In The Belly Of The Bloodhound (7 page)

“The little prig should have borne his honorable wound with pride,” says Randall, looking put upon. “But to hell with it. I am sick to death of schoolwork, anyway.”

“I believe the British Army is hiring cannon fodder for a campaign against Napoléon,” say I, wickedly, the old evil rising up in me, “if you are so bored with student life, or life in general. Oh, and the Austrians, too, will be needing soldiers, as Boney’s after them now. And with your experience, why, you would surely be made a private, at least. Maybe even a corporal.”

Randall looks at me with fire in his eye, but he nods and decides to smile at my banter. He gets to his feet, bows low,

and says, “I believe I saw my sister’s fat friend Pickering down below. Shall we all go to dinner and hear more tales of your adventures?”

Hey, Ezra ain’t fat, he’s…well…sleek is what he is. Sleek, like a well-fed seal. Or, hey, maybe even a Silkie…

Dinner is a jolly affair, with Ezra seated beside Amy, and me next to Randall. Randall drinks too much wine, but that’s to be expected. At least he is not the kind to get mean when he’s in his cups but is more likely to sing and tell rude jokes and put his hand on my knee. He actually gets on well with Ezra and refrains from insulting him, which surprises me. Maybe he figures that it wouldn’t hurt for one as reckless as he to have a good lawyer as a possible brother-in-law. He’s probably right.

“You said the British were looking for you?” asks Randall. He gestures for his glass to be refilled, and it is. “What do they mean to do with you if they find you?”

“I think they mean to hang me. I believe it’s been decided that this would be the best resolution for all concerned,” I say, as I let my eyes go all hooded. “‘Cept maybe for me.”

“What? But why?” This from both Amy and Randall. Ezra already knows, of course, and he sighs and gives out with a wry “Why, indeed…

I put my hand inside my jacket and pull out the
WANTED
poster that I had torn down that day in Newport. I hand it to Amy. “That is why. Soon these will be all over Boston. When that happens, I will have to stay a virtual prisoner at the school. As for now, if I keep my face hidden, I believe I shall be all right.”

Amy’s eyes go wide, yet again, as she reads. “Oh, Jacky,

no!” she says, as she has said so many times before in regard to me and my ways.

Randall reaches over and snatches the paper from his sister’s hand and reads. “Well, I’ll be damned. You[_ have_] been up to some serious mischief. Not only do you single-handedly save Mother England from destruction, you also dip your dainty little toe into the waters of vile piracy. Amazing!” He brings the palm of his hand loudly down upon the table. “I demand that you become my mistress immediately! It has been ordained by the gods of war and of love. One such as you and one such as I? I will hear nothing against it.”

“This cannot be true exclaims Amy. “Is it?”

“Wellllll…” The corners of my mouth pull down in a rueful grimace. “It all depends on how you look at it.”

“Perhaps you had best start at the beginning,” suggests Ezra.

“Yes,” says Randall, beaming at me with all the lust that’s in him. “At the very beginning, and spare us nothing in the telling of it.”

Amy says nothing, but only looks very,[_ very_] anxious.

And so after I take a sip of wine, I take a deep breath, then begin to tell it, and, as I did with Mistress, I mostly tell the truth. However, so as to spare Amy’s Puritan sense of propriety and so as not to give Randall even more reason to try to jump me, I leave out the naughty bits. Most of them, anyway.

Later, lying in bed, with Amy sleeping contentedly beside me, I look off into the darkness and smile.[_ Ah, it’s good to be back at Dovecote and forgiven my wanton ways, once again._]

“Till later, Ezra. Have a good day, and I thank you for everything.”

We have returned from our short stay at Dovecote and are back in Boston, Jim having brought in the[_ Star_] neatly and tied her securely to the dock cleats.

Ezra steps carefully off the boat and climbs the ladder to the pier. Jim had found this excellent mooring for her tucked in between the Crane and Woodward’s and the Hollowell’s wharves. There’s a little floating dock attached to the pier that goes up and down with the tides, so she’s easy to get in and out of. This is good for Ezra, ‘cause he ain’t much of a sailor. But he’s game, for a landlubber, I’ve got to give him that.

When he has gained the top, Ezra turns and tips his hat and smiles his little half smile down to me.

“And a very good day to you, too, Miss Alsop. Please do be careful. And watchful.”

I assure him that I will be both and my dear Mr. Pickering heads back to his law practice.

This is a really good mooring for another reason, too, I reflect as I look across the harbor. I can see any British ships that might pull in next to Long Wharf, without them seeing me first. And they[_ always_] moor at that wharf, it being the biggest and best in the harbor. There are none there now.

