The Black Swan

by Day Taylor

  Ben and Beau stumbled over each other's words, each trying to teM Adam what his friendship meant to them. Finally Adam said, "Ready, Ma?"

  Ben and Beau rode with them to the fork that led to New Orleans. There they parted quickly. Ben and Beau watched until darkness swallowed even the turning of wheels and the jingle of harness.

  "D'you s'pose he's forgotten our pact, Beau?'*

  "Not Adam," Beau answered staunchly. "We've been going to be ship's masters ever since we had our first boat. He'll remember."

  The words were comforting, but both feared they were a lie. Adam Tremain had melted into the night. He was gone from them.

  Adam led the way, driving the two-horse dray while Zoe handled the carriage. Tom and Angela, almost engulfed in a pile of feather ticks, slept from exhaustion. Mammy was propped securely amid the furniture. "Effen some ghos' tries to git ol' Mammy, he gwine hafta fish me outa dese chairs," she declared, barricading herself. For the first mile or two she watched constantly to right and left, riding backward. Then weariness overcame her fear of the dark, and her white woolly head found a resting place. Soon her snores mingled with Tom's and the occasional snorts of ihe horses as they strained through muddy places or over broken ground.

  The night was alive with noises that frightened Zoe. She was accustomed to the nightly calls of the screech owl

  families that lived in the bald cypresses near the house. Out here, with the woods opening for their passage and seeming to close ominously behind them, their harsh, shuddering cries made her flesh crawl. The underbrush rustled with cottontails and the tiny furtive scuttlings of shrews and voles and weasels. For Zoe every noise was a stealthy footstep taken just out of sight behind her open carriage.

  Her arms ached. It was one thing to drive the light buggy on her daily round of visits and errands. It was quite another to go on hour after hour, scarcely able to breathe for fear of the unknown predators lurking out there, with one's arms and shoulders pinched and uncomfortable from urging on the reluctant horse that didn't like the night any better than she did.

  A heavy, prolonged crashing in the underbrush made her horse rear and brought a barely stifled scream from Zoe. "Adam!"

  He stopped, but did not leave the dray. "Are you all right, Ma?"

  2^e got the horse under control. Shaking, she answered. "No! I'm not all right! I'm frightened to death, and there's something in the woods over there!"

  "Hang on, Ma. I'm coming back, soon's I can wake up Tom."

  "Oh, Adam—^hurry!" she called, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

  He mounted the seat beside her, letting her hide her face in his jacket. "Well, hey there, Miz Tremain," he said, and she could tell he was grinning. Ghosses an' hants aftuh you?"

  "Adam, don't make fun of me! I did hear something!"

  He took the reins, and they started up again, Tom driving the dray. "Of course you did, but it was only a black bear looking for dinner."

  "A bear!?" she gasped.

  Adam chuckled. "He won't hurt you much. But he*s got the horses all excited. You stay awake so you can take the reins in case I have to shoot him."

  The sound Zoe made was between a yelp and a whimper. But for a while there were no more scary noises. She put her head on her son's solid-feeling shoulder and dozed. She awoke again when they stopped. Around them was a thick wall of mist. The dray, only a few feet ahead of them, was nearly invisible. "Adam, where are we?"

  "Partway up a small neck of land north of New Orleans. We take the ferry there across Lake Ponchartram. After that, only ten or twelve miles to Mississippi."

  Adam handed her the reins and went up to the dray. "How you comin', Tom?"

  Tom's hoarse voice sounded eerily through the droplets of mist. "Can't say I'm sorry we stopped," he said. "Think maybe I'll curl up on the tick until this stuff lifts."

  Mammy woke up, seeing the swirling fog in the graying light. "Mas' Adam!"

  "Everything's all right. Mammy," he assured her. "The horses need a rest. We'll go on as soon as we can see. We're safe now."

  "Mas' Adam! Iff en you cain't see us, how kin you tell we's safe?"

