Barbara Hambly - Dead water
While he spoke, the Silver Moon had drawn closer to the fast-racing waters of Hitchins' Chute. Seven or eight deck-hands clambered down into the skiff, rowing across to the steep clay banks among the willows. Four sprang ashore on one side of the chute's mouth; the rest took the skiff across the fifty or sixty feet of water to the other. There they waited, with the long poles they'd brought with them in hand, for the steamboat to approach and be nudged into the narrow passageway.
Meantime the rain was lightening, till by the time the Silver Moon was fairly into the chute it was barely a patter. Though the current of the main river still surged with trees, limbs, scraps of sawn lumber or dead animals, the force of the stream was noticeably lessened. January could see where the wash-line on the banks already stood several feet above the surface.
Overhanging boughs swept the arcades of the boiler-deck above, and slapped at the stanchions only feet from where January and Rose stood by the passway. The male slaves pointed and commented about the suddenly-close scenery—the boys Lam and Jeremiah moved out to the end of their chains to lean over, to catch at the dripping leaves that whipped in under the arcades, and overhead January heard Melissa Tredgold scream, “I want to see! I want to see!”
No doubt while she tried to drag the unwilling Cissy over to the edge to let her do the same.
“No, you're right.” Rose leaned against January's side, rested her head on his shoulder. With his palm on her back he felt the tension in her slender body ease. “We don't know a thing about anyone on board except what they've told us. My guess is that Lundy was in bed. Sufferers from his ailment don't have much stamina. He told me once he has to lie down every few hours. He was the Silver Moon's original pilot, the one Molloy undercut. He took on the job because he has to get to Lexington, Kentucky—Tredgold is a friend of his and agreed to let him work, since he desperately needs the money. Because Tredgold reneged and hired Molloy, he's letting Lundy ride for free—though to my mind it's a high price, to put up with Molloy's abuse. There's evidently a professor at the medical school there who can help nervous disorders of this kind.”
“Did he say what his name is?” January felt a twinge of chagrin, like a twist in the muscle beneath his breastbone, at the reflection that it had been months since he'd had time to read the issues of The Lancet so dutifully stacking up in the small study at the back of the new house. He'd been conscious, as he'd examined Weems's body, of how long it had been since he'd done any serious medical work at all. Though the circumstances had appalled him—and though he felt pity for that sly, weasely little man—he had also felt all his old delight and wonderment at the tiny structures of the human body, the sense of probing into some of God's more mysterious and beautiful secrets.
“Burnham? Barham?” Rose shook her head. “I can't recall exactly.”
“The name isn't familiar. I'll have to ask. But one thing I do know. Whoever did the murder, I'd be willing to bet—if I had any money of my own to bet with—that it took place either on the starboard promenade of the boiler-deck, or more probably on the starboard promenade of the main deck. And that dark as it was, at least some of the slaves saw it.”
FOURTEEN
“Herodotus.” Colonel Davis's sharp voice sounded calm and firm, and as January and Rose looked around the corner of the 'tween-decks, the young Fulani rose to meet the tall, black-clothed planter.
“Yes, sir.”
Behind Davis, Cain watched with folded arms and Gleet spat tobacco onto the deck. In the presence of the dealers the men chained along the wall moved together as much as they could.
One never knew, with les blankittes, thought January.
Even if one hadn't—almost certainly—witnessed murder last night.
“Tell me about last night.”
'Rodus sighed. “I wish I could, sir. Believe me, I asked among the boys here if they heard anything. That poor buckra's got to gone in the water someplace. But I swear to you last night was quiet. We tells stories some, like we always does—I thought I'd split laughin' over one old guy told 'bout the three mice in the barroom—an' sang some, just to keep our spirits up in the dark. Sound carries funny in the fog, as you'll know, sir. We heard voices now an' then from above, when folks went along to their cabins, but we didn't hear no shoutin' nor angry voices. Not like there'd been a fight or nuthin'.”
“You lyin' nigger.” Gleet's rawhide riding-crop lashed out like a lizard's tongue, striking 'Rodus on the muscle of his bare arm. The slave flinched, his dark eyes going to Cain for an instant, then back to the deck, where all good slaves' eyes belonged. “Colonel Davis talked to every man on the bow-deck an' to his own man that was sleepin' just aft of you lot, an' they saw nor heard shit. So it got to be one of you that did it—one of you, or one of the bitches over the other side of the boat. Now, you tell what you saw or I'll thrash the skin off every one of you.”