“Very well, Jim, I’m off for a while to see about the traps. Clean her up a bit, if you would. Then grab something to eat, and maybe see what Gardner’s has got in the way of some small portholes for the cabin. I do hate not being able to see out from the cuddy when it’s all battened down.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” says Jim, and though I know he’s being cheeky, I do like hearing it.

It takes me longer than I’d thought it would to bargain for the traps off the crook who was selling them, him taking me for a dumb girl and therefore to be stripped clean of any money she might have—and[_ she_] getting steamed and contemplating physical violence—but eventually we come together and agree on the sale of five lobster/crab traps, and five fish traps, which is about all I figure Jim can handle. I also buy two clam forks for when the tide is right and the opportunity for taking some clams presents itself. Bad luck for the clams, lobsters, crabs, and fish, but good luck for Faber Shipping, Worldwide, I figure. I cannot see how we will not prosper, even if only in a small way.

I arrange to have my fishing gear picked up later, and feeling right bold because of the lack of British warships in the harbor, I work my way up State Street and duck into my beloved Pig and Whistle, scene of my first musical triumphs, for a reunion with Maudie and her man, Bob. After the joyful cries of surprise and delight on all sides, she quickly brings me up to date on how things are going…”Good, but not as good as when you and Gully MacFarland was bringin’ in the crowds, and speakin’ of that, Gully’s been around lookin’ for ye.”

Gully MacFarland.[_ Uh-oh…_] I draw in a sharp breath, and twist around to watch my back, then…

“But don’t worry, dear, he seems to have straightened himself out a bit. Besides, he’s back at sea again. Says the ocean air was good for him and he’s given up the drink. I don’t know if that’s true, but he was a lot cleaner than when last I saw him…”

The last time I saw Gully MacFarland, I had tied his drunken self to a wheelbarrow and delivered him to a Royal Navy ship that would take him out to sea and out of my life forever, I hoped. He’d have killed me right then and there if he’d had the chance, I know that.

“No, Jacky, he said he was thankin’ you for it…He was only looking to get his fiddle back.”

“Well, Maudie, the next time you see Gully, you tell him the Lady Lenore’s back in London but in good hands and I’ll give her back to him[_ if_] ever I see him again and[_ if_] I happen to have the Lady in my hands and[_ if_] I happen to be in a forgivin’ mood, in which mood I might not be, considerin’ I ain’t forgot how he laid his mark on me that last night we was together, so it’ll have to be at arm’s length, and in the presence of some of my larger friends, like…like John Thomas there just come in the door…John, so good to see you! Come here and give your Jacky a hug! And Smasher, too! And as pretty as ever! Tell me, who else in the old crowd is still about? Maudie, a pint for each of my friends!”

I’ve been gone for longer than I had planned to be and I’m hurrying back down to the docks, as I want to get started on setting the traps, so’s they can get to catchin’ stuff, but it was good, oh so good seeing everybody again. I wanted to do a set tonight, but I can’t, I just can’t do that, and when I left them, I had to say, “Now remember, if anybody asks, you ain’t seen me.”

I’m thinking we’ll put a string of the traps on the other side of Spectacle Island. I like the looks of the bottom there. I bought ten wooden buoys to mark the traps, and I imagine I’ll paint them white with a blue stripe, those being the colors of Faber Shipping. Gotta get these things settled, ‘cause I ain’t gonna have much freedom once school starts up again, that’s for sure.

I step off the pier, go down the ladder to the floating dock, and hop onto the[_ Star,
] where I see Jim splayed out there in the bilges, facedown. The two new portholes are lying beside him. What? Asleep on duty? Or[
drunk,_] even? No, I won’t have that, I—Ah, no…it’s not that, it’s

Horror.
p. I turn him over. He has been severely beaten. Blood pours from his mouth. There are thick little pools of it on the decking next to his face. His eyes are swollen and closed. Oh,[_ God, no._]

He stirs and tries to lift his head. Then he chokes and sobs, “I didn’t tell ‘em. I didn’t tell the lousy bastards nothin. Didn’t give ‘em the key, neither.”

I look over and see that the door to the cuddy has been tried, but it looks like it didn’t budge.

“Jim. Can you stand? Can you…”

“Run away, Missy. They want you. Run away now. They might be back.” He’s got his two skinny arms stuck down between his legs, and there is some vomit mixed with the blood on his shirt, so they must have punched him in the belly…and maybe kneed him down below, too.

“How many?”

