Scattered Seeds (8 page)

Chapter 11

Henry stood at the brig’s rail and pondered his insignificance in a world so vast. The glassy sea stretched into the distance, fading to indigo where it met the sky. He could see no land, no birds, not even a cloud. An infinite amount of brown seaweed floated around the brig—evidence that they’d reached the Sargasso Sea, according to Reed. The captain expected willing winds here, but none came, and the brig, with its limp sails, seemed to float in a flax pond.

An inconceivably hot sun beat down on him and made him thankful for Father’s advice to return the torc to his bundle and strip off his shirt. He thirsted, and his skin would burn, but after nearly seven weeks of dim light, he welcomed the scorching rays.

They were dangerously low on potable water. The rain collected this morning tasted of tar from the sails used to divert it into the barrels. Captain McElwain charted a course for the Leeward Islands to remedy the shortage.

Henry leaned over the bulwark to inspect paint that still smelled fresh. Along the brig’s yellow hull, black false gun ports hopefully fooled renegade pirates into deeming
The Charming Hannah
too risky to pursue.

There were other scents on the faint breeze tickling the sails: tar between the planks; smoke from the cook’s chimney; vinegar rising up through the hatches; and fish stew on the boil.

Henry and his father took immediate advantage of a private bathing area assembled by the crew using canvas and idle rigging. The soap given to them proved incapable of producing lather in the seawater poured over their heads, but they still managed to scrub themselves clean. Others followed, their desire for cleanliness greater than their modesty.

Henry gathered up the clothes Mary laundered for them and walked amidships to add them to those already fluttering on a line stretched between the masts. As he pinned a ragged shirt to the line, a woman behind the bathing curtain squealed when someone poured a bucket of water on her. She danced in a puddle and giggled.

There is no sweeter sound than laughter
, Henry thought, as he hung up the rest of their washing.

The passengers’ bellies were full, and they returned to clean berths at their leisure. They would be forced below again only if the weather deteriorated or if they became a nuisance to the crew.

Henry marveled at the degree of labor required of the brig’s crew. No sailor ever idled. If they weren’t busy setting up the rigging, they were tarring, greasing, oiling, or scrubbing. They rarely sat, but if they did, their hands remained busy picking oakum, winding up reclaimed rope yarns, or mending their duck trousers. Each dawn woke them early and pressed them to their knees where they scrubbed the deck with a holystone and smaller stones called “prayer books” until the wood gleamed like ivory.

Henry navigated through a group of them rolling up a ball of rope yarn to join Mary at the larboard rail. She focused on a group of children sharing a bilbo catcher.

He sat on a chest next to her. “I have nae seen Thompson since Reed freed him from the irons.”

She started. “What? Oh. Nay, he’s still in there.” She pointed to the forward ladder. The mate suffered a demotion, necessitating the removal of his belongings from stern to fore. The crew voted Reed—now “Mister Reed”—into the position of first mate.

Henry said, “Probably best if Thompson hides for a while. I’m relieved he’s paying his dues, but it’s little compensation for the lives lost because of his neglect.”

Mary stared absentmindedly at the children.

Henry fidgeted beside her, sorry he’d mentioned death.

At last, she broke the awkward silence. “Do ye see that wee lad there wi’ the black hair?”

He scanned the circle of children sitting on the deck. A dark-haired boy faced them with his frail arms wrapped around his knees. A girl beside him tossed the bilbo—a wooden ball attached by a cord to a stick meant to catch and balance it—too aggressively. The bilbo smacked her forehead, and the children giggled. The boy smiled, but it was sluggish and fleeting. He could only be six or seven years old, but his face was already lined, its innocence entirely lost.

“Aye, I see him.”

“He’s from County Tyrone. His mother died same as mine, bringing him into the world. His father could nae feed him anymore. Felt his only choice was to indenture the lad, his only son. Imagine being his age and having your own father pack ye into a boat wi’ strangers. I look at him—at all of them—and I canny bear it. What is to become of us? Not just
us
, but our folk as a whole?”

“I canny say, Mary, but our grandsires weathered the move from Scotland to Ulster. They survived, and so will we. Why, just look. We’re already rising up. The men have time to enjoy themselves. The women are engaged again in ordinary pursuits.” He pointed toward the water, where men rowed
Hannah
’
s
small boats, the captain having lowered them for recreational use.

Passengers able to swim floated and flapped in the sea. Some laughed as one fellow splashed around wearing a wig made of seaweed. Others, his father among them, fished and patted each other’s backs when someone pulled up a splendid catch. The cook surrendered his stove to the women, who cooked what the men caught.

