Shad Run

by Howard Breslin

  God, she said inaudibly, take care of him.

  Outside, she felt better, sure that her prayer had been heard. The Quists did not stop for greetings, for the social gatherings that always followed the services. Hendrick, again shouldering the bundle, led the way to the Filkintown Road.

  As they went down it, toward the river, Lancey walked in step with Ten Bush. She thought he looked grave, troubled, and wondered if the preacher’s text had upset him. Most fishermen were superstitious.

  “The sermon wasn’t aimed at you, Ten Bush.”

  “Huh?” He was puzzled, then grinned. “I didn’t think it was, Lancey. I ain’t exactly heading for any palaces of sin.”

  Hendrick, overhearing, glanced back. He said, “That gave me a bad turn for a second there.” He frowned, shaking his head. “Good thing he never mentioned the sea. Stands to reason you can’t luck the sea without naming it.”

  “I had my fingers crossed anyway,” Ten Bush said.

  The statement brought them all to a standstill, clustered about Ten Bush. Even the two little girls stared their disbelief.

  “Had your fingers crossed?” said Hendrick slowly. “In church?”

  “It just happened to be, Pa. You see, I was holding my copper that way. So’s to have it ready.”

  Pleasure chased the frown from Hendrick’s face. Conrad chuckled, clapped fist in palm. They were all worried, Lancey thought, but this simple thing has relieved them.

  “That’s all right, then,” Hendrick said. “You hear, Hester. He had his fingers crossed.”

  Hester crowed an approving laugh. “I guess we don’t have to worry about you, boy.”

  They trudged on toward the landing in high spirits. Lancey didn’t share their cheerfulness, but had no wish to dampen it. You’d think, she decided, that by crossing his fingers Ten Bush had diminished the hazards of the journey and cut its time in half. She was a fisherman’s daughter, knew the belief placed in a lucky hat, a special charm, a favorite bit of gear.

  Her own depression was deepening as the moment for farewells approached. It took considerable effort to keep smiling.

  The pinnace was moored to the ferry landing. They all knew it; its owner used it for short hauls along the river. The roads, though passable, were muddy and slow. Ten Bush, like all his kind, considered the river the quickest, most comfortable highway.

  Lancey, judging wind and water, found that the mist had burned off, above and below. The river was a clear, sparkling blue; the sky, lighter in hue, unrippled, was crossed by lazily moving clouds, bleached white by a bright sun.

  It should not be, she thought, such a smiling day.

  The barge ferry was in, too, its four oarsmen loafing in the sunshine. They watched the Quists with idle curiosity.

  “Well,” Ten Bush said.

  “Well.” Hendrick gripped his son’s hand. “Good voyage.” He turned away, handed the bundle down into the pinnace.

  Hester kissed her stepson; he bent to each of the children, shook hands with Conrad.

  “Lancey.”

  “Ten Bush,” she said, feeling the stinging rush of tears. Oh, God, no, she swore silently, I am not going to cry! She said, “That’s a nice breeze from the south. On your quarter all the way.”

  Their hands touched, fell apart. They didn’t kiss.

  Ten Bush climbed down into the boat. Conrad cast off the line; the pinnace owner shoved off from the pier. Ten Bush stood tall against the mast as he helped scull the little vessel out into the stream.

  The sail rattled up, caught wind and bellied. They began to move faster.

  “Goodbve. goodbye, Ten Bush.” The children were calling and waving. Hester fluttered a handkerchief; Hendrick raised an arm.

  White plumes blossomed at the pinnace’s bow, spumed along its sides, dissolved into wake.

  “That’s a fair wind,” Conrad said.

  Goodbye, Lancey said, without speaking. Goodbye, my brother. Goodbye, Ten Bush.

  They stood there watching until the white sail was no bigger than a speck.

  The walk home, on the path below the bluff, alongside the river, was a subdued procession for the three Quist adults. Conrad, in a hurry to return to work, disappeared; the two small girls ran ahead, scampering in gay release.

  Hendrick Quist, hands clasped behind his back, walked with head bent, gaze on the ground. His pace was slow but steady; the set of his shoulders discouraged talk. Obviously thinking of his departed son, he seemed oblivious to his surroundings.

