"Soon, perhaps," he finally said. "There are certain things that must be accomplished here first. Mr. Bradley."
Vincent's heart leaped into his throat. He swallowed it back down and stood a little straighter. "Sir?"
Ellis looked Vincent in the eye. "I fear I will be preoccupied with the work our good Mr. James is doing. Have you ever led men?"
Eleven pairs of eyes other than Ellis's burned holes in Vincent.
"No, sir," Vincent replied.
"You will now," Ellis said. "Gentleman, beginning on the morrow, Lieutenant Bradley will call the muster and lead drill."
Every word Ellis said rang inside Vincent's head, like he was the tower and Ellis the bell. Vincent struggled not to grin.
"Lieutenant?"
He means me.
"Yes, sir," Vincent managed to say.
"These men need to be pulled into disciplined, well-trained shape, and they need to be so sooner rather than later. Much sooner."
"Yes, sir."
Ellis nodded and glanced around the room at the other men. Vincent didn't dare to look away from Ellis, or even breathe. Finally, Ellis turned smartly on his heel and left the barracks.
Vincent watched Ellis as far as the edge of the gardens, just at the top of the incline between the house and the barracks. His heart pounded, and he didn't quite trust himself to look around at anyone else.
When he finally did manage to look around, Vincent found the eleven other men watching him. Not a one of them was smiling.
"Well," Jennett said. "How about that. Lieutenant."
Alone as Vincent generally preferred to be, he'd never felt quite so alone as he did right then.
Chapter 22
Kellen had only seen Alvie Fox's dead body from a distance and only for a few seconds, but in those seconds she'd come to understand more than she'd have learned in weeks or maybe months, otherwise—about herself, about Ger, even about Ripley.
Since then, she'd heard all the gory details about Alvie's body from any number of other dockers. Some of those had laid eyes on the body dangling from the mooring lines and probably twice as many again had taken what they heard secondhand and added their own little twists—Alvie had been bled dry, it was a sacrifice to some pagan Irish god, it was a sacrifice to some pagan Negro god, it was a sacrifice by witches to Satan, it was the water ghosts.
Kellen thought that even though she hadn't seen Alvie as up close as some of the others, she was the only one who fully grasped the truth of things.
"And will Mr. Owen be at table this eve?"
Kellen leaned back in her chair and looked up at Widow Howland, blinking stupidly.
Widow Howland stood there, a wooden bowl in her crab-fingered hands, and arched a single eyebrow.
It was a good question. Kellen had been avoiding the answer to it all day, much like Ger had obviously been avoiding her. She'd never caught more than a glimpse of him, not even in the pay lines at the end of the day.
"I don't think so," Kellen said. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.
She waited for the words to hurt, but mostly she just felt numb, like she'd come in from some screaming monster of a storm. Her flesh felt frozen, and a vague, fuzzy ringing sound echoed around inside her mind.
Widow Howland clicked her tongue and set the bowl in front of Kellen. The soup it held was watery, mostly turnips and very little meat. Then the Widow stepped back and folded her hands in front of her.
"Thy board is due." The Widow's words just sort of hung there in the air, sounding ugly, while Kellen tried to decide why she felt ill.
Ger wasn't there to count it. Ger wasn't there. Kellen stared into her watery soup and tried to put her thoughts into a straight enough line to figure out what she should do, and not just about the Widow but about all of it. What could she do?
"I don't have Ger's share yet," she finally said. "I need to get it from him."
Widow Howland crossed her arms. "Thy board is due. 'Tis no concern of mine how you come by it."
Kellen's ears rang for real. It was a dangerous, red sound, and it thawed her numb sensation so fast that her hands quivered and her insides turned to steam. She twisted her fingers together under the table and turned her eyes up at the Widow.
"Maybe you ought to take it from the coins you cheated me out of before Ger got here," Kellen said.
The Widow's eyes widened, and her brows raised alarmingly high. Her mouth even dropped open a little. Kellen caught herself imagining how Vincent would have grinned at that. Tears prickled beneath her eyelids.
