The Color of Freedom (7 page)

"Is he trustworthy?"

Doc shrugged. "For a price. And in the privacy of my office, he might speak freely."

"Lead on, then,"
Salizar
demanded.

Within moments they had crossed the street, and Meadow found herself among the curious vials and instruments of the healer's profession. A stocky man with biceps as big around as Meadow's waist entered the room. An old scar turned the corner of his mouth downward, as if deep in thought, but his eyes shifted about the room suspiciously. "Have work for me, Doc?" he rumbled.

"Not just now, Isaac, but a friend of mine needs information."

Isaac turned narrowed eyes on
Salizar
. "It'll cost you."

Salizar
tossed him a coin which disappeared into the greasy folds of the man's garments. "I have merchandise I'd like to offer the good citizens of Boston."

"Do you have a small boat?"

"I'll have a full wagon."

The man snorted in derision. "Then you run a foolish risk. The patrol
may
let you pass unmolested, if they are feeling particularly enamored of Americans that day. More than likely, your goods will fill British bellies, and at your own expense."

Salizar
continued, unfazed. "How do you get in?"

The dockhand snorted again. "Didn't you hear me, man? One fellow alone can sneak in a thousand ways, but unless your horse has wings, you're staking your fate on a British whim. You'd best find a small boat with muffled oars that can skirt the warships in blackest night. If you're blessed, fortune will be yours. If you prove cursed, you'll rot behind stone walls and iron bars."

Salizar
smiled, nodding in quick spasms. Meadow could see him adding up his profits.

"You mean to find a boat," she guessed aloud.

Isaac turned to Meadow sharply, his eyes menacing slits. "You Irish?" he growled.

During five years at
Wellshire
, her childish tongue had conformed to sounds spoken around her, but sometimes, when she grew sleepy or unguarded, her speech held a trace of her homeland. "Scottish," she lied, vowing to be more careful in the future.

He relaxed. "Only good Irish is a dead one. Popish vermin. Show '
em
the broad side of my fist, I do, and there
ain't
none can stand against it. '
Cept
one," he added, grudgingly. "Name of McKenzie. Only other man I know who can lift a hogshead of ale in each arm."

Meadow perked up at the name. It must be her father he spoke of!

"Where could a boat be had?"
Salizar
asked.

The conversation drifted back to smuggling plots, but Meadow took little notice. Inside, her heart thumped double-time. Her father still lived in Boston!

∗ ∗ ∗

Her euphoria lasted well into the next day. The wagon left town in the translucent darkness just before dawn. Meadow rode along, absorbed in memories of her childhood, when she'd been free and innocent and unaffected by conflict.

She reclaimed some of that now. Though quarrels grew heated and war threatened around her, the menace felt remote. It belonged to others. She was bound to neither side, safe in her neutrality. And she was going home to her father.

But after a brief lunch, danger suddenly became very personal.

A large barn loomed before them on the left side of the road. The yard was neat and the house well-tended, and
Salizar
turned Aberdeen up the drive in hopes of a sale. But as they approached, the kitchen door swung open, and an old fellow met them with a large and steady pistol. He glared at them with an unwavering eye. "Come a step nearer and I'll give you the guts of my gun."

Salizar
jerked the reins more sharply than he intended. Aberdeen shook his head and snorted, pawing a furrow in the dirt lane.

Meadow elbowed
Salizar
. "Let's get out of here."

But the driver recovered quickly. "Surely you don't mean that, my friend," he purred with a conciliatory smile. "I'm just a poor merchant trying to earn an honest living. I'm no threat."

"I saw you enter the Black Spider last evening," the farmer accused.

"Where I partook of very fine meat and drink."
Salizar
was clearly at a loss.

"I know that wolves' den," the older man growled. "It's a hotbed of disloyalty and malcontent. And I'm wise to your game; traveling here and there, riling up the masses, spreading sedition from town to town. Well, you're not welcome here."

Salizar
chuckled. "Of course, now I understand. I did hear the whining of a good many complainers last night. But you must realize I'm a stranger to these parts, and I had it on good authority that the Black Widow serves up the best chicken dumplings for miles."

The pistol barrel slipped just a little.

Seeing his edge,
Salizar
continued, "I'll grant your apprehension is well-founded. Times are volatile. All these radical new notions, they're dangerous, untried and unproven. For my part, I find wisdom in the established and familiar."

The elderly man was listening intently.

Salizar
shook his head in dismay. "Perhaps our good king has succumbed to a bout of poor judgment, but I'd rather be devoured by a lion than be gnawed to death by rats. Wouldn't you agree?"

Meadow glowered at him, angered that he had risked their lives and disgusted by his political fence-jumping.

Slowly, the farmer lowered his gun. "Well-said, stranger. I believe you stumbled onto the heart of my beliefs as well."

Salizar
gathered up the reins and made a show of moving on. "We won't bother you any longer. Have a good day, friend."

"Just a minute," the man called out and shambled up to the rig. "I apologize for my hasty actions. Rebels burned out a local Tory family not two days past." He shrugged, "One must exercise caution."

"I understand and take no offense."

"Well, now," the farmer said, scratching his scraggly chin. "It just may be I need an item or two."

Salizar
smiled expansively. "And it just may be I can find a very agreeable price for one who shares my views. Those with common sense seem to be disappearing from among us. Isn't that so, Wynn, my lad?"

Meadow's aversion was ill-concealed. "I need to find a tree," she answered, swinging over the edge of the seat.