  Shoulder to shoulder, a yard in the rear, came Hendrick’s wife and daughter. Neither spoke. Twice Hester turned toward her stepdaughter, saw the frozen scowl on Lancey’s face, shrugged and held her tongue.

  Ten Bush is gone, thought Lancey, matching her steps to the words. Ten Bush is gone!

  The sun beat down with surprising warmth. Without thinking Lancey opened her cloak, accepting this new discomfort as a part of her misery. There was a gloomy satisfaction in the rhythm of their march, in the drumbeat cadence of her father’s bootheels as they struck the shingle.

  She wanted to weep, but knew she mustn’t. Forgetting all the days when she’d not seen Ten Bush from sunrise to supper, she pictured a future without him as dreary loneliness. Grief was a new emotion to Lancey, and she let it control her, fascinated by its powerful sweep.

  They had almost reached the fishing settlement when Hester nudged Lancey. Her whisper was sharper than her elbow. “Lancey, look at the river!”

  You couldn’t expect, Lancey conceded with sad generosity, that Hester would share the same deep feelings as Ten Bush’s father and sister. She raised her head in patient obedience.

  The white clouds were still drifting from the south. Under them, far downriver, a sloop’s jib, foreshortened by distance to fingernail height, flashed in the sunshine. There was a scent of spring in the air at last; there was a gentleness in the breeze that touched her cheek. Then, as she lowered her gaze to the nearer stretch of broad river, Lancey stiffened.

  She stared, blinked, and stared again. Ten Bush vanished from her mind as if erased from a slate.

  “Pa!” she called, “Pa, look! They’re afishing!”

  “Three of them!” cried Hester.

  Hendrick swung around, jerked from his reverie by their outburst. He saw Lancey’s arm raised in a rigid point, turned his head to follow her indication. At once his voice rose in a roar.

  “Lancey, they’re afishing!”

  “I know!”

  “Kimmee’s boat!” Hendrick started to run.

  Hester and Lancey were running, too. The girl drew away from her stepmother immediately.

  “And Cash!” bellowed Hendrick as Lancey flashed past him. “That’s Pardon’s new dory!” His thick body swayed, short legs pumping, as he tried to strip off his coat as he ran. “The slaves too!” Lancey called back over her shoulder. Then, she hoisted her skirts and really sprinted! She would have to change clothes before they put their own boat in the water.

  Anger as well as exercise set her blood tingling. The season was too early, the day too bright, the river itself too cold for decent fishing! Yet local custom always made a contest of the first casting of nets. There was no prize but the boat with the biggest catch was considered lucky by the rest.

  She wondered which fisherman had picked this day to start. Pardon Cash, probably, beguiled by the fair weather and anxious to try his new made craft. Hendrick’s absence was surely an extra inducement. One less feared rival meant less competition.

  A scurvy trick, she thought, but typical. Fishermen had no scruples about besting each other. Hendrick would have done the same.

  As she tore through the village, she watched the flow of water through the gaps between the shacks. The tide was at flood peak, almost ready to change. They still had time to fish in the flood and float on the ebb!

  She was turning into the Quist yard when she saw Seth Row’s boat move out from shore toward mid-stream. Seth, then, was a late starter, too! He and his eldest w
ere rowing hard, stroking in perfect unison. Four oarblades scattered seed pearl droplets as they lifted, splashed creamy foam when they dug.

  Lancey didn’t wait to watch. Her cloak was off before she reached the threshold of her front door; it was flung aside as she crossed. The dimity dress was unfastened and yanked over her head in three strides. Something caught, ripped as she tugged it loose.

  Her bonnet came off in the folds of the dress. She twisted out from under the crumpled cloth, let it drop to the floor. Scrambling up the ladder to the loft she was fumbling at the laces of her petticoats.

  The fanciest, her best, fell half-way to her cubicle. Lancey leaped free of the puddle of lawn, kicked her second petticoat into a corner. Now, she was down to two, her everyday sturdiest of flannel and wool.

  Hopping on one foot, and then the other, she pried off each shoe in turn, peeled the knitted stockings from her legs. She was half into her homespun dress when she heard Hendrick below.

  “Lancey! Fetch my other coat!”

