Barbara Hambly - 03 Graveyard Dust

The policeman nodded. "Clear up to Ouachita Parish, she was. Sold to a man name of Dedman. Nice enough feller, and seemed to treat her decent. Let me talk to her out in the kitchen. She didn't have a whole lot to add to what Isaak's told you. The cab feller had already left by the time she figured Isaak was gone, and Antoine was laid out colder'n a mackerel-bet he didn't mention he had a bottle of opium in his pocket that he was swiggin' right through his brother's mortal struggle. That Zoe's a big strappin' gal, and even in full health Isaak wasn't much heavier'n a flour-barrel. Like you guessed, there was a sort of cart or wheelbarrow in the shop, from bringin' in the floor mats. She used it twice, once to haul Isaak out'n there and again for Antoine. In the rain and the dark, and scared as she was about M'am Cordelia comin' down, she was kind of hurried over Isaak. She wept when she told me about it, said she'd never have done it, 'cept for bein' scared of what M'am Jumon would do." January said dryly, "She had reason to be."

"Well now, by all I hear, M'am Cordelia's mellowed some with age." Shaw spit again, at a roach the length of his finger, ambling down the side of a nearby tomb. "I understand when she was runnin' Trianon by herself, she kept discipline by bakin' the troublemakers in the brick ovens behind the house, or buryin' 'em up to their necks in the dirt for six, seven days. That kind of reputation buys you good service for a long time."

January remembered Mathurin Jumon's anxious, coaxing voice, Now, Mother, don't be like that... "That it does," he said softly. "That it does."

"But comin' back through Natchez," went on Shaw, scratching absently under the breast of his coat, "who should I see at the American Flag Hotel but them dear long-lost friends of mine, Lucinda and Abigail Coughlin. Turned out pretty as a pair of angels and actin' like little Abby hadn't never screamed and faked dead in her life." January's glance cut sidelong, and met the chilly enigmatic gray eyes.

"They was waitin' for word from Yellowjack, seemingly." Shaw watched as the priest made the sign of the cross above the body, the men slid the shrouded form up into the rented holding-tomb-Laurence having a few months left to run before his year and a day's undisturbed occupancy of the family vault was up. "I understand now there was some certain amount of foolery with a pig's bladder full of blood, and the most heartrendin' death throes this side of a Bulwer-Lytton novel, and then somebody comin' around askin' somebody else for a whole lot of money not to say nuthin' about what had happened. I didn't speak to 'em-bein' shy of the ladies, you understand, and not knowin' at the time they was wanted for anything specific down here-but I sort of hinted to the Sheriff there to keep an eye on those two. I guess it's about time I headed back on up there again."

"Would it accomplish anything?" January thought with distaste of Blodgett and his notebook, of the elegant dark-haired gentleman amid his rustic ware and his books. Shaw shrugged. "Might save the next man some grief."

The mourners were scattering, holding handkerchiefs before their noses as they hastened along the muddy paths. Lingering by the narrow hole in the cemetery wall to watch the sexton's men cement a marble square over the opening, the priest made the sign of the cross.

" 'In my father's house there are many mansions,' " quoted Abishag Shaw quietly, and folded his long arms. "And it may so be God has an understandin' that we don't, of how much a man can do with the hand he's dealt." He made his ambling way down the path between the tombs, hastening a little to catch up with Isaak and Celie.

Turning, January went quietly back into the church. In my father's house there are many mansions. January lit a candle and set it before the feet of the Virgin, among the holocaust of waxlights always to be found there in the fever season. A handful of nuns from the Ursuline Convent grouped before the sixth Station of the Cross; their voices a soft murmuring in the gloom.

"Lead us not into temptation... Deliver us from evil..." And what-else, January wondered, was there to ask of God?

Quietly he walked to the rear, where the old statue of St. Peter stood, battered and shabby and soon to be replaced. An old man in a robe, with a beard and a bunch of keys. As January knelt at the rear bench, self-conscious and a little embarrassed, he noticed two or three pralines, a slice of pound cake, and a couple of cigars had been left on the base of the statue; another slice of pound cake and a dozen or more silver half-reale bits were tucked into the corners behind the railing. To let those still in fear know prayers do get heard.

In my father's house there are many mansions. And in those many rooms, armoires containing, perhaps, many different suits of clothes. Maybe even a top hat and a pair of spectacles, for the benefit of those who didn't believe white men in long robes.

He saw in his mind Olympe in the darkness, swaying with silent ecstasy, the bride of the god of her understanding. Saw the hot yellow sun on the dust of Congo Square, and the stir and blend of life along its verges: the smell of gumbo and pralines, the laughter of flirtation, the murmur of talk as men sought healing or advice or just the money to make it through another day. Why wouldn't God like the smell of rum and cigars as well as that of incense? Waiting for the nuns to finish and depart, he counted out the beads of his own rosary, and thought, Blessed Virgin Mary, forgive me for my sins against my sister. You know-and Jesus Christ your son knows-more than I do about what lies in the human- heart. Pray for me to be healed of my pride.

When the sisters were finished and he was alone in the chapel, January got quietly to his feet. Reaching into the pocket of his black coat, he brought out a slice of pound cake, wrapped in a scrap of the Louisiana Gazette. This he opened up, and laid the whole at the feet of the old man with the beard and the keys. "Thank you," he said, to the silence of the church.

Coming out of the chapel he glimpsed Marie Laveau in her seven-pointed tignon in the cemetery, kneeling beside a tomb. She might have been praying, but he suspected she was simply digging graveyard dust.

A second cortege arrived at the chapel as January left the cemetery gates, the undertaker's men going ahead bearing a black velvet pall and eight wax candles like ship's masts, flames pale in the hot still afternoon. Several dozen men followed, all those American businessmen who had not already fled the city, red-tipped wax tapers in their hands. Against the black of their coats the long white scarves of the pallbearers reminded January of bandages, where had he seen bandages, he wondered, wrapping skeletons who danced? He shook the thought away. Carriage after carriage drew up, black plumes nodding on the heads of the horses. A black-lacquered coffin was taken down and borne past him, draped and padded in velvet and crepe and trailed by Pere Eugenius and a bevy of chanting choirboys. Only when the widow followed, supported by Elaine Destrehan and Marion Desdunes, did January realize who the dead man was.

It was Colonel Pritchard.

"It wasn't food poisoning, was it?" he asked the Sexton, who came out the cemetery gate beside him to watch the mourners file into the chapel.

"Heavens, no!" The official looked startled. "Whatever gave you that idea? The Colonel tripped on the front steps of the Union Bank, and struck his head on the granite carriage block. A dozen people saw it happen. A most sad and terrible accident."

January watched the floating darkness of the widow's veils disappear into the candle-starred gloom of the chapel vestibule. "It is terrible," he agreed quietly. The Colonel's slaves followed behind the widow, a long double file of them, trying very hard to look sad.