Blaggard's Moon (36 page)

“I win!” Conch barked, standing up straight.

“But Captain!” Jenta rose quickly now. “I believe your card was the jack. The king is mine.”

“No, he ain't!” His blood rose to a boil. “Nothin' on board this ship is yers, missy! Nothin' unless I give it.”

“But you did give it.”

“Did I? Well I'm takin' it back. I don't like yer game. Mazeley, shoot the mouse. Hell, shoot the mother, too, I'm tired of 'em both.” He held out a hand. “Now. Ye can come with me, or ye can die with them.”

She paused for a moment, on the edge of a precipice. She had gambled big and thought she'd won, but suddenly she had lost everything. She had angered the Conch, and now he would do whatever he wanted. And what he wanted was to kill. Mazeley already had the pistol in his hand. His finger was on the trigger. His thumb was on the hammer. In a moment it would be over; her mother and her husband would be dead.

She could not let this happen. She walked straight to the Conch.

She wasn't sure what she would do when she reached him, but she knew she must stop him. And in those few steps, it came to her. By the time she reached him, by the end of the four quick steps it took her to round the table, it was over and done, her future settled. Another woman might have gone at him with fists flying or nails scratching, but Jenta was not that woman. All her schooling, all her graces, all her charm came to her now in a single moment, as a single whole. She felt in control. And so in those few steps, with Wentworth reaching out to stop her, with Shayla pulling back, withdrawing yet further into herself, with Conch watching, waiting, eyes cold, right arm outstretched and waiting for her to take his hand…she stood tall, squared her shoulders, met his gaze, and walked
past his open hand, inside his arm, and stopped before him. “I didn't mean to anger you. You always win, of course. That game was just my foolish way of telling you that I dearly love my mother, and I've grown so fond of Wentworth. He's like a brother to me.”

He dropped his hand. She put hers into it.

“Brother, is it?” Conch pondered the idea, eyeing Wentworth over her shoulder. “Black sheep a' the family, ye ask me.”

She nodded her agreement.

His eyes narrowed. Hers were disarming, but he was not disarmed. “What's all this about Damrick Fellows? That all a bluff, was it?”

“Oh, no. That was no bluff at all. I can give you Damrick Fellows.” She swallowed, but her poise remained.

“Ye can. But will ye?”

She raised her eyebrows.

Conch sniffed, assessing his options. Then he raised her hand and kissed the back of it. He winked at her. “Look, ye want a real man to take care a' ye, I get that. It's what a real woman needs. And ye want yer mama and the mouse alive, I get that, too.” He looked around the room again, as though considering the possible consequences of a moment of mercy. “All right then. As a gift to ye, I won't be killin' 'em. But ye gotta make me some promises now. Ye got a bad and rocky past, sidin' with the likes a' the Gatemen. Ye got to leave that all behind.”

“I will.”

“Swear it?”

“I do—I swear it.”

“And no secrets from me. Not about Damrick Fellows, or the Gatemen, nor nothin'. Understand?”

“No secrets.”

“Ever. I need yer word on that, too. Do ye swear it on yer life, and the life of yer mama and yer…?” He hooked a thumb toward Wentworth, but couldn't find the word that would finish the question.

“I do.”

Conch watched her eyes for a long while, and then he sighed, content. He looked down at Mazeley, still seated with the pistol in his hand. “Ye won't be needin' that after all.” Mazeley eased the hammer back down, handed over the gun. Conch tucked it into his belt. “Get Mrs. Stillmithers back to her carriage, Mr. Mazeley. Send her on home. Then find a suitable spot fer Mr. Wentworth Ryland, somewhere no one'll ever know that he lives on. Especially not his daddy. And then, fetch me a priest, or a judge,
or whoever can undo the joke that this pair been callin' a marriage.” He looked at Jenta, saw her gratitude. “On second thought,” Conch added, “do that last little job first.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jenta would not look at her mother, nor at Wentworth. She had shamed herself, she knew, but she had already fled from that shame. She simply left it behind. She looked only at the Conch, willing him to believe that he was all she thought about, all she would ever think about again; he was the sun in her day and the moon in her night. She willed herself to believe it, too. Everything depended on that now.

And underneath that mask, in the deepest pocket of her heart, she tucked herself away. She secluded herself, shrouded herself, buried herself in a place where she wouldn't feel the sting of conscience or the burn of humiliation, a place where she could await some moment far in the future when she might perhaps come out again, and determine just how much damage she had done.

“I
knew
the Conch'd get 'er!” Sleeve crowed. “Now she's seen reason.”

“I don't know, Sleeve,” another sailor countered slowly. “Ham said she hid herself away. That don't sound like seein' reason.”

“Oh, come on. That's just her talkin' herself outta her old ways. Ain't it, Ham?”

Ham puffed his pipe.

“See, boys,” Sleeve explained, “all that nonsense about religion and doin' good, and listenin' to conscience and all, like there's some kinda God lookin' down on everyone and shakin' His finger, all that does is, it just keeps ye from doin' what ye got to do to get by in this world. It gets deep under the skin, and it's hard to shed it all, even once ye have a mind to do it. But Jenta did it. See, now she can do what's necessary to make her way in the world. She jus' grew up, there at the table, that's all.”

“But she hid herself away fer a time,” the other sailor countered.

“Aw, that's just the way ye get shed of it. After a few months, years maybe, why, she'll forget she's hidin' anything. She'll realize one day, hey, I'm free of it, I don't feel no guilt about anythin' at all. I don't need never to go back. Conscience is gone, and I can do what I want without it draggin' on me. Trust me, boys, I know. That's how I done it.”

There was silence in the room.

“Me, too,” a voice said.

“Yeah, and me. Sorta,” said another.

