“Mr. Adams, I do appreciate that. But I grow used to this life. No minor convenience compares to the warmth of my husband’s love.”
He nodded. “Yes. And when you see your first child die because you can’t fight an invisible enemy in his bloodstream, your husband will be the target of your anger and your sorrow.”
“Then if I am …” Bronson caught her hand in his. “I shall bear that anger and that sorrow for her, and I will do so gladly.”
Ashanti sat back, contemplating them. “Then I shall pray for you both every day of my life, and I pray that my son finds in time the love that you share.”
She came to her knees and gave him an impulsive hug. “Thank you, sir. We share that prayer for Rashall as well.”
Ashanti nodded and rose.
“All well?”
She stood. “I think so.”
The men were beginning to pack up their belongings, and as she followed Bronson and Ashanti toward the ship, she looked back at their morning’s handiwork. The field was cluttered with dozens of British soldiers who lay dead or dying. On the bridge, the commanders were discussing terms of a truce to allow the British to remove their dead.
The nausea had transformed itself into a dark shadow abiding within her, and she didn’t know how to rid herself of it. She remembered the ball flying just over Bronson’s head, the shot whistling just over her own—yet that shadow remained.
When she looked back at Bronson, he watched her with steady, sober calm. He held out his hand to her and she put her hand there and followed him and Ashanti.
Captain James walked beside them.
“Sir, that laddie of yours is quite a shot.”
In the early morning sunlight, his eyes sparkled with amusement.
“Captain, that’s no laddie. That’s my wife.”
The redhead stopped in his tracks, shocked. The rest continued walking, and he gave up attempting to reply as he walked after them, his sensibilities shocked into silence. But the men nearby, including others from the Culpeper minutemen, cast her admiring looks.
Just as they reached the shore, a tremendous fireball rocked the ship. Seconds later, a second, terrible explosion followed. A noise arose from the men, and Bronson stared, dumbstruck.
Marley scanned the ship at the other shore.
But Ashanti screamed in a horrible sound. “Ray! Rashall!”
Then she saw. Nearing the other shore was their own boat, and thrown across a seat in that boat was Rashall, bound, gagged, and limp.
Ashanti dove into the water, and Bronson set his rifle aside and dove after him, stopping him.
Marley was more direct—aided by that unwelcome shadow that had materialized within her. She raised her rifle—which still contained an unspent round.
Even as she prepared to fire at the other man in the boat, he dragged Rashall’s unresisting form across him. She had no clear shot. He climbed out of the boat, stumbling on the ground, and drug him toward the warship.
“Shoot out a window in the captain’s cabin.” Bronson said from his vantage point in the river. “Quickly, before he’s inside.”
She obeyed, unsure of his purpose.
Marley could not see the person within the bowels of the warship who had fired the deadly cannonade that had ignited the gunpowder on the Adventurer. But they all saw, clearly, the man who had abducted Rashall. He wore no uniform—simply the outfit of a farmer. He was large, with a powerful build; thick, white hair and a beard, both elegantly trimmed.
This man was no farmer.
Big Dan materialized to aid Bronson in pulling Ashanti out of the river.
They pulled him to shore, where he stood shaking with anger and fear and likely cold.
“What ship is that?” Dan asked.
“I know not. But you see the British ensign, and where that goes, the Ethiopian Regiment follows.”
Marley shuddered.
“What is that?”
Ashanti answered Dan, choking out, “’Tis hundreds of men so desperate for freedom they’ll believe the lies of those who enslaved them to begin with.”
He shook the river water away, adding in tired resignation, “And I know the man who stole my son. The very dastard who tried to kill Camisha thirty years ago and who did in fact destroy Rosalie. James Manning. He may no longer be called by that name, but he is one and the same.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bronson cursed himself for the dozenth time for allowing Marley to come on this ill-fated trip. This was precisely the sort of complication he had feared.
Once they had wrapped Ashanti in a blanket to warm him from his icy dunking in the Elizabeth, and once he was collected enough to see reason, he, Bronson, and Dan consulted on their next steps. No one would leave this place without Rashall. They determined that Dan would lead the others on the long walk back to Rosalie; there simply were not enough horses to be found nearby to offer a better alternative. The sooner they headed northwest and reached Rosalie, the greater their chances of avoiding exposure.
Bronson was torn over which route for Marley might be less treacherous—trudging sixty miles with dozens of men, or staying here with him in the midst of warships. He didn’t consider it long; he had no doubt she could take care of herself, but he could no more let her go than he could leap across this river to rescue Rashall.
Staying behind would be Ashanti, Marley, Bronson, and all of his men. Beyond having just watched their home and livelihood explode in front of them, their leader and brother had been taken captive, and not one of them would’ve obeyed an order sending him away.
“Cap’n Hawk, have ye forgot?”
Bronson, deeply distracted by Rashall’s abduction, only stared blankly at the man who’d spoken.
Benjamin Crowell was his oldest sailor and still one of the best. In his fifties, he was wiry and wizened and wise. His earliest memories included this man, and he wouldn’t trade him for a dozen younger sailors. And yet, Crowell hadn’t sailed with him for years now. He had remained behind at Rosalie, paid by that sentimental old Hastings, keeping his charge, a nearly forgotten ship, scraped and oiled every day, just as if he was ready for his old captain to call “All hands on deck.”
