Though she knew every board and batten, every nail and joint, she’d nearly lost it in the blurry dwindling of memory. “Tell me,” she said and quieted to hear Peter build it anew in her mind.
“It’s framed of an old oak, gnarled and bent, but strong as the roots of Georgia itself. It’s sided of cypress and pine, and rain brings the scent of it into the air like perfume. The field grows green and so soft that the scythe cuts it like a whisper. When I sit on the porch at sunset, I can almost hear the laughter of children in the wind.” He lifted her chin and turned her face up to see him. His fingers were rough against her face, like braids of rope, and smelled of new-turned earth, but they were gentle, deliberate, and patient. “It’s no home ’til it’s our home, Fin. It’s only half a place.”
They both knew she couldn’t stay. Both refused to speak it. She could smell the grass, see Peter working in the field, hear their children playing in the heather. But she could also hear the march of British boots. There could be no peace and no home while war endured.
“I call it Shiloh,” said Peter, breaking the silence.
“What does it mean?”
“Harbor of rest.”
In the distance, a musket fired.
Peter looked up and turned in the direction of the shot. “They’ll burn it,” he said.
“Come with me, Pete,” said Fin pulling his face back toward her.
Peter shook his head. “Mr. Hickory died last winter. After the British have come and gone, the town will need me, to rebuild.” She knew he would refuse.
“Don’t fight, Peter. Promise me you won’t try to fight them.”
“I’m not a soldier; I’m a carpenter,” he said. Then at last, he smiled. “Don’t suppose it would do any good to tell you not to fight, would it?”
Fin didn’t answer. Musket fire again, closer this time.
“Don’t wait for me, Peter. You don’t know who I am anymore.” She tried to push him away, but he wouldn’t be driven. When at last he let her go, he mounted his horse and looked down, smiling and sad.
“I’ve been waiting for you my whole life, Phinea Button. Wouldn’t know how to stop now.” He pulled on the reins and turned the horse toward Ebenezer. More musket fire popped and snapped in the distance, and the horse shifted nervously. “I have to warn the rest of the town. Go Fin, before they get here. Come back when it’s all over and done. Come home. I’ll be waiting.” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. He kicked his heels and galloped away. Fin stared after him, committing everything about him to memory. If she never came home again, she wanted at least to have the memory of him perfect in her mind. She’d take it with her to the ends of the sea.
From the river, the sound of Topper shouting orders wove its way through the trees to find her, to pull her back from a world that belonged to her and Peter alone. Tears were drying on her face. She wiped the last of them away with her shirtsleeve and turned away from Peter, away from the orphanage, toward the ship. She felt she had betrayed everyone by failing to stop them from being hurt. Bartimaeus’s voice floated back to her, terrible things. She shuddered. He had tried to warn her. Then she remembered Betsy. She ran back into the chapel and there on the floor it lay, silent and awful. Its barrel was still warm with murder. She took it up. She needed it. She couldn’t stand by and let the world decide her fate. To make her own way she needed action, and action in war meant death, violence, murder if need be. Such were Betsy’s gifts. She pushed it into her belt. One day, like Bartimaeus, she’d put it down, but not yet.
As Fin walked out of the chapel, thoughts of Bartimaeus continued to come back to her. He was the one who had drawn her here, drawn Creache here. And for what? Nothing. The map had led to nothing. Then she recalled the words scrawled on the map.
Standing here I laid me down
me spoils, me heathen crowns,
To sleep in sacred earth redeemed
beneath the tower without a sound
She held her breath as the tumblers in her mind clicked into place. Bartimaeus couldn’t possibly have buried anything under the chapel—not the new chapel. Beneath the tower without a sound. The old chapel had no bell in its tower.
She closed her eyes and let herself drift back. Back through time, to years ago. How many times had she run to her old bell tower for quietude and solace? Hundreds? Thousands? She let herself remember them. Then, without thinking, she let her feet guide her. Her eyes were still closed as she began to walk, slowly at first, then faster, finally breaking into a run, through the gates of the orphanage, past the dining hall, down the length of the orphan house to the door—the space that had once been a door. She opened her eyes. She stood in the courtyard, now empty and plain. She looked around and knew for certain her feet had not failed her. This was the place. She took a few steps forward then one to the left. The ladder to her bell tower would have stood right here, she thought. This was where the map pointed. She could almost feel something hidden in the ground, calling up to her, crying out to be found.
