Arte lay on a feather mattress. He imagined that the feathers stuffed into the soft satin lining had come from doves, or love birds, or ostriches...or angels. Nothing had ever felt so heavenly in his life. Not only was he resting on little more than soft clouds but he was warm, and dry. There was the slightest of breezes blowing across his skin, interrupted only by the gentle touch of a caressing and feminine hand.
The hand smelled of rose water and lilacs, and the blessed creature left very little of his anatomy untouched. At first it had only been gentle strokes through his curling hair, then a tension abating massage to the shoulders, but now she lay her hand most intimately against his chest. He was thrilled and paralyzed all at the same time.
"M-my dear lady.." He began, realizing that he hadn't yet seen her face, or really any of her, and perhaps he should make some effort to prove himself a gentleman.
He was interrupted with a light hearted giggle and a gentle 'shh' sound. The hands continued to explore, hesitantly at first, but becoming more and more powerful, and the "shh' sound kept returning as well.
As it increased in volume, the noise set up its own rhythm sounding almost like an engine barreling down a track, then smoothing out and elongating. Raking at his ear drums like a...wave.
The hands weren't gentle any more. They were shaking him, and another set of hands was jabbing a dull blade into his left shoulder. Perhaps he should have proved gallant a little sooner, if only to escape the wrath of this woman.
A woman who was beginning to sound a lot like Jim.
"Arte, come on, buddy." Short of prying his eyes open or slapping him, Jim had done everything he could think of to rouse Artemus. The sleep he was in was deep, and probably something that his body desperately needed, but they were abandoning ship and Arte was only half dressed; Jim wasn't about to drag him out into the elements without every possible protection.
"S'not time to wakeup yet." Arte muttered, his eyelids fluttering. "Go 'way." Then he was out again, dozing.
"Nah, nah, nah...we got places to be." Jim said forcing one sleeve of Arte's shirt over his right arm. He considered the bandaged and sling laden left arm for a second or two, then slipped the shirt over Arte's head and the arm as well. He did the same with the jacket and was cramming a woolen seamen's cap over Arte's head when the injured man came around again.
Jim didn't see the fist coming until it was nearly on him, and just barely moved his head back far enough to avoid getting it across the side of his head. He, instead, caught the fist as it went past him and yanked, getting Arte to his feet and bent at the waist over his shoulder. With one hand clutching the ropes on the ceiling of the sickbay, West began his careful progress across the now disturbingly empty floor. The blankets, the medical supplies, and most of the crew had been gone from the room for the past hour.
Those that were able had rushed around gathering emergency supplies and placing them in the lifeboats. The rest had begun lowering them over the side. A task not at all easy, even in the reduced waves and winds of the storm.
Seconds before Jim reached the door Lieben poked his head in, out of breath. "You have him?"
"Yeah.." Jim said, ducking carefully through the doorway. "You know, I think he's feeling better, too?"
"Did he awaken?" Lieben stepped further down the hall to let Jim pass, then followed closely behind gathering two canvas sacks near the hatchway before following Jim and his burden up to the deck.
"He tried to slug me, that's usually a good sign."
Out on deck the sky was deceptively light. Part of it was daylight approaching, another the lessening of the storm.
This unexpected reprieve had begun an hour or so before, prompting Edward North to run excitedly from his post and spread the elated news that the storm was ending, and there was blue sky ahead.
This had wakened everyone in sickbay but Jim and Arte, and most of the crew had begun shouting excitedly that it was over.
Eleanor knew better, but before she dashed the hopes of her men, she had to see for herself. After she got over the shock of what little she was wearing under her blankets, and was given enough privacy to dress herself again, she went on deck to scan the skies. Her fears confirmed, she was headed back to the sickbay to convey the bad news when Carl Lenier, one of her ship's engineers, stalled her in the hallway.
"We have only three pumps still working. The rest are in desperate need of repair." His quietly whispered concerns were heavily laced with a French accent, and the whisper of air traveling through his thick mustache.
Eleanor sighed, a frustrated sound, "That would be acceptable if the storm were truly ending but..."
Blue eyes widened under bushy brows and Carl parted his lips in surprise. "So she is not ended?"
Eleanor shook her head. "No, we are in what is commonly called the 'calm' of the storm. It is the very center, the eye if you will. We could remain here for hours, or only minutes. But the storm will return, just as ferocious if not more so."
"We are standing in four and a half feet of bilge water down there." Lenier told her, glancing behind him as more footsteps sounded on the hatchway stairs. Two other crew members peered over the lip of the landing, one of them advancing further so that he could be seen.
Jacob Lenier, Carl Lenier's nephew, only 18 but already the spitting image of his uncle, nodded his head in respect to Eleanor, nervously wiping his hands on a cleaning cloth. "We've lost another one." He informed them, his accent far less pronounced than that of his uncle.
"We can't survive on only two pumps." Eleanor said.
"Can we abandon ship now, and expect to survive on the open ocean?"
"The ocean may not be as uh...open as you might think, gentlemen, Eleanor." Jim West stood just behind them in the doorway of sickbay. He looked bedraggled and tired, but not as exhausted as Eleanor remembered him being the night before. She did not, however, remember the head injury that prompted the bandage around his brow.
"Arte and I may have seen something last night..."
A brief explanation later and the decision had been made. The pumps were abandoned and the men were all ordered to change as quickly as possible into as many layers of dry clothing as they had.
Blankets, food, flares, spare rope and canvas, and every emergency supply aboard was gathered with practiced precision.
Eleanor went alone to her cabin to gather her charts and a few personal possessions. Knowing that taking more than what she could easily carry could mean an unnecessary risk, and yet certain that she would never see any of it again. She also knew that it wasn't only a ship that she was abandoning.
She and Josiah had lived constantly aboard the Flying Cloud for over thirty years. Aside from her children's homes on the mainland they had hardly stayed anywhere else.
Out on the deck she walked the length of the ship, staring in awe at the damage the storm had already done. There were bits of broken wood and tons of seaweed littering the deck. Many of the windows on her cabin had been smashed and the wheel was missing more than a few spokes.
A few of her crew members had scrambled to salvage some of the few remaining sheets of canvas that were without tears or tatters. Far above her she could see what remained of the main topgallant, the sail Arte had attempted to save.
Then there were the crescent shaped Creely sails, for the moment tucked safely into their casings.
There wasn't time enough to save them, and that final piece of her husband's ingenuity, perhaps soon to be lost to the sea, brought tears to her eyes. She stood, while her crew scrambled to ready themselves, clinging to the cable that descended from the main mast, cursing the wind and the waves for their cruelty.
It wasn't until Jim and Lieben stepped onto the deck, guiding a now awake but groggy Artemus Gordon between them, that she stepped away from the past for the final time and toward the railing.
As Artemus was carefully lowered over the side she gave the official order.
"All hands abandon ship." She commanded, her voice quivering. Jim and Doctor Hadrian Lieben stood on either side of her as she did, and for a split second she felt the memory of her husband, directly behind her. Supporting her in his quiet way. Perhaps she thought, if his spirit were to remain with the ship, guiding the Flying Cloud through the afterlife, she would meet them again some day.
Moments later the three life rafts separated from the ship, the navigator's raft in the lead with the others loosely lashed together behind. Consulting her compass Mrs. Eleanor Creely charted a course that would take them away from the ship, and in the general direction of the lighthouse that James West and Artemus Gordon had claimed to have seen.
She never again looked back upon the Flying Cloud, choosing to remember her as she had first seen her.