by Jason Vail
Trying to cross all those stacked barrels in the hold while the ship rolled as she made headway risked a fall that at best could be bruising and at worst could break an arm or leg. And God help you if the cargo shifted position.
At last I reached the forward ladder and climbed to the bow orlop deck.
The voices were clearly audible now. I squeezed around the ladder leading to the berth deck and opened the door. A dozen heads whipped around and gaped at me in surprise just as a pair of dice came to a rest in the middle of the circle.
“Just a friendly game of hazard,” Crequy said. “Have you come to play, Captain?”
“No, Mister Crequy, I have not.” I knelt on the sail and scooped up the dice just as Crequy reached for them. “And this game is over.”
An odd frozen expression came over his face, and then he forced a smile. He scooped up the pile of coins at his knee and slipped off the stack of sail. He stood before me, obviously expecting me to get out of his way, but I blocked the door.
He gestured at my hand. “Those are my property.”
“You can have them back at the end of the voyage. What you do ashore is not my business, but I’ll not have gambling on Wasp.”
Crequy’s smile remained fixed. Then he squeezed around me and went out. I heard him climb the ladder two rungs at a time.
I looked at the others, memorizing their faces so I could give their names to McCormick. “How much have you all lost to him?”
There were sheepish mumbles that I translated roughly as between a week’s and a month’s pay. For Crequy it might not be much, but for the crew it amounted to quite a lot.
“I’ll have a week’s rum ration from each of you, and if I catch you down here again, it will be the lash. Are we clear? Good. Now get out.”
They trooped out of the room and up the ladder to the berth deck, carrying their candles with them and leaving me in the dark.
“So what do you intend to do?” Willie asked, eyeing the chart of southern British America I had laid out on the table in the great cabin.
He already knew the answer to that, but I said for Crockett’s and Austin’s benefit, “We shall have to buy more water and replace the rotten kegs with good ones.”
Austin seemed resigned at the expense. “If we must,” he sighed.
“A man cannot live on rum alone,” Crockett said. “Although I’ve known quite a few who’ve tried.”
“How did that work out?” Austin asked.
“Not well,” Willie said. “Our captain has personal experience in that regard.”
“I never once woke up in a ditch nor with bumps on my head,” I said. “I’ve always managed to reach my own bed, and without help.”
“The captain is a well behaved drinker,” Willie said. “He rarely stumbles or feels compelled to sing.”
“I can attest to that,” Crockett said. “He does have a tendency to get in fights, however.”
“Only one time,” I said.
“That I know of,” Crockett smiled, remembering an incident on the North Road out of New Orleans on a dark night when three assassins had tried to kill us.
“As to the water situation,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to a more serious topic.
“We will soon be upon Savannah,” Willie murmured.
“Charles Town isn’t that much farther,” I said.
“Why Charles Town?” Willie asked, his voice suddenly cautious and dull.
“Because it’s bigger?”
“And why is that important?”
“We could get better prices?” I ventured. “More opportunities for the men to amuse themselves?”
“That assumes we give them shore leave.”
“You wouldn’t? That would be cruel.”
Crockett seemed to like the suggestion of shore leave, for he said, “We’ll have to be there for a few days anyway. Why not?”
“Anyway, it’s easier to get into Charles Town harbor,” I said. “I’ve never liked having to navigate the river at Savannah. It can be more troublesome than the Mississippi.”
Willie said nothing.
“All right, then,” I said. “Plot us a course to Charles Town.”
I wish now that I had never said those words.
Chapter 9
Charles Town, Carolina Province
October 1820
Charles Town, or Charleston as it is often called these days, lies upon the tip of a peninsula formed by the confluence of two sluggish tidal rivers at the head of a broad bay that made an excellent natural harbor.
We anchored a hundred yards off shore on the eastern side of town, about two hundred yards down river from a British frigate of twenty-four guns. We had hardly got the anchors down before a customs boat left the wharf and stroked across to us. He climbed aboard and asked our business. I identified us as the Delft. He pursed his lips at this news, not convinced, as I was obviously not Dutch. He asked about that, and I said I was a Jacobin Scot whose family had sought refuge in France after ’45. An Englishman would have turned his nose up at that news, for there is nothing more detestable among the English than a Scot unless it is a Frenchman, but the fellow was too much an American to care about old English quarrels. So he did not make an issue of it, since his main concern was collecting the anchorage fee, which by happenstance included a large gratuity for him as well.
Austin bridled at the gratuity, but paid it, counting the loss as so many muskets that he would not be able to present to President Jackson. He was forever wringing his hands over expenses. His family had been ruined by ambitious schemes and too much debt, and he was always on the lookout for both, an odd combination of the optimist, certain that the scheme of the day would bring renown and plenty, and ever worried about the prospect of failure and ruin.
The customs officer suggested a water merchant as he departed, and we immediately set about hauling all the defective casks to the quarterdeck for emptying into the bay and transportation to the wharf.
