Chapter Three #2
Nicky’s eyes opened. He swallowed. “Again,” he whispered. “Do it again.”
It wasn’t fear in the boy’s eyes, Gabe suddenly realized. It was exhilaration.
“Again?”
Nicky nodded. “Yes, only faster!”
Gabe threw back his head and laughed. “You’ll do, young Nicky! You’ll do. But we can’t go off gallivanting just yet—I need to get you back before your mother misses you. And first we have to fetch that portmanteau.”
“And Mama’s slipper?”
“Possibly.” He added, “If I dismount and lead Trojan, can you sit up there by yourself?”
He looked uncertain, but nodded gamely. Gabe dismounted and left Nicky clutching the pommel. He led the horse along the narrow path, searching for signs of last night’s activities.
“Ah, this is where it happened,” he said at last. He lifted the boy down and tossed him the reins. “Tie Trojan to a bush, would you?” Nicky took the reins with an air of importance and led the big horse away.
Gabe peered over the edge of the cliff at the path leading up from the pebbly beach. A difficult climb for a woman and a child with a bad leg, especially in the dark, never mind the portmanteau. Why the devil had she landed here, of all places?
Nicky joined him and peered over. “It was very hard climbing up in the dark. We could not see and the path was very steep.” He added, “But it was not so muddy as it is now.”
“Yes, you are lucky you arrived before the rain came,” Gabe said. It was going to be a slippery expedition; the slope contained several small mudslides. Gabe was glad he hadn’t worn his good boots.
“Mama was very angry with the captain of the boat. She wanted him to take her to Lulworth Cove but he took no notice!”
Gabe repressed a grin. “Good heavens!”
“Papa would have had him flogged. Mama explained to me on the beach that they did not know who we—” He broke off with a guilty expression. “Oh.”
“What was that?” Gabe said. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”
“Nothing.” Nicky relaxed.
Gabe was intrigued. Who was she, that her son should be so astounded that the captain of a boat—even a smuggling boat—would refuse to obey an order from his mother?
“I can’t see the portmanteau, but I think that’s the trail it made when it fell—do you see?” He pointed to where some of the scrubby vegetation clinging to the rock had been recently broken and rocks disturbed. I’ll climb down and have a look. I hope it hasn’t been buried under mud.”
“Look! That’s Mama’s slipper.” Nicky pointed excitedly.
Sure enough there it was, a small scrap of blue, wedged against an outcrop of jagged rocks softened by a menacing froth of waves.
“That can stay there,” Gabe decided.
“Oh, but they were Mama’s favorite slippers.”
“No, it’s too dangerous. All that rain last night will have washed away some of the earth holding the rocks in place—that’s what those mudslides are.” Gabe enjoyed taking risks, but he didn’t see the point of making such a perilous climb for a slipper.
He slipped over the edge and began the descent toward the portmanteau. A small avalanche of pebbles behind him made him look back. Nicky was coming, too. “No, you stay there,” Gabe ordered.
“I want to come.”
“You can’t, it’s too dangerous.”
“I can do it. And it’s my portmanteau.”
“Don’t argue with me, boy! Stay there.” It was a miracle the child had made it up the dangerous path. Climbing down again with such a bad leg—and after a night of rain had softened the dirt—was asking for trouble.
“I apologize. I just wanted to help,” Nicky said in a small, stiff voice.
Oh God, he’d hurt the child’s feelings. Too late, Gabe remembered his half brother’s hatred of his weak leg, Harry’s refusal to have it allowed for, his determination to do whatever any other boy did.
“You can help. You can—” He tried to think of a task. “You can mind Trojan.”
Nicky looked mulish. “Trojan is tied up. And last night he was free but when you whistled, he came.”
Gabe was not used to people questioning his orders.
But he couldn’t bark at a child of seven in the same way as he would a rebellious recruit.
“Yes, but that was at night,” he said. “In daylight there are more people around. He’s a very valuable animal and I need you to guard him from, er, from horse thieves. ”
“Horse thieves?”
“Yes, horse thieves. Very dangerous men, horse thieves. Hordes of them roam the countryside, looking for valuable horses. They’re not interested in boys,” he added hastily, “only horses. So if you see any sinister-looking men coming this way, you must call down to me at once. As loudly as you can. Is that clear, Nicky?”
The boy clicked his heels in a military manner. “Yes, sir! I will guard the horse.”
“Good lad!” Gabe recommenced his descent, slipping and sliding in places where the rocks gave way to mud. It really was quite dangerous.
“Whatcher doin’?”
Nicky was so startled he nearly fell over the cliff.
He’d been leaning out, watching. He raised a fist as he turned, but instead of a horde of sinister men, there was just one ragged boy a little older than himself, with a sharp face and bold, dark eyes.
He was pulling a rickety two-wheeled handcart.
“Who are you?” He clutched Trojan’s reins defensively.
