The Devil's Workshop

by Donnally Miller

  Tavish was leaning towards Katie, trying to comfort her, when just that moment they heard the sound of galloping hooves from behind. Vincenzo, who was mounted and looking over their shoulders, was the first to see the new arrivals. Two men on horseback were pounding down the Road. One of them had a hook where his hand should have been. Vincenzo, recognizing who they were, gave Neddy a quick kick in the belly and hurried away fast as the pony could take him. But there was no chance he’d outrun the steeds of Barnacle Jack and his companion. Jack also had recognized Vincenzo and, elated at this sudden good fortune, was bent on running him down. The two horsemen passed Tavish and Katie in a blur and fell on Vincenzo, who was attempting to load the musket while still riding the pony. He was unable to fight them off and quickly succumbed.

  “Hold your hands up,” said Barnacle Jack dismounting and holding a pistol. “Elijah, go through his pockets.” Elijah put his hand into Vincenzo’s pockets, where he found many doubloons and pieces of eight. Vincenzo glared dead hatred at Jack the whole time. “Well, I think you’re going to tell us where the rest of this gold can be found.”

  Vincenzo was silent.

  “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? There’s things can be done about that.”

  Meanwhile Katie was squatting where she’d fallen. Tavish had ripped her dress off and she was passing copious quantities of blood and urine. Tavish took his own shirt off and laid it beneath her so she wasn’t directly on the ground, but there was really little that could be done. She moaned and tried to lie down, then squatted again, her hands tearing at her own belly as if they could tear the pain away. It was an arduous ordeal, but in the end the baby’s little body was flushed out also, with the blood and other tissues.

  Tavish lay beside her and held her as she cried. She cried great sobs that shook her whole frame. He thought of the sulky girl he’d walked next to through the night now transformed into this grieving woman. He wanted to comfort her with his every last fiber, there was nothing he wouldn’t have done to give her even the slightest consolation, but there wasn’t anything to do except lie beside her and hold her as she wailed her grief at the naked sky. He whispered words of love in her ear though he was certain she’d never hear them. Her grief was beyond the depth that could be known, and she was racked by terrible sobs, and Tavish felt each sob as though it was a wound to his own body. Gradually, as time passed, the relentless outbursts of sobbing became more gentle. Slowly the moaning ceased. She wrapped her arms around her chest as though she was holding herself together. She moved her legs. She closed her eyes and from somewhere deep inside soothing waves of comfort came to her anguished soul. In time she slept.

  Tavish still lay beside her, one arm trapped under her body that he didn’t dare move. This tragedy had befallen them so unexpectedly, so needlessly, it was impossible to see any good in it. But of course there had to be good in everything. It was simply a matter of finding it. He was interrupted in his reflections by Neddy who, being ignored, had now wandered over to his old master and was nuzzling Tavish on the shoulder in expectation of being fed. Tavish carefully drew his arm out from beneath Katie and sat up. As he did so she stirred and whimpered something in her sleep. It took only a glance up the road to see that things weren’t going well there. Vincenzo had made an effort to stab Jack with his knife and make an escape. But Elijah had grabbed him before he could get away and Jack had unloaded two bullets into his chest. With his last dying breath he’d told Jack he’d never find the gold where it was buried. Jack let out a roar because he realized he’d done for his source of information and apart from the gold Vincenzo had on his person the rest was still as tantalizingly out of reach as ever. He and Elijah searched through everything Vincenzo had been wearing, extracting a few more coins and a watch and other odds and ends and then, seeing that Tavish and Katie had remained where they were, they decided to find out what they could tell.

  Barnacle Jack approached Tavish saying, “I’m sorry. It appears this gentleman has caused you some grief also. I would not disturb you at this time, but it is of some import to ask what you know of him. I doubt he was a friend of yours.”

  “Certainly not,” answered Tavish. “I’d never cast eyes on him before today when he came to buy our pony, and finding we wouldn’t sell, he stole him from us.”

  “Did he take anything else?”

