It dragged me right to the edge. I felt the whole weight of the animal tighten for an instant on the end of my arm, then the bridles tore from its head, and it went spinning down into blackness.
And swaying over the hole, dangling from a thong, was my leather pouch full of tools.
It was snagged on a mere spike of wood at the end of a broken plank. I couldn’t reach it no matter how I stretched, and each time I moved, the pouch only swung more violently than before. First the hammer and then the file poked out from the opening. The wind plucked at the pouch; the rain beat against it. And I saw I would lose it all if I waited any longer.
I gathered myself and lunged forward. My fingers scraped on the thong. It slipped off the wood, and the pouch fell. I nearly followed it down as I reached out and caught it. But I lost the hammer and I lost the file, and my heart fell with them. There seemed no point in going on, yet I couldn’t go back. So I took the chisel and left the pouch; I drew up my coat collar and trudged off toward Pendennis.
Before long the wind carried with it the smell of the sea. I kept it on my cheek, as Mary had said, and counted my paces. At six hundred and ten, I came to a road.
It was rutted deeply by the wheels of heavy carts. And though Mary had warned me against it, I followed the road toward the southwest. Listening hard for horses or men, I trotted along, splashing in the rain-filled ruts.
Then I came to a crossroad. And I met Tommy Colwyn.
He was shriveled and black. He hung from a gibbet in loops of great chain that tingled and clanged, that whistled with the wind. His arms rose and fell; his hair streamed out in thin, sparse little clumps. He swung and shook, and he swayed toward me with what seemed like a smile—until I saw his lips hanging in shreds like twists of old rope.
I ran past him and turned left at the fork. The rain drove at me in a furious gust that rattled the chains and howled through the links in a voice straight from the grave. And in the clank and creak of metal, I imagined Tommy Colwyn coming down from the gibbet, staggering after me, reaching out with skeleton hands. I couldn’t look back. I felt I’d drop dead if I looked behind me. And I ran and I ran, until I topped a rise and saw the village below.
The few lights of Pendennis shone yellow in the harbor water. And dim as stars of the dawn, tiny and haloed by rain, the saints of the church were watching me come.
I left the road and ran straight for the bridge, down to the banks of the little river. The surf was like thunder, rumbling up the valley. And under the huge arch of the bridge, I rested out of the weather. There was an old skiff covered with tarpaulins, and I sat on its gunwale and cried.
The tide was already on the ebb, the swollen river rushing past in eddies and swirls. Beyond the bridge, where the current met the wind, the water piled into steep-sided waves. When I looked away, the bridge and the shore and the stones at my feet all wavered and flowed like the water. I got down on my knees and searched through the stones, picking them up and putting them down, until I found one that fitted well in my hand, that would do for a hammer.
I’d just picked it up when I heard a gunshot, alarmingly close, and another right after. They echoed under the bridge and back and forth up the valley.
A ship in the bay.
Within moments I heard the horses coming. It was as though the riders had been waiting like racers for the sound of the gun. First one and then many went galloping over the bridge above me. Behind them came the wagons, creaking and groaning, gravel crunching under iron-rimmed wheels. Next would come the people, with axes and picks, and with them the dogs that would sniff me out like an otter.
And I was trapped on the wrong side of the swollen river.
The water was too deep and furious for wading. It would take me too long to walk up one bank and down the other. My only chance was the skiff.
I tore at the tarpaulins. The boat was old and clinker-built, the nails dripping rust. Swallows had built their mud-hut nest in the curve of the stem. And there was only one oar. The tow rope was tied around a large rock, the rope so rotten at the end that it was easier to break than untie. But I stuffed the tarpaulins down in the bilge and rocked the boat up on its keel. I waited for a gust. Then, in the roar of wind, I pushed against the boat.
It slid easily, with a rumble of stones that no one would hear. The river caught it and pulled as I pushed. I clambered over the transom and landed in a pool of water.
The boat leaked like a half-shingled roof. Water welled up through the garboard seams and trickled past the transom. But I burrowed under the tarpaulins as I went sweeping out from under the bridge.
