George dropped one more round of lead into the bowl of the pouring ladle, placing it close to the coals to slowly melt. He reached for the flintlock, then inched himself farther away from his partner. He caught himself beginning to hum again and immediately swallowed the tune.
Brudloe laid one wrist over the other in his lap, ankles crossed, as if preparing for a long rest, and curled one side of his mouth upwards. “Ya know, I think I know that tune. It’s a sea-farin’ song, yeah? Tell me, Afton, how was your crossin’ over?” The open space in his gums gave the words an odd whistling sound.
“Wha’?” George asked, unsure of his meaning. He had been leaning into the hearth, gathering a taper to light a small lantern, and when the candle flared to life, he saw Brudloe’s eyes on him.
Brudloe lowered his chin. “Your crossin’. Your trip across the fuckin’ water.” He waited briefly for an answer, his head nodding as though in congenial conversation. “I know how you came to be here, in this shitting house. But how did you come to be in the fuckin’ colonies?”
“Same as you,” George said, taking out the ramrod from the barrel of the gun.
“ ‘Same as you,’ ” Brudloe mimicked. “No. Not the same as me. Not the fuckin’ same. What were you, in London, before you came here? Don’t tell me I’m wrong. I know the city garble when I hear it.”
“I manned ferries.”
“Manning ferries.” Brudloe’s voice took on a queer flat quality. “Ferries… fairies… fairies…” Suddenly he laughed and George flinched, gathering the flintlock closer to his chest.
Brudloe said, “I had a partner, a fuckin’ beast of a man. You know what happened to ’im?” He thrust out his lower jaw. “They burned ’im alive. The cunting rogues burned ’im alive, so don’t you say ‘same as you.’ ” Brudloe looked at him savagely for a moment more before George turned his head away, busying himself by taking from a small leather pouch the turnscrew, patches, and whisk to clean the gun.
“How old are we now, boy?” Brudloe asked. George’s hold on the gun tightened; he knew very well their contact in Salem had told Brudloe how old he was supposed to be.
“Sixteen,” George answered.
Brudloe shook his head slowly, his mouth curling into an ugly parody of a kiss. “Bonnie, bonnie lad, why do I doubt this to be so?” He suddenly leaned closer to George. “Tha’s all right, boy. I killed my first man at fourteen. You’re young for the job, but you’ll play.”
Brudloe abruptly stood and went for the water skin, drinking sparingly. George let out a breath, cradling the flintlock over his knees. Returning the rod to the shaft, he unscrewed the back plate, and carefully setting aside the frisson, he ran the whisk over the vent and trigger, removing the oily black powder.
Brudloe stretched out on a quilt near the fire, propping his head up on the balled-up greatcoat. He was silent for a few minutes, but when George shifted his gaze to the supine man, he saw the light of the coals reflecting dully off Brudloe’s eyes.
“The cap,” Brudloe said, pointing to George’s head. “You’re always wearin’ it and it’s a bloody inferno in here.”
“I always wear it,” George muttered.
“Take it off.”
George slipped off his cap, but kept his head well down, his face in shadows. Brudloe had barely so much as looked at him for days, but now George felt the man’s eyes studying the top of his head.
“I know that song you was hummin’. I heard it before. Just don’t know where.” There was silence for a few breaths, and Brudloe mused, “It’s this place that’s got me frigged. No proper streets, no proper towns. No lands’ end to the west. Just trees and rocks and more trees again. It works on a man. Grinds him down to dross. Too much space. Too much light…” His voice trailed away, and when George snuck a look, Brudloe’s eyes were closed. Soon he heard a slack-jawed breathing, a gentle, wet snoring sound coming from the sleeping man’s mouth, the two halves of Brudloe’s split lip quivering in tandem with each exhalation. George only ever felt safe when his partner slept, and even then he kept a close watch.
When he was a boy his father, or so he guessed him to be, as the man sometimes shared a cot with his mother, kept a baiting cur. The animal was small for fighting but with a large head. Wrapped tightly with muscle, all taut sinew and straining ligaments, he was banded over with the scars of endless fights in cellars and baiting pits. He was mostly silent, never barking, giving no warning of any kind before striking, and George, only five at the time, mistook the dog’s quiet ways for a gentle temperament. Within moments George had had part of his lower leg torn away from the bone, the bulk of the calf muscle stripped, hanging loose like a stranded cod. It took two men to beat the dog away, and, beyond the pain, George recalled the disconnected feeling of looking at the gaping wound and remembering that moments before the attack the dog had been licking his hand. He would have bled to death if not for the ministrations of his father, who was greatly practiced, and sure-handed, in sewing up dogs for the ring. The muscle on his leg grew back whole, leaving only long scars and a lasting mistrust for quiet, self-contained dogs.
George only partially reassembled the firing mechanism, so that it would not discharge, and then he set the gun gently against the wall. The coals had begun a low pulsing, making deep shadows in the room, and Brudloe’s breathing was steady and rhythmic. Careful not to rattle the handle, George picked up the lantern and stood, walking noiselessly to the window. He raised the lantern higher, pressing his face against the glass, looking for some sign of movement in the yard. His job, his true job, was only just beginning. And though he had spent days with Brudloe, cleaning his weapons, cooking his food, watching his back, he had had to wait until now for Brudloe to fall deeply asleep.
His breath fogged around the smoked windowpane, the lantern swaying gently aloft in his hand, and he caught a sylphlike reflection in the glass, like the beating of wings behind his shoulder.
The sudden impact smashed George’s head against the windowpane, breaking the glass jaggedly in the casing, and Brudloe pushed his full weight onto George’s back, grinding his forehead onto the emergent shards. Brudloe’s other arm came around George’s neck and he knew, without actually feeling the blade, that he had a knife to his throat. He could hear Brudloe’s quiet breathing and felt the movement of the man’s head as he scanned for intruders approaching the house.
“Who’s the lantern for?” Brudloe whispered, his lips pressed against George’s ear.
When George didn’t answer right away, Brudloe pushed his head more forcefully into the lattice of broken glass, cutting the flesh above his eyes. George dropped the lantern, guttering the candle, the room suddenly darker than the ambient light outside. Brudloe grabbed him around the arm, flinging him hard to the ground, the back of his head striking the floor with a muffled thud. A momentary blankness of vision that was greater than the lack of lantern light made George think he had shards of glass in his eyes. He winced under the bony weight of Brudloe’s knees over his outflung arms, and when his vision cleared from the fall, he could see, through a wash of blood from his forehead, Brudloe’s face over his own. He felt the cold press of a knife sliding into one nostril, and a pressure, just great enough to stretch the skin, made him want to lie very still.
Brudloe’s face came closer. “Who were you signalin’?”
George began to shake his head no and the pressure from the knife increased. Brudloe’s hand, in the gentlest of motions, flicked downwards, and a hot spray of blood flowed into his nose flooding backwards, down into his throat. He opened his mouth, gasping in pain, and the knife’s flat surface slipped in between his lips, over his tongue. Brudloe reached up with his other hand, and tousled his hair in an almost friendly way. “You crossed over on the Dutchman’s ship with me, ain’t that right, Georgie?” he said. “It came to me while I was sleepin’. I remembered yer song after all. You was supposed to be washed overboard, along with Baker. Whatever happened to Baker, do you suppose?”