The Seekers (44 page)

The boy studied Jared with foxy eyes. “Not if you was smart.”

“What’s to become of Stovall, Harry?”

“He’ll be transferred to a hospital in Boston, then sent home when he’s well enough.”

Jared relaxed a little. That ended the immediate threat. He assumed Stovall would still be recuperating when
Constitution
’s crew went ashore for the huge civic welcome being planned.

Jared intended to be part of that welcome—though in truth, he was less than satisfied with his performance during the battle.

Yes, he’d stood in the thick of the fighting and carried out his duties well enough. But he’d failed miserably when confronted with the opportunity—at the time, the necessity—to get rid of Stovall. Blind chance had done it for him; he could take no comfort.

And the troubling sickness had recurred. At the critical moment with Stovall, it had undone him. That seemed an ominous sign.

So on balance, he was disappointed. Rather than resolving basic questions, the events of the past days merely continued and even sharpened them—and brought back the feeling that he might never escape the bent for failure that seemed to be his inheritance from his mother and father. The gloomy feelings persisted all through the flurry of preparations for going ashore.

He was on deck when
Constitution
warped into Long Wharf and began unloading prisoners and wounded. The fresh air improved his spirits a little. If there had been no fundamental alteration in his doubts about himself, at least he could be proud of outward changes that had accelerated during the past month. He stood more erect now, shoulders back, blue eyes shining in the sun. If he was not yet physically a man, he felt as if he were—even though his fourteenth birthday wouldn’t come until October.

While the wounded were carried off, he and the other boys told each other how bold they’d been in combat. They bragged of the feminine conquests they planned to make in the city. Jared’s boasts were even emptier than those of his shipmates. And all at once, he was silenced by the sight of Stovall being carried down the gangplank on a litter.

A bandage swathed most of the lieutenant’s skull and the right side of his face. Jared swallowed. Even lying helpless, the young officer had the power to stir terror—

He told himself his fear was foolish. He’d repaid the lieutenant in kind, and they were even and quits. He’d probably never see Stovall again—he should focus on that, not on his failure to take the officer’s life.

The last of the prisoners filed off. Crowds began to stream up Long Wharf to welcome the sailors. Soon the entire dock was jammed with people.

Jared set off among them with his chin up and his eyes a bit harder, a bit colder than they’d been on that morning he first boarded his ship—

A hundred years ago, it seemed. Could it really be only a month?

In that time he had done and seen much. But dizzying change was the way of the world these days, Uncle Gilbert said. Finally, in the noisy throng on Long Wharf, he allowed himself a touch of pride. Perhaps some things hadn’t changed. But others had—

The boy was dead. Long live the man.

J
ARED STRUGGLED UP LONG WARF
against the human tide rolling toward the
Constitution.
Because he wore a uniform—newly laundered slops, blouse and scarf, varnished black hat—he was automatically a candidate for congratulations, boisterous backslaps, squeezes, pokes, pinches and pats. In the face of such enthusiasm, the going became difficult. He curled his left arm around the small canvas bag containing souvenirs for the family, lowered his head and kept shoving his way to the head of the pier.

People around
Constitution
’s gangplank rushed aboard. Some of the women ran to the sailors still on the ship and grasped them in ardent embraces. Hanging on to his hat and looking back, Jared wondered enviously whether he could find some attractive young woman to favor him with a kiss. Or something more—

As if the wish had conjured bad luck, he found himself approaching a woman, but hardly a desirable one. He was out of the heaviest press now, and had room to maneuver. He sidestepped to avoid a direct confrontation. The woman’s dress and cap were filthy. Most of her teeth were gone, even though she didn’t appear to be thirty. A whore, he was certain.

The woman changed course to intercept him. “Here’s one of the lads from the frigate!”

Her remark was directed to a short, wide-shouldered man lurching along behind her. Jared paid no attention to the fellow; he was too busy avoiding the whore’s outstretched hands.

Rum fumes barely masked the stench of the woman’s body. But she wasn’t so drunk that she couldn’t move quickly. Darting in front of Jared, she seized his shoulders and gave him a wet buss on the cheek.

