The Runaway's Gold Read Online Free PDF

“I think, perhaps, I’m too hungry to think of freedom.”
    But so much in a fury was me brother that night that he went on as if I hadn’t spoken.
    â€œNow, if it was Knut Blackbeard’s coins, or Gutcher’s, or some other gullible soul’s,” he muttered, “well then, of course, he’d find plenty of ways to spend it. But Hell itself will freeze before he parts with his own shillings to feed his own family’s bellies and save us from the talons of Marwick. The way I see it, with the smuggling dropped off and Daa starting all this trouble with that Peterson ewe, I either leave with the pouch or starve by May.”
    â€œLeave?” His words hit like a stone to me gut. “We’re past due on the rent! And the fishing starts next month! You know I’m not strong enough to pull in those cod lines meself!”
    As he started to turn away, I surprised us both by dropping the lantern and grabbing his shoulders. “Wallace Marwick owns us, John! We’ve so much debt we’ll be fishing the deep waters our entire lives before we pay him back. He has no other use for us. We’ll be tossed from the croft by summer—added to the list of paupers—
left to the charity of the Kirk!
”
    I knew—we all knew—about our neighbor Jeemie Black, his five younger sisters, and seven cousins. Father and uncles lost at sea, the family split apart. The Kirk shuffling them fromcroft to croft to work for a place to sleep and a portion of what little food the families in our parish could spare.
    A crack of thunder shook the hill as our eyes locked, wind pulling across the rain-drenched stones that surrounded us. Then John ripped me arms from his shoulders and shoved me aside, saying words I never wanted to hear: “You’re just like the rest of ’em!”
    And for the first time in me life I feared him. Until he did what he always did when anyone challenged him—he started to laugh. Long and hard, throwing back his freckled face and closing his eyes as if I had just told him the most wonderful tale he had heard in months.
    â€œChris,” he said, eyes ablaze, “let’s not forget what
you’ve
done tonight.”
    â€œI—what have I—”
    â€œYa just
murdered
Pete Peterson’s prize ewe, me peerie brother!”
    Then he grabbed firmly to me shoulder, brows furrowed, and leaned in.
    â€œStolen property, that was! Why, should Sheriff Nicolson find out, you’ll be starting a very long stay in Lerwick Prison. I’ve seen the place—deep inside the mighty stone walls of Fort Charlotte, perched high above Lerwick Harbor. They say that those that get locked up are never seen again. No, instead of worrying about me, you best make a plan for yourself before Peterson finds that dead ewe in our sisters’ bed.”
    It wasn’t until that moment that the horror of what I had done began to sink in. I thought of the caaing whales we spotted on occasion in the voes near our croft. Sleek, powerful creatures, some more than twenty feet long, all foolishly wedded to only one leader; something clever islanders had long ago discovered. By setting out silently, ten or twelve boats at a time, crofters find the leader and then suddenly go at him, hooting and hollering, waving pitchforks and brooms—until, in utter panic, he charges for the shore, the rest of his school blindly following by the hundreds. And there the marvelously sleek creatures lie, helplessly stranded on the beach, only to be slaughtered—flinched and boiled—the head blubber especially prized for lamp oil, the carcasses left to rot.
    I, too, had followed blindly. Followed me Daa. And I had followed him straight to the Devil himself.
    I opened me right hand wide, still feeling deep in me flesh what, just a short while ago, I had done. “But Daa—he needed me to. You were there.” And somehow, I thought to meself, I had needed to