by James Haley
Bliven raised a hand to his mouth. “Oh, my God.”
Shifflette chuckled. “Yes. And then he continued: ‘Do you think you have the right to own men because you are the most powerful? Well, then, if my people become powerful, that must give us the right to own you!’ He really let him have it.”
Bliven sagged and laughed. “I wish I had met him more personally.”
“It gets better. Mickanoppee told him that ‘seven years ago you moved us from Apalachicola to this place to separate us from the whites. You said you would feed us, and we would live here forever. You have not fed us, and now you want to take this land away. Are you trying to make us your black people? We are not your black people. You have not kept faith with us, and we will live where we choose.’”
“Well, I guess that—”
From the edge of the forest there came the slightest singing whish of a sound, and the oarsman nearest them shrieked as he dropped his oar and grabbed at his shoulder, from which the feathered shaft of an arrow protruded.
“Down!” roared Bliven.
“Marines, en garde!” shouted the corporal. “At the tree line, fire!” Flames and smoke obscured the bank, but they heard the balls strike earth and trees.
“Reload!”
Shifflette stood within the smoke and shouted, not sounding frightened but angry, in the Seminole language. He sat again after he repeated it in full.
The boat rocked as Bliven made his way to the injured oarsman, ripped the shirt away from the wound and examined it. “You are a lucky man: it is just a flesh wound. Try to be calm; we will have you to a doctor in a short time. Mr. Shifflette, what did you just tell them?”
“I told them to stop this nonsense, that we are on their side, that we are not going to help those bastards back at Fort King. I told them this is their land, and if they are men, they will fight for it. I wished them good fortune.”
Bliven started to erupt in laughter but stifled it into a snort. “You didn’t!”
“I did.”
“Mr. Shifflette, that is treason.”
“Not to me, and damn you if you report me.”
“I? Mr. Shifflette, I do not speak a syllable of Seminole. I have no idea what you have said.”
“Heh! Very well, then. I like you.”
* * *
* * *
Mickanoppee—that was his name—and Bliven stamped it into his memory. The whole shameful history that this chief recited of the government’s faithlessness to his people, his understanding of the relations among men, that slavery was an offense to God, struck him like a sledge on a great bronze bell. Clarity might argue natural law against slavery, but to hear the same from a man of nature himself was a heavier weight of shot altogether. It made sense to him now. And this whole six months—the Antilles, Jamaica, Haiti, the Bahamas, and now this—it was not possible that God had rubbed Bliven’s nose in every aspect and permutation of slavery to no purpose.
And its purpose, he greatly feared, was not just to stoke his revulsion of slavery and other forms of dominating other men that were its functional equal, such as Jackson’s treatment of the Indians. Its purpose might not be to make him doubt his own patriotism, for his more than thirty years’ service in some of the most godforsaken corners of the globe attested his devotion to duty. But these events with the Seminoles, and knowing Jackson was behind them—indeed, Jackson’s very rise to power—had caused him to question where his duty and honor lay when his government had become unrecognizable, when the Constitution he had sworn to protect had been so subverted that the government itself had become a grotesque of itself, led by a strutting egotist who was in it to aggrandize his own lust for power.
His awareness was not that he should find any cure for the nation’s ills but that he could, and must, answer for his role in it, or else refuse to take that role. Such a freshness of mind made the following days speed by: Back to St. Augustine and the ship, which he found repaired, after a fashion, with the upper reach of the foretopmast now inserted as a stubby new bowsprit, and the foremast itself shortened, with no fighting top but still able to mount its course and topsail. They stood out into a favorable southerly wind and the push of the Gulf Current, from where it was only eight days home. Never before, as they rose off the port bow, had first sight of the green-fringed white dunes of Cape Cod drawn tears from his eyes. But they did now, and he had a mind never again to see them from this angle, from the sea looking toward home.
2
The Nunnery
Since Bliven’s youth, the harbor in the Charlestown Navy Yard had been deepened and the pilot, notwithstanding their cropped foremast and stubby bowsprit, was able to guide the vessel up to the wharf and make fast the bow and stern lines that arrested the last of their motion while never making contact between hull and quay. It was wonderful to watch such a master in action.
The morning’s business was quickly dispensed. His report on their cruise to the Caribbean and unexpected cooperation with the Army in Florida was already written, and a letter to Clarity was ready to post that he would be home in a few days. The purser began discharging the crewmen’s debts and paying them the remainder in a mix of scrip and silver, hearing but not listening to their imprecations against his ruinous rates for the slops that he withheld from their pay.
Shortly after midday there were three raps on the door, and Ross entered before being bidden. “Your pardon, Captain, some visitors are coming aboard.”
“Am I needed?”
He was already shaking out Bliven’s coat. “You will want to come up.”
Bliven made it clear from his expression that he expected more, but Ross turned him around to slip his coat on. “By God, Mr. Ross, but you are enigmatic today. A little clarity would be welcome.”
“Well, sir, a little Clarity is just what you shall have.” He opened the door and gave him a slight push down the gun deck.
