by Marc Graham
I looked at him, stunned, but he pressed on.
“If Helen’s life really made a difference for me, if she really added a value to my own life, then that value couldn’t evaporate just because she was gone. Cassandra wasn’t her only legacy to me. I was a part of her legacy, the man I became because of her. If I wanted to honor her memory, grieving was not the way to do it. I’d best honor her by being the man she’d made me, by becoming an even better man.”
“But you were a good man to begin with,” I objected, and Cy’s raised eyebrows invited me to go on.
I did.
Though the telling was haunted by the ghosts of Pawnee warriors, innocent Cheyenne, a red-headed whore and a hate-filled roughneck, when I finished speaking my soul felt lighter. The pain of dozens of old wounds reopened, though, nearly took my breath away. I had no more tears to shed, and I sat in uneasy silence with Uncle Cy until he reached across the chess board, tipped over his king and picked up a bishop.
“You know,” he said, “in medieval times the bishop was known as the ship. Its moves were seen as similar to a ship’s as it tacked against the wind. Funny thing about sailing—a contrary wind might blow you off course but, if your sails are set right, the same wind can drive you closer to your goal.”
He set the chess piece back down and fixed me with a hard stare.
“Every choice you ever made brought you closer to Mae,” he said. “Good or bad, every step led you to her. Now, from what Dave tells me, you brought real love and joy into her life. There’s not much better a man can do than that.”
He stood and laid a heavy hand on my shoulder.
“What’s done is done,” he said. “There’s no changing that. Where you go from here, son, is entirely up to you. I know Helen wouldn’t let me sit about, so here I am starting out on a new life in a new country. What would Mae have you do?”
He patted my shoulder and set off about the promenade deck, while I huddled deeper into my blanket and turned my face into the crisp sea breeze. The thrum of the steam engine, the churn of the propellers and the hush of the wind all seemed to whisper the answer to me.
Go on.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HMS Shalimar, Southern Ocean—August 1876
“The Geraldton-Northampton line has been under construction for more than two years, and they’ve already spent the full budget.”
Uncle Cy described the line that Dave and I would be taking over. We strolled along the main deck with Dave and Cassandra, enjoying a rare breeze in this part of the Great Australian Bight. Following the voyage from San Francisco, we’d boarded another ship at Sydney and would arrive at the Western Australia port of Fremantle in a few days.
“Must be a long road,” I said.
Cy shook his head. “Thirty-five miles.”
I stopped mid-stride and turned to look at him.
“We’ve laid that in less than a week,” I said. “Rough terrain?”
Another shake of the head.
“A couple of rocky stretches,” he said, “but mostly flat plains from sea level up to about four hundred feet. They’re giving us four years and another two times the original budget to get it done.”
I stared at Cy open-mouthed, unable to believe what I heard.
“The government wants us to finish a road at three times the cost and three times the schedule originally planned, and they’ll be happy with that?”
A nod.
“And they’re backing that up with bonuses if we meet the new timeline.”
I looked to Dave, who gave me a nod and a wry grin. I shrugged my acceptance and turned back to Uncle Cy.
“I think I’m going to like Australia,” I said.
We continued our walk about the deck and I leaned heavily on a new cane, which I’d found to be a help in acquiring my sea legs. I stopped as we passed a vent stack, and cocked my head to listen to a sound that caught my attention.
“Do you hear that?” I said.
Dave joined me at the bellmouth opening and closed his eyes to listen. Out of the inky blackness of the hold came a haunting echo.
“Lord God Almighty, ain’t there no one to help a poor widow’s son, a-wandering alone in this cold, dark world?”
My eyes opened wide as the meaning of the words sank in, and I flagged down the nearest crewman.
“Where does this vent lead?” I asked.
“The forward hold,” he replied in a coarse English accent, “but passengers ain’t allowed there.”
“Take me,” I ordered.
“Sir, I can’t.”