If anyone saw me, nobody cared. The old boat rocked and spun down the river, bow first, then stern first. It hit broadside to the waves, shipping a cold gallon of water before it leapt on a crest and twirled end over end. Water slopped in the other side; the oar floated up and bumped against my knee. I grabbed it and threw off the tarpaulins.
The bridge was well behind me, a black hulk in the rain. A lantern bobbed across it, held by a man who shimmered in its light like a silvery ghost. I knelt on a thwart and paddled with the oar. But the skiff only turned in its place, and the next wave burst against the bow with a crack of old wood.
The current was stronger than the wind. I rolled and crashed through the waves, sweeping down past the first rows of buildings, bailing with my hands as the rain hammered down. And to seaward I heard the breakers, the awful roar of enormous waves.
In the village, windows bright with light blinked to darkness. I went rushing past the chandlery, down the row of roofs where Stumps had chased me. Then the skiff reared up and pitched me back to the stern. And when I reached for a handhold, I found the notch cut in the transom, the U carved out for a sculling oar. I cursed myself; anyone else would have seen it right away.
I swung the oar round and dropped it in the groove. The blade splashed into the water behind me. I heaved and pushed, and the skiff crawled forward. The rain fell with a hissing, steaming violence, flattening the waves. Half full of water, the boat moved like a sponge. But at last it bumped against the seawall just above the brewery, and turned to rub its planks against the stone.
I grabbed at loose brick, at clumps of grass. It all came away in my hands. And then the drain tunnel opened before me, gushing water thick with slime, but I reached up and wedged in my arms. When I stood on the bow, the boat nearly sank under me. I crawled into the drain, through the torrent of runoff, with the tow rope in my hand.
I couldn’t see my father, and for a horrible moment I thought he was gone. Then I heard his breathing and I said, “Father, I’m back.” And he said, “It’s you? Oh, dear God, it’s you.”
Water raged through the tunnel. It had covered the shelf where Father lay, and now lapped just below it. I hitched the tow rope to a link of chain, and in the darkness I emptied my pockets onto the bricks.
“The tide,” said Father. He coughed; even talking was an effort for him. “The tide …”
“I know,” I said. “It’s falling now.”
I opened the tinderbox and took out the flint. I held it as though it were gold, so frightened was I that it would fall from my hands and go plinking down to the sea. I struck the flint. Sparks flew like fireflies, settling in the tinder. When it smoldered, I got the candle going. It filled the space with its yellow glow.
My father lay just as I’d left him. He was ghastly pale, and even the faint light of the candle hurt his eyes. Driven by the storm, the tide had risen to his shoulders, leaving only splotches of dry cloth, like islands, on his chest and knees. His foot was—
I couldn’t look. The rats had come back.
I covered the chisel with my coat to muffle the sound, and by candlelight I set to work—tapping, tapping on the iron collars around his wrists. He’d pulled at them until the skin was stripped off like a bracelet, and with every strike of the chisel his hand flexed in pain. I hammered and hammered until my hands were numb. Then I lifted the chisel and saw the sad little scratch I’d made
in the metal. I hadn’t done much more than chip off the rust.
“Is it working?” asked Father.
“Halfway there,” I lied.
The sound of my work rang through the chamber. The candle guttered. Black smoke stinking of tallow wafted over us. A chip broke from the stone and ricocheted off the walls. At each blow a tingle shot up my arm.
“Let me see,” said Father.
There was a gouge in the metal, a groove no deeper than a ha’penny’s width.
Father groaned. “No use,” he said. “Never do it.”
I didn’t answer. I gritted my teeth and raised the stone again. The sound I made was steady as dripping water—clink-clink, clink-clink—and Father clenched his fists and trembled, as though each strike of the chisel shook right through him. A corner chipped from the stone, another a moment later. A powdery dust covered my hands and filled my nostrils. It turned to a red mud on Father’s wrist. And this was just one collar. One of four.
I sat back against the wall. Father was right; it couldn’t be done.
