“He reigns here, also,” Blaxton reminded. “It is not good to forget that.”
“Where I live,” I said, “is beyond the mountains where only Indians are. I do not think the king reigns there nor has power. It is a man himself who rules himself, and it is people working together. Perhaps you may think us wrong, but we do not often think of the king.”
He considered that, then smiled. “To tell you the truth, we do not often think of him, either, yet it is not well to forget. You can be sent home to be tried by his courts, sent to his prisons, or executed by his officers.”
We finished our broth and sat there in silence, enjoying each the company of the other. Finally he nodded to indicate the books. “Do you read, then?”
“I do. In our home there are many books, and my teacher was a good one.” I glanced at him. “You might not approve. He was an infidel, a Moslem.”
He shrugged. “I would say this to none but you and perhaps to Sam Maverick, but I have myself read a book by a Moslem and found it not at all bad. Did he speak of religion?”
“Only to say there were many paths, all directed to the same end, and he advised me not to be too quick to put my religion upon the Indian, for he had one of his own that served him well.”
“You have courage,” Blaxton said, “to face that wilderness. The sea and the woodland … I love them, but I do not venture. I walk these quiet paths, stand upon these headlands, pick my berries, and sometimes—rarely—I fish. For a few trinkets, an Indian will bring me fish or mussels. It is a good life and an easy one if the demands you make are not too large.”
“You have your books. They are the best companions.”
“Aye.” He glanced at me, and I think at the moment he really liked me, although he was a distant and aloof man. “Within this room I can talk to the Hebrew prophets, to Plato and to Aristotle. It is good company I keep here.”
He stood up. “Let us go to Maverick’s place. You will see how well it can be done.”
As we walked along, I said to him, “Then nothing can be done against the slavers?”
He glanced at me. “What slavers? Who is to testify? It is all surmise and wild imaginings. Understand, I am inclined to believe there is something in what you say. To me Pittingel is too smug, too knowing, and too sly. He seems sometimes to hold us all in contempt, yet that may be only an attitude.
“In any event, slavery is no crime, although frowned upon in many quarters. It has been with us, my friend, for several thousand years.
“And if no slavery, how is the work to be done? A man who comes to this country wishes land of his own, and he will rarely stand to a bit of work for anyone else.
“I do not approve of one man enslaving another, yet so it has always been, and the mere fact that Joseph Pittingel transports slaves into the country or to the West Indies, this will be no argument against him. He will lose favor in some homes, will find himself quietly put aside by some of our people, but to others it will mean nothing. You must face reality, my friend.”
Of course, he was right. Yet, there had to be a way. I thought suddenly of those other girls. “I knew but one of them,” Blaxton said when I suggested it. “A handsome lass and pert.” After a moment he added, “I feared for her. She was too filled with zest, and I am afraid—I should not say this—but I am afraid she had too little of the Lord’s goodness in her.”
He glanced at me. “I tried to talk to her of God, and she kept reminding me, without saying a word, that I was but a man and she knew it. She disappeared suddenly, and it was suspected she had run off with someone … aboard some ship or other.
“Another case of a maid where many would be inclined to say, ‘Good riddance.’ I would say there has been some knowing selection going on here. The mistake was when they took Carrie.”
Maverick’s place was a considerable fortress, with a goodly house and several guns mounted on the palisade. He had the sort of men about to defend such a place, a rough and ready lot, for he dealt in furs, and many of these were men who spent much time trapping. With so many of them and his strong place he had nothing to fear from Indians. I knew he was a respected man but one who went against the grain of the congregations because of his easy ways and tolerant views.
It was said he had been close to being expelled on several occasions, but his own forthrightness as well as the fact that his father had been a minister of some influence prevented that.
He welcomed us and put out mugs of cold cider on the table.
“They are here,” he assured me, “and well. Your brother did us well by bringing a haunch of venison with him, and the maids are resting. They arrived last night, and my wife has seen to them.”
“We have talked much,” Blaxton said, “and I think you should hear what he has to say.”
I spoke briefly, having consolidated my argument by talking with the Reverend Blaxton, and Maverick listened while drinking his cider.
“Blaxton is right, of course. It will do no good to speak against them, and it will do you much harm. With all politeness, I must remind you that you are nobody here. Or less than nobody, coming from the wild lands to the south. Joseph Pittingel is a respected man, and feared as well. I have had few dealings with him except to use one of his ships to freight some mast timbers to England.”
It was bothersome that those who had done this thing should go free of blame and lay ready to perform the same deed again, yet what could be done, I knew not.
“This lass,” I said on a sudden thought, “the lass you spoke of who was taken before this? There has been no word of her?”
“None. She had a way of walking near the shore, and some said it was to give a bold eye to the sailor men, but I know naught of that. One day we saw her no more and her mother came wailing and worrying about her, and we conducted a search, but all felt she had but run off and not been taken at all.”
“Such a maid—” I started to say when Maverick interrupted.
“Aye, I ken her well! A bold lass for her years, and she not yet sixteen! It would take more than a kidnapping to curb that one! I have seen her kind before this, and such women endure. They have a quality that takes them through when others might fall by the way. Bold she may have been, but there was good steel in her, too!”
“So she may be alive,” I said.
“Her?” Maverick snorted. “It would take a deal to dampen her down. I confess, I liked the lass. Trouble she was, trouble for her mother from the first, and a worry to the congregation, for she flaunted herself about, ready to make eyes at any man who looked well to her, although, mind you, I think at that time ’twas all in play, not that she was not ready for something more. Had her good mother been wise, she’d have married her off—”
“It was planned,” the reverend said, “but the lass would have none of it. She wanted none of the local lads but something more. I do not know what exactly, but adventure, I think.”
“I think”—I spoke aloud, but it was to myself I spoke—”I think I shall go to the West India isles! I think I shall try to find this lass.”
They stared at me. “To find one maid in all the Indies? You are daft. Daft, I say! And if you found her, what then? Do you think you would be permitted to speak to her? And if so, what?”
“An affidavit,” I said. “A sworn statement. Or even the lass herself! Then we would have evidence that might take these men to the gallows!”
CHAPTER X
It was easy talk, yet the thought rankled that such things could be done and that those who did them would go unpunished. A man could say it was none of his affair, but how many would suffer until somebody did make it his business?
Maverick was patient. “You know nothing of the Indies,” he said. “It is a different world than this, and it is nothing like Virginia or the Carolinas. It is a place of pirates, cutthroats, and sharp businessmen. And how would you go about finding one girl? A girl who is probably kept from sight?”