Off the coast of Libya, 1825
In the end, it had been the screams of the seabirds more than the sun’s oppressive battering ram that forced him out of his stupor. Even before he opened his eyes Rowan realized he was lying on his back in the bottom of a small wooden dinghy. He lifted his head and grabbed the sides of the little boat, straining to sit up.
Struggling to understand.
He craned his neck but could see nothing but ocean all the way to the horizon. The blinding sun created dancing, twinkling diamonds of light that made him blink and tuck his chin to evade the glare. His head clanged with a steady throbbing pain and he shifted uncomfortably in the bottom of the lifeboat.
He remembered boarding the ship but nothing else. Had the ship sunk? Were there other survivors? As he pulled himself up to look over the side of the boat he was assailed with a ferocious nausea and a glimpse of a memory flash.
His hand went to his throat but came away clean. Yeah, he remembered that bit. Whoever he was, the guy who cut him must have been nervous. The wound was long but shallow and had stopped bleeding hours ago.
What the fuck happened?
He shielded his eyes from the sun’s onslaught, and when he did he saw there was actually an object to focus on besides the endless blue-green horizon that surrounded him.
An island.
He looked in the bottom of the boat but could find no oar, no life vest. Nothing.
The waves were pushing him away from the land mass. He looked back at the island, further away now.
He got to his knees, groaning as he did, and after a quick inspection he thought one of his ribs was bruised. His face was a mess. Whatever had happened to him, he’d been on the raw end of it. One eye was swollen shut, his lip was split and a cut that felt like it could use a stitch or two was opened over his left eye.
Decision time, Pierce. Figure it out later. Right now it’s do or die.
Maybe literally.
He yanked off his shoes and tied the laces together. Then, tossing them over his shoulder, and without hesitating, he plunged over the side of the boat in the direction of the island.
Immediately it became clear that he’d seriously underestimated his injuries. The powerful sidestroke he’d intended to take him to shore dissolved into a cramped sidestroke. Focusing on the land—now looking much further away than it had from the boat—he willed himself to power toward it. He knew that once he was past where the waves were breaking, he could just let the sea bodysurf him onto the beach.
He just had to make it that far and then let the island draw him home like a spider’s web to a house fly.
A sudden wave slapped him when he wasn’t ready and he drank in more salt water than he knew was good for him. By the time his knee hit the island’s first shoal, his body was already in convulsions, throwing up all that he’d drunk.
But he was on land.
He crawled to the line of palmettos and mangrove that hugged the beginning of the jungle interior and collapsed on the sand. He heard the sound of his own heart pounding in his ears and the steady burn of his injuries, stretched to their limit against the ocean swim.
I made it, he thought, as he fought the numbing sensation of aches that threatened to overwhelm his consciousness. For good or ill, I’m here.
That night, he didn’t bother trying to find water or food. He slept, wet and shivering, huddled under a palmetto bush, grateful to be alive and on solid ground. He pictured Ella’s face—laughing, kissing their baby, kissing him—and was able to drift off to sleep in spite of the creaking, cawing sounds coming from the jungle behind him.
The next morning he took stock. He had no memory of how he’d ended up in the lifeboat but it was pretty obviously done to him. Why or by whom was lost to him.
All he knew now was that he was alive and relatively sound. He looked around the beach where he’d spent the night. First things first. He’d find something to eat and then explore a bit to see if there was anyone else with him in paradise.
Less than a half-mile inland he discovered the lagoon. It looked to be a natural harbor, deep and leading out to sea. But he could see by the color of the water at the edges that it was shallow enough in spots to fish in. He took the morning to tiptoe the perimeter of the lagoon in a wide arc to ensure he was truly alone. Along the way, he found tree branches that he quickly stripped and sharpened into spears using his pocketknife.
The fishing was plentiful and easy, and he had no fewer than six fat mullets before he stopped for the day. During his reconnaissance he’d discovered a cave on a bluff that appeared hidden but was just a few steps from a lookout point that would give him a clear view of the beach below. He’d already decided to move in.