The old bitch recovered fast. She snapped her mouth shut and drew herself up straight as a church pew, and those brows beetled right back down between her eyes. "Thou shalt find thyself with no roof over thy head with accusations like that, young woman. God does not look kindly on those who speak ill of—"
"You cheated me!"
Without quite meaning to, Kellen stood up. She leaned toward Widow Howland.
"I don't know what your God thinks of that," Kellen said, "but what I think is that you ought to pay me back!"
The Widow fell back a step. "Miss Ward!"
The red noise in Kellen's ears was so loud now that she could hardly hear anything else, and the tears prickling at the back of her eyes had somehow spilled onto her cheeks.
The harsh lines of the Widow's face softened, just a little, just for a second, into something that might have been sympathy. Or maybe it was guilt.
"I understand there was a killing at the waterfront today," Widow Howland said, her voice gone all smooth and calm and careful. "A somewhat horrible one. T'was a difficult day, I'm certain. Perhaps t'would be best to save further discussion for a time when emotions run less high."
The ringing in Kellen's ears faded dead away. Sympathy? Or guilt? Kellen found she just didn't care, not right that second. All she really wanted was to be out of the Widow's sight. Out of sight altogether.
She left the bowl of thin soup sitting untouched on the table, and retreated down the stairs. As she passed the window, she saw Mistress Kreuger in the courtyard, looking up at the Widow's house. She'd probably heard all the shouting. That had to be like finding buried gossip treasure.
It was only after Kellen had fallen into bed that she realized that she never had paid the board the Widow had demanded.
~
The night before, for the first time in weeks, Ger had slept in the streets—technically, in the corner of a warehouse along Water Street. No one at Hayden's had mended that loose board yet, so Ger had crept in and spent all the dark hours between dusk and dawn in a makeshift bed of burlap bags that stank like tobacco, listening to the Delaware gurgle and moan past the docks and the wind drive rain across the roof and up under the eaves. By morning, he'd had a renewed respect for Em's ghost stories.
Other men had hauled Alvie Fox's body down from the lines and dealt with the mess left behind. Ger couldn't imagine there'd been much to clean up; most of what had once been Alvie Fox had drained or fallen into the Delaware before they'd ever found him.
God. Dear God.
Ger had dragged himself through the work day because he'd had to. He could recall Em's and Finch's faces, but he not a word either of them had said. He knew he'd hooked cargo and lashed knots and cranked the winch, but he didn't remember a second of it.
He'd watched for Ripley. At the end of the day, Ger had walked the length of the waterfront, north then south then north again, looking for Ripley. Ger still didn't know what he'd have done if he'd actually found Ripley. Something, though. Anything.
So no one would see him, Ger had crawled out of Hayden's warehouse before dawn and waited, huddled against the same wall but on the opposite side, until the sun painted a paler shade of deep blue-black around Camden's skyline and sprinkled hopeful bits of gold across the Delaware.
Kind of like the way Ripley had scattered bits of Alvie Fox into that same water. In the clear light of morning, "just do something" didn't seem like much of a plan.
Then
Ger spotted Kellen walking down the hill on Chestnut with the other dockers gathering to shape up, and everything got twice as difficult. She walked slowly enough that other men rolled around and past her like eddies around a stone. Her shoulders were hunched, and she'd shoved her hands into her pockets. Her face was lifted, though, and she turned her head side to side once in a while, like she was looking for someone.
A split second later, her eyes found Ger, and she stopped.
He'd never caught up to her yesterday, not to tell her he wouldn't be back or even just give her the coins she'd need to pay Widow Howland. He didn't know what he'd say to her, and she didn't look much like she wanted to talk to him, either, even if she'd been looking for him. But he closed his fingers around his pay from the day before and took a deep breath.
He owed her. He could do this much, at least. Then he'd be free to do whatever else needed doing.
She'd already started toward him. Ger let her navigate the steady stream of workers stomping along the docks and come to where he stood in the warehouse's shadows. Before she could say anything, Ger took hold of her wrist with his left hand. Her eyes widened and she flinched, but he pressed open her palm.
