The black swan (65 page)

Adam moved cautiously through Onslow Bay. He heard nothing, smelled no telltale smoke, and yet he knew, somewhere out in the inky blackness, they were there. They were all waiting for him, having only to sit in their ocean anchorage and allow him to make a sound, show a light, make a single mistake that would present them with a target.

The Federals hung in as close to the shore as their drafts permitted, anchoring off the two main channel inlets of the Cape Fear. Old Inlet entered the Cape Fear at its mouth, guarded by Forts Caswell and Holmes. It was the closest, but navigationally the most dangerous. A boomerang-shaped bar called the Lump lurked just two to five feet below the surface. On either side of the Lump was deeper water, but the smallest miscalculation would run the Independence aground, leaving her helpless and exposed to the fire of the cruisers.

He decided to run for New Inlet, a channel opened by hurricanes a hundred years ago. Though it too had a bar of shifting silt and sand, it was the easier to navigate. And New Inlet had the added advantage of being protected by the small but scrappy fort of palmetto logs and railroad iron called Battery BoUes.

The Independence steamed toward Confederate Point, a few miles above New Inlet. Adam would work his way back south silently along the shallower waters where the blockading ships could not follow because of their deep draft. The shore was flat and featureless. At each quarter of the ship Adam stationed his leadsmen. Whispered measurements drifted to his ears. Twelve feet. Fifteen feet. Then as he himself felt the pull of the waters, twenty-two feet. They were almost at New Inlet. All eyes strained for sight of the Mound, a hillock no higher than a tree, and for the slight gradation of color that marked black ocean from black shore.

Adam's nerves were strung taut. Things didn't have the right feel. His eyes were everywhere. His ears strained for anything, voices, the sound of an engine . . . there! A change, just for a second, in the quiet purr of his own engines, reflected off some hostile surface.

Suddenly the night was brilliant. A Drummond light illuminated the sky. Two ships waited, anchored less than a mile apart off New Inlet. "Full speed ahead!" he or-

dered. The inlet, revealed by the flame, lay half a mile south.

Both Yankee cruisers fired, their shots landing heavily in the water near the Independence. Then the onshore battery opened fire on the Federal ships. Adam, seeming to crawl along at fifteen knots, felt a shot go past his head. It hit the edge of a large cargo box on the port foredeck. Loosed from its moorings, the cargo box slid toward the forward stack. Abruptly it stopped, pinning a seaman against the stack housing. Adam heard the man's harsh, agonized cry, then another shot fell astern.

*Three points starboard," Adam ordered. The battery continued to fire. There were no more shots from the Yankees. Within minutes he slid through the inlet into the Cape Fear.

Adam let out long-held breath. Now he could light his running lights. He steamed up the twenty-five-mile stretch of marsh-bordered water to the channel between Eagle's Island and Wilmington. Just inside the channel, a few yards from the east shore, stood a huge ancient cypress, a sure sign that his dangers were past. Sighting the Dram Tree, Adam perpetuated a tradition that had begun in early Colonial times, and broke out spirits for all onboard.

Shortly after anchoring in Wilmington, Adam showed his papers and got clearance from the port authority. Guarding against fugitives or deserters who might be concealed in the cargo, sentries walked their posts in the yellow lantern light, rifles at ready. A Confederate quartermaster materialized from the darkness and eagerly pounced on the arms and medical supplies. The luxuries were unloaded into one of the warehouses, consigned to Kidder and Martin, George Myers, Worth and Daniel. From Wilmington three railroads carried supplies inland.

Adam collected the money due him, paid his fees, and bargained for his return cargo of naval stores, turpentine, resin, tar, and pitch. The British were paying well for these now. He bought cotton at ten cents a pound, six hundred bales compressed to half-size by the new steam compressor. It would sell in Nassau for five times this cost.

In the gloomy afternoon of the following day he went to Smithville. It had the poignant unalterability of home.

Worries of cruisers and cargo fell away as he leaped the steps to the door. He hadn't seen Zoe for months. And he'd had word that Tom had a "cargo" for him.

Zoe greeted him with a glad cry. He hugged her tightly, surprised anew at her smallness and fragility.

Angela took wing from her seat on the piano stool and flew to hug and kiss him. She was still a child, in spite of the careful grooming of her blond hair, in spite of the sedate dress of pastel plaid that revealed a very womanly shape. But she would have to learn not to kiss men on the mouth. He returned her kiss, brotherly, on her cheek.