As his meaning became clear Bliven walked faster, then broke into a lope to the ladder, which he bounded up in a staccato of hard soles onto the wooden steps. “My God, Clarity!” He seized her and held her tightly. “Oh, my love, what on earth are you doing here?”
“Well, we were just passing by.” She pulled back, stretched up, and kissed him earnestly. “Welcome home, Bliv.”
“I can’t believe it!”
“Dearest, you remember our friend, Reverend Beecher.”
Bliven had not noticed him until that moment. “Of course, Reverend!” They shook hands. “I am astonished. I thought you were in Ohio. Have you returned?” He almost added a witty inquiry whether Beecher had come back to renew his warfare with heathen Unitarians, but held back until he should know what new fray he might find himself in.
“Only for a brief sojourn.”
My God, how he has aged, thought Bliven. When they first met, a decade before the reverend relocated from Long Island to Litchfield, Bliven was fifteen and a lieutenant, while Beecher was twenty-seven. At that time he seemed almost old enough to be his parent, but now the dozen years between them seemed hardly worth mentioning, except for the change in Beecher’s visage. His mouth had advanced from down-turning to cruel, his eyes from sad to—Bliven could not find a word, but his face, he was sure, had continued to slide, as though melting from the sheer heat of the zeal within.
It was Clarity’s voice that brought him back. “We have taken rooms at the old inn on the Salem Turnpike.”
“Of course you would. Which half?”
“On Putnam Street, of course.”
Beecher let his gaze stray up into the rigging. “It gives your wife pleasure to remind me from time to time of your historic name.”
Indeed, it did always give Bliven a surge of family pride to stay on the street that was named, not for his famous great-uncle, Major General Israel Putnam, but for the general’s first cousin Seth, known as the Squire, one of Charlestown’s leadi
ng figures and the early owner of the property.
“Do you know, dearest?” She took his hand. “We shall be among the last patrons there. The property has been bought by Mr. Rice, the shipwright, and it is said he means to restore it to a private residence again.”
Bliven winced. “Oh, too bad! But, really, it makes sense. The lot is so small, and there are so few rooms, it could never be very profitable again.”
“Do you know, Captain,” said Beecher, “this is the first time I have ever greeted you on the deck of one of your ships.”
“Why, so it is! Enjoy the sight, for she will be retired presently.”
Clarity laid her other hand on Beecher’s arm. “Bliv, our reverend friend is staying at the inn as well. The whole city from Boston north is chock-full of people who came to hear him preach. The Salem Turnpike was the only place left with accommodations. Reverend Beecher delivered sermons in three several churches, all on yesterday, and ended up at the Town Hill Church. He is the very talk of the town.”
“Indeed, Reverend? Well done. What was your topic?”
Beecher drew himself up. “Popery, its seductions and its evils.”
Bliven clasped his hands behind his back in the fashion of officers in conversation. “Oh, my. Then you should have been with me when I was late in Florida. The commandant at the old Spanish fortress in St. Augustine showed me some rooms recently discovered that had been sealed up. One of them was a torture chamber, thoroughly medieval, with the remains of a rack from the days of the Inquisition. You would have found it edifying.”
“Good God!”
“He said when the room was first opened, they also found a skeleton within.”
“Well, then,” said Beecher. “You see what life was like when they held sway. Here and today they are not in power, and they must be more subtle to the public perception, but make no mistake: they are ever at it, laying the foundations to take over. And if they ever do come again to power, look out! And now you know, too, for you have seen the evidence.”
Bliven scanned his gaze about. He had known some very fine Catholics, none of whom had evinced any desire to establish Roman rule in America, and thought it better to change the conversation. “Good Lord! Is that still Freddy driving you? Freddy, hello!”
From the open barouche Fred Meriden smiled broadly and waved.
“Whither goest we now?” asked Beecher grandly. “Back to the inn? Are you freed from your duties, Captain, to accompany us?”
“Yes, quite. I have made my report, the crew is mostly discharged, for the ship is to be stricken from the list.”
“So you just said,” noted Beecher quietly. “One reads that among seamen the retirement of their vessel is an occasion of some emotion.”
“So it is, yes, in all honesty. She has seen us safely through many dangers, and I will not deny that I will miss her.” His gaze ascended to a gull swooping with a cry between the main and mizzen. “Doubtless she will become a receiving hulk somewhere. If you will go on down and join Mr. Meriden, we will be along in a moment. I must go down and let my steward know that we are leaving.”
“Of course.” Beecher paused at the boarding gate, eyeing the narrow gangplank as he would an enemy before descending it.
Bliven preceded Clarity down the ladder, holding her hand tightly as she descended after him. When they were out of sight he drew her to himself again, kissing her long and tenderly. “How on earth did you know I was back?”
They began walking aft to the captain’s suite. “I didn’t!” She beamed. At forty-seven herself, it was astonishing how she had kept the key features of her youth, her high cheeks and merry eyes, even with the gray streaking her honey-colored hair. “I truly didn’t. We went for a drive to let the reverend rest from his preaching on yesterday. I knew the Navy Yard was proximate, and I had Mr. Meriden bring us over so I could inquire when you might be expected. They said, ‘He is over there, right now, docked early on this morning.’ Is that not astonishing luck?”
