Power in the Blood (89 page)

“I know, Mama.”

The dark man did not make an appearance that night. Captain Crandall had assigned extra men on watch to look out for the mysterious stowaway, even though every part of the ship had already been searched and found empty of anyone not on the passenger list. He had not seen the dark man himself, but several of the crew swore they had witnessed events similar to those described by the passengers, usually a fleeting glimpse of the fellow,—“a string-bean shadow man,” as one crew member put it, “with a face like death.”

The dark man’s failure to reveal himself was of little relief to the captain, who by midmorning was more concerned over the falling barometer than about phantoms. He also had knowledge of stirrings in the fo’c’sle, where several of the men had begun spreading stories about the little Brannan girl with the unfortunate blue face mark. Doolin, his unofficial spy among the crew, had informed him there was a plan brewing to insist that the girl and her mother be put ashore in Bermuda; they were fearful of crossing the North Atlantic with the blue-faced girl aboard. Pressed for reasons why they should feel as they did, one of the men had told Doolin, “She’s got the mark of a witch, that one, little as she be.” Another man swore he had seen the girl promenading amidships with the dark man, “and not either one with their feet a-touchin’ the timbers, so help me!”

Captain Crandall was in no mood for supernatural tales and moon talk on his ship, not with a storm coming down hard on them from the south. As the barometer plunged before his eyes, he ordered all unnecessary sail furled, and all passengers below decks. The
Acropolis
was battened down and made ready for the wall of darkness approaching like runaway cliffs. The captain had seen worse storms racing toward him, and had weathered them all with a minimum of inconvenience or damage, but as he watched the latest of them looming along the southern horizon, and felt the ship heel hard to port as the first of its wind reached out, he experienced something a man as stoic and professionally unruffled as himself seldom felt: the captain became aware of a sensation he could describe only as dread creeping from the region of his solar plexus; it came stealthily up his spinal column like a magically sprouting vine, and wrapped his brain with its tendrils. Sweat sprang from every pore in his skin, and he fought for breath as the dreadful vine sent creepers down into his chest to surround his heart and lungs. It was not the storm his vessel was headed into that provoked the fear inside him, but some presence aboard. Was it the dark man? he asked himself. He did not believe in omens and portents or forces that could not be measured with compass and sextant, but Captain Crandall could not deny he was sailing into uncharted waters, no matter that he knew the precise location by latitude and longitude of himself and his ship.

Now the wind was gusting fiercely, snapping the sails, coating Crandall’s lips with the taste of spume, whipping the words he attempted to pass to the helmsman soundlessly away. He was unsure if he had actually spoken or not, and commanded his lips to move, but they remained as before, rimed with salt spray, numbed by the same dread that held him now in an invisible vise, rooted to the poop deck like a mast. It was no storm to fear, no wind beyond coping, but he felt a clawing at his breast as the creeper planted in him grew thorns to rake his heart, rake it till the blood must gush from its bag. He thought briefly of his two wives, the one in Manchester and the one on Rhode Island, and could not be sure which one he loved best. It had always irritated him that he, a man of decision, had never been able to place one above the other when at sea, although he was generally happiest with whichever wife happened to be the one he was with. I am a fool and a weakling, he told himself, and the thorns tore him open.

The helmsman became aware that all was not well with the captain when no orders came to bring the ship closer to the wind. Captain Crandall stood beside him, deathly white, his eyes fixed on some distant thing, and then he came crashing to the deck like a fallen tree. The helmsman stared, then began bawling for the first mate.

