Honor Bound

by Robert N. Macomber

  Meanwhile my lover stood there, slowly fuming with indignation herself.

  “Yes, it was nice to meet you, too, Useppa,” muttered Cynda to the figure marching off. Then she turned to me. “So I’m just a widow?”

  “You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Never mind, Peter. Just never mind. And don’t worry, your precious daughter’s not a child. Not chronologically, anyway. She’ll calm down and be at the dinner.”

  Cynda didn’t know Useppa.

  9

  A Motley Crew, Indeed

  Curry’s Saloon and Dining Room

  Duval and Wall streets

  Key West, Florida

  Thursday, 5 July 1888

  Rork and the crew met Cynda and me for dinner. Improbably, considering their condition, they were right on time. They had three extra men in tow. Drunk as he was, the ethnologist in Corny emerged and he proudly began introducing our additional diners.

  The first of them was oddly attired, with bright clothing topped by a hair arrangement bordering on frightening when he removed his turban. His head was completely shaved bald except for a fringe across the front, from sideburn to sideburn; and a ridge fore and aft along the top, that dangled a double tail off the back. Corny solemnly introduced him as Hotal-kiha, also known as “Key West Billy” Fewell, of the powerful Wind Clan in the Kan-yuk-sa Is-ti-tca-ti, or Big Cypress Swamp Seminoles.

  I knew of the man. Years earlier, Key West Billy became known in southern Florida for being the only Seminole in the region to live in both the white and Indian worlds. It was a lifestyle adopted out of necessity, for he was in sad exile from his own people after fulfilling tribal orders in 1870 to execute his own father for committing a capital crime. A crime which they later discovered his father did not commit. Billy was devastated and canoed to Key West, staying away from the clan for years. Recently he was back in the fold, but was still sometimes seen in the white settlements, representing his people in trading deals or disagreements.

  My friend Clay MacCauley had interviewed Key West Billy during his survey of the Seminoles in 1884 and came away greatly impressed by the man’s stature and dignity. True to his reputation, forty-two-year-old Billy sat there regally as Corny—Clay’s colleague at the Smithsonian, who was clearly thrilled to meet such a personality—described him, his clan, and the legend of how the Seminole clans originated.

  A young dark-skinned fellow, with prominent cheek bones and shiny straight black hair, was our second addition. He sat deferentially next to Billy and shyly acknowledged his introduction by Corny. He was Absalom Bowlegs, of the Bahamian Seminole clan that lived in a remote village in northern Andros Island, the largest and most unexplored island of that archipelago. I asked Corny to repeat that, for I hadn’t even known there were any Seminoles in the Bahamas.

  Absalom, or Ab as he was known by friends, had recently been a guest of the Big Cypress Seminoles, courtesy of Billy, who had met him in Key West several months earlier. It seemed that Ab was a deckhand on the Delilah, a schooner out of Green Turtle Cay in the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas. Delilah had put into Key West to discharge pineapples, when Ab met Billy.

  The young man asked to know more of his Indian heritage, for the Bahamian Seminoles were former half-Seminole, half-black slaves who’d fled Florida in the 1820s for freedom in the predominately black Bahamas, where slavery had been abolished. Their skin was African, but Indian facial features still showed through after several generations. Billy took him inland to meet his clan and learn about the Seminole culture.

  After several months ashore, Ab now needed passage back to his islands and Billy had taken him to Key West to find a schooner for employment. It was added that Absalom knew the Bahamas like the back of his hand, having sailed that area on his grandfather’s schooner when younger. I noted that his language was particularly articulate, not using the abbreviated patois garble usually heard from Bahamians. When I inquired, he explained that he’d been fortunate in attending a school in Nassau for a while, where he’d learned to speak proper English. He then demonstrated that he could effortlessly revert to island talk, a show that got a laugh from everyone.

  Providentially for Ab, Delilah happened to be in the port at that very moment, hence the appearance of our third guest, a thirtyish man in simple clothes who walked with a roll and had squinted eyes and large callused hands. A seaman if ever there was one.