  She shook the house as she raced across the loft to her father’s room. Swiftly, from pegs, she grabbed Hendrick’s fishing garb, shirt, coat, breeches. Flinging them ahead of her, she practically slid down the ladder.

  “I’m ready, Pa.”

  “Good.” Hendrick’s voice was muffled in his shirt. He pulled his head free, continued, “Take a pair of oars. Be with you in two shakes.”

  Lancey snatched a battered tricorne from behind the door, swept her hair high, crammed the hat on her head. She didn’t want a breeze-swept strand blinding her at the wrong moment. Then, quickly, but carefully, she selected a pair of oars from the half dozen standing in their corner. She tilted them forward onto her shoulder, raised them, and went out.

  Red-faced and winded, Hester was busy in the yard. She’d already turned the boat, was sticking the tholepins in the gunwale. Her eyes were bright with excitement.

  “Those snakes,” she said, panting. “They knew we were busy saying goodbye to Ten Bush!”

  “We’re not skunked yet!”

  “Well, I hope not. Give me those oars. Fetch the gear.”

  By the time Lancey brought the wooden box with its carefully folded layers of net from the shed, and stowed it in the square stern of the boat, Hendrick joined them. He gave the gear a quick inspection, straightened to gaze out over the river.

  “You’ve naught to eat,” Hester said.

  “No need,” Hendrick said, “we’re only going to make a short drift.”

  “And you’re wearing your best breeches!” This time Hester’s complaint was wailed.

  “Look,” said Hendrick, “I know this is a lot of tomfool nonsense. But they ain’t going to be able to say they caught me with a dry net first thing.”

  Lancey was checking the positions of the other fishermen. Seth Row’s brown boat was still moving upstream, blades now as thin as toothpicks. The others were strung out, drifting beside their nets. The Kimmee boat was black; it was almost in mid-river. Closest to the near bank bobbed the slaves’ faded green skiff. Farthest away and hardest to see, Pardon Cash’s new dory made a gray scar against the blue current.

  “Pa,” she said, “they’re not moving much. Tide hasn’t changed yet.”

  Hendrick said, “We’ve time.”

  With Hester’s help they ran the boat into the water. Hendrick embarked from the pier, but Lancey waded heedlessly through the shallows, gasping as the cold ripples lapped around her ankles.

  They shoved off, laying the oars between the tholepins. Hester raised voice and arm in farewell.

  “Best the lot,” she called.

  Sitting behind her father, Lancey took her beat from his. Hendrick rowed with a steady, unhurried rhythm, glancing over his shoulder to set the course.

  “We’ll go up almost to the landing, Lancey. There’s plenty of time. They didn’t expect us back soon as this.”

  It was good, Lancey decided, to feel a boat moving beneath her again, to sniff the cool breeze rising from the river. Her hands, arms, and body adapted to the rowing as if she had never been landlocked.

  Lift, feather, stretch, dip, pull.

  All the tricks returned to her, as familiar as the gurgle of the water rushing past, the creak of the tholepins. She had complete faith in her father’s judgment, and was content to let him decide their speed. Racing might raise blisters on her palms, but not this easy, swinging stroke.

  Lift, feather, stretch, dip, pull.

  A hail floated across the waves, soft and unintelligible. Lancey didn’t bother to turn her head. Hendrick glanced and grunted.

  “Calico,” he said, “cheering us on.”

  Nice of him, Lancey thought. The sun was warm on her face and arms; the exercise had her glowing. She was suddenly aware that she could see the gray dory from the corner of her eye. There were two figures waving.

  A moment later the Kirnmee boat was abreast of them. She heard Gerritt Kimmee’s raucous jeer.

  “Almost caught you napping, Hendrick!”

  Hendrick saved his breath for rowing. Ten strokes later the Kimmees were well astern, faces turned to watch them pull away. Lancey could see the floats of the other boat’s net; she swung her gaze along the line, but none appeared to be dipping under the surface.

  No fish yet, she judged, and smiled grimly.

  Lift, feather, stretch, dip, pull.

  They changed course slightly, slanting toward the western bank. Hendrick told her the reason.

  “Seth’s casting net. Let’s get out of his way.”

