“He must have been a clever man,” said Ratcliffe.
“He was,” said Tyler. “Come below.”
The cabin of the Sarah Tyler showed a table in the middle, a hanging bunch of bananas, seats upholstered in some sort of leather, a telltale compass fixed in the ceiling, racks for guns and nautical instruments, and a bookcase holding a couple of dozen books. A sleeping cabin guarded by a curtain opened aft. Nailed to the bulkhead by the bookcase was an old photograph in a frame, the photograph of a man with a goatee beard, shaggy eyebrows, and a face that seemed stamped out of determination—or obstinacy.
“That’s him,” said Jude.
“Your father?”
“Yep.”
“It was took after Mother bolted,” said Tyler.
“She took off with a long-shore Baptis’ minister,” said Jude. “Said she couldn’t stand Pap’s unbelievin’ ways.”
“He made her work for him in a laundry,” said Tyler.
“It was at Pensacola, up the gulf, and a year after, when we fetched up there again, she came aboard and died. Pap went for the Baptis’ man.”