Captain Adam (7 page)

"A bath, some brandy, and monsieur will be a new man, eh?"

"Sounds good."

"Monsieur must stay a while—a few days, a few weeks,"

"Whoa! I got work to do."

"Such as?"

"Got eels to peddle, somewhere."

The word was strange to Maitrejean, who said over and over, his brows knit: "Eels—eels—"

Adam tried to elucidate but he could think of no other word for the pesky animals. Unused to waving and waggling his hands, nevertheless he strove to make a manual explanation.

"Aha! But of course, monsieurl I will find you one!"

He darted back into the jungle and began to run from place to place, scanning the ground. It was some time before Adam could catch up to him and persuade him that it was not snakes he sought.

They returned to the edge of the cane field, where Adam tried with his hands again, this time however supplementing the mad motions with one of the few French words he did know, foisson, fish.

Maitrejean brightened.

"Ah, les anguilles! You carry a cargo of anguilles, Monsieur? But—it is for eating?"

"Can't imagine what else you might use 'em for."

"But—but this is sent by Heaven!"

"Might not think so, you smelled 'em on a hot night with the hatches open."

"You conceive, monsieur, I have seventy blacks, and more on the way from Guinea. They must be fed. But our Navy— You have 'ow many barrels, monsieur?— Ah!— And you demand?"

"Five pounds," Adam said glibly, raising the price on the spur of the moment. "That's English pounds, of course."

"But I do not have any English money!"

"Well, I don't know about French money—"

"I do not 'ave francs either."

"Then molasses. I'd have to sample it. Make sure of the grade. I can supply staves and hoops, you lend me a cooper."

"I have three coopers. You'll see their shop soon, when we reach the top of this rise. But I have not the molasses, monsieur."

"Umph— Well, I'll take clayed sugar."

"But I do not have clayed sugar. No, nor raw sugar either. At this

moment, alas, I am all out of both. Observe—there is my crushing mill, and there's the cooperage beyond it. We'll come in sight of the house itself soon. No, I have no sugar, monsieur."

Here we go again, thought an embittered Adam Long.

"But I do have silver, monsieur. Not gold, no, but silver. Spanish eight —real pieces. Would they suffice?"

Adam Long squinched shut his eyes to conceal the joy that must have leapt in them. Thunderation! Pieces-of-eight suffice? Why, they were better than sterling! He cleared his throat thoughtfully.

"Could be they'll do— Could be-"

Very light slaves, octaroons likely, metis the French called them, bathed Adam, while others dried and brushed and mended his clothes. He was shaved. He was even sprayed with scent. He must have smelled like a bawdy house when he rejoined his host on a terrace, but all the same it felt good.

It was mid-morning now and very hot. On the air hung thick sweet ribbons of smoke from the kettles. Back in the hills a road twisted, coming into sight, vanishing again; and they could see that a horseman was descending toward the sea; dust stood behind him.

"A courier from Gonave," Maitrejean said.

He clapped his hands, and slaves brought a brassbound box.

They were sure-enough pieces-of-eight, Spanish coins. Adam tested several with his teeth and clanked others on the stones of the terrace.

An overseer arrived with Waters and Peterson.

Now here was a pitiful pair, lacerated, bloody, muddy, too. When they saw their skipper the delight on their faces was touching. Once surly, now they groveled. They begged to be taken back.

"Don't know's I want you," Adam growled.

Inside, he felt bad about the business. Maybe he had been too harsh? What right did he have, after all, to be sitting in judgment? Who was he to be waited upon, a pile of silver at his elbow, while foremast hands cringed before him? His common sense repeated that these two were no-goods; but there is more to a man than common sense.

"Lash 'em?" asked the Frenchy.

"Eh?"

"I'd have it indoors then, monsieur. You, uh, you understand? The example—"

Adam shook his head.

"You islanders," he muttered. "Like living in a powder magazine."

"It is precisely like that, monsieur."

Adam said to the deserters: "You found your way here, now find your way back. And tell Mr. Forbes to get ready to unload."

"Do we have to go through them woods again?" Waters quavered. 46

"A fine pair," Adam said scornfully. "Take a little walk among the trees and you look as if you'd been run through Mister Maitrejean's crushing mill here. And scared half to death."

