Jason Frost - The cutthroat

"I know. What was that boy's body doing out here this far from shore with an arrow through his face and no boat?"

"Right."

"Well, he wasn't keeping his head down, that's for sure."

"Do you think he was-"

Eric's ears perked. He stopped paddling and swiveled his head to the left.

Suddenly an explosion of blinding light stabbed their eyes.

A deep voice echoed across the water. "Ahoy there, maties," it said in an amused, cynical tone.

The large ship had been waiting dead in the water, cloaked by the darkness and silence. As soon as Tracy and Eric had come within fifty yards, someone on board had switched on a high-beam searchlight. The bright white tunneled through the dark, flooding over the canoe like a vaudeville spotlight. Eric and Tracy shielded their eyes, but they still could not see the ship clearly. Only that it loomed behind the light like a large dark building. And that it was close.

"Let me see," the voice said. "What's the best way to put this without sounding, um, insensitive?"

Jeering laughter from the crew.

The captain continued, enjoying his own cleverness. "I've got it. Adds just the right touch of melodrama." This time the voice was humorless, hard and cold. "How about, surrender or die!"

The crew hooted obscene approval.

Eric reached for his crossbow.

Eric's hand grazed the cool metal stock of the crossbow, but he didn't lift it into sight. The glaring searchlight from the ship made him feel too exposed, like a grasshopper impaled on a pin.

"What do you want?" he shouted at the ship.

"Want?" The voice affected a tone of surprise. "Fellowship, my dear man. The love of a good woman. Perhaps two. The respect of my peers. To die in bed at age ninety-nine, humping twin sixteen-year-old virgins."

Howling laughter from the crew.

"I want whatever I can take," he barked angrily. A match flared behind the searchlight, briefly outlining a broad lump of a man. The red tip of a cigarette glowed. The gesture was not lost on Eric. Cigarettes were a habit only of the powerful. Two cigarettes could buy you a horse. Three a whole town.

Eric glanced over at Tracy. She was quietly working her Colt Cobra.38 out of the nylon backpack. There were only three bullets left in the cylinder, their last three. He watched her pale hands trembling as she stared directly into the blinding light. Her expression was tense, yet defiant. She fidgeted with the gun in her lap, finally easing the safety off.

"We don't have anything of value," Eric called. "A few cans of food, a couple canteens of water."

"Food and water, huh?"

"Yeah. And the canoe."

"That's all?"

"That's all."

The captain snickered. "Surely you underestimate the worth of your cargo, my friend. From here you look absolutely laden with treasure."

Eric's hand tightened around the crossbow's black stock, dragging it across the curved ribs of the canoe. His finger snuggled against the cold trigger and he noticed for the first time that his hands were sweating. Good, he liked to be a little frightened. It kept him from doing anything stupid. He pulled the bow closer. Already cocked and armed with a sharp wooden bolt, the waxed string strained to flex its one hundred seventy-five pounds of pressure against the arrow.

"Quite the charmer," Tracy said. Her voice was flat, almost dreamy as she stared into the light.

"David Niven he ain't."

"The Welcome Wagon he ain't, either." She clenched her fist tighter around the gun.

"Easy," Eric soothed.

She didn't answer.

"Trace?"

"I'm fine," she said, but Eric could see that she wasn't.

It wasn't just the danger of their situation that was frightening Tracy now. The threatening tone of the man's voice had been oily with innuendo. His references to her as a "treasure" were not meant to flatter, merely assess, as one might livestock, for sale. Or cargo.

The quakes that had ripped California from the rest of the continent, that had sent a billowing dome of chemical and biological weapons clouding the sky to cut them off from the rest of the world, had also brought a lot of social changes among the survivors. People, who before had felt only marginally bound by society's rules, now felt free to do whatever they wanted. Whatever the cost. A few had turned their ruthlessness into profit, selling, whatever was in short supply. The millions of deaths in the quakes and subsequent fires had left a lot of severe shortages: food, water, weapons-and one that the survivalist magazines hadn't predicted. Women.

And business abhors a vacuum.

So women soon became good business. Scavenging entrepreneurs created an underground slave trade in women, sometimes buying them from camps, sometimes stealing them. A settlement of men might chip in a whole case of Heinz baked beans for a healthy woman. And if she was a little attractive, they might be willing to toss in an additional case of plums in extra heavy syrup.

"Now, I want you both to sit perfectly still," the captain ordered. "A couple of my men will be over to, um, welcome you."

Eric did not respond.

"Did you hear me?"

Eric studied Tracy in the bright beam that washed over her face. Last week she'd insisted he hack off her wavy red hair with his knife until it was as short as his. Now it wreathed her head in wispy tufts like the furry red petals of some exotic flower. True, it was easier to keep clean, and under some circumstances might allow her to pass for a male, but still he'd hated doing it. Not just because it had been so stunningly beautiful before, but for a much more selfish reason. One that he'd felt too guilty to admit. Her hair reminded him of Annie, his murdered wife.

Sometimes while lying in Tracy's arms, Eric would wrap her thick long hair around his fist, between his fingers, the way he used to do with Annie's. And for a few precious moments he would be back in their quiet suburban home. Timmy and Jenny would be playing chess, Jenny with one ear cocked for telephone calls from boys. He and Annie would be cuddling on the sofa, watching a video-tape movie they'd rented. The history professor and his family. Happily average, his infamous past almost forgotten.

But that was before.

Before the quakes. Before his daughter's throat had been slit open. Before Annie's neck had been snapped. Before his son, Timmy, had been stolen.

Before Dirk Fallows had returned.

Sometimes Eric wasn't sure whether his fondness for Tracy was for who she was or because she reminded him of Annie. He suspected Tracy knew this. Perhaps that was why she'd suddenly insisted on having her hair cut off.

He wasn't sorry he'd taken up with her so soon after Annie's death. This new world was unforgiving and impatient, allowed no time for mourning. Not if you were to survive.

Looking at her attractive angular features now, he couldn't imagine anyone mistaking her for a man. If anything the ragged haircut made her look even sexier, perhaps in the way it emphasized her beauty while hinting at the toughness underneath. A smooth stream sliding over sharp stones.

"We're not going to have any trouble from you, are we?" the captain asked lazily.

"We don't want trouble," Eric shouted back.

"Nor do we. But you've got trouble, my friend. Right here in River City." He chuckled. "And unless the two of you follow my orders, your trouble is spelled with a capital T which rhymes with D which stands for dead. Should I sing you a stanza?"

Eric didn't answer. No point, the guy was too full of his own wit, chattering away with manic energy.

"Griffin!"

"Cap?" someone on board answered.

"We've had a request. Play your instrument for the lovely couple. Something romantic."

Instantly Eric heard the unmistakable sound of a bow string snapping. An arrow thwacked wood, poked through the canvas and splintered a rib of the canoe's hull. The sharp metal tip lodged only inches away from Eric's knees.