He rolled his face toward me, and I saw he was crying. “You tried,” he said. “Did your best.” I had to strain to hear him. “Leave me now.”
“No!” I said. I snatched up the rock and attacked the collar with a fury, chips of stone flying like snow. Then the stone cracked in two, and my fist drove right down on the chisel. And the sound seemed to echo in the building above us.
But it wasn’t an echo. Someone was up there, crossing the floor. Someone was coming toward us.
Chapter 16
A DEAD MAN RISES
The trapdoor cracked open. The candle flame grew in the draft, reaching up, brightening the space. Fingers came through, feeling at the door. Then it banged open, and the candle went out.
There was a gasp from above us. “John! John, it’s me.”
“Mary,” I said. I felt relief, and tremendous joy that she had come to help me.
I fumbled in the dark to find the tinderbox. I could hear Mary coming down through the hatch in a rustle of clothes.
“Light the candle,” she said. I knew she was close beside me, but her voice seemed muffled and far away.
I said, “I’m trying.”
I struck the flint and got the tinder glowing. And when the candle caught—when I raised my eyes—I was looking straight at Parson Tweed.
He wore his black cassock, but not the hat, and his head—like a bleached skull—suddenly leapt from the dafkness as though it hung suspended in the air.
My hands shook so badly that Parson Tweed had to bring the candle to the flame for me. And only then did I see Mary kneeling at the edge of the door, holding back her rain-soaked hair as she peered down through the hole.
“We’ve brought another file,” she said. “And a handspike.”
“Where’s your uncle?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She slid the spike to the edge of the hole. “We heard the gunshots, and he rode off right away. Eli was sleeping, properly sleeping, so I—”
“She chose to come to me,” said the parson. The spike was neither very long nor very heavy, but he had to struggle with it, and he panted. “I must say that I only wish you both had come sooner.” He let the spike rest on its tip and leaned it toward me. I took it from him. “Proverbs nineteen: ‘A foolish son is the calamity of his father.’ It would appear that I’ve arrived none too soon.”
He stood in the rush of water and touched my father’s face. He asked him, “Have you been here since the wreck?”
“Yes,” said Father.
“Can you walk, do you think?”
“A bit.” Father groaned. “My foot—”
“Good heavens!” said Parson Tweed. He blanched at the sight of Father’s rat-bitten foot, then looked at me with a scornful frown. He patted Father’s hand. “Well, we shall just have to see what we can do.”
I went to work with the handspike, not on the metal collars but on the locks that held them closed. With the spike thrust through the hasp, I pulled and pried.
“Harder,” said the parson.
The spike bent like a longbow. The end sprang loose, and I fell back into the cold stream of runoff.
“Again,” said Parson Tweed. “Mary, come help him, child.”
Mary dropped down through the hatch and into the water. The parson sloshed to the back of the tunnel, by Father’s feet. “A good, sharp pull,” he said. “That should do the trick.”
I fished out the spike and worked it into the hasp. Mary took the handle; I put my hands between hers. “Pull,” I said. Mary leaned back, her whole weight on the spike. It bent, twisted, and then the lock sprang open with a crack, sending Mary and me tumbling to the floor.
“Splendid!” said the parson. “Now the next one. Come, come.”
The second, the third, went as easily as the first. My father sat up, sprawled like a rag doll against the brick. For nearly three days he’d lain cramped and sore, and he sat now almost laughing, his hands trembling as he pressed them to the wall and filled his palms with trickling rain.
“Still one to go,” said Parson Tweed. “Come along. A time for every purpose.”
I carried the spike down toward him. The last collar held Father’s ankle, the same foot the rats had gnawed. Parson Tweed bent down and slipped the spike through the lock. “Now pull,” he said. He slipped his hands in the pockets of his cassock. “The two of you pull.”
We put our weight on it. Mary lifted her foot, dragging down on the spike. Father was watching, urging us on with little nods of his head. The lock snapped, and again Mary and I fell to the floor. The spike splashed down between us, hitting my leg with a thump.
