Renegade (2 page)

Success! The damn crab finally dropped into the basket with the others. Becks clamped the lid down tight and stood, wiping her hands on her skirt. “Company? Not that I know of. Why?”

Pearl was staring out across the marsh, at a downriver bend. “There’s a boat coming from Peter’s Point. Too far away to be from The Neck.”

Becks frowned and moved to stand beside her sister, peering northward. “I don’t see anything.”

But Pearl clucked in exasperation. “The tide’s not full yet, you ninny. The marshgrass is in the way…” She trailed off, and then suddenly pointed. “There! See?”

And Becks did see. Two heads sat facing one another, as if in a rowboat. Both were men, and neither had hats, but that’s all she could tell at this distance. Then they passed around another bend, and the marsh hid them.

The sisters stood silently, the crabs forgotten, peering downriver. The twists and turns the river took meant that they could see visitors long before they arrived. Still, it was another few minutes before the boat reappeared.

“Becks…” Still staring at the newcomers, Pearl groped for her hand, and Becks took it, surprised at the strength of her sister’s grip. “Becks, I don’t think that’s Joe and Jeremiah.” The two brothers were the only ones who visited from Peter’s Point to exchange goods and news a few times a month. Now that Becks squinted at the figures in the boat, she saw that they were too broad, too straight, to be the elderly brothers. And this boat was larger than the old flat-bottom skiff the Peter’s Point men used.

“Do you recognize them?”

“No, do you?” They were both whispering now.

“From this distance, they’re just dark blobs to me.” In the dimming light, she could see less than usual.

The boat carrying the strangers disappeared behind the next clump of marsh grass, and Becks swallowed past a suddenly dry throat. She told herself that there was no reason to be concerned; there was nothing to say these strangers were coming to Beckett, and even less reason to believe  they were anything other than harmless visitors from downriver.

But still… “They’ll be coming past this beach soon.” Pearl sometimes teased her for calling it a beach when it was just a mudbank, but it was the most convenient mooring for downriver vessels. “Who do you think they are?”

“Maybe they’re…” Pearl gripped her hand even harder.

“What?” Her sister always had a better imagination than she did, and it was beginning to affect the usually-practical Becks. “Who?” she whispered, half-scared to hear Pearl’s thoughts.

“Smugglers, like Major Creel told your mother about.”

Becks blew out an exasperated breath. “For Pete’s sake, Pearl.” Her eye-roll was practically audible. “He just mentioned that there’d been reports, not that he was sure. And
we’ve
never heard of any smuggling.”

“We wouldn’t, would we?”

“They’re
not
smugglers, Pearl.”

“Pirates then?”

That particular gem wrenched a hopeless chuckle from Becks. “Be serious. Maybe Joe and Jeremiah are just sick, and they’ve sent someone else in their place.”

“Maybe they’re smugglers who have moored downriver, and are rowing up here to deliver their cargo.” Pearl’s imagination had a way of infecting them both. Becks tried to take a deep breath, but found that her sister’s worry had settled in her own stomach like a too-heavy cornbread.

So when Becks muttered, “You’re being ridiculous,” it didn’t have quite the scorn that she attempted to imbue it with.

“Maybe, but I don’t want them to see me when they come past here.”

Becks peeked back over her shoulder at the fields behind them, and then out to the river. The boat would be coming around this bend any moment now. The strangers might be harmless, or they might be just the sort that two unescorted young women abroad in the evening would want to avoid. Either way, leaving now seemed like the best choice. “You might be right.”

Pearl didn’t wait for her to say anything else. Without dropping Becks’ hand, she scooped up the crab basket and turned towards the house. But Becks pulled her to a stop before she’d even stepped over the low limb.

“Not that way. There’s nothing but open field between here and the drive.” Anyone coming around that bend would be able to see them. And if—God forbid—they stopped and planned to do harm, then the women would be as helpless as pheasants in a baited cornfield. If they’d started earlier, they would be halfway to the drive by now. Instead they were left with few options…

“Well?” Pearl’s whisper was near frantic, and Becks squeezed her hand again. “Where are were going to…?”

“Shhhh.” Becks looked around, desperate this time. “The tree. It’s dark enough now, and the tree will hide us.” Besides, this oak and the few around it were the only cover between the river and the fields.

“Fine!” Pearl practically leaped over the branch, and scuttled behind the thick trunk. Becks took a moment to study her sister’s hiding place, and nodded, assured that the shadow of the tree was large enough to hide even Pearl’s skirts.

Then, with one last glance towards the river, she jumped up on the trailing tree limb, and scurried up it, using her hands to steady herself. Despite the undefined danger of the situation, she reveled in the feel of the bark beneath her feet again. It had been too long since she’d climbed a tree.

“Becks! Becks, what are you doing?” Pearl’s whisper seemed faint with fear. “Girl, get yourself behind this trunk
this instant
!”

“Too late.” Becks knew that sounds traveled over water, and pitched her voice for Pearl’s ears alone. “I can see them.”

The boat glided around the bend in the river, and she knew that she’d made the right decision. There was no way the women would have been out of sight of the river by now if they’d tried to cut across the field.

Becks crouched ten feet off the ground, gripping the branch with slick hands, luckily hidden by the shadows and moss because this tree had dropped so many leaves this spring. From her precarious perch she watched them row straight for her beach. The men didn’t speak, but she could hear the creak of the oars against the locks.

The man rowing made a small correction, glancing over his shoulder to aim the bow closer to the beach, and Becks wished she’d been able to see his face more clearly. The man who sat facing her on the boat’s transom was big and dark, and that’s all she could make out of his features.

When the boat’s bow slid up on the mud, he splashed out with the painter. Pointing at the mud beneath his feet, he smiled, and she saw the white gleam of his teeth against skin that surely must be the darkest ever created. “See? I told you there was someone here.” His voice was a rumble that matched the breadth of his shoulders.

