twisted just right . . . and got her feet up into the air . . . of course, she’d land on her head, but . . .
Some inner sense made her hold her breath and listen. Something had changed out on the dock. She held still, her hair falling into her face, the jute string that held her hat against her shoulder blades now pressing on her gullet as though to remind her of the pulse in her throat.
The voices had stopped. Replacing them were footsteps. Quick, sharp footsteps.
Forcing her aching body to hop across the wheelhouse again, she fell against the window pane and peered through the crusted salt streaks.
Figures came down the dock—the third attacker, and “him.”
“Jake!” she shouted, driven by that inner trigger; if her mind hadn’t been sure, her body recognized his silhouette instantly. The cry was out of her mouth before she even had a chance to think.
He stopped in midstep. His face, a pale blue smudge of moonlight reflecting off the water, turned her way. At his sides his arms were poised, and he hovered there like a cat.
Two of the attackers strode toward him, but stopped short of getting too close.
If Abbey had a chance to wonder where the third man was, she didn’t wonder long. The deck vibrated beneath her feet, and a moment later the wheelhouse door creaked open and she was being dragged out. Her escort untied the rope from her ankles, but didn’t untie her hands. A moment later, protesting less than before, though still not especially cooperating with this ruffian, she was back up on the dock and being paraded before Jake.
“Abbey,” he said, then restrained himself with difficulty. His voice was hoarse, knotted with anger. “I thought they were bluffing.”
“We don’t bluff,” one of the men said. “Tell us what we want to know. Where’s the valuables?”
“You’ve been talking to Pollock, haven’t you?” Jake returned without allowing the man’s demand to sink in. “I told him I want time.”
“Break his ribs.”
Only now, as the second man moved toward Jake with two quick steps, did Abbey notice the size of him. He was the biggest among them, the brawn held in check until they needed him. Not taller than Jake, but much wider, with shoulders like ox yokes. Jake anticipated the man’s move, but although he tensed and tried to block the blow, the bigger man simply had too much extra power on his side. Jake made the mistake of blocking a fist punch. Anticipating the defense, the man drew his arms inward, gathered himself, and swung a hard kick upward into Jake’s rib cage. From the ship’s cramped bridge, Abbey could hear the gush of breath Jake made as he folded over and went down on one knee.
“Jake!” she shrieked. She struggled against the grip the third man had on her arms, but the grip got tighter. Enraged, she lifted her right foot, twisted half way around, and slammed her foot down on the man’s toe.
Her captor let out a shriek. His hands fell away. Abbey rammed her shoulder into him, knocking him off balance, then ran to the ship’s rail. She held her breath, climbed up—awkward because her hands were still tied—and jumped from there to the dock.
“Maynard, you idiot—” the leader barked, and immediately took possession of Abbey before she could regain her balance. “Get up here.”
The third man limped to the rail and climbed up onto the dock.
“Over there,” the leader told him, nodding sharply toward Jake.
Jake was gasping, fighting for control over his battered lungs. With one hand he supported himself on the dock, the other arm was tucked tightly against his ribs. Only his defiant glare at his aggressors showed that he remained unmoved. The harder they hit him, the less he would tell whatever it was they wanted to know.
But these men didn’t sense his resolve. Maynard and the big man moved in on Jake a second time. Maynard wrenched Jake’s arms behind him, and the big man hit him again.
“Damn you all,” Abbey growled, trying to kick the leader as he held her from behind.
They let Jake fall to his knees, holding onto him only as long as it took to strike him. He had nothing to brace upon as the pain worked its way through his body, not even the firmness of his attackers. No wall to lean upon, nothing to push against, except the waves of pain.
“Jake,” she begged, “tell them what they want to know. How important can it be? Tell them!”
Jake shuddered, managing only a glance at her, a glance as clear as the defiance still rising in his face. No.
“Don’t be stubborn!” she insisted. “It’s not worth this.”
“She’s right,” the leader calmly told him. “Better tell us, Ross. Your goods’ll rot where they sit if you don’t. Just as easy as we can get them off the island for you, we can make sure they never get off. Don’t fool with us. You asked for the contract, and now you’re pulling out on us.”
