Read Online The Story of Land and Sea: A Novel by Katy Simpson Smith - Free Book Online
Authors: Katy Simpson Smith
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you’re little use, and you’ll take the child with you if you must hold to her. But it’s a long road back to Beaufort, and there’s no stopping the smell of her.” Frith places a hand on John’s back as brief as a lighting fly.
“Condolences,” he says. He steps among the lines and begins giving orders for the day.
Blue Francis turns and whispers to John. “You want to get her safe home?”
John glances at him, his hand still rubbing the stern rail.
“My grandmother had to mind a body once, back when she and my aunt, just young enough to walk, were taken by Indians. They scalped Aunty in no time, they did, and said my grandmother was plenty welcome to stay and find herself a family and pass the corn, but there was my grandmother wailing for the loss. The Indians being plenty obliging gave her a pot to pickle her in. With the last of the British coins she had on her, she bought drink off the Indians and filled the pot high and kept the little miss, my aunty, for three years before her husband’s brother found where she was hiding and carried her and the pot off too, and they married, paying no mind at all to my grandfather, and lived happy and had my mother and all the rest.” Blue Francis turns back to the listing wheel. “Rum’s kept below.”
John sleeps on the floor below his daughter in the hammock, on the boards stained with her illness. The soaked blanket brought to cool her is still in a wet heap in the corner. In this new life in which nothing is left to him, he is hounded by God. This god is a storm that requires settling, and he cannot think of what would calm it other than relinquishing Tabitha, consecrating his daughter in God’s name. Peace has eluded him since he watched Helen’s body taken away by his father-in-law without his consent, and there is nothing for it now but to believe in his own insignificance, to cast his lot to the gale and let his body be washed over, purified. His sin was in clinging to his wife and daughter as his own. But they are gone, and that is done. He lets go of the sail, watches it fly into the storm’s wind.
In the evening when the men are at mess, John takes a bucket below decks to the storeroom, where he tilts the kegs until he finds the ones that slosh. He uncorks a barrel and empties the rum a bucket at a time, taking the excess above to throw overboard, until the barrel is half full. With his knife he carves the lid off and stares down into the liquid left. He walks quietly back to his cabin and peels Tabitha out of her hammock, hoisting her thin body over his shoulder and wrapping his arms around her legs, which are brushed with the soft fur of youth. Her feet are bare. They must have been cold at night.
Through a burst of laughter from the foredeck, he carries her down to the storeroom and props her against the open barrel, his hands under her arms keeping her from sliding. John shifts his gaze from his child to the keg. He lays her on the floorboards, folds her knees to her chest, and wraps her dead arms around them. He lifts and lowers her pinioned body into the rum—feet first, then squeezing the center of her tight, then the rest of her, watching the alcohol float up around her. Her hair is caught by the rising liquid and it fans out, gold on gold.
His daughter.
He nails the lid of the barrel shut and reseals the wood with oakum and tar. With chalk he draws an X upon the side and below it the year: 1793. There is no reason to mark time except to ask God to slow his ravages.
Above decks he takes his plate of meat and bread and accepts the stares of the seamen, who know he carried the fever onto their ship. John takes Blue Francis aside and tells him of the barrel the doctor must roll off the ship in Charleston, straight into the market to sell, and there to deliver into John’s hands.
“And when Captain asks for the money of it?”
“You’ve lost it. It’s stolen.”
“Well, it’s not my rum,” Blue Francis says. “I’ll tell him
“Condolences,” he says. He steps among the lines and begins giving orders for the day.
Blue Francis turns and whispers to John. “You want to get her safe home?”
John glances at him, his hand still rubbing the stern rail.
“My grandmother had to mind a body once, back when she and my aunt, just young enough to walk, were taken by Indians. They scalped Aunty in no time, they did, and said my grandmother was plenty welcome to stay and find herself a family and pass the corn, but there was my grandmother wailing for the loss. The Indians being plenty obliging gave her a pot to pickle her in. With the last of the British coins she had on her, she bought drink off the Indians and filled the pot high and kept the little miss, my aunty, for three years before her husband’s brother found where she was hiding and carried her and the pot off too, and they married, paying no mind at all to my grandfather, and lived happy and had my mother and all the rest.” Blue Francis turns back to the listing wheel. “Rum’s kept below.”
John sleeps on the floor below his daughter in the hammock, on the boards stained with her illness. The soaked blanket brought to cool her is still in a wet heap in the corner. In this new life in which nothing is left to him, he is hounded by God. This god is a storm that requires settling, and he cannot think of what would calm it other than relinquishing Tabitha, consecrating his daughter in God’s name. Peace has eluded him since he watched Helen’s body taken away by his father-in-law without his consent, and there is nothing for it now but to believe in his own insignificance, to cast his lot to the gale and let his body be washed over, purified. His sin was in clinging to his wife and daughter as his own. But they are gone, and that is done. He lets go of the sail, watches it fly into the storm’s wind.
In the evening when the men are at mess, John takes a bucket below decks to the storeroom, where he tilts the kegs until he finds the ones that slosh. He uncorks a barrel and empties the rum a bucket at a time, taking the excess above to throw overboard, until the barrel is half full. With his knife he carves the lid off and stares down into the liquid left. He walks quietly back to his cabin and peels Tabitha out of her hammock, hoisting her thin body over his shoulder and wrapping his arms around her legs, which are brushed with the soft fur of youth. Her feet are bare. They must have been cold at night.
Through a burst of laughter from the foredeck, he carries her down to the storeroom and props her against the open barrel, his hands under her arms keeping her from sliding. John shifts his gaze from his child to the keg. He lays her on the floorboards, folds her knees to her chest, and wraps her dead arms around them. He lifts and lowers her pinioned body into the rum—feet first, then squeezing the center of her tight, then the rest of her, watching the alcohol float up around her. Her hair is caught by the rising liquid and it fans out, gold on gold.
His daughter.
He nails the lid of the barrel shut and reseals the wood with oakum and tar. With chalk he draws an X upon the side and below it the year: 1793. There is no reason to mark time except to ask God to slow his ravages.
Above decks he takes his plate of meat and bread and accepts the stares of the seamen, who know he carried the fever onto their ship. John takes Blue Francis aside and tells him of the barrel the doctor must roll off the ship in Charleston, straight into the market to sell, and there to deliver into John’s hands.
“And when Captain asks for the money of it?”
“You’ve lost it. It’s stolen.”
“Well, it’s not my rum,” Blue Francis says. “I’ll tell him
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