In the Belly of the Bloodhound Read online

  When he has gained the top, Ezra turns and tips his hat and smiles his little half smile down to me.

  "And a very good day to you, too, Miss Alsop. Please do be careful. And watchful."

  I assure him that I will be both and my dear Mr. Pickering heads back to his law practice.

  This is a really good mooring for another reason, too, I reflect as I look across the harbor. I can see any British ships that might pull in next to Long Wharf, without them seeing me first. And they always moor at that wharf, it being the biggest and best in the harbor. There are none there now.

  "Very well, Jim, I'm off for a while to see about the traps. Clean her up a bit, if you would. Then grab something to eat, and maybe see what Gardner's has got in the way of some small portholes for the cabin. I do hate not being able to see out from the cuddy when it's all battened down."

  "Aye, aye, Captain," says Jim, and though I know he's being cheeky, I do like hearing it.

  It takes me longer than I'd thought it would to bargain for the traps off the crook who was selling them, him taking me for a dumb girl and therefore to be stripped clean of any money she might have—and she getting steamed and contemplating physical violence—but eventually we come together and agree on the sale of five lobster/crab traps, and five fish traps, which is about all I figure Jim can handle. I also buy two clam forks for when the tide is right and the opportunity for taking some clams presents itself. Bad luck for the clams, lobsters, crabs, and fish, but good luck for Faber Shipping, Worldwide, I figure. I cannot see how we will not prosper, even if only in a small way.

  I arrange to have my fishing gear picked up later, and feeling right bold because of the lack of British warships in the harbor, I work my way up State Street and duck into my beloved Pig and Whistle, scene of my first musical triumphs, for a reunion with Maudie and her man, Bob. After the joyful cries of surprise and delight on all sides, she quickly brings me up to date on how things are going..."Good, but not as good as when you and Gully MacFarland was bringin' in the crowds, and speakin' of that, Gully's been around lookin' for ye."

  Gully MacFarland. Uh-oh... I draw in a sharp breath, and twist around to watch my back, then...

  "But don't worry, dear, he seems to have straightened himself out a bit. Besides, he's back at sea again. Says the ocean air was good for him and he's given up the drink. I don't know if that's true, but he was a lot cleaner than when last I saw him..."

  The last time I saw Gully MacFarland, I had tied his drunken self to a wheelbarrow and delivered him to a Royal Navy ship that would take him out to sea and out of my life forever, I hoped. He'd have killed me right then and there if he'd had the chance, I know that.

  "No, Jacky, he said he was thankin' you for it ... He was only looking to get his fiddle back"

  "Well, Maudie, the next time you see Gully, you tell him the Lady Lenore's back in London but in good hands and I'll give her back to him if ever I see him again and if I happen to have the Lady in my hands and if I happen to be in a forgivin' mood, in which mood I might not be, considerin' I ain't forgot how he laid his mark on me that last night we was together, so it'll have to be at arm's length, and in the presence of some of my larger friends, like ... like John Thomas there just come in the door ... John, so good to see you! Come here and give your Jacky a hug! And Smasher, too! And as pretty as ever! Tell me, who else in the old crowd is still about? Maudie, a pint for each of my friends!"

  I've been gone for longer than I had planned to be and I'm hurrying back down to the docks, as I want to get started on setting the traps, so's they can get to catchin' stuff, but it was good, oh so good seeing everybody again. I wanted to do a set tonight, but I can't, I just can't do that, and when I left them, I had to say, "Now remember, if anybody asks, you ain't seen me."

  I'm thinking we'll put a string of the traps on the other side of Spectacle Island. I like the looks of the bottom there. I bought ten wooden buoys to mark the traps, and I imagine I'll paint them white with a blue stripe, those being the colors of Faber Shipping. Gotta get these things settled, 'cause I ain't gonna have much freedom once school starts up again, that's for sure.

  I step off the pier, go down the ladder to the floating dock, and hop onto the Star, where I see Jim splayed out there in the bilges, facedown. The two new portholes are lying beside him. What? Asleep on duty? Or drunk, even? No, I won't have that, I—Ah, no ... it's not that, it's—

  Horror.

