Dead Man's Reach

by D. B. Jackson

  Ethan halted a few feet from the merchant, his eyes on the mob.

  “I suppose I should be flattered that they think me otherwise inoffensive,” Lillie said, frowning at the damage done to his windows. He leaned in closer, peering at the besmeared glass over the rims of his spectacles. “That tar won’t come off easily.”

  “No, sir, at least not today with it being so cold. For now, I think you should go back inside.”

  Lillie glanced at Ethan and then toward the crowd of young men. “Yes, you’re probably right.” He heaved a breath. “Could you have prevented this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I hired you to protect my shop, my family, and me. And yet, they managed to do this despite the money I’m paying you.”

  “If you remember, you hired me to watch your shop by day. I told you what it would cost to hire me at night; you balked at the amount.”

  “You were asking for a lot of money,” Lillie said, facing him.

  “Be that as it may.”

  Lillie scowled and surveyed the windows once more. “It might well have been worth the expense.”

  Ethan held his tongue, hoping the merchant wouldn’t change his mind and ask him to work past sundown. As bad as it was working for Lillie at all, it would be worse by far spending his evenings here instead of at the Dowsing Rod.

  Boys and young men continued to stream from all directions onto Middle Street. Watching them greet one another, it occurred to Ethan that this was no chance gathering. The same rabble who in recent weeks had tried to intimidate other importers with loud demonstrations, acts of mischief like the dirtying of Lillie’s windows, and even wanton destruction of property, had chosen on this day to direct their ire at Mr. Lillie.

  “Sir, I do think we need to get you inside.”

  The merchant eyed the mob once more. “Yes, very well.”

  He stepped into the shop, and Ethan followed close behind, shutting the door and securing the lock.

  Lillie turned at the sound of the bolt. “I’m open for business, Mister Kaille. My purpose in hiring you was to remain open despite these threats.”

  “I understand, sir. And as soon as a customer approaches, I’ll unlock the door. I’ll even hold it open. But until then, I intend to keep it locked.”

  Lillie didn’t look pleased, but neither did he argue the point further. He removed his cloak, revealing a deep green coat and matching breeches and waistcoat—a ditto suit, as such sets were called. He wore as well a powdered wig that made him look a good deal older than his years; Ethan guessed that Lillie was actually a few years younger than he. He had a round, pleasant face, dark eyes, and a weak chin. He didn’t look to Ethan like a man who could so inflame the passions of the mob that lingered out in the street.

  The young clerk who worked in the shop knelt before a shallow hearth and stirred the fire burning there. It was still chilly within but it wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been outside.

  Ethan removed his greatcoat, and, with his back turned to the merchant, pulled a few leaves of mullein from the pouch hidden in his pocket.

  He had planned to cast a warding spell on the shop door, but now, holding the leaves in the curl of his fingers, he reconsidered. Lillie had gone behind the counter and was readying the shop for a day’s business. Ethan wasn’t sure a warding that allowed patrons to come and go as they pleased would have any effect on those with darker intentions.

  Staring out through the filthy windows, he could see that the crowd continued to grow. More, many of the young toughs had positioned themselves closer to the shop and in the middle of the street.

  “Sir, you might consider closing for the day.”

  Lillie turned. “What? I’ll do no such thing! As I’ve said, you are here—”

  “I’m here to protect you and your shop. I believe you would be safer at your home, and I believe that if you were to close, only for today, that mob would count it a victory and would be satisfied. As long as you remain and try to keep your doors open, they’ll stay out there and will do everything in their power to keep customers from your door.”

  “I’m not interested in giving them a victory, Mister Kaille. I’m interested in running this establishment as I see fit, without interference from these so-called champions of liberty. Where is my liberty to do as I please with my shop?”

  “I understand all that, sir,” Ethan said, trying to keep his tone level. He almost told the merchant that he even agreed with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words. He was no longer certain of his own mind; as much as he argued with Kannice and Diver, he couldn’t bring himself to take Lillie’s side, even in a conversation his friends could not hear. “I’m trying to keep you from coming to harm. That is my greatest concern.”

