“How did you do that?” Cay whispered.
Alex shrugged, his hand never stopping as he stroked the wings of the big bird.
She looked at the nearest person, who happened to be Tim, to ask if he’d seen it, but the boy turned away. When she caught Eli’s eyes, the older man said, “I guess we won’t be eating that bird tonight.”
“No, I think he’s going to marry her,” Cay said with a sigh. She sounded so much like a lovesick female that both Eli and Mr. Grady laughed.
Alex shook his head in warning, but he, too, was smiling. “Would you get on with your drawing now before her mate comes and wakes her up?”
Cay started sketching as quickly as she could. These weren’t finished drawings by any means, but she needed to get the details down now. “How do you know it isn’t a male?”
“Do you insult me?” Alex asked, and he sounded so genuinely offended that she laughed.
“You two should speak English,” Tim said.
“So you can eavesdrop?” Cay asked.
“So the captain will know what to tell you not to do,” he shot back at her, then laughed, obviously thinking he’d said something witty.
Cay said a Scottish slang word that made Alex tell her to keep her mouth closed. He sounded shocked.
While she worked, she told him, “I want to do what Uncle T.C. does and show the birds in their natural state. When you hand them to me dead, I draw them so they look lifeless, but if I could put a bug or a plant near them, they’d look more alive.”
“Why don’t you put down your pen and look at where you are?”
“I can’t. Mr. Grady will—”
“When he sees how good your drawings are, I’m sure he’ll do nothing but praise you,” Alex said, but he wasn’t sure that was true. From the moment they’d left the dock, Grady had been the stern captain of the ship. You would have thought they were a crew aboard a frigate. And Grady seemed to want everything they saw recorded, and Cay wanted to oblige him. Alex thought that it was a wonder Grady hadn’t arrived with half a dozen artists. “He could afford them,” Alex said under his breath, and even he realized that some of his bitterness at the rich people he’d thought of as his friends had been transferred to Grady.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, lass. I—”
She gave him a sharp look. Obviously, she’d heard what he said and knew who he meant.
“Sorry, it was a slip. I promise I won’t do it again if you’ll come with me and look at this place. It’s beautiful.”
Cay gave a glance to Mr. Grady, but he seemed to be absorbed in the papers set on a little table and was ignoring all of them. When Cay tried to get up, she found her legs had gone to sleep, and she tumbled against Alex when she stood up. Her hands landed on his chest, and for a moment she left them there. She could feel the muscles under his shirt. “You’ve gained some weight since I met you.”
Alex put his hands on her shoulders and set her a foot away from him. “Now’s not the time for that.” He looked about quickly, to see if anyone had seen her, but they were all busy with other things.
“I was just concerned for your health. What have you been eating that’s made you put on weight?”
“I’ve been trying to keep up with your appetite, is all. And Thankfull made a few meals for me.”
“Thankfull cooked for you?” They were walking the few steps to the end of the boat.
“Aye, and what’s wrong with that? She made meals for you, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but I was staying in her boardinghouse, and paying for her services. Did you pay her?”
He smiled down at her. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous. No, I didn’t pay her in money, but I had to pay her in endless stories of T.C. The woman wanted me to tell her everything, down to what the man had for breakfast.”
“But of course you didn’t know because you were—” His look cut her off from saying the word jail.
“Would you please stop talking and look about you? You can’t go the whole trip and see nothing but dead birds.”
“I . . .” She trailed off because she did look around her. Before them lay a wide, placid river, the surface barely breaking as it flowed toward them. Alex told her they were going “upriver” against the current, as they went south.
“It’s like the Nile, in that it flows north,” she said, and asked him how he knew so much about this place.
“While you were sneaking into the bushes and kissing the girls, I was in the trading post asking questions. Buy a man a beer and he’ll tell you stories all night.”
“Is that how you learned the names of the birds?”
“No. I spent the nights awake reading the books in T.C.’s chest. Thankfull lent them to me.”
She thought it was interesting that Thankfull had refused to open the chest for a man as young as Cay, but she’d lent the books inside to Alex. Jealousy was a new emotion for her, but she suddenly had an idea what it felt like.
Cay looked back at the water. Along the banks were overhanging trees, their branches draping down into the water. White birds with long, skinny necks stood at the edges. “I want to draw those,” she said.
“You’ll get your chance.”
An eagle flew overhead, then a bird Alex said was called an osprey. “Yes, I know. You want to draw it.”
Fish were jumping in the water, and she went onto her hands and knees to see what she could. Alex hadn’t brought her any fish yet. She saw something just below the water and put her fingertips down to it as she turned to look up at Alex. “Maybe you can catch us some fish for tonight, so I could—”
Suddenly, Alex grabbed her under the arms and pulled her back. In front of them, the head of a prehistoric-looking creature came out of the water and clamped its long, ugly mouth down on the space where Cay’s hand had just been.
For a moment, she sat still, unable to move as Alex held her. When he released her, her fanny hit the deck hard.
