The Blackbirder

by James Nelson

  They stopped and waited again but they were alone. A minute passed, then another, and Elizabeth was about to announce that Sally was not coming when they heard a step behind that made Elizabeth jump. She turned and Sally was standing there. She looked tired, frightened. She held up a key for Billy, could not go so far as to actually open the door herself.

  Billy took the key and fit it in the lock and turned it and the heavy door opened with a creak of exaggerated volume. He pulled the key out, handed it back to Sally. Sally slipped the key into her pocket. Their eyes met and Sally made a move as if to speak, but she did not. She just nodded her head and Billy nodded back and she turned and was gone.

  Billy glanced around once more, then held the door open for Elizabeth. She stepped through, into the darkness of the church’s interior, the only negligible light being that which came in from the night sky through the open door. Then Billy came in behind her and closed the door and it was absolutely black.

  ‘Just hold tight a moment, Lizzy,’ Billy said in a whisper. The words seemed absurdly loud. She could not recall the last time either of them had spoken.

  At her feet she could hear Billy clicking steel on flint and then a little trail of sparks spilled down on the dry tinder, which glowed orange and flared. Billy blew on it, gently, gently, and when it was finally burning with some legitimacy he used it to light a candle he pulled from his tinderbox.

  The flickering light fell on the oak wainscot and crept up the white plaster, finally to be lost in the deep gloom that engulfed the upper reaches of the big church. The door they had come through had led them into the side of the church proper. To their left and ten feet away, the door they recognized as leading to the Right Reverend Dunmore’s office.

  Billy gestured Elizabeth forward with a welcoming sweep of his arm, the way he had done when bringing her first aboard the Bloody Revenge and again when welcoming her to Boston.

  It occurred to her that Billy genuinely believed that all of the world was his for the taking, that wherever he wished to go it was his absolute right to do so, and thus wherever he was, he was welcoming people onto his own property. That was why he felt justified in making that gesture.

  It must be a fine thing, she thought, to be so damned sure of your place in the world. She smiled and made her way past Billy’s pews, headed for Billy’s office.

  Down the narrow hall and back through the door through which Wait Dunmore had just that morning ordered them to leave. The office was unchanged, save for Dunmore’s absence, but that one omission made the space look much bigger, as if the force of Reverend Dunmore’s personality pulled the walls in to him when he sat at his desk, and when he was gone they eased back to their normal positions.

  Billy found another candle and lit it, and a lantern as well, and the room was filled with a tolerable amount of light. Against the wall, the chests of papers that Elizabeth had that morning noticed. ‘Let us hope these are organized after some fashion, some fashion we can discern,’ Elizabeth whispered.

  ‘You look there, Lizzy, and I shall look to this Bible. If it is the Dunmore family Bible, it may have something of Wait Dunmore’s true parentage written there.’

  Elizabeth nodded and took up one of the candles. She knelt before the first blanket chest as if it were a little altar and began to thumb through the papers. Records of births, records of deaths, records of marriage, just as Sally had said. They appeared to be a great jumble, in no particular order, and Elizabeth began to despair at the thought of going through all of the chests, paper by paper. She did not think there was time enough in one night to do it.

  But as she made her way through the papers, a system, a kind of order, began to emerge, seemingly random clusters of papers resolved into rational groupings by name and date and she nodded as she began to understand.

  She heard Billy close the heavy Bible with a dull whump. He stepped up behind her. ‘The Good Book says nothing of this, just a legitimate line of succession, right down to Roger Dunmore’s no doubt monstrous child William, born two years ago. Have you anything?’

  Elizabeth nodded again. ‘I have not found the Dunmore family, but I see how they have put this all together. What was the name and birth date of the first Dunmore in the Bible?’

  Billy paused. ‘I’ll have to look again,’ he said, and a minute later, ‘Ezekiel Dunmore, born 1563 in Kent, died 1646, Boston. Father of …’

  ‘That should do.’ Elizabeth stood and opened the next trunk and the next, thumbed through the papers, not finding the Dunmore clan but seeing at least that they were organized the way she had thought. The next trunk, and her fingers moved confidently and there, at last, she found them. The Dunmore family, bound together with red tape. Ezekiel, died 1646, written out with the fine lettering and archaic language of a former age.

