Another miner had hauled Jack back from the edge of the pit and dragged him out of the shaft. Not from any kindness, but because there were witnesses. Those same witnesses meant Jack's scream of “I love you, Clem,” as he went down the last time was spread from village to village. Even leaving Wheal Cador and returning home to his parents’ newly empty cottage didn't help. Everyone knew. Everyone said it was a good thing his mam had died when she did. Sometimes Jack agreed. Losing Clem and his mam in the space of few months had gutted him. He worked in Wheal Zennor, went to Chapel, and bore Polwhele's taunts. That was all life held.

  Jack awoke whimpering, as usual. Nehemiah was watching him.

  "I kept you awake,” mumbled Jack. “I'm sorry."

  "You talk in your sleep,” said Nehemiah gently. “You'd best tell me about you and Clem. I already know you love him."

  Jack grimaced. “I did. He drowned.” He stopped. “He's the life I lost to drowning. The life I said I was owed.” He twisted his mouth into a wry smile. “Poor Clem, he drowned underground. That's a Kernow death for you. The sea started breaking in to Wheal Cador. It had great shafts down through the cliffs and then tunnels out under the sea beds. Clem was trapped in the sea as it rose up a shaft. I was in the gallery leading off to the next set of ladders. I couldn't reach him, but I could see him struggling in the water scrabbling at the shaft sides to hold on as the water rose.” Jack shuddered. “Dear God, Nehemiah, he nearly made it. A few more feet of water and I could have grasped his hand and we'd've been away down the tunnel. He was telling me to escape in one breath and begging me not to leave him in the next. Until the wreckage injured him and loosened his grasp on the wall.” Jack groaned and doubled over as if his belly hurt. “I can't call to God. How could any God let a man die like that? I want to curse him, but I still dare not. My life here is hell already. Everyday I wait for Polwhele and his cronies to stop finding my existence a fine joke and to turn on me, but what else do I deserve? I'm an abomination and Clem is dead."

  "Hush, man. Here take a nip of your brandy. You're blathering like a jilted girl."

  Jack choked on his brandy in indignation. He'd poured out his soul and was mocked?

  "Jack: leave. Think, man. Leave."

  Jack frowned. “And go where? Do what? Going over to Wheal Cador with Clem for work was the furthest I've been. I was away from home when mam died and I've never forgiven meself. No good comes from stepping out of your place. People don't just up and leave when times get hard."

  "Of course they do! You don't have to be a turnip and grow where you're fecking planted, man! Walk across the moors with me and see what's on the other side. Go to London. A strong, willing worker can find summat to do."

  Jack sniggered. “Ay, I'd be pressed into the navy no doubt, like you were."

  "Better than waiting all godforsaken to die."

  "Easy for you to say. Your grandparents rejected the crown, and your mam says you can worship God as you choose, and you—"

  "Yes?” said Nehemiah suspiciously pleasantly. “I?"

  "Are a godsend,” said Jack, deflated by Nehemiah's expression. “You are a free man."

  "I am. And so are you. Just admit it. Walk away."

  "I can't. This is my home. I have a job. And I own nothing except this cottage. ‘Tis a wonder I own that. Mam and da and grandpa pooled all they had along with a small inheritance from mam's da. Hardly anyone in the village owns their house. Another reason they hate me."

  "But you live like a pauper,” said Nehemiah as kindly as he could. “I can see you husband your food. How can that be if you own the cottage and have a job?"

  "A pound a month,” said Jack. “Twenty bloody shillings if I make my quota. Not so bad for a single man, I suppose. But try to spend your money when all would rather spit on ye. I scrape by on the kindness of the maid at the inn. She's Clem's cousin. She comes by on Sunday afternoon and sells me what she can."

  "But then you have savings if you can't spend? You can travel away."

  Jack laughed. “Aye. I had savings. I came home three months ago to find the door staved in. No one saw or heard anything though there was no pretense at stealth. All my money gone. And none to lay a complaint against, and none willing to hear my case. All I have is last month's wages."

  "So there's no law for ye here either, Jack. No God, no law. Ye may as well be in America."

  Jack caught the teasing twinkle in Nehemiah's eye a fraction before he let a curse fly. He turned it to a weak chuckle in the nick of time.

