The Runaway's Gold (17 page)

“Should have a decision from the Crown Council in Edinburgh any day now,” the keeper said with a sinister smile. “I'm thinkin' a nice long holiday to Norfolk Island is just about what an incurable thief like yourself deserves. Seven years a' hard labor'll remedy yer ways!”

The man sprang to his feet. “I'll not be goin' to that Godforsaken place!” he cried. “Not away from me wife and bairns!”

“Hah! Shoulda' given that some thought before you stole the valuables from Mr. Arcus.”

The man looked toward the shuttered window and spat at the floor.

“Or when you
borrowed
the half peck of oatmeal from Marwick's warehouse two Januarys past. Or, perhaps, when you took William Norton's six geese that Christmas Eve?”

As the keeper continued listing a litany of transgressions, the man stamped his hairy foot in defiance.

“No, I'd say a few months in the hulks down to London
and a trip on a convict ship over the Tasman Sea will do you some good. That is, if you live through it. In the meantime I've brought you a roommate to take your mind off your troubles. Meet Christopher Robertson. Another thief. You two're like two bad cabbages in the same planticrub.”

Mann pulled his knife from its case and then tugged hard on the rope around me wrists. “Ready for some cuttin', lad?”

I eyed the blade, trembling.

“Put it down, Mann, ya bloomin' dreep!” the prisoner chided. “He's just a lad.” Then he motioned to me. “Don't worry. He canna hurt ya. I don't know what you're in for, but the keeper knows Sheriff Nicolson needs ya alive and unmaimed for yer trial.”

Mann laughed as he lowered the knife to me wrists, grazing the skin as he carelessly sliced through the rope. Then he reached his grubby fingers to the ripped shoulder of Charles Canfield's elegant blue coat.

“By the looks of these fancy clothes, I'd say you've committed another crime or two while here in Lerwick, lad. Stolen property, is it? Shame you couldn't take better care of it.”

“It's not stolen!” I said, but no sooner had the words come out than Keeper Mann struck me hard across me mouth, the pain reverberating across me cracked nose.

“Shut it!” he bellowed, leaning his face inches from mine. “No haf-krak from Culswick is the rightful owner of clothes the likes o' these!”

“They were lent to me by . . . by . . . ,” but before I could
finish, his hand came across me face again, this time knocking me to the floor.

“Enough, Mann,” the prisoner said, offering a hand to help me up.

“The milk o' human kindness, is it, MacPherson?” Mann laughed. “Comin' straight from a murderer?”

“Bah! Ya know you've no proof!”

“Sure about that, are ya, Malcolm MacPherson?”

“'Twas ten years back you're talkin' of. There's nobody here even remembers the dreep.”

“Then you don't deny it?”

“Deny it? Huh! I'll waste no breath on the likes of you.”

Keeper Mann laughed as he threw the other smock at me chest. “Get them fancy clothes off before I come back to collect 'em.”

Then he pointed to me roommate and gave me a wink.

“Remember what they say—once a murderer, always a murderer. If I were you, lad, I'd sleep with one eye open.”

Netty's Bundle

on't blame you if the sight of me makes you tremble,” Malcolm MacPherson said as I listened to Mann's key turning the lock behind me. Then the wild-haired man strolled back to his pallet at the other side of the cell. “Even without that dreep of a man fillin' your head with nasty stories, I must be a frightening sight all on me own.”

I wrapped me arms tightly to me chest, hugging the wall with me back.

“Cold, isn't it? It's the stone walls that keeps it locked in. Set on a bog, we are. Sunk ten feet since they built the place.”

“And the stench?” I managed, through trembling lips. “Me eyes have been tearing ever since I stepped in the doors.”

“Och!” Malcolm chuckled. “I've been in so long I hardly notice it no more. Your nose gets used to it after a day or two, Sola Gratia. 'Course, part of it's me. Mann's right about the bathing. They scrubbed me down three months back, and I've been rotting from the outside in ever since.”

A rat scurried across the floor. Malcolm gazed at the ceiling and sighed. “Oh, what I'd give for a good soak in a hot tub a' water heated up nice by me Netty round our wee fire . . .”

“What are those?” I asked, pointing to the two grimy bowls sitting under a table in the corner.

“Chamber pots, o' course. Stink something fierce. Only get dumped in the trench at the end of the day.”

“The trench?”

“Aye. No privy at Fort Charlotte. Just the ditch off the back side of the barracks. Supposed to drain under us, but it's been choked up for years. Seeps up through the floor when it rains.”

I looked about the cell. The walls were of yellowing, cracked plaster. The only daylight came from the window muted by the peculiar louvered blinds jutting from the sill at a forty-five-degree angle to the top of the frame. It was impossible to see out. I gingerly pulled Charles's coat off me shoulder. John's teeth marks were still throbbing deep in me flesh.