  Adam laughed. "As long as I can hear your voices, Manrniy, I know you're there. Not even a ghost would try to follow us in this gumbo anyway." '

  Long before darkness waned, they heard the sounds of a bayou morning. Not far in the echoing distance they heard the staccato drumming of the ivory-billed and pile-ated woodpeckers, louder then growing softer. A blue jay screamed its name. Wings fluttered as a flicker flew across the road, crying kikikikiki! The day creatures took the place of the night prowlers with their chorus of whistling, piping, booming, and trilling calls, above the low rasping kzrrrt! of the snipes and the nasal peent! of woodcocks. The sun, awake at last, burned a hole through the mist to lay a rainbow around the wide-awake, listening group.

  "Rainbow's de Lawd's good sign," said Mammy solemnly.

  "Mammy, my bellybutton*s striking sparks off my backbone," Adam complained. "Any slivers of ham in that lard can you packed?"

  "Sho' is, Mas' Adam." So, as the sun burned away the shreds of mist, they shared ham and cold hush puppies and water from the well back of their house. Then they moved on.

  By midday they reached the shore of Lake Ponchar-train and boarded the ferry.

  After that they traveled by day, away from the coastline with its wet, uneasy ground, into and out of the pungent pine forests of Mississippi, through a rolling land, ne-

  glected, its withered dry cotton stalks left to the sun and wind. Here and there they saw a newly plowed field polka-dotted with flocking white ibises. They followed wagon-rutted trails and occasionally cowpaths, having to stop twice to pry the heavily loaded dray out of the clinging mud.

  With immense relief and excitement they began to smell the familiar Gulf air. That day they entered Biloxi. The lighthouse cast its long shadow in the late-day sun as Adam led them along the wharves. He left Tom with the others and made inquiries among the steamship offices. Adam contracted for passage on the Goodenough, a large vessel carrying passengers and cargo. They would be at Aunt Le-ona's by the first week in June.

  Once aboard ship, they settled down to the long days on the water. Mammy spent her waking hours preventing Angela from falling or jumping over the side of the ship. Tom, surprisingly strengthened and cheered by taking his turn at the cross-country driving, experienced the first public antipathy to his ruined appearance. As he walked the decks, the furtive and curious looks followed him. He heard the hushed comments, blurring into a buzz as he passed. With steely determination he kept to his daily walks, and slowly the forced chatting with other men grew casual as they came to know him. Nightly he engaged in the games of poker, brag, and ramps. He won his victory. He was again accepted and liked, because he was likable; but he'd learned that becoming someone's friend was going to be immeasurably more difficult than it had once been.

  Adam's face was cast in a permanent bronzed smile. He was in his element. He was on a seagoing vessel moving through the Gulf of Mexico toward the cold, rolling waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He was never still. He talked to every seaman as long as that man's patience and store of information held out. He watched every activity from the closest permissible distance.

  While Adam was examining the myriad knots that held the lines, a ship's officer accosted him sharply. Adam's instant respectful answer and his evident passion for ships, gained him the first mate's permission to stand night watch and the captain's permission to take a closely escorted tour belowdecks and into the fo'c'sle. His avid eyes saw and catalogued everything from bulkheads to bilges, stokehold to

  galley. He had a thousand questions, but his logical mind stuck to learning as much as possible about one thing at a time.

  From the first mate he learned not only about the parts of a ship and their workings but about the men and their duties. Most important of all, he learned that he could sit for his second mate's papers when he was seventeen. By age twenty-one he could be a
ship's master.

  Halfway through the voyage Adam was standing by the rail, watching to the north an approaching line of small islands. A seaman touched his arm and saluted smartly. A devil's grin was on his face. "The captain's compliments, Mr. Tremain. I'm to escort you to the chart room."

  In the cramped area the men worked efficiently as Captain Connacher proudly unrolled his charts. "There aren't many of this quality to be had," he said, smoothing them out for Adam to admire. Turning from the charts, he showed Adam the compass, chronometer, and the binnacle. Suddenly his head went up, a look of satisfaction passing over his face.

  "Feel that water under your feet, Mr. Tremain?"

  Adam's eyes lighted. "It's different, isn't it, sir?"

  The captain nodded approval. "So, you did feel it. We've just come off the Gulf Stream. I'd know that feeling anywhere. It's truer and better knowledge than any chart will give you. Remember it, boy. If you've got the makings of a master, that feel will live with you all your life."

  "I'll not forget it."

