Bone Rattler (15 page)

When he returned to the cells, Lister had a bucket of seawater waiting for him, and Duncan gladly let the old mate dowse him repeatedly. But his dreadful foreboding could not be stripped away as easily as the stench. As Lister locked the cell door, Duncan leaned against the wall, feeling strangely weak. Confusion had become his new disease. Adam had condemned himself to the ship of his own accord, as if under some dark spell. Woolford’s chest had indeed been the work of Pandora, its demons now preying on the ship. Woolford, he had slowly realized, must have told McGregor about the hole in an attempt to slow the ship’s arrival in New York, as if he, like Adam, dreaded its arrival there. His legs gave way and he slowly sank to the floor, staring into the shadows. Much later he discovered that the black stone was in his lap, one hand clenched tightly around it, the other stroking the thing as if it needed comforting. He pressed the warm stone to his cheek, then to his heart, and then began wrapping it in the unused bandage, covering it in many layers. He stuffed the bundle into the bottom of his sea bag and settled into a corner of his cell, his hands clasped around Adam’s mysterious amulet.

 

 

He awoke to shouts from above, sounds of celebration floating down from the main deck. An hour later his cell door opened and a dark bundle was tossed inside. His servant’s clothes. Duncan glanced up to see Cameron’s tall figure retreating toward the ladder.

“It’s New York,” Duncan said to Flora after he had dressed, awkwardly squared the tutor’s cap on his head, and shouldered his bag. Her cell was as silent as death. Something moved inside. It could have been the despairing woman. It could have been a rat.

“I wish you good fortune, Flora,” he whispered into the hatch of her locked door, then paused, knowing that luck had long ago abandoned the woman. In another time, another life, he would have tried to help her. But in this life he was powerless. He pushed his arm through the hatch, fingers extended, but she did not respond. “I wish you peace,” he said in a cracking voice, then turned away.

He climbed warily into the sunlight, pausing with his head just over the rim of the deck—uncertain why he was not escorted, half expecting to be seized and chained again—then slowly approached the rail. The ship, docked at a wide timber wharf, was busily disgorging its cargo, human and otherwise. Cameron stood like a sentinel at the bottom of the gangway, forty feet from an elegant carriage attended by a broad-shouldered man whose skin was a rich chocolate brown, his waistcoat and britches a larger version of those worn by Duncan. Beyond the carriage were several heavy wagons with benches along their sides, guarded by the keepers and several brutish, thickset men armed with clubs and spontoons—the broadheaded spears sometimes used by the army—watching as the prisoners, wide-eyed, filed off the ship and climbed onto the wagon benches.

“Benign Providence continues to watch over you,” an austere voice said at Duncan’s side. Reverend Arnold was in his merchant’s attire again and clutched a thin leather case, the kind Duncan knew was often used for military dispatches. “A short report now, and you will be done. There is a grand sermon here, about the pitfalls of forgiveness.”

Duncan’s mouth went dry. He searched the deck for an explanation, then studied the Company wagons again. In the first wagon two men with clubs sat behind the driver’s seat, a crumpled shape on the floor between them. “What have you done?” he demanded.

“He was seen lurking about Evering’s cabin last night, against our express command. As a keeper he had the run of the ship the night Evering died. He has condemned himself with his own traitorous ways. When we caught him he pulled a paper from his shirt and stuffed it into his mouth, obviously to destroy evidence against himself. The captain brought out the cat again, to loosen his tongue. He began pouring out curses in the Highland tongue, invoking the Jacobite prince. Lying from the start, betraying our trust in him as a keeper.”

Duncan did not recall running down the gangway, did not remember touching the wharf, his first step in the New World. He was suddenly at the wagon’s side, nearly retching from what he saw.

The pile of bloody rags was breathing, though only just. He leapt
onto the wagon, parrying a keeper’s raised club with a venomous glare. The old man’s shirt was in ribbons, revealing crosshatches of raw flesh where the cat had done its work, partly healed and now reopened. His manacled hands were bloody and swollen, his battered face barely recognizable. Lister was not unconscious, but he did not seem to recognize Duncan.

“He wouldn’t stay down, the old fool,” Cameron said over Duncan’s shoulder. “’Twere the sailors, with the captain urging them on. Lying about his Highland blood, to some it’s as good as confessing a murder.”