“So it seems Reverend Beecher is better paid than he was formerly. I thought when he traveled that he accepted the hospitality of his parishioners.”
Clarity used their moment alone to draw him close again and threaded an arm around his waist. “Normally, yes, but with such a tour de force of preaching in one day, we thought it well to give him a private place for complete rest and quiet. And with so many people offering to open their homes for him, he could not accept lodging from one without giving offense to a score of others. Besides, the nearest church to this place is the Second Congregational, Reverend Dr. Walker, and he has gone over to the Unitarians. Truly I can tell you there is no truck between him and Dr. Beecher.”
“Ah, the dread Unitarians.” He looked down at her, never so glad to be with her, and smirked. “My hackles rise. We are paying for his room, aren’t we?”
“Yes, dearest. Do you mind?”
“Bah! No, we can afford it.” He made the arrangements with Alan Ross that he should follow in about a week’s time and bring any letters or papers that needed attention. Bliven and Clarity walked slowly back down the gun deck, empty of crew, their view unobstructed the whole distance to the sick bay in the curve of the bow, so that they could hear their footfalls echo back to them.
“This was a noisy place in a fight, I’ll warrant,” she said.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“Oh, look!” She indicated the camboose far forward, against the mass of the foremast as it descended to its footing. “Is that where they do the cooking? Oh, please, may I see?”
“You run ahead, I will follow.” Here was his wife in the midst of her middle age, but she was still capable of the most instant ignition into passion. It made him smile every time he was reminded how well he had chosen.
She approached it, finding its fire tamped but the stove still warm from cooking the morning’s meal for the remaining crew. She tried every box and compartment, opened and closed every flue and damper, assayed the rack of enormous pots and kettles. “Oh, this is incredible, to cook for hundreds on a single giant stove! Polly would be beside herself if she could see this.”
He joined her. “How is Polly?”
“She is well. She still misses my mother, of course, but it comforts her to know she will always be in our family. This is made of a very heavy gauge of iron, is it not?”
“Yes. It is used almost constantly for months at a time.”
She sated her curiosity and they started back to the ladder. “And these are the pumps here?” She tapped her foot on the side of a large brass bulb bolted to the deck, at the foot of its elm tree. “And those must be the levers stored up there. Oh, if I had been born a man, this might have been the life for me.”
“Well, I thank God you were not.” He wrapped an arm around her as they walked on, grateful that it appeared she did not blame him for his long absences, grateful that she had found life and purpose beyond being his wife. Surely it was now time to reward her by coming home. “Come, we mustn’t keep them waiting any longer. Dear old Rappahannock.” He cast his gaze down the ruler-straight file of cascabels of the long twenty-fours, ready to be lifted off their carriages and stored. “It is a queer thing to outlive your ship. I would almost rather take her out and sink her than see her become a hulk.” Clarity rested her head against his chest, and he rested his chin atop her head. “My bosun, Mr. Yeakel, has been with her since she first touched water. I don’t know what he will do now. He says he may leave the Navy.”
They ascended the ladder once more. “Are you thinking to give him a job as you did Mr. Ross?”
“Ha! Not much call for rigging on the farm. He would never do it anyway; ships are all he knows, or cares to know. Doubtless he will find civilian employment. I gave him a letter of introduction.”
“That is all well, then. Oh, my! It occurs to me you are going home quite suddenly and shall be without Mr. Ross
for some days.”
“Yes.”
“Will that not be a trial for you? I shall watch with interest to see if you can still dress and undress yourself without your valet.”
He placed his lips against her ear. “My love, in a few hours’ time you will see how nimbly I can undress myself.”
They ambled to the boarding gate. “Well,” she said, “if you get confused, I will help you.”
He let her pass first down the gangplank. “Mind your footing. I don’t want to jump in after you.”
It was almost superfluous to be driven to the inn, for it was always the quickest of journeys. At the boundary of the Navy Yard they crossed the turnpike at Adams Street and made a short rightward curl to the near corner of the Training Field. There they turned left onto Common Street, where the second half of the block consisted of one house of the inn, and then turned left onto Putnam Street to the front door of the older portion, the entire trip traversing only about two hundred yards.
The dining room lay in a single-story extension beyond the inn’s office and had windows that looked out onto the Training Field, which was the heart of the city and a daily, indeed constant, reminder of Charlestown’s proud heritage. Militia volunteers had drilled on this ground since 1632—two years more than two centuries previous—including those who fell to the British in the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775, which took place two blocks farther north.
It was nearly nine in the evening when the four of them began their supper, a steaming corn chowder followed by roast beef with parsnips and peas. They were barely half-finished when from the windows of the dining room they saw a stream of people, all walking swiftly in one direction across the Training Field and spilling from its northern corner onto High Street toward Bunker Hill. Voices, excited but indistinct, penetrated the windows.
