Fortunate Son (16 page)

In principle, their ill-devised and poorly executed plan might have worked. With only a few months remaining in their terms and no master to announce their escape to the newspapers, few would notice or care. Only a man as virtueless as Colonel Drummond would more than scold an indentured servant who ran away under the pall of drink. Drunk servants often wandered away only to be quietly returned the next morning. It was staying away that got the man in trouble. If he planned to stay away, he had better get far away, fast. So, the incapacitated James reasoned that they had nothing to fear, no reason for speed as Drummond was dead and soon to be buried. They would make their way to Norfolk and sign on with the Royal Navy. And along the way they would pass through Elkton where he would call on Laura. George promptly agreed to the plan once James imagined Laura's friends aloud.

It was George's second run. His first attempt had failed when both he and Kelly, his Scot friend, were caught just as they arrived at the Chesapeake. A merchant had identified them from their descriptions in a runaway announcement and alerted the dockmaster, who also served as the sheriff. They were arrested, jailed, and sentenced to serve seven more years. Their original owner had not wanted them back, so he bargain-sold the unruly pair to Drummond, in Chestertown, on the same day James first came ashore, the same day Kelly was killed attempting to escape.

George Brooke had been transported to Maryland at the age of fifteen for lifting six pence of white bread from a London bakery. Or so he had told James. James was never certain of the truth in any of George's accounts, like the story about George's transport ship sinking off the coast of Cape Henry—an account which never fit, like an errant piece forced into the wrong puzzle. But the truth of George's tall tales mattered little. Their veracity was of no value. They were entertaining and that was enough. George's friendship helped mask James's blackness, the emptiness of the ever-passing, never-ending days. The friendship was the balm to his emotional cuts, slices extracted by those razor-edged images James carried with him—childhood pictures of his mother, of Seán and Fynn, of Juggy dying. The friendship served them well. It served to pass the months and years. The clubbing was long forgiven, though never forgotten. Fodder for unceasing jesting. And George never questioned James again about peerage or claims. James never brought it up. They became the kind of fleeting friends that only difficult circumstances can construct, hardships, suffering and war, years of struggle, imprisonment, the brotherhood of the oppressed, the chorus of the enslaved. Yet they knew the truth. They could sense it, feel it. Such friendships are accursed by the circumstances of their creation. Albeit unspoken, they knew it had its own span, its own term inextricably tethered to the adversity that fed it. Not like a life-long friendship that carries the hope of endurance beyond an immediate environment of privation. Someday they would go their separate ways, most likely never to see the other again. But it didn't matter. For that period they had their fleeting friendship, that class of brotherhood, and they clung to it with clenched determinism. Because it was all they had.

The morning after their “glorious” escape, they were discovered by one of the local constables. They had fallen asleep in a roadside ditch only two miles from Coatesville. As bad as it may have been, the horror of that morning was not the blinding sun, or the pulsating fire in their heads, or even the nauseating wagon ride back to the furnace—it was the sight of the man who met them at the gates of the Drummond Furnace that snapped them into a state of immediate sobriety. Colonel Drummond had in fact not died, but had fallen seriously ill. By the following morning, he was feeling entirely too well and was now at the gates glowering at those servants who had fled, those random souls being brought back, forced back by constables, by wagon, by horse, by capture, by guilt, by fear.

Both James and George were sentenced to nine additional years of servitude, seven for the escape and two more because it was George's second attempt. The fact that it was not James's second flight was of no concern to Drummond, and thus of no concern to the local judge who, for reasons unknown, felt behooved to impose whatever sentences Drummond demanded. Within the month George ran away again. But this time alone. This time sober. And this time he never returned. Now, years later, James still found himself scanning the crowds for his friend. He added George to his imagination, the realm where Seán lived, his imaginary friends. In this realm George met Seán, and the two of them were happy, alive, and waiting for James. Both were in the Royal Navy, capturing pirates, discovering new Caribbean islands, enjoying the impure exuberance of the island's native girls.

