The Downeaster: Deadly Voyage

by Paul Thomas Fuhrman

  Jim MacKenna smiled. “I want Mary— she has t’ know how I feel about Kayleigh.”

  “Well, me boy, while yer waitin’, just think about having a shippin’ line in our hip pocket, a happy daughter, and a few grandchildren to carry around on those shoulders of yers. Wud yer Mary like that?

  “What’s the name of this line? Where’s their office?”

  “Christison and Son. Third floor of the India Wharf building.”

  Eamon Kavanagh made the sign of the cross as the two departed into an East Boston fog.

  ***

  William Jr. looked up from his desk to see a man step from the shadows and stand at the bottom of his table. It was Saturday evening, nine p.m., the close of William Jr.’s business day. Jack O’Corkerane spoke, “Sorry to startle ya so, Mr. Christison. I won’t be here but a minute. There’s talk that yer firm is in trouble. I might be able t’ help a bit if yer’ll hear me out.”

  William Jr. soon gained control of his composure. “Who are you? You’re Irish. Who let you in? There’s no work for you here.”

  “The door was open. Maybe th’ watchman fergot to latch it closed. I mean yer no harm. I’m here t’ talk business, buyin’ and tradin’. Ya do something for me and there’s money in it fer yer.”

  “You’re proposing something illegal. My family—”

  “Yer family got what it’s got by tradin’ rum fer human flesh, African slaves, from the Gold Coast. It was yer grandfather Alva that made the money. Don’t throw th’ honor of yer family at me. Seeing how ya sold two ships fer what cash ya could get, I’d say yer honor is fast runnin’ out on ya.”

  The Irishman smiled; his brogue grew soft.

  “Now, what if I knew how ya could make some money? What if I could help ya ship yer crews? What if I could help ya with the docks?”

  “You’re Irish scum. I doubt—”

  O’Corkerane ignored him and continued, “We raised two armies here and invaded Canada twice. Did ya ferget that? Have ya any idea th’ money I collect? What if I could arrange a cargo fer ya t’day? What if ya got premium freight rates and a bonus if gets it to San Francisco quickly?”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. The freight would be in railroad equipment for the Central Pacific, equipment they’d be willin t’ pay a premium fer ’cause it’s too much money t’ drag over the Rockies.”

  “How?”

  “Have ya heard of Jim MacKenna?”

  “The blockade runner during the war?”

  “Yes, Kayleigh MacKenna’s father.”

  “I’ll be damned. She never said so.”

  “All I’d be askin’ of ya in return would be to ship some barrels fer me to Liverpool, machinery; that’s all. Well, a dollar or two if it came t’ that.”

  “I’d be smuggling!”

  “What’s smuggling but avoiding taxes and tariffs? D’ya think old Alva would refuse me? Everything would be cash.”

  “How much money are you talking about?”

  Eleven

  The Psalm of Solomon

  If thou must love me, let it be for nought

  Except for love’s sake only.

  —Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Saturday, April 27, 1872

  Boston

  Kayleigh watched Isaac build the fire in the parlor fireplace of the little house her father had bought for her near the hospital. It was still chilly in the evenings. She watched as he carefully layered the wood using only his left arm and hand. When the time came for the match, she produced the box, opened it, and handed the match to him. She held the box so he could strike the match. How she enjoyed such moments, the commonplace they shared. He stooped, lit the fire, and stood next to her. He placed his arm around her waist and said, “I have something for you.” He kissed the top of her head, and with his left hand gave her a small jewelry box. “I can’t open it. I don’t want to leave you, to leave you with no bond between us except words. Will you marry me?”

  The moment had come. It did not come as a storm as she had imagined it would, but gently, reflecting the man she loved. She looked at him, imagined his anticipation, saw the expectations he harbored in his smile. It was at that point the tears broke. She knew it was time to tell him. How angry would he become? What would he say? The anger would be justified, no matter how bitter. She wanted his love.

  “I’m not a virgin...”

  He replied, “Is that what you’ve been holding back?”