She dropped to her knees and felt the ground with her hands. Yes, it was there, she felt it, she knew it. Right where Bartimaeus had put it. She nearly cried out with excitement, but stopped herself. Why hadn’t Bartimaeus spent the gold if it was here? He could have been rich. But she knew the answer before the question had fully formed. Me spoils, me heathen crowns. It wasn’t a treasure to Bartimaeus. It was the past. Bartimaeus hadn’t hidden out here to escape Creache; he hadn’t died a pirate in hiding. He had told her the truth: he became a new man the day Reverend Whitefield saved him. The only cent of the treasure he’d ever spent was to buy the fiddle. What remained, he buried, not to keep it hidden but to put it to rest. To bring it up now would be the ultimate betrayal. She smiled. No, she wouldn’t cry out for shovels and picks. She wouldn’t breathe a word of the place that she among all others was able to find so easily. The gold would lie in the earth, and Bartimaeus with it, until the faithful were called into the sky.
Fin stood and wiped the dirt from her hands. She looked around the courtyard one last time, scoring the place upon her memory, and then she left with a smile on her face. The sea was calling.
CHAPTER XXV
Down the hill and to the bank she ran. Topper was waiting with a rowboat and ferried her out to the Rattlesnake. She climbed aboard and felt like she was home. The crew was busy about the deck and tackle. Sam Catcher was calling orders. Somewhere in the tops, men were singing. And from the cabin came the angry growls of Jack Wagon.
She ducked through the hatchway and found him laid in the bed with a thick bloody bandage on his leg. Something didn’t look quite right about it, and it wasn’t until Topper’s comment that he “wouldn’t be the same” came back to her that she realized what the problem was. He was missing his left leg from the shin down. Her jaw fell open, and she thought she would be sick. One of the men that had joined them from the Justice was arguing with Jack, trying to convince him to stay in the bed.
“Bloody hell, Button. What are you gawking at?” growled Jack. “Tell this bugger to leave me be. I’m fine. Never used that leg much anyway.”
Fin couldn’t help but smile. The leg had to be hurting like the devil, but somehow it didn’t surprise her that Jack didn’t care. The man trying to keep Jack in bed turned to look at her for advice. She shook her head.
“Let him alone. He learns the hard way.” The man shrugged and walked out the door.
Jack swung himself around and sat up with a wince.
“Heard from Topper about what happened. Damned shame about Tan. Gonna miss him more than my blooming leg.” He wrinkled up his face and reached down to touch his stump. “Some bugger got lucky with his musket and blowed the thing clean off. Wouldn’t mind so much, but he took off running after he seen I wasn’t happy about it and there wasn’t no way for me to chase after him. Last I seen he was swimming down river toward Savannah.” Fin didn’t blame him.
“Me and the boys had us a talk while you was dallying ashore. The whole lot of ’em seen y
ou give the captain his due, and of course no one thinks worse of you for the doing. But seeing how we’re all pirates now, the boys seem to think we ought to go about things like proper pirates, which means having a captain for the ship. So like any good pirate ship, the man what killed the captain gets the job. So, Captain Button, take us to sea. I believe I’d like to take a little nap.” Without another word, he laid back and passed out.
Fin wasn’t sure what exactly had happened. It sounded like he just told her she was the captain. A clear mistake, probably brought on by delirium from the pain. She left him to rest and walked back out on deck.
“Captain on deck!” shouted Topper from the helm. The crew turned and cheered.
“Captain on deck!” they shouted. Fin flushed red and hurried over to Topper.
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop that?” she chided him.