  “The pony and his bags, but those we’ve recovered, thanks to you. And that musket I see lying there, that was ours.”

  They were on a small hill, and the elevation gave them good views of the surrounding countryside. A small distance to the east they could still see the abandoned farmhouse they’d passed in the night. The Road stretched along by the shore, empty as far as they could see in both directions. To the south lay the Forest, and to the north the Sound, and on the horizon they could make out Lost Bastard Island. Jack looked all about and then asked, “Which direction did he come from?”

  “He caught us up in the direction we were going, towards Kashahar.”

  Katie opened her eyes.

  “He had some of our gold on him,” said Jack. “Pity I shot his lights out before he could tell us where the rest was hid but he was that nettlesome a caitiff I found I’d killed him before I’d thought on’t . . .There were a few other knickknacks on his person; I don’t know if any of these are yours?” And here he held out the items they’d taken from Vincenzo’s pockets, among which was a watch which bore a design of knots and tangles. Katie’s eyes went wide when she saw that. She took the watch and opened it, and inside was inscribed, “From your own darling Katie.” At that she gave a cry, and tears burst from her, for she saw now that Tom must certainly be dead, he’d not have given that watch away. She saw it all now, that this man had killed him and taken it from him, this same man who’d given her the blow in the belly that also had killed Tom’s child. And she wept. She saw that her travels had been only a terrible waste and that all her love and her care and her hopes were all come to nothing. And here on this small hill not far from Kashahar she knelt down and wailed her grief for all that had happened and for the emptiness that was all that was left in her life.

  Jack turned to Elijah. He said they’d best go back the direction Vincenzo had come from, see if they could find his tracks that mayhap would lead to where he’d hid the gold. So they mounted their horses and rode back slowly, looking to see where he’d gotten onto the Road. The sound of their hooves soon faded into the distance.

  Tavish found some blankets in the saddlebags he could use to cover Katie. She was in no condition to move. Also he found a couple carrots for Neddy. What with one thing and another he kept himself too busy to dwell on what would have to be done for Katie, or where it made sense to go now. He kept his head turned away from the corpse of Vincenzo lying on the road a little ahead. When he heard Katie’s breaths coming steady he dug a hole to lay the little thing that was almost a baby in, then covered it up. He stood and cast his glance in all directions. Surely all the omens were bad except the ones that were worse. Was there a word for that he wondered.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  SORROW AND THE TRUE NATURE OF GOD

  Tom would have come to a bad end in a matter of days from starvation or some other cause had it not been that he was found by that one individual who values life in all its forms and who sees the good in even the worst and most downtrodden specimen. He was captured by a slave trader. It’s a tale worth some telling.

  From an early age Harry Blackstone had been certain that anyone as clever and good-looking as himself was destined to be more than just another street urchin in Kashahar. He had devised numerous schemes to rise above his lot and take a place among the elite. His first enterprise had been selling forged theater tickets. When that dried up he managed to walk away untouched and since then he’d served as a broker for stolen goods, a seller of rum without paying the tariff, a merchandiser of homes on land that didn’t exist, and various other roles. At times the loot had come rolling in, but mostly it had
n’t, and he’d never acquired the bankroll he needed to achieve his goal of rubbing shoulders with the city’s upper crust.

  When he reached his thirties, he began to have the feeling he should stop relying on his luck and instead find a job with a salary. He’d watched as the oafs and lackwits he’d grown up with had traveled that route and were now looking like getting established. Through a friend he’d made in the constabulary he was able to get a job as an assistant warden in the jail, where he’d found he could wear a uniform, act tough and be bone idle and get paid for it.

