Nazareth

by Tony Masero

  Once he was above on the main deck, Billy Lee was pleasantly surprised to find the crew a friendly lot. Many of them came up to take his hand and introduce themselves and it seemed to Billy Lee as if he had almost taken on the role of a celebrity mascot or good luck charm that they had saved from the sea.

  He was set to work with a mop and bucket when a hatchway was opened up and the imprisoned Indians were allowed up on deck to take the air. They were marched under a languid guard armed with a rifle and promenaded in single file around the perimeter between the main mast and the forecastle hatch. They were a beaten looking, hunched group of mostly males clothed in buckskin under blankets and they looked around fearfully as they walked, obviously unsure of what was happening to them. The guard paid them little attention, confident that there was nowhere they could go on the high sea and that they seemed to have little spirit to manage such a venture anyway.

  Billy Lee rested on his mop end and watched them over the keel of the upturned cutter tied off on the main deck. One Indian, he noted, stood out from the others, he walked with an air of assurance and there was an intelligent gleam in his eye as he took note of all around him. He showed some signs of a beating, with bruises and a cut high on his domed forehead.

  He was a handsomely featured man and his smoothly tanned face held a faintly Negroid quality about it with full lips and wide nostrils. He was a tall fellow, taller than the others and slender with a prouder demeanor than the rest and Billy Lee experimented as the man passed him with a few greeting ticks of sign language that he had picked up during his soldiering days.

  Quick as a flash, the man answered him with sign of his own.

  In such a fashion they greeted each other and crudely Billy Lee showed he had some sympathy for their situation and with a forefinger rubbed inside the other hand showing that he was beside them in a similar predicament.

  ‘I am Doctor Jack Phylus,’ the Indian whispered as he passed close by Billy Lee, who stared in surprise at the perfect English that put a complete lie to the Mate’s earlier assessment of the linguistic abilities of the natives on board.

  Doctor Jack Phylus! Billy Lee barely had time to get over the shock before he could utter his own name in reply.

  Over the next few days the two managed to communicate further and with the casual discipline concerning the passive Indians they were eventually able to talk on a regular basis.

  It transpired that Doctor Jack had been a part of a Travelling Indian Medicine Show. The popular entertainment that many Indians had founded along the east coat to supplement their existence. The travelling shows would put up at circuits travelling around the towns and display acts of juggling and vaudeville, perhaps perform a war dance or two and sell their cheap cure-all bottles of oil and medicine for seven cents or even a full dollar if the market would wear it.

  With a story of misfortune, Doctor Jack explained how he had been visiting some relatives amongst the Passamaquoddy when the blackbirders had come calling. Without delay they had been rounded up and the fittest amongst the men and the younger of the women quickly brought aboard the Bentley Sound despite the frequent complaints that Doctor Jack had uttered. All his cries had been ignored and it had resulted in some rough handling for the Doctor.

  They were well kept if a little overcrowded below deck and he told Billy Lee they were very much in the dark as to their intended fate. Billy Lee was able to tell the Indian what was happening and to explain how they were to be passed on to work on a plantation in Virginia.

  ‘So it is for my poor people,’ Doctor Jack told him one day, as they leaned together over the ship’s side. ‘We have no place any longer in the white man’s world. It is said of us that we live in enclaves of disenfranchised citizens bereft of any special status; the government does not want to hear of us or do anything about us. We are a nuisance they would rather see the back of, so I fear that these blackbirders will go unhindered as they steal people from their homes.’

  ‘It’s a damned poor show,’ Billy Lee sympathized. He knew the men aboard the ship were not deliberately unkind, they just saw no evil in what they were doing. Their low evaluation of the people they carried off permitted them to think they were acting as any entrepreneur might who sought to make a living off the backs of others. Unlike the early slavers the Indians were not treated quite as badly as the Negroes from Africa had been, they were better handled as it did the crew no good if the Indians arrived unfit for work.

  But to Billy Lee’s thinking the recent Civil War had been fought and many lives lost to put an end to such inhuman uprooting and use of people, whatever their ethnic origins. He determined to do all he could to help the Indians escape their intended lives of servitude.

