Halestorm

by Becky Akers

  Twenty pairs of eyes followed his progress from door to lectern. He was carrying a pile of books, which he juggled as he tried to clear a place amid their offerings.

  “Can I help you, Master Hale?” Sadie Barlow smiled fetchingly. Her brother Billy was one of the oldest in his class of boys.

  “I can help.” A girl sitting a few seats away from Sadie leaped to her feet.

  He stood flummoxed. He was used to boys, boys who distrusted him because he was the master, boys whose admiration he had to earn. He hardly knew how to behave in a schoolroom overflowing with affection. Except for Sally Hempstead, dreaming of her Billy, every student watched him raptly.

  The class was three weeks old when events in Boston once again claimed their attention. On the first of June, Parliament closed the port in retaliation for the Tea Party six months earlier. “’Twill remain closed until we pay the Crown for the tea,” Boston’s Committee of Correspondence explained in a letter sent to Hartford. From there, copies had made their way to New London and other towns. “We are also to have troops quartered among us and warships patrolling our harbor to enforce this decree.”

  Outrage swept the congregation when Rev. Stableman read the letter in Meeting that week, and New London spoke of little but England’s retribution. “What they plan to do? Starve them?” one man asked. “They’re besieging them in their own city. That’s war!”

  Silence fell as his shocked audience considered this possibility. Finally, another man said mildly, “Mebbe not. Mebbe the king’s just protecting them like he always says, but one thing’s for certain-sure: with Redcoats there, the food’ll be gone in no time.”

  “Naw, Parliament won’t let its precious bully-boys starve.”

  “Soldiers’ll eat, sure, but what about everyone else? I got a sister up there with eight little ones and her husband works the dock. Redcoats don’t allow shipping, how’s he gonna feed his family?”

  “On the other hand,” a new voice said silkily, “all them boats used to put in at Boston going to need a port somewheres to load and unload.”

  Silence reigned again, a ghastly one this time. Everyone avoided his neighbor’s eyes as the man added, “Lots of money to be made here, folks.”

  Then the schoolmaster chased away such thoughts.

  “Why don’t we send them food?” Nathan said.

  Farmers drove cows and sheep and wagons of grain to New London’s wharves, where Nathan and the young men spent their spare hours loading donations. The barges sailed north to join the contributions from other colonies. In Massachusetts, more volunteers packed them into carts for the trip over Boston’s narrow neck as the government’s noose tightened.

  One Wednesday in August, Nathan was especially tired from stowing cargo the evening before when Nancy Hawkins accosted him after the morning’s class. She was peeking at him through her lashes, asking for a moment of his time, when a grimace contorted her features. She stumbled to the door and barely gained the yard before she vomited.

  He sprang to her side. “Nancy, want me to fetch your mother?”

  She shook her head as another paroxysm of retching seized her. When she finished, he lent her his handkerchief, eased her to a bench, and brought a dipperful of water from the pail near his desk. She drank shakily, then said, “Thank you. Would you sit here with me until I feel better?”

  He could not refuse, though he had only half an hour to prepare for the boys. But when she caught his hand in hers, he pulled away.

  “You don’t like me,” she pouted.

  “You’ll have to excuse me. There’re some passages I’ve got to rehearse for recitation.”

  He thought no more about it, especially when she sat in her usual place, albeit wan, the next morning. And by Friday, he assumed she was recovered when four students approached him after he dismissed the class with prayer.

  “Master Hale.”

  He glanced up from retrieving his books to see Billy Barlow standing there with Isaiah Starr and the Simpson brothers and grinned. “Mr. Barlow, I said ‘Amen’ at least half a minute ago. To what do I owe this honor?”

  “We’re going down to the Sound tomorrow after class, do some fishing. You wanna come?”

  There’d been trouble along the Sound all summer, with His Majesty’s ships landing sailors to filch garden truck and chickens and whatever caught their fancy from the residents. Rumor said they had impressed some farm hands, too, for servitude onboard. But he had been working hard, and such an outing was irresistible. Worries about tangling with tars gave way to a more immediate concern: Isaiah would not meet his eyes. The others also looked at the schoolroom’s walls, the rafters, anywhere but him. He said, “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Might as well tell him, Billy,” Ike muttered. “He’ll find out anyways.”

