Shad Run

by Howard Breslin

  “I’ll wager you ain’t sold a dozen!” Conrad’s jeer was a high-pitched cackle.

  Working down here, Lancey decided, hadn’t improved the boy any. It had been her suggestion to come here, after they had tied up at every landing, plodded inland to half the west bank farms. But Conrad was wrong. They had, in nine hours, sold fourteen roe.

  “Where,” asked Justin, “did a nice family like the Quists get a changeling little horn toad like you?”

  The mildness of the question wasn’t meant to deceive anyone. Pardon Cash, not raising his head, smiled faintly. Lancey looked at Justin, noted the knotted jaw muscles that betrayed hidden anger. He has, she thought, been getting quieter and more furious with every futile hour.

  Conrad, flushed with truculence, glared. His voice lost its shrillness; he spoke with cold deliberation.

  “And who in hell are you?”

  “Nobody you want to know,” Justin said, “and vice-versa. Let’s shove off, Pardon.”

  Her stepbrother, Lancey realized with slight surprise, had never met Justin. The boy’s visits home had been few, and brief, since Ten Bush departed. She didn’t suppose that either wished to be introduced.

  “Wait a minute,” Conrad said, “I want to talk to you, Lancey.

  “Talk,” she said, gazing up at him with distaste. Conrad at the moment was as irritating as the heat.

  “Not here. Come ashore.”

  “We have to get back.”

  “A minute.” Conrad was coaxing; he smiled, beckoned. “Please, Lancey, I’ve got something for Pa ‘n’ Ma, and as long as you stopped by——”

  “Go on, Lancey,” said Pardon, “we ain’t going no place important now.” The big fisherman’s narrowed eyes glittered with the same hard brightness the sunshine made on his earring. His grin was savage; he showed his missing teeth heedlessly.

  Lancey swallowed, remembering Pardon’s boisterous pride in the great haul of shad. He had toasted Hendrick, the dory, the river, his friends, as long as gin and rum had lasted. Dawn had found him fresh, and clear eyed, but now he looked as if he suffered from the aftermath of a drinking bout.

  “Come on, Lancey,” pleaded Conrad.

  “Anything,” Justin said, with the same quietness, “that will stop his blasted tongue.”

  Climbing onto the wharf, finding the rough-hewn, weathered timbers hot to the touch, Lancey was discouraged. Justin’s black mood, she thought, might make him calm, but it made everyone else wretched. She was the one with her nose out of joint. Her amusement at her overabundance of callers on the previous night had vanished with the realization that Justin, far from being upset, hadn’t seemed to mind at all.

  “Lancey. Who’s he?”

  Startled, she pulled back from the hiss of Conrad’s whisper. She said, “What?”

  “Him.” The boy shrugged a shoulder toward the dory. “Old long face there with the blaze in his mane.”

  “That’s Justin Pattison. You’ve heard us speak of him.”

  “Talks Massachusetts.”

  “Why,” said Lancey, staring at her stepbrother, “I suppose he does. Some anyway.” She liked Justin’s manner of speaking, but hadn’t given it much thought. “But how would you know?”

  Conrad’s sneer was smugly confident. “I got ears, Lancey. We get all kinds crossing here. Lots more custom than Poughkeepsie. Maybe even more than Fishkill. Pays to listen. He’s Massachusetts all right.”

  “Swill,” said Lancey, inelegantly. “You probably heard us mention it. It’s no secret.”

  “Ain’t, eh?”

  “No.” She was getting very tired of Conrad’s attitude. “God and Nicholas! Stop acting as if you know it all!”

  “I know what I know.”

  “You’re a horse-stall sweep who’s getting too big for his breeches! The way you talked to us just now makes me ashamed your name is Quist! Now, fetch whatever you’ve got for Pa and Hester, and—”

  “That was just bait, Lancey.”

  “Bait?” She glared at him, feeling the heat more as her anger mounted.

  “Sure, I wanted a word with you in private.” He saw the purpose in her eyes, and dodged. Her slap, swung with full force, missed him by inches. As he skipped away, fright squeezed his face back to its proper age. “Now, wait, Lancey, wait! I only wanted to help!”

