Merciless Reason (3 page)

“It seems they refuse to be forgotten,” he muttered. “No matter how hard I try.”

II

A REFUGE FOR ESCAPED SLAVES

THE
SCAFELL
REACHED BOSTON
on the morning of the fourth day. Nate had spent much of that time in troubled sleep, memories and dreams mingling in a sickening stew. He tossed and thrashed, trying to push away images of Tatiana, his beloved sister, and Daisy, whom he missed more than he would ever have believed. And Gerald. Goddamned Gerald. Only sometimes would Nate dream of the son he had left behind in Ireland. He longed for home and burned with shame at the way he had deserted those who needed him most. But he could not go back. The terrible visions that had driven him away to Africa had awakened something in him that he could never bring home. He moaned in his sleep, clawing for unconsciousness, but then he would wake screaming at the memories of his last view of his brother Berto's face.

Disembarking from the Navy vessel, Nate thanked the captain and took his leave, climbing down into the longboat that would take him to shore. Dempsey went with him, but the two men did not speak to each other or to the sailors who rowed them to the dockside. Nate shook hands with them, stepped out of the boat and trotted up the stone steps. His body swayed unnaturally as his sea legs struggled to walk on solid ground for the first time in months. He hurried along the docks, losing himself in the throng of wagons, horses, fish stalls and the foul-mouthed stevedores loading and unloading the ships.

He didn't feel safe until he had put a few piles of crates, barrels and cargo nets between him and the men from the
Scafell.
Boston was a good place to hide. With its deep harbor and thriving business community, it had become a center for trade in rum, fish, salt and tobacco among other goods. The oil from whale blubber was, of course, another major export.

Nate wondered if he could find another whaler with room for one more able seaman, but he quickly dismissed the idea. The family had dogged him this far and clearly would not give up until he was found. If they were sending whole ships after him, going to sea again would not help. He had to make himself scarce.

Perhaps he should have told the Navy men that Nathaniel Wildenstern had gone down with the
Odin
, but that would have meant admitting he'd known the man. As the last link to the missing man, Jim Hawkins would have been subject to an uncomfortable amount of attention. Somebody had traced him to the
Odin
's crew, so that meant someone in Boston could identify him. He needed to get out of the city.

The captain had given him fifteen dollars to tide him over when he went ashore. Not far off the docks, on a street of tall, attractive red-brick buildings, Nate found an eating place where he treated himself to a large breakfast of gammon steak, eggs and pancakes with maple syrup.

At the next table, some Creole blacks were arguing in French about something, ending the argument with a joke and booming laughter. It was strange to sit in an American city and have black people sharing the same space, eating the same food as white folk. Boston had become a refuge for escaped slaves, and with the Civil War between North and South in full swing, slave-catchers from the plantations in the southern states had better things to be doing than searching a hostile city for their quarry.

Nate wondered how many of these people were truly free and how many were fugitives like himself. No, he thought—not like me. I was one of the slave-drivers, not one of the slaves.

He finished his food and left, heading into the city, making sure to take a winding route. Not long after he'd started walking, a small tan and white basset hound came up to him with its tail wagging and he made the mistake of scratching it behind the ears. The dog gave a joyous bark and ran in circles around him. It then proceeded to follow him down the street, delighted with its new best friend. Nate snapped at it a few times in exasperation, but it forgave him for this on the grounds that they were just getting to know each other, and kept trailing him. Nate sighed and walked on, doing his best to ignore the animal.

He walked the day away. His route took him through some of the less salubrious parts of town. A dull morning brightened slowly into a sunnier afternoon, the sun's momentum seeming too much for it as it tumbled down towards evening. Nate took his time, mixing with the growing crowds as he meandered through the muddy streets, past the grog-shops and dancing houses, the oyster cellars, pubs and bawdy-houses. He kept stopping to check behind him, gazing into windows, perusing the wares of various stalls, or simply fixing his bootlaces. Despite his efforts to blend in here, to look at ease, he was constantly alert, his senses heightened. His teeth were pressed together, but his limbs were loose and ready to react at a moments notice. The hound was never far away. But it was the dog's owner who had Nate's nerves on edge.

Somebody was following him, and he doubted that it was a representative of Her Majesty's Royal Navy. For one thing, they were too good at staying out of sight. And the dog made Nate very easy to spot. It was a clever trick, or would be until he decided to get rid of the dog. But for the moment he would let it serve its purpose.

The Irish had taken over in Boston much as they invaded everywhere else they settled; moving in with a good-natured work ethic and then breeding like rabbits until they ruled by sheer weight of numbers. Nate heard the accents all around him; mixed in with the Boston drawl, there were traces of Galway, Limerick, Kerry, the sing-song voices bringing on a sudden wave of homesickness. But he also passed signs advertising accommodation with the infamous ‘NINA', or ‘No Irish Need Apply.”

He walked through Half Moon Place, among shacks and buildings that seemed to be competing with each other to see which could slump in the most ungainly fashion. Street urchins played with stray dogs in the maze of laneways, amused themselves at the expense of passers-by, and picked the occasional pocket. This was one of the oldest parts of town, yet still a mere infant compared to places like Dublin or Cork in the Old Country. Mills and factories had sprung up in the city with the onward charge of the Industrial Revolution, the smoke of the business boom rising from a hundred tall chimneys. Science was beginning to render skilled humans obsolete, and the city had been introduced to the concept of smog.

After hours of what seemed like aimless wandering, Nate arrived in Charlestown. The basset hound was flagging, its short legs struggling to keep up with Nate's long strides. It still wagged its tail whenever it found Nate looking down at it, but while its spirit was willing, its body was weak. It panted at high speed, its unfeasibly long tongue almost dragging on the ground. Nate took in his surroundings, noting the heights of the roofs on the buildings above him. Then he suddenly darted down a narrow alleyway and vaulted over the six-foot-high wall at the end. The dog tried to follow but, finding itself stranded behind the obstacle, gave a long dejected howl and then started barking frantically.