“I didn’t ask you to come here,” Jake choked. “I just asked you to leave.”
“Stupid jar-head, am I gonna have to cram your legs through a lanyard? Cobb, tell him.”
The big man moved in again, and once again his large foot swung, this time catching Jake hard in the side.
Jake managed to stay upright on his knees, but the blow screwed his face into a knot of pain and twisted him sideways.
Abbey reached against the man who held her. “Jake—” she gasped. Then she gritted her teeth, driven by both instinct and impulse. “If you won’t tell them,” she called, “then I will.”
As she hoped, Cobb and Maynard turned to look at her, suddenly willing to ignore Jake. If she could only give him a few moments to catch his breath . . .
Behind her, the leader grabbed a handful of her hair and turned her head toward him. “Tell.”
Across the dock, Jake gripped a piling and dragged himself to his feet. “She doesn’t know, Sumner,” he rasped. “She’s bluffing.”
But Abbey was ready for that. “Don’t try to protect me,” she snapped.
“Then you better do the talking!” Sumner said with a snarl yanking on Abbey’s hair and making her wince to impress Jake with his anger.
Struggling to appear less battered than he was, Jake tried to straighten up, holding onto a piling for support. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Let Abbey leave the dock, and we’ll discuss it,” he said.
Sumner pushed Abbey forward to the middle of the dock. “Maynard, come here. We’ll show him how we discuss things.”
Abbey caught the reek of fish and smoke as Maynard came up close to her. He gripped the front of her flannel shirt and yanked hard. The buttons strained, then popped off one by one, exposing her cotton camisole.
“Sumner!” Jake shouted, and bolted forward.
But Cobb was there before Jake could reach them. He grappled Jake’s arms and wrenched them behind his back, forcing him to watch.
“Get her puppies out,” Sumner said, pressing his mouth against the side of Abbey’s throat, still keeping his eyes on Jake.
Abbey hunched her shoulders, hoping to break his grip, but Sumner’s hold on her hair prevented any movement.
And Maynard was a professional. He came even closer, until his smelly body was pressed against her. He coiled his leg around one of hers, forcing her knees apart.
She started to struggle, just as a few paces away Jake also pulled against Cobb’s hold on him in a terrible echo of her desperation.
Abbey flinched, and then sucked in her breath as a flash of silver appeared before her eyes—an inch away . . . a blade. She recognized it in an instant. A Bowie knife. Bone-handled, shiny, thick and broad, with a point so mean and so unforgiving that moonlight glinted upon its tip, the hunting knife appeared brand new. Abbey’s mind flapped with wild ways to avoid being the one to break it in.
She began to tremble as though she were in convulsions. Maynard turned the knife before her, scratching her nose with its tip. making sure she saw it in all its draconic beauty. Abbey tried to close her eyes, but they were caught by the cachet of death by steel.
Maynard’s facial muscles quivered. His breathing got heavy. Rape or murder—he seemed to throb at the prospect of either. Maybe today would be lucky and he would get both. With a snide flick, he dropped his arm and held the bowie knife against her.
Abbey nearly choked on her own saliva. Her whole body crawled as expected to feel the blade sink into her.
“Maynard!” Jake thundered. He yanked against Cobb’s grip.
Abbey felt the cool metal brush against her skin, felt the camisole rip neatly away as Maynard poked the blade through the fabric and drew it upward. cleanly opening the garment and exposing her breasts. The tip of the blade left a scratch all the way up her chest, and tiny beads of blood began to form along the thin red line.
Feeling her nipples harden in the chilly air, Abbey recoiled. But that movement only pressed her buttocks against Sumner and doubled her disgust.
Jake wrenched against Cobb. “Don’t touch her! Maynard!” Suddenly he stopped struggling, though he still pulled against Cobb’s grip. “Sumner, you let him hurt her and I’ll feed you your legs.”
It was a cold threat. Even Abbey was chilled by the conviction in his tone.
Sumner was unimpressed. His rough hand came around Abbey from the right, and mashed her left breast, getting a smug, rolling grip, stroking her boldly so Jake could see every move.