  Rork, the most sober appearing of my three crew, did the honors for this man, presenting him to us Reginald Dunbarton, mate of none other than the Delilah. Then Rork, with a not so slight self-congratulating smile, enlightened me as to how these three men were of interest to our enterprise. It was but another of those twists of fate that dictated my life throughout the summer of 1888.

  It transpired that Dunbarton was looking for a captain for Delilah. The schooner’s master, Basil Nolles, was currently lodged in the jail on Whitehead Street on charges revolving around drinking and bloodshed. He wasn’t getting out anytime soon and the schooner’s crew was losing money just sitting at anchor in the harbor with a full load of canned meats and fancy goods from up north that were expected in Nassau.

  As good a seaman as he was, like many mates Dunbarton did not fully possess the skills of navigation, so the ship needed a captain. The telegraph cable from Key West northward was out of order at the moment, thus the mate was incommunicado with the owner of the ship in England. Dunbarton asked if I would fill the billet of master so they could get the cargo to Nassau.

  I thought all this more than ironic. Earlier, Rork and I had discussed transferring at Key West to a larger vessel for the ocean voyage. We’d talked of chartering a ketch or schooner, but few were in harbor right then.

  I regarded Dunbarton again. The man appeared squared-away in manner and thinking. The fact the ship’s master was an alcoholic did not mean the vessel and crew were not seaworthy. But I had a legal question. “Has Captain Nolles left you in command, Mr. Dunbarton, with authority over the ship’s affairs?”

  “Captain Nolles is incoherently drunk, sir. I cannot offer you a company contract as master, but I need a captain to navigate and you need a ship. ’Tis a short voyage and you can pick up a ship at Nassau, or charter dear Delilah from there once we’re offloaded. What say you, sir?”

  Before I could reply, Rork jumped in with an energetic summation of the entire situation: “Sir, it seems to me that the luck o’ the Irish is supplyin’ the needs o’ us all. For we’ll be needin’ a stouter vessel than dear wee Nancy Ann for our work abroad the seas to the Bahamas. This schooner Delilah is needin’ a captain to get to the Bahamas. We’re also in need o’ a guide for the reefs an’ islands, an’ this lad Absalom is a bit o’ an expert in that department, an’ needin’ passage back to the Bahamas.” He proudly ended with, “So, the whole o’ the situation has come together nicely for us by the grace o’ God above.”

  It looked like a fait accompli, but I still had a point for Rork. He was energetic, but still, he was also inebriated.

  “Who owns Delilah? Is she well-found?”

  Rork said he’d had the same concern. “I’ve been aboard her, no more ’n thirty minutes ago—she’s in good shape. Her owner is English an’ absent in Portsmouth, but he insists on good upkeep. The crew just wants out o’ Key West an’ away from their captain, who was a bit o’ a tyro by all accounts. If we want to charter her once we’re at Nassau an’ the cargo’s discharged, then a cable to the owner from there an’ she’s ours from then onward.”

  Everyone looked at me with expectant faces. I decided to go ahead with the idea. Carpe diem. “You’re right, Sean. Like we’ve talked about, we’ll need a bigger vessel than the sloop. Nancy Ann can stay at Pinder’s until we get back. Very well, gentlemen, and madam, tomorrow at the start of the ebb, we set sail for the Bahamas. First we’ll check in at Bimini and see if anyone saw Condor, then we’ll stop at Nassau while we do t
he same and offload the cargo.”

  I thought of an additional legal point.

  “I’ll send a letter from here, countersigned by Mr. Dunbarton, explaining things to the owner.”

  A toast was drunk to our success and all hands present proceeded, courtesy of my funds, of course, to enjoy a pleasant evening. Except me, however. One distressing deficiency prevented me from taking full pleasure in the company of my friends—Useppa never arrived that evening.

  When Rork quietly inquired about her absence during the party, I told him what had happened at the boat and how terrible I felt about it.

  “Ooh, well, what’s done is done, an’ what’s said is said, me friend. She’ll come round in her own time. Don’t waste time in the past, for we’ve enough to do with a strange ship, an’ an even stranger voyage ahead o’ us, not to mention a motley crew, indeed.”

