by John Jakes
George bought a skiff, and one evening after supper, the boys took it down to the beach to experiment. George and Orry went along to keep an eye on the neophyte sailors. Billy had a little experience with small boats, but Charles had none.
George and Orry sat on opposite sides of a big rock. The Atlantic was calm, with just enough breeze for fine sailing close to shore. Orry lifted a handful of sand and let it trickle away. The vacation seemed to be relaxing him. Yet on occasion George still detected a bitter undertone in his friend’s speech.
Not tonight, though. Orry smiled as he gazed toward the skiff. “Look at them. Re-chisel a few of the features and that could be the two of us. Stick and Stump the Second.”
George nodded and puffed his cigar. “I hope they’ll be as good friends at West Point as we were, even if they will be a year apart. Charles is a devilishly handsome fellow, isn’t he? Almost the perfect picture of the dashing Southern gentleman.”
Orry chuckled. “Who’d have believed our salt crow would turn into a hawk? He cleaned up right well, as the saying goes.”
“Your father says you deserve the credit.”
Orry shrugged. “Charles loves to scrap. When he found there were ways to do it without being tossed in jail or having everyone furious with him, it was a most impressive lesson. He’s learned it well.”
“And a lot of other things. I always thought I was pretty good with the ladies, but I can’t bow and kiss a woman’s hand as gracefully as he does. The first evening you came to Fairlawn, he fussed over my mother till she blushed like a girl.”
Rowdy shouts rang across the water, then a gleeful whoop and a splash. Billy dumped Charles off the skiff.
Orry and George jumped up. Charles quickly clambered back onto the little boat. He pointed at something on the horizon—something nonexistent—and when Billy turned to look, grabbed Billy’s belt and shirt and threw him in. Soaked, the two boys sat laughing in the skiff a few moments later.
“I’m proud of the way he’s turning out,” Orry admitted as he took his place on the rock again. “I had my share of regrets when I came home from Mexico. Charles has helped me banish some of them.”
“The change showed in your letters. It was welcome.”
“And this has been a welcome vacation. Well, in most respects. I still hate the stench of those weeds you smoke.”
George laughed. Orry stretched his right arm high above his head and yawned. The sunset flung their long, attenuated shadows across the beach. The wind picked up. Snaky veils of sand blew past them.
George found it a melancholy sight. It reminded him of how quickly time was slipping away. Even time seemingly recaptured in the forms of those two laughing youngsters was an illusion, one that his own mind created as an antidote for the way things really were. A futile antidote; neither time nor change could ever be stopped. Of late, the realization lent life a bittersweet quality.
Still, this was a good moment, the kind of calm, complete moment he found rare these days.
Orry felt it too. His mood grew mellow. “I’ll tell you how much I’m enjoying myself. So much, I’m even beginning to feel charitable toward my older brother.”
“How is Cooper?”
“Happy. Married to that free-thinking Unitarian. A good marriage. Father can’t quite accept it. Of course he’s delighted to accept all the profits Cooper is generating from the packet line. Did I write you about our new vessel? She’ll be off the ways in a month. Cooper’s already talking about investing in more. He wants to get to Britain to study their methods of shipbuilding.”
George cleared his throat and finally asked the question that had been on his mind since Orry’s arrival.
“Is there any news of Madeline?”
Orry turned toward his friend, away from the sun. His eyes were sunken in patches of shadow. “No news, and no change.”
“Do you still see her?”
“As often as I can. It’s a bad bargain, but better than none.”
The sand veils whispered past their feet. The beach was growing dark. George rose and signaled the boys. Billy and Charles beached the skiff, unstepped the mast, and raised it to their shoulders. “You’ll make a sailor yet,” Billy said as they followed their elders toward the dirt road leading home.
Charles grinned. “A sailor but never a Yankee, I hope.”
“What’s wrong with Yankees?”
“Mr. Hazard, sir, I’ll be happy to tell you—if you have the rest of the night free.”
