New York - The Novel

Hudson, or any of the family. For reasons you do not need to know, this is between you and me. Do you understand?”
    “Yes, Boss,” I said.
    So I reckoned that he must have made an English will.
    “There’s one more thing,” he said. “You have to promise to do something for me, after I’m gone.” He took out a little bundle of cloth and unwrapped it. And inside I saw the wampum belt he was wearing the time we went upriver.
    “You’ve seen this before?”
    “Yes, Boss,” I said.
    “This is a very special belt, Quash,” he told me. “It has great significanceand value. In fact, this is more precious to me than anything else that I possess. And I keep it wrapped up and hidden in a place which I will show to you. When I die, Quash, I want you to go and fetch this belt. Don’t tell anyone what you’re doing, not even the Mistress. But I want you to take this belt to Miss Clara’s house, and tell her that this is my particular gift to little Dirk. And he is to have it, and keep it, and give it to his son one day, if he has one, or pass it down to my descendants in memory of me. Will you promise to do this for me, Quash?” “Yes, Boss,” I said. “I promise.”
    “Good,” he said. Then he showed me the hiding place; and we put the wampum belt there, so that it would be safe.

    The rumors about Captain Kidd started the following spring. Ships came into the port saying instead of hunting down pirates, he’d turned pirate himself. I asked the Boss what he thought.
    “Who knows,” he said with a shrug, “what happens at sea?”
    I thought of my Hudson, but I didn’t say more. The rumors continued, but we heard nothing definite all the next year. In the spring of 1699, we heard that English naval vessels were out looking for him. And finally, Captain Kidd turned up in Boston that summer, and word came that he’d been arrested.
    And that was where, it seemed to me, the Boss showed at his best. Because within the hour of this news arriving, he was on his way to Boston to find out about Hudson. I tried to thank him as he left, but he gave me a grin and told me he was just checking on his property.
    There was a fast vessel going up to Boston that day. But two weeks passed. And then, one afternoon, I saw two men walking down the street toward the house. One was the Boss. The other was a black man, a little taller than me, a powerful-looking fellow. And then, to my amazement, he started running toward me, and took me in his arms, and I saw that it was my son Hudson.

    In the days that followed Hudson told me all kinds of things about that voyage, about the cholera, and how they couldn’t find any French vessels. He said the captain was following his commission, but so many of the crew were pirates that he could hardly stop them attacking even theDutch ships. They were bad people, he told me. In the end they took a French ship, but its captain turned out to be English, and that was the start of the trouble.
    “I was arrested too, in Boston,” Hudson told me. “But when the Boss turned up and said I was only a slave that he rented to Captain Kidd, believing him to be a privateer, they reckoned I was of no account, so they let me go. I think the Boss may have paid them something too.”
    But Captain Kidd wasn’t so lucky. For a long time he was held in Boston, and then they sent him to be tried in England.
    The only thing people in New York went on talking about was the money Captain Kidd must have made from that voyage. Those that invested never saw any—except for the governor. Captain Kidd had buried some treasure on a place called Gardiner’s Island, but he told the governor where it was, and so the governor collected that. But people said there was more buried treasure somewhere, maybe out on Long Island. I asked Hudson if it was true, but he just shook his head; though I did wonder if maybe there was something he knew that he wasn’t telling.
    Truth to tell, none of this was important to me. The only thing I cared about was that I had my son back and that one day he’d have his freedom. Though I did what the Boss said, and never told him that.

    I was grateful for something else too. After being with those pirates, my Hudson was not so anxious to go to sea for a while. He was happy enough to live in the house with me; for many months we were quite content. New York was tranquil enough. The Boss used to go often to the houses of Jan and Miss Clara, but in particular I could see that he took a