Rainbow Hammock

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  “Damn your eyes! Get the hell out of here and let a man sleep! I put in my full fourteen hours working next to your stinking niggers today. You’ll kill me before I haul a single brick at night! Blast you to hell, you sons of bitches!” Phinias Denegal yelled.

  Steele took a deep breath to steady his voice before he spoke. “I haven’t come to put you to work.”

  “Steele, my boy, is that you? Come at last to go you old father’s bail?”

  The prisoner jumped up and attempted to rush to his son, but fell to the brick floor. Steele noticed for the first time that an iron manacle around his father’s leg fastened him securely to the wall. He winced, then helped the old man up.

  “I’ve come, but I’m not sure I can help. I’ve spoken with Senator Mallory, but the best I can promise is to get you off this island, to a more civilized prison somewhere else, until your bail is set. I’ve hired a lawyer.”

  Phinias Denegal roared his anguish. “You call that help? There ain’t no such thing as a civilized prison. We’re all caged animals here, same as we would be anywhere else. I’d as soon the sharks ate my flesh. Then I’d be swimmin’ free… part of something alive that can do whatever the hell It pleases, with no goddamn guards or chains or hard labor to do!”

  Steele felt his emotions twisting. It hurt him to see his own father chained, but still…

  “You’ve sentenced yourself to the same lot as the slaves you’ve transported all these years.” Bitterness edged Steele’s voice.

  The old man’s eyes rolled. He looked more wild creature than human being, with his shoulder-length gray hair and matted beard to his chest. By the lamplight Steele could see scars of beatings inflicted since his father had been captured in September. Some of the stripes were just scabbing over—punishment, he guessed, for the man’s recent attempts to escape.

  “Hellfire and damnation! I ain’t no animal, Steele! Not like them niggers! Why, they sell their own kin when I make port over in Africa. I got a dozen prime females, sold to me by their own husband this last trip. Said he was tired of ’em. And that ain’t the first time. I’ve had fathers sell me daughters, and mothers sell me sons—for no more than a handful of glass beads and a few gewgaws, mind you! I tell you, they ain’t human! You got to get me out of here, boy!”

  Phinias Denegal’s plea for mercy stirred little sympathy in Steele’s breast.

  “I told you, I’m doing what I can,” he answered calmly.

  “Well, it’s goddamn little, you ask me! Your own father! Didn’t I raise you up right?… Send you to fancy schools?… Buy you and your mother everything you could want?”

  The old man’s attempt at forcing more guilt on Steele had the reverse effect. Anger began to rise inside him until he thought he might strangle on it.

  “Yes, you gave us everything,” Steele answered evenly. “Everything except what would have meant most to both of us—your time, your love, respectability, a feeling of family honor.”

  “Get the hell out of here!” Phinias raged. “I should have known you’d grow up to be a milksop. Get out! Now! Guard! Don’t you show your face to me again until it’s to get me free. You bastard!” he screamed. Then he stopped, looked at Steele with crazed eyes, and chuckled. “You probably ain’t even mine. Wouldn’t put it past your ma to be beddin’ with somebody else while I was out makin’ a fortune so she could have fancy silks from Paris! That’s it! That Jezebel was fomicatin’ behind my back. A bitch in heat and a bastard, the two of you!” He spat in Steele’s face.

  Without fully realizing what he was doing, Steele slapped his father. He’d taken abuse from the old man all his life, but he wouldn’t listen to slurs on his mother’s name.

  Phinias Denegal was still screaming oaths as Steele walked down the passageway with the guard.

  His emotions under control at last, Steele asked, “The manacle … couldn’t it be removed? The cell seems secure enough to hold him.”

  “I’ll speak to the captain, sir. It’s up to him,” the young soldier answered.

  For a long time Steele walked alone among the piles of bricks and lumber in the open yard of the fort. Stars twinkled brightly above him, but he didn’t see them. He thought of his father, hauling the mountains of bricks in the sun-baked prison all day for fourteen hours at a stretch. Then, when sympathy for the man edged into his consciousness, he remembered his mother’s lonely tears and the hundreds of souls his father had sentenced to lives far worse than the one to which the government had now sentenced him.

