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TARA&039;S DESPERATE DIVES beneath the surface had paid off-she&039;d found Richard and quickly brought him to the surface
But he wasn&039;t conscious, and with the frigid water washing around her, salt waves rocking hard against them minute after minute, it was difficult to even ascertain at first if he was alive Mindless of the water, she squeezed his torso to force water frohed, and he breathed
And he lived
"Tara?" he gasped
"I&039;ve got you, Richard, I&039;ve got you," she assured him
"Too far froo"
"Ease back I&039;ve got you"
"Tara, you can get-" Richard&039;s words were cut off as a ashed over theain "Get away!"
"Shut up! Quit talking Keep your mouth closed and lie back Dayou, so don&039;t make it harder for me," she warned him with a note of steel in her voice
Water washed over hie of his weakness to force him flat and slip her left arm around his chest in a hold that would allow hiht the waves with her right arth that was deep, fortunately, as the sea itself seeht
As she kicked harder, she was dier over Richard&039;s boat
Death?
She gave herself a mental shake; she couldn&039;t think that way She had to use her entire concentration to get her friend to the shore She didn&039;t even dare look back at the Yankee ship Richard had been thrown severely about his wounded ship, and if she didn&039;t get hiht would really ht and Tara realized that a powder keg had exploded
The resultingflames illuminated the water, and she couldn&039;t see Richard anyth, it see and searching
While the blazing fire on the ship illu an al waves, beneath the glowing sheen the water reht She could barely see, and while she knew about where Richard had gone in, she couldn&039;t pinpoint the precise location, and she ht not have found him at all had he not bobbed to the surface
Facedown
"Richard!" she shouted, swi him over in the water His eyes were closed; his forain, and then squeezed his torso with gentle pressure, fighting the waves around thehed and choked, and water spewed fro his face, and he coughed again, trying to fight the water that seemed so ready to claiot you!" Tara assured him
"The shipthe men," Richard said, and choked as icy salt water " She wondered if he&039;d been struck in the head? But he was breathing; he was alive and breathing and she was going to ed that
"The h this" She was terribly afraid that her friend didn&039;t want to live, that guilt over hisher rescue attempt "Richard! Shut up! The war has taken many lives-I won&039;t let it take yours"
Richard wasn&039;t a small man, and the water felt bitterly cold, and it wasn&039;t easy th of his lean and
"Fire," he said, as if he hadn&039;t heard her, glazed eyes reflecting the burst of fire in the sky
She was teain He was the dearest friend she&039;d ever had, or would have, and she would not lose him
"Quiet!" she whispered softly She hooked her aret his against the water "Lay back, Richard, and let ht she couldn&039;t wrestle with hiain She felt the fight leave his in a hard craard the shore
The water was deep; the ship had floundered in the channel between isles, where a coral shelf rested just to the Atlantic side They couldn&039;t be in th of her body burned with the exertion of her muscles and her lips continued to quiver from the cold
She had never felt so strained, nor so exhausted, in her life
Just when she thought that the agony in her arround at the tips of her feet She realized that she could stand, having reached the gnarled toes of the island She slipped off the subedly, she found a foothold again, paused, breathed and waited She looked back to the Yankee ship, on fire now
At last, she narled and twisted "legs" of a spiderlike clu, and feeling as if her muscles burned with the saht sky She breathed in the acrid and s then to Richard, she felt for his pulse-faint, but steady-and warmth jumped in her heart She allowed herself to fall back for another th She was drenched, and her skirts were heavy ater She felt the winter&039;s nip that lay around her, even here
She thanked God that they hadn&039;t gone in farther north, where temperatures would have been far more wicked
She rested, and then, even as she breathedremnants of the Peace, she could see that the Union ship floundered, too
She had grounded herself; she wasn&039;t injured and liht on the reef, and there was no escape for her The Union boat would have a nu the lives of the men aboard
Richard was alive, she knew that, and she believed in her heart that he would survive But he wasn&039;t co around, and they had to leave their present position; they were like sitting ducks at a county fair
She dragged herself to her feet Half of the heaviness of the weight she had borne, she realized, had been that of her skirts She wrenched off the cumberso saturated with seawater Rolling the cotton and lace into a ball, she stuffed it into a gap in the tree roots, shoving up a pile of seaweed and sand to hide the telltale sign that this here survivors had coht her eye, soht have just been a shadow created on the water by the rise and fall of fla ship Soon, the Peace would be down to charred, skeletal reh of the hull remained above the surface to allow the fla sparks now and then
A shadow on the water The Unionists would be co after a blockade runner
She reached down, dragging Richard&039;s body up He was far bigger than she was, but she lance back at the flaroves that rie of the isle
THE FIRE ON THE BLOCKADE runner was just beginning to subside, but Finn could still hear the lick of the flames as they consurated in the conflagration Soon, however, the sea would claiht would be lit by only the stars
He couldn&039;t wait for the longboats; he surveyed his surroundings frorove roots he stood upon
This side of the islet-new to time and history, created by the tenacious roots and the silt and debris caught with those roots-was really nothing narled tree, slick ponds and beds of seaweed But looking toward the east, he could see that there was a spit of sand He began crawling over the roots, heedless when he stepped knee-deep in a cache of water Tiny crabs scurried around his intrusion, and he could hear the squish of his boots When he cleared the heaviest thicket, he paused, leaning on a tree, to empty the water froh the thinning foliage, he heard a grunting sound He paused Alligators roamed the freshwater areas of the upper Keys, and even crocodiles made a home in the brackish waters off the southern coast But Finn wasn&039;t hearing the odd, piglike grunt of a gator He was hearing the snuffling grunt s There was hope that water was to be found on the island, and if pigs were surviving here, thenexcursion
Soht his eye and he paused The reone, little , and retraced his footsteps, wincing as he stepped knee-deep into a pool again But even with this, his efforts were rewarded There, deep in a crevice, was so big and white and heavily laden with seawater fell into his hands He frowned, puzzled for a rimly
A petticoat A woman&039;s petticoat Soaked and salty, ripped and torn and encrusted with sand andIt hadn&039;t been there long at all
He looked ahead to the beach, where a survivor ht Where a survivor justa fire, or freeze There was certainly no snow this far south, but it was a bitter night They were probably hitting down close to freezing
He set the petticoat down, studying it, and felt a sweep of tension wash over him He did his ell, and he knew that he did, and he felt passionately that the future of the country-the decency, the healing-were in the hands of a good h on every threat, perceived or real, and he had lost his suspect only once
At Gettysburg
The woers, and he had never forgotten, and now
He couldn&039;t help but look at the petticoat, and wonder, as iht be, if he hadn&039;t coain
Was she Gator?
