We had shingles, potash, and furs below, and might get as good a price at Falmouth as elsewhere. And it was an easier place to leave than Bristol. With every hour in these waters I was risking my freedom and the future of our project, but we had already made a goodly sum from our timber venture. What the chest contained we had not yet determined, but it was more than the worth of the timbers we sold.
Yet we still needed supplies, both for the homeward voyage and for our stay in the new land. Food, also. And clothing.
John Tilly came to me. "Falmouth it is," I said. "A quick sail in, we'll dispose of the cargo to the first buyer, then buy our supplies and sail. I want to be in port no more than two days."
"That is very quick," he said, considering.
It had to be. That British officer might get to thinking, and putting one thing with another, might come back for another look. At the moment we were nothing in his plans. With parties of sailors ashore, and a chance of further battle with the Spanish, we were only an incident in his life. It was unlikely he'd give us a thought until the situation at Kinsale was settled. With luck, we'd be in Falmouth, out, and gone by then.
The Abigail slipped quietly into the harbor at Falmouth and dropped her hook.
The gray battlements of Pendennis Castle, now in the process of completion, loomed over the harbor.
Jublain stood beside me, looking shoreward. "It is the Killigrews you must see here," he said, nodding toward the town. "If they are not off a-sailing after Spanish ships themselves, they will welcome you, I think. See the big house there? Close to the shore? That is Arwennack, the Killigrew home.
"Oh, they be a salty lot! They'd take your ship right from under you if you have not an eye upon them, yet they are respecters of boldness and courage.
"Speak to Peter, if you can. He's no longer young, but an able man, and you'll be safer talking to him than any of the others. Moreover, although he's a Queen's man he's damnably independent, and he's not likely to report your presence or hold you for the Queen's officers."
"You know him?"
"Served with him once. He'll remember me, I think."
"Let's be ashore then."
Peter Killigrew received us in a low-beamed room with a huge old fireplace. He took bis pipe from his teeth and placed it on the table.
"Your name?"
"Barnabas Sackett, master of the Abigail. I'm fresh into your harbor with shingles, potash, and furs. I'd like to sell what I have, load supplies, and be off. It is," I added delicately, "my impression that I do not have much time."
"Sackett, is it? Are you the one they are hunting up down the land?"
"I am. I was told you were a fair man, and an independent one, and I have some'at to sell and much to buy. From you, if you'll but have it that way."
"They say you've found King John's treasure?"
"Balderdash, Captain Killigrew. Pure nonsense. I found some gold coins and discovered there was a market for antiquities. Here and there I'd stumbled upon ruins in the forest and up on the downs, so I got a manuscript by Leland ... he walked over the country hunting such places. ... Then I went to a place I remembered and commenced digging. I found some more, but it was pure chance."
Killigrew made a rumbling sound in his chest. Then he said, "Luck! I've no faith in luck, Sackett! Luck comes to a man who puts himself in the way of it. You went where something might be found and you found something, simple as that.
"All right, Sackett. I like the way you stand, the way you talk. What is it you need?"
I handed him my list. "I'll treat you fair," he said. "You'll pay 10 percent more than I'd sell for here, but that's some'at less than you'd pay in Bristol or London."
He pushed some papers on his desk. "I'll have lighters alongside within the hour. I'll pay the going price for your potash. The shingles and what timber you have left, I'll pay premium for. They are hard to come by."
He turned in his chair and rang a small handbell. When a servant appeared in the door, he said, "Send Willys to me ... now."
He pointed to a chair. "Seat yourself, Sackett." He stared at me from under heavy brows. "So you're going back to America?"
"It is true."
"Fine! You've a fine ship there. Load her with mast timbers and send her back.
I'll buy them, and whatever else you have to offer, and if you take any prizes, bring them to me."
"I will do that," I said quietly, "and I am grateful."
He got up suddenly. "Let us walk down to the inn. I'll have a drink with you there. Could have it here, but I need the air. Need the walk. Don't move around so much as I used to.
