Джеймс Кейн - Mignon

“And very becoming, too.”

“Willie, stop trying to switch .”

“I’m not. I guess Burke called it on me — I am in, whether I like it or not, and might as well make it pay. How long will this write-up take?”

“Couple of days, no more.”

“The Eastport could be gone by then with the rest of the invasion — headed for Shreveport. Upriver.”

“No, Willie. Great big boat like her can’t get up the falls in a hurry — she has to be drug. They learned their lesson from another one, the Woodford , that they got careless with. She’s sitting on bottom right now up at the head of the falls, a hole punched in her hull. This boat will take some days, and in that time we’ll do our writing — I’ll help with it. What takes the time is the bale markings. Cotton’s not like corn, which is so many bushels and one bushel’s just like another. With cotton, it must be this particular bale, and every one has to be listed, by mark, number, and weight. And that list goes on all papers. We’ll write the deed up first, the bill of sale from Father, conveying the cotton to you, which is the proof you give the Navy that the cotton belongs to you, a loyal godpappy. That should be ready tomorrow, for recording down in the courthouse. Then the receipt itself, which you can take to the Navy on Sunday, I would expect. Then the partnership articles, they can be written up last, as there’s no hurry about them. You really mean to, Willie?”

“If your father’s agreeable, I am.”

“Kiss me then, nice.”

Not that Mr. Landry, when she told him in their sitting room later that afternoon, exactly jumped up and cracked his heels. He was bitter against me for telling him that he stank, and full of justification for the relations he’d had with Burke. “I deny it was my fault!” he speechified at me, walking up and down. “I deny it was anyone’s fault, except the Union’s fault, and the fault of this hell-on-earth they’ve put on us! War ’ s over in Louisiana — but do they give us peace? No! They keep tramping us down with this half-war, half-peace they bring with them, worse than that life-in-death of the Ancient Mariner, neither one thing nor the other! And if I did what I had to, to give, to help others live, I don’t apologize, and I won’t have it I stink! All right, Frank’s a skunk — I was the first to say it, and I tried to kill him for it! But I used him, he didn’t use me! And I had my decent reasons! It was the only way open to me to get back at this bluebelly bunch, to get a chunk of their tin, to make them pay through the nose for what they’ve done to me, and what they’ve done to mine! Because, at least I meant to share a little, if any profits accrued, with these people here, my people, the ones who’ve suffered the most!”

“This I find most astonishing.”

“I’ve already shared with these people — I bought them shoes, and you defended me for it. Didn’t you?”

“... Yes. I retract.”

I’d been hoping, I guess, that by plaguing him, even though I owed him my life, I’d force him to reject me as a partner and I’d be out from under. But when I said: “If you don’t want this deal, just say so,” he wheeled on me quick and answered: “I didn’t say that, Mr. Cresap. I would assume, however, that first before anything else, you’d want to be assured you’re not hooking up with a skunk.”

“Then, you’re not a skunk,” I said.

“You two could shake hands,” she told us.

Down in the store was an office partitioned off in one corner, with a high bookkeeper’s desk, a safe, and shelves piled up with ledgers. Landry worked there the rest of the day, and by candlelight into the night, getting the bill of sale up, making it correspond with the markings on the papers I’d stuffed in the piano. Next day he signed it over and took me down with it to the courthouse, where we went past Hager’s desk to the Clerk of Court’s office and had it recorded. Then, with Mignon right beside him calling the data off, he wrote up the Navy receipt, and next day I took it to Sandy. I found him on his boat, which was celebrating Easter Sunday by battling her way up the falls. The falls was really a rapid a mile or so long above town, and no place for boats at all, let alone a tub like the Eastport . She was there at the lower end, tugs behind her pushing, tugs ahead of her hauling, and tugs alongside lifting. From a tree dead ahead a hawser ran to her capstan, and on command the steam would hit it, and it would turn with a clank while the paddles churned the water. Then everything would stall, and on command, stop. It wasn’t a pretty show, as the boat was plated with iron which was rusty and scaly and dented, with stuff rubbing off on the men. But, at least to a hard-rock man, it was interesting, and I watched it a while before waving my paper at Sandy, in charge of things on shore at the tree. He waved back, but it was some time before a whistle blew, they all sat down for a rest, and he was able to join me. He took the receipt and read while a cook went around with a pot and ladled coffee into mess cups. Pretty soon he asked: “Landry? Isn’t that the man I met? Mrs. Fournet’s father, who asked us in to question Burke?”

“That’s right,” I said. “He didn’t make himself known, as the cotton-owner, that is, until I happened to mention what you said to me — matter of fact, she saw you whispering and asked what it meant. He had supposed his cotton lost when the Navy took it over, and hadn’t wanted to embarrass me by bringing the subject up. But, when he learned I could get a receipt, or at least had a chance of getting one, he came up with this quick.”

I flashed half of my fifty-dollar bill, then took out the other half and fitted the pieces together. He blinked, then said: “Bill, I own up three hundred twenty-seven bales is more than I bargained for. I thought you might be able to swing — well, say a hundred bales — but this—”

“I’m in it with him, share-and-share alike.”

“You mean later? Right now, he didn’t ask cash?”

“That’s it. That’s how I’m able to do it.”

“... I’ll have to get Lieutenant Ball.”

He hailed the ship, and Ball showed at a gun port in undershirt, dungarees, and straw hat, and had himself rowed ashore in a gig that dangled alongside. He too whistled when he saw the number of bales, then whistled again. “Listen at this,” he told Sandy: “... ‘327 bales, bearing the following marks and no other marks .’ That makes this valid in court, as it nullifies that CSA stencil! Did that hombre know his cotton, the one who drew this up!”

“Still,” said Sandy, “the hombre who killed Legrand—”

“That doesn’t figure!” barked Ball, “in any way, shape, or form! Our orders are all that concern us, and our orders were receipt for loyal cotton. So far, we haven’t found any. But if you know Cresap is loyal—”

“I have my Army discharge,” I said.

“And if the cotton’s lawfully acquired—”

“I have a bill of sale covering that.”

I got out discharge, bill of sale stamped by the Clerk of the Court, torn bill, and I don’t know what else, and let him look them over. He asked to borrow them briefly, and went out to the ship. Then a belted seaman came ashore, carrying an oilskin package, and I took him for a courier on his way with my stuff for the flag boat. He legged it down through the woods, and I waited at least an hour, while work on the falls resumed. Then here he came back and boarded the ship again. Then Ball came back in the gig, the package in his hand. He handed it over, saying: “All right, Cresap, here you are, everything signed up. It’s an awful lot of prize for the Navy to give up, but orders are orders, even when they hurt.”