The Whiskey Tide (13 page)

     
The sleepy voice trickled toward her again, calm and with a note disconcertingly like a smile.

     
"Mind you don't nod off, Miss Hinshaw. Bump into one of those and Davy Jones will wrap his arms around you for sure."

Eight

     
"We've just crossed into Canada, Miss Kate! Joe says." Billy's eyes sparkled with the wonder of it. He slipped as he made his way eagerly toward her on the spray-slickened deck. "Just think of it — clean out of the country! And I ain't been seasick."

     
Kate nodded. The crisp cod and fried potatoes they'd bought from a fisherman's wife in the small village where they'd put in four hours previous lay heavily on her stomach, not from lack of sea legs but from nervousness at the angry waves they were encountering. They were nearing the end of the Grand Manan Channel where they'd been sheltered from the Atlantic by Grand Manan Island. They were passing into the Bay of Fundy where the cold waters Joe had spoken of poured down to collide with warm waters turning east. Despite the protection of land masses on either side, they pitched and yawed more than if they'd been on open seas.

     
Below deck Pa's ship's clock had struck one bell, half past eight. Her mind overflowed with the sights she had seen. Huge, shaggy cats on the porch of the woman who had cooked their supper. Rosy-cheeked children in patched sweaters. Wild green coastline that seemed to be turning into wilderness as they made their way north. The bent old man with the filmy eye who had come aboard to guide them safely through the Bay of Fundy.

     
Biting into her, the wind seemed to shift with every crest and trough of the water. Despite Pa's sweater she was bone cold. In two days they had come more than three hundred miles, north two degrees of latitude. She had not expected such change of climate. She held the helm stoutly and tried not to show her discomfort or her growing anxiety at the mocking waves.

     
At the bow, Joe and the old man who was to pilot them stood shoulder to shoulder looking at charts and gesturing vaguely. Kate wondered, as her teeth tugged at the inside of her lip, whether Joe felt any trepidation at the force of the ocean now surrounding them. Moments later he glanced at her, said something to the old man, and came toward her.

     
"How do you like Canadian waters?" he asked with a grin as he stopped beside the wheel. His hands were in his pockets and wind whipped his dark curls. He looked perfectly relaxed.

     
"Much more exciting than the rides at the Willows," Kate said, determined not to shiver. She couldn't tell if the jaunty smile she attempted reached the chilled muscles of her face, but he laughed. His expression held the approval of one pleased by a surprise.

     
"You've a sense of humor, Miss Hinshaw."

     
He seemed to remember himself and the casual air left him.

     
"Staying afloat and on course tonight is apt to be tricky. There's nothing you can do up here. Go below and get some sleep. Toward dawn I'll have Billy wake you to take his place at the sails."

     
He kept his word, and when Billy woke her she emerged into a world where the darkness had become translucent and the waves were running higher than the night before. The old man had boiled coffee on the kerosene stove. Its fragrance reassured her as she checked the set of the sails. If the burner was lighted, the two men who knew the sea best must be confident there was no danger in these waters that seemed so formidable to her.

     
"Care for some, missus?" the old man asked offering a mug.

     
As Kate accepted with murmured thanks, she wondered whether he assumed she and Joe Santayna were married. Whatever its reason, his form of address seemed less formal than "miss" and she welcomed the comfort which lack of barriers brought. When daylight was fully established, after watching her take the helm for a bit against this more temperamental ocean, Joe went below and slept for three hours while the old man alternated tending sails and hovering watchfully at her elbow to tell her when to change course.

     
There was landfall on either side now, Canada proper to port and the comforting peninsular mass of Nova Scotia a low green line on the starboard horizon. All morning great freighters and steamers moved past them, clearing Saint John for the New York-Liverpool route. Scattered through them Kate spotted half a dozen vessels whose rundown condition suggested to her they were part of the rum fleet. When Joe emerged from below deck, he took the helm. His expression became so intent, his gaze so narrowed, that he seemed to be listening to guidance from the water itself. After more than two days at sea, a stubble of beard made him look rough and dangerous. From time to time the old man from the fishing village came to his side and they conferred.

     
They lunched hurriedly on spice-laden Portuguese sausages Joe had brought and rolls which the salt air had kept almost fresh. Just after midday they were sailing through the narrow mouth of Saint John harbor. To their right the city rose steeply, giving a view of red brick buildings set off here and there by occasional structures of dressed white stone. Height alone made the buildings a contrast to the wood and brick of Salem, but they also conveyed an elegance, and some intangible reminder that she no longer was in her own country.

     
The harbor itself was huge and bustling. Piers and warehouses lined the waterfront as far as the eye could travel. More sat shoulder to shoulder along the opposite side of the harbor, separated from downtown by the Saint John River.
Pa's Folly
took its place amid schooners and fishing boats tying up across from the market slip, which the old man said would be most advantageous for loading their cargo. Down wharf were larger vessels, freighters and steamers, and beneath her feet she felt the strange pulse of river vying with tide.