“You’ve done it,” said Father. “You’ve—” Suddenly he stopped.
“Yes,” said Parson Tweed. “You’ve done it now.” He stared straight at me.
In each hand he held a pistol.
Mary cried out. “What are you doing?”
“God helps those who help themselves. He sent you here to break these chains because I could not do it alone.” The parson aimed the guns right at me. “I went looking for you, boy, up at Galilee. But it was Eli I found in the darkness of the stable, and it’s a pity what happened. Still, there’s a sense in God’s mysterious ways. You were spared so that you might come and help me here.”
“You’re the one,” said Mary. “You’re the puppet master.”
Parson Tweed frowned, then slowly smiled. “I see,” he said. “Yes, they are rather puppetlike, Caleb Stratton and his lot. Heads of wood. Feet of clay.”
“But I trusted you.”
“Oh, child, this is not for me. It’s for the church. For all of Pendennis.”
“And Uncle Simon? Is he one of your—”
“Hush now, Mary.” His eyes narrowed. “I mean to have that gold. I want to know where it is.” He kept his pistols steady, but turned his eyes to Father. “I suspect you’ve hidden it, hmmm? I suspect even the boy doesn’t know where. But you brought it ashore and buried it, most likely somewhere near the Tombstones.”
Father didn’t speak. He just stared dumbly at Parson Tweed.
“I’ll kill the boy!” With his thumbs, the parson cocked both pistols. “As the Lord is my witness, I’ll put a ball right through his heart.”
“No!” said Father. He held out his hands.
“I don’t want to do it,” said Parson Tweed. “I have no taste for this sort of thing. If you’ll only tell me where the gold is, the three of us shall go down and dig it up together, hmmm? And then you can go. I give you my word on that.”
“No!” cried Father again.
“The boy for the gold,” said Parson Tweed. He looked right at Father, and said it again: “Come now. The boy for the gold.”
“Tell him!” I shouted. For a moment the pistols wavered. They turned away from me, and I snatched up the handspike. I leapt to my feet—and the room exploded. I saw a flash of light blossom from the parson’s right hand, saw the flames and the smoke spew from th
e pistol’s barrel. I even saw the ball—or thought I did—hurtling toward me. And Mary was screaming and Father was shouting and the sound of the gun was deafening. I staggered back, sure I’d been shot, not knowing where, reeling and tumbling through the mouth of the drain, falling forever, it seemed, until I broke headfirst through the cold, dark waters of the harbor.
I sank deep. I rose to the surface, kicking and writhing. The blackness of night and the blackness of water were one and the same. Mary’s screams stopped in a sudden, rumbling silence, then started again, started and stopped as I breathed first air and then water as I clawed at the stones of the wall. And finally my feet hit something soft, and I kicked against it, rising up with my hands flailing, until at last they found something to cling to.
The skiff. It wallowed at the foot of the steps, almost filled to the gunwales. I got my hands inside, and then my arms, and I rested, with the rain falling coldly on my shoulders.
And up from the gloomy sea, dislodged by my feet, rose the body of Stumps.
He floated on his back like a hideous jellyfish, bloated and pale. The tide bumped him against me, and his hand went round my waist. I pushed him away, but he only came back. The water rippled over his face, sloshing in his mouth. His eyes were round and white as eggs.
Above me, the door to the brewery crashed open. Mary flew out, screaming my name. Only moments had passed, though I felt older by a year.
“John!” she cried. “John!”
I tried to answer, but I couldn’t. I saw Parson Tweed stoop through the doorway, still holding one of his pistols, and for an instant our eyes met. Then, with one step, he grabbed hold of Mary’s clothes.
She fought him. She struggled and kicked. She tore free, but he only caught her again, wrapping her hair in his fist until he forced her to her knees. Then he raised his pistol and fired.
It was a wild shot. The ball struck the water beside me, raising a geyser that vanished in the wind. He raised the pistol like a club. Up went his arm.
And he crumpled like a hammered nail. He bent forward, sagged, then fell to the stone.
The Wreckers Page 12