On her last ocean voyage, nearly thirty years before, she would have crossed many oceans to carry human souls into bondage in a strange land.
The old man seemed to read his misgivings. He bowed his head, cleared his throat, then looked up. “The demons of her past have been exorcised, sir. That, your brother had done before you were ever born. Along with the ongoing cleaning and sanding and scraping, we’ve had clergymen come and bless the ship, so she might be useful again.” Again he bobbed his head, and when he looked up, Bronson saw the good heart that his own brother must have loved at one time. “We all want to feel useful, sir, even when we’re old. Don’t we owe old Cap’n Grey that much, for the good he did?”
The other men standing near him exchanged a look, and Bronson raised his eyebrows. “Well, Mr. Crowell, that we do. And in the end, we don’t have much choice, do we?”
Excitedly, the man said with earnest conviction, “Sir, I make my vow, she’s as seaworthy today as she was that awful day we lost the captain. Fact, she’s more seaworthy. She’s shiny and strong as a new snow.”
He knew this ship better than anyone except the man who had built her, more than thirty-five years before. But that man had been gone nearly 30 years now. And during all those years, Crowell had cared for her like a doting swain.
“Very well, Mr. Crowell. Take your crew, and those riflemen. Deming, you lead the floating effort as well as the return. I expect you back within two days. If we aren’t here, look for Dunmore’s so-called Ethiopian Regiment.
“Beware, these channels are filled with British artillery. Brother Dan, if you could spare enough men to help support Crowell, I would be in your debt. Mr. Adams, will you be able to be calm here, or should you prefer to accompany Brother Dan and Mr. Crowell?”
This he disliked adding, bu
t it was imperative that all the men here understand the challenges facing them and how it would go. Their lives depended on the chain of command, and in any other situation, Ashanti Adams was always in control.
“I’ll stay.” He gave Bronson a somber bow.
Their path made straight, the Rosalie men strode off, filled with the purpose of rescuing Rashall.
Bronson noticed Marley staring in puzzlement at the smoking hulk of the Adventurer.
“Mrs. Trelawney, will you be able to focus on our efforts here, or should you prefer to accompany Brother Dan as well?”
She met his gaze with quick submission and a curtsy, and in a moment he regretted his harshness. Her eyes in the noonday sun were sunken with darkness that would not soon leave her—this he knew from his own life.
The circumstances of killing a man mattered not to the dark stain it left on one’s soul. The only reason that justified it—defending oneself—comforted a man not a whit. For a woman, he dared not guess the damage it had done.
“Gentlemen,” he said. “We shall try the most direct route possible to retrieving our brother. We shall begin by asking the British Navy for him. We have little hope of success, but we’ll try.”
He had left with him perhaps two dozen men; he knew he very well might need each and every one of them before it was over with.
He and Ashanti, with Marley walking just behind them for protection, returned to the battle site. The weary British soldiers were now carrying away those who had died in the battle, and Marley’s gaze was drawn to them.
When an officer noticed their approach, he told them to halt. “Leave your marksman behind.”
Bronson turned to Marley, taking her rifle and handing it to another man. The officer moved forward and he met them there on the bridge. Bronson introduced himself. The officer, weary and drawn, made no offer to return the courtesy.
“Captain, we just witnessed someone in one of your ships destroy our ship as well as abducting my partner, a free black man and resident of Boston named Rashall Adams. There has been a grave misunderstanding.”
“We have given no orders to fire at any ships in the harbor. Nor would we abduct a free man. Good day.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, I do not believe that either of the acts were committed by your men. The ship itself appeared to be deserted when we passed it earlier this morning. And we saw an older man by the name of Manning dragging Mr. Adams onto the ship. He may go by a different name.”
“How do you know this Manning?”
Bronson turned to Ashanti. “He and I had a serious disagreement when we were both young.”
“What kind of disagreement?”
Ashanti glanced at Bronson, knowing full well how this man would respond to the facts.
“My wife humiliated him in court and proved him guilty of perjury.”
The officer gave a snort of derision. “In court, sir? No slave may testify against a white man.”
Bronson saw the fire flash in Ashanti’s gaze with the abundance of ignorance in the man’s words, and he quickly spoke. “Captain, the gentleman you address is Mr. Ashanti Adams, a free man of several generations as well as the father of the kidnaped man. We believe the kidnaping to have been done as an act of revenge.”
“What do you want from me? As you can see, I’m quite busy removing my men who were lost.”
“We want the return of our kinsman. We believe he may be destined for the Ethiopian Regiment as if he were a slave.”
“That regiment is not here, sir, and I say again that we do not do such things.”
“Well, somebody sure—” Marley cut herself off even before she saw Bronson’s silencing glance.
The fact of the matter was, press gangs still kidnapped all manner of Englishmen and boys, forcing them to serve with the Navy. But this man was of no mind to aid the enemy in the least.
“Can you tell me, Captain, whose ship that is?”
“Sir, I have told you all I can. Good day.” The captain turned and left.
