Dead Man's Reach

by D. B. Jackson

  “Did you see me do anything?” Ethan asked. “Did I speak, or wave my hands about?”

  The sheriff looked like he had sucked on a lemon. “No.”

  Richardson let out a low groan.

  The sheriff looked past Ethan to the customs man. “What happened to him?” he asked, an accusation in the words. He stepped around Ethan and planted himself directly in front of Richardson. “What is it Richardson?”

  “I … I don’t know. I feel odd.”

  “Did you fall into a swoon as well?” Greenleaf glared at Ethan.

  “I think so.”

  “And I take it you had nothing to do with that, either, did you Kaille?”

  Ethan didn’t flinch from the sheriff’s glare. “Richardson took quite a beating today,” he said, his tone mild. “He’s lucky to be alive. Have you had a surgeon in to look at him?”

  Greenleaf shook a thick finger in Ethan’s face. “I should chain you up right now. That cell back there has held you before; it can again.”

  “Aye, it has. But you may wish to wait until we’re certain that … that ‘witchery’ isn’t behind all of this. You wouldn’t want to face a villainous conjurer on your own.”

  Greenleaf lowered his hand, though he continued to eye Ethan with unconcealed distrust. After some time, he glanced at Richardson again and then asked Ethan, “Are we finished here?”

  “Aye.”

  The sheriff turned on his heel and stomped out of the cell; Ethan had little choice but to leave as well. Greenleaf locked the cell door once more and led Ethan out of the gaol. Even after they were outside in the cold, blessedly fresh air, he said not a word. He mumbled a curt “Good night” to the soldiers and started up Queen Street in the direction of his home. Ethan sensed that Greenleaf expected him to follow, and so he did.

  Once they were beyond the hearing of the regulars, the sheriff said, “I want to know what you did to me in there.”

  Ethan angled away from the man toward the Dowser. “Good night, Sheriff.”

  “Damn you, Kaille!”

  “I’ll make some inquiries,” Ethan called to him. “If there is a new conjurer in the city, one who intends to use his powers to sow such mischief, I’ll find him. And I’ll bring him to you. In the meantime—” He stopped himself, unwilling to give voice to the thought that flashed through his mind. “In the meantime,” he said instead, “I won’t trouble you again.”

  “What did you learn from Richardson?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all. And that bothers me.”

  Chapter

  SIX

  Almost as soon as he entered the Dowser, Kannice came out from behind the bar to greet him.

  “Where were you?” she asked.

  Ethan scanned the tavern, his tricorn hat in his hands. Diver still sat near the back with Deborah. When he saw Ethan gazing his way, he lowered his eyes.

  “I think you know already,” Ethan said.

  Kannice took his hand. “Don’t be angry with Derrey. I made him tell me.”

  Ethan gaped at her. “Am I imagining things, or did Kannice Lester, proprietor of the Dowsing Rod, come to the defense of Devren Jervis?”

  A grudging grin crept across her features. “It’s not likely to happen again.” She tried to look stern. “Don’t tell him.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. For the moment.”

  “You went to see Richardson?”

  Ethan looked around, to make sure that they weren’t overheard. “Aye. I needed to know if he acted today under the influence of a conjuring.”

  Her brow furrowed. “And did he?”

  “Not that I could tell, no.”

  Kannice took a long breath. “Well, I’m glad. I prefer to think that he’s cruel and heartless. If he had been … controlled in some way, if there was a conjurer out there making him do something that terrible, I’d be truly frightened.”

  “As would I,” Ethan said. He didn’t tell her that he was frightened; that while he had found nothing, he was convinced this was because the conjurer had hidden his spells too well. Again, though, he should have known that he couldn’t dissemble with her, not about this. Not about anything, really. It was one of the reasons he loved her.

  “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  He glanced back at Diver again, then scanned the somber faces in the tavern—anything to avoid looking her in the eye.

  “Ethan?”

  “Today, before Richardson fired at Chris Seider and young Gore, I felt … something.”