Nate scrambled up a pile of crates and hurried along the top of another wall to the roof of a shed, from where he climbed a drainpipe to the flat roof of a brownstone building overlooking the alley.

Lying down, he crawled up to the wall at the edge of the roof and peered over. Below and to his left, he saw the dog standing with its front paws against the wall, barking its head off. A man in a dark grey hat and coat walked up to it. The dog stopped barking and turned to nuzzle its owner's hand. Nate could not see the man's face under the hat, but he recognized the walk, the posture, immediately. Pulling away from the edge, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky.

It really was time to get out of Boston. And to do that he was going to have to make some money, fast. It was probably just as well—he needed to let off some steam.

Nathaniel knew the Peggy Sayer by reputation—everyone who spent any time in Boston knew of it. It was a pit of a place, the kind of tavern that never truly closed, with men staggering drunk from its double doors at all hours to collapse in the street, raucous music jolting through its timbers and the sound of shouts and breaking glass filling its interior.

Evening was falling as Nate walked up to the doors of the pub, glancing in through the slats in its shuttered windows at the commotion inside. Outside, to one side of the door, a young man lay groaning in a pile of rotten turnips. A worn-faced woman in a drab, woolen dress stood over him, her head and shoulders wrapped in a black shawl. She directed a breathless stream of abuse at him in guttural Irish. The man did not respond; though whether he did not understand, or he did not care, it was hard to say.

Inside the Peggy Sayer, the air was saturated with the smell of pipe smoke, beer, whiskey, sweat and stewed meat and pastry. From somewhere wafted the bile stench of vomit. Nate would have been willing to bet that fresh air had not intruded on this place in decades. The crowd was mostly made up of men, with a few martyred wives drowning their sorrows and some cackling strumpets added to the mix. If cleanliness was next to godliness, there were no saints to be found here.

The stools, benches and tables were bare wood, any varnish long worn away. The bar was little better—a rough slab of boards, coated in spills, running the full length of the large room. An array of bottles was displayed on the shelves behind it, along with the obligatory mirrors. Framed prints of famous boxers were gradually turning yellow on the walls all around the room. Nate pushed his way through the throng to the bar. The proprietor, wearing a white apron, was in the middle of cleaning a glass by spitting in it and wiping it with a rag.

“What can I get you?” he asked.

“Ronan,” Nate said to him.

The barman tilted his head towards a door at the back. Nate zig-zagged among the revelers to the door and knocked. It was opened by a bald man with cauliflower ears and no neck.

“I'm looking for Ronan,” Nate told him.

“Who sent you?” the man demanded with a heavy Boston accent.

Nate paused for just a second. He doubted if a lieutenant in the Royal Navy would be held in high regard in these parts. He took a gamble.

“Bushnell, captain of the
Odin
.”

“Hah! Bushnell, is it?” the man barked, his face splitting into a wide grin. “How is the old goat?”

“Dead,” Nate told him. “Killed by a sea monster.”

“Had to happen sometime,” the doorman replied with a grunt. “Down the stairs, along the corridor and through the door. Ronan's down the back, in the tweed jacket. The first bout's just over. You'll want to get your money in fast for the next one.”

Nate passed two more sentries on the way down the corridor. They watched him as he went through, but said nothing. The door at the end of the corridor opened onto a roaring mob of men. There were hardly any women to be seen, but one or two shrill voices were raised among the mass.

This room was smaller than the last, with all the stink of the front of the building mixed with the iron smell of blood. There was no furniture to be seen among the crowd milling round the center of the floor. Nate squeezed through to the circle of men surrounding the empty space in the middle of the room, where two men were struggling to revive a third. The unconscious man was stripped to the waist, showing an overfed but muscular body covered in red impact marks that would soon become nasty bruises. His face was bloodied and disfigured.

Standing over them, shaking his fists in the air, was a man who stood about six and a half foot tall, with the shoulders of an ox and arms heaving with muscles. A man in a smart tweed suit was holding up the fighter's arm and shouting to the crowd in a hoarse Kerry accent.

“… Undefeated for more den four years and dis evening, once again, he hes showed you why! Dee greatest fighter in dee North American states! Gintlemen, I give you Pat ‘Dee Axe' Healy!”

The mob bellowed their approval and the Axe shook his fists again and roared like a man possessed, loving his victory. Nate waited until the proceedings had died down a little. Another man stepped up and announced the next bout, and in the crowd money began to change hands. Ronan was making for a door at the back of the room. Nate intercepted the man before he reached it.

“My name's Jim Hawkins,” he said. “I'm looking for a fight. I hear you pay well.”

Ronan regarded him closely for a moment, sizing him up. He saw a young man with work-hardened hands and a face weathered by time at sea. And he saw Nate's eyes, a gaze that lacked … something. Hope, perhaps. Some men came here because their lives were empty, or they were consumed with guilt. They came to be punished. These men did not last long in the ring. But some of the most entertaining fighters were those with nothing to lose—and entertainment was Ronan's stock and trade.

“Yur a little on the willowy side for dis business, led,” he said in a grating Kerry brogue. “What makes yeh think yeh make de cut?”

“Does it matter if I don't?” Nate replied.

“Not to you, perhaps. But my customers come here lookin' for sport—a real prizefight,” Ronan replied, ushering him into the office. “Brawls are ten-a-penny. I deal in the art of pugilism. Skill, speed, power, nerve, endurance. Can yeh deliver dat, young Hawkins?”