Scalpdancers (22 page)

Captain William Black drew himself up and his gaze hardened. “The matter is closed!”

A broadside of thunder that shook the shutters and made the stout walls tremble shattered Morgan's reverie. Black's final words lingered in his mind. “Closed. The matter is closed,” Morgan repeated under his breath.

He glanced around the tavern. Several trappers bellied up to their pitchers of ale and rum. Many of the
Magdalene's
crew were scattered around the room, celebrating the voyage's end. And why not celebrate? The missionary had paid them off. Each man had just enough to outfit himself for the fur trade (under the auspices of the Hudson Bay Company) with a coin or two left over for a woman and a jug. Eight weeks of celibacy made a Chinook squaw appear mighty appetizing. There were several tepees in the vicinity and as soon as the infernal rain let up, talk was that the men intended to visit the encampment.

Along one wall three English seamen and a couple of marines noisily exchanged lies as they drained the contents of a keg and clamored for more.

“Show me the color of your coin,” Reap McCorkle told them.

A gruff-looking marine sergeant shoved away from the table and lurched forward. He jostled a trapper, causing the man to spill his drink, but the trapper made no complaint. He hadn't drunk near enough to look for trouble with the King's own. The sergeant continued on to the bar. He fumbled at his belt and produced a money pouch that he blearily unlatched and held to the tavern keeper's nose. The pouch was empty.

“You've taken all my money but the scent; now give me a drink, there's a good lad,” the sergeant muttered.

Reap McCorkle uncorked a jug of his own home brew, a fiery concoction brewed from wild berries and doctored with peppers and a sprinkle of spices. He passed the keg beneath the sergeant's nose.

“There you be, Sergeant.” Reap corked the jug and set it back among his dwindling supplies.

“You mean the King's credit is no good?” the marine bellowed.

“I'll pour King George a drink anytime and he can have his fill and welcome to it. But you, sir, shall pay for yours.”

The sergeant scowled and turned his back to the bar. Reap was tempted to bludgeon the man but resisted the impulse. He wanted no trouble and could care less which flag flew above the palisades. But by heaven the sergeant must pay for his drinks.

The marine fixed his gaze on Morgan, who had lost interest in the drunk and returned to his place by the hearth. Morgan refilled his tankard, ignoring the protestations of Temp Rawlins.

“I see,” the marine said angrily. “Those two lads never showed you the color of their gold. Not once. Yet they guzzle their fill.”

“They are my friends and I haven't seen them for better'n half a year.” The owner of the Sea Spray Inn folded his well-muscled arms across his chest and ceased his explanation. He owed none to no man. The inn and the tavern were his, and he made the laws within these walls. “I come to these shores on the
Tonquin
back in the spring of 1811. My missus was the only white woman in the whole Northwest, I warrant you, least ways until the
Magdalene
anchored offshore this noon. I have paid to be here with my sweat and blood, and you, sir, will pay with a proper coin.”

The English sergeant stepped back and wiped a forearm across his mouth, and then began slowly to applaud. He glanced at the men in the room, most of whom looked away. “Aye, you're a cheeky bunch,” the sergeant shouted. “But look above the walls of the fort. It's the King and colors that protects ye now!” He turned and winked at his companions seated at the table, who cheered him on.

“That's telling'em!”

“You put them in their proper places, Sergeant Chadwell!”

The sergeant waved and altered his course yet again and headed straight for Morgan's table. Chadwell stood approximately the same height as Morgan but was older by twenty years. His features were pockmarked and powder burned and creased from a lifetime of war and dissolute behavior. He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his scarlet waistcoat. The brass buttons on his coat facings lacked luster as did his red-rimmed eyes.

“I know you.” Chadwell's breath stunk of liquor. His shadow darkened the tankard in Morgan's hand. Morgan glanced at Temp, whose expression pleaded for patience. The British marine slowly circled the table.

“I said …” the sergeant repeated, then paused, uncertain of himself, his train of thought momentarily derailed. “I know you… the captain of the
Magdalene
. Lost one ship in Macao so's I heard tell and signed on board another and lost her too.” Chadwell leaned forward, his fists on the table top, his backside to the hearth, his ugly face inches from Morgan's. “A captain without a ship—land-locked you are. And that makes you nothin' at all, by my seein'. I never lost a ship or a fight, but I pays for my drink while you take yours free. I can't abide such a lack of justice.”