  Suddenly, about midnight, the fort came alive. Shouts issued from the cells, and the sound of running feet could be heard from atop the brick battlements.

  “Escape!” echoed the call of alarm.

  Steele rushed to the main entrance of the fort, below the light tower. Watlington came out of the lightkeeper’s quarters, pulling his trousers on hastily.

  “What the hell’s going on?” he asked Steele.

  “I’m not sure. Someone yelled something about an escape a couple of minutes ago,” Steele answered.

  “Holy Christ! My boat!” Watlington shrieked.

  They ran together to the end of the dock. The big boat was in place, but across the black water they could see a figure in a skiff that had been on the boat earlier.

  “The damn fool!” Watlington said. “He’ll never make it out of here in that leaky, old tub!”

  Even as he spoke, a scream reached them over the water. ‘Help! I’m sinking! Sharks!” The distinct words were followed by garbled cries and thrashing sounds. A cold hand gripped Steele’s gut.

  “He got loose again, sir,” a voice behind Steele said apologetically. “I had the irons taken off after the captain gave me permission. I swear to God, I don’t know how he could have got out of that cell. Locked the door myself. I’m sorry, sir,” the guard said, lamely.

  “No one’s fault,” Steele answered. “He wanted it this way.”

  What was left of Phinias Denegal was hauled out of the Gulf at sunrise. Steele identified the mangled corpse, then went to a secluded corner and retched.

  Captain Watlington offered to return the body to Key West for a proper burial.

  “No,” Steele answered. “He was a man of the sea. We’ll return him to it.”

  The day of his trip back to Key West was as pleasant as the one out to Fort Jefferson, but Steele didn’t notice the beauty around him. He couldn’t pull his mind away from the horrors of the past forty-eight hours.

  I should never have come, he thought. As soon as a ship leaves headed north, I’m going to be on it. I’ll go back to Rainbow Hammock and Lilah. …Put all this unpleasantness behind me.

  Steele had left Maggie under her own recognizance while he went to Fort Jefferson. He’d given her sufficient funds to purchase some new gowns at one of the local stores.

  On the pretext of asking Caroline Mallory ‘s help in selecting her new wardrobe, Maggie called at the Mallory house on Greene Street a few hours after Steele left.

  She’d made herself look as prim and proper as she could in her stained, green silk gown by adding a lace ruffle from one of her tattered petticoats to the low neckline for modesty, and taming her wild, red curls with a severe part down the middle of her head, forcing the ringlets to stay in place by pinning them down at either side of her face.

  She smiled happily as she left the Russell House and strolled down the avenue lined by ginger trees, gumbo-limbos with their funny brown bark, and date and Fiji fan palms. She turned into the walkway in front of the Mallorys’ New England-style house, which she’d already learned was called by the natives of Key West a “conch house,” since many of the residents had transplanted their homes with their families—much like the native conchs carried their shells to protect them.

  Her knock at the front door brought immediate response from Roberts.

  “Mornin’, Miss Maggie,” he said with a wizened smile. “You come on in out of dat hot sun.”

  “Don’t
mind if I do, Roberts,” Maggie replied. “Is Miss Caroline here?”

  “She in de breakfast room with Miz Angela. You just go ahead on in.”

  “Why, Maggie, this is a surprise!” Angela Mallory said when the girl entered the cool, shaded room. “You look fetching this morning, my dear.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Maggie answered with a curtsy. “But I know this old gown won’t do for a high-fashion place like Key West. Uncle Steele wants me to go out and buy some new duds. I thought Miss Caroline might help me choose the right things.”

  Caroline smiled at Maggie. “I’ll be happy to. Give me five minutes to slip into my shopping clothes. I could use some new things, too. Everything I had on the Isabel is all but ruined.”

  “Oh, I wish I could go with you girls,” Angela said, “but I have to play the senator’s wife this afternoon for Stephen. Be sure to go to the Louvre, Caroline. Henry Mulrennan has a shipment fresh from Paris and London.”

  A few minutes later Caroline and Maggie were walking side by side down the shaded way, headed for Front Street and its fashionable shops.