“It is short-lived. Surely ye know that. All of this is but a fleeting moment, a last breath of freedom.” She bowed her head, and Henry suspected she was thinking of her own miserable future. She confirmed it by saying, “If I e’er had a wain like that lad, I would nae part wi’ him for anything in the whole world. Now I’ll ne’er have e’en one wain.”

“Och, what makes ye say that? Of course ye will. Ye’ll probably have ten sprogs or more, a whole passel of wee bread-snappers tugging on your skirts from morn’ to dusk.”

She looked at him, and he saw a reflection of the sails in her eyes. “Nay, Henry, a master will nae permit me to marry until my indenture is served. I’ll be nearing the end of my childbearing years by the time I’ve repaid two fares.”

No one told Henry that.

“Indentured servants may not marry?”

“They may marry wi’ the master’s permission, but each wain produced by the marriage results in more time being added to the woman’s term of indenture. Strange, is it not, that e’en African slaves are free to have wains.”

“Och, but would ye want to bear a wain only to have it torn from your arms and sold? And remember, ye can earn your freedom. An African slave has no hope of rising above his lot in life . . . one he did nae choose in the first place.”

“I did nae choose my lot either.”

“That is true, Mary, but still—”

“Ye are right, Henry, of course. God forgive me for my selfish thoughts.”

“I doubt He holds them against ye. Anyone in your place would feel the same. But take heart, Mary, I will right things for ye. As I’ve said aplenty, I intend to see your fare paid. Of that, ye can be sure. Ye’ll have your ten snot-nosed bairns, e’en if I have to buy your indenture mysel’.” He smiled, but she turned her face away to gaze past the bowsprit.

Henry pulled her toward him, but she resisted.

“Nay, Henry, it is nae proper.”

He laughed. “Neither is sitting in your shift in broad daylight. And I’m not sure if ye’ve noticed, Oh Ye Proper Lady, but your drawers are flapping in plain view o’er next to yon shite-stained shirt.”

She forgot herself and laughed, but her enjoyment gave way to shame.

“There’s no disgrace in laughing,” Henry said. “It does nae wipe away any love ye had for your father.”

“It’s not that, Henry. It’s . . .”

“What, pet? What is it, then?”

She sagged over her own lap and sobbed.

The captain stood on the bridge, silhouetted against a dimming sky. “Mister Reed, if you please, haul in those boats and secure them. Rain comes, and with it, mayhap the wind.”

Henry followed the captain’s gaze to the north, where a menacing darkness bruised the sky.

As soon as the crew hoisted up and secured the boats, a bottle rolled past Henry’s feet and clinked against the brig’s larboard side.

“There she is, lads, there she is!” the captain shouted. “Wind, at last!”

Henry rose in time to see a slate-colored shadow spreading across the water. It raced toward them, working the sea into dazzling ripples, then foam. He heard the hiss of the wind before it blasted the side of the brig and lifted the hull and rattled the blocks.

All but a few of the passengers stumbled toward the hatches. Those remaining on deck gripped something solid and tried to stay out of the crew’s way.

“Ye coming?” Father held Mary’s arm. Her face was pale, her skin clammy.

“Nay, I’d like to stay above and watch.” He ached to go to Mary—to care for her throughout her seasickness—but he didn’t want to add embarrassment to her worries. Besides, she’d been cold to him throughout the day, pretending to be too busy to talk to him and pulling away from him when he tried to touch her.

She made no eye contact with him now as his father guided her down the stairs. An unseen fist punched Henry’s chest when her sleek hair merged with the shadows. He turned away to focus his attention on the scene unfolding on the deck.

“At last!” the captain shouted from the bridge, where he strutted like a Presbyterian preacher at an open-meadow revival. “All hands ahoy! Bear a hand and make sail. Man the braces. Stand by to come about.” He laughed maniacally. “We’ll make time now, lads, we will make time. I’m a donkey’s uncle if a day’s sail fails to see us at anchor.” The wind pelted him with hail. He cackled, turned his back to it and shrugged it off. “You there.” He pointed to several men amidships. “Lay aloft.”

The men raced up the ratlines to become specks against the sky. The starboard watch on the mainmast raced the larboard watch on the foremast, competing to be the first done and back on the deck. In no time, the sails filled with deafening booms, but it wasn’t fast enough for the captain.

“Mister Reed, light a fire under those men. They move like their limbs are made of iron. I will not see this wind wasted!”

The sailors still on the deck glided around each other as gracefully as swans. They hauled on lines, stepped over coiled rope and sea chests, and somehow avoided colliding with one another.

The brig charged ahead, rhythmically stabbing her bowsprit into the swells and then lifting it skyward. The water thundered against her bows and slung foamy spray as far as the mainmast.

