The Runaway's Gold (19 page)

“And what of the ewe?”

“Doesn't matter. Peterson already knows of the body. Even
though by now Daa's most likely matched the lambs to a ewe of our flock.” I stood up suddenly. “Are you sure all that you've heard about Norfolk Island is true?”

“Afraid so, lad. Though your crime hardly seems worthy of the Transportation. But if you must know, most of me information comes from me brother-in-law, Jamie Jameson. He and I shared this very cell at one time or another. An innocent man convicted of murder, servin' on Norfolk as we speak. Netty's and our bairns been livin' with his wife, Patience, while I've been in this place. Been gone a year and the family got a letter. It's the only way Patience knows he's still alive.”

I dropped me head in me hands. Suddenly I thought of Catherine and Victoria, of Gutcher and Aunt Alice. Of Mary. Would I never see any of them again?

“Och, Malcolm. Me Daa—he told me to snuff out that ewe. Isn't a lad supposed to do as his Daa says?”

“Aye.” He sighed resting his chin in his grubby hand. “It's when you're a lad that you think your Daa has all the answers. Then—poof—you find yourself in a place like this.”

“But I'm not yet fourteen! Even if I'm not sent to Norfolk, I can't be locked away. Me family needs me to survive!”

“Dunna give up hope, lad. If there is one thing I've learned from me life of—ah—
transgressions
, it's there's always a way to wriggle out of a tricky situation.”

“Wriggle out? This place is made of stone, or haven't ya noticed?” I slammed me hand into the cold outer wall.

“Aye, but as I was saying earlier, there's always opportunities.”
He reached his arm deep inside his mattress and pulled out the sack from Netty. “Can you keep a secret?”

I shrugged. “Aye. No one but you for me to tell it to.”

Then he tossed the sack to me. “Look here at what me good lass's been collecting.”

“Bristles?” I asked, peering inside. “And horsehair?”

“Aye. Precious stuff.
Borrowed
from the neighbor's swine and ponies. And I've been putting them to good use, little by little, for nearly a year.”

He reached back in the mattress and pulled out what seemed to be an endless skein of tightly twisted fiber. I walked closer and admired the work, knowing that the bristles of the Shetland swine, with its supple, glossy texture, made the strongest, most elastic rope found anywhere. Everyone's choice when fowling from the sea cliffs.

“Was a master rope maker in me younger days,” Malcolm explained. “Up north—in Unst—before me troubles began. Me Netty brings by what I need a little at a time, so as not to raise suspicion. Only a bit more and I'll have enough.”

“Enough?” I said, pulling at the skein. “Why, it must be thirty feet long!”

“And I only need it half that size. But to make it into a proper rope I have to twist it together, one skein over another.”

“When will you be done?”

“Just a bit more to go. Takes two to twist it just right. Mann doesn't know it, but he did me a big favor bringing you here. I hope you'll oblige me when it's time.”

“What'll you do with it?”

“Get down from a second-story window, of course!”

“You're planning to escape?”

“Shhh!” Malcolm drew a hairy finger to his lips. “The walls between these cells are nothing but plaster!”

“But how?”

“It's like I've been telling you. Opportunities—they're everywhere! 'Course, you never know when they're comin', so you have to be on your toes. Did you notice, for instance, when you was in the airin' room with the reverend, that there aren't any of these ruddy shutters on those windows?”

“Aye. And I also noticed the keeper has a knife he keeps sharp.”

“That he does. And a pistol from time to time. But he's known to get distracted. Every evening, in fact, when he brings us to the trench to empty our chamber pots. We pass the bonnie Miss Pepper doing the washin' across from the airin' room. She's the lass from the village who works nights scrubbing the linen and the underdraws for the officers who occupy the fort. The keeper's got an eye for her, he does, and when he struts his sorry self past her each night, his mind is far, far away from the likes of us and his gleamin' knife.”

“But you said the rope had to be long enough for a
second-
story window?”

“Aye,” Malcolm whispered. “I aim to be prepared. If my only opportunity is to run up the stairs to make me escape, I'll be ready.”

“And if you're caught?”

“Now, don't start thinking about ‘if,'” he said, stuffing the cord back in the mattress. “If there's one thing I've learned after being cooped up in here for all these years, it's too much thinking makes you too fearful to act.”

“But if they catch you, they'll send you to Norfolk for sure!”

“Lad,” Malcolm said, brow furrowed. “It's where I'm headed even if I sit in this stinkin' place on me backside and don't move a lazy finger. Netty and me, we have five bairns to take care of, all with bellies so empty they won't last till summer without me. You heard the keeper—the word from Edinburgh is due any day now. I don't plan to be round to hear it.”

A Familiar Tree

fficially lodged a petition 'gainst you, Robertson,” the keeper reported, when he returned later with two bowls of gruel. “You're due in court the day after tomorrow.”

“You needn't taunt the lad,” Malcolm muttered.

“That's enough out of you, MacPherson. Your fate is as dark as his, you lazy dreep of a thief.” Then a smile burst across his wart-covered face. “Just heard word that brother-in-law of yours is due back next week.”

“Jamie? Back?”

“Aye, six years shy of his seven-year sentence. Any guess as to why?”

