John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

A change came over him as I said this. His untroubled manner was cast aside — all of it at once, as if it were a mummer’s cap — and his face began to redden. “If you’ve let that idiot Barker look into your eye, I promise you—”

“Barker left Memphis in a winding-sheet,” I said, cutting him short.

This news had an unprecedented effect on Morelle—: it robbed him, however fleetingly, of the faculty of speech. “Morris Phelps Barker,” he said finally, looking past me at the river. “Old Morris.”

“I want to tell you how it happened, sir,” I said, taking him by the arm. “Let’s go up and have our conference. Barker seemed to think my visions—”

“I don’t give a toss about your visions,” Morelle said peevishly, jerking his arm away. Kennedy let out a snort behind us.

My confidence drained away at once. “Please, sir — if you’ll but give me half an hour—”

Morelle shook his head emphatically. “I’m standing on this dock for a reason, Kansas. If you’ve in an itch to share your pensées fantastiques with me, you can do so here and now!”

My heart sank into my boots. “Out here?” I said in a whimper. “Where anyone can see?”

“Right here on the dock,” Morelle said irritably. “It’s private enough, isn’t it? You have no need of charts and mummeries any longer—; you told me so yourself!”

I could think of no reply to this. I stared down at the water for a time, then turned to go, abashed. But even as I did so, a new thought took hold of me—: it was private enough on the dock, save for Kennedy. In my eagerness to get Morelle alone I’d overlooked the fact that he was practically alone already.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll do it here. But send Kennedy off somewhere.” I lowered my voice. “My vision featured him in a position he might not care for.”

Morelle laughed. “What if I want the old sodomite to hear it?”

“You’ll grow fonder of him for his absence,” I said, turning and shooing Kennedy away.

Kennedy looked at me as if I’d spat onto his shoes. “Do that again, google-eye,” he said.

“It’s all right, Stuts!” Morelle said, giving me a wink. “Run and find our friends from the Natchez Assembly. Tell them I’ll be along presently.”

Kennedy said nothing for a spell. “Fuh! — fuh! — fishing, ain’t I.”

“Go on, Stuts,” Morelle said, jerking his chin.

Kennedy kept still another moment, then threw a fistful of gravel into the river and stomped off, practically on all fours.

I ambled slowly out to the end of the dock, trusting that Morelle would follow me. Eight steps, by my reckoning, ought to bring him well away from the rushes and snags along the river-bank—; the rest should be easy as passing water. The current was stiff along the west shore of the island, and the bank fell away steeply beneath the pilings. In addition to being illiterate, I happened to know, our exalted Redeemer couldn’t swim.

Morelle, however, stopped short after only three steps. “ Out with it, Virgil! Tell us what fancies you fancied on old Pierre Beauregard’s tab.”

“I had a vision,” I answered, speaking quietly to draw him nearer. “In my cabin on the Hyapatia Lee. I saw the future, plain as milk.”

“Had a vision, did you? Was I in it, tearing my hair out in clumps?” He took two more steps and gazed up at me forlornly. “I don’t mind telling you, Kansas—: our little enterprise is in a dire way.”

“Judging by the six-ring circus I got off ship with, I’d have thought we owned a controlling share of North America,” I said.

“That’s just the farce of it!” Morelle cried, taking my hand in his. “We’ve never been more flush. We’ve grown too big for our britches at last, dear K. This island is an open secret, a burr in the collective arse, from Natchez Trace to the Capitol Bulge.” His eyes widened as he spoke, as if he were describing a natural disaster, an act of God. “We’re quite the cause célèbre now, I’m told. Bigger than the territories—; bigger than paper currency—; bigger, even, in some circles”—his voice dropped now to the most gossamer of whispers—“than the question of slavery altogether. ”

I gaped at him, thunder-struck. Had his paranoia grown so vast? What had Parson and the rest been feeding him? “Bigger than slavery, sir? Beg pardon, but you’re talking about—”

“What I’m talking about, Kansas, is a joint Federal Commission. North and South together.” Morelle led me three more steps down the dock, his arm slung comfortably in my own. “All the states on the lower river, free and slave, collaborating in our complete demolishment.” He seized his collar as he spoke and pulled it up under his chin, sticking his tongue out like a lynched nigger. “A gradual, inescapable tightening of the noose. Attendez? ”

I shook my head resolutely. “Dixie would never cooperate with the Union now—; not for any purpose. Beauregard told me as much on the Hyapatia Lee. We’re practically at war.”

“That’s just it!” Morelle hissed, pulling me closer still, as though we were gossiping in a theater—: “A ‘Great Cause’ is being sought to re-unify the Union. It may not be too late, even at this eleven-and-three-quarters hour. A universal wrong is all that’s needed—: an evil on which every Christian soldier can agree.” His fingers rapped painfully against my collar-bone. “A common enemy, Virgil. What the red-coats were for us in 1812, and the red- skins were before and after.” He let go of my arm and gave me a stiff, unsmiling bow. “You and I, dear K, have been judged to fit the bill.”

Neither of us spoke for a time. The light was fading from the bluff, and the preliminary noises of debauchery fell to our ears from the Panama House. The current burbled contentedly at our feet, indifferent to history. Morelle stared morosely at his shoes.

“They’ve deeded this island to Louisiana,” he said finally. “They mean to flush us out like pigeons.”

I watched Morelle calmly, contemplating his end. I felt entirely capable of killing him now. “So it’s ended, then,” I said.

He gave a stutter of surprise at this. “ ‘Ended,’ the man says! ‘Ended’! Business such as ours has no beginning, no middle, and certainly no end—; our business simply is. ” He took a small step backward, as though to appraise me better. “Demand is our life’s-blood, Virgil. Recollect demand. When there was a shortage of horse-power in my native state, I was the first to meet it. When there was need of honeyed words among the well-heeled farther up-river, I saw to that, as well. Now—: if the demand for niggers slackens, or — heaven forfend! — lets up altogether, I’ll be the first to bow out, and move on.” He held up a finger. “But not before then, Kansas. Not before my time.”

“With all due respect, sir, perhaps that time’s arrived,” I said. His death was becoming realer to me by the instant.

“Nonsense!” He ran the tip of his tongue along his gums as he spoke, as though he’d eaten something bitter. “Clap-trap, nonsense, and twaddle ! Has the demand for niggers let up one centime along this river?”

I confessed that it had not. “What about 37, sir?” I asked.

“What! This place?” He leaned to one side and spat into the current. “We’ve resided here at the whim of the powers-that-be, plain and simple—; it was convenient for them to find us here. We won’t make that mistake again.”

“And the Federal Commission?”

“The commission?” His look darkened. “The commission, dear K, is another matter.”