It was easy talk, yet the thought rankled that such things could be done and that those who did them would go unpunished. A man could say it was none of his affair, but how many would suffer until somebody did make it his business?
Maverick was patient. “You know nothing of the Indies,” he said. “It is a different world than this, and it is nothing like Virginia or the Carolinas. It is a place of pirates, cutthroats, and sharp businessmen. And how would you go about finding one girl? A girl who is probably kept from sight?”
I did not know. All I knew of the Indies was hearsay, and not much of that, yet the more I thought of it, the more I decided that this I must do.
Yance was quiet, and that was unusual for him. Despite his flamboyance, Yance’s thinking was sound, and he could see, even as I could, the problems involved. In the first place, there were many islands, and to which one had she gone? Had she survived the trip? Many people died aboard ship and were buried at sea, for the life was rough at best, the food poor, and many a tough sailor man failed to survive a voyage.
Jamaica, Hispaniola, Grenada, Cuba, Martinique, the names themselves were enchanting.
“You would have no chance,” Reverend Blaxton assured me. “It is a fine thing you think of doing, a noble thing, but you would waste time better spent in some other way. We do not even know that she was not taken by Indians or murdered somewhere along our own shore. It would be like searching for one snowflake in the dead of winter.”
“Anyway,” Yance said practically, “you’ve got your crop back home, and Temperance will be wondering what happened to us.”
“I did not mean for you to come, Yance. I meant for you to go home and let them know where I have gone.”
There was a deal of talk, which, as is always true in such cases, seemed to arrive nowhere, for there is always a repeating of arguments and a rephrasing of the same ideas and much time wasted. Yet as the talk went on, I listened with half an ear and thought my own thoughts, worrying over the possibility as a dog over a bone.
When first the words came to my lips, they came almost unbidden, yet the idea would not let me abandon it. The Indies were foreign to me, and I should not be treading the familiar ground of the forest or mountains or swamp but at sea and among islands and men of different backgrounds than I, and I would be among cities, which I scarcely expected to enjoy.
Yet what if I found her? From all that had been said, I guessed there was a core of steel in the lass, that whatever else she might be, she was not one to be easily conquered by circumstance or condition.
That she was possessed of more than her share of healthy animal spirit seemed likely, and the restraints of living in a community ruled by the congregation would be irritating and confining to such a one.
Well, to suppose. If she was indeed taken by slavers to the Indies and sold there, what then? What would become of her? Many a girl might give up, accept the life, and sink to the depths, ending when cast out as no longer useful, eaten by disease, or soaked in alcohol. But I could not believe that would happen to such a girl as this one. There was strength in her; for good or bad there was strength, and that must count for something.
Suddenly the door from an inner room opened, and Diana was there. She moved into the room like a dream of beauty and went to the fire to stir it.
“How is Carrie?” I asked.
She looked over her shoulder at me. “Sleeping, and the poor child needs it. She is exhausted.”
“And you?”
“There is not the time. I have things to consider.” She looked around again. “They will be coming, I think. They have had their time at Cape Ann and some other settlements.”
“What do you mean by that?” Maverick asked.
“She means,” Blaxton replied, “that they will have taken the time to raise the question about Diana as a witch.” He watched Maverick fill his glass and then added, “Joseph Pittingel, if he is involved, is a shrewd man. He would take the time to cast rumors about, even to making a few comments of his own. ‘The maids have gotten free, how else but that Diana is a witch? Also, were they really prisoners at all? Was this not some diabolical plot of her own? How could they vanish so utterly but by witchcraft?’ He will use the very argument Sackett offered at first, from what I hear, that no Indians had been seen for some time.”
“There is a place amongst us,” I said. “If you like, you may come to Shooting Creek.”
She hesitated only a moment and then said, “It is far, and we are known to none there.”
Maverick interrupted. “Then come to Shawmut. Become our neighbors. Thomas Walford, the smith, who helped me, would surely help you. He is a rough but goodly man.”
