An Extraordinary Union

by Alyssa Cole

  “We’re here,” was all Mary said. “No sign of the boat yet.”

  “You told me your husband was a river pilot, but not how he came to work on this warship he’s stealing,” Malcolm said as they all tramped down to the river bank. A small rowboat waited there, and he began inspecting its soundness.

  “How most black folk come to it: Some white man was too lazy to do the work he was hired for, so one of us got to do it for him,” Mary said.

  Malcolm paused his inspection for a moment and then shrugged.

  “Can’t argue with that,” he said. “Did he tell you whether we should be waiting on the banks or row out and wait for him?”

  “Well, he said that we shouldn’t row out before we saw him because we might get sighted by another boat. That, and the currents are strong.”

  “Well, I’m going to push the boat out a bit and you all should get in. That way we can shove off as soon as we catch sight of the boat.”

  Malcolm dug his feet into the rocky shore and pushed at the boat, steadying it before helping Mary and Althea climb in.

  “Ladies first,” he remarked with a censuring look at Elle’s trousers, and she nearly laughed. They were so close to escaping, and he was so close to her. A sense of giddiness filled her.

  Then she heard a familiar sound behind her—the metallic scrape of a cocking gun—and the gratitude drained out from her.

  “Fancy meeting you again,” Malcolm said cheerfully as Elle turned. There, standing with his gun trained on them, was the slaver they had left in the road the night before.

  CHAPTER 25

  Malcolm could see that Elle was regretting two things: that she’d shown the slaver mercy and that she didn’t have her gun. Her hand patted at her thigh. Her knife was likely sheathed beneath the trousers, unreachable. He was keenly regretting the loss of his sidearm as well.

  The man startled as he recognized Malcolm and Elle and then trained his gun on them. “You know they have a saying for moments like this: ‘What goes around comes around.’”

  He looked pleased with himself, and Malcolm hoped that this would be one of the only times in his and Elle’s relationship that a difference of opinion actually came to anything.

  “Yes, they do have that saying,” Malcolm said carefully. “But you’re misapplying it here tonight. It was far more useful yesterday. I think getting killed while trying to take a person and enslave them is the exact embodiment of that phrase.”

  “Them boys you killed was my friends,” the man said angrily. “One of them got a wife and a baby and needed the money.”

  “You think those black folks you’re snatching don’t have families?” Elle asked from behind him, her voice low and furious. “You think I want to have some man’s blood on my hands? I have to live with the sin of killing that man because you were too lazy to make money the honest way. Instead, you decided to steal someone else’s hard work. Forgive me if I don’t pity you.”

  Malcolm casually took a few steps to the side, coming between Elle and the man, who sputtered at the challenge to his choice of vocation.

  “This is just the way it is,” the man said defensively. “Whites on top, darkies below. I didn’t make things the way they are. And neither did Jeb or Wesley, and they dead now!”

  Malcolm gazed at the man, using the logic of a child to reason on things that affected the lives of so many.

  “So, if a law passed today that said rich men could snatch you off the road and force you to work for them because you’re naturally beneath them, you would go willingly?” he asked.

  “Hell no,” the man bit out. Malcolm stared at the man and waited for understanding of his hypocrisy to dawn on him. When a long moment had passed, Malcolm had to accept that there would be none forthcoming. This man saw himself as a person whose life held value, and for him, Elle’s, Mary’s, and Althea’s lives did not. He probably couldn’t even fathom in his wildest imaginations that their lives could have purpose beyond enslavement. It was time for a different tack.

  “How much money do you think you’re going to get out of this?” Malcolm asked.

  “If I take them back to the senator, a few bucks. If I sell ’em myself, maybe nine hundred each for the darkies, probably more because they’re all still breedable—” The man was cut off from an impatient sound in Malcolm’s throat.

  “No, the actual answer is zero. You’re not going to get anything for these women because the senator’s men would find you before you got anywhere and kill you for theft. And you’re right, they’d only give you a paltry amount for returning them safely. But if you let us go, I’ll give you enough money that you won’t skulk along these roads preying on innocents.”

