Water Song (17 page)

Where
was
Jack?

Scrambling from the cot, she went to the window. There he was, outside, standing in front of a German soldier who was holding a pistol on him.

The soldier was going to shoot him!

Emma yanked the door open and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. Holding him tight, she kissed his mud-smeared lips with her own.

"Halt!" the soldier cried. "Stop that!"

"I love you," she whispered.

"I love you too, Em," he answered quietly.

"Stop or I will shoot you both right now!" the soldier insisted angrily.

Emma turned to him. As she did, she saw that her locket had slipped from her neck and fallen at her feet, its two halves sprung open. The locked compartment was finally open! Picking it up, she looked inside. Two deep red rubies lay nestled in the golden half sphere.

She stepped toward the soldier and thrust them at him. "Take these. They're very valuable. In exchange, just turn your back a moment and let us escape."

He laughed. "I don't need to bargain. I'll shoot you and then take them."

In a flash, she had them out of the locket and in her mouth. "I'll swallow them first." Slowly she walked backward to Jack. "Turn around and I'll leave them on this tree stump behind me," she said.

The soldier studied them with narrowed, suspicious eyes. "Put them down now."

Jack reached out for her hand and she took it. Together they backed up to the tree stump. Emma took the rubies from her mouth and set them down, keeping her hand on them until the soldier turned.

Together they raced down the hillside. The moon had come out, and they could see a river at the bottom of the hill; it was rushing fast, its wild current glistening silver.

Gunshots fired from on top of the hill. The soldier had come after them. A bullet rushed past Emma's face.

"Stay low. Keep running," Jack said, gripping her hand even tighter as they continued down the hill.

Another bullet whistled past.

Then, from atop the hill, came the clatter of machine gun fire.

Emma screamed just as they came to the riverbank. Something had hit her arm. Blood poured out. The searing pain was awful.

Guided by her scream, the next bullet grazed her forehead.

"Breathe deep," Jack said. Grabbing her beneath her armpit, he threw them both into the river.

Jack swam in a river of silver ribbons that carried him along on their flowing strands, singing to him all along. The breezes skirting the shimmering whitecaps carried music to his ears.

You belong to the river. You are prince of the water. You have won the heart of the one you love. Prince of the river. Prince of the water. Swim on. Swim on. Until you carry your love ashore. Swim on.

Obstructions filled the water, branches and clumps of matted leaves that had risen off the riverbank because the water was so high. It didn't matter to him. He pushed them aside easily. He felt light and strong, able to swim for miles, if he needed to.

Gripping Emma firmly across her chest and beneath her one arm, he kept her head above the water as he pulled with one arm and snapped his legs together in powerful scissor-kicks going forward.

The bullet that had grazed her head had knocked her unconscious. If he lost his grip on her, she would drown. But nothing would ever force him to let her go now.

She loved him. She had said it. She'd kissed him.

With one kiss she had turned him into a prince among men. Nothing else mattered now--not the Waifs' Home, not the hard days working on the docks, not the blistering afternoons mopping a deck, not the rat-infested trenches, not the burning gas in his eyes. None of it mattered anymore.

Her love had released him.

More than a kiss, she'd given him her tears. By trusting him, she'd made him realize how worthy of trust he had always been.

More than the kiss, she'd given him her vision of him. By seeing him clearly, she revealed all that he was inside--revealed it to him as well as to her. Her view of him became his view of himself, and he realized that the man she now saw was the one who had been there all along.

More than the kiss, her sacrifice made him see the essential beauty of her, the depth below the surface shine. When the locket split, it was as though her heart had opened to him.

But the kiss had been the magic token, the gesture of love, the mixing of energies that sealed the bond.

He was suddenly full of optimism about the future--their future together.

She loved him. She had said it. She'd kissed him.

The ribbons of silver that were sweeping him along slowly turned into strands of gold. Was he in Allied territory yet? It would be important to know, because the sun was rising and they would be easy to see, there in the water.

The golden, sun-flecked water began to sing him a new song.
Be gone from the river. Be gone, you prince of the water. The one you love needs magic from the land. Prince of the river. Prince of the water. Be gone. Be gone. Now carry your love ashore. Be gone.

He knew this song was right. Emma needed to be out of the cold water. He had to see how bad her wounds were, how much blood she'd lost.

Just ahead, they came to a swirling eddy in the river. A tree had fallen into the water. Reaching out, he was able to grab hold of it to keep from moving with the rushing current.

Still holding tight to Emma, he dragged them both along the tree until he was able to sit in the shallow water. He pulled her up so that she was half on land and half in the shallow, watery banks because right then it was the best he could do; he needed a moment to recover.

He shivered in the cool morning air. Untying his shoes, he emptied the water from them, tied the laces together, and slung them around his neck. Pulling off his undershirt, he rang out the water from it before putting it back on. As much as he longed to collapse there awhile, he couldn't leave Emma in the bracingly cold river water.

He lifted her, carrying her to a dry patch of long grass and carefully laying her on it. Her blouse was torn and blood-soaked, exposing the place where the bullet had gashed her arm. He hoped it wasn't lodged inside the skin. He didn't think it was.