“At least a few more, Captain,” he said with a grin. She gave him a sharp look. “It’s official now. The crew voted on it. Fair earned or not, you’ve got the reputation, Fin. And the whole crew seen you give Creache his comeuppance.” Fin rolled her eyes. “Stop fighting it. These boys will follow you, and you got me and Jack to help you out when you need it.” He winked at her. “What’s our course, Captain?”
She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t have the slightest idea how to be captain. But Topper was right. It was a gift and she should use it. Just as she had embraced Betsy, she made up her mind and took what she was offered. Flame of the West, they said. Terror of the British trade. So be it. Until she could return home in peace and give herself to Peter with no fear or regret, she would take up war, piracy, and whatever else she must.
“South, to open sea,” said Fin. “Then wherever the wind wills. We bury Tan and the others at sunset.” Topper nodded and called out the order. The sails unfurled and the Rattlesnake groaned to life. The crew sent up a cheer.
“Defain!” Fin called.
He presented himself with a measured bow. “Oui?”
“Take what men you need and precede us in the Monarch. We’ll need her to run the blockade.”
“Aye aye, capitaine.” He clicked his heels once then turned and assembled a crew. The knowledge that he had known Creache didn’t garner him any trust in her eyes. She intended to have answers out of him, but right now the crew needed open sea, room to breathe, time to bury the dead. Answers would have to wait.
The Rattlesnake and the Monarch pulled away, and the sounds of British muskets filled the air. Here and there along the treetops, pillars of smoke rose like tombstones marking each homestead razed in the British passing. As they rounded the bend of the river, Fin could see flames through the trees. Ebenezer was burning.
To be concluded in Book II:
Fiddler’s Green
Special Thanks
&
Acknowledgments
The classic stereotype of the author is that of the lone, grizzled recluse sequestered in a dingy one-room apartment of some Manhattan brownstone. He’s barely visible in the smoke-filled room. Empty bottles clutter a hardwood floor carpeted by cast away pages and a lamp throws a dim cone of light across a typewriter set on a rickety wooden desk. This mythical author emerges from his cave after some years with a coffee cup-ringed manuscript in his hands like Moses descending from Sinai carrying stone tablets still smoldering from their encounter with the finger of God. The author delivers this paper-borne slab of genius to a publisher and the rest is lost in a whirlwind of tired clichés.
Try to imagine the exact opposite of all that and you have a more accurate picture of the writing and publication of The Fiddler’s Gun.
I owe a great debt of thanks to my brother for threatening several times to visit bodily harm upon me if I didn’t pull this manuscript out of the drawer and publish it. This, I think, is a prodigious arrangement because if readers decide that it ought to have stayed in that desk drawer after all, then I can confidently point my finger and proclaim, “He made me do it.” (And thus shall all hate-mail be forwarded.)
Once I did decide to avoid this threat of harm, the road to publication was no easy journey and, humbly now, I wish to extend my debt of gratitude to those who helped me along the way, to Kate Etue, my editor, who did a wonderful job and did more than I ever asked of her, to Evie Coates who was able to capture the vague images in my mind and illustrate them into a beautiful cover, to the members of the Rabbit Room Writer’s Fellowship who critiqued and encouraged me, and finally, to my gracious patrons—those who believed in me and in my writing and, more importantly, had faith that I would not let them down. The book you hold in your hands would not exist without these fine people and their blessed offerings.
