Chapter 194: A Chairman’s Holiday

James eventually stepped down from the platform.

For once, the whole restless crowd didn’t need anything from him except, perhaps, the courtesy of staying out of their way.

He found the discovery so pleasant that he went looking for trouble of his own, rather than wait for trouble to remember where he lived.

He didn’t have to go far. For instance, Hobbs with Briggs just near the platform.

The old surgeon snorted. "Ought to vote for the workshop since half me kit’s one step from butcher’s tools. I’ve got a scalpel dull enough to spread butter with and a bone-saw with more rust than teeth, and with some bloody forge, least I can give ’em fools mercy and cut their legs quickly and cleanly."

"Christ, Hobbs, you make it sound almost attractive."

"Ask any man who’s had me saw through his leg while the damned thing fought me every inch of the way."

James clicked his tongue and turned to Briggs.

"And what are you voting for?"

Briggs had no words and only grunted once, twice, and left at that.

"Right. Very forthcoming of you."

James reckoned he’d already got more out of him than most men ever managed.

He moved on before Briggs could decide whether that was meant as praise. A few paces farther across the plaza, another argument caught his ear, louder than most. Tomás, Kit, and Ned were there, and James walked over to ask their thoughts.

Tomás nodded. "I have seen what a harbor does for a city, Captain. Havana never went hungry for want of anything, it only suffered for want of somewhere to build it."

Kit broke in, before Tomás could finish. "Aye, well, Havana never had ruins sittin’ past its swamp. Whatever’s under them stones has been waitin’ three hundred years for me lads bold enough to dig it up and drainin’ that marsh is the only road that’ll get us there."

"You want the ruins, Kit. Say it plain."

"Ought to have priorities."

James looked at Ned, who stood between them like a fellow trying to keep two dogs from eating the same bone.

"And you, lad?"

Ned replied so quietly he nearly missed it. "Workshop. I’ve hammered the same batch of nails straight three times this month, Captain. I’d sooner not do it a fourth."

James laughed.

He left the three of them exactly as divided and cut across the plaza toward some overturned barrel, where a familiar pair of voices had replaced the argument he’d just abandoned. Rook and Twice had a game spread across the barrel and hadn’t given the platform so much as a glance, probably the wisest thing anyone in the plaza had done.

Rook called without looking up from his cards. "Two to one on the harbor. Even money on the marsh. Long odds on the workshop, as nobody trusts a smith they’ve only just met."

"Care to lay somethin’ down yerself, Captain?" Twice called.

He didn’t wait for a reply and also called out for a woman that walked past them.

"You there, love. Fancy a wager on which way yer town votes?"

"Not with my washing money, ye thievin’ bastards," she snickered, never slowing down.

James shook his head.

"A chairman layin’ odds on his vote. That’d look grand, wouldn’t it?"

"Only if ye lost," Rook shrugged.

James left them to their cards and followed the crowd toward the chapel wall, where the shade had drawn another knot of people out of the afternoon heat.

There, Mateo and Elena stood close together in the middle of a discussion of the sort neither seemed especially interested in winning. They had probably been at it long enough to know they would both survive losing it.

Mateo was saying. "Más barcos significan más de todo lo que este pueblo necesita todavía, tía. Tú lo sabes. Siempre lo has sabido."¹

Elena replied. "Sé que una madre alimenta a sus hijos antes de salir a perseguir el dinero de los extraños. El pantano da de comer a la gente. El puerto da de comer a los barcos.¹"

"El puerto también da de comer a la gente, con el tiempo.¹"

"’Con el tiempo’ es una palabra muy cómoda para un hombre que nunca ha tenido que pasar hambre esperando.¹"

Mateo laughed and let her have the last word.

James left them to it. If they could manage without a chairman, so much the better.

From the chapel wall he could see the steps again, and the patch of shadow beneath them was already occupied by four familiar faces.

He headed that way.

There, James dropped himself among Anne, Milagros, Meg, and Mary, his hands finding Anne’s hip and the generous curve of her backside with easy familiarity. His other palm stopped against Milagros’s pert rear, giving it a brief, affectionate squeeze.

Anne leaned comfortably into his side, while Milagros shifted just enough to make herself more at home beneath his hand, both of them wearing the faintest hint of a smile as if they’d been expecting exactly that.

"So," James grinned. "What’s a chairman’s women votin’ for?"

Anne snickered. "Wouldn’t you like to know."

Milagros folded her arms. "I only just marked that stone and barely lived here. It doesn’t feel right for me to vote on which way this town wants to be."

"That’s your choice to make, lass."

"I know it is, that’s why I’m making it."

Mary didn’t wait for him to to ask her. "Swamp. I’m still mighty curious of those ruins Calloway, even if you fancy more your little adventures in Cuba."

Meg simply shrugged. "The harbor would be better for business."

James felt that well enough and left them to it.

He rose from the steps and let the crowd carry him back toward the benches, where the noise had thinned and the voices around Isaiah were easier to pick out.

Isaiah simply replied. "The workshop, Captain. I find myself not very enthusiastic for plantations, nor for more foreigners on the island."

There wasn’t much to argue with in that, so James didn’t waste the effort.

Cudjoe was the last, standing apart from the Rose’s crew with his eyes on the ship masts above the roofline rather than the crowd.

"Missin’ all the excitement," James laughed.

"Seen enough excitement for one lifetime, Captain. Figured I’d let the town have its own turn."

The old sailor glanced at him. "D’ye know, when we first returned out of that wreck with the French frigate, I gave ye a month. Reckoned the sea would finish what it started, or ye’d manage the job yerself with some fool stunt before the years changed."

"And here I am, still botherin’ ye."

"Aye. Strange thing, watchin’ a dead man argue with an entire township about pig iron."

No more had to be said.

For one relationship forged on brotherhood, silence was plenty enough.

Then the bell cut clean across the plaza.

Every argument in the crowd stopped, and the whole plaza turned back toward the hall. Whitlock’s clerks put three small clay jars beside the Code stone.

One had a stalk of corn scratched into the clay.

Another had a coil of rope pressed into its neck.

The third showed a hammer crossed over a pair of tongs.

All plain enough for any person to understand, whether he could read letters or not.

A canvas screen went up around the whole setup, tall enough for a citizen to step inside alone and drop one stone into whichever jar he’d chosen. He could walk back out with nobody, not even Whitlock, knowing what he’d vote.

"Ready, Captain?" Cudjoe asked.

"As I’ll ever be."