by Robin Lloyd
It was later that week, after a late-night meeting with Mr. Griswold and some shipping agents at a local tavern, that he saw a shadowy, solitary figure on the other side of the street. The man had a southwester cap over his head and a sailor’s pea jacket. He was standing at the corner of South William Street underneath a street lantern looking directly at him. Morgan noticed him when he walked into the tavern where they were meeting and then later at ten o’clock when he came out. At first he paid little attention. Just another drunk, he thought, but then some instinct told him he should be careful. At night, the wharf area around South Street, with its many alleyways and dark corners, was thick with thieves. He looked back over his shoulder and then quickened his pace. He thought the man was following him.
Morgan walked toward Wall Street and then turned down toward Coenties Alley, where he hoped he would lose the man in the crowds. He stayed mostly in the shadows, avoiding the streetlights. The horse-drawn wagons were already arriving to unload the ships on the piers, so the streets adjacent to the docks were filled with noisy activity. He slipped behind a wagon being pulled by a large mule, ducked underneath another, and came out on the other side of the street. He hunched over as he walked beside a horse, turning onto a small alley, which took him to Cherry Street. He kept looking back. Perhaps he was just imagining this man following him. After all, the streets were filled with people. He looked again. There was nothing, but he quickened his pace all the same.
On the corner of Fulton and Water Streets the noise of scraping fiddles, strumming banjos, and screeching parrots spilled out of a brightly painted building with the name Jolly Tar hanging from the doorway. A man holding a drunken woman under his arm, muttering senseless gibberish, passed close by him. He kept his distance and walked even faster, pulling his hat down more firmly over his head. He passed a brick house known for some of the more popular blood sports at the time, dogfighting and rat baiting. He could hear the shouts and yelling of wagers inside.
Just then, he saw a quick glimpse of the man’s cap. Perhaps he was mistaken, but another look back and he knew he was right. The man was walking across the street, his face turned in his direction. It was too dark to see any of his features. The shape of his thin body, hunched shoulders, southwester cap, and blue pea jacket convinced him this was the same man he’d first seen off South William Street. Morgan became concerned. His well-tailored clothes made him a possible target. He was dressed like a ship’s merchant with a long-skirted blue coat, top hat, and Wellington boots. Still, whoever was following him must have more than money on his mind. Why else would he stalk him so intently through so many different crowded streets? No, he said to himself, this was personal. Someone was targeting him and he began to think of Blackwood.
When he saw wagons moving toward Peck’s Slip, he followed them as far as South Street. He hadn’t brought his pistols and felt vulnerable. He did have his sheath knife, which he always carried when he came ashore, and he fingered the handle with his right hand for reassurance. He was thinking of stopping and turning to confront his pursuer head-on when he heard a nervous, slightly hesitant voice behind him call out his name.
“Captain Morgan? Would that be you, Captain Morgan, brother of Abraham?”
Morgan quickly turned, knife in hand, and looked to the other side of the narrow street, but all he could see was a silhouetted figure.
“Who’s there?” Morgan asked, a slight tremor in his voice.
“It’s John Taylor, Captain.”
“John Taylor?” Morgan asked in astonishment, stammering. He paused for a second as he tried to think how to react. “The John Taylor who sailed with my brother Abraham?”
“That would be me, Captain Morgan, the man you saved from a watery graveyard all those years ago, the one who wrote your mother about William and Abraham.”
Morgan could hardly believe his ears. He walked over to this voice in the semidarkness, still somewhat suspicious.
“I thought it were you because of the way you walked,” said the shadowy figure with the southwester cap. “I knew you were here.”
Morgan stopped. “Why didn’t you just approach me?”
“You were walking so fast, I almost lost you several times.”
Morgan could now recognize the man under the dim light of a street lantern. He remembered his unmistakable thin, hollow cheeks and his weak jaw that fell inward toward his neck. He walked closer until he could see the weather-beaten face in front of him. Somehow the man with his droopy shoulders seemed even more thin and frail than he had been years earlier. His eyelids were red. He was dressed in a torn, battered pea jacket caked with mud, which told Morgan the man had either passed out or was sleeping in the street. The lines in his thin face and sadness in his eyes told the story of his troubled life.
