Dawn on a Distant Shore

by Sara Donati

  Curiosity got up with a groan, and shifted Daniel to her shoulder. “That’s just what we’ll do,” she said. “But pack the basket, just in case.”

  At dusk Hannah could stand it no longer, and she went up on deck. She found a spot at the rail where she thought she might not be in the way. The sailors ignored her; after a while she began to relax, to take some pleasure in the fresh air and the wind. There were fishing boats in the distance, and she wondered what kind of life it would be to live on the water and to learn to read it as her people could read the sky and the mountains.

  “The Indian,” said a man’s voice. “Come to worship the settin’ sun, are ye?”

  The first officer stood, hands folded behind him and his chin pressed to his chest. Mr. MacKay was a big man, heavily built with a seaman’s squint, a great shelf of a jaw, a high sloping forehead, and a nose so short and mean it looked like it was trying to burrow back into his skull. But it was his eyes that worried her, alive with a moody curiosity that made her sorry to have come up on deck.

  And no one else about, and no way to get past him unless he let her go.

  “Sir?”

  “Have ye been baptized in Christ?” He spoke so softly that she had to strain to hear him.

  It was a simple question, and she did not want to answer it. But by his expression she knew that she had no choice. “I was baptized, sir.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Is that so? And wha guid man came among the savages to save ye from eternal damnation?”

  Hannah pressed her back harder into the rail. “I don’t remember him, sir. I was very small. A Jesuit, I think.”

  The long face flushed such a deep shade of red, and that so quickly, that Hannah’s unease was pushed aside with the thought that Mr. MacKay might be suffering a stroke before her eyes.

  His mouth twisted with disgust. “Papists among the savages. Aye, and I heard tell o’ sic travesties. And the puir wee babbies, have they been damned wi’ ye?”

  Hannah looked about hoping for a friendly face, but the sailor at the helm was watching the horizon. Mr. MacKay was waiting for her answer, and so she shook her head.

  “They are not yet baptized, in any faith.”

  “Ach. There’s hope, then. Now you listen to me,” Mr. MacKay began, in a more kindly fashion. “‘The angels shall come forth, and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” He thrust his face forward, within inches of her own. “It’s no’ in your nature tae understan’ the Holy Scripture—savage and female, ava—but it’s my duty tae tell the truth and shame the de’il. Lass, ye’re bound for hellfire should ye no’ see the error o’ yer ways.”

  “I must go,” Hannah said, and her voice cracked. “I must go back to the Hakim now.”

  “The Hakim. Anither infidel.” Mr. MacKay shook his head. “Innocent babes among the heathens. Can a guid Christian stand by and watch?”

  Hannah’s blood beat heavy in her ears, but she made herself speak up. She said, “Stay away from us. Stay away from us all, or I’ll tell Captain Pickering.”

  Mr. MacKay sucked in his lower lip and pushed it out again. “And does it matter, wha ye tell? The Almighty kens aa, and sees aa, and ye canna run fra’ him tae yer Captain Pickering. ‘His wrath is poured out like fire, and in the end ye will burn.’”

  He rocked back and forth on his heels, his mouth pursed thoughtfully. “Noo, tell me, lass. Will ye be saved fra’ yer infidel ways, ye and the wee ones wi’ ye?”

  “Mr. MacKay, sir!” the bosun called. “The helmsman needs a word wi’ ye, sir!”

  “Hear me now,” he said, peering closely at her. “It’s up tae ye whether the babbies burn in hell. We’ll talk agin.”

  Hannah forced herself to breathe in and out as he walked away. When she could make her legs obey her, she went below. And wondered if she would ever come back on deck again.

  16

  The Jackdaw was seventy-five feet of hard-worn oak and peeling black paint, but as the St. Lawrence widened toward the open sea something became clear to Nathaniel: the schooner might have seen better days, but she still loved the wind and the wind loved her back. It was true that they were twelve hours behind the Isis, but there were other truths, too, and he didn’t have to reach far for them: they had an able captain who would stop at nothing to earn his prize, and while the Isis idled along like a fat cow for home, the Jackdaw was a cougar of a ship, fast and lean, carrying no cargo beyond provisions for a skeleton crew of thirty, ammunition, and the monumental force of the Bonners’ combined fury.