"Raleigh's land, is it? Well, well! Savages there? You've seen them? Are they truly as fierce as we hear?"
I shrugged. "Some are, some aren't. They are good fighters, and some are good traders as well. I hope to be friendly with them."
"It is well. Send your ships to Falmouth. We'll treat you fair and ask no questions, nor make a report. Why, 'tis foolishness, this talk of treasure! I believe no part of it, for you acted no part like a man with gold."
We sat over our ale and talked, of ships and the Queen, of Raleigh and Essex and Mountjoy, and of Kinsale that had fallen, and of the actor Shakespeare, and a likely man I found him, Peter Killigrew.
The Abigail lay still upon the crystal water of the bay when I returned, and the lighters were alongside, out-loading our goods, and Abby was at the rail.
She looked anxiously into my eyes. "Barney, I was that worried! I was afraid they'd taken you for the Queen."
"Not them." Suddenly, I remembered. "Abby, have you heard anything unusual aboard ship? Or seen anyone not of the company?"
She looked at me oddly, and I explained. "A boy?" she asked. "Who came aboard in Kinsale? Oh, Barney, let's find him!"
"We must. I'd not like to be taken up for kidnapping." I called to Jeremy.
"Stand by the scuttle, will you? I shall go below."
"What's up?"
When I explained, he shrugged. "It's just another lad, wishing for the sea, no doubt."
When I was in the darkness of the hold, I spoke out. "Lad, I saw you come from the boat last night. Come out now, for we're sailing to America in the morning, and there'll be no place there for lads whose family will be wanting them."
There was silence, then slowly from among some bolts of sailcloth, he stood up.
We eyed each other in the dim light.
A fine, likely-looking lad he was, slender, but with good shoulders upon him, and a clear, clean-cut face with a shock of handsome hair. The skin of his face and of his hands marked him for gentry.
"Who are you, lad?"
He stared at me, brave enough, but frightened, too. "I am of Ireland," he said, "and my kinfolk are killed. I am alone, wanting only to get to France where there are others of my kind."
"To France, is it? You'd fly away and leave your land behind? We've enemies in France, boy."
"You have, if you're English, as I've no doubt you are. I've none, for it's Irish I am, and they are friendly to us there."
"Aye, so I've heard. You are Papists, Irish and French. Well, come on deck.
You'll be hungry, and Catholic or Protestant, you'll be ready to eat. I'll have no lad hungry aboard my ship."
"It is very kind of you."
Yet he watched me . Warily, and I was sure he had no trust in me. So I commented, "Boy, you've the manner and style of a lad well-raised, so I'll trust that you've honor as well."
He turned on me, drawing himself up a little and looking directly at me. "I have, Captain. In my family, honor comes first."
"Do you know the name of Barnabas Sackett?"
"I do not."
"Well, the name is mine, and a good name it is as names go, but I am wanted by the Queen's men. It is a mistake, but the devil of a time I'd have proving it, so come the dawn I shall be away upon the sea to America."
"America?" he was startled. "I had thought-"
"Aye, no doubt you had expected aught but
that. Well, America it is, and I shall not come back. Nor did I think that you'd such a voyage in mind when you came aboard."
"To get away, Captain. That was all I wanted. Had they found me they'd have slain me ... upon the spot. I am-"
I lifted a hand. "Tell me nothing. It is not needed. I know something of the troubles of the Irish, and have naught against you, m'self, nor does anybody aboard, but there's some as might in the towns about here. Was I you I'd get far from the sea."
"You do not go to France, then?"
"To America only, and we'll touch no land, God willing, until we reach there. If you go ashore, lad, it will be here, in this place."
He stared off into the distance, frightened a little, but not wishing to show it.
"Say nothing of who you are, lad. Tell nobody you are Irish for a great while.
There be many a lad adrift in England now. Mayhap you can get yourself apprenticed-"
"I am a gentleman!"
