Bitter Eden

by Salvato, Sharon Anne

  Tom began to thoroughly enjoy himself. His mates joined in the telling of stories they had heard in Ho-bart Town of convicts who had tried to escape turning cannibal and eating one another until there was only one starving man left. They told of floggings and deaths as a result, and of men working like animals

  when they could barely stand from weakness, illness, and fatigue.

  Their laughter rose, as did their storehouse of tales as they watched Stephens eyes widen in horror as he placed his hand on his roiling stomach.

  By the time they finished telling of the atrocities they had either seen or heard about, Stephen was trembling in a cold sweat, his face ashen, "Oh, my God ... oh, my God ..." s

  Jack grasped Stephens shoulder. "You all right? Take a drink, Steve . . . come . on . . . come on, please. Don't pass out on me. You all right?"

  Stephen pushed the glass away. "I've got to get him out of there/* he said shakily. "Why the hell didn't we hear this in England? I asked everyone."

  The whalers laughed. "How you gonna hear? Who's to tell? Those convicts can't breathe hard or they're gonna taste the cat Why risk it? What fer?"

  "But . . ."

  Once more Tom squinted, evaluating Stephen. Slowly he said, "Course there've been escapes. Not many, but they've been done. I got a man out once."

  Stephen grabbed the man's beefy arm. "Could you get my brother out?"

  "Maybe. Depends on a couple of things." He looked at the palm of his hands, then rubbed his fingers together.

  Til pay whatever you ask . . . anything I have. Can you get him out?"

  Tom laughed loudly. "Anything I ask, will ya? Maybe yer brother ain't worth what you think/Trip like that'll cost you."

  "I don't give a damn about the cost. Can you do it?"

  "Where is he?"

  "Van Diemen's Land," Stephen said weakly.

  "Where?" Tom asked, knowing Stephen had no answer. "Port Arthur? Hobart? Sarah? Norfolk? Maria? Where?"

  "I don't know. I've never heard from him . . • or the authorities. ,,

  "You come talk price when you find out where he is. If they've got him at Maria or Sarah, you can forget about getting him off. Otherwise maybe we can make a deal."

  "What's the best place for him to be?"

  "Hobart's easiest. Once a convict has a good classification, he's a little freer . . . can get around a bit. Thing is, I gotta be able to talk to him without a guard listenin' in. I can't walk in, ya know, and ask the commandant where I can find Peter Berean. Your brother's gotta know when we're comin' and get to us. We can't get to him."

  "Then there's no way."

  "Sit tight till he writes."

  "Will he?"

  Tom shrugged. "Most do if they have someone, and if life ain't too hard."

  "Then that means . . ."

  "Your brother's probably not at Hobart. He'd be writing if he were. Tell him to work his way to Hobart if you find a way to reach him."

  "I will."

  "Watch what you say. You can't do it direct. Them commandants know all the tricks. If they catch wind you're thinkin' to spring him, your brother'U pay with every piece of meat he's got on his back an' then some. I've seen those bastards turn 'em around an' slice off their chests when there weren't no back left."

  "Nothing direct," Stephen repeated, stunned and sickened. He got up unsteadily. Jack hovered near him. The whaler finished his beer.

  There's one more thing you might wanna think about. Are you sure you want him out? He was sent away fer murder?" "Yes, but he didn't do it."

  "Don't matter. He maybe couldn't kill when you knew him, but if he's been there a year already and he ain't in Hobart, trust me to know you got a killer for a brother now. They send 'em there with hearts o' men, and turn 'em out with hearts o' beasts. I've seen it happen. They're animals . . . wild animals."

  "No . . . not Peter. You don't know him. Peter is . . . he's gentle and fun loving. Tell him, Jack," Stephen said anxiously.

  Jack nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, he's all that and more. His Magnificence is one grand man."

