The Devil's Workshop

by Donnally Miller

  “As I was telling you, I was swallowed by a fish. And in –“

  Barnacle Jack brought his hand down hard on the table. Mugs and platters clattered; other conversation abruptly stopped. In the silence all heard him bellow, “I’ll have no more of your fish! . . . You’ve a queer way of stringing a man along. Now tell me what you did with the widow at Coldblood Farm.”

  “Easy, Jack, easy,” said Crazy Dog. “There’s no call to be shouting.”

  “I’ll have no fighting on these premises,” said the innkeeper. “If you want to fight I’ll have you go outside.”

  “Perhaps you and me should step outside,” said Barnacle Jack. “I’ve a feeling I’ll be needing to beat the truth out of you. Connor, come with. I’ll have you hold him while I do it.” He grabbed Tom’s collar and dragged him to his feet. The man with the wooden leg rose to accompany them. Tom saw his wooden leg was a bit the longer and he walked with an ungainly clump-thump.

  Just as they were leaving, a man in a tattered red uniform staggered in, horror written across his face. This was one of the soldiers who’d escaped into the woods in yesterday’s fight. Having hidden overnight, he’d found his way to the Road in the morning. He was bloody and covered in dirt. “Help,” was the only word he could utter.

  “Who are you, man, and what’s your story?” asked Barnacle Jack.

  “I’m Cuthbert Childress, Captain Childress of the Eighteenth Regiment,” he said. “Water, please — ,” he tottered into Barnacle Jack, “for the sake of God.” Then he collapsed into a nearby chair. “And bandages if you have them.”

  Jack had been on the point of cursing the man for getting in his way when, recognizing the ragged remnants of the uniform, he quickly understood this was more momentous news. “My God, man, what’s happened?”

  “We’ve been massacred. The Indians knew our route and were waiting for us. Some traitor sold us out.”

  The innkeeper came bustling up with the bandages and the water.

  “I’ve been bleeding pretty bad. I was fearing I’d lose too much blood. Never thought I’d make it this far.”

  “I’ll patch you up,” the innkeeper said, applying the bandages. “Are more coming?”

  “Can’t tell. Haven’t seen any others.”

  Tom sought to get away while Jack’s attention was elsewhere. Hobbling as quickly as he could he got out the tavern door and was down the Road in the direction the soldier had come from before anyone knew what he was up to. He was just thinking he’d gotten away when Connor, the peg leg, saw what he was doing and started after him cutlass in hand. It made for a zany chase at first, a lame man run down by a one-legged cripple, and Tom thought his chances of escaping were good, but it didn’t take long for him to realize his stamina was so poor and his blisters so bad he was bound to lose even this race, so he ducked out of sight into the woods to his right and tried to find a place to hide. Scrambling through the undergrowth he came on a rock with a tree trunk fallen over it that provided some shelter, so he clambered under and held as still as he could. Connor came blundering around near him, moving in and out of shadow, chopping down vines with his cutlass and cursing, so he just held his breath and prayed for a little luck. But luck wasn’t with him. Connor, brandishing his cutlass, pushed the tree trunk to one side and said, “There you are. Stay still. Don’t move.” Tom prepared to fight, but Connor just lay down next to him and kept still.

  After a few moments Tom asked, “What are you doing?”

  “What’s it look like? I’m giving you the collar.”

  “But you’re —”

  “No point going back this quick. We can take the afternoon off. I’ll take you back when I get hungry.”

  “But . . . aren’t there things you have to do?”

  “Yes. And I’ve done them. I have to nab you, and now I’m tired. I’ve been walking all morning, and that’s hard on a one-legged man. They ought to let me ride one of the horses, but they don’t see it that way.”

  “Aren’t you worried I might beat you up, or steal your cutlass and cut your throat and escape?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t even try.”

  Tom thought about trying it, but decided to wait for a better opportunity. “Won’t Crazy Dog and Jack be angry at you for taking all afternoon to bring me back?”