Abbey tried not to react, but bile rose in her throat and she couldn’t stop the gush of revulsion that came up through her. The cloying force of Sumner around her and the loathsome stink of Maynard beside her made her nauseous. She tried to sink downward out of their grasp, but they had her pinned. More than anything she wanted to tell Jake not to fight them for her sake, that she could stand it, but the sickening sensation of Sumner’s hand kept her teeth gritted and her throat closed.
But Jake was gone, and there was an uncontrollable creature in his place. Sumner’s ploy had worked. Jake sank into rage and emerged on fire. He roared against Cobb, driven to viciousness. His elbow came up into Cobb’s throat and knocked the big man away, then Jake plunged for Maynard. Cobb stumbled backward down the dock, and Jake had time to lunge into Maynard before the bowie knife could come up between them. Jake pinned Maynard’s knife hand down against his leg and butted the heel of his hand into Maynard’s left eye. Maynard cried out like a clubbed dog.
Jakes rage was contagious. Abbey gritted her teeth, mentally found her hands where they were tied behind her and aimed them like a weapon. Sumner’s legs were spread for balance. Abbey bent her fingers into claws, shoved them outward from her back with a scooping motion, and clamped down hard on the inevitable location of Sumner’s crotch. Once she knew she had him, she squeezed hard.
Sumner’s reaction began as a yelp and stretched out across the water into a high-pitched howl. He squirmed and fell back away from her staggering. “Damn crazy bitch!” he gasped, bent over double. His face twisted in fury, and he forced himself toward her.
She tried to step away, but anger and pain carried Sumner across the dock with a threatening swagger.
Out of nowhere Jake shot past her and headed Sumner off with a roundhouse smash of his fist into Sumner’s jaw. Abbey thought she heard a terrible crack—Sumner’s jaw, or Jake’s hand?
The two men went down hard on the dock, twisted in battle.
Abbey dropped to the dock, as well, going after the bowie knife, which lay where Maynard had let it clatter to the planks as he grabbed his wounded eye. With considerable difficulty she found it with her tied hands, turned it upward, and began sawing at the ropes around her wrists. She wished she could see what she was doing, but only the brush of steel against her back guided the blade. Finally, the ropes strained, then snapped. She shook them away from her raw wrists.
Before she could roll over and get to her feet, Cobb had taken hold of her and was yanking her up. For a moment she lost track of Jake and Sumner as they grappled and rolled down the dock toward its blunt edge. Maynard was stumbling toward them, still holding his eye but very much on his way to joining the fight. If anything was going to end Jake’s chances, it was Maynard.
Their gasps and grunts distracted Abbey for a fateful second, long enough for Cobb to grasp her wrist and wrest the knife from her hand. He held it before her eyes for an instant, then shouted, “Maynard!” and flung the knife, handle-first, down the dock.
It clattered to the wood, and Maynard scooped it up, then turned toward the tangled forms of Jake and Sumner.
Damn! Foolish! Abbey derided herself. She would have enjoyed pressing that steel into Cobb’s fat girth. Instead, she had to be satisfied with sinking her teeth into the back of his hand.
“Goddang!” Cobb blurted, and hit her.
She went sprawling, her cheek throbbing from the blow. Cobb lumbered toward her, but she was already on her feet. She stumbled backward, helpless for a moment, until she saw a coil of ships docking rope a pace away. She lunged for it. The rope was heavy, and splintery as broken wood. It lacerated her hands and forearms as she picked up the entire coil and heaved it at Cobb’s face.
Struck in the face, Cobb let out a satisfying groan and toppled backward. Abbey ran toward him now, butting her shoulder into his chest, completing his backward tumble—right off the edge of the dock into the water. His yell of surprise was cut short by the splash as his bulk hit the water and set it to churning.
“Abbey, run! Ru—”
Jake’s warning cry was cut off in a gush of breath as someone punched him. He and Sumner and Maynard were a solid blur against the dark wharfside shapes.
She ran. Clutching her ripped shirt closed over cold breasts, she ran, stumbling, toward the dark island town. Behind her echoed the sounds of fists against flesh.