Hot Winds From Bombay

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  The first mate said no more. The long night passed slowly, painfully.

  Only with first light did help come. The little boat dashed out from behind the Boston Light, where she had lain protected in its lee all through the stormy night. With the pilot safely on board and in control, and the weather settling, the captain went below to change out of the clothes that were nearly frozen to his skin.

  A monkey of a cabin boy met him at the door, a heated tankard of grog at the ready.

  “The storm, she’s over?” asked the brown boy, wide-eyed.

  Before he answered, the captain put the cup to his mouth and downed the fiery drink. He swabbed his lips with the back of his big square hand and thrust the container toward the boy. “Another, Jocko!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “In answer to your question, lad, the storm’s over. And I hope not to see another night like this one in my lifetime. Cold as a witch’s tit it was on deck, I can tell you. And the wind howling and spitting like the souls of the damned! All of them out for my blood!”

  The boy, who had been grinning at his master, sobered suddenly. “You’re having the dreams again,” he said. “You’re thinking that them Africans from the slave ship are after you? It wasn’t your fault, sir.’”

  “Shut up!” The words boomed from his twisted lips, and he brought back a hand as if he meant to strike the boy. But Jocko stood his ground, knowing his captain was not given to violence without cause.

  Anxious to be out of the man’s way all the same, the boy said, “I’ll fetch water for your bath, sir.”

  The big man slumped into a chair and ran nervous fingers through his wild shock of silver-streaked hair. “Aye, do that, lad.”

  When the boy left him, he leaned heavily on the chart table and grimaced as if he were in pain. He was, but not of body. It was a hurting of the soul. These past ten years had been a torment. But it was almost over now. No more would he sail the slavers, making his gold by selling other human beings. That last cargo of black ivory had been his undoing.

  He had carried other guilts like festering sores on his heart for years and years. But none so painful as this. Would he ever be able to forget that dark night he’d guided his final shipload of slaves from the Ebo tribe up the marshy waterways of the Georgia coast? He had planned that one to be his last contraband cargo. It was time to give it up when dreams became nightmares… when the stench refused to leave his nostrils… when the slaves anguished cries would not be banished from his brain.

  “Too bad you were such a greedy bastard,” he snorted in self-derision. “Had to have one more pouch of ill-got gold, didn’t you?”

  But in the long run, it was he who had paid.

  He could still see it all when he closed his eyes. The ship had anchored in a deep cove where the slave traders had awaited their precious goods with dogs and whips. He’d ordered the plank laid down. Then he’d watched as, chained together, the Ebos had marched out of the hold, chanting mournfully: “Water brought us here. Water take us away.”

  Before anyone had realized their intent, his entire cargo—three hundred prime Africans, three hundred human beings—had marched themselves not to shore, but into the deep muddy water of the river.

  They had drowned. Every last man, woman, and child of them had died—choosing mass suicide over the white man’s bondage. He had seen his share, but this was a horror like none he had ever before witnessed.

  No more would he ply the southern climes. Yes, he hated the New England winters, but there cargoes were clean and honest. He would sell the goods in his hold—tobacco, molasses, and rum—on the Boston market. And then he would seek out a post on an ice ship.

  Long ago, that had been his plan. Long ago, he had had many plans. But fate had seemed determined to have her way with him. Now, after all these painful years, he was determined to reshape his destiny and make it of his own choosing.

  He took out his ship’s log and dipped a quill into the inkpot. In a bold black scrawl he wrote: “Arrived Boston harbor in foul weather, but with crew and cargo intact, on morning of November 1, 1846.”

  Too weary to write more, he simply signed his name: “Captain Zachariah Hazzard.”

  It was a stupid thing to do! Zack knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Almost ten years had passed since the day they should have been married. And not one of those days passed on which he hadn’t thought of Persia Whiddington. She was like a fever in his blood.

  Ten long years!

