The Sailor, The Mohawk, & The Giant Malamute

Born William Alexander Seaworthy in 1676 to a poor millwright in a run-down neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, William had a remarkable life from the very start. As a baby he never got sick and there was talk even back then that there was something about him that just wasn’t right. His parents were proud of their only son and often would tell people of things he did that were special. But the people in town thought the things they heard were too strange to believe and stayed away from the family entirely. Eventually the family had to move away from the Boston area after being asked to leave by a committee sent to talk to them.

His father picked a small fishing village along the northern coast of Maine, thinking people there would leave them alone. Bill grew up in the village, but children stayed away from him because of stories their parents told them. Some of the things they said the children had seen with their own eyes. There was the day Bill ran into a jagged piece of metal sticking out of an old sea wall down close to the water line. There was no blood. Bill looked down at his arm and there was a gash running from his wrist to his elbow, but not a drop of blood. The kids next to him could see the white bones and the red tissue but not a drop of blood. They all ran home to tell their families about Bill’s accident.

There were other stories as well. One winter Bill was playing with Jim and Sarah from next door down by the pond. Their parents let them play with Bill because it would be awkward to forbid it, being right next door to the Seaworthy family. That day Bill was walking out on the ice, and telling the others it was thick enough to walk on. The next thing they saw was Bill falling through and disappearing under the gray-white sheet of ice. Sarah ran for help while Jim tried to break off a large tree branch to hold out to Bill. Jim could see Bill’s face through the ice, a slight smile is all he could make out. Both fathers showed up about the same time with rope and a long sled. Bill’s father got on the sled and Jim and his Dad held on to the rope they had tied to one end of the sled. Once they had pulled the two of them back to shore, no one was particularly surprised that Bill wasn’t shivering. Bill walked back to the house, changed clothes and returned to playing like nothing had happened. In fact Bill never seemed to mind the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean and could be seen playing in the surf year-round.

Bill never formed a close friendship while growing up in that remote village. Although his Mother loved him and took care that he had whatever he needed there was always a distance Bill maintained with her. He was slightly closer to his father, but the closeness ended at the point his father stopped showing him something he wanted to know. Teachers were amazed at his breadth of knowledge and ability to learn new things as fast as they could teach them. Repeating subject matter would cause Bill to stare off into the distance or worse, disrupt the class until a new topic was started. On the playground, if Bill fell he would get up and keep playing, never rubbing where the bump had formed. He would correct them if they misspoke. He couldn’t get enough information on certain subjects and became irritated with any teacher that couldn’t provide what he wanted. By twelve Bill was tired of school and tried to sign on a ship as a deck hand. He was big for his age and made the man signing sailors up uneasy. There was something about the young man that made him uncomfortable, but he signed him on since they were short handed as it was. Other members of the crew picked up on it immediately. There was an undeniable strangeness to the boy. An older boy on the first day at sea came over to Bill and shoved him into some netting. Bill didn’t fight back, just looked at him and didn’t say a word. The older kid took out his knife and swiped across Bill’s arms. Two cuts opened up but no blood showed up. Several sailors were watching and laughing at the new kid not defending himself. The laughing stopped as they all stared at the inch wide openings in Bill’s arms. The older kid screamed “You devil. I’ll make you bleed for sure.” Suddenly everyone there was staring at the knife handle sticking straight out from Bill’s stomach. Bill looked down, grabbed the handle, pulled the knife out and threw it back at the other boy. The knife sank deep into the aged, pitch covered mast where it pinned the boy’s jacket while grazing his chest. At that everyone to the man quickly scattered as Bill went back to securing some lines he had been working on. After that day, none of the crew, even the most aggressive sailors stayed clear of him for the rest of the entire voyage.

At each port of call Bill would go into town and show up again just before they weighed anchor. No one saw him in town and the crew spent much of the voyage making up things they had seen him do while in port. After the incident with the knife no story seemed impossible. In Lisbon he was said to have caused a man to blackout with just a dirty look because the man had interrupted a beer-drinking contest Bill was involved with. In Athens it took over 30 men to throw him out of a bar and two dozen policemen let him go because they didn’t think they could arrest him and haul him to jail. The police captain decided it wouldn’t look good if they tried and failed. He wasn’t about to lose his job over some disturbance in a local bar. Some one said they heard that when shot in the chest at point blank range, he merely stuck his index finger in the hole and popped the slug out onto the floor. There were also stories of him lifting a six-horse carriage off the ground while injured passengers were pulled from underneath.

By 1692, after four years at sea Bill Seaworthy returned to New England a man at sixteen years of age. In a dockside eatery he saw a vision of beauty and asked around about her. They told him her name was Elizabeth and she had come down from the North to seek her fortune. He introduced himself to Elizabeth Joyce at a market in Portland and courted her for quite some time before she agreed to marry him. She was a widow with two hansom sons and a beautiful three-year-old daughter. Unfortunately for the newly formed family the sea was all he knew. Working in town or fishing locally would have made him restless. So he kissed his loving family goodbye and set off again with one of the crews he knew from before.

“Billy Boy” was a legend. Elizabeth had heard of the stories about a boy no one could kill, injure, or for that matter hurt in any way. But she had no idea that her beloved Bill was that boy. In seaports all over the world, drunken sailors told stories of a boy that couldn’t die. If a sailor wanted to watch a man go ghostly white he would point behind the man and say “Isn’t that Billy Boy at the bar, weren’t you just saying you could wipe the bar room floor with him? As with any story after it’s told several times, the facts get lost in the shuffle as men try to amaze and shock those listening. Now, as the story goes, it took over 300 men to throw Billy Boy out of that saloon in Athens. In Lisbon the man died from the dirty look. The carriage became a collapsing second story of an orphanage where sixty small children scampered to safety while he held tons of sagging timbers. It was said he never walked completely upright after that, some of the ligaments in his back were torn beyond repair. It was the first time anyone had heard of him being injured. That didn’t mean that men were ready to try their luck at challenging him to win fame and glory. In fact a slightly stooped Billy Boy was even more unsettling when he came through a doorway. His arms were covered with scars from early wounds. Eventually no man anywhere in the world would brag that he could Billy Boy a thing or two, no matter how drunk he got.

Whenever Billy Boy was home, he divided his time between the family and looking for the right town to settle down in. He had only one requirement of the ideal location, that they had never heard of Billy Boy of Boston. So up and down the eastern seaboard he went looking for peace and quiet. He would go directly to the central part of town, walk in to any bar, and tell a Billy Boy story, hoping they would just look at him funny. He would roar at some of the stories, amazed at the imagination of men when they are drunk. But he noticed that even the braggarts avoided saying they could take him in a fight.

In 1698 on Bill’s 22nd birthday he rode into a small delta town in the Carolinas that housed the families of guards at the local colonial prison established years before. No one had heard of Billy Boy, or as he was called these days Boston Billy. So the Seaworthy family left Boston, the largest city in the colonies with 7000 residents and settled in for rest of their lives. Bill’s sons joined him in the family business, a bait and tackle shop that also repaired anything that was broke. Darkwood Dock, named after local trees with unusually dark wood, was so far from the beaten path, Bill and his family were the first outsiders the people had seen in four years. No one counted the new prisoners from England that arrived twice a year on a well-guarded prison ship.

Bill and Elizabeth were happy living in the quiet little town, and their sons married local girls and had large families. The seasons were mild. The summer sun was cooled by ocean breezes and giant white clouds. Bill always wore loose fitting long sleeved shirts to cover his past. His daughter, Rebecca or Becky was a curious girl and wanted to know everything about the world. He would take her to the ocean beaches and tell her Billy Boy stories. He would tell what he heard had actually happened, then tell her the first time he heard it told, then any following versions he had been told. She loved the stories and asked him if he had ever seen Billy Boy. He said no, but one day when he was repairing an axle on a buggy, she saw his arms bare with all the scars and bumps and knots. He quickly covered them up and grunted to get him some water. She never asked him about his arms and he never said a word either.

Bill didn’t like the name Rebecca that much so he started calling her Seabreeze since they spent so much time on the beach and there seemed to be ocean breezes all the time, day and night. She didn’t marry any of the local boys when she reached the marrying age of 13. She said it was a new century and she was going to do something with her life. The schoolteacher lived with the Seaworthy family so Seabreeze had all the books she wanted to read. She would read well into the night under the covers with a small candle at her feet. In the morning she would carefully peel all the wax off the sheets that had dripped over the edge of the holder the night before. Her mother had warned her about starting a fire with candles, but hadn’t actually forbid her from reading under the covers. Seabreeze looked up to one woman in particular, Aphra Behn, whose political poetry and theatrical plays catapulted her from an unknown origin to a pinnacle of success in London society. Bill would tell her that the idea that women are incapable of critical thinking was absurd, and for the idea that they were to remain silent and obedient, he used to laugh out loud.

The next ten years were the best of Bill’s life. Seabreeze’s teacher, Miss Brighton was French on her mother’s side and taught a strict Parisian French class, a luxury in a town so remote. Seabreeze was sure she was ready to visit Paris in the spring and meet some extremely hansom boy, fall in love, then return a wiser, more worldly woman. Miss Brighton said she could learn French in the newly established Detroit before going to Paris, but Bill put his foot down. He thought she was too young and would miss her too much to allow such a thing to happen. He took this stand in spite of his going to sea at 12 against his parent’s wishes.