The remark irritated me, yet why should it? She would be safer close to Maverick than elsewhere. Was it because she might have accepted my offer had he kept still? I was being the fool again. It was something I was doing more easily these days.
Yance was looking at me and grinning like an ape. At least I had the good sense to say nothing, although Diana glanced once at me as it expecting some word.
Yet what could I say? It was far to Shooting Creek, and what had we to offer that was not here?
“I shall go to the Indies,” I said, “and I shall find her. I shall find that girl, and somehow I will discover what is being done.”
Henry had come in the door as I spoke, and he said, “If you wish, I shall come with you.”
“It is no place for a free man who is black,” I said, “although I’d welcome it.”
“There are freedmen there,” Blaxton offered. “It has been said there are several thousand that do live in Jamaica. As long as he was with you, he would be safe.”
“And I can ask questions where you would get no answers,” Henry said. “Some of my people lived in the hills of Jamaica and some on the other isles. They would know who I am, and they would tell us what they could.”
“What if you ran into some of those you once captured?”
He shrugged. “They would be afraid. No one wishes to fight the Ashanti.”
“We will go, then.”
“There is no ship,” Diana interposed. “None but that of Pittingel.”
“There’s Damariscove,” Maverick suggested. “Many a vessel calls there for water or trade. Why, there was a settlement there before the Pilgrims arrived with their Mayflower!”
“Aye, Damariscove!” I had not remembered it. “Of course, we will go there.”
“Is there need?” Diana spoke sharply. “Why should you sail off searching for some girl you have never seen? Does she sound so attractive to you?”
“It is for you,” I protested, “and for others like you. This ugly business must be stopped and stopped now.”
“How noble of you!” Her voice held irony, and the tone dismayed me. I stared at her, about to make some angry retort, but said nothing. That seemed to irritate her even more.
“I have not asked you to do this for me,” she said, “and I would not. It is a fool’s errand, going off to find a girl you know nothing of on an island you have never seen and where you’ll find naught but enemies.”
She turned around to look at me. “Do you believe for one minute that Joseph Pittingel or Max Bauer would let you go? At the first word of such a thing they would have you dead, killed in some manner. You would do better to go back to that far land from which you come and cultivate your corn!”
Her disdain for my sense was obvious, but it only made me resolve the more. “Believe what you will. I shall go.”
I got to my feet, wishing to have no more words with her. Maverick was frowning at his pipe, Blaxton seemed amused by something, and Yance was smiling. What a smug lot they were! I’d be well rid of them, even Yance!
Turning to the door, I said, “Tomorrow, then, Henry. We will be off to Damariscove and a ship if we be so fortunate.”
Diana turned away, ignoring me, and I stepped out into the darkness.
It was very still and damp; a fog came in from over the bay and from the sea beyond. Many a tale of the sea had I heard from my father and those of our men who had sailed with him, tales of bloody sea fights and ships captured or sunk, of Newfoundland and of the Irish coast. How long before I’d see my beloved hills again and the slopes all pink and rose with rhododendron and laurel? How long?
As a boy, I had walked the seaside when with my father. I went to the shore above Hatteras, a long and sandy shore, with a salt sea wind blowing and the salt spray in my eyes and the sea birds calling as they swooped above.
Long had I looked upon ships and dreamed of the places of their going, the far places, the mysterious places, the wild romantic names, Shanghai, Gorontalo, Rangoon, Chittagong, and Zanzibar.
Dreamed of them, yes, but of my own hills the more. I wanted only to be back there, but first to stamp out this ugly thing, for I thought of Noelle in such a plight and no one to come to her aid.
If harm were done to any whom I loved, I should come back; if it were from the dead, I should come back and lay a hand upon those who were evil.
The fog moved around me in strange curls, caressing my cheek with ghostly fingers, placing a chill kiss upon my brow with a small touch of moisture.
The palisade loomed before me, and I went to the gate. A shadow moved, and a man stood there. “I be Tom.” he said, “on guard this night. Is there aught I can do for you?”
“I thought of going out,” I said.
