Just a Kiss Away (22 page)

But now, after today, he saw something different about her. He’d originally pegged her for a rich snob, but he’d been wrong about that. Remembering the way she begged for something to do, then carried those silly coconuts as if they were the United States Treasury. She had an odd sense of pride, an emotion he could understand. What he’d first assumed was arrogance and an inflated sense of self-worth had turned out to be just the opposite. She had no sense of worth. She was a bundle of insecurities.

He strapped his belt on, ramming the end hard through the buckle when he realized that he had suddenly felt the need to analyze her. He didn’t want to analyze her because she was trouble, female trouble with a head that was three bullets short of a full round.

He donned the pack, grabbed the rifle, and made his way across the rocks to the Lollipop’s side. “Are you ready?”

She stepped onto the ledge, put her shoes, the mirror, and the knife in her pockets, and jumped into the shallow water near the edge of the pool. She held the wet pink skirt of her ragged dress in her fists, like women did when they wanted to keep it dry.

He stifled a laugh and shook his head, waiting while she joined him. She slipped her shoes on and straightened, handing him the mirror and the knife. He put the mirror in the pack and slipped the knife into its sheath.

Her dress was still torn, but cleaner and she’d ripped off more of the lace and used it to tie back her hair, which was drier, lightening to blonde from the dark whiskey color it had been when it was wet. Now it hung, shiny-clean and a lot paler, in a silky-straight hank that fell past her pink-spotted shoulders. Her face, neck, and shoulders were a mass of pink welts. He said his thoughts aloud, “Your dress matches your spots.”

She stiffened like a day-old corpse, then drew back her arm, just like she had when she threw his machete to Kingdom Come.

He grabbed her swinging fist and jerked her up against his chest to keep her from throwing another one. “Stop it!”

She glared up at him, her lips drawn into a thin line of anger, her face flushed with that same emotion. He had the sudden urge to wipe the anger off her face. He lowered his head. Her mouth was barely an inch away. He could taste her breath.

A bullet shot past them.

Her arms tightened around his neck.

“Two . . .”

He held the rifle poised over her lower back, his finger on the trigger.

“Three!”

He rolled with her, rifle up. A second later they stood. She let go and took off. A round of bullets tore up the sand around them.

Sam returned fire, running after her. Mauser bullets splattered in the sand like hail. Suddenly another sniper cross-fired. The shot angled downward, past Sam. He spun and shot up at the ridge trail. A Spaniard fell. Peripherally, he saw another replace him.

Three more shots and he hit the bamboo, watching Lollie’s pink dress move ahead. Five steps and he’d caught up with her, passed her. He grabbed her hand and pulled her along, running in time with his heartbeat.

He jumped the bushes, hauling her with him. She fell; he jerked her up, never once breaking speed. He cut north, running uphill to throw them off.

The air grew heavy. We’ll get to the river, he thought, dragging her through palm after low palm to only an occasional whimper.

A wall of bamboo met them. Sam swore. The crack of a machete would draw the Spaniards like flies to the stockyards. He stopped, catching Lollie as she barreled into him. “Quiet!” He gripped her heaving shoulders to steady her. “We’ll move through the bamboo slowly, quietly. If I cut the bamboo they’ll hear us.”

She nodded. He took her hand and wormed into the wooden forest, snaking through, stepping over the hemp grass that grew thick as spring hay around the tall green bamboo. No light broke the sea of green. It was slow going, but it was quiet. On and on it went in a seemingly never-ending field that felt like a prison but might easily become a coffin.

Jungle color broke through the light green bamboo ahead. The bamboo ended only a few short feet away. He still held his breath, not knowing what lay beyond or who waited. He tried to see ahead, but it was like looking across a cell through prison bars. He couldn’t get the full picture.

He stopped. There was a clearing, surrounded by orchids and canopied by jade vines hanging from giant banyans arced like tunnels above them. He looked left, then right.

“Run!” He pulled Lollie behind him.

Louder than cannon fire, swarms of birds burst from the high black crowns of the trees. Their screeches pierced the air above, higher pitched than rifle shot, and their flapping wings sounded louder than a thousand flags in the wind. The blue sky turned black from the scattering of frightened jungle doves. A shout of Spanish blasted from behind them.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Oh, my Gawd!”

They ran. Two minutes later a river stopped them, a wide, deep, flowing river, which Lollie couldn’t swim.

He spun, hooked the rifle over her back and squatted, his back to her. “Lock your arms around my neck, your legs around my waist, and don’t let go, even underwater!”

“But—”

“Do it!”

The second he felt her limbs gripping him, Sam dove in and swam to the middle, where he let the current carry them both downstream. A quick glance over his shoulder told him the rifle was still strapped to her back.

“You okay?”

Her arms tightened on his neck. “Yes.”