  “Then I would suggest that you get out there and see what you can do about clearing the street and allowing me to earn a bit of coin.”

  Ethan saw no point in this, although he did see great risk to himself. But Lillie had hired him, and was watching him now, an expectant look on his face.

  He left his greatcoat where it was, willing in that moment to trade warmth for greater agility. And as he walked out the door and pulled it closed behind him, he muttered under his breath in Latin, “Tegimen ex verbasco evocatum.” Warding, conjured from mullein.

  Uncle Reg appeared beside him, pale to the point of translucence in the bright glare of the snow and clouds.

  “Stay with me,” Ethan said in the same low voice. He started toward the nearest cluster of toughs, Reg matching him step for step.

  “Are there any conjurers among them?”

  The ghost shook his head.

  That was a small grace.

  “Good day,” Ethan called, raising a hand in greeting as he approached them.

  The toughs stared back at him, stony-faced.

  “You work for him?” one of the pups asked, nodding toward Lillie’s shop.

  “He’s hired me, yes. It’s my job to see to it that his shop is not vandalized and his person not abused.”

  The pup grinned. “Looks like you didn’ do too good protectin’ his shop. I don’ suppose you’ll do much better guardin’ ‘his person.’”

  The other toughs laughed.

  Ethan glanced around. Others were listening to their conversation, eyeing him with manifest hostility. He didn’t wish to trade threats with the lad, but he felt compelled to make some attempt to do as the merchant had asked. “I should tell you that if you molest Mister Lillie’s customers or do anything to keep them from his door, he’ll have no choice but to summon Sheriff Greenleaf.”

  “Oh, not the sheriff!” the pup said, feigning terror, and drawing more chuckles from his companions. He sobered. “The sheriff has about as much chance of clearin’ us from the street as you do.”

  “The sheriff may bring soldiers.”

  The lad smiled again though there was not a hint of mirth in his pale eyes. “Let him.”

  Before Ethan could say more, the lad turned away from him. “Are we afraid of the lobsterbacks?” he cried.

  The mob replied with a deafening “No!”

  He faced Ethan again. “Go back an’ tell your importer friend that he’s free to summon the sheriff, or the gov’nor, or Gen’ral Gage. Hell, he can summon the goddamned king for all we care.”

  The other toughs had sidled closer, and they cheered the lad. Ethan knew that if he didn’t retreat now, he might not have another opportunity.

  Tipping his hat to them, he said, “Very well. Good day, gentlemen.” He turned and started back to the shop.

  “You hear that?” the lad said, laughing once more. “Gentlemen he calls us. Good’ay to you, too, gov’nor!”

  They continued to laugh at him, but they let him go, which Ethan counted a small victory.

  No sooner had he reentered the shop than the mob began to converge on Lillie’s establishment.

  “What did you say to them?” the merchant asked, sounding angry and frightened. He had
come out from behind the counter and now stood at the window, marking their approach, his cheeks wan.

  “I told them that I was here to keep your shop from harm, and I suggested that they refrain from molesting your customers lest you call the sheriff to disperse them.”

  “Apparently you weren’t very convincing.”

  Ethan laughed. “Did you truly believe I would be?”

  Lillie shot him a filthy look.

  The young men were shouting, although aside from hearing “importer,” and “traitor,” and a few other imprecations, Ethan could make out little of what they said. Some of them were also pelting Lillie’s door and window with snowballs and pieces of ice. Fearing that the glass might shatter under the onslaught, Ethan thought about casting another spell. But before he could retrieve more mullein from the pocket of his greatcoat, Lillie said, “What in the Lord’s name is he doing?”

  “Who?” Ethan asked, stepping closer to the window.

  Lillie pointed.