  Chapter Five

  Battling fog and some severe nor’ easterlies, they eventually rounded Cape Charles five days later and entered the long waters of the Chesapeake Bay. A great flurry of fishing vessels crowded the estuary; two-masted skipjacks, bugeyes, smokestack dredgers and even log canoes sailed in strange weaving patterns around each other and did something to impede the brigantine’s course.

  ‘What’s this?’ Billy Lee asked the Mate, as he heaved a bucket of galley waste over the side.

  ‘That?’ said Partner, with a disinterested scowl. ‘That there is oyster boats. They got a little war going on here between oyster pirates and the legitimate catchers. See there,’ he said pointing towards the closing shoreline where a great drift of shells were banked up some twenty feet high and gangs of Negroes sat amongst the piles working away at flipping the shells apart for the meat inside. ‘Oysters is big business for the locals around here, lot of money to be made. Them little boats there, the canoes and such, they catch up the shells from the beds with scissor tongs and that’s a slow process. The big fellas, them in the steamers and sailboats, now they drop a scoop net and dredge. They reap them oysters off the bottom like corn from the field and therefore ain’t liked too well by the little guys.’

  ‘Are we heading through that lot?’ asked Billy Lee, looking at the zigzagging crowd of vessels that littered the estuary before them.

  ‘Aye, we’ll be making for the headwaters of the York River and into Mobjack Bay and Port Haywood. That’s where we’ll drop our Indians off ashore. Now get busy, LaBone, I’ve got to tell the Captain we’re almost there.’

  The sudden reverberating boom of a nearby cannon shot made them both duck instinctively.

  ‘Goddamn!’ bawled Partner. ‘What’s this now?’

  They both rose to look over the side and saw a tug with its chimney streaming smoke bearing down on a slender skipjack the crew aboard struggling to bring the ship around and out of the path of the steamer. Angry shouts echoed across the water followed by the sound of rifle fire. There was a boom again and smoke and flame shot from the front of the tug.

  ‘Lord A ‘Mighty!’ cursed Partner. ‘They have a cannon in the bow. This is turning into a right full-out battle.’

  ‘And we’re in the middle of it,’ said Billy Lee.

  ‘I’d better get the Captain.’

  He was about to turn to do so when Captain Bernard arrived at his elbow.

  ‘What’s going on, Mister Mate?’

  ‘It’s the oyster pirates, sir. They’re going head to head with the locals.’

  As they watched, the vulnerable skipjack took a shell in the side and a rending crash brought an explosion of splinters and smoke high into the air.

  ‘God’s teeth!’ said the Captain. ‘We’d best be out of here.’

  He turned to the steersman as a stray lead began to whip through the air around them and bullet holes appeared in the mainsail.

  ‘We’re taking fire ourselves now,’ cried Partner. ‘All hands aloft! Get out the way of that lead and give us some sail.’

  The tugboat had charged on at full speed towards the stricken skipjack and the fishing boat with its raked mainmast had neither the speed nor the wind to avoid the steamer. She was ill positioned and standing broadside to the ad
vancing steamer. Head on, the tug rammed the sailing boat and demolished a section of her prow with a rending crash that left a gaping hole in the side. Smaller boats were coming to the rescue as some of the wounded boat’s crew began leaping overboard and the waters before the Bentley Sound were suddenly blocked by a crowd of boats some still fighting with each other, firing off rifles and hurling whatever came to hand across at their enemy.

  The deck of the Bentley Sound became alive with activity as the crew struggled to bring the ship into a position away from the mayhem. The sails flapped as they lost way and one man aloft screamed out a warning as the damaged and uncontrolled skipjack rolled across their path. The fifty-foot long boat with its torn sails and broken boom was going down fast from the prow end as the holed side took in water but she still moved haphazardly in a veering pattern.

  ‘Bring her around!’ screamed Captain Bernard to the man at the wheel. ‘To the port, man. Oh, those damned fools, we’re done for.’

  The Bentley Sound slammed into the sinking wreck. As the ship bucked under the impact, Billy Lee looked over the side to see straight onto the deck of the skipjack. A few grim faced men looked back up at him but they soon vanished from view as the Bentley Sound ploughed on and over the remains of the fishing boat. It foundered in their wake and men and wreckage filled the surface of the estuary as the Bentley Sound moved on.