“Not to listen to tall tales and made-up stories.” The banter irked Billy somehow. “Let’s discuss something we can agree on.”
“Girls?”
“Girls,” Billy said emphatically, his good humor restored. He was thinking about a particular girl named Ashton.
Ahead, slow-moving shadows in the purpling dusk, George smiled at the sound of the young voices. Orry smiled too. Stick and Stump the Second.
The mellow mood disintegrated as soon as they arrived at Fairlawn. The ladies had gathered on the side porch with pitchers of iced lemonade—and without Virgilia at first. Now she was present; she had joined them after drinking a quantity of claret. George and the others found her in the midst of a sermonette on revisions to the fugitive-slave law of 1793, revisions that the Congress was currently debating.
“The whole business is nothing but a scheme to appease the South,” she declared, slurring more than a few words.
“Dear me,” Clarissa sighed. “I feel so lost in discussions of such issues.”
“Then I would inform myself if I were you, Mrs. Main.”
Virgilia’s tone irked the other women in her family. Among the Mains it was Ashton who reacted most visibly. Seated in a cane rocker with an untasted glass of lemonade in her hand, she glared at Virgilia, who paid no attention.
“Very simply, the revisions will remove fugitive slave cases from state jurisdiction. From now on all such cases will be handled by the Federal government. That would lead you to believe that the decisions would probably benefit the runaways, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, that would be my assumption,” Clarissa said.
“You would be wrong. The true purpose of the revisions is to circumvent strong liberty laws, such as the one in Vermont. The revisions favor the slave catchers and the slave owners. All it will take to establish proof of ownership is an affidavit, which can easily be forged. Further, a runaway slave won’t be permitted to say a word on his own behalf. It’s a put-up job and a shameful one. Why Washington keeps truckling to the South I’ll never know.”
Maude had remained silent as long as she could. Now, firmly, she said to her daughter:
“It’s rather impolite of you to lecture when this is a social occasion. If you’ve finished, perhaps you’d like to excuse yourself. You sound tired.”
Isabel laughed. “Oh, let’s tell the truth. The poor child’s had too much to drink.”
“Isabel—” Maude began, but before she could say more, Ashton jumped up, thrust out her chin, and rushed to Virgilia.
“If you don’t like Southerners, why did you invite us here?”
Clarissa rose. “Ashton, that’s enough.” She turned to the men, who had been standing silently. “I’m glad you’re back, Orry. Will you escort us home, please? So nice to have been with you,” she finished, extending her hand to Maude. The visit ended hastily on a note of embarrassment.
After the Mains left, George cornered his sister on the lawn, where she had gone to avoid the family’s wrath. “Will you kindly tell me why you continue to bait our guests?” he demanded.
“Why shouldn’t I say what I think?”
“If I truly believed you were doing that, you’d hear no complaints from me. But your candor goes far beyond mere discussion or even conviction. You try to insult people. Wound them. And you do it to my very good friends.”
“They are not my friends. They represent a way of life that’s despicable and utterly wrong. I wouldn’t care if the earth opened and swallowed the lot o
f them.”
“By God, you’re the rudest, most inconsiderate—”
He was talking to the lightning bugs; Virgilia had turned and rushed to the house.
It took three cigars and a long tramp along Newport’s deserted roads for George to regain a measure of calm. What was the use of arguing with her? She was incorrigible. Lord, what will the rest of the summer be like?
Fortunately, two days later a letter from an abolitionist colleague summoned Virgilia to Boston. She packed and left for the ferry with scarcely a word to anyone. Maude acted relieved. Though George didn’t show it, he was too.
Ultimately the strongest reaction his sister generated within him was pity. She struck out viciously at too many people. Someday one of them would strike back. It might even be a Yankee. Northerners were hardly as virtuous as Virgilia liked to pretend.
What of her future, then? What had she to look forward to? Unhappiness? Without a doubt. Tragedy? Yes, that was very possible, he admitted with a feeling of sadness.
“Tarnation. What’s this we got?”
“Another one of the summer bunch, from the looks of him.”