Omie had taken to her bunk when the ship began to be buffeted by high winds. Zoe thought at first she might be seasick, but Omie simply lay there, grasping the edges of her bunk to keep from rolling out onto the cabin floor. Zoe preferred to sit on a chair bolted to the floor; lying down only made her nauseous, and she had no wish to thicken the close air inside their cabin with the reek of vomit. She attempted to divert herself from the pitching and tossing with thoughts of home, but home was a concept that had become increasingly abstract. Home was a town where Leo had his hussy woman; home was a huge house without a husband in it; home was a place she had been attempting to find ever since departing Schenectady as a girl. Home, the last real home she could think of, had been the waterless tenement in which Nettie Dugan had died. Home had died with her, and all the years since then had been a search for another. Whatever the town, whatever the man whose ring she wore, the home she had thought was hers had been taken from her. The one constant was Omie, who belonged with Zoe as Zoe had always hoped someday to belong in a home. She wondered, watching her daughter stare at the planking of the bunk above her, if Omie regarded home as the place, wherever it happened to be, wherein they shared each other’s life. It was a sparsely appointed home, to be sure, but perhaps the only one that could not be taken away by anything less than death. Zoe held on to the chair with her only hand, waiting for time and the storm to pass.

After a night of rough weather, the
Acropolis
was left wallowing in the choppy seas remaining in the storm’s wake. News of Captain Crandall’s death was given to the passengers by Doolin, who did not pass on the newest fo’c’sle rumblings over Omie Brannan. After a makeshift breakfast, everyone aboard gathered at the starboard rail for the captain’s sea burial. His body was wrapped in sailmaker’s canvas and weighted with five yards of chain. There being no man of God among them, the mate elected to read a few verses from the captain’s own Bible, and when he was done, the mate nodded to Doolin and another crewman to tip forward the plank on which Captain Crandall’s body lay. They heaved up the ship-side end, but the captain remained where he was. The plank was raised to an angle of fifty degrees without shifting its burden more than a few inches toward the seaward end, and there was whispered comment among the crew.

One sailor said aloud, pointing to Omie, “He won’t be going while she’s there to watch, by God.”

His words created louder whisperings, and the mate was obliged to order silence. The plank was tipped higher, almost vertical now, and the captain’s body sagged within its canvas shroud, but did not slide off into the deep.

“Get her below!” called the same sailor, and Zoe took Omie by the hand to march with her across to the port side. She would not take her below, since that would have been a victory of sorts for whatever foolish suspicions the crew clearly held; nor would she allow Omie to remain where the sailor could point and shout at her; the port side rail was a compromise, but going to it improved Omie’s standing not at all, since no sooner did mother and daughter turn away than the splinter snagging the canvas broke off, and the dead man slipped from the plank with a rush and plummeted into a rolling trough of blue-green that swallowed him instantly.

Ocean foam had barely passed over Captain Crandall when the sailor clenched his fist and shook it at the departing woman and child. “See there! When the devil turns his back on good folk, they can go about their business!” The mate again ordered the man to be quiet, but he could not ignore the buzz of excited talk passing among the passengers, most of whom were watching Zoe and Omie to see what they would do. The mate ordered his crew to their stations, then suggested to the passengers that they likewise remove themselves. All the while, as the gathering behind them slowly dispersed, Zoe and Omie stood by the port rail, looking at the sea and sky.

The mate approached them, somewhat abashed. “My apologies, ma’am. Some of these fellows, they don’t know much, but that doesn’t stop them.”

“It was none of your doing. How far are we from our next port of call?”

“Bermuda in two days, ma’am.”

“We will disembark there and allow you to continue without us. Please tell the crew. Tell them also that I carry a pistol with me at all times,” lied Zoe. “If any man touches my daughter or attempts in any way whatsoever to intimidate her, I will shoot him dead.”

“Ma’am, I’ll tell them. They’re not educated, most of them, and they believe what they see and hear.”

“They will see and hear us depart in Bermuda.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When the mate left them, Zoe said to Omie, “Why wasn’t it Doolin, the way you said?”

“I don’t know how I got it mixed up, Mama.”

“I suggest that in future you consider your words carefully before uttering any prognostications. You did the same thing once with regard to your father.”

“Which father?”

“Leo. You said a man with one blue eye and one brown eye—that could only mean him—was robbing us, but the money stolen from our room had nothing to do with him. Do you remember that, back in Leadville, before we came with him to Glory Hole?”

“No. I’m sorry if I was wrong. I didn’t mean to be.”

“Let us try to put all this behind us and enjoy ourselves. Look! A flying fish! Did you see it?”

“I’ve seen lots. Mama, when we get to the place he said, will we turn around?”

