The Dreamer (27 page)

He stilled my hands. “Don’t, Rachel,” he said. He’d never called me Rachel before. “It’s no use.” The words were calm.

“I can do it, John! I can save you. I can stop the bleeding. I
must
stop the bleeding.” I burst into tears.

He reached up and gently touched my face. “Don’t cry dear,” he soothed. “Don’t cry. I did it. I did it at last. This makes up for everything, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean, John?”

“After what I’d done to you.”

“Done to
me
?” I couldn’t understand him. Those memories seemed far away suddenly, as though they’d happened in another lifetime, to somebody else I didn’t like much anyway. I clutched his wrinkled hands with my own. “Oh, why’d you do it, John? I’ve been so cruel to you.”

“Mallory has come. You will live. All is planned for us. Do you believe me now?”

He closed his eyes and groaned, and I pressed my face to his chest, shame washing over me. “Forgive me,” I begged. “Forgive me.”

I felt his hand on my head, and I looked up to find him watching me carefully, as though he were surprised. “You don’t hate me, Rachel?”

Fresh tears sprang to my eyes. “How could I? I never would have done this for you.” I sobbed openly. “I’m sorry … I’m so s-sorry!”

“I am
not
sorry. I want you to live. To marry. To love. I am happy to pay the price.”

“But what of you?” I asked wretchedly.

He smiled tenderly at me. “I will rest at last,” he said with relief, his face becoming very white.

“Oh, John!”

He caught his breath. “Rachel, listen,” he cried, looking up. “Do you hear? The angels … they are singing. I hear them at last. Do you hear them? Do you?” He looked around eagerly.

Explosions and screams filled the air. I looked around at the dark, dirty cabin. Then I looked down at the man in my arms, waiting for my answer.

“Yes. Yes, I hear them,” I said.

“They are singing for me, aren’t they?” he breathed.

“Yes. For you.”

He gasped, his waxen eyes looking up exultantly above our heads. “They beckon me,” he whispered. “I will go to them.”

My heart contracted. “No, John, you are not to go with them!”

“They want me to go. I must.” And then suddenly he looked at me, fear touching his eyes. “You will come, too, won’t you, Rachel?” he asked, seizing my hand and squeezing it with more strength than he’d ever shown before. “You will bring Mallory to me? I will see him again? He is all that I have.”

I gripped his hand. But I choked on my words. I didn’t know what to say. I was convinced we
wouldn’t
see each other again.

“I must have your promise. I will be waiting for him. At the gates. You must bring him there, and I … you must ….” His voice was fading and he still needed my answer. Was waiting desperately for it.

I held my breath and plunged headlong: “Yes, John. We’ll be there. At the gates. Come and meet us when it’s our turn. We will want you to show us the way.”

His grip slackened. He was calm, relieved, and I saw the blood had pooled on the floor now. His blood was on my dress and all over my hands.

“Tell the captain,” he whispered a plea. “Tell him what I did for you. He will be grateful, and he will think of me with fondness.”

“He already thinks of you with fondness. You helped make him the man he is.”

“Have I?” he asked with some surprise. “No. I hung on … held him back. I was a burden to him.”

”You weren’t. You cared for him. Taught and counseled him, faithfully tended to him. You were kind. You showed him how to be
good
.”

He shook his head.

“It is the truth, John,” I said with conviction. “He told me. You were there for him when he needed you most. He would want you to know.”

The doubt slowly faded from his eyes, replaced with belief. He breathed a sigh of peace. And then there was silence.

“It is time,” he told me. “You must go.”

“No. I will stay with you.”

“You oughtn’t … see it happen.”

I shook my head. “But you will be alone if I go, John, and have no one to comfort you.”

“Rachel ….”

“I won’t go, John,” I said, clinging to him.

He smiled gently and patted my hand to calm me. “Alright then.”

I lay down next to him, impervious to the blood, and I wrapped my arm around him and laid my head on his shoulder. The frantic feeling within me slowly began to ebb away. There were still shouts from outside, the explosions of cannons and pistols. Men screamed, but the noise slowly receded away from me as I lay there next to the old man. I felt myself relax, and I surrendered to this strange world of his, this elusive peace.

“I am suddenly frightened,” I whispered, bewildered.

There was no answer. “John?” My voice broke. “John, you can’t leave me. Please, not now!”

He opened his eyes and touched his cross, the heavy cross that I had always thought mocking. It wasn’t mocking now. It was solid and safe like a heavy, reliable anchor.

“You cannot be brave without first being afraid,” he whispered. “Take it.” He opened his hand.

I took the heavy cross and clutched it to my heart. “Thank you, John,” I whispered. “I will use it to remember.”

There was another explosion close to us. John looked to the window. He squinted.

I heard a voice from outside, ringing loud and clear in the distance. My heart leapt in response. I jumped up and ran to the window.

“John,” I cried. “It’s him! He’s alive. He’s here. Look.”

But there was no answer.

I turned and saw him lying there. He was gone. He was off with the angels that beckoned him, safe at last from the weight of fear and sin and pain. I went to his body and clutched his cross to my heart. “I will remember! I will meet you, John. I will see you again.”

And I fell on his lifeless chest and wept.

Chapter Twenty

Notes: From the shadow of the valley of death to soaring above the clouds.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, bent over John’s body and weeping. And when the weeping subsided, I simply lay there, staring off into space, numb and impervious to everything.

