Chapter 31 #2
Harte is about fifty years old, she guesses—or maybe forty, to account for the weathering of a life at sea.
His black, curling wig sets off a jaw hewn from a block of well-tanned wood and a pair of dark eyes set close together, so that his eyebrows almost meet.
The effect is ferocious. He delivers this gaze straight and unblinking into Hephzibah’s eyes as if he might read the thoughts engraved on the inside of her skull.
“We are not in need of provisions, Miss Sykes, or I should have sent my purser on my behalf.” His tone is sharp, with a hard emphasis on the word purser.
“We are in search of a man. A criminal, a traitor. A low thieving pirate, a villainous devil of a man, a dog, contemptible. His name is Ramsay. I am given to understand that he and another fellow of his band—his ship’s surgeon, I believe, another villain—sought shelter under this roof not long ago. ”
Beulah pipes up. “And I told Captain Harte that we turned those men away directly they arrived, as we are a law-abiding household and do not truck with pirates.”
Harte keeps his gaze on Hephzibah’s face. “I will ask you to remain quiet, Mrs. Winthrop, while I address your sister. Is this true, Miss Sykes? That you turned away these pirates?”
“At once,” she says. “I have a particular disgust for sea-thieves.”
“An opinion which does you credit, Miss Sykes, and one lamentably absent among your brethren on this uncivilized shore, who seem to share an unfortunate misapprehension that these murderous bandits are to be admired rather than strung from the nearest gibbet. A prejudice owing, I can only suppose, to the disgraceful number of them who have chosen this particular criminal trade—”
“That’s true, your honor,” says Silas, from the corner. “Very true. Two of my cousins, now, distant cousins, a fishing family out of Truro—”
“If you please, sir.” Harte tilts his head in Silas’s direction, without removing his gaze from Hephzibah.
“As I said, I have had a devil of a time discovering any inhabitant of this district willing to do his duty and bring these dogs to justice. I had almost given up hope when a man—one man along a hundred miles of coast—stepped forward at last.”
“How noble,” says Hephzibah. “But I’m afraid your informant was mistaken. We refused to allow those men over our doorstep.”
“My husband chased them off with his musket,” says Beulah.
Silas nods his head vigorously. “That’s right. Though I was sick abed, your honor, I knew my duty.”
“One of the two was horribly wounded,” says Hephzibah. “I don’t see how he could have survived. His chest was split open from shoulder to belly, and his head was very near scalped.”
A muscle shivers beneath Harte’s left eye. “Indeed. Indeed. Split open, you say?”
“Just so, your honor,” says Silas. “From stem to stern, as you might say.”
“Ah,” says Harte. “Ah.”
Hephzibah stares at that ecstatic skin beneath Harte’s eye. In her mind she sees Ramsay—his pale ribs gleaming with blood, his scalp hanging over his ear. She hears the rasp of the saw, the long slow bellow that empties his lungs.
She says, “I’m sure he must be dead, sir. It is impossible a man should have survived another day, so wounded. He was near death even then—insensible—his companions forced to carry him—”
“Blood all over my nice clean floor,” says Beulah.
Now Harte turns. “But your sister said he never crossed your doorstep, Mrs. Winthrop. Or did I mishear her?”
“In a manner of speaking, your honor,” says Silas. “They crossed the threshold—forced their way, that is, the devils—before I and my musket was able to make matters clear.”
Harte looks at Silas. “I have it on good authority, Mr. Winthrop, that as late as Christmas, you kept two men at board in this house. One badly scarred and missing an arm.”
“And whose authority is that, sir?” asks Hephzibah.
“Law, sir, do you mean my cousin?” says Beulah. “My cousin who came to stay with us all December, with his good friend the doctor?”
“A strange coincidence.” Harte’s gaze roves the floorboards and across the wall, coming to rest on the door to the lean-to. His eyes narrow into slivers.
“The pirate’s limbs were quite whole, as I remember,” says Hephzibah. “All attached, that is. Besides, there came three men that day, not two.”
“Can you tell me, Mr. Winthrop, what lies behind that door at the back?”
“Why, that? That’s the lean-to, your honor. For the storing of food and the hanging of game.”
Harte turns to Silas and fixes his hat back on his head. “I’m afraid I shall have to order my men to search the premises, Mr. Winthrop. Lieutenant Waters will direct them. I shall reconnoiter the perimeter.”
Silas shrugs. “Search all you like, your honor. If you don’t mind, I might return to my bed. I have suffered from a painful complaint of late, most painful, for which reason my wife’s cousin was so kind as to introduce his friend the doctor.”
“And was this man able to provide you with any relief, Mr. Winthrop?”
“Why, as to symptoms—tolerably, your honor, tolerably, though I fear the malady itself is beyond the reach of human skill. But it is my lot that the Lord sees fit to burden me with, in his perfect wisdom, and I don’t complain.”
Harte turns to Hephzibah. A thin smile stretches his mouth to its limit.
“If you would be so kind, Miss Sykes,” he says, “as to conduct me on a tour of the outbuildings. Mr. Waters? The lantern, if you please.”