The Blackbirder

by James Nelson

  But he was not there, no one was there, and the house was little changed. The garden was overgrown, and the grass looked wild, more field than manicured lawn, and the house itself forlorn, empty, musty, but still generally in the same shape it had been in when she left. The animals were still alive, and looked well fed, which meant that her neighbor had sent a boy over to tend to them, as she had asked he might in the note she had dispatched to him.

  Tired as she was, and sore from the long ride, she built a fire and boiled bucket after bucket of water and took a long and luxurious bath in the big copper tub. She lay there for hours as the water went from hot to warm to cool, and finally she pulled herself out and crawled naked into the big bed that she and Thomas shared and then she slept.

  She woke at dawn the next morning. She woke alert, ready. She dressed in a riding outfit, saddled a horse, and left Marlowe House once again.

  It took her an hour to reach the big house that Frederick Dunmore owned on the Jamestown Road, a mile from Williamsburg proper. She reined her horse to a stop on the road and looked down the long drive leading to the front door. She could see some people moving around in the fields beyond the house. They would be indentured servants. Dunmore kept no black slaves – an anomaly for a wealthy man in the tidewater – and now Elizabeth understood more of why that was.

  She dismounted, tied her horse to a sapling on the edge of the road, pulled a leather pouch from the saddlebag. She did not want Dunmore to know she was coming until she was there, so she walked down the drive and stepped quietly onto the porch.

  She paused, drew a breath, considered again what she would do, what she would say. Then she lifted the brass pineapple knocker and rapped it hard, three times.

  Movement inside, and Elizabeth expected a housekeeper to answer, but it was Frederick Dunmore himself. He was dressed in a loose-fitting banyan of flowing silk. On his shaved head a sort of turban hat. He clearly was not expecting visitors at that hour, and judging by his expression Elizabeth guessed that he was expecting her least of all. His mouth fell open and he stared at her and tried to speak, and after a moment all that would come from his mouth was ‘Damn me …’

  ‘Damn you, indeed, Mr Dunmore. Does it shock you to find me alive?’

  ‘What? Why should … What do you want?’ He made no move to welcome her inside.

  ‘Might I have a word with you? I have certain information …’

  ‘Where have you been all these weeks?’ His eyes narrowed as he regarded her, as if squinting might reveal something that direct sight could not. ‘There has been some high talk, you know. Pirates raiding the public armory, making off with a great cache of weapons, their captain staying right at the King’s Arms, spying things out, so the rumor goes. And you not to be found just a day later. Some mighty big talk …’

  ‘Yes, well, talk is not evidence, is it? If you have evidence I would beg to know what it is,’ she said, and in her mind she felt all the disparate and seemingly unrelated pieces fitting together: Billy Bird’s appearance, the ship quite hidden in the Pagan River, Charleston, the Revenges’ unwillingness to be discovered once more in the Chesapeake Bay.

  Billy Bird. That bloody villain.

  Frederick Dunmore was scowling at her but apparently had nothing more to say regarding her possible connection to the pirates that raided the armory. Instead he added, ‘If you’ve come back to beg for your niggers you can forget it! If any of them show their faces in this town they will be arrested and sold, do you hear? Carrying arms against white people, running wild all over the countryside. They are a menace and they will be hunted down!’

  ‘You do not give up easy, considering your less than impressive success so far. But see here. I have been away. I have been to Boston. You are familiar with Boston, I believe?’

  She saw the flicker of anticipation and concern across his face, the subtlest of change in his expression, but he did not waver in his raw bluster. ‘I lived once in Boston, there is no secret. Are you trying to imply something, you little …’

  ‘I have here a document,’ Elizabeth continued, pulling a paper from her leather pouch, ‘that relates to your family. Your family tree, Mr Dunmore, do you know what I mean?’

  Now the fear was in his expression, the uncertainty, eyes shifting from the paper to Elizabeth’s face and back. He snatched the document from her hands, scowled as he studied it.

