Ahab's Return: or, The Last Voyage

by Jeffrey Ford

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I have a place on St. John’s Park,” said Arabella.

  “Madi and I were in that area today.”

  “It was a very posh neighborhood at one time, but its charms are quickly diminishing. Still, I thought we could confound the Jolly Host for at least a few weeks if we holed up there.”

  Gabriel hid his face in the corner and it sounded as if he was weeping. I looked at him and then to Arabella. She pointed at the boy and with her other hand pinched her nose to indicate that he stank. I was trying to ignore the fact that he’d most certainly shit his trousers.

  “I’m working on gaining control of the manticore,” she said. “Once I have her back in my possession, we can strike.”

  “How exactly do you get her into your possession?” I asked.

  “I write to see where her story is going, to find a place where I can meet her and regain control. What I’m looking for in the storyline is a crossroads, a juncture where the boundaries of our personal tales intersect with the tales of others. I must be on the lookout for it every time I put pen to paper. And when it presents itself, I must act swiftly and decisively. If I can do that, we’ll have the manticore grind Malbaster to salt for us.”

  Gabriel’s aroma comingled with Arabella’s fanciful nonsense made me slightly ill. I closed my eyes and leaned into my own corner of the coach. Through slightly parted lids, I saw Arabella, her face partially lit by moonlight, staring out the window at the passing night. In all she was a remarkable woman. Not but twenty minutes earlier, she’d saved my life from that persistent revenant, Bartleby. On the one hand, I had the overwhelming suspicion that she was, in her way, as crazy as Ahab, what with her theories of intersecting fictions and the like. My God, I’d never heard such twaddle, and yet I’d have to say, I trusted her implicitly. Even when three sheets to the wind on the opium, she had a clearer head than I.

  Ahab eventually slowed the horses to a reasonably brisk walk. If one wants to remain anonymous, blasting around Manhattan in a coach-and-four isn’t the way to do it. I was delighted we’d slowed. I don’t think Ahab had slept in days and I didn’t fancy winding up in a ditch. I lost track of where exactly we were. My presumption was that we’d gone north and then west, perhaps on Walker Street. I looked over to ask Arabella, but it appeared she was wrapped in deep contemplation. She had lit a small lantern within the coach and its dim light cast her face in a soft glow, making it seem more beautiful than ever.

  Gabriel sat up straight. He looked at me as if I’d summoned him to consciousness. His face was flushed and his hair wild. He was a handsome young man, or at least would be with some convalescence. I didn’t see any trace of Ahab in his looks, which was all for the better I suppose.

  “Relax, my boy,” I said. “We’ll be there soon enough.”

  I recognized for the first time that he was wearing the old overcoat we’d lifted off the dead man at the Indian Caves. His expression didn’t grow less frantic with my advice. Instead of leaning back into the corner, he lunged past both me and Arabella and hit the handle on the door. It flew open, the wind burst in, and he leaped out into the dark. I heard him hit the road with a grunt. After I yelled for Ahab to stop, I could hear Gabriel’s footsteps headed back downtown.

  By this point, Arabella was alert. She looked around, noticing the boy gone and the door ajar. She grabbed her pistol off the seat and jumped out the open door after Gabriel. I supposed I bore some responsibility, and although the last thing I wanted was to be gallivanting around in freezing temperatures at four in the morning, I also leaped out and followed Arabella. In a moment, Ahab was beside me, begging to know what had happened.

  “It’s your blasted son,” I called to him over the wind. “He’s escaped. Go back and get the coach and try to follow us.”

  He stayed beside me. “Harrow, if he manages to get back to Malbaster, I’ll lose him forever.”

  “Go,” I yelled at him and was surprised that he responded to my command.

  Since meeting the captain and being drawn into his quest, I’d done more running than is seemly for a man half my age. Still, I poured on what speed I could, hoping to catch up to Arabella.

