The thoroughly humiliated villain didn't even try to speak, just nodded his assent as best he could with Pam's shoe smashing his considerable nose. Pam sneered at him, then walked on, her steel-gray eyes glittering with wrath and exultation, chin held high, hardly believing these things were happening and that it was she herself who was making them happen. Who are you and whatever did you do with meek and mild birdwatcher Pam Miller of Grantville, West Virginia? a voice in her head mused. Oh, she's still around, but right now it's a bad-ass warrior-queen of the Norsemen we need, so shush up, it's time for the victory lap!
They stepped onto the shore before the rescued Swedish colonists. Pam suddenly grew shy and stopped. Pam's fighting men, their orange-skin now smeared with blood, grinned at her like fools. She winced as she counted them, yes, some were missing. There would be time for mourning later. Her heart swelled as they came, led by Gerbald, to stand beside her, showing their loyalty and love.
"Who is she, who is she?" the colonists whispered to each other.
Then, Pam saw Bengta among the crowd, watching from her stretcher, sea-green eyes full of triumph despite her pain. Pam ran to her, towing the doctor behind her. She gently took the young woman's hand. "Oh, Bengta, I am so sorry. What have they done to you? It's all my fault!"
Bengta smiled at her, gripping Pam's hand back with what was left of her strength. Pam tried not to look at the woman's awful wounds, the doctor was already muttering prayers under his breath as he went to work.
"No, Pam, you have saved us. If you hadn't come who knows how long we would have suffered? You gave us hope, made us brave."
The women attending the grievously wounded young woman turned their tear streaked faces up to Pam. "Please, who are you?" they asked.
"Why, don't you recognize her?" Despite the pain of the effort Bengta spoke in a loud voice so all could hear, "She is our own Pam Miller, the Bird Lady of Grantville who led our expedition from the start! She has revealed to us that she has the heart of an eagle, the courage of a lion! She is our hero, the liberator of all our people here on this lonely isle so far around the world from old Sweden, this beautiful paradise which we will make our home!" Pam saw looks of recognition and adulation forming on their haggard faces.
Pam found her voice and spoke up. "Thank you my friend, but it is you who are the true hero. It was brave Bengta here who led you to fight for your freedom! All hail Bengta!" she cheered at the top of her lungs, so that it rang all around the harbor. The crowd took up her cry and then added "All hail Pam Miller! All hail the Bird Lady!" to the chant.
All of this made Pam smile broadly; a rakish, fearless, kind of smile, one that she was quite sure she had never felt on her face before. She found it quite to her liking though, and wore it as she was enfolded into the embrace of her joyous people.
Chapter Forty-Three: There's Got To Be A Morning After
Bengta died during the night. Doctor Durand had done all he could, but she had lost too much blood. Pam sat beside her to the end. She passed quietly, with a soft smile on her lovely face. Pam wept, held by Dore as Gerbald and the bosun stood behind her while Durand gently closed her pretty sea-green eyes. A tear rolled down the French doctor's tired face. He was visibly devastated to have lost one so young and brave. Pam decided that she would indeed be his new best friend.
The butcher's bill had been high. Of the colonists, they had lost twenty-three total, twelve of them had succumbed over their long months of captivity, including three children. The rest had been killed fighting for their freedom, eight men and three women, including Bengta. The details of Bengta's torture when the slavers discovered she had started the revolt made Pam draw blood from her palms as her nails bit into her clenched fist. By the time the colony's men had been freed and could rush to her aid it was too late. In their rage they had literally torn Bengta's torturers apart limb from limb, confirming Pam's earlier suggestion that they were quite capable of doing that. She looked forward to mentioning it to the deposed captain in their next meeting. Pam decided that being blown up had been too good for the ones who had tried to escape. They were heartless men who sold their own brothers and cousins into slavery back in Africa, chosen by the renegades for duty here because of their ruthless cruelty. Pam vowed vengeance on their evil tribe one day.
Of the crew of the Muskijl, only fourteen had survived. Pam had lost five of the Second Chance Bird's men, two sailors and three marines. Their names and faces paraded through her mind, her friends and protectors, smiling and full of life; that's how she wanted to remember them. She would never, ever forget them and their sacrifice for her cause. Lojtnant Lundkvisthad lost his leg after all,no fault of the doctor, who truly was a fine physician for his time. The proud, young captain of an enemy warship he himself had helped capture would have to walk on a peg leg with a cane for the rest of his life. And, finally, there was Pers, who she had brought into her heart as a true son, laying feverish and comatose, somewhere between life and death. Doctor Durand told her there was hope, but she hardly allowed herself to feel it.
Pam stood high on the town's wall, looking out across the harbor. Beside her, Dore's flag flapped in the early dawn breeze, proof of their triumph. She had asked for a little time alone. She needed to stop and absorb all they had gone through. The torches and lanterns of the fleet of ships they had accumulated glowed warmly in the slowly brightening purple light, casting long, orange reflections across the bay's clear waters. The Annalise and Ide had been brought into the dock and the colonists had slept there, back in the relative comfort of their bunks after months sleeping on the ground. The renegades now occupied the former slave quarters, under guard by grim-faced colonists. There were a few exceptions, five parolees released into Durand's command, good men who had been shanghaied into service just as he had. Pam trusted the man and his judgment, but a couple of burly Swedes kept a close eye on them anyway.
As for Capitan Leonce Toulon de Aquitane, that heartless bastard was now in solitary confinement, locked in an outhouse. Pam had told her men to "Put this shit somewhere small and dark," and they had taken her literally. Actually, she thought it was too good for him. She intended to let him spend the entire day there without food and water, enjoying the stench. They would interrogate him the following night, by then he ought to be plenty cooperative.
Pam shook her head in disbelief. How had she come to think such black thoughts as these? How had she come to be a calm, cool, killer of men? Hard times made one harder, if you lived through them. They had been lucky, so lucky to have pulled this rescue off without even more loss of life and limb. Pam wasn't much of a Methodist anymore, but she did say a brief prayer of thanks to a God that usually seemed distant and uncaring. All told, she thought maybe He had been on their side for once. She silently prayed He would take their fallen into His arms up in Heaven. They had more than earned their places in Paradise. The thought comforted her despite her modern doubts, she would take all the solace she could get.
The sun came up over the ocean as if in answer to her prayer, a golden beauty of a dawn, complete with radiant beams and towering lavender clouds. Pam couldn't help but smile. She had lost much, but she had won more. This island was hers, the dodo would be saved, and maybe there was even hope for a rangy old crow like Pam Miller. Maybe she could make a new and better life for herself now that she had been through all this. Redemption, la, hallelujah! She clambered down the bamboo ladder to the trampled path below and set about looking for her friends.