Shad Run

by Howard Breslin

  SHAD

  RUN

  The story of a reckless

  Beauty and two men

  Who faced death

  For her love

  HOWARD BRESLIN

  Author of THE SILVER OAR

  SHE HAD THE MANNERS OF A TOMBOY—

  AND THE HEART OF A WOMAN.

  In all the Hudson River Valley of 1788, there was no lovelier, gayer, more headstrong girl than Lancey Quist. She was the daughter of a fisherman and proud of it.

  Life had taught her to handle men—or so she thought—until she found herself in love with two of them at the same time.

  Dirck van Zandt was the suave and handsome son of a rich landowner. Justin Pattison was a rough outlaw who had taken part in Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts. In addition to being rivals in love, the two men were bitter political enemies.

  Lancey finally made her choice—after a bloody duel had revealed the man she really wanted.

  Cover painting by Clark Hulings

  Duel for a Lady

  Lightning cracked overhead, and the rain beat down mercilessly. Two men, ten yards apart, faced each other in violent hatred. Each man held a pistol at his side, waiting.

  Nearby stood a beautiful black-haired girl, afraid to watch, unable to turn her eyes away.

  She had given her wild kisses to both these men, each in his turn. And now, each wanted her for his own.

  In a moment the question of who was to have her would be settled forever—in blood.

  The signal for firing would be the next bolt of lightning that ripped across the sky!

  Shad Run was originally published by

  the Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

  Other books by Howard Breslin

  THE TAMARACK TREE

  LET GO OF YESTERDAY

  THE BRIGHT BATTALIONS

  *THE SILVER OAK

  *Published in a PERMABOOK edition.

  This Permabook edition includes every word contained in the original, higher-priced edition. It is printed from brand-new plates made from completely reset, clear, easy-to-read type.

  SHAD RUN

  Thomas Y. Crowell edition published October, 1955

  Doubleday Book Club edition published February, 1956

  PERMABOOK edition published September, 1956

  1st printing…………July, 1956

  Copyright, 1955, by Howard Breslin. All rights reserved. This PERMABOOK edition is published by arrangement with the Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  PERMABOOK editions are published in the United States by Pocket Books, Inc. and in Canada by Pocket Books of Canada, Ltd.—the world’s largest publishers and distributors of low-priced books for the entire family.

  For Pat

  And Knowles

  The shad still run up the river every Spring, and the Hudson’s tides flow much as they did in 1788. All else is changed, the town on the east bank, the people, even the document so bitterly discussed, and the nation it made possible. This story is fiction set in a year of history. Except for certain, easily recognized, historical figures, all the characters are invented. For the beauty of a river beyond his invention, the author has always been thankful.

  Book One: EBBTIDE

  CHAPTER I

  THAT YEAR THE ICE BROKE ON THE HUDSON RIVER IN MID-March, neither unusually late nor early. Though the time was right, there had not been much warning. The winds of the month had carried no hint of thaw as they swept the frozen surface, raising thin feathers of spindrift. On the west bank patches of snow still clung to the Highlands, mottling those dark cliffs like worn spots rubbed through an old bearskin. Across the Hudson, in the town of Poughkeepsie, other tin-melted clumps made a skewbald pattern on the narrow, brown roads. There was one huddled behind a corner of the courthouse; a sloop, drawn high at Shipyard Point seemed to be resting on a bed of dirty cotton batting.

  True, the day had been clear and sunny, but it wasn’t warm. If leads, the open crevices in the ice, had widened under the feet of the skaters who’d descended the bluff to sport on the river, a cold night would refreeze them. Not even the most weather-wise thought that the pale gold of the setting sun promised change. Even Lancey Quist, who should have known better, was caught completely by surprise.

  The first reports were loud, startling—a crack like a snapped tree, a thud like a fired howitzer, the rapid splintering such as a sledge might make as it crashed along the pickets of a fence.