  Elle placed a hand on his back, censuring him.

  “You got the money on you now?” the man asked, a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

  “No, my belongings were taken when I was captured, but you have my word. I’m a very rich man, a rich man who wants to live. I’ll have the money sent to you as soon as I make my way home.”

  He said the words as if they were of no consequence, but he knew it was a gamble—one that a man accustomed to getting his way or paying for it might make.

  “You expect me to trust you?” the man asked, incredulous.

  “Do you think the senator and his men would be more concerned with paying some poor cracker than I am? If so, you’re sorely mistaken. In fact, if you bring me in to him, there’s no stopping me from saying that you helped me escape.”

  “Why would I do that?” the man asked, taking a step back. “No one would believe a traitor like you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Malcolm said, gentling his tone, making sure that he seemed like he was on the man’s side. “They think we’re like rats: Where you find one, there’s sure to be more. And they always want to know who the others are, however unlikely the suspect. Killing a man or two besides me will really make them feel like they’ve got the job done right.”

  The man was clutching his rifle now, looking all around as if to see whether anyone had overheard the conversation.

  “How much would you give me,” he asked, eyes darting this way and that.

  Gotcha, Malcolm thought viciously. Behind him, he could hear the stillness of the night being broken by the baritone hum of a steamship’s engine. Mary’s husband was approaching. They were so close to pulling this off.

  “Get in the boat, Elle,” he said in a low voice without turning, and continued bargaining with the man. “A thousand.”

  He’d been tempted to name some exorbitant amount, but that would have ringed false. Rich people didn’t get that way by spending more than they had to.

  “That’s nothing compared to what I could get!” the man spat, tensing as if ready to spring upon Malcolm.

  “One thousand and your life is an excellent bargain, I reckon. A dead man doesn’t need money.”

  He felt the boat move behind him, heard the splash as the water accommodated the boat’s new weight.

  “How will I get the money?” the man asked, lowering his gun a little.

  “Go to the Richmond Central bank in five days’ time and ask for a wire transfer from your Uncle Walter Scott to . . . What’s your name, son?”

  Waves began lapping at Malcolm’s boots, and the sound of the steamer was almost upon them. He began to exert some force on the dinghy with his back, pushing it slowly into the water.

  “Daniel. Daniel Dumont Kingsley.”

  From behind them came the low, urgent shouts of the crew members of the ship, beckoning them. Malcolm didn’t turn, but he saw Daniel’s face go white in the moonlight. He lowered his gun and openly stared past Malcolm. The warship must have been quite a sight.

  He gave the boat one final shove and hopped into it.

  “Farewell, Mr. Kingsley! Your just reward shall arrive soon,” he called as he settled into the middle bench and began to row.

  Mary and Althea stared blankly at him, as if he were some kind of maniac. Elle gave h
im a fierce smile.

  “The legendary Mr. McCall,” she said in a low voice that warmed him from the inside out.

  Then the current gripped the boat, threatening to suck them out and away from the ship that waited for them. Malcolm could spare no thought for Elle or anyone else then. It was just the burn of his shoulders and palms, and the sickening pinch of his injured ribs, as he fought the fierce strength of the water. The men on the boat urged him on from behind, giving direction when he seemed to drift off course, and finally they called, “Hold.” He could feel the bulk of the ship behind him without seeing it.

  A rope ladder was slung down, and he passed over Althea and then Mary to climb up the ladder in their unwieldy skirts.

  “We did it,” Elle murmured against his lips, slipping him a quick kiss as he bolstered her onto the ladder. He smiled, but that was when he heard the crack of the gunshot and the splash in the water next to the boat.

  “I knew you didn’t burn, traitor!” Rufus’s angry voice rang out in the still night. And then there was another crack and another splash dangerously close to Elle.

  He leapt up to where she struggled on the ladder, his hands a couple of rungs above hers and his feet a couple below. Every injury he’d accumulated cried out against the motion, but he’d accomplished his goal. His body blocked hers completely.

