The New World (31 page)

Authors: Andrew Motion

I saw him accepting the necklace when I held it out to him; I heard the pieces slide together as he bowed his head and put it on, then watched them separate and hang in place against his chest. I watched the animals begin their dance inside the silver, bringing their brightness to the English air.

And at the same time I remember my mind stalling, because I had no idea what I might say to my father, how I might begin to explain what we had done.

Not even now, after so long to get ready.

Not even when I saw the Hispaniola on the horizon, with its roof sloping down to the ground on the landward side, and the outbuildings where we kept our puncheons.

And still not when I drew close enough to notice the smudges of green on the clapboard walls, and the brick chimneys where the mortar was almost rotted away, and the windows turning their blind eyes.

And still not again when I reached the front of the house and found the rose-bushes my father had planted there all smothered in weeds, and a part of the towpath fallen into the water, and the window of my own room, the window I had looked through to see Natty for the first time, cloudy with dust.

I took a breath and settled myself; I stepped off the towpath and onto the weeds around the front door.

Locked.

Then round the back, to the other door. Broken glass on the step. Green glass and brown glass. Gin bottles and beer bottles.

This door locked as well.

I stood still for a moment, staring back across the marshes in the direction I had just traveled, and felt the weariness in my legs, in my whole body, so I had to sit down and rest against the house, which took my weight without a sound.

This was the worst possible homecoming, then; the worst. It was not Mr. Silver who had died. It was my father. Died and left the house deserted. I could never tell him what I had seen, or show him the treasure I had brought, or ask for his forgiveness. The worst.

I looked up and a face was staring at me. A thin face above a thin neck, with his coat blowing about his ankles. Not a face I knew. One of my father's customers, perhaps.

“You won't find a way in there,” he said, and laughed to show he thought I was a fool for trying.

“What?” I asked, squinting up at him.

The man opened and closed his mouth; he was old, and did not have any teeth. He might have been a scarecrow, standing stark against the enormous sky, deluged with its gray light.

“Do you hear those bells?” he asked, as if this was an answer to my question.

I did hear them, still tolling faintly in the distance, as I had heard them when I first came ashore.

“What of it? I asked.

“A famous victory,” he said, and smacked his lips. “We have conquered the Frenchies.”

I began to think he was witless. “A victory?” I said.

“A famous victory with Admiral Nelson,” he went on. “The news has just come. That's why they're ringing the bells. For Trafalgar.”

None of this meant anything to me. I scowled, and banged on the wall of my home with a clenched fist.

“Why is it locked?” I asked, dragging him back to here and now. But he would not easily follow.

“Locked and gone away,” he said.

“Who's gone away?”

“Mr. Hawkins, of course,” he said, suddenly reproachful, as if I was talking nonsense. “Mr. Hawkins is gone away. Or been led away, rather.”

“Led away? Led away how?”

“Led away by a stranger and months ago. Led away by a stranger and not seen since.”

I cannot say howâI have no memory of standing upâbut next thing I was on my feet and floating toward him.

“Tell me!” I ordered.

He cringed and lifted one hand to protect himself. “Tell you what?”

“Tell me everything you know.”

He flinched again, and I saw myself as he saw me, my face salted by the cold Atlantic, with the fire of the wilderness still burning inside me.

“What's it to you?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“I am his son,” I told him. “I am Jim Hawkins come home. I am his son.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I'm very grateful to my wife, Kyeong-Soo Kim, and my friends Tim Dee and Alan Hollinghurst for the help they gave me while I was writing this book. I'm also indebted to the following:

American Indian Portraits: George Catlin
, ed. Stephanie Pratt and Joan Carpenter Troccoli (2013)

American Places
, Wallace Stegner and Page Stegner (1981)

Changing National Identities at the Frontier
, Andrez Resendez (2005)

Chronicle of the Narvaez Expedition
, Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca (1555)

Ecological Imperialism
, Alfred W. Crosby (1986)

Empire of the Summer Moon
, S. C. Gwynne (2010)

The Essential Lewis and Clark
, ed. Landon Y. Jones (2000)

The Eternal Frontier
, Tim Flannery (2001)

The Fall of Natural Man
, Anthony Pagden (1982)

Ghost Riders
, Richard Grant (2003)

Guns, Germs, and Steel
, Jared Diamond (1997)

The Indians of Texas
, W. W. Newcomb (1961)