Beyond Sunrise (4 page)

Chapter Five

To India's relief, it was Patu and not that vile Australian who rowed her over to the stretch of gleaming white coral sand that formed the bay's shoreline.

"There's a path by that stream," Patu said, helping her out onto the beach. "It'll take you around the side of the mountain and up to the top."

India let her head fall back, her gaze lifting above the beach's fringing palm trees to the darkly jagged peak towering overhead. She'd read about this path, which was said to have been made by the natives of the island. The cannibal natives. As far as they were concerned, Mount Futapu was a kind of god. In times past, they had been known to throw living sacrifices into the volcano's crater.

From the deck of the
Sea Hawk,
the island had looked wild and beautiful, like something from a dream. Now, as she stared up at its steep cliffs of naked rock and gorges choked with impenetrable jungle, it seemed to have acquired a darker, faintly menacing aspect. It was all this talk about cannibals, she decided. It had made her fanciful, something she heartily despised and was not normally inclined to be.

"You will be back in three hours, won't you, miss?" said Patu.

India touched one hand to the watch she wore pinned to her bodice, and smiled. "I shall be ever vigilant of the time." Her boots sinking in the loose sand, she turned to go, then paused to look back and ask, "Would he really leave?"

"I suspect he would, miss."

India nodded. "I thought so."

She found the path easily enough. At first the climb was gentle, an idyllic stroll through groves of coconut palms with high feathery tops that murmured softly with the breeze. Brilliantly hued butterflies danced and played about her while, overhead, a vivid blue and yellow parrot peered down at her with arched head and open beak, his scolding cry echoing exotically through the jungle. India looked up at him, and laughed.

Farther inland, the track steepened, the palms giving way to moss-covered giant trees hung with pendant ropes of lianas and a tangle of unknown vines and creepers. The distant boom of the surf was still audible, but lessened here, even her footfalls seeming hushed. India lengthened her stride, oblivious to the whine of mosquitoes and the steamy heat that was gradually becoming more oppressive as she moved away from the shore. This was what she loved, this heady, heart-pumping sense of adventure, the excitement of experiencing the unfamiliar and the unexpected. At a turn in the path she came across a half-hidden, breathtakingly beautiful white orchid and longed to sketch it, but the weight of the watch pinned to her breast filled her with an uncomfortable awareness of the passage of time, and she kept walking.

Something like halfway up the slope, she stopped beside a rocky stream to rest and make some quick notes in her book. Before she left, she reached down cupped hands to bathe her face and found the water surprisingly warm, hot even. Continuing on her way, she wasn't surprised when, a few minutes farther up the trail, she came upon a bubbling hot springs, and as she neared the summit, she found another spring, the water in the small pond beside it percolating as if at a low boil. The unmistakable odor of cooking meat impregnated the warm, moist air. India stopped short, her gaze riveted on the flat stones lining the water's edge where, half obscured by the steam that floated in drifting wisps over the churning surface, someone had placed what she realized must be some kind of flesh, wrapped in leaves.

Cannibals.
The word leapt immediately into her head, bringing with it a stomach-wrenching, blood-chilling, finger-tingling wave of primitive terror that swept through her body and left her winded and trembling.

"Don't be ridiculous," she told herself out loud. One hand pressed to her heaving chest, she deliberately straightened her spine. A visitor to the South Seas was in far more danger of being gored by a wild pig than of being eaten by cannibals, and she certainly wouldn't allow the presence of a few pigs to dissuade her from her inspection of the Faces of Futapu. In fact, it was probably nothing more than a side of pork steaming by the hot springs right now. She remembered with another sick twist of her stomach that a cooked human being was cavalierly referred to in this area as "long pork," but she thrust that thought from her mind. She was not some fainthearted miss, forever shrieking and going into hysterics. She was India McKnight, travel writer, and it was just this sort of experience that added spice—another unfortunate word, given its associations with cooking—to her writing.

She glanced about the clearing, but it appeared peaceful and deserted, and she told herself cannibals normally roasted their victims, anyway. Reassured by this thought, India adjusted the straps of her knapsack and canteen, straightened her pith helmet, and continued on her way.

"It's the
Barracuda,
all right," said Jack, lowering his spyglass. "Of all the bloody luck."

Patu leaned his elbows on the rail, his gaze on the brilliant white sails in the distance, and shrugged. "They should be long gone by the time we leave here."

"They should be." Jack raised the glass again. "Although if I didn't know better, I'd say they were headed right this way."

"That corvette, she's too big to fit through the passage."

"Mmhhmm." Jack watched the British ship plunge through the swells, and knew a deep, disturbing sense of uneasiness. "But her jolly boat isn't."

Patu's eyebrows drew together in a quick, worried frown. "Why would the
Barracuda
want to come here?"