  It was dark and cold and I couldn’t tell if snow was falling or if the wind was merely whipping up what had already fallen. I stayed in the middle of the road as the traffic of carts and cabs had tamped down the drifts and made the going easier than on the sidewalk. Every block or so, I’d come to a gas lamp and standing beneath it I’d turn in each direction to see if I might catch a glimpse of Arabella. By my estimation, we were somewhere close to Broadway when I finally caught up to her.

  “Have you seen him?” I asked.

  “I lose sight of him and then I catch a glimpse.”

  “Is he insane?”

  She shook her head. “At times, he seems to have a destination in mind, but he switches course, probably to put us off his trail.”

  “Where do you think he’s going?”

  “Well, what does he want right now more than anything?”

  “The smoke.”

  “He could be heading for Astor’s stash.”

  Two blocks over, we saw him pass like a phantom beneath a gas lamp, and we were off.

  Arabella and I tracked Gabriel for more than an hour, until it was nearly dawn. I thought for sure he would ultimately elude us, but she proved to be an effective hunter. Her quick thinking allowed us to somehow get ahead of him and trap him in an alleyway near the corner of Chapel and Thomas Streets. I was loath to enter the dark maw of the passageway to extricate him. Arabella had her pistol, but it wouldn’t have done to shoot the lad. The best I could think now was to call into the shadows within which he hid and try to convince him that it was a good idea to come with us. My attempts were met with silence.

  We noticed that the sun was on the rise, and the last thing we wanted to do was be seen making a scene in broad daylight. News on the street in Manhattan travels faster than a spark on a fuse. We needed in the worst way not to be brought to the attention of the Jolly Host. I was so sick of them and wanted more than anything to get to Arabella’s place by St. John’s Park and sleep without worry for a few hours.

  “We’ve got to get away from here,” said Arabella. “I’m going to go and get him.” She held the gun up in front of her and moved slowly into the alley.

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I asked, certainly not following her.

  She shook her head at me in seeming annoyance.

  As she moved into the alleyway, the sun came over the buildings across the street and followed her to vanish the night. Gabriel was nowhere to be seen. The alley’s only occupant was Arabella. She walked to the middle of the passageway and turned in a circle. “Where?” she said to me.

  Within the next heartbeat, he’d appeared, as if from thin air, grabbed her by the throat, and seized her gun. It happened so suddenly, I literally jumped in the air, both feet leaving the ground. It came to me instantly what a stew of fine-feathered shit I was in. My two options were to flee, my old standby, or to challenge Gabriel and rescue the moment. Let it not be said that Harrow shirked his heroic duty. I inched toward the situation like a bowl of jelly, frantically searching for the words with which to intercede.

  “Now, now,” was the best I could do. I saw Gabriel’s finger tighten on the trigger. The barrel was resting against Arabella’s cheek. I felt that if I said one more word, he’d fire and tear her face off. I even tried to hide the fact that I was breathing. For a solid minute, we stood frozen, staring at each other. The boy’s look was one of anguish, and the eyes were piercing, seeing through me to somewhere far away. She, on the other hand, shot a look at me that as much as said, Do something.

  I hung there between their gazes until I heard wheels and hooves on the cobblestones at the top of the alley behind me. I turned to see Ahab on the coach. When he spoke, it was in a voice from the deep ocean. “Gabriel,” he said. “Come now. Come to your father.”


  To my amazement, the young man dropped the gun and released Arabella. He walked forward with his head down. I stepped aside to give him a wide berth and watched as he continued to the coach and hoisted himself up on the driver’s seat next to Ahab, who put his arm around the lad’s shoulders. I looked at Arabella and she at me with wonder. The captain had talked his way into Gabriel’s head, which didn’t seem completely for the best. Still, he had the boy and we were all safe, on our way to St. John’s Park.

  26

  The second Dromen property was even more spacious and beautifully appointed than the first. Arabella said it had been her father’s place. When we trundled Gabriel through the front door, Madi was waiting for us, dressed in a jade green silk robe and slippers. He smiled when I commented on his costume, and he told me he’d found it in an upstairs bedroom closet.