  “I ought to box your ears lobeless!” She hesitated, wavering between pursuit, and return to the boat.

  Conrad noticed the hesitancy. His composure returned. Leering at her, he raised a hand to his lips, spoke across the knuckles. “Mind my words, Lancey. Don’t trust that Justin! He—”

  Her movement interrupted him. Conrad whirled, raced away, bare heels flashing. Lancey had taken one step; she stared after him, frowning. First Jan, and now Conrad, warned her about Justin. Consider the source, she said silently. A jealous rival, and an unbearable boy! Such testimony made her like Justin all the more.

  She went back to the dory in better spirits. Not even the two men’s silent gloom infected her. There was no use weeping over spoiled shad, and she would tell them so at the proper time. They cast off, rowed out of the shallows, raised the sail.

  “Home?” asked Lancey, as the scrap of canvas filled, and the dory began to move northward.

  “Aye,” said Pardon Cash.

  Justin said, “Home to more shad.”

  “Now, look,” Lancey said, smiling at them, “it’s not as bad as all that. After all, Pardon, you and Pa set a mark for others to go after. It’s not your fault that it happened toward the end of the run when folks wouldn’t buy.”

  “I know, Lancey, but—”

  “But,” continued Justin, harshly, “it didn’t help none to be treated like lunatic beggars!”

  Lancey stared at him, at the ridged muscles pallid through the dark skin around his mouth. She was puzzled and anxious, too disturbed to notice that this time his wrath failed to kindle her interest. She said, “If you’re letting what Conrad said upset you—”

  “A whelp in need of the switch!”

  The contemptuous tone stung, though Lancey agreed with the sentiment. Conrad, after all, was her stepbrother, and his misbehavior or chastisement was a family matter. Feeling her resentment was unreasonable, she forced herself to speak calmly.

  “Justin,” she said, “you can’t blame people for not buying something they don’t want.”

  “Of course you can’t,” Pardon agreed.

  “You’re both wrong.” Justin shook his head as if impatience pestered like a fly. “That isn’t what riles me. I blame them for their attitude. For not seeing what’s happening, and not giving a damn if it does!”

  Pardon caught Lancey’s glance, shrugged. He said, “It’s his riddle not mine.”

  “Look,” Justin said, “we were offering fresh fish. We set a low price to start, and lowered it fast. But it never occurred to anyone that it wasn’t just a matter of buying and selling. Somebody had to get a boat, row out, cast net, catch shad, and keep them fresh enough to offer. We’d been to some trouble before we arrived at their back doors!”

  Frowning, Lancey nodded. There was no refuting Justin’s statements, but she thought them about as infuriating as the multiplication table or the tides. Six times six was thirty-six; floodtide followed ebb. What made Justin so angry?

  Pardon said, “Well, hell, it’s our trade, ain’t it?”

  “They didn’t even think of that!” Justin said. “And another thing. Those shad were good eating.” He gestured toward the lumpy canvas that covered the cargo. “But nobody cared that hours of heat might turn them into garbage!”

  It was a waste, thought Lancey, wincing. She couldn’t think of any remark cheering enough to lighten that fact. The greatest haul of fish in riverfront memory had ended in failure. Gazing over the gunwale at the rippling water her depression was deepened by the dory’s speed. Heavy laden, and not designed for sailing, the little boat pushed upriver with sluggish awkwardness.

  “Garbage,” said Pardon Cash, and s
pat through the gap in his teeth.

  “We just couldn’t sell them,” Lancey said.

  “Sometimes,” said Justin, “you have to make people see things.” She raised her head, and he thought she’d never looked more womanly, in spite of her shining face, wet with sweat, burnished by heat. For a moment, while the hazel-eyed gaze questioned, Justin was tempted to tell her everything. Then, Pardon’s voice recalled him to caution.

  “How do you do that?”

  “Ask Lancey,” said Justin, smiling at her with sudden tenderness. “When a high-busted wench behind a high-stepping colt tried to ride down our Lancey the other day, Lancey knew what to do.”

  “Well,” Lancey said, laughing, “that’s one way of getting rid of fish.” She was pleased by Justin’s change of humor, but slightly piqued. Somehow men seemed to regard her exploit as a great joke; she recalled Dirck van Zandt’s amusement. Eunice Wynbridge, she thought grimly, knew better. Her conduct may have been outrageous, but it wasn’t meant to be funny.