  I turn him over. He has been severely beaten. Blood pours from his mouth. There are thick little pools of it on the decking next to his face. His eyes are swollen and closed. Oh, God, no.

  He stirs and tries to lift his head. Then he chokes and sobs, "I didn't tell 'em. I didn't tell the lousy bastards nothin'. Didn't give 'em the key, neither."

  I look over and see that the door to the cuddy has been tried, but it looks like it didn't budge.

  "Jim. Can you stand? Can you..."

  "Run away, Missy. They want you. Run away now. They might be back." He's got his two skinny arms stuck down between his legs, and there is some vomit mixed with the blood on his shirt, so they must have punched him in the belly ... and maybe kneed him down below, too.

  "How many?"

  "Two ... One of 'em held me and the other one hit me." Another spasm of crying, gasping, sobbing, breath caught in his throat.

  "Come, Jim, we've got to get you out of here. Up with you. I know it hurts, but we've got to get you some help."

  He groans as he struggles to his knees. "But they might come back, Miss, they might get you—"

  "Don't care. This is my fault that you're hurt. Don't worry about me. Up now. Put your arm around my neck. That's it. Up now. Let's get over to the side."

  My mind seethes with fury. I wish now with all my heart that I still had my pistols. The dirty sonsabitches! Damn them! Damn them to Hell!

  I get him over onto the dock and we stumble up the street. I see a man working at stacking spools of rope outside Gardner's Chandlery.

  "Sir! Please help!" I cry. "Go out and hail a coach! This boy is hurt bad!"

  "Why, it's our Jimmy! What—," says the man, his mouth hanging open.

  "Just get the coach, Sir! Please!"

  The man drops his coil of rope and runs down to the head of the pier and disappears around the corner of a warehouse. Soon, but not soon enough by me, a single-horse hack comes barrelling around the corner and pulls to a stop next to me and my sagging burden.

  "Hold on, Jacky!" says the driver and he jumps down and helps me get Jim up onto the seat of the open coach. I don't know how he knows me, but right now I don't care.

  "Thanks, Mr...."

  "Strout, Jacky. Ed Strout. You and me was together in Mr. Fennel's and Mr. Bean's production of Midsummer Night's Dream. I was always in makeup as a donkey, which is prolly why you don't recognize me. Here ... lift him up ... There! Get in and we're off!" He leaps up into the driver's seat and I jump into the open coach with Jim. "Where to, Jacky?"

  "The Lawson Peabody School, back door, Ed, and thanks!"

  We lurch off.

  I put Jim's head in my lap as we head off.

  "Don't you worry, Jim. We're gonna take care of this, you'll see, you'll see, by God, you'll see."

  Jim moans and says, "They had a poster ... said you was the Jacky girl they was lookin' for. I said you was named Nancy Alsop and they should sod off, but they grabbed me and ... I'm sorry, Missy ... they messed me up and they messed up the Star."

  "You did just fine, my brave, brave young Jim," I say, tears pouring out of my eyes and onto his face. I kiss his brow. "Just fine, you did ... And I am the Jacky girl they're lookin' for, I am, and I should have trusted you with that so you could be more careful, but I didn't and now it's come to this ... I am so sorry."

  "I knowed you was that girl. I heard you talk with your mates, so don't...," he burbles through his blood-filled mouth. He grows quieter as his gasping stops and his breathing becomes more regular.

  "Jim," I s
ay softly into his ear, "what did they look like? The two men."

  His cracked and bloody lips open. "Black jackets. White shirts. Black round hats. Heavy boots. Both had mustaches ... dark hair ... I..."

  "That's enough, Jim. That will do. You rest now ... Rest..."

  We clatter up Center Street and onto Beacon and soon pull up to the school. Ed Strout is off the driver's seat and the door is pulled open.

  "Here, Jacky, let me help you..." But the clatter of our arrival has roused the kitchen staff and the door bursts open and Peg hurries out, followed by Annie and Betsey and Katy, and they gather up Jim and take him inside. They have seen me, myself, dragged through that very door in a very similar condition to poor Jim, so they know what to do. They lay him out on a tabletop and take hot, wet cloths and wipe off the blood and check the wounds. He looks so small lying there like that. I bite my knuckle and try not to cry.

