The black swan (16 page)

Adam put his big hand on her small shoulder. "|.know,'* he said softly. "We'll lock the house and send an agent for them as soon as we're safe in Wilmington. Ma, you will

The Black Swan hi

start packing immediately? I'm going to ride down to get Ben and Beau to help."

As he left, Zoe reflected that once again she had made no decision. Circumstances and Adam's young judgment were going to carry her along this time. Perhaps one day, she thought, / may develop some backbone.

As she went into the hall, Tom emerged from his room, shockingly pale, the scars livid across his face. "How can I help, Mrs. Tremain?"

"There are two trunks in the attic. Are you able to carry them down? Perhaps Mammy could help you," she began, then added, in sudden decision, "keep Angela with you so she won't be underfoot."

Tom drew in a long breath. "Wh—" His voice failed. "Where is she, ma'am?"

"She's with Mammy. I'll send her yp."

With ruthless efficiency Zoe listed absolute necessities. Feather ticks. Pillows. Bedding. Suddenly she was immensely pleased with herself. She had told Tom to care for his daughter, and he would have to do it. Even after he'd started to treat Adam more kindly, he had refused to see Angela. Daily he broke Zoe's heart, for when the child asked about Papa, she spoke as of one in a foreign land. And Zoe kept promising that Papa would tell her stories as soon as he got well.

And now stark desperation had brought that day. Zoe completed her brief list. It had been seventeen years since she had left Wilmington to live in New Orleans with Paul Tremain. Now she was going back.

In the short time Adam was gone, his mother and Mammy stripped all the wardrobes of clothing and linens and packed them into trunks. Tom sat watching, a radiantly chattering Angela snuggled against him. "An' then. Papa, what did the baby bear do?"

"He packed all his clothes an' his toys and moved to a brand-new house." Tom said.

"He like the new house?" Angela began to laugh, the question forgotten as she heard voices in the hall. "Adam's home! Papa, Adam's home!"

Tom smiled crookedly at Adam. "Sure can tell who's got her heart."

In another hour the boys had dismantled the beds, carried in barrels from the shed, and carried them out again packed with china and glassware and keepsakes. Somehow by dark, they had made room for everything, leaving a place in the dray large enough for Tom to lie with Angela to nap beside him. Mammy scraped together a competent supper, and they all ate standing up.

"Y'all gonna have enough money?" Beau asked, his mouth full of fried grits and ham. "I can lend you fifty dollars I've got hidden away."

Adam grinned. "Thanks, Beau, we'll be all right. We're so far from the bank that we always keep money handy. And Tom sent me to the bayou for his things, including a tidy little hoard. You and Ben could watch the house for us, though."

"North C'lina is a long way off," said Ben wistfully. "How soon y'all think you might be coming back to visit?"

Tom, as had been his habit in recent months, was saying nothing. But perhaps he'd listened more carefully than he knew. Seeing the boys together, eager as always to help, cheerful as always when they were together, Tom rounded out a thought that had begun yesterday. There had been more than money at the bayou house. There were the last tangible traces that Ullah had ever lived. Doubting his own good sense, Tom had instructed Adam to bring back two items besides the money. He wanted to keep Ullah's box of treasures and the small wrapped package that contained what would have been another addition to her little box.

He still hadn't the courage to unwrap the small black hand-blown glass swan that he'd planned to give Ullah for Christmas. At least he'd had the courage to tell Adam to bring it to him. Perhaps the black swan was only another valueless trinket that Ullah would have kept hidden away in the little box; but to her it would have represented Adam. So it would now to Tom, and someday he would present that swan to Adam himself for Ullah.

Tom looked at Ben, Beau, and Adam, each young face saddened at the prospect of parting. "We can't come back here for a long time, Ben, you know that. But I'm gonna get a place, and you and Beau have an open invitation to come anytime. Angela and I will always be glad to see you." He did not look at Adam, who quickly put his head down to hide a surprised, triumphant grin.

It was black dark by the time the last items were loaded and tied down, the house left clean and secured. Zoe stood beside the carriage, her eyes going over the familiar lines of the house. She was bracing her emotions against the possibility of never again seeing any of the beloved possessions she had to leave behind. Yet, she knew their next dwelling wouldn't be a home without her grandmother's oval gilt mirror or the pie safe that had been her parents'.