Word reached Darkwood Dock of war being declared against Spain and France following the recent coronation of Queen Anne. Although there were raids by French troops along the entire East Coast, none came anywhere near Darkwood Dock. Though the dealt was known for rich bottom land, few plantations were closer than 50 miles for fear of escaped convicts. Bill’s views were strongly against slavery and told Seabreeze since she was little that black men were men too. So it was with great reluctance that he forbade her to invite a young black boy she was interested in to her sweet sixteen birthday party in 05. All the townspeople would be there and a law had just been passed that it was now illegal for whites and blacks to marry. It was one of the only times Seabreeze wouldn’t talk to Bill and he went into a depression that lasted for weeks.

It was that same summer that Bill had an accident while fixing a harvesting machine. The blades were sharp and his mind was on the fiasco at the birthday party when it happened. Before he could pull his hand back a blade had sliced off his thumb along the life line. Theodore, his oldest son was there and insisted that he take Bill to Bensonville to see the only doctor in a hundred miles of hard riding. Doc Singleton had studied medicine with a Doctor in Boston from Europe and the rumor was he had to run from some big gambling debts that he couldn’t pay off. Bill knew the Doc from when there complications with the birth of his third grandchild and thought him quite competent. Still, Bill had never gone to a doctor and if it wasn’t for an infection that set in he wouldn’t have gone. Bill had positioned the thumb carefully in its proper place then bound it so tightly his skin was white all the way to his small finger. The Doc had to cut away some dead skin around the wound and found that it did not bleed where he was cutting. He left the room immediately and brought back two large books. After several minutes, he put down his reading spectacles and told Bill he had a rare condition of the blood vessels. His blood vessels would close up and seal themselves instantly upon being severed and there was a good chance that his vital organs would do the same. Doc said it had been documented only five times in recorded history and asked Bill permission to make it six times. Bill said no and re-wrapped his thumb while walking out of Doc’s office. He had spent years seeking privacy and he wasn’t about to get it up because of some rare medical condition.

By 1714, the year George I ascended to the throne, the Queen Anne War was over and the Motherland had been the United Kingdom for several years. The Carolinas and been divided into North and South, so Bill and his family were now from North Carolina where importing new slaves was illegal and what plantations were still around were in hard times. The town of Darkwood Dock had grown some, mostly newborns from marriages of locals since strangers were seldom seen for years at a time. Miss brighton had married Jim Bob Thompson, the town’s blacksmith back in ‘09 and Seabreeze had taken over a school of 22 children grades 1-8 at 20 years of age. She was known as the old schoolmarm since women her age had large families of their own and were considered middle aged. Seabreeze always told Bill the local boys seemed like her brothers and she had no interest in them romantically. The books she read told of dashing young men who did great deeds and rode giant white stallions that carried them into battle. Seabreeze had added Greek and Latin to English and French classes in the one room schoolhouse on the bank of the delta.

It was that year when three things happened that made it impossible for Bill to stay in North Carolina. In late spring his beloved wife Elizabeth has come down with influenza and died. Seabreeze had been seeing a hansom, recently released prisoner that talked real smooth and slid out of town just as easily. She was with child when a traveling pots and pans salesman came to town with his wagon of every day goods and recognized Bill as Billy Boy of Boston. Bill denied it but several people standing there asked why the man was so sure. The vendor listed five things about Boston Bill that fit Bill like a glove; the scars on his chest and arms, the way he couldn’t stand perfectly upright, the ages of his wife and children, his unbelievable strength, and the steely look he would give a man that would paralyze the man where he stood. The men in town knew it was true. It explained how no one could beat him arm wrestling at picnics. It also explained the feeling they got if he looked at them a certain way, how their arms and legs went stiff and their heart seemed to stop beating. Bill gave the peddler one of those looks as he helped the old man back on his wagon and slapped the hindquarters of his horse. As the wagon went off down the road the townspeople began to pull back from Bill and Theodore as they finished loading their buckboard.

The following week, Bill signed ownership of the business over to Theodore and Douglas who by this time were expert at fixing anything that turned, rotated, or had gears. Bill’s right thumb had knitted back in place but most of the nerve endings never healed and he wasn’t able to switch to his left hand for much of the work he needed to do. Bill was still depressed and lonely from Elizabeth’s passing and almost welcomed the chance to get away from all the things that reminded him of her. He would miss his sons and their wives who he had known since they were little girls. The eight grandchildren were going to miss him the most. Much of their weekends and every day after school they would run to Grandpa to hear stories of the sea and ports of call all over the world. He spent two to four hours with each one before leaving going over their time together and what he wanted them to do in the up coming months.

The leaves were beginning to fall, and there was a light frost on the ground the morning that William and Rebecca Seaworthy kissed and hugged their family goodbye and climbed up on the small buckboard loaded with all her books and their personal belongings. They had left just enough space for a Giant Malamute he had bought from a man in Bensonville the year before. He figured he would sleep easier at night on the road traveling with a 300 pound guard that could fit a man’s head in his mouth before swallowing it. Klondike was the biggest dog he had ever seen anywhere in the world. That included a giant St. Bernard in Geneva and huge Mastiff in Oslo. The man he bought it from said Klondike had carried a man with a broken leg two hundred miles through the mountains of the Yukon Territories on his back to safety.

Seabreeze was just starting to show and as she pulled herself up to the seat, she looked at Bill and said it was time to go before she threw up again. They were headed to Boston where she would teach school and be the widow from the South. A tragic story of a newly wed husband killed by Indians near the end of the Toscarora Indian War the same night she gave birth to their first child. Bill planned to spend a year or so getting to Boston so their story matched the baby’s age.

They settled into a small cottage just outside of Baltimore. It was a cold morning in March when Elizabeth Aphra Seaworthy came into the world. She was a happy baby and spent much of her day creating mounds of bubbles she delivered to waiting shoulders. Bill loved her dearly and called her Seafoam.

TO BE CONTINUED!

The day they arrived was the start of the Blizzard of ‘14. They had stayed in inns along the way and Klondike had been posted outside the door where he could keep an eye on them and the buckboard. Bill had a hard time finding enough food for Klondike on the road. Back home it was fairly easy since he had an agreement with a local farmer to deliver fresh meat daily. Bill bought grain and eggs to mix with the meat to balance his diet. Bill would go to the local market and buy chickens or squirrels and boil them and skin them for Klondike. Even though Seabreeze was eating for two and Bill always had a healthy appetite Klondike needed twice their combined meals.

Money wasn’t a problem since Bill had saved over half of every dollar he made from the business. The cottage they rented was run down. The roof leaked, there were large cracks in the corners of each room, and fireplace didn’t have a proper draft. Bill patched the roof first so they could get rid of the dozen or so buckets that were strategically placed throughout the house. Next came the fireplace. He had heard that making the chimney shorter or taller would change the dynamics of the draw. Bricks were expensive so he tried lowering the chimney a foot at first. When that didn’t work he went up eighteen inches, again nothing. Another six inches, nothing. Another six, nothing. At two feet over original height—success. Finally the cracks in the walls, which took the most time to repair because every room had them.

Bill would ride the horse into town to pick some odd jobs, but his right hand stopped him from doing many of the jobs he would have been good at. He would accept more unskilled, manual types of work, which left him tired at night. Seabreeze was busy with the baby and keeping up with the housework. Bill didn’t like riding a horse but men didn’t use buggies unless they had a woman with them. Eventually he found a job at a local tobacco farm doing repairs on farm equipment and the buildings on the plantation. Bill picked up the smoking habit while working on the plantation. Seabreeze forbid him from smoking in the cottage, so he built a shed out back where he worked on various things that needed repair. Bill was never out of things to do.

Seafoam grew up fast and Bill took plenty of time to answer questions she had about everything. The only subject Bill wouldn’t talk about was Elizabeth. He just couldn’t bring himself to talk about her at all. The story of the widow was working well so far. There was little chance of anyone from Darkwood Dock coming to Baltimore and even less chance of the reverse happening.

Bill had never been a religious man so he found paying the Church of England 40 pounds of tobacco each year particularly unfair. He was able though to work something out with the plantation owner to get the tobacco for the tax as well as his own use, which became considerable within months of starting to smoke, at a discount. Bill didn’t spend the kind of time he used to as a young man in the bars. But he was no stranger either. The talk of every bar in Baltimore was the Catholic plot to kill every Protestant in Maryland with the help of the Indians. Actually it wasn’t just Protestants, it was anyone that wasn’t a Catholic. This talk of massacres and religion and politics was new to Bill and he longed for his old life in North Carolina. The Maryland had been planted by Lord Baltimore an English Catholic. When the Protestants revolted over talk of a massacre, George I took over the colony and Catholics were not allowed to practice their religion until 1776. Then there was a border dispute with William Penn that didn’t get settled until 1767 by the surveyors Mason and Dixon.

Seabreeze applied for a position as schoolteacher when Seafoam was five and could join her as a student. Seafoam learned about the sea and world from Bill and from Seabreeze and from books in the house. By the time she started school she could read and write and speak French, Spanish and of course English. Like her mother before her Seafoam was shown the wonders of the ocean. Her eyes got wide when Bill would tell her of distant shores and foreign lands. The elephants of India, the rites of islanders of the south seas, the jungles of Africa, the camels of Arabia, the cannibals of New Zealand, the canals of Venice, all were part of her world.