  "It's home,” he repeated.

  "Where they have you convinced you are an abomination, and you wait like a sacrificial goat."

  Jack's answer was cut short by hammering on the door and his name being bellowed.

  "Fuck. Nehemiah, get behind the door. There's nowhere else out of sight. Stay silent."

  "If they've come for ye, I'll fight them."

  Jack paused, surprised, and planted a swift kiss on Nehemiah's mouth.

  "Tregarthen! Open up, you scoundrel. I know you're there."

  Jack sighed, relieved and re-worried at the same time. “Tis Pasco, the mine boss. He won't harm me. He sent me to Wheal Cador to get experience. I was in line to be his assistant when I came back, until the rumors came along with me, of course. He's disappointed in me, but he'd not hurt me."

  "Open the fucking door!” Pasco was hammering constantly now.

  Nehemiah pressed himself against the wall holding the skillet ready despite Jack's reassurances. Jack opened the door halfway.

  "Pasco, I was overset with the brandy."

  "Shut up. I told ye: any not back would be fired."

  "Aye, but the whole shift is still abed."

  "Aye! And who was to tell them my warning? You!"

  "But you can't fire us all."

  "No, but I can fire the bugger who was in charge of telling them as an example. Don't show your face at the works again."

  "But—"

  "You're cast off, Tregarthen. And I doubt any will shed a tear for it."

  Jack let himself have the small satisfaction of slamming the door on Pasco. He breathed hard, leaning his head against the door. Nehemiah stayed still and quiet until they were sure Pasco had gone.

  "Fuck. I'm the perfect answer for Pasco. No one will care or protest and he can tell the owners that he's punished the ringleader. Shit! I've lost everything."

  Nehemiah put down the skillet and folded Jack in his arms. “No, Jack, you've gained everything. You're free of the last thing keeping you here. Show me the way to the nearest safe town and then look at your options. Get away from this poisonous place. It's even choking the life from your lungs. I heard them rattle as you slept."

  Jack blustered some more, but Nehemiah smothered his protests with kisses and enticed him back to the pallet for more explorations.

  They played and napped the afternoon away, and made plans through the evening both for Nehemiah's escape and Jack's living. He dolefully reckoned he could stay here and scrape by without going to sea. He could gather seaweed and cart it inland to the farmers and maybe buy broken pilchards cheap from the few seiners who remembered his grandpa fondly. The farmers valued the fish as fertilizer along with the oreweed. And he could restart his mam's vegetable plot. Nehemiah said that sounded like a grim life and got no answer.

  Nehemiah's escape route from the village made more cheerful discussion. They'd walk away from the village in the dark. Jack knew the nearby lanes well from his work route. Then, out of sight of the mine and village, they'd wait for dawn before crossing the moor. Nehemiah, along with all his first ship's crew, had the locations of the American consuls in England by heart: Liverpool, London, Falmouth. Jack was pretty sure it was only twenty or so miles to Falmouth.

  "But that's by the roads. It'll be longer over the moors. I don't want to risk a chance encounter on the roads, though I doubt any will pursue me. We'd best not reckon on making it in one day. Not with your ribs and cut feet. We'll head for Gweek, and tonight we can stay with my cousin. Mam's cousin, really. Her husband is a tailor and they do well enough. They'll give us one night's shelter in mam's honor. Then we can walk from Gweek to Falmouth the next day. ‘Tis a bit further total, but the best route I think."

  "And will you come back here?"

  Jack shook his head. “No, you and Pasco have convinced me. I'll seek my fortune."

  "Good man. After all, how could it be worse?"

  Jack grimaced and then laughed when Nehemiah called him a stick-in-the-mud.

  Nehemiah cooked up the remaining eggs with more bacon while Jack bundled up his few possessions. He folded the deed to the cottage inside his mam's china bowl and wrapped that inside his Sunday shirt. Nehemiah had reclaimed his own shirt. He looked around the one room. There was little enough else to take. He pulled down a bolt of silk from the overhead beams where it had gone unnoticed during the robbery and added it to his fardel. He wrapped it all in Nehemiah's inside out navy coat. His mam had salvaged the rose silk from a wreck and he knew cousin Cassiopeia would mellow at that gift. Her husband would accept the rest of the bacon, tea, and the one unopened brandy bottle that made up the remainder of his wrecker's wealth. He cut off a good hunk more of the bacon first for Nehemiah to cook up for them to eat cold as they walked tomorrow. They could sip from the brandy they'd opened last night.