Patrons of The Fiddler’s Gun
Matt McBrien, Cris Jesse, Steve and Kathy Fronk (double thanks), Dieta Duncan, Quirky Kate Hinson, S. D. “Sam” Smith, Matthew Radzius, Kathryn Berryman, Paula Shaw, Laura Preston, Sha-Una Peterson, Jeannette McIntyre, Jerry Hampton, Tony Oakes, Michelle O’Shea, “The” Carlen Groce, Kristen Kopp, Jodi Kiffmeyer, Amy Riley, Eric West, Shannon Craig, Malia Mondy, Sharon Frazier, Marit Aanestad, Hannah Holman, Toni Whitney (glad you found your boat), Meg Hinson, Eddy Efaw and family, Richelle Maki, Linnea Lewis, Bruce Hennigan (double thanks), Peter Brunone, Angela Day, Larry Olson (many thanks), Hannah Nesmith, Kirk Plattner, Margaret Bull, Stephen Lamb, Christopher Rule, Bob Soulliere, Keith Schambach, Kristal Ragsdale, Curt McLey, Cyndi Sager, Trenton Gibbs, Lance Anders, Chad Ethridge, Tim McMillan, Connie Solomon, Lyndsay Slaten, John Barber, Kelsy Hill, Katherine Schultz, Yvan Rey (all the way from Switzerland!), and Arthur O. Peterson (thanks Dad)
A Brief Account of the Salzburger Flight, the Orphan House, and an Unsettling Songstress
Author’s Note: What follows is material that, while considered extraneous to the narrative of The Fiddler’s Gun, may be of some interest to the reader wishing to discover what mysteries lie just beyond the boundaries of the story proper. Said material refers chiefly to the arrival of the Salzburger Germans in the New World and their subsequent founding of the Ebenezer settlements.
Also included is a brief and chilling account of the vocal terrors that Sister Carmaline is known to have visited upon the orphans in her care, as well as an accounting of select and sundry details surrounding the life of the Ebenezer orphan house itself.
The Salzburgers, as they came to be called, hailed from far Germany. They fled the bloody wake of Martin Luther’s ninety-nine theses when the Catholics of Salzburg took it in mind that excommunication was too good for their Protestant brothers-in-Christ and determined that killing them off was a more proper solution—if not exactly scriptural. This protestant remnant of Salzburg embarked on a long exodus across Europe, through England, and landed itself at last upon the promised land of a place called Georgia. The place they founded they named Ebenezer, from the Hebrew for ‘Stone of Succor’. But like the Israelites of old, the Salzburgers learned that the world had plenty of pain and trouble left to offer, even after the Exodus. The first winters in the new world aligned themselves with scurvy and dysentery to rob them of half their number right off the boat. Such heavy losses moved them to abandon that first settlement and once more they went to the wilderness, down to the river, the Savannah River, and found a new place, a better place, along its high green banks. They tried again, calling it New Ebenezer. The world and the weather had whittled them down to the quick and what it left behind was a hard, determined people—and a lot of orphans.
The Ebenezer orphan house was the first to lay its foundations in America. It sat upon a small knoll on the south bank of the Savannah River and looked east toward the sea like some age-old wooden battlement of the fatherland commanding the attention of all the nearby woods. The children, to whom the world itself is a place of giants and wonders, saw it in far greater terms than any of its architects could have dreamed. By the mouths of castaway babes it was christened the Castle, for unlike the orphans of the Old World, those in this new one had only tales and stories of su
ch ramparts to quicken their imaginations.
The most impressive structure and the chief battlement of the fortress was the chapel. It was made of pine timber and rose to a sharp steeple set atop the bell tower. Inside lay ten rough benches, without backs of course, to dissuade any temptation of napping during vespers. There was no pulpit for the chapel had no preacher, though from time to time itinerant speakers of varying renown graced the podium. Near the front door was a narrow ladder that led up to the bell tower, but from its hollow no toll rang; bells suitable for calling the Lord’s worship were found to be too costly for the small town and so for all it’s many years the tower stood hollow and empty.
Surrounding the chapel lay the lower fiefdom of its little kingdom. The dining hall flanked the left: a small building that could only be called a hall in the most removed of fashions. Indeed, there was nothing grand or impressive about the building itself, made as it was of pine logs cut from the surrounding wood and harboring a cooking area at the rear filled with all manner of potions and reagents with which the cook, Brother Bartimaeus, invoked culinary magic three times a day.
Set in the center of the hall, however, was the one thing that broke up the monotony of its rough wood and stone: a long dinner table of polished red cedar. The red and vanilla grain of the wood played together along its length like bread dipped in wine. Every morning before the meal Brother Bartimaeus hovered over the table, polishing it with beeswax, muttering to himself over the small nicks, scuffs, and scratches left by the previous day’s dining. He’d rub them furiously until it was all shine again and then disappear into the kitchen to work his craft.
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