  Gazing in the direction the merchant indicated, Ethan spotted an older man scrutinizing the wooden hand and effigies with a critical eye. He wore a tricorn hat and a bright red cloak much like Lillie’s. He had a kerchief wrapped around his neck and the lower part of his face to protect him from the cold, but still Ethan thought he recognized the man as Ebenezer Richardson, Lillie’s neighbor.

  As much as Lillie had made himself an object of scorn among Boston’s Whigs, his unpopularity was nothing compared to that of Richardson. Several years before, Richardson had been exposed as an informer for the Customs Board. He had alerted officials of the Crown to the smuggling of goods, including French wine, by merchants acting in defiance of Parliament. When these merchants, most of whom were Whig sympathizers, attempted to shame Richardson publicly, he was unapologetic. In the years since, he had been employed by the Customs Board in a more formal capacity, which did nothing to improve his reputation. Nor did his habit of referring to himself as “a magistrate” and ordering people about without any real authority to do so.

  “He’s going to get himself killed,” Ethan said. Most of the lads had yet to take notice of the man, but when they did he would be in peril.

  “Go help him, Kaille,” Lillie said.

  “That’s not my job. I have no desire to risk my neck for Ebenezer Richardson.”

  “You said it yourself: They’ll kill him.”

  Ethan glanced at Uncle Reg, who still stood beside him, his russet glow more pronounced inside the shop. Of course Lillie, who was no conjurer, could not see him. The specter gave a halfhearted shrug.

  “Very well,” Ethan said. “I’ll use the rear entrance.”

  “Aye. That’s a fine idea.”

  Ethan exited the shop through the door in back and returned to Middle Street by way of a narrow alley. By the time he reached the front of the shop, however, Richardson was no longer standing in front of the signs. Scanning the mob, Ethan spotted the man talking to the driver of a horse and cart, and gesturing back at the effigies. Ethan hurried toward them.

  “… Run them down!” Richardson was saying.

  “No, sir,” the cart driver replied. “Even if I were inclined to, it might hurt my horse or my cart.”

  “It will do neither.” When the driver said nothing more, Richardson dismissed him with a wave of his hand. “Fool!”

  “Mister Richardson,” Ethan said, “you need to get off the street.”

  Richardson rounded on him. “And who are you to tell me what I ought to be doing?”

  “My name is Ethan Kaille, and I’m—”

  “You’re that thieftaker who Theophilus hired.”

  “Yes, sir. Mister Lillie is concerned for—”

  “You’re not doing much to earn your wage, are you Kaille? These signs and such are a disgrace. They need to be torn down.”

  “I’m less concerned with the signs than I am with keeping Mister Lillie safe. And he’s concerned about you, sir. This mob is getting more agitated by the moment, and you’re not exactly their favorite person.”

  Richardson dismissed this remark much as he had the cart driver. “I don’t give a damn about that. Let ’em come on me. I’ve got my guns loaded.” He turned a quick circle. “Ah! You there!” He bustled off toward a charcoal carter who was making his way through the throng.

  Ethan didn’t bother to follow, but he watched as the customs man, his gesticulations growing ever more animated, tried to convince the charcoal man to knock down the signs with his cart. Once again, however, Richardson was rebuffed.

  By this time, more people in the crowd had noticed him. Some were pointing; others shouted his name.

  Richardson paid them no heed. He was as a man possessed. Unable to find a cart driver to knock over the offending signs, he strode to a small chaise that sat near another shop. Its driver had stepped away to speak to a few of the street toughs, and before this man could stop him, Richardson climbed in and grabbed the reins, shouted at the horse, and steered the chaise toward the effigies.

  Aware now of what the customs man was up to, the mob blocked his way and tried to pull him from the carriage.

  Fearing for Richardson’s life, Ethan clambered toward him, pushing his way through the sea of men and boys. He knew though that he wouldn’t reach Richardson in time.

  But to his surprise, Richardson escaped the chaise on his own and beat a hasty path toward his home. Several men accosted him, and the boys shouted “Informer!” again and again.