  Neither of them slept much. They'd napped through the day, and both were worried about missing the best time to leave. Jack waited until the last hair-of-the-dog drinker had left the inn, and then an hour more. At two a.m. he stood on his threshold a last time and, feeling mawkish, said a silent farewell to his tas, tasgwyn, mam, ha cara. His father, grandfather, mother, and love.

  Nehemiah waited respectfully and then accepted Jack's hand on his wrist as they set off in the darkness. The Cornish lanes were high hedged with stone banks. Once you'd set off, you were channeled along well, but the way was extra dark with the looming branches and farmers’ walls.

  Nehemiah whispered once to Jack that he felt afraid, but Jack hushed him explaining, kindly enough, that he was concentrating on finding a particular stile into the right field that would then pass them through to the moor.

  "Once there, we can rest and wait for dawn, sure that no miner on his way to the works will see us."

  By the time they clambered over the stile, Nehemiah's wrist was cold and slick under Jack's grasp as if he held a drowned man. Jack shook the dread off, and they navigated the perimeter of the field. Being out in the open the moonlight helped a little more, but they were still hunting blindly for the stile out to the moor. The moonlight made the dark shapes more confusing, not less.

  Once out on the moor, Nehemiah tugged at Jack's arm. “Jack, let's find somewhere to stop. Please."

  Jack caught the note of panic and used his superior night vision to lead Nehemiah to a safe spot.

  "Did I pace us too hard for your rib? I'm sorry. I wanted us clear of the road and then out of tyak Trist mes."

  "Speak English!” blurted Nehemiah in frustration. “You call me a foreigner, but you don't even speak your own tongue.” They sat in silence until Nehemiah mumbled an apology. “I'm so lost, Jack. I'm in a strange land. I could be arrested if any discover me before I get to the consul. I'm used to being in charge of my own life. Nothing's been right for months. And there was something following us in that field I swear. Something big."

  Jack smothered a laugh. “It's no matter between us, Nehemiah. A few sharp words come with being ow gour."

  "And what does that mean?"

  "Nothing. A slip of the tongue. You're right, there was something in the field. Tyak Trist mes means farmer Trist's field. That's all. I wanted us out because even dairy cows can bang ye up good against a hedge if you disturb a herd of them as they sleep."

  Nehemiah let his own low chuckle loose. “And I thought it was some Cornish devil tracking us. And don't think I didn't notice you evading my question. Ow gour."

  Jack made a funny choked noise in the dark and forestalled more questioning by offering Nehemiah some brandy.

  They sipped as the dawn came up over the moor and ocean.

  Jack was silent and then said, “Nehemiah, my home is beautiful. It'll break me to leave here."

  Jack and Nehemiah looked at a cormorant gliding through the golden light over the gorse and heather. It flew out over the cliff, and paused between the sea and the sky, and then plummeted into the waves for a fish.

  Nehemiah's reply sounded weak in the constant roar of the surf and cry of the gulls. “There are other parts of the coast. Even twenty miles away may be enough for a new life if your neighbors travel as little as you say."

  Jack groaned. “What's the point? What will that new life be?” He gave Nehemiah a piercing look. “I'll be alone."

  Nehemiah took the jump. “Jack, your choice is laid out for you: your country and loneliness, or a new land and me."

  Jack sighed, and Nehemiah grabbed his arm again. “Will you stop being such a miserable bastard, Jack? Are ye determined to be unhappy and stay where your life is in danger and there's no hope for happiness? I promise ye: America has land to love as well."

  "I'll think on it,” said Jack sheepishly. “We should start walking. We can follow the coast a little, but then we need to head northeast. We can pick up a track closer to Gweek. Just stay quiet if we meet anyone, and your strange accent will not betray ye."

  Nehemiah took the jibe as a tease and let the mood lighten as they walked. And in truth, it was hard not to feel his spirits lift as they walked in the early morning light, watching the coneys leap away across the heather and the lizards emerge to bask on flat rocks. Jack named plants as they passed. As an antidote to the mine and the morning in Chapel, he'd spend his Sunday afternoons away from the village, exploring the moors.