  “Isaac, you don’t deserve me. How could you ever trust me? Wouldn’t you always wonder?”

  Her hands started to tremble. Did he notice? She tried to hide them in the folds of her skirt.

  Useless.

  He replied, “Do you trust me? You’re not some wanton woman; there’s more. Tell me.”

  “I’ve been raped. It was my fault.”

  She grasped her hands in front of her. One hand grasped the other briefly as if each hand wanted to hide the other.

  He noticed. His face. What will he say?

  He replied, “What happened?”

  She had no control of her guilt, no control of her fear, and the sobs came as tears welled in the bottoms of her eyes, then reddened them and left her lashes wet. They irritated her and she rubbed them with the backs of her hands. He offered her his handkerchief. She took it, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose into it, and when she realized what she had done, she felt embarrassment, foolish embarrassment. When she looked at his face, she saw that he smiled.

  “I was in college. I met this boy who was so patient with me. He seemed to be tender, like you. I trusted him completely, just as I trust you now. Hanna warned me. My ma warned me. My pa forbade me to see him at all.” She saw no hint of anger; his eyes remained soft and focused on hers, and she heard him tell her to go on.

  “I met with him alone in his friend’s house. He grabbed the hem of my skirt, lifted it, and touched my thigh, the inside, above my stocking. I brushed his hand away before—then he grabbed my breast. He tore my clothing, ripping my blouse open.”

  She pointed to her bosom.

  “I told him no, to stop. I begged him.

  “He called me a bitch, an Irish whore who should consider herself lucky to be taken by a man like him. He placed his hand up my skirt again, past my—I clawed at his face. It bled. He hit me with his fist, knocking me down. That’s when he—I saw his manhood. Oh, Isaac. I couldn’t fight him off and—”

  He interrupted, “Who said you were at fault? Who?”

  “My priest. It’s what everyone knows.”

  He replied, “They’re wrong. You’re wrong. You fought.”

  “I’m afraid of—I don’t know if I can share my bed—just the sight of it again—”

  “Shhh, listen to you. How many times have you held my hand to your breast? How many times have we kissed? How many times have we been to the edge, our bodies demanding each other? Ask yourself why. Has it been only me?”She heard his words and struggled to reply. She opened her mouth. Pain, fear, sorrow, joy, each held it open; she gasped for words, but no words would come.

  He spoke. “Why did you wait this long to tell me? Why couldn’t you trust me? I knew it. I knew every time you remembered it. It came to you while we were—you sat on my lap. Don’t you think I knew? Those words you’d say. Things happen. The coldness that followed.”

  She replied, “But you don’t know—”

  He replied, “I know about carrying a piece of hell with you. I know about dreams. Even making the fire—”

  “It’s not the same. It’s not rape.”

  He replied, “No, it’s not. The suffering has to stop. The bastard took your virginity, but he’ll not take you from me. Come closer, please.”

  She looked into his eyes and stepped toward him. He held her.

  “I’ll not let you go, not me. It’s up to you, Kayleigh. Marry me or leave me. I’ll have a decision. Rest your head on my chest, just one more time; let me remember this.”

  She did.

  He asked,
“Are you afraid of me?”

  No answer.

  “I’m leaving for Bath tomorrow. Don’t let me leave without something, even if it’s no, that you’ll not see me again, you’ll not marry me. I still want you, rape or not, affair or not. I love you.”

  Kayleigh knew there was no retreat. The time had come.

  “Isaac, undress me. Don’t question me. Undress me, please; I can’t by myself, the buttons on my blouse. I can’t reach them in back. Isn’t that silly?” She smiled.

  He started to say, “I’ve only my—”

  She would not let him finish his words. “Do it slowly. Please? I need you to undress me slowly. Start with the blouse, please.”

  Kayleigh wanted to feel the heat and tension of desire, to feel this need consume any fear she might have. She hoped his actions would be slow, kissing her body, caressing it, his passion leading hers. She hoped her arousal would triumph over her fear and free her from her past.

  Griffin asked no questions.