  "Indeed you won't," the captain replied, and laughed. "You'll remember everything the sea has to teU you. She's an awesome mistress, Tremain. She doesn't permit a man many mistakes. And I'll warn you now, while you're still young and full of dreams, once she takes you as hers, she'll never let you go."

  "It's.too late already. Captain Connacher. I love the sea better than anything else in the world."

  Walking again on deck, it was easy to imagine it was his own. He gazed out across the smoothly rolling waves to the darkish line where blue water swallowed blue sky. Around him were nettings, masts, and stacks, and things called bow-chocks, davits, cleats, braces, halyards, sheets, chain plates—all pieces and parts of a steamship rigged for sail, things whose very names spelled mystery and adventure to Adam.

  Adam begrudged the years he would have to spend at the university before he could sit for his master's papers and captain such a ship as this. For the moment he gloried in the possessive richness of the borrowed deck, and felt through the soles of his boots the surge and pull of the Atlantic Ocean. Here, he knew with a joyous excitement, lay his destiny.

  Long before they came into the Wilmington pier, they sighted the many steeples, the high square tower of Saint James's Church, the fine homes with their shade trees and outbuildings. In the Cape Fear River running west of the city were a number of smaller ships, loaded flatboats, and barges. Over the entire dock area hung the sharp odors of tar, turpentine, and resin being shipped to ports all over the world.

  The passengers were being met by a peculiar assortment of Negro men, dressed in oddments of garb they thought attractive. All of them wore the badges that proclaimed them free; all of them clamored for business. "Ca'iage, suh? Ca'iage, ma'am?"

  Zoe retreated in indecision, and Adam took charge. "We want to go to the home of Mr. Garrett Pinckney, a lawyer," he said. "He lives—"

  The driver's face halved itself in a glad smile. "Yassuh, Ah knows dat house well. On Dock Street near Thud. Yassuh! Mistah Garrett Pinckney is a mighty fine gent'man, mighty fine, suh!"

  Mammy eyed the driver distastefully and said irritably, "Den quit chewin' de fat an' take us dere, nigger!"

  The driver said respectfully, "You a mighty fine Mammy, an' you thinks you knows ever'thin', but you doan, no'm, you doan. Dis way, ma'am! Dis way, suh! Watch de li'l lady over dem loose planks, Mammy!"

  Along the way the driver continued exceptionally loquacious, pointing out the Cassady Brothers Shipyard and the Marine Railway and the home of Mr. James Cassady. On Front Street they passed the imposing Georgian home of Governor Edward Dudley, where plans had been formulated for the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad and Daniel Webster had once been a guest.

  "Dar's Saint John's Lodge." The driver pointed to a building with shuttered windows and white-painted steps leading to a second-floor porch. There was a dignified, new

  double house with stone eyebrows over its five upper windows, near to a handsome brick home whose Hnes were accented by geometric ironwork. Everywhere were signs of construction.

  Leona and Garrett Pinckney hved in a two-story clapboard house, with wisteria climbing the porch and tall black gum and Spanish oak trees shading the yard. A latticed wall led them to the porte cochere, where the driver let them out with more beamings and good wishes.

  "Uppity free nigger," muttered Mammy darkly, as the carriage pulled away. "Talkin' up to white folks like he sumbuddy."

  Zoe said, "Oh, dear! Suppose Leona isn't at home!"

  Adam shrugged. "We'll find a place to stay until Aunt Leona returns."

  Zoe looked apprehensively at the door. I can't stand it if we have come all this way and Leona isn't even here."

  Adam laughed and raised the lion-headed knocker on the door, letting it fall with a resounding clank. "One way to find out."

  Chapter Eleven

  Leona Pinckney opened the door to see her small sister standing on the stoop, tears forming, her face forlorn. "Zoe! Zoe, my dear! My heart can't trust my eyes!" She gathered Zoe into her motherly arms, with Zoe laughing and snifiBing in relief as she tried to dab her nose. "Oh, Adam, you're a man!" Leona gave him a hug as strong and possessive as the one she had given Zoe. Then she saw Mammy, waiting with endless patience, approving the reunion of two of the three sisters she had reared. Leona hugged and clung to Mammy's stolid bulk. "I'm so happy y*all are here! I do hope it's to be a long, long visit!"

