She raised the rear hood and looked down at the engines. They were tandem outboard motors, and they didn’t have much gas left in them. The accelerator was a simple chain running under the floorboards to the motor throttles, though, and that gave her an idea. She pulled on the chains, getting a fair amount of slack, then tried to run them a little extra way around the metal fittings so that they kept the throttle out. It didn’t hold, and she looked around. There were still some sticks and branches in the boat from their attempt at camouflaging it, and she tried and tested a couple until she got one that she felt, with a twist and a jam in there, would hold out the chains.
She then went forward, took a deep breath, and turned the key, hoping the engines were hot enough to fire with the throttles open.
They were, and did, and the boat took off, away from the beach, throwing her backwards in it. She got up quickly, then jumped overboard, not waiting to think and just praying she’d clear the engines. She went down into the water, then back up, and looked around. She heard the motor sound off in the distance and fading, then looked back at the beach. It was going to be a good half-mile swim, but with the tide.
It still took what little of her strength remained to make it, and when she stood up and walked onto the beach, she collapsed, coughing and breathing hard, and lay there for several minutes recovering, hardly thinking at all.
She knew, though, that she could not remain on the beach all night. This wasn’t Allenby with its company and its guards, but it was civilization of a sort never the less.
She looked at her arm in the dark, and brushed away the sand clinging to it. Maybe it was too dark to read anyway, but she could see nothing there but a few faint marks of blue on her deeply tanned skin. The water had washed away the information it contained.
She tried to remember the words, and couldn’t quite. She sat up, drew her legs to herself and put her arms around her knees and stared out at the dark sea. Oh. Angelique! I made it but I blew it! she thought despairingly.
And suddenly, as if in answer, the information returned. Art Cadell. American. White little house facing the sea with beach. Bessel Island, near little fishing village. . . .
Was this Bessel? It had to be. And here was the beach. But she was all in, and in no condition to go calling in any event. Sandy, nude woman who even MacDonald wouldn’t recognize steps in with this story. She could see it now.
As tired as she was, she looked back up the beach towards the town and knew she had to do a little more than that. She wondered if anyone hung their laundry out to dry overnight. Even a towel would do. Then she would find a secluded spot and get some sleep. Tomorrow she would see if Mr. Cadell was here and was home, and, if so, whether this wasn’t just walking back into the lion’s den. It didn’t matter. She had no choice.
10
A BRUTAL GAME OF CHESS
Too tired and too confused to really do much, Maria had gone up the beach a bit and found a quiet-looking part of the inner beach almost surrounded by large rocks and driftwood, and in there, in a small area of sand, she had settled down to rest and think and soon drifted off. By the time she awoke, the sun was high and very hot and she felt like a refugee from a monster movie in which she was the monster.
Being naked was enough of a handicap in itself, but having been naked and gotten out of salt water, then having salt and sand dry on her, made her skin painful and irritated. Every muscle in her body ached, and she felt like she’d been run over by a truck, while her mouth burned and tasted of acid and bile.
She managed to get to her feet and peer out, hearing the sounds of humans on the beach not far away. She looked out and saw four people, fairly young, two men and two women, frolicking in the surf and along the beach. Both sexes wore skimpy string bikini type suits that were hardly anything at all; the women were topless, which wasn’t all that unusual in this area. What was unusual was that they were extremely tanned but still undeniably white, a fact which marked them as foreigners in this remote part of Bessel. She watched them for a while with envy, feeling more and more miserable as time passed, but they eventually grew too hot or too bored and picked up their things and went inland.
There were some small boats out on the sea, mostly small fishing boats and one or two tourists’ party fishing craft, but they were well out and of no real concern. She knew she couldn’t find clothing without giving herself away, and looking at the foursome gave her something of a plan, although her body groaned and burned at the mere thought of it.
She walked out and into the water, steeling herself for the ordeal, and went out to where it was just above her hips. It was low tide and the sea was calm, although an occasional wave would come in and momentarily cover her with water. It stung at the start, but eased as she got used to it.
She was pretty much at the northern limit of habitation, so she began to wade back towards the town perhaps a mile away, studying the houses on the beach. There weren’t many of them, and while all were rather small and plain they were clearly owned by people with money or influence. They were painted various colors, but only one was white, a stucco that had a patio jutting out almost on to the beach, its property large enough to set it off a bit from its neighbors. She knew that it might not be the one, that in fact there might be a dozen more white houses further along, but she was just too tired and sore to care any more. She felt she had done more than she could possibly be expected to do, and at this moment she didn’t even care if the Dark Man was sitting on the back porch.
She walked out of the water and across the sands and onto the patio area. Her only real fear right now was that nobody would be home. Everything was closed up, but she could hear the rumble of several window air conditioners and that boded well. Going up to the back door, she knocked on it, growing suddenly nervous and feeling both shy and embarrassed. Losing her nerve, even the way she felt, she hesitated to knock again, but suddenly the door opened and she was face to face with a young black woman of slight build whose eyes grew wide at the sight of the naked stranger.
“I—I’m sorry,” Maria managed. “I need help. I lost my boat and I’ve been mostly in the water for hours. Please help me.” Her voice sounded like atonal sandpaper.
For a moment, the black woman hesitated, then she opened the screen door and said, “Yes, come in.” Her accent was West Indian English, and she was probably a local resident.