  I wandered down a hallway, found the first open room with a bed, and lay down. I didn’t care if the Jolly Host was coming down the chimney or if Bartleby was hiding in the closet, I needed sweet sleep. While out cold I had a series of dreams, none but one that I could recall.

  I cleared my eyes before the window and stared out at the lowering sky. It was time to find Madi and to go in search of the opium warehouse. Back in the parlor, I encountered Ahab and his son. Gabriel had cleaned up and put on new clothes. He still looked beset by withdrawal from the drug, but he was no longer twisting and snarling like an animal in a trap. Even Ahab had tended to his appearance. He had groomed his beard and exchanged his violet-patterned shirt for a formal white one. Miss Dromen’s dead father was a font of fashion. Eventually I, too, would no doubt look through his wardrobe for a change of clothes.

  Ahab turned upon my entering the room and when he saw me, he said to his son, “This, my boy, is Harrow. He’s been assisting me in my search for you. I want you to apologize to him for leading him and Miss Dromen on their early-morning hunt.”

  Gabriel, his complexion grayer than the overcast sky, nodded in my direction and asked for my forgiveness.

  “Quite all right, son,” I said, ever magnanimous. There was no sense in relating how I’d wanted to punch his face while trudging through the snow at four a.m.

  I found Madi in the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee. As I poured myself a cup, I said to the harpooneer, “The captain’s son looks like he’s coming around.”

  “But can we trust him?” asked Madi.

  “You should have been there,” I said and related how Ahab had given one calm, simple command and the boy had acquiesced.

  “While you were asleep, Harrow, we asked him if he knew where the store of opium is. He said he knew that one existed but he’d never been to it. Malbaster kept its secret whereabouts shared with very few. ‘I tried to follow them to it once,’ Gabriel told us, ‘but I got caught and the Pale King Toad had them give me a beating.’”

  After a brief meal, Madi, Arabella, and I set out with eyes and ears open for news of the Jolly Host. She took Madi’s horse and went north on Washington up past Canal Street. I went back to Chambers Street, thinking it would probably be safer for me to poke around there than Madi. Madi went as far south as Liberty and canvassed the area from the Hudson back to Broadway for signs of promising warehouses or criminal activity.

  This we did for three days running and each of us saw undeniable signs that the Host were at work on the West Side. On her second day, Arabella broke up an assault on a young Irish woman who was innocently carrying laundry to wealthy clients. Three scruffy, empty-eyed members of the Host had the young woman on the ground and were tearing at her garments, when Miss Dromen rode up behind them and shot one in the ass with her pistol. The other two came for her and she shot one in the kneecap and beat the hell out of the other with the butt of the gun. When all was said and done and the assailants were gone, she helped the poor girl to her feet, smoothed her dress, and assisted her in gathering the laundry tumbled from her cart.

  She told us about it that evening, saying, “It was the best thing I’ve done in an age. Once we’re finished with Malbaster, I might become a vigilante who rides throughout Manhattan shooting the peckers off scallywags who dare to test a woman’s honor.”

  Madi had stories to match Arabella’s of the abuse he witnessed perpetrated by the Host against his people or the Catholics. It was roving packs of three or four grubby young men, set on making trouble for all those scorned by the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner. I saw the same. And with my connections in the penny press, I got reports of other, more clandestine crimes—bodies hung by the neck in an old burnt-out warehouse near the Hudson; a place of worship for the poor, ransacked and set afire; and a lot of thievery, of individuals and also of small businesses run by blacks and Germans. Malbaster’s minions kept up a constant barrage of fear in those communities. At the least, they injured people and when they knew they could get away with it, they committed murder.

  Gabriel told us that the participation of some of the boys made no sense, as they were from the very communities targeted by Malbaster. So many unthinkable acts—children beating a parent to death with an iron pipe; setting fire to the only ramshackle school available to them; threatening violence against their neighbors—all of that could be satisfactorily explained by the opium, if you knew the opium. However, Malbaster did not allow the papist or the colored members of the Host to get too powerful. Once they’d done his bidding for a few years, he would cast them off and in turn they would be harassed, beaten, robbed, and killed. Only white male Protestants got a lifelong membership.

