The Runaway's Gold (27 page)

The wind was perfect. McNutt knew it, and we were moving like the Devil. Deliver the ponies to the east coast of England and then on to Belfast with the rest. All by April 30. Those were Captain Canfield's orders, and it was already the
twenty-ninth of March. It took everything Helmsman Compie Twills had just to hold the wheel steady.

“All hands, all hands!” McNutt commanded.

There were thirty-two ponies on deck, picked up the night before Malcolm and I came aboard. All Shetlands. Each more frantic than the next—snorting and whinnying, their shaggy manes drenched with sea spray—bound for collieries in England, where they would work in the pits. Me job was to feed the troublesome beasts, and the sweet smell of their damp, matted fur was everywhere in the frigid March air.

I tried to make me way across the deck, but a particularly ornery stallion stood in the way. And when the packet gave a heel suddenly to port, I found meself pinned between the gunwale and his steaming chestnut withers.

“You there,” McNutt bellowed again from across the deck, looking at me and pointing to the sail. We could all hear the raw, tearing sound of the seam—even through the deafening howl of the wind. “Get yourself out from behind that pony and find me Martin!”

“Back!” I shouted at the animal. “Don't ya know I'm the one who feeds ya?”

The hull was now nearly level with the water, with me head, pinned behind the pony, just above the bulwarks. A wave crashed over the deck, matting the desperate animal's coat flat to his skin. He whinnied and tossed his head from side to side.

McNutt scowled and grabbed the arm of the young seaman
in the red knitted cap who had helped row Malcolm and me the night before. “Jimmy—
you
find me Martin, or we'll still be waiting for Robertson come Christmas. And tell the man to bring his needle. If we don't patch that tear now, this wind'll rip her to shreds!”

I gasped. The weight of the beast was flattening me chest, and the back of me head was numb from the icy cold spray. Only twelve hours before I had been standing in Shetland, desperate not to be returned to the damp, foul-smelling cell in Lerwick Prison. Now, it seemed, aboard Wallace Marwick's favorite ship, I would be lucky to make it another day.

I scanned the deck as the roar of the wind ratcheted up, drowning out me cries for help. McNutt stood there, his hands on his hips, scowling up at the sail as the other seamen tried to maneuver the rigging as best they could through the maze of ponies.

As luck would have it, it was Angus Moncrieff of all people, me brother's brute of a friend from Culswick, who took notice of me predicament. Surely, I thought, despite all that had happened, he would take pity on me—put the past aside.

I waved frantically as his stocky body drew closer. Me spine was now driven so deep into the gunwale that I thought it might snap. But Angus stopped short, just inches from me outstretched hand. Then he rubbed his chapped knuckles lightly between his lips and running nose.

“Angus!” I pleaded with the little breath I had left. “Pull him off me!”

A smile cracked from the wicks of his mouth. And then he wrapped his arms across his bulging chest. “Got yourself out a' Lerwick Prison,” he mused. “Seems a lad so clever would have no problem with a wee pony such as this.”

He stared straight into me eyes. Hard and deep. “Tell me—how do you think your brother is faring on that whaler?”

I held his stare until he spat at me feet. And then he turned away, maneuvering himself around the ponies to the other side of the deck, where McNutt and the other seamen were pointing to the sail.

“Ill-tempered dreep!” I wanted to shout, but me chest was so compressed the words were nearly inaudible.

It was seeing Angus that had surprised me most when Malcolm and I had climbed aboard the
Ernestine Brennan
.

“Where's John?” he had demanded, the dim light of a lantern flashing in me face. I remember staring at his wide, pimpled forehead and thick smudge of eyebrows, unable to fathom how he had come to be on Wallace Marwick's ship.

I shook me head. “Gone where he deserves.”

“And where might that be?”

“Davis Strait. On a whaler with Captain Leisk.”

Angus furrowed his dense brow, leaning into me. “Don't believe ya! John feared the sea. He'd never a' joined up on a whaler—even if his life depended on it.”

“Right you are, lad,” Malcolm replied. “He was kickin' and screamin' all the way out to the ship. I had the pleasure a' rowing him there meself.”

“Forced him, did ya?” Angus barked, jutting his face inches from Malcolm's shaggy red beard.

“Hah! Not me. I'd a' thumped him a blow to the head meself while we were still on the Mainland. 'Twas your Reverend Sill made the arrangement.” Then Malcolm placed a hand on Angus's shoulder. “You're a God-fearing lad, now, aren't ya? You can thank the reverend yerself when you're next at the Kirk.”

“Why, that's kidnappin', it is!” Angus sneered, swiping Malcolm's hand away.

“Aye.” Malcolm laughed. “You could think of it that way. Me, I thought it was kind a' the reverend not to take him directly back to Sheriff Nicolson. I'm sure the sheriff would a' been pleased to get back the person responsible for freeing himself and six other convicts.”

Angus glared at Malcolm, then at me. “You'll be payin' for this, you will. I'll see to it.”

And now, wedged behind the solid body of that stallion, I guess I was.

I moaned as the pony whinnied and shifted his weight against me ribs. If the ship didn't right herself quickly I would be crushed. Then, just when I thought things couldn't be more desperate, we crested a towering wave so enormous that another pony roped nearby lost its balance and fell against him.

“Arrgh!” I grunted, feeling me ribs cracking, the air nearly cut off.