I fixed the young man with a heavy glare.
“Maybe you didn’t understand. I’m not asking. I’m telling you to take me to that hold. My friend here,” I indicated Dave, “will go find an officer to give the order, but you’re going to take me there right now.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
The sailor actually saluted, then led me toward a nearby deck hatch. I balked a little as the man climbed down into the darkness. I screwed up my courage, swung stiff-legged into the opening and followed him down the ladder while Dave went to find someone in authority. The crewman led me along a low, narrow passageway until it widened into a small open area lit by a pair of lanterns. The forward bulkhead held a stout, wooden door while another passage led toward the rear of the ship.
“No passengers allowed, huh?” I said as I looked around the space.
The sailor swallowed loudly, then turned tail and scampered back the way we’d come.
Five large, rough-looking men sat around one of the lanterns, in front of the door that was barred by a thick timber set in sturdy iron brackets. As one, they looked up from their playing cards to stare at me through dull, brutish eyes. A thin shadow flitted across the men’s faces and I turned to see a much slighter man who rose from his place by the second lantern.
“Am I glad to see you,” the small man said with a Scot’s burr as he pumped my hand in greeting. “Seth’s been without water or food for at least a day.”
“Excuse me?” I said, releasing the young man’s hand.
“Aren’t you the doctor?” he asked as he stared wide-eyed at me through thick spectacle lenses.
A rumble of laughter came from the seated men, and the Scot looked from me to them and back again.
“Doctor ain’t coming,” one of the toughs said in a thick Irish brogue as he rose to join us. “Leastways, not today.”
The man carried a solid frame on tree-trunk legs, his arms larger than most men’s thighs. Broad, square shoulders supported a thick neck that cocked to one side to avoid the low deck joists. A bristle of dull-red hair crowned a head decorated with jug-handle ears. Thick, smirking lips, a crooked nose and narrow eyes gleamed with arrogance and disdain.
“Tim Sullivan,” he said as he extended a meaty hand.
From the look in Sullivan’s eyes, I could see the gesture was not one of courtesy, but of challenge. The game about to be played was one I hated, but there was no getting around it with a man like this. The game had one rule, and a simple one: the strongest wins.
I took Sullivan’s hand and tried not to wince as I met the force of his iron grip. I locked my eyes on his, and watched with satisfaction as confusion replaced some of the big man’s arrogance. His eyes flashed with anger as I continued to hold his grip, and I could see the muscles of his jaw tighten. Finally, he released my hand and slapped it away.
“Seeing as you’re not the doctor and not part of the crew,” he said, “what brings you to our little corner of the ship?”
“Sounded like someone was hurt down here,” I said. “I reckoned I’d best look into it.”
“You’d do better for yourself by turning around and going back the way you came,” Sullivan growled, then looked to his men who stood and grunted their agreement.
“It’s Seth,” the slight man told me. “These ruffians beat him and bound him, tossed him into that hold and now won’t let me look in on him.”
“Is that true?” I asked Sullivan. “Are you
holding a man in there?”
“Aye, and what if it is? The captain’s not said a word against it, and I don’t see it’s any business of yours. Besides, that rot in there,” he jerked a fat thumb toward the door of the hold, “is no more than a murdering piece of filth.”
“That’s a lie,” the Scot said.
“Hold your tongue, little man,” Sullivan warned, looming a foot taller than the other man. “Better yet, take your scrawny arse and your fancy surveyor’s books and head back topside with this one.”
“Surveyor?” I asked.
“Aye,” Sullivan said with a laugh. “The wee one thinks he can become a railway man just by reading books.”
“Better a man with a book than a brute with a hammer,” the Scot said.
“See here, laddie,” Sullivan said, his voice rumbling in the small space. “My patience with you is wearing thin. Why don’t you run along back to where you belong? And take this one with you.”
The smaller man was about to reply, but I laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“Do as he says.”
