Shad Run

by Howard Breslin

  “You two going to sleep now?”

  Hester’s question ended the girl’s reverie. Lancey saw that it was prompted by her father’s arm lifted stretch. They had fished through the last hours of night, watched dawn from the boat. She wasn’t tired but she looked at Hendrick as he cracked the knuckles of the linked fingers above his head.

  “No,” Hendrick said, “I want to see Digmus Jaycock. Three sloops came back last evening, too, and maybe the sailors will buy.”

  “I’m not tired either,” said Lancey. “I’ll take the basket. It’s easiest to sell them fresh, before noon-day dinner.”

  While Hester packed the shad into the basket among wet leaves and riverweed, Lancey washed her face and hands. There was no sense in doing more. It would be hot walking in the morning warmth, and her bare feet would get dustier. Until work was finished, when she could bathe and change clothes, there was no losing the scent of fish.

  “You want the barrow, Hendrick?”

  “Maybe, Hester. If I can borrow Jaycock’s cob and cart I’ll peddle the town in style.”

  Handing the laden basket to her stepdaughter, Hester said: “I sent the girls down to Conrad at the horse-ferry. He might sell some to crossing passengers. We could row them down there easily.”

  “Good plan,” said Lancey, thinking how hard they were trying. “Not much fishing around that ferry. The noise of the horses scares them away.”

  Hendrick chuckled, grinned at his wife. “Conrad will want a share. Charge me a copper the fish most likely.”

  “And all the roe he can eat,” said Hester, broad face reflecting her husband’s grin. She had no delusions about her son’s greed. “It’ll be worth it if he puts his mind to it. Our Conrad could sell kindling to the Devil.”

  “He may yet,” Lancey said, “if he gets the notion.” She turned away, laughing, with the basket balanced by its handle across her forearm. The laughter sounded false. There were times, she thought, when they could all use a pinch of Conrad’s shrewdness.

  As she left the yard, swinging the basket with the ease of long practice, she heard Hendrick’s comment. Her father was evidently impressed by Justin’s feat.

  “You know, a sturgeon that big ought to fetch a fine, round sum.”

  “Happen,” said Hester, dryly, “somebody is giving a banquet.”

  Lancey, striding across the hot stones of the shingle, hoped that Hendrick’s opinion proved truer than her stepmother’s scepticism. Sturgeon was rarer than shad, a relief to jaded palates. With money clinking in his pocket Justin might be less bitter about the niggardly payment for fishermen’s labor. She recalled his words.

  “Less each day! And the lot of you acting as if it had to happen. Letting every man-Jack and horse groom set his own price! You all catch more shad, and more shad, and more, until you’re bumping into each other in the alleys trying to give them away!”

  “But, Justin,” she had said in protest, “it’s always been that way.”

  “That doesn’t make it right, Lancey! Great God Jehovah! A shad run’s your best time of year, soon over, and you don’t get a fraction of its worth! Because you fight each other instead of the buyers. Yesterday Pardon sold a dozen fish to a man Seth Row was haggling with by chopping a shilling off his asking. Did it laughing, too, and bragged about it after.”

  “Seth would do the same to him.”

  “Sure he would! What else am I saying? You’ve got to join together, not fight each other!”

  Ridiculous, Lancey decided, as she had while he spoke. Justin didn’t understand a fisherman’s glee when his boat beat all others. You couldn’t control that, or the number of shad, or what buyers wanted to pay. The axiom repeated itself in her mind: the more shad, the less coin.

  She climbed the bluff now by the nearest path, and turned south. It was cooler under the trees, though the green May apple underfoot was splashed with patches of sunlight that had filtered through the branches. Lancey knew she sought the shade less than the clearing where she and Justin had held that conversation.

  “Well,” she said, aloud, as if answering a squirrel who chattered at her, “it’s not far out of the way, and I just want to see it again.”

  That afternoon, Lancey thought, was when I learned to know Justin best. She bit her lip, aware there was so much more to know, so much left unsaid. He had been vehement only about that single topic. The long years of war he ignored, and, to her surprise, he had avoided any discussion of the coming convention.

