by BJ Hoff
This would be Hoey, she presumed.
The man doffed his hat and bowed so low he almost chinned himself on the planking. “At your service, Mr. Kane!”
Jack tossed a coin to the boy who had fetched the runner before turning to the strange little man. “I seem to recall that you were going to send word the day the Providence dropped anchor.”
The man nodded vigorously.
“The ship put in two weeks ago, you little monkey! Why wasn’t I told?”
The runner gaped. “Two weeks ago? Why, I didn’t know, sir!”
Jack nailed him with a black scowl that made Samantha cringe. “You were to keep a sharp eye out for certain passengers I described; isn’t that so?”
“Indeed, Mr. Kane! But as luck would have it, I was sick for a time, don’t you see.”
Jack waved off the man’s attempt to explain. “Hah! Sick, is it? I know you, Hoey; more than likely you’ve been in your cups since the day I gave you the money.”
The wiry runner seemed excessively nervous under this cross-examination but again made an effort to defend himself. “Now, Mr. Kane, sir, I’m not a drinking man, and that’s the truth! The ship must have put in while I was indisposed. Sure, you can’t blame a man for a bad stomach, now can you?”
For the first time, Samantha got a glimpse of Jack’s legendary temper. With one hand, he gripped the lapels of Hoey’s coat, practically lifting the bantam runner off his feet. “ ’Tis not a smart idea to take my money and not give me what I paid for, Hoey! And now that I think of it, I believe we have had this discussion before.”
“I’m on it right now, Mr. Kane, I swear to you! I’ll have the information you want yet today, I will! No later than tomorrow for certain!”
When Jack still didn’t release him, Hoey’s eyes bugged until Samantha felt almost sorry for him. Jack was twice again the size of the little runner, after all. And why had he paid the man in the first place if he didn’t trust him?
“Jack.”
If he heard her, he pretended not to, though he did finally release the frightened Hoey. “I’ll expect to see you at the Vanguard first thing in the morning, and no later. You’d best be there well ahead of me, mind, and with the information I want. Understand?”
Hoey nodded so violently he nearly lost his ridiculous hat. “But, sir—Mr. Kane?”
Jack’s eyes narrowed.
“It—it occurs to me,” the little man stammered, “that these passengers you’re expecting—if they weren’t met when they put in and you’ve had no word of them, they might be at Tompkinsville—the quarantine hospital.”
Jack seemed to consider the idea, then gave a nod. “It’s possible.” He jabbed a finger in the air at the runner. “You hotfoot it over there yet today, d’you hear? Ask after a girl named Terese Sheridan. As I told you, she’ll be traveling with two youngsters by the name of Madden. See what you can find out.”
Hoey shifted from one foot to the other, obviously eager to get away. “I’ll go right now, Mr. Kane! This very minute. And I’ll keep on the situation until I find them.”
“First thing tomorrow, Hoey, don’t be forgetting it.”
“First thing tomorrow it is, Mr. Kane! You can count on me, don’t you know?”
Jack gave him a murderous look, and the man went scurrying down the dock.
Samantha watched him go, then turned to Jack. “Why don’t we just go to Tompkinsville ourselves?”
Still scowling, he turned toward her. “I’d hardly be taking you to that miserable pesthouse, Samantha. Besides, let the little soaker earn his money.”
“I imagine I’ve been in worse places than Tompkinsville,” she said mildly.
“Not with me, you haven’t,” he snapped, his tone and the look in his eyes making it clear the subject was closed.
“Is it a bad place, this Tompkinsville?” Cavan said, speaking for the first time since Hoey had come on the scene.
Jack exchanged a look with Samantha. “It’s a kind of hospital,” he said, “a place where they detain immigrants who are ill when they come into the country.
“Brady did say the Madden children weren’t all that well,” Jack continued, in an attempt to spare Cavan further alarm. “It could be that they’ve been taken to the quarantine center for a time. Just until they’re found fit.”
“Please don’t worry, Cavan,” Samantha put in. “We’ll find them.” But even as she spoke, her mind went to some of the more harrowing stories she had heard about quarantine facilities. There had been frequent attempts on the part of some of the city’s politicians and concerned citizens to have the place razed on the premise that it was a health hazard.
For the most part, Samantha thought the concern about quarantine stations was probably justified. Some of the tales about such places were the stuff of nightmares. Silently, she hoped Cavan’s sister and the children had somehow managed to find their way to a decent lodging house rather than being held at Tompkinsville.
From what she knew of quarantine hospitals, Jack’s reference to Tompkinsville as a “pesthouse” might actually be too kind.
10
A BITTER HOPE
There is always hope for those who will dare and suffer.
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
Terese stood at the top of the hill behind the quarantine hospital, her eyes averted from the trenches where numberless dead had been buried—one of the most recent being wee Tully Madden. The child had died in the night, finally surrendering to weeks of fever and a cough that would have devastated a man grown.