As a young girl, her constant companion was Klondike. At night he would lie beside her bed until morning. If she woke up in the night she could reach over the side of the bed and feel his thick coat and his heavy breathing. During the day he would follow her every where she went. There was a short bench in the front yard and she would use it to get on top of him and ride him around the yard. Klondike was careful to adjust his movements to offset any leaning that may occur as she slid back and forth and sideways. When she started school he would follow both of them to the schoolhouse and sit outside until recess when all the children would take turns riding the massive dog then follow them home in the afternoon. One day soon after she started school, three drunk men approached her mother and her on their way to school on a path that was still new to them. Two of the men held Seabreeze and asked what the hurry was. The third bent over to say something to Seafoam. Had the men not been so drunk they would have seen Klondike following close behind. Before the third man could get his hands on Seafoam, Klondike was airborne. When he hit the ground he had the man’s head in his jaws and spun around to face the other two men. When he spun his canine teeth punctured the man’s neck right next to the main artery and any additional force would cause major gushing. The man lay still clearly in shock from the impact of the attack. The other two men tightened their grip on Seabreeze and demanded she call off her dog. The older of the two men pulled a knife but before he could get it to Seabreeze’s throat klondike landed in his chest. All four hit the ground and in the skirmish that followed Seabreeze rolled to one side and grabbed Seafoam and ran back towards the house where they kept a loaded rifle above the fireplace. She called to Klondike but all they could hear was growling and screams of men in pain. The screaming stopped and Klondike showed up at the door with blood all over him. Seabreeze gave him a bath and checked for wounds. Nothing, there wasn’t even a scratch on him, but she did have to pull some pieces of meat out of his gums, she wasn’t sure if they were from breakfast or the men that attacked them.

When she finished bathing Klondike they went on to school using a round a bout way on the main road. All the children were waiting when they got there. She sent one of the older boys to get John Spencer, foreman of the Baltimore plantation. John was the closest thing to law and order the colony had. He sent two of his men over to the school to investigate. Seabreeze put Sarah, her assistant, in charge until she got back. The men were well armed so she felt safe enough to return to the path. As they got close Seabreeze wished Bill was with them or at least more men were along. There were two men on the ground, only one was moving. Spencer’s men recognized the attackers right off as two of the three Plower brothers. The Plower clan had been terrorizing the colony for years. There were rumors that the family that went missing in ’09 was killed over a land dispute with the Plowers. The men said that the Seaworthys should leave the colony within the hour, before word gets back to the clan of the death of the youngest son. One of the men threw the surving brother over his shoulder and started back to the plantation. Seabreeze headed off to find Bill at work. Bill was in an out building working on an old well pump when Seabreeze burst in. He was quiet throughout the telling of the story then said they better get home. He knew they were on their own. The stories of the Plower clan were endless. Even Lord Baltimore was supposed to have backed off in a dispute with the clan over a small strip of land close to the water.

Bill, being a careful man, had secretly dug a 5×5x5 foot cellar under the cottage and lined it with three inch thick slabs of rock. The entrance was in the floorboards of the kitchen and a steel plate was used to secure it from inside. Air channels were run out from the cottage and surfaced under bushes. Water, food, and an airtight potty were also down inside. Bill helped his daughter, granddaughter, and Klondike climb down the narrow passageway. He didn’t want Klondike getting hurt in the inevitable attack that was coming. The cellar was also stocked with three loaded pistols and reloading powder and shot for dozens of additional firings. There were two swords and half dozen throwing knives. But the first obstacle a man would face would be the biggest set of teeth and jaws in North America driven by more muscle than three men combined.

The day went slowly as he sat hidden in the heavy brush with his riffles. He figured they would come for him and his family as soon as they heard what happened. None of the townspeople would come to their defense. He wouldn’t have asked them to anyway. He didn’t like owing other people for anything. So he waited there in the shadows. He had cleared just enough branches to a clear shot to the front of the cottage. Behind him was underbrush enough to hide him after the shots. He placed reloads in several locations, so no matter where he had to go in the fight he would be close to a hidden stash of powder and shot. Bill was a quiet man that tried to think of everything ahead of time. And when he felt he had no choice whatsoever he had taken men’s lives in the past. But now that his family was in danger, his resolve was like steel. He was determined that no matter how many angry men showed up—none would leave. The morning turned into afternoon, which turned into dusk. In the distance he could hear the horses of many men coming, the ground shook from the weight of so many men on horseback. When they pulled up there all kinds of screaming and yelling about taking care of the killers. The Plower clan included five brothers, each with one to four sons each, so Bill was hearing at least a dozen men dismounting and cocking pistols and riffles.

In spite of the stories about him being able to stop men in their tracks with just his mind, there were limits. First, the man needed to know the legend of Billy Boy so fear could do its part and second, the more intelligent the man was the more subject to suggestion he would be. These men were neither category. He went over in his mind the location of each stash as he waited for the first good shot since it would be the last element of surprise shot. The leader went right up to the door after sending five or six around back to stop any chance for escape. The leader then said to come out and the women wouldn’t be hurt. They just wanted the father and the dog. Bill took a deep breath lined up the neck of a man right behind the leader and the leader’s head, then slowly squeezed the trigger. Bang! The shot ran true and two men fell without a cry or whimper, just flopped to the ground like dropped rag dolls. What followed was a dozen rounds fired into the cottage windows, along with plenty of curses and cries about those devils got pa! At the end of the volley of shots to cover up the direction Bill was firing from, Bill used his second rifle and finished a third man. This of course caused more wailing and hurried reloading of their firearms. Bill took this time to reload his first and second riffle. The anguish in their voices was real as love ones hit the dusty ground dead, not wounded to fight another day. The next hour was a blur of firing, running, reloading, firing, feeling around for a stash, reloading, firing, running on and on. Towards the end they threw torches in the windows and as the cottage went up in a blaze of crackling timber, Bill knew he couldn’t fire on them anymore without them figuring out he was outside the cottage with them. A wagon was pulled up front of the cottage and bodies were piled on while they checked for life signs of the fallen. Because of the dark and the bad angles of some of his shots there were wounded on the ground, screaming in pain and calling for someone to help them. Bill carried a British Army issue bayonet he kept was so sharp he had to replace the custom sheaths every couple of months because the edge had cut through the leather just from the friction of walking along. In the dark, away from the dying flames Bill finished many of the wounded where they lay crying for help. The driver of the wagon and three on horseback were all that remained of the small army that had showed up hours before. The rest of the night was spent following these men home picking them off one by one until finally the driver felt Bill behind him saying you’re the last.

As daybreak came to the cottage Bill was just finishing up packing the buckboard with whatever supplies were stashed in the cellar. All the other possessions were destroyed except the iron, steel, and stone items, which were carefully packed in the back, next to Klondike. They let Seafoam sleep as long as possible since several hard days of travel lay ahead.

By the time John Spencer arrived late in the morning, Bill had covered the opening with flat rocks in the area and brushed the tracks they made when leaving out to the main road. John Spencer was no fool but when he declared there were no survivors to the bloody battle, no one asked any questions. Questions like, were there bodies inside the ashes of the cottage? or where did the buckboard go? The town was peaceful for the first time that anyone could remember, and there wasn’t a reported rape until after the official founding of Baltimore ten years later in ’29.

For years people in town speculated on how it was possible for a small family with a big dog could kill seventeen well-armed men. The town erected four head stones over the burnt remains of the cottage to honor the small Seaworthy family and the biggest dog any of them had ever seen.

TO BE CONTINUED!

The Seaworthys were travel weary when they pulled into the Hampton Inn, just outside of Philadelphia. After their experience in the rural plantation life of Maryland, he was determined to stay in the cities from now on. His original purpose of hiding from his past had succeeded for the most part except for that pots and pans vendor in North Carolina. Bill was sure that things would turn for the better in the city. He thought at first of moving to rural Pennsylvania where many religions had found a place of tolerance but in the end he, along with Rebecca Ann decided the city was the best place to raise Elizabeth Aphra. The city was bigger than Boston was when he left it so many years ago. It had been a long time since he had lived in the city and at first he was uncomfortable with the pace of life.

Seabreeze loved the city and immediately applied for teaching positions in all the surrounding schools up through high schools. She was offered a position at private Catholic school teaching French and Spanish. The classes started at break of dawn and ran till dusk and involved students from grades 1-12. She loved her work but Seafoam needed someone to look after her till her mother got home at night. A neighbor offered to do it for two silver pieces a week, almost a day’s pay. Bill tried to get work at several factories including; shoes, textiles, locomotive, machinery, and shipbuilding. Although he wanted to work at shipbuilding none of his particular skills were needed, so he ended up working on the production line of a farm equipment manufacturer as a tooling technician. He was good at fixing the machines when they broke, but he didn’t like the work and liked the people even less.

Because he wasn’t happy on the job he took to the bars at night. He fell into the company of some hard drinking Irishmen at O’Touls bar and grill. There was a lot of talk about how Admiral Sir William Penn loaned Charles II 16,000 pounds forty years earlier and was given all the land between Lord Baltimore and the Duke of York. And all of a sudden it didn’t matter that the Swedes, Finns, and Dutch had been here for fifty years. Then to make things worse York gives Penn three counties to the south and Penn sets up his cousin, William Markham as deputy governor of the newly formed Delaware. So the English took control just before Bill was born and now it seems all the land has been divided up among the wealthy from England.

