by Ron Carter
Billy came directly to the pivotal question. “Any thoughts about how to handle the bank and the Jessica problem?”
Matthew drew a deep breath. “I’ve thought about it. I have one question. When you were there yesterday, did the bank keep the signed papers?”
“Yes.”
“Then the deal stands, at least for the next two or three weeks while their board decides yes or no.”
Billy reflected. “Probably so.”
“Legally, I think we’ve got the right to go ahead.”
There was doubt in Billy’s voice. “Risky. If anyone in this goes to the bank for verification, it could be bad trouble.”
“It could, but in a contest, I think we’d win. We told them about the Jessica, and they didn’t ask us to put a hold on anything. They didn’t say the deal was off. They kept the papers. I think they’ve given consent to all this, even after they knew about the Jessica.”
Billy brought his hands from his coat pockets and laid them on the tabletop. “I’ve dealt with too many banks and too many people with money when I was with Potter & Wallace. When you get to the bottom of the business world, the power is with the money. What’s legal is too often what the money says is legal.”
Matthew settled. “Do we stop now?”
Billy leaned back in his chair. “It’s an out-and-out gamble, and it’s mostly out of our control. That’s a perfect setup for disaster. If we go ahead now, only one thing falls in our favor. With as many people as we have in this thing, the bank might have second thoughts about stopping it, once it’s in motion. I think we gamble. Get the cargo loaded and on the way. Get the suppliers into it. The crew. The merchants. Get this thing in motion. That’s business, and banks understand that. It’s probably the best chance we have.”
“We go ahead?”
“Let’s go.”
“I agree.” Matthew gestured to the two piles of business records on the desk. “Got those sorted?”
“All of them.”
“What’s your plan for the day?”
“Contact all the suppliers—most are here in Boston—and firm up our credit arrangements. Get to the harbormaster and transfer Covington’s port authorization to us. Maybe stop at the bank just to let them know we’re watching.”
Matthew pointed to the kettles and rags. “I’ll get the place cleaned up and try to find some more chairs and desks. Might have to use shipping crates for a while. Pettigrew and most of his crew will be here at two o’clock. Caleb’s coming. Can you be here?”
“I’ll make time for it.”
Matthew drew out his pocket watch and for a moment glanced at the royal blue, velvet watch fob with his initials and a small heart stitched in gold needlepoint, which Kathleen had made for him when they were both awkward adolescents.
“Five minutes past nine. Those offices opened five minutes ago. Let’s get at it.”
Billy walked out the door and Matthew laid his coat across the desk. By ten o’clock he had swept the office and had two kettles of water boiling over the fire. By eleven o’clock all the windows were washed clean and winter sunlight was streaming through to cast bright trapezoids of light on the floor. By twelve o’clock, twelve heavy, battered wooden shipping crates, four large ones, eight small ones, had been gathered from the discard of the waterfront and positioned near the fireplace for warmth. At ten minutes before one o’clock, Matthew finished sweeping the floor refuse into the fireplace and leaned the broom against the wall. At five minutes until two o’clock, Pettigrew entered to stand near the fire. By five minutes past two o’clock, Billy, Caleb, and eleven men of the crew were standing inside the room, with the eleven sailors talking quietly among themselves, waiting. One of them studied Caleb for a moment, then nudged the man next to him, spoke something quietly, and then glanced at Caleb once more.
Matthew faced the men and the room became silent. “Mr. Pettigrew, do you have any more men coming?”
“No. There are two more that can’t be here. I’ll talk with them later.”
Matthew looked over the crew. “All right. Can I have your attention.”
For fifteen minutes he spoke while the men listened in absorbed silence. He left nothing out—the loose financial arrangements, the merchants, the banks, the Jessica, the fact that no one would get paid unless the venture succeeded, the fact that the crew would have to load and unload three hundred tons of nails in kegs and salt fish in barrels, then load and unload three hundred tons of tobacco. Loading, unloading, and covering the miles up and down the coast would take thirteen men more than six weeks.
He turned to Billy. “The business arrangements are yours.”
Billy took a breath and began. The harbormaster had transferred Covington port privileges to them, the suppliers had agreed to provide the food, sails, rope, lamp oil, fresh water, blankets, and all other essentials on credit, and the merchants involved had arranged handling all the money to buy and sell the cargo. The profits would be delivered in New York at the close of the transaction, and brought back to Boston to be divided. Everyone would get their fair share then, and not sooner.
Billy stopped and looked back to Matthew, and Matthew picked it up.
“That’s where we are. I tell you once more, this whole arrangement can go wrong in half a dozen places. You better take some time to think it over before you make your answer.”
Pettigrew looked at his men, and a few of them gestured to the door. Two glanced at Caleb, and Pettigrew caught the flat expression in their eyes. He turned back to Matthew.
“We’d better go out on the dock for a few minutes.”
Matthew nodded agreement and gestured, and the men filed out into the light foot traffic of the waterfront while Matthew, Billy, and Caleb waited inside. For twenty minutes the crew stood on the black timbers, fifty feet from the door, vapors rising from their heads as they talked in turn, gesturing, stamping their feet for warmth, glancing from time to time back at the office. Finally, Pettigrew nodded, turned on his heel, and strode back to open the office door.