“Nearly ate you, didn’t it?” Tim said loudly from behind them, his voice pleased by what he’d seen. “If you’re dumb enough to put your hand over the side, I think you ought to get it bitten off. If it was your drawin’ hand, we’d have to throw you over ’cause what else can you do? Can’t lift even the lightest thing.” He stood back on his heels and smiled down at her in triumph.
“Well, I can lift a great many things,” Alex said, glaring at the boy who, tall as he was, was still an inch or two shorter than Alex, and many pounds lighter.
“I was only havin’ a bit of fun with him,” Tim said. “It’s always scary when you see your first gator.”
“And how many have you seen, boy?” Eli asked.
“More than he has,” Tim muttered, looking at both men, as they seemed to have unfairly ganged up on him.
Cay was still in a stupor, still looking at the end of the boat where the alligator had come up out of the water.
Alex bent down to her ear. “Grady is coming, so get hold of yourself and whatever you do, don’t cry. Hear me?”
She managed to nod.
“Did he nick you?” Mr. Grady asked, his voice sounding concerned.
Cay drew in her breath and started to stand up. Alex, behind her, managed to conceal that his hand was on her back and he was helping her to stay standing. “Did he get me?” she asked. “I should think not, sir. Better to ask if I slit his throat with my knife.”
“The knife you have in your hand there?”
Cay looked down at her right hand and saw that she hadn’t let go of her pen; fear had made her grip it harder. She was holding a long quill pen, feathers intact, the tip covered in ink. It wasn’t exactly a weapon that would hold up against an alligator. “Ink in their noses chokes them,” she said as she felt Alex’s strong hand on her back to keep her from falling down in fear.
Mr. Grady didn’t laugh. Instead, he frowned at Alex. “I think you better watch your young brother more closely and make sure we have no more close calls like th
at one.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Alex said.
Eighteen
After her bout with the alligator, Cay was more subdued. Adam had once commented that she’d been protected all her life and had no idea what the real world was like. At the time, she’d thought it wasn’t very nice of him to have said it, but she was beginning to understand what he meant. Not all the world was like her home, with brothers and a father to take care of her, and a mother who was always there to help her figure out what she should do about any problem.
In a way, the near attack made her feel as though she’d been given a second chance at life. If Alex hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t reacted so quickly, she would have been bitten by the alligator and pulled down under the water with him. She would never have lived through it.
For the rest of the day, she paid more attention to everything around her, from her fellow travelers to the birds overhead. As they went deeper south, she began to hear noises that she hadn’t noticed before. There was an underlying roar beneath the ever-present calls of thousands of birds that were growing louder by the minute. It sounded like a huge stone being slowly pulled over a rock bed. It was eerie and fascinating at the same time.
She glanced up from her drawing of one of the plants Mr. Grady had given her. Eli was cleaning birds for their dinner tonight, which they all looked forward to, as they’d eaten only bread and cheese all day. “What’s that sound?”
“The deep one?”
She nodded.
“Alligators. They’re settling in for the night.”
Cay tried to stamp down the terror she felt growing inside her. “There must be a lot of them to make that much noise.”
“Hundreds,” Eli said. “Thousands. They climb all over each other. You’ll see. But don’t worry about them. We’ll camp away from them.”
Cay could only nod, as words didn’t want to come out.
Mr. Grady called a halt to their travel well before sundown, and they poled the flatboat to the shore. Cay could see the remains of what looked to be an old campfire on a little hill up from the shore. “Someone’s been here before,” she said to Alex as he ran about the boat tying ropes to anchor it.
“People have been here,” he said, “but later we’ll go places others haven’t gone. Are you looking forward to that?”
All Cay seemed able to remember was the alligator’s ugly head coming up out of the water at her. Its teeth could be seen clearly, and they looked very sharp.
Alex saw her fear. “Come on. Don’t just stand there, pick up those boxes and get them ashore. Do you think you get a free ride just because you can draw pretty pictures?”
“I’ll have you know—” Cay began, but she stopped when she saw Mr. Grady looking at her. She took the heavy box Alex handed her and carried it up the hill to the campsite.
For the next hour, she was too busy to think. Alex and she put up one of the three tents, one for them, one for Eli and Tim, and the last one for Mr. Grady. She carried box after box from the boat up the hill until her legs were aching and the muscles in her arms were so weak they were shaking.
“You’ll get used to it,” Alex said as he slapped her on the shoulder so hard she nearly fell down.
“Or I’ll die,” she said after him, but when she saw Tim smirking at her, she picked up the heaviest crate that Eli had set out for them and lugged it up the hill. When all the chests were in place and the tents up, she wanted to lie down and eat half a bushel of food, but no, there was more work to be done. Alex informed her that they had to help Eli prepare dinner.
“But he has the birds. He’s been cleaning them for hours.”
“See those trees through there?”
Wearily, her hand on the small of her back, she looked through the shrubs toward whatever Alex was pointing at. Looking like something out of a child’s drawing, she saw small trees hanging with bright, round fruit. “Oranges!” she said to Alex in wonder. She’d only eaten two in her life, as they were a rare and precious commodity, usually given only as a treat at Christmas. “Are they real?”