  “Malcolm,” her voice was edged with panic.

  “Don’t worry, lass, just climb,” he said gently. “Everything will be okay. They’re too far away.”

  This was belied by the bullet that flew past them and lodged in the hull of the boat. From above them, the rapport of rifles signaled that the men on the ship were returning fire.

  “Just keep climbing. Think about all the things we have to look forward to. A long sleep in a comfortable bed after we get to Washington. A real meal together, perhaps even with utensils enough for two.”

  He kept on babbling as they climbed, distracting her and himself from the danger that surrounded them. The volleys stopped as they reached the ship’s rail, coming into full sight of the crew of five or six men who had been giving them cover fire as they climbed.

  “Thank you,” he said to the men as Elle climbed up from beneath him. They looked at him suspiciously, but Mary had already explained his presence, so they moved to resume their positions.

  Elle turned and gave him a bright, victorious smile. All of the night’s trials faded away at the sight of her waiting for him with admiration in her eyes.

  “Come on, then,” she said, holding out her hands to help him aboard, and that’s when he felt it. That pull, that shift, that . . . gotcha.

  Malcolm threw up a hand to her, adrenaline and love and hope propelling him up the ladder faster than fear had. He almost ignored the motion in his peripheral vision, but instinct wouldn’t allow him.

  “Reb on board!” shouted a man who was emerging from belowdecks.

  The look in his eyes was wild panic, and Malcolm knew then that it was too late.

  Althea and Mary both screamed out their warning in unison, but the man was a quick draw. He pulled his weapon and shot, just as Malcolm threw his leg over the railing. Pain suddenly radiated in his chest, hurting even more when he saw the Elle’s smile morph into a grimace of horror. He was already falling over backward, hands groping for purchase in the air, eyes on Elle the whole time. She reached out for him, and for a second he thought she had him. Then the thread of the crude necklace that she’d been holding him by snapped. Her wail began to ring out, but the wind ripped the sound from his ears as he fell into the grasping waves of the icy river.

  CHAPTER 26

  Malcolm was already battered, but he hit the water hard and the rushing currents made his earlier pummeling seem like a gentle caress. The icy water churned about him, pushing him down toward the bottom of the river.

  NO!

  He surged against the pressure of the water, fighting toward the surface, but as he propelled himself against the punishing power of the river, he realized that he didn’t truly know which way was up. His mouth filled with briny liquid and he squinted against the inky darkness.

  Is that the boat above?

  He moved to churn toward what could have been the moon or a figment of his imagination, but got swept into a powerful current. It ripped at his clothing and sucked at his boots, spinning him about and disorienting him even more.

  His chest began to ache from holding his breath, and he gasped against his will, taking in a lungful of water. Panic seized him and he thrashed about wildly, searching for anything that could give him a sign of which way to go.

  There was nothing. Nothing but the black waters pressing in on him, seeking entrance at his mouth and nose.

  The darkness was beginning to become a tangible thing, wrapping around him like a swaddling blanket and calming his panic as the water claimed him as its own. The sound of the boat chugging on, away from him, vibrated through that darkness. It was leaving him behind. Elle was leaving him behind.

  Elle. ELLE.

  She was suddenly there before him, looking down at him with those eyes that had grabbed him right from the start.

  “You promised,” she said sadly, reaching for him.

  Something hard smacked into his chest then, river debris churned up by the boat’s wake, perhaps. Malcolm couldn’t begin to conjecture what it was. His body had given out—his mind was blank as the siren’s call of the darkness overtook him at last.

  CHAPTER 27

  Elle stood rooted to the deck, the bullet hard in her palm and the black thread that held it whipping in the wind. It took her a moment to realize that the ugly sound that rose above the roar of the engine was coming from her. Timothy’s hat had fallen off and her hair swirled around her face, batting at her as if trying to wake her from this nightmare.

  They had made it onto the ship. Malcolm had been with her, smiling with victory, and now he wasn’t. Blood had bloomed on the chest of his shirt; then he had fallen away from her into the darkness.

