Predators and Prey

by F. M. Parker

  “Now cover them,” said the driver, climbing back up on his seat.

  The grave diggers hastily began to shovel the sodden dirt upon the corpses. The driver of the dead wagon wheeled his horse around and lashed the clumsy-footed beast out of the graveyard and into a slipping, sliding trot toward the center of Liverpool.

  Caroline turned and hurried through the cold rain plummeting out of the gray heavens. As she caught up with the rear of the group of converts, she suddenly realized that not one person would have missed her had she not returned to join them. She was a stranger to all of them. Every face was turned in but one direction—to the ocean, and beyond to America.

  She thought of her home and family. She was the fourth daughter of seven of a poor farmer. There, too, in that house, she would not be missed. Indeed, ever since her conversion to this new religion her father and mother had treated her as half a stranger. She thought her father wished her gone before she, in some manner, contaminated her sisters with the religion. Well, she had left, deciding to abandon the Anglican Church and search for a more full and prosperous life in America with the new Mormon Church.

  The crowd of religious converts left the outlying area of Liverpool and entered the ancient, four-hundred-year-old congested central section. In every direction, thousands upon thousands of smoldering fireplaces in the houses, multi-story tenements, and factories belched out their smoke. The poisonous, lung-burning vapors, beaten down to the earth by the rain, lay like a murky, stagnant liquid in the narrow canyons of the streets.

  The black wave of the night came stalking, and the blackness mixed with the smoke and mist to completely smother the city. Here and there a gas streetlight became visible, its flames casting a dull yellow stain on the dismal night.

  The streets were deserted except for a few figures, bundled in coats and hastening along. Most carried oil lanterns to light the way. Some of the nightwalkers lifted their lanterns to stare at the muddy line of people following along behind the young missionary.

  ***

  Mathias Rowley brought his religious followers onto the stone-paved quay between the row of warehouses and the piers of Liverpool. He led on to the office of the Mersey Steamship Company where George Cluff was to meet him. Rowley was late by several hours but he knew Cluff would still be waiting, and he would have kept the captain of their chartered ship from sailing.

  Rowley smelled the salt water of the ocean and the multitude of odors coming from the docks and warehouses. He could see deck lights and distinguish the outlines of several berthed merchantmen, a mixture of tall-masted sailing ships and squat steamships. A constant creaking noise came from the docks as the moored vessels rose and fell to the low waves of the bay and rubbed against the piers.

  Soon he would be sailing home on one of those ships, his four-year mission to serve his Lord and his Church completed.

  On the water, bobbing lights moved as several small boats were rowed toward the shore. Off-duty sailors were heading for a night of liberty in the pubs and brothels of Liverpool. Rain would not prevent the seamen from swilling alcoholic drinks and taking their carnal pleasure with the whores.

  Rowley halted at the door of the steamship company. He turned around and, raising his voice, called out, “Wait here, brothers and sisters, until I can find out which ship is ours.”

  ***

  Caroline shrugged wearily out of the straps of her pack. With several other people she pressed tightly against the side of the building. The overhang of the eave was just wide enough to give her shelter from the falling rain and the cascade of water falling from the roof. She closed her eyes and leaned her head on the wall. So awfully tired. Soon she would fall and not be able to rise.

  The door of the office opened and Mathias and a second young man came outside to stand on the stoop in the rain. The second man carried a large, brightly flaming storm lantern. He held it up high and peered out at the group of people.

  “Gather around, brothers and sisters,” Mathias said, and motioned with his hands for the people to come close.

  “This man is Brother George Cluff. He’s our Church’s representative here in Liverpool. He has given me very bad news. The ship that is to take us to America has not yet arrived and will not for another five or six days. And perhaps longer if the weather is bad.”

  A groan went up from the gathering of people. A woman began to sob.

  “You have our money,” called a man. “Get us space on another ship that is leaving right away.”

  “George, is that possible?” asked Mathias.

