George Martin - Fevre Dream

“I know you, monsieur, ”the man said. He stepped up to Sour Billy, his dark face flushed with drink and anger. “Have you forgotten me? I was with Georges Montreuil the day you affronted him in the French Exchange.”

Sour Billy recognized him. “Well, well,” he said.

“Monsieur Montreuil vanished one June night, after an evening of gaming at the St. Louis,” the man said stiffly.

“I’m real grieved,” Sour Billy said. “I guess he must of won too much, and got robbed for his trouble.”

“He lost, monsieur. He had been losing steadily for some weeks. He had nothing worth stealing. No, I do not think it was robbery. I think it was you, Mister Tipton. He had been asking about you. He meant to deal with you like the trash you are. You are no gentleman, monsieur, or I would call you out. If you dare show your face in the Vieux Carre again, however, you have my word that I shall whip you through the streets like a nigger. Do you hear me?”

“I hear,” said Sour Billy. He spat on the man’s boot.

The Creole swore and his face paled with rage. He took a step forward and reached out for Sour Billy, but Damon Julian stepped between them, and stopped the man with a hand against his chest. “Monsieur,” Julian said, in a voice like wine and honey. The man halted, confused. “I can assure you that Mister Tipton did no harm to your friend, sir.”

“Who are you?” Even half-drunk, the Creole clearly recognized that Julian was a different sort of person than Sour Billy; his fine clothes, cool features, cultured voice, all marked him a gentleman. Julian’s eyes glittered dangerously in the lamplight.

“I am Mister Tipton’s employer,” Julian said. “May we discuss this affair somewhere other than the public street? I know a place farther on where we can sit beneath the moon and sip drinks while we talk. Will you let me buy your friends and you a refreshment?”

One of the other Creoles stepped up beside his friend. “Let us hear him out, Richard.”

Grudgingly, the man consented. “Billy,” Damon Julian said, “do show us the way.” Sour Billy Tipton suppressed a smile, nodded, and led them off. A block away they turned into an alley, and followed it back into a dark court. Sour Billy sat down on the edge of a scum-covered pool. The water soaked through the seat of his pants, but he didn’t care.

“What is this place?” demanded Montreuil’s friend. “This is no tavern!”

“Well,” said Sour Billy Tipton. “Well. I must have turned wrong.” The other Creoles had entered the court, followed by the rest of Julian’s party. Kurt and Cynthia stood by the mouth of the alley. Armand moved closer to the fountain.

“I do not like this,” one of the men said.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“Meaning?” asked Damon Julian. “Ah. A dark court, the moonlight, a pool. Your friend Montreuil died in just such a place, monsieur. Not in this place, but one very much like it. No, do not look at Billy. He bears no blame. If you have a quarrel, take it up with me.”

“You?” said Montreuil’s friend. “As you will. Permit me to retire a moment. My companions will act as my seconds.”

“Certainly,” said Julian. The man moved away, conferred briefly with his two companions. One of them stepped forward. Sour Billy rose from the pool’s edge and met him.

“I’m Mister Julian’s second,” Sour Billy said. “You want to talk terms?”

“You are no proper second,” the man began. He had a long, pretty face and dark brown hair.

“Terms,” Sour Billy repeated. His hand went behind his back. “Me, I’d favor knives.”

The man gave a small grunt and staggered backward. He looked down in terror. Sour Billy’s knife was buried hilt-deep in his gut, and a slow red stain was spreading across his vest. “God,” the man whimpered.

“That’s only me, though,” Sour Billy continued. “And I’m not a gentleman, no sir, not a proper second. Knives ain’t no proper weapon neither.” The man dropped to his knees, and his friends suddenly noticed and started forward in alarm. “Mister Julian now, he’s got different ideas. His weapon,” Billy smiled, “is teeth.”

Julian took Montreuil’s friend, the one called Richard. The other turned to run. Cynthia embraced him by the alley, and gave him a lingering wet kiss. He thrashed and struggled but could not break free of her embrace. Her pale hands brushed the back of his neck, and long nails sharp and thin as razors slid across his veins. Her mouth and tongue swallowed his scream.

Sour Billy pulled free his knife while Armand bent to attend to his whimpering victim. In the moonlight, the blood running down the blade looked almost black. Billy started to clean it in the pool, then hesitated. He raised the knife to his lips and licked at the flat of it tentatively. Then he made a face. Tasted awful, not like in his dreams at all. Still, that would change when Julian made him over, he knew.

Sour Billy washed his knife and sheathed it. Damon Julian had given Richard over to Kurt, and was standing solitary, gazing up at the moon. Sour Billy approached him. “Saved us some money,” he said.

Julian smiled.

Aboard the Steamer Fevre Dream, Natchez, August 1857

For Abner Marsh, that night went on and on. He had a small snack, to settle his stomach and calm his fears, and soon thereafter retired to his cabin, but sleep would not take him easily. For hours he lay staring at the shadows, his mind racing, his thoughts a jumble of suspicion and anger and guilt. Beneath the thin, starchy sheet, Marsh sweated like a hog. When he did sleep, he tossed and turned and woke often, and dreamed flushed, furtive, incoherent dreams of blood and burning steamboats and yellow teeth and Joshua Anton York, standing pale and cold beneath a scarlet light with fever and death behind his angry eyes.

The next day was the longest day Abner Marsh had ever known. All his thoughts led him round and round and back to the same place. By noon he knew what he must do. He’d been caught, no help for it. He had to fess up and have it out with Joshua. If that meant the end of their partnership, so be it, although the thought of losing his Fevre Dream made Marsh feel sick and weary, as full of despair as he had been the day he’d seen the splinters the ice had made of his steamers. It would be the end of him, Marsh thought, and perhaps it was all he deserved for betraying Joshua’s trust. But things could not go on as they were. Joshua ought to hear the tale from his own mouth too, Marsh decided, which meant that he had to get to him before that woman Katherine did.

He spread the word. “I want to be told, the moment he gets back,” he said, “no matter when it is, or what I’m about, come fetch me. You hear?” Then Abner Marsh waited, and took what solace he could in a lovely dinner of roast pork and green beans and onions, with half a blueberry pie afterward.

Two hours shy of midnight, one of the crew came to him. “Cap’n York’s come back, Cap’n. Got some folks with him. Mister Jeffers is settlin’ them into cabins.”

“Has Joshua gone up to his cabin?” Marsh asked. The man nodded. Marsh snatched up his walking stick and made for the stairs.

Outside York’s cabin, he hesitated briefly, threw back his ample shoulders, and brought the head of his stick sharply against the door. York opened on the third knock. “Come in, Abner,” he said, smiling. Marsh stepped inside, shut the door behind him, and leaned against it, while York crossed the room and resumed what he’d been doing. He’d set out a silver tray and three glasses. Now he reached for a fourth. “I’m glad you came up. I’ve brought some people aboard I want you to meet. They’ll be coming up for a drink as soon as they’ve settled into their staterooms.” York pulled a bottle of his private drink from the wine rack, produced his knife, and sliced off the wax seal.