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  Jack climbed up the steps and greeted him but received no recourse for his courtesy. Creache continued inspecting the ship and sailors with his gaze. Fin stopped scrubbing for a moment and watched him until his hawkish peering found her looking back. He narrowed one eye at her, and she returned to her scrubbing.

  “Who is that?” he said. His speech was smoothly metered and menacing. Fin didn’t need to look up to know whom he was talking about.

  “New tar, sir. Picked him up in Savannah to replace that no-gooder Tommy,” said Jack. “Name’s Button.”

  “I see,” said the captain. Then he turned and stalked back into his quarters and wasn’t seen again before the ship saw Philadelphia.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Rattlesnake sailed up the Delaware, and when it came upon Philadelphia in the afternoon of the fourth day Fin was breathless at the city’s size. She had thought Savannah a great metropolis, but compared to Philadelphia it was little more than a country by-water. Streets and buildings stretched as far as she could see in every direction, and there were an uncountable number of ships, some coming, some going, most sitting still in between.

  As they drew near the pier, Jack commenced barking orders and the crew prepared the ship for mooring. Fin and Knut climbed aloft to pull in the sails. Their size lent them to easy climbing, and in the past days Fin had spent more time up in the ropes than down on solid footing. Once the sails were secure, Knut called her down but she ignored him. She climbed up to the highest yardarm and stared out across the cityscape. From so high up she could see across the rooftops for miles as she tossed side to side with the rolling of the ship. Fin smiled. It was like looking out at the forest from her old bell tower. She felt for a moment as if she were home. Then, like a thunderclap, an order barked up from Jack broke the spell. She shimmied down and hurried back to work as the Rattlesnake came to rest and settled at the wharf.

  The crew moored the ship and Jack ordered the holds opened up. They spent the afternoon unloading the little they had aboard and delivered it to the proper warehouses as directed by the dock master. When the work was complete and accounts were settled, Jack delivered the paperwork and monies to the captain and returned with pay for the crew. It was the first money Fin had ever had, and the few coins, no more than a pittance to others, were all riches and finery to her.

  When Jack released the crew to go ashore, she prodded Knut to find her some paper and a pen. The rest of the crew laughed and sang and headed down the pier into town while Fin sat, scratching away with a quill, writing Peter to let him know she was safe. Knut didn’t seem anxious for the company of the rowdy crew, so he sat down and waited patiently without asking to whom she wrote or why. Fin wrote little more than that she was safe, she was working, she’d be home soon, and Peter ought not to worry about her. When she finished, she folded it up and hopped to her feet.

  “Let’s go find the Philadelphia postmaster.”

  Knut shrugged and pointed toward the city. “It’s down that away. I been there with the captain before.” He ambled across the plank and down the pier.

  Knut was a reliable guide. He remembered just where the postmaster’s office was. After dropping a few coins for post, he and Fin wandered the town. A few blocks from the pier they spotted three shipmates bartering for the services of a painted prostitute on the steps of a run-down brothel. Fin frowned at them and winced at the sight of the prostitute teasing the sailors; she wore an eye patch—and had more eyes than teeth. She didn’t know who to feel more sorry for, the whore or the sailors. The end finds the harlot when all other doors are shut. Fin turned away thinking she’d kick in a few doors before she walked through that one.

  “Where should we go, Knut?”

  “I don’t reckon. Mainly I just stay on the ’Snake ’less the captain or Jack needs me.” He shrugged with a frown and Fin shook her head. She couldn’t decide if he was daft or not. Sometimes he was as quick as a whip, and other times she swore he was as dumb as a plank. Dumb or not, he was the only friend Fin had made, and she wasn’t going to spend the evening cooped up on ship and alone.

  “Tommy Knuttle, you and me are going to have some fun,” she told him with a determined nod.

  “Fun?”

  “And we can start right there.” Fin pointed at a sign swinging over the door of a tavern down the street. TUN TAVERN it read. She grabbed Knut by the arm and dragged him toward it. He didn’t protest, but he didn’t seem to like what he was about to be pulled into either.