“I’ll be dammed if I ever thought I’d see you again, Taylor,” Morgan said finally. “I thought you would be dead by now.”
Taylor gave a slight start, but he said nothing, his features frozen, his taciturn face showing little emotion. He kept glancing backward nervously, and then looking back at Morgan and staring at some point beyond him. Morgan turned around quickly. A row of houses on the other side of the street was empty and dark, but in the distance the faint light of a grog shop revealed human shapes.
“What’s wrong, Taylor? Is someone following you?”
“I thought I saw Big Red,” he replied in a hoarse whisper.
“Big Red?”
“The mate who sailed with Abraham and me. Tom Edgars. He is the one who has been chasing me all these years, he and Blackwood. They was recruitin’ sailors in some of the grog shops down on Cherry Street, but they been looking for me, making inquiries down at the docks. I been hiding and sleeping in the stinking wet gutters because they been trailing me.”
“But why were you following me?”
Taylor made no reply, the tips of his fingers on his lips as he looked down at the cobblestones on the street. Morgan suddenly clenched his teeth as he felt his patience wane. He stepped forward to grab the man, coming close enough to his face to smell his rummy breath and a foul, vinegar-like smell that seemed to be seeping from every pore of his saturated body. The man’s hollow cheeks were ashy white, his eyes bloodshot. The crushing memory of going back to see Taylor in the boarding house where he had brought him so many years ago, and finding his room empty, descended on him. As he stared into John Taylor’s twitching eyes, which seemed to be lost in some other world, he remembered the man’s cryptic remarks about Blackwood, the blood boat, and the foul dealings.
“Pull yourself together,” Morgan said in an urgent tone. “What’s done is done. You can’t undo it. Now for Lord’s sakes, tell me what you want. Do you have information about my brother?”
It was then that Morgan noticed Taylor was carrying a satchel. The man remained silent, but he now transferred his stare from the street to Morgan’s face, extending his arms, his trembling hands holding out a package as if it were some priceless treasure.
“Captain Morgan, take this. I cannot have it near me anymore.”
“What is it?” asked Morgan in a somber voice.
“Take it and leave me be, Captain. Your brother gave it to me after they locked him up. You and your family should have this.”
“What is it, damn ye! Stop talking in riddles!”
“I am unable to tell the story about Abraham, Captain, even though it lives with me every waking hour. I have much to atone for. I am trying to forget all those scenes of violence.”
Morgan took the satchel even as he sensed the man’s desperation and loneliness. He looked straight into Taylor’s haunted eyes and enlarged pupils that seemed to stare into nowhere.
Morgan thought Taylor was about to tell him more when a noisy group of drunken sailors came around the street corner, surrounding them. They wanted the captain to buy them a drink. Two of them draped their arms around Morgan. By the time he threw them off and looked around, Taylor was gone. He ran to the street corner, but
there was no sign of anyone. He called out his name frantically even though he recognized the futility of finding this man in the alleyways off South Street.
He walked back toward Wall Street and dropped into a small quiet tavern a few blocks from Broadway. There in a dark corner surrounded by white walls smudged with dirt and covered with chalk marks, Morgan sat alone, a decanter filled with rum on the table. He slowly opened the satchel. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. He pulled out a well-worn book with yellowing pages and began leafing through its water-stained contents. Most of the writing was smudged, the ink splotched, but much of the first section was readable.
We bin left here in Bridge Town with no ship for days now. Taylor and I bin swilling rum, I spied a man eyeing us pretty close today. He come up and fell into discourse with us.
Morgan was almost certain it was his brother’s handwriting because of the way he curled his capital letters. He quickly read on.
The man sounded us out, he did. Said he belonged to a beautiful topsail clipper named the Charon just come into Bridge Town harbor. He wanted to know if we were lookin’ for a berth.
