Ashes of the Earth (30 page)

Sighing,
Sauger waved Hadrian away, not bothering to cover the body again.
Hadrian bent over Jori before retaking his seat. Her eyes were puffy
but her cheeks were dry. She had no more tears left.

Sauger
had the air of a judge when he spoke again. Sebastian stood solemnly
behind him, like a bailiff. "I think," he said slowly,
"perhaps the only real crime is that committed by those who fail
to use their given talents to the maximum." He silenced a growl
from Fletcher, not with a command but with a glance at Sebastian, who
put a restraining hand on the captain's shoulder. Sauger studied
first Hadrian, then Jori for a long time, before rising and gesturing
Fletcher and Wade to follow him back into the tavern.

When
they returned the two fishermen were subdued. Sebastian brought in a
tray of bread and hot tea, which he set by Hadrian before untying
Jori. Joining Hadrian at the table, she began eating, not daring to
look at the men at the other end.

"There
is a run across to Carthage tonight," Sauger declared. "You
will be deposited near town, free to return to whatever you wish. One
last chance, we'll call it. Fletcher and Wade will have little jobs
that you will perform. If Fletcher sees one more policeman at the
fishery than normal, senses the presence of any detective, he will
find you and kill you both. If Buchanan tries to take action against
him without advance warning from one of you, I will not be able to
save you. As long as you cooperate, you'll have Fletcher's
protection. Prove your value, and in a few months we may add to your
responsibilities. Great opportunities lie ahead."

Hadrian
emptied half his mug, then silently returned the tavern keeper's
stare.

Sauger
nodded at Jori. "Although you are welcome to stay." He slid
a small tin down the table toward her. "Your charms would be
most valued."

She
stared silently at the container with its familiar label. Angel
Polish.

For
some reason Hadrian began leaning forward. His head was growing
heavy. "Buchanan will throw me in a cell again. I left when
Nelly escaped. He will assume I was behind it."

"Excellent.
A few days will give you time to contemplate the new world order. But
you have always somehow dealt with Buchanan. And," Sauger added
pointedly, "prison bars will not stop Fletcher from reaching you
if he needs to kill you."

Hadrian's
head began to drift down toward the table. He looked over and saw
Jori slumped by the plate of bread. The tea had been drugged.

"Sounds
too much like the old world order," he said, though he never
knew if the words made it out before he lost consciousness.

CHAPTER
Nine

They
were in
the
hold of the Anna again, although this time with the cover off and a
ship's ladder braced in the opening. Jori was slumped, unconscious,
against the opposite bulkhead as Hadrian awoke. He splashed bilge
water on his face, then rose and unsteadily climbed the ladder.

The
little steamer was building speed, away from the setting sun, into
the bite of a cold northeast wind. The St. Gabriel harbor was a mile
behind them. He gulped the chill air, shaking the fog from his head,
then made his way to the cabin where the helmsman stood. The face of
the man at the wheel was in shadow but as Hadrian stepped to the
steam pipe that provided heat for the cabin, he leaned over the
compass. The hooded lantern over the instrument gave off only a dim
light, but it was enough. Fear crept up his spine. It was Wade.

"Slept
off your St. Gabe hangover I see."

Hadrian
was somehow more disturbed by the bully's level tone than he would
have been by a random punch. He retreated and made his way to the
small figure huddled in a blanket in the lee of the cabin, watching
the smoke etch a purple line across the dusk.

"We're
making stars!" Dax exclaimed. The boy pointed to the sparks
rising out of the smoke funnel. "Ain't she fast!"

"The
Anna was always the quickest," Hadrian said as he squatted by
the boy. "Faster than she needed to be. The later models had a
broader beam, with more power geared to haul nets. She was one of a
kind. When I heard she'd gone down in a storm I felt a great
sadness." As he spoke he looked to the southeast toward a heavy
bank of cloud. In the daytime the Anna would be conspicuous in
Carthage waters. He did some rough math. It would be well over a
hundred miles on a direct course cutting across the inland sea, a
harsh, hot run for the steamer to make before dawn. Yet it was
possible so long as they did not encounter too strong a headwind and
if Wade knew the course, a challenge in the night under cloud cover.
Then he recalled the predawn rendezvous routinely arranged by the
smugglers. They'd made the surreptitious trip many times before.

He
wandered down the short companionway that led to the compartment that
functioned as galley and bunkroom to discover Scanlon sitting at the
table.

"This
ain't your stateroom, Boone," he growled in warning. The hand
that clasped a steaming mug had a bandage around it, stained pink.
The stump of his finger still oozed blood. Hadrian retreated to the
stern deck, stacked now with a fresh load of wood that included six-foot-long logs not yet cut for the boiler's firebox. Climbing the
stack, he confirmed that along the stern hung a sturdy little skiff,
then collected an armload of wood and descended into the engine room.

The
broad-shouldered man at the engine was Tull, the engineer who had
been ejected from the tavern the night before. He acknowledged
Hadrian with a surprised scowl, then gestured for him to drop his
load onto the small pile of wood by the bulkhead. Hadrian did so,
then took another step. But as he approached the boiler, the engineer
lashed out with the poker he used to stoke the coals, blocking his
path, the red-hot tip of the poker embedding in a slab of firewood.
Two inches closer, and it would have impaled Hadrian.