∗ ∗ ∗

Later that afternoon, when the sun beamed down through hickory and elm that were beginning to sprout green in their highest branches, Meadow's sharp ears detected the sound of hoof beats gaining volume on the road behind them. Apprehensive, she turned to find a single, plainly-dressed rider slowly pulling abreast of them, with a packhorse trotting behind.

"Hallo, the wagon," cried a cheery voice. Meadow relaxed slightly, but kept a wary watch beneath the brim of her hat.

"Hallo, yourself,"
Salizar
called back merrily. He was in a fine mood after a very productive round with the farmer's wife. "Have you any need of metal wares, buttons, books or pins?"

"No, sir, but glad I'd be of some company, should you allow me to ride alongside for a spell. Safety is sooner found in numbers."

"Certainly when one of the number can play chameleon," Meadow remarked dryly.

"Never mind Wynn,"
Salizar
told the stranger. "He's been surly all afternoon. We narrowly escaped a confrontation this morning ourselves."

"Do you travel far along this route?" the stranger asked.

"To the settlements about the coast,"
Salizar
answered vaguely. "And yourself?"

The stranger nodded curtly. "The same."

At this,
Salizar
thrust out his slender hand. "Welcome aboard, then, stranger. Name's
Salizar
."

"Only
Salizar
, is it? Then you may call me Duncan." The man clasped the offered hand. "And my business - as I can see you are wondering but too polite to ask - is to discover which souls hereabout stand for the side of the right."

Meadow grew guarded at the man's veiled politics. "And which side might that be?" she asked tartly.

"The side of God himself," Duncan stated with a twinkle. "I am but a poor traveling preacher."

Salizar
guffawed loudly at Meadow's discomfort. "Then surely, sir, we don't mind your company."

Speak for yourself, Meadow glowered silently. But she had little choice in the matter, so she held her tongue.

"Your boy reminds me of a young lad I knew of," Duncan began in a jovial tone. "A right friendly lad and pretty as a picture. But the boy grew sullen and guarded, and his parents couldn't understand why.

"Now, the boy had come across a rotting bag of coins in a back pasture and fancied he had found a forgotten hoard of pirate treasure. He squirreled away the reeking bag and returned to the spot, excavating it faithfully, but he never found a half-pence more.

"At last, his father learned what he was about and laughed heartily when the boy produced the bag.

"'I thought that parcel lost forever,' his father chuckled. '
'Tis
only a few bits left over from the purchase of our new milk cow. She swallowed the bag and I've fretted ever since, but she must have passed it in the back pasture.'

"So you see," Duncan laughed, "a fool's treasure turns out to be nothing but cow dung."

Salizar
rolled in his seat, bobbling with delight, but not a trace of a smile cracked Meadow's features. She found the man boorish and rude and longed for the moment they would part company.

For two days, Duncan clung to their side like a burr tangled in the fur of a dog. Obviously in no hurry, he took advantage of the kindness of
Salizar's
patrons, performing the simple service of grace before sating his hearty appetite at their tables. And as Meadow took over the care of both his horses, she noted his low regard for labor. But his words flowed easily and sweet as wild honey, and
Salizar
showed him favor.

The sun's cheery rays gave over to spring rains that streamed down relentlessly, soaking through clothing and turning the roads to muddy swamps that sucked at the horses' legs and bogged down the wagon. Travel became slow and tedious, and Meadow's mood grew darker than the overcast sky.

Once they passed the burned out hulk of a building. House fires were a common danger, she knew, but her neck hairs bristled as she gazed into the vacant, blackened windows. Had the fire been accidental, or was it an act of violence committed against someone of a different persuasion? She breathed a quick prayer for the family left homeless.

At last, they approached a town, and to Meadow's relief, Duncan left off a while to tend his own business as they set up shop on the commons.

"I don't like him," Meadow admitted as Duncan's back disappeared up the road.

"Aw, you're not still sore over his little joke, are you?"

"I don't trust him."

"Not trust a preacher? There's a good one!"
Salizar
laughed.

"He doesn't preach."

Salizar
scratched his balding head and looked at her shrewdly. "He's certainly the most curious preacher I've ever come across. But he says a mean grace and has a belly full of good stories."

With that, Meadow could see, he dismissed her concerns.

Towards evening, a familiar voice boomed above the chatter of lingering shoppers. "
Salizar
, Wynn, you devils! You made it! I'd recognize that rig anywhere."

Above the heads of the onlookers, Meadow could see the curly black hair and stern visage of John Blackburn. He grinned broadly and clapped each of them on the back. The blow knocked Meadow forward and sucked at her breath.

"Have you been gone from your pretty wife all this time, John?"
Salizar
asked, wagging about like a dog excited at its master's return.

"Regrettably, yes," John admitted. "I've sent word that my return has been postponed. I've placed myself under the command of Colonel James Barrett, to be of what use I may."

Meadow's heart went out to Patience. How long would it be before she knew the security of having her husband safe beneath their roof once more?

"Come, let me buy you a drink!" John boomed.

"Certainly! Certainly!"
Salizar
beamed, "but only after you join us for a bit of supper."

Salizar
closed up shop and set out several cold, boiled potatoes, a large cake of cornbread and several thick slices of ham, washed down by cups of cold water drawn from the common's well.

Midway through the meal, Duncan approached and licked his lips appreciatively. "I recognize the fare of good Mrs. Campbell, bless her soul. A fine hostess she proved, indeed!"

"You're too late for grace, preacher,"
Salizar
ribbed. "John Blackburn did himself right proud in your stead, but help yourself to the grub anyway."

"During the spring rains is an odd time of the year to hold meetings, isn't it, Duncan?" John questioned after introductions had been made.