  “I wish I could,” said Cluff. “But we have contracted for a certain vessel. We have paid the price and can’t change.”

  “If the ship is not here to carry out its part of the arrangement, then why can’t we break the contract and buy passage on another one?” asked the man who had spoken before.

  “Weather on the ocean, as on the land, can’t be controlled. Our contract allows for delays in the ship’s scheduled arrival and departure.”

  Rowley looked out at his converts. They stood with their hands in the pockets of their coats and their heads pulled down between their hunched shoulders, as if the shape of their bodies could ward off the cold rain. They wore but the flimsiest of clothing. He felt a deep sympathy for them.

  His proselytizing in England had gone better than his greatest expectations. He had converted three thousand and forty-one people to his religion. However, he did not mislead himself. His strong belief in his calling helped him to sway the men and women to accept his religion. But there was a more important reason for the large number of conversions. England was a land of wretched poverty and famine, and the price of provisions for survival was sinful. There was also much oppression from the priestcraft, and a terrible inequality in land ownership. The people wanted—nay, searched desperately—for something better than what they had. Still, only about one in twenty of his converts, often the most destitute, had the courage and will to tear up their roots and follow him to America. That will and courage would be sorely tested if they were to survive the tremendous hardships that lay ahead.

  Most of the faces staring back at him were those of very young women, some hardly more than girls. The females were the easiest to sway from their prior belief. They would gaze into his face as he told them about his religion, and their eyes would widen to his words and they’d agree to be baptized in the name of the Lord so they could enter his Church. The young men were very difficult, and often belligerent. Of the one hundred and fifty-seven people there in the rain, one hundred and nine were young, unmarried women. The remaining were married couples, several with children.

  The sight of his wet and hungry converts stirred Mathias. He lifted his handsome head and thrust his hands high in the air. “Brothers and Sisters, I have brought you bad news. But do not despair. Ye all have felt the calling to come to the True Church for your salvation and to gather together and journey with me. And I shall lead you to the most joyous place upon the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall be there, and it is called Zion. It is a place of promise, and that City of Zion is on the shore of the great Salt Lake in the heart of the mountains in the land called America. That country surely has been reserved by the Almighty as a sure asylum for the poor and oppressed. There ye shall be in the Kingdom of God on Earth.”

  A chorus of amens came from the crowd. There was a movement of the people and a nodding of heads.

  “Now Brother Cluff has some different news,” said Mathias.

  “I have reserved all the rooms of a boardinghouse for you,” Cluff said. “The charge is one shilling for a bed and a meal. That is a fair price. Those of you with a family will hae to double up in the beds. If you will follow me, I’ll lead you there. It is just a few blocks from here.”

  Cluff and Rowley moved off with the lantern. The people fell in at their rear, crowding each other, trying to hang close so that they could walk in the light of the lantern.

  Caroline remained standing under
the eave of the building. She felt betrayed and dismayed. She could not go with the others, for she had no shilling. And she would not beg.

  The darkness thickened and congealed around her as the lantern moved farther and farther away.

  7

  The breeze coming off the North Sea cut through Caroline’s wet, almost useless clothing. She was cold to the very core. Her teeth started to chatter and she clamped her jaws together to quiet them.

  She had to find shelter, a place to sit, hopefully to lie down. She wearily pulled on the pack and moved out into the rain. Dejectedly she walked back the way she had come.

  The buildings loomed above her. Now and then, the dark form of another person caught out in the night went by her in the darkness. A horse-drawn cart lumbered past.

  As she passed in front of an alehouse, the door was flung wide and a man stepped outside. He halted, staggering slightly. He saw Caroline in the light coming from the open door.

  “Well, little lady, you’re out in god-awful weather to hope to find any business. But you’re in luck. I haven’t had a girl tonight. So come inside. There’s a room in the rear the owner will let us use. There’s no bed, but we can unroll your mattress on the floor.” The man winked and crooked his finger for her to come with him.