“Very. If you hadn’t spent so much time kissing the girls back at the boardinghouse, I could have shown you orange trees around there.”
“If you hadn’t spent so much time rummaging through Thankfull’s books and flirting with her, I could have gone with you.”
Alex laughed. “Are you coming or not?”
“Where?”
“To pick oranges. Eli wants to cook those birds in the juice of them.”
“That sounds wonderful. I think I could eat them all.”
When there were several large trees between them and the others in the camp, Alex reached out his hand to her. “Come on, slowpoke, let’s go harvesting in an orange grove.”
She took his hand, put her other one to her hat, and they took off running across a field of tall grass to reach the little stand of trees. “They smell heavenly,” she said as she released his hand and twirled about.
“Better than jasmine oil?” He was pulling down pieces of fruit and putting them in the big sack he’d brought.
“I’m not sure anything smells that good.” She put an orange to her nose and inhaled its fragrance.
“Was it the jasmine or my hair that you liked so much?”
“The fact that you were clean was an olfactory delight.”
“I dare you to say that to Tim. He’d probably throw you over the side of the boat.”
“Why does that bratty little boy dislike me so much?”
“Because of that.”
“Of what?”
“Just what you said. You think of him as a little boy and you treat him as one.”
Leaning against a tree trunk, Cay looked up at the beautiful fruit. “I don’t treat him any way at all. I rarely look at him.”
“Exactly. He thinks he’s older than you, and therefore more experienced, so you should look up to him as being wiser.”
“He isn’t wiser than my dolls at home.”
“No,” Alex said as she reached for an orange from a tree. “Not those. Eli said that the ones that grow on the south side of the trees are sweeter. Did you know that oranges aren’t native to Florida but were brought here by some Spanish explorer?”
“Let me guess: Ponce de Leon.”
“Right. Now that you’ve had your history lesson for today, how about if we sit down and do nothing for a while? I don’t know about you, but it’s been a long day.”
Cay couldn’t help smiling, as she knew he was doing this for her. She couldn’t tell that he was tired at all, but she had done more heavy lifting today than she had in the rest of her life total. Alex chose a spot of soft grass under a tree where they could see for a long way over hills and a meadow heavy with flowers.
“Beautiful,” she said as he handed her an orange that he’d cut a hole in the top of. “What do I do with it?”
He showed her how to squeeze the fruit, and suck the juice from the hole.
“Delicious,” she said, “and I feel downright decadent eating an entire orange by myself. I wish I could take a wagonload of these home to Edilean with me. I’d give them out to all the children and even the adults.”
“What about Michael and Abraham? And the other one?”
Cay had to think for a moment. “Benjamin.” She had juice running down her chin, and her orange was dry. Alex handed her another one that he’d cut a hole in.
“The gambler?”
“He is, isn’t he?” She and Alex were sitting close beside each other, and as she reached for a third orange, her arm crossed his chest. She hadn’t been thinking of the kiss they’d exchanged, but when she looked into his eyes, all tiredness left her. One second she was sitting there looking at the scenery and the next, she was in his arms and kissing him. The whiskers on his face annoyed her, as she couldn’t touch all of his skin, but she could feel his mouth on hers.
He opened his lips wider and when the tip of his tongue touched hers, she nearly leaped on him. Her
body lifted up and she pushed against him, almost knocking him to the ground.
It was Alex who pulled back. “Nay, lass,” he said softly. “I canna take too much of that. A kiss is good, but it can lead to other things that I know you don’t want.”
Cay fell back against the tree, her heart pounding in her throat. “How do you know what I want?”
He said nothing, just sat there, his breath coming fast as he tried to calm himself.
“Alex, you smell so good. There are oranges on your breath and I swear I can still smell the jasmine in your hair. You . . .” Turning, she looked at him with her thick lashes shading her eyes.
He gave a groan that was louder than any the alligators were making, and stood up. “You are going to drive me insane, lass. Would that I’d never introduced sin between us. But I must say that you’ve taken to it well.”
“Isn’t that what the pastor says every Sunday? That we all take easily to sin if given the chance?”
“You have adapted better than most. Now, stop looking at me like that. How can I face T.C. Connor if I take you back to him heart broken and unchaste?”
She stood close to him, her hand on his chest, and looked up at him. “Would you break my heart, Alex?”
“There are other body parts that I’m more worried about breaking. Now go! We need to get this fruit back to Eli.”
Smiling, Cay walked ahead of him on the little trail they’d made in the grass as they went back to the camp. Alex said he regretted introducing “sin” into their lives, but, whatever he called it, she was glad for his kisses. She just wished he’d let her finish one of them.
At camp, the others were waiting for them, and Tim had a lot to say about Alex and Cay taking so long to get the oranges. As for Eli and Mr. Grady, they said little, but Cay caught them looking at her in what she thought was an odd way. She sat down by the fire and watched Eli quickly and expertly cut oranges into quarters and throw them in with the birds, peel and all.
Cay was so tired she thought she might fall asleep before the meal was cooked, but she knew that Alex would wake her. As she began to nod off, she thought that Alex always took care of her.