“Ye were there. Ye heard Woolford report our destination had changed, that we be bound for Edentown, in the New York colony.” Lister fixed Duncan with a grim stare. Prior to Woolford’s declaration, the Company leaders had let the men assume they were sailing to Virginia or Georgia, whose tobacco and cotton plantations employed legions of transported criminals. “Adam had been in the militia,” he added soberly, as if it explained much. “New York be where the war lies. In the wild lands.”
He searched Lister’s face, remembering once more Adam’s last words. They mean to use you, then they must kill you. He had known Adam had spent years in the Pennsylvania colony, but Adam had always evaded Duncan’s questions about his former life in the New World, diverting him with tales of colonial towns and taverns, promising him that one day he would show Duncan mountains and lakes that rivaled those of Scotland. “Are you saying Adam died because of something that happened in America?”
“I saw his face go white as snow when Woolford spoke those words. That night he asked for a writing lead and a scrap of paper. Next day he was dead.”
“After he declared our new destination,” Duncan recalled, “Woolford tried to see him. Adam had me tell Woolford he was ill, that he would have to return the next day.” But there had been no next day for Adam. Duncan was silent a moment, considering Lister’s words. “Adam would not fear the French.”
“Did I speak of the French? There’s fates in those wilds God never meant for man.” Lister clenched his jaw and gazed toward another huge wave, as if he, too, had begun to see some message in the rapidly building storm.
After a moment, Duncan gestured again to the strange animal shape scratched on the mast. “Do you know it?”
“A beaver, I’d wager.”
Duncan touched the lines with his fingertips. “I have never glimpsed a beaver.” He knew of the lush beaver hats that were the rage of fashion on high streets across England, but had no certain notion of the animal’s shape.
“A great round rat with a tail like a skillet. Except,” Lister added in a confused tone, “this one’s got wings.” More frightened cries rose from the deck, followed by the angry shouts of officers.
Duncan’s fingers went to the cold black stone in his pocket, and he began to withdraw it to show to Lister. “What does it mean, Mr. Lister?”
But the old mate was gazing in the direction of the chaos on deck and misunderstood. For the first time, Duncan saw the darkness along the right side of his face, the greyness around his eye. Someone had hit Lister, hard. “The captain sends for ye,” the keeper said without looking up.
“To lift more skin from my back.” Duncan glanced toward the rigging above. Even if Adam was right and the Company leaders needed him for some secret purpose, they apparently did not mind if he were scarred and broken.
“Not today. ’Tis terrible trouble. Nigh all the hands refuse to work. There be a medical question. They’ll n’er take the captain’s word on it. We searched for Professor Evering,” he said, meaning the scholar who took passage with the company of convicts, “but he’s nowhere to be seen. No doubt hiding from the storm in the holds. The cook might do, but every time a storm rises, the lubber drains half a jug of rum.”
Duncan eased the stone back into his pocket. “I’m no doctor.”
“The men say ye studied anatomy and such. Ye be the closest thing we have. Whether ye choose to toss y’er life away is between ye and y’er god. But there be a hundred other souls on board who don’t wish to die this day. The devil hisself’s at work in-” The words choked in his throat as the old sailor glanced over Duncan’s shoulder, cursed, and threw an arm around Duncan’s waist, seizing the mast with his other arm.
The second huge wave broke over the bow of the ship, submerging it, roiling toward the stern as men below cried out and lunged for the nearest rail or line. For a long, terrible moment, the entire main deck disappeared in swirling foam, and Lister and Duncan were alone, with the three great masts like trees sprouted from the sea, and the wind gusting through their square limbs, ripping apart the topgallant sail above them.
A moment later the ship lurched clear, the deck draining of water, and the sea grew flatter. The damaged sail tore free of its stays, the wet canvas fluttering toward the deck. Two sailors ran to it as it lodged on the port rail against the shroud lines. The canvas slipped toward the sea as they reached it, and one man stretched over the side to capture the sail. But the sailor reeled back without the canvas, jerking his companion away, terror on his face as he fled toward the praying men at the bow. “It’s too late!” he moaned. “They’ve come for us!”
Lister eased his arm from Duncan and pushed him down, to sit on the platform. Glancing at the panicked crew below, the keeper shook his head grimly. “Mostly Cornish men and West Indians. Each fool more superstitious than the one before. If the captain does not restore order soon, the ship is lost. I prefer to live, lad,” he added, his tone hollow with desperation. When Duncan offered no reply, he searched Duncan’s face and sighed. “’Twere McCallums on the west Highlands coast nigh Lochlash, lairds over the small islands. They be y’er people?”
Duncan stared uncertainly at the keeper, then slowly nodded as he studied the terrified men below. There was no still no sign of the other keepers who liked to make sport of escapees. Surely, as an old ship’s mate, Lister would be hounding the crew if he believed the ship were in peril. But then Duncan remembered Lister himself was a prisoner. “A proud, stubborn lot,” Lister continued, “as brave as any in Prince Charlie’s army. Fought aside me own clan at Culloden, they did,” the keeper confided, referring to the last desperate battle of the Jacobite Scot rebels against the English army, in 1746.
Duncan looked up, astonishment on his face.
Lister glanced about and lowered his voice, as if the mast had ears. “I always sign me ships’ books as Lister. They think me of English blood, raised in Glasgow. Few ken me true name be McAllister.”
The old mate fixed Duncan with a level, knowing stare. Hidden Highland roots were a dangerous thing to reveal, a secret that could cost Lister his status as keeper, and much more. The day before they had sailed, the Company, nearly all of whom were Highland Scots, had been assembled to witness the hanging of a shepherd for keeping an illegal cache of swords and plaids.
After a moment the keeper glanced down at the quarterdeck, where the sailing master had appeared, blasting the helmsman, shouting for men to reef the foresail. When no one responded, Lister spat a curse and looked back with worry in his usually steady eyes. “They were hard years, lad. And ye have the look of one who’s crawled from the battlefield. But ye would have been a wee bairn then, in y’er mother’s aprons.”
“I was in school in Flanders. And by then my mother had ripped all her aprons into bandages,” Duncan replied in a taut voice. “Someone brought me a newspaper with the story of the battle,” he added, fighting a sudden flood of emotion. “It told how scores were hanged afterwards as traitors to the English king, with orders for no one to cut down the bodies. It listed the names. My father, and all his brothers, left to rot on the king’s scaffolds. A few weeks later when they got around to seizing our house and lands, my mother stabbed an English officer in the arm. She and my sisters never made it out alive. Nor my six-year-old brother. Only the two of us away at school survived.” The painful words rushed out, surprising Duncan. He had not spoken of those dark days for years.
More fearful shouts rose from the deck. Men were pointing past the stern.
“‘And the sea shall give up its dead,’” a hopeless voice declared.
Duncan looked down as he recognized the words. A sailor was reciting from the Book of Revelations when he should be protecting the ship from the gale. A chill crept down Duncan’s spine. It was true. Although the wind had ebbed for the moment, the full fury of the storm lay close ahead, and the ship’s crew was seized by an inexplicable, paralyzing fear.