A Spell for the Revolution (10 page)

A man on the mainmast cried, “The captain’s wanted!”

A black man on the deck leaned in the hatch and called, “Captain, someone to see you!”

A squat, weathered man climbed out of the hatch. He had a face the color and shape of the block part of a block-and-tackle. There was a gray wool fisherman’s cap on his head, and salt and pepper in his mustache. “Natty Hammond,” he said. “You wanted me.”

Proctor tilted his head toward Deborah. “My sister and I are looking for passage to Long Island, to Gravesend if possible.”

Hammond looked them over. “You’re not Tories, are you? Long Island is full of Tories.”

“That’s why we want to go fetch our aunt from Gravesend.
She sent us a letter—she’s been afraid ever since Admiral Howe landed with the British army on Staten Island.”

“She asked us to come bring her back,” Deborah said.

Hammond’s mustache twitched as he rolled this information around his mouth to see how it tasted. Finally, with a glance at Proctor, he said, “You look like you’re fit enough to fight if you’re such a patriot. We’re taking some other fellows as replacements for Colonel Glover and the Fourteenth Continental Regiment.”

This was the hardest part of the lie for Proctor. He felt like he was doing his part to help fight the war, but he couldn’t explain it to other men. “We’re Friends,” he said.

Hammond studied them for a moment. “And your aunt lives in the Quaker town at Gravesend?”

“Yes,” Proctor said, and Deborah said, “Yes, she does.”

“I figured as much when I saw your dress and heard you mention the town by name. There’s a good harbor there for small boats. It’s where we’re headed, in fact.”

“Can you give us passage?” Proctor asked. “We’re willing to pay.”

“I can’t promise a voyage back,” Hammond said. “And I’d hate to leave you stranded there.”

Proctor started to answer, but Deborah interrupted. “We can come back overland if we must. The important thing is to get her out of harm’s way as soon as we can. May we please come aboard?”

Hammond looked at Proctor. “Can you keep your stomach down and pull on a rope?”

“Anything that you need,” Proctor said.

“Then that’ll cover your passage. We all help each other out during war.” He waved them on board and called to one of the blacks, “Cuff, can you pull up the plank before anyone else wanders aboard? Then see what knots this fellow knows. We’ll use him to haul ropes on the main deck.”

Cuff accepted the orders with a nod. He had a round, intelligent
face, with a knot in the side of his jaw that made it look like he was used to keeping his thoughts to himself. His big hands were scarred and callused. He bent to take up the plank, but Proctor beat him to it. When Proctor went to hand it to him, Cuff rolled his tongue in his cheek, then indicated where it should go with a tip of his head.

Proctor stored it. When he looked up again, he saw Bootzamon standing on the shore. One hand was on his hip; the other held his pipe. The wind swirled, carrying the smell of cheap tobacco across the deck.

Proctor’s heart began to race, but then Cuff put him through some drills. After Proctor showed that he could tie a thumb knot, a bowline, and a figure eight, he went aft to check on Deborah. She sat watching Bootzamon, who paced back and forth on the shore.

“Has he seen us?” he whispered.

“Did anyone in Salem
not
see you running around the deck, showing off? I thought you were doing it on purpose.” She checked to be sure no one on the deck stood too close, but still she lowered her voice. “I made Abby’s face appear out of the hatch twice, when I thought he was watching closely.”

Bootzamon stood watching the ship until they raised the sails and followed the tide out to sea. The city shrank in the distance, and the tiny figure of Bootzamon finally turned and walked away from the docks.

Proctor stood next to Cuff, in case he was needed to haul ropes. Cuff said, “So who was that fellow watching you from the docks?”

Proctor clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t lie to Cuff without losing the man’s respect, but he didn’t have an answer ready.

“At first I thought maybe you owed him money and were running away,” Cuff said as he coiled a rope. “But the way he was dressed—nah. He couldn’t loan anyone anything
except an excuse. And if his cause was lawful, then why didn’t he just come right up to the ship?”