  Her eyes widened. “And by something you mean…?”

  “Aye, a spell. I felt one as well last night, just before one of Sephira’s men attacked a lad who had done nothing to provoke him.”

  Kannice brushed a strand of hair from her brow. “And Sephira’s other man—the one who conjures—he had nothing to do with this?”

  “No. He sensed it as well, and at first, all but accused me of bewitching his friend.”

  “Could it be a coincidence?”

  “I suppose,” Ethan said.

  She smiled, though the crease in her forehead remained. “You’re humoring me.”

  “I’m not. I’m casting about for answers. If anything, what I’ve seen and learned thus far points to all of this being coincidence, as you say.”

  “But?”

  He shrugged. “But I don’t believe it is. Probably I’m imagining things.”

  She ran a hand down his cheek. “I’ve not known you to imagine things of this sort before. Why would you begin now?”

  “I don’t know. My spells are telling me one thing: that no one used a conjuring to make Richardson fire into that mob. But my heart and my head, not to mention Uncle Reg, are telling me something else.”

  Kannice’s cheeks went white. “Uncle … You mean your … your ghost?”

  “Aye. He tells me that there was another shade like him there today, watching all that happened. He’s as sure as I that someone cast a spell.”

  “And you trust him.”

  Ethan could only nod. He did trust Reg, in all things. But he couldn’t help wondering if the old ghost was wrong about the specter he saw on Middle Street. It wasn’t that Ethan doubted the figure had been there. Rather, he wondered if Reg had been too quick to conclude that it wasn’t a shade he had seen before.

  Moments earlier, in Richardson’s gaol cell, Ethan had been so sure that his revela conjurings would show a residue of Nate Ramsey’s power—a brilliant aqua hue that to this day still haunted Ethan’s nightmares—that he had flinched as he cast the spells. During that one horror-filled week in July of the previous year, Ramsey had both tormented and tortured him; the captain had come very near to killing him. Ethan didn’t know if Ramsey was alive or dead; he had no reason to believe that the man had played any part in the events of the past day. But Ethan’s fear of him ran every bit as deep as his fear of prisons—he had never thought that he could possibly be so frightened of one man. Then again, Ramsey was no ordinary man. He was a conjurer of exceptional ability. He was also vengeful, vicious, cruel, as unpredictable as the New England weather, and utterly mad. Knowing that he might one day return, and anticipating that day with dread, Ethan had spent the past several months learning new conjurings and honing his spellmaking as he had not since he was a boy, new to his power. And even so, he knew that he remained utterly unprepared for a new confrontation with the man.

  “There’s still more to this than you’re saying,” Kannice said. “I can tell when you’re keeping things from me.”

  He shook his head. “It’s nothing. I—This has been a long, difficult day.” He could tell from the way she regarded him that his denials hadn’t convinced her. “When I know more, I’ll tell you more. Right now I’m certain of nothing.”

  “I understand. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry…”

  Ethan toyed with the brim of his hat. He was keeping secrets and she was apologizing to him. Worse, they were speaking to each other as if strangers. “You’re
not prying. I … I’ve missed you.”

  She met his gaze. “I know. I’ve missed you. Stay with me tonight. Please.”

  He took her hand. “I’d like that.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

  “I have work to do. Go sit with Derrey.” She stepped closer, raised herself onto her tiptoes, and kissed him on the lips. “And don’t you dare leave again,” she whispered.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He released her hand and walked back to where Diver and Deborah were seated.

  “It’s nice to see you and Kannice getting on again, Ethan,” Diver said, sounding a bit too enthusiastic.

  “Don’t worry, Diver. I’m not angry with you.”

  Diver exhaled, and smiled with relief. “Well, good. She made me tell her where you’d gone. I swear it. I don’t know how you keep a secret from that woman.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” Deborah said, a reproach in the words. “Honestly, Derrey, you didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  Diver’s cheeks reddened. “What did you find out, anyway?”

