Bitter Eden

by Salvato, Sharon Anne

  Curtly, Peter asked, "When does the ship leave?"

  Tom laughed through his nose. The bastard was a convict down to his bones. Tom could smell it in the fear on his sweat, feel it in the cold impersonal way Peter talked, hear it in the nervous quaver in his

  voice. It eased his conscience about taking Stephen for more money than the trip was worth. This man would be a bundle of trouble to take back to New York.

  Tom's jaw set hard; his eyes narrowed. There were no two ways about it: he didn't like convicts. Most of them deserved every bit of time they served. He didn't doubt this was true of Peter Berean. If he didn't need the money so damned bad, he'd leave the bastard to rot here where he belonged. His neighbors wouldn't thank him for bringing a murderer home to live right there on the Hudson. But he needed that money. "Be here at ten sharp Tuesday night," Tom finally said. "I'll take you to the ship. You're late and we sail without you."

  • Peter nodded with a taut jerk of his head. "I'll be here."

  "See you are. To my thinkin' you belong right where you are. I'll be plain spoken, Berean. I don't like the stink o' you. I'm doin' this for your brother. But don't get it in your head that I'm runnin' a cruise ship for you. You'll obey the rules of my ship—no brawlin', no drunkenness, and you'll work alongside of my crew."

  Peter's response was another tight jerk of his head. Nervously he asked the time, then stood abruptly and left the tavern. He ran the distance to Rebecca's house seconds before he was*due in. She was waiting at the front door for him. "You're out of breath!"

  "Yes, ma'am ... I didn't want to be late. I'm sorry."

  "Then you were careless. Yv$ warned you such behavior will not be tolerated. Leave yourself time to get back here in orderly fashion. I won't have a convict of mine seen running through the streets! Did you

  think you'd get away with it! Don't you know I learn of everything you do?"

  She locked the door to his room that night and handed him the slip of paper he would take to the commandant the following morning for the customary disciplinary flogging. He thought he'd go mad. He stared at the door for hours on end calculating his chances of breaking through it quickly enough so Rebecca could not get help to stop him. The thickness of the door grew as the night hours waned, and the escape that was so near at hand began to slip away like all the things he believed in and dared to place hope in.

  He moved to the corner of the room, enclosing himself between the two wooden walls. With the promise of release as near as the tavern, and Peter blocked from it by the cruel turn of a key in a locked door, he again longed for it all to end. It was not that he should die, but that the unendurable should cease.

  Peter returned from the triangles late the next morning. As usual Rebecca seemed pleased. She gave him another one of her lectures, accepted his apology with a noncommittal face, and told him she had committed him to work that day on the penitentiary stone pile, which meant he would spend the day in chains breaking large pieces of stone into smaller pieces while standing in the hot sun. However, when he was told to go to his room that night, she left the door unlocked. At first Peter didn't believe it. He thought it just another of those phantoms of hope that drew him out only to crush him again. Then he cried, praying that it would be unlocked the following night as well. What good would it do for a door to be unlocked to him on a Monday if it were barred on the all-important Tuesday? It was with a deep bitter agony that he found himself compelled to hope that the door

  would be open to him, while all his experience in prison made a cold despairing mockery of the naivete of belief in escape.

  Tuesday night, just before he was to meet Tom, he tested the door. It was unlocked, and he slipped out of his room. He walked quietly through the kitchen into the main room of the house. Rebecca looked up from the copy book she held in her lap. Peter froze.

  "You dare come out of your room!? Where do you think you're going? One trip to the triangles in a week isn't sufBcierft for you, Berean?" she said as she got up, striding angrily toward him. "Get backl I'll have you back in irons tomorrow!"

  Peter stared at the front door not four yards from where he stood.

  "Get back in there!" Rebecca commanded.

  He glanced down at her, hardly aware of who she was. She was between him and the door, screaming commands that he had always obeyed mindlessly because she'd owned him. She flapped at him with the copy book, trying to back him into his room. The key hung on a chain at her waist. When the book proved ineffectual, she dropped it, standing back fearlessly as she studied the dazed, desperate look on Peter's face.

