Dawn on a Distant Shore (21 page)

On the street below, a
carter cursed at his ox, his whip flashing. A boy darted out of a shop with a
basket of fish, his bare feet kicking up a mist of muddy water that spattered
two Royal Navy officers from heel to the brim of their great boatlike hats.
They shook their fists at him, but he never looked back. Elizabeth thought of her
schoolchildren in Paradise, many of the boys much like the ones on the street
below. For a long moment she fought with tears of frustration and doubt and a
simple and overwhelming homesickness for familiar things.

The sight of
Runs-from-Bears on the street was welcome. He came around a corner with Captain
Mudge, who whirled one arm vigorously in the telling of a story. With the other
hand he plucked his pipe from his mouth to point it up the street toward the
docks. Then he raised his head and pointed to the window, and catching sight of
Elizabeth, bowed, clearly flustered. But it was the expression on Bears' face
that got her attention.
More trouble
. Elizabeth thought of waking
Curiosity, but then she simply picked up her damp cloak and let herself quietly
out of the room. At least one of them should be rested. Whatever new trouble
there was, she would handle it on her own.

"Gallows?"
she repeated, as if she had never heard the word before and could put no
meaning to it.

Runs-from-Bears
nodded. "Built yesterday morning."

"It don't mean
much," said Captain Mudge. "The Tories like to hang a thief now and
then." But he would not meet her eye.

"Bears,"
Elizabeth said evenly. "This Kahnyen'kehâka you spoke to, did he see the
gallows himself?"

"Hen'en."
Yes
.

She searched for her
handkerchief, and touched it to her forehead. For a long moment she studied the
toes of her boots: her sturdiest pair, mud stained, worn now across the toes in
a way she would have never tolerated when she was still Miss Middleton of
Oakmere. It seemed very long ago.

"Well,
then," she said, struggling for a confident tone. "We'd best be on
our way. Captain Mudge, have you located Mr. Stoker?"

"I have." He
contemplated the public house for a moment, rocking back on his heels. "I tried
to talk him in!coming here but he's a difficult man, is Mac Stoker. He's waiting
for you aboard the
Jackdaw
. Wants to talk about money."

"By all
means," Elizabeth said. "But might I have a word with Runs-from-Bears
first?"

When the captain had
stepped away to examine a bay mare tied up outside the blacksmithy, Elizabeth
said, "Curiosity will worry. Will you go sit with them? But avoid the
innkeeper if you can."

He nodded. "And you
watch yourself with the Irishman. In Stone-Splitter's village he is called
Grabs-Fast."

"I'm afraid that
comes as no surprise at all," Elizabeth muttered. She wished for some quiet
place to talk to Bears out of public view, but there was no time. "I will
be careful," she agreed. "But deal with him I must. We have to get to
Montréal today."

"We will get
there," said Bears. "But not at any cost."

Of course not
, she thought, but
again she found herself touching the gold coin hidden beneath her bodice. She had
sent a hundred similar coins to Montréal with Will--perhaps he was spending it
today, to good end. Curiosity had a hundred more in a leather bag she wore next
to her skin. It was a tremendous amount of money for any common sailor; it
would even buy a small boat and man it. But for the moment the coins were
worthless to her. There was no way to melt them down, and they could not spend
a single one of them. Not here with half of the king's navy on the docks and
the river, and a good many redcoat officers in the streets and public houses.
They might never get out of Canada if a five-guinea gold piece with the profile
of George II came to the attention of the Crown's agents.

Bears was watching her
face, reading her line of thought as if she had spoken out loud. "Bone-in-Her-Back,"
he said, and put a hand on her wrist. "To put the smell of gold in the Irishman's
nose would not make things easier. Use the silver, there is enough of it."

Elizabeth blinked
hard, embarrassed by her own desperation. "Yes, of course you're
right."