“Matthew, could I see you alone?”
Matthew glanced at Billy, caught the question in his eyes, and followed Pettigrew out the door, where Pettigrew stopped and spoke quietly.
“There’s a problem. It’s your brother. Two men saw him in a fight right here on the waterfront not long ago. Heard of a second one over at Charlestown.”
Matthew recoiled in shock, and Pettigrew stopped for an instant before he went on in a steady voice. He did not flinch. “I won’t tolerate a troublemaker in any crew I command.”
Matthew raised a hand to stop Pettigrew. “Caleb a waterfront brawler? I don’t believe it.”
“Two good men say they saw the first one. Half a dozen heard about the second one.”
For a moment Matthew stood transfixed. “Give me a minute.” He turned on his heel and walked back into the office, closed the door, and walked straight to Caleb, standing near the fireplace. Billy was seated at the old desk.
Matthew’s voice was controlled. “Two men in Pettigrew’s crew said you’ve been in two fights lately on the waterfront. Is it true?”
For an instant an expression of puzzlement crossed Caleb’s face, and then he replied, “Yes.”
Billy rose to his feet, gaping.
Matthew went on. “Pettigrew won’t tolerate a troublemaker in his crew. He’s right. Neither will I. What happened? Were you drunk? I’ve never known you to drink.”
“No. Not drunk.”
“What, then?”
“I was down here looking for work. A bully was going to kill a man with a fish knife. I stopped him.”
“That’s all?”
“No. He sent a man out to get me. I agreed to fight him a second time, at Hollenbeck’s burned-out warehouse at Charlestown, to put an end to it. That’s all.”
“The same man? Twice? What’s his name?”
“Judd. That’s all I know.”
“Come with me. We’ve got to settle this.”
Matthew turned on his heel and strode back out the door with Caleb and Billy both following. He gestured to Pettigrew as he passed him, and the four of them marched to the crew. The men were standing with their hands thrust into their coat pockets in the cold. Matthew turned to Pettigrew.
“Captain, which two men saw the fight?”
Pettigrew motioned with his head, and two men stepped forward.
“You saw Caleb in a waterfront fight?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The other man’s name?”
“Judd.”
“Is it true this man, Judd, was going to kill a man with a fish knife?”
“Judd had a knife.”
“Caleb stopped him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it a fair fight?”
“Yes, sir.”
Matthew paused to order his thoughts, then plowed on. “There was a second fight?”
“We heard about it. Didn’t see it.”
“Hollenbeck’s old warehouse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Judd?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any other fights?”
“Not that we know of.”
Matthew turned to Pettigrew. “I doubt this had much to do with a typical waterfront brawl. Do you agree?”
“I don’t know enough about it yet, but it sounds like you’re right. Still, I don’t want a troublemaker on my ship. You know the rule.”
“I do. I’ll be responsible for Caleb. If he can’t abide your orders, fire him. Is that fair?”
“Fair enough.”
A voice came from the midst of the crew. “Captain, sir.”
Pettigrew turned, seeking the man who had spoken. “Speak up, man.”
A husky man with a heavy beard stepped forward. He had an old, ragged scarf wrapped over the top of his head and tied beneath his chin. His coat was threadbare, his shoes worn through. He spoke with a thick Scottish burr.
“It took a while to sort it out, sir, but I met this man once.”
Caleb turned toward the man, eyes narrowed as he studied him. The man went on.
“I didn’t see either fight, but I can tell you, sir, this man is no waterfront brawler. I’ll vouch for him. Any time.”
Pettigrew stared at the man for a moment. “Where did you meet him, McKinrow?”
“Don’t matter, sir. All I got to say is he isn’t no troublemaker.”
Caleb’s eyes widened in stunned surprise. The voice! McKinrow! The Scot who had tried to rob him in the dark, in the street near home! The man with the addled brother, Lon, who had a piece of a British cannonball in his head from storming Redoubt Number Nine at Yorktown. One of Pettigrew’s men?
The others in the crew turned to stare at McKinrow for a moment, then back at Caleb, then at Pettigrew. Pettigrew turned to Matthew.
“You’ll be responsible for him?”
“Yes.”
“When do you want us here to start loading?”
Matthew pondered for a moment. “Come inside. We’ll lay it out.”
They closed the door to the office and drew the old shipping crates near the desk and sat silently, listening intently. For forty minutes Matthew, Billy, and Pettigrew traced the Atlantic shipping lanes between Boston, the tiny village of Jamestown on the James River of Virginia, and New York. Slowly they went through the give and take of hammering out the best plan they could, and then Matthew stood.
“Let’s put it all together. I go up the Potomac to try to get the Jessica released. Billy, you order and lay in all the supplies these men will need for the haul down to Jamestown, then up to New York, and back to Boston. Captain Pettigrew, you and your men will load the Rebecca with the nails from Bartlett Manufacturing and the salt fish from Bjornsen Fisheries. You unload at Jamestown, reload with tobacco from Scott, Ltd., and unload it at Doernen’s dock in New York. Doernen will pay you, and you bring the money back here to be divided among us on the schedule as agreed.”