Meanwhile, Austin and McCormick went ashore to contact the water merchant.
Crequy and Adele went with them, followed by several trunks. Both were eager to escape the lack of comfort on Wasp for better accommodations ashore. And no doubt Crequy desired to be closer to the gambling opportunities afforded by Charles Town’s many saloons. It was the biggest city in the south in those days, and Crockett once told me that the ministers in the hill country viewed it as close to Gomorrah as you could get outside New York. Personally, I’d have put Baltimore, my old home, in second place in the sin sweepstakes.
That evening after supper, Willie and Crockett remained behind after the steward’s mates cleared away the refuse of the meal and the other officers had departed. It was a good thing, because that sultry night the bottle called to me, and it usually took all my willpower to resist.
Crockett entertained us with a story about a girl named Sally Thunder, or Sally Whirlwind, I can’t remember exactly now, whom he’d encountered in a Louisiana swamp when he took a wrong turn on the way to Texas. Sally kept a giant alligator as a pet which she rode through the swamps like a horse and would feed it robbers, misbehaving children and other evil doers. Once she caught a strange creature that was half ape, half man which wore no clothes but instead was covered from head to toe by long reddish hair. She thought the ape-man would make a fine snack for her pet, but the ape-man grabbed it by the tail and threw it into a tree.
Crockett paused for dramatic effect, and I asked, “Did that kill the gator?”
“No,” he said, deadpan, “that gator liked it so much in the tree that it built a nest up there and stayed for the remainder of its days.”
“The remainder of its days?”
“Well, at least as long as I was in town.”
“Oh.”
“I sense you have doubts, sir, about my report.”
“A few.”
“Well, when we were last in New Orleans, I heard that the gator was still up that tree.”
“Really.
”
“Yep. Ol’ Sally’s got rich from charging admission for people to see the world’s only tree gator. They come from miles around.”
“I would like to see this when we get back.”
“It will be my pleasure to escort you personally, if I am not otherwise occupied with pressing business.”
“Whatever happened to the ape-man?”
“Why, he entered politics, of course.”
“Speaking of tall tales —”
“— what tall tales?”
“— see what you make of these.” I removed Crequy’s dice from a pocket and cast them across the table at Crockett. They came up a ten.
Crockett pushed the dice with a finger. “What about them?”
Willie turned from the gallery window which gave a view of the town and bay, where two single-masted sailboats were racing one another in the failing sunlight toward the low, forested shore across the bay. He cast the dice, and they came up ten again.
. “Loaded,”
“Indeed,” Crockett said, with sudden interest.
“Yes,” Willie said.
“How is it done? I’ve always wondered about that.”
“You bore out a hollow on one side and fill it with mercury.” He examined the dice more closely. “At least that’s how I imagine this pair was done.”
“Ingenious.”
Willie asked me, “Are you thinking about an alternative career?”
“We could use the money, but no. I took them from Crequy. He was playing hazard with some of the men in the sail room.”
“Yes, I heard about that. Do the men know about those?” Willie indicated the dice.
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“Better not to. Someone’s likely to get killed.”
“I had considered that possibility. Can you ask the players how much each of them has lost? I’d like to know that.”
“Do you need to know right away?”
“Not right away, but soon. Why?”
“Because I’d like a few days of shore leave.”
I was startled at the request. I knew that Willie had a deep aversion to Charles Town and had never set foot in it since he had been spirited away as a small child. “Whatever for?” I asked without thinking.
“I was born not far from here,” he said, although I already knew that. “I’ve a mind to see the place.”
I said, “It may not be safe for you to go alone. I’ll go with you.”
“This sounds like there will be trouble,” Crockett said. “I’ll go too.”
“You don’t need to bother,” Willie said.
“I know my way about Carolina better than you do,” I said. “You’ll just get lost, and then we’ll have to leave you behind.”
Willie grunted, not liking the idea.
“It’s the only way I’ll give permission.”
“Very well,” he said grudgingly, and left the room.
The following morning, we rowed to the quay and sought out the customs house, where we obtained passports. While Crockett and I didn’t need them so much, they would establish Willie’s bonafides as a free black. Charles Town and the area about the town had quite a few of them, but they were all required to carry papers certifying to their free status. The customs officer who wrote out the passports mentioned that the provincial governor was considering a bill replacing the requirement for papers with the wearing of a badge. He spoke with an air of disapproval, mainly, I think, because he would be deprived of income from the fee arising from the issuance of papers, which had to be renewed from time to time, should the governor approve the bill. Then we found the stables recommended by the customs man at Meeting Street and Columbus, where we rented horses for our ride in the country.
Charles Town, as I have mentioned, lies at the tip of a peninsula framed by two tidal rivers. It was not such a great sized town then, and it took no more than five minutes to pass up Meeting Street through the remnants of the earthworks thrown up during the rebellion, and we were into the country, with only fields and farmhouses about.