The boy scowled. His face was remarkably dirty. Nicky doubted his hair had been brushed in weeks. His feet were bare, his trousers were tattered but he showed not a shred of shame. “I asked you first! And what’re you doin’ with Trojan?”
His tone stung Nicky, prompting him into responding to a boy of a class he knew was beneath him. “I’m guarding him,” he answered in the crushing manner that Papa had taught him.
“From what?”
“From horse thieves.”
“Horse thieves?” declared the boy scornfully. “As if anyone around here would be daft enough to nick Mr. Gabe’s Trojan!”
“Nick?” Nicky didn’t understand.
“Nick—doncha know what that means? Pinch, swipe, nab, steal—”
“Oh.” Nicky thought for a moment. “So you don’t think there’s any horse thieves around here?”
The boy spat. “Nah. Never heard of any and I’ve lived here all me life. And even if there was one, he wouldn’t get far. Everyone in these parts knows Mr. Gabe and Trojan.”
Thoughtfully Nicky let go of the reins. It was as he had thought at first: Mr. Renfrew had just wanted him out of the way. He, like Papa, thought Nicky was useless.
“So, what were you lookin’ at?” the grubby boy demanded, still faintly hostile.
Nicky pointed. “That slipper, that blue thing down there.”
The boy squinted down, then nodded. “A slipper, is it? That’s all right then, you can have it. I was worried you was after me eggs and stuff.”
“Eggs and stuff?”
The boy jerked his chin at the cliffs. “I get eggs from the nests there. Good eatin’, those eggs.”
“Oh.” Eggs from wild seabirds? An English delicacy, no doubt, Nicky thought.
The boy looked down the cliff and wrinkled his nose. “What do you want with one slipper?”
“That is my business,” Nicky said. He did not think it proper to reveal his mother’s slipperless state to this strange and dirty boy.
“So you’re goin’ to fetch it, then?” The boy’s tone was mildly skeptical.
“I might.”
“Not in them boots ya won’t.”
Nicky looked down at his boots. “Why not?”
The boy spat again. “’Cause you’ll fall to your death, that’s why not. Them fancy leather soles will slip on the rocks and mud. You won’t be able to get a good grip at all.”
“Oh.”
“So take ’em off.”
“You mean go down there with no shoes?”
“That’s how I do it. You get a better grip with your toes. Never fallen yet. Ain’t you never climbed a cliff before?”
“Never,” Nicky admitted. He’d never walked outside in bare feet, either, but he wasn’t going to admit that.
“Well take it from me—I know all about it,” said the boy. “Some folks call me Monkey on account of how good I can climb, but me real name’s Jim.”
“How do you do, Jim. I am called Nicky.” He gave a slight bow.
“Coo, posh, aren’t ya?” said Jim with a grin. He extended a filthy hand with black-rimmed nails, and Nicky gingerly shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Nicky. Well, go on, get them boots off.”
Nicky sat down to pull off his boots. Jim watched curiously. “Gimpy leg, eh?”
Nicky didn’t respond, but the shame crept back.
“Me da had a gimpy leg, too, sort of. Shark bit half his leg off. Didn’t stop Da, but.
Got himself a peg leg, didn’t he?” Jim said cheerfully.
“Well, you get on with fetching your slipper. I gotta get on. I made a real find this morning.” He disappeared behind a scraggly bush and reappeared lugging a battered and muddy portmanteau.
Nicky had no trouble recognizing it. “That’s our portmanteau!”
“It’s mine. I saw it first. Rules of salvage.” Jim said and heaved it onto the handcart.
“But it belongs to me.”
Jim snorted rudely. “My arse it does! I found it on the beach this morning, and I hauled it all the way up here, so it’s mine!”
“But it contains all the possessions Mama and I have!”
“Good try, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Finders keepers. You get the slipper, I get this.” He pulled out a piece of string to tie the portmanteau to the cart.
Nicky ran forward and tried to pull the portmanteau off him. “No! It’s not yours. You can’t have it!”
Jim shoved Nicky backward hard and stood over him with clenched fists. “Try and stop me.”
“Very well.” Nicky scrambled to his feet and put up his fists, ready to fight the bigger boy.
He’d had lessons in the art of pugilism.
He moved closer and jabbed at the boy. In return, Jim swung a punch, then followed it with a hard kick to Nicky’s bad leg.
With a cry of pain, Nicky went sprawling in the mud.
As he struggled to stand again, his fingers encountered a stone, and remembered Mr. Renfrew’s advice to his mother. Seizing the stone, he ran at the boy, yelling at the top of his voice, and hit him hard on the nose.
There was a horrid sound, the boy’s dirty face blossomed with blood and he fell to the ground. Nicky stared in horror, and dropped the stone. He had not meant to hurt the boy, just stop him from stealing the portmanteau.
“What the devil is going on!” Mr. Renfrew exclaimed from behind. “Who is that?
Nicky’s lip trembled. “His name is Jim, and I think I have killed him!”