Captain Adam

by Chidsey, Donald Barr, 1902-1981

  The place Captain Long called Home and had always thought of as Home, a land he'd never seen, was England. All the same, he decided not to stay on deck while they raised Judy. His eyes did not water easily, no matter what the wind, and the hands, seeing him the way he was, might think that there was something the matter with him. He turned over to Resolved Forbes.

  "The east passage, sir?"

  "Aye. And don't have me up till we're in."

  His tiredness—he'd been on watch a good part of the night, an ear constantly cocked for breakers—did not bring him sleep. Yet he didn't toss, only lay there and stared with a flat dry-eyeballed disbelief at the deck planks above, or sometimes rolled his eyes to take in the rest of the cabin, while his muscles without prompting accommodated themselves to the movement of the schooner. There was no port, so he couldn't look out. He didn't need to anyway. He knew every foot of the way. As for the cabin, on this return passage he had for the first time been struck by its smallness. Resolved Forbes, that neat man, was as admirable a cabin mate as he was an officer: he had few possessions, and what he did have, like the coverings of his bunk, always were shaken out, folded, snugged away. This was as it should be, at sea. Dresses and laces and scarves and stockings scattered everywhere, so high sometimes, and so thick, that you had a hard time finding the ladder—that was not the way it should be. All the same, Adam was lonesome.

  Resolved Forbes was a crackerjack mate; but he didn't do much to help pass the time away.

  Was Maisie a witch? He doubted it. A witch, he reasoned, being surcharged with evil would show this overload exactly when her mind was least upon it. Actually employed in weaving a spell or concocting some

  philtre, he supposed, a witch might well dissimulate, holding back all outward sign of malice, the ability to do this being one of the gifts the Old One had granted her; but it might show when she least expected it —when she was thinking about something else or was asleep. The girl Maisie standing at the taffrail gazing upon the emptiness of the sea, or asleep over there in that bunk which now held only Forbes' tucked-in blankets and his Book—that person was all innocence, he knew.

  If he'd become entoiled, he told himself, it was willingly; and he was not sorry.

  Adam indeed would have been utterly sure of his position if the accuser had been anybody else but Seth Selden; for though in most matters he had little respect and no fondness for the uncle of Deborah Selden, he did esteem Seth expert in all that appertains to the Devil. Coarse, jocose, Seth nevertheless had much about him that was feline, suggesting less a witch than a witch's familiar. His eyes gleamed with an agate iridescence sometimes, and probably would shine like that in the dark as well. His nose twitched.

  Adam sat up, bumping his head. Was it possible that Seth was a witchi' He might have caused his niece to act as she had simply in order to get Adam into trouble, to clinch the captaincy for himself. For after all, Deborah, to give her her due, didn't seem like that kind of female. Seth, if he was possessed, naturally would do battle to Maisie Treadway, too; he would be obliged by the nature of his contract to try to discredit any person who brought out so much goodness in others. And when he'd been foiled, and had fallen back cursing, hadn't Seth Selden seized the first chance he got to desert?

  But—no. Adam lay back, good sense reasserting itself. In the first place, it was known that the Devil seldom struck hands or exchanged the sealing kiss with men, for obvious reasons preferring to work through the weaker sex. In the second place, if any such forces had been seething in Seth the fact would long ago have been discovered by certain of his fellow townsmen. For there were men in Newport who knew a great deal about the Devil, a personage who there, too, because of the multiplicity of faiths, could scarcely be expected to escape detection, being viewed, as it were, from every angle; for whereas in a one-church communitv, or one with only two or three organized beliefs, Satan, notoriously cunning, might so accoimnodate himself outwardly to local opinion as to conceal his true purpose and power, in Adam Long's town soinehody was sure to sniff the brimstone, to expose the hoof. (This was in a manner of mental speaking, for Adam did not believe that the Prince of Darkness any longer had a cloven hoof, but would certainly by this time have used some magical means to change this, as he would also in some manner counteract the distinctive odor associated with him.) No, the Devil would

  never rampage around Newport as only a few years ago, for instance, he had done in Salem, a town up in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Newport was safe.

