“Whaling!” Lancey said, heavily. She was committed to her brother’s cause, but her heart favored her father. Life would be lonelier without Ten Bush. “Why in the world does he want to go whaling?”
“Lancey, after two marriages I’m only sure why a man wants one thing. But, since he does, I hope you can talk my man around.”
“It will take a spate of talking.”
Cocking her head, Hester lowered her voice. “Well, the pickle already saved you some.”
“Saved me?” Lancey stared at her stepmother. The gray eyes were twinkling. “How do you mean?”
“They was both,” said Hester, nodding toward the door, “too upset to notice, and they ain’t noticeable men anyway. Otherwise—not meaning to pry, Lancey—they might have wondered why you come home with a rumpled dress and bare ankles.”
“Oh.” Involuntarily Lancey glanced at her feet. She suddenly remembered Dirck van Zandt, felt her cheeks grow warm.
“It’s all right,” Hester said. “I only saw them flash for a second when you sat down.” The big woman’s chuckle was a throaty, ribald sound. “Figured you took your stockings off for some reason.”
“To dry them!” Lancey was furious at herself for blushing. “And my dress, too! I was soaked to the skin!”
“How’d that happen?”
“There was a man on a horse crossing the river and—”
“Young man?”
“Well——”
“Thought so.”
“Hester Quist, will you stop interrupting, and let me tell you?”
“I’m all ears, girl.”
“This man broke through the ice about four—”
“Taking your stockings with him?”
“Hester!”
“Just asking,” Hester said, laughing. “Was young myself once. If you got soaked like you said, you didn’t do no drying outdoors in this weather. Means you went somewhere.”
“Of course we did. He took me to Brick Gables.” Lancey stamped her foot at her stepmother’s broad grin. “Honestly, Hester, you’re worse than a—a trollop! Mistress von Beck took care of me!”
“Then there’s no need for you to take on, is there?” asked Hester. “Or to blush rosier than a baby’s spanked bottom. Faces give ‘way secrets, Lancey. You’d better learn that if you’re making a habit of going to inns with men.”
“We went there ‘cause it was closest.” Lancey knew she was being teased, but couldn’t help sounding defensive. Hester had a bawdy streak as wide as her hips. “And absolutely nothing happened—”
“Oh, now, I wouldn’t say that. I’ll wager some fancy canoodling went——” Lancey’s glare sent the big woman into a gale of laughter that brought tears to her eyes.
“I don’t know which is worse,” Lancey said, frozen to cold dignity by the close guess, “your mind or your tongue.”
“I don’t know either,” said Hester. She gazed down at the girl with smiling affection. “But there’s one thing I do know. There’s nothing you’ll ever want to tell me, Lancey, nothing at all, that’ll upset my mind or set my tongue a-blabbing. You can rely on that, girl.”
Lancey smiled back at her, letting annoyance recede with the flush. She had no intention of telling Hester anything, but she appreciated the offer. The big woman was a generous, open-hearted friend. For all her lusty banter she meant what she said.
“I know, Hester. Thank you.”
The doorlatch rattled as it was raised. Hester spoke in a quick whisper.
“Just don’t go throwing yourself away, Lancey. Him that gets you is a lucky man, the stinkard!”
Turning away, Hester bent to pile the fire high for the night. Lancey felt suddenly very weary. She heard her father’s slow voice behind her.
“If I know weather, the morrow will be a bright one, but real blustery.”
Well, Lancey thought, I don’t know that I’d call this day calm.
CHAPTER 4
FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS THE MARCH WINDS SENT FORAYS coursing the length of the Hudson valley, but with diminishing bluster. The sun seemed to rise brighter and stronger each morning. It softened the earth, melted the last patches of snow, speckled tree branches with new buds.
Free from its ice the river, smiling and blue, ran between its banks, making a sport of every changing tide. Ripples and currents mixed different colors for sunshine or shadow, from azure to indigo. Even the whitecaps saluted playfully, and the eddies trimmed their coves with lace.