“Good, then will you stop choking me?” he rasped, breathing with relief when the pressure against his Adam’s apple slackened.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

They moved down the river in silence, Sam working to keep them in the center of the river while he studied the jungle around them. The river twisted and turned, narrowing to only twenty feet wide, and he tried to judge the distance, mentally calculating whether it would be better to go by river or on foot.

He never had the chance to make that decision. -

They drifted around a bend, right into Spanish crossfire. Bullets hit the water.

“Take a breath!” Sam shouted, and feeling her chest expand with a deep breath, he dove for the river bottom, the only place safe from the shower of bullets.

He swam along the bottom, turning east toward the riverbank that had been the highest. He hoped it still was, but he couldn’t tell, the river was so murky. His lungs burned from the pressure of holding his breath. Her hands tightened to fists around him.

He could take another minute of pressure. She couldn’t. He had to surface. He moved up, counting on fate, as he had a hundred times before. If it was still on his side, they would be close enough to the bank and hidden from the Spanish. He looked up and back as they floated toward the surface. A few bullets pierced the water behind them.

Then he saw it—the shadow of a small boat, above them. He stroked toward the bank side. Then, still underwater, he pulled her struggling hands from his neck and turned so he faced her. He grabbed her cheeks in his palms. Her eyes shot open. He tilted her head back, mouth and nose up. They broke the surface, a scarce few inches from the boat. She gasped for air.

His right hand still gripped her neck and head, his left hand pressed against her lips. “Shhh.”

He nodded at the boat, scant inches from their bobbing heads.

The sound of gunfire now came from behind them. Carefully he backed away a few inches to see into the boat. It was empty, its bowline sagging in the reeds along the bank. He turned back to Lollie, who now breathed fine and still held his shoulders. He looped her arms around his neck. “I’m going to turn and swim through those reeds. You hang on, okay?”

She gave him her wide-eyed nod.

He moved as silently as he could, keeping only their heads above the waterline. He followed the frayed rope through the tall cattails to a spot where thick mangroves edged the river and provided cover.

As he edged toward the high bank he could see the rock anchoring the rope. He looked around. No one was nearby. He moved into the dark draping branches of the mangroves. Grabbing Lollie’s hands, he turned within the loop of her arms so they were face to face. He released her hands and held her waist while he kicked to tread water for them both.

“Grab that branch.” He nodded toward a thick branch by their heads.

She locked her hands over the branch.

“Good. Can you hang on here for a few minutes?” She nodded. “Where’re you going?”

“Back to get the boat. I’ll bring it into the trees, and then we should be able to take it downstream. You stay here. Don’t move. Don’t do anything but stay hidden and hang on. Got it?”

“Yes,” she whispered, eyeing the thick trees around her.

Sam moved toward the bank, where the rope disappeared in the thick reeds and muddy water. He pulled out the small knife and cut the ragged rope, taking the end with him as he swam back toward the boat.

The crossfire still pinged, though not as many shots sounded. Sam plunged deep, surfacing in the reeds on the exposed side of the river. He could see the flash of rifle fire. There looked to be five men hidden in the trees and bushes on the opposite bank. He could hear their shouts. They still barraged the river, hoping to hit something, but one of the soldiers shouted an order to move downstream. Sam couldn’t wait.

He slowly edged the boat toward the reeds, hoping the soldiers wouldn’t notice the movement. It took a long, tension-filled minute to get the bow of the boat into the reeds. A few minutes more and then he pulled the boat as fast as he could through the water and toward the mangroves, knowing they had only seconds before someone might notice that the boat was gone.

He made it to the mangroves, shoving the boat under the branches, right beside Lollie.

“Get in! Quick!” He lifted her, practically throwing her into the boat. Then he pushed himself up and into its shell, pulling the rifle off her shoulder. He shook the water from the barrel. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh.” She cowered in a small heap near the oars, which were lying on the floor in a few inches of muddy water, and she swatted the mosquitoes away from her face.

He turned, kneeling in the bow of the rowboat, grabbing branch after mangrove branch, as he pulled the boat through the cover of the trees and downriver. The trees became so dense that it seemed like midnight instead of the middle of the day. The deeper into the trees they traveled, the thicker the mosquitoes grew, flicking and darting in the air as thick as winter snowflakes.

He heard her mutter and he looked back over his shoulder. She sat there, a dismayed frown on her spotted face, raking her nails up and down her welted arms so hard that she must have taken off a couple layers of skin. He turned back and pulled them farther through the trees, thankful that the mosquitoes kept her busy.

The sound of running boots thudded from along the bank. Sam stopped instantly. The soldiers were near, too near. He turned, at the very same instant she slapped her bug-bitten arm so loud they could have heard it in Manila.

A Spaniard shouted. Bullets ripped through the trees around them.

He grabbed the branches, jerking them as hard as he could. The boat shot out of the trees onto the river. The bullets kept coming.

“Row!” he shouted, returning rifle fire from the bow of the boat.

“How?” she shouted back.