"Pardon me."
A young man had stopped to stare openly at Runs-from-Bears. Elizabeth forgot at
times how fierce Bears must look to others: the keen dark eyes, a face pitted
with pox scars, a tattoo that stretched from temple to temple like the tracks
of the bear whose teeth he wore on a leather thong around his neck. An egret
feather dangled from his side braid, and from his belt hung a collection of
weapons with well-worn handles.

"Do you require
assistance, madam?" Arched brows, and a knowing expression in the gray
eyes. She was a lady in intimate conversation with a red-skinned man on a
public street; he was an Englishman, sure of his view of the world and his right
to intercede. She stared back at him until he began to fluster.

"Not your assistance,
sir," she said coolly.

He flushed, bowed
stiffly from the shoulders, and walked off.

"Why are you
grinning?" she asked Bears, suddenly very cross with him, but not quite
sure why she should be.

"It's good to
hear you sounding more like yourself."

"It is the only
way to deal with such presumption and insolence," Elizabeth said primly.

"Thayeri,"
said Runs-from-Bears.
It is proper so.

Mac Stoker was a big
man in his prime, barrel chested and black haired, with blue-gray eyes and a
chipped front tooth that glimmered when he smiled. A wide scar circled his
neck, twisting white and pink like a lady's ribbon against the tanned skin. He
was the kind of man that women felt compelled to look at when he came their
way, the kind who crooked a finger in return and expected to be obliged. He was
known from Halifax to the Huron as Sweet Mac Stoker, and once he would have
made Elizabeth uneasy to the bone. But no longer.

She stood with Captain
Mudge, watching as Stoker worked alongside his crew, unloading bales of raw
wool from the
Jackdaw
. He liked an audience, that was clear, for while
the others wore work shirts of homespun or coarse linen, he worked stripped to
a pair of overtight breeches, the muscles in the broad back and arms shining
with sweat. Elizabeth was not outraged, as her aunt Merriweather would have
expected her to be, and neither was she intrigued; she simply appreciated the
opportunity to observe him from a distance and get some sense of him. By the
time Stoker came rambling down the gangplank, wiping his neck with a discarded
shirt, she had taken his measure and felt composed enough. If he really was the
only way to get to Montréal quickly--and in this she had no choice but to trust
Captain Mudge's judgment--she must deal with this Mr. Stoker, regardless of
what she thought of him, or how he presented himself to the world.

Captain Mudge began
the introductions, and launched from there into a rambling story of the journey
from Albany. Elizabeth kept her eyes fixed on the ragged eelskin that secured
Mac Stoker's queue. He too seemed content to let the older man talk, engaged as
he was in close scrutiny of Elizabeth's person.

Captain Mudge had
worked himself into high voice about the final portage and the capsizing of one
of the cargo barges, when he was interrupted by a shouting and waving of arms
from the other end of the dock.

"That's Mr.
Little," said Elizabeth. She had not seen the captain's first mate since
they had left the bateaux on the Richelieu. Now he stood between a tower of
boxes and two taller men; Elizabeth could hear his voice crackling with indignation.

"A-yuh. And
excisemen," agreed the captain, yanking on his chin whiskers with a scowl.

Stoker grunted.
"That's Wiggins and Montague, the greedy bastards. They'll be after havin'
your man Little for breakfast."

As if to prove Stoker
right, Mr. Little let out a yelp of distress, and they lost all sight of him.

"Perhaps you had
better see what he needs," said Elizabeth. "Mr. Stoker and I can
carry on."

"Ain't got much
choice." Captain Mudge started off with a thump, and then seemed to
remember what he was about.

"Stoker," he
said, one eye narrowed down to a slit. "Take unfair advantage of this lady
and I'll see to it you never run goods down Albany way again."

Mac Stoker nodded,
touching his forehead with one blunt and grimy finger. When Captain Mudge was
gone, he winked at her, the chipped tooth flashing. "You're lookin' for
passage to Montréal."

"I am," said
Elizabeth. "If the cost is right, and the accommodations will serve."