One hundred years of slavery had made Pennsylvania as rich as it had the southern colonies in spite of the predominance of Quakers and other freedom loving religions that had settled in the area and insisted on laws protecting the rights of worship. Bill was careful with his drinking and avoided the usual fights that happen in bars over women and bets. But one night late there came a large man with scar across his throat from ear to ear about half an inch wide. When he pushed his way through the crowd, he wasn’t that careful about whose toes he stepped on. By the time he reached the bar he had five or six men cursing him and finished with shouldering Bill to one side to make room for his wide shoulders. Bill looked him right in the eye. The man was at least twice his weight and had eight inches on him in height. He bellowed out that his name was the Dutchman and he hailed from Amsterdam and he called out any man brave enough to step outside with him. All eyes went to the floor except Bill’s. Bill quietly told the Dutchman that he had spilled a drink when he first pushed his way to the bar and that a replacement was expected. The Dutchman roared with laughter and before Bill could move his hand the man had sunk a fish-scaling knife into his hand that was holding what was left of his drink. The Dutchman said something about replace this little man. The next second Bill pulled out the knife that had his hand pinned to the counter and drove it through the Dutchman’s upper arm and into a post he had been leaning against. The tip of the blade protruded on the other side of a five-inch diameter support. The Dutchman screamed in pain and took his free hand, grabbed a pitcher of beer and swung it at Bill’s head. There was a flash of steel as Bill’s bayonet was briefly seen and a pitcher of beer with a large hand still attached to the handle flew over Bill’s head onto the tavern floor. By this point everyone in the bar was back from the two of them several feet. Bill went back to drinking his beer just beyond the reach of the big man’s stump. With no way to pull the knife out of the arm pinned to the post the Dutchman soon slumped to one side. Bill calmly finished his beer and left. Once Bill was outside the crowd rushed over to the Dutchman to lower him to the floor and get some help. Bill never went in that bar again, he didn’t really like all that whining about how unfair it was the English own everything. When he got home Seabreeze didn’t notice the additional slot in his hand, but Seafoam did the next day. She asked what happened to his hand and he mumbled something about some man dropping something on his hand.

Seabreeze started going to mass at the church with Seafoam, but Bill resisted. Even the mention of religion made him uncomfortable. When he was in Spain he heard stories of the Spanish Inquisition where basically all non-Catholics were tortured till they converted or died. But the priests seemed nice enough and Bill thought he didn’t have to worry about his small family while they were at the church and there was Klondike to see them home. Becky became active in church affairs and soon had Elizabeth helping with the charities and volunteering at the orphanage. Since they didn’t need the money she spent most her money on books, any book, all books, free books, gifted books, books on history, books on science, books about education, just about anything in print she could get her hands on. Bill did like to go through the ones on politics and science. Many evenings were spent with the three of them reading well into the night with Klondike snoring to the point of them shaking him to break up the pattern.

Bill was the one who usually walked Klondike at night since the three men incident. But in the day Klondike was pretty much Seafoam’s shadow. The school kids loved playing with him at recess. He would pretty much let them do anything that didn’t hurt much. So there were rides where five sometimes six kids would ride around the schoolyard on his back and when he had had enough he would simply lie down and they would go tumbling off to one side or the other. Other dogs would lower their heads when approaching Klondike to trade sniffs but mostly they would avoid him at all costs. Only two times that Bill knew of were there fights involving Klondike. The first was when he was walking Klondike at night and big black Newfoundland came running down the street alone with a pack of twenty or so dogs following. They encircled Bill and Klondike and one by one they would dart in try to bite one of them then jump back before they were bit. Finally one managed to get a back leg of Klondike and Bill let go of the leash. Klondike was exceptionally fast for a big dog and quickly removed the heads of two of the yappers. The Newfoundland was another matter. The two dogs went into the most vicious fight Bill had seen since he was in Hong Kong at a dogfight between a pit bull and a mastiff. All at once there was quiet. The pack ran down the street leaving their leader hanging from Klondike’s jaws. Klondike gave one final shake then dropped the dog to the street. The second was when Becky and Elizabeth were walking home from a church function. Four teenage boys knocked Becky down as they ran by laughing and yelling at her to get off the sidewalk. Klondaike had been momentarily distracted behind a porch stoop where some meat was lying on the sidewalk. The boys hadn’t gone ten feet when the one at the back was smashed to the ground by hundreds of pounds of growling dog. The boy lay unconscious with the wind knocked out of him like a horse at full gallop had just hit him. Klondike sat with one paw squashing the boy’s face into a puddle of dark, oily liquid. Becky got up quickly and started for Klondike to grab his collar before anything really bad happened. The three boys stopped turned and began throwing anything they could get their hands on at Klondike to get his paws off their friend. This was a mistake, they should have kept running. Klondike would have moved on with some urging from Becky to leave the unconscious boy alone and continue on. But by the time the second rock hit Klondike in the face he was in no mood to listen to Becky ordering him to stop. People were gathering to watch the drama. Some had seen it all and were encouraging Klondike to get the other boys. The neighborhood had been terrorized by those teenagers for months and more than one father had sworn to take care of the problem once and for all. They were brothers and their father had told anyone who said something about the boys to shut up or he would shut them up. The constable said the boys hadn’t broken any laws and to stay away from the father who had friends in city hall. When the oldest brother took out a knife and started for Klondike, Becky screamed for him to stop. Just as he lunged at the dog with the blade aimed at Klondike’s chest, Klondike sprang forward and while still in an upward momentum caught the head of the boy in his teeth. The weight of Klondike and the twisting of the fall of the two, left the boys face a bloody mess when they finally came to a stop several feet away. No legal action was taken against the Seaworthys upon the death of the oldest son that day and the father did not approach Bill since the story of the Dutchman was well known by that time. Life otherwise was without incident during the early days in Philadelphia.

Seabreeze, besides reading everything in print, took up the violin and played in the community symphony after the first year of playing. Elizabeth also had started piano lessons from an older woman that once played in Vienna professionally. Bill was happy about the kinds of things his family was involved in, but he had no such interests. He would go though to recitals and events in the arts center. It was the center where Rebecca met Hans Buerer, a second generation descendent of one of the original eighty families that settled Philadelphia area in 1683 and fourth generation Pennsylvania families from Sweden in the 1630s. Hans was an accomplished man of letters and would make a good match for Rebecca. The family thought Seabreeze to be a delightful woman and would welcome her into their family readily.

Philadelphia in 1725 was the strongest economic city in the colonies and would remain number one for almost the next hundred years. Pennsylvania like Delaware, New York, and New Jersey were mostly made up of people who had left their families in the old country while they made their fortune in the colonies before they sent for them. This was essential for the industry to flourish with all these people with no home life to fuel the great industrialization under way. Paper and textiles were the main products and labor was plentiful and cheap. There was also an extensive infrastructure of shipyards and the ironworks needed to supply them. Bill changed jobs frequently during these years. There was always something that he couldn’t go along with, each time he’d show up at a new job. His smoking and drinking became more and more of a problem for Seabreeze to deal with, but her life was so busy that Seafoam got lost in the busy routines of both of them. She was eleven now, only a year younger than Bill was when he went to sea and she didn’t let him forget either. He started spending Sundays with her and things settled down some.

Just because Pennsylvania had laws to guarantee the right to worship does not mean freed slaves had any real rights. If one should have a desire and go ahead with a marriage to a white they would be sent back into slavery for life no exceptions or possibility of freedom whatsoever. Even being caught alone with a white where anything of a sexual nature was suspected the penalty was seven years of slavery. So when a black boy around Seafoam’s age showed up at the door to get the assignment for school the next day, Bill asked him to not come back to their house again for both their sakes. He then spent the rest of the night and most the next day going over why she was never to talk to him even at school. The colony was good in many ways but that was not one of them, and yes it wasn’t fair the way things are.

The biggest city was growing faster than any other city as well. Germans from the Rhineland, Scotts and Irish that didn’t settle in the Cumberland gap, and the English were still moving in by the thousands each year. The arts were attracting people from throughout the North American continent. In fact, the title “Athens of the Colonies” was bestowed on Philadelphia during this period. Bill was feeling more out of place with each year. The excitement Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” was creating in certain circles was lost on Bill completely. He longed for his quiet life in the Carolinas with his dear Elizabeth, working at his own pace on farm equipment that had broken down. Taking Seabreeze to the beach and telling her stories of far away places. These stories had less and less interest as his little family became more and more involved with city life. Aphra would tease him whenever he would dose off in the symphony, like during the summer passage of the Four Seasons, when only a couple of the musicians were playing and they were playing so quietly you could barely hear them. Bill preferred marching music where your blood ran faster and you wanted to get up and do something, anything. It wasn’t that he was an embarrassment to them in their circles because he could tell great stories without cursing throughout.