  Richardson answered the taunts of several of the men with cries of “Perjury! Perjury!” And when at last he reached his door, he turned, and said to those baiting him, “By the eternal God, I’ll make it too hot for you before night!”

  With that, he shut the door in the men’s faces.

  Relieved that Richardson had reached the safety of his house without injury, Ethan turned, intending to make his way back to Lillie’s shop.

  “Come out, you damn son of a bitch!” one man shouted at Richardson’s door. “I’ll have your heart out! Your liver out!”

  To Ethan’s amazement and consternation, Richardson opened his door once more, and jumped out into the street, his fists raised.

  “C’mon, you bloody bastards! I’ll fight all of you. I’ll make it hot for every one of you!”

  The mob of men and boys that had gathered around Lillie’s door swept toward Richardson’s house as if compelled by a tide, calling him an informer and shouting other insults.

  “Go off!” Richardson warned, his voice carrying along the street. His wife joined him in front of the house, and shouted most unladylike epithets at her husband’s enemies.

  The mob laughed at them both.

  “We’ve as much right as you t’ this street, informer!” one young man called.

  His companions cheered.

  Snowballs, chunks of ice, and pieces of refuse rained down on the Richardsons, forcing them to retreat once more into the house. Ethan hoped that this time the customs man would have the good sense to remain inside. He should have known better.

  The door opened again, and Ethan drew breath to shout a warning. Richardson held in his hands what Ethan took at first for a longrifle, though as Richardson shook it at the mob and traded more insults with them, he realized it was nothing more threatening than a stick. Again the customs man ducked back through his door, but this time instead of closing it, he threw a brickbat out at the mob. It didn’t hit anyone, but it further enraged his harassers. A man grabbed the brick and threw it through one of Richardson’s first-floor windows.

  A roar went up from the mob. They pressed forward, pelting the home with sticks, rocks, eggs and pieces of fruit from nearby shops, and anything else they could lay their hands on. More windows shattered. A woman cried out from the upper floor. A man Ethan didn’t know leapt up onto the doorstep and, after speaking briefly with Richardson, was ushered into the house.

  The door was barred, even as more projectiles flew at the windows and door. In short order, most of the glass on
the front of the house had been broken. One man called for Richardson to be dragged from his home and hanged. Several other men—older than most of those in the mob—tried to dissuade the toughs from doing more damage, but the crowd seemed to be beyond reason. There were as many young boys as there were men. A number of them were laughing, seeming to think it all a great game. The scene reminded Ethan of the Pope’s Day riots that used to pit North End gangs against ruffians from the South End.

  Ethan watched the house, thinking—hoping—that at last Richardson had tired of the confrontation. Perhaps if the customs man kept out of sight for a time, the crowd would disperse, or at least turn their attention back to their less combative demonstrations in front of Lillie’s shop.

  But even as he formed this thought, he felt a low thrum of power in the icy street. A spell? Reg, still beside him, though ethereal in the daylight, cast a sharp look Ethan’s way.

  “That was a conjuring, wasn’t it?” Ethan asked the ghost, whispering the words.

  Reg nodded, his eyebrows bunched.

  “Do you know where it came from?”

  A shake of the ghostly head. No.

  He had other questions for the specter, and he sensed that there was more Reg wished to communicate to him. But he had no opportunity to ask. Richardson appeared at a downstairs window, and this time there could be no mistaking the musket he held in his hands.

  He knelt and rested the barrel on the windowsill, seeming to take careful aim. But though it seemed to Ethan that he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. With a crash, the mob broke through Richardson’s door. Those closest to the house appeared to be taken aback at what they had done; no one entered. But volleys of rocks and ice still flew at the structure. Richardson stepped away from the window, though only briefly. Seconds later he was back, kneeling again.

  The second man stood behind Richardson, also holding a musket, but it was Richardson who aimed at the crowd once more.