“Two…One of ‘em held me and the other one hit me.” Another spasm of crying, gasping, sobbing, breath caught in his throat.

“Come, Jim, we’ve got to get you out of here. Up with you. I know it hurts, but we’ve got to get you some help.”

He groans as he struggles to his knees. “But they might come back, Miss, they might get you—”

“Don’t care. This is my fault that you’re hurt. Don’t worry about me. Up now. Put your arm around my neck. That’s it. Up now. Let’s get over to the side.”

My mind seethes with fury. I wish now with all my heart that I still had my pistols.[_ The dirty sonsabitches! Damn them! Damn them to Hell!_]

I get him over onto the dock and we stumble up the street. I see a man working at stacking spools of rope outside Gardner’s Chandlery.

“Sir! Please help!” I cry. “Go out and hail a coach! This boy is hurt bad!”

“Why, it’s our Jimmy! What—,” says the man, his mouth hanging open.

“Just get the coach, Sir![_ Please!”_]

The man drops his coil of rope and runs down to the head of the pier and disappears around the corner of a warehouse. Soon, but not soon enough by me, a single-horse hack comes barrelling around the corner and pulls to a stop next to me and my sagging burden.

“Hold on, Jacky!” says the driver and he jumps down and helps me get Jim up onto the seat of the open coach. I don’t know how he knows me, but right now I don’t care.

“Thanks, Mr…”

“Strout, Jacky. Ed Strout. You and me was together in Mr. Fennel’s and Mr. Bean’s production of[_ Midsummer Night’s Dream._] I was always in makeup as a donkey, which is prolly why you don’t recognize me. Here…lift him up…There! Get in and we’re off!” He leaps up into the driver’s seat and I jump into the open coach with Jim. “Where to, Jacky?”

“The Lawson Peabody School, back door, Ed, and thanks!”

We lurch off.

I put Jim’s head in my lap as we head off.

“Don’t you worry, Jim. We’re gonna take care of this, you’ll see, you’ll see, by God, you’ll see.”

Jim moans and says, “They had a poster…said you was the Jacky girl they was lookin’ for. I said you was named Nancy Alsop and they should sod off, but they grabbed me and…I’m sorry, Missy…they messed me up and they messed up the[_ Star.”_]

“You did just fine, my brave, brave young Jim,” I say, tears pouring out of my eyes and onto his face. I kiss his brow. “Just fine, you did…And I am the Jacky girl they’re lookin’ for, I am, and I should have trusted you with that so you could be more careful, but I didn’t and now it’s come to this…I am so sorry.”

“I knowed you was that girl. I heard you talk with your mates, so don’t…,” he burbles through his blood-filled mouth. He grows quieter as his gasping stops and his breathing becomes more regular.

“Jim,” I say softly into his ear, “what did they look like? The two men.”

His cracked and bloody lips open. “Black jackets. White shirts. Black round hats. Heavy boots. Both had mustaches…dark hair…I…”

“That’s enough, Jim. That will do. You rest now…Rest…”

We clatter up Center Street and onto Beacon and soon pull up to the school. Ed Strout is off the driver’s seat and the door is pulled open.

“Here, Jacky, let me help you…” But the clatter of our arrival has roused the kitchen staff and the door bursts open and Peg hurries out, followed by Annie and Betsey and Katy, and they gather up Jim and take him inside. They have seen me, myself, dragged through that very door in a very similar condition to poor Jim, so they know what to do. They lay him out on a tabletop and take hot, wet cloths and wipe off the blood and check the wounds. He looks so small lying there like that. I bite my knuckle and try not to cry.

“If he needs a doctor, get him one,” I manage to choke out. “I’ll pay for it.”

Peg pokes around at his ribs and feels his arms and legs. “Now, now, we’ll see. Nothing broken…These boys are pretty tough…Made of leather and bone, they are. The cuts will heal…Wait, Jacky! Where are you going?”

But I am already at the door. “I got some business to settle,” I say, and am out and gone before anyone can stop me.

Somewhat later, I’m peeking around the corner of State and Union. Those thugs are undoubtedly still about…[_ There! Coming out of the Bull and Crown!
] I sidle a little bit closer so as to get a look at them. I’m somewhat mystified by their presence, since I haven’t seen any of the
WANTED
posters around Boston. They are putting on their broad-brimmed round black hats and hitching up their trousers after what was surely their dinner at the tavern and they step out into a beam of sunlight and…[
Well, I’ll be damned! It’s Beadle and Strunk! Those two coves what kidnapped me and sold me to that crazy Reverend Mather when last I was here!_]