Morgan eased back in his chair. All eyes were upon him.

The British marine snatched the tankard from Morgan's grasp and examined its contents; not more than a mouthful sloshed in the bottom of the tankard, hardly enough to satisfy a thirsty man.

“You'll be pourin' me some run,” Chadwell growled, mistaking the younger man's silence for fear.

Morgan smiled. His cold, unblinking gaze never left the marine. Temp Rawlins had seen that look before and he groaned inwardly and tried to reach the brown bottle, but Morgan beat him by half a second. He hefted the rum in his right hand, uncorked it with his teeth, and spat the cork into the fireplace.

“There's a lad, I'll have that rum and you can tell me how it is to be a captain of a johnny boat with naught but a pulpit pounder, a bit o' skirt, and the graybeard here for a crew!”

Chadwell tossed his head back and roared with laughter. He was a man who enjoyed his own wit, what little he possessed. His compatriots joined in the merriment. Outnumbered within the confines of the Sea Spray Inn, the English were secure in the knowledge that the entire occupying force under Captain Black was quartered within the stockade barely seventy yards from the inn's front door.

Judging Morgan Penmerry to be suitably cowed, the sergeant leaned forward and bellowed in his face.

“Serve me the rum!”

Morgan served him. Temp, to his horror, saw it coming.

Suddenly there was an explosion of glass and rum as Morgan broke the bottle across the sergeant's skull.

The marine straightened and staggered backward, tripped, and sat down smack-dab in the middle of the open hearth. His rump landed on a blazing log. The sergeant erupted from the fireplace, eyes wide and sober, a howl on his lips.

He dove for Morgan, who darted aside, and Chadwell flew across the table, smashed face first into a ladder-backed chair, and landed on the cold stone floor. Smoke curled from the singed seat of his pants; blood streamed from a cut on his forehead as Chadwell rose yet again. The indomitable sergeant called for his companions, who shoved clear of the table and rushed to his aid.

Morgan braced himself. Well now, he'd found trouble after all. The rush of adrenaline left him jubilant, anger turned to strength. Nothing and no one could stand before him. Let Chadwell and his men try. They were sheaves of wheat and Morgan was the scythe. They were the sea and Morgan was a fast ship with the wind at his back cutting through their midst. Morgan the mighty, Penmerry the invincible, the scourge of Macao, charged his attackers.

That was the last thing he remembered.

The past three years had been hard for Faith Restored McCorkle. She had followed her husband to the north Pacific coast and labored beside him to build the Sea Spray Inn in the shadow of the stockade walls. Amid Chopunnish and Clayoquat, Klamath and Chinook, and a dozen other tribes Reap and Faith McCorkle had planted their roots. They intended to stay as long as the mighty Pacific pounded the shore and the great clouds washed in from the sea over the cliffs.

Faith McCorkle was a broad-shouldered, plain-spoken woman of forty, whose plain features beamed with pleasure at the thought of a houseguest. She would not hear of Julia Ruth Emerson staying in her husband's noisy inn with its hardcase trappers, lonely seamen, and boisterous British soldiers. No, these days the Sea Spray was no proper place for a young woman. So Faith added an extra blanket to the big feather bed she intended to share with the young woman. Poor Reap would have to sleep in the front room by the fire with Julia's father.

Faith tucked a few silver-brown strands of hair back in her bonnet and paused as Julia finished tucking in a sheet. Julia sensed the woman's scrutiny and glanced up, her eyes questioning whether or not she had done something wrong. Faith dabbed her apron to her cheek and wiped a tear away and smiled.

“It's nothing,” she said in a husky voice. She was coming off an attack of the grippe, and her chest was still sore from coughing. Ailments were the least of her worries. Loneliness had taken its toll. The tears were from gratitude.

“I've been the only white woman along the whole north Pacific coast,” she explained. “To have someone—another woman to talk to, to share with …” Faith turned and sat on the edge of the bed and began to cry softly.