  Zoe's conscience smote her for dropping her problems onto an unknowing Leona. She looked toward Adam. "I'm afraid it's going to be more than a—" A smiling man appeared in the parlor doorway.

  Leona rushed to his side, looking up at him adoringly. "Zoe, this is my darling husband, Garrett." They made a

  striking couple, both gray-haired, tall, and big-boned. They even looked alike, with their aristocratic features and their direct way of looking at others.

  Zoe smiled hesitantly at this Yankee, the brother-in-law she had never met.

  "Leona, Garrett, there is something I ought to tell you. This isn't exactly a visit—"

  "Well, let's sit down and relax a bit, Zoe. Then you can tell us whatever you want." Leona busily ushered them into the parlor.

  "Leona, wait, please. We . . . had to leave New Orleans—"

  Garrett took Zoe's arm. "There's time for that, Zoe. Right now, Leona and I are just happy you made the journey safely. We'll deal with the rest later. You're welcome to stay here as long as you like."

  "Thank you, Garrett, but I must tell you right away. Tom and Angela were being hunted—may still be! Some men tried to kill him, and—"

  "Dear sister Zoe," said Garrett with maddening casual-ness, "let us go into the parlor where we can be more comfortable."

  "I'll just tell Cooky to put another potato in the pot,*' said Leona.

  Mammy took Angela into the kitchen, while Zoe, Adam, and Tom talked to Garrett. He listened with interest and no visible shock.

  Adam said, "We've pretty much put ourselves in your hands. We don't want to stay here under false pretenses. Perhaps you don't want to be involved."

  He didn't miss the glance that Leona exchanged with Garrett before she said, smiling, "You're welcome here. My Garrett is just a sweet ol' transplanted Northerner who never acquired all the Southern sympathies."

  Garrett smiled with tolerant affection at his wife. "Leona delights in telling people that around these parts I am considered a doughface. Those who know I am Northern think more highly of me than those who assume I am originally Southern. In either case my sympathies, or lack of them, cause some of the local folk to question my sanity. But rest easy, you will be safe enough here."

  "Garrett, if people are already worried about your Northern sympathies, we'll only cause you more trouble," Zoe said anxiously.

  "Not at all. I am merely the local eccentric, no more." He looked toward Tom. "My friends will be happy to give you employment, Mr. Pierson."

  "Call me Tom," he said hoarsely. "I thank you for the offer, Ga
rrett, but employment is about the only thing I don't need. I have a fair amount of money—if I can figure a way to get it out of New Orleans. As Adam told you, we left in a hurry."

  "And I had to leave some of Mamma's furniture, Leona. It nearly broke my heart to go off and leave all that behind." Zoe looked pleadingly at Garrett. "Perhaps you could help me find an agent—"

  Garrett laughed. "I thought Southerners never hurried! We'll arrange it all tomorrow. Leona, perhaps Zoe would like to see the house. I'm going to the docks to-get their goods. Adam, will you accompany me?"

  When the men left and Tom was resting, Leona proudly showed Zoe Garrett's law certificate and other treasures he had brought from the North.

  "Oh, Leona, Garrett is a fine man!" Zoe exclaimed.

  "When I think that I wasn't sure I should, marry him, I actually feel like fainting!" When her first husband. Clay Thomas, died in the Mexican War, Leona had thought her life was over. Then she had fallen in love with the attorney who was clearing up Clay's estate. Still starry-eyed after two years of marriage, she wished the same for her younger sister. "I don't suppose there's a gentleman in your life, Zoe?"

  Zoe shook her head. "I've only loved one man."

  "Romantic tomfoolery! We know plenty of eligible gentlemen, and more than enough young ladies to delight over Adam. I will never understand how Paul Tremain sired a boy like him! He is such a handsome thing!" Leona cooed, mentally planning parties.

  "Leona, really!" Zoe laughed. "Please keep in mind he is only sixteen years old."

  "I wasn't judging merely by looks," Leona said, piqued at the implied criticism. "He is quite mature, and what else would be expected? After all, with Paul inebriated so often, somebody had to be the man of the house." At Zoe's pained look she said, "Well, I'm sorry, but it's time you quit mourning for a marriage that never worked out. If Papa had realized the kind of man Paul was, he'd never have allowed y'all to marry.'*