Saving Marina

Upon dismounting, he led the horse to the front of the tavern and tied the animal to a pole before he took his time walking the rest of the way around the building to where he’d get his first good look at George Hickman. It would be George’s first time to get a good look at him, too. The man would remember him. They’d sparred over merchandise in both Barbados and Boston. He hadn’t given in either time, and Hickman hadn’t found another ship captain to shortchange, either, not after the word had spread. However, Hickman’s false charges had forced the Concord to stay harbored for a month, which had cost Richard not only time but money.

“You there, I say!”

“You say what?” Richard asked, stepping around the corner and coming face-to-face with Hickman. He let his never-forgotten disdain fill his tone, along with the anger now rolling in his stomach.

Shock, then spite flashed in Hickman’s eyes. “Tarr,” he snarled. “What are you doing here?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Richard answered, giving a long look at the man’s black doublet and breeches, as well as the white ruff around his thick neck and his black hat. “What are you doing here?”

George Hickman was a squat man in structure, with a barrel chest and stomach and bowed legs. He tried to make up for his meager height by his attitude, which, as far as Richard knew, hadn’t worked, up until now perhaps. Hickman had inherited a sugar plantation from his father in Barbados and in little more than a few years had lost everything. Demanding top dollar for an inferior product had left him without a way to ship his sugar to markets off the islands, and cruel treatment had forced his slaves into desertion—something few ever did. Their punishment was usually death, but that was also what they’d faced working for Hickman.

After a few years Hickman had landed in Boston, where he’d conveniently inherited a merchandising business from the father of a woman he’d married in that area. There again, his demands had left him without ships to fulfill his orders. That had been the last Richard had heard of him. Then again, he hadn’t cared enough to listen if someone had spoken Hickman’s name.

“The likes of you aren’t welcome here, Tarr,” Hickman hissed.

“I can’t believe the likes of you are welcome here,” Richard replied. A rotten egg never lost its stench, and right now the odor was strong enough to make a grown man gag.

Louder, in order for the other men standing several yards away to hear, Hickman spouted, “Be gone. We have no need for sailors in Salem Village.”

“Good,” Richard answered, just as loud. “Because I’m not here as a sailor. I’m here as a father.”

The alarm that flashed in Hickman’s narrow eyes told Richard all he needed to know. The man had known Grace was his daughter and was behind her condition. Renewed anger mixed with full-blown loathing boiled in Richard’s veins. As much as he’d like to unleash his fury, letting it control his actions wouldn’t get the results he now wanted. Exposing Hickman for the impostor he was would be something to relish. He’d make sure it was done correctly. He owed it to his daughter.

Hickman’s nostrils were flared and his face turned redder with each silent moment that passed. Other than allowing his hands to ball into fists, Richard refrained from permitting his internal rage to show. This act was unlike him, but he had his daughter to consider. Righting the wrong that had been thrust upon her wouldn’t be solved by beating Hickman to a pulp. Even though it would provide immense satisfaction.

With a great deal of emphasis, Hickman waved a hand and shouted, “Be off with you, stranger, before the wrath of God strikes you for attempting to foil our blessed community!”

Richard pulled his lips into a tight grin and took a step closer to hiss, “Shout all you want. A pulpit won’t protect you from me.”

The man’s thick jowls shook as he stepped back. His beady eyes glanced toward the onlookers before he hoisted both arms into the air. “I am an ordained messenger of the Almighty God!”

“Ordained by whom?” Richard asked. “Yourself?”

“Our good reverend attended Harvard University,” a tall man replied as he approached. “You’ll do as requested, sir, and exit our village.”

Several others of the group were moving forward, and the conceited grin growing on Hickman’s face said the man thought he’d won. Richard considered telling him no army of cronies would frighten him or change what he was set on doing; however, he had time and would relish watching the other man squirm a bit. If these men were supporting Hickman, he needed to know why. Still, he wasn’t going to let anyone think they worried him—because they didn’t.

Eyeing each man, including Hickman, individually and intently, Richard finally moved his attention to the one who’d spoken. “I will leave your community when I’ve concluded my business.”

With that, he turned and made his way back around the building. Ignoring the mumblings for what they were, he didn’t retrieve his horse but instead entered the tavern. Puritans didn’t abide drunkenness, but they drank ale from sunrise to sunset. As with almost every community ever established, a tavern was the first building erected, even before homes or a church.

Hosting only two windows and a few short candles, the interior was dark and dank, but that hadn’t stopped men from gathering around tables and emptying tankards a barkeep kept full using a pitcher he refilled from the line of barrels resting upon a rack on the far wall. Richard walked across the room, which was unusually quiet compared to most taverns he entered, to where a man stood behind a long board stretched between two barrels.

Without a word, Richard laid down a coin. Using one hand to slide the coin across the wood, the barkeep grabbed a wooden tankard with his other hand. The coin dropped into a hole at the end of the bar, clanking against others when it hit the bottom. After pouring ale into the cup, the barkeep set it before Richard.

Giving the droopy-eyed man a nod, Richard lifted the cup to his lips. The ale was strong and bitter, stealing his breath as he swallowed. He turned then to survey the men at the tables. A few were returning his gaze. Curious, no doubt. He didn’t let his sights rest on them. Answers were what he needed, not questions.

A single man, thin, with his head hung low, sat alone in the farthest, darkest corner. The flame of the short candle on his table flickered as if burning up its last bits of tallow. Richard walked to that table and asked, “Care if I join you?”

The man shrugged. “I make sorry company.”

“It’s not company I seek,” Richard replied. “Merely a chair to sit upon while drinking my ale.”

With a hand, the man gestured to the opposite chair. His expression hadn’t changed, nor his posture. The man was clearly downtrodden, browbeaten to the edge of his being. Richard had seen that before.

He took a seat and another swallow of the pungent ale. “Your community holds the air of hostility.” There was no sense denying the surliness filling the room.

“The evilness is everywhere.” His companion’s voice was a whisper. “Ye’d be better off to keep traveling. There’s no rest for the weary here. No escape, either. Except perhaps death.”

“You sound like a man with no hope,” Richard acknowledged.

The man closed his eyes but not before Richard saw moisture, as well as a tear that escaped and trickled down the man’s sunken cheek.

Richard waited a moment, wasting that time by lifting the tankard to his lips again. His mouth refused to accept another drop of the vinegary brew, and he set the cup down. “Why?”

Lifting his chin slightly, as if it was all he could manage, the man shook his head. “My mother was hanged today.” His gaze slowly turned to the other occupants in the dim room. “Along with some of their family members.” Turning back, he croaked, “There was nothing we could do. Nothing any of us could do.”

“What were their crimes?”

“Witchcraft.” The man wheezed in a breath of air. “Those who denied the accusations were hanged in Salem Towne this morning.” His fingers shook as he wrapped them around the handle of his tankard. “I begged her to confess, but she insisted upon taking her chances of being one of God’s chosen few rather than rotting away in jail, awaiting the devil’s arrival.”

Marina’s image instantly appeared inside Richard’s head. “What had she done?”

The man’s lips pulled tight and a spark of anger glistened briefly in his eyes. “Took a switch after the reverend’s daughter for snitching out of our garden. She was accused of putting a spell on the children to make them behave so and then for scorning them instead of leading them toward salvation. The girls were at her trial, claimed she was pinching them from across the room and that they’d seen her in their dreams, with a familiar suckling her blood.” Another tear escaped the corner of his eye. “The court ordered the removal of her clothing to reveal her extra teat. When one wasn’t discovered, the girls fell upon the floor on all fours and started barking like dogs. That was ruled evidence enough.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.