  “Yeah, all right. Well, some of the girls are going, too, Nancy Hawkins, and—”

  “Nancy Hawkins? But she’s been sick.”

  “No, don’t think so.” Billy shrugged. “She’s anxious to go.”

  “Anyone else?” Nathan said. “Maybe Sarah Hempstead?”

  “She might.” Billy lifted pleading eyes. “You go with us, Sarah’s mother won’t care. She thinks there’s no one can touch you, and she’ll tell Sarah she has to go since you are. But if you don’t, then it’s just me trying to see Sarah, and she’ll find all kinds of chores for her instead.”

  “Beach down there’s really good for wrestling,” Ike said. “Lots of sand. And the crabs make good eating. They’re big as dogs.”

  “All right, I accept.” Nathan hefted his stack of books. “And Billy, you’re a man of honor, so I’m not going to regret this, right? I don’t like being a chaperone.”

  “’Course not,” Billy said, all injured innocence.

  “What time we meeting and where?”

  “Girls want to take a picnic with us, eat dinner down there with what we catch. We thought we’d meet back here after class.”

  The next afternoon, bearing poles and baskets, they assembled on the schoolhouse’s steps. Though Sarah was already smiling at Billy’s capers, the other girls clustered around Nathan when he appeared so that Ike groused to Sam and Zeke, “Don’t see why we need the master along anyways.”

  They meandered for an hour along the riverbank toward the Sound, joking, laughing. Zeke declared he would best Nathan at wrestling while the girls scoffed. Nancy, pale but vivacious, twisted crowns of ivy and grasses. The sun coaxed the boys to shed their coats, with shoes and stockings following, even among the girls, though Billy stripped a branch from a willow and tickled their legs with it, and Sam declared that they looked more like savages than Englishmen. At the beach, the girls dropped their baskets and waded into the surf with the boys following to cast their lines. Nathan predicted that he would catch the most fish, probably an entire school, and Ike splashed him as the Simpsons made gagging noises. They paid no heed to the vessel anchored about a mile out in the water, and they were having too much fun to notice when a rowboat descended from its side. Four sailors manned the little vessel, paddling toward a point around a bend.

  Zeke and Ike cleaned the catch while the girls laid out fruit, pies, and bread. Nathan cranked the tinder-box to start the fire of driftwood he’d gathered.

  “Gonna need some leaves to wrap the fish,” Ike said, squatting beside him.

  “Well, go gather some, will you, before Billy and Sarah figure that out and disappear into the woods.”

  Ike grinned and headed toward the trees.

  The fire was burning like a ghost of itself in the sunshine, with the fillets piled on some pebbles beside it, though Ike still had not returned. “I’m hungry,” Sam said. “How about some of that johnnycake you brought, Sally, till Ike gets back?”

  Nathan twisted to peer into the trees as Sally broke the loaf into pieces and handed them around. “There’s butter here, too, and a cheese my mother pressed,” she said. “What’s taking him so long, do you suppose?”

  “Aw, you know Ike.
Couldn’t find his way out of the ground if he was seed-corn in springtime.” Billy grinned clownishly at Sarah.

  Nathan got to his feet, brushing sand from his breeches. “I’ll be back. I want—”

  A gun popped in the trees behind them. Still, they were not alarmed, thinking that Ike had met some hunters. Nathan wondered whether they had enough fish for extra mouths. He was leaning over to retrieve a pole and remedy the shortage when Nancy and Sally gasped, Lucy clapped her hands over her mouth, and the boys stared with slack jaws. He whirled to see what had scared them so.

  Ike stumbled out of the trees, hands bound behind and four men swaggering after. One carried a gun. Its bayonet glittered in the sun, and smoke still curled from its muzzle. A second man wore a coil of rope around his waist. The other two, though surely carrying knives, were threatening enough in the Navy’s blue jackets and white trousers to intimidate without muskets.

  Nathan stood rooted, Sarah moaning in terror, the boys looking from him to the approaching sailors and back again. “Get up, gentlemen,” he said softly, and then the marines were on them.