  “Wonder how Hendrick made out.” As he spoke Pardon glanced at the shore, adjusted sheet and tiller.

  Lancey checked a landmark on the east bank, said, “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “We know now,” Justin said. “Poughkeepsie isn’t hungry enough to eat more shad. With Seth Row selling, and Gerritt too, there’s too much for the travellers at the inns. Tanner told me that the Livingston hands even feed roe to their cats.”

  Pardon nodded in gloomy agreement. “That’s about it,” he said. “I’ll eat all over fourteen that Hendrick sold.”

  “You’ll go hungry.” Lancey ducked under the sail as Pardon tacked toward the east bank. She crawled forward, crouched in the bow, shaded her eyes with a palm.

  The fishing village, dead ahead, was closer than she expected, its houses, tinder-box size, strung along the water’s edge as if they had slid down from the bluff behind them. A twisting vine of smoke rose from the Quist yard, and the girl wondered if her stepmother was laundering in the heat of the day. The river was bare of shipping; no sail or oarblade moved within her range of vision. Atop its bluff Poughkeepsie slumbered in the sunshine, and the barge moored at the ferry landing looked deserted and forgotten.

  The smoke colunm drew her attention again, and now she could see movement, the orange of flames, the dark figures of people. Lancey narrowed her eyes, staring. She could think of no reason why a crowd was gathered in the Quist yard, but suddenly the whole scene came into focus. The fire was safely contained in a square of stones, and a dozen men milled around it.

  “Justin,” she called, “come and look. Something’s going on.

  He crawled forward to join her, grunted as he gazed. Hendrick’s unmistakable stocky build walked out on the pier. He waved, and Lancey raised a hand in reply.

  “What is it?” asked Pardon, his view cut off by the sail.

  “I think it’s a party,” Justin said.

  “Yes.” Lancey recognized the festive air of the milling men, Hester presiding over the fire. “They’re cooking, and eating.”

  “Shad.”

  As the dory drew closer Lancey was able to separate the crowd into individuals. The Kimmees were there, the Rows, Digmus Jaycock, but these neighbors seemed outnumbered by better-dressed strangers. A rank of saddle horses was hitched behind the Quist yard, and the gleam of a coaly bay coat gave the girl a needed hint.

  Her glance searched through the vari-colored riding coats, found Dirck van Zandt. He was standing in a group, talking, gesturing with a hand that cupped a noggin. Schuyler Davis loomed beside Dirck, and even as she watched Tappen Platt rode his gray cob into the yard. She heard the cheer that greeted him, saw Tappen toss a sack to Schuyler. A moment later two flustered, squawking pullets were spilled from the sack.

  “Fish fry for the gentry?” Justin murmured his question.

  Lancey felt his resentment, and shared it. She was not sure what was happening, but the horsemen were evidently enjoying themselves. She knew most of them by sight as younger members of patroon families. In typical fashion they were carousing away a hot afternoon.

  “What’s Pa thinking of?” Lancey asked.

  Justin said, “Probably he had no choice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those empty heads have fat purses. If they pay for the shad they eat—” He shrugged, scowling at the crowd. “You can thank your friend Dirck for this, Lancey.”

  Behind them Pardon Cash growled and muttered as he steered the dory closer to the shore. The final tack brought them almost within mooring distance, and when the sail rattled down they coasted.

  Hendrick caught Justin’s tossed line, snubbed it fast. His voice was as cheery as his beaming face.

  “How’d you three make out?”

  “We didn’t,” said Pardon, glowering at the listening crowd. The noise, Lancey noted, had died down, and everybody was turned toward the dory. Dirck, smiling, strolled onto the pier behind Hendrick, and Hester bustled forward through the throng. Her cheeks were rose bright from the glow of the cookfire, but she looked happy.

  “We sold fourteen,” Lancey said, annoyed that she sounded defensive.

  “Fourteen!”

  She didn’t place the speaker, but Tappen Platt’s laugh led the derisive titter that came from the horsemen. Dirck frowned, glanced over his shoulder. There was no quelling his friends. The trio in the dory stood in rigid silence while amused voices mocked and boasted.