Rebecca’s rise in the elite circles of society continued with her marriage to Hans. The women in that circle were champions of women’s suffrage and abolition of slavery. Bill was assigned one of the rooms on the fourth floor of the Buerer mansion, next to the attic doorway. There was talk of sending Aphra off to finishing school in Paris or London. It would seem he was longer needed in any real sense at this point and began to look for still another job closer to the mansion. But there were no factories in that part of town and whatever professional work there was needed a degree of some sort. Bill headed back to the bars of yesteryear to regain some control of his life. He even needed help paying for the biggest wedding he ever heard of. He‘d had so many jobs ’19 that he would skip two at a time so it didn’t sound so bad.

Rebecca’s ties to the Roman Catholic Church grew strong with each year. Pennsylvania had the largest Catholic population in the colonies and the second largest population of a religion behind only the Quakers. Rebecca now had strong ties to a Jesuit order with origins in Paris. It was decided that Elizabeth would be given special permission to study at the Seminaire de St-Sulpice in Paris and receive an education usually reserved for future leaders of the church and Catholic monarchs. She would be staying at an adjoining Ursuline nunnery where she would receive additional instruction and supervision. Bill was chosen to see her safely across the Atlantic with Effa Buerer as the voyage nanny. Arrangements were made for a special stop over of a French ship leaving Quebec in a month from the decision day. Bill insisted that an aging Klondike be brought for additional protection on the high seas. Seafoam hugged her Grandpa and told him how glad she was that he was coming too. She knew he missed the sea and was bored with all the society events that went on and on and on.

TO BE CONTINUED!

    It was a busy month getting ready for the voyage to Europe. Rebecca and Florence, Han’s mother, had to round up the appropriate wardrobe for life at a Parisian Nunnery. The clothes had to show the proper respect for the Jesuit priests and at the same time relay Elizabeth’s station in life back at the colonies. Bill’s role was to secure enough steamer trunks of quality to hold the forthcoming mountain of clothes and accessories that would have to go on the ship. Bill was back in his element only this time much more than a duffel bag was involved in getting ready. Bill wasn’t allowed to bargain with any merchant on the prices since that would reflect poorly on the Buerer family name, but he was authorized to add features to each trunk that would make the trunk unsinkable. It should be capable of holding a man’s weight and providing a stable upright position while providing access from the top to food and water enough to last several days. This was quite a quest since Bill had never heard of such a trunk. One merchant was chosen and barely made the deadline due to all the alterations required. The leak proof water storage tanks were the hardest to fabricate in a hurry, but later they was offered as a standard option for other customers. Bill took it upon himself to have miniature pistons made that could be easily hidden in Seafoam’s dresses. Effa would have her own set of six as well. This on top of the fact Effa could fence with the best in the colonies. She had taken lessons along side the sons of the Duke of York from a dueling expert from Madrid.      Besides Bill there was to be an additional man aboard to watch Bill’s back. His name was Big Bear, grand son of an Iroquois Five Nation Indian Chief Great Bear and the Lily of the Mohawks, Kateri Tekakwitha. The name Mohawk means bear, but the Algonquin tribes of New York State, that were in constant war with them, said the name meant “maneater” from their ferocity in battle and their cannibalistic practices. Big Bear’s son later fought in the French and Indian war along side Thayendanegea aka Joseph Brant, a wolf clan chief that became a famous war chief of the Mohawk tribe. All the contractual arrangements for Big Bear’s services were negotiated by the family’s law firm. Bill overheard that the Mohawk fort of Ganegaono was to be supplied completely the entire time Big Bear was abroad and for three years upon his return or news of his death. Additionally the new leader was given two hundred flintlock rifles and five trunks of silver pieces as a show of good faith of the Buerer family to support the fort of eight hundred men, women and children for the agreed period of time. The result of this arrangement lasted several generations as the Buerer family used its political power to help the Mohawks avoid the fate of other Five Nation tribes. Bill was shocked at the price of this man. No one man was worth that kind of monies. Columbus was financed with less than half of such a sum. He voiced his objection to Hans, but was told to wait and see the man before objecting.

     May 22, 1726 a French ship weighed anchor in the port of New York. The captain resented the stop over to pick up some girl in the colonies. He was told to unload furs if necessary to provide adequate space for five and their belongings. Five hundred fur pelts were unloaded in Quebec City at a cost of fifty pelts to the captain since his share of transport to Europe was ten per cent. He also told the men there would be women on board after the New York stop. A third of the crew didn’t come back because of the superstition of women sinking ships they were on. This curse of women on board made replacing the men extra difficult in New York. The first mate had to end up signing sailors he would normally have refused. A band of ten came up at the end when no one was approaching the ship. They were drunk and there was fighting on the wharf with men down and the screams of wounded men in the background. The leader, a man who called himself Blacky, swaggered up to the first mate stood node to nose and bellowed that ten men were ready to sign up, women or no women. Then he said there’ll be plenty of wenching on this trip to pass the time. The others laughed and started pushing each other around and grabbing with lewd gestures and obvious acts. The captain was still in New York City arranging the terms of this party coming aboard, he had every intention to get his share of five hundred pelts back. First mate only needed three more men, but it was good to have some extra men in case of death or disease. With this being the last port before heading across the ocean and having a crew he trusted for the last four voyages, he signed Blacky and his men.

     Four days later, as the captain was getting ready to leave without his passengers and his makeup money, the carriages arrived. There were five in all with six guards along, for the week on the road to stand watch at night to allow the party to sleep well on the way. Bill and Effa went aboard first to meet with the captain and check out their quarters. Bill expected something close to the captains’s quarters, maybe even the first mate and pilot cabins cleaned out and readied. What there was readied if you can call it that was a place between the crews quarters and the cargo hold. So one side would be the ship’s crew and the other three sides high piles of half aged animal skins in full aroma. Effa left immediately to buy fabric to cover the skins and incense to burn on the voyage. Bill had authority to retain as many of the guards as he deemed fit upon seeing the ship. They were all seasoned sailors with fighting experience in the Queen Anne wars. And since he had no intention of staying awake all day and night guarding his wards, he retained all six. They would stand watch in two-man, eight-hour shifts round the clock. The only thing left was to have the captain agree for them to keep their weapons throughout the voyage. The argument was they had enough to protect themselves from the crew, but not enough for the crew to use in a mutiny. Several bags of silver pieces later, Bill and the captain shook hands.

     A week after arriving all was ready for departure except Big Bear. Bill knew there was no leaving until the Mohawk was aboard. A bag of silver a day kept the captain quiet while everyone waited. Three days later, while Bill and a couple of the guards were smoking on the crowded dock watching two adjacent ships being loaded, the Mohawk appeared. The crowd hushed and men slipped away to each side of the walkway to let something coming along pass by. Bill’s first thought was that the air stopped blowing and the sun seemed a bit dimmer. All the rowdy laughter and yelling seemed to stop cold. Big Bear stood seven and a half feet tall with a scalp lock sticking straight up in spikes over a foot long. Bill froze at the sight of this man, almost too numb to approach him and identify himself as Bill Seaworthy, the man he’ll be taking orders from for the next few years. Bear, as Bill later called him since adding big was quite redundant, wore only a loin cloth and knee high moccasins. His weapons were impressive; three new flintlocks with two thirty pound powder bags and a huge shot bag to match. Around his waist was a leather belt that held four knives that made Bill’s bayonet look like some kind of kitchen utensil. Then there were other bags of water and god knows what since you could see some scalps hanging off to one side. But thing that Bill couldn’t get his eyes off was a hatchet, if you could call it that, which he carried in his right hand. The edge of the blade was a perfect half circle that glowed in the sunlight with a radius of two feet and a counter balance of thick three inch in spikes radiating from a seven or eight inch steel ball on the other end. The handle was three inches across, four feet long and bound with dried leather with a thick strap wrapped around his forearms. Bill had never seen six feet of blade in his life and was glad Bear was with him on this voyage. Bill managed to walk up and extend his left hand in greeting Bear, a traditional way to engage allowing the right hand to defend if a sudden attempt was made to attack by a stranger. Bear nodded slightly and Bill turned to go up the loading ramp. Bill noticed that a ramp that had been silent with untold number of heavily-laden carts earlier that week began to creek and groan under Bear’s weight as they came aboard. The captain pulled Bill to the side and told him that there was no mention of Indians in the party and that he would have to be paid for any missing items during the voyage.

     Their quarters were reasonably comfortable. A 10X20 foot area had been cleared in the hold of the ship, and Effa’s attempts for privacy veils for the women were well done. Enough room remained for storage of the chests and barrels of dried meats and large nets of fruit and nuts. A cast iron plate, provided a base for a small fire with a spit to heat meals and provide warmth in the damp hold. The guards were assigned to the tops of the piles of skins surrounding the area and Bear had taken to living somewhere among the mountains of skins alone, out of sight, which was agreeable to all in the party from purely fearful standpoint. There was no room for him to do anything but eat at the fire as six to seven hundred pounds of muscle took up most of the available space around the fire. Yet Bear didn’t eat that much more than anyone else during the voyage, a mystery for much of the trip.