Delaney had to admit that was his path, too. He'd made a lot of little choices to run from conscience and all such things. But then when he swore to follow the Conch, both to kill and die, he told himself it was just because he had to, not forever, and later he could go back on it if he wanted. But he never did. And the longer he went, the less he ever wanted to.

“There's other ways,” Sleeve continued, encouraged by the agreement in the room. “Some people, they just get real mad at God, or at the Church, and so whenever they feel that old stab a' guilt, they just get mad all over again. And pretty soon, after they been cussin' God long enough, the mad jus' sorta goes away, and so does the conscience, and then, why, one day they find they're shed of it and don't care a whit no more.”

“That's me,” another voice announced.

“I done it that way,” yet another confessed.

“There ye go,” Sleeve continued. “And there's other people who find other ways, like I heard an ol' boy said he was readin' and studyin' all sorts of arguments, like how it makes no sense for there to be a God, how it's all made up in people's minds and not real at all. He got to thinkin' that only the stupidest folk on the face a' the earth could ever think it was so. He jus' laughed at all the poor idiots runnin' around tryin' to make some invisible nothin' happy, and that took away its power, see, and pretty soon there was no way he could ever think a' bein' religious again, on account of it bein' so far beneath 'im.”

Silence.

“No one here never did that?”

More silence.

“Well, I suppose that's fer a crowd with more schoolin' than us lot. But anyways, it don't matter which way ye choose so long as ye get it done somehow, and then live a fine old life doin' just as ye please, and not ever worryin' about it, whatever ye do. And so that's how I know Jenta's on the right path, havin' let all that go. Now she's picked out a real man, like Conch says, one with power and money, lots a' gold…so she'll get his power and his money, or at least all she needs of it. And after a while she'll forget all about her little hideaway self, and there's yer happy endin'.”

After a silence, Dallis Trum said, “Don't seem like she got power. Seemed…like a bad thing, somehow.”

“Ah, what do you know, ye little scrub? Ballast is all ye are, and all ye'll be if that's the way ye look at things. Take it from me, son. You give one a' those ways a try; ye'll see how it works.”

“So which is it, Ham?” Dallis asked. “Did she do right? Or not?”

Ham sighed. “That's all for tonight, lads…”

There was another rustle in the reeds, this time to Delaney's left. The light was dimming on the pond now, and the shadows deepening, but that same something lurked again. Or perhaps, a different something.

“Surroundin' me, are ye?” Delaney asked. There was no answer, and he expected none. “Probably just gettin' a good seat for the show,” he muttered.

The air seemed cooler now, though it was far from cool. He looked up at the sky again, and tried to guess how much time he had before dark. How much time he had left. A couple of hours, anyway. Then he'd be going on to the next life, and he'd find out if there was something over there on the other side, like Avery and the priests said, or if there was nothing but a big nothing out there, like Sleeve said. Delaney sure didn't know, and he didn't know how anyone could find out, other than going on ahead and dying.

It didn't really seem fair. It was hard enough for a man to guess what the future would bring to him on the earth—and that's where he could make all the plans he wanted, and try to bring a particular thing about. How was he supposed to guess what happened after, where no one could see and no word ever came back from?

And if a man's supposed to do good on the earth, why is the doing of it so hard? Like pushing a sledge up a hill, and not an empty one, either, but one full of all kinds of the heavy goods of life, and it keeps sliding back on top of him. The plain fact is, it's hard to do good. And then when you do good, it hurts more often than it helps. Look at Wentworth. He turned good, and what happened? Wham! Took it square in the kisser. Jenta tried to do good, too, helping Wentworth, and then helping the Gatemen. What did she get for her trouble? Wham! Shayla tried all her life for a better place for her daughter. Wham! Avery Wittle? Wham! Father Dent? Wham! And Delaney. One good deed, saving a little girl, and—Wham!
Onka Din Botlay
.

Mermonkeys.

The more Delaney puzzled, the darker his thoughts grew. What kind of world is it where the Conchs get rich and the Dents get whammed? It was enough to make a man angry. Enough to turn a man mean. Enough to make anyone want to throw the whole thing overboard, turn pirate, and have done with it. Like Sleeve said.

And not only that, why was it easy to turn bad and hard to turn back good again? How did that make any sense? Like gravity isn't enough, everyone else has got to go and lean on the sledge from the other side, pushing it back toward the pit, back on top of the poor man trying to move it up the hill. Whatever it was that Jenta did to make Wentworth turn good, there with the Scriptures and the prayers and all, it must have been like pulling teeth. Delaney never did learn what it was. But he got some clues when he'd heard Ham talking about it to one of the men on deck, while the three of them were cleaning their pistols after a little target practice on some sea turtles.

“How did he do it?” the young sailor asked. “How did Wentworth turn all good like he done?”

“Now son,” Ham started. “You know this is dangerous territory. You sure you want to hear about it?”

“Aye. I'm not scared.”

“You hear it, though, you might just start heading in that direction. The Whale catches wind, and you might want to reconsider getting scared.”

The sailor shrugged. “Just want to know, that's all. Not sayin' I'll do a thing with it.”

“I don't know if I ought.” Ham looked down the barrel of his pistol, then rammed a rag down it with a cleaning rod. “Tell you what, I'll tell you a part of the story I didn't tell the others, if you want to hear it. You do what you will with it.”

“Sure!”

“Okay. Well, this was back when Wentworth first started visiting Father Dent.”

“The scarred-up priest?”

“Aye, the very one. You remember how Wentworth complained to Jenta about how hard it was that, when he tried to turn and do what's right, suddenly he's face-to-face with so much more that's wrong, which he never did see before?”

“He was talkin' about his daddy's agreement with the Conch, which he never knew about whilst drinkin' his life away. Sure, I remember.”