The black swan (77 page)

Rosebud handed her a small cask and lifted one of the large kegs. "Y'all jes' folia aftuh me," he said. He waved a large arm at the crates, kegs, and boxes. "Eve'ybody take one an' walk along like you knows what you's doin'."

Silently the train of six blacks followed Rosebud, Violet huffing and straining under the additional weight of a cask of turpentine. Rosebud's trousers pinching painfully into her monumental girth.

As each black reached the companionway to the hold, a

crewman took his cargo. The slave slipped off, edging along the deck to Adam's cabin. The crewmen finished loading, cheerfully waving or shouting farewell to the marching guards as they normally did.

Above, hung the sliver of a new moon. Adam looked skyward warily, then gave orders to sail.

"Ain't we gwine wait 'til de moon is right, Boss?**

"Not unless you want to do your waiting in a Confederate prison. We stay and someone is going to find these people. We go and we just might make it. No Federal will expect us tonight."

Rosebud's eyes walled. "Ahh, Boss, we all gwine git kilt fo' sho'I'*

Adam punched him playfully. "I've never gotten you kilt yet, Rosebud. Trust me."

"Ah trusses you, Boss, but Ah doan trusses dem Yankees."

The engine of the Black Swan started. Adam pored over his charts until every light aboard was covered or put out. He set the course for Maffitt's Channel. He reversed engines, staring at the moving cloud bank, waiting for the mass of black clouds to cover the silver moon.

He ordered full steam, and the Black Swan leaped forward and ran for the Atlantic. They had passed the first tier of blockading ships before they were spotted. Suddenly the sky lit with the eerie golden and red and white-blue blasts of cannon fire, flares, and grape and canister.

Rosebud grabbed the fire shovel and began digging into the coal bunkers. The boilers of the Black Swan steamed and blew hot, wet air, forcing the ship through the water faster and faster. She sat low on a gently rolling sea, cutting her way farther from land.

In Adam's dark cabin Violet's pudgy hands clasped in what she was certain was the last prayer in her life. Tucked under her arm and wriggling furiously was Grace, silenced but struggling for air. Around them were the earsplitting sounds of the Yankee guns.

On the quarterdeck Adam felt an exhilaration he had never experienced before. He watched the gun bursts exploding, hot shot pounding into the sea, and grape and canister tearing at the main deck, while he stood boldly unsheltered at the rail, daring one of the shots to find him. Without Dulcie, without the substance of his life intact, it was easy to believe the legends about himself that

the slaves had begun to create. Adam Tremain was merely mortal, with all a man's weaknesses, sorrows, and failings. The Black Swan was of the gods, an invincible force that could carry the blacks through fire and out unscathed. Tonight, aboard this ship, there was no Adam Tremain who hurt and sorrowed; there was only the force, only the Black Swan.

He had no difficulty entering the Cape Fear. He knew the currents and the shoals as well as any river pilot. He chose his time and ran for the surf line and the protective guns of Fort Fisher. He and Rosebud toasted the successful voyage as they passed the Dram Tree.

The fugitive slaves were taken from the ship under the cover of night the same way they boarded. Each man and woman carried a piece of cargo. Once on the darkened pier, they slipped away into the darkness.

By the time Adam reached Zoe's house with the blacks hidden in a dray loaded with civilian luxuries, he was tired. The wild, invincible sensation of being the Black Swan had left. He leapt from the dray at the front door as Rosebud took the slaves and Claudine to the barn.

Adam knocked tentatively, suddenly unsure that Zoe would be there. Unreasonable doubts crowded his mind as he thought of Beau leaving on an ordinary run and never returning; of Dulcie, warm and lovmg beside him one night and the next swallowed for all eternity into a raging white-water sea; of Mossrose, burned and empty of life.

Zoe's eyes opened wide, then she burst into happy laughter. Adam paused, then swept his small mother into his arms, holding her close as he buried his face in her shoulder.

"Oh, Adam! Each time you come home, I feel as though it's been years." She expected him to release her and set her gently on her feet. But he didn't. He held her fast, embracing her in a hurtful, almost desperate grasp. His breath caught as a great tremor ran through him.

"Adam," she said, in a soft, worried voice. "What's happened?"

Racking sobs tore out of him. His voice was broken and muffled. He pressed his face deeper into the curve of her neck. "Dulcie's . . . dead."