“Remove him, Mr. Cameron. He is in need of care.”

“I cannot,” the keeper said with a glance toward the ship.

As Duncan followed his gaze toward the captain, who now stood beside Arnold, a haze seemed to fall over his eyes. Cameron was not quick enough to stop him as he darted back up the gangway.

“He must have a doctor!” Duncan demanded. “You have no right!”

The captain seemed to take great pleasure in Duncan’s protest. He signaled to someone behind him, and with a flurry of movement two sailors appeared, one tapping a belaying pin on his palm. “One more insult,” the captain snarled, “and I shall appropriate you from the Company. There be no keepers on board to protect you now!”

“He did nothing last night but—”

The sailors seized Duncan, one on each arm, pressing him against the rail as they gazed expectantly at the captain, who stepped forward with a cold grin. The open hand that slapped Duncan felt like an oak plank.

“Reverend Arnold,” the captain said in a satisfied tone, “I forego my demand for indemnity. I am taking this mongrel to—”

The captain finished his sentence with a terrified moan. With a strange hissing of air, a long, feathered shaft materialized in his upper arm.

Arnold uttered a panicked cry and dropped to the deck. The captain stood as if paralyzed, staring at the blood that flowed down his shirtsleeve, his ruddy face draining of color. Duncan’s assailants
released him and dragged their captain toward the cabins as the ship’s bell began to ring frantically. Duncan slowly turned, not understanding, as a second arrow appeared, quivering in the wood of the rail directly below his heart.

The deck and the wharf burst into a chaos of fleeing figures, barking dogs, shouting sailors, and stevedores. Makeshift weapons appeared in the sailors’ hands, and the captain, clutching his wound, barked orders as if preparing for boarders. But no more arrows came, no enemy charged the ship. The wharf gave no clue of attackers, no sign of a bowman. The panic seemed to affect all but a gang of boys perched excitedly on a pile of bales and an old man who hobbled away on a long stick. The arrows could have come from a dozen hiding places, from the shadows between the warehouses on the far side of the dock or perhaps from among the stacks of cargo on the wharf itself.

As Duncan slipped down the gangway, whips cracked and the Company wagons heaved forward, the teams urged to a trot by their panicked drivers. He stood at the bottom of the ramp watching helplessly as they disappeared. Lister, who had promised to dance a jig and pick a flower, had begun his new life in America.

After a moment Duncan felt a tug on his arm, and he turned to see the tall African, one hand on Duncan’s bag. When Duncan refused to release it, the big man shrugged and stood aside to let Duncan set it inside the coach.

“I am Crispin,” the big man announced in a deep baritone. “I will see you settled at Ramsey House. It is but a short ride from here.” He cast a worried glance toward the shadows by the warehouses, then gestured Duncan inside.

“But the Company proceeds to the frontier,” Duncan protested.

“The children’s tutor must be with the children,” Arnold said in a rushed, nervous voice over his shoulder. The vicar was guarded by two sailors. “The children reside here in the city except in the warm months. We will join the Company in two weeks’ time.”

Duncan was about to argue when he realized the big man meant they were going to the house where Evering’s journal had been sent.

As Crispin gestured Duncan into the carriage, Arnold cast a worried glance up and down the wharf, then darted into a second, more ornate coach that waited behind a stack of tobacco bales. Crispin climbed into Duncan’s coach, perching by a small wooden crate on the opposite seat as the driver called out to the team of matching chestnuts, and the carriage lurched forward. As he gazed at the
Anna Rose,
where muskets now bristled from the rail, Duncan fought a sinking feeling that somewhere on board he had missed the answers to the mysteries that beset the Company. But then he realized that here, in America, was where the Company was intended to be, here was where the unknowing players in this tragedy were finally entering their stage.

The waterfront adjoined a forest of masts, ships ranging from mighty square-rigged merchantmen like the one he had just left to sleek sloops and cutters, small sail-rigged dories, wide shallops made for river traffic, even two frigates and a troopship anchored in the harbor, streaming the Union Jack. Sturdy men unloaded glazed bricks from one ship, sacks of tea from another. The streets along the docks bustled with sailors, fishmongers, cats, street urchins, tinkers, and heavy wagons loaded with fresh-cut lumber. The boots of a dozen scarlet-coated soldiers pounded the cobblestones as they marched, double-time, toward the wharf. A girl in a tattered dress banged a tin cup, loudly proclaiming the price of her fresh goose quills. Laughing boys with soiled faces skirmished with mongrels. A stout woman hawked speckled hens in wicker cages. The morning breeze mixed the salt air of the bay with the pungent scents of old fish, horse manure, tea, rotting seaweed, sawdust, tobacco, and tar.