  Image 2

  10

  Rumors on a Glassy Sea

  In the Straits of Florida

  Off the Florida Keys

  Friday, 6 July 1888

  Delilah was stout, as one would expect from an Abaconian built and manned vessel. Fifty-three feet on deck, she carried the normal rig for a two-master: mains’l, tops’l, fores’l, forestays’l, and jib. The two cargo holds were generous for her size. Her most useful feature was her draft. She had a full-length keel that required only six feet of water aft—a crucial factor in sailing the shallow Bahamian islands, where uncharted reefs and shoals were everywhere.

  There were eight souls aboard. I served as captain; Dunbarton continued on as mate—a generous offer from Rork, who could’ve served that function easily, but decided to be ship’s bosun. Connerly Blackstone, a white Bahamian from Green Turtle Key, was the cook, who wasted no time in explaining to Cynda that she would stay out of the galley. Absalom Bowlegs was deck seaman and island guide. Dan Horloft and Corny Rathburn volunteered to work the deck.

  Though they surely enjoyed her loveliness, Cynda’s presence was not appreciated by the regular crew, which didn’t surprise me. Females are regarded as trouble on a ship by many sailors—especially some of the more old-fashioned Bahamians. But aboard she was, and her role was expected to be that of a lady of leisure.

  It was a bit crowded, for Delilah was built with accom-modations for only a captain and three crewmen. After I conducted a thorough cleaning out of rum bottles and other trash, I took the small master’s cabin at the very stern, for it had the chart table and necessary navigational accoutrements. Immediately forward of that on the port side was the mate’s cabin, which Dunbarton surrendered to Cynda. Across from her was the galley storeroom. Forward of Cynda and the galley provisions was the galley itself, with an adjoining mess table, barely big enough to seat six men. Then came a bulkhead and the main hold. Continuing forward was a ’tween decks stowage space around the mainmast, then the forward hold.

  The fo’c’sle in the bow of the ship was separated by a theoretically watertight bulkhead at the forward end of the forward hold. The cook and one or two seamen normally lived in the fo’c’sle. Now, the cook, and the two older gentlemen, Corny and Dan, lived there. Dunbarton, Rork, and Absalom Bowlegs, rested upon the main deck when off watch. I thought that far better than the cramped fo’c’sle myself, especially when shared with the fat and rather malodorous cook, but my two Northern friends proclaimed themselves happy with the arrangements for their lodging.

  My stateroom was diminutive but functionally adequate, with a pleasant stern window—rare in Abaco ships. Cynda, to my surprise, didn’t flinch at the cramped space of her cabin, the second largest aboard, but the size of an average house’s cupboard. Quite the contrary, she allowed the faintest smile to show when she learned our cabins were next to each other, with the other shipmates far away, up forward.

  In an attempt to maintain the dignity of my office, and the fiction of our relationship, I showed no such glee in front of the others. Privately, however, I wondered how long the illusion could be publicly continued, particularly with the mate, cook, and deckhand. And in the back of my mind, I still harbored lingering doubts as to the wisdom of such an arrangement, as gratifying as it was to my libido. However, wisdom, as I well knew after twenty-five years of commanding men in the navy, is frequently in short supply among seafarers when decisions are required regarding females.

  ***

  Dunbarton and Blackstone topped off the galley provisions—on my account at Pinder’s, which account had gained prodigious size—while Rork and I inspected the rig and the cargo. The stays and shrouds were taut, the running rigging undeteriorated, the blocks and spars strongly built, and her canvas as well as could be expected in the tropics. The cargo of canned goods was stowed tight and low. Dunbarton was obviously good at his job.

  Once the supplies were aboard, we sailed with the ebb tide at four p.m. on Friday, the sixth of July, 1888, ignoring the traditional superstition of embarking on a long voyage on a Friday. Rork, as suspicious as they come at sea—he is Irish, as you know—reminded me of that violation later on, when things got distinctly uncomfortable.