  “No one takes a carriage here unless it’s raining,” Caroline explained. “The weather’s always so fine, and walking is good exercise. Besides,” she whispered to Maggie behind a gloved hand, “it gives us such a good opportunity to be seen by the right people”

  Maggie giggled. Would Caroline Mallory want the “right people” to see them together once she heard the whole truth about the relationship, or lack of it, between herself and Steele Denegal?

  Mr. Mulrennan met Caroline and Maggie at the front door of his dry goods shop within the arcade known as the Louvre.

  “Why, Miss Mallory, how good to have you back!” he welcomed in a fine Scottish brogue retained from his childhood in Paisley. “And this must be the young lady visiting with her uncle.” He turned a winning smile on Maggie, his weathered, but handsome, features making him look older than his thirty-one years.

  “We’ve heard you have a new shipment, Mr. Mulrennan, and we’ve come to make our selections,” Caroline said, with her brown eyes sparkling at the thought of the very latest fashions from abroad.

  “My shop is yours,” he answered with a sweeping bow. “Shall I send out for tea and cakes, ladies?”

  “Oh, that would be lovely!” Maggie enthused.

  Caroline first chose several gowns for Maggie to try. Maggie frowned when she saw the selection.

  “Isn’t there something more… more… ladylike?” she asked.

  Caroline frowned, looking at the pink ruffled dimity, the green crepe de Paris, and the striped muslin of yellow and pale blue, all with high necks and little puffed sleeves. What could be more ladylike? she wondered.

  “You know what I mean, Caroline. Steele likes me to look like a lady even if I am young.” Maggie gave Caroline a meaningful smile.

  “Oh!” Caroline said, slightly shocked by what she was thinking. “You mean something more grown-up.”

  “Exactly!” Maggie answered, still smiling. “Steele doesn’t want people to think he’s robbing the cradle,” she added in a whisper.

  Caroline Mallory felt her cheeks flame at Maggie’s implication. Surely she’d misunderstood.

  Maggie went to where a red and black striped gown hung on the door and took it down. “Something more like this,” she said.

  “Maggie, no,” Caroline answered firmly. “Your uncle would be furious if I let you buy that type of gown. Why, only women who… what I mean is, nice young girls don’t wear anything as revealing as that.”

  The corners of Maggie’s mouth curled up into a wicked grin and she winked at Caroline.

  “Steele’s not my uncle, and whoever told you I was a nice girl, Caroline dear?” Maggie mocked.

  Caroline’s hand flew to her throat and she gasped, “You aren’t telling me…?”

  Maggie slipped into the lush red and black creation and smiled when she saw the fit was perfect.

  “I’m telling you that I’m Steele Denegal’s, shall we say, traveling companion. A man can get mighty lonely when he’s at sea or in a foreign port.”

  “Margaret O’Connell, you’re lying!” Caroline shrieked. “Steele said you were his niece. He’d have no reason to fabricate something like that.”

  “The best reason in the world, dearie. I’m under age. Fifteen, to be exact!”

  Caroline looked more closely at Maggie. In the red and black gown, with her full breasts overflowing the bodice, she looked nearly Caroline’s own age. But there was a girlish plumpness in her features. Why would Steele Denegal choose a woman half his own age for the services Maggie implied she provided?

  As if reading Caroline’s thoughts, Maggie added, “I’m sure you’ve heard about men like Steele. He can only do it with young girls. There’s some prefers little boys. I’ve heard, but Steele’s not that way. Thank God!”

  “Oh!” Caroline exclaimed. “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes!” Maggie replied, smiling. “I know he put on a great show of being fond of you the other night, but it was just an act, Caroline. You’re really much too old for him. I thought I’d better let you know before you fell in love with him or something. I’d really hate to see your heart broken, Caroline,” Maggie added sympathetically. “I’ve seen it happen so many times. He is such a charmer. He really can’t help himself.” Carried away with her lies, Maggie went on, “Actually, I’m older than he likes now…. Prefers ’em around twelve, he does. That’s when we first met. But since I’m carryin’ his child, he can’t very well run off and leave me stranded. That wouldn’t be like him.”

