Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 119

But he had already found a good handhold in the carved work of the support beams, and he hoisted himself up.
The sun struck sparks off the water, alive with the wind. To either side land rolled away from the shore, covered with grass of a green he had never seen before on any growing thing, bright enough to make a man squint. The wind got under his shirt and made it billow out like a sail and his hair whipped into his eyes. He wished he had taken the time to tie it back.
"Nathaniel Bonner," Elizabeth said, mustering every ounce of resolve and severity she had to her name. "You'll land in the drink."
He studied her upturned face for a minute, measuring just how anxious she was. There was that line between her brows, the one that she used with unruly schoolboys. He said, "And if I do, Boots, they'll haul me out and I'll end up in front of Pickering, which is the whole idea."
He drew in a breath, braced himself with foot and hand against the choppy roll of the ship, and prepared to leap.
"Have you took leave of your senses, Nathaniel?" Curiosity stood at the open door, her hands on her hips. Elizabeth might be exasperated and anxious, but Curiosity was plain mad.
"You know I can't let him get away with locking us up."
She marched up to him and yanked on his shirttail. "Of course you cain't. But there's more than one way to skin that old cat, now ain't there? Your blood in such a boil that it has cooked your brain to pure mush. Come down from there and let me show you how to do it. Now where did that bird get to?"
She peered into the narrow corner of the gallery, bending over at the waist and making a clucking sound. When she straightened again she had Mr. Brown's puffin in her arms.
"What are you doing?" Elizabeth called after her.
But Curiosity only jerked her head impatiently and headed into the cabin.
"What can she possibly mean to do with Sally?" Elizabeth asked him.
"Hell if I know," he said, and swung himself back onto the gallery.
Curiosity waited for them at the door to the hall with the puzzled bird in both hands.
Hannah looked from Curiosity to her father to Elizabeth. Daniel put back his head and let out a high-pitched wail, and Lily joined him in furious voice. Rankled by Curiosity's tight hold and the crying babies, Sally opened her striped beak and began a great squawking.
"Curiosity." Nathaniel raised his voice. "Those dragoons are armed."
She threw him an offended look and flung open the door so that it crashed against the wall. At the same time she let out a keen-edged trill that made Nathaniel's own skin rise all along his spine.
Curiosity rushed the dragoons with the outraged bird thrust before her, flapping and screeching.
Nathaniel's legs moved of their own accord, past Elizabeth and Hannah and the howling babies. He barreled through the door behind Curiosity, flashing past two astonished faces. The bigger redcoat made a grab for him but Curiosity still had the bird by the feet and she swung it in his face like a battle-axe, her Kahnyen'kehâka war cry even louder in the narrow hall.
Behind him there was a thump and a hoarse shout but Nathaniel pushed hard up the stairs and burst onto the deck, careening into a line of sailors humping kegs. The whole queue went crashing one into the next. A keg hit the deck hard on its rim, sprang its hoops, and a great gush of brandy spattered in a wide arc. From the corner of his eye Nathaniel saw two kegs roll into Adam MacKay. There was the audible snap of bone, a short scream, and then he flipped over the rail in a flash of flailing legs.
"What's this? What's this?" The boatswain raised a cudgel but Nathaniel knocked him out of the way and ran straight for the round-house. Half the crew was behind him, and the other half leaned over the side, fishing for MacKay.
Nathaniel kicked open the door and stood there, dripping onto the captain's polished floor.
Pickering and Moncrieff shot to their feet.
"Really, Mr. Bonner!" Pickering sputtered. "What is the meaning of this?"
"I don't take kindly to being locked up," said Nathaniel, wiping his wet face on his sleeve and frowning at the smell. "As Moncrieff there knows all too well. That's the meaning of this."
"It was for your own protection," Moncrieff said wearily, rubbing a hand over his chin. "But now that ye're here, the damage is done. Mr. Bonner, Mr. Burns of the excise office."
The man still seated at the captain's table got up from behind the pile of papers, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed.
"Mr. ... Bonner?" He bowed from the shoulders, but his eyes never left Nathaniel's face.
"Nathaniel Bonner of New-York, aye. What of it?"
The man blinked in surprise. "Your servant, sir." And then to Pickering, his mouth turning up at one corner: "I take it that ye've got nineteen kegs o' double distilled Indian arrack rather than the twenty noted here?"
Pickering nodded impatiently.
There was a shouting on the deck. The two dragoons he had left behind pushed their way through the crowd, jostling him farther into the cabin. The bigger one had a bloody nose and a long scratch on his cheek; the smaller man's arm was bleeding. He had lost his hat but gained a number of bird feathers, one sticking out of his left eyebrow.
It was the little one who lunged for him. Nathaniel sidestepped, slipping the knife strapped to his wrist into his palm, and jabbed the man neatly in the back of the hand. He howled and fell back, fumbling for his musket.
"Enough!" Pickering's voice cut hard and cold into the confusion.