Whither Thou Goest

Chapter 4-2

“Good idea,” Nick said.

“Thank you, Mr. Smith.”

“Welcome, Skipper.” I settled in to row.

“Oh my God, the rifles.” The skipper swung around to stare at the bottom of the boat, which was awash in sea water. “Charley, what…?”

“Not a good idea to leave them there. When Nick get knocked out, I pick up. Have feeling we need these.”

“You’re going to be sorry you came along,” Mr. Chetwood said with a short, unhappy laugh.

“Not so, Church Chetwood.”

“Even when I tell you the place we just left was the only way to come ashore on this misbegotten island? According to the map I had from Lillegard, the rest of it is sheer cliffs. We’re doomed to row until we drop.”

“No!” Lillegard had been whimpering in the bottom of the boat, but now he raised his bloodshot eyes. “There is a small place on the other side—”

“What are you talking about, Lillegard?”

In the early light of dawn, I could see the flush color his cheeks. “I…er…I didn’t give you that information?”

“No. Just like you didn’t tell me there was a king’s ransom in jewels on the other side of that mountain?”

“You cheated me—”

I dropped the oars and lunged for him.

The boat rocked, and he tumbled backward in an effort to avoid my attack. “All right, all right. He didn’t cheat—it was an honest game.” Lillegard kept a wary eye on me, waiting to see if I’d make another attempt to jump him. He relaxed marginally when I didn’t. “I was gonna sell the information to you, Chetwood, that was the plan, but then you was gone, and I—”

“Yeah, you lost your ship.” Mr. Chetwood grabbed Lillegard’s collar and hoisted him up, nearly strangling him. And this in spite of the blow my lover had taken to his head. I watched with real pleasure.

But then I had to look away. Hildy shouldn’t have my desire for my lover shoved in her face, so to speak. I tugged the front of my nightshirt free of my trousers and let the tail drape over my lap, effectively concealing my arousal.

Meanwhile, Mr. Chetwood had snarled, “I believe you about another place to land as much as I believe you about the treasure, Lillegard. Find the spot for us. And it’d better be damned soon, or I’ll have no qualms about pitching you over the side.”

“I told you I’d tell you, didn’t I?” Lillegard said sullenly. “We just have to be on the lookout for it. It juts out into the sea, and when you’re past it, if you look behind you, you can see there’s a narrow passage that leads into a small bay.”

“Do we have anything to bail with?” The skipper was looking his age.

Hildy pulled a collapsible canvas cup from a rucksack and held it up.

“That will have to do, I’m afraid.” Captain Johansen reached for it, but Charley was there before him.

“You rest…” Charley used the same Chinese word he had earlier. He began to bail, and Nick and I settled down to rowing again.

* * * *

Iwi Po’o was larger than I’d ever thought. We rowed and rowed and still we hadn’t come back to the point of the sheered mountain face.

There were a lot of points that jutted out into the sea, but none of them concealed a channel that opened into a bay.

The sun rose higher and hotter, and still there was nothing.

Mr. Chetwood touched my shoulder. “Take a break, kid.”

I would have protested, but I didn’t have the energy for it. I rested my forearms on my knees for a moment, my head hanging, and then Hildy tugged on my sleeve again.

“What is it, honey?”

She leaned close to my ear. “I think something’s following us, Johnny.”

“What…?” I looked behind us. “Oh, no. Oh, no.” I swallowed. “Mr. Chetwood, we’ve got company.” A dorsal fin at least the height of a tall man was cutting neatly through the water to our port side. A dozen yards back, a graceful tail swished from side to side, propelling it forward.

The sound that came from Lillegard’s mouth was indescribable, a bastard cross between a frenzied gasp and a shriek. “Sh-sh-sh-shark!” His eyes seemed to be swallowed up by the whites, and his face turned a sickly shade of yellow. I thought he’d piss himself. “Get it away from me! Get it away!”

“Shut up,” Nick snapped. We put our backs into the oars and rowed, but the shark kept leisurely pace with us.

“Holy smokes,” Mr. Chetwood exclaimed, unable to tear his gaze from the shark. “What a beauty. It’s as big as this boat.”

“Bigger, Chet. It must be forty-five, maybe fifty feet.”

“I ain’t never seen a shark that big before,” Nick muttered to himself.

“Neither have I.” The skipper’s teeth were tight around the stem of his pipe. “And I’ve seen a good many of the beasts. Look at its hide.”

“Of course. This close to Iwi Po’o…It must be the remnant of some prehistoric species. If only I had a camera to film this thing,” my lover mourned, the showman in him coming to the fore.

“Steady on, men.” Captain Johansen spoke calmly, although he knew, better than any of us, probably, that if that shark chose to ram the tiny lifeboat, we were done for. It could swallow down the seven of us and still be ready for the main course. “Keep your strokes smooth and even.”

The shark seemed to study us with a flat, expressionless eye, and then it submerged. For long minutes we sat tensely, waiting for it to return. When it did, it was on the far side of the lifeboat, and it seemed content for the moment to just watch us.