  "Just thought I'd let you know. You ain't gonna get the same man back that went. Tell the truth, if it were my brother, I'd shoot him myself, like any other beast. One more thing . . . you ain't gettin' no promise from me to bring him back alive neither. If he's as mean a bastard as most, I'll treat him like one o' my seamen when they's outter line."

  "The man's a gentleman," Jack said huffily.

  Tom sent a brown tobacco wash ringing in the spittoon. "He's a bloody convict. You don't get put away for kissin' ladies' hands."

  Stephen, his voice still shaking, said, "Peter would give you no trouble, Mr. Baker. You don't know him. He's . . . please, Mr. Baker, you must help me . . . I've got to get him out. I'll pay whatever you ask . . . Ill get in touch with him. Somehow. He'll answer. He must answerI"

  Stephen rode home with Jack early that evening. Callie looked up from her sewing in surprise. Alarmed, she went to him. "Stephen—are you all

  right? You look ill. Come sit down. Jack, what happened? What's wrong with him?"

  "I think he'd better tell you himself. Good night, Callie."

  "Stephen?"

  "Callie, I want you to write to Peter every day, and I will too."

  "What is it, Stephen? What's wrong—did you get news of him?"

  "Every day. Write to him."

  "Stephen, you're frightening me! Please, tell me what it is. Where were you tonight?"

  "I talked to some men who've been to Van Diemen's Land. Whalers."

  "And they saw Peter?"

  "No. It's an awful place, Callie. We've got to get him out. Oh, my God, why didn't I know before? The whalers can get him out, but not until I get in touch with Peter. He has to know . . . and play his part. He must write!"

  Callie went limply to her knees on the floor beside Stephen's chair. "You mean you're going to bring Peter home, Stephen?"

  "I'm going to try."

  Tears welled up in her eyes; her hands shook as she touched him. "I've prayed and prayed for a miracle, and . . . and it's you. You're the miracle."

  He drove his fist into the palm of his hand. "Somehow we've got to get him to write. If only there were some sort of signal. Nothing can be said straight out. Oh, God, Callie, I don't know how to begin. I don't know what to do."

  "But I do! Oh, see, Stephen . . . there is a God and He does look after us. Peter and I do have a signal."

  Stephen looked at her smiling face. "You do? But how . . . why would you and Peter have a signal. . . 7'

  "It was never intended to be used as such, but it could be. I asked him to write to me of the May house. It was to be a ... a special message to me so I'd know the minute he began believing again. He was to write of it the day he knew he'd be coming home. If only he remembers, we could use that."

  Thank God. He'll remember. Hell have to. Write to him about it, Callie. Now! Hurry, sit down. I'll get paper for you."

  "No . . . you write it. If I do, hell think it is me wishing. If you write it he'll realize we're trying to tell him something."

  "All right . . . good ... Ill write about the May house. You write about Hobart Town. That's where the whalers told me it was best for him to be. It'll have to be up to Peter to get there, and Callie, none of this will be easy."

  "I keep remembering that last day we saw him at the hulks. I can't forget that day. He was so unhappy—it was killing him. It's been so long . . . how much longer will it be?"

  Stephen looked away frpm her. He had told her almost nothing of what the whalers had revealed. In some ways Callie knew Peter better than anyone, and ! Newgate' seemed enough to her to put him in agony. : He felt a physical pain claw at him as he began to realize what the whalers had tried to tell him. What i was he bringing home to Callie?

  Floggings and brutality and starvation would eat deeply into a man like his brother. Peter was proud and he had an idealist's sense of justice. How many ; times would Peter have tried to fight the cruelty
and injustice, and what would they have done to him as a result? Stephen began to wonder just what his brother was now. What remained of the man he and Callie loved?

  They wrote several letters that night The next day Stephen took the letters to Tom Baker.

  "We'll get 'em there. That's all I can promise."

  "I know. You will see if you can find out anything about him?"

  "I'll do my best. Understand it's got to be done sneaky like. One thing you don't want in a penal colony is to be noticed."