  She pulled the papers out, put them down on Dunmore’s desk, pulled off the red tape. Billy set his candle down beside them, leaned in close, his curiosity on a par with hers. She spread the papers out, arranging them like a family tree. Ezekiel, father of Elisha and Zacharias and Benjamin. The last, father of Sarah and Jonah and Rachel and Richard.

  Elizabeth’s hands were shaking, and she shuffled quickly through the papers. Wait Dunmore, father of Frederick. Wait Dunmore, son of Isaac Dunmore. Was Isaac the illegitimate son of Richard and the slave girl Nancy?

  The record of his birth. It was there, in her hands. Isaac Dunmore. Father, Richard Dunmore. Mother … Anne Dunmore, born Anne Hutchinson of Boston.

  And that was it. No mention of the slave Nancy, nothing but a record of a legitimate child of white parents. Elizabeth looked up at Billy, who was still looking at the paper. She felt the tears of frustration welling up. ‘Oh, Billy, damn it …’

  ‘Well, I suppose it would not be likely they would make an official record of such a union …’ he began, but there was frustration in his voice as well. Disappointment.

  And then a creak, the creak of the side door, left unlocked, the same creak it had made when they had opened it. Billy’s eyes met Elizabeth’s and she felt no disappointment or frustration now, just fear, and a twist in her stomach, and on Billy’s face, alertness; like a deer, he was motionless, listening.

  A footstep on wooden planking. Billy blew out the two candles and clapped the shutter half over the open lantern and the room was almost black and he motioned with his head for her to follow.

  Elizabeth snatched up the papers, the Dunmore family record, and she shoved them down the front of her shift, though she did not know why, for they would do her no good. Still, she took them, felt the rough paper against her skin as she pushed them out of sight.

  Billy stepped into the narrow hall, put the half-closed lantern down on the floor. It lit up the pine boards on which it sat, and threw a diffused illumination out toward the church.

  They could hear them now, two men, footsteps, soft muttering. Billy stopped, held up his hand, but still Elizabeth nearly ran into him before she saw his dark shape. She could just make out his hands as he flipped his black cape back so that the cloth did not impede his arms, but he did not draw a weapon, as if he was still not certain these people were enemies.

  Elizabeth did not see how they could be anything but.

  An observation, muttered, but loud enough for them to hear. ‘I sees light. Down there.’ A pause and then another voice saying, ‘Easy, now, easy. Cold steel …’

  The floor creaked and that was followed by a long pause as the men approaching stopped, waited, listened, just as Billy and Elizabeth were doing. Step, creak, pause; it seemed to go on forever.

  Slowly, slowly, Billy drew his sword from his scabbard. Elizabeth could see his hand moving as he drew, could catch the occasional flicker of light on the blade. There were no windows in the Reverend’s office, no door save for that through which they had come. They had no route of escape other than that one hall.

  At the far end, against the gloom of the church’s darkness, Elizabeth could see a shape, a moving blackness. She heard
the light tap of metal on metal, heard the shape gasp in surprise and then Billy Bird threw open the shutter of the lantern with the tip of his sword.

  The light spilled out, illuminated the big man blocking the way: bearded, in the rough clothes of a laborer, a battered three-cornered hat on his head, a sword in his hand, a big, meaty weapon, the kind of blade preferred by a man who fights with brute force and little subtlety.

  ‘God damn!’ the man shouted in surprise. Crooked black teeth, gaps in places where others were missing.

  Billy Bird sprang forward, his sword in his right hand, his left hand crossing his belly and then his dirk was in that fist, long blade and short. He came at the big man and lunged and would have run him through if the man had not all but fallen backward in surprise.

  ‘God damn!’ he shouted again, higher pitched, but he recovered fast and came at Billy with his big sword, swinging it with two hands like an ax, and Billy was just able to whip his own sword out of the big weapon’s arc before the heavy blade struck and perhaps snapped his finer steel in two.