"It— It was like the Dark Place," Waters whispered.

"We'll have no blasphemy! Go back to the schooner!"

Adam and the planter discussed the deal. Maitrejean sent for his coopers. He caused hands to be called in from the fields.

There was no written contract—after all, this was an illegal transaction —but the agreement was perfect. The two men rose to seal the bargain with a handshake.

A servant announced the arrival of the courier from Gonave. Maitrejean excused himself.

Adam sat down again, his hand still unshaken. He was filled with relief. He had in fact fallen to thinking, after so many failures, that this voyage might be bewitched. There could be a spell over the whole enterprise; and if this was the case suspicion pointed at Deborah Selden as the raiser. Adam didn't like to think this of Deborah, a woman he admired mightily. It must be a terrible thing to be possessed by the Devil, your soul doomed to everlasting torment. But until a little while ago it sure looked as if that might be the case with Obadiah Selden's dark-eyed daughter; and Adam shivered at the thought. Now, however, everything was all right.

The planter came back, and Adam rose to greet him with outstretched hand. But Maitrejean's face was sober.

"I fear, monsieur, that we cannot complete our deal."

"Why in tarnation not?"

"You'll esteem me finical. Yet each must do as his honor tells him. I ought to seize your person, but you're my guest."

"What's got into you, man?"

"The news I just received from Gonave."

"Yes?"

"Monsieur, your nation and mine are at war."

The runaways were ankle-deep in water that stung their bare bleeding feet and they were waving to the boat that made for them, when Adam Long hurtled out of the jungle.

"Ye grease-hellies!"

He got Peterson with great force in the backside, a kick that fairly seemed to jolt the whole beach. Waters squealed, and dove in time.

"You swam ashorel Now swim hackl"

JL \J wump!

There were not many other noises. Bees hummed indefatigibly. From a kiosk made of palmetto thatch came a faint apologetic spickle of glassware, silverware. The bay's unbelievable green met the equally unbelievable blue of the sea at a reef, smothered in foam now, flashing in the sunlight, and this hissed, steaming, mumbling with faraway impotent rage. But for the most part the drums, beaten back in the hills, had the air to themselves.

WUMP-wump-wump! WUMP-wump-wump!

Horace Treadway looked up from the paper he had been checking. In his thirties, he could have been fifty.

"Damned Ashantis," he muttered. "Never should have been brought over. Never did work the way these Angolans I've got now do. Kept slipping away. Scores of 'em up there. And how they breed!"

"Ain't you afraid of 'em?" asked Adam, wishing that some day some planter would talk about something else besides his slaves.

"Of course I am! They'll swoop, one of these nights. And then all this"—he moved his head in a circular motion—"won't be here any more."

He swallowed punch, then dabbed his lips with a Valenciennes-bordered kerchief. There was Valenciennes at his throat, too, as there was rosepoint over his wrists. This man Treadway would have been a head-turning sight anywhere. His coat, the color of cinnamon, was embroidered four or five inches deep with silver lace, and lined with sky-blue silk. There were silver buckles on his shoes, which had red heels. His small clothes fitted him as though they had been painted on. He wielded a toothpick with his left hand, whilst checking figures with the right. He belched elegantly.

"Oh, and one other thing. Captain. One last little matter."

Adam's heart went small and cold. He did not trust himself to speak. He sipped his punch, and solemnly bowed his head.

"Might I ask you to make a delivery in the continental colonies?"

Adam exhaled again, but a little at a time, in order to make no sound. So that was all? A delivery! He waved his hand.

"Anything," he murmured.

"You come from New England, I believe?"

"Aye."

"Is New York in that colony?" 48

"Well, it's near there."

Treadway nodded. Though they would destroy the papers afterward, he checked everything carefully. They had arrived at a price of four pounds three shillings a barrel, to be paid in molasses; and if these men did not snarl at one another, neither was there any real friendship between them; they came from different worlds. But they respected one another! Adam wondered what Treadway was doing here. The colonies, insular or continental, did not often get his kind. The ones they send us, Adam reflected sourly, are the sweepings, criminals, drunkards, cranks, the whimperers who can't fit in anywhere else, whom nobody wants, not even the Army—not even the Navyl

"That is agreed, then. Captain?"