  Nathaniel could see the full strength of it now in Elizabeth’s face as she paced the deck, her arms wound around herself. Once before he had seen her this close to broken, but that battle had left the kind of bruises that healed. This time there would be no healing for either of them until they had the children and Curiosity back.

  The Jackdaw was only eighteen feet at the beam; Nathaniel could almost reach out and touch his wife as she paced by. But she looked to the horizon for comfort, and seemed not to take note of him at all. Since she had come on board and spilled out the whole story of what had passed she had barely spoken a word.

  “It ain’t her fault,” said Hawkeye when she had passed them once again. “You need to make her understand that.”

  “If there’s anyone tae blame, it must be me,” said Robbie hoarsely. “I was a fool tae trust Moncrieff. I tried tae tell her so, but she wouldna listen.”

  Nathaniel said, “It’ll take more than words to set her right.”

  Hawkeye grunted, for it was the simple truth. But Robbie’s troubled expression settled on Nathaniel.

  “Aye, but words are a start, lad. Dinna let her grieve alone.” He put a hand on Nathaniel’s shoulder, but it was the weight of the word, the idea of grieving, that brought him to his feet.

  He scanned the length of the ship, from the forecastle where Stoker was deep in conversation with his first mate, to the bow.

  “She’s gone below,” said Hawkeye, his unease showing clear. He had been raised among strong-minded women and had had another one to wife. His daughter-in-law was made in the same mold, and he liked and admired her; it wouldn’t occur to him to forbid Elizabeth to go anywhere. But Stoker’s crew was a rough lot—Americans and Irishmen, and a handful of the kind who claim no home and want none. Nathaniel saw the worry in his father’s face, and thought his own expression probably gave away just as much. He went after her.

  At the bottom of the companionway Nathaniel stopped to clear his head of the sound of the sea. What he heard took him by surprise: an old woman’s voice, and Elizabeth’s quiet tones in reply. Alone for a moment on a ship where there would be precious little privacy, too tall to stand in the cramped space, Nathaniel crouched down to listen. His head ached, and he was tired, and he wondered if he would ever be able to sleep again. Even in sleep he could not escape the fact that his children had been taken from him without a struggle, and by a man he had given his trust. I regret the necessity of such a drastic step, but your father-in-law denied me every other more reasonable alternative. That single sentence echoed in his head, carved deep in the very bones of his skull. If this ship should go down now and kill him outright Nathaniel knew that he would walk the sea floor to get to them. And to Angus Moncrieff, who would be taught the meaning of reason, and regret.

  The sound of throaty laughter from the cabin startled him out of his daydream. Elizabeth’s voice again, in reply. He thought of joining them, but then he had spent much of his life in the company of women and he knew the sound of a conversation where men were not welcome. And the truth was, he had little comfort to offer.

  He went back up on deck to ask again after their speed and to find some work to do. For the moment hard labor was the only thing that would keep him sane.

  She was old, so old that time had reversed its path: the hair under the tightly knotted kerchief was baby-fine and only two teeth were left in the wi
de, thin-lipped mouth. These were on the right side, and served as the anchor for a pipe that wobbled and waved over a sunken breast covered with a mass of chains and baubles. But there was nothing childlike about the woman’s mind, and she squinted at Elizabeth from a fog of tobacco smoke with a bright and inquisitive expression, plucking her pipe from her mouth to point at a tea chest.

  “Sit!”

  Elizabeth hesitated, but the pipe tapped smartly on the arm of the chair and she seemed to have little choice but to comply.

  “I had no intention of disturbing you,” she said, resting very uncomfortably on the edge of the chest, and trying not to stare around herself at the crowded cabin, nor to inhale too deeply the mingled smells of stale tobacco, rank clothing, and fish oil. “I was just looking for a quiet spot.”

  The old woman let out a hoot of laughter. “Cor, a quiet spot on the Jackdaw. Now, there’s a pretty notion.”

  The reedy, wobbling voice was London with an overlay of Ireland and other places Elizabeth could not quite put a name to. Here was a mystery that would have intrigued at any other time, but Elizabeth was so tired she could not focus on the most obvious things. Nor could she quite bring herself to do what she wanted to do, which was to give in to her low spirits and simply walk away.