  When they got to the door, Fin pushed it open and stomped in as if she’d been in a hundred portside taverns and knew just what she was doing. The tavern was dimly lit and smelled of beer and sweat. Crowded tables cluttered the room, and laughter, shouting, and the singing of several different songs, all at once, livened the air. For reasons she couldn’t quite put a finger to, Fin felt right at home. She dragged Knut by the collar to the nearest open seat and sat him down beside her. The man next to her was as fat as an ox and gave her a stare of appraisal before hefting his drink and returning his attention to his fellows across the table. Fin stared around at the place wondering what to do next.

  A stubbly bald man bobbled up to her. “Drinks?” he asked as he wiped his hands on his filthy apron.

  “Yes—uh, two,” stammered Fin.

  “What whets your fancy?” he said impatiently. Fin didn’t have the least idea what her fancy was nor why it might need whetting. She looked to Knut. He was busy cleaning out his ear, oblivious to the conversation, no help at all.

  “What do you—”

  “We got the finest beers from all across the colonies. Also got a few from old Ireland and even a cask of German dark just in if that’s your taste. We don’t suffer an English draught, though, if that’s what you’re thirsty for.”

  Across the room, a gaggle of noisy patrons whistled and banged their empty mugs on the table. The waiter waved to calm them down then raised his eyebrow at Fin. “Not got all night, sir. What’ll you have?”

  “Have anything from Georgia?”

  “Georgia? Let’s see now . . .” He rolled up his eyes and scratched his pate in thought. “Yes sir, I believe we got a bit of a cask left from nearabout Macon. A thick stout it is, like the folk that made it, or so I hear,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Two of those please,” said Fin.

  He nodded and hurried over to the table where the men were shaking their empty cups at him. Knut was staring across the room. He had discovered the spectacle of a drunken man alternately dancing and falling down as people cheered him on. Knut grinned, a rare condition.

  “Georgia?” said a gruff voice from across the table.

  “Excuse me?” said Fin. The man across from her was red as a beet. By the count of empty mugs and bottles in front of him, Fin thought he might be trying to pickle himself as well.

  “You from Georgia?” he said.

  “Me? Yes, sir.”

  “Heard about that woman you got down there. Good stuff, I reckon.”

  “Woman?”

  “That War Woman!” He grinned as he said it. “That lady what killed them English. My kind of woman!” The other men at the table agreed and laughed.

  “That kind of woman like to bowl you over and feed you to her biddies!” said the man next to him.

  “She can bowl me any way she like!” said the red-faced man as he picked up his cup. The others chuckled then knocked their mugs together and took a long draw.

  “I haven’t heard about her. What happened?” asked Fin. Her stomach was fluttering.

  “Thought you said you was from Georgia, mister.”

  “I am. But I’ve been at sea and—”

  “Woman down in Georgia, six British was ordered to seize her house. She invited them in, they says. Sat them all down for supper. Then killed every one of ’em in cold blood. Right at the dinner table. ‘The Georgia War Woman’ they calling her—ain’t seen her have you?” he finished with a chuckle.

  Fin’s head felt like it migh
t pop. He was talking about her. He had to be.

  “Did she have a name?” Fin asked.

  “Aye, what was it now. Odd name it was.” He picked a flake of dried skin off his ear as he thought about it.

  “Phinea Michaels,” said the man next to him. “Locals give her right up, damned Tories.” Fins face went white. The sisters must have withheld her last name to protect her. “British won’t let this one go. They’ll get hold of her family; she’ll turn herself in if the damned Tories don’t do it for the money first.”

  “What money?” Fin asked.

  “A thousand pound is what money. Alive or otherwise.”

  The waiter returned and plunked down two pints of foamy beer in front of her. She picked up the drink and gulped at it. When the bitter hit her she nearly choked it back up. She’d never tasted beer before. The men across the table laughed.

  “Easy, boy. Don’t waste good beer on a weak belly. Where’s that paper?” The man craned his neck and shouted around, looking for the newspaper. Someone from another table yelled back, wadded up a piece of paper, and threw it in Fin’s direction. The red-skinned man across from her caught it, unwadded it, and smoothed it out on the table.

