The Smugglers (2 page)

“Watches, rings,” said the highwayman. “Empty your purses and your pockets. I want to hear silver jingle. Silver
and gold.” He whirled on his heels and blasted another shot into the forest, then whirled back around as his hands, fast as a juggler's, replaced the pistols with new ones.

“Driver,” he said. “What cargo?”

“Nothing,” said the driver in a small and frightened voice. “The night coach don't carry no freight on account of— ” He trembled, his cap in his hand. “Of the highwaymen, see.”

“Well, that's ironical,” said the highwayman. “Lord love me, that's rich.” He laughed, and I thought then that the man was quite insane. He looked like a pirate in his big red coat, weighted down with enough pistols for a whole band of brigands. But he bowed and straightened, his sleeves billowing, and suddenly he seemed as harmless as a robin hopping on the road.

It was Larson who spoke. “There's nothing for you here,” he said.

The highwayman took a step toward Larson. “And who made you foreman of the jury?” he asked.

Larson didn't move. His feet astride a little pile of jewels and coins, he faced the highwayman and said, “Let us pass, and we'll say no more about it.”

The highwayman stepped slowly toward him, and even the horses turned their heads to watch. I lifted my hand. The pistol was light, yet it shook in my fist so badly that I had to brace my arm on the baggage rail.

Below me, the highwayman stopped a mere yard from Larson, towering above him. “Well, well,” he said. “A little fancy gent. You'd think he just stepped down from a cuckoo clock.”

Larson was in the middle, my father to his left, the driver to his right. He looked almost like a child between them. His hands went slowly, smoothly, around his back to his waist, toward the pistol at his belt.

“Look at him,” said the highwayman to Father. “A proper dandy, isn't he? A bug in a hat.”

“What do you want?” said Father. “You've got our money. You've got my watch.” He nudged it with his cane. “Isn't that enough?”

“I think there's more,” said the highwayman. “Driver, is there something else?”

“Something else?” asked the driver. He was terrified, I could see; he was shaking head to toe.

The highwayman stretched out his arm and set the muzzle of a pistol against the driver's heart. On the instant, the poor man seemed to crumble. He blurted out, “The boy! There's a boy in the carriage.”

I stared down the long barrel of my pistol, and the beaded sight shivered across the highwayman's hat. With my thumb I drew back the flintlock. It snapped into place.

That tiny sound, the merest click, seemed to me as loud as cannons. The highwayman spun toward the carriage door. Larson reached for the pistol at his waist, and Father–not knowing it was there–threw himself toward the highwayman. I saw a blur of red; I pidled the trigger. And at the same instant the highwayman's pistol flared and smoked; I watched him shoot my father.

It all happened in the blink of an eye, yet it lasted forever. In the glare from my own pistol, I saw the highwayman's finger squeeze the trigger. I watched the hammer fall, the
powder flash. I saw the flames come bright as sunlight from the barrel.

Father staggered back. His cane fell to the ground and his hands clutched at his heart. Then his legs buckled under him, and he dropped in a heap to the road.

It was all madness and confusion. The highwayman turned and ran; Larson fired after him. Then a huge black horse reared up from the forest and thundered past the carriage, the highwayman clinging to its back like an enormous crimson lizard. And it was only then that I really heard the noise of this one long moment. It rushed over me with the smell of powder—the shots, the shouts, the pounding of that great black beast's hooves. It roared inside my head, a din that nearly deafened me.

I
dropped the pistol and clambered down from the coach to Father. He was lying with his legs bent under him, breathing short and shallow gasps. A wisp of smoke rose from his jacket, between the fingers he held tight to his heart. He smelled of gunpowder as I dropped to my knees and then across him; I blubbered like a child.

The driver came and lifted me off. His hands at my shoulders, he pulled me away. Then he held me, and over and over he said, “I'm sorry, I'm so terribly sorry.”

Father's watch, his coins, his favorite ring lay scattered across the road. Larson picked them up, every one, using his beaver hat as a collection bowl. Without a word, he set this down beside me, then turned to see to Father.