Zoe knelt in the dust. Her sweet voice murmured softly, "Our Almighty Father, we ask Thy blessing on this journey. If it be Thy will, guide us to safety and happiness in our home that is to be. Keep our feet upon Thy paths this night and for the rest of our lives. In lesus' name we pray. Amen." The others echoed the solemn, final "amen."

Ben and Beau stumbled over each other's words, each trying to teM Adam what his friendship meant to them. Finally Adam said, "Ready, Ma?"

Ben and Beau rode with them to the fork that led to New Orleans. There they parted quickly. Ben and Beau watched until darkness swallowed even the turning of wheels and the jingle of harness.

"D'you s'pose he's forgotten our pact, Beau?'*

"Not Adam," Beau answered staunchly. "We've been going to be ship's masters ever since we had our first boat. He'll remember."

The words were comforting, but both feared they were a lie. Adam Tremain had melted into the night. He was gone from them.

Adam led the way, driving the two-horse dray while Zoe handled the carriage. Tom and Angela, almost engulfed in a pile of feather ticks, slept from exhaustion. Mammy was propped securely amid the furniture. "Effen some ghos' tries to git ol' Mammy, he gwine hafta fish me outa dese chairs," she declared, barricading herself. For the first mile or two she watched constantly to right and left, riding backward. Then weariness overcame her fear of the dark, and her white woolly head found a resting place. Soon her snores mingled with Tom's and the occasional snorts of ihe horses as they strained through muddy places or over broken ground.

The night was alive with noises that frightened Zoe. She was accustomed to the nightly calls of the screech owl

families that lived in the bald cypresses near the house. Out here, with the woods opening for their passage and seeming to close ominously behind them, their harsh, shuddering cries made her flesh crawl. The underbrush rustled with cottontails and the tiny furtive scuttlings of shrews and voles and weasels. For Zoe every noise was a stealthy footstep taken just out of sight behind her open carriage.

Her arms ached. It was one thing to drive the light buggy on her daily round of visits and errands. It was quite another to go on hour after hour, scarcely able to breathe for fear of the unknown predators lurking out there, with one's arms and shoulders pinched and uncomfortable from urging on the reluctant horse that didn't like the night any better than she did.

A heavy, prolonged crashing in the underbrush made her horse rear and brought a barely stifled scream from Zoe. "Adam!"

He stopped, but did not leave the dray. "Are you all right, Ma?"

2^e got the horse under control. Shaking, she answered. "No! I'm not all right! I'm frightened to death, and there's something in the woods over there!"

"Hang on, Ma. I'm coming back, soon's I can wake up Tom."

"Oh, Adam—^hurry!" she called, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

He mounted the seat beside her, letting her hide her face in his jacket. "Well, hey there, Miz Tremain," he said, and she could tell he was grinning. Ghosses an' hants aftuh you?"

"Adam, don't make fun of me! I did hear something!"

He took the reins, and they started up again, Tom driving the dray. "Of course you did, but it was only a black bear looking for dinner."

"A bear!?" she gasped.

Adam chuckled. "He won't hurt you much. But he*s got the horses all excited. You stay awake so you can take the reins in case I have to shoot him."

The sound Zoe made was between a yelp and a whimper. But for a while there were no more scary noises. She put her head on her son's solid-feeling shoulder and dozed. She awoke again when they stopped. Around them was a thick wall of mist. The dray, only a few feet ahead of them, was nearly invisible. "Adam, where are we?"

"Partway up a small neck of land north of New Orleans. We take the ferry there across Lake Ponchartram. After that, only ten or twelve miles to Mississippi."

Adam handed her the reins and went up to the dray. "How you comin', Tom?"

Tom's hoarse voice sounded eerily through the droplets of mist. "Can't say I'm sorry we stopped," he said. "Think maybe I'll curl up on the tick until this stuff lifts."

Mammy woke up, seeing the swirling fog in the graying light. "Mas' Adam!"

"Everything's all right. Mammy," he assured her. "The horses need a rest. We'll go on as soon as we can see. We're safe now."

"Mas' Adam! Iff en you cain't see us, how kin you tell we's safe?"