  Having decided this, Adam at last went to sleep.

  The rain continued, unrelenting, late that afternoon when Resolved Forbes stuck his head down and shouted an awakener.

  Adam put on the coat he had bought in Kingston. It was not a stunningly fine one, not of the sort he would soon be wearing, but it was a considerable cut above the coat of his freedom suit. It was sober without being somber, a rich dark blue, and of course slitted for a sword. He had white woolen breeches and white woolen stockings to go with it, and the waistcoat, appropriately gay in order to offset the seriousness of the coat proper, was ivory in color and all shot with silver thread. His hat, a wide-brimmed felt, somewhat Quakerish in aspect, seemed glum and shabby in such sartorial company; but it was the only one he owned —and the rain still came down.

  The first person he encountered when he stepped ashore was Zephary Evans.

  O tT This man Evans was slabsided and long. He had a muddy

  c-/ *^ complexion, a conscientious if unconvincing smile, lackluster eyes, and a habit of shoving his face close to yours when he talked: his voice was always low, nigh onto a whisper, and he seemed anxious that everything he said should be clearly understood. When he walked it was with a jointy movement that reminded you of some tall wading bird, a crane or flamingo; and when he came to a standstill this same impression prevailed, for he seemed to lift one leg underneath him—though he didn't actually do this—and to stand on one foot. He was much older than Elnathan, his wife.

  He took Adam's hand in both of his, greeting him gravely. Adam was not touched, and took his hand back as soon as he could get it. Adam had not expected any committee of welcome. He knew his Newport. Even if Goodwill to Men had been spotted off Weeping Point the sight would scarcely justify a messenger to the village. After all, the schooner, though phenomenally fast, and well remembered because of the disputation that had attended her building, carried but a small crew, and those mostly foreigners—that is, men not from Newport.

  "You're looking well, Captain. Aye. Aye. And we're all the same here. All of us still." 156

  "Well, not quite all—"

  Adam looked over toward Goat Island, then back at Zeph Evans' face. There was no twitch of guilt, no pallor, as he'd hoped.

  "Ah, yes. You miss Hart? He blew dovm one night. Chain broke."

  "Good riddance," murmured Adam.

  "Amen," said Evans.

  "Odd thing, they never found out who it was was his agent here."

  "Go hard with him if they did. Dudley's fair panting after that charter. I do hope and trust ymir record's clear. Captain?"

  "Sure," imperturbably. "Y'know, down in the islands I met a man'd been Hart's second when Hart was operating off this coast: Name of van Bramm. I ought to've asked who Hart's Newport agent was."

  "You should have, aye."

  "Meet him again, I will."

  They stood there looking at one another, Zeph Evans smiling. The rain was ardent. No folks passed. Blake's was only a short distance away, but did Evans, the old skinflint, make a move toward suggesting that they have a noggin of loim? No.

  "Reason we ain't more surprised. Captain, a brig put in t'other day from Jamaica. She told us you was fixing to come back."

  "That'd be the Artemis?"

  "Aye. Told us about that prize you took, too. Congratulations."

  "Derelict. I ain't commissioned to take prizes."

  "You must have made money, then?"

  Adam shrugged.

  Zeph Evans ha
rrumphed, rubbed one side of a hawklike nose with a finger that wasn't too clean, and in a few additional words jolted Adam so that his heels thudded the cobbles and his teeth clicked.

  "Would you be interested in buying my share of the schooner?"

  It was like a flash of pain, it was so intense and burny. Adam Long lowered his head lest joy show in his eyes. He spat thoughtfully.

  Zephary Evans owned a quarter of Goodvnll. Seth Selden's eighth, at a bargain price, had been a windfall for Adam, who now owned three-sixteenths but who had assumed that it might take years to buy more. With Zeph Evans' share he would own almost half.

  But—why did Zeph want to sell?

  Adam stood there watching the rain wash his spittle oft" a cobblestone. He scratched the back of his neck.

  "Mightn't it be best you heard my report first?"

  "Don't need to. Tell from what the Artemis officers said. Y'under-stand. Captain, I ain't aiming to give my share away!"