  “Thunderation, I sold more’n that myself!”

  “That’s no brag!”

  “Tappen got rid of two dozen.”

  “Twenty-eight, to be exact.”

  “But Dirck’s Meda got back first.”

  “Great sport, wasn’t it?”

  Lancey couldn’t believe her ears. Why in the world would these gentlemen jockeys bother to sell Hendrick’s shad? That they seemed to have succeeded was even more fantastic. She and Pardon and Justin knew how difficult it was to find buyers.

  “What’re they rattling about, Hendrick?” asked Pardon.

  “It’s true,” Hendrick said. “It was Dirck’s idea. These young men made up a—a wager about it, and each took a number of fish. They rode back into Pleasant Valley, rode far and wide.”

  Hester said, “And they sold a couple of hundred shad.” She nodded vigorously, as if to emphasize her words. “Some for Seth, and Gerritt even. We’re eating up the rest.”

  “You had to get well away from the riverfront,” Dirck van Zandt said. “The farmers were willing enough to buy once you could reach them.”

  “We took anything,” Tappen Platt said. “Anything we could carry on a horse. Pullets, eggs, a comb of honey.”

  “Schuyler even swapped a trout for a roe.”

  “I happen,” said Schuyler Davis, “to like trout.”

  “We share and share, of course,” Hendrick told Pardon Cash. “There’s a brass kettle, and a fist full of nails, some seed, a twist of wool yarn—”

  “Oh, come ashore and see,” interrupted Hester.

  “There’s some money, too,” Dirck said, “but mostly we did better at barter.”

  “Dirck,” called a voice, “does Tappen win or not?”

  “Unless one of you questions it.”

  “I question it. He made three trips and he got back last.”

  “You,” said Schuyler Davis, “could have ridden out again. There was no rule against it.”

  During the babble of friendly argument the trio climbed stiffly from the dory. Hester hurried back to the shad grilling over the fire; Hendrick led the way to where the results of the day’s trading were piled against the side of the house. Lancey couldn’t deny that the horsemen had done well.

  “I’ll get Seth and Gerritt,” said Hendrick, glancing around, “and we’ll take turns picking. Most of this is ours, Pardon, but they did put in a few fish.” He chuckled, reached to move a crock of butter out of the sunshine. “They didn’t think Dirck’s friends could do it. I didn’t myself, but he talke
d me around.”

  Dirck could, thought Lancey grimly. Her father’s enthusiasm left her unmoved. She didn’t blame Hendrick and Hester for their unabashed delight, but she felt closer to Justin and Pardon. They hadn’t ridden out on a larking gamble. They had merely fretted and sweated through a depressing day. And nobody really gave a tinker’s dam!

  Amazingly, Pardon took a deep breath and grinned. He said: “And here I was worrying because a dory full of shad was spoiling fast. I even offered to eat all over fourteen you sold!” Pardon’s guffaw was a release from tension. He clapped Hendrick on the shoulder. “We’ll have to bury our lot, Hendrick.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” said Hendrick.

  No, Lancey decided, it didn’t matter any longer. Even with that much wastage, Dirck’s scheme, and his fast-riding friends, had made the record catch a profitable one. The best thing to do was to follow Pardon’s example, and accept the result with good grace.

  She hadn’t managed to do it when Seth Row and Gerritt Kimmee joined them. The two neighbor fishermen greeted Pardon with diffidence.

  “Too bad you wasn’t here, Pardon,” said Seth Row.

  “Pardon and me were partners,” Hendrick said, “and he shares even. We’ll choose turns by lot, and—”

  “You can leave me out,” Justin said.

  The harsh flatness of the statement startled the group of fishermen. It was, Lancey realized, the first time Justin had spoken since their landing. She was glad that he wouldn’t compromise, that he refused to forget the dismal sail in the dory.

  “Now, wait a second,” said Pardon. His protest was echoed by Hendrick.

  “Now, wait, Justin—”

  “I didn’t net those shad,” Justin said, “the way you and Pardon did, Hendrick. And I didn’t peddle many either. None that brought in this pile of loot. I’ll share, thirds, in the sale of fourteen roe, but I don’t take charity.”