"Aye," I agreed grimly, "but would you rather starve a gentleman or live fat an apprentice? Lad, I know none here, but I'll set you ashore with a good meal inside you, a bait of food to last you, and enough money to buy an apprenticeship in a trade you welcome."
Startled, he looked at me. "You'd give me money?"
We went on deck and to the cabin then, where Lila fed him well, with some talk from Abby and me.
"My name?" He hesitated. "My first is Tatton. I'll not be telling the other."
A handsome lad he was, with clear hazel eyes, and a warm smile. Such a lad as someday I hoped my son would be, but we put him ashore in Falmouth with five gold coins sewed into his waistband and a packet of food.
He waved to us from the shore road before he started off, and we saw him no more, a fine, sturdy lad, walking away toward a future no man knew.
Chapter 22
Dark flowed the waters of the Chowan River, dim the shadows in forest and swamp, sullen the light upon the empty hill where once our fortress stood. The timbers we had hewn with our hands, the joints we had fitted with loving care, the huge gate with its repairs ... all were gone.
Burned ...
"Do you see anything, Jeremy?"
Ring was studying the forest and the riverbanks through his glass.
We stood together on the poop, watching the banks slide by in the fading light of an aging day, seeing the red touch the hills with warning. Abby was beside me, large now with child, and John Tilly, calm, serious, a little worried, I think, for he approved not of our going. Jublain had told me at last that he had not the stomach any longer for the wilds. "I fear you must go from here without me, Barnabas."
Well enough I understood, and blamed him not a whit. There were other places for him, and other climes. In a way I was relieved, for I much wanted a good friend who knew where we were and what we did.
At the last I had decided to leave the ship to Tilly, for Jublain wanted it not, only passage back to Europe or to the French lands to the north. Pimmerton Burke, Tom Watkins, and Jeremy Ring would come with me, and others had chosen also to attempt the wilds. Jublain assured me he would come again on another voyage, but within days now we should be pushing upstream with Wa-ga-su as our guide.
We had hoped to find the fort intact, but it was gone, burned. Had they found the food caches? We did not need the food now but a time might come, and it was a comfort to know it was there.
We went up the hill in the morning under a sullen sky of clouds with lightning playing, and we stood among the charred timbers and felt a sadness upon it, for what man does not love that which he himself has built?
The earth above the caches was grown now with grass. If the food had been found it was long since. The nuts, at least, would keep.
We returned and went back aboard and sat at table with few words between us. "Is it all gone?" Abby asked.
"Burned," I said, "a few timbers and ashes. Grass grows where our house was, and where the wall was built. I think it must have been but a little while after we sailed."
"Nick Bardle?" she asked.
"Indians, I think. Bardle would not burn it. He would rather leave the timbers for further use sometimes, if along this coast he needed a spar. Scoundrel he may be, but he's not a wasteful man."
So we talked a little then, of old times and new times, of the fluyt, and all the while we tried to avoid the thought of good-bye.
For good friends we were and the time for parting near, and no one wished to be the first to speak of an end to what we had together.
Jublain was my oldest friend among them, of a chance meeting when he helped me escape my first serious trouble. Now I would see him no more. Or would I? Who can say, in such a world?
Yet the urge was on us, and on Abby no less than I, the urge to see beyond those blue mountains, to find a new land, to break new earth, and see our crops freshening in the sun of a new spring. For land beyond the mountains is ever a dream and a challenge, and each generation needs that, that dream of some far-off place to go.
We had crossed an ocean to come ... why? What drove us more than others? Why did Pim come with us and not Jublain? Why Jeremy Ring of the dashing manner and not John Tilly?
Thus far we had come together, and now some strange device, some inner urge, some strange thread grown into our beings was selecting us to move on westward.
Selecting? Or was it we ourselves who chose? Never would I cease to wonder at why one man and not another.
We had made our last purchases from Peter Killigrew, three light, strong boats that we carried on our decks for launching. Now we put them ready, and sliding down the river we went along to that other one to the south, a somewhat larger river, and so Wa-ga-su said, a larger one.