     During the day Aphra would read by the light of a large whale oil lamp hung from the rafters, while Effa fenced with one of the guards who was really quite good with a sword. Bill spent his time on board with Klondike and one or two of the guards. The party kept to themselves for safety concerns, and the crew was wary of the dog and the big Indian. One stormy night Bill couldn’t sleep and went up to the deck to speak to the captain. He didn’t notice that Klondike followed him up the ladder to the deck. The winds had come up suddenly and not all the gear had been battened down yet. As the crew hurried to tie off the heavier pulleys and yardarms, the ship swung around in a gust of wind causing a giant pulley used to hoist one of the main sails to come around, and snapping smaller cabling used to secure it normally, it slammed into Klondike. The weight was enough, not only crush Klondike’s hindquarters, but knock out a six foot section of railing leaving Klondike scrambling with his front paws to avoid falling overboard. Bill turned with the loud yelp behind him in time to see his faithful companion on the brink of the abyss, his body crushed and limp, and his eyes pleading with Bill for help. With no line to secure himself, Bill lunged towards the railing in a reflex reaction that put both of them in danger. Bill knew he couldn’t get his arms around Klondike’s neck, so he grabbed for the neck and one leg. Bill braced his feet against a slick railing and when the ship suddenly listed to port, he had to hold himself and three hundred pounds of dead weight from sliding into the black raging sea only inches from his feet. His arms were burning from the strain of all that weight and as he felt his interlocking fingers starting to give under the weight he screamed the scream of a man knowing he was going to die, filled with anger and hopelessness. There was no way he wanted to live knowing he let his beloved dog slip into the sea without him. Just then an arm encircled both of them and pulled them straight up into the air, as man would swoop up a baby. After being lowered safely inside the hatch, Bill watched as Bear squeezed through a door way with Klondike in his arms bent over at the waist to clear the low beam above. Bill followed behind all the way to Bear’s fur cave. Bear had hoisted up several planks of timber to use as a roof over his bed of skins of course. Then he covered the entire cove in skins like a beaver’s lodge. There were two openings both well hidden. Bill admired Bear’s hiding place that emitted no light from the lamp whatsoever. Bear lowered Klondike to his bed gently and began to bandage the wounds after giving him something from one of those pouches he carried. It must have been something to kill the pain because Klondike made no sounds while Bear worked on him. The wound was huge, at least six inches across of open flesh and Bear took special care with the exposed tissue. Then Bear did something Bill hadn’t even heard of. He pulled out two sharp metal tubes and a foot long piece of leathery cat gut or something similar. Then he attached the two tubes to the gut, he then jammed one tube into his arm inside a vein after pushing the other in Klondike leg high inside the thigh part of the leg after feeling around a while. Bill could see Bear’s blood flowing down the tubing. After a few minutes Bill extended his arm, indicating he was next to give blood to his best friend. Bear smiled for the first time since meeting him on the dock, and the dead eyes that could freeze a man where he stood softened to a look of friendship. Bill had never felt close to another man in his whole life, but sitting there with the three of them together was the closest to belonging somewhere he had ever felt.

     There must have been something besides painkillers in that pouch because Klondike was up and running around in a couple of days. After that Klondike and Bear were together constantly. Since the guards were around the clock and Effa was with Aphra every moment, Bill didn’t mind Klondike being away from the encampment for hours on end. Apparently Bear would hide and Klondike would try to find him among the mountains of skins. There was something else Bill noticed while giving blood to Klondike. Bears had at least eight places in his back with arrow shafts protruding slightly. They had been filed down to the surface of the skin, but definitely had been left in him rather than pulled on through the other side, no doubt because the arrowheads weren’t close enough to the surface to dig out.

     As the voyage went on and supplies started to dwindle, both for the ship’s crew and Bill’s party, tempers started to flare. Even though the fruit and most of the vegetables were gone, the crew still thought it wasn’t fair the passengers got to eat so well, especially the men picked up in New York docks. Bill and the captain agreed the members of his party should stay off the deck and be careful below. Only a few of the crew saw Bear come aboard and fewer still saw him save Bill and Klondike with one arm. And given how sailors lie outright about things they saw, it wasn’t a surprise that Blacky and his men didn’t believe the stories about the Mohawk on board. In fact Blacky had his own story. His real name was Thomas Harley, husband of Mary Harley or Mary Harlee, a pirate out of the Virginias looking for easy prey north. Later that year they would be tried for piracy on the high seas in the Virginia colony. But right now she was tailing the French ship waiting for the signal of a mast on fire to close in. Blacky was to gain control of the weapons and then signal by setting one of the masts on fire. But Blacky was having a hard time with this crew, the original crew was loyal to the captain and now they were well out into the Atlantic and he was going to have to make his move without control of the ship’s armory. He figured the ships were evenly matched roughly a hundred on each crew. There would also be the added reward of the ransom for whoever this girl was that warranted bodyguards.

     Every couple of days or so there would be another crew member missing and the captain began to suspect the Mohawk. Bill calmed the captain with still another bag of silver with each disappearance but by the third week the captain said they would not be able to get all the way across the ocean if this kept up at this rate. Bill was to ask the Mohawk to only approach the sailors without a red scarf around their neck. Then he instructed his original crew to wear red around their necks at all times. The captain did not intend to confront the Mohawk as he was already down men and confronting Bear could lose him half the crew, maybe more. It fell on Bill to tell Bear about the agreement with the captain. As he went further back in the skins to where Bear had made his lodge he saw something white in the distance. It was a pile of bones and hair neatly stacked like a small log cabin, about two feet high. The Iroquois were known as cabin builders and Bear was no exception. He quickly went back to where the lodge was and announced his approach. Bear was sitting in the dark. A small fire on a flat stone slab was the only light. Bill brought a red scarf and tied it around his neck. He told Bear no one with red scarves was to be harmed. He wasn’t sure Bear even knew English, it’s not like Bear had said anything to this point. Then a deep rumble of a voice said “red lives”. That was good enough for Bill not wanting to put to sharp a point on it. He told everyone, even Apfra and Effa to keep red around their throats at all times.

     The captain had seen the pirate ship behind them two weeks prior, and had tripled the guard on the armory. He had instructed his three officers to be ready on a ongoing basis. Finally Blacky could wait no longer. He sent two men aloft to fire up the main mast just as dawn broke the first day of the fourth week at sea. It didn’t take long for the mast to send the beacon to the following ship. Then Blacky’s men cut the lines to all three main sails, leaving the ship to lose speed. Blacky with two others slipped over the side, leaving the rest to deal with an angry crew. The crew quickly disposed of the nine conspirators without losing a man. Then the captain addressed the men and said to prepare to be boarded by pirates. Since the vessel was a merchant ship it only had two small cannons, one fore, one aft. The pirate ship drew along side and began to shell the merchant ship from one hundreds yards, just beyond the range of the two small cannon. It continued to circle and fire round after round into the French vessel. Towards afternoon the ship closed in to board her. There fires in every section of the vessel and sailors were busy throwing buckets of sea water on the fires. Bill went below to see to the last minute preparations for defending the women. The doorway leading into the hold had been fortified with timbers secured from through the ship and all were armed with pistols and flintlocks aimed at the doorway. There was enough firepower to clog the doorway with bodies if it came to that. Bill was satisfied with the readiness of the party below and returned to the passageway leading to the deck. He ran into the first mate and asked if he could have one of the small cannons down below to slow up the charge that was coming. The first mate assigned six men to get the cannon down to Bill and load it with grapeshot and stay with the cannon for the duration of the battle. Several rounds of grapeshot and the powder to go with them were quickly brought to the site. Bill thanked him and went back to efforts to narrow the passageway by half. About the time preparations were complete Bill could hear the bloodcurdling screams of battle cries as men boarded the ship swinging over on lines and across planks that banged as they hit the deck. Bill for the first time realized he hadn’t seen Klondike or Bear since coming below. He assumed they were a little further back in the skins and would come forward as the action heated up, a reserve unit of Herculean proportion that could mean the difference between life and death if the pirates got past Bill and the cannon.

     Bear and Klondike were not in among the skins. They were on deck behind a wall waiting for more pirates to board so the deck would be full of men, too crowded for anything but sword fighting and hand to hand combat. Bear had given Klondike and himself each a small fist full of an herb from New Zealand that allowed natives to lose an arm in fighting and not slow up a bit in fact the remaining arm would be ten times more powerful that before the fighting started. Bear had traded many pelts for this herb and had a bag full in the many bags he possessed. He had used it several times already and had never lost a battle. Klondike was alarmed at the sense of power it gave him. At first he growled at Bear then he turned to the approaching wave of men and bolted out in plain sight. The first man he reached looked up in time to see a beast airborne with teeth three inches long then nothing, his eyes staring from a bodiless head rolling around on the deck. The next man was no better off, just a couple of seconds longer to know what was coming.

Every man on the deck stopped when they heard a Mohawk battle cry from lungs bigger than a horse has. But the men nearest Bear turned to run from what appeared to be a wall of flesh in full war paint. The hatchet made its first pass and three men fell to the deck in halves. Their heads and torsos were still trying to run, arms pumping but not going anywhere. Even the French crew cleared way back so as not to get anywhere near the fifteen foot arcs that Bear was making in the smoky air.