He was so tender and gentle. He took Father's fingers from their terrible clutch across his breast, then felt with
those small hands along ribs and chest, through jacket and waistcoat. “Hmmm,” he said, and then, “Oh, my,” and last, “I don't know how it happened.”

In the driver's arms, I shook my head. “Nor do I.” It seemed unreal, as though in a moment I would find myself still inside the carriage, bouncing across Kent with my father beside me. I would wake from a dream of a man in red, a man on a midnight horse.

“The scoundrel shot at point-blank range,” said Larson. “The powder has burned your father's coat to cinders. But underneath there's not a mark, not a scratch; there's nothing.”

I could hardly understand what the man was saying. Even his voice seemed unnatural, so great was my shock. It sounded hollow and distant.

“He's had the fright of his life,” said Larson. “Fainted dead away.” His hands picked scorched threads from Father's coat. “But he'll be right as rain if we can get him somewhere warm. Let him rest before the trembles start.”

“I know of an inn,” said the driver. “It's not an hour from here.” He stood so quickly that I fell from his arms and sprawled across the road. Then he put down a hand and smiled in a funny way. “You see, sonny,” he said, “it all works out for the best. All for the best in the end.”

Just how that was I couldn't quite fathom. But soon we were rattling down the same road, Larson and I facing backward, staring at Father as he lay on the opposite bench. In a weird and restless sleep, Father moaned and sighed; he twitched his arms as though to shield himself. On the floor,
his watch and coins jingled in the bowl of Larson's hat, and the moonlight came and went. The horses ran at a furious pace as we hurtled through the forest, through fields and orchards, south and east toward the sea.

“He'll be fine,” said Larson. “Don't you worry, John.” And then, perhaps to get my mind on something else, he asked about our journey. “What brings you down to Kent?”

I told him about Father's business as a merchant, and the ships he owned in London. I told him about the
Isle of Skye
and how we'd come to lose her–and nearly our lives as well–to the wreckers of Pendennis. “My father's not old,” I said, “but he must use a cane now, because of what happened to him there. The rats; they chewed his foot.”

Though he was twice my sixteen years, Larson listened to my story the way a boy would, all eagerness. And then he asked, “So now he's buying the
Dragon?
”

“He hopes to,” said I.

The little gentleman shook his head. “I can't imagine such wealth.”

“It's not like that,” I told him. “Father lost a fortune with the
Isle of Skye,
and every penny he has will go toward the
Dragon.
If he loses her as well—” The thought scared me. “He'll be ruined, Mr. Larson. Absolutely ruined.”

“I see,” said Larson. He leaned forward, across the carriage, and fussed at Father's jacket. “Then for what it's worth,” he said, “I'll tell you again to steer clear of that ship, young John. She'll bring you trouble and misery. She'll bring you death.”

“My death?” I asked.

“Maybe yours,” said he. “Maybe others'. But death she'll bring you, and I'll promise you that. It's the way of a ship that was christened with blood.”

He would tell me no more. When I tried to continue the conversation, he pretended not to hear.

The carriage came upon a village, and we sped along through winding streets. The driver shouted and cracked his whip, and Father came awake. He jolted from his dreams with an awful scream, and his arms flew up before him.

“Easy now,” said Larson. “Just lie and rest, Mr. Spencer. I think we're almost there.”

Around a corner, around another; I could hear the horses panting. And at last the carriage crossed a bridge and came to a stop before an old brick inn. It was called the Baskerville, and it rose two stories from a stone foundation, as cheerless as a prison.

The driver came down with a lantern and opened the carriage door. He was gray with dust, shimmering in the light as he moved and the dust fell away from his arms and legs. With Larson on one side and I on the other, holding the cane, we helped Father out of the coach and toward a doorway set deep in the wall. The driver hurried ahead and pounded on the door with a big iron knocker. The sound boomed through the inn.

Father slumped between us. He had the trembles, and they shook right through my arms, right through Larson's, as though all three of us were shivering.

Again the driver hammered. “Hallo!” he shouted. “Hallo, the inn!”

We heard footsteps on the other side, then the scraping of the latches. And a woman's voice, old as the grave, hailed us through the wood. “Who's there?” she asked. “Fleming, is it you?” The hinges squealed. “Oh, Flem, at last it's you?”