Zoe's eyes prickled and stung. She v^nrapped her arms around him.

"Oh, darling. Vm so sorry." Nothing she could say would change or ease it for him. She pushed herself away. "Come to the study, Adam. Hurry, dear, before the others learn you're here."

His eyes averted from his mother's gaze, Adam sank into a chair, his head in his hands. Like a dam bursting, words flowed from him, thick and anguished as he painstakingly told of his and Dulcie's life together. He calmed when he talked of the shipwreck and Andros. Zoe listened to him blame himself. Red-eyed and tortured, he looked up at her. "Why couldn't it have been me. Ma? Why Dulcie?"

Zoe said nothing. Her face contorted as she fought not to cry.

Adam looked down at his hands. "She carried our child with her." He said it so softly Zoe wasn't sure she had heard. He seemed to' forget she was with him, his voice low and choked with emotions he had never allowed anyone to see before, speaking of things he had always kept tightly locked inside himself. As he spoke of the loss of the daughter-in-law she had never met, Zoe learned the depth of her son's love for Dulcie.

When he had finally talked himself out, Zoe rose, coming to kiss him tenderly on the forehead. "Stay here, Adam. I'll keep the others away from you as long as I can."

Adam felt better for having talked. But he knew it was not merely the telling that had made him feel better. It was being home. It was not being alone. It was being loved no matter what he had done, no matter how weak he was, how responsible for Dulcie's death. Zoe would have forgiven him anything. And though he knew he could not tolerate her unquestioning absolution for long, just now it was what he longed for, what he needed.

He emerged from the study nearly an hour later. From the kitchen he heard angry voices and remembered belatedly that he had said nothing to his mother about the six fugitives or Rosebud or Claudine.

"Ah ain't stayin' in no barn!" Claudine's voice was shrill.

Angela's low voice replied, "Well, well, where do you think we keep fugitives? For someone who's begging shelter, you certainly put on airs."

"Ah ain't beggin' nothin'I"

Adam looked on amused as the dark, tiny-statured Clau-

dine, her jaw thrust out, her brow furrowed, argued with the delicately blond Angela. Ignoring their agitated shouts, Adam came up behind Angela, slipping his hands over her eyes.

She straightened, her mouth open, then twirled and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Adam!" She covered his face and neck with rapid, chaste kisses. "I'm so glad you're home! Why did you go hide in that ol' study? Aunt Zoe wouldn't let me near you I"

Chuckling, warmed by her ingenuous greeting, Adam gently began to remove her arms from around his neck. She stood on tiptoe, laughing and teasing, kissing him on one cheek, then the other. "I'm glad, glad, glad to see you!"

Adam began to laugh, his hands gently resting on the curve of her waist. "Enough! Enough!"

Claudine said sourly, "Mo'n enuf, iffen anybody was to ast me."

Adam removed himself from Angela's grasp, his eyes still smiling. "Angela is . . ." He was about to say, "like my little sister." Confused, he realized Angela was no longer the Angela of his memory. At fifteen she was tall, at least five feet seven inches, and there was nothing small about her. The curves of her breasts and hips were pronounced and womanly, the gleam in her eyes that of a temptress, her mouth sensuous.

"Angela is what?" Angela looked at him from lowered lashes, a playful smile on her full lips, her hips thrust toward him. "What's the matter, Adam? Cat got your tongue?"

"Angela Pierson!" Zoe bustled into the kitchen trailed by Mammy and Rosebud. She reached up and tweaked Angela's ear. "How dare you behave like a tart in front of Adam! Shame!"

Angela pulled away, her feet spread apart, hands on her hips. "Who are you to tell me what I can and can't do? You let me alone!"

"Angela!" Zoe gasped.

"That's enough, Angela," Adam said. "You'll obey my mother without question and without insolence."

Angela's dark eyes flashed angrily. "Yes, Master. Whatever you say. Should I see 'bout the washin' now, Miss?"

Red to the roots of her hair with anger, Zoe stepped forward and slapped Angela resoundingly. Angela's head

jerked, but the hateful defiance remained blazing in her eyes. She turned her other cheek. "You've never hit me on this side; wouldn't you like to?"

Wilted by the girl's blatant, unyielding hostility, Zoe said sadly, "Go to your room, Angela."

Angela smiled slowly, her last glance provocative and warm on Adam. "Anything you say. Aunt Zoe."

