Arturo Serrano - To Climates Unknown - An Alternate History of a World Without America

They nodded at each other and grabbed the sides of the desk. After one last gulp of air, they pushed the heavy mass across the office, smashing past the window and dropping it on the unsuspecting servants outside. There was a chorus of startled screams, quickly silenced by the thud of wood hitting bone. Samuel stayed motionless, surprised at what he’d done; then, upon hearing no more voices, ventured a quick look down. The threat was stunned and immobilized.

“What now?” asked Bridget.

“Now we jump.” He took her hand and led her back, toward the door.

“There’s a desk just below us! What’s to catch our fall?”

“Snow,” he replied, and they took a running start, to land beyond the broken mass of wood and limbs. The snow was deep but wet, and it brushed against their faces with a sudden burn they took a moment to shake off. Bridget stood up at once, ignoring the protest from her guts at the violent jerk they’d just suffered. Not wishing to look behind, for fear that Marselis could come out the front door at any time, she helped Samuel stagger to his feet and took him running away from the mansion, down the shoveled path and into the dimly sunlit streets of Amsterdam.

Night, March 19 (Julian), 1637

New Amsterdam

Making a living in New Amsterdam meant dealing in fur. Natives from the lakes brought it down the North River and traded it with the Dutch, who exported most of it, but using her experience with leather, Bridget had been able to find the occasional client who needed a hat made or a glove repaired. As for Samuel, his occupation was to wear a false beard, puff up his enormous chest and pretend to be her husband. She was uncomfortable having a castrated man perform the part that should have been John’s, but Samuel had made it clear to her, without disclosing the most painful details, how lustful sailors could be and how dangerous it was to live in a city full of them. If he couldn’t find employment with the only talents he knew, he could at least keep her safe while she supported them both.

Nevertheless, the situation they had found themselves forced into had not sufficed to bring them closer. For the practical ends of ordinary life, they were a family, but all that Bridget’s mind had space for was her grief, and Samuel resisted the idea that blood ties meant anything. They concurred, tacitly, on their mutual need for help, but they refused to give anything beyond that. He hadn’t spoken a word of condolence to her, and she hadn’t let him know how she felt about setting foot in America without her parents. Each of them suspected that the other had hours’ worth of unsaid feelings to pour out, and that intuition was what prevented them from being open. They had reached that degree of deep acquaintance that made the prospect of communication unbearable.

There was another, more urgent reason why their newfound arrangement couldn’t last: no shore in the world, save for the icy pole, was beyond the reach of a Dutch vessel. That simple fact had at first felt like an oddity, a coincidence that only by insistent retelling at harbors and trading posts had begun to be taken seriously as the menace it was. No one had figured out why, for the past decade, all other flags had become the target of—what? Random weather? A monster that ate ships? An unrecognized new naval power? God’s wrath? The answer remained elusive, and shipwreck by unexplainable shipwreck, the maritime reign of Spain and Portugal was ending. Those whose business relied on the trade of goods and of people couldn’t point to a distinct moment when the ocean landscape had shifted, but the sense of unease was spreading. Captains of Sweden, France and Venice were growing anxious. No one dared admit it out loud, but the routes between continents were falling into Dutch control. For Samuel and Bridget, that had meant that obtaining passage with the West Indies Company was their best chance of fleeing Marselis without the risk of disappearing mid-route; however, it also meant that they would remain safe in their destination for no longer than it took the next ship from Holland to bring the news that two people matching their description were wanted for fraud and possibly murder. They had avoided the East Indies Company only because Bridget had refused to resettle among heathens, but New Amsterdam couldn’t be more than a temporary refuge. The surest way to stay out of sight of a seafaring empire was to move inland.

Samuel was quickly becoming known in the taverns of Manhattan as a patron who seldom drank and loved instead to ask questions. The former trait had as much to do with Bridget’s careful management of their money as with his need to stay in character as a manly brute, and the latter with their search for someone who could help them hide upstream.

The unexpected sound of French caught Samuel’s attention in one of the taverns he was scouting that night. Before his ears could locate the voice, he thought it belonged to a woman, but the figure clad in a white bearskin who was asking the bartender for a glass of ale moved in a way that confounded his senses. He waited until the newcomer turned around and revealed Native clothes. That was a possibility he hadn’t considered, and he chastised himself for it. Who better to help them evade the quarrels of Europe than a non-European?

As he approached the stranger’s table, he felt a disquieting sense of familiarity. This person had a distinctive set of facial features and body proportions he had only seen in other eunuchs, but there was something more to it, something he couldn’t ascertain, and by the time he was standing next to the table, his only certainty was his state of complete fascination.

“Good evening, sir. May I accompany you?” he asked in nervous French.

The Native looked at Samuel with amused curiosity. “Company is always welcome.”

Again that voice, that unique pitch that resisted categorization. Samuel took a seat and extended his hand. “Samuel Fuller.”

Immediately he realized he didn’t know whether this person would share European customs, but the Native shook his hand effortlessly. “Odahingum.”

He hadn’t experienced such a surge of curious interest in a long time. Castration had not taken away his capacity for lust, and both his fellow captives in the Sultan’s court and the perennially youthful singers of Venice had shared with him the bittersweet raptures of a desire that existed intact in the mind yet couldn’t take solid form. He’d been taught he might lose those feelings in his mature age, and he’d become convinced he had. Still, something in him was drawn toward this stranger’s epicene beauty. He believed he saw the outline of a breast under the bear’s fur, but given the low candlelight, he couldn’t make sure without looking rude. Another eunuch, perhaps? During his years of servitude, he’d made acquaintance with hundreds like himself, and been lovers with dozens, but no true friendship had been possible between souls trapped in their respective private hells. Like the existence of America, unimagined until found, the notion that someone like him could appear so untroubled, so carefree, was a possibility he’d never considered until he saw the calm smile in front of him. He hadn’t heard of any tribe that practiced castration, and he discarded that conjecture when he noticed the faintest shade of a beard.

“Are you done appraising me?”

Samuel blushed. “I’m sorry. I’m being too blunt.” He smiled, hoping the scar on his face wouldn’t show.

“You’re not the first European who feels compelled to take a good look at me.”

That sentence revealed more than it said, Samuel thought. It wasn’t not the first person but not the first European . That had to mean that the Natives didn’t find anything surprising about someone who displayed such ambiguity.