  "Didn't suppose vou was."

  "We'll figure it out on the basis of your report. All I want to know right now is: You didn't bring Seth Selden hack, did you?"

  Adam shook his head. "Seth went on the account."

  "Out-and-out?"

  "Public. He's at Providence. Lives there,"

  Evans exhaled slowly. He leaned even closer, and put a hand on Adam's arm, an attention Adam did not like.

  "Lucky thing for us you did what you did. Captain. You was the man for the job. I voted for you in the first place."

  Aye, thought Adam, because your wife made you.

  But Adam said nothing about this, only asked if Seth's peculations were so bad then?

  "Captain, 'twas a scandal. The whole town knew of it, the whole colony, before you was twenty miles below Brenton's. Why, that Seth, he was mixed up in everything. Forgery, smuggling. Everything except being Tom Hart's agent. He wasn't even in Newport at that time."

  "So it must have been some other man."

  "The custos is hoppety mad. He'll be shouting at you sure."

  "Mr. Clark? He wouldn't be persnicketty."

  "No, this is a new one. Captain Wingfield. Not a pleasant gentleman at all. Dudley's been making a heap of changes, and the customs folks're bearing down on us." He nodded out toward the schooner. "Seth aboard of her, they might even seize her."

  "Well, he ain't."

  "A hypocrite, sir! That's what that man is!"

  "Tut, tut," said Adam.

  "Even stole funds from his own brother. I feel sorry for Obadiah. It's been a great disgrace for his family."

  "That the only one?"

  "Eh?"

  "I mean: Deborah had her baby yet?"

  Evans shook his head.

  "She ain't with child," he said. "Never was."

  "Oh," said Adam. "I thought she was."

  He moved away from the older man, meaning to pull his arm free; but Zeph Evans, whose breath smelled like low tide, moved vvdth him.

  "Things like that scare me," Evans whispered. "Seth'd sailed in command of that schooner we'd never've seen it again."

  "That's right."

  "Thank God, Captain—and I say it reverently—thank the good Creator in Heaven above that you did what you did!" He stopped, and Adam slipped free. "Why not come up to my house and we'll talk it over, after you've reported to Wingfield?" 158

  "That'll be right chirk."

  "You'll be there then?"

  Adam looked at the Goodwill to Men, which sat apart, clean, sweet of line, all loveliness, resting in the water as though she was doing the bay a favor, light as any bird. Tears came to Adam's eyes, while across his mouth a series of small smiles slid like catspaws touching a satined sea early in the morning.

  "I'll be there," he promised.

  O /Z? Adam looked out the window and told himself that he must «-y J not explode. Ordinarily he found it easy to keep his temper. If the other fellow wasn't worth a fist in the face, Adam turned away. If a fight looked likely, he preferred to start it—and finish it. In either case the business was soon over with.

  This did not apply to collectors of customs. Assuredly it did not apply to Captain Arthur Wingfield, whose rudeness was more than just professional—was something extra, heavy, labored, loud.

  This Wingfield was of course a Queen's man, a Dudley man, and new in Newport, a place he clearly considered beneath him. He was large, long, young, and arrogant with an arrogance that was not interesting, only crass. You knew what he was going to say next, though the vehemence with which he said it never failed to offend.

  In the nature of his calling, Adam Long was obliged to hear a deal of blasphemy. He thought that he knew the meaning of the Third Commandment. He sure hoped he did. But the mere mouthing of the words themselves didn't seem to him to make up much of a sin, no matter which way you looked at it. That is, the sound of swearing sanded him slightly but didn't shock him. He simply couldn't see why men cussed. They said that it relieved them, but in Adam's observation it only made them hotter, just as Wingfield here, who a bit earlier had been but simmering, now, like a man fascinated, unable to help himself, was approaching boiling point.

  "I'll see everyone of those whoresons in Hell first before I'll let her Majesty's service be diddled! Now if—"

  Pompous officials, men filled with a sense of their own importance, Adam Long had met and could endure, though not blithely. After all, a windbag may bore but it can't prick.