  Hearing, Lancey Quist stood motionless. The cold air turned her breath of amazement to smoke. She was facing west, below a ridge that hid the river, but she could see the rampart of the higher bank on the far shore, and the sun starting to dip behind it. It was, Lancey thought, a sun very like a cookie, thin, butter tinted, with an edge of tan crisp around its rim, and the bottom already nibbled by the ragged crest of the Highlands.

  “God and Nicholas!” Lancey said, swearing.

  Standing there, chin raised as she stared upward, the long skirt alone showed her sex. Lancey was not tall, a scant three inches over five feet. The knitted cap pulled down over her ears for warmth hid her hair. A bulky man’s coat, sailcloth dyed blue, knee length, was belted over her gray homespun dress. All her clothes were worn and mended; her mittens didn’t match.

  Even the girl’s fine features, the straight nose, the long black eyelashes, the curved brows, could have belonged to a too pretty youth. If the bone structure of cheek and jaw-line seemed delicate, the mouth, full lipped, was too broad for beauty. Her skin, faintly olive, was as smooth as polished hardwood.

  It was a face that displayed every mood, every change of emotion. Now, it darkened as surprise was replaced by anger.

  Her small body was tense with outrage. She knew what the sounds meant; she’d been raised on the riverfront. In all her sixteen years she had never heard those seasonal signals with such bitter feeling.

  “No,” she said, “no, no, no!” Her hazel eyes flashed, and she stamped her foot. The blades of the skates she was carrying clashed together, jangling.

  It wasn’t fair. It simply and damnably was not fair! She was four miles south of home, and she had tramped the whole way down warmed by the thought of skating back. She had lain behind a woodpile, skulked around corners, suffered agonies. Fingers and toes had grown numb while she waited her chance. They were still numb. In fact, she was chilled clean through, limbs, ribs, sit-down, everything!

  If I’m that frozen, Lancey thought savagely, how can the ice be breaking?

  She didn’t really doubt that it was. She’d heard the river was open almost to Fishkill Landing, but that was eight miles or more farther south. Usually she’d have welcomed the sight, counted the floes joyously, as her river shook loose the frosty shackles that had locked it bank to bank. Not today!

  “One more day,” Lancey said, aloud. “Just one. Less. A couple or three hours!” She wasn’t pleading, or praying. The words crackled as she spat them out, arguing against the louder crackling from the river.

  Then, because she had to see, she began to run. Raising her skirts knee high, Lancey raced for the top of the ridge. She ran well, lithely, feet drumming surely up the twisted, uneven trail. Her speed, the quick, sprinting strides, the easy balance, were all more like a boy’s than a girl’s, but there was nothing boyish about the legs flashing from the gathered red-and-white swirl of her petticoats. These, in spite of her height and the coarse brown knitted stockings, were long and shapely.

  The skates clanged at every step; and Lancey felt an angry impulse to hurl them aside. Her arm went up, but she checked the movement.

  Still running she raised them to eye-level, glared at them. The pesky things had given her a deal of trouble. Then her glare softened. They were well made, pert and neat. The blades gleamed i
n the late sunlight, bright and sharp, hollow-ground; the wooden uppers, flat-topped hulls like toy boats, were carved to fit under the sole of a lady’s shoe. There were leather thongs to tie them on, and the wood was painted the same scarlet as Lancey’s wool cap. That color was what had first caught her glance.

  The girl stumbled, skipped to regain balance, went on. A grin flashed as she mocked her clumsiness, pride, she remembered, went before a fall, but she was proud of the red skates.

  At the top of the ridge Lancey emerged from tree shadows full into the rays of the sunset. It bathed her in soft light, without warmth. She didn’t notice it, or that the wind had died. Panting, she stared down at the river, aware only of the chill of disappointment. Her heart was pounding, her cheeks glowed, but she seemed to draw in coldness with every breath, draw it deep, down her throat, through her chest, deep into her.