     
Kate climbed to the pier, somewhat rubber legged from her days at sea. She let the sounds and colors wash over her while Joe Santayna spoke to a port official. It seemed she heard fewer foreign tongues here than in Salem with its immigrant population. Enthralled, she looked out toward the ocean. Everything was so different; so strange. An awareness of how far they had come and how many wild miles of sea they had crossed crept into her. For a moment even the sadness of Pa's death retreated and she felt buoyant as the gulls swooping overhead.

     
Saint John had four bonded warehouses from which liquor was sold for export. The one housing Malcolm Townsend's shipment was a four story brick building less than a block distant. Kate made her way slowly toward the street, sure Joe with his long legs would catch up with her.

     
"Don't look so serious, lass. My mate and me will cheer you up," a voice said in her ear as an arm slid over her shoulders.

     
Kate tried to jerk away but found herself pinned between two burly men, one showing a missing tooth as he grinned possessively at her.

     
"My sister isn't interested," a voice said as another arm moved in to free her. Swallowing chagrin at her own foolishness, Kate found herself at the side of Joe Santayna. He stood half a head taller than the two men who had accosted her and his eyes were sharp with warning.

     
"Yeah. Sure. No harm meant," said the one who had spoken. The two men melted away.

     
"This isn't your college. You can't go around on your own and expect to be unmolested," Joe said before she could speak.

     
Kate ducked her head in acknowledgment, embarrassed she had needed his help. They walked the gray cobbled street to the warehouse without speaking. Trucks of varying vintages rattled past them, creaking with goods on their way to the piers, clattering on their return.

     
"I'll take care of the paperwork," Joe said at the door that marked the warehouse office. "We're going to have to lie about some things, you know."

     
He looked amused at her surprise. It puzzled Kate how often he seemed to see something funny in her reactions. He looked authentic enough in his role of captain, however. He had pulled on a well-cut cap of navy blue, and despite his emerging growth of beard held himself with authority. When they entered the warehouse and she saw a dozen men ahead of her, either waiting or talking rapidly to busy clerks behind a long wooden counter, she was glad to let him take charge. She was, she realized, the only woman in sight. Nervousness kept her from full awareness of her surroundings, but she noted the square hewn posts too large for her to reach around that held up the floors above. Voices echoed off brick and timber.

     
Their shipment was being held under the name Thomas Shakespeare. Kate showed her receipt and paid five dollars for the necessary export permit.

     
"A thousand cases of scotch, is it?" a clerk said checking his records. "Loading onto what sort of vessel?"

     
"A schooner."

     
"Soon as we've got a truck free we'll start to load the first run, then," he said to Joe. "Gets a bit nasty if the tide drops too much while you're loading, and she's already started to turn. Four loads from here. One of our lads will come along to count as they're delivered."

     
Down the counter another customer settled elbows on the well-used wood.

     
"A thousand Corby's and eight hundred scotch," he said as if ordering a sandwich. Kate watched in fascination as he counted bills from a roll in his pocket and the clerk in front of him began to fill out forms.

     
"You'll count the cases as they come onto the boat," Joe said on their way back. "They'll move fast. Mr. Murdoch was to hire a couple of men from the dock while we saw to this end. They'll help with the loading."

     
Another two dollars each, Kate learned unhappily.

***

     
All afternoon she stood in the sun ticking groups of five in a notebook as the twelve-bottle crates streamed aboard. Long before the first two hundred and fifty cases had all been loaded, she'd recognized the wisdom in hiring extra arms to lift and backs to carry. Coarse laughter and cursing erupted as strangers stamped up and down to the cabins below. Her legs ached from standing in one spot. A blister she'd raised on her hand pulling sailrope a thousand times more than she'd been accustomed to broke and began to sting. She wound a handkerchief around it in a welcome interval between departure of the third load and arrival of the last. Four hours after their arrival, at Joe's invitation, she stepped onto the pier and looked at her schooner riding low in the water, its cargo in place.

     
"A good wave will swamp us!" she said in dismay.

     
"An experienced eye can see we're loaded, that's for sure." Joe grinned and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Don't worry. She's got clearance to spare." He noticed the handkerchief knotted around her hand. "Cut yourself?"

     
She hesitated, loath to let him judge her too soft for the role she'd demanded. "Just a blister. It's nothing."

     
He squinted at clouds and made no response.

     
They bolted bowls of steaming chowder in a wharfside cafe and carried back tin pails of it for the old man and Billy.

     
"What's the current here in the harbor?" Kate asked as they cast off and began to unfurl sail at a time when other boats were coming to port for the night.

     
"The tides," Joe answered briefly. "And the flow of the river. They push one another." His attention was elsewhere. "We'll go out fast, but the winds will be against us going back. Every hour without fog is blessed, and we might not be so lucky tomorrow. We've got to squeeze every minute and every breath of wind we can tonight."

     
Wind was in good supply at the moment, Kate thought, teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, and they were still in the harbor. She and Billy worked sails. The old man had the helm. Joe was checking rigging with meticulous care, shinnying up first foremast then mainmast. He dropped back lightly to deck and frowned as he noticed her.