She was short, brittle, crooked as a walking stick. Her hair, the silvery gray of ashes, was thin across her skull. Her eyes were pale and empty-looking; the woman was blind. She came lurching out through the door like a mole from its burrow, feeling ahead of her along the wood and the stone. She carried a traveler's bag of canvas and leather, and I stared at it with a feeling of indescribable pity. For it was rotting in her hand.

The straps were worn to threads; the sides were as thin as lace. Insects and mice had eaten great holes in the bottom, and bits of clothing hung out, all frilly and black, but heavy with cobwebs. Yet she carried this thing, in the claw of her hand, as though she meant to hoist it up in the carriage and be off on her way.

“Fleming?” she asked again, more sadly than before.

“No, no, Mrs. Pye,” said the driver. He shouted at her, as though she were deaf and not blind. “It's not your Fleming.” He took her arm and turned her around. “I've brought a man who needs a meal and a bed. A man and his son, Mrs. Pye.”

She put her satchel beside the door, on a patch of old carpet that was lighter-colored than all the rest–a place where it must have sat for many years. “Bring the fellow in,” she said. “The captain's in the parlor, and I'll bring the
suppers there.” She shuffled off along a hallway, through the darkness of a coal mine. She had no need for candles, no use for lamps.

The driver watched her go. “Poor blind Mrs. Pye,” he said. “Every knock on the door, every footstep, is her husband come back from the wars. She meets them all with that bag in her hand.”

“How long has her husband been gone?” asked I.

“Nigh on thirty years.” He started back to the carriage to fetch our luggage down. “She was only a guest then at the Baskerville,” he said, climbing up. “There's a window high at the back looking over the sea, and there she would sit watching for Fleming. Any day, she thought, he would come and take her home to Romney.” He hoisted our two small bags from the rack and tossed them down. Father flinched as they thudded on the ground.

“She went blind, and still she sat by that window,” said the driver. “She's stayed so long, she's become a fixture. She runs the inn now, more or less.”

By the time our bags were down, Father was walking. He was still a bit wobbly but stood supported only by his cane. “Up on his own pegs” was how the driver put it, with a great smile of pleasure. But when it came time to go inside the inn, Larson would not enter. “It wouldn't be wise,” he said, as mysterious as he'd ever been. “Not wise for me nor you.”

Father nearly begged him to stay, and urged the driver, too. He offered them food and drink, and even lodging if they wanted. But Larson couldn't get away quickly enough.
The little gentleman even left his hat behind, as a holder for Father's coins. He hopped up into the carriage and told the driver to huny.

“You may see me again at Pegwell Bay,” said he. “Watch for me, John.”

He was right; I would indeed see him there. But it would be a strange and sad reunion.

T
he parlor of the Baskerville was an enormous room of oak and brick, a place of darkness and of shad-ows. The ceiling and the beams were blackened by soot, and only three lamps burned in the cavernous space. There was room in the hearth for a fire big enough to burn a witch, but only a tiny glimmer of embers came from there. The room was empty except for one man.

He looked up as Father and I came together through the door–up from a glass of brandy that he held in both hands, as though at any moment it might go sliding off across the table. He had a boat cloak drawn across his shoulders, but I didn't need that to tell me he was an old shellback. Every line on his face, every crook in his body, spoke of the sea. His eyes were so squinted by salt winds and sun that they seemed like dark little beads sewn among folds of leather. He looked at us, then looked away to fill his glass again with brandy and water.

Father settled down in a chair beside the hearth, then drew it even closer, until he sat nearly in the ashes. I took a poker from the gridiron and stirred the coals into a reddish glow. And Father held his hands toward it.

There was a hole in his jacket, almost round, where the highwayman's gun had seared through the cloth. Through it I could see his shirt, scorched as well, turned to yellow by the powder burns.

Father, seeing me staring, touched the hole with his fingers. He looked down at it, his beard going flat across his chest. “I knew they wove some amazing cloths on Thread-needle Street,” said he. “But they've outdone themselves here. It must be strong as armor.”

He was teasing me. I knew no linen in the world could turn aside a pistol ball.