  "What have you been drinking? Where'd you get it?"

  Peter stared without seeing her.

  She drew back her arm, her hand swinging full force as she slapped him. He grabbed her hand as she reached back to hit him again. Anger flowed from deep inside; his dark brown eyes burned like hot coals in his drawn face. "Damn you!" He pushed her back as he moved toward the door.

  "You're out of your mind!"

  His laughter was a hard brittle sound. "Even dogs turn, ma'am."

  Rebecca stepped away from him, reappraising, feel-

  ing both a sense of fear and the elated need to fight him until he was controlled. She glanced around, and finding no substantial weapon, she picked up the fire poker. Her eyes, bright with excitement, never left Peter as she stepped slowly to the side. Her lips drew back in a silent grimace. Gripping the poker with both hands, Rebecca lunged forward, thrusting it at him. She backed him toward his room. She began to laugh as he retreated through the kitchen. Awkwardly he dodged the poker, taking backward steps until he stood in the doorway to his room. The chain of keys at her waist jangled as she fumbled for the key to his room.

  The front door was so close.

  Rebecca found the key.

  "No!" he said harshly. Tm leaving here. Let me go!"

  She laughed, sure of herself. "You're going into that room. Move back and do it now. I'll see to you tomorrow. This is a night you'll never forget!"

  He put his hand on the door, holding it flat against the wall. "Move out of my way."

  She aimed the poker at his head. Peter blocked the blow, grabbing hold of Rebecca at the same time. He threw her sprawling onto the kitchen floor, then ran for the door.

  Rebecca got to her feet. "You damned animal!" she cried, running after him and bringing the poker down across his unhealed back. He spun around grunting in pain, his hands reaching for his back. She came at him again, the poker glancing off his shoulder. He hit her with his upraised forearm as he whirled to avoid the next blow. Rebecca let out a terrible strangled cry and lay still on the floor. Peter went out the front door, running through the streets toward the tavern.

  He was late.

  Tom was gone.

  Everyone in the tavern knew Peter meant trouble. He was wild-eyed, frantic in his insistence that Tom had to be there. One of the settlers tried to calm him by offering a glass of rum. Foolishly, he cajoled Peter, insistently thrusting the glass into his face. Peter grabbed the glass from the mans hand, its contents spewing over them both. He hurled the glass, shattering it against the wall; then, shoving the man into the table, he raced back into the night again. *

  Tom's ship had just pulled free of its moorings. Peter ran down the street and along the quay. Alerted by the men in the tavern, guards appeared from everywhere. Peter dodged in and out among the packing crates and barrels. Warning shots were fired. Then, exposed to sight, Peter stepped up to the side of the dock. The guards shouted at him. He turned to stare at them, their guns leveled and ready. He looked back to the river, hesitating as he stared down into the dark rushing water that terrified him. Then he flung himself into its icy, rock-strewn depths.

  Tom and the first mate of die Hudson Lady stood at the stern watching with interest the commotion on the dock. "Holy Jesus, it must be Berean. Crazy bastard. He'll never make it."

  From the docks guns reported, the guards aiming into the darkness of the river. Along the shore
and on the docks, torches flared, lines of them moving in march time toward the shore boats.

  Once more Tom thought of the tidy sum he could expect if somehow he could manage to bring Peter home—even his body. "Send down a ladder."

  The mate looked at him as if he'd lost his senses. "What for? He's gone."

  "I gave you an order, Mister. Send a ladder over the side and make damn sure you keep an eye out for that

  man. If he's dead, haul his body aboard. One way or another, I want him."

  The mate grumbled under his breath. 'They'll stop the ship. Think they'll let him sail out of here?"

  "You keep him on that ladder till we're clear and they'll never know."

  The mate laughed. "You don't know the Limeys, Captain. They don't let nobody go. Onliest countiy I know will chase one escaped man 'round the worl' if they have to jus' so's they can watch him hang on English soil."

  "Send over the ladder. They're about to lose one."

  The mate smirked. "Aye, aye, sir; anything you say, sir."