  His attitude about the latter still puzzled her. When she mentioned the Constitution, he had glanced at her with quick, narrow-eyed speculation. Lancey, expecting heated argument, had been awarded a grin, a sudden shrug, and an evasive reply.

  Almost, she recalled, as if he possessed some secret, too rare to share, too deep for my understanding. She was not unfamiliar with masculine condescension, but it seemed strange from Justin.

  “A man, isn’t he?” Lancey asked herself, then blushed at another memory.

  They had ended that afternoon with a kiss, a long, lingering kiss as exploratory as their talk. It had been a very satisfactory ending. Her lips had parted willingly under his mouth; her body had strained against him in the tight embrace. Yet in spite of trembling limbs and racing pulse, there had been naught of wantonness.

  When they drew apart, Lancey recalled, breathless and stirred, neither had sought a second kiss. Turning, they had come away, along the very track she was now walking, in a hand-clasped, dreamy silence.

  Retracing their steps, Lancey made the inevitable comparison. Justin had kissed her once; Dirck van Zandt— “God and Nicholas,” she said, flustered into speech by the fact, “I couldn’t count them!”

  There was, she admitted, a similarity in their kissing, and a very great difference. Both men gave pleasure with skilled assurance. Justin, she guessed, no less than Dirck, had practiced the art before. Neither grabbed like a lout, but Justin didn’t try to butter her with a honeyed tongue; his smile had been tender, not gay.

  Dirck made a game of love-making. Justin wasn’t as easy to cipher, but he wasn’t playing a game. He seemed to know the value of patience, savoring each slow stage of their growing love. She dreamed of that single kiss, anticipated the next, with joyful pride. She couldn’t even think about Dirck without feeling guilty and sinful.

  Yes, she decided righteously, she’d chosen properly in discarding mere carnal pleasure for a deeper emotion. Dirck wanted to get her in bed, but she didn’t know half of Justin’s urges.

  Ahead, the trees thinned as she neared the clearing. The straight trunks stood, clear and dark against the daylight, like the struts of her fan when she held it before a flame. Lancey’s step quickened as she hurried forward to the edge of the woods.

  The glade was nature made, a tree hedged semi-circle of ground that fronted on the river. New grass, bright green and calf high, glistened in the morning sunshine, but was shouldered aside in places by outcroppings of rock ledge. These were the peaks of the bluff beneath; they thrust their humps, slate gray and stone blue, through the fresh stalks like a school of sporting fish. The river edge of the clearing was all stone, a craggy shelf some two score yards in length.

  As Lancey stepped from the underbrush, she stopped, checked by a flash of startled disappointment. The clearing was not empty. Two men, backs to her, were sitting on a rock, gazing down at the river.

  Then, she recognized Justin’s tallness. Her hand rose to wave, her lips parted to call, but again she paused. The other man’s bottle-green coat, sere and dusty compared to the grass, touched a chord in her memory. Justin’s companion was Christian Venick.

  Her hand stayed motionless, no words came from her throat, but a sound must have betrayed her. The men rose, turning with quick furtiveness. The movement, the tense instant before they spoke, reminded Lancey of a cornered mouse.

  “Who’s there?” Venick’s voice was sharp, querulous.

  “Lancey!” Justin called, in recognition. A wave of his hand signa
lled her to stay where she was.

  The girl resented the gesture, resented the stranger’s presence in the clearing. This Master Venick, she knew, was still at Jaycock’s Ordinary, though she had not met him again. Her dislike was not due to his lisp, or hinting talk. He shouldn’t be here, with Justin, in their private meeting place.

  Whispering, the men exchanged swift sentences. Across the clearing Lancey was reminded of angry, darting wasps. She hesitated, tempted to leave, but curious. Why was Justin gossiping with Christian Venick?

  Then, Venick turned away, and Justin, smiling, came toward her through the grass. He trotted, elbows tight against his sides, at the military pace she recalled from the troop encampments. She waited, watching him approach, searching his face for any shadow of annoyance.

  “Morning, Lancey,” cried Justin, cheerfully, as he drew near, “I was hoping you’d come by.”

  “Oh, were you?” The question sounded so callow that Lancey flushed. Her pleasure needn’t make her simper! She glanced past Justin to where Venick was already edging into the fringe of trees. Even his walk, she thought, was strange, a sliding gait that seemed ready to explode into flight.

