The Deepest Waters, A Novel (5 page)

“My, my, ain’t that a sight to see.”

Laura turned and saw Micah over her right shoulder, his face beaming, eyes wide and bright.

“Don’t get to see many sunsets. Usually down in the galley cleaning up after supper. They all disappear ’fore I finish. Expect I have you to thank for that, ma’am.”

“Me?”

“You started helpin’, then the other ladies joined in. Next thing, we’s all done and I got nothin’ left to do. Figured with so many, I’d be cleaning till morning. Cap’n say I can come up here a spell.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help. But you don’t have to thank me, Micah. I was raised to help when there’s work to be done, especially if I had a part in making the mess.”

Micah smiled, still staring at the sky. “Be nice if more folks thought that way.”

“Where’s Crabby?”

“Well, she gonna sleep well tonight, her belly all full up. Lot a’ ladies didn’t finish their supper—can’t say as I blame ’em—but Crabby, she ain’t picky. She eat like a goat, so she a happy goat ’bout now.” He pointed at the sunset and said, “Gonna be a nice mornin’ for us.”

“How do you know?”

“The sky say so. All red and lit up like that. Ever hear the sayin’, red sky at night, sailor’s delight; red sky at mornin’, sailor take warnin’? Don’t always turn out that way, but the three years I been out here, works most of the time.”

“You’ve only been at sea three years? What did you do before that?”

“That . . . well it’s a long story, most not worth tellin’.”

His face grew serious. Laura felt bad for asking. She should have realized how hard his life had been compared to hers, or any free person for that matter.

“Tell you one thing, though,” he said, smiling again. “I never eaten fancy food, but on land I sho’ ate better than this gruel we get out here. Don’t seem like the Lord meant people to eat such as that.”

Laura smiled. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“Keep askin’ myself the same thing, every spoonful. Then I say, Micah, man’s gotta eat. And I remind myself, each day passes gets me closer to that banquet Jesus promises in the Bible. I ’spect I’ll be eating mighty fine every day after that.”

“Do you have a Bible?”

“No. Couldn’t read it if I did. But my son Eli reads. Reads right well, like he been to a fine white school. Used to read me from the Bible every night back in Fredericksburg.”

“Where is Eli now?”

“They come took him away.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He sighed heavily. “Readin’s what did it. Got caught teachin’ some black folk by a fire in the woods. Somebody in the big house saw flames through the trees, thought the woods was on fire. Lord knows where he is now.”

She couldn’t begin to fathom such a thing. “It is so wrong . . . what’s happening to your people.”

“Well, ma’am, kind a’ you to say so.”

Micah looked back at the sunset. So did she. Most of the flaming reds and yellows had shifted to subtler pinks and grays. The sun had dipped below the horizon. When she looked back at his face, he was smiling again.

How was that possible?

Ayden Maul was almost finished.

As soon as he’d seen the sunset and how all the ladies reacted to it, he instantly went below deck and seized his chance. By now, like ladies are apt to do, they’d all staked their claim to whatever little corner of the hold they’d slept in last night. He knew some had kept their gold in pouches tied to their waist, like that woman who got him in trouble with the captain today.

But not all.

He found dozens more pouches, carpetbags, and money belts, all sloppily buried under blankets and shawls. All filled with gold nuggets. Some of the carpetbags even contained little gold bricks. A staggering sight. He made mental notes of the largest caches. At the right moment, he would slip down here again and take a handful from each one.

Who’d know? No way to prove how many nuggets were in each lady’s spot, or how many he’d have taken. He figured, added together, he’d leave this sorry ship with thousands of dollars.

He’d finally live the kind of life he’d always dreamed of. And it was all just sitting here, like ripe apples ready to pluck. Maul wasn’t a praying man. But he might just ask the man upstairs for a few more marvelous sunsets like tonight.

Then another thought. Why wait till then?

He listened a moment. Nobody making their way down the hatch steps. He walked back to three of the biggest carpetbags and grabbed a handful of nuggets from each one. That’s a better plan, he thought. Grab a little every chance he got.

Then he’d come back for the mother lode the night before they pulled into New York.

John looked down at the raincoat. It was a grim task, the most disturbing thing he had ever done.

“Are you all right?” Ramón asked.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I know it was hard,” said Ramón. “But if we’re careful and a worse storm doesn’t come and overturn the raft, the water in this raincoat might just buy us another day.”

The storm earlier that afternoon had terrified them as it passed by, but the lightning strikes never hit close enough to cause any real harm. Sadly, John had witnessed one man die from the sheer terror that it might. The storm had pelted them with a driving rain. The lightning had flashed and the thunder exploded all around them. But the winds were slight and, if anything, the rain seemed to calm the waves. Every man except one had his mouth wide open to drink in the fresh water.

On the outskirts of the group, one poor fellow started screaming, louder with each clap of thunder. After ten minutes, he let go of the door he’d been clinging to and swam away. Those nearby yelled for him to stop. John saw the whole thing. Where did the man think he was going? It was madness. He had swum about fifty yards when his arms began to move slowly. A few more strokes, and they stopped. Then they flailed wildly above his head, and he began to sink below the waterline.