  “Oh, God,” she said, in a whisper. “Oh, Nicholas.” The noises hadn’t lied. The ice was breaking all right, and in a final fashion. Already the shingle at the foot of the opposite bank was ragged with a tumble of white boulders, tossed ice cakes. The river’s surface was as cracked as a dropped stoneware platter.

  While Lancey watched, the cracks widened into gaping toothless mouths that showed dark water. Here a fresh lead darted, a moving black streak that forked, and the forks split in turn; there a network of breaks suddenly spread out like the starring of a stone-hit windowpane. The sunshine made golden ripples where a wave splashed across a floe.

  “Oh, damnation!”

  Lancey’s wail admitted defeat. Her shoulders slumped and she bit her lip. She knew her river; this was real thaw. Unless unseasonable weather struck there’d be no more skating in this March of 1788. The Hudson’s tides, tired of winter, were in command again.

  With a sigh she took a skate in each mittened hand, shaking her head over them as a younger girl might mourn a broken doll. They were such good skates! Theophilus Anthony had made them, and all Poughkeepsie knew the big blacksmith for a skilled ironworker.

  Lancey was near tears. She had pictured herself skimming home, cutting fancy figures, swift as a bird, graceful and daring. She had imagined the applause of all the riverfront folk.

  “Useless things now,” she said, “and not worth the stealing!”

  As she spoke she glanced over her shoulder. It wasn’t, Lancey thought, really stealing. She’d only wanted to borrow them, try them. Maybe she was guilty of coveting her neighbor’s skates, but they deserved better than prissy, silly Rachel Anthony. That one, with her airs, a fur muff to keep her hands warm, and those mincing, careful glides as if she feared she’d break if she fell! Call that skating?

  Anyway, it was Rachel’s own fault. If she hadn’t come down from town with the skating party that very morning, showing off, she might still have her skates. Just because her father was a fine smith did she have to flaunt temptation in front of others?

  Serve her right, Lancey decided, if I never returned them. Her own skates had wooden runners that no amount of honing could keep sharp. Her brother Ten Bush owned a better pair, bone beef ribs, but much too big.

  Standing on one foot Lancey again measured a red skate against the sole of her square-toed, flat-heeled shoe. She nodded at the fit. What luck that Rachel had small feet, too!

  Another thought cheered her. Maybe the thaw was Providence, after all. If there was no more skating this year, the Anthonys might not even miss the skates! Rachel was careless. She’d merely tossed them on a woodshed bench as she went in to supper.

  Lancey was turning away, slinging the skates over her shoulder, when she heard the yell.

  She whirled so fast her skirts flared from her ankles. The wordless shout, at once a cry of distress and rage, seemed to hang in the clear air. There was plenty of light from the dome-like sun on the cliff across the river. She saw the horseman at once.

  He wasn’t far, a quarter mile to the south, but she hadn’t glanced that way. She knew instantly what bad happened. Everybody used the frozen Hudson as a roadway; the drovers herded cattle across it. This rider, more reckless or unfortunate than most, had ventured to cross at just the wrong time.

  Lancey judged he’d been coming from the west, and he’d almost made it before the break-up. He must have been past mid-stream when she’d heard the first reports; he was only thirty yards off the east shore now.

  The horse, vivid against the ice as a scorch mark on white linen, had gone through rear first. It was tilted, haunch deep, head tossing, floundering as its front hoofs thrashed on the ice. Lancey heard the frightened whinny, saw the rider, a darker figure, slip from the saddle with a swirl of cloak.

  The man stayed beside his steed, hand on bridle, trying to help. With splash and crash the ice gave beneath the pounding horseshoes, and the beast plunged in to its withers. For a moment the man stood erect, looking surprisingly tall because the black-maned neck reached only to his knees. Then he, too, broke through, dropping straight down as if pulled by the bootheels.

  That shocked Lancey into movement. She started with a leap, still gripping the forgotten skates.

  “Hold fast,” she called, shrieking, “and don’t thrash about!” After that she saved her breath for running.

