In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (30 page)

“Have your fun then, Blondie,” says Sin-Kay, “but the end will be the same. Howell!”

He goes on down the list. When he is done, he snaps the notebook shut and leaves. “No ration for Blondie today,” he says to Nettles before the cage door locks behind him.

“Don’t want yo’ slops, no how, Massa Stinkey,” says Clarissa, sticking out her tongue. “You knows where you can shove ‘em? Someplace where the sun don’t shine, dat’s where.”

Later, I get with Clarissa and tell her she did good in needling Sin-Kay that way, but cautioned her not to go too far, recalling the Cat. She nods, but I don’t know if she took what I said to heart, because she is such a proud thing.

After breakfast, we’re back down on the job. Teams of girls had worked through the night, each pair knowing the ones to be awakened next, timed by the bells of the watch. They had to feel their way through the pitch dark, but they did it. We have gained much on the Rat Hole, and I get down now to try to wiggle through. The candle and tinder are close at hand, ready to light.

“If I wiggle my toes, grab my ankles and pull me back fast,” I whisper to those gathered about me. Then I kneel down and stick my hands in first, arms straight out before me. Then I drop to my belly and put my head through. It goes in easily enough and I pull with my hands and just manage to get my shoulders, then chest, through. Up on my elbows, I strain to pull my bottom after me, but I know it ain’t gonna serve. No sense in getting stuck this early in the game. I wiggle my toes and feel hands on my legs, then I am pulled back out. And none too gently, either—my undershirt pulls up as I am dragged and raked across the raw, splintery wood of the Hole.

“Damn,”
I whisper, sitting up and pulling down the chemise. “I wanted to get to those battens today. Well, keep at it and—”
p. “Let me try, Jacky,” comes a whisper from Rebecca, who has knelt next to me.

I look over at her…[_ Hmmm…_] She is the only one smaller than me.

“All right,” I say, “but you’ve got to be very quiet and careful.”

She nods, all big-eyed in the gloom.

“It will be very dark in there, but we’ll light the candle if you get through and I’ll reach in with it and you’ll be able to see. But if you hear anyone coming down the passageway, you’ve got to get back quick. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Now, when you get through there, you will see off to the right a stack of battens—thin whippy pieces of wood. Take…how many, Katy?”

“Three, for now, and check for cord,” whispers Katy Deere.

“Right. Here we go.” I strike the flint and light the tinder and then the candle. Rebecca goes to the Rat Hole.

She has no trouble at all getting her small self through.[_ Note to self. Stop eating that layer of grease on top of the burgoo._] As I see the soles of her feet disappear, I get down and put arm, candle, and head through.

I see that she is standing already by the battens. She stoops down, picks up three, and slides them over next to me.

“See any cord? Any twine?”

“No. Not yet…”

“Don’t worry about it…wait.” I feel a tapping on my rump and I pull back out, leaving the candle in place. “What?”

“Here. Let me look,” says Katy, then her head and one arm go through the hole.

In a moment I hear some muffled whispering. Then an eternity of worry goes by, and finally, Katy slides back out and in her hand is a chisel. She puts it to the side and reaches back in and this time pulls out a mallet. Then the three battens are taken through—one long, two short. Then the snuffed candle, then Rebecca’s face, then the rest of her. She sits up cross-legged, quivering with excitement.

“You done good, girl,” says Katy. “Good as any Injun.”

Rebecca beams under the praise. She knows that words are rare from Katy Deere and that Katy means what she says when she does speak.

It seems that Katy looked at the tools arrayed on the wall and directed the girl to the things she would need, then Rebecca went over and got them and passed them down. “No string, though,” says Rebecca, sorrowfully. “Don’t worry, dear,” says I. “I have string.”

“Good,” says Katy Deere, and she reaches back into the Rat Hole and comes back with four of the nails I had discovered before, lying scattered on the floor of the beautiful, and most bountiful, storeroom. “These’ll do for starters. I’ll need the knife sometimes, so I’ll work on these battens right here next to the big job.”

I go back to get my seabag and stick my arm in and rummage around deep in the bottom, for I know that what I am looking for has been there a long time.[_ Ha! Got it._]

It is a packet of oiled paper that holds the fish lures that Professor Tilden, back on the[_ Dolphin,
] had taught us to make and urged us to keep.[
Thanks, Tilly, for all you done._]

There are three lures, each of them brightly painted wood with a strong hook, and each of them attached to about twenty-five feet of strong, waxed cord. I choose one, untie the lure, and hand the cord to Katy.