  One day, as he was seated in his office, picking his teeth with a toothpick he’d whittled from the leg bone of a rat, he had an inspiration. A call had gone out from the great landowners. The slave trade had been disrupted and many slaves had escaped and now, at the height of the season, they needed slaves. Harry asked himself a most important question: what was a slave? Everyone seemed to think it was someone whose skin was black. But Harry realized that it wasn’t the color of a man’s skin that made him a slave, it was putting chains on him that did it. Why did the slave dealers go to the jungle to find their slaves? Because the men there were black? No. Because the men there could be put in chains. Well Harry looked around and he saw he had plenty of chains. And due to all the recent upheaval, many were the lost souls wandering across the land. If those plantation owners wanted slaves as badly as they said, they wouldn’t quibble if a few weren’t exactly black. Putting those facts together gave him a jolt that got him out of his seat and set him to pacing around. His cells were currently empty, with the exception of one occupied by a local drunk who made it a habit to sleep there almost one night in seven. Currently he was passed out on the floor. Harry walked to the bars of his cell, looked in at him and said, “Barney, you’re a slave.” He opened the cell door, roused Barney and clapped him in handcuffs. He then collected all the cuffs and chains he could find in the prison, loaded them into a sack on his back and led Barney out the door to begin the search for his next slave.

  But first, the sack on his back was dragging him down so he decided to call on a pair of brothers who’d been accomplices in some of his previous undertakings. He liked these two because they were strong and didn’t ask a lot of questions. They were stupid and sadistic too, but apart from that they were nice guys and always sweet to their mother. He explained how his new business operated and asked if they wanted to get in on the ground floor. They allowed as how they were open to the idea and they’d always wanted to learn how slave driving worked. The two brothers were named Dane and Bramij. Dane was the brains and Bramij was the muscle though truly none could tell the difference. Harry handed the sack to Bramij, but Dane said, “We’ve got a slave. What’s he for?” So Barney ended up carrying the sack of chains.

  Harry decided on a back and forth route in the woods around Kashahar that would allow them to pick up whatever stragglers could be found. Any who couldn’t give a good accounting of themselves – in other words, any who didn’t fight back – were fair game. He planned to do this for a few days and then take them down to the slave market in Indradoon to be sold.

  He was giving Dane and Bramij a little instruction on the fine points of his plan as they walked down a forest trail. The early morning mist was just rising from the ground. Harry enjoyed the sensation of being out of doors. Too many of his days lately had been spent surrounded by iron bars and walls of stone. Suddenly he saw a pair of young blacks skinning a deer in the woods. Harry stopped, put a finger to his lips and pointed out the quarry to Dane and Bramij.

  “How do –“ said Dane.

  Harry shut him up and gestured to him to whisper.

  “How do we catch those two?” whispered Dane.

  Using hand gestures, Harry described how Dane and Bramij could sneak through the woods and approach the two from opposite sides. When they executed this maneuver the two blacks put up a good fight, getting in their share of blows, but after a brief scuffle they were cuffed and added to the chain behind Barney.

  “Are you going to return me to my master?” asked one, whose name was Amos.

  “You belong to me and I’m going to sell you to a new master.”

  “I’ll never go back. You’ll have to kill me first,” said the other, whose name was Daniel.

  Dane had taken a blackened eye in the fight and Bramij had wrenched his back. Now that the slaves were handcuffed, Dane took the opportunity to pay back the slave who’d hit him by punching him in the face.

  ”Hold it, hold it,” said Harry. “You’re mauling the merchandise.”

  “Look what he did to my eye.”

  “I don’t care. But if he has a black eye that comes out of his price. I mean to sell quality goods, not someone all beat up.” Dane looked crestfallen. “Look, you can’t just clobber these slaves. That’ll cost us money.”

  “Can I kick them?” asked Bramij.

  “I guess that’s alright. Just don’t leave any marks.”

  So Bramij kicked them a few times till the pain in his back got worse. Then they resumed their back and forth trek, now with three slaves in tow.

  That night they made a campsite by the side of the trail. Harry had saved the deer the two blacks had been skinning and had forced them to carry it for him. Now he made them build a campfire to roast it on. He enjoyed a succulent meal with Dane and Bramij while it was only water from a nearby freshet and whatever they could chew from the hooves and the marrow bones for the three slaves. Harry set Bramij to be guard for the first watch of the night and then he and Dane went to sleep. The slaves tried to do the same. The day’s exertions had taken their toll on Barney. He had a bad tremor and his pants stank of urine. He’d noticed Bramij taking a few swigs from a hip flask and he pleaded with him to share what he had.