The river had washed them of mud and it had washed her wounds out too.

She'd been knocked out a long time.

Why wasn't she waking up?

Suddenly cold with fear, he put his thumb on her jugular vein.

He didn't feel a pulse. He put his hand on her heart.

"Aw, c'mon, Em, give me something," he urged, fighting panic.

Nothing.

He checked her mouth to make sure she hadn't swallowed anything in the river that was stopping her from breathing. No. "Em, wake up!" he shouted, shaking her.

Kneeling beside her, he thumped her heart hard with his fist. He thought he heard the sound of bone cracking. He drew back, horrified by what he'd done, but then forced himself to keep on with it, remembering the training he'd received in the army.

He threw all his weight onto her, pressing with both his palms, pumping them, trying to force her heart to start beating once again.

She couldn't leave him now. She loved him. She'd said it. She'd kissed him.

Throwing his head back, he began to sing a 
healing song his mother had taught him. She'd learned it from her great-grandmother, a Natchez medicine woman. He'd heard her sing it, asking the Great Spirit for help. He threw his head back and sang the song in a plaintive, heartfelt wail as he pumped at Emma's heart.

Finally he felt it--just a blip, at first. Then stronger. Her heart was pumping on its own.

Collapsing at her side, his own heart pounding wildly, he stayed there feeling his heartbeat gradually normalize. She turned her head to him and blinked.

He brushed some wet hair from her forehead.

"Are we alive?" she asked him, her voice a rasp.

He smiled softly back at her. "I think so, Em. But maybe we'd better go ask the queen."

The next day was clear with rolling white clouds, and though they slept through most of it, they were aware that poppies and daffodils were everywhere, growing wild all around. He stayed up long enough to find berries and dandelion greens for a meal. Though it didn't quite quell the ache of hunger, it was enough to keep them alive. And dandelion greens worked as a blood purifier. They'd help her fight infection.

He did the best he could to tend her wounds, glad to find a balsam fir tree with some sap still in a cut in its bark. He got as much of the sap as he could and smeared it over the cuts, knowing it would help heal.

While she slept, he built them a raft, lashing 
branches together with his shoelaces, unraveled thread from his socks, and strips torn from his pants and the bottom of her under slip. As the sun set, he pushed the raft to the riverbank and carried Emma to it, settling her as comfortably as he could before pushing off with a thick fallen branch.

The river was filled to overflowing from all the rain and rushed along quickly, carrying them, he calculated, closer to the port town of Dunkirk. The last he knew, the Allies still held Dunkirk and they would be safe there.

"How are you doin', Em?" he asked her as she lay on the raft.

"Tired. It hurts when I try to turn." Her voice lacked strength and she was pale; it worried him.

"You sleep, then," he advised, arranging his jacket over her like a blanket. "The river will carry us."

Reaching out, she put her hand in his, letting sleep take her once more. The sunset darkened, and while the moon rose, he held her hand, watching the moonlit scenery go by. It was an incredibly beautiful country. It seemed all wrong that it should be so torn apart by this war.

When he'd traveled north up the Mississippi he'd later gone up the Ohio River by raft. It was gorgeous country too, but back then he hadn't had the eyes to appreciate it. He'd only cared about getting to his destination. But now the natural richness all around overwhelmed him. All that he'd seen of the war had changed him.

As he sat guard beside her sleeping figure, he understood for the first time that it was not only the war that had made him alive as never before to the beauty of the world; his love for Emma had re-created him. The love she returned to him had done it too. Their love for each other had worked the magic.

He'd drifted off to sleep on the raft beside Emma but awoke with a start. In the dawn's first light he could make out buildings lining the shore: shops, a church, taverns, bakeries; two-story establishments of all kinds. Back in the trees were houses. He'd stopped at Dunkirk one night when he first came over from England. He recognized right away that the river was taking them into Dunkirk's waterfront. "Em, wake up, sug. We made it."

She stirred, propping up sleepily onto her elbows and smiling.

The chugging engine of an approaching boat made them look over to it. Four British soldiers stood in the boat's stern with their rifles slung across their backs. Jack waved to them, sweeping his arms wide.

Two of the soldiers readied their rifles, pointing them at Jack as the boat pulled alongside the raft. "It's all right sir, I know this fellow," one of the soldiers said.

"Kid!" Jack cried happily.

"He's with the British Fourth Army, sir," the Kid 
continued to tell his captain. "He saved my life when we were both captured by the Germans."

Jack saluted the captain. "Welcome home, soldier," the officer replied, returning the salute.

"My friend here, Miss Emma Winthrop, is injured and needs care right away," Jack told the captain. "I request help in lifting her onto your boat and getting her to a hospital."

Kid was the first one down to help. Together, he and Jack got Emma onto the boat. "I have information regarding the upcoming Allied advance," Jack told the captain.

"How did you know about that?" the captain asked.

"I heard about it from the Germans."

"Let's get ashore and hear what you have to say right away," the captain said.

Jack sat beside Emma, who had been laid inside the boat's small cabin. He took her hand, squeezing it gently.

"Are we okay now?" she asked, gazing up at him.

"We are right as rain, Em," he replied.