Terese had watched the tyke die, her own insides wrenching at the sound of the death rattles in his throat—a dreadful sound and one she remembered all too well from the time when her own mother and sisters lay dying. She swallowed, biting down hard on the acid taste of a grief she did not want to feel, telling herself she could not afford to expend what strength remained to her on the death of a child she had hardly known. And yet she did grieve for the sunny-faced little boy who had deserved so much better than a painful death in a mean, cruel place among strangers who had not even noted his existence.
She glanced over at the boy’s sister. Shona had not uttered a word since her brother’s death. Even after the attendants took away the small, wasted body for burial, the girl had remained speechless, weeping silently for her brother. Now her pale features registered no emotion at all.
Terese feared for her. The girl had been frail when they started the voyage, and by now she was little more than a shadow. But it was her mind that concerned Terese most. Throughout the crossing, Shona had spent entire hours without speaking, staring straight ahead with a vacant gaze as if she had no real awareness of her surroundings.
Ever since their arrival at the quarantine hospital, she had withdrawn deeper and deeper into herself; at times she hardly seemed to be breathing, so quiet, so listless had she become. Only her little brother had managed to rouse her from her peculiar soporific state now and again.
But with Tully gone, Terese could not think what would become of the girl. For that matter, she didn’t know what was to become of either of them unless she could somehow manage to find a way out of this abysmal death trap.
But perhaps she had found a way. While standing at the grave site, a plan had begun to form in her mind, a plan that might just mean escape from this miserable island. It would mean stealing, and Terese had vowed never again to resort to such an act—especially in light of the fact that only months ago she’d very nearly landed in a Galway gaol for stealing a basket of bread.
But which was the greater sin, she wondered, stealing a piece of paper or ignoring a chance to save a child’s life—and perhaps her own in the process?
She shifted her poke—the sack that held her meager belongings—and glanced down at Shona. The girl stood clutching her own small satchel close to her chest, her eyes glazed in the familiar numb expression. Although she appeared to be studying the trenches of fresh graves before them, Terese questioned whether she actually saw
anything at all.
After a moment Terese turned from Shona to watch a throng of people descending the hill. These were passengers from another ship, the fortunate ones who, having passed a final medical inspection, had just received their tickets to freedom. As they hurried along, many waved their precious papers of escape—the papers that would allow them to leave the quarantine center and enter the city. At the same time, an even larger group—new arrivals—were making their way up the hill.
Terese’s mind raced, her mouth going dry as her gaze locked on a woman and a young, ginger-haired girl trying to jostle their way through the band of immigrants hurrying down the hill. With one hand, the woman gripped the girl’s arm, while in her free hand she held the same papers of release as most of the others.
The two looked to be having a difficult time threading their way through the crowd. Terese’s gaze traced a line from the papers in the woman’s hand out toward the docks. She hesitated only a moment before grasping Shona’s hand in hers, anchoring the girl at her side.
“Come on,” she said, her voice low as she began to move toward the crowd. “Hurry!”
The ground was mud-slicked from the cold rain that had fallen the night before, but Terese took the hill at a near run, stumbling more than once in her haste as she pulled the wooden Shona along beside her.
When they reached the others, Terese wedged herself and the girl into their midst with little effort, snaking through the crowd until she was directly behind the two she had singled out. The woman was bone thin and shabby, clad in little more than rags; the girl was even more wraithlike than Shona. Heart pounding, Terese swallowed hard, then in one swift, lightning move kicked out, smacking the woman in the backs of the legs with enough force to throw her off balance.
The woman cried out, her feet flying out from under her, the passes sailing out of her hand as she fell. The others around them either didn’t notice or didn’t care, going on down the hill as Terese, dropping Shona’s hand, made a pretense of stopping to help the woman.
In the press of the crowd, she almost went down herself but somehow managed to scoop up the passes with one hand while pulling the woman to her feet with the other. She grabbed for Shona then, pushing herself and the girl quickly forward, squeezing their way through the others until they were almost at the front of the crowd and well on their way to the docks.
By the time the frenzied wailing rose far behind them, they were boarding the ferry for Manhattan, passes in hand.
With a silent, trembling Shona clinging to her skirt, Terese stood at the edge of the South Street port, looking out toward the ragged streets of New York. Her face stung, slashed by the frigid wind and driving rain. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever be warm again.
The scene in front of her was almost enough to drive her back to the quarantine station. The streets teemed with people, all of them hurrying and shouting, many in languages she had never heard before today. She saw peddlers pushing carts filled with rags, and other dark-faced men in tattered clothing hawking hot chestnuts, apples, and other delicacies. The spicy smell of food drifted out on the wind, and her stomach clenched in a fierce stab of hunger.
As she watched, arrivals from the docks meshed with the bustling crowds in the streets, some chattering loudly, excited; others scurried along, shoulders hunched against the elements, looking as apprehensive as Terese felt. The churning in her stomach was as much fear as hunger, and she fought down a surge of nausea. Panic pressed in on her as she considered the situation in which she had thrust herself and the girl at her side.
Here she stood, in a strange city in a foreign land, without so much as a familiar face or a recognizable landmark. She had no way of knowing what had happened to the newspaper people who were to have met them, no idea where to look for them, where to go…what to do.