“Why should we do that? We’re only partway across the ocean to where we’re going. We just need to get on another ship. This time, if you don’t mind, we’ll take a steamer, with lots more people on board to lose ourselves among.”

“I … I don’t want to.”

“There is nothing wrong with steamships, Omie.”

“No, I mean I don’t want to go over the ocean anymore.”

“Oh, Omie, we mustn’t quit now, just because some ignorant sailors have been rude to us.”

“I don’t want to, Mama.…”

Omie suddenly vomited over herself.

The two days inbound to Bermuda were spent with Omie tossing restlessly on her bunk, sometimes awake, sometimes not, and often somewhere in between. The passengers were quick to ascribe blame for Omie’s condition on the crewman who had shouted at her during the sea burial, but no one actually went to the Brannans’ cabin to express sympathy; there was something not altogether right about the girl, and her mother was equally alarming, with her rigid expression of contempt for everything and everyone, and her pinned-up right sleeve. They were a peculiar duo, and befriending them for the short time remaining till landfall at Bermuda might have prejudiced the crew against anyone attempting to do so. The longest part of the voyage lay ahead, and it would be better, everyone silently concluded, to let the Brannans keep their own company until the ship was rid of them.

Isolated though Omie was, her influence continued to instill fear and ill will toward her among the crew. The dark man was seen again, his long coat hanging straight down even in the strongest breeze, and one seaman on the dog watch swore he witnessed a ghostly train pass by in the darkness, its cowcatcher plowing through the waves, smokestack spitting purple fire, and another swore a band of phantom horsemen had followed the ship for almost half a league before riding their glowing steeds beneath the waves.

Zoe and Omie took meals in their cabin, and did not go on deck until dusk. When the
Acropolis
dropped its anchor, they were packed and ready to disembark. The crew had rolled dice to see who would row them ashore, and that task was accomplished in silence by the losers. Standing on the harbor wall, surrounded by their luggage, Zoe wanted to weep at the injustice of it, but did not, for Omie’s sake. Omie had been unnaturally quiet for the last two days, and Zoe thought it wisest to leave her alone, rather than engage her in conversation filled with false brightness. Watching the dinghy being rowed back to the ship, Zoe wished she could draw a lightning bolt down from the sky to wipe out everyone aboard who had condemned them.

Omie tugged at her sleeve. “Mama, can we go home from here, please?”

“Yes. Home.”

They found passage on the
Tiger Shark,
bound for Charleston, and began their return voyage to America. The dark man was seen only twice; there were no ghost trains or phantom riders; no one aboard died or thought overmuch about the girl with the blue mark on her face, or her one-armed mother. Zoe and Omie never learned that two days after weighing anchor to continue eastward, the
Acropolis
ran into more rough weather, and Doolin fell from the mainmast to split his skull open on the deck below.

39

From the high western slope of the valley they could see the cabin with ease. It was a broad valley, the one sign of human habitation an isolated oblong of weather-worn logs and crumbling sod. A corral beside the cabin held seven horses. Clay and his new partner could not approach the place during daylight, the area around it being open as it was, nothing but high plains grasses turning brown in the summer heat. If they wanted the men inside, it would have to be a night raid.

Aemon Jennings was still not sure about Dugan. The man had a reputation for keeping a cool head in a tight corner, but there had been evidence since they teamed up together that Clay’s bottle had assumed an equal role in the partnership. Jennings was keeping a close watch on his partner while they hid out among the trees above the valley. Both men had worked the most distant reaches of Wyoming before, but never for such prey as occupied the cabin below.

Wiley and Casper Bentine had set out to establish themselves as the natural inheritors of the James brothers’ mantle of celebrated outlawry, but quickly proved themselves lacking in Frank and Jesse’s cunning and skill in the planning and execution of criminal acts. The money on the Bentines’ heads was solely on account of the mayhem they had caused during their clumsy attempts at fame. For a sum just short of four hundred dollars, the brothers had killed eight people during a single robbery in Thermopolis. The reward posted for them within days of the fiasco (Wiley and Casper had obligingly left their names at the scene, for the convenience of newspaper reporters) was double that amount.