  Peter swam behind the ship, the frigid coldness of the river enveloping him. The choppy water heaved against his chest making a mockery of each stroke he swam. The ship remained a huge mass in the darkness ahead, his efforts never seeming to make the slightest difference in the distance. He ignored the rifle fire. He neither cared nor thought about it. He thought of nothing. His mind was frozen in fear of the water, and his eyes saw nothing but the ship's bulk. Slowly he began to gain a little on it, but his arms and legs were beginning to ache with the cold. His arms were leaden and his legs were cramping, otherwise he wouldn't have known they were there, for the cold was numbing him. He knew then he'd never reach the ship. He pushed himself harder, and thought he had come closer to it, but he couldn't keep swimming. He could hardly breathe, his chest hurt, and he was so frightened he was no longer sure where the ship was. Behind him the rifle fire began anew, and he heard a more ominous sound: the count of the oarsmen. The

  guards already had the longboats in the water coming after him.

  Peter put his head down, his arms and legs moving leadenly. He wouldn't be taken back. No one would ever return him to Hobart Town or Sarah Island to labor or to hang. Water rushed into his mouth, choking him. As he coughed and swallowed more water, he had the insane desire to laugh. It was finally over. He felt a painful wrenching across his chest. He hurt and then he felt nothing more.

  From the shore the guards shouted at the Hudson Lady, ordering her to drop anchor. Tom speculated that if he disobeyed, he'd never be able to bring Hudson Lady into Hobart again. He wanted no part of this, and his inclination was to run; but he shouted orders to drop anchor and prepare to aid a boarding party. Then he shouted for his first mate. "Did you get him?"

  "He's danglin at the end of a line off the stern."

  "Alive?"

  "Can't tell . . . don't look it"

  "Get him aboard ... we got no more than ten or fifteen minutes."

  This time the man obeyed immediately without question or comment. Peter was dragged aboard. Three seamen picked up his dead weight and hauled him down the companionway to the hold of the ship. He was stuffed into one of the empty sperm oil barrels. With more men working now, the barrel in which he was hidden was put to the back of those barrels already filled with oil.

  Tom greeted the captain of the guards and offered him free run of the ship in his search. Ten of the soldiers spread out over the vessel, opening hatches, tear-

  ing apart rolled canvas, searching the galley and the captain's quarters, opening sea trunks, poking into bunk rolls. They searched the hold, insisting that several barrels be opened, and all supposedly empty barrels be proven empty. Two hours later they left the ship, satisfied that Peter Berean was not aboard the Hudson Lady.

  Tom headed the Hudson Lady out to sea, his attention on his charts because of the dangerous water ahead of them for the next hours. He felt a sense of satisfaction. Stephen Berean would have his brother, or what was left of him, and Tom would have his money and no trouble from a convict passenger.

  Peter came to inside the barrel. He was cramped and twisted inside the vile-smelling container. His last memory was of a wrenching pain across his chest as he sank beneath the cold water. He choked, spitting out river water; then he tried to move. He began screaming at the darkness and the hard confines of his new world. Death could not be the same as living in the Grummet Rock cave. Insane with the horror of it, the hideous trickery that this could also be death as well as life, he thrashed, beating himself against the immobile walls of the secured barrel. He could see nothing. He knew nothing except that he was drowning and he couldn't find release from it. It went on and on and yet he didn't feel dead. He had to find an end to it. Somehow it had to stop. He continued to scream and beat against the hard blackness, the taste of blood flooding his mouth and choking him.

  One of the seamen, sent below to check the fastenings of the cargo, walked down the lines of barrels. He stopped short, drawing in his breath as he heard the sounds. Young and morbidly superstitious, he ran wide-eyed for the mate.

  "The barrels . . . sir . . . they're screamin They are, sir. I swear it. Oh, Jesus. It's the spirit of one of them animals ... it is, sir .. . it's screamm!"

  The mate shouted to the night watch to follow him as he leaped down the rungs of the companionway. Hastily they broke the fastenings that held the barrels in place, thrusting aside one heavy container after another until they reached the one in which Peter had been hidden.