TARA FOUND A SPOT SHIELDED by a strip of land where pines had taken root She looked around carefully before lowering Richard&039;s body to the soft, chill ground, and then paused for a onized muscles She fell into a seated position next to Richard and leaned her head against one of the protecting trees She was exhausted and, despite her exertion, very cold
She checked Richard&039;s pulse and breathing again, and assured herself that he was going to make it But his limbs felt like ice She forced herself back to her feet She would gather fallen palm branches to otten him out of the water, she wished that he would coht, and it was imperative that they stay hidden until she could find a way off the island Another blockade runner would eventually come by They would survive; they both kne to hold out in such an environment If there were palms on the island, there were coconuts And she had heard the scurry of wildlife But they had to get through the night
And avoid the one down They would be seeking shelter, as well
"Richard?" she whispered, caressing his cheek He didn&039;t open his eyes; he didn&039;t acknowledge her in any way She groaned inwardly, checking for his pulse once again
Still steady
She wanted to build a fire; she didn&039;t dare "Richard, I so wish that you would wake up and speak!"
His chest rose and fell as he breathed But his eyes didn&039;t open She consoled herself that it was better that he got so blow to hiainst hi to use her body to warm his The winter breeze seemed to rise with a low ht
She listened to the sound of the wind, and the waves, and she watched as the fire left the sky, and cloud cover caain, as if it had consumed all the events that had taken place, and nature had been the victor
She knew she needed rest also, but she didn&039;t want to doze She had to stay awake
And listen
SO GATOR JUST MIGHT be a woman No matter, he told himself, she had to be dealt with as harshly as a man He wasn&039;t sure at all omen were considered to be the weaker sex; he&039;dmen cower But still
In the darkness, he did his best to follow a trail It was difficult with the watery sand washing over every footprint Finally, however, he cleared the roves, and found the part of the isle that had surely found birth at the beginning, and had gained substance fro sea There was one beautiful, clear area of beach, residing alht that fell upon it, and, in that starlight, alht of the great ht have been at the ends of the earth, he was so far reh the streets, no civilians at work and play, and no great buildings rising around his at all Just the crisp darkness of the night, the wash of the waves and the soft whilad for the wind; he was slowly drying, but the air was cold, and his flesh felt like ice He&039;d had matches in his pocket, but they were quite worthless now
He hunkered down to see the sand
Footprints The foot was fairly sed, as if the i marks in the sand, as well
A seabird let out a raucous cry in the night, a sound so sudden and eerie in the darkness that even he tensed, spinning around He stood quickly
The last of the fires had burned out There see in the darkness
He looked toward the center of the island where pines and palht well seek sanctuary
TARA COULD SEE HIM co
The man was tall The darkness wouldn&039;t allow much more information than that, but she had a sense about hile cat, one of the panthers that prowled the halades up on thethe beach He just stood there, perhaps doing the sa to sense the very air around him
He couldn&039;t possibly see her in the dark, and yet, she felt as if he was looking right through her
He saw her!
Or he saw soht toward her little palm-and-pine sanctuary, and in a minute, he&039;d discover where she&039;d hidden Richard
Tara eased to her feet; as silently as she could, she made her way behind the stand of pines and crept back into the brush and pal the foliage to slap around her, giving a clear path to anyone anted to follow her
She did well Turning back, she saw the er on the beach He had disappeared as if he&039;d been no hed her situation Looking up, she saw the outstretched branch of a sea grape tree She measured the distance, lowered herself and bounded onto the high branch Then she sat silent, waiting
EVEN FOR FINN, PURSUIT in the dark was not easy, though it was usually ht
He had followed the trail, and yet, it see that, now, the saht as a bird through the trees He folloith all speed, running through brush, a copse of pines and through a thicket containing a dozen different trees He followed the thrashing he had heard, the bracken breaking underfoot, and he burst through the trees onto a higher spit of ragged brush and poor sand
Which was eo of the natural sounds of the island
The now-slightly distant roll of the waves, the rustle of branches He heard again a sound that was guttural, like a rooting sound, as if aniround for soht from one of the tall trees
He knew that the Spaniards had found native tribes living on one forever Pirates had made use of the channels and the reefs to escape capture They&039;d brought new species to the little islands, and therein a ses, birds, insects, crabs
He kept listening, concentrating his extrasensory abilities
Then he could hear it
The beating of a heart
The sound was fast, a strong rhyth watched, just as he atching
He stood where he was for a long time, and then he started back to the beach As he did so, he heard a wild flurry of activity behind hi back into the trees
He raced after the fleeting forain, the subject of his chase disappeared once again He didn&039;t hesitate that time
He stopped cold, and he listened