Julia had taken an instant liking to the woman and came around to sit beside her.

“I too am happy. It makes everything—all the changes—less frightening.”

Julia said nothing of her own pain though, the loss she felt now that an ocean had been covered and Morgan Penmerry was out of her life. “Good riddance,” her father had muttered. But his ill temper was transparent and did not hide the grudging respect he harbored for Morgan Penmerry. He was jealous and overly protective of her. This was a side of her father she understood and had come to respect. A motherly woman like Faith Restored McCorkle was just what a confused, frightened missionary's daughter needed. Julia found hope in the work-roughened hand she held.

Faith sighed and rose from the bed. “Come with me, dear. I'll show you something.”

She led Julia into the front room. Reap McCorkle had patterned his house after the sloped-roof lodges of the Salish Indians. It was rectangular in shape, sporting three oversized rooms big enough for a man “to stretch his legs in”: a bedroom, a front room for visitors, and a large kitchen, where they also took their meals. A quilting frame was suspended from the ceiling in the front room, but scraps of suitable cloth had been scarce of late.

Faith McCorkle walked across “her sitting parlor,” as she called it, and approached the mantel Reap had constructed of gray-black stones smoothed and polished by the sea. A rack of carved driftwood rested upon the mantel, and on it was arranged an orderly row of twelve ornately molded silver spoons. Each spoon was approximately six inches in length and polished to a fare-thee-well. The stems had been molded into twin vines intertwined and tipped with either an intricately detailed rose or tulip. There were six rose spoons and six tulip spoons in the set. The bowl of each spoon bore the name of one of the twelve Apostles of Christ.

Julia had noticed the spoons on entering the McCorkles' house but was pleased to examine them more closely. They were the product of a master craftsman and the young woman said as much.

“Reap melted our silver teapot into coins to pay for the first winter's supplies. Neither of us wish to be beholding to Mr. Astor any longer than is necessary,” Faith explained. “But I begged him to spare the spoons and he did.” She slowly exhaled, shook her head, and touched the last spoon on the rack. It was the only one to bear an imperfection. “There's even a Judas spoon,” she added, indicating the “blemished” rose.

“They are lovely,” Julia complimented her.

“Mind you, I have not regretted our decision to come here. Only it has been lonely.” Faith replaced the spoon. “You won't be lonely. The men will make a fuss over you, mark my words. Captain Black has already taken an interest. I saw the way he looked at you when he brought you here.”

Faith laughed as Julia turned away, blushing from embarrassment. Indeed the English officer has been most cordial, but then weren't all English gentlemen? Still, any man so far from home would yearn for a woman's softness and a woman's touch. There was no denying she had immediately awakened his interest.

Thunder rumbled and roused Julia from her thoughts. She wrapped a shawl about her shoulders, walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into the porch that ran the entire length of the house. Rain dripped from the eaves of the flat roof overhead and trickled down the sturdy columns of Douglas fir, two feet in diameter and with the bark still on, much like the man who'd felled them. The column supported the porch roof and provided Reap McCorkle with a place to hang his traps and dip nets. In the past the porch had served as an informal courtroom, for Reap, as a representative of the American Fur Company, was often called on to resolve disputes between trappers.

Tonight the porch served for a young woman to keep her silent vigil. She studied the tavern about fifty yards down the hillside. Lantern light filtered through the rain.

Julia adjusted the shawl and pulled it close around her shoulders. Even in early June the wind blew cool. Rain continued to splash the front edge of the yellow cedar decking. The porch at eight feet wide permitted Julia to keep a safe distance away from the downpour. A figure loomed in the storm's garish glare and for one brief moment her heart took flight and soared with the possibility that Morgan Penmerry had come to find her.

She started to call his name and caught herself in time. Jagged bolts of electricity severed the black sky and lit the path leading uphill and the hunched, sodden shoulders of Emile Emerson.

The reverend trotted the remaining distance to the porch. He slipped once and lost his shoe in the mud. He managed to retrieve it, stepped his stockinged foot in a mud puddle, and then hopped the last few feet to the safety of the porch.