"Adam, I'm living here all the time now!" she crowed, hugging him, pressing against him.

"Well, Ma, you'd better set guards. YouVe got a belle in the making." He ruffled Angela's hair, amused when she quickly smoothed it.

Mammy lumbered in from the kitchen. "Mas* Adam, you bin eatin' reg'ler?"

Adam laughed. "Good old Mammy, still trying to pound me down to size. Don't you know I never missed a meal in my life? How's my favorite woman?"

Mammy's eyes tried to be severe, but they twinkled and betrayed her. "Mebbe iffen Ah knows who yo' woman is, Ah be able to tell you, Mas' Adam. But iffen you's jes astin' 'bout Mammy, she's fine, jes' fine."

"I brought you all something." He pried open a case and took out tea and coffee, condensed milk, quinine, soap, stays, and whiskey.

Zoe said, "Oh, Adam, we haven't had any tea for weeks. Mammy, ask Lucia to fix us some."

"Ah fix de tea," Mammy said belligerently. "Ah ain't gwine let some no-'count make it too thin fo' mah boyl" She bustled away happily.

"Now, let us hear all the news," Zoe began.

He took a deep breath. "I'm married now." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Angela's hand fly up to her mouth.

Zoe's astonishment made her voice squeak. "Married! When? Is she nice?"

Adam laughed. "She's of a good Savannah family, which should please you, and she's also intelligent, quicktempered, and she likes me pretty well." Adam talked about Dulcie for some time. Even Mammy came in to

listen. Angela, sUent at first, ventured a question. She said, "I guess you aren't going to wait for me to grow up, are you, Adam?"

"With my luck, I'd be gone at the moment you grow up, and someone would steal you away from me. Don't tell me you haven't any callers yet!"

Angela blushed and lowered her head, a gesture reminiscent of UUah. "Well, one or two—but they only come after Aunt Zoe's cookiesi"

At bedtime Zoe asked, "Where do you go from here, Adam?"

*To New York. I'm to see Rod Courtland." "What does he look like, Adam? What kind of man is he? You do like him, don't you?"

Adam looked curiously at her, speculating about her sudden interest in Courtland. "He's about my height. Stubborn jaw. Stubborn man, when he chooses. Eyes that can skewer you—but he's fair. He's always fair. I'd call him handsome, well proportioned, very fine features. A good-looking mane of silvery gray hair. He's also a good-man to have on your side. Satisfied I'm not playing with the bad boys. Ma?" He smiled impishly.

She said primly, "Can't a mother pry a little bit?'* Adam chuckled. "It's good to be home again." In the night Adam was awakened by two sounds. The first was a thunderstorm. The second was indefinable. Without changing the rhythm of his breathing, he listened. Though he heard nothing, instinct told him someone was in his room. Then, a white, formless blob burst from behind his door and hurled itself under the covers with him.

"Oh, Adam, I can't wake Aunt Zoe—and I'm scared!" Angela said, through chattering teeth. "Will you g-get me warm?'*

Adam, acutely conscious of his own nakedness, hurriedly wrapped himself in the sheet. She was cold; her teeth chattered like castanets. He wrapped his long arms aroimd her and snugged her up to him. "Are you always afraid of thunderstorms?'* *'Only sometimes. It sounds like the guns." "Nothing will hurt you." He was aware of her warmth inside the curve of his body. "You're safe, Angela."

She soon drifted to sleep as he held her. He eased

away from her, rolled smoothly out of bed, and pulled on his trousers. He picked her up and carried her to her own room. As he tucked her in securely, she clung to him for a moment, then murmured, "Good night, Adam."

Next morning the skies were clear, washed clean and shining. Angela, though she smiled at him, made no mention of the storm.

Toward evening he found Tom at his cabin not far from Crusoe Island. When he heard about his marriage, Tom wrung his hand and congratulated him. They drank a glass of white lightning together and then got down to business.

*T got nearly twenty fugitives waitin'," Tom said in his hoarse voice. *T took a handful of *em cross-country to Eben Cline's, but that's doin' it the hard way now. Most of *em don't mind stayin* here, so I put 'em to work. Come on, I'll show you my new bunkhouse."

