James Nelson - The Blackbirder

“Very nice, Billy. I had thought that pirate captains did not enjoy the full privacy of a cabin, that the others were free to come and go aft as they pleased.”

“Dear William, will you please stop referring to us as pirates? We are merchants, free traders, and as captain of the vessel I enjoy all the luxuries of any captain, including the absolute privacy of the great cabin.”

As he said that he pointed emphatically over his head. Elizabeth followed his finger, saw a skylight in the deck above, like a little raised house with glass ceilings. Those ceilings were propped open, allowing the night air into the cabin, allowing anyone on the deck above to hear whatever was said in the great cabin below.

Elizabeth looked down, nodded her understanding.

“Now, young sir,” said Billy Bird, “as a favor to my good friend Malachias I shall allow you my own personal sleeping cabin.”

He crossed the day cabin, opened a door on the starboard side. Within was a small sleeping cabin, much smaller than the pantry at Marlowe House, fitted out with a hanging cot, washbasin, chamber pot, and a chest lashed to the deck.

“You may take your rest in here,” Billy Bird said, “but lest you become too relaxed, be aware that on a ship one might be called out, day or night, at a moment’s notice. You are free to sleep through any of the regular emergencies, but anything truly grave will require you to be on deck. So, pray, always be ready to appear on deck.”

Elizabeth nodded. The message was clear. No lacy shifts or feminine sleeping gowns. The disguise was to be maintained at all times.

“And when do you think we shall see Boston?”

“Ah, Boston,” said Billy, “ Boston I think will be no more than a week, perhaps ten days’ sail from Charles Town, if the wind favors us.”

“Charles Town?”

“Yes, quite. I fear we have some business there, which we must attend to first. That is the other consideration.”

“Goddamnit, Billy, why are you telling me this now?”

“Well, dear Billy Barrett, I am kind enough to tell you while we are still affixed to Virginia ’s soil. If you would rather go ashore and arrange another passage, then we can still do that. But where you will find simple merchants more discreet than us, I do not know.”

Elizabeth glared at him. He did not tell her about Charles Town because he wanted her aboard, still hoped for a casual fuck, she was quite certain of that.

“Forgive me, Lizzy,” Billy said, so softly that he would not be heard on deck, “but in truth I did not want to discourage you, not when it was clear to me that you had no choice. We shall be in Charles Town and then up to Boston in less time than it would take you to find another vessel sailing direct from this dismal outpost, and that is not even considering the danger you face of arrest.”

“Humph,” Elizabeth said.

“And what is more, I could not let you face the dangers of Boston alone. I absolutely have to be with you in your quest. Knight-errant and all that.”

At that Elizabeth smiled, her defenses shot through. “Damn your eyes, Billy,” she said, but there was no malice in her words. She had never succeeded in being angry with him, never for more than a few moments at a time. “Very well, I’ll wait patiently as you go about your no doubt honest business in Charles Town. And, please, tell me, I have forgotten to ask, what is the name of your honest merchant brig?”

“Why, she is called the Bloody Revenge. It is a name the men insist upon, though I daresay it is a bit…bellicose… for honest merchant sailors such as we.”

Frederick Dunmore reined the horse to a stop from a full gallop, braced with his legs to keep from pitching forward over the animal’s head. Jumped down from the saddle, ran across the dark lawn, lit only by the stars, took the stairs to the porch two at a time, pistol held in one sweaty palm.

Bold man, when you know it is only the woman at home, and not even her, most likely, he thought. Coward, bloody coward.

He stopped at the door, listened. Nothing. Nothing from within, nothing without, save for crickets, the far-off screech of some night creature.

I am a night creature too, he thought. A hunter by night. I am the fox.

He crossed the porch with bold strides, seized the doorknob, the white sleeve of his coat a dull gray in the black night.

He was alone. Even his watchers were dismissed, the useless bastards.

They had come to him, heads down in deserved shame. “She’s gone again,” one had said. “Didn’t see her all day, so we got closer, looked through the windows even, but she ain’t there. Might have gone back with them niggers…”

Of course she had not done that! Dunmore was furious, but he did not let any of that show, just dismissed the men with a “Very well,” and a wave of the hand.

He had had Marlowe House watched from the moment the woman and the Negroes had fled into the woods. He knew she would come back, a delicate creature like that could never live like a savage in the forest. And he had been right. After their last raid, the one in which they had nearly taken them all, it was right after that that the watchers saw her again, saw her through the windows, moving about.

They had reported to him. He had been right. And that only reinforced his knowledge that he, Frederick Dunmore, was controlling events entirely.

Talking to the governor, talking to the burgesses, seeing what charges might be leveled against her: arming Negroes, aiding the escape of slaves. (How legal was it, what Marlowe had done? Really, now, are we to think of his people as freemen, able to come and go as they please?)

And those people, Nicholson, the burgesses, were listening. A day or two more, a few more carefully worded arguments, and the bitch would have been in jail.

It was something. It was all that was left. He could not catch the Negroes in the woods. He had realized that at last. The others had realized it too, had given up the hunt, left him alone.

No matter. The so-called free blacks were in exile, run off, pushed far from civilization where they might spread their poison, and that was almost as good as rounding them up and selling them off. Better, perhaps. And she was still within his reach.

He rested his left hand on the doorknob, readjusted his sweating grip on the pistol in his right hand.

What if I do find her home? What will I do to her?

He felt a surge of conflicting desires and passions, dark and ugly and secret things. He twisted the knob and pushed the door open.

It was blackness within, perfect dark, and he stepped into it and closed the door behind him.

In the foyer, he stood absolutely still. He let the tiny sounds of the house fill him, the sounds and the faint smells of past fires and past meals and traces of perfume, until he was as much a part of the darkness as they were.

When he was certain the house was empty, he stuck his pistol in his belt, fished in his haversack for his tinder-purse, and pulled that out. He knelt down, feeling for flint and steel and match and arranged them with practiced hands. He struck steel on flint and the sparks that drifted down to the match gave him a faint glimpse of black and white checks painted on the floor.

And then the match caught and flared and he picked it up and with it lit a candle. The room revealed itself in dull yellow light. A wide staircase up to the second floor, a sitting room opening up to the right, a hallway leading to the back of the house on the left of the stairs.

Against the wall nearby stood the tall case of a clock, silent, unmoving, like a dead man propped up there. Was that some indication of how long she had been gone? There was no way to tell.

He moved to the bottom of the stairs, looked up as far as the throw of the single flame would allow him to see.