Nathaniel gave a conclusive nod, as if he’d settled the question about their family’s strangeness.

He was looking at the town and the harbor, ringed by fish houses and chandleries, when he became aware of a presence behind him; turning, he saw Black Watch off Double Eagle’s quarter and closing fast, under full press and all in a froth and a fury. Double Eagle was ambling along; the archipelago of Merchant’s Row isles, as he had figured it would, blocked much of the southwest wind, but, absorbed in conversation and in thoughts about his family, he had not bothered to reset topsails. Soon, the yawl was abeam, and not more than twenty yards away, stealing from Double Eagle what wind the land had not already taken. There were four men on deck, the helmsman and two others looking ahead for oncoming vessels, while the fourth, a tall, heavyset man, waved with both arms to get Double Eagle’s attention. Nathaniel waved back to tell him he had it. The man hailed them through a brass trumpet: Where were they headed? Nathaniel told him. The man whipped out a bright red bandanna and fluttered it in farewell, giving it one last dismissive flip that communicated ridicule and challenge at the same time.

This is what we need, Nathaniel thought as Black Watch drew away. It was what he and his little crew needed to get their minds off family gossip and their present homelessness; it was what they needed to start functioning as a team.

“Gimme the wheel,” he snapped to Eliot. “You and Drew break out those topsails and run ’em up. Those lubbers”—jerking his head at the yawl, its transom already some twenty yards away—“want a race, so let’s give ’em one.”

5

WHAT IF they’re not going to North Haven? Suppose they’re bound for Camden, Portland, Madagascar? Do we race them anyway and forget North Haven? Where’s the finish, and who’s to say who wins? Scampering over the decks, wet and cool beneath his bare feet, Eliot concluded that the race was a figment of his older brother’s imagination, or, better yet, a product of that busy factory, his overly competitive nature. Nat was never satisfied unless he was in a match, a scrimmage, a scuffle, a race, and if one didn’t exist, he would invent one. That fellow on the yawl had only been taunting them, not challenging them. But in the interests of keeping a happy ship, Eliot submitted himself to Nat’s fantasy. With Drew, he wrestled the topsails out of the bags and ran them up.

“Picked up a knot!” shouted Nat. “Did you feel her? Like a horse kicked into a trot. They’ll be eating our wake, and right quick!”