  Why, they should have children belt buckle high by now! Instead, all he had were memories of their one, long-ago night together. That seemed little enough to keep romance alive.

  Still, he’d been dreaming all this time of seeing her again… imagining how it would be. But now that he was nearing Quoddy Cove again, he felt nervous and foolish somehow. What would he say to her?

  “Pardon me, madam. You may not remember me, but you and I ran away to be married once. We didn’t quite make it, however. You see, I got shanghaied… was on the Alissa May for five years, unable to escape… almost drowned when the ship was wrecked off Java… washed up on that island more dead than alive, but this lovely golden-skinned native girl nursed me back to health, you’ll be happy to know… and when I came out of it and tired of life in paradise, I signed on as first mate of a slaver plying the southern seas… stayed on as captain out of sheer greed until I couldn’t stomach the job any longer. But I always thought of you… I always meant to come back. And now here I am if you’d still like to marry me!”

  “Balderdash!” His breath exploded in the cold air.

  He had his nerve going back to Persia with such a tale! Even if she had loved him before, she’d certainly never be able to find it in her heart to love the bounder he had become. He should have moved heaven and earth to get back to her before now. But then, maybe she’d been happier without him. He was no prize catch, after all. Persia deserved better!

  Yes, he had been right to stay away all these years. Surely by now she had a passel of children, fathered by some worthy and loving man. And the last thing he wanted to do was intrude on her life.

  He revised his plan. He would make no attempt to see her, he told himself. He only needed to go back to where it had all started between them. Maybe then he’d be able to purge her from his senses and lay the past to rest.

  Still, he couldn’t deny it, going back to Quoddy Cove was a stupid thing to do!

  Zack Hazzard’s reason dueled with his emotions all the way from Boston to Quoddy Cave. He was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he had trouble keeping his hired team on the snow-covered road.

  He was nearing the village. For one mad instant, he thought about driving right up Gay Street, halting the sleigh in front of her house, and pounding on the front door. What would she do? Would she melt into his arms as if the past years never existed? More than likely, if she was even there, she would order him away with angry words and ice in her blue eyes.

  He controlled his urge to drive by her house and headed instead for the pond. At least he could sit there for a time, remembering how it had felt to hold her in his arms as they skated… how that first kiss from her innocent but willing lips had tasted so very long ago. Perhaps that would be enough to satisfy him.

  “Perhaps,” he murmured. “But I doubt it.”

  On the morning she was to be married, Persia felt she had to get away by herself for a time. She felt nervous, uncertain, and ready to back out of the whole thing. Never mind going to India! She would stay safe in her snug Maine harbor town for the rest of her life.

  She dressed quickly in the simple taffeta gown she’d made for her wedding and slipped out before her father was awake. Without even thinking where she was going, she headed for the ice pond.

  By the time she reached it, she had her emotions in hand. The heavy sound of the Irish ice-cutters’ booming voices and the jingle and slap of the horses’ harnesses as they worked came as a comfort to her. This was he
re; this was now. She needn’t worry over Cyrus Blackwell, the reality of her future, or Zachariah Hazzard, the fantasy from her past.

  Lifting her dark skirts and brushing aside the heavy veil she had adopted as part of her missionary’s wife’s costume, she quickened her pace. Soon she was standing at the edge of the pond, which was alive with men, horses, and ice-cutting tools. It was going well, she could see.

  Every phase of the operation was in progress at once—clearing, scoring, grooving, and sawing. Closest to her, thick-muscled men were hard at work with shovels, clearing the packed snow from the ice. One man was using a horse-drawn scraper. He spied her watching and waved. She waved back.

  On the far side of the pond, she saw one of the workmen seated on the scoring sled—a chairlike contraption pulled by a single horse. The apparatus had iron runners with saw teeth about eighteen inches apart. As the scoring sled was pulled by the horse, the man’s weight upon it dug even lines across the ice.

  Next would come the grooving operation. Long lines would be cut by a plowlike machine at ninety-degree angles in the other direction, marking the ice off into blocks roughly three feet square. Men with hand saws would then cut it free.