"I don't know." Jack swung around to stare up at the steep, jungle-clad slopes of Mount Futapu, and swore under his breath. If it weren't for that bloody writer, he would weigh anchor right now and sail away, just to be safe. But however much of a pain in the ass India McKnight might be, Jack wasn't the kind of man to abandon a woman on a cannibal-infested island.

Swearing again, he raised the glass to his eye and watched the sails of the
Barracuda
grow larger, and larger, and larger.

There was no doubt about it, India decided, her heart soaring with excitement: the so-called Faces of Futapu were an entirely natural rock formation, not the work of long-vanished Polynesian stonecutters at all.

She worked her way around the massive twin pillars of stone, analyzing them from every angle and carefully studying their surfaces for signs that shapes naturally occurring in the rocks might have been exploited and exaggerated by human tools. But she could find nothing. Nothing at all. From the distance, these folded, upthrust remnants of some ancient eruption did look uncannily like two human heads, the faces long and narrow, the noses and eyes stylized and yet remarkably evocative. But the effect was entirely coincidental, like the face of the man in the moon. From certain angles, in fact, the resemblance disappeared entirely.

Buzzing with elation, India pulled out her notebook and found a flat rock on which to sit while she began making a series of quick, rough sketches. Thanks to Mr. Ryder, she would need to wait until later to make a more complete, careful rendering from her notes.

For perhaps the hundredth time, India lifted the watch on her chest and studied it carefully. She still had two hours, but India McKnight was not one to run unnecessary risks by cutting things close. She had every intention of leaving for the beach with plenty of time to spare.

The wind gusted up, bringing her the fresh, briny scent of the sea and the distant sound of the surf. Raising one hand to shade her eyes from the glare of the sun, India glanced down at the bay far below, and was surprised to see a ship riding at anchor just off the entrance to the passage through the reef. The sight gave her pause for a moment, but by squinting, she was able to make out the white ensign of the Royal Navy fluttering reassuringly from the ship's mast.

She watched, surprised, as the ship's crew went about the business of lowering the jolly boat. Then she went back to her sketching.

Chapter Six

Alex Preston stood on the
Barracuda's
deck and stared at the steaming, green-black mass of mountains rising above the palm-fringed shores of Takaku. The savage beauty of the island attracted and yet repelled him, like the seductive, dangerous call of some mythical temptress of old. He ached with a desire to both know it and tame it, as if by subduing its wild bestiality he could somehow conquer all the primitive, frightening urgings within himself.

"I'd like to be a member of the boarding party, sir," he said as Captain Granger prepared to j
oin
the armed seamen in the jolly boat.

Simon Granger glanced up from buckling on his sword, the fierce tropical sunlight falling full on a face that was still surprisingly young for a ship's captain. He was probably no more than thirty, Alex thought, just eight years older than Alex himself. But Granger's clear-thinking leadership in those long, tortured weeks following the sinking of the
Lady Juliana
had not only made him a hero, it had also been very good for his career. Looking at him now, Alex felt a vague stirring that was part envy, part determination. It would be very good for Alex's career if the
Barracuda
were to succeed in nabbing Jack Ryder—particularly if Alex himself could have a hand in the man's capture. It would justify his being here now as first lieutenant, and quiet those who said he was too young, too inexperienced for such a posting. Those who kept whispering about his family's connections. They didn't understand, those people who whispered, the weight of such advancements, and the expectations that came with them.

"Very well, Mr. Preston," said the captain. "If Ryder's not on the
Sea Hawk,
you may remain on board the yacht with a small contingent while the rest of us go ashore."

Alex swallowed a surge of disappointment. "I'd like to go ashore myself, sir."

"Why?" The captain's eyes narrowed, as if he could somehow peer into the tortured recesses of Alex's soul. "To see the island? Or for the righteous satisfaction of being there when we capture Ryder? No, don't answer that," Granger added, throwing up one hand when Alex opened his mouth to do just that. "Tell me this instead: Have you never done anything wrong, Mr. Preston?"

Alex hesitated. "Nothing of great magnitude, no, sir."

"No? Then you've been fortunate." The captain turned toward the ship's ladder. "Come along, Mr. Prescott. Let's hope that life continues to be so kind to you."

Jack paused with one booted, canvas-covered leg thrown over the
Sea Hawk's
rail, a machete strapped to his side, and watched the British corvette in the open water on the far side of the reef launch its jolly boat with a rattle and a splash. "Bloody hell. I can't believe this. What the blazes are they doing here?"

Oars in hand, Patu looked up glumly from the dinghy. "I did try to warn you. You said you weren't worried."

Jack scrambled down the rope ladder and dropped the last few feet into the yacht's small boat. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear Simon and that bloody Scotswoman set this whole thing up as a trap."