  ‘This is a record of my uncle’s birth … this means nothing. How did you come by this? You stole this!’

  ‘That record means nothing, it is true. I show it to you merely to demonstrate that I do have your family records. I would not put the important one in your hand. The record of your grandfather Isaac’s birth. The record of his father, Richard, and his mother … Nancy. The slave girl Nancy.’

  Dunmore stared at her for a long time without speaking, then slowly crumpled the paper in his hand and tossed it away. ‘It is a lie. It was always a lie. Do you think I’m such a fool that I would not figure it was a lie?’

  ‘You do not sound so certain. Are you?’

  ‘Yes, goddamn your eyes, you goddamned pirate’s whore! It is a lie!’

  Elizabeth shrugged. ‘Perhaps. And perhaps not. Perhaps I have the document I say I do, and perhaps I do not. But pray, allow me to show you one more.’

  She pulled another document from her pouch, handed it to him. ‘It is in my hand,’ she explained. ‘I transcribed the original, which is signed by you. I see you are too rough with papers for me to trust you.’

  Dunmore’s eyes ran over the words. Elizabeth could all but recite them, having read the note so many times. ‘I wish that the said Elizabeth Marlowe and her companion should never leave the town of Boston …’

  Incredible. She was actually grateful for the letter. If there was ever a moment when she doubted the morality of what she was doing, she had only to think of that, and of the hired killers who had almost carried out those instructions.

  Dunmore looked up at her. Again he could not speak, but this time his mouth hung open.

  ‘The original was taken from a man who was trying most diligently to carry out your wishes. He had nearly one hundred pounds on his person. I am flattered.’

  That wasn’t true, of course, about the money; there was only the bank draft that Billy Bird, the villain, had insisted on cashing the morning after the fight in the church. They had nearly missed the tide, thanks to his audacity, and only just made it to the ship ahead of the sheriff. But the money, divided among the men of the Bloody Revenge, had done much to improve esprit de corps.

  They stood there for a moment more, Dunmore unable to think of anything else to say, Elizabeth not feeling the need to.

  Finally she broke the silence. ‘I will take my leave, Mr Dunmore. I have enjoyed this talk, more than you will know. And now I have no doubt that my people will be allowed to return unmolested to Marlowe House, and that you will be their champion, and that I, in turn, will keep secret papers secret. Good morning.’

  She nodded, turned her back on Frederick Dunmore, and walked away.

  He stood in the door and watched her go. Tried to pin a thought down long enough to examine it, tried to calm the tempest so that he could see above the churning water, see what was beyond, what he might do, where he was, but he could not.

  The storm was on him again, raging as it had never raged before, smashing him, smashing him as it had on the ship, sending him reeling off the cabin door, puking on himself, unable to stop. Just when it had been calm for so long.

  It was the eye of a hurricane, a false calm before it hit from an entirely new direction, and worse than before. He felt the urge to bathe, to scrub his skin until it bled, as if he could wash the impurity from him. He saw his hands once more around the old woman’s throat …

  He turned from the door, staggered away, unseeing. He moved from room to room, trying to focus on something, anything, but he could not. He could not make his mind stop, could not even slow it long enough to have a rational thought. />
  Room to room he wandered, and back again. He bounced off a wall in the hallway, turned over a small table, sent a vase shattering to the floor, but he did not even notice. On his way around again he stepped on the broken shard, cut his foot through his silk slipper, left marks of blood in an even trail as he walked, but still he was not aware.

  He paused, looked up at a big portrait of himself that stood above the fireplace. An epic work: he was on horseback, leading some fictitious charge, his great white wig flowing nobly down his shoulders.

  He looked into his own eyes, rendered in oil, and as he stared the eyes seemed to stare back and he stood for some time, just looking.

  And then a voice spoke to him. He did not know if it was the painting, or himself speaking out loud, or if he had just thought the words in his head. But no matter. They spoke clear, one sentence, that was all.

  You are the fox.