Malcolm's face turned ashen.

“Finally agreed to work with us, he did. Seems, after all these years, we're finally gunna learn the truth about who helped him kill Gilbert Bain.”

“They'll not get anything out of Jamie, you lying swine!”

A laugh burst from Mann's cracked lips. “From what I hear, they already have!” he said, turning to the door. “Norfolk Island has a way of breakin' a man, you know. Even one as stubborn as Jamie Jameson.”

“What was that about?” I asked, shoveling the runny greenish-gray porridge into me mouth.

“Lor', lad, you must be starving to go at it like that,” Malcolm said, furiously tugging the skein from his mattress.

“Are you worried about your brother-in-law? What he might say?”

“Who—Jamie? Och, no. Mann's just bluffin'. Trying to get me to talk.”

“From the way you described Norfolk, it seems a man might do just about anything to get off the island.”

I watched as Malcolm's calloused hands frantically worked the new supply of bristles. “Aye, lad. Like I said, I'm not planning to be round to find out.”

“Who was Gilbert Bain?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“I told you about
me
troubles.”

He looked up. “He was a man with a soul as dark as night. Got what he deserved, that one.”

“A Lerwick man?”

“Och, no. From Unst—way up north. Where me and Netty lived when we were newly married. Bain was a merchant with a cold heart who took it upon himself to force women to do un-Godly things.”

As he spoke I shuddered, then curled up on me mattress of musty straw. It had been a day and a night since I'd slept, and me body suddenly felt heavy and stiff. I reached me hand to the plaster wall that divided me from John—a lump forming in me throat, the stinging shards of betrayal slowly melting into loneliness. As I closed me eyes, listening to the rhythmic sound of Malcolm twisting and braiding his rope, me mind wandered to our Culswick croft—to the click of Aunt Alice's knitting needles, to the sweet smell of warm, burning peat tickling me nose, and to Catherine and Victoria, snuggled together in their box bed. What were they thinking of me, and of Daa's stories of what I had done? And Mary—where was she now? Those eyes—so full of life—the warm cheek that had rested on me shoulder?

I don't know how long I slept, but when I awoke and remembered where I was, I stiffened, not wanting to move. Me eyes followed a single slant of light creeping through the shutters, up the plastered wall, to a spot high and on the right. And then I slowly sat up to get a closer look. At first I wasn't sure
of what I was seeing—if, perhaps, I could be dreaming. But as I scrambled to me feet, standing on the pallet to get a better look, there was no doubt.

“I see you've found our work of art,” Malcolm muttered.

“Where did it come from?” I cried, me finger gingerly tracing the scratches in the plaster three-quarters of the way up the wall.

“Keep it down!” Malcolm warned. “If you yap too loudly you'll get a bang on the wall from our neighbor Gill Lawrence. Gill is none too fond of noise when he's taking his afternoon nap.”

“But I know this!” I said, staring in complete disbelief at the picture of the very same tree carved into the rock in Culswick Broch. Our broch. The tree on the treeless island of Shetland.

“Well, I doubt that, lad,” Malcolm mumbled. “Unless, o' course, you've been in this cell in some other life. That, me friend, was scratched there long before you were born.”

“But I do!” I said, running the tips of me fingers over the plaster. “There's one just like it carved on a stone in the broch on the west side of the island!”

Malcolm looked up, casually picking at his shaggy red mane.

“Are ya sure?”

“Aye! Only difference is, the one I know is missing some branches down here.” I pointed to the lower right-hand corner of the picture.

“Well, well, now—that's a rather interesting piece of information.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Oh, just what I've heard. Prison legends, really. Island talk.”

“Do you know who carved it?”

He scratched his head. “Done during the war with the Americans. Just after King George rebuilt this fort.”

“By a soldier?”

“Och, no—someone much more interesting than that.” He walked to the window, tipping a jar of water to his lips. “A spy for the Americans, they say. From New York. Not more than a lad himself when he carved it. His ship was blown off course and wrecked off Bressay Isle way. 1781, I think it was.”

I thought back to what John had told me when he first returned from Lerwick. About the buried treasure. “I've heard a similar tale.”

“I don't doubt it. Poor lad was on the run for months—it was the talk of the island.”

“Did they catch him?”

“'Course! That's why he was here. But this wasn't Lerwick Prison back then—the whole building was the barracks for the Royal Artillery. The American, he was a wily one. They say it took several months to finally bring him in. Shut him in this very cell, for safekeeping, till they got word to send him down to the Tower a' London.”

“Are you sure he was a spy?”

“Aye. And a loyal one at that. They say the others who were caught squealed right away. Confessed that they were on their
way from Rotterdam, a chest of gold ducats on board. Headed to the West Indies. Too bad for them they were blown off course in a gale.”

“What were they after?”

“Well, that's just it,” Malcolm said. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Far as I know they never found out. Seems our lad was the only one who had been trusted with the details, and they couldn't get him to talk. They say the English beat him silly while he was here; nearly killed him, in fact. But he kept mum—must have been a brave soul to endure that. Treason being a hanging offense, I don't expect he lasted too long after they sent him to London.”

“And what of the ducats? Me brother says they've been searching for them for years.”