James could scarcely remember the three years following his foiled escape. Resigned to his fate of apparently endless servitude, he abandoned himself entirely. He deemed himself unworthy of Laura and tried to forget having ever met her—albeit an impossible task, he was aided by copious pints of ale and by bedding any half-pretty prostitute to be found or afforded. Occasionally, a distraction could be mustered by rallying himself into a pub fight (drawing his sword once too often he received another long scar, this one across his chest). Miserable and despondent, he lumbered aimlessly through those dismal years.

Then, one December day in 1738, under a light falling snow, a miracle happened. Ben Clowes, the old woodcutting foreman James had not seen for nearly seven years, strolled into the collier's hearth, giving James such a start that he nearly fell into the pit. Once James regained his composure and properly greeted the man, Mr. Clowes explained his return. As he listened, James's knees buckled and he dropped into the charcoal-stained snow, his eyes welling with joy.

Mr. Clowes had left the Drummond Furnace one frozen grey January morning three and a half years after James's arrival, his back straight with pride as he passed through the iron gates, his indentured term finally over. James could still see it clearly. Mr. Clowes had left as a free man, vowing to claim his portion of the rich colonial land. James had heard from him through occasional letters. Clowes had gone to Virginia, built a small tobacco farm and started a family, then eventually founded his community's little church. But the years passed and the last letter James sent to Clowes was one he wrote the day George disappeared. James told everything, venting and shouting with his pen, raging at everyone. He didn't hear back from Mr. Clowes for a little over a year. The letter he received was in a shaky hand, smeared, telling of Ms. Clowes burning to death in their small farmhouse, and that two of his girls had died from prolonged fever. He had gone on to say that he was moving, that his surroundings held too many painful memories. That last letter pushed James even deeper into his personal black abyss.

Then, many months later, this miracle happened: On December 3, 1738, three and a half years after James's second term began, and in the thick of James's seemingly incurable despair, Mr. Clowes walked into the Drummond Furnace and summarily purchased James's remaining five and a half years. Though James was elated to be freed from the monstrous Drummond, what was truly miraculous was
where
they were heading when they whipped the carthorses into action that afternoon. Mr. Clowes had recently remarried and was managing his new wife's tobacco farm near the mouth of the Susquehanna River, at the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay, only three miles from the Swedish community of Elkton, Maryland.

A small bird chirped angrily as it flittered through the tobacco barn seeking a path of escape. Finally, it swooped by James and Laura's heads and disappeared. “James?” Laura whispered.

“Aye?” James eased Laura away and frowned when he saw a tear on her face. “What's the matter,
Acushla
?” he asked, calling her by the Irish endearment. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Nothing. My sweet James.”

He was baffled, a state not unfamiliar to him, especially when her feminine emotions were swirling about, capricious winds that held him off balance. They had kissed until their mouths ached. When Sonja found them they had convinced her to scurry home and resumed their embrace. But when Pehr and Gunnar, Laura's tenacious little brothers, discovered them, James and Laura retreated to the vacant tobacco barn, climbed to the loft, and sat in a draft window, dangling their entwined feet high over the open expanse of empty air. Now the sun was disappearing, sweeping a royal blush across the tops of the pines bordering the Johansson farm. James pulled Laura close.

“James?”

“Aye, Laura? Where's yer mind takin' ye?”

“Ya know I love ya, don't ya?” Her eyes were still wet with tears.

“Aye, my love. I do.”

“Then…then—”

“Then what, Laura?”

“Nothing.” She lowered her chin and offered a weak smile.

“Nothing?” Why must God make these creatures so difficult?

“I was just thinking, that's all. Just vishing we were—”

“Vishing? Were ye ‘fishing' or ‘wishing'?” He thought humor might help, choosing to ignore the voice within him desperately waving off that course. “Let me see, I don't think ye could be
fishing
from up here, so must be—”

Laura yanked herself back, her eyes blazing. “Mind ya not to make sport of my talking! ‘Tis meanness, Mr. Annesley.”

James stammered, “I'm sorry. Truly.”

“Ya can't toy with my feelings, James. I von't let ya!” She stood quickly and moved to the other draft window, eight feet away on the same wall.