  Yes, yes, he thought. I am the fox. Quick, nimble. Vicious when cornered, able to fight with razor teeth. But that was rare, because the fox was too crafty to be cornered, too crafty by half. Doubling back, wading through streams, the fox knew how to elude capture, how to keep on the run.

  Dunmore tore his eyes from the painting, raced up the stairs. In a back room, he found the old chest, pulled it out, dragged it to his bedroom, flung open his wardrobe, and began to toss suit after white suit into it.

  There was money in the study, specie, quite a bit of it. He could send for the rest. Have the factor sell the house, the land, the horses.

  But where?

  He stopped in his packing, stood up straight, stared out the window. Where in that great world?

  France. Yes, France, of course. England and France were at war, no one would find him there.

  But would he be welcome in France? Of course … if he were a papist, seeking to escape from Protestant persecution at home. Of course. He had been a Congregationalist in Boston, Church of England in London, an Anglican in Virginia, why not a Roman Catholic in France?

  He was the fox. He could make them lose his scent.

  He grabbed up his three best wigs and threw them in the trunk. The damned Romish church had all sorts of nonsense in its service, kneeling and babbling in Latin and eating its bread. But it was not so different from the High Church of England. He could learn all that. He could be a papist.

  He slammed the trunk shut. Sent for one of the field hands to drive him by carriage to Newport News. A bit of business in Boston, he would tell them. And then, to France, by way of whatever route he had to take, with the dogs lost and baying further and further behind him.

  EPILOGUE

  It was all something of an embarrassment in the end. Frederick Dunmore had convinced some quite important men in the tidewater of the righteousness of his cause, of the need to stamp out Thomas Marlowe’s example, and then he had disappeared.

  An indentured field hand named McKeown had driven him to Newport News from which place, Dunmore informed the man, he was bound for Boston on some sudden business. A month later Dunmore’s factor received instructions to sell everything and to send the money to an address in Flanders. The factor did as instructed. No more was made of it, officially.

  The unofficial discussions, however, the whispered rumors, tales of mental instability, were widely disseminated and continued to be a favorite topic for some time after the event. And to judge from those remarks, it seemed that everyone in Virginia had known all along that Dunmore was a lunatic, unstable, though they had not wanted to say as much – not the thing, you know, to tell such tales.

  All this Marlowe learned in the early autumn after the battered, weed-encrusted Elizabeth Galley worked her way up the James River to her old berth at the Jamestown dock and Marlowe and Bickerstaff walked the few miles up the road to Marlowe House.

  It had been a long and uneventful sail. From Whydah they had made their way due south, then east, leaving the Niger River Delta to larboard and fetching Kalabari. They anchored off the beach and hired grumetes to carry the people ashore, those people whom James had rescued from slavery within the bounds of Chesapeake Bay, who had fought their way back across the Atlantic, who had been so terribly betrayed.

  It was James’s wish that they be carried to Kalabari, and Marlowe was happy to do it. They were not there three hours before the people were ashore and the Elizabeth Galley won her anchor again and left the Dark Continent astern.

  For nearly two months Thomas had been dreaming of his reunion with Elizabeth, and she did not disappoint. Not in the matter of her enthusiasm at seeing him again, or in the matter of the feast of fresh food and physical comfort she provided, not in any regard did she disappoint.

  The home that Marlowe returned to was little changed from the one he had left, save for the big empty place that King James had occupied. But the rest of the people were there, living in their quarters behind the big house, tending the fields and the gardens. Lucy, long convinced that James would not return alive, listened to the tale and accepted it with a stoicism unusual for her.

  True to their promise, George and the others had kept a regular watch on the house, had come to speak with Elizabeth after her return, and once the news of Dunmore’s shameful departure had been well known, the people returned. No one in the tidewater had ever said a thing. Persecuting them was Dunmore’s obsession, and no one wished to be a part of that, now that Dunmore was gone and Marlowe had returned.