  “A good mornin’ to you, boss lady. Would you be wantin’ me to clear a patch for you to skate?”

  “Thanks, no, Mike,” she called back. “I’ve only come down to see how the work is progressing.”

  “Oh, ma’am, we’ll have that new ship of your daddy’s packed tight with these crystal cubes of Yankee coldness before Paddy’s pig can blink his eye at a serpent.”

  Suddenly, Persia’s gaze traveled beyond the copper-whiskered workman to the far side of the pond. A strange sleigh was drawn up under a stand of elms. One lone figure sat behind the team, staring across the ice field at her.

  “Mike, who’s the man over there watching us?”

  He glanced in the direction she indicated and shrugged his wide shoulders. “Beats me, ma’am. He’s been there a while, though. I was over to that side of the ice about a half hour ago and got a close look at him.” He squinched up his jowls and whispered, “Evil-looking cuss, he is! Scar down his face that would frighten Old Nick himself. But he’s not in the way and doin’ no harm, so I didn’t chase him off. I will, though, if you want, ma’am.”

  “No, Mike. He’s probably just curious to see the ice harvest. It does seem odd, though, that a stranger would be out here this time of morning.”

  “Takes all kinds, ma’am.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right.”

  Sensing that the “boss lady,” as all the men called Persia, had drifted off into her own thoughts, the ice-cutter went back to work.

  She was indeed in her own world, thinking of Zack and their first night together at the pond. She could still see him as he had been that night—strong, tall, and ruggedly handsome, his face smiling down into hers. Warmth crept through her veins as memories tumbled from some secret, long-locked part of her heart. She realized suddenly that she was smiling, but at the same time tears swam in her eyes.

  It hurt to think of Zack. It hurt like the very devil, even after all this time!

  She found her gaze straying across the pond once more to the lone man pacing beside his sleigh. He had a slight limp, but he carried himself with a certain restrained, arrogant power that touched a spot somewhere deep inside her. No, she decided suddenly, it wasn’t the stranger who had touched the chords of her heartstrings, but an old love—gone forever.

  She turned from the pond, unable any longer to endure the pain brought on by the memories this place held. She had no right to feel this way. Before noon, she would be another man’s wife.

  Without further ado, she hurried up through the woods and out of sight of the man whose dark eyes followed her.

  She had no way of knowing that the stranger across the pond was sharing similar disturbing feelings or that he had been wondering who she was and why the sight of the woman dressed in black with her face hidden by a heavy veil should cause a painfully pleasant surge in his loins.

  When the woman across the pond disappeared, Captain Zachariah Hazzard climbed up into his sleigh and urged the horses toward the Old Post Road, headed back to Boston.

  No need to linger here, he thought. The memories were far too disturbing to endure. And Persia was gone—as good as dead to him.

  It wasn’t much of a wedding. In fact, it almost wasn’t one at all. But to this very day, those interested in York County history can find it recorded in the old church ledger: “Married this tenth day of November in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred & Forty-six, Miss Persia Whiddington of this village, by proxy, to the Reverend Cyrus Blackwell, Bombay, India.”

  Still, at the time, Reverend Osgood took great exception to having a tattooed heathen stand in for his bridegroom and almost refused to perform the ceremony.

  “It simply isn’t fitting! The man is more cannibal than Christian!”

  “See here, Osgood, that’s no way to talk about my man,” thundered Captain Widdington. “Fletcher will be traveling with my daughter to see her safely to her husband in India, so I find it more than fitting that he should take Brother Blackwell’s place. I demand that you proceed!”

