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MAY 2008 |
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Blood Grip
“Hurra for the sea and its waves!/ Ye billows and surges, all hail!/ My brothers henceforth—for ye scorn to be Slaves/ As ye toss up your crests to the gale;/ Farewell to the land of the bloodhound and chain,/ My path is away o’er the fetterless main.”
Chapter 5 Forten’s hands, his days at sea scrawled in scars upon them, trembled when he picked up the paper. It rattled. Sweat beaded his nose. “Let’s talk when you’re rested,” said Robert Purvis, his son-in-law. Diener’s convulsed face loomed in Forten’s mind again. “I want to discuss my will now.” He set the paper back on his desk, hands still shaking. Not even his study’s soft light and musty old books comforted him. “You’re safe here.” “I’ve never been safe, you either.” Forten didn’t add, “despite your white color.” He liked Purvis too much to drag that in, loved him like a son, more than he managed to love his sons. Besides, Purvis never used his color to shield himself. They held silence until Forten said, “I know the constables have Diener, but it’s as if he’s waiting behind that door.” They both looked toward it. To Forten it seemed that the door’s oak grain held an unreadable warning. He tore his gaze away and slid the will toward Purvis. Purvis took it to the window, raised it to the light. “Do James and Robert have copies?” he said, when he finished reading. Forten shook his head. He watched color creep up Purvis’s face now that he knew his brothers-in-law would have no role in settling their father’s estate. “If you handle this, things will go harder between you and Robert and James when I die,” Forten said. “A final insult from me, is how they’d take it.” He sat forward. “I want to leave my affairs in the best hands, but you’d have to bear their anger.” Purvis’ lips tightened. “Sorry.” Forten’s hands were quiet at last. Purvis hunched his shoulders, looked down. After a long moment he folded and pocketed the will. “I want you alive,” he said, when he looked at Forten again. “Why’d Diener go after you today when you fired him a year ago?” “The way he drinks he might do anything.” Forten rubbed his head where Diener had aimed the gun. “You’re right, though. It warrants looking into. I know you don’t like Crazy Nancy, but she’s the one to help us find out more about this business.” “Maybe.” Purvis looked away, out the window, quiet, unmoving. The will must be weighing him down, the knowledge that his being an executor would widen the family rift. If only things could be otherwise. “They’ll be missing us in the parlor,” Forten said. He made to rise, then saw a movement outside the window. Just a robin, but his heart lurched. * Forten watched Jake and Jerusalem devour peach cobbler. They hadn't see him come to the doorway, their world shrunken to saucer size. Coarse as currycombs, but he saw beyond that. He had forty sailmakers working for him, twenty white, twenty colored. He knew men. Jerusalem had tried to pick his pocket, bold as a boil. Jake had grabbed death by the throat. That took something most folks didn't have. He envied them their appetites. If he didn’t take care what he ate these days, the gout laid him low. His mind went back to the time after his father died. He, his mother and sister had little more than grief to feed on. Jake glanced up and grunted. Jerusalem looked up then. “Much obliged,” he said to Forten. Martha slammed down a pot lid. “And to you too, ma'am, yes indeed.” He began shoveling in the cobbler. “Take your time,” Forten said. * “You two been in the city long?” Forten said when they entered his study. “No, sir.” “You come from Maryland? Virginia?” “Thereabouts.” “Just the two of you?” “No, sir.” “I’d like to help you. Don’t tie my hands.” Forten sat down at his desk. Jerusalem’s eyes went hard and flat. Jake seemed to appraise Forten’s gestures like pebbles in his palm. He grunted then pointed to the two walls of books. Forten nodded. Jake looked along a shelf, then jerked his head toward a book. Forten nodded again. Jake picked up Benjamin Banneker's Almanac for Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia and ran his hand over the yellowing cover. It showed Banneker's dark face and bulging eyes. Jerusalem looked at the large, gilt-edged bible on Forten's desk. Jake studied a framed sampler with uneven letters. He grunted, then signed to Jerusalem. “Who done that, sir?” “My daughter Charlotte when she was six. Died a few months later.” Forten’s voice was soft. “Sorry, sir.” Jerusalem signed Forten’s answer to Jake. Jake studied the sampler a moment more, then went to the large globe in a maple frame near Forten’s desk. Jake turned it, brows drawn together. Forten stopped the globe. He’d given them time enough. “Please.” He motioned toward two cane-bottom chairs. They shot one another cautious looks, then sat down. “Now,” said Forten. “Tell me.”
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