Her attention was caught just then by two suspicious-looking creatures coming toward them. Brady had warned her about the runners, the unscrupulous leeches who preyed upon arriving passengers in an attempt to bilk them of their money and any other belongings. Instinct told Terese that the two heading their way might well be of this class of brutes.
One seemed little more than a boy, with a cheeky grin, a shiny coat, and an exaggerated swagger. The other was older and badly in need of a shave and probably a wash, from the looks of him. Both were eyeing Terese in a calculating way as they approached. The older man did not seem all that interested, no doubt because he saw no fine luggage or other signs of prosperity. The younger of the two, however, continued to appraise the length of her with eyes that made Terese think of a fish gutter.
“Can we help you and the wee miss?” The younger spoke first, his voice unctuous, his eyes still clinging to Terese’s form, which in truth had filled out some with the child she was carrying. “Perhaps you’re in need of directions or decent rooms to let?”
The two planted themselves in front of Terese in such a way that she suddenly felt trapped.
“Not at all,” she said, forcing a note of confidence into her voice. “We are waiting for our friends, so you need not concern yourselves.”
The two glanced at each other, and this time it was the older man who spoke. “Ah, so ’tis Irish you are then?” He cracked a gaping grin, and Terese could almost smell the rotten breath that surely emanated from that toothless cavern. “We are Irishmen ourselves and bound to look out for our own. Come along with us now, and we’ll take you to safe lodgings where you can stay as long as need be.”
Terese was aware that the two were closing in on them still more. Suddenly angry, she bared her teeth and made a slashing motion with one hand. “Didn’t I say we’re meeting friends? Now let us pass, if you please!”
The young one thrust his face only an inch or so from hers. “Ah, now, you needn’t pretend with us. We’re here to help you and your little sister, don’t you know? We’ll see you safely to the city and a proper place to stay. Here, now, let us help with your belongings,” he insisted, making as if to relieve Terese of her sack.
“You’ll be taking us nowhere at all!” she hissed at him, lunging sideways with Shona firmly in tow.
The younger of the two bounders was quick and blocked Terese’s move, his maddening smile still in place even as a definite threat glinted in his eyes. “A comely lass like yourself alone on the city streets is an invitation to trouble itself! Be a clever girl now and come along with us. We know a fine boarding house where you and the wee lass can have a good meal and a warm bed for a reasonable rate.”
“Are you deaf as well as ugly?” Terese shot back. “We’re being met, I tell you! We are in no need of your assistance!”
With that, she surprised him by stamping on his foot, then hauling herself and Shona off at a fierce run.
The cobbles were slippery from the rain, and Shona was weak, stumbling and faltering as she went. But Terese was determined to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their pursuers. She kept going, her chest pounding as much from anger as exertion as she dragged Shona down the street beside her.
They didn’t stop until they reached a narrow alley. When Terese looked back, she was relieved to see no sign of the runners. Apparently they had decided that two poor, hungry-looking girls were not worth their efforts.
With their backs to the entrance of the alley, they stood watching the mass of pedestrians pushing past. Finally, because she did not know what else to do, Terese took a tight grip on Shona’s hand, and, with the girl snug at her side, slipped in among the crowd.
She had no thought of where they were going, no idea as to what to do next. She knew only the need to get away from the docks, to make her way into the city that beckoned.
They trudged down the street, so close to those hurrying by that they could overhear a jumble of conversations in different languages all at once.
Yet in spite of the host of strangers on all sides and the child clinging tightly to her hand, Terese had never felt more alone in her life.
11<
br />
A FUTILE SEARCH
They brought her to the city
and she faded slowly there.
RICHARD D’ALTON WILLIAMS
NEW YORK CITY
It was Sunday morning before Terese and Shona finally reached the forbidding brick building that housed the Vanguard.
They had spent the night huddled in the doorway of an abandoned warehouse. Once again Terese was more than thankful for the emerald cloak Brady had bought her back in Ireland, for its folds were generous enough to keep the chill from both herself and the girl. The overhang of the building warded off the worst of the rain and kept them fairly snug.
Even so, it had been a long, uneasy night. For the most part, the few people who passed by ignored the two desolate girls in their crude shelter. In the deepest hours of the night the city seemed to pulsate with strange sounds and even stranger inhabitants. Terese felt as if she hadn’t been asleep at all, though in truth she had managed to doze some off and on.
She had awakened long before dawn with a fierce gnawing in her belly and a sick taste clinging to her mouth. By now they were both famished. They hadn’t eaten since the day before at the quarantine center, a breakfast of thin gruel that wasn’t enough to satisfy even a puny child like Shona.
They might have found the newspaper building the day before had they not gotten themselves lost numerous times. The directions gleaned from strangers had varied widely enough so that each route they followed led them to a different place. Finally, with darkness and a heavy rain settling thickly over the city, Terese had given up the search and sought shelter for the night.
This morning, with the help of a jolly pushcart vendor’s directions, given in broken but understandable English, they had found the Vanguard building at last.
But the doors were locked, and from all appearances the building was empty.
Dismay swept over Terese as she remembered that this was Sunday. Of course no one would be working, even at such a big, important enterprise as the Vanguard.