  Caroline began to back away from the drunken man. She knew what he meant. She had heard of the girls who walked the streets of the cities and carried thin, rolled mattresses or pieces of carpet on their backs. In any half-hidden place they could lie down and earn a coin. The man had mistaken her pack for such a carpet. She moved away.

  “Wait, don’t go,” said the man. “I’ll give you a shilling for five minutes of fun.” He dug a handful of coins from his pocket and jingled them in his hand. “A whole shilling,” he said, chuckling. “That’s more than a fair price for a street girl.”

  Caroline was in the edge of the light and retreating speedily. She would not beg for a shilling, nor would she whore for one. She spun around and hastened off along the street.

  “Go on, you little slut.” The man’s angry words chased after Caroline. “You’re too damn dirty, anyway. And so skinny, it’d be like laying on a bag of bones.”

  Caroline welcomed the concealing darkness of the night. Her heart throbbed against the ribs of her chest like a frightened bird beating itself on the bars of a cage. She looked back. The man was still standing and staring after her.

  She slowed as her fright lessened, and walked wearily onward.

  Half a block ahead, a square of lamplight from a window fought with the rainy gloom of the night. As she came even with the window she glanced inside. Several loaves of bread lay on a table. A bakery.

  Nobody was within sight inside. There was only the golden brown, round, or rectangular loaves of bread on the display table. And some sweet rolls piled in a precise little pyramid. The sprinkle of sugar on the rolls was like a thin covering of snow.

  Caroline tried the door, but it would not open. The bakery was closed and locked for the day. As she started to turn away, she felt a warm draft of air escaping around the ill-fitting door. She pressed her face to the crack and breathed the heated air into her lungs. Riding on the air was the delicious aroma of bread and sweet rolls and tangy cinnamon.

  She removed her pack and sat down in the shallow alcove of the doorway. She pulled her feet in out of the rain. Leaning against the door, she closed her eyes. A weary, drugged sleep overtook her almost at once.

  ***

  Caroline awoke as she fell. Her head struck the floor of the bakery with a thump.

  “Girl, are you hurt?” cried the baker. He set the candle lantern he held in his hand on the floor and knelt quickly beside Caroline.

  “What happened?” asked Caroline. She sat up rubbing her aching head.

  “You fell inside when I opened the door to go out,” said the baker. “What were you doing there?”

  “Trying to sleep. I’m very sorry to have caused you trouble.” Caroline climbed shakily to her feet.

  She looked at the baker as he stood erect beside her. He was old, his hair white. At the moment his brow was furrowed with a hundred wrinkles of worry and astonishment. Somehow he seemed familiar to Caroline. Yet she had never seen him before.

  “I’ll get my belongings and leave,” she said.

  The baker stared at the young woman. She was gaunt, her bones showing painfully sharp through her white skin. Her large green eyes were sunken deeply in their sockets. Exhaustion and cold pinched her face.

  Wet mud covered her to her knees. Both of her shoes gaped open along the soles. Her hair was a wet, tawny tangle hanging to her shoulders.

  But it was the color of the eyes that held the old baker’s attention. And the way she looked at him so piercingly, as if trying to read his innermost thoughts. The eye color and the expression on her face brought back memories from long ago. Sad memories that squeezed his heart, memories that he never wanted to forget.

  His daughter would look at him in that manner, wanting to anticipate his wishes before he spoke. When he told her what he wanted, she would smile and run, laughing, to do his bidding in the bakery or to go down the street to run an errand for him.

  How many years had it been since her death? Thirty-five, maybe thirty-six. Time passed so swiftly now in the last years of his life.

  His wife had died at the birth of their daughter. From that day on, the baker had put all his love into the growing girl. Then, at the age of ten, the plague had taken her. She had died in the evening while it was raining. Like the rain tonight. Was that a sign?