Jared tolerated it, but with difficulty. The woman’s incredibly dirty fingers and rouged, pox-pitted face turned his stomach.

The woman’s companion laughed—a wheezy, consumptive sound—and tapped her shoulder. His voice was slurred by drink. “Back off, Nell. The lad’s not old enough to buy what you’re selling.”

“Oh, he looks plenty old enough to me.” The whore simpered, showing her discolored gums. “Want to come up the street a ways? I’ll pleasure you for half the usual price. It’s a special rate for any of the brave lads from Boston’s frigate—”

“Let go of me, please,” Jared said, concerned that the encounter might turn ugly.

The whore reached for his groin. Her man restrained her. “Nell, he said no. Leave him be.”

“Thank you, sir, I’m obliged,” Jared said while the whore grumbled.

For the first time he got a clear look at her companion: the woman’s pimp, obviously. He was about forty, stocky, with untrimmed hair, whiskers and beard shot through with gray. He smelled even worse than the whore.

Because of the man’s position and the angle of the sunlight, only the right side of the man’s face was visible beneath his hat brim. But that was quite enough to make Jared queasy. The man’s skin was covered with seeping sores. His right eye had gone milky with blindness—altogether, a ghastly specimen. But not unusual around the docks.

The pimp gave him a muzzy grin, extended his right hand. “Privilege to meet any of the lads who—”

Abruptly, the pimp stopped. Withdrew his scabby hand. He stared at the boy in an intense way, saying nothing.

The whore was anxious to rush on and find another customer. The pimp lingered.

“Boy—?”

Jared would have left instantly but he didn’t want to provoke the drunken man. He held a hand over his brow to cut the sun’s glare. Even so, he still couldn’t see much of the man’s face.

“Yes?” Jared said.

“Would you tell me your name?”

“Why?”

“Because you resemble someone—I mean to say—someone I once—”

“It’s Prouty, Oliver Prouty,” Jared said. It was the first name that popped into his head.

“Oh.” The pimp nodded slowly. “Mistake, then—”

“Yes, sir. Good day.”

Shivering, Jared turned and left.

The pimp tugged off his hat and fanned himself, staring after the tawny-haired boy. The pox sores glistened in the sunlight. The disease-blinded right eye shone like a white marble.

“He lied to me—” the pimp murmured, sounding more sorrowful than angry.

The whore rushed back to him. “For Christ’s sake, let’s get to the ship!”

“But the boy didn’t give me his right name.”

“What difference does that make?”

Collecting himself, the pimp brushed a hand against his watering left eye. “None,” he said softly. “None.”

He put his stained hat on his head. The shadow of the brim blotted his face again, hiding the badly healed ridge of scar tissue on his left-cheek.

He pulled a bottle from his coat pocket, swigged and followed the whore down Long Wharf.

Jared had hoped Uncle Gilbert and Amanda might bring a carriage to meet him. When he searched the street at the head of the pier and failed to find them, he was disappointed.

He could understand Aunt Harriet not coming; she wouldn’t care whether he was alive or not. But Uncle Gilbert wasn’t that way. Jared told himself his uncle must not have known the exact time of
Constitution
’s docking.

He knew the excuse wasn’t valid—especially for a newspaperman. But he needed some kind of balm for his letdown feeling. His step was much less jaunty as he set off along a narrow street.

He’d gone no more than a few blocks when a voice challenged him. “Hello. Are you off the Boston ship?”

Jumping across the refuse channel to the dark doorway, Jared peered at the person who had spoken: a girl, lounging in the shadows with her forearms crossed over small breasts barely concealed by a thin blouse.

Unlike the whore on the wharf, this one was reasonably attractive. Brown-haired, with a clear complexion and clean skin.

And she had most of her teeth.

“Yes, I am,” he told her. “I’m headed for my home.”

Wondering if this might be a deadfall, he glanced along the mean, littered street. No one else was in sight. Half a block away, a tavern showed closed shutters, as if the patrons had all departed. To welcome the frigate, perhaps—?

He felt reassured when the young woman smiled at him. “Are you in a terrible rush? I could make you happy to be on land again.”