“You treat your own niggers as you please, Ned.” Cain removed his cigar from his mouth and blew a thread of smoke like an unspoken line of scorn. “Myself, I ain't fixin' to try and explain no hashed-up backs to buyers in Memphis. What the hell would Weems be doin' down here, anyway? He was your milk-and-water Abolitionist: he'd cry big tears about niggers bein' treated bad, but he didn't want to be around 'em.”
At the threat of beating, January had watched the faces of the men, especially the two boys Lam and Jeremiah. He saw not only the fear there, but the way they'd all, even the members of Gleet's coffle, turned toward 'Rodus, as if for some sign. As if last night—January could almost see it in his mind—'Rodus had said, You all keep silent, and leave the talking to me.
Davis, of course, had looked back to Cain and Gleet during the altercation. As white men, they were the ones who had the power to do or change things. It was their words that mattered. Turning back to 'Rodus, he said, “As you say, 'Rodus, Mr. Weems has to have gone into the water somewhere. If he fell—or was thrown—from the promenade deck overhead, he would have made a considerable splash.”
“It's what I thought myself, sir,” agreed the slave. “But here with the engine-room so close, an' the paddle threshin' so loud, you don't hear much and that's a fact.”
“I thought I'd heard smooth customers teaching girls' school,” remarked Rose softly as Thu came past them from the stern stairway and made his way along to the three white men. “But I think he takes the biscuit for butter not melting in his mouth.”
Whatever Thu told them, in a voice too quiet to carry, Gleet, Cain, and Davis turned and headed for the bow. The steward lingered for a moment to exchange a word with 'Rodus before coming back along the promenade to the stairway at the stern, and January saw again, in the rainy grayness, the steward's narrow, almost girlish face settle into age and strength when relaxed from its habitual cheerful smile. Face-to-face there was no mistaking the resemblance.
January glanced down at Rose, and met her eyes, which had followed his gaze. She raised her eyebrows: “Is that my imagination?” she asked, and January shook his head. “Do you think Cain knows?”
“He'd have to be a fool not to notice how alike they look,” answered January. “And whatever else he is, Jubal Cain isn't a fool. Any other white man, it's even odds whether they'd see it or not—their color's so different, and it always shocks me how little blankittes notice. But it might explain why, on a dark and foggy night, Cain made sure he wasn't alone when he came down to see that his slaves were fed.”
“Could a slave kill a white man walking by?” asked Rose as they retreated through the passway to the port-side promenade. The rain had stopped entirely; the paddle was moving slowly as the banks closed in around the Silver Moon, overhanging boughs of oak and tupelo scraping hard on the sides. As January had feared, closed in by the trees the damp heat was ghastly, and away from the main channel of the river the air swarmed with mosquitoes and gnats. “Those chains aren't very long—they have to turn around and lean out to the extent of their arms to relieve their bowels over the river. And that iron must be extremely heavy.”
Rose, January realized, had never worn chains.
“You'd be surprised what you can do,” he said softly, “if you're really frightened, or really angry.”
“But would any of them have been that frightened of—or angry at—Weems? He was a thief, and a blackmailer, but not, as far as I've ever heard, a man of violence. I can't imagine anyone wasting his time trying to blackmail a slave. Not one who has no useful information about a current master, like these. Weems was an Abolitionist, too, at least a milk-and-water one. Why would any of the slaves have attacked him?”
January shook his head. “But they saw something. And two things happened last night: Weems's murder, and Julie's escape.”
“Julie.” Rose's mouth hardened into a thin line of anger.
“Did you see her go?”
“No,” From the bow January could hear the leadsman's shouts: “Half one! Half one! Quarter less twain . . .” And hoped that Levi Christmas and his boys had passed them in the night and were at present somewhere on the other side of Hitchins' Point. Looking up, he saw the planter Lockhart at the stern rail of the boiler-deck, rifle in the crook of his arm, silhouetted against the hot summer sky.
“It was dark as Egypt, as they say—you know how fog seems to drink up light, and there wasn't any too much from the deck lantern to begin with. Sophie and Julie came down to share supper with me, after they got their respective mistresses ready for dinner—Julie was just shaking over the prospect of being sold to Gleet.”