All along the eastern shoreline, from Wappinger’s Creek to Failkill, were man-made signs that spring was due to arrive. Shipyard Point, recently desolate, shook to the noises of hammer and saw. At Poughkeepsie Landing there were sloops in the water with crews clambering over them, re-fitting, scraping, splicing. That ferry was the first to run, its oarblades flashing on the empty river, but the horse-ferry, farther south at Milton’s, pushed its ugly, humpbacked shape across only a day later.
The fishing village below the bluff was marked by the smoke of many fires, and garlands of fishnets. Hung in yards, on piers, and between shacks, these latter looked as if an army of spiders had spun giant cobwebs overnight. Some were white, or dirty white, some yellow or tan with faded stain.
There was as much talk as there was work. The fishermen swapped tools and labor, drink, gossip and rumor. Between tasks a man ambled over to his neighbor’s to see what he was doing. With the perennial optimism of their kind they considered the new season a good one before it started.
Lancey Quist enjoyed the activity, but veered between optimism and foreboding. Her frequent changes of mood surprised her. Always before she had considered these days of preparation and anticipation the second best part of the year, bettered only by the fishing itself. Somehow, this spring was different.
The future, now bright with prospect, now heavy with portent, lay beyond her sight, like the river below the bend of the Highland gateway. Yet she recalled last year, the year before, all the others back to toddling days. Why was she, then, cheerful one minute and sad within the hour? Why was each feeling summoned and intensified by a simple, familiar action performed a hundred times before?
Lancey couldn’t understand it. She would mend a tear in a net, whistling, certain her handiwork would hold the largest roe shad that had ever come upriver to spawn. Then, as she stirred the bubbling brew of oak bark tea with which they darkened the nets, she would find herself near to weeping.
One cause for her melancholy she could determine. The sight of Ten Bush, quietly doing his share of the work, brought a lump into her throat. Her brother trusted her to win their father’s permission for his voyage. He would sail without it, if he had to, but wanted Hendrick’s blessing.
Ten Bush had told her that the one time they’d talked. They’d been alone, standing on the pier of an evening, with the hush of twilight above them, and the murmuring river below.
“I’d feel better, Lancey. I’ll be gone a long time.”
“But, must you go this year?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Ten Bush? Another year—”
“It’s a new launched ship. Maiden voyage.”
She waited, while he searched for the words of explanation.
“A fine ship, Lancey. And—well—we’ll both be starting fresh like—me and her. Judah Paddock, he’s the master, can teach us both together.”
“You’ve talked to him?”
“Seven, eight times.”
“I didn’t know you’d been to Claverack that often.”
“You was busy.”
“Yes,” Lancey said, biting her lip. She’d been too busy with her own affairs to notice his absence. “But now the time’s so short—”
“I thought it out all winter, Lancey.”
“You hanker after whales that much?”
Ten Bush stood in silence for a long minute. Then, he spoke half to himself; she had to bend close to hear.
“I don’t guess it’s the whales. It’s—it’s places, Lancey.” Turning, he
had gazed south, downriver. With that slight movement Lancey had felt his withdrawal, her own loss. She’d ended their talk with a promise.
“I’ll do my best with Pa.”
That promise was another reason for her moodiness. There were many excuses why she hadn’t kept it, and she seized them all. There was the work, and Hendrick’s preoccupation with it; there was the gossip of visiting fishermen, and her half-brother Conrad’s suddenly announced achievement.
This lad, a fox-faced miser of ten, was a puzzle to the whole Quist family. He was sandy-haired, thin-lipped and scrawny with neither Hendrick’s solidity nor Hester’s robust candor. Lancey, who had helped rear all of her stepmother’s offspring, considered Conrad her sole failure. She could not give him affection because even in the cradle he gave nothing, smile, cry nor gurgle, that did not seem calculated to return a profit.
Hester’s own opinion of her son was frankly critical. “He ain’t a by-blow, Lancey, just a throwback. Conrad’s my Pa, his grandpa, all over again. A coin biter, sharp and twisty as a fish hook. I’d say Conrad was the spittin’ image, but that kind’s too mean to spit.”
Nobody was surprised when Conrad disappeared on the first morning the river was open. He always worked grudgingly, with a suspect carelessness that made his absence more desired than his presence. The surprise came when he returned that evening to startle the supper table.