  "If he needs a doctor, get him one," I manage to choke out. "I'll pay for it"

  Peg pokes around at his ribs and feels his arms and legs. "Now, now, we'll see. Nothing broken ... These boys are pretty tough ... Made of leather and bone, they are. The cuts will heal ... Wait, Jacky! Where are you going?"

  But I am already at the door. "I got some business to settle," I say, and am out and gone before anyone can stop me.

  ***

  Somewhat later, I'm peeking around the corner of State and Union. Those thugs are undoubtedly still about ... There! Coming out of the Bull and Crown! I sidle a little bit closer so as to get a look at them. I'm somewhat mystified by their presence, since I haven't seen any of the wanted posters around Boston. They are putting on their broad-brimmed round black hats and hitching up their trousers after what was surely their dinner at the tavern and they step out into a beam of sunlight and ... Well, I'll be damned! It's Beadle and Strunk! Those two coves what kidnapped me and sold me to that crazy Reverend Mather when last I was here!

  It's plain to me now: Ezra had told me that those two had been banished from Boston, their license to practice their dubious trade as private investigators having been revoked after their dealings with the Reverend were brought to light. According to the town fathers reviewing the case, snatching me, a landless, underage girl, was perfectly all right and completely legal—as long as I was delivered to the person who had hired them, which was Colonel Trevelyne, not the Reverend. So it was merely a question of bad business practice, a breach of contract, not out of any concern for me or my wishes in the matter of my disposition. Go figure...

  So Beadle and Strunk must have set up their nasty business again in either Philadelphia or New York and seen the posters when they were tacked up in those places. Recalling me from our last encounter, they figured that I'd probably be hiding out in Boston, where I knew my way around, and since they knew what I looked like, they came up here in hopes of a quick reward. Hey, sell her once, sell her twice, they must have joked, winking at each other as they climbed into the coach that would bring them here, this girl's a walking industry for us, she is, and bless her for that.

  I step out and start walking down State toward the Star. Beadle and Strunk walk toward me. I wrap my mantilla more tightly about my lower face and cross the street so as to avoid the men. They notice this, and I see Beadle nudge Strunk and nod in my direction. Then they both quicken their pace and come at me.

  I gasp and spin and start running back up State. "Stop, there! You stop!" I hear behind me, and I reach down and pull my skirts to my waist and turn on the speed. I dash past the Plow and Stars and then there's Mr. Yale's print shop, and then the good old Pig and Whistle, and I'm leavin' 'em behind 'cause nobody ever catches Jacky Faber in the riggin', or on foot, neither, and then I step on a cobble wrong and trip and go head over heels and I cry out in pain and get up lame. I hear shouts of triumph behind me. We've got 'er now, by God! but I hobble on and duck down into the alley between Mrs. Bodeen's and McGraths', and I can hear 'em pantin' behind me. I go to the end of the alley and then I stop and turn to face them. I fold my hands in front of me and I stand there quiet as they come puffing into the darkness of the narrow space.

  "Ah, dearie, now that's a good girl," says the one named Strunk. He pulls a small length of rope from his pocket. "You just stand right there and be good. Put your hands out in front of you now and..."

  ...And then John Thomas and Smasher McGee step out of the shadows behind Beadle and Strunk. In their hands they hold heavy belaying pins, and their dark, grim faces are set. There is scant mercy to be seen in either of them.

  I turn away from the sounds of struggle and head back to the school. And as I walk, I do not limp, for I didn't trip over no cobblestone back there on State Street, no, I did not.

  Did two bodies wash up on the next morning's tide? I don't know, as I didn't ask. I do know that I never again laid eyes on Beadle and Strunk.

  I know also that things will soon grow even hotter for me here and that I must get Jim and the Morning Star to Dovecote to lay over till spring. And I will have to stay in the safety of my school.

  That's what I gotta do.

  Chapter 9

  And so it was that Jim and I and the Star went back to Dovecote—me to stay till school started again in January, Jim to stay there with the boat, at least until spring.

  Jim had recovered enough to travel the next day, so we left early in the morning, right after a big breakfast, with Peg and the girls all fussing over him, which I know he enjoyed, although he blushed and said he didn't. Jim had to eat slowly, carefully placing the food between his bruised and split lips, but at least those two rotters didn't get any of his teeth. He might limp for a day or two, but he's young; he'll get over it.