“I would not,” he said. “There be unholy things in the night and a whisper of moccasins, methinks. I’d stay within and be glad, for the wall is strong.”
“Aye, you are right, and if all goes as I expect, I’ll be needing rest before I go down to the sea.”
“They’ll be bedding for the night soon,” Tom said. “The master is no lare stayer these nights. Ah, I’ve seen the time when they made the welkin ring with their singing of songs and drinking of ale, but not with the reverend here. Besides, there’s a deal of work to be done, and all must rest.”
“Is there trouble with Indians at all?”
“It’s been a time since. Oh, there’s petty thievery and such like but no more than is expected. You can’t blame them,” he added. “We’ve so much that is new and some’at curious to them, so they be picking up this and that to look at and sometimes to cany off. They do not have the same thoughts about ownership as do we, an’ ’tis but natural.”
“Aye.” He made sense, this man. I wished all might be as understanding, yet it was much to expect when most newcomers thought of the Indians as savages, ignored by the good Lord unless saved.
It may have been my father’s easy way with folks or perhaps my mother’s way or Lila’s or the teaching of Sakim, but I was not one for believine all who believed not as I to be therefore heathens. Many are the paths to righteousness, and ours, I think, is but one.
Inside they’d put down a pallet for me close by the fire, but I drew it somewhat away. I liked not to sleep too warm but cool enough to sleep lightly so my ears can hear what moves about.
All were asleep, or seemed so. I drew off my boots and looked to the charge on my pistols and then stretched upon my pallet and stared up at the dark timbers, lit by the flickering fire. It was in my mind to go south to the Indies, yet there was uneasiness on me, for I should be venturing far from lands that I knew and among men who were strangers to me and whose ways I knew not.
In the night it rained, and I awakened to hear the sound of it on the roof and in the yard outside. Lying awake, I thought of the rain falling in the forest, and I wondered where Max Bauer was and those who had been with him. Here I was safe. Yet Diana had spoken truly, for if they were slavers and discovered my intent, they would kill me or seek to kill me. Nonetheless, I knew this foul business must be ended or no maid would be safe to walk free upon the land.
Or was it simply that something deep inside me still longed for the sea, something inherited, something only half held, some unnamed yearning? What man truly understands his motives?
Yet there was something else, something of which I had heard my father speak when talking to Jeremy or the others, that where man was, there must be law, for without it man descends to less than he is, certainly less than he can become. Even on the frontier where no law had yet come, man must have order, and evil must be restrained or punished.
No man had made me my brother’s keeper, but if no other moved to restrain evil, then I must do it myself.
These men had injured one whom I—I—I could not complete the idea. It was not true. It was only that—
I went to sleep.
Morning dawned, cool and damp with a wind from off the bay. Yance and I walked outside into the sea wind and stood together. “Don’t worry about my crop,” I said. “The birds and the squirrels will harvest for me. Tell them where I am gone and that when spring comes I shall be with them again.”
“Kin, be warned. They are not easy men.”
“Aye. That I know.”
“Where will you go?”
“To Jamaica at first to ask about where many sailors come. I do not think there are secrets at sea even though some may believe so. At Damariscove, where I go to find a ship, I shall also ask.”
“Kin, do you remember John Tilly? And Pike? They were trading to the Indies in the Abigail, named for our mother. And the Eagle, too, the craft that took mother to England. That one traded to the Indies, also.”
“Aye. I remember.”
Henry came to the door. “Do we go now? I am ready.”
“And I. Good-by, Yance. Care for things until I return. And do not go off a-hunting. Stay close to Temperance for a bit.”
“You know how to give advice,” a voice said, “and do you take your own?”
It was Diana, standing alone and very still just outside the gate. I blinked at her, not quite understanding, but I held out my hand. “I will come back,” I said.
“Oh, will you?” She looked straight at me, her eyes wide. “And what then, Kin Sackett? What then?”
“An end to this bad business,” I said.
Her fingertips scarcely touched mine, and then she turned sharply away. What in the devil was the matter with the girl?
“Go, then,” she said over her shoulder. “Go.”