"Huh," Patu grunted, pulling hard on the oars. "I thought you said you and Granger were old friends."

"What does that have to do with it?"

"Because if it'd been me, I wouldn't have expected a woman like Miss McKnight to interest you."

"What the hell are you talking about? That woman doesn't interest me. I did this for the money, remember?" Frowning, Jack stared up the steaming summit of Mount Futapu. The way he figured it, he was looking at a two-to three-day overland trek—he refused to think of it as a
flight
—to the French port of La Rochelle on the northern end of the island. It would be up to Patu to deal with the British boarding party and see that Miss McKnight made it back to Neu Brenen. Damn the woman with her bloody theories of Polynesian migration and that infectious, beguilingly attractive glimmer of excitement in her eyes.

"And if Captain Granger figures out where you're going and has the
Barracuda
patrolling off La Rochelle when I come to pick you up?" Patu asked. "What then?"

Only two usable channels cut through Takaku's fringing coral reef: the pass here, at Futapu Bay, and the wider break in the north that led to the harbor of the French trading post of La Rochelle. There was a third passage, a small, tortuous route barely wide enough for an outrigger canoe, that lay on the windward side of the island, but no one in their right mind would think of taking it, especially at this time of year.

"Then I guess I'll just have to hang around La Rochelle until the
Barracuda
goes away."

Patu grunted again, and ran the dinghy into the beach. "That could take a while."

Jack swung out of the boat and splashed ashore. "It's better than the alternative."

"Which is what?"

"Hanging." Gripping the sides of the dinghy, Jack made ready to push it off.

"Is it true," Patu said suddenly, his hands slack on the oars, "what they say about the natives here? That they've taken to eating people again?"

"Not people. Just missionaries." Jack gave the boat a hard shove that sent it shooting away from the beach. "Don't worry," he called. "No one's going to mistake me for a missionary."

"No." Leaning into his oars, Patu threw a quick glance toward the reef, where the
Barracuda's
jolly boat was already threading its way through the passage. "But someone might easily take Miss McKnight for one."

Jack stood for a moment, the waves breaking at his feet, his gaze fastened on the approaching jolly boat. A blinding flash of sunlight glinted as if off the lens of a spyglass, and a shout went up to mingle with the roar of the distant surf and the buffeting of the fresh sea breeze.

Jack took off across the beach at a run, dodging through the thinly scattered coconut trees, his boots kicking up sprays of soft sand that fanned out behind him. He followed, for now, the same path India McKnight had taken, for it would lead him around to the other side of the mountain where he would find another trail he knew that would take him north.

As the trees thickened, he slowed to a steady dogtrot, but it still wasn't long before the sweat was sticking his shirt to his back and rolling down his face and into his eyes. Bloody hell, he thought, sucking in air. Too many late nights drinking brandy or kava. There'd been a time, once, when he could run for miles and miles without giving it a thought.

At the junction of the two paths he paused, his head down, his hands braced on his thighs, his eyes closed as he gulped in air. Swiping an arm across his dripping forehead, he opened his eyes and found himself staring at footprints. Not the even, artificially rounded prints he'd seen left by Miss McKnight's sensible lace-up shoes in the muddy stretches of the path from the beach, but big, splayed-toed, natural footprints, the kind left by bare feet. Lots and lots of bare feet. They'd come through here before Miss McKnight, but not long before.

"Bloody hell," Jack whispered, his gaze following the footprints—one set shod, the others not—up the trail that led toward the summit. Straightening, he stood at the juncture of the two paths, torn between the driving urge to keep going north—deep into the safety of the jungle and far, far away from Simon Granger and the jolly boat full of armed British sailors who were doubtless at this very minute swarming over the
Sea Hawk
—and another compulsion, a compulsion that was unwelcome and crazy to the point of being suicidal.

He told himself he could be wrong, that the natives who'd left these footprints might not be cannibals—or even if they were cannibals, they might not be hungry. He told himself Miss India McKnight had known all about the danger of cannibals when she'd made up her stubborn, opinionated mind to come here and study the Faces of Futapu. He told himself she'd be down the mountain soon enough, anyway. Jack knew her type, always double-checking everything and arriving early for any appointment. And if she did run into trouble with the natives, she had the bloody British navy sitting right offshore, to rescue her.

Except, of course, that Simon Granger might not believe Patu. What if the British thought Patu was lying about the existence of a Scotswoman in a split tartan skirt and pith helmet? What if the
Barracuda
forced Patu to up anchor and sail away before the three hours Jack had given her were up?

What would happen to Miss India Bloody McKnight then?

For a dangerously long moment, Jack stood at the crossroads, wavering, turning first one way, then the other. He even took three decisive steps on the trail north, away from Simon Granger and India McKnight and the men who'd left those ominously numerous footprints. Then, swearing, he swung around to start the steady climb up to the smoking summit of Mount Futapu.