The place wasn’t fancy, and the kitchen into which she entered wasn’t really air conditioned, but it was such a relief to get out of the sun that it felt wonderful.
“Come—sit down on the couch in the living room dere and I will get you some water,” the black woman said, sounding concerned, and leading her through a small hall to the room. It was a plain little room furnished with musty old furniture, but an ancient window air conditioner provided some circulation and relief. The couch was simply a cane affair, like the other furnishings, but it had soft cushions and backs and two small pillows and she sank into it all with tremendous relief. She felt as if she would pass out at any moment.
The black woman returned with a glass of iced tea and a cool wash cloth, and Maria downed one greedily while allowing her hostess to apply the other gently to her face.
“I am Paula Mochka,” her hostess told her.
“Sis—ah, Maria Marline,” she responded. “Thank you very much.”
“You are burning up with de fever,” Mochka told her. “If you can stand for a moment, I t’ink we first get you showered off some, den you take some aspirin and lie down a while.”
She did manage somehow to get back to the tiny bathroom with its peeling paint and cracked porcelain, but she allowed herself to get washed off, grateful beyond measure to this kind woman who could not possibly know anything about her and seemed to be in the house all alone. After, she was taken back to a small bedroom which had another old and noisy air conditioner in the window along with an unmade single bed that looked recently slept in.
Mochka gave her the aspirin with some more tea. She took them, but tried to explain a little more of what was going on, being as cautious as possible. “I was in trouble out there….” she began, but her hostess cut her off.
“No more now. You rest. Beat de fever. When you wake up, den you tell me everyt’ing, O.K.?”
Even though her skin felt on fire, she was fighting off a near comatose state and she just couldn’t fight any more under these conditions. She began to say something else, but everything just sort of drifted away.
She did, however, have dreams; dreams she could not fight and which she had to endure, although they faded in and out and often ran into one another.
There was the meadow and that terrible altar stone, and she was stretched out on it, bound hand and foot, naked and helpless. All around were the leering men of the Dark Man’s company, and she knew just what they intended to do. She looked around, frantically, and caught sudden sight of a strange figure of a woman dressed in light blue and white.
“Mother Superior! Help me! In the same of Christ save me!” she cried, but the older nun shook her head sadly and had that stern face she always wore.
“No, no, no,” responded the Mother Superior as if talking to a kindergarten child. “You’ve been a very naughty girl, Sister Maria, and you know it. You weren’t forced onto the streets of New Orleans; you chose it deliberately instead of honest work or education, and you got what you deserved. Then you came to us to save you, and we gave you every chance, and at the first opportunity you cast off your new habit and went back to the old ones.”
“But I rescued Angelique!”
“Angelique rescued Angelique. Nope. Sorry. Three strikes and you’re out.” She turned to the leering, slobbering men who didn’t really have faces any more. “O.K., boys,” screamed the Mother Superior, “fuck her brains out and then feed her to the devil!”
They all advanced, and the Dark Man laughed and laughed, but the scene faded and for a while she drifted.
And then Angelique’s voice whispered to her, in French-accented English, “Art Cadell, Bessel Island, white house on the beach. …”
“Hard to believe, but her prints say she’s the damned nun!” a strange male voice said casually.
“Well,” a woman replied, in a clear American tone that was otherwise accentless, “if they can make a monster, I guess they can do most anything.”
“Christ! She’s burning up! If she gets through this she might be days coming out of it,” the man noted, concerned.
“No, no!” she shouted. “Angelique! Don’t have enough time to save her!”
“Hear that?” the woman asked. “I wish we had a doctor we could trust around here.”
“In these sticks? Can’t risk it. Just keep her cool and keep giving her what you can to break the fever. We lose her, it’s all over anyway.”
But the voices seemed to fade even as she protested, and in the darkness a leering, looming shape rose.
“You can’t save her,” taunted the Dark Man. “Why, you can’t even save yourself.”
It went on and on and on….
It was night when she finally awoke in the same bed. She still felt terribly tired and very weak, but she looked around and saw the black woman there, asleep in a rocking chair and lightly snoring. She couldn’t remember the name, but she had to communicate. She didn’t even know how long she’d been out.
“Hey!” she croaked, her throat raw and sore. “Hey! Wake up!”
The woman stirred, opened one eye, and then was immediately awake and on her feet. “How do you feel?” she asked Maria.
“Horrible. Can I have some water?”
She was given some, but even the water hurt to swallow. Finally she asked, “How long have I been out?”
“Dis is de second night you’ve been here. You been ravin’ out of your head.”
“I—I guess I have. The nightmares were—horrible. Not so horrible as what I’ve seen and what I’ve come through, but horrible all the same.”
“You come from da professor’s island, I t’ink by your ravin’s. You were held dere or somet’ing?”
“Sort of.” She had a sudden sense of urgency. “You know a man named Art Cadell?”
“I know him. He sometime come here. Why? What you got to do wit’ Mister Cadell?”
“He—he’s a friend of a friend, sort of. That is, he knows somebody I have to get word to.”
“Oh? And who’s dat?”
“A man named MacDonald. Gregory MacDonald.”
“Lot of folks look for Mister MacDonald. He very wanted man. Dey say he some kind of Russian agent, y’know. Dere is big reward for his capture.”
She sighed. “I thought as much. Still, this was the only place I had and time’s running out. She won’t wait for anybody but him or me and I’m in no shape to go anyplace right now.”