  “Very little. But I did get to put Sheriff Greenleaf to sleep with a spell, so the evening wasn’t a total loss.”

  “Now that’s a story I’d enjoy hearing,” Diver said.

  Deborah reached across the table and patted his hand. “Another time, perhaps. It’s getting late, and you’ve work first thing.”

  Ethan’s friend looked as put out as a boy denied a sweet. “Aye, that I do.”

  Diver and Deborah stood. As Diver stepped past Ethan’s chair, he laid a hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “It is good to see you two together again,” he said, his voice low this time. “I meant that.”

  “I know you did. And the fact is, I don’t like to keep secrets from her, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Diver bade him good night and followed Deborah out of the tavern.

  Not long after they left, Kelf brought Ethan an ale. Ethan sipped it, his back to the wall, as the tavern crowd slowly thinned. He couldn’t take his eyes off Kannice as she wiped the bar clean and bid good night to her patrons. She was willowy, yet strong, stubborn, yet quick to smile. He had never known another woman like her, and perhaps their time apart had the unintended benefit of reminding him that this was so.

  Before long, only she, Kelf, and Ethan remained. She and the barman made short work of the night’s last chores and then she let Kelf out, and locked the door.

  She crossed the great room to where Ethan still sat, blowing out candles along the way. He reached for his empty tankard, but she said, “Leave it.”

  She held out a hand to him. He grasped it, stood, gathered her in his arms, and kissed her deeply.

  Wordlessly, she led him up the stairs and through the narrow corridors to her bedchamber. There they lit a single candle and kissed again. Ethan began to unlace her bodice; she unbuttoned his waistcoat and then his shirt. The chamber was cold, but neither of them cared. Kannice laid him down on the blankets and straddled him, her hair like spun gold in the candlelight, her skin soft and smooth and cool. It occurred to Ethan that he had forgotten just how lovely she was. After that he lost track of time, and later, of thought itself.

  They made love with a fierce tenderness that was as urgent and intense as the nights Ethan recalled from the first months of their love affair. Fueled by grief and passion and hunger too long denied, they came together again and again, until at last, sated and exhausted, they fell into a deep slumber.

  * * *

  Ethan woke early, as the first silvery light of the morn seeped into Kannice’s room around the shutters on her window. Usually she rose before he, but she still lay beside him, her breathing deep and steady, her body warming his.

  Though reluctant to leave for any reason, much less an appointment with Theophilus Lillie, Ethan swung himself out of bed, making every attempt to move silently. But as he dressed hurriedly, shivering in the cold, he heard Kannice stir.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, sounding sleepy.

  “Mister Lillie is expecting me.”

  She watched him, her brow furrowing once more, as it seemed to so often these days when they spoke of his work. There had been a time, only a few months before, when she had tried to convince Ethan to give up thieftaking and join her in running the Dowsing Rod. He had done little to encourage her hope in this regard, and it had been some time since last she even mentioned the possibility. But occasionally he caught her looking at him in a way that told him she still wished he would consider a change in profession. She regarded him in that manner now.

  But all she said was “Be careful. It could be dangerous there today.”

  “Aye, I will.” He finished dressing, and bent to kiss her.

  “Are you sure you can’t stay a while longer?”

  “I’m sure that if I stay for a minute it will turn into an hour, and if I stay for an hour, I’ll lose the entire day.”

  She kissed him again. “You would consider such a day a loss?”

  “Not at all. But I think that I had best leave now, while I still can.”

  “But you’ll be back tonight?” she asked. Her smile lingered, but he could tell that she had asked the question in earnest.

  “I promise that I will.”

  “Good. Then go on.”

  He left her, took a bit of bread and butter from the kitchen and left tuppence in the till, and let himself out of the tavern. Gray clouds still covered the sky, but the air had grown warmer. Ethan thought he could smell a storm riding the wind.