  Billy Bird was fast, nimble, like a dancer, and he lunged as the big man was off balance and got a solid jab in the man’s upper arm and the man howled and stumbled back again. Behind him, the second man, smaller, more wiry, teeth and clothes no better, stepped up and Billy engaged him with dirk and sword.

  Elizabeth looked wildly around, looked for some weapon, something she could use to help Billy. She had nothing, no knife, no pistol. She had deliberately resisted carrying any weapon; to do so was to admit to herself that they were doing something wrong. And now perhaps Billy would be overwhelmed, and then what would she tell herself?

  She snatched up the lantern, raced after him. The smaller man was more of a swordsman than was his partner and he wielded his weapon with some finesse, made Billy work at defending himself, not giving away openings like the other, who was staring dumb at the blood soaking through his sleeve.

  The little man slashed down and Billy caught his sword with the edge of his own, twisted his wrist, locked their blades, just for that instant, and stepped into the man and thrust his dirk at him. But the little man was too fast for that and he turned sideways and freed his sword and stepped back, ready.

  The other one, the bigger one, was done staring at his wound. Elizabeth heard a growl building in his throat and it turned into a shout as the man charged, lumbering forward, coming at Billy with his sword again in two hands, and Billy might have finished him off if he did not have the smaller man to deal with as well.

  ‘Oh God, oh God, oh God …’ Elizabeth said, again and again. She felt useless, worse than useless, but there was nothing for her to do but watch.

  The big man swept his sword down as if he were chopping at a tree and Billy ducked, hit the floor, his cape making a great flourish, rolled with a grace that left Elizabeth gaping, the big man swinging at air, and the little man dodging his partner’s blade. Then Billy was up and over one of the pews.

  It took the big one a second to understand where Billy had gone, how he had vanished from under his sword. He looked over, surprised, as if Billy had disappeared and rematerialized beyond the pew.

  He came at Billy again with the same heedless fury, slamming his knees into the pew and slashing down, and this time Billy ducked to one side and the heavy blade shattered the top of the pew, embedding itself in the wood. Billy slapped the hilt of his sword down on top of the blade, preventing the man from lifting it up. Then with his dirk he lunged and this time he caught the startled man in the stomach, sunk an inch of steel into his flesh, made him bellow like a bull, but the reach was too far for Billy to deliver a more lethal jab.

  The small man watched this, unmoving for the second or two that it took. He began to circle toward Billy, more cautious than his friend, when he seemed to notice Elizabeth for the first time, and when he did he seemed at the same moment to forget entirely about Billy Bird.

  ‘Bitch!’ he hissed at her, and then he was moving toward her, sword held out, off to one side, a position that would allow him to slash her no matter which way she turned.

  Two steps, three steps, and he was all but on her. She shrank back, thought of the lantern in her hand. She held the only source of light.

  She slammed the shutter closed and the church was all blackness again. She pulled her mantua skirt free, buried the lantern in the cloth to hide the light leaking around the door. Fell to her knees, ducked down, shuffling away to her left. She heard the man’s sword slash the air above her head and again he said, ‘Bitch!’ but loud, a shout.

  Elizabeth backed up, crawling away at an oblique angle from the man. She could hear him kicking out, trying to locate her with his feet and his slashing sword and she crawled back until there was no place left to crawl. The lantern was resting on her thigh and through her petticoats she could feel it start to burn her. She did not know where Billy was, if he was still alive or not.

  A step closer, and the man was flailing with the blade and with another step or another he would find her. She was up against the wainscot now. She gripped the lantern hard, ready to crash it into his knees when he took another step.

  Then the side door burst open again and more men rushed in, making no attempt to be quiet, and Elizabeth froze and her attacker froze and no one knew who they were, or who they were for.

  A voice in the darkness. ‘Billy Bird? Where the fuck are you?’

  Elizabeth jumped to her feet, broke left, stepping sideways, her back against the wall, and when she was sure she was beyond the reach of the man’s sword she pulled the lantern out from under her skirt and flipped the door open.