  On our second night of searching for signs of the Host, we met back at Arabella’s home. Sitting in the kitchen at the table, drinking a midnight cup of coffee, Madi made an observation that got me thinking. He said, “I’ve memorized, as you have, the sites of a number of incidents involving Malbaster’s army, but I wish I could somehow fly above the streets and watch the whole thing unfold, get the big picture and chart the comings and goings of the Host as if they were a colony of ants. It would be easier to see where the action is concentrated and maybe even to discover the opium stash by seeing the areas of concentrated activity.”

  On the third day of the search, I decided to break from the cold and retired to a pleasant neighborhood groggery. Finding a comfortable chair in a quiet corner, I ordered a whiskey with hot water and honey. Taking my notebook, ink, pen, pounce pot, and eraser from my satchel, I set out to chronicle a dream of the manticore I’d had a few nights previously. With any luck I could spin my nocturnal phantasm into a piece that Garrick would print.

  That dream was murky, and although there was a thing or two I could recall, try as I might I could not come up with enough material for a full article. I sipped the toddy and rubbed my eyes, and when it seemed not a single idea would arise, the door to the establishment opened and in walked a woman outfitted in riding gear and carrying a short shotgun over her right shoulder like a soldier on parade. She headed directly for me. When she reached up and doffed her sizable hat, I realized it was Arabella.

  The last thing I needed at the moment was company, seeing as I had to turn out an article before the sun went down. Still, she looked lovely as ever and was, for me, always a welcome sight.

  “Are you busy, Harrow?” she asked.

  Her smile was so disarming, I shook my head even as I whispered, “Deadline. How’d you find me?”

  “Easy. I asked if anyone had seen a handsome fellow with a satchel round his neck. The policeman on the corner pointed me to this establishment.”

  “Why were you looking for me?”

  “I’m bored sneaking into and trudging through old warehouses. There must be a better way to find Malbaster. I can’t say what would be better but this seems excruciatingly slow.”

  “And yet,” I said, “Malbaster seems everywhere and nowhere.”

  “That, Harrow, is not far from the reported actuality. My father always spoke of him as if he was a living, breathing, man, but there is much mythology about the Pale King Toad.”

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bsp; I pulled my notebook and the portable inkwell closer. I uncorked the bottle and dipped the steel nib of my pen into the blood of my profession. “Now, about this mythology,” I said.

  Arabella proceeded to tell me all she knew. As she spoke I brought my considerable talents of embellishment to bear and gave her testimony form and direction.

  It was said that Malbaster was not born from the womb of a woman, but instead coalesced like an angry storm cloud during a riot in the Five Points brought on by nationalist factions attacking a dance where Irish and colored mixed. To the best of anyone’s recollection, the great white planet of a head was nowhere to be seen when the trouble started, but as things went from bad to worse—from bashed heads and busted kneecaps to shivved kidneys and discharged pistols—more participants seemed to recall his hulking presence. It was as if he was whirled together in the tumult of the mob’s hatred and fueled by the fear of those who were persecuted. He quickly consolidated and expanded with each anguished cry.

  From the bloody remains of the dance hall melee, toting a billy club in one hand and a ten-inch blade in the other, he floated away from the chaos and disappeared down an alleyway when the police showed. It was said that the cops gave chase, but, upon investigation, that alley, which had no outlet, proved to be empty.

  Thence forward, those with a nationalist bent began to notice Malbaster at gatherings of the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner and various Know-Nothing events—wherever persecution was in the offing. It was not that he was seen arriving and leaving, but more that he simply appeared among the throng of true believers when the vitriol grew most fervent and disappeared when the hate was a cooling ember.

  His bulbous head was roundly admired, as it was perceived a symbol of intelligence. “Think of the load of brains what is contained therein,” claimed those whose proof of acumen and judgment was itself in short supply. For those wretches of the unwanted classes who came in contact with the phenomenon of Malbaster, that inflated head bespoke so much foul air, as if a pin might be employed to prove there was nothing beneath the surface.