He barked out a
surprised laugh. "English, all right. Yous're all the same."

The thought of the
gallows at the Montréal garrison made it possible for her to keep her composure
and her temper. "I don't see that my country of birth is relevant to our negotiations,
Mr. Stoker."

With one thumbnail he
raked the bristle on his cheek. "All business, eh? I'm told you tried your
luck with the
Nell
first. Don't take it to heart that Smythe turned you
down. He's the sort what prefers pretty boys."

Elizabeth met the blue
gaze with a single raised brow. "We were discussing the price of passage
to Montréal."

He found her amusing.
"You're not easily shocked, I'll say that for you. The frontier takes that
out of a woman. You've been far, so I hear told."

One of the crew swung
by with a barrel on his shoulder: stale tobacco, sweaty clothes, fish oil, rum.
The stuff of sailors everywhere. Elizabeth reminded herself that Mr. Stoker was
just a man with a ship, and nothing more. Whatever rumors he had heard of her
did not matter in the least.

"The fare, Mr.
Stoker?"

The chipped tooth
again in a grin calculated to irritate her. "You're in a damn hurry to get
where you're goin', and I'd wager that
Jackdaw
will suit just fine,
rough as she is. Sure, and I'm willing to bet you've got the fare, too. Shall
we step on board to discuss it?" The grin, daring her. He scratched the
pelt of dark hair on his chest lazily.

"I believe we can
conclude our discussions right here," said Elizabeth.

His gaze wandered down
the front of her cloak and up again. "I'm goin' on board," he said. "Stay
here or come along. Suit yourself."

Not at any cost
, Bears had said, and
this is what he meant.

"I will pay you
fifty dollars, silver," Elizabeth said to his retreating back, taking note
of the scars: a long cut along the left ribs, a bullet wound at the shoulder,
and the evidence that he had lived through more than one flogging.

When it was clear he
was listening, she said it again. "Fifty dollars silver for three adults
and three children. And we must have the use of your cabin for the trip."

He glanced at her over
his shoulder. "Fifty guineas," said Stoker. "Gold."

She managed a smile,
even while her heart tripped into a quicker beat. "Gold guineas? But you've
been listening to pirate tales, Mr. Stoker. I am willing to give you sixty dollars
in silver if you're enough of a sailor to get us to Montreal safely by
morning."

The expression in his
eyes was all blue steel and bile.

"I'm enough of a
sailor to take youse and the brats to China and beyond, darlin'. But Granny Stoker
raised no fools, and I won't take on the Royal Navy for a pretty smile alone."

"Of course
not," agreed Elizabeth evenly. "I've offered you sixty dollars in
silver for your trouble."

He peered down at her,
a muscle fluttering in his cheek. "So you're telling me that you've got no
gold. Next you'll be claimin' that you're not the Englishwoman who gave Jack
Lingo what he's been askin' for all these years."

Elizabeth was aware of
an ox bellowing nearby, gulls overhead, incessant hammering, men singing. She
raised her chin and met his eye.

"Seventy-five
dollars in silver, Mr. Stoker," she said calmly. "Take it or leave it."

"Jack owed me
money," he continued thoughtfully. "It seems only fair that you
should take on his obligations, havin' sent the whoreson to the hell he so
richly deserved."

Anger crept up her
neck. She put a hand there, as if to stop it. "This is not the only ship
in Sorel, Mr. Stoker."

"Sure, and that's
true," he said. He glanced over his shoulder at the
Jackdaw
with
her much-mended sails. "But she's damn fast, and maybe she's the only one
that'll get you to Montréal in time to see some American spies swing for their
troubles."

Elizabeth took a
single step backward. Perhaps Stoker saw that he had pushed her too far, because
his own expression slipped suddenly from a knowing grin to a scowl.

"Mrs.
Bonner?"

A stranger at her
elbow, bent almost in half in a low bow. She spun around to him in her anger.

"Yes?" More
sharply than she intended, but he did not flinch.