“I never expected Indians attacking the harbor,” Duncan said. He found himself leaning hard against the seat, staying in the shadow.

“Nor would anyone else.” Crispin studied Duncan a moment. “And it wasn’t the harbor they were attacking,” he said pointedly.

Duncan pressed even deeper into the seat.

They gazed outside in silence, until Crispin seemed to sense the questions forming on Duncan’s tongue. “I am in service as the
house butler,” he explained. “Sent to retrieve the new set of porcelain,” he added, tapping the box. “Painted with the Ramsey coat of arms by a craftsman with a warrant from the king himself.” There was an edge in the man’s voice. Was it sarcasm Duncan detected?

Duncan stared in the direction the Company wagons had gone, then found his gaze drifting back toward the strapping butler in front of him. Crispin’s slightly undersized suit gave him the air of a powerful beast that had recently been tamed.

With a start Duncan realized Crispin was returning his stare. “There’s so many ways people find to ask me the same question.” His words were articulated with the slow precision of an educated man.

“I was just wondering how many men you’ve laid down with your left fist,” Duncan said, motioning toward the scarred knuckles of Crispin’s hand. “I was studying to be a doctor. For practice my professor sometimes sent me to the Saturday entertainments to treat the pugilists. I’ve seen many a hand like that in England.”

“They never called me a pugilist where I fought,” Crispin looked at Duncan with challenge in his eye.

“Yet you know the term.”

Crispin cocked his head and raised his brow. “So that’s how you’re asking,” he said with the hint of a grin. “I grew up working in the fields of Georgia, but my mama was a nursery maid. She listened to everything from the teachers. At night she taught me whatever the children in the big house had learned that day. Her lessons freed my mind. The prizes I won with my fists freed my body.”

“When I was very young,” Duncan said, “my grandfather was my only teacher. If I failed my lessons, he would take a cane to my backside.” He realized he had removed his ridiculous scholar’s cap and was twisting it in his hands.

“Bullies are not unknown in America as well.”

“Not a bully. I loved him very much. At night we walked by the sea and he talked of life in the old century, of the stars, of our ancestors. When the moon was full, hanging over the ocean, he would keep me up ’til midnight at the water’s edge, reciting poetry and old
tales of heroes and magic, despite my mother’s protests. I would have gladly taken two beatings a day for the chance to walk with him at night.” He stuffed the cap inside his waistcoat.

Crispin fixed Duncan with an inquiring gaze, then offered a somber nod. After a moment he began explaining the sights outside the windows.

The town of New York was smaller than Duncan had expected, though it seemed more active than a community twice its size. The bloody war with the French and their Indian allies was largely being fought in the lands of the mighty Hudson River and its tributaries, Crispin reported, so the old Dutch settlement at the mouth of the river had become a vital depot for military supplies. The streets were choked with wagons from the surrounding countryside, bringing food and fodder to be sold to the army and shipped upriver to the garrisons at Albany and beyond. Hammers rattled in new construction to house the officials who conducted the business of war. Women in fine dresses walked on planks over the mud surrounding the worksites while men in tattered clothes hauled stones to the new structures, their feet sinking to the ankles in the moist grime.

“More homes are being taken for hospitals,” Crispin said, his only pronouncement on the progress of the combat. He nodded toward a large brick house with several soldiers sitting on its wide porch, all wearing bandages on their heads or arms, most wearing absent, defeated expressions.

The three-story structure where the coach stopped was spacious, though of a far simpler design than one of the great houses of England. A tall clapboard building painted mustard yellow, with four dormer windows jutting from the shake roof, it reminded Duncan of many residences he had seen in Holland. As Crispin led Duncan up the brick walk, the box of porcelain perched on his hip, the big man leaned toward Duncan and paused. “The children most of all need to learn there’s things other than grief and hate in this world,” he declared in an oddly urgent tone, then straightened as he spied a stout woman in a black dress standing in the front doorway, arms
akimbo. She began to loudly chastise him for the cavalier manner in which he conveyed the porcelain.