Just the mention of the Charon made Morgan’s heart beat faster. He thumbed through the journal, gingerly turning the crumpled and wrinkled pages so as not to damage them. He read on.
We woke up from a stupor as the ship sailed out of the harbor, the wind blowing from eastward. Our heads hurt something fierce. They started on us again. They beat Taylor and I fairly regul’r these past few days.
Then more writing smudged from the water stains. It was clear Abraham did not know what cargo his ship was carrying or their final destination. The ship picked up some passengers in Havana who only spoke Spanish. Abraham called them the Dons.
The Dons stay back in the quarterdeck. No one speaks much to Taylor and me up in the foredeck, no one except that Bucko mate they call Big Red, and he just wants an excuse to pummel us. Am still in pain from the beating I gut. The men on board are as ill tempered and as foul a set of rascals as I’ve ever come across.
They stopped in Cape Verde, where the ship’s name was changed to something in Portuguese. Morgan slowly turned page after page of the small book, trying to decipher the smudged writing on the yellowed pages. It was hard to believe his brother had written these words some twenty years ago. He would have been just sixteen years old. In the middle of the book, he described landing in a remote place with rivers and lagoons filled with palm trees. There was a vivid description of going up some river in the ship’s gig. They had been told to search for coconuts and hunt for wild pig. They grounded on a dark, sandy beach. The bush was swampy and impenetrable and filled with crocodiles. They came upon a creek and had spotted a schooner run ashore alongside a bank. There was nothing to identify her, no number, no name. Inside they found the dried-up bones and skulls of the crew, picked over by wild animals who had been there before them.
The pages after this passage were mostly unreadable. Morgan touched the creased and worn paper carefully, almost reverently. Most certainly, these were his brother’s last words written in his hand. He could tell from the poor handwriting and the bad spelling. He held the open book tightly and felt like Abraham was sitting there next to him. It was not until the very end that he found a section that had somehow managed to remain dry. The writing was different, almost a child’s scrawl, and it soon became apparent why. Abraham described himself as a prisoner in a dimly lit hold with only one porthole that let in light.
Day after day in this dark hole, I am blest with dry biscuit and cup of water. The disease is ragin’. Many of the crew are blind, lie helpless on the deck. I can hear their moaning. My eyes are very bad. I am all down to the foot of the hill and I don’t suppose I shall soon git better.
More smudges and smears of ink. Morgan held the book closer as he read a legible paragraph on another page.
We had a very heavy gale of wind two nights ago. I fear the ship has lost its rudder and no hand is at the helm as the ship lunges with little purpose. We are like a phantom ship now on the ocean. We are truly at God’s mercy. Who knows what will happen to us. Below me, I can hear the cries of despair and the wailing of the sick. I no longer have the strength to tolerate this cruelty. This is truly the Devil’s own ship from hell. . . . So many have died already. I wish that I could be at home. I fear the trials I soon shall have to pass through. The flogging and beating I received was nothing. May we ever remember, whether in pain or suffering, prosperity or adversity that we all have to die.
The next page was made days later. Morgan read on.
I slept none all night. I woke with a bad case of the fidgets and hysterics. There is no help for it. I don’t know if John Taylor is still unaffected by this cursed disease. I will give him this journal the next time he comes to see me. I hope he will bring it to my mother if I am never to leave this place and he is to survive.
At that point the writing stopped. The next page was blank. Morgan poured himself another glass of rum. His eyes began to tear up as he pictured his brother in the dark hold of that ship. “Poor Abraham,” he moaned. “Oh, my God, my poor brother.” He held his head down between his hands. He felt a wall of grief overwhelm him as he began to feel the thin strand of hope that had maintained him all these years slip away.
21
The steamboat’s whistle was deafening. As the old Connecticut River side-wheeler, the Water Witch, approached the landing area, Morgan scanned the docks where a small crowd was waiting. Only a few brown leaves were clinging to the branches of the oak trees scattered around the riverbanks. The temperatures seemed to be dropping, not surprising for late November. He could see the square-bowed sailing barge crossing the river ahead of them with a full load of livestock. He told Eliza that the Whittlesey family had been running that ferry service for well over one hundred years. He buttoned his coat tightly and put his arm around her, pulling her close. He’d been away for so long, he wondered if Lyme would seem like a foreign place. No one would recognize him. It had been thirteen years since he’d left.