  The hot steel burned her fingertips, and the yellow light that flooded out revealed five men: Billy Bird, still behind the pew; the big man gripping his stomach; the wiry one who had come after her, now turned toward this new threat.

  And between them, swords drawn, Black Tom and Ezra Howland.

  CHAPTER 29

  It might have been laughable, those five men standing frozen, motionless, trying to sort this thing out, were people not about to die.

  And then the big man, heedless of his bleeding arm and belly, shouted, ‘Sons of bitches!’ and tossed his sword aside. It hit the pine floor with a clatter, banging into the far row of pews, and Elizabeth thought he was surrendering when he reached under his coat and pulled out a pistol.

  He raised it, thumbing the lock, and then Billy’s sword came down on his wrist in a spray of blood and the big man’s hand folded into an unnatural angle and he howled, dropped the gun, grabbed his wrist. Billy slammed him hard in the temple with the flat of his sword and the man slumped to the floor as if his bones had turned to ash.

  The small man had seen enough. He wheeled around, bolted for the door, but Black Tom stepped toward him, kicked him in the shins and the man fell forward, sword flying from his hand, and came down hard on the floor, spread-eagled. Ezra Howland was there and he kicked the man hard in the head and he too was still.

  Silence again, and then Billy Bird leapt over the pew and, to Elizabeth’s surprise, shouted, ‘Where in hell have you been?’ He did not sound grateful at all for the help. Grabbed Black Tom by the arm, pulled him close, face-to-face. ‘Breathe!’ he demanded, and Black Tom puffed a breath in Billy’s face. Billy frowned in disgust and Elizabeth frowned in empathy. She would not care to smell Black Tom’s breath.

  ‘Been at the damned tavern, haven’t you? When did it occur to you that we might go abroad again tonight?’

  Black Tom stared at the floor, muttered something. He looked like a child caught in some infraction.

  ‘Billy,’ said Elizabeth, ‘I should think it a miracle that these men arrived in time to save us.’

  ‘They were supposed to be watching at all times, but instead I have to cut these bastards down’ – he indicated the two men on the floor – ‘single-handedly before they amble in. Good thing I am man enough to take on two or more at a time.’

  ‘Well, now, it weren’t like we done nothin
g,’ Howland protested.

  Elizabeth shook her head. ‘You told these two to watch us? At all times?’

  ‘Dear Lizzy, you would never believe me that this is a dangerous business. Lucky one of us was clever enough to see that our backsides were covered.’ He glared at Tom and Ezra.

  But Elizabeth, for her part, was far too relieved to be angry at the Bloody Revenges, late though their arrival may have been. She swept across the floor and gave each of the men a kiss on their hairy cheeks, as they in turn blushed and stammered.

  ‘Right, well, let’s see what these sons of whores has that’s worth the taking,’ Ezra Howland muttered, trying to cover his embarrassment. He knelt over the unconscious form of the smaller man, dug through the big pockets of his coat, while Black Tom retrieved the pistol and located a few coins in the pocket of the other.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Ezra. ‘A few rutting papers, that’s it.’ Ezra was not the kind of man who could imagine a piece of paper being of any value.

  ‘Let me see.’ Billy Bird held out his hand, took the paper.

  ‘Tom,’ said Howland, ‘come on, then, let’s see if there’s anything down there, what we should have,’ and with a jerk of his head he led Black Tom down the hall to Dunmore’s office.

  ‘Forgive them, Lizzy, plundering is quite in their soul. I would no more wish to try and stop it than I would try and stop a rutting bull.’

  He held up the paper that Howland had handed him, angled it toward the light.

  Elizabeth watched him read, watched his brows come together, his mouth form into a frown. ‘Son … of … a … bitch …’ He let the words come out slow.

  ‘What is it, Billy?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘Here. Read this.’ He handed the note over. Elizabeth let the light fall on the words and read.

  Mr Elephiant Jenkins

  The Golden Rooster Tavern

  Boston

  Mr Jenkins,