Adam laughed. "As long as I can hear your voices, Manrniy, I know you're there. Not even a ghost would try to follow us in this gumbo anyway." '

Long before darkness waned, they heard the sounds of a bayou morning. Not far in the echoing distance they heard the staccato drumming of the ivory-billed and pile-ated woodpeckers, louder then growing softer. A blue jay screamed its name. Wings fluttered as a flicker flew across the road, crying kikikikiki! The day creatures took the place of the night prowlers with their chorus of whistling, piping, booming, and trilling calls, above the low rasping kzrrrt! of the snipes and the nasal peent! of woodcocks. The sun, awake at last, burned a hole through the mist to lay a rainbow around the wide-awake, listening group.

"Rainbow's de Lawd's good sign," said Mammy solemnly.

"Mammy, my bellybutton*s striking sparks off my backbone," Adam complained. "Any slivers of ham in that lard can you packed?"

"Sho' is, Mas' Adam." So, as the sun burned away the shreds of mist, they shared ham and cold hush puppies and water from the well back of their house. Then they moved on.

By midday they reached the shore of Lake Ponchar-train and boarded the ferry.

After that they traveled by day, away from the coastline with its wet, uneasy ground, into and out of the pungent pine forests of Mississippi, through a rolling land, ne-

glected, its withered dry cotton stalks left to the sun and wind. Here and there they saw a newly plowed field polka-dotted with flocking white ibises. They followed wagon-rutted trails and occasionally cowpaths, having to stop twice to pry the heavily loaded dray out of the clinging mud.

With immense relief and excitement they began to smell the familiar Gulf air. That day they entered Biloxi. The lighthouse cast its long shadow in the late-day sun as Adam led them along the wharves. He left Tom with the others and made inquiries among the steamship offices. Adam contracted for passage on the Goodenough, a large vessel carrying passengers and cargo. They would be at Aunt Le-ona's by the first week in June.

Once aboard ship, they settled down to the long days on the water. Mammy spent her waking hours preventing Angela from falling or jumping over the side of the ship. Tom, surprisingly strengthened and cheered by taking his turn at the cross-country driving, experienced the first public antipathy to his ruined appearance. As he walked the decks, the furtive and curious looks followed him. He heard the hushed comments, blurring into a buzz as he passed. With steely determination he kept to his daily walks, and slowly the forced chatting with other men grew casual as they came to know him. Nightly he engaged in the games of poker, brag, and ramps. He won his victory. He was again accepted and liked, because he was likable; but he'd learned that becoming someone's friend was going to be immeasurably more difficult than it had once been.

Adam's face was cast in a permanent bronzed smile. He was in his element. He was on a seagoing vessel moving through the Gulf of Mexico toward the cold, rolling waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He was never still. He talked to every seaman as long as that man's patience and store of information held out. He watched every activity from the closest permissible distance.

While Adam was examining the myriad knots that held the lines, a ship's officer accosted him sharply. Adam's instant respectful answer and his evident passion for ships, gained him the first mate's permission to stand night watch and the captain's permission to take a closely escorted tour belowdecks and into the fo'c'sle. His avid eyes saw and catalogued everything from bulkheads to bilges, stokehold to

galley. He had a thousand questions, but his logical mind stuck to learning as much as possible about one thing at a time.

From the first mate he learned not only about the parts of a ship and their workings but about the men and their duties. Most important of all, he learned that he could sit for his second mate's papers when he was seventeen. By age twenty-one he could be a ship's master.

Halfway through the voyage Adam was standing by the rail, watching to the north an approaching line of small islands. A seaman touched his arm and saluted smartly. A devil's grin was on his face. "The captain's compliments, Mr. Tremain. I'm to escort you to the chart room."

In the cramped area the men worked efficiently as Captain Connacher proudly unrolled his charts. "There aren't many of this quality to be had," he said, smoothing them out for Adam to admire. Turning from the charts, he showed Adam the compass, chronometer, and the binnacle. Suddenly his head went up, a look of satisfaction passing over his face.

"Feel that water under your feet, Mr. Tremain?"

Adam's eyes lighted. "It's different, isn't it, sir?"

The captain nodded approval. "So, you did feel it. We've just come off the Gulf Stream. I'd know that feeling anywhere. It's truer and better knowledge than any chart will give you. Remember it, boy. If you've got the makings of a master, that feel will live with you all your life."