Back Bay (18 page)

“You sinkin’ us?”

“Bow, stern, and midships. These smuggler sloops is built to sink fast, but I can’t find no stern sea cock. That’s why I’m swingin’ the ax.”

Three inches of water already covered the cabin deck, and countless empty bottles, the last remnants of Jack Dawson, were floating about in the wash like toys in a bathtub. Then, above the sound of flowing water, Lovell and Grew heard the squealing noise of fright. Rats appeared everywhere, scuttling across the beams, crawling onto tables and chairs, and swimming toward the two men as though they were trees in a flood.

Grew felt something at his foot. He slashed with his machete and sliced a rat in half. He swung the machete again and again, and the water around his feet turned red. He felt something soft and warm slithering across his neck. He plucked it from his ear and flung it against the wall. He was terrified.

“Stop killin’ rats and get the tea set out of the ’old,” commanded Lovell.

Grew bounded out of the cabin with Lovell a few steps behind. The black pulled back the grate on the cargo hold and leaped down. Lovell ran to the bow and descended into the small forward hold. He found the bow sea cock, swung at it once or twice with the side of the ax, then pulled up. Salt water bubbled into the compartment.

Back on deck, he saw the strongbox appearing from the hold. He took it from Grew’s shoulder and pushed it to the side. He peered into the hold, which was eight feet deep, and saw the black face gleaming with sweat. He realized how easily he could close the gate and leave Jeff Grew to drown on the
Reckless
. He reached for it, but his hand stopped and he heard his own voice. “In the middle of the ’old, you’ll find the midship sea cock. Open it and get the ’ell out.”

“I ain’t openin’ nothin’, Dexter. Dere’s rats in here. I’m comin’ out.”

Lovell slammed the grate shut.

Grew screamed and swung his machete against the wooden latticework above him. “Goddam you, Dexter Lovell!”

“Open the sea cock, or I’ll leave you down there for good.”

Reluctantly, Grew retreated into the darkness. A moment later, Lovell heard the rush of water into the hold.

“Now let me out,” screamed Jeff Grew.

Lovell watched the water swirl. He heard the rats screech as they were flushed from their hiding places. He saw the black’s eyes grew wide with fright.

“You ain’t gonna leave me here, Dexter Lovell. You can’t!”

Lovell stood slowly. Perhaps he could. He stepped back from the grate, as if to test his own resolve.

Grew cursed the white man. Black hands appeared at the holes in the grate. They pulled violently, helplessly against it, then slipped away. Grew splashed back into the water, now ankle-deep in the hold. He bellowed for Lovell to let him out, then screamed. The rats were clinging to him.

Lovell took another step back and tried not to listen.

“Help me, damn you, Dexter Lovell!”

Lovell grabbed the strongbox by both handles and started to drag it toward the rowboat. If he could endure the black man’s wail just a little longer, it would be silenced forever.

“I curse you, Dexter Lovell. I curse with all the bad voodoo I know!”

Just a little longer, a little longer.

“Help me, please, Dexter Lovell. Don’t be lettin’ me die!”

Lovell couldn’t do it. He damned whatever shreds of conscience he still had and opened the grate. “I wouldn’t leave you there, you crazy black fool. The rowboat slipped loose, and I ’ad to secure it. You don’t want us drownin’ because we sank our ship out from under us and didn’t ’ave no rowboat.”

Half-crazy with fear, Grew climbed out of the hold and slashed at the rats still clinging to his pants. Then he turned the machete to Lovell. Every muscle in his body was quivering. “I oughta be killin’ you, Dexter Lovell!”

Lovell didn’t budge. “And leave yourself alone in a sinkin’ ship in Boston ’arbor? Don’t be a fool, nigger. I’m your only friend. I just proved it by lettin’ you out of that ’old. Now let’s get goin’.”

The
Reckless
was filling with water and sinking on an even keel. The deck would soon be awash. There was no time for argument. Lovell and Grew loaded the strongbox into the rowboat and pushed off. A few minutes later the mast slipped straight into the water and the sloop was gone. All that remained were a few rats still swimming for their lives.

“Drown, you dirty buggers,” whispered Jeff Grew.

“I never seen such a big, strong man so scared of a few rats.”

“I hate dem fuckers, Dexter.” Grew shuddered. “And I hate you for leavin’ me in dat hold so long.”

“Just keep at the oars, Jefferson, my boy.” Lovell’s voice was gentle. From his days in a whaleboat, he knew well the soothing effects of rowing on panicked men.