“Got me a job of work,” Conrad said, smirking, “down to the Spikin-Kill ferry. Horse tender.”
Hendrick lowered the dumpling impaled on his knife and stared. Hester’s frown silenced the two younger children; she glanced at her husband. Lancey saw Ten Bush stop chewing as he considered how the news might affect his future.
“Who told you you could?” asked Hendrick.
“Old man Anthony himself,” Conrad said. “Pay is a shilling a week. Hard coin. And keep.”
“You ain’t worth that around here,” Hendrick said.
“At fourteen coppers to the shilling,” Conrad said, “that’s two coppers the day. ‘Course I’ll have to live down there, but it’s only a four mile walk. Any time you want the loan of sixpence or so just send one of the younguns.”
He has it all figured out, Lancey decided. With none of Ten Bush’s worry or shyness. The boy’s cool assurance took the wind out of her father’s sails. Hendrick was annoyed, but not angered. He had long since despaired ever making a fisherman out of Conrad.
“You still should have asked me first,” Hendrick said. He glanced uneasily from Lancey to Ten Bush, aware that Conrad’s situation was similar to his first born’s. Not really, Hendrick thought, shying away from the comparison. It never occurred to him that any difference in affection was involved. Clearing his throat, he tried to explain. “Not that you can even row without catching crabs by the peck.”
Lancey recognized the purpose of the remark, but Ten Bush, grim mouthed, was staring at his plate. She said, “You’ll get home often, won’t you, Conrad?”
“When I can,” said Conrad, with a look of surprise. His sniff dismissed the question as unimportant. “But nights there’s likely to be a chance to make a bit extra. When a feller crossing is thirsty maybe, or wants victuals.”
“Horse tender,” Hendrick said.
“What do you know about horses?” asked Hester, passing a heaped plate to her son.
“What’s to know?” Conrad was aloofly superior. “You feed them, and water them, and curry them. I don’t handle them on the crossings. Once they’re in place on the treadmill that turns the paddlewheel, I just wait till the ferry comes back. ‘Course I can go across whenever I want. Free.”
“Pa,” said Ten Bush, quietly, “are you going to let him?”
“Why shouldn’t he?” Conrad asked. “One less mouth to feed here at home, and a store of coppers handy when he needs them. It’s only common sense, Ten Bush. Fishing’s Pa’s trade, and yours, and even Lancey knows the ins and outs of it, but it’s never been my pudding and never will be.”
Ten Bush, not listening, was gazing at his father. Lancey spoke before Hendrick could answer.
“Conrad’s nearly eleven, Ten Bush. And a lot older in some ways. But I wouldn’t trust him rowing when I was casting net. Would you?”
Her brother turned toward her. He shook his head.
“Well, then, it doesn’t matter what Pa decides. Conrad can go or stay without it bothering us one smidgen.”
“Sure,” Conrad said, suddenly looking his age. His aplomb was badly shaken by Lancey’s serious tone. He sensed an undercurrent that threatened his new job, and he was scared.
“That’s about how,” Hendrick said, “I had it figured, Ten Bush. But if you think that Conrad’s being missing made it harder on anybody today—”
“No,” Ten Bush said. He’d caught Lancey’s wink, and he was smiling. “Let him do what he wants.”
“Let your victuals stop your mouths,” Hester said, ending the discussion. “Food’ll be stone cold.”
That was one change in status that Lancey welcomed. She thought it weakened Hendrick’s position about Ten Bush, but she feared to test it too soon. This fear flourished as she grew used to the fact that her brother was leaving on a long voyage. Whether she failed or succeeded with Hendrick became of tremendous importance. She couldn’t let her two men part in anger.
There were other more normal, seasonal changes, duly reported in the Quist yard. Pardon Cash had a new boat this year. Gerritt Kimmee had made himself a cow horn to hawk his fish through the township. Captain Benjamin was again staying at Jaycock’s Ordinary while his sloop Lydia was readied for her initial trip to New York.