  ‘Get below, Mister Partner,’ called the Captain. ‘See what damage we sustained.’

  ‘We’ve lost steerage, Cap’n!’ called the man at the wheel and Billy Lee could see the wheel spinning loosely under his hands. ‘The tiller lines are gone.’

  Bernard looked up to see the nearing coastline looming larger with each passing minute, his face hardened, ‘There’s no stopping us now, we’re going aground if we’re not sunk outright.’

  Billy Lee saw his chance and ducked over to the gangway next to the main hatchway. Quickly he unfastened the latches holding the cover in place, it was a heavy section and usually needed more than one man to move. Billy Lee rapped on the wood, ‘You there Doctor Jack? Can you hear me?’

  All around the deck was in chaos, some ran to drop the sea anchor shouting mixed commands to each other whilst others scampered down from the rigging to find safety before the vessel struck and Billy Lee could not be heard over the sounds of panic.

  ‘I hear you, Billy Lee,’ replied the Indian. ‘What is happening? We have heard gunfire.’

  ‘Now’s your time, there’s all hell going on up here,’ said Billy Lee. ‘You boys lift this lid from underneath and you can make your getaway if you want it.’

  There was no reply from the hold but gradually the cover began to shift, with the Indians pushing from below and Billy Lee heaving the cover to one side above, soon there was a narrow space open but barely wide enough for the captives to pass through.

  With a slamming rumble the keel struck bottom, the ship jumped up slightly out of the water and then rolled back down to hit again with a thud that shivered through the whole vessel. The jolt freed the cover and sent it sliding aside. Doctor Jack was the first man out as the Bentley Sound roiled on, her timbers creaking under the strain and lines snapping as the ship twisted under the impact.

  ‘Keep low,’ warned Billy Lee, leading Doctor Jack along the side of the ship towards the stern. He looked back to see the other Indians climbing out of the hold but they moved fearfully, their eyes wide at the shivering timbers underfoot.

  There was an almighty bang from somewhere underneath the vessel and the main mast tilted, and with a creak the timbers began to splinter at the base.

  ‘The mast! The mast!’ Billy Lee heard Partner call out as a sheet of rigging tumbled down from above and slammed into the deck. With a ripping sound the mainsail tore apart and then a grinding crack and screech of broken timber as the mast began to tumble.

  Billy Lee and the Indian ran on at the crouch past men hiding as best they could from the falling halyards and running rigging that smashed and crashed around them.

  ‘Where do we go?’ asked Doctor Jack.

  ‘Over the damned side,’ Billy Lee called over his shoulder.

  Behind them the mast slammed down, its great timber flattening the cutter fastened on the deck and turning it into matchwood. As the mast plummeted it took a great section of rail and planking and went over the side. Cleats snapped and ropes whistled across the deck as the rigging was pulled away with the mast and then the ship tilted and a collective wail came from all aboard as she began to roll.

  ‘Now!’ cried Billy Lee, climbing up onto the rail in the stern.

  The two men leapt into the air as the stern lifted up out of the water and her dark underwater parts were exposed. With a splash they both landed in the water and watched the heaving stern above them, its underside coated with dank weed and barnacles as it gave half a turn and then twisted back down towards them. Desperately, the two swam away, plunging through the disturbed water as best they could.

  Heaving themselves out of the water and onto the muddy shore, both men looked back at the distant ship.

  Stuck on the shelving beach in the shallows, the Bentley Sound lay on her side, the wreck of the mast trailing in the water behind. They could see small figures running around the sloping deck and the jolly boat being lowered down the side.

  ‘Do you think any of your people made it away?’ asked Billy Lee.

  Doctor Jack shook his head doubtfully, ‘I think too many of them had given up already.’

  ‘Let’s get away ourselves,’ said Billy Lee looking around at the marshy flatland that they found themselves facing.

  ‘Where do we go?’

  Billy Lee shrugged and gave Doctor Jack a grin, ‘Who knows but we’ll have to get dry and find a place to rest up first.’