  He stood behind her and removed her blouse; he helped her from its sleeves and let the garment fall in front of her. Then he removed the pins holding her hair to the top of her head. He gathered her hair and placed it over her right shoulder, letting the hair fall to her front. He kissed the nape of her neck. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his.

  He resumed slowly removing her clothing; when her camisole fell, she wore nothing above her waist. He stood at her back. He placed his arms around her while making no contact and held his hands out with his palms toward her body, offering them to her. She hesitated, then placed her hands on his, whole and maimed, and brought them to her breasts. She remembered his hand. “Does it—”

  “No, hold it there. Let me imagine.”

  He removed the remainder of her garments and knelt before her. She reached for him with her hands, bringing his face against her belly. His arms closed around her naked hips.

  Kayleigh’s emotions resembled an ingot of molten steel being drawn on a forge by a blacksmith’s hammer. She felt the heat of passion and no fear. The forging continued hammer blow by hammer blow, drawing her ever stronger, ever more resolved. She thought of her soul; she thought of her innocence before God.

  “Isaac, I want God to bless us. Pledge your love to me before Him.”

  Griffin responded, “If you were another woman, another time, I might simply tell you what I think you want to hear. I can’t. I won’t do that. We should marry. Were you taught the Bible, the Old Testament, and the Psalms of Solomon? Do you understand it?”

  She whispered yes.

  Then he said, “I am your husband and take you as my wife. My life is as much yours as mine. I will have no other. I will protect you always. I will be the father of your children. You are my beloved, my partner with whom I will share all of my life.”

  She felt joy, her face warmed, but she cried.

  “We don’t have to do this, not for me, Kayleigh.”

  “I want to do it, Isaac.” She stopped talking. She raised her hand and gently touched his lips with her fingers.

  “Then I am your wife, the mother of your children, your loving companion for the remainder of my days, and my life is as much yours as mine. I take you as my husband, my beloved. May God bless and witness our union.”

  She heard him reply, “Amen.”

  Kayleigh did undress Isaac; she wanted to. She touched him there beneath his linens and observed him close his eyes and draw breath in deeply and slowly. She was now Eve and every woman since time began.

  Kayleigh’s eyes had seen nakedness at the hospital. Yet Griffin’s body astounded her, delighted her. It was pale where his clothes hid him from the sun. His back, shoulders, and arms were heavily muscled; there were tattoos, and there were scars. She had no fear of him because she knew he was hers, smiling gently and offering himself to her, kneeling before her in supplication.

  They knew they would never forget this moment. They were to both give and receive their gifts of love and passion. It was apparent to her he had known women before, women who accepted their nature and his without shame, as he had told her. They’d taught him how to please. They’d taught him that patience and tenderness yielded to passion. This he gave to her. For this she thanked them without jealousy, for he was hers alone.

  Now Kayleigh felt something entirely new. It exceeded whatever pleasure and urgency she had once enjoyed by her own hand so long ago. She wanted him within her. She wanted him to feel the tumult in her body, to enjoy it with her, for him to understand. She was his mate and he hers. She felt no shame and made wordless voice to the pleasure she felt.

  Afterward, he had fallen into the slumber of Sampson, a still slumber. Was he aware of her?

  She remained awake to look at him, to observe him sleep, to listen to his breathing, and to kiss his lips.

  She withdrew her lips from his when he started suddenly. His body jerked to a sitting position. “What if you are pregnant? We’re finding a judge. We can’t wait. Come to Bath with me. We can have a few days more.”

  “We’ll find a priest, Isaac, a priest.”

  Twelve

  The Ship

  An’ Bill can have my sea-boots, Nigger Jim can have my knife,

  You can divvy up the dungarees an’ bed,

  An’ the ship can have my blessing, an’ the Lord can have my life,

  An’ sails an’ fish my body when I’m dead.

