“This one ’as asked to be put ashore, Cap’n. Says she’ll pay to get ’ome.”
The captain looked upon me with such distaste I felt ashamed and my face reddened. He turned his gaze toward another ship closer at hand, and said, “She’ll pay in copper and iron like the rest of ’em. Don’t spoil the goods, Beckham. Put it down before you catch something.” The captain walked away and Beckham swung me to the deck, banging my bones against the planks.
My pocket with Ma’s casket came loose and fell between my knees. I tried to stand, holding my legs tight around it. Mr. Beckham watched me and pursed his lips.
I scowled at him. “Privy!” I said, and he turned away, thinking I had need of a water closet. I returned to the line before the iron wash cauldrons, now standing at the tail rather than my place before.
“What,” I asked Patience, “if I take one of my bits of eight and show it to him? Perhaps they did not believe we could pay. I could pay one for each of us.”
“They would take it and you would pay all and we should still be afloat here.”
I scuffled under the top skirt for the pocket straps. “See, my pocket has come loose and I cannot tie it without notice by them. So I might as well offer—”
“Do not! Do not even think on that.”
“Why would not they take us home?”
“They are not going to take us where we tell them. They are going to do with us as they wish. Keep all that hidden until there be no hope without it. You will know when it must be spent. Ma said it is to save your life someday. Your life be not in danger at this moment and producing the coins could change that. They might strip us bare to take what else we’re hiding.”
She must have meant the needles and the jewelry. “I would give it, to get home.”
“Home can be got to by other means. We are not going home, maybe not for a long time. Going there is not saving your life; it be merely going to a place where you are not.”
“Any place is better than this place. And you are mean.”
“Will you not listen? You always think you know things that you cannot know. The world be a hideous place, Resolute. Full of danger and trouble and pain. You have survived the pox-ridden hold yet the pirates who kidnapped us have in turn been thwarted and captured by other pirates. Did you not see the Jolly Roger?”
“I did.”
“Do you hold that this has now become a seagoing play party? That all you must do is say, ‘Take me home, sir,’ and they will send footmen to bow and scrape to us?”
I said nothing for a bit. What I intended to answer would draw her scorn so I said, “They did feed us.”
“As you would an animal fit for auction.” Patience continued, “How did your pocket come loose?”
“I ate some of the cloth on the inside. A little. Actually, almost all of it. I told you. Do not you remember?”
“Was it not awful?”
“No worse than the other they gave us.”
She made a face with half a smile that reminded me of Ma, and said, “Well enough. If I had thought of it I might have fared better. Just be caresome lest any see you about it. And take no more else the whole of it shall come undone and we be found out. Come here and I will help you wash so that no one sees our treasures.”
As we finished and dressed in our soggy rags, I leaned toward her ear and whispered, “I hope I am all done eating pockets. I will not mind having more goat stew, I think.”
“Less talking here. Keep quiet!” an English sailor shouted at us.
We sunned ourselves, turning up petticoats to dry even as we wore them. I was careful to check all the places where Ma’s precious things lay hidden. All remained safe. Fresh air and buoyancy filled my soul as the rest and food worked its task. After a couple of hours on the deck spent thus, they lined us up and marched us below again.
Awaiting my turn I spied August among the men who had all been loaded onto another ship and ran to tell Patey.
Patience called to him, “August Talbot! Where’s our father?”
August called back, “Killed. Buried these four days.” Patience sank to the deck and frowned, moping. I heard his words repeated as if they existed in an echo or came from a noise in the back of a house. They made a little scratching sound in my head like a mouse raking through a corncob with a tiny clawed hand. I stood, watching him, waiting and hoping for him to say other words that undid what he had said.