Tim Bowling - The Tinsmith

Craig swiftly read every reaction in the room but one. Most were perplexed by the stranger’s sudden arrival. Henry Lansdowne was displeased, Ben Lundberg’s face was as open and welcoming as a sunny morning in the heather, and Thomas Lansdowne remained locked in his own worries. Owen, of course, was granite. Craig could almost believe that Owen somehow knew what he himself knew—not only who the stranger was, but what important information he held. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was this man’s, Daniel Fayette’s, background, and how his knowledge of race and blood would remove the one salmon canner, excepting Owen, who stood in Craig’s way. If Owen somehow already knew the truth about the uninvited and unwelcome William Dare, he’d act on it in like fashion soon enough. But no—this was Craig’s discovery, and he was going to enjoy revealing it.

He introduced Fayette to the company. The Southerner toasted the men’s fortunes in the upcoming salmon season, then said, once the glasses were down again and he had settled himself in an armchair at the head of the table, that he was surprised that any of the men succeeded at all if they didn’t do a better job of controlling the industry.

Blank looks all around followed his words, all except for one face that didn’t alter. But wasn’t there some slight stiffening of Owen’s jaw? Craig allowed himself a sigh of satisfaction.

“Craig has informed me of recent conflicts here on this fine river,” Fayette continued, after licking the whisky off his lips with his tongue. “And I must say, I wouldn’t have known how to advise you if we hadn’t travelled to the Victoria waterfront a few days ago. Craig, you see, was in the midst of persuading me to invest in this canning business, but I’m a man who must know all particulars of a venture before I spend my money. This one particular, however, seems to have escaped your notice.”

Again Owen’s chilling gaze probed Craig’s face. All right, all right, Craig thought, let’s get on with it. His impatience came as much out of embarrassment as anything. Did the damned fool American really have to talk so openly about investment? He cut in. “We happened upon Dare at the Kerr warehouse and—”

“Craig. If you please.” Fayette stood, hand on hips, and with a haughty gaze said, “I can’t expect you British fellows to know any better. And God knows not all of my countrymen”—he spat the last word out, paused briefly, and continued—“are any less ignorant in these matters.”

“What’s this about Dare?” Thomas Lansdowne said and rose. The river smell seemed to tightened around him. A powerful muscle in his neck throbbed.

Fayette curled his lip. “It’s one thing if a man makes business difficult for you. That’s unavoidable. In fact, as I see it, that’s the whole nature of business.” He shook his head sadly, and looked at each man in turn, even Owen, whose coolness wore perhaps the slightest red tinge of temper. Did it? Ah, but he had a Scotsman’s blood after all.

The night hovered at the open window. In came the long creak of tide against piling, the clotted mix of mud and brine. The shadow of someone’s shoulder and arm shifted like a slow stain on the wood.

The curl in Fayette’s lip grew more pronounced. “But it’s something else when you let a damned nigger get the better of you.”

The ensuing silence was like a drawn breath before a shout. Craig scanned the faces; they looked as blank yet amazed as a caught salmon’s—the same eye-gape, the same unhinging of the jaw, the same struggle to recapture their familiar element. Thomas Lansdowne’s mouth hung wide open and his head swivelled quickly from side to side, as if to say, What? Who? But the other canners were equally confused. Most were clenching the arms of their chairs, and Lyon, the hatchet-faced American, sat so far forward he looked as if he were about to fall across the table. Even Owen’s thick eyebrows had lifted slightly before he returned to his usual display of bored indifference, the digging under his fingernails with the blade of a tiny knife.

Not surprisingly, it was the Swede who shattered the silence with his damnably cheerful, thickly accented voice.

“A nigger? Billy Dare? Oh, dat’s a good one you said dere. Dat man’s trouble all right, but he’s no more a darky dan me. Hell, he’s almost a Swede!”

Laughter followed, but it was nervous, subdued. Fayette stopped it entirely with a short, harsh laugh of his own. “That’s your problem right there. You think being a nigger’s as simple as having enough black in your skin. If you’d ever lived among them, you’d know better.”

Henry Lansdowne stood, his eyes narrowed, his lips drawn tight. The grey streaks in his full but neatly trimmed black beard gave him the look of a prophet. But there was nothing rousing in his manner; he was too English for that kind of drama.

“I am no friend of Dare’s,” he said. “But I do not like a man’s character to be impugned on such thin evidence as you offer, sir. And even if it were true, not all of us have such an unchristian hatred of our fellow beings.”

“That’s nothing to me,” Fayette said and kicked some mud off the sole of one leather boot with the heel of the other. “You can believe what I say or not. And you can act on it or not. All I know is, I watched this fellow, Dare, long enough to know him for what he is. It took but a minute. I don’t care if his skin’s lily white. Only a nigger moves like that, only a nigger posing as a white man acts as if the light of heaven’s going to reveal the truth about him at any minute.” He jerked a thumb in Craig’s direction. “And from what I hear about the habits of this Dare—living alone, won’t co-operate with anyone, doesn’t even build himself a decent house—well, I know a nigger for a nigger even if you gentlemen don’t.”

Thomas Lansdowne whispered fiercely into his brother’s ear as Marshall English gracefully excused himself from the table. The sound of his violent retching at the window seemed to clear the air of its shocked quality. When he returned, a little pale but not otherwise affected, he said with a shrug that there was no mistaking the colour of the night anyway. “It’s damned black out there. I sure hope the fish can see where they’re going.”

But the company was in no mood for jesting. Owen, his legs crossed, one hand stroking his chin, quickly put things into perspective.

“Doubtless this is all very interesting, Craig, and perhaps we can use the information. But white, black, or yellow, Dare is a problem. The question is, what are we going to do about him?”

“No difference!” Fayette’s eyes widened as he leaned his sweat-slickened face forward. “Craig, you expect me to put money into an industry where a nigger can cause trouble and it doesn’t matter that he’s a nigger? Hell, even a well-behaved nigger’d be bad enough.”

Before Craig could respond, Ben Lundberg, who’d clearly had enough of the Southerner, said, with a grin like a carnival clown’s, “Hey, how do dey make a white nigger like dat anyway? I tink somebody’s maybe not minded too much about dat skin colour with his breeches down, hey.”

Fayette shook his head and sighed as the laughter ebbed away. “There was a time when a man could do what he would with his own property. I’m not denying a nigger wench has certain attractions.”

Henry Lansdowne’s face flushed. His Adam’s apple worked feverishly, as if something had lodged in his throat.

“We are not slaveholders here,” he said. “Your immoral appetites are your own affair and will be dealt with come the Day of Judgment. We do not welcome hearing of them.”

“Just a minute, Squire,” said Braddock, taking a plug out of his vest pocket and biting off a chaw. “We’re not all quite so godly as you. If Dare is what this man says he is, then I think it does matter.”