He stopped and quickly ran his finger one more time over the routes the Rebecca had to follow.
“If anything goes wrong, get word back to this office as quickly as you can.”
He took a great breath. “Have we missed anything?”
He glanced around the room at the sober, silent faces.
“All right. We start in the morning. Eight o’clock.”
Everyone rose and quiet talk broke out among them as the crew filed out the door into the chill of the afternoon sun, and scattered. Matthew closed the door and turned to Caleb, frustration clear in his voice.
“I had no idea about this thing with Judd.”
Caleb shrugged. “It happened. I didn’t plan it.”
“Who is he?”
“Never seen him before, and haven’t since that night at Hollenbeck’s.”
Matthew bored into him. “Is he a bully? It sounded like it.”
“You could call him that. Yes.”
“Big?”
“Good sized.”
“Bigger than you?”
“Maybe six inches and seventy pounds.”
Billy straightened at the desk, and for a moment Matthew stared. “You beat him?”
There was an edge in Caleb’s voice. “Yes. I did.”
“Where did you learn to use your fists?”
“From a man named Charles Dorman. One of the best in England. I was in his New York regiment. He spent a year teaching me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he saw a bully just like Judd beat me half to death when I was sixteen, and he could not abide a bully. No one’s beaten me since.”
Matthew stood transfixed, slowly realizing there was much about Caleb he did not know, nor understand. “Is there anything else I should know?”
For several seconds Caleb reached back into his memory. “Yes. In June of ’78 that bully I told you about—name was Murphy, Conlin Murphy—called me out in front of the whole regiment at Valley Forge. I beat him. Later he tried to kill me out in the woods with a rock. Him and two other men. There was a fight. I had no choice. I got the rock and killed Murphy and one of the others. I didn’t mean to kill them. The third man ran and told the commanding officer I had murdered two men. There was a court-martial. All charges were dismissed.”
Slowly Billy rose and walked to stand quietly near the two brothers.
Matthew went on. “Anything else?”
“No. That’s all I can think of.”
There was compassion in Matthew’s voice. “I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to—”
Caleb cut him off. “Don’t concern yourself.”
Matthew waited for a moment. “What was that Scot—McKinrow—talking about?”
“Nothing. He tried to rob me just after I got to Boston. I stopped him. He has a wife and three children that were starving and a brother who has a piece of a British cannonball in his head from Yorktown. The brother can’t think straight. I gave the man a few dollars. It was nothing. I’d forgotten it.”
Silence held for a moment while both Matthew and Billy accepted Caleb’s words, and then Matthew spoke once again.
“Do I have it all? Is there more?”
“No. Nothing more.”
“Can you avoid trouble with Pettigrew’s crew?”
“I won’t start any trouble. I can’t be responsible for what they do.”
Billy glanced at Matthew. “That’s fair.”
Matthew concluded. “Be here at eight in the morning.”
Caleb bobbed his head once, turned, and walked out the door into the late afternoon chill.
For more than a minute both Billy and Matthew stood still, looking at the door where Caleb had disappeared. Then Billy walked back to the desk and sat down, and Matthew looked at him.
“I never thought I’d hear such things about Caleb.”
“Neither did I.” Billy pursed his mouth for a moment before he went on. “Some people seem to attract trouble. I hope Caleb’s not one of them.”
There w
as a sound of quiet awe in Matthew’s voice. “Beat some bully named Conlin Murphy. Killed him and another man. Now he beat another bully named Judd. I don’t like it.”
Billy’s voice was nearly a murmur. “Then he gave money to a man who tried to rob him. Interesting.”
For a time each of them was lost in his own thoughts, and then Matthew said, “Ben Franklin invented that iron pole that draws lightning—his lightning rod. Is Caleb a lightning rod for trouble? Is he?”
Notes
The critical conflicts between states, each claiming rights to regulate traffic on a river that serves as a common boundary for both is factual, as detailed in Bernstein, Are We to Be a Nation?, pp. 88–98.
The state of Virginia levied a tariff or tax on all tobacco exported from within her state boundaries, as set forth herein (Nevins, The American States, 1775–1789, p. 559).
Northern Vermont
Early March 1784
CHAPTER XXIV
* * *
March brought an unseasonably warm Chinook wind sweeping from the south, up the Hudson River basin, into the great St. Lawrence River drainage system. It held for three days and three nights, turning the forests of northern New Hampshire and Vermont into quagmires, and the deep snows of winter into rivulets that filled the streams, and then the rivers, in their journey to the sea. The scattered hamlets and the tiny farms carved from the woods became bogged in deep mud, and the dim, crooked wagon trails connecting them became ruts that reached to the axles of a loaded wagon.
Those who bore the daily work of feeding livestock, milking the family cow, birthing the new heifer, splitting more kindling, and clearing the snowpack from sagging roofs, cursed the mud that turned the world into an endless torment, but deep inside there was a rise of spirit. It would likely freeze again, and snow again, before winter surrendered to spring, but the grip of winter had been broken. Spring was coming to claim the world once again with new life. They cursed the mud, but there was a lift in their souls.