The other man was busy unshipping the oars, but glanced at where his companion pointed. “Footprints. So? It’s been hours since the last high tide. Anyone could have been by here.”

Both men kept their voices low, obviously used to keeping secrets on the water. Becks swallowed. Pearl’s concerns suddenly didn’t seem quite so far-fetched.

“There was someone here before we rounded that last bend, I’m tellin’ you.”

The rower slid over the transom of the boat now, and pushed the stern while the dark man pulled the painter. From their grunts, the rowboat—it was really more like a dinghy—was heavier than it looked. When it was high enough on the mudbank for his satisfaction, the rower sloshed his way over to his companion. “So there was someone here. They’re not here now, are they?”

“No, and that’s what worries me.”

The man grinned, and slapped his companion on the back. “You’re good at worrying, Robert. That’s why I bring you along.”

“You bring me along ‘cause none of the others can carry two of these barrels at once.”

“That, too.”

Then the man tilted his head back to look up the bank, and Becks’ breath caught. He was… well, he looked just like a pirate from one of Pearl’s books, for certain. Dark hair fell in waves past his collar, and his mouth was just a little too broad, with a deep dimple above one brow. His wading didn’t seem to bother him, and the cool breeze that had come in with the tide now molded his trousers to his thighs. They certainly were…
muscular
, weren’t they? Becks caught herself staring, and dropped her gaze.

He was barefoot too, and she didn’t know what to make of that.

“Well, to set your mind at ease, my friend, let’s take a look around.” The pirate scrambled up the bank, using the same roots and rocks Becks had used mere minutes ago. Then, turning, he pulled Robert up behind him.

The two men stood above
her
beach, below
her
tree, and surveyed
her
land as if they belonged there. Hands on hips, chests equally broad, feet planted firmly… why, their stances were so identical that they could have been brothers. Except for the fact that they looked nothing alike, of course.

But what did that prove, anyhow? She and Pearl looked nothing alike.

Maybe she’d made a sound, or maybe Pearl had, or maybe something else caught the pirate’s attention, because his head suddenly whipped around in her direction.

“Mac?” The black-as-midnight man must not have heard it.

“I thought…” He took a step towards her tree, and suddenly she was looking down on a head of thick wavy hair. She wondered what it would feel like if she were to touch it. She wondered if it was as soft as it looked.

She wondered why she was breathing just a bit faster than normal. Was it just fear? She gripped the bark tighter, willing her pulse to slow and her breathing to even out. It was uncomfortable enough, crouched up here with her calves aching from the strain of holding still. She couldn’t afford to move even a smidge, or he might notice her.

Then she remembered the easy way he’d smiled, and wondered if it’d really be such a bad thing to be noticed by him. She squeezed her eyes shut and cursed herself silently. She was crouched on a branch ten feet in the air because of him; he could very well be a brigand or worse… and she was thinking about his smile? It must be the danger, the fear, affecting her brain and making her focus on irrelevant details.

When she snuck another peek down at him, he was looking away again, and she breathed a soft, silent sigh of relief. Now she could look him over without worrying about those bright eyes flicking up to find hers in the shadows.

His friend had called him “Mac,” but more interestingly, he’d called Robert “friend” in return. President Lincoln had freed the slaves fourteen years ago, and declared them equal to whites… but in South Carolina, it was still uncommon to find a white man willing to call a black man “friend”. That told her that these two were unusual indeed.

Of course, they’d rowed onto her land unannounced, and now she was hiding in a tree with her skirt still rucked up in her waist. There really wasn’t anything usual about this situation at all.

“See anything?”

“Nope.”

“Hmmmm…” Mac took another step closer, until he was standing almost under her branch. “I heard something.”

“Well, I
saw
somethin’, so now we’re even.”

Mac threw a grin back over his shoulder, and shook his head slightly. “Robert, you sound like an old woman.”

Robert said something under his breath that made Mac laugh, and Becks suddenly wanted very much to hear his laugh again. It was full and deep and mysterious, like him.

She shifted uncomfortably, to ease the cramping in her calves, and felt the bark chip beneath her feet. A few errant bits fell out of the tree, but he was looking in a different direction, and didn’t notice.

“Well, your mystery person was crabbing, I guess.” He bent out of her view, but when he straightened again, he was holding her net. “And the drumstick still has plenty of meat on it.”

“Wasteful.”

Mac chucked again, and Becks sighed slightly to hear it. “Let’s hope it caught him some fat crabs, whoever he was.” He propped the net upright against the very branch Becks was clinging to, where it dipped closer to the ground. “I assume he’ll come back for it. It’s a valuable net.”

“Are you done doing your good deeds for the week? Let’s go see if she’s got the cart ready.” Robert’s words drew Becks’ brows in. A cart? Whose cart? For what?

“All right. Let’s go.”

But instead of setting off immediately, the man named Mac took another few steps in her direction, so that he was practically below her now. He stood with his fists on his hips again, staring at the dinghy pulled up at the beach, and his shirt moved slightly in the breeze. It was a dark gray, like his trousers, and rolled up to his elbows, making him look even more like a pirate. His left forearm was darker than his right, much darker, and Becks couldn’t figure out why. Was he wearing some sort of extra sleeve…?

She leaned slightly, to see if she could get a better look at it, and felt the bark slip under her at the same time she heard the little telltale
crunch
. It was the damned mud, still caked between her toes!

Fingers clawing at the oak branch, she willed her feet to stay where they were, to not slip any further. They didn’t seem to want to listen, and with sudden clarity she realized that she was going to fall out of the stupid tree. Detachedly, she could only think about her grandmama’s rule against ladies cursing.