  Caroline Mallory felt her head spinning.

  “Caroline, honey, are you all right?” Maggie asked.

  “Ladies, I have your tea,” Henry Mulrennan called from beyond the dressing room door.

  “I think you’d better come in here quick, Mr. Mulrennan,” Maggie called back. “Miss Caroline’s fainted. Must be the heat in here.”

  Maggie left Caroline and her vapors in Henry Mulrennan’s care, paid for the red and black gown, and left the shop, humming to herself.

  Steele arrived back at the Russell House, bone-weary, shortly before suppertime. He stopped at the polished oak desk in the lobby for his key, and asked the clerk, “Is my niece in?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Denegal.” the young man answered with a strange smile on his face. “She was down here not more than ten minutes ago. She said if you weren’t in by eight, she’d have dinner in her room.”

  Steele answered, “Thank you,” and thought to himself. Sensible of Maggie. The girl’s learning to be a real lady.

  Steele climbed the stairs and knocked on Maggie’s door, calling, “I’m home. Just let me change.”

  He hadn’t had time to get out of his salt- and sweat-soaked shirt yet when the door to his room opened. He looked up. For long minutes, all he could do was stare. He knew his mouth hung open, but he couldn’t summon the will to close it.

  Maggie held out her arms to the sides and turned to give Steele the full impact.

  “Well, do you like it?” she asked, coming closer.

  “Maggie, what the hell…?” A deep, rumbling rage suffused his words.

  He stared in horror at a woman who appeared to be the town’s leading demimondaine. Her red hair stood high above her forehead in a cascade of curls held in place by tortoiseshell combs. The rice powder on her face made her brows look darker than natural. Lip rouge turned her mouth into a little bow of brilliant scarlet.

  His eyes traveled slowly down the smooth column of her neck to her bare shoulders, then fastened on the twin mounds bulging above a ruff of black spangled lace. The black and red satin stripes clung to and accentuated every curve of her bodice, then flared into an enormous skirt, ending in another deep ruffle of shiny black lace.

  “You like it, don’t you. Uncle Steele?” Maggie asked innocently.

  “Who the hell sold you that dress?” Steele raged. “I’ll have the
person responsible tarred and feathered!”

  Maggie forced tears to her eyes. “I only wanted to please you. Uncle Steele. Don’t be mad. Miss Caroline took me shopping. She said this would be perfect for me.”

  “Caroline Mallory picked that dress out for you?”

  “She took me to Mr. Henry Mulrennan’s, and said this was the latest style from Paris,” Maggie sobbed. “I didn’t know you wouldn’t like it, Uncle Steele. Honest! Miss Caroline said it made me look more grown-up.”

  Steele’s anger turned in a different direction now. He closed his arms around Maggie and let her cry into his shoulder. Her sobs soon subsided, replaced by a smile, which Steele couldn’t see.

  “Hush, Maggie,” Steele soothed. “Don’t cry anymore. We’ll buy you another dress.”

  What a rotten trick, he thought. Imagine Caroline Mallory doing such a thing to an innocent child!

  Chapter 13

  RAINBOW HAMMOCK

  June 1860

  The island’s short but bone-chilling winter turned to a muddy spring in the middle of March. April brought clear expanses of azure sky and a riot of color below. The Indian azaleas burst their winter-green casings to flame the woods with fuchsia, while yellow jasmine stars and scarlet trumpet vines crept through the forest and up the trees. Once again, the indigo morning glories opened their delicate petals, mirroring the shade of Lilah Fitzpatrick’s eyes.

  The past Christmastime’s excitement of a double wedding at Fortune’s Fancy—Brandon to Saralyn Habersham and Amalee to Henri Dupree—settled into the everyday routine of domestic life for the couples involved as the months passed.

  Lilah remained a silent observer of the happiness shared by Brandon and his wife and of the friction between Amalee and her husband. Still she waited for some word from Steele Denegal.

  While picking dewberries with Rhea, Kingdom’s wife, one afternoon, Lilah heard Saralyn call to her. She looked up and saw Brandon and his wife strolling toward her down the lane, hand in hand.