Adam waved.

"Agreed, sir," he murmured.

The Englishman was to provide all the labor. He had even provided a lookout, armed with a large glass, who sat on the roof of the plantation house and swept the sea; at his side was a gong, with which to give an alarm if any suspicious sail was sighted.

Treadway gave another glance, a glance of pure malice, at the hills from whence came the sound of drums—WUMP-wump-wump!—and then returned to the papers. And Adam Long, who conceived it to be his part to look loafy and at ease, his eyes half closed, did exactly this.

Truly, Adam felt good. The sunshine, the scene, the murmur of bees, and the drowsy creak of the windmill, soothed him. He had a sense of returning, of reaching journey's end, his task completed. There would be another task to take up after that—there always was—but just at the moment he could stretch his legs and enjoy himself.

There are gardens and gardens. The ramshackleness of Mr. Pendleton's, the flamboyancy of M. Maitrejean's, were not to be compared with this place. The lush vegetation of the tropics had not been permitted to run riot here, but had been triinmed, pruned, trained. An immense amount of work had gone into the making of this establishment; and it was not just the work of slaves either, of bought muscle. A great deal of thought had been needed, and watchfulness. None of the sloth the climate suggested could be noticed. Weeds had been kept at a minimum. The buildings were painted and in perfect condition. The mill, the carpenter shop, the kennels, stables, field hands' quarters were models of careful upkeep. The kitchen garden was a triumph, with the homely French beans and smug heads of cabbage exactly spaced, serried, looking, in this strange setting, positively exotic. Years of skilled and loving care had gone into the making of the orchards. Since it was not utilitarian, though it was customary, the garden in which Adam sat had not known such special attention as the orchards, clearly Treadway's particular

pride; but the garden was clipped and clean, and here, as everywhere else, things were kept in their places.

WUMP-wump-wump!

All the same, he'd be danged if he'd want to live down here, Adam thought. It was too hot. It wasn't healthy. Folks were forever getting fevers; and even the ones without fevers appeared to have forgotten, if they'd ever known, how to step smart. Things dragged.

Also he did not care for those glowering field hands. It was not only the danger of an uprising; it was also the very idea of slavery. After all, Adam himself was the son of a slave. They called them indentured servants, but it came to the same thing. His mother had fetched six pound ten on the very deck of the vessel that brought her from Home. It was somewhat less than a healthy nigger would have been knocked down for, and of course it included the infant, Adam. She might have fetched more, maybe even seven pounds, if she had not been so haggard and gray-greenish in the face, being still seasick.

Adam was not crybabying. He had been well treated. Apprenticed to one Mr. Sedgewick, willed by him at death, along with sundry articles of furniture, to his brother, also a joiner, he had learned a trade, had been protected by colonial laws, had not been whipped often—not as often as many a son of free folks he knew—and had been taught his letters, as demanded in the paper. He had been brought up in the fear of God. He'd been given many advantages.

But he had never had a home.

This was not anybody's fault, and Adam was not down on the world because of it. But he was conscious of this lack as a deaf man of his deafness, a blind man of his inability to see. He felt that he wouldn't really live, and be whole, until he had a house of his own.

But it would not be one like this. It would be white and trim, and would have a httle white fence around it.

Horace Treadway put the paper down. He came around to Adam, his right hand extended.

"I think we understand one another, Captain."

"Reckon we do," said Adam, and rose and took the hand.

Mr. Treadway summoned slaves and ordered more punch, and when overseers and superintendents came, obsequious silent mulattoes, he gave directions for the unloading and reloading of the Goodwill.

"I make quick decisions," he said when they were alone again, "and I have decided that you are a man who can be trusted. Now about that delivery to New York—"

"Anything," Adam said grandly.

"You will be paid a hundred pounds for the service, if this is satisfactory?"

Adam, who had been sipping, almost choked.

It was customary for the planter, after exacting a promise to make a delivery as part of the bargain, to offer to pay for this service, which offer it was customary for the skipper to refuse. No sum was ever mentioned. Certainly no sum like a hundred pounds was even dreamt of.