  “Not if that’s how long it takes. How long you think it takes a one-legged man to catch a varmint like you? It takes all afternoon.”

  Tom thought he should be bothered by this, but couldn’t think of a reason why. “I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of catching me if it takes all afternoon.”

  “I’m doing a great job of catching you. You’re just doing a bad job of getting away.”

  “They’ll know you didn’t take all afternoon.”

  “How they going to know that?”

  “What if I tell?”

  “They won’t believe nothing you say. They already know you’re a liar. You’re no good at telling lies.”

  Tom thought that over. “That’s certainly something I know about myself. I suppose it’s because basically I’m an honest person.”

  “No. It’s because your eyeballs go all dodgy.”

  Meanwhile at the tavern Captain Childress had told everyone what had happened. He’d had a hard time of it after the battle in the Forest. He’d found a place to hide during the day and then when darkness fell he’d fetched a compass through the Forest to stay away from the Indians. The morning had found him approaching the Coast Road and from there he’d walked to the tavern. Since his arrival, the locals had been expressing a good deal of apprehension, and fear of an Indian attack. Crazy Dog and Barnacle Jack were deep in converse, discussing whether it was safe to travel further at present.

  “We should make our way back to the city,” said Jack. “If they’d come this far, which I doubt they did, not having seen any sign of them, they would not have gone any further.”

  “But I’m starting to have an idea I might like to wait and see how this dispute between the army and the Indians works out,” said Crazy Dog. “I’ve a feeling I might want to wait around to pick up the pieces.”

  “In that case you’ll want the ship. And the crew. And I’ve a feeling we might have left them too long on their own. I dislike this land life.”

  A disheveled looking man with a musket over his shoulder, leading a pony with a young woman mounted on it, came to the door. They’d been traveling all the morning and had thought this might make a place to stop and rest. If you observed the woman closely, you’d see she had a bit of a bump in her belly. The man took a look inside and reported to her what he saw. She was afraid what might be made of it if she were to enter a tavern full of a very rowdy sort whom they deemed would be rough playmates, so they decided as they were nearing Kashahar they would push on and look for another place to rest, perhaps find a spot beside the Road. Little note was made of them as they did not tarry long.

  “This honest fellow John knows something,” said Crazy Dog. “I think he knows where they’ve gone. I’m sure of it. Connor will bring him back.”

  “I hope he does. He’s not been the same since you took his leg,” said Jack.

  “If he returns alone I’ll have his other leg. I hope we’re not embarked on a wild goose chase after this gold, but it is a mighty sum, one I’d not like to see lost . . . And then perhaps I’ll ask you to return and bring the Seahawk here.”

  As Crazy Dog and Barnacle Jack were talking, Connor and Tom, the objects of their discussion, were likewise talking of them. Connor was a sturdily built man with broad shoulders and chest. He had abundant hair of a ginger color and thickset features. His mouth was just a straight slit in his bluff face, though when he smiled he gave it a little twist, as though he’d just tasted something bad. “Barnacle Jack’s as mean as they come but Crazy Dog he’s just flat out not right in the head. He does things for no reason, like when he took off my leg.”

  “Why
do you stay with him?”

  “He’d kill me if I left. And hell, who’s going to take a man only has one leg?”

  “You could find another kind of life.”

  “This life found me. That’s the way of it. You make your plans but the one thing you know for certain is things’ll turn out different. So bugger the future. And the one thing you know about the past is it didn’t happen the way they say it did. So bugger the past too. I’m a seaman. Never decided to become a pirate, but that’s what happened.”

  “How?”

  Connor took on a thoughtful appearance, as though the explanation involved perplexities of a baffling nature. “You ever walk up to a ship being unloaded and see the crate they’re unloading the moment you get there? Think about it. Why that crate? There were likely twenty-one other crates they unloaded first, just so they could be unloading that one crate when you got there. Well it’s the same way when life decides what to make of you. It’s like coincidence, but it isn’t, because there’s no such thing as coincidence when you know all that’s going on.”

  “Sorry. What’s the coincidence?”