“His master means us harm,” Proctor admitted. “They’re allied with the Loyalists.”

“You’ve got unusual enemies for Quakers,” Cuff said, storing the rope. “You might want to check on your sister. She don’t look well.”

Deborah leaned over the railing, watching Salem shrink behind them. Proctor leaned beside her. The wind was steady enough to kick foam off the whitecaps. “They noticed Bootzamon following us, but I don’t think it makes a difference. How do you feel?”

“Better if I look at something very far away,” she said. She lifted her head to the northeast and wrinkled her nose. “There’s a storm growing out there.”

“You’ve got a nose for weather?” Hammond asked, coming up suddenly to join them. Proctor tensed, expecting their talent to be discovered, but Hammond’s words held no double meaning. He squinted at the sky. “Aye, there’s a nor’easter brewin’. Might be trouble for them as is fishin’ the banks.”

“It won’t make landfall,” Deborah said softly. Then added, quickly, “I mean, will it?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t think it will. Still, we’ll sail close to shore and safe harbor, well clear of the storm.” He reached up with his hand and smoothed his bushy mustache on either side of his lip. “If it gets rough, you two should head below.”

“We will,” Proctor assured him.

Hammond looked him in the eye. “I just spoke with Cuff. I don’t appreciate any trouble brought aboard my ship, especially not when I’m doing a man a favor.”

“You won’t have any trouble on account of either of us,” Proctor said.

“I won’t ask you to swear to it, because I respect a man’s
beliefs, and I know you Quakers don’t hold no account with swearing,” Hammond said. “But I don’t hold no account with lying either.”

“Neither do we,” Proctor said. The little lies they had to live with each day ate away at him. “If you can drop us off in Gravesend or nearby, we’ll be grateful.”

Which was all truth. Hammond nodded his acceptance and went back to the quarterdeck.

“Thank you,” Deborah said under her breath. “I know how hard it is for you, all the lying. You were raised in an ordinary household, as part of a community.”

“It’s hard for me because it’s wrong,” Proctor said.

“I’ve lived with it my whole life, since before I can remember. The need to hide who you are from people, to hide everything you’re doing.”

Thinking about that made him think about The Farm, and the six people left there. Would they be safe? Would Bootzamon try to follow him and Deborah south, or would he return to The Farm and try to break through the seal on its borders? They wouldn’t know the answers to those questions until they returned from their journey.

“Why do you suppose they want to capture young talents?” he asked.

“They have some plan that requires great power, more than anyone wields alone,” she said. “They need the power of slaves. It must be a plan of extraordinary proportions.”

That was not a comforting thought. The ship rocked over another swell, and the wind came from a new direction. Deborah lifted her head and said quietly, “I don’t think the storm will come this far east at all.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

Deborah stared at the waves and the skies for a while before answering. “My mother had the talent to a degree.” Proctor thought about the rain that had poured over her mother at her father’s funeral. “But it’s as though, as my
talent grows, I can see the hand of God moving about the earth, arranging the bowls and spoons like a cook in a kitchen. Almost as if I can nudge them. It’s … unsettling.”

The ship plowed through a large wave, sending spray over the sides. Proctor’s stomach felt unsettled too.

A hand gripped Proctor’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake. He lifted his head and felt the deep imprint on his cheek of the coiled rope that had served as his pillow. Out at sea, with the rocking of the boat and no way for Bootzamon to reach him, Proctor had slept well for the first time since Virginia.

Cuff knelt beside him and shook him again. “Captain Hammond, he wants to see you.”

Proctor shook off the slumber and stood up. The sky above was middle-of-the-night dark, with clouds blotting out many of the stars. Another ship floated nearby, and a dinghy was tied up alongside that. The motion of the waves made it tap against the side of the hull.

Captain Hammond held a lantern, the light reflecting off several new faces. Hammond was talking in low tones to them. “This is the
Silver Molly
, out of Sag Harbor,” Hammond said when Proctor arrived. Then, to the other men, “Tell him what you told me.”