Henry tilted his face up and closed his eyes, enduring the sting of hail and savoring the disappearance of the oppressive heat.

The seaweed grew sparse and then disappeared, along with the squall. But the wind stayed with them, and after a few adjustments,
The Charming Hannah
heeled over and sliced through the waters separating her from the Leeward Islands.

Dawn brought a flock of gulls. Henry rubbed his eyes and pulled the blanket off his legs. He’d spent the night on deck, lulled to sleep by the brig’s rhythmic thrusts.

He sat up, squinting to better see the birds. Was he dreaming?

A few of the gulls perched on the yards. The rest peppered the sky or, as he learned upon standing, bobbed like tufts of cotton on the sea.

Sailors rose from their knees, still gripping the wet holystone and “prayer books” they used to scrub the forward deck. They gathered at the larboard rail and eyed the southwestern horizon.

Reed shouted an order that sent a German sailor scrambling up the ratlines.

“Well?” the captain shouted up to him.

“Land, ho!” the reply came from above.

Henry fully awoke in a heartbeat. He sprinted below. “Land! Land!”

Chapter 12

Although Mary’s head pounded, she smiled when Henry jumped into steerage from the fourth step, shouting, “Land!” He was coming for her, she knew, but excited passengers filled the aisles and blocked his way. Their murmurs of surprise amplified to outright joy as they shuffled toward the hatches. She knew that elation. She’d experienced it with her first sight of Henry on the brig, the boy she thought never to see again. God, in His infinite mercy, threw her a lifeline . . . then Father ruined everything by dying. She could forgive him if the decision to sail as redemptioners had been a mutual one, but Father had refused to hear her concerns.

“
These matters are best left to men.
”

Now, he was dead, his misery over, and she owed six more years of her life to an unknown master.

“Your laddie boy is coming for you.” Beside her, Donald gathered his hair in his fine hands and secured it with a cord.

“I know. Ye have to help me.”

“I don’t want to. He seems a nice chap.”

“Donald, please. Ye must.”

“I won’t, Mary. I won’t do it. It isn’t right.”

“Do it, or I’ll tell everyone your secret.”

“I know better.”

He was right. She wasn’t that cruel. Besides, announcing the reason for Donald’s expulsion from his father’s house would endanger his life. It was bad enough that her father was feeding the fishes; she didn’t need to send a good friend overboard as well.

“It’s just this one last time, I promise.”

“You said that the last time. Look upon him with pity, Mary. He’s clearly in love with you. Don’t throw it away. Don’t.”

She laid her hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes welled with tears. “You think there is an impediment to a life with him, but there is not. I know obstacles. Yours is not an obstacle.”

“I’m so sorry, Donald. I did nae mean to upset ye.”

“Let him find a way to set things a’right. He’s already told you he intends to pay your fare. By God, let him.”

She shook her head. “I will nae see him in ruin because of me.”

“If you’re worried about the fares, why not run away together?”

“With no pass to show when we are questioned? The McConnells intend to squat on Indian lands. They will need to trade in order to survive. That means traveling to places where notices will be posted and newspapers printed.”

“The fear of discovery is a small price to pay for love, and I’d say that handsome fellow approaching us would gladly pay it.”

She sighed. “He is beautiful, is he not?”

“Indeed.”

“He always has been, e’en when he was a bandy-legged lad.” She had always expected to marry him.

To think he believed her judging him every Sabbath! Why, she’d only admired his physique, an admission that shamed her, considering that it was the Sabbath and all. But oh, she could not help it. Henry McConnell was fetching, and his eyes—those mischievous and troubled gems of blue. Her insides ached with want of him.

But marriage was out of the question now. Unlike Henry, she was enslaved, bound to repay her father’s fare as well as her own. Henry deserved a good wife who could care for him and give him children.

The thought of another woman enraged her, and she shoved it aside.

Henry squeezed through the crowd at last, grinning widely. “Mary! Land! We’ve made the Leeward Islands.”

She pretended not to hear him and threw her arms around Donald’s neck. “Ye’re so sweet.”

“Mary,” Donald whispered at her ear. “Don’t do this to him.”

“Just this one last time,” she whispered before squealing, “I’d love to!”

Donald sighed and feigned a charmed smile. “You’re making a terrible mistake,” he said through his teeth. He rose and extended a bent elbow to her, which she took.

Henry’s smile waned, and his cheeks puffed and turned cherry red. He turned and rejoined his father, already ascending the stairs.

She had hurt him, like she’d hurt him yesterday by refusing his embraces. But her mind was set. Henry McConnell deserved better. She would not burden him with loving a woman he could never have.