He glared at me through the thick lenses and started to sputter his objection, but I steered him toward the passageway and turned to follow him.
“There’s no sense trying to reason with the ignorant piker bastard,” I said.
I’d met many Irishmen over the years, most of them decent men. Good or bad, they’d all shared certain characteristics. Chief among them was a heightened sense of pride in their intelligence, nationality and certain patrimony. To question any one of those virtues was to invite a storm of Hibernian wrath. To attack all three was sure to unleash a hurricane.
I wasn’t disappointed.
I watched the walls of the hold as a huge shadow raced toward my own. I tightened my grip on the cane and spun as the shadows met, catching Sullivan square in the Adam’s apple with the head of the cane. His momentum carried us a few steps farther. As his hands clutched at his throat, I jabbed the cane brutally into his belly, then swung it up into his jaw. The big man lurched back and smacked his head into a deck joist.
The sound of the impact echoed in the small space, and a glaze clouded the fury in the man’s eyes. Without giving him a chance to recover from his daze, I kicked at his knee and swung the cane at his head. The wooden handle connected with Sullivan’s temple and the man’s eyes rolled back in his head.
The other four men watched their leader slump to the floor, and I backed into the narrow passageway to keep them from attacking all at once.
“Aw, hell, Jim,” I heard a voice say from the rearward passage. “You couldn’t wait till I got here before getting acquainted?”
I ventured back into the open area, casting a watchful eye on Sullivan to make sure he was down. The young surveyor crept out behind me, his wide eyes filling the thick spectacles.
“We were just getting started on the introductions,” I said as Dave stepped into the hold and came to my side. “That one there is Tim Sullivan, and I’m afraid I didn’t catch the rest of your names.”
“Bannon—Jeffries—Roarke—Grant,” came the jumbled reply from the four big men, lost without their ringleader.
“Which would make you Andrew Fraser,” Dave said with a nod toward the young surveyor.
“Andy, aye,” came the reply.
“How’d you know that?” I asked.
Dave fixed me with a crooked smile. “Meet our new crew.”
I looked dumbly back at him but, before I could respond, a uniformed sailor stepped into the crowded space.
“All right, you rot, back above decks,” he ordered.
The large men—those still standing—looked to me and I nodded.
“Get him out of my sight.” I indicated Sullivan, and a pair of the men unceremoniously hauled him upright, slung his arms over their broad shoulders and dragged him through the aft passageway, followed by the others.
“Ship’s doctor?” I asked Dave as I hefted the beam from its place at the door of the hold.
“On his way.”
Ignoring the sailor’s protests, I tossed the beam aside and wrenched open the door on its screeching hinges. A stench rolled out of the cramped hold and threatened to bowl me over. I grabbed one of the lanterns, took a deep breath, then steeled myself as I stepped through the doorway.
The small space was tucked up into the bows of the ship. I had to hunch over to keep from hitting my head on the deck joists, and I doubted I’d be able to stretch out across the floor if I had a mind to. The man that lay on the floor was larger still—at least as big as Sullivan—and fit into the cramped hold only by curling up into a ball.
The lantern did little to brighten the space but, as my eyes adjusted, I saw that the man’s posture was not of his choosing. Thick ropes bound his arms and legs, and his wrists were tied together beneath his knees. The man’s back was to me, and I stepped around him to get a better look.
His dark face was a mask of even darker dried blood that had come from his nose and mouth and several cuts on his head. One eye was swollen shut, the other merely a slit. One ear glistened with fresh blood, and I recognized in the series of small gashes the bites of rats that infested the hold. His breathing was ragged and shallow, and a slight gurgling sound told me a lung had been punctured.
“Andy, would you fetch me some water?” I said through clenched teeth, fighting back my revulsion.
When no reply came, I looked up to see the young man’s ashen face.
“Andy,” I barked, and the lad blinked his eyes and turned his focus on me. “Water,” I said more gently.
“Aye, water.”