Much time I spent with Wa-ga-su. He knew my chart at once, put a finger on the sounds, and traced the rivers. Here and there he showed me changes in the river or parts that had been wrongly marked.
"Each year I shall come once along the coast," John Tilly said, "and shall tell others to keep an eye out for a signal from you."
Once more upon the map I showed him the area in which I planned to settle. "Of course, there is no way of knowing until upon the ground, yet I shall follow this river, I think, to the place where it comes from the mountains. Then I shall look for some valley, some cove, some sheltered, defensible place, and there we will settle.
"We have the tools, the seed corn, and much ammunition. We will plant our seed in the spring, and we shall try to find minerals, not gold so much as the useful minerals, and there we will claim land. I shall even mark out some for you if you should change your mind."
"Barnabas?" Jublain put a hand on my arm. "Cannot I, even at this last moment, persuade you not to do this thing? It will be long before other white men come, and longer before they reach the mountains. You will be very few, and you will be alone. Think of Abigail ... without women, without the friendships, the comforts ..."
"Lila will be there. We will make friends among the Indians."
"You hope! Well," he shrugged, "so be it. Perhaps it be your destiny, Barnabas.
But if you have sons, send at least one of them home to England. There will be no education here for them."
"We will teach them. I have books. Yet, that is one thing you can do, Jublain.
Do you remember where we first cached our furs? In the cave?"
"I do."
"If you come this way, bring books, wrap them well in oilskin, and hide them there. It may be that one day we shall return to the coast, and we will look for them."
Again we shook hands, and then we talked of other things, and at the last, when our ship was anchored off the river mouth, and our three boats were lowered and well stowed with our gear, two boats to be rowed, and one towed behind, Sakim suddenly came from below.
"With your permission," he said quietly, "I shall go with you. You will need a doctor where you go, and your wife will need one. I would like to come."
For a moment I could not speak. I simply held out my hand and he took it,
so our party was thus the stronger, and stronger by as able a man as I had known.
In the first boat were Wa-ga-su, as our guide and interpreter, Abby, Lila, Sakim, Pim Burke, Black Tom, and myself.
In the second boat were: Tim Glasco, a square-built, strong young man, blond and cheerful, who was a journeyman blacksmith; John Quill, who had been a farm boy on a great estate in England; Kane O'Hara, who had been a mercenary soldier;
Peter Fitch, a slender, wiry, tireless man who had been a shipwright and a ship's carpenter; Matthew Slater, a farmer; and Barry Magill, who had been a cooper and a weaver; and Jeremy Bing.
Abby kept her eyes firmly set on the river before us, her face slightly pale, her eyes large and solemn. Lila gave never a backward glance, nor had she ever, I think, once her mind was set upon a way to go.
As we moved upriver, I assayed again the strengths and weaknesses of our party.
We were strong in body and spirit, I knew, but we faced our first winter in the wilderness, yet winter on the coast might be even fiercer.
We saw no Indians, we saw no wild game. The boats moved slowly and steadily upstream, holding well to the center of the river except when we could escape the direct current and move in shallower, quieter water near one shore or the other.
Each man pulled an oar, myself not excepted. Only Wa-ga-su, who sat in the bow, was free of that labor, because we wished his eyes and attention solely for the river and its banks.
On that first day we made what I felt was ten miles. Toward dusk, Kane O'Hara killed a deer, and Sakim speared a large fish. We moved to an island and made a small camp with a carefully screened fire.
The river flowed softly seaward, a faint wind rustled the leaves, then was still. Our driftwood fires threw a warm glow upon the faces of the men as they gathered about, eating and talking. Our boats had been drawn into a small cove, sheltered by trees and moss hanging from their branches. Peter Fitch had remained aboard, and I walked down from the fire to talk with him, and to listen to the night.
An owl flew by on slow, prowling wings. "Big one," Fitch said.
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