  “Looks like a nice play-party you all is having.” The oldest one, a grizzled veteran who hobbled painfully, flashed his few teeth at them in a menacing grin. “Feel real bad to innerupt it. But you gotta do your duty for your king.”

  “Sir, you’re making a mistake—” Nathan said, but the sailor gurgled with laughter. Bending over, he blew his nose onto the stack of fillets though Lucy sat beside it. She shrank away with a shudder.

  “Ain’t no mistake, boy. We got empty berths on that ship to fill, and you and your friends looks able-bodied to me. That goes for your lady friends, too.” His eyes lingered on Lucy before sliding to Sarah, Sally, and Nancy. The man with the musket casually began reloading. “We’ll show you gels what sailors is good at, or my name ain’t Black Bob. One night with me, and you’ll forget these sandcrabs here, yessiree. Now boys, you just put your hands atop of your heads real nice and easy-like and don’t make no trouble. Anson, Red, trice ’em up, quick now.”

  Red uncoiled some of the rope he was carrying while Anson, chuckling silently, stepped toward Nathan. “You’re a pretty one,” Anson said. “I like boys like you better’n I do women, and that’s the fact.”

  He had come close enough that Nathan could see the lice crawling in his hair. He reached for Nathan’s left arm. Nathan drew away, as a man about to be trussed naturally would, and forced Anson off center as he stretched further.

  Without warning, Nathan hooked a foot around the sailor’s ankle. He slammed his elbow against his chest. Anson retired with a sigh, the wind knocked out of him.

  Red rushed Nathan and tumbled him to the ground. They rolled over, barely skirting the fire.

  Black Bob cried to the sailor fumbling to ram a charge down his musket, “The bayonet, damn it! Use the bayonet!”

  Lucy and Nancy pelted Anson with rocks as he cursed and cringed on the sand. Billy, Zeke, and Sam launched themselves at Red. They pushed him off Nathan, pummeling him.

  Nathan grabbed a brand from the fire. In one fluid motion, he was on his feet and hurling it at the sailor racing toward them with his bayonet held high. It caught the man in the neck so that he dropped the musket with a howl.

  “Got it!” Black Bob screamed as he and Nathan dove for the gun.

  Ike threw himself at Black Bob’s legs. With his hands still tied, he couldn’t hurt him, though the sailor screeched as if tortured, but he knocked him to the right of the musket.

  Nathan secured the gun.

  He steadied the bayonet on Black Bob’s belly as the marine writhed on the ground. The blade, needle-sharp, pierced Bob’s jacket and drew enough blood to make both him and Nathan blanch.

  “Call them off,” Nathan said. “Call your men off!”

  “Take it easy there, boy. They lashed hell out of me last fortnight. Can’t have this sand getting in my stripes. Red, Anson, that’s enough. Skeets, stop your blubbering, or by damn, it’ll be fifty lashes when we’re back aboard.”

  After the shouts and shrieks and groans, an eerie silence held the beach. Sam and Billy gathered around Nathan as he held the bayonet on Black Bob, keeping the sailor docile while hiding how badly his hands were shaking. Zeke worked at Ike’s bonds, trying to free him.

  “Zeke, this gentleman probably has a knife you can borrow.” Nathan leaned on the musket, and a dagger appeared in Black Bob’s hand. “Drop it.”

  Zeke grabbed the weapon and sawed through the rope around Ike’s wrists. Nathan squinted toward the ship. The crew aboard must be observing, and they would send reinforcements.

  “Tell your men to head out into the water,” he said. “They can swim back to the ship.” When Black Bob sullenly shook his head, he pressed harder on the bayonet. “Tell them.”

  “Watch it with that damn point. It ain’t a toy. All right, you boys heard him. Start swimming.”

  “Bloody hell I will,” Skeets said. “I can’t swim.”

  “No time like the present to learn,” Nathan said. “Wouldn’t you agree, sir?”

  “Yeah,” Black Bob breathed. “Go on, into the water, all of yas. Take it easy with that thing, boy. Ain’t no sense to killing me, now, is there?”