  She glanced back, then. The closeness of Seth Row’s boat surprised her, a feeling replaced by satisfaction. They’d made excellent speed. Not far beyond Seth, bending and straightening as he tossed net, she could see the ferry barge.

  Watching the filmy gray veiling billow, and splash, billow, and splash, behind Seth’s boat, Lancey frowned. He never did manage to stain his nets dark enough.

  “All right, Lancey. Let her run.”

  Shipping oars, Lancey mopped her face. Her first glance was for the tide.

  “On the turn,” she said, happily.

  “Just.” Hendrick, always serious in a boat, allowed himself a grin. He drew in his oars, laid them aside, moved to the stern. Crouching over the net box, his head turned in one sweeping survey. “Good,” he said, “swing her around and keep her steady.”

  Using each oar as needed, Lancey jockeyed the boat into position. Hendrick nodded; he bent, straightened, flung out both arms, casting the first foot of net well away from him. The weight hit the water with a solid smack; the white painted wooden buoy slapped, skipped on the surface.

  Lancey began to row with careful steadiness as her father dipped back into the box. Again, he came up smoothly, jerked as he cast net. Weight and float splashed white scars from the blue water.

  Down, up and out, Lancey thought, down, up and out. With never an unbalanced moment, a hitch or a tangle. It was really a graceful skill, this fisherman sowing of the river. She drew in a deep breath, very proud of her father.

  When the whole line of white blocks was bobbing behind them, they rowed back along it to make sure it wasn’t tangled.

  By that time the net was floating gently downriver with the ebb tide.

  “So,” said Hendrick, “now we wait.”

  They drifted, silently pleased with their work, not talking. Lancey stretched in the bow, her feet propped on a thwart; Hendrick studied the net.

  The girl watched the sky rock gently above her, shut her eyes. Sunshine seemed to press warmth and peace deep into her. For the first time since she’d noticed the fishermen, she thought of her brother.

  He should be there with them, waiting for the changing tide, watching for the first telltale ducking of a float that signalled a fish in the net. It was too early for even the craziest herring to be running, but there were always perch. Not that the catch mattered too much on such a lovely day.

  Poor Ten Bush, she thought, there’s no better life than this anywhere.
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  CHAPTER 9

  AFTER THE DAY OF THE FIRST CASTING THE LIFE OF THE Fishing village settled into its seasonal routine. There were always nets to be washed, hung to dry; threadbare gear was given its final mending.

  Each boat owner had his favorite hours for making a drift, but these varied according to weather, tides, the luck of another boat. It was still too early for luck to be much of a factor, but the men watched each other.

  Every haul was carefully scanned for a telltale herring, the forerunner of the shad. The shad would come upriver to spawn in their own time, when the water was warm enough, but the herring came first.

  Lancey Quist would have been more surprised at sight of a herring than she was to discover that Justin Pattison was the helper in Pardon Cash’s dory. Somehow it seemed a natural result of the wrestle between the two men, foreshadowed by Pardon’s admiration for a soldier who’d avoided capture.

  The girl asked her father about it.

  “Pardon feeling his years, that he’s taken a partner?”

  “They ain’t rightly partners,” Hendrick explained, with slow deliberation. “Seems Pardon went bond for the fellow over to von Beck’s. Got his things back on a promise to pay the score. Justin’s working for keep till then.”

  “Or till he steals something else, and skedaddles!”

  Hendrick blinked at his daughter’s tone. “He’s not just an ordinary thief, Lancey.”

  “No. He’s a clumsy one.”

  “Well, that’s Pardon’s watchout, not ours. Besides, the man knows a thwart from the gunwale. He’s a good helper.”

  Lancey had to admit that her father was right. Justin Pattison showed himself to be a skilled boatman. She was a little annoyed by the man’s adaptability, by his powerful rowing, his deft handling of a net. It made her own efforts as Hendrick’s helper seem of less importance.

  They met with mutual hostility concealed behind politeness. Lancey was guarded, wary of every glance and smile. She had not forgotten his insult, nor did she believe that he had changed his opinion. Justin’s bow of greeting, his deferential address, his very tone mocked her. She waited only for the overt act or remark that would break their truce.