  On the way down to the Star, we stopped to buy Jim his heavy jacket, blue cap, and boots. And I bought him a bit of blue ribbon to tie back his curly brown hair.

  We found the traps and buoys I bought the day before piled on the dock next to the boat as promised. We loaded them on board and I returned to the chandler's once more to buy some rope and blue and white paint. The money belt that I wear about my waist is getting very light.

  Star log, December 4. 09:30. Under way on starboard tack from Boston to Quincy. Winds light and from the south. Will have to tack all the way to Dovecote.

  Back at Dovecote, the farm kids find Jim to be an exotic—a handsome boy who wears a striped jersey, bears evidence on his face of a recent fight, walks with a swaggering roll in his step, and knows how to sail a boat. The boys, of course, want to pound him, it being in the nature of boys to do that, but I asked Edward, the stableboy I had known from before, to keep the others from beating him until he has fully recovered from his wounds, and then they could. They agree, and by the time he has healed, they are all friends and so they forgo that particular male ritual, as I thought they might. The girls, on the other hand, have something else on their minds, oh, yes, they do, and I know for sure there is more than one calico bonnet cocked in his direction—my female sense has noticed that Claire, the thirteen-year-old daughter of George Findley, the head hostler in the big stables, has for certain set her own sights on our unsuspecting Jim. We are not there many days before the clever Claire has taken his blue cap and embroidered Morning Star on the headband in white thread for him. Smart girl. For that you shall get all of Faber Shipping's needlework contracts. Right now we need a new flag for our masthead. White background, two foot by three, with blue stitching. A fouled anchor, see, like the one I've drawn here...

  All in all, Jim Tanner does not lack for companionship. Nor do I.

  ***

  And so December passed.

  Jim's first task was to paint the buoys, which he did in the Great Barn with Claire in attendance, of course, oohing and aahing over his skill with the brush. Then, after the paint had dried, we rigged and baited our traps and placed them out in the bay. It was with great joy and anticipation that we dropped them over the side, one by one. We vowed that we would not check them for three whole days, but when we stood on the shor
e and watched the buoys bouncing all jaunty out on the waves, well, we couldn't wait and were out on the second day, pulling them up. We didn't catch anything that day worth keeping, just some small crabs and trash fish, but it was wildly exciting, seeing the traps surge out of the cold water and wondering just what they might hold. Over the next few weeks, we moved the traps around till, at last, we did begin to draw some riches from the sea.

  Amy is my constant companion, but Randall always seems to be around, too, which I really don't mind. Oh, he's always looking for ways to get me into his bed, or at least to that place we were that time down on the banks of red roses when ... Well, never mind. It was just a close thing, is all, but now it's mostly banter, wordplay twixt the two of us, like, So, Jacky, all I have to do is go over to England, put my sword through this Jaimy Fletcher, and then you'll consent to be my mistress? And me back at him with Which you might not find such an easy thing to do, milord. Lieutenant Fletcher also has a sword, and a very fine one, too ... Perhaps his blade would slide between your ribs, instead. Hmmm? All of which is all right, being just words. I mean, I know Randall would cheerfully seduce me and bring me to ruin, but he wouldn't force me. He is a gentleman, after all, and I think, beneath all his rascally exterior, good at heart. I do notice, though, that in his fanciful future plans for me, it is always as mistress, never as wife. The scoundrel.

  Colonel and Mrs. Trevelyne have returned from the city and pronounce themselves delighted to see me again, which is big of them, considering the fact that I almost caused an international incident when last I was in their house. I think they put up with having me around mostly because I seem to bring some cheer to their children.

  Christmas approaches and we have a fine, deep snowfall, and horse-drawn sleighs are rigged and we bundle up and go out caroling and wassailing. It is great fun, careening about the countryside and pulling up in front of houses, their lighted windows buried up to their sills in the snow, us piling out, getting into a group somewhat resembling a chorus, and belting out "Good King Wenceslaus," to the great hilarity of all. We are then invited in, to great house or small, and if the people within have a treat to give us, they give it. If not, then we give treats to them.