  “No, sir. In fact, you can join your men once I have your word of honor you’ll tell your captain to leave us alone.”

  “Have my what?” Black Bob showed as much rage as he dared with a bayonet pricking his gut. “Now, damn it—Augghh! All right, sure, I give you my word of honor.” He smirked. “Like I’s a fancy gentleman.”

  Nathan raised the musket and kept the bayonet pointed at the man as he staggered to his feet. With a murderous backward glance, Black Bob lurched toward the sea. A second boat slid into the water from the ship. Sailors no doubt crowded the latter’s deck, ready to scramble down the rope ladder into the smaller craft. Red and Anson had dog-paddled some distance from shore, keeping away from Skeets as he floundered and caterwauled in the shallows. Though Nathan doubted Black Bob’s promise, he hoped the reinforcements would stop to rescue the swimmers. Still, that was expecting much from marines as notoriously brutal as the British Navy’s.

  “We’ve got to get home, fast,” he said. “Leave everything here. Let’s go.” They ran all the way back to town, the thought of their fate aboard ship spurring the girls to outstrip the boys.

  He had been everyone’s favorite before, but they idolized him now. Mrs. Hempstead was so relieved at her daughter’s safe return that she agreed she might marry Billy after all. The bride blushingly told Nathan on her wedding day that their firstborn would be named for him if it were a boy, Natania if a girl.

  It was well Nathan had this goodwill on account. It helped counter the gossip when Nancy Hawkins’ father stormed to the schoolhouse one evening a week later as Nathan finished sweeping the floor. He leaned his twig broom against the wall and ran a hand through his hair. “Mr. Hawkins, sir, how are you?”

  “About as well as can be expected, Hale.” The man thumped his cane with its carved head on the ground. “Want to talk to you, sir, hear your side of it, then horsewhip either you or my daughter. Let’s go inside.”

  Nathan wondered what had provoked him. “I’m sorry for your daughter’s illness.” He seated himself behind his desk. “She feeling better?”

  “Well, that’s mighty big of you, Hale, when it’s you that made her ill. I objected to you from the start. Told them to hire an older man, not one who’d be thinking of his tickle-toby when he’s supposed to be teaching Latin.”

  In a flash, Nathan understood. He started to set the man straight, but Mr. Hawkins thumped his cane again. “I expect you to marry her, Hale, and if you won’t, well, I’ll make sure you never work again in this province. She’s set on you, even though you forced her, and—”

  “Mr. Hawkins, I assure you, I’ve forced no woman, least of all your daughter.”

  “Don’t make it worse by lying.”

  “When did you think I had time for s
uch doings? I teach from five in the morning till near four every afternoon—”

  “She says you took her down to the river one Saturday about three months ago.”

  “Three months ago?” That made it the end of May. His Saturdays were occupied with schoolteaching in the morning and loading supplies for Boston in the afternoon. He shook his head. “No, sir, every Saturday’s been spent helping with the relief for Boston. ’Tis true I’ve been down at the river, but so have about ten other men, and we’ve all been working together. We’d have heard such a rape, and stopped it.”

  Defeat replaced Mr. Hawkins’ indignation. “That’s what I told her, but she insisted. She’s lied before. She fancies you, Hale, and I guess she thought you’d marry her this way.” He folded his hands atop his cane. “Well, I’m sorry. I should have known you’re too honorable to take advantage. No hard feelings?”

  “None at all, sir.”

  “Let me buy you a glass over at the Three Eagles.”

  “That’s not necessary—”

  “Maybe not for you, but ’tis for me. Come on. We’ll drink our Madeira, and then I’ll go deal with Nancy.” He sighed. “Whatever you do, Hale, don’t have a daughter.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Guy planned an early evening so he might wake before dawn. Then, too, he felt sick. He had received a letter from Benson & Benson that left him queasy with its request for an interview. Companies usually summoned investors when the news was bad, and this was the worst time for any jeopardy to his funds. The Deacon had thwarted his wealthy marriage; he had resigned as customs officer; he was not, and never would be, a farmer. He had only his investment with Benson & Benson to keep him solvent. But winter had set in with a vengeance, and he was sure one of December’s storms had swallowed his ship.