  Full speed, she darted down the slope toward the river’s edge, feeling the angle of descent add to her momentum. There was no trace of path here, and twice she almost went headlong, but she kept her feet in spite of loose stones, and tripping brush. At that pace and distance it was a hard run even for Lancey, and she swore silently at the skirts bunched around her thighs, the skates bumping against a hip.

  As she ran she searched, too busy to spare a glance for the victims trapped in the ice. This strip of shore was level shingle, looked bare of everything but rocks. With a flare of irritation she blamed the horseman for not crossing between settled places, where rescue would be easier.

  “Dumkopf,” Lancey muttered, lapsing for once into the Dutch of her fathers.

  The wind was rising again. It fluttered her raised petticoats as she slowed, still searching. For all the thaw the wind had a raw sting.

  Lancey’s head turned as she scanned the bank for rubbish, a discarded board, an old plank, something flat, anything. When she heard thrashing, another high-pitched neigh, the girl turned riverward angrily.

  A black hole circled the pair now. The horse, swimming, thrust against its edge in vain. When the man, hatless, tried to climb out the ice crumbled under the weight of his arms. He sank in a spray of slush and Lancey didn’t breathe until the pale head bobbed alongside the horse.

  “Don’t!” Lancey screamed, winded, straining her throat. “Save your strength, you addle-pated fool!”

  He shouted an answer, but she didn’t listen. The remains of an old campfire, a charred scar on the gray shingle, drew her gaze. Then she saw the slab of driftwood that somebody had used for a bench.

  It was too thick, taller than herself, but it was better than nothing. Lancey paused only to strip off her mittens, and lash the skates to the belt of her coat. She didn’t mean to lose them whatever happened.

  She heaved the slab upright, stooped, took its weight on her shoulder. Balancing it with both hands she carried it to the river’s edge, lowered it carefully until it was flat on the ice.

  Lancey calmly studied the problem; she figured the distance, judging the thickness of the ice. The man in the water was waving at her, yelling, but she was too detached to bother with his nonsense.

  When she stopped panting she bent double, and put her palms on the near end of the driftwood. In that position, pushing the slab ahead of her, Lancey walked out on the ice.

  It was thawing indeed, and fast. Before she’d gone a dozen steps the cold wetness seeped through the worn-thin soles of her shoes, and after that she was sloshing. Lancey didn’t let the discomfort hurry her. As steadily as a lad pushing a baby on a sled she trudged forward.

  She was counting on her lightness, and she covered more than half the distance before the surface change
d underfoot. She could feel movement, a swaying like that of a floor under the stamp of dancers.

  Lancey got down on her knees, and crawled. The slush soaked her clothes, froze her knees and shins. She knew the ice was getting dangerously thin. It shivered and trembled from the current beneath it.

  It must look, Lancey thought, like eels squirming under a canvas cover. She didn’t stop to look, but gazed ahead.

  The hole was much nearer, and she could see them both, a blob of face, a long tan streak of muzzle. They were both staring at her. To Lancey the horse had a double set of eyes, white and rolling above, black flaring nostrils below. She shook the fancy away, and the ice snapped loudly.

  “Go back! Go back, you little idiot!”

  Lancey sniffed at the man’s shout. Huh, she said silently, idiot your own self. Who got in this fix anyway?

  She made the last few yards flat on her stomach, inching forward with careful pain. It seemed to take an hour. She kept her chin raised, but the rest of her ached from the wet, cold, and chafing. At last the jagged tip of the slab touched the rim of the ice.

  “Child,” said the man in the water, “are you crazy?”

  His voice was so calm and exasperated, despite chattering teeth, that Lancey stared at him. Very blue eyes in a white face gazed back at her. Cold had turned his lips to a livid slash, but he tried to smile. Hair like wet straw had come loose from its queue, was plastered along one cheek.

  “Grab a hold,” Lancey said, annoyed. Her teeth chattered, too, and increased her annoyance.

  He let go his grip on the ice edge to reach with the hand still clutching a long strand of rein. The movement brought the horse’s head around, and startled Lancey.