  “I can’t swim,” she said in a voice that was too loud. “Who can swim? Someone has to help him—”

  “We don’t have time for that,” one of the men said, avoiding her gaze.

  She rounded on the man who had shot him, whose mouth hung open with shock as he began to understand what he had done.

  Elle grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “You. You have to go get him. It’s your fault!”

  But the man was already shaking his head sadly.

  “I can’t swim either, miss,” he said, his hands covering hers, perhaps to provide comfort but more likely to stop her from throttling him. “I’m sorry, I thought he was trying to stop us. My wife and kids is down below. I thought—”

  Elle collapsed to her knees, her body shaking and her eyes burning. She wanted to cry, but no tears would come. She remembered what she’d told him only the night before.

  I never cried this much before I met you. She now knew it was because she hadn’t understood that a person could feel so much, so strongly, before. Now she thought she’d never feel anything again.

  She felt arms go around her, and she was pulled onto a pile of fabric, cradled by homespun.

  “It’ll be okay, Elle,” Althea soothed as she ran a hand over Elle’s hair as she settled her in her lap. Each drag of Althea’s hand tugged painfully at the stitches, but Elle welcomed the sensation because it offset the icy coldness that was enveloping her.

  Feet ran around her as the crew continued to do their job. There were still obstacles in their path and men at their heels, and who knew if the Union would accept their surrender or take it as a trick and fire on them.

  Malcolm would have said something to make everyone laugh as they headed into the unknown. Instead he was down in that freezing water, cold and pale. She would never hear his laugh again, or feel his lips against hers.

  “Oh, help me,” she whispered raggedly. “Lord, help me.”

  She felt as if she were being squeezed in a vise, with no pl
ace for the excess to go. She gripped the bullet in her hand tightly and stared at the starry sky.

  A heavy tread approached and then a pair of brawny legs in tan trousers blocked her view.

  “Is this her, Mary?” a baritone voice asked.

  “Yes, Robert.” Mary’s voice quavered and Elle knew that her friend fought tears.

  The legs bent and Elle was face-to-face with a handsome dark-skinned man. He was young, but there was an intensity in his eyes that gave him an air of command. You felt compelled to give him your attention, and your respect.

  Elle stared at him.

  Help me.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, and she could tell that he wasn’t just saying it to make her feel better. “I understand that even though that fella wore gray, he was on our side and helped my wife to get here safely. I owe him a debt of gratitude for that alone. But there are several men on this ship, and their families. I promised them I would get them out, and if I stopped to search for him I would be breaking that promise. Do you understand?”

  She had said to Malcolm herself that there were more important things than just the two of them. It had been much easier to say than to put into practice.

  Elle gave a jerky nod, although his words tore her in two. He mirrored her movement.

  “Now, maybe—” he began, then shook his head. “Never mind. Just rest here and try to be strong, okay?”

  He stood, and when he turned he held Mary close and hard, and she knew what he was thinking.

  Thank God it wasn’t you who was lost.

  Elle closed her eyes against the couple, but that didn’t stop the hot tears. She couldn’t fathom that Malcolm was gone. That she’d never hear his voice, laugh at his silliness, or burn from his touch. Grief lodged in her chest and made itself comfortable there. A quote from Dickens jumped to the forefront of her mind, terrible in the future it foreshadowed: “The broken heart. You think you will die, but you just keep living, day after day after terrible day.”

  Things were relatively quiet for some time. Elle wasn’t sure if she was processing time correctly, if hours had passed or minutes. The ship slowed at one point and there was the sound of action belowdecks, but Elle could do nothing but squeeze her lips together and her eyes shut. It probably meant they were approaching the final checkpoint. Robert would provide the signal, and hopefully they would pass through to freedom or be sunk. She knew she should care more about the outcome of their journey, but she didn’t have it in her. She heard the sound of soft footsteps and then Mary was beside her again, cocooning her in the warmth of an additional skirt.