Charles Johnson - Middle Passage

“In what?” I asked.

“The ship, boy! You come along fer the ride, I reckon. But after you’ve gone back to farmin’ or fogle-huntin’, the rest of us got to think about our future and families, God love ’em, if we live to see land again, which I’m startin’ to doubt more ’n’ more every day.” He set his mug down. “You got a family?”

I thought of my brother and said, “No.”

“You got a gel?”

I thought of Isadora and said nothing.

“See, then? It don’t matter wot happens to you, does it?”

Right then, Cringle’s hand cutting through the air for McGaffin to stop made the candles affixed to the wall behind him flicker, casting his own face in shadow. He coughed, clearing his throat, and said, “Rutherford, we’re here to decide the best way to put this ship back on a steady course. A crew has to trust its captain. Those of us here don’t. We think it’s time to change leadership.”

“You mean mutiny?”

“I didn’t call it that.”

McGaffin frowned. “That bother you?”

Their eyes, full of hardness, bit into and held me to see if it did; stares aimed like shotguns, gazes so steady and critical I felt as if I were on stage or had the square frame of an oil painting around me. To my left, firewood crackled in Squibb’s oven, splashing an eerie coralline light on their faces, and a peculiar warmth on my legs, for my clothes were still damp, except there on my trouser legs, where the heat made the cloth stiff. All this time I stood motionless, unsure what to say. Silence, never doubt it, was equally a sin in their eyes — eyes I had seen before, I realized, under the sun-blackened brows of slaves: men and women who had no more at stake in the fields they worked than these men in the profits of a ship owned by financiers as far away from the dangers at sea as masters from the rows of cotton their bondmen picked. No less than the blacks in the hold these sea-toughened killbucks were chattel. McGaffin’s gaze drifted to my left hand.

“That queer ring he’s wearin’, d’you see it? I only seen one like it afore. It’s on the flipper of the scoundrel who almost sank us this evenin’. You know,” he said to the others, “I think I was wrong. This one ain’t no stowaway, he’s a blinkin’ spy.”

“No! I stole the ring.”

“Oho! Then you hold no brief for Ebenezer Falcon?”

“None at all.”

“You wouldn’t grieve none, or pour ashes on your head if, by some unexpected but nat’ral nautical accident at sea, the Old Man came to a sudden and tragic end?”

“No.”

“Or mebbe”—he leaned forward, touching flame to Kentucky burley in his potbowl pipe—“if you was the cause of that?”

“Hold your tongue,” sighed Cringle. “We must keep our heads. Rutherford is on our side.”

“Yes,” I said quickly. “How can I help?”

“Right, how kin you help? He’s driftwood, this one. A fugitive and a vagabond. He’s got nothin’ to lose. If we poach this ship, you, Mr. Cringle, or Fletcher there, or that bedswerver Josiah who got more wives than a Mormon elder — it’s plain we’ll swing for piracy. The brokers Falcon works for will have us hunted from Chesapeake Bay to the South China Sea. Our wives’ll be widowed. Our sisters, poor darlin’s, will have to go out on the twang to turn a coin. And our wee li’l ones? They’ll be orphaned, I tell you, or sold to the workhouse. But suppose he done it? Suppose we tell ’em a stowaway done in the skipper? Well, what abaht that? Huh? Once we reach New Orleans the rest of us kin sign on to other ships, and Calhoun’ll go his own way, like he’s always done, believin’ in nothin’, belongin’ to nobody, driftin’ here and there and dyin’, probably, in a ditch without so much as leavin’ a mark on the world — or as much of a mark as you get from writin’ on water.”

I said, “Now, just a minute—”

But the others were nodding. One said, “That could work, Mr. Cringle, if you’d take the helm—”

“And,” said another, “maybe the captain’s share of the cargo’d be spread amongst alla us. You could see to that, couldn’t you, sir, seein’ as you’d be captain when we got home?”

“Yes, I’d see to that.” He was rubbing his forehead, breathing deep through his nose. One nostril whistled, clogged by something best left unsaid. He took out his handkerchief, pressed a finger to one side of his nose, and blew. “But what about Calhoun?”

“What abaht him?” said McGaffin.

“Does he get a share?”

“Aye, if he does like I said. It’d prove where his loyalties lie. For once in his life he’d be doin’ somethin’ useful.” He looked sideways at me. “You ever cut a man’s throat, Calhoun?”

“Oh, all the time.”

“Leave him be.” Cringle blew again. “Nothing says we have to harm the captain. I’m not a bold man, but I despise him as much as all of you do. Mutiny”—he turned to the boatswain—“doesn’t bother me either. God knows, to be a Yank is to be mutinous. The goddamn country was born out of rebellion. But, to be fair, Falcon’s carried us this far safely.” He paused bleakly, folding his handkerchief. “That counts for something.”

“Give him a launch, then.” Fletcher stroked his long-chinned face. “I say put the bugger and a few provisions in a gig when we go by an island. Most likely he’ll land on his feet thataway, knowing him.”

“That’s what I was thinkin’ meself,” said a boy in the back, a carpenter’s mate generally quiet who brought this out only after stoking up the courage to speak. Their eyes coming his way made him color. More softly, as if taking back what he’d just said, he added, “Maroon him?”

McGaffin made a contemptuous snort. “Aye, and knowin’ the Old Man, he’ll come through, raise another crew, hoist the Jolly Roger, and track every one of us down. Naw, I don’t like it.”

“But it’s fair,” said Cringle. “At least he’ll have a chance. That much we owe him.”

The boatswain disagreed, but saw each man shift to Cringle’s side. “All right. If that’s how you want it. But I don’t see nobody volunterin’ to put him in that launch.”

Fletcher turned his head away; a few others looked at the floor.

Quietly, a catch in his voice, Squibb said, “There are seven of yuh.”

“Sure, Josiah, and twice as many blokes who’ll take his side, like Meadows, once the shit hits the orlop ceilin’.” McGaffin bent his brows deeply. “You’d have to disarm the bugger first, or draw him away from the rest, get him alone somehow, or when he’s sleepin’. Trouble is, he sleeps light. You all know that. And his cabin’s got more fykes and infernal traps than I seen red men lay down. Naw, he ain’t got this old and ugly and evil by bein’ stupid, not on your life.” For a few moments he sucked his pipe, blowing columns of smoke that collected in layers on the floor at his feet. Then: “Calhoun?”

“What?”

“You nicked that ring, you say?”

“That I did.”

“From where’d you nick it?”

“The Old Man’s cabin.”

There was silence, a collective shock commingled with suspicion, as though maybe they thought I was lying. Which I was. As a general principle and mode of operation during my days as a slave, I always lied, and sometimes just to see the comic results when a listener based his beliefs and behavior on things that were Not. But don’t judge me harshly; it was one of the few forms of entertainment bondmen had. However, if I’d known where this lie would lead, I’d not have said a word.

Cringle leaned forward. “You were inside? You got past all those locks? All those latches?”