  And so Thomas Marlowe and Francis Bickerstaff were not quite certain what they were in for, three days later, when they donned their finest clothing, strapped on their gentlemanly swords, took up their gold-headed walking sticks, and drove in Marlowe’s carriage to the Wren Building and the office of Governor Nicholson.

  ‘Marlowe, dear Marlowe! And Francis Bickerstaff, pray, come in, come in, be seated! A glass of wine with you? Good, good!’ Nicholson did not seem put out at all by them, did not seem hostile in any way. Quite the opposite, really.

  ‘Thank you, Governor.’ Marlowe settled in a chair, the same he had occupied at their last and quite different interview, and accepted the delicate crystal glass. It seemed so fragile, insubstantial in his hand, after the heavy glassware and pewter mugs he had been using for months, vessels designed to endure rough treatment at sea.

  ‘So, you’ve had a successful cruise, I’ll wager? We’ve seen no prizes sent in here; I do hope you have not been entirely without luck.’

  Marlowe cleared his throat, glanced at Bickerstaff, who gave him a cocked eyebrow. ‘We have been entirely without a letter of marque and reprisal, as you will recall, Governor. We were sent out to hunt down those people who killed the crew of the slave ship. In that, we have been successful. We chased King James to Whydah, on the Slave Coast, and saw him dead.’

  ‘Well, excellent, excellent. Good job. I don’t recall now why you had no letter of marque. Well, no matter, there is one for you now, if you wish. To your health, sir!’

  And that was it. No further inquiry. Marlowe did not mention the raid on the slave factory. He did not mention the one hundred and fifty-odd captives they had freed and carried off to Kalabari.

  He said nothing of the French merchantman that they had sailed to Lisbon and sold, along with the cargo of booty, for more money than the governor would see in all his tenure in the Colonies.

  He did not mention the surviving members of the Northumberland’s crew – Cato, Quash, Good Boy, and Joshua – who had been smuggled back to Marlowe House in the middle of the night and had resumed their place among the people there.

  Instead he simply thanked the governor for his courtesy and sipped the wine and inquired as to how things had been in Virginia during their absence. Twenty minutes later the interview was done.

  It was a perfect afternoon through which they drove back to Marlowe House. The sky was a rich blue, like a blue jay’s plumage, not an anemic robin’s egg. A cool breeze flowed in through the carriage window as if trying to comfort the occupants. For a long time they said nothing, just watched th
e green fields and the stands of trees pass by.

  ‘There will be no crop this year,’ Bickerstaff observed at last. ‘With your people in exile all this time the tobacco has gone to ruin.’

  ‘No matter. Our pirating has got us enough money to survive and keep out of debt and pay the people as well.’

  ‘It is unfortunate for me that you use your ill-gotten gains in so honorable a way as paying your poor people for their labor. It makes the moral position that much more ambiguous.’

  At that Marlowe smiled. ‘Moral position? Do you still look for such a thing? Frederick Dunmore had the moral position, ask anyone, until he snuck away like a thief in the night. We chased poor James clear across the Atlantic in support of the moral position, and now there is no one gives a tinker’s damn that we did.’

  ‘There is such a thing as right and wrong, Thomas, the evil of such men as Frederick Dunmore notwithstanding. I will never cease to try to make you understand that.’

  Thomas Marlowe leaned forward, put a gloved hand on his friend’s knee. ‘And I shall always love you for that, Francis. And I look forward to your constant company. Because, you see, when I think on men such as Frederick Dunmore and King James, and the fact that we were made to hunt the one in support of the other, when I think of how Dunmore has been discredited now for running like a rabbit and James lies dead and forgotten, on how a simple piece of paper separates the privateer from the pirate, when I think on all those things, then I realize that trying to make me understand something like absolute right and wrong will be, I assure you, a lifetime’s occupation.’

  About the Author

  James Nelson has served as a seaman, rigger, botswain and officer on a number of sailing vessels. He is the author of the five books comprising his Revolution at Sea saga and Brethren of the Coast trilogy. He lives with his wife and children in Maine.