  “You and Hendrick make a good drift?”

  Her gaze met Justin’s. The scarred eyebrow, she thought, never looked more quizzical. He was still smiling, but the dark eyes seemed wary. She shook away the feeling with a toss of her head.

  “Fair enough, Justin. I heard about your sturgeon.”

  “Bull luck. Couldn’t miss.”

  “Justin,” she said, with a nod at the now empty clearing, “what was he doing here?”

  “Venick? Why?”

  “Well, no reason, but—” She paused to let him interrupt, continued when he didn’t. “I just thought of this clearing as off the beaten track.”

  “He was strolling, out for a morning walk. Stumbled in here and found me waiting. We passed the time of day.”

  Lancey found the explanation a shade too long, a trifle glib. It wasn’t like Justin to be unnecessarily wordy. Somehow she was reminded of their first encounter, the night she’d caught him at her father’s boat. She said, laughing, “You certainly had your heads together.”

  “Did we?” asked Justin. “Well, Venick’s a man with some opinions worth listening to.”

  “Venick?”

  He frowned at the surprise in her tone. “Yes, Lancey. You shouldn’t judge a horse by its color. Venick’s all right when it comes to making sense.”

  “About what?”

  “Several things,” Justin said, laughing. “The taste of sturgeon. The price of farm land. What New York paper is worth in New Hampshire. And who’s the prettiest wench around Poughkeepsie!”

  “Who’d he vote for—Nell Bogardus?”

  “Nay, I’m the one favored Nell.”

  This cool mockery was more like Justin, and Lancey felt suddenly that all was well again. His pretended gravity made her chuckle, and she responded to it with exaggerated disdain. Flouncing away from him, she spoke with prim hauteur.

  “Favor in return for favors, no doubt.”

  “In a fashion.” Justin waited, grinned when she looked at him. “Twice now she has added my score short by several drams. Such a bar maid is a pearl without price.”

  “Your wily tongue befuddled the girl.”

  “I must remember that.” Justin reached to help her with the basket. “It is no small gift, and may come in handy with other females I encounter.”

  “Then come along, and help me talk housewives into buying shad.”

  They left the glade, swinging the basket between them, linked by it and by a shared wellbeing. As they walked among the trees, Lancey, in spite of laughter and gaiety, was stirred by a flicker of uneasiness. She was glad she’d met Justin, delighted that his mood was light, happy in his company.

  But, she thought, he didn’t really tell her anything about Master Venick. Once more he had neatly evaded more questions by shifting the subject.

  The girl berated herself for such pettiness. She couldn’t expect a man like Justin, trained in self sufficiency, molded by lonely trials, to become effusive overnight. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her; he wasn’t used to trusting anybody. He’d kept his own counsel too long to prate it easily, even to a loved one.

  She understood the feeling. She had no intention of telling Justin all that had passed between herself and Dirck. Why, then, should she be bothered by Justin’s evasions? She resented the fact that she was.

  “Tell me about the sturgeon?” asked Lancey, forcing the uneasiness away.

  “Not much to tell, Lancey. That fish was drunk or crazy, having a high old time coming upriver. Any brains he had were addled from slapping back into the water after leaping out of it. He came straight for the torch and—zing!”

  Justin raised a fist beside his head, snapped it down as if casting an imaginary javelin.

  “Didn’t he struggle?”

  “Like a bagged wildcat. But the spear went deep and mortal. Pardon was there to help, and between us we boated him.”

  “Have you sold him?”

  “Pardon took him down to town first thing. He hadn’t come back when I left.”

  “But, Justin, he was your fish!”

  “It’s Pardon’s boat, and we’re partners now that my debt’s paid. Anyway, I can trust Pardon to get the most out of that sturgeon, brag or booty. He’s better at both than I am.”

  That was true enough, Lancey admitted, but few fishermen would let another tell the tale of a prize catch. Justin, of course, for all his skill, wasn’t really a fisher-by-trade. She wondered how long he would be content on the river.

  “Justin, if your debt is paid, will you be leaving?”

  “Leaving?”

  “I mean, well, you have your things from von Beck’s——”

  “Such as they are. I’ve no reason to leave, Lancey, and several to stay.”