He stepped through the doorway, and I knelt by the fallen man, pulled open my jackknife and hacked away at the ropes that bound him.
“My God,” Dave muttered as the man—Seth, I recalled his name—moaned and began to unfold.
Dave held a handkerchief over his nose to filter out the stench. Seth stank of sweat and stale blood, and—held captive for a day or more—had soiled himself at least once.
I cut away the last of the ropes from Seth’s wrists. His fingers were purple and swollen from lack of blood flow, and the tips were rat-bitten. I took a meaty hand in mine and rubbed it briskly to restore circulation. As I reached across to take his other hand, Seth’s torn shirt fell open to expose his chest and stomach, the black skin dotted with ugly bruises. I started to look away, but a strip of leather about the man’s neck caught my attention.
At first I feared he’d been choked, but, as I tugged on the leather thong, I found it looped through a small pendant. The carved wood was decorated with a familiar pattern of lines and curves, and my hand moved to the talisman about my own neck as Andy returned with a bucket of water.
“Thanks,” I said as he set the pail on the deck.
I laid the pendant gently back on Seth’s chest, and pulled a blue bandana from my pocket. I doused it in the water and squeezed a few drops onto Seth’s swollen, parched and cracked lips. The water restored the man’s senses and must also have stirred his memories. His body jerked and his hands covered his face as he cried out hoarsely.
“It’s all right, Seth,” the Scot said. “It’s me, Andy.”
The big man relaxed a fraction, but his hands still protected his head.
Gently, carefully, I placed a hand atop his head and said, “Easy, brother. We’re here to help you,” then whispered a word in his ear.
At the sound of the syllables, his struggling ceased and he slowly lowered his hands. His good eye opened a fraction wider and he whispered, “Who . . . ?”
“Just another widow’s son,” I said, “come to lend a hand.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Perth, Western Australia—October 1876
“. . . and teaches us all that we are traveling upon the broad level of time, from whose bourne no traveler returns.”
Seth leaned back against his pillows and raised a glass of water to his lips with a trembling hand. Uncle Cy, Dave and I looked at one another and
shook our heads in amazement. Over the past two hours, the young man had recited his part of the Masonic catechisms more flawlessly than I’d ever heard. From the looks on the other men’s faces, they were similarly impressed.
“How was it?” Seth asked after draining half a glass of water.
Cy patted the man’s shoulder—the one not wrapped in bandages—and said, “Perfect. You’ve learned your lessons well.”
Seth’s dark cheeks flushed to a bronze hue. “I’ve had some good teachers, is all.”
“Without a doubt,” Cy agreed. “Be that as it may, there’s still the question of—” He bit off his words and looked to Dave and me for some support.
“Seth,” I stepped in, “you know the rights and benefits needed for acceptance into the lodge.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, then quoted from the catechism. “ ‘By being a man, freeborn, of good repute and well recommended.’ ”
Silence hung thickly in the room as the three of us avoided Seth’s eyes. Dave cleared his throat, then stood to open the transom above the door. He noisily crossed the wooden floor and raised the sash on the window.
An early autumn—spring, I reminded myself—breeze washed through the room, renewing the air but doing little to ease the tension.
“You think I ain’t a regular Mason.” Seth broke the awkward silence. “You think I ain’t freeborn, so I couldn’t rightly be made a Mason.”
“As far as we’re concerned, you’re a Mason through and through,” Cy assured him, “a true fellow of the Craft. But there are some that may think it . . . irregular for you to have been initiated in the first place.”
“But that ain’t right.”
“We know it’s not, Seth,” I said, “but that’s just how some men—even some brothers—are.”
Seth waved his good hand in dismissal.
“No, I mean it’s not correct.”
He looked from one of us to another, his deep-brown eyes boring into each of us until we had no choice but to meet his gaze. He propped himself up against the pillows as best he could with one arm, and his chest swelled with pride, straining against the bandages that bound his cracked ribs.