The next step took a leap of faith—and Rowan knew he had everything to lose—but he decided it was worth the chance. Grateful that he still carried the lighter Ella had given him for their first wedding anniversary, he’d left it out in the sun all day to dry out so that now he gathered twigs and bits of moss together and created a small fire. He set a flat rock inside the fire to serve as his frying pan.
The fragrance of the frying fish nearly brought tears to his eyes. He nudged the cooking filet on the flat rock to break the sear. The first one he’d eaten nearly raw. He could wait for this one.
But barely.
He ate all but two of the fish, but he cooked them all. As he watched the sun drop in the sky, he knew his fire at night would be all the more noticeable to anyone who might be living on the island, and while he knew they might not be unfriendly he was determined to connect on his own terms.
That meant a thorough search of the island to see if he was alone and, if so, a system of bonfires that might be seen by any passing ships. He had no idea if he was anywhere near a shipping lane, but for now it was as far as he could plan.
Tonight, he was full and he was alive. He put the fire out and watched the smoke dissipate against the darkening sky until there was no hint of it except for the scent of the fried fish in the air. He curled up against a wall of the cave. It led nowhere, looking like it had been carved more by sea and wind than by human hands. He slept.
The days after that passed quickly as if they were all one until he regretted not devising a system to keep track of them. He would awake, go to the lagoon and fish, sometimes swim and sun himself dry and then come back to his cave to build a fire and eat. He used his shirt to catch rainfall for his drinking water. He had nothing that could serve as a pot of any kind and all his explorations of the island had turned up nothing in the way of fruit or edible vegetation. He knew the lighter fluid wouldn’t last forever and, after what he determined was his second week on the island, he began to make fire without it.
The cut over his eye was healing lumpy and badly but it wasn’t infected. The same for the cut on his neck. His thoughts of Ella and Tater alternated between bolstering him and defeating him. As much as he tried to be optimistic that he would see them again, hold them again, another day would dawn in the mouth of his cave and another static blue ocean without boat or ship to interrupt its unending vista would greet him when he awoke.
***
The ship sat in the cove like something out of a Disney movie. Everything about it said fake. It was so authentic looking it wasn’t believable. From the tall black masts to the slack and tied sails, the holes in them easily visible from where Rowan watched, to the makeshift flag that fluttered from the tallest mast—black with a crudely drawn depiction of a skull and crossbones glaring bright white against the dark field.
It looked like something out of a reenactment exercise. When was the last time a ship like that had carried men or cargo on the sea? During the Civil War? What was it doing here? Were they making a movie?
Something about the ship and the men who clamored over its deck made Rowan stay hidden.
How can an old fashioned ship be dangerous? Who are those guys?
Rowan crept away from his vantage point until he was sure he wouldn’t be seen when he stood. He could hear the crew laughing, their words unintelligible but carried back to him on the wind.
How is it that I’ve longed for a ship to come for all these weeks and as soon as one does, I’m hiding under a bush?
For whatever reason, he didn’t feel good about grabbing their attention.
What if they’re the real thing? We’ve still got pirates in 2013, so why not back in 1925, he reasoned. It’s just…their ship is so…dated. What would a 1925 pirate be doing with a pirate ship that only ran by wind? They’d be blown out of the water by the first British frigate that came their way.
Unless they aren’t 1925 pirates.
Rowan shivered at the thought and instantly shook it from his mind.
You’ve been alone too long. You just jumped to crazy town.
Except he knew, crazy or not, it was possible.
What other indication did he have of the time? Could he have gone back in time and not know it? The first time he’d time traveled in Heidelberg he had no idea he was doing it.
Is that what happened to me when I fell over the side of the ship?
With no answers and now no food or fire, Rowan spent the rest of the day in his cave waiting for the ship to leave. Every morning for a week afterward, he crept to his vantage point to see that the ship was still anchored in the lagoon. And every morning as he returned to his cave, he became more and more convinced the people on that ship would not be friendly to him.