They returned to the place where they’d anchored the Adventurer, and Bronson directed four men to find a place for them to camp and gather wood. Four others, he sent to gather food while they still had light.
Those remaining scouted and found a clearing suitable for a camp along with a nearby spring. No man there would have suggested camping on the battleground—the deaths had rendered the grounds hallowed.
At the camp, they gathered firewood. Soon, the others returned with turkeys and grouse, which they quickly dressed and placed over spits. They ate silently in the cold night, disinterested in conversation or each other.
Ashanti sat on a fallen trunk, gazing out over the water toward the British ship. They had seen little activity from it since Rashall disappeared within it.
Darkness came early, and Bronson had the first watch. Marley buried her possibles bag under a pile of leaves and curled up there. He watched as she tried to sleep, but—whether due to the cold or the day’s events—she eventually gave up.
She rose, grasped her rifle, and walked to him.
“Need another watchman?”
He held up his hand to her as she lowered herself beside him. His arm went around her shoulders, and she leaned into his warmth.
“Can’t sleep?” He removed her hat to lightly kiss her head, then replaced it.
“I thought I had a healthy attitude about times such as these. I understand wars, I understood this battle better than anyone else here today.”
“Marley, you’re a—”
“Please don’t tell me I’m a woman.”
“You’re a novice. The first time I killed a man, I knew I was no warrior.”
“You’ve killed a man before today?”
“I’ve lived the past decade and more on the high seas. The world’s most cutthroat men live there. There is much I have done to survive that I will never tell you—shameful as it is to admit even to myself.”
He scanned the woods, up to where Ashanti sat staring.
“Killing is not the same as shooting. The first time sickens you. It casts the blackest blot upon your soul. You entreat God in heaven day and sleepless night for forgiveness, for him to remove that blot. But weeks pass and it only remains.”
He rose and added another large log to the fire. When he returned, he sat beside her, leaning forward, gazing down at his intertwined fingertips.
“Until one day you realize that God has, indeed, removed the blot. And you rejoice, until the time comes again that you must kill or be killed yourself.
“And the blot returns, so impossible to bear that you grow certain God has at last sent his vengeance on you. But then! What wonder—in only a day or two the blot lifts itself.
“Over time, each blot makes a fainter impression. Each time grows shorter between the killing and the forgetting. Until one time, when you are obliged to kill a man to avoid death yourself, it means no more to you than throwing a blow back at a man in a public house brawl.”
He touched her chin, lifting her face, and her eyes glittered with tears.
“’Tis bad enough that any man must do this to survive in this world. I would prefer my own wife’s heart remain soft, her compassion intact to teach our children the meaning of loving one’s fellow man when I have come to see that so few of us deserve it.”
Her hands closed tightly around his arm, pressing her face against his sleeve. Her voice had fallen to a whisper. “You love your fellow man. You can’t convince me otherwise.”
“It took me years to understand that this is God’s own gift to protect us, just as a coat or scarf might. Now I am able to distance myself before the pain descends. That no doubt strikes you as impossibly cruel.”
She shook her head. “I’m only grateful you learned to protect yourself.”
“In any case, I don’t want you developing a callused conscience. For now, you’re sounding sleepy. Why not stretch out here beside me, where you’re warmer?”
She curled up at his side, a
nd in moments, with the heat from the fire and his body radiating around her, she was asleep.
Early the next morning, the ship across the way sailed back down the Elizabeth River toward the James and, ultimately, Norfolk.
Marley awakened to find Bronson standing at the edge of the camp, watching the ship sail away. He looked pale and haggard.
“Didn’t you sleep at all?”
“I cannot.”
“Where do you suppose they’re going?”
“I’m told there are many ships of the Royal Navy cluttering Norfolk harbor, and my guess is as I said. To deliver him as a slave to the Ethiopian Regiment.”
“I’m so sorry about your ship.”
“I’m grateful no one was hurt. As shipwrecks go, this one may have been spectacular, but at least its destruction hurt no one.”
Late that afternoon, as the sun’s rays were long and golden, they saw the approach of another, square-sailed ship.
Marley sighed in relief as the ship anchored and a coxswain rowed out to gather up the remaining seamen. Two short trips later, they were aboard the ship.
“Well done indeed, Mr. Crowell,” Bronson said, clapping him on the back. “I haven’t seen her in many years, but I imagine she’s more beautiful than the day she first set sail.”
“Sir, there’s just one thing. Years ago, when we were scraping her down to nothing, then replacing the worn bits, and having her blessed, well, sir, we had her christened again. We thought it best be done by that same clergy, just to play it safe. Sir, some awful things went on, on this ship, back in the day.”
“I understand, Crowell.”
“No, sir, you don’t, not yet. The clergyman, he was a pushy fellow, even insisted on baptizing all of us who wasn’t already. Then he’d only stand for one name, and so we hope it meets with your approval. ’Tis out of Corinthians, Cap’n, case ye want to look it up: ‘For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.’
“To wash out all the evil done in her time as the Swallow, sir, she be named Immortal.”
Immortal (The Trelawneys of Williamsburg Book 2) Page 33