  Stephen took another packet of letters to be sent aboard freighters and commercial ships; then he returned home to wait. He and Callie continued to write daily, constructing each letter carefully, making sure it held the proper clues and yet was different enough from other letters to arouse no suspicion. Each one they wrote seemed to be the most important, and the one deserving the most thought and care, for it might be the one Peter received.

  They knew most of the letters would never arrive, but they sent off each one with a prayer. If only one letter could get through!

  Chapter 36

  Peter received a letter from Callie, not one of those Stephen had frantically begun to have her write, but one she had written seven months before that he had not been given until now. It was a letter typical of Callie, telling him about Jamie and the things he had learned to do. It was filled with talk of Stephen and the brewery. In his mind Peter could see exactly the point to which the construction had come. He was shaking as he held the letter, his eyes tearing as he began to feel the things he no longer had the strength to feel. Longing was the most dangerous emotion. It opened the door through which other feelings flooded: anger he wasn't permitted to express, ideas that made him prone to talk when all that was wanted of him was dumb obedience, fears from which he had no release, shame that was now his ever-present companion.

  He crumpled the letter, not reading the last page as he laid on his bunk trying to force his mind closed again. He succeeded in stemming the tears that had begun, but it was impossible to cut off memory com-

  pletely, especially after a year of utter loneliness when he could still remember the feeling of her soft skin and the scent of her hair.

  He pulled the faded, stained scarf from the waist of his trousers. It was no longer brightly colored. Its edges were frayed and it bore many stains of his own blood. He looked at the scarf, holding it up before him. It was no longer fresh, and the thoughts he had of Callie, when he dared to think, were not pure either. He folded the scarf into a triangle and put it around his neck. One day, sometime in the past year, everything had lost its purity. There was no reason to treasure a scrap of silk that meant nothing. Around his neck it was a talisman. A sign that said plainly that he had someone somewhere. A woman.

  He need never tell the scarf had been given to him a long time ago and had since lost its meaning—if indeed he had ever truly known what it meant. He Could remember many women passing out symbols of affection, none of them lasting longer than the moment of giving. Rosalind had given him many things, little tokens, and none of them had meaning.

  He still worked at the sawmill, but there was no more fight in him about the harness. He did what he was asked, and for the most part he avoided trouble. He had been sent to the triangles one other time, and that for refusing to flog another convict. Peter was given the man's lashes, and then had to flog the man anyway. Fortunately it had been a settlers convict and the number of lashes only twenty.

  Otherwise one day was much the same as another. He listened to the convicts talk during breakfast and dinner, but he kept mostly to himself. Several times he had been asked to participate in death pacts so common among the convicts. One would enter into an agreement to murder the other thus freeing them

  both. While one man would die kindly and quickly at the hands of his companion, the murderer would be hanged, a relatively quick end. Straws were drawn to see which man would be the most fortunate and die at his fellow convict's hand, and which would be left behind to face the commandant and hanging.

  In one year eighty-five men died, only thirty by natural causes. Of the remaining, eight were killed accidentally, three were shot by soldiers, twenty-seven drowned, and twelve were known to be killed by other convicts.

  Twice Peter had honored such a request. At the time it had been easy for him, and it seemed simple and right. With his assignment on the river crew, all he had to do was to step into a deeper pool of water. Taller than John or Walter, he stood in the deep pool long enough for the heavy irons to hold them under— long enough to drown. Then he pushed a log over them and called the alarm, "man under."'

  He had ended the lives of the only two convicts who had befriended him, and he had done it because they were friends. He was never accused of their deaths, however, for accidental drownings were not unusual, and Peter had never been able to bring himself to kill in any other way. He couldn't have hit them with a log or strangled them or sent a knife into their hearts. All he had been able to bring himself to do was to find the deep water and let it do the killing. He thought bitterly, however, that he now deserved the branded M on his chest. He was a murderer now. Twice over.