Her skin was rough, calloused. But warm. He tried not to notice.
"This is yesterday's." He slid the coins he held from his hand onto hers. "It will cover next week. That should be time to find someone else."
"You can't stay out here on the streets, looking for him," Kellen said. "Just come home."
Ger's hands threatened to tremble. Home. God. He still had Kellen's hand in his. He wanted to keep it.
"Pay the Widow with this kind of coin," Ger made himself say. He didn't look into Kellen's face. He couldn't. "One for each finger on one hand except the thumb, that's four. No more than that, and exactly this kind of coin."
"Ger!" Her voice wavered and ended on a note that struck straight through to his heart.
"I can't stay, damn it!"
He hadn't meant to shout. He looked up, and her face was tilted toward his. She blinked, dark lashes in a quick flutter around gray eyes. Ger caught himself wishing he could take back the words.
"I can't leave Ripley alone," he said. "Someone has to—"
"Someone has to stop him." Kellen interrupted. "Yeah, I know. You keep saying that. But it doesn't have to be—"
"It does," Ger interrupted right back. "I have to try."
Kellen's brows drew down. She looked more stubborn than ever, and Ger bit back the sudden urge to shout at her again—she was strong and smart and damn it all, who knew what she could do if she'd just try?
"I understand, you know," Ger said. "It's not like I'm not scared. I am."
Kellen's frown deepened. You could be brave, Ger thought. You could be amazing. He wanted her to stop frowning and smile at him. He wanted to see that rare sparkle in her eyes. Her wrist was still in his hand. He could feel her pulse pounding.
"If everyone who could be brave would be brave," Ger said, "if everyone who could be strong would be strong, then people like Burke Ripley would be finished before they got started."
Kellen's eyes did sparkle then—with tears, Ger thought.
"You are an incredible fool," she said. "And you're going to wind up dead."
She was probably right, and Ger felt his resolve waver. How hard could it be, really, to just give up on Ripley? He tested the idea in his mind, prodded at it like a loose tooth.
He couldn't. He'd tried, the last few weeks, and it had been like carving away a part of his soul. Scared as he was right now, he also felt more alive, more right, than he had since the day he'd first met Alvie Fox, and Patrick Colley had told him where to find Ripley.
Conviction, that was what he felt. Conviction.
"I have to do this," he said. He closed Kellen's fingers around the coins he'd given her and let go of her hand.
That letting go left his hands feeling cold and empty, like they might never touch warmth again.
"You'll be fine," Ger said. "Four fingers, four coins, just remember that."
Kellen's jaw tightened. Her eyes glittered again.
"It's not about the money," Kellen said.
Ger's insides felt alarmingly like they were turning to water.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't help you. But you'll be fine. You will."
"You can't be out here on the streets! You can't go looking for him! You have to stay out of sight."
Fear. Ger recognized it in her voice, and it lanced through his gut in the same moment—as it had been off and on since they'd found Alvie's body.
"I can't hide from Ripley," Ger said. "Now more than ever, someone has to—"
"He killed Alvie. We both know he did."
"Yes. And that's why it's so important—"
"Jesus!" Kellen cast another frantic look around, as if she expected Ripley to leap from thin air at them. "You make me crazy. This. You wanted to know why I'm always so pissed off at you? This is why. Because you won't let things go. You think you have to fix everything. Some things can't be fixed."
"This could be." Ger made himself take a breath and calm his suddenly-racing heart. "Ripley could be stopped. If we're the only ones who know he killed Alvie, though, then it has to be us."
Ger hesitated, took in Kellen's wide gray eyes and pale face.
"Me," he said. "I won't drag you into it. But that leaves me."
"It can't be you."
"Who else could it be?" Fear arced into frustration, and Ger raised his voice. "For God's sake, Kellen, what do you—"
"I thought it was you." She stepped closer and grabbed Ger's wrists in her hands.
Ger's irritation fled. All he could think about was her fingers pressed into his wrists and her upturned face.
"What?" he managed to ask.