  The mate pried the lid off the container. Peter threw himself against the side of the barrel, turning it over. He looked like a specter from the depths of Hades. He was covered with blood, his hair still wet and streaked with red. His eyes were tortured, swollen, red globes in his face. The mate dropped the crowbar and moved back, hesitating in horrified fascination as Peter clawed his way out of the barrel and gained his feet, staggering with his arms flailing madly. He ran erratically like a madman around the hold, leaping onto barrels and falling to scramble up again and jump from one to another.

  The mate sent one of the crew to get the captain.

  Tom Baker came into the hold, looked at Peter, and let out a stream of expletives that left no doubt as to his feelings about convicts in general and this man in particular. "Get him and lash the goddamned bastard to the mast. I thought you said he was dead," he shouted at the mate.

  "Sir, I thought he was."

  "You should have made damned sure!"

  "But, sir, you didn't say—"

  "I said get the son of a bitch, gag him, and lash him to the mast!"

  Tom kept Peter lashed to the mast throughout the night. In the morning, he ordered him released and brought to Tom's cabin.

  Peter hadn't been able to comprehend where he was. His confusion was so complete, little penetrated his mind. He hadn't yet figured out if he was alive or dead. Only the pain made him think of life; nothing else was familiar or made sense to him.

  He was taken to the captain's cabin and thrust through the door. Tom jumped up from his chair, shaking his fist as he came at Peter. "What the hell was the meaning of that last night? Didn't I tell you I'd stand for none o' your friggin convict tricks on this ship!"

  Peter flinched at the burly fist bobbing about so near to his face; then he moved forward, his arms moving of their own accord, knocking away the fist, and his hands closed around Tom's thick neck.

  Burly as Tom Baker was, he was no match for the terror-stricken power of Peter Berean. Tom bent backwards under Peter's onslaught. He brought his knee up into Peter's groin, breaking his hold long enough for Tom to shout for his mate.

  Rubbing his neck, Tom, in a rage, ordered Peter thrown back into the hold until he could decide what to do with him. Livid with hate, Tom decided, as had so many before him, to flog Peter until he learned to respect and obey his betters.

  Already close to senseless, Peter Berean was once again lashed to a mast and flogged. When it was over and he was cut free, he fell to
the deck unconscious. Still not satisfied, Tom had him hung in the rigging to bake and bleed in the hot sun without water or food. He gained a modicum of appeasement when he heard Peter, barely able to talk, beg for water.

  But Tom Baker wasn't finished with that man. He watched him hanging on the rigging, and felt a mystical sense of vengeance. That man had brutally killed his wife. He had tried to kill Tom. And being guilty of

  those sins, he had to pay. It was merely an accident of fate that it should be Tom Baker to whom it fell to extract that payment.

  The crew looked on the proceedings with hard faces. They had experienced Tom Baker's discipline before. There were several men aboard who had spent their time lashed to the riggings. Most seamen had. The sea was not a tender mistress, and the men who lived their lives upon her back were not gentle men. They were hard and cruel, and expected their time spent here to be harsh.

  Throughout the remainder of the voyage, Tom Baker watched Peter and brooded over the fact that if he lived to see New York, it would be Tom Baker who had set a murderer free. On occasion he wondered why Peter clung to life, and then decided that that too was a sign of his perversity. So he continued to have Peter flogged or lashed to the riggings for the slightest infraction of the ship's rules noticed or imagined by Tom.

  New York and the Hudson River were still two months' voyage away.

  Chapter 40

  Stephen received Peter s letter from a packet ship about three months after Tom Baker had taken Peter from Van Diemen's Land. Stephen tore it open and read it aloud to Callie, his voice becoming more excited with each line. He read the many passages from the Bible, the references to the May house, and Ho-bart Town, and—significantly placed last—the quotation of the parable of the Prodigal Son. "This is it, Callie! Listen! It's Peter all over!"

  Callie laughed and cried. Stephen hugged her, dancing her around the room, laughing uproariously over each pious note in Peter s letter.