     Mary had Blacky fished out of the water. He told her that the French ship still had all its weapons. With night falling, he and Mary and twelve of the best seamen they had silently went over the side and on to an eighteen foot whaling boat with six sets of oars that was made for speed.  The remainder of the pirates went on to attacking the French merchant ship. By this point the two ships were lashed together so it was easy for Bear and Klondike to chase what was left of the pirates back onto their ship. The men brave enough to stand and fight were either torn apart by a savage beast or sliced in half by Bear’s hatchet. A few shots did hit Bear and Klondike but the herb made it look like they missed since neither looked down when the shot landed. It was over in minutes. Eighty pirates were dead on the two decks another six were picked off at long range by a Mohawk that was a better shot than most military sharpshooters. The Mohawks had been the first tribe to adopt the flintlock as a weapon and became known as “the keepers of the flint.”  There were no wounded among the attackers. The French crew had twelve dead, fifteen wounded and two unaccounted for. Bill had reached the deck about halfway through the battle in time to see his dog being shot time after time before reaching the shooter and removing the head. The Mohawk was flying through the air swinging the hatchet into crowds of men who had bunched together for protection only to find out it didn’t help any. Bill saw many shots land in Bear’s chest and come out his back, leaving a new hole each time. Bill tried to join in battle but each time he got close enough to fight either Bear or Klondike would swoop in and slaughter than man before Bill could thrust his sword. Bill saw first hand why Bear had cost so much to retain his services and couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for other tribes without gun powder to even up the battle. While most the crew went about finishing fighting the fires on board, the rest carried Klondike and Bear below for help treating their wounds.

     Klondike had very little blood flowing from his wounds. In fact, once Effa and Aphra cleaned him up he wasn’t bleeding at all. Klondike did have numerous holes in his chest and sides from the fighting. Bear was another story. He was bleeding badly from six gun shot wounds and one stabbing. The bandages were applied as tight as they could wrap them. Bill ran to the lodge under the skins to retrieve the steel tubes and cat gut to attempt to save Bear’s life like he had Klondike’s. Bill hurriedly forced the tube into his arm and pushed the other end into Bear’s. The captain, after seeing what Bill was doing ordered his men to line up to give blood through the night if need be to save the man who was responsible for them all being alive. When morning came, Bear had stopped bleeding. Bill at the time was too tired to think about why Bear was alive and went off to fall asleep in the skins.

     When Bill woke the following morning, more like noon, there was the sound of hammers and saws busy at work. As he came up the passageway with the cannon still in place, he overheard laughing about how many men it took to carry the Mohawk below. The twenty or so under him, bent at the waist and the ten or so trying to guide the mass of groaning flesh towards the hatch leading to the hold. Bill had to laugh too, it had been quite a sight, all these men struggling to carry this mountain along. Once on deck he saw Bear helping to wrestle the main mast from the pirate ship into position on the French ship. The main sail had already been replaced and men were bringing supplies from the other ship. The biggest cannons were also brought onboard with the cannon balls stacked neatly on center deck. The mood of the men was one of excitement since the food was fresh and supplies were now better stocked than when they left New York. After a couple of rounds of the big cannon to acquaint the crew, the pirate ship slid into the dark waters.

     We were under way once again with spirits high. The crew stays well clear of Bear on the deck while he sharpens the hatchet, dulled from so many bodies and armor. Klondike was playing with some of the crew, barking and chasing a big rag they tied in knots. Aphra was back to her reading. Effa was complaining she didn’t get a chance to kill some pirates and it seemed unlikely there would be another chance for quite some time. Bear began eating more at mealtime along with no further disappearances of crewmembers. Everyone quit wearing red around their necks. Everyone was looking ahead to reaching the homeport of Marseille, France.  

TO BE CONTINUED!

    It was a warm September morning when the French merchant ship still laden with an abundance of supplies and enough heavy cannon to protect itself from anything on the water, except a man-o-war. Elizabeth was on deck with Bill, he stared at her profile, the image of his beloved wife was there right in front of him. She asked him about the ramparts they were passing at the entrance to Vieux Port. Bill had been there before when he was fourteen. He remembered how dangerous the port was. Before they went any further he said she would have to stay below until he had made arrangements for her stay at a convent he knew of.     Massalia as it was known when founded in 600 BCE was a trading port for tin, which was sent up the Rhone River to Celtic and German kings. The trade wars between Etruscans and Carthage, the two most powerful peoples at that time escalated until they formed an alliance with the Celtic Gauls to destroy Massalia. Massalia turned to a small but up and coming Roman Empire for protection. IN 49 BCE the prosperous city was forced to pick sides in a war between Pompey and Julius Ceasar. They choose Pompey and Ceasar destroyed the city. It was rebuilt but all the lands were divided among others. The Romans renamed it Massilia and it became known over the next 100 years for famous Greek schools educating the Gauls.

     Aphra listened intently as this was new information to the knowledge hungry young woman. When he said they decided to fight against Julius Ceasar, she laughed and he reminded her of how good hind sight is. He was so proud of his granddaughter and her fluency in French would be an asset in Paris. She then started a series of questions concerning swords, steel, China, and what did they say the year was in Europe before Christ’s birth. Bill had always had Rebecca to answer these questions back in Philadelphia and Bill was glad to see Effa walk up, having given them time to themselves.

     It was almost dark by the time Bill and two of the guards that were staying with the group arrived at the convent tucked high in the mountains. Mother Francis invited them in and had the night’s supper warmed up for them. She read carefully the letter of introduction from the Jesuit priests in Philadelphia, there was no mention of reimbursement. Bill quickly said that wouldn’t be a problem and produced a small bag of silver. She blushed and said times have been hard. Between the Small Pox epidemic of three years ago and last years’ law prohibiting more than four adults to a household to rid France of nomads and vagrants. The men were sent off to work in ship galleys for five years. The women and children were flogged and sent to poor houses. Mother Francis had intervened in as many of the cases as she could, but it had left the convent in financial ruin. Bill felt for the woman and produced a large bag of silver to which she started crying and said God would bless him with riches in the next life. So it was set, Elizabeth, Effa, three of the six guards and Klondike would stay at the convent until Bill could get things arranged for their transport to Paris. When it came time to leave Klondike raised such a fuss that Bill decided Aphra would be safe enough with two of the best swordsmen in France, one being Effa and two other men of strong heart. It wasn’t like they were being dropped off in the middle of town. Aphra said to take the dog so he won’t bark all day and night until Bill returned.

     It wasn’t that Bill was out of money but Bear had cost several bags of gold more than anticipated. So Bill was in the mood to grow the coffers in the port of Marseille. Bear didn’t like low ceilings so he would duck down look inside and if he saw a ceiling he straighten back up and move on. Bill quit even looking inside spending his time looking for old warehouses that had been converted to a more pleasure oriented businesses.  Bear looked in then stooped over the clear the doorway and was gone just like that. Bill and Klondike followed right behind. Bill’s eyes watered as he looked for Bear in the loud drunken den with smoke so thick you could see only about six feet before all details were lost. Bear had found a big wooden table made from rafters and had pulled it up to him in the corner. He was sitting on some kind of barrel and the table came right down on his legs. His right arm clutched the hatchet and he waved Bill over to join him on his left. Bill slid onto a long bench that ran the length of the wall on that side. Klondike took a position next to Bill on the floor facing outward so as to protect Bill’s left side. It was this way whenever they sat down in a tavern, never standing up at the rail with exposure from many sides of attack. Klondike and Bear awake on either side on alert with a wall at his back, Bill never felt safer than at these times. The original cast who were sitting there when Bear grunted for all of them to get up from his table came back to the table slowly. There had only been one man to say no and Bear slammed the table into him so hard it almost cut him in half and others came over to carry him to the doctor’s office. So there would be any hard feelings, Bill bought a round of drinks for all ten at the table including Klondike who loved beer. Soon the tavern returned to its normal decibel level.

     There was King George, a small wiry sneaky looking fellow with a top hat and fancy vest. Next to him was his bodyguard TommyBoy, a barrel-chested sailor with tattoos over every square inch that was visible. Bill thought he was deaf since The King kept signing to him. Next to them was a tall black man some said was a Zulu warrior on the run for something that happened back in Africa. The only other unusual member of the table was a big Gypsy looking woman with a monkey sitting on her shoulder and two of the biggest pistols Bill had ever seen hanging from each of her massive shoulders. Outside of a small, frail, and incredibly old looking Asian man at the opposite end of the table the rest appeared to be what you would expect to see in any large port of the world.

     The King was arguing with obviously a French Catholic at the table about the 1701 English law that no Catholic would sit on the throne of England. The Frenchman laughed out loud at the pious stance of the King, and said that if the Pope Innocent XIII bribe of 10,000 ducats to reestablish Roman Catholicism in England had been 100,000 or 250,000 England would be a mandatory Catholic nation. He might have gotten away with the implication, but when he said it was the same difference between a lady and a whore– the amount of the money exchanged, the King jumped to his feet screaming curses about French women. TommyBoy had been nodding off was startled by the sudden movement to his left when the King jumped up. He looked up to see his employer all red faced and pointing a finger at some man across the table. He slowly reached down for a throwing knife he carried in his boot since he couldn’t reach the man by bending over the wide table. Two other men at the table agreed with the Frenchman that all royalty were for sale. The King sat back down finally realizing the comments were about his King not his mother. TommyBoy slumped back into a comfortable position and table continued on with discussion.