  “There she is,” he said and passed the piece of paper across the table. She took it from his hands and tried to look calm. It was an issue of the Philadelphia Gazette, and the headline said “Georgia War Woman Slays English.” A crude woodcut print depicted a shorthaired woman impaling a soldier on a bayonet. Ebenezer, the orphan house, the sisters, they were all there, all in the paper. Fin was mortified. She wanted to run out the door and keep on running until she was back home, back with Peter. The last line read: “Reward of one thousand pounds to be paid by the Royal Governor for the capture or killing of Phinea Michaels.” A thousand pounds. She couldn’t go home. Ebenezer had as many folk loyal to Britain as not; someone was sure to turn her in. But what if the man was right, what if the British threatened people close to her, or worse—hurt them, imprisoned them? She folded up the paper and stuck it in her pocket.

  “You said the British would do something to her family? I didn’t see that in the article,” she said to the red-faced man.

  “It don’t? Hell, I can’t read. That’s what I heard though. Damned English want to make an example, stretch her neck where folks can learn about the kindness of King George, I reckon. People been talking about it all over.” He paused and scratched his cheek. “What you so curious for? You know something about her?”

  “No, I used to live nearby. But I haven’t been back in ages.” Fin tried to shrink from sight and took another sip of her drink. She glanced at Knut. He was studying her as if she were a strange animal.

  “You all right, Fin?” he said.

  “I’m fine. Look, there’s Jack.”

  Jack and several other sailors from the Rattlesnake had just walked through the door and were clearing drunks away from a table so they could sit down.

  “Let’s go join them, come on.” She scooped up their mugs and walked over to the newly cleared table. She plunked the drinks down and settled herself across from one of the sailors, a man she knew only as Bill. The other men at the table eyed her and Fin felt they were silently considering whether or not she ought to be there. Fin looked around for Knut and discovered him standing back from the table, deep in thought.

  “Sit down, Knut,” said Fin.

  Knut shook his head and frowned.

  “Knows better than to sit, he does,” said Bill from across the table. “Bad luck to have an addlebrained half-wit about.” Several of the other men laughed in agreement. Fin noticed a look of disapproval on Jack’s face, but he didn’t disapprove enough to say anything.

  “The half-wit is the one thinks his luck is in another man’s head,” said Fin.

  “Eh?” said Bill, looking confused.

  “Hard of hearing? I’ll say it again. You say your luck’s bad due to Knut, and I say you’re the half-wit for thinking it.”

  Bill’s face turned dark, and he inclined an ear toward Fin. “Don’t think I heard that just right, swabbie. ’Cause if I heard that right, I’d be obliged to knuckle in your noggin’.” Bill leaned across the table and raised an eyebrow.

  “Careful, Bill! Jack say he knocked in old Tommy with one whop!” called out a sailor from down the table. The others erupted in laughter, and Knut squirmed in his clothes. Fin’s blood was beginning to boil. If there was anything she couldn’t stomach, it was folks getting down on people who couldn’t stand up for themselves.

  “I said,” she leaned in toward him, “I think you’re the half-wit.”

  Bill pushed back from the table and stood up hard enough to knock his chair over backwards behind him.

  “Best clear back, boys. I’m about to box this youngun’s ears.”

  Bill walked around the table. Fin squared off with him, threw up her fists, and grinned. Her grin seemed to produce a sort of growling sound inside Bill’s chest.

  “Fin, let’s go,” said Knut from behind her.

  “We ain’t going nowhere, Knut.”

  Fin winked at Bill, and he charged her. She stepped to the side and laid her fist into his face the same way she’d done Tommy in Savannah. Bill fell to the floor. The men at the table laughed and cheered and the bartender yelled for peace, but all the noise disappeared when Bill jumped back up. Fin blinked in surprise, and he threw his fist up under her chin. She sailed through the air and landed on her back atop the next table over, sending patrons scattering for cover. Now Bill was the one grinning. Fin scrambled off the table and noticed that her jaw didn’t seem to close in just the same way it had before. Jack shook his head in exasperation.

