Sup With the Devil

Rage and tears and dread fought within her; the Lord only knew, she thought, what he was seeing of this in her face. And he would, thank goodness, attribute it simply to anxiety for her son . . .

At length the young man said, “His Excellency—Please do not hesitate, or let political enmities prevent either you or Mr. Adams, from calling upon His Excellency for any assistance whatsoever: men, authority, vessels, Writs of Assistance, whatever you require. As a father, an uncle, and a grandfather, he is utterly at your disposal, and that of your husband. As am I.”

She managed to say, “Thank you,” and made herself repeat for the third time John’s argument about the moonless night and the possibility that Charley had been lying stunned somewhere, and she saw relief flood into Ryland’s sensitive face. “You’re quite right,” he exclaimed, with an eagerness to believe that told its own tale. “And a sturdy and well-grown boy—especially of that age—could well have missed his direction to your aunt’s garden, if that’s what he was seeking, and finding himself in open country . . .”

Some of the awful tension left his shoulders, and his face relaxed a little and grew sad. “My mother lived in Germantown but a little distance from Philadelphia,” he said. “When I was apprenticed in the city, I ran away— three or four times—only wanting to be back where the streets weren’t brick, and the houses weren’t tall, and there was space to walk alone among the trees and smell the earth and the river. ’Twould have been easy, I think, for your son to let himself run too far.”

She met his eyes then, and asked—with a softness that surprised herself—“And is that what you think happened to him?”

And his glance ducked away, but not before she saw the pain at the back of his eyes. “I don’t—”

The rear door opened and Katy came in, a pail of milk in either hand. She stopped on the threshold and regarded Ryland warily; his brow clouded as he recognized her, and his glance went sharply to Abigail’s face. Abigail said, “Mr. Ryland? I believe you know Mrs. Fairfield.”

His lips tightened and a dusky flush crept up over his skin, that she would give the name of his captain to the daughter of a stableman. “Servant, m’am.” His bow was a vocabulary of obligation, scorn, and restraint.

Katy set down one pail and offered him two fingers, as the Tory ladies did. They were stained, where Semiramis (as she so often did) had dunged her tail.

“M’am.” His bow deepened by a degree and a half from the upright over her hand. Then he was gone.

Only an hour after that, Paul Revere arrived with the news that the house called Avalon was closed up tight: shuttered, locked, the barns closed and the horses and carriage gone.

When the cows came home that night, the head herd-boy beat with his fist on the back door and handed Abigail a paper. “’Twere tied ’round Cleo’s horn, m’am,” he explained, “when we gathered ’em up, like.”

LEAV EM DED CENNER OF Y YARD WTH LANNRN

BURNINNG MIDNIT TOMORO WEN LANRN GOES

OUT YR BOYLL BEE THER TRY AN STOP US AN

HEL BEE THER DED

Should Dr. Langdon or Sheriff Congreve be informed?” Joseph Warren handed the note back to Revere and looked inquiringly toward Sam, John, and Abigail in the lamplight.

“I don’t know Congreve well enough to know whether he can be trusted to keep his hands out of the matter.” Paul Revere turned the paper over in his hands, letting the gleam of the parlor fire fall upon it. Examining the writing, the ink, the quality of the paper itself, as it was, Abigail knew, his habit to study everything that came his way. “Langdon would try to interfere,” he added.

“Langdon would try to interfere if he got news of a war between the Chinese and the Hottentots,” remarked Sam bitterly. “He cannot be kept from interfering . . .”

“And can you be trusted?” With a queer, cold sense of being someone other than herself, Abigail turned her glance to Sam. Darkness had fallen by the time the men had reassembled in the parlor; by the low gleam of the lamps on the table his face had a slightly sinister look. He made a gesture of surrender.

“John and I will go,” Abigail said, without even a glance at her husband. “Mr. Revere, would you be so good as to accompany us? For the rest of you, Sam, Dr. Warren . . . I forbid you to be part of this. Any of you. My son’s life is at stake, and I will not have interference in doing exactly as these men demand.”

Revere began gently, “Mrs. Adams—”

“No. We will do as the note asks and nothing else. I defy any one of you to explain to me why the filthy gold collected by some pirate, no matter what noble purpose you intend to put it to, is more important to me than my child’s life.”

She waited for a few moments. The unruly portion of her soul—the portion that her mother had always deplored, that wondered things like how exactly HAD Jesus managed to multiply five loaves and seven fishes (What kind of fishes?) to feed five thousand people: had each fish regenerated its head or tail when pulled in half?—that portion of her soul wondered if Sam actually would try to argue for her putting in an effort to find the treasure in the time remaining. And wondered if she would be able to keep herself from clawing his face if he did.

But Sam clearly sensed that if Abigail didn’t kill him for such an attempt, his cousin John would, and only said, “If you need any help, please—”

Abigail forced herself not to say, You’ve helped enough, Sam, and repeated what her mother had always told her: When there is nothing to say that will help a situation, say, Thank you. “Thank you,” she said. “But we are well.” In a slightly more natural tone she went on, “And I must thank you also, John says, for removing the man Diomede from harm’s way—”

“Had we waited,” said Sam, “we might have lost our chance completely. John—”

Sam rose from his chair, and John—who had stood unwontedly silent (for John) beside Abigail’s hearthside seat—stepped forward to shake his hand.

“’Tisn’t that we have no trust in you, Sam,” he said, “as I hope I’ve no need to tell you. But not all the men you command have so complete a command of themselves as one would wish.”

Sam looked on the point of saying something else—Abigail could read it in his eyes when they met John’s— and she knew that what he wanted to say was, We have no guarantee that the boy isn’t already dead . . .

And John’s answered, as clearly as speech, Don’t say it, Sam. It doesn’t matter.

There were times when Abigail felt that John was the best and wisest man on the face of the planet.

In the hallway Sam turned to her, and said quietly, “If I’ve harmed or offended you, Nab, in any of this, I am more sorry than I can say—particularly now. I had meant to tell you earlier . . . I’ve spent the afternoon at the State House. ’Tis why I haven’t those wretched books about me, that I said I’d return to you. I’ve been looking through every record and transaction recorded by the colony, hoping to circumvent our friends’ quest for the cipher by finding Old Beelzebub’s stone castle and the remains of his Indian village . . . For where a man’s heart is, there will his treasure be also.”

He cocked a wry eyebrow.

“And?” said John, and Sam shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said. “Barring the Cambridge town-lot and three lots in Boston, no Whitehead in this colony owned land before 1693—the year after Old Beelzebub died.”

“You mean,” said Abigail slowly, “that there is no treasure?”

“There may well have been.” Sam picked up his lantern from the bench in the hall. “Geoffrey Whitehead could have buried or concealed some kind of treasure in Massachusetts, either Spanish gold—if he really was a pirate—or