  “Please permit me to introduce myself—”

  “I know who you are,” said the old woman. “Saw you when you come with that bloody great Indian to talk to Mac, though I expect you didn’t see me. Annie is my name, but most call me Granny Stoker. Mac is the youngest son of me youngest son.”

  “Ah,” said Elizabeth. “I recall that he mentioned you the first time I spoke to him.”

  “Eh? And what did he say?”

  “He did not say that you sail with him. I’m glad not to be the only woman on board, but I am somewhat surprised to find you here.”

  The old lady’s mouth worked around the stem of the pipe. “Don’t be. Women been on the water since the first raft was pushed off, even if some don’t like to admit it. Now me, I don’t go on land unless I’m dragged. First shipped out when I was just fifteen. That was seventy-seven years ago. I’ll wager you’ve heard of me. I went by Anne Bonney back then, when I ran with Calico Jack.”

  Elizabeth thought it might be bad policy to admit she had not heard either name, but to her relief, the old woman’s attention had already shifted. She fumbled for a cane at her knee and with it she poked at Elizabeth’s skirts.

  “You need breeches,” she said, in the unapologetic tones of the very old when they had made a personal decision for someone younger. “Skirts tie you down on board. In breeks you’d move freer, and fight better when the time comes. But I expect you’ll tell me it isn’t your way. You’re that type.”

  Elizabeth found herself bristling. “I’m not sure what type you mean, but the fact is, I have worn leggings. All of last summer I wore them, when I was—” She hesitated. “On the New-York frontier.”

  The brown eyes snapped at her under a creased brow. “So I hear tell. Jack Lingo was a tough one, weren’t he?”

  Elizabeth rubbed her forehead. “I suppose your grandson told you.”

  “I keep my ears open,” said Annie Stoker. “And my eyes.”

  Wearily, Elizabeth said, “And what do you see?”

  The knotty hands gripped the arms of the chair as the old woman leaned forward, her beads and chains making a soft clinking sound. “I see a woman et up with anger, and no place to go with it. You won’t weep, not in front of me. Maybe not in front of anybody. That Scot don’t know what kind of trouble he’s called down on his head with you. Took your babbies, and left you with more than one kind of pain. I expect if I put a finger to your breast it might feel ready to burst about now.”

  Elizabeth composed her expression. “It’s not so bad.”

  The old lady had a whoop of a laugh with very little of amusement in it. “Maybe you can make your menfolk believe that, but you look at me again, girl, and see what you’re looking at. Ten children I’ve brought into this world, the first one when I was sixteen years old. The last one was Mac’s da, when I was forty-five. But when I look at you I’m put in mind of my second. My only girl, and they took her away from me before I could give her a name.” She picked up the cane again and pointed it at Elizabeth’s bodice with two quick jabbing motions. “They ache like two bad teeth. Ain’t that so?”

  Elizabeth folded her arms across herself and tried not to flinch as her breasts, rock-hard, pulsed and leaked in response. But the old lady had already turned away to begin rummaging around in an open chest at the side of her chair. Her pipe worked furiously up and down as she clawed through a jumble of fabrics: old-fashioned waistcoats and pelisses of yellowed brocade, petticoats and skirts dangling torn flounces.

  “There we are,” she said, hooking something dull brown to deposit it onto Elizabeth’s lap. “And these. Make good use of them.”

  There were breeches and a loose-cut shirt. “This is very kind of you,” Elizabeth said, resisting the urge to examine them for lice in front of the old lady.

  Annie Stoker waved a hand dismissively. She pointed with her cane to another chest. “In that box there you’ll find linen for binding. You wrap your chest up tight as ever you can stand it, that will help some. You can do it now. But if the pain gets to be too much anyway, you have that man of yours give you some ease.”

  “Ease,” Elizabeth echoed. What right do I have to ease? And she saw with some distant surprise how her own tears fell to darken the rough homespun of the breeches. Her bodice was full wet now, but she did not have the strength to hide this from the old woman.

  She said, “Why did they take your daughter from you?”