Other years Lancey would have been the first to learn such things, to spread them as she flitted through the settlement. Her tomboy deftness had helped lighten every fisherman’s work; her speed afoot made her first choice for any errand. She’d loved it all, relishing the smell of woodsmoke, of pitch and paint, fresh shavings, tallow, oak bark dye. Soon enough these riverfront odors would be overpowered by the pervading one of fish.
This spring Lancey stayed close to home. Partly she did it to show Hendrick that she could take Ten Bush’s place; partly to make sure no friction arose between father and son. Those reasons she told herself, regretting their cause without realizing that she herself had changed.
Only once, when Conrad described the ferry horses, did she think of the mare, Meda, and Dirck van Zandt. Lancey smiled at the memory. That encounter had happened to another, much younger girl. Now, her days were busy with work, troubled with responsibility; at night her sleep was solid, and dreamless.
The morning Lancey Quist decided to paint the wooden blocks used for floats, the weather changed. Dawn had falsely promised another clear day, but the girl was finishing the third float when she noticed the river’s clear blue was fading.
Lancey straightened, gazed south to where slate colored clouds gathered above the west bank.
“Pa,” she called, “look at Blue Point.”
Hendrick and Ten Bush, working elbow to elbow, were replacing the thongs that tied the shot weights to the bottom edge of the net. Both men turned toward the hill she’d named. Ten Bush grunted. Hendrick waited a moment before he spoke.
“The Storm Ship’s getting ready to cast off.”
Without smiling, Lancey nodded. She knew all the stories of river lore, the legends of ghosts and goblins, and still half believed most of them. This was one of the strongest. The phantom ship, lost long ago in the old Dutch days, that was moored at the foot of Blue Point, was visible only when a storm roared down from the crest, so it wasn’t surprising she’d never seen it. Sailors had, or said they had. It was safer not to scoff at such things.
Her immediate problem was practical. There was little enough white paint left after the boat and oars had their fresh coats. It was hard to come by; Hendrick was already in debt to Digmus Jaycock, the tavern keeper, for this year’s supply. She didn’t want to risk a rainstorm spoiling the finish.
She was pi
ling the blocks under the shed roof when Pardon Cash arrived to help her.
“Fixing to squall,” Pardon said. His big hands hid the floats he raised.
“It’s due.” Lancey accepted his appearance without surprise. They were old friends; as a small girl she’d often ridden on the man’s wide shoulders. “How’s the new boat?”
“Sprightly.”
His grin was one-sided to hide the gap of his missing two front teeth. Since his broken nose slanted the other way it gave his face a twisted look. But his green eyes were merry, and the result infectious.
Pardon Cash was big, the biggest fisherman along this stretch of the river. His two hundred pounds towered an inch over six feet, but he moved lightly. Pardon still rigged himself like a sailor, in leather breeches and homespun shirt, with sheath knife in his wide, brass-buckled belt, and a gold ring dangling from his left ear-lobe.
Lancey, smiling back at him, tried to guess his age. Nobody knew for certain how old Pardon was. Except for his tarred queue, another sailor’s trick, his hair was as white as sun bleached linen, and his eyebrows the same. The only lines on his smooth face, burned to dusky copper, were around eyes and mouth, scored by weather and laughter.
“You try her in the water?” Lancey asked.
“Not yet,” Pardon Cash said, “but only because I saw this blowing up.” He finished stacking the wooden blocks, saluted Hendrick and Ten Bush with two fingers to forehead. “Need a hand, Hendrick?”
“No, thank you, Pardon. We’re near through.”
The big man made himself comfortable on the stacked floats. Lancey, watching the others gather, almost laughed aloud. As usual the fishermen drifted into the yard aimlessly, as if a chance breeze had blown them there, yet each gave the coming rain as a reason for loafing.
Seth Row, red faced and paunchy, squinted at the sky. “In for a spell of dirty weather, seems,” he said.
Only a pace behind Seth came Gerritt Kimmee. Bandy legs beneath a thick trunk made him waddle. He said, “Brought your plane back, Hendrick. Wouldn’t want it rusting.”
Even the two slaves, Calico and Tanner, rolled their eyes and shook their heads. They were owned by, and fished for, one of the numerous Livingston kin. They were quiet, softspoken black men, dressed alike in faded nankeen clothes.
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