John slipped off the raft.

“John,” Robert yelled. “What are you doing? Come back.”

John swam toward the man. The raindrops felt cool on his sunburned arms. He wished he could stop and drink them in. But he kept on.

When he finally reached the man, he understood why the man hadn’t gotten far. John found him floating facedown, wearing a large raincoat. The sleeves and pockets must have instantly filled with water. John turned him over, but it was too late. His eyes stared straight up at nothing, his mouth wide open. John lifted his head above the water and shook him; he didn’t know what else to do. Of course, the man didn’t respond. His expression didn’t change.

John swam back to the big raft, pulling the man behind him. At first, he didn’t know why. Clearly the man was dead. No one paid him any attention along the way. They all looked straight up, mouths wide open, drinking in the rain.

“John,” Robert said as he drew near. “What are you doing, is he alive?”

John didn’t answer until he got within a few feet. “I was too late.”

“Then why bring him here?”

Now John knew why, but he didn’t want to say. He unbuttoned the man’s raincoat then carefully pulled his arms free from the sleeves. “Robert, here . . . take this.” He lifted up the coat.

“I see,” said Ramón. “A wonderful idea. We’ll form this into a large bowl.”

By the time John climbed back on the raft, a half inch of fresh water already covered the bottom of the coat. John was exhausted and allowed the other men to catch the rain. He laid back, opened his mouth wide, and drank it in. A part of him knew he should feel sorrow for the drowned man. At least a tinge of guilt for how quickly he’d removed his coat and cast him aside. He at least should have said a prayer, but he didn’t have the strength. For the next fifteen minutes, he just lay there drinking in the rain.

Thirty minutes after that, the men stared at the most amazing sunset, formed by the remnants of the passing storm. John sat up and joined them, strengthened by the rainwater and the cool night air.

No one spoke.

The fiery sunset took him back to a similar scene in San Francisco: walking with Laura along the bay, just south of Rincon Hill. The colors spreading across the sky now were almost identical. But it wasn’t the sky he remembered most about that evening. It was how nervous he was. He and Laura had been on numerous dates, but so far they had never held hands.

He had decided this would be the night.

He had held her hand in certain approved moments: as she stepped up or down from a carriage and, ever so briefly, when he said good night at the end of each evening. Even then, it was so hard for him not to linger when he did, to hold on a moment too long. But he had always let go, as a proper gentleman should. He didn’t want to presume. Laura had never shown an ounce of flirtation so far. He was very glad of that.

The worry now was . . . if he did take her hand in his, what if she pulled back? If she felt he was being too forward at this stage? At times, she had been hard to read. He didn’t blame her; it was the bane of their upbringing, the consequence of living under so many rules of etiquette and manners. A lady must be this way; a lady is never that way. A gentleman never does this; a gentleman must always do that.

Here they were, living in San Francisco, a new land, entirely free of such rigid boundaries, but they seemed chained by them still, as if sitting on a porch swing with their mothers peering through the curtains.

John remembered a strong wind had been blowing that evening. Laura had to hold her hat on with one hand. They’d been looking out at the bay as they walked. But the sunset quickly took center stage. John turned to face it.

Laura did too. “My word . . . would you look at that.”

The rolling hills along the western sky had become dark silhouettes; the sky above them was on fire. They both stood and took it in a few moments. While Laura’s eyes remained fixed on the scene, John kept stealing glances at her. Her free hand was just inches from his.

“Did we ever get sunsets like this back East?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “I never saw them if we did.”

“Too many trees and buildings in the way,” she said.

Just take her hand
.

“That’s one thing I miss,” she said.

“What?”

“The trees back East. But I love how big the sky is out here and how far you can see in every direction.”

“I do too,” he said. “After dinner, are you still open to what we talked about earlier?”

She looked back at him. “You mean dancing at the Apollo ball?”

John nodded.

“I know I said yes before, but I’ve got to tell you . . . I’m getting more nervous about following through.”

“We don’t have to go,” he said gently, though he wanted to badly.

“I’ve been to the Apollo once with my brother. But I just sat watching all the other young ladies, how well they dance—”

He reached for her hand; he didn’t realize he’d done it until it was too late. “Laura, I’m only going there to dance with one young lady. Truth is, we’ll probably both be terrible.” She laughed but, more importantly, she didn’t pull her hand away. Then he said, “I took dance lessons my mother forced on me in my youth. I’ve never even been to a real dance before.”

She squeezed his hand. “Is that true?”

“Laura, if you dance with me at the Apollo tonight, it will be the first dance I’ve ever had with someone I have asked myself.”

She smiled. And she’d given him a look that felt more like a wonderful prize. “Then I will dance with you tonight, Mr. Foster.”

They’d continued to walk along the bay a bit farther from there, looking at the sunset, looking at each other. She’d held her hat with one hand and his hand with the other. But just as the sunset had faded then, it was fading now on the raft.

John closed his eyes, not wanting the memory to fade as well. He lay back on the raft, replaying the best parts over and over in his mind.