The Better Angels of Our Nature by S. C. Gylanders Read Free Book Online

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, will you give me some more work to do?”
    The steward’s sad brown eyes focused on the boy’s freckled face. With his powerful body, black hair falling in a mane around what could be seen of his ruddy cheeks under the thick black beard, it was impossible to guess the Dutchman’s age.
    “Your company sergeant will be looking for you. He will think you have deserted.”
    The boy said nothing, just held the Dutchman’s steady gaze. Then the Dutchman nodded his gigantic head slowly, as if he understood something the boy had silently imparted to him. “You will need somewhere to sleep, the nights are cold. You will share my tent for now; Cornelius has habits bad for a young boy to see. I will take care of you.”
    “Thank you, sir,” the boy said in the steward’s own tongue.
    “You speak
Dutch
?” The steward’s eyes filled with tears. “How is that possible?”
    “Anything is possible, sir,” said the boy, “if you believe.”
             
    Alone in his tent, the tall, thin, slightly hunched figure removed his frock coat and turned in time to see a movement in the shadows. “Who’s there?”
    “Me, sir. Private Jesse Davis. I turned back your blanket, sir.”
    Sherman glanced at his cot. He had never seen it look so neat, so inviting. Irritably he said, “We are not at Willard’s and I dislike fawning sycophants.” The Ohioan suddenly narrowed his eyes. “I’ve seen you before,” he said slowly, reflectively.
    “The other evening, sir, when you—”
    “No, no, no! I mean before that. I know I’ve seen you before.”
    “Eight years ago. Early April, in the year 1853, sir, you were on voyage for what is now San Francisco, to take up your position as director of the banking establishment of Turner, Lucas.” Sherman drew his slender red brows into a quizzical frown. “You were shipwrecked,
twice,
” continued the boy. “The first ship ran aground north of San Francisco, then the schooner which rescued you capsized in the bay.”
    “How in damnation do you know
that
?” Sherman was staring at him. “I asked you a question, Private, now
answer
me.”
    “After the first shipwreck you had a companion, a boy—”
    “Yes, yes, about sixteen, your
brother
?”
    “No, sir, not my brother.”
    “Then?”
    The boy’s smile was sudden and rueful.
    “That’s impossible,” Sherman said, wiping the boy and the thought out of existence with one gesture of his arm. “He would have been in his twenties now, if he had lived, but he drowned—I was becoming entangled in the ship’s rigging—the boy jumped in and assisted me. I didn’t see what happened to him. I assumed he had lost his own life in trying to help me.” Sherman drew the back of his hand across his brow, which had grown beads of sweat. “I tried to find out who he was, I wanted to tell his family, perhaps he was the sole support of a widowed mother. I did not want my continued misfortune to be the cause of her poverty, but the ship’s passenger manifest listed no such person. I questioned the master, as many of his crew as I could, none remembered seeing him, either working his passage or as a passenger. I concluded that he had been a stowaway.” He stared harder at the boy. “Unless you are a ghost, and I warn you now, I do not believe in spectral visions, unearthly phantoms, or any such nonsense, you will get back to your company where you belong.”
    The boy followed him to the small folding table, upon which the flame of the candle flickered precariously in the slight draft and said earnestly with emotion, “I belong with you, sir. Please let me stay here. I’ll black your boots and fetch you hot coffee in the mornings when it’s so cold the breath freezes on your lips and I’ll clean your horse’s bridle until you can see your face in the brass. You could, sir, imagine me your plebe and use me as such. I would be your most obedient servant and there will come a time, sir, when you