  With the official who goes on the assumption that the imofficial world is peopled exclusively by sneaks, cheats, thieves, liars, Adam was likewise,

  unfortunately, familiar. As much as possible he ignored such people. It was not good business to let yourself get huffed up. A man can't think clearly when his fists are clenched. It is hard to add a row of figures with a hand that itches to slap a certain face. And after all, the ass in question might be decent and even a good companion outside of his office. A skipper has to make allowances.

  Captain Wingfield was something special. He overdid his part. He sounded as if he really meant it.

  "—take this man Selden, Seth Selden. Now God damn it. Long, are you going to sit there and tell me—"

  So Adam stared out of the window, trying to think of other things. Though it was still raining, more and more men came to a stop before the customs house. Wingfield's voice carried well.

  "—and I tell you that this attitude that it's bright and charming to cheat the Queen's customs has got to stop! It's got to stop, mark you, man! Now about this van Bramm—"

  Was this planned? Was he trying to provoke a fight?

  Adam wasn't evasive. His answers were brief but they were straight, and if he didn't look at the custos while he spoke, this was only because he was afraid he would knock the man's teeth out. He admitted that he knew about the orders in forged cockets Seth had filled, but said what was perfectly true, that before the sailing he had never even heard of this trade, much less associated Seth with it. He denied that he might have done more to keep Seth and Peterson and Waters from joining the outlaws of Providence. He refused even to consider a suggestion that the money from the sale of the gunpowder should be divided among the owners of the schooner and therefore become subject to taxation; but he did remind Wingfield that he had referred to this matter, as a point of information, in his report to the owners, a copy of which the custos had before him.

  Save his anger, Adam had nothing to hide. His report was in order. It was clear and it was complete, and he expected to be commended for it. The voyage had been a success. His own commission was in good order, too, and still a matter of record, as he had learned indirectly. Whether the men of the Adventurers' Table had been reluctant to admit publicly that he'd made fools of them, or even more reluctant to admit that Seth Selden had, Adam did not know—and didn't care, now. Whatever the reason, no complaint had been lodged against him, and it was not even a matter of public knowledge that he had virtually stolen the schooner.

  Wingfield indeed was not so much bringing charge
s against Adam as he was hurling hard words at him in the hope of causing him to blurt 160

  out in anger something that in a cooler moment he'd conceal—something useful to Colonel Dudley.

  Or was it more than that, the reason for this spate of abuse? Could it be that Wingfield, uncertain, seeing that he was not well liked here, had taken refuge in bluster for bluster's sake, and now hoped to make an example of this whippersnapper Long? Could he have been told— there were plenty to tell him—that Adam had always been too big for his breeches? Had he resolved to take the wind out of Adam's sails before Adam could get a mite of way on?

  Whatever it was, it was becoming intolerable, Adam couldn't listen to it much longer. And the crowd outside was really large now.

  "I guess that's all we need to talk about." Adam turned on his stool. "You want to know anything more you know where to find me."

  "Now damn it, no bastard of a Newgate whore's going to come in here and tell me that—"

  Adam did not spring to his feet, but he got up right fast.

  "All right, that's enough." He drew. "Draw!"

  Here it became patent that the custos had not been trying to start a fight. His amazement was genuine. Though he had seen that Adam carried a sword, surely he had not dreamt that Adam knew how to use it.

  It was equally evident that, though flabbergasted, he was not frightened. He, too, rose, and with alacrity. He, too, drew. When the astonishment had faded from them, there came into his eyes a glint of joy. Adam could all but hear the man say to himself: "Oho! now I can really teach the whelp to heel!"

  In fact Captain Wingfield bowed—a very small, stiff bow, scarcely more than a curt inclination of the head. He glanced at the door: there was only one, and he stood near it.

  "Can't fight here. Ceiling's too low. Go on outside."

  "Not while you're standing there I won't."

  "What's the matter—don't you trust me?"

  "No."

  That really riled the custos. The anger of his tirade had been in part simulated. Then he'd been astounded and immediately afterward amused and probably pleased, being sure of his own swordsmanship. Now he was sore. His chin went down, his small dark eyes blazed.