  ‘Thank you for your help,’ Doctor Jack said, solemnly holding out his hand. ‘I will not forget it.’

  Billy Lee took the hand and pulled the Indian to his feet, ‘Think nothing of it. Come on let’s move out before they come looking for us.’

  Chapter Six

  Minnie hit him with the iron skillet.

  Freddie was far too cocky with his backing band of fellows and he never saw it coming.

  Minnie made like she was doing as he said and reaching for her saddlebags to get the money but in one fell swoop she caught up the skillet by the handle and carried on around to smack Freddie a resounding bong on the side of the head. He went over like a skittle in a bar alley and fell as rigid as a post to the ground.

  Minnie had not stopped to see the results of her handiwork but instantly dropped the skillet and caught up her rifle, working a shell into the breach as she turned to face the other men.

  Each of them was quick off the mark and had a gun out and pointed straight at her. There was a collective click as hammers were cocked.

  One of them, a husky handsome fellow with an unshaven chin and wearing an Indian patterned overcoat, grinned appreciatively.

  ‘That was right nicely done, missy,’ he said, with an appreciative nod at the groaning Freddie. ‘Got to say, even I never saw it coming. Seems like you got some sand on you, girl.’

  Grim faced, Minnie pointed the Winchester at him. She was not about to give the men an inch and moving back a step at a time she worked her way towards the tree behind her, intending to find cover if it came to a shootout.

  ‘This ain’t going nowhere,’ said the overcoat, raising his pistol barrel away from her. ‘Old Freddie there was always a mite over excitable. Let’s say we talk, I’m Jethro Bayliss, this here is Barnaby Rogan and that’s Lester Boggs, Les we call him for short.’

  She eyed Jethro suspiciously, keeping her rifle pointed straight at him.

  ‘Hellfire! My goddamned head hurts like bursting,’ complained Freddie from his prone position on the ground and Minnie stepped away from him lest he attempt anything. ‘Anybody see blood?’ Freddie asked rubbing his head and looking at his fingers.

  ‘Don’t know about blood,’ chuckled Barnaby,
a tall bearded man in a buffalo hair coat. ‘But you sure going to lay an egg come morning, that skillet will raise a bump the size of a budding rooster.’

  ‘Look here, lady,’ butted in Jethro, holstering his pistol and dropping to his haunches whilst he warmed his hands at the fire. ‘We ain’t going to do you no harm. You got anything to eat? I’ll sure settle for that.’

  Minnie began to understand the hierarchy of the band of men and to her it seemed that Freddie was the weakest of the bunch and the one the others sent to do the legwork. Jethro it would appear was the true leader and although cautious she nodded in the direction of the grub sack indicating he was to help himself.

  ‘So you can’t speak, Freddie tells us,’ said Jethro foraging in the bag. ‘You got a name, miss?’ He turned to the others, ‘Hey, boys, lay up the weapons and help poor Freddie to sit up, will you?’

  The two obediently holstered their guns and smiling, went over to hoist the dazed Freddie into a sitting position against the tree. ‘Hey, Freddie?’ asked the one called Les, a hillbilly type in the remains of a threadbare Confederate outfit. ‘How’s your head? Got any brains knocked into place now?’

  Freddie looked at him ruefully, ‘How’d I know she was going to do that? Caught me unawares, is all.’

  ‘You are one dumb shit, Freddie,’ laughed Barnaby. ‘You surely are.’

  Jethro repeated his query, ‘What’s your name, sister? Appears you can hear even if you can’t speak.’

  She dipped the Winchester barrel in the bed of pine needles and dragged out the letters of her name, hesitating again before she added LaBone as a surname.

  ‘Okay, Minnie LaBone,’ smiled Jethro up at her as he tossed slices of bacon onto the recovered skillet. ‘So where’s the coffee?’

  Mostly the men ignored her as they gathered around the fire and delved into the hot food, all of them evidently as hungry as Jethro had suggested. Once they had their fill, the men stretched out beside the fire and lit up hand rolled cigarettes, sending Freddie off to bring their horses in and fetch a bottle of liquor from the saddlebags.