  Caroline gathered up her pack and slipped her arms through the straps. She cast a last look at the baker. “I’m truly sorry that I bothered you,” she said.

  The baker felt his heart jump. There was his daughter’s look again from those green eyes. Could it be possible? Tales were told of instances where the souls of those who died young and innocent were born again in a new body. Had that happened here? Was his daughter a joint resident within this girl’s body?

  “Your eyes are green,” the baker said. “I once knew another girl with green eyes.”

  Caroline fastened her sight on the old man, wondering about the meaning of the strange, hopeful expression on his face.

  “And so are yours,” Caroline answered.

  “Are there two of you?” asked the baker.

  “I don’t understand. What do you mean, two of us?”

  “Nothing. Nothing,” said the baker quickly. “Where will you go in the rain?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find another doorway to sleep in.”

  “Would you want to stay here? It is quite warm because of the oven.” He gestured at the big brick oven occupying one end of the small bakery.

  “What is your name?”

  “Caroline Shepherd.”

  “Well, Caroline Shepherd, my name is John Bradshaw. You are most welcome to stay here,” said the baker. “I mean you no harm. I can give you some blankets and you could sleep there on the floor by the oven. It’ll stay warm all night. However, I do have to rise early to start baking for the new day.”

  Caroline glanced out the open door. The rain streaked down cold and wet in the lamplight. She shivered at the sight. Could she survive the night out there? She looked back at the oven and then at the baker.

  “It would be very pleasant to have someone to talk with,” said the baker encouragingly. “I have a potato and some meat left from supper. I can warm that in the oven. And I believe I can find some cheese, and of course there is bread and cake.” He smiled in a hesitant, uncertain manner.

  “Why are you so generous to me?” Caroline asked.

  Because you are so like my long-dead daughter, thought the old man. And, oh, I’m so terribly lonely.

  He spoke. “Because we green-eyed people are few in number and we must stick together.” He tried to keep the sadness out of his voice.

  “Yes, we green-eyed people must help each other,” agreed Caroline. She began to tak
e off her pack.

  The baker smiled broadly. He closed the door against the cold rain.

  “I’ll heat some food for you. While I’m doing that you are welcome to take a bath.” He pointed at an inside doorway. “Just through there is a bathtub. It sits against the rear of the oven. The water will be warm. Take a bath and then come and eat.”

  “That is a most kind offer, and I accept.”

  “Here, take this,” said the baker, and handed the candle-lantern to Caroline. “This will light your way. You will find soft soap in the jar on the floor beside the tub.”

  “Thank you,” said Caroline.

  She went through the door and found the rectangular metal tub sitting with one of its long sides touching the back of the oven. She dipped her hand into the water. It was wonderfully warm.

  Caroline took a clean dress from her pack and hung it on a nail she found driven into the mortar between the layers of bricks. The garment was a much-worn thin cotton. Near the oven, the dress would partly dry while she bathed. She stripped and stepped into the tub. The touch of the water on her skin was a caress that made her tremble with delight.

  She soaked, her cold feet tingling as they warmed. After a time her hunger and tiredness drove her from the bath. She dried her body and hair and slipped into the dress. She glanced once at the muddy, dilapidated shoes, and shook her head. Barefoot, she padded out to the kitchen just off the bakery.

  “Your food is ready,” said the baker.

  Caroline looked at the table. She almost cried out with pleasure. Two whole potatoes and a slice of meat as large as her hand were on a plate. A wedge of cheese and a half loaf of bread lay beside it. One of the little sweet rolls from the window was there for dessert. Her mouth moistened in anticipation.

  “Would you want cider or wine?” asked the old baker.

  “Cider, thank you.”

  “Cider it shall be.”

  Caroline ate, chewing slowly, savoring every morsel of the food. Her tongue delighted in the flavor and texture of the meat, the crust of the bread, and the coarse, chunky cheese. She sipped some of the cider, letting it glide cool and fragrant down her throat.