  His hands buried in his pockets, he followed his usual circuitous route past Murray’s Barracks and into the North End. He found Middle Street largely deserted. Richardson’s house appeared to have been abandoned; Ethan saw no sign that Richardson’s wife and daughters remained within. The door had been propped up against the house, but the entryway was not secured. The broken windows had not been boarded. The façade of the structure bore stains from the eggs and pieces of rotten food thrown at it by the mob the day before.

  Closer to Lillie’s dry goods shop, the wooden effigies and the hand-shaped sign lay in the street, broken and trampled. The structure itself, though, was unmarred, save for the tar and feathers that still covered the windows.

  Ethan did not see Lillie moving about within, and when he knocked no one answered. He stood by the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet to stay warm, and waited for the merchant.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  A few minutes later, Lillie turned onto Middle Street from Cross Street to the north. He halted upon spotting Ethan, and even took a step back; Ethan thought he might flee. But recognition flashed in his eyes and he came forward, glancing about as he did.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here, Mister Kaille,” he said.

  “We have an arrangement, sir. I feel that I owe you the courtesy of an explanation before I terminate it.”

  The words crossed Ethan’s lips before he gave much thought to their meaning. But as soon as he heard himself speak them, he knew that this was why he had come.

  Lillie scowled. “What makes you think that I have any interest in hearing your explanation?”

  Ethan grinned, feeling better than he had in days. “Frankly, sir, I couldn’t care less whether or not you wish to hear what I have to say. You will hear it. And then I’ll be on my way.”

  Lillie dismissed him with a wave of his hand and turned his back, fumbling with the keys to his shop. Ethan strode forward, grabbed the man by the shoulder, and spun him around so that they were face-to-face. The merchant shrank away, cowering like a cur expecting a beating.

  “I just want to be left alone,” he said, his voice quavering.

  “And so you shall be. But understand, you will listen to me first.”

  “Why should I? To hear more insults? More threats? You’re all the same, you riffraff. I am a simple merchant, trying to make an honest wage. I’ve done nothing wrong, and yet I’m bullied and beaten. My wares are stolen, destroye
d.” He slapped his leg, the sound echoing across the empty street. “I have done nothing wrong!”

  Ethan laughed, which only seemed to infuriate the man more. “You count me with those who were in the street yesterday? You’re a bigger fool than I thought. They hate me because I’ve been working for you. What’s more, I’ve refused to ally myself with the Sons of Liberty because I believe their tactics to be … irresponsible. They have too little respect for the sanctity of a man’s property and too much confidence in their own righteousness. But you…” Ethan shook his head.

  “Men like you and Ebenezer Richardson are worse by far than even the greatest fools in that rabble gathered here yesterday. Because you would dismiss their calls for liberty without a thought. Of course they’re naïve. Of course they’re blinded by their ardor for the ‘great cause.’ I would even grant that many of them have been driven, at least initially, by parsimony, by their desire to avoid another tax. But they are, in the end, fighting for something other than the weight of their own purses.”

  “You think me greedy?” Lillie asked, clearly outraged.

  “I think you selfish and small.”

  “You do me an injustice, sir!”

  “If he was in that mob, with the rest of the rabble, he probably deserved it.”

  Lillie paled at the repetition of his own words. His gaze, so angry a moment before, slid away. “I didn’t mean that,” he said, his voice low. “Ebenezer is an idiot. He should never have fired into that mob. I didn’t know at the time that the boy was so grievously wounded.”

  “I told you he was.”

  Lillie nodded. “You did. But I didn’t believe you. I thought you were exaggerating, that your passions were inflamed by all that you had seen.”

  “They were,” Ethan said. “They still are.”

  Lillie looked him in the eye, though this simple act seemed to take a great effort. “So, you no longer wish to work for me?”

  “No, sir. I don’t.”

  “I can make matters difficult for you, you know. I may be hated by the rab—” He licked his lips. “By those who support Samuel Adams and his kind. But I’m still an influential man. There are families who, at a word from me, would never deign to hire you.”