Slowly, Gregory learned how to be house boy for the mainhouse. He stood patiently over the garden sundial until it marked 5 P.M., and then he clamored up the stairways with his gurgling watering can in tow. He filled the balance basin of the clepsydra carefully until its intricately sculpted pointer indicated the correct time, and immediately the same water began its steady ploit, ploit, ploit into the catch bowl. The water clock then began its twelve-hour sweep across the hour board, charting the passage of time for all evening observers.
He learned from Big Tom's musclers how to unload the deliveries from the mule wagon, where to stash the potatoes, the salted beef, the cases of ale and whiskey. He learned how—and how often—to refuel the generators that kept the mainhouse aglow at night.
He learned that Big Tom was insanely protective of his walled garden, seemed to save even the manure-spreading for himself. It was the merchant's private botanical kingdom. Above all, Gregory was to stay away from the little shed built of flat stones in the corner.
Mintie, one of Big Tom's plumper wives, taught Gregory how to butcher chickens. With great pride he plucked them and whacked them apart, then rubbed into their meat a paste of garlic, black pepper, lemon juice and cilantro. Some evenings Gregory would sizzle the chicken on the wide brick grill built into the back patio. He would feed the entire household—Big Tom, wives, musclers, sometimes a guest. For the rest of the night, Gregory would wear the scent of garlic and smoke like a badge of honor.
He found Big Tom a frightful man, wide and gruff, pressing him for stories of Merqua's mainland. Gregory would not talk to him any more than necessary, and he found it convenient to pretend to be more dim-witted than he was.
Moori was different, scented and elegant. She would stroke his hair and ask about the mountain he used to live under. The more Gregory tried to tell her, the more confusing the story seemed to get: that he grew up under a mountain with windmills on top of it; that his people were the "Ungovernment," but he had come to the island representing the Government; that the Monitor was dead, his head bitten off by a large fish in the canyon where the despot had been hiding.
Moori would shake her beautiful head and walk away. Eventually, Gregory learned not to tell her the truth either. He felt a warm welling in his chest when she showed an interest in him, and he grew distressed when she threw up her hands in disgust and stopped asking questions.
It was an involving life for Gregory, if not a challenging one. He lived on Thomas Island with an ever-present sense of loss, however, an anxiety that pressed close to this throat in the darkness of his room when he tried to sleep, making his breathing come hard. He had lost Tym, the dark woman who had dragged him out of the water. And before that, he had lost his home, the Blue Ridge. He wondered if he could have them both sometime—Tym and the Blue Ridge together—but that seemed impossible and made him fret even more.
Gregory turned the pieces of marinated chicken carefully with long wooden tongs, inviting an angry crackle in the coals as the fat ran off. He knew that next morning it would be time to force back the bin cover on the side of the brick barbecue and sweep out the ashes. They were building up too much.
Big Tom and a guest arrived on the patio chattering and rattling bourbon glasses. The tall one with the beard, the visitor, gave Gregory a chill. The recognition was mutual. The man was motioning toward Gregory with the whiskey glass, mumbling something to Big Tom. Big Tom squinted and laughed, and the pair walked jovially in Gregory's direction.
"Gregory," Big Tom began, "this is Bark, one of my top skimmermen. He thinks you've met before."
"Hi, Bark," Gregory said, not looking up. He proceeded to turn all of the grilling chicken that he had just turned.
The tall man with the silver-speckled black beard closed one eye as he studied the new house boy. He pulled at his drink. "Ya, I'm sure now. Gregory, you were aboard the Lucia when she went down. You shoulda drownt, so how is it that you washed up on Big Tom's porch some weeks back?"
Gregory shrugged and kept himself busy with the grill.
"You say he was leg-ironed in the hold when the Lucia went down?" Big Tom asked.
Bark snorted. "And barely conscious." He pointed to the scar on Gregory's forehead. "From that, when it were a fresh wound from 'is capture."
Big Tom took Bark by the arm and steered him out of Gregory's listening. "On the Lucia, you originally picked this one up off an island—he was running with other red-leggers?"
"Ahh, no. Seems to me not. He had to be the one we blew out of the water just before the Lucia went down. We had sighted a skimmer 'round the southwest Out Islands, thought 'er a pirate or a powder runner, one without yer banners. So when she tried to make away, we turned the cannons to her.
"Second shot—can ya believe it?—must have hit a fuel tank. She blew her hull and dropped right quick. This house boy of yours bobbed up in a float vest, his head knocked open."
They were inside now, and Big Tom rounded the bar and sloshed more bourbon into each glass. He slid back the top of a cabinet against the floor, extracted two handfuls of ice cubes, and dropped them into the glasses, too. He bounced his eyebrows at Bark to point up the extravagance.
"You said fuel tank," Big Tom stated. "Fuel, you mean, as if she carried an engine?"
"Oh, ya, the blast was that big. Warn't no kerosene tin for the lanterns, I'd tell. Spread decking for a quarter mile."
Big Tom pressed at his nostrils between thumb and forefinger. "If his skimmer was powered, then either it was licensed by the Government—or was Government—or. . .."
"Or was an Out Island pirate," Bark finished. "Or was a powder runner."
Big Tom smiled and stroked his nose again. "Wasn't a powder runner I know. A couple have lit in and out since you sank that one."
Bark's voice was starting to rise, sounding defensive. "Well, if she was Government, I had no way to know—don't go reporting that to Captain Bull to pass along, now. An' I soon had sorrier things to worry about, anyhap."
Big Tom returned to the French doors to watch Gregory poking at the grill.
"He's scared of me," Big Tom said, taking a sip. "But he tells Moori tales about the Government—about fighting against the Government, about working for the Government. Doesn't always make sense. Said once he'd come looking for a ship builder. Also said once the Monitor was dead."
Bark was growing easy again and the alcohol was beginning to warm his limbs. "Sounds like a case for the new doctor when he gets here."
"Ya. Any day now. After he puts the lift back into Little Tom's willie, he can look at Gregory."
Big Tom glanced down at his drink and up again to stare at the dim-witted man turning chicken pieces. In that fraction of a second, impossibly, Gregory had disappeared.