  “Everything happens for a reason. I became a pirate because pirates took over the ship I was on. It was that or die. Maybe I thought about running off once or twice, but where would I go? Live in the woods and hunt for meat? A man finds his role in life that’s what he should stick to. I’m not going to work on a farm. What about you? A man like you’s going to stick to begging. Why do what you’re not fitted for?”

  “I’m not a beggar.”

  “Course not, and I’m not a pirate.”

  “I was brought up to be a fisherman, but I became a sailor on the merchant ships because they wore better clothes and there was more money. Well you can see how that’s worked out. Maybe I should work on a farm. I’ve considered it.”

  “No point giving it much thought. Life’s like a book. You read one page and then the next. What happens on page twenty-five is because of what happened on page twenty-four, and so forth, but you can’t tell what’s on the next page.”

  “If my life is like that someone must’ve taken the book and ripped the pages out. Then the wind got at them. Next they were trodden on.”

  “I don’t see how that could be. You ever read the Bible?”

  “Do pirates read the Bible?”

  “’The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.’ When I first read that I thought it was saying maybe I could be the cornerstone, or anybody. But it says more than that.” Connor was getting charged up now, these weren’t things he’d ever explained before. “It says people are the stones. The builder’s going to build the house we live in. And you look at people and you see how they’re all carved and chiseled in certain ways so as to fit together, but nobody’s building anything. There’s a right way everybody should fit together, that’s the plan, but the stones are just lying around, all jumbled like . . . When I take you back there’s a chance Crazy Dog’ll ask if you want to join his crew. If he does, say no. You’ll never make it as a pirate. One day and you’ll be shark bait . . . Think there’s any way I could sneak back and get a bottle of rum?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “I was thinking this is a slow day. It’d go faster if I could creep back, sneak in the back door, steal a bottle and bring it back here.”

  “Are you crazy? You think I’d wait for you?”

  “Well if you wanted some rum.” Connor looked at the forest surrounding them. “Where were you planning to go? If I was you I’d think it was a stroke of luck getting captured by Crazy Dog. At least you’ll get a meal out of it. Let him think you’re trying to escape. Long as he thinks you’ve got someplace to go maybe he’ll keep feeding you.”

  “But I’m a soft man really and I’m afraid of torture. He’ll hurt me, I know he will. I know naught of the gold he’s looking for.”

  “He’ll chop something off for sure. Maybe you’ll get lucky and it’ll just be a couple toes.”

  “ I never get lucky . . . Actually that’s not true. I’ve been very lucky. All my problems I’ve caused myself. And then when the hammer’s come down it’s just glanced off me and smashed them that were close to me. I bring nothing but trouble. Connor, if I was you, I’d be extremely careful. You’ve touched some very bad luck here. Katie, Brutus, Colophus, Agata, Josh, they’re all worse off because of me . . . But it’s nothing I did. People think I’m good-natured, and I do have a certain frankness – call it simplicity – it earns me goodwill, maybe more from women than from men, but I don’t deserve it. When I compare how people think about me with how I think about them I’m crushed by how wicked my thoughts are. If anyone sees any good in me at all it must be some good they find inside themselves; it’s not in me. The only worthwhile thing about me is this love I carry for Katie Jean. I’m true to her no matter what. I’m so in love with her it’s like nothing else matters. Everything else I’ve trifled away. She gave me a beautiful watch, it must have cost her a lot, and don’t you know I lost it. But I never stopped loving her. This love I have is so unlike me it’s almost as if it was put on me somehow.”

  The wind off the water was blowing a little more fiercely and the clouds that had hovered over the ocean in the afternoon sunshine began piling up, casting a shadow across the countryside. Connor rubbed his brow and put on a serious-minded appearance. “Your problem is you’re beaten by life. You don’t see it, but everyone else does. You’re just waiting for someone like me to tell you, so you can lie down and give up.”

  “Certainly not, I’ve got to keep going. I don’t know why. I have to get to Port Jay to find a woman who’s waiting for me.”