She takes it and chuckles. “What else you got in that thing, Jacky? Two, three hardware stores?”

It is the first bit of humor I have ever heard from her. First time I’ve heard anything like a laugh, too.

“Just the essentials, Katy, that’s all I ever carry.”

Katy had set up her project well to the side of the business at the Rat Hole, so that the sounds of her work would not be heard by any of our captors on the other side. Fascinated, I sit down to watch her.

First, she chooses one of the short battens, the one with the straightest grain—one whose lines went right up parallel, from top to bottom—and lays it flat on the deck. Then she draws a line about half an inch away from the long edge of the batten, using the pencil I had given Priscilla to draw up the duty roster. Taking up the chisel, she commences to place the business edge on that line and give its butt a bit of a hit with the mallet. The sound is not loud, but still she times the hit to occur when the chains clash against the side with the ship’s rhythmic roll.[_ I’ll have to remember that little trick,_] I say to myself. She taps carefully along the whole length of the pencilled line till, finally, a nice long, straight strip pops off. Borrowing the knife for a moment, she splits one end and notches the other. While she has the knife, she takes up the long batten and puts a notch on each end and carves down the sides at the ends, making a graceful curve of the whole thing. Handing the knife back to the Rat Hole workers, she sets aside the long batten and turns again to the strip. She takes up one of the nails and puts it in the split end. These nails are about three inches long and are flat, since they are pounded out by a blacksmith and then cut to size. Katy takes a small length of the cord and separates the three strands, then takes one and wraps it around the wood that holds the nail and ties it down tight.

“Too bad we ain’t got feathers,” she says.

“We got feathers,” I say, and dive back into my seabag. I pull out my writing quills. The girls look at me in wonder.

Well, of course I would have those in there, wouldn’t you?
Katy takes a quill and splits it down the center. “Too bad we ain’t got glue,” I say.

“Don’t need no glue,” says Katy.

She takes three pieces of half quill, strips a bit of the feathery part off each end, exposing the bare center spine, and uses more of the cord strands to lash them down sort of opposite each other on the notched end of the stick.

“Injun kids showed me how to do that. They didn’t have no glue, neither. Can you light that candle for a bit?”

I do it and she drips the hot wax over the lashed parts of the arrow and smoothes it over with her finger and then hands it to me.

I hold it up and admire it while she strings the bow. “Now, let’s see about them millers,” says Katy Deere.[_ Rats ain’t the only creatures this thing could kill,_] I’m thinking with some satisfaction.

Later in the day, I’m sitting on the Stage, listening to Dorothea give a lecture on the life of Galileo, but I’m watching Katy. She’s down in the Pit, crouched under the starboard Balcony, way back under so she can’t be seen by anyone looking through the bars. She lies down there in the Pit for hours, it seems, the bow pulled back and an arrow nocked in place and trained on a hole where we know the rats come out.

Suddenly there is a[_ twang_] and a high squeak, and I know that we have our first miller, and when Dorothea is finished, I go station myself next to the lookout up on the forward port Balcony and wait. It’s Sylvie who’s got the watch there, and I sit with her in silence. Looking at her sitting there, scanning the deck with her dark eyes, intent on her duty, I think of poor Henry Hoffman and what he must be going through, with his dear girl gone. Does he think her dead? Kidnapped? I don’t know what any of them are thinking back there, and I shake my head to stop thinking about that.

Ah. There’s Keefe, walking by on some errand. “Keefe,” I hiss, “c’mere!”

He looks around guardedly and comes near, but not too near, and asks, “Wot you want?”

“Tell Cookie I wants to see him. About makin’ a deal for some millers.”

He looks dubious but I put my face to the bars and flutter my eyes and look piteous. “C’mon, Keefie, you’ll do it for me, won’t you?” I’ve been giving the boys a tiny bit more with each of my special performances down by the tubs, just to keep their interest up.

“Awright,” he says.

“Tell ‘im to meet me here, where he won’t be seen from the quarterdeck. Sometime when it’s convenient to him. We’re always home.”