     Cardinal Andre Hercule de Fleury had just been appointed Prime Minister of France and had begun cleaning up questionable financial practices that had put France in a weakened condition. Pierre, the Frenchman, then turned his attention to Bill the obvious American colonist and asked if America ruled by Freemasons. He went on to say the Roman Catholic had recently condemned Freemasonry and he figured America was part of the problem. Bill had heard the word before, but only at social functions in passing and never in detail. Bill was generally careful with what he said in public and especially in bars with drunken men. He just said he had heard of them but didn’t think he knew one. Pierre tried again to get Bill to react by asking him why the colonists didn’t brand their slaves like the cattle to show ownership. Bill just said the colonies were not nations maybe some day they would, just like Holland, England and France. Still Pierre pressed Bill by asking if the big man next to him was his slave or his master. All eyes at the table turned to see Bill react as it got quiet at the table. All side conversations stopped. Bear’s right hand slid over the handle of the hatchet he called “divider,” the most deadly 40 pounds of killing machine ever made. Bill waited until the tension was almost unbearable, then simply said that neither Bear nor himself have known a master. Bill followed up by saying that they travel as brothers, but the dog is mine alone. Pierre just couldn’t let go of Bill that easy. As he started his final accusation that all three had a same mother, he started to pull a pistol from his waistband, knowing full well Bill would have to react. But before the end of the barrel had cleared his belt, Klondike was air borne. Pierre tried to dunk but it only made things worse by bringing his head down in perfect alignment to Klondike’s arc and fit neatly inside the jaws as Klondike landed. There was a loud pop as the skull gave way, a couple of quick jerks of a massive head and it was over. Four seconds into an unfinished insult a man lay still on the floor. Klondike returned to his place next to Bill and assumed a contented look of being by him master. Bill reached over and scratched his huge neck making Klondike close his eyes and throwing his head back to allow full access to his throat and chest. Since what happened didn’t involve anyone else at the table and in particular that mass of flesh in the corner didn’t get up everyone sat still while Klondike finished off a very irritating Frenchman, even the other Frenchmen at the table went back to talking about politics. No one gave another thought to Pierre now under the long bench out of the way.

     Bill was amazed at the things that were discussed at that table. Things he hadn’t heard of in Philadelphia society or would ever hear being discussed. Like in 1722 a Mir Mohammad of Afghanistan had conquered Persia. The next year Austria becomes its own country, not just a part of Germany. That China had banned the teaching of Christian religion ten years ago. And taken over Tibet in 1720, according to the small man at the end of the table. The King told of horrible fighting in 1715 when the German George I of Hanover defeated the Jacobite house of Stuart and began the house of Hanover better known as the house of Windsor. Bill knew of George I but didn’t know he was German. For that matter, he just learned last year that Richard the Lion Hearted, King of England leader of the great crusades had never been to England. He was a Frenchman that didn’t even speak English. Bill’s contributions to the night’s discussions were few and far between. He said the first American settlement was in Jamestown in 1607, the first Pilgrims landed in 1620 running from religious persecution, but before he could add another tidbit about the first slaves in 1679, a slender fellow down a ways at the table said “speaking of religious persecution.” He wasn’t the type of man one would notice in a crowd and he wore a beaver skin hat that reminded Bill of the western territories. Gerard was one of the few Huguenot Protestant survivors of the early 1700 persecution that drove thousands of hatters to London and points west. He didn’t actually finish his thought and settled back in his chair quietly. Bill later heard that the fumes of the mercury to make fine pelts left men senile or “mad as a hatter” if you will.

     Everyone at the table nodded when the black plague was brought as a terrible way for the equivalent of all the colonists dying in one year like Europe faced in 1711. And though almost every man could tell a story of someone they knew that died, it was the huge Gypsy woman, Rosetta that reminded the table that plagues don’t count as religious persecution. She went on to tell the story of Gypsy men being hanged without a trial on the spot by towns people once an accusation was made. That the Roma women and children were separated from the men and taken off to be mutilated with knives and hot pokers beyond their families’ ability to even recognize them. By 1712, The King had lost count after reaching tens of thousands. Bill was getting a little sick thinking of thousands of mutilations and wanted to change the subject. Bill said he wanted to do some betting while in port. The King piped up that he knew just the place and said to meet him tomorrow at the North end of the main dock around nightfall.                                                  

     Bill found an almost kept up hotel on the waterfront at the North end of the dock. It was the last hotel in sight and beyond it were warehouses as far as the eye could see. Bill asked for a room facing the street and the clerk said only one left at the top floor turn left end of the hall number 444. The clerk kept looking at Bear and the hatchet and mumbling about how they run a respectable establishment and wouldn’t want any trouble. Bill said, “Great, neither do we.” On the way up a step gave way under Bear and he fell forward and when he grabbed the railing the whole rail went too. The room was small and smelled of stale air. Bill opened the window saw a large overhang six feet out from the building and figured it would take an acrobat to swing in the window from the roof. So he opened the window all the way open and looked to see a sheer hotel front, no railings or ledges. The door was blocked with the headboard of the bed where Bill slept. Bear as usual was on the floor on his back, not that there was a bed that would hold him. And Klondike slept under the bed with his nose at the crack at the bottom of the door. Klondike could smell any change in the hallway and could easily tell the difference between a man going to the facilities at the end of the hall and men creeping up to the door they’re behind.

     The following morning there was a knock at the door Klondike had already been growling so Bill called out who was at their door. The answer surprised Bill some. They said they were the police and wanted to talk about the death of Pierre Dubonnet last night in the bar. Bill said to push their badge under the door since they could be his family with guns loaded. The badge looked official and Bill opened and invited them in. Captain Coffey was an imposing looking man. Over six feet tall, big chest, big arms, long mustache, square jaw, and a couple of the coldest eyes Bill had ever seen. The Captain normally wouldn’t concern himself with a death of a known troublemaker that should have been killed in a duel long ago. He had come to see the “Beast from Hell” for himself. His deputy waited outside which seemed just fine to him after looking in and seeing Klondike growling in the corner. The Captain went on to say he wasn’t going to do any paperwork on this incident after talking to three of the men at the table. They swore it was self-defense and they didn’t feel the dog was wild since it returned to its master’s side immediately without so much as looking at anyone else at the table. Bill told the story about Klondike carrying his owner with two broken legs on his back over three mountain ranges, covering 180 miles of waist deep snow. The Captain offered to buy Klondike for 5000 ducats after watching Klondike watching him for several minutes. A man could live quite well for years on such a sum and Bill was careful in his answer since it was obvious the Captain could do whatever he wanted in this town. My friend here Bear the Mohawk and I travel extensively and this is the first man or beast that allows us a full night’s sleep after a hard day of travel. Not only do we get warned in plenty of time, we also have the first several men leading the attack lying dead by the time we’re up and joined in battle. This dog has no monetary value other than my life and the life of a Chief of the Mohawks, the most dominate tribe in the Americas. The amount agreed to, to have Bear join me on this adventure was to be quadrupled if he does not return to the tribe. Instead of two years support, it would eight years supporting the entire tribe of 4300 with all the food, shelter, supplies, and protection from other tribes, the cost of which I cannot estimate well. The Captain was impressed with such an elaborate story and went no further with the subject. Bill on the other hand saw an opportunity to make an offer of his own. Bill said he was thinking of doing some rather large risky investments on this end of the dock and needed some way to ensure payment should the venture be successful. For the first time the Captain’s hard face broke into a huge warm smile as he instantly caught the offer. Bill Seaworthy if that is your name, I believe I can provide that payment security for a reasonable percentage of the winnings, say 20%. Bill was delighted with the figure, he was worried that it would be more like 331/3 or even 50%. The two men shook hands and began discussing the details of the venture that night.

     The Captain said the only big money going down in the port luckily for Bill was the dogfights in a warehouse two blocks north of the end of the dock. He told them that there were men who came in for the weekend only from around the world bringing their dogs they were just sure would finally beat the pit bull of Marseille. The pit only knew one way to fight. As soon as it was put down on the floor of the arena it would run as fast it could to the other dog jump up into the throat section and sink its teeth into the jugular and hold on till the dog dropped from blood loss. Every dog breed in the world, including other pit bulls have been brought, but this dog has so much experience that no dog has lived through the fight. To date the count is in the hundreds and his owner has started a farm to breed for the next champion by having dozens of pit bulls kill each other to have one ready to take over when “Death” gets too old. The Captain said he would show up around 7:00 as usual since he has made a small fortune off “Death” himself over the years. Only this time he was going to put his money on Klondike and a lot of it. He explained half of the twenty percent would go to paying his men to insure the debt gets paid. There will be a dozen strongmen employed by the King that will have to be arrested the second “Death” is dropped to the floor. Then the exits will have to be blocked and the Kings home secured to secure the balances of the debts he will owe all of us. We’re talking forty men to see you get paid when your dog wins instead of them killing you and your dog. Bill had the Captain show him the exact dimensions of Death. Bill bound some of the bedding no one would sleep on for fear of getting bed bugs or lice on them. He bound it with cord and reshaped the bundle until the Captain said that was the size and shape of the dog Klondike will be facing. The two men shook hands to seal the deal, and the Captain disappeared down the worn hallway.

     That day until after noon Bill practiced throwing the rag dog at Klondike’s throat until he couldn’t get it past the teeth. Then he worked on Klondike opening his mouth and catching it every time. Finally he showed Klondike how to catch the head in his mouth, throw his head up right after the head and shoulders were inside the row of teeth, and then jump up and down till the rag was down his throat without gagging. Bill would then use the end of the sheets to pull the rag bundle up out of his gut where it would be wet with stomach acid. A few more tries from different angles the dog may try from and