She ducked as a willow-branch swept over the deck, spattering her with leftover rain. Behind them the paddle slowed, water slithering from its bucket-boards, and the monotonous voice of the leadsman chanted, “Quarter one . . . quarter one . . .”
The thick trees seemed to absorb the sound.
“Mark one.”
“I don't think she's stopped crying since we left Vicksburg,” Rose went on. “And that nasty little hussy Skippen boxed her ears for it. Julie spoke of running away, but was terrified—naturally—of being beaten if she were caught and brought back: she has no concept of where Canada is, or even Ohio, nor which states forbid slavery and which permit it. She wasn't even terribly clear which direction north was, only that slaves running away follow the river. She'd been born and raised within five miles of New Orleans: she knows only upstream and down, toward the river or toward the swamp. Not unlike,” she added with sudden asperity, “some of the damsels whose mothers bring them to my school. We're stopped.”
The paddle hung still. Gleet came down the stern stair, cursing, his whip in one hand and a rifle in the other. Without a glance at them he went through the passway to the starboard promenade where the men were chained. A few moments later deck-hands appeared, unfastening the long boat-poles from the sides of the 'tween-decks.
Mr. Lundy, reflected January, had evidently been right about the chute. “How late in the evening was the last time you saw her?”
“Then,” said Rose. “Just before, and during dinner. Cissy came down, too, with the leftover tea-leaves from the children's tea; she got Eli to give us some hot water for a second run. All three of the girls went up together when the waiters came down the stairs from clearing away supper. That meant Mesdames Fischer and Roberson, and Miss Skippen, would be coming out soon, and might need someone to re-pin their hair before they spent the evening listening to music and dancing in the Saloon.”
There was a dry note in Rose's voice that made January flinch, though he knew she wasn't angry at him. And he felt again the slow, hot fury, that Mrs. Fischer's scheme should oblige Rose—a woman born in freedom, the daughter of a planter on Grand Isle—to sleep on the bare deck, live on the scraps of white folks' meals, and relieve herself over the side in full view of any stranger passing on the river road or sailing downstream in a flatboat.
No, he thought. No, we are not free. Having money will help—having a house will help. But it will not make us free.
She went on. “By then it was foggy and pitch black. Julie usually sleeps with me, and Sophie, when Mrs. Fischer is entertaining Weems—Julie generally comes down at eleven, after getting Miss Skippen ready for bed, but if either of those so-called ladies comes back from the dancing early, she wants her maid waiting right there when she comes in. I heard the leadsmen start calling out as we were coming up on the bar, and Mr. Molloy cursing them from the pilot-house. Just after we crossed over the bar Sophie came down with a blanket, and lay down beside me. I asked, Is Julie all right? And she said, I don't know. I'll tell you in the morning. I heard her crying a little before she went to sleep.”
“And in the morning, of course, the first thing anyone saw was Weems's body. So I take it you haven't had a chance to talk to her?”
Rose shook her head. “Jim saw the body first, and called out, Dear God, it's a man caught up there! Sophie was the one who recognized him, and screamed. Simon—he's the head engineer—was sleeping on deck and ran at once into the engine-room to have the engines stopped, and Sophie clutched on to the wood-pile, sobbing. She got herself in hand quickly, though, and said, Madame! Oh my poor Madame! and went running up the steps. That's the last I saw of her.”
“Julie had better be moving fast,” January said. “If the patrols catch her, they'll take her straight to Mayersville. She may, of course, have actually killed Weems—if he caught her going over the rail, for instance, and tried to stop her, though I can't imagine why he would have or what he'd have been doing down on the lower deck at that hour.”
“I can't either,” agreed Rose. “And I'll still take oath she got off the boat as we were going over the bar. The starboard promenade would be the logical place for her to go into the water unobserved. Her escape may be all they're hiding, you know.”
“It may,” agreed January. “I can understand Gleet's gang being terrified, but it's harder to believe Cain's gang would be that scared over the accusation of not reporting a runaway.”
“If I know Mrs. Fischer, I'll have the perfect opportunity to question Sophie, but at such appalling cost to myself that I hesitate—”
“Benjamin.”
January turned, to see Colonel Davis coming down the stern steps. The young planter wore a look of rather grim puzzlement, and the glint in his pale eyes told January instantly that there was trouble.