"Alvie," Kellen said. "When I saw him yesterday, I thought he was you. Skinny ass, blonde hair. From a ways back, he didn't look so different from you."
Kellen's gaze grabbed hold as tightly as her hands.
"That kid in the alley, too," Kellen said. "He was blonde and skinny."
"He was just a kid," Ger muttered, but he couldn't put any strength into the objection. Ice had gripped the small of his back and crept inexorably up his spine.
"They both looked like you. I thought Alvie was you."
Kellen's grip on Ger's wrists tightened.
"Maybe Ripley thought they were you, too."
For one very long moment, Ger couldn't breathe. He looked down at Kellen and saw in the pinched lines of her face and felt in the desperate grasp of her fingers how scared she was. And it wasn't herself she was scared for, he suddenly realized.
"Come home with me," she said again, and it was barely more than a whisper this time. "Ripley will be long gone anyhow. He runs off whenever he gets into trouble too deep. That's what you said, right?"
Ger looked into Kellen's eyes and wanted to believe. God, how he wanted to believe.
Insanely, that terrible wanting suddenly sparked anger.
"I told you that sooner or later, Ripley would really hurt someone," Ger said. "Now that he has, isn't that as much your fault for not trying to stop him as it is mine for trying and failing?"
Kellen's eyes widened. Her faced darkened, and she squeezed his wrists fiercely before shoving them away as though he'd been the one to grab hold of her. She jabbed a finger at his face.
"No. Don't you lay your guilt on me. When Ripley hurts someone, it's his fault for being a son of a bitch. The only thing that'll happen if someone like you or me tries to stop him is that we'll be the ones he hurts."
The spark spread, thawing the ice in Ger's veins. What had ever made him believe he could make her understand?
"Someone has to stop him." Ger took a step back from Kellen and her accusing finger. "If everyone stands around waiting for it to be someone else or for it to be safe enough, then God alone knows who else he'll kill—not hurt. Kill."
"It doesn't have to be you!"
"Doing the right th
ing means doing the right thing, whatever the risk!"
Kellen drew back from Ger then, too, and lowered her finger. Her eyes still glittered, but her face had gone hard. Ger looked into Kellen's eyes, and another thought came to him that abruptly cooled his anger.
This was no longer just about Ger and Ripley and Ger's need to redeem himself for what happened to Hagy's baby. This was about Kellen now, too.
"I told you," Ger said. "I told you a long time ago to just walk away. Go now."
"I should've known better." Kellen made a sound Ger thought was supposed to be a laugh, but her face screwed up like she wanted to cry. "I knew Vincent for longer than I can even remember. If I couldn't count on him, then why the fuck would I think I could count on you?"
Ger suddenly felt a little like crying, too. He had to go, and he had to go now, because if he let her keep talking, she'd convince him to stay. And what Kellen must have forgotten was the very first thing she'd shouted at him about.
Even if Ger didn't need to stop Ripley—and he did—he still couldn't stay with Kellen. If Ripley was still around, and if Ripley was after Ger, then Ger couldn't be anywhere near Kellen.
Ger took a breath and steeled himself. Then he turned away and made himself start walking.
June 1806
Chapter 23
Vincent had thought he wouldn't know what he was doing, but he stepped up anyhow, took charge and imitated Ellis's typical actions and words during muster and drill. As he did, he came to realize that he knew more than he'd thought.
He also came to realize that the other men weren't half bad. Bosch still struggled to hit a bullseye, but he could at least land a shot somewhere on the target. Most of the others fired consistently clean shots. They handled the wooden sabres with precision. With the horses, they mounted and rode smartly, dispersed and rallied neatly. When they were paying attention and taking things seriously, they did a fair job.
When they took things seriously—that was the real problem.
The morning was bright, the air crackling with the lingering chill of night and the blooming warmth of dawn. Vincent sat his horse, a bay gelding with an easy disposition, and looked along the line of mounted men facing him. The horses puffed clouds of steam into the morning, but they stood as calmly at attention as their riders.
A Stillness of the Sun (Crowmakers: Book 1): A Science Fiction Western Adventure Page 16