The way I saw it at that moment, I had two choices—muscle meself up on the gunwale and risk falling overboard or wriggle
down under the beast's belly to the deck and risk crushing me face in the process. One way or the other I needed to breathe. Glancing out at the biting black sea behind me, I chose the latter.

With every ounce of strength I could muster, I wriggled me underfed body down until me nose was buried in the steaming wet fur of the pony's withers. Then I kicked frantically at the back of his knees—anything to get him to shift just enough for me to slip through. His ears flattened in disgust, but I didn't give up. That is, until he careened his neck toward me and sunk his sharp yellowed teeth into me ear.

Ya evil beast!
I thought, blood running down me neck, me mouth too full of fur to mutter a sound. But just then a wave washed over the side of the packet, making his coat smooth and slippery. So I closed me eyes, me newly bitten ear scraping raw against the splintered gunwale, let the weight of me wet body slip underneath his matted belly, and crawled to freedom on me hands and knees across the muck-littered deck.

“Lor', Robertson! What are ya doin' grovelin' down there?” McNutt cursed as the scuffed boots of a red-nosed Abner Martin stumbled past me. “Don't know how you were granted passage on this ship, but until the captain tells me to cast ya over the side, you'll come when I call.”

I staggered to me feet and glanced about, head dizzy, ribs throbbing, blood trickling from me ear. When me eyes found Angus holding fast to one of the ropes across the deck, I flashed a triumphant smile. Then I turned to Martin, who was hoisting
himself up on the boom. He struggled to steady himself, needle and waxed thread trembling in his hand. The tear in the seam had already grown another foot.

“Wind's too strong, sir!” Martin shouted. “Take down the sail and I'll do a proper job.”

“Fool!” McNutt growled. “Wind's perfect—she's runnin' eight knots! If we're to deliver the ponies before we head to Ireland, I'm not slowing down to change the sail.”

“But surely the captain dunna want us to risk losin' the sail in the process,” the red-capped Jimmy reasoned, his calloused hands gripping a line.

McNutt spat. “Aye—on another trip, perhaps. But you know as well as I that if we dunna get these beasts to the east coast a' England before the Crown catches up to us, inspects our cargo, and takes the
Ernestine Brennan
as her own, we'll lose more than a sail.”

“Aye, and me pay!” Angus muttered. “They say Marwick hadna' paid any man since January. How are we to know we'll get our wages when we make the delivery?”

McNutt turned on him, eyes flashing. “Moncrieff, I had me doubts 'bout where your loyalty lies when we took you on. Don't prove me right before we get two days into the trip.”

Angus stared back defiantly.

“You'll get yer pay. But only when it's due. Captain Canfield's the most loyal master in the entire Marwick fleet. And with Mr. Marwick, the rewards for loyalty are always met.”

I watched as Martin tried desperately, again and again, to
stab the needle into the frozen sailcloth. His hands trembled while the wind tormented the fibers of the growing tear.

“Been drinkin',” I heard someone mutter as I brushed off me shirt and breeks. It was Mary's brother, Charles. He stared at Martin, then shook his head as he strode to McNutt's side. “He'll poke himself in the eye and jeopardize the rest of the ship in the process.”

“Get a hold a' yerself, Martin,” McNutt shouted.

“Malcolm can fix it,” I said.

McNutt turned in a flash, eyes narrowed. “Robertson, did you just address me without me permission?”

I dropped me head, cheeks hot.

“You mean MacPherson?” Charles demanded.

“Aye.” I looked up cautiously, remembering our last meeting at the Marwick Lodberry.

“He's a rope maker, is he not? Seen him below deck repairing lines.”

“And a master at that,” I stammered. “At rope making and mending things.”

“Aye—and takin' what dunna belong to him,” McNutt quipped. “Wonder how much practice he's had all the years he's spent rottin' in his cell in Lerwick Prison? They say no one's been caught with the fast fingers more times than he.”

I watched sweat drip from Martin's brow as he pathetically tried to pull the torn pieces of sailcloth together. And then, suddenly, there was a shout from the stern.

“Revenue cruiser—one o'clock—port side!”

McNutt pressed the glass to his eye. “I knew the Crown'd spot us eventually, but not this soon. All right, Robertson. Get MacPherson—and fast! Even a thief would be an improvement over what we have here, and I have no intention of slowing down.”

Roker

veryone on board knew that the stakes for the
Ernestine Brennan
's success couldn't be higher. Hundreds of families dependent on one callous man for their livelihood—and though many would revel should Marwick go under, there wasn't anyone on board whose family wouldn't be perilously affected by his financial demise.

The choice was as it had been for the crofter-fisherman for generations—save the brutal merchant who keeps you in poverty, or starve.

Mary had been right. With the Crown looking to seize
Marwick's entire fleet to cover his mounting debt, the
Ernestine Brennan
was doomed. That is, unless the cargo she carried could be unloaded first and the payment collected. The Shetland ponies snorting before us were both small enough to maneuver in a mine shaft and sturdy enough to haul more coal than a beast twice their size. And with the new Mines Act just approved by Parliament keeping children under ten from laboring underground, the ponies were now more valuable to the English colliers than ever before.

But word on board was that Marwick needed more than a sale of ponies to stay ahead of his creditors. Much more. Which is why the duty-free delivery of the three hundred casks of extremely rare French brandy stashed below deck, rumored to once have been part of Napoleon's private collection, also had to find a customer. And fast. You could say the successful voyage of the
Ernestine Brennan
was, in fact, Wallace Marwick's last chance. His last, very desperate chance.