His brother had written him that they were all eagerly awaiting his arrival over Thanksgiving. Some of his sisters might be there. He was looking forward to seeing them, but then he thought of his father and his emotions deadened, and he braced himself. Soon he would have to confront him and face that critical stare filled with disapproval. His guilt over abandoning the family farm so many years ago suddenly swept over him like a fast-moving wave. The thought of that coming encounter made him want to turn around and go back to New York. It was Eliza’s smiling face that restored his sense of optimism.
The steamboat’s crew hurled the docking lines onto the wharf, and some of the locals fastened the thick strands of heavy rope to the posts. Morgan spotted his brother in the crowd. It was an emotional moment for him. Josiah was standing atop the family’s wagon scanning the crowd on deck and waving his handkerchief. Next to him was a woman dressed in a long cotton dress with a calico bonnet. Morgan pointed them out to Eliza.
“Look, there’s my brother. That must be his wife, Amanda.”
Both of them waved back, and upon seeing them Josiah immediately turned to another woman in a gingham bonnet, who looked up at the steamship for several seconds and then also began waving her white handkerchief enthusiastically. He almost hadn’t recognized her because of her silver hair, and how much she had aged.
“My mother!” he told Eliza excitedly. With a mixture of disappointment and relief, he added, “I don’t see anyone else.”
There were scores of people waiting to pick up family members returning from New York or to load much-needed supplies onto their wagons. The arrival of the steamboat was a major event. He and Eliza picked their way through the crowd. When his mother caught sight of him, her hands went up to her mouth and she ran toward him. She hugged him for what seemed like an eternity before she turned to Eliza, holding her daughter-in-law’s hands tightly as she welcomed her to the Connecticut River Valley. She then turned back to Ely, her hands touchi
ng his weathered rough cheeks and said, “Now let me look at you long and hard to make sure this is not a dream. My son, a packet shipmaster of a London liner, home at last!”
She sighed, long and deep, as she looked into his eyes.
“I have waited for this moment for such a long time.”
Behind her, Morgan spotted his brother, who was holding the reins of the horse. Quietly they embraced, conveying to each other what words could not express.
“Where is father?” Morgan asked his mother, as they walked away from the noisy crowded docks.
“Your father is at home, Ely. The doctor is seeing him now. He has not been well for several months. I know that Josiah has written you that your father and I are now living with him and Amanda at their farm on Low Point north of here, near Hamburg Cove. Josiah built a separate wing onto the main house, which is where we are living.”
Morgan nodded slowly while studying his mother. She was much changed since he’d seen her last. Her thin face had sagged considerably with lines and wrinkles. Her hair was now almost all silver, pulled back tightly into a bun. There was a sadness in her eyes, a toughness as well. He realized she was sixty-seven years old now. “I’m sorry to hear about father,” he finally said. “What ails him?”
“He’s just not himself,” she replied. “He is faint and has difficulty breathing. The doctor says it’s all just part of getting old. You know he’s going to be seventy-nine this year.”
Morgan had not kept track of his father’s age that closely. Somehow he’d just assumed he would stay much the same as when he had last seen him. It was Sally Morgan who suggested that Ely sit up front with Josiah so the women could sit in the backseat of the wagon and talk. He guessed that his mother wanted to take serious measure of this new addition to the family. Morgan took the reins from his brother. It had been a long time since he’d held the reins of a horse, and he was amazed to find out that this bay filly was a granddaughter of the chestnut mare the family used to own. So much time had passed. They stopped to pick up some supplies at the village store. This took them through the center of Lyme, where Morgan realized his return to the river was a well-publicized event. As they trotted down the main street, he could see the tall spire of the church in the distance. People stopped and waved, many of whom he didn’t even recognize.