  “Ain’t done with you, boy,” growled Bill.

  Fin wasn’t amused anymore. She rushed at him, and they set to throwing fists and hollering one at the other. Bill’s hands felt like hams clubbing her each time he connected, but her small size and quick feet provided connection was rare, if painful. Bill, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to avoid Fin’s fists no matter what he did. Later, he would swear she had help because two hands alone could not have hit him so many times in so short a span. It didn’t take long. Bill hit the ground with a thud and didn’t move until the sun came up. The sailors cheered and laughed, and Jack sat shaking his monstrous head.

  Fin turned to Knut and ordered him to sit. He did.

  She sat down beside him, and Jack hollered at her down the table, “Button, if you don’t quit off beating on my crew, we’ll have no one left to run the ’Snake at all.” Fin laughed. “Bill was buying the drinks tonight. So you just inherited Bill’s . . . bill.” Fin opened her mouth in protest, and Jack raised an eyebrow to silence it.

  “Fair enough,” she conceded.

  Jack winked back at her, then stood up and cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, those of you that ain’t yet met, this here is Fin Button.” Jack nodded toward her, and Fin gulped her drink to hide a blush. The others at the table shouted hellos at her. “Button, this is Ned Smithers.” Jack motioned to a blond-haired man with a big, toothy grin. “Next to him is Flanders Topper, also known as the Boot Snuffler—we won’t get into that.” Topper was a small, plump man with a bulbous nose and looked to be covered in dirt from hair to foot. He rolled his eyes at Jack and nodded at Fin. “Far side o’ the Snuffler, we got Fred Martin and Art Thomasson.” The two men grunted at Fin in between guzzles from their mugs. “And over here we got Tan Bough.” Jack hooked his thumb over his shoulder, and from behind him, Tan glanced at Fin through a tangle of sandy-brown hair. He acknowledged Jack’s introduction with the slightest smile and turned away.

  “’Course, you and Bill Stumm already met.” He motioned at Bill lying on the floor. “Now I don’t expect no more trouble amongst me own crew,” said Jack with an air of finality. The men at the table nodded and were soon singing old songs and drinking as if nothing had ever interrupted them at all. Bill lay peaceful as a babe near the foot of the table.

  Fin nursed her swelli
ng lip and wiped her bleeding nose off on her sleeve then got up and angled her way around the table toward Jack. He was huddled over a drink, talking with Tan. Jack spied her out of the corner of his eye and held up his hand to Tan. They stopped talking and looked at her.

  “Jack, could I talk to you?” Fin asked.

  “Look like you already are.”

  “In private?”

  “Nothing I want to hear can’t be heard by Tan and the rest. Get on with it,” he barked at her, irritated.

  “I heard there’s trouble back home, in Georgia. And I was wondering—”

  “Don’t even think of trying to weasel-worm your way off the ’Snake, mister. I like you good enough and you got the jerk to be a fine sea-hand one day, and them’s scarce nowabout with the war afoot. So forget about running off and go sit down.” He narrowed his eyes at her. He was crouching to pounce if she gave him a reply he didn’t like.

  “No sir, I don’t want to leave. I was just wondering if we’d be headed back down to Savannah any time soon. I’d like to check up on friend and family as the case might be.”

  “It’s the captain decides what we do, and where, and when. Not me—and damn sure not you. The devil alone knows the captain’s mind, so you best tend your work and leave them matters be, Mr. Button.” Jack wrinkled his brow and was silent a moment. “But if we land back in Savannah, come talk at me, and I’ll be sure you get the time you need to check on your kin.” Jack turned back to Tan and resumed his former conversation without waiting for Fin to reply. She walked back to her seat next to Knut.

  She was desperate to know if the sisters and Peter were safe. If that man was right about the British using people close to her as leverage then she’d never forgive herself if any hurt came of it. But if she went back, they would be looking for her. She sipped on her beer, which was beginning to taste quite good, and considered her thoughts in silence.