  “Say one word more and you’ll regret it,” was all the answer he got.

  Amos asked Barney how he’d gotten captured.

  “I got drunk and passed out. When I woke up I was in chains. Didn’t know they could do that – could make someone a slave. I’m not like you. You’re a real slave.”

  “You mean I was born a slave.”

  “Blast your stinking ass I said keep quiet!”

  “You were made a slave,” Amos went on. Bramij walked over and hit Barney with his stick. When he went to do the same to Amos he just gave Bramij a look of contempt and said, “Don’t try it on me.”

  “Then don’t make me have to.”

  After this there was silence, only broken by the occasional rustling of the chains when Barney shook.

  The next morning they overtook two Indians, one of them a squaw, accompanied by a white man in a cloak. These were cuffed and added to the chain gang. Harry quickly realized that the squaw, who happened to be young and of healthy appearance, created a worrisome complication. Dane and Bramij made no secret of their plans to rape her and it occurred to him the other slaves would likely do the same – he’d heard about the blacks. In principle he had no objection, but he foresaw a host of arguments that were certain to arise, so he announced that from now on there’d be two chain gangs, one for men and another for women. He was going to oversee the women’s chain, while Dane and Bramij had custody of the men’s. He added that everyone had to keep their filthy paws off the squaw, whose name was Breezy Woodchuck, and that she was his personal property. Bramij quickly objected, arguing that he had played the largest role in her capture, so by rights she should belong to him. Harry tried to make it clear to Bramij that in this business he had no rights; that rights were something only he, Harry, had, because this was his idea, and if Bramij was left on his own without Harry he’d soon see what a hopeless bugger he was. The conversation was a long one and very repetitious but, the exchange of ideas having been accomplished, everyone decided it was now the middle of the day and high time to get something to eat.

  Barney and the blacks were almost fainting with hunger, but of course Harry had nothing for them. Barking Dog, the Indian, had a little fruit, which he shared. Harry took Breezy
aside and told her she was not to mingle with the others or listen to what anyone else said. He told her she was his personal slave and no one else was going to touch her.

  “You can put me in chains,” she said, “but I am nobody’s slave.”

  “We’ll discuss this further tonight,” he answered.

  Meanwhile Dane and Bramij were amusing themselves with the cloaked man, who was attempting to recite a prayer. They’d let him get the first words out, then they’d hit him and tell him to shut up. That would make the man puke and lie down some, but he’d never shut up, so they’d just hit him some more and they were having lots of fun playing this game.

  While they were doing this Barney asked Barking Dog if, in addition to his fruit, he happened to have anything to drink. “I could almost kill for a drop of the real thing, or even some wine.” But Barking Dog had nothing.

  The cloaked man, having recovered from his most recent beating, was back to his prayers. “Deliver me, o Lord, from the evil –“

  “Blast your stinking ass!” said Bramij, bringing his stick down on his shoulders.

  “—man; preserve me from the violent man; which –“

  Dane hit him too.

  “Keep quiet. You’re just going to get yourself hurt,” counselled Daniel. There was silence for a while, broken only by the sounds of Dane and Bramij eating. Then the cloaked man whispered, “—which imagine mischiefs in their heart –“

  Dane put his face right up to his, almost eyeball to eyeball, and said, “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?”

  “—continually are they gathered together for war.” But after that he said no more.

  They captured another that afternoon. He was wearing the uniform of a soldier, but he’d lost or thrown away all his weapons. He’d been a cobbler in Port Jay till his house burned and he joined the army. His name was Pete and he hadn’t put up any resistance when they cuffed him and put him at the end of the chain gang. They stopped and took a break after this. Harry looked at his rag-tag band of creatures: one – two – three – four – five – six men and one woman. He still had a few chains in the bag Barney carried but he guessed this would represent a good haul, and soon it would be time to head towards Indradoon. He was pleased by how well his new business was working out.