Her sketches of the so-called Faces of Futapu complete, India glanced at her watch and decided she still had enough time left for a closer inspection of the rim of the volcano.

Futapu's crater was a good three-quarters of a mile wide and about half as deep, a poisoned-looking area of bare stained rock and gray ash half obscured by hissing steam. Venturing as close as she dared, India stared down into a fiery cauldron of red and orange molten rock, and knew a moment of humbling awe. Here were the very bowels of the earth, she thought, laid bare to the eyes of man. As she watched, a fountain of orange lava shot out of one of the crater's holes with an explosion that was like the firing of a cannon. Flaring and spitting, the fiery eruption climbed higher and higher, then suddenly plopped back to earth, blackened and spent.

It was then that India noticed what looked like a stone platform, some three or four hundred feet away, near the gurgling, glowing hole. She couldn't be certain from this distance—if only she weren't cursed with this blasted eyesight!—but it looked very much as if the platform might not be entirely natural. Her curiosity piqued, she glanced at her watch, and pursed her lips in indecision. By rights, she should be getting ready to head back toward the beach. If she went to investigate the platform, she'd be cutting things tighter than she'd like. But she had been planning to leave sooner than she really needed to, and it wasn't
that tar
to the platform. If it took her longer to reach it than she expected, she'd simply turn around and go back.

Thus reassured, India set off along the rim of the volcano, her attention divided between minding her steps in the treacherous landscape and keeping an eye on the passage of time as recorded by her watch's slowly moving hands.

She wasn't there.

Standing in the shadow of the Faces of Futapu, Jack turned in a slow circle, his gaze spanning the windblown expanse of pink- and white-stained rocks and vivid blue sky and tangled green jungle set against an endless sea. Not a scrap of tartan in sight. Where the hell was she?

The natives' footprints had veered off the trail at a point near the hot springs, but Jack hadn't been reassured. He hadn't liked the smell of whatever it was someone had left steaming on the rocks. Even as he searched the surrounding brush for signs of the pesky Scotswoman, he was also keeping a lookout for telltale flashes of dark bare skin. The idea of ending up in a cooking pot really didn't appeal to him.

The ground fell away here in a bare precipice toward the bay below, so that he also had to be careful to keep out of sight of any sharp-eyed mariners who might happen to be looking up—the idea of swinging from the end of a British yardarm not appealing to him any more than a native stew pot. Flattening himself on his stomach, Jack crept closer to the cliff's edge and saw that the jolly boat had left a couple of sailors and an officer aboard the
Sea Hawk
and was now headed toward the beach. A familiar figure stood tall and stiff in the boat's prow, sunlight glinting on the barrels of the well-oiled rifles that bristled
among
the men behind him.

So Simon had come himself. Jack had known he would.

They'd been as close as brothers once, Jack and this man who had been sent to see him brought back and hanged. When they'd first met as young midshipmen assigned to a quick-tempered, cantankerous old captain named Horatio Gladstone, they'd despised each other, for their backgrounds, temperaments, and attitudes couldn't have been more different. As the younger son of an old and proud Hampshire family, Simon had grown up in a world of neatly hedged, misty green fields, where tenant farmers pulled their forelocks and everyone who was anyone went to Eton, or Harrow, or Winchester. But Jack was a product of the Australian outback, his childhood memories of wide-open spaces and cattle musters and Aboriginal corroborees. His family might have been successful, but they were also boisterous and relaxed and peculiarly proud, in their own way, of the transported London pickpocket and Irish whore from whom they were descended. The antipathy between the two midshipmen had been instantaneous and intense, but it hadn't stopped them from eventually forming a bond they'd once sworn would last forever.

As if sensing Jack's eyes upon him, Simon looked up, his gaze raking the craggy heights. Jack ducked his head and pulled back, intensely aware, suddenly, of the heat of the tropical sun on his shoulders and the hard, insistent pumping of his own heart. If he hurried, he'd have just enough time to make it back down to the path heading north without meeting Simon and his boys coming up from the beach. Oh, they might try to follow him, but Jack had spent years in the jungles of the South Pacific, while Simon was, and always would be, a navy man.

A sea tern circled lazily overhead, drawing Jack's attention to the far rim of the volcano, where a woman in a tartan skirt stood, sketchbook in hand, her attention fastened on something he couldn't see. What the hell was she doing over there? he wondered, momentarily diverted. She should by rights be headed back down by now.

One hand on his machete to keep it from knocking noisily against a stone, Jack scooted away from the cliff's edge and straightened carefully. He had every intention of going off and leaving Miss India McKnight to the heroics of Simon and his boys in blue, when something else caught his attention, something he realized was a man's naked black buttocks, liberally smeared with mud and moving stealthily in her direction.