  Few of the convicts seriously considered suicide, for it condemned them. While they seemed to be forgotten by God, and their God bore no resemblance to the one the ministers hammered into their minds with exhortations of evil and repentance, the hope that He

  was there lived on. He might forgive a man for ending the tortured life of a fellow man, releasing him from what they considered Hell, but one could not take one's own life. Expected death at another's hand gave time for the victim to repent and beg salvation. A man dying by his own hand died in the process of sin. What they would do to help another man to reach God, they could not do for themselves for fear of losing their chance of salvation.

  On the way to the sawmill one day, Peter passed Holiday Island, the convicts' burial ground. It had originally been Halliday's Island, named after the first convict to die here. It soon became and remained Holiday Island. At a glance Peter could pick out the two pieces of wood that marked his friends' graves. He had come to look forward to that walk to the sawmill. He liked seeing those markers, knowing that neither John nor Walter would ever be flogged or put in harness again.

  The next morning as he walked past, he touched the scarf at his neck. They would have liked knowing he still had it. They would have made lewd jokes and teased, but they would have liked him having the scarf. He wondered why he hadn't thought of wearing it before.

  The guard strapped the harness in place. Peter stood still or moved appropriately to augment its proper fastening. Once he had considered writing to Stephen to tell him never to use ^a whip on the field horses. He hadn't written the letter, but each time the harness was strapped on him and he heard the crack of the whip behind him, he thought of it.

  That evening the convicts were given time to wash and repair their clothes. It was never a time Peter liked. The convicts spent most of the hour quarreling among themselves, choosing sides, picking on the

  weakest, and generally letting out aggressions for which there was no other outlet. Peter sat away from the main body of them trying to repair the tear in his pants leg. He had never been able to mend well; consequently it was the third time he had had to repair the same tear. When he was finished, he took the scarf from around his neck, dipping it into the wash water. He laid it out on a rock to dry, and a quarreling convict named Roush saw it and came over to him.

  "Where'd you get that?"

  "It was given to me."

  The man picked it up.

  Tut it down," Peter said.

  "I want to see it*

  Tut it down."

  "Look at this, mates. He's got somethin goin we don't know about."

  Peter stood up. Roush was his equal in height, and one of the few convicts Peter couldn't intimidate merely by size and reputation. He put his hand out for the scarf. Roush danced away, waving the scarf and laughing. Peter started after h
im. The man darted back, laughing loudly and drawing the guard's attention. Peter turned and sat down on the rock again, leaning forward, relaxed. His hands were folded in front of him.

  Roush stopped his prancing, watching Peter with canny wariness. Then he came forward, holding the scarf by two fingers.

  "What's the matter, Berean? Don't you want the pretty scarf?"

  "I want it," Peter said quietly.

  "Come and get it"

  "No. You give it to me."

  "Like this?" Roush darted in, lowering the scarf so it touched Peter's cheek. Peter didn't move. "Hahl

  Like this? Or this!" Roush said, thoroughly enjoying himself as he bobbed in and out, toward and away from Peter.

  Watching Roush's moving feet, Peter got the timing, then moved like a springing cat, thrusting upward with his clasped hands.

  He caught Roush directly under his jaw, snapping his head back. The man lay dazed on the ground, shaking his head to clear it. Peter bent to pick up the scarf. Roush kicked him just below the rib cage. Scarf in hand Peter whirled, jumping on Roush, pummeling until his fists were covered with blood.

  The guards looked on with moderate interest. The two men were a fair match. If they came out with a few bruises, it meant nothing. Money changed hands between them as each chose his favorite. They did nothing until Roush lay motionless and Peter continued to pound his fists into him.

  Then both guards ran, shouting orders for Peter to stop. He did not hear; he would not have obeyed if he had. His eyes were crazed, his powerful body taut and flexed as one muscle. His fists moved like pistons, beating and pounding Roush's inert body.