"I'm sorry you witnessed that, but sooner or later it had to happen. I don't know what to do. Angela is headstrong, and so bitter."

Before Adam could reply, she turned to Claudine, speaking softly to her, explaining how the household ran, what would be expected of her and what she could expect from Zoe. Claudine would be happy here with Zoe. To Adam it seemed impossible that anyone given the opportunity would not want to stay with his mother, taken care of in this quiet, orderly house. It now seemed strange that he hadn't spent more time here. This time he would. When Ben came into port, he'd tell him not to expect him in Nassau before the new year, perhaps not even then.

To Zoe's surprise Mammy took to Claudine right away, sitting back in her rocking chair before the open kitchen fire peeling potatoes while Claudine scurried back and forth from sideboard to oven.

Claudine looked pensive. "Mammy, who's dat Angela girl?"

"Miss Angela be Mastah Tom's daughter. Mastah Adam save dem from a bad, bad man long time ago."

Claudine weighed the wisdom of speaking or keeping her mouth shut; but instinctively she trusted Mammy. Within minutes she had known Mammy loved Adam every bit as much as she did. "She's no good."

Mammy concentrated on her potato.

"She's hankerin' aftuh him," Claudine persisted.

Mammy sighed. "He ain't heah much. She be a li'l sister to 'im."

"All she need is one night. Mastah Adam's a-hurtin', an' she^"

"Ain't nobuddy gwine do nothin' to mah boy I Not while dey's breaf in dis ol' body."

Claudine smiled and turned back to the preparation of the meal.

As Claudine brought in the large platters of food and deftly removed the first course from the table, Zoe smiled up at her. "Claudine, you're a blessing. Mammy works herself to death. You're the first person she has ever permitted to help her."

Claudine glared at Angela, sitting unnecessarily close to Adam. "Mammy an' Ah unnerstan's each odder."

Puzzled, Zoe smiled tentatively. "I'm glad you do."

After eating, Adam sat back comfortably, sipping a brandy. He was relaxing for the first time in weeks. There were no unwanted thoughts to hound him, no twisting feeling of hopelessness or loneliness writhing inside him, because the adoration of these two women made it easy to live only in this moment.

By the end of the first week Adam was certain that staying in Smithville until after Christmas was the wisest and most healing thing he could do. He manufactured small responsibilities that he magnified into large duties only he could perform. All his reasons seemed important and pressing when he talked to Ben. Clapping his friend on the back, Adam insisted Ben come home for supper. But Ben was not fooled by Adam's hearty cheerfulness. He spoke about it alone with Zoe.

"He's not himself," Ben said urgently. "He wants me to haul the slaves north for him while he stays here and—and takes car« of what he calls his responsibilities to you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean he shouldn't help you, it's just that—"

"There's no need to apologize, Ben. I agree with you. But you said he was drinking heavily in Nassau and associating with the lowest sort of people. He isn't doing that here. Aside from his brandy after supper, he rarely drinks. What harm can come to him when he is with his mother? There are times in all our lives when the only safe haven we know is the haven of our parents' love. Don't press him to leave. Let him think he is necessary to me for this short time. Adam is not a man who can delude himself for long."

Ben nodded, but he felt uneasy. Adam was not one to seek the aid or comfort of any person. All his life Adam had sought solitude when he was confused or hurt. But anything was better than the drinking and nightly carousing in the Halyard Light.

Ben stayed for two days, then with Adam's help got the

fugitives aboard the Liberty and sailed to New York.

Adam put off what he considered his duties. Lethargically he moved through each day, showing hearty good humor to his mother and Angela. The rest of the time he felt inert.

During the last week in Advent, as Zoe made frantic preparations for Christmas, Adam talked to Angela.-Without thought, he took her to the beach. The cool misty wind blew Angela's hair free from her scarf. She looked lovely. Her skin had a golden, creamy softness. She might have been Ullah, except that even in Adam's exaggeratedly mellow memory, he knew Angela was prettier.

He was jolted when her first words were accusatory. "Zoe made you bring me, didn't she!"

"She knows you're unhappy. I thought perhaps you*d want to talk to me. You used to tell me everything."

"What makes you think you know so much about me?" she asked sullenly.

Adam looked out across the teal mist-shrouded water. "We always know about the people we care about, Angela."