  —John Masefield

  Monday, April 29, 1872

  Bath, Maine

  The Providence had been towed from the William Rogers Shipyard and lay at anchorage with only the captain, his steward, and his second mate on board. Not too many days ago, the deck of the ship rang out with activity, the blows of caulkers’ mauls, and the aromatic smell of Baltic tar and oakum being forced into the seams of her deck. Her top hamper became alive with activity. Riggers shouted while setting in place the miles of hemp line comprising her running rigging and crossing yards. These workers also had bent her white canvas sails and furled them on the yards they had crossed. Her sinew and muscle now adorned her towering wooden skeleton. The ship’s repairs were now complete, and today, in the light of daybreak, the Providence rested silently at single anchor in the Kennebec River near Bath, Maine, as if to gather her courage for what lay ahead. She would round Cape Horn in Antarctic winter.

  The purpose in Bath, now that her repairs were finished, would be to provision the ship with naval stores and rations, ship a skeleton crew, and await tow to New York. There she would load railway equipment for San Francisco and ship the remainder of her crew for the passage around the Horn.

  Henry Lennon—the second mate and Scouser—Liverpool born—stood alone on the ship’s deck holding a cup of coffee in his hand and watching the large dory approach from the starboard. His captain was ashore in Bath. Two old watermen quarreled as they rowed the boat. Henry Lennon could not hear their argument, but he knew why they squabbled: boredom. The scene appeared entirely mundane: a working boat being pulled by watermen on a river sided by sawmills and shipyards. A ferry sounded a long blast as it cleared its slip. Today would be a good day; the barometer remained both high and steady. Lennon heard the ensign snap occasionally in the cold wind. The second officer saw four boys in the dory and knew their names and the reason they would soon arrive aboard. The boys were why the second mate waited patiently on deck warming his arthritic thumbs with a steaming cup of coffee.

  The boat approached and discharged the young men at the accommodation ladder. Since the apprentices, the brass bounders, were indentured to the shipping line and not the ship, they had been contracted for the entire voyage, to New York for cargo, to San Francisco for grain, to Liverpool to discharge grain, and to fill the ship’s huge hold with general cargo for Boston. The voyage would, at the minimum, take the greater part of a year.

  Edward Smallbridge, Nicholas Priest, and the Ernst brothers—Jeremy and Richard—climbed the accommodation ladder to begin their initiation into becoming deep-w
ater sailors and square-rigged ship’s officers. Had a full crew been aboard the ship, there would have been a timekeeper to ring the ship’s bell eight times, marking the end of the watch: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

  A watch ended; theirs had begun.

  Edward Smallbridge was the first of the boys to catch Lennon’s attention because he dressed like a sailor and carried a worn sea chest on his shoulder as a seaman would. He was also short and wiry—a born captain of the topgallants. Lennon noted the sailor’s neckerchief, sheath knife, and well-worn sea chest with its tight beckets and neat carving of a Grand Banks schooner.

  Then there was Nicholas Priest. The second mate felt like swearing and did. “Damn that man! He’s sent us a consumptive. This is no sanitarium.” Lennon knew Priest had never worked a day in his life—a mouth to feed that would not earn its keep.

  “Damn!”

  The Ernst brothers presented an altogether different appearance, woodsmen and lumberjacks, tall and well-muscled, with tanned faces and confident strides, the picture of youth. Their sea chests were new.

  Lennon knew the brothers would be a step behind at first. The two would need to watch the real seamen when an order was given. The younger boy—the boy with the wide eyes—would want to please the mates and the older seamen for a word of praise, and Richard Ernst would soon be anticipating orders and acting too quickly. Both brothers needed to learn to work in unison with the men of their watch. All these boys could be dangerous if not watched closely. The sailors would grind out their rough edges, and he and the first mate would hone them into men—hardworking seamen.

  Henry thought of the work he and the first mate, when he arrived, would need to accomplish with these boys. He removed his weathered derby, scratched his head, and muttered, “Two rubes, a sailor, and one we’ll surely bury at sea. Shit!” Then he demanded, “I’m Mr. Lennon, second mate. Who are you?” There was no hint of a welcome.

  “Edward Smallbridge, sir. I’m from Boston.”

  Lennon remembered meeting a Smallbridge once before.