“You can keep on your underdraws,” he said, wriggling his blackened toes under their thick coat of red hair. “Mine wore out nearly a year ago and I've yearned for them ever since.
You'll be needin' anything you can get under that ratty smock. No heat in the building 'cept for a stove they keep in the hallway for the people waiting to go upstairs to court. At times I think the damp, aching cold will freeze right through me bones.”

It was all I could do to pull off those beautiful boots when there was a sudden rap at the window. Malcolm sprang to his feet, and a moment later a small bundle slipped over the top of the wooden shutter onto the floor. He dove for it, eyeing me carefully before squirreling it away in his mattress. Then he rushed back to the window, turning his back to me, and pressed his lips to the wood. “That you, Netty-me-love?”

“Well, who else da ya s'pose be outside your window this time of day, ya old glundie?” a woman's voice chided. “Who else'd be helpin' the likes of you but your good wife, after all you've been up to?”

I looked nervously at the ceiling, trying not to listen.

“Ah, Netty,” Malcolm said. “The sound of your sweet voice warms the cockles a' me heart.”

“Well, it's your own cockles you'll be warmin' for many years to come if you get the Transportation. And where'll your sweet Netty be then? Still living with me nagging sister, scrapin' and beggin' to keep food in the wee bairns' mouths.”

“I know I've been a trial to ya, me bonnie lass. But we've almost all we need. Just one more delivery should do.”

“Hmmph.” I heard the sound of a boot stamping the ground. “I'm riskin' me neck for you, you Ol' Cod,” she chided. “Just
make sure your plan works this time, or it'll be the two of us on that boat to Norfolk Island, and no one left to tend the bairns.”

“Will ya be back tomorrow, sweet Netty? Same time?”

“Aye. Same time. God willin' and me still breathing the vital air.”

And then she was gone.

I pretended to busy meself putting on the smock, not wanting to appear to have overheard. But Malcolm seemed eager to chat.

“Sweetest woman ever lived,” he said, sitting back on his pallet. “Two years since I've laid eyes on her, and she tells me she's nothin' but skin and bones. As bonnie as she was plump when we first met, she was. I've been in and out of this place three times since we've been married, but this stay's been the longest by far.” He sighed, dropping his head in his hands. “Two years is a long time for a man not to be providin' for his wife and bairns.”

I nodded while carefully folding Charles's clothes, stroking the lapel of that glorious blue jacket one last time before placing it on the floor by the door. Then I walked over to the window.

“Mr. MacPherson,” I asked, “can
anyone
from the outside send things in through these shutters?”

“Hoot, lad,” he said, flashing a smile of jagged yellow and black teeth, “call me Malcolm, will you? And aye—the prison inspector from London, who came last year, was none too pleased with this place for that very reason. We heard he filed
a report with the House of Commons, but, lucky for me, nothing's come of it.”

“And where is this Norfolk Island Keeper Mann talked about?”

Malcolm rubbed his hands nervously together. “A place no man should ever go.”

“I don't know it.”

“Well, you know what they mean about the Transportation?”

“Aye. It's when you've done something so bad they ship you clear out to New South Wales.”

“Used to be, but they haven't sent many convicts there for a while now. Too many of them liked it, they say, and decided to stay on after they'd served their time. Some even bought land, raised sheep. Sent for their families to join them.”

“Me Daa says the land is fine for grazing.”

“Och—but the English, they have one thing in mind with the Transportation, of course. And it isn't a future of prosperity. They want us criminals to pay for our crimes—with our very heart and soul. That's why they came up with the idea of sending us to Norfolk Isle instead. The only punishment worse is the hanging, and some say hanging is better. It's in in the middle of the Tasman Sea, where rules of morality and common decency among men don't apply. Hard labor, it is, all in chains. On the sugar plantations and in the mines. The only place in the world, I suspect, where you'd rather be a slave than a convict.”

“Why's that?” I asked, eyes widening.

“'Cause a slave—well, they're worth something, so they try to keep 'em alive. Convicts, on the other hand—there'll always be a boatload of replacements coming on the next ship.”

“And that's where you're headed? To Norfolk Isle?”

“Och, no! That's just what the sheriff and keeper hope,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I
do
have a bit of a history taking things that don't belong to me, however. 'Course I've had every intention of returnin' them—each and every one—but I keep getting thrown back in here before I get a chance. The sheriff, he calls me an ‘incurable thief' and a ‘menace to the island.' So he's requested permission to send me to Edinburgh to the High Court for a trial so they can give me the Transportation. The ruling is due next week.”

“But what if the ruling doesn't go your way?”

“Come, lad,” he said with a wave of the hand. “There's always opportunities.”

“Opportunities? In this miserable place?”

“'Course!” he said with a wink. “Swarmin' round us—waitin' to be grabbed.”

Just then the key rattled and Keeper Mann burst through the door.

“Robertson,” he growled. “Get over here, and fast. You have a visitor.”