Lillegard scrambled from one end of the lifeboat to the other, climbing over us, desperate to put some distance between himself and the monster shark. A couple of times he nearly caused us to founder. A nod from the skipper, and Charley took action. With the side of his hand he gave Lillegard a chop to the back of his neck, and the Norwegian dropped like a stoned crow.

“I just stun him,” the c******n assured us, although truthfully I wouldn’t have minded if Charley had done serious damage. “We get some peace for little bit now.”

The skipper rested his hand on Charley’s shoulder. “Good work. Someone keep Lillegard’s nose out of the water at the bottom of the boat. We wouldn’t want him to drown.”

“We wouldn’t?” I wouldn’t have shed any tears if he did.

“This is a dangerous situation we find ourselves in, Mr. Smith. I won’t lie to you. We’re going to need every hand we can muster.”

“If you say so, Captain. I just hope we don’t regret it.”

Nick growled something under his breath that sounded like agreement and bent his back to his oars.

“Look! Look!” Hildy pointed excitedly toward the island. She gave a single bounce, and then subsided, casting an apologetic glance at me. “Look! There’s the passage!”

“Thank God,” I said fervently. “Good girl, Hildy.”

We angled the boat toward the spot Hildy was pointing to, and within a matter of minutes we were pulling away from the shark and entering the broad channel that would lead us into the bay, and hopefully to safety.

* * * *

The horseshoe-shaped bay was large enough for a ship the size of the August Moon to comfortably ride at anchor, but there was no spot where we could beach the lifeboat. Ferns, vines, and brush grew in profusion right up to the lichen-covered stone that formed what looked like a natural pier at the water’s edge.

Although…Something led inland. It didn’t seem as densely covered as the land surrounding the bay, and as a matter of fact it looked almost like the ghost of a path.

“Row in that direction, if you please, men,” the skipper said, and a half dozen oar strokes brought us to the spot.

Lillegard had come to his senses a short time before, and he didn’t wait for us to secure the boat. As soon as it was close enough to land, he jumped out, a leap that would have rivaled Nijinsky. His foot skidded in the slippery moss, and he fell face forward. Scrabbling on his hands and knees, gibbering in panic, he finally got his feet under him and bolted into the undergrowth.

“He won’t go far,” Mr. Chetwood said sourly. “He doesn’t have a gun.”

“And I don’t intend for him to have one.” Captain Johansen’s tone was grim. “After what he pulled on the August Moon…Chet, do me a favor and see if you can find something to tie the boat to.”

“Sure, Jo.” My lover clambered out. He took a couple of steps and then stumbled. I was out right behind him, intent on catching him before he fell, but he steadied himself. He bent down and brushed the lichen away. “What the h—” He caught himself just in time and shot a glance at the little girl. “—heck is this?”

Captain Johansen stepped carefully onto the slick stone. He crouched down to examine it. “That’s the kind of cleat used to secure boats to a pier. Strange metal. However old it is, it certainly isn’t showing its age. No rust or wear.”

“How do you explain it?” I started to say this wasn’t the inhabited part of the island, but then I remembered Mr. Chetwood telling me about a caveman abducting Catriona Delaney.

The skipper shrugged and rose to his feet, dusting off his hands. “An earlier civilization, no doubt. Tie up the boat, please, Mr. Smith.” He turned to give Charley a hand out of the lifeboat.

“The one that carved the tunnel in the mountain?” Mr. Chetwood could see I was curious, and he went on to explain. “The natives lived on the other side of the mountain range, off the beach where we were going to land. But the people who lived on this side…The tunnel, and the path leading up to it, were both manmade, I’d swear it on my Aunt Nelly’s tintype.”

“But…you told me cavemen captured Catriona.”

“That’s what Simon thought they were. He said they were almost seven feet tall.”

“Yeah,” I muttered under my breath. “And I’ll bet they had fangs.” I resented Simon Holmes, who’d been Mr. Chetwood’s first male lover.

“I only saw the one myself,” Mr. Chetwood was saying. “They were most likely descendants of the inhabitants that had done the excavation, and now, seeing this…Maybe there is something to Lillegard’s story of a treasure here somewhere.” He winked at me. “Stick with me, kid—we’ll be rich as Rockefeller.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Chetwood. Whither thou goest, right?” It didn’t matter much to me, as long as I was with him.

“Yeah.” He grinned but then turned pale and staggered a bit.

“Mr. Chetwood.” I caught him before he could keel over, keeping him upright.

“Thanks, kid. I’m oke.” But he leaned into me. “For such a little guy, Whitey really packed a wallop. That blow to the head has made me a little woozy, that’s all.”

Gently, I touched the back of his skull, and he hissed. “It’s a good thing you’ve got a hard head,” I told him. “You’ve got a good-sized goose egg here.”

“I’ve had worse, kid.”

“I should have shived Whitey when I had the chance.” Once I was sure my lover was steady on his feet, I let him go.

“Johnny, what are you…” His eyes widened, and I could see he remembered the time I’d volunteered to make Catriona Delaney a widow, and he realized I was deadly serious.

“Johnny?” Hildy was still in the boat.

“Give me your hands, honey.” I grasped them firmly and swung her onto the land.