He had heard too many tales about the treacheries of ocean travel for all of them to be as false as his hope that it would only take “all day” to cross: ships becalmed on windless plains of water with great birds circling, waiting for the passengers to die; ships swept forward by such determined winds that water slammed and crashed against the hulls until their timbers split and the ocean’s tongues had reached across the decks and snacked on all the voyagers; ships where captains, maddened by the noise and stench of life aboard, relinquished their command to rats the size of mules; ships where travelers who didn’t want to starve would have to dine on weeviled bread, share meat with maggots, and drink bilge wine. Then there were pirates, mutinies, and lightning storms to survive.
Even if he could persuade himself that paradise was at the far end of the sea, Franklin was no longer convinced that it was worth the journey. He looked more fondly on the land than he had done for months. Yes, land was something he could deal with. Even this brackish neighborhood. Remove the skin of sand and he’d find fertile earth. He was certain that he could coax a little corn from it, despite the salt and wind. He had the horses. He could make a plow. In time he’d have some chickens and a cow, a pair of goats. Milk, eggs, and meat to feed the family. He’d build a kitchen garden, protected from the wind by logs and fences, for pumpkins, turnips, sugar peas perhaps, some salad greens. And what they couldn’t eat, they’d sell or trade or butcher and smoke for winter. There was the little matter of the rustlers, but in this version of his life Franklin was like Jackson, victorious and strong. His captors came to take him and their horses back to their encampment. Franklin sent them packing with nothing but his fists, though not before he’d pulled Captain Chief from his saddle and stripped him of his clothes. Now Franklin stood among his fields and animals, his goatskin coat restored — his brother’s and his mother’s goatskin coat.
Something in this version of his future nagged at Franklin. Some words, some action. He went through it all again: the clearing of the land, his planting, the harvest, his confrontation with the riders. Now he had it. He’d been a fool not to think of it before! Butcher and smoke! That was the simple way — an all too obvious way, in fact; what had he been thinking of? — to provision some food both for the next few days and for their ocean journey if they had to make one. He almost laughed out loud. Margaret had promised that whatever happened, she would be back by nightfall; well, then, now Franklin could almost guarantee that she would come home to a proper welcome and a warm household, lit by flames from a grate and with fresh meat in the skillet. He could not start at once. He had to spend an age rocking Jackie on his shoulder, but just when his patience was almost at an end, she settled down, despite her hunger and her fear that Ma had disappeared for good.
Franklin went out to the horses and renewed their water and their hay. Margaret’s mare was a spare horse and not young. The fetlocks and the pasterns on her legs were worn. Her haunches were angular and unpromising. The bigger horse was younger, though. A three-or four-year-old gelding and almost plump around the girth. Its eyes and teeth were clear. And it seemed docile. It’d not prove difficult. Franklin led it to the lee end of the smokeshop and reined it to a high, protruding joist, so that its head was raised. It tried to drag away. It didn’t like the awkward and unnatural angle of its head, but tugging on the rein was even more uncomfortable, so it compensated by scuffing the ground with its hind legs.
Franklin left the horse to its devices for a while, not wanting to rush the animal and not wanting to rush himself either. He stood at the smokeshop door, looking up the coast in the direction in which the sailboat and Margaret had disappeared. He had to plan his work carefully. He felt immensely happy suddenly, certain that Margaret would return safely, certain that he would delight her with his welcome. This was something he was good at — tending a homestead, using tools, providing food for the table. It was the life that he’d been born to, and surely one that could not be bettered anywhere. The ocean did not seem truly promising to him, despite its grandeur and its relentless noise, which in many ways was more wearying for him than Jackie’s crying. He recognized it now for what it was, an obstacle and not a route to liberty. That was a shock, to realize that he did not truly want to leave America. His dream was not the future but the past. Some land, a cabin, and a family. A mother waiting on the stoop.
The horse had entirely settled now. It had turned sideways against the stone wall of the smokeshop by the time Franklin arrived with the fisherman’s toolbox, some rope, and a handful of spring-beauty roots. The horse took the roots from his palm almost before they were offered.
Franklin did not need to hobble the horse too tightly, just close enough to stop it kicking or moving away. The animal had been badly treated for most of its life and so had learned to be long-suffering. It did not struggle against the ropes, not even when its hind fetlocks were secured to the building so that it could not move away from the wall. It only nudged Franklin — successfully — for more roots.
Franklin removed the gutting knife from the toolbox and tested its sharpness on some reed grass. The knife was blunt and rusty, but it would have to do. He’d butchered animals before with blunter implements, though nothing quite as large and heavy as this poor creature. Jackson had always taken care of the family cattle. Franklin had been put in charge of goats and pigs and chickens. It was not a job he had relished, but he had enjoyed the meat that it produced and so had never made a fuss. He presumed there was some intimate procedure that was best for felling horses, but he had never been taught it. He would simply have to use the same method that he had employed for pigs, one determined cut to the jugular and then patience. At least it was easier to comfort and to quiet a horse. Pigs and goats were beyond comfort. They always recognized the smell of butchery. They always ran away from blades.
Franklin took off his shirt and, bare-chested, held the horse’s head in his arms and whispered to it, blowing in its ears, “There’s a boy. There’s a good, good boy. It’s not long now.” But he was hardly thinking of the horse. There was another animal that bothered him. Captain Chief would have a fit if he could see what was happening. One of his precious horses had been stolen and then slaughtered by a slave. Franklin could abandon any hope of mercy if he was ever caught and returned to the rustlers’ encampment. He could imagine Captain Chief swirling around him in Jackson’s overlong coat, ludicrous and dangerous. “You cooked our horse? You cut its throat and cooked our horse?” Franklin could not imagine what his punishment might be, though cooking seemed a possibility.
The horse’s skin was even tougher than he’d expected. The knife went in easily enough, but it was hard to drag the blade across the throat and find the busy vein. But luckily the horse threw back its head in shock and helped the progress of the knife. A stream of blood welled up and then a gush. Franklin stepped back at once, leaving the gutting knife protruding from the wound. His hands and forearms and the top of his chest were sticky with blood, but otherwise he had done his job quite cleanly. Now he only had to wait. And not for long, he hoped. The horse was suffering.
Franklin did not stay to watch the animal pumping its blood onto the wall of the smokeshop until, shocked and weakened, it fell against the stonework and slipped heavily to the ground. Instead he busied himself indoors, first making Jackie comfortable and then assembling whatever he could find to help with the cutting and the preparation of the meat. He had to leave no trace of any horse. Once he had stored the best meat, the carcass would need to be removed, no easy task.