“I ain’t speakin’ of him, Oral. Look at that fancy pole and creel.”
Unseen, Billy heard the low voices and held still. He was high in the tree he had climbed to reach the good apples. Down below, the four townies had appeared through a break in the hedge bordering the orchard. Three of the townies were white, one black.
Billy and Charles had hiked north of town, fished the bay unsuccessfully for two hours, and detoured into the orchard on their way home. Now they were in for trouble. Most townies hated the hordes of visitors who infested the island every summer. These four were no exception.
Billy was crouched in a fork created by two upper limbs of the tree. His left leg was bent, his heel jammed tight against the underside of his thigh. The muscles of that leg already hurt like the devil. The townies hadn’t seen him. They were concentrating on the expensive fishing gear lying in the grass next to Charles, who sat with his back against the tree. His chin rested on his shirt. His eyes were closed.
“If you like it, help yourself,” said the boy addressed as Oral; he was the Negro. “He won’t fuss. He’s sleepin’.”
Charles’s eyes flew open. One of the townies yelped. Charles used the distraction to draw his right leg up in an inverted V so that his boot was within reach. The boot in which he hid the bowie knife.
“Afraid you’re wrong on both counts,” he said with a broad smile. Billy gazed down at the top of Charles’s head, at long hair ruffled by the wind. He didn’t miss the casual way Charles laid his right hand on his knee, a few inches above his boot top.
“Damn if he don’t sound like a Southron,” a towheaded townie said. He nudged the black. “Bet he’s one of them boys that whups your kinfolk down in Georgia.”
“Yeah, I bet he is,” Oral said. His eyes were ugly. “We’re takin’ them fishing things.”
Still smiling, Charles clasped his right hand lightly around the upper part of his calf. “It would be a serious mistake to do that, boys.”
“Oh, yes?” Oral sneered. “It’s four on one.” He bent at the waist, reaching for Charles’s big wicker creel. Suddenly the towhead spotted the other rod leaning against the trunk.
“Lookit, Oral. They’s two poles. Why would he have two?”
Oral was so eager to claim Charles’s things he ignored the anxious note in his friend’s voice. The other two townies began to look around the orchard in a puzzled way. Slowly and silently, Billy straightened his left leg, never taking his eyes from Charles’s right hand. When Charles grabbed for the top of his boot and rolled, Billy jumped.
“Jesus Almighty,” Towhead screamed, a second before Billy’s heavy walking boots struck his shoulders.
Bone cracked. Towhead went tumbling backward into the hedge. Crouching, Charles moved his right hand slowly. Oral watched the point of Charles’s knife trace a circle in the air. The black youth began to perspire.
“Now, sir,” Charles said to Oral. “Is it all Southerners you dislike? Or just Southerners who can’t abide thieves?”
By then Billy had gained his feet. For a few moments he had lost track of the other two townies. He found them suddenly, as shadows that leaped across the grass. The townies came racing at Charles from the rear, each swinging a piece of tree limb snatched from the ground.
“Behind you!” Billy yelled.
Charles started to pivot. The nearest townie bashed the side of his head. The limb was rotten and flew into half a dozen pieces. But the blow dazed Charles, knocking him against Oral, who plucked the bowie knife out of his hand with no effort. Oral’s eyes slitted down. He smirked, sidestepped, grabbed the back of Charles’s collar, and with his other hand stabbed the bowie toward Charles’s face.
Terrified, Billy launched himself through the air. He hit Oral’s legs. The knife missed Charles’s cheek by half an inch.
Billy grappled Oral to the ground. Charles seized the nearest weapon, his fishing pole, and flicked the line at the other two townies who were charging again. Towhead brandished a sharp rock.
The flying fishhook struck a roll of flesh at the nape of Towhead’s neck. Charles pulled back on the pole with a snap of his wrist while braking the line with his thumb. The hook buried itself. Towhead shrieked.
Billy, meantime, was rolling back and forth while Oral knelt on his chest. Oral was tough, strong, and determined to cut him. Billy slammed his head to the right an instant before the knife speared the ground close to his left ear.