  “Let me tell you something about women. She’s not waiting . . . I was in love once. Prettiest peach you’ll ever see. We were crazy together, but she left me for her uncle, a man twenty years older than herself. Her own uncle. It wasn’t a natural thing, but you know why? He had money. He was a catch . . . You can figure the rest. He beat her, knocked her black and blue. Inside of a year she was dead. So you ask me, that’s what love’s good for. It’s good for making you see cockeyed and making you feel ripped up inside. That’s all it’s ever done for me . . .”

  Tom thought all that Connor said was true. Look at me, he thought. Penniless, with a wounded foot, hobbling on to Port Jay to find a woman I’ll never find, and if I do find her it’s inconceivable she’d have waited for me. I’m choosing to die, and this is the straight path to my grave.

  He felt he’d hit bottom and could go no lower. But he’d show them. When Crazy Dog asked if he wanted to join his crew, he’d say yes. He wasn’t shark bait. He’d prove to them he was as good as they were. More importantly, he’d prove it to himself. A wind came gusting through the trees, fluttering all the leaves light then dark. There was a pattering sound, and he felt the first raindrops.

  Connor got to his feet. “Time to head back.” On their way back they were caught by the quick-coming rain. When they got to the tavern they saw that though it had been a warm day, someone had started a fire in the large fireplace, and for all the rowdiness of the men the place had a welcoming and a homely sort of feel.

  When Tom walked in Crazy Dog put a hand on his shoulder and said to Connor, “I knew you’d get him.”

  “He was a right elusive rascal,” Connor replied.

  “Now, John, you’ve nothing to be afraid of. We’re all friends here. I want you to tell me the whole story of what you did at the widow’s farm, and I’ll pray you leave nothing out.” Crazy Dog sat Tom down at a table and sat himself on the stool next to him. Barnacle Jack was on the other side giving him a deep dark scowl.

  “Then I tell you truly, I was on a merchant vessel called the Queen of Bel Harbor, bound for Kashahar.”

  “We know that vessel well, do we not, Jack?”

  “Aye we do,” Jack agreed. “But you were not on her when we boarded her.”

  “I’d guess that was on account of the fact that I fell overboard.
I was a dismal sailor. I fell off the ship into the unfathomable, pitch black sea, wouldn’t you know.”

  “And how came it that you were rescued?” asked Crazy Dog.

  “Here is where I fear you thought I was spinning a tale because the truth of the matter is very queer. Yet if I’ll tell you naught but truth I must tell you I was swallowed by a fish.”

  “You insist on the fish.”

  “It is the honest to God’s truth.”

  “Is there perhaps something you brought back with you, something from inside the fish, something would give color to this story?”

  “You know, there is not.”

  “I’d think a man telling a story of being swallowed by a fish would bear some proof, some significant indicator of where he’d been.”

  “I never gave thought to obtaining such proof. Shows what an empty-headed noodle I’ve got.”

  “Might I ask, before you fell off the vessel, did you make the acquaintance of certain men that go by the names of Vincenzo and Diego? For they were also mates on that same ship.”

  “Certain it is that I did.”

  “And the ship’s carpenter also, who was called Mr. Chips.”

  “I made acquaintance of all those men.” Crazy Dog and Jack threw each other a meaning glance. “And when I was in the belly of the fish I made acquaintance of another named Colophus. I feel I must speak of him. He traveled about in the fish’s belly with me. He spoke of many things, such as buttockracy, which he said was the natural way men were meant to be ruled, by the biggest ass.”

  “I once knew a man named Codfish, said exactly the same. What did you call that fellow?

  “The one in the fish?”

  “What did you call him?”

  “Colophus.”

  “Codfish. A man with an enormous bum.”

  “That’s him.”

  “This fish that swallowed you, it swallowed him also?”

  “Certain it is that it did.”

  “Yo, Connor,” Crazy Dog’s voice boomed across the room. The rain was beating an insistent tattoo on the roof. “Connor, do you remember Codfish?”