  The work of the ship quickly settled into the ordinary routines sailors know at sea. I scheduled three sets of watches of four hours each: Corny and I, Dunbarton and Dan, Rork and Bowlegs, with the cook, as is the norm, not standing deck duty. I took the first watch, the entirety of which was occupied in getting us out to sea, beyond the dangers of the deadly reefs surrounding Key West.

  The wind was light as we slowly passed Fort Taylor under plain sail, then rounded Whitehead Spit, and close-hauled for Western Sambo Reef, eight miles distant to the southeast. Once there, we took our departure from the Florida Reefs into deep water and tried to point easterly toward the Bahamian banks and islands, but to no avail. As it was, the nearest we could steer into the fading wind was southeast, toward Cardenas in Cuba. But, fortunately, the mighty Gulf Stream was fair for our purposes and we slid east southeast over the bottom at a little over two nautical miles each hour.

  That area was one I had close memories of from the war, so I knew the geography and weather patterns and was confident the summer trades would pick up after our dreary beginning. At the end of my watch, I went below to maintain the logbook and chart our position.

  I was greeted in my cabin by the lady of the ship. She persuaded me, as only she could, that navigation and record keeping were matters secondary to an intimate celebration of her appreciation for my assistance thus to date. Succumbing gladly to the shirking of my duties, I promised myself not to do it again in daytime in the future, as such behavior compromised the privacy of our relationship. That, as will be no surprise to the reader by now, was a pledge I found impossible to keep.

  Upon returning to the main deck several hours later to ascertain how things were progressing, it was plainly evident that I had deceived myself on two important accounts: that the wind would pick up, and that my personal affairs were not generally known among my new Bahamian acquaintances.

  The former was obvious. The barometer remained high, with a calm sea and a sky veiled with high wispy clouds. The schooner’s reflection showed in the water, mocking our intentions and progress, and the only propulsion over the ground far below us was furnished by our present friend, the Stream.

  The latter deduction was a bit more subtle and gleaned from the knowing glances and quickly ended conversation when I showed myself to Dunbarton and Corny. All being well with the ship’s equipment aft, I proceeded forward to inspect the sheet lines.

  By the sampson post at the bow, I was taken aside by Rork, who whispered, “Ooh, ye’re not bein’ discreet, me friend. Nay—not when you’re dallyin’ in the middle o’ broad daylight. Peter, kindly save that till the night watches. Dan an’ Corny are your friends, but these others’re not. Especially that dark-souled villain o’ a cook.”

  Hmm. Sound advice, thought I, but more than a bit incongruous coming from a rogue like Rork. Usually it was I pr
oviding that category of counsel to him. I thanked my friend and returned to my cabin, there to ponder where Delilah was heading on the sea, and where I was heading with a certain lady. Neither seemed easy to determine.

  ***

  Delilah’s rate of advancement eastward remained tied to the current, a situation that became more anxious the longer it went on, particularly since we were in one of the primary steamer lanes of the world. We tacked ship, with considerable effort on the rudder, in the middle of the Straits of Florida and steered for Bahia Honda Key on the Florida reefs, still without much air to fill our sails.

  The schooner slatted and banged about in the low swells, requiring constant attention to prevent damage from chafe. Maintaining sharp lookout against collision with the steamers and navigating with some semblance of accuracy under the incessantly blistering concentration of the sun’s rays, all conspired to irritate our nerves. Heated words were exchanged at the least annoyance. This friction went on for three long days, without even the excitement of an afternoon thunderstorm. Everyone was on edge—I most of all.

  ***

  The rumors began on the second day. As one would expect, they were not promulgated in my presence, but the ship’s company heard them clear enough. Gloomy stuff at first, then sinister. Initially they centered on my navigational abilities, implying that had we stayed nearer the Florida reefs we would have had more wind from the coastal sea breeze effect. Then speculation turned to Cynda. By the third day, it shifted to our search for Luke and whether we really were taking the ship to Nassau.

  Rork informed me the source of all this discontent was Connerly Blackstone, whom he’d despised from the start, labeling him a “snivelin’ sea-lawyer an’ a failure as a cook, who can nary even boil water.”