“You white fucker,” Oral breathed. He pushed his knee into Billy’s groin.
Billy’s lower body exploded with pain. The pain slowed his responses. He knew he’d never be able to dodge the next slash. Oral raised the knife slowly, almost like some pagan priest with a sacrificial offering.
Sunlight flared on the big blade. Then suddenly the knife disappeared from Oral’s hand. His mouth flew open. He fell sideways into the grass, writhing. Charles gracefully plucked out the knife which he had driven into the back of Oral’s right thigh.
Even breathing hard, Charles seemed calm, perfectly in control, as he gave the townies a big, cold grin. “Boys, you better run before we kill you. And if you should see my friend or me on the streets of Newport, turn and go the other way or this’ll be just a sampler.”
He put his right boot up on a stump and rested his elbows on his knee. The uninjured townie dragged Oral toward the hedge, leaving red swaths in the grass.
Billy used his own knife to cut the fishing line. The other two townies slunk away. The one with the hook still in him, Towhead, looked back once with awe from the break in the hedge.
Charles waved the bowie so that it flashed in the sun. “Get!”
Towhead vanished.
Only then did Billy exhale. Shoulders sagging, he sprawled in the grass. “Why in the hell did they pick a fight?”
“’Cause I had a pole and creel they wanted. ’Cause they didn’t like my speech or place of origin—” He shrugged. “There’s just no accounting for human cussedness, I’ve found. Anyway, we got through it. I’d say we make a pretty good pair of fighters. Many thanks for your timely assistance, Mr. Hazard.”
Billy’s smile was less assured than that of his companion. “Think nothing of it, Mr. Main. I just wish I had your style. I was scared to death.”
“Think I wasn’t? My guts felt like a pan of water.”
“You surely didn’t show it.”
“Good. If you don’t show the other party how you feel, it gets ’em fidgety, so they make mistakes. Orry taught me that.”
“Maybe I should take a few lessons,” Billy said as they gathered their things.
“But you’d have to explain why you wanted them.” Charles’s grin was fading. “Personally, I’d like to keep quiet about this little mess. Orry and Aunt Clarissa and Uncle Tillet think I’ve gotten over this kind of scrapping. I’d just as soon preserve the illusion.” He stuck o
ut his hand. “Bargain?”
“Sure.”
Billy clasped the offered hand to seal the bond of secrecy. For the first time, he felt Charles Main was his friend.
As it turned out, however, the fight didn’t remain a secret.
A couple of days later, Ashton and her sister went to the beach to wade in the surf. Charles and Billy were offshore in the skiff. Presently the wind died. They beached the boat. Charles lay down to nap.
Ashton was some distance away, resting in a wicker chair under a large striped parasol. She wore a summer frock of light lilac material which the sea breeze pressed against her maturing breasts. The effect was so provocative that Billy had to look the other way.
He thought of Ashton almost constantly. In his fantasies she was always nude. The summer seemed to encourage such visions. Here they were, two young men and two young girls, unchaperoned, sharing the same bit of beach.
Billy didn’t consider that circumstance accidental. Pesty Brett followed him everywhere. She had probably teased and wheedled her sister into accompanying her to the beach. Alas, Ashton had no interest in Billy. Most of the time she behaved as if he didn’t exist.
He knelt and began building a castle. He dripped watery sand from his clenched fist to form spires. He had been at it ten minutes when a shadow fell across the intricate towers and ramparts. There stood Brett, twisting one of her pigtails back and forth.
“Hello, Billy.”
“Oh, hello.”
She was pretty enough, he supposed, though it was impossible to overlook her freckles which the summer sun had a way of darkening. Because she was so young, she was flat as a board in front. But those weren’t the only things about her that bothered him.
“I heard you were fighting,” she said.
His hand jerked and toppled a spire. “Who told you that?”
“Yesterday I went to the store for some licorice. I heard a boy telling about two bullies who attacked him the other day.”