Lazily, she dropped her arms and let him see her breasts covered by the thin blouse. The dark circles of her nipples showed clearly. Temptation set off peculiar sensations within Jared. Excitement and shame mingled as he felt the unconscious response of his body to the girl’s.

“I have no money,” he said truthfully. “We’ve yet to be paid.”

“Surely there’s something in that little bag to take a girl’s fancy.”

“Nothing of value. Two bracelets of tarred cordage, plus a four-inch splinter from our ship’s mast.”

“Would you show me one of the rope bracelets?”

She said it so gently, he couldn’t refuse. He opened the canvas bag.

The brown-haired girl turned the crude bracelet in her fingers, then smiled again.

“If you swear this comes from the Boston frigate, it would be acceptable payment. I mean, today’s a special day, isn’t it? Everything about it should be special. For you. For me too.”

He eyed the souvenir he’d tied and tarred himself. If he gave one away, there would only be one left—and that one must go to Amanda. Much as he despised Aunt Harriet, to neglect her would only provoke trouble.

Nervously, Jared hooked a finger in the collar of his blouse. He was perspiring. Partly from excitement, partly out of fear.

Why couldn’t he present the souvenirs privately?

Aunt Harriet didn’t need to know she’d been shorted—

“All right,” he said in an unsteady voice.

“The bracelet’s mine?”

“Aye.”

She seemed genuinely pleased, and bent to kiss his cheek lightly as he passed from the blue shadow of the street to the deeper shadow and mystery of the shabby ground-floor room.

When he emerged an hour later, a greater mystery had been solved—pleasantly if a little clumsily this first time.

The young whore had never even told him her name, leading him straight to her narrow bed and helping him undress. The moment she drew off his underclothes, he confronted her with an enormous erection—and a deep red face. But she laughed with delight, wriggling free of her own garments.

She lay back, one hand closing gently until he tingled with a tension altogether foreign to him before.

“Come, lie down with me,” she said. “You’ll find it nice, I think.”

As he slipped down beside her, she pressed his erection against her tuft and left it straining there, stroking his cheeks with her palms, then opening her lips against his. Her tongue caressed the inside of his mouth, arousing him all the more.

Her breasts touched his chest. He started breathing heavily. He’d watched dogs coupling in the street a few times, but he’d never imagined a similar act between humans could produce such marvelous sensations—

Kissing, fondling, she guided him between her thighs, then began to slide up and down beneath him. He clasped his arms under her back, awkward in his movements until he found the proper angle. Soon she was breathing as loudly as he. She began to moan against his throat—

The explosion of his loins was matched by her own violent wrenchings, up and down, side to side. After that came a delicious lassitude. They lay close together, he feeling sad, somehow. He put his lips against her warm ear and whispered that he loved her very much. She laughed again, touching his nose and saying she loved him too.

Leaving her, he whistled as he walked. The odd sadness had passed.

Perhaps he’d experienced it because he knew their lovemaking was an exchange of pleasure for a price, nothing more. Yet the act seemed far too beautiful and moving to be of such fleeting significance. For a moment he wished he could see the girl again. He wished their declarations of love had been real ones, not lies born in the heat of the moment—

What foolishness!

Even so, her face lingered in his thoughts. He suspected it always would.

He whistled louder. Why feel bad? Hadn’t he learned one of the things a man must know?

At an intersection, he paused and looked back. The brown-haired girl was waving goodbye from her doorway. The little bracelet of tarred cordage jiggled on her wrist.

He waved in return, then hurried on.

At Beacon Street, Amanda came to answer the door. When she saw Jared, she squealed with delight.

He dropped the canvas bag, caught her around the waist and whirled her above the stoop, nearly causing the driver of a dray to run his team onto the sidewalk.

Amanda was as pert and lovely as ever. He hugged her fiercely. The touch of her soft skin against his cheek made him feel he was truly home.

“Dear Jared!” she gasped when he released her. “How fine you look in that uniform!”

“Not fine enough for anyone to come greet me at the pier. Other families were there. But not mine. That demands an explanation, by God!”

“Oo, do all sailors swear that way?”