“Black Dick,” one man started, and then looked over his shoulder as if naming the devil might make him appear, even though Black Dick was merely the name for British admiral Richard Howe. “He started landing troops on Long Island, at Gravesend, a day and a half ago.”

“So we won’t be able to make landing there?” Proctor asked.

Hammond shook his head. “Black Dick’s got three hundred ships in these waters. He hadn’t closed off the northern
passage or the Narrows as of yesterday morning, but he will as soon as they’re done moving troops. The
Silver Molly
is making sail for Boston, if you want to go back with her.”

“No, we still have to try,” Proctor said.

“There’s going to be fighting. You’d best think of your sister as well.”

The door to the tiny cabin creaked open, and Deborah stepped out. “His sister agrees. Our aunt is elderly, and she said she would wait for us. We have to reach her if we can. We’re not part of the battle, so we should be safe.”

“I wouldn’t count on that overmuch, miss,” Hammond said.

“How close can we get?” Proctor asked.

“I plan to sail north for the Narrows and land the men and supplies in time to help Colonel Glover. We could put you ashore near Oyster Bay. I don’t think we can get you any closer than that, and I won’t have the lady aboard once we pass Hell Gate. Black Dick’s ships are likely to fire on us anytime from that point south.”

The other sailors climbed back into their dinghy. The oars dug into the waves as they rowed back to their own ship. Proctor turned to Hammond and said, “How soon can we make it to Oyster Bay?”

Hammond shrugged. “That’ll depend on the winds.”

As he walked away, Deborah whispered to Proctor, “Now that I’m rested a bit, I think I smell a good wind coming.”

Deborah went to the mainmast and stood with her hand against it, and her head bowed in prayer. Several of the sailors and passengers gave her curious looks. When Cuff walked by, Proctor mumbled, “She’s very devout, prays every morning.”

He had the feeling that the sooner they were off the ship, the happier everyone would be. The sky lightened toward dawn, turning from indigo to steel gray in the east. Sunrise
brought bits of clouds torn off a great mass like sheets ripped off a clothesline. The waves rose, slapping the sides of the ship as they shoved her forward. The sails snapped and billowed, pulling the ship on.

Deborah removed her hand from the mast. She looked drained, with dark circles under her eyes as if she had not slept at all the night before. One of the mates nearby yelled out orders, and she winced instantly—Proctor knew her head must be aching to burst.

“How do you do that?” Proctor whispered to her.

“You don’t want to know,” she said. “You don’t want to pay the price. I’ll be in the cabin, asleep in the hammock.”

She staggered off, barely able to keep her balance as the ship bounced over the waves. Proctor didn’t know if he could pay the price or not, but he wanted to know how she did it, he was sure of that much.

The ship sailed west that whole day, entering Long Island Sound. The long, low horizon was broken by frequent bays and sandbars covered by clouds of gulls. Small ships moved back and forth like birds skimming the waves. Shouting trumpets called out the latest news.

Deborah emerged late in the day, looking pale but a little more rested. “The British still haven’t commenced their attack,” Proctor told her. “It takes a long time to move thirty thousand men.”

“Maybe we’ll have time to reach Gravesend, find … our aunt, and escape again before they do,” she said. “I would like to be back at The Farm as soon as we can manage.”

“Yes,” Proctor said. “I’m worried about them too. There was a dolphin swimming along the ship a little while ago.”

“Oh!” Deborah ran to the railing. He joined her, pointing to the spot where it had last appeared. When the sleek nose pushed out of the water and the dolphin started sewing its way through the waves, Deborah’s face lit up like a lantern in a dark room.

Proctor found himself smiling with a glad heart for the first time in the longest time he could remember.

The wind whipped her hair out from under her cap, and he was tempted to reach up and catch it for her—he knew how she liked to have everything orderly and just so. But brothers didn’t do that for sisters, and he kept his hands to himself.