“I'm not…I would never,” he weakly protested, leaning out of his window to see her in the other. “Now ye've moved and I must risk m' bleedin' life t' see the prettiest—”

“Then fall if ya must, but don't be looking at me!”

“Acushla!” He sat back and frowned. What did that mean? He leaned forward, peering down over the edge. In one instance she's kissing me and then she's wishing I'd break my neck!

When James first called on Laura Johansson in Elkton, he found her wrapped in a horse blanket, sitting in a similar loft window, watching a grey December sunset. That was over three years ago, the first morning after he moved his meager belongings into Mr. Clowes's tenant house. And it was on that cold Saturday, as they talked under the watchful eye of both Mr. and Mrs. Johansson, that he knew he was in love with her. An unwavering courtship followed, and their love for each other flourished with the passing months.

Two autumns later, Ben Clowes died. When his widow told James she needed to sell his remaining years to relieve merchant debts, James was forced to go to Laura's father for help. But Bjorn Johansson could not afford to buy him. Besides, he was planning to move his family to Richmond, Virginia, a new settlement at the falls of the James River. This news put James and Laura in a panic—the falls of the James River was a week's ride from Elkton. But soon a solution was found. Mr. Johansson recommended James to Duncan Morris, an itinerant printer who attended the Johansson's Lutheran church. Mr. Morris had his mind set on starting a newspaper in the burgeoning town of Richmond and needed a literate assistant. James found him at the White Horse Inn and within an hour had negotiated his own sale on behalf of the Widow Clowes.

Most evenings of the next two years, after closing the press house for Morris, James would clean the ink from under his nails, brush his teeth, comb his hair, then borrow Morris's old nag and make his way across the James River, then south to the Johansson's farm. There he spent innumerable hours cutting wood, clearing fields, and helping Bjorn build the house and barns. Hanna fed him most meals and he spent most warm nights in their new barn. Bjorn was grateful for the help, which James never minded to give. So long as he could be near Laura.

The sun was almost gone. James got to his feet and walked the few paces to Laura's window, then sat beside her and watched the shimmering deep-red ball disappear through the trees. “Reminds me of sitting in m' Da's stables at Dunmain, as a young lad, it does.” He hoped the innocuous subject would not incite another request that he throw himself from the window.

“Do ya miss yar father?”

“Nay,” her replied, breathing easier upon hearing the softness of her voice.

“What do ya miss?” Her entrancing eyes were studying him.

“About Ireland?”

“Aya, Ireland.” She paused, then furrowed her brow. “Ya speak so little of it. After these years, all I know is that yar father was a stableman.”

“Aye,” muttered James, tensing at the sound of his own lie.

“And about yar friend, Seán.”

“Aye,” he replied, looking away. “Seán Kennedy.”

“Did yar father tell ya about yar mother? She was lost birthing ya, I know, but—”

“Nay. Not much.” He hoped she wasn't detecting his anxiety.

“Do ya think they loved each other? Like we do?”

“Who? Mother? My father? Nay. Most assuredly not. Why?”

“They got married younger than we'll be, if I added correctly, and….” Her gaze descended to James's hand, which was covering hers on the rough floor of the loft.

“Is that what's on yer mind? Us marryin'?” James stared at her beautiful chin, her smooth skin. “What can I say that I haven't already
said? I love ye. Ye know that. But ye also know an indentee can't marry.”

Laura's lips began quivering and a tear ran down her cheek. “I know.”

“A year and a half. That's all,” he continued. “What is left for me to say? I couldn't imagine life without ye. Ye know if I were a free man we would already be husband and wife.”

“I love ya,” she whispered.

He pulled her closer, kissing her softly on her forehead. “Ye're my life Laura. What can I do to make ye believe me? To make these tears stop? Command me, m'fair lady. I'll do it.” His eyes widened playfully. “Anything. Just say it. When I first saw yer beautiful face, ye saved my life. I would die for ye.” He lightly brushed a tear from her warm cheeks. “I would, indeed. Tell me, what—”