  "Even your flowers sound funny,” Nehemiah mused. “Campion and vetch!"

  "Careful I don't tumble ye among the gorse, you young sea pink. These moors are called the wrestling fields from all the midsummer couples tussling and courting."

  Jack picked a sea pink as he spoke and threaded it into Nehemiah's button hole. Then he blushed at what he'd done. Nehemiah blithely marched on, pointing at a chalk hill blue butterfly, and then a kestrel. He turned and walked backwards to say something to Jack and then, unaccustomed to the fit of Jack's Sunday shoes, stumbled on the rough ground.

  He lay sprawled while Jack laughed.

  "Jack."

  Jack wiped his eyes, and came over to help Nehemiah up. He approached warily in case he would be pulled down.

  "Jack!” Nehemiah's voice was strained. “Jack, I'm bit! I startled a viper as I fell!” Nehemiah held out his hand. Sure enough, two puncture marks were already swelling. “Dear God, Jack, I don't want to die having just met ye."

  "Hush, baban. You'll not die. You may sicken, but a viper cannot kill a man."

  "They can!” cried Nehemiah frantically. “Pit vipers and copperheads. They're lethal!

  "Maybe your American snakes kill men. I've heard wild tales about serpents, but an English adder won't. I swear it. It's the only snake we have with any venom. I promise."

  Nehemiah was panting and his eyes darting frantically. “Jack, I've seen a man die from a snake bite. Help me!"

  Jack saw reasoning was no good so he got out his knife, slashed an X over each puncture wound, and set his mouth to the cuts and sucked hard. He spat, then rinse his mouth and the wounds with brandy. Nehemiah hollered, but calmed when Jack gave him the bottle to drink from.

  "We should walk slow and careful so the poison doesn't get jostled out of your hand,” said Jack thoughtfully. “If it gets into your head, then there are fevers."

  Nehemiah frowned. “Is that how it happens? The poison travels?"

  "Aye,” said Jack firmly. “We need to keep it in your hand."

  They trudged silently for some miles. Jack knew Nehemiah's rib, hand, and his cut bruised feet must hurt like that buggering devil he'd made Nehemiah laugh about last night. He could see Nehemiah biting his lip to keep from whimpering. Jack tried to cheer him by singing off key and off color shanties, and it seemed to help with the one foot in front of the other progress.

  By the time they saw Gweek over the hill, Jack was half carrying Nehemiah. As they got closer, they had a stroke of fortune and rode in on the back of a cart which let them off just across from the tailor's shop. Jack had been worried that stumbling into town would attract attention. He helped Nehemiah around to the back so they could enter through Cousin Cassiopeia's kitchen and not through the shop.

  She wasn't thrilled to see him, but, as he hoped, the bolt of silk eased their way and garnered a promise of a bed for the night. Nehemiah smiled woozily when she snapped they'd have to share a bed.

  "I'm not so rich that I have guest rooms for all who stroll by!"

  Cassiopeia looked again at the bolt of rose colored silk, and offered them a mug of ale and a plate of stew each. She was past the age for pink silk, thought Jack, but he'd never say it. Mam always said her cousin had been frustrated for years by seeing the fine materials in her husband's shop but by never being quite affluent enough to afford the luxurious merchandise for her own use.

  Her husband was a dour man, but he made no objection to her cousin breaking his journey with them since he'd arrived with tea, brandy, and a good half a flitch of bacon. Jack and Nehemiah had no cause to complain of their thrifty hospitality, and the shared bed was better than the common beds at the inn or Jack's own pallet.

  Cassiopeia even brought Nehemiah a bowl of hot water to soak his hand in and an infusion of willow wood tea to stave off the fever and pain.

  "She just doesn't want me getting sick and staying,” whispered Nehemiah dizzily.

  Jack grunted and felt his forehead. “Bed, Nehemiah. I know we've just supped, but you're weakened and we can save Cassiopeia's precious candle if we sleep now."

  Nehemiah grinned sloppily, and Jack realized he was a little delirious between the brandy, ale, willow wood tea, venom, and walk in the sun.

 

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