Isabelle reached for her merino cloak. “Let’s go talk to him together.”
Chapter 17
Boston
February 1854
It seemed to Victor as if everyone in Boston were waiting for a ship to California. The line for the passage office snaked down the wharf and curled into an alleyway that stank of rotting fish and cheap liquor. Crates draped with mooring ropes and fishing nets were stacked along the wooden pier, and the snow had been replaced by broken lobster and crab shells that littered the ground.
He’d been waiting more than a week for the ticket office to open. The proprietor at his hotel said to arrive early to secure passage, so he had, finding his way to the office while the oil lanterns were still burning. The proprietor never said anything about the hundreds—perhaps thousands—of people wanting passage on the same ship.
Seven hours he’d stood in line now, clutching the leather portfolio with his papers and half of the coins he’d retrieved before he came north. Now that he knew where Alden was taking Isaac, it was such a waste to be stuck here. Waiting.
He hated to wait.
A fishing trawler crept toward the crowded wharf, searching for an available berth among the ships and boats loading and unloading.
A clipper calledPharos, he’d discovered, had indeed set off for San Francisco on December 30, traveling around Cape Horn. Alden and Isaac may be ahead of him, but the man at his hotel said he knew of a much faster way to get to California. And he knew of a ship sailing to Panama tomorrow.
Even though he was more than a month behind thePharos, taking the journey across Panama would still get him to California before Alden.
The line shifted ahead, and then he had to wait again.
Alden may have outsmarted him for the moment, but Victor would find him in Sacramento. Then he would retrieve Isaac, and they would sail immediately back to the East Coast.
When he returned home, he would be the hero of the Payne family and Alden the fool.
Perhaps, with the absence of Alden, John would reward Victor with the plantation. He’d rule over Scott’s Grove soon, his only son at his side.
Chapter 18
Pacific Ocean, Near Cape Horn
February 1854
Land had been spotted on the starboard side of the clipper, and it was a good thing. After two months traveling south, thePharos’s crew was running short on supplies. They’d planned to stop in Rio de Janeiro to restock, but a storm kept them from making port.
The last remaining food supplies consisted of beans, salt jerk, a keg of beer, two pigs for slaughter, and three barrels of fresh water. It was not enough to last more than a day or two for the 117 passengers on board. If they didn’t get supplies soon, Captain Baxter Crandall was going to have a mutiny on his hands.
Lowell’s brother hadn’t made any promises for Alden and Isaac’s passage agreement beyond feeding them and providing a berth to sleep below deck. And requiring that they work from sunup until long after it went down.
Alden had worked harder in these past two months than he’d ever worked in his life. He and Isaac had washed mounds of dishes. Mopped the decks. Caulked the ship’s seams with oakum. They’d also tried rigging the masts, but the captain kept Alden and Isaac mainly in the kitchen now, saying they made lousy sailors. Only another two months or so left. Then they would be in California, free to work as they liked.
The stack of tin plates beside him rattled with the ship. He picked up a plate and washed it in a bucket of saltwater. No soap. Then he stacked it on the opposite side to air dry.
In the first few weeks of their journey, he’d scraped food off most of the dishes, tossing the bigger pieces to the pigs and throwing the crumbs overboard to the dolphins that had served as the ship’s companions as they sailed down the Atlantic. These days, there wasn’t a morsel left to feed the dolphins, pigs, or even the rats that kept him company in the galley. Every passenger cleared his or her plate and most of them asked for more. Unlike Alden and Isaac, the passengers had paid for the finest cuisine.
Captain Crandall said they’d be having pork chops tonight for dinner. After that, it would be salt jerk and beans until they were able to restock the hold with provisions.
ThePharoshad rounded the tip of South America a few days ago, the waves crashing up against their ship with such force that he’d thought they would surely capsize. Captain Crandall required that all the men, even those who’d paid for fancy staterooms, help the crew bail. The captain was master on a ship, judge and king, but he didn’t have to put any of his passengers in chains. For an hour, their ship had been trapped in a black squall as the men threw bucket after bucket of water back into the sea, skirting dangerously around the cluster of jagged rocks that made up Cape Horn. The sea tossed them around like a tobacco leaf in the wind until it finally dumped them back out to finish their journey.
Now it was directly north to San Francisco, stopping only for supplies in Valparaiso, Chile—hopefully before the beans and water ran out.
Persila, a pretty black woman, entered the galley. She was a few years older than Alden and dressed in a simple cotton wrapper with a handkerchief tucked back over her ears, hiding her hair. She grabbed a wooden bucket and filled it with murky water from the barrel.
“The captain wants me to scrub the aft deck again, but it seems like Mother Nature gave it a good enough scrubbing already.”
Alden nodded. Captain Crandall liked to keep them busy, as if a moment of rest might provoke a rebellion.