“I hate dem fuckers.”

“I can’t say as I love ’em myself.”

“Nobody love ’em, but you try livin’ sometime down in Jamaica, in one of dem little huts where dey keep slaves. You be a little boy, four, maybe five years old, sleepin’ all peaceful and nice…” Grew’s voice cracked. He swung the oars four or five times through the water, then continued. “… and wake up when your momma scream because your little brother be dead from the typhoid beside you, and the rats is eatin’ at his face. And den you scream, ’cause dey runnin’ on your legs and tinkin’ ’bout eatin’ you, too. You don’t never forget dem rats, or what white men put you in dat hole, or how much you wants to get out. Never.” When he was finished, the muscles in Jeff Grew’s jaw were taut, his teeth were clenched tight, and there was hatred deep in his eyes.

Dexter Lovell feared that he had struck a dangerous spring in Jeff Grew’s past. “You don’t ever ’ave to go back. Just keep rowin’ for another hour or two, and I’ll see you’re set for life.”

Grew shipped his oars and glared at Lovell. “You be another white man, Dexter. No different than any other.”

“You’ll have to trust me.”

“Like I said in Chesapeake Bay, you can’t trust no one.” He dipped the oars once more.

The tide and Jeff Grew’s muscle carried them quickly through the outer harbor.

In the bright moonlight, Lovell could see the masts and yardarms of the Boston fleet growing like a winter forest along the waterfront. Behind them rose the dark mass of Beacon Hill; beneath them shone the lights of Boston. Lovell had spent the best years of his life in Boston, and now the city appeared to him as in a dream of shadow and darkness and scattered splashes of light. He hoped that the dream would grow brighter.

“Which wharf you want me aimin’ for?” asked Grew.

“None. Swing north and around the city. We’re meetin’ my friends on the other side.”

“Dis place an island?”

“Just about.”

Horace Taylor Pratt stood on Gravelly Point and waited for the splash of Lovell’s oars in the Easterly Channel. It would be tonight, or not at all.

“That drive gets longer every night,” said Wilson, sipping blackberry brandy from his flask. “Why couldn’t Lovell show up at the waterfront, like any other smuggler?”

“The waterfront isn’t deserted,” said young Horace.

“Quite so,” added Pratt.

A half hour later, Grew rowed through the channel between Boston and Charlestown, then under Craigie’s Bridge. Fifty yards ahead, the brightly lit West Boston Bridge.

“Another mile and a ’alf or so, and we’re there.” Lovell’s voice vibrated with excitement.

And Jeff Grew’s heart pounded. As he rowed toward the West Boston Bridge, he studied Lovell’s face for some hint of what awaited him. Would this white man still try to kill him, this white man who drank with him, then locked him in a hold filled with rats, this white man who spoke so gently and always kept a hand near his gun? Or would this white man keep his word?

A voice deep inside Jeff Grew began to chant, Kill him, kill him, kill him now. He tried not to listen, but the voice grew louder. He concentrated on rowing and fixed his eyes on Lovell.

Suddenly, Lovell’s face began to change. His forehead and cheekbones burned bright, like gold. His eyes disappeared
beneath black scars that fell to his chin. His cheeks sank to blackness beneath the gold. Jeff Grew saw bad voodoo. He had seen it before, in Jamaica. The witch-doctor’s mask of evil. He dropped his oars. The boat drifted into the darkness under the bridge, and the mask was gone.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” asked Lovell.

Slowly, Grew picked up the oars and pulled the boat back into the light. The mask appeared again and the voices chanted, Kill him, kill him, kill him now. But Grew kept rowing. He knew that the lanterns on the bridge were playing tricks on him. Or maybe they were trying to warn him.

He rowed another twenty-five yards before he looked over his shoulder into the Back Bay. But for the moon and the West Boston Bridge, all was darkness. Grew didn’t like it. “Where we goin’, Dexter? I don’t see no wharves, no city. I can’t even see no houses.”

“Row another thirty or forty yards, then turn ninety degrees starboard.”

“Dere’s nothin’ but black out dere, Dexter.”

“Just keep rowin’.”

Kill him, kill him, kill him now. Don’t let this white man deceive you. The voice was becoming insistent.

The rowboat dug into the mud twice before Lovell found the mouth of the Easterly Channel. The Back Bay was covered in water at high tide, but many areas of it were not navigable. Lovell would try to stay in the channel all the way to Gravelly Point.