  They were gathered in the tiny church office, not the sanctuary where most nuptials were celebrated. The Reverend Mr. Osgood had stood firm in his conviction that Persia’s checkered past precluded any thoughts of allowing her to marry in the usual sight of God. Captain Whiddington tried to kick up a fuss about it, but Persia persuaded him to be still. There was more than ample space in the church office, the bride pointed out, to accommodate the wedding party—herself, the preacher, Fletcher, and her father. Europa had been notified, but purposely not in time for her to arrive for the ceremony. She would be coming in on tomorrow’s stage from Portland. Besides, holding the wedding in the church would have only pointed up the fact that no guests were in attendance.

  The whole town was in a furor over Persia’s marriage to Cyrus Blackwell. If Persia thought she had been gossiped about before, that was nothing compared to the wagging of tongues now. Still, it would have been worse had she planned to journey all the way to India unwed. That would have been a scandal to end all. But at this point she could endure whatever was whispered about her. It wouldn’t last much longer. Soon she would be on her way, leaving her old life, her old name, and her old enemies far behind.

  Right now, she just wanted to be done with it. Ever since the meeting with Reverend Osgood a few days before, her mind had been straying in odd directions. Years ago she’d given up all hope of ever seeing Zachariah Hazzard again, or so she’d thought. But these past few nights she’d lain awake, dreading sleep and the dreams it brought. He came to her in these dreams—bold, naked, and ready to bed her—forcing her to relive every intimate detail of the time they had shared so long ago. The visions of him gave her an eerie, unsettled feeling. It almost seemed as if Zack had been far, far away for a long time, but was on his way back even now. She could almost sense him drawing nearer. That was ridiculous, of course. Why, after all these years, would he suddenly decide to drop back into her life?

  It was probably just the idea of marrying a man she didn’t know that had her emotions in such a turmoil. After all, this was a big step. And her only other brush with wedlock had been with Zack. She was sure that was all it amounted to. Still…

  Reverend Osgood was clearing his throat, bringing Persia’s thoughts back to the business at hand.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, in the sight of God, to join this man and this woman…”

  Persia barely heard the words. She was conscious of the stiffness of her horsehair petticoats against the dark taffeta of her skirt, the creaking of whalebone as she breathed, the spreading coldness in her heart. It was almost as if she were closing a door on something… or someone.

  “In the name of His Most Holy Lordship, the Reverend Mr. Cyrus Blackwell,” Fletcher intoned important
ly, “I do.”

  In spite of her agitation, Persia made the required responses to the proper questions. She had spoken these same phrases in her mind a thousand times. But somehow they now sounded odd to her ears. She didn’t feel like a bride. She felt strangely removed from the whole scene, as if she were floating somewhere overhead, watching and listening to strangers.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the—” Reverend Osgood looked stricken suddenly as he gazed up into the blue patterns of Fletcher’s face. He cleared his throat, trying to cover his slip. “No, I don’t suppose you’d better.”

  Out of pure spite, and appreciation, too, Persia reached up and gave her father’s servant a peck on the cheek. Fletcher smiled. The minister bristled.

  “Well, I suppose that takes care of it,” Asa Whiddington said.

  Persia stared down at her left hand and the gold band encircling her finger. It had been her mother’s wedding ring. It felt tight and heavy, as if it didn’t belong there. She was tempted to remove it, but that would only create more gossip. She let her hand drop.

  “Can we go home now, Father?”

  “By all means, Mrs. Blackwell.” The captain grinned at her, but his eyes looked pained when he spoke her new name.

  Persia Whiddington Blackwell’s wedding night was not as she had imagined it would be. Following a light, silent supper shared with her father, she excused herself and went to bed. She had eaten little, but the emptiness she felt deep inside had nothing to do with her slight appetite. She longed for something else far more than she craved food.

  Slowly, she undid the buttons on her black wedding dress. The somber fabric reflected her mood, and threatening tears stung the insides of her eyelids.

  She tried to imagine what her wedding night would be like if her husband were here with her. Would he be gentle and patient, taking her mistakenly for a virgin? Would he find her disgusting and hate her once he discovered she was not pure? Or would the holy missionary simply spend their first night together praying over her, asking God to make her worthy of their mission?