  A shrug of the bony shoulders. “I was headed for the gallows at the time. You may not credit it to see me now, respectable old lady that I am, but I was a terror back then, and I near swung for it. Until Paddy Stoker got a better idea and took me away to Ireland. We left the girl behind. I never knew what became of her.” The old woman leaned forward to grasp Elizabeth by the wrist. Her skin was dry and warm, and her grip was unforgiving. “A bellyful of anger ain’t the worst thing, right now,” she said.

  The last of the evening light shifted from the window to lay its warmth on Anne Stoker’s face. Tears were swelling in Elizabeth’s throat and she blinked hard as the old woman doubled in her vision. The blur of color around her neck glimmered and took on sudden clarity: a blue-tinted diamond the size of a woman’s thumbnail. A string of square-cut sapphires, and a pendant of amber and worked silver. Coins of all sizes and lands. And half hidden in the folds of the faded calico shirt another coin, larger and heavier, on a chain of its own. A five-guinea gold piece, with old King George in profile.

  Elizabeth touched the spot between her own breasts where that very coin had rested for almost a year, and then her gaze traveled up the length of the chain to Anne Stoker’s face.

  The old lady showed her empty red gums and two dimples carved new grooves on the lined cheeks. Then she reached into a crewel-worked pocket tied to her waist over a pair of leather breeches and drew out a pendant: a single pearl in a clutch of silver petals and curling leaves. She held it up so that the pearl twisted in the scattered light, and then she tossed it.

  “Lookin’ for that, are you?”

  Elizabeth caught it with one hand. The metal was cold against her palm, but there was a warmth in the pearl that she had first noted when Nathaniel had put the chain around her neck as a wedding present. How it had hurt her pride to have this taken from her. Now it seemed a very small thing, and unimportant.

  She sent Anne Stoker a sidelong glance. “I must have dropped it when I came on board at Sorel.”

  “Must have.”

  Her innocent tone was at odds with the satisfied expression in those bright eyes. A respectable old lady, indeed. Knowing that she flushed, and that her high color gave away something, Elizabeth said, “There was a panther’s tooth, too.”

  “Was there now? And how did y
ou come by such a thing as that?”

  “It is a very long story.”

  “Aye, and what better way to pass the time than wit’ a good, long story?”

  Elizabeth considered for a moment. “I don’t suppose you have a toothbrush in that trunk of yours? And a hairbrush?”

  “I might do,” said the old lady, her fingers winding through silver chains. “Why do you ask?”

  “Stories do not come cheap,” said Elizabeth.

  The old woman’s face lit up. “Oooh,” she said. “Intend to haggle wit’ me, do you?”

  Whatever Elizabeth might have said to Anne Stoker was interrupted by the sound of running feet on deck and a call from the crow’s nest: “Ship ahoy!” She started up from her seat, but the old woman never moved.

  “Not the one you’re looking for,” she said evenly. “Not yet.”

  “Do you think we’ll catch the Isis up, then?” It was the most important question, and Elizabeth feared the answer so much that she had not been able to ask the men outright.

  Granny Stoker laughed, the tobacco-stained fingers threading through the lifetime’s plunder hung around her neck. “Have you watched children playin’ at tag, me dear?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “I have.” Once I was a schoolteacher, she might have said. But it seemed so long ago, and she would not think of home. Not now.

  “Well, then, you’ll recall as how little boys like the chase, but for little girls all fun is in the getting caught. And she’s no different at heart. Just a little girl running away to get caught.”

  “Who is no different?” asked Elizabeth, vaguely confused.

  “Why,” said Annie Stoker. “The Lass in Green, of course.”

  Though the Jackdaw was not a large ship, Mac Stoker managed to keep clear of Elizabeth. She supposed that his sudden deference had more to do with a healthy fear of the Bonner men than with some newfound consideration, but she did not mind the isolation from Stoker.

  He sent her messages through his crew. It was Jacques, the boy who had lured her to the ship, who brought word that Granny Stoker was willing to have Elizabeth sleep in the captain’s quarters with her. It was a kind offer, and Elizabeth was relieved to have recourse to the cabin throughout the day when she wanted privacy to see to her own needs, but she could not bear the idea of long hours without Nathaniel. Neither was she willing to share the crew’s berth, as Hawkeye and Robbie were. This left only the open deck, and hammocks.