He reached under his seat and produced a red lantern. After several tries with flint and stone, he lit the wick and held the lantern above his head. The small cube of darkness around the boat glowed deep red.

Kill him, kill him, kill him now. Grew kept rowing.

“I see it, Grandfather.” At first, young Horace’s voice was uncertain. The light was only a pinprick in the distance.

“The lantern?” said Pratt from the carriage.

The boy put his grandfather’s spyglass to his eye. He could make out two men in a rowboat about a mile away, and one of them was holding a red lantern aloft. “Yes, sir. It’s them.”

Pratt and Wilson were beside him in an instant.

“He’s done it,” said Pratt softly, his voice filled with admiration. “The old bastard’s done it.”

“I’ll have to say I’m surprised,” added Wilson.

“Horace, get the lantern out of the boat and bring it here.”

In the moonlight, Lovell could see nothing but the dark outline of Gravelly Point. In the glow of the red lantern, Jeff Grew saw the face of a demon.

“Pull steady, Jefferson. The channel flows south for about a quarter mile, then swings sou’west. Tonight we sleep in beds,” said Lovell triumphantly. “And if you want, we’ll get you a fine white woman to stroke your dick.”

Grew continued to row. The rhythm of the oars as they clanked in the oarlocks lent cadence to the words now pounding in his head.

A light gleamed on Gravelly Point, now about three quarters of a mile away. Lovell squinted into the blackness. If it was Pratt, he would signal.

Young Horace held the lantern, and Wilson passed his hat back and forth in front of it.

“They’ve seen us,” said Lovell.

Grew looked over his shoulder and saw the spot of light blinking like an eye in the blackness. Kill him, kill him, kill him now. The white men are waiting to kill you.

Lovell blew out the red lantern.

Kill him. Now. Grew dropped the oars and reached for his machete.

“He’s seen us,” said young Horace excitedly.

“Then put our your lantern. He can navigate in the dark.”

The first scream of rage took several seconds to travel across the Back Bay. It was followed instantly by an animal cry of pain, then a gunshot.

Dexter Lovell’s left sleeve was covered in blood.

Jeff Grew felt a hole in his chest. There was another hole, much larger, where the ball had torn through his back. The shot had knocked him off his feet, and he lay in the bow, wedged between the strongbox and the gunwales. Kill him. You must kill him. Grew spat blood and struggled to his feet in the rocking boat.

Lovell grabbed for the second pistol. He thought he had it out of his belt when he realized that his arm was still hanging by his side. Nerve, muscle, and most of the bone were severed, and Grew’s machete was swinging at him again. Lovell ducked. The machete glanced off the side of his head. A flap of scalp dropped open, and Lovell’s right ear came away on the edge of the blade.

Water slopped over the gunwales on both sides of the boat. Grew swung the machete at Lovell’s throat. He stumbled and fell on top of the white man. Lovell grabbed the loaded gun with his right hand, jammed it against Grew’s stomach, and fired. Grew snapped to his feet. He staggered. He tried to swing the machete. He fell backward, and the boat capsized.

Dexter Lovell plunged through the cold velvet blackness. He thought he was dead. His body spun through space, then his head broke the surface and he gulped for air. He felt something flailing about in the water nearby. It grabbed him by the leg and pulled him under. He kicked loose and burst to the surface once more.

Jeff Grew appeared a few feet away. He was screaming something at Lovell, but Lovell did not understand him. Grew was chanting in Mandinka, “Kill him. Kill him. Kill him now,” over and over until water choked him and he sank once more.

Lovell tried to fight, but his left arm would not respond. His head went under. He struggled violently to bring it to the surface. Then the seaman’s instincts took over. He kicked his shoes off and treaded water.

“Damn it!” screamed Pratt.

“Grandfather, what’s happening?”

Pratt had been watching the shadows through his spyglass. Horace and Wilson could hear the struggle echoing across the water.

“The fools are killing each other.”

Dexter Lovell grabbed the side of the overturned boat. Then he realized that the tea set was gone. He looked about frantically, hoping that, by some miracle, iron would float. He put his head into the water and tried to see the bottom. Blood poured from the wound in his scalp and the deep slice in his shoulder, but he felt no pain.

He let go of the boat and dove. His brain sent signals to both arms; only his right responded. He touched bottom at six feet. He
grabbed a handful of mud and tried to drag himself along in the blackness. His hand hit metal. The strongbox was settled in the ooze directly beneath the boat. He clutched at the handle with his right hand and tried to lift. Too heavy.