During the night following the third day of the ship’s arrival, when he couldn’t sleep, Rowan crept back to his vantage point and lay on his stomach watching the beach where a handful of men sat around a large bonfire. He could tell even from this distance that they were drinking. They were extremely loud, and when a fight broke out between two of them Rowan found he didn’t even flinch when he saw one of them pull an ancient pistol out of his belt and murder the other to howls of laughter from the rest of the men.
No. This was not the rescue he’d prayed for. His empty stomach ached as he made his way back to his cave.
The next morning, the ship was gone.
Rowan hurried back to his cave and snatched up his two fishing spears. He tried to remind himself to be quiet, that the ship might have left some of the crew behind, but his hunger was in charge now. He ran to the spot where the bonfire had been the night before, its charred remains cold now. As he passed it, he saw the stain of blood where the man had been slain. The crimson color had faded and spread in a wide swathe to show where the body had been dragged.
To the sea.
He went to his favorite rock that perched over the shallows and tried to keep his hands steady as he poised his spear.
Whoever they were—monsters, pirates from the past, or even just something I dreamed up in my own fevered mind—they’re gone now.
Rowan thought as he flung is spear into the water. It was amazing how food and your next meal soon took precedence over all the other things you thought were important in your life. For a moment, he considered cooking the fish right here, right now. He looked over his shoulder into the jungle. But no. They came once, they might again. He caught an even dozen, wrapping them carefully in the trousers he no longer wore, and carried them back to the cave.
The temptation to eat his catch cooked overrode his worry that they may have left men behind. That didn’t make sense. Why would they leave anyone here? On a deserted island? He made the fire—his first in three days—and cooked his entire catch of the day. That night he slept contented, full and warmed, and tried to think of nothing else—not even Ella and the baby—as he drifted off to sleep.
When they returned a week later, Rowan was fashioning a hammock on the opposite side of the island. Guessing it to be about four miles in width with no natural harbor on this side, he had built two towers of sticks and driftwood that would serve as bonfire signals when and if a ship passed. It meant moving to that side of the island and abandoning his cave, but after a month of no ship sightings he felt a change of plan was worth the loss.
It would be a longer walk to the lagoon to fish, but one thing he had plenty of was time. What was important was that he be close to one of the signal pyres in order to light it in plenty of time when he saw a passing ship. For this reason, if for no other, he saved the use of his lighter and continued making all his dinner fires the way he’d learned as an Eagle Scout—with friction.
It had been a good day. It had rained enough to fill the white shirt he used to catch water by his cave. He’d decided that it was the last thing he’d move and today was as good a day as any.
As he came up over the rise he saw the ship and instantly dropped to his stomach. He couldn’t be sure they hadn’t seen him but the few men who were on the beach didn’t seem to react as if they had.
His heart raced as he lay there, frozen, watching them. Shit!
Although he had no reason to believe they wouldn’t return, he’d hoped for longer. He watched two men in a dinghy at the bow of the ship. One of them jumped out and disappeared in the water. He came up with his hand stretched out. At first Rowan thought they might be crabbing or trying to find bottom-feeders. Then he saw the other man hand the swimmer a tool of some kind before he disappeared again into the water.
They were repairing their ship.
Who except pirates would need to do that on an unchartered island?
As Rowan watched, he tried to see if there was anything about them that might reveal if they were from a different time than his own. Their clothing looked old-fashioned, but that could just be the typical attire for poor sailors in any timeline. He watched the men work on the ship until his eye was drawn to a figure on deck.
He was tall, dark, with a flowing robe and a low-slung belt. He wore a red scarf around his long hair. He stood on the deck with his hands on his hips, and even from this distance he exuded an air of absolute authority,
Everything but the eye patch, Rowan thought grimly.
Suddenly, two figures emerged from the jungle at a run. Rowan could see they were excited and the other men on the beach quickly gathered around them. He was surprised to see that they had gone into the island, and as he strained to make sense of their loud, eager voices, he saw one of them turn and point in the direction of his cave.
An icy needle of fear started in his spine and shot up to his brain.
Shit!
The white shirt hanging in front of the cave.