He
threw his hands up in mock surrender. "I know the man who built
this engine," he said in a loud voice over the noise of the
machine. "He was always very proud of it." It was all the
explanation of his interest in the engine he would offer, and his
quick glance was enough to confirm that he still recalled the
placement of its regulators and shut-off valves.

"There's
logs topside," Tull shouted over the engine noise. "They
didn't have time to cut everything before we sailed." There was
a strange light in his eyes, a look of amusement that chilled
Hadrian. "I was gonna tell the boy to do it, but your back is
stronger. There's a saw."

Hadrian
gave an exaggerated nod and climbed back up the ladder. He took his
time, slowly slicing up the first log as he considered the words of
Sauger, the expressions of Fletcher and his men when Sauger had
pronounced his verdict, then contemplated the boat and the men
running her. The uncut logs meant Sauger had lied. No voyage had been
planned for that night.

He
had begun a second log when Scanlon emerged to join Wade in the
wheelhouse. Hadrian darted into the little kitchen, located the
expected kettle of hot water, and poured a mug of tea.

Moments
later he was holding the tea in front of Jori, who groggily sipped
it, then, reviving, gratefully cupped her hands around the warm mug.

"We're
on the way to Carthage," he confirmed.

She
greeted the news with a frown and stared into the shadows.

"Kenton
won't care about any of this," she said after a long silence.
"He won't believe it. All that will matter is that I left the
colony without his permission. He'll throw me off the force,"
she predicted.

He
did not reply, did not know how to reply. "I'm sorry," he
said at last.

"I'm
young. My mother runs a business weaving rugs and blankets. She
always wanted me to join her."

"I
don't think you understand, Jori. They don't mean to deliver us to
Carthage."

"But
I heard them. You were there."

"It's
their way of keeping us cooperative. Just like they drugged us so we
couldn't argue, couldn't resist. The only two people in all the world
who seem interested in stopping them are you and me. One of the men
entrusted to take us across is Wade, who is certain I killed his
nephew. Another is Scanlon, who had a finger shot off by you."

Jori
responded with a chiding look. "You always have to be
melodramatic about things. They would never go to all this trouble.
Sauger promised. He struck a deal with Fletcher. Fletcher wants us as
his damned slaves, but we'll be alive."

Hadrian
wanted to grab her by the shoulders, to shake her, to shout that
Sauger could not be trusted, that he knew in his bones they had at
most a few hours to live. But as she returned his gaze he could not
find the courage to do so.

He
sat down beside her. "Tell me about your mother," he said.

After
a long silence, during which she gave him a worried glance, Jori
spoke about a loving, always weary woman, a survivor who'd arrived
early in the formation of the colony, given birth to five children in
the five years thereafter, losing two as infants. Her bedtime stories
were always thinly veiled descriptions of the old world, and her
hobby of weaving had become their livelihood after Jori's father had
died.

"Once
when I was ten I found her in the middle of the night by the
fireplace writing a letter, back when there was no paper at all, when
you had to tear pages out of old books and write in the margins. Her
fingers were nearly raw from working the loom all day, and I could
see the pain the effort caused her. As I watched she finished and
folded the letter, then stood on a stool and hid it up under one of
the eaves. It took me days to figure out how to get up there but I
finally did. There were a dozen letters, all to my father who had
been lost on the lake years ago."

Lost
on the lake.
In
the early years most of those who perished in the deep waters were
not fishermen. So many had ended their lives by drowning that the
words had become another euphemism for suicide. Emily had told him
Jori's father was weak, chronically sick, in constant danger of
exile. The suicides would take salvaged railroad spikes and stuff
them in their belts before stepping off their borrowed dinghies.

"Whenever
anyone spoke about my father in the past tense, she would tell them
his body had never been found. She was writing as if he were still
alive," Jori continued, "as if he had been building a
better place for us somewhere and would send for us any day. She
would write about us children and everyday life, what we did in
school and the scores in my games. She said once that I would make
him very proud. It's funny. I might have understood if she wrote in
front of us, to let us think he might still live. But she did it all
in secret. I never did tell her I knew about them. I would check
sometimes. The letters got fewer and fewer. It's been years since she
wrote the last one. But they're still there, up under the eaves."

They
sat in silence and listened to the rush of water on the other side of
the hull, the churning, mesmerizing flood that took them ever closer
to their fate. Hadrian rose and peeked through the knothole he'd
opened the day before. The little cargo compartment held half a dozen
boxes, smaller versions of the one they'd found hidden in the
smugglers' loft.

"I
used to wonder about you when you came to our classes and talked with
us. No one ever knew about your family. You must have had a family."

Hadrian
stared into the darkness. "There was a dog," he offered at
last. "It was a few weeks after we began work on the colony. A
little grey terrier, not much bigger than a squirrel. But she was
tough as nails. Found her in the forest living on mice. There was a
little cave where I made her a bed of cedar boughs. Couldn't bring
her back or she would've been thrown in the stewpot. I would keep
back some of my rations in a scrap of cloth and visit her every
couple of days. It would be like a little picnic. We'd play and she
would lick my face and curl up beside me for a nap after eating.

"One
day I brought her some venison for a special treat. It was starting
to get cold. I wanted her to build her strength for the winter. She
ate and curled up on my chest and I was singing a lullaby to her. I
never should have brought her anything with so much fresh blood in
it. I shouldn't have sung the song or I would have heard it creeping
up."

"It?"

"A
tree jackal. His winter was coming too. There was just a blur of
movement and she was gone. He carried her high up a tree. She was
screaming for five minutes before she finally died."