Adam inspected the long log house with ticks on the floor and a wide stone fireplace. "Looks like you're in the business to stay, Tom.'*

Tom shrugged. "Ahh, well, I got nothin' better to do. It's not too comfortable goin' to town anymore. Zoe and Mammy like seein' me, but not Angela. I don't know what's got into her. How'd she seem to you?"

"Grown up. I wouldnt' worry about her, Tom." He looked into his friend's white-scarred face. "She needs a father, no matter how she acts. Keep on seeing her."

Tom grunted, then changed the subject. "Where'U we take these people this time? Lockwood's Folly Inlet? You could anchor off Oak Island an' get 'em off shore in jolly boats."

"I don't want to stand so close to Old Inlet. The Yankees make their swing around there. If we'd miss connections or I have to run for it, you'd get caught with a couple dozen contraband and hang for it. And Td be studying the cell walls up in Fort Lafayette, New York."

"We can quit anytime. You've more than paid any debt long ago."

Adam's eyes shone. "Speaking of debts, Tom, how would you like Edmund Revanche with no slaves, his crops and Gray Oaks destroyed?"

"Christ a'mighty, boy! You ain't gonna do that!"

"It's done. Ben, Beau, and I did it."

Tom's mouth gaped open.

"You remember Juneau Nuit, Ullah's friend? Well . . .'* Adam told him everything. "There wasn't a stalk of cane standing."

Tom smiled slowly, his lips trembling as tears came to his eyes. "I wish Ullah could know. All the grief and sorrow that man caused."

"Now he's getting some of it back.'*

"Does he know you were in on it?"

"He sure does! He called my name. We painted the Black Swan on the hut."

Tom's face puckered in worry. "He won't ever forget."

Adam laughed easily. "Between him and the Yankees and a red-haired wife, I'm not safe anywhere."

Adam left early the next morning, taking the quickest way through the tangled Green Swamp to Smithville. He had plenty to do to get cleared out of Wilmington, figure out hiding places for twenty fugitives, secure an anchorage on the western bank of the river, and maintain it for however long he had to.

Tom, having to take a more circuitous route with his people, would arrive at the rendezvous sometime the following day. There were long stretches of soggy ground where they had to portage the boats. The women muttered prayers and cast suspicious eyes into every dark clump and every patch of piney woods that might hide 'gator or bear. They moved in constant dread of wildcats, rattlesnakes, and coral snakes, all plentiful in the pocosin.

"Whut you got dem big guns fo', Mastah Tom?" asked Verna, pointing to his heavy rifle and the pistols he wore. "Who you gwine shoot?"

"Nobody and nothin' if I can help it," Tom said.

But he held the rifle at the ready as they moved to the edge of the water. Gratefully the men put down the boats, and soon they were poling down a creek. Tom saw smoke ahead; he motioned for silence. Around the bend they came upon a small salt camp. Half a dozen people fed fires over which large kettles of brackish water were being boiled down for their salt content. One man hastily pointed a rifle at them, though Tom waved and smiled until they were out of sight.

They were sitting in the bushes along the shore of the Cape Fear when darkness fell. The Independence rocked

sleepily at anchor, dark and soundless. At last Tom heard a boat being cautiously rowed in his direction.

Adam loomed before him. "Any trouble?"

"No, everythin's fine. These damn salt camps are gonna be the death of slave haulin'. I passed three of 'era on the way out."

*'Let*s start gettin' them on board. What salt camps?"

"Little one- and two-family half-assed operations. They go down to the shore and boil themselves some salt. I guess the swamp rats always did it, only now that it's gettin' scarce, everybody's doin' it. There's a bunch around Cove Creek and Dutchman's Creek, below Smith-ville. Hog killin' season now, you know, an' they need the salt to put up the meat."

The last of the fugitives went up the Jacob's ladder. Adam shook Tom's hand. "Take care of yourself."

Adam watched the ocean through New Inlet for some time. Nothing to be seen. He gave the order to weigh anchor, and they steamed out into the Inlet, running north close to the shore until they had passed New Topsail Inlet. He headed out to sea running smoothly, with no obstacles in sight.

A few nights later he slid into Long Island Sound to Oyster Bay and around the hook of Centre Island up into Courtland's Puddle, as he called it. Hans and Cateau welcomed him and took charge of the fugitives.

In the morning he saw Courtland, who inquired after his well-being and, upon being told of the marriage, congratulated Adam heartily. Later he took the carriage to Oliver's house. Oliver, blocking the doorway, glared at him with open hostility. "What have you done with my niece?"