  “Such as the shad,” she said lightly, glowing at his decision. They left the woods at a stone-fenced mowing that bordered the Post Road. The grass of this field was thick with clover, scenting the warm air, but not yet ripe for haying. Higher overhead now, the sun was a gold coin heating itself to an ever-brighter polish.

  Lancey’s bare feet felt the sun dried crumbs of the roadbed beneath them. Each trudged in a wheel rut; the ridge between was too narrow to walk abreast. Lancey carried the basket. It was her task. Justin’s bootheels raised the larger puffs of tan dust.

  Southward, ahead of them, the road stretched for a curveless mile, crooked as a dropped string but always visible. Lancey thought it resembled a forest brook running between tree-lined banks. The rich dark mud of thaw-time had been parched and thinned to trampled dirt.

  “Yonder comes travellers,” said Justin, nodding down the road.

  A dust cloud seemed to form far in front of them. It billowed high, spread, rolled toward them like a bowled ball. Lancey could see the dark smudges of figures inside the tan veil of the cloud, and then two riders above its outer edges.

  “We’d better give way,” she said. She stepped from the rut and onto the grass beside the road. Justin, across the way, drew aside, removed his hat and mopped his face.

  The dust fell back, and the figures emerged from it. There was a covered chaise in the middle of the road, and an outrider on each flank. The horse in the shafts, a shiny-coated black colt, trotted with frisky, high-stepping ease. Both riders held their mounts to a lope that kept pace with the colt.

  With a gasp Lancey recognized the near rider. Tappen Platt, on a gray cob that matched his jacket, rode as if glued to the saddle. The girl’s head swung as she glanced at the other horseman, saw Schuyler Davis atop a tall chestnut. Then, turning back to the chaise, Lancey froze. A glimpse of bonnet and cloak were enough. She was certain the driver was Eunice Wynbridge.

  Lancey wanted to run, knew it would be ridiculous, scampering flight. She braced herself, legs wide, toes digging into the soft earth. Every detail of her appearance flashed
through her mind; bare legs, patched and stained dress, sweating face, tangled hair.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered in horror. She could not have looked worse. The shad in her basket seemed to double their odor.

  For an instant she hoped they’d sweep by, not noticing her except as a roadside waif. A moment later Tappen Platt’s grin flashed and he shouted, an unintelligible whoop of joy.

  It drew the others’ attention. Schuyler Davis glanced, blinked, stared. Eunice Wynbridge’s face, even as it became visible, displayed wide-eyed surprise. Then, the cool, even features were contorted by a spasm of devilish glee. As her hands drew the reins tight Eunice was composed again.

  She drove well, Lancey noted, and wished that the colt would bolt. Chaise and horses slowed, came to a halt beside her. She could see Justin across the back of the black colt. He was puzzled, frowning.

  “Mistress Lancey,” cried Tappen Platt, his gray cob curvetting as he doffed his hat, “well met!” His florid cheeks darkened with silent laughter. “I’d not hoped to see you so soon.”

  “Nor I, you, Master Platt.”

  Schuyler Davis, bowing, said, “Your servant, Mistress.” His grave tone nearly undid Lancey. She bowed her thanks, knowing he meant to be kind, unable to bear kindness at the moment. She wanted to rage, curse, hurl a clod at Tappen Platt’s pug-nose. His amusement, she knew, wouldn’t fluster her if that damned Eunice was absent.

  Eunice Wynbridge’s laugh was soft delight. “Ah, yes,” she said, “the fisherman’s daughter. And have you fish for sale today, my dear?”

  Don’t blush, Lancey ordered herself, don’t give her any satisfaction. Her voice tried to match the other girl’s cool politeness.

  “Today and every day, Mistress Wynbridge. These are shad.”

  “Shaaad!” Tappen Platt bawled, in imitation of a town street peddler. “Fresh caught shaaad!” He brought his fist to his mouth, thumb stiff, and bleated like a fishmonger’s horn.

  “Friends of yours, Lancey?” As he spoke Justin walked across the road in front of the colt. He stood beside Lancey, hands on hips.

  “Hardly,” said Eunice Wynbridge.

  “As you say,” Lancey said. “Hardly.”