His mind wandered back to that boarding house. He had walked up Cherry Street, noisy with drunken, rowdy sailors spilling out into the snow-covered cobblestone street. It was freezing cold and the snow was crunching underneath his boots. He had found number 39 easily enough, a wooden two-storied building, with a nondescript blue door. The boarding house lady, a harried middle-aged woman with her hair tied up in the back, had poked her head out the door. At first, she had threatened to have her husband pummel him if he didn’t leave, but then she recognized him when he pulled his woolen cap off and invited him inside.
“Take off your coat, sailor, and come over here by the fire. I am right surprised you came back. Your Mr. Taylor disappeared soon after you left.”
Morgan had raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“What happened? Where did he go?”
“Can’t say,” the woman replied as she looked at him expectantly.
“As soon as he was strong enough to walk, he just left. Look’d to me like he were a man who didn’t care much for himself,” she said simply as she offered him a piece of pound cake and then poured him a cup of tea.
“He a relative of yours?” she had asked inquiringly.
“No, ma’am,” Morgan had responded matter-of-factly. “Just a fellow mariner, that’s all.”
Then he remembered how her face had become animated, her eyes widening. “I ask ye ’cause I’m curious. A big English fellow came looking for him just after he disappeared,” she had said. “Scary-looking fellow with tattoos and puffy eyes. He said Taylor was his brother, but I knew that weren’t the case.”
Morgan asked her for his name.
“He gave no name,” she had replied, “and no address neither, but he was an Englishman.”
She had paused and looked at him again inquisitively. “You sound like you might know him? Friend of yours, sailor?”
Morgan shook his head, thanked the woman, and left, disheartened and preoccupied by what he had just heard. It sounded to him like an English bloodhound with no kind intentions was hot on Taylor’s trail. He wondered if this Englishman could be connected to Abraham.
Those thoughts were passing through his mind when the first mate yelled out, “All hands aloft.” As Morgan climbed the ratlines of the main mast, he looked back toward the East River and could just barely make out the tips of the masts of the fast new Swallowtail packet, the York and the Canada of the Black Ball Line still loading freight and passengers. Morgan was busy unfastening and unfurling the topgallants from the yards when he heard the order for more sails. He looked down from the yard on which he was perched and noticed that the new cabin boy, Dalrymple, was already down on his knees, holystoning the decks. The second mate, Mr. Brown, was yelling in his face.
“Look at me boy when I talk to you,” the mate shouted derisively, his face scowling underneath his black leather hat. “Stop skylarking and clean the decks, boy, so they’re as smooth as your little pup’s face.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mr. Brown caught Morgan’s glance and saw him staring down at him from the yard. Morgan quickly looked away, but not before he noticed the mate’s lips curl with an expression of malice. At first he thought that Brown was looking at him, but then he noticed that his churlish face was turned in his friend’s direction. Hiram was on the royals yard just above him.
That night, the winds began to pick up sharply. Morgan was on watch aloft, squatting in the crosstrees and holding on to one of the stays for support. He had grown to like sitting high above the deck at night. The tangy smell of the sea and the freshening breeze filled his lungs and invigorated him. He looked up into the blackness around him and marveled at the immensity of the star-filled skies. The tip of the mast swayed from side to side as the ship’s bow plunged into the waves. The melancholy whistle of the wind caused his mind to wander. He reached his hand out into the blackness as he pretended to pluck one of the brighter stars out of the sky. It reminded him of picking apples. He thought of home at that moment and felt a sudden sadness. Just then, a sharp gust of wind caused the ship to heel over sharply. He grabbed onto the mast to steady himself. His eyes searched for Hiram, but he was nowhere to be found. Lately his friend had been slipping away, mysteriously disappearing. The mates were always looking for him, particularly Mr. Brown.
As his glance fell to the deck, he noticed the shadowy figure of the second mate climbing over the futtock shrouds heading up the mast toward him, and he braced himself for the worst. Moments later, Brown had climbed up the ratlines and thrust his face inches from Morgan’s nose, his foul-smelling breath almost making him gag.