Gradually my surroundings came back into focus. The jarring sounds of violence were ebbing outside. Men’s voices could be heard. There was shouting, but no gun fire. The faint sound of clashing swords in the distance. A single battle.

My brain hardly registered what it could mean. I grew cold, and my muscles ached. But I didn’t care. All I knew was that John had died so that I could live. He said he was happy I would live, to love. And there I lay, covered in his crimson blood, his heavy cross clutched in my hand, wondering what it all could mean.

I heard something fall in the distance, the sound of cheering. There were the sounds of men’s boots outside.

My locked door rattled, and a pair of fists pounded at my door. I dumbly looked up, hardly daring to wonder what lay in store for me now.

The knocking became incessant and violent. Someone threw his shoulder into the door, and the wood groaned.

“Rachel? Rachel! Are you there?” I heard him shout.

The door moaned in protest then exploded with a crash. And there he stood, fiercely scanning the room, breathing heavily, tall and strong and blessedly alive.

“Captain?” I whispered.

“Rachel! Thank God!”

I rose and ran to him, and he caught me and crushed me to him, burying his face in my hair.

He suddenly pulled away and claimed my mouth fully with his own in a deep, violent kiss, his hand clutching a fistful of my long hair as though to prevent escape, even though I did not try to escape him. His hand slid to my back and decisively pulled me close to him, and a new feeling of shyness overwhelmed me.

As he hungrily explored my mouth, I wondered how my stern, unyielding Captain could suddenly morph into someone else before my eyes. I allowed him to mold my body to his, thrilled by the sensations it excited. And though we must have remained distinctively two, somehow I knew that truly we were one.

And that something new that had been budding deep inside me suddenly burst into full glorious bloom while in his passionate embrace. “I’m alive,” it cried to me. “And I am a woman.” I realized that I had been waiting for this moment since the beginning, since the first time I saw him standing over me, or perhaps for my entire life.

As utterly low and anguished as I had just been, my heart soared with sudden, almost painful elation and joy. All at once I caught a glimmer of the full meaning of John’s sacrifice, and I was frightened by its worth.

But just as he broke the kiss, and just as I waited to hear the words he would utter, the room exploded with men. They were men I recognized, Fredrick’s pirates. Hands patted us on the backs and separated us, congratulating themselves and each other on the fabulous victory. “Ye outta be seein’ the treasure, Mallory. Come and see!”

“Come below, Miss Madera. Tell us ‘bout the treasure.”

I stared at Mallory dumbly, and he did the same to me, looking dazed and slightly disbelieving.

And then his eyes fell to my dress. “Rachel! You’re injured!”

“It’s not my blood, Mallory,” I whispered. “Look.” I gestured to John’s body.

His eyes went to him, and the color drained from his face.

“Helen of Troy! Safe at last,” a voice declared grandly, and I turned to see Fredrick enter with a flourish. He was hardly disheveled, barely a hair out of place, though there was perspiration at his brow and in his hand was his sword, unsheathed and dripping in blood. “And we have just been paid grandly for our persistence and valor. Just enough to forgive Mallory for his unpardonable deceit.”

Wordlessly Mallory went to John’s lifeless body and knelt beside it. Fredrick saw and then slowly urged me from the room.

I resisted. “He did it for me, Mallory. He did it for me. I’m so sorry,” I choked, and then I allowed myself to be drawn away.

*** *** ***

“Sometimes a man must be alone with his sorrow,” Frederick explained, “despite the invigorating powers of female companionship.”

I gingerly touched my lips with my fingers.

“Though, judging from the look on your face, argument seems to be the last thing on your mind,” he finished wryly.

“Look at this. Just look, Miss Madera,” Duncan cried, swinging open the treasury room door with a flourish. “Tell us what it all is. What thar in that room is the most valuable? I’ve got dibs.”

The treasure, yes. It was very beautiful. I fingered a priceless carving of a horse.

He
had
called me dear once. And surely men don’t kiss women like that simply out of relief. My lips still felt bruised and tender. I worried about him, what he must be feeling now. Was he hurting? Did he blame me for Finley’s death? I wondered. Again I turned, looking for him.

“Miss Madera, do ye know what happened?”

“Don’t bother her. Her thoughts are full of her lover. Truth can do no justice to a woman’s imagination. She’ll only be disappointed in the events of Mallory, the Mere Mortal.”

I looked up. “Mallory? What did he do?” I asked.

Fredrick smiled. “She hears us after all. Descending with reluctance from the clouds. Do you want to hear of our triumphant conquest after all?”

“What did Mallory do?”

“So, you don’t want to hear of me. But then, I’ve always known you were peculiar.”

“Did he fight Charles?” I asked. “Charles is an excellent swordsman. Did Mallory really fight him and kill him? Is he dead now?”

“Bloodthirsty child! I think I adore you!”

“Tell me! I didn’t think to wonder how he did it.”

“Ah, yes. I might try to convince you that there are others with not irrelevant parts to play, but I despise exercises in futility.” Fredrick spread his hands. “Allow me to set the stage. Outnumbered, outgunned, and locked in a desperate battle for the noblest purpose, we struggled. If there was ever a conflict of good versus evil, villainy and righteousness, it was thus. For your sacred self, we would readily sacrifice life and limb.”