Easton's Gold (19 page)

The rest of the guards stream down to the wharf as the two men begin pushing the punt toward the great burning ship. Soon another boat pushes off from the wharf as the suspects stand mainly in silence, pressing in close to one another. The interrogator himself now deserts, striding down to the wharf, gesticulating and shouting instructions as the first boat draws near to the ship.

The smoke plume rises like a devil's breath high into the blue sky. Tiny flames now lick through portholes. The watch shouts and points as another man emerges from a smoking cabin, staggering under a great weight.

Gabrielle's heart sinks in her chest like a stone. It's a body the man is carrying.
They must have found Captain Henley! Why couldn't the flames have prevented them
?

The watch runs to help the burdened man, and both now carry the smoking body to the deck rail. The men in the boat exchange yells with the watch, and one of the rowers climbs the rope ladder. The flames lick higher from the porthole windows as the two men lift up the body and place it neatly over the shoulders of the climber. It's not Henley, Gabrielle realizes. It's a woman.

Gabrielle grabs hold of Fleet's arm.
Saved! He's saved! Saved at least from one murder charge
.

Fleet makes a quiet moaning sound. Gabrielle's hand drops down from Fleet's cuff to his fingers. She squeezes, and he returns the pressure.
He must understand what it means. They'll never find Henley in his cabin, and they can't prove he killed the Marquis either
.

The rower climbs slowly down the rope ladder with his burden. The man in the punt helps him down with the body, and the other two men begin climbing down. The second rescue boat stands some distance off, unneeded.

“We're stuck here now,” says a man in the crowd, as they watch the billowing smoke divide into two separate plumes. Gabrielle realizes he's right. For good or ill, the landscape around her, with its bald rocks rising from fir trees and brush, and its mysterious coves and inlets, may well end up her home. Fleet's gold will be consumed in the leaping flames. There is no easy way back to England or France.

Gabrielle cannot make out the features of the woman in the boat, and she has been too excited about what it will mean for Fleet to care much about it. Only as the rescuers draw close to the wharf does it occur to her that it is unlikely to be a stowaway and that among the three women she knows to have been aboard the ship, there is only one unaccounted for.

As she strains to make out the woman's identity, there is a sudden shriek from among the captives. Gabrielle spins around.

“It's Philippa!” cries Maria with her hands on her head. Suddenly, Maria takes flight like a fox from the chase, pushing through the crowd and running down to the wharf.

“Stop her!” cries the interrogator. But Maria dodges past a settler who tries to block her path and runs down the wharf to where the rescuers now lay out her friend's body.

Without thinking, Gabrielle does the same, weaving through the crowd and running down to the wharf.

“Stop her!” cries the interrogator again, but this time no one tries.

Smoke still rises from Philippa's dress, and there is a smell of charred fabric and flesh.

“She says she killed him,” says one of the rescuers looking up from the body and addressing the interrogator. “She stayed to burn the evidence. She said there were blood spots on her blanket where she kept the knife.” He stands up and backs away from the body, shaking his head. “She didn't know the fire would spread all over the ship.”

The other rescuer also stands and straightens himself. Maria kneels down behind Philippa and lays her hands on her head. Gabrielle kneels down also, a couple of feet away. She feels like an imposter, afraid Maria will tell her leave. But Maria just gazes down at her friend and very gently strokes her hair, which is drenched in sweat.

“Why?” whispers Gabrielle.

Philippa's eyes are open but unseeing. At first she seems dead. “I knew what he was doing to you,” she says gently. “I knew he was selling you to the apothecary for his medicine.”

Gabrielle gasps.

“No,” she says leaning forward.

“Now you are free,” Philippa whispers.

Gabrielle senses Fleet behind her and turns her head.

“What can be done?” she asks him, looking up.

“I'll soak a blanket in water and wrap it around her.”

Fleet leaves quickly, and Gabrielle turns back to Philippa, who smiles, lost in some dream. Maria strokes Philippa's hair once more, and when her friend's expression doesn't change, she runs her fingers down her forehead and carefully closes her eyes.

A mast cracks and falls with a noise both mighty and desperate—the thunder of a dying world. Golden tongues of flame leap higher, and the sulphurous stench of burning fills the air.

__________

S
UNSET KISSES THE HARBOUR
waters, and Fleet weighs the stone carefully before throwing. It lands with a splash, breaking up a pool of gold. Ripples expand like rings of fire. He picks up another stone.

“Do you think we'll stay here?” asks Gabrielle with a sigh.

“There'll be work in St. John's,” he replies, but he's thinking of more than that. He needs his treatments and has found few snails here. His skin feels restless and itchy. He is worried about its natural hues returning. There is another reason he wants to move; something a settler mentioned three days ago. There is a black man—an African—in St. John's who has lived in Newfoundland all his life.

Fleet pictures his mother once more cupping water in her hand. He can see her letting it fall onto his brother's head and trickle over his brown skin.

Fleet throws the other stone, and the water splashes upward, catching the sun.

“What's the real reason you want to go to St. John's?” asks Gabrielle, nudging him with her shoulder.

“I haven't slept since the story of the black man.”

“We can go there and see.”

“I was a fool not to think of it years ago. Mother and me taken; father killed. Why would they kill another black boy when they could take him as they took me?”

“He must have been hiding somewhere,” says Gabrielle quietly.

“Must have been,” Fleet says and picks up another stone. “Do you think we can make a life here—in Newfoundland, I mean?”

“Can we make a life anywhere?” Gabrielle says, laughing. “At least it's new. No chains, so far, for you. No stones, so far, for me.”

Fleet looks out to the mouth of the harbour and the islands beyond, where the burning ship drifted after the anchor chain broke away. Sunset glistens over the wavelets.

“Are you thinking of your gold again?” says Gabrielle, putting her head on his shoulder.

“Why not?” Fleet sighs. “Why should we start from nothing?”

“Well,” says Gabrielle, picking up something, “when mankind invents a device in which people can dive far below the waves and not drown, we'll get your gold back for you.”

Gabrielle throws a couple of small pebbles into the water.

“It might wash up somewhere,” Fleet says.

“Well, a lot might wash up somewhere,” says Gabrielle with a sigh. “Trouble is, we may not want it to.”

Fleet gives a mild, rueful smile and nods.

“But just look around you,” Gabrielle continues. “This place is empty. Untouched by gold. Untouched by prejudice.”

“Yes,” Fleet sighs, “we can be anything here.”

But his heart is suddenly wrenched by the image of his mother's skull on the bottom of the ocean. He sees it through a haze of whirling sand and tiny fishes, surrounded by the ship's charred timbers and Easton's strongboxes. The loss draws him toward the story of the black man in St. John's. He's still afraid of his colour returning. Yet his fear is softened by a new hope. His natural hues might reunite him with all he has lost. And living skin might be more comfort than a hidden skull.

No more treatments
. The phrase comes to him in a whisper. Fleet feels the weight of many years suddenly lift from his shoulders and drop like broken shackles from his wrists. Gabrielle nestles in closer.

Fleet picks up another stone and skims it across the water. The quickening breeze scatters the ripples, weaving its own mysterious patterns as the sun slips further behind the opposite hill.