By the time Cookie comes to call, Katy has bagged three more millers. I’m down at the work site when I get the call from the lookout that he’s coming, and I’m up there in a flash, holding the four rats by their tails.

Cookie looks warily about, but squats down next to the bars. “So what’s the deal?” he asks.

“Look, Cookie,” I say, “we got millers, lots o’ them, and you ain’t. You know they all live over here and only go forward to raid your stores.”

“Little blighters,” he grumbles in agreement.

“So, we give you four millers and you cook ‘em up nice and give us back three, and you get to keep the fourth to sell or enjoy yourself,” I say, all reasonable.

“One for you, three for me,” he says, as I knew he would.

“Fifty-fifty,” says I, “or no deal…and no more show and no more stories.” I know from my lookout reports that he’s been enjoying both forms of entertainment.

“Awright. Deal. Hand ‘em over.”

I swing the carcasses through the bars and he gathers them up.

“You’ll get yours tomorrow. ‘Bout noon.”

“Good enough, Cookie, and thanks.”

We line up for inspection, and by now no one, not even Constance, is bothering to put on her dress—most of the time it’s just too damned hot and what’s the point, anyway? Sin-Kay has not commented on this—he probably thinks it’s a good sign of us being broken and not caring anymore and all. Fine. Let him think that.

He has taken to carrying a riding crop under his arm during these inspections—I guess to make us scared. I reflect that it was probably that very thing that put the scar on poor Hughie’s cheek.[_ Bastard._]

Clarissa does not mock him outright today. No, she just hums a little tune when he stands in front of her, and then she bursts out laughing, as if at some little private joke—at Sin-Kay’s expense, of course. He doesn’t let it go.

“All of you are too skinny. You will notice today that your rations are being improved.” He takes his riding crop in hand and with it he lifts up the front of Clarissa’s undershirt, enough to show her lower ribs.

“We cannot have this when we arrive at the slave pens. Weight must be gained.”

“Yassuh, Mistah Stinkey, we be fattenin’ right on up, you’ll see,” pipes up Clarissa. “Jes’ like a bunch o’ happy little ol’ cows in yo’ feedlot. Yum, yum, jes’ let me at that fine,[_ fine_] burgooooooo!”

Several of us, up and down the line, echo Clarissa’s lowing…[_ Mmmmmoooooo…_] Another great sound, I’m thinking, that you can make without moving your lips.

There are several stifled snorts of laughter.

Sin-Kay glares at Clarissa and then turns abruptly away. He knows this bit of fun will be reported to the rest of the crew—some of them are always lurking and listening—and he doesn’t like it. We continue to grow in stature in the crew’s eyes, and he continues to be diminished.

“Fine. Have your fun. Sammy, report to me any of them who do not eat their full bowl, and they shall be force-fed like geese. Dismissed!”

We do not move on his command, just as we had planned, but only come to attention and stay that way until he leaves the Hold.

We go forward and get our rations from Hughie under Sammy’s watchful eye. When I look in my bowl, I nod toward Wilhelmina and she does her usual trick—she groups girls around the hatchway so that Nettles can’t see in.

“Dolley, Clarissa,” I say, and they come over, looking into their bowls. “Just an extra thick layer of pork grease on top, that’s all,” I say, as I put my nose down and sniff. “Rancid, too. Let’s pass the word, quietly, for them not to eat it.”

“Some ‘improved rations,” says Dolley, looking disgustedly at the greenish fat swirling around in her bowl.

“Right,” says Clarissa, equally revolted. “But what can we do with it? That creepy boy Nettles’ll tell on us, sure as hell.”

“Let’s get the word to the girls and then we’ll figure that out,” says I, and we three scatter to warn our divisions.

It’s Katy Deere who has the solution. “Let’s get us a coupla pieces of cloth and have each girl spoon her pig fat in it. It’ll harden up when it cools and then we’ll use it to draw them millers outta their holes. They’re sure to get more wary as I keep nailin’ ‘em. I’m bettin’ they’ll like this stuff enough to come out and take a chance to get some of it.”

We line up and do it so our bellies are not assaulted by that awful stuff. And when the grease cools, Katy will have a fine, if disgusting, ball of pork fat. Even without that bait, she had killed six more millers since yesterday’s hunt—they wait in a pile at the port-side forward Balcony watch station, the rendezvous point for the exchange.