It was pretty country, and neatly kept by its inhabitants. I have always admired it. It reminded me of home except for the heat and the moss hanging from the oaks.
Willie rode through this pretty country with his head down, and when we tried to engage him in conversation, he merely grunted.
Crockett gave up talking to him directly and launched into a story about a man who diverted the Ohio River for his distillery.
“But it’s a dirty river,” I said, finding fault with the story. “As dirty as the Mississippi. You can’t make good whiskey with dirty water.”
“This was farther up,” Crockett said, “before it got ruined. Now be quiet and let me finish. I’ve a man to cheer up here. Look at him. Have you ever seen anything so melancholy?”
“Well, only when one of your jokes falls flat.”
“My jokes never fall flat. Watch what you say, or I’ll put you in a story. Then you’ll be sorry.” He wrinkled his brow. “Maybe I should do that anyway. You’ll never be famous without my help.”
“Fame! You can’t eat fame.”
“What, one treasure isn’t enough for you? You have to have another?”
“When is one ever enough?”
“I know what you really want, and it isn’t money.” He grinned. “Well, I doubt I can help with that so I’ll make you famous nonetheless. Now, as to the river . . . .”
We rode through the entire day like that, with one story following another. Crockett was the only man I’d ever met who could talk all day long without a break, until I attended my first session of Congress.
By the end of the day, we’d covered thirty-five miles. The horses were fagged out when we reached the turn off to Monck’s Corner, where an inn and store occupied the crossroads. The sign above the door said in red letters: Cooper’s. We surrendered the beasts to a stable boy and entered the inn.
“We’d like beds and supper,” Crockett said to the burly bald man wearing an apron who came out of the back to greet us.
The innkeeper nodded. “Your boy can eat out there.” He gestured to the front yard, where several trestle tables sat under a large oak.
“He’s not my boy,” Crockett said. He smiled his sweetest smile, but drew his big knife which he often carried thrust behind his belt buckle. He didn’t display it in a threatening way, but only began to clean his fingernails. “He’ll eat with us.”
He stepped over to a vacant table and sat down, pulling out a chair for Willie, who kept his eyes on the innkeeper.
“Not from around here, are you?” the innkeeper asked.
“No, fortunately not.”
“Where you from?”
“West.”
“You treat your darkies different there, do you?”
“Somewhat. Please hurry off and get us something to eat. What’s simmering back there? Smells like a stew of some sort, good too. That’s a good lad. Oh, and you wouldn’t happen to have any wine, would you?” Crockett removed a purse swollen with coins from a coat pocket and let it drop onto the table with an audible thump. “We’ve come a long way and are very thirsty.”
The innkeeper hesitated. “I’ve got no wine. Only beer and rum.”
“Beer then,” Crockett said. “My head aches too much for rum.”
The innkeeper stomped back to the kitchen. He returned in a few minutes later with a tray laden with bowls of steaming stew, a plate of bread, carrots and sliced apples and mugs of beer.
He put the tray on the table. “You’ll pay up front.”
Crockett nodded. “How much?”
The innkeeper named a price in shillings that was more than the meal was worth, but Crockett counted out the coins and dropped them into the man’s hand. Crockett said with exaggerated politeness, “Thank you so much.”
The innkeeper left without placing our bowls or mugs before us, which we had to do ourselves, but at least there was one for each of us.
“Money tr
iumphs every time,” Crockett said as he tucked into his stew.
“You’ve just made him mad,” Willie said. “To no purpose.”
“What?” Crockett said. “You’re not eating in the yard.”
“You’re not helping,” Willie said. “I wanted to come here without attracting any notice.”
“Sorry, mate. But if there’s trouble, we’ll keep you out of it.”
“You’re more likely to cause it. You don’t know these people.”
“I know them at least as well as you. You haven’t lived here since you were a babe.”
“And you’ve never lived here.”
“We have enough like them even in Texas, so I know how they think. They may not like you, but if there’s money to be made off you, they’ll take it.”
“You think more of them than I do.”
When we finished with supper, we waited for the tavernkeeper to return for our dishes. But after half an hour went by, Crockett went back to the kitchen.
“We’re done now,” I heard him say. “We’re ready for our beds.”
“Don’t got no beds,” the innkeeper said.
“We’ll take blankets, then, and sleep in the stables.”
I could not make out the response to that, but after several minutes Crockett returned, followed moments afterward by a black boy with an armload of blankets.
“The stables,” I said, not relishing the prospect.
“What’s the matter?” Crockett asked. “It’s got a roof. Is it not good enough for your lordship?”
I must have made a disapproving face, for he said, “We’ve slighted him, now he slights us. It makes us even.”
“I’m for the stable,” Willie said.
So we went out with our blankets draped over our shoulders, and climbed up the ladder to the loft, where the boy said the hay was clean. He was right about that, for it was still green and relatively soft, and smelled sweet.
I spread my blanket and lay upon it, pulling half over me. “I love the smell of horses,” I said.
