The Power and the Glory Read Free Page B

Crabtree to Algiers with $60,000 in ransom money raised from family members on both sides of the Atlantic. Although that ransom attempt had failed to achieve its primary purpose, the imprisoned Americans at least knew that their country had not forgotten them and that their employer had not forgotten their families. Speaking on behalf of the Cutler family, Richard had promised Eagle’ s crew prior to leaving Algiers that Cutler & Sons would look after their families for as long as necessary. Although the cash squeeze on the shipping company had been extreme at the time, the Cutler family had kept its promise.
    Will Cutler dipped and bobbed his way over to his father and brother when he saw them wending their way to the Long Wharf counting house. “See, Jamie, I told you!” he crowed.
    â€œMr. Cutler! Mr. Cutler, sir!”
    Richard turned to see a small-boned, thirty-ish woman in a faded blue cotton dress and plain white mobcap coming toward him. Her face was familiar, but her name escaped him. “I’m Jane Reed,” she said, sensing his uncertainty when she was close to him, “wife to Jim Reed.”
    â€œYes, of course, Jane. I’m sorry. It’s been a few years, and in all this confusion . . .”
    â€œMr. Cutler,” she interrupted him, “I’ve something to say to you.” Taking a deep breath and fighting back tears, she leaned in so that he could hear her amid the clanging of bells and the bustle at dockside. “Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking. “Thank you and your dear family for all you have done for me and my Jim. You, sir, are a saint.” She swiped away tears and then reached up to kiss him on the cheek.

    Richard had to fight the lump in his throat to reply. “I’m hardly that, Jane. It’s God’s blessing that Eagle’ s crew has come home to us today.”
    â€œHis, yes,” she agreed, “and yours, Mr. Cutler.” She touched his arm before moving off into a crowd that was growing ever more jubilant as Falcon, lying a short way off the quay with her bowsprit facing toward the east whence she had come, made ready to be warped in. Sailors at her bow and stern heaved coiled ropes to dockers stationed fore and aft on the merchant vessels bracketing the space cleared for Falcon along the half-mile stretch of Boston’s longest commercial wharf. The dockers caught the ropes and, aided by deckhands, ran the bitter ends through hawser holes and onto cylindrical capstans bolted amidships on each of the two vessels. Once the end of each rope was secured to a capstan and a signal given, men stationed in a circle around the giant winches pushed hard on the metal bars at the top, taking in first the slack of rope and then the full weight of the schooner herself, coaxing her slowly inward toward the wharf.
    Members of the schooner’s crew working in the rigging had by now assumed distinct form, as had the passengers lining her larboard railing. The former hostages stood listening to the bells and watching the goings-on ashore as if in a trance, as though unable to accept the blessed gift of homecoming after enduring so much for so long in a wretched Arab prison. Many let tears stream unabashedly down their cheeks.
    As dockers cranked Falcon in the last few feet, the crowd stepped back in deference to the Cutler brothers—Richard on the dock and Caleb, his younger brother, standing amidships near Falcon’ s entry port. The two brothers locked eyes as onlookers cheered, waved their hats in the air, and beckoned joyously to loved ones now just a few feet away and drawing closer. As Falcon bumped against the massive stone-and-wood structure, Caleb formed a fist with his right hand and brought it over his heart, in the same gesture of the Roman general Fabius Maximus with which he had said good-bye to Richard in the dey’s prison those many years ago. Richard returned the gesture and then allowed his gaze to