The Story of Land and Sea. Katy Smith Simpson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the heroes. She has outgrown tales of moral children.

      In the night, when she had called out in pain, John told her they’d set sail with a black crew. She would be the ship’s queen, and with her scepter would guide them to the Indies. Sugar, gold, parakeets, beaches without muck and weeds. He told her of the blue and yellow of the islands and the bone-soaking sun and the wild ladies who brewed potions for their lovers. Tab said she didn’t have a lover. John told her to hush and keep still.

      Now she watches him fumble through the house, shutting windows and picking up oddments, and wishes she could cut a finer figure as the lady of a ship. She senses her face has become unlike herself, for her father won’t look at her straight.

      When he is ready, he straps the sack across his back and lifts her, still wrapped in the quilt, and with his foot pulls shut the door of their house. He has left a note for Asa, another for his partner in the store. Helen would tell him to stop, he hasn’t thought about a hundred things; what about a brush for Tab’s hair? If he paused, he would not be able to move again. He has always been led by a buried instinct, and this brought him his wife and it brought him his daughter, so he trusts it now and doesn’t go back for a brush for Tab’s hair.

      He carries her, stopping along the road to adjust the weight, to the harbor, where the only men are foreign and tired eyed; the saints of the town are making their preparations for church. He lays her gently on the ground, leaning up against a hitching post, and searches out his old mate Tom who docks from time to time. In asking for him among the tattered crews, he faces blank looks and evasions. He heads to a man-of-war still loading provisions, and the captain is gracious enough, but he hasn’t seen John’s friend.

      “Do you need extra hands?”

      The captain shakes his head.

      “I sailed for two years before the war, then put in good service in the army. I could show you letters,” he says, though he has no letters.

      “I’m sorry,” the captain says.

      At a smaller schooner, they ask to see his commendations, so he stands tall and tells them with a bite in his eyes that he has worked ships twice as big and for half shares, and they tell him to move on.

      He should go back to his daughter, who might be cold, but he can’t walk away from the docks. There are no other paths that he can see. A sailor walks past with a load of nets and a familiar beard, and John asks once more about his friend, who would give him passage on any boat.

      The sailor pauses and shifts his load. “Tom been strung,” he says. “Caught for something, maybe pinching rations.” When John doesn’t reply, the sailor walks on, dragging rope behind him.

      John squints at the south horizon and a flat sea.

      “Tom Waldron? He minded mast for me.”

      John turns to see a young gentleman with a thin patrician nose smoking a pipe, his free hand playing about his ruffled neck.

      “Hezekiah Frith,” he says, and tilts his head. “Looking for passage?”

      “You wouldn’t take me. I’ve a daughter, ill.”

      “And where are you bound?”

      “Merely away. The Indies.”

      Frith taps his pipe, then tugs his coat sleeves even. “I’m a man short. What ships have you ridden?”

      “The Mohawk, the Victory, the Tryon. But a woman—” John says.

      “I have no superstitions there. I like them for a cover.”

      “And the fever.”

      “We’ve a physician aboard. Keep her separate and well aired.” Frith glances toward the town road and sees the sagging patchwork bundle. “Little girls,” he says. “We’re making for Bermuda, catching what we will along the way. You’ll take Tom’s post for no pay. And no pinching. We run small business, and little harm. We’ll drop you on the island, and if you sail again, I’ll offer shares. Is that a bargain you’ll shake to?”

      John sees his dead life breathing. He remembers taking another woman on a ship, carrying Helen—not ill, but a bride—on deck, her smile reflected in the sun, the sea not wide enough to mirror their affection. He is here again, grasping, because he is selfish of his child. He cannot lose another piece of his family. But Tab seems to yearn for this too. In his fatherhood, he is protecting her from death and God and misery, and so does what every man would do. He shakes Frith’s hand and takes his daughter on board the Fanny and Betsy, a cedar-hulled three-mast sloop. From the deck they can hear Beaufort’s church bells ringing.

      Inside the small church, Asa sits in the last pew. When the service is finished, he will catch Dr. Halling and take him to the white house along the shore to speak words above his granddaughter. John has lost his faith, but Tab is still a green plant growing, absorbent to the Lord. He could not save his daughter, but he will save this little relic of her. There is still time to redeem himself. He bows his head as the visiting priest sermonizes. He should move to a city, where he could hear the gospel weekly. God is always listening, but Asa cannot hear his voice enough.

      They stand for a hymn. Soon Tab will be back here beside him, her little hymnal in her hand, her voice ringing out her young faith. They sing verses about heaven and its pleasures, about the narrow sea that separates the living and the dead. Asa’s hands begin to tremble. He breathes deeply and hears his chest catch on his exhaling. The voices rise higher.

      Another tolling of the bells frees the congregation into a warm October noon. From the steps of the church, they can see down into the harbor, where a single ship is bound for open ocean.

       2

      The rocking eases Tabitha to sleep, her aching body cocooned in a rope and canvas hammock in a small cabin next to the captain’s below the aft deck. She can hear the murmur of her father’s voice next door, the sigh of boards above her, the bullying of gulls through the small window cut high in the cabin wall. She presses her ear into the canvas of her bed. Through the fabric, she can hear bells.

      Frith sets John to the dog watch, just two hours. In the meantime, the sailor will clean deck with his brethren. John asks the route, and the captain unrolls a map on the table. John stands to the side and looks not at the map but at Frith’s face. Frith pulls at the skin below his eyes, digs his thumbs into the flesh behind his ears. He sways. John cannot tell if the captain is still aware of his presence. His eyes do not seem to be moving across the paper but are rather fixed in the depths of the painted ocean.

      “We sail straight for the island?” John asks. His voice is too loud.

      Frith drops one hand flat on the map, covering the routes, and looks through John. “How old is the girl?”

      “Just ten,” John says. “Not old enough to tempt your men. You’ll tell them.” He has been on ships where anything in skirts was a lure. Weeks go by at sea, and morals fade. But surely no man would risk the fever.

      Frith nods. “I’ve one who’s five. Fanny.”

      “The ship’s after her, then?”

      “The СКАЧАТЬ