“Haul her away!”
“Th’ Cape Fear girls so care-freel”
“Haul her away!”
“Sure, they swore they’d miss ye!”
For one daft moment, Livesey wondered who would care if he got aboard her andjust sailed away. Or had gotten away to sea, the time he’d tried … and why hadn’t he ever tried again? He’d never have gotten dragged back to his father’s trade, and the penury and troubles that had befallen him as that concern failed.
No call to the militia, no losing his leg to that brief stupidity of his; he’d still be a whole man, most-like a captain on his own ship, perhaps captain and owner by now, of her or several other ships!
No wasted term at Harvard, never to meet Harry, hence no cruel disillusionment, no depravity to break his heart in that future. He’d never have become an aging, one-legged widower, so fettered by Duties and Responsibilities!
Yet…
He’d never have met his dear, departed Charlotte, not on equal terms, at least. Her parents would never have let her marry a sailor, even a mate or captain; they wanted her wed to someone “substantial and sober”! There never would have been a Bess, never a Samuel… well, there was a thought, for a wry instant. Which instant fled, replaced by his concerns once more … whatwas demandedofhlm]
Was the Lord kind to them, allowed them a year or two more with their debts cleared and the firm profitable, they might also aspire to farmland again. It still went for no more than sixpence an acre. If Samuel really didn’t have the heart and head for dry, indoor Commerce, as that rascal Jemmy Bowlegs had boldly stated, then he could try his son on the land, let him sow and reap … perhaps as Providence always had intended for the lad. A year or two more of chandlery and sawmill work to prepare and groom him, of course, but… perhaps it was not God’s will that Livesey & Son continue after his own passing, either.
Despite the bleakness of that thought, and the fear of leaving little mark of his existence, Matthew Livesey sadly decided that he could not deny Samuel his heartfelt yearning—as his own father had quashed his so long before. Why else, perhaps, had they been caused to move to the Cape Fear and its whole new ways of life, to a wild and raw frontier where staid people were shaken and challenged to new lives, but by the Almighty’s mysterious ways, His miracles to perform?
“Up, my fightin’ cocks, boys!”
“Haul her away!”
“Up, an’ split her blocks, now!”
“Haul her away!”
“Up, an’ stretch her luff, lads …”
Gloom departed again on sea-birds’ wings, as Livesey put idle musings away and turned his attention back to the packet-brig. She was beginning to curtsy and bow a bit alee to an offshore wind that sighed over the miles of woods of the cape to the river, and tobacco-brown waters began to chuckle under her forefoot and cut-water, to murmur about her rudder and stern-post. Almost all her canvas was now set. In three or four cautious hours, she might briefly come to anchor down at Brunswick, Oak Island or the point, and wait to choose Old Inlet or New Inlet as the best course through Frying Pan Shoals, then be off and abroad on the free and open ocean.
Flying sails bought new from his business, or patched from his replacement bolts! It could be his paint and oils that made her look so saucy and fresh, his hemp and manila that made up her standing and running rigging, and a part of her outbound cargo was most-likely his lumber and barrel staves, his resin, turpentine, pitch and tar!
“We’ll plow th’ wide world o-ver!”
“Haul her away!”
The call-and-response chanty was thinner, now, farther off and downriver than before, the brig shrunk to a child’s toy, yet Livesey knew that chanty of old, and cocked an ear to savor the last morsel ofhappiness from it.
“Like proper deep-sea rovers!”
“Haul her away!”
The brig was fully under way, fully under sail, willing to trust herself to wind, reefs, storm and tide, for that was her wondrous purpose in Life, her fate in God’s hands. Could he do any less? For the first time that morning, Matthew Livesey felt call to smile, to whisper, “Thankee, God … I bow to Your will for us.”
“One more, an’ up she rises!”
“Haul hherrr azuzuayy!”
“With a hauley heigh-ho!”
“Haul her away!”
“One more pull, and … be-lay!” the distant bosun called, and Matthew Livesey whispered it with him. Then, to his lights, it was acceptingly, most pleasingly, done.
Dewey Lambdin is a self-proclaimed Navy brat and the author of the popular Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures series. He has been a television producer, writer and director in Tennessee, where he still makes his home. A “brother” member of Sisters in Crime mystery writers, he caught the “bug” and decided to try his hand at a mystery with an historical bent. What Lies Buried is his first novel to feature amateur sleuth Matthew Livesey and his family.
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What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Page 33
